Climate Change for Skeptics

By Gopal Reddy | Founder, Ready for Climate

Yes. Aside from broad scientific consensus, even Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledges that climate change is a real issue. Given Russia’s high reliance on fossil fuel revenue, his perspective is worth considering:

“In a 2015 address to the UN, Putin had changed his tone, acknowledging that climate change is “one of the gravest challenges humanity is facing” and promising by 2030 to cut Russia’s emissions by 70-75%, compared with 1990 levels.”

Moscow Times, September 7, 2021

In addition, the US Department of Defense issued a detailed report in 2019 highlighting the risks climate change would present to key military installations; former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has publicly stated that climate change is a “national security issue”.

At this point, the real debate is about the costs and political realities of addressing climate change. Even entities that have previously pushed back against the scientific consensus on climate change are adjusting. For example, Koch Industries, a major oil refiner that has long questioned the need for climate change action, is now making significant investments in alternative energy companies through its subsidiary, Koch Strategic Partners.

Source: NASA Earth Observatory

No: outlier events could happen. Like a giant volcano exploding-that would put the planet into a mini ice age.

Outside of an event like that within the next twenty years, the risks of warming are significant.

Humans are emitting the equivalent of 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide including the impact of other greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide. The full impact of past and present emissions will raise temperatures for decades, even if net greenhouse gas emissions went to zero overnight.

Historical records show that once the temperature of the planet moves a couple of degrees in one direction, it doesn’t stop there- it keeps going.

Source: British Antarctic Survey

This is likely because of climate feedback loops. For example, less ice at the poles means more sunlight stays within our atmosphere (ice reflects sunlight). More sunlight increases temperatures, which melts the ice faster, which allows more sunlight in, etc.

In addition, the polar ice caps help stabilize ocean temperatures. As this time lapse video reveals, water temperatures rise very quickly once the ice is all melted.

There’s also staggering quantities of methane trapped beneath arctic permafrost.  Methane is 25x more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over the course of a century. There are signs this trapped methane is now releasing to the atmosphere.

The list of ways that human-induced climate change could impact you within the next two decades is nearly endless. Here are a few:

“The number of encounters at the border has been rising since April 2020 due to reasons which include violence, natural disasters, food insecurity, and poverty in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Central America.”

Source: US Customs and Border Patrol, March 2021

“Projected climate change will impact all 16 critical infrastructure sectors identified in Homeland Security planning directives. We are already seeing how extreme heat is damaging the national transportation infrastructure such as roads, rail lines, and airport runways…”

Source: Center for Naval Analyses

You can read this article for yourself; it’s certainly alarmist, but not without cause.

Part of the reason why so little progress has been made on climate change is because asking people to make changes to their day-to-day habits is very difficult, logistically and politically.

The scale of the problem is so enormous that every aspect of the global economy will be impacted. You by yourself are not the problem; collectively, we all are.

1. Stop believing this problem will go away on its own- it won’t.

Getting to “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions means cutting human emissions from their current 50 billion tons a year to ZERO. The only way to do this is to either cut emissions or pull greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

2. Set a long-term price for greenhouse gas emissions so that the private sector can invest appropriately

Energy transitions involve investments measured in decades; a stable regulatory regime is necessary for any corporation to make those kinds of investments. Even many conservative groups view a carbon tax as the most efficient way to address climate change. Respected economist Milton Friedman, a strong advocate for limited government intervention and free markets, was in favor of “pollution taxes” where appropriate.

3. Get net greenhouse gas emissions down as quickly as possible, either by lowering emissions or by pulling greenhouse gases out of the air.

Cutting emissions will be easier in some parts of the economy than others. What we can’t reduce, we will have to remove.

There are multiple proposed solutions to remove carbon dioxide from the air (Direct Air Capture, or DAC) or from the oceans (ocean water has 50x higher concentration of carbon dioxide vs the atmosphere). All of them need significant funding to see which pathways can be scaled up.

In addition, methane and nitrous oxide have a much bigger climate impact than carbon dioxide. Finding ways to rapidly pull these compounds from the atmosphere could be a way to quickly make a dent in net greenhouse gas emissions.

Find as many ways as possible to get carbon dioxide out of the air at $100/ton or less; at that level, the costs of getting to net zero greenhouse gas emissions becomes a manageable process.

4. Establish international agreements to achieve net zero global emissions as quickly as possible, AND establish frameworks for broad-scale testing of solar radiation management (SRM).

SRM refers to a set of proposed methods to lower surface temperatures by reflecting sunlight out of the atmosphere. SRM was initially conceived as an emergency response to climate change; we may need it sooner rather than later.

Climate change is a global problem, and will require global solutions. There’s very little time remaining; every second we spend bickering amongst ourselves brings us that much closer to ruin.

Fortunately, most material science fields are advancing quickly enough for us to make it. We just have to care.