Sen. Tom Neuville, who represents my district in the Minnesota Senate, has posted a number of blog entries indicating that he does not believe that global warming is caused by human activity. These posts mainly contain information from sources that support that view.

A letter to the Northfield News on May 26 by Bob Ewing criticized the views of Sen. Neuville on this issue. It captured my own sentiments regarding the senator’s position quite well: Read the rest of this entry »

This past year our family has been blessed to get to know a visiting scholar at St. Olaf College’s Kierkegaard Library, Prof. Gabriel Merigala of Madras Christian College, as well as his family. (In India he is known as Merigala Gabriel, or simply Gabriel; Indian naming conventions differ from Western ones.) We quickly felt a kinship with Gabriel, his wife Nirmala, and their children Susan and Samuel. That was due in part to my wife’s connections to India (her father was born there), their family’s participation in our church congregation at the United Methodist Church of Northfield, and the fact that we lived near each other.

Gabriel was one of a handful of scholars who reside here each year to study in the Kierkegaard Library, which houses a world-renowned collection of works by and about the Danish theologian and philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. (The library is officially known as the Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library. The Hongs both taught at St. Olaf and translated Kierkegaard’s works into English.)

During his visit, Gabriel was in demand as a speaker, and I was fortunate to hear him speak forcefully and eloquently on Kierkegaard and Gandhi. I also enjoyed getting to learn more about his scholarship when I edited the book that he is working on, Subjectivity and Religious Truth in the Philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard, which has been accepted for publication by Mercer University Press.

As I read Gabriel’s book I learned a great deal about Kierkegaard, about whom I knew only a little before. I came away with a deeper understanding of Kierkegaard’s concept of the “leap of faith” and his role in the history of philosophy and theology. Faith, according to Kierkegaard, can’t be a product of reason. We can’t use reason to prove the existence of God, for example, or prove that Jesus was both human and divine. Instead we must accept these on the basis of faith alone. Faith exists in the realm of the “absurd” and the paradoxical rather than that of reason, and we must simply believe.

We give thanks for all that we have received from Gabriel and his family and we wish them the blessings and peace of Jesus Christ as they journey home and resume life in India. And we hope to one day meet with them again, whether here or abroad.

Yes, that topic again! Our local paper, the Northfield News, asked me to do a column on green transportation for their first “Living Green” page, and I focused on our newly created city Nonmotorized Transportation Task Force (which met for the first time this past Tuesday, by the way). The page features an article on local business owner Jesse Streitz, who gets all his home electricity from wind and solar. (Streitz, by the way, is a conservative who’s concerned about global warming and is taking action. I’m a customer, and his company newsletter has tips for reducing carbon emissions.)

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a link to my column online (the News does not consistently put everything online), so I’m pasting it in here. It has a graphic and some references that aren’t in the published version. I’ve also added some hyperlinks.

A New Northfield Task Force Advocates a Green Approach to Getting Around

by Bill Ostrem

We’ve heard about green building design and even green chemistry, but what about green transportation? It turns out that a New York City nonprofit, Transportation Alternatives, has created a “green transportation hierarchy.” It consists of an upside-down pyramid with pedestrians at the top, bicycles below that, then public transit, and on down to single-occupancy vehicles at the very bottom.

To give you a sense of why the hierarchy is ordered as it is, consider the energy use of different transportation options. To walk one mile, a 150-pound person burns 70 to 100 calories of renewable energy, whereas biking uses 25 to 65 calories. Driving the same distance in a Toyota Prius uses 585 calories, or 2,375 in a Cadillac Escalade sport utility vehicle—both generally using nonrenewable gasoline.[1] Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I heard Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University, speak about global warming on Minnesota Public Radio. Oppenheimer is a lead author of the recent “Fourth Assessment Report” from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It was a sobering talk, and I strongly recommend that people listen to it. Oppenheimer was unequivocal in stating that global climate change is the leading environmental problem of our time. He said that if the planet warms at the higher end of estimates - that is, if it warms a lot - the results would be very catastrophic in terms of lost water resources, higher sea levels, and other effects.

One comment from Oppenheimer particularly caught my attention, and I will paraphrase it from memory: When asked about the “controversy” regarding climate change among scientists, Oppenheimer said that there are about 2000 climate experts in the world, and he only knew of about 5 who think that human-induced climate change is not a serious problem confronting humanity.

Think about that the next time a climate change skeptic quotes one or two scientists to back up his or her argument. Good science is not determined via consensus or vote, but I’d still put more trust in the opinion of 99 percent of experts than I would in a tiny minority of contrarians.

One of the best local web sites here in Northfield, Minnesota - Locally Grown Northfield, run by Northfield.org founder Griff Wigley - recently featured a long discussion about the best route through Northfield for a developing state multi-use trail, the Mill Towns State Trail. It’s more than most out-of-towners will want to read, but it shows some of the challenges of routing a trail through or near a city, even a small city like Northfield with a population of about 18,000.

See comment 47 (!) for my two cents. I should add that during this current controversy my heart goes out to the Mill Towns Trail volunteers, particularly Peggy Prowe, who have worked so hard to make this trail a reality. I have not been involved in trail route finding, and I only wish for the best possible route.

Note: I’ve been remiss in not including Locally Grown in my blog links. But I promise I’ll get around to it soon!

I’m happy to say that the City of Northfield, Minnesota, has created a nonmotorized transportation task force, which will exist for one year. The city council approved the resolution creating the task force (2007-051) on Monday, May 7, and the Park and Recreation Advisory Board approved 10 members the next evening. To see the text of the resolution, go to the city council packet for May 7, and see pages 23 and 24.

The task force members include myself, Bruce Anderson, Anne Bretts, Kirsten Cahoon, Dan Kust, Neil Lutsky, Randy Perkins, John Stull, Richard Vanasek, and Peter Waskiw. While some members identify themselves simply as interested citizens, others represent groups and organizations such as RENew Northfield, Northfield Public Schools, Northfield Rotary, the Park Board, St. Olaf College, Carleton College, and the Mill Towns State Trail. One interested citizen is an employee of the Minnesota Department of Transportation, another works for northfield.org, and one, John Stull, is a former mayor of Northfield. We do not as yet have members from neighboring communities such as Dundas and Bridgewater, though we hope that will change.

Here are the mission and goals of the task force, quoted from the resolution: Read the rest of this entry »

On March 14 I wrote about my attempt to persuade our daughter’s preschool to change its snack menu. To date, there has been no change. I will cross my fingers, remain hopeful, and hope others will suggest changes as well.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued its third report of the year, this one titled “Climate Change 2007: Mitigation of Climate Change (Summary for Policymakers).” It mentions reduced driving and the use of “non-motorised transportation” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; it also makes reference to sustainable development and land use policies.

Andrew C. Revkin of the New York Times is one good journalist to read on the topic of climate change. See his article on this current IPCC report and his April 7 article on an earlier report. Here is what Revkin writes about the IPCC reports issued this year:

This is the third report this year from the climate panel, which was formed under the auspices of the United Nations in 1988 to brief nations periodically on risks from human and natural changes in climate and options for limiting dangers.

In February, one team of experts concluded with near certainty that most warming since 1950 has been driven by the rising concentrations in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

A second working group reported last month that the warming trend was already measurably shifting weather, water and ecological patterns, and that hundreds of millions of people faced risks by mid-century ranging from lost water supplies to inundated coasts should trends persist.

The April summary, “Climate Change 2007: Impact, Adaptation, and Vulnerability (Summary for Policymakers), as well as the current report are all part of what’s called the Fourth Assessment Report from the IPCC. See the Wikipedia article on the Fourth Assessment Report for a good overview.

What the vast majority of scientists have to say continues to capture the attention of the planet. And what they have to say isn’t good: global warming will affect the planet in a massive way. Low-lying areas will be inundated by rising sea levels, water resources will be negatively affected in many areas, and humanity will have to endure huge costs to adapt to this relatively rapid warming of the planet.

Tracy Davis, member of the Northfield Planning Commission, alerted me to this nice essay by Neal Peirce, syndicated columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group, published April 15: “City bikes: clean, healthy, fun - and faster than cars?” The “complete streets” idea mentioned below is key. Here are two excerpts: Read the rest of this entry »

A friend sent me a link to a Wired article with photos of the Human-Powered Vehicle Challenge at the NASA-Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, April 13-15, 2007. The event was a contest for college engineering teams sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

I sent the link to Mary Arneson, who runs velomobiling.com, and she posted some comments regarding the event, including this one:

Disappointingly, for those of us who are trying to raise awareness of velomobiles, the whole event seemed to pass without the word “velomobile” ever coming up. The mechanical engineering students could probably learn something from the velomobile industry, and human-powered vehicles have a lot to gain from new technology and insights, but the two worlds seem to run on parallel tracks and never to meet.

This separation isn’t limited to the United States; European educational institutions also sponsor HPV challenges and projects without seeming to notice a thriving velomobile industry under their noses.