Earth Restoration Project

 

 

Animals are on the run.  Plants are migrating too.  The creatures on God's green Earth, save one, do not have thermostats in their living rooms that they can fix for an optimum environment.  Animals and plants are adapted to, and can survive in, only specific climate zones.  Indeed, scientists often define climate zones by the vegetation and animal life that they support.  Gardeners and birders are well aware of this, and their handbooks contain trusty maps of the zones in which a tree or flower can survive and the range of each bird species.

 

Those maps will have to be redrawn.  Most people, focusing on larger weather fluctuations, barely notice that climate, the average weather, is changing. In the 1980s I used colored dice that I hoped would help people spot global warming at an early stage.  The number of red (hot) sides of the dice increased from two (of six) sides for standard (1951-1980) climate to four sides for the first decade of the 21st century.  Just such an increase in the frequency of unusually warm seasons, in fact, has occurred.  But with today's hectic life styles and household thermostats, most people have taken little notice.

 

Animals have no choice, as their survival is at stake.  Recently I received this e-mail from a man in northeast Arkansas: "I enjoyed your report on Sixty Minutes and commend your strength.  I would like to tell you of an observation I have made.  It is the armadillo.  I had not seen one of these animals my entire life, until the last 10 years.  I drive the same 40-mile trip on the same road every day and have slowly watched these critters advance further north every year and they are not stopping.  Every year they move several miles."

 

Armadillos appear to be tough cookies and mobile enough to keep up with movement of their climatic zone.  They should be one of the surviving species. Of course, as they reach the city limits of St. Louis and Chicago, they may not be welcomed with open arms.  And their ingenuity may be taxed as they seek ways to ford rivers and multiple-lane highways.

 

Problems are greater for other species, as Tim Flannery, an acclaimed Australian mammalogist and conservationist, makes clear in The Weather Makers.  Ecosystems involve interdependencies, between flower and pollinator, hunter and hunted, grazers and plant life, so the less mobile species impact the survival of others.  Of course climate fluctuated in the past, yet species flourished.  But now the rate of human-driven climate change is reaching a level that dwarfs natural rates of change.  And human-made barriers, such as urban sprawl and homogeneous agricultural fields, block many migration routes. Natural barriers, such as coastlines, spell doom for some species, if climate change is too large.

 

 Studies of more than 1000 species of plants, animals and insects, including butterfly ranges charted by the public, found an average poleward migration rate of 4 miles per decade in the second half of the 20th century.  That is not fast enough.  In the past 30 years the lines marking a given average temperature ('isotherms') have been moving poleward at a rate of about 35 miles per decade. That is the size of a county in Iowa.  Each decade the range of a given species is moving one row of counties northward.

 

 As long as the total movement of isotherms is much smaller than habitat size, the effect on species is limited.  But now the movement is inexorably poleward and totals more than 100 miles over the past several decades.  If emissions of greenhouse gases continue to increase, as in 'business-as-usual' scenarios, the rate of isotherm movement will double in this century to at least 70 miles per decade.  If we continue on this path, a large fraction of the species on Earth will go extinct, as dead as a dodo bird, surviving only in pictures.

 

Species most at risk are those in polar climates and the biologically diverse slopes of alpine regions.  Polar animals, in effect, will be pushed off the planet. Alpine species will be pushed toward higher altitudes, smaller, rockier areas with thinner air, thus, in effect, also pushed off the planet.  A few iconic species, such as polar bears, no doubt will be 'rescued' by humans, but survival in zoos or managed animal reserves will be small consolation to bears or nature lovers.

 

In the Earth's history, coincident with global warmings of about 10 degrees Fahrenheit, there have been several 'mass extinctions', when 50-90 percent of the species on Earth disappeared forever.  Life survived and new species developed over hundreds of thousands of years.  The most recent of these mass extinctions defines the boundary, 55 million years ago, between the Paleocene and Eocene epochs.  The evolutionary turmoil associated with that climate change gave rise to a host of modern mammals, from rodents to primates, which appeared in fossil records for the first time in the early Eocene.

 

If humans follow a business-as-usual course, fully exploiting fossil fuel resources without carbon capture, the eventual effects on climate and life may be comparable to those at the time of mass extinctions.  Life will survive, but it will be a different planet.  For all foreseeable human generations, it will be a far more desolate planet than the one in which civilization developed and flourished over the past several thousand years.

 

2.  The greatest threat of climate change for humans, I believe, is destabilization of ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica.  Ice sheet disintegration, as species extinction, is irreversible for practical purposes.  Our children, grandchildren, and later generations will bear the consequences of choices that we make in the next few years.

 

Global sea level reflects changes of ice sheet volume and thus changes of global temperature.  When the planet cools, ice sheets grow on continents and sea level falls.  Conversely, when the Earth warms, ice melts and sea level rises. Elizabeth Kolbert's treks in Field Notes from a Catastrophe include interactions on the Greenland with researchers trying to understand accelerating melting, and Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth graphically illustrates possible effects of rising sea level on Florida and other locations.

 

 Ice sheets waxed and waned with the Earth's temperature over the past 500,000 years.  The Earth was about 10°F colder than today during the greatest ice ages.  So much water was locked in the largest ice sheet, more than a mile thick and covering most of Canada and northern parts of the United States, that sea level was 120 meters (400 feet) lower than today.  The warmest interglacial periods were about 2°F warmer than today and sea level was as much as 5 meters (16 feet) higher.

 

Future sea level rise will depend, dramatically, on the amount of global warming, and thus on increasing greenhouse gases.  As described in the books under review, greenhouse gases trap Earth's heat radiation, warming the surface as we are warmed when blankets are piled on our bed.  Carbon dioxide (CO2), produced mainly by burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas), is the most important human-made greenhouse gas.  Methane (CH4), which is 'natural gas' that escapes to the atmosphere from coalmines, oil wells, rice paddies, landfills, and feedlots, is also important.  Other significant warming agents are low level ozone and black soot, which arise mainly from incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biofuels.

 

Future climate change is studied for different 'scenarios' to aid policy development.  In 'business-as-usual' (BAU) scenarios annual emissions of CO2 continue to increase for at least 50 years, as do non-CO2 warming agents including CH4, ozone and black soot.  In the contrasting 'alternative scenario' (AS) CO2 emissions level off this decade, slowly decline for a few decades, and by mid-century are decreasing rapidly, aided by new technologies.

 

The BAU scenario yields about 5°F global warming this century, while AS yields less than 2°F.  Warming can be predicted accurately based on knowledge of how Earth responded to similar levels of forcing in the past.  Climate models by themselves yield similar answers.  However, the Earth's history provides a more precise sensitivity, and we know that the real world correctly included all feedback processes such as changes of clouds and water vapor.

 

How much will sea level rise with 5°F global warming?  Here too, our best information comes from the Earth's history.  The last time that the Earth was 5°F warmer was three million years ago, when sea level was about 80 feet higher.

 

Eighty feet!  The United States would lose most East Coast cities: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Miami, indeed, practically the entire state of Florida would be under water.  Fifty million people in the US live below that sea level.  Other places fare worse.  China would have 250 million displaced persons.  Bangladesh would produce 120 million refugees, practically the entire nation.  India would lose the land of 150 million people.

 

Sea level rise, necessarily, begins slowly.  Massive ice sheets must be softened and weakened before rapid disintegration occurs.  It may require as much as a few centuries to produce most of the long-term response.  But ice sheet inertia is not our ally.  The Earth's history reveals cases in which sea level, once collapse began, rose 1-meter (1.1 yards) every 20 years for centuries.  That would be a calamity for hundreds of cities around the world, most far larger than the village of New Orleans.  Devastation from a rising sea occurs at times of local storms, implying repeated retreats and rebuilding above transitory shorelines.

 

Satellite data reveal the initial ice sheet response to global warming.  The area on Greenland with summer melt increased more than 50 percent in the last 25 years.  Melt-water descends through crevasses to the ice sheet base, lubricating ice streams that discharge giant icebergs to the ocean.  Iceberg discharge from Greenland doubled in the last 10 years.  Seismic stations reveal a shocking increase of 'earthquakes' on Greenland, caused by a portion of ice sheet lurching forward and grinding to a halt.  The annual number of these 'icequakes' registering 4.6 or greater on the Richter scale doubled from 7 in 1993 to 14 in the late 1990s and doubled again by 2005.  A precise gravity satellite found the mass of Greenland to decrease by 50 cubic miles of ice in 2005.  West Antarctica's mass decreased a similar amount.

 

The effect of this ice loss on global sea level is small, so far, but accelerating. Likelihood of dynamical nonlinear (sudden) ice sheet collapse increases as global warming grows and positive feedbacks (wet ice is darker absorbing more sunlight, warming ocean melts buttressing ice shelves, ice surface sinks to lower, warmer level) come into play.  Implications of recent ice sheet data will not be fully reflected in the 2007 United Nations climate report, whose methodical preparation began years ago and is strongly influenced by authors of the prior report that predicted no significant contribution of ice sheets to sea level.

 

The BAU scenario, with 5°F global warming (10°F at the ice sheets), certainly would cause ice sheet disintegration.  The only question is when collapse would begin.  BAU, headed toward eventual 80-foot sea level rise, with 20 feet or more per century, could produce global chaos, leaving little resources for climate change mitigation.  The AS, with global warming under 2°F, still produces significant sea level rise, but its slower rate, probably less than a few feet per century, would allow time to develop adaptation and mitigation strategies.

 

3.  The Department of Energy and fossil fuel companies insist that continued growth of fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions are facts that cannot be altered to any great extent.  Their prophesies become self-fulfilling, with the help of government subsidies and extraordinary efforts by special interests to prevent the public from becoming well-informed about the dangers of global warming.

 

In reality, an AS is possible and makes sense for other reasons, especially in the US, which has become an energy importer, hemorrhaging wealth to foreign nations.  In response to oil shortage and price increase in the 1970s, the US slowed growth of energy use mainly by increasing the auto efficiency standard from 13 to 24 mpg.  Economic growth was decoupled from fossil fuel growth. As a technology leader, US efficiency gains had worldwide effects.  Global growth of CO2 emissions slowed from 4½ percent per year to 1½ percent per year.

 

This reduced growth rate was maintained despite falling real energy prices. The US is still only half as CO2-efficient as Western Europe, i.e., the US emits twice as much CO2 in producing a unit GNP, partly because Europe encourages efficiency via fossil fuel taxes.  China and India, using older technologies, are still less efficient than the US.

 

Available technologies would allow large efficiency gains, even in Europe. Economists agree that the potential could be achieved most effectively via a tax on carbon emissions.  Explanation to the public would require political leadership.  A carbon tax could be revenue neutral, i.e., balanced by tax decreases or credits for the segment of society affected by carbon taxes, and it should be introduced gradually.  A 'fat cat' with three Hummers would pay for his 'luxury'.  A 'little guy' making special effort to save energy could gain financially.

 

There are two major stumbling blocks for getting off the BAU scenario: vehicle efficiencies and power plant CO2 emissions.  Automakers oppose efficiency rules and promote their heaviest most powerful vehicles, which yield greatest short-term profits.  Coal companies want new coal-fired power plants soon, assuring life-long profits.

 

California has passed a regulation requiring 30 percent improvement in vehicle efficiency by 2016, as recommended by the National Research Council. If adopted nationwide, this regulation would save more than $150 billion annually in oil imports.  In 35 years it would save seven times the amount of oil estimated by the US Geological Services to exist in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Automakers and the federal administration have stymied the California law, which many other states stand ready to adopt, by fighting it in court.  The California regulation matches the requirement on vehicles to move from BAU to AS for 20 years.  Further emission reductions are possible with technologies in development.

 

Power plants can achieve the AS by avoiding construction of new coal-fired facilities until CO2 capture and sequestration technology is available. Meanwhile, new electricity needs should be covered by renewable energies, nuclear power, or other CO2-free sources.  Most energy growth can be avoided via improved end-use efficiencies that are available but underutilized without leadership that produces improved building, lighting, and appliance standards. The most effective approach, economists agree, would be a slowly-increasing carbon tax, which could be revenue-neutral, as discussed above for vehicles.

 

The AS I have been referring to was designed to be consistent with the Kyoto Protocol, i.e., with a world in which developed country emissions decrease slowly early this century and assistance is provided to help developing countries adopt clean efficient technologies.  However, aggressive pursuit of this approach faltered in the real world.  US refusal to participate in Kyoto and rapid growth in developing countries using dirty technologies have resulted in BAU growth (2 percent per year) of global CO2 emissions in the first half-decade of the 21st century.  If such growth continues another decade, emissions in 2015 and the infrastructure producing them will be 35 percent greater than in 2000, making it impractical to achieve a scenario resembling AS.

 

The situation is critical, because of a clear dichotomy between the AS and BAU scenarios.  Further global warming can be kept small (under 2°F) only via simultaneous slowdown of CO2 emissions and absolute reduction of principal non-CO2 climate forcing agents.  Reduction of CH4 (methane) is key, because CH4 is not only the second largest human-made climate forcing but also the main cause of increases of tropospheric ozone (O3), the third largest human-made greenhouse gas forcing.  Reduction of CH4 sources, e.g., at coalmines, landfills, and waste management facilities, is practical, but the question is whether these reductions will be overwhelmed by release of 'frozen methane' from melting permafrost or continental shelves.

 

If both CO2 slowdown and non-CO2 reductions of the AS are achieved, release of frozen methane should be moderate, judging from prior interglacial periods that were 1-2°F warmer than today.  But if CO2 is not limited and further warming reaches 3-4°F, all bets are off.  Indeed, there is evidence that greater warming could release substantial CH4 in the Arctic.  Much of the 10°F global warming that caused mass extinctions such as the one at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary, appears to have been due to release of frozen methane.  Such methane release probably requires centuries or millennia, but even a fraction is released this century it could prevent attainment of the AS and possibly cause effects such as ice sheet disintegration and further methane release that are out of our control.

 

Sensible environmental impact assessment must conclude that further global warming exceeding 2°F is dangerous.  Yet, because of global warming already in the pipeline, due to delay in climate system response and the lifetime of energy systems, the 2°F limit will be exceeded unless a change of direction is initiated this decade.  Unless this fact is widely communicated, and decision makers are responsive, it will soon be impossible to avoid climate change with far ranging undesirable consequences.  We have reached a critical tipping point.

 

4. Our planet's keeper, ultimately, is the public, as proven in the past.  The first human-made atmospheric crisis emerged in 1974, when chemists Sherry Rowland and Mario Molina reported that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) might destroy the stratospheric ozone layer that protects animal and plant life from harmful ultraviolet rays.  How narrowly we escaped disaster was not realized until years later (Tom Midgley, who invented CFCs and leaded gasoline, eventually committed suicide, a personal tragedy of unintended consequences).

 

CFCs appeared to be a marvelous inert chemical, so useful as an aerosol propellant, fire retardant, and refrigerant fluid, that for decades CFC production increased 10 percent per year.  If this business-as-usual growth of CFCs had continued just one more decade, stratospheric ozone would have been destroyed over the entire planet and CFCs would have caused a larger greenhouse effect than CO2.

 

Instead, the media reported Rowland and Molina's warning widely.  The public, urged by environmental groups, boycotted frivolous CFC usage as propellants for hair spray and deodorants, choosing non-CFC alternatives. Annual growth of CFC usage plummeted immediately from 10 percent to zero (constant usage).  Thus no new CFC production infrastructure was built.  The principal CFC manufacturer, after first questioning the science, focused on developing alternative chemicals.  When CFC usage in refrigeration began to climb and voluntary CFC phase-out proved ineffective, the US and European governments took leadership roles, negotiating the binding Montreal Protocol. Developing countries were allowed to increase CFC usage for a decade and they were provided financial assistance to construct alternative chemical plants. Result: CFCs are now decreasing, the ozone layer was damaged, but not destroyed, and it will soon be recovering.

 

Why is the same cast, which acted so heroically, failing miserably in the global warming crisis?  Blame can be shared.  Scientists present climate change scenarios clinically, failing to stress that BAU will yield a different planet. Media, despite overwhelming scientific consensus, give equal time to fringe 'contrarians' supported by the fossil fuel industry.  Special interests mount effective disinformation campaigns to sow doubt about the reality of global warming.  Government appears to be affected by special interests and fails to provide leadership - there seems to be no Winston Churchill today.  The public is understandably confused or disinterested.

 

I used to spread the blame uniformly until, when I was about to appear on public television, the host informed me that they "must" also include a contrarian disputing global warming.  Upon questioning, I learned this was a common practice in other media.  Supporters or advertisers, with special interests, require this 'balance' as a price for their continued financial support.  As a result, even when the science is clear enough, technical nit-picking by contrarians, who cannot or will not distinguish the forest from the trees, leaves the public with the impression that there is great scientific uncertainty about the reality and causes of global warming.

 

Fault can be directed at the executive and legislative branches of the US government for seeking excuses justifying inaction.  The President, despite conclusive reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Academy of Sciences, welcomes contrary advice from a science fiction writer.  Senator James Inhofe, Chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, describes global warming as "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" and uses McCarthy-like tactics to threaten and intimidate scientists.

 

The deceit is that policies favoring short-term profits of special interests are cast as being in the best economic interests of the country.  No account is taken of costs of environmental damage and future liabilities or costs of maintaining fossil fuel supply lines.  A long-term vision would place greater value on technology leadership in energy efficiency and clean energies.  Rather than subsidizing fossil fuels, the government should provide incentives for fossil-fuel companies to become broader energy companies.

 

Who will pay for future climate tragedies?  It will be none of the above players. History will judge scientists, media, special interests, and today's politicians harshly, if we pass the tipping point and climate tragedies begin to unfold.  But our children will pay the consequences.

 

The US may shoulder heavy legal and moral burdens.  We have produced almost 30 percent of fossil fuel CO2 emissions to date, dwarfing the next closest, China and Russia, each less than 8 percent.  Yet our responsibility and liability may run higher than those numbers suggest.  A court of justice might give leniency, if we had a valid claim to ignorance of consequences.  But that defense exists only in science fiction.  When nations must abandon their land because of rising seas, what will our liability be?  And will our children, as adults in the world, carry a burden of guilt, as Germans carried after World War II, however unfair inherited blame may be?

 

Responsibility of the US runs deeper than implied by emissions.  We delayed implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and weakened its effectiveness by refusing to participate, thus foiling the international community's attempt to slow developed country emissions consistent with the AS.  The Kyoto Protocol, with full participation, would have reduced growing emissions of China and India through the Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, thus easing later full participation by China and India, as occurred with the Montreal Protocol.  The US was right to object to unfair quotas in the Kyoto Protocol, but an appropriate response is to negotiate, because US political and technology leadership are essential for dealing with climate change.

 

It is not too late.  There have been prior world conflicts in which the US was not the first to enter the fray.  But enter we did, earning gratitude in the end, not condemnation.  Such an outcome is still feasible in the case of global warming, but just barely.

 

 

5. Most people feel stewardship toward the Earth, but can the public understand the climate issue and see through the smokescreen thrown up by special interests? Recently I met Larry King, who said "Nobody cares about 50 years from now." Maybe so.  But climate change is noticeable already.  And disastrous effects are no further from us than we are from the Elvis era, if we stay on the BAU course.

 

Is it possible for a single global warming book to energize the public, as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring did for the dangers of DDT?  Or perhaps a range of books covering different facets of the global warming story?

Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes, based on a series of articles she wrote for the New Yorker, is illuminating and sobering, and a good starter for anyone with even a bit of time.  The reader has the feeling of taking a trip around the world, talking with climate researchers in reasonably non-technical language, but without sacrificing scientific accuracy.  It includes fascinating accounts of how climate change affected people in the past, and climate changes that are occurring now.  If Field Notes leaves you yearning for more time in the field, I suggest On Thin Ice by Mark Bowen, which captures the heroic work of Lonnie Thompson in extracting unique information on climate change from some of the most forbidding and spectacular places on the planet.

 

Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers brings needed focus to the effect of human-made climate change on other life on the planet.  Flannery is an extraordinary scientist, having discovered and catalogued dozens of mammals in New Guinea, yet he writes for a popular audience with passion and clarity.  He considers climate scenarios that correspond to what I have defined as AS and BAU.  Flannery estimates that, given other human-made stresses on species, AS will lead to eventual extinction of 20 percent of today's species, while BAU will cause 60 percent extinction.  Colleagues will object that he extrapolates from meager data, but estimates are needed and Flannery is as qualified as anyone to make them.  Fossil records of mass extinctions support Flannery's shocking estimate of the potential for climate change to extinguish life.

 

Flannery concludes, as I have, that we have but a narrow window of time to address global warming, or it will run out of our control.  His call for individuals to reduce their CO2 emissions, while appropriate, oversimplifies and diverts attention from the essential requirement: government leadership.  Conservation of energy by individuals, without government leadership and policies, tends to be lost via a negative feedback as it reduces demand, lowers fuel price, and thus increases wastage.

 

Good energy policy, economists agree, is not difficult to define.  Fuel taxes should encourage conservation, but with rebates to taxpayers so that the government takes in no more money.  The taxpayer can use his rebate to fill his gas-guzzler if he likes, but, over time, most people will take actions to save money.  With slow continual increases of fuel cost, big changes and energy savings accrue.  The economy is not harmed.  Indeed, consider the reduced balance of payments deficit.  And reduced military costs for expeditions to maintain global fuel lines.  Our manufacturers would be forced to emphasize efficiency, making their products competitive internationally - our automakers need not go bankrupt!

 

 Would this approach result in fewer ultraheavy SUVs on the road?  Probably. Would it slow the trend toward bigger houses with higher ceilings?  Possibly. But efficiency experts emphasize that technology has so much efficiency potential that lifestyle need not decline.  But to tap the potential of efficiency, we should price energy to reflect its true cost to society.

 

Do we have politicians with the courage to explain to the public what is needed?  A chart I use in presentations, listing shortcomings of scientists, media, special interests, and politicians, summarizes the latter as: "no Winston Churchill today."  Are there no people today as smart and honest as Winston Churchill (or Abraham Lincoln), or are they just not electable, given today's media, campaign financing, and special interests?

 

That brings me to the Al Gore book and movie of the same name: An Inconvenient Truth.  Book and movie are highly nonstandard, based on a 'slide show' that Gore has given more than 1000 times over recent years.  They are filled with pictures - stunning pictures, maps, graphs, explanations, and people - people important in the global warming story or in Al Gore's life.  I find the movie to be gripping and the book a perfect complement, as it makes the images indelible and fills in useful explanations.  But it is hard to predict how this unusual presentation will be received by the public.

 

It is clear that Al Gore has put together a coherent presentation of a complex topic that the public desperately needs to understand now.  Honed over years, the story is faithful to scientific accuracy and yet understandable to the public, a public that is less and less tuned into science.  The nonstandard format undoubtedly is intentional, aimed at being attractive and accessible to the broadest possible audience.  Gore, probably better than anyone, understands who is our planet's keeper.

 

 A digression: the reader might assume that I have long been close to Gore, as I testified to his Senate committee in 1989 and participated in scientific 'roundtable' discussions in his Senate office.  That would be inaccurate.  Indeed, I displeased Gore when I declined to provide climate model generated images of increasing droughts (I did not trust the model's precipitation).  And, after Clinton and Gore were elected, I declined a suggestion from the White House to rebut a New York Times op-ed that downplayed global warming and criticized the Vice President.  I did not hear from Gore for more than a decade, until January this year, when he asked me to critically review his slide show.  When we met, he said that he "wanted to apologize," but, without letting him explain what he was apologizing for, I interjected "your insight was better than mine."

 

Indeed, Gore was prescient, if not President.  For decades he maintained that the Earth was teetering in the balance, even when doing so subjected him to ridicule from other politicians and cost him votes.  By "connecting the dots" comprehensively and telling the story clearly, in both book and movie, Al Gore may have found a recipe for the Silent Spring of global warming.  He will be attacked, but the public will have information to see special interests for what they are.

 

An Inconvenient Truth is about Al Gore, the man, as well as global warming. Critics may say that it is too much Al Gore.  But it shows the Al Gore that I met at scientific roundtable discussions, passionate and knowledgeable, true to the message he has delivered for years.  It makes one wonder did we, the public, allow the media to define Al Gore?  Perhaps we were close to having a Winston Churchill in the Presidency, but did not realize it?