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APM’s Marketplace aired a story yesterday on the Dutch’s new war against the water. The players are the same: overflowing rivers threatening Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and other below-sea-level cities.

This time, the enemy is shifting climate patterns and increasing water runoff.

The solution: floods.

[From Marketplace: Dutch plan for flooding: Higher ground]

Economist.com this week is reporting that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts the cost to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to a “safeish” level to be around 0.1% of GDP. Much of the solution, according to the Economist, is to simply improve efficiency in a number of areas, such as in business lighting and energy systems, solutions which have no cost to the consumer or taxpayer. The costs of non-fossil fuels power generation is falling dramatically, and gas-sipping technology for automobiles (sans the hybrid car fad) is readily available.

With the most costly targets rising to the level of an economic rounding error on the national economy, why is it that the more conservative governments are refusing to approach the solution? Perhaps the uncertainty in the models give polticians an excuse not to take action for fear of being wrong. Perhaps it is simply the strong lobby of the petroleum industry who is unwilling to alter their current business model. Whatever the source of the resistance, the political problem is far more difficult to overcome than the technical one.

But even the Economist, a tradtional source of liberal economic policy and opponent to governmental regulation, suggests that the solution is both laudable and feesible. While the models are uncertan, the IPCC reports that the costs are in the same sphere as of the current carbon-trading scheme, a system that, the Economist notes, “has not bankrupted the European economy so far.”

The evidence is growing that action is both necessary and feasible. The last major step is convincing the politicians that it necessary and appropraite.

In today’s Washington Post, George Will has an article that chronicles the Dust Bowl. The story is in the context of “warnings of environmental apocalypse” and serves as an illustration of a real one; the problem is, the dust seems to have settle in Will’s head.

There is something of a logical disconnect between the entirety of Will’s article and the very last sentence.

The earth turned out to be more durable, and the people who wrested their livings from it more resilient, than had been thought.

This sentence poses two problems. Firstly, it downplays the true hardships that Will himself purported to chronicle. Secondly, it reaches a conclusion that an “environmental apocalypse” is really more of a mild inconvenience. John Steinbeck’s masterpiece Grapes of Wrath seems to reach the opposite conclusion as Will.

Arguably, the damage from the Dust Bowl can still be seen. While there aren’t clouds of dust reaching towards the stratosphere anymore, the fertile prairie land has not recovered. Many farm communities in the plains are just as impoverished today as they were during the Dust Bowl, and survival exists only through a series of government subsidies and a bit of luck. A new environmental apocalypse, with effects that will reach far beyond those seen in the 1930′s, could not only bring about a new Dust Bowl, but could have a more permanent impact on the American landscape.

Mr. Will, this is not something that will just “blow over”.

It doesn’t look like I’m going to get winter her in Holland. I’m pretty happy about that, actually. Global warming has its upside.

The downside, of course, is that Holland is on average 15 feet below sea level. If when the ice sheets melt, I’m pretty much screwed if I’m still here.

Thanks to Al Gore’s new movie, as well as rising prices at the fuel pump and rising temperatures everywhere, the idea of becoming “green” is beginning to gain popularity. Auto makers are beginning to make more efficient vehicles (at least the automakers outside of Detroit). Environmental consciousness is beginning to meld with marketing. But what exactly does it mean to go green?
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Green living experiment #1 – Changing a light-bulb

Consistent with my earlier post, I am working to reduce the overall power consumption in my apartment and, ultimately, reduce my carbon (and sulfur) emissions. My first attempt in doing so is to change my light-bulbs from standard incandescent bulbs to compact florescent light-bulbs (CFLs). I think my overall power reduction is impressive, and I’m anxious to see the results.
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