ONE TOWN SQUARE: at the intersection of peak oil, climate change, and land use

Friday April 4 the House Interim Committee on Energy and the Environment, chaired by Jackie Dingfelder, listened in Corvallis to a parade of scientists laying out the ominous consequences for Oregon of global warming.

Legislators were warned that the increases in average temperature and disruptions to our climate that are already built into our future will have profound and adverse consequences in Oregon. Changing precipitation patterns and timing could reduce water supplies in summer 30-40%. Increased temperature and drought stress threaten our rangelands and forests, leading to the increased probability of wildfires. Changed patterns of seasonal winds along our coast could further disrupt the occurrence and timing of the nutrient upwelling that is essential for the productivity of our fisheries. Higher sea levels and increased wave action will result in increased coastal erosion and flooding.

I noticed the first minor note of disconnect from reality when Stella Coakey, Associate Dean of the OSU College of Agricultural Scientists, reassured legislators that Oregon agriculture could probably adapt to the expected changes in climate – although she joked that we might be growing cabernet sauvignon rather than pinot noir. She did add a caveat – Oregon “production” agriculture could adapt, providing we have the water. Was she in the room when Anne Nolan warned legislators to expect a 30-40% decrease in the availability of surface water for summer irrigation?

I found the most troublesome testimony came not from a scientist, but from Gail Achterman, one on the state’s most experienced and respected public figures. Achterman has a sterling resume. She is Director of the Institute of Natural Resources, is chair of the Oregon Transportation Commission, and is a member of Governor Kulongoski’s Climate Change Integration Group.

Achterman talked about ODOT’s role in Oregon’s climate change mitigation plan. And this is where the hearing began to get disconnected from reality. Achterman summarized Oregon’s four-part climate change strategy for the transportation and land use sector (this strategy is laid out and discussed beginning at p. 43 of the CCIG’s Final Report to the Governor: Framework for Addressing Rapid Climate Change:

• Use of low-carbon fuels
• Use of cleaner and more efficient vehicles
• Reduction in vehicle miles traveled (VMT)
• System management and optimization

So what’s the problem? We’ll examine these “strategies” more closely, one at a time. But keep in mind that Oregon has set a goal of 10% reduction below 1990 levels by 2020, and 75% reduction by 2050. 75% by 2050 isn’t good enough to keep atmospheric CO2 below 450 ppm – to hit that target, we’ll have to achieve 80% reductions globally, which means even greater reductions in the countries most responsible for emissions (including the U.S., which is responsible for about 25% of annual global emissions and 28% of cumulative emissions since 1850 and the beginning of the industrial age.) The report concedes that the strategies don’t get us to the 2020 goal – and contains no clue of how we plan to get to 75% reductions.

And as Jack Barth said to the legislators at Friday’s hearing, James Hansen has recently said that keeping atmospheric CO2 at 450 ppm won’t be good enough to avoid melting the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps, raising sea levels 27 meters and triggering catastrophic climate change. We’ve got to lower atmospheric CO2 levels from today’s 383 ppm to 350 ppm.

So hitting a target of 75% reductions by 2050 isn’t nearly enough.

With that preface, let’s take a close look at Oregon’s “strategies” and end with some comments about our seeming willingness to write off Oregon outside of Metro.

1. Biofuels. Low-carbon fuels in essence means biofuels. The report actually says that “cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel, and compressed biogas are among the lowest WTW [wheel-to-wheel] emissions fuels.” The report notes a couple of objections to biofuels – like increased food prices and adverse public health consequences – but brushes these aside and recommends mandating and subsidizing their use.

The report radically understates the consequences of diverting agriculture from food production to fuel production. We’re already starting to see skyrocketing grain prices and increasing food scarcity around the globe, resulting in spreading political unrest and raising the risk of widespread famine.

We’re also seeing land use changes such as deforestation as land is cleared for biofuels production. In the U.S., more marginal grasslands that have been in conservation programs are being plowed for biofuels production. Such land use changes release enormous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, carbon that had been tied up in soils and biomass.

Agribusiness-produced biofuels are heavily dependent upon inputs including fossil-fuel based nitrogen fertilizers, increasingly scarce and expensive phosphorus, and, in places such as the western Great Plains, India, and northern China, on depleting aquifers. Agribusiness biofuels production destroys our soils and ruins our fisheries.

The bottom line is this: biofuels worsen global warming while causing starvation and depleting our soils, waters, and fisheries. Yet biofuels are the first pillar of Oregon’s climate mitigation strategy.

2. Cleaner, more efficient vehicles. This strategy is described in the report as a “variety of technologies that reduce emissions by making cars more fuel-efficient or by trapping and sequestering greenhouse gases before they enter the air.”

This strategy is a version of Amery Lovins fantasy of a “hyper-car.” Jim Kunstler describes the fantasy thusly:

“a car that gets such supernaturally great mileage that it will save the human race’s threatened Happy Motoring program from extinction. The hyper-car program, which RMI still trumpets to this day, has, of course, the unintended consequence of promoting future car dependency.”

This strategy is for Oregon to piggyback on California’s low-carbon fuel standard. But EPA has blocked implementation, saying that federal regulation preempts state efforts. At least until a new administration is installed, this strategy is off the table.

3. Reduction in VMT. The report asserts that, although it’s a long-term rather than a short-term strategy, “reducing VMT is simply the single most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” This is, in a sense, stating the obvious: if we were to eliminate all motor vehicles, including trucks and buses, reducing VMT to zero, emissions from the transportation sector would pretty much be reduced to zero. But the report quickly limits the inquiry to non-freight VMT. We’re talking only cars and light trucks.

So how does the report suggest we reduce VMT?

First, pricing policies: congestion pricing on major highways; increased parking charges; eliminating minimum parking requirements and imposing maximum parking standards; cordon prices (like Stockholm and London); , carbon, emissions, and VMT taxes.

Second, transportation options: carpooling, bicycling, walking, transit and rail. But there’s not much juice here, as transportation options are pretty much determined by development patterns.

Third, land use planning. Sprawling suburban development patterns – large-lot, single-use residential developments located far away from destinations – require residents to drive in order to access jobs, schools, and stores. Higher-density, mixed-use developments are much easier to serve with transit and reduce the distances between residences and destinations, making bicycle and pedestrian trips much more feasible. The problem here is that we’ve already set our development patterns, literally in concrete. Achieving much here would require that we stop any expansion immediately and rely entirely on infill and redevelopment. Bringing growth to a halt is not on the table.

4. Optimize the existing system. The theory here is that fuel is wasted when people are sitting in traffic jams, and that reducing congestion will therefore reduce emissions. The report concedes that effects are tiny. The report also doesn’t consider “Jevons’ Paradox” – reducing congestion will encourage more people to drive, largely if not completely offsetting any gains made.

An exchange at the very end of the hearing made it apparent that there’s still a disconnect in the political world between global warming and peak oil. The report that we’ve been discussing does not address any VMT reduction strategies for rural areas at all. This attitude was confirmed at the committee hearing. It looks like we’re prepared to do something about VMT in the Metro area, but the rest of the state is different – distances to be traveled are immutable and nothing can be done.

Our rural land use patterns, like our cities and suburbs, have resulted from cheap and abundant oil, the automobile, and the mobility that they have made possible. People have lived in rural areas for millennia, clustered together in villages and towns for mutual support and companionship. Rarely have they lived solitary lives – and the more isolated and solitary they were, the poorer and more miserable they were for it. Peak oil means that people living in rural areas far from neighbors and amenities will be increasingly isolated by distance and by the expense of travelling. Rethinking our rural land use patterns is just as important as rethinking urban land use patterns, as our cities are dependent on their rural hinterlands to supply them with the basics of life. The fates of our cities and our rural areas are inextricably intertwined.