I grappling with the role of sustainability post-Copenhagen. It just strikes me as so much fiddling while Rome literally burns. While Obama put a happy face on agreements reached there, I can't imagine how people can see it as anything but a dismal failure. A recent editorial does a good job of capturing some key issues, though it paints a picture that's a bit too rosy for my taste. The IPCC is a key scientific group established to provide decision-makers with accurate scientific information. By the way, you won't find any information here from climate change skeptics. That's a waste of time and crucial energy that you can go and research yourself if you so choose. China and the U.S. haggle over crumbs that take on a 'he said she said' quality which is utterly short-term. While the U.S. has its hands bloody in this argument, China again once again rings the sovereignty bell arguing that climate change limitations mess with their sover...
The often cited study by Mark Jacobson et. al. that asserts it's economic to replace every fossil fuel use with either electricity from wind, water, and sun (WWS-only) or hydrogen produced using WWS-only in 139 countries over the next 33 years implies a massive construction program the likes of which we may not have ever seen. I find it useful to compare the implied construction program to what we have experienced in the recent past. Click here to see his paper on the 50 U.S. states. Over the next 33 years, even under his extraordinary drop in total electric load, he envisions approximately 5.8 million MW of new generation are needed (plus an additional 600GW for peaking and system stability). He reports that as of 2013, 2.71% (of 5.8 million MW) is currently installed, or approximately1.6 million MW. Such quantities indicate an extraordinary construction program, especially since the U.S. installed capacity rose by only about 177,400MWs over the eight year pe...
The fundamental problem , I think, is that the globe is already above the CO2 concentration that is widely considered to allow for sustainability. This makes this problem very difficult to solve politically since it requires people to change just to get back on target. In economics terms, we have a surplus of CO2 and a shortage of carrying capacity. This is a very different problem than if we'd be starting with a surplus of carrying capacity. Here's an analogy. Let's say you have a bakery and another bakery is going to open. Yet, there doesn't seem to be enough people around to support both bakeries. What to do? Contrast this with the situation where the same circumstances exist except one - there's demand for baked goods that's been going unmet. Ah, very different problem. Right now, the situation we're in with Co2 is closer to the former situation. Whose willing to make changes in order to share the carrying capacity? ...
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