Tag: The Climate Reality Project

Earlier this century India and China decided to build fleets of coal-fired power plants as their citizenry entered a world most Americans and Europeans already knew for its modernity and comparative affluence. The two populous states required more electricity.

Carbon emissions from the new plants have come home to roost. According to the International Energy Agency,

Global energy consumption in 2018 increased at nearly twice the average rate of growth since 2010, driven by a robust global economy and higher heating and cooling needs in some parts of the world. Demand for all fuels increased, led by natural gas, even as solar and wind posted double digit growth. Higher electricity demand was responsible for over half of the growth in energy needs. Energy efficiency saw lacklustre improvement. As a result of higher energy consumption, CO2 emissions rose 1.7 percent last year and hit a new record.

China, the United States, and India together accounted for nearly 70 percent of the rise in energy demand, according to the report. Failure to reduce carbon emissions is a result of the lack of political will to adopt renewables as aggressively as their lower cost warrants.

Having lived through the India-China build-out of coal plants, I understand why and importantly that they are planning renewables and to some extent, natural gas and nuclear power, for new electricity generation. The writing is on the wall for coal’s hegemony according to Energy Innovation:

America has officially entered the “coal cost crossover” – where existing coal is increasingly more expensive than cleaner alternatives. Today, local wind and solar could replace approximately 74 percent of the U.S. coal fleet at an immediate savings to customers. By 2025, this number grows to 86 percent of the coal fleet.

While their analysis does not adequately consider stranded costs, it is doubtful India or China will abandon coal-fired power plants built since the turn of the century as they are comparatively new. That is, unless the climate crisis is adequately recognized by governments.

Any doubt climate change is real? The New York Times reported on the flooding in Hamburg, Iowa:

“I’m looking at global warming — I don’t need to see the graphs,” said Hamburg, Iowa’s mayor, Cathy Crain, referring to the role of climate change in increasing the frequency of extreme weather events. After two record-setting floods in a single decade, Ms. Crain said, “I’m living it and everybody else here is living it.”

We shouldn’t be shocked by the International Energy Agency report as rising emissions were planned by China, India and the United States a long time ago. There is a long tail on carbon emissions and government is largely responsible to turn the corner. The report highlights we are going the wrong direction.

How many more tragic incidents like the one in Hamburg are necessary before government acts on climate? More people are ready to act on climate now but we haven’t reached our politicians… yet.

Every few years, interest in climate change spikes, according to internet search frequency reported by Google Trends. When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released their special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5º C above pre-industrial levels on Oct. 8, searches spiked again. Searches are already trending downward.

Newspapers in our area ran stories about climate change, about one a day in recent weeks. Is there a new window of opportunity to act on climate? I doubt it. There is no window because the walls of the house we used to live in have been blown out.

It is time to act on climate.

Every environmental activist has a to-do list. Mine has four parts.

Reduce, reuse and recycle personally. I don’t seek to create a livable environment for me only as the late George Carlin derisively asserted about environmentalists. It is better to buy only food the household can use rather than let it go to waste. We live a life of making do with old clothing, old cars, and recycling single use bread and celery bags for our garden crops. It remains important to have a discussion with Waste Management about why they won’t recycle plastic. If enough people do it, maybe they will find a better way than baling and shipping it overseas or discarding it in landfills. This is a starting point for almost everyone.

Band together with like-minded people. We walk a tightrope in life in which the risks are many. On one side, we avoid the insularity of confirmation bias in which like minded people often find themselves. On the other, we are stronger together. A recent Stanford University study of 30 years of data about street protests found “citizen activism, which has been shown to impact state and firm policy decisions, also impacts electoral outcomes.” A single voice can be amplified if it joins a chorus of hundreds or thousands.

Advocate with elected officials to mitigate the effects of climate change. There is an art to political advocacy. Where groups have been successful, we found common ground with people of divergent backgrounds to unify around a single action. This is partly how we stopped two new coal-fired power plants from being built in Iowa. It is also how we changed the minds of legislators regarding new nuclear power plants in the state. Two tactics serve little purpose: contacting a legislator every time we disagree with any action they take, and group think of people who advocate for a carbon tax as their primary method to combat climate change. We must understand the diversity of solutions to the climate crisis, keep our powder dry for when it matters most, then act in unison.

Help educate people on the threat of unaddressed climate change. It goes without saying there is uneven understanding about the impacts of climate change in society. My popular post, Climate Change in 200 Words explains the basic science, about which there is little disagreement from even the most strident climate deniers. Where society gets hit hardest is in the impacts of warmer atmosphere and oceans. The news is full of examples. Few people have missed the fires in California, hurricanes in Florida, Texas and New Jersey, or the severe 2012 drought in Iowa. All of these events were made worse by global warming. Much of the intensification of our weather events is predictable and likely avoidable with societal action. Education is a valid and essential part of creating collective action to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Perhaps the important lesson about climate change derived from Google Trends is there are clear news hooks which can make climate action more likely. The problem hasn’t gone away and we can’t rely upon news events to precipitate our actions.

Whether we will act on climate before it is too late is unknown. What we do know is the human condition includes hope for survival and a better world. It is unrealistic to believe global societies will unite around a single course of action. Part of the brilliance of the 2015 Paris Agreement was it enabled every nation to participate in their own way toward a common goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Whatever deficiencies existed in the agreement, it was a positive sign of what humanity is capable.

The IPCC special report is another scientific explanation we must act on climate before it is too late. This is my to-do list. What is yours?