The editors at The Economist got religion this week. The release of a report in the journal Nature , by Harry Bryden of the National Oceanography Centre in Southhampton, Britain, provided the first compelling evidence that global warming threatens more significant near-term effects—the rapid cooling of the British Isles and Northern Europe—than previously thought credible. In short, global warming is melting Arctic ice at such a rate that it has reduced the Atlantic currents that warm Europe—by 30 percent.
And that figure reminds us of the Pentagon-sponsored study looking into just this scenario, called Abrupt Climate Change . The scenario makes it clear that if the Atlantic heat conveyor shuts down, Northern Europe goes into a deep freeze, requiring a lot more imported energy to stay warm and dramatically disrupting local food supplies. Now that climate change is getting personal, The Economist appears ready to accept the science. All climate politics is local, it seems.
The Nature report and The Economist's response could not have been better timed. In Montreal, the world is gathering to discuss, among other climate change issues, the future of the Kyoto Protocol after it expires in 2012. Significantly, the Bush administration chose to avoid the talks, having thrown its weight behind its own creation, a voluntary emission-reduction program that combines the U.S., China and Australia, among others.
We don't yet know what the Atlantic revelations will do to the debate. Politicians have a really hard time dealing with the potential collapse of a non-linear system—whether it is the housing bubble or the ecosystem. But two statements by Democratic senators made it clear this week that U.S. obstructionism will not last too much longer.
Writing in the Financial Times today, Sen. Joe Biden stood up to say that he accepts the climate science, that we have to act, and that there exists a great opportunity that doing right by climate change will do well for the American economy. Therefore, Biden said America has to lead: "Without U.S. leadership and participation, there is no way to stabilise global greenhouse gases before irreparable harm is done." Biden and his GOP colleague Richard Lugar have submitted a bill to force the White House to act.
Sen. Jeff Bingamon of New Mexico delivered a similar message to the delegates in Montreal in person. According to an account in Environment and Energy Daily , Bingamon told the world's representatives to continue to push forward with post-Kyoto negotiations. Bingamon believes that the Senate is nearing a bipartisan compromise on how to implement climate change language passed this past summer and that soon we will be back at the table. "We should step up and have a significant role in whatever agreements are being designed for the period following the Kyoto Protocol," Bingamon said.
What's really happening is the undermining of the climate deniers' position. Led by ExxonMobil , which funded millions of dollars of spurious science and congressional lobbying, climate deniers are becoming more and more marginalized, in part because the American 80 percent of the American public wants something done on global warming, and in part because other elites are recognizing the threat, like The Economist this week.
But that does not mean the battle is won. The folks preparing plans for reducing global warming emissions are not all looking out for our best interest. Accepting that climate change is real and that it is caused by the carbon released by human activity, predominantly the burning of fossil fuels, has major economic implications. Debating how to mitigate climate change is tantamount to debating how the future economy will be structured.
And the industries with the most to lose are big, centralized energy companies, be they oil or gas providers or electricity generators. The threat comes from new technology, in the form of efficiency advances, renewable energy and microgeneration, which together can address most of the problem and at the same time destroy the logic of these old-style energy companies business model.
That model is based on the assumption that energy production is best done at scale and far away from the ultimate consumer. This was true in the 20th century, but is no longer the case. Efficiency, renewables and microgeneration can eliminate the need to build new large-scale generators or new hydrogen fuel distribution networks. Those large capital investments, however, are the core of the energy companies arguments for continued government subsidies and tolerance of monopolistic behavior. Nuclear power is the ultimate case: Dependent on subsidies for research, construction, fuel disposal and insurance, nuclear power cannot work without government approval.
In the opposite corner are the likes of Honda, and interestingly, BP. Honda has revealed the prototype of a home energy station that would convert solar power into heat, electricity and hydrogen for your car. Combined with the 70 percent efficient homes being designed by the DoE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Honda's decentralizing innovation is a shot across the bow. BP, a major oil company and the largest producer of solar energy systems, is starting to team up with Home Depot to further push out solar systems to the household, as the head of BP, Lord Browne, discussed at the Brookings Institution recently.
And that's a real threat to big energy. So it's not a surprise that the World Business Council on Sustainable Development just released a report in Montreal that argues for the preservation of centralized energy production. "Carbon-free energy sources such as nuclear power will need to grow together with alternative sources such as hydropower, wind, geothermal, wave and tidal power." Look closely. Solar didn't make their list—because it's too distributed for these old business models to incorporate. Neither did biofuels. Yet a 2001 study on the future of the energy industry by Shell revealed that it's solar and geothermal that are the big global sources of renewable power. Big enough to replace fossil fuels and nuclear and provide more than adequate energy to the 10 billion people on the planet in 2050. Do we really want tens of thousands of nuclear power plants scattered around the world?
The real opportunity cost for America, however, is the spate of innovation, manufacturing and construction a shift from centralized to renewable energy would entail. Rebuilding our communities to use energy more intelligently provides the a powerful and long-term source of domestic economic growth our economists say America is desperate for. And shifting to renewables means we can help the rest of the developing world, 4.5 billion people, get a shot at a better life. If we stick to centralized energy, suburban sprawl and inefficient consumption, we'll be forced to subsidized it from a treasury that is already trillions in the red. Preserving the old economy is just not a viable option.
These debates over climate change are debates about the future of America. While it is sad that it takes dramatic news like the shutting down of the Atlantic currents to spur some into action, it's essential now that the debate not be limited to how the energy industry giants want to divide up their hard-earned subsidies.
Climate change offers an entry point to really fix what's wrong with America. It's time for progressives to get serious before the debate is done.
--Patrick Doherty |
Wednesday, December 7, 2005 11:55 AM
