We’re still figuring out the best way to share photos from our upcoming Ride for Climate Asia journey. In the last post, you’ll see I embedded a Flickr set. Another option is using Exposure, but then you need to leave the blog posting to see it. Click on the image below.
What do you think? How should we share pictures on our trip?
After 2 years of biking and 5+ years of writing and editing, I’m excited to officially launch The Bicycle Diaries: My 21,000-Mile Ride for the Climate.
The official book launch party will be on March 24th, at SPUR’s offices in downtown San Francisco — 654 Mission Street. All book sales from this celebration will support the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
Refreshments at 6:30pm, followed by a slideshow at 7pm. You can RSVP via the Eventbrite page.
I’m hoping to have some prizes to give away. Also, I will of course give a slideshow of the best pictures from a bicycle tour across 16 countries. I’ll also discuss the impacts of climate change on the places I visited, and will preview our upcoming bicycle tour across Asia.
After this event, I’m going on a short trip through the northwest, and I have events planned for the following dates:
As the book about my trip is about to be released, I decided to make an interactive map of the trip. Below are some points of interest along my two year bicycle journey — click on the markers and read about parts of the journey.
Starting in April of this year, Lindsey and I will begin a trip that I’ve been thinking about ever since I finished my journey through Latin America: crossing Asia. We will start in Istanbul, and ride east, ending somewhere in Southeast Asia six to nine months later. Our route is not yet set, but below are some possibilities. Note that we don’t yet know how we are getting from northwest China to Nepal.
The goals of this trip are two-fold. First, we look forward to exploring a part of the world that we know relatively little about. Secondly, we plan to use our backgrounds in climate and water issues to better understand the environmental challenges facing these regions–and how these challenges compare to the other challenges faced by people in the region. We will, of course, share what we learn on this blog. Stay tuned!
I have just recently updated the book’s prologue, which you can see here. It has changed significantly from the previous version (and I think it better introduces you to the purpose and spirit of the journey), so I recommend taking a look.
Also, I’m currently adding, on occasion, content to my other blog, kroodsma.com, where I’m sharing interesting data visualizations.
I recently complied all of of the articles I’ve written on Climate Central, and put them here. It’s a lot of science, a bunch of maps, and some fun interactives.
Most world leaders agree that we need to keep the earth’s eventual warming under two degrees Celsius. Above this level of warming (or maybe even over 1.5 degrees), we will dramatically change global patterns of storms and droughts, and sea levels will rise substantially.
Yet last month in Copenhagen, world leaders agreed to an accord which, if followed, would likely warm the earth by more than three degrees.
I attended the talks as the Hopenhagen Ambassador, charged with the task of collecting and sharing people’s messages of hope. While hope was in short supply, and while the final accord was flawed, I did see three major rays of hope in Copenhagen, and I believe that we can forge a better agreement in the future. Nonetheless, we face huge challenges, especially in how we communicate this issue.
The first ray of hope was the record-setting youth attendance at Copenhagen. At past climate conferences, the youth delegation was small. In Denmark, thousands of attendees were in their twenties, and youth organizations that didn’t exist a few years ago now claim tens of thousands of members. The organization 350.org, an NGO with impressive global reach, was run almost entirely by young people. I fed on this energy, and I wasn’t alone. When I asked the Archbishop Desmond Tutu what gave him hope, his eyes lit up and he said, “The number of people, especially young people, is fantastic”.
A second ray of hope came from city and regional governments around the world. The lack of a global agreement often masks the progress being made from the bottom up. For instance, even though the United States doesn’t have a federal climate policy yet, over half of the states have some type of climate policy. I saw Arnold Schwarzenegger speak passionately about California’s goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Other regional leaders made dramatic pledges. A favorite moment of mine came when the premier of Scotland offered a special bottle of 42 proof Scotch to any leader that agreed to join him in reducing carbon emission by 42 percent by 2020. “If you have watered down targets,” he said, “you will get watered down Scotch.”
The third ray of hope was that so many world leaders attended and spoke fluently about climate science and policy. When 140 heads of state arrived at the end of the final week of the conference, many details had still to be sorted out. While this fact spoke poorly of the negotiating process, it also forced world leaders to discuss details of climate science and policy. And based on reports from the negotiations, most heads of state understood the likely difference in sea level rise between 1.5 degrees and 2.0 degrees of warming, as well as the difference between 350, 450, and 550 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
If the leaders of the world understand what needs to be done, the world’s youth are mobilizing, and a number of regional and city governments are adopting the right policies, why did the Copenhagen Accord still fall short of what was needed? True, it is a huge success that the United States and China, who together combine to account for over 40 percent of global emissions, have finally agreed to reduce pollution. But their pledges to reduce pollution, like the rest of the world’s, are not sufficient. (You can see what countries adopted the accord and see their pledges here.)
I believe that it is not just world leaders who are at fault, but all of us. While many people of the world want action on climate change, they rate the issue as a low priority. In the United States, nearly half of voters don’t support restricting greenhouse gas pollution.
Perhaps one reason public opinion lags is that we are stuck in a “suffer or sacrifice” mindset. Most people think we have two options: we can endure catastrophic global warming, or we can make painful sacrifices to change the way we live. It’s easier to ignore the problem or not believe in it if neither option is palatable.
But these options are false. We must do away with the idea of “sacrifice” and replace it with “investment.” A good climate policy will cost us money, but that money is not lost–it is an investment in a prosperous and sustainable future.
Perhaps we need to paint a picture of this future. Perhaps we need to speak of a future where cars make no noise and produce no pollution because they run on batteries or hydrogen fuel cells, and where electricity from solar power is so cheap and abundant that even the poorest in the world can afford it. Imagine buying energy from our neighbors instead of purchasing oil from distant lands. Imagine tropical forests and coral reefs expanding and growing instead of dying. Who wouldn’t want to invest in that future?
Only with major investment in research, development, and deployment of clean energy will we create such a world. The International Energy Association estimates that we need to invest $500 billion a year more than we already are in clean energy to keep the earth’s eventual warming under 2.0 degrees Celsius.
As I argued in a previous post, the most important people were not in Copenhagen. The most important people are your neighbors and the people who will listen to you about this issue. Tell them that there are rays of hope, but that we need their help. We need their support for a massive investment in clean energy.
The most powerful individuals on the planet have convened here to reach a deal. But based on the quality of the deal that emerged, I believe that the important people in the world are elsewhere.
Over the past week I’ve had the opportunity to meet or stand near more famous and/or powerful people than in the rest of my life combined. I shook hands with the crown prince of Denmark (and nervously talked about bicycling). I sat in on talks by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Al Gore, and at an event of The Climate Group I saw the governors of Wisconsin and Washington, the premiers of Ontario, Quebec, South Australia, the First Minister of Scotland, and the Prince of Monaco. I attended a number of these events with Bradley Whitford, a U.S. actor (on the West Wing) who is Hopenhagen’s celebrity promoter. Bradley and I chatted with the governor of Wisconsin as if he just happened to be some guy in the row ahead of us.
At Hub Culture, a social club, governors of two states of Brazil wandered by, and I just missed meeting the President of the Congo. Last night I had to wait an extra five minutes to enter my hotel because the Prime Minister of New Zealand was checking in. Later that night at dinner I sat next to an Obama adviser.
Now 160 heads of state are here, concentrating the world’s leaders in this small city.
But I feel unimpressed. The most powerful of them, Barack Obama, just gave a speech that made my heart sink. I watched it from the press office of Global Observatory in downtown Copenhagen.
Obama pressured the world to accept a treaty that falls far short of what we need. If we follow the proposed agreement, the earth will likely warm by more than three degrees Celsius, eventually melting the ice caps and raising sea levels by tens of meters. The emissions targets of the United States are also embarrassingly low.
Part of me sadly applauds Obama’s pragmatism, as he’s trying to get a deal that is politically feasible in the United States, and once we have a deal, we can always improve it in the future. Congress is highly unlikely to accept a target larger than Obama is proposing, and Obama would be irresponsible to negotiate a deal that the Senate would not ratify. (In Kyoto twelve years ago, Gore signed a treaty that the Senate would never ratify.)
I’m not surprised that the U.S. Senate is holding us up. Public opinion is not sufficiently mobilized around this issue. How can we expect our leader to come to a meaningful agreement when half of Americans don’t support restricting greenhouse gas pollution?
Many experts believe if we make the modest investments, perhaps as little as one percent of the world’s economy, we will solve this challenge. I actually believe it will cost less, simply because I believe in the power of humans to innovate. But we need to make the investment.
If the challenge is public opinion, as I believe it is, the important people are not in Copenhagen. The important people are your friends and your friends’ friends. They are the people who have yet to embrace the idea that if we invest heavily in clean technology and disinvest from fossil fuels, we will all benefit. They are the people who you can influence.
At Hopenhagen we believe we can build public support if we speak to people’s dreams and not their fears. We need to paint a picture of a future that people can embrace. We must speak of a future where cars make no noise and produce no pollution because they run on batteries or hydrogen fuel cells, and where electricity from solar power is so cheap and abundant that even the poorest in the world can afford it. Imagine buying energy from our neighbors instead of purchasing oil from distant lands. Imagine tropical forests and coral reefs expanding and growing instead of dying. Who wouldn’t want to invest in that world?
Despite disappointment in the deal, I have seen much that inspires me in Copenhagen–Desmond Tutu expressing hope, the energy of the youth, and even the fact that so many world leaders are convening to address climate change. Apparently the agreement reached to combat deforestation is quite good. And for the very first time, the United States is making a pledge to reduce pollution, however small that reduction may be.
But whatever the outcome of this agreement, remember that the most important people are those you can talk to. If you can inspire them, then we will truly solve this challenge.
