I’ll admit to being someone who believe that new and existing technologies are vital to ultimately moving away from a fossil fuel-based civilization. But many technological fixes are long-term solutions when, as you said, we need immediate changes. The problem is that the scale of the problem means we literally need to do everything, and all at the same time. We need to invest hugely in development of new energy storage technologies, in scaling and commercializing existing energy generation technologies, in massive efficiency improvements, etc. If you look at the Carboholic from March 12, you’ll see an image from BusinessWeek that shows the results of one study that pretty much lays out the order we need to do things – improve residential and commercial efficiency in electronics & lighting, followed by boosting efficiency at existing power plants, fuel efficiency improvements, developing cellulosic biofuels, improving hot water heating efficiency, industrial process improvements, boosting existing power plant efficiencies, and then on through new nuclear plants, improved cropland use, reforestation, etc. Yes, it’s only one study’s blueprint, and other studies likely have other blueprints of their own, but some of the things listed won’t be possible without new technologies or without spending money on scaling existing technologies.

There’s a ton we can do with what we already know and what’s available today. But we simply will not be able to cut our emissions enough and enable the rest of the nations of the world to grow their standards of living without many, many things that simply don’t exist, or are not ready for prime time, today.

The best site I’ve found for giving people a sense of the scale of the problem is Princeton’s Climate Mitigation Initiative, where they introduce the idea of “carbon wedges”, where each wedge is 25 Gtons or carbon. Seven complete wedges are required to stabilize at 500 ppm CO₂, never mind actually lower CO₂, and that’s assuming that 500 ppm is “OK” when some scientists are starting to suggest that we need to stabilize ast 350 ppm or less (which is the CO₂ concentration from 1988). We can get one full wedge by increasing the average global fuel economy for all vehicles to 60 MPG. Or we can displace 1400 GW of coal power with an equivalent amount of natural gas power (for reference, that’s 30% more electricity from gas alone than the entire US consumed from all electricity sources combined in 2006). Or we can build twice as many nuclear plants as we already have worldwide instead of coal plants. Or we could replace between 84 and 100 billion incandescent bulbs with CFLs. Or we can cover an area equal to the entire state of Colorado with wind farms. And if we did ALL of those things, that’s still just 5 of the needed 7 wedges to stabilize us at 500 ppm, never mind actually reduce atmospheric CO₂ concentrations.

While I agree completely that we absolutely must start working yesterday to address GHG emissions with every tool we already have available, we need far, far more than what we have today in order to succeed. Just because Bush’s call for more technology is a delaying tactic doesn’t mean that similar calls from other quarters are similarly intended.

My reaction to the speech was rant, being pissed off and doing in between a meeting, but in reaction to the line about technology, I wrote:

Bush: There are a number of ways to achieve these reductions, but all responsible approaches depend on accelerating the development and deployment of new technologies.

Technology. Technology. Technology. The call of the delayer.

The reality is that new technology will be useful and is desireable. But, we can do a tremendous amount with what is already available. Tomorrow’s lightbulbs might be better, but you can cut lighting electrical use by 73% today by switching to CFLs. Similar options exist throughout the economy. Let’s deploy those today even while we work to develop the options for tomorrow.

On technology as the key to addressing climate change:

We must all recognize that in the long run, new technologies are the key to addressing climate change.

I do not need to “recognize that … new technologies are the key …” Perhaps for where we need to be 30 years from now, the new technologies developed in the next 20 years have importance, but we must act starting the day before yesterday and we have tremendous amounts of capacity for change for the better already invented, tested, designed, and deployed … just not deployed enough. CFLs, CSP (CPV, CSTP), CHP, etc … just without leaving the letter C in abbreviations, I can come up with technology after technology that can be deployed, today, to help reduce the output of another C: CO2.

As to this strong discussion .. What did you, imo, miss in this commentary? That the call for technology is a call for delay. And, that we already have in hand enough “technology” to turn the tide and to reduce drastically our CO2 emissions.

Now, for the most part, my reaction was a rant of anger, frustration, and outrage. Others had pre-/post-speech reactions, with more substance (even if as much anger and frustration and outrage …), such as Joe Romm at Climate Progress, the Climate Network, Grist Same as it ever was, and on Bush’s insulting of the Supreme Court and the legal system, I suggest Warming Law.

Wonkroom, with Earth to Bush, has a good laydown of just how much of a fraud Bush’s concepts are against requirements.

President Bush’s call for new technologies to address global warming has been met with widespread disappointment. It probably didn’t help that most of the claims he made in his speech aren’t supported by the facts….