May with no Flowers?

            Inspiration often comes, as many say, through the beauty of nature. A habitual walk through a park or spending some time in a garden really gets the juices flowing in the human brain for many people. So, I decided to try it out. I put a sweatshirt on, grabbed my umbrella (after all, it is San Francisco), and headed out of the synthetically lit dorms into…sunlight? Yes. I walked across the USF campus and down to the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park. By this time, I had shed my sweatshirt and was irritated that I had not looked out my window before leaving my room. “But its April,” I thought to myself, “Surely it should be brisk, even if the sun is out.” But the more I walked, the more I realized this was a different kind of natural inspiration. Seeing the blooming cherry blossom trees along the dirt path forced a sudden realization into my head: this is the reality of climate change. This is what climate change looks like; what climate change feels like.
Experts talk about how third world countries are experiencing the effects of the global changes created by us first-worlders, but the reality is that if we all just looked out our windows more often, we would realize that we, too, are experiencing the effects of our actions. Maybe not as severely, but it’s still happening. The old saying “April showers bring May flowers” really doesn’t apply much anymore, considering everything blooms in April now and by May there’s nothing left but brown petals and the memories of spring.

            So, the obvious next question is: what can be done so that we don’t have to change our catchy proverb? This was possibly the lesser of the more obvious questions, but it still addresses the main issue. Similarly, McKinsey & Company, a global consulting firm, attempted to address the pressing question of what the major sources of  carbon abatement may be in the upcoming years in their “Summary of Findings: Version 2 of the Global Greenhouse Gas Abatement Cost Curve.” The report, written in 2009, bases its premises on the generally accepted scientific assertion that we must not allow the Earth’s overall temperature to rise by any more than 2 degrees Celsius, at the highest. The consequences in a rise such as this are brutal in themselves: the disappearance of coral reefs, which can not be sustained above 360 PPM (parts per million), a level we have already surpassed, and the melting of the polar ice caps, already occurring at an alarming rate of 20% per year and rising. For all of these reasons, 2 degrees Celsius is the maximum amount we can let the Earth warm.

In order to hold our average temperature there, McKinsey & Company produced several charts and graphs to visually show what types of actions need to be taken. The first graph, titled “Global GHG abatement cost curve beyond business-as-usual-2030” points out some of the lowest costing, highest carbon abating actions for our society. Energy technology such as nuclear and low penetration wind turbines have a low abatement cost (or low cost to construct), combined with relatively high abatement potentials to reduce the number of gigatonnes of CO2 emitted in one year. Aside from energy, actions such as reforesting and restoring degraded land and reducing slash and burn agriculture that ironically so commonly occurs in areas of such ecological wealth like the rainforests of South America, are all battles which take little to fight and have an enormous return. Conversely, things that we often think of as major factors in the “fight against climate change” are non factors entirely, either because of their cost, or because they lack the extreme potential to subside carbon output in one year that the aforementioned techniques can. These categories include using LED lighting, plug in or hybrid cars, and the burning of biomass to create energy. While all of these do help, and no carbon abatement is too small, if we are going to try and hold the Earth’s temperature from an increase of 2 degrees Celsius, we must also focus on those improvements which will cost the least and emit the least carbon.

This transitions well into the next major point displayed by McKinsey & Company: while everything helps, on a scale of major categories of abatement opportunities, behavioral changes come in at the very bottom. On the contrary, they argue that energy efficiency holds the most abatement potential, followed by low carbon energy supply, terrestrial carbon, and technical measures. If we investigate into each of these categories, there are many specific actions which fall under each. Energy efficiency includes everything from improving the efficiency of buildings by insulating to reducing the energy consumption by industrial equipment by utilizing more efficient control systems. Low-carbon energy supply can be explained as renewable electricity from wind and hydro power plants, and simultaneously includes carbon sequestration. Terrestrial carbon, which mainly focuses on agriculture and reforestation, would aid in the abatement of carbon by restoring the natural carbon sinks which are provided by forests and their soils. The final category, mentioned before as the least helpful (behavioral change) is only so because “Changing behavior is difficult and the abatement realized would depend heavily on whether, and to what extent, policy makers establish effective incentives.” (McKinsey & Company) We already have the technology- the electric cars, the energy star appliances. However, more drastic changes must take place in order for this category to mean something in the scope of climate change. Eating less meat, driving and flying less, and reducing overall heat and appliance use are just a few of the programs which would need to have incentives attached to them in order for them to become common practice in society today.

But please, don’t let this discourage you. If there’s one thing I know about, it’s reading an article stuffed with “there’s nothing we can do” facts. This is NOT one of those articles. This is a piece, written by a college student, trying to help explain just what needs to be done to keep the flowers blooming in May. It is important to understand that with passion must also come knowledge. The report by McKinsey & Company is a long scientific report bursting with graphs and numbers which by the time you have finished devising what they mean, you’ve forgotten the point. This editorial, written by a curious student, is based in science, but inspired by nature.