The God Species_ How the Planet Can Survive the Age of Humans - Mark Lynas [99]
I should also emphasize that the Green movement has in recent years put vastly more effort into opposing coal than nuclear, with large numbers of coal plants in the U.S. and Europe now canceled as a result of the efforts of modern environmentalists. According to the Sierra Club, by February 2011 150 proposed coal plants had been canceled in America alone since 2001, with only 41 left in development or construction.70 But there is no point in opposing coal, as the Sierra Club and others have done so successfully, if you also oppose its main alternative, and regarding nuclear I have yet to see much sign of a shift within the more established Green NGOs, from Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth in the U.K. to the Sierra Club and NRDC in the U.S., still less within the official Green parties of Europe and elsewhere. In a particularly dispiriting example of this ideological stasis, the Green Party in Germany won an unprecedented victory in a regional election on March 27, 2011, after campaigning partly on the basis of public fears about Fukushima and nuclear power.
What would be most tragic, however, would be for a new generation of young Greens to be indoctrinated with the unscientific antinuclear prejudices of the old. In January 2011 Greenpeace produced a glossy report aiming for the total elimination of nuclear in Europe by 2050—and its replacement in the short and medium term with the fossil fuel gas.71 I hope this book makes a clear case that environmentalism must change, and on the nuclear issue more change is needed than perhaps in any other area. Leaving behind strong ideological commitments is always painful, but in a changing world is often necessary. If we are to properly address the challenges posed by the planetary boundaries, environmentalism will have to raise its game.
BOUNDARY SEVEN
AEROSOLS
We live on a smoky planet. Viewed from space, the Earth is brighter than it once was, as sunlight reflects outward from a worldwide haze layer several kilometers thick. From the ground, this haze makes skies that were once an intense dark blue appear milky over most of the planet’s inhabited areas.1 The denser the population, the thicker the haze layer: One pollution plume streams out into the Atlantic from the east coast of North America, while an equivalent European plume spreads eastward into Asia. From China a thicker pall stretches across the Pacific, while smoky clouds from South Asia and southern Africa extend over the northern and southern portions of the Indian Ocean. Worldwide, smoke, dust, and other airborne particles released by human activity have the same combined effect as a constant medium-size volcanic eruption, scattering sulfur and soot high into the upper atmosphere. Here is another, very visible, manifestation of the Anthropocene: We have changed the color of the sky.
Together, these anthropogenic airborne particulates are known as “aerosols,” and their impacts jointly form one of climate science’s greatest unsolved puzzles. The same particle may have a warming or a cooling effect overall, depending on its elemental makeup and where it hangs in the atmosphere at any precise time. In general, sulfate particles are bright in color, and therefore reflect sunlight, while soot is dark and absorbs it. But aerosols can also act as nuclei for cloud droplets to condense around, forming white clouds that—like snow and ice—reflect incoming solar radiation. Darker dust and soot, however, make duller clouds, which can absorb more heat and therefore be faster evaporated than their whiter cousins. The precise effect of aerosol haze, in addition, depends on what is underneath it. If it screens sunlight hitting dark-colored ocean, it will have a cooling effect. If it dims sunshine heading toward the highly reflective