Clean Tech: ZapRoot Picks Apart the Pickens Plan

ZapRoot, which bills itself as "an unconventional bite-sized news show that covers the fast changing world of the modern Green Revolution."

Like other web tv news shows it's a little bit snarky, a little wacky, and treats you to little clips of humor that broadcast news shows could not get away with (see the "documentary footage" in the show below. Host Jessica Williamson is no Lindsay Campbell or Julie Alexandra, but her spunkiness may be infectious. (And oh, that accent...)

Here is Jessica on the Pickens Plan (and rumors that it may be a bait and switch play to get his hands on water):



I'm still picking through the Pickens Plan and Al Gore's latest call to action and will have a post to share my thoughts before the weekend (I hope; it's been a busy few weeks).

Here is the Pickens Plan video; judge for yourself:

Conservation: Mark Burget Leaves TNC for Climate Works

Mark Burget, Chief Conservation Programs Officer of the Nature Conservancy announced his departure last Friday. It came as a surprise to me, as it may have to others, because, frankly, Mark is one of those people who personifies the Conservancy.

The core values of TNC are integrity beyond reproach, respect for people, community, and culture, and commitment to tangible, lasting results; all of these can be used to describe Mark. Oh, and one other: "One Conservancy," which was John Sawhill's way of saying a collaborative spirit that works for the whole of the organization, not just its parts.

In fact, Mark always kept the whole of conservation in mind when he set strategy, whether as program director for the Upper Colorado River Basin, state director in Colorado and California, or in his more global responsibilities over the past few years.

And I gather it is this consideration of the whole that is once again in his mind as he decided to leave TNC. He is heading to ClimateWorks, a San Francisco-based non-profit that is focused, as Mark put it in his letter to colleagues, "on the most pressing environmental issue of our time: the need to dramatically reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that threaten to disrupt and destroy the miracle of life and the human experience on Earth."

TNC will miss Mark's leadership, vision, and sheer brilliance -- he is one of the most thoughtful and strategic thinkers in the field of conservation. But Mark would not have made this decision without a whole lotta soul-searching. I applaud Mark's decision and will look forward to his success at ClimateWorks.

Mark Burget joined the Conservancy in 1992 as the Program Director for the Upper Colorado River Basin. He earned both his J.D. and M.B.A. from the University of Virginia and his BA in Government from Dartmouth College. Since joining the Conservancy, Mark has held several leadership positions including Director of the Colorado Program, Director of the Global Priorities Group, and most recently Director of the California Program. Mark assumed his current position as Chief Conservation Program Officer in 2007 and leads the Conservancy’s eight conservation regions worldwide.

Review: Climate Change: What's Your Business Strategy?

No matter what your company does or where it's located Climate Change is going to have an impact on your business.

As CEO, it is imperative you understand the potential impacts and opportunities presented by the issue.

But with the tremendous amount of noise out there, on both sides of the issue, it may be difficult to sift through it to find the right information to inform your business decisions and strategy.

Along comes a slim volume in Harvard Business Press' Memo to the CEO series, Climate Change: What's Your Business Strategy? by Andrew J. Hoffman and John G. Woody.

Short enough to read on your next transcontinental or international flight, this book provides all the background, current thinking about impacts and opportunities, and upcoming policy decisions that will affect your business.

You will also learn how some of the most successful companies are getting ahead of the game. Companies like SwissRe, which has come up with a three-tiered approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), or Duke Energy, which is anticipating regulations to come and making sure they have a seat at the table when they are secured.

Hoffman, associate director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, and Woody, a deal associate at MMA Renewable Ventures, have devised a simple, three-step approach for you to follow to best position your company.

Beginning with understanding your company's carbon footprint and taking action to reduce its size, Hoffman and Woody walk you through assessing the business opportunities and how to influence policy as it's being developed.

"Some business associations and lobbyists still dispute the science of climate change, but their numbers are dwindling," the authors conclude. "And businesses themselves are focusing on the undeniable economics of the problem. While some companies are adapting out of near-term operational necessity, others are acting to mitigate long-term strategic vulnerabilities, and the most forward-thinking are seizing on new business opportunities created by climate change and devising ways to make money from clean energy and efficient technology."

Pick up Climate Change: What's Your Business Strategy? and read it, have your management team read it, and then decide what your company needs to do to stay ahead in the game.

Review: Where the Wild Things Were by William Stolzenburg

I remember the day when I was no longer at the top of the food chain.

I was flying into Lower Talarik Creek in southwestern Alaska with nothing but a fly rod, a note book, a sleeping bag, and hubris. As we circled the lagoon, the float plane pilot pointed out 10 or 12 brown bears that had already secured the fishing hole.

We landed anyway and the bears disappeared. The low brush was barely enough to hide them. They were gone, but they were out there.

Until you've experienced the fear, adrenaline rush, and deep respect you feel in close proximity with a large predator, you haven't really lived.

As a species we have a complex relationship with predators, whether large cats, bears, wolves, sharks, or killer whales. It's a mixture of deep-seated fear and loathing, along with time-honored respect and admiration. Some of it goes back so far in our DNA that it is no longer top-of-mind. Most of us don't have to worry about it, safely ensconced in our cities, towns, and bedroom communities.

But Will Stolzenburg worries about it plenty. So do the biologists, activists, ranchers and others he writes about in Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators, being published this month by Bloomsbury.

Stolzenburg, a former colleague at the Nature Conservancy and a writer for Science News, Conservation, and Nature Conservancy magazine, admits he is biased in favor of big predators. But he also understands the complexity of the psychology around their interaction with Homo sapiens.

"Over the thousands of millennia that our own lineage has spent in the company of killing beasts," Stolzenburg writes. "Competing with them for food and running from them as food -- the great meat-eaters have quite naturally etched themselves into the human persona."

Stolzenburg has written a compelling book, a short history of our relationship with predator species, which uses scientists and their stories to tell the story of that relationship and of the importance of predators on land and sea.

His story starts with an unlikely hero, the starfish (Pisaster ochraceous), which prevents mussels such as Myltilus californianus from crowding other species off rock habitats. Who amongst us would classify the sea star among the big charismatic megafauna? But they play an important role.

As do sea otters, which keep sea urchin populations down and minimizes their destruction of kelp forests. And then there are the usual suspects: wolves, coyotes and big cats that maintain a check on populations of smaller mammals and other species to avoid cascading, sometimes catastrophic changes.

Stolzenburg reviews the arguments surrounding the importance of predators to their habitats as well as the various attempts to extirpate them and to bring them back from the brink.

"The great predators are great barometers of our maturity as a species," he concludes. "If we can live with an animal that could just as soon eat us as an apple, if we can make room for an animal that traverses entire states looking for a mate, how better to define the art of compassion"

He follows the major thought leaders in conservation biology of the past 40 years on their journeys of discovery, enlightenment, and sometimes ridicule. The stories are fascinating and Stolzenburg makes the tales come to life in an almost Scott Turow novel way. (If you think scientist-researchers and field biologists lead boring lives in the academe, Stolzenburg will convince you otherwise.)

Equally fascinating are some of the depictions and explorations of the predators themselves, especially the chapters on killer whales and on "the loneliest predator," man. Fascinating, too, how recent some of the thinking is about species interaction and interdependency, until you realize that conservation biology as a field is relatively young.

Will Stolzenburg knows how to tell a story and his narrative is a good read. Part history, part mystery, part philosophical treatise, Where the Wild Things Were is an important book in the field of conservation, but also as a history of our species and our relationship with the others with which we share the planet.

Clean Tech: Paulson and Lugar Support Clean Tech Fund

Senator Richard G. Lugar, a Republican from Indiana and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr (left) have come out in support of the Clean Technology Fund (CTF), which was proposed by President Bush last September.

In an opinion piece in The Washington Post, Paulson and Lugar announce their support, claiming the CTF will "stimulate private-sector investment in existing clean technologies and speed the deployment of emerging technologies once they are market-ready."

Using a mix of loans, grants, equity investment and credit guarantees to finance this incremental cost, the CTF will "help make the choice between clean and dirty technologies economically neutral."

The US will contribute US$2 billion, which will be matched by up to US$8 billion from other donors to the fund, which is to be housed at the World Bank.

"The fund recognizes that addressing climate change presents economic opportunities, not just constraints, and that with advanced technology developing countries can curb emissions growth without limiting economic growth," Lugar and Paulson write in their Op Ed, concluding, "If we do not act immediately to help provide developing countries with the right incentives, their investments today may lock in a legacy of highly polluting, less efficient technologies."

Read the full piece here.

Energy: Drilling for Oil Offshore and in ANWR; Has the Time Come?

Okay, brace yourself. If you're a dyed-in-the-wool environmentalist, you're not going to like what I'm about to write. I'm not sure you'll like it if you're on the other extreme either, but what the hell.

I'm wondering whether it may be time to reconsider drilling offshore, and to take a hard look at whether the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) can be developed for oil in an environmentally favorable way.

I'm not saying we should go ahead with either, but I do think we need to put both considerations on the table, put aside our emotions, look at the real impacts, weigh the options, and then decide.

There are several things we need to factor into our consideration:

1. Our dependence upon fossil fuels is not going away any time soon.

2. There are, according to some sources familiar with the situation, relatively abundant remaining sources of fossil fuels, offshore and on land. Most agree they will take too long to develop to have immediate impact, but they may extend the time-frame for alternatives to replace fossil fuels. And with prices what they are now, it's looking like now may be the time when these sources are actually viable.

3. It is not known whether ANWR is a viable source; there is little baseline data with which to make such a call. Some say the oil industry may be betting on the fact that developing ANWR will allow the life of Alaska's pipeline to extend beyond 2030, and make it more viable to recover smaller pools throughout the region.

4. Developing ANWR is likely to have little impact on today's prices. In a report last May, the Department of Energy estimated that it will result in a reduction of only 75 cents a barrel.

5. A recent study by the federal government's Energy Information Administration projects, in the best-case scenario, developing ANWR will engender a price reduction of around $1.44/barrel by 2027.

The same study claims drilling off the coasts of the US won't affect prices until 2030, as reported in the New York Times.

6. Global consumption of oil reached 85.2 million barrels a day in 2008, up from last year's 76.3 million. Another study, to be released this fall by the International Energy Agency (IEA), projects consumption will rise to 116 million barrels next year.

7. New techniques, such as directional drilling will continue to reduce the footprint per well-head on Alaska's North Slope, but there remains the issue of roads, housing, pipelines, and other facilities needed to bring the oil to market.

Those impacts could still be huge in ANWR, which is used by polar bears, caribou, and other animals as they search for places to give birth. (Birth is the most vulnerable stage in the life-cycle of some species.) Other biologists familiar with the area claim the stated impacts may be overdone.

As for the coasts, there are worthy concerns about impacts on human coastal communities, especially those that rely on fishing or tourism for their livelihoods. Our neighbors to the north and south have increased their off-shore development over the past decade with little or marginal impact on the environment.

8. New off-shore development will also take years to put in place.

9. Finally, there is a shortage of deep water drill-ships for offshore development, which are currently booked for the next five years, and we may be looking at a long time horizon with very little short-term impact.

Still, impact is impact, and while we're looking at alternative energy development, perhaps we need to consider how we will meet demand for fossil fuels while alternatives build momentum.

High demand, low supply rules the day. But if the benefits of off-shore and ANWR development are a long way off, is it worth the risk? Can we do without it? What if it can be demonstrated that the environmental impacts are negligible? What if, as Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska announced last week, we could put revenues in service of alternative energy projects?

I am not advocating a position for or against such development; I'm simply calling for a rational, emotion-free analysis before we move forward or rule it out.