What's the motive?

One of the most proliferated rumors in the field of climate science is that the scientists are only presenting research that proves the widespread assumption that climate change is real, and hiding any evidence to the contrary (link, link, link, I could keep this up all day). It has even been suggested that we are being paid off to perpetuate the global warming 'hoax'. This is not only is this insulting to me and my field, it implies as grave misunderstanding of the purpose of scientific research (at least in the area of climate science). Let me explain:

1. We don't get paid more to prove or disprove anything

When a researcher gets a grant, the money is used to fund an investigation with a necessarily uncertain outcome. If the outcome was known, there would be no study (naturally). What this means is the money is given BEFORE the study is published, not as a result of a desired outcome. For example, with my current project, I am hoping to understand the climate of Southern Mexico. It may have been warmer or colder, wetter or drier. I will not know until I get my data. Furthermore, the study will be just as likely to be published if I find that the Mexico was substantially warmer 500 years ago, and has been cooling dramatically since then (maybe even more so!).

2. There is money passed around, but not received by us!

One of the most ironic things about the idea that climate scientists are being paid off to support climate change is that the exact opposite is happening - people are being paid by Exxon Mobile and others to create confusion about climate change to slow legislation. This is a very scary operation termed the "manufactured doubt industry", which I will hopefully address in a longer post. For now, here is a little synopsis.

Essentially, what happens is big corporations that have incentive to keep the public misinformed about climate change (like oil companies, car companies, power companies, etc.) give money to institutes that put out bogus science, or give false testimony at climate hearings. A few examples of such groups are the George C. Marshall institute (financed by Exxon Mobil), The Competitive Enterprise Institute (funded by Exxon, Ford Motor Company fund, and Pfizer) and the infamous Heartland Institute (with countless donors). These groups somehow get called in as the 'credible experts' by media outlets for contrary opinion, because controversy sells over science (heartland, competitive enterprise, george marshall).

3. We geologists could make more money if we switched sides

When I thought about my career path, I knew that I would be taking a substantial pay cut to be a climate scientist. My background in geology would make me well-suited to a very profitable career in the oil and mineral resources industry, which has the highest starting salary of ANY field in the country; it actually blows the rest out of the water. I will probably never be poor when I get my PhD, but with a university or government job, I'm never going to be filthy rich either. My point is that the geologists who realize early on that they could make a lot of money in industry, and then go on to research climate change are pretty respectable people. We aren't after money, and are not being paid off; all we want to do is provide the best possible science to understand this enormous global problem. Please consider this when you see statements by the American Geophysical Union or the Geological Society of America (the two largest academic geological societies), strongly asserting the reality of human induced climate change.

To sum up: What do we have to gain by publishing papers that confirm anthropogenic climate change?

Far less than we have to gain by confusing the public so that our present CO2-emitting activities need not change.

A plan to save the world

I am tired of this waffling and 'dithering' on a real climate plan. Dick Cheney accused Obama of dithering on Afghanistan after he thought about the issue for 3 months. What do you call it when you won't address a problem for 21 years (see the first senate hearing on the subject in 1988)?

Last week I did out a little math on how much it would cost us to actually replace our fossil fuel power plants with renewables. It was quite simple really, just took a bit of looking up on the Energy Information Administration website, which has everything you ever wanted to know about power in this country. The next step was to find out how much power plants cost, and I used a base calculation for a 500MW plant:

• Geothermal plants are relatively cheap: ~$575-1,500 million or so
• Wind Power plants may be a little cheaper, at $1000/kw installed, or $500 million/500MW

I could go further, but I'll stick with just these two, because wind alone has to capability to power the whole country (see this map). For my calculations, and ease of reading I've used a conservative ballpark estimate for the cost of one 500MW plant, $1 billion.

Now for the part about how much power we need to generate:

I got this info from the EIA, and did my calculations in terms of 500MW plants. In total, we currently have the equivalent of 627.682 coal plants, 116.596 petroleum plants, and 815.06 natural gas 500MW plants in this country. Mind you, this is our total capacity, not what we actually use. Bottom line, if we wanted to replace all of our fossil fuel plants we would need 1559.338 new 500MW plants.

Now let's think first about the space it would take up. Wind power would obviously be the more expansive option, so at an average footprint of 2.02 km per plant (based on upper estimate of what is necessary for 1000 turbines), we would need to cover 3155 square km's (1218 square miles) or roughly the size of just 1.7% of North Dakota, one of the most promising states for windpower.

The more important consideration will of course be the price tag. At $1 billion dollars a plant, the whole plan would cost us $1.559 trillion dollars. Granted, this is a lot of money, so I should provide some scale. Let's compare this amount to how much we are about to spend in Afghanistan. At ~$1 million/soldier/year over there, the new surge is going to raise total cost $30 billion to ~$100 billion/year. If we can spend $100 billion on that unpopular war, what is to stop us from spending the same amount building renewable power plants? At that annual cost, we could build enough plants to replace all fossil fuels in 15.59 years.

Now here there are two big bonuses, which are how this could actually be passed.

1. This would create a ton of jobs, especially in the midwestern and southwestern states (wind and geothermal resources respectively) and would be the equivalent of a massive stimulus. Wind plants could also be placed along both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, so most states could get a piece of the action if they wanted to.

2. Unlike war, renewable energy pays itself back, and then some. Wind power plants break even (generating as much total revenue as the cost to build them) in about 7 years, and geothermal plants would be only slightly longer. Thus, if the government subsidized this project next year at with same Afghanistan budget we could be carbon neutral with regard to electricity, and fully paid off by 2030. After 2030, the renewable plants would be providing net revenue to the country, eventually doubling the initial investment. I know this is a bit of a pipe dream to think that we would actually start right now, but hey, don't say that we can't. I am so tired of hearing people say that the cost of a switch to renewables is unimaginable or unrealistic. I have imagined it, and it is completely realistic. We just need to set priorities. One of them might not be spending as much as the rest of the world combined on our military (~$680 billion/year). Seriously, the war in Iraq has already surpassed $1 trillion, and will eventually get to $3 trillion by the time we actually finish up there. It sounds like hyperbole, but with that budget, we could replace all of our fossil fuel power plants twice.