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BROOKII\ <br />GS <br />PnPoi c <br />The Intersection of <br />Energy and Climate Policy <br />« Previous l Next » <br />Stephen R. Palumbi I July 8, 2014 1:00pm <br />Stopping Distance: What Every i6-Year-Old Knows about <br />Climate Change <br />Every teenager learning to drive knows the concept of stopping distance: how far a fully braked vehicle will <br />travel before stopping. Depending on conditions, you might stop in 12 feet or two hundred. It depends <br />especially on the speed of the car; a fast moving, heavy car with a lot of momentum will take a long time to <br />stop. <br />Reaction time matters too; an alert driver can see an obstacle and hit the brakes in about a second and a <br />half. If she brakes too hard, she'll enter a skid. The vehicle will lose traction and take even longer to stop. <br />We demand all 16-year-olds learn these lessons: 1) it takes a while to stop, and 2) poor judgment will lead to <br />a dangerously counter -productive skid. <br />Climate change is just the same: it won't stop suddenly. It's got planetary mass, after all, and climate change <br />is speeding along very quickly. Suppose the governments and people of the world somehow found the will to <br />stop producing excess CO2. Suppose we did this today, freezing CO2 emissions at their present levels. It <br />would still take decades for extra CO2 to be scrubbed from the atmosphere. This is part of the climate <br />change stopping distance. <br />