Dr. Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy and co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics (1997) delivered this speech “Meeting the Energy and Climate Challenge” at Stanford University on March 7, 2010, where he was formerly a professor.

Dr. Chu called on the students and faculty to take part in a new Industrial Revolution. At the epicenter of Silicon Valley, Stanford has been at the heart of the Information Technology Revolution – a catalyst for innovators such as Intel, Cisco, and Google. “America has the opportunity to lead the world in a new industrial revolution,” he was quoted in the Stanford Report.

Humans are causing Global Warming

The Novel Laureate discussed the irrefutable case for anthropogenic climate change. “There is a mountain of climate data going back to 1860.” Climate deniers say that humans are not causing global warming; rather it is a variance of solar energy including sun spots. Dr. Chu presented a chart showing the long-term continued rise in the global surface temperature while the solar energy reaching the atmosphere followed a predictable 11-year cycle of 1366 and 1367 watts per square meter (W/m²).

CO2 concentration has increased 40% since the start of the first industrial revolution, including all GHG such as methane the equivalent increase has been 50%. Irrevocable effects are under way. The Earth must warm until a new equilibrium is reached in about 150 years due to time lags such as deeper ocean warming. Added temperature increase will result from the long life of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, and from increased emissions.

The effects of warming can be measured. Satellites can now measure with good precision the mass of the earth. Dr. Chu observed that the ice mass is decreasing quadratically in the Greenland and decreasing in the Antarctic.

He also pointed to potential tipping points. There are huge uncertainties with the risk of 3.5 to 6 degree temperature increases.

United States Innovation in Energy Efficiency, Renewables, and Transportation

“The U.S. innovation machine is the greatest in the world,” said Dr. Chu. “When given the right incentives, [it] will respond.” Energy efficiency and renewables present major opportunities.

The U.S. market share of photovoltaics peaked in 1996 at over 40 percent of global production; it is now less than 10%. Asia has the lead in batteries. China is spending $9 billion a month on clean energy. For example, the State Grid is investing $44 billion by 2012 and $88B by 2020 in UHV transmission lines with transmission losses over 2,000 kilometers that are less than 5%. China is committed to produce 100GW of wind power by 2020.

The United States Recovery Act is making an $80 billion down payment on a clean energy economy to regain our global competitiveness and create U.S. jobs. Dr. Chu described how the United States could be the world’s innovative leader. The most immediate opportunity is in energy efficiency.

Since 1975, the electricity saved from energy efficient refrigerators with smaller compressors exceeds the total energy produced from wind and solar. Consumers respond to Energy Star ratings. We are expanding our energy efficiency standards to include buildings. In answering a question, Dr. Chu noted that energy efficiency can be extended beyond buildings to city blocks and cities themselves. The Energy Secretary got laughs from the students when he demonstrated how to adjust the sleep mode settings on their PCs and Macs.

Optimistic about Research Breakthroughs

There is good reason for optimism for renewable energy. The cost factor of wind power has decreased by a power of ten. Learning curves for photovoltaics has also declined by over a factor of ten. On a large roof, the installed solar cost is still around $4 per watt. If you get to $1.50 per watt installed, solar takes off without subsidy.

Because renewables are variable they benefit from local and grid storage, and from a smart grid. Pumped water storage is often 75% efficient; compressed air has the potential to be 60 percent efficient. The DOE has funded research for a variety of grid and vehicle battery chemistries.

Currently the United States is dependent on oil. Most proven reserves for oil majors such as Exxon, BP, Shell, are now off-shore. It will cost more to extract from tar sands and with more CO2 emissions.

Transportation is the hardest area to improve, mused Dr. Chu. Liquid petroleum fuels have excellent energy density. A Boeing 777 departs with 45% of its weight in jet fuel which has an energy density of 43 Mj/kg and 32 Mj/liter; a lithium battery, only .54 Mj/kg and 0.9 Mj/liter, yet batteries can compete in cars because of the efficiency of electric drive systems and learning curve improvements. We need an automotive battery pack for less than $10,000 with 5,000 deep discharges and 5X higher storage capacity, stated Dr. Chu.

We need breakthroughs. Much can from great research labs, such as Dr. Chu’s former Bell Labs. Scientific research for new breakthroughs will be encouraged with multiple programs:

• Energy Frontier Research Centers = university sponsored scientific research for innovative energy solutions.
• Energy Innovation Hubs = multi-disciplinary, highly collaborative teams working under one roof.
• Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) = short term, high risk – high reward research projects

Energy Secretary Chu concluded with the first view of Earth from the Apollo 8 orbit of the lunar surface and with these two quotations:

“We came all this way to explore the moon and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth. – U.S. Astronaut Bill Anders (Dec 24, 1968)

“…We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late.” – Dr. Martin Luther King (1967)

Video of Dr. Chu’s Speech at Stanford

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Obama MIT Speech about Energy Innovation

By John Addison (10/23/09)

President Barack Obama called for a clean energy future in his speech today at MIT. America has long been the innovation global leader thanks to great universities and research institutions. He called on the students and researchers to help harness more energy from “the wind, the waves, and the sun.”

The Recovery Act, now law, represents the largest single boost in scientific research in history.  The proposed Senate Climate Bill (Boxer-Kerry) with cap-and-trade provisions will accelerate clean transportation, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and start grid innovation and jobs. If we have new climate and energy legislation, it will be easier for you to get an electric car and have it powered by renewable energy through a smart grid.

Powering more cars and public transportation with wind and solar energy, reduces our dependency on oil. The President referred to a Pentagon study that documented how our dependency on oil to be a national security threat.

The timing of the speech was no accident. Massachusetts Senator John Kerry is co-sponsor of the energy and climate bill being debated in the Senate. Market co-sponsored the House ACES bill that was approved. Passage of a Senate bill could save the December Copenhagen agreement, which in turn could save our children from draughts and food shortages increasingly connected with the warming caused by green house gas emission increases.

With global leaders negotiating energy and climate issues, United States recalcitrance makes any agreement difficult. Obama warned that the closer the Senate gets to an agreement, the more that some will fight change, and the more visible they will make their claims. The President said, “There will be those who contradict the overwhelming scientific evidence.” He warned of those how say that we have lost our “can-do” American spirit. “I reject that.” He said, and then referred to Americans entrepreneurs, innovators, and inventors are all around us.  He said, “This is the nation that harnessed electricity.”

Thanks to MIT computer science innovation, my former employer Digital Equipment came into being, and transformed computing. Digital disrupted the mainframe-centric industry, only to find itself disrupted by personal computing and the Internet. Digital is now part of Hewlett-Packard. Thousands of computer science innovations have been dismissed as unworkable lab experiments, then fought as job killers, and finally embraced as a more efficient way to work. If the naysayers of past decades had stopped progress, we’d still use our fingers for counting instead of using smart phones.

In past decades, we could have done nothing. As a result we would have saved the jobs of
keypunch operators. Now, we can do nothing and save some oil and coal jobs or we can move forward and make the United States a world leader in transportation, energy efficiency, and harvest the abundance of sun and the wind.

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Dr. Sherwood Rowland

By John Addison. A thin layer of ozone in the stratosphere protects us from getting zapped and fried by gamma rays, x-rays, and ultraviolet rays. This ozone shield was saved thanks to the brilliant work of Nobel Prize chemists Dr. Sherwood Rowland, Dr. Mario Molina, and Dr. Paul Crutzen.

I interviewed my former chemistry professor, Dr. Rowland, to understand the difficult process of scientific discovery, industry opposition, global treaties, and winning the Nobel Prize. Several scientists contributed to our understanding of the atmospheric shield. This is one man’s story – Dr. Sherwood Rowland.

When Dr. Rowland’s breakthrough occurred, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were used in everything from hairsprays to air conditioners. DuPont and a few other chemical companies were making billions from CFCs and similar chemicals.

Drs. Rowland and Molina questioned the conventional thinking that if the gases were inert at ground level, then they would not breakdown under any conditions. Sherwood Rowland recalled, “We realized that CFC molecules could rise into the atmosphere where sunlight is far more intense and then breakdown, freeing chlorine atoms. Under laboratory conditions, we created a chemical reaction demonstrating that chlorine is activated on the surface of ice cloud particles in the polar stratosphere.”

Returning home from a long day in the lab, Sherwood’s wife Joan asked him how is research was going. Dr. Rowland replied, “The work is going well, but it looks like the end of the world.”

The results were frightening. Dr. Rowland discovered that CFCs would rise in the stratosphere, breakdown, and free chlorine atoms which destroy ozone molecules for at least 100 years. In 1974, Dr. Rowland and Dr. Molina published a seminal paper in Nature Magazine on the CFC destruction of the stratospheric ozone layer.

Predictably, businesses that were making billions by producing CFCs launched a campaign to discredit the research, disparage the scientists, and go for another good quarterly earnings report.

DuPont and other chemical manufacturers argued that millions would die without refrigeration and air conditioning. Life as we know it would end with people having “bad hair” days. “Aerosol Age Magazine published an article stating that we were probably agents of Russia’s KGB,” Dr. Rowland recalled with a weary smile.

DuPont argued that substitutes could not be created for CFCs. As we know by looking back 30 years, substitutes were created by DuPont and others. Human life was preserved, and DuPont profits continued to grow.

The Unlikely KGB Agent

What takes someone down the one-in-a-million path to being recognized as a Nobel Laureate?  Rowland grew-up in a small town in Ohio in a loving family. Sherwood Rowland demonstrated an early passion for mathematics and science. There was no television in his childhood to distract him from reading and learning. As a young teenager, he was allowed to collect temperatures and precipitation data for the local weather station. He was proficient in all studies and graduated high school at age 15.

Sherwood Rowland excelled when he attended Ohio Wesleyan University, graduating with all “A’s”. Contrary to later personal attacks that questioned his loyalty, Rowland demonstrated his America patriotism by volunteering and serving in the United States Navy during World War II.

Rowland’s doctoral studies at the University of Chicago included the good fortune to be assigned as a mentor Dr. Willard Libby, who had just finished developing the carbon-14 dating technique for which he received the Nobel Prize. He was also able to study with Nobel laureates Drs. Enrico Fermi, Henry Taube, Maria Goeppert Mayer, and Harold Urey. By the time that Dr. Rowland discovered the damage to the ozone, he had progressed from teaching at Princeton to being a full professor and chairman of the chemistry department at U.C. Irvine, where his ozone discovery was made.

Ten Years under Attack

For ten long years, from 1974 to 1984, Dr. Rowland and Dr. Molina continued to be attacked by the chemical industry. Even though no one could find flaws in the chemical equations, manufacturers insisted that absolute proof should be secured before taking any action.

During these ten years of struggle, the banning of the killing CFCs did not start with a global agreement; it started with grass roots efforts. Local nonprofit groups campaigned for local bans. Earth Day events educated.

Citizens of Oregon showed early leadership by actively campaigning to save the protective ozone shield. Oregon accepted the chemistry and banned use of aerosol in 1975. Aerosol damage got media attention to the point that it was even debated on TV’s most popular show – All in the Family. Celebrities and super models gave-up their hairspray and went natural.

Dr. Rowland remembered, “Leading scientists started taking us seriously in 1976, when the National Academy of Sciences accepted our research.” In 1977, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Governing Council adopted the World Plan of Action on the Ozone Layer.

An Image from Space

In the late 1970s, the first scientists that measured actual ozone depletion were so surprised that they believed their instruments had malfunctioned. Tragically, they did not publish their findings for years, not until 1984 when the British Antarctic Survey published their findings that ozone levels had dropped a frightening 35 percent in only 20 years. The U.S. satellite Nimbus-7 confirmed the results with images from space.

Ten long years after Dr. Rowland and Dr. Molina first published their CFC findings, they finally had empirical proof – an ozone hole over the Antarctic. After suffering years of industry sound-bite attacks, the good scientist started to develop his own clever remarks. When interviewed by newspapers and TV, Rowland quipped, “First they said there was no ozone problem, now you can see it from Mars.”

Ordinary people witnessed the hard evidence on television and in magazines showing satellite images of a life threatening hole in the ozone. Public pressure intensified for all nations to take action. The United States, Canada, Scandinavian countries, and several other nations, imposed bans on CFCs as aerosol propellants when used in antiperspirants, hairsprays and deodorants. These forward thinking nations did not wait for all nations to agree, they did not even wait for most nations. They took action.

In Montreal, Canada, on September 16, 1987, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was signed into agreement by 24 major countries of the world, including the United States. These countries recognized that it was critical to be leaders, rather than wait years for all nations to agree.

A process for nations to phase-out production of dangerous CFCs and halons was established. Later, other dangerous chemicals were added to the list. The agreement was strengthened in Copenhagen. Developing countries were giving extra years to comply. Now 191 nations have agreed to the Montreal Protocol and are phasing-out the destructive gases.

Many brave leaders in science, government, and industry are taking action inspired by the work of Sherwood Rowland and his colleges. Twenty-one years after their published research, Dr. Rowland, Dr. Molina, and Dr. Crutzen were awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This is the highest recognition a scientist can achieve.

Now a new generation of scientists – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) has been awarded the Nobel Prize after suffering years of attack on their scientific integrity for documenting the tragic effects of increasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.

The Montreal Protocol is proof that the major nations of the world can agree to take climate action. This December we hope to see a new climate agreement in Copenhagen. It does not need to be perfect, but it does need leadership from the United States and China if other nations are to take action.

Living near the Pacific Ocean, Sherwood Rowland once broke his arm in big waves as he rescued one of his graduate students caught between rocks and pounding surf. Sherwood Rowland put his life on the line to rescue another. In fact, he rescued all of us.

This post is an excerpt from John Addison’s book – Save Gas, Save the Planet.

Related Article: Al Gore Optimistic about Copenhagen

Follow voices of climate action from around the world at Blog Action Day.

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Al Gore Keynote at SEJ

By John Addison (10/12/09). Vice President Al Gore is optimistic about a meaningful agreement in Copenhagen that includes the United States and China. During his keynote speech at the Society of Environmental Journalists Conference in Madison, Wisconsin, he acknowledged that negotiations are going slowly, because climate change is complex and involves consensus of almost all nations, but that a new agreement is likely.

The need for a global agreement is urgent as the burning of coal and oil heat the earth. Melting glaciers and depleted aquifers make healthy water scarce for more Americans and unavailable for a billion people. Draughts are causing damage to many states. Lack of water affects the ability to grow food. Interrelated eco-systems are showing their stress and the problems are starting to get visible on Main Street. Mr. Gore observed, “Never before in human history has a single generation been asked to make such difficult and consequential decisions.”

Mr. Gore stated, “We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.”

At SEJ, I asked Vice President Gore about the most promising innovations to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Mr. Gore identified a number of areas where Americans are innovating.

Energy efficiency tops his list for innovation that is making an immediate impact. Many new buildings have a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions of the buildings they replace due to innovative design, materials, windows, and water management. Older buildings are made more energy efficient with better insulation.

Mr. Gore identified wasted heat as an underestimated opportunity. He sees room for significant innovation in combined heat and power and in the reduction of wasted heat.

Super Grid will Spur Innovation

He sees the super grid as an opportunity for a high level of efficiency. The super grid envisions a national network of high capacity electricity transmission. It would include energy storage, high reliability, and smart grid intelligence. High voltage lines have far less energy loss than lower capacity. A super grid could deliver much of America’s needed energy from untapped wind that blows in middle states from the Dakotas to Texas. Super Grid Wikipedia Description

Mr. Gore feels that a super grid could bring a transformation comparable to the Internet. The super grid and smart grid technology is already attracting major investments from firms like KPCB where Al Gore devotes part of his time as a partner. KPCB Greentech Portfolio He pointed to energy storage and demand response as major super grid areas of opportunity.

A portfolio of renewable energy solutions can power the nation according to Mr. Gore. Wind supplied 40 percent of the incremental energy added in the United States in 2008. Concentrating solar power is another renewable that is promising where up to 15 hours of energy storage, such as molten salt, can be used. Vice President Gore sees the greatest innovation in solar photovoltaics as a “distributed distribution architecture” is put in place.

Enhanced geothermal at one to two kilometers underground has the potential to meet our need for baseload grid power. Gore said, “There is an estimated 35,000 year supply of enhanced geothermal to meet U.S. energy needs.” This industry will benefit from the drilling and drill bit innovation existing in the oil and gas industries.

Historic Transformation of Automobile

In the future the need for getting baseload power from coal will be diminished by grid energy storage innovation. Gore said, “There will be a historic transformation of automobile fleets to and plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles. That vehicle fleet will serve as a massively distributed battery.” Electric Vehicle Reports

He continued, “Innovation of battery storage is likely to be extremely significant.”
Video of Vice President Gore’s discussion of energy solutions.

New Climate Agreement in Copenhagen

“We have all the tools to solve three or four climate crises.” Vice-President Gore expressed a level of optimism that surprised a number of the 500 journalists in attendance. He is optimistic that the Senate will approve some form of the Boxer-Kerry legislation and that it will be Conference Committee pending when Copenhagen convenes. It will have compromises that will discourage some environmentalists and some business interests. Gore said, “The large number of defections from the National Chamber of Commerce is a sign that business leaders want to be part of the solution.”

He reminded those concerned about a climate crisis that in 1987 the Montreal Protocol was also criticized as too weak. In Montreal, Canada, on September 16, 1987, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was signed into agreement by 24 major countries of the world, including the United States. These countries recognized that it was critical to be leaders, rather than wait years for all nations to agree. The agreement was ratified and then signed by President Ronald Reagan.

A process for nations to phase-out production of dangerous CFCs and halons was established. Developing countries were giving extra years to comply. Years later the agreement was strengthened in Copenhagen. Now 191 nations have agreed to the Montreal Protocol and are phasing-out the destructive gases from China to Chile and from India to Indonesia.

The Montreal Protocol is proof that the major nations of the world can agree to stop destroying our atmospheric shield.

A new climate agreement in Copenhagen would accelerate innovation and growing commercial success of efficient buildings, fuel efficient transportation, a transformative super gird, and renewable energy.

Mr. Gore’s new book – Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis – will be available November 3. It will include the important role of innovation in reducing our dependency on fossil fuel.

The complete audio recording of the speech can be heard on the Society of Environmental Journalists.

Al Gore Prioritizes Energy Innovation is a post from: Clean Fleet Report

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Congress Passes Historic Climate Bill

American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACE)

For the first time, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation regulating greenhouse gases. Due to intense lobbying by industries that would incur added cost, such as coal powered utilities, HR 2454 barely was approved by a vote of 219 to 212. New battles are ahead in the Senate for the Waxman-Markey Bill.

ACE encourages more electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, and advanced batteries to be developed and commercialized in the United States. Should ACE become law, cities will more rapidly roll-out convenient electric charging stations. If you want to buy a car with better mileage you will even get more cash for your clunker – $3,500 to $4,500 until March 31, 2010.

The bill is also a win for United States energy security. HR 2454 explicitly states, “The status of oil as a strategic commodity, which derives from its domination of the transportation sector, presents a clear and present danger to the United States…Fuel competition and consumer choice would similarly serve to end oil’s monopoly in the transportation sector.”

The bill has something for everyone. Cleantech innovators get the free luxury health spa; while fossil fuel curmudgeons, a free colonoscopy.

The Waxman-Market Bill puts a limit (“cap”) on greenhouse gas emissions. Overtime industry must pay for permits to pollution. Innovation will be rewarded because clean organizations can sell their carbon credits to help polluters meet their limits.

The market place will work with cap-and-trade. Some of the pollution permit fees will be reinvested in our future. Clean innovators will flourish and create more green jobs. To help automakers retool plants for these advanced vehicles and/or drive system components, the $25 billion of funding in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 will double in HR 2454 to $50 billion.

Automakers are more likely to succeed with their electric vehicle and plug-in plans for 2010 through 2012. For example, Ford will start selling electric cars, vans, and a plug-in Escape. GM will start selling the plug-in Volt and now has 80 to demonstrate; Toyota will start selling its plug-in Prius and is putting 500 into fleet demonstration; Chrysler with Fiat as a key partner will sell everything from plug-in Jeeps to minivans; Nissan is partnering with electric utilities to sell more electric vehicles than the rest of the automakers put together.

Electric utilities are asked in HR 2454 to develop infrastructure plans that can optionally include fast charging, a nice win for companies such as AeroVironment and Better Place. Smart charging and smart grid infrastructure plans are requested from state regulators. An intelligent network will develop so that you can plug-in anywhere, be able to remotely view your state of charge and check your billing – a nice win for firms such as Coulomb Technologies. If the bill becomes law, look for utility-local government-NGO consortiums to apply for funding to implement smart-grid solutions that include smart charging stations.

Financial incentives are envisioned for commercial and federal fleets, car sharing firms, and others who can accelerate the deployment of these electric zero-emission and ultra low emission vehicles.

From cars to electric-rail in public transportation, we are beginning to shift from running on engines that burn petroleum fuels to running on efficient electric motors. Thanks to HR 2454, that electricity will be increasingly renewable. Wind, solar, geothermal, small hydro, renewable biomass, and other renewable energy produced in the United States will all be encouraged by the incentives inherent in carbon cap-and-trade.

The Waxman-Markey Bill, of course, is about much more than electric vehicles and renewable energy. It provides a major step towards greater energy security, energy efficiency, and climate solutions of which clean transportation is a component.

The close vote shows that the bill has opponents. Many question whether we even have an environmental problem. As Dan Quayle once observed, “”It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.” Others are opposed to putting a cap on emissions. As George W. Bush put it, “What I am against is quotas. I am against hard quotas, quotas they basically delineate based upon whatever. However they delineate, quotas, I think, vulcanize society. So I don’t know how that fits into what everybody else is saying, their relative positions, but that’s my position.”

Environmental groups offered a mixed reaction due to the many compromises and addendums that were necessary to secure a majority vote. The Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp stated, “”The bill that emerged from the House has the fundamental structure we need to significantly reduce carbon pollution while growing the economy. It puts a strong cap on emissions and reorients our energy market to make low-carbon power the goal. It ensures that utility rates will stay affordable and a competitive playing field for U.S. companies.”

Greenpeace opposes the compromised bill, “President Obama vowed to ‘restore science to its rightful place’ in his inaugural address….The Waxman-Markey climate legislation, however, will not do what the science says is necessary to avert the worst effects of climate change. In fact, House Democrats have worked extensively with the coal industry to edit the bill, which has translated into weakened emissions targets.”

Other groups supported the bill in the hopes that it would be strengthened. Frances Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council stated, “But the work is far from over. Now, the bill will move to the Senate where it needs to be strengthened, so we can reach the full potential of our clean energy future and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. We can achieve this by strengthening the targets for carbon pollution.”

What all nations put in the sky and the oceans affects all of us and all of our children. Given the United States long history of being the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, nations have hoped that we would reduce emissions 40 percent by 2020. They will be lucky to see 17 percent. The new bill puts us in a weak position as we pursue a global climate solution treaty that involves all nations, but it takes us out of the category of obstruction as Copenhagen meetings continue.

Yet, reality is that with all the competing interests in our nation of 300 million people, we will not go directly to the energy and climate solution that is needed. We cannot kill the good in search of the perfect. As Jane Goodall observed, “Lasting change is a series of compromises. And compromise is all right, as long your values don’t change.”

When we get past all industry scare tactics, we may end up spending an extra $20 per month for cleaner electricity until we finally replace those old light bulbs. We may also save $200 per month by running cleaner cars and save another $200 per month avoiding doctor and hospital bills to deal with damaged lungs. Clean energy and Climate protection are not expenses, they are investment in our future – a future that includes our riding on sunlight.

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New U.S. Climate Report

A new science report representing a consensus of 13 agencies developed over a year and half and focused on potential climate change impacts on the United States.

It’s the most comprehensive report to date on the possible impacts of climate change for everyone across America, and begins an important process of redefining the sort of information we need in order to deal with climate change at national and regional scales. Effectively managing our response to a changing climate falls into two general categories:

1)      Implementing measures to limit climate change and therefore avoid many of the impacts discussed in the report. These measures must reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and might include increasing our reliance on clean energy, and developing energy efficient technologies
2)      Reducing our vulnerability and increasing our resilience to ongoing climate change in pro-active, community-based ways. Examples of this include such measures as developing more climate-sensitive building codes to keep people out of harm’s way, or planting more drought or heat tolerant crops, for example.
As a first step in reducing the impact of climate change, we need to know what impacts we must avoid in the future, and this report, “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States“,  does just that– outlining the possible direction of climate change under two broad scenarios: the first if we reduce greenhouse gas emissions aggressively, and the second, if we are less aggressive. These are neither the highest or lowest possible scenarios but begin to compare the possible futures for the U.S.
An important element of this new report, apart from that it is deliberately written in plain language so we can all read and understand the science in it, is that it dives down in the various regions of the U.S. and provides much more regional detail about possible impacts than ever before – critical information for an effective response. It also breaks down the potential climate change impacts by economic and social sectors, most of which transcend regional boundaries, such as water, energy, health, transportation, and agriculture – all vital components of a healthy and stable society.
The report notes climate change impacts that we are already seeing across the U.S. as well as those that will soon emerge or become more intense if action is slow to occur. Some of the impacts that the report mentions are:
·         More rain is already coming in very heavy events, and this is projected to increase across the nation. This would have impacts on transportation, agriculture, water quality, health, and more;
·         Heat waves will become more frequent and intense, increasing threats to human health and quality of life, especially in cities;
·         Warming will decrease demand for heating energy in winter and increase demand for cooling energy in summer. The latter will increase peak electricity demand in most regions;
·         Water resources will be stressed in many regions. For example, snowpack is declining in the West, and there is an increasing probability of drought in the Southwest, while floods and water quality issues are likely to be more of a problem in most regions;
·         In coastal communities, sea-level rise and storm surge will increase threats to homes and infrastructure including water, sewer, transportation and communication systems.
Through identifying the climate change impacts we are experiencing now, as well as those that are emerging faster than we thought, and those projected to increase in the future, the report clearly highlights the choices we face regarding possible response options to reduce the impacts of climate change across the United States.
Responses to climate change impacts in the United States will almost certainly evolve over time as we learn through experience. Determining and refining the responses will involve partnerships between scientists, policymakers, the public, private industry, communities, and decision-makers at all levels. Implementing these response strategies will require careful planning and continual feedback on the impacts of policies for government, industry, and society.
More of the report’s findings are located at http://www.globalchange.gov , which is the new home of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the interagency Government program that commissioned the report. The report was led by NOAA.

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