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Now that policy-level representatives have arrived in Bali for the global warming negotiations, the press conferences at which they are featured like some many models strutting the boardwalk in Milan have also kicked off. Monday afternoon was the day in the sun for United States Senior Climate Negotiator and Special Representative Harlan Watson. Watching and listening as the world’s press attempted in vain to badger Watson into saying something meaningful was remindful of an admonition in the South, where I was raised: Never try to teach a pig to talk. It’s a waste of your time, and annoys the pig.
Watson was rigorously faithful to the Bush Administration’s insistence on addressing global warming through technology transfer, an approach that might have benefited the United States 25 or perhaps even 15 years ago, but no more. The sad truth is that having invented these technologies–or at least turned them from laboratory curiosities into commercially viable goods–the United States has frittered away its position of dominance and allowed them to fall into the hands of Germany, Japan, and other industrialized nations.
Consider where matters stood in 1990, for example. The United States was the world’s largest manufacturer solar photovoltaic cells, devices that turn sunlight into electricity (think of that small panel on your pocket calculator). It was also home to the world’s largest number of wind turbines and solar thermal generators, which use the sun’s heat to generate electricity. General Motors was on the verge of unveiling the world’s first truly practical battery-powered car, The Impact, later re-named EV-1. It was so heart-breakingly sleek that it could have traveled an estimated 100 to 110 miles on a gallon of gasoline, though that would have wasted its most precious asset: zero pollution. Yankee ingenuity also had developed an extremely clean way of burning coal called integrated gasification, combined cycle (IGCC). The list could go on and on (and those who wish to learn more can check out a copy of Green Gold , a book that Alan Miller and I wrote on the subject in the mid-1990s).
Today, all of that is history. The Germans are the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines, while the Japanese lead in solar photovoltaics. The solar thermal facility in California entered bankruptcy (though enough electricity is still being generated there to meet the residential needs of a city the size of San Francisco).
Two coal-fired IGCC plants have been built in the U.S., but roughly 160, almost all burning petroleum coke in nations with stringent air pollution laws, have been constructed elsewhere. EV-1 was scrapped by General Motors, and Toyota has quickly established a position of environmental dominance with its Prius and other hybrids.
The plain truth is that the United States has precious few advanced technologies sitting on its shelves to sell to other nations to address global warming. Want a smart bomb that can drop through a doorway from a height of 10,000 feet, talk to the U.S. Want a way to make electricity from sunlight or wind, or propel a car 60 miles on a single gallon of fuel, check with the Germans and Japanese–or the Spanish, Danes, Israelis and many others.
Harlan Watson is not alone in his ignorance of America’s plight. One hour after Watson strode off the stage, U.S. Senator and former Demcratic candidate for President John Kerry walked on. Soon, he was talking about the many advanced technologies that had been birthed by the acid rain trading program put in place by the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. In truth, not a single solar or wind generator or even one conservation or energy efficiency program was adopted because of the trading program. More to the point, the lakes that were acid in 1990 and were supposed to have had life breathed into them by the trading program are still dead, and so are the forests.
About 15 years ago, the official charged with cleaning up Mexico City’s horrific air pollution described the differing attitudes of the businesses that would come calling on him. The Germans, he said, were genuinely interested in helping Mexico rid itself of the air pollution scourge. The Japanese also wanted to help, but wanted very much to sell their products. Americans, he added, wanted to sell their goods, and didn’t really care whether they solved the problem.
Perhaps it is this attitude that explains why the nation has allowed these and many other technologies to slip through its fingers. Surely, the likes of Watson, who shares George Bushes disdain for programs that would spur deployment of these technologies and, most importantly, save lives and slow global warming, bear a large share of the blame.
The loss of the United States could, however, be the gain for the rest of the world if only officials would start listening to–and most importantly, believing in–their own words. In truth,an economy based on zero-polluting technologies is today ours for the taking. Yes, electricity might cost more, and so too might other goods. Perhaps if the people of the world were to examine the option of committing themselves to zero pollution, they would vote against it, in the belief that it simply costs too much.
But rejecting an option for cost reasons is vastly different than maintaining it doesn’t exist. Zero pollution is a here and now option. It may require more research and development to make the technologies better, but nothing more is required to make them available. Just pick up the phone, call, say, Siemens or Canon. Place your order and zero pollution can be yours in a few weeks or months. It is there for the asking, now, not just for you, but for the world.
And therein lies the gravest sin committed by the likes of Watson and Bush. In their war against action to curb global warming, the first victim has been truth. And those who will pay the price for its loss are the world’s people, including those whom both Bush and Watson have taken a solemn oath to protect, Americans.
Re IGCC: http://www.powergeneration.siemens.com/press/press-pictures/igcc/
IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) is an innovative technology for environment-friendly power generation. In addition to power generation the gasification of fuels such as coal, oil and refinery residues can also be utilized to produce valuable syngas, which can serve as the basis for the production of hydrogen, methanol, diesel fuel and a wide variety of other chemical products.
So, too, it is with global warming. America it seems–the government, not its citizens–is intent on selling its program to the world, and do not care whether it solves the problems–or injures its own people.
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Seen in the Bali Convention Center, where negotiations are going on: every light fixture with a common, energy-wasting, pollution-producing conventional incandescent light bulb. Number of highly efficient compact fluorescent bulbs found: zero. These bulbs, by the way, were developed in the United States, but the largest manufacturers are Dutch, German and Japanese.
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Re emissions trading: http://www.healthandcleanair.org/emissions/marketing_failure.html
This Article is the first of several and is the result of a study I conducted over a six-month period starting in mid-2002 after it became apparent that President George W. Bush intended to seek repeal of several cornerstone provisions of the Clean Air Act (CAA) in favor of “trading,” an approach that confers on refineries, power plants, factories and other polluters the right to pollute.
Re solar pv installations: http://gsr.ren21.net/index.php?title=2006_Table_3
http://www.iea-pvps.org/ar05/usa.htm
According to PV News, U.S. PV production grew 10 % from 2004 to 2005, reaching 153 MW (Maycock, 2006). World production exceeded 1 700 MW in 2005. In part, market growth is being driven by innovations in technology and manufacturing that continue to increase efficiency, boost product lifetime and reliability, and simplify installation. As a result, average costs and prices declined to make solar power more competitive with conventional energy sources.
re wind turbines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_turbine_manufacturers
List of wind turbine manufacturers
Re EV-1, a personal recollection: http://www.altfuels.org/events/testdriv/farewell.html
I have followed the story of the General Motors EV1 electric vehicle (EV) with the greatest of interest for over a decade, starting with the introduction of its predecessor, the Impact show-car, in 1990. I tried to talk my way into the “public beta test” of the Impact in 1994; I was at the Los Angeles Auto Show in 1996 when the EV1 was introduced to the public; I went to my local Saturn dealer for a look as soon as I heard they had arrived in late 1996; and when they became available for rent at EV Rental Cars in late 1998, I was one of the first customers in line (I wrote about the experience in the first of several test-drive reports that have appeared on this website). Sadly, General Motors and other automakers put a lot more effort into getting California’s Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) regulations watered down, repealed, or struck down in court than they ever did into actually marketing their ZEVs, or even making them readily available, and recently all the automakers have stopped making EVs (the sole exception being DaimlerChrysler’s Global Electric Motorcars division, which makes small low-speed EVs). General Motors never offered the EV1 for sale, only for lease, and a few years back they stopped renewing the leases, so the last ones are running out now and the cars will be gone from the road by the end of this year. Before they took back the EV1s from EV Rental Cars, I went there to rent one for a final drive.
Dear Friends
For those of you who don’t know me, and that would be the entire world save a handful of folks, this is my third decade of working on global warming, approaching the fourth decade on the environment generally.
I was lucky enough to work for the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works during the days when the United States was still the world leader in facing up to the threats of air and water pollution, poisonous chemicals, and the full range of other challenges. The nation has long since abandoned that leadership role. While the Germans, Swedes and others have managed to fill some of the resulting vacuum, the world is now essentially drifting, somewhat like a rudderless boat. That is evident here in Bali.
This the 13th “Conference of the Parties,” or COP, where the nations of the world gather to supposedly hammer out solutions to global warming. The meetings are actually a succession of self-congratulatory photo-ops by politicians with little understanding of the imminent and grave danger posed by global warming. There are at least a half-dozen positive feedbacks–that is, changes caused by warming that then themselves increase warming, so that the hotter it gets, the hotter it will get–that have kicked in already, meaning that the planet is rapidly approaching one or more “tipping points” beyond which survival of civilization is unlikely. These include increasing acidification of the oceans, melting and warming in the Arctic, global bleaching of coral, a 30 percent decline in phytoplankton, massive thawing of tundra in Siberia, Alaska, and Canada, and the retreat of glaciers worldwide, to name but a few.
Yet nowhere in the literature gathered from the booths lining the hallways in Bali can the words tipping point be found, nor is there discussion of emission reductions next year and the year after. The time frames for action are couched in decades.
This has been the tenor of the Conferences of the Parties since the ill-fated Kyoto meeting, where the United States demanded emissions trading as the price of agreeing to an international protocol, then welched on the deal. The Kyoto Protocol is now on its way out, and the Bali meeting is being promoted as the place where the foundation will be laid for the successor. That may well happen, but if so, the son- (or daughter-) of-Kyoto is likely to be little improvement, if any.
In reality, the corporations of the world, especially those in the United States, have the international process well in hand. One testament to that is the very name employed: the “Framework Convention on Climate Change.” Almost universally, politicians and most others talk of “climate change,” not “global warming”. Why?
Well, in the case of the United States, Republican pollster Frank Luntz ran focus groups and polls of the various terms for describing the phenomenon and found that Americans found climate change a far less ominous term than global warming. His advice to Republicans: watch your language, and talk about climate change, not global warming.
ExxonMobil, Chevron and the U.S. oil companies, together with coals miners and sellers and a variety of electricity generators like the Southern Company, have actively conspired with oil-producing nations like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Nigeria to preclude international agreement to really deal with global warming. There are cars that will travel 100 miles on a single gallon of fuel and powerplants that will squeeze 92 percent of the energy from a pound of coal. But if that happened, sales of coal and oil would drop by two-thirds or more. So, it’s not going to happen.
Later in the week California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and World Bank President Robert Zoellick will show up in Bali and suck all of the political oxygen out of the air. This is an undeniably positive sign, because each says some of the right things when it comes to global warming, and even though a case can be made that each may be more motivated by politics than substance in crafting truly effective solutions. Schwarzenegger, for example, insists on carbon-equivalent trading–something heavy campaign contributor Chevron wants desperately–even though it has failed horrribly when tried elsewhere. Still, to all appearances, both are well intended. But, as the old saying goes, that’s what the road to Hell–that place where,like the planet,it’s really, really hot–is paved with: good intentions.
Re tundra: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4141348.stm
The huge expanse of western Siberia is thawing for the first time since its formation, 11,000 years ago.
The area, which is the size of France and Germany combined, could release billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
This could potentially act as a tipping point, causing global warming to snowball, scientists fear.
Re Arctic warming and melting: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/070330-warming-arctic.html
Arctic Melting Linked to Human Causes, Long-Term Review Finds |
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Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
March 30, 2007
The dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice in recent years is the result of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions combined with natural cycles, according to a new study.
The loss of ice will likely change water temperatures and affect the circulation of ocean currents, which may alter climates around the world, the study suggests.
Re ocean acidification: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7059/abs/nature04095.html
Article
Nature 437, 681-686 (29 September 2005) | doi:10.1038/nature04095
Anthropogenic ocean acidification over the twenty-first century and its impact on calcifying organisms
Today’s surface ocean is saturated with respect to calcium carbonate, but increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are reducing ocean pH and carbonate ion concentrations, and thus the level of calcium carbonate saturation. Experimental evidence suggests that if these trends continue, key marine organisms—such as corals and some plankton—will have difficulty maintaining their external calcium carbonate skeletons.
Re phytoplankton decline: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020801plankton.html
PHYTOPLANKTON IN NORTHERN OCEANS HAVE DECLINED FROM 1980s LEVELS
Introduction
A check up of the Earth’s planetary health reveals that the lowest rung in the ocean food chain is shrinking. For the past 20 years (early 1980s to present), phytoplankton concentrations declined as much as 30 percent in northern oceans. Scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) say warmer ocean temperatures and low winds may be depriving the tiny ocean plants of necessary nutrients. However, they still do not know if the loss of phytoplankton is a long-term trend or a climate oscillation.
Re coral bleaching: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060515232529.htm
Global Warming May Have Damaged Coral Reefs Forever
ScienceDaily (May 16, 2006) — Global warming has had a more devastating effect on some of the world’s finest coral reefs than previously assumed, suggests the first report to show the long-term impact of sea temperature rise on reef coral and fish communities.
Re glacier retreat: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/sci_nat_how_the_world_is_changing/html/1.stm
See it for yourself
In pictures: How the world is changing
