Business As Usual

Last Wednesday I attended a monthly seminar sponsored by Georgia Tech, one in their Clean Energy Speaker Series. Something remarkable happened.

This month's topic was Greenhouse Gas Emissions Management in Complex Times, featuring guest speakers from McKinsey and Co. and from the UPS. As usual they were informative as was the subsequent Q&A.

I enjoy attending these sessions to learn and to converse with others in my field. But as I said something truly remarkable happened this time.

We learned about the possibly dramatic effects that newly-opened natural gas reserves in underground shale deposits will have on the domestic production of electricity. That is interesting and useful to know, but not particularly remarkable.

Neither was our learning about UPS' reporting of Scope-3 CO2 emissions for their customers or the relative carbon intensiveness of various shipping modes such as air, truck, rail and ocean freight. Interesting but not remarkable.

And so it went.

Then in the midst of his presentation Ken Ostrowski, the McKinsey consultant, stated that "Unconstrained growth is not an option (due to the damage it does to the environment)." OK, that is obvious to many people but not to those who refuse to pay attention to such matters or are committed to less-rigorous standards for reality. Amongst this audience of clean-techies, it's a safe statement for him to make.

Now comes the remarkable part. Ostrowski shows a Powerpoint graph showing the projected growth of worldwide carbon dioxide releases into the atmosphere for the next twenty years should we do nothing to change our current habits and policies. The line climbs steadily throughout, a climb towards runaway global warming fueled by large increases in human population and a growing per-capita appetite for energy.

In other words it is suicide, if we believe what 98% of the world's climate scientists tell us.

Ostrowski's graph shows a second line showing how much we must curtail worldwide emissions so as to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at 450 parts per million in 2030. 450 was the target that delegates to last year's failed international climate summit in Copenhagen attempted to negotiate.

Ostrowski's graph shows that to reach 450 ppm we need to reduce annual CO2 emissions by 14 gigatons by the year 2020, compared to the level we would be at if we continued on our present course. As a point of reference, he helpfully mentioned that 14 gigatons approximates the combined amount of CO2 emitted by the United States, China and India.

So we basically have 10 years to figure out how to reduce our carbon emissions as if we took three of the world's largest economies offline.

While you take a moment to savor this fact, also savor the fact that 450 ppm is a contrived target based less on scientific reasoning than on what most organizers of the Summit felt was politically achievable. At 450ppm, the Earth's surface warms an average of 2 degrees Celsius.

The specific effects of these 2 degrees currently elicits considerable speculation amongst climate experts, but suffice to say that our terrestrial home becomes much more, ahem, severe than it is today.

The most remarkable thing that happened at last week's Clean Energy Seminar is that no one freaked out, ran for the exits, found Jesus, or even shed a tear. Ostrowski finished his Powerpoint talking about how this all translates into action and opportunity.

I'll continue on this blog next week to examine whether Ostrowski's claims hold any validity, and to delve further into the reasons why audience members like myself remained so calm.

As usual, thanks for reading and please stay in touch!