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Comments 24651 to 24700:

24651. Mal Adapted at 23:38 PM on 9 April 2016
       Dangerous global warming will happen sooner than thought – study
       

       Tom Curtis @64:

       Ergo, if the term is orwellian, then it is likely that many, even most would not agree with the implicit values encouraged by the term with clearer thought. And again, just because a term is misleading does not mean that all who use it are misled or intend to mislead.

       Tom, I have no doubt we agree on many things.  The importance of clear thinking is one of them 8^)!

24652. Digby Scorgie at 18:42 PM on 9 April 2016
       After COP21: 7 Key Tasks to Implement the Paris Agreement
       

       Glenn #7

       I presume that a decreasing per-capita demand for electricity would imply increasing energy efficiency?

       OPOF #8, 9

       I think my item on electric vehicles could be modified to cater for your comment about transport.  In essence the whole transportation system would have to be seen to be changing to one less reliant on fossil fuel.

       Regarding politicians, seeing politicians of all persuasions agreeing on the problem posed by climate change would be an indication of a country's commitment to tackling the problem.  But is it an essential characteristic?

       Your comment about meat and vegetable protein is probably included in my item on agricultural practices.  In fact, delete "agri" and you get "cultural practices", which would indeed have to change if people are to eat less meat!

       Finally, you have persuaded me that I should not have been so hesitant about forestry.  It should go on the list as a separate item from agriculture.

       Additional thoughts

       Another belated thought of mine is that the approach to buildings, both commercial and residential, should also be seen to change to designs that require less energy to maintain.  There is not much one can do about existing building stock, but at least new buildings can be constructed to a much more environmentally friendly building code.

       We would probably end up with a check-list of about ten items against which to measure the performance of countries.  I reckon my own (New Zealand) would score one in ten — unless our benighted politicians pull finger!

       However, I have to end by saying that I'm aware that many people are going to a lot of trouble to compute each country's emissions.  Theoretically these are all that should be necessary to track a country's progress.  Unfortunately, from all I've read, these computations seem fraught with error and subject to abuse.  I put no trust in them.  I'd much sooner trust a list of the kind I've been sketching, one that lists practical and tangible steps that all can see.

24653. One Planet Only Forever at 15:08 PM on 9 April 2016
       After COP21: 7 Key Tasks to Implement the Paris Agreement
       

       Digby Scorgie,

       A couple of other things to look for:

       • Reduced global meat consumption, particularly beef.
       • Increased planting of vegetable protein crops (like beans). This one is already starting to happen in Western Canada.
       • Reduced rainforest destruction, transitioning to reestablishing rainforest extent.
       • And yes global expansion of forestry practices that selectively harvest fully mature trees in designated harvest zones while reducing the extent of zones where trees are harvested and locking in the harvest to those zones (unlike the common Western Canadian practice of permitting new areas be harvested rather than requiring the harvesters to manage their future on a set area of land they have to manage the effective regrowth of to have a future).
24654. One Planet Only Forever at 14:47 PM on 9 April 2016
       After COP21: 7 Key Tasks to Implement the Paris Agreement
       

       Digby Scorgie,

       A few other indications that the message about the required changes is sinking in would be:

       • Reduced plans to produce overpowered oversized personal use vehicles.
       • Reduced resale value of overpowered oversized personal use vehicles.
       • Increased public transit networks with increased renewable energy driving them.
       • Leaders (in power and in opposition), all declaring openly and frequently that the change needs to happen even if the message is not popular with the "commonly considered to be locked-in reliable voter base of a particular leader's party". And having them all honestly and most fully inform the entire population rather than deceptively try to gain political popularity through misleading messages.

       The last point will require the development and implementation of effective laws regarding full and proper presentation of information on an important issue like this (similar to the laws that have recently been developed for commercial marketing - but needing to be more effective than the commercial ones), and effective enforcement of those laws. Of course, many of the current people in positions of influence and leadership related to the making up of the rules can be expected to be reluctant to do this. This change of the game would have far greater impact than helping to more effectively advance humanity out of the damaging fossil fuel burning phase that has been so difficult to break free of (like breaking out of any other damaging addiction the first step is publicly admitting to the problem, then constantly working to overcome the tempting influence of those who would try to tempt the addicted into returning to, prolonging or increasing their addiction).

24655. John Hartz at 11:47 AM on 9 April 2016
       Dangerous global warming will happen sooner than thought – study
       

       For those of you who want to brush-up on your understanding of the "tragedy of the commons", here's hand-dandy education module...

       Introducing the economic concept of 'tragedy of the commons' using global warming, Laura Triplett, Gustavus Adolphus College

       Summary

       In this 50-minute classroom activity, students begin by discussing historical environmental problems that demonstrate the economic principle of the 'tragedy of the commons'. The examples available here are sewage disposal in the Mississippi River, smog in London, and the ozone hole, but other examples could be used. Next, the instructor poses the question of whether global warming fits the tragedy of the commons model, and teaches some basic climate literacy concepts. Then, students brainstorm possible economic solutions to the global warming tragedy-of-the-commons. Instructor finishes by giving examples of economic solutions to historical environmental problems. This could easily lead into topics such as monetary and fiscal policy, economic development and globalization.

       This class was developed as part of the Interdisciplinary Teaching of Geoscience for a Sustainable Future (InTeGrate) project funded by the NSF in August, 2011.

24656. RedBaron at 10:04 AM on 9 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       Tom,

        That is a far more reasonable explanation. I would agree that there is no substitute for carbon zero energy long term. But I don't believe that really is the point of carbon farming either. I see the point being to remove the excess already in the atmosphere, not as an excuse to ignore alternatives to fossil fuels. Without alternative energy sources long term, obviously there will reach a time when there really isn't any way we know of to remove that extra CO2. 

       On the other hand even with zero emissions tomorrow, AGW lasts for a very long time. We simply have to help with drawdown, and it's a good thing too, because the soils need that carbon. In my opinion the loss of soil carbon caused by poor agricultural management is an even more pressing issue, with even more catestrophic potential than extra carbon in the atmosphere. Since the solution to both includes moving some of that carbon already emitted by fossil fuels to the soil. I see any accounting defenciencies that you mentioned as a failure of accounting systems, not a failure of the principle of carbon farming in it's many forms.

24657. Tom Curtis at 09:24 AM on 9 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       RedBaron @21:

       "Any further decomposition of biochar after sequestered in the soil, although very slow, would be carbon sequestered"

       Yes (obviously), but when sequestering the full carbon content sequestered is accounted for as coming out of the atmosphere.  When figures are quoted for carbon sequestration by biochar, the amount cited is the amount buried at the time of first burial.  Not the amount still in the ground after 100, or 1000 years.  Therefore any decomposition must be accounted for as new emission to balance the books.  And unfortunately it is a new emission that is hard to account for and easy to falsely pass of as a natural emission. 

       The result is that people who do not explicitly acknowledge the decomposition (or in most cases even know of it) might think that two pathways, one in which emissions are reduced by 400 GtC by replacing fossil fuel with renewables and one in which 400 GtC is buried as Soil Organic Carbon, and the fossil fuel emissions not reduced, are equally valid responses to climate change.  But they are not, first because the Soil Organic Carbon burial would need to be ongoing, but also because some of that carbon in the Soil Organic Carbon will make its way back into the atmosphere, and over the long term, most of it will.

       That means the role of burial of carbon by improved farming practises represents a good way to buffer the response to global warming.  It allows us to slightly overshoot emission targets to remain below 2 C and recover the difference by sequestration through farming practices.  But it can never be a substitute for reducing emissions to zero in the long term (or indeed, within the next 50 years).  And, what is more, it is a buffer which comes at a cost.  For increased SOC by improved farming practises, that cost is the need to maintain those practises in the long term to retain the equilibrium of SOC.  If for economic reasons we drop those practises in the future, the extra carbon buried will quite rapidly return to the atmosphere (on the order of a century or two).  Biochar, though more limited in the rate at which it can bury carbon, is far more stable so that the rate of return to the atmosphere can take from thousands to tens of thousands of years.  For low levels of biochar, the impact of that will be negligible, but for very high levels it is not.  That means we would need to either commit to long term burial of biochar at a rate to compensate for the decomposition (or other means of sequestration), or not have as great a reduction in temperature as a result of the natural drawdown of CO2 into the ocean.

       Note further that similar problems beset other forms of sequestration.  Even for deep burial in geological strata, there will be leaks so that some indeterminate percentage will be returned to the atmosphere over time.  Indeed, with that method there is the possibility of catastrophic failure of a reservoir and a rapid short term release of some of the CO2 sequestered.  Consequently I think that methods of sequestration by improved farming practise are preferable to the use of biochar, which is much preferable to more industrial means of sequestration.  But none of them can be a substitute to converting to an emissions free energy and transport system. 

24658. RedBaron at 08:45 AM on 9 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       Tom @ 21,

        Any further decomposition of biochar after sequestered in the soil, although very slow, would be carbon sequestered from the atmosphere via photosynthesis in the first place, thus rendering it at worst carbon neutral and in no way "increases the long term stable temperature", but rather contributes to long term stable temperature decreases. Agreed it is not large enough to actually decrease temps on it's own, but in no way does it contribute to increased temps, now or in the future. That carbon came from the atmosphere and at the very worst in some extremely long distant view it could be considered carbon neutral once it eventually in thousands of years decomposed completely. Assuming worst case scenario of no transfer to another long term sink besides the atmosphere. The natural cycle adds and removes CO2 to keep a balance; fossil fuels add extra CO2 without removing any. For this reason natural cycles do not add to AGW, but burning fossil fuels does. Also for this exact same reason, since the biochar is sequestered long term, it reduces atmospheric CO2 long term and helps make up part of that lost balance. So for a third time I will ask for a citation. Otherwise just admit your logic was flawed, you made the same mistake climate deniers often make but in reverse  (see denier argument #33 and rebuttal from this website), and we move on.

24659. Tom Curtis at 08:27 AM on 9 April 2016
       Dangerous global warming will happen sooner than thought – study
       

       Mal Adapted @63

       "That was a little garbled"

       Yes it was.  Try:

       "I utterly reject, however, your implication that because I think a term is misleading that it will mislead all who use it; or that all who use it because it is a commonly recognized term personally intend to insult the sufferers of the historical tragedy of the commons. That is entirely a strawman."

       I apologize for my poor copy editing.

       "you didn't actually mean that the term "tragedy of the commons" can only be used to "justify the seizure of customary rights of access to land/and or fisherys and giving them a simple property rights to the wealthy", "Nothing more, and nothing less", then we have no dispute."

       In my original claim, I intended to indicate that that the rhetorical use of the term to justify the seizure of customary rights was a modern enclosure movement, "nothing more and nothing less".  That makes the term "the tragedy of the commons" orwellian, as I claimed.  I did not mean to indicate that anybody using it had orwellian intent.  Indeed, it is the nature of orwellian words that they shape your thoughts regardless of your actual intentions, thereby leading you to accept or justify things you would not accept or justify if thought about clearly.  Ergo, if the term is orwellian, then it is likely that many, even most would not agree with the implicit values encouraged by the term with clearer thought.  And again, just because a term is misleading does not mean that all who use it are misled or intend to mislead.

       But again, just because not all are misled by a term does not mean a misleading term should not be replaced by a better one.

24660. Mal Adapted at 08:10 AM on 9 April 2016
       Dangerous global warming will happen sooner than thought – study
       

       Tom Curtis@62:

       I utterly reject, however, your implication that because I think a term is misleading that it will mislead all who use it; all that all who use it because it is commonly recognized personally intend to insult the sufferers of the historical tragedy of the commons. That is entirely a strawman.

       That was a little garbled, but if by:

       In current usage, the term "tragedy of the commons" is used to justify the seizure of customary rights of access to land/and or fisherys and giving them a simple property rights to the wealthy. It is in fact, a modern enclosure movement. Nothing more, and nothing less.

       you didn't actually mean that the term "tragedy of the commons" can only be used to "justify the seizure of customary rights of access to land/and or fisherys and giving them a simple property rights to the wealthy", "Nothing more, and nothing less", then we have no dispute.

24661. Tom Curtis at 07:55 AM on 9 April 2016
       Dangerous global warming will happen sooner than thought – study
       

       Mal Adapted @61 your case that my point represents an insult to Elinor Ostrom ignores the fact that she found the term "Tragedy of the Commons" sufficiently distorting of what actually happens on commons that she used instead the term "Drama of the Commons" for the title of the book, which in turn points out a multitude of instances where what happens on the commons is not adequately described by Hardin's term.

       My point is that Hardin's use suggests that there is only one possible tragic result from use of the commons - something which is definitely false as shown by the tragic results of enclosure.  In doing so it belittles the actual historical tragedy in favour of a hypothetical tragedy whose rhetorical use is to justify replicating the historical tragedy.  That it has that rhetorical use does not mean it cannot, and has not been used by others in careful analysis.  For that purpose, however, more neutral terms such as "n-person prisoner's dilemma" or the "Gordon/Schaeffer model of the Commons" would be appropriate. (The later term recognises two people who independently and formally analyzed the scenario Hardin later informally analyzed but gave a catchy name to.)  In general, rhetorically motivated names do not aid clear analysis.  Rather the contrary.  But they no not make it impossible.

       Indeed, I have already pointed out that one of your examples was such an example of poor analysis.  Specifically, the analysis by Berger-tal et al was impoverished by thinking an unusual 'tragedy' in the commons where mutual grazing resulted in both grazers eating less than half of what they would have eaten alone was thereby an example of 'The tragedy of the Commons'.  In this case, the claim in Hardin's term that there is one, and only one type of tragedy related to the commons has directly lead the researchers to misclassify the type of situation they discovered.

       You are welcome to defend a term that both misleads and is offensive on the grounds of mere custom.  I, on the other hand see no reason to do so.  I utterly reject, however, your implication that because I think a term is misleading that it will mislead all who use it; all that all who use it because it is commonly recognized personally intend to insult the sufferers of the historical tragedy of the commons.  That is entirely a strawman. 

24662. Tom Curtis at 07:31 AM on 9 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       sidd @12, thanks for the presumably interesting reference.  I say presumably because it is behind a paywall and for some odd reason, Nature won't accept my money to let me get beyond it.  I have, however, found an interesting Scientific American article on the Nature article.  The key quote is:

       "The study says that if all the Earth’s farmers were to manage their fields so the soil stored more carbon, the impacts of the greenhouse gases emitted from burning fossil fuels annually could be cut by between half and 80 percent.

       More realistically, the emissions reductions would likely be much lower, possibly between 10 and 20 percent of total annual human emissions.
       “The question of what the most ‘realistic’ potential is, is not really possible to answer directly, at

       least from a science perspective, because it really depends on enactment of policies that would encourage adoption of the climate-smart soil management practices,” study lead author Keith Paustian, a soil ecologist at Colorado State University, said."

       The figures you cite (22.9%) presumably come from the discussion of the "more realistic" figures, which therefore comes with the important qualification that what counts as realistic depends on the policies actually adopted.  The Scientific American article does show that the various news releases that only report the 80% figure are overegging the study, indicating the upper limit of a scenario that is not considered realistic.

       One question I have is, does the paper discuss the effect of the decomposition of the Soil Organic Carbon overtime, and in particular the total amount sequesterable under equilibrium conditions for the farm management practises dicussed?

24663. Tom Curtis at 07:13 AM on 9 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       RedBaron @19, the citation for that quote is https://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=3340#116774

       I am unsure why you need it.

       Perhaps you meant a citation for the claim made within the quote.  The contentious part of the quote, however follows from two simple syllogisms:

       1)  Biochar decays to CO2 and other decay products over time;

       2)  CO2 from biochar decay is emitted to the atmosphere;

       3)  Therefore, over time, ceterus paribus atmospheric CO2 will increase overtime as the result of biochar.

       And

       1)  CO2 is a greenhouse gas;

       2) Increasing greenhouse gases increases the total greenhouse effect;

       3) Therefore, ceterus paribus, increasing CO2 will increase Global Mean Surface Temperature Overtime.

       Now admitedly I allowed for all not being equal, specifically the natural draw down of CO2 if net anthropogenic emissions are reduced to zero, so that the temperature increase is only relative to what it would have been with the draw down from an equivalent initial peak CO2 level achieved by a more rapid transition of the energy economy, and no use of biochar.  That, however, does not change the logic of the case.

       No citation is needed for the conclusion of a syllogism, no matter how obdurate is the person with whom you discuss the issue.

       So, unless you are claiming that biochar does not decay, simpliciter, (in which case see this, this, this, and and this) your request for a citation is bizarre.  If that is what you are requesting a citation for, you should have actually quoted my claim to that effect.

       But, I remain convinced that your request of a citation is just the response of somebody who has not coherent response to my points; but has to post something to disguise that fact.

24664. Tom Curtis at 06:25 AM on 9 April 2016
       Factcheck: Are climate models ‘wrong’ on rainfall extremes?
       

       martin @2, Professor Sherwood's comment can be found here (along with two others).  In full, he states:

       "They did a lot of work and its a nice study and a valuable proxy dataset, but it has many complexities in the way it was done. They are heavily smoothing the data so as to look only at centennial-scale shifts, not what we usually think of as droughts or rainfall extremes (which would be scales of days to at most a decade or two).

       Previous studies, based on models, have shown that warming-induced trends in regional precipitation have not yet emerged from natural variability (“noise”). This seems inconsistent with the paper’s claim that the changes predicted by these same models are unrealistic, since it should not yet be possible to tell even according to the models themselves.

       They normalised all data series to unit variance over the 1200 years. If I understand correctly, that means if there is too little natural variability in the models (which has been reported in other studies) or noise in the proxy observations (which is inevitable), either of these would help create an apparent discrepancy such as they’ve noted. Thus, other interpretations of their results may be more consistent with past studies.

       In models, they looked at precipitation, but the observational proxies they have are probably measuring soil moisture or something similar. Many people think these two quantities are equivalent, but they are not, because as soon as you warm the whole planet they decouple (precipitation generally goes up while soil moisture may stay the same or go down). This will cause discrepancies during the last century, due to the global warming not seen in earlier periods. Future studies should compare these hydroclimate proxy results to a more appropriate model variable such as soil moisture.

       If this paper’s conclusion about model overprediction holds up to further scrutiny it will be extremely interesting; my own work focuses on model-data discrepancies so I am particularly interested. But due to the above aspects of the study, I am not convinced that this particular conclusion will hold up. We shall see, as I am sure this result will attract lots of attention."

       The claim appears to be that Llungqvist et al themselves smooth the data rather than that it is innately smoothed.  The reason the observational proxies "are probably measuring soil moisture" is that trees draw their moisture from the soil, not the air, and therefore respond to soil moiture rather than directly to precipitation. 

       Michael Mann' facebook page (link in main article) refers to several of his own peer reviewed papers to justify his comment regarding extremes:

       "Our own extensive work analyzing paleoclimate proxy data has shown that they are not well suited for reconstructing past climate *extremes*. Tree rings and many other chemical and biological climate proxy records, by their nature, tend not to record very large short-term fluctuations, and for this reason they are likely to show muted extremes, i.e. less extreme variation than actually exists in the climate record. We published several articles demonstrating this problem over the past several years:
       Schurer, A., Hegerl, G., Mann, M.E., Tett, S.F.B., Separating forced from chaotic climate variability over the past millennium, J. Climate, 26, 6954-6973, 2013.
       Mann, M.E., Rutherford, S., Schurer, A., Tett, S.F.B.,Fuentes, J.D., Discrepancies between the modeled and proxy-reconstructed response to volcanic forcing over the past millennium: Implications and possible mechanisms, J. Geophys. Res. 118, 7617-7627, doi:10.1002/jgrd.50609, 2013.
       Mann, M.E., Fuentes, J.D., Rutherford, S., Underestimation of Volcanic Cooling in Tree-Ring Based Reconstructions of Hemispheric Temperatures, Nature Geoscience, 5, 202-205, 2012.
       (all available here: http://www.meteo.psu.edu/…/publi…/Mann/articles/articles.php)."

       That being said, the relevant sections of all three articles are about responses of proxies volcanism, which is not an evident factor for the 20th century period in which the discrepancy lies.  On that basis, I cannot see the relevance of Dr Mann's remarks. 

24665. martin3818 at 00:08 AM on 9 April 2016
       Factcheck: Are climate models ‘wrong’ on rainfall extremes?
       

       I have a few questions.

       Why do tree rings smooth the signal for precipitation so strongly?
       I would have expected a tree ring not to smooth more than the one year it takes for a tree ring to grow.

       How does this paleo reconstruction for the twentieth century compare to direct measurements?

       Why do the reconstruction and the models stop agreeing for the twentieth century? Did the number of precipitation extremes increase significantly?

24666. Glenn Tamblyn at 16:23 PM on 8 April 2016
       After COP21: 7 Key Tasks to Implement the Paris Agreement
       

       DS

       "Are there other effects we will be able to see?"

       Substantial improvements in energy efficiency across the board.

24667. bozzza at 16:05 PM on 8 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       Global Accounting methods exist for a reason: to prevent Anarchy in the market place.

       Global Warming is a mixed markets failure that is purely down to the worlds Governed markets picking fossil fuels as the winner!

       Extraction of said intervention into the fabled free-marketplace was never going to be easy and any year 11 economics high school student could tell you that. There is a lot of vested interests in messing with the numbers here and if the educated taxpayer that supports it all gets wind of a ruse it's anarchy full stop!

       If biochar and soil sequestration can't be reliably quantified then they can't be reliably quantified.

24668. Digby Scorgie at 10:44 AM on 8 April 2016
       After COP21: 7 Key Tasks to Implement the Paris Agreement
       

       OPOF #5

       Yes, that was my reasoning.  If fossil fuels remain cheap for the next decade or two, we'll know that humanity has blown it.

       To return to the characteristics of a country that is taking meaningful action to avert global warming, should I have included forestry in my list?  Are there any other characteristics I've omitted?

       I live in New Zealand where I observe no action whatsoever on any of my listed characteristics, except perhaps electricity generation.  But we're in the fortunate position of being able to rely heavily on hydro-electricity.  There has been some movement in recent years to introducing more wind farms, but these tend to meet resistance — they spoil the scenery, and there is not much of New Zealand that is not scenic.

24669. RedBaron at 10:09 AM on 8 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       Tom,

       While it may be true that biochar has limited use, again Citation needed for this quote:

        "The effect of that decomposition, however, will be a reduced reduction in atmospheric CO2 from the natural take up of carbon once we reach zero net emissions, which in term increases the long term stable temperature increase we can expect from current CO2 emissions."

       Keep in mind you are talking about the stable soil carbon fraction, not the active fraction, nor the biomass. I have yet to see anyone at all except you claim that increasing the soil stable carbon will somehow increase the long term stable temperature under any circumstances at all. Firthermore your hypothesis it is so backwards from how the soil and even the entire biosphere actually functions, please provide good citations.

24670. Tom Curtis at 09:53 AM on 8 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       RedBaron @17, I have provided two citations for the decomposition of soil carbon to atmospheric CO2 already.  Many more are easilly found by a search on google scholar.  That decomposition will result in an increase in atmospheric CO2 levels relative to what they would be absent the decomposition.  No further citation is needed.

       Your request for a citation is nothing more than a tactic to avoid reasonable discussion of soil organic carbon.  It is on a par with your deliberate, and libelous misrepresentation of the discussion of the subject @15 (since deleted by the moderators).  It is also an evasion of the primary point, the very limited capacity of biochar by itself as a tactic against global warming.

24671. RedBaron at 08:54 AM on 8 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       Tom,

        "The effect of that decomposition, however, will be a reduced reduction in atmospheric CO2 from the natural take up of carbon once we reach zero net emissions, which in term increases the long term stable temperature increase we can expect from current CO2 emissions."

        

       Citation needed. Please make it a good one too, no magical thinking citations please.

       Moderator Response:

       [DB] Inflammatory snipped.  Keep it clean.

24672. Tom Curtis at 08:22 AM on 8 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       ELIofVA @14, as of 2012, the total global production of plantation timber was 520 x 10^6 m^3 (download of PDF of report 3MB), or approximately 260 x 10^6 tonnes of wood.  That wood in turn contained about 130 x 10^6 tonnes of carbon.  In the same year, total human emissions amounted to 10.5 x 10^9 tonnes of Carbon.  That is, if the world's entire production of plantation wood was turned to charcoal, and buried, you would sequester just 1.2% of the total annual anthropogenic emmissions.  Inother words, biochar can at most provide one strategy among many to tackling climate change, and a relatively minor one.

        One concern I have about sequestering carbon as biochar is that it is not permanent storage.  Specifically, carbon in soil decomposes, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere.  That decomposition may, or may not be temperature sensitive, but it certainly exists.  The consequence is that there is an upper limit on the improvement of soil organic carbon by improved agricultural methods, which will vary by location, type of soil, drainage, and other factors.  That does not mean such methods are not a good strategy for reducing CO2 content in the atmosphere, but they will not permanently offset CO2 emissions.  (They will also need to be sustained more or less permanently a significant fraction of the increased soil organic carbon content will be returned to the atmosphere as CO2.)  Biochar is said to be resistant to this type of decomposition, but it will not be immune to it.  In the limit, biochar will decompose until its contribution to soil carbon does not exceed the equilibrium value of soil organic carbon in any particular environment.  That will probably take thousands of years.  The effect of that decomposition, however, will be a reduced reduction in atmospheric CO2 from the natural take up of carbon once we reach zero net emissions, which in term increases the long term stable temperature increase we can expect from current CO2 emissions.

24673. knaugle at 06:20 AM on 8 April 2016
       Factcheck: Are climate models ‘wrong’ on rainfall extremes?
       

       The idea that all models are wrong is both correct and misleading.  No model is 100% correct in any scientific or engineering discipline.  HOWEVER, this argument is used to IMPLY that the climate models are useless, when it is abundantly clear they are of significant use and more and more look in aggregate to be more correct than some would like to see.

24674. RedBaron at 01:42 AM on 8 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       @ ELIofVA #14,

        You wonder why carbon capture by biochar is not given more love by the climate activist? It's simple actually. The one industry even more taboo to mess with besides the fossil fuel industry is industrialized agriculture. Both need radical changes to be sure, but try arguing that and you will meet with massive opposition and obfuscation.

       So basically those of us who are concerned about and working to develop carbon mitigation strategies are facing massive pushback. In some cases even from climate scientists. In the case of agricultural mitigation strategies there even is an unholy alliance between climate scientists and denialists, even ecologists in some cases. I could even give you examples from this website, but not willing to upset the apple cart too much. I still need the ability to post here. Don't want to lose that priviledge. This way at least I can post scientific studies and reviews from the minority opinion as they get published and I find them.

       Just keep plugging though. Soon enough opinions will be forced to change. Agriculture will be forced to change even sooner than the fossil fuel economies due to soil degradation worldwide. Since the solution to both is carbon in the soil, one way or another it will happen.

       Moderator Response:

       [DB] Inflammatory snipped. 

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24675. One Planet Only Forever at 00:46 AM on 8 April 2016
       After COP21: 7 Key Tasks to Implement the Paris Agreement
       

       Jubble,

       You are referring to expectations in an unregulated and free to do as it pleased market full of people able to get away with whatever they wished.

       In such a Free Market it is clear that fossil fuels would continue to be burned for the benefit of the wealthiest, no meaningful movement from the status quo because the caring and considerate willing to behave better will not solve the problems caused by the less caring and less considerate still able to get away with pursuing their personal interest in ways they grew accustomed to getting away with.

       That clearly cannot be allowed to continue. So the Free Market expectation of lower price for everyone as demand drops cannot be the reality. The drop in demand will be due to the enforced reduced benefit obtained by the already fortunate from the burning of fossil fuels. The most fortunate will either be effectively restricted from benefiting or face very high costs, while the least fortunate would get to burn at low cost (no profit pocketed by any more fortunate people) but only as a temporary measure for their rapid transition to a sustainable better life that would not involve burning fossil fuels.

24676. ELIofVA at 00:43 AM on 8 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       I wonder why carbon capture by biochar is not given more love by the climate activist.  It is a technology that is ready.  Every wood fire for heat could be burned in a wood stove that is designed to create biochar, with the heating of the building the secondary use of the heat.  Doing so would reduce the heat one could be obtained by burning the carbon also.  However, the biochar has an economic benifit when added to soil (recarbonizing the soil).  This needs to become a global movement to recarbonize our soils.  The worse the soil, the greater the benefit.  Developed countries need to provide support for developing countries to do this.  I am looking for the recognition that we are on the same boat. COP21 conference did recongize this.  We will sink or float as a world community.  Developing good practices for creating biochar can be a world wide jobs program.  Creating biochar from organic material does not sequester carbon.  The plants do that.  What it does is capture the carbon so the plants at the end of their life cycle or more rapidly by burning with no carbon capture (typical) do not emmit the sequestered co2 back into the atmosphere.  

       Agriculture methods of churning up the soil has the advantatge of speeding biological activity by increasing surface area available to air.  However, it also accelerates co2 and other nutrient emissions which depletes the soil.  Therefore, holding onto nutrients would be of greater advantage.  Bio char has proven effective  at doing this by the Pre-Columbian Ammazonian cultures that created highly productive black soils in the normally poor soils of the rain forest.  That carbon is still sequestered millenia later.  IT IS A PROVEN TECHNOLOGY.  

       Please shine more light on the potential of creating biochar to recarbonize the soil that has a short term economic benefit in addition to the long term goal of achieving a net zero carbon emissions economy as described in the COP21 conference.  

24677. Jubble at 23:50 PM on 7 April 2016
       After COP21: 7 Key Tasks to Implement the Paris Agreement
       

       Digby Scorgie@1 - I would suggest that actuallly fossil fuels will become increasingly cheap, as demand will drop off leaving stranded assets

24678. bozzza at 19:37 PM on 7 April 2016
       After COP21: 7 Key Tasks to Implement the Paris Agreement
       

       The tension is over the fact 1.5 degrees of warming has already been locked in and the poorer countries know any tactics designed to try and limit the warming to 1.5 degrees are by definition even more facsistic than the tactics the developed world has ever used against them before.

       In short, the tension arises from the fact nobody is starting with the truth.

24679. TonyW at 19:01 PM on 7 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       Let's hope that economic growth can't continue, as it has already done enormous damage to our biosphere. I suspect that it's not compatible with significant reductions in GHGs, globally. I actually can't imagine that it is.

       SRM would remove 2% of the sunlight from reaching the surface. I wonder if that would have adverse consequences, as there are many species, some of which (all of which?) we rely on, which depend on that light reaching them.

       Apparently, it's thought that 450 ppm CO2e is the limit to ensure 2C isn't breached. Last I heard, we were at 480 ppm CO2e. What kind of SRM is required to ensure that, when GHG emissions cease (as they must), temperature doesn't rise beyond 2C? Presumably we would need at least as much as already happens (and maintain it for as long as the shorter lived GHGs remain), along with extra to counteract the continuing warming effect of the unmasked CO2e.

24680. chriskoz at 17:27 PM on 7 April 2016
       After COP21: 7 Key Tasks to Implement the Paris Agreement
       

       Digby Scorgie@1,

       well said. I would also add to it: how binding is this Paris Agreement os sar? Are interested parties committed to stay in it, and the defectors face substantial (higher than potential economic slowdown due to decline of FF production) penalties?

       I can easily foresee the scenario that ASA a republican candidate sush as Trump (or even worse Cruz) wins the presidency, US pulls out of that agreement, then your last and greatest fears: "humanity has blown it" ensured. :(

24681. Digby Scorgie at 13:53 PM on 7 April 2016
       After COP21: 7 Key Tasks to Implement the Paris Agreement
       

       As an interested observer, I'm curious about the effects of this process that ordinary people should be able to perceive in the near future.  Consider the system to be a black box.  You pump in all this Paris stuff at one end and then observe what comes out the other end.  Here are a few random suggestions off the top of my head:

       (1) Fossil fuel becomes increasingly expensive.

       (2) There is a progressive decline in the production of fossil fuel.

       (3) Electric vehicles become increasingly common.

       (4) The generation of electricity from renewable sources accelerates.

       (5) Agricultural practices begin a drastic change to new methods.

       Is this a valid way of looking at it?  Are there other effects we will be able to see?  In other words, I'm saying that all this talk is so far rather academic.  I'd like to know what tangible outcomes ordinary people should be able see — outcomes that will give us the confidence to believe that we're on the right track.  Conversely, if we don't see these outcomes, we'll know that humanity has blown it.

24682. sidd at 13:30 PM on 7 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       doi:10.1038/nature17174 indicates 8 Pg CO2 eq./yr soil sequestration is possible as compared to global anthro CO2 emission of 35Pg/yr . That last figure does not include noncondensing GHG other than CO2, while the first does.
24683. tonychachere at 12:28 PM on 7 April 2016
       The similarities between Trump support and climate denial
       

       Since when did being an "old, white, male" become a perjorative, and why?  It totally precludes any validity an OWM might have based on experience and education.  Why is it okay to even bring it up?  
       
       I assume I fall into the OWM category.  How dare anyone label me becauseof that?  Does the opposite label "young, black, female" automatically imply the opposite?

24684. Mal Adapted at 12:21 PM on 7 April 2016
       Dangerous global warming will happen sooner than thought – study
       

       Tom Curtis@54

       I am pointing out that a neologism is based on an historically inaccurate account of what actually happened to commons in England, and probably much of Europe in such a way that the historical tragedy of the commons which resulted in the impoverishment and deaths of 100s of thousands of people over several centuries is concealed, and worse, repeated under the rubric of avoiding the "tragedy of the commons".

       Tom, I'm not disputing the historical facts of enclosure, nor the injustice of its impacts on the land-poor agrarian classes who lost their traditional shared pasturage. What I'm disputing is this:

       In current usage, the term "tragedy of the commons" is used to justify the seizure of customary rights of access to land/and or fisherys and giving them a simple property rights to the wealthy. It is in fact, a modern enclosure movement. Nothing more, and nothing less.

       My point is that while Hardin's coinage of the phrase may very well have been intended to justify enclosure, "Tragedy of the Commons" entered the public domain at the time he published his explosive article in Science. It was immediately adopted by academic sub-disciplines of Ecology and Economics as a metaphor, that is, an abstraction of the economic and social forces (or lack thereof) that encourage individuals to maximize their exploitation of common-property resources for private benefit, at aggregate rates that lead to the destruction of the resource. I first encountered that usage of it as an undergraduate in the late 1970s, and frequently again in an MS program in Environmental Science in the early 1980s.

       In the term of art, "commons" refers not just to shared pasturage but to commercial fish stocks, groundwater aquifers and even the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb "greenhouse" (another metaphor) gases without causing GMST to increase; and "tragedy" means "driven by forces beyond the control of the individual exploiters acting on their own", an allusion to the ancient Greek dramatic form of the tragoidea wherein the protagonists could only enact the fates ordained for them by the gods. 

       The examples from the refereed literature I provided were to show wide current usage of "TotC" as a term of academic art.  A few minutes with Google Scholar turns up hundreds more, but one in particular stood out for me.  My understanding is that you are Australian, but I presume you know of the US National Academy, whose members collectively represent the most rigorous scientific standards. The NAS publication The drama of the commons, edited by Ostrom et al., is free to download at the link. Its preface begins with:

       “The commons” has long been a pivotal idea in environmental studies, and the resources and institutions described by that term have long been recognized as central to many environmental problems, especially problems of global environmental change.

       That leads me to your assertion that:

       No amount of take up of the term, the 'tragedy of slavery', in fringe cases would justify the use of such a term so defined. It would be an insult to the millions of victims of slavery, but quite apart from that, the sloppiness of thought about its primary subject induced would be intolerable.

       Moral outrage at the historical injustice of enclosure is appropriate, but do you really presume to accuse the late Elinor Ostrom, who was awarded the Nobel prize in Economics for her work on ways that common property resources may be cooperatively managed by their stakeholders to avert tragedy (in the conventional meaning), of intolerable sloppiness of thought or of insulting the millions of victims of enclosure?

       If so, you presume much. Without getting into all the ways that your claims regarding "TotC" are like or unlike the claim that calling someone an "AGW-denier" is an insult to the victims of the Nazi Holocaust, I'll just point out that you don't own that phrase anymore than a notorious other Tom owns "denier".

24685. wili at 09:45 AM on 7 April 2016
       Ljungqvist broke the hockey stick
       

       Ljungqvist seesm to be up to variations on his old tricks again: in.news.yahoo.com/climate-forecasts-may-flawed-says-170007812.html

24686. mark bofill at 22:35 PM on 6 April 2016
       Dangerous global warming will happen sooner than thought – study
       

       Tom Curtis,

       I'm turning into a regular cheerleader over here.  Who'da thunk.

       I found your discussion with OPOF invaluable if for no other reason than it has allowed me to clearly differentiate your points of view.  I hope that your perspective is the dominant one among people on your side of the debate.

       Thanks also for the Bandura link, that was interesting.

24687. RedBaron at 15:49 PM on 6 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       You are dividing each into individual parts. I am using examples. I don't claim it is needed to only do 1 crop. But agriculture in general is easily large enough. For example plugging in arable land that number above would sequester 256 Gt CO2, grasslands even much more, because the land area is much larger. Our output of 29 gigatons of CO2 is tiny compared to the 750 gigatons moving through the carbon cycle each year, it adds up because the land and ocean cannot absorb all of the extra CO2. About 40% of this additional CO2 is absorbed. About 40% of the land surface is in agriculture of some form or another, including nearly all the prime bits. Change the agricultural models to those that sequester carbon instead of a net carbon emissions source and we do both, reduce emissions, and drawdown what is already there. It is by far and away the largest proposed solution going right now at our current technology level......by far.

       But one would need to be very very serious about this. No fiddle farting around with only changing this or that. It would need to be done world wide. Completely change agriculture to regenerative systems, and even some wild ecosystem recovery projects as well. 

       But the scale most certainly is large enough, especially with what is already being done with solar etc... to reduce emissions.

24688. One Planet Only Forever at 13:17 PM on 6 April 2016
       Dangerous global warming will happen sooner than thought – study
       

       Tom,

       I would support whatever measures will actually advance humanity to a lasting better future for all. Helping those who would choose to pursue personal reward in ways that can be understood to be harmful to change their minds can be expected to require actions those people would consider unfair and unjustified limits on 'their freedom' or unjustified removal of what they consider to be their deserved personal gains. Hopefully they would not violently try to defend their position, but it is clear that some people are indoctrinated in the 'value of freedom to the point of violently defending the right to behave as they wish'.

       In addition to constantly creating damaging economic developments (because they are the more rewarding actions if they can be gotten away with), the competition to be the ones to benefit the most from the opportunities that must be fought over (because they are not sustainable activities) has clearly produced massive amounts of tragic suffering (for others, including bigger challenges for today's generation of humanity).

       As far as the specifics of what will need to happen, the recent exposure of the less unacceptable financial wheeling and dealing pursued by some among the global wealthy is a good step. If it results in one less place on this planet for unacceptable people to get away with what they can understand does not advance humanity to a lasting better future then change in the right direction has occurred. If Panama maintains its 'freedom' to make up rules that suit such people and prolong unsustainable damaging perceptions of prosperity for those types of undeserving people then humanity will continue to fail to advance.

       My return questions to you are: Do you understand that the belief that 'freedom of people to do as they please' has failed because some people can get away with unacceptable behaviour (behavour which is totally unacceptable for a person who is considered to be among the most fortunate, supposedly a leader)? And that it will continue to fail to advance humanity to a lasting better future for all unless such people are kept from personally succeeding in ways that are understood to be detrimental to the life circumstances others will face (which will require laws and penalties related to deliberately misleading political marketing like the laws already established regarding misleading commercial marketing)?

       I am all for freedom (and marketing), as long as it actually advances humanity to a lasting better future for all.

       Back to the climate change issue. It is clearly unacceptable for already very fortunate people to continue to be even more fortunate by prolonging their ability to win their bets on getting away with activity that is understood to create problems that others, especially future generations, will have to deal with.

       The most fortunate and the leaders of a current generation should be leading by example and living the way it is understood that future humanity will be able to enjoy living. That will motivate 'all of them, not just the responsibvle considerate ones' to actually strive to create legitimately sustainable better ways of living rather than claiming confidence that future generations will advance in spite of the added challenges thrown their way by the undeserving successes of the less responsible and less considerate.

       I am justifiably skeptical of the actual progress that will be made by humanity unless changes occur that make more of the most fortunate behave more considerately and responsibly. The ideal would be for every wealthy powerful person to be responsible and considerate. That would most rapidly advance humanity. Anything would be better than continuing the creation of 'temporary unsustainable appearances of prosperity for some' that are aspired to by others and are unjustifiably claimed to be legitimate advancements of humanity.

24689. Tom Curtis at 12:04 PM on 6 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       RedBaron @9, the only relevant section of your first link I can find states:

       "Well-managed grazing systems can cause dramatic improvements to soil quality from organic matter or soil carbon accumulation. This contrasts with row crops, especially such crops as corn silage that return little in the way of root or aboveground biomass to the soil. In the southeastern United States, converting tilled cropland back to grassland increased soil carbon about 3.5 percent per year for up to 40 years until a higher soil carbon stability level was reached (Conant et al. 2000). Owens and Hothem (2000) found higher levels of soil carbon in pastures than in no-till cropland on the same soil types after 20 years."

       There is no indication that I can see that pastures are no-till seeded with grains for cropping while continuing to be used as pastures in other seasons.  The paper cited regarding soil carbon for no-till cropping of corn (Owens and Hothem 2000) shows a decline of soil carbon content of 300 tonnes per km^3 over ten years from the base condition.  That is hardly convincing support for your case that soil carbon can be increased by pasture cropping of corn.  Indeed, it is no support as it does not discuss the case at all.

       For your second link, I could not find the link to the video itself, but the pdf of the planting and grazing guide shows the corn is planted to be grazed, not harvested.  From the "manual", it states that it is planted in rotation with alfalfa (lucerne), a C3 plant.  However, growing lucerne does not increase soil organic carbon in the same way that growing grass does.  Therefore I stand by my claim.  The no-till pasture cropping of grass and a grain will not work with corn; and it is only for the grass/grain case that you have evidence of significant increase in soil organic carbon.

       Further, even if I was wrong on that point, I included land given over to corn and other C4 cereals in my estimate above, so at worst, if I am wrong about the grain, my conclusion stands.

24690. RedBaron at 09:21 AM on 6 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       Tom,

       So you hypothesis is that this won't work for corn (maize). Have you tested that hypothesis? I have. You simply flip the c4 c3 backwards from the way you do wheat. Got the idea from this guy's USDA case study where he claims to be able to grow pretty much any  month, just a matter of timing and species. Now he grows it for forage. I let it mature. Same principle though.

       Profitable grazing based dairy systems.

       Sustainable 12 Aprils Dairy Grazing

       How much grain that is a net CO2 emissions source is grown to feed confinement dairies and feedlots? How much would it change the net balance if all of them were converted to either pasture cropping of even just grazing?

24691. Tom Curtis at 08:25 AM on 6 April 2016
       Dangerous global warming will happen sooner than thought – study
       

       Somewhat relevant to the discussion between OPOF and me:

24692. chriskoz at 08:14 AM on 6 April 2016
       Dangerous global warming will happen sooner than thought – study
       

       Tom@52,

       Now I have about clear undestanding of your points, thank you. I agree with lots of your observations, in particular I share your opinion that 'free market' as you defined it can in theory fix the AGW problem.

       Unfortunately, in practice, as of today, we are far away from that ideal model. Influence of FF interests is very strong. That influence is driven primarily by money because FF exploration is still one of the most profitable business activity (more  profitable are illegal activities such as selling illicit drugs) backed by strong political lobbying, therefore all politicians are biased or under strong pressure from the lobbyists. Ordinary citizens who vote those politicians into power, are also biased by such lobbying, "coal is good for humanity" campaigns, etc. The examples at all levels abound. E.g. the ignorance, willful or not, of current federal env minister Greg Hunt about climate science who sources his knowledge about climate change from Wikipedia rather than from the advice of many scientific bodies assigned to do so. E.g. Malcolm Turnball, who when became PM, changed his mind about the efficiency of carbon tax/emission trading policy that he used to back up few years back. Now be does not want to talk about it and continues an ineffective nonsense "direct action" policy of his predecessor. I can only guess because the party lines backed by strong FF lobbyists force him to do so. Finally, Annastacia Palaszczuk, QLD premier, agaisnt her acceptance of climate science and the problem of AGW that she strongly expressed during her campaign, approved the damaging mega-coalmine, while the result of it - degrfqadation of Great Barrier Reef, is happenning in her backyard. Such decision by Ms Palaszczuk can only be described as madness. The saddest aspectt of it is: the alternative premier at the election 1 year ago (Newmann) would've made the same decision even more light hearted because he denies climate science.

       My bottom line is: in current political situation, we don't have govs that are able to succesfully provide market correction required to fix the FF externalities. Would the political reforms you're proposing (e.g. essential elimination of political donations by corporations) fix that situation? I don't know how realistic such reforms are in the first place: this is not the area I've been researching.

       It can aslo be argued that the monetary value of FF externalities calculated by the economists will always be undervaluated. That's because they take into account the damage to the monetary goods and services to the human population only. They don't take into account non monetary environmental services such as biodiversity and the beauty of the environment. That's because a price cannot be put on it. Depending on your ethical stance, you can even argue, that a loss of many homo sapiens individuals (due to inevitable stress & ensuing wars such as the one currently in Syria) is of lesser importance than a loss of an endangered species with the resulting "hole" in previously occupied ecological niche. From the pure sustainability perspective, homo sapiens species, including all its racial heritage, is very safe, even its civilisation will survive in a coming strong stress of 2K+ of GW. Any losses can be reuilt quickly once the planet's climate is stabilised. However any species loss cannot be rebuilt. From that point of view, immediate and strong action is required: e.g. an authoritarian world gov, that would impose all regulations we've been discussing here, that have failed. Sadly, I must agree with you, that such imposition is less realistic than the slow free market evolution as you describe.

24693. Tom Curtis at 08:00 AM on 6 April 2016
       Dangerous global warming will happen sooner than thought – study
       

       OPOF @55, you have avoided answering my question.  To make it more specific, if democratic countries refuse to impliment your tall poppy policy, what is the limit on actions you will take or recommend that others take to ensure that it becomes law?

24694. Tom Curtis at 07:51 AM on 6 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       RedBaron @6 pasture cropping is not suitable for Corn (maize).  Specifically, from your link it says:

       "The key to how pasture cropping works is the relationship between cool season (C3) plants and warm season (C4) plants—the difference being the number of carbon molecules and how they affect the process by which glucose is produced in a plant. C3 plants, such as wheat, rice, oats, and barley, grow early in the season and then become less active or go dormant as temperatures rise and light intensity increases. In contrast, C4 plants, such as corn, sorghum, sugarcane, and millet, remain dormant until temperatures become warm enough to switch on and begin growing.

       Pasture cropping utilizes the niche created by C3 and C4 plants. When a C4 is dormant (during winter), a C3 plant seed is sown by no-till drilling into the C4 pasture. With the onset of spring, the C3 plants begin to grow. If managed properly, plus the right amount of rain, the C3 crop can be harvested before the C4 plants begin the vigorous part of their growth cycle. The removal of the C3 crop will then stimulate C4 plant growth (due to reduced competition). The mix of shallow- and deep-rooted plants also access water resources in the soil differently, which can reduce competition and increase overall productivity."

       Corn, as a C4 plant, will remain dormant and grow at the same time as the grasses in the pasture, thereby eliminating the advantage of pasture cropping.  Nor will the process necessarilly be advantagious in all croplands.  Differences in rainfall periods, and annual temperature cycles may well make the method unsuitable.

       Even so, applying that value to the total land area under cerial production (including C4 cereals, so an obvious overestimate) yields the capacity to sequester 3 years of current anthropogenic CO2 emissions.  A useful contribution, but not a genuine replacement to more standard carbon sequestration schemes if they become necessary.

24695. Tom Curtis at 07:28 AM on 6 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       dklyer @5:

       "Isn’t it true that if we capture all the CO2 we produce and compress it to a liquid, we would fill Lake Erie in 6 years?"

       Close enough.

       Taking the density of liquid CO2 at 30^oC (598 kg/m³), the volume of Lake Erie (480 Km³, or 480 x 109 m³), and 2014 combined emissions of 40 GtCO2 per annum, it would take 7.18 years to fill Lake Erie.

       A figure of 6 years may be accurate if we include BAU increases of emissions over coming years.

24696. RedBaron at 07:16 AM on 6 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       Biochar (Terra preta) is one way but by no means the only way to store carbon in the soil.

       Pasture Cropping: A Regenerative Solution from Down Under

        

       "Jones calculates that 171 tons of CO2 per hectare has been sequestered to a depth of half a meter on Winona.

       Calculate that for all the wheat we produce.  Then calculate it again adding other crops like corn. The number will astonish you. Easily big enough. And istead of costly unproven technologies, it actually increases profits. Or maybe you have a problem with farmers making a profit?

24697. dklyer at 07:00 AM on 6 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       As I’m sure has been posted here somewhere, bio fuel capture where the bio fuel is converted to charcoal and the charcoal is turned into farm land, is something people have talked about. If you use the heat from the charcoal burning you are creating energy from the hydrogen and leaving the carbon to be sequestered or used as a soil amendment. Things like that are great but I don’t think they scale up well.

       The magnitude of the problem is staggering. Isn’t it true that if we capture all the CO2 we produce and compress it to a liquid, we would fill Lake Erie in 6 years? At the same time, liquid CO2 is a commercially viable product. Isn’t the firm that was supposed to be capturing carbon from Alberta being sued because they can’t deliver promised amounts to other firms?

       So CCS is a necessary part of the picture, just not one we seem to have made much progress on.

24698. RedBaron at 05:54 AM on 6 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       John,

       Anything to avoid storing the carbon in the soil where it belongs? Sorry but as important as CO2 sequestration is needed, why spend "massive" investments in unproven technologies when actually the soil needs the carbon, and it actually is profitable instead of costing massively?

       Who wants to spend massively to pump CO2 in caves when the majority of agricultural soils worldwide are in miserable shape and desperately need that carbon? Meanwhile spending even more massive subsidies to ensure we don't  make the changes needed to get this done.? Insanity.

       You wonder why some people scoff at climate scientists and deny everything they say? It's because of ridiculous expensive unproven mitigation proposals like that.

24699. John Hartz at 05:42 AM on 6 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       Supplemental reading:

       Carbon disposal technologies are needed because incremental emissions cuts are not enough to fight climate change, says Oxford University climate scientist.

       Massive carbon capture investment 'needed to slow global warming' by Fiona Harvey & Kylie Noble, Guardian, Apr 4, 2016

24700. Cooper13 at 03:37 AM on 6 April 2016
       To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?
       

       SRM does virtually nothing to address the problem of ocean acidification (and actually could end up making that problem worse by justifying delayed actions on carbon emissions). 

       Ocean acidification may end up having a much worse impact on our global food supplies and food chains than warming of the globe.

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