Innovation in the Human Age 2 Innovation in the Human Age

The decoupling of economic prosperity from carbon emissions

ISSUE 2 We are a digital, print, and live magazine in which the world’s most creative writers, designers, scientists, and entrepreneurs explore how we can create a sustainable human age we actually want to live in.

published by Future Earth connects science, innovators and local communities to accelerate the transformation to a more sustainable world

2 Photo ©Abbie Trayler-Smith/Panos Pictures/Department for International Development 3 Look up. Try turning an old idea upside down decarbonization through a remarkably and even inside out. To solve a wicked simple plan. Small groups of nations, or problem like decarbonization of the even super-wealthy individuals, could buy world’s economies, it behooves us to search coal and other fossil fuel reserves—and not out new vantage points—and to stretch a mine them. True, it is no panacea. But Perspective little, intellectually. when you find yourself in a hole, it is time In this second issue of Anthropo- to stop digging. cene, that’s precisely what we’ve tried to And while we’re challenging assump- do. Veteran writer and Economist editor tions, don’t miss Wayt Gibbs’s article Oliver Morton takes the lead on page 66. on energy equity on page 46. The short Solar geoengineering, he says, demands a answer to the question posed in the title new and often troubling way of looking of the article, “How much energy will the at our home planet. In the 1970s, Apollo world need?” is: a lot more than you think. missions gave us a God’s-eye view of the Take your best guess and triple it. As Earth and helped launch the environmen- the world gets ever closer to eliminating tal movement. Now we’re faced with the extreme poverty, the global appetite for en- daunting task of keeping global warm- ergy will skyrocket. Gibbs walks through ing below 2 degrees Celsius. It is in this some complex numbers on energy demand context that Morton deftly coaxes us to to arrive at a simple conclusion. The chal- confront the godlike powers of geoengi- lenge before us is not to do more with less, neering. It is problematic. It has potential. but rather to do more with more. And it represents an irrevocable change in Technology will be pivotal. And one the human relationship to the planet that technology that is crashing headlong into can’t be ignored. almost every aspect of modern life is artifi- Then, on page 76, Robinson Meyer, a cial intelligence. Technology writer Mark staff writer forThe Atlantic, flips our usual Harris provides a fascinating glimpse into way of looking at the decarbonization how AI could make electrical grids vastly problem on its head. In debates over how more efficient by making millions of tiny best to treat our fossil fuel addiction, there “turn it on or off ” decisions that human seems to be an almost magnetic pull to the beings would never bother to make. demand side of the classic economic equa- If there is a theme for this issue, I’d say tion. Often we try to curtail consumption it is all about the lens through which we by making things we want less of—in this peer at our predicament. Change its cur- case, carbon-spewing fuels—more expen- vature, and a whole new set of possibilities sive. But policies such as taxing carbon comes into focus. A are politically precarious right now. So Meyer asks, what if we also exerted pres- sure from the supply side of the equation? Drawing on the work of Matt Frost and Bård Harstad, Meyer wonders whether Kathryn Kohm Become a supporting we might make some headway toward Editor-in-Chief member of

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5 97 Climate change researchers don’t hide negative results

Issue 2 . 66 98 July 2017 Geoengineering Hitting food production 3. targets may not be Cutting Loose the such a stretch Climate Future from Science the Carbon Past Shorts 100 2. Geoengineering demands Energy subsidies Deep Dives a new way of looking at and the G20 the world—one that can 90 be troubling. Drug legalization could 102 40 By Oliver Morton both help and hurt the Is kindness the solution to environment conflicts with wild dogs? TrendLines The Great Decoupling 76 93 104 Small changes to flight It’s not just what we cook, Global carbon emissions Supply-side Economics routes could deliver big but how we cook that is historically have risen in When You’re in a climate savings overheating the planet lockstep with GDP. But in Carbon Hole recent years, emissions 94 27 have stabilized in the Stop Digging Reusable or disposable: 105 To Upcycle Fast Fashion absence of economic Here’s a coal retirement Which coffee cup has a Looking for the next Melt Down Clothes crises. That is a first. plan that doesn’t rely on smaller footprint? miracle drug in city dirt 1. By Lindsey Doermann By Robert B. Jackson uninvented technology Idea Watch and colleagues or science-challenged 96 106 28 leaders. A climate stress test for Drones deliver less An Internet of Wings By Robinson Meyer financial institutions carbon pollution 10 Tracking migratory 46 animals from the Inter- Energy Equity Instead of Trump’s Wall, national Space Station to Let’s Build a Border predict the next pandemic How Much of Solar Panels By Jane C. Hu Energy Will the By Homero Aridjis and World Need? James Ramey 30 Any climate plan that Rewritable Paper doesn’t consider this 12 Print. Erase. Repeat. question is bound to fail. Human-Driven Evolution By Prachi Patel By W. Wayt Gibbs Is a Hallmark of the Anthropocene 32 54 By Lizzie Wade The Rise of the Wooden Skyscraper Artificial Intelligence 16 Mass-timber engineering could transform the 21st Throw Software at The Circular Economy century city from a carbon the Problem Made Real: A photo essay source into a carbon sink New experiments By Lindsey Doermann By Susan Moran are pushing artificial intelligence and sensor 22 networks into the grid— The Carnery 35 and into factories, data Imagine a culinary future Language of the centers, and transit with in vitro meat Anthropocene systems—in order to pull Biophony fossil fuels out. By Isha Datar and Robert Bolton By Bernie Krause By Mark Harris

6 7

1. Idea Watch

People and projects pushing the boundaries of sustainability

8 9 IDEA WATCH Donald Trump has repeatedly called for Mexico struction and maintenance costs for solar mental, and security benefits on both sides. to build a wall between our countries. There plants in Mexico are substantially lower. It would make trafficking drugs, arms, and is indeed a way that Mexico could create Thus, building a long series of such plants people all the more difficult for criminal Instead of Trump’s a barrier between the US and Mexico, one all along the Mexican side of the border cartels. In Mexico, the solar border would constructed exclusively on the Mexican side, could power cities on both sides faster create a New Deal–like source of high-tech Wall, Let’s Build a with substantial benefits for both countries and more cheaply than similar arrays built construction and technology jobs all along and the planet: a solar border. north of the border. the border, which could absorb a signifi- Border of Solar Panels Sunlight in the northern deserts of Solar energy is already being gener- cant number of would-be migrant workers Mexico is more intense than in the US ated at lower prices than those of coal. on their way to cross into the US illegally, Southwest because of the lower latitude and With solar plants along vast stretches of at great physical risk. By Homero Aridjis and James Ramey more favorable cloud patterns. And con- the almost 2,000-mile US-Mexico border Most importantly, it would make a on the Mexican side, a new high-voltage significant contribution to the global battle direct-current (HVDC) grid could be set against carbon emissions, since the electric- up to transmit energy efficiently from that ity generated would be carbon-neutral, and long, snaking array to population centers the purchase of so much solar technology along the border. HVDC power lines lose would bring its price down exponentially less energy over long dis- further. The plants would tances than traditional power lines. Cities be built using environmen- Electricity exports that could immediately benefit include San tally sensitive techniques from Mexico to the US Diego, Tijuana, Mexicali, Tucson, Phoe- for avoiding habitat loss for have existed for over nix, El Paso, Ciudad Juarez, San Antonio, desert species. a century and have and Monterrey. Additionally, the grid If one were to construct the equivalent could extend to the coasts, burgeoned in recent of a strip of arrays one-third the width of where ecologically sensitive years, which should a football field south of the entire US- desalination plants could be make international Mexico border, wider in some areas and built for the production of long-term loan narrower in others, with a wide berth fresh water to be pumped guarantees for solar allowed for populated areas and stretches inland to those cities and plants relatively easy of rugged terrain, sufficient energy might agricultural areas along be produced to also supply Los Ange- the border that suffer from to obtain. les, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Dallas, and water shortages—phenom- Houston. For the US cities, it would be a ena bound to worsen as the way to obtain cheaper and cleaner energy effects of global warming than they could from other sources. increase desertification. This A solar border would alleviate a range would reduce tension and of binational problems. For one, it would food security concerns that have a civilizing effect in a dangerous area. have vexed bilateral relations for decades Since solar plants use security measures to because of the disputed water supply of the keep intruders out, Rio Grande and other shared water sources. 3 Rendering of a solar wall on the US-Mexico border. the solar border Once the solar plants are installed and Architect Ronald Rael would serve as a prove successful, additional areas in Mexico explores this and other de facto virtual could be added to the grid, building on the concepts for the border wall that unite rather fence, reducing accumulated know-how generated in the than divide in his new porousness of the new workforce by the initial construction book, Borderwall as border while pro- experience. Mexico has immense potential Architecture (borderwall- asarchitecture.com). ducing major eco- as a solar-producing country—especially in Image ©Rael San Fratello nomic, environ- its high, central plateau deserts, which pro-

10 11 vide the most favorable combination of dry, orite impact that killed the dinosaurs. But unclouded, low-latitude, and relatively cool he wondered whether there might be a flip climate for solar generation. Potentially, all side. Certainly people’s planet-transforming of Mexico could be solar-powered one day. activities had to be creating new species, How to pay for it? Although it would too. But how, and how many? Bull decided be a major investment, the price of indus- to see whether he could count all the new trial solar generation continues to drop species humans had created or were on quickly, and because Mexican solar power their way to creating, in a sort of mirror- is cheaper to build and maintain than image of extinction rates and endangered comparable facilities north of the border, species lists. international investors would have strong First, Bull had to come up with a list incentives. Fortuitously, Mexico’s recent of human activities that could create new constitutional reforms encourage foreign Art ©Guido Daniele (guidodaniele.com) species. The most obvious one is domesti- and domestic investment in the electric- cation. By picking out the traits in a wild power sector. Construction of the solar population that are most beneficial to border would go a long way toward help- IDEA WATCH humans and breeding for them, people can ing Mexico achieve its mandated climate “force evolution in different species,” Bull change goals, which include 35 percent says. Wolves become dogs, nubby grass renewable electricity generation by 2024. Human-Driven their open-air cousins, London’s subterranean becomes maize, wild boars become pigs. Electricity exports from Mexico to the US skeeters seemed to love biting humans. As people’s environmental reach has have existed for over a century and have Fifty years after the war ended, scientists expanded and our corresponding sense of burgeoned in recent years, which should Evolution Is a at the University of London decided to inves- responsibility for the planet has grown, make international long-term loan guaran- tigate the subway population. They collected we’ve started applying tees for solar plants relatively easy to obtain. Hallmark of the eggs and larvae from subway tunnels and The Human Age the principles of domes- If the initiative were framed as a big, Anthropocene garden ponds and reared both populations will be shaped by tication to helping wild charismatic project that has the full back- in the lab. The outdoor mosquitoes fed on the species we species, too. For example, ing of the Mexican government, garnering birds, but the tunnel bugs preferred mammal several environmental create and foster the admiration of the rest of the world, it blood. And when the scientists put males and organizations—includ- would position Mexico as an exemplary By Lizzie Wade females from the different populations into as well as the ing The Nature Con- world leader in combating climate change. close quarters designed to encourage mating, ones we kill off servancy and SECORE Mexico and the US would be connected by not a single pairing produced offspring. That International—recently a truly beautiful wall—a symbol of unity, sealed the deal: the underground mosquitoes joined forces to breed visible even from space. A During World War II, Londoners often sought were a whole new species, adapted to life in resilient corals, selecting shelter from German bombs in the city’s the subway tunnels people had built. the heartiest parents and Homero Aridjis is an award-winning Mexican poet, subway tunnels. There, they encountered It’s stories like this one that got Joseph raising their offspring novelist, diplomat, and environmentalist. James another type of enemy: hordes of vora- Bull thinking. As a conservation scientist at in protected pens in the Ramey is a professor at Metropolitan Autonomous University, a member of Mexico’s National System of cious mosquitoes. These weren’t your the University of Copenhagen, he hears a lot Caribbean. In pilot projects on the island of Researchers, and a documentary film producer. typical above-ground mosquitoes. They about how humans are driving other species Curaçao and in Mexico, scientists are cur- were natives of the Underground, born in extinct. If the current rate stays steady, the rently working on transplanting these born This article was originally published in the Huffington Post/World Post on December 19, 2016, and received pools of standing water that pockmarked planet is on its way to its sixth mass extinc- survivors into wild reefs suffering the ef- 1 million Facebook Likes. the underground passageways. And unlike tion, a severe event on par with the mete- fects of climate change and pollution. The

12 A version of this story was originally published by Wired. 13 idea is to provide a shot of genetic diversity hang on and interbreed with native spe- fore better able to survive in urban aquatic or turtle species with a decades-old strain to the reefs, ensuring they can withstand cies. And sometimes they take over, like environments. That could cause problems, of insect or plant.” Species whose genomes high temperatures and acidifying oceans kudzu in the American South or snakes on the researchers say, because zooplankton have been shaped by mere decades or even without bleaching. Researchers, including Guam. Over time, the new environment graze on microscopic plants; if the zoo- years of human-driven evolution may have biologist Ruth Gates of the Hawaii Institute exerts different pressures on the invasive plankton shrink too much, the tinier plants lost the rare genes that aren’t particularly of Marine Biology, say coral reefs are un- population, causing it to diverge from its could grow out of control. (4) helpful in current environments but may likely to survive much longer without such ancestors. The invasive species might also Keeping these mechanisms in mind, regain their usefulness as the world changes. “assisted evolution.” (1, 2) change the game for native species, push- Bull tallied up humans’ impact on species in Something like this is currently happening People’s efforts to help species we like ing them in new genetic directions (if, of a paper published last year in Proceedings of to maize, as the varieties people have bred can sometimes backfire. The livestock in- course, it doesn’t just drive them extinct). the Royal Society B. Scientists have recorded and planted most intensively can’t keep up dustry pumps antibiotics Although hunting is 1,359 plant and animal extinctions in the with the climbing temperatures and longer into animals to keep them Humans have one good way to drive a past 12,000 years. Meanwhile, humans droughts brought on by climate change. healthy in overcrowded species extinct (just ask have relocated 891 plant and animal species Researchers at the International Maize and relocated 891 plant quarters and to encour- the passenger pigeon), it and domesticated 743, for a total of 1,634 Wheat Improvement Center, a seed bank age them to grow more and animal species and can also spur evolution species. (5) It seems that human-driven outside Mexico City, are racing to col- quickly, but such wide- domesticated 743 by removing certain speciation could be as much a mark of the lect the older and rarer maize varieties still spread use allows low lev- types of individuals Anthropocene as extinction is. grown in remote villages in Mexico— els of those antibiotics to from a species gene Of course, extinction, like speciation, in hopes of finding a constellation of ancient leak out into the environ- pool—birds of an easy- is hard to document while it’s happen- genes that could save the world’s supply ment. Such small amounts to-see color, say, or ing. Many species likely disappear before of corn. don’t stop the growth fish large enough to be scientists even know they are there. That’s Bull agrees that speciation and extinc- of bacteria, but some scientists wondered caught in a net. No new species is known why extinction rates are calculated with tion don’t cancel each other out. “If we only whether they could affect pathogens in oth- to have been created through hunting extrapolations and models but even so give use number of species as a way of measuring er ways. In a recent issue of the Philosophical alone, Bull says. But given enough time, it’s widely different numbers. That’s all to say progress that someone makes on conserva- Transactions of the Royal Society B dedicated far from impossible. that many more than 1,359 lifeforms have tion, then we’re missing a load of other im- to human influences on evolution, research- likely gone extinct in the past 12,000 years. portant considerations,” he says. “We cannot ers exposed colonies of the common bac- Finally, we have the process that created the One scientist even estimates that the world replace something lost with something terium Pseudomonas fluorescens to very low underground mosquito: people’s propensity has lost 130,000 species of recorded inver- gained when it comes to nature.” Human- levels of the antibiotic streptomycin. Strep- to create entirely new ecosystems, espe- tebrates alone. (6) It’s also possible humans driven speciation may turn out to be a tomycin kills bacteria by interfering with cially those including cities. Populations of create species without detecting them. calling card of the Anthropocene. But no its ability to make proteins, but at nonle- animals colonize these new environments Just think of the wild world of antibiotic- matter how many species of underground thal levels that same mechanism causes the and adapt to their demands—from mosqui- resistant microbes, which evolve so fast in mosquitoes we inadvertently create, they bacteria to mutate. The researchers discov- toes developing a taste for mammal blood response to drugs that it’s dangerously won’t make up for what we destroy. A ered that exposure to nonlethal amounts of underground to city birds becoming better difficult to keep up. streptomycin caused P. fluorescens to evolve problem-solvers than their rural relatives. Number of species, however, is just one 1. van Oppen MJH. et al. Building coral reef resilience resistance not only to the antibiotic, but also In the same human-directed-evolution is- way to measure the effects humans have on through assisted evolution. PNAS. 2015. to a common phage—a virus that infects sue of nature—and maybe not the best way. Drive 2. van Oppen MJH et al. Shifting paradigms in restora- P. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal tion of the world’s coral reefs. Global Change Biol- fluorescens and naturally keeps its population Society B, researchers found that urbaniza- keystone predators such as wolves or sharks ogy. 2017. tion affected even plankton. After taking down. (3) Efforts to strengthen livestock via extinct, and entire ecosystems collapse—no 3. cairns J et al. Sublethal streptomycin concentra- Lizzie Wade antibiotics, therefore, could actually be do- samples from 84 ponds in Belgium, located matter how many new species pop up to tions and lytic bacteriophage together promote writes about ing more to help bacteria. in areas ranging from rural to suburban to replace them. What’s more, older species resistance evolution. Philosophical Transactions of science from the Royal Society B. 2017. her home Humans can also drive speciation in very urban, the researchers found that in can carry millions of years of evolutionary 4. Brans KI et al. Eco-evolutionary dynamics in urban- in Mexico less direct and less purposeful ways. “It’s most cases, the more built-up the pond’s history in their genes; if they go extinct, ized landscapes: Evolution, species sorting and the City. She is a important to think about the creation of environment was, the smaller its zooplank- that diversity is lost. “Anthropogenic spe- change in zooplankton body size along urbanization contributing gradients. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal correspondent new species as a process,” Bull says. One ton tended to be. They posit that change cies represent a nanosecond of the evo- Society B. 2016. for Science, of the most dramatic ways people put that in size is due to the fact that cities generate lutionary time that many ‘natural’ species focusing on process into motion is by moving members more heat than rural areas, and hotter tem- have passed through,” says Christopher 5. Bull JW and M Maron. How humans drive specia- archaeology, tion as well as extinction. Proceedings of the Royal anthropology, of an existing species from one place to peratures mean that oxygen becomes less Dick, an evolutionary biologist at the Uni- Society B. 2016. and all things another. Sometimes those individuals die soluble in water. Animals with small bodies versity of Michigan. “In conservation, there 6. Régniera C. Mass extinction in poorly known taxa. Latin America. in the new environment. Sometimes they and lower oxygen requirements are there- is no comparing a 10-million-year-old tree PNAS. 2015.

14 15 IDEA WATCH

The Circular Economy Made Real

In more and more pockets of the industrial landscape, the byproducts of one process are becoming the raw materials for another, trash is getting a useful second life, and waste is becoming a thing of the past

By Lindsey Doermann

©Fruitleather Rotterdam

Food waste turns into fashion

In the Netherlands, an innovative startup is using principles of the circular economy to cut down on two environmental scourges—food waste and leather production. Fruitleather Rotterdam (facebook.com/fruitleather.rotterdam) is deseeding discarded fruit and then mashing, boiling, and drying it into a leather-like material. From there, it’s used for footwear, fashion accessories, and upholstery; the team recently produced a chair for Dutch Design Week. What began as a design school project is now a nominee for the Henri Winkelman Award for entrepreneurial designers.

Plastic trash from the ocean becomes running shoes

For Adidas and the nonprofit Parley for the Oceans, cleaning plastic out of the oceans is a mere first step in combating waste at sea. Together they’re making shoes and other apparel out of ocean plastic. The composition of the “upper” of the UltraBOOST Uncaged running shoe is 95 percent recycled plastic from deep-sea gillnets and from trash harvested from the waters off the Maldives. Adidas sold 7,000 pairs of these ocean-plastic shoes last year and has committed to making 1 million more pairs by the end of 2017. It has also incorporated the recycled material into T-shirts, shorts, flip-flops, and professional soccer jerseys.

©Adidas

16 17 Plastic waste becomes low-cost building blocks

In Bogotá, Colombia, plastic is sent to the landfill by the ton. Architect Oscar Andres Mendez Gerardino is looking to change this—and simultaneously create low-cost housing options for city residents. His company, Conceptos Plásticos, is melting and molding plastic and rubber waste into LEGO®-like bricks and pillars that can be assembled into buildings. Four people can construct a single-family home in just five days, according to the company. In 2015, Conceptos Plásticos turned 120 tons of plastic waste into shelter for 42 families displaced by violence in Guapi, Cauca, near the Pacific coast of Colombia. Company founder Gerardino received a Young Entrepreneurs Award from Unilever in 2016.

Photos ©Unilever

Car dashboards become 3D-printer filament

What becomes of your trusty old car when it’s finally consigned to the scrap heap? Dutch company Refil has perfected the process of shredding and melting old plastic car-interior parts, such as dashboards, to recycle them into 3D-printer filament. From there, your old dash can become a vase, a toy, new jewelry, or anything else you can make with a 3D printer.

Brewery wastewater feeds algae, then becomes biodegradable ink

Upslope Brewing in Boulder, Colorado, has piloted a partnership to bring brewery byproducts full circle. Local startups Boom Algae and Living Ink Technologies are using Upslope’s waste carbon dioxide, spent grain, and canning rinse water to cultivate algae. The algae then become the base pigment for 100 percent–biodegradable ink. To close the loop, the brewery will use the algae ink to print its menus.

Photo by Jesse Borrell/NOCOAST

Photo courtesy of Refil

18 19 Closed-loop food production at The Plant in Chicago

Entrepreneur, artist, and industrial-preservation enthusiast John Edel has been working for the past seven years to transform an abandoned meat-packing facility in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood into a test bed for closed-loop, net-zero energy food production— one that also turns a healthy profit.

Oyster mushroom ©Phil Norton

Belkacem El Metennani’s business, Fruiting ©Pleasant House Bakery Mushrooms, operates out of an old ham freezer in the basement of The Plant. It uses byproducts Pleasant House Bakery found it could incorporate spent grain from from agriculture, beer production, and coffee Whiner Beer Company, and coffee chaff from a roastery in the building, brewing elsewhere in The Plant as a growing into combustible “bio-bricks” for its masonry oven. Testing showed that medium for gourmet mushrooms—oyster, lion’s the briquettes burn hotter and faster than wood, so they may not serve mane, comb’s tooth, and reishi. El Metennani sells as a fuel substitute while goodies are baking. But they do show promise his mushrooms locally, of course. ©Ria Neri/Whiner Beer Company for maintaining heat in the oven between baking cycles, cutting down on the amount of wood required to reheat the oven from a low temperature. Spent grain from Whiner Beer Company’s brewery helps fuel the oven of neighboring Pleasant House Bakery, feeds fish in The Plant’s aquaponics operation, and serves as a growing medium for an indoor mushroom farm. Whiner makes Belgian- Amaranth under grow lights ©Plant Chicago and French-style barrel-aged beers and operates a taproom in the old warehouse. Plans are in The Plant is raising fish and microgreens in a place for the spent grain to help fuel The Plant’s closed-loop aquaponics system. The microgreens anaerobic digester when it’s up and running—and clean the water for the fish, and fish waste hence help power the entire building. provides fertilizer for the plants. Staff and interns are experimenting with supplementing expensive commercial fish feed with the brewery’s spent grain. And soon the system’s waste will help power the anaerobic digester.

20 21 farming system. Today most meat is pro- duced on industrial farms where animals are bred, raised, and slaughtered for the princi- pal purpose of producing food for human beings. Crops that could feed humans are instead fed to meat ani- mals. Fertilizer is produced in such Like a bakery where bread is quantities that it spoils soils rather than nourishing them. In many made, a winery where wine ways animals are treated as living, meat-producing bioreactors with is made, and a brewery where human food as an input, pollut- ing waste as an output, and vari- beer is made, the “carnery” is ous drugs, hormones, and genetic manipulations added to make the where meat is made. process more “efficient.” Price is the in vitro defining product characteristic, and minimizing this incurs vast external costs to the environment, animal The farm was long the cultural ground welfare, and public health. connecting humans to our food and to Further, meat is defined as a small hand- our labor. Through over 10,000 years of ful of species, presented by a smaller handful agricultural practice, farming—food and of corporations. Few players, little product work—was a foundation on which we diversity, and a very narrow, inexpensive IDEA WATCH developed our sense of humanity. From price range characterize the meat-production values such as integrity, quality, respect, industry status quo. and stewardship, to experiences of shared In light of population increase, food knowledge and enjoyment, to developing insecurity, volatile food prices, environmen- The Carnery our relationship with land and species—and tal concerns, and changing value systems Imagine a culinary future with in vitro meat . . . gaining a concept of the cyclical passage of around food, it is clear that current modes of The real thing may not be as far away as you think time that connects us to the seasons—the production cannot persist. For meat produc- farm has been our cultural rooting. Keep- tion to take place responsibly, we will have ing farm animals played an integral role in to significantly diversify our eating hab- By Isha Datar maintaining the farm. Animal husbandry its—and with them, our production habits. and Robert Bolton and crop cultivation were concerted activi- In vitro meat is one promising alternative. ties. Animals were fed on crop residues af- We don’t know enough about it yet. But we ter a crop was harvested, or on pastures that know we can make it. And we are responsi- Counter Culture, London’s latest in vitro micro- board, consisting of mushroom-medium were unfit for farming. Manure was used ble for exploring what it will mean not only carnery, proves it’s the real thing. The duck foie gras, coriander mortadella, and to replenish soils. Animals were slaughtered for our health and environment, but also for restored 1970s-era English brewpub boasts crispy lobes of sweetbread pairs perfectly and shared. Meat was honored and savored. our culture and our sense of humanity. How an expansive bar of reclaimed mahogany with a shortlist of probiotic cocktails (try should we feel about interacting with lab- Above: A To meet and exceed concept for and booths upholstered with magnificent in the rum and kombucha). consumer demands for grown meat? a cultured vitro leather. Steaks are grown to precision In vitro meat has the capacity to trans- food, the farm has been a site of cutting- If we’re comfortable treating meat pork product inside giant steel vats decorated (function- form meat production as we know it, not edge breakthroughs in mechanical engi- animals like bioreactors, and engineering grown from pig stem cells for ally) with illuminated green algae tanks. only offering new and diverse types of neering, genetics, and chemistry. The craft them strictly for the purpose of maximal the fictional A disorienting mingling of global spices product but also introducing an entirely of tending the herd evolved into processes protein production, then perhaps we can go restaurant Bistro flavors varieties of exotic and heritage new way of thinking about and interacting of automation and directives. Meat pro- a step further. Meat is simply a collection of In Vitro. Image courtesy of Next meats like boar and Berkshire, all of which with food. One day, growing meat may duction scaled to a point where it can no muscle, fat, and connective tissues. Rather Nature Network. are cultured on site. The large charcuterie seem as natural as making cheese or beer. longer fit into a cyclical and sustainable than raise an entire complex organism only

22 23 to harvest these tissues, why not start at the basic unit of life, the cell, to produce meat? In vitro meat is meat, created in a bioreactor rather than in an animal. A few things are required for making meat in vitro: a cell line, a medium to feed the cells, a bioreactor where cell growth can take place, and a structure upon which For meat production to take place the cells can attach and grow. Each of these elements allows for limitless variations of responsibly, we will have to significantly technique and process. The room for devia- marketers alike, the distinction between tion bridges science with craft, enabling in fantasy and reality is apparently trivial, diversify our eating habits—and with vitro meat makers to create unique products if not entirely nonexistent. We buy into with unique characteristics and features. At rustic theaters of “artisanal,” “small-batch,” them, our production habits. the fictionalin vitro meat restaurant Coun- and “hand-crafted” cuisine, though the as- ter Culture that begins this essay, the boar sociations we have with these words may meat could be made with adult stem cells bear no resemblance to the actual back-end collected from wild boar, cultured in an production processes. The theater of brand- petus for human culture? Though it uses Imagine that within the stainless-steel algae medium. Grown in a rotating wall ing is effective enough that we’re relieved mammalian cell cultures rather than yeast tanks at a brewery, microbrewery, brew- bioreactor on a tubular scaffold, the cell of our responsibility to confront the truths cultures, a carnery has the potential to look pub, or basement, meat—rather than beer— stretches to produce a lean, grained meat. of our food. In vitro meat may play into this very similar to these facilities—beer brewer- is being brewed. The mushroom-medium duck foie gras theater—fitting among the existing sym- ies in particular. Low-cost, mass-produced meat is could be made from a co-culture of duck bols, textures, and cues that make us com- At the carnery of the future, large cultured in massive carneries in rural areas. fat and liver cells in a mushroom-based fortable with artifice—while breaking down stainless-steel tanks house the biological Because the risk of bacterial contamination medium, 3D-printed onto a bioabsorb- its fourth wall, chipping away the layers, so processes that are transforming organic and viral epidemics is far decreased with- able scaffold to produce a fatty, smooth, that like the farmer, the baker, the butcher, ingredients into food products. Conditions out the use of animals, the meat produc- and cruelty-free foie gras. The flexibility of and the brewer, we can interface directly such as temperature and pressure are con- tion business is no longer at risk of recalls, in vitro meat production can change and with the realities of food production. trolled and manipulated. Inputs and outputs workers are no longer at risk of health diversify the ways people consume and are carefully measured. The work environ- issues, and the local rural environment is no interact with their food. The science and art of culturing cells to ment is clean and safe. But it doesn’t feel longer at risk of water and air pollution. As it stands today, a thick interface produce meat has been called “carnicul- like sterile science. It feels crafted, arti- Mid-range in vitro meat is made in local separates the experience of eating from the ture.” Like a bakery where bread is made, a sanal—because it is. carneries in urban areas. These carneries process of food production. Industrial farms winery where wine is made, and a brewery As with beer, the basic production host school and travel tours, educating the are located far from the eyes of consum- where beer is made, the “carnery” is where scheme for producing in vitro meat can be public on the art and science of carnicul- ers, and knowledge of what occurs in these in vitro meat is made. Carniculture might modified and adapted in endless ways to ture. Because growing meat in vitro does farms is limited in the wider public. While be dressed with similar connotations and make products that vary in appearance, not require the large tracts of land that consumers are mostly disconnected from aesthetics to the craft-brew and farm-to- aroma, taste, and mouthfeel. This makes factory farms require, this carnery is located the realities of where their food comes table movements. for an industry comprised of many diverse in a skyscraper that once contained of- from, marketers continue to romanticize We have to ask not only how in vitro products and players, and production on fice space. Algae tanks surround the outer the ideal farm of yore, substituting images meat products nourish our bodies, but how many different scales. A brewery can be surface of the tower, reaping the unshaded of agriculture in place of ones of industry, the process of making them nourishes hu- massive with several stories–tall bioreactors, sun available several stories up from ground dropping visual cues to the rural farm on man culture and fits in with our sense of a located near city limits—or it can be smaller level. packaging, advertising, and in retail dis- modern humanity. How, going forward, and situated in urban areas. A brewpub High priced meats are “micro-cultured” plays. These signifiers remind us of the core can the manufacturer of in vitro meat restaurant may choose to brew seasonal in trendy neighborhoods at boutique human values and sense of community that achieve the symbolic status of the farmer, offerings in-house, while a DIY enthusiast carnery pubs such as the fictional Counter we’ve historically associated with the farm. the baker, and the small-batch brewer? may wish to try his or her hand at mak- Culture described at the beginning of this Indeed, when done well, you can taste the How can the carnery, like the bakery, the ing the ultimate personalized brew with a essay. These small-batch facilities create crafted freshness. In the eyes of diners and winery, or the brewery become an im- home-brewing operation. various seasonal offerings, depending on

24 25 which media ingredients are available and ogy. Intellectual property protection has which cell cultures and nutrient profiles are a place in the industry at some point, but in vogue. Forward-thinking restaurants heavy, prohibitive patent protection early offer signature meats cultured in-house, on could stunt this new industry before it paired with a house wine. Some chefs focus has a chance to flourish. Culturingin vitro on nutrition profiles, some focus on tra- meat involves a level of “art” and tech- ditional “heritage breed” lines and others nique that comes only with experience and focus on biomolecular gastronomy. They familiarity with processes and materials. test the limits of carniculture by culturing As such, patent protection will be comple- rare or extinct species, co-culturing multi- mented by trade secrets, secret recipes, ple cell types or developing unique, never- and the carniculturist’s distinct artistry and before-seen cell lines. prowess. Communities of home carnicultur- Development needs to coincide with ists, who began as foodies and DIY bio public conversation about meat, meat enthusiasts, swap techniques and recipes at production, carniculture, and food science. cultured-meat cook-offs, fairs, and night Consumers need and want to know about markets. Carniculture bloggers post photo- the origins of their food. The new science graphy, data, and other media document- of carniculture must be developed respon- ing their materials, methods, and meals sibly, driven by discourse from the begin- online. The home carnery movement ning. This is much more likely to happen spawns carniculture specialty shops, cell- if research is funded and conducted pub- culture babysitting services, protocol- licly, openly engaging researchers, DIY swapping websites, cell banks, and special- bio enthusiasts, and students to address interest magazines. Hobbyists seeking to scientific hurdles. Creating a food politic turn their passion into a profession have a that tackles resource use, the environment, IDEA WATCH variety of certification and apprenticeship public health, and animal welfare should be programs to choose from to help them join a cooperative movement. a major carnery or start one of their own. In vitro meat is simply meat created In contrast to industrial farming, meat- outside the animal. Cultured meat and production methods go from secretive to carcass meat are the same product, though To Upcycle Fast Fashion celebrated. Meat-production facilities go created through different processes. The from vast to vertical. The meat-production potential for carniculture to introduce a Melt Down Clothes industry moves from the hands of few to more humane and sustainable meat in- the hands of many. And people grow more dustry is undeniably compelling. With By Lindsey Doermann authentically connected to the origins and the right set of conditions in place during creation stories of what they eat. the development of cultured-meat sci- ence, carniculture can reduce the need for, Fast fashion—affordable clothing that tends at a recent meeting of the For this new industry to exist, some conditions or entirely displace, factory farming. By to be tossed after only a handful of wears— American Chemical Society. have to be met in the early days of discovery embracing transparency and creating a takes a hefty environmental toll. Grow- Using an ionic liquid (i.e., a and development. culinary attitude, the in vitro meat indus- ing cotton, for example, requires copious liquid salt), they can dissolve The science has to remain fairly open, try can become more diverse, responsible, amounts of water and pesticides. And in the or “melt” the cotton out of transparent, and publicly accessible. With a and viable than the current meat industry. landfill, textiles release greenhouse gases as the fabric. The resulting population of scientists scattered about the A new set of food values emerges, unique they degrade. What’s more, many of today’s cellulose solution can then planet interested in making in vitro meat from and yet akin to those we associate clothes are made of difficult-to-recycle be spun into new fibers. a reality, an “open source” approach to it with the family farm. A future with in vitro fabric blends. Next, the team is inves- will accelerate development of the technol- meat is indeed a cultured future. A Now chemical engineers in Finland tigating whether it can turn have devised a way to break down cotton- the recovered polyester into Isha Datar is executive director of New Harvest and a pioneer in the field of cellular agriculture. Robert Bolton is a Canadian writer and a senior strategist at the global innovation firm, Idea Couture. polyester-blend fabrics and reuse some of usable fibers and reuse dyes This essay was originally published in The In Vitro Meat Cookbook, 2014. Reprinted with permission. the material. They presented their research from the old clothes. A

26 27 albeit with far more sophisticated tools. Wikelski is director of the International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space (ICARUS), a collaboration between scientists and the German, Russian, and European space agencies. Instead of string, ICARUS researchers are attaching GPS sensors, some the size of a euro one-cent coin and weighing a mere 5 grams, to bats, geese, and other animals. Since the proj- ect’s start in 2002, scientists from all over the world have collectively tagged more than 2,000 animals representing 600 spe- cies. Armed with data from this network of roving wildlife, scientists can see in unprec- edented detail where they go, how they IDEA WATCH live, and perhaps even how they transmit disease—all from space. The Centers for Disease Control esti- mate that more than six out of ten infec- tious diseases are zoonotic: passed between An Internet animals and humans. Previous research has shown that outbreaks of diseases such as of Wings avian influenza tend to track with migration routes, and birds that travel long distances Researchers will track migratory and reconvene once a year have the highest animals from the International Space risk of transmitting the disease. Station to predict the next pandemic Using ICARUS, scientists will track the travel routes and health of fruit bats, By Jane C. Hu mallards, and geese, creating what Wikel- ski calls “a heat map of life and death.” In one recent project, ICARUS researchers Renowned naturalist John James implanted a handful of Swedish mallards Audubon noticed that each with sensors that recorded not only loca- winter, local birds disappeared tion but also body temperature to monitor for a few months and reap- the spread of avian influenza. Those tem- peared in the spring. But were perature readouts could identify infected these birds the same as those individuals; a higher-than-average body from the previous year, or a temperature reading likely indicates infec- new crop? To find out, he tion. By comparing an individual’s data conducted the first bird band- with their travel history, scientists can piece ing study in 1803 by attach- together where animals contract and trans- ing silver string to an eastern mit diseases. phoebe’s leg. He found that it The data can also indicate how virulent came back to the same nesting a particular strain is and how likely it is to site year after year. spread to other species. “If you have a body Two centuries later, temperature increase, then you know that zoologist Martin Wikelski has some low-path[ogenic] avian influenza is Photo ©Kieran Dodds/Panos taken up Audubon’s charge, coming through—or if you have a massive

28 29 fever and the animal dies, Yin and his colleagues set out to crack you know you have high- the code of low-cost, low-toxicity reprint- path[ogenic] avian influ- able paper. They coated conventional paper enza,” he says. with nanoparticles of two commonly used Currently, that data can materials: the compound titanium dioxide, be collected only from base which is used in sunscreens and makeup, and locations on the ground, the paint pigment Prussian blue. close to where tagged ani- The paper starts out entirely blue. Placed mals live. But this October, under ultraviolet light, the titanium dioxide the ICARUS team will install particles get excited and produce electrons a receiver on the Interna- that they donate to the neighboring Prussian tional Space Station, making blue particles. This makes the blue pigment it easier than ever to collect lose its color and turn white. Over time, oxy- data from animals anywhere gen from the air absorbs the extra electrons, on the planet. Wikelski de- changing the pigment back to blue. Heat- scribes the receiver as similar ing the paper to 120 degrees Celsius speeds to a cell tower: as the ISS or- up the process and erases the paper in ten bits the earth, passing above minutes. tagged animals, ICARUS’s To “print” on the paper as a proof of receiver will signal animals’ concept, the researchers used a rudimentary sensors to transmit their data. process involving masking. They inkjet- Wikelski’s next step is printed text with black ink onto a transpar- to correlate this information ent sheet, which acted like a mask when with even richer data from they shined UV light through it. Parts of blood samples, for example, the rewriteable paper under the black ink which would reveal how ani- remained blue, while the surrounding areas mals carry and spread anti- turned white. For commercial printing without a bodies. The team’s long game ©Tang Yau Hoong is to create better models of mask, a UV laser could be used to scan the disease transmission, which paper surface on areas that need to remain will lead to improved accu- IDEA WATCH white, Yin says. This would work similarly racy in predicting outbreaks to the way today’s laser printers do. and, potentially, the ability to side, could help. The researchers “print” the The researchers report that they can intervene. Rewritable Paper paper using ultraviolet light instead of ink, print patterns at incredibly high resolution— and the text stays legible for five days before as small as 10 micrometers, or ten times Drawing parallels to the Print. Erase. Repeat. “Internet of Things” made up fading away. “You wouldn’t want to use it smaller than our eyes can see. And as for cost, of “smart” technology em- for writing contracts,” says chemist Yadong their coated paper should be comparable to bedded in everyday objects By Prachi Patel Yin, who led the work. “But it would be regular paper. Both titanium dioxide and such as cars and thermostats, ideal for things like newspapers and post- Prussian blue can be produced by the ton Wikelski calls ICARUS the ers.” The paper can be reused 80 times and and are inexpensive. In fact, titanium dioxide “Internet of animals” or the E-readers and tablets seem to be all the could be recycled after that, he says. is already used to make bright white paper, “Internet of wings.” Standing rage, but most people still find good-old- Conventional paper costs pennies but Yin says. upon Audubon’s shoulders fashioned paper books hard to beat. A Pew leaves a huge footprint. About 4 billion The team is now thinking about how to and those first silver strings, it Research Center survey found that 65 per- trees are cut every year to make paper or make a commercially viable printing tech- allows us to see the world as cent of Americans had read a print book cardboard, using a process that consumes nique and multi-colored paper. A never before. A in 2016, as opposed to 28 percent who had immense amounts of electricity and water. read an e-book. However, our paper habit The paper and pulp industry is the world’s Prachi Patel, originally from Nagpur, India, is now based Jane C. Hu is a Seattle-based science takes a toll on the environment. fifth-largest energy consumer. It uses the in Pittsburgh. She writes about energy, biotechnology, journalist. Her writing has appeared nanotechnology, and computing. She is a contributing in Slate, Scientific American, Nautilus, A rewritable paper made by research- most water per ton of product and is a ma- editor at IEEE Spectrum and her work can also be found and other publications. ers at the University of California, River- jor polluter. Even paper recycling pollutes. in Scientific American and Technology Review.

30 31 The building materials that have defined and fueled the great urban migration of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries are brick, steel, and concrete. The building blocks of low-carbon cities of the future may, ironically, be a much older, time-hon- ored material—wood. The carbon footprint of steel and concrete is enormous. Manufacturing and transporting concrete alone accounts for roughly five percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Wood, however, is both renewable and a carbon sink. According to researchers at the University of Canterbury ©Lever Architecture in Christchurch, New Zealand, construc- tion of a mid-rise building made of steel or concrete results in emissions of roughly

1,600 metric tons of CO2. By contrast, a similarly sized building constructed from a new generation of engineered woods known as mass-timber products has a zero carbon footprint—and can even sequester

up to 600 metric tons of CO2. If we use mass-timber products “to help satiate the world’s imminent demand for housing,” says Alan Organschi, “a city be-

Waugh Thistleton Architects ©Will Pryce ©reThink Wood comes a bank, storing carbon.” Organschi, a partner at Gray Organschi Architecture in IDEA WATCH Left: Murray Grove, completed in Connecticut, is among a growing group of 2009, is a nine-story apartment pioneering architects exploring the potential building in London constructed for mass-timber products replacing steel and entirely of prefabricated solid concrete in everything from skyscrapers to timber. Top right: The 130-foot-tall The Rise of the bridges to mid-rise urban buildings. Framework building in Portland, Oregon, is one of two competition Unlike standard two-by-fours, mass- Wooden Skyscraper winners of the US Tall Wood Building timber products are made from smaller Prize, cosponsored by the US pieces of wood that are laminated together New, mass-timber engineering could transform the twenty- Department of Agriculture in 2015. to create panels up to seven layers thick and Bottom right: Cross-laminated first-century city from a carbon source into a carbon sink up to 64 feet long and eight feet wide— timber panels consist of lumber boards glued and pressed together making them ideal for tall buildings. The By Susan Moran in alternating directions to resist most established mass-timber product is compression and boost strength. cross-laminated timber (CLT). The panels

32 33 are engineered to be pound-for-pound soon be home to the first stronger than steel—and at least as fire- high-rise timber structure resistant. That’s because the panels are so in the US. Set for comple- thick that under the stress of fire, typically tion sometime next year, only the outside layer chars—forming a the office and apartment protective layer for the rest of the member. building, called Framework, Organschi’s firm has launched a will be a 12-story structure research initiative called Timber City to designed by Lever Archi- tease out the potential for an ecological- tecture. Gray Organschi economic win-win—in which dense cities, Architecture has designed healthy forests, and robust rural economies smaller mass-timber build- all work in sync. ings in New York and Mass-timber panels, for example, can New Haven and is working be made from blemished wood, such as on several others. In Ber- bark beetle–damaged pine trees or small- gen, Norway, the modu- diameter trees left in the wake of decades lar design of the 14-story of fire suppression. Instead of decaying in Treet (Norwegian for Language of the Anthropocene the forest—or going up in smoke—and “tree”) apartment tower was releasing huge quantities of carbon, the inspired by the country’s wood stores that carbon neatly in build- timber bridges. The tall- ings. Using low-grade, small-diameter est wood structure in the timber for CLT and similar products world is Brock Commons, a could also open up new markets for timber recently completed 18-story Biophony companies, helping to offset the decline in student apartment building demand for paper. on the University of British Soundscape ecology plunges us into a wilder world A key caveat is that tall-timber struc- Columbia campus. beyond the mundane and merely visual tures will sequester carbon only as long as At the moment, the By Bernie Krause the building lasts, or as long as the wood number of buildings is is reused after the building is torn down, small, but the potential is 5 When I first wandered into a forest rather than being trucked to a landfill. As huge. If the construction with a recorder Illustration by through sound. Humans had yet to realize it turns out, tall-wood pioneers such industry were to replace and a pair of microphones, in 1968, I was Kevin Van Aelst the numinous epiphanies that would clarify as Michael Green have taken this into steel and concrete with scared to death and literally clueless about the associations between the sounds pro- consideration in their designs. His firm CLT and other mass-timber how to listen and capture the sounds of the duced by nonhuman organisms and our engineered the Wood Innovation and materials, it could take a woods. I was on a blind mission—initially diverse cultures. Design Centre, an eight-story, mass- significant bite out of global drawn there to hear and capture natural ambi- For most of us, the acoustic world has

timber structure in British Columbia, to CO2 emissions. ences to include as part of an orchestration for always been an elusive one—an indistinct use no concrete or “wet” materials Two-thirds of the hu- an electronic music album and, in the process, amorphic entity, unseeable and intangible— above the ground floor so that the man population will live in find a location that produced something other and listening is the “shadow sense.” Outside Susan Moran is a journalist whose work wood components might be disas- cities by 2050, according to than the din of human noise. There were no of musical literature, few words in English has been published sembled and reused. United Nations projections. clearly defined goals. No mentors. No teach- exist to explain the vast range of attributes in Popular Science, In Europe, architects began In that urban world, says ing guides. Protocols for taping whole natural that sounds express, especially in the emerg- Discover, The New York Times, and other using this new generation of Organschi, it’s time to start habitats, whether on land or under the sea, ing world of bioacoustics, the study of the publications. She is a mass-timber products in the mid- thinking about producing were virtually unknown. Conceptual ways of sounds living animals produce. host and producer of 1990s, but the movement is just “carbon sinks in two land- perceiving and expressing most aspects of field In the late 1970s, the Canadian compos- How On Earth, a weekly science radio show in gaining a toehold in the United scapes versus one: in forests recording were nonexistent, let alone the lan- er and naturalist R. Murray Schafer coined Colorado. States. Portland, Oregon, will and in cities.” A guage for describing the phenomena revealed the word soundscape to refer to the multiple

34 35 sources of sounds that reach the human ear. mercial and light aircraft flying overhead culture that leads to fresh ways of experi- quent harvest. Our current understanding Combining this with the word ecology, I combined with the far-off hushed drone of encing and understanding the living world. of the natural world soundscape necessarily use the resulting term, soundscape ecology, to vehicular traffic from two miles away in the One of the most thrilling aspects of my pinpoints “acoustic niches,” the special ways describe new ways of evaluating the liv- far field. The daily and seasonal sounds that work has been the discovery of the niche different species in a single soundscape use ing landscapes and marine environments of define Wild Sanctuary, our home, convey hypothesis, an early stage of the biophony to jostle for sonic territory. By recognizing the world, mostly through their collective a unique sense of place, one we’ve come to concept—the collective and structured the function of this partitioning, or forma- voices. know as much by listening as by seeing. sound that whole groups of living organ- tion of acoustic and temporal niches, a cre- The soundscape concept consists of The phenomenon of the soundscape isms generate in a biome at any given ative and important realization emerges: that what I call signature sources, meaning that usually consists of signals arriving from moment. The term, originally proposed soundscape ecology is no less crucial by my colleague Ruth Happel, became each type of sound, from whatever origin, all directions on the horizontal plane and than spatial or landscape ecology for In order to be contains its own unique signature, or qual- vertically from the sources overhead—a clear between 1983 and 1989 and led to the our understanding of ecosystem func- ity, one that inherently contains vast stores dome of 3D sound and combinations of observation that the makeup of wild sound- tion. Animal communication turns out heard in urban, of information. That individual signature any or all of the three main sources men- scapes was primarily a form of expression to be as significant a factor in defining rural, or wild is unlike any other. So, also, is the natural tioned earlier. Whether we’re conscious of where each type of organism evolved to material or acoustic real estate, habitat, habitats, vocal soundscape unique in its collective state, them or not, we’re completely surrounded vocalize within a specific bandwidth—based and ecological integrity as, say, trophic organisms especially as it becomes the voice of an en- by acoustic elements coming at us from all on either frequency or time. That, in turn, structure—the feeding and nourish- must find tire habitat. With my colleague Stuart Gage directions. Active signals generally con- shed light on the bioacoustic relationships ment relationships of all organisms in a acoustic niches from Michigan State University, I have sist of biophonies and anthropophonies. between all of the organisms present in a specific environment. In fact, territory, introduced new language meant to describe Passive elements, such as wind and other particular biome. In other words, in order habitat, and ecological integrity may where their the three primary acoustic sources that make weather-related signals, make up the rest. to be heard, whether in urban, rural, or no longer be broadly definable in three utterances are up a typical soundscape. The first isgeopho - The impact of these sounds can be quite wild habitats, vocal organisms must find spatial dimensions alone. The addition not buried by ny, the nonbiological natural sounds pro- pervasive, depending on the environ- appropriate temporal or acoustic niches of soundscape ecology adds a fourth. other signals. duced in any given habitat, like wind in the ment. Sound, pressure waves transmitted where their utterances are not buried by With our cultural focus primar- trees or grasses, water in a stream, waves at through the air from a source to some type other signals. ily on visual experience and manifestation, the ocean shore, or movement of the earth. of receiver, can define the boundaries and More recently, we have begun to we seem to have lost the delicate balance The second is biophony, the collective sound structural properties of a room, a particular explore the interactions between biophony informed by incorporating all of the senses produced by all living organisms that reside landscape. The soundscape not only reveals and the other sources of sound: geophony in our awareness of place. Nevertheless, it in a particular biome. And last is anthropo- the presence of vocal organisms that inhabit and anthropophony. For example, several is imperative that we engage with wildness phony, or all of the sounds we humans gen- wild biomes, but defines the acoustic detail studies, particularly those in process by through its multiple dimensions. In that erate. Some of these sounds are controlled, of floral and geographical features—think Nadia Pieretti at Italy’s Urbino University, way, our inclusion of the holistic acoustic like music, language, or theater. But most of of the effects of wind in the trees or grasses, have shown that birds alter their vocaliza- model enlarges our sense of the wild by what humans produce is chaotic or incoher- or water flowing in streams and by the lake tions to accommodate themselves to urban literally expanding the boundaries of ent—sometimes referred to as noise. or seashore. Soundscapes also expose the noise. And killer whales (Orcinus orca) do perception. It also rivets us to the pres- It is important to keep in mind the imbalance sometimes caused by changes in the same with boat noise in their marine ent tense—to life as it is—singing in its substantial impact each of these components the landscape due to human endeavor or environments. Other studies have led to the full-throated choral voice and where each may have on one another and how they natural causes such as invasive organisms, observation that the music and language singer is expressing its particular song of interrelate. weather, or movement of the land. One of produced by a few remaining indigenous being. It is my goal to encourage us to my lifelong interests has been to find new cultures can be directly tied to the intri- take a deeper plunge into a wilder world Surrounding our home in rural northern Cali- ways to read, comprehend, and express cate soundscapes of the natural world that beyond the mundane and merely visual, fornia, the sounds my wife, Katherine, and these sources of information. defined their respective habitats, in a rare suggesting that the natural wild is both I have come to know consist of year-round Schafer’s idea of the soundscape defines instance of human biophonic expression. more complex and more compelling than aural traceries of birds, squirrels, amphib- events as all the audio signals that reach Gary Snyder, the American eco-poet meets the simple eye. As I always remind ians, and insects in the mid-field, the per- our ears at any given time. The same goes elder, has pointed out that human language my students, “A picture may be worth a sonal conversations we share or the pleading for the acoustic receptors of nonhuman is wild, organizing and reorganizing itself thousand words, but a natural soundscape is voices of our cats, Barnacle and Seaweed, creatures. With the introduction of new independently of human will. My efforts worth a thousand pictures.” A to be fed or released from indoor bondage descriptive language, such as geophony, have shown that, in much the same way, to the wider world, the chatter of the TV biophony, and anthropophony, I was able to the communicative structures in certain Bernie Krause is an American musician and soundscape ecologist. or the whispered hum of the refrigerator flesh out in greater detail the basic sources undisturbed biomes form a basis for that In 1968, he founded Wild Sanctuary, an organization dedicated to the recording and archiving of natural soundscapes. This article was adapted compressor heard from the near field, and of sound. We have now cleared a path for a paradigm, a constantly changing, reflexive from his book Voices of the Wild, published by Yale University Press, with the sometimes irritating intrusion of com- range of understanding in both science and synthesis of correlated sound and its subse- permission. ©2015 by Bernie Krause.

36 37

2. Deep Dives

Transitioning to a decarbonized economy

38 39 618 EJ

Other Renewables The Great Decoupling (Solar, Wind, Geothermal) The story of energy use, economic growth, Biomass/Biofuels

and carbon emissions in four charts Hydro By RB Jackson, JG Canadell, P Ciais, C Le Quéré, and GP Peters Data visualization by Nigel Hawtin Nuclear

Does decarbonizing economies lead to economic prosperity—or economic downturn? In the past, carbon emissions and prosperity as measured by GDP have risen and fallen in tandem. Emissions drop off at various economic crises but then always rebound within a few years. But what if that long-standing trend is breaking up?

Natural Gas 1

Overall global energy use has risen fivefold within one human lifetime. Rise of the microchip The history of energy use is like our closets. We don’t typically Crude Oil give up our belongings; we add to them. Coal didn’t replace wood. It supplemented wood as energy demands grew, overtaking it a century ago. The same is true for oil and natural gas. Oil and gas didn’t end the coal era. They added to it.

Commercial aviation Global Primary Energy Consumption 1900–2016 (Exajoules per annum: EJ) takes hold

World War II Internal combustion engine begins to power cars

33 EJ Coal

0 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2016

40 Data sources: BP Statistical Review of World Energy and the Global Energy Assessment

2 3

Like energy use, carbon emissions historically Now those trendlines are starting to diverge. have marched resolutely upward—in lockstep with a robust global economy. Economic crises have slowed the rise in For the past 15 years, global economic growth rose twice as fast

emissions at times but haven’t stopped it. as global energy demand and CO2 emissions. The changes have 36.4 GtCO been the most dramatic since 2010. And within the past three 2 2015 years (2014–2016), emissions stabilized—at least temporarily— Global financial while the global economy continued growing. crisis

2010 That is a first.

Asian financial crisis Collapse of the CO2 emissions (Gt CO2 per year) Soviet Union Index (1970=100)

US savings and 2000 loan crisis 20 250 Oil crisis GDP

15 1990 200 Global Emissions energy demand stabilizing

10

8.9 GtCO2 150 1980

CO2 emissions 5

100 0 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Source: Global Carbon Project Sources: Global Carbon Project and the World Bank

42 43

4

Decoupling, however, is not a foregone conclusion. European Union United States Our trajectory is good. Energy efficiency is responsible for most of the decoupling Along with continuing improvements in energy In the US, emissions declined from 2005 to to date. But the transformation to zero carbon fuels must dramatically accelerate efficiency, the growing share of renewables in the EU 2012. This is attributable to replacing coal energy mix is reducing carbon intensity. Similar signs with natural gas, increased renewables, and to keep up with growing energy demands and increasing world population. of lower carbon energy sources are apparent in China, somewhat slower economic growth. the US, and the world, especially in the past five years. Only then will decoupling be complete. Percentage change per year Percentage change per year 4 4 2 2 0 0 World -2 -2 Energy efficiency improvements, growth in renewables, and reduced coal use in the -4 -4 past couple of years stabilized industrial emissions while GDP continued to grow. 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Percentage change per year Gross Domestic Product (GDP) CO emissions 4 2

2 China India 0 In China, rapid emissions growth of ~10 percent India’s emissions have grown steadily by 5–6 per year for a decade has plummeted. The -2 percent per year over the past decade with no clear 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 decreased share of coal along with rapidly sign of decoupling—yet. India has pledged to build -4 Energy/GDP: Measurement of energy CO2/energy: Measurement of carbon growing renewables is exerting downward 3x more solar capacity within the next 5 years than intensity (how much energy is intensity (carbon emissions produced pressure on CO emissions. is currently deployed in the US. Turning pledges into needed to produce a given level per unit energy). Negative rate 2 of economic output). Negative rate of change = low carbon fuels action will be critical for India and for all nations. of change = improved efficiency

Percentage change per year Percentage change per year

The Kaya Identity 10 10 These charts display different factors in the Kaya Identity. Developed by Japanese engineer Yoichi Kaya, the formula provides a 8 8 way to calculate total CO2 emissions based on population size, GDP per capita, energy consumed per unit of economic output, and emissions per unit energy. The IPCC used the Kaya Identity to develop its future emissions scenarios by looking at a range of 6 6 projections for these four driving forces of emissions. 4 4 2 2 Source: Peters GP et al. Key indicators to track current progress and future ambition of the Paris Agreement. Nature Climate Change. 2017. 0 0 -2 -2 Rob Jackson is a widely published photographer, poet, and author. He is also chair of the Stanford -4 -4 Department of Earth System Science and a senior fellow with the Stanford Woods Institute for the -6 Environment and the Precourt Institute for Energy. In addition, he chairs the Global Carbon Project, -6 where he works with coauthors Josep Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Corinne Le Quéré, and Glen Peters. 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

44 45 How Much Energy Will the World Need? Any climate plan that doesn’t consider this question is bound to fail

By W. Wayt Gibbs

46 Photo ©Mathieu Young /mathieuyoung.com 47 Energy for all in the 21st century Consider a simple thought experiment. Imagine Since 1990, 1.1 billion people have escaped from Maybe the most important that by the end of this century, everyone in extreme poverty, with more than 140 million among them is this one: 18 trillion the world will use energy at the same rate per entering the burgeoning middle class every year . . . watts. In 2016, that was roughly the Additional energy person that a typical American does today: a power needed to keep human civi- History suggests that as these citizens of the world needed to accommodate steady stream of 9.5 kilowatts (kW), averaged lization humming around the clock. 28.4 global population growth over the year. That’s roughly the power con- find more money in their pockets, they will spend This figure comes from BP’s an- to 13 billion by 2100 sumed by 18 electric-stove burners running much of it—directly or indirectly—on energy. nual report on primary energy use, a nonstop on high, all day, every day. report which encompasses all com- Does that assumption seem unreasonable? mercially traded fuels and renewable It shouldn’t. This is what economic progress sources. looks like. According to energy The astounding size of that historian Vaclav Smil, Americans used just itself. There is no reason to expect it to fail number is the main reason that meaningful one-fifteenth as much useful energy per now at that mission—or give up on it—after change in the global energy system is Additional energy capita in 1860 as they do today. And dur- so much past success. grueling. Any new, clean technology must 25.0 needed to accommodate ing the twentieth century, he observes in his It’s natural for those concerned about have a power rating with lots of zeros be- global population growth book Energy Transitions, annual energy use the pace and risks of global climate change hind it or must be adopted at an explosive to 10 billion by 2100 rose 17-fold globally while economic output to hope that somehow these trends will rate (and preferably both), or it will simply soared by a factor of 16—even though nations change—that the poor can be persuaded be too little, too late to make much differ- had to invent and then build the enormous to forego the energy-rich lifestyles that ence to climate change. 123 infrastructure needed to extract, process, and the wealthy have enjoyed, or that they will Big as 18 terawatts (or TW, shorthand TW transport oil, gas, and electricity. pay extra for clean energy even when dirty for 1 trillion watts) may be, humanity’s en- Now in this new century, technology, forms are cheaper and easier to get. ergy intake will almost certainly be bigger information, and wealth speed around the But such hopes are misplaced. Just as tomorrow, and bigger still the day after that. planet faster than ever before. Since 1990, the farmers and laborers of America and The real action will happen in developing 1.1 billion people have escaped from extreme Europe did in the nineteenth and twentieth countries as incomes, population, and indi- Additional energy poverty, with more than 140 million entering centuries, the urbanizing middle classes of vidual energy use all rise simultaneously. 94.6 needed for everyone in the burgeoning middle class every year. The India, China, Brazil, Nigeria, and so many Start with incomes. As recently as 1990, 51.4 TW the world to use energy ranks of the newly affluent are also swell- other countries are buying cars, refrigera- more than three out of every nine people at the same rate that ing at an accelerating pace. History suggests tors, water heaters, and air conditioners in the world lived in extreme poverty, on a typical American did in 2016. that as these citizens of the world find more almost as soon as they can afford the gas less than US$1.90 per day. By 2013, fewer money in their pockets, they will spend much and electric bills. They are eating more than one in nine did, and in that year alone of it—directly or indirectly—on energy. meat and taking more long trips. No one 114 million more people (mostly chil- Add to these upward trends the steadily has the power—let alone the right—to tell dren) escaped that precarious existence. expanding number of people on Earth and them not to. And any bold plan for sav- The elimination of desperate destitution the rapid increases in urbanization and car ing the climate that fails to meet a massive is in sight, and it will be one of the signal ownership, and it’s a safe bet that the great increase in energy demand during this achievements of human civilization. majority of people, no matter where they century is very likely to fail. Lifting people from extreme poverty were born, will continue to work, vote, to stable subsistence actually costs relatively protest, and migrate in ways that tend to So how much energy will the world consume little energy. The trickle of electricity used 18.2 improve their standard of living over the long as the twenty-first century unfolds? Fol- by the poor is tiny compared to the gush- Total primary energy run. The future will doubtless see its share lowing our thought experiment, if average ing streams consumed by the rich. In fact, used in 2016, worldwide of economic downturns and periods of slow per capita energy demand rises to current the International Energy Agency (IEA) has growth. But over the course of generations, US levels by the year 2100, we’re looking calculated that extending universal access to Trillions of Watts the mission of humanity has been to enrich at some very big numbers. electricity, heating and cooking gases, and

48 Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2017 49 The expansion of the global middle class conservative projection—thus means gener- an astonishing 95–123 TW annually. The into cities—to the tune of 1.6 billion urban World Population (billions) ating more than 51 TW of energy on top of span of that range, due to the uncertainty residents added over the past 25 years—is 6 everything we already produce today. in population growth, is far bigger than the boosting individual energy use. 9 - World Population - 100% In our thought experiment, the year entire global energy system is today. Urbanization is also spurring the dis- 6 8 - 2100 will thus see demand reach a mind- aggregation of households. An extended - 80% 7 - boggling 70 TW. Take every coal-fired Crossing the 7-billion milestone in world popu- family of 11 once would commonly share a 6 - generator, nuclear power plant, wind tur- lation got a lot of attention, but humanity single house in the country. Now families 5 - - 60% bine, and solar farm and then multiply it by actually crossed an arguably more important are much smaller, and kids tend to move 4 - World Middle - 40% four. The scale of the challenge should be threshold two years earlier. In 2009, for the out and live solo in an apartment. Despite 3 - Class Share 6 starting to sink in. first time in human history, a majority of a dramatic collapse in the fertility rate in 2 - 5 - 20% the human population was living in cities. China, the billion or so children born in the 1 - World Middle Class But we’re not done yet. We haven’t accounted This trend toward increasing urbanization peak years are now inhabiting many more 0 - - 0% 1950 1970 1990 2010 2030 for two major factors: population growth looks unstoppable for the foreseeable future, dwellings, each with its own kitchen, laun- and urbanization. Let’s look first at the and it has big implications for energy use. dry, lighting, heating, and cooling systems. This pattern is occurring in almost every Source: Kharas, H. The unprecedented expansion global headcount. In poorer parts of the world, moving of the global middle class: An update. Brookings The number of people alive swept past to the city means easier access to electricity, emerging economy. And it contributes to Institution Working Paper 2017. 7 billion in 2011, on its way to probably 11 gas for heating and cooking, roads, retail yet another huge factor in energy demand: billion by the end of this century, according centers, and energy-intensive products (such the explosion of car ownership. to the latest forecasts made by the United as computers) and services (such as restau- In 2009, China surpassed the US as the Nations Commission on Population and rants). City dwellers tend to have higher world’s largest market for new cars. Last Development. That latter number incomes, so they consume more energy year, over 24 million cars were sold there— other modern forms of energy by 2030 Although some is uncomfortably squishy because on average than their rural counterparts. about 3.5 times as many as in the US. The would increase overall carbon dioxide efficiencies do of uncertainty about how quickly Although some efficiencies do kick in when growth curve looks almost parabolic, and emissions by less than 1 percent. That is a kick in when fertility rates will continue to fall. people live and work in higher-density it’s anyone’s guess where it plateaus. The cheap price for all the suffering it would US has four cars for every five people; in people live Since the 1970s, population has buildings, higher incomes swamp that ef- prevent and the enormous human poten- not grown exponentially, as many fect. So the mass migration of the rural poor the EU, it’s just under three cars. India and tial it would unlock. and work in feared it would, but instead has But few people are content to stop higher-density followed an essentially linear track. World Population there—they naturally set their sights on buildings, higher Women in China, Indonesia, and World population: past, Because fertility rates around the (billions) a middle-class lifestyle. Already about 6 present, and projected incomes swamp other fast-growing Asian econo- world have fallen steeply since 3.2 billion people have achieved that and that effect. mies rapidly reduced the number of the 1960s—with Chinese women 16 enjoy annual household incomes between children they bore through 2000— bearing fewer children than American about $15,000 and $150,000, according and those in India and many parts women since the mid-1990s— 14 to a recent analysis by Homi Kharas of of Africa continue to do so. The global population (blue) has grown linearly since the 1970s, rather than the Brookings Institution. The rate of current fertility rate in the US, at 12 exponentially (dotted curve) as it entry into middle class-dom is accelerating, 1.9 children per woman, is now below the would have, had fertility rates stayed 10 particularly in Asia, and will likely lift total replacement rate; in India, it is around 2.4 constant. The UN now projects that membership to 5 billion by 2030, Kharas and falling. world population in this century will 8 forecasts. As a result, an inflection point is coming reach 10 to 13 billion, with a median Economic security for all, beyond in the long arc of humanity’s growth. The projection of 11.2 billion, in 2100. The 6 wide range of uncertainty in these basic poverty alleviation, will come at a timing of that change in direction matters projections (gray region) has big 4 steep price in energy. Per capita energy a lot: global population could hang at 10 implications for energy demand in the consumption today averages just 2.5 kW billion or explode to nearly 13 billion by this latter half of the 21st century. 2 worldwide. Lifting all of humanity to the century’s end. Factor population growth Source: United Nations, Department current US standard of living by 2100—an into our thought experiment, and global of Economic and Social Affairs, Population average of 9.5 kW per person, probably a energy use undergoes another big bang, to Division. World Population Prospects 2017. 1950 1970 1990 2010 2030 2050 2070 2090

50 51 China could together host almost 2 billion most countries have all but stopped using still burn wood, charcoal, dung, or leftovers Now we are a third of the way down cars by mid-century if they follow the oil to make electricity—so that they can use from farming to cook their food. Those that road to 2050. Energy use is up 50 same path. it instead for gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and open fires cause respiratory problems that percent, but unfortunately only 0.9 TW Let’s hope those vehicles are electric, plastics—experts still think it is likely that we kill 4 million every year, mainly women of the 5 TW added since 2002 came from so that their emissions come from factories will burn as much oil over just the next 30 and children. Affordable electricity could renewable energy sources, and half of that and power plants rather than tailpipes. The years as we did in all of the previous years put an end to that—and solve so many other was hydropower. Fusion and space solar are road to that goal, however, looks long. Last since 1869. problems as well. still stuck in the experimental stages, and year, just 750,000 EVs were sold worldwide, Even as the number of humans gradu- So the question looming over this cen- research into carbon sequestration is starved and only 2 million or so are now in service, ally levels off and perhaps begins to slowly tury is not whether energy use will expand for funding. Due to declines in nuclear according to the IEA. dwindle late in the century, more people dramatically, but how—how will all of this energy production, the fraction of global As with renewable energy sources, it’s will be living alone or in small households, new energy be produced? And what can energy provided by fossil fuels is about the difficult for the new entrants to keep up more will live in cities, and many more will those of us in rich economies do to prevent same today (86 percent) with surging demand. Analysts estimate be driving and flying. So overall energy use the coming energy expansion from wreck- Transformation of as it was in 2002. that 1.2 billion cars are now on the road per person seems likely to rise quickly—cer- ing the climate? Clearly, we must the North American worldwide, and the International Mon- tainly much faster than efficiency improve- It’s tempting for high-tech societies to do better to produce, etary Fund projects that the number will ments can be found to rein it in. focus foremost on transforming their own and European demonstrate, and perfect reach 3 billion by 2050. So even though This puts the onus to save the climate energy systems to be as clean and efficient energy systems is cheap new technolo- squarely on decoupling economic growth as possible. Certainly, it’s important to set a not irrelevant, but it gies for creating, stor- from emission growth. That means under- good example. becomes increasingly ing, and transmitting taking a massive and very rapid transforma- But it’s also important to realize that, less relevant as energy emissions-free energy. Driving Total vehicles in use tion of the energy-production system to to a first approximation, all the new energy We also need to push (millions) use in currently low- Demand scalable emissions-free sources such as solar, to be created as this century unfolds will hard to improve energy 300 income regions catches Car and truck wind, and nuclear. It also means smartly have to be generated in the poorer parts of efficiency everywhere ownership in China 250 US designing twenty-first-century cities to Asia, Africa, and South America—because up to that of the high- possible so that energy has exploded, and minimize vehicle transport and energy used that’s where the people are who will use it. income nations use grows more slowly within a decade or 200 for heating and cooling. Transformation of the North American and than income—and so that so there will likely European energy systems is not irrelevant, emissions don’t increase be more vehicles in 150 If your reaction to all this is “It can’t be done,” but it becomes increasingly less relevant at all but actually start to China than in the US. China As the middle class you’ve missed the point. The lesson of the as energy use in currently low-income fall. As Robert Jackson describes on page 100 blossoms in India and past 200 years is that something like this regions catches up to that of the high- 44, the two longest levers we have for Africa, car sales there very likely will be done, absent a nuclear income nations. applying the brakes to emissions and keep- are all but certain to 50 Africa war, a runaway plague, a massive meteor Over the long term, the best thing the ing warming in check are how cleanly we skyrocket as well. India impact, or some other catastrophic societal rich and emerging economies can do is to make energy and how efficiently we use it 2005 2010 2014 collapse. As is already happening in China, push better energy technology forward as to support our standard of living. Sales of electric and plug-in hybrid cars are people will organize, institutions will bend, far and as fast as possible so that it can be That is why we need breakthroughs in growing quickly, but and investors will deploy capital to gener- deployed globally in the decades to come. energy to help people in modernizing soci- so far these still make New vehicles sold ate the energy needed to power economic Unfortunately, our track record to date eties enjoy the basics that those in the richer up just 2 percent of (millions) growth. The reason for this may be hard to is not great. parts of the world have long taken for grant- the vehicles sold in 30 2016 EV sales China remember for those of us who already spend Fifteen years ago, a group of far-think- ed. We keep saying we need to do more China. Regardless of our days juggling multiple computers and ing physicists, energy experts, and engineers whether the hordes 25 with less. No. We need to do more with of new vehicles end think nothing of boarding a jet. But it is published a seminal article in Science laying more: make a lot more energy—a lot more up running on gas, 20 simple: energy is an indispensable ingredient out various ambitious paths for develop- cleanly—and use it a lot more efficiently for biodiesel, hydrogen, or US to a life of basic human dignity. ing emissions-free technologies to generate the benefit of a lot more people.A electricity, the energy 15 Without sufficient energy, poor farm- the 25 TW of clean power they estimated to power them will ers cannot get the fertilizer they need for would be needed by 2050 or so. They sur- have to come from 10 somewhere. their crops. A complete lack of access to veyed a range of challenging but technically electricity still prevents a billion people from plausible approaches, including fusion reac- W. Wayt Gibbs is a freelance science writer and editor 5 based in Seattle. He is a contributing editor with India getting good medical care, running refrig- tors, space-based solar plants, and schemes Source: International Scientific Americanand editorial director at Intellectual Africa Organization of Motor erators, and turning on reading lights and to capture and permanently store carbon Ventures. His work has appeared in Science, Nature, Vehicle Manufacturers 2005 2010 2015 radios. Most of the 2 billion poorest people dioxide emissions from power stations. Discover, IEEE Spectrum, and The Economist.

52 53 Throw Software at the Problem

The world today is powered by wasteful and inflexible electricity grids that stand in the way of deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. But new experiments are pushing artificial intelligence and sensor networks into the grid—and into factories, data centers, and transit systems—in order to pull fossil fuels out.

By Mark Harris

54 55 A smooth-running electrical grid finely bal- ances resources against need at superhu- man speed, day in and day out. Pulling that off in the midst of a massive shift from if they could flatten the peaks and troughs giant coal and gas plants able to run 24/7 of electricity demand on a national scale. to scattershot arrays of wind turbines and But to do that efficiently and quickly solar panels fluctuating by the minute is a enough, grid managers would need super- tough problem. But it is exactly the kind human abilities to see spikes coming and of problem that artificial intelligence (AI) to coordinate myriad complex adjust- should be good at. heat wave in South Australia caused people ments. They also need better ways to store Grids are vast, interconnected sys- to crank up their air conditioners, forcing energy cheaply and to push some power tems, and they already rely heavily on network operators to pull the plug on tens uses from surge times to lulls. old-school automation to manage the of thousands of customers. Luckily, technology may offer an ever-shifting dance of power generation Utilities hold extra generators in reserve answer: put AIs in charge of our grids. Al- and consumption among thousands of to react to TV pickup, heat waves, and gorithms and software are already capable How AI Can Suck Carbon Out of variables and millions of users. But that other predictable surges in demand. But of weighing thousands of variables and centralized, hardwired kind of automation the swiftest response is rarely the greenest. making millions of tiny decisions a day. AI has its limits. Boil water for tea on a normal day, and you is also increasingly able to blend customer Design & In England, for instance, where I might use clean power from Britain’s off- preferences with inferences about how Manufacturing grew up, there has been much hand- shore wind farms. Boil it after the FA Cup customers usually behave—to anticipate wringing over the carbon footprint of final, and you will likely tap electricity from when people will adjust their thermostats Experts project that by 2050 emissions from the 60 billion nice cups of tea we drink a much dirtier source, such as “diesel farms” or switch on their washing machines, and aviation will consume about a quarter of the each year. Terrific debates have raged or natural gas–fired “peaker” generators. even to do it for them. Some see in this world’s remaining carbon budget. AI offers a over how much eco-friendlier loose- The cost for this reliability is measured technology the potential for a revolution way to slash airplanes’ weight—and do the leaf is than packaged teabags, and over in both dollars and tons of carbon dioxide. in the way we organize the generation and same for their emissions. the damage that a milky cuppa does to EnerNOC, an energy software company, delivery of energy. Aircraft manufacturers are now experimenting the climate (thanks to habitually flatu- estimates that 10 percent of all generating A revolution of this kind is badly with generative design, which mimics lent cows). Often overlooked, however, capacity in the United States is there just to needed. The demand for energy—and natural evolution in the way it arrives at an is the peculiar national phenomenon of meet the last 1 percent of demand. “Some electricity in particular—is all but certain optimal plan for a part. The process starts “TV pickup.” After a big soccer match, a gas power stations operate for only 100 to to rise substantially throughout the first with engineers’ inputting design goals for an engine component or a wing spar into huge surge in demand saps energy from 200 hours a year, but they have to be kept half of this century, even as carbon emis- the grid as people switch on their electric software. Given the specified materials and open and staffed,” says Valentin Robu, an sions must decline precipitously to avoid structural requirements, the AI software then kettles and open their fridges. In 1990, assistant professor in smart grid systems accelerating global warming even further. quickly generates many alternative designs. It the nail-biting climax of the World Cup at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University. Researchers now think that handing over simulates the performance of each candidate semifinal created a record TV pickup of “They’re extremely expensive.” And they control of electricity grids to AIs could and calculates its weight and cost. Equally 2.8 gigawatts—more than the output of are increasingly com- curb our carbon footprint without de- important, the AI learns from each iteration which aspects of each design work and which two nuclear power stations. mon, as many countries stroying our way of life. “Timing is criti- Our attention spans don’t. In the time it takes a human designer to Grid operators dread such spikes. cal,” says Robu. “This is exactly where we shift their power mixes to are short. Our wills are come up with one idea, an AI can spin through When supply fails to match demand, include more wind and need AI.” thousands to home in on the optimal solution. the frequency of the alternating current solar farms, whose output weak. But software swerves. In the United States, even a little can vary from minute to that can tirelessly The search for greener ways to meet surges The results often look bizarre—organic shapes dip from the standard 60-Hz frequency minute even on the brisk- observe and subtly in demand has led utilities to try some that bend and gape like skeletons or ancient trees—but the cost and weight savings can of electricity can make wired clocks creative solutions. One is to build what est and sunniest days. intervene in our daily be remarkable. An aircraft part that Airbus run slow. Severe deviations can damage Utilities could get by lives promises to amount to giant capacitors: systems that designed last year using AI was 45 percent televisions and crash computers, so utili- with fewer back-up power can fill up gradually with energy during lighter than the best a human could manage. achieve what decades ties typically resort to rolling blackouts in plants—reducing costs and quiet periods and then discharge it quickly such cases. Earlier this year, for example, a of nagging have not. when demand spikes. Where geography emissions simultaneously— Photo: A bionic partition separating the seating sections in an airplane. 56 Image courtesy of Autodesk. 57 allows, power stations can pump water sions when they try to make deductions uphill into dams (or compressed air down that require common-sense knowledge into caverns), then discharge it to spin gen- about the world. erator turbines at tea time. Other storage Where machine learning has succeed- options include massive flywheels and even ed most impressively—such as in recogniz- giant versions of the lithium-ion batteries ing faces or responding helpfully to certain that power your laptop. But the giant scale kinds of spoken commands—it works needed to smooth out the tallest peaks of not because the computer has learned to demand poses tough economic and engi- do the task the way a human would, but neering challenges for all these approaches. because the software continually changes A smarter idea, Robu says, is to lever- its own processes to reach the desired ments in battery technology could change age high-capacity batteries that consumers outcome. With AI based on this kind of that calculus. In the meantime, there are are already connecting to the grid, such machine learning, the more data it ingests, other options. How AI Can Suck Carbon Out of as those in fancy new electric vehicles and the more widely and often it is used, AI could give new life to an older,

(EVs) or in some houses the more accurate it becomes. simpler idea: encouraging people to shift equipped with rooftop While Amazon, Google, and other some electricity use to quieter times. Utili- Traffic This system would solar panels. “First of all, tech companies were hoovering up AI ties call this approach demand response, reach into thousands you coordinate charging experts to make smarter speakers and self- and they have already signed up many large Every minute your car sits idling, it pumps CO out the tailpipe. Now a startup, Rapid so you don’t charge cars at driving cars, Robu left his native Romania industrial customers, such as aluminum 2 of homes during peak Flow Technologies, is trying to use AI to ease all when there’s high de- to work as a researcher at Harvard, Micro- smelters, to reduce demand when neces- events and switch congestion in cities. The company employs a mand,” he says. “Then you soft, and several European universities with sary in return for discounted prices. But for off, say, all the tumble system known as Surtrac that was developed could support the grid by the hope of putting AI into the grid. He demand response to put peaker plants out of at Carnegie Mellon University to bring more dryers for an hour until partially discharging their envisions a scheme, based on game theory, business, it must gain far wider adoption. In intelligence to traffic lights. Radar sensors and demand subsides. batteries at these critical in which an AI absorbs the preferences of high-income countries, residential homes cameras monitor car flow and wait times at times. Of course, people thousands of EV owners, matches them (together with commercial users) consume intersections. The AI then adjusts the timing of the lights to move vehicles through as who own these EVs would each second to the needs of the grid, and the lion’s share of electricity—40 percent efficiently as possible. get paid for that.” The prices everything fairly. Some owners may in the United States, compared to about 20 trick is getting everything insist that their car battery always remain percent in China. Although the AI at each intersection works to work together seam- at least 75 percent charged. Others may Utilities have enticed household cus- individually (to prevent mass outages), the lessly. No one wants to finish their morn- be willing to let it drop lower overnight, tomers to help them manage demand smart systems can share data with others nearby. A pilot test at nine intersections in ing cuppa and head out to work, only to as long as it is full in the morning. “The before. When I was growing up in Britain Pittsburgh reduced average travel times by find that their EV’s battery is flat. system will find the best time to charge in the 1980s, many homes had thermal- one-fourth and average wait times by 40 Enter artificial intelligence. AI is a blan- and discharge, and owners would get some storage heaters—basically ceramic bricks percent. Surtrac systems are now running at 50 ket term for computer software that mimics share of the payment,” Robu explains. warmed by electric heating elements—that intersections in the city, with plans to expand a few of the smarter things that humans can “People who are more patient are likely to operated only during the off-peak hours to 150 more in the next three years. Where do, including learning, reasoning, pattern be paid better because the system has more overnight. Some of my friends woke up the smart lights are in place, travel times have dropped by 25 percent, braking by 30 percent, recognition, and problem solving. AI can flexibility in when to charge.” toasty warm every winter morning but and idling by more than 40 percent. already surpass humans at selected tasks, Such vehicle-to-grid systems sound crawled into chilly beds each evening. Given such as ingesting mountains of data from great, but repeatedly charging and dis- such trade-offs in comfort, the hassle of Meanwhile, Google is putting AI to work on the millions of devices (such as car batteries) charging lithium-ion batteries reduces needing a special electricity meter, and the problem of parking. Cars hunting for a space and quickly figuring out the most efficient their capacity. In 2015, even the forward- gradually shrinking fraction of household can account for one-third of all traffic in the way to charge and discharge them. At looking chief technology officer of Tesla spending going toward utility bills, the most congested downtown areas—wasting time, burning fuel, and spewing greenhouse gases. other jobs, AI is less capable than an infant. said that vehicle-to-grid is “something scheme never really caught on. Google Maps for Android phones can now Computers still struggle to understand the that I don’t see being a very economic or But Robu and others believe that tech- predict parking availability near a destination in simplest social relationships, for example, viable solution—perhaps ever, but certainly nology has now evolved to the point that 25 US cities. Hopefully, the app will persuade and they often come to ridiculous conclu- not in the near term.” Future improve- a demand-response system could appeal to drivers to park and ride instead.

58 59 electricity use to the cloud and receive sig- Although any individual’s savings are nals in response. AI-enabled energy moni- likely to be small, the potential benefits of AI doesn’t mind tors pinpoint appliances in use by demand response add up when multiplied sweating the details. sensing their distinctive power signatures. across large populations. The US Energy Many of the latest domestic appliances Information Administration calculates The grid will have to offer remote control by smart-home soft- that demand response could save a typical make multiple split- ware. Wi-Fi-networked outlet adapters add American household $40 and 100 kilo- second decisions enough consumers, energy monitoring to older devices and put watt hours annually. If adopted nation- and weigh tiny and cover enough them under remote control, even by voice- wide, the practice could cut $5 billion a barters of solar appliances, to reach activated gadgets such as Amazon’s Echo. year from power bills and nearly 9 mil- the necessary scale. And Robu and other researchers are devel- lion metric tons of carbon dioxide from power and battery Beyond just re- oping AI-powered software to manage the greenhouse gas emissions. Even more im- space that would motely controlling whole process. pressively, according to 2014 calculations just annoy a person. a few megawatt- Reimagining a country’s entire electric- by Alexander Smith, an energy researcher munching smelters, ity grid, daunting as that seems, is necessary then at the Georgia Institute of Technol- this system would but not sufficient. To make demand response ogy, by 2040 demand response could save reach into thousands of homes during peak work on a massive scale, engineers also have the US up to $28 billion in infrastructure events and switch off, say, all the tumble to surmount an even bigger obstacle: people. costs and avoid construction of 150 giga- How AI Can Suck Carbon Out of dryers for an hour until demand subsides. watts’ worth of power stations, most of

It’s a tempting idea, but it faces several Not many people today care enough about them fossil-fueled. hurdles. The first challenge is understand- cutting their household emissions or en- Tran-Thanh has now turned to AI Data Centers ing what you can switch off—and when. ergy bills to opt into conventional demand- in the hope of overcoming the people The low-hanging fruits are power-hungry response systems, says Long Tran-Thanh, problem. He is developing a system called appliances such as ovens, fridges, washing who has been studying possible solutions to interactive demand response (IDR) that If you want to be really green, ease up on social media. Data centers consume about machines, and clothes dryers. The system that thorny problem. Tran-Thanh’s back- can realize the financial and environmental 2 percent of all the electricity in the US, and will need to draw on a database of both user ground allows him to see a bigger picture. gains of demand response without asking that share grows every year. Most of that preferences and appliance specifications to Born in Vietnam, he moved with his family people to do their laundry or drink tea in energy is dedicated to actual computation— know whether it is acceptable to turn off a to Hungary when he was just seven years the middle of the night. serving up all those ads and streaming dryer at any point in its cycle, or whether old. He went to university in Budapest before IDR teaches machines to understand video—but around one-third is spent on a washing machine should be shut down relocating again to Britain, where he is now how people typically use electricity. Tran- cooling the servers to prevent them from overheating. only after it has drained. Some refrigerators an assistant professor in AI at the University Thanh and his colleagues at the Univer- and freezers could be driven to cooler-than- of Southampton. “People here [in the UK] sity of Southampton developed algorithms Last year, at one of its data centers, Google usual temperatures during the day and then are aware of the disadvantages of high energy to extract patterns from a large dataset on set loose on the pumps, chillers, and turned off at peak demand—but only for so usage, and they are quite open to new tech- household energy use that was assembled cooling towers AI software developed by its long, to avoid spoiling food inside. nologies and new ways of thinking,” he says. at M.I.T. The AI learns in a surprisingly DeepMind subsidiary. The AI spent several months observing thousands of sensors Using AI is essential, Robu argues, “But in Hungary, they don’t have this kind similar way to humans, exploiting a soft- within the center and learning the complex, because there’s no way humans could look of mindset yet.” Though popular thinking is ware technique known as a neural net- non-linear interactions among the cooling at all the relevant data. “Once you instru- slowly shifting worldwide, even in Britain, he work. No programmer decides in advance devices. It then took control and was able to ment a fridge, you can sample it every five notes, “You can offer someone a very good how to mathematically translate various consistently achieve a 40 percent reduction minutes and get a lot of information from plan to improve [energy] usage, but they’re kinds of consumption data into distinct in the amount of energy used for cooling. it—and you might have 10,000 fridges,” he not really interested in changing their habits. demand profiles. Google now plans to roll out the algorithms to its other data centers—and share the That’s why they’re called habits.” Instead, developers train the neural says. Software is also the only way to coor- technology so other tech firms can reduce dinate such a diverse collection of machines, Some have tried the obvious: offering network by showing it examples. Gradu- their carbon footprints, too. some available for only brief windows, so customers financial incentives to adjust their ally, it learns by experience—much like that too many don’t turn back on at the behavior. “We thought this would be very a child learning to distinguish pictures same time and create a rebound peak. useful, but in practice it’s not,” Tran-Thanh of cats from those of dogs. The more Tech companies are already selling says. “The total of amount of savings you examples it sees, the more accurate its out- some of the many components needed to can offer is £20–£30 ($25–35) per year. If put. Young children soon understand that Photo: Insulated pipes running through a Google data center translate this vision into action. Smart me- you show someone annual savings of £20, images of dogs and cats represent animals ters now wirelessly transmit data on home they just laugh.” that can move and make noises. But the

60 61 neural network is not able to understand how its learnings correspond to the real world, and that proved to be an important limitation. The Southampton team’s AI system was able to turn electricity consumption data from any household into a reliable to that of previous, less “intelligent” testing ground for AI-enabled, smart-grid prediction of that home’s future demand. algorithms. His conclusion: IDR reliably technology. Last year, the builders linked But homeowners hated it. generated 35 percent greater financial up with Grid-Friends, a demand-response The system failed, Tran-Thanh savings for users. research group led by Michael Kaisers at realized, because it was too passive. But would these savings be reflected Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), “Machine learning collects the current in actual use, or would yet another unex- the Netherlands’ national research institute data and learns patterns, but it cannot pected problem rear its head? Testing IDR for mathematics and computer science. infer possibilities,” he says. “You can see in a community is tricky. “It’s hard to wire “I want to do new and original work only what the user is doing. You don’t up old houses, and it’s not in smart grids, but I want it to be feasible,” know whether he is willing to deviate that efficient,” Tran-Thanh Kaisers tells me on a Skype videocall from from that behavior.” To find out which Demand response says. “It’s easier to equip the Dutch capital. “I’ve seen a number of activities users were comfortable shifting could save a typical new-build homes—but it research projects reach for a very innova- and which were sacrosanct, the software might not be cheap.” A field American household tive idea that either is nowhere close to the How AI Can Suck Carbon Out of would have to ask them. trial would have to be large $40 and 100 kilowatt current situation or has not identified who “But asking questions is also a prob- enough to generate good would actually use it,” he says. Schoonschip lem,” Tran-Thanh found. “Every time you hours annually. If statistics on the benefits (and seems to have avoided those pitfalls. Over- Factories ask a question or require a user to interact adopted nationwide, problems) of IDR, yet small subscribed and with construction about to with the system, it’s an annoyance—what the practice could enough to remain affordable. begin, the community aims to use an AI Systems do not get much more we call the ‘bother cost.’ If you ask too Luckily for Tran-Thanh, grid from the outset to achieve zero net complicated and interconnected cut $5 billion a year than factories filled with precisely many questions, a percentage of people just such a development is carbon emissions, measured over the year. from power bills choreographed robots and assembly will just not use it anymore.” taking shape now in the Although Schoonschip homes will draw and nearly 9 million lines. General Electric thinks that AI has a His solution to this weakness of AI Netherlands. It is a remark- power in the winter from the Dutch nation- role to play here, in what it calls “brilliant was . . . more AI. The team folded into metric tons of able new community that al grid, the community’s solar panels will manufacturing.” IDR a powerful sequential decision- carbon dioxide from promises to resemble a generate excess power in summer months, An AI manager inhales data from supply making process called Pandora’s Rule to floating village of the kind and that clean energy will flow onshore for greenhouse gas chains, design teams, production lines, optimize the number of user interactions emissions. that might become more others in Amsterdam to use. and quality-control checkpoints. The AI and minimize the bother cost. Pandora’s common on the coasts as sea This kind of “net metering” is now can then order new supplies just before Rule is a mathematical model tailored for levels rise. familiar to homeowners who have roof- they run out, monitor problems on the scenarios, such as house- or job-hunting, top solar panels and pay their utility only production line, and minimize electricity where you must decide when to stop Rising from a canal in a heavily polluted indus- for the difference between the power they usage. Procter & Gamble says that its use of GE’s system has helped the looking and just make a choice. Adding trial quarter of Amsterdam, the Schoonschip use and the power they generate. What is company cut unplanned downtime by that model to IDR enabled the system to (“clean ship” in Dutch) project is building unique about Schoonschip is that the entire 10–20 percent. Because idle factories track the accumulating bother cost and do a floating neighborhood of 46 new homes community will share a single connection still run heating, ventilation, and lighting— a quick calculation before asking each user connected by dock-like sidewalks. More to the national grid, with just one electricity accounting for around one-third of the about her preferences, which are gath- than 100 residents will soon move into meter. Behind that meter, Schoonschip will entire electricity bill for a car assembly ered via an iPad app. If the risk of asking permanently anchored houses made from run its own mini smart grid, tying together plant—less downtime translates directly into reduced emissions. another question outweighs the energy- recycled materials and topped with plant- the solar arrays and batteries of each house saving benefits likely to be obtained, IDR covered or translucent roofs to capture rain and intelligently coordinating the flow of quits while it’s ahead. and sunshine. Water will be filtered and re- energy from home to home. Tran-Thanh used a reserved portion circulated. Electricity generated by 500 solar Even a grid of just 46 homes quickly of the M.I.T. consumption data (data that panels will run 30 heat pumps to provide hot gets complex. With no central authority, had not been used for training) to simu- water and climate control. every homeowner must decide for himself late human responses and compare the As a tightly integrated, sustainable how much to invest in equipping their performance of the AI-enhanced system community, Schoonschip could be an ideal house to conserve energy or make its own.

62 63 “There were long discussions about whether greater effect in poorer, sunnier parts of the to build bigger terraces or leave more room world where existing power generation is on the sunny side for harvesting renewable more carbon-intensive. A 2010 McKinsey energy,” Kaisers says. “In the coordination report noted that 70 to 80 percent of the mechanisms for the automated intelligent India of 2030 is yet to be built. With cities control, we will have to take into account and electricity grids that are still unrealized, the people who made a sacrifice for an ad- developing nations—especially software- ditional square meter for solar.” Even in this savvy ones like India—are well positioned communal village, everyone will pay his fair to put lessons learned from pilot tests of AI share for the electricity used. into action. AI will be baked into Schoonschip’s Long Tran-Thanh sees great potential grid from the very start. Kaisers’s team is for the land where he was born. “Vietnam building algorithmic AI “agents” to repre- is still struggling with its basic electricity sent the users in demand-response negotia- supply,” he says. “It still has daily planned tions among households. The algorithms blackouts because it cannot provide elec- will base their actions on predictions gener- tricity to the whole country. But I know ated by learning each home’s generation some researchers there have already started and consumption patterns. The system will talking about smart grids. It’s at a very also use tablet computers to collect home- theoretical level only, but smart grids can owners’ preferences, such as the minimum definitely help Vietnam. We have the tools. charge they want to keep in their batteries We have the AI.” at various times of day. “AI agents can be Huge challenges remain, the biggest of better than humans in reaching good win- which is the mind-boggling cost of retro- win outcomes, making sure that households fitting a planet full of dumb houses with the don’t rip each other off but instead collabo- smart sensors and switches needed to let AIs rate in a positive way,” says Kaisers. “Plus, take control. But if the past 30 years have lots of people hate haggling.” Schoonschip model ©space&matter taught us anything, it is that hardware gets AI also doesn’t mind sweating the smaller and cheaper, and software more details. The grid will have to make mul- powerful, by the month. tiple split-second decisions and weigh tiny The beauty of adding arti- barters of solar power and battery space that ficial smarts to our grids is that would just annoy a person. “Human time is pivotal entities to put energy transition into it saves us hidebound, stick-in- What is unique about Schoonschip is that the entire very expensive,” Kaisers says. Schoonschip practice, Kaiser says. the-mud humans from having will probably use Long Tran-Thanh’s Whether that happens could hinge in community will share a single connection to the national to change our ways. Our atten- research to work out the optimal times part on economics. An AI-controlled smart grid, with just one electricity meter. Behind that meter, tion spans are short. Our wills to ask for users’ input; Kaisers suspects grid comes at a price above that of the solar Schoonschip will run its own mini smart grid, tying are weak. But software that can owners will be asked no more than five panels and heat pumps alone. Each house will together the solar arrays and batteries of each house tirelessly observe and subtly in- questions a week. likely have an extra smart meter or two, plus and intelligently coordinating the flow of energy from tervene in our daily lives prom- By next summer, Schoonschip should computers and sensors. Kaisers expects the bill ises to achieve what decades of be populated enough to turn off its connec- to come in at less than $500 per household, home to home. nagging have not: a meaningful tion to the national grid for a few weeks, with a small annual fee for the AI manage- reduction in our energy use that to see how well the AI can run things. But ment software. These prices will likely fall as still lets us enjoy a hot cup of tea that is just the start. “The big utility com- the technology improves—and by locating around the world. Nothing stops environ- after every soccer game. A panies make good money the way things many of its innovations behind the meter, mentally conscious towns in the US from are going right now. They need an incen- Schoonschip is not relying on conservative following Schoonschip’s model. A com- tive to move, and that incentive is going utility companies to drive innovation. munity in Germany is already planning to Mark Harris is an investigative science and technology reporter originally to be self-sufficient local entities such as Schoonschip might seem like an insig- roll out CWI’s Grid-Friends technology. from the UK but now based in Seattle, with a particular interest in robotics, transportation, green technologies, and medical devices. He Schoonschip cutting into their business. nificant thumb in the dike of climate change, And if the system can be proven in cloudy is a contributing editor at IEEE Spectrum and writes for a wide range of These residential communities could be but this bottom-up effort is being watched northern climes, it could be applied to even outlets including The Economist, The Guardian, and Wired.

64 65 A God’s-eye view is one thing, but what about a Cutting from godlike power? Geoengineering demands a new way Loose the Climate Future the Carbon Past of looking at the world—one that can be troubling. By Oliver Morton

66 Art ©Emiliano Deificus/www.deificusart.com 67 There will come a point, somewhere above Arizona, where—in the words of a particular site without the expense of a driving force behind this new project and is John Gillespie Magee satellite, World View will in time be happy the Harvard program’s first director. He be- to offer you a “stratollite” that does the job. lieves that if geoengineering of this sort were And if you want to do something to prove safe, and were to be appropriately Jr.’s much-quoted to the stratosphere’s thin air and see what governed, it could do a great deal to reduce effect your intervention has, the company the damage being done by the greenhouse poem “High Flight”— can provide a platform for that, too. gases that humans have pumped into the It is that last possibility that brought atmosphere. His program has attracted mil- you slip the surly Frank Keutsch and David Keith, two Har- lions of dollars in funding from Bill Gates, vard professors, to the among others. It represents bonds of Earth. Rising Tucson firm. In 2018 they the most ambitious research plan to use a package slung No one denies that program into the practical “where never lark, nor beneath a WorldView bal- geoengineering possibilities of geoengineer- loon to create a trail of presents risks. The ing to date. even eagle, flew . . . tiny particles in the strato- questions that matter Setting aside its balloon- sphere and then investigate are how they stack up based logistics, the dramatic the particles’ physical ef- and divisive global pos- with silent lifting mind,” you transcend the against the risks of world below to tread the “untrespassed sanc- fects. They call the effort sibilities of geoengineering tity of space.” Higher than the sky is blue, SCoPEx, the Stratospheric not geoengineering. might seem to have little in decoupled from the Earth curved out below, Controlled Perturbation common with the individu- you can appreciate everything within which Experiment. In time they alized, near-space, epiphany- you live with a new outsider wonder. hope to investigate the ef- tourism World View plans to A Tucson-based startup called World fects such particles have on the chemistry of sell. I think they share quite a lot. A big part View Enterprises is offering to sell its cus- the stratosphere, too, particularly the finely of what will draw people to see the planetary tomers this cut-adrift communion for about balanced reactions continually producing curve of the Earth against the blackness of $75,000 a flight when, a few years from and destroying its precious ozone. space is the expectation that the sublime now, its services are up and running. Like SCoPEx will be the first experimental beauty of the sight will deepen and even its rivals in the tourism of the untrespassed, venture of Harvard’s new Solar Geoengi- transform their feelings about the planet— Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Richard neering Research Program, which is devoted that they will undergo a personalized reca- Branson’s Virgin Galactic, World View to looking at ways to slightly reduce the pitulation of the deep effect that the Apollo reckons that there is a tidy profit to be made amount of sunlight that reaches the surface program’s pictures of the Earth had on the taking people who yearn for the sublime. of the Earth. Common sense suggests that burgeoning environmental consciousness of The difference between World View this would lessen the effects of global warm- the 1970s. Geoengineering offers, and per- and its better-known rivals is that it does ing; climate models confirm that. Placing haps demands, a similarly changed perspec- not plan to launch its passengers into the into the stratosphere reflective particles of tive. And it is one that can be troubling. great beyond with rockets, but rather to loft the sort that SCoPEx will investigate—at them under vast balloons. Less drama, more a rate of a million metric tons a year or so The new way of looking at the Earth that the duration—a stratospheric sojourn that lasts rather than SCoPEx’s few kilograms—is the Apollo images provided was double-edged. for hours rather than a pistoning, parabolic most obvious way this might be carried out. As anthropologist Tim Ingold wrote in his rise and fall. The ability to linger has at- Keith, whom I came to know while influential essay, “Globes and Spheres: The tractions for other applications, too. If you writing a book about geoengineering and Topology of Environmentalism,” seeing want to put a communications package over whom I now count as a friend, has been the the Earth from outside did not just expand Space balloon ©World View 68 Enterprises Inc. 69 people’s notion of the environment—it ters a great deal. And that seems strange. For more intensive—meaning urban—lifestyles. undercut it. Environments are things you what is geoengineering but an operational- The human footprint becomes deeper but find yourself inside; seeing one from out- ization of that Apollo worldview, one that smaller; space is saved for the wild. side abolishes that situating self-discovery, takes the small step from seeing the Earth It was through such thinking that the opening new estrangements instead. In as a thing in itself to treating it as a thing term “decoupling” entered the environmen- Ingold’s words, “The notion of a global to be manipulated, from objectification to tal vocabulary. Previously largely a term environment, far from marking humanity’s instrumentalization? In the iconography of of art in physics, it was imported by Jesse reintegration into the world, signals the cul- geoengineering—the images seen on posters Ausubel to express what has become the mination of a process of separation.” When for meetings or placards protesting them, core of ecomodernist belief: that continu- a deep irresponsibility in seeking to clean the Earth itself, rather than its human and as well as in illustrations for articles and the ing economic growth no longer requires the slate? How much transcendence can a nonhuman inhabitants and our individual like—those Apollo images of the Earth turn increased environmental impact, and that conscience bear? relationships to them, became the object of up again and again. But they are routinely this decoupling can be encouraged until it concern, the nature of environmentalism reinterpreted as a nut becomes more or less complete. There is an odd irony here. It is true that solar changed. It moved away from practice and with a wrench turning These ideas sound reasonable—in- geoengineering of the sort Keith is research- the lived experience of joys and constraint Environmentalism that it, or as a thermostat dial deed, inspiring—to their proponents. They ing feels essentially deracinated, top-down, and toward the realm of pure ideas. focuses on “saving the being adjusted by a vast provoke strident resistance elsewhere. Some technocratic, and—for all those reasons and I don’t for a moment doubt that the and disembodied hand. simply refuse, on the basis of history, human more—dangerous. But at the same time, it planet” runs a pernicious world needs ways of understanding the The god’s-eye view nature, or both, to believe that humans en- offers something that most current environ- Earth objectively and as a whole—or that risk of pitting those is a necessary precursor joying ever greater and more concentrated mentalism, including that of the ecomod- those ways of understanding have revealed abstract needs against to the godlike power. technological power will use it as wisely and ernists, does not: a plausible path toward the profound risks to the health and happiness the interests of people But that does not mean immaterially as the ecomodernists want; reduction of near-term harm to people and of many millions of humans, not to men- whose voices are not the power does not mat- many see no hope for an environmentalism the natural environment. tion other species. But I still find Ingold’s heard enough. ter in itself. Geoengi- that does not seek fundamental limits on At the UN’s 2015 Paris summit, the analysis insightful. I worry that an environ- neering may grow out of consumption and economic growth. nations of the world committed themselves mentalism that focuses on “saving the plan- a view of the world that There is also a deeper feeling that eco- to keeping global warming “well below” 2 et” runs a pernicious risk of pitting those in other circumstances modernism misses the point; that if it were degrees Celsius and, ideally, as low as 1.5 abstract needs against the interests of people seems to most people to succeed, it would be by decoupling not degrees Celsius. This is by no means ideal. A whose voices are not heard enough— unproblematically in- just the economy from the environment, two-degree rise will do a lot of damage and specifically, the global poor, desperately in spiring. But it would be silly to deny that it but also people from the nature they need. hurt a lot of people. It could render some need of modern energy services and com- brings new problems with it. Who would Nuclear-powered, LED-lit, hydroponically currently semi-arid and excessively hot plac- mercial opportunities to lessen their misery. wield its power, and in whose interests? And nourished, carbon fiber–skeletoned, sky- es uninhabitable; it will deeply disrupt Arctic I also fear that framing environmental what would it do to people’s personal moti- scraper farms might be wonderful things; ecosystems; it may well, in the long run, issues in terms of nothing less than the fate vations for environmental action? Most envi- but these are not the wonders, by and large, doom the Greenland ice cap. And though of the planet has an alienating, disempow- ronmentalists seek or enjoy a particular sense that people join the Sierra Club for. two degrees is what Paris aspires to, it is not ering effect. Anticipating the spectacle of of what it is to care about nature and protect Geoengineering makes seemingly simi- what it looks likely to deliver. The specific disaster on a geological, even astronomical, it. If environmental action is something that lar promises in a concordant technocratic cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions to which scale can offer a perversely liberating—even comes from outside, uncoupled from any key—and provokes similar fears. It does not the nations signing the agreement actually feckless—powerlessness; what could my or change in the way we lead our lives, does suggest merely that human activity can committed themselves were not remotely anyone’s action accomplish in the face of it still deliver what the environmentalist be decoupled from environmental harm. ambitious enough for that. such sublime immensities? spirit craves? It suggests that the future can be cut loose The Trump administration’s petulant These worries about the planet’s post- Similar questions are familiar from from the past—that the legacy of warming and nihilistic withdrawal from Paris prob- Apollo objectification are not, I have found, other conflicts within environmentalism. stacked up in the atmosphere, molecule by ably damages its prospects further. That does very widely shared. Most environmentalists “Ecomodernists” such as Stewart Brand, Ted molecule and gigaton by gigaton, might not mean there is no hope. As renewable seem to think “planet in peril” rhetoric is a Nordhaus, or Erle Ellis argue for saving the perhaps be set at naught. There is a gran- technologies grow cheaper and transport is matter of imagery and inspiration and that’s environment through an intensification of deur in this, and a liberation—just as there increasingly electrified, the rate of progress all. No such insouciance greets mention of human activity: more intensive—meaning is a grandeur, and a liberation, in looking on emissions reduction may increase faster geoengineering—almost everyone who talks genetically modified—farming, more in- out from the edge of space at the curved than the current Paris pledges would suggest, about it, whether pro or con, thinks it mat- tensive—meaning nuclear—energy sources, Earth set out below. But is there not, also, whatever the US federal government does.

70 71 tend to catalyze ozone-destroying reactions. right ballpark, you need plantations across It is the presence of clouds in the stratosphere an area bigger than India. If the creation of around Antarctica that accounts for the plantations on such a scale were politically ozone hole there; the sulphate particles pro- feasible (I think it isn’t), the sacrifice of ar- duced after large volcanic eruptions reduce able land or wilderness ozone levels as well as cool the planet (Such would be a terrible cost. episodes of natural volcanic cooling are one Solar geoengineering feels None of this is of the reasons for thinking that solar geoen- essentially deracinated, to say that the world gineering can have a cooling effect, though cannot, over the com- they are not a precise analogue). One of the top-down, technocratic, ing century, drastically main purposes of SCoPEx is to see whether But the degree to and—for all those reasons reduce its emissions or it is possible to find potentially planet-cool- which progress needs and more—dangerous. But indeed start to reverse ing particles which damage the ozone layer to speed up if the Paris at the same time, it offers them. But the realistic less—or perhaps even replenish it. goals are to be met something that most current chances of doing so in Then there are the effects on the climate remains extraordinary. environmentalism does not: time to stave off real itself. The cooling triggered by particles in A determinedly op- harm to the people who the stratosphere and the warming created by timistic scenario put a plausible path toward the suffer most from climate greenhouse gases are not perfect opposites. forward by the Car- reduction of near-term harm change—poor people in Greenhouse gases work day and night, sum- bon Tracker Initiative, to people and the natural hot countries—are very mer and winter; they have different effects an NGO, suggests environment. thin. Unless, that is, you at different altitudes, warming the middle that if renewables add another form of ac- layers of the lower atmosphere and cooling continue to grow tion to the agenda. That the stratosphere itself. Stratospheric solar faster than generally is where solar geoengi- geoengineering works by day only thus it expected (as they have neering comes in. does little to, say, Arctic winters. It cools the been doing), there surface more than the air above it, and it might be a fifty-fifty chance of no more than Note that it is indeed an addition, not a actually warms the stratosphere. These dif- 2.4 degrees Celsius of warming. But even if replacement. Neither Keith nor, as far as I ferences mean that the weather patterns in a policies became much more ambitious and know, any of the other researchers looking world where some greenhouse-gas warming people, within a few decades, started pulling at the feasibility, side effects, and safety of is countered by stratospheric aerosols would carbon dioxide down out of the air and stor- solar geoengineering sees it as a possible not be those of a world where that green- ing it away permanently, the risk of breaking alternative to reducing greenhouse gas house warming never took place, even if the the two-degrees barrier would still be more emissions. For long-term climate stability, average temperatures were the same. than 50 percent. fossil-fuel greenhouse gas emissions have Experiments such as SCoPEx can tell For a good chance of limiting global to be brought down to zero; they need to you what solar geoengineering particles warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the world come down to zero to put an end to ocean will do to the chemistry of the stratosphere. would need even more ambitious reductions acidification, too. What geoengineering However, they can’t tell you what a veil of in emissions and, in the second half of the might do is slow and/or limit the warming particles spread round the world would do to century, a truly vast drawdown of carbon which will take place in the time it takes the climate—any more than spraying carbon dioxide. There may be ways to do this in for that global zero to be reached. A layer dioxide into a little patch of the atmosphere a clean, efficient way. But as yet they are of fine particles in the stratosphere, capable would tell you the impacts of greenhouse unproven. Policy analysts currently tend to of reflecting away enough sunshine to cool gas warming. You can’t do experiments at assume that a carbon drawdown will involve the planet by just 1 degree Celsius, could the scale of the Earth without, well, doing burning biomass to generate electricity and be the difference between meeting the most experiments at the scale of the Earth. But pumping into deep storage the carbon di- ambitious goal envisaged in Paris and crash- you can use the models built to understand oxide produced in the process. The biomass ing through its upper limit. greenhouse gas warming to look at worlds presumably would be grown on plantations That immediately poses the question of in which geoengineering takes place, too— or through vast ocean-farming systems. But what else such a layer of fine particles might what I call “doubly altered climates.” Such most such discussion ignores the sheer size do. One possibility is that it might damage modeling is imprecise, and probably far from of the interventions required; to get into the the ozone layer. Particles in the stratosphere reliable when looking at specific regions. But Stratosphere cloud layer 72 ©NASA 73 the same is true of models that tackle the for Keith and his colleagues; many will see effects of greenhouse gases alone—which is To imagine that their high flights not as a quest to touch the to say, the models on which the limits and If today’s energy humans can simply face of God but as an attempt to besmirch worth trying hard to find out whether a aspirations of the Paris agreement are based. optimists are correct, that it. The public engagement programs Keith stop being a planet- form of geoengineering that is safe, just, Such studies strongly suggest that may not matter too much. would like to set up around it may reveal changing force is and governable might also be politically a couple of degrees of geoengineering If green-energy progress deep and unshifting antipathies. It’s a fair unrealistic. Thinking feasible, rather than assume that it isn’t. would reduce climate impacts over much really is now unstoppable, bet there will be lawsuits and demonstra- This is not just because there is a moral of the world. Weather patterns would still and if technologies for that we might find a tions, both by environmentalists concerned duty to try to reduce the harm climate change: “doubly altered” is not completely pulling carbon out of the way to act responsibly that it crosses a stratospheric Rubicon and change is doing. It is also because those canceled out. Altering stratospheric circula- atmosphere on a large scale may be just as daft. by “chem-trailers” who believe that the up- images of the Earth from space, that view of tion would influence jet streams and hence really are going to become per atmosphere is already being deliberately But it seems to me a “nature” made possible only by the highest surface weather. Rainfall patterns would available, then emitting a bit manipulated as part of a vast government better foolishness. of technologies, resonate with a genuine change, though that would not necessar- more carbon dioxide in the conspiracy. Good faith will be questioned; and irrevocable change in the human rela- ily mean more droughts and might mean meantime might not be the tempers will flare; the online threats made tionship to the planet. fewer floods. worst thing. But those are against Keith and others who express views As Ingold’s writing and many worries If you had a utilitarian choice between big ifs—especially if the re- on the subject will increase. about geoengineering attest, this change is a world with 3 degrees Celsius of green- laxation follows from the promise that solar Through all this, though, the wider far from an unmixed blessing. Nor is it an house warming or a world with the same geoengineering looks plausible, rather than debate may get the real airing it still needs. adamantine curse. As those yearning for the amount of greenhouse gases but enough from a demonstration that it actually helps. No one denies that geoengineering presents view from the windows of a pressurized solar geoengineering to limit the increase Worries such as these are real, serious, risks. The questions that matter are how microhabitat slung below a World View in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and and widespread. They lead some wise and they stack up against the risks of not geo- balloon may yet learn, it is both a new you had only modeled climate impacts to cautious people to think that solar geo- engineering and how they can be managed. breach and a new connection. It is prob- go on, it would be pretty much a no-brain- engineering is best left off the table. They That second question is the purview of the lematic; it has potential. er. The 1.5-degree world would be better judge that the potential political harm out- other big, recent development in this small, Humans, spread across the planet’s face, for almost everywhere—lower average and weighs any promise. And because it is easier important field: the creation of the Carn- tied by trade across its oceans, lifted up into peak temperatures and thus less heat stress not to discuss something than to discuss it— egie Climate Geoengineering Governance its skies, are now the Earth’s environment, for humans and ecosystems, lower sea lev- this inertia-through- has won out. Initiative led by János Pásztor, a diplomat omerta as the Earth is ours. We shape each other. In els, less ice loss, fewer extreme events. No policy wonk, activist, or politician who previously worked as a climate adviser our mutual embrace, we both deserve re- The problem is that climate impacts in pays a price for not discussing solar geo- to Ban Ki-moon. Pásztor and the team he spect and care. But only one of us is capable a particular scenario are not the only thing engineering when talking about how the is putting together hope to provide frame- of expressing that duty and acting on it. at play. People and politics matter, too. planet might meet the Paris goals. No one works in which the political, legal, and If the world can’t bring itself to talk about Model studies strongly suggest that, for any makes a career in geoengineering research: ethical issues geoengineering raises might such care—even if it is to conclude that its significant level of geoengineering, some Keith is the only high-profile scientist cur- be addressed. Their work should help clarify wise exercise is beyond human judgment or regions would benefit from adding further rently devoting almost all of his research what matters when considering SCoPEx perhaps human technology—then it is fail- particles to the stratosphere while some efforts to it. Just one researcher whose and subsequent research, and to whom it ing both itself and the rest of the planet. others would not. Such tensions could drive doctorate dealt with geoengineering has so matters. It should also help ensure that the To imagine that humans can simply the world toward more geoengineering far gone on to a tenured university position. voices of the poor, who are at greatest risk stop being a planet-changing force is unre- than is optimal, or toward large-scale inter- A study of geoengineering carried out by from climate change, are in fact heard. alistic. Thinking that we might find a way national conflict, or both. the Royal Society in 2009 suggested that It may be that geoengineering really to act responsibly may be just as daft. But it There is also an obvious risk that perhaps as much as one-tenth of climate does raise more risks through politics than it seems to me a better foolishness. geoengineering might prove a victim of its research should be devoted to examining reduces by scattering sunshine. And perhaps A own success. If it looks like it is actually such ideas. The actual figure is closer to one the consensus on this will be so strong that doing the good it seems to promise—or one-thousandth, and the rate of publication no nation will choose to run those risks and Oliver Morton is a senior editor at The Economist. Prior to that, even if it just looks plausible that it might— on the subject is dropping. geoengineer anyway. The world would then he was Chief News and Features Editor at Nature. His writing then incentives to keep on with the vital be left with emissions reductions, adapta- has appeared in the New Yorker, National Geographic, Discover, work of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions Which is why I think SCoPEx matters. A real tion efforts, and the harm that follows when Time, New Scientist, The New York Times, The Financial Times, and many other outlets. His most recent book The Planet Remade will start to weaken. The world might let experiment, up in the stratosphere, will those are insufficient—as they all but surely was shortlisted for the Royal Society Insight Investment itself go. focus attention. That may be uncomfortable will be. It seems to me, though, that it is Science Book Prize.

74 75 When You’re in a Carbon Hole Stop Digging

Here’s a retirement plan for coal that doesn’t rely on uninvented technology or science-challenged leaders

By Robinson Meyer

The United States has never had a president as hostile to the theory of anthropogenic climate change as Donald Trump. He has rejected climate change as a hoax, begun to undo years of Obama-era climate policies, and hired an EPA director who questions whether carbon dioxide regulates the temperature of the planet. It’s enough to make the climate-con- cerned wish for something a little more . . . well, unilateral. In this era when climate leadership seems to buy diplomatic cachet, what could a couple of powerful countries do? What could a wealthy individual such as Bill Gates do to prevent carbon diox- ide from being emitted? Even Germany’s much-celebrated transition to renewable energy, which has brought down the costs of solar and wind energy worldwide, has reduced its national carbon emissions by only 7 percent. California has found more success: the world’s sixth-largest economy has brought down emissions by 10 percent

©Igor Kopelnitsky/ 76 Illustration Source 77 since 2006. Is there another way to inter- vene directly in the climate system—and not through internationally dubious geo- engineering schemes such as aerosols or sea fertilization, but through simple economics?

There might be. Enter Matt Frost. to own rights for one location, as long as national and international banks have fled I met Frost through Twitter. I knew Buying unmined coal they hold rights to different depths. the industry. him first as a witty, curious guy with an “If you ask someone to build a prop- Despite that ease, Appalachia isn’t unusual collection of interests: mine safety, constitutes an incredibly erty map of mineral rights in West Vir- the ideal place to sequester carbon under- the statistics software R, the novelist Sigrid ginia, you have to specify which coal ground. Unless the government changed Undset, various forms of conservatism. I cheap form of offsetting seam, because each coal horizon can have the tax code, the tracts of unmined coal knew he had five kids and many dogs and a separate owner on the exact same lat-lon would continue to be a taxable resource, that he observed Orthodox Christianity. And carbon consumption. coordinates,” says Frost. “As you go up and their price fluctuating with the commodity. I knew he had this plan for keeping coal in down the mountain, you can run into dif- There would be no tax benefit to keeping the ground. ferent ownership.” the coal out of the market in perpetuity. In As I talked to him for this story and But west of the Mississippi, things fact, the locked-away seams would present a began to suss out the realism of what he never trap heat in the atmosphere or debase work differently. Especially in Montana perpetual tax liability. calls his “coal retirement plan,” I learned that the ocean. Thus buying unmined coal con- and the Mountain West, the government So maybe it’s better to look to the during the day, he works in natural-resource stitutes an incredibly cheap form of offset- typically holds mineral rights. The Bureau wide-open West. The Bureau of Land Man- management. When you read the EPA’s ting carbon consumption. But that’s not all of Land Management now manages those agement controls vast and untapped seams reports on US car-fuel efficiency and air pol- it does: sequestering coal from the global rights, as well as the rights under land that of coal across many Mountain West states. lution, you’re reading his work. So he knows market causes coal’s price to rise. So coal re- has never left the federal government’s It leases the rights to mine those deposits what he’s talking about. tirement becomes a voluntary way of pricing ownership. Today, the country’s major to interested companies—a program that Anyway, here’s his plan. in the mineral’s considerable climate, envi- Western coal deposits—almost 90,000 produces about 40 percent of the nation’s Most climate regulations focus on mak- ronmental, and public-health costs. Coal’s square miles—are administered by the annual coal haul. ing it more expensive to emit greenhouse price could even rise internationally, wean- Bureau of Land Management. The BLM began a review of its coal gases. The cap-and-trade systems run by ing other nations off the fuel. Two different mineral regimes, two program after the Paris Agreement was both the European Union and, soon, China In effect, buying coal while it’s still in different forms that Frost’s plan could take. drafted, but it was recently canceled by take this approach: the thing they’re capping the ground constitutes a very inexpensive, In Appalachia, no one would have to Ryan Zinke, Trump’s secretary of the inte- and trading is emissions. very simple form of geoengineering. It’s per- give a climate-concerned billionaire per- rior. It remains the BLM’s statutory impera- Frost believes that instead of regulating fect for climate-concerned billionaires such as mission to buy up coal. In fact, Bill Gates tive to find a fair market price for coal. And to limit the burning of fossil fuels, we should Bill Gates or even for international coalitions. or someone else could start buying coal anyone who leases federal coal is legally just never remove the fuels from earth’s crust There are several ways to go about it—in there tomorrow, Frost says. obliged to obtain its “maximum economic in the first place. Coal-fired power plants the US and around the world. They’re both “The coal industry employs ‘land guys’ recovery”—in other words, they must mine release about 40 percent of global carbon somewhat feasible and a little complicated. who play a lot of golf with other land guys all the coal that is profitable to mine. emissions and are a frequent target of climate The US is one of very few nations and strategically assemble viable mining Congress could forbid the BLM to policies. Frost thinks we should pay the where mineral rights—the ability to mine an units out of the parcels they can stitch to- lease coal anymore, but in an era of unified organizations which own underground coal area—can be privately held. (In most na- gether. A shrewd buyer of retirement coal Republican control of government, that deposits—specifically, the US government— tions, these rights are public or royal.) But would apply the same skills, but from the seems unlikely. So Frost proposes that the for the right to never mine it. US rights differ, depending on where you angle of ‘sterilizing’ as much nearby coal as BLM alter its policy in one small way: it “The US coal deposits represent a poten- are. East of the Mississippi, a property owner possible,” he wrote to me in an email. should let anyone lease its coal. Right now, tial store of future CO₂ emissions,” Frost told typically controls not only the land that he He calls these sterilizing buyers to lease coal from the BLM, a buyer needs me. “The assumption, the policy assumption, owns a deed to, but also the rights to mine “green-hat land guys.” Were a billion- to present a plan to mine it. Frost wants is that they need to be extracted. But what if any minerals beneath that land. Particularly aire inclined to hire them, now would be the bureau to trash that requirement. He we just sequester this carbon while it’s still in in Appalachia, many property owners can an especially good time. Natural gas has also wants the government to introduce a coal form?” (and do) sever those mineral rights from their pushed the cost of fossil fuels too low for kind of perpetual easement—a special kind By permanently keeping coal in the surface rights and sell them to private com- the old giants to survive. Nearly every of long-term lease—that will let individual ground, carbon dioxide is in turn perma- panies. Rights get severed and sold by coal major Appalachian coal company has col- buyers enter the coal market and sequester nently kept out of the atmosphere. It will seam, so it’s possible for multiple companies lapsed or filed for bankruptcy, and many carbon without the tax liability.

78 79

y

a

w

r

o

N

There are different ways to accomplish

One place

this. It may be better for individual buyers

to transfer their ownership to a kind of fed-

supply-side

eral carbon trust. This would make carbon

sequesterers less liable for events such as

climate policies

underground coal fires. And because natu- emissions,” he wrote in his original proposal

Greenland

ral gas remains economically critical, Frost several years ago. “By making one rather

could work is

thinks the trust should not include rights to esoteric adjustment to US property law, my

coalbed methane.

proposal allows each marginal dollar spent to the Arctic.

The area north of the Arctic Circle

“Let’s look at the problem not in the have some small impact toward increasing

contains an estimated 90 billion

sense of we’re burning too much coal, but the cost of burning coal.”

barrels of oil and nearly 1,700 trillion

as: coal is too cheap. What do you do about One small change, but a tough one in

cubic feet of natural gas, according

a

that?” he told me. 2017, when a different administration sits

to a US Geological Survey report. d

a

n

Approximately 84 percent of these “There’s various other kludgy things behind the organ of federal rule-making.

a

C

reserves are believed to occur that have been done in the past, when the Frost thinks a coal-retirement clause would R u offshore. While these areas are s s government or a special-interest group be hard to add to the BLM lease in the i a becoming increasingly accessible,

decided a commodity was too cheap,” he US, at least during the Trump era. And he

drilling there remains a risky and

says. “How do you prop up the price more? doubts that a billionaire could buy coal in expensive proposition. Experts say s te Just as when you pay people not to grow West Virginia, at least in a public way. That ta these difficult-to-exploit resources S ed nit certain crops, why don’t we get out of this state’s school system relies on income from should be the focus of coalitions that U

business of growing coal on our national the severance tax, a fee exacted when coal is aim to keep fossil fuels in the ground. carbon plantation?” removed from the ground. Probability of the presence of at least one undiscovered oil and/or gas field with The best aspect of the coal-retirement Previous investments in other parts of recoverable resources greater than 50 million barrels of oil equivalent (1)

plan, as Frost puts it, is that it doesn’t re- the economy, even very big ones, have not n 100% n 50-100% n 30-50% n 10-30% quire political consensus. “Resources managed to substantively reduce emissions. n less than 10% o area of low petroleum potential devoted to lobbying for cap-and-trade Before the 2014 midterm-election cycle, have yet to directly prevent any CO₂ billionaire Tom Steyer announced he would found and invest heavily in a climate- concerned super PAC. Despite his do- Climate-concerned nating $65 million of his own money to realistic short-term national climate policy are so cheap!), they’d burn more oil and gas the organization, only three of Steyer’s was to buy up coal and oil reserves around than they would have in the first place. countries should form seven candidates went on to win races, the world. Not only would this be a very It constitutes a kind of tragedy of the most of them in already secure seats. good policy, it is actually the most efficient commons. The virtuous nations would a coalition to purchase And in 2016, of course, Hillary Clinton climate policy imaginable, Harstad thinks. get no reward for their foresight and good seemed to pay a political price over her Harstad’s policy is meant to solve a stewardship, and meanwhile the planet buried coal and gas predecessor’s alleged “war on coal,” with problem: some countries will want to take would still get hotter. Add to all this the re- few apparent electoral benefits. She also climate action before others do. When ality that almost all the “bad” countries are lost despite raising nearly twice as much those climate-fighting countries impose going to be the poorest ones, places where reserves, targeting those money as Trump. emissions-limiting policies, they’ll burn cheaper electricity lets more families access Buying coal outright seems increas- less coal or oil—and, with global demand refrigeration or air conditioning. that are extraordinarily ingly more efficient than trying to shape down, the price of coal or oil will fall. Harstad hit upon a strategy similar to

the debate over it. 1. Circum-Arctic Other countries, without climate policies, Frost’s. He thinks climate-concerned coun- hard to take out of the Resource Appraisal: will rush into the fossil-fuel market and tries should form a coalition and proceed Frost isn’t the first Estimates of writer to propose Undiscovered Oil burn what they would have burned any- as a group to purchase buried coal and gas ground—for example, the the planet keep its coal reserves in the and Gas North of way plus what the first set of nations didn’t reserves around the world. This coalition the Arctic Circle. ground. In 2012, Norwegian econo- USGS Fact Sheet touch. With even less incentive to invest would target reserves which are extraordi- Canadian tar sands. mist Bård Harstad argued that the best 2008-3049. 2008. in renewable-energy sources (because fuels narily hard to take out of the ground—for

80 81 example, the Canadian tar sands. The coalition then has only to pay the relatively meager profit from these reserves to the na- tion in question, and it can comparatively lock up more coal. “Note that the world fuel price will same way that 12 countries, including the be relatively high when the focus is on US and the Soviet Union, decided to set reducing extraction. This will motivate all Antarctica aside from military activity in companies and countries to economize on the Antarctic Treaty. Since the oil in the energy and to develop green technologies Arctic is already some of the most expen- or renewable sources,” Harstad wrote in a sive to mine, setting it aside would not Financial Times op-ed. “Traditional climate require sacrificing much output. policies, by contrast, allow countries that do not co-operate to buy fuel at a low price, I’ve been referring to Frost’s plan as geo- and therefore, they face few incentives to engineering. His policy tampers with the adopt or develop green technologies.” environment at least as much as our Harstad said that his and Frost’s plans society-wide intervention does. were generally similar. He was less sure that But if a billionaire (or a large non- private buyers, even billionaires, could shift profit with similar purchasing power) really the market in the same way an international wanted to augment its coal-buying efforts coalition could. “An international agree- and buy the climate more time, they would ment would be more effective, but also that have to invest in what many people think agreement can (in fact, ‘should’) focus on of as “real” geoengineering and what the reducing coal extraction. The point of my UN calls negative emissions technologies Stories of Innovation in the Human Age research is to show that such a treaty on ex- (NETs). These are processes that pull carbon traction is the most effective climate policy,” out of the atmosphere so it can be trapped made possible in part by the following organizations he told me in an email. on or below the surface. But you could do He also disagrees with Frost about this without fanciful technology. A recent which coal should be purchased. Harstad economic study out of Oxford University thinks that his coalition should lease or pur- found that the most efficient NET over the chase the hardest coal to access—in other next 50 years will not be carbon-capturing words, the coal that’s most expensive to pumps or artificial photosynthesis, but trees. mine. Then, as demand for coal grows and Afforestation—planting forests where there the price rises—and mining companies start were none before—is the best, most effec- to look at more difficult reserves—they’ll tive way in the short term to remove carbon find that coal is already locked up. from the atmosphere and sequester it. Now, five years after his op-ed, Harstad Were a donor or government to com- is not hopeful about the outlook for supply- bine the two methods, this could shape the side climate policies in most parts of the global climate on both ends: removing car- world. But one place it could work, he told bon from the atmosphere while also reduc- me, was the Arctic. Five different countries ing the influence of future carbon. It could make claims to the territory—and, thus, the intervene directly into the system. And by oil deposits—in the Arctic: Canada, Russia, raising the price of coal, it could pave the Norway, the US, and Denmark (via Green- way for a more lasting international com- land). All of them are relatively rich, and mitment—the kind of policy we’ll likely four of them are relatively progressive. need to recover from the next four years. A Harstad believes that all five could de- cide to permanently set aside the oil in the Robinson Meyer is an associate editor at The Atlantic, Arctic in the name of sound climate policy. where he covers technology. This article was adapted It would be permanently off-limits—in the from a piece on TheAtlantic.com.

82 83 Centre for Science and Environment is a non-governmental, independent The Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum policy research institution based in New Delhi, India. It was founded in of Natural History transforms knowledge—from diverse sources and 1980 by the late Anil Agarwal. Over the years, CSE has helped shape perspectives, spanning areas of scientific research as well as traditional policies and build public awareness to bring change in areas of pollution and local knowledge—into conservation action. We collaborate with mitigation and public health security, low carbon development, natural partners around the world to increase local and global capacity to address resource management and livelihood security to make growth sustainable the loss of biological and cultural diversity, and foster connections among and inclusive. It is currently headed by Sunita Narain. diverse practitioners to catalyze conservation on the ground.

www.cseindia.org www.amnh.org

84 85 The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) has Stockholm Resilience Centre advances research on the been operating since 2012 under the auspices of the UN Secretary- governance of social-ecological systems with a special General. The SDSN mobilizes global scientific and technological emphasis on resilience—the ability to deal with change expertise to promote practical solutions for sustainable and continue to develop. development, including the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement.

www.stockholmresilience.org www.unsdsn.org

3. Science Shorts

Dispatches from the front lines of sustainability research &

Social transformations that once took gener- pesticides, and fertilizers threaten fragile ations to cement now seem to cover the ecosystems. Exact numbers are hard to globe in a matter of years. The legalization come by, but one study reported that in of marijuana is a case in point. Uruguay, 2005, coca growers in Colombia used the Netherlands, Morocco, and a grow- 81,000 tons and 83,000 barrels of fertilizers ing list of countries are decriminalizing the and toxic weed and pest killers. (3) forbidden weed. And individual US states Drug traffickers often launder money are following suit, trailing a wave of public and seek to “legitimize” their presence in an opinion. In a 2016 Pew survey, 57 percent area through agriculture—converting even of US adults said marijuana use should be more forests to pasture or oil palm planta- legalized, while 37 percent said it should be tions. (2) And the violence that follows a crime. That’s nearly the reverse of public cartels into remote areas makes wildlife opinion on legalizing pot a decade ago. monitoring and other scientific research The reasons for the about-face vary more and more perilous. Is the grass greener Even enforcement efforts can deal a Q from a desire to curb the violence inflicted on the other side? by drug cartels, to concerns over vastly blow. In a 2005 trial program, the Colom- uneven criminal prosecution, to access for bian government sprayed a Drug legalization could both help medicinal uses. Rarely, however, does the list deadly herbicide to destroy Growing 1 kilo of pot generates roughly the carbon and hurt the environment include abating the environmental damage vast coca crops illegally emissions of burning 516 gallons of gasoline. the illegal drug trade wreaks. planted across 13,000 hect- By Hillary Rosner But perhaps it should. The ecologi- ares of a national park and cal impacts of the black-market drug trade surrounding lands. Instead are crushing. In Colombia, for example, of protecting the park, the government was the cocaine trade was responsible for more bombarding it with toxic chemicals. (4) than half of all forest loss in the 1990s. (1) In the US, illegal pot farms have set According to one study, the spread of coca up shop on public lands with devastating crops to feed global demand for cocaine environmental consequences. Some are “threatens the last repositories of imperiled sucking entire ecosystems dry. Marijuana forest species more efficiently than most plants use almost twice as much water per other causes of forest fragmentation.” And square kilometer as wine grapes, northern across Central America—particularly in the California’s other major irrigated crop. (5) Caribbean lowland forests of Nicaragua, One study found that water demand for Honduras, and Guatemala, an area teeming pot cultivation could slash the water avail- with remarkable plants and animals—drug able in streams by nearly one-fourth, killing trafficking is speeding the destruction, endangered salmon and steelhead trout as lighting a match to the tinderbox built well as amphibians. (6) from poverty, illegal logging, industrial ag- Terrestrial wildlife takes a hit, too. Sev- riculture, and weak enforcement, according eral years ago, in forests in northern Cali- to research published in 2014. (2) fornia and in the southern Sierra Nevada As cartels push drug crops into increas- range, scientists began finding a lot of dead ingly remote areas to avoid law enforce- Pacific fishers (a forest-dwelling mammal ment, the devastation spreads. Herbicides, similar to the weasel and a candidate for 90 A 91 listing under the Endangered Species Act). illicit growers out of the shadows could ease Testing revealed that nearly 80 percent of some of the environmental externalities. the dead animals, including adults and their For example, instead of stealing electricity kits, contained lethal rodenticides that pot or running generators, growers would plug growers use to keep rats from eating their into the grid. They could then take part in plants and gnawing through their irriga- utility energy-efficiency programs and have tion lines. (7) a financial incentive to use cleaner, off-peak All this bad news raises the question: power. (9) Could legalization offer even a modicum It’s too soon to know what the impact of of relief? state-by-state or even countrywide legaliza- Legalizing marijuana in all 50 US states tion will be—partly because there’s virtually might put drug cartels out of work—solv- no funding to study it. That seems an op- ing the public lands problem and even portunity lost. Drug policy is flipping right reducing the use of poisons that kill wild- before our eyes. If we paid more attention, life. But even legal marijuana farming isn’t perhaps we could make some drugs, particu- benign. New research shows that indoor larly the world’s most sought-after weed, a pot production—legal and illegal—is a little greener. A “previously unrecognized source of energy consumption,” responsible for as much 1. Álvarez MD. Illicit crops and bird conservation priori- as 1 percent of total US electricity use. ties in Colombia. Conservation Biology. 2002. Growing 1 kilo of pot generates roughly 2. McSweeney K et al. Drug policy as conservation Rerouting the same amount of carbon emissions as policy: Narco-deforestation. Science. 2014. burning 516 gallons of gasoline. And out 3. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. World Small changes to flight of 20 industries, from textiles to tobacco to Drug Report 2015. routes could deliver big some cases they can have a cooling effect. plastics, marijuana had the highest energy 4. Dávalos LM and AC Bejarano. Conservation in con- climate savings Also, emissions from aircraft flying close flict: Illegal drugs versus habitat in the Americas. intensity—more than double any other one to or within the stratosphere have a greater In: State of the Wild 2008–2009: A global portrait of By Lindsey Doermann except paper. (8) Already, energy demand wildlife, wildlands, and oceans 2. Island Press. 2008. effect on climate than those released at lower for indoor pot operations in Washington 5. carah JK et al. High time for conservation: Adding altitudes. state—where the drug has been legal since the environment to the debate on marijuana liberal- With small changes to trans- An international team of researchers ization. BioScience 2015. 2012—is projected to double by 2035, ac- Atlantic flight routes, airlines looked at simulations of 400 flights across 85 6. Bauer S et al. Impacts of surface water diversions could reduce their climate cording to a report from the Northwest for marijuana cultivation on aquatic habitat in routes over the North Atlantic for a repre- Power and Conservation Council. four northwestern California watersheds. PLoS impact by up to 10 percent, sentative set of summer and winter weather Still, legalization done right might ONE. 2015. according to a new study. patterns. They found that even small rout- offer an antidote. Gina Warren, a law 7. Gabriel MW et al. Anticoagulant rodenticides on our These climate savings come ing changes, to steer clear of regions where professor at Texas A&M, has looked at public and community lands: Spatial distribution of with a 1 percent increase in exposure and poisoning of a rare forest carnivore. emissions would have a large impact, would drug legalization trends in terms of en- PLoS ONE. 2012. operating costs for airlines. significantly reduce climate impacts with a ergy regulation, and she believes that new 8. Mills E. The carbon footprint of indoor cannabis While planes spew plenty minimal increase in cost—mostly from fuel. production. Energy Policy. 2012. state licensing regulations offer a chance Grewe V et of CO2, they also contribute The researchers say that climate-optimal to limit the greenhouse gas emissions of 9. Warren GS. Regulating pot to save the polar bear: al. Feasibility to warming by forming con- routing isn’t quite ready for the real world. indoor grow operations. Warren recom- Energy and climate impacts of the marijuana indus- of climate- trails and by altering ozone And cost increases may not fly in an indus- try. Columbia Journal of Environmental optimized air mends that states and cities should consider Law. 2015. traffic routing and methane levels. The try with already-slim profit margins. How- energy usage and emissions when grant- for trans- relationship between contrails ever, they add, market-based measures that ing licenses—and even require pot grow- Hillary Rosner has covered science and the Atlantic flights. and climate isn’t straight- account for non-CO climate impacts could environment for National Geographic, The New York Environmental 2 ers to use only renewable energy. Even Times, Wired, Scientific American, Mother Jones, and Research Letters. forward; they generally act offset that additional cost—and set up a win- without such regulation, simply bringing many other publications. 2017. to warm the climate, but in win for the industry and the atmosphere. A

92 93 polypropylene, and poly- acidification, eutrophication, and land carbonate. Over a one-year occupation. span (using one cup a day), Perhaps the most important result the reusable cups scored well for the caffeinated among us was that the in the climate change arena— number of times a cup is used is paramount. that is, they were associated Indeed, only with frequent use can one with fewer greenhouse gas decrease the potential impacts of the (GHG) emissions than their reusable cup; it would take between 20 single-use counterparts. (human health category for a polypro- Likewise, they scored pylene travel mug) and more than 1,000 better in the human-health (ecosystem-quality category for all travel

kg CO2 eq/ 365 servings Greenhouse Gas Emissions t 3 It would take 50 between 20 and 45 100 uses for a 40 reusable cup to

35 make up for the Reusable or Disposable greenhouse gas 30 Which coffee cup has a smaller footprint? Disposable cup emissions of a 25 single-use cup. For By Pierre-Olivier Roy 20 ecosystem quality

15 indicators, it could take more than 10 You walk into your local coffee shop, hand the issues. LCAs compile and Polycarbonate cup 1,000 uses. Ceramic cup barista your reusable coffee mug, and pat evaluate the inputs, outputs, 5 Stainless steel cup yourself on the back for not using one of and potential environmental Polypropylene cup 0 those “bad for the environment” single- impacts of a product or ser- 0 100 200 300 400 500 use cups. vice from material extraction Number of Uses Sounds simple. Right? to end of life. Perhaps. The CIRAIG study Granted, using a reusable cup lowers the compared the potential waste-management environmental impacts. environmental impacts of a category for things such as mugs) uses, depending on the cup/mug But you may not have considered other 16-ounce, single-use coffee toxic emissions, smog, and type and the environmental indicator, to aspects of the cup’s life cycle such as the cup made of a mix of card- ozone depletion. They also make up for the impacts of a single-use materials and energy that went into making board and polyethylene (with tended to use fewer minerals cup. If a reusable cup is used fewer times your sturdier reusable cup, the soap and hot a lid made of polystyrene) to and fossil fuels than dispos- than that, the single-use cup is better for water that will be necessary to wash it, and those of a 16-ounce, reusable able cups did. the environment. the energy source behind the heat of this ceramic cup and to those of a But here’s the bitter part. What should we do then? Can we help washing water. A recent life-cycle assess- variety of 16-ounce travelers’ Washing the reusable mugs the environment? The answer is yes: by ment (LCA) by the CIRAIG* tackled those mugs made of stainless steel, with hot water and soap reusing your cup for several years and by puts them at a disadvantage limiting the quantity of soap and hot water when it comes to ecosystem- for washing it, the reusable cup should be * A center of expertise in life-cycle issues, recognized internationally for its solid scientific research quality indicators. These the way to go. Limiting your coffee intake work and its 15 years of applied experience. The International Reference Centre for the Life Cycle of Products, Processes, and Services (CIRAIG) supports industry, governments, organizations, and indicators cover issues such could also be something to look at, but that consumers in their path toward a truly sustainable development supported by life-cycle thinking. as ecotoxicological emissions, is another problem altogether. A

94 95 found that, although direct holdings in the fossil fuel sector by any one financial insti- tution are relatively limited (4 to 13 percent of portfolios, depending on investor type), the total investments in all sectors of the Climate change economy where climate policy could have an effect are extensive, accounting for 36 researchers don’t hide percent to 48 percent of portfolios. negative results Moreover, many financial institu- tions hold equity in the financial sector By Sarah DeWeerdt itself—roughly 13 percent to 25 percent of investments—exposing them to indirect risk. That is, when one bank’s balance Researchers don’t hide findings that fail to sup- sheet deteriorates, other institutions that port the prevailing view of human-caused, hold its debt also suffer. This was a primary CO2-based climate change, according to the mechanism leading to the collapse of firms first large study to look for so-called pub- during the 2007–2008 financial crisis. lication bias in this branch of the scientific To determine the impact of this inter- literature. Even so, they may spin results in connection, the researchers conducted subtle ways. a “stress-test” of the 50 largest European Reviews of various scientific disciplines banks, modeling what would happen if have found that researchers are less likely to part of or all the value of a bank’s invest- report—and journal editors are less likely to ments in the fossil fuel and utilities sectors publish—studies with negative or nonsignifi- were wiped out. cant results. Two previous studies suggested Overall, the top 20 most-affected that the climate change literature does show A climate stress test for financial institutions banks could lose between 8 percent and evidence of this sort of publication bias. But 30 percent of their total capital in the those efforts were small By Sarah DeWeerdt worst-case scenario. Some banks would Harlos C, TC Edgell, and J Hollander. and limited in scope. suffer little or no direct loss but would be No evidence of In the new study, substantially affected by indirect losses publication bias researchers assessed 1,154 stemming from their investments in other in climate change science. Climatic experimental results from In an expansive study published in Nature The researchers say fossil financial institutions. Change. 2017. 120 studies of the effect Climate Change, an international team of fuel providers aren’t the only Although none of the top European researchers performed a “climate stress test” firms whose balance sheets banks is likely to default solely due to loans of financial institutions. They wanted to will be affected by green- in the fossil fuel and utilities sectors, loans know how much the uncertain, delayed, house gas regulations. In- in transport, manufacturing, and housing and sudden implementation of climate poli- stead, they define five broad add up to a much more substantial por- cies could lead to destabilizing shocks that sectors of the economy where tion of banks’ capital. But the available data propagate throughout the financial sector. climate policy will have an do not allow these economic sectors to be The study is part of a larger debate over impact: fossil fuels, electric evaluated in a comprehensive way. whether policies designed to help meet utilities, transport, energy- Even so, the researchers say, the results the goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees intensive manufacturing, and suggest that if financial firms cannot an- Celsius globally will be good or bad for housing. ticipate policy changes, economic shocks the economy as a whole. Some past studies Using a commercial will result when fossil fuel investments have looked at the risk of economic losses database, the researchers abruptly lose value. Early and orderly from extreme weather events. Others have reviewed information on Battiston S rollout of policies to control carbon emis- estimated the value of “stranded assets,” 14,878 EU and US compa- et al. A climate sions and limit global climate change will fossil fuel reserves that companies wouldn’t nies and 65,059 shareholders, stress-test of the facilitate financial gains from investments financial system. be able to develop due to carbon regula- and reconstructed the portfo- Nature Climate in renewables and help the financial system tions. The new study takes a broader view. lio of each shareholder. They Change. 2017. transition to a green economy. A

96 97 of climate change on marine organisms. The papers were published in 31 scientific journals between 1997 and 2013. But wait a second. How could the re- searchers know whether negative results are underreported, if those results might never make it into the scientific literature in the first place? They graphed their data using funnel plots, which take on a characteristic asymmetry when results are skewed. This attention should be paid to farming’s envi- approach has been used to detect publica- ronmental impact. tion bias for at least 30 years. And in this The oft-repeated “double food pro- case, the nice, symmetrical funnel plots duction” figure arose a few years ago from show no evidence of bias. some landmark studies carried out by the However, the researchers did find some United Nations and other entities. Their evidence of bias—not in which results are findings relied on both baseline food- reported but in how they are reported. By production estimates from 2005 and analyzing results found in abstracts versus predicted population increase from more the body of papers, they identified a sort of than a decade ago. But the new research scientific version of clickbait headlines: from Pennsylvania State University, the abstracts tend to emphasize significant University of New Hampshire, and Colo- results and the largest effects, while nonsig- rado State University used 2014 global nificant findings and those with a smaller food-production data as well as up-to- “wow” factor are relegated to the depths of date global population estimates for 2050 the results section. (which were actually higher than those in In addition, the highest-profile scien- the original studies). As a proxy for global tific journals tend to publish studies show- food demand, they focused on cereals, the ing the largest effects (and sometimes based planet’s most dominant agricultural crop. on rather small sample sizes). The difference Using these newer data, the researchers between the results reported in the abstracts found, surprisingly, that a food-production and in the bodies of papers is greatest for ©Pappaga1 increase of between 25 and 70 percent from these top journals. current levels (roughly historic rates) would That could shape the public and sci- actually be sufficient to meet the world’s entific debate around climate change. For Hitting food-production future food needs. This “recalibrated vision,” example, when nontechnical readers look at targets may not be as they call it, could ease the pressure to use scientific papers, they may be likely to focus even more fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation, on the abstracts and to look at the most such a stretch and tillage and to shift some of the focus famous journals. By Emma Bryce back to the environment. The study isn’t designed to identify Food production must go hand in what’s behind these patterns or why scien- hand with specific targets to reduce pollu- tists and journal editors make these choices. It sounds daunting: By 2050 we’ll have to ing in the journal BioScience has chal- tions, carbon emissions, and other impacts, But the results do provide a kind of reality double our food production in order to lenged that influential estimate, arguing Hunter M et the researchers say. And that will require al. Agriculture check, an outside view reminding us that satisfy the appetite of the planet’s rapidly that it’s due for a significant upgrade to in 2050: more-nuanced studies to figure out the best “science is a human construct, often driven expanding population. In fact, this statistic bring it in line with recent data. Recalibrating approaches for different crops in different by human needs to tell a compelling story, has become so deeply ingrained that it’s Their research actually paints a more targets for parts of the world. For now, at least, the sustainable to reinforce the positive, and to compete for being used to shape future agricultural optimistic picture of the planet’s future intensification. new data give us some breathing room to limited resources,” the researchers write. A policy. But a group of researchers publish- food needs—while stressing that far more BioScience. 2017. do just that. A

98 99 The International Energy Agency estimates that an approach would mean that 15 Energy subsidies the value of fossil fuel subsidies worldwide totaled percent of all fossil reserves in and the G20 billions $493 billion in 2014, up from $390 billion in 2009. existing and under-construction oil of USD Given these trends, it would be easy to forget that in and gas fields and coal mines in 2015 Do as I say, not as I do . . . 6 2009 the G20 agreed to “rationalize and phase out would be uneconomical - 100 over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies to produce. By Taylor Dimsdale that encourage wasteful consumption.” Progress since the G20 While renewable energy has also received public commitment in 2009 has been slow, support over the past decade or so through policies and the most recent (2016) G20 such as feed-in tariffs and production tax credits, this communiqué failed to make any - 80 is far outweighed by subsidies for oil, gas, and coal. further commitments on the reform of subsidies or financing for fossil Average annual fossil fuel subsidies* (2013-14)1 So how much difference do fossil fuel subsidies fuels. The G7 took an important n public finance make to the climate? According to analysis by the step forward last year by urging all n state-owned enterprises International Institute for Sustainable Development countries to eliminate inefficient n direct subsidy - 60 (IISD) and ODI, ending fossil-fuel production subsidies subsidies by no later than 2025. (4) would result in a reduction of GHG emissions by The G20 will get another chance to up to 37 Gt by 2050—or roughly 6 percent of the make good on its promises when the total needed to have a good chance (66 percent) major economies meet in July of reaching the 2 degrees Celsius target. (3) Such in Germany. A - 40

Spending by state-owned enterprises (billions of USD) 6

- 20 80 Average annual fossil fuel subsidies: spending Size of circle by state-owned enterprises vs. public finance represents total spending on and direct subsidies (2013-14)1 70 fossil fuels China

- 0 60 U K Italy U SA India rance Brazil C hina Korea Japan Turkey Russia F Mexico C anada Australia Germany Argentina Indonesia Saudi Arabia 50 South Africa Saudi Arabia

G7 countries Brazil Russia 40 To preserve any chance of keeping the global average temperature well below 2 degrees Celsius, most of Nuclear 22% Mexico the world’s coal, oil, and natural gas will need to be 30 left in the ground. A quick look at how the major economies are spending their money, however, shows that government policy has not yet caught up with 20 Global Energy climate science. The Overseas Development Institute Subsidies (ODI) and Oil Change International have compiled India Renewables 9% (2007-11)2 Oil 39% Korea data showing that the G20 countries are spending 10 over $440 billion annually to support fossil fuel Indonesia Argentina South Africa Japan USA production. (1) Accounting for subsidies is difficult Germany Coal 6% business because countries use different definitions, 0 France and accurate data are not always available. To arrive Italy UK at their own figures, the researchers broke down 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 support for fossil fuels into three categories: direct Natural Gas 24% Subsidies and public finance (billions of USD) spending and tax incentives, spending by state- owned enterprises (SOEs), and public finance from development banks or export credit agencies. Note: The graphs presented here were produced by the author using data from the Overseas Development Institute and Oil Change International. The graphs do not appear in the original report. 1. Bast E et al. Empty promises: G20 subsidies to oil, gas and coal production. ODI and Oil Change * While the researchers made efforts to avoid double counting, it is possible International. 2015. 2. Koplow D. Global energy subsidies: Scale, opportunity costs, and barriers to reform. Chapter 15 in Halff A, Sovacool BK, and that some government support through national subsidies may also be Taylor Dimsdale is head of research at Third Rozhon J, eds. Energy Poverty: Global Challenges and Local Solutions. Oxford University Press. 2014. 3. Gerasimchuk I et al. Zombie Energy: Climate accounted for in the SOE investment and public finance calculations. Generation Environmentalism (E3G) benefits of ending subsidies to fossil fuel production. IISD, Global Subsidies Initiative, & ODI. 2017. 4. G7 Ise-Shima Leaders’ Declaration. 2016.

100 101 Is kindness the solution to conflicts with wild dogs?

By Brandon Keim

Killing wild dogs to prevent conflict with humans actually makes matters worse, suggest researchers who analyzed dingo control programs on Australia’s Fraser Island. And the lessons learned there, they say, may apply to other species and places, from wolves in Alberta’s wilderness to coyotes in suburban California. On Fraser Island, wildlife authorities have tried to strike a balance between protecting dingoes and keeping their population from growing too large—the idea being that more dingoes means more opportunities for conflict with people. Regular culls of animals considered danger- ous began in 1991 and have continued ever since. Tensions boiled over in 2001 when two dingoes attacked and killed a nine-year-old boy. An estimated 120 of the wild dogs now live on the island, with the annual number of dogs killed fluctuating between several and several dozen. Plot that number against reported incidents of dingo aggression, however, and the killing doesn’t seem to have done much good. There are more such incidents now than when the program started. Usually that’s blamed on human expansion into once-wild terrain or on dingoes becoming habituated to humans and thus aggressive. But that, say the researchers, isn’t necessarily the case. The alternate explanation: that killing these highly social, intelligent, and emotional creatures leaves individuals traumatized and packs destabilized. Established territories break down; survivors fight for control. Though the total population isn’t threatened, the character of its individuals is changed. Aggression might be less about habituation than the psychology of stressed and suffering individuals. Indeed, surges in dingo-human conflict have tended to follow especially intense episodes of lethal control, says Adam O’Neill, an ecologist with the Dingo for Biodiversity Project and lead author of the study, which was published in Pacific Conservation Biology. “We are not the only social O’Neill A et al. Managing creatures on the planet,” he says dingoes on Fraser Island: “but we are alone with the power Culling, conflict, and an alternative. Pacific over all. It’s up to us to inspire ci- Conservation Biology. 2016. vility among our fellow species.” ©Dan Poole A

102 103 It’s not just what When they modeled also saw some salient re- we cook, but how we the outcome of a hypo- gional differences. India and cook that is overheating thetical 20-year cookstove China were found to be the eradication program in 101 biggest cookstove emitters, the planet countries, they landed on contributing the most to By Emma Bryce some striking numbers. temperature change. But the First, they found that by amount of emissions didn’t 2050, global temperatures always correspond to impact: would decrease by 0.08 Azerbaijan and Ukraine, for There are now 7 billion people on Earth. Every degrees Celsius. That drop example, have fewer cook- day, nearly half of them prepare their meals occurred primarily because stoves but a large impact on over an open flame or on a traditional the short-term impacts temperature. That’s because cookstove, using wood, charcoal, coal, ani- of aerosols such as black regional weather patterns mal dung, and other solid fuels. Collective- carbon will have played out. in these countries transport ly, all that cooking produces as much as 2.3 By 2100, they saw tempera- emitted soot over Arctic percent of global CO2 emissions, methane, tures decreasing by as much snow—which counteracts its and an estimated 25 percent of global black as 0.12 degrees Celsius in reflective cooling effect. carbon emissions. Black carbon, otherwise a world without solid fuel Eastern Europe and Cen- known as soot, along with other aerosols, cookstoves. Considering the tral Asia aren’t places where causes 4.3 million premature deaths every Paris Agreement’s 2-degrees cookstove interventions are year due to lung cancer, heart disease, and Celsius warming limit for commonplace. But in a more other ailments. the globe, that’s significant. nuanced and strategic ap- Such stark realities prompted a team of What’s more, researchers proach to tackling climate researchers from the University of Colo- estimate that the decrease change from the kitchen, ©Keith Weller/USDA rado in the US and Dalhousie University would also eliminate over perhaps they should be. A in Canada to try out some sophisticated 10 million premature deaths kitchen math. by 2050. Lacey FG et al. Transient climate By drilling down and ambient health impacts due Looking for the next to the coun- to national solid fuel cookstove emissions. Proceedings of miracle drug in city dirt try level, the the National Academy of researchers Sciences. 2017. By Sarah DeWeerdt

Bioprospecting—the search for drugs and Brady and his team other useful molecules produced by living extracted DNA from 275 things—often conjures up images of explor- soil samples gathered from ers in pith helmets traveling to far-flung parks in all five boroughs of locales in search of a miracle cure. But Sean New York City, then used Brady, a microbiologist and biochemist cutting-edge software to at Rockefeller University, has broken new pull out potentially inter- ground. He started digging—quite literally esting genetic sequences in the dirt beneath his feet. from the massively diverse Many drugs are based on mol- microbial mix. This ap- Charlop-Powers Z ecules produced by bacteria. It turns proach gave them access to et al. Urban park soil microbiomes are a rich out that soil bacteria in New York the molecules without hav- reservoir of natural City parks produce molecules simi- ing to grow soil microbes product biosynthetic lar to those in existing antibiotic, in the laboratory—which is diversity. Proceedings of the National Academy antifungal, and antiparasitic medica- difficult or impossible in the of Sciences. 2016. tions—and even in anticancer drugs. case of many species.

104 105 Some of the sequences from the New York City soil bacteria encode molecules similar to those in drugs already on the market, hint- ing that these microbes could be sources of new drugs in Weekly Science Dispatch existing classes. But the city park bacte- ria also contain many DNA sequences that don’t match any known ones. Could some of these sequences give rise to totally new classes of anti- biotic, anticancer, or other kinds of drugs? Or could Drones deliver less they have uses we haven’t even dreamed of yet? carbon pollution The bacterial genetic By Prachi Patel sequences present in soils vary from park to park. And the urban samples, though dis- Online shopping is booming, and unmanned aerial vehicles Get the latest sustainability science tinct from nonurban samples, (aka drones) are expected to take to the skies en masse delivered to your inbox harbor just as much micro- within the next few years to deliver packages. Incorpo- every week. We pore bial genetic diversity. The rating drones into the delivery system could be a good through stacks of peer- reviewed journals so researchers found one sample thing for the climate, a new study finds. you don’t have to. We from Brooklyn’s Prospect Engineers at the University of Washington looked at then craft short, sharp Park that contained genes en- how to best reduce carbon emissions from package deliv- summaries of the most compelling new coding more than two dozen ery in the Los Angeles region. They modeled scenarios in research from around molecules previously flagged which trucks and drones delivered a range of products to the world. Sign up as potential antibiotics or 50–500 recipients. for free. other medicines. All this sug- They assumed that trucks ran on diesel fuel and that gests that in-depth analysis drones recharged with fossil fuel–powered electricity. The of city soils could be just as model also assumed that the aircraft could carry only one promising as bioprospecting parcel at a time and that associated emissions from drones in remote areas. increased with package weight. The work is part of an The results showed that trucks are better for the ongoing citizen science proj- climate over longer, multi-stop delivery routes and that ect, Drugs from Dirt, which drone emissions are fewer when delivering light pack- aims to survey molecules ages over small distances. produced by soil bacteria To minimize emissions, the Goodchild A and in all 50 US states. So far, researchers say, a truck would J Toy. Delivery by Brady’s team has collected or haul packages to a central location drone: An evaluation received soil from more than from which drones take the pack- of unmanned aerial vehicle technology in 15 states and hopes to receive ages to homes and businesses. Such reducing CO2 emissions samples from school groups, last-mile delivery would be espe- in the delivery service naturalists, and other mem- cially effective in rural areas, where industry. Transportation Research Part D: bers of the public to fill in the trucks would not need to venture Transport and remainder of the map. A off main roads.A Environment. 2017.

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