Introduction
Good evening. My name is Kim Miller. On behalf of Earthfriends and Greenprint, Welcome. It is very gratifying to see you all here.
The topic of tonight’s talk is The Science of Climate Change. Climate change is not a new topic for most of us. In fact, there are probably days when many of us wish we could escape hearing another news story on the topic. But hopefully tonight you will leave here feeling that you had a different kind of experience. The organizers bringing you this lecture tonight feel that you may find it unique in two ways:
We have the scientist in the room with us tonight. Unlike the one-directional TV media experience, which is how most of us receive information on this topic, tonight you will have the opportunity to get to know an individual deeply involved in climate research.
We have each other in the room. By all of us being present here tonight we are making a statement to each other that we are all at least curious, that we have an interest in finding out the facts surrounding this heavily-discussed topic and that we are interested in asking some of the difficult questions of what we do with that information. So in a sense we are all here supporting each other to explore this intimidating subject.
Tonight’s speaker is Dr. Kim Cobb. Dr. Cobb is a faculty member of Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. She has been involved with numerous climate studies as a climate scientist and also happens to be a Morningside resident, who recently became a parent. So I think we can assume that her relationship to Morningside Elementary is perhaps just beginning.
At this time please join me in extending a warm welcome to Dr. Kim Cobb.
[Kim Cobb Presentation]
Thank you Dr. Cobb for that insightful and thought-provoking presentation on the science of climate change. It is very enriching indeed to have this unique opportunity to hear the science directly from a scientist dedicated to the study of this field. As promised, in just a few minutes we will open the floor to questions. But before we start the questions, we will spend just a few minutes on the question, “How do we respond?”
How Do We Respond?
We have deliberately broken tonight’s talk into two discrete presentations, The Science of Climate Change and How Do We Respond? The reason for this division is that Dr. Cobb’s research does not really contemplate how we might respond to the findings of her data. And in this presentation we are very interested in drawing a clear line between scientific findings and the many and varied proposals for mitigating climate change. So in other words, what Dr. Cobb just presented to us is science. What I am about to present is not science, in that all mitigation proposals involve a set of -social- choices that come with them.
Let’s start with what is probably a common image many of us might picture when it comes to addressing climate change.
These are common images that we all encounter in discussions on what we can do to mitigate Climate Change. And these are two very good choices that you can make. A number of your neighbors in the Morningside area have put their heads together to explore some of these personal choices that can reduce one’s carbon footprint. One of those groups is called Greenprint (who has a table in the back here tonight). As you leave this evening we would encourage you to visit the Greenprint table, where you can get an extensive list of 67 such personal interventions, that you can start doing tomorrow, along with information on how to connect with Greenprint.
That said; are such interventions alone enough to meet the scope of this problem?
Can we address the challenge outlined in Dr. Cobb’s presentation if we all switch to florescent light bulbs and start driving hybrid cars? Let’s explore the answer to this question as presented by two researchers from Princeton University:
In 2004 two professors from Princeton University, Pacala & Socolow, published an influential proposal on climate change mitigation. While the work is somewhat dated, it has had an enduring impact on climate mitigation thinking primarily due to their approach of breaking the problem down into several solutions, rather than a single “home run” technology.
Pacala & Socolow start with the scientific consensus that we are on a course to reach a doubling of CO2 levels within 50 years if we simply stay on our current path, as shown in this graph.
Preventing this dangerous level of CO2 from occurring, they argue, will require a worldwide rethinking of energy. To convey the scale involved, Pacala & Socolow created a pie chart with 15 different wedges.

Some wedges represent alternatives to power generating, while others represent aggressive efficiency programs. They argue that we need to deploy any 7 of these 15 wedges, or sufficient amounts of all 15, to avoid a doubling of CO2 in our atmosphere over the coming 50 years. All the wedges represent existing technology we have today.

Some Examples of their wedges include:
Replacing 1,400 large coal-fired plants with gas-fired plants
Increase the fuel economy of two billion cars from 30 to 60 miles per gallon
Double today’s nuclear output to displace coal
Increase solar power 700-fold to displace coal
Cut electricity use in homes, offices and stores by 25 percent
And as you go down the list some of their proposals get more difficult:
Install carbon capture and sequestration capacity at 800 large coal-fired plants
Halting all cutting and burning of forests
While these scientists admit that such a worldwide reinvention of energy is an ambitious undertaking, they also point out that the job becomes much more difficult if we wait — and if we “delay a decade or two”, they say, “avoiding such a doubling of CO2 may well become impossible.”
They issue us a strong challenge. But what I find encouraging in their proposal is the approach of breaking down the solution into bite-sized wedges that are, in fact, within technological reach today given sufficient determination as a society to get there.
Let’s look at what might stand in the way of such a plan.
[Slide 7] Dirty Energy is Cheap Energy
While we may not feel it to be true when we fill up at the pump these days, our ever-increasing standard of living has a lot to do with having access to relatively cheap energy. In an environment of relatively cheap energy people do not generally feel compelled to make changes, especially if those changes decrease our disposable income. So in that environment, [trigger bullets] how do we create incentives to motivate both individuals and business to look for new ways to conserve, to invest in new forms of energy and for the development of new technologies?
[Slide 8] Correctly pricing energy
Many looking at this problem today believe that the key to creating these incentives will come from placing a significantly higher price on carbon emitting energy. That thinking may make some sense when you consider that currently our impact on climate is essentially invisible in our every day lives.
But how do we place a price on emitting carbon dioxide when, unlike most other forms of pollution, CO2 is invisible, tasteless and odorless? Some prominent voices have spoken out on this question.
[Slide 9] Market Incentives
Most essentially boil it down to market incentives. Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric puts it this way:
“The market [today] does not work in energy. Carbon has to have a value. Today in the U.S. and China it has no value. Energy players are being asked to take a 15-minute market signal and make a 40-year decision, and that just doesn’t work. ... The U.S. government should decide: What do we want to have happen? How much clean coal, how much nuclear and what is the most efficient way to incentivize people to get there? - Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric
Thomas Friedman, a New York Times columnist and forward thinker on energy says:
“The only way to stimulate the scale of sustained investment in research and development of non-CO2 emitting power is if the developed countries, who can afford to do so, force their people to pay the full climate, economic and geopolitical costs of using gasoline and dirty coal. Those countries that have signed the Kyoto Protocol are starting to do that. But America is not.” - Thomas Friedman, The New York Times
The common theme in both these men’s words to me -- is public policy.
[Slide 10] Public Policy
Many see adjusting our industrial and personal behavior towards clean choices and away from carbon emitting choices as the ultimate challenge of public policy. Certainly it is not difficult to believe that averting catastrophic changes to our climate -is- ultimately in the public interest.
Ultimately, you, the public, employ policymakers to protect what is in the public interest. As such we would urge you to first:
Educate yourself about the science (you are here tonight), then
Let your elected officials know what you think our policies should be and
Let your views be known in your community (because ultimately we need everyone working in the same direction to overcome this challenge)
In conclusion I would point out [trigger next slide] that the “climate-energy” debate has been relatively muted and slower moving than some other important social debates in our history. Why is that?
[Slide 11] The climate-energy debate
Michael Mandelbaum, of Johns Hopkins University, offers the following explanation:
“This issue doesn’t pit haves versus have-nots, but [rather] the present versus the future — today’s generation versus its kids and unborn grandchildren.”
- Michael Mandelbaum, Johns Hopkins University
With that I would like to thank you for your interest and attention. We will now open the floor for questions.
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