Yes, well said John. Regardless of what many (not I) regard as doom and gloom scaremongering, an important paper in Science (Wise et al Vol 324 pp1183-1186) shows that is extremely costly to rely on emissions reductions alone to achieve any given level of CO2 below b.a.u.. This may provide leverage for getting negotiators off the losing strategy on which they are hooked. Peter ----- Original Message ----- From: Eugene I. Gordon To: [email protected] ; [email protected] ; 'Geoengineering' ; [email protected] Cc: 'John Doyle' ; 'paul johnston' ; 'Pope, Vicky' Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 12:22 AM Subject: [geo] Re: The GREAT LIE about emissions reduction
John, extremely well stated. I concur 100% and have been stating the same for some time. Geoengineering is essential and inevitable to avoid future warming independent of what emission reduction is achieved. You could further strengthen the argument by noting that the global average surface temperature has been increasing for many thousands of years, as much as 3 to 5 degrees C from the minimum of the last ice age, in the face of no anthropogenic emission. AGHG is not the only factor influencing the surface temperature; only the one receiving the most attention for profit and political reasons and keeping the climate science community well supported. Keep banging away! The planet needs geoengineering. -gene ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John Nissen Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 7:56 AM To: [email protected]; Geoengineering; [email protected] Cc: John Doyle; paul johnston; Pope, Vicky Subject: [geo] The GREAT LIE about emissions reduction Hi Albert, That paper (on recovery from global warming) nicely illustrates a point about denial: "Abstract. Climate models provide compelling evidence that IF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS CONTINUE AT PRESENT RATES, then key global temperature thresholds (such as the European Union limit of two degrees of warming since pre-industrial times) are very likely to be crossed in the next few decades." [my capitalisation] However, global temperature thresholds will be crossed in the next few decades, whatever happens to emissions. This first sentence of the abstract illustrates the GREAT LIE being perpetrated by experts: THAT EMISSIONS REDUCTIONS CAN HALT GLOBAL WARMING. The simple truth, as clearly shown by David Keith in his talk to RGS [1], is that there is so much excess CO2 in the atmosphere, and it has such a long effective lifetime, that global warming will continue for thousands of years, unless it is actively taken out of the air. Even if global emissions were to stop overnight, global warming would continue for thousands of years. I believe the reason for perpetrating this lie are threefold: 1) nobody is prepared to face up to the implications, which are indeed terrifying; 2) nobody wants to be the messenger of bad news, for risk of their own reputation; 3) nobody wants to be seen to say anything which might dampen efforts at emissions reduction. I further believe that, because of this great lie, the necessity for geoengineering is not appreciated or it is considered a "last resort" (even by eminent people in this group). And, because emissions reductions obviously cannot cool the Arctic, geoengineering is particularly urgent to save the Arctic sea ice and reduce risk of massive methane discharge and Greenland ice sheet disintegration - a double wammy. But I want to explore that first reason for the "great lie", because denial can a strong effect in all of us, and I've seen it in myself. There is a point when one's realisation is so terrifying (John Doyle calls it the "Oh my God!" point), that the psychological reaction is to suppress that thought. A person facing terminal cancer is liable to behave as if their life would carry on as normal. I witnessed this very behaviour in a good friend, a highly intelligent and clear-thinking man, shortly before his death. He had warned me to expect it (the denial behaviour) from himself, when he was first told that he was suffering from terminal cancer. So it was particularly heart-rending when it happened, the evening before he died. But it brought home to me the power of "Freudian denial" as it is sometimes known [2]. As another example of denial, Jared Diamond, in his excellent book "Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed", describes an experiment with people living below a dam. The nearer to the dam they lived, the more concerned, until a point at which the concern vanished. This is the point that some of us have reached, in perpetrating the great lie. And as a result of the lie, the decision makers - the political elite - are failing to perceive the true extent of the problem to be tackled [3]. So what hope have we got? One way that Homo sapiens has evolved to deal with mortal danger is through the fight reaction. If we consider global warming as the number one enemy, then we can face up to the possibility that it could kill us all, if we don't attack it with all the weapons at our disposal. And those weapons include geoengineering as well as drastic emissions cuts. Could the truth be faced, and this fighting spirit be taken to Copenhagen? I believe it can, if enough of you are prepared to expose the great lie for what it is. Cheers from Chiswick, John [1] http://www.21stcenturychallenges.org/challenges/engineering-our-climate-is-there-a-role -for-geoengineering/media-gallery/video/professor-david-keith/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial [3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IESYMFtLIis ---- Veli Albert Kallio wrote: This article provides a good reference point to argue for inevitability of geoengineering, written by non-geoengineers: How difficult is it to recover from dangerous levels of global warming? J A Lowe et al 2009 Environ. Res. Lett. 4 014012 (9pp) doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/4/1/014012 J A Lowe1, C Huntingford2, S C B Raper3, C D Jones4, S K Liddicoat4 and L K Gohar1 1 Met Office Hadley Centre (Reading Unit), Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6BB, UK 2 Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford OX10 8BB, UK 3 Centre for Air Transport and the Environment, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester M1 5GD, UK 4 Met Office Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road, Exeter EX1 3PB, UK Abstract. Climate models provide compelling evidence that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at present rates, then key global temperature thresholds (such as the European Union limit of two degrees of warming since pre-industrial times) are very likely to be crossed in the next few decades. However, there is relatively little attention paid to whether, should a dangerous temperature level be exceeded, it is feasible for the global temperature to then return to safer levels in a usefully short time. We focus on the timescales needed to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases and associated temperatures back below potentially dangerous thresholds, using a state-of-the-art general circulation model. This analysis is extended with a simple climate model to provide uncertainty bounds. We find that even for very large reductions in emissions, temperature reduction is likely to occur at a low rate. Policy-makers need to consider such very long recovery timescales implicit in the Earth system when formulating future emission pathways that have the potential to 'overshoot' particular atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and, more importantly, related temperature levels that might be considered dangerous. For more information on this article, see environmentalresearchweb.org Received 9 February 2009, accepted for publication 25 February 2009 Published 11 March 2009 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Beyond Hotmail - see what else you can do with Windows Live. Find out more. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.339 / Virus Database: 270.12.63/2169 - Release Date: 06/11/09 05:53:00 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
