How to slow global warming to merely disastrous levels for less than the cost of a war in, say, Iraq

Okay, it might cost about the same, according to Dan Schrag of Harvard’s Center for Planetary Science. Schrag, who just delivered the always provocative annual Stanislaw Ulam Memorial Lectures for the Santa Fe Institute, considers himself a pragmatist. Coal is cheap and will remain abundant for well over a hundred years. It would be foolish to think we won’t want to use it. It’s unfortunate that it’s the worst contributor to global warming, but even adding the cost of gasification (of ALL coal plants, if we want to have any chance), and the cost of deep-sea burial of the CO2, it’s still cheaper than nearly any other fuel. Thin-film solar? Sure it’s cheaper than current solar panels by an order of magnitude — but you still have the cost of installation — which is always going to be more than the cost of coal. The only tiny problem (I minimize), is that we actually don’t know if the level of CO2 that we have the faint chance of maintaining, 550 ppm, or about double the historic level, will be low enough to keep the Greenland and Antarctic glaciers from melting away. They’re already melting faster than recently predicted, and that’s at our current 380 ppm. If they do melt, we’ll see (hopefully from mountaintops) a sea level rise of from 20 to 120 feet.

Think the problem is the probable 50% increase in world population? Wrong. It’s swamped by the desire of India and China to increase the standard of living for their population to a fraction of ours.

Here’s a good, clear exposition of his arguments: Harvard Magazine May/June 2006.