Everyone grumbles about the weather, but nobody seems to do anything about it.

—attributed to Mark Twain

Many Friends have heard about climate change, and some have begun living different lifestyles in response. Yet, many of us wonder if our personal actions are of much significance compared with the global need, and ask, “what can Friends contribute?”

Friends can lead by example. Friends’ historic commitments to the right sharing of world resources and to living with integrity require us to examine our personal lifestyles, and make changes accordingly; there is no other moral choice. Friends’ historical belief in racial and gender equality existed long before the abolitionist, suffrage, civil-rights, and women’s-rights movements. Quakers were in the forefront of those social-change movements, serving as leaders and role models for others. Friends, as a corporate body, are somewhat late in joining the environmental movement, but we nevertheless bring an historical boldness in working for social change based on traditions of integrity, community, and simplicity. Bold changes are needed once again.

Energy, Carbon, and Climate

In 1896, Swedish chemist and Nobel Prize winner Svante Arhenius recognized that combustion of fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, would warm the planet, because CO2 is a greenhouse gas—it traps heat that the earth radiates out to space. Fifty years ago, human activities released about two billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year. Today, global anthropogenic (human-caused) CO2 emissions are approximately eight billion metric tons of carbon per year. If we continue on this “business as usual” path and the world does not make reduction of carbon emissions a priority, human-generated CO2 emissions may double in fifty years. Because of feedback effects and delayed responses, Earth has only begun to respond to the CO2 that we have already added to the atmosphere and oceans—it will continue to warm even without further CO2 emissions.

The most recent report by the Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that business as usual will increase global average temperature by about 3.4 degrees Celsius (oC), relative to 1980–99, by the end of the 21st century, with a likely range of 2.0 to 5.4oC. In comparison, global average temperature has increased about 1oC (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit)) since 1850, and 0.5oC since 1980.1

For the past 2 to 3 million years, our planet has been cooler than typical, with permanent ice caps waxing and waning about every 100,000 years. We are now living in a warm interglacial period, so a rise in global temperature greater than about 2oC will result in climate conditions that last occurred before the genus Homo first appeared. The planet can cope with warmer climates. After all, for much of geological time, Earth was substantially warmer than today. But many species, including humans, may not be able to adapt to such rapid climate changes.

Some of the consequences of climate change have already begun to appear. Many glaciers are retreating and summer Arctic ice cover is shrinking. Since 1993, the global average sea level has risen nearly twice as fast (3.1 mm per year) as in previous decades. Heat waves have become more frequent, and the number of intense hurricanes in the North Atlantic has increased. Spring is arriving earlier in northern latitudes, and some bird species are out of synch; they are trying to raise their young when food is not available. According to the IPCC, “approximately 20 to 30 percent of species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average warming exceed 1.5-2.5oC, relative to 1980-1999.” Public health officials in many areas are beginning to plan for increased incidence of infectious diseases and heat stress.

A Multi-Solution Approach

It is not too late to minimize the amount of future warming. CO2 accounts for nearly one-half the warming caused by anthropogenic emissions of soot and greenhouse gases. To hold the future global average temperature increase to 2oC, global CO2 emissions need to be controlled.

In an influential and widely cited study, Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow showed that we already have the technology to meet the world’s energy needs for the next 50 years while first halting, then reversing, historical increases in CO2 emissions.2 Their key insights are:

1. No single solution solves the CO2 problem.
2. The portfolio of commercially available technologies is large enough that not every mode of carbon reduction has to be used.
3. Different countries may choose different sets of actions, depending upon needs, resources, and priorities.
4. Don’t expect revolutionary technology to solve the immediate problems.

Continued next page>>