Climate Change

In weighing the costs and benefits of large-dam hydropower within the context of climate change, how do the scales add up? You've heard us talk about how large reservoirs contribute to climate change through the emission of methane, how dams make rivers less resilient to climate change, threaten biodiversity, and of course, displace thousands of people upstream while negatively impacting thousands more downstream. That's the costs side. You've also probably heard how hydropower averts greenhouse gas emissions from polluting coal plants and can be used as a mitigation tool in the face of cli

Zion Canyon and the unassuming Virgin River that created it. Utah is a member of the WCI. I recently returned from a long-awaited trip to Zion and Bryce canyons in Utah, two geologically fabulous places carved largely by the forces of rivers and rain. A few major climate developments met me back at the office: federal climate legislation had died, western states and provinces in the US and Canada took one step closer to addressing climate change despite federal inaction, and the great Steve Schneider (who taught me and so many others that being a scientist doesn't mean taking a backseat

Annual capacity additions of dam-based hydro and new renewables I just blogged on the Huffington Post about how the global wind power industry is blowing big hydro right out of the water in terms of how many turbines it is installing every year. In 2002, new installations of wind power worldwide exceeded the capacity of new big hydro for the first time ever. Wind power engineers installed more megawatts than their big hydro competitors three times over the following six years. [While no hydro data are yet available for 2009] data on trends in new big hydro capacity from the last decade sugg

The earth is unhappy, but it's humans, not the sun, that's making it too hot to live on. Back in college, a group of us worked with local high school students to see what methods were most effective in encouraging behavior change and climate change comprehension. One of the exercises we did early on was to dispel any climate myths through a mental model exercise. "Draw a picture of what you think causes climate change," we'd asked. While some of the drawings included smokestacks and cars and funny squiggly arrows traveling between the sun and the earth, invariably a co

Hydro developers and auditors in hot water. Photo: Gregg McNeill, http://www.flickr.com/photos/gbmcinephoto/ The Clean Development Mechanism's Executive Board (EB), which approves and rejects projects applying for emissions reductions credits, just ended their latest board meeting in Germany with a decision that has stunned carbon market investors – and given some hope to dam-fighters and CDM reform activists. 38 Chinese CDM hydropower projects failed to get immediate registration, which is an unprecedented number. If they had been immediately registered, these hydropower develope

The average Nike shoe emits about 40 pounds of CO2 http://www.greenbiz.com A few years ago, the latest green(wash) rage among the rich and famous was offsetting carbon emissions from air travel and energy use. Lately, this trend may be slowly reversing itself. Companies are beginning to see the problems inherent in offsets and are instead turning to improving energy efficiency. The latest companies to abandon the over-hyped offset are Yahoo! and Nike. Last summer, Yahoo! announced that in a reversal of its 2007 announcement of investing in carbon offset projects to become carbon neu

Tolstoy believed that it was the existence of the rich that was the real cause of Russian poverty. I just attended an excellent report-back from the Copenhagen climate talks fiasco. The speakers included Payal Parekh, climate director from my own organization, International Rivers, and representatives from other great Bay Area enviro organizations, 350.org, Rainforest Action Network and EcoEquity. The packed room spoke to the interest in the topic even on an El Niño-sodden Berkeley night. Jamie Henn showed videos of the inspiring work of 350.org in catalyzing demos and media stunts ar