The
2013 annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society took place this past
January in Austin, Texas. One of the
topics was that of energy and climate. Billionaire
T. Boone Pickens spoke on Sunday evening before the annual meeting began. It was an enjoyable evening and interesting
to hear was he had to say.
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| T. Boone Pickens |
First,
he holds a degree in geology from Oklahoma State University. Pickens said “I’m one of the few (petroleum)
geologists that agree that global warming is happening.” He agrees that we need to do something to mitigate
the effects of the warming. It is
smarter to do something to avoid the problem rather than waiting until it
happens to do anything.
However,
he went on to say that hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) would be with us for the
next 50 years. Pickens said that wind
and solar represent just 2% of the energy generation and he didn’t think that
it would become substantial until it became economically more competitive with
fossil fuels. That means a price of
about $6 for natural gas (it is just under $4 today).
Pickens
is against the idea of a carbon tax or cap & trade. However, he did not say whether he agreed
with the idea of ending fossil fuel subsidies.
Tom Friedman of the New York Times has an interesting article on
attacking carbon emissions and the fiscal debt.
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| Dr. Kerry Emanuel. |
T.
Boone Pickens may be right that fossil fuels will be with us for a long
time. However, as Kerry Emanuel, an
atmospheric scientist, explains in his new book, What We Know About Climate Change, we need to be
addressing the problem now. Ironically
this is the same recommendation of a report from the Department of Natural
Resources in South Carolina that has not been publically released. The government needs to create some incentive
for society to look for alternatives.
First
and foremost the government subsidies should end for fossil fuels. Then the easiest and most immediate solution
is to encourage conservation and improve efficiencies in energy use. We should also explore the carbon tax or cap
& trade to improve the incentives for moving away from fossil fuels.
Time
is growing very short to begin to reduce global carbon emissions in order to
keep the global temperature rise at 2 degrees C or less since the beginning of
the Industrial Revolution. Failure to do
so means substantial effects on the climate and biosphere with many of them
negative. I recently came across the
graphic below which illustrates the point between emissions and temperature
rise.
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| Click on image for a larger version, then right click and select view image. Then zoom in the image to see clearly. |
I
highly recommend Dr. Emanuel’s book. It
is very readable and addresses what we know and what we are uncertain
about. The book is written for a general
audience and he has done an excellent job of describing the problem.
