Robert,
I agree with almost everything you write, except for your belief that
what you wrote is in any way in conflict with what I wrote.
doug
*From:* Robert Chris <[email protected]>
*Sent:* Tuesday, April 11, 2023 3:17 AM
*To:* Douglas MacMartin <[email protected]>; [email protected];
Tom Goreau <[email protected]>
*Cc:* [email protected]; Planetary
Restoration <[email protected]>; 'Eelco Rohling'
via NOAC Meetings <[email protected]>; geoengineering
<[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: [prag] Re: [geo] Are 1.5 c or 2.0 c thresholds
economically realistic in a voluntary NDC regime?
Doug
There's a significant caveat in there - assuming we 'eventually get to
net zero', and a significant ethical assumption - that policy
relevance is limited to a century timescale. And a further physical
climate assumption - that cascading tipping events will not be
triggered on any plausible current and short term policy regime.
If you set the rhetoric aside, there's little evidence to suggest that
by mid-century or even for a decade or more after that, we'll get to
net zero. Your 'eventually' is doing a lot of work here! For this to
happen requires us to start the decommissioning of fossil fuel assets
now and scaling GGR/CDR to close to or beyond GtCO2e/yr within the
next few years. Current geopolitics shows no sign of substantive
action to match the rhetoric on either of those, or the likelihood of
any imminent breakthrough that might materially accelerate things.
As to the ethical assumption, if the ethics are constrained to
consider only the scenarios in which we get to net zero, then you need
to be pretty damn sure you're going to get there. But we're far from
being sure about that. So limiting policy relevance to the century
timescale is tantamount to declaring that what happens beyond that is
no concern of ours. This is like setting a discount rate that reaches
infinity on 1 Jan 2100 (or maybe 2103) - all benefits and costs
thereafter have no present value today so we don't need to worry
ourselves about them. An ethics so constrained seems to me seriously
dysfunctional.
On the tipping events, the literature on this suggests that we are
already treading on thin ice. Is it sane to base our policy regime on
the assumption that there are no tipping points that might derail our
smooth but slow transition to net zero?
Regards
Robert
On 11/04/2023 01:07, Douglas MacMartin wrote:
Also, of course, the long-term response is only realized if nobody
ever develops and deploys any CDR over that long-term timeframe.
If you believe that we will eventually get to net-zero and that
some level of CDR will get deployed to go below net-zero, then
it’s the century-scale warming that matters, not the millennial-scale.
There are of course millennial-scale processes that are not
included in climate models, so there’s neither any reason to
expect them to match on that time-scale, nor any reason to
criticize them on that particular basis, or to use that particular
argument to suggest that the models aren’t policy-relevant. That
isn’t what the models are intended to do.
*From:* [email protected]
<[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]> *On Behalf Of *Michael
MacCracken
*Sent:* Monday, April 10, 2023 1:54 PM
*To:* Tom Goreau <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>; Robert Chris
<[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]>
*Cc:* [email protected]; Planetary
Restoration <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>; 'Eelco Rohling'
via NOAC Meetings <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>; geoengineering
<[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: [prag] Re: [geo] Are 1.5 c or 2.0 c thresholds
economically realistic in a voluntary NDC regime?
Well, in that the climate depends on the radiative forcing and the
radiative forcing is logarithmic with the CO2 concentration, doing
a linear regression of CO2 and temperature would give an estimate
of the rise in temperature that is far from linear, so the 16 C
would be way too high.
There is then the issue that the change in temperature in high
latitudes is well above the global average change in temperature,
and so that would be another contribution to giving a rate too
high for the change in global average temperature. So, if
regression were to get temperature change in high latitudes ad not
the global average, one would have a value more than the change in
the global average temperature.
Mike
On 4/10/23 1:29 PM, Tom Goreau wrote:
It’s just the regression of Antarctic Ice temperature versus
CO2 data. The sea level regression implies +23 meters.
When I did it in 1990 there was only one glacial cycle of
data, but Eelco Rohling independently did the same analysis
when there was 800,000 years of data, and got essentially
identical values.
The models must be serious underestimates to fall so far off
the actual long term climate data.
*Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance*
*Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
President, Biorock Technology Inc.*
*Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK*
*37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139*
*[email protected]
www.globalcoral.org <http://www.globalcoral.org>
Skype: tomgoreau
Tel: (1) 617-864-4226 (leave message)*
*Books:*
*Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration,
Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase*
http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392
<http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392>
*Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration*
http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734
<http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734>
*No one can change the past, everybody can change the future*
**
*It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think*
**
*Those with their heads in the sand will see the light when
global warming and sea level rise wash the beach away*
**
*Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse
climate change*
*From: *Michael MacCracken <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Date: *Monday, April 10, 2023 at 4:23 PM
*To: *Tom Goreau <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>, Robert Chris
<[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]>
*Cc: *"[email protected]"
<mailto:[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>,
Planetary Restoration <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>, 'Eelco
Rohling' via NOAC Meetings <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>, geoengineering
<[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject: *Re: [prag] Re: [geo] Are 1.5 c or 2.0 c thresholds
economically realistic in a voluntary NDC regime?
Hi Tom--I'd be interested in seeing your 1990 paper because 16
C would take temperatures to much higher than they have ever
been, and yet there have been periods when the CO2
concentration has apparently been well above 1000 ppm, so the
16 C value seems seriously inconsistent with what we know of
Earth history.
Best, Mike
On 4/10/23 5:02 AM, Tom Goreau wrote:
BEFORE UNFCCC was signed, it was clear from paleoclimate
data that +16 degrees C or so is the equilibrium
temperature for 400ppm CO2 (Goreau 1990), but all
governments ignored the real data because they preferred
the fictitious claim from models that warming would “only”
be around 1-4 degrees C, and occur well after a new leader
emerges from the next election, selection, or coup.
I briefed the Association of Small Island States just
before they signed on to a treaty that was an effective
death sentence for low coasts and a suicide pact for low
lying island nations to that effect, but their heads of
states were told by the rich countries to sign or they
would lose their foreign aid, something none could afford.
They were effectively bought off to sacrifice their own
people’s futures for worthless promises of financial
support for adaptation that never came. No politician ever
turns down money, no matter how insufficient.
Instead what they got from the funding agencies was sea
walls made from concrete and rock imported half way across
the world, which have all fallen down due to erosion
caused by wave reflection scouring. Their consultants keep
promising that the next seawall, built to armor the ruins
of previous seawalls, will last forever, it’s another
shell game with peoples futures.
*Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance*
*Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
President, Biorock Technology Inc.*
*Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK*
*37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139*
*[email protected]
www.globalcoral.org <http://www.globalcoral.org>
Skype: tomgoreau
Tel: (1) 617-864-4226 (leave message)*
*Books:*
*Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility
Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase*
http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392
<http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392>
*Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration*
http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734
<http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734>
*No one can change the past, everybody can change the future*
**
*It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think*
**
*Those with their heads in the sand will see the light
when global warming and sea level rise wash the beach away*
**
*Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse
climate change*
*From: *Michael MacCracken <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Date: *Sunday, April 9, 2023 at 9:37 PM
*To: *Tom Goreau <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>, Robert Chris
<[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]>
*Cc: *"[email protected]"
<mailto:[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>,
Planetary Restoration
<[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>, 'Eelco
Rohling' via NOAC Meetings
<[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>, geoengineering
<[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject: *Re: [prag] Re: [geo] Are 1.5 c or 2.0 c
thresholds economically realistic in a voluntary NDC regime?
Hi Tom--Indeed, which is why I don't understand why the
mainly island nation accepted, even insisted upon 1.5 C,
as an aspirational goal. From paleoclimatic analysis, the
equilibrium sensitivity for sea level rise is of order
15-20 METERS per degree C increase in the global average
temperature. And how it is somehow justified that the
curve shape for the sensitivity is a cubic and we are
presently in the low sensitivity part of the curve does
not at all seem justified to me (though perhaps the type
of major ice sheet matters).
I once asked the chief US negotiator (Todd Stern) at the
Paris COP if they had viewed as a value that would be an
upper limit and the subsequent goal and actions would be
aimed at forcing the global average temperature back down,
or if the vision was that actions would be taken to keep
the increase in global average temperature to be 2 C and
this would be an allowed long term value for the Earth. He
indicated, as I recall, that what would happen after the
value was reached was not discussed, they were so happy to
have a number to consider an upper value they just never
discussed the issue.
Best, Mike
On 4/9/23 7:40 AM, Tom Goreau wrote:
The 1.5 degree “goal” like the 2.0 goal, is beyond the
capacity of corals to adapt so it means the extinction
of coral reef ecosystems, which already reached their
high temperature tipping point in the mid 1980s.
Coral reefs, and the species and people who live from
them, have been consciously selected for sacrifice,
rather than interrupting profits from fossil fuels.
Coral reefs may be the first ecosystem to collapse,
but they certainly won’t be the last!
*Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance*
*Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
President, Biorock Technology Inc.*
*Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK*
*37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139*
*[email protected]
www.globalcoral.org <http://www.globalcoral.org>
Skype: tomgoreau
Tel: (1) 617-864-4226 (leave message)*
*Books:*
*Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility
Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2
Increase*
http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392
<http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392>
*Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration*
http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734
<http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734>
*No one can change the past, everybody can change the
future*
**
*It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t
think*
**
*Those with their heads in the sand will see the light
when global warming and sea level rise wash the beach
away*
**
*Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to
reverse climate change*
*From:
*<[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>
on behalf of Robert Chris <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Date: *Sunday, April 9, 2023 at 10:35 AM
*To: *Michael MacCracken <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Cc:
*"[email protected]"
<mailto:[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>,
Planetary Restoration
<[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>,
'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings
<[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>,
geoengineering <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject: *Re: Fwd: [prag] Re: [geo] Are 1.5 c or 2.0
c thresholds economically realistic in a voluntary NDC
regime?
Mike, you point to a key distinction that I had
perhaps ignored. The dynamics of setting goals are
not the same as those of realising them.
Economics may have been a major factor in setting the
Paris targets but they are not an enabler of their
realisation. If the political will was there among a
sufficient number of leading economies to deliver on
the Paris targets, they would find a way of doing that
that would overcome any economic constraints that
might otherwise have been thought to be impediments.
Regards
Robert
As I loosely recall, when the 2 C goal was
approved in Paris, the value
was chosen because it was thought that it would be
realistically/economically achievable. The goal
could not be higher due
to thoughts about tipping points or lower due to
economic
realities--though they did set 1.5 C as an
aspirational goal as the
developing nations felt the impacts of 2 C on them
would be unbearable.
So, I'd say economics played a goal there--indeed,
even the primary
rationale for the choice.
Mike
On 4/8/23 9:54 AM, Robert Chris wrote:
> David, you've put your finger right on it. Being
economically
> realistic is not a sufficient condition to
enable the realisation of
> any goal. For some goals, it isn't even a
constraint because for
> them, what is economically realistic is made to
fit the goal, rather
> than the goal being tailored to fit what's
economically realistic.
> Money is not the only store of value.
>
> Regards
>
> Robert
>
>
> On 08/04/2023 18:26, David desJardins wrote:
>> If the goal is always economically realistic,
then it follows that
>> looking at the goal through an economic lens
will always enable it,
>> not prevent it.
>
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