Cara Augustenborg
  • Home
  • The Verdant Yank
    • Cara goes to France
    • Climate Friday FAQs
  • Down To Earth
  • Media Appearances
    • Watch
    • Read
    • Listen
  • Upcoming Events
  • Gallery
  • About Cara
    • Publications

Climate Friday FAQ #9: How do we move to a low-carbon economy?

3/27/2015

0 Comments

 
PictureCara Augustenborg speaking at Climate Conversations 'A New Economy' event, March 26, 2015, Trinity College Dublin
This week, I was invited to speak at the second Climate Conversation event in Dublin. The theme of the event was 'A New Economy' and the conversation aimed to explore what economic model will best serve all our needs in making the transition to a low-carbon society. In previous blogs, I touched on the fact that our global economic growth has been linked to burning fossil fuel since the industrial revolution and in order to stop runaway climate change, we need a system-wide change that decouples economic growth from fossil fuel consumption. In this week’s FAQ, I want to explore some of the issues around how we move toward that low carbon economy in Ireland.   

Picturebbc.co.uk
You can watch my presentation on this topic at the Climate Conversations event from minute 1:21:30 here. 


Low-carbon economy: A low-carbon economy is another term for a decarbonised economy or a low fossil-fuel economy, meaning an economy that is based on low-carbon power sources (e.g. renewable energy sources or nuclear power) and therefore has minimal greenhouse gas emissions and impact on climate change.


Why should we move to a low-carbon economy?

Picturerte.ie
Aside from the positive benefits to climate change that would result from moving to a low-carbon economy, there are numerous other reasons we should make this transition as soon as possible:

  • More jobs - Renewable energy generates more jobs than fossil-fuel based energy production. For example, one model indicates an increase of 91-119% in employment if the United States switched from coal/gas to renewable energy production. In Ireland, the sustainable energy sector already supports over 15,000 jobs.
  • Greater social equity - Fuel poverty now affects approximately 300,000 households in Ireland. Spiraling energy costs impact poorer people more than the middle-class or wealthy. Renewable energy and community ownership schemes enable cheaper, more stable fuel prices which can improve social equity between classes.
  • Improved national fuel security - Removing dependency on foreign imported fossil fuels improves our national security and foreign investment potential. To date, we have saved over one billion Euro in fossil fuel imports in Ireland through renewable energy production. 
  • Improved agricultural production - Carbon mitigation strategies can improve soil tillage and lead to increased agricultural productivity. Expansion of sustainable bioenergy crop production can also open up new markets for farmers. Furthermore, low carbon farming is more efficient and cost-effective, ultimately making farms more profitable. 
  • Improved public health - Fossil fuels release particulate matter and harmful chemicals when burned. Switching to clean, renewable energy sources eliminates these substances from our air and improves public health and associated costs. One study indicates that switching to a low-carbon economy could prevent 5,000 premature deaths a year in the city of London alone. 


PictureEthiopia - phys.org
Much of the rest of the world has already has embraced the transition to a low-carbon economy. 
  • Costa Rica has just achieved a record-breaking 75 days on completely renewable energy sources and hasn't burned any fossil fuel for energy production since December 2014.
  • Denmark is well on their way to achieving a low carbon future, with residents in Copenhagen already producing half the greenhouse gas emissions of the OECD average.
  • Iceland, who suffered a similar banking-related economic collapse to Ireland, credits their economic recovery to investment in green energy. 
  • Some of the world's least developed countries (such as Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and Bhutan) are leap-frogging the old carbon-based economic model in favour of the new low-carbon economy, in a similar fashion to the way they embraced mobile-phone technology instead of land lines.   



Carbon's current state-of-play

Ireland’s fuel mix for electricity generation is dominated by carbon-based fossil fuels (83%), including gas (48%), coal (22%), peat (12%) and oil (1%). In 2013, then Minister for Environment, Phil Hogan, defined a low-carbon society as "near zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 in the case of energy, buildings and transport, and carbon neutrality in the case of agriculture." Currently, energy, transport and agriculture emit 20%, 19% and 32% of total Irish greenhouse gas emissions, respectively.  No matter how you define 'low-carbon', we're a long way away from getting there. 

The technology already exists for Ireland to become a low-carbon society in the next 35 years. If you want the proof, read my Climate Friday FAQ #3 where my research led me to the conclusion that the only obstacle to becoming a low-carbon Irish society by 2050 is the will to make it happen. The challenge is how to inspire the public or political will to move away from unsustainable economic growth to a new economic model.

You would think that given our recent economic collapse we’d have an easy job convincing people to prioritise an economic transformation and prevent the mistakes of the past from happening again, but if you read the 2015 Action Plan for Jobs and the uninspiring section on Green Economy, it’s evident that the government still has not accepted the need for a new economy that’s based on sustainable economic, social, and environmental growth. 


Two small steps for man

PictureThere's capital in nature - greenbiz.com
When I was invited to speak at last night's Climate Conversation, I was asked to discuss my own experience in moving Ireland toward a low-carbon economy. I'm not an economist so I struggled to find my place in this movement, but on reflection, I felt there were two small ways that we as individuals could help in the movement toward a low-carbon Ireland. 

Thinking beyond low-carbon: Those of us in the climate change arena talk about the need for a "decarbonised economy" or a "low-carbon economy" because this is critical to stop runaway climate change. However, to be successful in achieving this low-carbon economy, we have to reach out to our colleagues working in other sectors such as biodiversity and agri-environment. There is an extensive amount of work already done by groups like the Irish Environmental Network and the recently formed Irish Natural Capital Forum demonstrating the economic benefits of nature and the higher employment potential of a green economy over our traditional economy. It seems obvious to me that a society producing its own renewable energy independent of fossil fuel imports is going to be far more stable and have higher employment and investment potential than our current system, but a new economy needs to focus on more than just decarbonisation and consider the economic and social capital of all our natural resources.   

The role of education: Since last night's Climate Conversation took place in an academic institution, it seemed fitting to highlight one small but critical way we could improve the acceptance of a green economy in Ireland and that’s through education. I was educated in the USA - In many MBA programs and business schools there, you’ll find a “business and environment” course where students can learn about how business impacts the environment and how to make informed decisions about doing the right thing socially or environmentally even when it costs more. I took such a course in UCLA's MBA program and it transformed the way my classmates and I viewed the world and approached our careers. In 2009, Bloomberg Business Week published an article about the surge in green MBA programs. That article ended with the statement: 

“Broader views of how business impacts the environment will start with business schools...Future MBAs will have to be green to earn green.” 

The concept of environmental sustainability and the green economic model in the business schools of Ireland is long overdue. Our future business leaders must be equipped with a fundamental understanding of environmental sustainability to operate in our emerging low-carbon/green economy. 


Two giant steps for mankind

Picturenasa.gov
My own contributions in moving toward a low-carbon economy are merely baby steps on that path, but there are two current national issues that could make significant contributions to transform Ireland into a low-carbon society within our generation if given the opportunity.

Ireland's Climate Bill: For over a decade, the environmental NGOs in Ireland have been working toward the publication of legislation on climate to "provide certainty surrounding Government policy and provide a clear pathway for [greenhouse gas] emissions reductions". Its significance may not be apparent to many people, but because we have no legislation on this issue so far, our government departments have sat on the fence with respect to climate action. Passing legislation on climate will force each government department to be accountable for emission reductions. More importantly, Ireland's climate legislation is centered on "Climate Action and Low Carbon Development" which could lead to both emission reductions and an overall transformation of our society to one that is fossil free by 2050. 

Last night, I planned to say that the if the Climate Bill was revised to define what low carbon actually means, then this legislation had the potential to legally push Ireland towards a low-carbon economy. However, as of this week, Minister Alan Kelly rejected the recommendations from  the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht (including his own Labour backbench TDs) and has refused to include a definition of low-carbon in the bill. Furthermore, this government has now revised the timelines in the bill to ensure that there will be no action on climate while Fine Gael and Labour remain in government. Without a legally upheld definition of low-carbon, Ireland has no obligation to move towards a truly low-carbon society. I try to keep this blog relatively unemotional, but the more I think about the Minister's response to the Climate Bill this week, the angrier I get. If you needed proof that this government doesn't give a toss about our environment or our long-term economic sustainability, the fluff that their calling a "climate action and low carbon development" bill is clear evidence. What could have been an opportunity to move Ireland in step with the rest of the world by transitioning to a low-carbon society has become a nothing but a box-ticking exercise so that Fine Gael and Labour can carry on with business as usual. 

Ireland's energy policy: Our remaining hope toward transitioning to a low-carbon economy lies in the upcoming White Paper defining Ireland's energy policy for the next seven years. A core component of a low-carbon economy is a zero-carbon energy supply. While renewable energy provides 20% of our current energy requirements and is continuing to expand, this movement toward a low-carbon energy sector is partially offset by a projected 19% increase in coal combustion by 2020, continued peat extraction, and by the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources ambition to prioritise oil and gas drilling over the next five years. The White Paper (due for publication in September 2015) has the potential to make the low-carbon transition an over-arching vision of Ireland's energy policy. Citizen lobbying to Min. Alex White on this issue right now is essential to ensure that happens. 
If the White Paper does not include aggressive strategies to move toward a zero-carbon energy supply, we delay movement to a low-carbon society by another seven years and Ireland becomes even less competitive in the global economy.   

Conclusion: How do we move to a low carbon economy?

Picture
Many benefits will come from the transition to a low-carbon or green economy, and many risks may be realised if we fail to do so fast enough to keep pace with the rest of the world. Ireland needs to decide quickly if it wants to be a leader or a follower in the low-carbon transition. Moving to a low-carbon economy will mean that some old enterprises will suffer while new ones will thrive - Vested interests are working hard to prevent such a low-carbon transition from taking place to protect their own agendas. The public will must speak louder than those vested interests in order to be heard.  


Keep fighting the good fight!
-Cara

0 Comments

Climate Conversation #2: A New Economy - Thur. Mar 26th 7pm TCD

3/25/2015

0 Comments

 
I'll be speaking at the second of five Climate Conversations organised by Climate Gathering this Thursday night, March 26th at 7pm in the Stanley Quek Hall, Biomedical Sciences Bldg, at Trinity College Dublin. 

The topic of this week's climate conversation is 'A New Economy' where we'll explore what economic model will best serve all our needs in making the transition to a low-carbon society.

I'll be joined by a number of relevant experts, including:
  • Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of International Trade Union Confederation
  • Gabriel Darcy, CEO Town of Monaghan Co-Op
  • Dr Rory O'Donnell, Director of the National Economic and Social Council (NESC)
  • Sean O'Driscoll, CEO Glen Dimplex 
  • Robert Watt, secretary general, Department of Public Expenditure & Reform

The event is free but advanced registration is advised. The conversation will also be streamed live online here. 

Follow the conversation on Twitter using #ClimateConversations.

Hope to see you there!
Cara
Picture
0 Comments

Cara’s Climate Friday FAQ #8: Why is there so little action on climate change? Psychology meets the other “Big C”.

3/19/2015

2 Comments

 
This week’s Climate FAQ is based on the Climate Conversations launch in Dublin this past Wednesday. The event brought internationally-acclaimed experts and artists together to talk about improving communication and action on climate change. The premise of this week’s event was that we haven’t gotten climate communication right yet, particularly in Ireland. If we had, there would be more action by our government and society to solve the problem. 

Climate change and its solutions are technically complex issues with significant scientific, engineering, political, economic, legal and social dimensions. It’s difficult for anyone working in climate change to have expertise in every dimension, let alone have the resources to communicate them effectively to the wider public.  

Picture
In my own experiences communicating climate change issues to a range of age groups and backgrounds, I have found the public level of acceptance and interest about climate change varies widely. I’ve agonised over how to explain what I believe is the most important global problem of our generation to people who don’t believe, don’t care, don’t want to know, or (most frustrating of all) say they care but do nothing about it (i.e. many politicians). 

My poor husband has had to endure many evenings listening to me vent my frustrations on this topic. He’s not as interested in climate change as I am, but he is quite interested in psychology. Hence, between us, we have come up with a theory about the psychology of climate change that I’ll present in this week’s Climate Friday FAQ: 
Why is there so little action on climate change?


The other “Big C”- Not Cancer, but Climate

Picture"The Road" - imdb.com
On the eve of the Industrial Revolution (1750), our global population was just 750 million. Two-hundred and sixty one years later (2011), we reached seven billion and the latest projections indicate we’ll have a global population of 11 billion by 2100. We accomplished this exponential population growth through innovations in industrial technology, agriculture, and health, but our innovation and growth have taken their toll on our planet. In addition to an endless list of local and regional environmental impacts caused by human activities, our fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are sending Earth into climate chaos.

I could scare you (and bore you) to death with peer-reviewed data and projections of what a world in climate chaos means and how close we’re coming to locking that world into place. Instead, I’ll tell you what an eminent international climate scientist once said to me when I asked which fictional Hollywood movie best portrayed what a life in climate chaos could look like: “The Road”. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll agree that it’s a horrific environment and not a world we would want our grandchildren, great grandchildren, or any human for that matter, to have to endure.

The science is clear about this: The more greenhouse gases we pump into our atmosphere, the more we prevent heat from escaping into space and the more our earth’s temperature increases. We’ve known this since the 1800s based on work by the French physicist, John Fourier, and Irish physicist, John Tyndall. There is no doubt that human activities are interfering with Earth’s climate. The uncertainty only exists in how much global warming we will have to bear and at what rates the warming and associated ecological impacts will occur.         

Climate change is a problem that is so big and so bad, it’s the global equivalent of telling someone they’re dying of cancer. As a scientist, I cringe when I read such emotive words, but we really are killing our planet.


Are we a world in grieving?

In 1969, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross examined the emotional stages experienced by survivors of an "intimate's" death, commonly known as “the five stages of grief” but originally known as “The 5 Stages of Receiving Catastrophic News”: 
Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.
Picture
darkmattersalot.com
If Earth is our “intimate” and Earth (as we know it) is dying, could we be dealing with this concept through the emotional stages of grief? It sounds like a crazy theory, but my husband and I are by no means the first to come up with it - Just a quick Google search on the topic provided over 39,000 hits proposing various analogies between our feelings about climate change and the stages of grief.

The five stages of grief do not necessarily come in order or are all experienced by a grieving individual, but Kübler-Ross claimed that a person always experiences at least two of the stages of grief and that some people may never reach the stage of acceptance.
It is only once acceptance is reached that “grief work”, or coping and managing the situation, can begin. No doubt these stages over-simplify a complex problem and there are many other reasons someone may not take action on climate change. However, if the theory has any merit at all, to communicate climate change effectively we have to know what stage of grief someone is in and then apply this knowledge to move an individual toward acceptance of the climate crisis so the real work on climate solutions can begin.


The five theoretical stages of climate change grief 

Denial

It’s easy to spot those in denial about climate change given the attention climate change deniers receive in the press. In psychological terms, denial is described as the first stage of grief, in which the “survivor imagines a false, preferable reality”. In climate change terms, we only have to question why deniers would feel the need to imagine a preferable reality to understand why they are stuck in this stage of grief.
Picturezerohedge.com
The most vocal deniers are usually motivated for financial reasons. However, there are still people among us who have nothing to gain financially from denying climate change and yet continue to do so despite overwhelming scientific evidence.  Denial is a useful coping tactic for helping a person function despite an initial trauma. However, to move beyond denial, one has to acknowledge the catastrophic news they’re faced with. In a world where we can be quite selective about the news we read/see/hear, it’s easy to stay in denial about climate change if we choose. 

It’s only when a denier experiences the impacts of climate change that they’re forced to acknowledge the reality, but by then it may be too late to solve the problem. 

Anger

PictureActor Leonardo DiCaprio, center, walks down 6th Avenue during the People's Climate March in New York, Sept. 2014. Photo credit: cnbc.com
Anger usually happens when a person feels helpless or powerless. Think about some of the climate activists you know from appearances in the media and how angry and frustrated they sometimes become over the lack of acceptance and action on climate. Many activists have been working for decades on the climate change problem and sometimes feel no further along than when they started –Such slow progress would make anyone angry. In Ireland, we’ve been criticised for not getting angry enough and publically demonstrating about issues like our country’s economic collapse, but we’ve seen more anger on our streets recently over water meters and the powerlessness people feel as a meter is installed on their property and another bill is placed in their laps without their consultation.

Why don’t we feel angry about the lack of progress to solve climate change? 
Some of us do, but not enough of us demonstrate that anger to our elected representatives (yet) for them to do something about it. Maybe our lack of anger is due to our own feelings of responsibility and guilt for contributing to the problem. The Change.ie campaign told us that we as individuals had the power to fix the climate change problem by reducing our personal carbon footprint. It’s hard to justify getting angry about someone else (i.e. the government) not doing enough when you know you’re not helping the situation with your own behaviour. That personal guilt is a road block to demonstrations on climate action in Ireland. Anger can be a catalyst to action. Angry people get stuff done, and getting angry about lack of climate action can help raise awareness and support about the problem. While I’m generally not an angry person, I think the climate change problem could do with a lot more anger for our leaders to pay attention to its urgency, but just reacting to anger does not provide solutions in the long-term.  

Bargaining

Pictureenglish-ch.com
Bargaining is defined as the stage in which one seeks ways to avoid having the bad thing happen or a vain expression of hope that the bad news is reversible. I bargained my way through my initial exposure to the climate change problem, telling myself “it’s not that bad”, “it’s a million years away from happening”, “it’s up to the bigger countries to solve the problem” and “we’ll have the solutions in time”. Even worse, I told myself that because I’d done things like change my lightbulbs and take my electronic devices off stand-by that I’d done my part to “save the planet”, but you can’t teach an M.Sc. course in climate change and keep kidding yourself with bargaining tactics. Like the denial stage, once you face the reality of the situation, you quickly realise that no amount of bargaining is going to resolve the problem and that this is an “all hands on deck” situation which requires big changes, not bargains.  



Depression

Picture
I have been through the depression stage of climate change grief, questioning why I work so hard on this issue when there are not enough of us actively engaged in solving the problem. Getting depressed about climate change is an easy stage to fall into when you’re paying attention to the news and watching the Earth break records year after year in average surface temperature, melting sea ice, and rising sea levels. Depression may be the worst stage of all to experience because it’s so immobilising. When we’re depressed about anything, even getting out of bed can be a struggle. By acknowledging and truly experiencing those depressing feelings about climate change, I’ve attempted to protect others from getting stuck in that same stage of grief. It’s critical to emphasise that all the solutions to climate change already exist and it’s only a matter of having the will to change in order to solve the climate crisis. 
Getting depressed about climate change is simply a waste of our limited and precious time. 

Acceptance

Pictureutne.com
99% of scientist and all professional scientific organisations in the world have accepted human-caused climate change. Acknowledging the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change makes acceptance of the climate crisis inevitable. If everyone in the world accepted that climate change is the biggest threat facing the future of human civilisation, would we be further along in solving the problem? Would we be willing to change our lifestyles and our economic systems, or would we still be trying to offload the burden to another country or another sector of society? Would we still be asking, “what’s in it for me” before we agreed to change? The climate crisis is the ultimate example of the “Tragedy of the Commons” – we behave contrary to the best interest of society based on our own self-interest. 

We can’t get to work solving climate change until we reach the acceptance of our reality, but reaching acceptance in itself is still a long way from reaching the solutions if we put our own self-interest above the good of society and future generations.

Why is there so little action on climate change?

In keeping with this week's Climate Conversations theme, I believe a key reason there has been so little action on climate change is because we have failed to communicate the urgency of the problem adequately. We’ve succeeded in moving large segments of society out of the “denial” stage through awareness raising campaigns, but we move people into the “bargaining” stage when we give them the impression that simply lowering their carbon footprint a tiny bit will solve the problem. We’ve avoided expressing anger about climate change because it’s socially unacceptable or because our guilt prevents us from acting on our anger, and the only people getting depressed about climate change are the ones who face the impacts. Generally, we’re a nation of “climate bargainers”, but most of our communication strategies have focused on changing the opinions of climate deniers. Even when we address the arguments of climate bargainers, we only bring them as far as accepting the severity of the problem and ignore the natural human self-interest that still may prevent them from taking action. Time is running out, and we urgently need to think beyond acceptance of the climate crisis in order to solve it.     
   

Going beyond acceptance of the climate crisis

Picture"Selma" - imdb.com
We don’t need everyone in world to accept the importance of climate change to solve it. We just need the key decision makers and power holders to reach acceptance quickly, and we need them to realise it is in their own self-interest to take action. Voters and consumers have an immediate effect on the self-preserving minds of leaders and power holders. Having dipped my toe briefly into local politics last year, I can confirm that the constituents who speak the loudest and most frequently get heard. As a result of my experience, I’ve become far more vocal and forthcoming with the elected representatives in my constituency, both in criticising them when they don’t act on climate issues and complimenting them if they do.

The other night I watched the movie Selma, which chronicled Martin Luther King Jr.’s struggle to secure voting rights for African Americans in 1965 through peaceful protest and resistance. There’s a scene in the movie where U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson says he’s not concerned about how people judge him in the present but how people will remember him 20 years from now and in future history books. This personal concern about how Johnson was remembered and how the rest of the world judged the United States based on his actions became the driving force in L.B.J.’s decision to unequivocally support King’s campaign. It struck me that our leaders will face the same personal struggle about climate change. While their actions on climate change today may not affect their re-election and immediate careers, their action (or inaction) will affect how they are remembered in history when future generations are either reaping the rewards of aggressive action on climate or suffering the consequences of insufficient efforts. I wonder if our leaders ever think about how they’ll be remembered in history when they prioritise short-term economic gains over long term consequences and the impacts on future Irish citizens…   


Back to you…        

I know a lot of people (including myself) who have accepted the seriousness of climate change but haven’t made huge sacrifices in our own lifestyles to reduce our personal impact. We own cars and live in energy-inefficient houses. We’re all operating under the pressure of limited time and limited financial resources that constrain how much we can change to help solve the climate problem. Most of us have more immediate problems than climate change that we’re already struggling to cope with. We’re cycling between the “stages of grief” and guilt about not doing enough personally to stop climate change.

The biggest impact we can make with limited time and money is to force our key decision makers to act big – fully committing to a decarbonised economy and fossil free society right now, making them aware of the benefits that could result in swift action. Those benefits could be in the form of votes, job creation, public health, food security, energy security, or even how our leaders are reflected in the history books. If you personally don’t have time to engage with your elected representatives to do this, at least throw some money toward an environmental NGO or a political party who is trying to do so with incredibly limited resources. (My favourites are hyperlinked, but there are several other Irish organisations working to solve climate change.)       

Naomi Klein’s best-selling book “This Changes Everything” highlights a paper called "Is Earth Fucked?" by geophysicist Brad Werner, which claims that the earth-human system is doomed unless people resist against the systems that are causing the problem, namely our fossil fuel-driven economy. There are lessons we can learn from previous resistance movements like those of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It only takes a critical mass to create a tipping point toward change. That critical mass is happening now through organisations like 350.org and People’s Climate Ireland. We just need to support those movements to ensure climate action happens fast enough to make a difference. 

Keep fighting the good fight!
-Cara 
Picture

Special thanks to all the climate communicators who helped inspire this post, especially this week's Climate Conversations speakers: Eamon Ryan, Ryan Meade, Terry Prone, Oisin Coghlan, Claire O'Connor, David Begg, Emily Archer, and George Marshall (in spirit).

Picture
The next Climate Conversations event: ‘A New Economy’ takes place on Thursday, March 26th at the Stanley Quek Hall, Trinity College Dublin, Biomedical Sciences Building. Tickets are free, but advanced registration is essential as these events do "sell out". Videos of all the conversations are also available on the website. 

2 Comments

Climate Friday FAQ #7: Is it time to quench our turf fires for the sake of climate change?

3/12/2015

1 Comment

 
Picturewww.sarahmaguires.com
This week’s Climate Friday FAQ is based on discussions I’ve had lately with some family members about the value (and love) of turf as a household fuel in Ireland. On my mother’s side, most of my family come from dairy farms in County Kerry. Like many rural households in Ireland, they’ve grown up with open fires fuelled by turf. In my own case, the smell of a turf fire reminds me of my grandparents’ home, and cutting turf in the bogs of Kerry was a memorable event throughout my childhood. 

As a family with a history of farming in Ireland, my relations are generally quite environmentally conscious, so it’s understandable that some may feel conflicted about their dependency on turf and its impact on climate change. This week, as the weather warms up and we stop lighting the home fires, I want to consider whether it’s time to put out those turf fires once and for all for the sake of climate change. This is a contentious question, but I want to examine it from my personal viewpoint as someone who is both concerned about climate change and nostalgic about the use of turf in our rural heritage. 


Disclaimer: This blog post is based on my own personal opinion and analysis and does not reflect any Green Party policies or non-governmental organisations.

What is turf?

Picturewww.askaboutireland.ie
For my non-Irish readers, turf (or peat) is partially decomposed organic matter formed in areas of poor drainage and wet, mild climates. Peat is 90-95% water, but when cut into blocks and dried, it becomes a fuel source that burns easily and has a pleasant, smoky odour.


By volume, turf land (also known as bogland or peatland) covers around 2% of global land area but represents 50-70% of the world’s wetlands. In Ireland, bogland comprises 15% of our land area (1.125 million ha) and is mainly located in the midlands and western coastal areas. 

PictureBordNaMona.ie


Turf was the primary fuel source for heating and cooking in Ireland as far back as the 17th century due to a scarcity of trees. Turf extraction accelerated during World War II as the country faced fuel shortages. Over the last 400 years, turf extraction has resulted in the loss of 47% of the original area of peatlands in Ireland.  At present, approximately 9% of our nation’s bog land (100,000 ha) is used for mechanical fuel extraction. 80% of this extraction is done on an industrial scale by Bord na Móna. The remaining extraction is done by privately owned companies. Between 20-38% of harvested turf is burned for domestic use in the form of briquettes or sods, while the majority of extracted turf supplies about 6-8% of Ireland’s electricity needs.



The United Nations classifies turf as a non-renewable fossil fuel since its extraction rate far exceeds its slow regrowth rate. However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has begun to classify peat as a "slow-renewable" fuel because, in some cases, peat land can regrow at a rate of 1,000-5,000 years if left undisturbed after extraction. In comparison, coal (non-renewable) takes millions of years to form and wood (renewable) takes 3-70 years to reach maturity. 


What does turf have to do with climate change?

Globally, peatlands hold one third of the world’s soil carbon because they accumulate and store dead organic matter from plants in a water-saturated environment. This makes peatland the “most efficient carbon sink on the planet” because it captures carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) and prevents it from being released into the atmosphere and contributing to global warming.  

Cutting turf: When we drain peat lands and cut turf (be it for fuel extraction, compost production, or for land use change to agriculture, forestry, or development), we release the carbon that’s been trapped in that land. It is estimated that Irish peat lands store 64% of the total soil organic carbon present in Ireland. Because Ireland has one of the highest percentages of peatlands in Europe, we have a unique, natural carbon sequestration resource to mitigate against climate change and greenhouse gas emissions if we preserve peatlands in their natural state.

Burning turf: When we burn turf, we release further carbon from the turf into the atmosphere. In fact, turf is the worst of all fuel sources with respect to its greenhouse gas emissions and impact on climate. It has higher carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy than any fossil fuel source (e.g. coal, gas). In addition, the calorific value (or heating potential) of milled peat is only one quarter to one sixth that of coal and about one tenth that of oil, so it burns less efficiently than any fossil fuel source. The only advantage peat has over coal as a fuel source is that it produces less smoke and has a lower sulphur content, thus resulting in less air pollution. 


Picture
Carbon dioxide emissions of fuels per unit energy Higher figures = higher levels of carbon dioxide emissions leading to climate change http://www.seai.ie/Publications/Statistics_Publications/Emission_Factors/

Is there a climate-friendly alternative to turf? 

PictureDrury Forest 2014. Photo credit: Cara Augustenborg
When turf was the primary source of heating fuel in Ireland, the country had been largely deforested due to over exploitation. By World War I, Irish forest cover stood at less than 1%. Peatlands were our only native source of fuel. Times have changed, and thanks to afforestation policies and EU support, our forest area is now over 10% of the nation’s total land area with an ambition to reach 17% by 2030.

The obvious alternative to burning turf in Ireland is wood. While burning wood still releases carbon dioxide, it’s considered carbon-neutral because the rate of tree growth (and the carbon dioxide those growing trees take in) offsets the carbon that’s released upon burning wood. Wood also has almost no sulphur compounds in it and is therefore better for air quality than turf or fossil fuels.  The energy density of dried wood (15-18 MJ/kg) is similar to turf (15-17 MJ/kg), so wood can provide similar heating capacity as turf (per unit weight) without the impact on climate and environmentally sensitive boglands.

With respect to price, wood fuel is also cost-competitive. The latest fuel cost comparison from Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (2015) indicates peat costs 6.87 cents per kilowatt hour, while wood ranges from 5.99 to 8.02 cent/kWh depending on how it’s packaged. Wood fuel industries also create long term jobs in Ireland, many of which are in rural communities currently suffering social and economic decline.


Does turf make economic sense?

PicturePhoto credit: National Peatlands Strategy
The economic viability of peat as a fuel depends on local conditions, including availability of other fuels, labour, material costs, transport distances, climatic conditions and the scale of operation. My analysis does not take into account those individuals with Turbary rights, who inherited the right to extract turf from bogland. In their case, turf is the most economically viable fuel source for their household needs as they have no purchasing cost. It would be unfair and hypocritical to chastise those with Turbary rights for harvesting turf for their own needs as long as we continue to ignore the elephant in the room that is Bord Na Móna’s large-scale, tax-payer subsidised extraction of turf.

It’s worth noting that even Bord Na Móna has found conditions for peat harvest more difficult recently. Their 2013 annual report states: 

  • “The poor 2013 peat harvest was unprecedented in the history of Bord na Móna. Due to extreme summer rainfall the harvest outturn was only 37% of annual target.” 
With this week’s announcement by Oxford University professor, Myles Allen, that the risk of extreme storms on the west coast of Ireland is now up 25% due to climate change, peat harvest may become increasingly difficult and less economically viable for all turf cutters in our future Irish climate.   

In the meantime, those of us that have to pay for our household heating fuels have a choice to make with respect to which fuels we burn. The evidence I’ve provided demonstrates that turf makes the least environmental and economic sense of all our household fuel options. You could even argue that turf has both the disadvantages of a fossil fuel and a renewable fuel without any of the benefits of renewable fuels. Like fossil fuels, turf is essentially non-renewable (taking thousands of years to form) and produces larger carbon dioxide emissions while having a much lower heating capacity compared to any fossil fuel. Like many renewable fuels, turf harvesting is a seasonal activity and thus dependent on weather conditions. In fact, its dependency on fair weather is higher than any renewable fuel, making it a risky fuel source to invest in given projections for future climate change.  

The National Peatlands Strategy argues that turf extraction provides jobs for the rural economy and is part of our national heritage, but the reality is that turf extraction made economic sense when we had no other choice. Rural jobs can be created just as easily from renewable fuel industries, and our cultural heritage as a once forested nation is as valuable as that of our heritage as turf cutters, who had no better alternative than to drain our natural bogs. A prosperous future for Ireland cannot be based on an inefficient fuel source.


Picture
www.maggieblanck.com

Conclusion: Is it time to quench our turf fires?

PictureMy late grandmother, Margaret Lynch (nee Brosnan) of Kilflynn, Co. Kerry

My Grandmother, Margaret Lynch, would have been 105 years old this week. Despite being a native of Co. Kerry, she lived in London during the World War II bombings and became a skilled conservationist as a result of rationing and lack of resources. I can’t look at a turf fire without thinking about her and how comfortable she made me in her home, but times have changed from the days when all my granny had to burn was turf.  I’m sure that if she had a more efficient fuel alternative, she wouldn’t have hesitated to use it based on her practical, resource-efficient nature.


Picture
We’re so fortunate to have the unique natural resource of peatlands in Ireland. If left in their natural state, they could be Ireland’s own climate change heroes. Let’s not squander the carbon storage power of peat for the trickle of heat it provides when we have a better environmental option in wood. 

As individuals, we may feel we have limited power to stop the large scale extraction of peat in Ireland despite the fact that it makes no economic or environmental sense. However, we have enormous purchasing power in what type of fuel we use in our homes. As a result of my research for this Climate Friday FAQ, I’ll be using my own purchasing power to quench my turf fire once and for all. I hope some of you are inspired to do the same. 



Keep fighting the good fight!
-Cara


Picture
Special thanks to Irish Peatlands Conservation Council (IPCC) for confirming some of the land use statistics in this blog. As it’s Mother's Day this Sunday, please consider choosing a gift for your mum from IPCC's selection of good natured gifts (adopt a marsh, share a peatland, etc). Visit http://www.ipcc.ie/nature-shop/   


Next week’s Climate Friday FAQ will be based on the launch of Climate Gathering’s upcoming Climate Conversations. Join me Wednesday night, March 18th at Liberty Hall, Dublin when a host of internationally-acclaimed speakers and artists will be discussing how we communicate climate change. Tickets are free, but registration is essential as this event is expected to "sell out".  

Picture
1 Comment

FAQ #6: How do we communicate climate change to the next generation?

3/5/2015

0 Comments

 
PictureCara Augustenborg speaking at Mount Anville secondary school, 2015
This week, I’m blogging from Dublin City University’s Celsius Seminar 'Communicating climate change', where I was asked to address the question, “How do we communicate climate change to the next generation?” There are plenty of good reasons to focus specifically on educating young people about climate change, but the three reasons that drive me to reach out to this segment of society are:

  • Intergenerational justice: UNICEF describes climate change as a “children’s problem”. We know that the impacts of climate change will affect our children and grandchildren more than it currently impacts us. As adults who have contributed to causing this problem, we have to answer to the next generation for our decisions today and involve young people in the solutions to climate change. This begins by educating them about the issue.

  • School children as educators: It’s well known that children can influence their parents’ behaviour with respect to environmental impacts. We’ve seen this demonstrated with recycling where evidence shows that parents of children who are educated on recycling will recycle more than the parents of children who are not educated on the issue. The same idea can be applied to climate change. As parents, we know how much our kids love to tell us when we’re doing something wrong, and we can just imagine how quick they’d be to point out how mom and dad's actions impact climate change if they were informed themselves.

  • Young people as future voters: It’s unfortunate that young people have so little say in our policies on climate action because they will be the ones who have to deal with the consequences if we fail to solve the problem. The right to vote is one of the few ways ordinary citizens have to influence policy. I see young people as our country’s future voters who need to be educated on one of the most significant issues facing them when they reach adulthood.


Raising climate change awareness with the Climate Reality project

PictureClimate Reality Leadership Corp training, Istanbul, 2013
In 2013, I joined Al Gore’s Climate Reality Leadership Corps, which is a global grassroots movement to raise awareness and action on climate change. As a Climate Leader, I committed to giving a version of Al Gore’s famous slideshow here in Ireland at least ten times in the 12 months following my training. I decided to target my efforts on teenagers, but I was concerned about instilling fear in a segment of society that has so little say in addressing the problem. In order to determine if that might happen, I collected data via anonymous surveys on the students’ thoughts on climate change both before and after presenting my Climate Reality talk to them.

Over the last year and a half, I’ve presented the Climate Reality talk to over 600 students at seven secondary schools in Ireland. This past Thursday at DCU, I presented preliminary data from the first four schools to help other science communicators improve the way we educate young people about climate change.  Below, I describe some of my preliminary findings based on surveys from 237 secondary students (ages 12-18). You can see the slideshow related to my presentation at DCU here.



Knowledge and feelings on climate change

Even before I presented my climate talk to students, 76% said they had already received education in climate change (usually in their geography classes). Approximately 50% of them felt they had a moderate understanding of the topic, while 24% felt their understanding of climate change was poor.

When asked what their strongest feelings about climate change were, students said they felt “concerned”, “powerless”, “worried” and “alarmed” but also “fascinated” and “inquisitive”. While they recognised the serious nature of climate change, they were also curious and interested in the topic.



Climate Reality: How I communicate climate change to teenagers

Picture
When I meet with secondary school students, I usually introduce climate change by starting with the basic science of our Earth’s atmosphere and how greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect cause global warming and climate change. Once we’ve established the basics, I explain some of the impacts of climate change. I emphasise the link between climate change and extreme weather because it’s an impact they’re likely to witness in Ireland over the coming years. We end with a discussion of all the solutions available to help stop climate chaos, paying particular attention to the renewable energy technologies available to remove our dependency on fossil fuels.

When students were asked what their favourite part of the talk was, their top answer was the link between weather and climate. This may be due, in part, to some dramatic video footage I present from Al Gore of Hurricane Sandy (2012) with narration from the Governor of New York and President Barack Obama explaining the link between climate change and super storms like Hurricane Sandy. Kids love movies and the excitement of natural disasters, so it’s probably no surprise that this part of my presentation entertains them and sticks in their memory.

The survey generally showed that students responded best to the parts of my talk involving animations and videos and to the personal human interest stories that I bring in to my talk, such as my interview with the Inupiat people in Arctic Alaska. 


What’s the impact of communicating climate change to teenagers?

After the Climate Reality talk, students indicated they were interested in learning more about solutions to climate change than any other aspect. This included both the kind of actions they could take personally to reduce their impact on climate change and more detail on the kind of renewable energy technologies that are available to help solve the problem globally. 76% of students felt they had a strong understanding of climate change (compared to 26% before the talk). Over 80% of the students said they were more interested in the topic of climate change as a result of the talk, and 68% said they were more interested in taking action to help stop climate change. While the students felt more “concerned” and “alarmed” following the talk, they also said they were more “fascinated”, and less “confused”, “bored” or “helpless” as a result of being more informed on climate change.


Picture
2015 Model European Council (RTE)

Conclusion: How do we communicate climate change to the next generation?

The preliminary results from my survey show that just one hour of climate change education can have a substantial impact on the mind of a teenager by increasing their perceived understanding of climate change and raising their interest level on the subject.

When we communicate with young people on climate change, it’s important to achieve a balance between educating them on the serious nature of the problem and inspiring them to want to engage more with the issue. We have to ensure that our content doesn't just worry them by focusing solely on the potential impacts that climate change can have. We must emphasise solutions and give them avenues for participating in those solutions as young people.

As I say good bye to students, I always ask them to consider that the next time a political candidate calls to their door, they ask that candidate what they’re doing to help solve climate change. I point out that if that politician is not doing anything about climate change right now, he/she is leaving the problem for the next generation to sort out. If just one student engages with a politician on climate change as a result of my climate talk, it will make all of my efforts to reach out to these precious members of our society worthwhile. 



Keep fighting the good fight!
-Cara

0 Comments

Upcoming Event: DCU Celsius Seminar - Communicating climate change - Thursday, Mar. 5th

3/2/2015

0 Comments

 
This Thursday, March 5th, I'll be participating in Dublin City University's 'Communicating Climate Change' seminar. Invited speakers include:
  • Professor Ray Bates: Meteorologist
  • Gerald Fleming: RTE’s longest-serving weather broadcaster
  • Dr Saffron O’Neill: Social scientist
  • Dr Cara Augustenborg: Al Gore's Climate Leadership Corps
  • Dr Julie Doyle: Social scientist, Author, Mediating Climate Change
  • Professor Barry McMullin: An Taisce

I'll be explaining my work with Al Gore's Climate Reality Project and how to communicate climate change to the next generation. 

Agenda and registration details are here. Hope to see some of you there!
Picture
Cara Augustenborg speaking to students from Mount Anville secondary school, Feb. 2015
0 Comments

    Archives

    December 2021
    September 2019
    October 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    September 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014

    Categories

    All
    Elections
    Electoral_registar
    Green
    Vote

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly