Sally Benson, an expert in low-carbon energy systems, discussed flexible standards for clean electricity. "Mandate the goals", she said, "not how states get there."
“So many different types of extremes we know are increasing in frequency or intensity as a result of global warming, even the ones that don’t include temperature directly,” said climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh.
Rob Jackson discussed how our emergence from the pandemic could lead to a spike in emissions. "The quickest jump will come when everyone hops back in their cars and starts commuting regularly," he said.
Sally Benson suggested, “making it cheaper for businesses to invest in carbon capture and storage is the best way to immediately reduce fossil fuel emissions.”
Rob Jackson co-authored an op-ed about ways that policymakers can reduce methane emissions. "We must mitigate methane emissions at their sources," they wrote.
“If you were to get to know 100 families in East Palo Alto, maybe 50 out of 100 already are right at that point at which savings are so low that ... a flood event ... could be that tipping point,” said Derek Ouyang, a program manager and lecturer at the Stanford Future Bay Initiative.
“This is really one of the first cases where you can say, shockingly, in some ways, these slow, calm ice sheets care a lot about a single extreme event in a particularly warm year," Dusty Schroeder, said.
Research led by Steve Gorelick found that Jordan's annual rainfall could be reduced 30 percent by 2100. Supplemental resources are limited, making the situation bleak.
“Solar geoengineering is not a substitute for decarbonizing,” said Chris Field, adding that technology to reflect sunlight “should be researched as rapidly and effectively as possible.”
"We can't cut emissions by putting hundreds of millions of people out of work and locking everyone at home," said Rob Jackson. Emissions are back to pre-pandemic levels but to lower them again it shouldn't cost people their jobs.
“In some cases, as we become more sophisticated, we’ve lost the ability to see what’s most obvious,” said Rod Ewing, Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security at Stanford. “You calculate the probability of an event against the expense – and often cost is the driver.”
Using government satellite images instead of air quality data, Marshall Burke projected an increase in smoky days in coming years. “In the future, it’s going to get worse than 2020,” he says. “We should expect that.”
