[Vision2020] Game Over for the Climate

[Art Deco]

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May 9, 2012
Game Over for the Climate By JAMES HANSEN

GLOBAL warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so
troubled to read a recent interview with President
Obama<http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/04/i-have-the-utmost-respect-for.html>in
Rolling Stone in which he said that
Canada<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/canada/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>would
exploit the
oil<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/energy-environment/oil-petroleum-and-gasoline/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>in
its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.”

If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the
climate.

Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice
the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire
history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to
burn our conventional oil, gas and
coal<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/coal/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>supplies,
concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually
would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million
years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That
level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the
ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and
destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable.
Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction.
Civilization would be at risk.

That is the long-term outlook. But near-term, things will be bad enough.
Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid
region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with
rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding.
Economic losses would be incalculable. More and more of the Midwest would
be a dust bowl. California’s Central Valley could no longer be irrigated. Food
prices<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/food_prices/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>would
rise to unprecedented levels.

If this sounds apocalyptic, it is. This is why we need to reduce emissions
dramatically. President Obama has the power not only to deny tar sands oil
additional access to Gulf Coast refining, which Canada desires in part for
export markets, but also to encourage economic incentives to leave tar
sands and other dirty fuels in the ground.

The global warming<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>signal
is now louder than the noise of random weather, as I predicted would
happen by now in the journal Science in 1981. Extremely hot summers have
increased noticeably. We can say with high confidence that the recent heat
waves in Texas and Russia, and the one in Europe in 2003, which killed tens
of thousands, were not natural events — they were caused by human-induced
climate change.

We have known since the 1800s that carbon dioxide traps heat in the
atmosphere. The right amount keeps the climate conducive to human life. But
add too much, as we are doing now, and temperatures will inevitably rise
too high. This is not the result of natural variability, as some argue. The
earth is currently in the part of its long-term orbit cycle where
temperatures would normally be cooling. But they are rising — and it’s
because we are forcing them higher with fossil fuel emissions.

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 280
parts per million to 393 p.p.m. over the last 150 years. The tar sands
contain enough carbon — 240 gigatons — to add 120 p.p.m. Tar shale, a close
cousin of tar sands found mainly in the United States, contains at least an
additional 300 gigatons of carbon. If we turn to these dirtiest of fuels,
instead of finding ways to phase out our addiction to fossil fuels, there
is no hope of keeping carbon concentrations below 500 p.p.m. — a level that
would, as earth’s history shows, leave our children a climate system that
is out of their control.

We need to start reducing emissions significantly, not create new ways to
increase them. We should impose a gradually rising carbon fee, collected
from fossil fuel companies, then distribute 100 percent of the collections
to all Americans on a per-capita basis every month. The government would
not get a penny. This market-based approach would stimulate innovation,
jobs and economic growth, avoid enlarging government or having it pick
winners or losers. Most Americans, except the heaviest energy users, would
get more back than they paid in increased prices. Not only that, the
reduction in oil use resulting from the carbon price would be nearly six
times as great as the oil supply from the proposed pipeline from Canada,
rendering the pipeline superfluous, according to economic models driven by
a slowly rising carbon price.

But instead of placing a rising fee on carbon emissions to make fossil
fuels pay their true costs, leveling the energy playing field, the world’s
governments are forcing the public to subsidize fossil fuels with hundreds
of billions of dollars per year. This encourages a frantic stampede to
extract every fossil fuel through mountaintop removal, longwall mining,
hydraulic fracturing, tar sands and tar shale extraction, and deep ocean
and Arctic drilling.

President Obama speaks of a “planet in peril,” but he does not provide the
leadership needed to change the world’s course. Our leaders must speak
candidly to the public — which yearns for open, honest discussion —
explaining that our continued technological leadership and economic
well-being demand a reasoned change of our energy course. History has shown
that the American public can rise to the challenge, but leadership is
essential.

The science of the situation is clear — it’s time for the politics to
follow. This is a plan that can unify conservatives and liberals,
environmentalists and business. Every major national science academy in the
world has reported that global warming is real, caused mostly by humans,
and requires urgent action. The cost of acting goes far higher the longer
we wait — we can’t wait any longer to avoid the worst and be judged immoral
by coming generations.

James Hansen <http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/jhansen.html> directs the NASA
Goddard Institute for Space Studies and is the author of “Storms of My
Grandchildren.”

Room for Debate: Should Churches Get Tax
Breaks?<http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/05/09/should-churches-get-tax-breaks?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fopinion%2Findex.jsonp>
-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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