Global WarmingClimate Change

For every problem there is one solution which is simple, neat, and wrong.--H. L. Mencken

Climate change is like that. It is a very complex problem and solutions that do not do additional harm will also be complex.

President Elect Obama has stated, post election, that Climate Change is an urgent challenge. In a video produced for a conference on the issue, with a number of state governor's in attendance, he stated: "My presidency will mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change...". This supports his campaign pledge regarding the environment. Unfortunately--at least per links on Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit site, the global consensus is breaking down. Space Daily yesterday reported that a survey by Pacific Economic Cooperation Council of leaders from 21 Pacific Rim nations and the issue of Global Warming--eight percent of the votes last year--didn't make the cut this year. Economics was the top vote getter.

Then there is the question of what is happening in Europe. According to EurActive, a site Professor Reynolds linked to, European Governments are backing off their Kyoto commitments--for economic reasons.

Then there is this item about solar winds. I linked to this site, but there are several that have talked about the ULYSSES solar probe. NASA doesn't talk about the implications of the ULYSSES findings for the weather hear on earth, but others do.

And, we have this chart from a paper by two college researchers. The argument is that: "The global atmospheric temperature anomalies of Earth reached a maximum in 1998 which has not been exceeded during the subsequent 10 years."

But, before you go off saying that I am a witless denier of Global Warming and should be shunned, hear me out. What I am is a bit of a skeptic. What I also am is someone who looks at the global markets and sees that when the world comes out of the current economic crisis it will be that either the two population giants, India and China, will have strong economies, with ever more people owning cars, or there will be serious problems of societal breakdown. Let us skip the second option for the moment.

As the economic crisis fades, there will be more and more cars being sold in India and China. That means more gas being use. That means, given that oil production is not rising sharply, higher gas prices. That, in turn, will impact our nation as the US depends upon transportation to link the various parts of the nation and the people of this nation--people who have always been interested in spreading out to find better jobs or better climate. But, they still want to go back home and visit the families.

So, facing coming higher gas prices (back above where they were only a few short months ago), what should we do? In broad terms, we should change our energy consumption patterns.

We do need to be changing how we power our cars. We do need to be making massive investments in alternative energy plans (see the T Boone Pickens Energy Plan as an example of a plan) and we need to get over the idea that some people having a pristine view should stand in the way of these alternative energy sources.

I would be supportive of a higher federal tax on gasoline, if there were appropriate rebates to those in lower income brackets--we can not solve this problems on the backs of those in the bottom half of the economy. And, this energy issue is bigger than getting gas guzzlers off the road. This is a cluster of problems and not a single problem. Our patterns of urbanization, at least in these parts, have been such that those who are not as well off economically have had to move further out to find better housing in their price range. Without mass transportation we can't force those folks off the road. And how are we going to get a transportation system to connect many locations of residence with many locations of work? In my 14 plus years in the area I have worked in Wilmington, Andover, Sudbury and again in Andover. I saw no useful mass transportation to help me get to work and then get home during all those years of commuting.

We need to provide useful and economically sustainable alternatives for energy and for transportation to and from work. These alternatives will almost certainly result in advances in the area of slowing Climate Change. Has anybody seen anything useful?

Regards -- Cliff