Here fishy fishy fishy!

We recently returned from our fifth annual fishing trip at Clark’s Camp on the Indian Lake Chain just north of Vermilion Bay, Ontario.  We spend mornings and evenings in a boat on the lakes catching fish, and afternoons relaxing in camp.  We eat fish for supper almost night, and bring lots home to eat through the winter.

Regular readers of this blog may remember that the chain of events that led to my concern about climate change started with a book called “The Algal Bowl”.  That book examined the problem of algal blooms and their causes in lots of different types of waters.  Some of the experiments described were conducted (and continue to be conducted) in the Experimental Lakes region of Ontario, located between Vermilion Bay and Kenora. (We actually drive by the access road on our way to and from fishing every year.)  One of the causes of algal blooms in lakes like the ones we fish is the depletion of predatory fish due to over-fishing.

When I was growing up in Thunder Bay in the 70’s and 80’s we had a similar fishing tradition at a location north of Ignace.  Over the years, we watched as the size and number of fish we caught declined steadily from the constant fishing pressure there.  Every year we go to Clark’s and I see the number of boats on the lake and the number of fish brought ashore and I worry about the same thing happening to the Indian Lakes.  Last year we also saw a significant algal bloom in the lake while we were there.  Not only does a large raft of algal slime reduce enjoyment of the beach, but if it is extensive it can result in a massive die-off of fish, as the algal growth depletes the available oxygen in the water.  Global warming plays a part in this drama too.  Warm water holds less dissolved oxygen than cold water, reducing the ability of fish to grow and reproduce.  Algae also grows faster in warm water (this is why a hot tub needs more chlorine than a cold swimming pool).  According to the lodge staff, the water temperatures this summer were the warmest that they could remember.

Warm water often makes for poor fishing, but we were fortunate this year to have some of the best fishing we’ve ever had there.  At one point in the middle of the week we all had at our limits, and found ourselves releasing fish of a size that we would normally consider ourselves fortunate to catch.  This made me think about the health of the fish that we were releasing. 

I have gotten better at quickly getting a fish off the hook, taking a picture, and releasing it back into the water, and the fish I release usually seem quite healthy as they dive back to the bottom of the lake.  Sometimes though, a fish will get hooked in an awkward way, which makes removing the hook without seriously injuring the fish difficult or impossible.  This is sometimes because of the barb on the hook.  Many jurisdictions, including Manitoba, require all fishing to be done with barbless hooks, to reduce injuries to released fish.  Ontario encourages but does not mandate the use of barbless hooks.  The disadvantage of going barbless is that more fish will get off the hook on the way up to the boat.  However, when you are just catching and releasing, I think using barbless hooks is the responsible thing to do.

Barbless hooks seem to be difficult to find, but regular hooks can be made barbless simply by crimping the barb against the shaft of the hook with a pair of plyers.  Next year I plan to do at least some of my fishing with barbless hooks, and I will encourage my companions to do the same.

The other action that recreational fishermen can take to encourage the continued health of fish populations is to be selective about the sizes of fish that they keep.  When I was growing up, we always kept the largest fish that we could, the rationale being that smaller fish needed to be left in the lake to grow larger so we could keep catching big fish.  Now we realized that it is important to leave the largest fish in the lake, since the largest fish lay the most eggs, and are the fish that need to be there to keep the fish population healthy.  Ontario fishing regulations limit each person to one pickerel over 18 inches.  The Clarks know that their business depends on there being lots of fish in the lakes for their guests to catch, and so they strongly encourage the release of all pickerel over 22 inches, and they sweeten the pot by allowing everyone who does to enter a draw for a free vacation the following year.  I had the good fortune to enter the draw 3 years ago after catching and releasing a 25 incher.  A 13 inch walleye will produce about 3,000 eggs in a breeding season, while a 22 inch fish will produce over 100,000.  It is important to leave these large breeding fish in the lake, and it is also important to allow some of the smaller fish to grow large enough to replace the breeding fish, which are not productive forever.  It takes a female walleye about 6 years to reach 22 inchese in length.

I hope to be able to go back to Clark’s year after year, and continue to catch fish like this decades from now.

Fresh food, clean air

When we go to the grocery store in the dead of winter, there is just as much fresh produce available as there is at harvest time.  A little bit of this produce is local (root vegetables like potatoes and carrots can be stored for months in the proper conditions) but most of it has arrived by airplane and truck from California, Florida and even as far away as South America.  Long distance transport of food adds significantly to the carbon footprint of our dinners.

It wasn’t always like this.  When my parents were growing up, winter brought a reduction in options for fresh produce.  Fruits and vegetables were mainly available only in frozen or canned form.  Before the widespread availability of electricity canned fruits and vegetables were the only options in winter and spring.  The growth of our transportaion infrastructure has allowed us to enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables year round, but at a considerable cost to our environment.

The 100 mile diet (www.100milediet.org) has become a popular way to try to reduce the carbon emissions caused by our diet.  The basic idea is to only consume foods produced within 100 miles of your home.  In many ways, this means going back to the diets of our grandparents.  For those of us who live in locations with a harsh winter climate, this means the consumption of a lot of meat during the cold months of the year, because there is little local produce available.  The large scale production of meat is very energy intensive, and comes with its own carbon cost, so the carbon benefits of the 100 mile diet in the dead of winter are less clear.

Summer time is another story.  Local carrots, potatoes, strawberries and corn are now available in Winnipeg.  Later will come raspberries, saskatoons, apples and a plethora of other vegetables.  Local produce tastes so much better than produce that has spent days or weeks on a truck from southern California.  Paul’s Fresh Fruit is a seasonal produce stand that operates every summer on Portage Avenue next to the YMCA near our house.  Paul is our principal supplier of fruits and vegtetables as long as the stand is open.  Farmers markets are also great places to find local produce.

I can’t see myself sticking to a 100 mile diet in the winter, but during the summer local produce increases the quality of our food and reduces our carbon footprint at the same time.

Home CO2 emissions

Residential carbon dioxide emissions are almost four times higher now than they were in 1950.  Why the big increase?  Its not the result of an increase in fossil fuel use in the home.  Carbon emissions from home fossil fuel use are about the same as they were in 1950, having remained basically steady since dropping dramatically in the 1970s.  This is likely due to the continued improvements in furnace efficiency over the last several decades, beginning with the widespread shift from coal and oil to natural gas, and continuing with the development and increasing installation of high efficiency units.

The increase in home based carbon emissions is the result of a 19 fold increase in home electricity usage over the last 60 years.  The second half of the 20th century saw a steady proliferation in the number of electrical appliances and electronic gadgets available to consumers. 

One of the most obvious examples of this is clothes dryers.  When I was growing up, most people in our neighbourhood didn’t have a dryer; they had a clothesline.  Now, it has probably been over 20 years since I have seen clothes drying outside, and some locations even ban that practice; yet dryers use an significant quantity of electricity.  When my housemates and I added a dryer to our house when I was in my second year at university, we immediately noticed a large increase in our electrical bill.

The biggest electricity hog in most houses is air conditioning.  This is also something that was very rare in the 1950s and is now considered standard equipment in most locations.  Following is a list of average electricity consumption of some of the greediest household applicances, in kWh/month.

Central Air Conditioning	1925
Electric Water Heater	450
Stove	375
Continuous Furnace Fan	250
Dehumidifier	150
Large Refrigerator	115
Large Freezer	100
Dryer	85
60 watt lighbulb	6

Replacing incandescent bulbs with CFLs and LEDs is good, but if you have lots of other electrical appliances it will not result in a huge reduction in your electrical consumption.  What other steps can be taken by the average family that will make a real dent in their electricity usage?

The hottest year on record

It’s official.  A NASA report indicates that 2010 has tied 2005 as the hottest year since reliable global climate records began in 1880.  And, before anyone can bring out the tired objection that one hot year does not constitute a warming trend, the 12 hottest years on record have all occurred within the last 13 years.

Since the warming trend became apparent in the 1970s, average global temperatures have been increasing by about 0.2C per decade.  Temperatures have now increased by about 0.8C from the pre-industrial average.  It is generally accepted that with the carbon we have currently emitted, even if all emissions ceased today, temperatures would continue to rise another 0.6C, for a total warming so far of 1.4C.  It is also generally accepted that if we wish to avoid a climate catastrophe with potential consequences up to and including global mass extinction, warming must be kept to a maximum of 2.0C.  That means that we have at most 3 decades left to reduce emissions to a sustainable level (about 1/5 of current emissions).

Carbon offsets

Book a flight or other travel online these days, and often you will be asked if you want to offset your carbon emissions.  The theory behind carbon offsets is that you can make your trip “carbon neutral” by paying someone in India to not emit as much CO2 as you will be emitting while you travel, thereby making your expedition “carbon neutral”.

The whole carbon offset industry has taken a lot of ridicule for very good reasons.  When the fad for offsetting carbon really began to take off, a lot of carbon offset companies sprang up, promising to plant trees somewhere to soak up the carbon spewing out the back end of your airplane.  In some cases, the tree planting projects did not exist at all.  In other cases, there were forestry companies that were planting those trees anyways, and saw selling carbon offsets as an opportunity to make their project even more profitable.  Even if the carbon offset project results in a legitimate reduction in CO2 emissions somewhere, critics have rightly pointed out that in order to reduce global emissions to sustainable levels, we ALL need to reduce our emissions.  Paying someone else not to emit will not ultimately get the job done.  The sale of carbon offsets has rather cynically been compared to the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church.

So, you might understandably be a little surprised when I write that I just purchased 3 tonnes of carbon offsets (click the link to view my certificate: carbon offset certificate May 21 2011 ).  No, I haven’t gone soft in the head (I hope).  The integrity of the carbon offset market has improved dramatically over the past few years, to the point where if you know what to look for you can actually do some good by purchasing offsets.  The most important advance has been the development of rigorous standards and independent auditing to ensure that the carbon reductions being sold are real and not being sold multiple times to different buyers.

The other thing about my purchase that may be a little different is my attitude.  I do not see the purchase of offsets as buying me a license to pollute.  No matter how many carbon offsets I buy, I will still be working to reduce my own emissions as low as I can.  I see the purchase of carbon offsets as a way that I can directly provide funding for clean energy development. Here’s are a couple of real examples of how it works: 

A power company in India is replacing generating capacity lost during the Christmas Eve tsunami.  The cheapest way for them to do that would be to build coal generating stations.  However, instead, they decide to build wind generating stations because the sale of carbon offset credits can compensate for the added expense.

A landfill in China is emitting large quantities of methane into the atmosphere. (As a greenhouse gas, methane (CH4) is over 20 times more potent than CO2.)  The availability of funding from the sale of offset credits results in the construction of a landfill gas capture system.  Instead of being released to the atmosphere, the CH4 is captured and burned to generate electricity.  This has the direct of effect of reducing emissions from the landfill, and the indirect benefit of replacing 5 MW of coal-fired electrical generation.  This project (which is the one I purchased carbon credits from) is generating emissions reductions of 134,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year.

So, if you want to purchase carbon offsets, how do you make sure you are really contributing to a reduction in CO2 emissions?  First – don’t even think about investing in any project that achieves results by planting trees or by preventing forest clearing.  There are too many things that can happen to trees (disease, fire, insects, illegal logging, death from climate change) that will release that carbon back into the atmosphere.  The second step is to make sure you are choosing a project backed by a good verification standard.  Projects certified under the Gold Standard (GS) are generally considered to be the best.  While Gold Standard credits tend to be more expensive than those verified under less stringent criteria, their strict requirements and independent UN auditors mean that you can be reasonably sure that the project is generating the emissions reductions that are being claimed.

To get started, you need to find a company to purchase the offsets from.  One good place to start is www.climatecatalog.org .  They maintain extensive lists of carbon companies and the projects that they are involed in, all of which can be searched and sorted in various ways.  Some climate companies simply sell generic credits, without telling you much about how those credits are generated.  I would stay away from those, because that just seems a little shady.  I want to know where my money is going.  Some companies list projects they are involed in, and then sell generic credits that come from a mixture of those projects.  This is better, but does not always allow you to determine what standard was used to verify the emission reductions you are supporting.  I made my offset purchase from South Pole Carbon Asset Management (www.southpolecarbon.com). They are based in Switzerland, and allow you to purchase credits orginating from specific projects.  Here are a few companies to consider:

South Pole (Switzerland) allows you to choose credits from specific projects, some of which are Gold Standard.  Currently, gold standard credits cost US$20.70 per tonne.

Planet Air (Canada) sells generic credits, but you can choose which standard you wish to buy.  Gold Standard credits currently cost Cdn$33.90 per tonne.  Gift credits are also available.

Zero GHG (Canada) includes some Gold Standard credits in its portfolio, but only sells generic credits drawn from all its projects.  Credits currently cost Cdn$19 per tonne.

Climate Friendly (Australia) accepts payment in Canadian funds, but like Zero GHG, while it has some Gold Standard projects in its portfolio, it sells only generic credits, which currently cost Cdn$22.46 per tonne.

Happy offsetting!

Carbon memorial

Here’s a subject that could be a little touchy:  the funeral industry.  Funeral rites in the United States are responsbile for over 500,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.

In North America, bodies are normally either cremated, or embalmed, placed in a casket and buried.  In the United States, about 1/3 of the population currently chooses cremation.  In Canada, 2/3 of the deceased are cremated.  Cremation, normally using natural gas, is an obvious source of CO2.  An average cremation requires 170 cubic metres of gas and emits 325 kg of CO2.  In the United States this adds up to 265,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.  Burial may have a smaller carbon footprint, but probably not as small as you would think.

For standard burial, most cemetaries require a concrete grave liner to keep the grave from collapsing from the passage of heavy machinery.  The average grave liner requires 1150 kg of concrete.  The manufacture of 10 kg of concrete emits 1 kg of CO2, so the manufacture of a grave liner emits 115 kg of CO2.  Some people opt for more elaborate structures.  Every year in the U.S., burials consume 1.5 million tonnes of concrete, resulting in 150,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Most caskets are made from wood.  In theory, this need not have a large carbon footprint.  While the caskets slowly rot and return their carbon to the atmosphere, trees planted to replace those felled to manufacture the caskets soak that carbon up as they grow.  However, many caskets are made from luxurious hardwood trees (such as mahogany) whose source is primarily tropical rainforests.  This harvest rarely occurs in a sustainable fashion.  The carbon footprint here is probably large but is virtually impossible to quantify.

Wooden caskets usually have metal fittings, and metal caskets are also used, though not as often.  Every year in the United States, 95,000 tonnes of steel are buried.  The production of each tonne of steel also results in the emission of one tonne of CO2.  Smaller in quantity, but also significant, are the 2,500 tonnes of copper and bronze that go into the ground each year.

How can funerals be made more climate-friendly?  Green burials are becoming popular in Europe, and are slowly gaining a foothold in North America.  The body is not embalmed, and is buried without a casket.  A tree is often planted over the burial as a living memorial, with the added bonus of making the burial a carbon sink instead of a carbon source.  A small grave marker or plaque can be added as well.

Obviously, this type of burial requires some modifications to what we think of as standard funeral rituals.  Without embalming to preserve the body, the funeral must be planned and held in a much shorter time frame.  Graveside ceremonies need to be changed, as grieving relatives probably don’t want to watch the remains of their loved one dumped, sans casket, in a hole in the ground.  A rental casket can be used for viewing and the funeral service.

I hope that I still have 5 or 6 decades before I get there, but I certainly would prefer my last legacy to be a tree instead of several hundred kilograms of CO2.

Airship cargo

In today’s economy, there are usually two reasons why cargo is transportated by air:  speed and remoteness.  While train and ship transport are far cheaper and have much lower carbon outputs than air cargo, aircraft are used to move cargo that is time sensitive, and they are used to move cargo in and out of locations, like the Canadian north, that lack infrastructure.  It is this second circumstance that is initially being targeted by a group of companies, including aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, that are developing designs for cargo lifting airships.

Lockheed Martin’s SkyTug should be ready for use by late 2013.  It will be capable of transporting 20 tons of cargo up to 1,000 miles.  The SkyFreighter is expected to follow in 2014 with a 50 ton capacity.  By comparison, a Boeing 747-400 Freighter can carry 124 tons of cargo up to 4,450 miles.  Calgary based Aviation Capital Enterprises has purchased the commercial righhts to the SkyTug, and plans to begin selling the craft in 2013 to oil companies for use in northern Alberta.

Barry Prentice, of the University of Manitoba, expects that the SkyTug will find a niche in this province as well.  Continuing climate warming here has reduced the average open time of the winter ice roads that are vital to supplying northern communities from 3 months to 1 month.  Construction and maintenance of all-weather roads is prohibitively expensive in northern Manitoba due in part to melting permafrost, also the result of climate change.  Airships could provide a more cost-effective, reliable and environmentally friendly way to provide service to remote communities.

While airships will likely find their initial usage in remote locations that currently have limited options for cargo transport, Prentice believes that they could one day supplant all fixed wing cargo aircraft.  If true, this would be a huge step forward in reducing carbon emissions.

Read more at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-there-a-future-for-airships

Energy in Common

Meet Sagnin Nwurba.  He lives in Nabu in the Nkwanta North district in the Volta region of Ghana, which has no electricity. He would like to purchase a home solar lantern to light his room at night, and to charge his mobile phone. He has been using kerosene lanterns to light his house over the years, which he complains is not a reliable source of light. He also travels a long distance to get his phone charged. He believes the system will be of great help to him and his entire family. He is married with four children.

Today, I loaned him $45 so he can purchase a home solar lantern.  But first maybe I need to back up and explain.

A few months ago, I noticed on my Facebook feed that my friend Dwayne had made a few microfinance loans through kiva.org.  For those of you not familiar with the concept, microfinance or microcredit is a way to make small sums of capital available to people who do not have access to standard banking services.  These small loans can enable people to improve their lives in many different ways.  Kiva works as a way to bring lenders and borrowers together.  They post loan requests (usually for amounts less than $1000) and members fill those loans, usually in increments of $25.  The loans are distributed by local micro-finance institutions that fund their operations through fees and interest, while Kiva is funded largely by donations from lenders.  The loan is paid back over a period normally between 6 and 18 months, and the lender can then withdraw their money or use it to make another loan. 

In the last month I have made $25 contributions to 5 loans via Kiva.  These have all been loans for the purpose of allowing the recipients to continue their education or to send their children to school.  (While this blog is about climate change, eduction is also a cause that is very close to my heart.)  A few days ago, Kiva added a feature whereby they tag certain loans as “green”.  I was very excited, as that was exactly what I had been hoping to see when I first visited the site.  I eagerly started browsing through the “green” loan requests.  The first one was from a person who wanted to buy a car to allow him to expand his business.  I’m not sure how that qualifies as “green”.

Disappointed, I went looking for another microfinance site that might have more of what I was looking for. What I found exceeded even my most optimistic expectations.  What I found was a site called Energy in Common (www.energyincommon.org). Their goal is to use microfinance to fight poverty and climate change at the same time.    Each loan listing includes the estimated reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that should result from the project.  Of course, the borrowers aren’t thinking about climate change, they are simply thinking about improving their lives.  I doubt Sagnin Nwurba is motivated by the 100 kg /year reduction in CO2 emissions he will achieve by switching from kerosene to solar lighting.  He is interested in having a reliable source of light that is less expensive than kerosene.  My very small $45 loan will improve the lives of Sagnin and his family, significantly reduce their carbon emissions, and in 3 months I will have that money back to loan again.

Lightbulb central

Just as a follow-up to my last post, here’s a link to a blog that is all about lightbulbs.  If you want more in depth and current information about the topic, it seems like a good source. 

http://lightbulbcentral.wordpress.com/

The big news these days is the mandatory phase-out of incandescent bulbs starting next year in the U.S.  With any luck, this will increase the quality and variety of other types of bulbs on the market.

A lightbulb moment

I think by this point just about everyone knows that traditional incandescent lightbulbs are a very inefficient way to light your home.  Most people I know have made some move toward replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluourescent lights (CFLs).  A CFL provides the same amount of light as an incandescent but uses only 1/4 of the electricity.  While they are more expensive, the savings in electricity as well as their longer lifespan mean they are a money saver as well.

CFLs have their limitations.  Most CFL bulbs do not work with dimmer switches, cannot be used outside except in sealed fixtures, and give off a harsh blue light that is not nearly as pleasing as the soft yellow light produced by incandescents.  Fortunately, progress is being made on these problems.  CFLs that produce a pleasing yellow glow are now available.  The difference is obvious in this picture.  Unfortunately, I have not yet figured out how to tell the two types apart simply by looking at the package.

CFLs for use with dimmer switches are also becoming available.  Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have all of the bugs ironed out just yet.  We bought several last week for use in the basement (our house has lots of dimmers). Of six bulbs, one did not work, one continuously generates an annoying buzzing sound (even at full power) and the remainder do not produce nearly as much light as the incandescent bulbs they are designed to replace.  I hope we will see some better products soon.

Even more energy efficient than CFLs are LEDs.  For all intents and purposes, LEDs last forever (the fixture is likely to wear out before the bulb) and they use a tiny amount of electricity.  We have a 1/4 watt LED nightlight that produces a lot more light than necessary (half that would be plenty).  If the nightlight is on for 12 hours a day, it uses 1 kwh of electricity per year.  That costs us less than 7 cents.

LEDs are becoming common in many applications.  We have LED flashlights, I have an LED headlamp, newer city buses have LED turn signals and LED traffic lights are becoming increasingly common, but there are very few LED lights commonly available for household use so far.  We have a three fixture track light in our bathroom that is normally filled with 50 watt halogen bulbs.  I found 1/2 watt LED bulbs that fit the fixture, and replaced two of the halogen bulbs, but I have not replaced the middle bulb because the LEDs, like early CFLs, provide a somewhat dimmer and more bluish illumination than the halogen bulbs.  In spite of the cost of almost $50 for the two LEDs, they are still a money saver, as they save us about $4 in electricity per year, and will never need replacing.

Using more energy efficient lightbulbs is one of the easiest steps anyone can take to reduce their carbon footprint, and it can be a big money-saver as well.