Biosphere 2.0

Step right up, folks, because now you can rent your very own biosphere. Biosphere 2, that is, the Arizona-based facility that mimics every biome on the planet -- jungle, grassland, ocean and so on -- within a hermetically-sealed 300,000-square-ft space. The University of Arizona saved Biosphere 2 from the hands of real estate developers this month, and is now offering to lease it to anyone who wants to study the effects of climate change. This is a pretty cool idea, and it's surprising that we got this far into the global warming crisis without coming up with it. Think you've got an excellent plan for carbon sequestration? Try it out in a miniature version of Earth before applying it to the real thing.

The $200 million Biosphere 2 has had a strange history since its construction in 1989. Originally designed as an experiment in space colonization: imagine this facility was plopped down on Mars, and had to be entirely self-sustaining, crops and humans and all, for two years. But it lost a lot of credibility when extra oxygen had to be pumped in to save the seven human inhabitants. Why? Because carbon dioxide in the Biosphere 2 atmosphere was reaching dangerously high levels. Lemons for space colonization; lemonade for our current climate crisis.

I took a tour of Biosphere 2 a couple of years back, when it was being administered by Columbia University. It was a delightful experience, like going around the world (minus the cities) in two hours. If I had the biotech know-how, I'd be locking myself in there with a team of climate scientists right now, perhaps experimenting with this interesting new idea that organically-farmed soil might be good for global warming. And the ever-present threat of rising CO2 levels? That'd be a hell of a good incentive to sort the problem out ASAP.

Epocalypse Now

Take 15 minutes out of your day to watch the following video of John Doerr, a man who is to venture capital what Elvis was to music. At the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in March this year, Doerr broke down in tears describing how a conversation with his daughter about the climate change crisis spurred him on a mission to see what he, and other VCs and entrepreneurs, can do about it. Here it is:

Doerr is only the latest in a long line of luminaries to expressed in a very public way their very real fear of a coming eco-apocalypse --- or, as I prefer to say, epocalypse. it's hard to believe sometimes, especially for those of my generation who grew up with the threat of instant Apocalypse, and I find I have to keep reminding myself in very simplistic terms that the Earth's atmosphere is a fragile thing, a membrane we are clogging up with the mucus we call carbon dioxide. I have to keep thinking of the drowning polar bears at the iceless North Pole, of the vanishing snows of Kilimanjaro, of Katrina and her likely descendents. it's hard when there is no daily reminder. The way our news media is set up works well when the threat emanates from a particular country or group of people. But how often can you repeat dry facts about carbon molecules in the air and Greenland's ice shelf sliding into the sea? It gets dull, too dull for the front page, even though the subject is of such staggering importance that it should be on the front page every day. it is easy, way too easy, to bury your head in the magical retail world we live in; the world that is, however imperceptibly, causing the problem in the first place. That's why we need more people like Doerr to stand up and say they're afraid. We need more emotional resonance. We need more leadership. We need everyone to know in their guts that this problem will not be solved without full on participation. When the smartest guy in the room talks about the end of the world and starts crying, that's when you know panic is an appropriate response.

Earth Deadline: Eight Years to Go

Dr. Samuel Johnson said it best: nothing so concentrates the mind as the sight of the gallows. In other words, to get stuff done, we humans need a deadline.

Today we're facing the mother of all time constraints: it seems we have no more than eight years to avoid a major planetary catastrophe.

Earlier this month, scientists on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the third of their devastating reports on greenhouse gas emissions. We have until 2015, it said, to roll back emissions and limit global warming's effects to a relatively manageable 4-degree rise.

Believe it or not, there's a silver lining to that grim prediction. The fight against climate change has, until now, lacked a firm timetable to spur businesses and governments into thinking smarter about solutions.

As Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality, told reporters after the UN report came out: Americans need deadlines. "[They] say 'tell me how much I need to achieve in a specific sector by when," he said.

Well, now we know: eight years. A short time? Perhaps. But a lot can be done in eight years if we set our minds to it. Consider that the Internet had 16 million users in 1995, and three quarters of a billion users in 2003.

There is every sign that a similar growth spurt is about to take place in the world of clean energy. Today, wind power, solar power, and biofuels are all sizable sectors, with yearly revenue ranging from $16 billion to $21 billion.

In the next decade, all of them will pass the $60 billion mark, according to research firm Clean Edge. Biofuels alone may be an $80 billion industry by the time we reach the UN scientists' deadline in 2015.

The Carbon Calculator Massage

Well, that's a load off. About a year after seeing An Inconvenient Truth, I finally went to the website and did my carbon offsetting calculations. I'm pretty average, as it turns out: way less driving than the average American (and more of it in a Prius), but way more flying --- and way, way more transatlantic flying. (Air travel is the fastest growing cause of carbon dioxide emissions. But what am I supposed to do? Not see my family?)

But now, for a mere seven dollars a month, I can offset my guilt. For that, at its heart, is what carbon offsetting is all about. You pays your money, you gets you instant shoulder massage. I know this, you know this, Al Gore’s Tennessee mega-mansion knows this. And the fact is, there’s nothing wrong with offsetting our guilt. An entire nonprofit economy depends on us doing so as frequently as possible. Guilt feeds and clothes children, frees political prisoners, and saves pandas; why can't it also be harnessed to help stop global warming?

Carbon offsetting may be a crude and ultimately inaccurate calculation. But without it, I wouldn't be spending seven dollars a month on wind farms and biofuel aid. If everyone in the
US paid that same measly amount to offset their global warming guilt, that would make an extra $252 billion in alternative energy investment every year --- hell, not even investment. Clean tech companies get our guilt cash for free, and we get to get on with our lives, breathe easier, fly when we want, and have thoroughly loose shoulders.

Fuel? My Home Don't Need No Steenkin' Fuel

All hail the Enertia House, a low-tech miracle of a home that doesn't ever need to be heated or cooled. After all, hot air (insert your own joke here), the hot ground (ie. geothermal energy) and clever ventillation will do the same job. Just take one solid-wood skin,  add a special "envelope" on the immediate interior to circulate and exchange air, and watch your gas heating bills vanish. Heat can be stored in the wood itself. The result was the winner of the History Channel modern marvels contest, partly sponsored by my former employer TIME.