The Good Explosion

Explosion of the Sun

For the last several days, I have been reviewing the four climate change bills that are in the Senate right now. There is the Sanders/Boxer bill, the Feinstein bill, the McCain/Lieberman bill, and the Bingaman bill.

The Sanders bill calls for a 80 % reduction of emissions by 2050. The Feinstein bill creates a Presidential Panel to determine the right amount, but starts off by capping emissions right now, then electric emissions reduce from 1 to 1.5 % a year from there. The McCain bill reduces emissions by 2/3rds by 2050.

That means that we will have to get a lot of help from energy efficiency and renewables.

According to this report, we can.

Energy roadmap backs renewables
BBC News

Half of the world's energy needs in 2050 could be met by renewables and improved efficiency, a study claims.

It said alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar, could provide nearly 70% of the world's electricity and 65% of global heat demand.

Following a "business as usual" scenario would see demand for energy double by 2050, the authors warned.

The study, by the German Aerospace Center, was commissioned by Greenpeace and Europe's Renewable Energy Council.

The report, Energy Revolution: A Sustainable World Energy Outlook, provided a "roadmap" for meeting future energy needs without fuelling climate change, said Sven Teske from Greenpeace International.

"We have shown that the world can have safe, robust renewable energy, that we can achieve the efficiencies needed and we can do all of this while enjoying global economic growth," he said.

He added that the strategy outlined in the report showed that it was economically feasible to cut global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by almost 50% over the next 43 years.

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"What we want to believe is that there is a change in the minds of politicians, especially after what we have seen happen to the climate," Professor Zervos told BBC News.

"We hope this report will have an effect on the political decision making process."

And it's time for some decisions as this Guardian story reports.

UN's vast report will end the scientific argument.
Now will the world act?

David Adam
January 27, 2007
The Guardian

For the hundreds of scientists arriving in Paris this weekend, next week will mark the end of a tortuous three-year process to put everything they know about climate change down on paper. But for the politicians who must read the results, the tortuous process is only beginning.

If 2006 was the year the world accepted climate change as a serious problem, then 2007 is the year that its leaders must do something about it.

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Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, told Reuters: "I hope this report will shock people, governments into taking more serious action as you really can't get a more authentic and a more credible piece of scientific work. So I hope this will be taken for what it's worth. There are a lot of signs and evidence in this report which clearly establish not only the fact that climate change is taking place, but also that it really is human activity that is influencing that change." more

Personally, I doubt if it will shock people.

But the scale is moving.

The plethora of these cap and trade bills we see in the Senate are an indication that the time for a decision and action is nearing.

Who knows?

Maybe someone will introduce a bill which declares that polluting the air is illegal.

And if you must pollute, then you need a permit.

You need a permit to fish.

Cheney and his hunting pals need one to shoot raised caged birds.

If each of us paid for the right to dump our carbon waste into our air,

the market for non-carbon sources of energy would explode.

And who wouldn't rather see a gigantic good explosion there,

than a really big bad one in the Mid East,

or perhaps even here.

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art courtesy of by Narmina Veliyeva, age 11, from Azerbaijan