What’s being billed as the U.S. Senate’s last chance to pass a bill that deals with climate change, the American Power Act, aims for a now-familiar target: a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 83% by 2050. The idea is that if the developed world can manage to reach that goal, the global goal only has to be something like a 50% cut by mid century. As has been pointed out, this will not be easy.
The authors of a recent paper in PNAS call it “a forbidding challenge.” Why? It turns out the math and underlying science are much less forbidding. Allow me to take a stab at explaining it in hopes of shedding some light into the science that’s driving all the “alarmism.” I promise it’s not that difficult.
Continue reading “Climate change math made simple”