Abstract

Climate change will impact us for the foreseeable future. In 2012 we realized that the oil peak might not be looming on the horizon. Fracking could make US a fossil fuel exporter in the following decade. This will prompt a shift from coal to natural gas decreasing GHG (1) US emissions by 20% to 50% for every coal to gas switch in the power sector. The prospect of continued fossil fuel use must be compensated by decisive action at the end of life cycle technologies. Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) could reduce emissions to up to 95%. Waste gases/municipal waste-to-ethanol is also ready to be deployed in order to mitigate climate change.

INTRODUCTION

A recent paper from Goddard Institute for Space Studies shows that what was once unusually hot weather has become normal weather. This statistic study provides an argument that is mathematically compelling and logically bulletproof to ideology driven science. It shows that over the last six decades the planet got warmer and warmer with extreme hot weather becoming more frequent (2).
In a nutshell, the researchers divided the surface of the Earth in 250 km-wide cells and mapped the distribution of average temperatures for six decades (1951 to 2011) relative to an average value. The temperature distribution followed a bell shaped curve distribution for each decade. As shown in Figure 1 the peak of the curve for each decade has steadily moved to higher temperate. This shows that the average temperature increased steadily on a planetary scale for the last six decades. The curves have also grown flatter from one decade to the next one. This proves that extreme conditions grew increasingly frequent as well. In fact, the authors conclude that what would have been extreme heat in 1951-1961 (a once in a lifetime event) could be found at any ...