Think globally, act locally

What Boulder scientists do (or not) in their personal lives to reduce greenhouse gases

Jim Erickson, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 17, 2006 at midnight

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Global warming is a hot topic these days and Boulder researchers have an up-close-and-personal view of climate change that most people never glimpse.

Boulder is an internationally recognized hub for climate-change research, with several hundred scientists working at federal laboratories and in various departments and institutes at the University of Colorado.

They measure the gases blamed for global warming, they monitor retreating Alaskan glaciers and melting Arctic sea ice, they use giant supercomputers to peer into the planet's future, and they study clues about past climates recorded in tree rings.

They are on the front lines of the rapidly evolving science, as well as the debate over appropriate responses.

The Rocky Mountain News asked five Boulder climate scientists and engineers what - if anything - they do in their personal lives to reduce their contributions to the heat-trapping greenhouse gases linked to global warming. Those gases include carbon dioxide, which is emitted by automobile tailpipes and coal- fired power plants.

Convertible Cabriolet

It's no nerdmobile and it's no traveling science fair project, Boulder mechanical engineer Bill Dubé says of the 1985 Volkswagen Cabriolet he converted to a zero-emissions electric car.

The yellow-and-red convertible is powerful, fast, economical and reliable. It's like a giant cordless drill on wheels - with a custom paint job - said Dubé, who works at the University of Colorado's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, building instruments that measure atmospheric chemistry.

Why did Dubé, 53, spend about $7,000 and roughly 400 hours of his own time to convert an old VW into this "little jackrabbit"?

"It's kind of a demonstration to people that, hey, you can do this. It works," he said. "I'm polluting less than everyone else who commutes around me - significantly less - and I'm demonstrating that it's a viable means of transportation."

The electricity that powers the car costs about 2 cents per mile, he said. At $3 per gallon, the fuel for a gasoline-powered car that gets 25 miles per gallon costs 12 cents per mile.

Dubé lives in Denver's Park Hill neighborhood and commutes to Boulder each day on U.S. 36, a trip of 28 miles. He plugs the car into a wall outlet at work and again when he returns home in the evening.

"It's as hard as plugging in a vacuum cleaner," he said.

Dubé pulled the engine, exhaust system and gas tank from the Cabriolet in 1998 and installed a DC series-wound motor and about 750 pounds of lead-acid batteries. Three years ago, he switched to nickel-cadmium batteries.

He's put about 40,000 miles on his "mustard-and-ketchup car."

"It's the right thing to do," he said. "It's about treading a little more lightly, and it's fun."

Dubé also designed and built the KillaCycle, an electric motorcycle that holds the world speed record - 152 mph - for an electric vehicle in a quarter-mile drag race, according to the National Electric Drag Racing Association.

Smaller footprints

When Susi Moser says she's trying "to make the footprint that I leave on this planet just a tad smaller," she's not talking about squeezing into tiny shoes.

Moser, a research scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, is talking about her personal carbon footprint, the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere because of her actions.

To reduce her impact on the environment, Moser, 40, chucked her clothes dryer and now uses a clothes rack to dry laundry inside her Boulder apartment. She's replaced all of her incandescent bulbs with energy-efficient fluorescent ones.

She takes three-minute showers to conserve water and save energy, watching the sand pour through a waterproof hourglass called a Shower Coach. She bicycles 3 1/2 miles to work most days, driving her Honda Civic when the weather's bad.

And she shops for foods grown locally or in the West, shunning produce flown in from South America or New Zealand.

"If every single American household changed just one incandescent light bulb to fluorescent, the total energy savings would mean that we'd need one less power plant," said Moser, who works in NCAR's Institute for the Study of Society and Environment.

"The cumulative impact of even small actions like these - puny, tiny actions - can make a difference," she said.

In most aspects of her life, Moser is "very low on the totem pole" of energy consumers, she said. But her NCAR job requires frequent air travel to places like Washington, D.C.

The flights bust Moser's personal energy budget. To make up for it, she calculates the value of the carbon dioxide emissions associated with her air travel, then sends an annual check to a company that invests in renewable energy projects.

Reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions is a daunting challenge, comparable to "turning the Titanic," she said. But the words of Helen Keller give her hope: "Alone, we can do so little. Together, we can do so much."

Twinge of guilt

Russ Schnell drives a blue-and- white 1986 Ford F-150 pickup that gets 8 miles per gallon around town.

A twinge of guilt flashes through his brain each time he turns the ignition key. Yet he's unapologetic.

"Morally, I feel guilty every time I fire it up or fill it up," said Schnell, who oversees a global network of observatories where greenhouse gases are measured.

"But when I look at my bottom line, economically, I smile," Schnell said. "And in the end, economics probably weighs more than social conscience, at least in my case."

Schnell, 61, said he takes flak about the gas-guzzler from some co-workers. And he knows that he should do more to reduce his personal contribution to mounting carbon dioxide levels.

But it's important to look at the big picture, he said.

"A lot of these people who buy those Priuses, they smirk to themselves at being great environmentalists," he said. "Then they jump on an airplane and go to Europe for a trip, and flying uses up a huge amount of fuel and dumps so much CO2 (carbon dioxide) into the air."

And consider China, where a new coal-fired power plant opens every nine or 10 days, Schnell said. The carbon emissions from each new Chinese power plant overwhelm the actions of countless do-gooders around the world, he said.

"When you look at the big picture, these individual actions are doing practically nothing," he said. "It's like peeing in the ocean. It makes you feel good, but it doesn't affect the ocean at all."

Schnell is director of observatory and global network operations for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder.

He bicycles about three miles to work when the weather's nice - to keep his weight down, not to save the planet - and drives the Ford in the winter and to run errands around town.

By keeping the old Ford, Schnell said he avoids the sizeable energy expenditure associated with manufacturing a new car or truck.

"A new vehicle requires iron ore that has to be smelted, copper that has to be mined in Bolivia or wherever, glass that has to be made, all of the rubber in the tires," he said. "Every new vehicle has a huge energy cost associated with it, and people tend not to include that in their carbon-footprint equations."

A job requirement

Atmospheric scientist Pieter Tans started bicycling to school while growing up in the Netherlands and has pedaled his way through life.

Each weekday morning, he bikes three miles to his Boulder lab, where he leads a team that analyzes air samples sent from more than 60 sites around the world. Levels of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases are painstakingly measured.

The Boulder lab's records chronicle the steady global rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide, an increase largely blamed on the burning of fossil fuels like coal and gasoline.

The preindustrial carbon dioxide level was 278 parts per million. The current concentration is nearly 381 ppm, a 37 percent increase.

"In the long run, this whole problem of climate change will be dominated by CO2," said Tans, 58. "If we don't tackle CO2 emissions, we'll get nowhere."

Tans said he bicycles partly for the exercise and partly "to waste as little gasoline as possible, within reason."

"My own personal contribution, of course, is minuscule," he said. "But somebody has to make a start. As a matter of principle, I think this is the right way to act, so I do it."

Tans and his wife, Susanna, own a 2003 Subaru Forester but drive it just 3,000 miles a year. When it snows, Tans takes the bus to work.

When Tans moved to Boulder in 1985, a convenient bicycling commute was one of his job requirements. He worked for the University of Colorado for several years before accepting a position at NOAA.

He is in the global monitoring division of the federal agency's Earth Science Research Laboratory.

Like driving a video game

Susan Solomon finally dumped her 1988 Saab last year and bought a 2005 Toyota Prius hybrid, which combines a gasoline-powered engine and an emissions-free electric motor.

"I'm not trying to set myself up as a model for anything, but I do get some satisfaction out of feeling that I am contributing," Solomon said. "I can feel like I'm doing my bit."

Solomon, 50, is an atmospheric scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She is best known for identifying the process that produces the Antarctic ozone hole. She also holds a key position with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations in 1988.

The IPCC periodically assesses the latest climate research and advises policymakers on the likely impacts of climate change. The panel's next major updates will be issued in 2007.

"About a third of the CO2 emissions globally are in the transportation sector," Solomon said.

"I'm not a fan of trying to cram things down people's throats. But if you choose to contribute less - in whatever it is you're doing to transport yourself around - it seems like it ought to be helpful," she said.

"I think it's a personal decision that every person on this planet should make."

Solomon walks to work at NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory, about a mile from her Boulder home. When the weather's bad, she takes the bus.

Motoring in the Prius is a treat because it's "like driving a video game," she said.

"Any techy kind of person will love a hybrid vehicle because you get to see where the energy is going and how many miles per gallon you're getting. It's absolutely fascinating," she said.

"The only problem is you have to keep your eyes on the road."

Four on climate's front lines

These folks are at the forefront of climate-change research and the debate about how to respond to global warming.

• Pieter Tans gets on his bike after stopping to drop off mail on his way to work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder last week. Tans started commuting by bike when he was a high school student in the Netherlands.

• Russ Schnell usually rides his bike to work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder when the weather's nice. Still, though he may feel a twinge of guilt when he fires up his gas-guzzling truck, he's unapologetic about doing so.

• Bill Dubé , a mechanical engineer at the University of Colorado's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, converted a 1985 Cabriolet to electric power and drives it to work each day. It costs about 2 cents a mile to operate, he says.

• Susi Moser, a researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, hangs her laundry on a rack to dry in her Boulder apartment on Wednesday. Chucking her clothes dryer is just one of many small actions that cut her personal carbon footprint, she says.

ericksonj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5129

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