Hell and High Water and What We Should Do
by Joseph Romm
William Morrow, 2007, $24.95
ISBN 10: 0-06-117212-X
“One key goal of this book is to provide a fuller answer to the puzzle of why this country has failed to act on global warming.” (p. 7). Given this motivation, the author spends substantial time convincing us that “global warming is real”, and perhaps more importantly “if we don’t stop now, things will get substantially, and predictably worse”.
He does a very good job of this, including warning that the IPCC’s famous climate models have major deficiencies in their failure to include feed-back loops (or tripping points). Absent these loops adjustments would take centuries or millennia, with them we may be talking low digit decades. He points to:
- The Oceans that may cease to absorb carbon dioxide as they get warmer and more acidic,
- The Soils, that also may cease to act as sinks and start to release carbon,
- The Tundra where higher temperatures will result in melting and release of methane from anaerobic decay,
- Tropical (and northern) forest fires, that can shift millions of tons of carbon within the cycle from sequestered to atmospheric carbon dioxide.
And this does not even include higher heat absorption due to loss of ice-cover, and release of methane hydrate. The author says “his hair is on fire” as indeed it should be.
In part II of the book he identifies the culprits as the conservative/Republican refusal to acknowledge that warming is occurring, a “technological cop-out” that (some unknown) technology will save us, “’balanced’ reporting, that is not balanced”, and “waiting for China” to go first.
The author has a brief chapter on California’s success in holding down per capita electric usage, and some of the technologies already available to replace fossil fuels.
In conclusion he suggests that it is still not too late, but “I have called this scenario Two Political Miracles because it would require a radical conversion of American conservative leaders ---first, to completely accept climate science, and second, to strongly embrace climate solutions that they currently view as anathema” (p. 231). |