Religion + Politics = Global Disaster

(Via Andrew Sullivan.)

This is nothing short of insane. Anyone who asserts that we need not be concerned about human-caused CO2 emissions because only God will decide when the world ends has no place on a local school board let alone in the legislature of the most powerful nation on earth.

Sadly, this is just one more incident proving that the GOP base is not reality-based. These people don't care at all about empirical reality. And that's worse than ridiculous--it's terrifying.

Update:

Another example of the base not being reality based: Wired has a great article detailing the ridiculousness of the anti-science crusaders attempting to hijack the Texas educational system.

Super-kites To Tap High-altitude Wind

(http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/492)

"Hell And High Water"

Here's an unnerving graphic from Climate Progress (click image to enlarge):

I highly recommend Joseph Romm's new post in which he makes a tight argument for immediate action to mitigate human-caused climate change. As a practical matter, one does not even need to be 100 percent confident that the numbers in this graphic are correct in order to recognize the need for concern about this issue. That's like being comfortable playing Russian roulette because there's only a one-in-six chance that you'll blow your brains out when you pull the trigger. And the "business as usual" option looks to be pretty much equivalent to humanity blowing all our brains out.

Click here for more Podium posts on climate change. Or click on a label at the bottom of any post to see more posts on that topic.



Update:

TreeHugger: "Land Degradation Endangers Quarter of World Population"

Yikes. Add that on to the scenarios laid out in the Romm post linked above and our civilization's fragility really starts to become apparent.

Update II:

Here's an exchange about this article that I had on Facebook with a reader named Shawn.

Shawn:

As a libertarian, what are your thoughts on a cap-and-trade system many have proposed?

Me:

It looks to be a bureaucratic nightmare. I favor taxes aimed directly at emissions. The easiest way to do that is to tax all sales of fossil fuels. We could set up a system that increased those taxes by a set percentage annually while at the same time lowering other taxes so as to avoid any net increase in tax rates.

Shawn:

And offer tax credits/ rebates with the revenue raised? Alternative energy?

Me:

Well, that's one possibility. Or we could just use it to offset income taxes.

Shawn:

I'm no expert, but something obviously needs to be done.

Me:

Indeed. The extent to which most prominent libertarian voices continue to drag their heels in acknowledging the need for action is quite disappointing to me. If we don't recognize the problem and offer our own solutions, then the liberals/progressives will control the debate. And that wouldn't be good for anyone. Especially since the GOP is in almost complete denial about all of this.

Update III:

And David Goodner added:

I would support combining cap and trade with Patton's idea on taxing fossil fuels as well, and also throw in massive subsidies for solar and wind power, an end to subsidies for bio-fuels, and cannabis legalization (so we can stop cutting down trees to make paper).

I also think we need a cultural shift away from mono-cropping and meat. Farmers should only get government subsidies for increasing biodiversity, crop diversification, and lowering livestock while increasing plant production. Animals we breed for slaughter eat more of our farmed vegetables than humans do. Eating plants is more sustainable with less shit.

Global warming is not just industrial emissions, but also de-greening and concrete. Rain forests have to be protected and expanded. The earth basically needs to become a gigantic garden and farm so we can "carbon-sink" as much C02 as possible. We also have to stop creating dead zones in rivers, lakes, and oceans. That means no more plastic and drastic cuts in consumption.

Me:

The biggest problem with subsidies is making sure they are spent effectively. As a general rule, I think it's better for the government to provide disincentives for bad behavior and allow the market to take care of providing incentives for good behavior.

Eventually, All Jobs Must Be Green

Joseph Romm writes:

To perpetuate the high returns the rich countries in particular have been achieving in recent decades, we have been taking an ever greater fraction of nonrenewable energy resources (especially hydrocarbons) and natural capital (fresh water, arable land, forests, fisheries), and, the most important nonrenewable natural capital of all — a livable climate.

In short, we have failed to designed a system capable of lasting prosperity. Quite the reverse.

Like all Ponzi schemes, the system must collapse. When it does, the only jobs left standing will be those that are “green” — which can be defined as those jobs that do not plunder nonrenewable energy resources and natural capital and/or do not to destroy a livable climate.

Continue reading.

Discussing climate changes in terms of economics and standards of living is essential. Focusing on technology as the primary tool in combating climate change is also important. I try to do both whenever I discuss the issue on this blog.

Can Nanotechnology Solve The Climate, Energy, And Economic Crises Simultaneously?

Eric Drexler writes on his blog Metamodern:

The greenhouse gas problem is far more intractable than most people think, and although there is a solution in sight, we will need a technological revolution to implement it.

Continue reading.

The solution Drexler envisions becoming possible in the not-too-distant future is as follows:

The way to remove CO2 quickly is to pump it, but this is a project too large to undertake with today’s manufacturing infrastructure. However, as I note in the Edge essay,

If we were good at making things, we could make efficient devices able to collect, compress, and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and we could make solar arrays large enough to generate enough power to do this on a scale that matters. A solar array area, that if aggregated, would fit in a corner of Texas, could generate 3 terawatts. In the course of 10 years, 3 terawatts would provide enough energy remove all the excess carbon the human race has added to the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution began. So far as carbon emissions are concerned, this would fix the problem.

A few specifics:

* Nanosystems provides a physical analysis of a class of selective, thermodynamically efficient molecular pumps. Devices like these provide one option for satisfying the first condition I mentioned.
* Excess atmospheric CO2 is expected to be about 1 trillion tons in the time frame of interest, and the amount of energy required to collect and compress this to liquid density is about 1021 Joules.
* This is equivalent to 3 terawatts of electric power for 10 years, comparable to the total world electric generating capacity today.
* Solar arrays with an aggregate area equivalent to a 250-km square would provide ample power (assuming cells of mediocre photovoltaic efficiency, but placed in sunny locations).
* Advanced molecular manufacturing capabilities will make it practical to produce the necessary hardware to solve the greenhouse gas problem by removing the excess greenhouse gases, reversing net emissions.

Regarding molecular manufacturing, as I note in the Edge essay:

The U.S. National Academies has issued a report on molecular manufacturing, and it calls for funding experimental research. A roadmap prepared by Battelle with several U.S. National Laboratories has studied paths forward, and suggests research directions. This knowledge will spread, and will change the game.

(I also high recommend reading Drexler's post on the problem of CO2 emissions leading to ocean acidification.)

The take-away from this should be that research and development spending in the area of molecular manufacturing looks like a promising course of action to solve the problem of rapidly growing atmospheric CO2 levels (which, according to the best available climate models, will have devastating effects).

Drexler's proposal, if it is indeed workable, is the only one I'm aware of that provides an alternative to planet-wide CO2 emissions regulation that quickly brings the total amount of the gas being released down to sustainable levels. So let's look into this further and attempt it if feasible. If we can pull CO2 out of the air with solar stations covering 250-km square of planet (less than 0.0000005 percent of its total surface area--I think, but I'd welcome corrections to any stupid mistakes I may have made in my math) at a rate sufficient to be able to control atmospheric CO2 levels, then the best climate change solution would be to build those solar stations as fast as we can. Of course would also want to emit as little carbon as possible in manufacturing and installing the stations, but it's important to note that it's okay to emit CO2 in the course of implementing this plan as long as the solar stations are able to function for long enough to yield a substantial net CO2 reduction over their life expectancy.

Reiterating what Drexler has to say about the relevance of molecular manufacturing (I highly recommend following this link to learn about this amazing concept) to this discussion:

The U.S. National Academies has issued a report on molecular manufacturing, and it calls for funding experimental research. A roadmap prepared by Battelle with several U.S. National Laboratories has studied paths forward, and suggests research directions. This knowledge will spread, and will change the game.

If we can accomplish what Drexler is calling for, we will be able to transform our unwanted carbon emissions into any carbon-based manufactured goods that we would care to make--hence heralding the dawn of the diamond age. Perhaps we will eventually learn that Drexler's idea is fatally flawed in some unforeseen way, but spending the money necessary to find out if it's realistic project still seems like a good investment given the immensity of the possible payoff.

And here's one more optimistic thought: Nanotech engineers tinkering with the new technology which will hopefully be available in the coming years and decades may well be the engine that will drive us out of our current recession/emerging depression. Remember that technology is a primary enabler of economic growth--and how quickly computer hobbyists in 1975 were able to launch themselves to billionaire status. Silicon Valley may yet be able to do for manufacturing what it already has for information processing, storage, and transfer. And that would change the world in ways we can scarcely imagine today.

Consider Pollution As A Property Rights Issue

From the Switchboard:

Do people in the fiberglass or printing industries expect to get raw materials and parts for free? Do they expect their employees to work for free? I doubt it. But based on some public testimony at a workshop hosted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (the "District") last Friday, some of them expect to continue to use our air as a public sewer, for free.

Continue reading.

This is an excellent, succinct explanation of the problem of atmospheric pollution as an externality in energy production that leads to a market failure. Through dumping their waste chemicals into the atmosphere, polluting governments, corporations, and individuals dispose of their trash for free. But they do so by dumping it on everyone else's front lawns. Because our planet's atmosphere cannot be meaningfully partitioned, it is a paradigm case of a public good. And it's subject to one hell of a tragedy of the commons problem. We all need it, but no single entity has any incentive to refrain from poisoning it just a little bit--because even if you act virtuously, your neighbors are likely to cheat. Thus, everyone's little bits and up into a dangerous total.

The most rational response to this situation is to treat the atmosphere as thought it is owned equally by all the people (and perhaps, though I don't care to get into this here, even all the life) on the planet. There then has to be a rule set about maintaining a healthy atmosphere that is enforced virtually everywhere on the planet. I don't like this idea any more than most libertarian-leaning people do, but I don't see any other currently available solution.

Note that all this holds true regardless of one's views on the issue of human-caused climate change and the scope of the potential damage it will cause. Disagreeing about the credibility of climate scientists' existing models and predictions doesn't get one out of the need to protect the quality of the atmosphere as a public good. If one is skeptical of the mainstream consensus that climate change represents a serious threat to our currently existing human civilization, then one is obligated to respond with one's own data and lay out an appropriate regulatory structure based on that information.

In the post immediately following this one, I will discuss a potential alternate solution that would not require regulation of CO2 emissions--but unfortunately relies on as-yet purely theoretical technology.

Washington Post Continues To Back Flawed Column

From Climate Progress:

Please email and phone Andrew Alexander at 202-334-7582 or at ombudsman@washpost.com

The Washington Post ombudsman is the paper’s “internal critic and represents readers.” Yet Andrew Alexander has basically decided to take on the role of defender of Will and the Post and his own mistakes. He has seriously undermined both his credibility and his independence, while at the same time making himself part of the story — serious mistakes for an ombudsman.

You can read Alexander’s column here. You can read a good line by line response by Siegal here.

Continue reading.

This whole incident is nothing short of absurd. George Will has unambiguously shown himself to be a pathetic hack on the climate change issue. And, even worse, the Washington Post seems intent on standing behind his lies and/or embarrassing ignorance. It will be interesting to see how this controversy plays out.

Time For Civil Disobedience At Coal Plants?

Climate Progress reports:

Inarguably, “Coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet” as our top climate scientist, James Hansen, has explained.

Hansen will be joining more than 2,500 people who have registered to participate in “the largest act of peaceful civil disobedience on global warming in the country’s history” — this Monday, March 2 at the Capitol Power Plant. The Plant is owned by Congress and burns coal to heat and cool numerous buildings on Capitol Hill. Details can be found at the Capitol Climate Action Coalition website, where you’ll find this video from Hansen urging participation:



Continue reading.

Greenland's Alarming Meltdown

From Climate Progress:


(http://link.brightcove.com)

Google Advocates Increased Energy Research Funding

From Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org:

We must quickly develop low-cost renewable and efficient energy technology to avoid the devastating effects of climate change. This requires a strong financial commitment to clean energy research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) to achieve big breakthroughs.

Historically such funding has been anemic. After a peak in 1978 of $7 billion, U.S. government funding for energy RD&D dropped by more than 70%. Corporate RD&D fell even more, and funding in the early 2000s totaled just 0.3% of sector revenue, compared to 15% in the biotech sector. Is it any wonder the energy sector has struggled to make progress?

Continue reading.

Google's most important goal in this area is the development of renewable power that's cheaper than coal--even without accounting for the externalities associated with substantially altering the CO2 content of the atmosphere. Such technology is the holy grail of the green movement. Once developed, it would quickly make all economic objections to phasing out coal as an energy source moot. So let's all hope Google (or someone else) is successful in inventing such technology. Doing so in the only path I can see that will allow us to maintain and even surpass current levels of prosperity.

Update:

Google is also trying to keep people focused on smart-grid technology:

Just one week after launching Google's energy information campaign, we kicked off our first joint smart grid event with GE, a larger clean energy collaboration we announced last fall. Our timing was fortuitous; the event took place just as President Obama signed an historic economic stimulus bill that includes $11 billion to modernize the electricity grid.

Continue reading.

Update II:

Also, Climate Progress has a great post up about how large of a reduction of CO2 emissions can be accomplished with currently scalable ("shovel-ready," if you will) technology.

CO2 Levels Now Highest In At Least 650,000 Years

Climate Progress reports:

NOAA’s Global Monitoring Division reports that global concentrations of the primary heat-trapping greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, jumped 2.28 ppm in 2008.



A study in Science from the Global Carbon Project (see “More on soaring carbon concentrations“) noted:

The present concentration is the highest during the last 650,000 years and probably during the last 20 million years.

Worse, the rate of growth of CO2 concentrations this decade is 2.1 ppm a year — 40% higher than the rate from the 1990s. At the same time that CO2 emissions are soaring, CO2 sinks are saturating (see “The ocean is absorbing less carbon dioxide“).

Continue reading.

Even those who are skeptical of the computer models climate scientists use to make their climate change predictions ought to be very concerned about these numbers. We are changing this planet's atmospheric composition at an amazing rate. That's something that we should all take pretty seriously.

Update:

Speaking of the extent to which human activity is reshaping our planet, Wired reports:

The global shipping industry hasn't just tied together the world's nations economically, but biologically, too.

The average Great Lakes port, such as Chicago, is only an average of two degrees of separation from 80 percent of the ports in the world, from Kuala Lumpur to Amsterdam, according to new analysis of more than 2 million ship movements presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences annual meeting.

...

The boundaries of previously distinct geographies with their own distinct forms of life have been blurred by invasive organisms hitching rides on shipping vessels. The world's bodies of water are getting more homogeneous, leading some biologists to refer to the current era of global biological flatness as "the homogecene."

Continue reading.

This brings E.O. Wilson's recent talk at the UI to mind. His message was that working to maintain robust biodiversity is the best way to ensure that we're being careful enough in our management of the earth's biosphere.

This is the only planet we know of that is capable of sustaining our civilization. Thus, its value to all of us is pretty much infinite. If we're smart, we'll start acting like it.

Is Revamping The Power Grid Necessary?

Reason asks:

What's So Smart About Investing in the Smart Grid?

Smart grid technology is all the rage. General Electric just paid $2.4 million for a Superbowl ad featuring an animated scarecrow singing "If I Only Had a Brain" to promote its smart grid initiatives. IBM, meanwhile, is running full page "Smarter power for a smarter planet" ads in major newspapers like the New York Times. These corporations are in perfect sync with the new administration in Washington.

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama promised to retrofit America by "updating the way we get our electricity, by starting to build a new smart grid that will save us money, protect our power sources from blackout or attack, and deliver clean, alternative forms of energy to every corner of our nation." To that end, the House version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act authorizes the Department of Energy to spend $4.5 billion dollars to stimulate the deployment of smart grid technologies.

Continue reading.

Ultimately, the article concludes:

In 2004, the Electric Power Research Institute calculated that it would cost $165 billion over the next 20 years—about $8 billion per year—to build out the smart grid. And one of the first challenges is mobilizing sufficient investment. But that problem won't be solved by throwing $4.5 billion at the electric grid as a sop to the environmental lobby—even if it does stimulate the bottom lines of favored corporations.

I agree completely. But due to my deep concern about climate change issues, which comes largely from reading the always informative Climate Progress and RealClimate blogs, I reach the opposite conclusion. We should drop enough non-green infrastructure from the bill to allow the $8 billion per year funding required to update our power grid.

The Reason article makes clear that there are plenty of collective action problems, perverse incentives, etc. at work here that prevent the market from facilitating developments that could help the United States cut back on its CO2 emissions. And the externalities associated with climate change are yet another massive market failure. I'm all for allowing the market to solve any problem it can, but this is an extremely clear case of it not being able to solve a problem. Thus, the government has to intervene. That's a major part of what the government is for.

Obama Calls Climate Change A Potentially “Irreversible Catastrophe”

Climate Progress reports:

Obama delivered a stirring speech today on his decision to push for California waiver that mandates cut in auto CO2 emissions.

The President has no doubts about the “irreversible catastrophe” we face on our current emissions path — “violent conflict, terrible storms, shrinking coastlines” — which is no doubt why he chose John Holdren to be his science adviser see “Obama’s strongest message on climate yet“).

For those who misunderstood his inaugural call to action on energy and climate, “Each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet,” his speech today should make clear that he is deadly serious about addressing the most deadly serious threat we face (full text here).

It's only a matter of time before Obama does something I disagree with (like pushing through an enormous stimulus package that contains many provisions unlikely to actually help the economy in the long or short term), but for now he continues to impress.

Chu Is An Excellent Choice For Energy Secretary

Joseph Romm lists five reasons why he's such a big fan of Chu:

1. He isn’t fooled by clean coal claptrap. Earlier this year he said, “Coal is my worst nightmare“:

If coal is to stay part of the world’s energy mix, he says, clean-coal technologies must be developed. But he’s not very optimistic: “It’s not guaranteed we have a solution for coal,” he concluded, given the sheer scope of the challenge of economically storing billions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions underground.

Worried about radioactivity? Coal’s still your bogeyman. Dr. Chu says a typical coal plant emits 100 times more radiation than a nuclear plant, given the flyash emissions of radioactive particles.

2. The lab he runs is responsible for developing the technologies that have paid for all the clean energy research the tax payers have ever supported (see Energy efficiency, Part 5: The highest documented rate of return of any federal program). So while even the most knowledgeable clean energy experts focus too much on supply side solutions, Chu will ensure efficiency gets the equal time it deserves.

Continue reading.

Frontline On Global Warming

PBS's Martin Smith debuts his two-hour investigation tonight, Oct. 21, 2008, from 8 to 10 p.m. CT. Watch it if you have time.

Here's a preview:


(Via Climate Progress.)

It's long past time for our country's political establishment to wake up to the gravity of this problem. Addressing climate change ought not be seen as a liberal issue--it's a pragmatic issue. The empirical data are overwhelming. We have to act now.

Obama, CO2, And The Clean Air Act

Joseph Romm writes:

Bloomberg is reporting:

Barack Obama will classify carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant that can be regulated should he win the presidential election on Nov. 4, opening the way for new rules on greenhouse gas emissions.

The Democratic senator from Illinois will tell the Environmental Protection Agency that it may use the 1990 Clean Air Act to set emissions limits on power plants and manufacturers, his energy adviser, Jason Grumet, said in an interview. President George W. Bush declined to curb CO2 emissions under the law even after the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the government may do so.

Why is this a big deal? It means that Obama can jumpstart serious U.S. action on greenhouse gas emissions without having to wait for complex legislation to wind its way through the House and Senate — and then without waiting even longer for that legislation to actually create a CO2 price high enough to change utility decision-making. It allows him to act quickly to address the single most important first step that developed countries must act upon — new coal plants...

Given the power federal administrative agencies have these days, Obama may actually be able to change quite a bit during his first days in office. Exceedingly detailed plans are already being drawn.

Graver Threat: Financial Crisis or Climate Crisis?

Joseph Romm says it's not even a close contest:

What happens if we fail to act in time to avert the financial catastrophe that Treasury Secretary Paulson says is now upon us:

* Companies that made very bad investments would lose money, and some would go bankrupt.
* Other countries would probably stop lending us as much money until the shakeout was over.
* For a time, we’d have to stop living beyond our means with borrowed money that pays for massive imports from China and the oil producers.
* More people who bought houses they couldn’t afford would lose them.
* Our economy, which had been boosted unsustainably by phony wealth and a housing Ponzi scheme, would no doubt underperform for a few years until the shakeout was over, causing hardship for tens of millions.
* This might trigger a global economic slowdown, causing hardship for hundreds of millions.

vs.

What happens if we fail to act in time to avert the climate catastrophe?

* We cross carbon-cycle tipping points, such as the loss of the tundra, beyond which there is “no redemption.”
* We head toward CO2 concentrations this century that are triple or quadruple preindustrial levels.
* We should expect 0.8 to 2.0 meters of sea level rise this century, inundating the homes of 100 million people.
* We face desertification of one third the planet and loss of the glaciers that provide water to a billion people.
* We face loss of more than two thirds of the species on the planet, and a hot, acidic, and largely lifeless ocean
* We face humanity’s self-destruction — 6°C total planetary warming.

We need to keep things in perspective and get our priorities straight.

Thankfully, there are companies like Google that are not only succeeding financially but are also working toward clean energy solutions:

It isn't very Googley to stand on the sidelines – whether the challenge involves search, apps, or clean energy. So we're working to be part of the solution. Specifically, we have embraced the challenge of developing a gigawatt of renewable electricity that is cheaper than electricity from coal – in years, not decades.

In ten years, we envision a cleaner, greener world -- running on wind, solar, and steam - with clean cars plugged into a clean grid. But for that vision to become real, the technologies to power it will have to be economically competitive -- otherwise they won't scale. So we are focusing much of our effort on technology innovation to drive down the costs of key renewable technologies. We are fundamentally optimists -- we believe that when innovative people focus on the right problems, they can find solutions. And when renewable energy is cheaper than fossil-based alternatives, and when plug-in hybrids are as cheap as traditional cars, they will take off in the marketplace.

Rather than throwing Americans' tax dollars at poorly managed financial firms in order to get them out of a hole they dug for themselves we should be looking into following Google's lead and aiding the transition away from fossil fuels.

Meanwhile in New Orleans

Joseph Romm has written up a sobering analysis of how global warming could make hurricanes such as Katrina and Gustav both stronger and more likely to occur:

How did Katrina turn into a powerful Category 5 hurricane ? The National Climatic Data Center 2006 report on Katrina begins its explanation by noting that the surface temperatures (SSTs) in the Gulf of Mexico during the last week in August 2005 “were one to two degrees Celsius above normal, and the warm temperatures extended to a considerable depth through the upper ocean layer.” The report continues, “Also, Katrina crossed the ‘loop current‘ (belt of even warmer water), during which time explosive intensification occurred. The temperature of the ocean surface is a critical element in the formation and strength of hurricanes.”

An important factor was that the ocean warming had penetrated to a considerable depth. One of the ways that hurricanes are weakened is the upwelling of colder, deeper water due to the hurricane’s own violent action. But if the deeper water is also warm, it doesn’t weaken the hurricane. In fact, it may continue to intensify. Global warming heats both the sea surface and the deep water, thus creating ideal conditions for a hurricane to survive and thrive in its long journey from tropical depression to Category Four or Five superstorm.