Global Warming: Hell And High Water

[RedEarth]

Global Warming: Hell And High Water




The book that gave birth to ClimateProgress, Hell and High Water: Global Warming — The Solution and the Politics, is out.

In the book, I expose the tactics of conservative politicians who deny the science and delay genuine action on alternative energy initiatives. I examine the media’s sloppy reporting and unwillingness to probe behind the rhetoric.

The book discusses the country’s future if wide-scale environmental changes are not enacted immediately. I explain why the environment is subject to vicious cycles whereby an initial warming change leads to further warming. The oceans, soils, Arctic permafrost, and rainforests may eventually become sources of greenhouse emissions and I discuss how sea levels are on course to rise high enough to swallow up numerous coastal communities and inland areas on both U.S. coasts by 2100.

The larger point is that strategies to combat climate change are all technically possible and can significantly slow global warming while also buying more time for the world to develop new technologies and a consensus for even stronger action. The book lays out a number of key solutions to avoiding a climate catastrophe, including:

– capturing carbon dioxide from coal plants and storing it underground

– building 1 million large wind turbines

– launching massive energy-efficiency programs for homes, office buildings, and heavy industry

– increasing the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks to 60 miles per gallon while also equipping them with advanced hybrid technology

– ceasing all tropical deforestation.

ClimateProgress.org will be featuring excerpts of the book for the next few weeks.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/04/hell-and-high-water/


http://climateprogress.org/

[GliderGuider]

1. Thanks for this

I tried to buy the book here in Ottawa today, but there was no stock yet.

Do you think we as a civilization have enough time left, and the global leadership we will need to make it work?

And what about the conundrum of energy efficiency and Jevons Paradox?

[Selah]

3. What is Jevons Paradox?

[Dead_Parrot]

5. Jevons Paradox:

"As technological improvements increase the efficiency with which a resource is used, total consumption of that resource may increase, rather than decrease."

In context: If you build cars that get 100mpg, people will drive a lot more, and might use more oil rather than less.

[GliderGuider]

6. It's an economic theory

The theory basically says that if I increase the efficiency with which I use a resource (like oil) and therefore don't use as much of it, someone else will buy it and use it. Conservation doesn't help reduce the use of a resource so long as there are willing buyers.

From Wikipedia:

In economics, the Jevons Paradox is an observation made by William Stanley Jevons who stated that as technological improvements increase the efficiency with which a resource is used, total consumption of that resource may increase, rather than decrease. It is historically called the Jevons Paradox since it ran counter to Jevons's own intuition, but it is not a paradox at all and is well understood by modern economic theory which shows that improved resource efficiency may trigger a change in the overall consumption of that resource, but the direction of that change depends on other economic variables.

[Selah]

9. Thanks to both for replies

[Delphinus]

8. I want to hear RedEarth's answer too:

Do you think we as a civilization have enough time left, and the global leadership we will need to make it work?

[RedEarth]

14. Glider, it's possible we might have enough time left, however,

I'm not so sure we have sufficient global leadership to fully(or even partially) tackle the environmental problems the world faces. Needless to say, I hope we can make inroads into slowing down climate change, however, I'm afraid it's going to take a catastrophic event to get the world's attention. And at that time, who knows what the future will hold.

[GliderGuider]

17. Thanks. That's pretty much my take on it too.

The problem with needing a catastrophic event is that individual events, no matter how severe, can be dismissed for lack of statistical significance. If we ever did get one that could conclusively be shown to be caused by GW it would definitely be too late. Events that can be tied to GW, like the disappearance of the glaciers, aren't generally seen as catastrophic except by those who are already convinced. I suspect what will finally make people willing to act is a series of widespread events (like the glaciers and the temperature anomalies this winter) followed by a hammer-blow. We're getting there - everybody seems to be waking up. The problem will be turning that awareness into personal action and political pressure.

Climate change, peak oil and food scarcity are the unholy trinity that will summon the Horsemen. We will need a lot of leadership to make it through. (Un?)fortunately, human leadership qualities are much better at getting us out of crises than keeping us from getting into them to begin with.

[fed-up]

2. k/r n/t

[NNadir]

4. I really can't believe how weak these "solutions" are.

When, exactly, are we going to stop hearing about sequestration?

It will not work, ever.

What about the carbon dioxide cost of making hundreds of millions of cars that get 60 miles per gallon? Has anyone contemplated how likely such an event is in any case.

Maybe they think climate change is going to start 20 years from now.

[ktlyon]

7. there are a lot of people in China that want a car and never had

one before so no matter how efficient, more oil will be burned

[Subdivisions]

20. That's nearly a BILLION people! n/t

[Jcrowley]

10. 3 quotes

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."

"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

- Albert Einstein

[Dean Martin]

11. One thing about cars, at least in the US

Any new technology for cars in fuel efficiency (as witnessed by recent hybrids) won't be affordable for a lot of people. They'll be way over 20,000 dollars and people (myself included) won't come close to being able to afford one.

[XemaSab]

12. But like any technology

Portable CD players, home computers, DVD players, flat-screen TVs... it's really, really expensive at first but after a decade or so the price collapses. :shrug:

[Dean Martin]

13. A decade

Is a mighty long time though when you need transportation to get around.

[arenean]

15. No energy efficient cars in the US?

Does this mean you're telling me that there aren't any 60+ mpg cars available to buy in the US? I've got a Citroen C1 here in the UK (the same car is also sold as the Toyota Aygo and the Peugeot 107) which can get >60mpg, and they're non-hybrids.

Sadly, if you keep the fuel price cheap, where's the incentive for fuel economy?

[Dean Martin]

16. not very many

I've got a Hyundai and it only gets around 27 to 30 mph on the highway, around 22 in the city. It was all I could afford. Citroens have not been available over here for several years. I wish they were, they're cool cars.

[Sequoia]

18. I already have 5 books to read and now this!!

I'm such a book addict. This looks like a great read, thanks!

[GliderGuider]

19. Charcoal Fertilizer

I just posted the following comment to the review of "Hell and High Water" on Gristmill:

I'm halfway through the book, and I've come to the conclusion that it's the very best general-interest GW book I've read so far. The tone is strong and uncompromising, but the book itself isn't depressing. What is depressing is watching the American administration stick its collective head in the sand (or somewhere more scatological, if you prefer).

My major concern is in the imminent convergence of Climate Change, Peak Oil and Food Scarcity. Researching those three aspects of the Global Problematique, keeping an eye out for ways they intersect and amplify each other, as well as how solutions to one may be incompatible with (or even prevent) solutions to the others - now that's depressing.

I'm even thinking of putting together a two-book package on this convergence to give to people who Need To Know. It would consist of Hell and High Water and Richard Heinberg's "The Party's Over" - one of the better general books on Peak Oil.

Anyhow, on to charcoal fertilizer. I recently had my eyes opened to the general subject of Terra Preta do Indio in the Amazon. This led me to the discovery of the commercialization of the idea by a company called Eprida, and also to the academic work of Johannes Lehmann.

This research points the way to a very low-level technology that has mind-boggling promise: it sequesters carbon, it enhances soil fertility, and it can produce biofuels - both directly by growing fuel crops and indirectly during the charcoal-making process. As a result it addresses in one mechanism the three main converging crises: liquid fuels, CO2 emissions and imminent food scarcity.

It's also one of the few mitigation proposals that might actually scale up enough to do some good. In fact the scalability seems to be extremely good, as reported in this article:

Claims for biochar's capacity to capture carbon sound almost audacious. Johannes Lehmann, soil scientist and author of Amazonian Dark Earths: Origin, Properties, Management, believes that a strategy combining biochar with biofuels could ultimately offset 9.5 billion tons of carbon per year-an amount equal to the total current fossil fuel emissions!

As a result, I'm convinced that this technology deserves mention, an possibly even pride of place, in analyses such as Dr. Romm's. I have yet to see it mentioned in any general-interest overview of the topic, and I believe this is an egregious oversight. It's certainly as doable as a million wind turbines, less technologically problematic than CO2 sequestration in old gas fields, and much more politically acceptable than 700 nukes.