The war of words within the government on the MEF statement has got heated up. If the UN negotiations were to adopt the concepts India signed on at the Major Emitters' Forum on climate change, the tables could turn against India, an official negotiator has warned.
While warning of the spin being given to the Prime Minister's signing on to the declaration in Italy, the negotiator has explained in an internal note how the ideas in the political statement, if adopted, could impact India's growth. But with the special envoy to the PM and the chief negotiator, Shyam Saran, coming out in defence of the statement the rift in the negotiators has now sprung out of the bureaucratic corridors. The negotiator, continuing to be a part of the government think tank on climate issues and still consulted by the PM and the special envoy along with other negotiators after the Italy meet, refused to comment when contacted. But in his correspondence with other colleagues, he has warned that while India has accepted that it would go below the `business-as-usual' scenario, for a rapidly developing country the phrase itself has little meaning. Only progressively lower energy intensity and parallel lowering of poverty is the real measure of India walking on a green path to development. He points out that the MEF declaration even when coupled with the developed world's seemingly ambitious target of cutting emissions to 85% below 1990 levels by 2050 would allow the rich nations to occupy more than their equitable carbon space in the atmosphere in perpetuity while leaving India stranded at much lower levels. Other observers have concluded that under the MEF model, even China and South Africa would be able to surge far ahead of India. He has written that under an `equitable allocation of environmental space' this occupation of excess carbon space would have to be paid for by the rich nations. "If duly adjusted for time value of money, it amount to trillions of dollars in unpaid climate debt," he has said. He points out that even the British economist Nicolas Stern, whose work on climate is recognized worldwide, accepts it so. He says that in a fair deal, the industrialized nations would therefore have to pay the full costs of technology and capacity building of reducing emissions in the developing world. But the MEF statement that India has signed on to, though calling it a mere political line not really enforceable at the UN negotiations, has now weakened the link between actions that India takes and the costs that the rich nations would bear. At the negotiations, India has demanded full costs passed through the UN convention but at the MEF the government has agreed to only supportive costs including those given outside the UN and through private sector channels. With all the negotiators TOI contacted refusing to talk, the controversy may get buried as India would now have to prepare to explain its moves to its allies in the G77 and to hunt for holding on to its negotiating space at the next round of UN negotiations in Bonn in August.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Onions produce tears and energy at an Oxnard plant
After more than 20 years farming onions, Steve Gill still breaks out in tears at his processing facility. ¶ Only now he's crying all the way to the bank. ¶ He recently began using juice from his pungent crop to create energy to run his refrigerators and lighting. That's slicing $700,000 annually off the electric bill at his 14-acre plant in Oxnard. He's also saving $400,000 a year on disposal costs. And he has secured more than $3 million in government and power company incentives to do it. ¶ Gill figures the $9.5-million system will pay for itself in less than six years while eliminating up to 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions a year. ¶ "It's a great sustainability story, but it was first a business decision to solve a waste problem," said Gill, 59, who co-owns the company with his brother David. "But in doing so, we solved a lot of environmental problems too." ¶ Gills Onions is one of a small but growing cadre of U.S. companies generating their own electricity on site with waste from their production processes. In addition to plant material, firms are using a variety of feedstocks, including animal manure, vegetable oil, whey -- even beer.The massive upfront costs limit the appeal of these so-called closed-loop systems. But volatile energy prices and the rising cost of waste disposal are compelling more firms to take a look.
Farmers and processors in California's $37-billion agricultural industry in particular are looking for ways to save money and reduce their environmental footprint, said Sonia Salas, science and technology manager for the Western Growers Assn."Many growers want technology that helps them handle waste," she said. "This is a concept that other operations can definitely use."The system at Gills Onions, which will be unveiled to the public today, converts methane from fermented onion juice into energy burned in two on-site fuel cells.
The company has farms throughout California that send onions year-round to the Oxnard plant, where they are skinned, diced, sliced or packaged whole in a numbingly frigid facility by 400 employees. The vegetables are then shipped all over the country to wholesalers and retailers such as Ralphs.Machines slice off about 40% of each onion. That leaves 150 tons of waste a day. For years, the Gills spread these leavings as fertilizer over their fields or sold them as cattle feed. But the refuse was expensive to handle, and it posed a hazard to the atmosphere and groundwater.So the brothers decided to turn it into energy instead.Machines extract about 30,000 gallons of onion juice that is then sent to a 145,000-gallon holding tank kept at a toasty 95 degrees. Inside, bacteria purchased from an Anheuser-Busch beer brewery produce methane gas by feasting on the carbohydrates in the fermenting juice."It's like a big stomach," said project manager Bill Deaton.The gas is purified, dehumidified and compressed, then burned in the fuel cells at temperatures that exceed 1,000 degrees. The 600-kilowatt system produces enough power to operate the plant's refrigeration units and lighting.The Gills are also looking into installing a battery at the plant that can store excess electricity from the fuel cells. Reserve energy could be used during peak hours in the summer, when electricity is more expensive."I didn't want to depend on anyone taking my waste for me," Gill said. "It was my problem, and I had to solve it. It's a relief to find a solution."Producing biofuel for a single company's closed-loop system is one thing, but integrating the energy into the public grid is still a prohibitively expensive and difficult endeavor.Fuel from organic matter, such as crushed palm nuts or fermented wheat, is rarely pure enough to blend with commercial energy sources, said Ross McCracken, editor of Platts Energy Economist.As a result, companies would have to sink funds into cleaning the biogas and then invest in a pipeline or other delivery system to hook the fuel into the national pool.And even large companies would struggle to produce enough fuel to make a significant contribution.The drawbacks make many experts skeptical of the large-scale potential of any biogas."There's no silver bullet," McCracken said. "The technology isn't quite there.Meanwhile, Gills Onions is keeping its eco-friendly aspirations close to home. Gill hopes to turn the plant into a zero-waste facility by revamping packaging and by recycling employees' lunch leftovers.The company even cleans its own wastewater and funnels it into a cooling tower."We consider this a long-term investment for the company," Gill said.
Farmers and processors in California's $37-billion agricultural industry in particular are looking for ways to save money and reduce their environmental footprint, said Sonia Salas, science and technology manager for the Western Growers Assn."Many growers want technology that helps them handle waste," she said. "This is a concept that other operations can definitely use."The system at Gills Onions, which will be unveiled to the public today, converts methane from fermented onion juice into energy burned in two on-site fuel cells.
The company has farms throughout California that send onions year-round to the Oxnard plant, where they are skinned, diced, sliced or packaged whole in a numbingly frigid facility by 400 employees. The vegetables are then shipped all over the country to wholesalers and retailers such as Ralphs.Machines slice off about 40% of each onion. That leaves 150 tons of waste a day. For years, the Gills spread these leavings as fertilizer over their fields or sold them as cattle feed. But the refuse was expensive to handle, and it posed a hazard to the atmosphere and groundwater.So the brothers decided to turn it into energy instead.Machines extract about 30,000 gallons of onion juice that is then sent to a 145,000-gallon holding tank kept at a toasty 95 degrees. Inside, bacteria purchased from an Anheuser-Busch beer brewery produce methane gas by feasting on the carbohydrates in the fermenting juice."It's like a big stomach," said project manager Bill Deaton.The gas is purified, dehumidified and compressed, then burned in the fuel cells at temperatures that exceed 1,000 degrees. The 600-kilowatt system produces enough power to operate the plant's refrigeration units and lighting.The Gills are also looking into installing a battery at the plant that can store excess electricity from the fuel cells. Reserve energy could be used during peak hours in the summer, when electricity is more expensive."I didn't want to depend on anyone taking my waste for me," Gill said. "It was my problem, and I had to solve it. It's a relief to find a solution."Producing biofuel for a single company's closed-loop system is one thing, but integrating the energy into the public grid is still a prohibitively expensive and difficult endeavor.Fuel from organic matter, such as crushed palm nuts or fermented wheat, is rarely pure enough to blend with commercial energy sources, said Ross McCracken, editor of Platts Energy Economist.As a result, companies would have to sink funds into cleaning the biogas and then invest in a pipeline or other delivery system to hook the fuel into the national pool.And even large companies would struggle to produce enough fuel to make a significant contribution.The drawbacks make many experts skeptical of the large-scale potential of any biogas."There's no silver bullet," McCracken said. "The technology isn't quite there.Meanwhile, Gills Onions is keeping its eco-friendly aspirations close to home. Gill hopes to turn the plant into a zero-waste facility by revamping packaging and by recycling employees' lunch leftovers.The company even cleans its own wastewater and funnels it into a cooling tower."We consider this a long-term investment for the company," Gill said.
U.S. Officials Press China on Climate
The top American energy and commerce officials called in speeches here on Wednesday for China to do more to address global warming, contending that the country was particularly vulnerable to a changing climateEnergy Secretary Steven Chu warned in a speech at Tsinghua University, China’s top science university, that if humans did not reverse the rising pace of their emissions of greenhouse gases, more people would be displaced by rising sea levels in China than in any other country, even Bangladesh.
If China’s emissions of global warming gases keep growing at the pace of the last 30 years, the country will emit more such gases in the next three decades than the United States has in its entire history, said Mr. Chu, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
While Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other Obama administration officials have mentioned China’s contribution to global warming during visits here this year, the remarks by Mr. Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke were by far the strongest public criticisms yet, and the clearest demands that China take action.
Mr. Locke said in a speech to the American Chamber of Commerce that China shared a special responsibility with the United States to address global warming. China passed the United States two years ago as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and together the two countries account for 42 percent of emissions caused by humans.
“Fifty years from now, we do not want the world to lay the blame for environmental catastrophe at the feet of China,” Mr. Locke said.
Mr. Chu and Mr. Locke, who are both of Chinese heritage, called for the United States and China to work together to develop new technologies to generate clean energy and to improve energy efficiency.
After meeting Wednesday afternoon with senior Chinese officials, they announced that each country would put up $15 million for a joint research center on clean energy, with headquarters in each country at locations not yet decided.
They are to meet again with Chinese officials on Thursday.
Xinhua, China’s official news agency, from which the other news media in China tend to take their cue, carried a long article on the two cabinet secretaries’ speeches and a shorter one on the creation of the joint research center.
But while the long article included a quotation from Mr. Locke in which he acknowledged that the United States had been emitting greenhouse gases for 150 years, neither Xinhua article included any mention of China’s role or of the American criticisms of that role.
The longer article made only a passing mention that China and the United States were the top two emitters, but did not say that China had surpassed the United States in that regard. Chinese officials issued no response to any of the secretaries’ remarks.
In separate interviews, Mr. Chu and Mr. Locke also said they wanted China to show respect for American intellectual property and to remove trade barriers to American energy technologies.
As China seeks to develop and shelter its own energy industries, its growing trade restrictions are a potentially serious obstacle to such cooperation, a factor underlined by the signing of a General Electric contract that Mr. Locke attended in Beijing.
G.E. signed a contract with the Pucheng Clean Energy Chemical Company to license G.E.’s technology for turning coal into a gas for use in a Chinese chemical factory.
The Chinese government prefers technology licensing agreements, in which Western companies transfer technology to Chinese factories, to buying finished goods from factories abroad.
The chemical factory licensing agreement is also a small transaction, estimated at $20 million, compared with the construction of a $375 million power plant China recently started on the outskirts of Tianjin, 90 miles from Beijing, that will turn coal into a gas before burning it.
G.E. executives spent more than a decade trying to win a contract to build such a power plant in China, sharing extensive technical information with Chinese power engineers on how they would go about it.
But at a ceremony in Tianjin on July 6, Chinese officials announced that they were ready to build the 250-megawatt power plant themselves and that they would no longer need to buy Western technology.
Jack Wen, the president of G.E.’s China energy division, welcomed the Pucheng contract and said his company was interested in working with China to build a similar power plant even bigger than the one now under construction in Tianjin.
Chinese officials have strenuously opposed binding limits on emissions of greenhouse gases by developing countries, most recently at the Group of 8 meeting in Italy last week. They have emphasized that industrialized countries are responsible for most of the emissions already in the atmosphere, and that emissions per person remain higher in rich countries than in developing ones.
Mr. Chu acknowledged these points by presenting charts showing that Chinese emissions per person were still roughly a quarter of American emissions per person and showing that the United States had put three times the amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as China since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. He also acknowledged that China had more stringent automotive fuel economy standards than the United States.
But Mr. Chu and Mr. Locke were clearly trying to hone counterarguments, based mainly on the dangers to China and the world if Chinese emissions continued to rise quickly.
“We’re not talking about their giving up prosperity; we’re talking about their using energy in a more efficient way,” Mr. Chu said in an interview.
If China’s emissions of global warming gases keep growing at the pace of the last 30 years, the country will emit more such gases in the next three decades than the United States has in its entire history, said Mr. Chu, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
While Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other Obama administration officials have mentioned China’s contribution to global warming during visits here this year, the remarks by Mr. Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke were by far the strongest public criticisms yet, and the clearest demands that China take action.
Mr. Locke said in a speech to the American Chamber of Commerce that China shared a special responsibility with the United States to address global warming. China passed the United States two years ago as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and together the two countries account for 42 percent of emissions caused by humans.
“Fifty years from now, we do not want the world to lay the blame for environmental catastrophe at the feet of China,” Mr. Locke said.
Mr. Chu and Mr. Locke, who are both of Chinese heritage, called for the United States and China to work together to develop new technologies to generate clean energy and to improve energy efficiency.
After meeting Wednesday afternoon with senior Chinese officials, they announced that each country would put up $15 million for a joint research center on clean energy, with headquarters in each country at locations not yet decided.
They are to meet again with Chinese officials on Thursday.
Xinhua, China’s official news agency, from which the other news media in China tend to take their cue, carried a long article on the two cabinet secretaries’ speeches and a shorter one on the creation of the joint research center.
But while the long article included a quotation from Mr. Locke in which he acknowledged that the United States had been emitting greenhouse gases for 150 years, neither Xinhua article included any mention of China’s role or of the American criticisms of that role.
The longer article made only a passing mention that China and the United States were the top two emitters, but did not say that China had surpassed the United States in that regard. Chinese officials issued no response to any of the secretaries’ remarks.
In separate interviews, Mr. Chu and Mr. Locke also said they wanted China to show respect for American intellectual property and to remove trade barriers to American energy technologies.
As China seeks to develop and shelter its own energy industries, its growing trade restrictions are a potentially serious obstacle to such cooperation, a factor underlined by the signing of a General Electric contract that Mr. Locke attended in Beijing.
G.E. signed a contract with the Pucheng Clean Energy Chemical Company to license G.E.’s technology for turning coal into a gas for use in a Chinese chemical factory.
The Chinese government prefers technology licensing agreements, in which Western companies transfer technology to Chinese factories, to buying finished goods from factories abroad.
The chemical factory licensing agreement is also a small transaction, estimated at $20 million, compared with the construction of a $375 million power plant China recently started on the outskirts of Tianjin, 90 miles from Beijing, that will turn coal into a gas before burning it.
G.E. executives spent more than a decade trying to win a contract to build such a power plant in China, sharing extensive technical information with Chinese power engineers on how they would go about it.
But at a ceremony in Tianjin on July 6, Chinese officials announced that they were ready to build the 250-megawatt power plant themselves and that they would no longer need to buy Western technology.
Jack Wen, the president of G.E.’s China energy division, welcomed the Pucheng contract and said his company was interested in working with China to build a similar power plant even bigger than the one now under construction in Tianjin.
Chinese officials have strenuously opposed binding limits on emissions of greenhouse gases by developing countries, most recently at the Group of 8 meeting in Italy last week. They have emphasized that industrialized countries are responsible for most of the emissions already in the atmosphere, and that emissions per person remain higher in rich countries than in developing ones.
Mr. Chu acknowledged these points by presenting charts showing that Chinese emissions per person were still roughly a quarter of American emissions per person and showing that the United States had put three times the amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as China since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. He also acknowledged that China had more stringent automotive fuel economy standards than the United States.
But Mr. Chu and Mr. Locke were clearly trying to hone counterarguments, based mainly on the dangers to China and the world if Chinese emissions continued to rise quickly.
“We’re not talking about their giving up prosperity; we’re talking about their using energy in a more efficient way,” Mr. Chu said in an interview.
Study Details How U.S. Could Cut 28% of Greenhouse Gases
The United States could shave as much as 28 percent off the amount of greenhouse gases it emits at fairly modest cost and with only small technology innovations, according to a new report.A large share of the reductions could come from steps that would more than pay for themselves in lower energy bills for industries and individual consumers, the report said, adding that people should take those steps out of good sense regardless of how worried they might be about climate change. But that is unlikely to happen under present circumstances, said the authors, who are energy experts at McKinsey & Company, the consulting firm.
The report said the country was brimming with “negative cost opportunities” — potential changes in the lighting, heating and cooling of buildings, for example, that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels even as they save money. “These types of savings have been around for 20 years,” said Jack Stephenson, a director of the study. But he said they still face tremendous barriers.
Among them is that equipment is often paid for by a landlord or a builder and chosen for its low initial cost. The cost of electricity or other fuels to operate the equipment is borne by a tenant or home buyer. That means the landlord or builder has no incentive to spend more upfront for efficient equipment, even though doing so would save a lot of money in the long run.
Another problem, the report said, is that consumers often pay no attention to energy use in choosing gear. Computers, for instance, can be manufactured to use less power, but with most users oblivious to energy efficiency when they are shopping for a computer, manufacturers perceive no competitive edge in spending the extra money on efficiency.
“What the report calls out is the fact that the potential is so substantial for energy efficiency,” said Ken Ostrowski, a leader of the report team. “Not that we will do it, but the potential is just staggering here in the U.S. There is a lot of inertia, and a lot of barriers.”
The country can do the job with “tested approaches and high-potential emerging technologies,” the study found, but doing the work “will require strong, coordinated, economywide action that begins in the near future.”
The report focused on describing the problem, rather than on advocating fixes. But it did mention some possible solutions. Rules for utilities could be rewritten so they make as much money in promoting conservation as in selling electricity, the study said.
The task might also require emissions limits and other government mandates, as well as incentives like tax breaks to promote efficient buildings, cars and appliances, the study said. The McKinsey report said “lifestyle changes” by Americans could play a role in improved efficiency, even though they were not a major factor in the potential gains the report cited.
“A broad public education program around wasteful energy consumption could be mounted,” the report said. Modeled on the “Keep America Beautiful” campaign of the 1960s, it could promote reduction in “carbon littering” by increasing people’s awareness of the problem.
In contrast to improved efficiency, measures like capturing carbon dioxide from coal power plants and storing it would be relatively costly, and they account for less than 10 percent of the potential to cut emissions, the study said. The potential contributions from new nuclear plants and renewable energy supplies from wind or solar sources are also relatively modest, the report said.
The study, released yesterday in Washington, was conducted by McKinsey & Company for DTE Energy (the parent company of Detroit Edison), Environmental Defense, Honeywell, National Grid, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Pacific Gas & Electric and Shell.
Its release comes a week before a United Nations climate conference is to convene in Bali, and as Congress approaches a vote on proposals to limit emissions of greenhouse gases.
The report said the country was brimming with “negative cost opportunities” — potential changes in the lighting, heating and cooling of buildings, for example, that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels even as they save money. “These types of savings have been around for 20 years,” said Jack Stephenson, a director of the study. But he said they still face tremendous barriers.
Among them is that equipment is often paid for by a landlord or a builder and chosen for its low initial cost. The cost of electricity or other fuels to operate the equipment is borne by a tenant or home buyer. That means the landlord or builder has no incentive to spend more upfront for efficient equipment, even though doing so would save a lot of money in the long run.
Another problem, the report said, is that consumers often pay no attention to energy use in choosing gear. Computers, for instance, can be manufactured to use less power, but with most users oblivious to energy efficiency when they are shopping for a computer, manufacturers perceive no competitive edge in spending the extra money on efficiency.
“What the report calls out is the fact that the potential is so substantial for energy efficiency,” said Ken Ostrowski, a leader of the report team. “Not that we will do it, but the potential is just staggering here in the U.S. There is a lot of inertia, and a lot of barriers.”
The country can do the job with “tested approaches and high-potential emerging technologies,” the study found, but doing the work “will require strong, coordinated, economywide action that begins in the near future.”
The report focused on describing the problem, rather than on advocating fixes. But it did mention some possible solutions. Rules for utilities could be rewritten so they make as much money in promoting conservation as in selling electricity, the study said.
The task might also require emissions limits and other government mandates, as well as incentives like tax breaks to promote efficient buildings, cars and appliances, the study said. The McKinsey report said “lifestyle changes” by Americans could play a role in improved efficiency, even though they were not a major factor in the potential gains the report cited.
“A broad public education program around wasteful energy consumption could be mounted,” the report said. Modeled on the “Keep America Beautiful” campaign of the 1960s, it could promote reduction in “carbon littering” by increasing people’s awareness of the problem.
In contrast to improved efficiency, measures like capturing carbon dioxide from coal power plants and storing it would be relatively costly, and they account for less than 10 percent of the potential to cut emissions, the study said. The potential contributions from new nuclear plants and renewable energy supplies from wind or solar sources are also relatively modest, the report said.
The study, released yesterday in Washington, was conducted by McKinsey & Company for DTE Energy (the parent company of Detroit Edison), Environmental Defense, Honeywell, National Grid, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Pacific Gas & Electric and Shell.
Its release comes a week before a United Nations climate conference is to convene in Bali, and as Congress approaches a vote on proposals to limit emissions of greenhouse gases.
Global Warming
On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is "unequivocal," and that human activity has "very likely" been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years. The last report by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2001, had found that humanity had "likely" played a role.
The addition of that single word "very" did more than reflect mounting scientific evidence that the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from smokestacks, tailpipes and burning forests has played a central role in raising the average surface temperature of the earth by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900. It also added new momentum to a debate that now seems centered less over whether humans are warming the planet, but instead over what to do about it. In recent months, business groups have banded together to make unprecedented calls for federal regulation of greenhouse gases. The subject had a red-carpet moment when former Vice President Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," was awarded an Oscar; and the Supreme Court made its first global warming-related decision, ruling 5 to 4 that the Environmental Protection Agency had not justified its position that it was not authorized to regulate carbon dioxide.
The addition of that single word "very" did more than reflect mounting scientific evidence that the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from smokestacks, tailpipes and burning forests has played a central role in raising the average surface temperature of the earth by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900. It also added new momentum to a debate that now seems centered less over whether humans are warming the planet, but instead over what to do about it. In recent months, business groups have banded together to make unprecedented calls for federal regulation of greenhouse gases. The subject had a red-carpet moment when former Vice President Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," was awarded an Oscar; and the Supreme Court made its first global warming-related decision, ruling 5 to 4 that the Environmental Protection Agency had not justified its position that it was not authorized to regulate carbon dioxide.
American Apathy And Global Warming
In a Gallup survey from 1989, 35% of respondents told interviewers they worried a great deal about global warming. In its March 2009 poll, nearly the same number, 34%, said they did. Further, the issue ranked dead last--20th of 20 issues--when the Pew Research Center asked respondents to list top priorities for President Obama and Congress. In an ABC/Washington Post poll on the same topic, global warming ranked 11th out of 11 issues.
How could this be, given all the media coverage and political attention global warming has received? Why aren't Americans more concerned about it?
Understanding current attitudes requires stepping back to see how the environment emerged as an issue on our radar. From 1935 to the early 1960s, opinion surveys included hardly any questions about the environment. Pollsters asked a few questions about sanitation (glass vs. paper cartons) and a handful of questions about the population "explosion." But not one on what we would today call "environmental issues."
The issue sprang to life in the late 1960s, and it soon became clear from the polls that Americans wanted a clean and healthy environment and were willing to take reasonable steps to achieve it.
The environment became a core value. When we as a nation agree on the goals policy should serve, we usually step back from the discussions about the means by which those goals should be achieved. Most of us are busy, and we don't have time to read the latest reported changes in water quality or global temperature over the past century.
In other words, we follow debates casually. As a back-handed compliment to our system of representative democracy, we are content to let competing interest groups, political parties and others debate the next policy steps, reasonably confident that good policy will result from the clash of interests. This understanding of how public opinion forms explains why global warming isn't a top priority.
Pollsters are currently seeking answers to lots of questions about the next steps to address global warming because, on this topic, existing results are of limited use. It is extremely difficult to know from polls how far people want to go in terms of taxing, spending and regulating in the abstract.
A recent poll from Yale and George Mason universities found that 79% of Americans would support a 45-mile-per-gallon fuel-efficiency standard for cars, trucks and SUVs--even if it meant a new vehicle would cost $1,000 more.
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But would people really be willing to pay a $1,000 more for a car when their health care and day-to-day living costs are increasing too? I'm not sure, but I do know that abstract questions like this one are not reliable for determining public opinion.
There are other reasons that, right now, global warming isn't a top priority. Americans don't see it as a problem for today. Only 4% of respondents to the Yale/Mason poll strongly agreed that they had personally experienced the effects of global warming. For obvious reasons, people are much more concerned about the economy and unemployment. They also have high confidence in capabilities of American science and, as a result, they may believe efforts in that area will lead to progress.
Finally, there is evidence from polls that media outlets may have over-covered the topic. When the environment emerged as an issue, the media had much greater public credibility. A decade ago, 31% of respondents to one poll said the media were exaggerating the seriousness of the issue. That figure has risen to 41% today.
In another new poll, the "mainstream media" ranked far below scientists and environmentalists as a source people turned to for information about global warming. Media's championing of the cause may also explain a new development in more recent polls on the topic: intense partisan polarization on many aspects of the debate.
To answer the question posed at the beginning of this column, Americans are concerned about global warming. They believe it's a problem that is real and serious; they aren't indifferent. But most may think their voices have already been heard and, as a result, they will choose to stay on the sidelines as the issue remains in the realm of intense political debate.
How could this be, given all the media coverage and political attention global warming has received? Why aren't Americans more concerned about it?
Understanding current attitudes requires stepping back to see how the environment emerged as an issue on our radar. From 1935 to the early 1960s, opinion surveys included hardly any questions about the environment. Pollsters asked a few questions about sanitation (glass vs. paper cartons) and a handful of questions about the population "explosion." But not one on what we would today call "environmental issues."
The issue sprang to life in the late 1960s, and it soon became clear from the polls that Americans wanted a clean and healthy environment and were willing to take reasonable steps to achieve it.
The environment became a core value. When we as a nation agree on the goals policy should serve, we usually step back from the discussions about the means by which those goals should be achieved. Most of us are busy, and we don't have time to read the latest reported changes in water quality or global temperature over the past century.
In other words, we follow debates casually. As a back-handed compliment to our system of representative democracy, we are content to let competing interest groups, political parties and others debate the next policy steps, reasonably confident that good policy will result from the clash of interests. This understanding of how public opinion forms explains why global warming isn't a top priority.
Pollsters are currently seeking answers to lots of questions about the next steps to address global warming because, on this topic, existing results are of limited use. It is extremely difficult to know from polls how far people want to go in terms of taxing, spending and regulating in the abstract.
A recent poll from Yale and George Mason universities found that 79% of Americans would support a 45-mile-per-gallon fuel-efficiency standard for cars, trucks and SUVs--even if it meant a new vehicle would cost $1,000 more.
Related Stories
Who Killed California's Economy?
Get Briefed: P. Brett Hammond
Can We Trust Polls From Iran?
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Related Videos
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But would people really be willing to pay a $1,000 more for a car when their health care and day-to-day living costs are increasing too? I'm not sure, but I do know that abstract questions like this one are not reliable for determining public opinion.
There are other reasons that, right now, global warming isn't a top priority. Americans don't see it as a problem for today. Only 4% of respondents to the Yale/Mason poll strongly agreed that they had personally experienced the effects of global warming. For obvious reasons, people are much more concerned about the economy and unemployment. They also have high confidence in capabilities of American science and, as a result, they may believe efforts in that area will lead to progress.
Finally, there is evidence from polls that media outlets may have over-covered the topic. When the environment emerged as an issue, the media had much greater public credibility. A decade ago, 31% of respondents to one poll said the media were exaggerating the seriousness of the issue. That figure has risen to 41% today.
In another new poll, the "mainstream media" ranked far below scientists and environmentalists as a source people turned to for information about global warming. Media's championing of the cause may also explain a new development in more recent polls on the topic: intense partisan polarization on many aspects of the debate.
To answer the question posed at the beginning of this column, Americans are concerned about global warming. They believe it's a problem that is real and serious; they aren't indifferent. But most may think their voices have already been heard and, as a result, they will choose to stay on the sidelines as the issue remains in the realm of intense political debate.
Teen Behaviors Stem From Genetics, Environment
Teens' alcohol use and behavior problems are influenced by both genetic and environmental factors, a new study finds.
"In the past, research on genetic and environmental influences on behavior was often conducted in isolation," researcher Danielle Dick, an assistant professor of psychiatry, psychology, and human and molecular genetics at Virginia Commonwealth University, said in a news release.
"Some scientists were interested in genetic effects, others in environmental effects. We now know that both genetic and environmental influences are important for most behavioral outcomes, and our challenge is to understand how they interact," she explained.
"Much of the research on environmental influences on alcohol use and behavior problems focuses on the impact of parents and peers," Dick added. "While these are clearly critical environmental influences, we have also found that socio-regional, or neighborhood influences, also have big impacts on adolescent behavioral outcomes, and these environmental effects have not received as much attention historically."
In this study, Dick and colleagues analyzed long-term data gathered on more than 5,000 twins born in Finland between 1983 and 1987. The researchers focused on how genetic and environmental factors influenced behavior problems at age 12 and alcohol use at age 14.
They found that certain environments promoted the expression of a teens' genetic predispositions, while other environments limited gene expression.
The study, which appears online, will be published in the October print issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
"There is now converging evidence across a number of different studies that behavioral problems in kids are associated with both concurrent and future alcohol problems," Dick said. "There is evidence accumulating from genetic studies that behavior problems may be one of the first signs of an individual at increased susceptibility for developing alcohol problems."
An important message from this kind of research is that a person's destiny isn't written in their genes, the authors noted.
"We're not all equally predisposed to develop alcohol or behavior problems, and the environment can be a key factor in whether or not an individual ever develops problems," Dick said.
"In the past, research on genetic and environmental influences on behavior was often conducted in isolation," researcher Danielle Dick, an assistant professor of psychiatry, psychology, and human and molecular genetics at Virginia Commonwealth University, said in a news release.
"Some scientists were interested in genetic effects, others in environmental effects. We now know that both genetic and environmental influences are important for most behavioral outcomes, and our challenge is to understand how they interact," she explained.
"Much of the research on environmental influences on alcohol use and behavior problems focuses on the impact of parents and peers," Dick added. "While these are clearly critical environmental influences, we have also found that socio-regional, or neighborhood influences, also have big impacts on adolescent behavioral outcomes, and these environmental effects have not received as much attention historically."
In this study, Dick and colleagues analyzed long-term data gathered on more than 5,000 twins born in Finland between 1983 and 1987. The researchers focused on how genetic and environmental factors influenced behavior problems at age 12 and alcohol use at age 14.
They found that certain environments promoted the expression of a teens' genetic predispositions, while other environments limited gene expression.
The study, which appears online, will be published in the October print issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
"There is now converging evidence across a number of different studies that behavioral problems in kids are associated with both concurrent and future alcohol problems," Dick said. "There is evidence accumulating from genetic studies that behavior problems may be one of the first signs of an individual at increased susceptibility for developing alcohol problems."
An important message from this kind of research is that a person's destiny isn't written in their genes, the authors noted.
"We're not all equally predisposed to develop alcohol or behavior problems, and the environment can be a key factor in whether or not an individual ever develops problems," Dick said.
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