Climate Change: Over 100 Years of Warning
In 1896, Svante Arrhenius published a journal article predicting future climate change from increased CO2 levels, primarily emitted from the industrial sector (Arrhenius, 1896). Arrhenius, one of the first scientists to consider the interconnection of chemistry and physics, concluded that increasing atmospheric CO2 by 50% would result in planetary warming of between 5 and 6°C. Arrhenius missed the mark in one capacity. He predicted this CO2 level would not occur for 3000 years (Arrhenius, 1896).
Arrhenius, along with Eunice Foote and John Tyndall, identified the atmospheric science behind global warming in the 1800s, but they were not the only scientists of centuries past who connected human impact to climate change. Alexander von Humboldt, a naturalist in the early 1800s, also observed the adverse effects of deforestation and the industrial revolution on the climate (Ball, P., 2019).
In 1979, eighty years after Arrhenius published his paper, fifty nations held the first World Climate Conference. Within four months, the Group of 7 world leaders signed a resolution to reduce carbon emissions. In 1989, James Hansen, a NASA scientist, testified to U.S. Senate that human-caused global warming had begun. (UNFCCC, n.d.) The same year, world leaders prepared to sign a binding agreement on mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The U.S. didn’t sign it (Rich, 2018).
Over thirty years later, the U.S. passed its first major climate change bill in August 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Climate change is just one goal under the bill’s legislative umbrella. The others include health care and deficit reduction (Rao, D., 2022).
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its latest report, Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of climate change, just four months before the IRA’s passage. The report included a dire warning and a deadline, “limiting warming to around 1.5°C (2.7°F) requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest and be reduced by 43% by 2030; at the same time, methane would also need to be reduced by about a third” (IPCC, 2022).
CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION, A LAST BEST CHANCE
Arrhenius’ early warning gave society a 126-year window of opportunity to prevent the emissions driving our present-day atmospheric carbon and warming levels. The IPCC’s latest warning gives us six percent of that timeline to avert the worst outcomes of climate change through climate change mitigation. “Climate change mitigation” is a two-fold approach. It includes activities to reduce emitting GHGs into the atmosphere and increase the sequestration of atmospheric carbon into “sinks” for storage. Most carbon sinks are natural ecosystems, including oceans, forests, and soil. Mitigation is more than just reducing GHGs. It also means avoiding the potential climate and ecosystem damage from human-caused climate change (NASA, n.d.).
Mitigation Strategies
Eight years is not enough time to go back to the drawing board for new solutions to one of the greatest existential challenges in human history (Quinlan M., 2020). However, several mitigation options have been around almost as long as Arrhenius’ and Humboldt’s warnings.
SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAICS (PV)
A French physicist named Edmond Becquerel discovered how a substance could produce an electric current when exposed to light or radiant energy in 1839 (Chu and Tarazano, 2019). By 1883, Charles Fritts created the first solar cell by coating selenium with a thin layer of gold. The solar cell was only about one percent efficient compared to modern solar cells, which have an efficiency of up to 20 percent. Bell Laboratories developed the first silicon solar panel in the 1950s. Today, innovations for solar PV technologies include “building-applied photovoltaics,” the development of solar panels that replace roof tiles, and clear solar panels that can replace glass on buildings (Chu and Tarazano, 2019).
Project Drawdown, a collaborative assessment of climate change mitigation strategies, organizes current solar electricity approaches into three types: utility-scale, distributed, and concentrated solar projects (Project Drawdown, 2022). Project Drawdown’s assessment of the costs and benefits includes:
By the numbers, utility-scale solar PV projects seem most promising. However, one potential drawback occurs when utility-scale projects displace agricultural land use. Conversion of forests, wetlands, or grasslands to replace the agricultural land required for food production causes leakage, added CO2 emissions from land use change (van de Ven et al., 2021). A new type of solar PV project, called agrivoltaics, combines elevated solar panels with grazing or cropping systems (USDA Climate Hubs, n.d.). Some of the advantages of this approach include:
· Diversified income for farmers
· The cooling effect from vegetation growing below the solar PVs increases their efficiency
· Solar PV panels provide diffused shade at the peak intensity of sunlight, reducing heat stress on plants and water loss from soils
· The shade effect can also reduce heat stress on grazing livestock (USDA Climate Hubs, n.d.)
Barriers to adoption
The price of solar energy has dropped from about $100 per megawatt in 1976 to $.50 in 2019 (Chrobak, 2021). Price is no longer a barrier to adoption. However, solar power requires improved battery storage for power continuity when the sun is not shining and an upgraded power grid that can carry solar power over long distances. For cities, building-applied photovoltaics can solve the distance problem. However, the biggest obstacle to solar adoption is the entrenched policies incentivizing continued fossil fuel dependency (Chrobak, 2021). The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed in August 2022, offers significant incentives for the growth of renewable energy, both solar and wind power included (Rao, 2022).
WIND POWER
The wind has been used to power vessels and machinery as far back as recorded history. Egyptian records indicate the use of sails on boats in 5000 BC. Around 200 BC, farmers used windmills to pump water and grind grain. Farms and rural residents generated electricity using small wind turbines in the late 1800s, about the same time the first solar cell was developed (EIA, n.d.). The use of small turbines declined in the 1930s with rural electrification programs. Today, those micro wind turbines are a growing source of renewable energy, although they are higher cost than large-scale turbines (Project Drawdown, 2020). Wind power is one of the lowest-cost sources of energy. The technology has grown exponentially from 1% of U.S. electricity generation in 1990 to about 9.2% in 2021. As of 2020, 129 countries generated about 1,597 billion kWh of wind electricity (EIA, n.d.).
Project Drawdown categorizes wind energy projects into three types: onshore, offshore, and micro wind turbines. The potential climate impact of wind power includes:
Barriers to adoption
Renewable energy from wind has similar barriers as solar projects. Cost is no longer the primary barrier, but wind also has issues with continuity of power when the wind is not blowing (Chrobak, 2021). Wind projects, like solar, are most often installed in rural areas and require an upgraded power grid that can carry power over long distances. Finally, wind projects face entrenched policies and infrastructure issues that incentivize continued fossil fuel dependency (Chrobak, 2021). Despite pre-IRA policy inertia, analysts expect wind energy to grow as an energy source (Project Drawdown, 2022).
ELECTRIC VEHICLES (EVS)
The first cars were electric, not internal combustion engines. Early models, built in the 1830s, traveled just a short distance before requiring new batteries. Rechargeable batteries and a more viable EV arrived in the 1850s. In 1887, William Morrison built an EV with front-wheel drive, four horsepower, and a reported top speed of 20 mph. The car’s 24 battery cells required recharging every 50 miles (Wilson, 2022). By 1900, electric cabs and 1000 EVs for personal use were on the road, well before Henry Ford entered the auto industry. Ford even built an EV with his friend, Thomas Edison. (Wilson, 2022).
Barriers to adoption
Unfortunately, access to electricity limited the early EVs’ range to urban areas. Gas-powered cars could carry fuel and cost about half the price of an early EV, setting the foundation for reliance on internal combustion engines (Wilson, 2022). Even if EVs — and their reduced emissions — had won the technology battle early on, the electric power for recharging would have increased the burning of coal. The U.S. used coal to generate more than half of its power until the early 2000s (Chrobak, 2021). Modern EVs with improved batteries or “plug-in hybrids” of combustion and EVs, growing use of renewable energy, plus a boost from policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, represent a turning point.
Project Drawdown modeled two scenarios of EV adoption by 2050, resulting in an estimated impact as follows:
Geoengineering: same mistake on a larger scale?
In May of 2022, the levels of carbon in our atmosphere reached 421 parts per million, the 50% increase foretold by Arrhenius in 1896 (NOAA, 2022). We arrived at this point mainly by ignoring the connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change from increased CO2 emissions. We bypassed the potential of energy and transportation alternatives with less reliance on fossil fuels. Most of all, we failed to heed the early-1800s wisdom of Humboldt, who said it was the responsibility of humans to discover and respect the laws of nature — or risk catastrophic harm.
This concept is more relevant than ever as scientists and entrepreneurs grapple with geoengineering, emerging technologies designed to manipulate the environment and partially offset some of the impacts of climate change (Harvard Solar Research Program, n.d.). Geoengineering holds the same risk for humanity: these technologies will alter or replace the earth’s climate systems — systems with feedbacks and complexities that humans still cannot accurately model (Tribur, 2021).
SOLAR GEOENGINEERING
There are two types of geoengineering, solar and carbon. Solar geoengineering projects aim to cool the planet by reflecting sunlight back into space or increasing the amount of solar radiation that escapes back into space. Proposed technologies include the manipulation of clouds, space-based techniques like solar shields or a raft of “space bubbles” the size of Brazil (World Economic Forum, 2022), and stratospheric aerosol scattering (Harvard’s Solar Research Program, n.d.).
Solar geoengineering does not reduce GHG emissions, the cause of climate change. It is heat “damage control” that slows the melting of Artic ice or lowers surface temperatures of the ocean. Modifying the albedo effect of clouds is the least expensive of solar geoengineering proposals. However, if humans don’t also reduce CO2 emissions, the cloud modification would have to continue and increase to offset increasing warming. The National Academies reviewed solar geoengineering approaches and identified significant concerns with their secondary effects. Technology like manipulating clouds gives humans the ability to modify precipitation patterns. Humans, including political entities with differing agendas, could thus control the weather and, in turn, impact terrestrial and marine ecosystems and inhabitants of those systems, including other humans. Additionally, the National Academies concluded that scientists currently could not effectively monitor the environmental effects of albedo-modification, much less manage them (National Research Council, 2015).
CARBON GEOENGINEERING
Carbon geoengineering technologies focus on reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. The technologies and limitations include:
All proposed geoengineering technologies include drawbacks and risks. The primary risk is altering complex ecosystems that humans rely on for services such as carbon sequestration, climate management, and food and energy (National Research Council, 2015). The biggest drawback with geoengineering in general isn’t the “engines” proposed. The issue is the engineer who ignores the laws of nature, the lessons of history, and the fact that the earth perfected carbon geoengineering over millions of years without help.
NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS
Consider the tree. It is a marvel of carbon capture and storage. It requires only water, space, and sunlight. It builds and reproduces itself at no cost. Trees planted along urban streets not only sequester carbon but also provide shade, reduce pollution and floods, decrease the heat island effect from surrounding concrete, and even provide fruits (Seddon et al., 2020). Existing forests sequester about 30% of CO2 emissions each year. Replanted, effectively, as part of restoring forest ecosystems or allowed to regrow on their own, trees can store another 8.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually through 2050 (Harris et al., 2020).
“Nature-based solution” refers to working with nature to help address societal challenges, including climate change. Trees are just one nature-based solution for climate mitigation. These solutions also include the restoration of wetlands, mangrove forests and sea grass beds, kelp forests, grasslands, and peatlands. Compared to artificial carbon geoengineering, nature-based solutions are lower cost and offer added ecosystem services such as climate adaptation (Seddon et al., 2020).
Nature-based solutions offer an estimated 30% of the CO2 mitigation needed through 2030 to keep warming to less than 2°C (Seddon et al., 2020). The actual impact is hard to discern, given the complexity of these ecosystems. Scientists’ projections underestimated the rate of climate change from human actions due to complex feedbacks and interactions in natural systems (Sullivan, 2022). Perhaps, they also underestimated the rate at which restoring our earth’s ecosystems can help restore our climate’s balance.
However, restoring wetlands and forests as “solutions” is a bit misleading. Nature-based solutions are primarily putting back what we’ve destroyed and deforested. With less than a decade to mitigate the worst of climate change, our last best chance is to learn from history and start respecting the laws of nature that govern us all. Arrhenius and Humboldt would approve.
Citations
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OWNERSHIP OF OPINION
All analysis and opinion expressed in this document is solely that of the author. There is no affiliation of this document with any employer, client, or professional relationship.
