Mostly about the impacts and possible mitigative measures to prevent a 2-degree C rise from pre-industrial by 2050. In the last half hour, geoengineering technologies are briefly reviewed as extreme and "outlandish" means to avoid a 3-degree increase which the program says would lead to catastrophic feedback induced warming via melting permafrost and ice sheets. So the assumptions and predictions are about half those of Flannery's 6 degrees by 2100. Six degrees results in human extinction. Six degrees of permanent separation of Homo Sapiens from Earth.
John Holdren, now Obama's in-house science advisor (Al Gore has some role as well, but that still hasn't been explained) appears in several segments along with James Hansen who makes his standard, but vague statements about urgency and reducing emissions, this time endorsing CCS. Holdren headed WHOI when the program was produced in 2008. The Lackner artificial tree air capture idea is described with Lackner and Allen Wright (from Global Research Technologies, GRT, the now bankrupt company formed to develop and market the technology) discussing its origin. Lackner first considered the idea when working on Biosphere II in AZ, a completely enclosed environmental test chamber. Differs from the story he also tells about how his teenage daughter gave him the idea. They first used NaOH, but found it was too corrosive and then adopted plastic sheets made from the material used in water softeners. The sheets are impregnated with ion exchange resin. The resin absorbs CO2 from ambient air. Recovery of the CO2 with Na2CO3 was tried and found to be too expensive to regenerate the carbonate, but then they found that water alone would extract the CO2 from the resin at a low energy cost. The prototype system would be a rotating drum with panels containing the plastic sheets. Recovery of the CO2 would be accomplished by spraying the panels with water, but how to dispose of the CO2 enriched water was not explained. Each drum would remove 1 ton of CO2 per day and 60 million all current annual emissions with the potential to remove the legacy CO2 from the atmosphere. Why not just pump the water into the ground? With a 3-degree rise, permafrost and the Amazon rain forest are wiped out, the latter by fires. Feedbacks from permafrost carbon dioxide and methane add to the woes. The artificial increase of urban albedo and growing genetically modified reflective plants could offset 0.5W/m2 CO2 forcing according to Peter Cox at the Hadley Center. Holdren says we need to look at the geoengineering options. "Sulfur seeding" or "waging war on the planet's atmosphere" is introduced accompanied by ominous music, volcanic eruptions, little artillery shells being launched and Dr. Brian Hoskins from the UK saying that ozone depletion from this would be uncertain. At least the music wasn't Flight of the Valkyries. Cloud ships and mirrors in space (presented as in orbit) to reflect sunlight were briefly touched on and obviously inaccurately as the mirrors aren't mirrors, they aren't in orbit and they wouldn't reflect sunlight. But they would be too expensive as noted. Thus the geo options were mainly included as straw men to set up closing remarks by Holdren, Hansen and Nissen's latest proposed pen pal, Pachuri that to avoid the tipping points and the need to use geo we have to employ the technologies already available or will soon to solve the problem by 2015, when it is stated it will be too late to prevent a 2-degree C rise. Now that he is on the other side of the Looking Glass, I wonder if Holdren wants to be held to the 2015 date? In case you are wondering, I loaned my copy of the Owning the Weather movie to someone this weekend and will have comments on it and the movie premiere next week (if UNC wins). ----- Original Message ----- From: Alvia Gaskill To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 2:38 AM Subject: Hot Planet The promo for this shows Lackner and others describing the artificial trees. Somewhat misleading in that it suggests they are already being used. Airs Sunday on the Science Channel and repeats. http://science.discovery.com/tv-schedules/special.html?paid=48.15725.25759.0.0 Hot Planet The effects of climate change -- massive storms, superfires and rising seas -- are potentially catastrophic. But they are not yet inevitable. This film looks at the future of global warming, and what man -- and science -- can still do to stop it. Apr 05, 9:00 pm (120 minutes) Apr 06, 12:00 am (120 minutes) Apr 07, 4:00 am (120 minutes) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
