The Oil Drum: Europe

I recently received an interesting e-mail:

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and Author of "Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters" will answer questions in a live discussion on washingtonpost.com today (Wednesday, Aug. 6 at 3 pm ET).

Pelosi will discuss the current political scene heading into the conventions, the message of her new book and other questions submitted by readers.

To submit questions and participate in the live discussion click here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/08/01/DI2008080102174.html

This seemed to me to be an ideal opportunity to question her on two issues that she is clearly passionate about, but seem to me to be diametrically opposed: Tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and reducing carbon emissions. So, I submitted the following question, several hours prior to the chat:

This is a guest post by Kate Lister. Kate, along with partner Tom Harnish, runs a web site called Undress4Success.com, which offers advice on work at home jobs, freelance opportunities, and home-based businesses. Kate and Tom are telecommuting researchers and authors; their academic study of the topic is balanced with practical lessons they've learned from over twenty years of home-based work and business ownership. They are currently working on a book, Undress4Success—The Naked Truth About Working From Home for John Wiley & Sons (March 2009). This will be their third book for Wiley.

Gasoline prices give a a clear measure of consequences of making oil the lifeblood of our economy. As our economic lifeblood, oil is giving us:

1. Heart attacks, unstable price spikes in this plateau of Peak Oil
2. Leukemia, undermining our planets ability to support us with Global Warming

Facing the facts and acting to resolve them can defeat peak Oil and Global Warming, both civilization killers. A primary fact is that our current infrastructure is the cause of these killers. We built the infrastructure. We can build better. The purpose of this essay is a call to action to defeat these civilization killers by changing the way we govern infrastructure from specifying HOW to build it, to stating WHAT is needed and allowing a free market to find the rare individuals with lucky breakthroughs that can build sustainable infrastructure. We must get lucky and discover the energy equivalents of lasers, personal computers, cell phones, the Internet, etc....

The long awaited Garnaut report (pdf) is out at last, prompting an explosion of media analysis.

This post is a roundup of selected articles - I encourage you all to share your thoughts in the comments.

I have decided to create a new currency, the Carbon. You can spend it and earn it, but cannot exchange it between people, because it's a transaction between you and the Earth. The symbol for the carbon currency is ¢. In earlier times, currencies were physical commodities, or their value was tied to them. For example, the British Pound was called a "pound" because it was set as equivalent to a pound of silver, and around an ounce of gold. This made it easy to know what you could get for a pound, and what it was really worth. So I have set ¢1.00 as worth 1.00kg of carbon dioxide equivalent in greenhouse terms. 1kg methane, for example is worth about ¢23, since it has a greater effect on the climate than does carbon dioxide.


Climate change, our bankruptcy
The reason to express it as a currency is that with money we have a simple idea which everyone can grasp: you cannot spend more than you earn. If you get into debt and can never pay it back, you're in trouble. Likewise, if we emit more greenhouse gases than the Earth can absorb, we get into trouble; if we spend more Carbons than we earn, we get into debt. Some people find it difficult to grasp the idea of climate change because, they say, the pollutants we humans produce are so small compared to the whole system, how can they have an effect? Well, imagine that in a town of 1,000 people every single household spent just a few percent more than they earned - every year for a century. That town would be in trouble, right?

We have been spending more than we earn. When you do that with money eventually you get declared bankrupt and the court writes off your debts. That's possible with debts in dollars, but not debts in Carbons Instead of bankruptcy we get climate change. The debt just grows and makes our lives more miserable and difficult. Our spending is greater than our income.

This is a guest post by Eugene Linden. Eugene's most recent book is Winds of Change: Climate, Weather, and the Destruction of Civilizations. Prior books include The Future in Plain Sight: Nine Clues to the Coming Instability. Over the years, Eugene has written for publications ranging from Parade to Foreign Affairs (for more complete list, please visit Eugene's site). In recent years Eugene has been publishing more and more on the web. Apart from his writing, he does a good deal of speaking, and also serves as chief investment strategist for Bennett Management, a family of hedge funds.

"The Speech I'd Like to Hear from a Presidential Candidate on Energy and Climate Change" by Eugene Linden

“As I stand here today on the shore of Lake Lanier in Georgia, I’m sure that many of you are wondering why I’ve chosen to talk about climate change when we face so many immediate problems. Climate change seems far away while the housing and credit crisis, unprecedented oil prices, expensive healthcare, a global food crisis, and the never-ending war in Iraq are right upon us.

These are all urgent issues, and the American people have every right to demand that a Presidential candidate address these problems with leadership and credible programs. Indeed, I’ve spent the great majority of my time in this campaign trying to lay out the way I would confront such issues should the voters entrust me with the Presidency.

But many of these problems, particularly energy prices, our national security and soaring food prices cannot be addressed in isolation. Moreover, changing climate feeds into a number of these immediate issues, and the threat of climate chaos may not be as far off as we might hope.

Mr. or Madam President,

Vice President Dick Cheney once famously quipped "The American way of life is non-negotiable." I submit that while our next president might not be so brash in stating this, the root of our energy problems can be traced to this attitude. But, nature doesn't negotiate. It doesn't appear that any of the remaining presidential candidates understand the basis of the problems we face: Oil is a depleting, finite resource - albeit one crucial for the "American way of life."

Because this resource is so crucial - and obviously not just for Americans - depletion is going to drive prices up as consumers bid for dwindling supplies. Threatening to sue OPEC isn't going to change that. Threatening to tax Big Oil into submission isn't going to change that. Mandating that we will invent new technologies to meet a greatly increased Renewable Fuel Standard isn't going to change that. These are the sorts of proposals that merely demonstrate that your grasp of the problem is superficial. And you have to understand the problem in order to begin addressing it.

James Hansen has written an (apparently) open letter to Kevin Rudd, urging that all new coal fired power plants be halted - via Energy Bulletin, original at Australian Science Media Centre (pdf).

27 March 2008
The Hon Kevin Rudd, MP
Prime Minister of Australia
Australian Parliament
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, 2600

Dear Prime Minister,

Your leadership is needed on a matter concerning coal-fired power plants and carbon dioxide emission rates in your country, a matter with ramifications for life on our planet, including all species. Prospects for today's children, and especially the world's poor, hinge upon our success in stabilizing climate.

For the sake of identification, I am a United States citizen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Earth Institute. I am a member of our National Academy of Sciences, have testified before our Senate and House of Representatives on many occasions, have advised our Vice President and Cabinet members on climate change and its relation to energy requirements, and have received numerous awards including the World Wildlife Fund's Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal from Prince Philip.

I write, however, as a private citizen, a resident of Kintnersville, Pennsylvania, USA. I was assisted in composing this letter by colleagues, including Australians, Americans, and Europeans, who commented upon a draft letter. Because of the urgency of the matter, I have not collected signatures, but your advisors will verify the authenticity of the science discussion.

I made the following comment recently in a discussion on Global Warming:

If you put it to a popular vote, and people learned that GHG emissions could be arrested (hypothetically) if they were willing to pay $7/gallon of gasoline, what percentage would vote for that? My guess is that it would be well less than 20%, implying that GW concerns will give way to economic concerns.

At one time I was really worried about Global Warming. And at the risk of starting a Global Warming debate here (one that I don't wish to participate in), my position is that the scientific consensus backs the hypothesis that human activity is contributing to Global Warming. I am not an atmospheric scientist, so in this case I rely on the scientific consensus of the experts. This is the same standard I apply to other fields in which I lack expertise.

This is a guest post by Ian Dunlop, originally printed as an opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review on January 2.

Ian was formerly an international oil, gas and coal industry executive. He chaired the Australian Coal Association in 1987-88, chaired the Australian Greenhouse Office Experts Group on Emissions Trading from 1998-2000 and was CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors from 1997-2001. He is Chairman of the Australian National Wildlife Collection Foundation (CSIRO), and Deputy Convenor of the Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil.

“ Men Argue, Nature Acts” – Voltaire

The impact of global warming is building far faster than scientists had predicted, with extreme weather events in Australia, the US, Europe, Africa, China or Bangladesh, the rapid melting of Arctic sea ice, carbon sinks turning into carbon sources etc. Recent comments from economists and industry representatives, urging a cautious, gradual response, might have been appropriate a decade ago, but no longer.

They miss two crucial points. First, the response to global warming is not primarily an economic issue; rather it is risk management. Second, the risks are escalating rapidly.

The economic case is built primarily around a middle-of-the-road view of global warming, designed to limit temperature rises to 2 degrees C above pre-industrial conditions, with extreme outcomes being downplayed. But with such a potentially catastrophic issue, risk management must address the extremes.