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Carbon Cuts: 350 Is Not Adequate
Seeing children, activists, and ordinary people in 181 countries come together around 350.org's worldwide at 5,200 day of action events last week was truly inspirational. Their goal of putting the focus on science and citizens and not special corporate interests and backroom deals is admirable. They hoped to influence the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark in December to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
But their message could be dangerous, since in his paper, "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Society Aim," NASA Climate scientist Jim Hansen said recently, "The evidence indicates...that the safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2 is no more than 350ppm."
If burning fossil fuels like coal and oil during industrialization has created the mess we're in with climate change, it seems only logical that we should aim for pre-industrial levels of atmospheric CO2 of 280 ppm. We should be aiming for a number that is sure to reverse climate change, especially now that feedback effects like methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than CO2, is bubbling out of melting permafrost in the arctic and could rapidly accelerate climate change. If we're organizing around a goal that is too little, too late, with the survival of humanity hanging in the balance, we're not just wasting time, we're toying with our own annihilation.
We've come a long way from President Bush's plan to lower average U.S. temperatures by switching from Fahrenheit to Celsius. However we are currently at 390 ppm CO2 and rising 2 ppm annually. Rising CO2 and other greenhouse gas levels are directly linked to increasing average global temperatures, which are now expected to rise as high as 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit, the very worst case scenario just a few years ago.
Carbon dioxide levels have risen higher in the past 100 years than at any other time in the past 800,000 years. Carbon dioxide has a half life of up to 800 years. That means that even if we dramatically cut CO2 emissions tomorrow, what's already in the atmosphere, will take a LONG time to disappear.
On their website, 350.org says, "We need an international agreement to reduce carbon emissions fast." Climate Scientist, Dr. Brenda Ekwurzel with the Union for Concerned Scientists said, "Unfortunately, a reduction in CO2 emissions still leads to growth in CO2 in the atmosphere. Only the complete elimination of CO2 emissions would lead to a slow reduction in CO2 in the atmosphere over the next century." So if we assume that 350.org is aiming to cut emissions and not atmospheric greenhouse gases, they are way off the mark.
We're already dramatically overshooting the upper limit and it's not clear how long we can do so. Hansen says, "If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects." He said, "We have passed tipping points, but we have not passed a point of no return. We can still roll things back, but it is going to require a quick turn in direction."
In his brutally honest, but hopeful commencement speech at the University of Portland, Paul Hawkins said, "Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation," he said..."but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement..."
"Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don't be put off by people who know what is not possible," said Hawkins. So if you think aiming for 280 ppm atmospheric CO2 is impossible, as Hawkins says, "Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done."
29 Comments so far
Show All"it seems only logical that we should aim for pre-industrial levels of atmospheric CO2 of 280 ppm."
I believe this is the most childish statement I've seen this year. People that would say something this ignorant should not be out unattended.
"pre-industrial levels of atmospheric CO2 of 280 ppm."! What was she smoking?
Calm down Henry. We'll be rocketing through 450 ppm before you know it... eat your greens, do your jumping jacks, and you'll probably live long enough to see our civilization flame out. Ignore these New World Order environmental twits trying to spoil your fun.
Well said Sun Mesa.
The master distractors seem to have found some good paying Corporate public relations jobs here on Common Dreams.
A new and growing niche for the internet I suppose.
(:
Context matters, here is the context for your phrase above, Henry:
If burning fossil fuels like coal and oil during industrialization has created the mess we’re in with climate change, it seems only logical that we should aim for pre-industrial levels of atmospheric CO2 of 280 ppm. We should be aiming for a number that is sure to reverse climate change, especially now that feedback effects like methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than CO2, is bubbling out of melting permafrost in the arctic and could rapidly accelerate climate change. If we’re organizing around a goal that is too little, too late, with the survival of humanity hanging in the balance, we’re not just wasting time, we’re toying with our own annihilation.
Good article, Karyn.
Don't be put off by our resident bigoted moron; he drops his turds into the punchbowl early, especially on climate change articles.
Either Henry8 doesn't think humanity is driving climate change, or he thinks the idea of reversing our atmospheric concentrations to pre-industrial levels is simply impossible, so he should read the final paragraph of your article again.
I've just started reading Carbon Free, Nuclear Free. I haven't reached any parts yet where it describes in detail any carbon sequestration or carbon sink systems, but the review of carbon and nuclear-free energy does give some hope that the goal is attainable. The only problem is relying on the market to make these technologies work and put into use. We cannot afford the time it will take for these technologies to become "cost-effective", aka profitable for a corporation.
Uhh, what's childish about it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png
Do you mean it's childish to suggest we could go back to pre-industrial levels?
It's clear that you're opposed, Henry, but not to what. Do you think the level should be brought lower?
Put simply, people in denial about what's happening are so ignorant (on some level) as to be virtually psychotic. It's like watching someone load five chambers of a 6-shot revolver and then playing Russian roulette with it for a million dollars. It *might* be the case that the firing pin was filed down, or the hammer will come down on the empty chamber, or that the bullet will be a dud. It *might* happen that way. But anyone who'd put that gun to their head and pull the trigger is what psychologists call "nuts".
Because of the politicians, the IPCC said they are 90% certain that we're causing the climate change, but they leaked their real confidence level: 95%. Would you bet your life at 19:1 against? I sure as hell wouldn't. In the trade, 95% will get you published in the most demanding journals, because odds of 19:1 against it being a mistake are plenty good enough to bet large sums of money on.
The truth is that, if we want to live, we have to cut CO2 and other GHG emissions down to near-zero so that we have some wiggle room to do GHG-generating things that we need done. So I think she's wrong too. I think it ought to be on the order of 100 ppm, not 280. When we have enough forest regrowth and have cut our birthrate down far enough that we're going around on natural oxy jags all the time, then we can think about increasing our GHG emissions. But not til then. Not if we want to live.
Actually, we'd have to get BELOW that level for a certain period of time to cool down and undo the warming. I can explain it so that even a child can understand.
Imagine you are sleeping underneath a blanket and the temperature is just perfect. That one blanket is keeping just enough heat in to keep you warm but allowing just enough heat out to keep you comfortable.
While you sleep, someone puts another blanket on you, and very quickly, you get way too hot.
Now, what would you need to do to get back to the perfect temperature again?
Once you're overheated, removing only the additional blanket will not allow you to cool down.
You would need to take BOTH blankets off for a certain period of time to cool down and undo the warming before you can get back to the perfect temperature under that first blanket.
In exact same way, we need to get BELOW the pre-industrial level of 280 ppm to let the planet cool off first and then raise it back. Even if our emissions dropped to zero tomorrow, the planet is still going to keep right on warming.
Such a complex system has a few wildcards (of course) but all things being equal, that's the big picture thermodynamically, and no one is even talking about it.
So Hank, here's the problem. I google pre-industrial CO2 levels and all of the PEER-REVIEWED articles affirm a large increase in CO2 levels. Perhaps the reason 86% of (normally restrained) scientists agree CO2 is the chief agent raising world temp.s. I look at the skeptics and find a handful of NON-reviewed articles quoted again and again on websites that also have virulent Anti-Obama screeds, creationist links, and all of the other baggage one associates with the losers who have (pay attention please) been WRONG about everything for the last 45 years at least. Weren't you people telling us 15 years ago that there wasn't even ANY global warming... Remember Rush and his "heat islands" theory? [That tens of thousands of PhDs from a dozen disciplines writing in peer-reviewed journals were not as savvy in measuring the earth's temperature as an obese, drug-addicted hill-billy w/a radio show] Have you folks figured out yet that cigarettes cause cancer, lead depresses children's intelligence, the ozone layer was being destroyed by freon (all currently uncontested by anyone)? Still think if we leave VietNam the VC will "follow us home", take over SE Asia and threaten Australia? I could go on, but you (maybe) get the point; you're the slow kids. The last ones defending unsupportable tripe in defiance of reason and, in this case, we haven't got time to accommodate your insipid learning curve.
You are correct. But, the love affair with vehicles opens a surprising way forward.
The most direct route to rapidly reducing the need for fossil fuels is to demonstrate practical alternatives that are cost-competitive.
One revolutionary system has so far surfaced, that developed by BlackLight Power. They claim they can produce electricity, using ordinary water as fuel, at a cost of 1.2c per kilowatt hour. This is cheaper than coal, which is the lowest cost conventional source of energy.
Their work has been validated by independent experiments at Rowan University. Excess heat was produced that cannot be explained by textbook science. The experiments have been published and can readily be reproduced by other laboratories. Since the results defy easy belief, and have been met with profound skepticism, that can and should happen without delay.
The Company claims they will market 250 kilowatt power plants next year. Five utilities are among the six firms that have Agreements to purchase many megawatts of power using this breakthrough technology.
In his book: The Eternity Equation (1976), the late Dr. Robert L. Carroll, a mathematical physicist, first mentioned Inverse Quantum States. His 1990 paper with that title begins: “Quantum theory as applied to the atom stops far short of its goal. The philosophy that the least quantum state of an electron in orbit is unity excludes an infinity of possibilities”.
BlackLight pioneered technology based on energy released as the electrons of Hydrogen atoms are induced by a catalyst to transition to lower energy levels (i.e. drop to lower base orbits around each atom’s nucleus). Ronald Bourgoin, once a graduate student of Dr. Carroll’s, showed the general wave equation predicts exactly the 137 inverse principal quantum levels they claim.
The late Arie De Geus applied for a patent on a unique energy production method based upon utilization of fractional Hydrogen (f/H). Engineers have now discovered a much better approach to both theoretical and practical paths that lead towards remarkable energy conversion systems that utilize this Energy from Collapsing Hydrogen Orbits - ECHO.
In engines or fuel cells, Hydrogen is normally burned. BlackLight has demonstrated that hydrogen atoms can release an enormous amount of energy without burning, just as Dr. Carroll earlier suggested might prove possible.
Hydrogen is the simplest atom: one electron revolving around one proton. Imagine an atom of Hydrogen enlarged so much that the proton is as big as a golf ball and you’d find the circling electron three hundred yards away!
It has been discovered that Hydrogen’s electron orbit can be made to collapse, becoming a much smaller sphere. A tremendous amount of energy is thus released. The new atoms do not need to burn with an oxidizer to liberate energy.
A huge amount of Hydrogen is stored in water. The oceans contain 8 million trillion barrels of water. Think about the implications: Even without deuterium or nuclear options, one barrel of water can yield as much energy as two hundred barrels of oil - just by making clever use of fractional Hydrogen.
This can safely be accomplished without releasing radiation or pollution. The cost will be lower than that of coal or nuclear energy. ECHO systems can help accelerate independence from fossil fuels.
For example, ECHO is expected to make possible a Self Powered Internal Combustion Engine - SPICE. A SPICE in a hybrid car may need to be fueled by only one gallon of water each 1,000 miles. The parked vehicle will be able to wirelessly sell power to the grid, or supply electricity to a suitably equipped home or small business.
Imagine the positive impact on the economy and the environment of future cars, trucks, and buses that need only a small amount of water as fuel and can pay for themselves over time. This is a relatively near-term alternative - and far less costly than building new coal burning or nuclear power plants.
Moving this forward as rapidly as is humanly possible seems a rapid way to educate the public and governments as to what might be done that they have not considered.
The hour is late, but this is only one surprising technology breakthrough that will soon demonstrate that fossil fuel use can be reduced much more quickly than has been widely understood.
The article: 5 Steps to Revive the Auto Industry and the Economy on the website http://www.aesopinstitute.org outlines an equally surprising, and hard to believe, parallel magnetic power generation path. It can end the need to plug-in electric cars. These radically new technologies are capable of helping to rapidly minimize the need for fossil fuels.
Their inherently competitive cost will dramatically alter the energy landscape.
I'm neither physicist nor chemist, but that 'black light power' sounds fishy to me. Generally speaking, if something sounds too good to be true, it's a scam.
I'm excited if they've found the energy 'holy grail', but like you, am doubtful.
I found a good explanation of why you shouldn't be able to squash a proton and electron together unless you're in the middle of a neutron star during its formation:
"Mass of proton : 1.6726 x 10-27 kg
Mass of neutron: 1.6749 x 10-27 kg
Mass of electron: 0.00091 x 10-27 kg
Since the mass of a proton plus the mass of an electron is less than that of a neutron, a large amount of energy (E=mc2) is required to combine them. The electrostatic potential energy is not sufficient to do this. However sometimes gravitation energy can be.
When stars run out of fuel, they cool down and eventually contract due to their own gravity. Stars like our sun form white dwarfs, but those about 1.5 times heavier become supernovas and collapse to form a neutron star. The gravitation force actually converts potential energy into mass by forcing protons and electrons to combine into neutrons. All light elements like unfused hydrogen will have been lost during the red giant stage, but the principle is still the same. "
"The problem is that according to the rules of quantum mechanics, the physics that governs the behaviour of atoms, the idea is theoretically impossible. "Physicists are quite conservative. It's not easy to convince them to change a theory that is accepted for 50 to 60 years. I don't think [Mills's] theory should be supported," said Jan Naudts, a theoretical physicist at the University of Antwerp."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2005/nov/04/energy.science
It's old news. They've been running this hoax for nearly 20 years, have burned thru 60+ million in investor money and haven't produced any sort of commercial power. There've been hundreds of these scams over the last century, this is the latest version of 'cold fusion'.
It is perfectly understandable that anyone with scientific background will be extremely skeptical of BlackLight Power.
That is why the Rowan experiments are so important. The lead scientist at Rowan is now a Fellow at Cambridge University and is working to see a UK repeat of the experiments.
A Norwegian consultant on new energy systems is seeking to have a laboratory in Norway reproduce them as well.
Since their work reflects an analysis that began in 1976 by Dr. Robert L. Carroll, who worked with Aesop Institute as a consultant for a dozen years until his death, and precisely follows his predictions, it is clear to us that Energy from Collapsing Hydrogen Orbits - it makes a nice acronym, ECHO, opens an energy source that can replace fossil fuels for vehicles as well as stationary power.
A distinguished laboratory ran an engine at more than 80% efficiency 30 years ago. Our own work indicates that will lead to Self Powered Internal Combustion Engines - SPICE, in the very near future. For a little more about SPICE, see the website: http://www.chavaenergy.com Look under the heading HOW?
If we are to avoid a cataclysm due to Global Warming, radically new technologies are urgent. Fortunately, there are a few that can make major contributions.
Each will require independent laboratory validation before it will find ready acceptance. In the case of our work with even more difficult to believe magnetic generators, we have been invited to bring a prototype to the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and look forward to doing so.
Reproduction of the Rowan experiments at as many laboratories as possible as rapidly as practical seems a well worth while and very urgent goal.
I can vaguely remember reading about something like this (maybe exactly this) not too many years ago. The only fly in the ointment, as I recall, was that the results couldn't be replicated. The closest any independent researcher could get was a net loss of energy. Which, it turned out, was what the advocates were getting too, but were obfuscating by some clever books-cooking. When some nosy person noticed and exposed that inconvenient fact, everyone suddenly lost interest.
*Have* the results actually been replicated by independent researchers? And their results published in standard journals? I should think it would be all over Physics Letters if it were true, wouldn't it?
I hope more research funds will open up for avenue's like this one in the near future. However, my understanding is that the lowest energy orbit of an electron in a hydrogen atom corresponds with the lowest possible number of whole wavelengths an electron can 'fit' into such an orbit, which is one (fractional wavelengths being impossible: quantum mechanics). A wavelength of 'zero' is possible if the electron is smashed up against the proton, creating a neutron but, as I commented above, this requires a net input of enormous energy, such as in a collapsing supernova. I could be wrong, however, and wish the proponents of this new energy technology well. More prosaic solutions to GW exist and are cost-efficient. My favorite is concentrated solar thermal (aka as advocated in climateprogress.org: one of the best blogs on AGW out there).
I took a quick keik at climateprogress.org but didn't read their Salon article. Do the promoters/advocates/whoever-they-are give much detail about the conversion medium and the question of fatigue?
The idea of concentrating solar energy via lens/mirror occupies a soft spot in my heart too. But I've always been suspicious since there's nothing I've ever heard of that gets around the problem of entropy. With a mirror scheme, entropic forces would be expressed in fatigue, I think, and Second Law losses in the conversion/transport medium (water, mercury, ammonia, whatever). Do they talk about those issues, or handwave them away?
I'm neither physicist nor chemist but have heard of the second law. So if energy is sucked out of water or other hydrogen compounds do they remain constantly in a lower energy state or do they revert by sucking energy out of something else and what is that source?
If water is used to run your car can you then drink what's left as a diet treatment as its sucks your energy?
Energy always flows from high to low until equilibrium is reached. At room temperature, a pot of boiling water (high energy) will always lose energy (it will cool) while an ice cube (low energy) will always absorb energy (it will get warmer and melt). This continues until the pot of water and the puddle of former ice are at the same temperature as the rest of the room.
This happens in your body too. You burn calories by drinking cold water because your body has to burn food energy to warm it to your body's temperature. In fact, the unit "calorie" is based on how much energy is required to raise 1cc of water 1 degree Centigrade. Food Calories are written with a capital "C" because it is 1000x more than a single calorie (lower case c). Stay with me for a moment.
To a chemist, that the 150 Calorie 12 oz can of Coke actually has 150,000 calories. If your soda started at a frosty 38 degrees Fahrenheit (and if I did the math correctly):
12oz = 355cc Volume of can of soda
38F = 3.3C Temperature of cold soda
98.6F = 37C Normal body temperature
(150,000 calories)/(355cc of soda) = 423 degrees Centigrade
So there's enough energy supplied by the corn syrup in Coke to raise the temperature of the entire can to more than 4x the temperature of boiling water!!! (Or to put it another way, there's more than enough energy in one can of Coke to boil FOUR 12 oz cans of cold water!)
Since your body's temperature is only 34 degrees C warmer than the can when it was cold, guess where all that extra energy goes? Straight to your fat cells. Think of how your pancreas has to work overtime to produce enough insulin to convert the sugars to fat. Imagine how quickly your body will become resistant to that insulin. When your body becomes immune to high levels of insulin, the sugar stays in your bloodstream and ta-da! Diabetes.
Now let's make the great leap from science to politics.
Per-capita consumption of the highly tax-subsidized high fructose corn syrup in the soda has increased >1000% between 1970 and 1990, while at the same time obesity (and the associated deleterious health effects) during those years has increased by 112%.
Coincidence?
Like cigarette manufactures, Coke and Pepsi (which both contain two addictive chemicals, BTW) have been extremely aggressive marketing to children. In fact, they are both now readily available to children in almost every public school despite pediatric recommendations. Think of the liability issues that Coke and Pepsi potentially face in the era of an epidemic in both childhood obesity and diabetes.
It's not just Coke and Pepsi, of course. Watch TV aimed at children and count the number of commercials for candied breakfast cereal from General Mills or sweets from the Mars company. The ads themselves generate revenue for Madison Avenue and the owners of the TV channel and the creators of the TV show. The corporate farmers (family farms are almost extinct) get their tax subsidies (they get to double dip thanks to ethanol requirements in domestic gasoline). They a lot of chemical fertilizer and pesticides, making DOW and Monsanto very happy. The senators from the disproportionately represented Red States of "real" America get money and power.
Keep in mind that high fructose corn syrup is found in almost everything nowadays.
I'm an engineer who has been unemployed and underemployed since 9/11, so I have had a lot of time on my hands to take the Red Pill.
To the struggling human kind and the future generations not yet lost,
and those species that may yet survive the human driven holocaust,
I am sure that in future times the human plague will have abated,
and the massive craving for fossil fuels will have been sated.
If there survives a human civilisation of worth later still,
I hope there is no chance of it growing again beyond natures will.
If our descendents will still be around, electricity will be solar.
Eventually some of the ice will return to regions polar.
In these far off times
after insufferable warm climes,
maybe the earth will get cool again at last,
absorbing slowly the carbon dioxide that we added in so fast.
To those of today for whom the far future does not matter a damn,
Beware that Gaia is dying ever faster, and will unsupport human kind with a slam.
To not deny the truth, and yet do little is still to be in denial.
So much fossil fuel burning has to stop before we can even talk about survival.
You go Karyn! No more sugar coating on a bleak reality and real solutions.
Regarding many of the first 19 comments about this post:
The master distractors seem to have found some good paying Corporate public relations jobs posting comments on Common Dreams news.
A new and growing niche for the internet I suppose.
haha
I am not distracted neither are the majority who read Common Dreams comments you dark and sinister trolls.
Lowering C02 levels below 280 ppm by means of political action is politically impossible - forget about it. Few people believe that the sky is falling.
That said, if global warming is anthropogenic, and if it is going to result in climate change that will eliminate a large percentage of the human population by means of disasters untold, then how is this not in fact a self-solving problem? Over the years, population radically decreases, consequently anthropogenic green house gas emissions radically decrease (perhaps as the remaining humans are forced by circumstances to adopt an essentially medieval economy), and eventually CO2 levels stabilize, and then finally begin to fall. Right? In a couple of thousand years, we're back to 280 ppm or less. Problem solved.
I'd rather solve it without the billions of deaths from famine, flood, drought, disease, war, etc. myself.
That might not be one of the options.
Survival of the fittest, life goes on.
Leaving aside my total agreement with zmann that we need (if we want to keep our membership cards in the Civilised Humans club) to solve the problem intentionally rather than by 'malign neglect', there's no reason to think that, left alone, the change will not run out of control and exterminate every oxygen-dependent creature. I.e., make *all* high-order life go extinct. Recovery from that would take probably on the order of a billion years or so, since that's how long it took to produce high-order life in the first place.
I could almost accept the justice of humans going extinct because of species stupidity, but not quite. I dig in my toes at the idea that *everyone* should die rather than just the greedy arseholes who built the Extinction Express to begin with and are now forcing us into the baggage cars. The Greedy Arseholate are a small group of highly psychopathic individuals. We need to get rid of them, not let them get rid of us.
We could shift the clothing markets in favor of clothing made mainly of various plant fibers and make that compete with petroleum based clothing. Sometimes, it feels good to wear smooth looking clothing and I admire men who do to but sometimes I prefer a little imperfection to save the environment. From what I have been learning from others about hemp and algae, we could legalize hemp for clothing and switch to extracting green light sweet crude and still enjoy wearing smooth looking clothing. What do you think?
We could also keep fighting for small family farms and going local on food in general. I don't mind trying foods from all over the world but it wouldn't hurt to go local either.
Finally, kill the HOA so we can go as green as we want.