Global Climate Change Blog #1
This is the first of a series of Blog posts on Climate Change. Below I will introduce a few topics and will elaborate on them in future blogs. This blog is intended to inform readers on climate change developments on the ground (physical effects), in Washington (politics), in science, and share good news and bad. I will refer the reader to sources of information worth reading. The best place to start is the IPCC Reports (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change):
-Free on line at: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/
(or just Google “IPCC reports)
The four most recent reports are:
- Climate Change 2013 – The Physical Science Basis
- Climate Change 2014 - Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability;
3. Climate Change 2014 –Mitigation of Climate Change; and,
4. Climate Change 2014 – Synthesis Report
I suggest you read the Synthesis Report, and start with its Executive Summary. It is written for policy makers (government officials), not for scientists. It is clear and well-written. It was written by literally a thousand different scientists from around the world and it summarizes 36,198 reports on a wide range of indicators globally. If you want to address the topic of climate change intelligently, you need to be familiar with the findings of this report.
In future Blogs I will point you to additional sources, but let’s start with this.
Conceptually, going forward, imagine a pyramid with Homo sapiens on top. The two boxes supporting H. sapiens are labeled Food and Sustenance from Ocean/Water, and Food and Sustenance from Land. The third row is comprised of two larger boxes labelled Climate Stability, and Political Stability. For simplicity sake, those four boxes are what enable H. sapiens to remain on our lofty perch. As I will show, climate change is degrading all of the structures upon which we depend.
Regarding developments on the ground, in the US the Sierra Nevada mountains received a good snow-fall for a change, but the drought that persists in the nation’s most fertile and productive agricultural areas is unrelenting. Climate models predict steady warming (although one model suggests that central California may get more precipitation, but it may come in less frequent and hard bursts which may be detrimental to agriculture and likely results in flooding)(elsewhere, as I write, 100s of people have been killing in heavier than normal flooding in India, Bangladesh and Nepal with millions of people stranded and in need of rescue) and this situation likely will worsen over time. Heat reduces crop yield, as does drought and intense rainfall. This is a direct threat to our Land-based food supply. Such effects are being felt in much of the western US as well as many other parts of the world.
The picture is complex. While there will be many losers, there will also be winners. Under a same business-as-usual scenario, higher yields are predicted for irrigated crops such as wheat, soybean, and sorghum. The increased production in these crops is driven by higher precipitation predicted for the central U.S., combined with higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, which reduces a plant’s water requirements.
Related to the western drought, wildfires are again raging in many places in the west and north-west of North America. As heat-related climate change intensifies the further north you go, the northern Boreal forests in north America and Europe are experiencing drying and burning. Again, this is consistent with climate models and the future is likely more of the same. Last year, 90,000 people fled Fort McMurray in Canada. Climate change is not just a problem over-seas or in the hard-hit tropics (which has contributed little to climate change, which raises Environmental Justice issues, for a later blog). Climate change is a present global threat as I will continue to detail. In Russia, about 70 million acres burned in 2012. In June, 2017, wildfires in Portugal killed 62 people and caused enormous damage. Alaska, home to most of the Boreal forest in the United States, had its second-largest fire season on record in 2015, with 768 fires burning more than five million acres.
Earth has warmed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since Industrial Revolution (1880s). Most of this warming has occurred since the 1970s, with the 20 warmest years having occurred since 1981 and with all 10 of the warmest years occurring in the past 12 years. The most rapidly warming places on the globe are at the poles, both the Arctic and the Antarctic are experiencing alarming warming which has resulted in so much ice melt in the Arctic that ships are starting to use the northern passage and oil companies are contemplating oil exploration in newly opened water. In 2012 a record low level in sea ice was measured in the Arctic. In future blogs I’ll address the ‘positive feedback loops’ resulting from the loss of reflective ice and the appearance of dark open water, as well as the loop involving warming tundra. There is nothing positive about any of this as that term is typically read.
The immense crack on the Larsen ice shelf in the Antarctic has been widely reported in the popular press. Immense amounts of ice threaten to slide into the ocean now that the ‘plugs’ that had been holding them back are being pushed out by warming air and melting ice and warming seas. Future blogs will address the profound danger of rising sea levels (approximately 8” to date from the start of the industrial revolution), change in the chemical composition of the oceans with the introduction of so much fresh water, and the resulting disruption of ocean currents and its impact on global climate, as well as fish migration disruption, mass coral reef death from acidification, and the implications of all that. The threat to humanity’s ocean-based food supply is serious. But the threat this poses to the planet’s climate stability is even more so.
Heat waves continue to plague much of Africa and the Middle East and are a major factor in the increasing numbers of starving refugees fleeing those areas and contribute to the failure of states in these regions. More on this crucial point in future blogs as the implications for global political stability are profound as well. Climate models predict that many of these areas may soon be uninhabitable by H. sapiens.
In Washington we have a President who does not believe in climate change and is actively undermining all the gains that the Obama administration made in addressing it. He has appointed an Administrator to EPA who is equally hostile to climate change regulations who in turn has hired as his chief of staff an oil and gas advocate from Oklahoma both of whom are engaged in furthering the President’s pro fossil fuels agenda. Much more on this later as the administration is not aware of the four crucial threats outlined above (i.e., to our food and sustenance from the land and the sea, and to the climate and political stability upon which human civilization depends).
Enough bad news. There is good news. The Paris Agreement that 195 nations have committed to will survive the US abdication. Other countries are proceeding in good faith to meet their pledges to reduce their carbon footprints. The Australian city of Adelaide reduced its carbon emissions by 20 percent from 2007 to 2013, even as the population grew by 27 percent and the economy increased by 28 percent. The US may even meet Obama’s pledge as so much action is being taken on the national, regional, local and individual (that would be you and me) levels. More on this later too. Portland, OR, has committed to 100% renewable energy by 2050. California set a goal to reduce its carbon emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. Over 10,000 climate initiatives are underway in cities worldwide, according to the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, which represents 80 major cities. In Des Moines, Mayor Frank Cownie committed the city to reducing its energy consumption 50 percent by 2030 and becoming “carbon neutral” by 2050. The San Diego Republican mayor, Kevin Faulconer, committed that city to 100 percent renewable energy by 2035.
There is a bipartisan “Climate Solutions Caucus” in the House which currently has 19 Republicans on it. Many Republicans and conservatives accept that climate change is happening and want to do something about it. Many religious conservatives feel the same. They may not agree that the cause is man-made, but they understand that 97% of climate scientists support the theory that the earth is warming and they see the evidence (including record-breaking storms, flooding and tornadoes in the South - Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama, with numerous deaths and billions of dollars in lost real estate, infrastructure and business, and a rare April blizzard in Kansas).
The Department of Defense stated quite clearly that it regards climate change as a serious threat to US national security. It will take several blogs, but I’ll explain why.
Solar and wind power have made immense gains around the world over the past several years. The plummeting cost of solar panels and wind turbines now enables the production of emissions-free electricity cheaper than burning coal. By 2020, thanks to MidAmerican Energy’s planned $3.6 billion addition to its enormous wind turbine operations, 85 percent of its Iowa customers will be electrified by clean energy. The five states that get the largest percentage of their power from wind turbines — Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, Oklahoma and North Dakota — all voted for Mr. Trump. So did Texas, which produces the most wind power in absolute terms. In fact, 69 percent of the wind power produced in the country comes from states that Mr. Trump carried in November.
Market forces favor renewables as their costs have plummeted so even with Trump’s promotion of fossil fuels, there is very little new exploration going on b/c the economics of it are so unfavorable. Far more people are currently employed in the renewable energy field that in oil and gas production and this disparity is likely to widen no matter what comes out of Washington. The solar industry employed 200,000 people nationwide in 2016. Nationally the US solar industry work force is bigger than that of oil and gas construction, and nearly three times the size of the entire coal mining work force. The world’s gradual transition from fossil fuels has opened up a huge global market, estimated to be $6 trillion by 2030, for renewable fuels like wind and solar, for electric cars, for advanced batteries and other technologies.
Here in NY, mandates by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo lead to plans for new green energy over the next 20 years — about 800 megawatts of primarily offshore wind.
Important gains are being realized in energy storage as well (i.e., batteries). EVs (Electric Vehicles) can now travel over 200 miles b/n charging, and energy generated by solar and wind can now be more effectively stored and used at night and other slack times.
The transportation sectors in the US and abroad account for about a third of the world’s green-house gas emissions so it is good news that many countries, cities and car manufacturers have pledged to go green. Norway and India pledged to sell only EVs by 2025 and 2030, respectively. France pledged to end sales of gas powered cars by 2040. Germany stated a goal of 1,000,000 EVs on the road by 2020 (that date has slipped a bit). Volvo is phasing out the internal combustion engine beginning in 2019 switching over entirely to battery power or hybrids. Tesla has a new, lower priced ($35,000) EV, Model 3, it intends to mass produce (about 500,000 people have placed deposits on one).
That’s enough for Blog 1. Do read the IPCC summary. It’s not long and it’s certainly not boring. It may just be the most frightening thing you’ve ever read. Because it’s real.
NYSBA members will be able to post replies and are encouraged to do so. I ask that you stay on point. Please add informative replies relevant to climate change developments on the ground (physical effects), in Washington (politics), in science, and share good news and bad. Please, no pure political rant one way or the other.
Carl R. Howard, Co-chair, Global Climate Change Committee, NYSBA EELS
(The views expressed above are entirely my own.)