Marc Jaccard Talks Climate Change

You characterize yourself as “a very mediocre economist.” How does a mediocre economist win the Nobel Peace Prize?
I was just one of hundreds who shared the prize for our collective work on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I understand people and policy, and people and delusion, but I’m not a topnotch academic.

You understand delusion—what do you mean?
North America-wide polls reveal that most people think they are green consumers. There are so many books telling you how you can change your life and be green, but really the only way we can get there is by having laws and rules that prevent us from producing or emitting carbon.

Will carbon offsets help?
Quality research consistently shows that subsidies, like offsets, go significantly to “free-riders,” people and firms who get money for doing what they were going to do anyway. We must make things happen that were otherwise not going to happen and that require changes to prices (like a stronger carbon tax) and regulations (like building codes and vehicle standards) so that, for example, all homes get insulated. So when you think about buying an offset, I recommend instead sending your guilt money to organizations that are trying to change laws, like the Suzuki Foundation, the Pembina Institute, and PowerUp Canada.

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Density Is Not The Boogieman

Individual Submission
Bowen Island Official Community Plan Update Committee

February 28, 2010

Dear Members of the Committee:

My name is James Glave and I’m a father of two. Ours is a young commuter family, and my wife and I actively participate in many aspects of island life. I love this place, and I am proud to call it home.

My personal passion is climate change solutions, and the transportation, energy, and land-use strategies that have been shown to reduce per-capita greenhouse-gas emissions here in our region and around the world. We can talk about any number of issues, but in my mind, carbon is the ultimate deal-breaker. We simply don’t have an option other than finding ways to slash the stuff from our lives and community. If we don’t “act locally” on this “global” issue, it will eventually come home to our doorstop and find us where we live anyway.

The science suggests that climate change will, in the near-term, overwhelm our first responders and social services, exhaust our municipal budget, and place hardship on our population via skyrocketing food prices. In the long term (which is what community planning is all about, right?)  it will ultimately result in waves of climate refugees flooding into Canada, and ultimately our community. This is not chicken-little stuff, it is exhaustively documented in reports by The Global Humanitarian Forum, the World Health Organization, Oxfam, and many other public agencies and non-government organizations.

Climate change is not an “environmental” issue, it is a civilization challenge. I believe we have a profound moral obligation to address it, wherever we live. I personally believe that we do not get an excuse or “opt out” pass to address climate just because we choose to live in a beautiful place that is “seen to be rural,” where fawns dance at the roadside and salmon thrash in the lagoon. We are not entitled to an exemption because we are surrounded by great natural beauty. This is not just “China’s problem.” We should see our emissions as an opportunity to lead, not barely squeak through our statutory obligations and hope nobody is noticing. That’s how we are not dealing with it now.

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Bowen Island Land-Use Politics, Illustrated

“Rural.”

“Urban.”

Voltage Test: Behind the Wheel of the Car that Could Save Detroit

On Saturday, General Motors, invited me to test-drive a working prototype of the automaker’s potentially business-saving 2011 Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle. The company, an official 2010 Olympics sponsor, has wheeled a pair of the cars up to Vancouver for the biggest show on Earth.

GM cordoned off a generous section of the he HR MacMillan Space Centre parking lot and–with the car’s lead project engineer riding shotgun, plus my kids in the back seat–I ran about 15 laps around the perimeter. It felt a bit like a rat running around the outside of his cage, but since there are only about 80 of these cars in the world, I can hardly blame the company for keeping them on a tight leash.
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Cool New Low-CO2 Transportation Video Released

One thing that frustrates me is that our low-carbon future is too-often depicted with slick architectural renderings that are designed to show how a certain infill development will make the world a better place. They’re populated with bus stops and stick figures on bicycles, but they don’t often adequately convey the potential flavor of a neighborhood, what it’s like to live there, how people will do things differently.

We have simple and powerful visualization tools out there. We need to be using them to show citizens what life might be like were we to embrace a range of better-living best practices and policies. And we don’t need any fancy CGI rendering to do the job.
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Petro Cos Can’t Spare a Drop for Haitian Orphans

Petroleum companies have shown their true colors again. Operation Stork, a Citizenship and Immigration Canada operation to evacuate Haitian orphans, flew an all volunteer mercy flight last week out of Port au Prince, the Globe and Mail reports.

It was an all-volunteer operation: Air Canada donated a fully crewed Airbus, flight AC2150.

Air Canada’s caregiver list was activated, as was their medical team, including a doctor who specializes in the effects of cabin air pressure on diseases while in flight. There were concerns about collapsed lungs among the children. An Air Canada customer service agent in Montreal, Jacqueline Dupont, who is known for her baking, baked all day, providing dozens of small cakes and muffins for the orphans.

Everyone volunteered their time, Jane Taber reports. Well, mostly.

Several of the airline’s suppliers donated their services, including supplying food on board, waiving of airport landing charges and air navigation fees. Not the oil companies, however. Air Canada asked the fuel suppliers to donate and were refused.

We shouldn’t be suprised. After all, times are really tough for the petroleum companies these days.

Bastards.

Superfast Bullet Trains Are Finally Coming to the U.S.

If you don’t count the various efforts to commercialize aviation biofuel, electrified high-speed rail (HSR) is our best bet when it comes to preserving continental mobility in the post-carbon age. Thing is, unlike much of the rest of the world, Americans are only just now figuring this out (and please don’t get me started on Canada). HSR represents a truly massive infrastructure project for the Lower 48 — comparable to the building of the Interstate system in the 1950s.

Here’s an infographics package that Rachel Swaby and I put together for WIRED. The piece unpacks the various HSR plans now underway in the States, explains the technology, and outlines the challenges that stand in the way — particularly in California, where plans are furthest along. Please forgive the slightly breathless intro.

Believe it: Bullet trains are coming. After decades of false starts, planners are finally beginning to make headway on what could become the largest, most complicated infrastructure project ever attempted in the US. The Obama administration got on board with an $8 billion infusion, and more cash is likely en route from Congress. It’s enough for Florida and Texas to dust off some previously abandoned plans and for urban clusters in the Northeast and Midwest to pursue some long-overdue upgrades. The nation’s test bed will almost certainly be California, which already has voter-approved funding and planning under way. But getting up to speed requires more than just seed money. For trains to beat planes and automobiles, the hardware needs to really fly. Officials are pushing to deploy state-of-the-art rail rockets. Next stop: the future.

Superfast Bullet Trains Are Finally Coming to the U.S., WIRED, February 2010. Illustration by Paul Rogers.

How to Get Ahead in Journalism

Gratuitous unlicensed stock shot.

Every few months or so, I get an email or Facebook message from the younger brother of a long-disconnected friend, or a former colleague who worked down the hall from me three gigs or so back. It goes something like this:

Hi! it’s been a while… [insert chit-chat preamble] So I’m reaching out because I’m thinking of making some changes to my professional life, and I’m wondering about possibly getting into freelance writing. I’ve always been a total magazine junkie, and I’m wondering if I could buy you a coffee and pick your brain about how to break into the biz?

I’ve never been sure how best to answer these emails; “career” isn’t a word I would even tuck into the same paragraph as “freelance magazine journalism.” To best guide positive personal growth among such correspondents, I have developed the following eight-point checklist. Please feel free to share, modify, and adapt this for your own use.

Freelance Journalist Aptitude Self-Assessment Tool

Please check all that apply.

• Do you have a trust fund?
• Are you married or engaged to a lawyer, airline pilot, surgeon, petroleum or mining engineer, dentist, or pharmaceutical executive?
• If not, can you grow hydroponic marijuana?
• If none of the above apply, are you at least married or engaged to an individual with a “real job”?
• Are you are childless, or monastic, or both?
• Do you suffer from low self-esteem?
• Are you comfortable waiting six to eight months to be paid for two months of work even though your mortgage lender or landlord may not exhibit the same flexibility?
• Are you Malcolm Gladwell?

If you answer “yes” to at least three of these questions, then congratulations! You may be a candidate for a career in the glamorous and rewarding field of freelance journalism. You are prequalified to play a critical oversight role in our democracy. Please contact me to book a coffee meeting at your nearest convenience!

Ahem.

In the media world, a reporter who transitions to the world of public relations strategy—as I have done this year—is “going over to the dark side.” To be honest, it sure doesn’t feel that way. Instead, it feels like I have stepped into the light. I’m exercising new parts of my brain. I’m finally able to take a stand on issues that matter to me (journalists aren’t technically supposed to “join” causes). I’ve helped bootstrap a smart-growth advocacy group in my community. I’m presently working with a team of incredibly smart people, and pitching in on projects that support my values and passions. Even better: When they say my check is “in the mail,” it actually is.

If this is the dark side, then I’m here to stay. Wishing all my friends near and far a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2010!

Will New Climate-Science Update Move Leaders?

Only days remain until world leaders meet in Copenhagen to hash out a new international climate treaty to replace the Kyoto protocol, and in recent weeks many world leaders have attempted to quell expectations that the world will emerge with a strong, fair, and binding deal. President Obama has hinted only that a “politically binding” treaty may be all we can hope for. And even though its citizens are embarrassed by a lack of federal leadership, Canada’s Harper government has all-but-declared that it intends to stand in the way.

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Not-Quite-So-Giggly Gas

I frequently parrot the message that a lot of small actions can add up to big change. For proof, look no further than this short video clip I did over the summer, one of a series of greener-living advice segments for a real-estate website called Cyberhomes.

There I am, proving the point that easy gestures—in this case, unplugging idle electronic devices—can all add up. It makes sense on paper, which is why the “everyone do their bit” credo is the basis of many behavior-change campaigns. And sure, it’s all well and good to unplug a few video games, or enjoy a healthy bike ride, or savor the vegetables and fruits you grew yourself.

But what about nitrous oxide? You know, laughing gas?

My dentist offers it to me every time I go in for a new crown or onlay which, given the pathetic state of my teeth, is pretty much at least once a year. And I usually turn it down, because despite its jovial nickname, the stuff is effectively two kinds of bad in one bottle.
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