Simple, Silly Ways to Fight Global Warming

Whitewashing is a common way to deflect heat in warm climates. (Credit: afasoulis@stock.xchang)From this morning's headlines:

Paint the World White to Fight Global Warming

Reported in the UK TimesOnline, Steven Chu, Obama's Energy Secretary told an international audience that one simple way to fight global warming is to lighten up - literally. It makes for great headlines - great, silly headlines like "Paint the World White to Fight Global Warming" - and gives global warming skeptics lots of fodder for jokes. Can't you just hear it now?

"And then this clown - a clown appointed by Obama, no less - suggests that all we have to do is paint everything white and we can cure global warming! HAR!"

Kinda like the way they made fun of then-candidate Obama's suggestion that keeping the tires on your car properly inflated could help solve the energy crisis. Never mnd the fact that there's scientific proof that keeping your car tires properly inflated can increase your gas mileage by 3-4%. That means that the average driver may get 28 mpg instead of 27 mpg. Now, that might not sound like a heck of a lot, but it's all a numbers game. If you multiply that by millions of cars on the road, you get some pretty hefty reductions in the amount of gasoline that we use as a country.

So, the logic behind the idea of painting things white is based on a simple premise:

Light surfaces reflect more heat than they absorb.

What does this mean as a practical measure? At its most basic level, it means that if you paint your house white and whitewash the roof, you'll spend less money (and energy) on air conditioning than if your house roof is a darker color. Chu takes it much further, suggesting that we could save considerably more energy and reduce carbon emissions by requiring light roofs and light road surfaces on all new construction. In fact, though I haven't seen his math and couldn't poke holes in it if I had seen it, he claims that the carbon emissions saved if we painted all roofs white and made all roads from light concrete would be the equivalent of taking all cars off the roads for 11 years.

I know it sounds silly - Save the world! Paint your roof white!

But it's one of those silly things that, frankly, doesn't hurt and might help. It's a relatively low-cost solution with relatively high possible benefit. Even taken to its extreme, it would mean that we'd need to stop using black tar road surfaces in favor of lighter concrete-colored surfaces when we refinish or repave old roads and lay down new ones. It would mean that roofing tiles would be white, tan, pale pink, light gray - how much would it cost to stop making black and dark roofing tiles?

The fact is that silly, simple things often are things that MIGHT help and seldom hurt anything. We don't need to give up all of our creature comforts and revert to the Stone Age in order to go green, nor does it have to cost a lot of money to make little changes that make a little bit of difference. Here are some other simple, silly ideas that might help our world.

1. Keep your car tires properly inflated. (I know. I mentioned that one already. It bears repeating.)
2. Plant a tree. A single tree absorbs a ton of carbon dioxide over the course of its life. And it makes things pretty.
3. Change your car's air filter. According to StopGlobalWarming.org, changing your air filter every month can save 800 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.
4. Change the filter on your air conditioner (and your furnace) regularly. It increases efficiency - and COULD save your life, literally.
5. Buy locally grown produce. It doesn't need to be shipped from far away. Or grow your own for even more benefits.
6. Turn off the lights when you leave the room. Why light a room that's not being used?
7. Bring back the sweater! By turning down thermostats and wearing sweaters in cold weather, you can save up to 1,000 pounds of carbon emissions a year, says StopGlobalWarming.org.
8. Nag your kids. No, really. I still remember my mother yelling, "Turn off the light!" and "Who turned up the thermostat?" Her concern was saving money on oil and electricity. Ours is saving the planet. So make your kids put on a sweater, turn off the TV when they're not really watching it, flip off lights when they leave the room and ride their bikes to the mall instead of getting a ride from a parent. And while you're at it - teach them about global warming.
9. Switch to a Wii game system. Seriously. According to the National Resources Defense Fund, a Wii uses 89% less energy than a PS3 and 85% less energy than an Xbox 360. Check out some other ways to save energy playing video games from an article I wrote last year.
10. Let your dishes dry naturally. Most dishwashers let you decide whether to use the dry cycle. Don't. It's an energy hog. Instead, as soon as your dishwasher is done running, open the dishwasher door and pull out the racks to let the dishes air-dry.
11. Small businesses can look into a cost-effective Dell cloud computing solution that also helps to reduce global emissions caused by inefficient data centers.

Cap and Trade - A Primer for the Newbie

Photo Credit: RybsonChances are that you've heard the phrase "cap and trade", and that you know it's a proposed way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. You probably also know that there's some controversy about it - one of the major Conservative talking points about Cap and Trade, for instance, is that it will add thousands of dollars a year to the average family's energy bills. That figure is still under considerable contenton - and it doesn't take into account that those added costs would be "front-loaded" - sorta the way that you pay for a new furnace all at once, so it adds several thousand dollars to your heating bills for the first year or two - but it also reduces your ongoing energy costs. Eventually, you're done paying for the improvement to your heating system - and have actually got that money back because you're paying LESS for your heating/cooling every month.

But I've got off track here. What I wanted to do in this post is talk about what's a cap, what's a trade, and how is it supposed to reduce global warming. So here goes - quick, simple answers to some not so simple questions.

What is "cap and trade"?

Cap and trade is a series of regulations that encourage businesses to reduce the amount of carbon emissions they release into the atmosphere. Capping emissions is nothing new - the U.S. government did it in the 1990s to reduce sulfur emissions, for instance. Cap and trade would set a goal for the total amount of carbon emissions allowed into the atmosphere, and then auction off "permits" to companies that pollute. In a model cap and trade program, each permit would allow a company to emit one ton of carbon emissions into the air. Companies would purchase permits to cover the amount of carbon emissions that they put out. If they put out more than their permits allow, they'll be penalized.

Okay - what about the "trade" part?

The model program would allow the companies involved to trade/sell permits among each other. That means that a company with lower carbon emissions or more efficient energy use could sell their permits to a company that uses more "dirty" energy. The key to cap and trade would be that the total number of permits - and thus the total amount of greenhouse gasses emitted - would remain the same. The difference would be in the distribution and the flexibility it gives companies to make changes in energy efficiency on a timetable.

How does it help reduce carbon emissions and slow global warming?

Cap and trade is a market-driven solution to carbon emissions. Basically, companies that emit carbon gasses would pay for the amount of carbon gas that they dump into our air - which will encourage them to reduce the amount of carbon emissions in order to reduce their expenses.

Won't that make energy more expensive?

I guess that depends on how long a view you take and what you consider "energy". Energy that depends on carbon fuels -oil and coal, for instance - will certainly become more expensive - that's part of the goal. The intent is to push the development of greener energy sources. The faster energy companies make the switch to renewable, green sources of energy, the more it will cost them up front, but the sooner those new energy sources will become viable.

See, a big part of the reason that we're still using the old legacy forms of energy like coal and oil is that it's cheaper to keep doing that - in the short run. It's all stasis - we know how to do this, we have a lot invested in doing things this way, and we don't want to change the way we do things because it will cost us money up front.

Part of the idea behind cap and trade is to make our current energy sources more expensive and spur the development of green energy by making it less expensive. Other complementary measures will also be in place to spur green energy production - things like money available for job re-training for those who will lose jobs in the coal and energy industries, like subsidies for those who make energy-efficient changes to their production and facilities, and grants to those who are developing green energy sources and delivery systems.

$3,120 a year? Really??

One of the figures that's been floated by the opponents of cap and trade is $3,120. That's the amount that conservative talking point memos say it will cost the average family every year in increased energy and other costs. That figure was pulled from a report/study done at MIT. The author of the study has contested that, claiming that the figure was taken completely out of context and includes figures that shouldn't be in there. One writer claims that since then, the study author has reversed himself and admitted that it may be a fairly realistic figure. They also claim that he had been "miscategorizing" costs as "investments".

And that's where I go back to my opening paragraph, about putting in a new furnace. If you only look at the costs for the first years when you're still paying for the changeover to greener, more efficient and more sustainable energy sources, then it's an expense. I've never been one to take a short range view of things, though. I pay more for my coffee because I believe in economic justice and reduction of global warming, and I don't mind paying more for my heating, cooling, electricty and other things - especially in the short term - if it means that in the long term, my kids will have a safer, more beautiful world.