Latest Articles
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E.O. Wilson calls for kids to be set free outside, scripted activities be damned
Renowned biologist and naturalist E.O. Wilson regaled the crowd at last week’s Aspen Environment Forum with his wit and wisdom during an on-stage interview. A choice segment: The worst thing you can do to a child, in my opinion, is take them on a hike through a botanical garden where there are the names of […]
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Eco-laws pushed aside for faster building of border fence
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday that it will waive environmental laws in order to finish its 670-mile-long fence along the U.S.-Mexico border by the end of 2008. The waivers will apply to land stretching from California to Texas and will facilitate construction of fencing, towers, sensors, cameras, and roads. Homeland Security has […]
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How to green your underwear drawer
Go on, green your drawers. Photo: jamelah e. Change your undies, change the world! OK, maybe that’s stretching things a bit — which can’t be good for those elastic waistbands. But think about all the times in recent history that underwear has shaped the culture: the 1960s bra-trashing by women’s libbers, the infamous 1994 “boxers […]
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We’ll need a lot of Socolow and Pacala’s wedges
The short answer is: "Not today -- not even close."
The long answer is the subject of this post.
Regular readers know that the nation and the world currently lack the political will to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide at 450 ppm or even 550 ppm.
The political impossibility is also obvious from anyone familiar with Princeton's "stabilization wedges" [PDF] -- and if you aren't, you should be (technical paper here [PDF], less technical one here [PDF]). The wedges are a valuable conceptual tool for showing the immense scale needed for the solution (although they have analytical flaws).
Of course, if solving the climate problem were politically possible today, I would have found something more useful to do with my time (as, I expect, would you). But 450 ppm or lower is certainly achievable from an economic and technological perspective. Indeed, that is the point of the wedges discussion, since they rely on existing technology, and the conclusion to Hell and High Water.
The purpose of my last post on the adaptation trap was to make clear that 800 to 1,000 ppm, which is where we are headed, is a catastrophe ar beyond human imagining, one that makes a mockery of the word "adaptation," that has a "cost" far beyond that considered by any traditional economic cost-benefit analysis. It is a rationally and morally impossible choice. So too, I think, is 550 ppm, assuming we could stop there -- which as I argued, we probably can't, thanks to the carbon cycle feedbacks like the melting tundra.
What needs to be done?
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Gore-y climate ads are coming soon to a TV near you
While it is not true that Al Gore is running for president (honestly, how do these rumors get started?), it is true that his Alliance for Climate Protection has officially launched a new “we” campaign. The ad campaign aims to spend $300 million over three years to create a sense of both urgency and solvability […]
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Potentially a long-term option for putting waste heat to use
RealClimate has a good introductory post on air capture, which they explain as:
The idea would be to let people emit the carbon dioxide at the source but then capture it directly from the atmosphere at a separate facility.
This is going to be a relatively expensive and complicated strategy for decades -- and, of course, you need a place to put the carbon dioxide. That said, a lot of work is going on to see if one can do air capture driven by heat.
Why does that matter? The world has a lot of zero carbon waste heat not currently being used for anything. Indeed, U.S. thermal power plants alone throw away as much energy in waste heat as Japan uses for every purpose! That's more than 20 quads. And that doesn't even count the heat thrown away in industrial processes. Now, the smartest thing to do with that heat, for the next few decades, is obviously either generate electricity with it or use it for heating buildings or industrial processes.
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Transit investment should and will be a part of the peak oil solution
Joseph Romm has made a number of very good points in his new Salon piece (and accompanying Gristmill post) on the problem of peak oil. He is, in my view, quite correct that oil prices will continue to increase based on supply and demand fundamentals. He is right that alternative oil source development would be […]
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Paper mags go green(ish) for one month
The third annual “Green Issue” of Vanity Fair has arrived: Vanity, all is VanityAlthough Madonna graces the cover, the story inside makes no mention of greenness … including her “eco-song” and headlining gig last summer at Live Earth. Altogether an interesting choice for the “green issue,” though I applaud the absence of sweater belts. The […]
