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.