Pricing Carbon Conference Day Two: James Hansen Speaks

Wesleyan's Pricing Carbon conference started Friday and concluded on Sunday (see previous post on Day 1 here http://middletowneyenews.blogspot.com/2010/11/mckibben-keynote-speaker-at-pricing.html ). It was an ambitious attempt to bring many minds together to brainstorm a new approach to pricing fossil fuel consumption to reduce carbon dioxide emissions while minimizing the economic impact on individuals. In terms of attendance and the enthusiasm of its participants, it was an enormous success. In this post, I will try to give a glimpse into the discussions that went on.

Day Two of the conference included multiple plenary sessions and workshops, with name-brand speakers including Wesleyan's own Gary Yohe, NASA-Goddard's James Hansen, and three U.S. Congressmen. I will restrict my coverage to the first two speakers, though there were many more excellent presenters, along with numerous workshops devoted to special topics.

Starting things off was Gary Yohe, the Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Science and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He introduced the Wesleyan Statement of Principle:

1. Price carbon as transparently as possible
2. Return the revenue to consumers
3. Make careful adjustments over time

The needs to provide predictable long-term price expectations and to adjust carbon pricing based on results achieved must be carefully balanced. He cautioned against thinking that economics could solve all problems, disagreeing with the argument that one just needs to get the price of carbon right and everything works itself out. You can't put a price on lives (though some try) or species extinctions. He favored the more limited notion that economic incentives often are an effective way of changing behavior and achieving societal goals.

Yohe pointed out that the world is already committed to a one-degree (Celsius) temperature increase, and halfway to a two-degree increase. He used an analogy with water flowing into a vessel with an undersized drain: to keep the level from rising, it isn't enough just to slow down the rate at which the vessel is being filled; it is necessary to slow the rate to what can be accommodated by the drain. In the case of Earth, only so much carbon dioxide can be "digested" in a given amount of time.

Finally, Yohe warned against the latest argument for inaction. Having given up on the claim that global warming is not occurring, some now say that warming is occurring, but it is too expensive to do anything about it. How much is it worth to have a climate similar to the one in which civilization developed?

James Hansen, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Science (GISS), is known to many as the man who defied a Bush-administration "gag order" in 2005. He gave a description of the state of science regarding the role of carbon dioxide in global warming. The news is not good. He also claimed there is a wide gap between what is understood (by scientists) and what is known (by the public).

Hansen didn't mince words: global warming is a planetary emergency. Even if fossil fuel burning were to stop today, there is much warming in the pipeline. He said that the "safe" level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is currently thought to be 350 parts per million (hence the name of Bill McKibben's organization 350.org), and we are well beyond this level now, close to 390 parts per million.

There exist tipping points, beyond which the climate could be destabilized and temperature rise could become much more rapid. Hansen offered three examples:

1. Ice Sheet Disintegration. Ocean warming melts arctic and antarctic ice shelves, and glaciers surge as a result, accelerating the drainage of ice from the continents.
2. Species Extermination. Shifting climate zones either make species' habitat disappear or change its geographical location faster than the species can migrate. [An example: the pika, a Rocky Mountain rodent, is being driven to higher elevation as the climate warms, but its food supply is not moving up the mountain at the same rate]. Hansen said climate zones are moving northward at 50-60 kilometers per decade.
3. Frozen Methane. In the tundra and on continental ice shelves, trapped methane can be released by thawing. Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, so much less is needed to have a significant impact.

Hansen pointed out that there have been times in Earth's history when temperature has risen 5-6 degrees Celsius, and that these temperature rises have been accompanied by extinction of up to half of Earth's species.

Hansen's talk was dense, with much technical information selected to convince the audience of the seriousness of the problem, although this particular audience did not need much convincing. He also spoke passionately about intergenerational justice, showing pictures of his grandchildren and describing his concern for their future as a major force driving him to speak out publicly. Hansen's power point presentations and much other information can be found at

www.columbia.edu/~jeh1

I hope this has conveyed some of the flavor of the conference. There was much more, and if there is interest I will post more on a future occasion. In particular, the many students in attendance, especially those associated with the group Students for a Just and Stable Future, were a source of energy and inspiration.