Do You Want Your Receipt?

I'm thoroughly enjoying this fellowship but it can sometimes be a real downer. There's dying species and acidification of the ocean, rising sea levels - there's a sense that some scary stuff lies ahead and not a lot of obvious solutions in the works.

And every now and then, we learn something totally terrifying, like the day that Michael SanClements came to our seminar. He's an ecologist affiliated with the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. In 2011, he decided to go two weeks without creating any plastic waste, a challenge that was way harder than he'd ever expected. He blogged his experience for grist.org - an environmental website - and then that blog became the foundation for a book called Plastic Purge: How To Use Less Plastic, Eat Better, Keep Toxins Out Of Your Body, and Help Save The Sea Turtles!

What he found was that we use a helluva lot more plastic than we probably realize. It's in everything, some good - like medical supplies - and some bad - like plastic water bottles. While we benefit tremendously from many plastic products, there are some obvious problems - like the damage plastic does to the environment. And then there's the other problem of what's IN plastics, the chemicals that make them up.

By now, most people have heard of a substance called BPA. That's the acronym for bisphenol-A, which Mike defines in his book as "...an industrial chemical used in the production of hard, clear plastics." It showed up in everything from reusable water bottles to the linings of metal food cans to baby toys to cosmetics. In short, it was everywhere.

BPA is what's called an endocrine disrupter - these are chemicals that may have an effect on the body's endocrine system, which regulates our hormones. Research suggests endocrine disrupters can have adverse effects on development, reproduction and immunity - just to name a few. There are all kinds of other things that BPA may contribute to as well - Mike goes into those in detail in his book.

So here's this potentially dangerous chemical that's present in all kinds of things we use in our everyday lives and there's not a whole lot of regulation. The FDA and EPA haven't done much, aside from requiring plastics makers to remove BPA from baby bottles and sippy cups. And there are a lot of companies that have removed BPA from their products - like Nalgene, which makes hard plastic water bottles, and ConAgra Foods - under pressure from consumers.

But you can avoid BPA, right? Switch to glass and BPA-free containers and steer clear of foods that use lots of plastic packaging. Easy peasy. This is where the terrifying part comes in. BPA is actually found - in really high quantities - in something you handle all the time: receipts.

Receipts that use BPA technology have 250 to 1000 times more of the chemical than the amount found in a can of food, according to one study. And unlike the other items on the list of BPA-infused products, you're generally not putting these in your mouth - you're just touching them, briefly, but long enough to absorb quite a bit through your skin. 

So, no. I don't want my receipt. And if you insist on it, please don't be surprised when I pick it up with a pair of tweezers.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Last week's election left me a little despondent. It will likely put Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) - a vehement disbeliever in climate change - at the head of the Committee on the Environment and Public Works. There's also a good chance that Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) - another climate change denier - will be leading the Subcommittee on Science and Space. And then there's the House, where an anti-science sentiment has become ever more pervasive, including among several Republican members of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. 

Now, I honestly don't care if it's Republicans or Democrats on these committees. I might disagree about a particular policy idea but if it's scientifically sound, I'd say it's probably at least worth checking out. However, the problem here is that these committees are being run by people who don't even believe in science. Which is mind-blowing. I'm not saying they have to understand physics or quantum mechanics or all the ins and outs of geomorphology - but they should be willing to listen to the facts as presented and trust that scientists aren't trying to trick them or perpetrate some sort of massive hoax. 

The sheer ignorance on display here - whether real or politically calculated - is beyond embarrassing. 

But, luckily, this week has also brought some good news, at least on the international front. The US and China just announced that they've both committed to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. Since the two countries are responsible for approximately 45% of global emissions, this is a really big deal. 

By 2025, the US said it would emit 26% to 28% below 2005 emission levels. China, for its part, will work to cap emissions by 2030, if not sooner (and sooner is what many climate scientists and environmentalists would like to see - they worry 2030 is too late). It's not a done deal yet - the wto countries still have to sign a formal agreements - but it signals that both sides are willing to make cuts, invest in new technology and embrace more efficient energy sources. And, if the globe's two biggest polluters are finally going to take action, that could encourage others - like India - to follow suit.

The US can easily meet this goal IF there is cooperation from Congress. After this last election, that's a big if. Under President Obama, the Environmental Protection Agency had already mandated 30% cuts in carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants by 2030. But now, with both the House and Senate firmly in the hands of politicians who don't believe in climate change, there's a good chance those regulations - along with other environmental policies - will be weakened.

That could make it much harder to follow through on this agreement. Talk about embarrassing. 

Playing Cards

Roger Pielke, Jr. is a professor of environmental studies at CU-Boulder. He helped found the school's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. He's also the author of several books and he's a particularly polarizing figure in the world of climate change.

ThinkProgress - a liberal-leaning political blog had this to say about him:

Roger Pielke, Jr. is the single most disputed and debunked person in the entire realm of people who publish regularly on disasters and climate change.

Foreign Policy Magazine included him in their list of controversial climate scientists:

For his work questioning certain graphs presented in IPCC reports, Pielke has been accused by some of being a climate change "denier." Meanwhile, for his work on adaptation, he has been accused by others of being an "alarmist."

Given the way people talk about him, I half-expected red, glowing eyes or a forked tongue when he came to speak at our weekly seminar. Neither proved true - he was a perfectly affable guy who had some pretty interesting things to say, starting with a great explanation of the difference between climate and weather. It's something that a lot of people don't understand, including me, and his example was one of the best I've heard, so I'm going to attempt to replicate it here:

Think of a regular deck of 52 playing cards, like one you'd use for a game of blackjack. 

Each possible hand - and there are a lot of them - represents a weather event. Sunny and 70. Cloudy with gusts of wind. Steady drizzle all day. 

A blackjack - that is a hand totaling 21 - is an extreme weather event, like a hurricane or a tornado. 

Together, all those weather events - that universe of all the possible hands that can be dealt - are equivalent to climate. 

With those standard 52 cards, the card players (scientists and, to a lesser degree, us) have a pretty good idea of how things are going to play out. The make-up of hands (the weather) may vary tremendously - you might get three great hands in a row and then go on a horrible losing streak - but overall, there's pretty good information on where you'll be after you play every hand possible.

So now let's say that something changes in the deck - the climate - and another card is added. That card represents a new element (i.e. increased greenhouse gases). But we don't know how the deck has been changed, so (unless we are VERY good card players) we're not going to see how that card alters the game for a long time. 

That's what's happening now. The deck has been altered but we still don't know what the implications will be in the long-term. It will take decades of data before we have that information - we can't just base it off of recent weather events. A few cold winters (i.e. bad hands) does not indicate an overall cooling trend.

And for another helpful explanation, check out this video from a Norwegian television series about taking a dog for a walk.

Ok, so now we have a better grasp of climate and weather (I think). 

Pielke also talked about extreme weather (which would be the equivalent of a 21 on blackjack), like hurricanes and tornadoes. Claims that these extreme weather events are due to climate change aren't backed up by the facts. Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show the power and frequency of hurricanes have actually declined by 20% since the early 1900s. You can't look at those numbers and draw the conclusion that climate change means stronger, more frequent hurricanes - the evidence just isn't there. We have to keep playing our card game to see what information comes out of it - more hurricanes? Fewer hurricanes? Drought? Sharknadoes? We'll have to watch how the game evolves.

Activists were none too pleased by Pielke's arguments - leading to claims like the ones above, calling him a denier. However, Pielke does believe climate change is happening and that humans are contributing to it. His argument is that using extreme weather events as a way to illustrate climate change is incorrect. There are far better ways to make this point, namely temperature, precipitation and sea level - all of which are measurements that we can take daily over long periods of time to see what the overall trends are and what we can expect going forward. But those aren't as exciting and they don't grab the public's attention in the same way. 

Activists, understandably, want people to take action now. Tying hurricanes and other extreme weather events to climate change provides a concrete way of saying, "Look how dangerous this all is - we need to do something!" But it seems like it's important to present the facts - to play with the hand they've been dealt, if you will. Otherwise, they risk losing the public's trust when their opponents can show they've been pushing bad information. And that will make it much harder to accomplish anything, now or in the future. 

Fire On The Mountain

The sun wasn't yet up and I was standing in a grassy field, next to a rickety row of white tents and plastic banquet tables stacked with sugary baked goods and cold Egg McMuffins. About 60 men (and a handful of women) in puffy jackets, cargo pants and bright yellow, flame-resistant shirts milled about, drinking coffee and trying to stay warm. Parked around us were about 20 trucks, four-wheel drive vehicles and fire engines, one of which had a giant map tacked to it.

Yesterday, I was at my very first prescribed burn and it was fantastic. I'll admit - the morning started off a little slow. "Be here for the 7am briefing," they said. It started at 8am and lasted 10 minutes. The burn didn't start until 10am - which left almost two hours to kill in the 38 degree, breezy morning air before seeing any action. But it was totally worth the wait.

A prescribed burn is a deliberate use of fire by the US Forest Service or other land management agencies (in this case, Boulder County) to improve forest health and reduce the amount of fuel that can otherwise contribute to an extreme wildfire event. 

This particular burn took place in one of Boulder County's Open Spaces - an area known as Heil Valley Ranch. It's north of Boulder, nestled into one of the many canyons along the Front Range as you drive along Highway 36. The ranch belonged to a family at one point but, as the owners have gotten older, they've sold off chunks of the property to the county, which now owns over 5000 acres. It's a gorgeous spot - the foothills are covered in grasses and ponderosa pines and if you look down the valley to the south, you can see Bear Peak rising above the Flatiron Mountains. 

A little bit of background here: for about a century, there was a general belief in the US that fires were a really bad idea. That led to a policy of complete fire suppression - basically, don't let anything burn and if it does catch fire, put it out ASAP. It was something of a misguided notion - we've since come to realize that fire is necessary to this landscape, just as important as rain. Fire's necessary to keep forests healthy, both for the trees and for the other plants and animals that live in this ecosystem and, in the end, regular smaller fires - coming every 20 years or so - can prevent huge, catastrophic fires from roaring through.

Unfortunately, we didn't really get that so, during that century of fire suppression, A LOT of trees grew. A lot a lot. On Heil Valley Ranch, there were as many as 3000 trees per acre. The healthy number is somewhere closer to 70 or 80 per acre. So you've got unhealthy forests that are absolutely choked with trees - forests that are more prone to disease, where other native species are crowded out and where, if a fire does start, it can quickly climb up into the tops of the trees - what's known as a crown fire - and get out of control. 

So, before the county could even think about doing a prescribed burn here, they had to get in there and start thinning out the trees. Cutting them down, spacing them out, removing dead and dying trees - trying to restore some semblance of what these forests would look like naturally. This is an incredibly labor-intensive process. Forest management teams have to get into the forest where there are no roads, cut down trees and haul that stuff out to places where it can be burned - much of this is done by hand. Ultimately, though, if it's done right, a fire here - whether prescribed or natural - will move more slowly, crawling along the ground and consuming grasses and seedlings and leaving mature, healthy trees behind.

Now - back to the burn. The county has prepped about 150 acres that they were hoping to burn over a three to five day period. They may not get it all done this year - doing a successful prescribed burn relies heavily on a wide variety of conditions - temperature, humidity, how much moisture is in the vegetation, wind, air quality. Everything has to be monitored very carefully and if one of these conditions changes, that can mean shutting the whole operation down, or only doing parts of it, leaving the rest for another year.

Yesterday morning was really cold and the wind was already kicking up a bit, making the burn bosses question whether the burn could even happen. But after running a test fire, conditions seemed favorable and they continued. Firefighters, using what are called drip torches (they contain a mix of diesel and gasoline - a less flammable, flammable mixture), incrementally lit grasses and scrub on fire. 

That fire spread and, if all looked like it was going ok, they took a few steps back and lit up some more fuel. The wind was at their backs, so the flames and smoke moved away from them toward the poor firefighters on the other side of the fire, who (aside from trying to avoid smoke inhalation) were watching closely to make sure no fire escaped or got out of control.

From where we media types were standing, we could only see smoke at first - big black plumes rising into the morning sky. Every now and then, you'd catch a glimpse of a bright orange, high-reaching flame. As the fire got closer, it was mesmerizing. Flames rapidly consumed grasses, stumps and and low-lying shrubs. They ran up the sides of healthy trees, burning off lower, dead branches and turning pine needles into spots of fluorescent orange before they curled into ash. What's cool is that these older trees are meant to withstand fire - their thick bark protects them, flaking off in places - and the fire would really only lick their outer edges before moving on to more combustible fuels.

And man, was it hot. From fifteen feet off, you could feel the heat - which was nice, given how cold I'd been all morning. From ten feet, I was wishing I didn't have so many layers on. At five feet, I could feel the skin on my face tightening and the moisture evaporating from my lips. I can only imagine how toasty it was for the people actually walking around in it, wearing heavy protective layers.

All in all, a pretty neat way to spend a morning and some good insight into how involved forest management is and how careful these guys are during this burn process. They'll be up there for several more days, burning more acreage and then making sure that everything is out once they've finished.

A Diversity Problem

In my last post, I mentioned how the great outdoors suffers from a lack of diversity - both racial and economic. You visit a national park, sleep in a campsite, raft a river, climb a mountain or even just go on a hike and, chances are, the majority of the people you'll run into are white.

That diversity gap, which was the topic of our fellowship seminar yesterday, is something that our speaker, James Edward Mills, is very familiar with. He's worked in the outdoor industry since 1989 in a variety of roles - guide, outfitter, sales rep - often as the only African-American around. He's also a freelance journalist and his latest project is a shiny new book called The Adventure Gap: Changing The Face of the Outdoors. 

That face - as I mentioned - is largely white. But US demographics are shifting and by the year 2042, it's expected that the majority of the country's population will be made up of people of color. Protecting our natural treasures means engaging more diverse communities in caring for the outdoors and Mills argues that one of the first steps toward this is creating good, multicultural role models who can inspire a more diverse group of kids to get outside. But where to find those role models?

Well, you can start with unearthing them from long-forgotten history. 

Here's one example - the Buffalo Soldiers, the African-American members of the U.S. Army cavalry regiments, which were formed in 1866 to fight in the Indian Wars. In the early part of the 20th century, 400 of these soldiers were tasked with patrolling national parks, including Yosemite and Sequoia. They were some of the nation's first park rangers - laying trails, patrolling forests, building roads - before the park system really even existed. It's a story that Mills - an outdoor adventurer since he was a kid - hadn't heard until he sat down with filmmaker Ken Burns in 2008. And if he hadn't heard it, you can bet that an inner city kid probably doesn't know that story, either.

Another example - Matthew Henson. His name likely doesn't ring any bells but that of his traveling companion will - Captain Robert Peary, leader of the first successful expedition to the North Pole. Henson was born in Maryland in 1866. At age 12, he went to sea and spent six years learning navigation and sailing. Upon his return, he started working at a furrier's shop and one of his customers was Peary, who took a liking to Henson and hired him as his valet. Henson quickly became an integral part of Peary's expeditions - the two of them explored Greenland and made multiple attempts at reaching the North Pole. Finally, in 1909, they were successful - but because Henson was African-American, his contribution was overlooked (in fact, for years, the success of the entire expedition was doubted because there was no white person other than Peary to verify the story). 

As for modern role models?

Well, there's Charles Crenchaw - the first African-American man to summit Denali, the highest mountain in North America, in 1964, just seven days after the Civil Rights Amendment became law.

There's Sophia Danenberg - the first African-American and the first black woman to summit Mt. Everest, in 2006. 

And there's the group at the center of Mills's book - the first, all African-American team to make an attempt on Denali. Spoiler alert - after enduring major avalanches and some unseasonably warm weather, they didn't quite make it, after being driven off the mountain by a lightning storm. But as the expedition's website says: 

...the ultimate objective was not just to make mountaineering history, but to build a legacy by paving a way for young people of color to get outside, get active, get healthy, become passionate about America’s wild places, and chase their own Denali-sized dreams.

While every member of the Expedition Denali team was an experienced outdoorsman (or woman), they also were community leaders - in education, journalism, business, mountaineering, with youth groups and outdoor organizations. And when they finished this adventure, they went back to their lives as representatives of what can adventures can be had in the great outdoors - no matter your race. 

And building a broader coalition of outdoor enthusiasts doesn't have to involve something as arduous (or as expensive) as climbing a mountain. Hiking, walking, observing nature - those things are all free, or close to it, and usually more accessible. Role models play a part here, too - it can be as simple as taking a kid to explore a nearby park or forest, helping them fall in love with a place, not just for now, but for a lifetime. That's something that should happen in every community - regardless of race or economic background - if we want people to feel like these beautiful spaces belong just as much to them as to anyone else.

Smallest Area Compatible

I meant to write about this last week but then had out of town visitors and didn't get around to it. But you don't want excuses! You want information! So I bring you a (slightly) dated entry on some news from last Friday.

On October 10, President Obama announced he would use his authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act to turn approximately 350,000 acres of national forest land in California's San Gabriel Mountains into a national monument. Those 350,000 acres are now permanently protected - no new development, no new mining claims - for the purposes of increased recreation and improved opportunities and access, especially for people living near those mountains.

Personally, I find this pretty exciting - when I lived in Pasadena, the San Gabriels (which are northeast of LA) were right out my front door. They're an imposing wall of a mountain range, rising quickly from nearly sea level up to 6,000 feet in elevation. From a distance, they look dry and foreboding, almost impenetrable. But up close, you can find all kinds of canyons and ravines that are much more lush than you would ever expect in such an arid place. Hundreds of miles of trails criss-cross these peaks, which also serve as a home to some of California's endangered species (like the condor), as well as provide about 30 percent of LA's drinking water.

And what's really cool is that 15 million people live within ninety minutes of those mountains. LA County is one of the poorest in California. It's among the most disadvantaged in the nation when it comes to access to parks and outdoor spaces for minorities and kids. The San Gabriels are one of the biggest open spaces available to Angelenos and, by preserving these mountains, the administration ensures that this area will have more resources for maintenance, restoration, education and access. (Although I do wonder about those people who don't have cars available to use - does this really improve things for them?)

All in all, though, this is a pretty neat development, both for LA and for public lands. The national park system and outdoor recreation as a whole suffer from a lack of racial and economic diversity. Having open land and recreational spaces that are more easily available to poor and minority communities can only mean good things. More on this in a future post - we have someone coming to talk to our fellowship about just this issue later this week.

For now let's turn back to that Antiquities Act - the legislation that gave the president the right to create this national monument in the San Gabriels. 

In 1906, Congress passed a bill allowing the president to set aside chunks of public land for the protection of landmarks, structures, areas of historical or natural importance, or scientific or ecological significance. The bill also established penalties for destroying or taking objects from these areas and only granted permits for archeological excavation to reputed scientific and educational institutions, "with a view to increasing the knowledge of such objects, and that the gatherings shall be made for permanent preservation in public museums."

This legislation grew out of a desire to protect certain areas (especially Native American ruins in the Southwest) from trophy hunters, vandalism and destruction. President Theodore Roosevelt - widely considered America's "Conservationist President" - signed it into law within hours of its arrival on his desk on June 8, 1906. Roosevelt didn't waste any time putting it to use, either. In September of that same year, he set aside Devil's Tower in Wyoming as a National Monument. He went on to create 17 more of these national monuments before he left power in 1909. Among those were some HUGE chunks of land - including 800,000 acres in and around the Grand Canyon - which Roosevelt defended using this clause from the new law (emphasis mine): 

That the President of the United States is hereby authorized, in his discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments, and may reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected...

It's not entirely clear if the original architects of the Antiquities Act intended for such enormous withholdings to be declared national monuments. The historical records from the time show some squabbling over the final wording - they may have expected only smaller parcels to be protected. However you have to wonder, given President Roosevelt's activist nature, if there wasn't some inkling of what might happen. But there really wasn't much opposition - a miner brought suit in federal court, claiming the president overstepped his bounds, but the Supreme Court ruled (unanimously) in favor of the Antiquities Act, a ruling it has stuck to in every challenge going forward. 

Following in Roosevelt's footsteps, 16 presidents (excluding Nixon, Reagan and George H. W. Bush) have reserved millions of acres as national monuments, some of which have later become national parks. Obama's action on the San Gabriel Mountains brings the number of national monuments named in his administration up to 13, for a total of 230 million acres. He says he's not done. (And - for the record - his predecessor, George W. Bush was no slouch in this department. W set aside 200 million acres). 

Stop for a moment, though, and think about those three words from the clause above - smallest area compatible. They're pretty incredible. That phrase is so subjective, so unlimited, so imprecise. And its presence in the Antiquities Act has given numerous presidents a tremendous amount of latitude in preserving some of the most iconic and beautiful scenery we have. The original framers may not have intended things to go this way but, as a nation, we should be grateful that phrase made the cut. Those lands are ours to visit and breath in and enjoy for generations to come - which is no small thing.

My Fellow Fellows: Urban Farming

I'm not alone in this program - there are four other smart and talented people who are also part of this year's fellowship class. I thought I'd introduce them through the projects they're working on - here's Introduction Number One.

Sena Christian is a freelance reporter from Sacramento, California and she's done a lot of writing on food and sustainability issues. She makes a mean mac 'n' cheese and, as a vegetarian, suffered mightily on our trip to New Orleans (veggie options were kind of hard to come by). And she's a total go-getter - she's already kicked off her project with a nice piece on urban farms.

These farms - cultivated within the city limits - can be found everywhere from vacant lots to school and church property to private property and other areas like park land or road sides. The crops are often sold right there at the farm and, in many cases, those farms are the only nearby source of fresh fruits and vegetables.

That can alleviate the problem of food deserts - neighborhoods where there is limited or no access to fresh, healthy food - which are most common in low-income areas. But urban farms are also beneficial to communities as a whole. As Sena points out in her piece, "They create jobs, alleviate hunger, reduce food waste, improve public health, create economic opportunities, and beautify neighborhoods."

As far as I can tell, there's not much to complain about here. And many cities - Portland, Seattle, Philadelphia, Minneapolis - have already adopted urban farm programs, or at least come up with policies to encourage them. 

But other cities haven't come as far and among them, I was surprised to learn, is Sacramento - a city that's been at the forefront of the local food movement. There, the city is just starting to consider a new urban agriculture ordinance. But they've limited who can sell produce - it has to come from farms in areas where agriculture is the primary use. That means vacant lots. Produce grown on church or school or private property would be subject to more rules and require farmers to jump through extra hoops. Which is kind of dumb. It makes something that seems like common sense - growing good food and making it available to the neighborhood in which it's grown - unnecessarily complicated.

Sacramento's Urban Agriculture Coalition is pushing back on these restrictions in advance of a City Council vote coming up later this year - and I'm hoping that my fellow fellow will cover the results.

In the meantime, you can follow Sena's writings, about sustainable farming and other topics, at her blog, Wailing Peacocks.  

Up In The Tundra

Yesterday, I stood on top of Niwot Ridge in the Indian Peaks Wilderness with a clear look at both Longs Peak and - 100 miles away - Pikes Peak. Here's a little taste of the world at 11,500 feet.

It's pretty high up there - I was gasping like a landed fish during parts of the hike. But, wow was it an awe-inspiring view. 

However, I wasn't just up there to see the sights - my fellow fellows and I were on our first fellowship field trip, to the University of Colorado's Mountain Research Station (MRS) about 25 miles west of Boulder. It's a field research site for studying mountain environments and ecosystems. Established in 1952, the MRS collects long-term climate data about mountain, sub-alpine and alpine zones, as well as maintains several meteorological stations (which have been up there since the start of the program).

There are bunch of big research projects going on in them thar hills, including how increasing temperatures in this area are affecting the Mountain Pine Beetle, what emissions (especially nitrogen) from nearby Denver are doing to the ecosystem and what climate change is doing to alpine lakes and the tundra.

The tundra - that's a word you might not have heard since sixth-grade science or maybe you only associate it with the Arctic - as in Arctic tundra. But it also applies to the area above the tree-line - in this part of the Rockies, that's at about 10,500 feet. At higher elevations higher, the growing season is short and typically pretty chilly, so plant life is hardy and small. There might be a few stunted and wind-twisted trees (it can get really windy up there), but it's mainly lichens, sedges (which resemble grasses) and low-growing shrubs.

It's in this area that scientists are conducting something called the Alpine Treeline Warming Experiment. Researchers have set up small test plots that are being deliberately warmed by infrared heaters with the goal of creating the conditions that, based on current average climate projections, they expect to see in the year 2100.

Here's what this outdoor laboratory looks like:

All those plots ringed by metal poles and covered in fine mesh are the areas where scientists are using the heaters, which are mounted in a circle around each set of scaffolding. The project began in 2008 and, as the researchers mention on their website (linked above), they're hoping to answer questions about how subalpine and alpine species will react to a warmer world.

These questions - and those being posed by the other scientists pursuing research in these mountains - won't be answered any time soon. Most of these projects are long term. As I mentioned, the University of Colorado has been monitoring carbon dioxide and other emissions and weather conditions up on the Niwot Ridge for over fifty years. That monitoring is no joke - someone comes up to collect samples every Tuesday, rain or shine or complete white-out blizzard. Sometimes they can use a snow machine to get around but a lot of times, they're walking or skiing. The amount of work and the physicality that goes into monitoring and synthesizing all that data isn't something I had thought much about and it gave me a whole new appreciation for what all these researchers are doing. 

And then there's the fact that the information they find is only a tiny piece of what will come from these projects. I'm guessing that none of the guys who started all this back in 1952 are making that trek to Niwot Ridge anymore, or even working on the data that's coming in. That means all their hard work has passed on to the next few generations of scientists, who will now add their own discoveries to this ever-growing mountain of data without entirely knowing what will eventually come of it all or what it all even means. 

That - like the view - is also pretty awe-inspiring.

Not All Gloom And Doom

Hundreds of thousands of people participated in the People's Climate March in New York City today, in an attempt to get both the US and international governments to take climate change seriously. The UN summit on climate change is set to begin on Tuesday - it's a hopeful sign although, given the outcomes of other climate summits (Kyoto Protocol, I'm looking at you), it doesn't actually mean anything will come of it. 

Despite government action or inaction, there are a number of scientists working on ways to slow or reverse the effects of climate change - big geo-engineering projects. Those may provide some of the best solutions, at least in the short-term, and at their core, they follow the same basic physics of climate change that were mentioned in my last post.

So you don't have to go to another post, here's a quick review of the physics.

Climate change is brought about by:

1) How much energy we get from the sun (i.e. sun cycles, our orbit around the sun)
2) How much of that energy is reflected back into space (by polar ice caps, glaciers, various aerosols)
3) The amount of greenhouse gases in earth's atmosphere (water vapor, carbon dioxide, etc.), which absorb the energy that is being reflected.

Those same bits of physics, says Jim White of INSTAAR, apply to potential solutions. Geo-engineering projects could deal with the problem of climate change by: 

1) Blocking sunlight (i.e. putting a giant sunshade into space)

2) Reflecting sunlight back into space (i.e. mirrors, gigantic chunks of styrofoam in the ocean)

3) Removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere (artificial trees are one idea that's on offer)

The best option, in White's opinion, is getting greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Here's why: 

We've already got close to 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere. CO₂ is one of those greenhouse gases that traps heat inside Earth's atmosphere and could, eventually, raise global temperatures by as much as 3° C. 

Now that temperature increase hasn't happened yet - currently, temperatures on Earth still reflect an earlier time, when there were fewer CO₂ particles. There's something of a time delay here, part of which is due to the fact that Earth is a water planet (think of all our oceans) and water takes a long time to heat up. 

But, much like water set over a burner, eventually that water will get warmer and Earth's temperatures will go up. And that's even if we stopped emitting all greenhouse gases right this very minute (an unlikely and impractical scenario). CO₂ remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. So even if we use our geo-engineering skills to block sunlight or reflect it back, that 400 parts per million stays at the same level - meaning will we still have the same amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and we'll still get those warmer temperatures.

But our third option - removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere - gets to the root of the problem. If we can vacuum up some of that CO₂, we could potentially counteract some of the changes we've already seen and avoid a further increase in temperature.

It's obviously a lot more complicated than what I'm writing here - and there are plenty of financial and bureaucratic hurdles - but scientists do think its feasible and there are a number of projects in the works. 

The thing to remember about all of this, though, is that we're talking a pretty long time table, like more than 100 years. It's going to require commitments that extend through several generations and reach across international borders. 

People and nations will have to suspend their own immediate interests and play the long game. It can't be something that one nation does or that one generation begins - it's a serious, long-term investment and it's one that we, ourselves, won't see the outcome of. Today's marches - in New York and worldwide - and Tuesday's meetings seem to indicate that we might be able to move in that direction.

Simple Physics

Jim White - a paleoclimatologist and the director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INCAAR) - knows something about climate change. And last Thursday, he took the time to explain it to those of us who are a little less steeped in the topic.

Global climate change comes down to simple physics and depends on three factors:

1) How much energy we get from the sun (i.e. sun cycles, our orbit around the sun)
2) How much of that energy is reflected back into space (by polar ice caps, glaciers, various aerosols)
3) The amount of greenhouse gases in earth's atmosphere(water vapor, carbon dioxide, etc.), which absorb the energy that is being reflected.

Pretty basic stuff at its core. And the laws that govern climate change are the same laws that govern other natural phenomena, like gravity - they are universal.

To make his point, he gives us a demonstration he's given frequently, recently to a group of Evangelicals. He asks one person to stand on a chair and then says to the crowd, "What happens if I push this person off the chair?" 

The crowd usually says the person will jump and catch himself.

"What if I tie his legs?"

He'll catch himself with his arms, maybe break a wrist.

"What if I tie his arms?"

He'll fall and get hurt, maybe badly.

But at no point does anyone in the crowd ever say that the guy won't fall. So we do understand that there are physical laws out there that apply to all of us. Those same physical laws are involved in climate change. Whether you believe in climate change doesn't matter - it's happening. To say it's not is like saying you don't believe in gravity or thermodynamics.

It's a good argument. For many - especially for those who are religious - climate change is seen as a different type of faith that scientists are trying to convert them to. But, as White points out, this isn't about faith, which requires you to make a leap, to accept something intangible or unprovable. Climate change and the science behind it are real. They're measurable. 

That doesn't mean religion and science have to be at odds - people have accepted gravity as part of their world and adopted it into their faith-based lives. This shouldn't be any different. Scientists like White aren't concerned with if or how people work climate change into their faith - they just want to make sure everyone understands the facts - the simple physics - of it all. 

Back In The Big Easy

From my hotel room, I'm watching an oil tanker push its way up the Mississippi River. Off in the distance, I see oil refineries, water storage tanks and fluffy white clouds building on the horizon. On the streets below, pedestrians move slowly through the heat and humidity, trying to stay in the shade and out of sight of the piercing hot sun.

I'm back in New Orleans, for the Society of Environmental Journalists' annual conference. It's been more than six years since I've been here but I haven't forgotten what a great city this is. It feels so different from any other American city I've been to; the architecture, the food, the history, even the city's layout - all of it makes it seem so much more foreign, more magical. 

The theme (because we have to have a theme) is "Risk and Resilience" - something that this city knows a lot about, or has certainly learned a lot about in the nine years since Hurricane Katrina. And while New Orleans seems magical, it - like many other cities around the world - faces some very real problems when it comes to climate change.

This morning's workshop focused on what communities are at risk from climate change and what's being done to make those communities and populations more resilient. While there are all kinds of ways to approach this topic, many of the panelists honed in on population growth. 

Obvious statement: population growth has a big effect on the environment.

No surprises there. It's especially a problem in poorer countries, where access to family planning, birth control and education are limited and poverty rates are high. But there have been some interesting finds out of attempts to curb population growth. In countries - Bangladesh was held up as an example - where WOMEN, not men, get more access to education, the population is less affected by climate change.

Why?

No one's entirely sure. But the theory is that when women get an education, they learn about family planning, they make better choices about their health, they understand the potential hazards in their community, they come up with disaster-preparedness plans, they develop skills that help get them out of poverty (or at least make them more economically stable and give them more power) - and all of those contribute to a population that is more resilient to climate change, that can adapt.

It's an interesting idea but it's really more about adaptation and long-term thinking. That's great. Climate change is going to affect everyone and populations will need to adapt to whatever it brings. But those changes are happening fast and we're a long ways from improving education for women across the globe. 

So, as I sit looking out the window at New Orleans, a city for which climate change has some big implications, in a state that faces some very big problems, it leaves me with the question of what are we going to do right now? Can we curb population growth faster? What's being done in poorer countries to make them aware of climate change? And if we can't even get people in this country to believe the science, to change their habits, can we expect others to do the same? It seems to me the longer we wait to make serious changes now, the less resilient we will be in the long run.

Law of the Land

If you're going to study law in the American West, you have to understand all of the parts that make it up - not just water and mineral rights, but also religion and culture. At least, that's what Charles Wilkinson believes. He's a longtime law professor who's worked for the government on a wide range of assignments, negotiating treaties with Native American tribes and establishing national monuments.

He paced in front of my Foundations in American Natural Resources Law class yesterday, six-foot-three and wiry, sporting well-worn cowboy boots, warning his law students that if they're just looking to study cases, this isn't the class for them.

Instead, he said, we'll get history and a chronological recounting of how the resources in the west were divvied up as well as the rise of the early conservation movement. We'll read Wallace Stegner's Beyond The Hundredth Meridian and Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac. In short - not your traditional law class.

And then he broke down the various elements that have to be considered if you're going to have a discussion about natural resource law in the American West, specifically on the Colorado Plateau - an area that encompasses large parts of Utah and Arizona, big chunks of Colorado and New Mexico and the Grand Canyon, among other major national monuments, forests and parks. Some of the elements he mentioned play a much larger role, but they all have to be taken into account.

1) Aridity - west of the 100th meridian, we get less than 20 inches of rainfall a year, which means that farmers rely heavily on irrigation and reservoirs. It's the main reason for the establishment of western water law.

2) Public lands - nationwide, the federal government owns about 25 percent of the land. In the intermountain west, that number goes up to 50 percent. And on the Colorado Plateau - two-thirds of that land belongs to the federal government. That's a lot of land to manage.

3) Range land - grazing land, for which the Colorado Plateau is not well-suited, as it causes a lot of damage, although that hasn't stopped ranchers.

4) Timber land - forest land is not abundant in this area and logging here has come way down in recent years but it's still a disputed resource.

5) Minerals - this includes hard rock minerals, like gold, and energy fuels, like coal and uranium.

6) Big build-up - following World War II, there was a huge rush on the west. The population quintupled and what city leaders wanted most for growth were water and energy. Big infrastructure projects got underway - the Glen Canyon Dam, Hoover Dam - and mining for coal and uranium took off. All this at a time when there was no regulations governing clean water or air.

7) Parks and monuments - those particularly breathtaking spots: the Grand Canyon, Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, Bryce Canyon, Arches National Park...

8) Wilderness - protected areas, which preserve a natural resource that's not much discussed: the beauty of the land, as untouched and as wild as possible.

9) Mormons - they were the first whites to settle many parts of the Colorado Plateau, giving them a strong interest in ownership of the land and a tremendous amount of power in deciding what's to be done with it.

10) Indian tribes - they, too, have a strong interest in how the land is used and many have a central belief that the earth is a living conscious being to be treated with respect and care.

In short, there are a lot of interests here and a lot of resources that many people and industries would like to control. It will be interesting to see what's been done historically, as well as try to understand and anticipate what we might see going forward.

Here Comes Peter Cottontail...

They're a good source of protein. They don't take up much room. They're easy to raise, easy to breed, easy to butcher. They're delicious. And they're cute.

I'm talking about rabbits. Darling little fluffy bunnies.

And yes, I've eaten it, in Europe, in some sort of tasty stew. I haven't seen it much in the US - the occasional fancy-pants French restaurant will have it on the menu. But once upon a time, rabbits were a common food source here in the US, as recently as World War II. The meat fell out of favor but it could be making something of a comeback - Whole Foods has started selling whole butchered rabbits at certain stores.

As a meat source, rabbits make a lot of sense. They're better for the environment, as they require much less land and water than cattle; they're better for us health wise, rabbit meat is lean and low in cholesterol.

But there's a problem here for a lot of people, especially Americans. Bunnies are cute: they're soft and furry and they have those adorable little noses. They're one of the most popular pets in the country. And a lot of Americans are not too keen on the idea of eating them. A number of rabbit advocacy groups (37! There are at least 37 rabbit advocacy groups!) recently held a protest outside Whole Foods stores around the country,

I get that the idea of eating a pet makes people uncomfortable. People freaked out about the possibility of horse meat in their IKEA meatballs last year - not because horse meat isn't good (it is) but because we don't like the idea of eating horses (especially ones that have been secretly slipped into our meatballs). Same thing with dogs - almost everyone I know here is opposed to that idea, but they do eat dog meat overseas.

Here in the US? Well, we want pets and food to be completely separate from one another. We don't want to think too much about what we're eating or where it came from. And because we're so familiar with fluffy little bunnies, we don't like to find them on our dinner plates. But those same feelings don't apply to the cows, pigs and chickens that we happily gobble down.

Here's my thought - there's nothing that says you have to eat rabbit. People who want to eat it can eat it and the people who want to have pet bunnies can have pet bunnies. There might even be people out there who end up doing both - much like with backyard chickens. But it shouldn't be taken off the table. For those of us who want to continue eating meat, while also keeping the environment in mind, rabbit is a pretty good option, even if it is a cute one.

Polar Extremes

Last night, I met a guy who's been to the North Pole (multiple times), the South Pole (multiple times) and the top of Everest. I admit - I was a little skeptical when I went to his talk. I've come across a lot of other people who take on these big adventures just for the thrill or as a way to prove themselves, how hardcore they are. Climbing Everest, especially, seems like a big ego boost - and a selfish one at that, given the deaths in this year's avalanche.

But the guy who spoke last night - Eric Larsen - was a very thoughtful and smart fellow, who's spent 15 years exploring cold places. Part of what Larsen wants to do with his expeditions is raise awareness about the effects climate change are having on some of the most remote, most harsh environments on the planet, environments he hopes to document and preserve even though most people will likely never set foot there. As Larsen put it, he's doing these things not (in the words of British climber George Mallory) because they're there, but because they may not be there in the future. 

Case in point, his most recent expedition. Earlier this year, he and another guy, Ryan Waters, made another trip to the North Pole - skiing, snowshoeing and - because the route involved traversing open water - swimming (in a dry suit). The whole thing was unsupported (no outside assistance or supplies), so the two of them pulled 350 pounds of their own food and equipment on lightweight sleds.

Larsen dubbed this expedition "Last North" because he expects it will be one of the last times that anyone will be able to make this journey, which starts on land (Northern Ellesmere Island in Canada) and goes to the geographic North Pole. Climate change and a shrinking, unstable Arctic ice pack will make future journeys like this next to impossible. 

I like what Larsen is trying to accomplish and I like what he had to say about what people can do at home to mitigate the effects of climate change. Turn off the lights. Ride your bike. But it's nothing we haven't heard before and I get the feeling, based on the crowd that was at his talk last night, that he's kind of preaching to the choir. Most of the people who watch his movies or follow his expeditions are already doing these things and are already aware of the problems that climate change poses.

He's clearly got the knowledge and the experience and the smarts to be able to talk to more than a crowd of adventurers and grassroots environmentalists. So the next step should be to reach out to people who can effect real change, like, say, the Canadian government. Which, it's recently been reported, has been trying to prevent federal scientists from sharing the extent of Arctic ice loss with the public. 

That seems to me to be a richer target for his campaign to save these polar places. Larsen's latest expedition began and ended in Canada and he's seen first-hand what climate change is doing to the landscapes and wildlife of our northern neighbor. He might get a frosty reception (ha) but he's been to colder places and - if he really wants to preserve them, working with the people who can effect real change will be both important and necessary.

Red Meat

Red meat. I love it. 

Steak. Burgers. Boeuf bourguignon. Carne asada. The list goes on.

But it's a guilty pleasure. For years, reports have cited that raising cattle is pretty detrimental to the environment. Two new studies - including one put out by the National Academy of Sciences - add more evidence to the pile. 

Basically, raising cattle requires a tremendous amount of land and a whole lot of water - way more than raising dairy, pork, poultry and eggs. Plus, it puts about five times as many greenhouse gases into the air. As the report points out, if you really want to cut back on carbon emissions, giving up beef is better than giving up driving. 

So what to do? I certainly don't want to give it up, although I'm willing to scale back. A burger or steak just once a week - I can do that. That's probably not going to solve the problem.

But maybe Mother Nature is already providing us with a solution - the Lone Star tick. Its bite introduces a certain type of sugar into our bloodstream - a sugar that we don't make ourselves - and our bodies perceive it as a threat, developing antibodies for the next time we come across it...

...which is probably the next time we eat beef, pork, venison, or even some dairy. Before the tick bite, we had no problems digesting that particular sugar but now that we've been bitten, our immune system sees that sugar as a threat, kicks into high gear - hives, itching, swelling, anaphylactic shock - and sends us to the hospital.

Allergists are still trying to figure out the long term effects of a bite, as well as exactly how long the allergy lasts - it may turn out to be permanent for some people. But they'll have more opportunity to study the tick, as there have been an increasing number of cases across the eastern and southern US.

And one reason for the tick's spread? Climate change, caused in part by greenhouse gas emissions, such as raising cattle. Maybe I'll have a chicken sandwich after all.

Off Topic

I wanted to build off of yesterday's post, looking at the agricultural industry and especially the environmental impact of raising cattle, and I'd planned to write about my love-hate relationship with a good steak. But another, much more powerful story kept grabbing my attention - one that seemingly has nothing to do with the environment - so I'm opting to go in that direction.

Mike Brown was an 18-year-old kid who should have started college on Monday.

Instead, he was fatally shot by a police officer as he walked, unarmed, down the street in his grandmother's town of Ferguson, Missouri - a suburb of St. Louis - at 2:15 in the afternoon on a sunny Saturday.

Why? We don't really know. Eyewitnesses say Mike was shot while trying to surrender to the police after a verbal altercation. The police say Mike attacked the officer and tried to grab his gun. 

However it went down, it ended with a dead teenager lying in the middle of the street for hours as an increasingly agitated crowd gathered nearby, with protestors holding their hands in the air and chanting "Don't shoot me" and "We are Michael Brown." 

The next day saw more protests and a candlelight vigil for Mike turned violent, with looting and rioting. Protestors amassed again on Monday and Tuesday, although demonstrations remained largely peaceful.

The investigation of the circumstances leading to Mike's death continues, under the supervision of the St. Louis County police. The FBI is running its own investigation, looking into the possible violation of civil rights by the Ferguson police. One hopes that at least one investigation - if not both - will shine a light on what actually happened last Saturday afternoon.

But it's not just about the death of this young man. This is all wrapped up in a much larger package, containing the same issues that we, as a nation, have been grappling with for decades now - race, police brutality, economic inequality and a long history of discrimination. 

And what - you might ask - does this have to do with the environment?

Directly? Not much.

But I've spent many days reading about this story, following various Twitter trends (#IfTheyGunnedMeDown), watching the events unfold and hearing about the frustration and anger that many people feel. And while the environment is an incredibly important issue - one that affects us all - it's easy to see why it's so unimportant for people who are grappling with much more pressing problems.

Why would you care about the effect of rising sea levels on coastal communities when your kid could get gunned down in the street? And when your own, immediate physical safety can't be ensured, the preservation of endangered species probably isn't a high priority. Even though things like poor air quality and polluted water do pose a danger, they're not nearly as concrete a threat as multiple bullets being fired at you.

People aren't going to get on board with green initiatives when they face more obvious concerns - like hunger or discrimination. And in following Mike Brown's, it's becoming clear to me that we can't deal with environmental problems without addressing social problems, too. 

Water, Water Everywhere

Let's take a trip along the Snake River, from beginning to end, from its headwaters at the edge of Yellowstone National Park, all the way to where it joins the Columbia River, along the Idaho/Oregon border. It's a journey that author Richard Manning made for High Country News - not to take in the grandeur of the river's 1,078 miles, but to see the effects of industrial agriculture on both the waterway and the surrounding environment. 

Here's Manning's explanation:

Industrial agriculture impacts the entire planet, but the Snake's system – sizable, relatively isolated, discrete and significant – is a good place to assess the impacts at a local scale, examining the nuts and bolts as well as the weight of the whole. This accounting process is simple enough for those willing to pay attention: You begin where the water is clean and relatively natural, then follow the big river across an entire landscape defined by agriculture, to where the abused, exhausted water finally ends up.

Most of the river's journey is across the Snake River Plain; an area of high desert, where the Snake is just about the only source of water, other than the few inches of annual rain. So that river water is key to the biggest industry in this area - agriculture. It used to be potatoes and sugar beets that dominated Idaho farmland but more and more, farmers are planting corn and raising dairy cattle, two very water-intensive commodities. 

Manning gets into the politics of this - the subsidies for big agriculture, the poverty of many of the farm workers versus the wealth of factory farm owners, the fact that much of what is grown and raised on the Snake River Plain isn't exactly good for our health - and it's worthwhile to read what he has to say on these issues. 

But I want to focus on his main point - that the rise of agriculture has had a tremendously negative effect on the environment here. Much of land around the river has been converted to crop and grazing land, at the expense of native plants and wildlife. The dams and reservoirs that punctuate the water's flow prevent the natural rise and fall of the river, destroying the ability of many species to survive - I'm thinking of cottonwood trees, which rely on intermittent flooding; and salmon, which must swim upstream from the ocean to spawn in the Snake's many tributaries. 

And then there's the cow shit:

Basically, a single cow produces feces the equal of 20-40 humans. There's every reason to go with the high end of the range in the case of Holstein dairy cattle, champions in this regard, but assume a middle ground of 30. Under this math, the feedlots of southern Idaho offer to the environment the equivalent in raw sewage of 17 million people, dwarfing the effects of the state's 1.5 million human residents. 

Here's what blows my mind. That sewage isn't even treated. It's pumped out over the ground, where it filters through the porous volcanic soil back into the groundwater and back into the river itself. All those nitrogen compounds from the poop, plus the antibiotics fed to the cows to keep them healthy in unhealthy living conditions, plus the pesticides and fertilizers - all of that makes its way back into the groundwater (into people's wells) and into the river. 

Now where, you might ask, is the federal government in all of this? Aren't there limits on pollution? Something called the Clean Water Act? The state hasn't shown much interest in dealing with this but, according to Manning, the federal government believes Idaho has 13,057 miles of stream that fail to meet clean water standards. 204,091 acres of lakes/reservoirs. Agriculture - surprise! - is the biggest contributor to this pollution. But there are a lot of bureaucratic and legal loopholes that allow big ag to keep doing what they're doing - and regulators have no real recourse.

So all this nasty stuff ends up at the western end of the river, in the last few reservoirs before the Snake joins the Columbia. There it sits in what could be considered giant-sized sewage treatment lagoons, these reservoirs that are slowly filling up with toxic sludge. These are reservoirs are used for both recreation (swimming, fishing) and water supply, but there's no plan in place to clean them up or stop the ongoing pollution that stretches back across the state.

Drink up.