CLIMATE THOUGHTS PART III

In my previous two segments on climate change I put the spotlight on Bill Gates and the Breakthrough Energy Coalition that he put together and on Ben Sasse (R), the junior Senator from Nebraska, because I think that what these two prominent Americans have been saying is key to getting the American political establishment engaged in the battle of climate change.

Bill Gates, because by his words and actions (committing $2 billion of his own money) he is challenging the political establishment to take the threat of climate change serious and come up with a strategy (and the funding of that strategy) to fend off disaster for the living earth that could result from continuing human contributions to global warming.

Ben Sasse, because he had the courage to call his colleagues in the Senate to task for not seriously tackling the great national problems that worry most Americans.

For America to play a lead role in reducing, if not eliminating, the human contributions to the current phase of global warming two things will be required:

1.       Money to surface and develop transformative technologies that have the potential to supply clean renewable energy at a cost below the cost of fossil fuels (Gates’ point).

2.       A national strategy for climate change (Sasse’s point).

It is no longer disputable that greenhouse gases released by human intervention are contributing to the warming of the atmosphere that our generation is experiencing. The question is still largely open if the human activity is the main driver, a major contributor or a minor contributor to the release of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, but either way I believe that we owe it to future generations to do everything we can to reduce our emissions and mitigate the negative effects of global warming. It is called good stewardship.

Money is required for basic R&D in the field of clean renewable energy, because the existing technologies like wind, solar and nuclear are in their present form not cheap enough to bring about a wholesale, worldwide, replacement of fossil fuels. Moreover, there are significant negatives associated with large scale deployment of each of these technologies and these will have to be worked out before a change-over becomes feasible. Also, R&D needs to be extended into exploration of other forms of clean renewable energy that currently may only exist in our imagination or in the test labs of scientists. Only governments, and particularly the governments of the developed countries, have the money that it will take to surface the needed technologies and have the capacity to absorb the financial risks that inevitably come with a trial and error based discovery process. America can play a lead role in this with its world class university based research institutes and its superior national wealth. Business will be reluctant to step in to finance new products and technologies if it does not see the government doing its share by funding basic R&D and adopting a national strategy for climate change.

Political will is required to: 1) Acknowledge the challenge presented by climate change. 2) Accept the responsibility to curb it and protect the people from the negative effects. 3) Budget appropriately for the funding of whatever will be required of the government. Of course there will be formidable hurdles to overcome before Congress will muster the will to get serious about doing these things. For one thing there are powerful special interests lined up against any government mandated change in energy generation and consumption in the USA. Not surprisingly this has resulted in ideology on the right side of the aisle that wants to deny that any government action is required. But there is a slim chance—Bill Gates seems to think a good chance—that forward thinking politicians would see the light and the promise that American discovery and development of transformative technologies in the energy field would generate huge new employment opportunities, export opportunities and renewed prestige for American ingenuity. So, we should not give up on developing a national strategy for climate change.

What should such strategy look like? I see three major approaches:

1.       Eliminate carbon emissions that are controlled by human activity.

2.       Capture, recover or absorb carbon emissions.

3.       Protect people and property from the negative effects of climate change.

Investment in R&D and development/commercialization of the output of the R&D effort would be required in each of these three approaches. It stands to reason to expect that a successful strategy would have to incorporate elements of each of these three approaches.

In opposition it will surely be argued that we would be wasting readily available natural resources by a large scale move to renewable energy and that in the process we would be jeopardizing millions of jobs and the health of our economy. These are bogus arguments. In the first place because it will take decades before the proposed strategy could take full effect. Second because the strategy will only be successful if new sources of clean renewable energy can become available at a cost that is lower than the cost of fossil fuels. Third because we are not wasting anything by leaving fossil fuels in the ground as a kind of strategic reserve. Fourth because implementation of the proposed strategy will require highly qualified employment from a very large number of Americans. And fifth because other nations will beat us to the game if we don’t take the lead.

America misses a unique opportunity to reassert its global leadership in creating a better, cleaner and safer world for coming generations if it now does not follow through on the potential for combating the warming of our atmosphere.