If you have not already read Tom Wessels’ 2006 book [The myth of progress - Towards a sustainable Future], I highly recommend it to you. It makes some core arguments in support of our efforts to support a carbon neutral economy as a response to global warming and biosphere degradation.

Happy New Year,

Jock

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

In this compelling and cogently argued book, Tom Wessels demonstrates how our current path toward progress, based on continual economic expansion and inefficient use of resources, runs absolutely contrary to three foundational scientific laws that govern all complex natural systems. It is a myth, he contends, that progress depends on a growing economy.

“Shrinking Ice” has made science magazine’s list of Breakthroughs of the Year. While a terrifying phenomenon, I suppose it is good to see it getting plenty of attention still, both in the scientific community, and with the public at large.

We all have to be really thrilled about the news today. Thanks to NRDC and the environmental groups who put pressure on the Federal government to list polar bears on the endangered species list. I wonder if the 12 month waiting period will cause irrevocable damage to their habit……., but in the mean time this is good news and gives inspiration to the rest of us struggling to save Creation.

As a side note, I am in Bozeman, Mt with unusually warm weather and little snow on the ground. It is amazing to take a week off from the office, but notice that I cannot escape the climate news, but, then, nor do I want to.

The wonder and mystery of Christmas is past us, but the love of god that resides in each of us will inspire and envelop us all year. It is this love that will, in the end, save us all.

A day after Christmas, the Anchorage Daily news ran an article about flooding and erosion in small Alaska Native villages on the west coast of Alaska with names no one else except Alaskans are familiar with….Shismaref, Kivalina, and Newtok. It is a story Alaska Natives are quite familiar with. With the sea ice thinner, arriving later, and leaving earlier in the Bering Sea, Bering Strait, and Chukchi Sea, coastal communities are experiencing more intensified storms with larger waves then they have ever experienced, and the loss of permafrost which kept river banks from eroding too quickly. Permafrost is a layer of ground that is frozen year around, or at least it used to be year-around.

The waves from these seas are larger because there is no sea ice to diminish their intensity, slamming against the west and northern shores of Alaska, causing severe storm driven coastal erosion. It has become so serious that several coastal villages are now actively trying to figure out where to move entire communities.

Here is a [site], created by David Bleja (a.k.a. Stillwater), that graphically shows births, deaths and CO2 emissions per country. Watch it for a while and see what is happening as you watch.

It would be useful if such a simulation also tracked other threats, policies etc.

I am a sculptor who is currently working on a collaborative project on climate change. With the help of Zach Smith and Scott Battaion from the Wright Center for science education at Tufts University, I have been building very low-tech data-collecting devices that extract climate data from a particular coastal environment. This device consists of a simple, 3-D cube made out of PVC pipes that is filled with cheap science instruments through which I record daily changes in the physical environment. I strap this cube onto my back every morning and bike out to the beach, where I measure temperature (air, water, soil), wind speed and direction, wave direction and speed as well as make notes of any flora and fauna changes I may see. I also make note of the daily erosion changes that seem to constantly sculpt the sand into new formations everyday.

I’ve been shopping. And wrapping. And making gifts too. But more of the shopping and wrapping. I tried to buy local, avoid new wrapping paper, etc., but still it seems like a whole car load of presents for the family and friends. At what cost to our planet is all this consumption. I heard a really good segment on our local public Radio, WGBH (listen to it here):

“Boston College economist and sociologist Juliet Schor. says the Christmas season is an especially bad time of year for the environment: 25 percent of total spending occurs now and household garbage increases by 25 percent.
What kind of ecological footprint are you leaving behind?”

I was talking to my mother about this and she said that it was fine if I wanted to recycled the five garbage bags full of wrapping paper as long as I didn’t bum everyone out by doing it on Christmas morning. I find most people think that Christmas is the time to have a holiday from responsible choices for our environment.
Whats the solution?

I have been asked to show some work, here is a project called FAB TREE HAB: In congruence with ecology as the guiding principal, this living home is designed to be nearly entirely edible so as to provide food to some organism at each stage of its life cycle. While inhabited, the home’s gardens and exterior walls continually produce nutrients for people and animals. As a direct contributer to the ecosystem it supports an economy comprised of truly breathing products not reconstituted or processed materials. Imagine a society based on slow farming trees for housing structure instead of the industrial manufacture of felled timber.

see http://www.archinode.com/bienal.html

I’m in Denver this week, where I’ve been snowed in and unable to leave the house for two days, after one of the worst blizzards on recent record in Colorado. Of course, we didn’t lose power, so we didn’t lose heat, light, or the [blessed] internet, and therefore the worst consequences were a little bit of cabin fever and a sort back from shoveling.

With plenty of time to read my news feeds, I’ve just learned of a new climate change indicator emerging in the bear family. Not arctic polar bears this time; rather, brown bears in the mountainous region of northern Spain, who have come out mid-winter to let us know that things aren’t the way they used to be. Whereas freezing temperatures used to keep them holed up all winter long storing energy and body mass, the weather’s now mild enough that food is available well into the winter, and hibernation is no longer a…bear necessity.

Al Gore’s essay in Newsweek on the Electranet:

From the Dec. 18th Newsweek

My Turn: [The Energy Electranet]

The climate crisis will force a historic shift to a new global power network of small alternative sources. This network will then feed a smart electric grid. Welcome to the future.

By Al Gore
Newsweek

Dec. 18, 2006 issue - Over the past 200 years, the industrial revolution has created vast wealth and huge improvements in the human condition—in a few dozen highly industrialized countries. The engine of that revolution was fueled by coal and then supercharged with oil—multiplying the productivity of human labor many, many times over. Although we have reaped many benefits from this intensive use of energy, we are now faced with an urgent crisis—a crisis that is altering the very nature of the Earth’s climate.

Read the whole essay [here]

I’ll continue my trend of bringing my outside conversations into this realm. It was my brother I was talking to this time, and one of the interesting things he brought up was the fact that, “everyone agrees that if/when the [sh*t] hits the fan, the poorest countries will feel the impact first and worst… but nobody’s trying to fix that.”
He is obviously not the first person to bring this up, but I think this is an issue that isn’t discussed enough, and I can’t overstate its importance. Especially on a moral level, I think the dynamics of this are crucial given that it is the wealthiest countries, and the U.S. in particular, who by far contribute the most to carbon emissions. It is not just the wealth of a nation that matters though - just as with natural disasters, it is the poor across the board who will bear the brunt of a changing climate.

The [NECC web site] has an interesting list of resources, including the [2006 Report Card on climate change Action].

Third Annual Assessment of the Region progress Towards Meeting the Goals of the New England Governors Eastern Canadian Premiers climate change Action Plan of 2001

I chaired the science Working Group for an international conference of arctic indigenous peoples called Snowchange in August of last year (www.snowchange.org). There were several other working groups. Indigenous leaders from Greenland to Siberia gathered to share their stories of what they are seeing in changes to fish, wildlife and habitat. The list of observed changes grows longer each year:

–beaver are now in the arctic as the tree line moves north

–salmon are showing up with lesions and parasites in greater frequency

–weather is much more unpredictable, causing danger and death to hunters

–more and more salmon are appearing in the Chukchi Sea

–water levels in lakes and rivers are going down

–permafrost is melting

–reindeer are having difficulty accessing forage due to freeze-thaw-freeze cycles,

covering tundra with ice

–migratory birds are arriving earlier and leaving later

Today I will be writing my sermon for tomorrow having spent most of the week thinking about it, but not writing due to the worst cold I’ve had in years and another priority assignment. The gospel lesson on Sunday is from Luke and in it John the Baptist tells his listeners that he is not the Messiah whom they are seeking. The people should be joyful because God is in their midst, but he is not God. The lesson for us is to model that behavior. Know who we are, accept who we are, recognize our own limitations and know that others have been before and others will come after. The humility in this carries a dual message. It asks us not to take advantage of the vulnerable or use any occupational privilege to exploit others. We might apply this to fossil fuel use and our greed, exploitation of the poor nations and people. As a wealthy country, the US could use this example set by John. As a nation we have the power and ability to help poor nations by cutting our own use of fossil fuel and setting an example by using more renewable energy. Some how the Christian values that our US government leaders profess to have don’t show up in the policies they make.

I’m always interested in seeking out other forms of interdisciplinary collaboration, which seem to be increasingly prevalent these days. One such form is the International Polar Year 07/08; their effort is described as:

The concept of the International Polar Year 2007-2008 is of an international programme of coordinated, interdisciplinary scientific research and observations in the Earth’s polar regions:

• to explore new scientific frontiers
• to deepen our understanding of polar processes and their global linkages
• to increase our ability to detect changes, to attract and develop the next generation of polar scientists, engineers and logistics experts
• to capture the interest of schoolchildren, the public and decision-makers.

Interestingly the first IPY was in 1882-83 and was the first international year of anything. Polar explorer Karl Weyprecht realized that the poles were the places where significant geophysical concerns were located–he felt that one nation or one research institution alone could not address such a vast and complex area, so he created an international scientific cooperative effort. There is a great site that looks at this history from the NOAA.