Tag Archives: global climate change

The precautionary principle must drive action on climate change

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The following is my reply to comments on the post No Kyoto Protocol for the United States:

I can empathize with your frustrations, however I don’t believe that “analysis” of what the other side of the climate debate might be thinking or doing is productive toward a solution in the short term. And the short term has now become critical in terms of limiting the prospects of abrupt climate change.

I wrote specifically about the U.S. position toward the Kyoto Protocol in the context of COP15. But there are many other reasons why the Senate would hold up debate on any climate change treaty, Kyoto Protocol or otherwise, including Senators from the President’s own party.

For example, as The New York Times reported this morning, a group of 10 Democratic Senators wrote to the President two weeks ago. They warned, in effect, that if border carbon tariffs are not imposed on imports from foreign countries that have no requirement for limiting their emissions, a treaty could not be ratified.

They argue that American jobs would be at stake and their case is directed toward Chinese imports in particular. How that plays out at COP15 is anyone’s guess and might come down to an eleventh hour negotiating session between the U.S. and China, the main protagonists.

The point I’m trying to make is that it’s not just the Kyoto Protocol at stake in driving the actions of the Senate.

My position all along is quite different from assigning analysis to the problems of debate about climate change.

My position quite simply is to make the case for application of a precautionary principle. The engineer in me says that if I want to insure against possible losses caused by climate change I don’t have a chance of securing insurance unless I can demonstrate that every precaution has first been taken to protect the investment.

If 80% of the science tells me global warming is happening and 20% tells me it’s not, I have enough common sense to take a precautionary stance on climate change and do everything in my power to stop it. To ignore it given the balance of evidence to the contrary is not only reckless, it’s just plain stupid.

Governor Crist’s Serve to Preserve Summit

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June 24, 2008

Wednesday and Thursday I’ll be attending the Governor’s 2nd “Serve to Preserve” Summit in Miami. The occasion will be highlighted by Governor Crist’s signing of Florida’s new energy bill, HB 7135, into law.

It’s a mammoth bill by Florida standards, 287 pages in all, with something for many people. Third Planet’s interests lie in community-level sustainable development and energy planning so we’ll be taking this up as a necessary process.

We had thought that the forum for this discussion could be, in part, the Florida Energy Commission in the Office of Legislative Services. The work and recommendations of the Commission appear very prominently in HB 7135. However, under the new bill, the Commission now transfers to the new Florida Energy and Climate Commission in the Executive Office of the Governor.

On the sustainable development and energy planning front, local comprehensive plans are not affected by the new bill but the Governor is now authorized to include goals, objectives, and policies related to energy and global climate change in the state comprehensive plan.

So the Summit is setting up for an interesting time for Third Planet as we look to find allies and partners for our future-thinking planning efforts. Please revisit us again soon and consider supporting our continuing activities with your financial contribution. THANK YOU!


Inventing the future

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March 26, 2008

We have entered an era where adaptation to global climate change and sustainable solutions for our energy future will be challenging to implement. It’s complicated: the facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high, and decisions urgent.

The conventional concern is to protect our economic health, our way of life, but it’s also the era where we must move toward a reality of sustainable development. Without a sea-change to sustainable development our way of life will not survive and, today, as a result of these challenges we find ourselves inventing the future.

No-one has ever gone where we need to go but people are innovative, they have ideas. Third Planet has ideas, technical skills, and implementation experience.

The eminent American scholar Ian Barbour maintains there are four promising sources of social change that “contribute to a more just, participatory, and sustainable world”: education, political action, crisis as catalyst, and a vision of alternatives.

Nowhere is ‘crisis as catalyst’ a more obvious source for social change than in the twin crises of global climate change and energy security in a carbon–constrained world. ‘Political action’ is evolving as a source for change in response to these dual threats. Where significantly more work is needed is in ‘education’ and ‘a vision of alternatives’.

To Third Planet, a pragmatic ‘vision of alternatives’ in concert with smart cross-sector ‘education’ is key to accelerating the social change process on these issues—and acceleration is a much-needed outcome at this time.

Third Planet moves to St. Augustine

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October 2006

This summer Third Planet left South Florida to take up our global climate change advocacy work on Florida’s First Coast. The direct impact of the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons on our lives was too much. The straw that broke the camel’s back. Not that we’re out of harm’s way, but my family feels safer. We’re out of the peninsula.

For many years I spoke to Southeast Florida and Bahamian audiences, organized workshops, worked in local and state policy circles, and generally got myself involved in “all things global climate change and energy”. Energy engineering, as people who know me will tell you, is my forté.

In the 1970s, when I was a power systems planning engineer, I first learned about the exponential growth of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere from the combustion of fossil fuels. My life as a fossil fuel power engineer changed. I became increasingly involved in building more efficient power systems, and fugitive gas/waste gas cogeneration became my area of specialization. As the years went by and evidence built for me that these so-called greenhouse gases were having a discernable effect on our atmosphere, I became more involved in advocacy. Continue reading →