Global Warming

Global warming is already affecting the world as we know it, from rising sea levels to vanishing wildlife to extreme weather patterns. Scientists think that once greenhouse gas pollution climbs past a certain threshold in the earth’s atmosphere, various climate mechanisms will reach the point that they cannot be stopped. How’s that work? Through a number of “positive feedback loops” that get stronger over time. For example, ice reflects light and heat while water absorbs it. So as Arctic sea ice melts and exposes more water, less heat is reflected, more is absorbed and the Arctic gets warmer, leading more ice to melt and … you get the idea. So it’s necessary to act now before those forces reach the point of no return. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that avoiding the “major” impacts of global warming would require a 50 to 85 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Doing nothing about global warming, based on state-of-the-art computer modeling, would cost the U.S. economy more than $3.8 trillion annually in today’s dollars by 2100.

Nuclear Power

Nuclear power plants emit almost none of the pollutants -- including carbon -- that plague fossil fuels, but it is a misnomer to call the nuclear fuel cycle “clean.” Reactors routinely release small amounts of short-lived radioactive gases and liquids into the local environment, but there is a low risk, assuming competent nuclear operators, of catastrophic accidental releases of radioactivity. The traditional uranium mining and refining process produces large quantities of environmental contaminants that pose radiation and chemical hazards to human and environmental health. Alternative solution mining methods impair groundwater quality. Like a large coal-fired power plant, about two thirds of the energy produced by a nuclear reactor is typically discharged to the environment as waste heat, which can be a significant environmental problem for lakes, rivers, and bays that host nuclear plants. The cooling intakes of these plants routinely suck in and kill huge numbers of larvae and young fish every year. Finding acceptable sites for the long-term isolation of nuclear waste has proven to be a difficult problem in the U.S. and most other nuclear countries. Additionally, in some countries nuclear fuel cycle facilities pose a nuclear weapons proliferation threat, and all nuclear plants impose heightened security requirements and costs not shared by other power generating technologies. All these factors combine to favor quicker, cleaner, cheaper, and less risky renewable energy solutions as candidates for subsidies.

Fuel Efficiency

The United States has 3 percent of the world’s oil supply but represents 25 percent of the world’s demand for oil. Even if we could suddenly access all of our oil, it is impossible for us to significantly affect oil prices because they are determined by the world market. Oil is a finite resource, and the faster we use the oil we have, the faster we’ll run out. Even if the protected Arctic National Wildlife Refuge were opened for drilling tomorrow, despoiling one of the world’s last great wilderness areas, not a drop of oil would flow for a decade the greatest impact it could have on gas prices would be mere pennies per gallon. We need to put our money and focus into using less oil and finding transportation and fuel alternatives.