It's Getting Hot in Herre (12 May)

Reviewing The Latest in Environmental, Energy and Sustainability News

Been awhile since I've done one of these news reviews, so let's see what's out there...

First off, the London Guardian pontificates on what the UK would be like with a rise in average temperature of 3 degrees Celsius:

Britain may export wine in future, but it won't be much fun watching telly with a glass of sauvignon Cheviot in 2085. Chief scientist David King says a 3C increase will mean half the world's wildlife reserves and corals will have gone, the tropical forests will dry up, and perhaps a billion people will starve.

And there's more. Last year, the government said that a 3C rise could trigger the melting of the Greenland ice cap, the destabilisation of the Antarctic and "irreversible system disruptions" - basically, out-of-control change. The IPCC says that if emissions are not cut, sea leavels will rise 43cm by 2100, and go on rising after that for 200 more years. Britain, a small island, will become much smaller.

But if losing half the UK doesn't matter, then get used to wild weather. Our drains, houses, underground transport systems and temperaments can barely cope with six inches of snow, winds of more than 55mph or temperatures over 21C, but what is coming could make the great storm of 1987 seem a breeze. There will be no insurance when London is swamped, when your house crumbles into dust or you catch malaria. Yes: 3C is the point when malarial mosquitoes will be able to breed permanently in Britain, cement-eating termites move into your cellars and the green police take over.

I've become a frequent visitor to The Daily Score, the blog produced by the Sightline Institute (a Seattle-based enviro think tank formerly named Northwest Environment Watch). One thread that I've been following is Executive Director Alan Durning's year-long experiment in car-less living in Seattle (here's a recent update). They've also had several posts positing the idea of "feebates" (an incentive plan where car buyers pay an extra fee when buying a gas guzzler while buyers of fuel efficient cars get a rebate) including this one from today about Oregon Senator Gordon Smith floating the idea in Congress. Here's a bit from the Score:

It doesn't take a big feebate to have a big impact. One 1997 study found that a feebate of only $70 per rated mile per gallon would boost new-car fuel economy by about 1 percent every year. (If that study's findings had been acted on in 1997, the average Northwesterner would be saving about $100 per year on their annual gasoline budget.) Higher feebates probably would have saved consumers even more on their gas bills.

Some people are sure to see a feebate system as a new tax, but it's really not. The government doesn't keep any of the money (except, perhaps, for a little to administer the program). Instead, a feebate system just rejiggers market incentives a bit, and then stands back. After that, consumers and automakers figure out how best to respond to the incentives. In theory, automakers will be more inclined to offer more fuel-efficient car choices; and buyers will be more inclined to snap them up.

Speaking of wishful enactments, the WaPo had a guest op-ed this week by Cass Sunstein, a professor at the University of Chicago (and author of the recent Radicals in Robes as well as Risk and Reason: Safety, Law, and the Environment), on comparing the costs of the current Iraq war to estimates of what complying with the Kyoto Protocol would have cost. Guess what? They're very close:

With respect to the Iraq war, careful estimates come from Scott Wallsten, a former member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers who is now at the American Enterprise Institute. Writing at the end of 2005, Wallsten estimated the aggregate American cost at about $300 billion. With the costs incurred since then, and an anticipated appropriation soon, the total will exceed $350 billion.

With respect to the Kyoto Protocol, the most systematic estimates come from William Nordhaus and Joseph Boyer of Yale University. Writing in 2000, they offered a figure of $325 billion for the United States, designed to capture the full costs of compliance over many decades. This staggeringly large figure helped support Kyoto skeptics in the Bush administration and elsewhere, who argued that the benefits of the agreement did not justify its costs.

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By the time it ends, the war in Iraq is expected to cost the United States at least $500 billion and possibly $1 trillion or more. But if the war leads to a large decrease in the risk of terrorist attacks and to a wave of democratization in the Middle East, perhaps the money will have been well spent.

The central point remains. For the United States, the economic burden of the Iraq war is on the verge of exceeding the total anticipated burden of the Kyoto Protocol. Because the price of the war increases every day, its total cost, for America as well as the world, will soon dwarf the expected cost of a remarkably ambitious effort to control the problem of climate change.

The NYTimes is reporting that Wal-Mart (that scourge of retail) is doing what it does best in pressuring suppliers to bend to its will. But this time, it's in the effort of adding more organic food to its product mix:

As the nation's largest grocery retailer, Wal-Mart has decided that offering more organic food will help modernize its image and broaden its appeal to urban and other upscale consumers. It has asked its large suppliers to help.

Wal-Mart's interest is expected to change organic food production in substantial ways.

Some organic food advocates applaud the development, saying Wal-Mart's efforts will help expand the amount of land that is farmed organically and the quantities of organic food available to the public.

But others say the initiative will ultimately hurt organic farmers, will lower standards for the production of organic food and will undercut the environmental benefits of organic farming. And some nutritionists question the health benefits of the new organic products. "It's better for the planet, but not from a nutritional standpoint," said Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. "It's a ploy to be able to charge more for junk food."

This is a dicey proposition for those who want to see more organic food at competitive prices but who have serious problems with the mega-economics of Wal-Mart. World Changing offers some of those concerns:

Then there are questions about the food itself. The offerings themselves, though perhaps made with organic ingredients, are going to be the same. Kraft and Kellogg plan to add organic mac and cheese and corn flakes to their list. And supposedly we will shortly be able to purchase organic Pepsi (sorry, but...is this real?). Marion Nestle, an NYU professor, author, and leading voice on issues surrounding the changing food system, attests that this is merely "a ploy to be able to charge more for junk food."

The potential for big agriculture to destroy the integrity of organic farming stirs valid concern. And the ongoing problem of overconsumption of junk food and its resulting health crises need not be overlooked. Nevertheless, one of the vital thematic threads running through Worldchanging is that big business can have positive effects on the world. In an ideal scenario, Wal-Mart ought to be able to use their might for advancing better farming practices, encouraging healthier eating habits, and increasing access to organic food for low-income families.

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The whole thing brings up an intensely complex set of interlocking problems and solutions, far too enmeshed for a simple answer to whether an organic Wal-Mart is ultimately good or bad. The fact that in one sweeping gesture, Wal-Mart can singlehandedly create the greatest demand for organic food in the world is pretty remarkable. And so the fact that they intend to actually do it is that much more amazing. But as Gil said at the end of last year, the best still isn't good enough. If Wal-Mart is unstoppable, then it's up to us, when they cannonball into the organics industry, to help keep the smaller organic businesses afloat, and to hold the bar high for consistently improving not only the organic standards, but the nutritional value of the foods on Wal-Mart's shelves.

Finally, while we're on the subject of food, check out this post from FotF Gleen Fleishman on his recent reading of Michael Pollan's new book, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, coupled with a recent viewing of Morgan Spurlock's Supersize Me. And if you live in Seattle, think seriously about getting a membership to the PCC cooperative.