Storms of My Grandchildren by James Hansen Read Free Book Online

(say, geothermal), one energy efficiency area (say, residential buildings), and one area of technology development (say, carbon capture and sequestration). Then they would estimate the potential for CO2 emission reductions for fifteen-year and thirty-year time horizons—the shorter period would need to rely on existing technology, while the longer period could include realistic projections for improved technologies. They also would estimate results with “current trends” (no policy changes), “moderate action” (actions with little or no cost), and “strong action” (government-mandated energy reforms or technology subsidies).
    The A-Team was the most enthusiastic and hardworking of all my Institute on Climate and Planets teams. The pairs reported back to the full team on a weekly basis, and by the end of the summer they had made good progress on the renewable energy and energy efficiency tasks. I wrote a letter to Colin Powell inviting him to give the keynote speech at our summer institute closing ceremony; we wanted to also show him the A-Team’s results. Unfortunately, Secretary Powell could not attend, but this did not deter the A-Team from continuing their enthusiastic work for two more years.
    We decided to go into greatest detail on automobile efficiencies during the next two years, for several reasons. Vehicles were the fastest-growing source of CO2 emissions, yet the government seemed to be oblivious to the matter. Also, during the course of the A-Team study, I had been invited to give a talk at Exxon/Mobil headquarters, and my discussion of this experience with the A-Team spurred our desire to focus on vehicles.
    My talk at Exxon/Mobil was to executives and top engineers of the ten leading automobile manufacturers in the United States, including Japanese and European companies. Afterward, we had a friendly question-and-answer session that addressed climate model uncertainties, causes of climate change in Earth’s history, and my assertion that we must get onto a path resembling the alternative scenario in order to avoid disastrous climate change.
    I stayed for the rest of the morning as engineers described their plans. Criticisms of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), which was attempting to force the car manufacturers to deliver major improvements in vehicle efficiency, grew more and more strident. Finally I raised my hand and asked, “Wouldn’t it make sense, instead of fighting CARB, to try to get ahead of the curve by focusing on vehicle efficiency?” The response was, “Dr. Hansen, we have to give the customers what they will buy, and they want higher performance and larger vehicles.”
    That evening I noticed several television advertisements showing huge vehicles parked atop mountain peaks (where probably nobody would ever actually drive). This led me to question how much of the desire for size and performance really originated with the customers.
    Nevertheless, the A-Team decided to look at it this way: For twenty years the automotive industry has used advances in technology only to increase vehicle size and performance, keeping average miles per gallon at about the same level. Vehicles now had size and performance. If technology gains in the next fifteen years were used to improve efficiency, retaining current performance levels, how much could miles per gallon be increased?
    Relying heavily on a recent National Research Council (NRC) study of potential vehicle-efficiency improvements, the A-Team wrote a report considering different degrees of technology infusion, ranging from changes that the NRC deemed “production ready” to emerging technologies.
    The A-Team also developed the Auto CO2 Tool and made it available on the Web. Users could make alternative assumptions for technology infusion and view graphs of the results, including reductions in national oil requirements. The Auto CO2 Tool showed that moderately aggressive improvements in efficiency resulted in efficiency gains