Surviving Global Warming: Why Eliminating Greenhouse Gases Isn't Enough - Hardcover

Sedjo Senior Fellow Resources, Roger A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1633885283 ISBN 13: 9781633885288

Publisher: Prometheus, 2019

Synopsis

This provocative and important overview of the challenges of and possible approaches to climate change by an expert and shared recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize is essential reading for policy makers, climate scientists, and lay persons alike.Though the Paris Agreement on climate change was a significant achievement, most authorities agree that its measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions will be insufficient to offset the forecasted increase in global warming. Even in the unlikely case of ideal compliance, the Earth will still experience major climate-driven damages. Given this reality, climate expert Roger A. Sedjo argues in this book that a Plan B is required. He makes a compelling case that doing more of the same, by focusing only on the mitigation plan of the Paris Agreement, will leave humanity increasingly vulnerable; instead, we must also begin planning adaptation strategies--Plan B--which enable societies to anticipate and protect against the worst effects of inevitable climate change. The author examines several areas where environmental damage could be severe. Sea-level rise is a major concern and measures could be, and in some cases are now being, undertaken to protect coastal areas. The author also addresses the need for more robust action to ward off the likely decline in agricultural productivity, destruction of forests and biodiversity, and the impact of natural catastrophes like hurricanes made worse by climate change. In addition, he considers geo-engineering strategies, such as atmospheric reflectivity, which may play a role in lessening the impact of global warming.

About this title

About the Author

Roger A. Sedjo, PhD, is a Senior Fellow Emeritus at Resources for the Future, a Washington, DC resource and environmental think tank, and he is director of RFF's Forest Economics and Policy Program. Sedjo shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work on the IPCC Climate Assessments, numbers 2, 3, and 4. He also received an honorary doctorate from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, as well as numerous other awards and fellowships including a PERC Fellowship, German Marshall Plan Fellowship, and Sloan Foundation Fellowship. He has written or edited fifteen books related to forestry and natural resources as well as hundreds of peer-reviewed papers. Sedjo has served on the EPA Scientific Advisory Board addressing questions of carbon regulations for biomass energy. In addition, he has consulted or worked with the World Bank, UNDP, Asian Development Bank, USAID, OECD, FAO, IIED, IIASA and other international organizations. Born in Chicago, Illinois, he lives in Oro Valley, Arizona.

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From the Introduction - Climate Change: Where Are We Now?

In the fall of 2017, within three weeks, three major hurricanes — Harvey, Irma, and Maria — brought havoc to the Gulf and East coasts of the United States, as well as to US protectorate Puerto Rico. Although some might challenge the storms’ direct relationship to climate warming, it is indisputable that the warmer the air, the more water it can hold (4 percent per degree Fahrenheit). Combined with the warming waters of the Gulf, the hurricane-force winds resulted in unprecedented volumes of water dumped on the earth from Hurricane Harvey.

Similarly, Hurricane Irma brought near-record winds to Florida’s East Coast. Ultimately, however, the worst hit was a devastated Puerto Rico, which sustained long-term destruction that could take years to overcome.

It’s clear that our planet is under siege, and despite the resistance of a small percentage of naysayers, alarms from both sides of the political aisle are being voiced over the apparent intensification of climate change. (Indeed, articles are beginning to appear in such media as the New Yorker questioning how habitable Planet Earth will be in the year 2100 — a telling departure from the magazine’s usual focus on social/political fare).

Adding to this uneasy mix is the fact that government scientists have prepared a climate report that turns out to be at odds with the position of the Trump administration. Among other things, both camps differ on the cause and extent of global warming as well as its potential long-term effects.

Nevertheless, climate change has become one of the most difficult issues facing humanity. Former Vice President Al Gore has called climate change an “inconvenient truth.” It’s now becoming far more than “inconvenient,” however, as many feel our species is at a tipping point.

Al Gore has directed attention to human-generated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as the cause of global warming. Furthermore, he builds on the worldwide environmental disasters that scientists project. Although I share his concerns, I tend to disagree that this is the whole story. True, Gore’s is the dominant view, and that which is largely captured in the recent US Global Change Research Program’s Climate Science Special Report. However, I believe this view is incomplete. Indeed, the Global Change Report states, “It is extremely likely that more than half of the global mean temperature increase since 1951 was caused by human influence on climate.” Thus, although GHGs explain much of current warming, the report concedes that it does not explain a large portion of the change. In reality, climate history reveals a global history of variable climate. Well-known is the planet’s experience with recurring ice ages. Less well-known is the occurrence of a number of earlier warmings since the end of this last ice age. These are recent enough to have left their mark in human history but still early enough to predate human involvement and so cannot be attributed to human activities. Indeed, some of these warmings do not seem to be related to carbon or GHG emissions at all, but still must be factored into the entire scientific exploration to help us understand what contributes to climate change.

One could describe exploring climate change as similar to peeling the proverbial multilayered onion. Below each layer lies another question. Is climate change real? Is the temperature of the earth actually rising? If so, are humans in some manner responsible? If so, are GHGs the driver? Questions also arise as to how best to address the concerns. If GHGs are the problem, can humans control GHG emissions adequately to stabilize global temperatures? When questions are proposed this way, we begin to discover a great deal of unevenness in what most experts believe about the above questions.

Nevertheless, as the world community chooses to follow Gore and the GHG theory of causation, it has responded by marshaling its collective resources, largely through UN leadership, to stop a warming disaster by preventing the emission of GHGs. Alas, this approach fails to factor in that human GHG emissions are only the human dimension in what appears to be a broader global climate change issue. In fact, solar events, tectonics, volcanic activity, and ocean currents can dramatically affect climate and likely have in this planet’s past.

Because there is a lack of attention to natural forces affecting climate change, the popular belief is that simply stepping on the GHG emission brakes will lessen, or “mitigate,” the buildup of GHGs. Thus, there is a movement to minimize emissions by minimizing the use of fossil fuel energy.

Although I support the mitigation effort, I strongly believe that such an approach is inadequate to the task before us. Marshaling world governments to reduce the impact of climate change has focused on restructuring the energy industry away from fossil fuels and toward renewables. However, this solution is still problematic. If the warnings are overblown, as some believe, the damages from fossil fuels would be modest, and the benefits of fossil fuel reduction would be minimal. But if the warming is also driven by natural forces, some of the resultant negative effects would continue even without the impact of added human-driven GHGs.

After years of studying the evidence, I am convinced that the nations on this planet are taking the wrong approach with their almost exclusive focus on preventing GHGs to address climate change. It is now recognized that some warming has become inevitable and despite the huge expenditure of resources on controlling fossil fuels and GHG emissions, any plausible amount of prevention will still be inadequate to reduce greenhouse gases enough to stabilize temperatures within the desired range.

Given the present reality of GHG emissions, we must take a practical and more comprehensive approach and address both their existence, and the climatic damages that will undeniably occur. If unusually high temperatures or other phenomena do indeed occur, people will need to employ major efforts toward adapting to and managing the resulting effects.

In this book I propose that we add adaptation as a practical alternative or better an addition to the current approach, which is that of attempting to eliminate or severely reduce GHGs. I will identify major areas likely to experience extreme damage and explore some of the approaches that can be used for damage control management in each area.

I believe it is important to become aware of this planet’s climate history and how we human beings can be affected by climate warming generated by natural variation. Natural warming is not unique to our time; in fact, the earth’s climate system has been inherently unstable. From the hundreds of millions of years since the first ice age to the current interglacial warming period beginning about 11,500 years ago, climate change has been part of the earth’s climate legacy. This includes the period of Viking colonization of Greenland, one thousand years ago, and the subsequent Little Ice Age that only ended as recently as the 1800s.

If natural forces contributed regularly and significantly to the earth’s warming as recently as two centuries ago, how can we assert that natural forces are not major contributors today? Climate change, including warming, will continue to be driven by natural forces, with concomitant disruptions of human habitats. Therefore, we humans must use a combined approach so we can address and adapt to warming from both natural and man-made factors, and are prepared for whatever damage management is required.

For almost four decades, I have been involved in research on resources, the environment and climate as a member of Resources for the Future, an independent, nonpartisan resource and environmental think tank in Washington, DC. Simultaneously I worked with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and along with some of my IPCC colleagues, I shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for my participation in writing three volumes of the UN Assessment on Climate Change (1995, 2001, 2006). Al Gore received the Peace Prize that year for his separate individual work.

At present, however, the UN’s attitude toward climate change focuses myopically on the narrow conclusion that human-generated GHGs are at fault. I call it “Plan A,” or “The Mitigation Solution,” since it focuses on minimizing or eliminating GHGs to lessen the impact of global warming. Unfortunately, other possible sources of warming, such as carbon dioxide from natural sources and other natural sources of warming are being ignored as a result of the narrow scope of this inquiry. Human history and prehistory, however, are replete with examples of natural warming periods, without any indication whatsoever that human-generated GHGs were in any way involved.

Humankind is at a crossroads. Is there more than one source of global warming that needs to be addressed? How can a variety of political systems in the United States and worldwide deal with all the causes and results of this phenomenon?

The present focus of the global community on mitigation (GHG restriction, etc.) implies the need for a huge international bureaucracy and large-scale, centralized cooperative action. However, this raises questions about how individual countries can progress if all are not in sync with an adequate budget and a uniform approach. “Plan B: The Adaptation Solution,” as proposed in this book, enables affected countries and local areas to apply specific, individual preparations and responses to unique national and local climate challenges.

Ultimately, I propose that we must implement “Plan B: Adaptation,” together with “Plan A: Mitigation.” Only then can we gain confidence that humanity will, indeed, be up to the challenge of successfully coexisting with the reality of climate change.

About this edition

• Publisher: Prometheus
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1633885283
• ISBN 13: 9781633885288
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 245