[THS] !!!! James Hansen: Timeline for Irreversible Climate Change

[Peter Webster]

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/042308EA.shtml

Timeline for Irreversible Climate Change
    By James Hansen
    YaleGlobal Online

    Wednesday 23 April 2008

    Fifty years ago, Yankee Stadium had about 70,000 seats. It seldom
sold out, and almost any kid could afford the cheapest seats. Capacity
was reduced to about 57,000 when the stadium was remodeled in the
1970s. Most games sell out now, and prices have gone up.

    The new stadium, opening next year, will reduce seating to about
51,800. This intentional contraction is aimed at guaranteeing sellouts,
increasing demand, allowing the owners, in short order, to triple prices
or more. The owners have learned that scarcity will fatten their wallets.
The plan may discriminate against the lower middle class, but as long as
the owner is footing the bill without public subsidies, there may be little
grounds for complaint.

    Now fossil-fuel moguls are intent on hoodwinking the entire planet
with an analogous scheme.

    The basic trick is oil producers overstating fossil-fuel reserves.
Government "energy information" departments parrot industry. Partly
because of disinformation, the major efforts needed to develop
alternative energies have not been made.

    The reality of limited supply forces prices higher. Eventually, sales
volume will begin to decline, but fossil-fuel moguls will make more
money than ever. They'll continue to assert that there's plenty more oil,
gas or coal to be found, aiming to keep the suckers on the hook.
Indeed, they may find somewhat more in the deep ocean, under
national parks, in polar regions, offshore, and in other environmentally
sensitive areas. They don't need much to keep the suckers paying
higher and higher prices.

    Oil "reserves" suddenly doubled when Organization for the Petroleum
Exporting Countries decided that production quotas would be
proportional to official reserves. These higher reserves are, at least in
part, phantom. Coal "reserves" are based on estimates made many
decades ago. Closer study shows that extractable coal reserves are
vastly overstated, consistent with present production difficulties and
rising prices. The presumed 200-year supply of coal in the United States
is a myth, but it serves industry moguls well.

    Conventional fossil-fuel supplies are limited, even if we tear up the
Earth to extract every last drop of oil and shard of coal. Tearing up the
Earth to get at those last drops - Exxon/Mobil proudly advertises that
they're drilling the depths of the ocean and searching the most extreme
pristine environments - is as insane as the smoker who trudged 4 miles
through a raging storm to buy a pack of Camel cigarettes to feed his
nicotine addiction.

    It would be possible to find more fossil fuels, and extend our
addiction and pollution of the environment, should we be so foolish as
to take the path of extracting unconventional fossil fuels such as tar
shale and tar sands on a large scale. That choice cannot be left to the
discretion of industry moguls. The planet does not belong to them.

    Basic facts on reserves must be combined with basic climate facts
described in the paper "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should
Humanity Aim?"

    Our conclusion is that, if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar
to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is
adapted, CO2 must be reduced from its present 385 ppm (parts per
million) to, at most, 350 ppm. We find that peak CO2 can be kept to
about 425 ppm, with large estimates for oil and gas reserves, if coal use
is phased out by 2030 (except where CO2 is captured and sequestered)
and unconventional fossil fuels are not tapped substantially. Peak CO2
can be kept close to 400 ppm, if actual reserves are closer to those
estimated by "peakists," who believe that the globe is already at peak
global oil production, having extracted about half of readily extractable
oil resources.

    This lower 400 ppm peak can be ensured, assuming phase-out of
coal emissions by 2030, if a practical limit on reserves is achieved by
means of actions that prevent fossil-fuel extraction from public lands,
off-shore regions under government control, environmentally pristine
regions and extreme environments. The concerned public can influence
this matter, but time is short, the industry voice is strong and climate
effects have not yet become so obvious to the public as to overwhelm
the disinformation from industry moguls.

    A near-term moratorium on coal-fired power plants and constraints
on oil extraction in extreme environments are essential, because once
CO2 is emitted to the air much of it will remain there for centuries.
Improved agricultural and forestry practices, mostly reforestation, could
draw down atmospheric CO2 about 50 ppm by the end of the century.
But a greater drawdown by such more-or-less natural methods seems
impractical, making a long-term overshoot of the 350 ppm target level,
with potentially disastrous consequences, a near certainty if the world
stays on its business-as-usual course.

    If we choose a different path, which permits the possibility of
achieving 350 ppm CO2 or lower this century, we can minimize the
chance of passing tipping points that spiral out of control, such as
disintegration of ice sheets, rapid sea level rise and extermination of
countless species. At the same time, we could solve problems that seem
intractable, such as acidification of the ocean with consequent loss of
coral reefs.

    In any event, we must move beyond fossil fuels soon, because a
large fraction of CO2 emissions will linger in the atmosphere for many
centuries.

    The world must move to zero fossil-fuel emissions. This is a fact, a
certainty. So why not do it sooner, in time to avert climate crises? At the
same time, we halt other pollution that comes from fossil fuels, including
mercury pollution, conventional air pollution, problems stemming from
mountain-top removal and more.

    Breaking an addiction is not easy. But we may be like the smoker
who trudged four miles through rain to get a pack of Camels - when he
got back to his motel he threw the pack away and never smoked again.

    Fossil-fuel addiction is more difficult - one person's epiphany cannot
solve the problem. This problem requires global cooperation. We must
be on a new path within the next several years, or reducing CO2 levels
this century becomes implausible. Developed countries, the source of
most excess CO2 in the air today, must lead in developing clean energy
and halting emissions. Yet it is hardly a sacrifice: "Green" jobs will be an
economic stimulus and a boon to worker well-being.

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    Jim Hansen is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space
Studies and adjunct professor of earth and environmental sciences at
Columbia University's Earth Institute. Click here to read the "Target
Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?"

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