What’s Driving the Polar Vortex?-It's Climate Change!

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WEEKEND EDITION JANUARY 10-12, 2014

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It's Climate Change!

What’s Driving the Polar Vortex?

by ROBERT HUNZIKER

Climate change is not hot weather, and it is not cold weather. Those conditions have been around for eons.

Climate change is extreme anomalous weather conditions, like 100-year floods every few years rather than once every 100 years, e.g., Eastern Europe in 2013, or torrential downpours equivalent to annual rainfall levels but within one week, like Colorado in 2013, or embedded droughts that last for months, like Russia in 2010 when grain exports were halted, or subzero temperatures throughout North America in January 2014 because of anomalous jet streams, i.e. climate change conditions.

All of these extreme weather conditions that in years past happened on the odd occasion are now happening with increasing frequency, ferocity, and longevity.  These conditions are becoming the norm and turn nasty by embedding for long duration because of climate change conditions.

As such, the saying “a 100-year flood” has become passe.

Severe anomalous weather occurrences can be, and are, measured by scientists. Thus, one can measure and know for certain whether climate change or regular ole weather patterns are happening. Here are some examples of climate change.

Droughts are a normal, recurring feature of the climate throughout the world. However, the normal, recurring feature, as of the past few decades, is turning quite abnormal or anomalous. To wit: According to Aiguo Dai, et al, Global Dataset of Palmer Drought Severity Index for 1870-2002: Relationship with Soil Moisture and Effects of Surface Warming, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, 2004: “The global very dry areas… have more than doubled since the 1970s, with a large jump in the early 1980s… with surface warming as the primary cause after the mid-1980s. These results provide observational evidence for the increasing risk of droughts as anthropogenic global warming progresses and produces both increased temperatures and increased drying.”

As well, the World Meteorological Organization claims the planet experienced unprecedented high-impact climate extremes in the ten years from 2001 to 2010, the warmest decade since the start of modern measurements in 1850, The Global Climate 2001-2010: A Decade of Climate Extremes – Summary Report, World Meteorological Organization, published by WMO, 2013.

The warmest year ever recorded was 2010.

According to Michel Jarraud, WMO Secretary-General: “A decade is the minimum possible timeframe for meaningful assessments of climate change.”

Furthermore, the WMO report shows that global warming accelerated in the four decades of 1971 to 2010 and the decadal rate of increase between 1991-2000 and 2001-2010 was unprecedented. Global warming causes climate change, which, as the result of disruption of the jet streams above Alaska, in turn, causes bitter cold to hit the U.S.

The Year 2013 was all about Climate Change

Last year (2013) was all about anomalous weather as a result of climate change. Here are a few examples as explained in A Year’s Wild Weather – in two Minutes, BBC News, January 8, 2014:

• Australia- hottest summer on record books
• UK’s coldest spring in 50 years.
• A 17-mile wide tornado hit Oklahoma
• Canadian flooding – costliest in history
• India had worst monsoon in 80 years
• UK longest heat wave in 7 years

That is climate change.

And, beyond BBC’s two minutes, there is more, much more, for example:

Boulder County, Colorado, in September 2013, recorded as much rainfall in a few days as it normally registers in a full year, causing massive flooding over 200 miles. Why? A slow-moving cold front stalled (embedded because of distorted jet streams generated by a warming Arctic) over Colorado and clashed with warm humid air from the south. This is climate change.

Climate Change is anomalous, extreme cold, extreme hot, or extreme weather caused, in large part, by Arctic Amplification

The North Pole serves as the air conditioner or weather regulator for the entire Northern Hemisphere. It is where, in large part, climate change originates.

Here is what Jennifer A. Francis, PhD (Research Professor / Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University) and Stephen J. Vavrus, PhD (Senior Scientist / Center for Climatic Research – University of Wisconsin) have to say about extreme weather events in Geophysical Research Letter, Vol. 39, L06801, Evidence Linking Arctic Amplification to Extreme Weather in Mid-Latitudes, March 2012:

“During the past few decades the Arctic has warmed approximately twice as rapidly as the entire northern hemisphere… a phenomenon called Arctic Amplification. The widespread warming resulted from a combination of increased greenhouse gases and positive feedbacks… The area of summer sea ice lost since the 1980s would cover over 40% of the contiguous United States.”

And, as far as extremes of cold and hot weather are concerned: “Slower progression of upper-level [atmospheric] waves [over the Arctic] causes more persistent weather conditions that can increase the likelihood of certain types of extreme weather, such as drought, prolonged precipitation, cold spells, and heat waves. Previous studies support this idea….” Ibid.

Winter Extremes in Northern Continents

Further interpretation of extreme cold weather anomalous events is explained in a Chinese study supported by the National Basic Research Program of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China, and Hundred Talents Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to wit: Qiuhong Tang, et al, Cold Winter Extremes in Northern Continents Linked to Arctic Sea Ice Loss, Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 8, No. 1, March 12, 2013:

“The results suggest that the winter atmospheric circulation in high northern latitudes associated with Arctic sea ice loss, especially in the winter, favors the occurrence of cold winter extremes at the middle latitudes of the northern continents.”

And, in conclusion: “If the association between Arctic sea ice and cold winter extremes demonstrated in this study is robust, we would expect to see a continuation and expansion of cold winter extremes as the sea ice cover continues to decline in response to ever-increasing emissions of greenhouse gases.”

Ergo, a polar vortex hangs out over the United States in January 2014. This is climate change.

Meanwhile, America’s most northern city Barrow, Alaska in the Arctic has been running -2 F to -5 F most of the new year, much warmer than Fargo. This is climate change.

Warming Arctic Brings Climate Change to Northern Hemisphere

According to the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC), as of December 2013, Arctic sea ice extent in December was the 4^th lowest December extent in the 36-year satellite data record. The December reading at the end of the month was 289,600 square miles below the 1981 to 2010 average and nearly identical to the extent at the end of 2012.

An NSIDC article: Is Declining Sea Ice Changing the Atmosphere? Dec. 2, 2013, states: “In years of low sea ice, the jet stream weakens and slows, sending loops of air currents further south. These loops can produce extreme weather patterns, such as pounding one region with an unusual flurry of blizzards or parching a normally wet area with an extended drought.”

That is climate change.

And, the Arctic is losing sea ice mass by the decade, having already lost over 40% of its mass since 1980.

Why is the Arctic losing ice mass?

It is losing ice mass because of global warming as the Arctic experiences warming at a rate 2-3 times faster than the rest of the planet. As such, global warming is the result of burning fossil fuels.

What an interesting turn of fate: Burning fossil fuels brings bitter Arctic cold to those that burn the fossil fuels.

Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at roberthunziker@icloud.com

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/10/whats-driving-the-polar-vortex/

The new revolutionaries: Climate scientists demand radical change

To prevent catastrophic climate change, Britain’s top experts call for emissions cuts that require “revolutionary change to the political and economic hegemony”

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by Renfrey Clarke

“Today, after two decades of bluff and lies, the remaining 2°C budget demands revolutionary change to the political and economic hegemony.” That was in a blog posting last year by Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change at Manchester University. One of Britain’s most eminent climate scientists, Anderson is also Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

Or, we might take this blunt message, from an interview in November: “We need bottom-up and top-down action. We need change at all levels.” Uttering those words was Tyndall Centre senior research fellow and Manchester University reader Alice Bows-Larkin. Anderson and Bows-Larkin are world-leading specialists on the challenges of climate change mitigation.

During December, the two were key players in a Radical Emission Reduction Conference, sponsored by the Tyndall Centre and held in the London premises of Britain’s most prestigious scientific institution, the Royal Society. The “radicalism” of the conference title referred to a call by the organisers for annual emissions cuts in Britain of at least 8 per cent – twice the rate commonly cited as possible within today’s economic and political structures.

The conference drew keen attention and wide coverage. In Sydney, the Murdoch-ownedDaily Telegraph described the participants as “unhinged” and “eco-idiots,” going on to quote a “senior climate change adviser” for Shell Oil as stating:

“This was a room of catastrophists (as in ‘catastrophic global warming’), with the prevailing view…that the issue could only be addressed by the complete transformation of the global energy and political systems…a political ideology conference.”

Indeed. The traditional “reticence” of scientists, which in the past has seen them mostly stick to their specialities and avoid comment on the social and political implications of their work, is no longer what it was.

Angered

Climate scientists have been particularly angered by the refusal of governments to act on repeated warnings about the dangers of climate change. Adding to the researchers’ bitterness, in more than a few cases, have been demands placed on them to soft-pedal their conclusions so as to avoid showing up ministers and policy-makers. Pressures to avoid raising “fundamental and uncomfortable questions” can be strong, Anderson explained to an interviewer last June.

“Scientists are being cajoled into developing increasingly bizarre sets of scenarios…that are able to deliver politically palatable messages. Such scenarios underplay the current emissions growth rate, assume ludicrously early peaks in emissions and translate commitments ‘to stay below [warming of] 2°C’ into a 60 to 70 per cent chance of exceeding 2°C.”

Anderson and Bows-Larkin have been able to defy such pressures to the extent of co-authoring two remarkable, related papers, published by the Royal Society in 2008 and 2011.

In the second of these, the authors draw a distinction between rich and poor countries (technically, the UN’s “Annex 1” and “non-Annex 1” categories), while calculating the rates of emissions reduction in each that would be needed to keep average global temperatures within 2 degrees of pre-industrial levels.

The embarrassing news for governments is that the rich countries of Annex 1 would need to start immediately to cut their emissions at rates of about 11 per cent per year. That would allow the non-Annex 1 countries to delay their “peak emissions” to 2020, while developing their economies and raising living standards.

But the poor countries too would then have to start cutting their emissions at unprecedented rates – and the chance of exceeding 2 degrees of warming would still be around 36 per cent. Even for a 50 per cent chance of exceeding 2 degrees, the rich countries would need to cut their emissions each year by 8-10 per cent.

As Anderson points out, it is virtually impossible to find a mainstream economist who would see annual emissions reductions of more than 3-4 per cent as compatible with anything except severe recession, given an economy constituted along present lines.

Four degrees?

What if the world kept its market-based economies, and after a peak in 2020, started reducing its emissions by this “allowable” 3-4 per cent? In their 2008 paper, Anderson and Bows-Larkin present figures that suggest a resulting eventual level of atmospheric carbon dioxide equivalent of 600-650 parts per million. Climate scientist Malte Meinshausen estimates that 650 ppm would yield a 40 per cent chance of exceeding not just two degrees, but four.

Anderson in the past has spoken out on what we might expect a “four-degree” world to be like. In a public lecture in October 2011 he described it as “incompatible with organised global community”, “likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’” and “devastating to the majority of ecosystems”. Moreover, a four-degree world would have “a high probability of not being stable”. That is, four degrees would be an interim temperature on the way to a much higher equilibrium level.

Reported in the Scotsman newspaper in 2009, he focused on the human element:

“I think it’s extremely unlikely that we wouldn’t have mass death at 4C. If you have got a population of nine billion by 2050 and you hit 4C, 5C or 6C, you might have half a billion people surviving.”

No wonder intelligent people are in revolt.

Market methods?

Anderson has also emerged as a powerful critic of the orthodoxy that emissions reduction must be based on market methods if it is to have a chance of working. His views on this point were brought into focus last October in a sharp rejoinder to United Nations climate-change chief – and market enthusiast – Rajendra Pachauri:

“I disagree strongly with Dr Pachauri’s optimism about markets and prices delivering on the international community’s 2°C commitments,” the BritishIndependent quoted Anderson as saying. “I hold that such a market-based approach is doomed to failure and is a dangerous distraction from a comprehensive regulatory and standard-based framework.”

Anderson’s critique of market-led abatement schemes centres on his conclusion that the two-degree threshold “is no longer deliverable through gradual mitigation, but only through deep cuts in emissions, i.e., non-marginal reductions at almost step-change levels.

“By contrast, a fundamental premise of contemporary neo-classical economics is that markets (including carbon markets) are only efficient at allocating scarce resources when the changes being considered are very small – i.e. marginal.

“For a good chance of staying below two degrees Celsius,” Anderson notes, “future emissions from the EU’s energy system … need to reduce at rates of around 10 per cent per annum – mitigation far below what marginal markets can reasonably be expected to deliver.”

If an attempt were made to secure these reductions through cap-and-trade methods, he argues, “the price would almost certainly be beyond anything described as marginal (probably many hundreds of euros per tonne) – hence the great ‘efficiency’ and ‘least-cost’ benefits claimed for markets would no longer apply.”

At the same time, the equity and social justice implications would be devastating. Anderson points out.:

“A carbon price can always be paid by the wealthy. We may buy a slightly more efficient 4WD/SUV, cut back a little on our frequent flying, consider having a smaller second home…but overall we’d carry on with our business as usual. Meanwhile, the poorer sections of our society…would have to cut back still further in heating their inadequately insulated and badly designed rented properties.”

Energy agenda

In the short-term, Anderson argues, a two-degree energy agenda requires “rapid and deep reductions in energy demand, beginning immediately and continuing for at least two decades.” This could buy time while a low-carbon energy supply system is constructed. A “radical plan” for emissions reduction, he indicates, is among the projects under way within the Tyndall Centre.

The cost of emissions cuts, he insists, needs to fall on “those people primarily responsible for emitting.”[17] As quoted by writer Naomi Klein, Anderson estimates that 1-5 per cent of the population is responsible for 40-60 per cent of carbon pollution.

While not rejecting price mechanisms in a supporting role, Anderson argues that the required volume of emissions cuts can only be achieved through stringent and increasingly demanding regulations. His “provisional and partial list” includes the following:

• Strict energy/emission standards for appliances with a clear long-term market signal of the amount by which the standards would annually tighten; e.g. 100gC02/km for all new cars commencing 2015 and reducing at 10 per cent each year through to 2030.
• Strict energy supply standards; e.g. for electricity 350gCO2/kWh as the mean emissions level of a supplier’s portfolio of power stations; tightened at ~10 per cent per annum.
• A programme of rolling out stringent energy/emission standards for industry equipment.
• Stringent minimum efficiency standards for all properties for sale or rent.
• World leading low-energy standards for all new-build houses, offices etc.

Enforcing these radical standards, he argues, “could be achieved, at least initially, with existing technologies and at little to no additional cost.”

Economic growth

For a reasonable chance of keeping warming below 2 degrees, Anderson maintains, wealthier countries would need to forgo economic growth for at least ten to twenty years. Here, he bases himself on the conventional wisdom of “integrated assessment modellers” – and arguably gets things quite wrong. Leading American climate blogger Joseph Romm last year came to sharply different conclusions:

“The IPCC’s last review of the mainstream economic literature found that even for stabilization at CO2 levels as low as 350 ppm, ‘global average macro-economic costs’ in 2050 correspond to ‘slowing average annual global GDP growth by less than 0.12 percentage points’.  It should be obvious the net cost is low. Energy use is responsible for the overwhelming majority of emissions, and energy costs are typically about 10 percent of GDP.”

At a time when jobless workers abound, and large amounts of industrial capacity lie unused, mobilising resources and labour to replace polluting equipment could sharply increase Gross Domestic Product. Moreover, account needs to be taken of the absurdities of GDP itself – as a measurement tool that counts as useful activity building prisons and developing weapons systems. Anderson senses some of these contradictions when he states:

“Mitigation rates well above the economists’ 3 to 4 per cent per annum range may yet prove compatible with some form of economic prosperity.”

Indeed, reconstructing our inefficient, polluting industrial system could allow the great majority of us to lead richer, more rewarding lives.

Reprisals

Where Anderson is not wrong is in anticipating, at various points in his blogging and interviews, that any serious move to cut emissions at the required rates will encounter fierce resistance. Huge industrial assets, primarily fossil-fuelled generating plant, would be “stranded”. Already-proven reserves of coal, oil and gas would need to be left in the ground.

Like the scientists accused in 2009 in the spurious “Climategate” affair, the people who spoke out at the Radical Emission Reduction Conference can now expect to feel the blow-torch of conservative reprisals.

Along with Anderson and Bows-Larkin, a particular target is likely to be Tyndall Centre Director Professor Corinne Le Quere, who presented the scientific case for rapid emissions reduction. Four Australian academics who contributed via weblink, including noted climate scientist Mark Diesendorf, have already come under venomous personal attack in the Daily Telegraph.

The “offence” committed by the Tyndall researchers is much greater than the loosely phrased e-mails that were seized on as the pretext for “Climategate.” With others in the climate-science community, these courageous people have shredded the pretence that polluter corporations and their supporting-act governments care a damn about preserving nature, civilisation, and human life.

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Category: Climate Change, Featured, Meetings and Conferences, Science | Tagged: Renfrey Clarke

http://climateandcapitalism.com/2014/01/09/climate-scientists-become-revolutionaries/

The Psychology of Global Warming

by Roger Blanchard, originally published by Resilience.org  | JAN 6, 2014

Recently I watched a video concerning the psychological ways in which humans deal with the issue of global warming.  The video was made by a professor from Santa Clara University named Jerry Kroth. 

One way to psychologically deal with global warming is denial.  For those who profit from fossil fuel production or those who want unlimited use of fossil fuels, this is the primary way in which the issue is addressed.   The mainstream media in the U.S. is dominated largely by interests that promote denial.  That is particularly the case for AM radio. 

According to Professor Kroth, Clear Channel Communications controls about 80% of everything that is heard on AM radio in the U.S.  The common radio personalities on Clear Channel include Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity and Herman Cain.  They promote the corporate view of the world, which entails denial. 

In the political realm, intellectual titans such as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman provide intellectual musings concerning the science of global warming.  Their musings fall into the category of denial.    According to Professor Kroth, about 30% of U.S. adults are in denial concerning global warming, largely influenced by what they hear from the corporate media and political shining stars.

A second way to psychologically deal with global warming is by displacement.  Those who deal with the issue in this manner agree with the science but place the blame associated with the problem on something other than themselves, such as those who don’t agree with the science.  Environmentalists typically fall into this category.  Most environmentalists would say they recycle, use energy efficient vehicles and use energy efficient home devices.  They may also be a member of an environmental group or groups.

The problem with the displacement approach is that generally those in the group have relatively high incomes and there is a strong correlation between greenhouse gas emissions and income.  Professor Kroth gives several examples. 

The first example he gives is a comparison between Atherton, CA and Humboldt County, CA.  Atherton is ~70% Democratic and the average household income is ~$70,000.  Humboldt County is much less Democratic, and presumably has a smaller proportion of environmentalists, while the average household income is ~$40,000.  Not surprisingly, per capita greenhouse gas emissions are about 30% higher in Atherton compared to Humboldt County.  Having energy efficient vehicles, refrigerators, air conditioning systems, dishwashers, audio/visual systems, computers, etc is negated by the many systems using energy that leads to the generation of CO₂.

Another example he gives is a comparison of the U.S. with Mexico and Brazil.  The U.S. has about 3 times the population of Mexico and about 2 times the population of Brazil.  Does the U.S. create 3 times the greenhouse gas emissions of Mexico and twice the emissions of Brazil?  No.  The U.S. produces about 15 times the greenhouse gas emissions of Mexico and 17 times the emissions of Brazil. 

The U.S. has dramatically more environmental groups than Mexico or Brazil so having environmental groups that express concern about global warming doesn’t translate into low greenhouse gas emissions.

Buying energy efficient vehicles and devices may make environmentalists feel good but the vehicles and devices still generate lots of CO₂ over their lifetimes.  Something that few people talk about in this regard is that considerable energy goes into making manufactured goods; including solar cells, windmill components and batteries for electric vehicles.  Typically, minerals have to be dug up, transported, refined, fabricated into a manufactured item and then shipped to a store or residence.  All those steps require energy which overwhelmingly comes from fossil fuels. 

In recent decades, a significant portion of manufactured goods purchased in the U.S. have been imported, to a large extent from China.  The U.S. has a lower CO₂emission level than it would have if the manufactured goods were made in America.  As a result, we can blame China for their high CO₂ emission level and deflect attention from ourselves. 

Environmentalists say that if policies to promote sources like wind and solar were pursued more vigorously, U.S. CO₂ emissions could decline to zero or near zero.  By promoting that idea, environmentalists have no obligations for reducing their energy consumption and CO₂ emissions in the present.  In their view, the problem of high CO₂ emissions resides with the political system.

An April 25, 2013 article by Bill McKibben in Rolling Stone magazine made that argument.  Here is what he stated in his article:

“With each passing month, something else weakens the industry’s (fossil fuels) hand: the steady rise of renewable energy, a technology that’s gone from pie-in-the-sky to panel-on-the-roof in remarkably short order.  In the few countries where governments have really gotten behind renewables, the results are staggering: There were days last spring (that would have been spring 2012) when Germany (pale, northern Germany) managed to generate half its power from solar panels.  Even in this country, much of the generating capacity added last year came from renewables.  A December study from the University of Delaware showed that by 2030 we could affordably power the nation 99.9 percent of the time on renewable energy.  In other words, logic, physics and technology work against the fossil-fuel industry.  For the moment, it has the political power it needs – but political power shifts perhaps more easily than physics.”

Since I follow energy issues closely, I was a bit skeptical of his statement which suggests that a sizeable percentage of Germany’s energy now comes from renewable sources.  I decided to look at data from the U.S. Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration (U.S.DOE/EIA) concerning German energy consumption.  Based upon EIA data, Germany obtained 83.1% of its total energy from fossil fuels in 2012, essentially the same as in 2011. 

The change in percent fossil fuel consumption in Germany over the last decade has been relatively minor.  In 2002 Germany obtained 85.2% of its energy from fossil fuels and in 2007 it obtained 84.5%.   For comparison purposes, the U.S. obtained 82.1% of its energy from fossil fuels in 2012.  The energy transition in Germany isn’t nearly as dramatic as Bill McKibben suggests.

Michael Brune made the same case as Bill McKibben in an article in the January/February 2014 issue of Sierra magazine.  In the article he states that the U.S. can produce all of its electrical power from renewable energy sources by 2030 and all of the transportation sector energy by a decade or so later.  In his view, all you have to do is dream it and it can happen.  If you question the validity of his dream, you’re a pessimist.  There is an alternative to being an optimist or a pessimist and that is being a realist and the harsh reality is that in a high consumption world, there will be a practical limit as to how much fossil fuel consumption can be reduced and it will be a long way from zero.

Brune’s argument is based upon reductions in fossil fuel use for power generation in Denmark and Portugal.  Those countries have done an admirable job of reducing fossil fuel use in the electrical generation sector and beyond but they still get about 77% of their total energy from fossil fuels, down from approximately 90%.

Based upon the progress in Denmark and Portugal, Brune argues that U.S. fossil fuel use can be reduced to essentially zero in relatively short order if politicians would get with the program.  Beyond the political environment, Denmark and Portugal are dramatically different in so many important ways compared to the U.S. that I don’t view them as good models for what can be achieved in the U.S. in terms of renewable energy use. 

I’m sure Brune’s vision is popular with a large segment of the environmental community because many within the community have high consumption lifestyles.  What he is saying is that you can consume to your heart’s content and that there will be no environmental consequences, at least not in terms of CO₂emissions.  I think it’s a delusional perspective but delusion can be very popular if it’s what people want to hear.  In the interim, you can continue consuming as you have been even if that consumption involves generating lots of CO₂ because at some point in the future, it will all be fixed. 

European countries have per capita energy consumption and CO₂ emission values that are roughly half those of the U.S.  That suggests the U.S. could consume considerably less energy and produce considerably less CO₂ than it does.  The problem is that the U.S. infrastructure is not designed to minimize energy consumption, as it does in Europe.  It would be exceedingly difficult for the U.S. to achieve per capita energy consumption and CO₂ emission levels that rivals European countries without dramatically changing the U.S. infrastructure.

If policies were enacted in the U.S. to more vigorously promote wind and solar, we could certainly improve upon how much energy we get from those sources, but we shouldn’t get carried away with exaggerated claims concerning the displacement of fossil fuels by renewable energy sources.

To give just one example, many environmentalists like to say that people could be driving electric vehicles rather than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and that could dramatically cut U.S. CO₂ emissions.  There are several issues with purely electric vehicles that will limit their penetration into the U.S. market. 

First, the energy density of even the most favorable battery is substantially lower than that of gasoline or diesel fuel which limits the practicality of electric vehicles.  If you want to use a vehicle for towing or hauling purposes, an electric vehicle is a poor choice.   How often do you see your neighbor who owns a Tesla Roadster pulling his electric powered bass boat with the Roadster?  Probably not often.   A purely electric vehicle is also a poor choice for long trips because of miles/charge and charging time factors.  People buy vehicles for what they expect will be their most demanding use, not their least demanding use. 

Second, purely electric vehicles are expensive because the batteries are expensive and because exotic materials, which are more expensive, are used in the vehicle’s construction to lighten the vehicle and improve the miles/charge.  A significant percentage of the auto buying public is priced out of the electric vehicle market for the foreseeable future. 

Fossil fuel interests have substantial influence over the political system in the U.S. because of the large amounts of money they can provide the political parties.  That money will, unfortunately, strongly influence U.S. energy policies for some time to come.

Recently a group of prominent climatologists gave a warning that the earth can’t be allowed to warm 2^oC (3.6^oF) over the historical average because it will lead to catastrophic consequences.  Most people would say, “a few degrees can’t be a problem, can it?” 

The problem with a 2^oC warming is that the magnitude of the warming will be much greater in the Arctic than outside of the Arctic (This phenomenon is known as Arctic Amplification).  As the Arctic warms, methane and CO₂ (both greenhouse gases) will come out of the melting permafrost and the East Siberian Continental Shelf (ESCS).  That will cause further warming which will lead to more methane and CO₂ coming out of the permafrost and ESCS.  A positive feedback loop will be created which will lead to quite unpleasant consequences outside of the Arctic.

The Arctic has already warmed considerably faster than the earth as a whole as can be seen in the NASA images below (Figure 1):

Figure 1

A recent paper by Cowtan and Way indicates that NASA has actually been underestimating Arctic warming.  NASA uses data points around the edges of the Arctic to calculate interpolated temperature values between the edges.  Cowtan and Way utilized satellite temperature data in conjunction with known surface temperature data to determine temperature values across the Arctic.  Their values corresponding to recent warming are higher than NASA values.

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study from 2011 predicted that the median warming north of 70^o latitude would be ~20^oF by 2095, relative to 1981-2000, if we remain on our current greenhouse gas emissions trajectory.  A warming of that magnitude would certainly lead to some interesting changes.

The climatologists mentioned above state that action to deal with greenhouse gas emissions must start immediately with a global reduction of 6%/year.  That isn’t going to happen.  Americans have a lifestyle to maintain.  People in China, India, Indonesia, etc. have an American lifestyle to strive for.

Developed countries, including the U.S., have reduced their CO₂ emissions during the last decade but those reductions are being overwhelmed by increases in the developing world (See Figure 2).  Note that the rate of increase in global CO₂emissions is considerably higher after 2000 than before 2000 in Figure 2.  I recently heard from a reliable source that a year’s worth of CO₂ reductions in California are negated by a week’s worth of CO₂ increases in China.   That will be the problem going forward. 

Figure 2 – Global CO₂ Emissions versus Time

Our economic system is based upon perpetual growth and a high level of consumption.  Those factors are not compatible with a stable climate.  We strive to eliminate any form of physical work by replacement with machines that generate CO₂ even if it would be beneficial for humans to do the work directly.  As an example, I see people drive a block or two to the grocery store to pick up a bag of corn chips when it would be more beneficial for them to walk or ride a bike.  The lack of exercise by Americans no doubt contributes to the high obesity rate in the country. 

When I was younger my brother-in-law would adamantly tell me that there was no scientific evidence that smoking caused cancer.  He was a chain smoker whose life revolved around smoking.  He was also in denial about the ultimate consequences of smoking.  My brother-in-law smoked heavily for over 30 years before he ultimately died of lung cancer. 

We are in the same situation as my brother-in-law when it comes to global warming.  Some people deny the science of global warming as my brother-in-law did smoking, some don’t.  But neither group will change their lifestyles to prevent the ultimate consequences.  Since our economic system requires perpetual growth and a high level of consumption, wholesale changing of lifestyles is not considered an acceptable option.  Thus, environmental leaders provide the false hope that technology will be our salvation. 

We can go on as we are for some time before the consequences of global warming become overwhelming because of the large thermal inertia associated with the system.  Some people may hope they'll be gone before the overwhelming consequences must be faced, but what about today's children, their children and generations beyond?  Are there any moral issues here or is immediate shelf interest the only thing that matters?  Few people appreciate the gravity of the situation now but I have no doubt that future generations will appreciate the gravity of their situation.

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-01-03/the-psychology-of-global-warming