There was a report about how the rate of CO2 emissions was increasing about 4.0% per year from 1960-1979, decreased to 1.3% per year from the 1980’s to 1999, and in this decade (since 2000) has increased again to 4.0% per year. This is obviously alarming because it shows that we are not any making progress at all in reducing CO2 emissions: things are getting worse not better. Also, last year was the first year that China has equaled or replaced the US as the nation with the highest CO2 emissions (it’s close enough to be difficult to tell if it is equal to or greater than). Don’t fret though, on a per capita basis, we’re still winning the CO2 emission game by a long shot because we have less than a quarter as many people as China.
I thought it was also interesting that today in the NYT there’s a Freakonomics blog post about “Financial literacy” where you can take a brief quiz and it talks about how a scary number of Americans get many of these questions wrong. For example Question #1 is:
1. Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2 percent per year. After 5 years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you left the money to grow?
a. More than $102
b. Exactly $102
c. Less than $102
d. Do not know
I think these two tidbits on “rates of change” make an interesting juxtaposition. Maybe the CO2 rising doesn’t seem as alarming as it should because everything else in our lives is increasing. Population, the economy, traffic, computer speed… We’re used to things increasing. And this kind of acceleration is usually considered a good thing. There’s even an urban myth that compounding interest was hailed by Einstein as humanity’s greatest invention (this appear to be a made up quote). With this perspective, maybe its not so bad that CO2 goes up 4% a year, basically increasing with compounding interest like a savings account?
Yikes is all I can say. And I can’t say it sincerely enough, I think I’d have to scream it to feel like I’m doing justice to the sentiment. Elemental cycles are not mutual funds. We started at 280 ppm in the 1800’s (ppm=parts per million) and we’re up to 384 this year. Most think there’s no way we can get our emissions under control before we hit 500, and we’re beating the worse case scenarios already to surpass that (see above). We’re talking about more than doubling the CO2 in the atmosphere. Elements aren’t money. They have mass, I hate to say it, but they’re real. Money used to be backed by a real gold standard, but that was done away with – there isn’t enough gold out there anymore. The giant pool of money is (usually) increasing. That’s easy, its just digits on a bunch of hard drives somewhere. Money doesn’t follow conservation of mass (which is a discussion point in and of itself). The greenhouse gas and climate change problem is almost entirely caused by taking oil or coal buried deep in the ground and burning it and putting that carbon in the air. Not only do we have to stop putting the carbon it up there, we will likely have to figure out ways to pull some out of the atmosphere as well, “sequestering it” as it is known.
As you’ve likely heard, last week Al Gore laid out an ambitious plan to have US electricity production become carbon free by 2018. It’s very ambitious considering how broad the changes will have to be throughout our society. But, it is humbling to realize this is the kind of action that we need to actually solve the climate change problem. It seems our society has a choice: Do we decide it’s too hard and pick a lesser path, or do we say that’s what we have to do and figure out how to get it done.
I particularly like that Gore is trumpeting this policy approach that we’ve talked about before:
[Gore] said the single most important policy change would be placing a carbon tax on burning oil and coal, with an accompanying reduction in payroll taxes.
cross post: elemental cycles
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p>The population of the USA is 300,000,000 (2007 estimate)
The population of China is 1,321,000,000 (2007 estimate)
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p>We have 2/9ths as many people as China, or simpler, fewer than 1/4th as many people as China — substantially fewer than 1/3rd.
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p>No he didn’t. In fact, here’s a quote from the first paragraph of the Globe article to which you link: “Former Vice President Al Gore challenged Americans yesterday to switch all of the nation’s electricity production to wind, solar, and other carbon-free sources within 10 years”
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p>Gore wants 100% carbon-free electrical generation by 2018. He said nothing of not using fossil fuels for transportation, heat, cooling, manufacturing, or lubricating.
all true, I’ll update the post.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1112…
but if we as a nation make it a priority, I believe we could get there. Thing is, we won’t get there by accidentally getting close. If the new POTUS makes it our number one domestic priority, we could get there in 10 years. It’d take lots of dough, lots of anti-NIMBY, and active participation of everyone to help flatline or reduce their individual electricity consumption.
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p>But, it would generate lots of manufacturing jobs, loads of construction jobs, plenty of maintenance jobs, and if we were successful it would reduce the price of electricity. If we were wildly successful, it would reduce demand for oil too [in 10 years, with cheaper electricity, you’d see far more plug-in vehicles on the roads].
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p>It’ll require national commitments. Congress will have to approve longer term subsidies for wind and solar. Congress will have to remove subsidies for coal and natural gas electrical generation. Congress will have to tax carbon — and hopefully dump that revenue into (a) payroll tax reduction and (b) subsidizing carbon-neutral energy generation. Congress will also have to figure out how to overcome state and local opposition fairly. It’s a national problem, and every part of the country has to do their part to reduce our use of coal, natural gas, and oil for electrical generation. Rural areas: wind turbines. Suburban areas: smart growth, better building standards, multi-unit dwellings, solar panels. Urban areas: upgrade buildings and standards, align lessor and lessee interests to reduce energy use, and a greater percentage of multi-unit dwellings. Folks on the coast have got to get used to seeing tiny windmills in the water.
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p>States have gotten us moving in the right direction with RPS requirements, but they’re not aggressive enough, and they’re widely heterogeneous throughout the states (see Pew RPS map). It’s true that some parts of the country are more equipped for green electrical generation than others, and it’s also true that some parts of the country require more electricity for comfort than other parts. It’s not obvious to me that every state/region should have the same standard, but it’s also not obvious to me that regions like the South should get a pass because they don’t want to put wind turbines on the Appalachian mountains and don’t want to pay for solar cells on roofs.
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p>Bottom line: unless the POTUS is wild for it, it’s not going to happen. Even then, selling Congress ain’t trivial, and it will require a series of funding, taxation, and regulatory laws to line everything up. Getting it done would secure that POTUS a place in worldwide history, and in many ways the era would be looked back at in the same way we look back at the domestic WWII effort or the space race.
Cutting through the regulations relating to nuclear power plants, in order to facilitate the construction of a very large number of nuclear reactors in a very short period of time, and somehow getting Sen. Reid out of the Senate so that this could happen.
There’s absolutely no reason to add nuclear capacity — which requires mining uranium mines not found in America, and a place to store the waste, and the acknowledgment that there is a very small but nonzero risk of an accident which will cause harm to health and home — when we haven’t tapped out the opportunity to build wind, solar, or other renewable resources.
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p>It’s true, we might run out of opportunities to generate green energy and conserve before we hit 100%. But, we might not. Until we do reach that point, why on Earth would we build power plants which require foreign fuel, result in toxic waste, and have a very small but nonzero chance of tragic catastrophe?