BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Implementing The One Viable Solution To Climate Change

Following
This article is more than 4 years old.

When and how will we begin implementing the one and only viable solution to climate change? Time is running short to seize the opportunity and choose our own future, rather than have it dictated to us by events. Will we as a species embrace climate change as a challenge that we must undertake, one that we must begin at once, one in which we must prevail? Or not?

Wikipedia Creative Commons

Last month, June 2019, was the hottest June ever recorded. Nine of the 10 warmest Junes in recorded history have occurred since 2010. As I write this article today, most of America is suffering an extreme heatwave. The frequency and intensity of extreme heat, excessive rainfall, hurricanes, floods and gigantic wildfires are increasing. Climate change, once a mere statistical figment of scientific prediction, is now happening as a matter of universally experienced fact.

This, scientists tell us, is just the beginning. The future is far more disquieting. For many years, public discussion has been focused, somewhat arbitrarily, on a possible increase in global temperature of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the estimated threshold for “dangerous” climate change.

While climatology is not yet a precise science, there is increasing evidence that the average global temperature is heading inexorably beyond 2 degrees Celsius and heading towards a threshold of 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit). Such a trajectory would have dire social and economic consequences. In the cautiously ominous words of the World Bank, “the limits for human and natural adaptation are likely to be exceeded.”

Almost all climate scientists now believe that this trajectory is primarily a result of human action, mainly, burning hydrocarbons, although other factors like deforestation have contributed. In principle, what is caused by human behavior can be changed by changes in human behavior. Yet coherent effective action to deal with, or respond to, the man-made global climate crisis has yet to happen, for several reasons.

Why We Have Not Acted Yet

The core of the problem is that the burning of hydrocarbons is the foundation of many of the huge improvements in the material well-being of the human race over the last century. We hesitate to set aside immediate tangible benefits that we experience many times every day, merely to avoid some distant future risk explained by some supposed expert whom we don’t know and whose thinking is difficult to figure. We hesitate to bear an immediate loss of well-being and comfort in the here and now merely to avoid a loss sometime in the distant future, which may in fact never happen.

This is not because we are stupid or evil. It’s our very nature. Our brains have been created to ignore risks that appear distant in time and place. Research shows that we all have built-in biases that limit a rational response. For instance, as a result of the “confirmation bias,” facts and reasons not only do not change our current convictions: they often make us even more resistant to change. Moreover, the “bystander effect” causes us to defer action in the hope that someone else will solve the problem: with climate change, the problem is that that someone else is us. As veteran ABC journalist Bill Blakemore has said, “Climate change isn’t the elephant in the room; it’s the elephant we’re all inside of.” In effect, as George Marshall’s brilliant book, Don't Even Think About It, describes in frightening detail, “our brains are hard-wired to ignore climate change.”

But the killer issue is that the sum total of all the current plans and actions don’t add up to a solution. As I explained in my last article, the currently available alternatives to, and mitigations of, burning hydrocarbons—wind, solar, gas, nuclear, carbon capture, reforestation, taxes, subsidies, regulations, deregulation, and so on—can collectively reduce the impact of the unfolding disaster but are insufficient to avoid it. Even assuming the best motivation and strongest commitment of all the governments in the world—something that has yet to happen—the sum total of the current mitigatory measures will not enable us to maintain the comfort, the convenience, the ease, and in effect the entire way of life that hydrocarbons provide to almost the entire human race.

In some theoretical sense, it might be argued that the currently available technology could resolve climate change. But as Marty Hoffert of the New York University Physics Department points out, these technologies are not available in an operational and political sense, and it will take a massive mobilization to make progress. Hoffert explains:

...humanity had the know-how to build nuclear weapons in the late 30s or go to the Moon in the 60s. But it took the Manhattan and Apollo programs to make it so... An Apollo-like program in alternate energy is needed over a broad spectrum of mitigation technologies."

Thus, even looking beyond the mind-boggling incompetence and climate-denial of the current U.S. administration, the collective efforts of the governments of the world, as in the Kyoto Protocol (2005) and the Paris Agreement (2015), are barely sufficient even to deal with a 2 degree future, let alone a 4 degree climate calamity.

Faced with the apparent choice between sacrificing our way of life or sacrificing our future on the planet, we, the human race, have—so far—collectively acted as though we are willing to sacrifice the very future of our children and grandchildren on the planet—in effect, everything.

This is a course of action which, whenever we can bring ourselves to think seriously about it, can only elicit horror. Our conduct is so patently infantile and irresponsible, so unworthy of our potential for fellow-feeling, rationality and caring for our families, that it is sometimes hard to keep a kindly attitude towards our own species. It is agonizing to see that we remain impassive in the face of impending calamity. It is even more humiliating to discover that many of us, who in principle can see that our conduct is unforgivably reckless, nevertheless defend it piece by piece in a tangle of pitiful self-interested pretexts.

The Only Viable Solution: A New Moon Shot

Yet things are not as hopeless as they seem. The human race didn’t succeed in handling big challenges in the past by upgrading yesterday’s technologies or passing laws telling people to make do with less. The Internet didn’t emerge from improving the dial-up phone or regulating phone calls. The electric light bulb didn’t appear from efforts to develop better candles or telling people to use less light. The automobile didn’t arrive by trying to breed faster horses.

The human race solved big problems through innovation that led to radically new technical solutions that changed everything.

It has proved helpful to keep an open mind as to where the solution may lie. When innovation is pursued persistently and skillfully, even seemingly modest ideas can turn out to be huge: thus if anyone had suggested in 1958 when DARPA was created that it would lead to the invention of the Internet—a system that could connect every person and thing with every other person and thing on the planet instantly and at zero cost, they would have been ridiculed. And yet that’s what happened. Through patience and persistence and smarts, the Internet happened.

Ideas that today look modest and non-scalable, like solar energy and reforestation, may turn out to have much more potential than we currently imagine if we start innovating more aggressively and systematically.

So, what if, in addition to what we are now doing, we launched a massive effort in innovation with the best minds and adequate funding to find the best way for creating non-polluting energy for the planet?

Wellhead Vs. Tailpipe

Aren’t we already doing all that, you might ask? Surely, all the existing possibilities are already being exhaustively explored? Well, actually, no. For one thing, it turns out that we have implicitly given priority to “the tailgate over the wellhead.” As George Marshall explains:

There is a chain, or, if you prefer, a pipeline. At the one end is exploration, development, and production—what I will call the wellhead (a term which will include the minehead). And at the other end is the sale and then combustion that leads to emissions—what I will call the tailpipe.

Policies to manage climate change should, one would think, consider interventions at both ends and all stages in-between. However, they do not. The focus on tailpipe gases and disregard for wellhead fuels has been the single most important factor in all government and policy framings.”

In effect, most of the policies and actions to date have been aimed at containing the damage that will flow once the hydrocarbon fuel has already been explored, developed and produced. Essentially, that means taking action to contain the damage that is already on its way. Much less effort and attention have been spent in finding alternatives to hydrocarbon fuel in the first place.

The Misdirection Of Effort

When so many intelligent educated people have spent their lives working on climate change, how could such a devastating misdirection of effort have happened?

Corporate Profits: One reason for the misdirection of effort relates to corporate profits. As Marshall explains in the blunt language of one Australian expert:

Climate change is a collective b*gger of an inconvenient challenge. Shell wants to keep finding the stuff and digging it up. We keep burning ever more of it because we are addicted to energy. And everyone is threatened by climate change.

Never forget,” says Steve Kretzmann, founder of the environmental campaign group Oil Change International, “never, ever forget that the oil industry is the most extraordinary wealth-generating machine ever invented by man. That is what it is designed to do and it does that very well. I haven’t seen a single intelligent thought about how you could transition the industry out of oil and keep it just as profitable.”

Lack of Leadership: America has lacked the needed leadership on this issue. President Carter’s cartoonish promise to lower the thermostat, wear a sweater and turn off the Christmas lights on the White House lawn, was followed by President Reagan’s unwise declaration that “government is the problem" and President George W. Bush’s refusal to participate in the Kyoto Protocol to cut greenhouse gases. President Obama was able to negotiate and sign the Paris Agreement of 2015, which established international targets for reduction in hydrocarbons. But he faced an increasingly divisive political climate, and wasn’t able to build a coherent national plan of action nor any kind of national consensus in support. Needless to say, with President Trump’s dismissal of science in general and climate change in particular, there is currently not a single official at the highest level of American government who can speak with authority on the subject.

Lack of Consensus: Climate science is complex and still evolving. Even the experts don’t agree with each other, either on the projections and their probability or what should be done. Different schools of experts support different approaches, which have different degrees of technical and political difficulty, as reflected in this over-simplified table.

Steve Denning

When the experts themselves don’t agree, and government leadership is lacking, it should be no surprise the public at large have very mixed views on what, if anything, they should be doing about the problem.

Bureaucracy: Much work is underway on various energy options, often in the form of international consortia. In some instances, like nuclear fusion, the potential seems great, but the progress of research is frustratingly slow. On its current trajectory, its realization is thought to be many decades away. In part, this is because the science and engineering of fusion and plasma physics are particularly difficult and expensive. But in part, it’s also because of the nature of the slow-moving international consortia which are tackling the challenge, as science writer Jamie Carter explains:

We [need to] have shorter lead times so we can apply new knowledge quickly and pivot towards better designs faster. The trouble with the big projects is that by the time they're built the knowledge that informed their design is obsolete..... For an industry to make a giant leap in its technology requires the kind of leadership and focus that the nuclear sector just does not have."

Faced with such lumbering costs and suspected lack of progress, a wave of privately-funded fusion startups have appeared of late that rely on the very latest thinking – among them Canada's General Fusion, Tri Alpha Energy and Helion Energy in the US, and the UK's Applied Fusion Systems, Tokamak Energy and First Light Fusion – all trying to crack the critical science and make small nuclear fusion reactors.

Market Failure: While these private sector initiatives are welcome, the question is whether they are enough. Although some believe the task of developing the new energy technologies should be left to market forces, many experts disagree. That's not just because it's expensive to get new technology started, but also because the government can often take risks that private enterprise won't.

Most of the modern technology that has been driving the U.S. economy did not come spontaneously from market forces," NYU's Marty Hoffert says, ticking off jet planes, satellite communications, integrated circuits, computers. "The Internet was supported for 20 years by the military and for 10 more years by the National Science Foundation before Wall Street found it."

Choosing To Go To The Moon

So why don’t we have the right kind of leadership and focus, if the very future of the human race is at stake?

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of man’s landing on the moon. Everyone knows this followed President Kennedy’s speech of  “choosing to go to the moon.” In his speech on September 12, 1962, Kennedy characterized space as a new frontier, invoking the pioneer spirit that dominated American folklore. He infused the speech with a sense of urgency and destiny and emphasized the freedom enjoyed by Americans to choose their own destiny rather than have it chosen for them.

We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.”

The speech resonated widely and is still remembered, although at the time there was disquiet about the cost and value of the moon-landing effort. Kennedy's goal was realized 50 years ago, just yesterday—July 20, 1969—when men walked for the first time on the moon as part of the successful Apollo 11 mission.

Getty

What is often forgotten in celebrating America's space triumph of 1969, is that there was no straight-line journey from Kennedy’s speech to the moon landing. In fact, the journey went through several distinct stages:

  • Stage 1: Pre-1958: Several competing agencies were striving for ownership of the American space effort: space: Army, Navy, Airforce. There was no coherent national strategy, game plan or budget.
  • Stage 2: With the creation of NASA in 1958, President Eisenhower established organizational clarity as to which agency was in charge of the space effort, but he didn't create the necessary priority or budget for the effort to succeed. He did nevertheless put in place the institutional and intellectual platform which provided the basis for the next step.
  • Stage 3: President Kennedy's 1962 speeches articulated a clear national commitment to get to the moon before the end of the decade.
  • Stage 4: From 1963 to 1969, there was skillful pursuit and maintenance of the goal, through many difficulties and setbacks.
  • Stage 5: In July 1969, as promised, American men landed on the moon—an unparalleled feat of perseverance and ingenuity.

By way of comparison, the U.S. response to climate change is still in Stage 1. There are competing agencies, and no coherent national strategy, game plan, expert or political consensus or budget.

Given that the current U.S. administration’s inactive attitude to its responsibilities in this area, any major change in the situation will have to come in the next administration. Nevertheless, it is not too early to consider the necessary steps, beginning with a decision to take bold action.

A Commitment To Bold Action

What is needed now, in addition to what we are already doing to deal with climate change, is to launch a bold effort in innovation, to push existing ideas to the limit of their potential as soon as possible, as well as basic research on new technology, drawing on the best minds, strong leadership and adequate funding, all aimed at finding scalable solutions for non-polluting energy for the planet.

One country could launch it to get it started and then invite other countries to join in so as to make it a multinational effort, with the following criteria.

Criteria For Action

1. Acceptance of a massive national challenge: At first glance, it might seem improbable to be talking of launching a massive collective effort at a time of unprecedented political divisiveness, a time when the current U.S. administration itself is in denial about the utility of any kind of science, not merely the science of climate change. Yet the current administration is not forever, and times of crisis can also inspire. Paradoxically, a massive national challenge to join in solving an intractable problem threatening the whole of humanity could be is the very thing to pull the country together. As Abraham Lincoln reminded the nation when its citizens were firing bullets at each other, not just words:

"Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

2. A laser-focus on scalable, breakthrough solutions: The effort would be aimed at creating scalable, breakthrough solutions. The effort would need to be laser-focused on technological breakthroughs that are scalable and able to make an impact on the global problem. Improvement of existing technology should also be included if it meets this criterion. Thus, the effort would not be a replacement of the ongoing efforts to improve solar, wind, and so on. But those efforts would only be incorporated with the scope of the initiative if new impetus could lead to their contributing sooner and in a greater way.

3. LeadershipThe leadership would need to be inspiring in the same way President Kennedy inspired the U.S.  to “choose to go the moon”. Kennedy called on a combination of “national security” (the Russians are ahead of us and we are doomed if we don’t lead), “hope” (we can do something unprecedented in the history of the human race), “freedom” (we will determine our own future, not have it dictated to us); “the frontier spirit” (this is part of the American national heritage);  “business” (our firms will make money out of new technology that is generated), “jobs” (the economic benefits will be shared);  “politics” (expenditures will be located in influential constituencies) and “morality” (this is the right thing to do).

4. Bipartisan: It is vital that the effort be undertaken in a bipartisan spirit , in the same way that the race to the moon was begun under a Republican president (Eisenhower), continued under successive Democratic presidents (Kennedy and Johnson) and completed under a Republican president (Nixon). While that kind of collaboration might seem improbable in the current divisive political climate, the earlier precedents show that it is not impossible, particularly if the effort is presented as a matter of national security and survival.

5. A national initiative: Although international collaboration should be encouraged, experience with the Moon Shoot, the Manhattan Project and the ongoing efforts with nuclear fusion show the limits of international collaboration: the necessary drive, the commitment, the urgency and the decisiveness are only likely to occur if one country is showing the way. Nevertheless, inviting allies to join in such an initiative could be an attractive way to help heal the diplomatic wounds inflicted by the current U.S. administration.

6. Science-basedThe leadership of the effort would need to ensure that the effort remains science-based and that politics don’t interfere with substantive decision-making. The initiative would need to draw on expertise wherever it is located as a matter of national service.

7. Agile managementInstead of the plodding bureaucracy that afflicts most current international climate-related activity, the initiative would need to be led and managed in an agile fashion, moving swiftly and nimbly to pursue leads from wherever they may come, while acting decisively to change course, in the light of what the science reveals.

8. Open-minded, opportunistic, doing whatever it takesThe initiative would pursue the options already on the table, such as carbon capture and storage, nuclear fusion, storage of nuclear fission materials, as well as incremental efforts in wind, solar, batteries, and reforestation, taxes, subsidies, regulation and deregulation, where they are scalable enough to make a difference.

9. Ample fundingGenerating adequate funding would be essentialThe case for budget austerity is weak, as the current economy is strong. If the country can afford a trillion-dollar tax cut for the wealthy, it can also afford to finance its own survival.

10. SafeDespite the urgency of the challenge, the initiative must not sacrifice safety for the sake of speed. Nothing would kill the initiative more quickly than an impression that the initiative was willing to sacrifice safety.

 What Will Historians Say About Us?

That, I believe, is the one viable approach to deal with climate change: to launch a massive effort with the best minds, agile management and adequate funding to find the best technology for creating non-polluting energy for the planet.

Is it worth the cost and the risk? Will it work? “Climate change,” says George Marshall, “can seem distant, uncertain, and incomprehensible.” To enhance our clarity as to what’s at stake, it might help to look forward into the future and imagine: what will historians, a hundred years from now—assuming the human race is still around—say about this time?

One possibility is that historians will look back at this moment and find evidence of the divisiveness, indifference, escapism, and insulation from the reality that ultimately engulfed us. They will note that we were prosperous, comfortable, and complacent. We had a built-in allergy to anything disturbing or unpleasant. We chose leaders and media that deluded, amused, entertained and distracted us. Even when we tried harder, we couldn’t help feeling that our efforts were irrelevant. We spent our time debating inconsequential matters, such as migration, racial differences, income differentials, increments and declines, not realizing that in the overall scheme of things none of those things really mattered. We failed to see that we all had the same destiny. And so, the calamity happened.

The other possibility is that future historians will look back on this as a moment when the human race was finally able to awaken from its daze and take the future into its own hands. Leadership emerged from unexpected quarters and galvanized first the country, and then other countries, into decisive action. The battle to save our lovely planet became a rallying cry for collaboration. Old divisions dissolved and long-standing political squabbles were forgotten in the collective effort to seize the opportunity. The preservation of our habitat was now seen to be something sacred, something infinitely more important than any narrow calculation of economic value. The roots of human ingenuity were fueled. Funding was unlocked. Once-bumbling bureaucracies were shocked into action and became active and agile. New solutions came from unexpected sources. A laser-like focus on scalability and safety was maintained. Discovery followed discovery. It was a close call. But calamity was averted. The human race survived.

Which is it to be?

And read also:

The One Viable Solution To Climate Change

A Roadmap For Reshaping Capitalism

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedInCheck out my website or some of my other work here