"If you stop coal, you stop global warming."
Sure, we all like to imagine the day when the whole world can drive ultra-clean cars, but all our hybrids and biodiesel trucks and solar-powered Priuses won't make a lick of difference in the fight to stop or slow global warming, says Ed Mazria, founder of Architecture 2030.Mazria was speaking at the West Coast Green conference last week and his overall message is that green (i.e., carbon neutral) buildings are the only way to really make a difference. These buildings are built to use passive cooling and natural lighting and have solar panels. Think of Ford's Heritage Project.
"The only fossil fuel that can fuel global warming is coal. If you stop coal, you stop global warming. End of story," Mazria said, according to C-NET.
Coal-free living affects us at AutoblogGreen not only because it's an environmental issue, but because coal generates about half of the electric power in the U.S, and that percentage will probably increase. And how else are the masses going to power up their electric cars?
C-NET's Michael Kanellos captured a lot of astounding tidbits from Mazria's speech. I'll give you one, and you can go to the source for more:
The emissions from a single coal-fired power plant for one month will negate the efforts Wal-Mart is putting forth to curb its emissions. Wal-Mart wants to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent in seven years.
Yikes.
[Source: Michael Kanellos, CNET]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
GreyFlcn 12:19PM (9/24/2007)
Yes, coal is one of the big ones.
Perhaps a bigger one is to stop deforestation caused by biofuels.
Deforestation has put Indonesia at #3 in the world in Greenhouse emissions. And Brazil at #5. And they have hardly any industry.
Do both, and then we got this.
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Tony Belding 12:18PM (9/24/2007)
Because I'm lazy, I'll just point toward some earlier comments on this subject: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=305531&cid=20715357
Getting rid of coal is doable. But. . . How urgent is it? That depends on how urgent you think global warming is. I've been reading "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" by Bjorn Lomborg. I'm about 1/3 into it, and so far it's made way more sense than anything else I've read on this subject.
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GreyFlcn 12:29PM (9/24/2007)
===I've been reading "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" by Bjorn Lomborg. I'm about 1/3 into it, and so far it's made way more sense than anything else I've read on this subject.===
Just so you know. Lomborg is a complete hack.
He's been refuted by virtually every scientific organization in the world, and he caries no credentials to even be making these claims.
In short, if you only care about the short term, then the long term is worthless.
He makes a seemingly compelling argument based on this, and a lot of cherry picking.
But as described in "Thank you for Smoking" he's not trying to convince scientists. He's trying to convince voters and politicians.
http://greyfalcon.net/smoking
Suggest you read through these before you even give Lomborg any credence.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/12/123144/644
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/13/105130/672
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/14/142514/357
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/17/151133/245
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Johnny Rotten 12:45PM (9/24/2007)
If you stop the earth's and the sun's natural cycles then you stop global warming. Thats about it. Getting rid of coal is a laudable goal, as it would clean up the air tremendously and is a major source of pollution, but the fact is, global warming takes a far greater force than coal to cause. Lomborg is absolutely right that there are much greater concerns facing our human race, like the environazis assasination of DDT. And even if global warming meant the end of human life, the audacity to think we are more than pawns in the game of planetary physics is laughable. The real hacks are at grist.
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Tony Belding 1:27PM (9/24/2007)
GreyFlcn, I looked at your links. . . and was not too impressed.
One of the main arguments against Lomborg is that he accepts the IPCC's projections, instead of the much worse scenarios that his critics favor. And yet, up to now my "green" friends have been beating me over the head with how thorough, credible and respected the IPCC reports supposedly are. You can't have it both ways.
Another big argument is that Lomborg is ignoring a bunch of (mostly unspecified) "feedback loops" or "tipping points" that are going to happen in the climate. Yet, all of those are hypothetical and really speculative. I have a hard time with constructing global energy policy around that stuff.
I still believe in getting off fossil fuels. We have plenty of reasons to do that, including some very tangible, pressing, and non-controversial reasons, without even getting into the whole global warming debate. The questions then arise over how urgent it is, and how much cost and economic disruption we should accept to achieve it. And that's exactly where Lomborg weighs in.
What makes his book so refreshing is that he's at least attempting to do some kind of cost-versus-benefit analysis. You might disagree with parts of his argument, you might even disagree with his conclusions, but at least he's making this effort to evaluate things and put them in perspective.
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GreyFlcn 1:45PM (9/24/2007)
Heh Johnny, you sound like you've been reading junkscience.com
i.e. A website written by a guy who worked for APCO Worldwide for 20 years.
APCO Worldwide was Phillip Morris's PR firm which denied the link between smoking and lung cancer.
APCO Worldwide is currently Exxon Mobil's PR firm denying the link between CO2 and global warming.
http://greyfalcon.net/denial
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GreyFlcn 8:00PM (9/24/2007)
==One of the main arguments against Lomborg is that he accepts the IPCC's projections, instead of the much worse scenarios that his critics favor.==
Thats the catch though.
He revels in the fact that the IPCC gave an exceedingly lowball estimate for sea level rise.
Lomborg banks on that lowball estimate.
http://www.mercurynews.com/healthandscience/ci_6971088
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/2007-01-28-ice-sheets-ipcc_x.htm
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19526141.600-huge-sea-level-rises-are-coming--unless-we-act-now.html
As for "putting them in perspective" he's simply trying to delay things. This is not his first attempt.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00000B96-9517-1CDA-B4A8809EC588EEDF
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GreyFlcn 2:02PM (9/24/2007)
==One of the main arguments against Lomborg is that he accepts the IPCC's projections, instead of the much worse scenarios that his critics favor.==
Thats the trick though.
The IPCC report does not include any new evidence on glacier melting over the past 5 years.
It's not perfect.
Lomborg revels in this fact.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/2007-01-28-ice-sheets-ipcc_x.htm
http://www.mercurynews.com/healthandscience/ci_6971088
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19526141.600-huge-sea-level-rises-are-coming--unless-we-act-now.html
He makes a routine habit at making up this tripe.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00000B96-9517-1CDA-B4A8809EC588EEDF
_
Remember, "there's lies, damned lies, and statistics".
Only thing which keeps scientists honest is scientific peer review.
And Lomborg avoids peer review as much as possible.
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jcwinnie 3:16PM (9/24/2007)
While Global Warming is the buzz word, Seb, Climate Change is the outcome we want to mitigate, if possible.
Global Warming has a benign connotation that fails to communicate the idea of sea ice the size of Florida melting in six days or the consequences to life as we know it as the permafrost melts.
And, while coal emissions are the single most important change that can be made, and if ignored, not much else matters, transportantion sector GHG, specifically CO2, has the Union of Concerned Scientists, the International Panel of Climate Change, your mom, Al Gore and Leo DiCaprio very, very concerned.
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OhmExcited 5:51PM (9/24/2007)
Replace coal with nuclear and replace gasoline cars with electric/plugin-hybrids and end up with a nice dovetailing effect that could seriously reduce emissions.
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TX CHL Instructor 6:13PM (9/24/2007)
The largest source of CO2 in the world is the coal mine fires of Asia. Until those decades-old fires are extinguished, no amount of tree-hugging is going to make a damned bit of difference.
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Arnie 8:14PM (9/24/2007)
The general rule is that empirical evidence are not clear regarding global warming (or if it is man-made if it exists) but computer models support it. Most of the debate on GW is about the models and the values and feedback loops used. Empirical evidence are evidently not sexy enough to be discussed by MSM - nor PC enough.
(PC=WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE - STOP CAPITALISM!!)
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mike 8:31PM (9/24/2007)
The problem with the current models is that they are too conservative.
They did not predict the current melt rate of the Artic.
Global Warming is happening much faster.
Of course, you can be fooled by this latest BS,
but, you're screwing with your future and your children's future.
The rate of global melting now doesn't require you read a scientific pdf you only need your eyes.
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mike 8:47PM (9/24/2007)
Scientists report SEVERE retreat of artic ice:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/science/21arctic.html
The time for BS is long gone.
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SkiD666 9:03PM (9/24/2007)
The current rate of artic ice melt is not necessarily out of the ordinary. In 1903 the Northwest Passage was open, between 1940 and 1942 it was also open.
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Tarun K Juyal 4:54AM (9/25/2007)
Global warming controversy take new picture when a writer say that temperature increase is actually a good thing as in the past sudden cool periods have killed twice as many people as warm spells. He accepted global warming issues is big but he said not our fault.
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Ed 8:43AM (9/25/2007)
Check out this US Carbon Footprint Map, an interactive United States Carbon Footprint Map, illustrating Greenest States to Cities. This site has all sorts of stats on individual State & City energy consumptions, demographics and much more down to your local US City level...
http://www.eredux.com/states/
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BlackbirdHighway 8:54AM (9/25/2007)
What is with all this crap about Lomborg? He is not a climate scientist. He has a PHD in Political Science, which is quite a different thing. He is a professor at a business school, which can be reasonably expected to take a pro-business stance on issues such as climate change.
The Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD) found Lomborg's work to be "scientifically dishonest, but Lomborg himself not guilty because of lack of expertise in the fields in question". In plain english, he is wrong, and he doesn't know what he is talking about.
The DCSD cited The Skeptical Environmentalist for:
1.Fabrication of data;
2.Selective discarding of unwanted results (selective citation);
3.Deliberately misleading use of statistical methods;
4.Distorted interpretation of conclusions;
5.Plagiarism;
6.Deliberate misinterpretation of others' results.
So if you want to take Lomborg's word over thousands of decicated climate scientist, then there's just no hope for you.
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Ernst Joubert 10:31AM (9/26/2007)
It is true. People are in denial with respect to global warming. They read what they want to believe, and that is that Global Warming is a scam. Remember this: The large majority of climate scientist agree, with an accuracy of more than 90%, that man is responsible. These are people that have dedicated their lives to their science and know more than anybody about this field. Why is it that all of a sudden the average person has become educated enough to "prove" these scientists wrong, by doing a couple of searches on the web?
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TX CHL Instructor 9:32PM (9/30/2007)
"Remember this: The large majority of climate scientist agree, with an accuracy of more than 90%, that man is responsible."
Last time I check, real science was not done via a show of hands.
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