by Jim Tankersley
Earlier this week, Energy Secretary Steven Chu caused a stir in the Golden State - and many circles across the country - with his warnings that global warming could spell the demise of California agriculture by century's end.
Chu isn't a climate scientist - he's a Nobel-winning physicist - but he's served on several climate-change commissions, and in his position, will be one of President Obama's point men on the climate issue. His comments came in a 40-minute interview, his first since being confirmed as secretary.
"This is a real economic disaster in the making for our children, for your children," he said, near the end of an extended riff on the topic.
Here, for the first time, is that riff, only slightly edited for length. For all sides of the climate debate, it makes for fascinating reading.
.
CHU: Carbon dioxide is a global problem. The cost of the carbon emissions are things that, number one, won't show up immediately in one year, or even in 10 years. They have begun to appear. The real costs are hard to estimate because we don't know to what extent, how bad it's going to get, in all honesty. There are projections... You can make a best guess on what might happen. I prefer - there are people who say, since we're not sure, we really shouldn't do about it - I think, in my opinion, a more measured way of dealing with this is, it's all about the risk, the potential risk, the downside risk of not doing something, or maybe doing it in a very moderate way.
The analogy I like to use is, suppose you buy a house, and then in the inspection, the structural engineer says, well, this House is a fine house, but understand, you have to rewire the house, because it's an old wiring and there's a chance of an electrical fire. It's going to cost a lot of money, but you should rewire... So you get an estimate of whether you really need to rewire the house, or whether you can go another, safely for another 20 years or 10 years. Suppose, just pretend, that the next person comes and says, essentially, I think the wiring is shot. I can't guarantee if it's going to be this year or five years from now, but you run the risk of an electrical fire. So now you have many options. You can continue to shop for the answer you want: your house is safe. Or you can say, I know the solution.... let's pretend it's $20,000, a lot of money, that's going to come out of your budget, an you can't - you're going to have to forgo a lot of other things. You could say, well, I could just get better fire insurance. You're probably not going to do that. Because there's a chance the house could burn down when you're asleep and your kids are asleep in the house. So eventually, you might be led to say, if there's a 50 percent chance my house might burn down in five years, I better do the rewiring. Then you have to bite the bullet. No one is telling you there's a 100 percent chance this is going to happen.
So ... we certainly are seeing some of the consequences of a changing climate. More and more, it's coming down very hard on the fact that, it's caused by humans. And will there be a cost in trying to control carbon emissions? Well yes, like there's a cost in trying to clean up our sewage. But overall, the benefit to the world will be better. You know, if there's only five people on the earth, you don't have to worry about this. But the fact, with the population we have today, the fact is we don't want to go backward in terms of the prosperity of developed countries, and we see developing countries wanting to do [the same]. We've got to figure out a way to use the energy we have more efficiently, and the get newer, cleaner sources. And to get better technical solutions, better technical options...
Hopefully the American public will wake up and support their policymakers who see this is an essential issue. I don't think the American public has grasped in its gut what could happen. So let me give you one example. It's local to California.
California's major part of its water storage system is in the Sierra Mountains. It snows there, and then we have dams, but it's the snow and the slow melting of the snow and the forests in the watershed area that helps store the water in California. And much of the Central Valley is desert. Los Angeles, San Diego - it's all desert. Without water - right now, California spends about 20 percent of its electricity moving water. What is being predicted in climate change, there are two bracketed scenarios. The more optimistic one - that we will really control carbon emissions, that we will get a handle on this, and we're talking the end of this century - even by mid-century, in the optimistic scenario, we will have decreased our snow pack by 20 percent on an average basis. And our forests are going to begin to die, because of parasites and such. At the end of this century, optimistic scenario, you will have decreased [snow pack] by 47 percent. In the pessimistic scenario, the snow pack will decrease by 70 to 90 percent. Well, let me tell you what California does when there's a two-year in a row 20 percent decrease in snow pack: They water-ration.
Q: So you're looking at a scenario of permanent water rationing?
CHU: No, you're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California. When you lose 70 percent of your water in the mountains, I don't see how agriculture can continue. California produces 20 percent of the agriculture in the United States. I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going.
This is not only true of California, this is true for all the Western states. Forests are dying because of parasites. The pine bark beetle is killing pine. British Columbia has already lost 40 percent of its pine ... so, when there are no trees, when it rains, the soil doesn't hold the water... The American public needs to be made aware that this is happening. This is a real economic disaster in the making for our children, for your children. If you live in California, any of the Western states, this is going to be very serious. In the Upper Midwest, water shortages, huge water shortages are being predicted. ... It goes back to this fire insurance. How do we find the political will? It hopefully has to come from the people of America.
Comments
Prepare for John D to tell us how he can look out the window and see how cold it is.
Posted by: bill r. | February 7, 2009 9:25 AM
Please stop the scare tactics. I will not say that global warming isn't a possibility, that being said I would like to hear more from the other scientists that do not agree with global warming. It seems to me the issue is split down the middle. In addition to that what good is going to come out of this if countries like India, China and others do not comply with the world standards, and is America supposed to foot the bill for the world?.
Posted by: Paul | February 7, 2009 11:04 AM
Global warming is a farce. More and more scientists are even saying so. Much of the Northern Hemisphere has had a cold winter. The Arctic Ice Cap is frozen, as it should be this time of year. Global temps have cooled the past few years. Give it up on the global warming farce!!
Posted by: John D | February 7, 2009 11:06 AM
Oh, come on Bill, give John a break. He has only seen chart graphs on the super bowl monkey adds that go up on a perfect angle with no deviation!!! We can not expect pugs to understand overall trends....hell they can not even see that in their own party!
Posted by: Xcellentform | February 7, 2009 12:32 PM
Chu's tortured analogy and logic suggest he should stick to physics which he apparently knows something about. It seems fashion in science knows no bounds.
Posted by: Dave | February 7, 2009 12:58 PM
Hmmmm, scare tactics from Democrats in high places AGAIN?
.
It’s true that California is in the middle of a serious drought and the State is scrambling to get a handle on water resources. Then again, meteorologists have been blaming the drought on an existing “La Niña” phenomenon caused by a sustained relative cooling of the Pacific Ocean’s eastern equatorial current. (La Niña and its counterpart El Niño are sustained sea surface temperature anomalies of magnitude greater than 0.5°C across the central tropical Pacific Ocean for five months or more. The entire phenomenon is known as El Niño/Southern Oscillation or “ENSO.”) When eastern Pacific Ocean equatorial current is warmer during an El Niño, the west coast normally experiences wetter and colder weather. During a La Niña phenomenon, tropical rainstorms are localized in the western Pacific Ocean and the west coast of the U.S. is dryer and warmer. In other words, the drought is caused by a cooling trend in equatorial oceanic waters, and not a warming trend.
.
I’m moderately surprised this scientist, albeit a non-climate scientist, doesn’t mention the effect of El Niño and La Niña conditions on rainfall in California. It’s mentioned routinely on the weather segments of television news broadcasts. I’m also curious to know why he doesn’t tell us when California is supposed to lose its cities and agriculture to drought. Or, then again, maybe it is just a scare tactic.
Posted by: John W. | February 7, 2009 1:58 PM
Sayeth Frank James, "For all sides of the climate debate, it makes for fascinating reading."
Frank, since you acknowledge there are two sides to the climate change debate, when is the Swamp gonna post a similar speech by the OTHER side? The side that laughs at these Global Warming scaremongers and climate change deniers?
I'd be happy to point you to a dozen or two.
Posted by: Eugene Debs | February 7, 2009 5:42 PM
At least Chu has woken up to the reality of the future for CA and the mid west. Seems most others are yet to. Just keep your eyes on today? Tomorrow will take care of itself?
Bob Williamson
www.strategicbookpublishing.com/ZEROGreenhouseEmissions.html
Posted by: Bob Williamson | February 7, 2009 6:38 PM
im afraid to say Chu's right - we are doomed. All you need to do is check out climate ark from time to time - this gives newslinks from all over the world and its shocking. Abrupt climate change isnt new its happend before, except then there wasnt billions of humans needing food. The social-economic effects of climate change will be profound not just for you guys in Califorina and the mid west but for everyone. But if you denialists want to keep your head buried in the sand then its your loss because speaking as someone with an interest in history i can tell you its BY far the most significant thing to happen for - well ever.
Posted by: Boggles | February 7, 2009 8:37 PM
Well I'm glad the US has finally put some brains near the top - and some plain speakers to boot.
Whilst I have to understand that yes, for some Americans, predicting the future climate does rely on looking out the window; having just returned from an all time record 46.4 degree temperature in Melbourne Australia where there river systems are running on empty and their forests are burning it is clear what the impact of human induced warming will be.
What I don't quite understand is despite Al Gore's brilliant presentation why many people still believe the issue of warming is scientifically "split down the middle". What I think they mean is that when they talk to their neighbours they are not sure - so we have the normal 50:50 split of the general populace.
Many commenters use the word scared. Yes you are afraid and you are right to be afraid. In many cases the changes required to slow or reverse warming may impact on your lifestyle. In some scenarios tens of millions of people will die.
The bottom line is that renewable and sustainable energy production is acheivable - but it will take a united effort, a huge long term commitment, and some sacrifices - things I have not seen from the US since the second world war.
I sincerely hope that Obama and his new team can implement what looks like a major US sea change for the environment and for foreign policy and the naysayers are sufficient intelligence to either support and contribute to these changes or stay out of the way.
Posted by: Kiwi | February 7, 2009 11:17 PM
It's only a scare tactic if you find science scary.
Posted by: Bubba ✔ | February 8, 2009 12:14 AM
There is normally a scientific method used to resolve issues like this. That would mean framing the question, proposing a hypothesis, collecting data that is free to support or dispel the hypothesis and designing unbiased lab tests and field tests before reaching a conclusion and formulating a theory or a new theory. The procedural scientific method has not been followed here. In 1974, there was a coming "Ice Age". What happened to that big global scare? Was there an "Ice Age" in the past 35 years that somehow got missed?
Until someone, a scientist preferably, can relate an increase in carbon dioxide to an increase in temperature, in an x-y type graph with the dependent variable correctly graphed on the y-axis, independent variable on x, (u decide which is which), then this is just a political extortion issue to over-regulate, extract taxes and destroy American Industry. It is what liberals do. Please, just show me what impact an additional 0.015 mole (volume) percent increase in carbon dioxide directly has on temperature. Where is that graph. Not CO2 versus time, Not temperature versus time, but temperature versus CO2.
Carbon dioxide is normally the end product of a chemical or thermal event in which temperatures were high to make the event occur. Not the other way around in the convoluted mind of the Global Warmists. If the Greenhouse Effect is that powerful, it should have experimental data to back it up that clearly quantifies its impact. This would not be asking for too much.
As anyone who may have been paying attention should know, the cause of any perceived Global Warming is due entirely to pretty Latinas. They exude radiant heat that cannot be modulated in any conventional ways currently known. That's my theory, more tested than these other political schemes that are designed to move us back to the Stone Age. There is NO GW consensus except, maybe, with respect to the impact of the Latinas that casually and routinely melt concrete. In style.
Posted by: Django - N Exile In/Around the 30th Parallel | February 8, 2009 10:53 AM
IPCC, NASA, Pew Center.......
Read, re-read then keep quiet while the rest of the world addresses the problem.
Posted by: Climate Change is based in science | February 8, 2009 12:17 PM
“It's only a scare tactic if you find science scary.”
.
Posted by: Bubba ✔ | February 8, 2009 12:14 AM
.
It’s also a scare tactic if one misuses scientific information, such as where one fails to give an entire account of the scientific discussion on the matter. That is, in fact, exactly what Chu did. ENSO (El Niño) and anti-ENSO (La Niña) are not only scientific explanations, they are THE scientific explanations given by scientists for the drought conditions in California. It was, therefore, a distortion and a misuse of science to explain drought conditions in California exclusively by reference to Global Warming, and to the exclusion of any discussion of the ENSO and anti-ENSO phenomenon. Telling half-truths like this has another name: Propaganda.
Posted by: John W. | February 8, 2009 4:29 PM
Keeping it real for u, liberals and Global Warming-ists. This, you can quantify. In contrast to sulfate and carbonate salts, gases whether they be oxygen, methane, or carbon dioxide are MORE soluble in cold water than in hot water. A slight increase in the temperature of the world's oceans will therefore very logically expel dissolved gases, whether it be methane or carbon dioxide, into the earth's atmosphere. The logical source of heat, in this instance, would be that huge, fiery, violently explosive, solar thing that we call the sun.
You can prove this with a simple bottle or two of coca cola. Let one be hot. Let the other one be cold. The cold one will ALWAYS have move dissolved carbon dioxide, a government regulated pollutant. When the cold coke becomes hot, then it will have less carbon dioxide, a government regulated pollutant, and the atmosphere immediately around it will have more carbon dioxide, a government regulated pollutant. Now this is the kind of science that a 5th grader would deign to undertake but unlike what the Global Warming-ists would have you to believe, it is totally valid.
If you were to introduce a pretty Latina into the experiment, the wait time for the cold coke to turn hot would be considerably lessened. Feel free to try that catalytic variable in the mix. When you make your graph, please be sure to put the dependent variable on the y-axis. Definitely very serious points off for not doing that correctly. Bad Science, AND Liberals, will get U killed.
Posted by: Django - N Exile In/Around the 30th Parallel | February 8, 2009 9:07 PM
Thousands of scientists from some of the most non-partisan institutions have had their peer-reviewed findings confirmed and the cherry pickers focus almost solely on atmospheric anomalies. It is your only safe harbor. When you can successfully disprove the IPCC, NASA and several other reputable science-based institutions, read their findings and with an open mind, disprove the overall scientifically supported case for
anthropogenic climate change, I'll be glad to engage. As I have for three years on this blog.
Until then, keep basing your findings on the anomalies in the science and regurgitating right-wing talking points.
JDub,
El Nino and El Nina are far from being THE scientific explanation.
In fact, there is a very strong argument that supports these anomalies' increase in occurrence and intensity as a direct result in the increase of ocean surface temps due to man-made GW.
As for Chu, I somewhat agree that he has been rather vague in his assessments. However, I've debated the findings of meteorologists ad nauseam.
I'll take the findings of a Nobel physicist over a G.E.D mutt meteorologist with bad hair and equally bad sense of humor any day.
Plus, they're wrong 50% or the time.
Djangy,
Mas latinas para mi!
Posted by: Bubba ✔ | February 8, 2009 10:22 PM
Bubba,
NASA and I share the same Congressional District, the 22nd. I do know two of their engineers and one Math guy. Global Warming is their official position, but it is by no means a consensus position. The IPCC sold off their soul long ago, but there are still some disgusted dissenters in their ranks as well.
If the majority is right, then yes, Django would be wrong but I am looking to be persuaded by science that aligns with what I know to be fundamentally true and does not seem to ever get addressed. This is with respect to temperature, solubility, CO2 relationships, and an applied scientific method devoid of political ideology and throw around money. Django not seeing that. There was Global Warming in the 14th century. There was Global Cooling during the onset of the Industrial Revolution. What would be the GW andropogenic explanation there?
Ultimo, Mas Latinas para mi because, without revealing all of my secrets,
I know how to use major AND minor 6th chords, and I don't insist on deportivas when there are novellas to be sorted out on Telemundo. They ~ the pretty Latinas, are just simply the Gate Keepers for Global Warming. May there always be calor.
Posted by: Django - N Exile In/Around the 30th Parallel | February 9, 2009 1:17 AM
Django and John W.....I wish you would quite framing this that it is the dems pushing this in the US. Are you forgetting that we are about the only 1st world country that is not on board with this concept of global warming? Are you trying to say that it is a global conpiracy, or that all the scientist in the world are wrong? Your request for proof is out there, if you look for it. Do you not listen to your evening news? You know, the one that says that today is a "bad air" day? Do you not drive to the big cities and see the smog? Also, it is apparent that neither one of you understands the concept of global dimming. Do some research on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/
Posted by: Xcellentform | February 9, 2009 10:55 AM
Django,
Those periods are pretty well explained in the latest IPCC report. Most of the dissent revolves around regional deviations from mean temperatures on the eastern seaboard and western/northern Europe.
Ice core samples such as the Vostok core track Co2 and known temperatures as far back as 4000 years. The latest IPCC report also refined it's position on the "hockey stick" graph that has been debated. The science has never claimed to be perfect and the dissenters tend to focus on minor anomalies rather than looking at the larger picture. As for the IPCC, I have trouble believing in some kind of UN led group think mentality that has infected thousands of scientists and climatologists from 130 different countries. They have conducted their own scientific research and it has all been peer-reviewed. And then came to the consensus that there is a 90% probability that man made co2 is directly linked to GW.
I play those chords on my Taylor 420ce-SL in KOA. A recent birthday gift from mi esposa.
Posted by: Bubba ✔ | February 9, 2009 11:01 AM
6. There are still many uncertainties (estimates of future emissions and biogeochemical cycling; models; instrument data for model testing, assessment of variability, and detection studies) ~ IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]
-------------------------------------
If the Django man were to generate a report with a statement like that, he would best be found stuck bottoms sides up, in a vat of 5 day old chicken grease, weighted down with anchor bolts set in concrete. With all due respect, esteemed Liberals, this is no basis to destroy an entire Economy. The Django Theorem of Pretty Latinas is much more plausible.
Posted by: Django - N Exile somewhere in/around the 30th Parallel | February 9, 2009 12:49 PM
The reason that Stephen Chu can talk about climate change as a physicist is that it is basic physics that is driving the problem. This physics (the "greenhouse effect") was worked out by John Tydall and Joseph Fourier in the 19th Century, and Svante Arrenhius published the theory of global warming in 1896 based on this physics.
The intensifying greenhouse effect due to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases is the only thing that explains the temperature of the earth. The idea that for over a century climate scientists have somehow overlooked the impact of the sun on the earth's climate is silly...it was the first hypothesis, but it doesn't fit the facts.
Scientists hypothesized changes decades ago based on the theory of global warming, and modern observations are showing these hypotheses to be true (e.g., the global distribution of temperature anomalies, loss of arctic ice cover, glacial retreat, species redistribution).
The denialists who spout off in the mass media do so because they cannot produce hypotheses and associated measurements that explain observed phenomena, which is why they do not participate in the scientific community. They can neither explain what is causing the temperature changes we are observing nor why the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations is not causing it (as would be predicted by 125 years of radiative physics).
And please, no more confusion about weather and climate. Whether it's cold or hot outside your house today is proof of nothing.
Posted by: Andy | February 9, 2009 3:50 PM
Djangy,
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that statement from the IPCC. Estimates of future emissions, models, testing and detection are precarious. You simply cannot live in a black and white world when it comes to atmospheric changes that are unpredictable by nature, especially when so much rides on how the world reacts to problem.
This will not destroy the economy. That was already achieved by 43 and his gang of incompetent borrow and spend supply side war-mongering fools.
Usted es agradable.
Posted by: Bubba ✔ | February 9, 2009 10:33 PM
You can get an even more detailed look at Chu's views on climate change in an extended interview he gave to the Copenhagen Climate Council in November of last year.
Here's the link:
http://www.copenhagenclimatecouncil.com/get-informed/news/clear-and-present-danger-a-conversation-with-nobel-laureate-steve-chu-on-the-risks-of-climate-change.html
Posted by: Justin Gerdes | February 10, 2009 11:50 AM
Speaking as a Californian and a scientist, ENSO does have a dramatic and relatively predictable affect on our rainfall patterns here, but those who are saying that ENSO is the culprit instead of global warming is missing Chu's point alltogether. Our yearly moisture, which waters our agriculture and slakes our thirst is STORED IN THE MOUNTAINS every winter AS SNOW!!! It is this snow-pack that is threatened by global warming. Science predicts that more moisture will fall as rain rather than snow and the snow that does fall will melt faster each year meaning that by summer, there will be no more runoff when we need it most. You reactionary conservatives and your misinformation campaigns and twisting of scientific information to assuage your guilt at conspicuous overconsumption is what scares me. Chu is speaking the truth and you should be listening.
Posted by: D McCullar | February 13, 2009 2:11 PM
Is it a question of the market regulated by a reasonably accountable state or by big business? After a natural disaster there will have to be a lot of ad-hoc solutions and some new thinking. Relying on a bureaucratic state to do this effectively is crazy. So hiding behind the rhetoric of empowering the small producer, the neo-liberals introduce big business.
Posted by: emergency ration packs | November 23, 2009 7:46 AM