There are dire predictions about climate change effects. Voices, particularly on the political left, call for quick fixes. But slowing the world’s warming trend is not a fast process. Democrats contend government needs to spend massive amounts to address what some call the existential threat of a warming planet. The recently signed Inflation Reduction Act contains hundreds of billions in new spending on climate change initiatives. All this government investment looks like an answer to an extreme problem.
No neat “pro” or “con” camps
Yet critics remain skeptical of just how much the government should do. These include Obama Administration science advisor and NYU physicist Dr. Steven Koonin. Arguments from his 2021 book Unsettled? show that climate change perspectives do not fit neatly into “pro” and “con” camps. The earth is warming, but there are different interpretations about what warming effects will look like. In Koonin’s estimation, “the consensus is not as strong as it is portrayed.”
This is a far cry from dominant media narratives about the issue. Koonin does not deny the climate is changing. Rather, for this former advisor to a Democratic administration, what the science says makes the policy and spending choices ahead less clear.
As Koonin underscores, “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything about it. But I think it becomes much less compelling when you look at the actual science.”
Solving the storage problem
Even if one takes Koonin’s perspective with a grain of salt, larger issues remain. Dealing with climate change invariably centers on reducing fossil fuel emissions. Meeting this goal places renewable energy sources front and center. The challenge is that wind and solar don’t produce power 24 hours per day.
According to Wake Smith, a senior fellow for business and government at Harvard’s Kennedy School, there’s an additional problem.
“We need energy storage in a way that’s well beyond what we do now,” Smith said. In other words, producing renewable energy is not the same as storing that energy for later use.
And complicating matters are new constraints on government’s constitutional role in lowering carbon emissions. The Supreme Court’s 2022 limiting of the EPA’s scope in mandating carbon reductions portends fewer fossil fuel regulations.
Unsettling uncertainty
At the same time, University of Cincinnati biologist Dr. Nate Moorhouse said this indeterminacy goes against human desire for certainty.
“All of those models are based on past experience projected out into the future,” Dr. Moorhouse said. “But we know it’s uncertain, right? Uncertain in some of the same ways that your commute across town is uncertain about your arrival time. But that uncertainty leaves some people queasy.”
Global energy prices add to this queasy feeling. And, with informed skeptics like Koonin casting doubt on simple narratives about climate science, there’s more uncertainty than ever on this issue. Now, even energy options once considered anathema are back on the grid, including nuclear, whose popularity plummeted in the west after 1979’s partial reactor meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island.
Now, power companies and even politicians like California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom want to extend nuclear power’s role in America’s energy mix.
No appetite for bullets
If a new enthusiasm for nuclear power doesn’t illustrate the complexity of the climate change debate, Smith said there’s more. None of the current policies popular even among Democrats will be enough to solve the problem.
“The difficult bullet we’ve got to bite is that it likely requires changes in habits and compromises in respective lifestyle, which no one has the appetite for,” Smith said.
Yet no elected official, even the most liberal Democrats, call for wholesale reductions in Americans’ energy consumption. Avoiding what seems to be a straightforward path to lower carbon emissions underscores how dealing with climate change does not lend itself to quick fixes or extremes.
Access the next installments in Brian’s climate series here, here and here.