Mitigation or Adaptation
published in the Blue Ridge Leader, June 1, 2007

Hopefully, we are all on the same page and can agree with Governor Schwarzenegger that the debate about global warming is over.� The Earth�s climate is warming very rapidly and accelerating.� Human activities are the cause.� And the consequences will continue to be increasingly catastrophic.

The question before us now is: what are we going to do about it.� Some people believe we have a choice between mitigation and adaptation.� Mitigation means reducing our greenhouse gas emissions so that global warming can be avoided and adaptation, in the extreme, means continuing to emit greenhouse gases and adapting to the resultant changing climate.

The Earth will continue to warm one additional degree because of past emissions even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases today.� But there is no hope in shutting down emissions anytime soon.� We have substantial investment in oil, natural gas and coal infrastructure, from coal-fired power plants to pipelines to retail gas outlets to cars and trucks, so we are committed to fossil fuels for at least a few decades.� And, as the supply of relatively clean burning natural gas and light sweet crude oil diminish, they are replaced by heavy oil, bitumen and coal all of which produce less energy per ton of carbon emissions.� Mitigation is becoming increasingly difficult.

Some of the alternative energy sources, in which we are heavily invested, may be worse.� Two researchers, Pimentel and Patzek, estimate that the manufacture of ethanol from corn recovers less energy than that required to make it.� Their papers have been attacked in the press but not in the scientific literature, where their results continue to hold up.� A straightforward conclusion is that corn ethanol emits more greenhouse gases than the gasoline it is attempting to replace.�

Currently 17% of our annual emissions, or 1.4 Giga tonnes, derive from deforestation.� When tropical forests are removed to grow biofuels, the resultant emissions far exceed any potential emissions saving no matter how efficient the crop is.

This all means adaptation is at least part of the solution.� But how realistic is adaptation by itself?� If all Greenland ice melts, a distinct possibility, oceans will rise 7 meters.� All of south Florida will be under water.� Where are those people going to go?� How fast do we need to get them out of there?� How much energy will it take to move them?� If we know this, then why are we still developing there?

According to some models, the American Southwest and Southeast will become increasingly arid and will experience longer and more frequent multi-year droughts. �They already are, yet Phoenix and Las Vegas are still growing.�

The consequences of climate change are already overwhelming us, as is the case in Darfur, so clearly we will not be able to adapt to worst case scenarios.� Mitigation is also required.

James Hansen, director of the NASA Godard Institute for Space Studies, and others have analyzed a realistic greenhouse gas emissions scenario which takes into account the limits on fossil fuels using Energy Information Agency data.� The good news is that some of the worst case scenarios for atmospheric carbon buildup described by the IPCC report may not be possible because there are not enough recoverable fossil fuels to burn.� On the other hand, there are more than enough fossil fuels, if one includes coal and unconventional oil, to push the climate passed a tipping point such that it would be impossible to avoid dangerous climate change.� Running out of fossil fuels, without using their energy to create a post-carbon society, carries another set of catastrophes to which we should be mitigating and adapting.�

Hansen and others estimate that a dangerous level of atmospheric carbon would be 450 ppmV or less.� We are already at 382 and closing.� Hansen recommends a moratorium on new exploitation of coal and unconventional fossil fuel sources until the technology to sequester the carbon emissions exists and is implemented, i.e., limited mitigation.� Secondly, we should be better stewards with the use of the remaining oil and natural gas, to avoid having to use unconventional fossil fuels.� And we should use that energy to develop renewable alternative energy sources and build out the necessary infrastructure these alternative resources will require, i.e., adaptation.

Tony Noerpel

Founder Loudoun County Committee for a Sustainable Society