The Commonwealth of Virginia no longer has a state climatological office, but Gov. Timothy M. Kaine still has a lot to say about Global Warming. Yesterday, he testified before Congress, warning that rising sea levels due to Global Warming threatened the health of the Chesapeake Bay and put Hampton Roads, the second lowest-lying metropolitan area in the country after New Orleans, at risk. (Read accounts by the Virginian-Pilot and Times-Dispatch.)
Kaine endorsed a bill that would set up a “cap-and-trade” mechanism for controlling emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas widely blamed for rising temperatures globally. If you’ve got to regulate C02 emissions, a market-based, cap-and-trade system is probably the best way to go. But it won’t come close to solving Virginia’s problems.
Here’s why. C02 emissions are rising, and they will continue to rise, no matter what the United States does. By capping emissions, we can slow the rate at which “greenhouse gases” accumulate, but we can do nothing to halt what’s happening in China, India or the rest of the developing world. According to the Christian Science Monitor, China is on track to build 562 coal-fired power plants in the next eight years, while India is planning 213. Those power plants will produce twice as much C02 as the Kyoto protocols are designed to reduce.
If the linkages exist that Kaine believes exist — (1) rising C02 emissions will push global temperatures higher, (2) higher temperatures will melt the icecaps on Greenland and Antarctica, and (3) the release of melted water into the oceans will cause ocean levels to rise two feet this century — then Virginia still has a problem.
If Kaine believes the commonly accepted Global Warming scenario, then he needs to spend less time telling Congress what the nation should do, and spend more time figuring out what Virginia and Hampton Roads can do.
A few questions:
What is Virginia doing about the continued residential development in low-lying areas likely to be inundated by rising sea levels? Does it make sense to allow development, and to expend public dollars on providing infrastructure for that development, on territory that could lie underwater by the end of the century? Does it make sense to spend millions of dollars for sand replenishment along beaches that will most likely be washed away?
How is Virginia modifying its transportation plan to accommodate rising sea levels? Hampton Roads plans to spend billions of dollars upgrading its road system. The route for the proposed Southeastern Expressway would run through some extremely low-lying ground. Would parts of that route be inundated by rising sea levels? Would it be prone to flooding in a hurricane? If one of the stated purposes of the Expressway is to function as an evacuation route in a hurricane, that question would seem germane!
What other measures can be taken to protect Hampton Roads against a New Orleans-style disaster?
What measures can be taken to offset the effects of rising temperatures on the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem? Would it help to reduce sources of man-made stress on the ecosystem, such as reducing the flow of pollutants into the Bay?
What can we be doing here in Virginia to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? The state’s new energy plan notes that Virginia should adopt more energy-efficient human settlement patterns, and more energy-efficient transportation systems. But is the Governor willing to expend political capital to change Business-as-Usual practices?
Update: The Baltimore Sun has more on the Sprawl-Global Warming connection. A report by the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education estimates that more compact, mixed use development patterns could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 7 to 10 percent.