Monday, April 7, 2008

Stabilization Wedges

Please read this article for tomorrow. We have not had a quiz in some time........

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

is anyone else having trouble accessing the article? it says a subscription is required

Anonymous said...

yes...do we have to pay per article...or is there an access code?

Anonymous said...

I was unable to access the article as well

Anonymous said...

try this link i think its the same paper
http://carbonsequestration.us/Papers-presentations/htm/Pacala-Socolow-ScienceMag-Aug2004.pdf

Anonymous said...

You have to look at the bottom of the page. The first page is deceiving. I initially had the same problem.
Concerning the topic on wedges, it is an interesting way of looking at how they are dividing pollution. This makes it more tangible. The problem with pollutution as has been mentioned is that it is hard to grasp it. These wedges give it a more tangible interpretation for people to be able to understand how it works.

Anonymous said...

I'm not going to lie, I really don't understand all the numbers and physics behind this article. However, the suggestions to "amp UP" what we are currently doing seems very possible.Capturing emissions from plants I beleive is the biggest wedge we can create in the CO2 battle. As well as, the driving obsession we suffer from.

Andrew Gibbs

Anonymous said...

This article is refreshing in that it provides a somewhat positive outlook on carbon emissions and climate change. The idea of wedges is is very interesting, especially since there are so many different ways to protect the environment with some relatively simple solutions, such as cars that get 60mpg.

-james roten

Anonymous said...

It seems that most of us are looking for that one miracle cure for global warming, when really greater change can be brought about by making several small, easy fixes. This article proves how simple the changes could be if we made alterations across many different areas, as opposed to putting all of our faith in something like a carbon tax.

Anonymous said...

Instead of large drastic changes that could be detrimental in terms of economic affects, we should try and implement smaller changes to help produce these stabilization wedges, just as the paper suggests. Also, efficiency can be achieved on the local scale, we don't have to wait for the fed. government to implement large scale changes because as we know thats not happening.

Anonymous said...

i agree that small changes need to be made to get these 'wedges' to work. there were a lot of figures that were difficult to understand but you get the overall picture that we need to stop carbon and other pollutants in several different ways. I think this is a sensible approach to making a cleaner environment.

Unknown said...

Is there any other way to access this article. I have a mac notebook and i dont know if that makes a difference but it shouldnt, anyhow I'm having trouble accessing it.

Anonymous said...

I think its interesting that S. Pacala and R. Socolow say you only need to use 7 of the wedges in order to "produce a material difference by 2054" yet they list 15 possible wedges. Shows that we can help fix the problem, and we can divide things up and work on them separately. Like some of the others have said by dividing pollution into wedges it makes it easier to understand and thus work on the problem.
It would be nice if we could start to apply some of these proposed "wedges"

-Rachel Bisesi

Darrel Bright said...

As long as decreasing carbon emissions becomes profitable then any "Wedge" will work. It is hard for the consumer to absorb the social cost without the cost being included in the price they pay.

Anonymous said...

This article brings up the possibility that different countries, depending on their resources and existing infrastructure, can choose a few of these wedges and try to fullfil them at a national level. Maybe there should be a contest seeing which country can fill their relative wedge first. (;