Planet Earth: Owner’s Manual
Anthropogenic Climate Change
and Energy Alternatives
Why is climate
change bad?
In a warmer world, fewer people
will freeze to death in the winter
and plants will grow faster with
more CO2, right?
We are heavily invested in the climate
status quo.
We grow food where it rains (or where we have an abundance
of fresh water).
We have extensive population and infrastructure located near
present sea level (app. 30% of global population).
We have infrastructure appropriate to traditional climate.
Our economies are based on traditional biological resources.
Our insurance industry assesses risk based on past trends.
Adapting to change is costly, both in money and lives.
The more rapid and extreme the change, the higher the cost.
Why is preventing climate change NOT a conservative issue?
It is all about preserving our way of life as it is.
Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast:
Science, Impacts, and Solutions
Union of Concerned Scientists, July 2007
Urban areas face increased numbers of extreme heat days
• Increase in heat-related fatalities
• Increase in air pollution and related respiratory problems such as asthma
• Disproportionately impacts the poor and elderly
December - June
July - January
Projected Changes in Precipitation in a Warmer World
• American Southwest - drier
• American Northeast - wetter
• Northern Africa - drier
• Europe - more seasonally wetter and drier (monsoonal)
• Canada / Siberia - wetter
• Amazon - drier
Alpine glaciers and continental ice sheets are
melting at increasing rates
1992
2002
Extent of seasonal ice melting on the
Greenland ice sheet.
http://cires.colorado.edu/steffen/
References
* Dyurgerov, Mark B. (2002). "Glacier Mass Balance and Regime: Data of Measurements and Analysis". Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, Occasional Paper 55.
* Dyurgerov, Mark B. and Mark F. Meier (2005). "Glaciers and the Changing Earth System: A 2004 Snapshot". Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, Occasional Paper 58.
* J. Oerlemans (2005). "Extracting a Climate Signal from 169 Glacier Records". Science 308 (5722): 675 - 677.
USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Maps
1990
201
2
Global Natural Catastrophe Update
Natural Catastrophes Worldwide 1980 – 2011
Number of events
Number
2011 Total
820 Events
Geophysical events
(Earthquake, tsunami,
volcanic eruption)
Meteorological events
(Storm)
Source: MR NatCatSERVICE
Hydrological events
(Flood, mass movement)
Climatological events
(Extreme temperature,
drought, forest fire)
© 2011 Munich Re
36
U.S. Natural Catastrophe Update
Natural Disasters in the United States, 1980 – 2011
Number of Events, Annual Totals
2011 Total
171 Events
60
14
92
5
Geophysical events
(Earthquake, tsunami,
volcanic eruption)
Meteorological events
(Storm)
Source: MR NatCatSERVICE
Hydrological events
(Flood, mass movement)
Climatological events
(Extreme temperature,
drought, forest fire)
8
© 2011 Munich Re
U.S. Natural Catastrophe Update
U.S. Thunderstorm Loss Trends
Annual Totals 1980 – 2011
Average thunderstorm losses have increased fivefold since 1980.
2011 Total
$25.8 bn
Source: Property Claims Service
MR NatCatSERVICE
© 2011 Munich Re
14
Number of Federal Disaster Declarations,
1953-2011*
There have been 2,049
federal disaster
declarations since 1953.
The average number of
declarations per year is
34 from 1953-2010,
though that few haven’t
been recorded since
1995.
100
75
The number of federal disaster
declarations set a new record in
2011, with 99, shattering 2010’s
record 81 declarations.
38
17181616
13
1212
7 7
75
69
63
56
484646
2525
2220
81
75
65
50
25
99
29
42
19 1717
59
34
2728
25 23 24
23
22
21
15
11
30
1111
4345
38
36
32 32
31
50
49
4545
44
52
48
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
00
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11*
0
The Number of Federal Disaster Declarations Is Rising and Set a New Record in
2011
*Through December 31, 2011.
Source: Federal Emergency Management Administration: http://www.fema.gov/news/disaster_totals_annual.fema ; Insurance Information
Institute.
Collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf,
31 Jan – 7 Mar 2002:
• Antarctic Peninsula on left, melt
ponds on ice shelf on right
• first melt phase: 800 square km
• second melt phase: 2600
square km (~half of Rhode
Island)
• paleoceanographic research
suggests this area has never
been ice-free in the last 10,000
years (Domack et al., 2005,
Nature)
MODIS images from NASA's Terra
satellite, National Snow and Ice Data
Center, University of Colorado, Boulder.
Minimum Extent of
Summer Sea Ice
1979
Minimum Extent of
Summer Sea Ice
2003
Projected changes in the extent of winter snow cover, Northeast U.S.
Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast:
Science, Impacts, and Solutions
Union of Concerned Scientists, July 2007
Church J.A. and White N.J. "A 20th century acceleration in global sea-level rise" Geophys. Res. Lett. 2006; 33: L01602
Current rates of sea level rise are approximately 3 mm per year (1 6 per century) and are on track to match or exceed the “worst case scenario” projec@ons made in the 1990s. Coastal Flooding Will Increase in
Extent and Frequency as Sea Level
Continues to Rise
•
•
Current 100 year flood event in
NYC will occur on average once
every 10 years by the end of the
21st Century.
Large sections of Lower
Manhattan and Queens could flood
during relatively moderate
hurricanes and nor’easters.
Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast:
Science, Impacts, and Solutions
Union of Concerned Scientists, July 2007
Coastal Flooding Will Increase in
Extent and Frequency as Sea Level
Continues to Rise
•
Barrier Islands such as Fire Island,
Long Beach, and the Jersey Shore
could face major flooding on a
semi-annual basis by 2100.
Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast:
Science, Impacts, and Solutions
Union of Concerned Scientists, July 2007
The Insurance Industry is Retreating from the Coast
Due to heavy losses associated with recent hurricanes
such as Katrina, insurers are reluctant to issue policies
to coastal homeowners:
• 2006 - Allstate drops coverage for 1000s of homes
along the Middle Atlantic and Northeast coast.
• State Farm no longer insures properties within 1 mile
of the ocean (formerly, the cutoff was 1000 ft).
• 2006 - Hingham Mutual Group cancels 9000
homeowner policies on Cape Cod.
Commercial Fisheries are Threatened
By Climate Change
•
Warming ocean waters will cause
commercially important species to
go regionally extinct (for example,
cod - see diagram to right).
•
Marine species fail to breed or
become vulnerable to disease in
warmer waters.
1999 - massive die-off of lobster in
Long Island Sound due to outbreak
of disease correlates with
unusually elevated water
temperature that summer.
Lobster have not recovered to
anywhere near their previous
levels and most experts agree that
the lobster fishery is unlikely to
ever recover .
•
•
Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast:
Science, Impacts, and Solutions
Union of Concerned Scientists, July 2007
Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast: Science,
Impacts, and Solutions
Union of Concerned Scientists, July 2007
Fire Ants - currently restricted to
southern states, but moving
north!
http://hortipm.tamu.edu/pestprofiles/chewing/fantsdawn/fantsdawn.html
Spruce Bark Beetles
•
Kenai Peninsula, Alaska: Spruce
bark beetles have destroyed
nearly 4 million acres of mature
forest on the peninsula.
•
Warmer weather allows the
beetles to mature and breed faster,
completing a two-year life cycle in
just one year.
•
In cooler times on the peninsula,
the forests and the beetles lived in
balance, but today, the trees are
unable to withstand the explosion
in the beetle population.
http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/alaska/kenai.html
Spruce tree die off - Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
Climate Change is Causing Extinctions
•
74 species of frog in Costa Rica
have gone extinct in the last two
decades.
•
Numbers of species extinctions
correlate with temperature for the
previous year. Hot years see
elevated extinctions in the
following year.
•
Warmer weather favors growth of
a fungus that attacks the skin of
these tropical frogs.
Extinctions do not correlate with El
Nino changes in sea surface
temperature (drives fluctuations in
rainfall).
•
Widespread amphibian extinctions from epidemic
disease driven by global warming
J. Alan Pounds et al.
Nature 439, 161-167(12 January 2006)
In the face of climate change, what are our
options?
Adaptation: adjust to changes as they happen.
Prevention: try to slow and / or mitigate climate change to
reduce the need for adaptation.
Reduce the production of greenhouse gases particularly CO2
The Big Question:
Which is more costly prevention now or adaptation later?
How do we reduce CO2 emissions?
Producer
Consumer
More efficient distribution
Non-fossil fuel energy sources
Renewable:
solar, wind, tidal, geothermal
Biofuel
Nuclear Power
Invest in new technology
Alternative energy generation
Carbon capture and sequestration
Payoff?
Reduce consumption
Reduce waste
Invest in new technology
Fuel efficient vehicles
Energy efficient appliances
Payoff - lower energy costs
Carbon taxes and emissions caps
create economic incentives to invest.
Heating, Air Conditioning, Lighting, and Driving Generate
the Majority of Personal CO2 Emissions
Fossil Fuels
• Concentrated
• Portable and easy to store
• Suited to centralized energy distribution
• Energy on demand
Fossil fuels have well-established environmental costs:
• environmental damage associated with extraction, spills
• carbon pollution and climate change
• natural gas (methane) is the least carbon polluting
(most energy derived per unit wt of carbon emitted)
• fossil fuels are non-renewable (eventually they will run out)
BP Oil Spill
Renewable Energy
• Diffuse
• Not portable,
• Decentralized energy
distribution
• Unpredictable availability
- requires battery storage
BioFuels
• Benefits similar to fossil fuels (portable, on demand)
• No net carbon pollution? (not counting energy needed to
convert biomass to fuel and distribute product)
Bad
idea to use food agriculture to make fuel
•
• Convert agricultural waste
• Dryland, non-food, crops
- Need to convert cellulose to fuel
Nuclear Energy
• Centralized distribution, on demand, but not portable
• Not renewable (uranium must be mined)
• No carbon pollution
• Requires water resources for cooling - heat pollution
• Risk of accidental release of radiation
• Waste disposal problem still not solved
- Long term radiation pollution hazard
- Potential for terrorism, proliferation
Changing our energy production requires investing
in new technologies and infrastructure
• How do we pay for these investments?
• Treat CO2 as a pollutant - generating pollution creates a
cost to society (climate change).
• Recover societal costs by putting a cost on the
production of the pollutant.
• Creates an economic incentive to stop polluting.
Changing our energy production requires investing
in new technologies and infrastructure
Carbon Tax
• Tax carbon emissions - $
per ton of CO2 emitted.
• Tax can be applied at all
scales of fossil fuel use.
• Less fossil fuel burned,
less tax paid.
• Use tax revenues to pay
for R&D, grants, tax
breaks for alternative
energy investment.
Cap and Trade
• Set limits on amount of
CO2 emitted per year.
• Entities that emit less
than their allotted cap
can sell (trade) their
remaining allotment to
entities that exceed
their cap.
• Creates a market for
“pollution credits” to
drive investment.
Carbon tax acknowledges the hidden costs associated
with the fossil fuel energy economy.
Carbon Capture and Sequestration
Geological storage
of waste CO2