We can do this

In his book An Inconvenient Truth, former Vice-President Al Gore talked about a well-respected study by Princeton researchers Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala that describes how “humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problems for the next half-century.”

Currently, the United States is emitting about 1.8 Gigatons of carbon every year. Mr. Socolow and Mr. Pacala concluded that a “business as usual” approach to policies such as car mileage standards and alternative energy would result in 2.6 Gigatons of annual U.S. carbon emissions by 2050.

Through six different categories of policy changes, the researchers predicted that we could lower annual carbon emissions to roughly 1.0 Gigatons by 2050. This is would be back down to the carbon levels of 1970.

What are these six different categories? They all are affordable and already-existing technologies that in combination would make a gigantic difference.

1. Reduction from more efficient use of electricity in heating and cooling systems, lighting, appliances, and electronic equipment.

2. Reduction from end-use efficiency, meaning that we design buildings and businesses to use far less energy than they currently do.

3. Reduction from increased vehicle efficiency by manufacturing cars that run on less gas and putting more hybrid and fuel-cell on the roads.

4. Reduction from making other changes in transport efficiency, such as designing cities and towns to have better mass transit systems and building heavy trucks that have greater fuel efficiency.

5. Reduction from increased reliance on renewable energy technologies that already exist, such as wind and biofuels.

6. Reduction from the capture and storage of excess carbon from power plants and industrial activities.

Conclusion: We can do this….we have to do this.

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Posted by Tim Roth, author of the political blog Think Anew and Act Anew