We know the world is hot and getting hotter… the highest average recorded temperatures in history have plagued us consistently over the past few years. Fires burn hotter, consume more forest area, floods are more frequent and more intense, droughts in other regions never seem to end, big storms are bigger and seas surge and rise with increasing ferocity.
Let’s see, in recent days, the wildfire-cleared lands of Colorado are now the home to massive flooding, mudslides and incredible mayhem. California had its biggest wildfire in a very, very long time. Some of Mexico’s key resorts have closed, leaving tens of thousands of stranded tourists, food and medical shortages everywhere and lots of death and destruction in the wake of two powerful storms/hurricanes that have squeezed the Veracruz area from both the Pacific and the Gulf. Parts of Kansas and North Texas remain dry as a bone, crops down and not able to grow in the parched earth. That’s just in our neighborhood. Similar stories are replicated all over the earth.
Except for a few diehard deniers, who have profound disdain for clearly-established scientific fact, we know what causes these problems: A report from the U.N.’s “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)… the main guide for states weighing multi-billion-dollar shifts to renewable energy from fossil fuels, for coastal regions considering extra sea defenses or crop breeders developing heat-resistant strains…. say[s] it is at least 95 percent likely that human activities - chiefly the burning of fossil fuels - are the main cause of warming since the 1950s.” Reuters, August 16th.
So Teutonic masters of efficiency, the Germans, watched with fear as the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster led to one incredible mishap after another… and set a plan to shut down their own nuclear capacity, pledging to move to an energy system based entirely on renewable resources. They are watching global warming and are committed to reducing their carbon footprint, while maintaining one of the most power manufacturing economies on earth. Their new policies were set to shut down all of Germany’s nuclear plants by 2022 and shift almost entirely to wind and solar power by 2050. So, Germany, how’s that new energy plan working out?
“[T]he plan, backed by Chancellor Angela Merkel and opposition parties alike, is running into problems in execution that are forcing Germans to come face to face with the costs and complexities of sticking to their principles.
“German families are being hit by rapidly increasing electricity rates, to the point where growing numbers of them can no longer afford to pay the bill. Businesses are more and more worried that their energy costs will put them at a disadvantage to competitors in nations with lower energy costs, and some energy-intensive industries have begun to shun the country because they fear steeper costs ahead.
“Newly constructed offshore wind farms churn unconnected to an energy grid still in need of expansion. And despite all the costs, carbon emissions actually rose last year as reserve coal-burning plants were fired up to close gaps in energy supplies.” New York Times, September 18th. The term for families that cannot afford their energy bills? “Energy poverty.” The average energy surcharge this past year came to a whopping $270 per household, with more costs lurking in the near term. Government subsidies, on top of these numbers, will add tens of billions of dollars to meeting these energy goals.
The impact on the German economy may push the goals and timing back even more… and global warming – particularly accelerated from China’s massive expansion of coal-fired electrical plants – seems only destined to get a whole lot worse. The lessons in Germany are tough. Living in Germany is really expensive these days.
“Part of the reason consumer prices have risen so sharply is that, for now, the government has shielded about 700 companies from increased energy costs, to protect their competitive position in the global economy… Industrial users still pay substantially more for electricity here than do their counterparts in Britain or France, and almost three times as much as those in the United States, according to a study by the German industrial giant Siemens. The Cologne Institute for Economic Research said there had been a marked decline in the willingness of industrial companies to invest in Germany since 2000.
“Already there are winners and losers. A third of electronics and automotive companies have increased profits with the plan, and 11 percent of those in the chemical and metal industries have had losses, the German Economic Institute reported.” NY Times.
So if you re-read the beginning of this blog, you see the consequences of not dealing with global climate change. If you re-read the second half and see exactly how difficult weaning ourselves from past energies practices can be, you may be tempted to throw up your hands and just forget about it… until your home, your job or even your life is destroyed or your tax dollars are consumed with helping the rather significant number of people in other parts of the country who will face the new devastation. Even in an era of budget cuts, we have to find a better way. And coal is the big evil in all of this.
The Obama administration is proposing a new approach to coal-fired power generation. “[To]
meet the [proposed] standard, new coal-fired power plants would need to install expensive technology to capture carbon dioxide and bury it underground. No coal-fired power plant has done that yet, in large part because of the cost. And those plants that the EPA points to as potential models, such as a coal plant being built in Kemper County, Miss., by Southern Co., have received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants and tax credits.
“Coal, which is already struggling to compete with cheap natural gas, accounts for 40 percent of U.S. electricity, a share that was already shrinking. And natural gas would need no additional pollution controls to comply.
“‘For power producers and coal mining companies that reject these standards, they have no reason to complain, and every excuse to innovate,’ said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., the author of a 2009 bill to limit global warming. The legislation, backed by the White House, passed the House, but died in the Senate... Despite some tweaks, the rule packs the same punch as one announced last year, which was widely criticized by industry and Republicans as effectively banning any new coal projects in the U.S.” Associated Press, September 19th. Live long and prosper… or die before your time. It might really be that simple.
I’m Peter Dekom, and we really need to reprioritize immediately before our jobs, homes and even our lives are seriously jeopardized further.
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