Three days ago, I asked whether global warming was really worse than the alternative, global cooling.
I've always kind of suspected that underlying much of environmentalism is a desire for the impossible: stasis. For the earth will either get warmer or cooler, but it definitely won't stay the same. Even if everyone were to agree that the globe really is warming, can we please see some scientifically-sound documentation that it is worse than the alternative?Comes now the estimable syndicated columnist, George Will, with a Newsweek piece, entitled, "Inconvenient Kyoto Truths," subtitled, "Was life better when a sheet of ice a mile thick covered Chicago? Was it worse when Greenland was so warm that Vikings farmed there?"
Are we sure the climate at this particular moment is exactly right, and that it must be preserved, no matter the cost?It's a meme, folks! Get aboard! Now, to be fair, Will wrote his column before I posted by essay, given the lead times in the mainstream punditry industry. But, still, it's pretty good company, eh wot? (I mean that Will is keeping . . . .)
""Was life better when a sheet of ice a mile thick covered Chicago?"
Ask the Colts.
Since when is George Will a climate scientist? For that matter, Mr. Sensing, since when are you?
In the 20th century it was the Communists claiming that all science had to cleave to their ideology. Evolution was no exception, and this brought Trofim Lysenko to a position of prominence in the USSR. Of course, facts do not bow to ideology; Lysenko was wrong, and his policies were a disaster for the USSR because they simply did not work.
Today it's mostly self-styled Christians and conservatives who claim that evolution, climate science and a host of other things must cleave to their ideology. Physics is dismissed out of hand. Retreating glaciers, vanishing polar sea ice, unprecedented temperature extremes and the relentless rise of atmospheric CO2 are waved away as irrelevant. This is another disaster in the making, only on a global rather than national scale.
In the 21st century, the Christian dogmatists and "conservatives" (who wouldn't know conservation if it bit them) have remade themselves in the image of the ideologues they fought in the 20th. Such irony.
In my post of today I attempt to connect the dots between China, NAFTA, immigration, rising oil prices, small government, and George Will's column. Bottom line: getting the U. S. and Mexico to reform their agricultural policies might be a better way to preserve the environment and small government than railing on about Kyoto (or IPCC reports).
> Since when is George Will a climate scientist?
Climate science doesn't tell us whether a green greenland is a bad thing. At best, it tells us whether we're likely to have one.
And, our climate science friends still haven't accounted for the variations that we've experienced. At best, they're arguing that increased co2 can lead to increased temperatures. That's a long way from showing that decreasing co2 will decrease temperatures. (They acknowledge that there are other temperature drivers.)
And, the relevant question is what we should do, not whether change is occurring.
> unprecedented temperature extremes
They're not unprecedented.
> Retreating glaciers
Except that some of them started retreating before global warming. And some are growing. Oops.
Why is Greenland returning to that state a bad thing?
BTW - Before trotting out "the seas are rising", be sure to account for sea level changes that were occurring before 1910 and 1940 or explain how we're going to reverse the things that were driving it then.
#2 E-P : While I'd agree with you that many responses to the IPCC are coming reflexively, I doubt very many of them are due to any deep doctrinal or theological considerations wrt Christianity.
My suspicion is the responses are from fear of forced policy changes; not just policy changes but poor ones at that, which are selectively aimed at the US and western private enterprises.
I don't demand that everyone who speaks on Climate science be scientists themselves; rather, I only hope that people are rational and willing to listen to dissenting arguments.
Mr. Sensing (on his website) is wondering if climate change will be 100% bad... the straightforward answer being 'no', there will likely be some 'winners' along with the 'losers'. Problem is who can say with certainty who will 'win'? That is almost as difficult as deterimining adaptation strategies, especially for the 'losers'.
Whether a new Ice Age comes? Well, when I was back in school that was preached from the pulpit, er, lectern. So what is a person over 50, say Mr. Will, supposed to believe, having now heard two conflicting stories during his adult life? Ah, the dangers of crying wolf....
I'm hoping W.o.C will continue this discussion. Would really like to see a split though, separating discussions about science (i.e., what do we know and how do we know it) from policy (i.e., how do we respond in light of great uncertainties.)
The environmental religious zeolots re-affirm their faith without science or reason. [padding added to move long url off the home page and keep the columns from breaking]
http://extremeperspective.blogspot.com/2007/02/environmental-apocalyptical-religion.html
As I saw noted by a commentator on a left-leaning blog last week (don't recall what it is or the URL), we also have to contend with the unpredictability of nature herself. He said something to the effect that one major volcanic event in the right (wrong) place could occur at any time, and render the whole debate moot by throwing enough sunlight-blocking ash and soot into the atmosphere to "cure" global warming for us, whether we need a cure or not.
This is just another example of NOT arguing the science but rather using straw men to discredit those with an opposing view. I am not a "self-styled Christian" nor do I reject evolution. By the way, glaciers have been retreating for the past 17,500 years
Why are you asking me if I'm a climate scientist? I'm not the one belittling their work, as if I know more than they do. I've invited several know-it-alls to take their objections over to RealClimate to straighten out the GW religionists (if that's what they are) so I can watch and learn, but they all have a distinct reluctance to debate their assertions in front of people who research the matter for a living.
Funny, isn't it?
FWIW, there is good evidence that man started changing the climate about 8000 years ago (read the paper, it's quite compelling and backed by solid evidence). It's no longer a question of IF we are changing the climate, but HOW we are changing it and WHAT is best for us.
This article, Phaeton's Reins, in the January/February Boston Review is long but useful. MIT meterologist Kerry Emanuel gives a middle-of-the-road view of the state of climatology and of the types and strengths of the evidence of anthropogenic climate change.
The sole figure is a chart of average temperature 1890-2000, about 2/3rds of the way down. It "looks about right" to me, and is a good graphical accompaniment to this discussion: in what direction and to what extent is the climate changing? How good are the models that project trends forward 100 years or so?
It is hard to take someone serious when they refer to people who don't share their views "religionists". It is even laughable that the same person would direct readers to a site that has a history of censoring arguments they don't like. Many have tried to post at RealClimate and been censored for quite well reasoned and written posts. They even went so far as to censor Steve McIntyre
That's one of the things the GW-denialists call the IPCC scientists, which is why I used scare quotes. In other words, you are arguing that people who deny GW, or claim that it's good for us, are not to be taken seriously. (What irony.)
No. When you call people "GW-denialists", "know-it-alls", "self-styled Christian" or any of of a variety of ad hominems you loose credibility. I really don't care what side of the debate your on, if you can't argue the science your just noise.
Bordeaux is best when served at 64 degrees F, whereas beer is best at about 55 degrees. Just try to tell me that the perfidious wine-swilling Frogs are not the cause of all this trouble.
Who else stands to gain? The Californians (aka "Domestic White French") who freeze to death in droves every time the temperature drops down to a good manly chill. Just because they buy electricity on the spot market at outrageous prices is no reason why the rest of us should put up with their torpid climate.
I'd say the earth was definitely better off when the cold and the saber-tooth tigers were keeping the idiot supply down to manageable levels.
To all who may believe in Anthrogenitive Global Warming, two questions: 1. Why did the Ice Ages occur? 2. Why did they stop? Enjoy!
It has been fascinating to watch the AGW advocates so often over the years resort almost immediately to ad hominem, often without even the pretense of debate on the merits. The scenes of Mann, Bradley, Hughes et al stonewalling on the release of data sets and code in their infamous "hockey stick" historical analysis should have been fatally embarrassing to the AGW advocates but amazingly it continues.
Whatever it is that is done by consensus and ad hominem response to criticism, it clearly is not the scientific method.
This is interesting as far as a consensus on global climate is concerned:
"It is a cold fact: the Global Cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance; the survival of ourselves, our children, our species," wrote Lowell Ponte in 1976.
There is more and more coming out about how scientist, not politicians are doubting man made global warming. Check out this article in the Canada Free Press:
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm
Regardless, converting from fossil fueled power plants to nuclear plants would reduce US C02 emissions by 1/3rd, which is far, far more than anything Kyoto calls for. Yet we don't hear Gore and his ilk screaming for nuclear energy. Dont the well known risks of nuclear power (which we have successfully harnessed for over 50 years) pale in comparison to the certain cataclysm that is global warming? Apparently not. If you arent screaming for nuclear power, you arent serious about the global warming threat, game, set, match.
Amazing, E-P (#2), that when you depart from the meat of technical issues, you become just another axe-grinder driven by ideology. So much for the detached scientific mind.
I have never claimed to be a climate scientist, nor an engineer. And I defy you to find a single syllable that I have written about climate issues that refers in the slightest manner to religion of any stripe, much less Christianity.
I asked a simple, straightforward question: since the earth will either get warmer or get cooler, where is the science to show that warming is worse than cooling? In you book, that appears to be an ideological claim, somehow.
In response, you basically tell me to shut up, I have no right to be so impertinent, then try to hide behind your own denial that you youself are taking a stand at all.
Elitism and cowardice, all in one comment thread. Now, that's impressive.
If you'd take the time actually to read what I wrote, you'd see that I never challenged the IPCC's conclusion that the earth was warming and even wrote, "There’s no arguing with the proposition that we should prepare for the effects of warming if we know it’s coming."
But apparently you'd rather hook-shot me into a group of people you obviously scorn than actually read what I wrote. Why, pray tell (oops, religious language alert) should I take anything else you say seriously?
be that as it may, I have already slated for tomorrow an approving link to your own essay, "Sustainability, energy independence and agricultural policy - What, me worry?" at www.donaldsensing.com.
That's the thing that makes me the most uncomfortable with the AGW community; that it actively works to shut down debate.
I'll post more about this soon...
A.L.
Donald
"I asked a simple, straightforward question: since the earth will either get warmer or get cooler, where is the science to show that warming is worse than cooling?"
This question is neither as simple nor as straightforward as you might want us to believe. It's disingenuous. Warmer or cooler is not the choice facing us. The earth is getting warmer and, according to the consensus of the vast vast majority of climatologists, it will keep getting warmer no matter what we do. The question really is to what extent can we decelarate the warming, not whether or not we can stop or reverse it-- and, from the utilitarian point of view you bring up--is it worth the effort?
The other misleading aspect to your question is this: lets pretend for a moment that we actually could reverse the warming trend. Your question implies a steady rate of cooling vs. a steady rate of warming, and, as far as I know, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the earth would cool as rapidly as it is currently warming.
The whole worry for those who are worried about the average temparture of the earth getting warmer is the pace. If the earth were to warm by a degree each century, we could more easily adapt to the changes than we could if the earth were to warm by a degree each year.
"The question really is to what extent can we decelarate the warming, not whether or not we can stop or reverse it-- and, from the utilitarian point of view you bring up--is it worth the effort?"
I think you answered his question pretty well right there, which suggests its not as disingenuous as you think.
But the way you frame it isnt the way the debate is being framed. Or allowed to be framed. Gore et al have bridged the gap between the fact that the world is getting warmer to the claim that this means we must launch radical programs to thwart this. The claim that that idea is also settled, and that disagreeing or asking pragmatic questions is just as bad as denying the earth has warmed at all.
There-in lies the disingenuous part of this debate. The activists claim global warming is so catastrophic we must act before we think. On the other hand they have carefully specified the ways we must act, and amazingly they all happen to match their idealogical social agenda. You wont see a push for nuclear power, which is by far the fastest, cheapest, and most effective way to reduce C02 emissions. If they really believed their hype it would be insane to oppose nuclear power, suicidal even.
Mark B.,
I agree that what you say is true--but only to a very limited extent. It all depends upon who you are listening to and who is debating whom. What are you referring to by "this debate." You seem satisfied with focusing on a small number of people on the far reaches of one side, people who have close to zero influence on public policy. US policy, if you can call it policy, is leaning AWAY from the ideas of those you so scorn.
I simply do not know what you mean by how "the debate is allowed to be framed." Again, I ask, by whom? What magical power do these people have over the debate?
Radical programs? How about any program that even acknowledges global warming might be a problem that bears looking into?
I don't think it is insane to hold the opinion that since nuclear power may come with its own set of dangers or problems it shouldn't be advocated as a solution to another set of dangers or problems. After all, you are the one who is advocating thinking before acting. Perhaps you should give them credit for not running after the first available solution without thinking it through.
Again, these environmental crazies with a social agenda seem to be the weakest bunch of the herd, why go after them?
"You seem satisfied with focusing on a small number of people on the far reaches of one side, people who have close to zero influence on public policy. US policy, if you can call it policy, is leaning AWAY from the ideas of those you so scorn."
Small number? Are you suggesting Al Gore's position is a fringe one? If so, why is it now being claimed in the media that if you disagree with him you are a 'denier'? I thought Gore's position is the prudent one?
"I simply do not know what you mean by how "the debate is allowed to be framed." Again, I ask, by whom? What magical power do these people have over the debate?"
The magical power is called media. Al Gore is depicted as the expert, critics including well regarded scientists are simply ignored. How often has it been repeated in Newsweek or the NYT that there is no scientific contraversy in AGW? Yet that is demonstrably false. Its the media that refuses to delineate the fact that you can agree the world is warming but still oppose Kyoto. To an editor of a major newspaper that stance is equivalent to believing in gravity but still trying to fly by flapping your arms.
"Radical programs? How about any program that even acknowledges global warming might be a problem that bears looking into?"
Who (aside from the truly fringe) is advocating not looking to AGW? Every speech i ever heard Bush give called for waiting for the science. Is that equivalent?
"I don't think it is insane to hold the opinion that since nuclear power may come with its own set of dangers or problems it shouldn't be advocated as a solution to another set of dangers or problems."
The problem with that line of thought is that nuclear reactors hold regional dangers (small and easily mitigated in this day and age) while AGW is perported to hold global climactic danger to the human race. Otherwise, this entire discussion is at worst moot and at best overblown. Since nuclear dangers are so many orders of magnitude less threatening, to argue they are both dangerous is ludicrious. Driving is dangerous and attaching myself to a homemade ACME rocket is dangerous, it doesnt than follow that since im not going to ride the rocket i shouldnt drive either, because they are both dangerous. If AGW is truly a global threat, nuclear power (being the fastest and most impactful solution) has to be our first resort. Its the only one that can have a significant impact in the short term for one thing.
"After all, you are the one who is advocating thinking before acting. Perhaps you should give them credit for not running after the first available solution without thinking it through."
I think 50+ years of successful and safe nuclear power (including France's majority power source) might just be enough to be considered 'thought through'. On the other hand all these carbon taxing and industry taxing schemes are entirely unknown. How can you compare the two?
"Again, these environmental crazies with a social agenda seem to be the weakest bunch of the herd, why go after them?"
Because they have the steering wheel and the bullhorn. These so called crazies have elected themselves (and been radified by the media) as the only people qualified (sanctified) to speak to the masses. Since the fringe has taken control of the agenda and attempted to stifle debate, of course they must be the first addressed.
Mark B.,
I think all of your arguments--except those about nuclear power--are easily refuted by pointing out that the President of the United States--and apparently all of Congress--is neither listening to nor acting upon the advice of Al Gore and the media. So apparently this power which you speak of these two entities as having is somewhat ineffective when it comes to meaningful debate.
"Its the media that refuses to delineate the fact that you can agree the world is warming but still oppose Kyoto. " And yet, that is precisely the official position of the United States.
As far as the nuclear power issue, you are confusing your opinion regarding its saftey with the opinons of those who are against it. Yes, it is quite true, if those people who argued against the use of nuclear power held your views of its saftey then they would cerainly be somewhat inconsistent in their logic. I'm not arguing one side or the other, only that their position is not insane. (or ludicrous). I also don't think you are doing justice to the full set of arguments against the use of nuclear power as a response to global warming.
"As far as the nuclear power issue, you are confusing your opinion regarding its saftey with the opinons of those who are against it."
I would say i am conflicting what has been demonstrated to be true by 50+ years of data (not to mention all the modern improvements) and what the luddites are claiming. No-one even bothers to argue against nuclear power any more, its a lost cause. They just let the red tape and lawyers built up during the age of fear do the work.
"Yes, it is quite true, if those people who argued against the use of nuclear power held your views of its saftey then they would cerainly be somewhat inconsistent in their logic."
But those that disagree with those views just happen to be the selfsame group of crazies making demands on AGW. There is a pattern here, one that involves opposing logic and science with fear and paranoia.
"I'm not arguing one side or the other, only that their position is not insane. (or ludicrous)."
Than it is demagogery. Nuclear power, particularly the modern designs built to automatically shut down, are one of the safest forms of energy productions. Anyone who wants to contrast the number of deaths in the coal industry vs nuclear power is welcome to.
"I also don't think you are doing justice to the full set of arguments against the use of nuclear power as a response to global warming."
For once i feel good about saying that the science is settled in this case. Modern nuclear energy cant possibly hold a global threat to humanity as AGW is claimed to- thats simple physics. But more importantly decades of safe use and innovative new designs have made it even more failsafe. AT WORST nuclear power could kill a few thousand people. AGW advocates claim millions are in imminent peril. Its simple math. If you can point to a good argument that a modern pebble bed reactor can possibly kill a million people (heck, 1000 would be a major stretch), im all ears.
The always articulate Richard S. Lindzen
(PDF file)
Mark B, there has been a global warming bill (the McCain/Lieberman bill) pending in the Senate for a couple of years which has tax incentives for nuclear energy as a cornerstone. Obama has joined as a co-sponsor, and I think it will get a vote in the coming months. I believe a good number of people concerned about global warming are interested in nuclear alternatives.
The problem for nuclear power plants is high construction costs, particularly compared with the smaller cost of adding a new, higher-efficiency generating unit. If energy demand remains somewhat stable as it is projected, I don't believe any investor will want to build a nuclear plant.
The nuclear energy option only appears feasible if tax payers pay for part of the construction costs or if the government taxes competition. That's what a carbon tax would do, which most environmentalists support whether or not they mention the fact that nuclear power plants would benefit from such a tax.
Just read the thread, and just wanted to make the observation that E-P seems a little stronger in the P than the E. Especially if the P stood for Pretentious.
Not taking sides in the argument, just noting the different styles of argumentation here.
Something like this:
Point: "Maybe we should ask some pointed questions about GW."
Counterpoint: (from E-P) "All who question GW are all godbags! And just like HITLER!"
Exaggeration for conversational effect.
Thanks for a good read, all.
> The problem for nuclear power plants is high construction costs, particularly compared with the smaller cost of adding a new, higher-efficiency generating unit.
Much of that "high construction costs" is legal costs, costs that don't contribute to power production or safety.
"I've always kind of suspected that underlying much of environmentalism is a desire for the impossible: stasis."
INtelligent people don't argue that there should be environmental stasis, nor that any climate change is inherently wrong. What we argue for is avoiding the risk of introducing significant perturbation.
Climate has a tendancy to settle in quasistable equilibria. Small changes produce negative feedback that re-establish the climate. Too much carbon dioxide produces more greenhouse heat - both of which are amenable to plant growth which reduces carbon dioxide. Too many atmospheric particulates cause cooling, and condensation of water vapor which pull the particulates out of the sky. Everything stays fairly constant.
Generally, these mechanisms work for many millenia at a stretch to keep a climate stable. It usually takes a catastrophe like, an asteroid impact, caldera eruption, or the evolution of oxygen generating life, to significantly affect global climate. Then, you go beyond the limits of negative feedback, and hit positive feedback. POsitive feedback would be cold producing snows which increase surface reflecivity that further cool surface temperatures producing more snow etc. Or atmospheric CO2 heating the planet, causing more H2O to be held in the atmosphere enhancing the greenhouse effect, possibly altering climate too fast for plant species to migrate, so instead of growing, they die, further raising atmospheric CO2. There is no good way to know where positive feedback will take you.
Sensible environmental policy is avoiding situations of positive feedback whenever we can. Since we don't really know when they will kick in, we should avoid stressing our environment unnecessarily. Arguing that Greenland would be nice if it were warmer is nonsense. The set of conditions that might make greenland warmer might not stop at the point where Greenland is nice. We could eliminate liquid state water. That would not be nice. It is like setting fire to your couch because the house is too cold.
Njorl, nicely put.
"The set of conditions that might make greenland warmer might not stop at the point where Greenland is nice. We could eliminate liquid state water."
Quite. All our eggs are in one basket, and we don't even know how fragile the basket is.
One of the possible solutions to GW is also a fallback position. Or to put it another way, one of the possible solutions also necessarily gives us somewhere else to go if we screw up Earth badly enough. It also indirectly gives us the means to fix the damage.
Much of that "high construction costs" is legal costs, costs that don't contribute to power production or safety.
The most recent cost estimates for nuclear energy are that it would cost about $1,611/KW This is probably half of what it costs the last bast of plants to be build, but its still more than the $1,000 to $1,500 /KW to build a new coal plant.
But that's not really my point. The U.S. has a large fleet of somewhat old multi-unit coal-fired plants that can expand their capacity and improve efficiency by replacing old units with new units. They don't need to build a whole new coal plant, train new workers or create new infrastructure.
Meanwhile, peak energy demand in the U.S. is expected to remain stable. I see no financial incentive for radical change to the source of electricity in the United States, without the imposition of new costs on coal, financial incentives for nukes, or a significant intervening invent such as the conversion of the domestic auto fleet to electricity.
Oops. Bast = Batch. Sorry goddess.
For the most part, all this debate has proven is how ignorant the posters are.
TOC, that comment says more about you than about any other commenter here.
Consensus in science measures the uncertainty in the data, and the number of theories still consistent with it. Highly certain data, few consistent theories (or even just one), high degree of consensus. Poor or no data, lots of consistent theories, theorists can be all over the place (and the researchers go to find data to decide which of them, if any, are correct or anywhere close). The GW-denialists are reminiscent of the signatories of the letter against Einstein. They are trying to measure the science by the political allegiances of the camps which have taken either side, instead of the evidence. There is a lot of that among the commenters here.
It's in the range of projections in the IPCC report. There is a range of projections because some numbers still cannot be determined with great enough accuracy to tighten them up. However, "human use of fossil fuels has nothing to do with global warming" is spectacularly inconsistent with the data. The sort of place you'll find people saying that is among the people paid $10,000 for debasing themselves.
Interesting, in that it quotes from popular and not scientific works. While there was knowledge that the usual timing of glaciations should have had one coming about soon, there was no evidence that this was about to occur (and in the pre-Internet days, many fewer people had access to the actual writings of the scientists involved; what information they got was from newspapers, popular books and magazines). Further, the "authority" you quote (Lowell Ponte) is known to be a crank, asserting things such as the decrease of the gravitational constant based on the recession of the moon (completely explained by tidal drag on the Earth).
You cite George Will with obvious approval, and among his first words I read:
I would think that someone with the title of "Reverend" would recognize religious language when he sees it. Besides the claims which start going off the rails at #2, he tries to paint the issue as one of contested beliefs instead of factual merit. Everyone's entitled to their own beliefs, aren't they? But facts are facts, and false claims of fact are lies. That's the difference Will is trying to blur, and you're doing your bit to help.
You're right on track with the denialists' agenda of confusion: when "it isn't happening" is no longer tenable, try "it's good for us" on top of the false dichotomy "warming or cooling, pick one" ("staying about the same" isn't included as a choice).
Regarding the question (as dishonestly as it may be meant), warming means the continuation of a trend which is already leading to trouble and may wind up as a runaway feedback loop. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and warming appears to be destabilizing methane hydrates in the Arctic and the Hudson Submarine Canyon and Santa Barbara channel as well as former permafrost areas in Siberia. More warming leads to more methane which leads to more warming, until the methane runs out... and there is one amazing amount of methane in sea sediments alone. Do you think it's wise to let a phenomenon like this get out of our control if there's even a chance it might be bad for us? As for whether it's good, the experience of the Gulf coast in 2005 and the Phillipines last year might give you some food for thought. Insurance companies are refusing to write policies all up and down the East coast, including where I am at the moment. Do you think it's good to live where you're uninsurable?
I'm happy to see your tactics of desperation because you're losing the argument on all fronts, but that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore or excuse dishonesty or sleaziness when I find it.
For what it's worth, we can reverse global warming (at least, if we start soon enough). We could easily put enough sulfate aerosol in the stratosphere to reproduce Mt. Pinatubo's two-year hiatus of warming, or even "The Year Without A Summer" for as many years as we like. Paul Cruzen is suggesting this, and it is certainly better than allowing a runaway warming to get established. I've calculated that the USA could replace all of our petroleum motor fuel and fossil electric generation with greenhouse-neutral or even GHG-negative systems. Doing this would also let us tell the Wahhabis and Hugo Chavez to take a hike. This would be spectacularly good for our economic and military security (but bad for the oil interests running the GOP at the moment).
The people claiming "we can't do it" or "we don't want to do it" are just acting as stooges for Exxon-Mobil and Peabody Coal. They're really the only ones with something to lose by doing what we ought to do anyway.
(For what it's worth, I support nuclear power. I just don't think we can get it built fast enough to do the job alone, so I spend my time on other avenues toward the goal.)
Well E-P, you certainly managed to exactly demonstrate the attitude the good Reverend was pointing out.
We jump from decent scientific evidence that the planet is warming, straight to the completely unproven assertion that the warming trend, unless artificially reversed, will continue unbroken (even exponentially increasing no less, a fun assertion given that most of the planet's life-bearing history has been warmer than it has been now), straight to the assertion that this will a global disaster of (pardon the pun) biblical proportions.
And the evidence for that is the lack of available insurance on the east coast (oh my!). Which is hilariously ironic given that the lack of insurance was based on the scientific consensus that the hurricane season last year would be among the worst in history, and then it turned out to be amongst the mildest.
Oh yes, and one bad storm year for the gulf coast in 2005, and for the phillipines.
By that standard, global catastrophe has been always around the corner for centuries now, as I can always find some area of the world that had a bad weather year for any given year.
You're bashing everyone in sight for being a heretic to the clear truth of global warming, and explicitly declared everyone who's not for drastic action to combat it as being an oil camp 'stooge'. And ignoring the central thesis/issue:
1) Assertion - The climate WILL change.
2) Logic - Temperature can only change in one of two ways, up or down.
3) Question - What's the correct temperature? Why is the temperature now so special?
I, for one, find the claim that we're on the verge of runaway, out of control warming ludicrous. Long running complex systems, nearly by definition, do not have positive feedback loops. If they did, they would've already self-destructed. In order for a positive feedback loop to exist, it would have to be new, and there really aren't any new elements in the global climate equation (greenhouse gasses have always existed, and the current temperatures are actually on the low side of the range).
You're a textbook example of the [ scientific evidence of few degrees warming over 100 years->doom->drastic action ] path that we're questioning here. The immediate personal attacks on anyone disagreeing with you aren't helping your case either. It's almost like you're afraid to debate the evidence...
Oh and the 'For what it's worth, I support nuclear power. I just don't think we can get it built fast enough to do the job alone, so I spend my time on other avenues toward the goal.' immediately after the approving link to the long meandering article on how biomass is the future was priceless. Yes, proven/tested nuclear power would be so much slower to implement than unproven, likely unscaleable conversions to mostly experimental biomass fuels with horrendous efficiencies...
Oh, and apparently the mere use of the word 'catechism' even though the context it was being used in was to describe the beliefs of the opposing camp, is enough to get one labelled as a religious nut and dismissed out of hand.
Good to know.
"Long running complex systems, nearly by definition, do not have positive feedback loops. If they did, they would've already self-destructed."
That's ridiculous. The global climate certainly does have positive feedback loops. They are not open-ended, at least historically, and a new equillibrium will be established, most likely in the range of habitability, but they do exist. Ice ages were examples of positive feedback loops that I mentioned in this thread. Cold produces snow covered land. Global albedo is increased, reflecting more energy back into space. The surface cooling increases, causing more land to become covered in snow. Eventually a competing mechanism dominates the positive feedback mechanism, and brings the change to a relative halt at a new equilibrium.
An example of a possible competing mechanism to the ice age would be the binding of more water as ice. At first, the effect is small, but eventually, sea levels lower, exposing more surface as land. Land has a lower albedo than sea, so less energy is reflected to space, and the surface warms.
Equillibrium can shift dramatically due to positive feedback mechanisms before a negative feedback mechanism kicks in.
Pfft.. I really wish CO2 had an exponential, unlimited warming effect on the atmosphere. I would really appreciate a nice Miocene climate.
I once again ask the doomsayers, who insist that anyone disagreeing with their stance shut up, to look at the temp/co2 chart shown on this webpage...
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
I want an explanation for why, if CO2 has an unlimited potential for a "greenhouse" effect, life was not extinguished during the last epochs. Yes there's been extinctions, mostly attributeable to bolloid impacts, continental positioning etc.. If the premise is though that the plant food CO2 is such a terrible threat to life then why are we alive today? The planet is at about the lowest percentage of CO2 for it's constructable geologic history. For (insert religeouse diety of choose) sake get another drum to pound on, most of us are bored with your current one.
PS.. before I see some trite posting of a wikipedia link I would advise any potential responder to read beyond that. Look at the numerouse research papers available. Wikipedia's own people have finally admitted that their site is a general reference and not to be taken as an authoritative source.
PPS.. and why can't George Will comment on the climate? That paragon of the AGW community, Dr. Suzuki, does it all the time. His field is one of the biological disciplines I do believe. I would be far more impressed with the opinion of some poor, backcountry dirty farmer in regards to the weather than Suzuki's ventings.
Oh, my, the irony is thick today...
Treefrog:.... as he responds to a comment with multiple links to evidence, while providing none himself. Way to be a hypocrite. More goalpost-shifting. Proofs are for mathematics. Science has evidence. We have the conditions for a self-reinforcing warming trend, and evidence that this is indeed beginning. This justifies great concern and preventive action. Bullshit. Here's what the forecasters were really saying:And that's exactly what we got. Wind patterns kept most of the storms out in the Atlantic (I was in the path of Alberto). Hah. The breakup of ice sheets is known to happen relatively suddenly due to positive feedback loops. Long-running complex systems often have built-in oscillators. You know, like geysers?The periods can be from minutes to hundreds of years. Take Lake Nyos in Cameroon. It is a very deep lake, which receives carbon dioxide from a volcanic vent. The pressurized CO2 is denser than water and stratifies at the bottom, but when enough of it builds up it becomes unstable when disturbed; CO2 coming out of solution turns the heavy soda water to a light froth, which reduces the pressure and lifts more soda water in a runaway reaction. The result is a huge cloud of asphyxiating gas, covering several square miles.
The death toll from this relatively small event was 1746. It will probably take hundreds of years for enough CO2 to build up again, so the area is safe for the moment. But anyone who lives there needs to know about this, and perhaps even engineer a safety valve such as an artificial geyser to bleed the pool of CO2 harmlessly.
Earth's climate may have a similar oscillator in it, based on methane. The last time it triggered was called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, about 55 million years ago. During this event, atmospheric CO2 concentrations rose to ~2000 ppm and the sub-arctic ocean surface temperatures rose to a tepid 73° F.
The amount of carbon in methane hydrates in the world is estimated at 10,000 gigatons, twice as much as all oil, coal and conventional natural gas. The total mass of the atmosphere is about 5.3 million gigatons, so that much methane could make the atmosphere roughly 1800 ppm carbon by weight. That's more than sufficient to give us 2000 ppm by volume. The USGS lists it as a geohazard.- True. But what kind of changes will there be, and what should we do about them?
- False dichotomy. Temperature can change up AND down, and can either show a trend or remain relatively steady.
- The temperature now is special because it's what humans, all our domesticated plants and animals, and vast areas of commercially, ecologically and aesthetically important ecosystems are adapted to handle. Any large excursion would be disastrous for them and us.
The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum coincided with a mass extinction. It's sheer lunacy for humans to create the possibility of another one, but we may be doing exactly that.Funny, you could have taken those objections straight out of my essay.
The next crop of US nuclear plants is due to come on-line about 2016. We need to move faster than that. The installed base of wind power is growing at about 25%/year, and I expect that wind and other solutions will wind up being a much bigger part of the puzzle than nuclear. But it's all necessary, and all good.
Sorry, I was imprecise, I didn't mean to say that complex systems do not have positive feedback effects, I meant to say they don't have unbounded positive feedback loops, very different things.
And my original point stands, you have a very high burden of proof if you're going to claim that any current climate conditions will lead (via self-sustained reaction) to a new temperature range beyond life sustaining boundaries.
And sorry, I thought your linking to the article on biomass fuels, followed by the comment that you thought nuclear power was too slow indicated that the faster means you were referring to was biomass.
We have the conditions for a self-reinforcing warming trend, and evidence that this is indeed beginning. This justifies great concern and preventive action.
This is the whole question, even if we assert statement 1 to be true, how does that lead automatically to 2?
Most of the predictions I've seen indicate a long term warming of around 5 degrees C over the next couple hundred years, maybe as much as 8. That's not even close to boiling the seas or rendering the planet unsustainable. All of the current mammals evolved under planetary conditions even warmer than that, so mass extinctions are highly unlikely. We'll almost certainly see some extinctions, but that's a feature of evolution, not a bug remember? New species will evolve to fill in the niches. Unless of course, you don't believe in evolution, in which case any extinction is to be feared, because nothing will replace them...
Take a good look at JDs chart and tell me with a straight face that the conditions we're looking at under standard GW scenarios are really that out of range of planetary history.
That just leaves the effects on us monkeys, and those would be what? Changing weather patterns? People might have to change what crops they plant to fit new conditions? Change population distributions? Move some cities? Things we've been doing for all of our history? With and without climatalogical causes? The horror.
It's not going to happen overnight. 100-200 years is fast for climatology but slow for human history. Slow changes simply don't trigger massive economic loss. If the change is slow enough, people simply drift away as they hit the marginal zone.
I do not see anything in global warming that justifies taking drastic action. I'm open to being convinced otherwise, but so far haven't even really seen the issue addressed beyond the 'Global Warming=Disaster and if you believe otherwise you must be an oil industry stooge'.
Of course I AM an oil industry stooge :) Well, a systems developer for an oil company to be precise. The irony is that actually, most of the oil execs I've met and asked about it all indicated they would be happier selling, say, hydrogen for example instead of oil. Oil's just too volatile (business volatile not boom volatile) for comfort.
The PETM being caused by methane release is an interesting theory with some huge problems behind it, mainly the fact that if, beyond a certain point, a rise in temperature causes a massive release of methane which causes a further rapid increase in temperature (by releasing more greenhouse gasses than humans could possibly put out), then why hasn't it happened more than once (maybe twice) in all known history? As the researchers point out themselves, there must be additional causes, or else it would've happened every time the ocean temperatures went over a certain point.
But even more interesting is that PETM caused massive global warming, complete with worst case oceanic current changes and the whole 9 yards...and the main effect on the biosphere was to cause a steady decline in large mammals, replacing them with smaller types, and a near-extinction of Benthic foraminiferals.
Land based plant and animal life handily switched around to adapt, and the benthic extinction was rapidly reversed by the adaptation of new varieties that thrived in the new conditions.
Interesting quotes from Speiglers team's survey of the situation and work in Egypt:
and
In other words, the worst case scenario happened and barely rated a blip in the global record. My tension meter is still on low here...
Actually, here's a fun little back of the napkin calculation that is one of the reasons I think the greens are full of it...
Amount of generation capacity in the US: 1,000,000 megawatts (approx)
of generation capacity fossil fuel driven: 72
Cost of new nuclear power plant: 1.5 mil per MW
720,000 MWs * 1,500,000 = 1 trillion dollars (approx)
Estimated cost (to US) of Kyoto protocol (according to the influential Yale study): 325 billion dollars.
So for a mere 3 times the cost of Kyoto, we get a bazillion times it's effectiveness. Actually, I think it would dwarf the world-wide effectiveness of Kyoto...
Oh and this doesn't factor in little details like the fact that massive construction on this scale would largely eradicate the legal/permitting costs (not to mention sheer scale benefits) that make up so much of the cost of nuclear power plant construction.
Or the fact that nuclear power cost is largely (60-70%) up front, and that the long term costs are much lower compared to oil/coal/gas.
Or the fact that some of the fossil fuel capacity could be picked up by the easy low hanging fruit areas where solar/wind generation shine.
Where I got my numbers from:
Electricity Generation Stats
Nuclear Costs Stats
but feel free to plug your own numbers in if you dislike mine...but basically for about, what, a year and a halfs worth of social security spending we could be coal free?
JD, has anyone mentioned that during the Carboniferous Era the sune was significantly cooler than now? Of course, the distribution of continents was different too.
CO2 is currently at a very low level, on a geologic timescale. There is, however, evidence that Gaia is struggling to stay cool (to use a convenient analogy) as evidenced by the apparent fact that plant species are now biased towards those that are efficient at fixing the gas at low levels, because of changes in the details of their metabolism.
Another point worth making, about methane deposits, is that there are entire ecosystems dependent on methane deposits - one of which is at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Release these deposits and destroy a unique ecosystem.
Of course, some may think that a mass extinction is a small price for the continuation of the excesses of consumption that characterise America - obscenely large and energy-inefficient SUVs and trucks being but a small part. Pardon me, but I disagree.
Fletcher Christian:
Do you really think that cutting CO2 emissions is simply a matter of stopping SUVs? The industrial world runs on CO2 as does all of modern agriculture. Americans are actually quite efficient as measured by CO2 emissions/unit of econmic output. If the rest of the world were doing as well as America (SUVs included), the world would be in much better shape.
Here's a little thought experiment.
1) Pick the level of CO2 emissions you find acceptable.
2) Divide that level by 6 billion to compute the acceptable per capita emissions level.
3) Determine the historic standard of living at that per capita level of CO2 emissions.
If you want to do address the issue meaningfully solely through emissions reductions then it's not about giving up SUVs, it's about going back to subsistence farming.
Since I think that's so unlikely as to be unworthy of discussion, solutions need to focus on migration from CO2-based energy sources, development of carbon fixing technologies (including CO2-neutral energy sources), and climate change mitigation strategies. Or just hope the predictions are wrong.
But putting on a hairshirt just isn't going to happen. Not at a level that makes a meaningful impact.
Treefrog #48,
In spite my perspective (which is one of profound ignorance); your rationale that 'benthic extinction' and the ensuing 'neritic expansion' should somehow assuage present anxieties one might have about global warming, misses a significant point. Possibly because nobody sought to interview the poor benthics and put their perspective into that global record. The largest of human tragedies, up to and including humankind being struck from the planet, will in turn register hardly a blip.
Fletcher Christian
And has anyone mentioned to you that the earth's mantle processes were much more active during that time period? Of prime example is the fact that Kamatiite lavas (temperatures of 2900F) have not erupted for at least 60 million years.
As to the distrobution of the continents, read the gentleman's webpage further. You'll note that the continental distrobution closely resembles the current one in respect to it's effect.
If you want to beat your breast in anguish over the sin of gluttony feel free to do so. But not to me, I'm not interested. You lost any credibility with me when you trotted out that old hag Gaia.
The debate is..
1. Who has the right to comment on the climate? Apparently some posters here believe only the AGW elites have a right to voice opinion.
2. Is the approximately 3.8% contribution that humanity has to the 196 billion tons per year of the planets CO2 cycle been solely responsible for a global temperature increase of approximately 1F over the last century? Or is the temperature increase a ongoing, natural process involving planetary and stellar mechanisms? Is it a combination? Would it not be actually desireable?
My opinion of the AGW mindset is best represented by and article I read from an English paper. I sum it up as follows. "Doom, land not seen for a million years exposed by retreating glaicers in Greenland." The proof was the newly exposed longhouse foundations of a Viking farming village.
JD, I said "to use a convenient analogy". There are self-correcting feedback loops that keep the climate within relatively narrow limits.
If you prefer, I could put it like this; CO2, to the best of my knowledge, is at a low point in terms of geological time. Plants, and therefore animal life (including us) need a certain level of CO2 to stay alive, and there is evidence that some plant species are near the limits of their tolerance; it is also a fact that the distribution of plant species is changing in such a way as to make more CO2-efficient species more common.
There is a slow downward trend (possibly with upward spikes and maybe one of them is caused by us) in CO2 levels. This is presumably caused by some sort of feedback that tends to lower CO2 when energy input and therefore Earth's blackbody temperature increases.
There is also little doubt that the solar "constant" is increasing on a geological timescale, and that at some point the capacity of Earth to compensate is going to run out; which will make Earth unhabitable for us and perhaps for all life. At some later time, Earth will indeed come to resemble Venus, when the negative feedback mechanisms run out of steam.
Am I excused a little bit of shorthand for all that?
As for the 3.8% figure; I don't doubt it. Sometimes 3.8% is enough to make a difference. Example; do a bungee jump and get the organiser to make the cord 3.8% too long. See what happens.
It is generally not a good idea to apply a fairly large forcing stimulus to a feedback system near the limits of its control capacity. I submit that this is just what we are doing, or at the very least that it might be. If the latter, I would prefer that my sister's grandchildren not find out the hard way (I have no children of my own).
On the matter of American industrial efficiency; perhaps. However, American industrial output is large enough as a percentage of the whole that any efficiency savings might help. As for SUVs; well, us Brits seem to have cars that are quite comfortable while being half the weight of the classic American car. Is a five-foot hood with a three hundred horsepower engine under it really essential to your mental wellbeing?
It is perfectly feasible that most of the warming has nothing to do with us. However, if that is the case there is also no doubt that sooner or later it will cease to be the case.
The last reference I've seen gives an estimate of 500 million years before the habitable zone passes beyond Earth's orbit. Stellar evolution is an interesting subject field with a lot of questions still to be answered such as stellar age versus mettalacity versus output.
As for AGW I see CO2 as having little impact. Everyone points to the rise of CO2 along with estimated global temperature in the past from ice core drilling. When you focus in however it's seen that CO2 lags by tens or more of years behind the temperature curve. If humanity is contributing to the current warming it's mostly through land usage over the last century or so (a book was mentioned that the author of postulated human agricultural practices etc as having impacted the climate. Beggining 8000 years ago. I find it highly unlikely that the population was large enough to cause any changes noticeable beyond the background noise. Now over the last couple of centuries that could be valid with the higher population. Land usage can cause weather patterns to change).
Within the coming decades we will have moved beyond most hydrocarbon fuels. For economic and sustainability reasons. If not then we've failed as a species and evolution will put paid to us for being dumb@##es. This should be enough to allay concernes for most people (except the extremists who want an immediate migration to Walden's Pond. Note, I've lived that lifestyle, it sucks).
Where I draw the line is self annoited activists preaching to me and telling me to shut up if I don't support them. I've reveiwed the same material (and probably more) as the most vocal extremists have and my opinion is different. I will not support spending trillions of dollars for no noticeable impact. Not when that money could be better used to premote human advancement.
JD, it may surprise you but I don't advocate spending trillions of dollars either - leaving aside the fact that America's oil addiction is probably part of the cause of its spending of at least one trillion dollars in Iraq, by the time it's over.
However, there are a large number of things that can be done that will probably have a zero or negative effect on spending, on a timescale of a decade or so - more efficient cars, properly insulated and draughtproofed buildings, better heat recovery in heat-using processes, the list goes on.
More radical solutions, on a slightly longer timescale, include a crash programme to build power reactors of an intrinsically safe design (probably pebble-bed), research into thorium fission (uranium is an exhaustible resource, too), research into fusion, and some serious work on lifting really large amounts of stuff into space economically - which involves disbanding NASA as a first step. Also some research into ocean thermal - we know this works; the first pilot plant was built in the 1930s.
On the subject of fusion, the magnetic confinement route may work - eventually - but will involve really large units and vast amounts of radioactive waste (the only workable process releases lots of fast neutrons). Electrostatic confinement fusion is on the verge of working (try googling Bussard fusion) and needs a fairly small amount of money for further research. The American government has pulled the funding - maybe it needs all it can get to pay for Iraq.
And no energy company is going to pay for this research, because it's likely that the units will work at a rather small size - maybe not quite a domestic generator, but perhaps small enough for a large office building to have its own. This, of course, would promote decentralisation and take away some of the power of the large oil and energy companies - something they won't tolerate.
The same process appears to be adaptable to use as a fusion rocket. The implications of this are enormous.
Earth is a very small place. Too small for us. And, to use another metaphor, all our eggs are in one basket. Time to buy another.
"The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever."
#52 Ian
What's the quote, evolution isn't for the faint hearted? This kind of scenario definitely wouldn't be a good thing, I'm definitely not saying that. But, the biosphere is sturdy. More so than most seem to give it credit for. Truth is, the planet's already gone through larger changes than what we're being warned of as 'the end of the world' type doom and gloom scenarios. And yet, somehow, we're all still here arguing about it.
I don't object to taking concrete action to slow/stop/reverse global warming trends, but I expect to see some solid cost/benefit analysis, and that's simply not being offered. The story that seems to be sold is end of the world on the cost side and paradise on earth on the benefit side all for the price of being 'carbon neutral'.
_Earth is a very small place. Too small for us. And, to use another metaphor, all our eggs are in one basket. Time to buy another.
"The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever."_
Amen to that. Although I rate the probability of blowing ourselves up a few orders of magnitude higher than environmental destruction.
And I said nothing of the sort, nor anything which could be legitimately construed that way. (Though the temperature of Venus is certainly bounded, but not compatible with life - this is the ultimate fate of the Earth in a few billion years as the Sun gets hotter with age).
First, the temperature excursions are bounded by the available greenhouse gases. Methane oxidizes to CO2 relatively quickly (about 10 years, at least under current conditions) so the inventory of methane is only a lot more powerful than the same molar quantity of CO2 during the actual period of release. This doesn't affect the limits of warming (we might be able to duplicate the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum), but it does change how fast it can occur.
Second, compatibility with life. The PETM was not incompatible with life. Heck, the likes of palm trees growing near the Arctic circle sure sounds like life to me. But it's incompatible with:- The very existence of our coastal cities, which would be under as much as 200 feet of seawater.
- The survival of many cold-water species, including cod and Maine lobster.
- The survival of temperate-zone species, both plants and animals, wild and domesticated. (Where do you grow apples when there's no place on the continent where an orchard can get enough winter rest to bud the next spring?)
Sure, life would go on. But humans would be immensely poorer in all these scenarios.You think 5°C is small? We are already about 0.6°C above the typical inter-glacial temperature (which is what most animals on Earth — of which mammals are only a small fraction — are adapted to handle). An ice age has average temperatures only about 5°C below recent historic values. You think that another 5°C (well above what the Earth has seen in millions of years) would be of no concern?
The polar bear is already under threat of extinction as it is. Rockhopper penguin numbers on Marion island have fallen by over 60%. Australia has a massive drought with no end in sight. This isn't enough to convince you that something is, if not wrong, certainly worthy of serious concern?
What would it take for you to overcome your attachment to your current paycheck?Because a great many people are not fools and want their comfortable lives to continue. Phenomena like droughts and temperature extremes may make this difficult (expensive) or impossible. And that's only thinking about ourselves; you don't even seem to be able to stretch your mind that far.
Nihilism should start with yourself. What part of planetary history? It's way, way out of range for the last thirty-plus million years. You might have noticed that the cycads and whatnot which were common in the early Carboniferous aren't around any more. Neither are the Eocene flora and fauna waiting should those conditions re-appear.
What I see in JD's chart (which has such lousy resolution it doesn't include the recent glacial cycles) is that humans are prepared to take conditions that ecosystems spent millions of years adapting themselves away from, and re-introduce them in a century or less.
Regarding JD: He sets up strawmen like "exponential, unlimited warming effect". I'd like to see where anyone on the "GW is real and man-made" side has used any phrase remotely like that. If nobody has, he's grossly dishonest.Loss of forests and arable land is plenty painful even if it takes two centuries. Consider the US dustbowl conditions of the 1930's. If that situation had taken 20 years to develop and endured for 200, would we have been better off? Tell that to the people of the former Mesopotamia. It used to be the breadbasket of the region. Erosion, salination and, yes, climate change impovershed both the land and the people who live on it. None is so blind as will not see.
Here's a question in the same vein: why doesn't the New Madrid fault trigger often enough for us to have proper earthquake building codes for Missouri? Is the rarity of ruptures going to save folks there when it does let go?
There's suspicion that methane was a factor only about 10 million years before the PETM. The impact which created the Chixulub crater would certainly have stirred immense quantities of oceanic deposits, and probably released a great deal of methane from them. This would have led to a triple whammy for the dinosaurs: firestorms from impact debris re-entering, brief global winter from atmospheric dust, followed by global heat wave as the dust fell out and the methane acted alone.
So far as your question goes (and I admit I'm speculating here), the Earth has for the last few million years had an arrangement of continents which makes it go into glacial cycles. Cold ocean water and permafrost create conditions for the accumulation of methane hydrates both underwater and on land.
We know they're there. You can't deny it.
Maybe chance has kept them from being destabilized for tens of millions of years. Maybe it was continental drift. Either way, we're seeing signs that they are no longer stable. We also know what happened the last time that was the case, and it wasn't pretty."Rapidly" is in geologic terms, here. If you think you'd see anything on the time-scale of the typical human society, you're dreaming. Irony: you quote something which proves my point, and fail to realize it. You mean Greens, as in the party. You know, the same people who can't separate sustainability from socialism and think that PWR plutonium loaded with Pu-240 and Pu-241 is a nuclear proliferation risk? Don't confuse them with people who take ecology seriously.
Average US power consumption is more like 460 GW, and we only have about 230 GW (average) of coal-fired capacity. So cut that to $345 billion to replace coal.
The problem is capacity. If the new crop of plants is 1600 MW apiece and we can complete 10 per year, that's 16 GW/year. US demand growth is running about 10 GW/year, so we'd take a long time cutting into coal and gas-fired capacity.
We have two major "wedges" available now: wind and efficiency. Installed wind capacity is currently increasing at about 2.5 GW/year (~750 MW average at 30% capacity factor), but it's also increasing exponentially at about a 3-year doubling rate. At this rate, it will account for 10% of demand growth next year. Four more doublings (2018) will have us adding about 40 GW/year of capacity and ~12 GW/year of average generation. Another doubling (2021) would add 80 GW/year of capacity and ~24 GW/year of generation. At that rate of expansion, it would displace other expensive generation rapidly and account for more total generation than nuclear in just a few years. Sustaining this level of installation for 20 years would give us average generation of about 500 GW, about 1/4 of the ~2 TW available on land and off shore in the lower 48 states and continental shelves.
I feel reasonably confident about this. 80 GW/year @ 5 MW/unit = 16,000 units/year. This is the sort of volume which can produce rapid improvements in production efficiency. You won't see that with the baseline 1600 MW nuclear plant (though pebble-bed units in the few hundred MW range would get much closer).
The efficiency wedge isn't so easily quantified, but I'm certain it's enormous. For instance, buildings in most parts of the USA can be designed to use little or even no fuel for space heat and hot water. The 2009 Prius is rumored to be aiming at 94 MPG compared to the US fleet's average of about 22.
I prefer to use US expenditures on oil imports rather than Social Security (I don't see SS going away as a result of engineering), but you're right: we do have the potential of building our way out of the need for coal for electricity (and, if I'm correct, natural gas for the same and oil for ground transport).