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2005-0336-F
2005-0336-F
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Science and Technology Policy, Office of (OSTP)
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Bromley, D. Allan, Files
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Executive Office of the President: Sununu Tracking [1991]
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DOCUMENT NUMBE
24919
ORIGINATOR: 02
STATUS I
DIRECTORATE STATUS
FROM:
READ, Peter: MASSEY UNIVERSITY
TO:
JOHN SUNUNU
DATE OF
CORRESPONDENCE: 11/06/91
SUBJECT: RE: U.S. POLICY ON GLOBAL WARMING. HE ALSO REQUESTS
A MEETING WITH GOVERNOR SUNUNU.
DIRECTORATE
STAFF
ASSIGNED: ENVIRONMENT
ASSIGNED:
ACTION
STAFF
REQUIRED:
DRAFT FOR DAB/SUNUNU SIGN
ACTION:
SENDER'S DUE DATE:
OSTP DUE DATE:
12/04/91
STAFF DUE DATE
DATE COMPLETED:
DATE COMPLETED/DEPT:
COPIES TO: D. Allan Bromley
Damar Hawkins
Tom Ratchford
WHITE HOUSE TRACKING #:
CONTACT PERSON:
PHONE:
EXT:
REMARKS:
CLOSED
OSTP RECEIVED: 11/29/91
DEPT RECEIVED:
FILE: EOP-SUNUNU TRACKING
P-
CENTRAL FILES:
EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506
December 3, 1991
MEMORANDUM FOR GOVERNOR SUNUNU
FROM:
D. ALLAN BROMLEY Allan
SUBJECT:
Response to Peter Read
After reading the letter and attached chapter from Peter Read carefully, it became
quite apparent to me that we should not respond to his letter at all. He intends to
use any response from you as part of the preface to his forthcoming book!
If we provide him with an official response even a polite thank you letter - he will
then have license to use it any way he chooses (probably, out of context). It is clear
from his comments that he intends to challenge you in the book because he was
originally going to include an "open letter" to you in the preface. Now, he is
providing you the "opportunity" to give him a statement of your views.
I strongly recommend that we not give Mr. Read any official words that he may then
turn around and use to attack you, the United States, or our policies on this difficult
issue.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
RECEIVED
91 NOV 29 A9:5 DATE: 11/25/91
OSTP
TO:
DR. MALAN BROMLEY
FROM:
GOVERNOR JOHN H. SUNUNU
Will you please draft a response to
the attached letter to be signed by
both of us?
4919
X
... 64 - 6 - 3505627
MASSEY
Facsimile
UNIVERSITY
Palmerston North
New Zealand
6th November, 1991
Telephone (063) 69-099
FACULTY OF
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Dr John H. Sununu,
DEPARTMENT OF
Chief of Staff to the President,
ECONOMICS
Executive Office of the President,
1600, Pennsylvania Avenue,
THE CHIEF of STAFF
Washington, DC, 20500,
has seen
USA.
Dear Dr Sununu,
Coming across your Profile in April's American Scientist, it seemed
that not only is the USA on its own amongst developed countries in its 'no regrets'
position on global warming, but that you alone are holding the line on that policy. I don't
suppose it is as simple as that, but I thought I would preface my forthcoming book with
an open letter to you. And then I thought it would be more constructive to write prior to
publication, sending you a draft of Chapter 1, Introduction and Summary, as enclosed
with the Airmail confirmation of this Fax.
I am trained as an engineer and as an economist and have spent most of my
working life on energy policy questions. Like you I am in favour of economic growth and
reject solutions that adversely affect the quality of life for billions of people. It worries
me that environmentalists muddle up a legitimate concern about the sustainability of our
industrialised economic system with anti-growth, sometimes anti-capitalist, sentiment.
Yes, I am sure you are right in believing that the Global Climate Models are
hopelessly inadequate for predicting what is happening to our climate system. But I
rather doubt whether any model ever will do the job. Nor, for that matter, is our
understanding of the global carbon balance all that good, though the prospects of
improvement in that area seem better.
I had the good fortune, during a recent sabbatical, to sit in on a lecture course
about non-linear dynamic systems. Of course, not every non-linear system displays
chaotic dynamics, but there seems to be a strong possibility that the long run climate
system does, and if it does prediction is impossible - the system can be divergent from
initial conditions too close together for the difference to be measurable.
This means we need to look at ways of taking rational decisions in
circumstances of genuine uncertainty, even ignorance, of the way in which nature is
delivering our future. When I was a child we did not need a good model of Hitler's
strategic thinking in order to make for the shelters when we heard the air raid sirens.
Were the world how most economists believe it to be, such precautionary
decision taking might lead us into the painful choices which the environmentalists wish
on us. Fortunately most environmentalists and economists have, through ignorance of
energy technology, got it wrong. The solution to the Enhanced Greenhouse Emission
problem which I outline in this book is more likely to have a positive rather than a
negative impact on the living standards of today's billions, and certainly improves
prospects for next century's.
Essentially, energy firms are given an incentive to move, over the next three
decades, from a fossil fuel based system to a more or less equal cost renewable
biomass basis. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a global economic model which
is designed to show the impact of acquiring energy raw materials from third world wage
earners rather than from OPEC rentiers, as is implied by this solution. However,
attempts to replicate it on a version of the IMF's MULTIMOD are not discouraging.
The conclusions reached in my book are as follows:
1. It is the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or quite possibly for how long an
above-normal level is maintained - that is of concern.
2. Therefore it is net emissions that matter, with increased absorption just as effective
as reduced gross emissions.
3. Economic theory has little useful to contribute beyond the 'least cost theorem' for
achieving net emissions abatement targets efficiently: this is incorporated in the
proposal for Tradeable Carbon Absorption Duties (TCAD's) which combines the
effectiveness of 'command and control' regulation with an efficient market oriented
mechanism for achieving the required result.
4. In a situation of extreme, and possibly permanent, uncertainty about the effect of
above-normal levels of carbon dioxide, precautionary measures should be undertaken
until shown to be unnecessary, even if they are expensive.
5. But they are not expensive, unless the weight of evidence regarding three well known
technologies is wrong. These involve absorbing carbon dioxide by growing biomass
intensively.
6. The quantities involved are so great that they can only be disposed of by being used
as raw material for a renewable energy system, replacing fossil fuels. Applications
technologies include combined cycle gas turbines for electricity generation and the
fermentation of biomass to alcohol fuels for vehicles.
7. A two to three decade timescale is required for these technologies to diffuse
inexpensively into the mainstream of the global energy economy, as existing plant is
retired. By the end of that period more advanced renewable technologies will probably
begin to penetrate the market.
8. It would be wrong to simply sit back and await the more advanced technologies
since, firstly they may take longer than hoped for to develop, and secondly, if nature
turns out to have nasty surprises in store, a stitch in time can save nine.
9. Within the timescale, growth in LDC's energy use will result in a doubling of
emissions unless global collaboration is achieved. The biomass technologies give a
competitive advantage to LDC's located in hot wet climates.
9. LDC's collaboration requires compenstion for not using their known coal reserves. A
scheme for Fossil Fuel Abstention Rewards (FFAR's) is targetted on that objective.
11. A combination of the two measures, TCAD and FFAR, can achieve a result of
mutual advantage to a politically effective majority of nations. A side advantage could
be a substantial reduction in the Third World Debt problem as part of a global deal for
securing LDC collaboration.
12. The forthcoming UNCED cannot be expected to reach agreement on these lines but
we may hope for a Framework Convention which either gives explicit recognition to the
net emission concept, as an alternative to limiting gross emissions, or which can be
conveniently amended to do so.
13. Implementation of net emissions targets requires machinery for international
monitoring of biomass production and for research and technical assistance
programmes. Specifically, there is a need for a commitment to a massive 'ground
truthing' of GIS data to establish global knowledge of land capability.
14. Also needed is a commitment to a major training programme in the bio-technical
and other skills required for the realisation of the globally coordinated programme which
may, towards the end of this decade, be recognised to be necessary.
15. The most formidable obstacles to securing an atmosphere made safe for our
grandchildren appear to be political rather than technical or economic.
All this began for me when I asked myself a while back 'is there enough land in
the world to grow cheaply all the fuel that we need?' It rather looks as though there is,
but the massive research effort called for in 13 above is needed in order to be sure.
I know you are a busy man, but may I ask you to get one of your staff to brief
you on the Chapter which I am forwarding. I will be in Washington from 19th to 22nd
November and would be glad to discuss my work with one of your staff. I can be
contacted by return FAX or c/o 3624 Van Ness St NW, Washington DC 20008.
Subsequently I would be willing to let you have a copy of the publisher's draft,
say end February. I hope that, by the time the book is in the shops, you will have got on
with putting a lot of the $76 billions of research money - which Scientific American says
will be spent in 1992 - on having a good look at the supply curve for cheap renewables.
And that a more active policy on emissions than 'no regrets' is appropriate for the USA -
so long as the focus is on net emissions rather than just on cutting back gross
emissions.
Yours sincerely,
Pathaw
Peter Read.
Preliminary draft (5.Nov): not for quotation or reproduction
WHAT TO DO ABOUT
GLOBAL WARMING
- EVEN IF IT ISN'T HAPPENING
- AND EVEN IF IT MIGHT BE A GOOD THING
PETER READ
Contents (draft of late Oct with revised Ch1:- pp 18-37 repeat)
Preface
1
Introduction and Summary
1
2
The Basic Science of Global Warming
18
3
Political Decisions in an Uncertain World
47
4
Sustainable Energy Technology
72
5
Economics Theory and the Environment
108
6
The Coarse Economics of Pollution Policy
130
7
Controlling the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect
158
8
The Political Economy of Global Redevelopment
with Energy Environment Sustainability
176
9
Brazil 1992 and After
198
10
Cautions and Conclusions extra preliminary draft 236
Appendix New Zealand Application in draft
254
Suggestions for further readings
Glossary of abbrieviations, etc.
Preface
There is nothing very original in this book. I had been in the habit of waking up early and saying
to myself "Why on earth don't they get on with it and put the stuff back underground?" After
some of that I thought I'd better ask around a bit and found that nobody else seemed to be
thinking on those lines. Having spent most of my life working on energy questions of one sort
and another, I found that rather surprising. Anyway, that question was the origin of the 'making
coal' idea, which plays a minor part in these pages, and which was what got me going.
But the broad scheme which I develop is obvious to anybody who knows a bit about energy
technology and who has a training in economics to go with it. I suppose my experience a decade
ago, working with the Open University's Alternative Technology and Energy Research Group,
was fairly special. And the years I spent working in Whitehall with what used, rather
wonderfully, to be called the 'Ministry of Power' may have given me a bent towards thinking in
policy terms. But there must be dozens of people equally as competant to come up with a
solution to the global warming problem on the lines described in this book, and I can't think why
they left it to me.
If there's a spark of originality, it lies perhaps in the economic instrument I have devised for
making it happen, if the politicians are inclined so to do, which I call the Tradeable Carbon
Absorption Duty. But as nobody else seems to have got around to stating what seems so
obvious, and as there may be a danger that much worse answers will be adopted such as doing
nothing and hoping for the best, or imposing mind boggling levels of taxation on carbon
emissions I have written it down in the hope it will catch on in due course.
As is stated at the outset, this is a work of advocacy, addressed to a general readership.
Accordingly it is not burdened with the plethora of citations that afflict academic work. Of
course acknowledgement is made to specific borrowings from the work of others, and my
intellectual and practical debts are recognised below. Apart from a few footnotes on points of -
hopefully interesting detail, the reader may read on uninterruptedly. Suggestions for further
reading are given at the end of the book.
For my title I am indebted to an American climatologist who spoke to a recent international
conference. He seemed to believe that the possibility that prospective climate change could have
'mostly beneficial effects' was sufficient grounds for acting as though that outcome is a
certainty. However it is a well known fact that the only way to stop it raining is to carry an
umbrella, and even that doesn't always work.
My chief debts are to my mentors in engineering and economics. Arthur Shercliff to whom this
book is dedicated and whose untimely death was such a loss to Cambridge engineering
suggested I get into alternative technology at a time when I was finding Whitehall a mite
frustrating. Richard Layard suffered me kindly at the LSE, as a student mature to the point of
over-ripeness. I also learned a lot in Whitehall, perhaps more from Ray Willmott than most, and
at the Open University where I am much beholden to Godfrey Boyle. In the last ten years I have
been lucky to work at Massey University where my research interests have had ample rein. In
particular I owe much to the indulgence of my colleagues in the Economics Department, most of
whom teach more hours than I, and to the generosity of the arrangements for study leave. In the
process of developing this book I am indebted to many who have been kind enough to read
different parts of it. In particular to David Lomax, editor of the National Westminster Bank
Review, where some of this material first saw the light of day, and Mick Common, who helped
me to understand this as not just a problem in environmental economics. For my family, who
put up with me and, extended, kindly put me up, no words can suffice. Of course nobody named
or unnamed above can be held in any way responsible for what I have made of their wisdom and
help.
Chapter 1
Introduction and Summary
This book is a work of advocacy. It is intended to give new hope that the problem of global
warming can be dealt with at acceptable cost by a collaborative effort worldwide. Hopes have
dimmed that such an effort would, on the basis of work now being done towards a Framework
Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), be initiated at the second United Nations Conference
on the Environment and Development (UNCED), to be held in Brazil in June. Bickering and
procedural wrangling in the FCCC process have been symptomatic of deep seated
disagreements.
These have roots in the feelings of some rich nations that some poor countries see the UNCED as
a platform to castigate the rich for sins of commission and omission in the history of
development assistance, and the proposed FCCC as an instrument for extracting a high price
from the rich countries in order to secure poor countries' cooperation in measures to protect the
environment and to secure its future development on a sustainable basis. The feelings of the rich
countries are reflected in poor countries' beliefs that global warming and other concerns about
the environment have been brought about by rich countries, are of no immediate concern to poor
countries, and are for rich countries to deal with at their own expense.
Essentially, most parties are engaged in taking up prepared positions from which to protect
perceived national interests and it is naive to suppose that they will disinterestedly apply
themselves to solving a shared global problem. In this book it will be shown how common
interest may be found in dealing with the external environmental effect of global warming that
arises from the workings of the energy market as it currently operates.
1
Of course, above all in a work of advocacy, one must be careful to be accurate. It is not certain
that there is a global warming problem and, if there is, it is almost certainly not due exclusively
to commercial energy activities. But it will be argued that precautionary action should be taken
until we are certain there is NOT a problem, that commercial energy activities almost certainly
have a lot to do with it if there is a problem, and that it is by changing our commercial energy
activities, in a deliberate and gradual way over the next few decades, that we can most surely and
cheaply deal with the problem.
Furthermore, it will be argued that if we become sure that there is no problem, the cost of having
taken unnecessary measures would not be very great, whereas, if we do nothing for ten to fifteen
years and then find that the problem is in fact very serious, the cost of action begun then may be
very great. In other words, the precautionary adage 'a stitch in time saves nine' is applicable.
The example of the Montreal convention on ozone destroying CFC's (chloro- fluoro-carbons
used in refrigeration and aerosol cans) gives lie to the cynics who claim that international
collaboration is a hopeless endeavour. However, EGE (Enhanced Greenhouse Effect) as the
global warming problem is now being called, presents a much more difficult problem. With
CFC's, the major players in the business had developed alternative products and expected to do
well out of the elimination of the older CFC's where they no longer had control of the market.
Alternative products to fossil fuels do exist but major energy firms have no control of that
market. One of the features of the proposals discussed in this book, implemented through a
Tradable Carbon Absorption Duty (TCAD) is that it provides a framework for a continuing
major role for existing energy firms, thereby softening one of the prospective resistances to
effective action. However, the major cause for despondency, amongst those concerned to hand
over a healthy globe to the next generation, is the perception that effective action on EGE would
be so prohibitively expensive that politicians will choose to do nothing about global warming
until too late.
2
It,is the claim of this book that this perception is incorrect. The basis of this claim is recent
advances in two areas of alternative energy technology research, and one advance in mainstream
energy technology. These suggest that, although not quite economic at the present time, only a
small penalty would be involved in achieving control over the rate of CO2 emissions through
their progressive adoption over the next few decades. They would be showing net benefits (in
addition to the benefit of effective control over the EGE problem) by around 2020.
Thus the main theme of the book is technological and economic. But a subsidiary theme lies in
the field of political economy and relates to the history of development and under-development.
The problem of sustainability facing future global development, outlined in the Brundtland
Report 'Our Common Future', is not simply one of coping with EGE. Whether failure to do
anything about that problem would lead to climatic catastrophe we will hopefully never know for
sure. But that there is some limit to the number of people that can live on this planet, and that it
is inversely related to the per capita impact each makes upon the environment seems beyond
doubt.
Whether that implies also a limit to per capita consumption, or whether alternative, non-
environmentally damaging directions for improving our standard of living will evolve, is more
open to question. But the introduction of sustainability considerations into the direction of
human development requires a change of course to a system that has immense internal
momentum. For that change to be enforced by a painful, possibly fatal lesson from nature, rather
than the attempt made to bring it about by conscious effort, would be a dereliction of this
generation's duty to posterity.
Immense momentum requires either immense force and a sudden damaging crunch for its
redirection, or moderate force applied consistently over a long time. To manage such a global
scale change of direction is a challenge to world statesmen, suddenly released from
preoccupation with the Cold War. Whilst there are no short term electoral victories to be won
from successes in meeting that challenge, neither were there in the Cold War. Rather was it seen
as politically suicidal to pander to totalitarian communism.
3
So, equally, must it become suicidal for politicians to deviate from working for the common
good of a viable posterity. For that to happen there must be the same public commitment to our
common future as there has been to the maintainance of liberty. That commitment requires
continuing with the education of the electorate which has been so great an achievement of
environmental pressure groups and the media, however cranky some of their campaigns may at
times seem to be.
But for hope to be sustained, for the advocacy of this book to be plausible, it has to seem
possible that a way forward can be found that does not require unlikely revolutions of the
consumerist manifestations of mass economic behaviour. So a subsidiary theme of this book is
to trace out, perforce in general terms within the pages of a single volume, a feasible path for
change. Over the next few decades this path can, unless nature holds in store some truly dreadful
surprises, put the globe in shape to get global warming under control by the middle of the next
century.
However, it is a path that cannot be followed to its end without the willing involvement of the
majority of nations. Achieving this requires the developed nations to give a lead and to accept
what I call the 'burden of history' in a new relationship with less developed nations. The burden
is likely to be not very great and short term in nature, leading to an outcome of mutual advantage
to almost all nations.
The possibility of that coming about depends upon our leaders developing sustained
statemanship to parallel the miraculous achievements of President Gorbachev since 1985.
However likely or unlikely that may seem, the viability of the political path that is outlined under
this subsidiary theme should not be muddled up with the feasibility of the technological and
economic message which is the main theme.
The political path is one that will pioneer the track that must be followed in dealing with the
increasing problems thrown up by the dominance of nature by homo sapiens. It is a track that
4
may enable the world to turn away from eventual ecological disaster. It may be followed in an
untidy and muddled way, through initiatives by individual countries, such as New Zealand,
through bilateral and/or regional arrangements, or under a global agreement negotiated through
the good offices of the United Nations Environment Programme. One can only hope that
statesmen seize the opportunity. But if they fail, we can - to return to our main theme - be sure
that it is not because the task is technically impossible or economically very painful.
Sustainable energy at practicable cost
That the sustainable energy path outlined in this book eventually shows net benefits in the direct
cost of delivered energy does not, of course, mean that fuel prices will be at or below their
present level in 2020. We face rising fuel prices (in real terms, i.e. exclusive of the effect of
general inflation) because it is getting harder and harder to find and extract new supplies of oil,
and because the dominant position of Middle East reserves will give long run market power to
suppliers in that region (quite apart from strategic costs involved in sustaining friendly regimes
there).
Furthermore, by competing with oil and limiting the growth of its market, the alternative
technologies will prevent oil prices rising as much as they otherwise would. So the eventual cost
saving may appear less real than it is. However, as direct cost savers before the end of the
century - the motivation, with apparently endlessly rising oil prices in the early 1980's, for
initiating the research which has now born fruit - these technologies are not a great success. But
when it comes to cutting net CO2 emissions they are a knockout.
By using sustainable technologies based upon intensive fuel wood production - and its
gasification for modern gas turbine based power generation, together with chemical processing
to ethanol for motor transport fuels we can achieve effective control over the rate of CO2
emissions and, over time, reach a desired level of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. As far
as existing extractive industries are concerned, the bad news is that this means more or less doing
away with burning coal and, to a lesser extent, oil, over the next few decades.
5
But the good news is that the TCAD will ensure that they remain the major operators in the
energy market, but based upon wood-fuel as the raw material. The idea of more or less doing
away with coal and oil extraction and devoting vast areas to intensive fuel-wood production
raises questions of acceptability and credibility which we come to shortly, and in more detail in
later Chapters, merely noting that the land requirement does not seem to be so great, in
competition with food production, as to present an insuperable obstacle over the next few
decades.
However, it may be mentioned at this stage that the notion, advocated in some quarters, that the
EGE problem be solved by creating "carbon sinks" - to drain CO2 out of the atmosphere as fast
as the man-made (anthropogenic) CO2 sources (principly fossil fuel burning and tropical forest
burn-off) pour it in - will not do. It will not do because it provides only a very temporary
solution; the sink will fill up because there is not enough land available to do the job that way.
To absorb CO2 at a given rate, long rotation tree growing, which is what would best provide
such a sink, takes three to five times as much land as short rotation intensive fuelwood
production techniques. And it cannot be done by creating sinks in the oceans as the transfer of
CO2 to the oceans goes on at a natural rate which cannot be hastened (and, indeed, may be
slowed as one of the undesirable side effects of global warming). However, tree growing that is
partly justified for other reasons, to combat soil erosion or provide windbreaks for instance,
amongst a variety of amenity and conservation values, can certainly help boost the initial take off
towards sustainability.
But with intensive fuel wood production using short rotation techniques such as coppicing,
which involves cutting the tree crop at frequent intervals to get rapid re-growth from rootstock
left in the ground, something has to be done with the crop. It would swamp the market for
conventional timber if it were of commercial quality and the only answers to this disposal
problem are either to bury it or to use the wood as fuel. The static 'carbon sink' concept is then
replaced by a dynamic carbon fuel cycle concept which can, with care and with some degree of
6
international cooperation, do the trick. The concern of this book, showing how to achieve
effective control of CO2 levels in the atmosphere, therefore means a technological transition for
the world's energy industries.
The investment needed to achieve such a transition averages about 10 per cent on raw energy
prices over about 25 years, peaking at less than 20 per cent around 2005, a politically realistic
prospect given that concerns regarding the EGE will thereby be met (and that raw energy costs
are only a fraction of the total cost of supplying customized energy products such as gas through
pipes, electricity by wire and automotive fuels into the tank). Because the elasticity of supply - -
an economists' term that captures the notion of how easily an activity such as this cheap and
renewable energy base could be expanded is large, net emissions could, at this low cost, be
reduced to the rate at which CO2 is absorbed naturally, with no further increase in its level in the
atmosphere.
If climatological research eventually shows that it is necessary to reduce the level of CO2 in the
atmosphere, that also can be done, at slightly greater cost how much greater depending on how
quickly such a policy acceleration is required to act. If claims that the Enhanced Greenhouse
Effect is not happening - or alternatively is on balance desirable - turn out to be true, the cost of
having begun the policy are negligible: the trees can simply be allowed to grow to maturity for
eventual commercial use. Hence the extended title of this book. Essentially, these technologies
change the EGE problem from one which can at best be mitigated, or perhaps one to which the
globe must perforce adapt, to one which can be controlled to the benefit of the natural
environment and of this and future generations.
In contrast, the current perception amongst politicians and their advisors is that energy prices
would need to increase by 100 per cent to achieve only a 20 per cent reduction in Carbon
Dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2020. That perception is based on the assumption made by
economic analysts that the solution to the problem must be by deterring emissions. They
calculate that a 100 per cent Carbon Tax is needed in order to deter fuel consumption and induce
higher efficiency in use.
7
The difference between that scenario and the scheme outlined in this book is twofold. Firstly,
the revenue from the (quite modest) fuel price increases envisaged is fed directly into the
development of the alternative fuel wood based technologies, thus affecting both the demand
side and the supply side of the energy market. Secondly, this scenario is focussed on net
emissions, rather than the gross emissions which provide the focus of the current perception.
It should be emphasised that the real problem is not the rate of emissions of CO2 into the
atmosphere, but the level of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. This is rising because fossil
fuels emit CO2 without providing any mechanism for its recapture. However, biomass absorbs
CO2 during the plant's growth process so that, on a net basis, and over the duration of the
growth and use cycle, first absorbing and then emitting, it leaves the CO2 level unaffected.
Biomass based energy technologies therefore provide the basis for a renewable and sustainable
energy system, providing enough land is available for growing the fuel wood, which seems
likely to be the case. Furthermore, when burned efficiently in modern equipment, fuelwood is
virtually free of the sulphur and nitrous oxide emissions which bedevil the use of fossil fuels.
Other technologies and economizing behaviour.
It should be mentioned that the emphasis on fuel wood production in this book - and its use for
fueling furnaces and gas turbine power generation, together with conversion to ethanol for use as
a transport fuel - is not intended to preclude other types of biomass (biomass being the term
given in energy technology to any fuel raw material that is derived from plant material) or other
types of biomass processing that yields fuel for industrial and other users, together with possible
transport fuels. Rather are these particular technologies emphasized because they are known and
practicable. They may thus be regarded as 'backstop technologies', a term used by economists
to describe a technology that can be used if nothing better is available and which accordingly
places an upper limit on the cost of doing whatever it is that the technology does.
8
Almost certainly better technologies than those emphasized in this book will become available,
or improvements made to them, in which case the approach which is advocated will be less
costly (or more beneficial) than claimed above. Thus, in general, references to fuel wood should
be taken to mean fuel wood or some other better source of biomass. And references to the
utilisation technologies mentioned above are to these or to some other better utilisation
technologies based upon using biomass raw material.
Additionally, the price increases that are forecast to take place in any case, together with the
additional approximately 10% cost increases arising from the progressive adoption of these
alternative technologies, will induce economizing behaviour in all areas of energy supply and
demand. Such behaviour (encouraged by public interest policies to break down the barriers of
ignorance and prejudice which currently inhibit it - the so-called zero regret option) is
anticipated in the cost estimates reported above. This has been done by making the simple
assumption that the 'business as usual' scenario, against which the 10% cost increases are
measured, will involve unchanging effective demand for conventional fuels, with growth in final
end use (resulting from continued growth of economic activity) reflected by economizing
behaviour between the mine head, the refinery gate, or the fuel wood coppice and the final end
use, be that the frying of an egg or daily transport to work.
Such economising behaviour, including for instance the adoption of more efficient power
generating plant and the more widespread use of diesel engines in motor vehicles (yes, ethanol
can be used in diesel engines with the incorporation of additives, 'cetane improvers', to secure
smooth burning) is not greatly dwelt on in this book. This does not mean that it is regarded as
unimportant - quite the contrary - but that it would greatly overburden the text to elaborate on all
the multifarious ways in which such economizing behaviour will take place.
Certainly the focus in this book, on biomass technologies for providing the raw material supply
for a sustainable energy future, is not intended to imply that they are the only technologies that
will play a part in dealing with global warming. Rather is it the message that biomass
technologies provide an assurance that all the effort that will be going into economizing
9
behaviour will not be wasted on ineffectually mitigating a possibly catastrophic climate change
but can form part of an effective global programme for dealing with the problem.
Global redevelopment
The best places for intensive fuel wood production are the hot and wet tropical regions that have
seen so much destruction of primeval rain forest since World War 2. An effect of implementing
the environmentally sustainable energy future proposed in this book could therefore be a shift in
rich country spending away from oil producing countries to impoverished third world countries,
as wage income to workers in fuel wood plantations. This shift might be expected to do much to
relieve the Third World Debt problem which threatens the stability of the rich nations' financial
system as well as providing cash income to relieve famines, which are due far more to poverty
than to the contrariness of nature. Thus the proposals in this book might be expected to yield a
new and more equitable pattern of development as well as a remedy to the EGE problem.
However, the doubting 'might' rather than the more confident 'may' has been used in order to
introduce a note of caution. The poorer countries have complex and precarious patterns of
dependence on the soil which are better understood within the discipline of social anthropology
than market oriented economics. For rich countries, or commercial organizations based in rich
countries, to go barging in with the vast cash flows that would be yielded by diverting current
payments for OPEC and other oil supplies, in order to grab millions of acres of land for growing
trees to fuel the profligate energy demands of the rich, is a prospect that raises both panic and
derision amongst those with experience of land use problems in poor countries.
Panic because a new colonialism based on corporate rather than sovereign power is conjured up.
With the politicians, who might be expected to concern themselves with the interests of their
own poor people bought off by corporate bribery, the peasants, deprived of land for their
traditional subsistence farming, would become dependent on wages, ground down by
competition, to meet the necessities of life. A new plantation slavery would emerge, driven to
poverty by unsustainable depletion of soil fertility, with cash replacing the lash.
10
Derision because experience of tropical agriculture shows that such 'top down' enterprise in
developing countries, which does not mobilize the knowledge and ingenuity of the people on the
ground in a way that meets their own needs and aspirations, is doomed to failure. For those old
enough to remember, the 'ground nuts scheme' became a by-word for the failure of well
meaning but poorly conceived agricultural enterprise in poor countries.
To what extent the resistances that have been met from poor countries, in the skirmishing that
surround the FCCC/UNCED process, are based upon such apprehensions, and to what extent
they are based upon simple opportunism directed at extracting the maximum advantage from
environmental concern coming from the rich, it is hard to say. In the main most probably the
latter since the approach advocated in this book, though not a new concept, is not, as a coherent
framework of ideas, widely known to those engaged in the negotiating process. But certainly
they are apprehensions that should concern anybody from a rich country making proposals that
imply extensive use of land in poor countries.
Given the right conditions of local involvement,it would be more efficient to grow trees for fuel
purposes in hot, wet, and usually poor, countries. Given the ground nuts experience, it would
clearly be inefficient to try to do so if the right conditions did not exist.
Fortunately it is not necessary to use such land this century since sufficient woody waste material
is currently unused - and sufficient under- utilized land exists for fuel wood cropping in the rich
countries - for the process of conversion to a fuel wood based energy system to go a very long
way before any hot wet land need be used. How the poorer countries can become aware of their
comparative advantage in fuel wood production and learn to resolve some of their development
and economic problems by selling a new 'invisible export' of pollution clean up services to rich
countries is a complex matter that may be resolved in different ways in different countries, as is
considered later in this book.
However, the prospect remains that such a desirable outcome can, with wisdom and foresight, be
brought about by implementing schemes that reflect the concept - that is to say the coherent body
11
of ideas - presented in this book, thus benefiting both rich and poor countries in the coming few
decades, as well as handing on an atmosphere made safe for future generations. Accordingly this
coherent body of ideas is called the GREENS concept, standing for Global Redevelopment and
Energy Environment Sustainability.
It is hoped that readers' objections to the addition of yet another acronym (and I fear a few more
later on) to the number already encountered are partly met by the inclusion at page [XX] of a
quick reference list of all the acronyms that appear in this book. This particular acronym, it may
need to be said, is not intended to convey any political platform - a concern for the environment
is common currency amongst all modern political parties. Rather is it in the spirit of maternal
admonitions to "eat your greens up dear, because they are good for you".
History and politics
That there is little justice in this world provides scant consolation to the underpriviledged, be
they indivduals oppressed by their boss, ethnic or religious minorities by their local majorities, or
impoverished nations that have gained little from the process of industrialisation. The
governments of such less developed countries (LDC's) are informed, more often than not, by
dependency theories of the development process. Such theories hold that the advance of more
developed countries is at the expense of the less developed and that the capitalist system
substitutes economic power for military power in a neo-colonialism that took over when old
empire ended. There is no need, in this book, to take a position on that confused and confusing
debate. History cannot be re-run and it must be accepted that, on account of their relative lack of
economic progress, many less developed countries hold resentful attitudes towards richer
countries.
That is a burden which history imposes on the present and which has the potential to frustrate
achievement of the hopeful prospect that has just been signalled. The forces of emotion hold
unforseeable perversions of backward looking logic which can leave constructive visions for the
future in the trash dump. Witness Northern Ireland, the Punjab, Palestine, and now, again it
seems, the Balkans.
12
Thus the achievement of hope fulfilled, along the lines of the GREENS concept, must depend
not upon its imposition by powerful nations, nor upon its acceptability to all nations, but upon
some combination of economic power and partial consensus. And perhaps upon partial and
incomplete fulfilment in the early stages, with regional and/or bilateral arrangements anticipating
its effective global coverage.
For the imposition of an energy technological transformation by force of arms is obviously
ridiculous, and its imposition by economic power for instance trade sanctions - would be
counter-productive in relation to some of the major players in the game, most notably coal rich
China. (Turned in on itself by external economic pressure, China would have no reason to
refrain from using its vast resource of cheap coal). No more can reliance be placed on consensus,
open as it is to obstruction by individual nations seeking to gain leverage for ulterior purposes. It
would not do, for instance, for global agreement on GREENS to be held up by, say, Syrian
conditionality related to the resolution of its dispute with Israel over the Golan Heights.
But out of the operation of GREENS some countries would gain more than others, and some,
most notably coal rich countries in the first instance, would lose. The argument that would
certainly be made by such losers that happen also to be less developed, is that rich countries have
got where they are by using up more than their fair share of the atmosphere's capacity to absorb
CO2 pollution. A response from rich nations that they got where they are today by their own
enterprise and that the whole world benefits immensely from the fruits of economic prosperity
would fall on deaf ears.
It would not satisfy those that have benefitted only from the crumbs falling off the rich man's
table. Especially those newly developing countries which, at the threshold of their own
economic take off, find themselves asked by well-fed whitey to construct their own table in a
more costly manner than was used by whitey himself in his hungrier young days. That the
alternative energy technologies to be described in Chapter 4 are not much more costly than the
fossil fuel technologies they can replace, maybe even cheaper in some circumstances, is a help in
13
practical terms. But it remains the case that there are some LDC's that have vast resources of
cheap coal - and indeed that its cheapness arises in part precisely because they are less developed
and consequentially pay low mining wages.
Accordingly, in achieving partial consensus involving at least those LDC's which are in a
position to seriously vitiate the operation of a GREENS type scheme, there are two separate
problems to be faced. One, problem A, is the problem arising from current energy needs, a
problem that can be resolved by a transition to the alternative biomass based technologies that
have been mentioned. As suggested, such a GREENS style resolution potentially carries rich
rewards for LDC's that are in a position to provide a venue for the large scale growing of
fuelwood on behalf of rich nations. To the extent that the GREENS technologies leave other
LDC's somewhat better off than they would be under present prospects of having to import oil,
then such other LDC's do not present a substantial difficulty.
However, the second problem, problem B, resulting from past use of fossil fuels by already rich
nations, gives rise to the need to compensate those LDC's that have their own resources of cheap
fossil fuels and which, for the operation of GREENS to be effective, must be persuaded to
forego the benefit from exporting them - and indeed are asked to forego the benefit of using them
within their own territory. Of course, almost all countries have fossil fuel resources of some sort,
but account needs to be taken only of those resources which are cheaper to exploit than it would
be to use the backstop renewable technologies.
Since problem B arises as a consequence of yesterday's actions, no purpose is served by
burdening today's emiters of CO2 with the cost of dealing with the problem, or tomorrow's for
that matter. The problem of how to persuade, say, China to refrain from using its cheap coal
would not go away even if today's emissions by other countries were reduced to zero in response
to such a burden, since problem B arises as a consequence of the accumulation of past emissions.
Thus, while the economic mechanism that is proposed in this book for dealing with problem A
constitutes a particular way of influencing private behaviour through 'internalising the market
externality' - to use some economists jargon which is explained in Chapter 5 - problem B is
14
more appropriately dealt with on a government to government basis that does not directly affect
the choices that are made in the energy market.
For this, the funds needed to compensate for non-use of fossil fuels are related to the relative
level of under-development of different LDC's, to their relative endowment with low cost fossil
fuels, and to the difference in costs between using that endowment and using alternative
renewable biomass fuels (as a measure of the LDC's sacrifice in not using fossil fuels).
Similarly, the raising of such funds would be related to the different historic contributions of rich
countries to the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere (allowing for natural absorption). In
practice, delivery of such compensatory funds could well - at least in part - take the form of relief
of the Third World debts which impose such a strain on private sector international money
markets. In that case relevant LDC obligations to the private sector finance institutions of rich
countries would become a liability of rich country's governments or of their central banks.
To describe such an arrangement as politics rather than economics may be a distinction without a
difference: political will is needed to implement a solution to either problem whilst each solution
is amenable to quantification based upon the estimation of economic activities. However,
problem B relates to economic activity in the past and is more of the nature of accountancy than
economic policy, insofar as it is not designed to influence today's actions of agents in the
market, or tomorrow's.
Furthermore it is designed in response to grievances held at the national level, and involving
national prides and prejudices, and hence may be regarded as essentially in the realm of politics
rather than economics. In essence such an arrangement provides a basis upon which the political
will for collaboration in dealing with global warming may be built. In addition, it provides a
pretext for doing something about dismantling the third world debt problem. Many would regard
this as desirable in its own right, for the health and stability of the world financial system. But
without some such ulterior pretext as is being suggested, it is an action which it is difficult to
undertake on account of the precedent which such debt relief provides to potential debt
defaulters in the future.
15
Economists and engineers.
It is perhaps worthwhile taking time to understand why it is that well intentioned analysts come
up with very different answers when trying to answer the question of how much it is going to
cost to deal with EGE. Two quite different modes of thought are involved when engineers and
economists address themselves to this question. Economics has been said to be about 'making
the best of things' whereas an engineer has been defined as 'a person who can do for six pence
(2.5p in the modern coinage) what any fool can do for a shilling (5p)'.
The economist is trained to believe that people behave rationally and therefore produce as
cheaply as possible given the available technology. If you say to them that there are better
(cheaper) ways of, for instance, producing cabbages, they will ask you why it is not being done,
why is it that profit loving business people are not in there producing cabbages more cheaply and
underselling the current producers. Well-trained modern economists recognize that there are
costs involved in acquiring information, and in getting into a business where others are already
engaged, which explain the slowness with which new technologies diffuse into the productive
system.
An engineer however, faced with a problem, is trained to acquire applicable information and to
come up with an answer: if it's cheaper than continuing to bear with the problem well and good,
if it's not then its 'back to the drawing board'. It is this constant striving to improve on the status
quo - sometimes altruistic, sometimes motivated by the sheer pleasure of problem solving, and
often (always according to the crasser type of economist) spurred on by profit seeking which
sharply differentiates the engineer from the economist.
The latter's mental set is towards optimizing in the context of constraints presented by a known,
or calculably risky, state of the world as it is. It is the engineer's improving approach which
offers hope that the problems set by an increasingly complex and interactive global society can
be satisfactorily resolved in the context of a decision taking framework that takes prudent
account of our uncertainty, or even plain ignorance, regarding many aspects of our situation.
16
The two disciplines tend to give very different answers because engineers employ a 'bottom up'
approach which involves new technologies, or putting together known technologies in a different
way, and thus alter the productive possibilities available to the economy. Economists solve the
problem in a 'top down' way taking as given some model of the economy as a whole and seeing
how it would have to alter its behaviour in order to reduce carbon emissions. By a model of the
economy is meant an abstraction, usually in the form of a set of mathematical equations
representing those parts of economic theory which pertain to the problem, with the equations
'calibrated' by reference to past behaviour.
Subjectivity enters when, as is often the case, there is more than one theory which purports to
explain a given economic phenomenon and bias arises when the statistics available fail to
conform exactly to the economic concepts they are used to represent. Thus the behaviour of the
model may reflect the behaviour of the real world only rather loosely. However, this approach
has the advantage that it can take account of the complex system effects that follow from a
change to one small part of it, whereas the engineer's problem solving approach is perforce
partial and local.
To an economist, since the economy has always shown a close link between energy use and
production, and since energy use, within past technological experience, has always been closely
linked to fossil fuel use, which means CO2 emissions, the expectation is that abatement of CO2
emissions results in a corresponding loss of production. Production in an economy is
conceptually quite clear but its measurement, as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a little bit
murky.
One way of thinking of it is as being equivalent to the payments made to the owners of all the
inputs to production (wages to workers, rents to landowners and royalties to landowners who are
lucky enough to be sitting on minerals such as coal and oil, interest to the suppliers of finance
and profits to entrepreneurs and risk takers). Note that nobody pays mother nature for her inputs.
Lost production thus means both less for people to consume and, to balance it, less income for
17
the owners of the inputs, and therefore a reduced standard of living - - in short a very costly
business. 'Bottom up' analyses on the other hand, usually show the cost of reducing CO2
emissions to be small or, even, not a cost at all, but a benefit.
The two disciplines come together in what is called 'cost benefit analysis' (CBA) in which
economists' rules are applied to evaluate the system effect of a particular change proposed by an
engineer. Indeed, this book in essence takes its departure from a rudimentary cost-benefit
analysis of the impact of technological advances mentioned above (intensive fuel wood
production, gas turbine power generation and biomass to ethanol by a fermentation process) on
the assumption they are applied on a global basis.
However, even if the result were considerably less attractive than it turns out to be, it is argued
herein that precautionary steps to anticipate the possible climate effect of rising CO2
concentrations should still be taken. One reason for this, amongst others to be discussed later, is
that CBA is only properly applicable when the project under consideration is small in relation to
the economy as a whole, so that the penalty from being wrong is not very great and can be set
against the risks arising from a multiplicity of other small projects. This is clearly not the case
for a one off decision like globally agreed policy towards global warming.
For it to be argued - as has been by one extremely clever economist writing in the widely read
and influential Economist magazine that because climate affects only agriculture, forestry and
fishing, which constitute only 4 per cent of US GDP, then the damage is likely to be insignificant
even if EGE occurs, is really rather silly. One may as well say that, because the air we breathe
makes no contribution to GNP, we can quite easily do without it. Furthermore it demonstrates a
certain insularity of approach given that the bulk of the world's population can far less easily do
without 4 per cent of their income than can affluent US citizens.
Most of these poorer countries are far more dependent upon climate than for a mere 4% of their
output. Subsistence farmers are 100 per cent dependent upon climate. In relation to a single,
global, and essential asset such as climate, a much more cautious decision taking framework than
18
CBA is needed. Accordingly we shall, despite the attractiveness of the rudimentary cost-benefit
results that have been mentioned, be looking at the implications of the technological approach
that is being advocated from a precautionary perspective.
Acceptability and credibility.
Apart from the disagreements that have been mentioned, as between rich nations and poor, quite
other disagreements exist, and much closer to home, to entrap the would-be reformer of our
energy system. Indeed, it sometimes seems, in advancing the GREENS concept, that the twin
navigational dangers have grown together, leaving no passage between the Scylla of
conservative industry pouring scorn on the notion that fossil fuels oil in particular - might ever
be dispensed with, and the Charybdis of environmentalists, snarling with disappointment that a
technical fix might be found for their longed for ultimate obstacle to hated growth. It is not out
of deference to the feelings of the latter group that this book is not entitled 'how to fix global
warming' since the GREENS concept involves far more than just a shift in energy technology.
Neither, however, has the zero - or even negative growth path seemed to be a sensible
component of a practicable basis for a sustainable energy future. Apart from the damage that
would result from a crash stop to the immense momentum referred to previously, a moral
difficulty arises. For zero growth would be to condemn billions of the world's population to a no
hope future since there is certainly no prospect of rich nations pooling their attained standard of
living with that of the less well off. Greater equity between nations can only come about by the
less well off growing more rapidly than the rich, with the latter comfortably enough off to accept
slow growth.
Nor can the prospect of the motor car's demise be taken seriously: clearly it is out of place in
congested city centres, and the growing recognition by even rightist politicians of the need for
public transport that works - in the sense of being willingly used by the bulk of inner city
travellers - is a hopeful sign that this particular kind of 'no regret' economizing behaviour will
yield significant emissions reductions in many places. But nobody who has taken children on
19
holiday, who has taken commercial samples around, or who has to do the weekly shopping
would seriously doubt the immense benefits yielded by Henry Ford's invention of the mass
produced auto.
But even though GREENS posits no such implausible assault on consumerism, there remains a
credibility gap in the concept, given the record in energy related matters of successive US
administrations in the 1980's. To criticize the administration from a foreign base is to risk
alienating just those US citizens whom one most hopes to influence: when a foreigner criticizes
even the most outrageous actions of the British government - say in Northern Ireland - the most
liberal of Brits will start talking about the kneecappings of the Provos. Equally, when the US
criticizes New Zealand's nuclear free policy, Kiwis start in on the Americans Cup and the
iniquities, not to mention inequities, of New York State's Court of Appeal.
But, however great ones admiration may be for the Constitution of the USA, with its checks and
balances, its countervailing powers and its liberty of expression, however beholden to the
generosity and kindness of many Americans, however moved by the great achievements of
Americans in the performing and creative arts, and however aware that the roots of modern
concern for the environment were sprung in the USA (and still largely watered by American
money) it remains the case that the Reagan era, heralded by the symbolic dismantling of solar
panels from the roof of the White House, brought in a most foolish and damaging episode in US
energy policy.
Damaging not only in the profligate use of exhaustible resources in careless unconcern for later
generations and in consequential pollution of the atmosphere, but damaging in withdrawal from
the economizing behaviour of other nations that has seen the development of autos that leave the
Detroit product unsellable outside the USA and its work force on the street. And damaging to
allies and alliances when greater than necessary global dependence on internationally traded oil
involves them also in the consequential strategic risks.
And economically damaging also, in terms of the falling value of the US dollar, when to have
gone with the economizing trend in Japan and Europe could have released Alaskan oil for export
20
to Japan, to the benefit of the US trade balance. For a President with an oilman's instinct, it must
be an unpalatable reality that a statesmanlike concern for future generations is going to damage
the coal industry (but not ruin it - remember that the TCAD is designed to provide existing
operators with a continuing role in bio-energy supply) and, eventually, hurt the oil industry also.
But, in the USA of all places, no industry can assume the world owes it a living, certainly not
when it hazards voters by its operations, and their grand- children. Let us hope that readers of
this book in the USA will raise such storm of protest, against the current ineffectual 'no regrets'
US policy on CO2 emissions reduction, that a more active policy will come to yield least
political regret to the Presidency. Let us hope that President Bush will grasp this opportunity for
statesmanship.
Summary
The pretentiously busy reader will no doubt have read no more than the conclusions listed in the
Preface. Here we provide a summary to enable the knowledgeable to decide which parts can be
safely skipped.
Chapter 2 is concerned with the scientific nature of the problem presented by EGE. It shows
that the atmosphere upon which life on earth depends is quite fragile. Fragile in the sense that
the enormous fluxes of energy that pass inward from the sun and outward to outer space can
change its condition very substantially if some minor change in the environment alters the
balance of transmission, reflection and absorption of those energy flows. In recent times quite
minor volcanic episodes have had noticeable effects whilst pre-history has featured cold phases
("ice ages") of which a recurrence would be catastrophic.
It is the level of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere that is of concern, possibly some
combination of the level and the length of time for which the level is sustained above normal.
Over the last 50 years, a business as usual industrial scenario has taken the atmosphere into a
regime which is without precedent as regards the high level of CO2 which has already been
reached and which is climbing fast.
21
The nature of the dynamics of complex non-linear systems (which is how the global climate
system and its interactions with the biosphere are classified from an analytic point of view) is
such that there is increasing probability of a sudden, and quite possibly severely damaging -
maybe even catastrophic - change of climate regime as feedback processes become unstable
under parameter shifts induced by levels of CO2 forced ever higher, and ever further away from
any that the planet is known to have experienced previously. Thus it seems that a better
understanding of the scientific evidence will eventually lead to a time constrained target
specified as a need to return to a particular level of CO2 in the atmosphere by a particular date.
The record, over the last 160,000 years for which there is good scientific information, shows a
very close association between climate change and changes in the level of CO2 in the
atmosphere. The time-scale should be emphasized: a global climate system change that takes a
century to complete has happened in the twinkling of the eye as far as geological history is
concerned. The forcing upwards of CO2 levels is not only without precedent, but is occuring at
an unprecedentedly rapid rate. It may be hoped that, if a time-constrained target can be met, the
100 or so year excursion into above-normal CO2 levels, brought about by a phase of dependency
upon intensive use of fossil fuels, will be over before the more catastrophic possible responses of
the system have time to develop.
Nothing else of a scientific nature is known about global warming with any degree of certainty.
In particular two crucial scientific dimensions of the problem, climate dynamics and the carbon
cycle are very poorly understood from a quantitative point of view. About 25 per cent of the net
anthropogenic emission of CO2 is unaccounted for. Global Climate Models (GCM's) vary by a
factor of three as regards the impact on average temperature that is most likely to result from the
forecast increase in the level of CO2.
It should be emphasized that the better GCM's of the future are not certain, or even likely, to
show a clear need for a time constrained target of the kind suggested above. Indeed, it may be
doubted whether they will ever match up to the problem of telling us, for sure, whether the
22
climate system is prone to unforseeable 'jumps' or not. Thus the development of these models to
the limit of their capability may do nothing to resolve the current policy uncertainties.
However, we do know enough to know that these possibilities cannot be ruled out. Nor can we
rule out the possibility that some regime change has already begun and is currently masked by
the transitory effects of vulcanism and the more lasting but not everlasting effect of polar
melting. In the circumstances, failure to take a precautionary stitch in time may impose severe
burdens on future generations. On a worst scenario it may leave them with no world to live in.
Chapter 3 is concerned with how to take policy decisions about important and unique problems
under conditions of uncertainty. Policy on global warming is in a muddle which is compounded
by research output based on inappropriate methodology that imposes currently unattainable data
requirements and provides confusing signals to policy makers. The regret approach, yielding a
measure of 'social objection' provides an appropriate way for thinking about once for all
decisions in an uncertain world. Once for all in the sense that what we do for the next two
decades determines the choices available in 2010. Of course, policy evolves as research
provides new information and, indeed, appropriate research directions constitute an important
aspect of policy.
As with any analytic procedure, whether computerised or not, the "garbage in garbage out"
dictum applies. However, one needs only to assume a finite possibly of an adverse, possibly
catastrophic, climate jump, to see that plausible orders of magnitude, for the cost of emergency
policies begun late, point clearly towards an active emissions reduction policy, especially if such
precautionary policy is low cost. Such a conclusion emerges intuitively from a concern for
future generations and the main function served by the regret/objection approach is that it
enables such concerns to be formalised in an operational manner. It thus provides an appropriate
alternative to the familiar cost-benefit analysis (CBA) methodology. It says 'get into the bomb
shelter when you hear the air-raid warning'; CBA says 'lets calculate the costs and benefits of
getting into the shelter as opposed to not doing so'.
23
CBA has provided the operational basis for environmental policies in many areas but gives little
guidance in relation to global warming policy since it imposes infeasible data requirements. To
wait for knowledge of the 'damage function' (the relationship between CO2 emissions and the
expected cost of the damage that results) may cause the opportunity for cheap remedial action to
be lost.
Global warming presents a global "externality" upon the global market system. This externality
and the requirement for global policy that arises, is no less real because of uncertainties whether
as to the likelihood of climate jumps or as to the size of the damage function even if
unprecedented CO2 forcing does not cause a climate jump. Requiring a global policy solution
means global cooperation towards securing a sustainable climate future. Having in two Chapters
explained the nature of the problem and a rational basis for policy under these uncertainties, the
remainder of the book is devoted towards explaining how such a cooperative outcome may be
brought about.
Chapter 4 outlines the technological basis for dealing with EGE through a transformation of the
energy technological basis of commercial activity away from the reliance on fossil fuels which
has given rise to the problem. The timescale for such a transition process is 20 to 25 years, with
the 1990's devoted mainly to preparation and learning by doing.
Conventional projections of demand are assumed, with slower growth in developed countries
and more rapid growth in other countries. It is assumed that increased efficiency, both within the
energy conversion system and in use by final consumers, will be brought about by rising prices
and 'no regrets' economizing behaviour and that this will result in approximately constant
demand for energy raw materials. Within the period, economic growth in Less Developed
Countries (LDC's) means that the transition must cover both developed and other countries to be
effective. Rich nations cannot deal with EGE on their own.
Three technologies, all basically proven and available, provide a backstop technology system for
the transition. These are
24
1) combined cycle gas turbine technology for power generation at higher efficiency and in
smaller units than conventional modern thermal power stations
2) intensive biomass production using short rotation tree cropping techniques such as coppicing
of selected fast growing species
3) motor transport fuel production from biomass by fermentation to ethanol.
The application of these technologies can see the end of coal mining, save possibly for isolated
special applications, and a major slowing down of oil depletion within the period. This will be
accomlished by increased use of natural gas in existing installations and the development of
fuelwood gasification and/or direct fuelwood firing for new furnace installations and by
retrofitting existing plant, including a less centralised electricity generating system located in
fuelwood production areas. Where fossil fuels are too difficult to replace, the alternative of
'making coal' (or at least initiating the process) takes the form of controlled burying of biomass,
maybe at remote and more suitable locations from those where replacement is so difficult.
Tropical and semi-tropical LDC's provide the most naturally efficient venue for biomass
production but the technological transformation should begin in temperate regions to avoid
unacceptable impacts upon existing land use and social patterns. While sufficient land to meet
all demands may well exist in temperate regions, LDC's can eventually realise their competitive
advantage and achieve economic growth through 'invisible exports' of pollution clean-up
services together with the adoption of the up-to-date and energy efficient new technologies. A
side benefit would be the provision of an alternative economic structure with rising standards of
living in lieu of subsistence patterns which have seen much destruction of tropical rainforest.
These backstop technologies provide a transition to more advanced sustainable technologies
which are expected to become technologically proven and/or economic over the next two
decades. These include steam injection and intercooling developments of the combined cycle
gas turbine generator (for which biomass is a technically superior fuel), photo-voltaic electricity,
fuel-cell powered automobiles and eventually, perhaps, a hydrogen based energy system in
which carbon (and therefore CO2) have no place. This further transition becomes necessary as
25
population growth raises demand for land for recreational and food growing purposes, and the
sun's renewable energy increasingly has to be collected in the deserts or, perhaps, in outer space.
The Chapter concludes with a qualitative scenario describing one possible pattern of
development for the global energy system over the next few decades.
Chapter 5, with its successor, are mainly expository of those parts of economics which are
needed to understand policy on EGE - needed because economics is accepted to be the main
language of policy making. The first of these Chapters explains the basis of "invisible hand"
theorising which leads economists to look for market outcomes as the benchmark against which
proposals for policy intervention require to be measured. The market, in principle, delivers an
outcome in which nothing is wasted so that more for me means less for you and more of one
good - say pollution abatement - means less of another, say guns or butter. A geometric
explanation is offered, showing how the invisible hand depends upon special assumptions
regarding the nature of technology.
The market outcome depends also upon the distribution of spending power, with a different
blissful equilibrium resulting from each conceivable pattern of ownership of the means of
production, and of consequential income. However, the Marxian critque is sidestepped, as is the
Keynesian problem of macro-economic under-employment. A variety of possible reasons why
the invisible hand may fail to work very well are explained, with particular attention to
externalities, public goods and imperfect competition as significant in relation to the EGE
problem and its inter-connections with the energy sector of the economic system.
The problem of responding to market failure is considered in the light of the 'second best'
theorem which demonstrates that there is no general rule for improvement in an imperfect world
(i.e. more market policies may result in worse outcomes). In the energy sector, which may be
treated as a natural economic unit with strong internal links, indicative planning methods may be
useful as an information sharing process that can help avoid mistakes. For instance, long lead
time investments in coal fired power stations could be avoided with good information about the
26
ayailability of biomass to fuel combined cycle gas turbine plant (and in relation to forecasts of
electricity demand based on more than the wishful thinking of power engineers).
With environmental pollution under 'second best' theory there should in principle be a level of
pollution tax which results in the desirable level of pollution clean-up where the benefit from
further clean-up just balances its cost (so that further clean-up is not worthwhile). The
possibility of the so-called property rights approach yielding this result is shown to fail in the
face of transactions costs problems.
Chapter 6 dismisses the possibility of the efficient taxing of pollution on grounds of
informational difficulties which are two-fold. First the state of pure ignorance regarding the
costs of pollution damage, of which ignorance regarding the 'damage function' in relation to
CO2 pollution is but an example - albeit a rather extreme one. Secondly much of the
information requires the truthful disclosure of privately held information by agents who, at best,
have negligible interest in its accuracy, and often have a direct interest in its inaccuracy.
A rather 'coarse' variety of economics is perforce applied, in which the only useful result is the
so-called least cost theorem which shows that a policy is better if it results in the cost of
abatement, per unit of reduced pollution - say per ton of CO2 emitted - being the same for all
emitters. The target level of abatement to be aimed for is decided by experts rather than by
economic analysis.
A variety of conventional policy instruments - command regulation, and market oriented taxation
and tradeable emissions permits - are considered in relation to the least cost theorem, with the
first shown to be inefficient. For instance, a mandatory reduction of CO2 emissions by 20 per
cent is more easily achieved in copper smelting, that just needs heat, than in steel making where
some carbon is needed in the process.
The special problems for economic theory raised by CO2 pollution arise because it is the level of
CO2 that matters, and possibly for how long the level persists above normal. This means
27
a) that it is net emissions that matter, i.e. gross emissions minus absorption from the atmosphere,
so that both emitting and absorbing activity are open to policy intervention; and
b) that the problem becomes essentially dynamic in nature, since the level is the result of net
emissions rates, possibly changing rates, and the length of time for which emission persists.
It is, of course, (a) which makes the renewable technologies of Chapter 4 so much more
powerful a response to the EGE than the simple taxes on gross emissions or equivalent schemes
for tradeable permits which have so far pre-occupied policy analysts. (b) raises difficulties for
economics which is mainly pre-occupied with comparing static equilibria. Various tools of the
trade for analysing time-dependent economic problems (essentially the discounting of cash flows
using compound interest) are presented and the significance of the rate of interest used in policy
choices explained*.
footnote Issues of inter-generational equity, such as are central to our concern for sustainablility,
are involved, with the interests of future generations served by low social discount rates which
result in high investment for the future and lower rates of depletion of exhaustible resources.
Higher growth - and more rapid depletion of resources - does not follow from such higher public
investment, where the purpose is to conserve resources. In fact it squeezes out growth generating
resource-using private sector investment - a low discount rate for policy decisions can thus be an
instrument for balancing growth and sustainability. *end footnote
The essentially dynamic nature of the EGE problem carries advantages in the sense that earlier
policy errors can be corrected as part of a framework for taking account or new information as it
becomes available from research, be it research on GCM's, on energy technology, or upon land
use and related matters. However, the credibility of policy requires policy to be 'time-
consistent', with its adjustment over time in a manner which is surprise free, save for surprises
due to nature. This calls for the maximum certainty in the effect of policy, with the minimisation
of so-called agent-principle variability. None of the conventional policy instruments does well
under that requirement.
Chapter 7 describes the Tradeable Carbon Absorption Duty (TCAD), a policy instrument which
is designed to overcome the difficulties of conventional instruments. Under the TCAD, energy
firms are motivated by market forces to adopt biomass as the basic sustainable energy raw
material for the opening decades of the next century. Energy sellers, at the wholesale level, are
required to absorb some proportion of the carbon that is emitted when their product is used by
28
the purchaser, or to contract with other firms to carry out this duty. The tradeability of the duty,
i.e. that it can be discharged by third party contractors means that the cost per ton of carbon
emitted is the same for all emitters, thus achieving economic efficiency in terms of the least cost
theorem.
Although equivalent in steady state equilibrium to tradeable permits with absorption offsets, its
impact is more direct. The regulatory nature of the Absorption Duty means that energy firms
have no management discretion as to whether to undertake absorption offsets and the agent-
principle problem is circumvented, save for monitoring performance, a need which is no less
present with offsets. Furthermore, energy firms become owners of biomass fuel raw material
which has zero opportunity cost and will therefore be used by them in preference to non-zero
cost supplies of traditional fossil fuels. Of course the use of the biomass is not free as it involves
a further TCAD to grow more biomass. But the use of fossil fuels involves both the TCAD and
the cost of mining the fossil fuel.
Such a policy cannot be implemented at a high level overnight and the dynamic time path for
implementation, and for consequential CO2 absorption and the assimilation of biomass into the
energy system, provides the context for defining what is meant by an net target in a dynamic
sense. Under New Zealand conditions, this adds an average of about 10 per cent to raw material
energy costs over 25 years (peaking at about 17 per cent in 2005 and falling to zero by 2015)
secures a 70 per cent reduction in net emissions. This may be compared with the 100 per cent
tax which has been considered necessary in the USA to achieve a 20 per cent reduction in gross
CO2 emissions by 2020.
The policy affects different countries differently. To the (rather small) extent that its
implementation, and the ensuing global transition to a biomass based renewable energy system,
imposes a burden, the question of international equity is addressed. It is suggested that, since the
distribution of spending power internationally has not been made equitable, or at least politically
acceptable (in the way that it can be within a single country in pursuit of a preferred blissful
invisible hand outcome) acceptance of this policy by LDC's should be sought by relating the
29
burden of TCAD to per capita income levels. As these countries improve their standard of living
- in part by exporting pollution clean-up services through contracting to discharge the TCAD's
of energy wholesalers in developed countries their level of TCAD will rise towards that of the
developed countries, with the burden becoming shared more equally.
Chapter 8 returns to what we have called 'problem B', that is to say the problem presented by
the hopes of some countries to achieve economic development by following the same
development path as far as energy technology goes, as has been followed by the now developed
countries. This means, in the main, compensating LDC's that happen to have large coal and
lignite resources for leaving them in the ground. A scheme for doing this is referred to as FFAR
- Fossil Fuel Abstention Rewards.
The basis of receipts under FFAR is coal resource weighted by relative under development,
whilst the basis of payment is relative development and accumulated past emissions. Receipts
are restricted to coal that would actually have been burned and the difference between (rising)
coal costs and constant renewable costs, all appropriately discounted over future time.
Payments could partly take the form of debt relief and partly continuing payments. Examination
of the data suggests that China, India, South Africa, the USSR, and some East European
countries would be the main beneficiaries, with the position of Australia, Germany, and the
USA, amongst developed economies, damaged by future non-use of existing commercial coal
reserves. As far as debt relief is concerned, Germany, Japan and certain other European
countries, together with leading oil exporters, have most to lose.
However, as substantial losers in the long term, the southern Arabian states can hardly be
expected to participate, whilst the position of the USA as a heavily indebted country deserves
special consideration. Despite the rather few countries that can easily offer debt relief, the
benefit to the international financial system, labouring under a heavy burden of unsound third
world debt, of a substantial round of debt relief can hardly be doubted.
30
As a once for all measure, linked to collaboration with other aspects of the GREENS concept,
and with adequate monitoring of energy sector performance and enforcement of residual and
future loan commitments, there may be sufficient mutual global advantage to get a general
settlement. The proportion settled through debt relief must in any case be limited by retaining
sufficient of the FFAR as continuing payment to secure, with some possibility of collateral
pressures through potential trade sanctions, continuing compliance from countries which would
always have their known coal reserves available in the ground.
This global reform would essentially relate environmental concerns and energy sector
transformation to debt settlement and new trading relationships, possibly involving a review of
the GATT. It is hoped that the possibility advanced in these pages - that the EGE aspect of these
linked problems may be resolved at much lower cost than has hitherto been supposed, and in a
manner that presents LDC's not with a constraint on their growth prospects but with an
opportunity for growth based on the most modern energy technology - may help to make that
more likely.
Clearly the achievement of a general, end of the century (millenial?), settlement of that nature is
not going to occur overnight. In the meantime there is no need for the application of the
GREENS concept to hang fire. Many countries may, like New Zealand, find it beneficial or at
worst least costly - to achieve modest net emissions targets in the year 2000 using renewable
biomass technology within their own borders. Such modest targets may be on a trjectory to
ambitious achievements a decade or so later. Or if global warming ceases to be a worry, the
relatively small acreages of initial plantings can find a commercial outlet as conventional timber
after being allowed to grow to maturity.
Alternatively, many LDC's may, like Brazil has done, adopt biomass as an escape from a
balance of payments bind on their growth prospects. And some countries may opt for bi-lateral
arrangements subject to reciprocal trading arrangements. These prospects depend on the claims
made for these technologies in these pages being shown to be true from experience. All of this
will constitute a learning by doing process which, the proof of the pudding being in the eating,
31
will either draw in more participants until there is effective political will for a global settlement
or reveal that some other remedy for EGE must be used, if a remedy still seems to be needed.
Chapter 9 is concerned with the problems of implementing a comprehensive programme of
transition to Global Redevelopment with Energy Environment Sustainability. Implementation
requires initiation in the first instance, and that requires starting from where we are in the process
of developing a global response to the problem of Enhanced Greenhouse Effect.
At the time of writing it is not possible to foresee the outcome of negotiations towards a
Framework Convention on Climate Change which is expected to be signed at the Second United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development at Rio de Janeiro in June 1992.
Whatever that outcome is, no negotiation will take place at Rio where the final draft FCCC will
be available to be signed on a take it or leave it basis. However, that will not obviate future
policy discretion since the FCCC will not be written on tablets of stone but subject to review at
future Conferences of the Parties which sign it. For the sake of argument - - which can easily be
adapted to the actual outcome from Rio - it is assumed that the detailed regime for CO2
emissions will be contained in a Protocol which will commit the signiatories to targets for gross
CO2 emissions to be achieved by the Year 2000.
Such an outcome cannot result in effective control of the level of CO2 but merely in a slowing
down of its rate of increase. A significant slowing down - needed for effective control of the
level of CO2 pollution and such as can be got from a switch to more easily achieved and more
effective net targets will thus require amendment of such a Protocol. It is inconceivable that
net targets can be adopted at Rio since the necessary technical work cannot have been done in
time by negotiators preoccupied with the problems of defining gross targets to a standard
appropriate for a legally enforceable treaty.
A possible escape from this procedural awkwardness may be for agreement to be reached in
principle, either at Rio or at an early subsequent Conference of the Parties, for the adoption of
alternative net targets, such net targets to be more effective than the gross target agreed on at
32
Rio. For instance a country which was committed to stabilizing its gross emissions at the 1990
level by 2000 might meet that commitment by alternatively reducing net emissions by 20 per
cent by the same year. Being easier to achieve, such an alternative would provide signiatories
with an incentive to complete the necessary technical work in time for the achievement of the
alternative net target to be verified, say in 2000.
The technical problem of measuring net emissions boils down to measuring absorption, given
that the problem of measuring gross emissions must be resolved before the CO2 Protocol can be
signed. However, a difficulty that arises with measuring gross emissions in the informal sector,
in particular with fuelwood systems in traditional societies, is much simpler in the context of net
emissions since such activity, involving the burning of biomass fuel, can be regarded as
essentially self-cancelling as regards net emissions.
Thus the problem is to measure absorption in the formal (market) economy, a problem which can
be split into defining what is to be included and measuring what has been defined. As regards
definition, biomass growth to be included as absorbing should have been registered with an
enforcement agency as planted for commercial biomass energy purposes on a medium or long
term basis. Annual crops used partly or wholly as fuel count for absorption and emission
simultaneously and equally and therefore require no separate absorption measurement.
Fuelwood and conventional afforestation count for absorption whilst they grow, with eventual
deduction to the extent that conventional timber is eventually not used for fuel purposes.
As regards actually measuring the absorption achieved by growing fuelwood and conventional
forrestry, a major research exercise is required in the 1990's to establish the statistical properties
of alternative coppicing cycles (and, to a lesser extent, conventional forrestry) with different
species grown in different soils and in different climates. The objective would be to be able to
rely on satellite observation as the main basis for global statistical coverage, with 'ground
truthing' on a random basis as a check on the reliability of the satellite data and as a check
against misreporting by firms as regards the discharge of their TCAD's.
33
The political sensitivity of such monitoring and investigation activity is met by several aspects of
the proposals which have been developed in this book. Firstly, as outlined in the Chapter 4
scenario, initial progress with GREENS would be in developed temperate countries. Secondly,
the move into less developed tropical countries would be by invitation, as they came to
appreciate the economic advantage of emulating the advanced biomass energy technolgy path
being adopted in developed countries. Thirdly, the relationship would not be a country to
country relationship involving potential sovereign conflicts but country to firm relationships of a
normal commercial type. Fourthly, countries would be assisted by the enforcement agency in
achieving their net emission target by securing the effective discharge of the Absorption Duty
laid on energy firms.
Thus the enforcement agency, in securing good behaviour by firms, would work to become
perceived as benevolent agents of technology transfer and progress towards sustainable
development, rather than heavily intrusive. Given the complex nature of its task and the far
reaching implications of its successful accomplishment, such an agency might more
appropriately be called the United Nations Agency for International Development Sustainability,
rather than a more narrowly conceived United Nations Climate Change Agency.
Under its aegis, with the high cost commitment to gross targets as stick and the example of
progressive countries like New Zealand as carrot, it may be expected that market incentives will
drive individual countries, bilateral pairings, and regional groupings - as envisaged in Chapter 8 -
towards the piecemeal, but eventually general adoption of net emissions targets which is needed
if there is to be the prospect of controlling the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect.
Chapter 10 at present exists only as an assemblage of extracts from earlier papers. It
emphasizes the contingent nature of the GREENS concept developed in this book and calls
for the massive programme of research envisaged in Chapter 9 - essentially a global
collective effort to learn how to sustainably cultivate the garden of nature in a sustainable
manner - to be adequately supported as the first priority on the road from Rio.
34
It discusses the macro-economic multiplier effects of shifting the energy payments cash
flow from royalty payments to oil rich countries to wage payments in third world countries
and suggests that, when these are taken into account alongside the benefits of dismantling
the Third World Debt problem, the burden of dealing with EGE may turn out not to be
burden at all, but a boon (not to mention a boom).
It deals, in less detail than they deserve, with a whole spectrum of concerns regarding
water, soil, ecosystemic and socio-anthropological sustainability. For instance, it is hardly
desirable to substitute a sustainable energy system at the cost of unsustainable soil use
practices.
The conclusions reached are embeded in an Envio which takes the form of a letter
addressed to the US Administration, from where has emanated much of the resistance to
reaching agreement on an effective FCCC. They are as follows:
1. It is the level of CO2 that is of concern, or, quite possibly, for how long an above-normal
level is maintained.
2. Therefore it is net emissions that matter, with increased CO2 absorption just as effective
as reduced gross emissions.
3. In a situation of extreme, and possibly permanent, uncertainty about the effect of above
normal levels of CO2, precautionary measures should be undertaken until shown to be
unnecessary, even if they are expensive.
4. But they are not expensive, unless the weight of evidence regarding three well known
technologies is wrong. These involve absorbing CO2 by growing biomass, the quantities
involved being so great that they can only be disposed of by being used as raw material for
a renewable energy system, replacing fossil fuels.
35
5. A two to three decade timescale is required for these technologies to diffuse inexpensively
into the mainstream of the global energy economy, by the end of which period more
advanced renewable technologies will probably begin to penetrate the market.
6. It would be wrong to simply sit back and await the more advanced technologies since,
firstly they may take longer than hoped for to develop, and secondly, if nature turns out to
have nasty surprises in store, a stitch in time can save nine.
7. Within the timescale, growth in LDC's will result in a doubling of CO2 emissions unless
global collaboration is achieved. The biomass technologies give a competitive advantage to
LDC's located in hot wet climates.
8. Economic theory has little useful to contribute beyond the 'least cost theorem' for
achieving net emissions abatement targets efficiently: this is incorporated in the proposal
for Tradeable Carbon Absorption Duties which combines the effectiveness of 'command
and control' regulation with an efficient market oriented mechanism for achieving the
required result.
9. LDC's collaboration requires compenstion for not using their known coal reserves. A
scheme for Fossil Fuel Abstention Rewards targets that objective
10. A combination of the two measures, TCAD and FFAR, can achieve a result of mutual
advantage to an effective majority of nations. A side advantage could be a substantial
reduction in the Third World Debt problem as part of a global deal securing LDC
collaboration.
11. The forthcoming UNCED cannot be expected to reach agreement on these lines but we
may hope for a Framework Convention which gives explicit recognition to the net emission
concept, which provides machinery for international monitoring and technical assistance
programmes related to GREENS style initiatives.
36
12. Specifically, a research commitment to a massive 'ground truthing' of GIS data to
establish global knowledge of land capability and a training commitment to a major
programme in non-OECD countries in the bio-technical and other skills required for the
realisation of the globally coordinated programme which may, towards the end of this
decade, be recognised to be necessary..
13. The most formidable obstacles to securing a safe future for our grandchildren appear
to be political rather than technical or economic.
37
"Document Control"
TYPE:
ACTION
DOCUMENT NUMBER: 9124103
ORIGINATOR: 02
STATUS I
DIRECTORATE STATUS C
FROM:
THUEBEL, Joan M.
TO:
JOHN SUNUNU
DATE OF
CORRESPONDENCE: 09/11/91
SUBJECT: RE: SHORT TERM VEIW OF THE THREAT OF GLOBAL WARMING.
DIRECTORATE
STAFF
ASSIGNED: ENVIRONMENT
ASSIGNED:
ACTION
STAFF
REQUIRED: DIRECT REPLY
ACTION:
SENDER'S DUE DATE:
OSTP DUE DATE:
09/30/91
STAFF DUE DATE
DATE COMPLETED:
DATE COMPLETED/DEPT:
COPIES TO:
WHITE HOUSE TRACKING #:
CONTACT PERSON:
PHONE:
EXT:
REMARKS: No answer necessary (or requested)
CLOSED
OSTP RECEIVED: 09/20/91
DEPT RECEIVED:
FILE: P-EOP-SUNUNU TRACKING
CENTRAL FILES:
4103
JOAN M. THUEBEL
RECEIVED
78 Orchard Road
Chatham, New Jersey 07928
(201) 635-0668
91 SEP 20 A9: 33
'OFFICE OF
September 11, 1991
DIRECTOR
Bromley Mr. John H. Sununu
Chief of Staff to President Bush
The White House
Washington, DC
Dear Mr. Sununu:
A short-term view of the global warming threat does not
make sense because:
1. If there is a real threat, there will be no way
to "turn the clock back" after we have warmed up
the atmosphere with carbon dioxide emissions
2. If there is no threat, we can always go back to
using fossil fuels without danger
I believe that many of our current problems, including our
economic weaknesses, are due to government, individuals
and business leaders taking short-term views.
What's wrong with planning for the long-term? Is it too
intellectually demanding? or not politically expedient?
I suggest that true leadership requires the guts to look
to the future, and to have a vision of an improved world.
Sincerely,
Joan th. Thurbel-
(-s put to brd to Admin
"Document Control"
TYPE:
ACTION
DOCUMENT NUMBER: 9124394
ORIGINATOR: 02
STATUS I
DIRECTORATE STATUS
FROM:
ARONOWITZ, Jason
TO:
JOHN SUNUNU
DATE OF
CORRESPONDENCE: 09/10/91
SUBJECT: INTERNATIONAL PROJECT DEVELOPING A SATELITE PROGRAM
TO HARNESS SOLAR POWER.
DIRECTORATE
STAFF
ASSIGNED: ENVIRONMENT
ASSIGNED:
ACTION
STAFF
REQUIRED: DIRECT REPLY
ACTION:
SENDER'S DUE DATE:
OSTP DUE DATE:
10/22/91
STAFF DUE DATE
DATE COMPLETED:
DATE COMPLETED/DEPT:
COPIES TO:
PHYSICAL SCIENCES
WHITE HOUSE TRACKING #:
CONTACT PERSON:
PHONE:
EXT:
REMARKS: No response receising per my
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4394
RECEIVE
43-25 Douglaston Pkwy. #1E
Bromley
Douglaston, N.Y. 11363
91 OCT 15 All : 31
John Sununu
White House Chief of Staff
The White House 'OFFICE OF THE
1600 Pennsylvania AvenueRECTOR
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. Sununu:
Your position on economic health versus possible global warming makes sense, and, I hope,
allows for synergistic solutions. There exists a window of opportunity for converting a
portion of our energy production to a source that would produce no greenhouse gasses,
provide a substantial boost to our economy, and gladden many defense contractors. We
would also provide substantial long term aid to the Soviet Union while availing ourselves
of some bargain priced capabilities.
I am attempting to point out that this is an opportune time to establish a joint venture with
the USSR (and any other nations that can usefully contribute) to build solar power satellites.
I am sure you are already familiar with the concept and its advantages. What has changed
recently is the price to orbit that could be negotiated with the Soviet Union, which could
be argued down enough to make a solar power satellite project a positive net present value
investment that could be funded by bonds that the cash flows from the project would pay
back. I think the combination of long term usefulness and opportunity for the
Administration to demonstrate impressive vision makes this project an idea whose time has
come.
Sincerely,
Jasm Jason Aronowitz aromat
"CORRESPONDENCE TRACKING"
TYPE:
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DOCUMENT NUMBER: 9124051
ORIGINATOR: 02
STATUS I
DIRECTORATE STATUS
FROM:
BOLTON, C.W.: CYPRUS COAL COMPANY
TO:
JOHN SUNUNU
DATE OF
CORRESPONDENCE: 08/27/91
SUBJECT: RE: THE THIRD MEETING OF THE PREPATORY COMMITTEE FOR
THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENT AND
DEVLOPMENT.
DIRECTORATE
STAFF
ASSIGNED: ENVIRONMENT
ASSIGNED:
ACTION
STAFF
REQUIRED: AS NECESSARY
ACTION:
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OSTP DUE DATE:
09/30/91
STAFF DUE DATE
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REMARKS:
CLOSED
OSTP RECEIVED: 09/17/91
FILE: P-EOP-SUNUNU TRACKING
DEPT RECEIVED:
"Document Control"
TYPE:
ACTION
DOCUMENT NUMBER: 9124051
ORIGINATOR: 02
STATUS I
DIRECTORATE STATUS C
FROM:
BOLTON, C.W.: CYPRUS COAL COMPANY
TO:
JOHN SUNUNU
DATE OF
CORRESPONDENCE: 08/27/91
SUBJECT: RE: THE THIRD MEETING OF THE PREPATORY COMMITTEE FOR
THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENT AND
DEVLOPMENT.
DIRECTORATE
STAFF
ASSIGNED: ENVIRONMENT
ASSIGNED:
ACTION
STAFF
REQUIRED: AS NECESSARY
ACTION:
SENDER'S DUE DATE:
OSTP DUE DATE:
09/30/91
STAFF DUE DATE
DATE COMPLETED:
DATE COMPLETED/DEPT: 12/18/91
COPIES TO:
WHITE HOUSE TRACKING #:
CONTACT PERSON:
PHONE:
EXT:
REMARKS: NO RESPONSE NECESSARY
OSTP RECEIVED: 09/17/91
DEPT RECEIVED:
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CENTRAL FILES:
9/12 4051
Post Office Box 1562
CYPRUS
501 N. 19th Street
Middlesboro, KY 40965
Coal Company
(606) 248-8070
91 SEP 17 All : 25
C. W. Bolton
Government Affairs Advisor
OFFICE OF THE
DIRECTOR
August 27, 1991
Bromley THE WHITE HOUSE
Chief of Staff John Sununu
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Chief of Staff Sununu:
The third meeting of the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for the
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED),
OR "Earth Summit," is being held in Geneva from August 12 - Sept.
4.
PrepCom 3 will begin substantive negotiations on the Earth Charter
and an authoritative statement of principles on the world's
forests.
One more PrepCom session will be held prior to the June 1992 summit
in Rio de Janeiro. Separate negotiations are underway on
biodiversity and climate change conventions to be signed in Rio.
Pressure continues to rise for the Administration to take a more-
active leadership role in combatting climate change.
O
The European Community has challenged the United States
to join the "CO₂ club" of other industrial countries that
have made specific commitments to reducing their CO₂
emissions.
"It is our strongest wish that the United States change
its position in order to play with the other OECD
(Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)
countries a leading role in combatting climate change,"
said Hans Alders, chairman of the Environment Ministers
and environment minister for the Netherlands. He
addressed members of Congress and senior administration
officials at a July 24 dinner hosted by the Ambassador
of the Netherlands.
Page 2
Alders noted, "The world looks to the United States for
decisive leadership on the climate issue. In our
perception, there are no technical or economic reasons
for the United States not to join the other OECD
countries." Currently, the United States and Turkey are
the only OECD countries that have not made specific
commitments on CO2 emissions.
Alders emphasized that the EC countries view firm
commitments by each industrial country to stabilize CO₂
emissions by the year 2000 at 1990 levels as a "crucial
part of the package to be agreed upon" in the
negotiations currently underway on an international
climate change convention.
British Prime Minister John Major and Japan's Minister
of Environment Kazuo Aichi also have leveled criticisms
of the U.S. position on CO2 targets in recent weeks.
Forty-two U.S. senators wrote to President George Bush
on July 25 urging him to lead the U.S. delegation to the
June 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Co-authored by Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Bob
Kasten (R-Wis.), the letter pressed Bush to "take an
active leadership role at the conference and take full
advantage of the opportunities UNCED offers."
The letter noted that the U.S. park system and clean air,
clean water and toxic waste laws are international
models, but argued that domestic policy "can no longer
be considered the cornerstone of global environmental
policy."
A separate July 23 letter from 26 members of the House
of Representatives, co-authored by Reps. John Edward
Porter (R-Ill.) and Anthony Beilenson (D-Calif.), told
the president, "Your participation would enhance the
visibility to any action taken during, or as a result of,
the conference.
The Porter-Beilenson letter stressed that UNCED "may well
determine the course of all international environmental
action into the 21st century."
The House Science, Space & Technology Committee has
launched hearings on necessary research to slash
greenhouse gas emissions, adding to building
congressional pressure that the White House abandon its
cautious approach to global warming. White House
Page 3
witnesses at the July 17 hearing stressed that existing
Administration policies are an effective tool for stabilizing
greenhouse emissions at a minimal cost. But some members of
the committee were sharply critical of the White House
approach and argued that technologies are emerging to take a
more aggressive stance against global warming.
The administrations restraint from flowing with the political tide
concerning CO2 should be commended in light of the scientific data
available now. Quoting from Dr. Bert G. Drake and his colleagues
at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center are at the
forefront of work aiming to determine the effects of rising CO2
levels on plants.
Scientists increasingly agree that higher carbon dioxide
levels on the atmosphere will raise the earth's
temperature, but how much is not known.
One thing they are sure of, however, is that increasing
carbon dioxide levels can dramatically affect plant
production. Although they are far from understanding all
the ramifications, this fact intrigues and excites
scientists.
And well it should. What if world food provided by
plants could double or triple? What if more prolific
plants could contain or slow the increase in CO₂ levels?
What if non productive areas of the world could support
crops or forests because plants could use water more
efficiently?
Carbon is a primary element of life. In the
photosynthetic process plants convert solar energy and
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into food through the
formation of carbohydrates, protein, amino acids, and
fats.
Most Plants respond to higher CO₂ levels by producing
more fruit, seeds, stems, leaves, roots, trunks, etc.
Add to that an increase in temperature, and plants take
in even more CO2 and grow even better. So whatever way
temperature levels go -increased or stay the same - most
plants will benefit from increased CO₂ levels. Those in
warmer climates, such as tropical forests, could benefit
most.
Some of the significant findings of Dr. Drake and his colleagues
include:
Page 4
Plants respond to increased CO2 by increasing photosynthetic
capacity and decreasing respiration, rather the opposite.
And, decomposition of plants growing in elevated levels of CO₂
seems to slow down.
There are many scientific facts that are not clearly understood
today. The necessity for continued and expanded research into
these areas are necessary and should be funded shortly by Congress.
Let us hope that this situation doesn't culminate in a purely
political decision whereby International agreements are reached
requiring now legislation to be passed leading to expenditures in
the billions.
If laws are passed and regulations are implemented to reduce CO₂
emissions, we could, in fact, be hindering the potential increase
in plant and food production which is so sorely needed throughout
the world.
CerBoltm
C. W. BOLTON
CWB/je
"CORRESPONDENCE TRACKING"
TYPE:
ACTION
DOCUMENT NUMBER: 9123885
ORIGINATOR: 02
STATUS I
DIRECTORATE STATUS
FROM:
WARNICK, Walter L.
TO:
JOHN SUNUNU
DATE OF
CORRESPONDENCE: 08/22/91
SUBJECT: REQUEST TO ACCEPT HIS BRIEF PROPOSAL FOR BRINGING
SCIENCE TO BEAR ON ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES.
DIRECTORATE
STAFF
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"Document Control"
TYPE:
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DOCUMENT NUMBER: 9123885
ORIGINATOR: 02
STATUS I
DIRECTORATE STATUS C
FROM:
WARNICK, Walter L.
TO:
JOHN SUNUNU
DATE OF
CORRESPONDENCE: 08/22/91
SUBJECT: REQUEST TO ACCEPT HIS BRIEF PROPOSAL FOR BRINGING
SCIENCE TO BEAR ON ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES.
DIRECTORATE
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4919 Sundown Road
Laytonsville, Maryland 20882
Bromley John Sununu, OFFICE OF THE
91 SEP 4 A9: 37
office phone: 301-353-3122
home phone: 301-774-8085
August 22, 1991
DIRECTOR
In Tuesday's "Washington Post," EPA Administrator Reilly
acknowledges that "the environmental debate has long suffered
from too little science." By citing this problem, his article
implicitly invites proposals for solutions. Here is a brief
proposal for bringing science to bear on environmental issues.
1. Citing the problems and principles highlighted in Reilly's
article, someone with standing (you or a member of the Cabinet,
the Chairman of CEA, the Chairman of CEQ, the Director of OMB, or
the Science Advisor) should propose that an interagency group be
formed to review the ways that science has been brought to bear
on environmental issues in the past. The group would review a
number of particular cases: the Montreal Protocol on CFC's; the
National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program; the U.S. Global
Climate Change Research Program under CEES; decisions made
regarding dioxin and alar; and others.
2. The group would evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the
various approaches by which science has been brought to bear on
environmental issues. Criteria for the evaluation would be the
extent that the approaches answered Reilly's key questions: "How
much do we know? What are the critical questions to which we
need answers? Are we organizing to get key information (for the
future) ? What do the data tell us about the seriousness of the
problem and the magnitude of the appropriate response?"
3. Drawing from the evaluation, a group of Agency principals
would propose interagency organizational arrangements to
encourage bringing science to bear on environmental issues.
The ultimate outcome of all this should be interagency scientific
fora for critically examining the causal chain linking human
activities to environmental effects, taking into account natural
variation and alternative hypotheses. It may be anticipated that
future decisions on environmental laws and regulations would be
better founded in science.
Will you adopt this proposal? I am also presenting it to
principals in my Agency, but am available to work for you if that
would advance the implemetation of this proposal. I am a career
Federal technical manager at the level of the Senior Executive
Service with over 10 years experience representing my Agency on
the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program.
NatterL Warrich
Walter L. Warnick, Ph. D.
changes in the United States vis-a-vis
ations? Certainly there's been a call for
the
merence in our foreign policy, it was
publicly for the people to revolt. I think
the superpower relationship and possi-
the EC to hold off on aid. The United
ment
aking an enormous difference in our
that the two things that really probably
efense plans, and it was making an
precipitated this, at least as I view it,
bly events surrounding NATO?
States has proposed doing the same.
see. He IS
What about Senate action in regard to
normous difference in a lot of regional
are the threat to the central control
Nunn: Catherine, I think we'll have
he has the only in
the most favored nation trade status for
onflicts in the world. We even were on
that the treaty that was going to be
to wait and see what happens here. I
the people of the Soviet
the Soviet Union?
threshold of perhaps being able to
entered into tomorrow, represented.
certainly would agree with what Pres-
people of the Soviet Rt, jic. The
ork with the Soviets on things that we
That threatened the central govern-
ident Bush said this morning. We may
Nunn: As far as economic, I think we
makes him an enormously powerful
ould have never dreamed of in the
ment in the views of the hard-liners, I
see a real reaction from the people in
ought to put everything on hold, as
person in terms of people power.
is
William K. Reilly
Nashington Post
Facing Facts on the Environment
August 20, 1991
A recent poll by the Roper Organization on
questions to which we need answers? Are we
es-sulfur dioxide or hydrogen sulfide, for
year than in prior years. Much of the most
"Environmental Protection in the 1990s"
organizing to get key information? What do
instance-that would have meant acute ef-
polluted area is uninhabited desert or water.
shows that environmentalism tops safe sex,
the data tell us about the seriousness of the
fects for those living in the region. Particu-
To date, the risk to public health in no way
patriotism and "The Simpsons" for what's
problem and the magnitude of the appropriate
lates are heavy-but our initial analyses did
compares to the deadly London fog of 1952,
10
"in" in 1991. That's heady company, and I
response?
not reveal heavy metals, hydrocarbons or
in which almost 4,000 people died, or to the
hope the environment continues to keep it. It
Suppose we apply this to the Kuwait oil
volatile organics that would mean problems.
dense fog of 1948 in Donora, Pa., in which
is good news for those of us in the business of
fires. I traveled to Kuwait at the request of
We are still studying the samples, and we are
10,000 people were overcome and 20 died.
protecting it.
the president to assess the environmental
mounting a more extensive monitoring effort,
These were acute episodes in heavily popu-
to
But evidence suggests the environment's
threats from the fires and to observe first-
so we may yet find something troubling.
lated areas-with clear but immediate evi-
T
high standing reflects growing concern over
hand both the containment and cleanup ef-
We have urged Kuwait to link air monitor-
dence of health effects.
10
risks large and small, and a feeling that there
forts and the environmental monitoring work
ing and weather reports, and issue daily air
Despite the recent U.S. findings, some
is no risk so small-and none so expensive-
of an interagency team of U.S. scientists and
quality advisories. And the World Meteoro-
refuse to believe the data. The Bush admin-
16
that government should not work to eliminate
technical experts. Two concerns are upper-
logical Organization is overseeing a long-term
istration is committed to environmental poli-
to
it.
most: impacts on global climate and short-
monitoring plan at the request of the Saudi
cies that are grounded in science. In the
Until recently we have made little effort to
and long-term health effects.
Arabian and Kuwaiti governments. These ef-
matter of the Kuwaiti oil fires-as I hope in
11
assess our overall environmental quality ob-
Both a U.S. interagency team and another
forts should provide real-time air alerts and
all other environmental matters before us-
M
jectives, to target our laws and scarce re-
team of federally funded scientists operating
establish with some certainty what's happen-
we are prepared to subject our work to the
sources to reduce the greatest risks to human
under the auspices of the National Science
ing. Coupled with the work of the World
review of outside experts, to be inclusive in
xq
health and natural systems. Now I think
Foundation-as well as British scientists
Health Organization, the air monitoring also
the fact-finding process as possible, and to be
m
we've got to. There simply are more anxi-
from the Royal Meteorological Society-be-
should begin to give us a picture of any
open always to revising our opinions and
dt
eties than we can possibly create laws to
lieve global climatic effects from the fires are
potential for long-term, chronic health effects
strategies in the light of new information. I
alleviate, and far more risks than resources to
unlikely. The plumes generally rise to be-
on the people living in the Persian Gulf
invite anyone with hard information from
eliminate them. Determining which risks
10
tween 10,000 and 12,000 feet, with the
countries. Our Department of Defense is
Kuwait that contradicts our preliminary find-
need a full-scale response by government and
highest readings to date taken at around
monitoring the health of U.S. troope-those
ings to get it to us as quickly as possible.
"
which do not is a value-laden task. If there is a
source of trustworthy information that can
20,000 feet. This suggests they will not reach
who served and those still there.
We will continue to monitor the environ-
lend authority and coherence in helping char-
heights of 38,000 to 40,000 feet, at which
I caution-as I've made clear all along-
ment of Kuwait, to analyze pollution samples
10
acterize and even rank risk, it is good science.
altitude we might see the plumes distributed
that our findings are preliminary and may
and to calculate risks and advise on any
In my opinion, the environmental debate
around the globe by the stream.
change as results of ongoing scientific as-
protective policies needed. But we also need
has long suffered from too little science.
So, regarding the risk to the global envi-
sessments come in, as Kuwait's full monitor-
to recall that to equate every incident, every
There has been plenty of emotion and politics,
ronment, there is emerging scientific con-
ing system comes on line, or as the wind and
problem, with a major risk undermines our
but scientific data have not always been
sensus that the volcanic eruptions at Mount
weather patterns shift. It runs counter to
ability to focus on the most significant risks.
featured prominently in environmental ef-
Pinatubo in the Philippines-which do reach
experience to see pollution on the scale en-
Nothing is 100 percent safe. Neither are all
16
forts, and have sometimes been ignored even
the upper altitudes-pose a greater threat
countered in Kuwait without also seeing im-
risks equal. That is as true in the United
T
when available. As major new environmental
worldwide to the atmosphere.
pacts on health, particularly affecting asth-
States as it is true in Kuwait.
10
problems arise, I propose we approach them
And what of risks to public health? Our air
matics and others with lung disorders.
as scientifically as possible, asking: 'How
monitoring data and those of the Kuwaitis
Nevertheless, thus far, hospital admissions
The writer is administrator of the
much do we know? What are the critical
thus far show significant levels of toxic gas-
for respiratory disorders are no greater this
Environmental Protection Agency.
Ja
П
"CORRESPONDENCE TRACKING"
TYPE:
PRESIDENTIAL PRIORITY
DOCUMENT NUMBER: 9123394
ORIGINATOR: 02
STATUS C
DIRECTORATE STATUS
FROM:
THE HONORABLE DON RITTER: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
TO:
JOHN SUNUNU
DATE OF
CORRESPONDENCE: 08/09/91
SUBJECT: WRITES REGARDING GLOBAL WARMING AND THE NAS STUDY
DIRECTORATE
STAFF
ASSIGNED:
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91 AUG 9 TAH E09WHITE HOUSE OFFICE
REFERRAL
OFFICE OF THE
DIRECTOR
AUGUST 9, 1991
TO: OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
ATTN: ALLAN BROMLEY
ACTION REQUESTED:
INFORMATION COPY - NO ACTION NECESSARY
DESCRIPTION OF INCOMING:
ID:
257970
MEDIA: LETTER, DATED JULY 23, 1991
TO:
JOHN SUNUNU
FROM:
THE HONORABLE DON RITTER
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
WASHINGTON DC 20515
SUBJECT: WRITES REGARDING GLOBAL WARMING AND THE NAS
STUDY
PROMPT ACTION IS ESSENTIAL -- IF REQUIRED ACTION HAS NOT BEEN
TAKEN WITHIN 9 WORKING DAYS OF RECEIPT, PLEASE TELEPHONE THE
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RETURN CORRESPONDENCE, WORKSHEET AND COPY OF RESPONSE
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SALLY KELLEY
DIRECTOR OF AGENCY LIAISON
PRESIDENTIAL CORRESPONDENCE
ID# 257970
THE WHITE HOUSE
CORRESPONDENCE TRACKING WORKSHEET
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DATE RECEIVED: JULY 29, 1991
NAME OF CORRESPONDENT: THE HONORABLE DON RITTER
SUBJECT: WRITES REGARDING GLOBAL WARMING AND THE NAS
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MANAGEMENT.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
August 5, 1991
Dear Don,
Keep fighting the good fight! Your help really
makes a difference.
Sincerely,
John
John H. Sununu
Chief of Staff
The Honorable Don Ritter
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
257970
CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515
DON RITTER
FIFTEENTH DISTRICT
PENNSYLVANIA
Dear John,
Vuly 23, 1990
THE CHIEF of STAFF
has 58811
attend the S,S,GT Comm
U 10ms July couldn't
hrug. on Globak warming
some pretty good Stiff
but am unear thing
On the report
( Gore - wirth ! ).
We'll also ask for
a Full Comm. ting. on the
encl. Science /Just the Science TV.
[This is a typed version of the attached memo; comments or additions in brackets]
MEMORANDUM
TO: FROM: Don Ritter, Ranking Republican Member, Subcommittee on Environment (House
J.E. (Joel Eisen - Minority Counsel to Environment Subcommittee)
Science, Space, and Technology Committee)
RE: Global Warming: NAS Report; Observations following the July 21, 1991 Woods Hole
Conference [weekend retreat for SS&T Members with NAS scientists]
(1) The "Report" appropriation was requested by guess who? GORE & WIRTH.
Action: I believe it was in Senate HUD-Independent Agencies Appropriations Bill
- as I see it was major focus on the "What if's" rather than the science itself; very
please locate exactly and locate exact language of "what was to be done." (Key still flaw
debatable. The "what if's" really dominated the activities, the volume, etc.)
(2) Dinner conversation [at Woods Hole] indicated to me that "favorably disposeds" (to
global warming) outnumbered skeptics [on the panel] big time.
Action: Please investigate where the scientists stood on global warming prior to
the study ("where you stand depends on where you sit"). Joel: Dr. Press [of NAS] was
quite uncomfortable with my line of questioning.
(3) Whatever happens in (1) and (2), I believe it is essential to the national debate that
our Republican Minority on the Science Committee (all signed on) call for a
comprehensive full Committee hearing on the pros and cons of the science!!
(4) The NAS caters to an enormous scientific constituency [of] nice social scientists who
this as the Big Buck Bonanza for research - economic impacts, psychological, this
see sociological, political impacts, etc. There seems to be [a] real predisposition toward
as [a] funding fount.
JOEL B. EISEN
REPUBLICAN COUNSEL
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
HOUSE ANNEX II, RM. 388
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE.
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515
SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY
(202) 226-6993
LEADING THE WAY TO TOTAL QUALITY:
MAKING THE LEAP FROM RHETORIC TO REALITY
-QPMA
AQP
To: V.E. (Joel Eisan 7/23/91 - to Minority Enoir. Counsel)
Association for Quality
Quality & Productivity Management Association
and Participation
From: Don Ritter, Ranking Rezu b. (Envir. SuBe. SSiT,
Re: Global Warming: NAS Report: OBservations
following 7/21 Woods Hole
OThe "Report appropriation was requested byx Conf. guess
EFORE + WIRTH
Action I believe it was in Senate
HUD Indep Agencies approps. Bill--Pls.
locate exactly and locate exact
language of what was to be done"
the the, What ifs" rather then the Science Her
Key flow as Isee it was major focus on
still dominated the de batable The What its really
X
GC tirtues, the volume, etc.
2.
Dinner Conversation indicated to me that
skepties big time.
(* Edrbal Warming)
ACTION: Pl. investigate where the
Scientists stood on G.W. to
study (where you stand depends on where youp you sel
lead
P....
anite un comfortable
my line of questioning
3.
belie we it is essential to the nat'l.
whatever happens in and 2. ,I
on the Sci. Comm (all signed on) on Call
de bate that one Republican Minarit
for a comprehensive and fee Comm. the science. hing
on the pros cons of
4.
4
The NAS Cater to an enormous
Science Constit. nice. Social Sacitist
who see this as the Big Buck
Bonamya for research
lcon. impacts,
pscychological, Socialogical, political
impacts, etc. There if -
to be , real predisposition towards this
as funding fount.
"Document Control"
TYPE:
ACTION
DOCUMENT NUMBER: 9123580
ORIGINATOR: 02
STATUS I
DIRECTORATE STATUS C
FROM:
DAVIS, Jeff
TO:
JOHN SUNUNU
DATE OF
CORRESPONDENCE: 07/29/91
SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR A RESPONSE REGARDING HIS THEORY ABOUT
GLOBAL WARMING
DIRECTORATE
STAFF
ASSIGNED: ENVIRONMENT
ASSIGNED: Nancy Maynard
ACTION
STAFF
REQUIRED: DIRECT REPLY
ACTION: As Necessary
SENDER'S DUE DATE:
OSTP DUE DATE:
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STAFF DUE DATE
DATE COMPLETED:
DATE COMPLETED/DEPT: 10/22/91
COPIES TO:
WHITE HOUSE TRACKING #:
CONTACT PERSON:
PHONE:
EXT:
REMARKS: No Response Necessary
OSTP RECEIVED: 08/23/91
DEPT RECEIVED:
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CENTRAL FILES:
3580
Bromley
John,
EIVED
I have a theory about global warming which may shock some
because it is SO osimpl annoying 16 others because it makes
them look foolish. If you read this letter and think my theory
OFFICE
could be true I hope DIRECTOR some tests run to prove it before
we have this massive and expensive experiment inflicted on our
planet.
To explain my theory I must tell you a little about how an
air conditioner works. Many people think that air conditioners
cool the air and technically that is correct but if you really
want to know what takes place go outside by your condensing unit
and feel the air blowing from it. It is very warm, isn't it?
This heat is not being created but rather being removed from your
house and "pumped" into the atmosphere. I know of one company
that even calls their units heat pumps. They are called that
because that is basically what it does. Therefore if so many homes
are being "pumped" cool the outside must be receiving it. If the
heat is being "pumped" into the environment, it has to get warmer.
I don't think anyone can dispute that.
There are three areas in which statistics may give some validity
to my theory:
(1) Heat should congrate in the largest cities for
that is where most of the air conditioners are.
(2) The average summer temperature should have the
largest increase over the other three seasons.
(3) The increase in global warming might correlate
with increased air conditioner use as air con-
ditioners are used now in the third world countries.
My reason for writing this is not to stop global warming
because I don't believe it is a big threat but rather I am
trying to stop us from causing a catastrophe (environmental or
economic) with a cure worse than the alleged disease itself.
I don't want the Democratic Congress to do to the environment
what it has done to the urban poor, the judicial system, or the
schools? Their will always be poor, everythings relative, maybe
a lot more since we declared war on it, but some none the less.
We can use preventive methods against robbers, rapist, and murders.
We can send our kids to private schools but we only have one planet.
You can't throw money at the environment and then think things will
work out. This scares me and should scare you also.
Jef Wairis Davis
JEFF DAVIS
1706 W. 47th St.
NORTH LITTLE ROCK
ARKANSAS 72118
POINT OF LIGHT #730
P.S. I spent days condensing this letter so John Sununu would
need only a few minutes to read it. I deserve this letter
being delivered to him.
"Document Control"
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FROM:
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TO:
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DATE OF
CORRESPONDENCE: 07/19/91
SUBJECT: RE: THE EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING.
DIRECTORATE
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DATE OF
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SUBJECT: RE: THE EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING.
DIRECTORATE
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2971
July 19, 1991
RECEIVED
Bromley Mr. John Sununu
White House Chief of Staff
91 JUL 30 13
is
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC 20500-0001
OFFICE DIRECTOR
Mr. Sununu,
The effects of global warming have been ignored by our government leaders. President Bush
has not followed through on promises made during his campaign to protect the environment.
One of these campaign promises was to decrease greenhouse gases, which cause global
warming. President Bush must pass regulation that will decrease emissions caused by burning
coal and oil. The Bush administration is doing nothing to promote actions that will help
protect our environment because they don't want to accept the responsibility of spending
money to do so.
According to many studies carbon dioxide is responsible for more than one-half of gases that
cause global warming. Deforestation and the combustion of fossil fuels are the major sources
of carbon dioxide. The United States contributes a major percentage of this greenhouse gas to
the atmosphere. We have failed in protecting the environment by not regulating the burning
of coal and oil. Not acting on the global warming issue now will be more detrimental to our
environment and our economy as time goes on.
The greenhouse gases in the troposphere, carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, methane and
nitrous oxide build up and radiate heat back to earth. There have been many projections of a
2° to 9° F temperature increase by the middle of the next century. If we choose to do
nothing to prevent this possibility now, we may have no choice in the future but to face the
consequences. If the global warming trend continues there will be major crop losses and loss
of coastal areas because of a rise in ocean levels. There will be major climate changes
world-wide, which will affect food production, especially in the U.S.
There are relative easy things that can be done now to reduce emissions from greenhouse
gases. Power plants can be regulated to be more energy efficient and anit-pollution devices
added to them. We can reduce the burning of coal or use clean coal technology. We can
use cleaner fuels more, such as natural gas and develop solar and geothermal energy sources.
By raising the automobile mileage standards we could greatly increase our fuel efficiency.
- July 19, 1991
Page 2
Canada and many European nations have moved ahead of us to prevent global warming. We
can no longer allow politics to decide our environmental decisions because that seems to be
indecision. Industry and power companies have too much influence on governmental policies
regarding the environment. Energy producing companies want to keep producing and
developing coal and oil. Nuclear power to create electricity is not an efficient way to produce
energy. Our government energy plan is insufficient in protecting the environment especially
from the causes of global warming.
The impact we would have by regulating greenhouse gases now, will ultimately be decreased
the longer we wait. If we keep putting off our responsibility, mankind and the environment
will be the losers.
Sincerely,
Barbana Lelson
Barbara A. Nelson
1327 Lyonsville Lane
San Jose, California 95118
- Todmir 5/14/92
"Document Control"
TYPE:
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DOCUMENT NUMBER: 9120673
ORIGINATOR: 02
STATUS I
DIRECTORATE STATUS C
FROM:
SASSONE, Robert L.
TO:
JOHN SUNUNU
DATE OF
CORRESPONDENCE: 02/20/91
SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ON CO2 ATMOSPHERIC
CONCENTRATION, DISSOLUTION IN WATER, LACK OF
ANALYSIS OF EFFECT, AND ALLEGED GLOBAL WARMING.
DIRECTORATE
STAFF
ASSIGNED: ENVIRONMENT
ASSIGNED: ENVIRONMENT
ACTION
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CENTRAL FILES:
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DOCUMENT NUMBER: 9120673
FROM:
SASSONE, Robert L.
TO:
JOHN SUNUNU
Sent to watson for
@
DATE OF
CORRESPONDENCE: 02/20/91
SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ON CO2 ATMOSPHERIC
R NASA draft 3/26/51 refunse
CONCENTRATION, DISSOLUTION IN WATER, LACK OF
ANALYSIS OF EFFECT, AND ALLEGED GLOBAL WARMING.
ASSIGNED TO: Nancy Maynard
ACTION REQUIRED: DIRECT REPLY
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"CORRESPONDENCE TRACKING"
TYPE:
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FROM:
SASSONE, Robert L.
TO:
JOHN SUNUNU
Sent to
@
DATE OF
wrtin In
CORRESPONDENCE: 02/20/91
SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ON CO2 ATMOSPHERIC
CONCENTRATION, DISSOLUTION IN WATER, LACK OF
R NASA dontt 3/26/31 vapmie
ANALYSIS OF EFFECT, AND ALLEGED GLOBAL WARMING.
ASSIGNED TO: Nancy Maynard
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FILE: ENVIRONMENT-GLOBAL WARMING
9120673
ROBERT L. SASSONE
ATTORNEY AT LAW
RECEIVED
900 North Broadway - Suite 725
Santa Ana, California 92701
(714) 547-5611
91 MAR 8 A8: 34
February 20, 1991
A.Bromley White House
OFFICE OF THE
DIRECTOR
John Sununu
Washington DC
re: C02 atmospheric concentration, dissolution in water, lack of
analysis of effect of, and alleged global warming
Dear Governor Sununu:
I am a patent attorney with a physics/ecology specialty.
A client wants me to do some research on atmospheric CO2
concentration. I was sent to Washington to the Library of Congress
and I feel I exhausted their information which did not take long.
Enclosed are copies of OTA reports.
C02 dissolves in water fairly well to form H2C03. The most important
factor in reducing atmospheric C02 levels may be the fact that rain
probably washes out of the atmosphere at least 10% of the C02 each
month. The ocean both removes and expires atmospheric C02, depending
on water temperature which affects CO2 solubility. The ocean should
expire more C02 than it removes or the vast amounts removed by rain
would soon sweep most C02 from the atmosphere.
This should mean that atmosphere C02 concentrations will increase
slower than other data indicates, since much, perhaps most C02
released into the atmosphere will soon be stored in the ocean, and
released C02 has a much bigger sink to fill, the atmosphere plus the
ocean, not just the atmosphere.
Can you refer this to someone who can discuss this ocean C02 balance
or refer me to appropriate articles if they exist?
Thank you for your assistance.
Sincerely yours,
Robert Lassme
Robert L. Sassone
RS/1s
encl OTA 2/91-C02
CC OTA
Admin copy
"Document Control"
TYPE:
ACTION
DOCUMENT NUMBER: 9120669
ORIGINATOR: 02
STATUS I
DIRECTORATE STATUS C
FROM:
ASHLEY, Carlye M.
TO:
JOHN SUNUNU
DATE OF
CORRESPONDENCE: 02/19/91
SUBJECT: THE LACK OF GREENHOUSE EFFECT OF CO.
DIRECTORATE
STAFF
ASSIGNED: ENVIRONMENT
ASSIGNED: ENVIRONMENT
Nancylay nord
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ACTION:
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9120469
Bromley
CARLYLE M. ASHLEY
CONSULTING ENGINEER
7320 BARBERRY LANE
RECEIVED
MANLIUS, NEW YORK 13104
February 19, 1991
John H. Sununu
91 MAR 8 A 34
of Staff
House
OTTON FIBER USA
Washington, D. C. 20500 Suject: Lack of Greenhouse Effect of CO2
DIRECTOR
Dear Dr. Sununu:
I have been CHief Engineer at Carrier Corporation and Presidential
Member of ASHRAE. When they first started talking about the added
"Greenhouse Effect" of more CO. in the air I dismissed it as being
just some crank. Now I discover they seem to be serious aboutlit
The memorandum which I am enclosing tries to present the case
against it. I believe that the effect will be almost negligible
but in some ways even an improvement.
I am strongly in favor of conservation and I believe that we
need to keep other greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere because
these could have a serious effect, but the restriction on CO.
could be very costly and also unnecessary. The efffct on the weather
is not nearly as great as some of the other things which we do
such as cutting down our forests.
I will be glad to send added copies to others whom you might
suggest. You may also be interested to know that ASHRAE is planning
on studies of the Greenhouse Effect of the possible future refrig-
erants which take the place of the present R-11 and R12.
Yours very truly
Carlyh H. askley
3813 ₦01103%92
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WILL MORE CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE WARM OR COOL THE EARTH?
by Carlyle M. Ashley, Consulting Ingineer
Water vapor is the principal "Greenhouse Gas" which reradiates
heat energy back tp the earth from the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide
has only a minor role and doubling its concentration in the atmos-
phere has a very slight effect. Both gases absorb incoming solar
radiation so that more carbon dioxide could cool the earth instead
of heating it. This memordantum gives the engineering data to sup-
port these statements. Turn first to the Figure page.
Figure 1 shows the absorption bands of carbon dioxide plotted vs
wave length of the heat radiation. Note that the absorption bands
are high compared to the length of travel so that they should have
100% absorption in travelling through a small part of th atmosphere.
But they are widely spaced so that mostof the radiaton will pass
through the transparent part of the spectrum.
Figure 2 shows the absorption bands of water vapor plotted vs
wave length of the radiation. Note thatthere aremultiple overlapping
absorption bands, particularly in the long wave lengths of the earth
radiation at ordinary temperatures,
Figure 3 shows the solar radiation and also the earth radiation
spectrums plotted vs wave lengths. The visible radiation lies be-
tween 0.4 and 0.8 microns. The solar radiationshows a plot outside
of the atmosphere and at ground level (for direct radiation).
In the ultraviolet section the atmospheric absorption is largely
by ozone in the upper atmosphere. In the visible section, particul-
ates reflect and absorb the radiation and the air molecules diffuse
it. In the infra-red section, water vapor and carbon dioxide absorb
the radiation as shown by the absorption bamds as shown in Figure 3
which may be compared with the bands in Figures 1 and2. Most of this
absorption occurs in the upper atmosphere and does not directly affect
the radiation in the lower atmosphere.
Note also that thearth radiation spectrum peaks at 10 microns for
95F and slightly higher wave lengths for lower temperatures. Carbon
dioxide has not absorption bands close to the peak.
Figure 4 shows the emissivity (absorptivity) of carbon dioxide vs
the partial pressure P and the length of travel S with separate curv-
es for temperature. Ordinary tempe ratures can use the 500 800 C
curve. Note that these curves are very flat, particularly at the
upper end where a doubling of the abseissa will increase. e by only
about 105. The maximum vàlue of e is only 20% which checks with the
information on Figures 1 and 3.
Figure 5 shows the emissivity (absorptivity) of water vapor. ven
with a dew point temperature of -25F the point is off to the right
of the chart and the value e is very high compared to the values on
the carbon dioxide chart. For higher water vapor dew points the
value of e close to the earth is still very high.
- 2 -
Table 1 shows typical summer-winter temperatures and pressures
vs the altitude of the atmosphere. If no energy was transferred (adia-
batie), the temperature would drop 9.1C for every kilometer increase
in elevation. Thus, the deviation from this relationship provides.
insight as to the addition of energy at different elevations which
is large at the bottom and top and minimumi in the middle. The stzb-
ilization at the top is probably due in part to the addition of
solar energy and in part to the decrease in density.
Since water vapor and carbon dioxide are both absorptive (emissive),
the values must be combined to be able to solve problems. Since there
is an overlap of their spectrums as shown in Figure 1 and 2 this must
be compensated. If we assume that the carbon dioxide is 100% absorp-
tivity within its range as measured by its emissivity, then the emiss-
ivity of waterrvapor energy this range shouldel be éliminatedcbut there
is a bandnof caabon dioxide near the upper end of the earthespectrum
which should be included.
Thus, a conservative equation would seem to be:
ec,w = ew + ec (1 - 0.8ew) and C,W = X + Le (i - 0.8£)
To be realistic, there must be an energy balance between the amount
of energy into and out of the earth. Thus there is the equation:
E (earth radiation) = £(solar absorption) + (gas radiation) +
(gas convection.
The reason for the gas radistion being divided by 2 is because only
half of the radiation is toward the earth.
Example 1 is to set up a model of the pre-existing situation
under mean conditions. Assume:
Clear sky over ground on March 21
Solar energy outside the atmosphere 438 btu/hr.ft*
Solar energy absorbed by the ground 261 ::
Solar energy striking the ground
337
::
Mean solar energy per ft" of ground 65.25 btu/hr.ft ground.
Infrared 53%, absorbed in atmosphere 53.5 btu/hr.ft
Ground temperature 51F. Emissivity 92.5%
Air temperature, ground 52F, 1/32nd atmosphere 45F. 1/16th
atmos pherep 38.5F. 1/8eatmosphere 30.5F.
Water vapor partial pressure = 0.00343 atrmosperes, 20F D.P.
Carbon Dioxide partial pressure P pc = 0.0003 atmosphere
Beam length for the atmosphere:2x elevation.
The calculations were based on the Radiant -Heat Transmission Chap-
ter by Hoyt C. Hottel in the book: Heat Transmission by Mcadams.
The data were designed primarily for enclosed vessels but it has been
possible to adapt them to the atmospheric problem. The Hottel data
are slightly different from that shown on Figures. 4 and 5.
- 3 -
Atmospheric Elevation, P/P
1/16
1/8
1/4
atmos.
Atmospheric temperature
45F
38.5F
30.5F
Abscissa, 2PwL water vapor
11.4
22.8
45.6
Water vapor Emissivity,adjusted ew
.59
.645
.69
Abscissa, 2PcL carbon dioxide
1.0
2.0
4.0
Carbon Dioxide Emissivity, adjusted ec
.155
.174
.191
Combined Emissivitiy ew,c
.672
.732
.776
Equivalent btu = o (Ta /100 c *
37.45
40.63
42.81
mean solar energy absorbed by ground 51F
65.25
Total
108.06
Ground Emissions = σ(511/100) 0.925
108:00
Double the concentraion of carbon dioxide in the atmos;phere
Abscissa, 2PCL
2.0
4.0
8.0
Carbon Dioxide Emissivity, adjusted ec
.174
.191
.206
Combined Emissivity, ew,c
.682
.737
.782
Equvalent btu = σ(Ta/100)4ew.c/2 *
38.01
40.92
43.15
Added btu radiation due to doubling
.34
Equivalenttemperature rise of ground
0.37°F
Assumed extra solar radiaton absorption by extra COa = 1.6 btu
Mean value 1.6/4 btu/hr.ft* ground If 0.4 btu VS 0.4 btu
* the btus for the higher elevations are for the difference in e
added to the lower values.
w.c
The absorption of radiation for the doubling case was not given
because it is essentially the same as the emission and thus the gas
temperature is not changed.
For higher water vapor content the possibility of any increase in
ground temprature is still further decreaesed while for lower contents
it is increased. However, this should not be objectionable because
it should result in a longer growing season and a higher growth rate
for more carbon dioxide.
The example chosen is somewhat ideallized because it fails to take
into. account the convection which the solar radiation stimulates and
because it does not make allowance for the evaporation of water which
might occur over most of the earth surface. Both of these would reduce
any possible temperature increase.
- 4 -
The reason that the added carbon dioxide has so little effect on
the total "Greenhouse Effect" is that there was already enough carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere to make a significant contribution and the
added amount increases this effect very slightly. Of course, compared
to water vapor, carbon dioxide makes a very small contribution.
However, one of the serious dangers is that some of the pollutants
which humans have added to the atmosphere will contribute new ab-
sorption bands which could have a very significantaddition to the
"Greenhouse Effect"
Therecare a number of human activites which can contribute either
to the "Greenhouse Effect" or to other environmental changes.
The nearly four to one increase in human population during this
century and the increasing use of fossil fuels have both exacerbated
the damage. The stripping of the earth of its trees and other vegetat-
ion is important because these normally absorb the solar energy.
The increasing vaporization of water in lakes, irrigation. cooling
towers tends to absorb solar energy. The release into the atmosphere
of very fine particulates absorbs and reflects solar energy before
it reaches the earth and the natural release has in the past been
associated with "ice ages".
Clouds are an important part of our weather pattern. Not only do
they as well as snow have a high reflectivity for solar radiation but
they also have a very high emissivity for the long wave-length radiation
at ordinary atmospheric temperatures. Low overcast traps the earth
energy and re-radiates it back to the earth. Higher altitude clouds
which are at a lower temperature still help to mediate the effect
of the solar radiation in between them.
The example which is given above for a single set of conditions
can be expanded to other conditions so as to cover other environmental
and atmospheric conditions so that it should be possible compute what
to expect from both increased carbon dioxide as well as other pollut-
ants of the atmosphere. It also should be combined with with the ef-
fects of convection, evaporation and condenstion of water. The effect
of cloud cover should be added to the cequation.
The amount of re-radiation can be measured using a btu meter and
a repeated measurement of the atmospheric column temperature should
be made to determine whether there have been any changes with time.
The message of population as well as environmental control must be
made effective. But please let us get our facts straight so that we
can control the things which need control and not proclaim a false
apocolypse.
We scientists and engineers have a responsibility to get the tech-
nical facts straight and to put proper priorities on the things which
need to be done urgently and avoid putting needless controls on others
which don't need them.
- 5 -
The example chosen was intended to be the mean value of the various
varables as far as it is possible to get a mean. It must be reallized
that the temperature and radiation levels change for any one location
from minute to minute and hour to hour and day to day. Also they are
different for different locations on the earth. In addition there is a
substantial heat storage in the ground and some heat storage in the
air. In addition there is heat storage due to evaporation and conden-
sation of water and plant growth.
Also, in the air the emissivity is normally somewhat greater than
the absorptivity but this may be compensated in energy flow by a high-
er ground than air temperature. In any case, the difference between
the emissivity and the absorptivity is virtually constant when the
carbon dioxide is doubled so that that should not be a factor in
comparing the two conditions.
Another important variable is the convective heat transfer. At 15
MPHr the convective heat transfer is about 5 btu/hr.ft degF and at
about 7.5 MPHr about 3 btu. However, when the ground is cooler than t
still air the convective transfer is a small part of 1 btu and when i
it is warmer it is about. btu. THis compares with radiative heat
transfer varying betwen about 0.7 and 1.0 btu/hr.ft degF for cooler
and warmer temperatures. The convective heat transfer betwwen the
ground and the air is primarily a local situation. BUt on hot sunny
days there can be dust devils which extend several thousand feet into
the air. Furthermore, the convective weather pattern which creates
winds which have a vertical as well as a horizontal component.
The earth reflectivity for solar energy is different for the whole
earth and for reflection directly from the earth. Also, the emissivity
of the earth for long wave lengths may be a slight variable. But
neither of these should affect the conclusion about the lack of
further "greenhouse effect" of carbon dioxide
It should be recognized that the combination of the water vapor and
carbon dioxide provide more than 75% of the available re-radiation at
a given ground temperature and a still higher amount when taking
into account cloud cover. But at the same time they also remove
about half of the infra-red solar radiation. In evaluating the effect
of other greenhouse gases it is important to evaluate both the re-
radiation and the absorption of solar radiation to get the net effect.
It is important to expand this model with respect to both time and
place so as to show clearly what the effects of the greenhouse gases
are. Then, when evaluating new gases their effect can be super-
imposed on the available model.
It shoyld be possible to measure the reradiation at any one point
and time. This can be done using the "Btu meter modified to make it
a radiation measuing device. A.long with this it is desirable to
measure the atmospheric temperature gradiant. and of course the
amount of solar radiation.
100
lb,
%
PpS
X
2
in.
80
0.30.4 0.6 0.8
1.0
2 3 4 5 6 8 10
20
30 40
60
100
60
0.8
ax
3
0.6
40
0.5
0.4
C
20
0.3
4
0
0.2
.1.6
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
12
14
16
18p
1
Figure 1. Absorption Bands of Carbon
€
Dioxide. (1) 5-cm, (2) 3-cm, (3) 6.3-cm,
0.1
0°4
0.08
100
(4) 100cm layers.
200
0.06
100
%
400;
80
0.04
I.O
a
600
Pp
a
0.03
0.9
0.5
60
a
a,
800
0.8
0.02
0.2
40
1000
f
1200
0.7
0.05
1400
20
1600
a
0
a
0.01
0.1
0.6
0.8
2
0.30.4 0.6 0.8 I
/
1.5
2
3
4
5
1.5
3
6
4
Ю
20
60
150
À
µ
lbf
DPS
Pp5
100
%
80
Figure 5. Emissivity of water vapor with
60
Nitrogen or Air. S is the thickness of the
ax
a
40
gas layer, Pr is the partial pressure
of water vapor, total pressure p = 1 atm.
20
When the partial pressure Pₚ is different
0
from 1., the emissivities read in the big
4
6
8
10
15
20
30µ
A
figure have to be multiplied by f read
)
from the small diagram. Dashed lines in-
Figure 2. Absorption Bands of water vap dicate extrapolated values.
or. (a) 127 C & 109cm, (b) 127C & 104cm,
(c) 127C &32. 4cm, (d) 81C & 32.4 cm at 4
Table 1
cm atm. (e) R'm Temp. & 220cm at 7c.
2400-
(761)
SOLAR RADIATION IN
Variation of Temperature, Pressure and Density of the
RADIATION EMITTED
SPACE. M.O. AND ON
BY BLACKBOOY
Atmosphere with Altitude
EARTH, M-2
AT 30°(90F)
2000
40
(634)
(127)
Compiled by Humphreys
SPECTRAL RADIATION,
1
@
W/m micron)
1600
(9.9)
1200-
SPECTRAL BLACKBODY RADIATION,
Elevation
Summer
(508)
so
Winter
Pres-
(380)
Temp.
Density,
Pres-
-20
Km
Mi.
sure
dry air
Temp.
sure
Density,
(63)
°C
800
mm
g/cm³
°C
mm
dry air
(254)
of Hg.
of Hg.
g/cm³
10
400
(32)
20.0
0271
12.4
-51.0
44.1
0.000092
VISIBLE-
19.0
-57.0
11.8
39.5
-51.0
51.5
0.000085
.000108
o
18.0
-57.0
p
0.4
0.6
0.8
11.2
46.3
0.2
1.0
-
0
3
5
6
8
10
to
30
40
so
-51.0
60.0
.000100
.000126
-57.0.
WAVELENG TM, p.m(MICRONS)
17.0
10.6
54.2
-51.0
70.0
.000117
.000146
Figure
16.0
-57.0-
9.9
63.5
-51.0
81.7
000137
3.
.000171
15.0
-57.0
Spectral Transmittances and Solar Radiation
9.3
74.0
-51.0
95.3
000160
.000199
14.0
-57.0
8.7
87.1
-51.0
111.1
000187
.000232
13.0
-57.0
0.2
8.1
102.1
-51.0
129.6
000220
.000270
12.0
-57.0
7.5
119.5
-51.0
151,2
000257
000316
11.0
-57.0
6.8
140.0
-49.5
176.2
000301
.000366
10.0
-57.0
6.2
164.0
-45.5
205.1
000353
000419
9.0
-54.5
5.6
192.0
-37.8
237.8
000408
000470
8.0
-49.5
5.0
224.1
0.1
-29.7
274.3
000466
0.08
1000°C
000524
7.0
-43.0
4.3
260.6
-22.1
314.9
.000526
000583
6.0
-35.4
8.7
301.6
400,
-15.1
.000590
F1600 °C
360.2
000649
5.0
-28.1
3.1
347.5
E 0.06
800
8.9
410.6
000659
000722
1400 °C
4.0
2.5
-21.2
398.7
- 3.0
466.6
000735
500,
000803
3.0
-15.0
1.9
455.9
+ 2.4
528.9
000821
000892
1300°C
2.5
- 9.3
1.6
519.7
0.04
+ 5.0
562.5
000915
000942
2,0
- 6.7
1.2
554.3
+7.5
598.0
000967,
12009 r
000990
1.5
- 4.7
0.9
590.8
+10.0
635.4
001023
0.03
.001043
300
1.0
- 3.0.
0.6
+12.0
629.6
674.8
001083
.001100
0.5
- 1.3
0.3
670.6
+14.5
716.3
001146
.001157
0.0
0.0
0.02
0.0
714.0
+15.7
760.0
001215
001223
+ 0.7
760.0
0.25
0.5
001290
I
2
3
4
6
8
IO
20
30
40
60
80
100
PpS
Figure 4. Emissivity of carbon dioxide
in mixture with nitrogen or air. S is the
thickness ofthe gas layer: Pₚⁱˢ the part-
ial pressure of CO₂.
"CORRESPONDENCE TRACKING"
TYPE:
INFORMATION
DOCUMENT NUMBER: 9123647
ORIGINATOR: 02
STATUS C
DIRECTORATE STATUS
FROM:
CAFFEY, H. Rouse: LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY AGRICULTURAL
CENTER
TO:
JOHN SUNUNU
DATE OF
CORRESPONDENCE: 01/17/91
SUBJECT: NOMINATION OF CHARLES HESS FOR THE POSITION OF
SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE.
DIRECTORATE
STAFF
ASSIGNED:
ASSIGNED:
ACTION
STAFF
REQUIRED:
ACTION:
SENDER'S DUE DATE:
OSTP DUE DATE:
STAFF DUE DATE
DATE COMPLETED:
DATE COMPLETED/DEPT:
COPIES TO: D. Allan Bromley
WHITE HOUSE TRACKING #:
CONTACT PERSON:
PHONE:
EXT:
REMARKS:
OSTP RECEIVED: 01/23/91
FILE: P-EOP-SUNUNU TRACKING
DEPT RECEIVED:
3647
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY
AGRICULTURAL CENTER
RECE
91 JAN 23 All 46
MAILING ADDRESS: Post Office Box 25203
OFFICE OF THE CHANCELLOR
Baton Rouge, LA 70894-5203
OFFICE O
OFFICE: LSU Agricultural Center Bldg.
504 388-4161
DIRECT
FAX (504) 388-4143
January 17, 1991
Buz
The Honorable John H. Sununu
Chief of Staff
The White House
Washington, DC
Dear Governor Sununu:
I would like to place in nomination for the position of Secretary of Agriculture the
name of Dr. Charles E. Hess, Assistant Secretary, Science and Education, U.S. Department
of Agriculture. I realize that there will be many prominent names submitted for your
consideration, but many of us in the Land-Grant system believe that a thorough working
knowledge of higher education is an important factor for this position of U.S. agricultural
leadership.
Dr. Charles E. Hess brings to his present office an outstanding record of service at
Rutgers University and the University of California-Davis. He is a member of the National
Academy of Science and, yet, he is involved in agricultural research and extension so that
he also knows the practical and applied side of U.S. agriculture. As Assistant Secretary for
Science and Education, he administers one of the very important programs within the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. I would like to recommend Dr. Charles E. Hess as the
appropriate replacement for Secretary Yeutter.
Sincerely,
H. 100mg Rouse Caffey
Chancellor
HRC/gb
xc:
Dr. Allen Bromley, Science Advisor to the President of the United States
Senator J. Bennett Johnston
Senator John Breaux
Dr. Robert L. Clodius, NASULGC
Dr. Pat Jordan, CSRS
LOUISIANA AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION
LOUISIANA COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE
INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS