Let Us Begin

The news on the Climate Crisis front is not all bad. Keep in mind a few things Al Gore said in the past few days. In Bali, he told delegates that while Washington obstructs, there's a lot positive happening in the states, regions and cities of America. And in his Nobel speech, he spoke of the need for imagination and innovation:

"That means adopting principles, values, laws, and treaties that release creativity and initiative at every level of society in multifold responses originating concurrently and spontaneously.

This new consciousness requires expanding the possibilities inherent in all humanity. The innovators who will devise a new way to harness the sun’s energy for pennies or invent an engine that’s carbon negative may live in Lagos or Mumbai or Montevideo. We must ensure that entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere on the globe have the chance to change the world. "

The San Francisco Bay area has examples of local initiative and innovation on view just this past week. Following a pioneering program in nearby Berkeley, the city of San Francisco is proposing to subsidize half the cost that homeowners and businesses incur to install solar panels. If implemented, the S.F. Chronicle story says, it will be the largest such program in America.

This same week a proposal emerged to create the California Institute for Climate Solutions, in which universities including the University of California and Stanford would coordinate their ongoing and future research.

These are just two examples in one part of the country. Meanwhile, innovation goes forward here and there. Honda is about to test market a hydrogen car, and it gets quite a good review in the New York Times. (Though the article doesn't answer key questions about it in terms of greenhouse gas pollution, it certainly sounds like an improvement over gas guzzlers and hybrids.)

The Times also had an article on airborne wind turbines, which harvest wind power where the wind is always blowing--way up high. Filled with helium, outfitted with electrical generators and tethered to the ground by a conductive copper cable, the 100-foot-wide Magenn Air Rotor System (MARS) will produce 10 kilowatts of energy anywhere on earth. A prototype is expected to be built this year, with private investment.

There was comparatively good news on how hard it will actually be to start cutting greenhouse gas emissions: and the answer appears to be, not as hard as you might think, at least in the beginning. The United States could shave as much as 28 percent off the amount of greenhouse gases it emits at fairly modest cost and with only small technology innovations, according to a new report, as the New York Times put it. Although some changes will require leadership and cost, some can be accomplished right now by individuals, families and communities.

Wordchanging, with links to the study, said: While initial up-front costs could be high, McKinsey says “a concerted, nationwide effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would almost certainly stimulate economic forces and create business opportunities that we cannot see today.”

There’s one caveat: “Achieving these reductions at the lowest cost to the economy, however, will require strong, coordinated, economy-wide action that begins in the near future.” That’s consultant-speak for act now.

In a previous article, Worldchanging said that this study shows that although initial outlays will be in the billions, 40% of the cuts in emissions will actually save money. Supported by both energy companes and environmental groups, including Environmental Defense, Natural Resources Defense Council, Royal Dutch Shell, and Pacific Gas and Electric, the study finds that the United States could reduce its projected greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 by three to four-and-a-half gigatons using technology that is largely already in place. “Eighty percent of the reductions come from technology that exists today at the commercial scale,” according to McKinsey director Jack Stephenson. The other 20 percent is from technology that is currently being developed, such as plug-in hybrids and cellulosic biofuels.

And in a week when a couple of studies warn that Arctic melting is happening much faster than previously believed, there was even a little positive environmental news: The destruction of the Amazon rainforest that's within Brazil forests has slowed by 20% in the past year, the third year in a row that deforestation has fallen. Though some question whether this progress is real and can be sustained, there's more to be said about Brazil as a key and a model for the environmental future.

None of this should minimize the hard challenges ahead. In a little noted comment in his Nobel speech, Gore warned: "The way ahead is difficult. The outer boundary of what we currently believe is feasible is still far short of what we actually must do." But let us begin.