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Laura Thieme

Bizresearch President – 10 years - 2007

Fisher College of Business Lecturer on Search Marketing

OSU Russian Studies Grad – 1993

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16th May 2007

Global Warming Presentation in Worthington

Five Frequent Reasons for Global Warming Inaction - How to defeat the excuses against not acting now on Global Warming.

Presentation in Worthington by Dr. Robinson, who is educated on Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth process. 

1) Who Me? - climate is always changing
  Looking at human industrial activity - population explosion - should hit 9.1 billion by 2050.  It took from beginning to 1927 to reach 2 billion persons.  It took less than 50 years for population to double.  It’ll take even less than 25 years for the next doubling to take place.  Also science and technology will amplify our resources.  Ancient ways of doing things are no longer the way of doing things - think when you use a snowblower instead of snow shovel.  The troposphere is 6  miles thick, where planes fly.   Real acceleration in global warming after 1970.  It is a natural phenomenon.  A slide of Lonnie Thompson, ice cores.  Quelccaya Ice Cap, Peru, 1977 slide shown.  Never exceeded 250 Carbon Dioxide parts per million, in 650,000 years of study complete.  Today, we’re at 280 C02 parts per million.  For the first time, we can prove that humans are in fact contributing to the increase in CO2.  We know that greenhouse gases warms the Earth.

2) I’ll be dead before it matters
There is a 1.3 degree temperature increase.  Bare minimum is 2 degrees.  The worst case scenario is 11 degrees.  January was 1.5 degrees warmer than 20th century global average.  He also talked about the Vermont sugar maples - which i’ve blogged about before.  Article in NYT in 3/2/07.  Sky Islands of southern Arizona unraveling - a local resident said that she used to have four seasons - now they only have two.  She’s lived there for 25 years.  NASA GISS projects that by 2085, summer time average daily highs will be 10 degrees warmer.  They’re also projecting average daytime highs over 100 degrees in the South.  Boulder Glacial Park and other glacial parks worldwide - within 30 years - will be gone.  Alot of the world depends on the glacial ice packs to provide steady flow of water.  In South America, entire cities depend on the glaciers for their water source.  MIT Study in 2005, July, said the intensity of storms in the Atlantic have increased substantially.  Number of major flood events increased, as do droughts.  The number of frost days have decreased substantially in Switzerland. 

3) We can fix it later
North Pole - earth uses this to cool itself.  The Sea-Ice Extent - is diminishing dramatically - as ice melts, the darker water absorbs more of the heat, and accelerates the heating of the Earth at an increasing rate.  In the North, within the Permafrost, there is enough C02 in the tundra - if it melts - there will be a large amount of methane released into the air.  This has already begun in Alaska and Russia.  In the South, the Larsen Ice Shelf broke up in 2002.  It had been there for approximately 12,000 years.  In three months, it broke up.   As water based ice breaks up, land based ice has the potential to melt and fall into the water, thus increasing water levels.  The West Antarctic ice sheet is a grave concern.  If it broke off, sea levels would go up 20 feet.  Greenland - pools of melt water are forming - just like the Larsen Ice shelf in 2002.   Glacial earthquakes are doubling in Greenland.  Don’t count on being able to fix it - these are irreversible events taking place.

4) It won’t touch me in Ohio, i’m not on the coast - think the Florida picture animation on Inconvenient Truth.  There could be a major soil moisture reduction in Ohio from June to August.  In 2003 there is a heat wave in Europe.  35,000 dead.  Most died in France in Italy, 15,000 and 20,000 respectively.   We were all impacted by Katrina.  Darfur - the root of the problem is a longterm drought - Lake Chad - disrupting age old social patterns. 

5) It’ll cost too much - what about the Chinese - if they don’t do anything? 
Estimated that if we spent $14 billion spent to prevent Katrina.  Estimated total damage cost of $200 billion because of the effects of Katrina.  The Stern Review, a British report, on the economics of climate change - spend 1% of GNP now on mitigation - we will able to avoid serious economic impact later ($300B) - likely to experience 5-20% decrease.   The only time that happened was in WWII.  Alternatively, the Chairman and CEO of GE believes that green is green and can be profitable.  Just last year Toyota became top producer 39.1 percent - as opposed to 38.1 percent decline for Ford. In the last 20 years, Germany has led in 50% world’s production - generated their own energy and developed solar technology industry as export.  Efficiency works in California - appliance and building standard modifications - established rules whereby their utilities make money by encouraging and realizing efficiencies.   Alternatively, there is no incentive at AEP to reduce energy consumption - hmmmmmm, perhaps an opportunity with my colleagues at AEP.  There is wind capacity of 330 GW in the Atlantic.  Current regional total energy consumption is 185 GW.  Installation of 166,720 turbines.   It has been determined that 66,000 MW of land-based potential wind energy.   There has to be multiple methods of impacting - to stabilize - electricity and use efficiency; other end-use efficiency - passenger vehicle, transport efficiency, renewables.  The most expensive thing we can do is nothing.

Upcoming Events:
Solar 2007 - Cleveland, OH - July 7, 12, 2007 - www.solar2007.org

Questions:

What are other countries doing?  E.U. and California are legislative entity models to review. 

What about nuclear energy?  Renewable, decentralized sources would be the opposite of nuclear.   If you currently sell surplus energy back to an energy provider like AEP, you only get 40% of retail price.  Gore has proposed a smart energy grid, and an open marketplace for many to sell back to whomever wants to buy it at market price.

Questions about population - should we not have as many children - i’ve seen studies on this - i need to look this up.  I’ve seen studies on the Muslim vs Christian societies and that the latter have very few children in a decreasing rate and the former are having larger numbers of children.

One comment about the lack of people under 35 in the room.  Our children will be more affected by this than we will be.  Most of the people in the room - largely women, some men, and mostly older.

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