By Shawn Dell Joyce

It’s hard to think of global warming when our region is blanketed in new-fallen snow and looks like a winter wonderland. But right now, delegates from around the world are converging on Copenhagen to hash out a global climate treaty that will affect all of us, and our future generations.

Climate change activists are not hopeful, as there is still much disagreement between industrialized and developing nations that centers around four main points according to Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC):The authors of the IPCC reports sponsored by the UN, released a special report called The Copenhagen Diagnosis to draw delegate’s attention to seven main points:

1. How much are the industrialized countries willing to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases?
 
2. How much are major developing countries such as China and India willing to do to limit the growth of their emissions?
 
3. How is the help needed by developing countries to engage in reducing their emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change going to be financed?
 
4. How is that money going to be managed?

“If Copenhagen can deliver on those four points I’d be happy,” said Yvo de Boer in recent interviews.

The last global treaty; the Kyoto Protocol was ratified in 1997 and will expire in 2012. It set binding targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions for 184 countries. The most notable exception is the United States, and Yvo de Boer told the press he is “really happy” to see the U.S. back in negotiations.

1. Greenhouse gas emissions are surging: Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were 40% higher than those in 1990. Stabilizing global emissions at these levels is too low, and may lead to global warming of 2 ^{degrees or more, crossing the catastrophic threshold.Temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.19 (C) per decade for two and a half decades. There have been natural, short-term fluctuations, but no change in the underlying warming trend.Satellite and ice measurements now show beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-caps are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-sheets has also accelerated since 1990. Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the climate models. This area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40% greater than the average prediction from previous IPCC models. Satellites show global average sea-level rise (3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years) to be 80% above past IPCC predictions, due to the more rapid melting of glaciers, ice caps and ice-sheets.  Sea-levels are expected to continue to rise for at least a century after global temperature have been stabilized, and could rise several meters over the next few centuries. The most vulnerable elements of our biosphere such as continental ice-sheets and rainforest could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues at its current rate. The risk of passing a tipping point increases the longer that we wait. It’s time to evoke the Precautionary Principle, meaning that we cannot delay action hoping for scientific certainty or we may run out of options.: If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2 degrees above pre-industrial values—considered the catastrophic threshold, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly.}

2. Recent global temperatures show human-based warming:

3. Melting of glaciers and global ice is accelerating:

4. Rapid loss of Arctic sea-ice:

5. Sea-levels are rising faster than predicted:

6.  By delaying action, we risk irreversible damage:

7. Peak carbon must be now

“Mary/Mary” is a large-scale self portrait in oil on reused wood panels. The painting explores the feminist archetypes of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene or woman as both holy mother and Earth mother. For more info visit www.ShawnDellJoyce.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce

Our children are growing up in a vastly different world from the one in which we grew up. By the time they graduate, much of what we taught them will be obsolete. Our country is in a period of transition, moving away from dependence on fossil fuels to a greener future. Let’s prepare our children by transitioning them and their school environment.

The Eco-Schools USA program is part of an international program led in the U.S. by the National Wildlife Federation. The program sets up school-based action teams of students, administrators, educators and community volunteers. Schools become certified by achieving a series of goals that must be implemented by students, faculty and administrators.

More than 270,000 schoolchildren in Ireland are taking part in the Green-Schools program, which is in its 13th year. Irish youths are leading initiatives on litter, waste, water and travel. Successful schools are recognized at successive levels, from bronze and silver to the highest award — a green flag. Once a school has received four green flags, it is considered a green school.

“Our Green Schools committee has been led by Transition Year students since 2005, and we received our first Green Flag in 2006,” says Anna Kavanagh, a geography teacher in a green school and author of “Green-Schools Meeting the Challenge of Climate Change.” “We’ve been calculating the ecological footprint of the school, which looks at our impact on all of nature’s resources. We’ve introduced recycling bins into the classrooms, carried out renovations to fit the school with energy-saving light sensors, got a compost bin, and planted over 1,000 spring bulbs.”

“We’re going for our third flag and we’ll be focusing on water conservation and quality,” says Eimear Noonan-Tracey, a 16-year-old student in a green school. “It’s about encouraging people to use water wisely, turn off taps, and be aware of pollution, such as that caused by slurry washing into rivers.”

Eco-school programs are democratic and participatory, engaging our children as active participants and citizens of the world community.
Students and staff can work together to reduce litter and waste and run the schools in environmentally conscious ways. Students take home an increased environmental awareness that affects their families and communities, also helping to transition them.

The process engages our children in actively working toward solutions. Children take control of their own environment, learning and making decisions about how to improve both their home and school environments. This is empowering to children, who often are made to feel powerless and frustrated by big issues, such as climate change.

At a time when school budgets are being cut, this type of program pays for itself and helps the schools save money. Reducing energy and water waste in schools will also reduce utility bills. Being an eco-school means taking responsibility for environmental stewardship and participating in the world community. Students can link up to other eco-schools around the world and share environmental information and culture.

The first flag focuses on litter and waste, implementing various initiatives to reduce waste and combat any litter problems they may face. On average, schools have reduced their waste by more than 60 percent, and some schools are operating at zero waste. Once a school receives the first flag, it moves on to the next theme, energy, before tackling the areas of water and travel. Each theme builds on the previous one, and all themes are worked on continuously until they become integrated into the rhythm of the school day.

“I’m doing this because I worry that the world we leave behind won’t be habitable for our children,” Kavanagh says. “We can’t forget about their future.”

To get your school involved, visit http://www.nwf.org/ecoschools and then enlist help from other parents, students, teachers, administrators, PTA members and school environmental clubs.

Shawn@Zestoforange.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce

Recent hikes in the costs of fuel oil and natural gas have many of us looking to alternative sources for home heating. But what is the “greenest” alternative? That is a tough question because it depends on where you live and what fuel is abundant locally. If you live in the Midwest, corn is more abundant than wood and may have less of an environmental impact because it doesn’t have to be shipped to you.

If you live in the woods, then wood is a logical heat choice for you and is carbon-neutral, meaning that burning the wood doesn’t add any more carbon to the atmosphere than the tree would have sequestered during its lifetime. Most people who live in the woods can use windfall trees and standing deadwood and don’t ever have to cut down a living tree. However, if we all burned wood, it quickly would deforest our country and add to climate change dramatically.

Biomass heat is gaining in popularity and can be a greener choice in some cases. Corn pellet stoves and wood pellet stoves look the same and heat equivalently. Because they are highly efficient, they don’t need chimneys; instead, they can be vented outdoors by 4-inch pipes through outside walls. You also can tie a corn stove to your thermostat so that glow plug igniters automatically light it. It has a hopper capacity big enough to hold several days’ worth of corn. Both stoves use blowers to create vacuums inside the stoves, keeping smoke from seeping into your home.

What you burn is also crucial. Wood smoke can contain many tars, creosote and other chemicals that degrade our air quality. Burning wood as hot as possible helps reduce contaminants in the smoke. Corn burns so cleanly that you won’t see a wisp of smoke from the stovepipe. However, corn requires many chemical inputs to grow and can be environmentally devastating.

Wood pellets burn the most cleanly but are not necessarily as renewable a resource as corn.
Look for corn that is grown locally and has low pesticide and fertilizer use, such as transitional corn, for a truly environmentally friendly alternative fuel.

There are also multi-fuel stoves, which burn almost anything that fits in the 2-inch hoppers. This type of stove may be a good choice if you live in an agricultural area. Farmers are discovering a new use for waste crops, such as wheat shafts and hulls, cornstalks and moldy hay. These crop wastes can be pelletized and sold as biomass heat pellets for multi-fuel stoves. This may be a local source for home heating fuel in areas where wood is expensive and corn is needed as food.

Many farmers have started growing biomass crops, such as switch grass, specifically to pelletize and burn them for home heating use. You can use grass pellets in pellet stoves, as well as in high-efficiency wood stoves. If you have enough land, you can make grass pellets out of just about any type of hay or straw. You even can use last year’s moldy hay bales to make next year’s pellets. Finding a pelletizer may be the hardest part of the process. Some farmers in New York pitch in together and rent one. You could make your own pellets and save substantially on home heating. This could become a popular home-based business that helps wean Americans off fossil fuels so that they can enjoy real homeland security.

Traditional open masonry fireplaces aren’t effective or efficient heating devices. A traditional fireplace draws in as much as 300 cubic feet per minute of heated room air for combustion and then sends it straight up the chimney. This is the same as having a 4-foot hole in your wall that is sucking your precious heat straight outdoors! Only high-efficiency fireplace inserts have proved to be effective in increasing the heating efficiency of older fireplaces. The insert functions like a wood stove, fitting into the masonry fireplace or on its hearth and using the existing chimney.

Shawn@zestoforange.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce
 We are enduring a $45 million dollar advertising campaign touting “clean coal” and the solution to America’s energy crisis. This is an attempt by Big Coal lobbyists (in this case American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity) to “greenwash” Americans into believing a lie that coal can ever be clean.

Don’t believe the hype!

Most of our coal is extracted through mountaintop removal mining which involves clear cutting the forests and scraping away the topsoil, blasting up to 800 feet off the top of the mountain, and gouging out the coal with gigantic earth moving machines. This mechanized process replaces human miners with technology, and causes millions of tons of “overburden” (mountaintops, trees, and topsoil) to be bulldozed into adjacent narrow valleys, and clog streams.  Just obtaining the coal is a dirty, polluting process.

Burning coal is a major contributor to climate change. Coal puts 80% more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than burning gas according to Greenpeace. Burning coal also spews pollutants like mercury which is highly toxic and poses a ‘global environmental threat to humans and wildlife,’ according to the United Nations. Coal-fired power and heat production are the largest single source of atmospheric mercury emissions. There are no commercially available “clean coal” technologies to prevent mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.
The coal industry’s main strength and selling point is that coal is cheaper than renewable energy like wind, or solar because many of the costs of burning coal are hidden or externalized. These are costs that we will pay as individuals, like asthma in young children from the air pollution caused by burning coal. Climate change is another externalized cost of burning coal that is difficult to quantify. How much does the loss of a mountaintop, or Appalachian culture and community cost?

The coal industry estimates that cleaning up fly ash would cost as much as $5 billion a year. If every coal-fired plant in the U.S. added carbon capture and sequestration technology or implemented other (unproven) “clean coal” technologies, that figure could easily double. We would pay that price through higher energy costs.

Coincidentally, the EPA released a study last week claiming that it will cost Americans $22 billion, or roughly $100 per family each year, to meet the goals of the Climate Bill currently debated in the senate. We will pay either way. The big question is what we will get for our money, a transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy or a temporary band-aid solution courtesy of Big Coal?

 Locally, we still get half our electricity from coal, but we have entrepreneurs like Jim Taylor with promising projects like Taylor Biomass, Walden’s hydroelectric dam, and Montgomery’s mill that still generates hydropower as well. Soon we will have cul-de-sac communities sharing large photovoltaic arrays, and maybe even wind turbines dotting pastures where cows graze. Let’s support and develop local renewable energy sources and keep our energy dollars in the local economy.

 Shawn Dell Joyce is an award-winning columnist and founder of the Wallkill River School in Montgomery. Shawn@zestoforange.com