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My Dad Weighs In On The Climate Change Debate
After reading the posts I did from Brainstorm about carbon neutrality, ethanol, and my email discussion with Steve on climate change and the excellent debate that went on in the comments, my Dad sent me an essay he wrote on the topic of carbon dioxide some time ago. I told him he should get a blog and share his thoughts with the world. He said he wasn't up for that, but volunteered that I was free to post it. So here it is.
My dad is 78 years old this month. He's an engineer, a scientist, an educator, and a career US Army officer. He's a smart guy. And he is profoundly pessimistic about our ability to change our ways. Here is the end of his essay in case you don't want to click on the link and read the whole thing.
It is my opinion that the people on this earth definitely should cut back on the amount of CO2 they produce. Doing so, however, will require making some very hard choices, and persuading people that they will have to cut back sharply on a lot of things that they have been doing, enjoy doing, and believe they have a right to go on doing. That won’t be easy, and I don’t think that many of the people clamoring for controls have thought much about the amount of control that would be necessary and how much people’s lives would be affected.
The problem is a political one as much as it is a scientific one. For me, it falls into the too-hard box. That means, I know what needs to be done, but despair of finding a way to accomplish it.
I replied to the email my Dad sent me asking if buying carbon credits would help. My Dad said:
I think "carbon credits" can work, but only in a limited way. The only practical way I know of to reduce carbon dioxide is to stop making so much of it. One can do a certain amont of that by increasing efficiency of energy producing processes that use combustion of carbon fuels (which is almost all of them). You could buy credits from somebody who did that. But there could not be any way of making that work on a global basis. The potential for reduction in emissions by increasing efficiency is (I believe) far less than the increase because of increased demand for energy. Some (many) would have to be willing to cut down on carbon emissions by using less energy. And I don't think very many, if any at all, are willing to do that.
Maybe you could buy credits from a power company that reduced CO2 emissions by switching to nuclear power. Going nuclear in a major way would help a lot in reducing the CO2 problem. But it would greatly increase the nuclear waste problem.
Gloom.
Your friend Steve is right when he says the environment is going to change whether we like it or not. The undesirable changes caused by CO2 emissions could be slowed if everybody made huge wrenching changes in the amount of energy they use. Won't happen.
Incidentally, "carbon reduction" is, I guess, shorthand for carbon dioxide reduction. Carbon is the basis for all human and animal life. Vegetable too, I think. We don't want to reduce that.
So that's my Dad's view on this issue. I hope he's wrong with his pessimism but he's been around for a lot longer than I have and a good bit wiser.
Comments (9) | Posted July 2, 2006 in Politics , Venture Capital and Technology
Comments
Let's not forget that this is indeed still a debate...
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597
Posted by: joeblow | Jul 2, 2006 9:26:48 PM
A debate or just wishful thinking on the part of those who are saying that it's just not happening?
Posted by: Stuart | Jul 2, 2006 10:21:18 PM
More recently, a study in the journal Science by the social scientist Nancy Oreskes claimed that a search of the ISI Web of Knowledge Database for the years 1993 to 2003 under the key words "global climate change" produced 928 articles, all of whose abstracts supported what she referred to as the consensus view. A British social scientist, Benny Peiser, checked her procedure and found that only 913 of the 928 articles had abstracts at all, and that only 13 of the remaining 913 explicitly endorsed the so-called consensus view. Several actually opposed it.
except...
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/03/peiser_admits_to_making_a_mist.php
Peiser left several comments on that post, but could not bring himself to admit that he had made mistakes. Now Sylvia S Tognetti has spotted that Peiser has finally admitted to making mistakes:I accept that it was a mistake to include the abstract you mentioned (and some other rather ambiguous ones) in my critique of the Oreskes essay.
Better late than never, I guess.
you can read the abstracts for yourself here:
http://timlambert.org/2005/05/peiser/
Posted by: Jamie | Jul 2, 2006 10:42:04 PM
Probably time to reframe the debate. A small minority of people understand or care about "carbon" etc. Most people will understand about costs to healthy, wallet thickness, etc.
Education and Results will get people to change. See http://www.rmi.org. Personally I'm still on the fence but that doesn't mean I won't take advantage of cutting my electric bill in half with compact fluorescents. Note - LEDs are coming and will allow another 50% savings for me. Even bigger for people using regular bulbs.
My dad just replaced his 25 year old furnace - new furnance burns fuel at <1/2 the old rate and provides more even heat. Cost about equal to what he spent on last years heat. Would have done that years ago if we had known price of oil would radically increase and effeciency of new units also radically increased.
As prices rise and people are educated about the new offerings- their behaviour will change. Only a small minority will change to "reduce" carbon; a vast majority will change if they understand it will reduce costs, improve health, improve lifestyle, etc.
Posted by: Karl Waldman | Jul 3, 2006 8:45:51 AM
Perhaps you'll widen your arms to include the ideas of RICHARD S. LINDZEN, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT. I think his opinion is worth reading. He understands the science AND he is smart.
His commentary appears in the July 2nd edition of the Wall Street Journal (walled garden) here: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597.
"...nonscientists generally do not want to bother with understanding the science. Claims of consensus relieve policy types, environmental advocates and politicians of any need to do so. Such claims also serve to intimidate the public and even scientists--especially those outside the area of climate dynamics. Secondly, given that the question of human attribution largely cannot be resolved, its use in promoting visions of disaster constitutes nothing so much as a bait-and-switch scam. That is an inauspicious beginning to what Mr. Gore claims is not a political issue but a "moral" crusade. Lastly, there is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
Posted by: Tom F | Jul 3, 2006 12:29:36 PM
As I remeber back as a child in the 1950's there was a science program about global warming and the results of what would happen in the future by the year 2000. I specifically remeber it because it was so frightening to a young child. No one has really taken heed in 50 years. Wonder if they will in the next 50?
Posted by: ellen | Jul 3, 2006 12:45:28 PM
"Ray Kurzweil: None of the global warming discussions mention the word 'nanotechnology.' Yet nanotechnology will eliminate the need for fossil fuels within 20 years. If we captured 1% of 1% of the sunlight (1 part in 10,000) we could meet 100% of our energy needs without ANY fossil fuels. We can't do that today because the solar panels are too heavy, expensive, and inefficient. But there are new nanoengineered designs that are much more effective. Within five to six years, this technology will make a significant contribution. Within 20 years, it can provide all of our energy needs. The discussions talk about current trends continuing for the next century as if nothing is going to change. I think global warming is real but it has been modest thus far - 1 degree f. in 100 years. It would be concern if that continued or accelerated for a long period of time, but that's not going to happen. And it's not just environmental concern that will drive this, the $2 trillion we spend on energy is providing plenty of economic incentive. I don't see any disasters occuring in the next 10 years from this. However, I AM concerned about other environment issues. There are other reasons to want to move quickly away from fossil fuels including environmental pollution at every step and the geopolitical instability it causes."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/06/14/DI2006061402086.html?nav=rss_technology
Posted by: Dimitar Vesselinov | Jul 3, 2006 3:59:01 PM
Fred,
Thought you might like my latest post, which was sparked by your exchange with your father. Essentially, it's a modest proposal for how to combat global warming.
I argue that if the name of the game is changing people's attitudes, why not convince some billionaire to buy up 2 hours of primetime television on all the major networks and air "An Inconvenient Truth" on all of them simulataneously?
http://chrisyeh.blogspot.com/2006/07/beating-global-warming-focus-on.html
Posted by: Chris Yeh | Jul 4, 2006 3:48:37 AM
This op-ed is interesting and inline with your dad's comments.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/04/AR2006070400789.html?sub=AR
One of the sad realities that many in the pro-reduction camp don't seem to want to acknowledge is that the sharp reductions in CO2 levels that are necessary to make a difference would require insuring generations of the infinitely poor remain in abject poverty.
Another interesting link along parallel lines is this op-ed on the founder of the Copenhagen Consensus - http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008626.
Anyway, its interesting that for the first time I am actually seeing cogent arguments that the way we are going about solving global warming just won't work. You suggest your dad's view is pessimistic but another way to look at it is that it is realistic and that it is only when the problem is looked at realistically will we be able to solve the problem in the first place.
Posted by: Alex | Jul 9, 2006 6:43:31 PM
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