[by Jessica Reilly, ERG Ph.D. student] 

“We need to jibe now!” I yell as an animal the size of our 39-foot sailboat crashes into the water a few feet off our starboard beam.

ERG graduate student Jess Reilly and partner Josh Moman aboard their research sailboat, Oleada

We’re sailing in open water in the Pacific Ocean, off the west coast of Mexico’s Baja peninsula. The wind is blowing a steady twenty knots out of the north, and the boat surfs down rolling five foot ocean swells. But a frisky humpback whale just moved two-thirds of its 70,000 pounds out of the water and into the air—a dumbfounding event that also spells trouble for our boat in the middle of the sea. Crashing with a distracted whale flying through the air is one of our many potential dangers out here.

My partner Josh and I manage to quickly jibe (move the sails from one side of the boat to the other with the wind at our back,) and skirt the breaching whale. We are on our way to Isla Cedros, about halfway down the Baja peninsula. After sailing through the night, we finally “drop the hook” (set our anchor) on the island’s rugged east side.

A view from an unnamed canyon on Isla Cedros back to our boat, Oleada. The name means wave, swell, or uprising

As we sit in the cockpit in the sun, a bright yellow panga motors into view from the north. A panga is an open boat with an outboard engine, designed by Yamaha in the 1960s to give fishermen access to shallow water while still tough enough to ride over ocean chop. The panga before us is piled four-deep with lobster traps. The fisherman standing at the back motors over and we start to chat.

I learn that this man, Eduardo, has fished here seasonally for twenty-seven years. The racket of elephant seals barking and screaming on the island continues, and Eduardo comments that this is the first year that the elephant seals have come to this part of the island. His style is thoughtful, pensive.

A curious visitor to the boat on Cedros

Since he has seen this island and its changes for a while, my interest is piqued. Without any leading words like “weather” or “climate,” I ask, is it different now here, or the same?

He turns his eyes to the sky and purses his lips, carefully considering my question. I lean forward.

Narrowing his eyes, he replies, “Different.”

“There are far fewer lobster now,” he says. “This year, from the effects of El Niño, the water is warmer, which is good for lobster, but generally there are far fewer now.”

His gaze stretches to the shore as he speaks, sifting through his memory. “Much has changed,” he continues. “For example, in 1997, there were three kinds of abalone: white, red, and black. That winter we had an El Niño, and the black—they disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” I respond, surprised.

“Completely,” he answers.

We chat more about life on the island, then he putters slowly away. With only a few simple questions, this man tied to the cycles of climate and weather recalled the changes to which he needed to adapt.

Pangas anchored in the harbor at the only town on Isla Cedro

So what happened to the black abalone? To Eduardo, the abalone disappeared because of El Niño, the weather phenomenon created by warmer-than-usual water in the Pacific at the equator. Peruvian fishermen noticed the warm water around Christmas in the late 1800s, thus naming it “El Niño” after the baby Jesus. In 1997, El Niño was credited with disastrous hurricanes in the Pacific and a horrendous winter for northeastern North America, among other weather challenges.

El Niño is a natural phenomenon, but climate change drives the frequency and severity of El Niños. Here’s how this works: the ocean is a lot of water (H2O), absorbed carbon dioxide (CO2) and heat (energy!), and it has been absorbing over 90% of the extra carbon dioxide and heat we humans have added to the atmosphere since 1955 (we went from 280 parts per million of CO2 to 401 ppm today.) If you add heat and/or carbon dioxide to water, it expands. When we're talking about a lot of water, like the Pacific, the heat becomes energy in the form of currents, eddies, and storms.

Hurricanes gain strength with the constant heat and moisture from open water, and they start to lose their energy once over land, in part because they can no longer draw warmth (energy) from the ocean. The hurricane season therefore ends as the water cools for the winter in both the Pacific and the Atlantic. But El Niño keeps the water warmer longer in the Pacific, and this has a global weather (energy) impact.

NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, declared in April that El Niño is officially here for 2015—although Eduardo could have told us that back in December, because he was seeing more lobsters and fewer big fish. Back in 1997, he also knew the fishery was different and the water was warmer, and, it seemed to him, a permanent change occurred as the result of that difference.

If you look up the cause of the mortality of the black abalone, you find Withering syndrome, a bacterial infection that causes the foot of the abalone to shrink, thus making it unable to cling to a rock. For this reason, the black abalone is globally listed as critically endangered. So was it just coincidental that they disappeared from Cedros during El Niño?

The magically iridescent interior of a red abalone, a species still harvested in Baja

As with many diagnoses, the answer is more complex than one cause. Black abalone can live in harmony with this bacteria—it doesn’t affect them. However, as soon as the water warms up even a little bit, they are overcome by this bacteria. Therefore, the abalone at Cedros may have been living with the bacteria, but a rise in ocean water temperature—less than four degrees Farenheit—brought about their collapse. Like a murder mystery, the bacteria is the smoking gun, but it was El Niño that pulled the trigger—and Eduardo lives in the neighborhood and can testify as a witness.

Scientists are calling this year’s El Niño “Godzilla,” and compare it to 1997. Already record number and intensity of hurricanes have occurred in the Pacific as the water warms. These changes impact not only the small abalone or the individual fishers like Eduardo, but the largest mammals ever to live on earth: whales. In warmer, nutrient-poor water, whales, like the one we saw breaching in the Pacific, struggle to find enough food. Whether or not we see them, the whales still exist under the surface, adapting or suffering with change.

From CPC

Much of the time, changes in climate are hidden from everyday view and our lives continue without a breach. But once in a while, these changes explode to the surface to disrupt our view, crashing down with an enormous splash. Indications of these changes are lived and breathed by Eduardo and others who live tied to the coast. We can listen to their observations and take heed of their accounts of the sudden or long-term change. We can learn how to adapt nimbly and with care for our resources. But we must always be on deck to scan the horizon for these events. Eduardo is standing watch at the helm—we just have to listen.

Although I didn’t get a photo of Eduardo, I caught this shot of Don Jose in La Paz. He’s a lifelong fisherman who used to fish by sail. His stories of changes over time have real meaning for the scientific community

For more on Jessica's posts on the sea, go to her personal website Sailing for Climate here.

Note: The views expressed here belong solely to the author of each entry and are not representative of the position of the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.

By Diego Ponce de León Barido
Translation by Tanya Dimitrova

México es un país dotado de magníficos recursos de energía renovable a pesar de lo cual se pronostica  por los expertos  una severa crisis energética en la siguiente década [1].  Ante la constante disminución en la producción de sus pozos petroleros mas importantes, y con el inevitable crecimiento de la demanda energética en el país, se espera que México será un importador neto de energía para el año 2020 [2].  En un análisis reciente  sobre el potencial para el crecimiento de la energía renovable en América Latina y el Caribe, México se situó en el sexto lugar (por debajo de Brasil, Nicaragua, Panamá, Perú y Chile), es decir, es un país con importante potencial pero con significativas barreras para poder explotar, por ejemplo, los 71 GW de potencial eólico que posee (un valor que podría cubrir 3 veces la demanda anual de energía eléctrica del sector residencial en el país) [3,4]. Estas barreras no están solamente ligadas a temas de ingeniería y finanzas, sino también a temas culturales  de igual (o mayor) importancia como lo son las tensiones sociales  y la historia.

A child learning to fish while his father is going out at sea in Oaxaca, Mexico, 2013. Like anywhere in the word, renewable energy in Mexico can only be successful if the needs and desires of the communities with the greatest potential for renewable production are taken into account. Every day large energy projects (both fossil and renewable) meet resistance at the local level.

Un ejemplo es el viento en México, que sopla generosamente en el Istmo de Tehuantepec, una región rica en diversidad cultural y recursos naturales cuyo potencial ha sido recientemente ensombrecido por fuertes tensiones relacionadas al desarrollo de la energía eólica en la región. Solamente incorporando a todas las voces, desde aquellas que brotan del mismo lugar donde nace el recurso energético, hasta aquellas que firman los contratos en los niveles mas altos del gobierno, podrá el país desarrollar un potencial energético y económico que sea justo para todos los mexicanos. La historia de nueva cuenta presenta disyuntivas  y la energía juega nuevamente un rol fundamental – tomemos esta oportunidad, para evitar los errores de nuestro pasado, y para incluir a todos los mexicanos en el futuro sustentable de nuestro país. 

The first wind farm in Mexico was built in 1994 in the community of La Venta (La Venta I), Oaxaca, with an installed capacity of 2 MW. Currently the wind potential in Mexico is valued at 71 GW, a huge energy resource, renewable, for the country.

La Ventosa wind farm in Oaxaca, Mexico 2013: Renewable energy offers a chance to integrate communities that have remained isolated for decades, and an opportunity for energy development that takes into account environmental justice, water energy consumption, and the environment.

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Despite the fact that Mexico is a country with great renewable energy resources, experts predict that it will face a severe energy crisis in the next decade [1]. Given the constant decrease in production of its major oil wells, and the inevitable growth of energy demand in the country, Mexico is expected to be a net importer of energy by 2020 [2]. In a recent analysis of the potential for renewable energy growth in Latin America and the Caribbean, Mexico was sixth following Brazil, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Chile [3]. In other words, it is a country with great but hindered potential to exploit, for example, the 71 GW of wind energy it has - an amount that would cover 3 times the annual energy demand of the residential sector in the entire country [4]. These barriers are related not only to engineering and finance, but also to cultural issues such as social tensions and history, which are of equal (or greater) importance.

One example is the wind generously blowing in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a region rich in cultural and natural resources whose potential has recently been overshadowed by tensions related to wind energy development. Only by incorporating all voices, from those of people living in the place of the energy resource, to the people signing government-level contracts, could the country develop energy and economic potential that is fair to all Mexicans. History offers tradeoffs, and energy plays a fundamental role yet again. Let us take this opportunity to avoid the mistakes of the past, and to include all Mexicans in the sustainable future of our country.

[1] José Luis Calva et al. Crisis Energética Mundial y Futuro de la Energía en México. Consejo Nacional de Universitarios.  Juan Pablos Editorial. Coyoacán: México. 2012.
[2] Alma E. Muñoz. ‘Sin cambios de energía, México será importador neto en 2020: Subsecretario’. La Jornada (Sección: Economía).  Jueves 23 de Mayo de 2013.
[3] CLIMASCOPIO 2012: Cambio climático y clima de inversión en América Latina y el Caribe. 2012. Fondo Multilateral de Inversiones y Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Enlace: http://www5.iadb.org/mif/climatescope/2012/
[4] Secretaria de Energía y Comisión par el Uso Eficiente de la Energía: Enlace: http://www.promexico.gob.mx/es_us/promexico/Renewable_Energy

The views expressed here belong solely to the author of this entry and are not representative of the position of the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.

By Ann Brody Guy

This article originally appeared in Breakthroughs, the magazine of UCB College of Natural Resources

Diego, Ranjit and Ana working to instal the biodigester. (Credit: Sharada Prasad)

“It’s a big plastic stomach that’s outside in the yard, with a pipe that leads into the kitchen.” That’s how Ranjit Deshmukh, an ERG Ph.D. candidate, described the biogas digesters he and eight other Berkeley students installed this winter in five households in the Mayan community of Yaxche in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.

The contraptions take livestock waste and digest it anaerobically — bacteria decompose the waste, sans oxygen, and convert it to methane and carbon dioxide. The clean-burning methane is used for cooking, and as an added benefit, the digested waste makes excellent farm fertilizer. “It’s the cleanest, most sustainable energy system,” Deshmukh said.

The project was the brainchild of Deshmukh and his former Humboldt State University classmate Alex Eaton, who builds and installs the kits through the International Renewable Resources Institute-Mexico (IRRI), which Eaton directs. The students — eight ERGies and one from the Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management — wanted to travel, and to contribute to the communities they’d visit. Through IRRI they identified a community that used three-stone fires, the most polluting kind of cookstove.

The students raised $2,000 from friends and family to cover the cost of five prefabricated digester kits, and a Yucatan nongovernmental organization, Fundacion Mundo Maya, partially matched their funds. Everyone paid their own travel expenses.

Working together with the locals, the group installed the biogas generators. Of course, new stoves meant celebratory cooking. The best post-installation meal? “Definitely the homemade waffle cones and ice cream,” Deshmukh says.

Written by Diego Ponce de León Baridó, Lindsay Holiday and Rebekah Shirley

This winter, Ranjit, Sasha, Felix, Ana, Grace, Sharada and ourselves (Diego, Lindsay, and Rebekah) traveled to the Yucatan state of Mexico to enjoy the warm water and sunshine of Central America and to work with Alex Eaton, Ranjit’s long-time friend and social entrepreneur. Alex is the CEO of Sistema Biobolsa and our aim was to help install five biogas-digesters that we helped fund in the Mayan community of Mani. The Mayan people of Mani continue to speak their indigenous language, eat traditional foods, use their traditional medicine, and seemed to hold unique, communal values that have lasted through time and seem to bind the community together.

It was incredible to work as a team, to travel with other ERGies and to see the components of a fantastic trip unfold: nature, sustainable development, friendship, love and adventure go hand in hand! For instance, the group spent the first three days of our time in Tulum, a quaint coastal town that is part of the karst landscape of the peninsula. Here water flowing through the limestone over hundreds of years has led to the formation of many connected underground caverns, called cenotes, along the Riviera Maya. The three of us had the opportunity to scuba dive through two cenotes. Down in the deep, quiet depths of the cave, the mystery of nature imposes itself on you. The ivory stalagmites like crumbling, ancient Grecian pillars were almost a stage for some Shakespearean tragedy. The eerie scene demands your attention, and your awe. It reminded us that even here, in the forgotten darkness, nature is beautiful, bold, teeming and alive. We were inspired by the sheer weight of that experience and it geared us up for the work ahead. In our own ways, all of us experienced new things through photography, diving, snorkeling, swimming, language, food, and culture. Indeed, the novelty in life blooms when surrounded by a positive and challenging environment, and new friendships.

Diving in the deep blue waters of Cenote ‘Dos Ojos’ was a ‘one in a life time’ opportunity for several of us! It is amazing to know that there is a lot in the world that is yet to be experienced and seen with our own eyes, development work and friendships from all over the world make this not only meaningful, but possible as well! Photo Credit: expertvagabond.com

Diego, Rebekah and Lindsay after the dive in ‘Dos Ojos’. After we finished our work in Yucatan and Quintana Roo we traveled to Mexico City to continue discovering the country and held stakeholder meetings for another ERGie project measuring the energy embedded in household water consumption in Mexico.

While in Mani we were hosted by a local agriculture and ecology training center (Mayan: ‘U Yits Ka’an, Escuela de Agricultura Ecologica). Being in this peaceful, gorgeous oasis of warm smiles, lush green forest and amazing home cooked Mexican meals was worth a trip in itself. In a matter of only five days, our ERG group managed to learn the mechanics of the biogas-digester system, inspected four households where they were currently installed, and installed five new systems. We also designed and built a hot water heating system for the school’s shower. We created a routine of helping and working together with each other and the community, and were immersed in a supportive space for collaboration and boundless ideation. Lindsay, often reflected on the similarities to existing social, political, cultural and infrastructural challenges that exist in her own Navajo reservation in Arizona. Diego, a Mexican himself, was blown away by a Mexico that he was only beginning to discover, and Rebekah, who hails from the Caribbean was touched by the friendships she formed with strangers of the village. It was a reminder that our differences do not divide us. Rather, the glue of curiosity binds us together. Needless to say, we had an amazing time of revelation and learning and we hope to have many more experiences like this again in the future together. 

Grace with women involved in the BioBolsa project, Woman Power in Mexico! ☺

Written by Diego Ponce de León Baridó

Growing up in Mexico City, and everyday on our way to school, my sister and I would stare at the two highest mountains in the country: Pico de Orizaba (5,600 meters) and Iztaccihuatl (5,200 meters). At sunrise, and after a hard rain, the mountains would rise over a thick layer of smog, would fade throughout the day, but would always return at dawn. Omnipresent, yet taken for granted, these mountains and their glaciers go largely unexplored by most Mexicans, including myself, as it took me more than 20 years to break away from the urban jungle. 

On the glacier at the top of ‘Pico de Orizaba’ with my uncle Hector and Kat. Spending time with family in challenging adventures makes long lasting bonds (Kat still smiling despite breathing less than 50% her usual oxygen intake!)

Urbanization, the unstoppable force driving the future of human settlements, is high (>80%) in the developed world, but urbanization growth rates are much higher in rising and developing economies. Where urbanization has a positive effect (mainly rich countries with strong environmental policies), society benefits: increased investments in public transport, less vehicle miles traveled, more localized health and education services, and a gradually smaller environmental footprint. In the developing world, however, urbanization is a force that has not come accompanied with better services, particularly because of inequality in the distribution of services and a strong focus on unconstrained growth.  More important however, and despite the benefits of urbanization, is our losing touch with nature. One cannot expect an urbanite, struggling to make ends meet (rich and poor), to worry about the forest or the groundwater that is being cut and depleted to grow food, or to worry about the glaciers that are melting, risking water availability for millions throughout the world. The connection between our immediate reality and the services provided by nature are lost in the city.

There are few experiences in my life that have been as enriching as mountaineering. Up there, time passes slowly, nature challenges you in a positive way, and the unmoving power of the mountain humbles you down to your feet, and to a few deep breathes.  You see water melting away, trickling its way to a river, unto a pipe, and to a city.  You see water making its way to a dam. Out there the connection is obvious, but only if your privileged enough to spend time outside, or poor enough to live off the land in some of the most isolated areas of the world. The space in between these two extremes is massive.

To me, being outside fills me with purpose and reminds of the interconnectedness of nature and society. The experience is unparalleled. But how can more people enjoy this? How can we bring nature, and these raw experiences, to the city? Making these linkages will be crucial in communicating climate change for an increasingly urban population, that doesn’t go outside. For now, I’ll keep exploring California, spending time outside with friends, and in the near future, begin volunteering with Bay Area Wilderness Training  (BAWT), an NGO focused on taking urban youth outside. I hope some of you will join me there!

 At the summit of White Mountain (4,300 m) in California, with Carlos, one of my best friends who works at PG&E and with a new found interest on the relationship between energy and the environment.