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This is an adaptation of a talk delivered February 26 at the National Press Club. Comments relating to policy are Dr. Hansen's personal opinion and do not represent a NASA position.
There's a huge gap between what is understood about global warming by the relevant scientific community and what is known about global warming by those who need to know: the public and policy-makers. We've had, in the past thirty years, one degree Fahrenheit of global warming. But there's another one degree Fahrenheit in the pipeline due to gases that are already in the atmosphere. And there's another one degree Fahrenheit in the pipeline because of the energy infrastructure now in place--for example, power plants and vehicles that we're not going to take off the road even if we decide that we're going to address this problem.
The Energy Department says that we're going to continue to put more and more CO2 in the atmosphere each year--not just additional CO2 but more than we put in the year before. If we do follow that path, even for another ten years, it guarantees that we will have dramatic climate changes that produce what I would call a different planet--one without sea ice in the Arctic; with worldwide, repeated coastal tragedies associated with storms and a continuously rising sea level; and with regional disruptions due to freshwater shortages and shifting climatic zones.
I've arrived at five recommendations for what should be done to address the problem. If Congress were to follow these recommendations, we could solve the problem. Interestingly, this is not a gloom-and-doom story. In fact, the things we need to do have many other benefits in terms of our economy, our national security, our energy independence and preserving the environment--preserving creation.
First, there should be a moratorium on building any more coal-fired power plants until we have the technology to capture and sequester the CO2. That technology is probably five or ten years away. It will become clear over the next ten years that coal-fired power plants that do not capture and sequester CO2 are going to have to be bulldozed. That's the only way we can keep CO2 from getting well into the dangerous level, because our consumption of oil and gas alone will take us close to the dangerous level. And oil and gas are such convenient fuels (and located in countries where we can't tell people not to mine them) that they surely will be used. So why build old-technology power plants if you're not going to be able to operate them over their lifetime, which is fifty or seventy-five years? It doesn't make sense. Besides, there's so much potential in efficiency, we don't need new power plants if we take advantage of that.
Second, and this is the hard recommendation that no politician seems willing to stand up and say is necessary: The only way we are going to prevent having an amount of CO2 that is far beyond the dangerous level is by putting a price on emissions. In order to avoid economic problems, it had better be a gradually rising price so that the consumer has the option to seek energy sources that reduce his requirement for how much fuel he needs. And that means we should be investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies at the same time. The result would be high-tech, high-paid jobs. And it would be very good for our energy independence, our national security and our balance of payments.
But a price on carbon emissions is not enough, which brings us to the third recommendation: We need energy-efficiency standards. That's been proven time and again. The biggest use of energy is in buildings, and the engineers and architects have said that they can readily reduce the energy requirement of new buildings by 50 percent. That goal has been endorsed by the US Conference of Mayors, but you can't do it on a city-by-city basis. You need national standards. The same goes for vehicle efficiency. We haven't had an improvement in vehicle efficiency in twenty-five or thirty years. And our national government is standing in court alongside the automobile manufacturers resisting what the National Research Council has said is readily achievable--a 30 percent improvement in vehicle efficiency, which California and other states want to adopt.
The fourth recommendation--and this is probably the easiest one--involves the question of ice-sheet stability. The old assumption that it takes thousands or tens of thousands of years for ice sheets to change is clearly wrong. The concern is that it's a very nonlinear process that could accelerate. The west Antarctic ice sheet in particular is very vulnerable. If it collapses, that could yield a sea-level rise of sixteen to nineteen feet, possibly on a time scale as short as a century or two.
The information on ice-sheet stability is so recent that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report does not adequately address it. The IPCC process is necessarily long and drawn out. But this problem with the stability of ice sheets is so critical that it really should be looked at by a panel of our best scientists. Congress should ask the National Academy of Sciences to do a study on this and report its conclusions in very plain language. The National Academy of Sciences was established by Abraham Lincoln for just this sort of purpose, and there's no reason we shouldn't use it that way.
The final recommendation concerns how we have gotten into this situation in which there is a gap between what the relevant scientific community understands and what the public and policy-makers know. A fundamental premise of democracy is that the public is informed and that they're honestly informed. There are at least two major ways in which this is not happening. One of them is that the public affairs offices of the science agencies are staffed at the headquarters level by political appointees. While the public affairs workers at the centers are professionals who feel that their job is to translate the science into words the public can understand, unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case for the political appointees at the highest levels. Another matter is Congressional testimony. I don't think the Framers of the Constitution expected that when a government employee--a technical government employee--reports to Congress, his testimony would have to be approved and edited by the White House first. But that is the way it works now. And frankly, I'm afraid it works that way whether it's a Democratic administration or a Republican one.
These problems are worse now than I've seen in my thirty years in government. But they're not new. I don't know anything in our Constitution that says that the executive branch should filter scientific information going to Congressional committees. Reform of communication practices is needed if our government is to function the way our Founders intended it to work.
The global warming problem has brought into focus an overall problem: the pervasive influence of special interests on the functioning of our government and on communications with the public. It seems to me that it will be difficult to solve the global warming problem until we have effective campaign finance reform, so that special interests no longer have such a big influence on policy-makers.
James Hansen is the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
© 2007 The Nation
http://www.omniture.com -->
14 Comments so far
Show AllRealists know this.
We are running out of natural resources at the same time we are suffering from population explosion and dramatic loss in habitation.
There were two ways to work with this inevitability.
1) The world in a spirit of sharing to avoid conflict would work out a plan to share diminished resources and at the same time find solutions to both controlling population and alternative sources of energy.
2) Or do what we've always done. Seek out what we needed and crush with the use of deceit and brutal force any and all that would get in our way not really caring that the consequences of our actions would seal the world to a horribly, miserable fate.
We picked #2 - again. I've never been a big fan of mankind.
So, we've blown it. We crawled out of the cave and never let go of the club and we wound up beating ourselves to death with it.
It's why I drink and spit on SUV's.
"enlighten the people, generally..." -Jefferson
The words, "A fully informed public…" keeps coming to mind. We have not been given access to the latest scientific understanding on many issues, particularly Climate Change. Steve Hanson said, "Interestingly, this is not a gloom-and-doom story. In fact, the things we need to do have many other benefits in terms of our economy, our national security, our energy independence and preserving the environment–preserving creation." This is what I have been saying and the Apollo Alliance has been saying for sometime now.
By finally admitting we have a problem we can begin to take action on a country wide scale. Only the government can make this happen. As I wrote in another post, all the people presently working for the DOD could redirect a large percentage of their government funding towards seeking any and all goals related to climate change; this is truly a National Security issue. With all the highly educated and creative people now working on ways to destroy, they could redirect their energies toward a new cause.
This would lead to new industries right here at home, and as a result, well paying jobs. The knowledge is there, it's the people with vested interests who are doing their utmost to not let change happen.
This can only be a win – win situation for everyone. Why do we continue to let big oil stop it from becoming reality?
Population problem? No problem. Immediate vasectomies for all males over the age of ten, worldwide. And I want to be the one who says 'Boo!!' while the doc has his knife near Bush's testicles.
"there's so much potential in efficiency"
This is a most hopeful and inspirational idea that I will hold faster to, it is born out in the fields of nutritional health and human development.
If one studies and partakes in organically of the Ann Wigmore type eco-diatetics you can quickly (1-3 months) discover a potential of abundance for feeding the current population and more. And in a higher dynamic state of creativity.
A fear of over population need not be with a focus on efficiency. Jean Houston states that the number 10 billion has some sort of critical mass quality to it as when the human cortex reached 10 billion neurons.
In observing human behavior in the West the number one impulse to eat is not basic hunger and need for nutrition but as a means to mute anxiety.
This behavior is being addressed (al beit unconsciously to most) in the field of human development where again - energy efficiency - is coming to the fore front. Here, as in diatetics, energy efficiency is not just a means of conservancy because this conservancy leads to an increase of dynamic potential - expressable in a spherical 360 degrees of potential direction, factored again by the ability to go toward or away from.
Got to www.anatbanielmethod.com for graphic depictions of how energy efficiency is being applied directly within the human relationship for the betterment of individual and collective humanity. The results you will see of a "brachial plexus" challenged child using the effected hand, and a "cerebral palsy" challenged child developing self mobilization and maintenance skills will soon have parallel manifestations in the area of adult human behavior. (the Anat Baniel Method for Children based on Feldenkrais, as is Feldenkrais, is based on the Webber-Fechner Law of Physics - energy efficiency of biological systems).
However:
"Reform of communication practices is needed if our government is to function the way our Founders intended it to work."
The most expetiant way to get to the potential of energy efficiency and to minimize current human and global suffering is through the impeachment of the Bush/Cheney administration. As the current Justice Department hearings reveal the current form of US goverment is based not on communication but miscommunication.
A viable driving force for impeachment is not vengence for callous and ignorant acts, no matter how horrendous and grevious the outcomes, but as an expedient for developing the communication needed for the larger society to acheive the potential of energy efficiency.
For there is great accomplishment and pleasure to be had by the human population yet!
I second shokulan's important point -- our gluttonous over-consumption is a far larger problem than overpopulation, and it's one we can take immediate responsibility for. A corollary of this is our economic system's demand that our consumptive practices spread across the entire planet: we demand consumers for our products. The planet cannot sustain this way of life.
Also, there is no living with the climate we are rapidly creating. It appears that the Earth doesn't linger long between cold and hot states. We aren't creating global "warming" -- we're creating a super-heated planet that won't allow for our civilization's continued survival, let alone our way of life.
Let's keep the focus on action that can be done now.
Hansen is the voice of reason. That's why the Bushies wanted him squelched.
Over-consumption is as big a problem as overpopulation. As long as we talk about overpopulation, we can think the problem is someone else's problem.
What about facing the realities of our own contributions to global warming? Americans have 5% of the world's population, but use 25% of the world's oil and produce 25% of the world's CO2. America's contribution to Global Warming is over-consumption.
Was it Rumsfeld or Cheney who growled the 'American way of life is non-negotiable.' Looks to me as though renegotiating the American consumer way of life is an important place place to start.
The internet is not always a sufficient vehicle for sarcasm.
In english.
Poverty forced environmental degradations and lack of access to health care are killing Africans at unprecedented rates.
Due to a continuing focus on concentration of wealth in many developing nations these conditions are likely to spread resulting in a mass die-off of impoverished segments of their populations. These conditions look to be a worldwide problem in the tropics.
Stresses caused by climate change and rising fuel prices will exacerbate these problems forcing people to choose between purchasing fuel or food with limited incomes. Malnutrition accelerates the spread of disease in areas where it is common.
In short, there ARE limits to growth and Malthus was right. Any sustained population growth exponent greater than 1 eventually results in the conversion of the mass of the earth into human flesh. Since this is impossible the number of deaths must periodically exceed the number of births.
Dear Pangolin,
"Malaria, Dengue, drug-resistant TB and AIDS are doing wonders"?
I believe the overpopulation problem is self correcting. Malaria, Dengue, drug-resistant TB and AIDS are doing wonders for the population growth of Africa.
Climate forced changes in agricultural seasons are going to continue to stress grain crops as they have in India, China, Australia, Bangledesh and South America. Less food usually means less people.
Also the short sighted conversion of grain to ethanol will put a crimp in the ability of many nations that import the bulk of their food to feed thier populations. Egypt comes to mind.
That settled other forms of efficiency could be engaged THIS YEAR with sufficient legislative push.
A punitive tax on black roofing products in favor of white ones would do wonders to reduce air conditioning loads in the South.
Create a federal financial vehicle that allows installation of geo-exchange HVAC systems to be revenue neutral to the homeowner would save power usuage. Let the occupant pay for the system by averageing his last two years power bills and paying at that rate until the system is paid for.
Tax incandescent lightbulbs at about $1.50 each and CFL's are immediatly cheaper to install.
Let utilities swap out old refrigerators and tag the price of the new ones onto power bills. Likewise replace all water heaters over 10 years of age. Likewise with the installation of thermal sinks for large buildings that shift heating/cooling loads to favorable hours of the day.
Just implementing the list above would put tens of thousands of americans to work and would reduce load on the grid enough to close several coal-fired power plants. Of course that's the problem. As long as wealthy corporations profit by running a meter on the US populace we will destroy the atmosphere.
We could just implement one simple law; make it illegal to profit from the sale of coal, oil an natural gas. No dividends, no stock growth, no fat-cat executive salaries. No profit.
Looks like we have to live with Global Warming.
Don't worry about overpopulation. Climate change will take care of that. By the billions.
Hansen is perceptive as ever in proposing these five points, but I suggest that there is a sixth,
which he may well have felt was not for him to propose,
but without which no serious changes are likely within the US of abroad.
It is the seminal issue of negotiating a Treaty of the Atmospheric Commons, and the fact that the current regime is useless does not mean it should not be widely discussed in public fora.
That treaty will have to set a cap on global emissions to keep airborne GHGs within a margin Hansen & his colleagues consider safe.
Effectively it will provide a "contraction", that is a declining annual GHG budget for the planet for this century,
with the flexibility for alteration as new scientific info demands.
So far, so good.
Where things get more fraught, as has caused the last decade of deadlock, is in sharing out the GHG budget between the nations -
even with the emissions rights being tradeable, (and thus far far faster in their influence for generating innovation in developing countries)
they are still hugely potent in terms of relative economic benefit.
What the US has yet to accept is that while present emissions reflect the nations GDP quite closely,
for the treaty to be negotiable there will need to be a "convergence", over an agreed period of years,
from GDP-related emissions to the point where emissions rights reflect the size of nations' populations.
(A cut-off year for nations' populations will be needed to avoid rewarding population growth).
This global policy framework, that is known as Contraction & Convergence,
needs to be widely discussed to advance the date of a viable treaty's negotiation.
Given that it is a fundamentally bi-partisan approach, being about equity for mutual survival,
I would urge Hansen and other senior scientists to join with the European Parliament and the Africa group of nations in publically endorsing it.
Under the circumstances, what do they have to lose ?
Regards,
Billhook
Dr Hansen on top form, as usual. There is, unfortunately, another question that needs to be addressed if our planet is going be home to more than a handful of arthropod species, and that is the question of human overpopulation. Google "overpopulation" and take a look around. At our current levels of consumption the world cannot possibly keep up for long - and this is before you take climate change into account! I don't know what the answer is, but we had better come up with one soon or nature will do the job for us - and that won't be pretty.