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<font size="+1"><i>May 20, 2018</i></font><br>
<br>
[Insurance Journal]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2018/05/08/488649.htm">California
Commissioner Ran a Climate Change 'Stress Test' on Insurers</a></b><br>
By Don Jergler | May 8, 2018<br>
California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones has...said during a
press conference on Tuesday that he is the first U.S. financial
regulator to conduct a climate-related financial risk stress test
and analysis of insurance companies' investments in fossil-fuels...<br>
Jones and the California Department of Insurance have engaged 2
degree Investing Initiative, a partner of European financial
regulators, to conduct an analysis of insurers in California's
insurance market with more than $100 million in annual premiums...<br>
California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones has run a "stress test"
on the state's largest insurers...<br>
The goal of the scenario analysis conducted by Jones' office was to
assess the exposure California insurers have to transition risk
based on the evolution of production and assets in the real economy.
The analysis compares the currently planned production from physical
assets allocated to a portfolio with future production levels
defined in a 2 degrees C global warming scenario....<br>
He the CDI will send the results of the survey to companies and
encourage them to use it to assess the risks to their portfolios,
and he'll use the information in his capacity as the state's
insurance regulator...<br>
Jones' efforts to do battle with climate change haven't gone
unnoticed, or unopposed.<br>
Jones last year came under fire from 12 state attorneys general and
one governor, who called his efforts an "affront to sound insurance
regulation," and threatened to sue him for calling on insurance
companies to evaluate and address potential climate-related risks to
their investment portfolio.<br>
Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner John Doak has also urged Jones to
back off his Climate Risk Carbon Initiative, which calls for
insurance company disclosure of investments in fossil fuel producing
companies and aims to discourage them from such investments...<br>
Jones during Tuesday's press conference said that based on that
results over the past five years of the survey that he believes
insurers are not doing enough to prepare for climate change.<br>
"I reached the conclusion that insurance companies were not
addressing the serious financial risks associated with climate
change," Jones said..<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2018/05/08/488649.htm">https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2018/05/08/488649.htm</a></font><br>
- - - -<br>
[Calif Dept of Insurance Analysis]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://interactive.web.insurance.ca.gov/apex_extprd/f?p=250:70:13583878154708::NO:::">SCENARIO
ANALYSIS: Assessing Climate Change Transition Risk in Insurer
Portfolios</a></b><br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://interactive.web.insurance.ca.gov/apex_extprd/f?p=250:70:13583878154708::NO">https://interactive.web.insurance.ca.gov/apex_extprd/f?p=250:70:13583878154708::NO</a>:::</font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Congress does good deed]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://climatecrocks.com/2018/05/19/carbon-monitoring-restored-in-congress-for-now/">Carbon
Monitoring Restored in Congress, for Now</a></b><br>
May 19, 2018<br>
Readers will know that the Trump administration was determined to
cancel an important NASA program which monitors global carbon
fluxes.<br>
Looks like another example of good science being tougher to kill
than climate deniers (and Vladimir Putin) would like.<br>
Earther:<br>
Update 5/18: In a surprising turnaround, the House Appropriations
Committee voted yesterday to reinstate the $10 million NASA needs to
continue the Carbon Monitoring Program in an amendment to a 2019
spending bill. According to Science Magazine, representative John
Culberson (R-TX), who heads up the spending panel that oversees
NASA, reportedly gave his colleague Matt Cartwright (D-PA) a
shoutout for urging that CMS funding be restored. Democracy in
action!<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://climatecrocks.com/2018/05/19/carbon-monitoring-restored-in-congress-for-now/">https://climatecrocks.com/2018/05/19/carbon-monitoring-restored-in-congress-for-now/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Threat multiplier in Australia]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/18/climate-change-an-existential-security-risk-to-australia-senate-inquiry-says">Climate
change an 'existential security risk' to Australia, Senate
inquiry says</a></b><br>
Threat is not a possible future one but one endangering Australia
now, parliament told<br>
Climate change is a "current and existential national security risk"
to Australia, a Senate inquiry has told parliament, one that could
inflame regional conflicts over food, water and land, and even
imperil life on Earth.<br>
The Senate committee inquiry into the implications of climate change
for Australia's national security recommended an increase in foreign
aid to be dedicated to climate change mitigation and adaptation in
the region, as well as a government white paper on climate security,
Department of Defence emissions targets and a dedicated climate
security post within the Department of Home Affairs.<br>
The inquiry, which released its report on Thursday afternoon, heard
that the security risk of climate change was not a possible future
threat but one that endangers Australia and its region now. The
Asia-Pacific was the region "most vulnerable" to the security and
humanitarian impacts of climate change, the committee heard, and
faced an "existential threat".<br>
An existential threat was defined as "one that threatens the
premature extinction of Earth-originating intelligent life or the
permanent and drastic destruction of its potential for desirable
future development"...<br>
- - - - <br>
"What this inquiry has brought home to me is that when people choose
to engage with the climate science, without any partisan or
ideological blinkers, they quickly understand the seriousness of the
challenge and decide to act. We have seen that the Australian
Defence Force is changing how it does things because it is taking
climate change seriously, but we have a government that is doing
nothing to reduce emissions to actually reduce the threat of climate
change itself."<br>
<font size="-1">More at: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/18/climate-change-an-existential-security-risk-to-australia-senate-inquiry-says">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/18/climate-change-an-existential-security-risk-to-australia-senate-inquiry-says</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[PDF file <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-dcoats-021318.PDF">https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-dcoats-021318.PDF</a>
]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-dcoats-021318.PDF">STATEMENT
FOR THE RECORD WORLDWIDE THREAT ASSESSMENT<br>
of the US INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY</a></b><br>
Information available as of 8 February 2018 was used in the
preparation of this assessment.<br>
<b>Environment and Climate Change</b><br>
The impacts of the long-term trends toward a warming climate, more
air pollution, biodiversity loss, and<br>
water scarcity are likely to fuel economic and social discontent -
and possibly upheaval - through 2018.<br>
- The past 115 years have been the warmest period in the history of
modern civilization, and the<br>
past few years have been the warmest years on record. Extreme
weather events in a warmer<br>
world have the potential for greater impacts and can compound with
other drivers to raise the<br>
risk of humanitarian disasters, conflict, water and food shortages,
population migration, labor<br>
shortfalls, price shocks, and power outages. Research has not
identified indicators of tipping<br>
points in climate-linked earth systems, suggesting a possibility of
abrupt climate change.<br>
- Worsening air pollution from forest burning, agricultural waste
incineration, urbanization, and<br>
rapid industrialization - with increasing public awareness - might
drive protests against<br>
authorities, such as those recently in China, India, and Iran.<br>
- Accelerating biodiversity and species loss - driven by pollution,
warming, unsustainable fishing,<br>
and acidifying oceans - will jeopardize vital ecosystems that
support critical human systems.<br>
Recent estimates suggest that the current extinction rate is 100 to
1,000 times the natural<br>
extinction rate.<br>
- Water scarcity, compounded by gaps in cooperative management
agreements for nearly half of<br>
the world's international river basins, and new unilateral dam
development are likely to heighten<br>
tension between countries.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-dcoats-021318.PDF">https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-dcoats-021318.PDF</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[study on projected impacts]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6390/791">The
projected effect on insects, vertebrates, and plants of limiting
global warming to 1.5 degrees C rather than 2 degrees C</a></b><br>
R. Warren1,*, J. Price1, E. Graham2, N. Forstenhaeusler1, J.
VanDerWal2<br>
One and a half degrees on biodiversity<br>
Insects are the most diverse group of animals on Earth and are
ubiquitous in terrestrial food webs. We have little information
about their fate in a changing climate; data are scant for insects
compared with other groups of organisms. Warren et al. performed a
global-scale analysis of the effects of climate change on insect
distribution (see the Perspective by Midgley). For vertebrates and
plants, the number of species losing more than half their geographic
range by 2100 is halved when warming is limited to 1.5 degrees C,
compared with projected losses at 2 degrees C. But for insects, the
number is reduced by two-thirds. (Science, this issue p. 791; see
also p. 714)<br>
<b>Abstract</b><br>
In the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the United Nations is
pursuing efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C, whereas
earlier aspirations focused on a 2 degrees C limit. With current
pledges, corresponding to ~3.2 degrees C warming, climatically
determined geographic range losses of >50% are projected in ~49%
of insects, 44% of plants, and 26% of vertebrates. At 2 degrees C,
this falls to 18% of insects, 16% of plants, and 8% of vertebrates
and at 1.5 degrees C, to 6% of insects, 8% of plants, and 4% of
vertebrates. When warming is limited to 1.5 degrees C as compared
with 2 degrees C, numbers of species projected to lose >50% of
their range are reduced by ~66% in insects and by ~50% in plants and
vertebrates.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6390/791">http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6390/791</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Article]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://qz.com/1282148/the-santa-fe-high-school-shooting-is-number-17-since-parkland/">The
way scientists define climate goals has given the world a false
sense of hope</a></b><br>
- - - -<br>
In <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0142-4">two
separate analyses</a> published this week in <a
href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0143-3">Nature
Geoscience</a>, Glen Peters and Oliver Geden, researchers at the
Center for International Climate Research and the Max Planck
Institute for Meteorology, respectively, argue the solution is to
completely rethink the way we set the policies designed to push us
towards climate goals.<br>
- - - - -<br>
Convincing politicians to commit to a zero-emissions goal won't be
easy, Geden says. That's because, directly or indirectly, scientists
have been giving politicians a false sense of hope with regards to
climate change.<br>
"For 30 years now, we've been hearing that it's five minutes to
midnight," says Geden. It's the doomsday analogy that warns us that
climate catastrophe is coming soon. "But in that period we've
continued to emit more and more greenhouse gases, [and] scientists
still say it's only five minutes to midnight. How can that be?"<br>
Geden worries that scientists always say it's feasible to hit
climate goals under certain circumstances. His concern is not that
this is false, but that politicians hearing the message will only
take home it's first part - that the goals are attainable - and
ignore the section where the experts lay out the specific details
necessary to reach those ends.<br>
Scientists have good reason for employing positive rhetoric: they
worry that if they say the goals are infeasible then politicians
would give up on climate action. They are "constantly shifting and
shaping their assumptions to keep their story alive, because they
fear defeatism," says Geden. It's one reason there are so many
different carbon budgets for hitting the same climate goals: they're
essentially offering up a sampler platter for policymakers to choose
from, allowing them to pick whichever budget makes their political
life easier.<br>
<br>
For example, until 2007, the concept of negative emissions - which
relies on developing technologies cheap enough to pull carbon
dioxide from the air - did not feature in popular climate models.
But because the world was continuing to emit more CO2 each year, it
became clear that, to keep the 2 degrees C goal feasible, scientists
had to start including negative emissions in their climate models.
Now it is widely assumed that, if we are to hit our Paris goals, we
will need negative emissions at a large scale, capturing billions of
metric tons of carbon dioxide each year by some time in the second
half of this century.<br>
<br>
Geden has a solution to the communication breakdown that currently
exists between scientists and policymakers. Instead of saying "yes,
we can hit climate goals if we do this, this, and this," Geden
argues, scientists need to change their communication and say "no,
we cannot hit climate goals unless we do this, this, and this."
That, he argues, will encourage among lawmakers the urgency
scientists feel, but have failed to articulate to date.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://qz.com/1282148/the-santa-fe-high-school-shooting-is-number-17-since-parkland/">https://qz.com/1282148/the-santa-fe-high-school-shooting-is-number-17-since-parkland/</a></font><br>
- - - -<br>
[Nature Geoscience]<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0142-4">Beyond
carbon budgets</a><br>
Glen P. Peters<br>
The remaining carbon budget consistent with limiting warming to 1.5
degrees C allows 20 more years of current emissions according to one
study, but is already exhausted according to another. Both are
defensible. We need to move on from a unique carbon budget, and face
the nuances...<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0142-4">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0142-4</a><br>
</font>- - - -<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0143-3">Politically
informed advice for climate action</a></b><br>
Oliver Geden<br>
Upward estimates for carbon budgets are unlikely to lead to
action-focused climate policy. Climate researchers need to
understand processes and incentives in policymaking and politics to
communicate effectively.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0143-3">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0143-3</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[from MIT]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610457/at-this-rate-its-going-to-take-nearly-400-years-to-transform-the-energy-system/">At
this rate, it's going to take nearly 400 years to transform the
energy system</a></b><br>
Here are the real reasons we're not building clean energy anywhere
near fast enough.<br>
by James Temple<br>
March 14, 2018
<div class="article-body__content"><span class="dropcap">F</span>ifteen
years ago, Ken Caldeira, a senior scientist at the Carnegie
Institution, calculated that the world would need to add about a
nuclear power plant's worth of clean-energy capacity every day
between 2000 and 2050 to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Recently, he did a quick calculation to see how we're doing.<br>
Not well. Instead of the roughly 1,100 megawatts of carbon-free
energy per day likely needed to prevent temperatures from rising
more than 2 degrees C, as the 2003 <em>Science</em> <a
href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/299/5615/2052"
target="_blank">paper</a> by Caldeira and his colleagues found,
we are adding around 151 megawatts. That's only enough to
power roughly 125,000 homes.<br>
At that rate, substantially transforming the energy system would
take, not the next three decades, but nearly the next four
centuries. In the meantime, temperatures would soar, melting ice
caps, sinking cities, and unleashing devastating heat waves around
the globe (see "<a
href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609642/the-year-climate-change-began-to-spin-out-of-control/"
target="_blank">The year climate change began to spin out of
control</a>").<br>
Caldeira stresses that other factors are likely to significantly
shorten that time frame (in particular, electrifying heat
production, which accounts for a more than half of global energy
consumption, will significantly alter demand). But he says it's
clear we're overhauling the energy system about an order of
magnitude too slowly, underscoring a point that few truly
appreciate: It's not that we aren't building clean energy fast
enough to address the challenge of climate change. It's that -
even after <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html?pagewanted=all"
target="_blank">decades of warnings</a>, policy debates, and
clean-energy campaigns - the world has barely even begun to
confront the problem.<br>
</div>
The UN's climate change body asserts that the world needs to cut as
much as 70 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions by midcentury to have
any chance of avoiding 2 ˚C of warming. But carbon pollution has
continued to rise, ticking up 2 percent last year. <br>
<b>So what's the holdup?</b><br>
Beyond the vexing combination of economic, political, and technical
challenges is the basic problem of overwhelming scale. There is a
massive amount that needs to be built, which will suck up an immense
quantity of manpower, money, and materials.<br>
For starters, global energy consumption is likely to soar by around
30 percent in the next few decades as developing economies expand.
(China alone <a
href="http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/WEO_2017_Executive_Summary_English_version.pdf"
target="_blank">needs to add</a> the equivalent of the entire US
power sector by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency.)
To cut emissions fast enough and keep up with growth, the world will
need to develop 10 to 30 terawatts of clean-energy capacity by 2050.
On the high end that would mean constructing the equivalent of
around 30,000 nuclear power plants - or producing and installing 120
billion 250-watt solar panels.<br>
<div class="l-article-iframe " data-widget-type="iframe">
<div class="infographic">
<div class="infographic-headline"><strong>Energy overhaul</strong></div>
<table class="infographic-table" style="display: none;">
<thead> <tr>
<th></th>
<th width="36%">What we should be doing*</th>
<th width="36%">What we're actually doing<sup>†</sup></th>
</tr>
</thead> <tbody>
<tr>
<td>Megawatts per day</td>
<td>1,100</td>
<td>151</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Megawatts per year</td>
<td>401,500</td>
<td>55,115</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Megawatts in fifty years</td>
<td>20,075,000</td>
<td>2,755,750</td>
</tr>
<tr class="emphasized">
<td>Years to add 20 Terrawatts</td>
<td>50</td>
<td>363</td>
</tr>
<tr class="footnote">
<td>Sources: Carnegie Institution, Science, BP</td>
<td>*If we had started at this rate in 2000</td>
<td><sup>†</sup>Actual average rate of carbon-free added
per day from 2006-2015</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</div>
There's simply little financial incentive for the energy industry to
build at that scale and speed while it has tens of trillions of
dollars of sunk costs in the existing system.<br>
"If you pay a billion dollars for a gigawatt of coal, you're not
going to be happy if you have to retire it in 10 years," says Steven
Davis, an associate professor in the Department of Earth System
Science at the University of California, Irvine.<br>
It's somewhere between difficult and impossible to see how any of
that will change until there are strong enough government policies
or big enough technology breakthroughs to override the economics.<br>
<b>A quantum leap</b><br>
In late February, I sat in Daniel Schrag's office at the Harvard
University Center for the Environment. His big yellow Chinook,
Mickey, lay down next to my feet.<br>
Schrag was one of President Barack Obama's top climate advisors. As
a geologist who has closely studied climate variability and warming
periods in the ancient past, he has a special appreciation for how
dramatically things can change.<br>
Sitting next to me with his laptop, he opened a report he had
recently coauthored assessing the risks of climate change. It
highlights the many technical strides that will be required to
overhaul the energy system, including better carbon capture,
biofuels, and storage.<br>
<b>Evidence points to the need for a broader range of clean power
beyond just wind and solar.</b><br>
The study also notes that the United States adds roughly 10
gigawatts of new energy generation capacity per year. That includes
all types, natural gas as well as solar and wind. But even at that
rate, it would take more than 100 years to rebuild the existing
electricity grid, to say nothing of the far larger one required in
the decades to come.<br>
"Is it possible to accelerate by a factor of 20?" he asks. "Yeah,
but I don't think people understand what that is, in terms of steel
and glass and cement." <br>
Climate observers and commentators have used various historical
parallels to illustrate the scale of the task, including the
Manhattan Project and the moon mission. But for Schrag, the analogy
that really speaks to the dimensions and urgency of the problem is
World War II, when the United States nationalized parts of the
steel, coal, and railroad industries. The government forced
automakers to halt car production in order to churn out airplanes,
tanks, and jeeps.<br>
The good news here is that if you direct an entire economy at a
task, big things can happen fast. But how do you inspire a war
mentality in peacetime, when the enemy is invisible and moving in
slow motion?<br>
"It's a quantum leap from where we are today," Schrag says.<br>
<b>The time delay</b><br>
The fact that the really devastating consequences of climate change
won't come for decades complicates the issue in important ways. Even
for people who care about the problem in the abstract, it doesn't
rate high among their immediate concerns. As a consequence, they
aren't inclined to pay much, or change their lifestyle, to actually
address it. In recent years, Americans were willing to increase
their electricity bill by a median amount of only $5 a month even if
that "solved," not eased, global warming, down from $10 15 years
earlier, according to a <a
href="https://books.google.com/books?id=SC9BBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA164&lpg=PA164&dq=Ansolabehere+and+climate+change+survey+and+if+the+cost&source=bl&ots=a4N_8J6Gq_&sig=iyUqo4CrIFNmdcDp3LysSOhVxVE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiX1LaRrtvZAhUTS2MKHVqrDy4Q6AEIXTAI#v=onepage"
target="_blank">series of surveys</a> by MIT and Harvard.<br>
It's conceivable that climate change will someday alter that
mind-set as the mounting toll of wildfires, hurricanes, droughts,
extinctions, and sea-level rise finally forces the world to grapple
with the problem.<br>
But that will be too late. Carbon dioxide works on a time delay. It
takes about 10 years to achieve its full warming effect, and it
stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years. After we've tipped
into the danger zone, eliminating carbon dioxide emissions doesn't
decrease the effects; it can only prevent them from getting worse.
Whatever level of climate change we allow to unfold is locked in for
millennia, unless we develop technologies to remove greenhouse gases
from the atmosphere on a massive scale (or try our luck with <a
href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/604081/the-growing-case-for-geoengineering/"
target="_blank">geoengineering</a>).<br>
This also means there's likely to be a huge trade-off between what
we would have to pay to fix the energy system and what it would cost
to deal with the resulting disasters if we don't. <a
href="https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers.pdf"
target="_blank">Various</a> <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/feb/15/stern-review"
target="_blank">estimates</a> find that cutting emissions will
shrink the global economy by a few percentage points a year, but
unmitigated warming could slash worldwide GDP <a
href="http://web.stanford.edu/%7Emburke/climate/BurkeHsiangMiguel2015.pdf"
target="_blank">more than 20 percent</a> by the end of the
century, if not <a
href="http://web.stanford.edu/%7Emburke/climate/map.php"
target="_blank">far more</a>.<br>
<b>In the money</b><br>
Arguably the most crucial step to accelerate energy development is
enacting strong government policies. Many economists believe the
most powerful tool would be a price on carbon, imposed through
either a direct tax or a cap-and-trade program. As the price of
producing energy from fossil fuels grows, this would create bigger
incentives to replace those plants with clean energy (see "<a
href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609560/surge-of-carbon-pricing-proposals-coming-in-the-new-year/"
target="_blank">Surge of carbon pricing proposals coming in the
new year</a>").<br>
"If we're going to make any progress on greenhouse gases, we'll have
to either pay the implicit or explicit costs of carbon," says
Severin Borenstein, an energy economist at the University of
California, Berkeley.<br>
Researchers have begun to understand the economic and social damage
caused by climate change.<br>
But it has to be a big price, far higher than the $15 per ton it
cost to acquire allowances in California's cap-and-trade program
late last year. Borenstein says a carbon fee approaching $40 a ton
"just blows coal out of the market entirely and starts to put wind
and solar very much into the money," at least when you average costs
across the lifetime of the plants.<br>
Others think the price should be higher still. But it's very hard to
see how any tax even approaching that figure could pass in the
United States, or many other nations, anytime soon.<br>
The other major policy option would be caps that force utilities and
companies to keep greenhouse emissions below a certain level,
ideally one that decreases over time. This regulations-based
approach is not considered as economically efficient as a carbon
price, but it has the benefit of being much more politically
palatable. American voters hate taxes but are perfectly comfortable
with air pollution rules, says Stephen Ansolabehere, a professor of
government at Harvard University.<br>
Fundamental technical limitations will also increase the cost and
complexity of shifting to clean energy. Our fastest-growing
carbon-free sources, solar and wind farms, don't supply power when
the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing. So as they provide
a larger portion of the grid's electricity, we'll also need
long-range transmission lines that can balance out peaks and valleys
across states, or massive amounts of very expensive energy
storage, or both (see "<a
href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610366/relying-on-renewables-alone-would-significantly-raise-the-cost-of-overhauling-the-energy/"
target="_blank">Relying on renewables alone significantly inflates
the cost of overhauling energy</a>").<br>
- - - - -<br>
The upshot is that we're eventually going to need to either
supplement wind and solar with many more nuclear
reactors, fossil-fuel plants with carbon capture and other
low-emissions sources, or <a
href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.324/abstract"
target="_blank">pay far more</a> to build out a much larger system
of transmission, storage and renewable generation, says Jesse
Jenkins, a researcher with the MIT Energy Initiative. In all cases,
we're still likely to need significant technical advances that drive
down costs.<br>
All of this, by the way, only addresses the challenge of overhauling
the electricity sector, which currently represents less than 20
percent of total energy consumption. It will provide a far greater
portion as we electrify things like vehicles and heating, which
means we'll eventually need to develop an electrical system several
times larger than today's.<br>
But that still leaves the "really difficult parts of the global
energy system" to deal with, says Davis of UC Irvine. That includes
aviation, long-distance hauling, and the cement and steel
industries, which produce carbon dioxide in the manufacturing
process itself. To clean up these huge sectors of the economy, we're
going to need better carbon capture and storage tools, as well as
cheaper biofuels or energy storage, he says. <br>
These kinds of big technical achievements tend to require
significant and sustained government support. But much like carbon
taxes or emissions caps, a huge increase in federal research and
development funding is highly unlikely in the current political
climate.<br>
<b>Give up? So should we just give up?</b><br>
There is no magic bullet or obvious path here. All we can do is pull
hard on the levers that seem to work best.<br>
Environmental and clean-energy interest groups need to make climate
change a higher priority, tying it to practical issues that citizens
and politicians do care about, like clean air, security, and jobs.
Investors or philanthropists need to be willing to make longer-term
bets on early-stage energy technologies. Scientists and
technologists need to focus their efforts on the most badly needed
tools. And lawmakers need to push through policy changes to provide
incentives, or mandates, for energy companies to change.<br>
The hard reality, however, is that the world very likely won't be
able to accomplish what's called for by midcentury. Schrag says that
keeping temperature increases below 2 degrees C is already "a pipe
dream," adding that we'll be lucky to prevent 4 degrees C of warming
this century.<br>
That means we're likely to pay a very steep toll in lost lives,
suffering, and environmental devastation (see "Hot and violent").<br>
But the imperative doesn't end if warming tips past 2 degrees C. It
only makes it more urgent to do everything we can to contain the
looming threats, limit the damage, and shift to a sustainable system
as fast as possible.<br>
"If you miss 2050," Schrag says, "you still have 2060, 2070, and
2080."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610457/at-this-rate-its-going-to-take-nearly-400-years-to-transform-the-energy-system/">https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610457/at-this-rate-its-going-to-take-nearly-400-years-to-transform-the-energy-system/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Ars longa, vita brevis]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://artistsandclimatechange.com/2018/05/17/solar-panels-as-artistic-canvas/">Solar
Panels As Artistic Canvas</a></b><br>
Berlin-based magazine <a href="http://www.the-beam.com/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Beam</a>, in collaboration
with the <a href="http://littlesunfoundation.org/" target="_blank"
rel="noopener">Little Sun Foundation</a> and <a
href="https://www.streetartbln.com/upcycled-solar-panels-transformed-into-street-art-lets-celebrate-it/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Street Art Berlin</a>, launched the
<a href="https://www.instagram.com/thesolarpanelartseries/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Solar Panel Art Series</a> in 2017,
the first international art exhibit of painted solar PV panels. The
Beam invited over 40 artists and designers from around the world to
create works of art using recycled solar panels as their canvas. The
exhibited panels were sold via online auction to benefit the <a
href="http://littlesunfoundation.org/solar-kids-school-programm-rwanda/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Solar Kids School Program</a>, one
of the many programs of the Little Sun Foundation co-founded by the
Icelandic-Danish artist <a href="http://www.olafureliasson.net/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Olafur Eliasson</a>. The goal of
the Solar Kids School Program is to provide safe and sustainable
light and phone charging to students and teachers in off-grid
schools in rural Rwanda...<br>
<font size="-1">More at: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://artistsandclimatechange.com/2018/05/17/solar-panels-as-artistic-canvas/">https://artistsandclimatechange.com/2018/05/17/solar-panels-as-artistic-canvas/</a></font><br>
- - - -<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://artistsandclimatechange.com/about/">Artists and
Climate Change</a></b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://artistsandclimatechange.com/about/">https://artistsandclimatechange.com/about/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://environblog.jenner.com/corporate_environmental_l/2013/05/high-court-refuses-to-take-up-kivalina-climate-suit.html">This
Day in Climate History - May 20, 2013</a> - from D.R. Tucker</b></font><br>
May 20, 2013: The US Supreme Court refuses to hear an appeal of the
9th US Circuit Court of Appeals' decision in the Kivalina v.
ExxonMobil case, effectively ending one effort to hold fossil fuel
companies legally accountable for carbon pollution.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://environblog.jenner.com/corporate_environmental_l/2013/05/high-court-refuses-to-take-up-kivalina-climate-suit.html">http://environblog.jenner.com/corporate_environmental_l/2013/05/high-court-refuses-to-take-up-kivalina-climate-suit.html</a>
<br>
<br>
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