Will Purple Really Go Green?

My column this week gives an overview of efforts to make Northwestern more green. Going into this, I was expecting to find a profile of environmental failure. My long list of grievances included a belief that dorms threw away recyclables, that off-campus students had no recycling and that tons of food waste was not being reused. It turns out there are a number of positive efforts towards greening NU. Because I couldn’t include everything in a 500 word column, I would like to embellish on the good, clear up some myths about the bad and examine the things that are still ugly. It would be wise to read the column first.

The (Nearly) Good:

There are positive changes around campus, but most of them are not meeting their potential. For instance, there are “how to conserve water” stickers above various public sinks, but not all of them. Food waste is not composted from dining halls, but Campus Kitchens picks some leftovers and distributes them to the homeless. Waste vegetable oil is not yet fueling our shuttles, but it is purchased through Mahoney, a company that reuses the oil as animal feed.

Juliee Calihane, head of recycling at NU Facilities Management, has seen it all before. She has been working on improving recycling for over ten years and believes the ball is finally rolling not because of a change in administration, but because of a change in culture. “Attention to sustainability ebbs and flows, but these days, you can’t go a day without hearing about global warming,” she said. “We still need a lot of cultural change here before we become a progressive environmental institution.”

Whatever the reasons for the excitement, Jesse Sleamaker, cochair of SEED, is grateful that the administration has been more receptive. “The passions of the people in the administrations lie with the students. When students are proactive, it takes on a great deal of weight,” he said. Though he is thrilled NU is finally doing something about outdoor recycling, he said, “If Julie [Cahillane] hadn’t been working on it for ten years, I doubt we would have been able to push it through.”

Students in ESW are excited to finish up the shuttle project soon. Project Leads Tom Ledolter and Aaron Greco were part of the team that created the oil filtration system, engineered the duel-fuel engine and continue to work out the kinks. “We’re very optimistic the shuttle project could be done soon,” Ledolter said. ESW was also working on a sustainable shuttle stop to go between Norris and the library. Imagine a solar-fueled, heated shelter made from recycled material to keep you warm while you wait for the shuttle on a winter night. It sounds lovely, but the university has prevented it because they don’t find it aesthetically pleasing. Someone please compare Norris University Center to a picture of this shelter (http://msgroups.mccormick.northwestern.edu/esw/localshuttlestop.htm) and decide which is more “aesthetically pleasing.”

Finally, ECO deserves more credit for their grassroots efforts. Co-chair Benjamin Singer was part of the creation of NU’s newest green group and has worked hard to green Hillel and NU as a whole. ECO has an internal division in charge of making green improvements within Hillel. You might know them for their external division which placed recycling bins for batteries and ink cartridges in Norris. “We recognize there is a lack of resources for students to dispose of these items,” Singer said, “but it would be hypocritical to encourage sustainability and then not give people a way to follow through.” Singer is excited about his group’s impact, but would love to see NU take more of a lead. “They are supposed to set a forward-thinking example, but I’m frustrated at the perceived lack of effort,” Singer said.

The (Not-So) Bad:

For years, the buzz around the dorms has been that the big blue bins end up right back in the trash dumpsters. That is not entirely true. The recyclables in the dorms are actually put in proper bins and recycled, according the Julie Cahillane, the head of recycling through NU Facilities Management. “We work with the custodial staffs in all dorms to make sure we recycle as much as possible,” she said. That should put some minds at ease.

The Ugly:

In a 2004 statement by President Henry Bienen, he said, “Sustainability is an important global issue and [Northwestern University Administrators] are committed to taking appropriate steps to minimize Northwestern’s impact on the environment.” Then in 2007, the students voted that “sustainability” was their second highest priority. Simultaneously, NU purchased enough Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to provide 40,000 megawatt hours annually for the next four years.

This is an important step towards sustainability, but it doesn’t prove that NU is committed. That would happen if the university began to address tangible, far-reaching projects that are being left to student catalysts. Unfortunately, each of these student groups indicated some degree of fighting the university to get their initiatives pushed through. Simple things like improving outdoor recycling units took a small group of people several years of grappling with bureaucracy before the changes finally got approved. But even with this improvement, there will still be over 2,600 off-campus students with little or no place to recycle. RECs certainly make a positive impact, but it’s time the university begin promoting tangible, practical improvements as well.

There’s no reason we shouldn’t create a Department of Sustainability. Everything could be centralized here, so student efforts would be less fragmented. We could move beyond the obvious and even start funding some serious forward-thinking changes. Tom Ledolter would love to see a community garden plot for growing vegetables for the dining halls, coupled with a composting project for food waste. Julie Cahillane would like abundant and user-friendly recycling across campus. Ben Singer would like to see NU capture its obvious surplus of wind in a windfarm on the Lakefill, an addition that would generate reusable energy while beautifying campus. They all want to see a decrease in student apathy.

It will be a while before we’re fertilizing the Shakespeare garden with the leftovers from Sergeant Dining Hall, but I think change is on the horizon. It looks like purple is nearly ready to go green.

1. In England it is illegal to present An Inconvenient Truth in classrooms as a scientific documentary. True

The film must be presented as “a political work.” Along with this Nine inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.

The inaccuracies are:

· The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government’s expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.

· The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.

· The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that it was “not possible” to attribute one-off events to global warming.

· The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that this was not the case.

· The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.

· The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant’s evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.

· The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.

· The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.

· The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim. (Source)

2. There is a scientific consensus that man made global warming is happening. False

Scientific consensus is a pretty strong word. Considering a recent U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works report (found here), it seems that the scientific community is very far from any sort of consensus. I STRONGLY urge everyone to read over as much as they can. The report lists 400 prominent world scientists from two dozen countries. Among the many places these scientists hail from are the UN IPCC, MIT, Harvard, Princeton, NASA, the NOAA, and the Environmental Protection Agency, just to name a few.

The report includes the name and position of every scientist, along with written statements regarding their disagreement with the global warming scenario’s being described by the global alarmists such as Al Gore, who equated those that do not agree with him to people who think the world is flat. After reading the credentials and statements of those listed in the Senate report, do you really think that this is a fair presumption?

Furthermore a 2004 Gallup survey indicated that only 17% of the members of the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Society thought the warming of the 20th century was the result of an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

3. Carbon dioxide is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the earth’s atmosphere. False

Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the earth’s atmosphere. It composes somewhere around 70% of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, but when clouds are taken into consideration (clouds are essentially water droplets), it accounts for as much as 90% of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. CO2 is somewhere between 4-8%.

4. The U.S., China, France, India, and Germany combined, are the biggest greenhouse gas emitters on the planet. False

I could have phrased the question to be “Mankind as a whole is the biggest greenhouse gas emitter on the planet” and it still would have been false. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA) reports that 98% of total global greenhouse gas emissions are natural; only 2% are from man-made sources. Considering water vapor is the most prominent greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, it should come as no surprise that the ocean is the biggest culprit, closely followed by decaying plant life and volcanoes.

5. From 1940 to 1975, as Carbon dioxide emissions increased rapidly, the average global temperature increased. False

The earth actually cooled from 1940 to 1975 despite the exponential growth of carbon dioxide emissions. Refer to question number 19 on Global Cooling for a more detailed explanation.

6. The Vostok Core and all deep-core ice samples taken since have verified that changes in Carbon dioxide have caused changes in global temperature over the last 650,000 years, as shown in "An Inconvenient Truth". False

While the Vostok Core and all subsequent deep-core ice samples have shown a correlation between CO2 levels and global temperature over the last 650,000 years, they actually show that changes in global temperature cause a change in CO2 levels, and not the other way around. The CO2 levels correlate with the global temperature with an 800-2000 year lag. This is because the ocean is a vast reservoir of CO2. When the earth is warmed by more intense solar activity from the sun the ocean produces more CO2, and when the intensity dies down and the ocean cools, it absorbs more CO2. The reason Carbon dioxide levels correlate about 800-2000 years after temperature changes is that the ocean is so large that it takes centuries to heat or cool.
A compilation of Al Gore’s presentation in An Inconvenient Truth with a subsequent discussion by scientists discussing the ice sample can be found here.

7. Using 10,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago, and 700 years ago as reference points, the current global temperature is higher than it was at each of these times. False

The global temperature is currently lower than it was at any of these times. The most well known of these three periods is The Medieval warm period which was 700 years ago, a time when Greenland was not only green, but fertile and flourishing as well.

An explanation of these time period global temperature differences can be found here with a detailed description and analysis. Though I encourage a full viewing of the lecture, jump 2 minutes and 56 seconds into it to see the explanation of number 4.

8. The polar bear population has been in decline for the last 50 years. False

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations ‘may now be near historic highs.’

The following two excerpts are taken from the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works report cited in question 1. (click for report)

Award-winning quaternary geologist Dr. Olafur Ingolfsson, a professor from the University of Iceland who has conducted extensive expeditions and field research in the both the Arctic and Antarctic, chilled fears that the iconic polar bear is threatened by global warming. Ingolfsson was awarded the prestigious "Antarctic Service Medal of the United States" by the National Science Foundation. "We have this specimen that confirms the polar bear was a morphologically distinct species at least 100,000 years ago, and this basically means that the polar bear has already survived one interglacial period," Ingolfsson said according to a December 10, 2007 article in the BBC. The article explained, "And what's interesting about that is that the Eeemian - the last interglacial - was much warmer than the Holocene (the present)."

Canadian biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor, the director of wildlife research with the Arctic government of Nunavut, dismissed these fears of global warming devastating polar bears. "Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present," Taylor said in 2006, noting that Canada is home to two-thirds of the world's polar bears. He added, "It is just silly to predict the demise of polar bears in 25 years based on media-assisted hysteria."

9. Since 1976 the total ice coverage of the Antarctic and Artic has increased. True

While the Artic has lost about 800,000 sq km of ice coverage Antartica has gained 1.8 million sq km. This accounts for a total net gain of 1 million sq. km of ice coverage.

This information can be found at the Cryosphere and at the National Snow and Ice Data Center

10. A major driver of climate change is variability in solar effects, such as sunspot cycles, the sun's magnetic field and solar particles. True

The second half of this video focuses on this idea, but this should not really be disputed because if you think the sun’s intensity does not affect the climate, we have much bigger problems than global warming.

11. The rate that the global temperature is increasing (measured degree change per century) is unprecedented in the Holocene (the interglacial period we are now in). False

To be considered unprecedented, or more specifically, statistically significant the degree change per century for the Holocene would have to be greater than 2.5 degrees Celsius in either direction. This is explained 1 minute and 30 seconds into this lecture given by Professor Bob Carter.

12. The calving of a glacier is a normally occurring phenomenon which is due to the retreat of a glacier. False

The calving of a glacier is a normally occurring phenomenon, but it is a result of the advance, not the retreat of a glacier. This is best described by Dr. Boris Winterhalter, former marine researcher at the Geological Survey of Finland and professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, "The breaking glacier wall is a normally occurring phenomenon which is due to the normal advance of a glacier," says Winterhalter. "In Antarctica the temperature is low enough to prohibit melting of the ice front, so if the ice is grounded, it has to break off in beautiful ice cascades. If the water is deep enough icebergs will form."

13. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is a pollutant. False

Though many attempt to label atmospheric CO2 as a pollutant, it is actually known as an essential trace gas. These gasses, when increased in abundance, provide a bonus for the bulk of the biosphere. As Steven Malloy points out here:

Estimates vary, but somewhere around 15% seems to be the common number cited for the increase in global food crop yields due to aerial fertilization with increased carbon dioxide since 1950. This increase has both helped avoid a Malthusian disaster and preserved or returned enormous tracts of marginal land as wildlife habitat, land that would otherwise have had to be put under the plow in an attempt to feed the growing global population.

Commercial growers deliberately generate CO2 and increase its levels in agricultural greenhouses to between 700ppmv and 1,000ppmv to increase productivity and improve the water efficiency of food crops far beyond those in the somewhat carbon-starved open atmosphere. CO2 feeds the forests, grows more usable lumber in timber lots meaning there is less pressure to cut old growth or push into "natural" wildlife habitat, makes plants more water efficient helping to beat back the encroaching deserts in Africa and Asia and generally increases bio-productivity.”

14. The greenhouse effect works by modulating convection, in the same way that a real greenhouse works. False

Taken from here: The term "greenhouse effect" is unfortunate since it results in a false impression of the activity of so-called "greenhouse gases." An actual greenhouse works as a physical barrier to convection (the transfer of heat by currents in a fluid) while the atmosphere really facilitates convection so the impression of actual greenhouse-like activity in the Earth's atmosphere is incorrect.

This does seem to cause some confusion so, to highlight the distinction between actual greenhouses and Earth's inaccurately named greenhouse effect simply note that greenhouse temperatures are maintained by controlling the mixing air inside and outside the greenhouse (if it's too warm in the greenhouse you open a top and bottom window and let convective action displace warmed air with cool) while Earth's atmosphere is surrounded by the near-vacuum of space.

So, real greenhouses work mainly by modulating convection while the 'greenhouse effect' works by modulating radiation.

15. For 27 of the last 50 years, globally-averaged temperatures have declined while CO2 emissions have increased. True

This is due partly because of the cooling period from 1940-1975. This is discussed further here.

16. The temperature effect of carbon dioxide is logarithmic, meaning carbon dioxide has a diminishing effect on temperature. True

This is due to the properties of CO2. The logarithmic affect is displayed here, an analysis of it can be found here. This is probably one of the most important pieces of information about CO2.

17. Global Cooling was considered to be a looming threat in the 1970’s. True

In February of 1973 Science Digest reported that “the world’s climatologists are agreed” that we “must prepare for the next ice age.” On September 14, 1975 the New York Times published that the “recent cooling may mark the return to another ice age.” Newsweek in their April 28^th 1975 issue agreed that meteorologists “are almost unanimous that catastrophic famines might result from this global cooling.” Science Magazine and Christian Science monitor also published similar articles. Time on May 21^st, 1975 reported “A major cooling of the climate is widely considered inevitable” now that it is “well established” that the Northern Hemisphere’s climate “has been getting cooler since the 40’s.” All of this was based on a study that suggested that the global temperature had dropped off 1.4 degrees Celsius.

You can dig these up in a newspaper database search but here are a few links to the articles: Time Newsweek Business and Media (has overview of Global Cooling coverage).

18. The current atmospheric levels of CO2 are unprecedented. False

CO2 levels have been significantly higher and lower than what they are now. Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson spelled it out very nicely in a testimony in front of the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"