What’s the bigger threat, global warming or peak oil?
Yes, I’m intentionally being inexcusably vague. Define your own time frame(s), meaning of the word “threat”, etc.
In the interest of playing fair, let me go first.
Both threats are very serious, but they’re likely to play out on different time scales.
In the short to mid-term, perhaps the next 15 years, peak oil will hit the industrialized world much harder than global warming will. Our extreme level of dependence on oil for transportation is our Achilles’ heel, and even if we make it through 2008 without a major price spike caused by fundamentals or a hurricane or a war or who knows what else, I seriously doubt we’ll get beyond 2010 or 2012 before everything hits the fan.
During this same time frame, global warming won’t be sitting by idly, of course. It will continue to cause heat waves, some sea level rise, massive changes in precipitation patterns, and increased drought at least in part from the reduction in mountain snow packs. But the truly crippling effects likely won’t arrive until well after this admittedly arbitrary 15-year period.
I’m very concerned about what happens later in this time frame as we struggle with both a desperate need to reduce CO2 emissions and the even more immediate need to keep critical goods moving at a price that doesn’t cause economic devastation. The temptation to use CTL technology and tell ourselves that we can successfully capture enough of the CO2 or that it’s a reasonable tradeoff will be overwhelming once oil and gasoline are both at science fiction-y price levels.
We can greatly reduce some portions of our transportation oil demand (fly less, car pool more, telecommute more, drive smarter, etc.) to leave more oil for the genuinely important uses, but that’s only a stop-gap measure.
My guess is that despite the ever louder and more dire warnings from the scientific community we won’t reduce CO2 emissions by nearly as much as we must. We will very likely see all the major CO2 emitting countries reporting numbers which should add up to a new total of X parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere, only to find out year after year that scientists are actually measuring X + Y ppm, with Y being a growing Big CO2 Lie Factor.
In the longer run (15 to 50 years from now), we could see enough acceleration of global warming effects from the albedo flip to ever-quicker ice sheet disintegration, that sea level increases will begin to threaten far more than “just” the inhabitants of those Pacific island nations who are already in trouble. By then, things will be getting quite ugly, and we’ll like resorting to some combination of geoengineering fixes–orbiting or ground-based mirrors, seeding the ocean, etc.–in a desperate attempt to reverse a process that’s been building for decades.
So–what’s your vision of where we’re headed?
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June 27th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
I sometimes wonder if this is the lord’s little cosmic joke.
To see if we will run out of fossil fuels before we make our lives miserable through climate change. If this is a test, we better pass.
June 27th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
I suspect climate change is much worse.
Transportation can be electrified - consumers will be able to buy plug-in hybrids, and freight can go on electrified rail.
Long distance shipping costs are a very small % of product costs (well below 1%). Water shipping in particular will be unaffected: fuel cost is in the range of only .1-.2% of product costs; an insignificant 25% cut in water travel speeds reduces energy consumption by 50%; and wind power can be added as a modular addition to reduce fuel consumption. long haul trucking in the US will be hurt, and rail and water shipping will expand, but I don’t see much effect on global trade, except for relatively few very low-density items, like some produce.
Rising sea levels, and oceans devoid of life are much, much scarier.
June 27th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Global Warming is one of those scary stories that politicians have locked into like an exocet missle
on a hot plume.
A number of scientists have recently been raising their voices alerting the public to this dramatic exaggeration.
Just a few days ago the “State Climatoligist” of Oregon Stated at a hearing being conducted to decide on global warming measures by the Oregon legislature, that he was against the measures being considered because he was doubtful of all that was being claimed about global warming.
The governor went ballistic and said that there is no more argument — this is settled science, he claimed. Well it is not.
Likewise with Peak Oil.
The U.S. geological survey issued a report not too long ago showing that there are trillions of barrels of recoverable oil still to be exploited. Thus they did not see a problem in the next 20 or 30 years. Exxon subscribes to the same view.
Global warming offers politicians the excuse to enact many programs through which they can channel tax payers dollars and enrich their supporters.
Global warming is the new venue that socialist who lost out years ago with the collapse of the socilaist model, now have found with global warming the means through which they can control our lives and our economy.
June 27th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
I think that PO will hit first, in the transportation area of energy consumption, and our feeble attempts to keep on keeping on, with business as usual, will leave us trying all of the manufactured fuel options (ethanol, butanol, biodiesel, CTL, and maybe even hydrogen, unless E still equals M C squared and maybe even if it does.) The manufacture of those fuels will leave a worse soup of greenhouse gasses, and that will make GW the worst of the two. I just don’t think that people get it, and unless they do, in a hurry, we will have the worst scenario possible on GW. Well, maybe not the worst, but as bad as it will get, I don’t think that anyone will notice the difference.
Also, Lou, do you sincerely think that it will take that 15 to 50 years for the albedo flip to set in? I know it is hypothesized that it will get progressively worse, but it will, or I think it will, get serious much sooner.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
I read where Waste Management is starting a big land fill methane to electric program. They said that 30% of the methane released into the atmosphere is from land fills.
I heard that methane is 20 times more potent a GHG than CO2, so if they can turn methane to electricity instead of venting it, that sounds good to me.
They have to be careful with the other chemicals that are in landfill methane before burning, I hear it is pretty low energy and contaminated stuff.
June 28th, 2007 at 3:03 am
Lou, I think your question boils down to an analogy is driving more dangerous than smoking?
Driving accidents (peak oil) is a leading cause of death across all (US) populations, but it kills a relatively small number of people on any given day…peak oil (inevitable and highly likely in the next 20 years) will be bad for everyone but not equally bad for all…if you run flat out into a wall you will hurt yourself, possibly break a bone…but death is highly unlikely. On the other hand smoking is the leading cause of prevatable cancer (I think) but takes years to build up so it is more likely to occur late in life and is not certain. The climate crisis is similarly long term (decades if not centuries out for worst effects) and highly likely to occur on present course…a bit like taking your whole family and jumping off a tall building in the hopes that you land on the fireman’s airbag in the parking lot across the street. It possible everyone could make it thru but not very likely.
June 28th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Woodchuck [4]: I guess what I meant by the albedo flip comment was that it will take that long for it to become a major factor. I realize this is one of the most difficult parts of the GW situation to predict, and it could well be one of the positive feedbacks that kick into overdrive as ice sheets disintegrate and then melt.
Perhaps I was being too optimistic. When I read a lot of material in this area it’s hard for me to not grasp at straws.
June 29th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
“When I read a lot of material in this area it’s hard for me to not grasp at straws. ”
Yeah, I’m like that with geo-engineering. Do we want to mess with putting sulfur in the air, or mirrors in orbit? No, but we’ll probably have no choice.
June 30th, 2007 at 1:51 am
It is not so much GW that I am worried about, it is more catastrophic major climate change. Droughts, floods, hurricanes, heat waves, take your pick.