2014/07/16 Council Agenda Packet

The stopping time for climate change, like the stopping time for a car, is longer the faster your vehicle plummets toward its doom. And the longer we wait, and the more severe the climate damage, the longer the stopping time. Waiting until ecosystems are collapsing at the end of the 21 st century would impose something like a century more of stopping distance. And the continued ecosystem damage during that 100 years of extra stopping period would create even more havoc, pushing more species past their extreme limits, and pulling more ecosystem services out from under the human economy, as one species after another slammed up against its ecological limits. Even a controlled braking couldn't save our metaphorical car from a shattering accident. Remember: even a teenager knows to stop before skidding. The good news is that by applying the brakes, our civilization might arrive at a gentle non -skidding halt. The bad news is that, if we don't, we will exhaust the ability of the Earth to pay the climate tax by 2100, and after that the world will collapse ecologically. A reasonable timeline for action looks like this. First, set a goal to plateau atmospheric CO2 levels by 2100 because if we do not, then climate meltdown is likely to ensue. Second, to achieve this goal, CO2 emissions need to drop to low levels by 2050. That gives us 35 years to replace most fossil fuels with renewabies— about 3 percent replacement a year and another 2 percent increase for economic growth. Is 5 percent higher renewable power each year achievable? This is the challenge we face to bring climate change effects to a screeching halt. And that is the challenge that the political, social, technical, and financial sectors of our society should take up. Stephen R. Palumbi is the Jane and Marshall Steel Professor of Biology at Stanford University. He is a Senior Fellow with the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Director of Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station in Monterey working on the way marine species adapt to climate variation. He and Tony Palumbi are co-authors of the recent book Extreme Life of the Sea (Princeton University Press). [1 ] Van Vuuren, D. P., Edmonds, J., Kainuma, M., Riahi, K., Thomson, A., Hibbard, K., ... & Rose, S. K. (2011). The representative concentration pathways: an overview. Climatic Change, 109(1-2), 5-31. Stephen R. Palumbi Jane and Marshall Steel Professor of Biology, Stanford University; Director, Hopkins Marine Station, Monterey @spalumbi