Using ICT to “adapt” rather than
“mitigate” Global Warming
Bill St. Arnaud
Bill.st.arnaud@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted all material in this slide deck may be reproduced,
modified or distributed without prior permission of the author
We need a new nuclear plant per day
to keep stabilization at 2C
Source: Roger Pielke Jr
2
How fast can decarbonization occur?
• The honest answer no one knows
• Historical rates of 1-2% have occurred in developing
countries – mostly by outsourcing manufacturing to China
• For short periods some countries have achieved rates > 2%
e.g. France nuclear program
• US need to achieve 17% reduction while maintaining
modest economic growth which requires rates of
decarbonization of >5% per year
– Need to shut down over 20 coal plants per year to meet this
target
3
Climate Forecasts
•
MIT report predicts median
temperature forecast of 5.2°C
– 11°C increase in Northern Canada
& Europe
–
http://globalchange.mit.edu/pubs/abstract.p
hp?publication_id=990
•
Last Ice age average global
temperature was 5-6°C cooler than
today
– Most of Canada & Europe was
under 2-3 km ice
•
Nearly 90 per cent of new scientific
findings reveal global climate
disruption to be worse, and
progressing more rapidly, than
expected.
•
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Freud
enburg_2010_ASC.pdf
MIT
Future Droughts
• Palmer Drought Severity Index,
or PDSI.
• The most severe drought in
recent history, in the Sahel region
of western Africa in the 1970s, had
a PDSI of -3 or -4.
• By 2030 Western USA could see
-4 to -6. Drought in Texas clearly
caused by global warming:
http://goo.gl/QjHRS
• By 2100 some parts of the U.S.
and Latin America could see -8 to 10 PDSI, while Mediterranean
areas could see drought in the -15
or -20 range.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39741525/ns/us_new
s-environment/
Utilities biggest source of CO2
http://www.oecdilibrary.org/docserver/download/fulltext/5k9h2q8v9bln.pdf?expires=1327
005403&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=DFE9FB35608FEA0C67713C5
8F2952625
6
New Challenge: Climate Adaptation
• Obama’s National Science Advisor John Holdren
“Mitigation alone won’t work, because the climate is
already changing, we’re already experiencing
impacts….A mitigation only strategy would be
insanity,”
• Equal emphasis given to adaptation – avoiding the
unmanageable, and adaptation – managing the
unavoidable.”
• Obama’s Climate Adaptation Executive Order
–
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1tU8go/www.good.is/post/obama-s-secret-climate-adaptation-plan/
We need to get off the electrical grid
• Biggest source of CO2 emissions because of coal plants – even in places
that use hydro and wind e.g. Quebec and Denmark
• Coal plants will be most likely targets of protestors and governments
– If Germany and Switzerland are willing to shut down nuclear plants then
someday they will realize coal plants are much worse for health, safety and
environmental reasons
• A good adaptation strategy can also be a good mitigation strategy
• Adaptation strategy means using only distributed renewal resources
disconnected from the grids
– Will most likely survive severe weather events
– Will not be subject to outages when governments are forced to shut down
coal plants
• But how do you reliable and robust telecommunications and Internet
when only sources of power are intermittent and unreliable wind and sun?
8
OpenFlow Follow the wind/Follow the sun
European GSN
Domain
Canadian GSN
Domain
Export VM
Notify EU
Cloud Manager
Cloud Manager
Host
Resource
Network
Manager
Cloud Manager
Internet
Dynamically Configure
IP Tunnel
Host
Resource
• Shudown VM
• Copy Image
• Update VM Context
• Start VM
Mantychore2
VM
Shared
storage
Shared
storage
VM
Lightpath
Host
Cloud Proxy
Optical switch
Optical switch
Cloud Proxy
Host
AMD, HP & Clarkson U GreenCloud
National GreenCloud Vision
Let’s Keep The Conversation Going
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