Transcript AOSS_480_L03_Intro_Past_Conservation_20080109.ppt

Climate Change: The Move to Action
(AOSS 480 // NRE 501)
Richard B. Rood
734-647-3530
2525 Space Research Building (North Campus)
[email protected]
http://aoss.engin.umich.edu./people/rbrood
Winter 2008
January 10, 2008
Class News
•
There were issues with ctools
–
•
I still struggle with ctools for some reason
Class Web Site and Wiki
–
http://mapenvironment.org/wiki/index.php?title=Climate_Change:_The_Move_to_Action
– http://mapenvironment.org/wiki/index.php?title=Climate_Change:_Winter_2008
• An opportunity
William R. Farrand Public Lecture: Dramatic
Changes in Earth's Polar Ice: Are We Waking
Sleeping Giants?
Friday, 1/18/2008; 07:30 PM to 09:00 PM
Lecture by Dr. Waleed Abdalati, NASA Goddard
Space Flight Center.
Class News
• Next Reading: Radiative Balance
– Radiative Forcing of Climate Change:
Expanding the Concept and Addressing
Uncertainties (2005)
Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate
(BASC) Chapter 1
• http://www.nap.edu/books/0309095069/html
Lecture Outline
• The Challenge of Climate Change: Course skeleton
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Scientific Investigation
Framework for response
Relationship to other problems
Foundation of ethical questions
Relationship to other problems
• Causatives
• Impacts
• Scope
– How do we infiltrate any response or solution throughout
society
– Scientific investigation climate change
What to do? What to do?
• Let’s assume for a moment that we have
convincing observations of climate
change, convincing predictions of climate
change, and that we will need to respond
to the climate change.
• How do we organize this problem?
Scientific Investigation
• With significant certainty we can say
– The Earth will get warmer
– Sea level will rise
– The weather will change
• The distribution and storage of water will change
Science, Mitigation, Adaptation Framework
It’s not an either / or argument.
Adaptation is responding to changes that might occur from added CO2
Mitigation is controlling the amount of CO2 we put in the atmosphere.
A point or two
• Mitigation and adaptation have different
characteristics.
– A major one is the amount of time for them to
be effective.
• The very long time scales of the climate change
problem mean that any advantages of controlling
the increase of CO2 are perceived many years
after the action to control the increase.
– Cause and effect are difficult to evaluate
– Cost and benefit are difficult to evaluate
• Adaptation is far easier to evaluate.
Relationship of Climate Change to Other Things
Climate Change Relationships
• We have a clear relationship between
energy use and climate change.
CLIMATE CHANGE
ENERGY
World primary energy supply in 1973 and 2003
*
megaton oil equivalent
Source: International Energy Agency 2005
*
Climate Change Relationships
CLIMATE CHANGE
SOCIETAL SUCCESS
• Consumption // Population // Energy
ENERGY
POPULATION
CONSUMPTION
Climate Change Relationships
• Climate change is also linked to
consumption.
– The economy depends on us consuming
– Consuming generates the waste that causes
climate change/
Foundation of Ethical Questions
• Contrast between rich and poor, haves and have
nots.
• Those who use energy are not those most
impacted by climate change.
• Those with wealth are more resilient, more
adaptable.
• Winners and losers in climate change?
• Climate change versus the other challenges we
face.
• Our use of knowledge
Policy
• What do we look to policy to accomplish?
– From class discussion
• Stimulate technology: Provide incentives or dis-incentives for
behavior. (Often through financial or market forces.)
• Set regulations: Put bounds on some type of behavior, with
penalties is the bounds are exceeded.
• Make internal some sort of procedure or behavior of cost that
is currently external.
– A Rood abstraction
• Represents collective values of society: what is acceptable
and what is not.
• Interface with the law?
• Provides the constraints and limits, the checks and balances
in which we run our economy.
What is the role of policy?
• Does the climate problem follow from a failure of
the U.S. or the world to develop policy?
– From class discussion
• It would be different, especially the role of the U.S. in the
world.
• Would not have mitigated the growth of CO2
• Many flaws in Kyoto
– Enforcement
– Specific goals
• Sovereignty of nations and role of the U.N.
• What is the state of policy?
– Highly variable: local, regional, national, multinational, etc.
Codify that economy-climate thing
SEC. 16__. SENSE OF THE SENATE ON CLIMATE CHANGE. (2005)
(a) Findings.—Congress finds that—
1) greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere are causing average
temperatures to rise at a rate outside the range of natural variability and are
posing a substantial risk of rising sea-levels, altered patterns of atmospheric
and oceanic circulation, and increased frequency and severity of floods and
droughts;
2) there is a growing scientific consensus that human activity is a substantial
cause of greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere; and
3) mandatory steps will be required to slow or stop the growth of greenhouse
gas emissions into the atmosphere.
(b) Sense of the Senate.—It is the sense of the Senate that Congress should
enact a comprehensive and effective national program of mandatory,
market-based limits and incentives on emissions of greenhouse gases that
slow, stop, and reverse the growth of such emissions at a rate and in a
manner that—
1) will not significantly harm the United States economy; and
2) will encourage comparable action by other nations that are major trading
partners and key contributors to global emissions.
Some challenges
• If it was not clear when you woke up this
morning, climate change touches every
element of society.
– It sits in relationship with some other
fundamental societal challenges.
• Solutions will be required to infiltrate all
elements of society.
– What sort of things scale to all society?
What are the pieces which we must consider?
(what are the consequences)
Security
Food
Environmental
National
RELIGION
...???...
POLICY
“BUSINESS”
ECONOMICS
PUBLIC HEALTH
Societal Success
Standard of Living
ENERGY
LAW
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Belief System Values Perception Cultural Mandate
Societal Needs
information flow: research, journals, press, opinion, …
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE
The Relationships are Different
• The relationship of energy and energy
policy with climate change is far different
than, for example, the relationship of
public health and agriculture.
– Cause of climate change
– Impacted by climate change
• A community, like agriculture, also carries
an independent relationship with energy
and energy policy.
An idea I think is important
• There are a class of problems, for
instance, heat waves (public health), clean
water, coastal erosion, etc. that are
currently the result of policy, consumptionpopulation stress, and economic stress on
limited resources. Climate change often
amplifies these problems, but climate
change is not “the cause” of these
problems.
Climate Change Relationships
SOCIETAL SUCCESS
• Consumption // Population // Energy
ENERGY
POPULATION
CONSUMPTION
WATER RESOURCES
CLIMATE CHANGE
AGRICULTURE
PUBLIC HEALTH
Challenge
• It is a challenge, therefore, to bring
together all of the elements of society
towards a solution.
• Is it possible?
The possibility of addressing the climate change challenge
• One strategy is to integrate into our
thinking, our culture, our behavior the
value of the climate and the consequences
of our decisions, and in particular, what is
the cost of our energy and our water, and
what happens with our waste.
The possibility of addressing the climate change challenge
• What does bring us all together?
• How do we ascribe value and valuation?
– Our beliefs and belief systems link us strongly.
• And stand at the foundation of our disagreements.
– Our economies link us strongly.
– Others ???
Law
• Where does law fit into all of this?
Economies, markets
• A leading policy mechanism is the carbon
market. This would be a way to allow valuation
of our climate and the treatment of our waste.
– Markets are a way to provide an interface between all
of the interested parties.
• Requires participation in the market.
• Requires a functioning market.
– The most likely way to touch most elements of
society?
– How to develop a market?
F1A
F2A
F iA
FUEL SOURCES
F2c
F1c
GDP
F ic
SHARES OF
POLLUTANT CREDITS
ENERGY
PRODUCTION
.
ABATEMENT
A1
POLLUTANT
COST GAP
Elements of environmental pollutant market
A2
Ai
F1A
F2A
F iA
FUEL SOURCES
F2c
F1c
GDP
ENERGY
PRODUCTION
Common Unit
of Transference
Cost  $
.
ABATEMENT
A1
POLLUTANT
F ic
A2
Ai
COST GAP
Elements of environmental pollutant market
SHARES OF
POLLUTANT CREDITS
F1A
F2A
F iA
FUEL SOURCES
F2c
F1c
GDP
ENERGY
PRODUCTION
[CO2 ]
 PCO2  LCO2
t
.
ABATEMENT
A1
POLLUTANT
F ic
A2
Ai
COST GAP
Elements of environmental pollutant market
SHARES OF
POLLUTANT CREDITS
F1A
F2A
F iA
FUEL SOURCES
F2c
F1c
GDP
ENERGY
PRODUCTION
Pacala and Socolow
.
ABATEMENT
A1
POLLUTANT
F ic
A2
Ai
COST GAP
Elements of environmental pollutant market
SHARES OF
POLLUTANT CREDITS
Markets
• It is not clear to me that the ingredients
exist for a market. There are too few
options.
– Abatement?
– Cost differential for fuel?
– Valuation of efficiency?
– The requirement of economic growth?
– ...
That is the preface for the course.
• Did you see yourself in this pass through the
problem?
• There is not a simple “solution;” we will not solve
this problem and walk away from it.
• We will be required to manage the climate.
• Do you see ways forward?
Scientific investigation of climate change
• What is scientific investigation?
• Some observational background:
Science Basis of Climate Change (1)
What is science, the scientific method?
• Elements of the scientific method
– Observations of some phenomenon.
– Identification of patterns, relationships and the generation of
suppositions, hypotheses.
– In principle, hypotheses are testable:
• Experiments: cause and effect
• Prediction instead of experiments?
– Development of constructs, theory, which follow from
successful hypothesis.
• Predict behavior, what does the next observation might look like?
– Development of tests, experiments that challenge the
hypotheses and predictions.
• Validate or refute theory and elements from which the theory is
constructed.
What is science, the scientific method?
• Science is a process of investigation
– The results of scientific investigation is the generation of
• Knowledge within a prescribed levels of constraints
• Uncertainty: How sure are we about that specific piece of
knowledge.
– Science does not generate a systematic exposition of facts
• Facts are, perhaps knowledge, whose uncertainty is so low, that
that know is certain.
• Theories develop out of tested hypotheses.
– Theory is NOT conjecture
– Theory is subject to change
– Science requires validation
• Requires the hypotheses and theories are testable
• Requires transparency so that independent investigators can
repeat tests and develop new tests.
Science, Scientific Method
• Much of the rhetoric of the disputes about
climate change is over what is science, scientific
investigation, and arguments over
–
–
–
–
facts
theory
consensus
...
• Scientists DO impart their personalities and
beliefs onto their results
– But the fact that it is independently testable,
ultimately, challenges this potential prejudice.
Science, Scientific Method
• Consensus does not mean every one agrees
with every thing.
– If this were true, then the scientific method might be
broken
– or maybe we are dealing with facts.
• The IPCC is a consensus report, and the core
findings have be agreed on by the vast majority.
The Basics of Climate Change
(Back to the Past)
The motivator: Increase of CO2
(Keeling et al., 1996)
Bubbles of gas trapped in layers of ice give a
measure of temperature and carbon dioxide
350,000 years of Surface
Temperature and Carbon
Dioxide (CO2)
at Vostok, Antarctica ice
cores
This has been extended
back to > 700,000 years
 During this period, temperature and CO2 are closely related to each other
 Times of low temperature have glaciers, ice ages (CO2 <~ 200 ppm)
 Times of high temperature associated with CO2 of < 300 ppm
Bubbles of gas trapped in layers of ice give a
measure of temperature and carbon dioxide
350,000 years of Surface
Temperature and Carbon
Dioxide (CO2)
at Vostok, Antarctica ice
cores
 During this period, temperature and CO2 are closely related to each other
 It’s been about 20,000 years since the end of the last ice age
 There has been less than 10,000 years of history “recorded” by humans
(and it has been relatively warm)
460 ppm
CO2 2100
360 ppm
CO2 2005
So what are we worried about?
350,000 years of Surface
Temperature and Carbon
Dioxide (CO2)
at Vostok, Antarctica ice
cores
 Carbon dioxide is, because of our emissions, much higher than ever
experienced by human kind
 Temperature is expected to follow
 New regimes of climate behavior?
 Humans are adapted to current climate behavior.
The change is expected to happen rapidly (10 -100 years, not 1000’s)
What about the CO2 increase?
Class News
• Next Reading: Radiative Balance
– Radiative Forcing of Climate Change:
Expanding the Concept and Addressing
Uncertainties (2005)
Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate
(BASC) Chapter 1
• http://www.nap.edu/books/0309095069/html