Climbing the Climate Hurdles
The U.S. and China got over their first joint climate hurdle by signing their first bilateral memorandum of understanding between Beijing and Washington on climate change in early 2009 in preparation for the Copenhagen climate change conference in December 2009. Hopefully, their agreement will become the template for the other nations attending in the hope of reaching an agreement to succeed the Kyoto Accord to which the U.S. is not a signatory. The U.S. and China are responsible for 40 percent of the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions and can lead their respective developed and developing world constituencies to the dotted signature lines.
Twenty percent across-the-board cuts in emissions is an excellent starting point. The target was first set by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, an average of 6.2 liters per 100 kilometers for all cars and light trucks by 2016, has now been adopted by President Obama for the entire country. That will eventually cut U.S. vehicle emissions by 40 percent. It also means that U.S. oil imports may fall up to half by 2019.
By the time the U.S. reaches its 6.62 liters per 100 kilometers target in 2016, most other countries will have moved on to an average of 5.2 liters per 100 kilometers or better. China’s current requirement is 5.5 liters per 100 kilometers. The U.S. is playing catch-up. But at least its back in a game it can easily win and lead with China that has clearly demonstrated it’s willingness to partner to make sure the rest of the world follows.
With the sun missing its spots, the solar cycle is speaking volumes of the impact of climate change. Ever since Samuel Heinrich Schwabe, a German astronomer, first noted in 1843 that sunspots grow and wane over a roughly 11-year cycle, scientists have carefully watched the sun’s activity. In the latest lull, the sun reached its calmest whitest, least pockmarked state in the autumn of 2008.
For operators of satellites and power grids, that is good news. The same magnetic fields that generate sunspot blotches also accelerate a devastating rain of particles that can overload and wreck electronic equipment in irbit or on earth. A panel of 12 scientists assembled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration now only predict only 90 sunspots during the peak month of May 2013. That would make it the weakest solar maximum since 1928, when there were 78 sunspots. During an average solar maximum, the sun is covered with 120 sunspots.
Some global warming skeptics speculate that the sun may be on the verge of falling into an extended slumber similar to the so-called Maunder-Minimum ─ a period of several sunspot-scarce decades during the 17th and 18th centuries that concided with an extended chilly period. Another ice-age? C’mon, if anything it will be the Ice Age in reverse. More like the “Roaster Age,” “Hell’s Age,” “Fossil Age,” or destructive “Human Age.”
The U.S. House of Representatives in Washington unveiled four bills in 2009 to foster closer relations with China on climate change, trade, energy and boost teaching of Chinese in the U.S. The 55 member congressional U.S.-China Working Group is finally tackling climate change as seriously as China. It is about time America acknowledge reality and stopped blaming China and its requests for an industrial development break as it is developing and weathering the current financial and economic meltdown, not to mention the nuclear one with Iran and North Korea.
America and China have to get their scientists to not only address all the ramifications of climate change the last century and next, but how they compromise their respective radical extremes on getting there, primarily because of Big Oil. It is about time science and the corporate world, regardless of whether they followed the capitalist or Confucian model, start thinking about the various ways and means their scientists can start helping the majority of the world’s citizens, as well as themselves and their shareholders. Otherwise they will lose it all.
Twenty percent across-the-board cuts in emissions is an excellent starting point. The target was first set by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, an average of 6.2 liters per 100 kilometers for all cars and light trucks by 2016, has now been adopted by President Obama for the entire country. That will eventually cut U.S. vehicle emissions by 40 percent. It also means that U.S. oil imports may fall up to half by 2019.
By the time the U.S. reaches its 6.62 liters per 100 kilometers target in 2016, most other countries will have moved on to an average of 5.2 liters per 100 kilometers or better. China’s current requirement is 5.5 liters per 100 kilometers. The U.S. is playing catch-up. But at least its back in a game it can easily win and lead with China that has clearly demonstrated it’s willingness to partner to make sure the rest of the world follows.
With the sun missing its spots, the solar cycle is speaking volumes of the impact of climate change. Ever since Samuel Heinrich Schwabe, a German astronomer, first noted in 1843 that sunspots grow and wane over a roughly 11-year cycle, scientists have carefully watched the sun’s activity. In the latest lull, the sun reached its calmest whitest, least pockmarked state in the autumn of 2008.
For operators of satellites and power grids, that is good news. The same magnetic fields that generate sunspot blotches also accelerate a devastating rain of particles that can overload and wreck electronic equipment in irbit or on earth. A panel of 12 scientists assembled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration now only predict only 90 sunspots during the peak month of May 2013. That would make it the weakest solar maximum since 1928, when there were 78 sunspots. During an average solar maximum, the sun is covered with 120 sunspots.
Some global warming skeptics speculate that the sun may be on the verge of falling into an extended slumber similar to the so-called Maunder-Minimum ─ a period of several sunspot-scarce decades during the 17th and 18th centuries that concided with an extended chilly period. Another ice-age? C’mon, if anything it will be the Ice Age in reverse. More like the “Roaster Age,” “Hell’s Age,” “Fossil Age,” or destructive “Human Age.”
The U.S. House of Representatives in Washington unveiled four bills in 2009 to foster closer relations with China on climate change, trade, energy and boost teaching of Chinese in the U.S. The 55 member congressional U.S.-China Working Group is finally tackling climate change as seriously as China. It is about time America acknowledge reality and stopped blaming China and its requests for an industrial development break as it is developing and weathering the current financial and economic meltdown, not to mention the nuclear one with Iran and North Korea.
America and China have to get their scientists to not only address all the ramifications of climate change the last century and next, but how they compromise their respective radical extremes on getting there, primarily because of Big Oil. It is about time science and the corporate world, regardless of whether they followed the capitalist or Confucian model, start thinking about the various ways and means their scientists can start helping the majority of the world’s citizens, as well as themselves and their shareholders. Otherwise they will lose it all.
posted by Peter de Krassel's Custom Maid Politics at 10:22 PM
1 Comments:
‘Big oil’ is a straw man; ‘Big Oil’ only has 7% of current resources in the world, and the rest are in the hands of inefficient and uneconomic government oil companies, the usual suspects: Russia, Venezuela and our other friends in OPEC. PEMEX is such a mess that Mexico is thinking about taking it public.
Ironically, all politicians know the truth about CO2 and have likely seen or heard of the Oregon petition signed by 31,000 scientists (released at the Washington Press Club; Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post, Published: Saturday, May 17, 2008) who agree that CO2 is beneficial to life on the planet and that CO2 is not related to GW. Kyoto would severely affect prosperity for the poor, those on fixed incomes. However, 32,000 real scientists, many with Ph.D.s (Doctor of Philosophy degrees) are not a constituency, and this was an election year. Pol’s now cater to an humanist educated mass of humanity who are lured by demagogues and driven by fear or the left agendae (the worst case scenario). Pray for a short summer and long winter. Pray our politicians choose the high road and cut the Orwellian Gordian knot on anthropogenic GW.
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