[Vision2020] Inconvenient Truth: What you gonna do?

[Paul Rumelhart]

I think we need to also look into scrubbing as much CO2 out of the air 
as possible.  This can mainly be done by planting more permanent trees 
and plants.  While I'm sure we can do our part here by planting trees on 
clearcut land, this would be most effective in other areas.  Regrowing 
the rain forests, planting kelp beds, and working to reclaim desert land 
would go a long way towards helping the CO2 situation.  We might need 
nuclear power and sea-water desalination plants to make this really 
work, though.

Paul

Ted Moffett wrote:

> 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 
> <mailto: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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