The primary goal of the global warming deniers and their disciples is to waste time and delay action, which is why I prefer to call them delayers.
(This post is inspired by the surprising finding that only 27 percent of conservatives say the earth is warming because of human activity, such as burning fossil fuels.)
The delayers' paradox
The deniers and delayers are those who argue that failing to embrace strict reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions will not lead to serious or catastrophic impacts. The delayers' paradox is this: If we all actually were persuaded by the deniers and delayers, it would lead to levels of atmospheric GHG concentrations that ensure the most catastrophic impacts imaginable, proving them (fatally) wrong.
The science makes clear that if we stay on our current emissions path, atmospheric concentrations of CO2 would rise beyond 1,000 parts per million. That would inevitably lead to global temperature rise of 6 degrees C or more (at least 15 degrees F over most of the inland in the states United States), along with widespread desertification, global water and food shortages, 80 to 250 feet of sea level rise (at a rate of up to six inches a decade by 2100), and mass extinction.
Avoiding this catastrophe requires accepting the scientific understanding of climate change, which is embodied, however imperfectly, in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I can't see anyway around that simple fact.
Either you believe the analysis that says warming the planet significantly more than 1 degree C above current levels (added to the 0.8 degree C we've already warmed from preindustrial levels) is self-destructive for the human race -- which depends on model-based projections of what will happen decades from now -- or you don't.
By "imperfectly," readers of this blog know I mean that the IPCC reports almost by design underestimate the scale and speed of climate impacts. The IPCC text gets watered down in the search for unanimity, the models systematically underestimate the carbon cycle feedbacks, and, perhaps most important, the IPCC models a broad range of future scenarios for carbon dioxide stabilization. That broad range of input scenarios creates a broad range of climate impact outcomes, which in turn creates the appearance that the IPCC science is filled with uncertainty and doubt about the outcome.
"Uncertainty and doubt" is the jewel of denial in all areas of the conservative war on science (see, for instance, the new book Doubt is Their Product). But therein lies the paradox. The deniers and delayers preach continuing the world's decades-long climate policy of doing nothing significant to stop the growth of GHG emissions. And that delay eliminates all of the seeming uncertainty in the IPCC.
The primrose path to 1,000 ppm
We are currently emitting more than 8 billion tons of carbon a year (8 GtC/yr) and rising 3 percent per year -- faster than the most pessimistic IPCC model. There is a little-reported bombshell buried in the footnote of the first IPCC report released last year:
Based on current understanding of climate carbon cycle feedback, model studies suggest that ... to stabilise at 1000 ppm this feedback could require that cumulative emissions be reduced from a model average of approximately 1415 [1340 to 1490] GtC to approximately 1100 [980 to 1250] GtC.
On our current emissions pace, we will be at 11 GtC/yr around 2020 and still rising! That means, if the deniers and delayers win -- or even if they just partially win (by limiting government actions to ones that lead to average emissions of 11 GtC/yr for the century) -- then the planet's carbon dioxide concentrations are headed to 1,000 ppm! (Note: That conclusion does incorporate some carbon cycle feedbacks, but not the one that is probably the most important, the melting tundra.)
That is not the worst-case; that isn't even business as usual if the disinformers win -- stabilizing at 1,000 ppm still requires a lot of government-led effort that conservatives almost universally disdain.If we delay acting even a decade and then act aggressively starting in 2020, we would still need 11 classic stabilization wedges just to have a shot at keeping concentrations a bit below 1,000 ppm. Here is the most delayer-friendly list I can imagine (but please do not quote me as saying that I agree with these -- I personally doubt nukes and CCS combined will make more than about one wedge):
- Two wedges of nuclear power -- 1400 to 1700 GW (almost a nuke a week) plus 20 Yucca mountains for storage (total probable cost some $10 trillion).
- Two wedges of coal with carbon capture and storage -- 1600 GW of coal with CCS -- a flow of CO2 into the ground equal to twice the current flow of oil out of the ground, requiring the world to re-create the equivalent of the planet's entire oil delivery infrastructure and the natural gas delivery infrastructure too (total probable cost some $10 trillion).
- One wedge of vehicle efficiency -- all cars 60 mpg, with no increase in miles traveled per vehicle.
- One of wind for power -- one million large (2 MW peak) wind turbines
- One of wind for vehicles -- another 2000 GW wind. Most cars must be plug-in hybrids or pure electric vehicles.
- One of concentrated solar thermal -- about 1600 GW peak.
- One of efficiency and cogeneration.
- One of cellulosic biofuels -- using one-sixth of the world's cropland (or less land, if yields significantly increase or algae-to-biofuels proves commercial at large scale).
- One of forestry -- end all tropical deforestation.
Needless to say, even this can't happen unless, by 2020, most deniers and delayers and their representatives in Congress come to embrace the painful reality of climate change and the dire necessity for government-led solutions.
So calling deniers by the term "deniers" or calling delayers by the term "delayer-1000s" is quite mild. A far more accurate term is "climate destroyers." Or maybe "extinctionists."
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
What to make of the new climate poll
‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science
Comments
View as Flat
GreyFlcn Posted 8:20 am
14 May 2008
Seems kinda small to me :o
http://greyfalcon.net/energy.png
Considering there's 1000 Gigawatts per Terrawatt
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Delay And Deny Posted 8:24 am
14 May 2008
McCain says build nukes.
The DoE, whose head is ultimately George Bush, proposed 20% wind energy.
Solar companies are soaring in the stock market.
Please, Romm, what bogeymen are in your closet??
Texeme.Construct(Participant)
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moehrlei Posted 9:42 am
14 May 2008
I suspect that delayers/deniers are really acting in their own interest in an effort to profit from the coming change. They need time to figure out where to put their money so they come out on top (as they are now.)
Right now, the market has few players. Coal, oil, gas, nukes. The stunning array of potential solutions, all of which will be needed, presents tough diversification choices. So many wedges!
Deniers/delayers are going to lose in a big way if things move to fast. They want to be in a position steer money to the solutions they have positioned themselves in. They just can't make the big money with so many alternatives. They have no control, yet.
Once they have themselves positioned for the change, they'll flip.
Thoughts?
No individual raindrop ever considers itself responsible for the flood.
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gmobus Posted 11:08 am
14 May 2008
All of these technologies are now dependent on fossil fuels for production. Until, or unless, someone can show how there can actually be enough spare available, high quality energy from the alternative energy sources already in operation this fact is not going to change. But anyone familiar with the problems associated with peak oil is going to realize that the scale of change-over and the time allotted to do so make this a less than feasible solution.
The price of oil just hit $127 a barrel and no one knows when this climb is going to end. One thing most people are sure of is that the supply is not keeping up with the demand growth. The long term outlook is for a global recession along with price inflation in every sector (all economic activity ultimately depends on high-grade energy to do work - period). As primary production (food and extractive industries) are hit with higher energy bills their costs are going to percolate up until eventually every sector is impacted. Producing alternative energy production capital in that kind of economic climate will, I predict, require significant sacrifices from everybody. And that will be just to produce enough energy production to provide a minimal consumptive lifestyle.
We do not live in a one emergency world. We are surrounded by emergencies that are all interconnected by the one factor that still goes without serious attention. People have a propensity to believe they have a god-given right to procreate and consume.
There are times when I suspect we don't give the deniers-delayers enough credit for native intelligence. Perhaps they actually do realize that at the scales we are talking about and with the loss of cheap energy to drive the engine of economic growth (hell even to maintain what we have now) that it is fundamentally impossible to replace the fossil fuel inputs in any reasonable time. I won't grant them conscious awareness of this problem. But I do suspect their denial comes from a more rational calculus than many readers here give credit.
Global warming due to GHG emissions IS important and does need to be addressed. But I strongly suspect it will be by radical reduction of economic activity (forgoing the flat panel TVs, the iPods, and the NASCAR extravaganzas at very least). Thinking that we will simply replace fossil fuels by wonderful technology is, I fear, magical thinking.
I hope I'm wrong.
George
George Mobus,
Associate Professor, Institute of Technology,
University of Washington Tacoma,
and Professional Student for Life
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LGT Posted 1:37 pm
14 May 2008
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Pangolin Posted 5:24 pm
14 May 2008
I live in a very liberal, California college town where it couldn't be easier to reform ones carbon emitting behavior. Such changes are in a distinct minority. Sure the city is putting solar panels up all over the place but that is a drop in the bucket compared to the SUVs, big-box stores and thousands of suburban houses cranking their AC's.
I still think our main job is to wait, debate and educate those willing to listen so that when TSHTF and the general populace wakes up there is a core group of people with concrete solutions handy.
Right now we don't even have a presidential candidate willing to give up on coal. We can't even establish that CCS is cheaper than geothermal and still people want to burn coal.
Cassandra, Sarah Conner, Pandora, whatever your mythical figure is.....not many people listening. Even less changing behavior. Wait, learn, cache your knowledge, the time for real change isn't here yet. Too soon when it gets here; too late to return to what we have now.
Put the Carbon Back
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caniscandida Posted 6:21 pm
14 May 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sarah_Connor_Chronicles.
No doubt that is something of a Californian inside joke, to send Sarah against Ahnold.
But as for us Greekophiles back in mythologyland, Pandora and Cassandra are hardly interchangeable. The former is a good-looking dunce (you know the kind I mean; sometimes the term "bimbo" is tossed around); and the controversy has continued for centuries, what exactly it means that she has closed her box before Hope could fly out.
The latter, however, Cassandra, is one of the most brilliant figures, male or female, in classical literature.
Her mad speech preceding her death in Aeschylus' "Agamemnon" establishes the foundation of that trilogy, and the Athenian audience's vexed ethical decision. Her faux-wedding speech in Euripides' "Trojan Women" is an ironically happy pronouncement of victory, and so she leaves the stage a slave and a victim, but also a conqueror and avenger.
George Mobus:
It is always good to hear from George; we would all do well, to hear from him much more often!
I.e., it is pleasant for us cynics to gather, every now and again, for an espresso, plus an Irish-whiskey chaser, before getting back to work.
"Here is my problem": George's has to do with how to find alternative energy sources; Archimedes' had to do with finding a non-Earth place to place his lever, with which to move the Earth.
Mine is how to get animal rights recognized, a bit, so as to get the biodiversity crisis recognized, a bit, so as to get the global-warming crisis recognized, a bit.
If that seems naive: more perhaps later.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 10:10 pm
14 May 2008
Lee Iacocca Says:
Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course'
Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned 'Titanic'.
You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up.
These are times that cry out for leadership. But when you look around, you've got to ask: 'Where have all the leaders gone?' Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage.......... and common sense?
Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.
Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening.
Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope...................If I've learned one thing, it's this:
You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action..... It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close.
Sincerely yours,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
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redambrosia99 Posted 1:27 am
15 May 2008
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gmobus Posted 3:07 am
15 May 2008
I sincerely hope you don't think that is what I advocating.
caniscandida: BLUSH.
Steve: Leadership is in short supply. Partly because those who actually have a clue about where this needs to go would not be accepted in an age of inflated expectations and belief in entitlement to the consumptive lifestyle. It isn't that democracy fails. It is that humans, in general, are just not wise enough to make good judgments. Sapience is in short supply as well. Sadly, I think the answer to Iacocca's question is there are none the people would accept. People want to hear someone promise to preserve the world we have now. They don't want to hear that there is a new world awaiting, but that it means sacrificing now for the future. Leaders rise to the occasion. In this case nothing short of a global clear crisis will offer an opportunity for real leaders to arise.
George
George Mobus,
Associate Professor, Institute of Technology,
University of Washington Tacoma,
and Professional Student for Life
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infp Posted 3:41 am
15 May 2008
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 12:16 am
16 May 2008
Virtual mountains of scientific evidence indicate that a contradiction exists between the finite physical reality of the world we inhabit and the cornucopian fantasy widely espoused by so many economists assuring us Earth is a sort of maternal presence, like an ever-expressive teat at which the human species can suckle from now onward.
Perhaps the contradiction between fantasy and reality is better posed in the form of a question about oil deposits.
Is oil a depletable natural resource with limited availability for human consumption in our time or is oil an essentially unlimited product of a planet that indefinitely can produce resources for human benefit without regard to Earth's physical limitations?
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
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speakforthose Posted 4:09 am
16 May 2008
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