Party on Garth

Dear Mr fantasy
Play us a tune

Something to make us all happy

-Steve Winwood

He likes to sing along
But he don't know what it means

-Kurt Cobain

Greetings

       I hope everyone had an excellent Thanksgiving, (and hope you all stayed home on Black Friday).  One thing I am thankful for is that it started raining on the Olympic peninsula, and put the rain forest fire out.

       The Paris talks are about to kick off, and Nature has devoted an issue to it.  The kick off article kind of let's the at out of the bag.   Is the two C world fantasy?

       Its a problem that few are willing to admit.   The official line is that it is "ambitious but achievable"   .  That has a nice ring to it.  Unfortunately, even getting to 2 , without economic disruption seems to requires  "negative emissions" . .  Of course the "negative emmissions technology doesn't yet exist yet, so we'll probably have to go past 2, and then come back. .  But they do provide good political cover for continuing to " party on"

"Models that have these negative emissions really do let you continue to party on now, because you have these options later,” says John Reilly, co-director of the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge.

   But the costs and difficulties of such a strategy are minimized due to political considerations

"Although the caveats are listed in the IPCC assessment, the report does not adequately highlight economic and technical challenges or modelling uncertainties, says David Victor, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, who participated in the IPCC assessment. Victor does not place all the blame on scientists glossing over the problems: when researchers drafted the assessment’s chapter on emissions scenarios and costs, he says, they included clear statements about the difficulty of achieving the 2 °C goal. But the governments — led by the EU and a bloc of developing countries — pushed for a more optimistic assessment in the final IPCC report. “We got a lot of pushback, and the text basically got mangled,” Victor says.

  A more honest assessment is provided by Kevin Anderson, here

    "We are incredibly unlikely to succeed on two degrees. We are unlikely to hold to three.”  Paris is probably the end-game for two degrees C. ”

Hansen offers a more direct comment

          "...the United States has adopted a policy of calling for each country to set limits on carbon dioxide emissions, and will push for the adoption of technology to capture and store carbon dioxide. That approach, Hansen wrote in a new letter posted on his web site, "is so gross, it is best described as unadulterated 100 percent pure bullshit."

..."Watch what happens in Paris carefully to see if all that the leaders do is sign off on the pap that UN bureaucrats are putting together, indulgences and promises to reduce future emissions, and then clap each other on the back and declare success," Hansen writes. "In that case President Obama will have sold our children, and theirs, down the river."

          The "party on" folks continue to pin their hopes on negative emissions.  Here is a review of the "Third Way" suite of carbon sucking technologies.  The author enthusiastically concludes:

"It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the boom in third way technologies will result in a tech revolution far deeper and broader than that provided by wind and solar. If we discard highly speculative possibilities such as seaweed farming and capture of CO2 over Antarctica, a conservative estimate of the third way’s potential to capture atmospheric CO2 is that, by 2050, it could be drawing down around 15 gigatonnes per year – a little less than is needed to reduce atmospheric concentrations by 1ppm. If that sounds like science fiction, just consider what nuclear, jet-age 1950 would have looked like to those living in 1915."

I'm not sure I find that very exciting, though. In 2050, we will have passed 2 degrees, and CO2 levels will be at 500.   Which tipping points will we have passed?  Or willing tipping points be met before 2 degrees?    

Meanwhile a recent study calls into question one of the key components of the climate model.   That is the "sensitivity " of the earth to increase in "CO2 levels.   This study indicates that the sensitivity may be twice what was assumed.  

The researchers found that climates on Earth may be more sensitive to rise in CO2 levels than was previously thought.

The new data suggests that past predictions significantly underestimate the impact of greenhouse warming and that Earth’s climate may be more sensitive to increased carbon dioxide than was once thought, said one of the researchers Tim Lowenstein, professor at Binghamton University in New York.

The study examined nahcolite crystals found in Green River Formation in Colorado, US. The crystals were formed 50 million years ago during a hothouse climate. They found that CO2 levels during this time may have been as low as 680 parts per million (ppm), nearly half the 1,125 ppm predicted by previous experiments.

“The significance of this is that CO2 50 million years ago may not have been as high as we once thought it was, but the climate back then was significantly warmer than it is today,” Lowenstein explained.

Keystone Victory

There goes my hero
Watch him as he goes
      - Foo Fighters

We are the Champions
Of the world
        -Queen

Greetings

       As you all know by now the Obama administration has denied the application of the Keystone pipeline. .   Some hail this as a "huge win", others assert it is meaningless.

       Dave Roberts has weighed in on the side of victory.  see here.  Roberts is well known in climate-change circles, as a writer for Grist and now Vox.  He has my admiration as one of the few writers who is willing to look closely at the numbers, and who has made a point of highlighting the work of Dr Kevin Anderson . see The Brutal Logic of Climate Change Anderson has repeatedly  pointed out the chicanery that has gone into many politically motivated analyses of what it would actually take to get to 2 degrees.  See   Real Clothes for the Emperor.    So I read Roberts' analysis with interest.  

       Roberts  of course admits that turning down this pipeline will have little or no direct effect on CO2.  If the price is tight, the oil will flow- either by other pipelines or by rail , as it has been moving since the tar sands was developed.  Roberts asserts that it is a victory nonetheless .  It is political, or "activist" victory which may help to build the political will to deal with climate change..

   Dave Cohen , a former Oil Drum writer , sees things somewhat differently.  See here.  Cohen, whose blog  recounts various environmental horrors, and the human foibles that enable them, is an un apologetically pessimistic  He is willing to take a glass that is 3/4 full and pronounce it as "nearly empty".   Unfortunately, he often makes good points along the way

     In Cohen's view the "victory" is irrelevant and Roberts defense "silly".  Irrelevant because the context of what is going on in the world.  For instance. China has recently recalculated its CO2 emissions, and determined that they are 17% higher than previously reported.  This pokes a big hole in the theory that China is becoming more energy efficient, and less CO2 intensive see here.  .    The Paris summit is next month and the "voluntary commitments" add up to budget busting CO2 emissions..  The pledges, if followed,  might limit warming to 3 degrees  see here  Meanwhile, the world is in the midst of "coal renaissance",    (see PNAS study here ), with 2100 coal plants on the drawing boards and  557 under construction .   As Cohen points out, these events are occurring around the world, and American activism has little effect on them,     When stacked up against such facts, the symbolic or activist value of the Keystone denial does pale a bit .

     If you will pardon a sports metaphor , one might look at this situation as the closing minutes or a soccer game.  The other team is ahead by 10 points, and our team has just scored a goal.   Of course we are going to cheer, and jump up and down.   But, should we say that this goal is "significant"  , that somehow perhaps  momentum has shifted and the game can be worn ?

      But perhaps a sports metaphor is not appropriate.  After all who is on the other team?    Roberts points out that activism thrives on enemies.   So, we have made enemies of dirty coal, dirty tar sands,  dirty ExxonMobil .   Bernie Sanders has sponsored "keep it in the ground" bill.    You might call this a "supply side"  campaign .   This campaign has some echoes of the "war on drugs".   The main enemy in that war, you will recall, were peasant farmer in Latin and South America.  (Also users of Crack coca in - primarily black Americans).    In this conflict one might ask - what about the users?  

      If we were to see a victory over the energy suppliers,  the users would be in for quite a shock.   What sort of energy diet is implied by "keeping it in the ground"?     What is needed   is a worldwide decline in emissions between 1.3 and 3.1 per year. see  here.     GNP tracks pretty closely with energy and CO2,   see e.g  Is it Possible to Decouple? .   The recession of 2008 saw only a 1% decline in emmissions.    Kevin Anderson suggests based on equity,  the west needs to do more, so he recoemdnds reductions of 8 to 10% per year .  Anderson has noted

      "If you’re serious about 2°C, the rates of change are so significant that it begs the way we see the world. That’s what people aren’t prepared to embrace," says Kevin Anderson, a climate scientist at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research. "Essentially you’d have to start asking questions about our current society and how we develop and grow."

     So, is the XL Victory some sort of political theater? Score one for the environment but full speed ahead?.  A cynical person could argue that Obama was merely throwing a bone to the climate folks, (at a time when oil prices were so low it couldn't hurt the democrats), while keeping to the current energy policy of "all of the above"

   But, perhaps I am not considering the "long game" .   Social change takes a long time.  Roberts uses the analogy of the civil rights movement.   This analogy cuts both ways.  Yes, small victories eventuality mounted up to improve things for blacks.  But consider the time frame.  1863 - emancipation :1965 - the Voting Rights Act.  And today?   Unfortunately, we don't have time for the long game.    In 100 years, i doubt we will still be arguing about whether to burn more fossil fuels .The long game will be over, either we burned them or we didn't. 

         But lets cheer for a victory.  But let's also be aware that an one sided "activist" strategy of blaming the supplier, while allowing users to believe that they can "have it all" -  is at best optimistic, and at worst  dishonest..   At some point, the users need to be informed of what it will really take.   What it will take is degrowth, or a "planned economic recession".    

           However this seems fairly unlikely.  Here is a podcast with Dr Taintor on complexity and collapse.  He points out the through out history, when societies have needed to sole a problem, they have opted , not for a simple one  (if there was one), but by adding more complexity to the culture. (This is one way to avoid a fight with stake holders dependant on the status quou - such as the coal, oil and gas industries)   Thus , rather than ceasing to emit, we have proposals to continue to emit, and then to suck carbon out of the air.  see here

For starters, the draft ­agreement they’ll be using as the basis for discussion makes no reference to fossil fuels at all. Perhaps that should come as no surprise, given that dirty energy companies and their financial backers are among the sponsors of the summit.

In the absence of a concrete plan to roll back our reliance on coal, oil and gas, governments are kicking around climate “solutions” that let countries keep on burning them.

They’re entertaining ideas like carbon capture, use, and storage, or CCUS — a technology that would allow facilities like power plants to pump carbon emissions into the ocean or underground geologic formations. The approach is unfeasibly expensive, risky, and unproven at scale, but the U.S. and China favor it as an option that would preserve the role of dirty fuels.

The emerging concept of “net-zero” emissions goes a step further. Under that scheme, countries would be allowed to “offset” their carbon pollution with technologies that are meant to pull carbon dioxide out of the air, like producing vast quantities of charcoal and adding it to soils. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that 6 billion hectares of biomass — that’s four times the total land used today to grow all the world’s food — would be needed to match our fossil fuel use.

In other words, even as governments are talking about setting climate targets, they’re working hard to expand the extractive global economy with measures that could deepen the climate crisis. That’s ridiculous. We need to cut carbon, not find new places to bury it.

We'll always have Paris

We had it all
Just like Bogie and Bacall

     -Bertie Higgens

She said to me

I must go back to Paris

I said to her

Oh please don't do that to me

      -Garland Jeffreys
  

Greetings

First the good news   Buddhists make a statement.   Countries are making voluntary pledges    (more below)

Not so good.  Indonesia is on fire.  and he media is ignoring it.   Here's Monbiot

 "It is hard to convey the scale of this inferno, but here’s a comparison that might help: it is currently producing more carbon dioxide than the US economy. In three weeks the fires have released more CO2 than the annual emissions of Germany"

Also :2015 will close out as the hottest year in the 135 year climate record. It will hit temperatures, globally, about 1.1 to 1.2 C hotter than 1880s averages.

China reverses one child policy

And:  Unprecedented Cyclone bears down on Yemen  Oman expect eight years of rain in two days as Chapala forms in Arabian Sea.

---

   So, how about those pledges?   Brad Plummer runs the numbers.  They fall a little short of keeping us below 2 degrees.  In fact the "budget" gets busted just about when China starts cutting.

> "There's a big problem here: If the United States, EU, and China all followed through on their current emissions pledges, they'd consume practically the world's entire carbon budget by 2030 — leaving only scraps for the rest of the world (the part shaded in gray).

>
> That's untenable. The "rest of the world" is where most of humanity lives — 5 billion people. It includes India, which is still very poor, has per capita emissions that are justone-fourth of Europe's and China's, and will inevitably need to burn more fossil fuels to grow. It also includes Africa, which still has 620 million people without electricity. No one thinks it'd be fair for these developing countries to cut even more deeply than the United States and Europe.

Here is the paper 

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      Speaking of numbers.  Here is a discussion on what it would take to switch the US completely away from Fossil Fuels to renewable power.  It includes Mark Jacobson, the Stanford prof, who has put together a blue print, and Tom Murphy, a UC prof. of "Do the Math".  Some interesting take aways.  

    The cost in the US would be about $15 trillion.    By comparison the US federal budget is $3.4 trillion.  So, in round numbers it would add 10% to the federal budget.

     

"An estimated $15 trillion in capital investments—approximately $12 trillion in generation plus $3 trillion in storage—would be required to effect the transition for the United States—for the world, an estimate $100 trillion (for comparison, current global investment in the energy sector is between $1.5 and $2 trillion per year). But investments would offset costs or pay for themselves over time–high capital costs but zero fuel cost.

The build out speed would have be ten times faster than the current build out

"Solar and wind had been developing slowly but have taken off since about 2008, in part because of high-volume production in China. However, to approach 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, the rate of deployment would need to accelerate by an order of magnitude (factor of ten).