Remember it was about this time last year that evangelicals started jumping on the GCC bandwagon. It is because there is a seasonal interest in the effect. While the Summer is hot, there will be a real and genuine interest in doing something about climate change.
It is just a matter of course that when autumn comes around people are going to lose interest. Strike while the iron is hot, and get as much done as possible while the season lasts. If the vote is in July or August for a climate bill, there will be no defense. If it is later, they will say, ‘but look, it is already getting cool again.”
Interestingly enough, there has already been much progress on climate change. Asia and Europe have stopped venting methane from oil wells and burn it off instead. Since methane is 25 times stronger as a greenhouse gas than CO2, the fact that methane levels measured in the Arctic have peaked and are dropping gives us some reason for hope of at least a temporary check to the effects. None of the recent volcanoes have been large enough to significantly effect climate directly, but we may still have another one like Mount Pinatubo that can have up to a decade of delay in warming. Obviously, we can’t count on that, but it would not be out of the realm of possibility.
As I have said before, the computer projections need to probably be multiplied by about two to account just for the effect of water dimer. Keep in mind, projections with even the best computers are a form of extrapolation, and subject to projected conditions that are not known to be correct. What we do can totally effect the outcome, and there is still hope that we can make a difference. The point is that these projections are not unavoidably set in stone. We have already taken a step in the right direction.
I used to always marvel at the lighting in my dentists office. There was about 1500 watts of lighting in each room. They said they needed the lights to stay the same and that it would not change. Since then, it has all been changed to compact fluorescents. The grocery store we go to now has motion sensors on the freezer that turn off the lights when people are not there. There is a long way to go, but fortunately, we are part way there already.
If you have not done so, be sure to look at your electric bill and see where you can make reductions. There are online calculators that will tell you how much each light bulb and appliance is contributing. It is not just to save energy. It saves money too. It is a misconception that the biggest problem is our cars. It is actually electricity generation.
I posted before also that our economic crisis would be an unintended boost to the effort to reduce emissions. Now is the time to upgrade what we have and lock those reductions in place so that as the economy turns around we can use energy more efficiently, and we will be able to look forward to projections of where we were going, and with how much our efforts have helped.