The document discusses the impacts of climate change and the urgency of reducing carbon emissions. It notes that global temperatures are rising rapidly, climate change effects will be irreversible, and tipping points may cause abrupt shifts. Future droughts and sea level rise from ice sheet collapse could be severe. While energy efficiency helps, it risks increasing consumption through reduced costs. A zero-carbon strategy using renewable energy is essential to avoid this rebound effect. Data center emissions match some countries' totals and will grow substantially. The document proposes rewarding carbon reductions through "carbon rewards" instead of taxes to incentivize changes in behavior.

1. FCC Broadband plan versus the environment Bill St. ArnaudBill.st.arnaud@gmail.comUnless otherwise noted all material in this slide deck may be reproduced, modified or distributed without prior permission of the author

2. Global Average Temperature

3. 2010 warmest year ever

4. Global warming since 1970See the world heating up 1884-2010 in this new NASA animation. http://bit.ly/NasAni1970-19792000-2009

5. Rapid Increase in the Greenhouse Gas CO2Since Industrial Era BeganBlack Death Allowed Reforestation in Europe and North America reducing CO2Medieval Warm PeriodLittle Ice Age200018001400160012001000You are Here

6. Climate ForecastsMIT report predicts median temperature forecast of 5.2°C

7. 11°C increase in Northern Canada & Europe

8. http://globalchange.mit.edu/pubs/abstract.php?publication_id=990

9. Last Ice age average global temperature was 5-6°C cooler than today

10. Most of Canada & Europe was under 2-3 km ice

11. Nearly 90 per cent of new scientific findings reveal global climate disruption to be worse, and progressing more rapidly, than expected.

12. http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Freudenburg_2010_ASC.pdfMIT

13. Climate Change is not reversibleClimate Change is not like acid rain, water management or ozone destruction where environment will quickly return to normal once source of pollution is removedGHG emissions will stay in the atmosphere for thousands of years and continue to accumulatePlanet will continue to warm up even if we drastically reduce emissionsWeaver et al., GRL (2007)All we hope to achieve is to slow down the rapid rate of climate change

14. Climate tipping pointsUSGS report finds that future climate shifts have been underestimated and warns of debilitating abrupt shift in climate that would be devastating. Tipping elements in the Earth's climate - National Academies of Science“Society may be lulled into a false sense of security by smooth projections of global change. Our synthesis of present knowledge suggests that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point within this century under anthropogenic climate change. “

15. Future Droughts Palmer Drought Severity Index, or PDSI.

16. The most severe drought in recent history, in the Sahel region of western Africa in the 1970s, had a PDSI of -3 or -4.

17. By 2030 Western USA could see -4 to -6

18. By 2100 some parts of the U.S. could see -8 to -10 PDSI, while Mediterranean areas could see drought in the -15 or -20 range.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39741525/ns/us_news-environment/

19. Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Sits on land below sea level

20. Can easily break up once sea water gets under ice

21. Originally thought that breakup would take hundreds of years

22. New evidence indicates that breakup will happen within 40 years when planet warms up 1C (we are already up .8C)

23. S ea levels would be 3.3m – 4.8m

24. Ice collapsed as recent as 125,000 years ago

25. IPCC says ice is one of the poorest understood areashttp://news.discovery.com/earth/how-stable-is-the-west-antarctic-ice-sheet.htmlSea levels may rise 3x faster than predicted by IPCChttp://climateprogress.org/2009/12/09/sea-level-rise-six-feet-three-times-faster-than-the-ipcc-estimat/