Cancun

Cancun failed us.  We the concerned citizens of our planet blue hoped Cancun could do three things for us: (1) set an objective of cutting atmospheric concentrations of CO2 to 350ppm or less; (2) close the "gigatonne gap"; and (3) require global emissions to peak no later than 2015.

1. 350
There is currently 389ppm of carbon in our atmosphere: a dense, invisible fog that transforms the earth into a steam bath.  Reducing this number to 350 would give us a good chance at limiting warming to 1.5 degrees celcius and restoring sea ice and glaciers that have already begun to melt, protect alpine water supplies and avoid levels of ocean acidification that destroy coral reefs and other fragile underwater ecosystems.

2. Gigatonne Gap: the elephant in the room
At the previous UNIPCC conference in Copenhagen, nations made pledges to keep their carbon emissions at a "lower level", political speak that ignores the dire reality of the convention's outcome.  The pledges will lead to a 650ppm - or roughly 3.5 degree celcius - increase in temperature by 2100.  Such a rise in temperature would be catastrophic.  It was hoped that cancun would have closed this "gigatonne gap" between a safe level (350ppm) and the pledged level (650ppm).

3. 2015
Of course it takes time to change a world of gas guzzlers and coal consumers and to find effective energy substitutes.  In order to meet the 350ppm target, it has been found that global emissions can peak no later then 2015.  It requires a 5.3% emissions reduction per year.  If we wait until 2020, we would have to reduce emissions by 9% annually, something that would be extremely difficult.

Green Metropolis

I just finished reading David Owen’s book, “Green Metropolis.”    I was excited to read that according to Owen my hometown – NYC – and other European cities are a model of environmental sustainability.  Of course, I’d figured this out a while ago, when living in Monterey, CA.  I couldn’t get to San Francisco without a car.  The distance (a little over 100 miles) is roughly the same as between Manhattan and Montauk, Long Island or Manhattan and New Haven, Connecticut.  The difference of course is accessibility to public transportation.  Public transportation makes people less car reliant and lower carbon emitters.  Living Smaller and Closer, as Owen writes, lowers the amount of energy used.  On average New Yorkers use less fuel to heat their homes and electricity per person than anywhere else in the United States.

In the book, he suggests cities adopt stricter policies to make it less convenient to drive and more convenient to take public transportation, and criticizes cities like Atlanta whose MARTA subway system has too few stations or lines to really make a dent.  The city continues to build more roads to deal with traffic.  Lessons learned from the past have shown that paving more roads just leads to more drivers.

He also criticizes the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard.  LEED has helped spread awareness about green construction processes, however it is so expensive and its certification process so cumbersome, that so few buildings have sought certification.  In 2008 fewer than 1,500 projects in the U.S. have sought certification.  In addition, says Owen, many buildings like Sprint Headquarters in Kansas or the Merrill Environmental Center in Annapolis, MD of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation encourage urban sprawl and employees’ newfound need for personal automotive transportation to reach these new sites.

At the end of his book, which I had borrowed from the SF Public Library, Owen is dubbed a “hypocrite” by a past reader in ominous blue ink. I similarly felt let down.  Throughout the book Owen is a staunch critic of the suburban life, of cities that do little to support public transportation and urban sprawl.  He begins by writing that you can’t change the human compulsion towards comfort and hints that policy must intervene.   Yet at the end he writes, “As long as two-hundred-plus-year-old houses in small New England towns continue to exist and be inhabited, it’s probably not a bad thing for them to be inhabited by people like [my wife and I], since we work at home and therefore don’t have to drive anywhere to work.”  He offers criticism, but few solutions, which left me feeling angry and empowered.  Maybe this was Owen’s intention?

Interested in discussing Owen's book?  Come join us at the San Francisco Green Community Meetup.  We're meeting on February 7th.  For more information, log onto: http://www.meetup.com/San-Francisco-Green-Community/calendar/15980397/