One of the truly horrific unfolding disasters of the climate crisis is the thawing of Siberian permafrost, which has the potential to dwarf human emissions of CO2 and methane. And it looks like it's getting started. But don't worry, I'm sure those crazy alarmist scientists use words like "ticking time bomb" all the time, right?
This brings up one of the most terrifying aspects (to me) of climate change: the positive feedback cycle. We've started the global climate change ball rolling, and now it threatens to roll completely out of control. There are a bunch of potential positive feedback cycles (melting ice reflecting less energy back into space is another), and all of them could be disastrous.
Critically, when the IPCC last made it's predictions about the scope of potential climate change, it ignored positive feedback, claiming poor information. I suspect the next report won't ignore the issue.
What kind of world do we need to prepare for? The merely bad, or the possibly disastrous?
Comments
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dobermanmacleod Posted 7:52 pm
06 Sep 2006
Mankind slowing their growth of greenhouse gas emissions is moot, since natural emissions will overwhelm any human cuts in emissions. Besides, population growth and per capita emission growth makes dramatic cuts in human emissions unrealistic.
The only solution is to remove the greenhouse gas from the air after it has been emitted. This sounds like magic, but nature already does this. Unfortuately, we are overwhelming her ability to cope.
I suggest we improve zooplankton or phytoplankton with genetic engineering, and seed it into the ocean. Don't like the idea of releasing GMOs into the environment? How about the idea of the climate returning to the hot, dry state which has caused mass extinctions in the past?
Until people stop prescribing emission caps as a solution for global warming, the sooner we can start a program to improve nature's ability to remove the greenhouse gas from the air.
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trisk Posted 12:06 am
07 Sep 2006
Doberman's post points out that this fault-finding could soon become moot as
[s]oon the warming earth will emit considerably larger amount of greenhouse gas than humans. In other words, carbon sinks will soon become carbon emitters big time.
Perhaps we could save some time by stopping the unnecessary expense of energy, time, and effort in pointing fingers about "whose fault" it all is.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:59 am
07 Sep 2006
Give it up, the science is overwhelming. The emergency is here right now.
Just admit that fossil fuel combustion is triggering global climate disaster. And then address it on the same scale that WW 2 war production was acomplished.
Millions of plugin cars, wind, water, and solar power systems are needed. As well as conservation and an end to conspicuous consumption for its own sake.
Quality of life must replace quantity of possesions and consumption as the measure of human fulfillment. And fast! Or life as we know it just won't work here on spaceship earth.
The reverse, those of us trying to fight global climate disaster throwing up our hands and agreeing it is all in the hands of nature, will lead to doom.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Tod Posted 1:34 am
07 Sep 2006
'Persistent deniers' do not have to give in to anything other than that the type of improvements needed are ones that will benefit everyone - in terms of quality of life, finances, job security, and on and on. 'Persistent deniers' are really no more or no less responsible for the situation we are in . . . until the last few years the vast majority of us were contributing just as much to the problem s we face. Shopping at Whole Foods and driving a Prius does nothing to let one off the hook. Too many do these types of things simply to absolve themselves of feelings of guilt, not because they will make significant change. Identifying the Issue as one that is 'liberal' vs. 'conservative' is more than inane, it is critically harmful. No more blame folks, only progress.
"Because the world doesn't matter if you don't have the strength to go ahead and choose something that's really true." - Julio Cortazar, Hopscotch
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sunflower Posted 2:32 am
07 Sep 2006
The fault is our civilization, our ethics, our values. Money is more important than family. Power is more important than life. We have a corrupt and violent government at the helm. Seize the helm and bring our ship of state about.
Do not say somebody should do this or that. Do not wait for somebody else. We do it. We do it now.
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GreenEngineer Posted 3:21 am
07 Sep 2006
The positive feedback loop is scary, beyond a doubt. But we barely understand it. Rather than rushing to develop a solution to problem that we don't really comprehend, we should be investing MASSIVELY in research of climate dynamics and climate regulatory systems. Once we understand the scope, nature and true severity of the problem, and its connections to other parts of the climate system, then perhaps we can decide if planetary-scale intervention is warranted. The cure could well be worse than the disease.
If we do have to intervene on a planetary scale, it's still not clear that biology is the tool of choice. We have very little control over biological systems on that scale, and no ability to fine-tune the effects of our intervention.
There are other alternatives. Consider the possibility of orbiting large mylar mirrors. This has the advantage of controlling warming directly, by reducing solar gain the planet's surface. More importantly, it's fully controllable, allowing us to respond to changes in climate conditions in real time. Technically, it would be very challenging, but feasible given the level of effort proposed. And it would be much less likely to "get away from us" than a biological intervention.
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sunflower Posted 3:50 am
07 Sep 2006
Plankton blooms cause hypoxia and would suffocate the oceans.
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mihan Posted 3:59 am
07 Sep 2006
If input is higher than output, which it has been for over a century, CO2 will increase.
For CO2 to stabilize---for it to remain at the same level---the input and output have to be the same.
For CO2 levels to decrease, input must be smaller than output. Our choices are (1) lower emissions to pre-industrial levels (fat chance) without changing how much CO2 is sequestered, (2) don't worry about our CO2 emissions, just increase sequestration to surpass emissions, or (2) increase sequestration and decrease emissions. Both affect the CO2 levels; if both are possible, why not do both?
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David Roberts Posted 4:06 am
07 Sep 2006
If we give up on that political fight, who will wage it? Do we really want to join the mirrors-in-space, head-up-posterior brigade?
www.grist.org
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kmp Posted 4:32 am
07 Sep 2006
The mirrors-in-space thing (as well as the gene-hacked plankton/algea thing, which I had not even heard of) reminds me of those drugs and foods that promise to block absorption of fat from your GI tract. Eat all you want!! It'll just go through you and you will stay skinny!! Of course, you will no longer absorb any essential fatty acids, so we'd better replace those... and you won't get any lipid-soluble vitamins either, so here's another pill to take, and oh, did I mention the "greasy, loose stools" and explosive diarrhea? Handily, our consumer products division has produced a new extra-powerful toilet-bowl cleaner just for you!!
OK, I'll stop ranting now.
Really, people, it's easy. Eat less, exercise more. Pump less CO2 into the air, plant more trees. How can we contiuously make something so simple, so hard?
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bookerly Posted 5:46 am
07 Sep 2006
The deniers are the people who want to do something that involves doing nothing.
This means they want someone else to do something to solve the problem with no cost or effort on their part.
Folks, listen, there is no deux-ex-machina. No one is going to fly in from the sky and save us. No magic solutions (space mirrors or plankton in the sea).
Why won't the magic solutions work? If we can't even manage to conserve energy on a serious level, use the existing renewable technology we already have (to say nothing of investing in science to develop more), make our institutions responsive and control our impulses to consume everything in sight.
If we can't do these things, we can't do anything magic.
David, KMP and AmazingDrX are all correct. We have a problem of political will and we must fight to solve it.
We still have a little time (a few years), but not forever. What legacy do we want to leave for future generations?
People talk about the WWII generation who sacrificed to save the world. They not only went to war and died, they accepted reduced consumption for the national good, and did so with love and joy in their hearts.
Can we do the same?
patrick
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amazingdrx Posted 6:58 am
07 Sep 2006
It isn't the vast corporate fossil fuel conspiracy to deny global climate change from combustion created CO 2 emmissions (remember that political appointee at NASA, the 24 year old who censored NASA scientists talking about global climate change)that is to blame for not starting to turn this train wreck around 30 years ago?
It's not the bushwacker talking point crew's fault, King karl, Drug Limbaugh, Drudge, Coulter,and countless other friends o' the duuhbya? It's not Newty and Raygun (Noonan) before him claiming trees cause pollution that's to blame?
That's right, now you all have a new talking point. It's our fault (just as much as anyone else), those of us who have been advocating renewable energy for 30 years.
Bushwacky was up to his old denier tricks a few short weeks ago. He said that global climate change is happening, he just can't decide what's causing it. Nature or humankind.
That's quite a primate you all voted for. Ooo ooo eee eee ahh ahh. Sing along faithbased patriots!
It does not help anything to let up pressure on these jerks, you gotta go after 'em constantly and consistently. To these talking point drones any compromise is a sign of weakness.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 7:06 am
07 Sep 2006
I really like pumping CO 2 under the ocean floor, where all that methane hydrate is delicately stored in a 300 foot frozen layer. Let's see if we can melt that loose too!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 8:34 am
07 Sep 2006
"The only solution is to remove the greenhouse gas from the air after it has been emitted."
Conservation crop land, forests, wetlands, prairies, coral reefs all do this already. To the tune of 1/3 of uS cO 2 emmissions.
Magnify the effect by 2 times, then cut CO 2 in half. Twice as much land in conservation and wetlands and healthy coral reefs might just turn it all around and siphon CO 2 back out.
Along with renewable energy and plugin electric vehicles.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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LegumeSam Posted 10:07 am
07 Sep 2006
Pump less CO2 into the air, plant more trees. How can we contiuously make something so simple, so hard? This article ought to complicate things a bit, at least from the tree-planting thing. In order to renew the biosphere, we can't just plant trees, we need to take care of the ecology.
Let's face it, folks. Pumping less co2 into the air and taking care of the ecology just aren't profitable. If they are to happen, the profits system must release its hold on humankind.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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dobermanmacleod Posted 3:55 pm
07 Sep 2006
The earth's climate doesn't handle forcing very well. History has shown that when forced, the climate goes from one steady state to another with very little time in between.
This concept of abrupt climate change has only recently been acknowledged by scientists in the field of climatology. The layman still thinks that climate changes are gradual things that occur over thousands (or at least hundreds) of years.
It is very clear that the earth is going to go from a mild climate of the Holocene, to a hot dry climate that has caused massive extinctions of the past. This is not going to happen gradually, it is going to happen all at once, starting in the next ten years.
We don't have a lot of time. Draught is the worst, and is not something that modern society can find a technological fix for. Heatwaves are bad too, and destroy the landscape pretty fast. It is predictable that those living are going to see our civilization fall apart soon.
Let me be up front is saying I don't expect most people to believe me-even when a great man like Dr Lovelock (who saved humanity once before from CFCs ruining the ozone layer) agrees.
It is my duty to tell you that we don't have decades to change our ways-the amount that mankind must cut emissions by is unrealistic (90% in ten years, when even 50% is unimaginable).
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GreenEngineer Posted 2:13 am
08 Sep 2006
We absolutely must reduce our carbon emissions dramatically and quickly, primarily by reducing energy use. Luckily our current system has a great deal of room for improvement. A factor 5 reduction in energy use is quite feasible technically. Political/economic feasibility is another matter.
I normally would not have brought up the space mirror concept at all. But the point of the original article (remember that?) is that even dramatic reductions in carbon emmissions may not be enough. Because of the time delay associated with climate change (we will not feel the full effect of carbon emitted today for several decades). Additional intervention may be required, and my only point was that we do have some options, although they are extreme. And they are absolutely not the first solutions we should turn to, but the last.
As to the practical objection that reducing planetary solar gain would reduce the ability of plants to uptake carbon: this is not really a problem. Spectrally selective materials (that e.g. block infrared radiation but allow visible light to pass through) are a well established current technology. We could easily reduce the planet's heat gain without significantly reducing the fraction of useful light that reaches the surface.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:21 am
08 Sep 2006
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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sunflower Posted 2:52 am
08 Sep 2006
Most of the energy from the sun is visible light, not infrared. That sunlight gets converted to heat on your skin and our trees. Reflecting infrared in space would do the same thing that CO2 and CH4 does to the Earth, a giant infrared mirror from Hell.
I've been on fire watch for months. The forest is tinder dry. The first rain forecast since June for lower Puget Sound looks like a mirage. I hate the sun.
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kmp Posted 4:01 am
08 Sep 2006
This article ought to complicate things a bit, at least from the tree-planting thing. In order to renew the biosphere, we can't just plant trees, we need to take care of the ecology.
I apologize for being overly simplistic in my "less CO2, more trees" statement; clearly there is a little more to it than that. I agree that we need to take care of the ecology (I kind of equated that to "plant trees" in my simplistic statement). However, the article referenced seems to be saying two things; 1) that trees will die due to drought, overly wet seasons, etc., and release CO2. Well, duh. I guess I thought it was obvious, but willy nilly planting of trees, without other changes to help wholistically heal the environment, clearly won't do much good, and 2) that the estimates of how much CO2 can be "sunk" into forests are overly optimistic given soil nitrogen concentrations. This is not all that surprising to me, and just further proof that we need both reduction in CO2 and an increase in healthy ecosystems which can act as carbon sinks.
LSam also said:
Let's face it, folks. Pumping less co2 into the air and taking care of the ecology just aren't profitable. If they are to happen, the profits system must release its hold on humankind.
I beg to differ. I understand that you believe that capitalism simply is not sustainable, and in many ways I agree with you. However, is not TerraPass right now profiting from "pumping less CO2 into the air?" And I can imagine someone profiting off of taking care of the ecology as well. Basically, if you have something that people want, they will pay for it. We just have to make people want to take care of the ecology, and it will become profitable.
As for the drought situation.... I was traveling on business last week and saw an article on the drought in the South Dakota area (NY Times, WSJ? USA Today?? can't remember which paper the hotel left by my door). Anyway, they had this graphic of the US based on amount of water being held in the soil. Most of the country was a reddish tan for "dry or very dry" while the Northeast was dark blue for "very moist." We've had more rain in the last two years than I can ever remember. I agree, it is most unsettling and it really wreaks havoc with my climbing schedule!
Kaela
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amazingdrx Posted 5:05 am
08 Sep 2006
They ought to be carbon sink wilderness instead of homes, doubling as storm buffers.
The river flood plains ought to be turned back into carbon sink wilderness too. That would help control climate change related flood damage as well as help restore aquifers by absorbing flood waters.
And the idea of restoring prairies as carbon sink plus wind power locations completes the additional carbon sink capacity needed to reverse global climate change.
This is all based on widely accepted,well documented science.
I also think that restoring flood plain wetlands would absorb runnoff that is killing coral reefs.
Happy climbing. We have a nice iced over waterfall to climb in the winter here.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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LegumeSam Posted 9:30 am
08 Sep 2006
I understand that you believe that capitalism simply is not sustainable, and in many ways I agree with you. However, is not TerraPass right now profiting from "pumping less CO2 into the air?" No. TerraPass may encourage individuals to use less fossil-fuel energy, and it may encourage a few alternative energy projects. But the aggregate of global capitalist society continues to increase its use of fossil-fuels, and "clean energy" projects do not "offset" the pumping of co2 into the air in the sense needed -- i.e., they do not take co2 out of the air. TerraPass, therefore, is profiting from Chevron's attempt to clean up its image. Chevron is only going to pay so much to clean up its image; image costs cannot imperil its main source of profit, selling gasoline to those who burn it, thus co2, thus out-of-control global warming.
Basically, it rounds down to this: in a system based on competition between profitmaking businesses, the greatest market share, and thus the greatest profit, is to be had by the business which can produce the greatest number of commodities and ship them to consumers before the competition has extracted their discretionary cash. The overall capitalist system, then, involves two dynamic movements: overproduction, entailing excessive exploitation of nature, and a speed-up of production processes, eventually cutting into the natural world's capacity to regenerate itself.
Now, sure, there are marginal businesses like TerraPass, which exploit the public's desire to be "green," and there are marginal businesses which sell pristine nature as a commodity, perhaps through ecotourism. These businesses are at best a tiny portion of the capitalist economy as a whole, which operates by degrading labor and nature for the sake of the profits system. Paul Hawken, the "natural capitalism" guru, sells pricy garden tools to rich folks who (for instance) live in the wealthy districts of Pasadena, California, near one of the biggest concentrations of money in the whole state, and about three blocks from where I went to high school. There are only so many garden tools needed by rich folks.
Kaela continues:
Basically, if you have something that people want, they will pay for it. We just have to make people want to take care of the ecology, and it will become profitable. The first sentence, above, echoes the fallacy of Ludwig von Mises' The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, in which capitalist business exists to serve "demand." Perhaps the manufacturers of corporate slogans like to believe this sort of stuff. The rest of us will have to comfort ourselves with the more realistic notion of effective demand. Effective demand is an economic variable; it can be calculated for any business by multiplying the number of paying customers by the price of each item, and it belongs in the assets column of any balance sheet under "receipts." This, and not "demand," is the point of capitalist business. Nobody profits under this scheme from selling products to those who can't afford them or who aren't interested in buying, and keeping the paying consumer buying is the whole point of such an economy.
The purpose of business, in this version of the philosophy, is the separation of consumers from their money. Now, creating cute ecotourism hot spots may save the ecology while making money, that is, until the tourist season ends. But only a tiny portion of the world can do that sort of thing profitably. Thus my conclusion: it's just not profitable.
My guess is that a lot of people reading my posts on Gristmill are still way too plugged into capitalist economics, everyday capitalist economics, to go with my main points. After all, to believe that capitalism is doomed would suck the willpower right out from under everyday capitalist business. My advice to those people is this: separate the short-term from the long-term. In the short term, we are all plugged into capitalism. In the long term, we must find some other system, such as does not take from nature and labor more than those entities can grow back.
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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LegumeSam Posted 10:46 am
08 Sep 2006
http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/
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godzilla9 Posted 5:09 pm
11 Nov 2007
we also need to implement clean energies on a massive scale, but that alone wont help and its quite possible we wont get China to go along with it anyway, in which case we are doomed without positive reconstructive steps.
YoursTruly
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