James Hansen's Recent Paper: Global Warming in the Pipeline

[Dan Miller]

James Hansen and 14 co-authors recently released a preprint (not yet peer reviewed) paper titled “Global Warming in the Pipeline.”

This is an important paper that makes a number of key points, but the bottom line is we must act immediately to address the climate crisis. Hansen uses the framing "human-made geoengineering of Earth’s climate must be rapidly phased out” to call for emissions elimination, CDR and SRM.

Hansen Newsletter Summary:

https://mailchi.mp/caa/global-warming-in-the-pipeline?e=a29768a646

Full paper PDF:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2212.04474.pdf

Here is a summary of some of the key points of this quite long (48 page) paper:

1. The Earth Climate Sensitivity (ECS) — the Earth’s short-term response to a CO2 doubling — is higher than previously assumed. Most scientists said it was ~3ºC, but Hansen et al now say it is 4ºC or more based on paleoclimate data. This means there is more warming “in the pipeline” than previously assumed.

2. While humans have increased atmospheric CO2 by 50% since the industrial revolution, the actual climate forcing from all the added greenhouse gases is now ~4W/m^2, which is equivalent to a doubling of CO2 (i.e., CO2e (including all greenhouse gases, not just CO2) is about 560 ppm).

3. Part of the current warming has been hidden by human-made particulate air pollution (aerosols), mainly sulfur. When North America and Europe started to reduce emissions after the introduction of clean air acts in the 1970's, regional and global warming became more pronounced. In the past decades China and global shipping slashed sulfur emissions through cleaner fuels and sulfur filter systems ('scrubbers'). There are clear signals from ground, ocean and satellite based observations that the rate of global warming has recently doubled, which needs to be taken into account in risk assessments. 

4. Assuming today’s forcing (4 W/m^2) stabilizes and human-made aerosols are eliminated, when all feedbacks — including “long-term” feedbacks — play out, we are on track for about 10ºC warming and 6~7ºC if aerosols stay at today’s levels. This is a “scenario” and we still control our future, though we are on track to increase climate forcing from today’s 4 W/m^2.

5. If greenhouse gas forcings keeps growing at the current rate, it could match the level PETM mass extinction within a century. We are increasing climate forcing 20X faster than in the PETM so “long-term” feedbacks won’t take as long as in the paleo record (though some feedbacks will still be much longer than a human lifetime).

6. The paper concludes that we must: (a) implement a carbon fee and border duty (Fee and Dividend); (b) "human-made geoengineering of Earth’s climate must be rapidly phased out,” i.e., we must stop emitting greenhouse gases, remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and research and implement safe solar radiation management to counter the massive geoengineering experiment we are currently running; and (c) we must improve international cooperation to allow the developing world to grow using clean energy.

7. A companion paper will be coming out that addresses the near-term shutdown of the AMOC and associated “multi-meter” sea level rise on a century timescale. 

I did a Clubhouse podcast on this paper that you can listen to in your browser. Leon Simons, a co-author of the paper, was my guest.  It’s a long podcast (2.5 hours)!

Let me know if you have any questions.

Best,

Dan

[Clive Elsworth]

Excellent summary, thanks Dan.

 

Clive

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[Bruce Melton -- Austin, Texas]

Dan,

Thank you for this pre-pub review and I eagerly await reading Hansen's usually voluminous findings. That we are increasing GHG's 20x faster than the PETM is extremely meaningful. I hope this makes it into the final version.

I have spoken of Hansen et al's findings in establishing Sierra Club climate policy before, but let me repeat this story of how I convinced Sierra Club to lower their warming target from 350 ppm CO2 and 1.5 C to "350 and less than 1 C" as it may be helpful to some of you...

Hansen's 2008 "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where should humanity aim?" was responsible for the Club (and many others) adopting a 350 ppm CO2 warming target. The basis of these 2008 findings is that 350 ppm CO2 was the safe level because this is the maximum concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere where our Earth systems are stable, or the boundaries where our current Earth systems evolved, and that levels of CO2 greater than 350 ppm risked irreversible Earth systems collapse and loss and or reversal of environmental services resulting in very large feedback emissions, where some time period of overshoot was allowable as long as we rapidly restored Earth's energy imbalance by lowering CO2 (and other GHGs) back to within evolutionary boundaries of Earth's systems.

In 2017 Hansen et al published "Young people's burden: requirement of negative CO2 emissions" which for the first time modeled a 350 ppm CO2 world at 2100. Hansen's four scenarios with and without negative emissions to 2200 were: +2% annual emissions (business as usual BAU), constant CO2 concentration, -3% emissions (about net zero 2050) and -6% emissions (about net zero 2040). Results were 560 to 4,660 Gt CO2 removal plus net zero to achieve a temperature less than 1 C at 350 ppm CO2 in 2100 (1.5 C with BAU at 4,660 Gt).

Sierra Club had adopted both 350 ppm and a 1.5 C target like many others. When "Young people's burden..." was published it became obvious to some (not the Club yet) that there was a conflict. By late 2019 when the policy team was wrapping up our work that was published in March 2020. A simple explanation to the policy team was all it took to get the Club to adopt a new target of 1 C, as the only possible safe future was one where Earth's temperature was within the evolutionary boundaries of its systems.

Cheers,

Bruce

Bruce Melton PE
Director, Climate Change Now Initiative, 501c3
President, Melton Engineering Services Austin
8103 Kirkham Drive
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[Dan Miller]

People will be shocked by Hansen’s next paper that will say the AMOC could shut down around 2050. That causes all kinds of havoc around the world, including lowering precipitation/agriculture productivity throughout the Northern Hemisphere and causes “multi-meter” (10+ feet) of sea level rise by 2100 (plus lots of other nasty surprises like “Storms of my grandchildren”). And this is a one-way switch for quite a while (centuries). No overshoot then come back. That’s why Hansen is calling for CDR & SRM.

Dan

Let me know if you have any questions.

Best,

Dan

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[Greg Rau]

“"human-made geoengineering of Earth’s climate must be rapidly phased out,” i.e., we must stop emitting greenhouse gases, remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and research and implement safe solar radiation management to counter the massive geoengineering experiment we are currently running”

I’m confused, rapidly phase out bad geoengineering (emissions), rapidly phase in good geoengineering (CDR, SRM)? Geoengineering: Villain and/or savior?

Greg

Sent from my iPhone

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[Clive Elsworth]

Good question Greg

 

Perhaps Geoengineering can be seen like physical fighting: fighting against a stable climate, or fighting for a stable climate. 

Fighting can also be seen as evil or good. Physical bullying is evil, fighting the bully is good.

 

I suspect that Jim wants to improve public understanding of what Geoengineering means towards it’s etymological definition: engineering Earth’s climate.

 

Clive

[Dan Miller]

Jim is reframing the term “Geoengineering.”  Geoengineering is currently thought of the intentional interference on the climate to counter global warming. But global warming itself is massive geoengineering on its own and will have devastating consequences. When viewed this way, CDR & SRM are used to counter the geoenginnering we have done and are doing to the Earth.

People today worry that SRM will have negative consequences — as if emitting 2.4 trillion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere doesn’t???  SRM is child’s play compared to what we are doing and we will soon reach “points of no return.”

I like to compare SRM to cancer treatment. If a doctor told you they would irradiate you with dangerous rays and inject you with poison, you would think they were crazy and you would refuse. But if she explains that you will die without the treatment, then those “dangerous” treatments seem a lot more palatable. It’s the cancer that is the main problem, not the treatment.

Dan

On Dec 23, 2022, at 9:35 PM, Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

“"human-made geoengineering of Earth’s climate must be rapidly phased out,” i.e., we must stop emitting greenhouse gases, remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and research and implement safe solar radiation management to counter the massive geoengineering experiment we are currently running”

I’m confused, rapidly phase out bad geoengineering (emissions), rapidly phase in good geoengineering (CDR, SRM)? Geoengineering: Villain and/or savior?

Greg

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 21, 2022, at 7:52 PM, Clive Elsworth <cl...@endorphinsoftware.co.uk> wrote:



Excellent summary, thanks Dan.

 

Clive

On 22/12/2022 02:04 GMT Dan Miller <d...@rodagroup.com> wrote:

 

 

James Hansen and 14 co-authors recently released a preprint (not yet peer reviewed) paper titled “Global Warming in the Pipeline.”

 

This is an important paper that makes a number of key points, but the bottom line is we must act immediately to address the climate crisis. Hansen uses the framing "human-made geoengineering of Earth’s climate must be rapidly phased out” to call for emissions elimination, CDR and SRM.

 

Hansen Newsletter Summary:

https://mailchi.mp/caa/global-warming-in-the-pipeline?e=a29768a646

 

Full paper PDF:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2212.04474.pdf

 

Here is a summary of some of the key points of this quite long (48 page) paper:

 

1. The Earth Climate Sensitivity (ECS) — the Earth’s short-term response to a CO2 doubling — is higher than previously assumed. Most scientists said it was ~3ºC, but Hansen et al now say it is 4ºC or more based on paleoclimate data. This means there is more warming “in the pipeline” than previously assumed.

 

2. While humans have increased atmospheric CO2 by 50% since the industrial revolution, the actual climate forcing from all the added greenhouse gases is now ~4W/m^2, which is equivalent to a doubling of CO2 (i.e., CO2e (including all greenhouse gases, not just CO2) is about 560 ppm).

 

3. Part of the current warming has been hidden by human-made particulate air pollution (aerosols), mainly sulfur. When North America and Europe started to reduce emissions after the introduction of clean air acts in the 1970's, regional and global warming became more pronounced. In the past decades China and global shipping slashed sulfur emissions through cleaner fuels and sulfur filter systems ('scrubbers'). There are clear signals from ground, ocean and satellite based observations that the rate of global warming has recently doubled, which needs to be taken into account in risk assessments. 

 

4. Assuming today’s forcing (4 W/m^2) stabilizes and human-made aerosols are eliminated, when all feedbacks — including “long-term” feedbacks — play out, we are on track for about 10ºC warming and 6~7ºC if aerosols stay at today’s levels. This is a “scenario” and we still control our future, though we are on track to increase climate forcing from today’s 4 W/m^2.

 

5. If greenhouse gas forcings keeps growing at the current rate, it could match the level PETM mass extinction within a century. We are increasing climate forcing 20X faster than in the PETM so “long-term” feedbacks won’t take as long as in the paleo record (though some feedbacks will still be much longer than a human lifetime).

 

6. The paper concludes that we must: (a) implement a carbon fee and border duty (Fee and Dividend); (b) "human-made geoengineering of Earth’s climate must be rapidly phased out,” i.e., we must stop emitting greenhouse gases, remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and research and implement safe solar radiation management to counter the massive geoengineering experiment we are currently running; and (c) we must improve international cooperation to allow the developing world to grow using clean energy.

 

7. A companion paper will be coming out that addresses the near-term shutdown of the AMOC and associated “multi-meter” sea level rise on a century timescale. 

 

I did a Clubhouse podcast on this paper that you can listen to in your browser. Leon Simons, a co-author of the paper, was my guest.  It’s a long podcast (2.5 hours)!

 

<MKVLW5Wx.png>

Hansen: We Are Committed to 7ºC Warming! - Climate Chat clubhouse.com

 

Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Best,

Dan

 

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[Bruce Melton -- Austin, Texas]

Pretty amazing he is calling for SRM. One thing to remember about SRM when folks say it doesn't reduce emissions  -  it absolutely does reduce natural feedback emissions and accumulation because feedbacks increase with increasing temperature. Keith 2017 says reduced 100Gt C with RCP 8.5 at 2100.

Still haven't jumped into Hansen's draft yet - annual end of year report is due and thawing neighbor's pipes out... you know, normal climate change things in Texas. It is supposed to be 70s in Austin by Wednesday. Yesterday 14 to 30. The Valentines Week 2021 Winter Storm Uri ice bomb with 144 hours below freezing and statewide grid failure smokes any cold event we have ever seen for duration, tho a few single clear calm nights have been a few degrees colder. This current event by absolute metrics was #3 behind 1989 but ahead of the old #3 in 2011, but this was the earliest ever for such an extreme event.

Happy Holidays All!

B

Bruce Melton PE
Director, Climate Change Now Initiative, 501c3
President, Melton Engineering Services Austin
8103 Kirkham Drive
Austin, Texas 78736
(512)799-7998
ClimateDiscovery.org
ClimateChangePhoto.org
MeltonEngineering.com
Face...@Bruce.Melton.395
Inst...@Bruce.C.Melton
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Twitter - BruceCMelton1

[Mike Biddle]

Great framing Dan.  You beat me to the punch and with a much better reply.  

Best regards,

Dr. Mike Biddle

Partner | Evok Innovations

San Francisco Bay Area Office

c: 925-393-9129

e: mi...@evokinnovations.com 

 

Sign up here to get the latest news from Evok Innovations!

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From: carbondiox...@googlegroups.com <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Dan Miller <d...@rodagroup.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 24, 2022 12:19:37 AM
To: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>
Cc: Clive Elsworth <cl...@endorphinsoftware.co.uk>; carbondiox...@googlegroups.com <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; Jim Hansen <jimeh...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [CDR] James Hansen's Recent Paper: Global Warming in the Pipeline

 

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[Robert Chris]

I'm not sure why Hansen et al would use the word 'geoengineering' in this way.  It was clearly defined as a response to climate change more than a decade ago by The Royal Society, David Keith and others, and an essential part of that definition was that the intervention in the climate system was deliberate and intended to ameliorate the effects of climate change.  The word should probably now be allowed to Rest in Peace as the discourse has moved on and it has been superseded.

My own thoughts on this paper are below.  In brief, it is much like the curate's egg - good in parts.

Comments on Global warming in the pipeline (Hansen et al 2022)

The core message is that both the magnitude and response times of human causes of climate change and responses to it have been seriously misrepresented by the scientific community.  This has been due largely to inadequacy in the manner in which climate models have handled uncertainties relating to both the warming effect of a doubling of atmospheric greenhouse gases, and the impact of human generated aerosols.  They argue that making ‘much of the planet inhospitable for humanity and [causing] the loss of coastal cities to sea level rise … can still be avoided via a reasoned policy response’.  They prescribe three policies: a) a universal escalating carbon price; b) rapid and deep emissions reductions supported by greenhouse gas removal from the atmosphere, and the possible short-term deployment of albedo enhancement (increasing the amount of sunlight reflected back to outer space); and c) effective global cooperation.

The bulk of this lengthy paper is devoted to a detailed analysis of the history of model-derived estimates of the warming effect of a doubling of atmospheric greenhouse gases, technically referred to as the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) and the cooling effect of aerosols (pollution associated with the burning of fossil fuels).  They consider ECS to be closer to 5^oC than the generally accepted 3^oC.  They further explain their preferred metric of Earth System Sensitivity (ESS) that includes a wider range of climate factors than ECS and therefore more accurately reflects the likely warming impact of increased atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs).  They assess ESS to be about 10^oC before accounting for aerosols.

The lack of reliable data about aerosols, both historical and current, and considerable uncertainty about their complex interactions with clouds, are, they explain, the reason that their climatic effect has been underestimated in climate models.  From a variety of sources, they estimate that aerosol cooling might reduce GHG warming by about 3^oC, producing a net latent warming of about 7^oC.

The climatic effect of these revised values is much greater warming locked in from historical emissions than previously anticipated.  They estimate that by 2050 surface temperature will have increased by 2^oC and the remainder of the 10^oC would occur within a century assuming current levels of emissions are maintained and the aerosols continue to be reduced and are largely eliminated as part of global public health programmes.

The paper repeatedly refers to lack of data and uncertainties about various climatic effects and response times and makes a number of suggestions for further research.  However, notwithstanding these shortcomings, the authors provide a cogent argument to support their claim that as these knowledge gaps succumb to scientific progress, the extent and rate of climate change will be shown to have been grossly underestimated.

For all the erudition evident in their analysis of climate change, their policy prescription seems disturbingly confused, and perhaps even naïve.  The first two policy proposals are climate focussed, seeking to reduce the atmospheric burden of GHGs by reducing emissions and removal of already emitted GHGs still resident in the atmosphere, and to the extent that these don’t reduce surface temperature fast enough, consideration of albedo enhancement (AE).  They do not explore the different cooling dynamics of reducing atmospheric GHGs and AE but do use five short sentences to highlight the risks associated with AE without any assessment of the risks of not undertaking AE.  The implication is that although reducing atmospheric GHGs may not be sufficient to avert the climate disasters they refer to, AE should only be deployed if it has an acceptable risk profile.  The possibility, even the likelihood, that the risks associated with AE might be considerably less than the risks of not deploying it, is not considered.  This is not a balanced approach to risk analysis.

Their third policy, that the nations of the world collaborate effectively to reduce emissions, must be seen in the context of more than three decades of international negotiations under the aegis of the UNFCCC.  This policy prescription appears to be a case of hope triumphing over experience.  If experience is taken as a more secure guide for future action, it seems unlikely that there will be a radical realignment of geopolitical forces on a timescale short enough to enable the political collaboration necessary to deliver the practical and climatically effective deployments at scale envisaged by these authors.

The rapid climate change now underway may have been accelerated by human behaviour but it has its own momentum that does not respect the political machinations of humans.  The time has long passed when we needed more science, more research, more understanding, to know that climate change poses an existential threat, and that the necessary response was at least to stop exacerbating the situation by allowing our emissions to grow unconstrained.  While these authors have done a great service in highlighting shortcomings in our earlier understanding about the scale and imminence of a climate catastrophe, the policy prescriptions remain the same as they were in 1990 and before, namely, to change our behaviour so as to eliminate the earth’s energy imbalance (EEI).  This task has become more challenging, more costly and considerably more risky as a result of three decades of relative inaction.  While the policy rhetoric may be more compelling today, its practical realisation remains as elusive as ever.  The unanswered question is whether that can change soon enough.  That’s a political rather than scientific question.  My personal view, for what it's worth, is that we are probably at or close to the point where the risks of effective action overwhelm the political appetite for taking them.

Robert Chris

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Regards

Robert

[H simmens]

Robert,

Following up on your thoughtful comments about the Hansen paper I continue to be puzzled by Hansen and colleagues’ continuing advocacy of carbon pricing and nuclear power in the context of a technical paper on warming in the pipeline. I am not aware that any of the authors have any particular expertise in climate policy.  

That said, to me the most significant and promising part of the paper can be captured in these three separated sentences: (my bolding)

“The basic requirement to preserve shorelines is return to a climate no warmer than the mid-20th century, possibly a bit cooler. This cooler climate will also address other problems such as overheating of low latitudes and increasing regional climate extremes.”

“given that GHG forcing is already 4 W/m2, it may be necessary to temporarily affect EEI via solar radiation management (SRM), if the world is to avoid disastrous consequences, including large sea level rise….

The present decade may be the last opportunity to develop the knowledge, technical capability, and political will for the actions that are needed to save global coastal regions from long-term inundation.”

These unambiguous statements from the world’s best known and perhaps most prescient climate scientist and colleagues is entirely consistent with and supportive of the HPAC mission. Essentially, he is saying that our goal must be to get temperatures back to well below 1° C, SRM must be employed in order to achieve that, and needs to be urgently implemented in this decade.  

We ought to be using these statements as both a sword and shield in our efforts to convince the climate commissariat to urgently determine how SRM can be deployed most effectively and safely in the context of an integrated plan to implement the other two dimensions of the Climate Triad - ER and GHGR -  in order to bring temperature increases back to where they were in the mid-20th century or earlier to restore a safe climate for all life on earth. 

Herb

PS the Steering Circle indicated that we will reopen our two papers - Vision for a Healthy Planet and the Case for Urgent Climate Cooling -  in 2023. Highlighting both papers with these quotes should significantly strengthen our case. 

Herb Simmens

Author A Climate Vocabulary of the Future

@herbsimens

On Dec 24, 2022, at 4:03 PM, Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Michael Hayes]

"The present decade may be the last opportunity to develop the knowledge, technical capability, and political will for the actions that are needed to save global coastal regions from long-term inundation.”

HOW NOT TO INCREASE THE RATE OF SEA LEVEL RISE:

Using SAI will, without a doubt, warm the polar regions as sulfur creates heat trapping polar stratospheric clouds. Relying upon SAI to contribute to stopping or even slowing down sea level rise is not a reliable plan on the face it. Those two dots do not connect.

Moreover, increased CH4 emissions, as we are now seeing, will also increase PSCs. If the affects on the polar regions from of SAI and increased CH4 emissions are combined, polar ice loss will likely go into overdrive. Past abundance of PSCs likely triggered an equitable atmosphere and, in turn, an AMOC collapse along with massive polar ice loss. 

https://groups.seas.harvard.edu/climate/eli/research/equable/psc.html

Furthermore, grossly eroding the polar 03 layer, an expected byproduct of SAI deployment, over the most biologically productive regions of our ocean would clearly drive many marine species into a rapid extenction spiral and reduce primary production on a global scale. There are a number of other serious biogeochemical and socio-political concerns with SAI as many know. 

Marine Cloud Brightening, on the other hand, does not carry these risks and MCB can be started today with few biogeochemical risk factors and few international policy risk factors. Most importantly, the deployment of SAI has the greatest risk of igniting a war of any mitigation option due to the trans-border nature of SAI. Again, MCB carries no such extream, if not existential, risk factors.

This entire field of climate disruption mitigation is centered upon the concept of risk reduction, deployment of the one mitigation option that clearly has, by far, the maximum risk factors seems to be counter to the end goal of global risk reduction especially in view of the SRM MCB option that carries no such risks. SAI is not fundamentally needed for SRM as MCB is availablr, SAI will more than likely be highly distructive to the environment on many levels as well as short-term and likely long-term international relations. Why go there?

Hanson et al. make no attempt to justify the call for SAI over MCB. Why?

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[Andrew Lockley]

Cross posting to geo as this is a fascinating concept and I was unaware of. I have questions

1) do climate models typically include 

a) PSC formation 

b) strat/trop water exchange 

2) SAI causes sulphuric acid particles to rain out eventually, along with any water they've absorbed hygroscopically. Does SAI therefore reduce the likelihood of PSC formation?

A

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[Michael Hayes]

Andrew

Sulfur is the leading cause of PSCs. 

If one watched the Hunga Tonga eruption aftereffects for around 4-5 days, one would have seen a massive outbreak of PSCs happen over Antarctica and a corresponding rather high temperature spike. The same happened after Pinatubo yet few note this link when discussing SAI. 

BTW, I do believe Hunga Tonga had remarkably little sulfur relative to the volume of mass ejected.

[Michael Hayes]

Thanks, Doug

I obviously did not catch that in my scanning of the paper. The mention of SRM is typically limited to SAI in most papers currently being published and thus I made an assumption, which is itself typically a mistake. 

I would like to see the team mention that MCB can be physically coupled to many marine CDR technologies, or oceanic CDR platforms. Reducing the technical aspects down to a basket of mutually supportive system of systems, SRM and CDR systems, might help all involved to better understand the practical aspects.

Few of us understand the detailed workings of our phones yet even a child can understand the practical aspects of it's use. Coupling different yet technically mutually supportive mitigation technologies, I assume, may make sense to the non-technical stakeholder.

Merry Christmas

On Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 11:47 PM Douglas Grandt <answer...@mac.com> wrote:

Merry Christmas, All -

Just finished the cookies and milk snack with Sandy Claws, and before I retire for the evening, must get this off my chest:

Correct me if I am missing something, but Hansen makes no reference to SAI, and the only reference to sulfur is in context with ocean going vessel’s “sulfur content of fuels." His only reference to SRM occurs only on page 35:

However, given that GHG forcing is already 4 W/m2, it may be necessary to temporarily affect EEI via solar radiation management (SRM), if the world is to avoid disastrous consequences, including large sea level rise. Risks of such intervention must be defined, as well as risks of no intervention. Thus the U.S. National Academy of Sciences recommends research on SRM.151 An example of SRM is injection of atmospheric aerosols at high southern latitudes, which global simulations suggest would cool the Southern Ocean at depth and limit melting of Antarctic ice shelves.15,152 The most innocuous aerosols may be salt or fine salty droplets extracted from the ocean and sprayed into the air by autonomous sailboats.153  

where,

151 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine: Reflecting Sunlight: Recommendations for Solar Geoengineering Research and Research Governance. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25762, 2021.

Excerpt from the description of Reflecting Sunshine states:

Solar geoengineering strategies are designed to cool Earth either by adding small reflective particles to the upper atmosphere, by increasing reflective cloud cover in the lower atmosphere, or by thinning high-altitude clouds that can absorb heat. 

It would be presumptive for me to speak for Jim, but it seems his words speak for themselves. In this context, SRM and SAI are not synonymous.  

Happy Holidays, 

Doug Grandt

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[Robert Chris]

Dan & Herb

The cancer metaphor is not helpful.  In essence it says that we accept the risks of potentially harmful treatments when we believe they will hasten the cure or defer the regrowth of the cancer.  By extension, it is irrational not to accept the risks of potentially harmful climate interventions when we believe they will contribute to avoiding a climate catastrophe.

This is a non sequitur on many levels.  Let’s start with scope, scale and scariness.  On scope, those taking the decisions about cancer therapy are generally the cancer sufferers.  They will rarely be competent to make a medical risk assessment and will tend to follow their medical advisors.  Whereas those taking the decisions about climate interventions are not those who are likely to suffer if it all goes wrong, and they also rely on a wide range of advisors, not just those with climate change knowledge.  There are big transgenerational equity differences at stake here.

On scale, a few deaths not postponed for those unfortunate enough to be on the wrong side of the potentially harmful risks of cancer therapy is hardly commensurate with the millions, if not billions, of people into the distant future suffering, possibly terminal consequences of a climate intervention (or non-intervention) not working out as intended.

Scariness refers to the nature of the respective risks.  In the case of cancer, the downside is an earlier death than might have been desired.  But for those cancer patients who have the luxury of treatment options, the great likelihood is that they’ll also benefit from high quality palliative care, so their passing will be less painful and hopefully less scary.  Moreover, the risks of cancer treatment failing are well-evidenced so that when making the decision whether to have the treatment or not, there is a vast store of empirical data on which their medical team will base their advice, even if they are unable to personalise that evidential data.  Conversely, for climate change there is no historical data on relevant human timescales, as to what might happen if a proposed climate intervention should go wrong.  Climate modelling data has many valuable uses, but it is not predictive.  The inescapable and unquantifiable uncertainty about how future climate states might unfold in response to any given climate intervention at scale, and how that response might affect people (and other lifeforms) locally and regionally, makes the decision much scarier.

The combination of these differences between our approaches to cancer treatment and climate change make cancer treatment a wholly inappropriate metaphor for climate interventions.

I’m not sure there exists a suitable metaphor for an event that has never occurred in human history.  We must think outside the box.  On the other hand, maybe the capacity for collaboration at global scale over an extended period has simply not emerged as part of our evolution simply because we’ve never before needed to do that.  If, despite a veneer of sophistication, we’re still hunter gatherers at heart, dealing with climate change is going to be a bit of a problem.

BTW, five years ago I was faced with the cancer decision.  After the surgical removal of my Stage 4 cancer, I agreed to the follow on ‘adjuvant chemotherapy’.  The planned eight sessions were stopped after the second almost killed me – the doctors arriving for the morning shift were genuinely surprised to find me alive!  I can say from personal experience that there is almost nothing that the decisions to have a potentially harmful cancer therapy and to undertake a potentially harmful climate intervention have in common.

Robert Chris

On 25/12/2022 20:55, Herman Gyr wrote:

Dan,

I appreciate your comparison of SRM to cancer treatment. In presentations I use a similar analogy to underscore just how misguided the near exclusive focus on emissions is for the problem we are actually facing.

H.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Herman Gyr

Enterprise Development Group⎢+1 650 464 6419 ⎢930 Roble Ridge Road ⎢ Palo Alto, CA. 94306 ⎢ www.enterprisedevelop.com

Regards

Robert

[David Hawkins]

For me, using the term "geo-engineering" to describe human release of fossil fuel emissions into the atmosphere is grammatically incorrect and is more of a rhetorical device to imply that actions like SAI are not novel.  I don't find applying the geo label to what we are already doing to be a persuasive argument that we should deploy SAI.

I agree that a decision to deploy SAI should be made in a risk-management framework.  I don't think our knowledge of the potential impacts of broad SAI deployment is adequate at present to enable an intelligent risk-management decision.  That is why I support a significant SAI research program to attempt to provide more certainty to our assessment of the downside risks of SAI deployment.  I believe we know enough to assume that deploying SAI would reduce some risks flowing from climate disruption.  But that is only one-half of the risk-management puzzle.

I find it helpful in discussing SAI to state what we think is success or failure.  Success would be doing enough fast enough to protect and restore the climate that we reduce the risks to the point where the additional benefits that SAI would deliver are not worth deployment, given our better informed understanding of its risks.

Air bags are an imperfect analogy.  As a society we made a decision that the well-defined risks of requiring air bags to be put into cars were significantly smaller than the risks of driving without them.  But we still view any deployment as something to be avoided, through better road design, safer driving habits, etc.

The analogy is imperfect because we can equip cars with air bags without unavoidably commiting to the deployment of all the installed air bags.  With SAI, "installation" means some actual deployment.  But we can increase our ability to make rational future decisions about deployment by doing research now.

SAI "advocates" would be wise, in my view, to focus their efforts on creating a social consensus for doing solid SAI research, with specific uncertainty reduction objectives.

David Hawkins

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[Michael Hayes]

SAI has no "specific uncertainty reduction" ability at the biogeochemical, international policy, or sociatal levels. The past decade of dinking around with it clearly proves that point.

[Clive Elsworth]

Robert

 

All models are wrong but some are useful, and that goes for analogies.

 

Yes the cancer analogy is imperfect, but in the absence of anything better, isn’t it better than nothing?

 

Clive

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[Michael Hayes]

Emergency Medical Care is likely the best analogy. Inserting an emergancy chest tube using a pocket knife and ballpoint pen casing is not long-term health care, it's to save the life until proper long-term healthcare can be applied.

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[Robert Chris]

Clive

I love challenges like this!  You've made me read up on the differences and similarities between similes, metaphors and analogies.  How do these operate as rhetorical devices to convey deeper understanding?  For any communication, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.  That's both an analogy and a metaphor.

The reason I don't like the cancer analogy/metaphor for climate change is that it emphasises the wrong decision attribute and is therefore likely to lead to perverse decisions.  The cancer/climate change comparison is saying that if we can accept that potentially harmful interventions in the one, we can do so in the other.  But we routinely make choices whose negative consequences we accept as the price to pay for whatever benefits we anticipate from the choice.  The idea of no gain without pain (another metaphor) is deeply rooted and I doubt many would challenge it.

The greater issue is to grasp the distinction between necessary and sufficient.  If you have a Stage 4 cancer, its surgical removal is necessary for short term survival.  But the adjuvant chemotherapy is optional because no one can tell you in advance of the treatment how you personally will respond to it, or even whether it's necessary.  But you know that it will never be sufficient because you must have the surgery.  So when you're told that, say 95%, of patients don't suffer serious harm from the chemotherapy and some (but we don't know how many) may reap considerable benefit from it, you throw the dice and say, OK, let's do it, even though you have no way of knowing at that point whether you're in the 95% or the 5% or even whether you need to take the risk at all.

For climate change the situation is radically different.  The AE is necessary.  We know with a high degree of confidence that emissions reductions and GGR at any scale, even if we got to net zero tomorrow and returned to 300ppm CO2 by next week, will not act swiftly enough to stop surface temperature rising sufficiently to tip some irreversible tipping points over the edge. The choice is not between alternative policy packages, all of which are likely to be sufficient.  If you take the AE out of the package you know that the package will no longer be sufficient because the AE is necessary.

The question is no longer whether or not we should do the potentially harmful AE, but how we do it with the least possible harm, and best compensate those who are harmed.  We must stop using the potential harm as an excuse not to do AE because not doing it guarantees an even worse outcome.  (I'm assuming that ways can be found to do the AE with less bad outcomes than from not doing it.  If they can't, we might as well just relax and come to terms with our fate.)

The cancer analogy would be if the doctors told you that without the chemotherapy you'd most probably die within the year.  Then you'd probably take the view that the chemotherapy was also necessary and hope that together with the surgery, your treatment package would be sufficient for a successful outcome.  Accepting the risk is made much easier by knowing that the treatment is necessary.  The necessity comes first.

In summary, the core is issue is not about the harm, it's about the necessity.  If it's necessary, then invest in minimising the harm.  If it's not necessary, then devote your resources to what is.

Finally, knowing what's necessary isn't the same as knowing what's sufficient.  Emissions reduction, GGR, AE and significant human behavioural change, a factor too often ignored, are all necessary but whether they are sufficient depends on a whole stack of operational details that impact scale and timing.  Knowing whether the package is sufficient is like eating the pudding (simile), you don't find out until it comes out of the oven (metaphor).  We only we get one shot at this (metaphor), so we need to do whatever we can to shorten the odds (analogy).

I hope you get as much fun reading this as I've had writing it!

Happy New Year. 

Robert

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Regards

Robert

[Sarnoff, Joshua]

Robert:

 

Yes I very much enjoyed this, particularly as I’m writing about analogy in legal thought.  Analogies work by making similarity judgments, which require assessment of which aspects of an issue are to be considered, how to determine whether the facts show similarity or dissimilarity in regard to that aspect, and when things exhibiting those facts are “similar enough” to be grouped together.  (For more on definitions of concepts by necessary and sufficient conditions of meaning – intensional definitions – and by similarity judgments of analogy – extensional and ostensive definitions – see the Wikipedia summaries here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensional_and_intensional_definitions. 

 

The interesting thing about your discussion is the way you make distinctions (i.e., dissimilarity judgments).  You note the “wrong decision attribute.”  Although I don’t significantly disagree with your judgment here, the question is how do you justify what is the “right” decision attribute, to argue that “necessary and sufficient” assessments of outcomes is what matters.  I could argue, e.g., that if there are serious side effects from adjuvant therapy, then you might not roll the dice to see if you are in the 5%.  (Similarly if you are very old and may not attach the same value to continuing to live as someone younger; or if you are depressed; etc.).  Hence, it is not as clear as you may think that your “decision attribute” is in fact the right one – or that predictive outcome alone is the right decision attribute.

 

The key is that there are always disputable factual and valuation premises for the operation of analogies.  Thanks for making your premises clear, even if they may not be persuasive for all people or may only be partially dispositive (to some).

 

(PS for off-line response, please do forward any good literature that you read on these topics; one can never know what he or she has missed).

 

Happy holidays.

 

Josh

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[Robert Chris]

Michael

I'm shocked you even have to ask that question.  At any given moment, our decision makers reside in whatever camp best suits their desire to remain our decision makers.

It all about power.  For our decision makers it's about political power.  For the ecosphere it's all about the manufactured power we need to sustain our lifestyles and power never-ending economic growth.

Robert

On 27/12/2022 16:23, Michael Routh wrote:

Hi all,

The discussion of how to represent climate action has been stimulating!

Doug’s suggestion is the one I have used frequently - “urgent triage intervention to save the dying victim until needed surgery can be performed “ - largely because it is simple and easy to grasp as Doug points out.  Few who hear “dying victim” disagree with “urgent triage”.

The challenge is bridging between “global warming” and “dying victim”.

Some of my otherwise intelligent acquaintances view “global warming” as “less snow and therefore more golf days” here in Colorado.  Do they not represent the vast majority who are uninformed?

The discussion about the relative merits and risks of the 3 approaches (reduction, removal, cooling) to climate restoration work much better when the listener has already learned a little and accepted that earth’s climate trajectory is analogous to a dying victim.

In which camp do our decision-making leaders reside? 

Happy holidays!

Michael Routh

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 27, 2022, at 8:45 AM, 'Douglas Grandt' via Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



Happy Holidaze, All!

Considering the pragmatic simple-minded audiences we hope to influence (e.g., from Jane & Joe Six Pack and journalists and scientists to President Pro Tempore and Speaker of the House and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate and White House OSTP) I’d suggest K.I.S.S. with the analogy: CPR and tourniquet urgent triage intervention to save the dying victim until needed surgery can be performed.

Best,

Doug Grandt 

Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

On Dec 27, 2022, at 9:16 AM, Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:



<Parable_Sick_Smoker.png>

Regards

Robert

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Regards

Robert

[Brian Cady]

Robert Chris said: "We know with a high degree of confidence that emissions reductions and GGR at any scale, even if we got to net zero tomorrow and returned to 300ppm CO2 by next week, will not act swiftly enough to stop surface temperature rising sufficiently to tip some irreversible tipping points over the edge."

BC: Robert, Could you provide citations on this? In my ignorance, I don't yet know it.

Brian

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[H simmens]

Brian,

“To effectively prevent all tipping risks, the global mean temperature increase would need to be limited to no more than one degree – we are currently already at about 1.2 degrees,“ Jonathan Donges, Co-Lead of the FutureLab on Earth Resilience in the Anthropocene at PIK adds.

This quote is from an article by the Potsdam Institute on climate change research, describing a new risk analysis they released this past week that seems to support Robert’s comment. 

Herb

Herb Simmens

Author A Climate Vocabulary of the Future

@herbsimens

On Dec 28, 2022, at 7:46 AM, Brian Cady <brianc...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Robert Chris]

Brian

Hansen's recent paper should be sufficient.

Removal of human-made GHGs from the air will be spurred by a carbon price, but GHG removal sufficient to reduce EEI to zero may require decades, if it is even feasible. Given that GHG forcing is still rising rapidly, highest priority must be given to phasing down emissions. However, given that GHG forcing is already 4W/m2, it may be necessary to temporarily affect EEI via solar radiation management (SRM), if the world is to avoid disastrous consequences, including large sea level rise.

Choosing 'may be necessary' rather than 'will be necessary', I take to be the conventional caution of a seasoned scientist not wishing to over-claim his results.  The substance of this paper is sufficient, in my view, to support 'is' in preference to 'may be'.  There is more in the literature but it requires combining elements from various sources to reach the same conclusion.

Robert

Regards

Robert

[Dan Miller]

Hansen explains why he had to use “may be”:

<image001.png>

Regards

Robert