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An Affordable Salvation
Paul Krugman, New York Times
The 2008 election ended the reign of junk science in our nation’s capital, and the chances of meaningful action on climate change, probably through a cap-and-trade system on emissions, have risen sharply.
But the opponents of action claim that limiting emissions would have devastating effects on the U.S. economy. So it’s important to understand that just as denials that climate change is happening are junk science, predictions of economic disaster if we try to do anything about climate change are junk economics.
Yes, limiting emissions would have its costs. As a card-carrying economist, I cringe when “green economy” enthusiasts insist that protecting the environment would be all gain, no pain.
But the best available estimates suggest that the costs of an emissions-limitation program would be modest, as long as it’s implemented gradually. And committing ourselves now might actually help the economy recover from its current slump.
(30 April 2009)
Climate crunch: A burden beyond bearing
Richard Monastersky, Nature
The climate situation may be even worse than you think. In the first of three features, Richard Monastersky looks at evidence that keeping carbon dioxide beneath dangerous levels is tougher than previously thought.
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… Several recent studies, for example, indicate that it may be exceedingly difficult to cool the climate down from any eventual peak or plateau, no matter what CO2 concentration is chosen as a target by the international community. And by looking at the problem in a new sort of way — by tallying the total amount of carbon injected into the atmosphere across human history — two papers in this issue of Nature reveal how close the world has come to the danger point (pages 1158 and 1163). “It’s tougher than people have appreciated. We have less room to manoeuvre,” says Malte Meinshausen, an author of one of the papers and a senior researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.
Mr Greenhouse
Hansen has a long history of stirring up controversy with gloomy climate prognostications. Often, they turn out to be right.
(29 April 2009)
A new reality check on the the global carbon emissions budget
David Spratt, Climate code read blog
Two new research papers published this week in Nature on emissions targets have been widely reported, including Humanity’s carbon budget set at one trillion tonnes, Hit the brakes hard and How The 2 Degrees Celsius Target’ Can Be Reached.
And the result: if emissions keep growing at the present rate, the carbon emissions budget for the 2 degrees target will run out in 2021! Call that a climate emergency!
The two articles (by Allen et al, and Meinshausen et al ) asked the same question: how many more tonnes of carbon can humans pour into the air before a 2-degree temperature increase is the result? A commentary by both sets of authors is The exit strategy.
Suggested by Bill Henderson.
(3 May 2009)
