It’s About Time
March 6, 2007
The only part I find surprising is that it took until now. Domestic concern about environmental issues has been much higher in European countries than anywhere else over the last 50 years. It’s promising to see the ‘issue framing’ move from ’symptom-focused’ to ’cause-focused’.
March 6, 2007 at 9:33 pm
[...] not rational actors. They work through political and organizational processes to do what they do. It’s About Time « Global Climate Change Blog March 6th, [...]
March 8, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Issue framing may have moved to cause focused, but actions to solve the problem are still focused in the wrong area.
Reducing emissions is too little too late if you believe the warnings of NASA’s head climate scientist. He states that if world CO2 emissions do not level off within 10 years, severe tipping points are going to be passed which will cause climate changes requiring centuries to pass before returning to ‘normal’ (ill discuss the concept of a normal climate some other time). In 10 years time, China and India (and most likely every other country in the world) will be producing far more CO2 than they do now. Growth demands it via energy production, and the world demands that China and India grow. So just accept that CO2 emissions are going to continue to rise at an increasing rate and stop focusing on the futile effort to reduce the emissions to an acceptable level. Instead, governments and money should be focused on REMOVING CO2 from the atmoshpere at a rate that equals the emission. Then you can burn all the coal (which accounts for 80% of Chinas electricity production) and natural gas you want, and not have to worry about it hanging out in the air, screwing up the world (as if the world cares what temperature its at). Reduction is still important, the more you reduce, the less you have to remove, but reduction alone is a joke. Especially since the only way the EU looks so good at its CO2 emission decreases is by selling carbon credits to Russia. The CO2 is still being produced, just by a different country on paper.
-Robert Arriaga
March 8, 2007 at 8:42 pm
On the issue of the warnings, I do believe. It would certainly be convenient to find a pure technical solution to the problem; that is, one which allows us to cheaply remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The problem is: we don’t have a technical solution, and it would be foolish to assume that one will surface in time to prevent global warming’s consequences.
In response to, “(as if the world cares what temperature its at)”, the world does care. Or at least it should. The threats posed by global warming are not simply matters of comfort. Ask a small island nation about sea-level rise. I’m not referring to the ‘generally referenced’ melting of polar ice (although that is also undesirable.) If you’ve studied physics, you know that as the temperature of water increases, its volume increases. The oceans hold a lot of water, so it doesn’t require a huge increase in temperature to cause a significant increase in volume. This is only an example. There are more threats as well.
The reason that the EU has all the credits to sell to Russia is because they have been successful in meeting their own reduction-commitments. They look good because they have taken the lead in developing and implementing sustainable energy production methods. I don’t have the stats handy, but if you’re so inclined, take a look at the numbers. France is nuclear-powered, the Scandinavian countries are water-powered, holland is wind-powered.
The fact is, carbon supplies (coal, natural gas, oil, etc) are limited. A carbon-capture program is like putting a band-aid on a tumor (when a cure has already been developed). We have the knowledge; we can power our world without burning anything. The policy goals must now be to reduce the costs of implementation (i.e. subsidies on sustainable energy) and reduce the barriers to entry (breaking up power monopolies, etc).