(slide 1) Good morning. I was invited to speak about energy, the environment and public transportation.� As an engineer, I am competent to discuss our energy issues in some detail.� I can also discuss our environmental problems for hours.� I don�t know much however about public transportation, except that we need it and that it is part of the solution to both problems.� Fortunately, this room is full of experts on bussing and light rail transport.� I�m really here to justify your good work.
(slide 2) The problem space as shown in this figure includes environmental degradation, resource depletion and inequitable distribution of wealth income and resource like food, water, shelter, materials and energy.� Our current energy crises (not just peak oil but peak natural gas) and our environmental catastrophe (not limited to global warming) are inextricably linked.� We cannot understand these twin problems in isolation. �
Inequality, the third big problem, has always been with us but is exacerbated by resource depletion.� The poor always suffer the most as we all saw when New Orleans was battered by Hurricane Katrina.� Maybe we can be complacent about poverty and starvation when there are adequate resources for the possibility of growth.� But as the option of growth is taken away from us due to diminishing resources, we will be forced to share and cooperate or of course more people will become impoverished and die. These three issues then define the problem space.�
The solution space, and this is my conclusion slide as well, includes sustainability and Judeo-Christian stewardship, or Islamic Khalifa.� Stewadship means responsibility.� Not personal freedom to do whatever one wants with one�s private property, but behavior constrained by the common good and the impact on our environment. �In the United States today, the emphasis on private property rights without regard for responsibility represents an extreme view.
In the transportation business that means rail freight and public transportation.� You cannot do much about the former but you can enable the latter.� Our politicians and government need to prepare us for a near future where in 2010 gasoline could cost $10 a gallon and oil $200 a barrel.
The NY Times columnist Tierney, who possesses no obvious qualifications on the subject of energy made a bet with Matthew Simmons, investment banker and former energy consultant to the Bush administration, even attending some of Dick Cheney�s secret energy task force meetings, on the price of oil in 2010.� Tierney thinks oil will cost $30 a barrel or less and Simmons estimates $200 a barrel.� I recommend you read Simmons� book Twilight in the Desert describing the oil situation in Saudi Arabia, before you choose sides.� It is a technically difficult book with lots of detail and references, but it demonstrates that Simmons grasps the problem at hand.� So what are our politicians doing to get us ready for $200 a barrel oil and $10 a gallon gas in just 3 years time?�
Some of today�s issues are reasonably a matter of opinion.� Take the divisive issue of the death penalty, somebody on my right in this room may have the opinion that the death penalty is moral and someone else on the other side of the room may with equally valid logic believe it is immoral.� Both opinions may be valid.� I don�t know. �Global warming and resource depletion are not matters of opinion, but can be rigorously measured and described by our science.� Opinions which contradict the science are foolish.
(slide 3) These issues are evident in all of our myriad problems.� Take the case of Africa.� I could have used New Orleans with equal applicability.� If you recall, last summer, debt relief for sub-Sahara Africa was the problem du jour.� Pop stars were taking photo-ops with Tony Blair, or vise versa, and concerts were organized.� But while debt relief is just, merciful and necessary, it provides only about a billion dollars per year in relief.� Addressing inequality is not enough.� Resource depletion on the other hand as reflected in the cost of oil to these countries is perhaps an order of magnitude more serious problem.� Note that oil is no longer even $55 a barrel but $75 a barrel.� But even that cost pales in comparison to the cost of global warming to Africans.� The Sahara desert is expanding southward.� Our carbon emissions may already have caused two state changes, one in 1976 and another in 1998 wherein the Earth�s climate is now much dryer over the Sahel which is the part of Africa stretching from Nigeria on the West through Chad and into Sudan to the East just below the Sahara desert.� Global warming is the cause of the genocide in Darfur.� The Earth simply can no longer support the population and the genocide is spreading westward into Chad.� Lake Chad, which was once one of the world�s largest fresh water lakes and the source of life for millions of Africans contains only 5% of the volume it contained in 1970.� Thus it is evident that we cannot address the myriad problems of Sub-Sahara Africa without addressing global warming.�
(slide 4) As I said peak oil and global warming are not matters of opinion.� This is a short listing of major scientific reports and scientific organizations which endorse human caused global warming and its dire consequences.� Note that even the Pentagon takes this problem seriously and recognizes that global warming will disrupt world stability.� There are no scientific organizations and there is no science which is skeptical about global warming, its cause or its serious consequences.�
(slide 5) In fact the science is very clear and unambiguous. �I read Naomi Oreske�s original report when it appeared in Science, reference is given below, as well as the press description in the Washington Post.� She studied the scientific peer-reviewed literature published between 1993 and 2003 and found not a single article supporting the global warming skeptic�s views.� Not even one.� Contrast that with a study of the popular press.� By popular press, I�m referring to the WSJ, Washington Post and the NY Times, not supermarket tabloids.� 53% of these articles cast doubt as to the cause of global warming or even that it is taking place.� Why is the press misleading us?� This constitutes a lie does it not?�
(slide 6) This doesn�t just describe George Will and his diatribes denying global warming citing only the fiction writer Michael Crichton.� Unfortunately it applies to most of our elected officials and our media pundits.
(slide 7) Predictions are risky but it is all we have.� We avoid thinking about the future at our peril.� Unless we decide whether Simmons is right or Tierney and plan accordingly, we will not be prepared.�
(slide 8) I�m going to skip this slide for lack of time.� [prepared remarks not delivered:� Geologist Clair Patterson determined the Earth�s age to be 4.55 billion +/- 70 million years and published this result in 1953.� He used the fact that uranium deteriorates to lead at a fixed rate with a half life of about 4 billion years.� The ratios of lead and uranium have been used not just to determine the age of the Earth but also to date geological ages and past extinction events.� In the process of measuring the ratio of lead and uranium, Patterson determined the dangers of tetraethyl lead additives in gasoline and spearheaded the movement to have them removed.� The lesson is that we cannot depend on private industry to regulate itself.� We need strong central planning and regulation to solve our myriad energy and environmental problems.� I might add that GM spent 20 years trying to get Patterson fired before they and the rest of corporate America finally agreed to take the lead out.]
(slide 9) The Earth is 4.5 billion years old but the planet�s atmosphere contained no free oxygen until about 2.2 to 2.3 billion years ago.� Oxygen was in fact a toxic poison to the bacteria and Archaea which lived at that time.� Some enterprising ancestor to our present day cyanobacteria invented the photosynthetic process of extracting carbon from the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and exhaling the oxygen as a waste product.� This effectively polluted the atmosphere for other life forms.� Because of the toxicity of oxygen, life had to adapt or get out of the way.� Some hid deep in the ocean near thermal vents and others found refuge in oxygenless bogs.� Today their progeny populate our digestive tracts.� Lucky for us other life forms evolved and adapted to this new environment.
The lesson is that life had a profound effect on the chemistry of the Earth and was able to control and quite literally create its own environment in just a few hundred million years. 6.5 billion humans can and do have a profound impact on climate and the biosphere today.
(slide 10) The Earth�s history is composed of long periods of tranquility punctuated by violent biotic crises or extinction events.� During the tranquil periods the background extinction rate is about 1 species per million per year which is almost exactly equal to the species creation rate.�
The Cambrian Explosion began 544 million years ago at the beginning of the Paleozoic Era.� Diverse and complex life forms evolved.� Much of the coal we burn today was plant matter which lived during the 60 million year Carboniferous period between 360 and 300 million years ago.� Most all of our oil and coal, and much of our natural gas was formed over the 544 million years since the Cambrian began.� In total about 2 trillion barrels of recoverable oil was formed or on average about 3,700 barrels a year.� The world currently uses more than 84 million barrels of oil or 22,000 years worth of oil in a single day.� We use over 8 million years worth of oil in a single year.� Let me repeat, we use 8,000,000 years worth of the Earth�s petroleum production in a single year.� Obviously, we are going to run out of the stuff.�
What caused the Permian extinction is not settled science.� You are entitled to your own opinion.
The K-T extinction or the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary event, was caused by collision with a large meteor in the Yucatan Peninsula and the gulf of Mexico.� This is settled science.� This is the event every body is familiar with since childhood as it was the extinction of the dinosaurs.�
The Paleocene-Eocene extinction event was cause by global warming, much like what we are doing to our planet today.� Note that all large mammals went extinct.� We are a large mammal.�
Today, humans are causing an estimated 5,000 species out of every 1 million species to go extinct every year.� At this rate, 50% of all plants and animals will be extinct within 95 years according to noted biologist E. O. Wilson.� Tim Flannery suggests the number will be a higher 60%.� According to a study published in nature by Thomas and others, we are well on track to reach these targets even only accounting for global warming and ignoring over fishing the oceans, strip mining and mountain top removal mining and other environmental insults.
(slide 11) Fossil fuel exploitation is why our population was able to grow from 600,000,000 before the industrial revolution to 6.5 billion, or a ten-fold increase, today. �M. King Hubbert testified before congress in 1974 that exponential growth is physically unsustainable over any long period of time.�
The US experienced peak oil production in 1970 exactly when M. King Hubbert estimated in a paper he delivered to an industry conference in 1956 in Houston Texas.� Hubbert was chief scientist at Shell Oil at the time.� This accurate prediction was why congress was motivated to talk to him.� His message to congress was that the physical world cannot sustain an exponential process, such as human population growth indefinitely.� The Physicist David Price suggests alternative outcomes.
(slide 12) A breeding pair of deer were introduced onto St. Matthews Island in 1944.� At the time there was 4 inches of lichen covering the island.� The population expanded exponentially reaching 6000 individuals in 1963, at which time they had eaten all the lichen.� The population consequently collapsed to just 24 females and one dysfunctional male in 1964 and there were no deer the following year.
(slide 13) If any of you have ever made your own wine or beer, you�ve conducted this simple experiment.� Yeast grow exponentially until they consume all of the sugar.� Then their population collapses.� Unlike deer, dead yeast cells give back some of the nutrients to sustain the population a bit longer. One wonders are humans smarter than yeast?
The lesson is that recycling is a necessary part of the mix of solutions and can have a measurable and positive impact on human population decline but it cannot reverse it because of the second law of thermodynamics.� Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) has presented 20 speeches before congress on the energy crises.� Congressman Bartlett estimates that 65% of our future energy must come from conservation.� There is no magic bullet, not new technology to get us out of this mess.�� Here is a heuristic argument.� Maintaining a higher life expectancy and a lower infant mortality rate, Europe and Japan use half of our energy per capita.� These countries are not paragons of efficiency and virtue so even they have room for improvement.� In fact, given their better and more responsible leadership, they are actually trying to do that.
(slide 14) This is where we currently are in terms of atmospheric carbon.� Note that natural processes, including during very warm periods and ice ages never caused atmospheric carbon dioxide to exceed 280 ppm for 420,000 years.� In fact this is an old graph and scientists have extended the result back to 650,000 years.� Note the human perturbation.� What should scare you is not just the absolute value but also the rate of change.� Such a thing may not have ever occurred before.�
Presently the level of atmospheric CO2 is 381 ppm.� The climate sensitivity is estimated to be about 6 degrees F.� This is how much the Earth will warm when equivalent CO2 levels are double pre-industrial levels.� That will likely happen before 2050.�
(slide 15) Here is where we are heading.
(slide 16) The Earth is warming in lockstep with our carbon emissions since the start of the industrial revolution.
(slide 17) I know you may be thinking how can a few hundred parts per million of CO2 have such dramatic consequences.� The answer is that atmospheric carbon is a climate forcing function but there are several devastating positive feedback effects which amplify carbon�s impact.� I list some of them here.� Note that the 2001 IPCC report on global warming did not include the impact of melting permafrost which is now estimated to be releasing 700 million tons of methane into the atmosphere every year.� The science of melting glaciers was also not well understood in 2001.� We have had to revise upward our estimates for ocean sea level rise during the next fifty years.� It will not be long before half of Florida is under water and at some point in the very near future this consequence may be irreversible.� Worst case scenarios are proving to be too optimistic as we learn more.
(slide 18) This is a difficult chart to understand and it packs a lot of information.� All of the data prior to 2006 represents actual world wide production of petroleum product from EIA and IEA reports.� This data is maintained by Colin Campbell.� All data after 2006 is projection based on the best estimates of proven and probable reserves.� World peak for light sweet crude occurred in 2004, world peak for all conventional oil occurred in 2005, the world peak for all petroleum liquids, including non conventional sources like tar sands, NG liquids and deep water will most likely occur in 2006 or 2007 and peak for all NG and oil will occur in 2010 more or less.
Note the dip in energy consumption back in the late 70�s and early 80�s.� This I call the Carter effect.� It is proof that conservation can solve our energy and environmental problems and is indeed a necessary part of the solution along with recycling.
(slide 19)� Here is a close up of the actual production data for the recent past.� Note that a plateau is evident.
(slide 20) Our government maintains that endorsing Kyoto protocols would hurt the US economy.� This data suggests that that in fact is a lie.� Note that signing Kyoto and enacting the strictest car mileage requirements in the World has not hurt Japanese car manufacturers at all.� On the other hand, maintaining the worst emissions standards in the world, and not endorsing Kyoto has ruined our own car manufacturers.� GM and Ford invested enormous sums of money in K-street lobbying efforts and in electing public officials who would lie about global warming and perhaps that money would have been better spent on research and development.� By the way, these numbers are misleading because US emissions requirements exclude SUVs and light trucks which make up about 60% of car sales in the US.
Note what GE CEO Immelt says about the business of saving our environment.� He is wrong in one regard.� The time where environmental improvements would have strengthened our economy goes all the way back to 1979 when four scientists, Roger Revelle, David Keeling, Gordon McDonald, and George Woodwell, presented proof of global warming and a stark warning to President Carter that if carbon� emissions were not checked, the negative consequences of global warming would begin to show up within the next twenty years.� That was perhaps the last time we enjoyed responsible government in Washington.
(slide 21) Here is what those geniuses in Washington, who deny global warming and will not endorse Kyoto on the false premise that it will hurt our economy, are actually doing to our economy.� History may not always repeat itself and total credit market debt is but one measure, however, it is not a particularly good omen and suggests another great depression is possible and perhaps even likely.� This curve is from the Wall Street Journal published at the end of 2004.� Today the Total US credit market debt as a percentage of GDP is 316% so it is still increasing.
(slide 22) I�m going to stop here and leave you with this thought from Upton Sinclair.� I�ll take any questions or comments.� Since pictures are worth a thousand words by some reports, I�ll let the projectionist slowly page through the remaining slides and I�ll take your questions and comments.� Thank you.