Download Focus the Nation – Keynote talk – Outline

Focus the Nation – Keynote talk – Outline
Climate Science and Energy Options
Thank you, Chelsea Papiez, Jean MacGregor, all the hardworking organizers and
volunteers who made this event possible.
Global warming? In January? It may not feel like it this week, but it’s getting
warmer.
Climate is the average of weather – averaged over years, and averaged over regions.
The 8 hottest years in recorded history have been in the past decade.
2007 tied 2005 for a global record – despite being a solar minimum and cool La
Nina year.
Sea surface temperatures have risen more in the last thirty years than in the past
300 years.
Warmer seas and air power stronger storms, bigger hurricanes, tornadoes at
unusual times and places (Vancouver WA, Jan 08)
Weather patterns are exaggerated: dry places may experience prolonged drought,
(Natl Geographic Lake Powell bathtub ring)
rainy places get more extreme events and floods (Chehalis, Dec 07),
and heavy snows are causing a record avalanche season in the Cascades.
Climate change is natural – within limits
Global temperatures and CO2 have fluctuated together as far back as we can
measure – at least 6 ice ages, over 600,000 years (always under 300 ppm)
Greenhouse gases are good – without water vapor, CO2, methane, Earth’s seas
would have been frozen for the first few billion years
Orbital changes + Feedback mechanisms drive global warming and cyclic
fluctuations
Feedback: Ice reflects sunlight, water absorbs heat. A little extra heat melts ice,
the water absorbs more heat, the Earth gets warmer, more ice melts – feedback cycle.
_ The poles have warmed 6 degrees in the past _few decades, while the average
planetary warming is only 1 degree. Most glaciers are likely to melt before the end of the
century.
Humans are driving the Earth system out of equilibrium
Keeling curve – CO2 ratcheting up steadily since we started burning fossil fuels.
Overlay on Vostok data – on track to double CO2 levels by 2100.
500 ppm of CO2 is a tipping point, a threshold for catastrophe.
CO2 has been this high before – millions of years ago – but there were dinosaurs then,
and alligators at the poles.
IPCC (congratulations) projects that we will increase temperatures 2-4 C by 2100. That’s
4-8 F. Remember that 1F causes ___
IPCC estimates sea level rise of up to 1 m by 2100. That’s about 3 feet. With a typical
10:1 slope, about 100 feet of land will be flooded on most coastlines.
That’s not including the effects of storms and erosion, which could claim 1 km for each
meter of sea level rise. Some island and coastal nations, especially poor countries and
indigenous communities, are already making plans to relocate.
But the IPCC report is optimistic – They used data from 2005. Earth is warming even
more rapidly now, and Greenland melt is ACCELERATING at such a rate that scientists
now expect sea level rises of not 1 m, but 4-6 m by the end of the century. And that is if
we keep CO2 below 500 ppm.
Right now, Humans are emitting over 7 billion tons C/year. This puts us on track to
double the amount of CO2 by 2050.
If we cross the 500 ppm CO2 tipping point, we could thaw the methane frozen in the
tundra, estimated at 450 billion tons – and methane is an even more potent greenhouse
gas than carbon. This would almost certainly melt Greenland and Antarctica, raising sea
levels by hundreds of meters.
I think you’ll agree that we need to keep CO2 levels below 500 ppm.
And it’s possible, if we start work NOW.
About equal shares of our carbon emissions are due to electricity generation (mostly coal
burning) and transportation (mostly gasoline and diesel).
Agriculture also contributes carbon emissions, from rice paddies as much as from
livestock, but we have to eat,
so let’s see how we can reduce carbon emissions from energy generation.
Pacala and Socolow of MIT have proposed a set of solution options in their Carbon
Mitigation Wedge scheme. See ___’s talk on this at __.
Assuming that we want to maintain our current standard of living, and that developing
countries have the right to a higher standard of living, we need to keep generating
electricity without burning so much coal.
Carbon Capture and Storage sounds like a solution but it is not. The idea is to capture
carbon emissions, e.g. from a coal plant, and pump them into natural underground storage
spots. There are three small facilities operating worldwide. They would have to be
scaled up by a factor of 3500 to have an impact, and there is a real risk that the C could
leak out of the underground storage. We need to produce less carbon.
Replacing coal plant with natural gas burning plants is a good intermediate step. Natural
gas produces only about half the carbon for the same amount of energy. It’s expensive,
but it’s worth it when you consider the real costs of carbon emissions. Evergreen’s steam
plant can produce cleaner electricity with natural gas – see __’s talk at __.
Energy-efficient buildings are major part of the solution. Green buildings can reduce
electricity use at a net negative cost in just a few years, and retrofitting existing buildings
with fluorescent light bulbs and other energy-saving options can be a big part of the
solution. In Evergreen’s dorms and in SEM II, we need to meter energy use as a first step
toward reducing our energy use.
See __’s talk at __.
Hydro power is nearly fully developed in industrialized nations, and expensive in
ecological and human terms. We can’t rely on hydro power as a major part of the
solution.
Wind is growing rapidly, especially in Europe. If wind power continues growing at its
current pace, we’ll have one wedge in just fifteen years. You may worry about wind
turbines’ effects on birds and bats, The National Audubon society has endorsed wind
power, because global warming and cars are far more dangerous to birds and bats than
are properly sited windmills. One bold idea is to retool Detroit’s failing car factories into
wind turbine factories –
Wind is economically competitive, and solar can be when fossil fuel subsidies are
replaced by carbon taxes (or a cap and trade system).
Solar is plentiful. DATA. Grand solar plan: Manhattan project
In their vision, solar could generate x% of our electrity needs by 2050. With an
aggressive development program, renewables could provide 100% of US electricity
needs by 2100, and y% of our transportation fuel needs.
What are our alternative energy options for transportation?
President Bush has proposed a Hydrogen plan, but currently, Hydrogen is a fossil fuel,
produced from methane, and creating CO2 as a byproduct. Fuel cell technology is
immature, and hydrogen is difficult and expensive to transport and store. Hydrogen will
not be a real part of the climate change solution until it can be efficiently produced with
electrolysis from renewable sources like wind and solar – probably near the end of the
century.
Transportation: reduce car travel miles by half for 2 billion vehicles – 1 wedge
Meanwhile, gas-electric hybrids are a good transition option. Can biofuels be part of the
solution? It depends on the source of the biofuel. Corn ethanol provides more energy per
gallon than soy diesel, but it costs almost as much fossil fuel energy to produce. And
producing fuel from food crops increases food prices, food scarcity, and disparities
between rich and poor nations. Cellulose-based biofuels, say from switchgrass, are
currently technically challenging, but are likely to be more sustainable in the long run.
The US should be a leader in renewable energy initiatives. But the US is now the only
industrialized nation not to sign Kyoto, since Australian PM John Howard was voted out
(quote from Nature – no hope – wrong)
We don’t have to wait for the federal govt.
States and cities are taking the lead.
Chris Gregoire and Arnold Schwartzenegger…
Seattle Mayor G_ Nickels drafted the Mayor’s initiative for Climate change – 4__
signatories including Olympia and Tumwater.
Communities like ours are taking the lead, and your individual actions make a
difference. Learn how today by attending talks and workshops, and vote for a climate
change leader in November.