Senate Testimony on Climate Change - Updated

At the invitation of Senators' Boxer and Inhofe, I have prepared testimony for delivery before the Senate's Committee for the Environment and Public Works on Wednesday, September 26th.  The Committee seeks input on the relationship between man-made climate change and harm to the Chesapeake Bay.

I testified that the oceans will not rise and flood the bay because before that can happen, before the Greenland Ice Sheet can melt, someone is going to employ "geo-engineering" to turn down the global temperature.  They will do that by replicating what volcanos do.  They will put small reflective particles into the troposphere that will create a sunscreen that will stabilize the global temperature at a level that will prevent melting of the glaciers and thus prevent a rise in ocean level.  They will do this because it will be one one-thousandth less expensive than trying to control emission of greenhouse gases.  They will do this because it means they will be able to grow their economies, develop their nations and still not suffer the worst effects of climate change.  They will do it so that they, and the rest of the world, will have a few centuries to find a way to transition to non-carbon energy sources.

I also testified that the current legislative proposals, and worse, those offered by mainline environmental groups who raise the alarm about potential catastrophies, will not prevent global warming because nations like China, India and the developing nations of Africa and South America refuse to give up their hopes for a style of life like that we enjoy in the U.S., Europe and the developed nations of Asia.  Since a strategy of relying exclusively on reduction of greenhouse gases is doomed to failure, the U.S. would be better served to use a two-part strategy.  They should work with other nations to ensure a cheap, sensible, incremental and safe application of geo-engineering as a first response to reduce global temperatures.  And, they should work with the international community to support research needed to find cost-competitive non-carbon energy alternatives. 

During the hearing, Senator Mikulski asked me to prepare a Framework for implementation of geo-engineering and submit that for the record.  That appears below as "Supplemental Testimony" and lays out a five year program to research and implement an international response to global warming using geo-engineering in the form of solar radiation management and is based on work done at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lawrence Livermore Labratory and Standford University's Carnegie Institute.

Here is the testimony.  Attached to it are seminal papers by Scott Barrett (Johns Hopkins) and Alan Carlin (U.S. EPA) explaining further geo-engineering and why it will supplant the unaffordable and fatally flawed greenhouse gas reduction strategy.

Download schnare_senate_epw_testimony_9262007.pdf

Here is the supplemental testimony, the Framework for Implementation of Geo-Engineering

Download schnare_supplemental_testimony_a_framework_for_geoengineering.pdf