"Okotoks can fairly call itself the greenest community in Canada, maybe the world."

– Stephen Harper

Prime Minister of Canada

The Drake Landing Solar Community, in Okotoks, Alberta has reached a highly commendable and very remarkable milestone in passive solar house design, blending geothermal heating in the summertime with year-round solar water heating. That may read like a mouthful but, in short, this 52-home solar community in Central Canada soaks up heat in the summer and uses it to keep families warm in the winter while using just the tiniest fraction of grid power and natural gas versus what it would through conventional design.

Now, we’re talking!

Back in March, I told you about an amazingly green housing project in South Carolina, the Navy Yard at Noisette. The developers and everyone in the community can be very proud of the accomplishments but some of their fellow Carolinians took the Noisette project as a challenge to elevate the design of passive solar ranch homes to a whole new level.

Meet the Furman Cliffs Cottage. An impressive collaboration between Furman University, Johnston Design Group, Innocenti & Webel, Triangle Construction and others, the Furman Cliffs Cottage has set a new standard for passive solar ranch homes in a novel way.

The American system of mandating and measuring the fuel efficiency in automobiles is called the CAFE Standard, Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency. The United States Department of Transportation defines it as, “the sales weighted average fuel economy, expressed in miles per gallon (MPG), of a manufacturer’s fleet of passenger cars or light trucks with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 8,500 lbs. or less, manufactured for sale in the United States, for any given model year.”

The program has existed since 1975, when it was instituted in response to the first gasoline crisis in the United States and has been tweaked very seldom since then. In fact, average fuel efficiency ratings of automobiles on American roads are lower now than when the mass-production automobile was invented a century ago!

How can this be?

There’s an old saying which some believe originated as a Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times. The new millennium certainly qualifies! It often seems that the weather has become our worst enemy. If I were a polar bear, I know that I’d feel that way.

Greenland photo credit: Kim Hansen

So far this month, I’ve been telling you about the significance of proclamations about global warming which have emerged from the scientific community this year. The news is not good. In fact, it’s horrible. All peer-reviewed predictions about the causes and effects of global warming are coming to fruition and it may well happen that next month, summertime melting of polar ice in the Northern Hemisphere will be complete. We could have an ice-free Arctic for the first time in the history of humankind.

That’s a very big deal. In fact, some of the more conservative estimates by very respected academic bodies gave us until 2050 before we’d see a completely ice-free Arctic, even in summer. They were way off. Why? Was there a flaw in their interpretation? Could it be that atmospheric carbon content is not the best measure of the doom we have leveled on ourselves?

“Our world, our old world that we have inhabited for the last 12,000 years, has ended, even if no newspaper in North America or Europe has yet printed its scientific obituary.”

- Professor Mike Davis

University of California at Irvine

Although science is at the heart of this blog, I am neither a scientist nor a science writer. I am an environmental journalist. However, science is at the heart of everything I write and advocate because without scientific laws, there is no existence.

Science has told us that we have poisoned our atmosphere and oceans but also that human landscape transformation now exceeds natural sediment production by an order of magnitude. In other words, the Earth really isn’t the Earth which humanity inherited.

“Climate can reach points such that amplifying feedbacks spur large rapid changes. Arctic sea ice is a current example.... the Arctic soon will be ice-free in the summer [and] more ominous tipping points loom.”

- Dr. James Hansen

briefing before United States Congress

June 23, 2008

As America’s leading authority on global warming (and arguably the top mind on the subject living anywhere in the world today), Dr. James Hansen has a very difficult job. He wears many hats, many of them tilted to the side of a crusader. As the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, James Hansen is the top mind on the climate crisis on the payroll of the government of the United States.

June was my anniversary month as a Keyboard Culture expert. My tenure has been a wild but highly rewarding ride. It’s also been historic. In a year’s time, I went from having just a handful of readers to more than 20,000 unique visitors per month! For that, the thanks go to you, dear reader, so, thank you!

June also was historic because NASA global warming authority Dr. James Hansen commemorated the twentieth anniversary of his congressional testimony by giving an update on Capitol Hill. Not surprisingly, his performance was exemplary. Since he first raised a billowing red flag over the Capitol building that human behavior was at the core of global warming causes and effects, Dr. James Hansen has done nothing but speak louder, more frequently and to growing audiences. This man knows his subject.

“We don’t want to spend taxpayer dollars on fuels that make global warming worse.”

– Hon. Kitty Piercy, Mayor

Eugene, Oregon

June 23, 2008

Last time, I gave you my position on clean coal technologies. They are a myth. However, since no reasonable environmentalist can expect the world to abandon coal overnight, the most important thing for us to do is disseminate the truth about clean coal technologies and drive consumers of coal toward clean, renewable resources.

One area where the environmental community can obtain the fastest results is in educating government bodies. NRDC, the Natural Resources Defense Council, is a very influential organization doing just that. The quote above came in part as a response to their work.

There is no such thing as clean coal! Period!

In my first year as a Keyboard Culture Expert, I have mentioned my position on clean coal but never as affirmatively as right now. Why the change? Well, it’s not really a change so much as a tweak in my narrative style. It is precipitated by two events of historical significance.

Firstly, we have the nomination for President of the United States of Senator Barack Obama. No matter whether you follow politics passionately with an inclination toward one political party or away from another, or are lukewarm about all of it, you are or will become aware of the fact that Senator Obama’s nomination by the Democratic Party has caused a marked uptick in budget allocations for television advertising by fossil fuel companies, including mining interests.

In a word, fossilized conglomerates which have been embraced by many national politicians in recent years have become frightened. Whereas earlier in this decade they have spoken occasionally about clean coal technologies, now they can’t seem to refer to them often enough.

Since this is not a political blog, I will leave the matter there with a simple statement of fact. These companies are frightened.

Secondly, though, is the preceding event to Senator Obama’s nomination, the partnership between Environmental Defense, a standard bearer in the quest for a clean environment and a reversal of global warming, and one of the world’s largest investment firms, Kohlbert Kravis Roberts.

“Is everything spinning out of control? Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable.... Horatio Alger, twist in your grave.”

Alan Fram and Eileen Putnam

Associated Press

June 22, 2008

With so many natural disasters occurring simultaneously, it can be quite tempting to lump them into a single nightmarish disaster. If we are to survive the growing frequency and ferocity of killer storms in this age of global warming, we must resist the temptation to wallow in helplessness. Humanity can and will learn from the Mississippi River levee failures of 2008 and adapt our disaster planning models where possible.

So, was the horrendous flooding of 2008, which caused multiple Mississippi River levees to fail, all that different from what happened along the American Gulf Coast in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina? The answer is yes and no but we can learn from both.

Katrina was at the time the largest and fastest hurricane on record. While much blame justifiably was passed from one government agency to another, from a mechanical perspective, the sea swells which Katrina sent hurtling toward New Orleans and the rest of that section of coastline were quite high but not unimaginably so.

The term carbon-neutral has become something of a buzz word. Through a combination of conservation efforts and offsets, my wife Catrin and I have lived carbon-neutral since the year 2004. Carbon-neutral simply means to live as if there were no industrialization, producing only as much pollution as is necessary for a basic existence.

Sadly, if the entire world became carbon-neutral overnight, if we parked every car, decommissioned every fossil-fueled power plant and extinguished every forest fire, we could not save the Greenland ice shelf from melting into the North Atlantic.

Put another way, if we want to save ourselves from the ravages of global warming and reverse the crisis, we must become carbon-negative. We must return our planet’s atmosphere to its cleaner, earlier state while expanding the global economy at the same time.

It’s a tall order but it can be done. Fiji Artesian Water claims to be a carbon-negative company. I have reviewed the assertions of its FijiGreen.com website. There is much to admire about what Fiji Artesian Water is doing to expand its business, protect biodiversity in Fiji and reverse global warming. However, despite its commendable alliance with Conservation International and other environmental organizations, Fiji Artesian Water sends a bad environmental message because it encourages people to drink water from the other side of the world.

Last time, I told you about the commendable gains made in the promotion of the SIGG aluminum water bottle by StopGlobalWarming.org It’s a wonderful product but perhaps impractical for your situation. What are your alternatives?

You may have heard about Brazilian Springs water, which claims to be the first and only eco-friendly bottled water in the world. Is that possible? It’s a question of degree. First the good news...

Brazilian Springs Water as a firm created a foundation and then partnered with Fundaçâo de Preservaçâo da Floresta Amazônica, FundAmazon for short, to protect sensitive lands which have been cleared (or are under threat of clearing) plus engage in broad reforestation along Brazil’s Atlantic coast. A portion of the revenue from the sale of the bottled water, which comes from Arkansas, is directed into the foundation to go toward saving the Amazon rainforest.

The goal is sound. The urgency is great and the need for international involvement cannot be overstated. Two thumbs up for creativity and mission!

Now, the bad news – the water is bottled in only one place yet available in many. In other words, the product must be shipped, a carbon-intensive practice. Of equal damage is the fact that the water is packaged in PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles, which, while recyclable, is a carbon-intense material which usually winds up in landfills.

The quest for clean, potable water is an understandable one. All mammals (and many other forms of life on this planet) need water to sustain them. It is elemental. Sadly, clean drinking water and tasty drinking water are not always synonyms. What’s more, since global populations have exploded without a corresponding increase in municipal infrastructure, many locations around the world now have sour water as the standard at the tap.

This avoidable situation is the reason bottled water has become a huge growth industry, leaving environmental devastation in its wake, in my home state of Florida and around the world. We need to move away from the status quo and earlier this month, I shared with you the fact that the I Am Not Plastic SIGG aluminum water bottle from StopGlobalWarming.org represents a workable solution.

I am the first to admit that bottled water can be a comforting luxury. Dasani is my favorite brand but as I have traveled the world, I have encountered several brands of water which go down great by themselves or with a meal. The problem? Huge consumption of natural resources!

Hail, tornado, flood! Hail, tornado, flood! We sure have seen a mess of tornadoes this year!

When describing killer storms which leave unspeakable devastation in their wake, it’s easy for a journalist to seem glib. Allow me to contextualize the following statements. They take into account only the atmospheric significance of tornadoes in the US which have struck thus far in 2008.

Living in an area which sees multiple fatalities from tornadoes most every year, I have nothing but sympathy for storm victims and their families. Nevertheless, the 2008 tornadoes in the US point to larger, equally ominous results.

The atmosphere of the Earth is self-regulating. It has to be on account of the fact that conditions in space are very harsh. Between the outermost layers of our atmosphere and the surface of the moon, temperatures drop to well below minus 400° F. That’s cold.

Outside those same protective atmospheric layers, the levels of heat and radiation are so great as to sear flesh to a crisp in a moment’s time. In other words, our atmosphere keeps us in the habitable range of roughly 100° F as a global average, from 0° F to 100° F.

How does this relate to tornadoes and global warming predictions? In previous posts here at KBC, I have noted that hurricanes are important to the health of our atmosphere. Speaking strictly in terms of our environment, hurricanes are vital. Tornadoes are similarly important. Here’s how that works...

At any given moment, the sun, the same ball of radiation which can sear flesh to a crisp in a moment’s time, heats the surface of the Earth differently. This is simple physics, driven by our orbital pattern and axial rotation. Those differences cause tension to build in the atmosphere. That tension must be dissipated. Wind storms such as hurricanes and tornadoes are, in effect, pressure release valves for the atmosphere.

In 2008, we’ve seen tornadoes in the US strike with unusually high frequency and ferocity. This is caused by several factors, primarily wind sheer. The disruptions to our typical atmospheric patterns which global warming causes in turn cause large swings in temperature, usually from hot to cold. Tornadoes are the localized atmospheric response to rapid shifts. Hurricanes are macro (or regional) responses but differ in two ways:

Justin Sutton is full of bright ideas, no pun intended. He invented the Interstate Traveler – which is on track to break ground in 2009 – but as impressive as that revolutionary system is, it really is just the beginning of the good deeds he has planned for his countrymen and all of humanity.

The sun is at the heart of much of what Justin Sutton does. One might say that it fuels his genius. Well, one of the objections which global warming skeptics hurl at us true believers is that sun spots are to blame for increases in global average temperatures. In effect, they are saying that solar radiation explosions are the culprit, not the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation on a planetary scale and widespread ocean poisoning.

Basic geology explains away any correlation between solar radiation explosions and the pace at which our world is warming but the genius of Justin Sutton is that his inventions work no matter what happens to the sun. So long as it keeps shining at much the same intensity, we are in good shape. Moreover, the Interstate Traveler transports more people, provides more free hydrogen and provides more clean water if solar radiation explosions persist. In other words, he has us covered.

As you will come to understand by listening to the interview which he gave to me on May 31, shortly after returning home from a successful visit to Orlando for the Green Earth Expo, Justin Sutton has found a way to provide for many of our needs while boosting our economy. The running time of the telephone interview is almost 50 minutes and the topics have a wide range but I am confident that you will find it a fascinating listen.