In one of my favorite liberal-bumper-sticker quotes, Albert Einstein once said that "you cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." Every serious discussion of climate change inevitably touches upon this question: why are we spending time and money preventing carbon emissions from rising, when we could be spending time and money preparing for and mitigating the consequences of an increase in temperature? It's not a trollish question, but one that deserves a serious answer. And there's two serious answers, but you'll have to go below the fold to read them.
Or, if you want to stop reading here, know this: we can fix it the easy way, or kind of, sort of, maybe live with it the hard way. But you'll miss out on a new term, CCS.
We still have a chance.
It's easy to find dire predictions that if we cannot stabilize carbon, we are heading for a potential extinction level event. For example, James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia hypothesis and prophet of the Gloom & Doom set, believes that human population will go from 6.6 billion today to 500 million by 2100, with most of that population living in scattered enclaves in Scandinavia, Iceland, and far northern Canada. Joe Romm sums it up as "Hell and High Water":
•Staggeringly high temperature rise, especially over land — some 10°F over much of the United States
•Sea level rise of 5 feet, rising some 6 to 12 inches (or more) each decade thereafter
•Dust Bowls over the U.S. SW and many other heavily populated regions around the globe
•Massive species loss on land and sea — 50% or more of all life
•Unexpected impacts — the fearsome "unknown unknowns"
•More severe hurricanes — especially in the Gulf
Note that one boldface word. At the same time, most credible scientists, including the above Joe Romm, agree that the human race will be mostly all right if carbon levels stabilize in the 350 ppm (or even 450 ppm) range, and if we begin immediately. Bill McKibben's 350 FAQ analogizes:
•If we're already past 350, are we all doomed?
No. We're like the patient that goes to the doctor and learns he's overweight, or his cholesterol is too high. He doesn't die immediately—but until he changes his lifestyle and gets back down to the safe zone, he's at more risk for heart attack or stroke. The planet is in its danger zone because we've poured too much carbon into the atmosphere, and we're starting to see signs of real trouble: melting ice caps, rapidly spreading drought. We need to scramble back as quickly as we can to safety.
I don't pretend that passing climate change legislation in America will, alone, prevent global Gloom & Doom, but a strong climate bill in the Senate (stronger than Waxman-Markey in the House), coupled with a treaty at Copenhagen, may succeed. And there's a second reason why prevention is preferable to preparation.
Most preparation is expensive.
First and foremost, preparation is a selfish American concept. It assumes that we'll have the money to prepare for "hell and high water." However, where will the people of Bangladesh, all 500 million of them, go? How can the people of Maldives prepare for the loss of their island home? Even ignoring this huge question of social justice, most preparation for our brave new world involves costly measures in the United States. A thorough discussion of all preparation/mitigation items is beyond the scope of this diary, but I'll use carbon capture technology and seawalls as two examples.
"Clean coal," or carbon capture storage, or CCS for short, is no relation to CCR, although the band might have been predicting our new century of hurricanes, earthquakes, rivers overflowing, and lightning, with a bad moon on the rise.
An Environmental Law Institute report, released last week, studying 2002-08 found that fossil fuels obtained $70.2 billion in subsidies and benefits over a seven year period, while CCS was $2.3 billion. CCS subsidies may increase dramatically in the next few years. Senator Robert Byrd (D-Coal) has long been considered one of the few Democratic "probably no" votes on ACES specifically because ACES will affect the coal industry of West Virginia. However, he's recently softened his position...if more money is allocated toward CCS research.
How much money? A Harvard study finds that first of a kind coal plants built with CCS will double the cost to consumers, from 8-12 cents/kwh to 20 cents/kwh. The above Joe Romm concludes that spending more money on research (not the same as actually spending more money to build a coal plant with CCS) is worth it for Byrd's vote, at least a vote to block a filibuster. Other Senators on board the CCS bandwagon include Max Baucus (D-MT), Bob Casey (D-PA), Arlen Specter (D-PA), and Mark Warner (D-VA). Technological questions have also been raised about CCS, analogizing stored and sequestered coal to nuclear waste that must never be allowed to escape. In short, the promise of CCS may be necessary to convince certain Senators to vote for ACES, but the reality of CCS is stunningly expensive.
Likewise, an effective seawall is an extremely costly proposition -- one estimate via the Wall Street Journal is $14 billion in initial costs along California's coast, and $1.4 billion/year thereafter to maintain it. (Which is fine, because the state of California has lots of extra cash lying around, right?) Seawalls have succeeded in the Netherlands. The cost of seawalls along the American coastlines -- or even its most populated parts, such as New York City, the Gulf Coast, and Florida -- is mind-boggling. Insurers such as General Re are thus urging political action and adaptation on global warming now so that they will not have to pay astronomical losses later.
And what of the Southwest? A megadrought is predicted and may have already begun. I haven't heard any technologically feasible solution to keep cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix from simply withering away. (Desalination is energy-intensive, thus carbon-intensive for now.)
Some prevention/preparation is inexpensive.
By that, I specifically mean the little acts that we can do in our lives that work both to reduce carbon emissions today and encourage self sufficiency in preparation for the Lovelockian scenario. Plant a vegetable garden. Weatherize your home. Change your lightbulbs from incandescent to CFL, and change them again when LED technology improves. Plant a tree. These acts have been described as unsexy, but one deep secret of carbon emission is this: they work. They have a far greater impact, at a far lower cost, than any billion dollar project.
In short, we can, and should, both prevent and prepare for climate change...but cliches about ounces of prevention and pounds of cure come to mind.