Reprinted with permission

A Letter to the Editor in the May 2010 Park Bugle explained how some Neighbors for Peace are Fostering energy resilience. An October 2009 Bugle Commentary explains why we should care about Global climate change and what we can do about it. A November 2009 response said to Rethink climate change, and a December 2009 letter replied that Humans tip the balance.

Park Bugle, May, 2010

Ever since we were teenagers, we have worked for peace and social justice. And since moving here in 1982, we have been active members of St. Anthony Park Neighbors for Peace.

Now the scope of Neighbors for Peace has broadened to include conserving fossil fuels.

Energy conservation and alternative energy generation promote social justice and peace. Humans have always fought over limited resources. Lower use of fossil fuels helps reduce the risk of conflict and slows the rate of global climate change, while saving a share of these declining natural resources for future generations.

To foster a culture of peace now and in the future, we must conserve resources, use them more efficiently and develop viable alternatives to our current behavior.

For our family, it has been remarkably easy to reduce our use of electricity. Our year-round use is only half what it was five years ago.

We have tried to change wasteful habits. Each small step accumulates the savings: turning the thermostat down in winter and up in summer, changing to compact fluorescent light bulbs and switching them off when we leave a room, unplugging electronic equipment, hanging the laundry.

Our interest has been cultivated by the Energy Resilience Group (ERG). This small group began by studying energy-related issues and has sponsored films and a speaker in the past few months.

ERG hopes to inspire personal and community action. It is exciting that our community will explore and develop collective solutions to these pressing problems.

Surely our neighborhood has the experience, connections, motivation and ability to make this happen.

– Michael and Regula Russelle, St. Anthony Park

by Michael Russelle, Park Bugle, October, 2009

Look around at the evidence: ice at both poles is melting, glaciers are retreating, weather patterns and ocean chemistry are changing. Whole ecosystems are involved, fellow humans are suffering, international relations are threatened.

Global climate change is visible, measurable. The cause is invisible.

Like fish, we live in a sea – only ours is a sea of gas. We sense our atmosphere in the pressure of wind, the visual delight of sunrise and sunset, of cirrus and cumulus clouds, the smells of flowers and livestock, the sounds of children up the block or adults fixing our roads.

We notice our atmosphere only because it’s not a vacuum. Its molecules of gas, liquid droplets, and microscopic solid particles reflect and refract light, caress our skin, carry sound. Fragrances and odors are part of this gaseous sea.

And some of the gases trap heat.

These ‘greenhouse’ gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), water vapor, methane, and several others, absorb long-wave radiation given off by soil, roads, buildings, rocks, and water that were warmed by the sun. These gases make life possible by moderating temperature swings on Earth.

But now, like a greenhouse in summer, they are over-heating our planet.

Burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) is the main source of CO2, which is being added to our atmosphere and changing our world. The sobering fact, and one that must propel us to action, is that these changes may have become self-reinforcing. As permafrost in the northern tundra melts, huge amounts of CO2 are emitted, forcing more warming, more thawing. In other areas, drought caused by changing atmospheric circulation patterns tends to generate more drought.

So, what about 350 ppm? Many scientists think this is the maximum concentration of atmospheric CO2 that will allow us to reduce global warming. Currently, CO2 is at 386 ppm (parts per million on a volume basis), up from about 280 ppm in the 1700s. At current rates of CO2 sequestration, each molecule has an average lifespan of hundreds of years. The CO2 we add to the atmosphere will affect us for seven generations.

How can we reverse this accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere? Simply, we need to reverse the flow; more CO2 needs to go into the ground than we take out. Here’s what you can do:

Act individually.
• Reduce your use – drive less, eat local foods, turn off the lights, insulate and seal your attic…
• Switch your source – sign up for windpower, install solar photovoltaic cells or solar thermal air and water heating, ride your bike, push a reel mower, hang dry the laundry…
• Share your footprint – rent out a room, carpool, buy for others when you shop, loan your tools…


Take group action.
• Multiply your individual efforts, abilities, and resources by working as a religious group, school, business, book group, or block club.
• Read about and join in the International Day of Climate Action on October 24 (www.350.org).
• And become involved in the local efforts to transition St. Anthony Park toward a more resilient, sustainable future.


Encourage international action.
• We need big change. The world’s governments are meeting now to prepare for the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December (en.cop15.dk).
• The USA should have the vision, courage, and energy (pun intended) to reduce our CO2 footprint as fast as possible. Write your representatives.

This is likely the largest challenge we face in our lifetime – reducing our use of fossil fuels to temper global climate change and avoid conflict over increasingly expensive, limited resources. We generate the invisible causes of climate change. It is we who must change.

– Michael Russelle is a professor in the Department of Soil, Water and Climate at the University of Minnesota. He lives in St. Anthony Park.

Park Bugle, November, 2009

There is no question that the globe’s climate is changing. It has warmed and cooled before. It is not as warm today as it was some centuries ago, nor is it as cool as it was some centuries ago. These climate changes occurred before there were any automobiles and before there was as much burning of fossil fuels as today.

My understanding is that human activities have very little effect on the climate compared to many other factors, from volcanoes to clouds to variations in the amount of heat put out by the sun.

Among the many findings that dispute some environmental scientists’ claims are these:

• Man-made carbon dioxide emissions are roughly 5 percent of the total; the rest are from natural sources such as volcanoes, dying vegetation and animals.
• Annually, volcanoes alone produce more carbon dioxide than all of mankind’s activities.
• Oceans are responsible for the most greenhouse gases.
• Contrary to some scientists’ claims, the higher the Earth’s temperature, the higher the carbon dioxide levels. In other words, carbon dioxide levels are a product of climate change.

What is fundamentally at issue are the explanations, implications and extrapolations of relatively short-term temperature readings.

If we decide that many governments need to get involved with climate change, then we will get legislation that will dramatically affect global economies. Handicapping our use of efficient technologies creates higher energy prices and reduced energy availability. The economic impact from global climate change regulations will be less productivity, a lower standard of living and more people suffering.

Pretending these costs do not exist will not lead to better environmental policies nor will it lead to better economic policies. When governments make decisions based on self-deceptions, things rarely work out as planned. And once laws are written they are difficult, if not impossible, to repeal.

I worry that this issue has become a crusade rather than an exercise in evidence or logic. I worry that many of us are too committed to risking it all on a roll of the dice, which is what turning to anecdotal evidence is.

Whether or not one believes that global warming or global climate change can be affected by human behavior, people can agree that the decisions made regarding this issue could have long-term, serious consequences.

– Paul Kirkegaard, Lauderdale

Park Bugle, December, 2009

The November letter writer is correct that human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide are a small part of total CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.

However, not only does nature emit a huge amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, nature removes almost the same amount.

The result is that natural flows are quite closely balanced.

On the other hand, we humans put much more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than we take out.

The result is that the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is increasing almost 10 times faster than it would without our human contributions.

There is no doubt that our carbon footprint is big enough to affect nature.

– Tim Wulling, St. Anthony Park