As publishers and authors scramble to figure out which of the quickly-evolving publishing paradigms will take hold, the issue of what product type is greener–ebooks or paper books–keeps coming up. In my mind, there is no longer any debate. The answer is clear. Ebooks are the preferred choice. Here’s why.

Looking Beyond Carbon

My wife (as many of my readers know) is a successful children’s book author primarily writing books about science and nature. Therefore, this issue is very close to our hearts.

Like most paper-based children’s books published these days, most of her books are sent overseas to be printed in Asia. One of our greatest fears about the sourcing of the paper used to print her books was recently confirmed: most of the paper used by Asian printers contains some pulp from virgin Indonesian rainforests.

This is absolutely devastating news to us. As avid naturalists who have literally spent thousands of hours in rainforests around the world, this confirmation of our fears hit us like a nail-riddled two-by-four in the face.

( See the Rainforest Action Network’s recently-released report, Turning the Page
on Rainforest Destruction: Children’s books and the future of Indonesia’s rainforests )

The e-book versus treeware book calculations do not, in fact cannot, take into account the loss of ecosystem services from the destruction of complex, highly-biodiverse virgin rainforest habitat. Unlike virgin temperate forests that are not as complex or species diverse, tropical forest recovery is a significantly longer process, requiring centuries. In fact, it is not yet fully clear if a destroyed virgin tropical forest can actually recover.

Environmental calculations that simply compare carbon emissions are woefully myopic. Furthermore, the more robust cradle-to-grave analyses (sometimes called life cycle analysis) are inadequate at fully quantifying the scope of ecosystem services. Ecologists are still discovering the immense complexity and real-world economic value provided by intact, virgin rainforest— vital services that are lost (possibly for good) when the land is destroyed.

Suffice it to say that ecosystem services of all forest habitat are numerous. And when comparing temperate to tropical forest ecosystems, those factors are often multiplied many fold. I will not go into the currently-known ecosystem services provided by virgin rainforest habitat. You can read the linked-to report to learn some of these.

Are We Hypocritical?

Of course, April and I did not turn our backs on the fact that books are printed on paper. Even before publishers started sending the majority of their children’s books overseas to be printed in Asia, we knew that forests in Europe and North America were being destroyed to print her books. Most of those forests, however, were non-virgin forests, having long ago been destroyed. We took some solace in the fact that very few virgin acres of temperate forest were being decimated for producing paper.

Yes, there are many environmental impacts of foresting, paper manufacturing, printing, and distribution of which the book publishing industry is complicit, but we rationalized that the environmental benefit of April’s message resulted in a net positive. With this recent revelation, the environmental calculus may have shifted to a net negative.

So the next time you read or hear a debate about the environmental costs of ebooks versus paper-based books, think about what is happening with the production of paper-based children’s books. When it comes to children’s books, we feel that the answer is clear. Paper-based children’s books need to be phased out. Paperless ebooks are the better alternative.*

What are We Doing About this Issue?

As some of you know, my project of the last several years is to build a pioneering ebook venture that will redefine the concept of book publishing and sales in the Web 2.0 / Web 3.0 Internet age.

My resolve has been strengthened many fold with this unfortunate news. I am redoubling my efforts and will be unveiling our new publishing vision later this year.

* It is not currently possible to fully account for the actual environmental costs of producing ebooks and ebook readers. But we feel that once those costs are taken into account (materials mining, solvents used for electronic component manufacturing, energy used in production and distribution, usage patterns, etcetera), the ebook ecconomy will still turn out to be more environmentally friendly than the old-style, habitat-destroying, paper-based publishing. Producing any product–hardcopy or digital–requires resource exploitation. We believe that fewer resources and significantly less sensitive habitat will be destroyed if the publishing economy transitions to being fully-digital based.

So, here are three sources to get you started:

1. My blog post, The Hot Air About Global Climate Change
2. A timely, short recap of the affects of global warming on global climate
3. A humorous, but poignantly true, report from the Daily Show

As I sit in my office looking out at a gorgeously sunny day–where I live, it’s an unusual treat to have 7 days in a row with bright sun in the winter–and pondering the fact that our average snowfall is almost 15% below for this time in February, I think how odd it is that states to our east and to our south are having an exceptionally severe winter. But, then I think about the science and realize that global climate change does not mean hotter and drier everywhere at the same time. So, if you are in the global cooling camp, please cool down your hot rhetoric and learn more about the science.

Global climate change has two, basic components:

• Global warming
• Greenhouse effect

These terms are often incorrectly thrown around on news reports, in political discussions, and on talk radio. Sometimes they are intentionally misused to mislead the general public. However, these three terms should never be used as synonyms.

The terms global warming and climate change are also sometimes used interchangeably by some scientists and politicians (like Al Gore). By mixing these terms in such a way, I believe they do a disservice to the understanding of climate processes.

What is Global Climate Change?

In short, global climate change is the accelerated change and alteration in Earth’s natural climate cycle. This change is brought about by an increase in average temperatures within the lowest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere—from which the term global warming is derived. Global warming, in turn, is the result of an increase in trapped heat energy caused by a build up of certain gases–both from natural and human-made sources–within the lowest two layers of the atmosphere. This is the greenhouse effect.

This is climate change in a nutshell. Without the solar-heat-trapping help of the greenhouse gases in the lowest two layers of the atmosphere, the Earth would be too cold to support the level of life that currently exists. But, as the concentration of key greenhouse gases increases as a result of human activity, the lowest part of our atmosphere warms faster than would be the case if just naturally occurring and produced greenhouse gases were the solo cause. This results in Earth’s natural climate cycle being thrown out of whack.

It’s Global Cooling, You Know!

Non-scientists who have an agenda–for example, certain radio talk show hosts–ignorantly (or irresponsibly) misuse the term global warming for their biased political purposes. The problem with their razor-like logic is that they do not know what they are talking about—or they are selectively choosing their data and terms to misled the public.

By focusing on the term global warming, they can then refer to all sorts of “evidence” that xyz has just had a record-cold winter, or that abc’s average (surface) temperatures have moderated over the last decade. So obviously, the Earth is not warming. It is getting colder. It is global cooling!

Up Above More Than Down Below

When scientists speak of global warming, they are not directly referring to the changes in surface temperatures over the decades (or millennia). Instead they are referring to overall changes in the temperature of Earth’s lowest atmospheric layer, the troposphere—where most of the planet’s weather occurs.

The troposphere has an average depth of 7.5 miles (ranging from 4 miles to 12 miles in thickness). It begins at our planet’s surface and extends above the altitude of commercial jetliners. Scientists studying global warming measure the temperature in the troposphere at many different places around the global. The measurements come from higher up in the troposphere and not from the surface—although land and water surface temperatures are useful for other reasons.

There are some researches who have claimed that anthropogenic global climate change is not real since the average temperature increase in the troposphere is not as great as the average rise in surface temperature. They say that satellite and weather balloon data backs this up.

However, that research has been peer reviewed and fatal flaws discovered. Here is a layperson’s article on the subject. If you are a scientist, you can search out the sources yourself and read the actual research.

The Scientific Process Has No Agenda

Those against the preponderance of scientifically, peer-reviewed evidence are simply ignorant or have ulterior motives. The scientific process has no agenda. It has worked very well for decades, bringing us many wonderful advances in medicine and technology.

Although the scientific process does not have an agenda, it is clear that some scientists (on both sides of any issue) do. All fields of study experience this unfortunate phenomena. This is inevitable. Some proponents of a theory, a belief, become so fervent in their world view that they act in unethical ways.

When it comes to the politically-charged issue of climate change, unethical behavior on both sides not only hurts the inexorable crawl of the scientific process, but also confuses the general public who has little understanding about the science behind the claims.

But, the scientific process itself is sound. The best discernible truth, at a given snapshot in time, is eventually determined. It is not necessarily the final truth. It is the best fit to the collected body of data given the then current understanding of all the numerous variables. As current processes are better understood, and new ones discovered, the underlying framework in a given scientific field improves. Here is a great example.

Hotter, Colder, Wetter, Drier

As the global climate changes, areas of the Earth will be affected in different ways. Some surface areas may experience colder than usual temperatures for a time. Some areas hotter than usual. Some may be drier, while others wetter. The weather patterns may become more erratic, sometimes even more severe. The affect of global climate change may be more pronounced in some years, and not apparent in others. So, just because there are stretches of time when hurricane activity or intensity does not live up to the hype, as an example, does not mean that the science is incorrect.

Over time, though, the climate will become more unpredictable as a result of the affects of the increase in tropospheric temperature. Those increases will impact the average surface temperature, causing it to slowly rise. Change may continue to occur in all directions, although the general trend over time will be an increasing average surface temperature.

Global climate change is simply about the rate of natural climate fluctuations being exacerbated by human activity. If we do not successfully ameliorate the impact that human activity is having on that rate of change, then the climate will continue to change at an accelerating rate, causing all sorts of potentially undesirable impacts to our planet and society.

You’re Grounded

Global warming is not something that is directly discernible by assessing the changes in surface temperatures over the decades. That is because global warming is a phenomena that occurs in the troposphere, not on the surface of the planet. But global climate change–the combined impact of the greenhouse effect and global warming–is something that can be measured in part by changes in surface and water temperature.

Science can discern a lot about the rate of global climate change by studying surface phenomena—ice cores, lake sediments, carbon content in ancient soil layers, and ocean temperatures and acidification. These studies can help to establish the previous rate of climate change and the natural fluctuations of our climate in the past. The study of air trapped in ice cores and of ocean acidity can help establish a reasonable picture of carbon dioxide concentrations over time.

I’m Not a Scientist. How Am I to Know the Truth?

If you are a trained scientist and can take the time to understand the underlying climate processes and theories, I encourage you to do so. You should read select research papers, assessing the studies’ methodologies, quality of data sets, analyses, and conclusions.

But if you are not a trained scientist, then reading peer-reviewed research papers will be of little help. So, the question is, How can the average citizen with poor scientific literacy know the truth?

That is a difficult answer. The best advice I can give is to not listen to politicians, general news reports, or radio talk show hosts. You need to listen to the real experts. You need to have faith in science.

Consider this thought. You wouldn’t go to your local congressman or radio station to have a medical issue diagnosed. Nor would you go to your local church or political rally to have your computer fixed. Medicine and technology are the happy outcomes of sound, scientific research. They are not the result of opinion.

The scientific process can never be perfect, but it strives to discern the truth. If the majority of scientists in a given field have determined something to be the probable truth, then it is a safe bet to accept their conclusions.

It is true that there are a number of examples of scientists, considered rogue at the time, whose “crazy” theories have turned out to be true. Those are perfect examples of the beauty of the scientific process.

As technologies and fundamental understandings improve, the accuracy of the body of science improves as well. Outlying theories that have merit can be reassessed, retested. If they turn out to be valid, they will eventually be accepted by the scientific community—although it may not be within the lifetime of the “rogue” scientist.

The Answer is…

The current preponderance of scientific evidence strongly points to a human-induced acceleration in the rate of change and alteration of Earth’s natural climate cycle.

This issue is being thoroughly researched and debated within the scientific community. If the consensus view is that anthropogenic climate change is real and poses tangible dangers to our way of life, then it is wise to accept this as the truth. It is better to be conservative and side with the science than liberally assume that the slim minority opinion is correct.

As a trained scientist, I have taken the time to read enough of the research and to fully understand the processes in question (to the best of my ability). I have decided to side with the consensus view, the view that the natural rate of climate fluctuation is being thrown off balance by anthropogenic causes.

It’s Global Climate Change

So, the next time you hear someone decry global warming, insisting instead that the planet is actually experiencing global cooling, you’ll know the flaws in their logic. And the next time you talk about this issue, please use the correct term—global climate change.