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Think Again: Climate Change
Act now, we’re told, if we want to save the planet from a climate catastrophe. Trouble is, it might be too late. The science is settled, and the damage has already begun. The only question now is whether we will stop playing political games and embrace the few imperfect options we have left.
"Scientists Are Divided"
No, they're not. In the early years of the global warming debate, there was great controversy over whether the planet was warming, whether humans were the cause, and whether it would be a significant problem. That debate is long since over. Although the details of future forecasts remain unclear, there's no serious question about the general shape of what's to come.
Every national academy of science, long lists of Nobel laureates, and in recent years even the science advisors of President George W. Bush have agreed that we are heating the planet. Indeed, there is a more thorough scientific process here than on almost any other issue: Two decades ago, the United Nations formed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and charged its scientists with synthesizing the peer-reviewed science and developing broad-based conclusions. The reports have found since 1995 that warming is dangerous and caused by humans. The panel's most recent report, in November 2007, found it is "very likely" (defined as more than 90 percent certain, or about as certain as science gets) that heat-trapping emissions from human activities have caused "most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century."
If anything, many scientists now think that the IPCC has been too conservative-both because member countries must sign off on the conclusions and because there's a time lag. Its last report synthesized data from the early part of the decade, not the latest scary results, such as what we're now seeing in the Arctic.
In the summer of 2007, ice in the Arctic Ocean melted. It melts a little every summer, of course, but this time was different-by late September, there was 25 percent less ice than ever measured before. And it wasn't a one-time accident. By the end of the summer season in 2008, so much ice had melted that both the Northwest and Northeast passages were open. In other words, you could circumnavigate the Arctic on open water. The computer models, which are just a few years old, said this shouldn't have happened until sometime late in the 21st century. Even skeptics can't dispute such alarming events.
"We Have Time"Wrong. Time might be the toughest part of the equation. That melting Arctic ice is unsettling not only because it proves the planet is warming rapidly, but also because it will help speed up the warming. That old white ice reflected 80 percent of incoming solar radiation back to space; the new blue water left behind absorbs 80 percent of that sunshine. The process amps up. And there are many other such feedback loops. Another occurs as northern permafrost thaws. Huge amounts of methane long trapped below the ice begin to escape into the atmosphere; methane is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Such examples are the biggest reason why many experts are now fast-forwarding their estimates of how quickly we must shift away from fossil fuel. Indian economist Rajendra Pachauri, who accepted the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize alongside Al Gore on behalf of the IPCC, said recently that we must begin to make fundamental reforms by 2012 or watch the climate system spin out of control; NASA scientist James Hansen, who was the first to blow the whistle on climate change in the late 1980s, has said that we must stop burning coal by 2030. Period.
All of which makes the Copenhagen climate change talks that are set to take place in December 2009 more urgent than they appeared a few years ago. At issue is a seemingly small number: the level of carbon dioxide in the air. Hansen argues that 350 parts per million is the highest level we can maintain "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted." But because we're already past that mark-the air outside is currently about 387 parts per million and growing by about 2 parts annually-global warming suddenly feels less like a huge problem, and more like an Oh-My-God Emergency.
"Climate Change Will Help as Many Places as It Hurts"Wishful thinking. For a long time, the winners-and-losers calculus was pretty standard: Though climate change will cause some parts of the planet to flood or shrivel up, other frigid, rainy regions would at least get some warmer days every year. Or so the thinking went. But more recently, models have begun to show that after a certain point almost everyone on the planet will suffer. Crops might be easier to grow in some places for a few decades as the danger of frost recedes, but over time the threat of heat stress and drought will almost certainly be stronger.
A 2003 report commissioned by the Pentagon forecasts the possibility of violent storms across Europe, megadroughts across the Southwest United States and Mexico, and unpredictable monsoons causing food shortages in China. "Envision Pakistan, India, and China-all armed with nuclear weapons-skirmishing at their borders over refugees, access to shared rivers, and arable land," the report warned. Or Spain and Portugal "fighting over fishing rights-leading to conflicts at sea."
Of course, there are a few places we used to think of as possible winners-mostly the far north, where Canada and Russia could theoretically produce more grain with longer growing seasons, or perhaps explore for oil beneath the newly melted Arctic ice cap. But even those places will have to deal with expensive consequences-a real military race across the high Arctic, for instance.
Want more bad news? Here's how that Pentagon report's scenario played out: As the planet's carrying capacity shrinks, an ancient pattern of desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies would reemerge. The report refers to the work of Harvard archaeologist Steven LeBlanc, who notes that wars over resources were the norm until about three centuries ago. When such conflicts broke out, 25 percent of a population's adult males usually died. As abrupt climate change hits home, warfare may again come to define human life. Set against that bleak backdrop, the potential upside of a few longer growing seasons in Vladivostok doesn't seem like an even trade.
"It's China's Fault"Not so much. China is an easy target to blame for the climate crisis. In the midst of its industrial revolution, China has overtaken the United States as the world's biggest carbon dioxide producer. And everyone has read about the one-a-week pace of power plant construction there. But those numbers are misleading, and not just because a lot of that carbon dioxide was emitted to build products for the West to consume. Rather, it's because China has four times the population of the United States, and per capita is really the only way to think about these emissions. And by that standard, each Chinese person now emits just over a quarter of the carbon dioxide that each American does. Not only that, but carbon dioxide lives in the atmosphere for more than a century. China has been at it in a big way less than 20 years, so it will be many, many years before the Chinese are as responsible for global warming as Americans.
What's more, unlike many of their counterparts in the United States, Chinese officials have begun a concerted effort to reduce emissions in the midst of their country's staggering growth. China now leads the world in the deployment of renewable energy, and there's barely a car made in the United States that can meet China's much tougher fuel-economy standards.
For its part, the United States must develop a plan to cut emissions-something that has eluded Americans for the entire two-decade history of the problem. Although the U.S. Senate voted down the last such attempt, Barack Obama has promised that it will be a priority in his administration. He favors some variation of a "cap and trade" plan that would limit the total amount of carbon dioxide the United States could release, thus putting a price on what has until now been free.
Despite the rapid industrialization of countries such as China and India, and the careless neglect of rich ones such as the United States, climate change is neither any one country's fault, nor any one country's responsibility. It will require sacrifice from everyone. Just as the Chinese might have to use somewhat more expensive power to protect the global environment, Americans will have to pay some of the difference in price, even if just in technology. Call it a Marshall Plan for the environment. Such a plan makes eminent moral and practical sense and could probably be structured so as to bolster emerging green energy industries in the West. But asking Americans to pay to put up windmills in China will be a hard political sell in a country that already thinks China is prospering at its expense. It could be the biggest test of the country's political maturity in many years.
"Climate Change Is an Environmental Problem"Not really. Environmentalists were the first to sound the alarm. But carbon dioxide is not like traditional pollution. There's no Clean Air Act that can solve it. We must make a fundamental transformation in the most important part of our economies, shifting away from fossil fuels and on to something else. That means, for the United States, it's at least as much a problem for the Commerce and Treasury departments as it is for the Environmental Protection Agency.
And because every country on Earth will have to coordinate, it's far and away the biggest foreign-policy issue we face. (You were thinking terrorism? It's hard to figure out a scenario in which Osama bin Laden destroys Western civilization. It's easy to figure out how it happens with a rising sea level and a wrecked hydrological cycle.)
Expecting the environmental movement to lead this fight is like asking the USDA to wage the war in Iraq. It's not equipped for this kind of battle. It may be ready to save Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is a noble undertaking but on a far smaller scale. Unless climate change is quickly de-ghettoized, the chances of making a real difference are small.
"Solving It Will Be Painful"It depends. What's your definition of painful? On the one hand, you're talking about transforming the backbone of the world's industrial and consumer system. That's certainly expensive. On the other hand, say you manage to convert a lot of it to solar or wind power-think of the money you'd save on fuel.
And then there's the growing realization that we don't have many other possible sources for the economic growth we'll need to pull ourselves out of our current economic crisis. Luckily, green energy should be bigger than IT and biotech combined.
Almost from the moment scientists began studying the problem of climate change, people have been trying to estimate the costs of solving it. The real answer, though, is that it's such a huge transformation that no one really knows for sure. The bottom line is, the growth rate in energy use worldwide could be cut in half during the next 15 years and the steps would, net, save more money than they cost. The IPCC included a cost estimate in its latest five-year update on climate change and looked a little further into the future. It found that an attempt to keep carbon levels below about 500 parts per million would shave a little bit off the world's economic growth-but only a little. As in, the world would have to wait until Thanksgiving 2030 to be as rich as it would have been on January 1 of that year. And in return, it would have a much-transformed energy system.
Unfortunately though, those estimates are probably too optimistic. For one thing, in the years since they were published, the science has grown darker. Deeper and quicker cuts now seem mandatory.
But so far we've just been counting the costs of fixing the system. What about the cost of doing nothing? Nicholas Stern, a renowned economist commissioned by the British government to study the question, concluded that the costs of climate change could eventually reach the combined costs of both world wars and the Great Depression. In 2003, Swiss Re, the world's biggest reinsurance company, and Harvard Medical School explained why global warming would be so expensive. It's not just the infrastructure, such as sea walls against rising oceans, for example. It's also that the increased costs of natural disasters begin to compound. The diminishing time between monster storms in places such as the U.S. Gulf Coast could eventually mean that parts of "developed countries would experience developing nation conditions for prolonged periods." Quite simply, we've already done too much damage and waited too long to have any easy options left.
"We Can Reverse Climate Change"If only. Solving this crisis is no longer an option. Human beings have already raised the temperature of the planet about a degree Fahrenheit. When people first began to focus on global warming (which is, remember, only 20 years ago), the general consensus was that at this point we'd just be standing on the threshold of realizing its consequences-that the big changes would be a degree or two and hence several decades down the road. But scientists seem to have systematically underestimated just how delicate the balance of the planet's physical systems really is.
The warming is happening faster than we expected, and the results are more widespread and more disturbing. Even that rise of 1 degree has seriously perturbed hydrological cycles: Because warm air holds more water vapor than cold air does, both droughts and floods are increasing dramatically. Just look at the record levels of insurance payouts, for instance. Mosquitoes, able to survive in new places, are spreading more malaria and dengue. Coral reefs are dying, and so are vast stretches of forest.
None of that is going to stop, even if we do everything right from here on out. Given the time lag between when we emit carbon and when the air heats up, we're already guaranteed at least another degree of warming.
The only question now is whether we're going to hold off catastrophe. It won't be easy, because the scientific consensus calls for roughly 5 degrees more warming this century unless we do just about everything right. And if our behavior up until now is any indication, we won't.
- Posted in
120 Comments so far
Show AllToo bad I haven't got time to debunk all the deniers that seem to love coming on in response to articles like this with a confusing array of mis-represented or mis-interpreted "facts".
The article is alarmist, to be sure. But the trend has been getting clearer, not more muddied, and maybe it is starting to get to the time where alarm is necessary to get people and governments into the kind of global action that we need.
Funny thing, even when there is no arctic ice left in summer and sea levels have inundated Florida and refugees in their millions are roaming around with guns trying to find a home....the deniers will, I'm sure, have some kind of explanation to re-assure us that it cannot be our own fault.
Yep, soon they will come flooding in "the winters where I live have been extra cold recently", "the last 2 years have been cooling", "the sunspots are doing it", "the glaciers are getting bigger", "the upper atmosphere is cooling", "the hockey stick curve was made up by Al Gore", "the Middle Ages were warmer", "there is a conspiracy of scientists trying to keep their jobs", "the climate has always been changing", "the Earth is in fact getting cooler!", "half of scientists disagree", "Al Gore jets around the country and has a big house", "May 6 2008 was cooler than May 6 1958".
and excellent list!
I'm sure you made some of these up, but I've seen so many of these posted I'd believe it!
HA! Good list.
Some people are hopeless.
Al Gore is the greatest champion of the environment the world has ever had!
Duh.
Obama's not far behind.
Bush may have doomed us to a late start, but at last we'll hit the ground running!!
I agree that inspite of anything else Al Gore has done or not done, he is one of the greatest heroes the world has seen.
I think the greatest feat was to get the IPCC ice core data chart into print in his book and movie, "An Inconv Truth".
It shows a lot more than is talked about. Anyone seen it?
yeah, they tend to favour the sun as one of the culprits...............
I get tired of hearing about "the science of climate change" and "the science of global warming" from politicos, economists and numerous bloggers, none of whom have solid credentials in science. Most of you guys would not know an electrician from an electrical engineer, let alone the scientific method from mere prognostication.
The last time I checked -- and I worked in program validation for Voyagers I and II -- "climate scientists" could not accurately predict the weather for next winter, let alone 100 winters down the pike. The earth system is an open system within another open system, the solar system, which itself is enclosed within additional higher order systems. Prognostications even within a single open system are not very reliable, and when you enclose one open system within a complex of embedded open systems prognostication becomes nearly a joke. And even within a single open system prognostication 100 years out can never be mistaken for science: it remains mere prognostication. Yet some -- not all -- climate "scientists" remain steadfast in misleading the public with their "science."
Authentic science requires repeatable controlled experimentation that either validates or falsifies a testable hypothesis. Climate prognostication for 100 years out does not meet these requirements, hence it is not science. I recall Condi Rice saying that we don't want to wait for a smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud over New York City. Climate "scientists" now say they don't want to wait for a smoking gun in the form of a flooded New York City. Neither Condi Rice nor these "scientists" are practicing science. Neither wants to. They are political shills with a political agenda. They are imposters. The whole Climate Catastrophe movement is based on the same kind of fearmongering as the so-called War on Terror. Both have degenerated into a ridiculous form of pseudo-religion. Refer to "Researcher: Basic Greenhouse Equations 'Totally Wrong'" at www.sillyConValley.net for more information.
"...could not accurately predict the weather for next winter". Of course not, don't you get it? There is a lot of variation between one winter and the next. Climate scientists are trying to predict trends over the *long term*. This is a basic logical flaw and is used by deniers all the time.
I looked at your article. This guy throws out yet another new theory. He believes climate change is real but self-limiting. Another one says it's real but not man-made, another says it's not real, another says it's caused by sunspots, another says it's caused by cyclical alignments, another says we're actually cooling. You deniers just go from one theory to the next hoping one will stick. This article doesn't prove anything.
"...that either validates or falsifies a testable hypothesis". Hypothesis: carbon dioxide causes warming. Validation: temperatures are rising.
Wrong.
Is this correct?
Hypothesis: Carbon causes Democrats to win the presidency. Validaton: Obama won.
Of course not. Neither is yours.
I think you're trying to tell me that correlation is not necessarily causation. But I have a scientific mechanism: CO2 has been shown by its molecular properties to trap heat. What's the mechanism for your silly analogy?
Dear Silly,
I will gladly vouch for you to your corporation that you have attepted to debunk global warming. How about long-term effects such as Canada moving the taiga from carbon sink to carbon source status? That seems long-term enough, doesn't it?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-canada-trees_wittjan02,0,539661.story
http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/news/544
Well there is a big difference between what most of us do and what you are doing.
You see, most of us who are interested in this kind of thing are going to pay attention to what the scientific community is telling us.
there are two components to this.
there are the facts
There are the theories (or models...both words have the same meaning in this context).
But more importantly there is a community of people out there who are interpreting this and who are experts and who are telling us something. We should pay attention to them.
Are you telling me that, in the programme validation for Voyagers I and II it was left to average members of the public to work out the exact scientific objectives of those craft? I followed those missions as a young man with fascination and I remember vividly that there were significant changes made to the mission profiles by the scientists as they discovered new things about the planets.
By your arguments above I would have to argue that the Voyager Scientists didn't actually know shit and therefore shouldn't have been allowed control over a multi-million dollar spacecraft! Indeed, they couldn't even work out how Europa was so smooth for goodness sake!
I choose to pay close attention to those climate scientists for the same reasons that I was enraptured by the results and science coming out of Voyager at the time. These people know their stuff as well as it's possible in the modern world to know it! And we really ought to pay attention to them even when they tell us stupid things that seem impossible....like that a world like Europa has a 100 mile deep ocean of liquid water even though that is supposedly IMPOSSIBLE so far away from the sun!
Silly scientist, you are confusing weather and climate: not the same thing.
It is simply a fact now that there is consensus in the scientific community about the facts that
1) the climate is changing in that it is globally warming up, and
2) the change in question is caused by recent (industrial) human activity.
Regarding your claim that the hypothesis of global warming is not empirically testable, a couple of remarks:
1) the theory of evolution is no more empirically verifiable, insofar as the evolutionary history of the Earth since the origin of life, which has been taking place over millions and millions of years, is not repeatable;
2) however, that situation does not prevent there being a consensus among scientists regarding the validity of the theory,
3) because the theory of evolution can be verified and tested by other means (for example, at the molecular level), by means of localized experiments (see, for instance, D. Papadopoulos, et alii, "Genomic Evolution During a 10,000-Generation Experiment with Bacteria," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 96/7 (1999), pp. 3807-3812), by way of the fossil record, etc.;
4) furthermore, computer modeling is utilized to test the theory of evolution and the hypothesis of man-made climate change.
This is a good point.
There are types of science that do not lend themselves to direct testability in a laboratory. They are largely observational in nature. Indeed, planetary science, which seems to be Silly Scientist's field is one that I, as an experimental Particle Physicist, could easily label as invalid because it is impossible to create a planet to our initial specifications and then watch it's formation in real time. Even the variation within our own solar system is invalid really because it's just one solar system formed in one, quite possibly wholly unique, environment.
Should I then, as a non-expert in planetary science, completely dismiss that entire field because it doesn't fall to testable hypothesis in a controlled laboratory setting?
Even though my own field (with difficulty) can still do it's experiments in a lab, I do not believe the observational sciences are in any sense 'less' scientific at all. They are in many ways harder, but that doesn't make the science any 'more' or 'less' valid.
This is a good point.
There are types of science that do not lend themselves to direct testability in a laboratory. They are largely observational in nature. Indeed, planetary science, which seems to be Silly Scientist's field is one that I, as an experimental Particle Physicist, could easily label as invalid because it is impossible to create a planet to our initial specifications and then watch it's formation in real time. Even the variation within our own solar system is invalid really because it's just one solar system formed in one, quite possibly wholly unique, environment.
Should I then, as a non-expert in planetary science, completely dismiss that entire field because it doesn't fall to testable hypothesis in a controlled laboratory setting?
Even though my own field (with difficulty) can still do it's experiments in a lab, I do not believe the observational sciences are in any sense 'less' scientific at all. They are in many ways harder, but that doesn't make the science any 'more' or 'less' valid.
Yes, right on the money. I totally agree.
The sciences of modernity form a coherent whole, but their unity is not to be sought in a narrowly verificationist and experimentalist conception of theory building and validation, although there is no doubt that testing and experimentation are central ingredients of the modern scientific enterprise.
In other words, there are different types of modern science, and, as you point out, some of the sciences are primarily, if not exclusively, observational (astronomy, botany, anatomy, and such).
How much do you get paid to be a shill, Silly?
Sadly there's a market for your brand of idiocy. Now go back in the sandbox and let the grown-ups actually address the problem at hand.
Of course not. Just as you cannot predict the next coin toss in a series with any better than a random guess but can pretty accurately predict that pretty close to 5000 of the next 10,000 will be heads, given fair conditions. On a more complex level, you cannot even come close to telling what hand of cards you will get next but can tell with stunning exactness that out of 1 million hands of 5-card draw .01% will be straight flushes. Of course if you worked on space programs you know this! Why do you continue to argue against the vast majority of scientists and many thousands of runs of many computer models in many fields? I would really like to know, and if you can't tell me, maybe you should investigate psychology in a personal enough way to find out. It’s buggin me and my grandkids.
Or try this: Pascal's Wager (Is it better to believe in a god that does exist, believe in a god that doesn't exist, not believe in a god that does exist or not believe in a god that doesn't exist?) It's a dumb way to decide what to believe, because 1) it's impossible to consciously decide what to believe, and 2) it ignores the multiplicity of gods to believe in. And 3) lots of other stuff, including assuming, dumbly, that believing gets you into heaven if God exists and not believing sends you to hell. (In the end it comes down to this: you SHOULD believe in the cruelest, most vindictive and petulant god you can find, which, oddly enough, is how it turns out for most of religious humanity. Hmmm…wonder why.)
But it's not a dumb way to decide how to ACT.
You’re right. We don’t know about climate change with absolute certainty. We could both be wrong. So it makes sense to try this out and then think about all the real complications.
The 4 choices are:
If Anthropogenic Global Climate Catastrophe is NOT REAL AND NOT DANGEROUS and WE DO NOTHING: We live in an increasingly nature-deprived, resource-poor world, beset by war, terrorism, cancer and other toxic effects (those are happening anyway, independently of GCC).
If Anthropogenic Global Climate Catastrophe is NOT REAL AND NOT DANGEROUS and WE TRANSFORM OUR SOCIETY to renewables, ecological industry and agriculture, and local resources: We have a strong likelihood of living in a far better world than we have now, especially if, as many now are realizing, nature is necessary for our physio-psychological health. This is at the cost of about .1 to 4% of GDP. Not much more change than from wood to coal to oil, and less wrenching than from small farms to agribiz, all changes we’ve already made, in a world less used to change than ours.
If Anthropogenic Global Climate Catastrophe is REAL AND DANGEROUS and WE ACT AS IF IT IS: Ding ding ding! We win the game, save civilization and maybe every vertebrate bigger than a breadbox, and maybe, after some hard times, live the good life as in answer 2.
If Anthropogenic Global Climate Catastrophe is REAL AND DANGEROUS and WE DO NOTHING: BZZZZZZZZ! Oops! Game Over! End of civilization!
Even if science hadn’t weighed in overwhelmingly in favor of AGCC being real, it would be a far far better thing we’d do than we have ever done to get the hell out of Coal City now, whatever the truth is. We’re in a giant test tube and we only get to try the experiment once. How does it make any sense to do anything but treat it as real?
Your's is the kind of logic that SHOULD be used to make our societal decisions.
Humans have lived thru several ice age cycles. We are the first, evidently, who have the means to see it coming and make the right choices for surviving it.
There is almost a critical mass of people who can see this, but it is excruciatingly slow going, heh?
The temp/CO2 spike reversals seen on Gore's big chart in his movie and book are brought about, I think, not just by cooking the planet with temp from ghgs. After a point it turns into simple mechanical and geological clockworks.
Melting water. Spinning planet. Angular momentum. Geo-tectonic activity. Lots of water vapor and big storms to move the water back to the poles.
It has to go mechanical to produce a spike reversal at 100ky periods.
A triad of forces---organic life, ecosphere, and planet---the symbol of the triple yin yang neutral w/in a circle.
An extra measure of random confidence could be achieved by lowering our carbon footprint back to within historical levels by admitting that our numbers and choice of fossil fuels are problematic and dangerous.
Silly, you are quite correct. Our ideas on global warming, like those on Evolution are hypotheses and not subjected to rigorous scientific method. I guess the real control for anthropogenic warming would be to kill every human on Earth and then determine whether Earth continued to warm.
Oh silly me no-one would exist to observe the result of that experiment. Perhaps we could order up a control Earth, identical to Earth 1 but containing no humans.
Sorry I'm out of ideas. What would you suggest for a repeatable controlled experiment that falsifies a testable hypothesis?
Seems we have a problem quantum physicists encountered decades ago, maybe we should just accept some level of uncertainty.
.Experimentation is certainly unneeded to draw conclusions about temperature variations over the long term, why do you stray so far from the scientific method while extolling it? One needs only to compile lists of temperatures, not experiment with climate, though how you would do that is a mystery....If temperatures can be shown to have been slowly but inexorably rising since the industrial revolution, and if "experimentation" has shown that CO2 retains heat in the athmosphere rather than allowing it to escape into space, then , by extrapolation one may logically assume the continued or increased amount of CO2 releases will continue to raise the temperature of this planet.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
At some time in the near - or not so near future, the human race will know what is, and what is not true on the status of global warming, climate change, etc., and will live or die. That is if we haven't already wiped the human race and every other living thing off the planet with a nuclear war. If that happens, "climate change," "global warming," and all the rest won't much matter.
Air pollution alone is reason enough to get rid of coal plants and gasoline engines. A large percentage of elderly and children have breathing problems in urban cities throughout the world.
Perhaps there could be vast floating area's covered with some type of reflecting material in the Artic Ocean's warmer months?..that would require cooperation of the merchant fleets of all the northern hemisphere nations..perhaps useless, but certainly less than making nuclear weapons and bombs..
Factory farming of animals creates almost 20% of Warming. Become a revolutionary vegetarian. Stop eating cow's at least.
"Air pollution alone is reason enough to get rid of coal plants and gasoline engines. "
Exactly. For those who don't think global warming is real, point out things such as this...going to clean energy will save and improve many lives, and has the potential to revitalize our economy.
Air pollution has been on the rise past two decades as the elites push the people to consume ever more energy and materials, to grow the economy to maintain "full rectum dominance". The elites possess an entire konstellation of kaka ideas and goals but this is one of the grand-daddies. Even the idea of "revitalizing our economy" rests on the assumption that the elites must dispense McJobs so we can consume more than our parents, our spectacular indicator of "progress". zmann you can surely see the writing on the wall: instead of revitalizing we need to revolutionize our economy by driving it not with the freaky crazed domination drive of the neocon/neoliberal elites but instead with the true better interests of the people. Result: Consumption and all the destruction are curbed, to make way for the peaceful interactions between people and nature. And the meek shall inherit the earth from the freaks.
Agreed - I like your point.
However, societal change usually happens gradually...unless something forces it to happen quickly. Personal change doesn't have to be so gradual, and in this case, is not advisable.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
You're right, revitalizing is too soft a word...just about everything that we do needs to change, and quickly. You know how many food packagings come as resealable now? It wasn't always like that...the next step for products like that must be minimal packaging, and whatever is there must be biodegradable or completely recyclable. What we really need is an economy that focuses on sustainability and quality, instead of never-ending growth and consumption.
"Air pollution alone is reason enough to get rid of coal plants and gasoline engines."
I disagree, both Obama and Gore (neither one of whom can be accused of not being good environmentalists) both support investing in clean coal technology and safe nuclear energy. Not in massive amounts, mind you. But if we are to meet our energy needs we should consider all of our options. We should stay open minded to new technologies.
joehope,
I disagree, and accuse Obama certainly of not being a good environmentalist, and one of many many pieces of evidence is his appointments in the agriculture field.
Gore spent many years in the Senate and Vice Presidency being a not-so-good environmentalist before he distinguished himself as a retiree, in one sub-field of environmentalism. There are many others he has not said a word about, as far as I know. Their anti-ecological stance on nuclear alone is enough to question their ecological IQ, feeling of connection to nature, including other humans, and their commitment to the truth, which here, is that nuclear power is neither safe, nor necessary, nor economically democratic. Conservation, solar, wind and a few other small sources are better, faster, cheaper, cleaner, safer, and more democratic.
And there is no such thing as clean coal so what are you talking about? Saying "clean coal" is like saying "good evil". Huh?
Stop buying and selling nonsense from snake oil salespeople.
Clean coal does exist. It just needs investment.
http://www.coalcandothat.com/
Obama is an environmentalist and Gore is probably the most important environmentalist on earth. Apparently, you are unable to provide any evidence to the contrary. How you even seen "An Inconvenient Truth"? That movie transformed global consciousness.
Clean Coal? Gee, just ask the folks in that Tennesee vally what they thaink of clean coal. Or the folks who are watching their mountains be turned into gravel pits to get the fuel for 'clean coal' power plants.
Walk in peace.
.Using a coal industry source might just open one up to several charges, bias being one of the more gentle ones.
Clean coal is a myth, plain and simple:
http://www.thisisreality.org/#/?p=facility
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_coal_technology
Clean coal technology is an umbrella term and a public relations term used to describe technologies being developed that aim to reduce the environmental impact of coal energy generation.[1]. These include chemically washing minerals and impurities from the coal, gasification (see also IGCC), treating the flue gases with steam to remove sulfur dioxide, and carbon capture and storage technologies to capture the carbon dioxide from the flue gas.
Clean coal technology usually addresses atmospheric problems resulting from burning coal. Historically, the primary focus was SO2 emissions and particulates. Current concerns focus especially on carbon dioxide emission, due to its like impact on global warming mitigate greenhouse gas emissions as well as other pollutants[2]. Concerns exist regarding the economic viability of these technologies and the timeframe of delivery[3], high hidden economic costs in terms of social and environmental damage [4], and the costs and viability of disposing of removed carbon and other toxic matter [5] [6].
Coal is the second largest domestic contributor to carbon dioxide emissions[7]. The public has become more concerned about global warming, which is leading to legislation, so the coal industry has been running advertising touting clean coal in an effort to deal with negative perceptions. Changing meanings of term ‘clean coal’ and questions about motives have provoked skepticism on the part of environmentalists. The term ‘clean coal is often stated in inverted commas by its critics, due to claims that it is a misnomer [8] and a public relations term[9]. In November 2008, NBC anchor Brian Williams described clean coal as an oxymoron as part of the station’s report on the issue[10]. Supporters of clean coal use the Great Plains Synfuels plant to support the technical feasibility of carbon dioxide sequestration. Carbon dioxide from coal gasification is shipped to Canada, where it is injected into the ground to aid in oil recovery. Supporters acknowledge that economics can be problematic for carbon sequestration.[11]
[edit] Prior terminology
In the early 20th century, prior to World War II, "clean coal" (also called "smokeless coal") referred to anthracite and high-grade bituminous coal, used for cooking and home heating.[12]
[edit] Clean Coal and the environment
Further information: Environmental effects of coal
Further information: Mountaintop removal mining
According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the burning of coal, a fossil fuel, is blamed for climate change and global warming. (See the UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report). As 25.5% of the world's electrical generation in 2004 was from coal-fired generation (see World energy resources and consumption), reaching the carbon dioxide reduction targets of the Kyoto Protocol will require modifications to how coal is utilized.[13]
Sequestration technology has yet to be tested on a large scale and may not be safe or successful. Sequestered CO2 may eventually "leak" up through the ground, may lead to unexpected geological instability or may cause contamination of aquifers used for drinking water supplies.[14] There are also concerns that plans to pump some of the sequestered CO2 into certain oil and gas reserves, to help make the fuels easier to pump out of the ground, will lead to increased concentrations of CO2 in potential fuel supplies. This would have to be removed or released during the refining process.[15]
[edit] Byproducts
The byproducts of coal combustion are considerably hazardous to the environment if not properly contained. This is clean coal's largest challenge, both from the practical and public relations perspectives.
While it is possible to remove most of the sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate (PM) emissions from the coal-burning process, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and radionuclides [16] will be more difficult to address. Technologies exist to capture and store CO2, but they have not yet been utilized on a large-scale commercial basis due to the high economic costs.[17]
Coal-fired power plants are the largest aggregate source of mercury: 50 tons per year come from coal power plants out of 150 tons emitted nationally in the USA and 5000 tons globally.[18] In the USA, neither the combustion products of oil[19], nor their associated solid or liquid waste streams[20], are considered to be major contributors to mercury pollution.[21]
Coal burning industries have previously succeeded in significantly reducing pollutants. Current coal fired electric generating plants emit 70% fewer regulated emissions (total mass per energy produced) than in 1970.[22] This factoid includes values for NOx, SOx, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, and carbon monoxide emissions only. SOx formed the greatest proportion of these emissions in 1970[23], where significant gains had been made in order to combat acid rain.
[edit] Potential cost of clean coal
The entry Carbon capture and storage details the lifetime costs for natural gas, pulverized coal, and Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) with and without carbon capture. Carbon capture and sequestration is one of the newest technologies to fall under the 'clean coal' umbrella.
A 2003 study conducted by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on greenhouse gases, found that the cost of building a Shell-designed IGCC that doesn't capture carbon could cost $1,371 per kW and a comparable system that captures carbon could cost $1,860 per kW."[24] These costs can be contrasted with other types of plants in economics of new plants. In September 2008, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report recommending that the government lead the way in addressing any issues surrounding the large-scale development of carbon capture and sequestration, saying that the high cost of carbon capture technologies, especially those used to retrofit existing plants, is a key barrier to the commercial deployment of carbon capture.[25] The first commercial-scale sequestration project is set to launch in 2009 in West Virginia.[26]
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
joehope,
I seem to have gone overboard to be concise, countering your oversimplified statement with one of my own. Let me clarify:
I have the utmost respect for Gore in this field, and yes, he may go down in history as THE person who ignited global change with An Inconvenient Truth, for which he deservedly got both an Oscar and a Nobel. For this we owe him greatly.
However... we don't owe him saint status, or unquestioned obedience. I have been an environmental educator, professional and at-large, for 30+ years, which i mention just to say I am not some opinionated blowhard blowing it out his--well, I am not JUST that, anyway. I have spent a lifetime in Nature, thinking about, reading about, defending Nature, including humans. The many people I have known who are as steeped in this essence as I like to think I am are almost universally led to certain proclivities, one of which is to consider things ecologically—that is, in terms of relationships and harmony and balance, and not as separate things at all. That outlook tends to lead one toward certain answers and away from certain answers. My commitment to science makes me then question those directions and look for facts on both sides before I commit to a path. That will have to do as explanation, even though it’s inadequate.
Those 30+ years have taught me in ever more depth and detail that conservation, solar, wind, micro-hydro, cogeneration etc. are infinitely more in keeping with Nature, are infinitely more conducive to our rediscovering our place in the ecological web, are far more appropriate to our continued thriving on this planet. And that’s backed up with facts and numbers and costs and experts, just in case you need them, too.
Some of Gore’s and Obama’s opinions, including those on "clean" coal and nuclear, strongly suggest that they are asking the wrong questions, looking in the wrong places for the answers, trusting untrustworthy sources, too concerned with corporate funding and compromise and not steeped enough in either the facts or the essence of whatever I can call it without making conservative eyes roll—Nature, Earth, Gaia… I fear they don’t know—and by know I mean more than just facts, but know deeply and with a sense of belonging—the oxygen and carbon cycles, the lives of wolves and slime molds, the interactions of people and pine trees and the long lives of mountains. Gore, maybe, knows some of this and has just forgotten or been misled, (although being so far misled at his age and intelligence seems unlikely, and kinda wimpy, besides) and Obama has shown even less such knowledge, from his campaign to his appointments. (Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, Michael Pollan and tens of thousands of others called for agriculture appointments that reflect a knowledge of the importance of that field and its integral connection with the ecological life we must move towards to survive the coming crises. We have been completely ignored by the president-elect, who has chosen the usual corporate shill-types in favor of GMO crops and agribusiness. Just for an example)
I’m not sure why you gave me a link to what seems like a coal industry website selling the unproven, unlikely, nonexistent technology of so-called “clean” coal. Very little credibility there, sorry. Try the Rocky Mountain Institute, and this for Amory Lovin’s studied opinion on nuclear (he’s been writing about it since before Soft Energy Paths revolutionized the debate in 1976): www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid467.php.
Coal and nuclear are energy and capital black holes which will suck life out of alternatives. What it comes down to is that coal and nuclear are slower, more expensive, more destructive, less democratic, less job-creative, and completely unnecessary, as decentralized solar, wind, and conservation outperform them in every way that means anything.
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“Coal is by far the most carbon intensive source of electricity, so displacing it is the yardstick of carbon displacement’s effectiveness. A kilowatt-hour of nuclear power does displace nearly all the 0.9-plus kilograms of CO2 emitted by producing a kilowatt-hour from coal. But so does a kilowatt-hour from wind, a kilowatt-hour from recovered-heat industrial cogeneration, or a kilowatt-hour saved by end-use efficiency. And all of these three carbon free resources cost at least one-third less than nuclear power per kilowatt-hour, so they save more carbon per dollar.”
“Nuclear power, being the costliest option, delivers less electrical service per dollar than its rivals, so, not surprisingly, it’s also a climate protection loser, surpassing in carbon emissions displaced per dollar only centralized, non-cogenerating combined-cycle power plants burning natural gas8. Firmed wind power and cogeneration are 1.5 times more cost-effective than nuclear at displacing CO2. So is efficiency at even an almost unheard-of seven cents per kilowatt-hour. Efficiency at normally observed costs beats nuclear by a wide margin— for example, by about ten-fold for efficiency costing one cent per kilowatt-hour.”
“New nuclear power is so costly that shifting a dollar of spending from nuclear to efficiency protects the climate several-fold more than shifting a dollar of spending from coal to nuclear. Indeed, under plausible assumptions, spending a dollar on new nuclear power instead of on efficient use of electricity has a worse climate effect than spending that dollar on new coal power!”
“If we’re serious about addressing climate change, we must invest resources wisely to expand and accelerate climate protection. Because nuclear power is costly and slow to build, buying more of it rather than of its cheaper, swifter rivals will instead reduce and retard climate protection.”
"On the other hand, say you manage to convert a lot of it to solar or wind power-think of the money you'd save on fuel. "
I wish tidal power would get mentioned more. Out of all the alternatives this is the one that works at night and when there's no wind. Common digs the fossil fuel guys throw out all the time when arguing for renewables. Also the benefits in the WOT are huge if the US goes renewable. Factor that into the cost savings....
Good comment. We also have geothermal. Different regions would need to use the best sources available for that certain region. There's been plenty of work using concentrated solar power (CSP) to heat salt solutions that can continue to boil water for turbines well after the sun goes down. I detest the fossil fuel and fission guys that think alternatives won't work. 20,000 times the energy humans use strikes the earth from the sun. I'm not a piece of dung that thinks we're incapable of harnessing 1/20,000 of the energy available from the sun like the a lot of dumb asses.
The causes and ill-effects of obesity are well known, yet obesity remains on the rise. Why? It is an indisputable fact that cigarettes cause cancer and lots of other ailments, yet 50 million Americans continue to puff away. Why? Approximately 140 Americans are killed on our roads daily, and our behavior remains unchanged. Why?
Anyone who believes Americans will experience some sort of mass awakening or enlightenment and suddenly band together in the nick of time in order to "save the planet" is the ultimate denier.
The bottom line: prepare yourselves and your children for the worst case scenario, cause there's no doubt it's coming...
That sounds like a realistic assessment of our predicament. Prepare yourselves for scarcity, hardship, pain, and a very localized existence. See Richard Heinberg's Web site on tips for making the transition.
Guess I'm well. I've been living that way for fifteen years now.
I fear your words are prescient. But all the same, my conscience will not allow me to remain silent even though, like Cassandra, we may be doomed to always predict the future but to never be believed.
Dear Abendland:
I'm glad you mention computer modeling. A computer model is what we used (TRAJEX was the name of the model) for mapping the trajectories for Voyagers I and II for NASA in the mid-1970s. But please note that a computer model is only as reliable as can be scientifically validated by what is known as "regression testing." The gist of regression testing is described correctly here by Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company:
"Performance for this configuration was determined using TRAJEX simulations which are anchored to actual flight data. All simulations indicate that the flight environments are well within our current experience." (c.f. http://74.6.239.67/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=TRAJEX&fr=yfp-t-501&u=www.ulalaunch.com/docs/publications/Atlas/Atlas_Human_Rating/Atlas_V_for_Commercial_Passenger_Transportation_2006-7268.pdf&w=trajex&d=YqRGW0fiR8NW&icp=1&.intl=us)
Notice that Lockheed specifies that modeled environments must be "ANCHORED TO ACTUAL FLIGHT DATA." In other words, you program the computer model and then you regression test the model against real-world data. You them make corrections to the model and rerun the test. You reiterate until the model and real data converge. This is scientific modeling.
The models that climate "scientists" use to project climate data 100 years out can not be regression tested against real-world data. Hence they are not scientific models. Any true scientist knows this. Al Gore and his hysterical politicos know about as much about scientific computer modeling as you know about propaganda science.
Nonsense, the climate change models' data are compared to actual data all the time. Temperature trends, trends in polar ice melt, glacial retreat, etc, are being used right now to tune computer models. It is a difficult task, because there are so many variables, but just because it isn't a perfect analogy to some space probe doesn't mean it isn't valid. And get off your high horse about people on this site. There are thousands of highly qualified, respected scientists out there that are behind global climate change theory, you know, actual climatologists as opposed to NASA engineers.
Silly scientist,
Thank you for your response.
You know as well as I do that scientists do not use computers exclusively for regression testing; they also use them for making forecasts (a use that is precisely relevant in the case of the study of climate), for performing tedious and long mathematical computations and long logical proofs, for producing three-dimensional models (in the sense of 'model-airplane', or maquettes, as they are also called), etc.
Again, we encounter your tendency to narrow and reduce things down in order to suit your agenda, a tendency which I identified in my initial response to you (see below).
I note that you make a distinction now between genuine, certified, "government inspected" science and propaganda science. The question, of course, is: who decides what counts as the former, and what counts as the latter?
All computer models are worthless, you say.
Why bother at this point? 20 years ago, didn't we set a target for 2010 or 2015? Let's just be honest with ourselves and admit that we're not gonna think about climate change seriously until it really affects more of us and in deeply profound concrete ways. Let's just suck up the rest of the oil, coal, and possibly nuclear power, and get this over with. Besides, Mother Earth will hit the reset button on humanity when she's had more than enough.
Worried about methane? Try opting out of the meat industry. The less meat farmed and consumed the less methane produced.
'Green Greed' is another emerging insanity we have to deal with soon. Too many industries that are springing up marketing on the Green image but end up being hypocritical or worse in terms of damage to the environment. Ethanol is one industry that comes to mind, but there are many more. If you see it, boycott it and encourage others to avoid it.
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Free music: Party Line: Download mp3
A very important point, indeed!
Yes, but raising cereal crops requires a climate stable enough for them to mature. I saw a great graph on a NOVA show years ago and have never forgotten it. First it showed climatic variability over the last 8,000 years or so, with the expected ups and downs. THEN that line was pushed to the right of the screen and on the left appeared a graph of climatic variability prior to 8,000 years ago. The contrast made the line on the right look almost straight. The point was, until 8,000 years ago the climate was NOT STABLE enough, even over the course of one or a few years, to consistently support agriculture in the temperate zones.
Small-scale grass fed beef raising of 'multi-purpose' type heirloom cattle breeds is a good hedge against this type of scenario, a midsummer frost means very little to pastured cattle but will wipe out cereal crops. As the Gulf Stream turns off, Europe in particular should consider the possibility of a much less crop-friendly climate. Consider that Rome, Italy is farther north than
New York City, USA ! (Don't take my word for it, go check on a globe. Counterintuitive, but true.)
Here's something for you all to chew on: Russia just cut the natural gas pipeline that runs through the Ukraine to the rest of Europe. How much coverage is this getting in the MSM? Close to zero. All the newschatter is about how Israel is slaughtering children in Palestine.
Another fact: Oil prices continue to hover well under the break-even point for extraction and refining. OPEC is saying it needs a MINIMUM price of $75/bbl just to pay the oil companies to pump the crap out of the ground. And because of that depressed price in oil, major projects to extract more from deep sea deposits and the Canadian Tar Sands are on permamnent hold.
Another fact: Many countries in Europe are already tapping heavily into their national gas and oil emergency reserves. And winter is no where close to being finished. Expect news reports in the coming months of hundreds of people freezing to death in these countries, some of which are the most advanced in the world.
These are the exact events that Peak Oil and Peak Energy proponents have predicted, and they are happening almost on cue.
And with the advent of the economic meltdown, the products and processes that define modern technological life are going to beome scarce in a relatively short time period. There is a massive tent city in Tokyo, Japan composed of the enemployed and newly homeless in a major public park.
For the gods sake, even motoring jounalists and sports writers can see what is coming! I have been reading articles recently from these kinds of sources screaming to the masses that they are going to be left out in the cold without a scrap of cloth or a morsel to eat, and it will be their own damn fault when it happens!
Jim Kuntsler, author of 'The Long Emergency' an 'World Made By Hand' may just have gotten the vision of the future dead on.
Walk in peace.
Those two books of Kunstler's are important and make for timely reading. They are highly recommended.
What's great about Kunstler is that he pulverizes the bad faith, the complacency, the excuses, the lies, and the self-deception that are constitutive of the "American Dream" (which is rapidly becoming a nightmare for more people than just minorities) and the pathological ideology that oozes out of the White House, much of the Congress, and most of the traditional or corporate media.
Some of Kunstler's political positions, I find rather objectionable, but they are incidental in number and thus easily dismissed.
I also had some difficulties with his very generous use of the scientific concept of entropy in "The Long Emergency." Nothing major, though.
Paul Siemering
saw this show on pbs couple weeks ago. about a tiny island country that knows it's doomed. really made me finally really wake up. scientists are nice, but these reports never really hit your gut. Watching people watching their homeland disappear, that does.
Then our reporter goes on a boat to visit an island- part of this same archipelago- that has already drowned. It looks it like it got carpet bombed. and the palm tree.... go look
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/449/index.html