Using ICT to adapt rather than mitigate Global

Using ICT to “adapt” rather than “mitigate” Global Warming Bill St. Arnaud Bill. st. arnaud@gmail. com Unless otherwise noted all material in this slide deck may be reproduced, modified or distributed without prior permission of the author

We need a new nuclear plant per day to keep stabilization at 2 C Source: Roger Pielke Jr 2

How fast can decarbonization occur? • The honest answer no one knows • Historical rates of 1 -2% have occurred in developing countries – mostly by outsourcing manufacturing to China • For short periods some countries have achieved rates > 2% e. g. France nuclear program • US need to achieve 17% reduction while maintaining modest economic growth which requires rates of decarbonization of >5% per year – Need to shut down over 20 coal plants per year to meet this target 3

Climate Forecasts • MIT report predicts median temperature forecast of 5. 2°C – 11°C increase in Northern Canada & Europe – http: //globalchange. mit. edu/pubs/abstract. p hp? publication_id=990 • Last Ice age average global temperature was 5 -6°C cooler than today – Most of Canada & Europe was under 2 -3 km ice • Nearly 90 per cent of new scientific findings reveal global climate disruption to be worse, and progressing more rapidly, than expected. • http: //www. skepticalscience. com/pics/Freud enburg_2010_ASC. pdf MIT

Future Droughts • Palmer Drought Severity Index, or PDSI. • The most severe drought in recent history, in the Sahel region of western Africa in the 1970 s, had a PDSI of -3 or -4. • By 2030 Western USA could see 4 to -6. Drought in Texas clearly caused by global warming: http: //goo. gl/Qj. HRS • By 2100 some parts of the U. S. and Latin America 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_new s-environment/

Utilities biggest source of CO 2 http: //www. oecdilibrary. org/docserver/download/fulltext/5 k 9 h 2 q 8 v 9 bln. pdf? expires=132 7005403&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=DFE 9 FB 35608 FEA 0 C 67713 C 58 F 2952625 6

New Challenge: Climate Adaptation • Obama’s National Science Advisor John Holdren “Mitigation alone won’t work, because the climate is already changing, we’re already experiencing impacts…. A mitigation only strategy would be insanity, ” • Equal emphasis given to adaptation – avoiding the unmanageable, and adaptation – managing the unavoidable. ” • Obama’s Climate Adaptation Executive Order – http: //www. stumbleupon. com/su/1 t. U 8 go/www. good. is/post/obama-s-secret-climate-adaptation-plan/

We need to get off the electrical grid • Biggest source of CO 2 emissions because of coal plants – even in places that use hydro and wind e. g. Quebec and Denmark • Coal plants will be most likely targets of protestors and governments – If Germany and Switzerland are willing to shut down nuclear plants then someday they will realize coal plants are much worse for health, safety and environmental reasons • A good adaptation strategy can also be a good mitigation strategy • Adaptation strategy means using only distributed renewal resources disconnected from the grids – Will most likely survive severe weather events – Will not be subject to outages when governments are forced to shut down coal plants • But how do you reliable and robust telecommunications and Internet when only sources of power are intermittent and unreliable wind and sun? 8

Open. Flow Follow the wind/Follow the sun European GSN Domain Canadian GSN Domain Export VM Notify EU Cloud Manager Host Resource Network Manager • Shudown VM • Copy Image VM Cloud Manager Internet Dynamically Configure IP Tunnel Host Resource • Update VM Context • Start VM Mantychore 2 Shared storage VM Lightpath Host Cloud Proxy Optical switch Cloud Proxy Host

AMD, HP & Clarkson U Green. Cloud

National Green. Cloud Vision

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