(00:00:00) Professor Dean abrahamson from the Humphrey Institute is here today to answer your questions about world climate changes not in the next couple of days but over the next several decades and if what he says actually happens to be correct. We're going to be in for some rather unpleasant surprises. Dr. Abrahamson is Professor of public affairs and director of the Global Environmental Policy project at the Humphrey Institute. He has both a PhD and a medical doctor degree from the University of Minnesota. He is an internationally recognized expert on what we call Green House gas induced climate change now, dr. Abrahamson before we get into the extent of the problem and what we might do about it and so on and so forth. Why not lay out for us what some of the consequences of this are going to be in terms of energy consumption our national parks and all the sorts of things that we that we have a chance to pretty much take for granted I think but what's happening? Is that human activities have reached the scale that they're affecting global global systems? It's no longer. You can no longer think about pollution is something that stays in the backyard or in your own river system. It's now the the materials were putting into the atmosphere are building up to the extent that they're changing the climate of the entire globe and this is happening fairly quickly as with other exponential growth things. The primary culprits are carbon dioxide which derives from a basically from burning fossil fuels and a few other gases, but what's happening is that these gases are warming the atmosphere and that in turn leads to a whole bunch of other changes in in in climate systems precipitation patterns and the like What it will amount to if we don't change our ways that is if you assume that we continue present practices that will have a warming of at least three and maybe five degrees Celsius. That's about 6 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit within the next 40 or 50 years. That's a horrendous strange. It's going to affect it's going to affect agriculture. It's going to affect natural ecosystems. It'll affect forestry sea level rise is just a host of things if you think of everything that we do that's related to The Climate it's going to affect all of them. Well supposing we don't do anything about it in the next 40 to 50 years what might the Minnesota corn growing region be like well, that's a that's a pretty good example climatic zones change shift about a hundred miles for every degree celsius every two degrees Fahrenheit change in Bridge annual temperature if we have a shift if we have a warming of seas of say a 3 degrees Celsius 6 degrees Fahrenheit and what the prep what defines the present Corn Belt will move north by several hundred miles. The department of energy did a study a couple of years ago that showed that with a small warming as I recall three degrees that the climatic Corn Belt would Encompass Minnesota Wisconsin Upper Michigan and be moved up into Canada. Now the problem with that of course is that it takes more than climate to make a Set of conditions suitable for corn or any other crop and the soil types are wrong. The precipitation patterns are wrong and so forth. So we might be growing cotton here in Minnesota. Oh, no, it's not nothing will be growing cotton here in Minnesota, but it means it means tremendous disruption in agricultural systems as well. As a lot of other systems. Do we see any evidence that this is occurring right now, I mean for over the past couple of winners, like last winter for example is very warm. This this winter has been a little it seems like a little slow to get started are these the kinds of examples that we're already seeing or not related at all? Not many people would stay publicly that the changes in weather of the last few years, which have been dramatic in some places can be proven to have resulted from global warming and loading with of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide. But this is the sort of changes one would expect that is that is changes in precipitation patterns which in the middle of the country means much less summer soil moisture warming shifts in what had been established patterns of weather and and the like so so whether or not what we're seeing now is due to it certainly is consistent with what we expect the time about 16 minutes past. The hour Dean abrahamson is with us. We're talking about world climate changes. And if you have a question for him on this topic, you can give us a call in the Twin Cities area 2276 thousand is the number two two seven six thousand in the Twin Cities in other parts of Minnesota one 865 to 97001 800 600 to 900 700 toll free and in the surrounding states, you can call us directly at area code 612 2276 thousand. Which of these so-called greenhouse gases is most responsible for the change that you envision the whole bunch of greenhouse gases and they all act the same way, even though they're very different chemically the way they act is to absorb heat if that's when they're in the atmosphere. They will they absorb heat and effectively trap heat in the lower atmosphere heat that would have otherwise been radiated into space to keep the Earth and energy balance. The most important one by far is carbon dioxide carbon. Dioxide is coming from burning of fossil fuels it's unavoidable and with certain extent from deforestation changes in land use patterns with the other major gases include the chlorofluorocarbons with a freons those gases that are also responsible for the ozone hole in the stratosphere that we've been hearing a lot about these last couple of years a nitrous oxide which Comes also from from the burning of fossil fuels and also to a certain extent from decomposition of fertilizers and methane and the methane comes from a lot of places all the way from leaks and natural gas pipelines to Tropical agriculture 222 rice patties and and wet agriculture. So a lot of different gases and they all are contributing the problem. We have a number of listeners on the line with questions. We'll get to them now and continue talking about world climate changes here with Dean abrahamson. Hello, you're on the air with (00:07:06) him two areas that I'm trying to get some insight and understanding of With the changes in atmospheric gases, it does things about filtering out the ultraviolet and a lot of pale skin humans are already getting so much that the rate of skin cancer keeps going up. And so it sounds like this would contribute to that effect and with the arrangement of our globe and all of those tropical forests and their role, it would appear from the reports that acres and acres and acres are just being chopped down and Euler's for building another purposes in the tropical forest, and it doesn't seem to be anybody who's trying to do anything to modify this behavior of destroying these forests. (00:08:07) Well, you raised two questions. The first is the question of skin cancer associated with changes in in the atmosphere that is distantly related to the global warming problem. That is the they relate a little bit in that the chlorofluorocarbons which are one of the contributors to global warming are the principal gasps that's destroying the ozone in the stratosphere and it's the ozone in the stratosphere. That is the highest levels of the atmosphere that filter out the ultraviolet and if it's depleted there will be an increase in skin cancer as you mentioned, but that's a different effect. It's an example of the same of the same problem namely human activities being carried out on such a scale as to disrupt the entire Globe instead of just your neighborhood. So that's quite a different problem, but it's a but it's also a serious one on the deforestation. There's there's basically two kinds of deforestation going on one is directly related to population pressures as you have very rapid growth of populations in in the tropics and subtropics particularly, and these people are cutting the forest to use as fuel and to raise food and so forth, but more importantly is the industrial driven deforestation or vast areas are being exploited. Basically for commercial gain that has nothing to do with the local populations. Yeah. There's a lot going on there. There's a lot of organizations. In fact some Nations that are trying to address this problem and to the extent that deforestation can be stopped. It will slow global warming because when a tree is cut down and either burned or decomposes, Carbon in that tree goes into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide just as when you burn a pound of coal the carbon goes into the atmosphere. Well, aren't we in the United States doing a fairly good job of reforestation because we know how important the wood products industry is and it was my impression that that we were doing a fairly good job of planting new trees and not taking out so much that the resource would be lost forever the amount of the amount of a net carbon being released from from deforestation in the US as well. As Europe is relatively small there is there's a lot of old old growth forest being cut but as you point out there is also some some some reforestation some deliberate and some by accident marginal Farmland is abandoned it grows up in trees and to a certain extent that ties up carbon but to give you an example if we were going to plant enough trees. To to cook to remove from the atmosphere the carbon dioxide that just the United States is putting in now, it would take at least a third and probably over half of all the agricultural land in the United States that would have to be put into trees. So that's a way to scale the problem. All right, let's move on to some more people with questions Dean abrahamson is with us from the University of Minnesota Hubert. Humphrey public affairs. Hello, you're on the (00:11:30) air. Hi. I was in that building. It's a nice building you working but I my question is as the carbon dioxide levels Kris doesn't the tendency of every green thing every growing. For synthesizing plant grow faster doesn't the world's plant life all grow a little faster when the carbon dioxide levels go up there by balancing the carbon dioxide in some way. (00:12:01) Well your your qualitatively right and quantitatively a little too optimistic. Yes, when the plants take up their carbon as you know from the from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and for at least some plants when the carbon dioxide level the atmosphere increases their growth rate increases whether or not they're the total amount of carbon tied up in the system increases is is is more questionable just because a cucumber grows faster doesn't mean that it gets any bigger. But these are these these effects are have been looked at very carefully at least reasonably carefully and the positive gain you get for example in agriculture yields because of more CO2 is dwarfed by the reduction in yields by increased temperatures by reduced moisture availability by the occurrence, for example of several consecutive days of very hot weather during the growing season and effects like that. So, yes it partially offsets, but it doesn't even come close to compensating. Moving on to some more folks with questions. Hello. You're on the air with Dean abrahamson. Yes, please your question. Hello there. All right, let's try another line. I don't know what happened to that person, but maybe he or she will call back. Are we ready for your question now? We are not. Okay. Well, let me ask you this then. Dr. Abrahamson. What do we do to prevent this problem from happening that you've described coming down the line 40 to 50 years from now. That's that's that's very difficult. I personally think that this is the most important environmental problem of our age and it's not really an environmental problems and economic problem. It's a problem that challenges the entire way. We do business. It's pretty clear that it's going to mean that the fossil fuels have to be abandoned oil and gas of course are in short supply anyway, and and as it's well known within a very few decades oil and gas will cease to be a significant fuel simply because they're being depleted. So rapidly that won't happen in the next. Enter 20 years, but I'd be surprised if we were using much oil and gas say 40 years from now coal is another story. They the amount of coal reserves are immense and virtually every country's energy policy implies burning a very large amounts of coal. We just plain won't be able to do that now to accomplish that is going to take regulations. It's going to take higher energy prices. It's going to mean shifts to energy sources that don't produce carbon dioxide there a couple and it's going to mean a lot of energy conservation. There'll be other things as well. For example, this fall there was an international agreement finally signed on the chlorofluorocarbons the clarify the chloro fluoro chlorofluorocarbons, or the freons are the gas that's principally responsible for ozone depletion in the Fear, it's also a powerful greenhouse gas. Well, most of the countries have now gotten together and said that they're going to stop producing these actually it's a staged process that production is going to be leveled off and then decreased over a number of years. We're going to have to face similar things on all carbon sources which means deforestation but primarily means the use of coal. Well, there's a lot of follow-up questions to that that I could ask but let's get back to some listener questions and maybe they'll follow up on this to with Dean abrahamson. Hello, you're on the air with him. Now (00:16:00) people don't know that when they drive their cars, they're burning fossil fuels and so they leave their cars running while they go shopping. If they need people like you to tell them that burning fossil fuels is also running your cars on please shut off your engines when you're not using the car, thank you. (00:16:18) That's the most that's I suppose the most basic kinds of conservation that it Turn off the lights. If you're not in the room don't don't run your car engine and so forth of the fossil fuel use is in this country. One of the largest of course is for the production of electricity space heating requires a lot and transportation requires a very large amount of fossil fuels. Those are the sectors that will be first addressed when it comes to Serious energy conservation so far. We haven't seen any serious energy conservation. We've seen a little dabbling around the edge but there's going to be substantial pressure not only to do things like shutting off the car engine if you're not driving but a lot of other things and probably the most efficient way to do that is through one or another price mechanism at least for things like Transportation. It sounds from what you're saying. Like you think we are probably in the eye of a hurricane here as far as our energy use is concerned because all Suppliers have gone up at least so far as you know, OPEC is concerned and prices have come down from their highs of a several years ago. And the the Outlook looks fairly Rosie, but that must be fairly short term in your view. Well, this is a little bit off the off the point, but I think that we're setting ourselves up for another situation like we had in 73 and 74. That is the non OPEC oil sources are very limited what some of the sources that got us by the last few years. For example, the Laskin North Slope and and the North Sea oil are are very well. Those are very small reserves were becoming more and more dependent on Imports because of price is largely and and a unwarranted optimism about about about Supply. We've let the uses creep up more more inefficient cars are being sold and things of that kind. I think we're setting ourselves up for another. Another another oil crisis such as we saw in 73 and 74 now that's bad enough in itself. But as as a little side effect of that, we're also getting very careless about energy conservation about about energy uses in general which are leading to an increase in the in the releases of carbon dioxide and a faster global warming. The time is 11:30. We're talking with Dean abrahamson from the Humphrey Institute of public affairs at the University of Minnesota. The topic is global climate changes, and we've got a few people on the line also some lines open again in the Twin Cities area. The number is two two seven six thousand elsewhere within the state of Minnesota 1-800-662-2386. Call us. Now. You might get on the air with your question. Thanks for waiting. What's your question for Dean abrahamson (00:19:19) today? Yeah. I have actually three real quick ones the first one. About the ozone hole over the Antarctica and I was wondering why it seems to be there rather than somewhere else where the population would is greater. And so therefore the amount of pollution in the air would be greater and my second question is about population shifts to reflect the changing climates. In other words right now. There's a shift towards the Southwest United States would that has anybody done any research in how that might affect the population bringing more people to Minnesota perhaps and my third question is also about energy. I know that President Carter tried to take a real active role in energy conservation and he was pretty much pooh-poohed by everyone and called a pessimist but he was real really realistic about it. And I was just wondering if anybody else has come up with any type of solution not politicians but maybe meteorologist or energy experts to help deal with this and research in solar energy or like battery-operated cars or something like that. And is there any Research into Living in domes to help protect us from the environment in the (00:20:26) future. Well, I can't deal with all of those that's a couple of lectures that would take an hour each. I'm afraid they business about the ozone hole has to do with peculiarities in the in the circulation in part in part because of the of the cycle of light and dark in the at the polar regions, but it's it's not related to the source of the pollution because these gases the chlorofluorocarbons have a very very very long residence time in the atmosphere. That is they simply aren't destroyed in periods of decades and and and so they mix through the entire through the entire atmosphere and it's the particular climatic situation at the poles both North and South that lead to the first appearance of the ozone hole there. The population shift question in response to climate change has been handled in my view very glibly if you if you look, The literature you find that the wise old man saying. Well, what are you worried about? We can respond. We have a powerful Technologies and so forth. And by the way, they they historic response to changes in climate and other environmental stresses has been to change populations to shift populations. Well one is talking about movements now of hundreds of millions or billions of people you're not talking about a few retirement homes in in in Arizona, you're talking about entire populations. And while that's recognized as being implied by rapidly changing climate virtually, no one has addressed it in a serious way as you as you suggest the tendency will be for people to move north, but it's more complicated than that because of precipitation and water availability for reasons that that are probably too detailed to explain here one would expect along with the warming major reductions in available surface moisture and run off in the middle of continents. For example, the most recent studies show that with a very modest warming The available soil moisture in this part of the country in Minnesota would probably be reduced by 40 or 50 percent Studies have shown the that stream flows. Well, nobody's looked at the Mississippi but in the Missouri in the upper, Missouri reduced by about 30% the Colorado River down about half some of the other Southwestern Rivers down by 60 or 70% and and again, like well like a cornbelt people need more than warmth. They need a lot of other things and this means this means major population shifts, which I simply think are politically unrealistic. The energy conservation question is a fairly important one. There's been a lot of work done on energy conservation and from just the technical from a technical standpoint. There's no question, but what we could we being the United States could reduce its energy consumption by Dear 60 perhaps more percent without any economic loss whatsoever. That is meeting the test of economic efficiency to the person that has to pay the energy bill. How is it be the the building standard there? The building code for for insulation in Minnesota is is I was I was going to say it's almost a joke. It's better than that. But it but it is nowhere near what would be indicated if one did an economic analysis for the person that has to pay the heating bills and it's the same in a lot of other sectors. So the the at least in the short run by that I mean the next couple of decades the technology Associated with energy conservation is well known what is not available is the is the political will to make the changes that are necessary to realize those conservation measures in part that's price mechanisms mean this country has not been willing to tax energy or to price energy at anything. Like it's true costs other countries. Have you go to Europe you're paying three four dollars a gallon for gasoline and you see the results. We haven't been able to bite down on that. Well, do you see any likelihood that that we would I mean the Congress House of Representatives? Is it up? Every two years the Senate every six and a president every four? Oh, yeah. This is the the relatively short attention span of legislators is if is of course a factor, I think we'll have no choice and it may take something like another another oil crisis and other OPEC induced price increase or something even worse before we before we finally do what what we should do. It's I don't think it's a question of if I think it's a question of when and I'm afraid that it'll probably be allowed to get into another crisis situation before anything much is done that's us at the sad commentary but I it's probably realistic let's move on to some other people with questions for Dean abrahamson. We're talking about the broad topic of world climate changes. We've gotten off onto the possible solutions and what some of the Energy, and so forth lifestyle things might be like, but take your question next to know (00:26:15) they're all right morning. I'm a forest with the DNR and working with the United States Department of Agriculture. Of course, the DNR and the other states power company to assess the potential converting marginal Farmland to trees which would then be used as a renewable fuel for electric power generation and giving you something that we conserve what we can I would like to hear. Dr. Avery Johnson comments on using wood biomass to Power electric utilities, especially compared to (00:26:43) fossil fuels Well, I'm I'm familiar with this with this proposal. And as you said northern states power company is looking at the possibility of converting power plants to burn trees and those trees would be grown as you as you indicated on marginal Farmland that can be converted to essentially energy plantations from an environmental standpoint. That is probably the best way to produce energy to produce electricity in a state like Minnesota. If you do the analysis of the conventional environmental impacts and compare it for example with the alternative which is probably a coal burning plant. It's a net. It's a net benefit in every respect. There's virtually no sulfur oxides emitted. The nitrogen oxides are lower all of the conventional environmental impacts would be would be substantially lower. Were we to burn trees the main reason for doing it though. Probably is the is the greenhouse effect because if you use biomass if you grow a tree that tree takes its carbon from the atmosphere when it's grown and you burn it to produce electricity. There's no net release of carbon dioxide at all and no contribution to the to the greenhouse effect. In fact, you're probably going to remove have some net removal of carbon from the atmosphere because you have to over plant your plantations. I don't know what the number is you have to plant 10% or 20% more trees and you expect to use because of various losses. You might have and that carbon. Will be will be removed from the atmosphere and sequestered. So I think that the use of biomass for the production of electricity is an example of one of the things that we should be doing from my standpoint. If Minnesota, we're going to build another electrical power generation facility. The use of biomass would be the best possible Choice Dean abrahamson is with us today. He's a professor of public affairs at the Humphrey Institute and also director of the Global Environmental Policy project at that institution and we have a question from you next at all there. (00:29:17) This is not necessarily a question. It is a comment. I'm afraid it's a very sad comment about 20 years ago. There was a movement in this country, which was very strong called zero population growth and it just vanished it. A turd out completely. I think largely through inveterate socially responsibility and I am wondering whether or not the reintroduction of this movement possibly through legislatively legal force would not contribute substantially to the reduction of the horrendous problem, which we are facing. (00:30:12) Well, the the the impact of an individual on the on the globe terms of air pollution contribution to global warming resource depletion or what have you is related very strongly to the amount of per capita consumption the and in end in a country like the United States. It is not population growth per se that is increasing our our pollution. It's rather per capita consumption and I would think that what we have to address here is the question of waste of any efficiencies of the impact that each one of us has through increased use of energy through increased use of throwaway materials, etc. Etc. Now is that of course isn't the case In in in many other countries and in in many places High population growth even at a marginal very marginal standard of living is a serious concern but it's the oecd countries and China and the Soviet Union that are the Bad actors when it comes to to to global warming the global warming that we're seeing now is related almost entirely to the releases from the industrialized world. The third world countries are not contributing much simply because they don't consume much on a per capita level. Now that could change very quickly China has nearly a billion people trying to energy policy now calls for about a 5% per year increase in Coal consumption if that continued for very long they would Become the world's largest contributor to the global warming, but that isn't the case at present when we went on the air few minutes ago. You said that we were likely to see an increase if we did nothing in World temperatures of 6 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit in about 30 or 40 years. Let's face it the weather forecasters can't get tomorrow's forecast. Right? How do we know that? You're going to be right about something 40 years down the line. Well, that's a that's a fair. Well, that's a fair question. First of all just a technical correction a business and as usual a scenario means warming to the extent you mentioned by the time say 2040 or 2050 as not quite 30 years. All right, I'm sorry a little bit longer than that the in part. Your question is answered by the range say 6 to 10 degrees fahrenheit as that the the atmospheric physics of this is fairly well understood and usually for example for for doubling of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. The warming is taken to be six degrees Celsius or six degrees Fahrenheit plus or minus about a degree and a half and it's that plus or minus. A degree and a half that accounts for those things which are not well understood from a scientific standpoint of for example exactly. How will the clouds distribute and some of the other feedback effects how quickly will the arctic ice melt and and and things of that kind. No, there is there is a virtual consensus in the international scientific Community about the global warming. There is a very good not quite as good but reasonable understanding about what's going to happen with generalized precipitation patterns, for example, it's going to be drier in the middle of continents and it's going to be wetter on on in certain coastal regions. When you come down to Regional impacts it is if you say what is going to happen in the Red River Valley basin And be able to say that with enough certainty to go ahead and build more dams or something of that kind. It's that level that the detail is lacking but the general Trends are clear. The science has been extremely well understood for a long time, but it's with regional detail that you get into trouble or that it's not well understood. There are also places that have got complicated weather weather patterns to begin with that. You have more and more trouble you one is on a lot Sounder ground saying what's going to happen in Minneapolis than you are and saying what's going to happen for example in Copenhagen simply because the the the The weather patterns are much more complicated in some places than whether in they are here, but the science is good. The biggest uncertainty term is the political response to it. That is what are we going to do about the releases and production of these greenhouse gases, but because once they get in the atmosphere their impact is pretty well, understood. Alright 13 minutes before twelve o'clock Dean abrahamson answering questions about world climate change and your next go ahead, please. (00:35:42) Yeah. I have just one question and I'll hang up and listen. I'm wondering if dr. Abrams Abramson knows of any good books that I could read on the subject. (00:35:54) Well, he's thinking actually no, I have it the University Library. I suppose of a couple of thousand books and journal articles and stuff. That is there is there's a lot of there's a lot of literature. But the only books available are very technical and hard to read. I think the best thing to do is that if I will I will commit myself to putting together a little reading list gleaned from from periodicals that are relatively easy to get a hold of and if anybody wants them they can either contact the station or they could contact me at the University and I'll send it to you. All right, if people want to contact you with University, what what should they do? Well, the best thing to do would be to drop a note. It's it's the Humphrey Institute of public affairs 243 Humphrey Center University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455. All right. That's the Humphrey Institute 243 Humphrey Center University of Minnesota Minneapolis. 55455. Yes, that's right and call it to your attention Dean abrahamson, right 12 minutes approximately before noon. And what's your question on world climate change today little they're (00:37:19) all right. I'm a northern Minnesota and I want to tell you how it was when I went to a nearby City to Symposium on the subject of more efficient Heating and so forth and so on. Most all of the people there in the different moves different rooms and with the different programs really had dollar signs in their eyes there weren't really into it for the environment or for the it was more for the economics and their personal economics. It seemed to me because natural products that are in the area to be used for insulation were never mentioned. It was all commercial, but I want to say this that in my studies, I believe that there is not an energy shortage now and that there never has been a true energy shortage. The sun which blows the letter that goes the wind blows and goodness knows many other clean and cheap sources of energy are available. We're swimming in a sea of energy and don't have sense enough to use it. Thank (00:38:32) you. Well II agree with most of what you said there certainly are a lot of opportunities for utilizing energy sources that we have locally all the way from solar to to local Hydro previous caller mentioned the possibility of using trees of using of growing trees in Minnesota for for for the production of electricity. That's an example not only does it have environmental benefit but it has substantial economic benefit as instead of shipping money out of Minnesota to buy coal that money would be going into to the regional economy. If you as far as swimming in energy in a very short term, that's probably a fair characterization, but the world is getting into a very dangerous situation because of the high reliability High Reliance on petroleum virtually all transportation systems are dependent on petroleum as a way. Well as are a lot of other essential services and that petroleum is distributed very unequally over the globe. Most of it is in the Middle East very volatile area as both politically and economically. So as I said before I think that largely because of ignoring the very things that you that you talked about And related matters we're getting ourselves into a very very dangerous situation moving on to some more people with questions here about world climate change. Hello. You're next. (00:40:17) Yeah. I'd like to defer back to one of the comments that was made earlier. He said that we should be taxing energy implying that we should have the $3 per gallon as Europe does and I work with Europeans quite often and Germans in particular. So comment on Germany first off over there. I would say their car usage is equal or greater than ours. And secondly, they do not have any anti-pollution device has required on their vehicles so that to me shows that taxation and applying that towards government does not necessarily solve anything with energy and then I'd like to move on to the comment that I think to really you should be one of the biggest promoters and nuclear energy because that's the cleanest form of energy and France is becoming a really energy independent nation. I'd like to comment on that. (00:41:01) Thank you. People respond to prices and if you want to get technical about it, I think we would start by pricing energy here at the marginal cost of new domestic energy supplies. That is we ought to be pricing energy here that we consume here at what it would cost to produce that energy domestically a lot of mechanisms for doing that taxing is one mechanism. You didn't talk so much about about other uses but many other things for example energy conservation in the household insulation heating energy in the like the most effective mechanism is probably going to be a price mechanism rather than the degree of Regulation and governmental control. That would be net would be necessary to have a comparable effect. I appreciate that. There's no way to to avoid the the nuclear power issue. As we as we more and more appreciate the the importance of global warming. There are basically two energy sources, which do not produce carbon. Dioxide one is solar in its various forms biomass Hydro wind Etc. And the other is is nuclear fission. This country was engaged in a very acrimonious debate over nuclear power for about 10 years. Northern Europe has been in the same situation and 44 that and a combination of economic factors nuclear power has not been particularly successful. There hasn't been a plant sold in this country now for for 10 years. But there's no question that as global warming becomes more important. We're going to have to go through once again the decision about nuclear power plants and particularly particularly the breeder reactor and as before the major issues are going to be reactor safety and and proliferation because one of the side effects of accepting nuclear power is that you're accepting that anybody that wants an atomic bomb can have one and that includes both Nations and sub National groups and that has not that hasn't gone away and so far. Nobody has devised a way to avoid it by technical means but be that as it may this debate will take place again. I'm there's just no way to avoid it. All right, we have about 4 minutes left with our guest. I don't think we can get everybody on there who's waiting, but we'll try to get as many as we can anyway, huh? You're (00:43:53) next. Yes. I'm wonder if Dean you are familiar with Economist Robert Theobald book Rapids of change social entrepreneurship in turbulent times. It seems to me that he develops a lot of the ideas the church sponsoring this (00:44:11) morning. No, I'm not but I just made a note and I'm going to I'm going to try to find it. Thank you. All right, let's move on to your question then. Hello (00:44:21) there. Hello for people like me who likes know and looking ahead into the future. As far as is necessary. How can we expect to be able to enjoy in some part of the world's inches or feet of snow and decades and decades from now. (00:44:34) Well, I'll still be snow in the in the in the higher elevations Canada is one of the few countries that has tried to do a an overall assessment of what global warming does for Canada. I just I was at a meeting a few weeks ago where the group from Ontario was making their presentation and one of their big negative impacts was the decline in the winter Recreation industry in in Canada the other well, they'll be less snow. They'll be a lot less snow in places that are accessible for example to us. in Minnesota moving on to another caller with a question. Hello there. Go (00:45:17) ahead. Yeah one quick question. What's the potential for photovoltaic systems in the near future based on present trends of energy costs. (00:45:25) I don't know those numbers particularly. Well photovoltaic prices are coming down very rapidly and the efficiencies of the conversion efficiencies are going up my friends who purport to be expert are very optimistic about photovoltaics even to the point of talking about large photovoltaic arrays in in in in Fairly remote locations, where the where the net output would be hydrogen gas or some other energy carrier. But the photovoltaics are clearly one of the technologies that would be that would be extremely useful as would any of the other Solar Technologies and I have to say it's second hand I take other people's word for it. But but I have the impression that they're very close to it's very close to the point that they can be used for large-scale energy production. With about a minute and a half left one more question for Dean abrahamson. I (00:46:29) there yes. Hello. First a suggestion for the man who is looking for a book to read state of the World published by the world watch Society by Lester Brown 1987 version was excellent second a question given the widespread deforestation and the use of aquifers under irrigated Farmland will the resultant desertification of vast areas of the world accelerate the trends you're talking about. Thank (00:46:53) you. Yes, they will and and the trends I'm talking about will also accelerate the desertification and the and availability of moisture. We're getting in trouble as your question implied already with depleting aquifers in the like one of those needs only look at the Ogallala Aquifer this as you have warming, there's going to be a very acute water availability a situation. Well this topic I'm afraid we've run out of time. But the topic certainly does cover a wide range of things from from the physics of whether to politics to energy conservation. It rings in a whole lot of different things and I want to thank you very much for coming in and talking about them today. Thank you Dean abrahamson has been with us today. He is Professor of public affairs and director of the Global Environmental Policy project at the Humphrey Institute of the University of Minnesota. Now, if you're interested in the address that he gave if you want to have him send you a little reading list of things you can write to Dean abrahamson at the Humphrey Institute. The address is 243 Humphrey Center University of Minnesota 55455. And I hope the duplicating machines are cranked up over there. Weekend is made possible by Ecolab Incorporated providing products and services for household institutional and Industrial Cleaning worldwide. This is Bob Potter speaking.