GLOBAL WARMING COMES TO COAL COUNTRY: THE PROSPECTS

If West Virginia doesn’t act aggressively to stop global warming and species extinctions, the best we can hope for is that we’ll revert to an impoverished hillbilly state, with a wrecked environment. At worst, if global anti-warming action is inadequate, our children and grandchildren will experience the worst times our species has encountered. Global warming and mass extinctions aren’t diseases in themselves, they’re symptoms. The disease is avoidable, harmful human behavior. We’re consuming resources and laying waste to our planet faster than it can heal. The richer countries, especially the US, are consuming and polluting far beyond a sustainable rate. The poorer countries are consuming far less per capita, but their populations are exploding and they aspire to consuming as much as we do. Result: carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, habitat destruction, and fisheries depletion are skyrocketing, with no end in sight. The rest of the educated world knows this, but the US is in denial. We should be leading the anti-warming effort, but instead the Bush administration suppresses scientific findings and tells us to keep on shopping - and driving SUVs. CO2 takes around 150 years to clear from the atmosphere. That means it would take decades to stop global warming even if we stop burning carbon today. And warming now causes more warming: Melting ice decreases reflection of sunlight (albedo) and increases absorption and heating. Thawing tundra is releasing methane, a greenhouse gas twenty times as potent as CO2. In 20 - 50 years, this self-reinforcing effect may take off explosively, beyond our power to stop. Yet greenhouse gas emissions are increasing. The only prudent course is to stop emissions in 10 years and try to reduce atmospheric CO2 and increase albedo as quickly as possible. Nuclear power isn't an option, because we've never figured out what to do with the waste, and that waste could end up killing or maiming us. Nuclear, like carbon, energy is far more expensive than our electric bills suggest because of enormous subsidies and hidden costs. Our military enterprise is mostly devoted to securing our access to other people's oil. Renewables are cheaper than those subsidized costs. As for coal, there's no way to burn it without producing CO2, and there's no way to sequester all the CO2 we produce. Sequestration would make carbon energy far more expensive than renewables. Wind and sun alone would provide more energy than we need once the generating capacity is in place. They have to be sited responsibly. It will take more than 10 years to install that capacity, meaning there will be less energy per capita for awhile, meaning we’ll need to ration energy the way we rationed gasoline in WWII. Our economy will be radically changed, with big winners and big losers. Will West Virginia be a leader in this radically changed economy?

Paul Brown is a professor of physiology at West Virginia University and author of Notes from a Dying Planet, 2004 - 2006.

Paul Brown Physiology Department West Virginia University Health Sciences Center Morgantown, WV 26506 (304) 293 - 1512