This is the complete interview with Holdren. Icyman is correct that he is being political in his answers, but that's the job of the science adviser--science policy.
Referring to some of the answers, the polls I have seen show that only half of the American public thinks climate change is a serious problem, complicating efforts to get widespread support behind a cap and trade bill and the accompanying energy programs. Look at the political nightmare that the health care debate has spawned. One of our local congressmen received a death threat because he WOULDN'T hold a town hall meeting so he could shouted down. Should we expect a similar scenario on the cap and trade bill? "Don't Take My Energy Away from Me" says the imaginary sign held up by a protester. BTW, since it's largely the same people in these protests over and over again (Tea Party, Health Care, presumed Cap & Trade) don't they have anything else to do? His answer to the question about geoengineering is a lot more detailed and nuanced than in the interview with Seth Borenstein. He opposes use of it now, thinks it should be studied, but only in the way that one would study a new flu virus, to see how bad it's impacts could be and seems to have made up his mind that once he's finished studying it, he will have determined it's bad. Falling back on the argument that most of the geoengineering schemes don't address ocean acidification begs the question, would there be this much attention to atmospheric CO2 if its only negative impact were decreasing the pH of surface sea water? He also doesn't distinguish here air capture from geoengineering as a form of carbon sequestration. One would think that if the Administration was behind measures to reduce the legacy CO2 in the atmosphere, they would at least make this a priority. It certainly wasn't among the "transformational technologies" that received the DOE happy letters. The white roofs/cool cities/cool megacities, whatever you want to call it really isn't geoengineering. It's urban heat island mitigation that also happens to indirectly reduce CO2 emissions and directly reduce some GHG IR. Trying to say this is geoengineering and thus the U.S. government can tell the difference between the good geoengineering and the bad is like saying the Cash for Clunkers program is better than the Clean Air Act at reducing emissions of NOX and fine particulates. Not in the same ballpark. As to the fate of Waxman Markey, it may be necessary to use Reconciliation to force it through. No one is talking about this, a measure that only requires 50 votes and that may be used on the health care legislation. But without a strong commitment from the U.S. to take to Copenhagen, delegates are advised to increase their sightseeing budget as that's all they'll be doing there. And oh yeah, eventually the U.S. Senate would have to ratify that Copehagen agreement. Good luck there too boys. Interview: America turns red, white and green a.. 03 August 2009 by Graham Lawton Putting the American house in order (Image: Tom Pilston) The US's stance on climate change has shifted beyond recognition. President Barack Obama's science adviser John Holdren tells Graham Lawton how the US will put its house in order, secure a deal at the make-or-break summit in Copenhagen, and lead the world's fight against dangerous climate change How will you persuade the American people that climate change is a problem and win support for policies to tackle it? The polls show that 70 to 75 per cent of the American public accepts that climate change is real, that humans are largely responsible, and that we need to do something about it. But it doesn't rank particularly high on their concerns: the top concern tends to be the economy. So it's recognised as a problem but needs to move up. President Obama has made it clear that the same strategies can help reduce the risk of climate change, reduce dependence on imported oil and help drive recovery with new businesses and jobs in clean energy. He is saying we can get a lot of things done simultaneously by making the right investments and developing the right policies, including the policies in the energy climate bill that recently passed in the House of Representatives (see backgrounder). What does the bill hope to achieve? Does it contain binding targets for reducing greenhouse emissions? Absolutely. The target is for emissions in 2020 to be 17 per cent below those of 2005. This would amount to being a few per cent below what they were in 1990. The bill is now being considered in the Senate. Could it be thrown out or watered down? I think that we are going to get a bill out of the Senate, which may even improve some aspects of it. I think everybody understands that legislation of this sort will have some strengths and some weaknesses. This certainly has some things that, if I were king, I would have written differently. Is the emissions target based on scientific calculations of safe climate limits? I would argue that there is no safe limit. In my view we're already experiencing dangerous [climate change], by any reasonable definition of the word dangerous. The question is, will we be wise enough and effective enough to avoid catastrophic interference in the climate system? President Obama's goal is to get the US on a trajectory that is compatible with a global emissions trajectory that avoids unmanageable changes. That amounts to trying to avoid exceeding a global average surface temperature increase of 2 °C. What does that mean in terms of atmospheric CO2 concentrations? Is a limit of 450 parts per million low enough? >From a scientific standpoint, 350 ppm is better than 450 ppm. The reason 450 ppm has become the mainstream view is that it is close to the best we can do and, at the same time, maybe the worst we can tolerate. In my judgement, the most important thing to get done right now in the US is to get legislation passed that has a cap-and-trade mechanism in it, which, of course, will be adjusted over time. Those adjustments are likely to make the targets more ambitious. This is because two things are going to happen. One, the damage from climate change is going to continue to escalate. And two, once you have a real price on greenhouse gas emissions, you're going to see innovation in response. It's going to make it clear to people that it is easier and less expensive to reduce emissions than they had feared. What about carbon capture and sequestration? I think it's going to work, and I think it needs to work. We remain, as a planet, roughly 80 per cent dependent on fossil fuels. That's not going to change overnight. Without CO2 capture and sequestration it is going to be extremely difficult. We need to boost our investments in research and development, and indeed this is part of the Obama policy. What about geoengineering? Where do you stand on that? Geoengineering is not under consideration in current policy, but from the scientific standpoint we need to understand it - like we need to understand all other aspects of this problem. We have to understand what its potential is, what its risks are, and what its costs are likely to be. My own view is that most of the schemes that have been put forward so far look costly and burdened with side-effects that make them problematic, and they look limited in their effectiveness. For example, most of the approaches do not address the absorption of a lot of the excess carbon dioxide in the oceans, the consequent acidification of the oceans, and the potential damage to our ocean food chains, coral reefs, and so on. There are approaches to geoengineering that are widely understood to be quite innocuous. White roofs, for example: basically, making our urban areas more reflective. That's geoengineering, and nobody's wringing their hands very much about that approach. Carbon sequestration is not something I'd put in the category of geoengineering. We're fiddling with a very complicated system, trying to counter the consequences of other large human influences, inadvertent ones, in that system. And it's a dicey business, because we're doing it without a complete understanding of how the machinery works. My bottom line on geoengineering is: of course we have to look at it. Understanding it is likely to lead us to the conclusion that many of the approaches would not be attractive - but we have to be sure that we're not overlooking anything. What about biofuels, and nuclear? I think biofuels have an important role to play, but we have to choose carefully what approaches we use to grow the feedstocks, and what approaches we use to convert them to fuels. The corn ethanol programme can be viewed in a couple of ways. The most positive way is as a stepping-stone, in which we're getting experience with a biofuel system that will serve us well when we move to cellulosic ethanol, which makes much more sense from the energetic and greenhouse gas standpoint. As to nuclear, I believe, and the President believes, that nuclear energy has to remain part of the menu of options by which we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Certainly it will be easier to solve the climate challenge if we can get a significant contribution from nuclear energy. On a global level, what needs to happen as we approach the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December? The industrialised nations need to get their acts together before they can expect the developing countries to come on board. We have historically produced a large part of the problem, although the numbers are shifting. Two things are obvious: the industrialised nations have an obligation to lead, and the developing countries have to join pretty soon, or we're going to be cooked. Industrialised nations have an obligation to lead - or we're all going to be cooked I believe that if the US can go to Copenhagen with a specific policy in place, the chances are very good that we can get an agreement in which major developing countries make commitments that will move them onto a declining emissions trajectory. They are still waiting for concrete evidence that the US is going to move, but I think if the US does move, we will see a degree of progress at Copenhagen that will surprise people. And if you fail? If we don't get the legislation passed, it's going to be a much more difficult lift at Copenhagen. So the US legislation is key to success in Copenhagen. Will it really be in place? If I were a betting person, I would bet that it will happen, but I have to admit that it's going to be a challenge. The president understands how important it is, and so far he has got a rather good record in convincing Congress to do the things that he thinks are most important. That's not to say that there aren't senators who will vote against it: there are. How many senators' votes do you need? We only need 60 votes, and we have 60 Democrats. My sense is that, if the vote were taken today we'd probably fall short by 12 to 15. But I think we're going to get those votes. One thing you have to understand is that among people who oppose it, there are some who oppose it because they think it's too strong, but others who oppose it because they think it's too weak. It's going to be an interesting juggling act to get the votes it needs to pass. How do traditional opponents of climate-change legislation view what is going on? There has been a huge change. In 1997, the private sector was mostly sceptical; now it is overwhelmingly in favour. You've got oil companies and electric utilities saying we need this. Some of the important labour unions are saying we need this. There are religious people saying we need to protect the climate on grounds of stewardship of the creation. So you've got this convergence. Do your climate plans require ordinary Americans to make lifestyle changes? Nothing in these policies actually requires sacrifices. They're based on making energy cleaner and more efficient. There is a tremendous amount of low-hanging fruit; ways in which you can reduce emissions drastically with no sacrifice. Now, there are ways in which I think some lifestyle changes would make sense. If more people had opportunities for living closer to where they worked, you could regard that as a lifestyle change which everybody would consider beneficial. I think most people would prefer not to spend 2 hours a day in traffic jams. That's a lifestyle change: I'll take it, thank you. Backgrounder The American Clean Energy and Security Act - also known as the Waxman-Markey bill - is the first serious attempt to pass legislation to curb US greenhouse gas emissions. It contains provisions to set up a cap-and-trade scheme, plus various renewable energy targets. The bill was approved by the House of Representatives on 26 June but has yet to be approved by the Senate. Profile Physicist John Holdren is President Barack Obama's science adviser and director of the US Office of Science and Technology Policy. Before his appointment he was professor of environmental policy at Harvard University. ----- Original Message ----- From: "global_frozing" <[email protected]> To: "geoengineering" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, August 09, 2009 3:25 AM Subject: [geo] John Holdren is trying to be a politician :-) > > John Holdren has told that "Geoengineering is not under consideration > in current policy" > > ( > http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327191.200-interview-america-turns-red-white-and-green.html > ) > > "In my judgement, the most important thing to get done right now in > the US is to get legislation passed that has a cap-and-trade mechanism > in it" > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
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