The Future
Page 71
156 skyrocketing expenditures for food imports
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, “One Trillion Food Import Bill as Prices Rise,” November 17, 2010, http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/47733/icode/; United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, “Agricultural Impacts Surge in Developing Countries,” 2011, http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/i1952e/i1952e00.htm.
157 nations are struggling to integrate arriving refugee groups
Joanna Kakissis, “Environmental Refugees Unable to Return Home,” New York Times, January 3, 2010.
158 another degree Fahrenheit of warming is already “in the pipeline”
James Hansen et al., “Earth’s Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications,” Science, June 2005.
159 large-scale changes in atmospheric circulation patterns
Jian Lu et al., “Expansion of the Hadley Cell Under Global Warming,” Geophysical Research Letters 34 (2007).
160 feeds the shallower Humboldt current
Erich Hoyt, Marine Protected Areas for Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises: A World Handbook for Cetacean Habitat Conservation (Oxford: Earthscan Publications Ltd., 2004), p. 397.
161 giant pipelines through which the trade winds
Henry Diaz and Raymond Bradley, The Hadley Circulation: Present, Past and Future (London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2005), p. 9.
162 moisture they carried upward has fallen back
Ibid.
163 laden once more with heat and water vapor
Ibid.
164 are located under these dry downdrafts
Ibid.
165 the “rain shadows” of mountain ranges
Brian Brinch, “How Mountains Influence Rainfall Patterns,” USA Today, November 1, 2007.
166 what geographers call continentality
“Continental Climate and Continentality,” Encyclopedia of World Climatology, p. 303.
167 downdraft of the Hadley cell
Personal correspondence with Dargan Frierson, September 24, 2012.
168 south of the equator has also moved poleward
Celeste Johanson and Qiang Fu, “Hadley Cell Widening: Model Simulations Versus Observations,” American Meteorological Society 22 (May 2009): 2713–25.
169 theories for why global warming is causing a shift in the Hadley cells
Lu et al., “Expansion of the Hadley Cell Under Global Warming.”
170 the difference in average temperatures
Jennifer Francis and Stephen Vavrus, “Evidence Linking Arctic Amplification to Extreme Weather in Mid-Latitudes,” Geophysical Research Letters 39 (2012).
171 The widening of the Hadley cells
Lu et al., “Expansion of the Hadley Cell Under Global Warming.”
172 on the edge of persistent water shortages anyway
Personal communication with Dargan Frierson, May 25, 2012.
173 human alteration of the same natural climate feature
Rudolph Kuper and Stefan Kröpelin, “Climate-Controlled Holocene Occupation in the Sahara: Motor of Africa’s Evolution,” Science, August 11, 2006.
174 barrel loop atmospheric currents known as the Ferrel cells
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “JetStream-Online School for Weather,” October 2011, http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/global/circ.htm.
175 pulling cold Arctic air southward in winter, and disrupting
Frances and Vavrus, “Evidence Linking Arctic Amplification to Extreme Weather in Mid-Latitudes.”
176 begun to produce a slight thinning of ozone
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Environmental Indicators: Ozone Depletion,” August 2010, http://www.epa.gov/ozone/science/indicat/index.html.
177 dangerous ozone hole above the Arctic might form on a more regular basis
Tim Flannery, Here on Earth: A National History of the Planet (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2010), ch. 14, “The Eleventh Hour?”
178 interacting with the unique atmospheric conditions
Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland, “Stratospheric Sink for Chlorofluoromethanes: Chlorine Atomic Catalyzed Destruction of Ozone,” Nature, June 28, 1974.
179 radiates the reflected sunlight back into space more powerfully
Australian Government, Antarctic Division, “Environment—Land, Sea and Air,” http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/fact-files.
180 like Australia and Patagonia to high levels of ultraviolet radiation
J. Ajtić et al., “Dilution of the Antarctic Ozone Hole into Southern Midlatitudes, 1998–2000,” Journal of Geophysical Research 109 (2004).
181 when air with low concentrations of ozone is no longer able
Ibid.
182 injecting water vapor in the stratosphere
James Anderson et al., “UV Dosage Levels in Summer: Increased Risk of Ozone Loss from Convectively Injected Water Vapor,” Science, August 2012.
183 the Earth’s atmosphere attempting to maintain its energy “balance”
V. Ramaswamy et al., “Anthropogenic and Natural Influences in the Evolution of Lower Stratospheric Cooling,” Science 311, no. 5764 (February 24, 2006): 1138–41.
184 “Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice”
Robert Frost, “Fire and Ice,” Harper’s Magazine, December 1920.
185 “future decades if industrial fuel combustion continues to rise exponentially”
Roger Revelle and Hans Suess, “Carbon Dioxide Exchange Between Atmosphere and Ocean and the Question of an Increase of Atmospheric CO2 During the Past Decades,” Tellus 9 (February 1957).
186 began more than 150 years ago
NASA, “John Tyndall (1820–1893),” http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Tyndall/.
187 first oil well by Colonel Edwin Drake in Pennsylvania
Judah Ginsberg, “The Development of the Pennsylvania Oil Industry,” American Chemistry Society, http://portal.acs.org.
188 doubling of CO2 concentrations
Svante Arrhenius, “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground,” Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science 41 (April 1896).
189 concentration was increasing steadily by a significant amount
Spencer Weart, “The Discovery of Global Warming: Money for Keeling: Monitoring CO2,” 2003, http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Kfunds.htm.
190 CO2 throughout this yearly seasonal cycle was being shifted steadily upward
Ibid.
191 there are sixty other “distributed cooperative” sets of measurements
“Tracking Long-Term Measurements of Gases and Aerosols That Contribute to Climate Change,” NOAA Magazine, July 15, 2004, http://www.magazine.noaa.gov/stories/mag140.htm.
192 which has long predicted this result, and an effective cross-check
“Atmospheric Oxygen Research: Research Overview,” Scripps Institute of Oceanography, http://scrippso2.ucsd.edu/research-overview.
193 the national academies of the G8 nations
Coral Davenport, “Heads in the Sand,” National Journal, December 2, 2011, http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/heads-in-the-sand-20111201.
194 “need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable”
National Academies of Science, “G8+5 Academies’ Joint Statement: Climate Change and the Transformation of Energy Technologies for a Low Carbon Future,” May 2009, www.nasonline.org/about-nas/leadership/president/statement-climate-change.pdf.
195 “97–98 percent of the climate researchers”
William Anderegg et al., “Expert Credibility in Climate Change,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2010.
196 “Denial can be conscious or unconscious refusal”
Elisabeth Kübler
-Ross Foundation, “Five Stages of Grief,” 2012.
197 “refusal to acknowledge painful realities, thoughts, or feelings”
“Denial,” Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/denial.
198 and stronger attacks on those who insist that we must take action
Chris Mooney, “The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science,” Mother Jones, June 2011.
199 Two social scientists
Jane Risen and Clayton Critcher, “Visceral Fit: While in a Visceral State, Associated States of the World Seem More Likely,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100, no. 5 (2012).
200 automatically rejecting any potential alternative
“System Justification Theory,” Encyclopedia of Peace Psychology, 2011.
201 “In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment”
Ronald Reagan, Speech to the United Nations General Assembly, September 21, 1987.
202 As E. O. Wilson recently wrote
E. O. Wilson, “Why Humans, Like Ants, Need a Tribe,” Daily Beast, April 1, 2012.
203 “reposition global warming as theory not fact”
Matthew Wald, “Pro-Coal Ad Campaign Disputes Warming Idea,” New York Times, July 8, 1991.
204 The large public multinational fossil fuel companies
John Fullerton, Capital Institute, “The Big Choice,” July 19, 2011, http://capitalinstitute.org/blog/big-choice-0.
205 global scientific consensus is accepted
Ibid.
206 adds up to a total of $27 trillion
Ibid.
207 Saudi Arabia to convert its domestic energy use to 100 percent renewables
Fiona Harvey, “Saudi Arabia Reveals Plans to be Powered Entirely by Renewable Energy, Guardian, October 19, 2012.
208 in the aggregate, 7.5 million of them
Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Annual Conference on Bank Structure and Competition, “The Subprime Mortgage Market,” May 17, 2007, http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20070517a.htm.
209 “attack false enemies and deny real problems than find solutions”
Jay Rockefeller, Statement on Inhofe Resolution Vote, June 20, 2012.
210 four anti-climate lobbyists for every single member of the U.S. Senate and House
Marianne Lavelle, Center for Public Integrity, “The Climate Change Lobby Explosion,” February 24, 2009, http://www.publicintegrity.org/node/4593.
211 become one of the largest sources of campaign contributions
Center for Responsive Politics, “Oil and Gas,” http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=E01.
212 One right-wing state attorney general
John Rudolf, “A Climate Skeptic with a Bully Pulpit in Virginia Finds an Ear in Congress,” New York Times, February 22, 2011.
213 Right-wing legal foundations and think tanks
Tom Clynes, “The Battle over Climate Science,” Popular Science, June 21, 2012.
214 Right-wing members of Congress have repeatedly
Kate Sheppard, “Taking Climate Denial to New Extremes,” Mother Jones, February 11, 2011.
215 essential monitoring satellites being delayed or canceled
Ledyard King, “Report Warns of Weather Satellites ‘Rapid Decline,’ ” Gannett News, May 2, 2012.
216 four separate independent investigations
John Cook, Skeptical Science, “What Do the ClimateGate Emails Tell Us?,” http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climategate-CRU-emails-hacked.htm.
217 The Frozen Planet was edited before the Discovery Network
Brian Stelter, “No Place for Heated Opinions,” New York Times, April 20, 2012.
218 “showing a documentary on lung cancer and leaving out the part about the cigarettes”
Ibid.
219 “the last best hope of earth”
Abraham Lincoln, “Annual Remarks to Congress,” December 1, 1862.
220 “for good men to do nothing”
Quote Investigator, December 4, 2010.
221 support for actions to reduce greenhouse gas
Connie Roser-Renouf et al., Yale Project on Climate Communication, “The Political Benefits of Taking a Pro-Climate Stand in 2012,” 2012, http://environment.yale.edu/climate/files/Political-Benefits-Pro-Climate-Stand.pdf.
222 stimulus bill put a major emphasis on green provisions
Michael Grunwald, “The ‘Silent Green Revolution’ Underway at the Department of Energy,” Atlantic, September 9, 2012.
223 “The biggest single step that any nation has taken”
Christopher Mims, “Efficiency Standards Are the Single Biggest Climate Deal Ever,” Grist, December 5, 2011, http://grist.org/list/2011-12-05-efficiency-standards-are-the-single-biggest-climate-deal-ever/.
224 well below the cost of production in the United States
“Solar Prices Expected to Keep Falling in 2012,” Associated Press, June 26, 2010.
225 with the average cost of shale gas going up significantly in the process
U.S. Energy Information Agency, “Annual Energy Outlook 2012: Market Trends—Natural Gas,” June 25, 2012, http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/MT_naturalgas.cfm.
226 which is more than seventy-two times as potent as CO2 in trapping heat
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007,” http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-2-5.html.
227 buy time for the implementation
Drew Shindell et al., “Simultaneously Mitigating Near-Term Climate Change and Improving Human Health and Food Security,” Science, January 2012.
228 settle on the surface of ice and snow
V. Ramanathan and G. Carmichael, “Global and Regional Climate Changes Due to Black Carbon,” Nature Geoscience 1 (April 2008).
229 the majority of smaller “wildcat” drillers do not
Robert Howarth et al., “Venting and Leaking of Methane from Shale Gas Development: Response to Cathles et al.,” Climatic Change 113 (July 2012).
230 virtually all of the benefit natural gas might have
Nathan Myhrvold and Ken Caldeira, “Greenhouse Gases, Climate Change and the Transition from Coal to Low-Carbon Electricity,” Environmental Research Letters, March 2012.
231 an average of five million gallons of water for each well
Chesapeake Energy, “Water Use in Deep Shale Gas Exploration,” 2012, http://www.chk.com/Media/Educational-Library/Fact-Sheets/Corporate/Water_Use_Fact_Sheet.pdf; Jack Healy, “Struggle for Water in Colorado with Rise in Fracking,” New York Times, September 5, 2012.
232 acute even before the spread of the thirsty fracking process
Healy, “Struggle for Water in Colorado with Rise in Fracking.”
233 fracking wells are being drilled in communities where
Russell Gold and Ana Campoy, “Oil’s Growing Thirst for Water,” Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2011.
234 as chimneys for the upward migration of both methane and drilling fluids
Ian Urbina, “Tainted Water Well, and Concern There May Be More,” New York Times, August 3, 2011.
235 cause of pollution in the aquifer above the area that was fracked
Tenille Tracy, “EPA Says Wyoming Fracking Results Are Consistent,” Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2012.
236 at the behest of then vice president Dick Cheney
Abraham Lustgarten, “Hydrofracked: One Man’s Quest for Answers About Natural Gas Drilling,” ProPublica, June 27, 2011.
237 “The consequences of a misstep in a well”
Council on Foreign Relations, “The New North American Energy Paradigm.”
238 political resistance from landowners
Inae Oh, “New York Fracking Protest Urges Cuomo to Ban Controversial Drilling,” Huffington Post, August 22, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/22/new-york-fracking-protest-cuomo-photos_n_1822575.html.
239 has caused multiple small (usually harmless) earthquakes
Charles Choi, “Fracking Earthquakes: Injection Practice Linked to Scores of Tremors,” Livescience, August 7, 2012.
240 alleged to have infiltrated water aquifers
Abraham Lustgarten and ProPublica, “Are Fracking Wastewater Wells Poisoning the Ground Beneath Our Feet?,” Scientific American, June 21, 2012.
241 more common source of complaints than the initial injections
Rachel Ehrenberg, “The Facts Behind the Frack,” ScienceNews, September 8, 2012, http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/343202/title/The_Facts_Behind_the_Frack.
242 spread on roads, ostensibly for dust control
National Resources Defense Council, “Report: Five Primary Disposal Methods for Fracking Wastewater All Fail to Protect Public Health and Environment,” May 9, 2012, http://www.nrdc.org/media/2012/120509.asp.
243 “something wrong and dangerous, they should punish them”
Christopher Helman, “Billionaire Father of Fracking Says Government Must Step Up Regulation,” Forbes, July 19, 2012.
244 a potential tipping point
Joe Romm, ThinkProgress, “Gas Emissions Reduction Target for 2020,” January 13, 2009, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/report/2009/01/13/5472/the-united-states-needs-a-tougher-greenhouse-gas-emissions-reduction-target-for-2020/.
245 frenzy of exploration for shale gas in China, Europe
Bryan Walsh, “In Hunt for Energy, China and Europe Explore Fracking,” Time, May 21, 2012.
246 Africa, and elsewhere
Ruona Agbroko, “S Africa Lifts Fracking Ban,” Financial Times, September 7, 2012.
247 U.S. horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies to China
Jerry Mandel, “Will U.S Shale Technology Make the Leap Across the Pacific?,” E&E News, July 17, 2012, http://www.eenews.net/public/energywire/2012/07/17/1.
248 particularly in northern and northwestern China