Game Over On Global Warming? Interesting Article From LA Times Notes Some Of The Numbers

[hatrack]

EDIT

To stabilize atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide — the primary contributor to global warming — CO2 emissions would have to drop 70% to 80%, said Richard Somerville, a theoretical meteorologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla. Such a reduction would bring emissions into equilibrium with the planet's ability to absorb carbon dioxide. The last time the planet was in balance was more than 150 years ago, before the widespread use of coal and steam engines.

What would it take to bring that kind of reduction? "All truck, all trains, all airplanes, cars, motorcycles and boats in the United States — that's 7.3% of global emissions," said Gregg Marland, a fossil fuel pollution expert at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Closing all fossil-fuel-powered electricity plants worldwide and replacing them with windmills, solar panels and nuclear power plants would make a serious dent — a 39% reduction globally, Marland said. His calculation doesn't include all the fossil fuels that would have to be burned to build the greener facilities, though.

Trees could be planted to absorb more carbon dioxide. But even if every available space in the United States were turned into woodland, Marland said, it would not come close to offsetting U.S. emissions. "There is not enough land area," he said.

The United States accounts for nearly a quarter of the carbon dioxide released each year, according to government statistics. China, in second at about 15%, is gaining fast. If the rest of the world returned to the Stone Age, carbon concentrations would still rise. Carbon does not dissipate rapidly. Some is eventually absorbed by oceans and plants, but about half stays in the atmosphere. And there is no easy way to get it out. Maintaining current levels would require reducing worldwide carbon dioxide emissions by more than 20 billion tons a year, federal statistics suggest.

EDIT

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-emissions5feb05,0,3805894.story

[bananas]

1. We have to mate with the reptilian aliens

that is our only hope for survival.

[intaglio]

3. Perhaps the Bush family has already done so eom

[Javaman]

44. I was just thinking about the movie Aliens...

When the corporation started terra-forming the original planet.

They had these enormous atmosphere "suckers" that would convert the existing air into something breathable.

But then again, all the fossil fuel it would take to make something like that would basically rule out it's ability to clean the air. The carbon neutral carbon-neutralizer. Ironic.

[lazyriver]

2. I think we are in for a rude awakening

We stand almost alone in the world in our (and I really mean Bush's)unwillingness to participate in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emmissions. Not only will we be left behind technologically in the pursuit of clean energy alternatives but we will also see our position as a world economic power continue to weaken. The rest of the planet will have economies not based on oil and we will be struggling to fit in. How long will it be before the rest of the world imposes sanctions on us? I think the patience of many other nations is begin to wane.

[XemaSab]

15. What about China, Russia, and India?

They seem to be totally uninterested in the subject, especially China.

[lazyriver]

43. True they aren't interested but with the exception of India,

these countries do not exactly support us. India is an ally only because of our lack of attention to their nuclear developments and maybe because we send so many jobs their way. China tolerates us because we send them our jobs, buy their cheaply produced goods and ignore their human rights atrocities. I would be willing to bet that when we are the only country left standing in their way of the oil spigot, they will be much less tolerant of us. Russia is a mess in many senses of the word and even in their current state, don't exactly consider us an ally.

So as I see it, we stand almost alone in the world. Even if the countries you list were standing with us, would we really want that kind of support?


*Edited for content

[YankeyMCC]

4. I just had a Bush moment

I saw the subject line of your post and wanted to just bury my head in the sand and stop thinking about this stuff.

It's fraking hard, but this is why I have such contempt for bush supporters, they are cowards. But I also feel sympathy because cowardice is just part of being human.

Which means it's incumbent on us, those who are finding the strength to face reality to continue trying to get the message out, find a way to led them over their fear out of compassion and sympathy for others.

[hogwyld]

14. We have to keep fighting

I remember 10 - 15 years ago, everyone, and do mean everyone, thought we were alarmist kooks. And now, look how the message is getting heard. We can change minds if we don't give up.

[NNadir]

5. There is one possibility, slight though it is, that he didn't mention.

That would be industrially capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reducing it.

Before you tell me it is impossible, I suggest that you consider that plants do it all the time.

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. I bet if we find the secret to photosynthesis,

we'd be in the clear.

Biologists. That's who are going to solve this energy and global warming problem. They are inter-related. I bet I get a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for making the connection.















<ka-huk>

[phantom power]

9. We'd have to do it faster than photosynthesis. But we already can.

Really, it's a matter of having enough energy to apply to the process.

[NNadir]

36. You get the Nobel Prize.

Well, maybe not the Nobel, but you get the thread prize.

[phantom power]

41. I'd like to thank the Academy. Or the E/E peanut gallery :-)

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. Trees would be planted...

I started three threads on micro-climates that might stop hurricane winds from damaging your homestead, and also improve global warming if we all did it, and only one person responded:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=123944&mesg_id=123944

Nope. I guess those electric bulb fanatics took a vacation.

[Shallah Kali]

8. wouldn't rebuilding coast mangrove swamps be of help?

Natural breakwaters plus like all trees they sequester the carbon.

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. That's a federal job.

But you have to weight that with private business's demand for white beaches.

I think the happy medium is an Intracoastal. If we could build a causeway on the outer edge of Florida and start the mangroves there, we might be able to have our cake and eat it too. Maybe won't be much wave power for the surfing tourists, but Florida really isn't known for its surf, anyways.

[Shallah Kali]

12. the white beaches get washed away in storms

so one would think those benefiting financially from them would want to try anything that science shows possibly would help. Kinda like the ski industry doing a bit against global warming. enlightened self-interest and all that.

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. Those chamber of commerce types know how to socialize the risks,

and privatize the profits.

[Nihil]

17. FWIW

I read your posts on microclimates (well, two of them) but didn't
respond as I had nothing to add (being neither in a hurricane belt
nor with enough land to plant any more trees).
Nonetheless, a belated "thanks" for posting the idea! :hi:

[The Backlash Cometh]

19. Thank you.

I feel so, sniff, underappreciated. ;-)

[eppur_se_muova]

23. There, there...

I read a couple of those posts, too, but really didn't have anything to add. Not something I had heard much about before, thought I tend to favor trees just for shade and evaporative cooling.

[4dsc]

25. alot of space next to highways

I know there might be a small problem with animals but I drive be thousands of miles of roadways with NO tree.. I believe our roadways should be lined with tree from coast to coast..

[The Backlash Cometh]

27. We definitely need to start to build barriers.

Yes, there will be a mess of broken canopy after a hurricane, but better that than houses crushed like shells.

[phantom power]

30. One thing I've noticed: trees don't do so well next to highways.

Lots of the trees I see planted next to highways are sickly or dead. I imagine some are hardier than others, but living next to exhaust fumes, road salt, etc, can't be easy.

[phantom power]

10. It's good to put it in those terms, isn't it. 70-80%.

It puts current "efforts" into the proper perspective: we aren't even in the ballpark. We're not in the same county that contains the ballpark we're aiming for.

[tex-wyo-dem]

16. Yes, this puts into perspective very nicely just how big the challenge is...

undoubtedly the biggest challenge the human species has ever had...to save our own hides as well as save as much of our natural environment as possible.

No mistake about it, effectively dealing with human induced climate change will take unprecedented cooperation among all countries, governments and societies...and this enormous endeavor must take place within the next decade. The U.S. must be the standard bearer in this effort, not only because we are and have been for decades the greatest single contributor to the problem, but have the resources and influence (albeit arguably after Bushco). Such an effort will take determined and courageous leadership that will have the ability to unite people behind such a massive undertaking that will in many ways drastically alter how we live our lives, our economy and our society in general.

Who might that leader be?

[The2ndWheel]

20. The first thing would be to stop waiting for leaders

The second would be to not count on large scale, increasingly complex solutions to solve the problems that have been caused by large scale, increasingly complex solutions. That's what we've been doing, and here we are.

[GliderGuider]

24. Unfortunately this is a large scale problem

So if it were to be solved, the scale of the solution would have to match the scale of the problem. Rather than being a substantive part of the solution, individual contributions help mainly by fostering a mindset that will help people understand and accept the privations that real solutions will require.

Take as an example WWII in Britain. The war was not won by housewives turning in their aluminium pots to be melted down to make Spitfires. However, the scrap metal drives got everybody thinking about and accepting the fact that sacrifices were necessary to win the war. So when the government cam along with food and fuel rationing, and durable goods disappeared from the market as steel was reallocated to build tanks, the people saw the resulting privations as necessary and acceptable. They had deprived themselves a bit at the beginning, and had thus psychologically "bought themselves into" the process.

I think the current consciousness-raising surrounding efficiency and conservation will work in much the same way. It won't solve the problem because the scale is wrong, however it will get everybody willingly heading in the same direction. If large-scale carbon taxes or rationing is ultimately imposed, people will be more ready for it.

Of course, those large scale privations will probably not be imposed for various reasons, but that's a whole other kettle of cod.

[The2ndWheel]

31. That kettle of cod is the point

WWII didn't solve the problem of state expansion, and it didn't solve the problem of war. It was a temporary solution to a problem, and the consequence of the solution was another 45 years of the 2 superpowers that were left fighting for power and control. WWII was bound to happen with all those competing centers of expanding power.

"If large-scale carbon taxes or rationing is ultimately imposed, people will be more ready for it."

If the efficiency leads to increased use, then an authority will need to impose something onto us, and we won't be ready for it.

I just don't see how centralizing such a project and needing even more energy to keep that project together is going to do any good. Maybe it will. I could obviously be wrong, I am human. We're all making this up as we go.

[GliderGuider]

33. The Law of Unintended Consequences

Given our inability to foresee corollary outcomes, large centralized projects may indeed to more harm than good, despite the best intentions of their directors. Unfortunately, doing nothing is guaranteed to do more harm than good.

We are indeed making this up as we go. IMO the best we can hope for is that a large number of different experiments at all scales are tried in different places, with the best ideas proving themselves in the real-world laboratory and thereby achieving wider adoption. Will it be enough? Probably not, but at this point it's all we've got.

[The2ndWheel]

35. It is all we have

That's why we'll do it, no matter what anyone says on a message board. We have to, since the alternative is murder on a scale that would put to shame all 20th century dictators. We can't do that voluntarily. We have to hope, by doing pretty much whatever it takes(even if that means destroying the habitat to save ourselves), that the limits of existence won't do it for us.

[tex-wyo-dem]

32. "WWII in Britain" is an excellent example of how people can adapt...

given the right circumstances and urgency. This same scenario happened in the U.S. during the war as far as rationing and donating such things as fat off of meat drippings and women's hose...and this was directly after suffering through a decade long depression.

The sacrifices we will need to endure to drop the CO2 levels to what is needed will make previous events in history look like a minor bumps in the road.

[YankeyMCC]

42. Here! Here!

We must lead them, we can't wait for them to see the light and led us. We must lead them or perhaps PUSH them is more appropriate term to make the right decisions that will be needed to address some of the things that can only be addressed on large scale.

[tex-wyo-dem]

34. I guess I should qualify my last statement...

We ALL need to lead this effort, but to make drastic changes and sacrifices in the near future happen will require strong, strong leadership at the head of all major industrialized nations who won't sellout to pressure from the corporate ranks...and that pressure will be great.

[GliderGuider]

18. The innumerate always have problems with questions of scale

"I'm doing my bit for Global Warming. I went out and bought half a dozen compact fluorescents last weekend!"

I was struck by these quotes from the article:

For some perspective on that number, consider an icon of the green movement: a 2007 Toyota Prius. Driving it 12,000 miles releases 4,200 pounds of carbon dioxide.

If hybrid cars replaced all 245 million cars in the United States — more than a third of the cars in the world — the carbon savings would be less than 3% of the needed reduction.

Given the scale of the problem, experts see no realistic way to lower the concentration of atmospheric carbon.

And people wonder why I'm so pessimistic...

[The2ndWheel]

21. "no realistic way"

That's the problem. We wanted to get to our non-existent destination as quickly as we could, so now we're left with this as our situation.

See if we knew what the goal of all this was, maybe we might have an idea of what to do. We just want to travel further and quicker, but to where? We want to communicate further and quicker, but if we weren't so busy going around in circles, we could communicate easier. We want fewer people, but need the taxes for our demands. We want to consume less, but we need the jobs for more people so that we can generate the money for our demands. We want more bang for our buck, but that means more people will have access to more stuff, so we won't consume less.

It's insane. We don't know where we're going, but if we get there, we still can't stop.

[phantom power]

22. Another stat I thought was good: we were at GHG equilibrium 150 years ago.

The nations of the world are gnashing their teeth over getting back to 1990 emissions levels. Whereas what we *need* is 1860 levels.

Ponder that. 1860. pre Civil War.

[kestrel91316]

26. I could cope with an 1860 lifestyle. I would gladly go back to that

if it would solve the problem.

We have so much more knowledge about how to make do in primitive conditions now. We KNOW germs exist and how important it is to keep our waste out of our water, etc. With renewables providing SOME power, it could be an interesting way of life.

The Amish have no electricity in their homes, but live quite comfortably.

[GliderGuider]

28. I wonder how 6.7 billion Amish would make out?

[phantom power]

29. We may get to find out. My guess...

is that 4-5 billion of them would make out by dying. But I'm sure life will be idyllic for the survivors. A pastoral existence with no machines.

Time to make the lentils.


On a more serious note, it's good to remember that in 1860, the 1.5 billion humans had a healthy biosphere. Whereas our neo-Amish will inherit a ravaged biosphere with less carrying capacity. Maybe a lot, lot less.

[tom_paine]

37. And all the high-grade, accesible metal ores dug up, processed and useless

Those Amish are going to have to make their spading forks and such out of wood, because all the metal is gone gone gone. How many millions of years for the Earth to reprocess all our junk and redistribute it as accesible, pure metal ores, such as were present during humanity's rise?

I'm no geologist. I wonder if it is even possible, given billions of years?

Or did we dig up all the metal ores and now future generations will have none when they try to rekindle civilization (if we don't go extinct)

[Boomer]

51. This is the end of the line, folks

"... and now future generations will have none when they try to rekindle civilization"

Bingo. We've plucked all the low hanging fruit, and if our current high-tech infrastructure and high-tech skilled labor crumbles, there won't be any way to recover.

We may not become extinct, but we'll be reduced to a significantly different standard of living for the few survivors.

As for returning to an 1800's lifestyle now, I seriously doubt that the majority of American citizens would be willing, or more importanly *able", to do so. Ever watched PBS's "Frontier House"? A select group of families were placed on a plot of land and tried to live as if they were in the 1800's for a period of several months. Every single family, despite the best advice of historians on how to survive, failed to accumulate enough firewood and preserved food to see them through winter. The assessment of the judges is that all the partcipants would have died of cold and starvation.

[kestrel91316]

38. Not entirely sure. But I do know this: their overall environmental

impact and carbon footprint would be a hell of a lot less than what we've got NOW.

Plus, they are GREAT regenerative farmers, and know how to care for their land. They don't exhaust it. They build it up.

[gravity]

39. Global warming will end

When we run out of oil.

The problem with fossil fuels isn't just the United States, its every country in the world. If we stop producing co2 emissions, soemone else will just use them, while we suffer from the warming and the lack of fossil fuels.

[Dead_Parrot]

40. No, it won't

When conventional oil becomes too expensive, we'll just switch to the alternatives - tar sands and liquefied coal. There's no danger of them running out for a good few centuries, and they are much worse than oil, environmentally.

You're right that the US shutting of CO₂ will not solve the problem (although 6 billions tons pa would be a good start). But I'm not aware of the US making any giant leaps towards stopping CO₂ production: If anything, I think it's getting worse.

So that's one less thing to worry about, I guess. :silly:

[phantom power]

45. another bit of bad news: hysteresis

If the whole world stopped emitting GHGs tomorrow, what we've already put into the atmosphere will continue to cause warming for decades. 50-70 years seems to be the estimated time frame. Add to that the multiple positive-feedback processes we've kicked off, and the conclusion is that our old climate is history. We can choose to try and slow it down, or make the ultimate equilibrium minimally bad, but nothing is "stopping" global warming now.

[Javaman]

46. I have wrote about this a few times on here...

As small as our little planet is, it's still pretty damn enormous. And what makes it doubly so is the fact of trying to get all the nations to agree to the un-agreeable.

If the nation of the world can't agree on some of the mose basic things, why on earth (pardon the pun) would everyone suddenly say, "yeah, lets put all our long unresolved problems and personal issues aside and work together as one!" yay team!

I used the analogy of the aircraft carrier turning around.

An aircraft carrier is heading for the coast much to fast. It needs to turn around. But it has known that it needed to turn around for the last 300 miles, but now that it's within 4 miles of the coast, it's screwed. Why? because in order for a carrier to turn around it needs 5 miles of ocean just to slow down to make that turn.

So here we are, the human population needing to desperately turn around but were just told that we are too late. We knew about this issue of global warming for decades, but those people, those scientists were looked upon as crazy, as alarmists, as reactionaries.

So here we are in a freight train screaming down a hill with no brakes and an end of line sign in sight.

You know, there was this theory about if a civilization was doomed, what would happen?

The popular theory was that all of society would break down and chaos would ensue but it doesn't appear to be happening. Odd, isn't it considering that a majority of the rational population firmly believes in climate change. But then again, I may have answered my own question with the word "rational".

I worry more about the irrational souls as it gets warmer and warmer and water becomes more and more scarce.

But then again, there is the whole new global dimming issue. With all the pollution in the air now, it may not actually get much warmer, but much darker and colder. Oy such a choice we are given. Well. I think most if not everything will be answered in about 50 years.

If the ice melts and the seas rise, we either have that many more beaches or we have that many more ice skating rinks.

:shrug:

[gravity]

47. Realistically

The sacrifices to reduce global warming will be worst than the global warming itself.

People don't seem to realize the sacrifices needed to stop global warming. It takes more than just using cfl lights and hybrid cars. The sacrifice needed would be the equivilant of turning our life style back 100 years.

[Dead_Parrot]

48. Cool

The entire population of Bangladesh are coming over to your place to crash out for a million years until the seas go back down. Get some pizza in, they like anchovies but hold the olives.

[GliderGuider]

49. That's a whole new twist on the term "population crash"...

[kurth]

50. We're fucked

The next mass extinction may be self-induced. The earth will live on, and other species will replace us - until the sun runs out of gas, then... POOF!