HER LEED

This week provides a whirlwind of interesting material. First, I read a fascinating article about China’s position in the sprint toward green, clean energy and technology.

At a Shanghai clean-tech conference the author shared a critical observation: the Chinese business people in attendance arrived early but didn’t stay. It seems China values action more than words.

Break to the 4th Annual Clean Tech Awards Gala in San Francisco, the Oscars of clean technology. Hosted in the Masonic Auditorium by the likes of Google and Autodesk. The trade show floor was lined with innovators sharing their state-of-the-art home energy management systems and solar distribution software, touted to stimulate the market and inevitably lower the price. All participants were looking for funding with the hope that angel investors in attendance would shine brightly on them.

Meanwhile, China, the holder of our tremendous debt is busily spend the accruing interest by building coal fired power plants next to massive wind farms. Back home, our cities and states prepare for stimulus funds but fearfully don’t add any new jobs. Sustainable businesses anxiously wait for America’s confidence to return so that they can pay their workforce to install, remodel and restructure how we use our energy.

Cash, the King of Our Empire, is held up in a palace in China and seems to be enjoying his stay. As we move toward a new kind of feudalism, where trade and barter are acceptable forms of payment, localvores and community gardens abound, perhaps our country will graciously release its grip on a world market it no longer dominates, stop talking about how to get it back  and just get to work.

The International Day of Climate Action met its mission, in part, by drawing out at least 350 environmental advocates to San Francisco’s Justin Herman Plaza on Saturday. Hosted by 350.org, the event’s statement: “inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis—to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet,” inspired this constituent to review social movement theory to figure out why the event had such little impact.

Climate action participants mix their messages.

Activists from other social movements weakened the message of lowering our carbon emissions to 350 part per million (we’re currently around 390). Women’s reproductive rights is an important stand alone issue, and becoming a vegan is beneficial for the environment, but mixing these messages only served to confuse the public. Perhaps staying on point would have helped this climate action movement to build a stronger base.

Inspiration came from San Francisco’s City Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi who unfortunately never removed his sunglasses while addressing the shaded plaza. This had the effect of reducing his credibility and his impassioned remarks sounded more like the typical left wing rant you would expect in the Bay Area. It’s unfortunate that Mirkairimi’s accomplishments (he has many to be proud of) were not told to the crowd before he opened his mouth.

Urgency came from automobile drivers unable to get to their destinations while a pedestrian and bike brigade temporarily stopped traffic — one driver claimed she was trying to get to the hospital. This effort to create a possibility of unity around our climate crisis appeared only to create annoyance, inconvenience and discomfort.  People don’t change their behavior when they’re annoyed.

The rally cry; “From coal and oil, To wind and sun, This power shift, Has just begun” led the movement through the plaza but was reduced to a murmur by the time the participants crossed the street to the Ferry Building. The chant fell victim to a classic cognitive science rule: don’t demand renewable energy inside the frame of fossil fuels. By invoking coal and oil before wind and sun, fossil fuels remain in the forefront of the mind. A shift in thinking occurs by invoking what you want, not what you don’t want. Being against coal and oil will not power a movement toward the wind and sun.

Picture a greeting card that shows a sketch of a person standing on the edge of a cliff that sharply drops off into the abyss; when you open the card the message reads: “An optimist enters the world.”

This one goes out to all the game changers that experience the inevitable  waiver in their commitments. Those people and organizations that see our existential dilemma: saving the planet means saving ourselves.  Those women and men who stand for swift action to our climate crisis but confront a worldview that shuns government and rewards corporations.

Come together this weekend. Unite our causes and march to remind our friends and neighbors that nothing short of  bold action will do.

Browsing the November issue of my favorite mind candy, Vanity Fair, I came across a short article about Carrie Fisher.  What struck me in her self deprecating expose’ was an insightful comment that spoke to our energy milieu, “If you claim something, you can own it. But if you have it as a shameful secret, you’re fucked; you’re sitting in a room populated by elephants.”

It’s time to own up to the fact that we can no longer ignore the elephant in the room which is  clean coal technology.

This week I had the opportunity to hear a lecture by S. Julio Friedmann, a scientist from the Laurence Livermore National Lab and its Carbon Management Program Leader.

In the hour and a half that we spent together, I listened to a passionate and compelling argument for the necessity of carbon capture and sequestration.  The capturing of carbon dioxide from industrial facilities, its removal from the atmosphere, processing to liquefy it, and subsequent injection below the earth’s crust is, according to Dr. Friedmann, a necessary interim solution to meet the steep emission reduction targets set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The former Exxon researcher made the claim that even with the aggressive deployment of renewable energy, including the low hanging energy efficiency fixes, it is still not enough to combat the violent weather changes ahead of us.  He asserted that we have to capture carbon and store it in high volume, low risk underground reservoirs. Even if the consequences of doing so are not fully developed, he claimed that leakage can be mitigated.

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu is advancing this technology with a 4 billion dollar investment and John Kerry and Lindsey Graham’s Sunday Times Op-Ed piece rallied for America to become the Saudi Arabia of clean coal.

America is taking ownership of clean coal technology.  We don’t have to agree with this decision or endorse this type of carbon management, but the transparent disclosure brings light to the magnitude of our fragile climate.

The shameful secret, what limits buy-in from the majority of Americans is that the phrase “clean coal” has been attached to carbon capture and sequestration.  We need to take ownership that coal is not clean and as a society who values comfort over conservation, we are not entirely ready to give it up.  Clean coal technology needs to be re-branded as carbon management; as long as we continue to emit C02 elephants will populate our shame-filled room.

San Francisco hosted the West Coast Green building conference last week at the historic Fort Mason Center. The conference theme, “you are brilliant,” fell flat when it came to integrating efficient transportation and bicycle parking into an event that waves a bright green banner.  This lack of brilliance was a talking point among participants, many of whom missed the key note speakers while they waited for the shuttle bus to arrive.

As one of the participants subject to this oversight, I got to thinking about the process of implementing a whole system approach into our sustainability goals.  If the green conference event coordinators couldn’t schedule more than one bus or organize a bike valet service for those participants who want to reduce their carbon output, what hope do we have that our urban planners will be able to integrate sustainable systems into our metropolitan landscape?

Integrative planning models like those implemented in Curitiba, Brazil simply won’t fly in this country mainly because the planning bureaucracy is locked into a model of segmented incremental change.  Transportation, city planning, building and water agencies operate as their own specialized sectors and departments that work largely in isolation.  There are elements of collaboration and public input but at the end of the day the interests of the individual departments, their political power and funding sources trump cooperative efforts.  The dominate professional mindsets would rather have small changes in all areas instead of coming together to radically shift to sustainable integrative planning.

What the West Coast Green conference revealed was that human error hasn’t been factored into our energy efficiency solutions.  One person tasked to handle numerous elements of a three day event is going to make mistakes.  These mistakes could be avoided yet it requires skills that are currently not rewarded; asking for help, letting go of ownership and the status/identity that is wrapped up with it and working with others so that together our collective brilliance will shine.

Last week the EPA announced a proposal to tighten permitting fees for the largest greenhouse gas emitters.  Smaller industries that emit less than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year will not have to meet the EPA’s self-described “undue burden” of stiffer regulatory compliance. Yet stiff regulation for some and not for all actually prevents cooperation from occurring.  If we’re going to regulate greenhouse gas emissions it should be done across the board.  Singling out just the largest emitters while allowing smaller industries to continue emitting green house gasses doesn’t seem like the “common sense” approach stated by Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Lisa Jackson.

Selecting one powerful group does nothing to move cooperation forward, it is simply a divide and conquer tactic that only leads to retaliation in the form of aggressive lobbying and an exhibition of political might. Is this common sense?  Is it more important to cling to convenience and comfort, to make it easier for smaller businesses to accumulate capital regardless of the environmental cost of doing business?

Money is a deciding factor for capitalism to survive. Our survival as a species is contingent on the environment. Competition may be the life blood of our capitalist system but it is cooperation that will support our evolution.