IAASP: Information & Articles About Saving our Planet

In the world of environmental lobbying there’s one country’s leader the activists know they don’t need to persuade that their cause is right – Prince Albert of Monaco.

From the day he took office two years ago he immediately made his mark by signing Monaco up for the Kyoto protocol, and since then has regularly taken his own initiatives and publicised others to further the green agenda.

Speaking at the Ritz Hotel in London recently, Prince Albert told assembled reporters about his own environment foundation which he launched after a visit to the Arctic to study the impact of global warming and rising sea levels.

But while he might be able to persuade the great and the good to help with his foundation, will he be able to persuade millionaires to get on a bus and leave their Aston Marion or Ferrari at home?

Monaco reduced the cost of a bus ride down to one Euro in April 2007, and the number of people taking the bus has risen, but the percentage figure could be in single figures – a move in the right direction but not enough to significantly reduce Monaco’s carbon footprint in itself.

Prince Albert is reported as saying that he would consider introoducing a congestion charge to Monaco, much like that of London. Considering the size of Monaco at around a square mile and the number of people who work in Monaco but commute in it could be a good revenue earner for the tax haven, as well as potentially reducing the overall impact on the environment the Principality has.

And the good news for Monaco’s millionaires is that if they were going to be charged 10 Euros a day for using their car before 10am some of them would make more than that in interest in one of their Monaco bank accounts by journey end.

Recently though global warming and rising tea temperatures aren’t playing to quite the script that Prince Albert might have expected, according to recently released figures.

Rising sea temperatures is seen as a major contributor to the ice caps melting, and is seen as a controversial part of the green campaign on climate change as some scientists argue that sea temperatures would take hundreds of years to rise as a direct result of human activity. Quite what Prince Albert will make of the findings on his own doorstep isn’t known yet.

The Mediterranean waters off Monaco caused concern four years ago in 2003 when the water temperature reached 28 degrees centigrade – 82 degrees farenheit – but this year saw temperatures cool considerably to 23 centigrade in July and 24 in August. Two other warm years apart from 2003 were 2001 and 2006.

Commenting on the findings, a local Monaco travel guide states ‘There doesn’t appear to be a consistent rise over the years in the water temperatures, and they vary year by year, sometimes rising, sometimes falling – which would appear fairly natural rather than anything that could be seen as particularly alarming with a need for action. Should temperatures rise consistently for a few years in succession perhaps that would indicate something really is going on in the Mediterranean around Monaco.’

Whether a traffic cop in Monaco will see it that way for anyone trying to avoid a congestion charge is another matter!

More environmental news about what is happening in Monaco and Monte Carlo is available at YourMonaco.com

Official Grand Prix Monaco F1 tickets along with Monaco hotel reviews and hotels in Nice are also available at YourMonaco.com

With the global effects growing, Mayor Nickels sent out a challenge to mayors across the country urging them to start implementing the changes that the Kyoto Protocol demanded of its member nations. The idea was that if a grassroots network could be built to prevent global warming, it would essentially do the same job that the government was shirking by not ratifying the Kyoto agreement.

A letter and an endorsement agreement were sent out. Mayors across the country had the chance to accept entrance into this group. The letter was sent out on March 30, 2005, and the acceptances soon started pouring in. Mayors, it seemed, did want to do something about global warming.

Sometimes, it is amazing what one person can do. What is even more amazing is how people from all over a large nation such as the US can come together for a single purpose. With cooperation like this, there will be great strides in preventing global warming.

Celebrities weigh in on global warming

Celebrities are putting their fame to use by calling attention to the subject of global warming. Famous people in the entertainment industry are using their knowledge of film-making to create documentaries about global warming. Others are simply using their influence to make a statement.

Another documentary based on global warming features Keanu Reeves and Alannis Morrisett as narrators. The global warming film, entitled The Great Warming, is all about the changes in the climate caused by excessive global warming.

Perhaps the most powerful environmental activist on the scene today is producer Laurie David. She is the wife of actor Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm. She has lobbied for governmental change to promote the cause. Then, she started organizing the Stop Global Warming Virtual March to rally support among the everyday people. She has so far encouraged hundreds of thousands of people to join her.

The destruction of ecosystems by global warming has begun. Since all the species are needed to support each other, the whole world will suffer when species are lost. Only a concerted effort on the parts of all human beings will help the situation.

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With the release of the IPCC reports, attention was given as to how much of the problem was due to human activity and how much to causes in nature. Which then this report makes predictions of how the course of global warming will run in the future.

The severity of hurricanes was discussed. It is stated that humans have brought on the global warming that has caused the extreme hurricanes, and that the 21st century will see even more of them. The portion of the study that blamed humans was a result of expert opinions more than a product of research.

Different models were given of the course global warming would take in the next century. The models were run using different scenarios. They all turned out somewhat different. However, they all indicated significant global warming.

Global warming is pushing a reported 2000 species toward the poles. The climate becomes warmer in the habitats the plants and animals are used to. They naturally gravitate towards a cooler climate that will match the earlier climate of the region they left. They were moving at a rate of 3.8 miles per decade.

Some movies on global warming from the IPCC reports

It seems that people are coming from all directions to make movies about global warming. Many people are moved to educate people about the subject and want to reach the widest possible audience. Books do not hold the appeal they once did. Now, people want to sit down and watch a movie to understand subjects like global warming.

An Earth Story, starring Ross Gelbspan and John Hutchison is another of those documentary-type movies. It tells the story about all those scary predictions of climate change due to global warming. The sub-title is An Alternative to Extinction. That alone should explain how dramatic this movie is. The solutions to global warming are equally dramatic.

Energy Crossroads: A burning need to change course, is a documentary movie about the energy crisis. It deals with the amount of oil that will be left in the future and the different ways to overcome that crisis. However, a good part of this movie is devoted to a study of how energy issues are tied to global warming. It points to global warming as one of the reasons humans need to make changes.

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The traditional energy business is booming, with crude oil prices pushing $100 a barrel and gasoline pushing $4 a gallon. At the same time supply-and-demand are being taxed like never before and there’s growing concern about finding new reserves.

In the U.S., it is further complicated. As consumption increases, even with growing conservation efforts, so do imports. The potential for new domestic production is limited, oil refineries and natural gas facilities are not being built, and potentially rich areas are off limits to exploration and drilling, partly because of environmental concerns.

Energy infrastructure is also a controversial problem. New refineries, pipelines, generation, and transmission lines (enough to meet the increased need) are not being built, even as demand rises.

New research and advice are needed. Daniel Yergin has made a business of that as well as a public service.

Yergin chronicled the history of the oil business in his Pulitzer Prize-winning non-fiction book The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power. The 1990 book was made into a PBS mini-series. He chaired the Dept. of Energy’s 1995 Task Force on Strategic Energy Research and Development. Yergin also serves as CNBC’s global energy expert.

Yergin, co-founder and chairman of the consulting firm Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) recently shared his insights on the energy industry, consumption, and policy.

How desperately do we need a national energy policy?
I think what we need is a national energy framework that puts the pieces together. I don’t think you’ll ever be able to write a constitution for energy. We already have a host of policies of all kinds. You need a set of principles and a way of implementing them. You have to recognize we live in the real world and then address energy supply and innovation.

Do we need clear leadership on this issue?
One of the characteristics of the energy industry is that it is a long-term industry. Innovation takes time to develop and unfold. We don’t need a highly centralized approach. We’re seeing more innovation than I have ever seen, in renewable or alternative energy, for instance. There’s been a great bubbling of innovation.

The other thing you have to keep in mind is the scale of it. You can have wind grow very quickly and dramatically, but it is still a very small piece of the puzzle.

In a new study of ours, “Crossing The Divide,” we’re looking at all the renewable energies, and only some of them are close to being commercial and all mostly depend still on some kind of incentives or subsidies, but real progress is being made.

Describe the innovation that’s taking place.
What you have is that the large, existing companies – be they technology or energy – are spending on R&D. Government budgets are going up.

Research institution budgets are going up. The entry of venture capital, which is spending several billion dollars a year on so-called clean tech, is important. There’s a real focusing of research on energy at universities, like MIT and many others.

What are the major integrated oil companies doing in that regard?

BP is in a half billion-dollar partnership with the University of California to work on bio-fuels. Shell is doing a lot. Exxon Mobil spends a billion and a half dollars, depending on how you define it, on R&D a year. You went through a period when energy prices were low and there was the inevitable situation wherein budgets got cut in many companies, although not all of them. That’s changed.

Is there a public perception problem then that energy companies are not doing enough?

People don’t really understand. The energy industry is pretty high tech. It is an industry run by engineers and scientists. That’s not what the public sees. I think the other thing the public doesn’t really see, for understandable reasons, is the scale and complexity of the system that supplies this energy.

It is not like introducing iPods or YouTube in that you can change things quickly. In a way I think the terrible hurricanes of 2005 demonstrated what people didn’t understand: how vast and complicated is the energy system, including the energy complex in the Gulf of Mexico, when electricity doesn’t work, refineries don’t work, gasoline doesn’t get delivered.
This scale of the thing is one of the least understood things of the whole picture and how interconnected we are with the global situation.

What about consumers? They want to consume the energy but they don’t want the infrastructure.

People want the benefits of energy without understanding the investment that has to go with it. A good example is offshore drilling in U.S. The capabilities are so much greater than they were 30 years ago to drill in an environmentally sound way with a smaller footprint. Looking forward, the big frontier ahead is how you manage carbon.

Would major energy companies support a carbon tax?
I think as a country, including the energy companies, we recognize we are going to move to some kind of carbon management system. Is it going to be a cap system, a tax, or a combination of the two? That will be the debate over the next couple of years.

Is the infrastructure issue overlooked?

When we talk about energy security, we just talk about production or gasoline stations. You have to think about what goes on in between. The great lesson from the hurricanes of two years ago was the importance of the resiliency of our energy structure. Also, a more efficient transmission system allows you to more efficiently allocate your capital and decide what you build. The other thing is that there is a lot of focus on clean tech, renewables. It is now becoming a big business.

You talk about energy efficiency. How realistic is that?

I think it highly realistic. This is part of the genius of America – innovation, doing things smarter in terms of what we build, what we live in, what we drive. I think the price of energy is a message and the message today is be more efficient. To me that is the punch line.

You chaired a task force a decade ago. What were the lessons learned and what has been applied?

The lesson is that research and development is not something you turn on and off every few years. You need to be consistent and keep up the funding.

Otherwise, you lose continuity and lose human capital. That means people.

Daniel Yergin, chairman of CERA, received the Pulitzer Prize for “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power” and the United States Energy Award for lifelong achievements in energy and the promotion of international understanding. Vist CERA.

Gift shopping is not often an environmentally friendly process. You can drive all around town, trying to find a gift that is just right, or you buy it online and deal with often excessive packaging. It’s not easy to get under control.

While some of this really cannot easily be contained, there are some things you can do to consider the environment even as you give great gifts.

Some people will be more open to gifts that are obviously environmentally friendly. You may be shopping for someone who would be delighted with some stylish cloth shopping bags so that they don’t need to get plastic bags at the grocery store anymore, or they may think the entire idea is nuts. That’s something to consider as you shop.

The kind of gift you give is the first thing to consider. Quality should always be a factor. You don’t want to give something that is going to break quickly. In many ways this is as important as what the item is made of and how it is made. Things that break quickly, even if made in an environmentally friendly fashion, are not all that good for the environment.

If you have the skill to make things, sometimes that can be very green too. It can depend on what you’re making and what you use to make it, but there’s something about a well done handmade gift that can really stand out.

But gifts don’t have to be things. You can give a membership to a museum, tickets to a play, or offer them some of your own time. Many times these are even more appreciated than other kinds of gifts.

Shopping isn’t the only challenge, of course. Gift wrap is also a challenge. But you can do all kinds of things that are greener and/or more creative.

Try making your own gift wrap, for example. Butcher paper, paper bags and so forth can easily be decorated attractively. This is especially fun for children to do.

You can also make the wrap a part of the gift. Kitchen tools in a new bowl, for example. If you skip the all too common plastic wrap you can keep your gift from wasting anything more than a tag.

Perhaps above all else, make sure you’re giving something that will be wanted and used. Things that are used and treasured for years are far better for the environment than things that last only a short time, for the most part… except of course for food gifts. You don’t have to give up gift giving to live a greener life, but you do need to think more about what use will be made of what you give.

Stephanie Foster blogs at http://www.greensahm.com/ and gives advice for stay at home moms on trying to live a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. She has more tips on green gift giving at her site.