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Climate Change
- Thread starter Michael Scally MD
- Start date
Short thesis
A safe future for humanity on Earth can only be achieved on a healthy planet. Climate stability depends on a transition from incremental to transformative change. Science is clear: The world needs to follow exponential pathways in all sectors of society. This requires deep innovation, social transformation and a fundamental policy shift.
Description
By 2020, it will already be five years since world leaders have bestowed their signatures on two crucial documents: The adoption of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs] and, after 21 years of negotiations, the adoption of the legally binding Paris Agreement, committing to keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2°C. Both were hopeful promises for humanity. Yet today, we can see quite clearly that we're not delivering on these promises.
One crucial step towards realising the two goals is to acknowledge that they depend on each other: A stable planet is a prerequisite to have good human life on Earth. The planetary boundary framework, introduced in 2009, provides a scientific guardrail on how to manage the atmosphere, oceans and forests sustainably as a common asset for all people on our planet. It allows for combining both the SDGs and the Paris goals in one analytical framework and defines a safe operating space on a stable earth system.
The result is a completely new complex systems dynamic model, giving us a science-based framework for human prosperity and equity on a stable and resilient planet. It projects economic development, resources use from water, food and energy, population growth, and income per person, to name but a few. In this way, the model for the first time gives us a robust opportunity to really explore our future ability to attain the SDGs within the planetary boundaries.
It is thus possible to test different possible futures: business as usual, global transformations, different governance options. What the framework shows: Unless we radically change our direction, we will fail on both fronts. We will not attain the SDGs and we will transgress planetary boundaries – risking to push the earth system beyond irreversible and devastating tipping points. Hence, we need some radical thinking to enter a transformative, disruptive future. Six transformation ways may enable us to succeed with all SDGs and the Paris Agreement.
Lots of people talking about air capture of CO2. Even Prez candidates. It's a great idea, but it takes a lot of energy. To understand this, let's work out the thermodynamics. [note: nerd twitter thread] 1/
You have an insulated volume containing a total of 1 mole of gas; it contains two compartments separated by an impermeable wall. One compartment contains pure CO2 at 293C and 1 atm, the other contains 80% N2 and 20% O2, also at 293C and 1 atm. 2/
The initial volumes are such that, after the partition is removed and they mix, the CO2 will have a mixing ratio of 400 ppmv. So let's remove the partition and let the gases mix. 3/
First, there's no change in temperature b/c no work is done. So there's no change in enthalpy of the system. But there is an increase in entropy — it's the sum of the free expansion of each compartment into a vacuum. 4/
the change in entropy is equal to n R Log[Vf/Vi] for both sides (n = number of moles, R = gas constant, Vf and Vi are the final and initial volumes). For the CO2 expanding into the other space, ∆S = 0.026 J/K; for O2/N2 expanding, ∆S = 0.0033 J/K. Total ∆S = 0.029 J/K. 5/
Let's calculate the Gibb's free energy for this process. ∆H = 0, so ∆G = -T∆S = -8.59 J. The negative sign means this mixing is spontaneous. You can think of separating CO2 from air as the reverse of this mixing process. 6/
This means that separating the CO2 from 1 mole of air takes +8.6 J of energy. From this, you can estimate that it would require about 500 kJ to separate one kg of CO2 from the air. 7/
If you want to remove 35 billion tons of CO2 from the air (about one year's emissions), that would require 500 GW of power. Humans consume about 15 TW of power, so this corresponds to a few percent of the power we're now generating. That seems pretty reasonable. 8/
But ... this is the thermodynamic limit. In reality, you won't be able to do nearly this well. In addition, you need to do something with the CO2. If you want to store it underground, for example, then you have to compress it, which takes more energy. 9/
So I'm guessing that it will actually take 10x as much to pull CO2 out of the air. This would mean that we need about 40% of the energy generated to capture the carbon emitted by generating the energy. 10/
Could we do that? Certainly! But before you advocate for going down this road, you have to identify where the energy comes from. 11/
Gas coming out of the smoke stack might be 30% CO2 instead of 0.04% in ambient air. Is it better to capture CO2 at the stack? The answer is slightly — ∆S goes as the Log[Vf/Vi], so capturing C at the smoke stack might decrease required energy by a factor of 2, give or take. 12/
For tweet 8, 500 GW is the power required to remove that much carbon from the atmosphere every year.
Also, 293 C in the problem set up should be 293 K. Thread by @AndrewDessler: "Lots of people talking about air capture of CO2. Even Prez candidates. It's a great idea, but it takes a lot of energy. To understand this, […]"
You have an insulated volume containing a total of 1 mole of gas; it contains two compartments separated by an impermeable wall. One compartment contains pure CO2 at 293C and 1 atm, the other contains 80% N2 and 20% O2, also at 293C and 1 atm. 2/
The initial volumes are such that, after the partition is removed and they mix, the CO2 will have a mixing ratio of 400 ppmv. So let's remove the partition and let the gases mix. 3/
First, there's no change in temperature b/c no work is done. So there's no change in enthalpy of the system. But there is an increase in entropy — it's the sum of the free expansion of each compartment into a vacuum. 4/
the change in entropy is equal to n R Log[Vf/Vi] for both sides (n = number of moles, R = gas constant, Vf and Vi are the final and initial volumes). For the CO2 expanding into the other space, ∆S = 0.026 J/K; for O2/N2 expanding, ∆S = 0.0033 J/K. Total ∆S = 0.029 J/K. 5/
Let's calculate the Gibb's free energy for this process. ∆H = 0, so ∆G = -T∆S = -8.59 J. The negative sign means this mixing is spontaneous. You can think of separating CO2 from air as the reverse of this mixing process. 6/
This means that separating the CO2 from 1 mole of air takes +8.6 J of energy. From this, you can estimate that it would require about 500 kJ to separate one kg of CO2 from the air. 7/
If you want to remove 35 billion tons of CO2 from the air (about one year's emissions), that would require 500 GW of power. Humans consume about 15 TW of power, so this corresponds to a few percent of the power we're now generating. That seems pretty reasonable. 8/
But ... this is the thermodynamic limit. In reality, you won't be able to do nearly this well. In addition, you need to do something with the CO2. If you want to store it underground, for example, then you have to compress it, which takes more energy. 9/
So I'm guessing that it will actually take 10x as much to pull CO2 out of the air. This would mean that we need about 40% of the energy generated to capture the carbon emitted by generating the energy. 10/
Could we do that? Certainly! But before you advocate for going down this road, you have to identify where the energy comes from. 11/
Gas coming out of the smoke stack might be 30% CO2 instead of 0.04% in ambient air. Is it better to capture CO2 at the stack? The answer is slightly — ∆S goes as the Log[Vf/Vi], so capturing C at the smoke stack might decrease required energy by a factor of 2, give or take. 12/
For tweet 8, 500 GW is the power required to remove that much carbon from the atmosphere every year.
Also, 293 C in the problem set up should be 293 K. Thread by @AndrewDessler: "Lots of people talking about air capture of CO2. Even Prez candidates. It's a great idea, but it takes a lot of energy. To understand this, […]"
In recent weeks, a new study by researchers at ETH Zurich has hit the headlines worldwide (Bastin et al. 2019). It is about trees. The researchers asked themselves the question: how much carbon could we store if we planted trees everywhere in the world where the land is not already used for agriculture or cities?
Since the leaves of trees extract carbon in the form of carbon dioxide – CO2 – from the air and then release the oxygen – O2 – again, this is a great climate protection measure. The researchers estimated 200 billion tons of carbon could be stored in this way – provided we plant over a trillion trees.
The media impact of the new study was mainly based on the statement in the ETH press release that planting trees could offset two thirds of the man-made CO2 increase in the atmosphere to date. To be able to largely compensate for the consequences of more than two centuries of industrial development with such a simple and hardly controversial measure – that sounds like a dream! And it was immediately welcomed by those who still dream of climate mitigation that doesn’t hurt anyone.
Unfortunately, it’s also too good to be true. …
The massive planting of trees worldwide is therefore a project that we should tackle quickly. We should not do that with monocultures but carefully, close to nature and sustainably, in order to reap various additional benefits of forests on local climate, biodiversity, water cycle and even as a food source.
But we must not fall for illusions about how many billions of tons of CO2 this will take out of the atmosphere. And certainly not for the illusion that this will buy us time before abandoning fossil fuel use. On the contrary, we need a rapid end to fossil energy use precisely because we want to preserve the world’s existing forests.
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Professor Will Steffen
Professor Will Steffen
Will Steffen has a long history in international global change research, serving from 1998 to 2004 as Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), based in Stockholm, Sweden, and before that as Executive Officer of IGBP's Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems project.
Will was the Inaugural Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute, from 2008-2012. Prior to that, he was Director of the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society. From 2004 to 2011 he served as science adviser to the Australian Government Department of Climate Change. He is currently a Climate Councillor with the Climate Institute, and from 2011 to 2013 was a Climate Commissioner on the Australian Government's Climate Commission; Chair of the Antarctic Science Advisory Committee, Co-Director of the Canberra Urban and Regional Futures (CURF) initiative and Member of the ACT Climate Change Council.
Steffen's interests span a broad range within the fields of sustainability and Earth System science, with an emphasis on the science of climate change, approaches to climate change adaptation in land systems, incorporation of human processes in Earth System modelling and analysis; and the history and future of the relationship between humans and the rest of nature.
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Wildfires raging in the Amazon rainforest have hit a record number this year, with 72,843 fires detected so far by Brazil’s space research center INPE, as concerns grow over right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro’s environmental policy.
The surge marks an 83% increase over the same period of 2018, the agency said on Tuesday, and is the highest since records began in 2013.
Since Thursday, INPE said satellite images spotted 9,507 new forest fires in the country, mostly in the Amazon basin, home to the world’s largest tropical forest seen as vital to countering global warming.
Images show the northernmost state of Roraima covered in dark smoke. Amazonas declared an emergency in the south of the state and in its capital Manaus on Aug. 9. Acre, on the border with Peru, has been on environmental alert since Friday due to the fires.
Wildfires have increased in Mato Grosso and Para, two states where Brazil’s agricultural frontier has pushed into the Amazon basin and spurred deforestation. Wildfires are common in the dry season, but are also deliberately set by farmers illegally deforesting land for cattle ranching.
The unprecedented surge in wildfires has occurred since Bolsonaro took office in January vowing to develop the Amazon region for farming and mining, ignoring international concern over increased deforestation.
[1977] Release of Fossil CO2 and the Possibility of a Catastrophic Climate Change
In 1977, a distinguished geophysicist named Frank Press sent a letter to the White House warning of catastrophic climate change.
https://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/digital_library/sso/148878/31/SSO_148878_031_07.pdf
In 1977, a distinguished geophysicist named Frank Press sent a letter to the White House warning of catastrophic climate change.
https://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/digital_library/sso/148878/31/SSO_148878_031_07.pdf
Trump administration sees a 7-degree rise in global temperatures by 2100
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...c6fada-bb45-11e8-bdc0-90f81cc58c5d_story.html
In a report written by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued to support the freezing of “federal fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks built after 2020,” the NHTSA writes that global temperatures will rise by 7 degrees Celsius and reducing or eliminating carbon emissions will not change this.
The report states [Page 5-30]:
The emissions reductions necessary to keep global emissions within this carbon budget could not be achieved solely with drastic reductions in emissions from the U.S. passenger car and light truck vehicle fleet but would also require drastic reductions in all U.S. sectors and from the rest of the developed and developing world. in addition, achieving GHG reductions from the passenger car and light truck vehicle fleet to the same degree that emissions reductions will be needed globally to avoid using all of the carbon budget would require substantial increases in technology innovation and adoption compared to today’s levels and would require the economy and the vehicle fleet to substantially move away from the use of fossil fuels, which is not currently technologically feasible or economically practicable. https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/ld_cafe_my2021-26_deis_0.pdf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...c6fada-bb45-11e8-bdc0-90f81cc58c5d_story.html
In a report written by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued to support the freezing of “federal fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks built after 2020,” the NHTSA writes that global temperatures will rise by 7 degrees Celsius and reducing or eliminating carbon emissions will not change this.
The report states [Page 5-30]:
The emissions reductions necessary to keep global emissions within this carbon budget could not be achieved solely with drastic reductions in emissions from the U.S. passenger car and light truck vehicle fleet but would also require drastic reductions in all U.S. sectors and from the rest of the developed and developing world. in addition, achieving GHG reductions from the passenger car and light truck vehicle fleet to the same degree that emissions reductions will be needed globally to avoid using all of the carbon budget would require substantial increases in technology innovation and adoption compared to today’s levels and would require the economy and the vehicle fleet to substantially move away from the use of fossil fuels, which is not currently technologically feasible or economically practicable. https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/ld_cafe_my2021-26_deis_0.pdf
"The entire emissions of the world have to go negative. We must not only stop producing CO2 and all the other greenhouse gases, we actually have to be sucking them from the atmosphere…in order to get to 2°C." — Steven Chu, Nobel Prize for Physics.
"This is so true. Fear is at the root of all of this - fear that the false foundation on which they’ve constructed their lives, privileges and identities is crumbling under their feet. But it’s easier to shoot the messenger than acknowledge the problem. So here we are."
Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist
Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist | Do the Math
Some while back, I found myself sitting next to an accomplished economics professor at a dinner event. Shortly after pleasantries, I said to him, “economic growth cannot continue indefinitely,” just to see where things would go. It was a lively and informative conversation. I was somewhat alarmed by the disconnect between economic theory and physical constraints—not for the first time, but here it was up-close and personal. Though my memory is not keen enough to recount our conversation verbatim, I thought I would at least try to capture the key points and convey the essence of the tennis match—with some entertainment value thrown in.
…
Physicist: Right, if you plot the U.S. energy consumption in all forms from 1650 until now, you see a phenomenally faithful exponential at about 3% per year over that whole span. The situation for the whole world is similar. So how long do you think we might be able to continue this trend?
Economist: Well, let’s see. A 3% growth rate means a doubling time of something like 23 years. So each century might see something like a 15–20× increase. I see where you’re going. A few more centuries like that would perhaps be absurd. But don’t forget that population was increasing during centuries past—the period on which you base your growth rate. Population will stop growing before more centuries roll by.
Physicist: True enough. So we would likely agree that energy growth will not continue indefinitely. But two points before we continue:
First, I’ll just mention that energy growth has far outstripped population growth, so that per-capita energy use has surged dramatically over time—our energy lives today are far richer than those of our great-great-grandparents a century ago [economist nods]. So even if population stabilizes, we are accustomed to per-capita energy growth: total energy would have to continue growing to maintain such a trend [another nod].
Second, thermodynamic limits impose a cap to energy growth lest we cook ourselves. I’m not talking about global warming, CO2 build-up, etc. I’m talking about radiating the spent energy into space. I assume you’re happy to confine our conversation to Earth, foregoing the spectre of an exodus to space, colonizing planets, living the Star Trek life, etc.
Economist: More than happy to keep our discussion grounded to Earth.
Physicist: [sigh of relief: not a space cadet] Alright, the Earth has only one mechanism for releasing heat to space, and that’s via (infrared) radiation. We understand the phenomenon perfectly well, and can predict the surface temperature of the planet as a function of how much energy the human race produces.
The upshot is that at a 2.3% growth rate (conveniently chosen to represent a 10× increase every century), we would reach boiling temperature in about 400 years. [Pained expression from economist.] And this statement is independent of technology. Even if we don’t have a name for the energy source yet, as long as it obeys thermodynamics, we cook ourselves with perpetual energy increase.
…
Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist | Do the Math
Some while back, I found myself sitting next to an accomplished economics professor at a dinner event. Shortly after pleasantries, I said to him, “economic growth cannot continue indefinitely,” just to see where things would go. It was a lively and informative conversation. I was somewhat alarmed by the disconnect between economic theory and physical constraints—not for the first time, but here it was up-close and personal. Though my memory is not keen enough to recount our conversation verbatim, I thought I would at least try to capture the key points and convey the essence of the tennis match—with some entertainment value thrown in.
…
Physicist: Right, if you plot the U.S. energy consumption in all forms from 1650 until now, you see a phenomenally faithful exponential at about 3% per year over that whole span. The situation for the whole world is similar. So how long do you think we might be able to continue this trend?
Economist: Well, let’s see. A 3% growth rate means a doubling time of something like 23 years. So each century might see something like a 15–20× increase. I see where you’re going. A few more centuries like that would perhaps be absurd. But don’t forget that population was increasing during centuries past—the period on which you base your growth rate. Population will stop growing before more centuries roll by.
Physicist: True enough. So we would likely agree that energy growth will not continue indefinitely. But two points before we continue:
First, I’ll just mention that energy growth has far outstripped population growth, so that per-capita energy use has surged dramatically over time—our energy lives today are far richer than those of our great-great-grandparents a century ago [economist nods]. So even if population stabilizes, we are accustomed to per-capita energy growth: total energy would have to continue growing to maintain such a trend [another nod].
Second, thermodynamic limits impose a cap to energy growth lest we cook ourselves. I’m not talking about global warming, CO2 build-up, etc. I’m talking about radiating the spent energy into space. I assume you’re happy to confine our conversation to Earth, foregoing the spectre of an exodus to space, colonizing planets, living the Star Trek life, etc.
Economist: More than happy to keep our discussion grounded to Earth.
Physicist: [sigh of relief: not a space cadet] Alright, the Earth has only one mechanism for releasing heat to space, and that’s via (infrared) radiation. We understand the phenomenon perfectly well, and can predict the surface temperature of the planet as a function of how much energy the human race produces.
The upshot is that at a 2.3% growth rate (conveniently chosen to represent a 10× increase every century), we would reach boiling temperature in about 400 years. [Pained expression from economist.] And this statement is independent of technology. Even if we don’t have a name for the energy source yet, as long as it obeys thermodynamics, we cook ourselves with perpetual energy increase.
…
T-Bagger
Member
https://www.davidharrisjr.com/stevenahle/nasa-admits-that-climate-change-occurs-because-of-changes-in-earths-solar-orbit-and-not-because-of-suvs-and-fossil-fuels-2/
Unfortunately that article doesn’t quote NASA. The title of the article would indicate otherwise.
Im afraid NASA and any other reasonable science-based organization still nails human interaction as the cause of global warming.
Im afraid NASA and any other reasonable science-based organization still nails human interaction as the cause of global warming.
T-Bagger
Member
Eh, they can blame cow farts all they want. Until they tackle real issues like REALLY reducing emissions from China, they aren’t doing anything.
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