My gosh, it’s been hot these past few months. It must be from that El Niño. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 13 of the 15 highest monthly temperature anomalies have occurred since February 2015. Unfortunately, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology declared El Niño finished on May 24. Opponents of the existence of climate change have blamed abnormalities, climate and weather since 2014 on El Niño. Now that it has ended, politicians may actually have to respond to Mother Nature.
The U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris last December was seen as a triumph in climate change policy for a better tomorrow. Basically, 195 countries agreed on five-year plans to keep the global increase in temperature at a threshold where humans could still live on this lovely planet. The problem is there was no real teeth to the agreement to hold countries responsible for their plans. Once foreign ministers returned home, idealistic solutions faced realistic obstacles. Many developing countries will be forced to choose between the environment and economic development, including India — the country that ranks third in carbon dioxide emissions. In the rich world, it is sad to say that neither China nor the U.S. hold polished track records for people to believe they will stick to their promises.
The U.S. can only directly govern the U.S., and a successful outcome of the Paris talks relies heavily on innovation and leadership from this country. Before the U.S. can start wagging its finger at other countries, it needs to get its own act together. If Earth is to provide a home for generations to come, the U.S. needs to make spending and policymaking on climate change the top priority today.
Many countries will struggle to keep promises made last November because technology is at a point where some of these goals prove impossible. Government leaders can only make policies with existing solutions. To increase their arsenal on ways to combat climate change, the U.S. government has to change its mentality on research. The stigma between basic research and applied research originated from a 1945 report by Vannevar Bush, head of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II, in which he argued that government spending should focus on basic research because the ideas that show promise in applied fields will persuade private investors to bring newly innovated products to market. This mentality toward research has become obsolete. The days of scientists cooking up chemicals in a basement are over, but the dawn of multi-million dollar energy projects are upon us.
President Barack Obama has promised to triple the budget of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), where public funding for applied energy research would come from, to $1 billion by 2021. Obama should probably look to get this done before this upcoming November.
The debate on the existence of global warming has drawn out for years now. However, it doesn’t matter which side is right and which one is wrong; all that matters are the consequences of being wrong. If the proponents to global warming are wrong, society is driven to innovation where people are driving around in electric cars and using other technologies that were only brought into existence by human creativity from the 21st century. If the opponents to climate change are wrong, Earth will be uninhabitable by 2030: game over for the human race. To play it safe rather than sorry, maybe we should start preparing for the chance that opponents to global warming are wrong, even if some see that chance as very small. You know, just in case.
Joshua Udvardy is a UF mechanical engineering sophomore. His column appears on Thursdays.
