A tree in the living room as an opportunity to teach about carbon

Don and his tree.

I've got a tree in my living room.  It stands a little over seven feet tall, though it was probably closer to eight feet when it stood at the Christmas tree farm out in Clarence.  I was easily able to lift it onto the roof of the car, so I'm guessing it weighs less than 40 pounds.  You might have a tree kind of like it in your living room.  You might use that tree to help you and yours think a bit about carbon.  

Perhaps it could be a little fodder for making those family get-togethers a little more uncomfortable, but please be nice as you nurture understanding along.  Fortunately for me, holiday discussions in my family are decidedly geeky -- the most notable in recent memory had to with which one of my siblings had the greatest volume to surface area ratio.

But I digress.  Let's think about that tree.

A favorite question of mine is, "What's the raw material for a tree?"  It started as a little seed within a pine cone and now some eight or ten years later, it weighs in at about 40 pounds.  Where did those 40 pounds come from?  What did the "stuff" of the tree used to be?

Here's a picture of the tree cookie I cut off after I brought it home.  How old is it?  

The earbuds are included for scale.  It's not really a very big tree.

Lots and lots of people will answer the raw material question with something like, "It comes from the minerals in the soil."  Does that make sense?  What if that were true?  For one thing, it would mean that soil and trees are made of the same stuff.  Is that the case?  Living things are carbon-based.  Is soil carbon-rich?  

Um, no.  Not so much.  

And, if trees got their mass from the soil, wouldn't that mean that really big trees would need to be surrounded by really big pits where they pulled that mass from?  Those holes in the ground would grow over time.  Have you ever seen that?  I haven't but it would make for more interesting walks in the woods.  

Darn near every adult in the country took high school biology and was taught about photosynthesis.  We all learned that plants take in carbon-dioxide and release oxygen.  Then we forgot, or we never really understood it in the first place.  If we stop and think about it, and we remember that life is carbon-based, it ought to give us a little pause -- trees are made out of air!  That is, of course why, as many of you dear readers already know, that planting trees is a way to offset carbon emissions.  

If you already knew that, good for you.  Know that you've got at least a somewhat deeper understanding than the average American.  That's not surprising since you spend at least some of your time reading blog posts about climate change.  

But have you thought about what that 40ish pound tree implies about the scale of tree-planting needed for offsetting emissions?  I wrote a guest post before I was regular here on that in 2009.  I won't repeat that post here, but I'll briefly hit some relevant highlights.  Ten gallons of gasoline weighs about 60 pounds.  If you're burning 10 gallons of gasoline a week, you're releasing about three times that much carbon dioxide as the carbon in the gasoline combines with oxygen in the air to make CO2.  So, a typical driver might release 180 pounds of CO2 a week just by driving.  Photosynthesis does something like a reversal of that process.  Photosynthesis, in other words, can take 180 pounds of CO2 and turn it into something like 60 pounds of tree and 120 pounds of oxygen.  

Now it's time to remember that the 40ish pound tree in your living room is probably eight or ten years old.  So, it doesn't offset a typical driver's week of emissions.  Planting a tree is a good thing to do.  But planting a whole bunch is better.  A bunch of forests is more like what we need.  For each of us.  

Oh, we can't end a holiday post on such a downer.  Then again, maybe we can.  

Better Targeting Energy Use Reduction Strategies

We're not very good at judging the impacts of our energy and energy saving choices, so says a recent study. Happily, aspects of that are pretty easy to fix.

Americans are likely to think that we can make a bigger difference in our energy usage by curtailing activities rather than doing them with more efficient approaches using currently existing technologies. That's wrong, at least for the typical American. The more numerate and more pro-environment the participant, the more accurate their perceptions tended to be, so this isn't universal.

What are the most powerful things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint? How does what you think compare to what experts think? "Public perceptions of energy consumption and savings," published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looks into these questions.

The study found that when asked about the most effective strategies for energy reduction, respondents were more likely to identify curtailment strategies than efficiency improvements. What does that mean? Well, people were more likely to talk about doing less of something (turning off the lights or driving less) than they were to talk about doing things with more efficiency (using Energy Star appliances or a car with better gas mileage).

We're not very good at identifying the impact of the changes we make or might make. The article draws from several others in ways that are helpful in making these estimates. Citing Gardner & Stern, they note:

that by changing the selection and use of household and motor vehicle technologies, households could reduce their energy consumption by nearly 30%—without waiting for new technologies,making major economic sacrifices, or losing a sense of well-being.

That made me want to take a look at the Gardner & Stern article. I suggest that article as well as the one that was actually the catalyst for this post. I especially like this point:

Curtailment actions must be repeated continuously over time to achieve their optimal effect, whereas efficiency-boosting actions, taken infrequently or only once, have lasting effects with little need for continuing attention and effort.

Identifying the energy suckers

So, identify your big energy suckers and figure out how to make them better in a long lasting way. What are the big suckers? Here's one of a number of helpful tables in Gardner & Stern:

Click here to enlarge.

And, here's another (really tiny but still) useful table (Click here to see it in a readable format):

Click here to enlarge.

How do you compare to the typical American?

Of course in thinking about these things you need to keep in mind how you compare to the typical American. You may already have a hybrid car. You may fly much more than the average American (~2 roundtrip flights/household/year). Most Americans don't fly at all in the typical year, so I used the word 'average' instead of 'typical'. Adding a lot of flight time to your life makes your carbon footprint, well, skyrocket.

If your habits, like mine, are different from the typical American, adjust your targets accordingly. I fly a lot more than the average American, but have already done many of the things identified in Table 3. Unfortunately, my flying habits brings my emissions up to too close to the national average. Sigh. Dealing with my flying addiction is a longer term goal.

So...

Hopefully the above will help you identify your low hanging energy reduction fruit, and maybe let you know what only is making a small difference. Of course, small differences do add up (and leaving lights on in an empty room just drives me crazy).

Peer-Pressure and Sustainable Lifestyles

On Fathers' Day, I wrote about how my Dad inspired my passion for green ways of living. Last week, I asked you how you came to your green lifestyle or aspirations for a green lifestyle. (There are several of us who take turns writing posts; I, Don Duggan-Haas, usually post on Wednesdays). This is the third in this series of posts that deals with where your aspirations for sustainability comes from.

In discussions of why people are the way they are, issues of nature verses nurture are often central. Placing the discussion into that dichotomy almost certainly oversimplifies and arguably marginalizes important issues. I won't go into great depth on that argument, but will note that Judith Rich Harris addresses the issue in her 1998 book, The Nurture Assumption, and will note that the book makes a compelling case that peers matter more in character development than either your genes or what your parents do.

I believe Dad's influence on me was important. I don't know whether it was the genes he gave me or the example he set for me that was more important. Further, I don't know if either his genes or his example were as important as the company I have kept. My peers, including friends and colleagues, have greatly shaped the way I see the world and the way I move in the world. That's almost certainly true for you too. And for your friends.

That's a little frightening when I consider the company I've kept, but on the whole, it's a good thing. My friends, goofy as they are, have made me a better person.

Everyone's an influencer. Everyone's a teacher.

I suspect most people who read this blog regularly live in or near Ithaca. Being in a town with Ithaca's vibe shapes the way you see the world and your place in it. I don't live there now, but I have in the past. (I'm PRI's lone telecommuter and live in Amherst, NY). The communities and network you affiliate with really matter in making you the person you are and in shaping both your activities and theirs.

Your community matters, and so do your friends. Obesity and weight loss have been shown to be socially contagious -- if you have obese friends, you're more likely to become obese. If you have friends who have lost weight, you're more likely to lose weight. Similar effects are seen for smoking.

These things make sense -- having a friend lose weight or quit smoking offers both incentive and someone to share strategies with. And more. Having a friend gain weight or start smoking can show that it's not that big a deal in your peer group.

Does the general idea of social contagion carry over to reducing carbon emissions? I don't know, but it intuitively makes sense to me. The Low Carbon Diet is a community-based approach to reducing carbon emissions. It's based on a weight loss approach that involves calorie counting, but instead of counting calories, you're counting carbon emissions. And you're working in a support group with friends and neighbors.

Thinking about carbon emission reduction as contagious doesn't mean you ought to dump your carbon-intensive friends, though you might think about things that your friends have done that influence what you do.

That probably doesn't involve nagging, just in case you were wondering. Showing them the things you've done to reduce your footprint could be helpful. Maybe asking them to shut off their engine while they're chatting with you in the driveway would be ok too.

The line of thinking might also imply making new friends who can offer support for making the kinds of changes you aspire to. And, it can give you an excuse to get old and new friends together to embark together on a Low Carbon Diet.

Can you identify friends who've made you more sustainable? Can you thank them for the help they've offered? Can you talk with them about next steps to take together?

Next week, I'll share some more thoughts on the Low Carbon Diet.

How do you come by your greenness?

On Fathers’ Day, I wrote a bonus entry for the blog, to honor the memory of my Dad (and to set me up for today’s post). That post is about how Dad was the catalyst for me thinking about sustainability and for my working toward living a more sustainable lifestyle.

He wasn't the only reason I'm the way I am -- far from it. But he's probably the most important factor for my green leanings. Next week, I'll write about what I think is the first runner up.

If you’re reading this, you likely also aspire toward a sustainable lifestyle. I want to know why you hold those aspirations, and I want to know if you think you’re making headway toward living up to those aspirations.

I want you to comment on this post. Or at least think about commenting.

There are two reasons I want you to comment. I'll state them simply and then explain each in just a bit more detail.

1. 1. To help you. Commenting makes you think about your sustainable inclinations and thinking about them helps deepen your understanding.
2. 2. To help us. You can help us reverse engineer understanding of sustainability – If you're motivated to live an environmentally sustainable lifestyle, you must have done something, seen something, or read something that brought that about. Maybe we can incorporate some of those things into our programming or resource development that can help motivate others toward more environmentally friendly ways of being.

Commenting helps you build your own understanding:

There’s compelling research on how people learn (and see this and this), and one of the key findings of that work is this:

A "metacognitive" approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them.

In other words, if you learn about how you learn and think about how you think, you'll be a better learner. In asking you to comment, or at least think about commenting, I'm asking you to be metacognitive. Where did your passion for and understanding of sustainability come from? Crafting a sentence or two has the potential to help you better understand how to deepen those understandings.

Commenting to help us build understanding in others:

Giving us some feedback also has the potential to help others do what you've done. If you can tell us the things you've done and the things you've read or watched or created that deepened your understanding and catalyzed your actions, then maybe we can help others do the same.

So, why are you green?

Where my passion for sustainability came from -- Fathers' Day reflections...

Why am I (philosophically) green?

My dad, Roger Haas, who died six years ago last month was a very quiet man. He was unexpressive to the extreme, virtually never, to my recollection, teaching anything explicitly, yet he taught me a great deal. Most of his teaching was by example.

It gives me the willies when a friend or colleague leaves an engine running while chatting in a driveway or parking lot. That comes directly from Dad. He got the willies too.

He built things -- there was the solar thermal panel that pre-heated hot water in the form of copper pipe painted black inside a glass covered box leaned up against the souther side of our house (the inside was also painted black). There was a windmill in the backyard made from oil drums cut down the middle. I don't think that ever actually generated any useable power as was the goal, but he did get it to spin in the wind.

He turned things off and made sure we did too. Lights left on in empty rooms were one of a few things that made him visibly irritated, and we knew not to run water while we brushed our teeth.

My siblings and I also knew that little scraps of metal or wood, or interesting pieces of broken things could be made to serve some later purpose.

These things have been passed on -- one brother has a geothermal heating system. I'm not the only one of my siblings who mows the lawn with a reel-type mower (Dad used one too) and has insulated his or her home far more than the average American.

I know Dad did these things largely because he couldn't stand to see things pointlessly wasted. What good does it do leave a light on in an empty room? Why should I use natural gas to heat my water when the sun can do it free? Why would we want to squander our resources? Thanks, Dad, for passing this along to me.

What makes you green?

Using Yourself to Understand the Global

When I first started trying to shrink my carbon footprint (about 20 years ago), I was doing so largely because I felt guilty for the damage I was doing through my daily activities. That’s a pretty good reason, but it’s not the most important one for me anymore.

Of course, there are lots of reasons – that guilt; lower utility, travel, and grocery bills; unclutter your life and your home; get in better shape by walking and biking and more. All these reasons matter a great deal, but, for me, the most important reason to shrink my footprint is to learn, and to learn for action.

Twenty years ago was seven jobs, six houses (the first was a rental), and two apartments ago. I’ve gone from being a single guy renting a tiny house to a married father of two living in a smallish house (with some bigger residences in between). I’ve had jobs with long commutes, with walkable commutes, to the commute I have now where I walk downstairs to my computer. All of my jobs in that stretch of time have required at least a bit of work-related travel, but I’m now doing more than ever.

All of those jobs have been about helping people understanding the world from a scientific perspective. Studying your carbon footprint and how to reduce it can be a great strategy for building understandings of your place in the world.

For more than half of the twenty years I’ve been trying to reduce my footprint, I’ve used calculators like the one from the Global Footprint Network to gain a sense of what my ecological footprint is, or to figure out what my carbon footprint is (which is a slightly different concept) I've used the Nature Conservancy's calculator. If you don't know about carbon or ecological footprints, these links are great places to start. Both give good overviews of the related science, and both allow you to change variables and immediately see how that changes your footprint (although the impact of changing airplane travel wasn't working on the Global Footprint Network when I fiddled with it this afternoon).

During the 20 or so years I’ve been thinking about my lifestyle in terms of a carbon footprint, the size of that footprint has gone up and down. That's not surprising based on the changes in my life over that time. It's disappointing to me that it's not gone down consistently and I hope to redirect the trend in footprint size downward.

But I also know that just changing my footprint isn't really going to reduce climate change very much if that's the end of what I do.

However, is is a logical place to start. A key idea informing my work as an educator is to use the local to understand the global. That's central to place-based learning and place-based learning is, in my opinion essential to effective Earth system science education generally and to developing climate literacy specifically. And what's more local than you?

Reduce your carbon footprint. You probably know many of the basic things that need to be done (and if you don't looking back through previous entries in this blog can get you well on your way). But don't let reducing your footprint be an end in itself. Use the study of the environmental impacts as a gateway to understand broader climate and environmental issues.

It can be depressing to visit the different footprint calculators and see what happens when you reduce everything as much as the software allows. You can't get to zero. You can't get to a footprint small enough to be sustainable if you live in the United States (on these calculators) because governments have big footprints, and you contribute to that whether you like it or not.

So, you can't get to zero or to sustainable by yourself. You need to be a part of something bigger. Getting to sustainable requires collective action. Figure out how to reduce your own footprint as much as possible and help others do the same, then (or at the same time) work to change the larger society.

What ideas do you have to nurture that collective action?

On the costs and benefits of legislation on emissions....

Today's post is by PRI's Education Research Associate, Don Duggan-Haas

On Monday, May 17, I attended the Climate Change Roundtable Discussion on New York State Senate Bill 4315. The purpose of the bill is to require the State Department of Environmental Conservation to institute rules and regulations establishing limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The bill sets out stepwise targets between now and 2050 where the goal is to have emissions 80% below those of 1990.

The Roundtable was sponsored by Buffalo's State Senator Antoine Thompson, who chairs the Senate Committee on Environmental Conservation. It's purpose was to elicit feedback from variety of stakeholders. There were representatives from the New York Farm Bureau, The Sierra Club, NYSERDA, the New York State Chemical Alliance, the New York State Apollo Alliance, National Grid, National Fuel Gas, The Department of Environmental Conservation, the New York Public Interest Research Group, The Business Council of New York State, and many more business, environmental and government organizations. (I'll note that of course we’re all stakeholders).

I was there representing both PRI and WNY Climate Action. I’m a Steering Committee member for WNY Climate Action, a loose-knit all-volunteer community organization whose mission is to organize, facilitate, catalyze, and support personal and collective action in the Buffalo and Western New York to address global climate change. I expect to write more about some of the work I’ve done with this organization in future posts, especially as related to helping folks in Western New York join in coordinated greenhouse gas emissions reductions through a program called The Low Carbon Diet.

In the rest of this post, I’ll share observations and related commentary on two issues from the Senate's Climate Roundtable. The first is that no one who spoke during the two hour meeting in any way denied the reality of human contributions to global climate change. The second, which I’ll spend a bit more time on, has to do with considerations of costs and benefits of action and inaction related to greenhouse gas emissions and the connection of those costs and benefits to innovation.

While support for the bill was not unanimous, no one denied the need for action on emissions reductions and several of those representing business described ways they are working to reduce emissions. The Farm Bureau representative noted that NYS dairy farm GHG emissions are lower than those in most industrialized nations. National Grid's representative spoke of their reward program for executives whose divisions or departments reduce their carbon footprints. I found the agreement on the basic science absolutely refreshing and I hope it's truly indicative of the groups these individual's represent.

Many who talked about their business's initiatives to reduce emissions also noted that the costs for businesses of emissions reductions will be passed along to consumers. I have no doubt that this is true. There are costs to action, but there are also costs to inaction and in both cases costs are economic and environmental. And, I think at least as importantly, the benefits of action will be the consumers' to enjoy.

Certain benefits, in the form of avoided environmental costs are likely obvious to readers of this blog. How much is it worth to not have sea level rise by a meter? To reduce severe weather incidents? Benefits in the form of avoided catastrophe are indeed important, but avoiding something that's predicted but hasn't happened yet might be hard to really appreciate as it is an abstraction. Benefits of emissions reductions also help to reduce unpleasantries right here, right now. Stopping buses from idling while our kids get on and off school buses reduces asthma. If there was fast, frequent and reliable mass transit between Albany and Buffalo, I'd have had a much more pleasant and productive commute to Albany. I wouldn't have had to shell out $10 to park or put in nine hours behind the wheel.

Perhaps most conspicuously in the spring of 2010, if we were living in a world less fossil-fuel dependent, we wouldn't have lost 29 lives in the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster just over a month ago, or lost 11 lives and unleashed the epic and still growing environmental catastrophe that began with the explosiion of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil platform.

To move us away from our fossil fuel dependent lifestyles will require real, large-scale innovation. Senator Thompson used the cell phone to highlight the possibility of sweeping technological change. Very few of us had cell phones in our pockets twenty years ago and now many of us can hardly fathom life without them. What technologies (or what lifestyle changes) will we depend on twenty years from now that we can't imagine today?

Related to the Senator's comments on cell phones, I'll close by raising some SAT-style analogy questions (that I also raised at the Roundtable):

• Typewriters are to computers as cars are to:___________________
• Typewriters are to computers as coal-fired power plants are to:___________________

Legislation can help nudge us toward answers to these questions and answers to these questions can lead us to an array of benefits that go beyond avoided catastrophe. Imagine the possibilities. Then do something to move toward those possibilities.

The carbon footprint of breakfast

We all enjoy our weekend breakfasts, complete with eggs, bacon, toast, AND orange juice. But if we sat back and calculated the carbon footprint of the meal instead of the calories, would it make us think twice about indulging? Pepsi Cola has calculated the carbon footprint of their Tropicana orange juice to be 3.75 pounds of carbon for each half gallon purchased. Check it out below. So the next time you sit down to breakfast, think about it first. Are your eggs local and organic? Your bread? How much vegetation was needed to feed the producer of your bacon or sausage?

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/01/22/business/0122-PEPSI_index.html