SET Energy

Climate change is shifting our planet every day. Scientists today reported dramatic ice shelf losses in northern Canada, ten times the size predicted for this summer. For the first time in human history, both the Northwest and Northeast Passages are navigable due to rapid Arctic sea ice melting. Losing all Arctic sea ice (a cooling northern parasol for the Earth) as most analysts predict will occur by 2020 would accelerate the quick Greenland melting with its potential to displace tens of millions in the decades ahead. The scariest part is that melting is occurring much more rapidly than models predict. And we are coming dangerously close to positive feedback tipping points like the release of methane from melting arctic tundra. If we do not replace our fossil fuel energy infrastructure with clean renewables over the next two decades we will be made much poorer by the symptoms of an unstable climate.

One of those symptoms is an increase in the intensity of hurricanes. We got lucky that Hurricane Gustav went over cooler water during part of its march to Louisiana or it may have been a repeat of Hurricane Katrina. Global warming will increase the temperature of our oceans, leaving less cool spots to slow down mighty hurricanes of the future. Just look at the row of Tropical Storms Hanna, Ike and Josephine in the Atlantic right now. If the ocean waters were warm enough, they could all become catastrophic Category 5 hurricanes (as long as the wind shear was also favorable). Good policy must take the potential regularity of such storms into account to ensure we don’t choose new coal plants to save millions in the short-term, a move that could cost us billions in the long-term. The Stern Review published in late 2006 showed the cost of mitigation today is cheaper than the consequences of unmitigated climate change tomorrow (and that was without today’s high fossil fuel prices making mitigation relatively cheaper). To start, we can follow climate scholar James Hansen’s advice and refrain from building any more coal power plants without carbon capture and sequestration.

We must accelerate the sustainable energy transition to keep Greenland’s water locked up in ice rather washing away millions of homes from Bangladesh to Louisiana!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 9:49 am and is filed under Climate Change, Coal, Daily Recap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.