Small steps, big energy savings (LaT OpEd)

[jpak]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-efficiency26nov26,0,1396164.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials

Not all of the potential solutions to climate change are futuristic, expensive or exotic. In fact, most Americans can find one of the most significant carbon-reducing innovations of the last 30 years standing in their kitchens, keeping the butter hard.

Refrigerators sold in the United States have grown 5% more energy efficient every year since 1975. Today they save 200 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year compared to what they'd use if they were still built to 30-year-old standards, or about a third of the annual output of all the nation's nuclear plants. Upgraded fridges have lowered electricity bills for consumers and avoided millions of tons of carbon that would otherwise have been emitted by power plants. Heating and air-conditioning systems also have grown more efficient, and fluorescent lightbulbs are a big step ahead of power-hungry incandescents.

Critics of government efforts to fend off global warming often complain that the economic costs aren't worth the gains -- better to adapt later to a warmer planet than suffer now by turning down the thermostat. This argument relies on a lot of dubious assumptions, starting with the notion that quality of life won't be significantly reduced in a world plagued by drought, wildfires, increased disease and famine, more powerful storms, mass species extinction and higher sea levels. It also assumes that the cost of cleaning up after all that will be less than the cost of preventing it from happening, which is quite a leap.

Nicholas Stern, former chief economist with the World Bank, estimates that failing to invest in cutting carbon would eventually cost up to 20% in lost income worldwide. The final report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change pointed out that adapting to global warming is a necessity because it's too late to stop the process, but that doesn't reduce the need to head off the worst effects.

<more>