Greeneroo

Take a look at this article on the increase of tree mortality it has just been published.

Warmer climate causing huge increase in tree mortality across the West

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Regional warming and drought stress are the “dominant contributors” to a rapid increase of tree mortality in old growth forests across the West during the past 50 years, a new report concludes, with the Pacific Northwest the hardest hit of all areas studied.

The findings, to be published Friday in the journal Science, suggest that a persistent increase in the mortality rate would ultimately cause a 50 percent reduction in the average tree age in forests, a potential reduction in average tree size and make many forests vulnerable to abrupt dieback.

A doubling of tree mortality has been occurring as fast as every 17 years in the Pacific Northwest in recent decades, and at slower rates in California and Rocky Mountain states. In one of the first studies of this type ever done in temperate zones, this disturbing phenomenon was found to be occurring at every elevation, in trees of different sizes and various species.

“We may only be talking about an annual tree mortality rate changing from 1 percent a year to 2 percent a year, an extra tree here and there,” said Mark Harmon, professor of forest ecology at Oregon State University. “But over time a lot of small numbers can add up. The ultimate implications for our forests and environment are huge.”

Another significant part of the concern, Harmon said, is that a “feedback loop” appears to be developing. As regional warming causes some trees to die, the diminished forests will absorb less carbon dioxide and then inject more greenhouse gases back to the atmosphere. This in turn could cause even higher levels of atmospheric warming.

“In ecology there’s a bias toward understanding how things grow,” Harmon said. “But my studies are mostly on how things die and decompose, and that’s what’s happening here. When trees across the West appear to be dying at twice the rate they used to, that’s not a good sign.”

Other possible causes of tree mortality, such as insect attack, fire suppression, overcrowding of forests, forest fragmentation and air pollution may all play more limited and temporary roles in the numbers of living trees. But these mechanisms were all considered and ruled out as a dominant cause of the long term, pervasive level of tree death found in this study.

“Forest fires or major insect epidemics that kill a lot of trees all at once tend to get most of the headlines,” Harmon said. “What we’re studying here are changes that are much slower and difficult to identify, but in the long run extremely important.”

The areas studied in this report were forest stands 200 or more years old, with trees of all ages and sizes. There were sites in Oregon, Washington, California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and southwestern British Columbia.

The data for the research was literally gathered by generations of scientists over more than a 50-year period at multiple sites, doing some of the most rudimentary science of all – counting trees. Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation, USDA Forest Service, U.S. Geological Survey and other sources.

Using various approaches, the researchers examined mechanisms that can cause localized or temporary tree deaths, such as bark beetle epidemics, forest fire, increasing competition, fire exclusion, even old trees falling and crushing younger ones. But the only causative factor that consistently explained widespread and sustained mortality was regional warming and the associated drought stress, the scientists said.

An increase in temperature in the American West of less than 1 degree has been documented during this period, which the researchers said was enough to cause widespread hydrologic changes – less precipitation falling as snow, declining snowpack water content, earlier spring snowmelt and runoff, and longer summer drought.

This could lead to sustained drought stress on trees and enhance the growth and reproduction of insects and pathogens that attack trees, the scientists said.

“One degree warmer may not seem like a lot, but the effects can be cumulative and put many more trees under stress, and cause a few more trees to die than used to,” Harmon said. “Over long periods of time that can change the whole composition of the forest.”

Ultimately, higher tree mortality may lead to significant shifts in forest structure and function, the report concluded. The study also demonstrated that global changes in tree mortality are not confined to the tropics, as has been documented in other studies, and may be as or more serious in temperate zones.

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Collaborators on the study included scientists from OSU, the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Forest Service, University of British Columbia, University of Washington, Northern Arizona University, University of Colorado and Pennsylvania State University.

Editor’s Note: A digital image of Mark Harmon, a professor of forest science at OSU, can be found on the web at http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/photos/hixon_cascade.JPG

The new film, The Garden is being shown on the Stanford campus–Thursday Jan 29

Post Film Discussion led by Sarah Wiederkehr (Stanford, Farm Educator) and Erin Gaines (Stanford, Sustainable Foods Coordinator)
7:00 pm
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Cummings Art Bldg, Annenberg Auditorium, 435 Lasuen Mall (map)
Immigrant workers have been farming a 14-acre community garden in South Central L.A. since 1982 — but change is underway. This film tells an intricate story that involves backroom deals, land developers, money, poverty, and racial discord and in the process it raises challenging questions about liberty, equality, and justice for the most vulnerable.

Stanford’s Center for Ethics and Society does a great job on events and getting the word out on different issues, films and more– take a look.

Take a look at this!! Energy information that is so “digestible” that you’ll understand your energy usage and …. possibly be able to improve on energy conservation. This company, Positive Energy, is thinking about HOW to get people engaged in what they do and how to do it better.
http://positiveenergyusa.com/products/overview.html

located in Washington DC…. they are hiring too.

Started by CAL Alumnus…. yes, go bears!

Positive Energy employs a unique mix of expertise in technology, direct marketing and behavioral science to dramatically drive up customer engagement. Positive Energy was founded on a simple premise: it’s time to engage the 300 million Americans who are in the dark about their energy use.
All positions are in the Washington DC Metro area. Please send inquiries to jobs@ positiveenergyusa.com .

*** Reminds me of the Edward Tufte book, Envisioning Information and the regard he has for HOW information is presented and that this changes decisions. http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_ei

New research indicates that the ocean could rise in the next 100 years to a meter higher than the current sea level – which is three times higher than predictions from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC. The groundbreaking new results from an international collaboration between researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, England and Finland are published in the scientific journal Climate Dynamics.

According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the global climate in the coming century will be 2-4 degrees warmer than today, but the ocean is much slower to warm up than the air and the large ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica are also slower to melt. The great uncertainty in the calculation of the future rise in the sea level lies in the uncertainty over how quickly the ice sheets on land will melt and flow out to sea. The model predictions of the melting of the ice sheets are the basis for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s predictions for the rise in sea level are not capable of showing the rapid changes observed in recent years. The new research has therefore taken a different approach.

“Instead of making calculations based on what one believes will happen with the melting of the ice sheets we have made calculations based on what has actually happened in the past. We have looked at the direct relationship between the global temperature and the sea level 2000 years into the past”, explains Aslak Grinsted, who is a geophysicist at the Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.

With the help of annual growth rings of trees and analysis from ice core borings researchers have been able to calculate the temperature for the global climate 2000 years back in time. For around 300 years the sea level has been closely observed in several places around the world and in addition to that there is historical knowledge of the sea level of the past in different places in the world.

By linking the two sets of information together Aslak Grinsted could see the relationship between temperature and sea level. For example, in the Middle Ages around 12th century there was a warm period where the sea level was approximately 20 cm higher than today and in the 18th century there was the ‘little ice age’, where the sea level was approximately 25 cm lower than it is today.

Contact: Gertie Skaarup
skaarup@nbi.dk
453-532-5320
University of Copenhagen

TREES! We need more of them.

The article below highlights many of the advantages in conservation by simply PAYING ATTENTION to trees [how, when and what type of trees are planted] . In addition to the listed environmental benefits and energy savings, there are great social benefits. Trees create community, they can be used to teach environmental goals as well as commemorate special events. What if your family gifted trees for the birth of a new baby rather than the baby shower stuff that lasts less than a year.  And imagine the happiness of that same child climbing the tree.  Go on be a tree-hugger there are so many benefits. Read further for information on a Plant a Tree program in Sacramento.  Working on Urban Cool!!   Also check out one of my favorite responsible Tree groups, TREE PEOPLE.

California study shows shade trees reduce summertime electricity use

Shade trees also reduce carbon emissions

PORTLAND, Ore. January 5, 2009. A recent study shows that shade trees on the west and south sides of a house in California can reduce a homeowner’s summertime electric bill by about $25.00 a year. The study, conducted last year on 460 single-family homes in Sacramento, is the first large-scale study to use utility billing data to show that trees can reduce energy consumption.

“Everyone knows that shade trees cool a house. No one is going to get a Nobel Prize for that conclusion,” says the study co-author, Geoffrey Donovan. “But this study gets at the details: Where should a tree be placed to get the most benefits? And how exactly do shade trees impact our carbon footprint?”

Donovan, a research forester with the Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest (PNW) Research Station, is a co-author of the report with economist David Butry of the National Institutes of Standards and Technology. The report, “The Value of Shade: Estimating the Effect of Urban Trees on Summertime Electricity Use,” has been submitted for publication to the journal Energy and Buildings.

The researchers chose to do their study on homes in Sacramento because of the city’s hot summers and the fact that most people use air conditioners. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District operates an active tree planting program and residents are eligible for up to 10 free trees annually through a program delivered in partnership with the Sacramento Tree Foundation.

Some of the study’s key findings are:

·         Placement of a tree is the key to energy savings. Shade trees do affect summertime electricity use, but the amount of the savings depends on the location of the tree.

·         Trees planted within 40 feet of the south side or within 60 feet of the west side of the house will generate about the same amount of energy savings. This is because of the way shadows fall at different times of the day.

·         Tree cover on the east side of a house has no effect on electricity use.

·         A tree planted on the west side of a house can reduce net carbon emissions from summertime electricity use by 30 percent over a 100-year period.

In 2007, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District gave its customers about 16,000 free trees (at a cost of $85.00 a tree). The district will recoup this investment in 26 years provided trees are planted on the west side of a house.

“Because homeowners experience virtually none of the carbon benefits of tree planting,” says Donovan, “a subsidy to encourage tree planting seems warranted. Indeed, many of the benefits of urban trees have been shown to spill over to others in the community.”

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Source: Geoffrey Donovan, (503) 808-2043, gdonovan@fs.fed.us

The PNW Research Station is headquartered in Portland, Oregon. It has 11 laboratories and centers located in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington and about 500 employees.

Winning Workplaces is having a Great Green Event – check it out!!
Sustainable Workplaces – The Workplace of the Future
Use this link to register, if you are interested:
http://www.winningworkplaces.org/consultingandtraining/webinars.php#suswps – or here’s a shorter version: http://tinyurl.com/76h6uu

Description: Major corporations and government agencies are beginning to discover the strategic value of their workplaces as tools for maintaining a competitive edge and achieving strategic goals. However, many small organizations have long known that by building a “sustainable workplace,” they can more effectively meet business, environmental and socioeconomic goals.

Hear how these two organizations – one a 70-year-old organic rice farming operation, the other an international non-profit conservation group (both 2008 Top Small Workplace recipients) – define and have intentionally created humane, sustainable workplaces where passion for mission is always front and center.

All participants receive a copy of the slides and an Executive Summary of our 2008 Top Small Workplaces Benchmarking and Best Practices Report.

COST: $75 for a single registration, and there are group discounts available as well: 3 webinars for $199 ($225 value) and 6 for $379 ($450 value). Registrants choose one of these 3 packages when they click the “Order this Webinar” link and proceed to or secure order form.

Also on this order form – and on our website at http://www.winningworkplaces.org/consultingandtraining/webinars_recordings.php – our past live webinars are available as recordings with the session slides at the following discounted rates (discounted because registrants won’t have live access to the CEO speakers to chat questions to them):

Single – $50
3 – $119 ($150 value)
6 – $215 ($300 value)

Winning Worplaces typically has the live sessions available in our recordings section 1-2 days after their live date.

What a great mission statement:

What can Rackspace as a company do for the environment?
With eight data centers worldwide producing thousands of tons of CO2 a year, Rackspace knows the way we’ve been doing things has to change. We are dedicated to energy conservation and exploring new and alternative ways to conduct our business.

Author: LOUIS BERGERON

The best ways to improve energy security, mitigate global warming and reduce the number of deaths caused by air pollution are blowing in the wind and rippling in the water, not growing on prairies or glowing inside nuclear power plants, says Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford.

And “clean coal,” which involves capturing carbon emissions and sequestering them in the earth, is not clean at all, he asserts.

Jacobson has conducted the first quantitative, scientific evaluation of the proposed, major, energy-related solutions by assessing not only their potential for delivering energy for electricity and vehicles, but also their impacts on global warming, human health, energy security, water supply, space requirements, wildlife, water pollution, reliability and sustainability. His findings indicate that the options that are getting the most attention are between 25 to 1,000 times more polluting than the best available options. The paper with his findings will be published in the next issue of Energy and Environmental Science but is available online now. Jacobson is also director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford.

“The energy alternatives that are good are not the ones that people have been talking about the most. And some options that have been proposed are just downright awful,” Jacobson said. “Ethanol-based biofuels will actually cause more harm to human health, wildlife, water supply and land use than current fossil fuels.” He added that ethanol may also emit more global-warming pollutants than fossil fuels, according to the latest scientific studies.

The raw energy sources that Jacobson found to be the most promising are, in order, wind, concentrated solar (the use of mirrors to heat a fluid), geothermal, tidal, solar photovoltaics (rooftop solar panels), wave and hydroelectric. He recommends against nuclear, coal with carbon capture and sequestration, corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol, which is made of prairie grass. In fact, he found cellulosic ethanol was worse than corn ethanol because it results in more air pollution, requires more land to produce and causes more damage to wildlife.

To place the various alternatives on an equal footing, Jacobson first made his comparisons among the energy sources by calculating the impacts as if each alternative alone were used to power all the vehicles in the United States, assuming only “new-technology” vehicles were being used. Such vehicles include battery electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and “flex-fuel” vehicles that could run on a high blend of ethanol called E85.

Wind was by far the most promising, Jacobson said, owing to a better-than 99 percent reduction in carbon and air pollution emissions; the consumption of less than 3 square kilometers of land for the turbine footprints to run the entire U.S. vehicle fleet (given the fleet is composed of battery-electric vehicles); the saving of about 15,000 lives per year from premature air-pollution-related deaths from vehicle exhaust in the United States; and virtually no water consumption. By contrast, corn and cellulosic ethanol will continue to cause more than 15,000 air pollution-related deaths in the country per year, Jacobson asserted.

Because the wind turbines would require a modest amount of spacing between them to allow room for the blades to spin, wind farms would occupy about 0.5 percent of all U.S. land, but this amount is more than 30 times less than that required for growing corn or grasses for ethanol. Land between turbines on wind farms would be simultaneously available as farmland or pasture or could be left as open space.

Indeed, a battery-powered U.S. vehicle fleet could be charged by 73,000 to 144,000 5-megawatt wind turbines, fewer than the 300,000 airplanes the U.S. produced during World War II and far easier to build. Additional turbines could provide electricity for other energy needs.

“There is a lot of talk among politicians that we need a massive jobs program to pull the economy out of the current recession,” Jacobson said. “Well, putting people to work building wind turbines, solar plants, geothermal plants, electric vehicles and transmission lines would not only create jobs but would also reduce costs due to health care, crop damage and climate damage from current vehicle and electric power pollution, as well as provide the world with a truly unlimited supply of clean power.”

Jacobson said that while some people are under the impression that wind and wave power are too variable to provide steady amounts of electricity, his research group has already shown in previous research that by properly coordinating the energy output from wind farms in different locations, the potential problem with variability can be overcome and a steady supply of baseline power delivered to users.

Jacobson’s research is particularly timely in light of the growing push to develop biofuels, which he calculated to be the worst of the available alternatives. In their effort to obtain a federal bailout, the Big Three Detroit automakers are increasingly touting their efforts and programs in the biofuels realm, and federal research dollars have been supporting a growing number of biofuel-research efforts.

“That is exactly the wrong place to be spending our money. Biofuels are the most damaging choice we could make in our efforts to move away from using fossil fuels,” Jacobson said. “We should be spending to promote energy technologies that cause significant reductions in carbon emissions and air-pollution mortality, not technologies that have either marginal benefits or no benefits at all”.

“Obviously, wind alone isn’t the solution,” Jacobson said. “It’s got to be a package deal, with energy also being produced by other sources such as solar, tidal, wave and geothermal power.”

During the recent presidential campaign, nuclear power and clean coal were often touted as energy solutions that should be pursued, but nuclear power and coal with carbon capture and sequestration were Jacobson’s lowest-ranked choices after biofuels. “Coal with carbon sequestration emits 60- to 110-times more carbon and air pollution than wind energy, and nuclear emits about 25-times more carbon and air pollution than wind energy,” Jacobson said. Although carbon-capture equipment reduces 85-90 percent of the carbon exhaust from a coal-fired power plant, it has no impact on the carbon resulting from the mining or transport of the coal or on the exhaust of other air pollutants. In fact, because carbon capture requires a roughly 25-percent increase in energy from the coal plant, about 25 percent more coal is needed, increasing mountaintop removal and increasing non-carbon air pollution from power plants, he said.

Nuclear power poses other risks. Jacobson said it is likely that if the United States were to move more heavily into nuclear power, then other nations would demand to be able to use that option.

“Once you have a nuclear energy facility, it’s straightforward to start refining uranium in that facility, which is what Iran is doing and Venezuela is planning to do,” Jacobson said. “The potential for terrorists to obtain a nuclear weapon or for states to develop nuclear weapons that could be used in limited regional wars will certainly increase with an increase in the number of nuclear energy facilities worldwide.” Jacobson calculated that if one small nuclear bomb exploded, the carbon emissions from the burning of a large city would be modest, but the death rate for one such event would be twice as large as the current vehicle air pollution death rate summed over 30 years.

Finally, both coal and nuclear energy plants take much longer to plan, permit and construct than do most of the other new energy sources that Jacobson’s study recommends. The result would be even more emissions from existing nuclear and coal power sources as people continue to use comparatively “dirty” electricity while waiting for the new energy sources to come online, Jacobson said.

Jacobson received no funding from any interest group, company or government agency.

Energy and vehicle options, from best to worst, according to Jacobson’s calculations:

Best to worst electric power sources:

1. Wind power 2. concentrated solar power (CSP) 3. geothermal power 4. tidal power 5. solar photovoltaics (PV) 6. wave power 7. hydroelectric power 8. a tie between nuclear power and coal with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).

Best to worst vehicle options:

1. Wind-BEVs (battery electric vehicles) 2. wind-HFCVs (hydrogen fuel cell vehicles) 3.CSP-BEVs 4. geothermal-BEVs 5. tidal-BEVs 6. solar PV-BEVs 7. Wave-BEVs 8.hydroelectric-BEVs 9. a tie between nuclear-BEVs and coal-CCS-BEVs 11. corn-E85 12.cellulosic-E85.

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles were examined only when powered by wind energy, but they could be combined with other electric power sources. Although HFCVs require about three times more energy than do BEVs (BEVs are very efficient), HFCVs are still very clean and more efficient than pure gasoline, and wind-HFCVs still resulted in the second-highest overall ranking. HFCVs have an advantage in that they can be refueled faster than can BEVs (although BEV charging is getting faster). Thus, HFCVs may be useful for long trips (more than 250 miles) while BEVs more useful for trips less than 250 miles. An ideal combination may be a BEV-HFCV hybrid.