The Science, Problems, and Politics of Climate Change

With the Copenhagen conference and "Climategate," the Internet and the media are abuzz with climate change.  I think more rational voices are being drowned out, though, by the bickering between those that have become polarized in the political debate.  (Gee, does that sound familiar?)  The lines between good science, good problem solving, and good policy have been blurred to everyone's detriment.  Let's try to unravel this Gordian knot a bit.

First, the science.

I was a climate change skeptic for a long time.  I surprised the hell out of my wife a few years ago when we were talking about the subject and mentioned to her that I had changed my mind.

It wasn't political or emotional arguments that convinced me that human beings are driving effects on our climate that we are only just beginning to understand.  I changed my mind because I decided one day to actually take some time for myself to look at the evidence and arguments presented by the scientists in the field, rather than just rely on my own intuition.

Now, I don't think we have absolute certainty about the magnitude of the effect.  We certainly don't have absolute certainty concerning all the mechanisms, their complex interactions with each other and natural forcing functions, or the implications at the local scale. 

However, I do think the evidence largely supports the conclusion that human activities - including our emissions and land use - are changing the climate at large. 

That is my view of the science. So, what is the problem?

Unfortunately, a sharp dichotomy seems to have formed at the political level because of the acrimony between the zealots on both sides of the debate.  On one extreme, you have people like Al Gore, with his exaggerations of the danger and cap-and-trade schemes.  On the other, you have people like Sen. Inhofe, who think that the vast majority of climatologists are part of some vast conspiracy that's trying to pull one over on us. 

Even if you don't think anthropogenic climate change is real, there are plenty of good reasons to get our emissions under control.  First of all, coal production and coal burning can be extremely polluting.  Coal seam fires can burn for decades or even centuries, producing toxic gases and rendering local environs dangerously unsuitable for habitation.  Coal-burning power plants also emit sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide, which contribute to acid rain, smog, and groundwater poisoning.

Our vehicle emissions account for nearly a third of our pollution.  We're getting better about producing fuel-efficient, cleaner, more economical vehicles, but there's still a long way to go.  Perhaps a bigger problem is that we are incapable of extracting enough petroleum in our own territory to meet our needs, which makes us dependent on foreign powers - many of which do not have our best interests at heart - for our lifestyle.

I don't know of anyone that thinks these are good things for our country, regardless of their position on anthropogenic climate change.

That's why I think we have to find common ground.  No one wants to breathe polluted air.  No one wants to drink dirty water or eat food that's been tainted by polluted aquifers.  I'm sure we can all agree that weaning ourselves from Middle Eastern oil - and, eventually, fossil fuels in general - will only make us better off and more secure, in the long run.  We've got to figure out a way to address these issues while coming up with something American can actually produce to rebuild our economy.

What should the policy be, though?

I think cap-and-trade schemes are an elaborate shell game.  One of my close friends rightly pointed out that he could buy carbon credits from me because I drive a hybrid, but that doesn't reduce the emissions of his V8 engine one bit.  I've heard them compared to the Church selling indulgences and I think that's an apt comparison.  Carbon credits are effectively a commoditization of development aid for emerging economies.

America has always done well for itself when it turns to its innovators to solve our strategic problems.  If we want a clean environment and energy independence without sacrificing our economic strengths, then it us up to us to build that future.  Here are a couple of ideas for how.

Nuclear power can go a long way towards meeting our baseload energy needs if we embrace modern technology and reform our regulatory processes to eliminate unnecessary barriers to entry.  One of the founders of Greenpeace is himself now a staunch advocate of civilian nuclear power because he thinks we're worse off with coal and fossil fuels.  Though I'd certainly rather buy fuel from Canada and Australia, if we needed to, than from Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, we have enough thorium domestically to meet our needs.

Thorium reactors are passively cooled - they don't meltdown like Chernobyl.  They consume the worst waste products as fuel in intermediate stages of the process - so the final state is much less hazardous.  You can even consume waste from older uranium plants and plutonium from retired nuclear weapons to reduce them to a state entirely unusable for weapons.  If we played our cards right, we could then license that technology out to our allies and make money off the rest of the world cleaning up its nuclear waste.

Even nuclear power won't last us forever, though, and still relies on mining of hazardous materials. That's where space-based solar power presents advantages.  In space, the sun is always shining.  A network of American-owned, American-built, and American-operated powersats could provide clean, emissions-free energy 24-7.  Power transmitted on a segment of the microwave spectrum mostly transparent to the atmosphere would increase efficiency, while avoiding inputing heat losses into the air.

Studies by the Japanese and Europeans indicate that solar powersats could recoup the energy costs of their construction within a year.  The Japanese import enormous quantities of fuel oil to meet their energy consumption, so the opportunity for achieving energy independence is a big deal for them.

Studies by our own National Space Security Office indicate that beamed power could be cost-effective with today's technology for forward-deployed military bases where the cost per kilowatt-hour is as much as two magnitudes greater than what we pay domestically.  It would have the side benefit of improving the security of their supply lines by reducing the use of fuel convoys. 

The hurdle to implementing space-based solar power is the high cost per pound of launching to orbit.  However, a launch (pardon the pun) customer like the military extending a contract offer for commercial entities to provide such services might drive up the launch rate enough that the cost per pound comes down and makes powersats economical for the rest of us.

Imagine how different the world would be if America became a net exporter of clean energy technology and services.

In any event, these are potential solutions that could give us all what we want - cleaner air, cleaner water, and American high-tech jobs that would revitalize our economy.  Belief in anthropogenic climate change is not required, just a willingness to roll up your sleeves and work together at adapting to thrive in the new economic and environmental climate.

Cross-posted at A World With No Boundaries.