My friend Neal has some great thunderstorm photos up.
It is all the more appropriate, given the deluges I managed to get caught in today.
This shot is the most dramatic.
Month: July 2009
CRTC public submissions and privacy
Quite conveniently, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission allows citizens to comment on ongoing matters through their website. Unfortunately, the privacy protections employed in relation to the submissions are lacking. Their website says the following:
The information you provide to the Commission as part of a public process (i.e. comments, interventions or observations) is entered into an unsearchable database dedicated to that specific public process. This database is accessible only from the webpage of that particular public process. As a result, a general search of our website with the help of either our own search engine or a third-party search engine will not provide access to the information which was provided as part of a public process.
This doesn’t seem to be true. Searching for my own name in Google brings up the submissions I made to them opposing Bell’s efforts to introduce Usage Based Billing (UBB). The submission includes my full name, personal email address, and phone number.
I complained electronically to the CRTC about this, but got no response. I then sent a letter to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, with a carbon copy to them. At the very least, the CRTC should obscure email addresses and phone numbers in a way that prevents robots from harvesting them. For instance, obfuscated email addresses can be made to look normal for standard browsers, but like gibberish for most robots. Alternatively, the CRTC could provide a web contact form that lets people contact submitters, without learning their email address. I have no problem with submissions being made public, in the interest of transparency. If it is going to happen, however, people should be clearly informed about it on the page where they submit the information (not some separate privacy information page) and reasonable efforts should be taken to prevent the inappropriate collection of personal information by either people or automated systems.
[Update: 7 August 2009] The CRTC responded to my complaint, and it seems they have come into compliance with their privacy policy.
Defining timeframes
For the sake of clarity, I am going to try to use the terms ‘near,’ ‘medium,’ and ‘long’ term in a consistent way in future posts about climate change:
- Near-term: within the next ten years
- Medium-term: within the next fifty years
- Long-term: within the next hundred years
For instance: developed states need to establish strong domestic carbon prices in the near term. In the medium term, they need to get very close to carbon neutrality (perhaps with emissions 95% below 1990 levels). In the long term, the entire planet needs to be basically carbon neutral.
When referring to phenomena where the relevant timescale is different (shorter, for politics and quantum mechanics; longer for geology), I will try to use numerical estimates rather than the near-medium-long descriptions.
Sci-fi as a prescriptive genre
Science fiction may be the most prescriptive fictional genre. Firstly, it forces people to consider the consequences of actions and choices across a long timespan. Secondly, it helps to reveal the core ethical values people have: it presents both our aspirations and things that inspire fear, disgust, and outrage. Finally, it makes statements about contemporary ideologies by presenting them with false hindsight.
As such, though sci-fi has a sometimes deserved reputation as an escapist genre, it can also be among the most directly ethically and politically engaged. It also serves a historically valuable purpose, by revealing how those in the past imagined the future. For instance, look at Asimov’s projection that everything would be nuclear-powered in the distant future, even small toys for children. It is no surprise that today’s sci-fi has ecology as a key focus. It would be fascinating to know how it will be read in a century.
Manhattan airport
An idea so comically bad, one suspects it is an elaborate (and not especially amusing) bit of satire: turning Manhattan’s Central Park into an airport.
Firstly, the last thing the world needs is more airports. We need to be aggressively cutting our greenhouse gas emissions, not building infrastructure that will encourage more.
Secondly, the supporters of the project who describe Central Park as an “underutilized asset,” “relic,” and part of a “vestigial prewar cityscape” are probably not speaking for most New Yorkers. Land that has been set aside for green space is precious stuff. Quite probably, people in the megacities of the future will regret that nobody in the past gave up some development opportunities to give them the equivalent of New York’s Central Park, or Vancouver’s Stanley Park.
Thirdly, there is the matter of the noise that aircraft landing and taking off would produce. The design for the airport shows two runways going north-south along the eastern edge of the former park. That wold mean having planes approaching and leaving over areas of dense high-rise development.
Fourthly, there is the seriousness that a crash would have, if it took place in such a densely packed place.
Fifthly, there is the air pollution that results from jet exhaust. Increasing the level of criteria air contaminants like sulfur oxides (SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulate matter (PM), carbon monoxide (CO), lead (Pb), and ground-level ozone (O3) isn’t a great idea in such a densely populated area.
I doubt the scheme has the slightest chance of success, but it is still disquieting that there are people out there so hell-bent on development that they would consider and propose such a thing, then produce a slick website which includes the laughable assertion that environmentalists are ‘rallying in support” of the plan, because it will employ’ active prevention bird strike programs.’ Absurd.
Carbon-neutral aviation
The climatic impact of aviation
At present, virtually all freight and passenger-carrying aircraft operate in one of two ways: burning kerosene to turn a propeller, generating thrust that the wings partially convert to lift, or generating thrust by burning kerosene in a jet engine. Virtually all of that kerosene is produced by refining petroleum. As such, burning it adds to the stock of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. These include carbon dioxide (CO2) (a basic product of the combustion) and other greenhouse gasses (GHGs), like nitrous oxide (NO2). It is also possible that aircraft have an effect on cloud formation (both by producing vapour trails and inducing cirrus cloud formation), but my understanding of the science is that scientists aren’t sure whether that has a net warming or a net cooling effect. The latest IPCC report says:
Moreover, the uncertainties on some aviation forcings (notably contrail and cirrus) are still high, such that the overall radiative forcing consequences of changing cruise altitudes need to be considered as a time-integrated scenario, which has not yet been done. (p. 355)
Helpfully, the report does identify that, if contrails prove to be a significant problem, they “can be easily avoided – in principle – by relatively small changes in flight level, due to the shallowness of ice supersaturation layers.” There is also some uncertainty about the relative emissions of short-lived but potent GHGs like nitrous oxide, compared with long-lived but less potent ones like carbon dioxide. All told, the report does conclude that aviation has a “larger impact on radiative forcing than that from its CO2 forcing alone.”
Carbon neutral possibilities
A couple of logical possibilities exist for making air travel carbon-neutral, though they differ in practicality. Electric planes are conceptually possible, and small versions exist. As I understand it, the big problem is storing enough energy in light enough batteries. My sense is that we are nowhere near being able to do this for large commercial aircraft. Similar issues exist for hydrogen aircraft, in term of storage, and there is the added question of where we get the hydrogen. To me, biofuels seem like the most plausible near-term option. That being said, there are technical issues to be overcome within aircraft themselves, such as the gelling of biofuels at the low temperatures found at high altitudes. While some airlines have tested multi-engine planes with a single engine running on a biofuel/kerosene mix, as far as I know nobody has flown such a plane exclusively using biofuels.
Additionally, not all biofuels are carbon neutral. Ethanol derived from corn might actually represent more greenhouse gasses than an equivalent amount of gasoline, once you factor in fertilizer production, emissions from farming and farm equipment, ethanol fermentation, etc. The same might be true of palm oil derived biofuels, given how their production can lead to the destruction of rainforests that are major carbon sinks.
My sense is that the air travel industry has yet to demonstrate that it will be able to exist in a carbon neutral world, regardless of how expensive tickets become. That being said, it does make sense to displace emitting activities in order from lowest cost to highest cost. If we can replace fossil fuelled ground vehicles with electric vehicles running on renewable power, we should do so first before pouring enormous effort into trying to produce a carbon neutral aircraft. That being said, there does seem to be a strong moral imperative to reduce emissions generally, including by limiting the amount of long-distance travel we undertake.
As usual, I expect any mention of aviation to produce a lively discussion.
Could anyone use a cell phone?
Would anybody have use for a Nokia 6275i cell phone? As it stands, it would only work with Bell, but I could try to unlock it if that would be helpful. I have used it for the last two years, but it is in good condition (some cosmetic scratches, no functional problems). It is a good phone: relatively small, with well-designed software and a fairly intuitive physical interface.
It has a reasonable camera for a cell phone, basic web browsing capabilities, and the ability to use any MP3 as a ringtone. I would include a USB cable for free.
If nobody wants it, I will donate it to a charity.
Cell phones while driving
Over at Slate, William Saletan argues that cell phone use while driving is dangerous enough to warrant a ban. This is because the magnitude of distraction is comparable to an illegal level of intoxication, and because it arises from the mental effort involved in conversation, not the physical handling of a phone. As such, hands-free handsets do not address the problem.
As a cyclist who frequently rides in proximity to cars, it makes sense to me that driving and using a phone should be illegal. Drivers of cars are voluntarily undertaking an activity that poses a serious risk to the lives of others. As such, it is entirely proper to require them to conform to rules that reduce the probabilities of causing injuries and deaths. I am less sure about how the law could be effectively enforced. Technical measures are conceivable, but will always carry the risk of false positives and false negatives. Simply relying on police officers who spot offenders to issue tickets would not be very comprehensive. Can anyone think of a good way by which such a restriction could be enforced?
Climate change and the Colorado River
A study conducted by the University of Colorado at Boulder has concluded that there is a 50% chance of the Colorado River system “fully depleting all of its reservoir storage by mid-century assuming current management practices continue on course.” The authors of the study have determined that could reduce average stream flow by 20%, which translates into a 50% chance of fully depleting reservoir storage. That storage capacity amounts to more than 60 million acre feet, nearly four times the ordinary annual flow of the river.
To appreciate the potential significance of such a development, one need only consider that the river powers more than a dozen dams, and serves the water needs of 30 million people. Replacing the electrical output provided by the dams would be a very difficult matter, and the water restrictions that would accompany declined availability would challenge agriculture, industry, and residential development. The study illustrates some key points about climate change:
- People in rich developed states are also vulnerable
- Serious impacts could arise in the medium term
- Significant aspects of our current economic system could be disrupted in the coming decades, if we fail to reduce our emissions
Hopefully, these messages will get through to voters and policy-makers, and the kind of mobilization required to cut emissions will begin.
Carbon-neutral Tuvalu
Tuvalu, one of the small island states that faces a literal threat of obliteration due to climate change, has vowed to generate all of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. The estimated cost of doing so for the nation of 12,000 people is US$20 million.
The approach is a sensible one, given that the only hope for such states is swaying the world’s major emitters into being more aggressive about emissions reductions than they would otherwise be. Nevertheless, the prognosis for states like Tuvalu and the Maldives is pretty bleak. When rich states talk about ‘dangerous’ climate change, they seem to be defining it largely in terms of their own national interest. Furthermore, most states still haven’t adopted targets consistent with stabilizing greenhouse gasses at a level likely to avoid more than 2°C of temperature increase, and none have taken serious steps towards implementing a plan capable of reaching those targets.