| HELL AND HIGH WATER Global Warming—the Solution and the Politics—and What We Should Do Joseph J. Romm New York: William Morrow, December 2006 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-06-117212-0 | ||||
| ISBN 0-06-117212-X | 292pp. | HC/GSI | $24.95 | |
There are two ways to look at this question: the straightforward way, and the status-quo way. The straightforward way lists the projected results of the planet's warming and assesses the impacts on the world as it is. The status-quo way also assesses these impacts; but it judges them too drastic to deal with, and therefore decides they must be unreal. I will first consider the straightforward way, taking global warming as a given. This is still being disputed. But the truth question is no longer of primary importance; the effects question is now paramount, followed closely by the response question.
My objective here is to summarize those effects and the possible responses. I won't go into much detail about those complicated subjects. Dr. Romm's book provides a good introduction and mentions a number of primary sources. I have a few links at the end of this page. I also link to a rant about the Deniers, which deserves its own page. There I discuss why global warming can be taken as a given, and why some people refuse to believe so.
The projected results of an increase in our planet's average temperature depend, of course, on how large the temperature increase is expected to be. This depends on many interacting phenomena, including our future actions, and there is no firm answer. But reasonable projections can be made, bracketing the range of possible values with best and worst cases. The worst case is also the reference case — that is, business as usual. Dr. Romm reports that, if we don't change our ways, we can expect a planet 1.5°C warmer by 2050.1
The most significant of the effects anticipated as the Earth warms is a rise in sea level, due mostly to melting ice in the polar regions. Determining how much sea level will rise is a job for experts, and the experts are on the job. The last time our planet was 1°C warmer than it is now, Dr. Romm reports, sea levels were 20 feet higher.1 Such an event, he warns, would displace more than 100 million people worldwide and turn the Gulf Coast cities of the United States into pre-Katrina versions of New Orleans — protected by dikes but subject to major hurricanes which might over-top them — as Katrina did to the Big Easy.2, 3
Those hurricanes are expected to increase in frequency and in strength as the average ocean surface temperature gradually ramps up. After Katrina, scientists at Georgia Institute of Technology studied 35 years of hurricane data (1970-2004) and found strong confirmation of this trend.4 Further confirmation came the next year: 2005 was the hottest year on record and also set an unprecedented number of storm records: most named storms, earliest start of hurricane season, most cat-3 hurricanes, most hurricanes to make landfall in U.S., and so on.5
A rising sea level and stronger hurricanes will damage every nation. But the United States, with its abundance of coastal facilities, has the most to lose.6
In the U.S., wildfires have become more destructive over the past few years. The table shows the area burned, in millions of acres, for 2000-2007.
| Year | Acres (millions) |
|---|---|
| Source: Total Wildland Fires and Acres (1960-2013) | |
| 2000 | 7.39 |
| 2001 | 3.57 |
| 2002 | 7.14 |
| 2003 | 3.96 |
| 2004 | 8.10 |
| 2005 | 8.69 |
| 2006 | 9.87 |
| 2007 | 9.33 |
| 2008 | 5.29 |
| 2009 | 5.92 |
| 2010 | 3.42 |
| 2011 | 8.71 |
| 2012 | 9.33 |
| 2013 | 4.32 |
As in 2007, the drought-stricken southeast has suffered large fires. The intermountain west too is very dry, and fires have burned in California, Colorado and New Mexico. The total acreage burned through 20 June 2008 is the third largest of the decade so far. Again, a long, hot fire season is predicted.
Over land, rising temperatures will make forest fires more intense and harder to combat. Global warming will also shift rainfall patterns, bringing droughts to some areas and downpours to others, and disrupting agriculture. Species that are mobile will respond to the warmer conditions by migrating into more temperate zones. A variety of problems will result. Some are already here: bark beetles, helped along by warmer weather and drought-weakened trees, and no longer killed off by bitter winters, are devastating Canadian forests. Non-mobile species unable to endure the changed conditions will simply die out. This is the probable fate of the world's coral reefs and the life forms that depend on them.
Snow cover is one of the best natural reflectors. When it melts, less reflective surfaces are exposed — which absorb more sunlight, which causes more melting, which removes more snow, in a continuing cycle. This is why polar regions experience a greater change in temperature.
Natural "sinks" for CO2 exist, and they will act to slow the accumulation of that gas in the atmosphere. Both soils and seas absorb CO2. However, the warmer they get, the less CO2 they can hold. Also, CO2 lowers the pH of the oceans — makes them more acidic — with potentially harmful effects on marine life.
Trees too, as everyone knows, soak up a lot of CO2. Tropical rain forests, in particular, are known to be important sinks of CO2 and sources of oxygen. It may be that certain varieties of trees and plants will grow bigger and faster in an atmosphere richer in CO2. But this is by no means certain; in fact there is evidence7 that higher ambient temperatures slow the growth of many tropical tree species. Against this hope of lowering the CO2 concentration must be set the continuing deforestation in developing nations as well as a likely increase in drought conditions and the greater risk of wildfires. On top of this, it is unknown whether plant life will pull more CO2 out of an atmosphere richer in CO2 than it currently does, or less.
A human-caused feedback is likely too. Hotter weather, especially heat waves like the one in Europe in 2005, will increase demand for air conditioning, which will call for more electrical power, at least some of which will probably be generated by burning fossil fuels.
Finally, as the average temperature climbs, CO2 and methane trapped in tundra soils will be released in great quantities8, 9 from permafrost that is no longer so perma. This is already beginning to happen. Should it happen on a large scale, a runaway greenhouse effect could result, bringing truly enervating heat to our planet. Large amounts of methane are also stored in undersea clathrates — another potential contributor to runaway greenhouse conditions.10
The warming of our planet due to steadily increasing levels of the greenhouse gases CO2 and methane will bring about changes that are unpleasant and costly — to what degree is currently unknown. But one thing is known: It will be costlier and more unpleasant to deal with the problem in the future than it would be to take action now.
The crucial question then becomes: What can be done now?
Global warming will change American life forever and end politics as we know it, probably within your lifetime. How might this play out? In the best case, we immediately start changing how we use energy in order to preserve the health and well-being—the security—of the next fifty generations. The nation and the world embrace an aggressive, multidecade, government-led effort to use existing and near-term clean-energy technologies. – Page 230 |
We start by being smart about how we use energy. This means conservation, and yes, there will be some sacrifice involved. It means things like driving at posted speed limits, combining trips, buying and driving smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, keeping them in good condition (tires properly inflated, etc.) It means putting weather-strips on doors and insulation in attics, to cut the energy wasted in heating and cooling the outdoors. Some of this will come free (except for the cost of breaking old habits.) Most of it will cost us. We will be paying more for gasoline, home heating oil, and electricity, to finance the development of cleaner and greener power sources. (But we would anyway.) But though these extra costs will cut into our disposable income, they won't drive us into bankruptcy.
Bringing about effective conservation will exact another sort of cost: greater involvement. We must become smart shoppers and smart voters. We must encourage industry to get smart about reducing waste products and efficient at using energy. Where necessary, we must demand that our politicians enact measures to enforce that encouragement — like a stronger CAFE standard. The captains of the domestic auto industry, of course, will protest mightily, as they always have. Don't you believe them. Building more fuel-efficient vehicles will not put them out of business. Indeed, a case can be made that the greatest threat to the continued profitability of the domestic automobile industry is its leaders refusing to build more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Along with saving energy at home and improving fuel efficiency in personal transportation, there is a lot that can be done. Smarter use of energy by industry in general is at the top of the list. Generating electric power produces lots of heat. Cogeneration uses this waste heat from the generating process, that would otherwise be thrown away, to heat nearby apartment buildings. (It can also drive certain industrial processes.) Beyond that, many manufacturing operations can become less wasteful of energy, cutting overhead and thus raising profits into the bargain.11 And consider the typical office building, where lights are left on even when no one is there, and personal computers are often left running 24 hours a day. Yes, there is much that can be done to save energy.12
Ultimately, avoiding the worst effects of global warming will call for structural changes in the energy industry. Use of fossil fuels must be reduced, by turning to renewable sources — solar, wind, geothermal, tidal — and by increasing use of nuclear power. New fossil-fuel plants that are built, especially coal-fired plants, must be designed to capture and sequester as much of the CO2 they produce as possible. These changes will not come cheap — but they will not wreck the U.S. economy.
As with many problems, delay costs. The Stern Review13, 14 found that prompt action would cost around 1 to 3 percent of world GDP, as opposed to losses ranging from 5 to 20 percent if we stay on our current track. The IPCC report on mitigation, released in Bangkok on 4 May 2007, confirms the Stern Review, finding the cost of action even of the most stringent kind to be 3 percent of world GDP, while more feasible plans demand 0.2 to 0.6 percent for the fifty-year period. Certainly, 1 percent of world GDP is a lot of money, and it would be preferable to spend it on other things. But neither will it "break the bank" to spend it on cutting CO2 emissions. The only thing that is likely to break is old, wasteful habits of energy production and use.
Dr. Romm's scenario (based on the "wedges" of Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow) has eight steps. I lay them out here, followed by the projected consequences under prompt and delayed implementation. The "prompt" program starts these measures in 2010 and continues them until 2060, holding CO2 emissions to 2010 levels and then, from 2061 forward, drastically reducing them (by unspecified means). The delayed program is similar, but its fifty-year run does not begin until 2025. One major difference is that, impelled by bad consequences, humanity acts to reduce concentration by 1.5 percent per year from 2076 on.
| Dr. Romm's Prescription | |
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| 2010-2060 | 2025-2075 |
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This table shows the essential nature of the choice we face: Begin to reduce carbon emissions ASAP, by measures which will be painful but not crippling, or wait for drastic circumstances to force draconian measures upon us. I would opt for the former. Others wish to delay action indefinitely, it seems. In my rant linked below, I explore their reasoning.
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