The world at 350

A last chance for civilization 26

This essay was originally published at TomDispatch, and is reprinted here with Tom's kind permission.

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Even for Americans, constitutionally convinced that there will always be a second act, and a third, and a do-over after that, and, if necessary, a little public repentance and forgiveness and a Brand New Start -- even for us, the world looks a little Terminal right now.

It's not just the economy. We've gone through swoons before. It's that gas at $4 a gallon means we're running out, at least of the cheap stuff that built our sprawling society. It's that when we try to turn corn into gas, it sends the price of a loaf of bread shooting upwards and starts food riots on three continents. It's that everything is so inextricably tied together. It's that, all of a sudden, those grim Club of Rome types who, way back in the 1970s, went on and on about the "limits to growth" suddenly seem ... how best to put it ... right.

All of a sudden it isn't morning in America; it's dusk on planet Earth.

There's a number -- a new number -- that makes this point most powerfully. It may now be the most important number on Earth: 350. As in parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

A few weeks ago, our foremost climatologist, NASA's Jim Hansen, submitted a paper to Science magazine with several co-authors. The abstract attached to it argued -- and I have never read stronger language in a scientific paper -- "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm." Hansen cites six irreversible tipping points -- massive sea level rise and huge changes in rainfall patterns, among them -- that we'll pass if we don't get back down to 350 soon; and the first of them, judging by last summer's insane melt of Arctic ice, may already be behind us.

So it's a tough diagnosis. It's like the doctor telling you that your cholesterol is way too high and, if you don't bring it down right away, you're going to have a stroke. So you take the pill, you swear off the cheese, and, if you're lucky, you get back into the safety zone before the coronary. It's like watching the tachometer edge into the red zone and knowing that you need to take your foot off the gas before you hear that clunk up front.

In this case, though, it's worse than that because we're not taking the pill and we are stomping on the gas -- hard. Instead of slowing down, we're pouring on the coal, quite literally. Two weeks ago came the news that atmospheric carbon dioxide had jumped 2.4 parts per million last year -- two decades ago, it was going up barely half that fast.

And suddenly, the news arrives that the amount of methane, another potent greenhouse gas accumulating in the atmosphere, has unexpectedly begun to soar as well. Apparently, we've managed to warm the far north enough to start melting huge patches of permafrost, and massive quantities of methane trapped beneath it have begun to bubble forth.

And don't forget: China is building more power plants; India is pioneering the $2,500 car, and Americans are converting to TVs the size of windshields that suck juice ever faster.

Here's the thing. Hansen didn't just say that, if we didn't act, there was trouble coming; or, if we didn't yet know what was best for us, we'd certainly be better off below 350 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. His phrase was: "... if we wish to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed." A planet with billions of people living near those oh-so-floodable coastlines. A planet with ever more vulnerable forests. (A beetle, encouraged by warmer temperatures, has already managed to kill 10 times more trees than in any previous infestation across the northern reaches of Canada this year. This means far more carbon heading for the atmosphere and apparently dooms Canada's efforts to comply with the Kyoto Protocol, already in doubt because of its decision to start producing oil for the U.S. from Alberta's tar sands.)

We're the ones who kicked the warming off; now, the planet is starting to take over the job. Melt all that Arctic ice, for instance, and suddenly the nice white shield that reflected 80 percent of incoming solar radiation back into space has turned to blue water that absorbs 80 percent of the sun's heat. Such feedbacks are beyond history, though not in the sense that Francis Fukuyama had in mind.

And we have, at best, a few years to short-circuit them -- to reverse course. Here's the Indian scientist and economist Rajendra Pachauri, who accepted the Nobel Prize on behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year (and, by the way, got his job when the Bush administration, at the behest of Exxon Mobil, forced out his predecessor): "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."

In the next two or three years, the nations of the world are supposed to be negotiating a successor treaty to the Kyoto Accord. When December 2009 rolls around, heads of state are supposed to converge on Copenhagen to sign a treaty -- a treaty that would go into effect at the last plausible moment to heed the most basic and crucial of limits on atmospheric CO2.

If we did everything right, says Hansen, we could see carbon emissions start to fall fairly rapidly and the oceans begin to pull some of that CO2 out of the atmosphere. Before the century was out we might even be on track back to 350. We might stop just short of some of those tipping points, like the Road Runner screeching to a halt at the very edge of the cliff.

More likely, though, we're the Coyote -- because "doing everything right" means that political systems around the world would have to take enormous and painful steps right away. It means no more new coal-fired power plants anywhere, and plans to quickly close the ones already in operation. (Coal-fired power plants operating the way they're supposed to are, in global warming terms, as dangerous as nuclear plants melting down.) It means making car factories turn out efficient hybrids next year, just the way we made them turn out tanks in six months at the start of World War II. It means making trains an absolute priority and planes a taboo.

It means making every decision wisely because we have so little time and so little money, at least relative to the task at hand. And hardest of all, it means the rich countries of the world sharing resources and technology freely with the poorest ones, so that they can develop dignified lives without burning their cheap coal.

That's possible -- we launched a Marshall Plan once, and we could do it again, this time in relation to carbon. But in a month when the President has, once more, urged us to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, that seems unlikely. In a month when the alluring phrase "gas tax holiday" has danced into our vocabulary, it's hard to see (though it was encouraging to see that Clinton's gambit didn't sway many voters). And if it's hard to imagine sacrifice here, imagine China, where people produce a quarter as much carbon apiece as we do.

Still, as long as it's not impossible, we've got a duty to try. In fact, it's about the most obvious duty humans have ever faced.

A few of us have just launched a new campaign, 350.org. Its only goal is to spread this number around the world in the next 18 months, via art and music and ruckuses of all kinds, in the hope that it will push those post-Kyoto negotiations in the direction of reality.

After all, those talks are our last chance; you just can't do this one lightbulb at a time. And if this 350.org campaign is a Hail Mary pass, well, sometimes those passes get caught.

We do have one thing going for us: This new tool, the web, which at least allows you to imagine something like a grassroots global effort. If the internet was built for anything, it was built for sharing this number, for making people understand that "350" stands for a kind of safety, a kind of possibility, a kind of future.

Hansen's words were well-chosen: "a planet similar to that on which civilization developed." People will doubtless survive on a non-350 planet, but those who do will be so preoccupied, coping with the endless unintended consequences of an overheated planet, that civilization may not.

Civilization is what grows up in the margins of leisure and security provided by a workable relationship with the natural world. That margin won't exist, at least not for long, this side of 350. That's the limit we face.

Bill McKibben is a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College and co-founder of 350.org. His most recent book is The Bill McKibben Reader.

Copyright 2008 Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben, a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College, is the author of a dozen books, most recently The Bill McKibben Reader. He serves on Grist’s board of directors and is cofounder of 350.org.

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  1. Delay And Deny's avatar

    Delay And Deny Posted 11:23 pm
    12 May 2008

    April is the Coldest Month......in what seems like decades or even centuries.
    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html ...
    The average temperature in April 2008 was 51.0 F. This was -1.0 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 29th coolest April in 114 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.
    http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/nsw/sydney.sh ...
    "Sydney experienced a cool April, with a mean maximum temperature of 21.5 °C which is -1.7 °C below the historic April average 1 making it the coldest April since 1983."

    Texeme.Construct(Participant)

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  2. VeganCountyFan Posted 12:40 am
    13 May 2008

    touchéUK experiencing the hottest start to May since records began...
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1948814/Britain-enjoying- ...

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  3. Jon Rynn's avatar

    Jon Rynn Posted 12:43 am
    13 May 2008

    Here's the program:It means no more new coal-fired power plants anywhere, and plans to quickly close the ones already in operation. (Coal-fired power plants operating the way they're supposed to are, in global warming terms, as dangerous as nuclear plants melting down.) It means making car factories turn out efficient hybrids next year, just the way we made them turn out tanks in six months at the start of World War II. It means making trains an absolute priority and planes a taboo.  And he mentions trains!  Oh yeah!
    I'd still like to see a huge, multi-trillion dollar program to accomplish all of these things, plus constructing a solar/wind/geothermal energy infrastructure, if we're in as much doo-doo as McKibben and Hansen say we are.

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  4. Delay And Deny's avatar

    Delay And Deny Posted 1:06 am
    13 May 2008

    God Save The QueenUK experiencing the hottest start
    Still, if it does start warming, doesn't that contradict the new, new models that are now predicting cooling for the next 5 years?

    Texeme.Construct(Participant)

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  5. VeganCountyFan Posted 1:17 am
    13 May 2008

    SorryBy telling you about the weather here over the last TWO WEEKS, I was simply trying to point out the futility of using the weather in one month, in one location as an argument for or against climate change.
    Too subtle?

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  6. stevenearlsalmony Posted 1:30 am
    13 May 2008

    The unbridled growth of human civilization.................is to soon become unsustainable due to Earth's limitations.
    Thanks for so clearly presenting the predicament looming ominously before the family of humanity.
    If the human community fails to heed the warning signs regarding global warming, it appears to me that humankind could soon be confronted by a cluster of emerging and converging global challenges.  Taken together, these challenges could shortly present humanity with a predicament of horrendous make-up and colossal size. The Gorgon named Medusa comes to mind, I suppose, because she, too, was a "mother" of challenges.
    Perhaps we have to help one another see more clearly, think more critically, be more ingenious, act more carefully and move forward more quickly toward establishing a balance between ourselves and the natural world we appear to be threatening to ravage.
    Steven Earl Salmony

    AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,

    established 2001

    http://journals.aol.com/sesalmony/HumanandEnvironmentalHe ...

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  7. Jonas Posted 2:54 am
    13 May 2008

    So, what does Hansen suggest we do?There is a paper to be published by Hansen's team, soon.
    In it, he makes recommendations on which technologies and actions we need to implement to withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere back to 350.
    These are limited to the following priorities (in no order of importance):


    a moratorium on new coal plants, except when CCS is applied
    the utilization of biomass in power plants with CCS, which results in carbon-negative energy (the only renewable form of energy capable of withdrawing CO2 from the atmosphere)
    avoided deforestation
    reforestation
    biochar: the sequestration of inert C in soils to make them more productive and decrease N20 and CH4 emissions


    These are the only technologies capable of either withdrawing CO2 from the atmosphere (biochar, biomass+CCS, reforestation) or of vastly reducing  new emissions (coal+CCS, avoided deforestation)
    Will 350.org mention Hansen's recommended technologies?

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  8. Delay And Deny's avatar

    Delay And Deny Posted 3:39 am
    13 May 2008

    Here's Your Climate, Right Here.By telling you about the weather here over the last TWO WEEKS, I was simply trying to point out the futility of using the weather in one month, in one location as an argument for or against climate change.  Too subtle?
    No...too hypocritical.  Once again, AGWers want it "both ways"...because you overemphasize 1998 to the detriment of the century long climate data.
    If you had taken the time to view the NOAA data in the link presented, reproduced here:
    You would read: The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.
    0.1 or 1F per century.
    Not per  decade and not that Euro-numerology called Celsius or Centigrade or whatever.
    That's climate.
    That's data.

    Texeme.Construct(Participant)

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  9. sindark's avatar

    sindark Posted 3:50 am
    13 May 2008

    Climatic equilibriaOne common view of the characteristics of natural equilibria is that they are both stable and singular. An example is a marble at the bottom of a bowl. If you push it a bit in one direction or another, it will return to where it was. Many biological systems seem to be like this, at least within limits. Think about the acid-base conjugate systems that help control the pH of blood, or about an ecosystem where a modest proportion of one species gets eliminated. Provided you like the way things are at the moment, more or less, such stable equilibria are a desirable environmental characteristic. They allow you to effect moderate changes in what is going on, without needing to worry too much about profoundly unbalancing your surroundings.
    Of course, such systems can be pushed beyond their bounds. Here, think about a vending machine being tipped. Up to a certain critical point, it will totter back to its original position when you release it. Beyond that point, it will continue to fall over, even if the original force being exerted upon it is discontinued. Both the vertical and horizontal positions of the vending machine are stable equilibria, though we would probably prefer the former to the latter. For a biological example, you might think of a forested hillside. Take a few trees, wait a few years, and the situation will probably be much like when you began. If you cut down enough trees to lose all the topsoil to erosion, however, you might come back in many decades and still find an ecosystem radically different from the one you started off with.
    The trouble with the climate is that it isn't like a vending machine, in that you can feel the effect your pushing is having on it and pretty clearly anticipate what is going to happen next. Firstly, that is because there are internal balances that make things trickier. It is as though there are all sorts of pendulums and gyroscopes inside the machine, making its movements in response to any particular push unpredictable. Secondly, we are not the only thing pushing on the machine. There are other exogenous properties like solar and orbital variations that may be acting in addition to our exertions, in opposition to them, or simply in parallel. Those forces are likely to change in magnitude both over the course or regular cycles and progressively over the course of time.

    a sibilant intake of breath

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  10. Nucbuddy Posted 3:54 am
    13 May 2008

    Oil is still not finiteBill McKibben wrote in the OP: gas at $4 a gallon means we're running out
    Nope.

    google.com/search?q=%22no+gas+shortage%22
    google.com/search?q=site%3Ajuliansimon.org+oil+finite
    there is no reason to believe that the supply of energy, even of oil, is finite or limited.

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  11. Delay And Deny's avatar

    Delay And Deny Posted 4:07 am
    13 May 2008

    PushmepullyouSecondly, we are not the only thing pushing on the machine.
    Trenchant analysis.
    One thing: are you sure we're pushing and not being pulled?  
    I think the later...

    Texeme.Construct(Participant)

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  12. Nucbuddy Posted 4:17 am
    13 May 2008

    A meltdown once a week is still safer than coalBill McKibben wrote in the OP: Coal-fired power plants operating the way they're supposed to are, in global warming terms, as dangerous as nuclear plants melting down.
    How would a nuclear "plant" [perhaps you meant "reactor unit"] "melting down" be "dangerous"?

    phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter6.html
    THE FEARSOME REACTOR MELTDOWN ACCIDENT

    [...]

    In 1978, a movie called "The China Syndrome" [...] gained widespread popularity. When the Three Mile Island accident followed in 1979, it became the news media story of the decade, complete with days of suspense during which the public was led to believe that a horrible disaster could occur at any moment. This combination of events led to very serious problems for the nuclear power industry.
    As a result of these developments, the word meltdown has become a household word. We will use it here, although it is no longer used by risk analysis scientists. In the mind of the public, it refers to an accident in which all of the fuel becomes so hot that it forms a molten mass which melts its way through the reactor vessel. Let's use the word in that sense. The media frequently referred to it as "the ultimate disaster," evoking images of stacks of dead bodies amid a devastated landscape, much like the aftermath of a nuclear bomb attack.
    On the other hand, the authors of the two principal reports on the Three Mile Island accident agree that even if there had been a complete meltdown in that reactor, there very probably would have been essentially no harm to human health and no environmental damage. I know of no technical reports that have claimed otherwise. Moreover, all scientific studies agree that in the great majority of meltdown accidents there would be no detectable effects on human health, immediately or in later years. According to the government estimate, a meltdown would have to occur every week or so somewhere in the United States before nuclear power would be as dangerous as coal burning.
    Even the Chernobyl accident, which was worse in many ways than any meltdown that can be envisioned for an American reactor, caused no injuries outside the plant. That is not to say that it is impossible to have fatalities caused by a meltdown, but it is estimated that in no more than 1 in a 100 meltdowns could any be obviously related to the accident.

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  13. katakanadian Posted 5:00 am
    13 May 2008

    Maybe you'd like to buy some Pripyat real estateEven the Chernobyl accident, which was worse in many ways than any meltdown that can be envisioned for an American reactor, caused no injuries outside the plant.
    This is only true in the sense of broken bones and the like. Thousands have died/will die from cancer caused by radioactive fallout which is what people are really afraid of.

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  14. Ron Steenblik Posted 5:13 am
    13 May 2008

    Um, don't forget cancerNuclear buddy, you must be using a very narrow definition of "injuries" when you say that "Even the Chernobyl accident, which was worse in many ways than any meltdown that can be envisioned for an American reactor, caused no injuries outside the plant." [My emphasis]
    According to this BBC report (sorry, I can't quickly find the original source):
    The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl has produced the biggest group of cancers ever from a single incident, according to UK and US scientists. Almost 2,000 cases of thyroid cancer have resulted from the reactor explosion at the Ukrainian power station 15 years ago.
    The elevated risk of thyroid cancer appears to continue throughout life. Researchers predict that the number of cancers is sure to rise further in years to come.
    Granted, cancer of the thyroid is easier to treat than many other cancers, and one's chance of recovery is good. Perhaps even the rate of cancers induced from radiation eminating from normally operating coal-fired plants in Europe has been higher than that (I have no idea). But it makes you look as if you are being highly selective in your facts to say that there were no injuries outside the Chernobyl plant.

    These are only my personal opinions.

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  15. Ron Steenblik Posted 5:27 am
    13 May 2008

    Here's a better link on Chernobyl and cancersFrom Cardis E, Krewski D, Boniol M, Drozdovitch V, Darby SC, Gilbert ES, Akiba S, Benichou J, Ferlay J, Gandini S, Hill C, Howe G, Kesminiene A, Moser M, Sanchez M, Storm H, Voisin L and Boyle P, "The Cancer Burden from Chernobyl in Europe", Lyon, France: International Agency for Research on Cancer, 2006:
    Study purpose: To evaluate the human cancer burden from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident in Europe as a whole.
    Study conclusions:
    With the exception of thyroid cancer in the most contaminated regions, trends in cancer incidence and mortality in Europe, taken together, do not at present show any increase in cancer rates that can be clearly attributed to radiation from the Chernobyl accident.

    Thus it is not possible to infer the possible cancer burden from the accident on the bases of studies of its health effects to date. The estimation of the cancer burden from Chernobyl must rely on risk prediction models developed from studies of other populations exposed to radiation in other settings.

    By 2065, these models predict that about 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 cases of other cancers may be expected due to radiation from the accident and that about 16,000 deaths from these cancers may occur. About two-thirds of the thyroid cancer cases and at least one half of the other cancers are expected to occur in Belarus, Ukraine and the most contaminated territories of the Russian Federation.

    The number of cancer cases in Europe possibly resulting from radiation exposure from the Chernobyl accident up to now, and in the lifetime of the exposed populations, is therefore expected to be large in absolute terms.

    While these figures reflect human suffering and death, they nevertheless represent only a very small fraction of the total number of cancers seen since the accident and expected in the future in Europe.

    It is unlikely therefore that the cancer burden from the largest radiological accident to date could be ever be detected by monitoring national cancer statistics. [My emphasis]

    These are only my personal opinions.

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  16. GRLCowan's avatar

    GRLCowan Posted 6:43 am
    13 May 2008

    No explodible fission reactors over my back fence,please.
    But none are to be expected, since we learned the lessons of Chernobyl in the early 50s. The early 1950s. Everyone near Teller-approved designs seems to understand this, including, of course, GP contractors getting quietly onto nuclear boats.
    How shall motoring gain nuclear cachet?

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  17. Jonas Posted 6:55 am
    13 May 2008

    We're doing wellThis just in today:
    World carbon dioxide levels highest for 650,000 years, says US report
    The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high, according to the latest figures, renewing fears that climate change could begin to slide out of control.
    Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.
    The figures, published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on its website, also confirm that carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than expected. The annual mean growth rate for 2007 was 2.14ppm - the fourth year in the last six to see an annual rise greater than 2ppm. From 1970 to 2000, the concentration rose by about 1.5ppm each year, but since 2000 the annual rise has leapt to an average 2.1ppm.
    The Guardian.


    a moratorium on coal without CCS

    biomass + CCS

    reforestation/avoided deforestation

    biochar


    Now.

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  18. BILL HANNAHAN Posted 7:37 am
    13 May 2008

    Planes are getting better

    " It means making trains an absolute priority and planes a taboo. "
    Optimally, the 787 will get 100 miles per gallon per seat, compared to the 76 passenger miles per gallon of a 767. A lot better than one person in a Prius. Planes are not going away.
    http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1641341, ...

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  19. Nucbuddy Posted 8:48 am
    13 May 2008

    The ghost of cancer futureRon Steenblik wrote: Nuclear buddy, you [...] say that "Even the Chernobyl accident, which was worse in many ways than any meltdown that can be envisioned for an American reactor, caused no injuries outside the plant."
    I do? Have you read my post, Ron?




    Ron Steenblik wrote: Granted, cancer of the thyroid is easier to treat than many other cancers
    ...And cancers of the future are easier to treat, as well as easier to prevent, than are cancers of the present.

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  20. davedenali Posted 9:55 am
    13 May 2008

    What we needI had the good fortune to hear Hansen speak recently.  He's very compelling.  In my view we need to do several things.  A GOP Senate majority gave us James Inhofe as Environment Chair, and he is an environmental criminal.  As is George Voinovich, who wants to replace him. We need to expose and defeat these people.  We need to elect a Democratic President and demand action.  We need to stop the coal plants now under consideration.  And we need to create an appropriate sense of urgency.  Now.

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  21. stevenearlsalmony Posted 11:02 am
    13 May 2008

    Perhaps change is in the offing...........................as a "forced-choice".
    Endless economic growth is the shibboleth of the rich and powerful in our time.  But the days of reckless domination of the Earth and its environs may be numbered, it would appear, because the idolatry, the magical thinking, the wishes and the selfish intentions that have driven endlessly expanding large-scale corporate activity and insatiable wealth accumulation could be about to run their course. The plans of the economic powerbrokers and their bought-and-paid-for politicians for 'manufacturing' "bubbles" and big-business boom times could lead the family of  humanity to be threatened by the inadvertent loss of life as we know it and the unintentional destruction of the Earth as a fit place for human habitation by our children and coming generations.
    Steven Earl Salmony

    AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,

    established 2001

    http://journals.aol.com/sesalmony/HumanandEnvironmentalHe ...

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  22. stevenearlsalmony Posted 1:40 am
    14 May 2008

    Millions of winners............................billions of losers.
    Perhaps the unfair and inequitable distribution of the astounding wealth derived from the world's human economy is resulting in some people suffering inordinately when natural disasters occur.
    The way the global economy is managed and continuously grown, wealth is consolidated in the hands of a few million fortunate winners. Many too many people are the billions of unfortunate losers in the human community.
    The family of humanity 'owns' a leviathan-like, manmade economic construction in the shape of pyramid due to the organization of the global economy as a colossal ponzie scheme, I suppose.

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  23. archigeek Posted 2:48 am
    14 May 2008

    PonziI'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that the current incarnation of so-called free-market capitalism is essentially a Ponzi scheme on a massive scale. Indeed, it seems to me that most of the solutions presented by the usual trolls involve massive amounts of public money to subsidise industries which are already swimming in filthy lucre. Why should I be forced to buy electrical generation from a company that's not changed fudamentally its' technology or business model for one hundred years? Why can't I get the same subsudies(scaled to meet residential and commercial needs) that these companies have been receiving from the feds so that I may affordably buy on the open market electrical gen and solar water heating? To be sure, a 6 Kw system will not power my AC in the summer, but my home, and millions of others, could certainly offset most a significant potion of the alledged need for nuclear and more coal. As for nuclear, I am not an idiot. I'm old enough to remember that all of the nuclear plants in this country had MASSIVE cost overruns, in addition to many of them experiencing numerous near-misses with regards to safety and operational protocols. Here in Missouri, the Callaway County nuke plant was conceived with a budget of about $500MUSD. The final cost ran up to $3BUSD+ by the time it came on-line. And this country still has not found a viable way to clean up the mess. What's galling about the current "solution", Yucca Mt., aside from the fact it is a sacred to the tribal peoples in the area, is that it being paid for largely through my expense, not the polluters. I have a very simple dictum when comes to messes in my workplace and home: you make a mess, you clean it up. So, are the utility companies and nuclear plant buildiers willing to put up a multi-billion dollar bond to ensure that the wastes from generation and decommissioning will be properly taken of? No, well maybe you folks advocating for increased nuclear capacity better go back to the drawing board. Oh, another thing. Even though, admittedly, the number of potentially lethal incidents vs the number of KwH is fairly low, the risk will certainly increase with the number of plants operating. One other thing to consider: how committed do you think the utilities will be to safely operating their properties when they take possession of a facility that has sextupled its construction costs and the utility can't get the PSC's of various states to go along with a rate increase? I can't deny that we should be paying rates that reflect the TRUE costs of current electric gen technology, but to force me to pay the piper for something I don't want, don't need, the country doesn't want, and the country doesn't need, strikes me as a tyrannical gesture unbecoming of a Constitutional, pluralistic, democratic republic. Hell, just eliminate the subsidies(ALL subsidies) for energy companies and make them clean up their messes with their own money. Seems to me, if they were competently operated in the first place, we and our country wouldn't be in the position we are in today.  

    The mellotron is your friend.

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  24. kmp Posted 3:10 am
    14 May 2008

    350 or 450?Hansen et al say 350 ppm is necessary to maintain a recognizable planet.  Joe Romm et al say that 450 ppm is the number to shoot for, even though it may not be politically possible. So why is that? Is it because we think that 350 ppm is simply impossible? Or that Hansen's predictios are overly melodramatic?
    Will Hansen really recommend massive reforestation (as Jonas claims)?  But what about the theory that northern forests could actually warm the globe? And if trees make lousy carbon offsets, how are we to pay for the billions of trees required without diverting funds from fossil-fueled industries?
    Maybe this is why the "change your lightbulbs" rhetoric is so persistent; because, even here, nobody can agree of where we need to go, or how we should get there.
    It's depressing.

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  25. billgee Posted 7:38 am
    27 May 2008

    Hooray! 350It's dusk on planet Earth.

    Do something ... for the kids if nothing else.

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  26. billgee Posted 7:41 am
    27 May 2008

    350 or 450Those are Hard Numbers.

    There are NO hard numbers.

    CHAOS

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