Brian,
I absolutely agree with you. We need agitation for CDR with improved
food production: from land, lakes and sea.
The current wisdom is one track mentality. But it is moving closer to
reality, step by step:
(1) "Reduce CO2 emissions - by each of us reducing our carbon footprint
- and all will be well",
(2) "Reduce CO2 emissions, but even if we manage, it will not be
sufficient to prevent climate change, so we will all have to adapt to
this. Then we'll be OK."
(3) "Reduce CO2 emissions, but, even in the best scenario, there will be
at least 4 degrees warming. We must learn to adapt to this. It will
be tough. Inevitably poor countries will suffer."
Then your read Mark Lynas "Six degrees", and you watch Wasdell's video,
and you read from AR5 about the carbon budget which excludes significant
feedbacks. And you realise we are in a heck of a crisis.
What the current wisdom is lacking is wisdom. It is wise (actually
plain common sense) to be reducing the level of CO2 in the atmosphere,
because even 2 degrees global warming may be extremely dangerous for all
of us. We cannot afford to wait for this to be proved. We must give
the best chance of future generations having a hospitable planet to enjoy.
(4) "Reduce CO2 emissions drastically and drawdown CO2 on a grand scale
at the same time. Then there's a chance of avoiding dangerous climate
change and ocean acidification."
Then you read about what's happening in the Arctic, and you realise that
it is heading for meltdown, and there seems nothing to do about it.
Arctic warming is already causing climate disruption. Meltdown would
mean a massive sea level rise and the release of masses of methane. So
the crisis is even worse that you could have possibly imagined. But you
must remember there is always SRM. Fortunately several SRM techniques
could together provide enough cooling power.
(5) "Reduce CO2 emissions drastically and drawdown CO2 on a grand
scale. At the same time, and with even greater urgency, cool the Arctic
using the best possible mix of SRM cooling techniques, to give best
possible chance of saving the sea ice and preventing further meltdown."
Geoengineering to the rescue!
Cheers,
John
--
On 19/01/2014 18:52, Brian Cartwright wrote:
Thanks, John, for the response. I'm also an advocate of boosting soil
carbon with biochar but let me add a couple of comments.
As Ron Larsen points out, biochar brings benefits for atmosphere, soil
and energy. These should all contribute to providing incentives for
its use. In the soil area, it is hardly the only method for
sequestering carbon, though. You mention the damage done by chemical
inputs in agriculture; a carbon-smart agriculture would use soil biota
to exchange and fix nutrients from soil and atmosphere with the result
of immense soil C sequestration. Improvements could also result from
reversing deforestation and grasslands desertification. These are all
essential parts of restoring soil carbon worldwide and they receive
virtually no scientific attention or funding.
So the situation calls for wide-ranging research, policy
discussion,education and even agitation. That is the social change
that I urge and support, because methods of restoring soil carbon are
generally also methods that strengthen local ecological resilience and
restore landscapes. The potential then exists for people to feel
hopeful about taking action. When you say that "social change does not
come into this" except to reassure the public, I would ask, don't we
have to challenge the prevailing wisdom about what needs to be done to
truly reverse climate change?
Brian
On Sunday, January 19, 2014 7:56:42 AM UTC-5, John Nissen wrote:
Hi Brian,
The debate between David Keith and Clive Hamilton seems sterile.
Plan A, the agreed-upon best scenario, simply won't work to
prevent at least 4 degrees warming. Arguably the "carbon budget",
touted in AR5, has been spent or very nearly spent already. See
this short video from David Wasdell [1] for example.
Thus the only way to prevent catastrophic warming and catastrophic
ocean acidification is by removing CO2 faster than we are putting
CO2 into the atmosphere. There is no option but to applying CDR
geoengineering. The timescale on acidification may be as little
as two decades to get CO2 below 350 ppm and prevent the ocean from
becoming too acidic. A target of two decades may also be required
to keep the future CO2 warming trajectory below 1.5 degrees C
(considerably safer than 2 degrees).
On top of this we have to cool the Arctic with SRM geoengineering,
otherwise the albedo loss and methane forcing are liable to send
global warming and climate change towards intolerable extremes.
There is evidence that Arctic amplification is already causing an
increase in weather extremes through disruption of the jet stream [2].
Thus Plan B has to involve both CDR and SRM.
Note that social change does not come into this - except we need
to explain to people that geoengineering is not some bad-dream
sci-fi dangerous stuff, but practical measures, generally based on
processes that occur naturally in nature, either mimicked or
boosted. These measures often have extremely beneficial effects,
for example putting carbon in soil as biochar can boost crops and
reduce requirement for artificial fertilizer - a big contributor
of CO2 to the atmosphere. Cloud brightening can reduce sea
surface temperature and thereby reduce strength of hurricanes and
restore fishing grounds and marine habitats.
This is where both David Keith and Clive Hamilton could really
help: by explaining to people, in a calm and considered way, the
true situation and what can to be done about it with their moral
support.
Cheers, John
[1] http://www.youtube.com/embed/-Fru6Df3Efk
<http://www.youtube.com/embed/-Fru6Df3Efk>
[2]
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n1/full/nclimate2065.html
<http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n1/full/nclimate2065.html>
On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 2:54 PM, Brian Cartwright
<briancar...@gmail.com <javascript:>> wrote:
On Friday, January 17, 2014 4:23:25 PM UTC-5, Keith Henson wrote:
"Social change" means to the advocates enforcing what they
see as
frugal morality on people, though, of course, never on the
advocates.
We on the technical fix side tend in the direction of
letting people
do fairly much whatever they want, Hummers, frequent air
flights and
all, as long as we can provide the energy and ecological
support to
let it happen.
/[snipped]/
/
/
/Yes, in this context "social change" means cutting back
emissions and promoting alternative energy, and there may be
components of "frugal morality" in that campaign. In the David
vs. Clive debate, that "social change" is, shall we say, the
unspoken Plan A, the agreed-upon best scenario. My question
is, how does geoengineering, in this case SRM, get pushed
forward as Plan B? Is there no better Plan B?/
/
/
/Briefly, there is: the imbalance of the global carbon cycle
comes partly from the pumping of CO2 emissions from fossil
fuels, but equally from depletion of global soil carbon. And
unlike SRM, restoring soil carbon not only has no harmful
side-effects, but offers manifold benefits. Isn't it puzzling
that this debate is even taking place?/
/
/
/Brian /
/
/
/
/
/
/
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