This is an open letter to President-Elect Trump:
Mr. Trump,
You speak of making America great again. In your campaigning, you've captured the frustrations and concerns of many members of American society who have been left behind by globalization and technological advances.
It is difficult to make America great by simply turning back the clock, closing the borders and pretending that it's 1955 again. In many ways I thought your slogan was hollow. After the last eight years of job growth and rebuilding America's image in the world, who's to say we aren't great now?
However, there is one area that I feel that America excelled at, back in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. There is something that has been lost. If you truly want to make America great again, you can start with this one thing.
We used to celebrate intelligence and science. Remember that? Remember when we sent rockets to space and landed on the moon? Remember when Disneyland unveiled the promise of Tomorrowland? Remember when the American future would be built by American ingenuity?
Remember when people watched the news? People like Cronkite were revered for telling it "the way it is" - I imagine that you would have liked him. People watched the news to learn and be informed - not to bicker and be entertained. Citizenship mattered. Contributing to the national discourse mattered. Being ill-informed was not celebrated.
When I see that you've appointed climate change deniers to the EPA and the DOE I can't help but contrast that decision against our previous head of the DOE who held a Nobel Prize. Climate change due to greenhouse gases is real and it will permanently ruin life on this planet for your kids, their kids, and the rest of this world unless we reverse it. This is the type of moonshot thinking that America excels at - and yet we're timid, cowardly, and unprepared to show leadership. We should demand the world reduce carbon emissions - we should lead the way - and then we can reap the economic gains of being the market leader - just as we have done time and time again in industries such as automotive, aerospace, computers, telecommunications and medicine.
Now, it isn't just the right wing that has embraced ignorance with regards to climate change. The left has it's own shame in the anti-vaxxer movement, or the concerns about GMOs. These concerns are also not founded in science, and should likewise be addressed.
America is great. America has been great. But if you really want to make America great again. If you really want to turn the clock by 60 years - then I implore you to make leadership in science, and leadership in forward thinking in addressing climate change central to your position as President.
Sincerely,
Aaron Fyke
Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 09, 2016
Thursday, August 18, 2011
What in the world is going on?
I gave a presentation to Idealab today. This was something I prepared when I was at the X PRIZE Foundation in 2009, for a group of manufacturing executives at an MIT conference. I updated the data for what's been happening these past two years.
I am really pleased with the opportunity I had to really dig into finding good data and case studies. I modeled it after Hot, Flat and Crowded by Friedman - a book I can highly recommend.
I should make one correction. When I first put this slide deck together, two years ago, the inputs that I provided to the model at www.climateinteractive.org resulted in a temperature increase of 2.6C by 2100. For some reason when I tried the model recently, I noticed some changes to their page, and the temperature increase was only 1.8C by 2100. This is a huge difference, and I'm going to contact them to see what changes they made to their model that resulted in this difference. What's interesting is that the CO2 concentration is similar in both cases, around 450ppm, so the change appears to be in the temperature calculation from the CO2 concentration.
I am really pleased with the opportunity I had to really dig into finding good data and case studies. I modeled it after Hot, Flat and Crowded by Friedman - a book I can highly recommend.
What in the world is going on web
View more presentations from afyke.
I should make one correction. When I first put this slide deck together, two years ago, the inputs that I provided to the model at www.climateinteractive.org resulted in a temperature increase of 2.6C by 2100. For some reason when I tried the model recently, I noticed some changes to their page, and the temperature increase was only 1.8C by 2100. This is a huge difference, and I'm going to contact them to see what changes they made to their model that resulted in this difference. What's interesting is that the CO2 concentration is similar in both cases, around 450ppm, so the change appears to be in the temperature calculation from the CO2 concentration.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
NOAA Climate Change Report (and DocStoc)
NOAA, in conjunction with the National Science and Technology Council have recently released their report Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. This report is very detailed, with lots of useful up to date graphs and charts. It's extremely data-heavy, which I like. I've seen snippets of it floating around the blogosphere recently.
If you'd like to have a read, I've included the embedded link.
Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States -
The second half of this post talks about the link and the service I used, called DocStoc. There are several file sharing websites out there - most of them focus on Powerpoint hosting (I've used Slideshare in the past). However, what I discovered I like about Docstoc is that it's really built a fantastic library of documents, beyond just presentations. I've used it to find technical documents, marketing brochures, legal templates, etc. Google can be great for finding a link to a published work, but you won't necessarily be able to get at the actual document. Whereas DocStoc's inventory is far less - anything you do find you have full access to, which is sometimes all you need. Having full access to a smaller pool of material can usually be more helpful than having partial access to a larger pool, and what they've put together is really neat.
If you'd like to have a read, I've included the embedded link.
Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States -
The second half of this post talks about the link and the service I used, called DocStoc. There are several file sharing websites out there - most of them focus on Powerpoint hosting (I've used Slideshare in the past). However, what I discovered I like about Docstoc is that it's really built a fantastic library of documents, beyond just presentations. I've used it to find technical documents, marketing brochures, legal templates, etc. Google can be great for finding a link to a published work, but you won't necessarily be able to get at the actual document. Whereas DocStoc's inventory is far less - anything you do find you have full access to, which is sometimes all you need. Having full access to a smaller pool of material can usually be more helpful than having partial access to a larger pool, and what they've put together is really neat.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
More on Climate Change
When I mentioned in my last post, that the IPCC is requiring that the per capita CO2 emissions on this planet peak and start to decline soon, I should mention that I don't actually know if the IPCC have specifically made those recommendations. However, I arrived at that conclusion after reviewing their data, so I thought I would share it with you.
This also relates to the discussion of a carbon tax vs. a trading system. In a carbon tax situation, the price of the carbon is fixed, and the amount of carbon is let to float. This is good when it is important to know the likely impact on the economy, but not so good if you want to know the effectiveness of the CO2 reduction. The other approach is to set a level of CO2 reduction required, and let the price float. This is good if you want to constrain CO2 production to known levels, but not so good if you want to know the effect on the economy. One thing discussed in Australia is the notion of a "safety valve" - ie, a cap on the price of carbon. The name "safety valve" clearly shows a bias to the economy and making sure it is "safe". If the price of CO2 is very high, it could be for a good reason - that the levels of CO2 emissions are still too high, and greater economic forces are needed to come down, but, as I said, the language of "safety valve" is biased towards economic performance, not emissions control.
Nevertheless, let's get back to the issue of determining when per capita CO2 emissions need to peak and fall. The book, "Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet" by Mark Lynas discusses various effects that each one degree increase in temperature for the planet can mean. The great concern isn't just the global warming, it is the risk that one, or more, positive feedback triggers can occur, which would greatly affect our planet and dramatically hinder our ability to do anything. These positive feedback events include the melting of the polar icecaps (reducing the reflectiveness of the Earth and causing the Earth to heat up more), the methane release of thawing permafrost, the burning of the Amazon, etc. The link I provided is actually a summary of the book from The Guardian, and is an interesting read.
The end result is that we don't really want to increase temperatures past two degrees increase, otherwise we end up triggering the "tipping point" events which lead to runaway destruction. So, now let's turn to the IPCC for some charts. This paper from Bert Metz shows the temperature rise from various emission scenarios. The two graphs of interest are below.
Now, looking at the second graph first, we see that pretty much anything past A1, A2, or B is certainly going to result in a long-term temperature rise of three degrees or more. If we want to avoid this, we need to follow emissions profiles for A1 or A2 (or, at the most reckless, B).
Now we turn our attention to the first graph. We see that for A1, A2 and B, the emissions all peak at similar times (around 2020). The only difference between the different scenarios is the rate of decline in CO2 emissions. So, 2020 - since it is now 2007, this means that we have to begin an actual decline in emissions in the next 13 years - yes?
However, this is where the ever growing population that I discussed a few months ago comes back into play. The population is ever increasing! So, for the population simply to continue with the same rate of CO2 emission, in an increasing population situation, means that the per capita CO2 emissions need to drop. Therefore, the per capita emissions need to begin to decline sooner than 13 years, maybe closer to 10.
Ten years. Ten years ago was 1997 and the handover of Hong Kong to China. Ten years ago was the death of Princess Diana. Ten years ago I joined an exciting fuel cell company, Ballard Power Systems, in hopes of helping its mission of having the "Power to Change the World". Ten years seems like a long time in some respects, but an absolutely terrifyingly short time in others. We don't need to slow down the growth rate of emissions, we need to slow down our actual rate of emissions, and continue to decrease our rate of emissions. We're driving towards a brick wall and discussing weather we should have a foot fully on the accelerator, or less fully on the accelerator...we've got only ten years to look for the brake. Unfortunately, we're not driving in an easily stopped sports car either, we're on the lumbering freight train called the global economic system. The demand for solutions cannot be greater.
This also relates to the discussion of a carbon tax vs. a trading system. In a carbon tax situation, the price of the carbon is fixed, and the amount of carbon is let to float. This is good when it is important to know the likely impact on the economy, but not so good if you want to know the effectiveness of the CO2 reduction. The other approach is to set a level of CO2 reduction required, and let the price float. This is good if you want to constrain CO2 production to known levels, but not so good if you want to know the effect on the economy. One thing discussed in Australia is the notion of a "safety valve" - ie, a cap on the price of carbon. The name "safety valve" clearly shows a bias to the economy and making sure it is "safe". If the price of CO2 is very high, it could be for a good reason - that the levels of CO2 emissions are still too high, and greater economic forces are needed to come down, but, as I said, the language of "safety valve" is biased towards economic performance, not emissions control.
Nevertheless, let's get back to the issue of determining when per capita CO2 emissions need to peak and fall. The book, "Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet" by Mark Lynas discusses various effects that each one degree increase in temperature for the planet can mean. The great concern isn't just the global warming, it is the risk that one, or more, positive feedback triggers can occur, which would greatly affect our planet and dramatically hinder our ability to do anything. These positive feedback events include the melting of the polar icecaps (reducing the reflectiveness of the Earth and causing the Earth to heat up more), the methane release of thawing permafrost, the burning of the Amazon, etc. The link I provided is actually a summary of the book from The Guardian, and is an interesting read.
The end result is that we don't really want to increase temperatures past two degrees increase, otherwise we end up triggering the "tipping point" events which lead to runaway destruction. So, now let's turn to the IPCC for some charts. This paper from Bert Metz shows the temperature rise from various emission scenarios. The two graphs of interest are below.
Now, looking at the second graph first, we see that pretty much anything past A1, A2, or B is certainly going to result in a long-term temperature rise of three degrees or more. If we want to avoid this, we need to follow emissions profiles for A1 or A2 (or, at the most reckless, B).
Now we turn our attention to the first graph. We see that for A1, A2 and B, the emissions all peak at similar times (around 2020). The only difference between the different scenarios is the rate of decline in CO2 emissions. So, 2020 - since it is now 2007, this means that we have to begin an actual decline in emissions in the next 13 years - yes?
However, this is where the ever growing population that I discussed a few months ago comes back into play. The population is ever increasing! So, for the population simply to continue with the same rate of CO2 emission, in an increasing population situation, means that the per capita CO2 emissions need to drop. Therefore, the per capita emissions need to begin to decline sooner than 13 years, maybe closer to 10.
Ten years. Ten years ago was 1997 and the handover of Hong Kong to China. Ten years ago was the death of Princess Diana. Ten years ago I joined an exciting fuel cell company, Ballard Power Systems, in hopes of helping its mission of having the "Power to Change the World". Ten years seems like a long time in some respects, but an absolutely terrifyingly short time in others. We don't need to slow down the growth rate of emissions, we need to slow down our actual rate of emissions, and continue to decrease our rate of emissions. We're driving towards a brick wall and discussing weather we should have a foot fully on the accelerator, or less fully on the accelerator...we've got only ten years to look for the brake. Unfortunately, we're not driving in an easily stopped sports car either, we're on the lumbering freight train called the global economic system. The demand for solutions cannot be greater.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Emissions trading in Australia and Climate Change and Business Conference
I am a huge supporter of a carbon trading system. Without capturing the external costs of carbon dioxide, the full value of cleantech products cannot be realized. I just returned from the Climate Change and Business conference, held in Brisbane this year, and it was very worrying and informational.
It was worrying because many people reported on data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which basically states that we need to make massive changes to peak our per capita emissions of CO2 within the next few years or we risk catastrophic changes to the Earth. I'll talk about this more in a later post.
However, it was informational because I learned a little more about the emissions trading scheme that Australia is considering. Both parties now claim to support such a scheme (with, of course, no real details available until after the election!) However, both parties plan for a roll-out in the next 5 years (2012 for Liberals, 2011 for Labour). I think this is great, because once capital markets can influence things, they can be a tremendous force for change. However, this highlights the slow pace of change - 5 years before an emissions trading scheme is active!? If we take decades to make changes, and we only have a little over a decade to start moving the needle, we need to get away from the "environment or the economy" discussion which many politicians use to frame the debate, and quickly recognize the Stern Report conclusion, which is that the "pro-economy" policies are ones which mitigate the damage of climate change. It is the policies which allow greater climate change damage to occur that will truly destroy the world's economy.
More to come...
It was worrying because many people reported on data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which basically states that we need to make massive changes to peak our per capita emissions of CO2 within the next few years or we risk catastrophic changes to the Earth. I'll talk about this more in a later post.
However, it was informational because I learned a little more about the emissions trading scheme that Australia is considering. Both parties now claim to support such a scheme (with, of course, no real details available until after the election!) However, both parties plan for a roll-out in the next 5 years (2012 for Liberals, 2011 for Labour). I think this is great, because once capital markets can influence things, they can be a tremendous force for change. However, this highlights the slow pace of change - 5 years before an emissions trading scheme is active!? If we take decades to make changes, and we only have a little over a decade to start moving the needle, we need to get away from the "environment or the economy" discussion which many politicians use to frame the debate, and quickly recognize the Stern Report conclusion, which is that the "pro-economy" policies are ones which mitigate the damage of climate change. It is the policies which allow greater climate change damage to occur that will truly destroy the world's economy.
More to come...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)