Cognitive Dissonance – Are We of Two Minds on Climate Change?
The gap between what we know and what we do – and a proposal to empower the younger generations
Climate Change Action Delayed
Three diverse reads this week, an Ian McEwan book, A New York Times article, and the new National Geographic magazine, all provided reinforcing perspectives on our approach to climate change. From very different contexts and starting points, all three lead to the same unhappy conclusion: The opportunity to avoid the creation of an entirely new climate regime that will impact the younger generations is slipping away. Their voices need to be heard and this essay ends with a proposal to empower those voices.
Climate understandably takes a backseat to the immediate tragedies of war. The Russian invasion of Ukraine knocked the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to the back pages. And a few more centimeters of sea level rise or another tenth of a degree increase in temperature can’t compete with the immediacy of the tragedy unfolding in the Middle East.
Slowing climate change requires focus, time, and resources. When immediate demands divert our attention, it becomes increasingly likely that we will have to respond to the damaging consequences, having lost the opportunity to prevent them. Two recent reports tell us that it is already too late to keep global temperature increases to 1.5C.
The Numbers
But it is not accurate to say that nothing is being done. The growth of low carbon sources of energy – the first and most effective line of response – is increasing exponentially. Technologies for moving and storing electricity from distributed and inconstant sources are improving rapidly. Electric vehicles seem to be the wave of the future.
But the only significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to date happened in 2020 due to the economic impacts of the COVID pandemic. In 2023, those emissions will be back to pre-2020 levels and, while the rate of increase may have dropped since 2010, emissions are still rising.
The long-term trends in concentrations of the three major greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, did not even notice COVID.
While we are constantly becoming more efficient in the generation of economic wealth per unit greenhouse gas emissions - and have been for the last 50 years - continuing growth in population and total economic production per capita have offset that increase in efficiency, driving a continuing increase in emissions.
The Three Reads
So what of those three sources mentioned at the top of this essay? While so different in origin, the takeaway messages seem much the same. We continue to talk instead of tackling the task, and seem unable to give up on a classic theme of the 21st century - that there is a technological fix waiting to be discovered.
But it is also clear that a real solution is actually out there waiting for us, so these three will not have the final word in this essay. That solution does not require unimagined technological breakthroughs, just a massive amount of determination and investment.
But first, the three diversions.
The Conference and Cognitive Dissonance
The New York Times article reported on that organization’s annual Climate Forward live event, an international gathering of “policy makers, activists and business leaders.” The Times has published major articles recently documenting the changing climate system, and there is every indication that the experts they assembled understand the nature of the problem.
Still, a lead paragraph in the article presents a succinct and coherent summary of the event, and perhaps of our current collective mindset relative to climate change:
“Resolving the climate crisis is the hardest joint project humanity has ever taken on…But there are still big differences of opinion on how to get the job done. And in the meantime, the cognitive dissonance between hope and despair is enough to make everyone’s head spin.”
Cognitive dissonance just means being confronted with contradictory information and the stress of trying to deal with it. In this case, all seemed to accept that the crisis is at hand, and yet none called for the major steps that need to be taken immediately.
Reported sentiments expressed at the conference included that this is the century (not year or even decade) for a solution, that everyone needs to be involved and that change will be driven by consumer demand. One said the oil companies are part of the solution, one said they are the heart of the problem. One celebrated that we have created a process, and another suggested hydrogen as the answer.
Perhaps the best summary came from an energy entrepreneur who said, “The future is very bright and every day is a freaking crisis.”
The conversation continues.
The Article and the Technological Fix
The recent National Geographic story carries the title “The Race to Save the Planet” and asks if technology can help fix the climate crisis by not just limiting carbon dioxide emissions, but actively removing the gas from the atmosphere.
A wide range of potential technologies are covered, many spurred by recent legislation in the U.S. to incentivize innovation. The author interviewed many of those innovators and technological optimists, and their stories are tributes to human creativity.
But the article also includes a dramatic graphic. While wood energy, growing micro- or macroalgae, modifying agricultural and forestry practices, carbon storage and capture, and turning carbon dioxide into diamonds or even vodka can all remove this gas, the graphic summary suggests that only two have the potential to make a dent in the atmospheric carbon balance at a reasonable cost, and both involve storing it in the ocean.
Those two are increasing biological uptake through ocean fertilization and enhancing chemical reactions that convert carbon dioxide to mineral forms that can sink to the ocean floor or at least remain inert.
The other process with a high potential to sink significant amounts of carbon dioxide is carbon capture and storage, but the graphic suggests this has a much higher probable cost.
The barriers to other technologies often include price, net energy balance, and scalability.
The Novel and Cultural Resistance
A novel by Ian McEwan might seem an improbable source for an insightful presentation on climate change, but the title of the book in question, Solar, gives a clue. Published in 2010, McEwan puts the ardent passion about climate change, and the potential for solar energy to answer the challenge, into the mouth of a young “ponytail” post-doctoral scientist.
Set in the year 2000, with the Gore-Bush election as background, the main character, a Nobel-laureate physicist, moves from climate skeptic to leading researcher and proponent of solar energy and its necessity. The focus on artificial photosynthesis is a distraction, but the arguments encountered by both the ponytail and the Nobel laureate ring true. Few believe climate change is an issue, major economic powers are arrayed against addressing the issue, and those who want to back the photosynthesis scheme are to be convinced only by the financial windfall it should generate.
While the true believer (the ponytail) does not convince many, and the Nobel-laureate self-destructs, it was at least interesting to read a description of the forces arrayed against climate change as an issue, and the idea that solar energy is the solution, presented so forcefully in a popular novel by a world-class author.
The Basics, The Optimist, and the Pessimist
There is nothing new about this conversation. The basic facts about greenhouse gases, climate change and solar energy have been understood for many decades.
Very briefly - We have known about the greenhouse gas properties of carbon dioxide and methane since the 1850s. A fairly accurate description of the impact of increased carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere on global temperature (and many other aspects of carbon cycling and climate) was presented in 1896 and 1908. The late Charles Keeling and colleagues have documented the continuous increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since the 1950s. James Hansen accurately told congress in 1988 that we were changing the climate. The 30-year IPCC process laboriously documented how the climate is changing and why.
And we have been offered both upbeat outlooks on technological solutions and downbeat perspectives on the size of the problem and the intractability of changing the global energy system for decades as well.
An earlier essay compared the views of an optimist (Bill Gates) and a pessimist (Vaclav Smil). Gates says all we have to do is completely electrify all industrial and transportation processes and generate all electricity with low-carbon technologies. Smil might agree, but also says it can’t be done – that it took more than a century to develop the current energy system and it will take decades to reshape that system.
Several essays in this Substack site have agreed with Gates that the solution is out there, and the answer is solar (McEwan’s ponytail was right!). They have also partially agreed with Smil. Not that this is impossible, but it is a monumental undertaking that requires total commitment and global focus, neither of which are evident so far.
We are Awash in Renewable Energy
In light of all of this negativity, let’s end this essay with some positives: Describing where we can get the energy we need, and presenting two examples of large industrial systems that show it can be done. Their stories, of course, are long and tedious and dull given the current information ecosystem, and yet they highlight where change can happen. Space here allows for only the briefest summary.
First of all, as the “ponytail” said, we are awash in solar energy. That earlier essay here stressed that total solar energy received by the planet is vastly greater than total global energy demand. Even after reducing that number by accounting for atmospheric absorbance and reflection, limiting capture to ice-free land surfaces only and assuming a moderate efficiency of energy collection, that resource is still 300 times total global energy demand.
The limitations of inconstant production and distance from sources (e.g. remote deserts) to users (e.g. urban areas) are real but existing techniques for distributing and storing electricity can overcome these limitations. All it takes is commitment.
For example, the U.S. Department of Energy recently announced a $1.3B investment in parts of the grid system, but also released a report citing the need to increase capacity of that system by two-thirds to handle projected increases in wind and solar energy.
An earlier essay also highlighted the structural limitations in grid management (“Gridlock”) that currently restrains increased delivery of low-carbon electricity, while another described how local use of solar energy where captured - “behind the meter” – can also reduce demand for distribution across the grid.
Two Examples
With all that said, there is little space left in this essay to present those two positive examples, so I will just be able to give a taste of what they have done.
Hydro-Quebec
Hydro-Quebec has generated considerable controversy in terms of the land use rights of First Peoples, but that is not the focus here. This publicly-owned utility has developed a total of 61 hydroelectric generating stations drawing on 28 large reservoirs managed through 681 dams and 91 control structures, responsible for 97% of electricity the utility generates. Emissions of greenhouse gases per unit energy produced are about 2% of those in the northeastern U.S.
This map emphasizes the extent of the distribution system that delivers that energy throughout the province with additional exports to the northeastern U.S. According to their Wikipedia page, “Hydro-Québec's expertise at building and operating a very high voltage electrical grid spreading over long distances has long been recognized in the electrical industry.”
It is more than 700 miles from the northern end of this system just to Ottawa, so long-distance distribution is a challenge but not a limitation.
Hydro-Quebec also demonstrates that renewable energy can be cost-competitive. The price of electricity is so low in Quebec that even in frosty Montreal, electricity is the dominant domestic and commercial heat source.
California ISO
Hydropower is relatively constant, and a large system like the one operated by Hydro-Quebec can mitigate fluctuations from individual sources. Dependence on solar and wind requires creative management and increases in the ability to store as well as transport electricity.
Electricity delivery in the U.S. is managed by a set of organizations known as Independent System Operators, Or ISOs. The complexity of these organizations and their lack of integration (emphasis on Independent) is a major source of inertia in the national grid system.
California is organized around a single ISO that has managed significant increases in low-carbon energy sources. Current supply is 53% renewables, with 87% of renewables as solar.
While this is real and hard-won progress, electricity consumption in California is currently only 20% of total energy consumption, with transportation at 42% and buildings at 35%. As a rough estimate, converting the fleet of vehicles in the state to all-electric could increase electrical demand to three times current levels.
California ISO has developed a coherent and thoughtful plan through 2030 that envisions greater strides in renewable energy and coordination between producers and consumers. This report and others envision the possible role of battery storage across homes, businesses, and possibly electric vehicles as well, to bring the timing of supply and demand into alignment.
Can We Overcome Cognitive Dissonance?
So the problem is not a lack of energy – it is the collective will to make the monumental investments that are needed to harness that energy.
Perhaps one factor that underlies this lack of will is that climate change is happening slowly. Those who run the show now will not really be much affected during their lifetimes. It’s the millennials and Gen Zs who will bear the brunt and who are, not surprisingly, most motivated on the topic. It is their future that is at stake.
Perhaps the next international panel empowered on the topic should include only those under the age of 40. Might that be the best solution to our cognitive dissonance on climate?
Sources
The stories about the two reports stating we have already missed the 1.5C target include:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/climate/carbon-budget-paris-agreement.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/02/climate/james-hansen-global-warming-report.html
Sources for trends in greenhouse gas emissions and concentrations include:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/11/global-co2-emissions-fossil-fuels-hit-record-2022/
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/greenhouse-gases-continued-to-increase-rapidly-in-2022
The graph on population, efficiency and emissions is from an earlier essay and is based on data from the World Bank
The article on the NYTimes conference is here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/21/climate/the-fault-lines-at-climate-week.html
The National Geographic story is in the November 2023 issue
The Ian McEwan book is:
McEwan, I. 2010. Solar. Nan A. Talese Publisher. 304pp.
Sources for investment in the grid include:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/climate/energy-department-electric-grid.html
https://www.energy.gov/gdo/national-transmission-needs-study
Sources for Hydro-Qubec include:
https://www.hydroquebec.com/generation/
The distribution map is here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Quebec_Map_with_Hydro-Qu%C3%A9bec_infrastructures-en.png
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydro-Qu%C3%A9bec
California ISO sources include:
https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx
https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html
The plan for 2030 is here:
http://www.caiso.com/Documents/Electricity2030-TrendsandTasksfortheComingYears.pdf