Note to media: The Ghost of Climate Yet to Come says, “It’s not too late!”
RealClimate makes a good point with the title of its post, “Irreversible Does Not Mean Unstoppable” about the recent NOAA led paper (see Climate change “largely irreversible for 1000 years,” with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe):
We at Realclimate have been getting a lot of calls from journalists about this paper, and some of them seem to have gone all doomsday on us.
Indeed, this is the perfect paper for someone, like say, Lou Dobbs, who can go from hard-core doubt/denial to credulous hopelessness in one breath, as he did Friday (h/t ClimateScienceWatch):
Let’s assume, for right now, that there is such a thing as climate change, let’s assume it’s manmade. What indication–what evidence do we have, what reason do we have to believe that mankind can do anything significantly to reverse it because a number of people, as you know in the last two weeks, are reported that, that, this is a 1,000-year trend irrespective of what we do.
Yeah, let’s assume, for right now, there is climate change and let’s further assume its manmade since there’s like no factual basis for actually knowing those things. Then let’s tell the public the latest research means if there is manmade climate change, the situation is now hopeless — when in fact the latest research makes it all the more urgent to keep total emissions and concentrations as low as posisble
Seriously. This guy has his own hour TV show on a major cable network — albeit one that fired its staff covering science and environment and hired a psychic to cover climate change (OK, let’s assume, for right now, that I made up that last part).
The whole world has become Dickensian (see “A Tale of Two Disasters“), which just happens to remind me of another Dickens story relevant to the theme that irreversible does not mean unstoppable:
“Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” said Scrooge, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?”
Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.
“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me.”
The Spirit was immovable as ever.
Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE.
“Am I that man who lay upon the bed?” he cried, upon his knees.
The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.
“No, Spirit! Oh no, no!”
The finger still was there.
“Spirit!” he cried, tight clutching at its robe, “hear me. I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?”
For the first time the hand appeared to shake.
“Good Spirit,” he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it: “Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life.”
The kind hand trembled.
Or, as RealClimate put it less poetically:
But you have to remember that the climate changes so far, both observed and committed to, are minor compared with the business-as-usual forecast for the end of the century. It’s further emissions we need to worry about. Climate change is like a ratchet, which we wind up by releasing CO2. Once we turn the crank, there’s no easy turning back to the natural climate. But we can still decide to stop turning the crank, and the sooner the better.
Indeed, we are only committed to about 2°C total warming so far, which is a probably manageable — and even more probably, if we did keep CO2 concentrations from peaking below 450 ppm, the small amount of CO2 we are likely to be able to remove from the atmosphere this century could well take us below the danger zone.
But if we don’t reverse emissions trends soon, we will probably triple that temperature rise, most likely negating any practical strategy to undo the impacts for hundreds of years (see “Hadley Center: Catastrophic 5-7°C warming by 2100 on current emissions path“). Such is the climate change yet to come.
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Denialists might better be defined as hydrocarbon proponents and PR flacks.
Unable to deny global warming, now their goal is to secure doubt that we can do anything to stop it. This allows continued carbon fuel no matter what.
Of course the only clearly defined proven solution is to halt all CO2 emissions by halting all carbon fuel combustion. End that business completely.
This is a business maneuver, propping up an energy source that hastens our demise. It is being sold as a way to fix the economy.
The API message is: “Lets keep burning oil, search for more while we look for a solution for global warming (that does not involve halting fossil fuel)
Humans sure do have a hard choice to make: investing in the now or in the future. Pity that the longer we wait, the more stark the choices. And half measures are insufficient. Yikes !
http://www.noenergytomorrow.org/ 2009/ 02/ elephant-in-the-room-is-named-co2.html
Something Lou might understand:
Climate change will happen and it will cause problems in the future, and for a long period of time, no matter what we do. But the fact is, if we do nothing about the problem now, the problems will be worse than if we tried right now to mitigate those future problems by reducing emissions of ghg.
It is a depressing idea I guess, that we are now forced to manage for lessening the degree of worseness. But that is reality. Also, just because the climate will change and bring problems, doesn’t mean that 1000 years from now, things will not be better, if we adequately meet the challenges reality places in front of us. It also doesn’t mean, that even as climate changes, that we cannot have successes in improving any other area of human endeavour one might think of, including mitigation of environmental, human and social problems caused or made worse by climate change.
…are minor compared with the business-as-usual forecast for the end of the century. It’s further emissions we need to worry about….
Yes, we need to worry about further emissions, but it is looking more and more that the levels we are at and are committed to will break the back of the current level of civilizations.
Whether this then becomes a positive feedback we cant tell for now. But certainly the quality of life of the west is going to plummet no matter what we do now.
In David Archer’s blog at RealClimate, he says:
“The only long-term way to accelerate the CO2 drawdown in the long tail would be to actively remove CO2 from the air, which I personally believe will ultimately be necessary.”
What’s wrong with his presentation (and that of Susan Solomon, who he cites) is that they convey an unnecessary pessimism about our being able to do anything NOW, about “actively remov(ing) CO2 from the air”. They both support trying to stop increasing CO2 emissions and they correctly argue that, BY ITSELF, this leads to effectively irreversible changes.
THIS is what scares the journalists who prompted Archer to write his blog, and into noting:
“We at realclimate have been getting a lot of calls from journalists about this paper (Solomon’s), and some of them seem to have gone all doomsday on us.”
Drawdown of atmospheric CO2 is not only possible, now, but is affordable, and is the only way to get us down below 350 ppm, within this century.
Drawdown is not an alternative to, but a necessary complement to both conservation and replacement of fossil fuels as our major sources of energy. And drawdown can be initiated now to make transition to non-fossil fuel energy less disruptive and less costly.
In this connection, I have 2 papers in the pipeline a Climatic Change, that describe about 8 to 13 GtC/yr (8 to 13 wedges per year) of affordable ‘bio-sequestration’, that require only already mature technologies; one involves irrigated afforestation of sub-tropical deserts, and the other, sustainable eco-neutral conservation harvest of old-growth tropical forests. And people like Peter Read, of Massey University, New Zealand, have for years, been pushing biosphere carbon stock management, as a practical route to multiple wedge-fractions of drawdown.
Note: 8 wedges is about equal to the amount of fossil-fuel-CO2, plus that from deforestation, currently (2000 – 2007 estimates) globally dumped into the atmosphere each year; so anything above that, is net drawdown.
Hansen throws a spanner in the jet engines of the Heathrow protesters, but also confuses the AGW deniers and makes the average concerned citizen uncomfortable about the whole situation of run-away climate change. He is of course right as not many will be able to afford air flight soon.
To Leonard Ornstein:
David also said this:
“Ultimately the airborne fraction of a CO2 release is determined largely by the buffer chemistry of the ocean, and you can get a pretty good answer with a simple calculation based on a well-mixed ocean, ignoring all the complicated stuff like temperature differences, circulation, and biology. The ocean decides that the airborne fraction of a CO2 release, after it spreads out into the other fast parts of the carbon cycle, will be in the neighborhood of 10-30%. The only long-term way to accelerate the CO2 drawdown in the long tail would be to actively remove CO2 from the air, which I personally believe will ultimately be necessary. But the buffering effect of the ocean would work against us here, releasing CO2 to compensate for our efforts.”
The more CO2 we put up, the more gets stored in the oceans, and the less bang for the buck we will get in drawdown… I think that’s what he is saying.
To Spaceman Spiff:
The message: “which I personally believe will ultimately be necessary”, conveys the pessimistic message that David doesn’t think that it’s possible to do it now – and he’s wrong on that important point.
And he notes that the longer we wait to drawdown atmospheric CO2, the larger the buffering reservoir in the oceans will be, and the less effective a given drawdown.
So clearly, drawdown now trumps delayed drawdown!
I completely agree with you. I was just highlighting the point David was trying to make that with increasing storage of CO2 in the oceans, drawdown won’t be an “easy” solution — and as you reiterated, drawdown becomes less and less efficient the longer we pump CO2 into the atmosphere (and so into the oceans).
Some are willing to say — “oh, let’s just wait and see whether the scientists’ predictions come true, and if so then we can always rely on good ol’ technology (such as various drawdown mechanisms) to solve the problem, should the problem ever arise”. I think David was trying to warn against that type of thinking and is strongly advocating for major reductions NOW before we get to the point of completely losing control.
I am at a loss as to why people cannot see any difference between a “1000 years of catastrophic climate change” vs. “1000 years of manageable climate change”. What is so mysterious about that distinction?
I fail to understand the continuing use of the term “irreversible”. The word “Biochar” has been around long enough now to have had someone bring it into this discussion (Peter Read’s name is above – but not in a Biochar context). A good new (27 Feb) Biochar reference is worth reading: See
http://www.ft.com/ cms/ s/ 2/ 67843ec0-020b-11de-8199-000077b07658.html .
(Financial Times). Googling will show a fantastic growth in literature on the Biochar topic – almost all strongly positive. Ron