Oh b’rrrrrr. It’s January in Chicago and it’s snowy and cold outside. No news there. But when the temperature dips from the merely miserable into the realm of record-breaking arctic awful, it is the only news that matters. Snow at least can be shoveled. But 15 degrees below zero—with a wind chill “real feel” of 40 below—requires a full scale tactical retreat. Unless, of course, you happen to be a polar bear at Lincoln Park Zoo, in which case, it feels just like home. Or it should. It’s a bit of the North Pole come to visit.

In weather-speak, the polar vortex is a hurricane of frigid air that swirls around the arctic circle. For yet undetermined reasons, it weakened, flinging off a huge plume of coldness (or, as the Weather Channel’s Mike Seidel put it, “a big blob of bitter”) that will soon cover half of North America. Despite the obvious irony, many suspect global warming probably played a role in this. . 

It is certainly to blame for the record-breaking heat currently roasting  Australia where temperatures in the 120s (F) have become all too common.

"…The week-long heatwave that has gripped central Australia has ensured 2014 has started where 2013 left off.

In its annual climate statement yesterday, the weather bureau reported that Australia experienced its hottest year on record last year, with average mean temperatures 1.2C above the long-term average of 21.8C. Last year also recorded the hottest day on record, the warmest winter day and the warmest January and September since records began more than 100 years ago. Sydney and Hobart both recorded their hottest days on record…”
— “Brisbane braces for scorching heatwave” / The Australian, 1/4/2014

Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, looks at longer range patterns for climate trends. 

"What matters is this decade is warmer than the last decade, and that decade was warmer than the decade before. The planet is warming. The reason it’s warming is because we are pumping increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere."
—More Extreme Weather Events Forecast / NASA 

The result is record-smashing weather. While England has been battered this winter by a series of storms whose high winds and torrential downpours have led to catastrophic flooding and the Philippines is still in shock from its brush with the largest typhoon to make landfall in recorded history, California, number one for agriculture in the US, is entering its fourth year of drought.

Too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry, too much. Today’s high in Chicago is predicted to be the lowest ever: 10 degrees below zero. In Longyearbyen, Svalbard, north of the arctic circle, it will be a balmy 5 degrees above. What’s wrong with this picture?

THE VIEW FROM INSIDE 

Whipped into a preparedness frenzy by wall-to-wall weather coverage, most area schools have extended the winter break by at least a day and those who can are working from home or taking the day off. For the next day and a half, I will mostly be in the cozy cocoon of my kitchen. As long as the wifi holds, I am in business. 

A couple of weeks ago, hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses from Michigan to Toronto to Maine weren’t so lucky when a record-breaking ice storm made hash of the power grid. Tree limbs snapped cables and transformers shorted out. It took over a week to make repairs, with crews  from all over the country coming to the rescue. Repair costs are still being tallied but will likely run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, which at least in Maine, will likely be passed along to consumers. Vermont is angling for some federal aid. No matter who covers that bill, it doesn’t include the cost to businesses that were forced to close, or property damage from frozen water pipes, or the expense of having to buy generators or move to a temporary shelter. 

The kicker is that it could happen again. The repaired grid is just a vulnerable as ever. Not only ice, but fire, heat (see Australia), lightning, wind and heavy rains can bring down a grid. So can a good solar storm. Or terrorists. 

…“We are woefully unprepared for any large-scale geographic outage that might take place over an extended period of time,” explained Joel Gordes, research director for the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, an independent group that assesses the danger of such attacks and what it would take to thwart them.  He said that while some generators and transmission lines probably would survive such an attack, they might not be able to muster enough juice to reboot the grid, which experts call a “black start.”  And if critical equipment is damaged beyond repair, it might be necessary to transport replacement units long distances—an undertaking that would be difficult, if communications systems were also seriously damaged by the attack….
— "American Blackout": Four Major Real-Life Threats to the Electric Grid / National Geographic

It seems impossible, but it gets worse. Beyond the vulnerability and inefficiency of the grid (an estimated 7% of electricity is literally lost in transmission), it is in poor repair. Most of the transformers in the US were installed 20 to 30 years ago and need to be replaced, but the pool of transformer-savvy workers is shrinking fast: 

"…It is a fact that technical and skilled workers that truly understand the ins and outs of power transformers are approaching retirement. Their important skills and talents are fading from the work force. This diminishing resource includes electrical engineers who in past decades had selected this field of study in college, but now are pursuing more alluring careers in new fields like smart-grid automation and computer science.

Concerning manufacturing and repair, designing and fabricating transformers is a labor-intensive activity requiring special skills acquired from years and years of hands-on experience. There are simply too few mentors providing the necessary apprenticeships. Training costs have also risen.

The labor force committed to maintaining and servicing these transformers is experiencing the same labor and skills shortages as the fabricators working in the shops. This includes special skills in fluid processing, electrical testing, vacuum filling, and oil testing – skills that can take years to develop including rigid safety requirements.

— "The Perfect Storm in Transformer Maintenance" /  Bob Rasor, SD Myers, Inc. / Electric Energy Online

Why keep pouring good money after bad? 

THINK DIFFERENT: POWER EDITION

Later this year, when the ratepayers of Maine find themselves on the hook paying for a power outage that has already cost them so much, some will look to California for a better idea—one that could literally change the balance of power. The key piece of the puzzle turns out to be a car battery.

Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, also happens to be Chairman ofSolarCity, a company that leases solar panels. Adding a Tesla S battery to the lease package allows customers to store power generated on their rooftops during the day to be used at night. By the time all the subsidies are accounted for, the customer gets more reliable power for less money and the SolarCity can still make a profit over the life the lease. 

There are still a few hurdles when it comes to hooking up the main power grid: 

"…PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric – California three big utilities – however, have argued to regulators that such subsidized storage systems would saddle other customers with the cost of maintaining the power grid and thus they should be charged connection fees. In California, homeowners already receive a credit for the solar electricity they send to the grid that is used to pay for the power they use when the sun isn’t shining. If homeowners can hook up batteries to their solar arrays, the utilities asked, what’s to stop them gaming the grid by storing electricity from the transmission system when rates are low and then selling it back to the utilities when rates are high?…"
—”Why You Might Buy Electricity From Elon Musk Some Day”  / Todd Woody / The Atlantic

Never mind that electric companies have already gamed the system by charging more for energy when demand is high no matter what it costs to procure. Given the massive upgrades required for the grid, it would simply be a smarter move to “pivot,” as they say in tech, and rethink the business model altogether. The shift to distributed generation not only reduces the need for large central power plants, but also the need for massive regional grids to distribute the power that is no longer generated by those plants. Instead, microgrids could be configured for a building or a street or a neighborhood, boosting efficiency, cutting costs, decreasing vulnerability and increasing resilience. What’s not to love? 

For the time being, the California Public Utilities Commission is recommending that connection fees only be applied when a battery system can store more power than can be produced by a solar array (otherwise, the battery could be charged up when grid electricity rates are low and the  power sold back when rates are high). 

The bottom line is that no one can afford the old way of doing things. It’s too expensive and it’s wrecking the climate. Renewable energy plus battery storage plus microgrids equals lower bills and fewer greenhouse gas emissions. And, if we are lucky, a future where the polar vortex knows where it belongs. 

— J.A. Ginsburg / @TrackerNews

RELATED: 

Ice storm most ‘devastating’ event to hit Toronto’s trees, climatologist says / Tim Alamenciak / Toronto Star

U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure / Jeff Tollefson and Nature magazine  / Scientific American

Separating Fact from Fiction In Accounts of Germany’s Renewables Revolution / Amory Lovins / RMI

Europe’s Fossil Fuel Exit — 30% Of Fossil Fuel Power Capacity To Close By 2017, UBS Analysts Project  / CleanTechnica

How Microgrids are Bolstering the Nation’s Power Infrastructure / Justin Gerdes / Smithsonian magazine

Elon Musk: A Giga Factory For Electric Vehicle Batteries Needs To Be Built /  Dana Hull / San Jose Mercury News

From the Archives: This post was originally published on July 5, 2011, on a platform called webdoc, which is no longer in operation. 

A little advice for governments, NGO’s social entrepreneurs and anyone else hoping to help the “bottom billion” live better lives: Unless and until ecosystems services are taken into account, all efforts at poverty reduction will fail.

That’s the blunt, sobering message banker Pavan Sukhdev delivered in an address to the London School of Economics last April:

"Half to 90% of the livelihood incomes of the poor…are actually coming to them from nature. So if you are careless about managing these resources, or indeed the access of the poor to those resources, then you are, in fact, cutting at the very root of the livelihoods of the poor."

Protecting what has been called natural capital—the services nature provides—can be as direct as safeguarding a watershed, or as abstract as defending a rainforest. The value of the forest extends far beyond its trees and atomospheric carbon-absorbing capabilities. Above the forest, an “aerial river” forms that cycles freshwater critical to the survival of subtropical grain belt farms downwind. 

Over a billion people in the developing world rely on fish as their main source of animal protein, so ailing oceans and faililng fisheries are at once a natural tragedy and a human calamity. Decades of industrial-scale ocean trawler-fishing, clear-cutting mangroves for shrimp farms and the loss of coral reefs from pollution, disease, a warming climate and acidifying oceans have left millions of people hungry and out of work.

Their options are limited. They cannot survive where they are and often have nowhere else to go. 

The  economic gains of such rapacious fishing and shrimp farming tend to be short-lived and, once government subsidies are figured in, a financial wash, or worse, for local and regional economies. 

GDP as a measure of economic health is simply too narrow and flawed a tool, says Sukhdev. A full accounting—one that includes ecosystems services in the mix—tells a very different story.

In other words, the books are as cooked as the climate.

Assigning a value to what has always been free is not easy, so the G8+5 commissioned TEEB, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity project, naming Sukdev, a Deutsch Bank veteran, as its Study Leader. Its mission: to describe, quantify and propose mechanisms for capturing the worth of nature’s largesse.

Over the last four years, TEEB, which is hosted by the United Nations Environmental Program, has produced a series of reports aimed at a key players: national and local policymakers, the business sector and private citizens through its Bank of Natural Capital website.

Connecting the dots between environmental and economic health is about shifting incentives—the “enabling conditions—into better balance.”The sheer waste from wrong-headed development schemes and business-as-usual practices is staggering,” notes Sukdev. 

Each year, the top 3,000 global companies use an estimated $2.2 trillion worth of ecosystems services. Add in private and public sector consumption and “…you end up with something like upwards of $6 trillion per annum in social costs imposed by business-as-usual. That’s like 1/10 of the global economy,” says Sukdhev.

Atlhough the economist strongly believes in policy-driven solutions, changing course quickly will require a strong buy-in from the private sector, which accounts for 70% of the global economy and nearly 80% of employment. It would be in their best interests. The “free” stuff is running out.

Ecosystems & Epidemiology

TEEB’s list of ecosystems services is a long one, from double-duty mangroves that serve as fish nurseries and storm protection and double-duty rainforests that soak up carbon and regulate local climate, to plant compounds with medical potential, waste water-filtering swamps and soil microorganisms essential for crops health

Pathogen containment is another, often overlooked, benefit.

According to a study published in the Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases,deforestation in the Amazon rainforest has triggered an increase in malaria cases. Presented with acres upon acres of puddle-prone habitat in which to lay eggs, the malarial mosquito population did just that and their blood-sucking numbers exploded. The economy took a hit as well from people who were either too sick to work, or preoccupied with taking care of family members.

A warmer climate has also provied a boon for all sorts of insect vectors, including ticks. More survive through the winter and ranges have expanded. 

If you happen to be a moose in North America, this is potentially fatal news. In the old days, a single animal could easily pick up 30,000 “winter” ticks in the fall. But istead of falling off and dying in the snow come spring, ticks are landing on bare ground and surviving. Earlier thaws have also meant a longer tick breeding season. Now, some moose have been found with as many as 160,000 ticks. They literally are having the blood sucked right out them.

Back on the human medical beat, the tick that carries Lyme Disease also carriesbabesia and the Powassan virus and the incidence of all three diseases is on the rise. 

Babesia, a parasite causing an illness similar to malaria, is particularly worrisome because asymptomatic blood donors can contaminate the blood supply.

If that were not enough bad news, a single tick can deliver multiple pathogens, causing simultaneous illnesses, making diagnosis and treatment tricky.

Other strains of babesia affect cattle. In fact, babesiosis is among the most serious diseases threatening livestock all over the world and there is no vaccine.

Babesia was eradicated in the US during the 1940s, but veterinarians say it could easily stage a comeback. Ticks are starts to show resistance to the chemicals used to protect cows.The cost for managing for the first year of an outbreak is estimated $1.3 billion.

Just add it to the natural captial tally…

— J A. Ginsburg / @TrackerNews

RELATED: 

• Pavan Suhkdev’s website

• Global Climate Change and Infectious Diseases / NEJM, Emily K. Shuman, M.D.

• Deforestation and Malaria in Mâncio Lima County, Brazil / CDC, Sarah H. Olson, Ronald Gangnon, Guilherme Abbad Silveira, and Jonathan A. Patz

• Riders of the River / Texas Tick Riders (video)