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Should we prepare for or prevent global warming?
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The right answer to the question in the headline is obviously 'both.' I think we will do both, and I think it will work. But not before lots of painful discussions and numerous blog wars, of course.
The headlines should really be a lot more hopeful than they are, but of course then we wouldn't be panicked enough to suit the more hysterical amongst us. The headlines should be saying that 'We know what to do, we know it will work, and it won't destroy our economies or civilization.' But that won't sell many newspapers, wll it?
Katrina destroyed New Orleans because it sank 3 feet in the century before the hurricane. Katrina was a run-of-the-mill Cat 3 hurricane. If we had done to New Orleans what the Dutch do all the time, New Orleans would have been okay. The Dutch spend a lot of money on their dikes, but they are still richer than Americans. And they have socialized healthcare...
The point is that the book on combatting sea-level rise has already been written, and there are successful case histories to guide us. So hey, how about that? Galveston has already begun the hardest part, putting projected lifespans on buildings and writing into law that the buildings may be torn down after a certain expiration date. We can even do it here in the U.S. It isn't rocket science. It's hard, arduous civic planning--something that FEMA and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers should spend about a decade on.
The same principles can be used to prepare for other regional effects of climate change, such as drought and increased chance of fires. As a Californian, I'm well aware that we need to take a closer look at how we deal with water resources. But if Israel and Palestine can sit down and discuss shared water resources, I think Northern and Southern California can, too.
We can do this while we prepare pilot models for some of the more outlandish geo-engineering solutions. Maybe some of Arpa-E's new projects could be directed at this. Something might work. Actually, something almost certainly will work. What we need to study more are the inevitable unintended consequences.
And while we're doing both, we can move towards decarbonizing our economy. We can do more with hydro-electric--only 3% of our dams have turbines under them. We can fast track nuclear power--we don't even have to solve long-term storage first--the temporary waste storage can last a while longer. We have around 125 nuclear power plants now--we should be able to double that number in the next 30 years--that's how long it took to build the first 125.
We can weatherize houses and offices. We can make public transport more attractive. We can put standards in for car mileage. We can keep pushing wind and solar.
If we understand that no one thing will cure global warming, we can look at adopting the right mix of preparation, prevention and cure. It's a lot like life, if you think about it.
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- thomaswfuller3 at gmail dot com
