Is the reason global warming has been forced to center stage because it has the ability to take on the role that the cold war did?

Poloticans were able to create much power for themselves and gain many constituents depending upon their views voiced during the cold war. Is this what the problem of global warming will be reduced to? A mere bargining chip for poloticans to iresponsibly throw around, in order to push their agenda.

To me it seems that many who push the global warming issue are ones with an agenda to make American policy seem "bad" rather than trying to "fix" the problem.

Is this what the problem of global warming will be reduced to? A mere bargining chip for poloticans to iresponsibly throw around, in order to push their agenda.

But those that scream the loudest want others to change, not themselves. I tend to see it more as pointing out a problem, not because they want to fix it, but because it makes them look noble and brings them attention.

Global warming, the new cold war?

CLIMATE CHANGING?: Traffic moves at half a mile an hour on Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok, Thailand. Such vehicles contribute roughly one-quarter of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
Bangkok, Thailand, represents one future for global transportation. Short trips last hours, whether by bus or car, and by evening traffic can average half a mile an hour in some spots, far slower than walking speed. Bangkok's nine million or so denizens support two million personal vehicles. "Unfortunately, the personal vehicle has become sort of synonymous with being a rich, civilized person," notes Steven Plotkin, a transportation energy analyst at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. "It's one of the first things you buy when you get some money together."
Worldwide, the desire for automobiles and the traffic it inspires burns fuel at an alarming pace, contributing to an ever increasing amount of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide. As the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released today in Bangkok reveals, cutting back on those emissions is a critical task.

Worldwide emissions of all greenhouse gases have nearly doubled since 1970 thanks to a rise in the worldwide use of energy, whether fuel in cars or electricity from a coal-fired power plant. In that time emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) alone rose by "about 80 percent," according to the report, with 28 percent of that increase occurring since 1990 alone. Nothing in sight will check this rise: cars are only getting more popular and more of the world is consuming coal-fired electricity. China alone added 90 gigawatts of coal-fired power plants in 2006, roughly equivalent to the total power production of Germany, according to Richard Bradley, head of the energy efficiency and environment division at the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris.

If CO2 levels in the atmosphere—currently 379 parts per million (ppm)—reach roughly 550 ppm, scientists estimate temperatures would rise by three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) on average. Such a rise would have a host of impacts, ranging from shrinking glaciers (and imperiled supplies of fresh water) to extreme weather events and natural disasters such as forest fires and pest outbreaks, according to the IPCC.

Fortunately, a range of options exist to attempt to mitigate the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. First and foremost is simply using energy wisely—so-called energy efficiency. "The most benefit with the least cost would come from energy efficiency," argues Harlan Watson, the senior climate negotiator for the U.S. "If we are going to address climate change in the long run we have to reduce and indeed reverse the growth in global emissions. The best way to do that is to employ a portfolio across many sectors."

For example, the report calls for more efficient buildings. "For new buildings, this runs the gamut from proper insulation; good windows; energy-efficient heating, cooling and ventilation; efficient appliances and plug loads that have much-reduced standby losses," says Mark Levine, a senior staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. "It will be possible as time goes on to construct commercial buildings that are much more energy efficient than at present." And it doesn't have to cost more. The report notes that "by 2030, about 30 percent of the projected [greenhouse gas] emissions in the building sector can be avoided with net economic benefit."

From increasing the use of low-carbon sources of energy such as nuclear and solar power to reducing the nearly 13 megahectares (about 50,200 square miles, or roughly the size of New York State) of forest cleared every year (which contributes roughly 5.8 gigatonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere annually), the report lays out ways the world can reduce emissions. Even transportation can be improved. "You can double the efficiency of the U.S. fleet [of vehicles] with technology that is in existence today," Argonne's Plotkin says. "It just takes the will."

Of course, transportation shows how difficult it will be to achieve the long-term goal of nearly eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors. "Decarbonizing will require a dramatic change in the energy supply infrastructure," notes David L. Greene, a transportation analyst at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Options include hydrogen fuel cells, electric hybrids fueled with biomass or electric cars that plug into the grid. "There is not enough biofuel," Greene adds. "So you will need hydrogen or electricity to decarbonize surface transport, plus strong policies to ensure that the carbon emissions from producing these energy carriers are sequestered."

Such carbon capture and storage will be critical to any efforts to combat climate change, particularly if coal continues to play a large power generation role. Unfortunately, sequestration has yet to be demonstrated on a large scale. Significant government funding will be required to prove this technology, admits James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. "This report underscores the need for collective action, underscores the need for action across all sectors of the economy, and underscores the need for some breakout technologies in fossil fuel power generation as well as in the area of fuels," he says. "The goal is reducing emissions and growing economies."

The report also provides estimates of what such changes might cost. These estimates range from an actual improvement of overall economic health to a loss of as much as 3 percent of global gross domestic product by 2030, depending on what level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is targeted. But "costs may be substantially lower under the assumption that revenues from carbon taxes or auctioned permits under an emission trading system are used to promote low-carbon technologies," the report notes; associated health benefits, such as decreased particulate pollution from cars, could make stringent action economically beneficial.

"The IPCC report demonstrates that costs can be manageable if action begins soon and is clearly articulated," IEA's Bradley adds. "Because of the long-lived nature of the energy supply capital those investment decisions are needed now."

That will require leadership on both domestic and international levels from the U.S., the world's largest developed emitter, which has yet to commit to international reduction targets or even a preferred level of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. "The U.S. taking a step is the next major thing to happen," says Billy Pizer, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Resources for the Future. "I don't know if it's going to happen in this administration but I think it's possible. It is not impossible to imagine this president coming up with a proposal."

Voluntary measures, like those the U.S. government currently employs, will not be enough. "Voluntary measures will not work, though they have some very modest impact," says Charles Kolstad, an economist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "Countries need to take actions that provide incentives to individuals and businesses to reduce carbon—a price needs to be put on carbon."

According to the report and its authors, whatever action governments undertake will need to be faster than the sluggish flow of Bangkok traffic. "Mitigation efforts over the next two to three decades will have a large impact on opportunities to achieve lower stabilization levels," the report says. In transportation, it offers mandatory fuel economy standards and better infrastructure planning as ways to both avoid the nightmare of catastrophic climate change and urban gridlock.

"The short term is efficiency," Argonne's Plotkin says. And in the longer term? "Urban form has a big effect on how people travel and also what kinds of public transportation you can have. This is a long term thing but you have to start somewhere soon."

Corals under temperature stress blanch, expelling symbiotic algae that hide the white skeletons below them. But this coral bleaching is not the only phenomena that renders the tiny creatures ashen and lifeless: So-called white syndrome spreads across coral in the South Pacific in the wake of warming events. The two catastrophes can be distinguished by the ways they leave their palls of pale death. "White syndrome moves across in a band," says marine biologist John Bruno of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as if a pathogen is moving from neighbor to neighbor. On the other hand, "bleaching is a whole-colony phenomena." Now, a longitudinal study designed to assess the health of coral in Australia's Great Barrier Reef has revealed that thriving clusters of coral are more susceptible to the mysterious white syndrome than their less densely packed peers.
Bruno and his colleagues surveyed 48 colonies spread over 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) of the Great Barrier Reef every year for six years. The team measured general health and looked specifically for outbreaks of white syndrome. The cause of this affliction is unknown, but by comparing the health data they gathered with satellite measurements of ocean temperatures, the scientists were able to confirm that the disease tends to follow summers with higher than usual sea surface temperatures. They also discovered that only thriving reefs—where tiny coral polyps cover 50 percent or more of the ocean's bottom—suffered from the syndrome, according to their paper in PLoS Biology. "The irony is that the healthiest reefs are the ones where the disease outbreaks are occurring," Bruno says.


Image: ELIZABETH SELIG
WARM WATERS: Warm waters cause a host of problems for coral reefs like Australia's Great Barrier Reef, including white syndrome.
Because scientists do not know what causes white syndrome, it is impossible to say why denser reefs suffer more. But it is possible that, just like in human cities, proximity gives a pathogen a better chance of spreading. Corals compete with their neighbors, Bruno says, attacking them at night with special tendrils. "It could plausibly open up lesions that allow a bacteria to colonize the coral tissue," he says.

Determining the exact cause of white syndrome, which was first observed only about a decade ago, will require parsing the hundreds of bacteria that thrive in corals' mucus secretions. One thing is clear, however: rapidly increasing temperatures are subjecting the tiny animals to undue stress. "It is faster than they can acclimate," Bruno says. "Coral reefs are an ephemeral feature of the ocean. The concern is that we are going to lose the habitat that they create when they are super-healthy."

....The third kind of devastating event is less dramatic but more likely than the other two. Global climate change could, and very well might, cause the gradual melting of the Antarctic icecap as well as the gradual expansion, by warming, of ocean water volume. In time, some experts think, sea levels could rise by several dozen to perhaps 200 feet. If this were to occur, coastlines around the globe would indeed be radically redrawn -- not precisely as depicted by Scallion, but close enough to be of grave concern.

A wildcard in this scenario is the remote possibility that a large piece of the Antarctic ice sheet could break loose and slide into the sea. Such an object would be perhaps one mile thick and several hundred miles on a side. The force of its sudden descent into the open ocean would raise a tsunami thousands of feet high. While this wave would somewhat subside before hitting, say, the coastlines of northern Europe, many coastal areas of the world would be greatly devastated by such an event. Again, millions could be killed outright, whole cities wiped away, and countless millions more would be displaced and put at risk in the chaotic aftermath.

This scenario most closely approximates the earth changes prediction of Gordon-Michael Scallion. In point of fact, a large amount of coastal inundation, whether sudden or gradual, is quite likely before the end of the coming century. Depending upon the somewhat unpredictable pace and degree of global climate change, coastal inundation could continue building for several hundred years to come.