Illustrating Field Notes from a Catastrophe

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Illustrating Field Notes from a
Catastrophe Chapter 7- Business as Usual Tove
Bracilano, Kristina English, Joe
MunstermanUniversity of Washington Bothell BIS
243 Autumn 2007
Solution 4 Levy a Tax on Carbon
Solution 2 Carbon Capture Storage
By capturing CO2 at the source and injecting it
into geological formations at high pressure,
production from natural gas and oil wells could
increase. Carbon Sequestration , or CCS, may only
be a temporary solution because no one knows how
much CO2 can be trapped underground for how long.
Fig. 5
This poster shows the main solutions regarding
carbon emissions as discussed by Robert Socolow
in chapter 7. Socolow is Professor of Engineering
at Princeton and Co- director of the Carbon
Mitigation Initiative. According to Socolow ,
Business as Usual assumes that emissions will
continue to grow without regard to the climate He
proposes four solutions to this problem .
Carbon costs would have to rise 100 a ton,
adding 2 cents to each kilowatt- hour of coal and
15 a month to an American familys electric
bill to create enough incentive to go through
with this plan. This plan is controversial
however, because many people will be opposed to
more or higher taxes.
Fig. 3
Solution 3 Limiting CO2
Limits on CO2 could be set globally and emitters
could be allowed to buy and sell carbon
credits. which are prices set on amounts of
carbon emissions. This strategy has been used
successfully in the US with sulfur dioxide in
order to curb acid rain
Solution 1 Stabilization Wedges

This solution breaks the huge problem of carbon
emissions into more manageable blocks, each
wedge prevents one billion tons of carbon form
being emitted by 2054. Unfortunately, there is no
easy wedge and everyone is required to make an
effort.
Fig. 6
An immediate reduction of carbon emissions is
necessary because carbon that is released will
stay in the atmosphere for over a century. Also,
China is expected to overtake the U.S. in CO2
emissions in the next few decades by adding new
coal fired generating capacity at more than a
gigawatt per month.
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Fig. 1
Robert Socolows Stabilization wedges shows the
problem of CO2 emissions being divided into
several necessary solutions to be implemented
over a fifty year span.
Fig. 4
Conclusion The plan that Socolow lays out in
chapter 7 would avoid CO2 emissions from
exceeding concentrations of 500 parts per million
by the middle of this century. Carbon emission
growth would have to be held at almost zero for
this to be achieved and a collective effort from
every citizen would be needed. When reviewing the
various solutions to the problem of CO2 emission,
we believe the most feasible solution to be
limiting CO2 on a global scale, we have the
resources to see this plan through and the other
solutions seem less stable or easily implemented.
Fig. 2
Transportation accounts for Transportation
accounts for almost 2/3 of the oil consumed in
the U.S., releasing almost 1 pound of CO2 per
mile driven. The substitution of conventional
cars with hybrid cars will reduce carbon
emissions.
Wind Turbines are safe and emission free,
however, to get one wedge out of wind power we
would need one million two-megawatt turbines.