[Vision2020] Inconvenient Truth: What you gonna do?

[Ted Moffett]

Nils et. al.

The answer is simple, ha, ha, ha:  the human race must reduce in absolute
amounts how much CO2 we dump into the atmosphere... It seems nearly
inevitable that this will not occur for the foreseeable future, however.

Of course driving as little as possible helps, or driving a more fuel
efficient alternatively powered car or truck.  The plug in hybrids allow the
advantages of a gas engine combined with charging the batteries by solar or
wind.  These vehicles may be available widely soon.  Development planning
and transportation systems need to be adjusted to encourage less driving,
not more, as you implied in your comment about the bypass.  Raising the CAFE
standards is a no brainer, that as far as I know is currently dead on
Capitol Hill (unless recent legislation has addressed this), given current
"leadership."

There are many small steps that can be taken locally to reduce CO2
emissions, or increase CO2 sequestration:  gardens on Moscow city rooftops
downtown?  Sounds silly, I suppose, but every little change adds up.  I
posted info to Vision2020 on the US Conference of Mayors Climate Change
Initiative that offers steps for cities to take to locally address climate
change.  My post sunk on Visioin2020 like a stone...

I have been debating the fossil fuel CO2 emission equation, and solutions,
with a friend who teaches environmental science, and we speculated:  How
much fossil fuel sourced CO2 emissions are released to build a new fuel
efficient car?  Quite a lot, I assume.  We had trouble finding reliable
data.  But driving an older less fuel efficient car (depending on the gap
between the MPG of the older car and newer hybrid, let us say) for limited
use might be a more CO2 efficient solution than buying that new hybrid and
supporting all the CO2 emissions that went into resource extraction,
manufacturing, and transporting the new car to the dealership (from
Japan?).

It's so easy to overlook how fossil fuels are connected to nearly every
aspect of economic activity, and not count the "hidden" fossil fuel costs of
solutions to fossil fuel CO2 emissions.  Like someone charging their
electric car off a coal fired electric plant...absurd!

I read one analysis of nuclear fission plants and the fossil fuel penalty
for their operation, uranium mining, constructing the plants, and
mothballing them which they inevitably must be, and the efficiency in
regards to CO2 emissions/energy output was about par with a natural gas
fired electric plant.  So the idea nuclear fission plants are so CO2 clean
is not as sometimes claimed.

There are two basic directions that can be taken to solve the problem.  One,
modern industrial global civilization could downsize energy consumption by
orders of magnitude.  Or two, develop new practical widely applied CO2
neutral energy sources.

We could discuss massive CO2 sequestration as a solution, but given existing
technology, this is only a partial solution.

The first option is a fairy tale scenario.  It would demand a massive
downsizing of growth and economic development on a global scale.  The Earth
Sciences Institute at Columbia University projects that before the end of
this century, China and India will have far exceeded the USA in fossil fuel
burning.  By then US energy hogs will be feeling the heat, both from climate
change and the costs of oil.  Anyone who says we can use energy
conservation, given current global energy demands and the reality of the
marketplace, to reduce the absolute amounts of CO2 the human race is dumping
into the atmosphere, without new practical widely applied break through
energy technologies, has not done the math.  Optimists are only hoping we
can slow the growth of the absolute amount of CO2 emissions.

The second solution seems the only real hope to solve the problem.
Many scientists think current efforts to introduce biofuels, fuel cells,
solar, wind and other "green" options will not provide sufficient CO2
reductions to lower the absolute amounts of CO2 the human race emits, given
economic realities and energy demands, and are only helpful but partial
solutions.

A massive "Apollo Project" sized effort to develop practical nuclear fusion
and CO2 sequestration, and other solutions, is promoted by some.  Fusion
power could be the energy break through of human history, though its
practicality is still in doubt.  And this option, and the rapid development
of other practical energy options, is not something that local governments
can tackle.  We need the President of the US to advocate hundreds of
billions of dollars investment in creating CO2 neutral energy and CO2
sequestration technology, including fusion.  And if the US can't lead the
way for the rapid development of new energy technologies, given we are the
most wealthy nation on Earth...

I saw Gore's film "Inconvenient Truth" when it first hit the Palouse in
Pullman.  I biked over to see it, of course.  The film was dumbed down, and
did not attempt to present a full picture of the main variables in climate
change science, a very complex subject.  But if it helps change people's
behavior... Will it?

One daunting problem is that very few people really take the threat of
global warming seriously, even those who admit it is happening.  Some say it
is not due to human causes to any significant degree, or even if so, we will
adapt to the changes.  That the human race must reduce CO2 emissions in
absolute amounts or catastrophic climate change will occur is too abstract
or remote a problem to seem real to many people.

Who seriously contemplates that what comes out of the average US car or
light truck tail pipe during one year of driving is about 5 tons of CO2
dumped into the atmosphere? You can't dump five tons of CO2 in someones yard
to show them what they are doing.  Well, maybe in compressed tanks... one
option being considered for CO2 sequestration at coal fired plants:  remove
the CO2 and store it in tanks... or inject it into the ground, not the
atmosphere.

With the USA having the most coal of any nation on earth, an energy source
that the USA can rely on long after oil markets have pushed oil over $100 a
barrel (only a question of when not if), practical CO2 sequestration
technology for coal fired plants would be a major break through.

Modern civilisation is so integrated into the use of fossil fuels at all
levels that to question the wisdom of fossil fueled transportation and
energy, the inevitability of fossil fuel extraction and burning with no end
in sight, and the primacy of global market driven capitalism and consumerism
as a system that must continue despite global warming, are questions even
those who are fully aware of the massive problems human induced catastrophic
climate change will create, don't want to face honestly, on all levels.  It
might mean giving up aspects of our lifestyle that most do not want to
sacrifice.

Even Al Gore's lifestyle, the hypocrite!  Of course this describes my
behavior as well...

As it has been put, modern globalized muti-national corporate capitalism is
a wholly owned subsidiary of Mother Earth... I can hear the free
market capitalism as religion devotees screaming at that one...

There has been a deliberate effort to mock and delegitimize the science that
indicates global warming is a serious threat, work by numerous climate
change scientists that now reveal the overwhelming consensus that human
caused global warming is occurring at a rapid rate.

I saw Eugene Linden, author of "Winds of Change," giving a talk and question
and answer session on C-Span this past weekend.  He noted that the best
selling book on the subject of global warming called it a hoax aimed at
filling the coffers of environmental scientists with grant money.  He also
said that global warming may be the most critical problem with overwhelming
scientific evidence to take action ever to be so ignored by the public and
government.  Linden really knew his stuff, and was aware of the thinking of
the major human caused global warming skeptics (though there are only a few
with credibility), ready to answer their arguments:

http://www.eugenelinden.com/

-----------
Ted Moffett


On 8/22/06, Nils Peterson <nils_peterson at wsu.edu> wrote:
>
> So did you see Al Gore's movie? My sister, the infamous 'Rock Doc' of the
> DNews went, prepared to debunk Gore's latest invention since the Internet.
>
> She came away saying the science was solid, but not saying she had any
> actions in mind.
>
> My immediate thoughts are along the lines of conservation rather than
> running out to by a Prius.
>
> Which folds into another thought that has passed through v2020. I posted a
>
> response to talk about making an 'internal bypass' of Hwy 8 along the old
> RR
> route between downtown and UI. Aaron Ament later told me he'd biked the
> route to look closer.
>
> If we were to heed Gore and cut car trips down we wouldn't need the
> bypass.
> Just a thought
>
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