Throughout 2007 the signs of global warming became inescapable and a realization that the world climate is changing much faster than ever imagined has started to sink in. Politically we are stymied because we seem to be incapable of mustering the will to truly address the problem.
That excellent energy bill that was just signed by George Bush? When you look at the fine print, the vast portion of the funds set aside to help combat global warming are devoted to technology for sequestering carbon instead of promoting efficiency or developing clean, renewable energy sources.
Of all the options described [1. efficiency, 2. renewable energy, 3. extracting CO2 from the atmosphere, and 4. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)], only CCS is being vigorously pursued. The U.S. Department of Energy has allocated roughly $2 billion to CCS projects that are going on now in 41 states. More than a dozen universities are researching the pros if not the cons. Several prominent environmental organizations have enthusiastically endorsed the plan, even before a decade of necessary research has begun. It is no exaggeration to say that CCS has become a bandwagon — or a juggernaut.
...The CCS plan was devised by the coal industry, but has the financial support of many of the world’s most powerful corporations, an all-star cast from the oil, gas, mining, railroad, and automobile industries: American Electric Power, the American Petroleum Institute, Aramco Services, BP (formerly British Petroleum), Chevron, ConocoPhillips, The Electric Power Research Institute, ExxonMobil, Ford Motor, General Electric, General Motors, Marathon Oil, Peabody Energy, Schlumberger, Shell Oil, Southern Company, and Toyota, among others. They, in turn, have lined up support within academia and the corporate environmental organizations.
The coal industry is betting its whole future on the CCS plan: “Coal is going to be the answer and is the answer, and carbon capture and sequestration is the answer to climate change,” says Steven F. Leer, chief executive officer of Arch Coal, Inc., the nation’s second-largest coal company, after Peabody Energy. If the CCS plan fails, the coal industry will fade into history, at least in the U.S., where carbon dioxide emissions are causing cancellations of new coal-fired power plants.
Our government, captured by corporate interests has decided that the only way we will be allowed to deal with global warming is by an enormous boondoggle designed to enrich the corporate interests who could care less about the future of the world. Even worse, the actual reduction of carbon emissions that will come from this bill are a joke in addressing the problem. (emphasis mine)
According to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, between 1990 and 2005 U.S. annual CO2 emissions rose from 5529 megatonnes to 6432 megatonnes. In other words, between 1990 and 2005, U.S. CO2 emissions grew exponentially at the rate of 1.01% per year. If that modest 1.01% growth-rate were to continue from 2008 through 2020, the cumulative CO2 emissions during the period would total 84,557 megatonnes and during 2008-2030 the cumulative total emitted would be 164,041 megatonnes. Therefore we can see that by 2020 the 2007 energy law will have reduced total U.S. CO2 emissions by 2017/84557*100 = 2.4% and by 2030 the reduction will be 7679/164041*100 = 4.7%.
At this rate and pace, we might as well as kiss our keesters goodbye.
If we seriously wanted to do something about global warming, what would we do? Lester Brown, the head of the Earth Policy Institute, has a plan that would reduce the world's carbon emissions by 80% by 2020. And how does he propose we do this? In Brown's plan, what he calls Plan B 3.0, an essential ingredient is reducing our dependence on coal. Because as you must realize, it's not just our country with a carbon addiction problem, but the world, because experts estimate that more than a thousand new coal plants will be needed to keep up with the demand for more energy.
Here's his recipe for solving the problem:
1. Push energy efficiency:
It's easy to ridicule the "switch a light bulb, save the planet" school of environmental planning, but Brown points out that by making the most of efficiency improvements in lighting and appliances, we could reduce power demand sufficiently to obviate the need for 1,410 coal plants. That's more than the 1,382 coal plants the International Energy Agency predicts will be built by 2020.
2. Put renewal energy production on a wartime footing:
If we start pumping out new wind turbines with the same industrial urgency the U.S. produced tanks and bombers in World War II, Brown writes, we could generate 3 million megawatts of wind power by 2020, enough to meet 40% of the world's energy needs. Solar thermal, plug-in hybrid and geothermal technology are all part of Plan B.
3. Tax carbon aggressively just like we are taxing cigarettes today:
To push the transition to a cleaner, more efficient economy — the Plan B economy — Brown argues for a worldwide carbon tax to be phased in at $20 per ton each year between 2008 and 2020, topping out at $240 per ton. That might seem excessive, but Brown points out that even a carbon tax higher than $240 per ton wouldn't cover all the environmental and health costs of burning fossil fuels, from climate change to air pollution–related illnesses.
As mankind faces the most dramatic natural disaster in history we are squabbling instead of taking action. Quit arguing and let's come up with a plan.
Our poles are melting, temperature and weather patterns are changing. Those are facts. Whose fault it is, man made or natural is almost irrelevant. The important thing is that we take action to prepare for the unavoidable consequences of climate change NOW.
Past climate changes have happened quick, the most recent having taken only about a decade. We have seen weather patterns change over the last few years, lost a bunch of ice, witnessed massive amounts of species going extinct and see a slow-down of the ocean's conveyor which regulates temperature patterns around the globe. My gut feeling is to say that we are in the midst of climate change. Whether it's caused by CO2, an active sun or any other cause is not the issue. The issue is... we can't change, avert or avoid it so we have to figure out how to deal with it and survive it's effects.
The focal point of all the issues surrounding climate change is energy. More specifically, present and future energy. The energy we currently use, which most say changes the climate, and the energy we will need in the future to supply more people and to stave off the effects of a changed climate. We need cleaner fuel now, not only because of pollution or the fact that we are running out, but because we will need much more fuel in the future.
The world economy is currently dependant upon CO2 emitting fossil fuels and we won't just be able to throw a switch to convert to another source so we have to start now. We have to stop spending billions fighting over the remaining oil. No matter who owns it, we will use it up. As demand increases and supply dwindles it will become more expensive and economic factors will dictate that we replace it. If we're lucky, mankind will be reasonable enough to spend more money finding new energy sources than fighting over obsolete ones. That's a long shot but there's always hope.
We will need more energy and there is no denying that burning oil and coal pollutes our planet. We have 2 choices if we want to survive as a species.
1. Come up with more, preferably cleaner energy.
2. Shrink our global population to a size that our current energy supply can sustain.
The first is preferable but considering our primitive human nature, the second is more probable. Let's let common sense overpower human nature and strive towards option 1.
Think about it. There are many sources of energy, known and yet to be discovered that we can use. Wind, water, tidal, and solar are clean technologies that we have explored and can improve. We have started tinkering with ways to use the Earth's magnetic field. There is gravity and countless types of cosmic rays that we haven't even tried to harness yet. Nuclear has been around for decades and if it doesn't blow up on you, it is extremely clean.
My suggestion, no, my demand is that mankind stop it's economic and religious squabbling and start taking the action we need for our survival as a species. It will be impossible to get mankind to act as one, but someone has to start. If the US trimmed it's government and military to a minimum, keeping enough troops and nukes to sustain sovereignty, we could save billions and use it to develop energy sources.
That scenario might even be good for the economy. Imagine all of the workers needed to make electric cars or cosmic ray powered toasters. Besides, whoever discovers a technology usually has a lead when it comes to selling it's usage or the products it spins off.
New energy won't solve global warming but it will help us deal with it better. Right now it's the only option we have so let's get on it!
"Throughout 2007 the signs of global warming became inescapable and a realization that the world climate is changing much faster.."
This is nonsense (the UK for one has seen the coolest Summer ever and I've heard similar things for Canada). There are dramatic weather events happening every now and then throughout centuries, you cannot base your conclusions on one year, or on what MSM hypes up, or on what NAZA tells you . If you'd written your article in the 80's, for example, it would've read the same but with "warming" replaced by "cooling" along with scares about the coming of the ice age. None of you people urging "aggression" seem to take any notice of the fact that our weather is being manipulated and experimented on, our air, water and soil are polluted with toxins, that corporations are getting away with massive destruction of the environment. Don't you understand that this nonsense of blaming everything on CO2 is a total diversion from the reality of the situation and a ploy to attack the ordinary person. The mathematical models used in predicting the effects of CO2 are incredibly simplified and sensitive to tiny changes to render them unreliable and inconclusive and yet people just swallow whatever comes out of government bodies, "experts", and scientists. Government scientists are employed to experiment on our atmosphere using the HAARP technology, and the military have experimented on weather across the planet for 50 years. And 50 years ago the average global temperature was on a downward trend! Wake up! Reducing CO2 is not going to stop climate chaos . Your government "experts" are the ones engineering this chaos. Try asking some questions before accepting the nonsense handed to you on a plate from government and "environmental" groups.
by
maha aldoujaily (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 29 comments)
on Sunday, January 6, 2008 at 12:05:35 PM
Stop trying to confuse Mary with facts. Her mind is already made-up.
Just like the BBBs (Bible Banging Boobs,) members of the Cult of Manmade Global Warming (CMGW) are not interested in reality or facts or other such "nonsense." Their basic underlying fundamental operating point is that it is easier to simply "BELIEVE" than to think.
So despite record COLD temperatures in many places around the world the past few years, members of CMGW ignore such facts and continue to worship their government god.
If we could stop the BBBs and the CMGWs from voting, humanity might have a chance.
by
Mark Bennett (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 47 comments)
on Sunday, January 6, 2008 at 1:30:24 PM
Mary is correct to be concerned with the global climate change problem. Along with peak oil, global resource depletion, and nuclear proliferation, atmospheric carbon loading is a huge and rapidly growing threat to humanity (and other living things). No one knows if we've past the tipping point but the reports from the polar regions suggest that we seem to be very close to that point.
Lester Brown, and others (Amory Lovins, et. al.) are on to this but most of the people writing to complain have done little to reduce their own carbon footprint, besides changing a few light bulbs. Yes, there has been constructive complaining but most of that is directed at some authority figure who we'd like to solve the problem for us by top-down direction.
More than three decades of this kind of activity has obviously failed to solve this problem. Anyone who thinks that continuing this approach will work has probably taken leave of their senses. The axiom here is thinking globally, which most of us have done well. The part we miss is to act locally. The place to start, if you are really serious, is in your own home.
As a trained energy use evaluator I can attest that virtually no-one who'd like to have an energy efficient home or business has the expertise to do an adequate job.
So, my advice to those of you who are willing to take the next step is to get the help of a trained and certified energy auditor. If the cost (roughly $400) is available, it will be the best investment you can make for your pocketbook and the planet.
While you wait for your appointment, which can take weeks as we get deeper into cold weather, replace the last of your incandescent light bulbs, put plastic over single-pane windows, and seal as many air leaks in your dwelling as you can. They will often be near the places where you feel the drafts on a windy day. Both are obvious, easy fixes, and don't cost much. They will make you more comfortable, both physically and emotionally.
Using public transportation, less than popular in the cold, is also an excellent way to keep your carbon footprint manageable.
Finding a certified auditor is easy- by googling RESNET, NE HERS, www.ecasavesenergy.org, or the local dean of auditors, Hap Haven, who's located in the Germantown section of Philly. Hap has an excellent tutorial on his website for those of you who want to make your own mistakes learning how to create an energy efficient net-zero home.
If you want to get politically active tell the politicians who represent you that you expect them to end energy waste in their city or township. They are elected to listen to your complaints and you'll get better traction with fiscal responsibility than environmental concern. Most governments (and others) waste at least half of the energy they use.
National security is another issue that they seem to respond to. A significant amount of our petro-dollars go to fund terrorism. And,roughly seventy cents of those dollars leave your community.
Good luck and keep trying to end your energy waste. It's really a matter of enlightened self-interest, and survival.
by
Larry Menkes (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments)
on Saturday, January 19, 2008 at 12:35:13 PM
Thank you very much for your excellent advice. There are so many things we can do to lower our own carbon footprint that if enough of us do it, it will make a noticeable difference.
by
Mary Ratcliff (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Saturday, January 19, 2008 at 1:53:05 PM
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