October
26, 2007
Can We Stop
Global Warming?
Al Gore’s recent win
of the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the danger
of global warming is well-deserved. But after
watching his movie “An Inconvenient Truth”,
I was struck by the fact that he does not clearly
lay out what needs to be done. This omission needs
to be filled by the leading nations of the Earth,
and most of all by the United States.
Ten years ago, the science of global warming was
still somewhat uncertain. It was not clear how
big an effect and how rapidly the changes predicted
would actually occur. But in the last decade,
the state of the science has advanced considerably.
We know now that the huge quantity of carbon dioxide
emitted by burning coal, natural gas, and crude
oil (7 billion tons per year), is altering the
Earth’s climate by trapping solar energy
and warming the planet. This warming is causing
considerable melting of the polar ice fields both
in the Arctic and Antarctic, and mountain glaciers
around the world. It is distorting the seasons,
and altering the rhythms of the natural world.
While doomsayers cite a whole variety of bad consequences
for humans, the only really serious one for us
would be a major rise in sea levels if the Greenland
ice sheet were to melt, or if significant amounts
of land-based ice in the Antarctic were to melt.
Short of that, most other consequences of a warmer
world could probably be mitigated by a variety
of means.
However, that does not make a warmer planet desirable.
If global temperatures rise in the next 100 years
by 6-8 degrees Fahrenheit, it will be a much different
planet than what we are used to. Warm areas of
the Earth will experience blistering summers,
and much of the snow and ice we associate with
temperate zone winters will be gone.
Many skeptics of global warming believe little
can be done in an affordable way. On the other
hand, there are some environmentalists who will
not be satisfied until we substantially reduce
our standard of living, especially in the West
and in particular in the US. Neither of these
approaches is sound. In the long run, the only
viable solution to global warming will have to
be one that cuts carbon emissions by 90% (instead
of doubling as they are projected to do) without
forcing us to give up hot showers or cold drinks
or personal transportation (cars).
So how can we do that? This whole question turns
on energy. The goal is to have affordable energy
when and where we need it that does not emit carbon
dioxide. There is no imperative that we have to
use fossil fuels, we only do that because they
are the cheapest current sources of energy. Energy
is used for two major purposes, generating electricity
and transportation.
Electric power generation is actually a solvable
problem. To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in
power generation we need to turn over the Earth’s
power plants in the next 30 years to non-carbon
sources. These include hydroelectric, nuclear,
wind, and solar. A fifth source is conservation.
Wind and solar can replace coal when they get
down to 10 cents per kilowatt hour. Currently
solar power costs 20-30 cents per KWh. But in
the next 15-20 years, we should reach the magic
number, and widespread use of solar power should
start. Nuclear can also be expanded, as the main
obstacles are not cost or technology, but politics.
Conservation can also reduce total electric demand,
by for example, improving efficiency of appliances
in households or electric motors in factories
or switching from incandescent to fluorescent
light bulbs.
Transportation is a bigger problem. There are
three billion people in developing Asia who want
cars in their families just like the West. But
global warming will not allow us to just add that
many vehicles without major problems. We need
to dramatically increase gasoline mileage across
the board. Hybrid cars should be the new standard.
And large areas of the world, particularly South
Asia and the Middle East, should create a vehicle
fleet powered by compressed natural gas, which
releases far less carbon dioxide than gasoline
from crude oil does.
These ideas, and a host of others can be put into
practice. If there is the political will, global
warming is not inevitable. But even with all these
efforts, it may be that the Earth will still heat
up to an undesirable level. Is there anything
else we can do? There are in fact a number of
geo-engineering solutions that could be tried
to cool the planet. One approach would be to disperse
soot into the upper atmosphere, which would block
1-2% of the sun’s rays from reaching the
Earth’s surface. This happens naturally
in the 12-24 months after a major volcanic explosion,
but we could do this on a sustained basis. Another
approach would be to deploy an orbiting “sunshade”
to partially block incoming sunshine. Another
idea is to seed the ocean’s surface with
iron, an essential nutrient, that would result
in massive plankton growth which would suck carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere. There are other such
ideas that are being considered.
Although many would be unaffordable today, with
global GDP at 40 trillion dollars and billions
still in poverty, it will be a different story
in 50 years, when global GDP will be 160 trillion
dollars, and most of the world will be well off.
They will be able to afford expensive fixes that
we cannot. The truth may be inconvenient, but
solution does not have to be. Comments can reach
me at Nali@socal.rr.com.
