Never-give-up Fighting Spirit Needed to Prevent Global Warming Catastrophes
by Vicki Wolf
On December 7, the day world leaders gathered in Copenhagen for negotiations on global warming, renowned NASA Climatologist Dr. James Hansen, had some discouraging news for a very attentive audience at the Progressive Forum in Houston. He told them world governments will not take the bold action needed to bring down carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions unless the public demands it. “Governments are influenced by fossil fuel interests. Unless the public gets involved, it won’t change.” Hansen said the Obama Administration, and most world leaders, are guilty of greenwashing - paying lip service to the fact that global warming exists and is a serious problem, but then offering measures that will not bring down CO2 emissions.
The centerpiece of Obama’s plan is cap and trade. In an opinion in the December 6 edition of the New York Times, Hansen calls cap and trade “a market-based approach that does little to slow global warming or reduce dependence on fossil fuel. It merely allows polluters and Wall Street traders to fleece the public of millions of dollars.”
Hansen is the director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City and adjunct professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. He was the first to warn the world of the global warming crisis in his Congressional testimonies more than twenty years ago. In his new book, “Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe And Our Last Chance to Save Humanity,” Hansen says the Earth’s atmosphere has exceeded safe limits of global warming gases and is nearing tipping points that will be irreversible if we do not promptly reduce fossil fuel emissions. (http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/)
Hansen describes global warming as a time bomb: day to day temperature fluctuations seem small, but deep in the ocean and in the ice sheets of Antartica and Greenland, human-made changes of atmospheric composition are enough to eventually cause cyclonic storms with hurricane force winds. Melting of ice sheets and glaciers are already occurring. “The climate can pass tipping points, such that large change continues out of our control,” Hansen says. The West Antarctic ice sheet is a tipping point scientists are watching. Hansen says he expects the West Antarctic ice sheet to melt in this century if business-as-usual emissions continue. “In such an emissions scenario, sea level rise of several meters should be expected with still further sea level rise continuing out of control of humanity.”
Currently the atmospheric level of CO2 is 387 ppm (parts per million) and going up. The consensus of most climatologists is that the CO2 level needs to come down to 350 ppm to slow global warming. Many scientists agree that time has just about run out to avoid the tipping points for catastrophic warming. “We must deploy every conceivable energy-efficient and low-carbon technology that we have today as fast as we can,” says Joe Romm, editor of the Climate Progress blog and author of “Hell and High Water.” (http://climateprogress.org/)
Romm, who was acting assistant secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy during the Clinton Administration, says that climate scientists and the media have failed to adequately explain impacts of global warming that will be “beyond catastrophic.” “For these impacts, terms like global warming and climate change are essentially euphemisms,” he says. “That is why I prefer the term “Hell and High Water.”’
Dr. Vicky Pope, head of Climate Change Advice for the United Kingdom’s Met Office Hadley Centre, says a 5.5 degrees Centigrade warming by 2100 is likely if the world continues on its current emissions path. “The consequences are unimaginable -- mass extinction, devastating ocean acidification, brutal summer-long heat waves, rapidly rising sea levels, widespread desertification (habitable land turning to desert).” Pope notes that this level of warming would lead to sea level rise of five feet or more by 2100, leaving 100 million or more environmental refugees by the end of the century. (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/)
Coal needs to be the first to go, according to Hansen. “Science reveals that we can stabilize atmospheric composition and climate if we phase out global coal emissions within 20 years and prohibit emissions from unconventional fossil fuels such as tar sands and oil shale,” he says. “Such constraints on fossil fuels would cause CO2 emissions to decline 60 percent by mid-century, or even more if policies make it uneconomic to go after every drop of oil.” Along with phasing out the use of fossil fuel, improved agriculture and forestry practices could bring CO2 back to 350 ppm.
Romm says the world needs to average below 18 billion tons of CO2 for the entire century to stabilize at 450 ppm. “We need to peak around 2015 to 2020 at the latest, then drop at least 60 percent by 2050 to less than 15 billion tons (4 billion tons of carbon), and then go to near zero net carbon emissions by 2100.” In the Climate Progress blog, Romm suggests a dozen strategies for achieving the safer CO2 levels, including:
- all cars get 60 miles per gallon and miles traveled don’t increase
- energy efficiency for buildings and industry along with co-generation/heat-recovery and geo-thermal heat pumps
- geo-engineering such as white roofs and pavement
- one-million large wind turbines and wind for plug-in hybrid vehicles and/or pure electric cars
- 5,000 GW solar thermal and 2,000 GW peak photovoltaics
- 350 GW from next generation nuclear power
These all need to be implemented as soon as possible and before 2030. Romm also suggests strategies for post-2030 that require technological advances. They include geothermal with ocean-based renewables such as tidal, wave and/or ocean thermal.
Both Romm and Hansen believe it is still technically possible to prevent catastrophic global warming if governments adopt a strategy that includes quickly phasing out coal, increasing cost of using fossil fuels to reflect cost to public health and the environment, and prohibiting development of unconventional fossil fuels such as tar sands and shale.
Hansen says so far, it’s not happening. He accuses governments of lying to the public and greenwashing the global warming issue. “Governments are allowing unconventional fossil fuels to be developed,” Hansen says. “Thus, it is inconceivable that government goals or targets for carbon dioxide emission reduction will be met. Governments stating such goals are lying to the public with a straight face.”
What’s really happening, according to Hansen, is that the United States has a tar sands agreement with Canada and a pipeline is planned to transport the oil. Oil shale is under development. New coal-fired power plants are being approved and built. Just this month,Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) approved an 800 megawatt expansion of the Limestone County coal-fired power plant 100 miles south of Dallas. Mountain top removal to extract coal continues.
Hansen says fossil fuel companies are subsidized by taxpayer dollars and are not made to pay for the damage that they do to human health and the planet’s health. He recommends increasing the cost of fossil fuel with a carbon fee of $115 per ton of CO2. That would add about a dollar a gallon to the cost of gasoline. Electricity would go up about eight cents per kilowatt hour. Families would be given a 100 percent dividend that would amount to about $9,000 a year for a family with two children. As the cost of gas and electricity goes up, families would be encouraged to invest in energy efficient appliances and cars. The energy industry would find investing in clean, renewable energy more attractive.
We must consider our moral responsibility for intergenerational justice, according to Hansen. “Most cultures believe that we have a fiduciary responsibility to turn over to future generations a planet in as good a condition as we received from our parents,” he says. “The Native Americans believed in an obligation to the seventh generation.”
Hansen says to see the change needed in global warming strategy, the public must become involved: Strategies can include dialogue with governments. But governments tend to respond to money and lobbyists. Public protests and action seems necessary. Hansen participates in protests, and was arrested in June for obstructing officers and impeding traffic during a protest in West Virginia against mountain top mining.
At the Progressive Forum, Randall Morton, Forum founder, interviewed Hansen after his presentation in Houston. He asked Hansen how he keeps up his energy and optimism as he tirelessly works with the daunting realities of global warming. In response, Hansen told this story:
On cold, windy Thanksgiving Plus One Day, which we spent with our children and grandchildren, I went outside to shoot baskets with 5-year-old Connor. Connor is very bright, but needs work on his hand-to-eye coordination. I set the basket at a convenient height for him, but his first several shots banged off the backboard off-target. Then he said, very brightly and bravely, “I don’t quit, because I have never-give-up fighting spirit.” It seems his karate lessons are paying off.
Hansen says in a time when negative attitudes seem to be increasing, we need to have that never-give-up-fighting-spirit to stand up and face the challenges that lie ahead for our planet.
