Global Warming Threatens Gulf Coast
Harry Hope
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/entergy_global_warming_threatens_coast/
November 3, 2010
Global Warming Threatens Coast
by Adam Lynch
Entergy Corp. says the Mississippi Gulf Coast will suffer $370 billion
in losses to global warming if power companies do not offset the
amount of carbon they are putting into the environment.
Jeff Williams, director of Entergy's Climate Consulting division,
released an Oct. 21 PowerPoint acknowledging that global warming is a
reality and that the power industry must act immediately to counter
it.
"It's not a question of if man's activity will warm the planet. Ninety
eight percent of scientists agree that it is. The question is how much
impact we're talking about and when it will happen," Williams told the
Jackson Free Press Friday.
The company warned that the planet may be "approaching tipping points
of no return" regarding sea-level rise, more intense storms and
massive worldwide food and water shortages as a result of global
warming.
Entergy said the amount of carbon in the atmosphere has been rising
steadily since 2006.
The company reports that in 2010, the planet reached almost 390 parts
per million of CO2 emissions.
(One part per million CO2 equals 2.1 billion tons of CO2 above what
the earth's carbon sinks--areas that absorb carbon in the land and
ocean--can remove.)
In 2006, the global CO2 amount was 380 parts per million, so the
company estimates the planet is adding an extra 2 parts per million
every year.
A peak of 480 parts per million would produce a 70 percent to 85
percent chance of global temperatures increasing up to 1.8 degrees
Celsius.
That temperature change could prove problematic for the Mississippi
Gulf Coast and other areas of the world:
Entergy reports that a rise of 2 degrees Celsius increases the
probability of melting the Greenland ice sheet and adding 20 feet to
the planet's sea level.
Coastal areas, it adds, are already experiencing hazards related to
climate and a rise in sea level, which the company said puts at risk
its customer base and billions of dollars of investment in the Gulf
Coast area.
"We commissioned a ($4 million) study of the Gulf Coast from Alabama
to Texas. ... We mapped it out, and did ... modeling on hurricane
tracks, and calculated what the hazards would be from more intense
storms and sea-level rising," Williams said.
The company compared potential losses under three climate-change
scenarios and determined that its customer base is looking at a
cumulative estimated loss of $370 billion from 2010 to 2030 as climate
change takes hold.
"It's tough to get your head around that large a number," Williams
said.
"You could rebuild all the buildings in the city of New Orleans six
times over for $370 billion."
This is not the first time the company has sounded the alarm.
Entergy Corp. and its affiliates Entergy Mississippi Inc. and Entergy
Louisiana Inc., among others, are members of the Edison Electric
Institute--an association of shareholder-owned electric companies
serving 70 percent of the U.S. power industry.
Last year, EEI worked with House Democrats Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and
others on a legislative proposal to reduce climate change.
The proposal included cap-and-trade legislation, which puts limits on
the carbon a power company can dump into the atmosphere.
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Harry