When Your Best Isn't Good Enough: Zero-Emission Policy Only Way to Mitigate Global Warming Declare Scientists
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 03. 7.08
Image courtesy of melancholic optimist via flickr
That 70% carbon emissions cut by 2050 being proposed in the Senate's Lieberman-Warner climate bill? Please. What about that heftier 80% carbon emissions cut scientists and policymakers elsewhere have been bandying around as a strategy to seriously address climate change over the next 40 years? Still not good enough. Yes, as ES&T's Erika Engelhaupt reports, that is the grim verdict put forth in a study published this week in Geophysical Research Letters.
The only solution to our warming woes, lead author Ken Caldeira (he of geo-engineering fame) explains, is to bring emissions down to zero.
Working alongside Damon Matthews of Concordia University, Caldeira created a model incorporating heat flow data between the atmosphere and oceans to simulate the climate's response to differing levels of carbon dioxide emissions over the next half-millenium. They discovered that carbon dioxide's warming effect may be more enduring than previously thought; because some of the heat trapped by the gas is passed on to the oceans, it gets stored there and released intermittently in infinitesimal amounts.
Indeed, when Matthews and Caldeira eliminated all emissions from their model, they found that it took at least another 500 years before global temperatures started to stabilize again. Though they assert there is no technological barrier to reducing our emissions to near zero - a valid point - there is still (and will always be) the more contentious political barrier. While we'd certainly like to see the world moving towards a zero-emissions policy, we are under no illusions that this will likely happen any time soon - a 70-80% emissions cut over the next half-century would already be a huge step forward and one well worth fighting for.
Via ::Environmental Science & Technology: Proposed CO2 cuts not deep enough (news website)
See also: ::Truth & Consequences: When Carbon Emission Has A Cost, ::A Step Closer to a Zero Emission Car?
I agree, but the united states isn't the only country that has to do this. China and all of the 3rd world countries that do not have the technological resources we do must also nullify their emissions. And I think that we, being the richest nation, should even make our emissions negative, effectively diminishing C02 in the atmosphere (or just reducing it on behalf of another country) so that it can stabilize again before we lose too much of the planets wildlife. That's a drastic proposal, but it's justified by drastic circumstances.
I find it ineresting that humans are know to cause about 2% of all greenhouse gasses. By tring to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, arn't we fooling ourselves to think that we can actually make a difference??
Soooo are we not going to take vacations by flying in airplanes? Are we going to bicycle to work? Where are people going to work if these industries close down??? Are we dumb enough to give our government or any other goverment the right to impose these regulations on us? I hope not but I won't hold my breath
Africa might suffer more from the changing climate than any other continent. Especially because of the lack of social safety nets provided by governments. Is there a solution for Africa when they have so much else to focus on - health, poverty, war and hunger? Or are we caught in a Catch 22 with no sustainable solutions? More on this in my blog at http://angryafrican.wordpress.com/2008/03/02/solving-the-changing-african-climate-a-catch-22/
First, I'd like to know where that 2% figure came from. Second, leisure travel will be a thing of the past within 20-25 years due to fuel costs. Third, we have to develop the technology to counter the problem directly if we're to deal with it effectively, which means taking the GLOBAL numbers negative in time to not die.
No more us vs. them, we are the family of man in this. We'll stand or fall as such.
One example here...
http://www.gizmag.com/go/7341/
2% Is enough to send the planet over the "slippery slope" to a globally higher temperature increase, which will get exponentially quicker if we neglect to restore the balance.
Better the government than the oligarchy that are the oil tycoons, and people could just hop over to the renewable energy industry.
Well that's depressing....
Not only do we need a zero emissions of CO2 world wide, we also need to recapture much of the CO2 that was previously released.
In short, our survival depends on us going "green" and fast.
The technology is available now, and all that is necessary is for a world leader to lead the change.