Comments on: MIT Part 2: Tackling the biggest source of climate confusion

By: Ronald

Ronald — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 20:10:46 +0000

That SOTU speech. (state of the union)

Were those lines about greenhouse gases intentionally wrong or just incompetence? That is the words that Pres. Bush said about greenhouse gases, that somehow we can ‘slow, stop and eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gases’ as some kind of victory, was that;

1) From the President? Who doesn’t know any better.

2) From the speechwriters? Who don’t know any better.

3) From policy makers? Who don’t know better.

4) From policy makers? Who knew better and that this is intentional. That they think that people don’t know any better and want to keep people misinformed by stating a lie?

I don’t know which is worse.

History will call out the 14 words in the 2003 state of the union speech about whether Iraq was looking for material to make a nuclear bomb. Will history also make note of a president in a 2008 SOTU speech making such a mistake about global warming and how to reduce its effects?

Stopping, slowing and reversing the growth of greenhouse gases is not much of a goal and is very short of what needs to be done. Does this president know that? I wonder.

By: Paul K

Paul K — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:11:28 +0000

Right now we are approaching 400 ppm. The desire is to reduce to and hold steady at 280 ppm in the second half of the century. Joe’s best case scenario sees CO2 going to 420 to 450 before going down. The president’s words, then, are an exact description of what must be done. As the preacher says, you’ve got to crawl before you walk and walk before you run. The first step in reducing CO2 concentrations is to slow the growth in emissions. U.S. emissions have increased a bit over 1.5%/year since 1990. Emissions actually decreased in 1991, 2001 and 2006 (all years with a Republican in the White House). In fact, the average increase during the Bush administration is well below the average of the Clinton years. So, here in the U.S., we may already have taken the slowing step. The next step is to stop the increase in emissions. We could be very close to doing that. The last step is precisely reversing the growth of greenhouse gases. If emissions go down rather than up, concentrations will go down too.

By: John Sterman

John Sterman — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 22:31:54 +0000

Paul K says: “If emissions go down rather than up, concentrations will go down too.” That is wrong, and illustrates exactly the problem our study found. Today, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are at least double the rate at which GHGs are removed from the atmosphere. Because the flow of emissions into the air is greater than the flow out, the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere is rising. If emissions go down, the flow into the air will still be greater than the flow out, so the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere will continue to rise, just not quite as fast. Concentrations will go down only when emissions fall below removal, which requires at least a 50% drop in emissions. For another example, suppose the federal budget deficit starts to drop. What happens to the national debt? It keeps rising, because any deficit at all continues to add to the debt. The debt will fall only when the government runs a surplus, meaning revenue exceeds expenditure. As long as you put water into your bathtub faster than you drain it out the amount of water in the tub will rise. That is not a political matter but conservation of matter.

By: Paul K

Paul K — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:40:34 +0000

I read the phrase “reverse the growth of greenhouse gases” to mean emissions going in reverse. For example, in 2006 U.S. emissions went down 1.3%. For that year growth was not just slowed, it was reversed. Now if we could manage to maintain or better that rate of reversal over 20 - 30 years, we’d have the 50% reduction you say is needed to affect concentrations.