This morning I read an article in the StarTribune about today being Blog Action Day, during which all bloggers are invited to address a common issue of concern - in this case, the environment. That topic comes up regularly in this blog, and I had already planned on addressing one aspect of it.

I was pleased that the Norwegian Nobel Committee gave its Peace Prize to the scientists of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore for their work on global warming. During the past year I’ve commented about the most recent IPCC reports (see posts on February 26, May 4, and May 11), which predict disastrous consequences if humanity does not take steps to mitigate global warming. Fortunately, we’re seeing more action on this issue every day.

Unlike some, I accept the rationale that the Nobel Committee gave for making their award. Addressing the problem of climate change, they said, will reduce the likelihood of violent conflict in the future:

Indications of changes in the earth’s future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds. Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth’s resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world’s most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states….

By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC and Al Gore, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is seeking to contribute to a sharper focus on the processes and decisions that appear to be necessary to protect the world’s future climate, and thereby to reduce the threat to the security of mankind. Action is necessary now, before climate change moves beyond man’s control.

Another important leader on the climate change issue is Bill McKibben, author most recently of Deep Economy, a book that calls for steep cuts in carbon emissions and radically new ways of looking at economic issues. McKibben is a leader in the Step It Up movement, which is organizing the National Day of Climate Action on November 3, 2007.

McKibben has written yet another cogent article on global warming, “Carbon’s New Math,” for the October edition of National Geographic. In his opening paragraphs, McKibben concisely describes the problem that humanity now faces:

Here’s how it works. Before the industrial revolution, the Earth’s atmosphere contained about 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide. That was a good amount–”good” defined as “what we were used to.” Since the molecular structure of carbon dioxide traps heat near the planet’s surface that would otherwise radiate back out to space, civilization grew up in a world whose thermostat was set by that number. It equated to a global average temperature of about 57 degrees Fahrenheit (about 14 degrees Celsius), which in turn equated to all the places we built our cities, all the crops we learned to grow and eat, all the water supplies we learned to depend on, even the passage of the seasons that, at higher latitudes, set our psychological calendars.

Once we started burning coal and gas and oil to power our lives, that 280 number started to rise. When we began measuring in the late 1950s, it had already reached the 315 level. Now it’s at 380, and increasing by roughly two parts per million annually. That doesn’t sound like very much, but it turns out that the extra heat that CO2 traps, a couple of watts per square meter of the Earth’s surface, is enough to warm the planet considerably. We’ve raised the temperature more than a degree Fahrenheit (0.56 degrees Celsius) already. It’s impossible to precisely predict the consequences of any further increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. But the warming we’ve seen so far has started almost everything frozen on Earth to melting; it has changed seasons and rainfall patterns; it’s set the sea to rising.

McKibben believes it is possible to make the transition to a low-carbon economy. “[E]arlier this year,” he writes, “a UN panel estimated that the total cost for the energy transition, once all the pluses and minuses were netted out, would be just over 0.1 percent of the world’s economy each year for the next quarter century. A small price to pay.” So the costs of climate change have to be factored into the equation. Now, if only our politicians would begin to do that.

McKibben’s article contains a useful graphic that is derived from the work of Princeton researchers Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala. They identified strategies, or “stabilization wedges,” that would prevent significant amounts of carbon from being emitted - a billion metric tons annually. One of those strategies - “Reducing miles traveled annually per car from 10,000 to 5,000″ - is related to my own area of advocacy, which is getting people to walk, bike, and use transit more.

And whaddya know, the governor of my own state of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, who is a Republican, has a climate change plan that incorporates this particular strategy, according to another StarTribune article today. The Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group (MCCAG) seeks to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent by 2050 (that’s McKibben’s ambitious goal too), and one way it proposes to do that is by having Minnesotans drive less. According to the article, “transportation contributes about 27 percent of the carbon dioxide poured into Minnesota’s atmosphere.” (An insert map and graphic in the issue of National Geographic mentioned above says that transportation contributes 13.5 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.)

According to the Star Tribune, Minnesota would meet this goal of driving less by “locating jobs and people close to one another, redeveloping core cities and expanding mass transit.” The panel is also recommending “having people pay directly for road use, parking and other transportation features whose costs are now concealed by public subsidies.”

The article and an accompanying graphic also provide some numbers for the total annual “vehicle miles traveled” (VMT) for the state. In 1983 the total was 30.3 billion miles, and in 2006 it was 56.6 billion. In 2025, if current trends continue, it’s expected to be 82 billion miles, almost triple the 1983 amount.

I did some digging and found a document produced by the MCCAG Transportation and Land Use Technical Work Group that contains specific methods for implementing changes in transportation. It says this about bike and pedestrian infrastructure: “Improving, adding, and promoting sidewalks and bikeways can increase the pedestrian and bicycle activity and reduce automobile use. Infrastructure improvements could include bicycle parking and shower/locker amenities at places of employment. Local government ‘complete streets’ policies would help to achieve these improvements” (p. 5).

This is great stuff, but we’ll have to see if it can be turned into real policies and laws that are established by the governor, the legislature, and other governments. Our own small city of Northfield, Minnesota, has already begun to move in this direction, and that makes me a little more optimistic that we can leave future generations a climate substantially similar to the one we have today.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 9:37 pm and is filed under Environment and Ecology, Politics, Science.