THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT
HAROLD BERNARD
HARPER COLOPON BOOKS 1980
PART III
Chapter 12: The Ultimate Pollutant (Continued)
Alaskan camels
- We might have to rely on the 125,000-year-old indications to get a feel for what the CO2-fostered climate of 2030 to 2040 may be like on a global scale.
- A climatic warming of 4 or 5ºF would thrust the world into a climatic environment similar to one that prevailed about 4,000 to 8,000 years ago – an era called the Post-Glacial Optimum, or the Altithermal Period.
- Evidence for the precipitation patterns and attendant temperature regimes was gathered from exhaustive studies of marine and animal fossils, vegetation and bog growth patterns, tree growth rings, ice cores, and pollen buried sediments – climatic records etched in nature’s log book.
- In northern latitudes, the Arctic Ocean then was probably ice-free during the summers, but not year round. Camel remains found in Alaska and tiger fossils uncovered in the New Siberian Islands at approximately 75ºN suggest that the contemporary climate in those regions was at least temperate (although probably not tropical).
- Vegetation belts were displaced northward and to greater heights above sea level than is now the case. The snow line in central Europe was about 1,000 feet above present elevations.
- Areas benefiting from increased precipitation were North Africa (the Sahara) and the deserts of the Near East, thanks to more widespread summer monsoon rains.
The age of reptiles
- Let us suppose that through a decision to allow the continued use of fossil fuels the full magnitude of the greenhouse threat becomes actual. In a geological time sense we would probably be near the end of the Mesozoic Era, – the ‘Time of Great Dying/the ‘Age of Reptiles’ – which occurred about 2 million years ago.
- It was a period when the dinosaurs disappeared from earth and many small marine organisms became extinct, due to a relatively quick and significant climatic warming intense enough to melt the ice covering the Arctic Ocean.
- A huge portion of the world’s food supply could fall victim to the greenhouse threat by early in the 22nd century. There might be severe winters that seemed to have complemented the climatic warmings of the 1930s and the Middle Ages.
Crocodiles in New York
- Eventually the climate of the entire earth would become tropical, if not unbearable. Over the course of several thousand years the oceans would rise to levels as much as 250 feet over what they are now.
- Entire states and countries would disappear under water. Many of the world’s major cities would cease to exist. About 20% of the earth’s present land area would be lost; however, there would be a gain of about 10% from land uncovered by melting ice and snow.
Fifty years to switch fuels
- Let us assume that we are able to limit the world’s energy growth to around 3% or a little less over the next few decades, and that nonfossil energy sources dominate shortly after the turn of the century. The end result would probably be a climatic warming of slightly over 2ºF by the year 2050.
- The analysis of ‘market penetration time’ – the time required by a new energy source to increase its share of total energy production from 1% to 50% – suggests that it may take at least 50 years to replace fossil fuels with nonfossil fuels.
- The optimistic scenario has no chance unless we begin acting swiftly. The technology is here but a determined and immediate political, social, and economic effort is required to bring the strength of that technology to bear on the problem.
- The key is immediacy. If we procrastinate for another 10 or 20 years, technology may not be able to bail us out. In that circumstance the greenhouse threat could well control our destiny.
Winners and losers
- Let us imagine ourselves 50 years from now entering an Altithermal-type climate, the climate regime that prevailed 4,000 to 8,000 years ago.
- It suggests immense water supply problems in the western United States, stifling western farming. Beyond US water supply, the changed precipitation and temperature pattern of the Altithermal Period have significant and far-reaching implications for the future of agriculture on a global scale.
- The earth’s population is currently a little over four billion people and by the middle of the next century at least 10 billion inhabitants will be competing for food, shelter and energy.
- Record crops in recent years, thanks largely to good weather, have made us forget how dangerously low our food reserves were in the mid-1970s. In 1976, world grain reserves had dwindled to just 31 days.
- The difference between a good harvest year, and a bad one (such as 1972 or 1974) amounts to about 10%, or 36 days, of annual consumption.
- There is a lot of cultivable land left in the world. The total amount of land on the surface of the earth is 32 billion acres, of which about 8 billion acres are under cultivation. That leaves over 4 billion additional acres that could be used to grow food.
- The southern Sudan, the great plains of Central Africa, could grow enough food to feed the present world population all by itself. And the Ganges plains of India turn out to be one of the most fertile regions on earth, capable of producing as much food as all the US wheat lands.
- Under the Altithermal Period climate scenario, both the Sudan and India would be ‘winners’ in terms of precipitation: they would get more of it. That makes them even more attractive as major world breadbaskets.
- Another winner would be Russia. If the Russians were able to divert water from northward flowing rivers to new lands, they could double their grain production.
- On the losers side of the ledger, chalk up the United States; US grain production would likely decline under an Altithermal-type regime. In combination with the water supply miseries likely with a warming world the economic impact on the United States could be staggering.
- The biggest single item eating away at our balance of payments now is imported oil – a fossil fuel. Our continued reliance on the fossils may come back to haunt us ad infinitum: the fossils leading to anthropogenic climate change, which leads to drought, which leads to diminished crop yields, which lead to diminished exports, which lead to ever larger deficits in our balance of payments.
- It would seem almost mandatory that we develop contingency plans for redefining agricultural areas such as the great wheat growing regions of the Midwest being shifted eastward into the Ohio Valley; or plan that soybeans, a more resilient crop, be grown with greatly expanded acreage in Missouri and Arkansas; or replacing tobacco crops with foods crops in Kentucky and the Carolinas.
- One thing is certain, none of us will live to see the cost of eating recede. By facing the greenhouse threat we can perhaps lower the potential for a dizzying spiral in food prices. Later is always more expensive.
Chapter 13: The Energy Outlook
- The United States, as the world’s leading energy consumer, could blaze the trail towards reliance upon nonfossil, renewable energy.
Growing more trees
- If we were to cease burning carbon-based fuels once we realized the damage we had done, natural processes would require centuries to remove the excess CO2 from the atmosphere.
- Until carbon dioxide is considered a pollutant there will be no incentives for industry to develop and employ CO2 scrubbers. The best control measure is to grow more trees.
Our energy future
- Unquestionably the best solution of all is to quickly diminish our reliance on fossil fuels and remove the problem before it has a chance to overcome us.
The best resource
- There is one resource with the greatest short-term potential of all: conservation. The United States is tremendously wasteful of energy. We have but 6% of the earth’s population, yet we consume 30% of the world’s energy.
- With only minor life-style adjustments and no decline in economic growth, the United States by the end of the century could consume 30% to 40% less energy than it does today.
- Energy conservation is the cheapest, cleanest, most readily available, and most efficient of our energy resources. It is a resource we can all tap, and individually control. It is the cornerstone of our energy future.
- In the sense that soaring energy cost is the arch-villain of inflation, conservation is also the cornerstone of our economic future.
Chapter 14: What Can We Do?
- The Greenhouse Effect has presented – based on the knowledge available at the end of the 1970s – a sequence of climatic transitions quite possible over the next hundred years or so.
Action before knowledge
- We are not going to make the assessment that anybody will really believe until we see an actual rise in temperature. That is liable to take many years. However, we do not have a tolerance of many years in which to react to the problem.
- In consideration of the severe climatic consequences that may befall us, action to step away from fossil fuels must begin now.
An amalgam of issues
- Seen in a wider perspective, the folly of our continued dependence on fossil fuels becomes undeniable. The key issue is the enormous climatic consequences we face when the greenhouse threat becomes reality.
- The effects may be particularly harsh in the Midwestern United States, the heart of American agriculture.
- There is the obvious need to lower our dependence on foreign petroleum as rapidly as possible. The US economy is at the mercy of OPEC, and we remain open to the latent threat of blackmail by countries that control 10% of our energy resources.
- There is the ultimate necessity of developing renewable energy resources; world oil and gas production will peak shortly, and although coal remains in abundance, its environmental and health-related drawbacks are so severe that its future is limited. Synfuels face many of the same problems as coal.
- It will take us roughly half a century to switch from one primary source to another. It makes sense to begin immediately turning toward replenishable forms of energy.
- The longer we delay the decision, the longer we expose ourselves to environmental, economic, and social threats, the more vulnerable we become.
The unsophisticated technology
- Conservation can reduce our energy costs, lessen our dependence on foreign sources, diminish the amount of CO2 we are spewing into the air, and buy us the necessary time to develop the renewable energy resources we so desperately need. The time of cheap, plentiful energy is gone.
‘A damned good decision’
- Portland, Oregon is implementing what has been called the boldest, most sweeping energy conservation program in the nation. Among the provisions are: 5 years to weatherize their homes to pass an energy audit; revise zoning laws to encourage increased population near public transit routes; provide information on solar technology for new construction; require trash haulers the free of charge option of separating their recyclable garbage.
- Seattle has made transit passes available as a permanent, cost-free fringe benefit to its employees.
Tax credits and golf carts
- California with about one-tenth of the US population has about one-quarter of the nation’s solar applications. CA voted in a 55% solar tax credit.
Gas and nukes
- The domestic production of natural gas – the least harmful of the fossil fuels – should be encouraged. A slow reasoned expansion of nuclear energy is required.
Doing better: national goals
- We should set a national target of a 20% cut in energy consumption by the end of the century, along with a 25% contribution from solar.