Did you know this month marks 5 years since the release of An Inconvenient Truth?
No, Columbia Pike won't be underwater now or anytime in the foreseeable future. But regardless of your view of Al Gore’s Academy Award-winning film, we have seen tremendous change in the past 5 years. From dining room conversations to CEO round tables, Arlingtonians have been discussing climate change, fuel efficiency, renewable energy, and a more sustainable way of life.
Arlington County
, VA, where I live, is making improvements to the water infrastructure. As I understand it, they are cleaning and lining the water supply lines systematically across the county. I applaud the county for being proactive in preserving and extending the life of this vital infrastructure.
As the workers laid temporary water pipe in the streets in my neighborhood, I noted that there were several locations where they allowed the water to gush out, as shown in this video.
The water was gushing out into a pail that had holes cut in it, so that it would then flow away in the gutter. You can see my hand holding a watering can and filling it up with the flow. It took about 13 seconds to fill it to the 2-gallon mark. I calculate that flow to be a little more than 9 gallons per minute, 550 gallons per hour, 13,000 gallons per day. This was not, I should note, the only location where this was happening, although the flow at other locations I noticed was not quite as much.
The part of this that bothered me was not that the workers needed to set these temporary pipes as part of the maintenance program. It was that this was put in place several days before Memorial Day weekend, and the water kept gushing 24/7 before, after and through the entire 3-day weekend. I believe it was at least 10 days total that this gusher was in place on my street. Roughly 130,000 gallons from just this one spot. Water rates in Arlington are $11.74 per 1000 gallons, so the opportunity value of that water was about $1,500.
Another way to evaluate is that Arlington pays Washington Aqueduct $795 per million gallons. From that perspective, the 130,000 wasted gallons only cost the county $150. Makes one wonder about the difference.
Given that these crews have been working for many months, I would not be surprised if several million gallons of water has literally been washed away. The County, in fact (and ironically), maintains a water conservation tips page.
There must be a better way to do this, particular on weekends and holidays. Obviously the contractors have no incentives to conserve the water. The county, though, does, since it has to pay for it. Also, it makes residents like me wonder how the county is working to conserve our resources and tax dollars when this simple, easy to see, wasteful practice is occurring right in front of our houses.
===========================
Steve Offutt is an Arlington resident
As architecture and construction become more and more green, residential buildings that significantly reduce energy use and incorporate other environmentally friendly features will hopefully become more common in our urban areas. One builder in Arlington has created an innovative and effective green home in a residential neighborhood in the Westover neighborhood.
This home was built on an odd-shaped lot that had not previously been built on. Due to its unusual triangular shape and small size, it required zoning waivers for setbacks and other requirements. As part of the overall project, Ms. Shields renovated the farmhouse next door, also incorporating significant green practices in order to gain approval from the county to develop this lot.
This house incorporates a modern architectural palette, which is in contrast with the ubiquitous colonials surrounding it. Roger Lewis of the Washington Post recently wrote an article discussing modern architecture for residential construction, which is generally shied away from for a number of reasons he mentions--particularly risk aversion to change. In this case, I believe the builder has been sensitive to the community, created a more modern home while pushing the envelope a little toward integrating more modern ideas into traditional neighborhoods. More significantly, she took a holistic approach towards the sustainability aspects of the house, incorporating better design, materials, systems and components in from the very beginning (for details and lots of photos, see her web site). 
Looking for a quick primer on climate change in the U.S.? The U.S. Department of the Interior is hosting "Climate Change 101" on Wednesday, April 7, from 1-2pm, at the Sidney Yates Auditorium in the Main Interior Building.
"The U.S. Department of the Interior is adapting to abrupt changes in the environment of the United States and anticipating impacts on ecosystems, infrastructure, and natural resource management. Dr. Thomas Armstrong, DOI Senior Advisor for Climate Change, will discuss the past, present, and future of climate change while focusing on the distinction between natural and human-induced change."
Don't miss out on this incredible event! This is the 18th year of the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital, and the biggest. 155 films will be shown in various locations around DC this month, starting on Tuesday, March 9th. The 2010 Festival explores the vital connections between food and the environment (an area of focus for Arlington too!). What we eat is essential to our health and wellbeing; how food is produced and transported to our tables affects the condition of our planet. There are films for everyone, adults, kids, and families. Search the film schedule online.
Last week 
I posted in response to an article in the Washington Post by Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel entitled Cap-and-Trade Mirage.
I countered their contention that employing cap and trade would not result in the required emissions reductions to get us started down the path to a low-carbon economy.
They opined that cap and trade would not jumpstart a revolution in renewable energy; I countered that it would spur efforts in energy efficiency, which represent a significant untapped opportunity.
The larger point they made in the op-ed was that the inclusion of carbon offsets in the proposed climate legislation in both the House and Senate would "guarantee failure" of the bills. That's a pretty strong contention: "guarantee failure." I could not disagree more, and I am supported in this opinion by Dan Lashof, director of the climate center of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Here's a quick primer on carbon offsets:
Carbon offsets represent emission reductions that occur in one place but are credited somewhere else, generally because they are paid for by the entity in the "somewhere else." 
For instance, landfills that are not required to capture the methane their waste produces as it decomposes generally will vent that methane (a potent greenhouse gas), because it's cheaper than putting in place the technology to capture it. However, an outside investor could help finance that technology in exchange for the emissions reductions that will result. Those emissions are "carbon offsets," and they can be used to "offset" emissions reductions that would otherwise be required by the financing entity.
It is easy to find criticisms of carbon offsets. Some people have compared them to Medieval Indulgences--just a way to assuage guilt. Others, including Williams and Zabel, claim that they don't actually result in any emissions reductions because of "additionality" problems or poorly designed or regulated projects. Both of these are issues worth addressing, but they are wrong that these issues will result in failure. On the contrary, by instituting strong offset provisions, these bills will accomplish more emissions reductions faster while potentially helping to build momentum for greenhouse gas reductions across the economy.
Let's take "additionality" first. What is "additionality?" Simply, it's the term used to describe whether a project would have happened anyway. . ."additional." This is a simple idea, but fairly difficult to pin down in any particular circumstance, since it requires the ability to know what would have happened instead. In many cases, that might require mind reading. The fact that additionality is difficult to know perfectly does not mean that every project is worthless or that it's not possible to make intelligent judgments. Quite the opposite, in fact. Every carbon offset certification organization has well thought out additionality requirements.
While I was at Carbonfund.org we partnered with a not-for-profit organization called Paso Pacifico on a project that was certified by the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA), called Return to Forest. 
This project is about as additional as one can imagine. Former pastureland that was lying fallow was restored to forest through carbon offset financing from Carbonfund.org's donors. Without this funding, the forests that are growing there now would not exist. They are "additional;" they could not have possibly occurred otherwise. Better even is that CCBA has additional requirements to benefit local communities and biodiversity. So this project, which was financed through carbon offsets, provides significant ancillary benefits at no additional costs. CCBA, as well as other certifying organizations, also has strict requirements to make sure plans and finances are in place to manage projects for decades into the future.
I personally like forestry projects even though there are dissenting views on this subject--even from other environmentalists (like Joe Romm). My reasoning comes down to one simple idea. Half of all the forests that existed 8,000 years ago are gone. We have to put them back as one of the key strategies in our battle against climate disruption. Repeat: we have to put them back. If carbon offset financing helps us do that (and it does), then let's go! If we're worried about permanence (they might burn down or be killed by disease), we can compensate by underestimating the climate benefits for each project such that in total the climate benefits are still better than originally estimated. (Also, project insurance--which doesn't really exist yet--could help overcome this issue.) 
Listen, no one is investing the kind of money needed to reforest the planet on the scale required just through charitable efforts or even national and international government investments. Well designed carbon offset schemes can help.
Return to Forest is just one example of a project that is clearly additional.
Additionality can be somewhat subjective and has been the topic of much debate for years in offset circles. That's why offset certifying organizations have worked so hard to put in place additionality requirements. Perhaps they are not perfect, but by dealing with this issue, they have helped solidify confidence in the markets for carbon offsets.
I used a forestry example, but projects of all types can meet additionality criteria. In fact, Joe Romm himself, who has generally been against most offset schemes, comes out in favor of offsets in Waxman-Markey, because they meet both additionality issues and are fraud resistant. Which is the other issue Williams and Zabel bring up.
They point out a couple of examples of dubious projects that don't actually reduce any emissions or are fraudulent. Well, sure, I can find examples of fraud everywhere, but that doesn't indict the entire system. Just because some bad mortgage loans were made doesn't mean we scrap mortgages entirely as a way of financing homes. No, we just improve our systems to reduce the problems and keep the benefits. Same with offsets.
Williams and Zabel say that these problems "cannot be solved by certification or verification processes." They offer no evidence of that; they just baldly assert it. Well, I can say au contraire--we have the tools to overcome issues of fraud, measurement and additionality, and they are already being used in the offset markets and are continuously being improved.
So I must respectfully disagree with Williams and Zabel. Offsets will help meet our reduction targets at lower costs while also putting money towards a wider variety of projects and strategies than would occur without them. Insomuch as international offsets are also allowed, that will help spur investment in other places in the world, too--which is a good thing for fighting climate change.
========================
Steve Offutt blogs at www.steveoffutt.com
On
Halloween, the Washington Post published an op-ed article by Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel entitled Cap-and-Trade Mirage. Williams and Zabel are EPA employees, as I once was, too. The article made a couple of assertions about strategies for addressing climate change that are, in my opinion, wrong. The major point they attempt to make is that our cap-and-trade legislation is doomed to failure because it includes carbon offsets. I will counter their assertions about offsets in an upcoming post, but today I will address an earlier point they make in their article.
Here's a quote:
"Confidence in the certainty of declining caps is based on the mistaken assumption that cap-and trade was proven in the EPA's acid rain program. In fact, addressing acid rain required relatively minor modifications to coal-fired power plants... In contrast, the issues presented by climate change cannot be solved by tweaks to facilities; it requires an energy revolution through investments in building clean-energy facilities. The biggest obstacle to this revolution is that uncontrolled fossil fuel energy remains much cheaper than clean energy.
Cap-and-trade alone will not create confidence that clean energy will become profitable within a known time frame and so will not ignite the huge shift in investment needed to begin the clean-energy revolution."
The energy revolution they claim is needed is required--eventually (and, I would agree, the sooner the better). But right now we already possess the tools and technologies to reduce our carbon emissions by up to 40%--and at a profit. It's called energy efficiency. Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy, has reduced the energy use in his house by almost 50% with relatively small effort (as he blogged on Huffpost). 
Similarly, with a lesser effort than he, I have reduced the energy use in my house by an estimated 20-30% with relatively minor investments. And there's lots more I can and should do. Most buildings can reduce their energy use by 30% or more at a net-zero cost. Buildings alone account for 40% of our greenhouse gas emissions, so we can get 12% reductions in total emissions without doing anything else than profitably improving efficiency in buildings. 
California has held emissions per person constant for almost 30 years while it's rising everywhere else in the US.
The United States emits about double the greenhouse gases per dollar of GDP as Japan. That's not because Japan is a generation ahead of us in clean energy generation. It's because they are a generation ahead of us in using the currently existing energy efficiency opportunities that are right in front of us. Because energy is more expensive there, they have learned to be more judicious and smarter with it.
Cap and trade will make energy more expensive here--although probably not by as much as Williams and Zabel (and I for that matter) would like it to be to force a truly rapid revolution. However, the cap will compel companies to find ways to reduce their emissions. It's true that if the cap were declining rapidly and the only solution were renewable energy, that the concept might fail, but that's not the case; renewable energy is not the only solution. We can easily meet the emissions targets in Waxman-Markey or Kerry-Boxer with technologies and practices that are already widely available. At the same time, these bills contain additional incentives to help push investment towards the development of more renewable energy above and beyond what the cap-and-trade component of the bills might drive by themselves.
So Williams and Zabel are wrong that we cannot take the lessons from Acid Rain and apply it to carbon emissions. In fact, at the time the Acid Rain Program was put in place, many industry studies assumed that it would require very expensive scrubber technology to meet the emissions targets required. The power plant owners discovered that, in many cases, they could meet those targets more economically by switching to a different fuel, or shutting down the dirtiest plants. The costs, it turned out, were much lower than even the most optimistic predictions of environmentalists and only 10% the costs that the industry had predicted. Not only that, but for much of the history of the program, the utilities have actually emitted far less than the cap required, because they were able to find other ways to do so that were cheap.
Williams and Zabel are similarly assuming that there is only one solution and that solution is untenable. The beauty of using cap and trade is that other solutions will also be found, in many cases ones we may not have thought of. In this case, we don't even have to be surprised, though, because the most obvious and cheapest solution is already staring us in the face. Put the cap and trade in place so we can unleash the energy efficiency revolution.
=====================
Steve Offutt of Arlington is working on a book on Cap and Trade
Saturday was the International Day of Climate Action organized by 350.org. Check out their website for the photos, which are inspiring.
I personally participated in three different events. The site claims over 5200 events in 181 countries, which is enormously impressive, but might be padded slightly based on my own experience.
The first event took place in the Twittersphere. Between noon and 1:00 PM EDT, everyone with a twitter account was to twitter to Barack Obama this message:
"@barackobama USA MUST formally adopt the 350ppm CO2 target at Copenhagen 09 – the ONLY WAY to prevent runaway climate change NO EXCUSES!"
For those not familiar with Twitter, the "@" sign is used to direct a message to a particular twitterer, but all your followers can see it, too. The idea was that the White House would receive literally thousands of tweets with this message in it. Unfortunately, by my count, fewer than 200 people actually did it (including me; you can follow me on twitter at twitter.com/steveoffutt).
Second was an event at Bourbon Coffee at 21st and L. I wanted to join the big rally at the White House at about 4:00, which I was biking to, so I passed literally right past the coffee shop. This event was described on the site thus:
Come to Bourbon Coffee on at 21st & L Streets NW at 3:50 pm! Join other like-minded 350.org supporters in grabbing an afternoon coffee drink.
I used this as an excuse to get a cup of coffee to take with me to the rally. The girl behind the counter when I got there (at 4:03) had no idea what I was talking about. Good thing I stopped in, so at least that event had one participant.
Finally I got to the rally at the White House. This event had started in Malcolm X Park at noon with entertainment, speeches and other activities. The crowd then marched down 16th St. to Lafayette Park, which is where I met up with them. They got soaked on the march, because it was raining like crazy (I got a bit wet, too, on my bike).
This event was more successful. Even with the rain, there were probably at least 1000 people there at the White House with a 350 foot banner, encouraging the administration to take a strong leadership role in the Copenhagen negotiations in December.
I hope you were able to participate in an event. If not, keep an eye on 350.org for more opportunities to help in the effort to avert dangerous climate change.
-----------------------------
Steve Offutt, Arlington resident
This Saturday, October 24, is the International Day of Climate Action organized by 350.org, an organization co-founded and directed by famous environmentalist, Bill McKibben. The number 350 represents the maximum CO2 concentration the atmosphere can hold without causing significant climate disruption according to highly regarded climatologist, James Hansen. As of the writing of this post, more than 4000 events in 170 countries have already been organized. Join an event and show your support for strong action on climate from our political leaders.
===========================
Steve Offutt, Arlington
Last Friday, ten people presented ideas for "high-impact environmental solutions" for DC at the 2009 Policy Greenhouse
sponsored by DC Councilmember Mary Cheh. I presented
my proposal for a portfolio standard (a kind of cap-and-trade system)
with market-price trading to increase DC's urban canopy.
The premise is simple: apply the concept of a Portfolio Standard (a kind of Cap and Trade) with market-price trading to the issue of urban canopy. Urban canopy is the layer of trees, branches, leaves, etc. that cover the ground when viewed from above.
Cap and Trade is a system to limit something, such as a pollutant, by designating an overall cap and allowing all the parties under the cap to buy and sell. It's analogous to secondary market ticket sales for concerts or sporting events. The "cap" is the total number of seats available for the event. Generally once all those tickets are sold, then a secondary market is born on sites like StubHub to allow people with tickets to sell to those without. The total number of tickets does not change, but ownership of those tickets can.
A Portfolio Standard is the other side of the same coin as Cap and Trade, except instead of trying to reduce or limit something, we are trying to increase it. A minimum requirement is set and each entity has to meet or exceed that requirement--either directly or by purchasing enough "credits." A common use of this concept is a Renewable Portfolio Standard, in which a state or other entity requires that x% of the electricity generated will come from renewable sources.
What makes this concept attractive is that it creates an economic incentive to go above and beyond, because when one does, the extra environmental benefits can be sold to someone else in the market.
So let's apply this idea to urban canopy. Since my presentation is to the District of Columbia, I'll use data specific to DC.
According to American Forests, tree canopy in DC declined from 37% to 21% of the District's area between 1973 and 1997. Acres with 50% or more tree coverage declined from 37% to just 13% of the acres in the District. Most of those are probably in parks.
(photos taken from the American Forests report cited above)
In contradiction to the American Forests report, Casey Trees estimates tree coverage as 36%, so a consistent methodology will need to be established.
Urban tree canopy provides numerous benefits, including:
The simplest way to apply the portfolio standard to the DC urban tree canopy is to require each property to meet the same minimum requirement and ratchet it up slowly over time. Let's assume that the current canopy is still 21% as it was in 1997. The portfolio requirement could be set at 20% to start (it's a good idea to make the initial standard relatively easy to accomplish in order to get the system operating and keep prices low so there is less likelihood of backlash). If my property is 6000 square feet, then I would be required to have 1200 square feet of tree canopy--either actual canopy or "credits" from someone else. Suppose my lot is 50% covered with trees--3000 square feet. This is good, because I have an extra 1800 square feet of canopy that I can sell.
Now suppose the apartment complex down the street is on a 30,000 square foot lot, so their 20% requirement dictates 6000 square feet of tree canopy. However, they only have 4200 feet of tree cover. That means they need to purchase 1800 square feet of additional tree canopy from someone to meet their requirement. Voila! I can sell my 1800 square feet of extra credits to them, and we both now meet the standard.
Because I have gone above and beyond the minimum, I have been able to make money from the sale of my canopy credits. The apartment complex has had to pay for their lack of tree canopy. This is how it should be: our incentives are perfectly aligned with our environmental goals. If the price is high enough, the apartment owner will look for ways to plant more trees instead of buying credits.
In fact, that is the next step. After the initial couple of years, the requirement should start increasing. If the District's goal is to return to 37% tree canopy as it was in 1973 (or 40%, which is what American Forests recommends for urban areas; or 50, which is what Casey Trees suggests is feasible), then it can slowly increase the requirement over a couple of decades. Each year the value of tree canopy will rise so that the incentive to plant trees (or not cut them down) gets greater and greater.
Since a lot of the urban tree canopy is on public land, parks specifically, the city itself can earn money from selling its credits. This is politically tricky ground, though. In theory I like the idea of the city being driven by the same financial incentives as the rest of the market. However, it may want to create a mechanism in which the revenues received through the sale of canopy credits go to enhancing parks or improving environmental performance or other programs that residents will support. In addition, it's important that the system be designed so that it does not create the appearance that the city can manipulate the market to its advantage.
Arlington has done a good job of planting more trees on public lands. In fact, it has put trees in most of the conceivable places. Now the job of increasing the canopy in Arlington falls to private property owners. Something like this Portfolio Standard would be a mechanism for accelerating that effort.
One other appealing feature of this concept is that it is completely scalable. A pilot program could be designed for a single neighborhood, district or ward. Everything works exactly the same, just on a smaller scale.
------------------------------------
Steve Offutt, Arlington resident and environmental consultant
(cross posted on Greater Greater Washington)
