Is There Still a Ray of Hope On Climate Change?

Hugh Pickens writes "David Leonhardt writes in the NY Times that even as the U.S. endures its warmest year on record (the 13 warmest years for the entire planet have all occurred since 1998), the country seems to be moving further away from doing something about climate change, with the issue having all but fallen out of the national debate. But behind the scenes, a different story is emerging that offers reason for optimism: the world's largest economies may be in the process of creating a climate-change response that does not depend on the politically painful process of raising the price of dirty energy. Despite some high-profile flops, like ethanol and Solyndra, clean-energy investments seem to be succeeding more than they are failing. 'The price of solar and wind power have both fallen sharply in the last few years. This country's largest wind farm, sprawling across eastern Oregon, is scheduled to open next month. Already, the world uses vastly more alternative energy than experts predicted only a decade ago,' writes Leonhardt. Natural gas, the use of which has jumped 25 percent since 2008 while prices have fallen more than 80 percent, now generates as much electricity as coal in the United States, which would have been unthinkable not long ago. Thanks in part to earlier government investments, energy companies have been able to extract much more natural gas than once seemed possible which, while far from perfectly clean, is less carbon-intensive than coal use. The clean-energy push has been successful enough to leave many climate advocates believing it is the single best hope for preventing even hotter summers, concludes Leonhardt, adding that while a cap-and-trade program faces an uphill political battle, an investment program that aims to make alternative energy less expensive is more politically feasible. 'Our best hope,' says Benjamin H. Strauss, 'is some kind of disruptive technology that takes off on its own, the way the Internet and the fax took off.'"

Comments

AGW deniers? Let's do the atmospheric gas math!

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Okay, atmospheric gas math, third grade style! First, what gasses is the atmosphere composed of?

Nitrogen - about 78%, followed by Oxygen - about 21%, and then other gasses - under 1%

Quick quiz - are Nitrogen or Oxygen greenhouse gasses? If you answered "NO", you're right! Okay, that leaves us with less than 1% of the atmosphere that is partly composed of greenhouse gasses. Let's ignore the nitrogen and oxygen for now, and focus only on that remaining 1% of atmosphere that contains actual greenhouse gasses. So, what's that 1% composed of? Well...

Argon - about 94%, followed by Carbon Dioxide - roughly 4%, then Neon - 0.2%, Helium - 0.05%

...and so on... Anyway. Quick quiz! Which one of the above gasses from that 1% is actually a greenhouse gas? If you said "Carbon Dioxide", you win! That means only 0.0004% of the atmosphere is actually C02, and that's the highest concentration greenhouse gas we have! Yay!

And, finally... bonus question! How much has the industrial revolution increased the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere? If you said 37%, you win again! If you really think increasing the primary greenhouse gas by 37% in only a hundred-or-so years isn't going screw with temperatures, you probably have your head shoved pretty far up... somewhere. Was this too hard to follow? Should I try and dumb it down a little more next time?