Coal is the bad guy. At least it is the antagonist in the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency’s 645-page carbon-emissions plan unveiled in
early June, 2014. In spite of the fact that the 30% reduction in CO2 emissions
from the level in 2005 being set for 2030, critics showed their oligarchic focus
on today by pointing to what the
current likely costs would be. Electric bills increasing $4 or so a month in
West Virginia. Lost jobs—as if the criteria of capital were also those of
labor. In short, short-term inconveniences without a hint of the other side of
the ledger. I submit that this is precisely the element in human nature that
can be likened to the proverbial “seed of its own destruction” in terms of the
future of our species. As menacing as such “reductionism to today” is, the
assumption such as underlies the EPA’s proposal that coal is the definitive
obstacle—and, furthermore—that we are not missing any other huge but invisible danger—is
just as problematic from the standpoint of the species’s survival.
I have in mind the EPA’s projections by fuel type going out
to 2030 from 2012. From 37% of the electricity generated in 2012, the
comparable projected figure is 32% for 2013.[1]
While at least the direction is downward in relation to the other fuel types, climatologists
would doubtless say more of a drop is necessary to stave off more than a 2
degree C global increase. As damning as
this “ok but not good enough” scenario is pertaining to coal, the more damning
feature of the report is that it may be very wrong about something it takes to
be an improvement.
For example, the natural gas category is projected
to go from 30% in 2012 to 35% in 2030[2]. That’s good, right, because it’s the
clean gas. Not so fast. Independent empirical studies of leaks in Utah, L.A.,
and Washington, D.C. have shown much higher levels of methane escaping into the
atmosphere than the 1% touted by the producers and adopted (without independent
confirmation) by the EPA. In the observations, the actual percentages of
leakage were double-digits. The problem is that the break-even point with coal
in impacting global warming is 3 percent. Methane, which natural gas gives off
before being burnt, turns out to have ten times the impact as coal.
My point is that even though by now we are used to the
contingents that put today’s convenience above the risk to the future of the
species, we don’t know what we don’t know, and this can be even more dangerous.
In other words, what we assume to be a good thing may in actual fact be doing a
lot of damage under our very eyes. We may not have a clue as to how what we are
doing today is impacting the planet’s atmosphere. This may be one reason why
scientists have repeatedly had to accelerate their projections of when the ice
sheets would melt at the poles.
Human nature may be much more problematic from the
standpoint of the species’s own survival than we know. Not only have 1.8
million years of natural selection engrained in us a focus on today (e.g.,
fight or flight) at the expense of tomorrow; we may be very wrong about stuff
we assume we got right and yet be totally
unaware of it. It is as though our species were a person with long hair who
never bothers to use a mirror to make sure that the hair in back is brushed.
The laugh is on that person, and yet she (or he) has no idea. The industrialists
who are instinctively wetted to the status quo out of a desire for financial
gain may just be the tip of the iceberg; we had better look underneath before
it has totally melted.
