I am on my annual pilgrimage to ski country this week. I’ve noticed that the tilt towards the green side has become more pronounced over the last few years. It started with the invitation to reuse your towels, so that housekeeping didn’t have to expend so much fresh water on laundry. Now it has expanded to include the use of compact fluorescent bulbs throughout the condo unit we are staying in this week.
The management has posted a little notice in the room, stressing how energy conserving they are, doing their part to fight global warming. It put me in mind of an article I read in a skiing magazine a couple of months ago. The article profiled an activist in the ski town of Crested Butte. This woman was committed to fighting global warming, specifically to preserve heavy snowfalls in the Rockies. More snow, better skiing.
After thinking about this for a while, it gave me an idea of how we could really fight global warming to preserve snow: ban skiing.
Well, not really. My idea is not to ban skiing. Just to ban the sport as currently practiced. The modern ski vacation has got to be one of the most carbon intensive activities on the face of the planet.
To get to the resorts, we fly in from all over the country, if not the world (how much carbon do you emit to get to Colorado from Australia, I wonder). Once we’re here, we stay in luxury condos, housing that stands empty for eight months out of the year. That can’t be environmentally benign. In the last ten years, I have yet to stay in a unit that doesn’t have a gas fireplace. They’re not efficient heating units, but the flames are pretty, as we watch irreplaceable natural gas get converted into carbon dioxide and water vapor.
Then there is the sport of skiing itself. First off, to create the ski runs, they mow down swathes of National Forest. Last I checked, trees were carbon absorbers, but hey, we’re out to have some fun. Then, they install big diesel powered ski lifts. They haul us up the hill, solely so that we can slide down, back to where we started from. A less practical activity can scarcely be imagined.
Trying to offset all of these carbon emissions with compact fluorescents is like trying to bail out the Titanic. With a teaspoon.
No, if we were really serious about slowing down greenhouse gas emissions to preserve snow, we would close down the ski areas. Of course, that wouldn’t leave many people to care about whether there was fresh powder snow on the mountains or not.
I guess it would be a case of having to destroy the village in order to save it.
Showing posts with label Climate Change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Climate Change. Show all posts
Monday, January 18, 2010
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Cap and Trade: It ain't easy, being green.
Last week Exelon, a giant utility company, announced that it was ending its membership in the US Chamber of Commerce, citing opposition to the Chamber’s positions on climate change and the EPA’s recent moves to regulate carbon dioxide emissions as an immediate threat to human health and safety. Other high profile companies that have recently left the Chamber are Pacific Gas & Electric, PNR Resources (another utility), and Apple Computer. Nike has resigned from the Board of Directors of the Chamber, but is retaining their membership.
It looks like the progressive companies, the leaders of the future, have embraced the need for a carbon free future, and are willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish that future.
The funny thing though, is that none of those companies is going to suffer very much from supporting climate change legislation.
Exelon, for example, like Pacific G & E and PNR Resources, owns lots of nuclear power plants. So under carbon cap and trade legislation currently under consideration, these companies would be awarded what are called carbon offsets. Utilities that have a lot of coal fired power plants (big carbon emitters), would have to purchase those offsets to compensate for the amount of carbon they emit.
Basically, Exelon stands to make a lot of money from cap and trade legislation. If I could pick up an entirely new revenue source, without having to do any work for the extra money, I’d be in favor of that too. Exelon doesn’t even have to worry about upsetting their customers. The utilities that are buying offsets from Exelon have to deal with that headache, when they raise their customer’s rates to pay for the offsets.
Now let’s look at the other two examples, Nike and Apple. What I notice is that neither of these companies has significant manufacturing operations in the US. Both are essentially design and marketing operations that outsource all of the actual work of building their products to Asian contractors.
So you can put all the restrictions you want on carbon emissions associated with manufacturing. It won’t hurt those guys’ feelings in the least. After all, they’ve got no skin in the game.
Now, maybe we really do need to make huge reductions in the amount of carbon we emit as a society. And maybe the best way to do that is to place restrictions on large point sources like power plants, instead of forcing individuals to change their behavior. Maybe.
My point is that it is easy to be in favor of something when somebody else is going to have to pay for it. Easy, but not particularly virtuous or laudable.
It looks like the progressive companies, the leaders of the future, have embraced the need for a carbon free future, and are willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish that future.
The funny thing though, is that none of those companies is going to suffer very much from supporting climate change legislation.
Exelon, for example, like Pacific G & E and PNR Resources, owns lots of nuclear power plants. So under carbon cap and trade legislation currently under consideration, these companies would be awarded what are called carbon offsets. Utilities that have a lot of coal fired power plants (big carbon emitters), would have to purchase those offsets to compensate for the amount of carbon they emit.
Basically, Exelon stands to make a lot of money from cap and trade legislation. If I could pick up an entirely new revenue source, without having to do any work for the extra money, I’d be in favor of that too. Exelon doesn’t even have to worry about upsetting their customers. The utilities that are buying offsets from Exelon have to deal with that headache, when they raise their customer’s rates to pay for the offsets.
Now let’s look at the other two examples, Nike and Apple. What I notice is that neither of these companies has significant manufacturing operations in the US. Both are essentially design and marketing operations that outsource all of the actual work of building their products to Asian contractors.
So you can put all the restrictions you want on carbon emissions associated with manufacturing. It won’t hurt those guys’ feelings in the least. After all, they’ve got no skin in the game.
Now, maybe we really do need to make huge reductions in the amount of carbon we emit as a society. And maybe the best way to do that is to place restrictions on large point sources like power plants, instead of forcing individuals to change their behavior. Maybe.
My point is that it is easy to be in favor of something when somebody else is going to have to pay for it. Easy, but not particularly virtuous or laudable.
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