Opinions of Peter Belmont
Speaking Truth to Power
| Planning the “War” Against Climate Change |
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by Peter A. Belmont / 2016-02-03
Introduction: We Live Near TWO Dragons J. R. R. Tolkien, in “The Hobbit”, said something unremarkable in a most vivid way: “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.” Today we live near two live dragons: global warming / climate change itself (GWCC), and apparently never-ending news that climate change is getting worse sooner than previously supposed. Even those politicians who seem, on the whole, to have accepted the reality of climate change seem not to be aware that scientific predictions of the already short time available for mankind to avert (some of) the destructiveness of GWCC is growing shorter day-by-day. News bulletins beset us with warnings of a speedup of disaster. I call these news bulletins “climate surprises” and discuss these climate surprises below. Here’s someone else’s take—similar to mine: Unfortunately, the amount of worry-generated climate action today — while vastly greater than the amount 10 years ago — is still lagging far behind the science. Beating 2°C requires a World War II-scale effort sustained for decades. Governments planning to wage (or to pretend to wage or to dodge) a war on climate change should consider one overarching fact: Whatever understanding a politician may have of the nature of the climate change threat must be constantly updated because knowledge of the causes and consequences of climate change is constantly changing. The longer a static understanding of climate change has been held, the more certain it is to be out-of-date, and dangerously wrong. Knowledge of the threat of climate change is evolving, almost on a daily basis, and planning—and action—to fight climate change must reflect that. As James Hansen and others have recently said, apropos of new understandings showing greater dangers and urgency, Hansen: In addition to changes in scientific knowledge, there may be other planning “surprises”. Anyone planning any war, including a war on climate change, must take “surprises” into account. See Planning Surprises, below. For this reason, not to mention the general nature of the climate change threat, planners should plan to start work to oppose climate change immediately and plan to finish the work as soon as possible. Waiting before acting, or acting timidly or slowly, is no longer a rational option—although it is the option that politicians, many of them climate-deniers, have in fact chosen. What Is This War That Needs To Be Planned? My topic is the necessary (and necessarily speedy) nature of human opposition to Man-Made Climate Change—or global warming / climate change ”GWCC” as I shall call it. Since, say, 1800, the average surface temperature of the earth’s land and seas has increased nearly 1°C. It is widely believed that a holocaust-like disaster will follow a rise much above 2°C above the preindustrial average temperature. At Paris in 2015, the nations agreed to “pursue efforts to” limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. The 1.5°C goal will require zero emissions sometime between 2030 and 2050, according to some scientists. The agreement also calls for developed countries to raise at least $100 billion annually in order to assist developing countries. It is time for the USA and others to stop merely setting goals and to start planning for the effort (I call it a “war”) that will be required if the goal of saving most of the world from destruction by climatic catastrophe is to be achieved. I argue that planning for a project to end emissions of greenhouse gases (”GHGs”) should look both to an immediate start and to a short time-to-completion. And I warn that such an enormous and far-reaching project must be expedited in part because “surprises” may both impede efforts and also require a speedier completion. Jump to Table of Contents As to my title, I apologize to those who dislike the “war” metaphor. By “war” I mean an “all out” public effort which mobilizes the public both to immediate and large government action and to sacrifice in the public interest. If this “war” has an enemy, it is identified by the famous Pogo quote ”We have met the enemy and he is us.” That is, we must “fight” against our own further greenhouse gas emission, where by “us” I mean all humankind—and Americans in particular. This essay makes the case for an immediately starting and quickly finishing “war” on GWCC in the USA and the world. It recommends that that war begin as soon as possible with plans to terminate, as to a total phase-out of fossil-fueled electric generation, by 2026, a mere 10 years away. Needless to say, doing what I propose would be in sharp contrast to the inaction (or near catatonia) which has characterized the USA’s national governmental response to GWCC until today. This war would be—as it already is—opposed by politically powerful special interests. Getting the proposed war under way would thus be revolutionary in much the same way as many other changes being discussed as “revolutionary” in the current presidential campaign. (The declared opposition to this war by all the Republican presidential hopefuls signals this opposition.) Fighting This War In This Way Is Necessary For Three Reasons My conclusion of the necessity of fighting this war, and in this way, is based on three assumptions regarding GWCC. First, I assume that GWCC operates as a “ratchet” so that every year (and every day) that goes by with continuing human large-scale emission of GHGs causes the earth (land-air-oceans) to get warmer, land temperatures to rise, and consequent changes to earth’s climate to increase, with no technological mechanisms now available to reverse this “ratchet” (for instance, by removing any GHGs from the atmosphere). I assume that the earth will continue to get hotter until stabilizing some time after zero-emissions is achieved. I assume that the experienced ill effects of GWCC will likewise increase until an extreme point is reached some time (hopefully soon) after zero-emissions is achieved. Second, I assume that the long-term predicted consequences of GWCC, and even some of the near-term effects (already beginning to be experienced) are so severe that nothing is to be gained and much is to be lost by putting off unilateral action by each nation (including the USA) quickly to achieve zero-emissions. In short, there is no time to waste either in starting or in completing this project. Let us review these “predicted consequences of GWCC”: • Extreme heat waves • Forest Fires • Drought • Heavier rain storms • Lighter snowfall • River flooding from heavy rain • Fiercer blizzards • More powerful hurricanes • Melting polar ice • Melting glaciers • Coastal flooding in storms • Coastal flooding due to rising sea level • Increased damage from insect pests no longer controlled by cold weather • Increased range of tropical diseases • Disruption of agriculture and these effects felt differently in different parts of the earth. In addition, there are positive feedback loops (perhaps leading to the dreaded tipping-points) by which today’s warming increases tomorrows warming, possibly non-lineqrly (that is, completely beyond human power to prevent or to adapt to). • Melting of permafrost, releasing methane, a potent GHG • Killing forests by insect pests leading to reduction of CO(((SB₂SB))) absorption and speeding of CO(((SB₂SB))) release through decay of dead trees. Third, I assume that the time-period planned for the project of ending GHG emissions should be as short, even shorter, than initially thought possible. What is proposed is perhaps the largest engineering project the world has ever imagined. And engineering projects are notoriously subject to setbacks and “surprises”. We must anticipate unpleasant “surprises”—material, political, engineering—which will impede the process of ending emissions once that project is begun. Worse, we must anticipate that the imperative need to end emissions will be found to be even more urgent (and more time-critical) than had hitherto been supposed as science learns more about GWCC including but not limited to harmful environmental feed-backs, tipping-points, etc. An example of such a hurrying surprise may just have occurred (2/26/2016). Scientists now estimate that we may safely burn only 1/2 as much fossil fuels as previously thought, greatly increasing pressure for a quick start and quick finish to fossil-fuel elimination and replacement by renewables. On the positive side, projects involving massive cooperation are also capable of surprising speed when everyone gets “on board” the project. Contents Background Why We Need A War On Climate Change [click to jump] What Is Climate Change? [click to jump] Human Resistance To Waging War On Climate Change [click to jump] Planning Planning USA’s Internal War [click to jump] Planning surprises: [click to jump] Planning USA’s Cooperative International War [click to jump] Planning USA’s Coercive International War [click to jump] Why Do We Need A War? By now, most people have heard (and should know, deeply, at their moral center) that a great danger is hovering over the earth (and thus over America). Scientists call that danger “Anthropogenic Global Warming”. It is also often called “Anthropogenic Climate Change”. “Anthropogenic” is science-talk for “man-made”. Most people began hearing about GWCC around 1990, 26 years ago, but in all those years neither our governments (nor our capitalists!) have done much to oppose it. This is bound to have been a consequence of the shameful fact that our mainstream media have done little to describe it, its dangers, and the imperative need to oppose it. (Instead, the media have described the “he said, she said” controversies and the “political football” aspects of GWCC, encouraging the public to doubt the reality of GWCC and its dangers.) But reporting about GWCC started before 1990. No less than 57 years ago, at least one popular science report warned of GWCC. In 1958, a Frank Capra movie (in the Bell Laboratory Science Series) was made which warned of the perils of GWCC, which seemed to show the melting of the polar ice caps, and which warned of the ultimate submergeance of much of southern USA: Later, in 1969, Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned of the danger of climate change: —nearly 47 years ago—Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a high-ranking aide to President Richard M. Nixon, dispatched an internal memo to one of his White House colleagues warning of the ominous consequences of climate change. He predicted that the Earth would get so warm and sea levels so high, that it could be “Goodbye New York, Goodbye Washington.” Why Is This War Urgent? GWCC is bringing on steadily increasing disastrous ill-effects. Most of those ill-effects are in the future where they cannot be easily assessed, but even currently observable effects are clearly increasing. GWCC’s effects are increasing for three reasons. First, mankind keeps spewing GHGs into the atmosphere, increasing the “thickness” of the GHG “blanket” which wraps the earth and increases the amount of heat that “blanket” daily traps from the sun. That is something we can do something about. We can stop emitting GHGs. Second, even if GHG emissions ceased, the temperature already attained at that time by the earth, and even today, is sufficient to melt glaciers and polar ice (including Greenland’s ice-sheet). That melting should be expected to continue even after GHG emissions cease. This melting not only raises the sea levels, flooding low-lying coastal areas, but also uncovers dark waters and dark lands previously covered by snow and ice and thereby decreases the reflectivity of the earth, so decreasing the amount of heat radiated back into space. Thus today’s increase warmth can by itself cause the earth to continue warming. Third, even if we stopped emitting GHGs, the “blanket” of GHGs in existence at the time of such termination would continue to trap the sun’s heat, and that trapped heat would continue to warm the earth-oceans-air and thus to increase the ill-effects of GWCC, until such time as a heat-transfer steady-state comes into effect whereby the heat daily trapped by earth-oceans-air is equaled by the heat daily radiated by them into outer space. The reason the earth is warming today is not heat trapped by yesterday’s small daily increment of GHGs but the excess of heat trapped by the enormous blanket of GHGs already in the atmosphere over the amount of heat radiated by the earth-oceans-air back into outer space. The heat-transfer steady-state has clearly not been established. Moreover, the earth’s already over-heated condition can cause dangerous “positive feed-back loops” to occur, such as the melting of a great deal of the methane now frozen in permafrost and in ocean floors, releasing that methane into the atmosphere and thus greatly increasing the warming power of the GHG “blanket” which such methane would become part of. Part of the strangeness of GWCC science is the promise that an end of human emission of GHGs (if there were no other source of such emissions) would end the gradual warming of the earth and air (even if not of the oceans). Temperatures on earth would stabilize, hotter than today, to be sure, but no longer rising. However, the daily increments of heat trapped by the GHG “blanket” which failed to be matched by heat radiated back into outer space by earth-oceans-air would then heat the oceans instead of the earth, and this heating would continue until a heat-transfer steady-state came into effect, after a long time. And continued heating the oceans is itself not a good thing: it changes ocean currents and changes the environment for sea life. But it is good that a stop to emissions would end the warming of the earth. Furthermore, no scenario provides for a cooling earth. It can get hotter. It’s temperature can stabilize. But it is not expected to get cooler. This means that the melting of North Polar ice and the Greenland ice-shelf and certain Antarctic ice and most glaciers will continue, even if they do not greatly speed up. So rising sea-levels seem “built-in”. Since the ill-effects GWCC are increasing for these two reasons, it makes sense that mankind work as hard and as urgently as possible to end GHG emissions. Letting more time go by (and thus letting more GHGs accumulate in the atmosphere) makes no sense and is clearly self-destructive. Now, time is short and avoiding the worst ravages of GWCC—it being too late to avoid its milder effects, some of the very mildest of which are already being felt today—will require an urgent, energetic, and world-wide effort conducted on a “war” footing. Return to Table of Contents What Is Climate Change? What is GWCC? Briefly put, some of the “things that people do”, chiefly the production and burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas, and peat) is flooding the atmosphere with greenhouse gases (“GHGs”) such as carbon dioxide (CO(((sb₂sb)))) and methane (CH(((sb₄sb)))). Methane is also produced by raising beef, as we do to a great extent, on non-grass feed. There are other sources of GHGs. These GHGs form a sort of blanket which prevents some of the heat of the sun which falls on earth every day from being re-radiated back into space as it was before the beginning of the industrial revolution, about 1800, when coal began to be burnt earnestly as fuel). As a consequence, the earth (land-water-air) has been gradually warming up. It warmed slowly until 1900, warmed more quickly from 1900 til 1950, and has been warming at an alarming rate since 1950. (See “hockey-stick graph here and read about hockey-stick graph here.) Because modern technologies, especially medicine and public water supply and sewerage, have permitted the world’s human population to increase at a steep rate (which use of artificial birth control could have, but did not, prevent), the “things that people do” are nowadays being done by a tremendous number of people, and the production and release into the atmosphere of GHGs is being done at a great rate today. The earth is warming fast. The warming of the earth (land-water-air) brings with it disastrous consequences, most—but not all—of which are in the future. As a consequence of GWCC, we are already experiencing more and fiercer storms, more and longer lasting droughts, more and fiercer forest fires, redistribution and change in amount of snow and rain—affecting farming, melting of polar ice and glaciers, rising sea levels, acidification of oceans, warming of oceans, changes of ocean currents, and other difficulties. All of these will get worse as the earth’s temperature rises. Just a few early examples of damage from GWCC are: coastal flooding in Florida caused by a rising sea level and the killing of evergreen forests in Colorado by pine bark beetles, which survive today’s warmer winters to kill trees which would have survived a decade ago when winters were colder. See also: forests devastated since 2009. Return to Table of Contents Human Resistance To Waging War On Climate Change Some people (far too many) think (or say they think) that Climate Change is a myth, a hoax, not a reality, and nothing that needs to be urgently and energetically opposed. For many reasons, these people, called “climate deniers”, deny the reality of GWCC and its observed and predicted consequences. One reason for “denial” is ignorance or stupidity or quasi-religious belief. When it is widely known that 97% of climate scientists believe that GWCC is the frightening reality, and that only 3% of climate scientists doubt something about GWCC, it takes a very disturbed or strange mind to believe that there is an evidence-based reason to believe that the 97% are deluded (or are themselves frauds) but the 3% are not deluded and are not frauds. If you cannot believe 97% of scientists to tell the truth, why do you place any faith in 3%? Or why do you place any faith in what you are told by people who protest, without argument or facts, that “I am not a scientist, but I still don’t believe in climate change”? As for the possibility that religious folks might entertain the idea that GWCC cannot be true because it would contravene’s “God’s plan”, don’t forget the Old Testament’s stories of expulsion from Eden and Noah’s flood. Catastrophes for humankind are at the core of Biblical teaching. And don’t forget that religious leaders are beginning to recognize the harmful reality of GWCC: Patriarch Bartholomew has spoken in particular of the need for each of us to repent of the ways we have harmed the planet, for “inasmuch as we all generate small ecological damage”, we are called to acknowledge “our contribution, smaller or greater, to the disfigurement and destruction of creation”. He has repeatedly stated this firmly and persuasively, challenging us to acknowledge our sins against creation: “For human beings... to destroy the biological diversity of God’s creation; for human beings to degrade the integrity of the earth by causing changes in its climate, by stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying its wetlands; for human beings to contaminate the earth’s waters, its land, its air, and its life – these are sins”. For “to commit a crime against the natural world is a sin against ourselves and a sin against God.” (Pope Francis’s Encyclical “Laudate si’”) God helps those who help themselves, it is said, and eliminating GHG emissions is obviously required as “self help” at this moment. Another and far more important reason for “climate denial” is greed—the greed of oil and gas producers whose money has paid armies of (corrupt) “pundits”, news media, and politicians to claim that GWCC is a myth even though they know better, or should know better: Of course, a major reason the world has delayed meaningful action for 21 years has been a single political party in a single country: the GOP. Perhaps a bit overly aggressively, I’ve called these “climate-deniers” attempted murderers on the principle that people may be deemed to intend to accomplish the clear and readily anticipatable results of their actions. Lastly, there is the problem of people who simply never heard a decent discussion of GWCC and have “no clue” that they are ignorantly standing by while the end of the world approaches. These people are largely ignorant due to the malfeasance of the media and politicians whose duty was to inform them but who failed to do so as consequences of greed. OK, so “climate deniers” get in the way of a war on GWCC. What of non-deniers? Sadly, even people who believe in GWCC are reluctant to do anything significant about it, for many reasons. Those reasons amount to misplaced fear. When considering fighting GWCC, politicians seem to fear high costs, disruption of long-established habits, economic loss of competitiveness if other countries do not join in, and uncertainty about what to do and when to do it. These fears are misplaced: what the politicians should fear is the on-rushing catastrophes consequent upon failure to end emissions ASAP. At least the fears I mentioned are rational, even if the conclusion (to put off action) is wrong. What of irrational reasons for not dealing with GWCC? Some people simply cannot be bothered, an attitude that, in an article called Feeling the Yern: Why One Millenial Woman Would Rather Go to Hell Than Vote For Hillary has been called the alarming “profound languor of the comfortable”, where in somewhat impolite language the author says: If I am alarmed, it is by the profound languor of the comfortable. What fresh hell must we find ourselves in before those who’ve appointed themselves to lead our thoughts admit that we are in flames? As I see it, to counsel realism when the reality is f**ked is to counsel an adherence to f**kery.This applies to GWCC as well as to elections. As to those who choose to ignore the problem of GWCC due to a preference to protect their comfort, their political position, or continued business profits—while these preferences may be “rational”—they are also criminal inasmuch as they disregard the dreadful consequences of “doing nothing” to all (future) mankind and nature. Return to Table of Contents Planning The USA’s Internal War Against Climate Change The nations have agreed that the post-1800 rise in earth’s temperature must be held below 2oC (even below 1.5oC), and the time left to mankind to prevent a greater temperature rise is so short that emission of GHGs must, essentially, cease by 2030, certainly no later than 2050. What can and should the USA do within its own borders to combat GWCC? Since electric power generation is the largest source of GHGs emissions (31%) in the USA, supplanting of fossil-fueled electric generation by renewable electric generation (wind and solar powered, for the most part) is a clear, understandable, and initial necessity. It is the place to start within the greater project of eliminating all GHG emissions. It is also a relatively simple project to plan since electric use does not depend (making allowance for occasional variability in electric supply) on how that power is generated. Electric lights will work whether power is fossil-fueled or renewably-fueled. In the overall GHG-emission elimination project, there are several other and more difficult retrofitting projects to be undertaken. In the USA, GHG emissions arise from: [1] replacement or refitting of all civilian and military transportation mechanisms (cars, aircraft, trains, ships) which are today wholly or partly fossil-fueled by electric or other renewably-fueled vehicles (27%); [2] replacing or refitting fossil-fueled heating systems for buildings with renewably-fueled systems (12%); [3] retrofitting industry (21%); and [4] retrofitting agriculture (9%). These projects seem to me more difficult to achieve than the electric-generation project, but no less necessary of accomplishment if the final goal is zero emissions. However, the only planning I have thought about is the most obvious lead-off job, the phasing out fossil-fueled electric generation by 2030, better by 2026. As to “why 2026” instead of 2050, see below. If this job is to be accomplished by 2026, we have 10 years left to get it done. That is not much time. (Pity about the 26 years wasted since 1990!) A Proposal For Immediate Action My idea is that we (the USA) should phase out 10% of our 2015 fossil-fueled electric generation capacity each year until 2026, replacing each of these 10% slices of capacity with a build-out of renewable electric generation (solar and wind, chiefly), and continuing with that build-out until 2030. Why until 2030? Because in the later years, we will need additional electric power to power transportation, industry, and building heating. And we should build further renewable power generation capacity to suit our needs as they become apparent. A War Footing As I see it, a massive project on a war-footing to build-out renewable power generation will be such a stimulus to engineering R&D and to increasing manufacturing capacity that we may expect rapid declines in cost for renewables in the next 10-14 years. That means that even if the initial costs are high, they should be willingly paid as a “pump-priming” operation to get manufacturing going more swiftly and prices falling more swiftly. If we treat this project as a “war”, we should not be afraid to let the federal government own vast electric generation capacity—just as it already owns the aircraft, tanks, artillery, war-ships, air-fields, guided missiles, drones, and other “assets” by which our armed forces make war. And just as the federal government “found” funds to fight the worse-than-merely-useless war in Iraq (total price $1T by some estimates), it should be quite willing to fund the entirely necessary “war” on climate change. The Iraq war was a “war of choice”; but the war on climate change is undoubtedly a war of necessity. We have many options about this war, but failure to fight it is not one of them. And if we treat this project as a “war”, we should not shy away from spending whatever needs to be spent, just as we did when the USA entered world-war-II. And just as we did after September 11, 2001. But there are ways to speed this project along. If all subsidies now being paid to producers and users of fossil-fuels are canceled then the money saved can be spent either for subsidies for state and local and citizen renewable build-out or to fund the federal government’s own build-out. Ending subsidies for fossil fuels will make electricity generated through its use more expensive when compared to renewable, which will encourage customers to switch to renewably-generated electricity when it becomes available to them. Why Complete By 2030? Some may ask why we should aim at completing this task by 2030 (assuming, as many will, that completion by 2050 would suffice). My answer is that we must plan for unpleasant surprises. And the only way to anticipate surprises is to get busy now so that the surprises happen while we still have some time left to deal with them. (It is well known that wars do not play out as war planners initially imagine. Same with engineering. Same with enormous infrastructure-building projects.) What Unpleasant Surprises Should We Be Worried About? Well, one set of surprises are the announcements that we hear from the climate scientists uncomfortably frequently, announcements that environmental things are getting worse sooner or quicker or “more” than earlier anticipated. We heard a while ago that the melting of sea ice at the North Pole and the melting of the Greenland ice-sheet are happening sooner than anticipated. We have already heard about the bubbling up of methane from under-sea deposits of frozen methane hydrates which are unfreezing as oceans warm. There has recently been observed a slowing of a major ocean current, the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation), which may have given great additional energy to the great January 2016 East Coast blizzard (2/2/2016). ”Recent Disastrous News” On 5/21/2016 we are told that Global Destruction Of Earth On Fast Track. This is presumably in some measure a surprise. The tone of the warning is not “same old, same old”. On 5/20/2016, we are advised that Antarctica’s Totten Glacier is ready to melt, flow into the sea, and raise world sea-level by 11 feet. This is reported as previously unexpected, thus not merely the ordinary day-by-day run of bad news of GWCC but a surprise warranting quicker and more urgent response by the world’s governments. The article says the danger will be realized if the temperature warms by more than 2°C but doesn’t make clear if that means average earth surface temperature or the local (Antarctic) temperature. The last time the glacier melted, boosting sea levels tremendously, was during the Pliocene epoch, 3 millions years ago, when temperatures were 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than they are now, and CO2 levels in the atmosphere were 400 parts per million (ppm), Siegert noted. On 5/3/2016, we saw this headline: “Florida Reefs Are Dissolving Much Sooner Than Expected”, coral reefs dissolving when the ocean water becomes more acidic, as it does when (as after 1800) it absorbes more carbon dioxide from the air. The warning here is that this dissolution is occurring sooner than anticipated. This means that, as in many other cases, the scientific community’s models (anticipations) of changes due to climate change (global warming) were underestimating the speed of changes. On 4/15/2016 a world temperature graph was published which showed not only a steep rise in temperatures but showed most recent temperatures above the long-term trend line for occasional high-point “outliers”, suggesting (but not of course “showing”) that the observed temperature rise is on a new and steeper track. Worth keeping an eye on. If this is true, the world is in far worse shape than has long been thought—bad as the situation has been thought! On 4/15/2016,we read that the Greenland ice melt is far, far more extreme than climate scientists had dreamed that it would be: Much warmer than normal temperatures for months on end have meant that for much of the frozen north, there essentially wasn’t a winter this year. In late December, parts of the Arctic were briefly warmer than Texas, southern California, and the Sahara. All across the Arctic, temperatures have shattered records and are causing scientists to scratch their heads. On 4/9/2016 we read: A severe food and water crisis is fast spreading in Mindanao and the rest of the Philippines in the wake of what scientists say maybe the most severe El Niño episode on record. Global warming and climate change has been generating not only super typhoons but also super-El Niños. The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) issued a warning early last year that there would be 34 provinces affected by El Niño by March 2016 and 68 provinces by April. On 4/7/2016, we learned that scientific “models” of the climate system had erred by assuming that clouds reflected more, even much more, heat back into outer space than they in fact do. This means that the earth will be absorbing more heat, day-by-day, than earlier thought and the much-desired-to-be-avoided 1.5°C is approaching faster than earlier thought. On 3/24/2016, we learned that a long-held assumption of climate science—that soil (or “land”), which acts as a net “sink” of CO(((SB₂SB))), overall reduces GHG emissions and thus fights GWCC—is not true today, due to human interventions. It has been found that due to emissions of methane and nitrous oxides from cattle, fertilisers, manure, and agriculture, the terrestrial biosphere is actually accelerating climate change rather than slowing it. On 3/23/2016 we heard that the USA is releasing so much methane (CH(((SB₄SB)))) (and very much more than EPA had heretofore admitted) that these leaks wipe out all the progress cutting down CO(((SB₂SB))) that the Obama Administration had made. Some surprise! Another sign that we’d better get very, very busy. On 2/26/2016, we read that scientists now estimate that we may safely burn only 1/2 as much fossil fuels as previously thought, greatly shortening the already short time we have left to get to zero-emissions. On 2/28/2016, we read that the moving of sea creatures away from the equator as the seas warm up—is happening faster than earlier thought. “For the species that we have really good data on where they’ve lived historically over the past 100 years, we’re seeing about half of those have actually moved where they live, which is an astonishing number given we’ve only had one degree centigrade warming,” she said. The East Australian Current has moved 350 kilometres further south in the past 60 years. If scientists keep finding surprises which imply that global warming is happening faster than (or earlier than) anticipated, then the “deadline” earlier thought to be 2050 may have to be reset to 2030. What Prudence Dictates It is much more prudent to approach a shifting but important deadline as if time is short than as if you have all the time in the world. Another type of surprise might be the discovery that there are shortages of supplies or materials and/or a shortage of the trained work force needed for manufacturing and installing solar panels, wind turbines, and electric transmission lines. If such discoveries are to be made, better they be made earlier rather than later. Another reason to get going is not so much a matter of surprises but of well-known difficulty. Well-Known Difficulties Since 1950, say, the USA has tended to assume that “free enterprise” was the preferred mechanism for getting things done. Yet since 1990, we’ve seen no progress to speak of in the fight against GWCC, showing that “free enterprise” alone cannot be depended upon to do this job. Therefore government intervention of some kind will be needed. But intervention of what kind? And how long do we have to dither about what kind? One reason to plan for difficulties is that political difficulties will be important initial hurdles. (I know I am only writing about the electric power generation problem, but just imagine the political resistance from the world’s militaries and pampered jet set in the event that air travel must be greatly cut back due to a failure to solve and implement a replacement of fossil jet fuels with renewables?) And of course we cannot put off doing a necessary job just because there will be political hurdles. We should plan to overcome these hurdles by a massive public education program. For instance, all candidates for president, today, who believe in GWCC should put urgent talk about the “war on GWCC” into their campaigning. It would be best if candidates of both parties did so. But even with education, it is prudent to plan for difficulties by aiming for early (or even for too-early) completion. “A stitch in time * * * “ My suggestion is that the first few years of 10% replacements (replacing fossil-fueled generation with renewable) be paid for directly by the federal government, by building renewables (solar and wind) on public lands in the west, perhaps on “bad lands”, and building transmission to California or wherever else close-by renewable electric power is needed. After all, there are many problems that may more easily be solved by governmental action than by private action, including obtaining land and easements for build-out of renewables and for electric power transmission from new installations to the existing power “grid”. The Problem Of Fairness Some will say that replacing existing power generating plants with new ones, especially if built by government, is not “fair” to the (usually corporate) owners of existing fossil-fueled power plants (”Owners”). That is certainly a possibility, although the question is by no means a clear one. There is no way that I can see to replace existing fossil-fueled generation by renewables that will clearly be “fair” to everyone: the possibility of unfairness goes with the territory in war, including this war on GWCC. The Owners will claim to be hurt by being put out of business. And, certainly, putting fossil-fueled generation plants out of business is a central part of the entire “war” on GWCC. Should these Owners be paid “compensation” for investment losses (as NAFTA and TPP would suggest)? Or should they be told that being forced out of business by cheaper alternatives (see below) is an ordinary business risk (part of “free market” capitalism—except it seems for too-big-to-fail banks)? Or, then again, should it be suggested that the Owners have been sufficiently “compensated” (in aggregate) over many years both by government subsidies for the fossil fuels they have been buying, in many cases by government regulated profits over many years that they’ve enjoyed as “monopoly” public utilities, and also by their lack of legal liability for the very real (but very dispersed and often delayed) health and other costs of environmental pollution, including but far from limited to GHG emission? I’ve said that renewable power generation is cheaper than fossil-fueled generation. There are two reasons for this. First, the capital cost per KwH for renewable generation is already cheaper than the cost of fossil-fueled generation. And of course, there is no fuel cost for renewable generation—the only cost is initial capital cost and periodic repair and replacement costs—which OFFPPs also face. The more significant reason renewable is cheaper is that it does not cause climate change or any other environmental ills associated with fossil-fueled power generation. Owners of fossil-fueled plants, if faced with the costs of retrofitting for “cleaning” of mercury and other smoke-stack effluents, might choose to close the plants in any case, and presumably without “compensation”. Separating Power Generation From Power Distribution The businesses of power distribution (local electric utilities) should be separated from the businesses of electric power supply (generation). All electric power distributors—such as New York City’s Consolidated Edison (“ConEd”), which already does so—should allow customers to purchase electric power from power suppliers which are independent of the power distributor—and should also (I don’t believe that ConEd does this yet) allow customers to inject electric power into the “grid” from their own solar or other electric generation equipment. In these ways, customers may choose (or even become!) “green” suppliers if they like. Also, in that way, the local distributor of electric power will be made independent of the local fossil-fueled electric generation, and the latter can go out of use (and out of business) without sacrifice to the distributor. Owners of fossil-fueled power plants should be allowed to go out of business without taking local power distribution enterprises with them. One possibility for the annual 10% cuts in fossil-fueled power generation is to reduce the power generated by all such plants by the annual 10% reductions so that they go out of business slowly, rather than closing some of them abruptly and leaving others going at 100%. This might be both a matter of fairness as between such companies and also a way to make sure that emergency electric generation capacity remains available. And, of course, if any such companies go out of business due to normal lifetimes of the generation plants, they may be taken out of use without any disruption due to the renewables project. What about nuclear power generators, existing or proposed? A good question. I don’t like them—because they are dangerous, because they leak radioactivity from time to time, and because no-one knows what to do long-term with the nuclear wastes. But it is still a question. The Price-Anderson Act, which absolves owners of nuclear electric plants of most liability in case of major nuclear accidents is proof, should proof still be needed, that nuclear power is too dangerous to be used. Certainly, no-one has proposed a Price-Anderson Act for solar panels or wind farms. Return to Table of Contents Planning The USA’s Cooperative International War Against Climate Change Many countries are too poor to be able to do what they must do as part of a global effort to fight GWCC. We should recall that after WWII, when many European countries were devastated, the USA formed a mechanism, called the Marshall Plan, for getting investment money to some countries which needed it. The USA should have no interest in reducing to near zero its own GHG emissions if other countries cannot and do not do so themselves. It makes sense to treat a world problem as a USA responsibility just as, for example, the USA’s war against Iraq, a country which was attacked on general principles of defense against an allegedly dangerous enemy, was (taking that allegation to be true) as protective of all other countries as it was of the USA. Therefore, American planning should include planning for aid to other countries in their own efforts to fight GWCC. Return to Table of Contents Planning The USA’s Coercive International War Against Climate Change Finally, there arises the possibility that a significant number of countries will refuse to do what they should do to fight GWCC. Such a possibility, if it becomes a reality, would mark such countries as enemies of the world and thus as enemies of the USA. Going to war is a disastrous way to get any foreign policy business done. I deplore wars other than actually (and not merely nominally) defensive ones. But succumbing to GWCC because one or more countries refuses to join the international effort makes no sense. So we should consider war and other coercive policies as a way to force reluctant countries to do what they should. Given the USA’s dreadful history (of failing to fight GWCC, so far), we should be understanding and slow to anger with regard to others, but the thought of coercion should not be absent—from our planning. Return to Table of Contents |
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