Is there cause to hope about global warming?
Two new books reflect a debate between those who say global warming must be reversed and those who say we just have to learn to live with it.
"Earth: The Sequel" (Norton, $24.95), the more hopeful of the two, posits that the US government can lead the shift to clean, domestic fuel sources by capping emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
"What we are waiting for is the government to pull the trigger and unleash a cascade of creativity and innovation," said author Fred Krupp, president of the nonprofit group Environmental Defense Fund.
But Robert Bryce's "Gusher of Lies" (PublicAffairs, $26.95) shuns the notion that - with energy use growing in almost every country - a US law could fight the forces behind global warming.
"We likely have no choice but to adapt to the changing global climate for the simple reason that curbing carbon dioxide emissions to any significant degree appears hopeless," writes Bryce, who is the managing editor of an energy industry publication.
Which of them is right may determine whether the United States begins to move in the next decade or two beyond the energy system that's based almost entirely on carbon-belching fossil fuels, or whether alternative energies like wind, solar, and advanced biofuels will generate only a tiny fraction of our energy.
Krupp writes that if the government capped emissions, that would spur an industrial revolution as sweeping as that effected a century ago by Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and John D. Rockefeller, and secure the planet against the calamity of global warming.
With the two Democrats and one Republican running for November's US presidential election promising to regulate planet-warming gases, we may soon get a chance to see if his vision is clear.
Hundreds of companies will compete to sell new low-carbon fuels, eventually reducing US oil and natural gas imports, writes Krupp, who has experience helping business help the environment. In 1990 he assisted then-president George H.W. Bush in adopting the world's first emissions market, which famously cut acid rain for far less cost than originally estimated.
One company he likes is California-based Amyris Biotechnologies, which says it can ferment sugar directly into a fuel that, unlike ethanol, can easily be sent through the existing oil pipeline network and be burned in any car.
For Bryce, these are "lies," as are any of the plans put forward since the Nixon administration that promise to make the United States energy independent with conservation and alternative energies.
As US imports of fossil fuels rise, new crude reservoirs become harder to find, and energy demand from rapidly developing countries like China and India rises, he warns, the United States should strengthen global energy interdependence to ensure unhindered access to oil and natural gas. It should also ensure access to uranium for nuclear plants.
Rising fossil fuel prices should drive alternative energies, not government policies, because, governmental meddling in energy markets has only raised prices or reduced supply, he writes.
One area where the writers find common ground is that growing corn to make ethanol as a fuel causes more harm than good and is a waste of US government subsidies.
Bryce bashes a popular notion that the United States can replicate Brazil's success in slashing oil imports by making ethanol. US corn ethanol yields far less energy than Brazilian ethanol made from sugarcane, and Americans are far more addicted to transport by car, he reasons.
Krupp agrees. "We should find a replacement for corn ethanol as soon as possible," he said.
