The Future (93 page)
Authors: Al Gore
183
the Earth’s atmosphere attempting to maintain its energy “balance”
V. Ramaswamy et al., “Anthropogenic and Natural Influences in the Evolution of Lower Stratospheric Cooling,”
Science
311, no. 5764 (February 24, 2006): 1138–41.
184
“Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice”
Robert Frost, “Fire and Ice,”
Harper’s Magazine
, December 1920.
185
“future decades if industrial fuel combustion continues to rise exponentially”
Roger Revelle and Hans Suess, “Carbon Dioxide Exchange Between Atmosphere and Ocean and the Question of an Increase of Atmospheric CO
2
During the Past Decades,”
Tellus
9 (February 1957).
186
began more than 150 years ago
NASA, “John Tyndall (1820–1893),”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Tyndall/
.
187
first oil well by Colonel Edwin Drake in Pennsylvania
Judah Ginsberg, “The Development of the Pennsylvania Oil Industry,” American Chemistry Society,
http://portal.acs.org
.
188
doubling of CO
2
concentrations
Svante Arrhenius, “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground,”
Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science
41 (April 1896).
189
concentration was increasing steadily by a significant amount
Spencer Weart, “The Discovery of Global Warming: Money for Keeling: Monitoring CO
2
,” 2003,
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Kfunds.htm
.
190
CO
2
throughout this yearly seasonal cycle was being shifted steadily upward
Ibid.
191
there are sixty other “distributed cooperative” sets of measurements
“Tracking Long-Term Measurements of Gases and Aerosols That Contribute to Climate Change,”
NOAA Magazine
, July 15, 2004,
http://www.magazine.noaa.gov/stories/mag140.htm
.
192
which has long predicted this result, and an effective cross-check
“Atmospheric Oxygen Research: Research Overview,” Scripps Institute of Oceanography,
http://scrippso2.ucsd.edu/research-overview
.
193
the national academies of the G8 nations
Coral Davenport, “Heads in the Sand,”
National Journal
, December 2, 2011,
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/heads-in-the-sand-20111201
.
194
“need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable”
National Academies of Science, “G8+5 Academies’ Joint Statement: Climate Change and the Transformation of Energy Technologies for a Low Carbon Future,” May 2009,
www.nasonline.org/about-nas/leadership/president/statement-climate-change.pdf
.
195
“97–98 percent of the climate researchers”
William Anderegg et al., “Expert Credibility in Climate Change,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
, 2010.
196
“Denial can be conscious or unconscious refusal”
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation, “Five Stages of Grief,” 2012.
197
“refusal to acknowledge painful realities, thoughts, or feelings”
“Denial,”
Stedman’s Medical Dictionary
,
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/denial
.
198
and stronger attacks on those who insist that we must take action
Chris Mooney, “The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science,”
Mother Jones
, June 2011.
199
Two social scientists
Jane Risen and Clayton Critcher, “Visceral Fit: While in a Visceral State, Associated States of the World Seem More Likely,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
100, no. 5 (2012).
200
automatically rejecting any potential alternative
“System Justification Theory,”
Encyclopedia of Peace Psychology
, 2011.
201
“In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment”
Ronald Reagan, Speech to the United Nations General Assembly, September 21, 1987.
202
As E. O. Wilson recently wrote
E. O. Wilson, “Why Humans, Like Ants, Need a Tribe,”
Daily Beast
, April 1, 2012.
203
“reposition global warming as theory not fact”
Matthew Wald, “Pro-Coal Ad Campaign Disputes Warming Idea,”
New York Times
, July 8, 1991.
204
The large public multinational fossil fuel companies
John Fullerton, Capital Institute, “The Big Choice,” July 19, 2011,
http://capitalinstitute.org/blog/big-choice-0
.
205
global scientific consensus is accepted
Ibid.
206
adds up to a total of $27 trillion
Ibid.
207
Saudi Arabia to convert its domestic energy use to 100 percent renewables
Fiona Harvey, “Saudi Arabia Reveals Plans to be Powered Entirely by Renewable Energy,
Guardian
, October 19, 2012.
208
in the aggregate, 7.5 million of them
Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Annual Conference on Bank Structure and Competition, “The Subprime Mortgage Market,” May 17, 2007,
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20070517a.htm
.
209
“attack false enemies and deny real problems than find solutions”
Jay Rockefeller, Statement on Inhofe Resolution Vote, June 20, 2012.
210
four anti-climate lobbyists for every single member of the U.S. Senate and House
Marianne Lavelle, Center for Public Integrity, “The Climate Change Lobby Explosion,” February 24, 2009,
http://www.publicintegrity.org/node/4593
.
211
become one of the largest sources of campaign contributions
Center for Responsive Politics, “Oil and Gas,”
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=E01
.
212
One right-wing state attorney general
John Rudolf, “A Climate Skeptic with a Bully Pulpit in Virginia Finds an Ear in Congress,”
New York Times
, February 22, 2011.
213
Right-wing legal foundations and think tanks
Tom Clynes, “The Battle over Climate Science,”
Popular Science
, June 21, 2012.
214
Right-wing members of Congress have repeatedly
Kate Sheppard, “Taking Climate Denial to New Extremes,”
Mother Jones
, February 11, 2011.
215
essential monitoring satellites being delayed or canceled
Ledyard King, “Report Warns of Weather Satellites ‘Rapid Decline,’ ” Gannett News, May 2, 2012.
216
four separate independent investigations
John Cook, Skeptical Science, “What Do the ClimateGate Emails Tell Us?,”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climategate-CRU-emails-hacked.htm
.
217
The Frozen Planet
was edited before the Discovery Network
Brian Stelter, “No Place for Heated Opinions,”
New York Times
, April 20, 2012.
218
“showing a documentary on lung cancer and leaving out the part about the cigarettes”
Ibid.
219
“the last best hope of earth”
Abraham Lincoln, “Annual Remarks to Congress,” December 1, 1862.
220
“for good men to do nothing”
Quote Investigator, December 4, 2010.
221
support for actions to reduce greenhouse gas
Connie Roser-Renouf et al., Yale Project on Climate Communication, “The Political Benefits of Taking a Pro-Climate Stand in 2012,” 2012,
http://environment.yale.edu/climate/files/Political-Benefits-Pro-Climate-Stand.pdf
.
222
stimulus bill put a major emphasis on green provisions
Michael Grunwald, “The ‘Silent Green Revolution’ Underway at the Department of Energy,”
Atlantic
, September 9, 2012.
223
“The biggest single step that any nation has taken”
Christopher Mims, “Efficiency Standards Are the Single Biggest Climate Deal Ever,” Grist, December 5, 2011,
http://grist.org/list/2011-12-05-efficiency-standards-are-the-single-biggest-climate-deal-ever/
.
224
well below the cost of production in the United States
“Solar Prices Expected to Keep Falling in 2012,” Associated Press, June 26, 2010.
225
with the average cost of shale gas going up significantly in the process
U.S. Energy Information Agency, “Annual Energy Outlook 2012: Market Trends—Natural Gas,” June 25, 2012,
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/MT_naturalgas.cfm
.
226
which is more than
seventy-two times
as potent as CO
2
in trapping heat
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007,”
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-2-5.html
.
227
buy time for the implementation
Drew Shindell et al., “Simultaneously Mitigating Near-Term Climate Change and Improving Human Health and Food Security,”
Science
, January 2012.
228
settle on the surface of ice and snow
V. Ramanathan and G. Carmichael, “Global and Regional Climate Changes Due to Black Carbon,”
Nature Geoscience
1 (April 2008).
229
the majority of smaller “wildcat” drillers do not
Robert Howarth et al., “Venting and Leaking of Methane from Shale Gas Development: Response to Cathles et al.,”
Climatic Change
113 (July 2012).
230
virtually all of the benefit natural gas might have
Nathan Myhrvold and Ken Caldeira, “Greenhouse Gases, Climate Change and the Transition from Coal to Low-Carbon Electricity,”
Environmental Research Letters
, March 2012.
231
an average of five million gallons of water for each well
Chesapeake Energy, “Water Use in Deep Shale Gas Exploration,” 2012,
http://www.chk.com/Media/Educational-Library/Fact-Sheets/Corporate/Water_Use_Fact_Sheet.pdf
; Jack Healy, “Struggle for Water in Colorado with Rise in Fracking,”
New York Times
, September 5, 2012.
232
acute even before the spread of the thirsty fracking process
Healy, “Struggle for Water in Colorado with Rise in Fracking.”
233
fracking wells are being drilled in communities where
Russell Gold and Ana Campoy, “Oil’s Growing Thirst for Water,”
Wall Street Journal
, December 6, 2011.
234
as chimneys for the upward migration of both methane and drilling fluids
Ian Urbina, “Tainted Water Well, and Concern There May Be More,”
New York Times
, August 3, 2011.
235
cause of pollution in the aquifer above the area that was fracked
Tenille Tracy, “EPA Says Wyoming Fracking Results Are Consistent,”
Wall Street Journal
, September 26, 2012.
236
at the behest of then vice president Dick Cheney
Abraham Lustgarten, “Hydrofracked: One Man’s Quest for Answers About Natural Gas Drilling,”
ProPublica
, June 27, 2011.
237
“The consequences of a misstep in a well”
Council on Foreign Relations, “The New North American Energy Paradigm.”
238
political resistance from landowners
Inae Oh, “New York Fracking Protest Urges Cuomo to Ban Controversial Drilling,”
Huffington Post
, August 22, 2012,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/22/new-york-fracking-protest-cuomo-photos_n_1822575.html
.
239
has caused multiple small (usually harmless) earthquakes
Charles Choi, “Fracking Earthquakes: Injection Practice Linked to Scores of Tremors,”
Livescience
, August 7, 2012.
240
alleged to have infiltrated water aquifers
Abraham Lustgarten and ProPublica, “Are Fracking Wastewater Wells Poisoning the Ground Beneath Our Feet?,”
Scientific American
, June 21, 2012.
241
more common source of complaints than the initial injections
Rachel Ehrenberg, “The Facts Behind the Frack,”
ScienceNews
, September 8, 2012,
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/343202/title/The_Facts_Behind_the_Frack
.
242
spread on roads, ostensibly for dust control
National Resources Defense Council, “Report: Five Primary Disposal Methods for Fracking Wastewater All Fail to Protect Public Health and Environment,” May 9, 2012,
http://www.nrdc.org/media/2012/120509.asp
.
243
“something wrong and dangerous, they should punish them”
Christopher Helman, “Billionaire Father of Fracking Says Government Must Step Up Regulation,”
Forbes
, July 19, 2012.
244
a potential tipping point
Joe Romm, ThinkProgress, “Gas Emissions Reduction Target for 2020,” January 13, 2009,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/report/2009/01/13/5472/the-united-states-needs-a-tougher-greenhouse-gas-emissions-reduction-target-for-2020/
.