Wind Energy Here at Home

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“The answer, my friend, is blown’ in the wind. The answer is blown’ in the wind.”
—Bob Dylan

Recently I’ve posted about some of the places I’ve visited and how they are facing the challenges of using renewable sources of energy in efforts to move away from fossil fuels. You can read back to how the state of Hawaii and the city of Barcelona are tackling the problem.

I thought it was time to look a little closer to home. My province of Ontario is known for having Canada’s largest city (Toronto), Canada’s capitol (Ottawa), and the Muskokas, one of the world’s few regions one could call paradise. It turns out, it also has a lot of green electricity generated from wind energy.

Canada’s four largest wind farms are all right here in Ontario. The largest is Malancthon with 133 wind turbines which generate nearly 200 megawatts of electricity. It’s located near Shelburne, Ontario, less than an hour’s drive from my home. The second and third largest wind farms are located at Wolfe Island near Kingston, and Prince Township near Sault Ste. Marie respectively. In fourth place is the Enbridge Ontario Wind Farm, located in Bruce County near the shores of Lake Huron. It generates about 182 megawatts of electricity, still enough to power more than 20,000 homes for one year.

All told, wind energy in Canada amounts to 5,265 megawatts but that’s still only 2.3 percent of Canada’s energy needs, so there’s a lot of room to grow. Instead of using running water to rotate turbines or—I shudder to think about it—burning coal to boil water to generate steam to rotate turbines, wind energy does it directly. The Canadian Wind Energy Association has created WindVision 2025 with the goal of generating 55,000 megawatts of electricity from wind energy by by the year 2025, what will amount to about 20 percent of Canada’s needs.

People who support the continued use of fossil fuels and the boost to the economy that fossil fuels provide often forget that developing renewable sources of energy is good for the economy as well. WindVision 2025 is expected to create more than 50,000 jobs and is anticipated to generate more than $165 million in annual revenue. It also might generate as much as $79 billion in investment because it will make Canada a major player in the wind power sector. Most importantly, it would help to eliminate about 17 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year.

Even though I started off looking at wind energy close to home, I believe that Prince Edward Island, Canada’s smallest province off the coast of Nova Scotia deserves some attention as well. It has a lot of wind exposure, as offshore winds tend to be strong and consistent and the island is small enough that every part of it can be considered offshore. Although it’s a province with a small population, because of its location it already generates more than 80 percent of its electricity needs from wind energy and has the goal of achieving 100 percent by 2015, only three short years away.

As with every good thing in life, wind energy has its share of critics. Some are harsh about location (NIMBYism rearing its ugly head). Others are critical of potential health risks, although to date there aren’t any proven harmful effects to human beings, and certainly nothing would possibly be riskier to our health than the known problems already associated with the combustion of fossil fuels.

One of the oft-repeated concerns about wind turbines relates to the harm they cause to birds. Rarely is an article published on the subject without this criticism being brought up in response. To be fair, older wind turbines used smaller blades with smaller surface areas. As a result, they had to turn much more quickly making them harder for flying birds to avoid. Also, some regions such as the Altamont Pass California have wind turbines in areas with high bird traffic, either due to migratory pathways or because of nearby nesting areas. The wind turbines there are also of an older design and have had the highest bird mortalities reported.

Any data from prior to 2000 won’t reflect the newer designs with much larger blades using greater surface areas that turn more slowly and are much easier for birds to fly around without injury. Most of the published literature condemning wind turbines comes from sources referencing older designs and regions with above-average bird traffic.

Looking at how Canada’s wind turbines are doing, statistics from Wolfe Island show that there have been about 14 birds killed per turbine per year, a little more than one a month. (The number of bats killed is about double that number.) This is more than the current industry standard of about 2 bird strikes per year per turbine with modern designs, but Wolfe Island is located in a significant bird area with a lot of avian traffic.

To put it in some perspective though, there are millions of birds killed from moving vehicles each year in North America. Even my house cat Mottie does more damage than a wind turbine to the avian population: I’m sorry to report that during the summer, our huntress kills one to two birds a week, usually with the unconsumed beak and stomach left at our front door as an offering. (Perhaps it’s her way of paying room and board?) And she decimates the rodent population even more than that.

Tryint to protect birds from wind turbines is actually a funny argument to raise: “let’s not use wind turbines so we can preserve Mother Nature”—and burning fossil fuels is less harmful to our environment how exactly? The harm to natural habitats caused from oil spills and developing the Alberta oil sands has certainly rivalled any harm to the environment that modern wind turbines could ever possibly achieve.

It’s unfortunate that any birds are harmed by wind turbines, but clearly the criticism is exaggerated and misplaced. Unless we’re going to outlaw vehicles and house cats, I believe this renewable energy source, one that is plentiful across our country, will go a long way to making Canada a world leader in green energy.

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Socially Responsible Investing

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“Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had pimples.”
—George Burns

Whether you’re a professional working in a high-rise or a construction worker building one, something we all have in common is that most of us don’t intend to work forever. Retirement is something the majority of people look forward to, and in order for that to happen comfortably, we have to save for it.

For myself, I started to save as soon as I started to earn. My internship was the first year I was taking home more at the end of the month than I was spending. And I knew that just because I might be a smart guy educated in science and medicine, it didn’t mean I knew anything about money.

A popular book in Canada at the time was The Wealthy Barber. Written by David Chilton, it offered a lot of useful advice for the average person and did it in an amusing way: the narrator has regular discussions with his local barber who is already a millionaire by following some basic principles. Simple suggestions like maximizing your registered savings, minimizing your debt, and paying yourself first every month got me on the road to saving properly. Chilton’s long-awaited sequel “The Wealthy Barber Returns” came out last year and has offered more up-to-date advice for the economy of today.

As part of our savings plan, my wife and I invest in some mutual funds, as many people do. One thing that came up in a meeting with our financial adviser just this past week was whether or not any of our funds were connected to industries we wouldn’t want to support. For example, I wouldn’t be very consistent if I drive a hybrid and purchase green electricity, natural gas and carbon offsets on one hand, while I’m part owner of companies in the coal and oil industry on the other. I wanted to make sure we were consistent across the board.

Our discussion turned to SRI, or socially responsible investing. Just like it sounds, these are investments that are meant to have a good rate of return, but also consider social good. They are typically directed toward companies that include not only environmental stewardship, but also human rights, consumer protection, and diversity.

The concept isn’t a new one, it turns out. The Quakers prohibited their members from participating in the slave trade in any way dating back to 1758. Modern applications tend to summarize it as simply investing in a better world. As the Ethical Funds website outlines, “the best possible returns can be achieved by investing in companies that combine strong financial performance with positive social, environmental and governance (ESG) performance. This is particularly important as investors worldwide become increasingly concerned about the impact our activities are having on the global community.”

In our case, we can easily switch some of our funds without any loss to our portfolio at all. Many of the socially responsible investment funds have rates of return which are as competitive as any other. Some funds, however, have slightly higher fees than others that don’t follow a SRI philosophy. But since I’m already prepared to pay in other ways to reduce my carbon footprint, I think this is just one other way for me to be consistent in my philosophy.

As is often the case, trying to be greener often costs a little bit more. But I’m truly confident that won’t be the case forever. If you invest as part of your retirement plan and want to promote a greener lifestyle at the same time, make sure you check out your portfolio and see if some it needs to be changed toward socially responsible investing. Every little bit helps.

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Wind Farms Cause Global Warming!

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That was the headline of an article in Forbes Magazine from April 30, 2012. And how about this one: “Wind farms can cause climate change, finds new study” from the Telegraph. Or this one from Fox News where they remove the word ‘can:’ “New Research Shows that Wind Farms Cause Global Warming.”

All of these articles have glommed onto a study published in Nature Climate Change on April 29, 2012. The title of that article? “Impacts of wInd farms on land surface temperature.”

It’s amazing how the media can distort the truth when it wants to. The observational study looked at west-central Texas where four of the world’s largest wind farms are located. From 2003-2011, recorded measurements of the local surface temperatures in the vicinity increased by 0.72 degrees Celsius, particularly at night compared with nearby non-wind farm locations. As the authors point out, “These changes, if spatially large enough, may have noticeable impacts on local to regional weather and climate.”

The proposed mechanism is attributed to a changing distribution of air, swapping warmer air above with cooler air below as a result of the rotating motion of the turbines. There’s no net increase in heat, just a change in where it’s located. But this may have the possibility of affecting the regional weather patterns and even regional climate, if the effect is substantial enough.

That so many media sources can take the regional effects of wind farms and immediately make the claims that wind farms cause global warming is disappointing. There’s nothing global about this effect. Such claims are irresponsible, but of course they’re nectar from the Gods for any climate-deniers or climate-skeptics looking for anything to hold onto in their efforts to refute the general opinion of the scientific community.

Interestingly, the Forbes article actually provides that proper perspective, once you read further down the page: “However, amusing as this is, being able to point to one of the proposed solutions for climate change as being a cause of it, it’s not actually anything that affects the larger picture. We’re not changing the amount of heat that is disappearing off into space with this and thus not changing the basic energy balance of the planet. We’re just moving it around a bit, that’s all.”

Of course, that’s assuming most readers have made it down that far into the article. Reading the first few paragraphs is likely all that most deniers and skeptics needed to feel vindicated. And of course, many simply get their information from the headline itself.

So fear not, the science is still intact. Global warming is still real. Perhaps some local effects might exist around some wind farms—that’s really all one can conclude from an observational study made in one specific region—but local does not equate with global and never will. Once the skeptics and deniers figure that fact out, we’ll have made some real progress.

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Warmest Year for the US since 1895

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Every January the President of the United States provides a Sate of the Union address, as mandated by the Constitution (Article 2, Section 3, although the actual document only states that it must be done “from time to time.”)

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) updates us better than that when it comes to climate. They provide a State of the Climate report every month. It provides a lot of telling information, much of which is concerning to those who believe our human activities are playing a part in global warming.

For example, last month was the third warmest April recorded, about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above average. This came after the warmest March ever documented since accurate records have been kept, dating back to 1895. In March 2012, 15,000 temperature records across the US were broken. In fact, the first four months of this year were 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average. All told, the last 12 months made for the warmest year the US has ever recorded, about 2.8 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average.

And just wait because the record probably won’t last long; it’s highly possible that it will be broken at the end of this month. The twelve months from June 2011 to May 2012 will likely be hotter than May 2011 to April 2012 because May 2011 was cooler than average, bringing down the year’s average a little bit. So even if we have normal rather than above-average temperatures this month, a new record is likely. As Jake Crouch, lead researcher of the NOAA and author of the State of the Climate report stated in an interview with MSNBC, “Depending on how May 2012 turns out, the June 2011-May 2012 period will likely surpass the 12-month record that we just broke.”

Of course, the problem isn’t just warmer temperatures. Climate is much more than that. One obvious problem is the change in precipitation that results from climate change. Some areas get more precipitation leading to possible floods, and others get less causing droughts. As of May 1st, 38.2 percent of the contiguous US was experiencing drought conditions, up 6.3 percent compared with the same time last year.

The NOAA is careful to avoid making conclusions about the cause of these observations. It doesn’t claim these findings are all due to manmade contributions, since there are many factors that play a part in climate change. Of course, of the many variables that contribute to global warming, the one that’s been consistently climbing is the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, currently at 392 parts per million (ppm) and continuing to rise at about 2 ppm per year. Since there don’t seem to be any simple explanations for that observation other than the fact that our species adds 30 billion tons of the stuff to the atmosphere every year, I’m happy to say what the NOAA won’t: this is our fault folks, and we’d better get used to it because this is the new normal.

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Is Rational Dialogue on Global Warming off the Table?

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“I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?” —Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber

That’s what you would have seen if you’d driven by the digital billboard on the inbound Dwight D. Eisenhower Expressway (I-290) in Maywood, Illinois this past week. Sponsored by the Heartland Institute, this was their latest ad campaign to try to “educate” the public about climate change, although any useful facts about global warming were sorely lacking with this particular sign.

The Heartland Institute was founded in 1984. Its self-described mission is “to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.” However, its members are also vehement deniers about global warming, arguing it has nothing to do with human activities. This latest effort clearly tries to discredit anyone who supports the growing belief that the various greenhouse gas emissions we contribute to our atmosphere (30 billion tons of carbons dioxide annually, for example) could play any part in the climate change we’re experiencing.

They make some rather outlandish claims. This is right from their own press release: “The most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists,” said Heartland’s president, Joseph Bast. “They are Charles Manson, a mass murderer; Fidel Castro, a tyrant; and Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. Global warming alarmists include Osama bin Laden and James J. Lee (who took hostages inside the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in 2010).”

It’s an interesting tactic. I suppose every person who has undesirable traits must be factually wrong in every statement they make regardless of subject, and incorrect in every belief they hold dear. Is the converse also true? Are people who are fundamentally good always right? The logic is dizzying. If I share any beliefs with a bad person, according to the Heartland Institute I must be just like them, have I got that right? Case in point: I know that Adolf Hitler loved his mother and believed it was important to honour her. Does that mean I’m an awful person because I’m planning to give my Mom a gift on Mother’s Day this Sunday?

Fortunately it would appear that common sense is prevailing. A number of corporations are severing their connections to Heartland over this issue. These include: Statefarm Insurance, the United Services Automobile Association, Diageo (one of the world’s largest beverage companies and parent to Guinness, Smirnoff, and Johnnie Walker), the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers, XL Group, and Allied World Assurance.

The billboard campaign was in advance of an upcoming climate conference the Heartland Institute is hosting, their seventh. On the heels of this billboard debacle, two of their speakers have also withdrawn from the event, choosing to distance themselves and protect their reputations. Although Heartland claims on its website that they have no regrets, the digital billboard was removed within 24 hours, and at present they have no plans to run any of the other ads that were part of the same campaign.

Heartland spouts off its rhetoric as if everything they claim is accepted fact in its efforts to sway the public to the dark side. From their own website: “The leaders of the global warming movement have one thing in common: They are willing to use force and fraud to advance their fringe theory.” This so-called “fringe theory” is supported by anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of Americans, and that’s a country that tends to be less accepting than many other nations in the world. The vast majority of scientists also believe in anthropogenic global warming (although Heartland certainly has tapped into those who don’t and exploits that as much as possible). Hardly seems like a fringe theory to me.

I have had some very interesting and enlightening dialogues with people who don’t subscribe to my belief that the present global warming trend is largely our fault. A minority of them are truly intellectual discussions with many facts that can be interpreted in different ways to support different points of view. I always welcome those discussions because it enhances my own understanding of this problem our planet is facing and forces me to ensure I comprehend every aspect and nuance of this crisis. But one thing those rare discussions prove to me is that reasonable and rational dialogue on this issue can exist among those who differ in their opinions. It’s sad that Heartland chose not to take that route. Given the financial hit they’re taking from the loss of so many supporters, this may be their undoing.

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An Alarmist No Longer

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“I made a mistake.” —Dr. James Lovelock

That quote made headlines around the world. In a telephone interview with MSNBC last month, he stated he was wrong in some earlier predictions he had made about global warming. He described that he had been an “alarmist” and lumped others like Al Gore and Tim Flannery in there with him, even though neither of them had ever made predictions as dire over such a short time span as Dr. Lovelock had.

Dr. Lovelock has been the strongest proponent of the theory of Gaia, the concept that our planet is like a living organism with three major organs: the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, and the geosphere (essentially air, water and land). He has also written a number of books about the subject of anthropogenic global warming, and has always been considered an expert for that reason.

To be accurate though, he isn’t a climate scientist and never has been. In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out neither am I. The difference however is I don’t put forth my own theories of what’s happening to the climate and make predictions about it. What I try to do is sift through the vast amount of information out there from the mainstream scientific community and make sure everyone is up to date regarding current information available about climate change.

As recently as 2006 in an article written in the UK’s Independent newspaper, Dr. Lovelock claimed that “before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.” Now in his MSNBC interview he admits he was wrong about that. He doesn’t deny that global warming exists, just that it isn’t affecting our planet as quickly as he previously thought.

Interestingly, Dr. Lovelock seems to feel that since he didn’t get it right, then nobody must really know what’s going on with climate change. He describes that carbon dioxide levels are climbing but that temperatures have been rather stable since the new millennium. By his own description in the MSNBC interview, we should be halfway to frying by now if his predictions were accurate, but we aren’t. (By the way, if you’d like to see the best data on what global temperatures are really doing, check out the answer to question 5 in my recent blog with data from the Berkeley Earth team. Suffice to say, 12 years is way too brief a period of time to make any real conclusions about long-term trends in global warming.)

Although a lot of climate-change skeptics and deniers have grabbed onto Dr. Lovelock’s about-face, it’s important to appreciate that those of us who care about this issue never felt he was our champion. Also, it’s not as if he’s crossed the aisle and is supporting the opposing view. Far from it. He quite clearly states global warming is still happening, just at a slower rate than he once thought it would.

Dr. Lovelock was always more alarmist than any of the other personalities who have been warning us about this hazard our planet is facing. I’m glad he’s admitted his mistakes because climate experts never agreed with him about the extreme rate of change he was predicting, and this includes the other “alarmists” out there. It was always his own opinion and his predictions were never based on any real science.

Most people who actually care about climate change are neither the die-hard skeptic nor the extreme alarmist Lovelock once was. We tend to be more moderate. But to use the turn of phrase used in a letter-to-the-editor in my own local newspaper claiming that “the sky isn’t falling” thanks to Dr. Lovelock’s retraction: the sky is indeed falling, just slower than one extreme opinion predicted.

Some of us are still concerned about climate change nonetheless. A runaway train heading toward a group of people tied to the tracks is going to do a lot of damage once it gets there regardless of its speed. It still seems clear to me that we should be trying to stop this train if we can, rather than feel secure that it’s going to take a little longer to harm its victims than one alarmist once thought it would.

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Pop Quiz for the Climate-Change Skeptic

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So many people try to fight the growing movement toward using fossil fuels less, and renewable sources of energy more. Sometimes the resistance is simply ignorance of the facts, but too often it seems to be borne out of a desire to continue with business-as-usual at all costs, to the point where every possible argument against is used no matter how pointless, or every missing piece of the puzzle is treated as a reason to ignore the abundant knowledge already available to us.

It’s extremely reminiscent of how tobacco companies once argued that heart disease, lung disease and a number of cancers had nothing to do with cigarette smoking, until the facts were just too overwhelming to try to refute any longer. But for decades they put a large effort into smearing the scientists’s reputations and their studies, arguing that hidden agendas were the real reason to suggest cigarettes caused disease.

I thought it would be worthwhile to offer these skeptics a quiz with answers that are well-proven and facts that are not easily disputed. People with open minds might learn something that will make them look at the issues differently. Those who are committed to fighting this problem will no doubt look to fringe science supported by fringe scientists to support their views.

Interestingly, a friend of mine from high school recently posted this perspective on the Facebook fan page for my book on this very issue. “Interesting how being skeptical of mainstream science pushes one towards fringe science without the same skepticism. It reminds me of people who know the government was behind 9/11 but don’t think the government is competent to run education, health, or the mail. Extremely competent for evil global-domination exercises which they keep totally secret but can’t do mundane things better than anyone in the private sector. Good luck getting through to them!” Good luck, indeed. I think more than luck will be required, but here goes with a pop quiz of five questions for the sceptics out there.

1. How far back in time do we have to go to see carbon dioxide levels of 392 ppm in the atmosphere, the level we’re currently at in 2012? We’d have to look back more than 800,000 years. That’s how far back samples of the atmosphere have been analyzed in the Dome C ice core samples taken from the Antarctic. For the vast majority of that time span, carbon dioxide levels were between 230 and 280 ppm, rarely ever breaking the 300 ppm boundary.That is, until the changing trend over the last 200 years with our civilization burning fossil fuels, burning down forests, and increasing agriculture to help feed more than 7 billion people. The present trend shows this level to be increasing about 2 ppm per year.

2. How many tons of carbon dioxide does the human species contribute to the atmosphere each and every year? About 30 billion tons and it’s only going to increase from there. The natural fluctuation in carbon dioxide levels each year falls from April to October and climbs from October to April. This reflects photosynthesis occurring during the northern hemisphere’s summer months, absorbing carbon dioxide and water and using sunlight to generate carbohydrates. The northern hemisphere has the majority of the Earth’s land mass, so our northern hemisphere summer wins out in influence compared with the southern hemisphere. But each year the peak in April is a little higher than the year before. All of the planet’s available compensatory mechanisms can’t keep up. These mechanisms include increased photosynthesis from plant species, and carbon dioxide absorption into the oceans and seas making them more acidic in the process.

3. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, when was the last time that human beings increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere? Likely never, as we have no evidence to support that what we’re observing has ever happened before. The global population in 1800 was about one billion, taking another 125 years to reach two billion. With population levels so much lower than today, and with the lack of industrialization, we produced very little emissions back then. We burned wood and peat, some plant and animal oils, but very little fossil fuels until James Watt’s steam engine heralded the Industrial Revolution. We sometimes cut down forests then but not like today. Most emissions affecting the atmosphere prior to 200 years ago would have come from natural processes such as volcanic activity and forest fires.

4. True or false: natural cycles in climate change explain everything we’ve observed without having to look to human activities. False. There are many natural cycles that have contributed to climate change in the past. These include the Milankovitch cycles which are subtle changes in Earth’s orbit but these take place over many thousands of years rather than just a few hundred. There are also changes in solar energy output, volcanic activity adding particles to the atmosphere which help shield out sunlight, and oceanic cycles such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation which all affect the planet’s climate. Throughout all of those cycles over hundreds of thousands of years, carbon dioxide levels did fluctuate, but never much past 300 ppm as described in the answer to question 1. Since there’s no evidence to support that we’ve ever experienced this before on the planet, it’s difficult to attribute the findings to natural cycles. It also makes it difficult to look back to how the planet adapted before and extrapolate that its adaptation for this era will be similar, because we have no past planetary experience to draw from.

5. True or False: Global temperatures have plateaued and show no real signs of increasing. It’s difficult to measure the temperature of an entire planet, and many of the mistakes made in claims that Earth’s temperature isn’t climbing still is due to this problem. Temperatures fluctuate all over the place—just look at your own local weather forecasts and you’ll realize that 10 km away is different than where you are—so to get an accurate estimate of the Earth’s overall temperature, it turns out that far more recordings are needed than are usually used. The Berkeley Earth team has used 1.6 billion recorded temperatures over fifteen different archived sets of recordings, more than any other group looking at this issue. Their numbers have clearly shown an alarming trend in increasing temperatures without any truly comfortable plateau.

So I wonder how those resistant to the topic of climate change will have done with those five questions. Die-hard skeptics will always find ways to argue against these facts, but these data are accepted by the general scientific community and only certain fringe opinions can be used to try to argue against them, typically from experts who are themselves from the fringe. Hopefully a few open-minded individuals will look at this information and think twice before trying to argue against a better world.

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Be a Hummingbird!

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“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” —Margaret Mead

I love that quote and I refer to it often when I try to encourage people that every effort is worth it, no matter how small. We can and will make a difference if we continue to make small gains in curbing our greenhouse gas emissions. Progress is slow, but it’s progress nonetheless. And ultimately when I’ve shuffled off this mortal coil, I want to be remembered as someone who cared enough to do what he could, rather than simply someone who never bothered to try because the hurdles seemed insurmountable.

Although I consider myself an environmentalist, I focus my efforts on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions specifically. However, I still try to follow other environmental issues that are concerning to our planet. This includes issues like fresh water, pollution, toxins, and the extinction of species. I think it’s important to keep up on all of the problems our planet is facing because everything is interdependent on everything else. As John Muir (1838-1914), the Scottish-born American naturalist and author once said, “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

I recently stumbled across a movie that addresses the problems we’re facing with our planet’s soil. “Dirt! the Movie” is a documentary that was released in 2009 and describes our planet’s soil as the skin of our planet; if we continue on with our present course of abusing and destroying this precious natural resource, its one last use might well be to serve as compost for all of Earth’s life forms. The film was based on a book written by William Bryant Logan entitled “Dirt: the Ecstatic Skin of the Earth” and won a number of honours at film festivals around the world.

There’s one particularly captivating clip of the film available on both Youtube and the documentary’s website. Known as “the hummingbird sequence,” it won the 2010 Best of Fest award at the My Hero Film Festival. The segment is narrated by Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her conservation efforts. She unfortunately passed away in September 2011 but she certainly left her mark on our world, and for that I’m grateful.

I I urge to check out this two-minute sequence that helps explain why we need to make efforts to help solve the problems our planet is facing, no matter how small those efforts seem to be, nor how large the hurdles are that we need to overcome. I’m not going to describe the sequence to you, I want you to watch it for yourself. And do yourself a favour: share it with your kids, it’s perfect for them as well. (I’ll wait here until you’re done. You can link to the clip here.)

Wasn’t that impressive? A great message indeed. Margaret Mead was right. And Wangari Maathai was right. We all need to be hummingbirds.

 

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The Origin of Coal, Oil and Natural Gas: Fossil Fuels or Something Else?

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“I’m not sure I believe in global warming. I read something written by a scientist arguing that these facts are still open to debate.”

I hear comments like this all the time. You can’t put yourself out there as a mainstream believer in the zeitgeist of the scientific community and not receive some arguments from the fringes. As I like to point out, scientific theory is always open to debate. This is why ongoing research and experimentation are always underway. Further information either enhances, modifies, or refutes the current concepts we believe to be the proper understanding of the ways of the universe.

The last time I heard this sentiment was at my book-signing at a local bookstore on Earth Day. It surprised me a little bit because the skeptic admitted to being a grade eight science teacher, and I would hope that people teaching science would be a little more on board with what the majority of today’s scientists consider to be fact rather than adhere to an extremist minority opinion.

The gentleman and I had a long discussion about various aspects of the science and I pointed out that my book was written specifically to help clarify the facts and fill in the gaps for those with an open mind who were keen to understand the current thinking on these topics. Despite our conversation, he decided not to buy the book. (In retrospect, I should have offered him a money-back guarantee if he felt it didn’t answer his questions once he was finished it. Hindsight is always 20/20.)

But he raised one interesting point: he questioned whether oil was even a fossil fuel. He’d read an article about the abiotic synthesis of oil; that is, the formation of the hydrocarbons found in petroleum deposits without them having to come from fossilized plants. If this theory was correct, they could replenish indefinitely from the natural carbon found in the Earth’s crust, essentially a renewable energy source.

I find this a common theme among the more die-hard skeptics: that if they doubt one concept, they will often doubt others. Thus, all of their beliefs will be from the fringe rather than the mainstream. For such extreme perspectives to have any stability, they typically can’t incorporate other well-established facts, but have to use other extreme ideas. So if someone is doubtful of the concepts of global warming and climate change, it helps to doubt the whole concept of fossil fuels having a finite supply. It’s easier to sleep at night. (Although combustion of fossil fuels still adds 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year, regardless of their origin. I never asked him how he reconciles that fact with his beliefs.)

The abiotic synthesis of oil was something I had heard snippets about previously, but admittedly knew very little about. So I decided to explore the subject further to make sure my own “gaps were filled.”

In chapter two of my book, I describe how fossil fuels were formed. Briefly, oil and natural gas were synthesized from the remains of dead plants such as algae and plankton in ancient oceans and seas. These remains would fall to the bottom and form sediments. Over geologic time scales of many millions of years, these sediments became buried deep inside the Earth through the movements of tectonic plates. The high temperatures and pressures deep inside our planet’s crust, along with the anaerobic conditions present during their decomposition, would lead to the formation of the various hydrocarbons found in the oil deposits of today.

Coal is likewise formed from anaerobic decomposition but of terrestrial plants that are buried deep in bogs. They go through a process known as coalification first forming lignite, then bitumen and ultimately anthracite, the purest form of coal.

This biogenic theory of the formation of fossil fuels was first put forward by Georgius Agricola in the 16th century, and the majority of geologists today still consider it to be the most correct theory. Thus, fossil fuels are not a renewable resource because we’re consuming them at a far quicker rate than can ever be replaced.

The abiotic theory for the formation of oil is an alternative theory to the biological origin described above. It suggests that petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits dating back to the formation of Earth and was first proposed as a hypothesis in the 19th century by Alexander von Humboldt. it received support from some notable scientists including Dimitri Mendeleev who created the current version of the periodic table. The theory was largely forgotten after it was first introduced although gained some popularity in the late 20th century in the Soviet Union. In the English-speaking world, Thomas Gold (1920-2004) was its biggest supporter, and wrote a book in 1998 entitled “The Deep Hot Biosphere” on the topic.

The theory suggests that the biology found on our planet followed the oil deposits and not the other way around. One argument supporters use is that methane has been found on Saturn’s moon Titan, and obviously wouldn’t come from fossilized lifeforms there.

The abiotic theory is controversial and has a number of flaws, however. For one, it doesn’t predict deposits of oil as well as the biogenic theory does. Oil deposits are typically found close to fault lines because that’s where two tectonic plates meet, and ocean sediments can be more easily buried in those regions. Also, oil deposits usually have biomarkers, little telltale signs of life. For the abiotic theory to work, those markers have to be explained somehow; it fills in that hole by suggesting microbes must have been feeding on the petroleum. The biogenic theory easily explains why such evidence of life would be present, however, given that they originated from the remains of once-living plants.

Most of the world’s geologists generally disregard the abiotic theory and it doesn’t have much support in mainstream scientific journals today. Although hydrocarbons with a low carbon:hydrogen ratio such as methane can be produced from abiotic mechanisms—explaining why methane is indeed found on Titan—longer chain hydrocarbons such as octane found in Earth’s oil deposits can only be adequately explained if they are fossil fuels.

When the grade eight science teacher supported his skepticism of global warming by bringing up this abiotic theory of petroleum formation, I realized I wasn’t going to win him over with the facts. I can educate a skeptic who is open-minded and needs some gaps of knowledge to be filled. However, many of those who doubt mainstream science are often suspicious; some even hold onto conspiracy theories, believing people like me have hidden agendas when we try to argue that a change toward renewable energy sources is needed to reduce our carbon footprints. These skeptics will often hold onto any nugget of “science” that can support their position and frequently try to refute the mainstream opinions held by the scientific community.

A tough group to win over indeed, but I appreciated the opportunity to discuss the subject because it led me to learn more about this alternative notion on the origin of fossil fuels. I’m happy to report that further study has only solidified my belief that the mainstream scientific community has once again prevailed. The more ammunition I have to argue against such fallacious arguments, the better I can do my job.

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Climate Change: Prolonging the Sneezin’ Season

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I was signing copies of my book at a local bookstore for Earth Day this past weekend. A lot of people stopped by and a number of interesting discussions arose. I made a lot of great connections with people who share my interest in educating the public about climate change.

One of the folks who stopped by happened to be an old friend of mine from medical school days, Dr. David Fischer. We both went into internal medicine after graduating, but then our paths diverged: I went into cardiology and he pursued allergy and immunology. Eventually we both moved into the same community and I get to run into him from time to time. In addition to a busy clinical practice, Dr. Fischer is also the chair of the Continuing Professional Development committee for his specialty at the national level.

Dr. Fischer provided me with some very interesting information regarding climate change and how it’s affecting his specialty. He connected me to an article published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in November 2011, the same month my book came out. As a cardiologist I had already explored how global warming is affecting cardiovascular disease and wrote a guest blog on the subject for the David Suzuki Foundation about it. But this branch of medicine and how it was being affected was news to me, although certainly not surprising once I read the article.

In allergy medicine, many of the ailments affecting the population are from airborne allergens such as pollen, and this branch of study is known as aerobiology. Rising greenhouse gas emissions—particularly carbon dioxide—are contributing to changing aerobiology in two distinct ways:

1. the indirect effect of global warming which contributes to changes in rainfall and weather phenomena have an impact on plant biology; and
2. the direct effect of carbon dioxide-induced stimulation of increased photosynthesis and plant growth.

Here are some of the changes affecting patients with allergies that are aggravated by climate change:

1. Many tree species are flowering earlier in the spring than in previous years, prolonging that allergy season. Some pollen initiation is as much as four weeks ahead of what it once was (e.g. the Quercus species), with increases in pollen levels by up to 50 percent.

2. Many species of weeds and grasses are likewise starting their summer seasons earlier than in the past.

3. Ragweed, the most notorious and best studied of the airborne allergens has always been known to be a problem affecting people allergic to it from August 15 to the first frost. Global warming has prolonged that season as well. Since 1995, the ragweed season has become measurably longer, especially the farther north you go. Beyond fifty degrees latitude the season has increased by more than three weeks. (See graph)

It’s not surprising that a branch of medicine that is so affected by living species such as trees, grasses and weeds will be impacted by climate change. These changes occur both temporally as described above with longer allergy seasons, but also spatially—that is, certain species thriving in environments that previously weren’t so hospitable for them in the past but are now because of climate change.

The authors of the JACI article point out that this isn’t concrete evidence proving that climate change is the sole culprit for changes in allergy seasons, but the observations certainly fit with what the science and the observed trends would predict. That fact that such clear changes have been noted in less than two decades is concerning indeed.

I imagine the pharmaceutical companies who manufacture allergy medications might be happy about these findings, but I find these statistics alarming. It’s fair to say that they’re certainly nothing to sneeze at.

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