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Climate Change, Talk about the effects of long-term weather changes on the planet, along with the good work being done to counteract this trend. | 146 Followers  |
 A majority of American policy makers believe waiting 6 - 20 years and gradually mitigating climate change is the best way for America to act. Self proclaimed pragmatists, their argument goes something like this: to sign on with current climate change mitigation plans would require replacing functioning equipment prematurely at an ineffective cost. We should instead wait until equipment needs replacement- because emitting a ton of carbon in the atmosphere now is the same as emitting it 20 years later- we should wait to act. Unfortunately, they are dead wrong. Reason #1 To Act Sooner: A ton of carbon in the atmosphere now is not the same as a ton of carbon later on. Currently, the atmosphere has 380ppm of CO2e in the atmosphere; we will reach 550ppm by 2050 (IPCC, 2007). An increase of 380ppm to 381ppm isn't alarming. An increase from 550ppm to 551 and you start to play dice with the planet. Many American politicians don't address this "fat tail" problem: events that are low probability, highly catastrophic. Even if we become carbon neutral at 550ppm, there's a 4.2% probability of reaching an 8°C rise in temperature (Stern, 2008); to date, no politician has mentioned such probabilities in the States. Read More |
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Juan Carlo Pascua Is blogging |
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People Working on Climate Change |
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