The Cheap and Pleasant Ways to Stop Global Warming

Real action to stop global warming is a hard sell.

Oh sure, plenty of people say they are concerned about global warming. Some of them even take steps – baby steps – toward doing something about it. They may switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs or even drive a hybrid car, and think they are taking real action.

They aren’t.

That is, if the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Change (IPCC) is correct, such actions are insignificant compared to what is truly needed to stop global warming – or even slow it down.

According to the IPCC, we are already experiencing significant climate change. We already have coral bleaching, changes in water availability, impacts on agriculture, increased mortality from heat waves and tropical diseases [ IPCC executive summary p. 10 ]. These problems will continue to grow worse at the current rate of CO₂ emissions.

But the rate of CO₂ emissions is going up. China and India are joining the modern world. And many other developing nations aspire to a First World lifestyle. At present the U.S. and Canada emit close to 20% of the world’s greenhouse gases, yet have merely 5% the world’s population [ IPCC report Topic2 page 2 ]. Should the rest of the world catch up to Northern American levels of greenhouse gas emissions, the worldwide rate of emissions goes up by a factor of 4!

.05 r_A = .2 r_W; therefore, r_A= (.2/.05)r_W = 4r_W

where

r_A = Northern American per capital rate of greenhouse gas emission

r_W = Current world per capital rate of greenhouse emission

In other words, if we Americans are to play fair and allow the world’s inhabitants equal rights to emit greenhouse gases, the U.S. needs to cut its emissions by 75% just to maintain the current rate of global warming!

But even the current rate of global warming is unacceptable if the IPCC report is correct, if the damage to coral reefs is indeed due to CO₂ (vs. over fishing or other pollution). To actually slow down or stop global warming requires going even further! It’s enough to make one scream:

“Global Warming is a Myth!”

And many people do just that. In fact, I first saw this grim analysis of what it really takes to reduce CO₂ emissions in a conservative publication, one that condemned the whole global warming scare as a conspiracy against capitalism: politicians and bureaucrats lusting for power, Third World leaders hoping to pull the developed countries down to their level.

Are the global warming skeptics right or wrong? I cannot say without spending a great deal of time weighing the arguments of both sides of the debate. And I suspect I would still be uncertain—even after delving into primary sources. The subject is difficult! Weather is complicated and chaotic. Positive and negative feedback exists. Modeling is approximate. Measurements are noisy, and indirect for the long run.

True, the skeptics are biased. Many are corporate shills, defending existing industries. Others work for free-market think tanks, striving to stave off the increase in government power threatened by the prospect of real action on global warming.

But the advocates of action are also biased. Fear sells newspapers. Government action gives power and money to politicians and bureaucrats. More studies fund scientists and their expensive toys.

Objectivity is difficult. All players have incentive to bias. The only unbiased referee is real data. But good real data is hard to come by. Long time series of data are required to average out the chaos. But precise temperature measurements are only available for the modern era, and even those measurements are contaminated by urban heat islands and changes in foliage. To measure the past we must rely on proxy measurements, which place us somewhat in the realm of speculation. To measure the future, we must wait for more studies, which may mean waiting until it is too late.

Desperately Needed: Cheap Solutions Now

If the IPCC is correct, we need to get cracking now! In fact, we need to get cracking now even if the IPCC is overestimating the problem by a factor of 2 or 3. It takes time to change technologies. Meanwhile, old polluting technology is being deployed in the rapidly growing economies of China and India. We cannot wait for more studies.

But we should listen to the objections of the skeptics. Real reductions in global greenhouse emissions are going to be expensive. Go at it the wrong way and you have a prescription for economic collapse and poverty – which could make environmentalists rather unpopular.

Fortunately, cheap solutions exist to get the ball rolling. We could cut U.S. greenhouse emissions by 25% or more in a few years with little to no net negative impact on the economy – if we mandate the reductions correctly. Furthermore, the correct approach would set the stage for further reductions in the developed world, and low emission modernization for the developing world.

The key is holistic thinking, looking for opportunities to further environmental, conservative and liberal values at the same time. By doing so, we can get more conservatives on board the CO₂ reduction bandwagon, even those who think that global warming is a myth.

So, what are the cheapest, easiest solutions to global warming?

Next: So Many Ways to Fight Global Warming

In this Series:

The Cheap and Pleasant Ways to Stop Global Warming
So Many Ways to Fight Global Warming
Power Decisions to The People
A Conservative Case for a Carbon Tax
Carbon Tax Calculations
Carbon Tax vs. Personal Income Tax
A Carbon Tax vs. Payroll Taxes
The Future of the Carbon Tax
Carbon Tax Calculators

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