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Comments 13601 to 13650:
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michael sweet at 07:09 AM on 18 September 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Nigelj,
While I could imagine a system that might be better than universal dividend, I think the systems you propose are too complicated for most Americans to think the government could implement them fairly. A 100% dividend is simple and could be easily audited. It is easy for people to understand where the money is going.
The amount must be high enough to affect the cost of carbon. $10 per ton is too low to affect price significantly. If a steadily increasing fee, starting at $10 and going up at $10 per year would eliminate carbon pollution in 15 or 30 years. The low start would give people time to adjust so the economy would not be shocked.
Assessing the affects of a $10 fee is a waste of time since it is too small to have a significant effect.
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michael sweet at 07:02 AM on 18 September 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Red Baron,
I am glad we agree that most of the land is in large corporate farms. That would mean that any program that rewarded farmers on a per acre/per pound carbon sequestered would go primarily to large corporations. Those operations are already heavily subsidized in the USA (for only one example, the entire ethanol in fuel program is a subsidy for corn farmers).
I would vote against any program where the money went primarily to large commercial farmers.
Your new citation is from 2002. Can you cite anything recent (past 5 years perferably) to support your claim "results keep coming in consistantly overturning that antiquated notion." Citations should be peer reviewed and not newspaper reports. In general, I have found your references to poorly support your claims. I do not like to argue against any possible solution to the carbon crisis, but when you use these claims to counter another possible solution you must support your claims.
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nigelj at 06:03 AM on 18 September 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
According to this article: "Lumping in farms with sales of over $250,000 a year, and these so called large-scale commercial farms represent just 10% of the country's farms but account for 82% of its overall food production."
This suggests to me that the majority of the land is owned by commercial operations with good incomes.
However I dont think its a question of farm incomes as such. While I dont believe in throwing arbitrary subsidies at wealthy farmers, a subsidy for improving soil carbon would be more specific. It would require intensive monitoring to make sure the required work is being carried out.
This leaves the question of how to fund such a subsidy. The problem is using the carbon tax income as a subsidy for farming would be competing with other possible subsidies such as wind power in a long list of competing interests. You would probably end up with political grid lock on the issue in America, and as M Sweet says it could be seen as government over reach.
It's probably better in political terms that a carbon tax and dividend be kept simple with all the dividend given back to people. I personally like subsidies, but I accept they are probably not going to work as part of a carbon tax in america.
It might be better to subsidise farming soil programmes out of the states general tax revenue. Then there are less arguments about federal government over reach.
The other alternative would be to reduce the carbon tax itself for farms that farm sustainably with soil carbon programmes. This would encourage farms to move in this direction.
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RedBaron at 05:26 AM on 18 September 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
@Michael Sweet,
You are correct that this strategy was thought impossible even 20 years ago, and highly unlikely even 10 years ago, but results keep coming in consistantly overturning that antiquated notion.
Please remember that even as recently as 1996 we had no idea about this entire new carbon pathway into the soil even existed!
Glomalin eluded detection until 1996 because, “It requires an unusual effort to dislodge glomalin for study: a bath in citrate combined with heating at 250 F (121 C) for at least an hour.... No other soil glue found to date required anything as drastic as this.” - Sara Wright.
Let that sink in a bit. An entire pathway that sequesters carbon directly into the soil by plants once thought to be less effective at carbon sequestration, but actually now we are finding are 10 times MORE effective at long term carbon sequestration than even the most productive tropical rain forests!
The soil sink is far larger than both all the atmospheric Carbon and terrestrial biomass carbon combined. Yet one quarter to one third of that soil sink carbon was completely unknown prior to 1996.
Glomalin: Hiding Place for a Third of the World's Stored Soil CarbonAs far as the size of farms in the US goes, the average is 300 acres, but that includes a lot of small hobby farms and truck farms that usually requires an outside job off farm to avoid bankruptcy.
The USDA published an optimum size farm to be profitable if using standard BMP (best management practices) on commodities and found the minimum starting acreage capable of supporting 1 family was 2000 acres. That article was moved and I never found its new location at the USDA, but it seems to suggest that both of you are partly correct. Most the acreage is in large commercial corporate farms, while most the farms are still small family run operations. (which are still failing at an alarming rate)
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michael sweet at 22:23 PM on 17 September 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
PS:
According to your data, there are approximately 2,100,000 farms in the US. The average sales of all farms farms is $190,000. There are about 480,000 with sales over $100,000 but I estimate only about 350,000 (17% of all farms) of those have sales over $190,000. Less than 20% of farms have sales over the average ($190,000). About 160,000 (7.6%) have sales over $1 million. The farms wiith high sales would have a disproportionate amount of the land farmed. Most farms with $190,000 in income would have low profit after mortgage payments and other costs.
About 1,400,000 (70%) of the farms have less than $25,000 in sales and are hobby farms or deliberate loss farms for tax purposes. I live on a farm that had sales over $25,000 this year for the first time. We paid the entire mortgage from the farm for the first time.
I stand by my claim that "the great majority of land farmed is owned by large corporations or multimillionaires."
Moderator Response:[PS] I remain unconvinced. According to this, non-family farms account for 3% of farms, 15% of production
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michael sweet at 09:07 AM on 17 September 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Red Baron:
From the abstract of your first reference:
"Most scientists contend carbon is a useful factor to consider
for agronomy but not for sequestration." (my emphasis)The second article is about the same scientist the first article was written about. (They are both ten years old. By now they should have results you could cite). Your references state that most scientists do not think your proposals will work.
The point of tax and dividend is that it does not increase the size of government since all the fee is paid out as dividends. Many conservatives in the US will not vote for anything that increases the size of government.
Your proposal to redistribute the fee to rich farming corporations would never fly. (Please do not come back with the argument that farmers are all poor families. In the USA the great majority of land farmed is owned by large corporations or multimillionaires.)
Moderator Response:[PS] "great majority of land farmed is owned.." it would be good to have a cite for this. US Census data for instance does not appear to support that assertion.
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RedBaron at 08:35 AM on 17 September 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
I have to dissagree here. That sort of carbon tax and dividend is unworkable.
I could see a carbon tax as a possibility, but certainly not as a goody trick or treat bag back to everyone. That's like rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic. It's like Carbon Welfare payments. ARRRG. Since when did welfare ever eliminate poverty? But it is somehow going to eliminate global warming? Really?
If you are going to tax carbon, then the ONLY possible purpose for that money is to fund those sequestering carbon out of the atmosphere. Then at least the tax is funding a public works project.
This whole wealth distribution meme is getting as tiresome as it is impossible to fix anything.
You must have a very clear purpose for the tax. It is to fund verified CO2 sequestration. You must have a clear price for CO2. So as soon as you get verification of sequestered carbon, then that money determines the carbon payment being collected by a tax.
The tax of course will be small first years because most people are not sequestering carbon. But over time as more and more people sequester carbon, the tax will rise since the set price per ton sequestered is fixed.
People will get better and better at sequestering carbon, because they get paid by the ton for doing it. The biggest gain is of course for farmers, since at least 5-20 tonnes CO2e / ha /yr can be sequestered long term in the largest terrestrial sink on the planet... the soil.
Liquid carbon
pathway
unrecognisedThey started a similar strategy in Australia, but canceled the program because people figured out it would most certainly work. It scared the fossil fuel industry how easy and effective this strategy is. Massive funding by fossil fuels reversed the political power in the elections.
FARMING A
CLIMATE CHANGE SOLUTIONLets say we put a price of $50.00 a tonne. Then soil samples can be taken. and if the deep carbon content of the soil is increasing, then the payment of $250.00 to $1000.00 per acre of farmland would make an amazing difference for the cost of the food that farmer produces.
Be sure the farmers would pile on that goldmine like crazy and the US carbon footprint would go negative rapidly as fossil fuels scrambles to get into solar wind and hydroelectric and farmers put massive quantities of carbon back in the soil where it belongs. Once more carbon is being sequestered than produced, it actually collapses the few remaining fossil fuel producers unless they are protected by offsets sequestering their footprint like CCS or other ways people sequester carbon.
I actually think it is workable without a carbon tax. Just stop taxing and spending on those things causing AGW should be enough. But if not, then at least be straight forward results orientated with the tax and spend. Use it to fund CO2 drawdown!
This kind of petty government bribery you propose by dividending everyone ie voting ourselves a check, is ridiculous and NEVER worked in the past. What makes you think it could even have a chance of working this time?
Geeze, no wonder the Republicans are fighting you guys tooth and nail. Insanity.
Moderator Response:[DB] Inflammatory and ideology snipped.
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nigelj at 08:29 AM on 17 September 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Humans prolific consumption patterns are having serious environmental impacts that are now obvious and well documented. Much of this is driven by over consumption beyond basic physical needs, driven by status seeking and a need to compete and win - which is part of our human nature. I'm as guilty of this as anyone.
Human nature is not a simple thing to change, or even a desirable thing to change at a fundamental level, because competition can create great things. What we need to do instead is direct our human nature in positive ways:
1) we need stronger laws to stop the impacts on the environment.
2) leaders need to set a good example. Society works on the basis of leadership. Power and money is a privilege. It is not a licence to hoard resources or dodge reasonable laws.
2) we need a carbon tax and dividend that gives a clear price signal that fossil fuels are a problem. There are other more brutal ways of cutting off the supply but carbon tax and dividend is practical and politically plausible.
3) we need to educate kids that there are other ways of living a good life, and demonstrating success and self worth other than living in a huge mansion or owning the largest car. It's size that has some of the largest environmental impacts for obvious reasons although high tech can also have significant issues. If we don't, the planet will do the educating the hard way with severely altered climate and severely depleted and poisoned resources.
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BeezelyBillyBub at 08:22 AM on 17 September 2018New research, September 3-9, 2018
Humanity has never had a 100% energy transition. We still burn wood.
Europe gets 50% of its renewable enery burning wood, and do not count the emissions because the trees will grow back in 50 years.
If world energy demand got 2% more of its energy from wood, we would need 100% more timber harvested.
Stefan Rahmstorf says we must reduce emissions 100% in 20 years to avoid 2 C.
Claire Fiore says we must reduce emissions 50% in 10 years to avoid 1.5 C.
Vaclav Smil says a 100% energy transition takes 70 years, if at all.
James Hansen says 2 C = DISASTER, 1 C = Dangerous Climate Change.
We are already at +1 C.
Permafrost wetlands are turning from carbon banks into carbon bombs and threaten to double emissions. This is not modelled.
Rainforests and soils are turning from carbon banks into carbon bombs.
Greenland freshwater runoff has only just very recently included in models.
Fracking emits 4X more methane than reported and threatens to advance the 2 C tipping point.
Five tipping points are triggered between 1.5 - 2 C and threaten cascading collapse as do dominos.
In 10 years freshwater demand will exceed supply by 30%.
We lost 30% of our soil in the last 40 years.
By 2020, 66% of animals will be gone.
Humans and Livestock make 97% of land vertebrate biomass.
10,000 years ago H&L were 0.03% of land vertebrate biomass.
We will run out of food and water before we ever transition to 100% renewable energy.
This is because electricity production is only 20% of total world energy demand.
https://lokisrevengeblog.wordpress.com/2018/08/03/34355/
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nigelj at 07:48 AM on 17 September 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Yes totally agree with William on carbon tax and dividend. The KISS principle must apply (keep it simple stupid.) Please dont mess things up like the Adams Dodd financial law, where a 20 page document became 900 pages after congress wanted all sorts of ridiculous exemptions.
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william5331 at 06:00 AM on 17 September 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
A carbon tax is obviously the way to go with "all the adults in the room" and will only work if Hansen's suggestion of a dividend is included as well. However if there is an intention to send cheques or to send a portion to a family according to how many children they have (up to two), it will be both clumbersome and expensive. Far better to sent the dividend to every registered tax payer. They don't have to be actually working, just registered. A registered tax payer already has included bank details to which any tax rebates are to be sent to so the data base already exists. And the govt. must not be allowed to reduce walfare payments of any kind by the amount of the dividend. This payment is without strings. For families on the bones of their backsides, this money will be spent as soon as it is received just to keep their heads above water. Think how much of a stimulus to the economy it will bring with jobs created and increased taxes to the exchequer.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:33 AM on 17 September 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
My first comment is about universal action to correct things and achieve all of the Sustainable Development Goals plus other important developed understood objectives like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Effective action that is limited to burning fossil fuels would be to treat global fossil fuel activity as a "Mature Business destined to be replaced by other activity". The more correct understanding is that the burning of fossil fuels is an "Activity that must be curtailed, not just a business that will fade away as it is replaced by changes that are occurring due to competition in the marketplace (it is not like Kodak's Kodachrome business)".
The responsible leadership of that type of business maximizes the benefit, and in the case of fossil fuel burning minimizes the harm done, through the winding down of the business. Responsible leaders of such a business would not pursue 'maximizing the lining of their pockets', or prolonging their ability to benefit.
To achieve that result, every aspect of global fossil fuel burning would have to be removed from the 'market of competition for popularity and profitability'. Sustainable energy systems should not have to compete against unsustainable and harmful ones (regardless of popularity and profitability, because competing for popularity and profitability is understood to significantly compromise morality).
That would require global fossil fuel burning to be globally managed collectively to get the maximum benefit for the future of humanity while minimizing the harm done to the future of humanity. Leaving that responsibility to the winners in the competitive marketplace has been a dismal failure, with significant harm being almost certain to have already been unnecessarily done to future generations by the lack of responsible response by the winners in the current developed competitions.
The actual objective needs to be understood to be no harm done to the future of humanity (not a balancing of benefits for a portion of humanity today with harm done to the future of humanity - that would be like management lining their pockets and doing as much harm as they can get away with). That will include the need to globally collectively remove CO2 from the atmosphere (unprofitably), reducing it to 350 ppm.
It would require a rigorous evaluation and management of the impacts of all currently identified fossil fuel sources, processing and end uses, as well as development and implementation of CO2 removal measures, to achieve the best benefit for the future of humanity. That would mean only using the lowest harm sources, to the least extent, while maximizing the sustainable improvement of humanity achieved by the strictly limited burning. That required result will clearly not be effectively developed and delivered within the competitions for popularity and profit, especially if there are no effective global restrictions of misleading marketing.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:36 AM on 17 September 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Required changes to ensure effective monitoring of CO2 and other GHG impacts globally are:
- International agreement that all leaders in business and politics are to be held to the highest constantly improving standards of helpfulness to the development of a sustainable future for all of humanity.
- the formal end of the belief in the legitimacy of national sovereignty and corporate secrets.
Democracy and capitalism only work well, producing results that are sustainable improvements for humanity, if the entire population is governed by improved awareness and understanding of what is really going on and the importance of helping to develop a sustainable future for humanity, and sees leaders being required to provide good examples of behaviour.
Many of the ways that things have developed are undeniably unsustainable and harmful. And the developed resistance to correcting that incorrect direction of development is strong in free-for-all political marketing systems because people can easily be tempted to like appeals to their primitive selfish interests (the smaller worldview - limiting caring to a smaller sub-set of the population in a shorter time-frame) rather than the harder work of being better educated about acceptable and helpful behaviour, the harder work of self-governing through thoughtful considerate altruism that every modern human has the modern brain to do that harder work in (developing a larger worldview of caring about every human and all other life into the distant future).
Morality is severely compromised in popularity and profit contests to appear to be superior to Others, especially in systems that are high on the belief that freedom of everyone to 'believe whatever they want to excuse doing as they please' will develop Good Results.
Freedom clearly needs to be governed or limited to help achieve Good Objectives, restricting the ability of people to get away with doing harmful unsustainable things.
My current developed statement of the Universal Good Objective is: A sustainable future for humanity - A robust diversity of humanity living in ways that sustainably fit into a robust diversity of other life on this, or any other, amazing planet.
Achieving that objective will be never-ending hard work. Because some people will always try to enjoy a better life, or develop unjustified perceptions of superiority relative to others, by getting away with unjustifiable unsustainable and harmful behaviour.
I can already hear the cries of the 'Evil of Globalism and Global Government' in response to global efforts to effectively get better behaviour out of everyone, especially the winners.
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Doug_C at 12:44 PM on 16 September 2018High ice and hard truth: the poets taking on climate change
Very powerful, thanks for this.
We need more voices that make this the emotional cirisis it truly is. For what are we living for if our actions kill that which makes life possible in the first place.
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Eclectic at 10:23 AM on 15 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
GeoTim @69 , the Haber-Bosch-type processes are an important artificial source of nitrogen in agriculture (for production of vegetation, and ultimately human food). Nitrogen, not carbon.
As in many industrial activities, fossil fuels are currently extensively used to power the process. But it ain't necessarily so. In a low-carbon emissions scenario, the hydrogen used for nitrogen fixation (into ammonia) could come from hydrolysis of water — the electric power supplied by renewables or nuclear.
That is easily done. GeoTim, you would be better turning your attention to how CO2 emissions could be phased out from the cement production processes.
GeoTim, you have still not shown your calculation of the human out-breath containing fossil carbon content deriving from the fizzy bubbles in CocaCola & other soda-pop. This is the real human source which threatens the collapse of world civilization. CocaCola is the hidden culprit, the fatal weakness in modern society.
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GeoTim at 03:13 AM on 15 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
Read about the Haber Process (Wikipedia) which has enabled doubling the global population and consumes about 5% of annual natural gas supplies to produce artificial nitrogen. Nearly 50% of the nitrogen found in human tissues originated from the Haber-Bosch process. One half the food we eat or one half the food the world eats is based on fossil fuels.
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Swayseeker at 01:00 AM on 15 September 2018High ice and hard truth: the poets taking on climate change
If the effective sky temperature is higher than 0 deg C then there will be net radiative heat transfer to the snow or ice from the sky. Here is some Delphi code that will enable people to get an idea. It is not the sky temperature, but rather the effective sky temperature than must be greater than 0 deg C for a net radiative heat transfer to the ice. See www.asterism.org/tutorials/tut37%20Radiative%20Cooling.pdf
label 1;
var
P,K,C,RH,T,Po,Tsky,Tskye:extended;
errors1:boolean;
calcstr4,calcstr5,calcstr3,calcstr2,calcstr1:string[30];
begin
errors1:=false;
form10.hide;
form10.show;
try
k:=strtofloat(form10.edit1.Text);
c:=strtofloat(form10.edit2.Text);
T:=strtofloat(form10.edit3.Text);
rh:=strtofloat(form10.edit4.Text);
except
errors1:=true;
end;
if (errors1=true) or (k<0) or (k>0.5) or
(T<-20) or (T>100)
or (c<0) or (c>1)
or (RH<0) or (RH>100)
then begin
form10.canvas.textout(0,100,'CHECK ENTRIES.');
goto 1
end;
T:=T+273.15;
P:=(1+K*C*C)*(8.78E-13)*exp(5.852*ln(T))*exp(0.07195*ln(RH));
str(P:12:1,calcstr1);
form10.canvas.textout(0,120,'Downwelling sky radiation : '+calcstr1+' Watts/square metre.');
po:=P/(0.74*5.67E-8);
Tsky:=exp(0.25*ln(po));
str((Tsky-273.15):12:2,calcstr2);
form10.canvas.textout(0,150,'Tsky : '+calcstr2+' degrees C');
Tskye:=exp(0.25*ln(0.74))*Tsky;
str((TSkye-273.15):12:2,calcstr3);
form10.canvas.textout(0,180,'Effective sky temperature (blackbody model) : '+calcstr3+' degrees C.');
1: end; -
scaddenp at 06:51 AM on 14 September 2018Warming oceans are changing the world's rainfall
Well that doesnt sound like radical theory - however are taking into account the full dynamics of ocean warming? (ie heating at surface rapidly transmitted down). A pretty full explanation is here. I dont see a reason for much "acceleration".
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Swayseeker at 23:38 PM on 13 September 2018Warming oceans are changing the world's rainfall
The atmosphere is radiating at infrared wavelengths mainly from about 5 to 8 microns in wavelength and above 13 microns (atmospheric window at 8 to 13 microns or so). With increased greenhouse gases this radiation is increasing and this radiation cannot escape via the atmospheric window. Because radiation of 5 to 8 microns and 13 microns up is captured within millimetres of the ocean surface, my theory predicts an acceleration of sea surface temperatures and more evaporation and rain.
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David Kirtley at 09:15 AM on 13 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
GeoTim may be interested in this short video which clearly explains why humans breathing out CO2 really isn't an issue:
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BaerbelW at 05:11 AM on 13 September 2018Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Update information: The basic version of this rebuttal was updated on September 12, 2018 to swap the graphic showing a - to some - "odd looking cow" with the new animation we happened to notice on Twitter. Thanks to Patrick T. Brown for making it available on YouTube!
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An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar
Yes, solar is an intermittent source - but storage isn't the only option for baseload power. Interconnecting geographically distributed solar/wind sources over areas larger than a single weather event greatly relieves interruptions in supply.
Archer 2007 found that connecting only 19 wind sites in the SW US could provide baseload supplies of 33% the maximum energy level, and that percentage would only increase with more sites.
The investment would be in grid connectivity, not mass storage units, and I suspect that would be far more straightforward and cost effective.
Moderator Response:[DB] Updated link per user request.
Welcome back, KR.
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John Hartz at 09:14 AM on 11 September 2018Kavanaugh’s views on EPA’s climate authority are dangerous and wrong
Recommended supplemental reading:
What Brett Kavanaugh on Supreme Court Could Mean for Climate Regulations by Marianne Lavelle, InsideClimate News, July 11, 2018
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dinahlynns at 08:55 AM on 11 September 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #36
Just like electric cars are not as clean as people are led to believe.
When we acknowledge that 1. Climate change is fluid and 2. We are not going to stop it.
We need to make it so our environment will sustain us thru regional climate change.
Moderator Response:[DB] Sloganeering snipped.
[PS] Please ensure that you are not simply repeating long debunked myths. See our Arguments, Taxonomy "its too hard". Also, note it is rate of change that is important and anything that slows it help. Uninformed opinions without presenting evidence to back them up will simply be deleted.
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dinahlynns at 08:53 AM on 11 September 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #36
Sorry but renewable energy is not clean.
Moderator Response:[DB] Please provide evidence for your contentions. Opinions in this venue carry little weight.
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Doug_C at 07:53 AM on 11 September 2018Kavanaugh’s views on EPA’s climate authority are dangerous and wrong
There's no question at all that the Trump administration has specifically targeted the EPA to dismantle its ability to regulate polluters.
The now disgraced Scott Pruitt sued the EPA multiple times before being appointed by Trump to head it. And as head of the EPA worked to dismanlte the agency from the inside.
All of the ways Scott Pruitt changed energy policy
"Pruitt backed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, and rolled back or targeted a number of other important energy and environmental regulations. He also pushed for a smaller EPA budget — a victory for conservatives who argued throughout Barack Obama’s presidency that the agency was bloated and needed to be significantly downsized.
During his tenure at the EPA, critics argued Pruitt’s deregulatory actions were an assault on meaningful Obama-era reforms. Supporters claimed Pruitt’s approach helped spur economic growth, especially in the domestic oil and gas industries."
It should come as no surprise that Trump's nominee to the SCUS is soft on meaningful powers for the EPA to regulate private sector polluters who have been protected at the highest level for decades.
It's clear now to anyone who accepts the evidence just how dangerous and destructive fossil fuel driven climate change is now and how it will become increasingly so in the coming years. It's clear that there needs to be significant regulatory powers given to government agencies to control and then phase out all fossil fuel use no matter the impacts to a few corporations no matter their size and economic and political clout.
Law must flow from genuine social license based on the best information, not fabricated evidence from special interests that are now almost totally cut off from the reality we all now face.
A reality that becomes increasingly catastrophic as time passes.
The SCUS decided over a decade ago that carbon dioxide in the excessive amounts human society now emits on a constant basis is in fact a major pollutant. THe EPA should have enacted standards long ago to control emissions from tail pipe and smoke stacks aimed at eventually ending the use of all fossil fuels.
Any legal decisions need to flow from that or they will in fact be not be real justice.
But then again, the current White House adimistration and the GOP dominated US Congress seem to have very little to do with real justice and responsible policy.
The draconian measures to confirm Kavanaugh are evidence of this with massive amounts of information being withheld from those outside the immediate confirmation process and a rush to confirm Kavanaugh before the November election.
This has nothing to do with appointing a responsible legal expert to a lifelong position which will have a huge impact on how laws are interpreted in the US. If Kavanaugh is confirm as a SCUS Justice then this will be one more instance of control being taken out the hands of the public in the interests of a sector that is already heading us all down one of the most destructive courses possible.
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ubrew12 at 06:47 AM on 11 September 2018Kavanaugh’s views on EPA’s climate authority are dangerous and wrong
Kavanaugh: "under our system of separation of powers... Congress is supposed to make the decision. You might say... this Congress is ... not going to do anything, but that’s not how we get to make decisions" What a weaselley cop-out. Congress made a decision, called the 'Clean Air Act'. And even if it doesn't apply, the current President would just declare 'National Security' if he wasn't already bought by the fossil-fueled Putin mafia. This is a national security emergency. No less than the Defense Department has said so. But I guess its not quite as 'urgent' as keeping people from flying to the U.S. from the Middle East, and separating children from their mothers at the Southern border.
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michael sweet at 05:04 AM on 11 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
MA Rodgers,
Your illustration is carbon while GeoTim is stating CO2. Your 57 trillion tons must be corrected by 44/12 is approximately 210 trillion tons CO2: still much less than 3000 trillion tons.
The entire point is that it is easy to make an error. Your illustration is made by a professional and peer reviewed so the chance of error is much less.
It is easy to point out errors. It is difficult to do calculations exactly correctly. I always try to get a reference to eliminate errors.
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MA Rodger at 18:59 PM on 10 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
michael sweet @65,
The error @64 surely has to be a simple decimal point issue. The graphic below (from here - it's a bit out-of-date as today's atmosphere with 408ppm CO2 contains 870 billion tons carbon) shows 57 trillion tons of carbon to be found on planet Earth, enough to make just 212 trillion tons of CO2. That's a long way short of the 3,000 to 7,000 trillion tons mentioned @64.
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michael sweet at 10:35 AM on 10 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
GeoTim,
According to Wikipedia, approximately 3200 gigatons or 3.2 trillion tons of CO2 are in the atmosphere. That is a factor of 1000 less than your 3 quadrillion tons. If I use your unsupported number of 150 billion tons per year, it would take about 20 years for all the carbon to cycle through plants. It appears you have misplaced a decimal again. Note that I have linked my sources of information so you can check them if you want to.
We have not discussed the much larger carbon reservoir in the ocean. The atmospheric and oceanic CO2 exchange and affect the calculation. Perhaps your number is all the carbon dioxide. In that case it would take longer for all the carbon to cycle through plants. It would all cycle through if you wait long enough. 150 billion tons/yr for plants seems low to me but I could not find a reference.
Essentially all carbon in food comes from the atmosphere.
I conclude (as is stated in the OP) that all the carbon we breath out is recycled into plants. I suggest you stop trying to do your own calculations and accept that scientists actually know what they are doing.
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GeoTim at 08:38 AM on 10 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
There are about 3 to 7 quadrillion tons of CO2 (depending on source) in the atmosphere. Photosynthesis removes only about 150 billion tons of CO2 per year and can only remove about half of the CO2 resulting from burning fossil fuels. I don't think I can honestly state that all of the CO2 we breath out is recycled back into food.
Moderator Response:[JH] Unless you can cite sources for your opinions, they are of little value on this venue. We are all about science-based discussions and not personal opinions that have no scientific underpinnings.
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Doug_C at 10:06 AM on 9 September 2018An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar
Chris Snow @22
That would make a dramatic difference in some areas there.
"Our model results show that large-scale solar and wind farms in the Sahara would more than double the precipitation, especially in the Sahel, where the magnitude of rainfall increase is between 20mm and 500mm per year," said Dr Yan Li, the lead author of the paper from the University of Illinois, US.
"As a result, vegetation cover fraction increases by about 20%."
Build as much of the fabrication onsite then export the electricty all across North Africa, Middle East and Europe.
Wouldn't take long at all to make all the oil in the region totally redundant.
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RedBaron at 08:29 AM on 9 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
Geo Tim,
You said, "My calculations indicate that we intake about 3.6 kg of CO2 per day and exhale about 360 kg of CO2 per day or a net increase of CO2 in the atmosphere of 355 kg per day. Therefore, in a year, an average human on earth increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by about 130,000 kg or about 65 metric tons"
Here is the flaw in your calculations. CO2 doesn't magically derive from thin air. It comes from the food we eat. Now that carbon did come from the air.
So no matter how much CO2 we breathe out, it always comes directly or indirectly from food that fixed it out of the air to begin with. The net over a lifetime will always be almost exactly zero.
You can never have it move towards being a net emissions source ever, it breaks all kinds of laws of physics and conservation of mass etc... In rare cases it could end up being a very small net sink, due to the possibilty of your dead body being preserved and fossilized. (or in some cases your solid waste being used to sequester carbon in the soil) But it can NEVER EVER be a net emissions source because we all must eat food to grow. Never is it possible we manufacture new mass. If you ever do a calculation that makes it appear as if you created mass, then you simply made an error somewhere in your calculation, or missed an input.
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Chris Snow at 06:47 AM on 9 September 2018An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar
An interesting article on the BBC News website.
<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45435593">Large-scale wind and solar power could green the Sahara</a>
Paragraph 7: "According to authors' calculations, a massive installation in the desert would generate more than four times the amount of energy that the world currently uses every year."
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:37 AM on 9 September 2018California's response to record wildfires: shift to 100% clean energy
Doug_C,
I meant to also include this article link to the oil tanker moratorium on the BC coast
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GeoTim at 06:35 AM on 9 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
I do understand that the plants inhale and exhale CO2. I read that studies indicate the CO2 being inhaled by plants will reach a saturation point resulting in only CO2 exhalation. I assume that the plants that are being cut down to make way to grow the food for us humans (including to feed the animals we eat) are not as efficient at being net absorbers of CO2. I notice NASA has a satellite measuring CO2 of the earth which states that the highest concentrations of CO2 are over metropolises not forests. It would be interesting to compare metropolises in the developed areas (lots of burning of fossil fuels) to metropolises in underdeveloped areas (less fossil fuel use). I think the more populated countries were at the top of NASA'a list for CO2 concentrations.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:34 AM on 9 September 2018California's response to record wildfires: shift to 100% clean energy
Doug_C,
My personal objective/ethic is to improve my awareness and understanding of what is going on and try to help develop a sustainable better future for humanity.To me that means increasing awareness and understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular the Climate Action goal and support for the incrementally increased action that is written into the Paris Agreement to achieve the required limits of current day human impacts on future generations. Climate Action is like a keystone of the SDGs. The sooner and more significantly the Climate Action goals are achieved the easier it will be to achieve many of the SDGs.
I admit to being biased towards supporting leadership that I see acting 'more helpfully' towards the achievement of the 'complete set of SDGs and other Universal governing principles like the UN Declaration of Human Rights' (Big fan of the platform of the Green Party and the passion of their leader, May, who entered politics because of the damaging potential of Harper winning power in Canada).
I try to evaluate leaders by the likely result of all of their actions, not just a favourite action, and certainly not based any claims they make about a favourite issue. But because of Canada's multi-party system still choosing representatives through the fatally flawed First-Past-the-Post system (only 34% support wins when there are three candidates, 26% wins when there are four, 21% when there are five), I also have to evaluate their chance of winning in my riding (I mainly use the results of previous elections in my riding). That usually leads me to Vote 'against' the United greedy and intolerant groups claiming to be Right parties that have emerged Federally and Provincially in Canada (and have emerged in many other places around the world). I cannot simply vote for my most preferred alternative to those candidate(s). Without electoral reform I have to try to figure out how to vote for the most popular better option than the anti-Climate Action candidates in my riding (and encourage others to do the same). Note: Many political groups claiming to be on the Right, especially the ones calling themselves Conservative, can be seen to have developed into united collectives of greedier and less tolerant people supporting each other's unacceptable personal top interests, with one of the top interests being anti-climate action.
Your belief that 'Canadian Conservative Climate Action was more effective than Liberals Climate Action' indicates that I may be able to help you improve your awareness and understanding of the current actions and history of climate actions by the Liberals and Conservatives in Canada. I encourage you to do a more detailed historical review on your own, but I offer the following as a start (I have linked some statements to related articles that are not necessarily exclusively about the statement they link from):
- the Conservatives have a history of more aggressively trying to expand oil sands investment and exporting than the Liberals (no matter who the leader was). And they creatively tried to make it 'sound good' by promoting ideas like the claim that 'emissions per unit of production' were the legitimate measure of action. By that standard, Canada could increase its total GHG as long as the rate of GHG per unit of oil sands produced was being reduced. And exporting bitumen, rather than upgrading before exporting, also reduces how much GHG Canada would have to officially count as Canada's impact (the Conservatives and their fans appear to lead the pack when it comes to figuring out creative ways to account for, or excuse, things).
- a significant reason for the failure of the Chretien led Liberal Climate Action Plan was the refusal of the Conservative leadership of Alberta to participate. Alberta leaders even threatened unjustified legal actions in their fight against having limits imposed on what they could get away with. You could try to blame the Liberals for not simply imposing Federal requirements and penalties on Alberta, but you would have to ignore the realities of perceptions of popularity in politics.
- when the Martin led Liberals lost minority power to the Conservatives, the Liberals launched an aggressive Climate Action Plan with Dion as the new Leader. Dion was very adamant (and knowledgeable), about needing to act to reduce GHG emissions. The Dion Liberals lost to the Conservatives who denied there was any need for Canada to do anything, excusing the resistance to behaving better because of claims like: Canada contributes so little to the global total or Canada would be at an economic disadvantage to the less responsible and less sustainable actions in the USA if it moved to more sustainable economic activity (the USA under the leadership of the Conservative cousins down there).
- while the Conservatives were in power in Canada they modified the NEB approval process (creating the conditions that led to the Federal Court of Appeal decision against the approval of the Trans mountain Pipeline). And they weakened many environmental standards, like rules about what constituted a waterway that needed an assessment of potential impact. And they hid those regulatory changes in Omnibus Budget Bills to avoid having to debate and justify their actual merits.
- the Conservatives also liked to declare that Canada's existing forests should be accounted as a credit against emissions. With that one act they could magically reduce Canada's reported GHG emissions (especially when compared to the amount calculated before forests were allowed to be counted - they really looked like effective Climate Action Leaders when they compared those forest adjusted updated GHG numbers to the previous numbers that had excluded forests), but they did not do it when the result was not going to be in their favour (A Chicago Tribune article and a Guardian article).
- during the time of Conservative leadership, responsible provincial and municipal leadership actions, without support of the Federal Conservatives, made the significant difference to Canada's GHGs that the Conservatives claim was because of Federal Conservative action. They were the Federal leaders at the time so they claimed credit for what happened. They claimed credit for the decline of GHGs due to the decline of economic activity in Canada after the 2008 financial disaster that their Conservative cousins in the USA caused.
As for the actions of the Trudeau Liberals, they appear to have honoured the pipeline related promises made during the campaign (see this Global article - there are similar evaluations available). They:
- did approve the Line 3 Replacement (that old line did need to be replaced or be shut-down, and it was all being done on existing, already affected, lands).
- terminated the Northern Gateway Pipeline
- did not support the Energy East Pipeline
- established an oil tanker moratorium on the BC coast (which means no rail transport of bitumen to Prince George for export).
- did approve the expansion of Trans Mountain. And the ads supporting Trans Mountain now state that the purchase was not done to 'increase the rate of oil sands production', it was done to ensure the oil sands product is exported in the safest way (once the pipeline starts operating, the less safe rail transport of bitumen that is currently occurring can be stopped. That valid promotional pitch for pipelines could come back to bite the pipeline promoters who would want rail plus more pipelines).
However, conspiracy theorists may claim that the Liberals were hoping for the court ruling to confirm that there had been inadequate consultation and inadequate action regarding Indigenous input. And the Federal Court of Appeal may not permit their decision to be appealed to the Supreme Court. And then Trudeau can keep his election promise to more legitimately address the concerns of the Indigenous populations that are impacted, particularly the coastal impacts of increased tanker traffic. He can approve a delayed completion of the pipeline with a significant increased associated cost to address safety concerns. That could include:
- time and cost to properly study the tanker spill clean-up challenges and develop ways to significantly improve the very poor clean-up results of even the most rapid response of current technology (there really is no good research into how to clean up bitumen spills in waterways like the ones the tankers will travel along).
- added costs before the pipeline can operate, including building the infrastructure and employing the needed emergency response teams to address those tanker spill concerns.
- all of those added costs, including the added cost of maintaining a ready to act emergency response team, would have to be paid for by the companies using the pipeline to sell their products (it would be covered by the costs collected for product moved through the pipeline). And rail transport could be declared to be an unacceptable alternative because it is less safe than the pipeline. That would reduce investor interest in new oil sands operations. And it may shut down some of the older operations sooner since they could face added costs of reducing their GHG emissions to support the excuse that Alberta Oil Sands extraction, though among the highest impact oil sources, is done better than it could be gotten away with (it could easily be the highest impact oil source, but the sales pitch is that it is better than the worst that it could be). No direct actions would be required by the Federal Government to cause the wind-down, just the economics of being required to do things better and safer. Note that rather than Alberta oil sands being the highest impacting global source of oil, some people are celebrating the climate action leadership that makes it the 4th worst (after Algeria, Venezuela and Cameroon) based on a recent study by a team led by Mohammad S. Masnadi, recently published in Science, that has been covered by many news media including Global News in Canada.
As you may surmise from my previous comment, and my opening to this comment, I am more disappointed by the actual reneging of the Liberals on their clearly stated promise that the 2015 election would be the last Federal election done with the undeniably fatally flawed First-Past-the-Post system, as system that makes it more likely that candidates who would do the least for climate action get elected because they are all in one party, with the more 'climate action concerned' candidates being in all of the other parties. Any change of the electoral system would likely reduce the chances of the Conservatives to win majority power in Canada.
In addition to electoral system reform in Canada, what is needed is 'truth in advertising' requirements on political marketing. Everyone should be appalled that Pepsi can be penalized severely for just hinting about a potential negative regarding a Coke product, but political marketing has few restrictions.
Political marketing is attacking climate science with little risk of potential legal penalty. Powerful wealthy people cannot be legally penalized for funding or participating in a misleading political marketing campaign. A business may face legal actions if they do misleading marketing for their benefit. Some oil companies are facing legal challenges for their misleading climate science marketing efforts. But there are no legal penalties for the elected representatives who participate in those misleading efforts, or for wealthy people who like that kind of leadership action.
There is a lot of what is going on to be angry about. But every more aware and considerate human should be focus on the misleading way political games are allowed to be played, with misleading marketers being free of potential serious penalty to discourage them from hoping to get away with unjustified winning. And caring and considerate people need to try to change the way that so many people seem to like the idea of being easily misled to support actions that are understandably harmful to the development of a sustainable future for humanity.
Climate Action is potentially the most important Sustainable Development Goal. More aggressive achievement of Climate Action makes it easier to achieve so many other goals. And people getting away with misleading appeals to selfish primitive human nature, in economics and politics, is the biggest impediment to improving support for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly the Climate Action goal.
You are correct that a lot of people say they consider climate action important. What you may be missing is understanding what issues each of those people consider to be higher priorities than Climate Action. The real problem is people developing a preference for allowing their selfish primitive human nature driven interests to overpower their ability to thoughtfully and considerately become more aware and understanding in pursuit of how to be most helpful to the development of a sustainable better future for humanity.
I encourage you to continue to become more aware and share improved understanding to help develop a sustainable better future for humanity.
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MA Rodger at 04:16 AM on 9 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
Geo Tim @60.
Don't thank me. You are still away with the fairies.
May I correct you once again. "Humans and animals" are not "the biggest contributor to CO2 increase" being part of the carbon cycle, as the OP explains. But in terms of ranking sources of exhaled CO2, as the biomass of domestic animals is 70% greater than human biomass (see graphic here which is Fig 1 from Bar-On et al (2018) 'The biomass distribution on Earth'), we can expect the breathed CO2 from livestock (mainly cattle) to exceed that from us humans. But the biggest biomass shown on that graphic is that of plants (7,500-times greater than human biomass) and plants also breathe CO2 (as well as absorb it for photosynthesis). And even though plants are quite sedentary and don't run around like animals, collectively they do exhale a lot of CO2, over ten-times the CO2 that mankind's fossil-fuel-use is responsible for, according to the research of Huntingdon et al (2017) and clearly described here by one of its authors.
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GeoTim at 03:11 AM on 9 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
Thanks MA Rodger. I woke up thinking I had bungled that calculation again. 308 kg is about 0.308 metric tons which results in approximately 2.4 billion metric tons per year or about 6 percent of the contribution produced by burning fossil fuels. I just wanted to present the calculation to show that we are CO2 producing systems. One day when we stop using fossil fuels (ha ha) someone will say that humans and animals are the biggest contributors to CO2 increase. I wonder what dinosaur CO2 production was.
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Eclectic at 22:37 PM on 8 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
MA Rodger @58 , as you well know, the "huge human bodily contribution of CO2 to our planetary atmosphere" is one of the many falsehood memes which is deeply imbedded in certain sections of the community, and is one which is a very uphill matter to correct. Not impossible to correct, but quite difficult.
Apropos nothing: I was looking through the Curry blog "ClimateEtc" just the other day, and found a comment that will amuse you. It was by "Russell Seitz" (regarding The Hockey Stick and its later replications/confirmations) :- "We are all indebted to [Mr X.] for so vividly illustrating the hazards of ignoring the climate science literature for decades on end."
~ Mr X. was one of the more intelligent of the crackpots to be found often in the blog's comments columns . . . but really, almost any denialist's name could have been inserted in its place.
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MA Rodger at 19:37 PM on 8 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
Eclectic @57,
I think we waste our breath on this GeoTim. That the implications of the conservation of mass (which apparently holds the positon of a law of physics) set out by Michael Sweet @55 was ignored and only prompted a revision of what are obviously error-filled calculations; in my book this demonstrates trollish tendancies as well as innumeracy. (For the record, the calculation presented @56 for annual human CO2 exhalation looks about right, except is there really 2,000kg in a tonne?)
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Eclectic at 16:39 PM on 8 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
GeoTim @56 , best if you forget your calculation altogether. It is irrelevant whether human out-breath is 1.2 billion or 12 billion tons of CO2 annually.
If you had read & understood the OP, then you would know that the nett contribution into the atmosphere from human out-breath — is very close to zero.
Okay, there would be a relatively microscopic contribution of fossil fuel CO2 — from the bubbles in the Coca-Cola and other soda-pop that you drink. But in realistic terms, that's mighty small. I would be interested to see what figure you can calculate that to be !
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GeoTim at 15:29 PM on 8 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
I agree and thanks for keeping me honest. Assuming 1 ppm CO2 by volume in air is equal to 1.94 miiligrams per cubic meter, my corrected calculations indicate that we intake about 8.7 g of CO2 per day and exhale about 854 g of CO2 per day or a net increase of CO2 in the atmosphere of 845 g per day. Therefore, in a year, an average human on earth increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by about 308 kg or about 0.15 metric tons. With about 7.5 billion people on earth today, this equates to approximately 1.2 billion metric tons per year. In 2014, it is estimated that the world produced about 36 billion metric tons of CO2 by burning fossil fuels. Therefore, breathing increases CO2 in atmosphere by about 3 percent that produced by burning fossil fuels.
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Philippe Chantreau at 11:38 AM on 8 September 2018Book Review: A Global Warming Primer, by Jeffrey Bennett
In case mods haven't noticed, claudiaevans' post at 16 is total spam.
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Mick Stupp at 10:19 AM on 8 September 2018CERN CLOUD experiment proved cosmic rays are causing global warming
Dr Kirkby’s discovery of the significance of biogenic vapours on aerosols is remarkable, but light on the chemistry and I’m struggling to find more detail; anyone have any good references? (i.e. what are biogenic vapours and what influences their global production rate?)
Also, seems to me likely there are some interdependencies here, e.g. photosynthesis converts more CO2 in stronger sunlight, but if this same sunlight also increases biogenic vapour production then this could increase cloud cover and regulate both processes. I’d like to have a stab at some transfer functions to look for instabilities there; but no idea how to estimate the biogenic vapour component.
Finally a belated thanks to MA Roger, post 20 above, for the reference. I must say, as suspect as that graph clearly is, more recent, reliable data does seem to reproduce it, at least in part. That, as I understood it, formed a significant part of the first of CLOUD’s goals.
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michael sweet at 08:58 AM on 8 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
Geotim,
Since CO2 is 12/44 carbon if I exhaled 355 kilograms of CO2 that would be about 100 kg of carbon or more than my entire body mass. About 60% of my mass is water. Perhaps you need to review your calculations.
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GeoTim at 08:44 AM on 8 September 2018Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
“Does breathing increase CO2 in atmosphere?” is the question. The direct answer is humans inhale on average about 11,000 liters of air per day. The current concentration of CO2 in atmospheric air is about 410 parts per million (ppm). We exhale on average about 11,000 liters of air per day with a concentration of CO2 at about 40,000 ppm or one hundred times the concentration we inhale. My calculations indicate that we intake about 3.6 kg of CO2 per day and exhale about 360 kg of CO2 per day or a net increase of CO2 in the atmosphere of 355 kg per day. Therefore, in a year, an average human on earth increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by about 130,000 kg or about 65 metric tons. With about 7.5 billion people on earth today, this equates to approximately 488,000 million metric tons per year. In 2014, it is estimated that the world produced about 36 billion metric tons of CO2 by burning fossil fuels. Therefore, breathing increases CO2 in atmosphere by about 1 percent that produced by burning fossil fuels.
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Doug_C at 07:51 AM on 8 September 2018An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar
nigelj @20
There is good reason to question the value of some biofuels when you look at the cost of raising the crops used for feedstock and how some that can come from food production.
The difference with thermal depolymerization is it takes things we currently treat as waste and often struggle to dispose of safely as feedostock for a catalytic process that converts the waste to useful and marketable products.
One of the first things produced from the process is methane which can then be used to heat the water that is used in the process, I think about 80% of the energy needed is provided from the process itself.
Here's a list of potential feedstocks;
Feedstocks and outputs with thermal depolymerization
Everything from plastic, paper and offal to human sewage.
The potential to replace a lot of current waste handling infrastructure with something that produces near carbon neutral light crude oil, naptha and solids like black carbon seems like a smart use of technology while reducing many waste issues.
Why have any landfills for instance when we can use all organic waste as feedstocks and recycle all the non-organic material like metals, glass and ceramics.
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nigelj at 07:05 AM on 8 September 2018An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar
Doug_C @6
Ok good points, and I'm now persuaded in favour of thermyl depolymerisation. I have this bias against biofuels that keeps influencing me, and I must get rid of it.
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Jef @8
"Modern civilization requires growth in order to avoid collapse."
Fallacy of argument from assertion. I suggest look up steady state (zero growth) economies on wikipedia. Japan had near zero growth for decades and didn't collapse.
The main challenge is financing. Bank lending is made assuming certain growth rates and this would have to change to some other model. I just suggest its a bit too pessmistic to assume there isn't some other potential model that could deal with zero growth.
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Sunspot @15,
"And that means that, despite the millions of solar panels and windmills that have been installed in the past couple of decades, none of it has replaced a single barrel of oil. Not one barrel"
Ok but it obviously stopped even higher use of oil, which is a good thing.
At the risk of being pedantic, its unlikely anyone would rely just on solar power unless you live in northern africa for example. It will be combined with wind power and battery storage. Coal fired power stations in America have been replaced with combined wind / solar / battery packages.
But I'm trying to discern your real point. You appear to be saying the real problem is our huge appetite for the consumption of technology and energy intensive products.
In theory renewable energy could be substituted for oil without considering this element. Whats getting in the way is politics which has slowed down rapid mass deployment of renewable energy. Because of slow progress we do need to consider our use of energy. The first port of call is more efficient appliances. The next target is to own smaller and fewer appliances, so in other words be less materialstic.
Theres also an argument to conserve the use of scarce mineral resources given the prodigous rate the world is using them. The challenge is how do we get people to conserve energy and be less materialistic like this? Because humans are status seekers by nature, and having the latest technolgy has become a symbol of this for many people. Humans are also poor long term thinkers shown clearly by psychological studies.
We could of course use education programmes at every possible level to encourage less use of energy, and less materialism by expressing self worth in other ways, and we should also encourage an understanding that the world has finite resources and we need to start using them more prudently. The government could encourage lower use of energy and materials with better efficiency standards or some form of tax deduction. Given the escalating climate problem it could become urgently required.
However I'm left thinking what is really required is a complete change of socio economic and cultural mindset towards embracing environmental values and less materialism and this will take time, and is up against the profit motive of capitalism and people who want maximum instant gratification. This means maximum effort still needs to go into the deployment of solar and wind power and things like carbon taxes which help incentivise change.
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Doug_C at 07:00 AM on 8 September 2018An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar
michael sweet @17
The energy potential of solar power is vast and it's just one alternative source of energy to replace fossil fuels. And as you say the technology is always adavancing as is the way to store and use the energy converted from sunlight.
Australia could easily replace all its fossil fuel energy production with solar. But it wouldn't need to, Australia also has huge areas of underlying hot crustal rock relatively close to the surface that can be utlized form geothermal power generation.
The fact we aren't well into a global planned phase out of all fossil fuels has nothing to do with rational policy.
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