90% Hypocrisy

Once upon a night in which I spent my time having a look at a magazined specialized on fruits and vegetables. Although there are some people who don’t believe it, there are magazines for people from all walks of life. Among all the many different sections there was one dedicated to ecology and I could observe that it was a survey about the degree of concern of Spanish people respect to climate change. Although it could seem unbelievable, 90% of the Spaniards show to be very concerned (I am speaking about the month of June 2007). Should I begin to laugh or to cry? Is anybody pulling my leg? Who on earth has been in charge of carrying such survey and where? Were they collecting the data in an ecologist demonstration? Sincerely, I couldn’t believe it.

With such level of concern things would be very different. Firstly, the use of bicycles would be far greater. Secondly, the fact of driving a car would be far smaller. I wonder if traffic jams would continue being traffic jams. I wonder if so many people would continue doing an irresponsible use of paper, if so many people would continue carrying out an irresponsible use of air conditioning and if many of they would continue travelling and consuming in an irresponsible way. This late on in life I can’t accept people telling they don’t have enough information. We are to be lazy and fat, there’s no way.

Bad Gases

So that's what we get with cows and their poohs. They are so polluting that New Zeland won't be able to catch up with the Kioto Protocal because of its livestock. The question is: why such poohs are so polluting? Among other things, they are because they release a greenhouse gas called methane. The point is that this is not new. It is known that some "special rucksacks" are carried by sheep. Such rucksacks inject a substance into the blood which neutralizes the methane, a gas which is twenty-two times more powerful than CO2 with respect to the capacity of warming the planet.

So far everything seems to be bad but as many things in life there are heads and tails. The good thing of the methane is that if well managed we could be able of making a car work. Let me explain it. If we could manage to collect all the gasses of ten cows during a year, we could make a car work for 9,000 kms, maybe you laugh at what I'm saying but it is bussines, really business. If we take into account that a typical gasoline car goes over 10,000 - 12,000 kms, the propose is really interesting which also would allow us to get rid of such a gas and to cut down CO2 emissions by 50%.

Last but not least, this is one of the arguments that people like the writer of this post have used to justify their rejection to eat meat.Here I leave you an interesting reading: Livestock's Long Shadow.

Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

In May 25th 2007, there was a comment in a newspaper respect to thedraughts forecast which had been voiced by our environment state minister. Such comments accused the minister because such a draught hadn't been as severe as it had been said.

When we speak about climate we have to face stacks and stacks of opinions and as many things in life "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". I mean, depending on your position respect a man-made climate change or a natural  climate change, your points of view will difer from others. Man-made climate change is the official theory accepted nowadays but to fail some predictions doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Climate change is a reality which was forseen for some people more than 60 years ago, I would dare to say more, but whose effects, without taking into account how fast they develop, they won't be in the twinkling of an eye. We should be more accurate when speak in terms of time. It is not the same to speak in geological terms than in human life length terms. In fact, climate change is developping so fast, as never seen or at least recorded, that we could speak of important changes during a human life. If we compare human life lenght and geological changes lenght we are speaking about an enormous difference. Such faster changes are already having some visible impacts on fauna and Earth ecosystems which are not having enough time to readapt to the new circumtances. For better for worse, we humans have the ability to adapt as faster as the environment changes (and that's bad because people is not enough concerned to begin to make a change). The question is how long we will be able to keep the rate of change (maybe when we realize is too late).

I think our minister was right accepting the predictions from the IPCC so there is only room for three possibilities: she didn't expain accurately or she wasn't properly understood or people didn't want to understand her message. I think she would try to say thay periods of draught will be longer with periods of rain shorter than nowadays and maybe more intense. Now, more than ever, we should take profit of the smallest drop of water. Waste is not synonim of well-being.

Juan Carlos Císcar

That's the name of a graduate who works at the Sevilla's Insitute for Prospective Technological Studies. In January 14th 2007 the newspaper called Levante published an interview to Juan Carlos with regard to climate change. Among other questions.... Campaigns in order to create awareness on climate change  appeal to the role that citizens play at this issue. Do you think they can do something in order to prevent pernicious effects on agriculture and marine coasts? Something in particular?

Juan Carlos' answer was... Undoubtedly. The problem of climate change is in short a problem generated by we citizens who ask for products which are polluting as a last resort, from using cars to something so common as switching on a bulb.

He commented as well that citizens should be persuaded from polluting activities, e.g. flying,  through taxes..... Fortunatelly in that moment I was not the only one asking people for reducing domestic flights as a first measure... And some good news, in that moment 35% of the companies all over the world were planning to reduce their flights or at least it was in their plans in the short-medium term. How is it possible to find flights at a european level at 30€? Maybe my petitions could be too demanding but I am one of those who think that low-cost flights = a free terrorist attack against the environment. I agree that everybody has the right to flight but in a reasonable way. As we humans sometimes don't have clear ideas about what is wrong or right, a first approximation could be attacking our budgets. He who pollutes must pay.

Orange or Lemon?

The Orange

In April 2007 the news related to climate were about if we warm the planet more than two celsius degrees, as an average, the damage will be irreparable and maybe events will be out of control. Global temperature had increased 0.7 ºC by that moment. It was also told that we were on time to reduce our emissions but this seems not to have changed so much. There have been some steps but, have they really been enough? Some comments from the NASA.

The Lemon

Between the end of this century and the beggining of the following, the millions of us who already live, or have survived, we'll have to do it at the Poles where climate will be comfortable enough. James Lovelock. Scientist and inventor.

Which flavour do you prefer?

Have Things Changed Something In 6 Years?

I posted in April 2007 some comments about de main headlines related to the environment. In that moment after 3 years, things hadn't changed a lot. Now, 3 years later, the question is reaised once again. Maybe people are more concerned, there are some steps being taken but there's a new question: can these measures catch up with the level of destruction? I'm in doubt. Three examples to think about: Europe's seas face 'bleak future', €1.1 trillion and 2010 living planet report. And now some headlines from 2004 to 2007:

• Climate change threatens beaches in the Mediterranean Sea.
• Patagonia's glaciars could disappear in twenty years time.
• Global warming could come great famines and the melting of the Himalaya.
• Climate change will leave 200 million refugees in 2050.
• Ten important natural reservas under threat.
• Global warming threatens 30% of flora and fauna.
• Equator declares the Galapago Islands at risk.
• Scientists declare the collapse of marine ecosystems.

Amen.

I Want To Be Optimistic...

...but every day it is more difficult.

Not Another Nature Film from WWF on Vimeo.

WWF's Living Planet Report 2010

A Very Interesting Idea: Rerverse Combustion

Have a look at here.

Mr. Javier Nart

It could not be in other way, when the talk finished I closed up and congratulated him. Later I made some comments about Mr. Quereda's talk the previous day. Could they both be living in the same world? I liked Javier's talk, surely because our way of thinking was simmilar.

Respecto to the talk, it was started speaking about human rights and, as a universal right we have to enjoy and defend the environment... the line of the contents was changing through environmental issues. It's from here where I will make some coments.

An interesting sentence: when we defend what is not ours we are defending what is ours. The talk raised the social changes that a global climate change would suppose. Conflicts for water that flows through the rivers Eufrates, Jordan and Tigris in the Middle East. Conflicts between China and India because of the river Bramaputra. Respect to China a note for thinking: to produce the same than we western countries, they eat up to 10 times more energy.

There were also some references to population migrations as a consequence of a more agressive climate. Problems could start in Morocco, Algiers, Libya and Egypt. The question is, who is next to these countries? There's no much work in thinking that we spanish are. There were some referencies to the deforestation and the impossibility of living in certain places besides temperatures will get near 60ºC. As you can see, the way of presenting the issue is somehow different to the Mr. Quereda's.

When the talk finished a question-and-answer season was opened. Two people asked how they could do their bit. Coming up next I propose some personal actions I was carrying out in that moment ;)

I would like to finish with quote that Javier raised to finish the talk: We can't complain for anything we don't do to avoid it. And I add up: let's get things clear!

P.S. Maybe someone will think that he can see what I'm up to but in the moment I wrote this post I was a bit fervent with the talk, but it is not a question of somebody seen things in the same way as mine mine, even sometimes I've been told to be a radical... it is a question of showing things, what's more, I have my own smell, I saw things in Mr. Quereda's talk that I didn't like, just personal nuances. Maybe some questions remained unsaid intentional or unintentionally. I think a point of view was given which wasn't related with what was and is happening and maybe neither with what we'll have to face in a no distant future.

Mr. José Quereda Sala

I attended a talk in February 2007 which was given by Mr. José Quereda Sala, a teacher who belonged and belongs to the Jaime I university's climate department and it was the first time that I listened to somebody who was not centered on the energy production when speaking about climate change. And I say that because until then (and now), the emissions of CO2 because of burning fossil fuels were the main cause of global warming.

The teacher raised overpopulation as the main cause of global warming. He said that only by existing a person, he or she is affecting the climate in terms of CO2, methane and nitrate oxides emissions (someway he was right).

As I said, until then, the energy production sector was over the last but not least overpopulation effects besides overpopulation is it itself a big deal. The theory of climate problems because of the energy production sector had been, in the recent meeting celebrated in Madrid, the main point to readdress the fight against climate change. Well, for Mr. José was not a theory but a hypothesis which is not the same...

Taking advantage of the round of questions I asked: Why don't you have into account all the carbon coming from the burning of fossil fuels which didn't existed in the atmosphere and has been incorporated? In other words: We have created a problem where there wasn't any one. One more question: Why your figures on CO2 in the atmosphere along the history don't coincide whith the rest of speakings I have attended and all the documentation I have consulted? Summarising the answer: According to Mr. José everything was pending of revision. Then I thought that all those things he was saying were business, don't you think so? Why not to give this issue the importance it supposedly deceives? But as I think the worst of people I think behind the CO2 there are many oil companies in the shadow... so we're speaking about a lot of money... but a lot of money and interests... Would this man belong to that little group which didn't accept the outlook? Their motives he would have and I had to accept them but not to share. By the way, this man also dropped a comment about oil made from oranges, but as I said in other post, other people has figured and it seems not to be so environmentally efficient. And of course, one of the best quotes during the speaking: Wind-Powered Turbines kill birds... How great! Does anybody know, at this moment on in life, a kind of energy without any impact in the environment? What I think is that we should ask ourselves if before installing the turbines have been a serious study because don't pull the leg ourselves, there are interests even for producing green energy at any price: money is the root of all evil.

Mr. Quereda also commented spaniards can go getting ready if forecasts about increase of temperatures become true: less water because of a decrase in rainfall, less water because of higher temperatures. In other words: it never rains but pours. To get an idea of what could be coming: and increase of 0.5ºC in the mean temperature supposes an evaporation increase of 10% in the place in which we live. And if we want to add fuel to the fire: optimistic forecasts are around an increase of 2-4ºC. So imagine!!

I'd like to finish with a comment Mr. Quereda did and which according to his words, it seemed to be a typical comment in his circle of friends: to make people aware of something the only thing you have to do is to terrorize them. Mr. Quereda, are you aware of the damage you can cause with such a comment? It's not a question of going to the street an begin to cry, commit suicide or rest with our arms crossed regretting ourselves. It's a question of working hard to try to fix as much as possible the problem we have generated. It's a question of working hand in hand, of pulling one's weight. It's a question of changing our way of doing things and establishing a new order. If people are difficult of making aware by nature, your comments are not helping anything at all. Thanks once more.

emcg - Part II

Following one of the posts I wrote in January 2007, here you have some more comments. Inside the rhetoric of politiciens, let's say that some of the guests of the meeting hardly saved the situation. Let's see some of them.

José Manuel Entrecanales, chairman of Acciona. He promised his company would collaborate to reduce greenhouse houses by 1% in 2030. Obviously, in that moment 99 companies like his were missing...

Cristina Narbona, minister of environment (in that moment). She promised Spain was not going to promote nuclear power. She simply said we were going to keep what we had in that moment and divert investments to clean energies. Should we trust her?

Graham Smith, deputy chairman of Toyota in Europe. He tried to convince us that his cars were the cleanest or the most eco-friendly in the world. The question now and then is: Can everybody afford a car costing 24.000 euros? Politiciens know that "green" sells but, is not there any kind of subsidy? At this point, give us the devil his own due: if in that moment I wasn't misinformed, Toyota was the car maker which invisted the most in environmental questions. For this reason, I think the people who could afford a hybrid should bet for Toyota's. But now the most important question: Who speaks about a so cheap vehicle like a bycicle? I think nobody at all. Crass error. The charity PEDALIBRE from Madrid was given only three minutes. Does anybody know a vehicle more efficient than a bycicle? Does anyboy know that a bycicle takes profit of 90% of the energy used to move it?

Esteban González Pons, minister of territory in the Valencian Community. He tried to convince us with something called as "juice-oil", that was the panacea... But there have been some people figuring and all that glitters is not gold. We appreciated his try of selling us a "beautiful world", but things are not easy come.

Juan Eduardo Santón, Valencia's innovation city councillor. One of the few that contribute with real solutions: 25% of the buses of the city were working with biodiesel that allowed recycling 800,000 litres of cooking oil a year. 90% of the water for washing the buses was being recovered and maybe in the mean term a project related with hydrogen, obtained from solar energy, would be carried out at the natural park of the Albufera.

And to not go on and on, I finish with the last paper which next to the last one, seemed to make the audience mad. There were some missing hints among some speakers but I thought there was no place to happen that, for those things there were better places. But then came the best. It seemed that Mrs. Cristina Serrano, secretary of territory at the valencian government, was against the prospectings for looking for oil in the coast of Valencia just as the installation of desalination plants, all of it in clear reference to her politic adversaries. I thought such a behaviour was a complete act of hypocresy, independently I was in favour of such mesures, besides at that time on she and her "coleagues", in some way or other, had and were allowing the destruction of our coasts. And if that wasn't true, any one could go to Brussels and ask for all the reports about the destruction of the valencian coast. Mrs. Cristina, I think is good of you to have eagle eyes on alien issues but be careful because your faults are not precisely small. Mrs. Serrano, keep in mind that you have to practice what you preach and, if you don't agree with me, you can ask lots of citizen platforms that were being created to fight the destruction I speak about. Mrs. Serrano rememeber: Where there's smoke, there's fire.

And now, almost three years later and after being submerged into the crisis for some time, where's all the money generated during "the brick bonanza"? How many times was your government warned we couldn't keep such a pace of growing and destruction?

Please, By Friday

Polar bears are threatened with extinction and adding them to Appendix I would ensure that commercial trade does not compound the dangers already posed by loss of habitat. Please write to your Environment Minister today and ask them to support the United States’ proposal to uplist the polar bear to Appendix I.

P.S. The place where I got the picture.

emcg - Part I

It was 2007. I had been in a forum for two days in Madrid. It was the first forum about energy,municipality and climate change and there were several things I wanted to speak about and which I did in my spanish blog.

The event was fastly spread all over the country: Al Gore was on TV! He really was an attraction, the attraction of the day. The room was completely crowded, cameras and people everywhere and of course, among them, there were some to take only a picture next to the celebrity, what was really into play was something secondary. As a scientist said the following day: that seemed a circus.

The following day, during the speeching given by the abovementioned scientist, maybe we were a fourth part of the people during the previous day (during the evening we were a third). The scientist was right: there that day only stayed the people who really were interested in the issue. I felt a bit of rage in my deep down because surely there were some people who were really interested in attending the event and many of the tickets surely had been given to people not so much concerned, even nothing at all: as I said before, they only wanted the photo.

The good thing of this subject was that it contributed with new ideas and points of view to my knowledge, specifically things related with biofuels. The bad thing was that most of the event, in some way, was politized a lot, at least in my opinion. Here you are some figures:

• Charity spokepersons: 2
• Scientists: 3
• Business men: 5
• Politiciens or simmilar: 14

Now is the moment in which everyone has to get their conclusions... It's not a question of thinking it was politizied because there were a lot of politiciens , but because, except some of them, they did as many times do: they kept its retoric line, many intentions and no actions. Words that were carried by the wind and a shameful Copenhaguen submit, almost three years later, that has folowed suit.

The Copenhaguen Fossil of The Day

More information here and here.

Five Minutes In The Darkness

I got envolved in a voluntary black out in my city in February 2007. It was at 19:55. I was leaned on my window just to check how many people were getting envolved. I lost conciousnees of time for a while and began to go through my thoughts. Had I to summerise my brain storming I could do it with two words: Bush and Exxon.

Both terms go hand in hand or at list this is my thought. Let say that Bush would be the host and Exxon the parasite, or is it the opposite? I don't like speaking about politics in this blog, but when they affect the environment I can't help it. Mr. Bush, I haven't known, fortunate or disgracefully, many U.S. presidents, but I think you've been one of the worst. You've been the key for Exxon to roam freely, not only collaborating with the environmental disaster we are going to face but with the supposed manipulation of the climate change reports. It's incredible what people are for with the intention of being loaded, a benefit for a few and a big mortgage for millions (no humans included).

You'll be remembered for ages but not for being good people. Now your duty is to finish convincing people that climate change is a one more cycle of nature and not the result of eating up the resources of the planet thanks to you and your mates.

You are so poor that the only thing you have is money, and money, is not eatable.

Mr. Bush, have a good day.

P.S. Here you are two links with further information: Royal Society & Exxon, Exxon Cuts Fundings.

A Warm Autumn

Last week I went to visit my parents. From time to time they have some new newspapers at home and what I do is to check them looking for something of environmental interest. The picture that you have above is what I found. It reminded me the words of a meteorologist at the end of a stifling summer: Next autumn will be warmer than normal... and it is.

I know here there are different readers from different countries and I don't know how weather has behaved in their respective places. I've got some comments from people living in places in which snow has arrived much before than normal but here hot stayed up to some days ago. In this part of Spain I could listen to the cicades in the middle of october (thing unusual at this late on in the year), even I saw some insects which should be already "sleeping". Respect to trees, most of the leaves are still green and with the first fresh air they have begun to change colour. Is the autumn definitely here? We hope so.

Here you are the link related to the picture.

People We Love :: Peter Marshall

From time to time I like speaking about anonymous (or at least not very famous) people who are making a difference and are not as frequently as we would like in the news. Here you have and example that I found in the magazine Yes!

People We Love :: Peter Marshall by Madeline Ostrander

Shared via AddThis

This Is Serious - Part III

In January 2007, some news were about a mild-winter in Russia. That happened some weeks after I came back to Spain from my holidays in Finland.

It seemed that in Russia, like in Finland, some people were also surprised of those mild temperatures. The fact that event happened at a hemisphere scale, made us to understand it as not anything exceptional. It is true that, at a local scale, there have been, there are  and there will be colder and warmer winters, but when something happens at a much bigger scale... It should make us to think.

Just now, in the summer 2009 in the North hemisphere, I pray Gaia for polar bears which could be fighting for survival given the lack of ice that every summer is bigger. You rich countries, shame on you for a free ice Artic Ocean in the coming years.

P.S. The picture is set in the Moscu's Read Square, without snow, in January 2007. I got it from a spanish piece of news.

Destruction At Your Feet

I can and I must accept that an indian or a native wear shoes made of leather as a consequence of their hunter-gathering life. What I shouldn't accept is that we, supposed civilized people, make an abuse of that, not only because in the way we keep and kill animals but moreover we are destroying rain forests. As I have said many times, to be many people is not a question of space but resources.

In any case, if you continue wearing shoes made of leather, at least try them to last as much as possible and sign the petition I link below the video. Sign the petition to ask shoes makers to be more careful whith their methods of production. It's a good idea to have a business to earn money, but not at any price, it is also important to be res-pon-si-ble. And by the way, have you ever thought how many shoes makers produce in the poorest countries and sell their products in the richest? Are they pulling our leg?

That's all for today.

Sign The Petition

Politiciens VS Planes

In 2007, the british minister Ian Person attacked the air companies' environmental irresponsibility. Two links here: the first and the second. It seemed that British, not only for this case but others, had taken more seriously the issue of climate change than others.

Up to that moment, I did know no politicien who had told so many crystal clear things in public respect to the air traffic polution. Respect to CO2 emissions, the percentage of air traffic is smaller if compared with emissions from roads, but it is expected to have it rising faster than any other mean of transport in the coming years. Some years ago I joined the cause: who pollutes pays. I can't agree with tickets to fly costing 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 euros or even less than 5 as I've seen some times. How is it possible to travel cheaper by plane than by train (at least in Spain)? How is it possible to be cheaper to distil a litre of gasoline than a litre of water? How is it possible so much permissiviness at the time of polluting?

In my opinion, the price of the ticket should start from a price figured from the number of trees that are needed to be planted in order to catch all the CO2 emitted during the journey. Obviously, the number of trees should be enough to catch all the CO2 in a number of reasonable years. From here, every company is free to establish its policy of prices. The term "low cost flights" shouldn't have never existed.