Excursion Report #1

Joshua Morrison

Event: Making Sense of Climate Change: Controlling Carbon Dioxide

Event Host: Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

The speaker, Bert Drake, mentioned how the IPCC suggests that we keep global temperatures from rising above 2°C, in order to prevent catastrophic changes, that we need to lower our emissions of greenhouse gases, and that we have used almost three quarters of our greenhouse gas budget. Drake showed how our carbon dioxide emissions per capita are the highest in the world. He then talked about the three main sectors that emit greenhouse gases for a typical family in the US: transportation, residential, and industrial. According to Drake, the hardest sector to deal with is industry, an on the other hand, the transportation and household sectors can be mitigated through individual action. Examples he gave were switching to LED lights, driving hybrid or electric cars, and using solar water heaters. Regardless, the best way to decrease our greenhouse gas emissions, he stated, is through government action: switching away from fossil fuels. There are several options in this regard. Nuclear power is both claimed to be the safest and most efficient option, and claimed to be the most dangerous and least efficient option, and most options involving limiting global temperatures to 2°C or lower than the pre-industrial average involve nuclear power. Other options include solar and wind power, which have gotten considerably cheaper over time, and biomass, which when combined with carbon capture can result in a net zero carbon emissions.

I generally agree with the premise that rapid climate change needs to be addressed and that the best way to do so is to drastically reduce our usage of fossil fuels. However, I think that most people at this point agree with that. An example of this is a 2019 Gallup poll that found that about 60% of a representative sample favored proposals to reduce our usage of fossil fuels. The main problem is: how? That same poll found that only 32% wanted more emphasis on nuclear power, and 35% wanted less. If we argue over what to do and bills stall in Congress or other governments, for instance, with the controversy on the EU’s bill on labeling energy as “sustainable” or not, based on whether or not we choose nuclear power, then we choose fossil fuels as the default. The US government has banned incandescent light bulbs and is working on electrifying our automobiles, so the two main solutions that Drake said individuals could implement are being enforced or will be enforced by the government. This leaves us with at least eight different proposed ways of generating energy: hydropower and nuclear power, which are currently in use, solar and wind power, which are likely to become a lot more prominent by 2030 due to their cheap costs compared to other sources of energy, and BECCS (biomass energy with carbon capture and storage), hydrogen, nuclear fusion, direct air capture, and other sources of energy that likely won’t be implemented until very close to the 2050 deadline, if not later, and mostly serve to help decarbonize the hardest sectors, such as industry or aviation. To expand more on nuclear power: there are several countries, such as Ukraine, Russia, and France, that mainly use nuclear power. At the same time, many countries in South America, such as Ecuador, Venuzuela, and Brazil, and Canada mainly use hydropower, and some countries, such as Switzerland or Sweden, use a combination of both. Countries like the United States already have a sizeable portion of electricity generated by hydropower and nuclear power. I think that these technologies should be maintained as long as possible to not make the burden of switching to renewable energy worse.

However, I understand that it will be difficult to convince the public to support nuclear power if the public doesn’t already support it, especially in the European Union. Climate change is a risk multiplier and practically every issue will be worsened by, or will exacerbate the effects of, climate change. At the same time, humans, myself included, are terrible at long term planning. Especially in liberal democracies, it is easy to get distracted by winning the next election or quarterly profits, which leads to ignoring climate change. So, if the public does support a measure that reduces greenhouse gas emissions, it is very hard for it to be worse than what we have now, so that measure should definitely be passed. For example, the EPA’s regulation requiring power plants to have extremely high efficiency or shut down by 2035 relies on carbon capture if it happens to be ready in time, while also acknowledging that it could still be unfeasible, at which point the power plants have to shut down. Considering the Supreme Court’s narrow reading of the EPA’s powers, this is one of the few things the EPA can do to combat climate change, so I support it.

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