There are a flurry of news accounts and editorials - including this one in the LA Times - that conclude hurricanes have become more frequent and powerful as a result of climate change. Ross Gelbspan wrote an insightful editoral entitled "Katrina's real name" which provides a powerful litany of extreme weather events this year that are attributable to global warming.
August 2005 Archives
A California court has cleared the way for a coalition of environmental groups and cities to sue the US government over global warming. This is highly significant as it is the first time that the potentially disastrous impacts of climate change have been recognized by a court. The lawsuit names two government agencies - the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Opic) and the Export-Import Bank of the United States - claiming that 8 per cent of all the world's greenhouse gases come from projects they support. One way or another the climate change movement will not rest until the government of the United States and others stop impeding the necessary policies required to stop climate change. This will require moving forward on all fronts - supporting renewable energy, conserving energy, protesting - and yes, challenging climate villains in the courts.
President Bush has announced his administration's plans to raise fuel efficiency of most sport-utility vehicles, minivans, and pickups, and as expected it is a joke. This first overhaul of industry standards in 30 years continues to exclude the largest behemoths such as Hummers and the Excursion from any mileage requirements. Under the plan a light truck which must get 21.6 miles per gallon in 2006 would have to get between 21.9 and 23.3 miles per gallon in 2011. Ooh, aah - A whole 1.3% to 7.8% increase when the potential for energy efficiency in automobiles is so much more.
This proposal will do nothing to slow America’s voluminous oil consumption. It would actually intensify America's contribution to global warming, undermining state lead efforts to more substantially increase fuel efficiency to address climate change.
One does not know whether to cry, laugh or seethe with anger at the failure of the Toxic Texan to come to grips with our oil dependency, and thus oil consumption’s impacts upon climate change and our national security. Together the rules appear to give incentives to the Detroit dinosaur car manufacturers to build yet more monster SUVs rather than sensible, safe and efficient vehicles. Bush's failure to push for meaningful fuel-economy standards in a time of war, energy scarcity and climate change shows him to be the oil addled dolt he is.
Automobile makers routinely pressure governments to not raise fuel efficiency requirements - and again the government seems to be yielding to the pressure. And now the potential benefits of hybrid automobile technologies may be used more to increase performance than improve fuel efficiency. Automobile companies manufacture a product that does great damage to the Earth - from emissions causing climate change, to oil spills, to exploring for oil in remote wild areas. They have a higher obligation to not be doing ecological damage that goes beyond meeting minimal government requirements or meeting consumer's demands.
Finally, a solar energy project is being planned for the California desert, of a scale and proper placement to demonstrate that electrical energy from the sun is viable and highly desirable. This huge solar energy facility would be capable of producing more electricity than all other U.S. sun-power projects combined. This project should continue to bring down costs as well. This means solar may soon be contending with more conventional energy sources - particularly when the external costs of pollution and climate change are incorporated. That is one of the beautiful things about solar energy - it is well suited for large projects such as this that would realize substantial economies of scale, as well as for decentralized solar micro-generation (search).
The down and out nuclear energy issue has latched onto climate change as their saviour. Forgive me if I doubt their motives and their logic in claiming nuclear energy is clean. The truth is that the production of nuclear energy and its fuels does release carbon dioxide - albeit at lower levels than other energy sources. I am astonished that additional nuclear power would even be considered when we still have no idea what to do with the waste long term. Nuclear waste is deadly for millions of years. The Roman empire lasted about a thousand years, Pax Britannica about 300 and America has ruled the world for only about 100 years. As governments crumble as they inevitably must, what mechanisms are in place to ensure storage remains secure? It is tremenously unethical to produce energy for the here and now while leaving future generations to deal with our carbon and nuclear wastes. Climate change will only be addressed successfully without causing further environmental messes through conservation and renewable energy.
Perhaps the biggest and most important scientific challenge facing the Earth is how to split water to produce hydrogen and oxygen using solar energy.
