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nigelj at 07:19 AM on 17 October 2020What does the global shift in diets mean for climate change?
PC @12 says "A big question is: Is it possible to have the 987.5 millions cattle in the current World inventory all graze in sustainable fashion? "
I don't think you can. I can briefly describe the scenario in New Zealand. In recent decades, intensive dairy farming has expanded to the point our soils are degrading and most of our rivers have become seriously polluted unfit for wading let alone swimming.
Some of these problems have been mitigated by keeping stock away from rivers by fencing and planting trees near rivers to reduce runoff etcetera, and this has reduced bacteria levels significantly, but has hardly even dented nitrate levels. It appears the only way to truly control the problem is to reduce stocking density, so absolute numbers of cattle. Its hard to see why it would be different in other countries.
It's not viable to resolve the problem by increasing areas for dairy farming to reduce stocking ratios. There are numerous competing requirements for land including massive government schemes to plant trees as carbon sinks. And its hard to get beyond the fact that meat requires vastly more resources for a given quantity of calories compared to grains and vegetables.
Of course it depends on how one defines sustainability, another hellishly difficult problem but theres a general consensus in the country that turning our rivers into open sewers that are unfit for wading let alone swimming isnt terribly sustainable and certainly isn't acceptable. The debate is about how much pressure, rules and costs its acceptable to put on farmers to fix the issues.
Then there is less intensive cattle farming on open grasslands where density ratios aren't so high and feedstock is primarily grass as opposed to grains. This is more sustainable, but only to a degree. To get the sort of carbon sequestration RB talks about requires rotational grazing, and quite low stocking rates, lower than presently. There was a research paper on this in one of your weekly research summary columns some months ago.
As you rightly say its a really complicated issue. People also don't like being told what to eat. Theres a lot of conflicting advice even before you get to the climate issue. However a couple of things stand out to me. The trend in some countries like the UK seems to be just starting to move towards eating less meat, especially red meat, and towards more plants and maybe fish for a range of different reasons, not just climate issues.
It's this range of issues that appears to be combining and leading to change. I think looking at history, that change often seems to happen when a number of things suggest change is appropriate, not just one causative factor. It adds up. Lower meat consumption may spread to other countries eventually. But it seems unlikely to me this will be particularly quick, or lead to global vegetarianism, so that leaves a lot of space for getting grazing systems and chicken farming as sustainable as possible. I'm not sure how sustainable battery cage farming is. I doubt that the chickens would consider it particularly sustainable, if they could be consulted :)
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Philippe Chantreau at 01:34 AM on 17 October 2020What does the global shift in diets mean for climate change?
I see numerous valid points from all contributors so far, suggesting that this is a complex problem and indeed it is.
A big question is: Is it possible to have the 987.5 millions cattle in the current World inventory all graze in sustainable fashion? Immense areas of tropical forests have been destroyed to make room for cattle, what is the full analysis on that? Even if we can have close to a billion sustainable heads of cattle, can you then add to that all the other livestock and still have a sustainable system?
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nigelj at 08:32 AM on 16 October 2020What does the global shift in diets mean for climate change?
RedBaron @8
Thank's for the technical information. There's some good stuff there, but I have a few criticisms about a couple of things.
Firstly I did indeed not say cattle are 'the' problem as BL points out. Clearly many things contribute to the increase in atmospheric methane in recent decades, not only cattle. Many studies have confirmed that.
"If cattle numbers are dropping and methane levels are rising, it is a probable falsification of the hypothesis that cattle emissions were the problem."
Cattle numbers are not dropping overall globally which is obviously what matters. Both the links provided by Alan Russel and myself showed that.
"Cattle properly raised on grasslands restore degraded land, they do not "use" those limited resources, they are part of a system that generates those limited resources...."Strawman. The statement I posted was cattle use a lot of land compared to crop farming. This is a simple fact. Nothing you have said changes that. It's something we have to consider. You appear to be looking at it from quite a narrow perspective.
But I don't disagree about the positive relationship you describe between cattle and resources. I did say I think grazing cattles on open grasslands has value. I agree cattle farming properly done can improve the land and sequester carbon, to an extent. Theres some good evidence. The trouble is so many things operate in the opposite direction. Warming causes soils to release carbon over time and also nitrogen oxides so dont get carried away with what can be achieved.
On balance I go along with lower red meat consumption for climate and other reasons. Obviously fewer cattle equals less of a methane problem. And properly managed environmentally sustainable grasslands farming requires low cattle density so probably lower numbers than currently, assuming the same area of land is used for cattle grazing. Its certainly unlikely to increase in area. This is consistent with a lower red meat diet.
That said, it seems to me that its really unlikely the entire world would go vegetarian, and some grasslands aren't very suitable for cropping or forestry, so we should clearly graze them in the most environmentally sustainable way possible as per your general prescription.
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Doug Bostrom at 05:36 AM on 16 October 2020What does the global shift in diets mean for climate change?
Regarding Alan's remark (fling) regarding Skeptical Science promoting misunderstanding of animal husbandry and consumption of meat contributing to GHG, I feel complled to point out that we've covered this elsewhere and that the conclusions of that effort belie Alan's claim:
How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
This is one of our more popular debunkings (or in this case perhaps "calibration improvement").
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Bob Loblaw at 01:48 AM on 16 October 2020What does the global shift in diets mean for climate change?
Red. Nigel did not say that cattle are the problem, he said that cattle are a problem. And that there contribution to the overall problem will be a function of how many there are. I don't see that as "nonsense".
As you point out, not all cattle will contribute the same amount, as other factors come into play, but you've made a strawman out of Nigel's comment.
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RedBaron at 21:20 PM on 15 October 2020What does the global shift in diets mean for climate change?
@6 7 Nigel,
That's not the only nonsensical thing you said Nigel.
"Firstly this is a tacit admission that cattles methane emissions are a problem, and less cattle equals less of a problem."
That statement is pretty wrong too. If cattle numbers are dropping and methane levels are rising, it is a probable falsification of the hypothesis that cattle emissions were the problem. There are plenty of other sources of methane that actually are the problem, natural gas leaks are the most likely culprit. However, grain production is way up there on the list because in the overwhelming majority of cases it destroys the ecosystem function of grasslands, which are a net sink for methane. Haber process nitrogen made from natural gas, commonly used to raise grains, is also rising. Cattle raised properly on grasslands can restore ecosystem services, and do not need haber process nitrogen to do it.
You also said,
"Since food, water and land are scarce in many parts of the world, this represents an inefficient use of resources."
Also wrong. Cattle properly raised on grasslands restore degraded land, they do not "use" those limited resources, they are part of a system that generates those limited resources. We all know they generate food. But commonly misunderstood is they generate water too.
Effect of grazing on soil-water content in semiarid rangelands of southeast Idaho
Notice that the best result for soil moisture is properly grazed land? Even better than no grazing at all? What do you suppose would happen if we plowed that land to grow grain? In case you didn't know, Google "dust bowl images" for a graphic explanation.
The proper use of animals, especially ruminants, generates new fertile land, food for human use, and water cycles. It does not use them up, it generates more of each.
Feedlots are a different matter. This is why I have asked multiple times on this forum that people use their words carefully. It's not the animals that is the problem, it's the way we raise or food that matter. Actually animals are a great help in this regard.
“As the small trickle of results grows into an avalanche — as is now happening overseas — it will soon be realized that the animal is our farming partner and no practice and no knowledge which ignores this fact will contribute anything to human welfare or indeed will have any chance either of usefulness or of survival.” Sir Albert Howard
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nigelj at 16:23 PM on 15 October 2020What does the global shift in diets mean for climate change?
I said @6 above "It should be very obvious we could get all the calories we need from much less volume of grain and vegetables etcetera than volume of meat." This is nonsensical. I'm not sure what I was thinking. Please just ignore it.
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nigelj at 10:23 AM on 15 October 2020What does the global shift in diets mean for climate change?
Alan Russel @5
Regarding your comments:
"Note that the amount of cattle in Europe and North America is actually lower than it was in the 1960's whilst India has fewer cattle than it did in the 1980s, (http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QA/visualize), so their associated methane emissions have actually dropped. This is a classic bit of information that is often unknown/ignored by those pushing the line "the importance of keeping animal products – particularly red meat, such as beef, and dairy – to a minimum". Even professional scientists like Mike Berners-Lee do this."
Firstly this is a tacit admission that cattles methane emissions are a problem, and less cattle equals less of a problem.
Secondly, although the numbers of cattle have decreased in some places, the production of cattle overall globally have increased in recent decades according to your charts. The charts below also show numbers of cattle globally increasing from 1890 - 2014. If you click on things you can get the exact numbers each year.
https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production
"From what I have seen, if you're trying to eat to maximise the sustainability of society, you'd probably be best to try and focus on nutrient density, meaning that most people would probably eat more eggs, fibrous veg, fish, and meat, and less flours, cereals, added fats and oils (mostly the unsaturated ones)....."sugars, and grains, which are much lower in nutrient density and satiety than meat, and are significant contributors to the obesity and diabetes problems we face, and are also responsible for most of the agricultural monocultures and (fossil fuel dependent) fertiliser and pesticide use. Maximising nutrient density and satiety means that you need to eat less (LINK, Marty Kendall also has a lot of good information on his Optimising Nutrition site), so reducing your impact and you'd probably waste less food (http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/). "
I disagree. The core problem is expressed in this commentary:
Conversation LINK
"Meat production is highly inefficient – this is particularly true when it comes to red meat. To produce one kilogram of beef requires 25 kilograms of grain – to feed the animal ( and clearly huge areas of grass) – and roughly 15,000 litres of water. Pork is a little less intensive and chicken less still....The scale of the problem can also be seen in land use: around 30% of the earth’s land surface is currently used for livestock farming. Since food, water and land are scarce in many parts of the world, this represents an inefficient use of resources."
This just isnt sustainable with a growing population and multiple demands on uses for land. If we lived mostly on grains, fruits and vegetables we would need far less land. It should be very obvious we could get all the calories we need from much less volume of grain and vegetables etcetera than volume of meat.
The lower nutrient density of grains and vegetables doesn't matter because they require less land to farm despite us needing to eat a larger volume, and we can largely get what we need from eating them.
Diabetes is not caused by eating grains or fruits. Its caused by eating too many grains and fruits to the point it causes obesity. Vegans as a group do not appear to have diabetes problems.
Your comment neglects to mention the vast numbers of cattle fed on grains that require fertilisers.
And we dont absolutely need artificial fertilisers to grow grains for our own direct consumption, although productivity would fall.
That said, red meat is a good source of iron and protein and cattle fed just on grass doesn't require fertilisers and is quite a sustainable option in that specific sense, so there is probably a place for some level of open grasslands cattle farming. I think its actually intensive dairy farming that is the least sustainable option because its so inefficient by requiring so many grains and so much piped water and it also typically pollutes local water ways quite badly.
I think the best solution is just to reduce red meat consumption to about one half or one quarter of what developed countries typically consume. There are many reasons and its the combination that are compelling. consumption of red meat has already declined in the UK.
"The other really good thing you could do is support regenerative systems of food production ..."
Regenerative farming in general terms mostly make sense, and is supported by good evidence.
Moderator Response:[DB] Activated hyperlinks and shortened those breaking page formatting.
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Alan Russell at 07:49 AM on 15 October 2020What does the global shift in diets mean for climate change?
As Anne Mottet (Livestock Development Officer at the FAO) has said: "people are continually exposed to incorrect information about livestock and the environment that is repeated without being challenged", however it is disappointing to see Skeptical Science contributing to this.
To a degree, this is fairly understandable as if you're looking at reports on the environmental impact of foods, it can be hard to find good, objective information, as even reports from professional scientists sometimes seem to verge closer to advocacy than science, but here are some things to look out for:
- Does it use 100 year carbon dioxide equivalent emissions factors to account for short-lived atmospheric emissions? If so, this is a red flag and you should probably stop paying attention to the author(s) other than being wary of further misinformation from them, see LINK1, and LINK2. Methane has a half-life in the atmosphere of about 10 years, so if cattle herd sizes remain the same over the lifetime of methane in the atmosphere they will maintain the same amount of additional methane in the atmosphere year on year. In simplistic terms, their contribution to warming is equivalent to a closed power station. Note that the amount of cattle in Europe and North America is actually lower than it was in the 1960's whilst India has fewer cattle than it did in the 1980s, (http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QA/visualize), so their associated methane emissions have actually dropped. This is a classic bit of information that is often unknown/ignored by those pushing the line "the importance of keeping animal products – particularly red meat, such as beef, and dairy – to a minimum". Even professional scientists like Mike Berners-Lee do this.
- Does it count rainfall as a water consumption i.e. does it distinguish between green water and blue water? For animals grazing on grass, the blue water consumption is pretty much zero: LINK3.
- Are the soil benefits of grazing accounted for? "Soil C sequestration from well-managed grazing may help to mitigate climate change" (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X17310338) along with the provision of organic fertiliser, which reduces dependence on and impacts of fertiliser production and use.
- Does it compare indirect emissions with direct emissions in a flawed comparison? This error was committed in the 'Livestock's Long Shadow' report and despite a lot of effort to correct it, the damage it caused still persists (LINK4).
- Do reports which link beef to land clearing accurately represent the process that they are reporting on? Often they misrepresent a more complex process in which livestock farming plays a part by associating all of the impacts with livestock (LINK5).
- Do the reports accurately represent what livestock eat, the vast majority of which is stuff that we can't eat? See LINK6.From what I have seen, if you're trying to eat to maximise the sustainability of society, you'd probably be best to try and focus on nutrient density, meaning that most people would probably eat more eggs, fibrous veg, fish, and meat, and less flours, cereals, added fats and oils (mostly the unsaturated ones), sugars, and grains, which are much lower in nutrient density and satiety than meat, and are significant contributors to the obesity and diabetes problems we face, and are also responsible for most of the agricultural monocultures and (fossil fuel dependent) fertiliser and pesticide use. Maximising nutrient density and satiety means that you need to eat less (LINK7, Marty Kendall also has a lot of good information on his Optimising Nutrition site), so reducing your impact and you'd probably waste less food (http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/). The other really good thing you could do is support regenerative systems of food production - focussing on best practice and the appropriateness of where crops are grown can make a huge difference. From the 2017 FAO study that I've linked above, it was calculated that a 21% increase in world meat production could require 95m hectares more land (an increase of 4%). This is an increase in land demand however note that it is based on the following conservative assumptions:
- up to 15% improvement in feed conversion ratio, which compares to, for example, the halving of feed conversion ratios over the last thirty years for poultry and pigs in Brazil, Thailand, and Europe;
- constant yields on grasslands, i.e. no improvements from regenerative agriculture (https://www.rootsofnature.co.uk/regenerative-agriculture-subsidy/).If you're trying to maximise your chances of food security, then reducing livestock farming, which contributes to food security by producing some of the most nutrient dense food we can eat from stuff we can't eat, on land where nothing else could be produced seems a bad idea.
If you're trying to find the best thing to do to maximise the sustainability of society, and you're in the richest 10% in the world, you should probably try to cut back on burning stuff. There are some excellent resources on Gapminder on this. If you haven't seen it already, this is a good place to start: LINK8. Most of the environmental communications against meat seem to me to be misdirection, either consciously or subconsciously. This seems to be for one of two reasons. It seems to be used as a means to look as if effective action is taking place whilst avoiding discussion and implementation of more effective actions e.g. what's an easier sell - you don't need to change your consumptive lifestyle and can have food that looks, tastes, and feels pretty similar to what you eat now but is "plant-based" (whatever the marketers choose that to mean) and therefore doesn't have the impacts of animal products, which may be fine if you don't look too closely at the nutrient density or impacts of whatever is in what you are eating, and the benefits of animal products, or you have to consume less (don't buy/build that thing, don't go that trip, switch that off)? It can also be the case that those propagating the information are so blinded by their anti-animal agriculture ideology, and so disconnected from nature, that they are unable to objectively reason. This is bad enough in itself, but when this is present amongst scientists, it borders on an abuse of their position - people are depending on them for rigorous, objective analysis, and if they are unable to do this, then they are unable to do their job pretending that they are causes more harm than good.
From all that I have seen and read over the last few years, a nutrient dense omnivorous diet produced using regenerative agriculture is the most sustainable for us as a species. I am just an enthusiastic amateur however, so if you have better information, I'd be interested in seeing it, though all of the publications I have seen that promoted reductions in animal product consumption have been based on the kinds of misinformation I've highlighted above.
Apologies for the long post but I've seen this kind of misinformation a lot and I think it's important that information like this is represented as accurately as possible as I think that people generally want to aid the sustainability of society, but are too busy to spend much time researching, so misinformation is believed if it is repeated often enough or people trust the source. Decisions based on bad information are dangerous as the consequences are often worse than the problem you tried to solve.
Moderator Response:[DB] Activated hyperlinks and shortened those breaking page formatting.
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BaerbelW at 04:13 AM on 15 October 2020The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for download
Update Oct. 14, 2020:
The Debunking Handbook is now available in an extensively updated version written by Stephan Lewandowsky, John Cook, Ulrich Ecker and 19 co-authors. Read about this new edition in this blog post: The Debunking Handbook 2020: Downloads and Translations -
One Planet Only Forever at 02:41 AM on 15 October 2020What does the global shift in diets mean for climate change?
nigelj,
It is important to keep the discussion on the recommendations suggested by the studies and reports that this article is based on.
The recommendations are for a shift of diets 'towards' vegetarian. There is an extensive history of Vegetarians living full healthy lives. The Vegan diet does not have as much real life case history, but the Vegan diet is not relevant to the issue being discussed.
One thing I learned about exercise and strength training nutrition is that it is well established that the human body will only process the protein benefit from about 4 oz (100 gm) of meat in a meal. So eating more than 4 oz of meat in a meal is wasteful. And unless you are into muscle-mass building you do not need to eat meat as part of every meal. So there is lots of opportunity for people to change their diet to limit the harm they are doing.
Even the lower-income portion of the population in wealthier nations could likely change their diet significantly in the recommended direction without any special mineral or vitamin supplements and without needing to develop the increased food awareness and understanding of a Vegetarian (though increased food awareness and understanidng would be great for everyone to have). And the wealthier portion of the population could dramatically change their diet in climate change helpful ways.
What also needs to be mentioned is that any meat that is consumed needs to be produced in less harmful, more helpful ways, because achieving all of the Sustainable Development Goals is required, not just Climate Action.
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RedBaron at 08:54 AM on 14 October 2020What does the global shift in diets mean for climate change?
@Doug_Bostrom,
Eat what you want, just make sure it is produced on land increasing in soil carbon rather than decreasing in soil carbon.
If it is decreasing in soil carbon, meat multiplies the effect by using more acreage. You should eat less or go completely vegetarian.
On the other hand, if it is increasing in soil carbon, the multiplier works in your favor and you'd actually be beneficial to increase your intake of meat and decrease your grain consumption.
Unless of course the farmer was using an integrated system growing both grains/vegetables and animals on the same land at the same time, then we get to go back to the first statement. Eat whatever you want!
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Doug Bostrom at 07:14 AM on 14 October 2020What does the global shift in diets mean for climate change?
Diet really touches a nerve for many people (myself as well if I'm honest).
It feels a little bit like the same "third rail" effect of accepting population limits. Immediate humid emotionality swiftly leading to various avoidance mechanisms.
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nigelj at 17:40 PM on 13 October 2020What does the global shift in diets mean for climate change?
Humans are omnivores after millenia of evolution, eating a wide variety of food groups in rough balance, so extreme diets go against our nature whether vegetarian, or atkins and paleo high meat diets, so I would need very good science based proof they are good for us. They all look like quackery to me.
I see the merit it lower red meat consumption for climate, efficiency, cost and health reasons, but some land looks like it only really suits cattle grazing so eliminating all red meat seems unrealistic. I think a mixed diet of some red meat, some fish, some chicken and also beans for protein and grains and fruits makes sense and its what I eat and enjoy. Humans are omnivores, so don't reinvent that wheel.
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Doug Bostrom at 10:36 AM on 11 October 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2020
Thanks Nigel. Very interesting, particularly as it agrees with my intuitions. :-)
Climate communications for a popular audience are substantially worthless because they mostly reach only people who don't need persuading.
Meanwhile our preferred lexicon and methods are littered with landmines, starting with loud and frequently irrelevant semaphoring of political alignment and continuing with hopeless moon shot attempts at complete value reeducation.
There's a whole other language left largely fallow. Stable energy supply. Jobs that last forever, multigenerational livelihoods. Cars that are more fun to drive and with engines that never become an oily mess. All true, and all appealing to folks who don't share our concerns.
Some people don't care about polar bears. We'll likely never be able to make them care. On a 100 million year time scale, why should they? Bears come and bears go. The vast majority of us don't even think 50 or 100 years ahead.
But they do care about things that overlap with our own parochial concerns. And there are enough of 'em to really gum up the works of modernization, as we've seen.
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Philippe Chantreau at 23:04 PM on 10 October 2020Berkeley study: 90% carbon-free electricity achievable by 2035
Michael Sweet,
You're right, but unfortunately cost evaluation is becoming as tricky in energy as it has become in health care, because of the crooks liers and cheats infesting the muddy legislative waters.
Moderator Response:[DB] Shortened and activated link breaking page formatting.
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michael sweet at 18:51 PM on 10 October 2020Berkeley study: 90% carbon-free electricity achievable by 2035
Doug Cannon:
Your claims are simply false. The OP documents that renewable energy will be cheaper to build out than fossil fuels. Since renewable energy is cheaper, utilities that use renewable energy will provide cheaper energy to their customers.
I cannot locate your numbers in the EIA report you cite. It appears that you are citing the cost to build renewable energy plants compared to building out fossil fuel plants. You are not counting the cost of fuel to run the plants. This is the largest cost for fossil fuel plants. For renewable energy the wind and sun are free. Your cost comparison is deliberately misleading.
This EIA report compares the actual cost of energy from various sources. That is called the levelized cost of energy. As described in the OP video, renewable energy with storage is currently comparable to the cost of gas energy. (renewable energy is already cheaper than coal, nuclear and oil). It is expected that in a few years the renewable costs will decrease and become the cheapest energy.
I will note that the cost of gas in the USA is substantially cheaper than the world price of gas. This is due to the availability of cheap fracked gas in the USA. The fracking industry has never made a profit and has hundreds of billions of dollars in debt that they cannot repay. This sugests that once investors stop throwing away their money the price of gas will increase in the USA.
You provide no references to support your wild claims. You are simply repeating fossil fuel propaganda. The OP documents that renewable energy is the cheapest way to supply energy today. Utilities will make more money if they invest in renewable energy than if they build gas plants.
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BaerbelW at 17:06 PM on 10 October 2020Critical Thinking about Climate - a video series by John Cook
nigelj @12
Thanks & corrected, now it works (but the video is available in the blog post as well)
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nigelj at 11:31 AM on 10 October 2020Critical Thinking about Climate - a video series by John Cook
BaerbelW @11, the link doesn't work.
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Philippe Chantreau at 04:33 AM on 10 October 2020What Tucker Carlson gets wrong about causes of wildfires in U.S. West
JoeZ:" It takes a lot of resources to fight the fires too"
True, and these resources come from the same pool as those for management and prevention. So, repeated catastrophic seasons deplete the resources for prevention.
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nigelj at 15:43 PM on 9 October 2020What Tucker Carlson gets wrong about causes of wildfires in U.S. West
Daniel Bailey, I've actually reposted your comment over at Realclimate, because it backs up some points I have just made, and it might be of general interest. So many thanks.
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ubrew12 at 11:38 AM on 9 October 2020What Tucker Carlson gets wrong about causes of wildfires in U.S. West
JoeZ@1 said: "We don't hear of huge wild fires in the American southeast, where forestry is a huge industry..." Is the Southeast drying up? If not, then there's the likely cause of the huge wild fires you didn't hear.
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nigelj at 08:46 AM on 9 October 2020Why a climate vote for Biden means the Earth
doug_bostrom @2, I agree and for the record Im definitely not an anti tax zealot, which can be seen in my comment on this page (nigelmjo).
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nigelj at 08:31 AM on 9 October 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2020
Some interesting research: "Why telling people how to save the planet may backfire".
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Doug Bostrom at 08:23 AM on 9 October 2020Why a climate vote for Biden means the Earth
"Tax" has been turned into a dirty word which we should remember started as "bill for services rendered."
"This contractor wants to tax me for paving my driveway! Never!" So let the driveway erode to become a gully. Etc.
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nigelj at 07:34 AM on 9 October 2020Why a climate vote for Biden means the Earth
Good points, although I think it could have been stated a bit more simply.
There is some evidence here that efforts to date with renewable energy and declining use of coal and better data on actual remaining coal reserves mean we have already stopped the most extreme and destructive warming scenario of RCP 8.5 (5 - 6 degrees c). Of course we still have a huge problem at lower warming rates, even at 2 degrees, but the point its not too late to make a difference.
I think Biden is pushing a credible plan to keep warming under 2 degrees. He doesn't come across as a huge self promoting ego, he listens to experts, hes rational, hes not a rigid thinker, and his spending plan on renewable energy projects is probably the best political option in a country that is very suspicious of taxes.
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Daniel Bailey at 03:42 AM on 9 October 2020What Tucker Carlson gets wrong about causes of wildfires in U.S. West
Philippe, repost away!
What's important is the public understanding of the science and that comes best with widespread dissemination.
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:20 AM on 9 October 2020What Tucker Carlson gets wrong about causes of wildfires in U.S. West
Daniel,
While wildouglscountry argument is not without merit, reducing you post to the descriptive of "impressive statistics" seems a rather underhanded way to belittle what is one of the most comprehensive examination of the problem I have seen. Would you agree for others to repost, copy/paste with proper attribution?
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Doug Cannon at 02:40 AM on 9 October 2020Berkeley study: 90% carbon-free electricity achievable by 2035
michael sweet.
I guess I didn't make myself clear. Of course we have to take into account the costs of global warming. But we can't lie to ourselves about the fact that decarbonizing will require a huge investment up front.
Don't just look at the video and its carefully couched claims. Read the report and the NREL references. They show the cost of wind at $25/Mwhr now, dropping to $15/Mwhr by 2035. The cost of solar at $20/Mwhr now, dropping to $13Mwhr by 2035.
The cost of a new gas utility is $6.26/Mwhr now (U.S. Energy Information Administration {EIA} Annual Energy Outlook 2019 AEO2019.....by the way, this reference agrees with Berkel;ey's current cost of wind and solar.) These comparison are all based on a 30 year life span. The story would be a lot different comparing to coal, but we're not building coal plants anymore. Renewables just can't compete with natural gas.
But we have to look beyond that analysis because we're not really talking about expanding our electrical output, we're talking about replacing existing fossil generation with renewables.
What we're doing today is using wind and solar to partially cut back on using the installed fossil generation when wind and solar are available (about 25% of the time for solar and 35% for wind). The $20-$25/ Mwhr cost for the renewables is offset by the reduction in variable cost for fossil which is about $2/Mwhr for gas and $4/Mwhr for coal. The capital cost for fossil is already sunk cost so we can't save that cost. It's costing us the difference of $20-25 minus $2-4 to reduce CO2 emmisions.
The Berkeley Report is going a step further and actually replacing 90% of the fossil plants by shutting them down. They recognize that shutting down most of the fossil results in a need for battery storage, which we avoid with the current "cherry picking" strategy. This is even more expensive than our current strategy. How much is a little vague; they don't breakout the cost of storage.
I won't even go into the lost opportunity cost resulting from the diversion of resources into such a program. I'll assume we could find the resources and we could live with the reduction in our standard of living. But we have to get over this idea that requiring more manpower to get the same output is a good thing. The logic that this program is good because of more jobs is like saying we should go back to building highways with picks and shovels even though it would cost an order of magnitude more.
So to get rid of fossil will take a major up front investment. The cost savings from reducing CO2 are well down the road. I doubt you could find a climate scientist to agree we would see any effect this century. But what we do now will help in the centuries to come. CO2/temperature is such a slow, long term issue I wonder if cutting back fossil to 90% in 15 years is any significant advantage over doing it in 30 years as the old fossil plants are retired.
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BaerbelW at 01:45 AM on 9 October 2020Critical Thinking about Climate - a video series by John Cook
Update: Part 7 - 23 ways to mislead (41 minutes) added to the list. Happy watching!
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RedBaron at 00:00 AM on 9 October 2020Getting involved with Climate Science via crowdfunding and crowdsourcing
What is the rate a new regenerative agricultural method sequesters carbon in the soil?
34% funded and 20 days left. Thanks so much for those who helped!
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wilddouglascounty at 23:55 PM on 8 October 2020What Tucker Carlson gets wrong about causes of wildfires in U.S. West
Daniel B,
What your very impressive statistics points out is that the window for safe controlled burns has shrunk and in some years has disappeared altogether. This has occurred in other parts of the country as well. But that doesn't mean that safe controlled burns should be abandoned as a management tool since fire is a central component of most terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, it makes the increased risk of catastrophic scale fires due to aridification makes controlled burns even more important than ever because of the alternatives. A wildfire season in Kansas in 2016 burned over 400,000 acres of mostly grassland that was being invaded by woody species such as highly flammable eastern red cedar, Juniperus virginiana. Had controlled burns been used in those areas during wetter years to control the fuel supply, the damage would have been far less, and as folks found out in following years, the pastures were greatly improved by the removable of the woody invasives. So the trick is to adapt the controlled burn regimen to actively seek out the shrinking windows of opportunity that climate change has created.
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michael sweet at 21:35 PM on 8 October 2020Berkeley study: 90% carbon-free electricity achievable by 2035
Doug Cannon,
Did you watch the video? They clearly state that renewable energy will be easy to install because it is cheaper than fossil fuels. Your faux concern about debt and $1.7 trillion dollars is simply fossil propaganda. Yes it seems like $1.7 trillion is a lot of money, but it will cost us $2.5 trillion for fossil energy. If you count in the climate and pollution costs fossil fuels cost much, much more than renewable energy.
You are like a teenager who tells their parent "This Toyota Camery costs $20,000. That is way to expensive. We will have to buy the Ferrari instead".
You cannot examine just the cost of renewable energy. You must compare the cost of renewable energy to fossil energy. Renewable energy will be installed by utilities because it is cheaper to build a new renewable energy plant and pay the mortgage than it is to run a fossil fuel plant with no mortgage. The coal, oil and gas cost money while sun and wind are free. In addition, after 2035 the now mortgage free renewable energy plants will continue to generate power using free sun and wind so prices in the long term will go down even more. And renewable energy creates more jobs.
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Eclectic at 10:08 AM on 8 October 2020Critical Thinking about Climate - a video series by John Cook
Nigelj, in general you are correct about "sceptics" revising their previous position ~ when finally all the world and his wife are pointing the finger of scorn & reproach.
That would be so for the milder cases of climate denialism, over the next 20 years, I expect. But not so much for the hard-core denialists (you know the type) . . . they use a seemingly-infinite amount of motivated reasoning to resist the reality which is staring them in the face.
For the hard-core cases, the "noisiness" of data over the coming decades ~ will be a hook for their every hope. Every pause/hiatus in surface temperature, every brief uptick in arctic sea-ice extent, every season which happens to be rather quieter in hurricanes / wildfires / sea-level-rise . . . every example will be pointed to as a fore-runner of the coming Cooling Century which will confound the mainstream scientists.
These cases are the hard-core denialists who will maintain their position . . . right up until they themselves fall to the final sweep of the Reaper's Scythe.
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nigelj at 06:33 AM on 8 October 2020Critical Thinking about Climate - a video series by John Cook
Then when ultimately proven wrong by events, I've noticed sceptics either 1) claim they were never warned clearly enough about the problem, or 2) they believed all along and were just expressing some harmless scepticism to be balanced. Outrageous and despicable of course. People will go to huge lengths to avoid admitting they are wrong.
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Eclectic at 21:11 PM on 7 October 2020Critical Thinking about Climate - a video series by John Cook
The "skeptics" - those who are in denial about climate science - are like gambling addicts.
Intellectually the gambling addict knows that he is not going to win in the end, because elementary mathematics show that the House is destined to win. But emotionally, the addict is strongly drawn to bet against the House, and he is always hopeful that somehow magically he will come out as victor.
As time progresses, the evidence continually grows that the House is winning. But the addict cannot admit he is wrong. The addict keeps on doubling down.
"It's not happening . . . it's not us . . . the experts disagree . . . it's good for us . . . it is hopeless to transfer to renewable energy." Rinse and repeat. Then use all five arguments at once. Then eventually retreat to full-on Conspiracy. Then double down on everything.
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nigelj at 12:50 PM on 7 October 2020Critical Thinking about Climate - a video series by John Cook
An example of climate change sceptics who give mixed messages might be Roy Spencer, a sceptical leaning climate scientist. He says in his writings that some warming is human caused, but that much of the warming is natural, so he is not in complete denial apparently. Except that he also signed an evangelical declaration on global warming that said "the recent warming is one of many natural cycles through history" (note it didnt say "partly"due to a natural cycle but clearly means its all natural). Refer to his bio on wikipedia. Another sceptic with ever changing views is Judith Currie, depending on her audience.
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Doug Cannon at 06:46 AM on 7 October 2020Berkeley study: 90% carbon-free electricity achievable by 2035
This is a great start towards coming up with a plan rather than just a bumper sticker.
I don't see debt as a problem; that's merely a way to direct resources in the right direction. But the debt has to be borrowed from somewhere and that diverts limited resources to this project. The cost of doing that has to be considered.
We can generate about $4.5trillion in capital each year (production - consumption). That investment generates about 10% return, compounded annually to add to our standard of living. That lost opportrunity cost due to the diversion to this plan has to be evaluated in the overall cost. Where does it come from? investments in health care? infrastructure? reduced consumption?.....
In any case it will have a negative impact on our standard of living. We can afford it, but the people have to undestand the total cost.
It would be good if they included the details of the "$1.7trillion of injected" funds. That seems a little skinny just eyeballing current capital cost. Also the additional 500,000 jobs each year have to come from somewhere. We have to stop looking at reduced productivity as an advantage.
So what is going to incentivise the electric utilities to pick up this ball and run with it. They already have the generating capacity at sunk cost. Their upfront investment is $0 to proceed without this plan. Their best finacial strategy is to proceed as now by building renewable plants slowly and let those plants cherry pick when the sun shines and the wind blows. An order of magnitude cheaper than the 90% clean plan by 2035
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nigelj at 06:35 AM on 7 October 2020Critical Thinking about Climate - a video series by John Cook
JoeZ @3, most climate change sceptics I know of are very dismissive of the whole climate issue. This includes both qualified people and laypeople just expressing an opinion. People who write sceptical books possibly come across as less dismissive of the climate issue, but only because they wont get published if they come across as complete lunatics. Their public utterances are not always consistent with their books.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:08 AM on 7 October 2020Critical Thinking about Climate - a video series by John Cook
JoeZ, You should have put in the 30 minutes effrot to watch the first video before commenting on it.
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Daniel Bailey at 03:35 AM on 7 October 2020What Tucker Carlson gets wrong about causes of wildfires in U.S. West
JoeZ, increased forest fire activity across the western U.S. in recent decades is due to a number of factors, including a history of fire suppression and human encroachment in forest regions, natural climate variability, and human-caused climate change. Forest management would help in some areas, however the wildfire numbers and burned area are also increasing in non-forest vegetation types. Wildfire activity appears strongly associated with warming temperatures (California spring/summer temperatures have increased by more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970) and earlier spring snowmelt.
Source: NASA
"For all ecoregions combined, the number of large fires increased at a rate of seven fires per year, while total fire area increased at a rate of 355 km2 per year. Continuing changes in climate, invasive species, and consequences of past fire management, added to the impacts of larger, more frequent fires, will drive further disruptions to fire regimes of the western U.S. and other fire-prone regions of the world."
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2014GL059576
Since the 1980s, the wildfire season has lengthened across a quarter of the world's vegetated surface.
"We show that fire weather seasons have lengthened across 29.6 million km2 (25.3%) of the Earth’s vegetated surface, resulting in an 18.7% increase in global mean fire weather season length. We also show a doubling (108.1% increase) of global burnable area affected by long fire weather seasons (>1.0 σ above the historical mean) and an increased global frequency of long fire weather seasons across 62.4 million km2 (53.4%) during the second half of the study period."
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8537
"The start of the Southwestern fire season—as indicated by the date of first large-fire discovery—has shifted more than 50 days earlier since the 1970s, accounting for about one-third of the increase in the length of the fire season. The substantially earlier SW fire season start is consistent with warmer temperatures and earlier spring seasons leading to earlier flammability of fuels in SW forests."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4874415/
"Anthropogenic increases in temperature and vapor pressure deficit significantly enhanced fuel aridity across western US forests over the past several decades and, during 2000–2015, contributed to 75% more forested area experiencing high (>1 σ) fire-season fuel aridity and an average of nine additional days per year of high fire potential.
Anthropogenic climate change accounted for ∼55% of observed increases in fuel aridity from 1979 to 2015 across western US forests, highlighting both anthropogenic climate change and natural climate variability as important contributors to increased wildfire potential in recent decades.
We estimate that human-caused climate change contributed to an additional 4.2 million ha of forest fire area during 1984–2015, nearly doubling the forest fire area expected in its absence.
Natural climate variability will continue to alternate between modulating and compounding anthropogenic increases in fuel aridity, but anthropogenic climate change has emerged as a driver of increased forest fire activity and should continue to do so while fuels are not limiting."
https://www.pnas.org/content/113/42/11770
"By 2100, if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, one study found that the frequency of extreme wildfires would increase, and the average area burned statewide would increase by 77 percent. In the areas that have the highest fire risk, wildfire insurance is estimated to see costs rise by 18 percent by 2055. "
https://climateassessment.ca.gov/state/overview/#wildfire
"The clearest link between California wildfire and anthropogenic climate change thus far has been via warming-driven increases in atmospheric aridity, which works to dry fuels and promote summer forest fire, particularly in the North Coast and Sierra Nevada regions.
Importantly, the effects of anthropogenic warming on California wildfire thus far have arisen from what may someday be viewed as a relatively small amount of warming. According to climate models, anthropogenic warming since the late 1800s has increased the atmospheric vapor-pressure deficit by approximately 10% and this increase is projected to double by the 2060s. Given the exponential response of California burned area to aridity, the influence of anthropogenic warming on wildfire activity over the next few decades will likely be larger than the observed influence thus far where fuel abundance is not limiting.
Since the early 1970s, California's annual wildfire extent increased fivefold, punctuated by extremely large and destructive wildfires in 2017 and 2018. This trend was mainly due to an eightfold increase in summertime forest‐fire area and was very likely driven by drying of fuels promoted by human‐induced warming. Warming effects were also apparent in the fall by enhancing the odds that fuels are dry when strong fall wind events occur.
The large increase in California’s annual forest-fire area over the past several decades is very likely linked to anthropogenic warming.
Human‐caused warming has already significantly enhanced wildfire activity in California, particularly in the forests of the Sierra Nevada and North Coast, and will likely continue to do so in the coming decades."
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019EF001210
Wildfire mitigation efforts can reduce wildfire intensity and severity while improving forest resilience to fire, insects and drought. The total area burned by wildfires is a trend driven by the warming climate (which is warming because of human activities), so mitigation efforts will not likely be able to affect the total area burned trend.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s42408-019-0062-8
Droughts in the Southwestern US have been made nearly half-again worse by human activities and are projected to worsen yet.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6488/314
These droughts couple with rising temperatures, reduced soil moisture and lower humidity to kill vast amounts of trees, providing an ever-increasing amount of fuel loads for wildfires.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6488/238
California’s frequency of fall days with extreme fire-weather conditions has more than doubled since the 1980s. Continued climate change will further amplify the number of days with extreme fire weather by the end of this century.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab83a7
https://twitter.com/CAL_FIRE/status/1311722710284693505
There is strengthened evidence that climate change increases the frequency and/or severity of fire weather around the world. Land management alone cannot explain recent increases in wildfires.
Analysis shows that:
• Well over 100 studies published since 2013 show strong consensus that climate change promotes the weather conditions on which wildfires depend, enhancing their likelihood.
• Natural variability is superimposed on the increasingly warm and dry background conditions resulting from climate change, leading to more extreme fires and more extreme fire seasons.
• Land management can enhance or compound climate-driven changes in wildfire risk, either through fuel reductions or fuel accumulation as unintended by-product of fire suppression. Fire suppression efforts are made more difficult by climate change.
• There is an unequivocal and pervasive role of climate change in increasing the intensity and length in which fire weather occurs; land management is likely to have contributed too, but does not alone account for recent increases in wildfire extent and severity in the western US and in southeast Australia.
Human-induced climate change promotes the conditions on which wildfires depend, enhancing their likelihood and challenging suppression efforts. Although the global area burned by fires each year is declining, the majority of this trend is explained by conversion of natural savannahs and grasslands to agriculture in Africa (Andela et al. 2017). In contrast, the area burned by forest wildfires is increasing in many regions, including in the western US and southeast Australia.
• “Fire weather” refers to periods with a high likelihood of fire due to a combination of high temperatures, low humidity, low rainfall and often high winds.
• Human-induced warming has already led to a global increase in the frequency and severity of fire weather, increasing the risks of wildfire.
• Land management can ameliorate or compound climate-driven changes in wildfire risk.
• Wildfires can have broad impacts for human health and wellbeing and for the natural environment.
US fires:
• Fire weather has become more frequent and intense in western US forests.
• Fire weather is driving more wildfire activity in western US forests.
• Demographic factors alone cannot account for the magnitude of the observed increase in wildfires in the western US, but increased population leads to greater impacts.
• Land management practices are contributing factors, but cannot alone explain the magnitude of the observed increase in wildfires extent in the western US forests in recent decades.
Australia fires:
• The scale of the 2019–2020 bushfires was unprecedented.
• Fuel management through prescribed burns and improved logging practice cannot fully mitigate increased wildfire risk due to climate change.
• Extreme weather and Pyroconvection are projected to increase wildfire risk under future climate change in southeastern Australia.
Scientific evidence that climate change is causing an increase in the frequency and extent of fire weather, contributing to extreme wildfires around the world, continues to mount.
The severe droughts in the USA and Australia are signs that the tropics, and their warm temperatures, are expanding in the wake of climate change, due to the warming of the subtropical ocean.
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/climate-change-increases-risk-of-wildfires
https://sciencebrief.org/topics/climate-change-science/wildfires
https://sciencebrief.org/briefs/wildfires
https://news.sciencebrief.org/wildfires-sep2020-update/
PDF hereClimate change will continue to drive temperature rise and more unpredictable rainfall in many parts of the world, meaning that the number of days with “fire weather” – conditions in which fires are likely to burn – is expected to increase in coming decades.
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Bob Loblaw at 00:59 AM on 7 October 2020Critical Thinking about Climate - a video series by John Cook
JoeZ:
With my 40 years of studyig climatology and watching the public discussion, I disagree that it is an exaggeration. I have watched years of mis-informed "skeptic" behaviour that clearly follows the sequence:
- I'ts not happening. (instrumental error, site locations, urban heat island, data fudging accusations, etc.)
- It's not us (natural cycles, the sun, El Nino, cosmic rays, recovery from Little Ice Ag/Big Ice Age, CO2 change is not from fossil fuels, etc.)
- Experts disagree (there is no consensus, science isn't done by consensus, here is a list of "experts" that disagree, the IPCC is political, the greenhouse effect doesn't exist, there is no such thing as "back radiation", etc.)
- It's good for us (saves us from the next glacial cycle, CO2 is plant food, agriculture is better in a warmer climate, cold kills more than heat, etc.)
- There is no hope - well, that's the next step in the successive retreat from unsupportable "skeptic" positions.
That you finish your comment with the phrase "your cause" tells me a lot about how you are approaching this issue. My cause is good science, which "skeptics" are frequently lacking in.
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JoeZ at 21:33 PM on 6 October 2020Critical Thinking about Climate - a video series by John Cook
I haven't watched the video series yet- but from the top- "Climate change misinformation is like a bizarro world version of this summarized with five categories: it's not real, it's not us, experts are unreliable, it's not bad, there's no hope."
I think that's an exageraton of how climate change skeptics think. Not yet having drawn any conclusions- out of curiousity, I have read a lot of books and blogs by such skeptics. It seems to me that most do agree there is climate change- that humans have something to do with it- that SOME experts are reliable- that some of it is bad- as for "hope", I doubt that word ever shows up one way or the other in such writing. If I am to take climate scientists seriously, I should think such exagerations of the opposite perspective is not helping your cause.
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JoeZ at 21:21 PM on 6 October 2020What Tucker Carlson gets wrong about causes of wildfires in U.S. West
"Overpeck agrees, saying forested areas could benefit from more controlled fires, but “the job is gigantic” and resources to do it inadequate."
It takes a lot of resources to fight the fires too. A thriving forestry industry in CA would be profitable. Some of those profits would go to controlled burns. We don't hear of huge wild fires in the American southeast, where forestry is a huge industry and controlled burns are routine.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:06 AM on 6 October 2020Critical Thinking about Climate - a video series by John Cook
I would suggest that discussions arguing that fossil fuels help the poor, like at the end of Part 1, should include the following points:
- the real cost of fossil fuel use needs to include all of the externalized costs.
- the poorest should be helped, which means only the poorest should get any benefit from the continued use of fossil fuels, and that benefit should be helping them transition to sustainable better ways of living.
- rapidly reducing fossil fuel use will reduce the harm done to poorer people in the future generations, which will reduce the help they need ni the future.
- fossil fuel use is unsustainable, it is non-renewable, so any perception that continued fossil fuel use helps reduce poverty is unsustainable. Fossil fuel help for the poor can only provide temporary assistance.
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:16 AM on 6 October 2020Critical Thinking about Climate - a video series by John Cook
I have only started to watch the series. But I have a couple of comments about the Arctic Sea Ice graph at 3:45 into Part 1:
- The chart appears to be presented 0.5 million sq km lower than it should be. Based on NASA presentation of average September extent (consistent with NSIDC presnetation of daily extents):
- the minimum in 1979 should be about 7 million not about 6.5
- in 2012 the minimum should be about 3.5 million not less than 3
- If possible, the Arctic Sea Ice extent chart should be extended to include 2019 and 2020.
But the presentation
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MA Rodger at 03:51 AM on 6 October 2020The Big Picture (2010 version)
Not worth responding on a more-appropriate thread for a very simple response.
The paper In Schulze-Makuch et al (2020) 'Search for a Planet Better than Earth: Top Contenders for a Superhabitable World' is about finding life so they are considering the ideal world for life, not human life. They consider Earth to be a bit too young, too small (so gravity would be best 50% stronger), too cool and too nitrogen-cloaked and also with a moon too small, all this relative to a planet idea for life.
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CowboyMC at 01:57 AM on 6 October 2020The Big Picture (2010 version)
According to this recent article, "A slightly overall warmer temperature, a mean surface temperature of about 5 degrees Celsius (or about 8 degrees Fahrenheit) greater than Earth, together with the additional moisture, would be also better for life.". So it looks like we need to be warmer. See article here: https://scitechdaily.com/some-planets-may-be-better-for-life-than-earth-researchers-identify-24-superhabitable-exoplanets/
Moderator Response:[DB] "So it looks like we need to be warmer"
Your comment more properly belongs on the "It's not bad" thread (spoiler: there you will find that negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any positives; please read the post and the multiple versions of it, plus the comments on it before placing any additional comments there).
Participants, any responses to this should be placed there, with a redirect stub placed here.
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nigelj at 17:38 PM on 5 October 2020Interactive: What is the climate impact of eating meat and dairy?
MAR @13, I've now read 152 onwards, and yes I'm not entirely happy signing up to Slartys maths, because the loss of carbon from deforestation and degraded soil sinks could go to several places, its not proven which, although I think its likely some would end up in the atmosphere.
Fwiw, I do think a low meat diet makes sense. RB is probably right that you can get grazing land soils to sequester more carbon, but that will take time to scale up globally, so eating less meat is a practical thing that is immediately possible.
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MA Rodger at 15:31 PM on 5 October 2020Interactive: What is the climate impact of eating meat and dairy?
nigelj @10,
While Slarty Bartfast has not fully set out what he is saying, he is apparently still signed up to the description he set out on the 'breathing contribution' thread @152 & 155. On the strength of your comment @10, Slarty Bartfast @11 tries to also sign you up to it, saying your comment @10 is "exactly what I am arguing."
If you examine what is set out on that other thread, Slarty Bartfash appears to be saying that the CO2 emissions from a reservoir of carbon within the carbon cycle will be fixed by the nature of that reservoir. The reservoirs are listed as Soils, Plants, Animals, Atmosphere, Ocean and from the Soils a reservoir of 1,500Gt(C) is emitted 60Gt(C) of CO2 annually, 4% of its volume. From Animals the ratio of emissions-to-reservoir had been calculated as 800% (calculated @152 in that thread). As the reservoir of Animal carbon has increased with burgeoning human population and livestock herds, the Animal reservoir is considered increased, with its increased emissions balanced by an identical reduction in the Soils emissions. To achieve this Soils emissions reduction, which is fixed at 4% of reservoir, the Soils reservoir must shrink by 63Gt(C) while the increase in the Animal reservoir with its emissions 800% of reservoir will only increase by 0.3Gt(C).
"There is only one other place that most of the remaining 62.7 GtC can go: the atmosphere." This then is the origin of Slarty Bartfast's 30ppm atmospheric CO2 increase. I would hazard a guess that is not something you would feel entirely happy signing up to.
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