The Climate Crisis

Wanted: Children and Mad Scientists

The debate on global warming is over. Present levels of carbon dioxide--nearing 400 parts per million (ppm) in the earth's atmosphere--are higher than they have been at any time in the past 650,000 years and could easily surpass 500 ppm by the year 2050 without radical intervention.

So begins the overview of a series of articles in Scientific American on the Climate Crisis. Most are about Stopping It--that is, preventing the worst from happening: a runaway heating that could end civilization. The overview doesn't mince words on what is required:

Preventing the transformation of the earth's atmosphere from greenhouse to unconstrained hothouse represents arguably the most imposing scientific and technical challenge that humanity has ever faced. Sustained marshaling of cross-border engineering and political resources over the course of a century or more to check the rise of carbon emissions makes a moon mission or a Manhattan Project appear comparatively straightforward.

Are we up to it? At least some people are thinking in practical terms where to start:

Industry groups advocating nuclear power and clean coal have stepped forward to offer single-solution visions of clean energy. But too much devoted too early to any one technology could yield the wrong fix and derail momentum toward a sustainable agenda for decarbonization. Portfolio diversification underlies a plan laid out by Robert H. Socolow and Stephen W. Pacala in this single-topic edition of Scientific American. The two Princeton University professors describe how deployment of a basket of technologies and strategies can stabilize carbon emissions by midcentury.

Link here to these articles. Get hard copies and send them to science teachers in your childrens' schools. They may as well get started on the problems that are going to dominate their lives.

As for the climate debate being over, it's of course been over for awhile among scientists, but according to a new poll, it may also be over among Americans, 70% of whom believe the Climate Crisis is real, and that recent extreme weather and weather events are part of it.