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TechnoratiGlobal Warming Is Reversible
Scientists now tell us that the crisis of global warming is even worse than their earlier projections. Daily front-page headlines of environmental disasters give an inkling of what we can expect in the future, multiplied many times over: droughts, floods, severe weather disturbances, loss of drinking water and farmland and conflicts over declining natural resources.
Yet the situation is by no means hopeless. Major advances and technological breakthroughs are being made in the United States and throughout the world that are giving us the tools to cut carbon emissions dramatically, break our dependency on fossil fuels and move to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. In fact, the truth rarely uttered in Washington is that with strong governmental leadership the crisis of global warming is not only solvable; it can be done while improving the standard of living of the people of this country and others around the world. And it can be done with the knowledge and technology that we have today; future advances will only make the task easier.
What should we be doing now?
First, we need strong legislation that dramatically cuts back on carbon emissions. The Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act (S. 309), a bill that I introduced with Senator Barbara Boxer and that now has eighteen co-sponsors, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050.
Second, if the federal government begins the process of transforming our energy system by investing heavily in energy efficiency and sustainable energy, we can accomplish the 80 percent carbon reduction level and, at the same time, create millions of high-paying jobs.
Energy efficiency is the easiest, quickest and least expensive path toward the lowering of carbon emissions. My hometown of Burlington, Vermont, despite strong economic growth, consumes no more electricity today than it did sixteen years ago because of a successful effort to make our homes, offices, schools and other buildings more energy-efficient. In California, which has a growing economy, electric consumption per person has remained steady over the past twenty years because of that state's commitment to energy efficiency.
Numerous studies tell us that retrofitting older buildings and establishing strong efficiency standards for new construction can cut fuel and energy consumption by at least 40 percent. Those savings would increase with the adoption of new technologies such as LED light bulbs, which consume as little as 10 percent of the electricity that incandescent bulbs do and last twenty years.
Transportation must also be addressed in a serious manner. It is insane that we are driving cars today that get the same twenty-five miles per gallon that US cars did twenty years ago. If Europe and Japan can engineer their vehicles to average more than forty-four miles per gallon, we can do at least as well. Simply raising fuel-efficiency standards to forty miles per gallon would save roughly the same amount of oil as we import from Saudi Arabia and would dramatically lower carbon emissions. We should also rebuild and expand our decaying rail and subway systems and provide energy-efficient buses in rural America so that travelers have an alternative to the automobile.
Sustainable energies such as wind, solar and geothermal have tremendous potential and often cost no more than fossil fuels (and, in some cases, even less). Increased production and research should cause sustainable energy prices to decline steeply in the future.
Wind power is the fastest growing source of new energy in the world and in the United States, but we have barely begun to tap its potential. Denmark, for example, generates 20 percent of its electricity from wind. We should be supporting wind energy not only through the creation of large wind farms in the appropriate areas but through the use of small, inexpensive wind turbines available today that can be used in homes and farms throughout rural America. These small turbines can produce, depending on location, more than half the electricity that an average home consumes while saving consumers money on their electric bills.
Solar energy is another rapidly expanding technology. In Germany, a quarter of a million homes are now producing electricity through rooftop photovoltaic units, and the cost of that technology is expected to decline steeply. California is providing strong incentives so that 1 million homes will have solar units in the next ten years. The potential of solar energy, however, goes far beyond rooftop photovoltaic units. Right now, in Nevada, a solar plant is generating fifty-six megawatts of electricity. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the US Energy Department, "Solar energy represents a huge domestic energy resource for the United States, particularly in the Southwest where the deserts have some of the best solar resource levels in the world. For example, an area approximately 12 percent the size of Nevada has the potential to supply all of the electric needs of the United States."
As a strong indication of what the future holds, Pacific Gas and Electric, the largest electric utility in the country, has recently signed a contract to build a 535-megawatt solar thermal plant in the Mojave Desert. This plant, which should be operating in about four years, will have an output equivalent to a small nuclear power plant and will produce electricity for about 400,000 homes. Most important, the price of the electricity generated by this plant, about 10 cents per kilowatt hour, is competitive with other fuels today and will be much cheaper than other fuels by the end of the twenty-five-year contract. Experts in the industry say that dozens of these plants can be built within the next twenty years.
Geothermal energy, the heat from deep inside the earth, is another overlooked resource with real potential. It is free, renewable and can be used for electricity generation and direct heating. A recent report for the US Energy Department by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests that geothermal could supply 100,000 megawatts of new carbon-free electricity at less than 10 cents per kilowatt hour, the going rate today. It is estimated that electricity from geothermal sources could provide 10 percent of the US baseload energy needs in 2050.
As the nation at last confronts global warming, it is no time for denial, greed, cynicism or pessimism. It is a time for vision and international leadership. It is a time for transforming our energy system from the polluting and carbon-emitting technologies of the nineteenth century into the unlimited and extraordinary energy possibilities of the twenty-first. When we do that we will not only solve the global warming crisis; we will open up unimaginable opportunities for improving life all over the planet.
Bernie Sanders is a US senator from Vermont.
Copyright © 2007 The Nation
45 Comments so far
Show AllThe actual quote I've discovered is a bit different, but does still neglect "up-against-the" Wallmart, as do I.
Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »
"There is enough to meet everybody's need, but there is not enough to meet everybody's greed" Ghandi never went to Walmart...
"The problem isn't overpopulation, India and china have provided for their people (much of the time) for the last couple millenia with a denser populaiton than ours."
At enormous cost to the environment. And with widespread malnutrition and suffering. Sure, some people pollute more than others, but we all pollute. I have never in my life met a person who didn't pollute. My heater is polluting right now. Even cows pollute. If we don't voluntarily get our human and animal breeding under control, the earth will do it for us in a massive die-off.
KEM -- can I join you there in space? The floating is very conducive to spiritual practice, and my battles with gravity are doing almost as poorly as my fight against authority.
Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is enough to meet everybody's need, but there is not enough to meet everybody's greed »
Quick question:
Does "smart and enlightened" equate to commentary in lock-step agreement with the author?
In my paradigm, it does not ~ but often times I am seen as a insufferable radical that way.
True enlightenment does not come from unthinking acquiescence with the mainstream, it comes from reasoned and thoughtful questioning and searching for the truth, does it not?
Thanks to Ike for summing up alot of important points, It's what is so great about CD-smart and enlightened people speaking up. There really isn't much more to say except prepare to tribe up. Unfortunately we are sadly out numbered by the sheep who have no clue. I see them everyday and want to shake them and shout... the distance of their misunderstanding is so far- where do you start? It is true that some people (us?) have been given the gift(?) of enlightenment to see what lies ahead and try to prepare for what will be challenging times. Peace to all.
Thanks again for sharing- there is hope and power in that.
World wide:___ Steralize everyone over the age of seven. Keep doing that for fifty years. After that, steralize half for fifty years. Raise the retiremnt age to 82 for any who can function. Ban all aircraft and all trucks over five tons. Ban nuclear and coal fired power plants. Ban all weapons of war. Ban all churches, the people can worship whatever they wish at home. All convicted criminals go to prison in Mongolia or Siberia for twenty years, life for murder, rape, torture or a crime when using a weapon. Ban all forms of gambling. Ban all borders. Ban killing any sea mammals. Banish Kem Patrick to the space station.
No PTC trolleys were at 54th and Walnut, but we had the buses and most by far rode them. The Philly's, the A's the Eagles were losers and we booed Santa. We did have Wilt at Overbrook high though and the best hoagies, pizzas and real cream sodas, along with the fantastic aromas of Jewish delis on almost every corner.
Geo-thermal is perhaps the easiest and least expensive for massive amounts of 'clean' power. It is available for free in many areas of this country, add in the wind/solar, tidal power availabe with no cost for clean fuel and we could all have total electrical powered homes and vehicles at a very low cost.
Nuclear is a loser. A very dangerous and corrupt loser.
PJD says:
"Than why do the least-densely populated countries produce most of the world's greenhouse gases? We could cut the global population five-fold but if those remaining all lived in an economy like US economy, the world's greenhouse gas emissions would still be much higher than today.
Population stabilization and reduction is certainly needed on the long-term horizon, but it has no role to play in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions."
The issue has little to do with density. It has to do with the number of people multiplied by per capita consumption levels, and that must be compared to the carrying capacity of local and global ecosystems.
This means addressing population does have a large role to play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. At a given level of per capita consumption, every percentage reduction in a given country's population means the same percentage reduction in its GHG emissions, including the US. (In the same way, population growth avoided means GHG emissions avoided.) Of course we have to bring down per capita consumption/emissions as well. But it's only one of the two factors in the equation. The other is population. (Total consumption [of a nation or the world] = population size x average per capita consumption)
Chin up doomed civilization. The problem isn't overpopulation, India and china have provided for their people (much of the time) for the last couple millenia with a denser populaiton than ours. We can solve the environmental problem by simply reorganizing belief systems. First, things we DON'T NEED: electricity, cars, plastic, more than 12 square feet of living space, light in the night, and a million smaller things, village structure has sustained peoples for thousands of years with fewer resources and denser populations.
Personally, I like Ike, but--dude, just because Bernie's proposed legislation doesn't address everything that is wrong with our wasteful, polluting, industrial economy doesn't mean it isn't a good first step worthy of support.
Personally I am not interested in having a world of "greener" Wal-Marts and interstate highways. (A much better alternative would be a return to walkable and bikable communities with retail, and work places integrated into residential areas--in other words a small town or village concept. But given the sprawl we have squandered our fortune building over the last 60 or so years, such change will have to be done in stages.
bbr-001--
as a lad growing up in Philly, I remember riding PTC trollies and the Reading RR commuter rail lines all over town. Weren't they great? As for your ideas about nuclear power, forget it. As someone else has noted, with our well-developed grid xsystem, there is no reason that the desert areas of Nevade, Arizone, and California as well as the wind swept states of the Great Plains couldn't become the MIddle East of renewable and non-polluting energy export. All it takes is the political will and some muscle (maybe after the 2008 election!) ro begin that process.
Meanwhile, kudos to Bernie sanders for leading us in the right direction with his proposed legislation.
http://action.lcv.org/campaign/taxbreaks_congress/forward
Request for letters to representatives from League of Conservation voters
Legislation coming up that needs letters. Perhaps it is my age, but exercising the 'franchise' (interesting to consider the varied uses of the word) reminds me of Plato citing the written word as 'pharmacon'- both poison and remedy.
carbon. We could harvest them and dump them in old coal mines. Then plant new ones.
We will probably have to treat the symptoms, and go on fuel rationing in a few years. Artificial global dimming such as clouds, sulfate aerosols... I don't know. I worry about my kids.
Check out Community SOlutions Move
HOW CUBA SURVIVED PEAK OIL
http://www.powerofcommunity.org/cm/index.php
Its hard to ne optimistic. China and India are USA wannabes (why!?!) who want there share of fossil fuel luxuries, international air traffic increases every year, and they are cutting down thr trees so fast in Indonesia, the Amazon, Hoduras... Even if the US disappeared today, there is way too much out-of-control CO2 generation across the globe.
Secondly, there are so many people unaware of what is happening, or with vested interests, or believing its all a natural phenomon (as above) that we probably won't achieve consensus in time.
So Philly is a loser! Even the Eagles suck this year. Well, the greater Philly area is fourth largest population concentration in the country, and only the "poor" people in the city and the commuters who drive 5-10 miles to the train stations use mass transit. Gov. Rendell wants to plow a lot of state money into biofuels (loser!). Maybe he could get a law passed to plant beech trees on abadoned industrial sites and every suburban lawn over 1/4 acre. They grow fast and sequester ca
I can't believe so many Republicans post on this site, to look at all the negative posts here. What happened to American positive can do attitude, was that murdered along with Jack and Bobby Kennedy and MLKing? If we put a man on the moon, we can put solar panels and small wind turbines on every roof, build electric cars, more bike lanes, wind and solar parks, reuse waste, bio-engineering etc., we can reverse the trend like Bernie says, it just takes getting people like many of you to stop spreading so much negativity. First step is to elect green politicians, and the greenest of the Green is Dennis Kucinich, he's just as green as Gore and 10 time tougher to fight corporate waste and pollution. I sent money to his compaign and compaign for him whenever I can and you? You want a green world the first step is getting the right people into the white house and congress. The green revolution could have happened 20 years ago Carter started it, the Republicans killed it, with their can't be done attitude.
Global warming has been deemed a fact. However, the inconvenient truth is that humans are not causing it. Al Gore has been given poor advice. Like Darwin's theory of evolution and Big Bang cosmology, global warming by greenhouse gas emissions has undergone that curious social process in which a scientific theory is promoted to a secular myth. When in fact, science is ignorant about the source of the heat — the Sun.
The really inconvenient truth is that we cannot control Nature. But we can begin to learn our true place in the Universe and figure out how to cope rationally with inevitable change. Clearly, reducing air pollution is an admirable goal in itself. But we must not be deluded into thinking it will affect climate significantly. The connection between warming and atmospheric pollution is more asserted than demonstrated, while the connection with variations in the Sun has been demonstrated.
A final word about our place in the Universe. We live with the fable of Newton's clockwork solar system and the constancy of the Sun over past aeons. Scientists chart past climate and blithely assign periodicities to various warming and cooling episodes extending back millions of years into the past. All of the numbers and charts bestow the appearance of being in control of the facts. But it is mere wishful thinking. Here, science unconsciously takes on the mantle of religion—providing assurance in an uncertain universe.
It probably isn't, Bernie. You're a bit late, dude. We can try to mitigate it though. Good luck with that. A few cosmetic changes are likely. Change isn't.
PAUL K, you are correct , the wind never stops blowing on the eastern shores and there is also tidal power available. Free energy after construction, no cost for fuel. That nuke plant in east-central New Jersey is causing many serious health problems, to say nothing of the dangers of a serious accident someday. Why don't the insurance companies insure nuclear power plants? ___ Because it would be a very stupid risk. Hmmmm.
TERRA PRETA, Biochar, Permaculture: please Google these terms and read a bit.
We have to pull some 200 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere and the only known way to do this and get a NET ENERGY GAIN is TERRA PRETA agriculture. Collect and cook dry wood, leaves, twigs, and stalks in a retort and you get hydrogen, methanol and bio-oils that you can use for normal energy needs. The remaining charcoal, powdered and added to soil is the worlds most effective fertilizer.
Biochar added to soil provides a kind of microbial coral reef that allows fungi to bind over a pound of carbon to soil for every pound of charcoal added. Crop yeilds from soil fertilized heavily in this way have been shown to increase up to 400% over untreated test plots over the coarse of several years. This effect does not decrease with time as Terra Preta soils over 2000 yrs. old have been shown to be as fertile as any in the world.
Permaculture: this method of gardening/farming pioneered by Australians allows crops to be grown and harvested on land that would have been considered waste or grazing land prior to utilization of their methods. Permaculture techniques work with natural water flows and energy cycles between plant, animals, and soils to encourage healthy systems from which a prudent surplus can be harvested for our use. It is hard to believe the places permaculture gardens have been established and shown to thrive.
The only way we are going to get the excess greenhouse gases from the atmosphere is to do it using methods that give us a benefit as we do it. Simply pumping CO2 into the air in one place and then spending money to cram it into the ground in another isn't going to do it. Bookstores are full of books on straw bale and cob houses and gardening. This is what many of us really want to do. Terra Preta and permaculture farming can allow us to leave pleasant lives and fight Climate Change at the same time.
Actually, you want high voltage DC transmission lines, the kind that can transmit 1000 miles without major losses, and simultaneously the kind that don't cause leukemia in cows and kids. Always ask for the good kind of transmission lines or they'll deal you the garbage.
As for Philly, they have so many wind gigawatts off the coast of Atlantic City that the Northeast's demand will never catch up with supply.
I agree that the battle to save the icecaps is over. We've lost. The 500 billion tons of methane in Siberia is as good as released. The oceans are going to rise about 200 feet. Now we're just staving off further species damage worldwide.
The only way left to turn this around is pumping water vapor into the stratosphere over the oceans, creating more cirrus clouds and shutting down a bit of the sunshine over the oceans. So do it!
Philly has always been a loser. I'm not surprised to see one from there supporting a nuclear power plant. You ever heard of high voltage transmission lines? You don't need wind and solar in your particular area to have clean energy. The transmission lines are already there.
It seems to me as I hear what is said there are a very few people who are writing and getting involved and extremely concerned. I have been producing environmental documentaries for many years and for many major organizations like UNESCO, but even there it is a question of politics and vested interests. It is a battle to tell the truth and say it directly. People are considered as children but in truth very many are.
It is a very long climb to the top of this hill and sadly I think it is greater than Everest. It does not mean that I will quit until my end but there it all is.
Dear Senator Sanders:
It sounds like a plan to me. Please push it hard. I'm sending it to PennEnvironment (my state's largest environmental organization), and i am going to write to my governor and legislators.
Please consider including "fast neutron nuclear reactors". Its a new safer generation of nuke that will use depleted uranium that has already been mined and processed, and produces no actinide waste. Argonne National lab is in the forefront of this technology. Remember, we folks in cloudy PA don't have the solar capacity, our hydro is already subscribed, our coal burners are giving tuna Hg and making as much CO2 as entire nations, and we are used to nukes in the back yard.
The Philly area once had trolleys that connected the small towns around Philly, and the trains went from center city out. It was a nice mass transit grid. "Improved" roads and autos replaced the trolleys, and I-95 and I-276 compete with the trains.
With or without the nuclear option (That doesn't sound right!), best wishes for your initiative.
It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing high intelligence this is not correct. We have, or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only.
cosmologist Sir Fred Hoyle (1964)
The key words in this fne artilce are. "WHAT SHOULD WE BE DOING?"
The key words that then MUST be considered are, "WILL our major world governments, ALL band together, and insure we as world citizens and governments do the things which have been aptly suggested in this article"?
WILL WE? I have serious doubts, based upon what we have seen in that respect to date. We have about TEN more years, to straighten up and do right. Reality is just that. That of course is how I see it. We humans here on our only planet, either start a MASSIVE program to clean up our atmosphere and oceans and start it now, not next year or after the next election, NOW, or we are only wasting precious time, which we cannot afford to waste.
IKE KAY: As a child of "The Woodstock" nation who senses an intrinsic link with Indigenous culture/wisdom, I have been intuitively aware of these trends since I was a teenager. Dating a younger guy, he loves to listen to Jim Morrison's, "This is the end." I believe a lot of musicians--Hendrix,
Morrison, Miles Davis--came to that "calling" as having lived prior lifetimes as shaman. They are so intimately connected with the natural world and the movements of invisible spirit energies. A musician I met who gigs in Gainesville told me he met Jim Morrison at a wedding when both were teenagers. Morrison's father was high up in the military, and the family had been driving somewhere and witnessed a major crash that involved a bus of American Indians. Morrison "saw" their spirits enter him. I believe his music was something of a mystical "weather vane." His entire BEING was consumed in bringing forth the message, "What have they done to the earth, what have they done to our fair sister... ravaged and plundered and tied her and bit her, stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn and dragged her down." (When the Music's Over) I think he was a prophet who saw IT coming, the rising tide of massive industrially-driven consumerism for appetites created, hungers never sated, and tried to warn the Woodstock nation and its children of this potential future. Now it's here.
Since the size and momentum of human industrialization is still increasing, even as greenhouse gas productions (GGP) accelerate, we are still in the phase of making the problem worse. It is up to us to impose our own constraints of choice, before Gaia makes her constraints of no choice. Real choices that will make a difference are rapidly diminishing in number.
Rapid industrial growth continues in and around China, with global production of the planet in the cheapest, but highest GGP, while the still growing consumer world enjoys the last fruits of the oil age.
The mass production, consumption, waste of the current global culture hasn't changed very much. Global climate change will slow only long after the causative human societies collapse and die, due to the time lags in the climate system. Any survivors may learn to adapt at a much reduced level of technology. How will they remember us?
Global human society is now facing multiple shock waves of financial system, collapse, oil supply inadequacy, housing, water and food supply inadequacy, plague numbers of humans, and wars and strife between religious and racial groups. Maybe human population collapse from war, disease and starvation can reduce human climate impact sufficiently to stave off final extinction from runaway global warming. The final choice is change now or become extinct very soon. When will low GGP per capita be the national index of pride?
I believe that most people who believe in "Reduce, Re-use, Recycle" because it is the right thing to do, are already doing so. The rest need an ECONOMIC incentive.
Let's face it, resources, particularly energy, are too cheap in the USA. An effective way to encourage conservation is to incorporate a steep unit cost – consumption pricing. To prevent the less affluent from absorbing all the pain, a moderate priced per-capita basic allowance could be set for water, electricity, gas, etc. - use more than the allowance and the unit cost goes up – quickly.
Sure, the very affluent could still afford to waste, they can always escape the consequences of their actions, but they are only a small percentage of the population. The rest might think twice before buying SUVs and McMansions.
Our small town has had some success with this type of approach. The trash collection system is based on a per-bag cost and recyclables are free. No need for recycling police – if you don't recycle, you pay for all your trash. If you reduce or recycle, your cost is lowered. We recycle over 50% of municipal waste (there is some still room for improvement). There is very little administrative cost – the trash stickers are available at the town hall or grocery stores. Enforcement is easy: no sticker, no pickup.
Our ex-mayor raised the water and sewer rates, so the system was no longer running in the red, after over a decade of rates subsidized by the general fund. The taxpayers pitched a fit and threw him out, but at least he had the guts to do what had to be done.
Which points up another reason why the problems are so intractable - changing the system requires courage and foresight, which most of our politicians are sorely lacking. The effective ones may only serve one term.
DEAR MR. SANDERS,
Your comments are very nice to hear from a member of the Congress but you also come down beside the point. Like most comments from the present Congress politicians try to avoid reality and don't really deal with the issue head on. Your still looking for the magic bullet that will save all and we can continue on the way we are going there really isn't any quick fix except in the following that i will speak to.
I am a filmmaker and have worked on the environmental change issues since 1978 so I have a fair amount of experience to speak. While LED lightbulbs is good and 40 MPG on cars is better it is not the at least the 80MPG that is necessary and refits for all existing cars rather than exporting them to the developing world which is presently being done and will pick up speed as restrictions rise. We continue to export the problem from the USA to other countries as if we don't share this world with other people. It was GE that killed the electric car not long ago who in Congress complained about that?
It's all nice to hear that some members of congress have some of the message but with throwbacks from Oklahoma descended the Jurassic period it does not help to get the message out. Not only does the presidency of the USA need rapid change but the Supreme Court and Congress itself, both Democrats and republicans need of a refit, with all due respect.
Whether health care, big business, environment, energy alternatives, toxicity in the environment or any and all of these it comes down to who has the courage to talk about all of them rather than focusing on the pin head. You want to hear about health care put them in the context of environmentally based health problems by a toxic environment and air related pandemics which is what we are looking at in the next few years with rising temperatures. Universal health is not a discussion for the American people, it is a necessity for all people and all governments. But business interests control the congress and you know that!
The people of the USA have been so ill informed as to what a change would really do to this country that they have forgotten that no one could be worse than George Bush. . . No one! The real problem is not Kucinich as president, the problem is that he puts his emphasis on the wrong problem at the wrong time. The problem is getting him into a credible platform of ideas and I say to him while impeachment is necessary, it is unlikely. There is not enough time and the issues most pressing are again avoided, like the environment and those really important before the congress now! The issue of the election will affect the economy and the future of the USA as no other. None of the candidates are really talking on the major points the environment in association with the economy or health care.
The environmental news coming out is not new but it is very grave and keeps being pushed to more urgency as new research comes to light. If any one reading this comment cares to look at the website of NASA, the research papers of James Hansen in particular that were published long before gore was on the scene and many since, they would understand that we really can not deal with much more than one degree to two and half degrees Celsius of warming at its maximum to ward off the most serious effects of industrial societies pollution and to offset this growing catastrophe. At about two and half degrees warming which is presently in the pipeline we will be dealing with about 550 ppm of carbon in the atmosphere, a rate actually above the tipping point of one and half degrees warming. This is the absolute figure to avoid the major positive feedback loops that are starting and scheduled to kick in by 2020 or earlier if nothing is done quickly. Positive feedback are starting now with methane now being released on the tundra into the atmosphere a four times addition to greenhouse gasses and causing the poles and glaciers to melt more rapidly, or has no one noticed?
The below scenario excerpted from the climate articles here on commondreams tell us clearly without rapid change runaway climate change and their feedback loops are in reach within 10 to 30 years if nothing is done rapidly. The positive feedback loops will melt the remainder of the glaciers and perhaps dump Greenland into the sea as well. Also, the melting of additional ice-shelf's at the poles. That means perhaps a 3 to 30 foot ocean rise by the end of this century, but the process is beginning now and in 20 years or less without rapid change in economic direction the human race will reach a point of no return. The press continues to bend the information toward the global economic agenda thus minimizing it. India for example is less concerned about climate change than they are about economic production, although their neighbor Bangladesh is slipping into the sea . Still in India, there are several moves in the direction of smaller is better concepts of reality.
There will be sufficient human displacement of people on this planet to bring American citizens into a nightmare scenario that makes the present Mexican border problem a walk in the park. What about the transfer of health risks as a result of this problem? Not to mention water and food related issues and the economy, always the economy
Yet is seems the political discussion rests on the complete list of talking points in isolation, such as Clinton's health package and its cost, rather than what is really at stake the complete interrelated package of all these issues and more. The media reduces the public debate to its most simplistic level and all here are arguing about one issue or another rather than the entire package . The media keeps the public dumbed down for obvious reasons they represent the money people. As a result we become unable to talk about moving radically to deal with climate change the first and major issue which affects all other issues and is completely related to economic change.
The world does not have (much later) before a more aggressive approach to all the issues beginning with climate change now! Remember New Orleans? Within next 10 to 20 years is where it all hangs. If nothing is done very soon it will mark the beginning of the end for the human race. Those appear to be the facts and no technology will stop runaway climate change once it begins, indeed if we look at the melting poles the worst case is much more apparent than formerly believed . . .it has already begun!!
Perhaps it might be too late now, according to James Lovelock it has begun. James Hansen at NASA makes a very compelling case for the time frame of the stay in office of the next president of the USA and so does the un. I think anyone who really wishes to be informed should go to the websites of these people mentioned here or the IPCC. It is technical information but worth taking the time to inform yourself. The answer is to start working quickly for change and vote for those candidates who speak of change and another direction and who represent ideas rather than special interests. For example the best work would be to defeat the pro-business Clintons and elect Kucinich or Obama or possibly a joint ticket while we know they have an outside chance they are the best possibility for change.
But we all know business interests will prevail with Clinton capturing the vote and a pro-business a vote at that against the environment. No one running on the democratic side could be worse than bush. Anyone who can think understands that the business interests control the environmental agenda and most candidates. The republicans will continue the work of burying the planet as will pro-business democratic candidates most of whom have been bought, whether by health interests or anything else concerning big money.
The facts of the science is what is important. What the environmental facts really suggest is economic depression in the west in the near term. But if we are really serious about saving the planet (no one wants to hear that if they are connected to big money) it means voting for change!! But environment, water, energy production these are the real issues of this election campaign but no one would dare mention them in association with change in economic direction for fear of defeat.
A redirection and a retooling of the global economy and of America is in order and that is not a popular issue on wall street or people invested in wall street. . .most everyone in one way or another.
We have to change rapidly and move to a none-stop production of environmental invention and energy alternatives for the western world and developing nations rapidly. It also means rapid technology transfer for the developing world without delay, this may save us some time. A cut of 80% of the carbon emissions within the next 10 years is in order and it must be done beginning now and well on the way before 2012 the next date for Kyoto. Kyoto is a western world fabrication to tell us we can keep polluting while where figuring a way to deal with this crisis economically.
A change of the present direction of economic production and fast move in a different direction economically for the use is what is required by anyone that can think and put simple figures in context of this crisis. The world is waiting for this move by the Americans and watch the dollar rise rapidly once this plan would be announced if ever. This is why this upcoming election is so critical and the results of it will determine whether the human race survives. . . . It is that critical! The economic change in direction could possibly reemploy a lot of people who have lost their work in the polluting industries. This is the challenge to America to remake itself after eight years of the Bush/Cheney regime. It is equivalent to a fight for survival that required the retooling of America at the outbreak of WW 2. It requires change in the so-called war on terror, a bush fabrication advanced by the media which is a money centered mind conditioning creation and finally it means leaving Iraq, and using those resources to fight the real enemy to survival, the western consumer, hydro carbon based, societies of the western world.
Who knows that might mean less of an investment in china and more of an investment the western world for a healthier environment, the Chinese might follow that example as well.
Which candidate will say this to America? Which candidate will really tell the truth? If they did they wouldn't have a chance in this election because Americans don't want to hear that! Any one having the courage to really tell the truth would find themselves on the next train to Siberia. But the economy is the issues and that is determined by the war in Iraq. The illegal bush-war that Kucinich wants to impeach bush for takes us into another direction and not thought out. He is focused on the lies of bush rather than the future of the world.
The production of alternative energy will soak up the idle job market, indeed it is doing so now! With a shift to the priority of economic production and development directed at saving this world and its equilibrium, means in simple terms a crash economic change which is vitally necessary, without that we are done. If any one thinks that we can continue with an oil economy and business as usual with a consumer based society, they are living in the world of denial which so much of the western world occupies. The below is a light message compared with what the truth really is: from UN sources of information!
The world needs to spend 1.6 percent of global economic output annually through 2030 to stabilize the carbon stock and meet the 3.6-degree Fahrenheit temperature target. Rich countries, the biggest carbon emitters, should lead the way and cut emissions at least 30 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. Developing nations should cut emissions 20 percent by 2050, the UNDP says."
The above is letting you down lightly is really not what the actual projections are. The world will crash in on the global populations is what the information below is saying. There really is no place in this discussion for a 5.4 to 7.2 Fahrenheit degree rise in temperature. . . .this scenario painted with the these numbers below is a different planet closer to mars not earth. The news media play with numbers like the lottery. We can tolerate one to perhaps two and half degrees warming at the outside, . . .in the next 50 to 90 years. . .that's it!!!!! An additional 3 degrees to five degrees Fahrenheit is three more degrees greater than this climate and its creatures can sustain or endure without collapse!! This quoted from the recent un assertions here in commondreams:
"a temperature rise of between 5.4 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (3 and 4 degrees Celsius) would displace 340 million people through flooding, droughts would diminish farm output, and retreating glaciers would cut off drinking water from as many as 1.8 billion people, the report says." this is an understatement and conservative.
The above report is economically associated and conservative as well as misleading!!! Forget this idea of 5.4 to 7.2 Fahrenheit of warming that is the Martian landscape because it allows for the runaway positive feedbacks to take hold. Whomever believes this world can sustain this degree of warming is either working for the American enterprise institute, a conservative think tank or is gathering this information from the laboratory at XXON/Mobile!!??????
Meanwhile the group here is discussing who will give us better health care on a dying planet and impeachment of bush a good way to avoid dealing with the truth. We can be suspect of anyone who says they have the truth. The need for understanding this current cast of characters wanting to be president is important. None of this group has the faintest idea of what we are really dealing with in terms of global warming numbers concerning the environment, and if they did they would not tell the public. They know its bad and their advisers are telling them they can't deal with this issue to get elected by the masses.
These are the people above who are worrying where their next bag of groceries comes from and the money to pay the rent! They really don't give a damn about the environmental issues. . And no time for thinking about 10 to 20 years from today that has no realty attached to it for most Americans or the rest of the four and half billion people on this earth in the same situation. . . .
Or, for the rest of the population working for and controlled by big business and big money. . .that is what this election is really about and if one thinks about the complexity of all these interrelated issues we know that we can not beat the odds that business will win. That means the future for humanity is limited even for the one percent that has everything.
IKE
My problem with Edwards is that he is a drug warrior.
So many of these comments are cynical, and dismissive of ordinary Americans. I agree that millions of our citizens are not focusing intently on global warming, but that's because they're struggling desperately to keep from going into bankruptcy -- not because they're stupid or uncaring!
I wish the media was paying more attention to the high quality JOBS that conservation and alternative energy production will provide. (It's already starting here on Long Island.) Recognizing that the U.S. can reconstitute its manufacturing base -- while drastically reducing emissions that pollute and exacerbate global warming -- is GOOD news, for heaven's sake!
And relative to the politics of this, notice that John Edwards (not Obama, not Hillary) has ruled out nuclear power as a "solution" to climate change. He's also the only top-tier candidate whose health care proposal includes opening up Medicare to non-seniors as a option. I see this is doable, as opposed to single-payer all at once, which isn't.
Come to think of it, we have a lot of dedicated Kucinich fans writing here, but comments about Edwards (like the AIPAC slur which appeared today) seem puzzlingly negative. With the exception of his stance on illegal immigration, I agree with his positions -- and he's using public campaign finance funds instead of running around dialing for dollars from the fat cats. What IS your problem with Edwards, my fellow progressives?
"Even if we are willing to undertake such an endeavor, the problem will still not be solved due to a phenomenon known as "Jevon's Paradox," whereby increases in energy efficiency are obliterated by corresponding increases in energy consumption."
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
Read at your own risk.
PJD-we also, unfortunately-moved to a suburban area 3.5 years ago. So instead of using the city bus system, my husband drives the 12 miles each way, alone. He's looked into carpooling, but no one wants to adjust their schedule fifteen minutes. I work in our home, my commute is a few feet.
My neighbors (who are the norm around here) own a suburban that I have never seen more than two people in, along with a minivan that I have only seen one person in. Each of their 3 chidren has their own cars and one is an SUV. they put out 5 times the garbage as our family (also a family of 5) puts out. I have yet to see more than one of my neighbors walk to the park, library, pool, or post office (all within a half-mile). Until we can convince everyone like this to change their ways, we will continue hurtling toward disaster.
"Yet another discussion about global climate change that completely ignores the point: OVERPOPULATION."
Than why do the least-densely populated countries produce most of the world's greenhouse gases? We could cut the global population five-fold but if those remaining all lived in an economy like US economy, the world's greenhouse gas emissions would still be much higher than today.
Population stabilization and reduction is certainly needed on the long-term horizon, but it has no role to play in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.
It hard for me not be a pessimist, when the soccer Mom next door buys a Yukon on shoestring budget, and drives alone in it for 30 miles one way to work.
I am not sure I am the person who should try to get through to her on something like this.
I am not sure if anyone can get through to people like this.
ZPF,
I agree with your pessimism. The 44 mpg average fuel economy of european and japanese cars is achieved through use of cars that are half the size and weight of the smallest cars here. The current, bloated version of the Toyota Corolla, would be a very large car in Italy or Japan.
In the suburban area where I unfortunately moved to, the SUV is considerded a mandatory part of being a parent - the bigger the better. If someone transported their kid somewhere in a BMW Mini (which would still be a fairly big car in Europe) they would probably recieve a scolding from thgeir neighbor for threatening their childs life by putting him/her in such a small car.
I don't know what they would think if they saw someone transporting their kids on a 50cc scooter in heavy traffic as is commonly done in India or China.
It's nice to have hope, I guess. Aside from the fact Mr. Sanders is living in dreamy world, he, like so many others still hoping, misses the most important reason why his lovely ideas have no prayer: because Americans clearly do not give a flying f**k about global warming, or illegal invasions and occupations, or the virtual erasure of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, or the massive theft of our entire Treasury, or anything else that doesn't have to do with the McDonalds getting cold in their SUV because the WalMart line was too long.
True, Bernie doesn't go to the heart of the problem -- but how can he? He's working inside a corrupt system and more power to him!
I mean that literally, if we had some dozens or more Bernies, Kucniches, Wellstones and the like, it could change the agenda.
The point is that to address climate change in a meaningful way requires political will loyal to the will of the people and not narrow economic and military interests.
I'm not so hopeful about humankind especially the greed-driven ones. We will probably suffer all the glories of global warming including failing crops which will cause massive starvation. Our cities will sink beneath the waves, and our money driven monsters will still be hawking SUVS and will drive them until the pumps are literally dry or overrun by gangsters battling over resources. When some parts of our country run dry, our people will migrate to other parts which will be highly defended. When will this madness end? It won't end until we make a fundamental change in the way we think. We have to bury the greed monsters. We have to have the courage to take hold of these evil doers and simply stop them. We have to begin to believe that people are intrinsically good for who they are not for what they have. We have to stop ranking people by money class and glorifying the wealthy. If we do not make these changes we will simply destroy ourselves. Don't kid yourselves into thinking that the wealthier nations won't suffer as if their money raises them above the laws of nature.
John--Exactly. We have been pressed for centuries to procreate, and now if crops fail, we simply can't feed this massive population. The wealthy like overpopulation, because they like consumers and a growing economy and lots of cheap labor.
Yet another discussion about global climate change that completely ignores the point: OVERPOPULATION.
To reverse climate change is to end Business As Usual today. Period. None of Sanders's proposals even touch BAU; they just point it in different directions.
IMO, we need to understand and prepare for the fact that BAU will NOT be reversed to any degree necessary to mitigate the melting of Greenland's ice cap in rather short order, and possibly that of Western Antartica's by century's end. The reason for this is BAU has immense inertia that will only be stopped by enough physical constraints in the form of resource depletion take hold. Only then will we see the Reversal--Negative Growth--which will provide the energy for the paradigm shift from BAU. The only certainty is the whole process will be very messy.
It seems that we, as a species, only change our bad habits when the message is clear, swift, powerful, and devastating.
Actually, the problems we face environmentally, economically, politically, and inter-racially on a local, national or international basis, are unnecessary. We all go along to get along and we will all eventually pay the price for our lack of vision, cooperation, and our incredible selfishness.
Our human circumstances and our relationships will only change for the better when we all look at ourselves and ask, "What can I do to make the world better for the children of our future generations?" Seems like a simple enough question, doesn't it? Seems like the answers would be important doesn't it?
If we started from scratch, would we organize a dysfunctional society like this? I do not think so, do you?
I don't believe the Global Warming disater can be averted or reversed, at least not in the short term but though adaptation requires radical social restructuring, it is possible.
Bernie Sanders is a very sweet old guy, but I'd put my money on James Lovelock who has been studying climate his whole life and was the frist scientist to recognize the Earth's biosphere acts like a living organism, with postive and negaive feedback loops.
He says even if we cut all emissions to 0 today we'd still head into the warming period we've been egging on for hundreds of years. He predicts deserts will, by 2100 extend as far north as Berlin and that the survivors of this change will be running to Canada, Siberia and even the Artic basin. Earth is going to cut an annoying species from six billion down to one billion by 2100. And as it happens, we'll have no oil to help us transition to green solutions for this problem. Solar power is great, but you don't manufactuer and transport solar cells and panels with solar, you do it with oil. And oil is going away.
The only sane option is a measured retreat from our unsustainable lifestyles. Not ridiculous band aid measures like a carbon credit here and a solar panel there. Oil DRIVES our entire civilzation and cannot be replaced, even by nuclear power.
I think it might be a better, cleaner and more sane world. But it'll be a painful transition.
Face it folks, the era of cars for everyone, suburban living and commuting, plastics, produce from all over the world, on tap elecricity and access to unlimited consumer toys is coming to an end.
But enjoy it while it lasts.