Climate Change and The Energy Crisis: Part 1

I was talking recently about energy reform with a colleague at work who works in D.C. quite a bit. He mentioned how even though it may hold greater long term importance, many politicians have put off energy bills until after the health care issues are ironed out. So, I'm pretty antsy to discuss the National Health Care Reform activity going on, but I'm not too knowledgeable yet, so I want to learn more before discussing. So I'm moving on to the second most important issue in my mind today: climate change and energy. There's a lot I want to talk about here, so I'm breaking it up into some parts: Part 1, general intro and background information regarding climate change; Part 2, why we need to change our energy infrastructure and what options are out there.

The late part of the 19th century and first half of the 20th century was a remarkable time in this country. Industry went through a dramatic reform, lead by substantial improvements to manufacturing methods by industrialists like Henry Ford. The way things were designed, manufactured and assembled was revolutionized. Henry Ford realized that if he could make a car that was less expensive to purchase, more people would buy them, allowing them to get to work easier, travel more, etc. During the decades to follow, this proved to have a dramatic impact on the productivity and efficiency of the American population. In 1911, sales of the Model T totaled about 40,000. By 1927, Ford had sold 15 million. During this time period, America's economy was booming and things were very, very good.

We face the need for a revolution of a different sort today. To be honest, I'm sick of people saying that Climate Change is not a serious issue. The fact that lobbyists, oil executives, and even some politicians can pretend that this isn't a serious issue is unbelievable in my mind. Scientists, researchers, and engineers all across the world have presented statistical evidence supporting the negative impacts of human-related green house gases to the Earth's climate patterns. Kind of ironic that most of these green house gases are attributed to the very same technologies that came out of the First Industrial Revolution, isn't it? Before I get too far into this discussion, I'd like to present some of the facts.

As my interest in this field has developed over the last few years, I was intrigued to find out more details about climate change from someone other than the television. So, I took a class last spring at NU called Global Climate Change, given by Daniel Douglass. I wasn't sure how in depth it would be, but I figured it couldn't hurt and I'd learn a decent amount. It ended up being one of the better classes I've taken at Northeastern and provided me with pretty good resources and knowledge on the subject.

The fact of the matter is, human activity since 1850 has definitely increased the concentration of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) in the Earth's atmosphere. The most dangerous of these include carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, nitrous oxide and ozone. I'll try not to get too detailed, but a brief background about the greenhouse effect is helpful if you want to form an actual opinion on this subject. (Sidenote: this is the kind of info that the quick-fix media usually chooses to omit, sometimes leaving the audience without an adequate knowledge to make an assessment.)

There are two main types of radiation acting in the atmosphere: short-wave solar radiation coming from the sun and long-wave thermal radiation that reflects off the surface of the planet. Of all the solar radiation which reaches the Earth's surface, 30% is reflected off the surface (this reflection percentage is known as the Earth's albedo). This creates a net influx of energy and the surface of the Earth naturally heats up. A common misconception is that Global Warming itself is the problem, but in fact it is a completely natural process that has ebbed and flowed for billions of years. Granted, it is what creates cold and hot periods, but there is nothing we can do to effect this normal process.

Abnormalities in warming patterns is clearly evident starting around 1850 (hmm, this is just about the time of the start of the industrial revolution, isn't it?). Automobile use, industry emissions, methane release in landfills, and a number of other human activities are all examples of processes that occur every day, and the frequency of these events will continue to increase as our population continues to grow. Currently, these activities require fossil fuel use for energy, and GHGs are subsequently released and linger in the atmosphere. This creates a "barrier" of sorts that acts to re-reflect energy back towards the Earth's surface, heating it up even more. The interesting point here is, solar radiation is only acting during the daytime, but this re-reflection occurs 24/7 all around the world and therefore has a significant impact.

Some argue that we can't clearly define what's causing the Earth's temperature to continue to rise. For lack of better words, I think this is bullshit. The International Panel on Climate Change was established by the UN to report the current state of climate change and its potential consequences from a scientific perspective. In their 2007 Summary for Policymakers, they reported the following: "Carbon dioxide is the most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas. The global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased from a pre-industrial value of about 280ppm to 379ppm in 2005." Over the last 10 years, the annual increase in the concentration of Carbon Dioxide has dramatically increased compared to what it was even 50 years ago. They continue, "The primary source of the increased atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide since the pre-industrial period results from fossil fuel use." And, this is only carbon dioxide. Methane never seems to get much attention from the press, but when it remains in the atmosphere it is much more harmful than carbon dioxide.

In scientific terms, what will happen in the future because of these events is difficult predict, mainly due to the complexity of the Earth's climate and difficulty in producing computer models which take everything at once into account. However, scientists are still able to obtain a good idea of what probably will happen. In general, warm places are going to get warmer and cool places are going to get cooler. Sea levels are estimated to rise 0.2 meters to 0.6 meters over the next 100 years. That may not seem like a lot to you, but this is throughout the entire world! 0.2 meters is over 1/2 a foot, and these are conservative estimates! That's pretty much saying that by 2100, the majority of coastal areas (i.e. large sea ports and cities) will experience significant flooding. This then requires substantial renovations to buildings, roads, bridges, homes, ....well you get the picture.

This information is coming from the world's best scientists and is in pretty simple terms. But, somehow, there are big businesses, politicians and policymakers who can't understand the significance and urgent need for changes to our energy infrastructure. I understand it will take a lot of money and work to redefine our energy infrastructure, especially here in America. But instead, we choose to drill for oil in Alaska and in fishing areas and continue to build new cars and produce this so-called "clean coal" we hear of, and come up with all these excuses to avoid the actual solution. We need to stop relying on fossil-fuel based technologies and start to heavily invest in clean, fossil-fuel independent solutions.

It's not that difficult to understand.