Urban Ecoist

Despite my issues with coal, some climate modelers have discovered that even if no new coal plants were built from here on out, it would not make much difference in terms of carbon dioxide emissions.

Great, we really are screwed…

Carnegie Mellon’s Jay Apt and Adam Newcomer took a whole bunch of climate data and broke everything down into four scenarios. The first scenario was inertia, that is keep the coal burning to meet increased needs, but with the help of the traditional energy sources we have all come to love. We’ll call this one the control scenario.

The three experimental scenarios all ban new coal plants. Scenarios Two and Three presume that energy needs will continue to increase at historical levels, as seen below in the graph from the Energy Information Administration.

And this graph is only data for the United States…

Anyhoo, Scenario Two is modeled on the premise that wind energy will replace coal in terms of new energy needs with natural gas as a complement. Scenario Three works on the premise that new needs will be met with only natural gas. Scenario Four takes the path of no increase in energy needs (as in the US finally starts using energy efficiently like Jimmy Carter told us to).

The final scenario quenches increased energy needs with wind and natural gas as well, but it assumes that U.S. residents won’t require any more energy than they do today–if, say, people become much more efficient in their energy usage; the only increase in demand would come from a growing population. The team applied the model to three main regions in the United States: the Midwest, Texas, and parts of the East Coast. –Science

Needless to say if you read today’s title, the cut backs in new coal power will not make a significant enough dent in carbon emissions to perhaps maybe possibly mitigate the worst effects of anthropogenic global warming.

In the best cases of the scenarios, carbon emissions may be cut by almost half along the East Coast of the US. However, the low end of the possible range of emission declines in that same case is only 18%. So sure, emissions could be cut by 18 to 48% along the East Coast, but many climate scientists feel that reductions must be cut by 80% in order to stave off significant climate change.

You can click on the link here to read the full set of numbers from the models.

And the ineffectual reductions are not the bad part. If coal goes out of style, and natural gas takes over as America’s energy choice, prices for natural gas could increase from 175 to 500%. Awesome.

energy, coal, power, electricity, United States, power plants, efficiency, climate change, global warming, energy usage

Wow, try saying that one three times fast…

I ran across this little story in one of last month’s Newsweek magazines. My not-so-green secret is that I get a lot of magazines in the mail. I do recycle them, but with printing, shipping and the paper stock involved, it is still a bit of a waste, I admit. But then again, I would be using electricity to read magazines online, so either way I am screwed. And I only get magazines so I have something to read on the bus, which is better than driving my car…

But I disgress.

Anyhoo, this article in the August 2, 2008 Newsweek featured news on pollen and pollen-producing trees and plants, like ragweed — the bane of many an allergy sufferer, myself included. It seems that just one more depressing effect of global warming is that plants and trees will produce more pollen in a warmer world. Not only that but with the spring warm-up coming sooner and sooner every year, trees are pumping out pollen earlier and the allergy season is thus extended by cutting into what we used to call winter.

Here are some selected quotes:

Global warming and increased atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels appear to supercharge the growth of ragweed. And not only does ragweed grow larger and produce more pollen, its pollen is more allergenic, studies show.

Oh, great. Super-pollen. I cannot wait to experience that.

To test his ragweed hypothesis, [Lewis] Ziska [a weed ecologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Crop Systems and Global Change Laboratory] planted the weed in three plots: a rural farm, a semi-rural county park and downtown Baltimore. The urban plot’s ragweed produced four times the pollen count of the rural site. “Cities already have more carbon dioxide than rural areas and are hotter,” Ziska says. “Cities are a surrogate for global warming.”

Maybe that is why I supposedly “grew into” bad allergies. I lived out in the country during most of my childhood.

Allergists are also worried. One new concern: a startling rise in the amount of tree pollen. Warmer temperatures in Europe are causing birch trees to bloom earlier, prompting an earlier and perhaps longer allergy season. Studies at Duke University show that elevated carbon dioxide increases pollen production of loblolly pines. Allergists suspect that record pollen counts are contributing to the onslaught of new allergy and asthma patients. “I’m seeing an epidemic of new cases,” says New York City allergist Clifford Bassett.

So much for being a tree-hugger, right?

If plant biomass increases due to elevated CO2 and global warming, fungi may proliferate as well, they suspect. Fungal spores are problematic because they affect air quality indoors as well as out. Higher temperatures will lead to increased use of air conditioners, which spread spores if improperly maintained. Heavier rainstorms and floods predicted under climate-change scenarios will also increase indoor dampness, allowing fungal spores to proliferate in homes and buildings, according to the 2007 study “Climate Change, Aerobiology, and Public Health in the Northeast United States.”

So, mushrooms will become the new enemy? I wonder when the Republicans will start exploiting that fear…

The article also mentions that us city-dwellers suffer the double whammy of increased smog due to ground level ozone — couple that with more powerful and just more pollen, and yeah, maybe it is time to look for a pleasant little cottage out in the country. Also, poison ivy was discovered to produce more potent poison when hit with increased levels of CO2. And finally, if I haven’t freaked you out enough, warmer temperatures usually result in more insects, such as stinging insects, like yellow jackets. In many places, like Alaska, rising temperatures are bringing in new insect populations. Reports of severe stings from yellow jackets and their equally-stinging cousins have increased 600 per cent since 2000 up in the 49th state.

All the more reason to try and mitigate this whole global warming issue. Unfortunately, no one seems to be all that concerned about it in the US Government. Maybe we should change the government…

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