LETTER TO UTAH REPRESENTATIVE HERROD

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This is a response to Representative Herrod's "Legislator not persuaded by scientific consensus," published in the Salt Lake Tribune 11/13/2009.

Dear Representative Herrod,

I appreciate having this opportunity to dialogue with you. I remember seeing you at the Spencer-Steenburgh hearing.

Regarding whether the earth is warming, I find the evidence overwhelming, but I will just present two examples. Pictures are definitely worth a thousand words.

To me, the most persuasive & dramatic visual images that show us the reality of climate change is the time-lapse photography of James Belog, who has visually captured fast-retreating glaciers all around the world. You can see this astonishing footage here: http://www.extremeicesurvey.org/index.php/new_gallery/

Here in the West, warmer winters are allowing the pine bark beetle to destroy vast swaths of our forests – this is happening in our Uinta Basin and Dixie Forest. In British Columbia, 40% of their pine forests have already been destroyed.

Many effects of warming are already happening globally--especially droughts, fires and floods. For this email, I just picked two effects that are more overtly linked to warming.

On a statistical level, the AP gave temperature data to four independent statisticians and asked them to look for trends, without telling them what the numbers represented. The experts found no true temperature declines over time. U.S. government data show the decade ending in December will be the warmest in 130 years of record-keeping, and 2005 was the hottest year recorded.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33482750/ns/us_news-environment/

I primarily want to focus on your question: Even if humans are causing the warming, can we do anything about it, or will the solution be worse than the problem?

You are concerned that climate change policies will “wreak havoc on our economy, strengthen our potential enemies and [we will] become more of a debtor nation.” Our pro-fossil fuel policies have already created these very quandaries. The question isn’t: “Can we afford to deal with this?” but “Can we afford not to?”

Fossil fuels lie at the heart of many ills beyond global warming. Originally hydrocarbons drove economic prosperity, but their externalized costs have accumulated sky-high as a societal burden. Protecting our oil supply lines require vast military expenditures. Polluted air and car-dependent cities that increase obesity are driving up health costs. Oil is no longer reliably cheap — its price volatility wreaks havoc on budgeting. Dependence on foreign oil has strengthened our potential enemies, petro-dictators like Chavez. They literally have us over a barrel. Most remaining oil reserves are in nations with medium-to-high levels of political risk. The U.S. is much more of a debtor nation as we borrow money from China to fund our petro-addiction, spending nearly $500 billion annually on foreign oil.

Our fossil fuel energy system is under great strain. that global oil production has likely peaked, which means ever-declining availability of oil for the world market. This is not readily apparent yet, because of the recession. US oil production peaked in 1970, so America imports ever-increasing amounts of oil, now 2/3. We produce just over 1/2 the oil as we did at peak. See the chart:

Baby, increased drilling is not going to pull us out of this one. Our transportation system and our food system are totally dependent on vast quantities of cheap oil, so we are in a terribly vulnerable, non-resilient situation.

We have a terribly large, intertwined problem on our hands. “The biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now” is our utter dependence on non-renewable, polluting, climate-changing, non-resilient energy as our civilization's foundation.

Can we do anything about it? Numerous plans coming forth say we can transform our energy basis, describing the potential found in renewable energy sources – such as wind, concentrated solar, PV solar, geothermal. Utah-based Raser Technologies has quickly scalable, advanced geothermal technology —there are ample geothermal resources to meet our electrical needs here in Utah. We need to electrify our transportation system. Organic, locally-based, biodiverse farming will also reduce fossil dependency. These plans are all saying this is do-able, all we lack is the will. If the US got on board with this, it would be a tremendous stimulus to our economy; we could create many manufacturing jobs here at home. Over time, we could stop sending money out of the US for foreign oil.

Foreign renewables will soon dominate the world market while America resists embracing the green economy. China has ambitious plans to dominate the world solar market. Many of these technologies were developed here, but are being made elsewhere. Here in the US, the alternative sector has never had a level playing field. Far greater subsidies have aided the fossil fuel industry. The notion that we really have a free market is a myth. Nor does the market provide all the solutions. Its price signals come far too late for the changes needed, and hydrocarbons' true prices are not factored in. They've lacked a stable floor price to allow the alternatives to develop.

We simply must impose a price on carbon. A carbon tax is best; cap and trade is highly problematic for numerous reasons – most of my colleagues I know who are concerned about these issues would agree. The cost per household is uncertain — I have seen estimates much lower than the $2500–4000 that you cite. What is certain is that we already bear much higher costs for fossil fuels than prices at the pump indicate. And the price of our inaction will be incalculable in many ways.