Are 1.5 c or 2.0 c thresholds economically realistic in a voluntary NDC regime?

[Ron Baiman]

Dear Colleagues,

Follow up to previous 1.5 C or 2.0 C post:

c) Some quick calculation regarding the unrealistic economics of trying to stay below 15 c, or 1.8 C (per the "well below" 2 C of the Paris Accord) based on a purely voluntary NDC regime:

As global GHG emissions have not declined by 4.65% from 2019 which would have necessary for gradual year over year achievement of the 35 GT CO2e level in 2030 necessary for a 66% chance of staying below 1.8 C estimated by the UNEP/IPCC per the the citations in my paper (https://www.cpegonline.org/post/our-two-climate-crises-challenge ), we now have to reduce global GHG emissions from an estimated 58 GT CO2e in 2022 by 6.12% per year to reach 35 GT by 2030 (just redid the calc). 

I don't see this happening in any real-world scenario that I am aware of. Certainly not without a global cap and trade system like the Kyoto accord that has been dismantled in favor of voluntary NDCs.  In the last 4 years (from 2019 59.1 GT to 2022 58 GT) we've been able to achieve a 0.6% (just did the calc) year over year reduction that is about 1/10^th the level of reduction that we would need from now on to get to 35 GT by 2030.

Best,

Ron

[David desJardins]

This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with whether the goal is economically realistic. It’s only about whether the goal is politically realistic.

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[Robert Chris]

David, no matter what the goal may be, it is always economically realistic.  The global economy just found $trillions from nowhere to respond to COVID-19.  The British didn't ask their economists whether it made sense to go to war with Germany in 1914 and 1939.  The US didn't put an economist's slide rule over the idea of going into Korea or Vietnam.  Whatever one's views about the merits or outcomes of these military adventures, their relevance here is that economists were at best only peripheral to the decisions to act.

Economic theory is based on things remaining much the same in the future as they were in the past and for change to occur gradually.  Faced with an existential threat, economic considerations are largely irrelevant.  So long as global warming is mediated through an economic lens, the likelihood of a happy ending is pretty remote.

Regards

Robert

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[David desJardins]

On Sat, Apr 8, 2023 at 4:59 AM Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:

David, no matter what the goal may be, it is always economically realistic.

So long as global warming is mediated through an economic lens, the likelihood of a happy ending is pretty remote.

I'm confused. Don't these two statements contradict one another? 

[H simmens]



Another way to articulate what Robert said is to  quote  Keynes:

“Anything we can actually do we can afford.”

Economics can help guide us on the most resource sparing means to achieve a goal, but the setting of the goal is inherently value based and politically mediated. 

It seems that there are at least three possible goals with respect to the climate crisis:

Our current goal - Avoid the worst impacts by limiting temperature increases to well below 2° C by 2100 even if we temporarily exceed that goal- 

Avoid the activation of tipping points by limiting temperature increases to well below 2° at all times by shaving peak temperatures

Restoring a healthy climate by limiting temperature increases to well below 1° C

Herb

Herb Simmens

Author A Climate Vocabulary of the Future

@herbsimmens

On Apr 8, 2023, at 9:13 AM, David desJardins <da...@desjardins.org> wrote:



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[Robert Chris]

Herb, thanks for the further explanation.

David, the two statements are totally consistent.  Your confusion is unsurprising, you're reflecting the current Western neoliberal neoclassical worldview.  But it's run its course and we all need to recognise that and move on  Not doing so will just bring the system collapse forward..

Regards

Robert

On 08/04/2023 17:32, H simmens wrote:



 Another way to articulate what Robert said is to  quote  Keynes:

[David desJardins]

On Sat, Apr 8, 2023 at 10:13 AM Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:

David, the two statements are totally consistent.  Your confusion is unsurprising, you're reflecting the current Western neoliberal neoclassical worldview.  But it's run its course and we all need to recognise that and move on  Not doing so will just bring the system collapse forward.

I feel like I've got exactly zero sympathy for the "current Western neoliberal neoclassical worldview", so I really have no idea what you're talking about. If the goal is always economically realistic, then it follows that looking at the goal through an economic lens will always enable it, not prevent it.

[Ron Baiman]

Dear Colleagues,

 I’m a “radical”, or “heterodox”, economist so I think of economics (like other social sciences) as inherently based on values. But disregarding semantics perhaps we can all agree that unless the current global political economic regime  hanged radically, over 6% GHG reduction per year is “realistically unrealistic”? 

Ron 

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 8, 2023, at 10:13 AM, Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:



[Ron Baiman]

* radically changes*

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 8, 2023, at 10:42 AM, Ron Baiman <rpba...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Colleagues,

[Peter Fiekowsky]

Ron-

Your assertion is ambiguous: do you mean 6% emission reduction per year, or 6% GHG level reduction per year?

6% annual emission reduction could be easily accomplished with WW III or a major recession, even with today's economic regime. 

Achieving a 6% annual reduction would not leave us with a known safe GHG level though. CO2 is 40% higher than the highest humans have ever survived long-term. That was 300 ppm. Any level above that (especially 40% above it)  is playing Russian roulette with our children--which is, or should be, considered immoral in our society.

Reducing GHG (CO2 equivalent) levels faster than 6% per year could be done with accelerated atmospheric methane oxidation, at low cost (see my book).

Peter

On Sat, Apr 8, 2023 at 7:42 AM Ron Baiman <rpba...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Colleagues,

 I’m a “radical”, or “heterodox”, economist so I think of economics (like other social sciences) as inherently based on values. But disregarding semantics perhaps we can all agree that unless the current global political economic regime  changed radically, over 6% GHG reduction per year is “realistically unrealistic”? 

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[Robert Chris]

David, you've put your finger right on it.  Being economically realistic
is not a sufficient condition to enable the realisation of any goal. 
For some goals, it isn't even a constraint because for them, what is
economically realistic is made to fit the goal, rather than the goal
being tailored to fit what's economically realistic.  Money is not the
only store of value.

Regards

Robert

[Robert Chris]

Doug

What needs to change?  The recognition by governments that global warming is already a clear and present danger and therefore they need to deploy their coercive power to make things happen at the necessary pace.  So long as the primary approach to intervention is through market incentives, there is little chance of that happening.  The normal rules of efficiency and risk minimisation don't apply in crisis management.  The primary criterion is effectiveness.  Efficiency and risk management must be subordinate - they're not to be ignored, but they're not to lead.

Regards

Robert

On 08/04/2023 20:29, Douglas Grandt wrote:

RobertC, Herb and David,

This conversation seems to have taken a tangent from what I believe Ron intended to covey:

I don't see this happening in any real-world scenario 

My reply to Ron was an attempt to affirm that view with a realistic metric that demonstrates failure in the decade since Hansen’s 2013 paper proposing 6% annual decline in fossil fuel CO2 emissions.

Politics and economics certainly have played a roll in past performance failure, but what needs to change to jump-start weekly shuttering refineries and oil fields?

Ron’s message:

we now have to reduce global GHG emissions from an estimated 58 GT CO2e in 2022 by 6.12% per year to reach 35 GT by 2030 (just redid the calc).  

I don't see this happening in any real-world scenario that I am aware of. Certainly not without a global cap and trade system like the Kyoto accord that has been dismantled in favor of voluntary NDCs.  In the last 4 years (from 2019 59.1 GT to 2022 58 GT) we've been able to achieve a 0.6% (just did the calc) year over year reduction that is about 1/10^th the level of reduction that we would need from now on to get to 35 GT by 2030.

My reply was 10:07am ET yesterday

From: 'Douglas Grandt' via Healthy Climate Alliance
Date: April 7, 2023 at 10:07:11 AM EDT
To: Ron Baiman
Cc: healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings, Healthy Climate Alliance, geoengineering, Brian von Herzen 

Subject: [HCA-list] Re: [prag] Are 1.5 c or 2.0 c thresholds economically realistic in a voluntary NDC regime?

Thanks, Ron,

… 

Best regards,

Doug 

Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

On Apr 8, 2023, at 10:13 AM, Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:



Herb, thanks for the further explanation.

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[Ron Baiman]

Thanks Doug.  Agreed. The problem

Is that (without a mandatory global regime in place) elected leaders can’t just shut down fossil fuel production and exports (that nations with over 1.1 billion people 14.2 percent of global population depend on for over 10% for critical foreign exchange exports, see: https://www.cpegonline.org/post/our-two-climate-crises-challenge ) and,

if short-run  alternatives are not immediately available, drive up energy prices for their already (mostly) desperately poor countries without losing their jobs and more importantly causing massive suffering in their countries.  

I repeat over 6% global  annual GHG emission reduction per year (and I believe this just takes Into account anthropogenic emissions - not recently accelerating positive feedback driven net increases

In natural GHG emissions like methane release from  permafrost etc ) is just not going to happen without a global regime change revolution that is also not at all likely as social evolution (especially pro-democratic evolution) generally takes much longer than the climate clock allows. 

As Herb notes. urgent immediate direct climate cooling (DCC) is realistically (without an unprecedented and from our current vantage point impossible to conceive revolution in global civilization) the only option to avoid crossing the 1.5 and 2.0 C thresholds and (see my prior post) put us at high likelihood of crossing at least 4 major planetary tipping points. 

This is fundamentally not a technological or narrow economic financing or investment or real production problem, but a human civilization speed of change problem. Sounding like Robert C, but there is hope if DCC, that does not need a complete transformation of industrial hunter-gatherer civilization, can be quickly ramped up to give us time to make this essential transformation over the coming decades or longer.

Best,

Ron 

Sent from my iPhone

[Michael MacCracken]

As I loosely recall, when the 2 C goal was approved in Paris, the value
was chosen because it was thought that it would be
realistically/economically achievable. The goal could not be higher due
to thoughts about tipping points or lower due to economic
realities--though they did set 1.5 C as an aspirational goal as the
developing nations felt the impacts of 2 C on them would be unbearable.
So, I'd say economics played a goal there--indeed, even the primary
rationale for the choice.

Mike

[David desJardins]

Most of the world population are governed by self-interested despots who don’t even care about what happens to their subjects. And most of the rest don’t actually want their theoretically democratic governments to prioritize climate policy over their perceived short-term interests. It’s just hard to imagine some kind of global mobilization, under those conditions.

[Michael MacCracken]

Which is why cutting off peak warming with climate intervention is essential until mitigation and CDR can get control of the atmospheric GHG loading.

Mike MacCracken

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/geoengineering/CAP%3DxTqNadWAXQOqH%3DeR_gB3iyQfcQxe%3DCP_RMe56vvhTsHTbDg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Robert Chris]

Mike, you point to a key distinction that I had perhaps ignored.  The dynamics of setting goals are not the same as those of realising them.

Economics may have been a major factor in setting the Paris targets but they are not an enabler of their realisation.  If the political will was there among a sufficient number of leading economies to deliver on the Paris targets, they would find a way of doing that that would overcome any economic constraints that might otherwise have been thought to be impediments.

Regards

Robert

[rob...@rtulip.net]

Hi Doug

 

Your quantification of the removal of two ExxonMobils per year required to achieve IPCC goals reveals the wishful thinking in climate policy.

 

People need hope, and when they cannot find hope in fact they create fantasy.

 

“Nearly halving emissions by 2030”, the IPCC goal, is a fantasy.  It is entirely unscientific as a practical objective.

 

By contrast, direct cooling offers clear empirical evidence of feasibility.

 

Ten ExxonMobils polluting the Earth,

Ten ExxonMobils polluting the Earth,

And if two ExxonMobils should vanish in a year

We’ll have eight ExxonMobils polluting the Earth.

(From Ten Green Bottles)

 

Regards & Thanks

 

Robert Tulip

 

From: 'Douglas Grandt' via Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, April 8, 2023 12:07 AM
To: Ron Baiman <rpba...@gmail.com>
Cc: healthy-planet-action-coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>; Brian von Herzen <br...@climatefoundation.org>
Subject: [HCA-list] Re: [prag] Are 1.5 c or 2.0 c thresholds economically realistic in a voluntary NDC regime?

 

Thanks, Ron,

 

… we now have to reduce global GHG emissions from an estimated 58 GT CO2e in 2022 by 6.12% per year to reach 35 GT by 2030 (just redid the calc).  

 

I don't see this happening in any real-world scenario that I am aware of. Certainly not without a global cap and trade system like the Kyoto accord 

 

This reminds me of an ah ha moment I had back in 2013, which led me to a very disturbing conclusion — which Jim Hansen confirmed when we chatted at a CCL northeast regional conference in Nashua, NH, on November 14, 2015.

 

The 6% annual decline he advocated in his December 3, 2013, paper Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change”: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature (Bit.ly/HansenPLOS) was not a linear decline to zero over 16 years, rather asymptomatic approaching zero at t = ♾️ 

 

That jives with an eight year compounded 6% decline from 58 to 35 GT CO2e you highlighted.

 

My ah ha moment related to metrics that could track progress in visible terms, and I expressed it in two hashtags which we central to my daily Facebook and Twitter activity for several years:

 

#RetireRefineries  #OnePerWeek

 

The implications were unfathomable!

 

Retiring 750 global refineries at 6% would be initially manifested by shutting down 45 refineries of average production beginning in 2014, and 6% more in 2015, etc.

 

Putting that into a more poignant metric: 6% of global refinery production would equate to termination oil field operations and refining output of two “ExxonMobils“ annually, as XOM is about 3% – 3.33% of total global oil production and refineries.

 

Hansen et al. paper was premised on 2013 bring “year zero”—how many refineries have been shuttered in the past decade?

 

Now we are faced with an 8 year horizon, not 16 years 

 

What physics had changed such that the decline in emissions has been relaxed so significantly?  What in “Hansen’s science“ been relaxed and caused the goal posts to have been moved so dramatically?  Shouldn’t the playing field been shortened to 50 yards?  

 

In very simplistic terms, shouldn’t the appropriate hashtags be more like:

 

#RetireRefineries  #TwoPerWeek

 

Houston, we have a conundrum …

 

Best regards,

Doug Grandt

 

 

Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

On Apr 6, 2023, at 11:40 PM, Ron Baiman <rpba...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[rob...@rtulip.net]

It may be possible for the current Western neoliberal neoclassical worldview to adapt to the need for climate stability.

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[rob...@rtulip.net]

Herbert, Ye & Robert C

 

We need an economic lens for climate, just not the current monetary lens.

 

The economic lens should assess the costs of sea level rise and other looming catastrophes against the cooling return on investment of new preventive technology.

 

This ratio is so extreme, with benefits of new cooling technology far outstripping costs, that the decision to ignore it is obviously political, not economic or scientific.  

 

Climate actions should be funded by government on the basis of their impact on radiative forcing, replacing carbon credits with radiative forcing credits.

 

In addition, economics should recognise the long term value of productive carbon stores such as biochar in soil. RF credits would be a way to do that.

 

Regards

 

Robert Tulip

 

From: noac-m...@googlegroups.com <noac-m...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Herbert Huppert
Sent: Sunday, April 9, 2023 11:06 PM
To: Ye Tao <t...@rowland.harvard.edu>
Cc: Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com>; David desJardins <da...@desjardins.org>; rpba...@gmail.com; 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>; Brian von Herzen <br...@climatefoundation.org>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>; healthy-planet-action-coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [prag] [geo] Are 1.5 c or 2.0 c thresholds economically realistic in a voluntary NDC regime?

 

 So long as global warming is mediated through an economic lens, the likelihood of a happy ending is pretty remote.

Regards

Robert

Totally correct, in my opinion.  And also much more widely correct, especially if slightly altered (and generalized) to:

 

(Almost) anything mediated solely through an economic lens is unlikely to have a successful and happy ending.

 

(Of course, special counter examples can be dreamed up;  but in general the statement is totally apposite in my opinion, even if not understood by many economists)

 

     2

H

 

Professor Herbert E. Huppert FRS,
Institute of Theoretical Geophysics
King’s College
Cambridge   CB2 1ST
Mobile +44 7814 582 707
www.itg.cam.ac.uk/people/heh

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[Ron Baiman]



Thank you Herbert. As a heterodox economist I generally agree with you with regard to the standard Neoclassical economics school of thought.  But by “economically” in this case I was referring to the realism of thinking that near-term human civilization will collectively be able to cut and drawdown GHG sufficient to stay below these very real (based on the work of

Rockstrom, Lenton, McKay etc.- see links in my previous post) earth system thresholds.

Best,

Ron 

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 9, 2023, at 9:06 AM, Herbert Huppert <he...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:

  So long as global warming is mediated through an economic lens, the likelihood of a happy ending is pretty remote.

[Robert Chris]

RobertT, I couldn't disagree more on this!  Economists simply don't have the tools to make the assessments you're asking for.  The 'costs of sea level rise and other looming catastrophes' are unfathomable (pun intended).  There is no way that such impacts can be monetised and evaluated.  Similarly the cost of cooling technologies is incommensurable. How much cooling, by what method(s), in what locations, for how long, with what side effects, and so on? In any event you seem to already know the answer without doing the calculations because you say that 'the ratio is so extreme'.

The economics is a dangerous diversion.  Going down that route implies that the economics assessment could alter the decision whether to act or not.  Well, it won't.  We have to act whatever it costs.  As I have said earlier in this thread, it's not about efficiency, whether financial or operational, it's first and foremost about effectiveness.  When we have a set of plausibly effective response regimes, by all means get the money people to determine which are likely to give the best return, but don't ask them in what financial conditions it makes sense to act.

I agree that responding to global warming is primarily a matter for public finance and regulation rather than for markets to determine the best way forward.  I'll come back to this in response to your other comment about neoliberal and neoclassical economics.

Regards

Robert

[H simmens]

Given the speculation in several comments on what life may be like in the second half of this century I’d like to strongly recommend a short book I read some years ago: 2084:  An Oral History of the Great Warming. 

It features frighteningly plausible interviews with folks in a dozen or so countries (or in some cases former countries) who are alive in 2084.  

Herb

Herb Simmens

Author A Climate Vocabulary of the Future

@herbsimmens

On Apr 9, 2023, at 1:59 PM, Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Robert Chris]

Hi RobertT, 'It may be possible'. I wonder.  Neoliberalism extols the primacy of markets in the allocation of resources.  Neoclassical economics is mostly about the behaviour of Homo economicus, and idealised human who always acts rationally to optimise his/her wealth.  Steve Keen has pretty convincingly debunked both these mythical viewpoints in relation to climate change.

I'm a Chartered Accountant/CPA  not an economist so this is where I venture into shark infested waters.  I'm hoping that those more knowledgable will be able to rescue me if I stray too close to danger.

Capitalism is at the heart of the problem.  Here let me be clear that I'm talking about the relationship between capital and labour in which those with capital invest it with view to making a profit and purchase labour from those without capital to do the work necessary to generate the profits.  That is a gross oversimplification but hopefully sufficient for now.  I'm not talking about trading for a profit or free markets or many other economically relevant factors, just the relationship between capital and labour.

Capital will only be invested in projects expected to make a profit.  Making a profit implies growth because without growth demand is limited and commercial activity becomes at best a zero sum game.  Note that in the last several decades, GDP growth has become the single most important measure of economic performance.  Growing GDP is good.  Shrinking GDP is bad.  In effect, capitalism is structurally dependent on growth.  On a finite planet never ending growth is the definition of unsustainability.

In a message just received, you comment 'Trying to take down capitalism in order to fix the climate makes no sense.  Far better to seek constructive partnerships with industry for cooling.'  I think this is confused.  It begs the question as to who is the master, the capitalists or those seeking constructive partnerships with them.  I could accept the first sentence if in the second you replace 'seek' with 'enforce'.

To close, capitalism won't be dismantled and replaced by something else, it'll gradually morph into something more appropriate for the needs of the future; that's how it emerged from feudalism and mercantilism.  The critical issue right now is that capitalists are mostly motivated by short term profits and not by the need to accelerate AE R&D if they consider that not to be the best way they can generate profits.  If governments enforced a regime in which companies were obliged to act in  a climate responsible manner, things could be very different.  But they don't for all manner of reasons that I won't go into here.

Regards

Robert

[rob...@rtulip.net]

RC,

 

It does seem obvious to me that action to increase albedo has high economic benefits.  Just the moderation of extreme weather is an essential massive contribution.

 

It is possible and necessary to use solar geoengineering to regulate the planetary climate, including using artificial intelligence to optimise deployments.  For example, Marine Cloud Brightening could target heat blobs that cause atmospheric rivers and cyclones/hurricanes/typhoons.  Stratospheric Aerosol Injection could be deployed at an extremely low rate, just to slightly reduce the global warming rate rise in ways that would demonstrate if larger volcanic scale dosage is justified.  Mirrors and Arctic Refreezing also enhance stability and prosperity.

 

In addition to extreme weather moderation, prevention of sea level rise is a no-brainer on the economics of geoengineering.  Similarly, biodiversity protection and mitigation of systemic instabilities are expected results of planetary brightening that have strong economic and ecological rationale.  A new economics grounded in radiative forcing credits as the primary climate measure can provide incentive for capitalist entrepreneurs to develop innovative technology, as long as it is placed within a sound international governance framework able to ensure just and peaceful implementation based on science.

 

I see no risk that objective economic analysis could find albedo enhancement is a bad idea. It is a policy reform with overwhelming benefits.

 

RT

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Tom--Indeed, which is why I don't understand why the mainly island nation accepted, even insisted upon 1.5 C, as an aspirational goal. From paleoclimatic analysis, the equilibrium sensitivity for sea level rise is of order 15-20 METERS per degree C increase in the global average temperature. And how it is somehow justified that the curve shape for the sensitivity is a cubic and we are presently in the low sensitivity part of the curve does not at all seem justified to me (though perhaps the type of major ice sheet matters).

I once asked the chief US negotiator (Todd Stern) at the Paris COP if they had viewed as a value that would be an upper limit and the subsequent goal and actions would be aimed at forcing the global average temperature back down, or if the vision was that actions would be taken to keep the increase in global average temperature to be 2 C and this would be an allowed long term value for the Earth. He indicated, as I recall, that what would happen after the value was reached was not discussed, they were so happy to have a number to consider an upper value they just never discussed the issue.

Best, Mike

On 4/9/23 7:40 AM, Tom Goreau wrote:

The 1.5 degree “goal” like the 2.0 goal, is beyond the capacity of corals to adapt so it means the extinction of coral reef ecosystems, which already reached their high temperature tipping point in the mid 1980s.  

 

Coral reefs, and the species and people who live from them, have been consciously selected for sacrifice, rather than interrupting profits from fossil fuels.

 

Coral reefs may be the first ecosystem to collapse, but they certainly won’t be the last!

 

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance

Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
President, Biorock Technology Inc.

Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK

37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

gor...@globalcoral.org
www.globalcoral.org
Skype: tomgoreau
Tel: (1) 617-864-4226 (leave message)

 

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392

 

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734

 

No one can change the past, everybody can change the future

 

It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think

 

Those with their heads in the sand will see the light when global warming and sea level rise wash the beach away

 

Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse climate change

 

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[rob...@rtulip.net]

Robert Chris and other readers,

 

On neoliberalism, its homo economicus assumptions can only work effectively under well designed state regulation to deliver rule of law.  It is possible to change the law to incentivise action on planetary cooling and other public goods.  My view is that an international system of radiative forcing credits can offer the best basis and motivation for well-regulated investment in cooling technologies in ways that can harness the good points of neoliberalism and mitigate its harm.

 

Stabilising the climate requires a return to net zero heating against the Holocene baseline.  Action to reduce the positive warming forcing from GHGs is essential, but is far slower than action to build the negative forcing effects of albedo to equal and oppose and largely neutralise heating through direct climate cooling.  A new albedo industry can be built when governments recognise that correcting the planetary heating imbalance by targeting zero RF is a main and proper objective of climate policy.  Investment would then be funded by government guarantee of payment for demonstrated albedo increase, or equivalent cooling effect, within a context of scientific analysis to guide safe and effective implementation. The government guarantee is the basis of RF credits, which could then expand into private finance with a far stronger empirical basis than carbon credits.

 

The polarisation of climate politics is at an impasse, with neoliberals retreating into denial and nuclear because they cannot see a response to the decarbonisation logic.  Our discussions have amply proved that decarbonisation is a flawed strategy with no hope of preventing tipping points.  That makes climate a world security problem that can only be fixed with higher albedo.  Cutting the Gordian Knot of the climate impasse needs the quick cooling focus that can be delivered by RF credits.

 

On your point about economic growth, my view is that RF credits offer capacity to shift the economy to a sustainable approach.  RF credits will base climate policy in planetary science, by restricting climate subsidies to actions that actually cool the planet or pay for loss and damage.  RF credits will also importantly show that long term addition to carbon stock and flow through technologies such as biochar and algae has strongly measurable RF impact that will promote investment in them.  The beauty of converting CO2 into useful products is that it generates a cyclic economy, providing a basis for continued emissions to be eventually overbalanced and outweighed by the scale of carbon conversion. 

 

A carbon mining industry could extract a hundred gigatonnes C per year, limited only by the planetary boundaries of Earth System Sensitivity, with scale of operation constrained by the need to prevent a new Ice Age.  Ice Age scale is around a trillion tonnes C removal, and is so big that there is enormous scope to commodify CO2 with RF credits in ways that will deliver sustained economic growth and climate repair. 

 

The profit motive governing the relationship between capital and labour presents no intrinsic barrier to climate repair, but it requires a strong state able to regulate business.

Your point, RC, that “On a finite planet never ending growth is the definition of unsustainability” is a common trope.  The ocean has a billion cubic kilometres of water that our economy has barely started to use for climate repair, taking advantage of the massive natural area, energy and resources at sea.  Ocean technologies have massive profitable growth potential.  As well, if growth is targeted through RF credits at actions that actually repair and restore and regenerate the natural system, by converting CO2 into useful products, alongside brightening, then there is no reason why long term growth cannot be sustained.  A forest can grow forever as long as its complex adaptive system is stable.  An economic shift to recognition of planetary goals can equally be sustained forever in ways that enhance prosperity, peace, biodiversity and equality. 

 

I see no reason except their own prejudices and inertia why the neoliberal capitalist community cannot evolve to get on board with this vision, while recognising that their history of disrespect for conquered peoples means their views and actions should be treated with suspicion. A main incentive for them is to reduce the costs and upheaval of emission reduction.

 

In my work managing the chaplaincy at the Australian National University, I am building a multi faith community.  I see these values as integral to work on climate change, and hope there will be more opportunities for discussion, including during my visit to the UK in May and June.

 

On whether 1.5 c or 2.0 c thresholds are economically realistic in a voluntary NDC regime, the answer is obviously no. The Nationally Determined Commitments approach has failed and needs a rethink, through an International Climate Organisation.  A completely different approach from the Paris Accord, grounded instead in Radiative Forcing Credits for albedo enhancement and carbon conversion, is the only way to slow dangerous warming.

Best Regards

 

Robert Tulip

[Robert Chris]

Hi RobertT

Your post below is a very helpful summary of what needs to be done.  It also puts front and centre the question of political feasibility.  Below are several extracts from your post.  I shall not comment on each but the Executive Summary is that the nature of the changes you are saying are necessary 'to slow dangerous warming' are, to put it mildly, non-trivial.  Some of them run counter to the neoliberal Zeitgeist (e.g. state regulation, government guarantees that would require increased taxation).  Some require extended periods of consistent large scale industrial investment (e.g. building a carbon mining industry, ocean technologies, commodifying CO2).  Others require a radical change in worldview (e.g. recognising that AE is even necessary, and the neoliberal capitalist economy evolving into something that it isn't currently).  Almost all require the major economies to move in unison.  Some assume new global governance beyond the UNFCCC and a recognition of the importance of cooling.  The idea of RF credits assumes the design of such a structure for global application.

That's quite a lot of fundamental change.  How long do we have to make those changes and scale them to be effective at slowing warming?  My guess is that we have a lot less time than almost any single one would require and almost certainly not enough time for enough of them to be climatically significant.

One particularly scares me - ocean technologies have massive profitable growth potential.  Having screwed the lithosphere, cryosphere, atmosphere and the biosphere, you're now expecting us to exploit the hydrosphere at scale and speed in some environmentally friendly way that assumes that capitalists will not see it as yet another bonanza-like free resource.

There's a stack of commentary in this thread that suggests that worthy as your vision is, it is simply unachievable.  Tom Goreau and Mike MacCracken have remarked about their experiences with politicians on the front line of climate policy.  The video clip from the NYT that Herman Gyr flagged is a brilliant (and humorous) explanation of the economic realities.  The simple fact is, as Partha Dasgupta explains, that all we need do is to pay for what we use, including the cost of righting the environmental degradation our economic activities cause.  What he does not say in the clip is that we also have to pay for what we've already used.  This whole debate comes down to one about the distribution of those costs - who is to bear them.  The global warming challenge is how to solve that question fast enough.  Sadly, I don't have an answer to that and I very much doubt that anyone else has or will have soon enough to make a difference.  That's why, to be brutally frank, it's good to be in your late 70s.  You see, at heart I'm just another slimy neoliberal just concerned mostly about me!

• well designed state regulation

• change the law to incentivise action on planetary cooling

• new albedo industry can be built when governments recognise that correcting the planetary heating imbalance by targeting zero RF is a main and proper objective of climate policy

• Investment would then be funded by government guarantee of payment for demonstrated albedo increase, or equivalent cooling effect, within a context of scientific analysis to guide safe and effective implementation

• government guarantee is the basis of RF credits, which could then expand into private finance with a far stronger empirical basis than carbon credits

• Our discussions have amply proved that decarbonisation is a flawed strategy with no hope of preventing tipping points

• That makes climate a world security problem that can only be fixed with higher albedo

• A carbon mining industry could extract a hundred gigatonnes C per year

• there is enormous scope to commodify CO2 with RF credits in ways that will deliver sustained economic growth and climate repair

• ocean has a billion cubic kilometres of water that our economy has barely started to use

• Ocean technologies have massive profitable growth potential

• I see no reason except their own prejudices and inertia why the neoliberal capitalist community cannot evolve to get on board with this vision

• while recognising that their history of disrespect for conquered peoples means their views and actions should be treated with suspicion.
  

• The Nationally Determined Commitments approach has failed and needs a rethink, through an International Climate Organisation

• A completely different approach from the Paris Accord, grounded instead in Radiative Forcing Credits for albedo enhancement and carbon conversion, is the only way to slow dangerous warming.

Regards

Robert

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Tom--I'd be interested in seeing your 1990 paper because 16 C would take temperatures to much higher than they have ever been, and yet there have been periods when the CO2 concentration has apparently been well above 1000 ppm, so the 16 C value seems seriously inconsistent with what we know of Earth history.

Best, Mike

On 4/10/23 5:02 AM, Tom Goreau wrote:

BEFORE UNFCCC was signed, it was clear from paleoclimate data that +16 degrees C or so is the equilibrium temperature for 400ppm CO2 (Goreau 1990), but all governments ignored the real data because they preferred the fictitious claim from models that warming would “only” be around 1-4 degrees C, and occur well after a new leader emerges from the next election, selection, or coup.

 

I briefed the Association of Small Island States just before they signed on to a treaty that  was an effective death sentence for low coasts and a suicide pact for low lying island nations to that effect, but their heads of states were told by the rich countries to sign or they would lose their foreign aid, something none could afford. They were effectively bought off to sacrifice their own people’s futures for worthless promises of financial support for adaptation that never came. No politician ever turns down money, no matter how insufficient.

 

Instead what they got from the funding agencies was sea walls made from concrete and rock imported half way across the world, which have all fallen down due to erosion caused by wave reflection scouring. Their consultants keep promising that the next seawall, built to armor the ruins of previous seawalls, will last forever, it’s another shell game with peoples futures.

[Ron Baiman]

Tom Goreau 1990 paper attached!

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[Michael MacCracken]

Well, in that the climate depends on the radiative forcing and the radiative forcing is logarithmic with the CO2 concentration, doing a linear regression of CO2 and temperature would give an estimate of the rise in temperature that is far from linear, so the 16 C would be way too high.

There is then the issue that the change in temperature in high latitudes is well above the global average change in temperature, and so that would be another contribution to giving a rate too high for the change in global average temperature. So, if regression were to get temperature change in high latitudes ad not the global average, one would have a value more than the change in the global average temperature.

Mike

On 4/10/23 1:29 PM, Tom Goreau wrote:

It’s just the regression of Antarctic Ice temperature versus CO2 data. The sea level regression implies +23 meters.

 

When I did it in 1990 there was only one glacial cycle of data, but Eelco Rohling independently did the same analysis when there was 800,000 years of data, and got essentially identical values.

 

The models must be serious underestimates to fall so far off the actual long term climate data.

[Douglas MacMartin]

Also, of course, the long-term response is only realized if nobody ever develops and deploys any CDR over that long-term timeframe. 

 

If you believe that we will eventually get to net-zero and that some level of CDR will get deployed to go below net-zero, then it’s the century-scale warming that matters, not the millennial-scale.

 

There are of course millennial-scale processes that are not included in climate models, so there’s neither any reason to expect them to match on that time-scale, nor any reason to criticize them on that particular basis, or to use that particular argument to suggest that the models aren’t policy-relevant.  That isn’t what the models are intended to do. 

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[rob...@rtulip.net]

Thanks RC, good response.  The challenge for humanity to slow dangerous warming is to define and agree a critical path in engineering and politics.

 

This requires firstly agreement that albedo enhancement is the critical immediate task. The carbon responses are slower and can be deferred.

 

The political challenges are of course immense, but unless they are engaged there is no hope.

 

A critical path is a gradual and incremental program logic based on a theory of change.  Each step becomes possible as previous steps are sufficiently advanced. 

 

My rough suggestion for a critical path to 2050 is as follows.

 

 

Cutting GHGs, for example by large oceanic industries to make biochar and other useful carbon stores from algae, will take much longer to have temperature effect than Albedo Enhancement, so CDR can be the subject of research for years before implementation.  Brian Von Herzen has already significantly advanced marine carbon conversion through his Marine Permaculture project, including XPrize funding.

 

A critical path in politics requires that blockages be identified and mitigated.  My call for a new Bretton Woods Conference on climate cooling through Albedo Enhancement would advance this step by presenting AE as an objective that can be agreed by governments.  This requires that AE be formulated in a way that does not include unacceptable conditions, such as linkage to unwanted economic reform.  The proposal for a system of Radiative Forcing Credits can meet this criterion by ensuring compatibility with government economic policies.  The main attractive features are that RFCs would cost much less than decarbonisation and be far more effective in meeting climate goals.

 

Deferring emission reduction would be an incentive for those wishing to reduce the cost and upheaval and risk of decarbonisation.  However, justifying this against the weight of climate opinion is a major challenge.  The intellectual focus should be recognition that emission reduction and CDR cannot replace the cooling effect possible with AE.

 

Regards

 

Robert Tulip

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[Greg Rau]

I'll offer some quotes (apologies for restating):

“We’ll go down in history as the first society that wouldn’t save itself because it wasn’t cost-effective.”  Kurt Vonnegut

though there seem to be earlier examples https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-Revised/dp/0143117009. And look at the fossil record for the many failures of our distant relatives to adapt.

"There is nothing more difficult and dangerous, or more doubtful of success, than an attempt to introduce a new order of things in any state. For the innovator has for enemies all those who derived advantages from the old order of things, whilst those who expect to be benefited by the new institutions will be but lukewarm defenders. This indifference arises in part from fear of their adversaries who were favoured by the existing laws, and partly from the incredulity of men who have no faith in anything new that is not the result of well-established experience. "

Machiavelli, The Prince (1513)

So "We have met the enemy, and he is us"(Walt Kelly) (?)

Greg

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[rob...@rtulip.net]

Greg,

 

Thanks for these quotes.  They show that in order to adapt to climate change, homo sapiens must evolve to use our brains to construct a global civilization.  That is a cultural evolution that can occur rapidly.

 

Unless we regulate the atmosphere we are finished, in any complex global sense.  This is a necessary condition for humans to flourish on our planet without collapse into a more primitive state.

 

The Planetary Restoration Action Group discussed Machiavelli in an email exchange this year.  What your quote illustrates is that effective climate policy has to minimise change to the order of things in the state, in order to reduce opposition and enhance prospect of success.  Emission reduction fails comprehensively on this matter of political tactics and strategy, setting an unattainable goal with methods calculated to produce maximum ructions. 

 

By contrast, an albedo focus for climate policy involves little structural change to the order of the state, except for international technical cooperation, and can achieve its goals in ways that benefit everyone except some in the current climate industry. These potential opponents have no coherent view, since they maintain their goal is to cool the planet, so cannot plausibly prevent research on methods to more efficiently, effectively and ethically achieve that goal.  There is legitimate debate on whether SRM would have this big policy advantage, but that debate should be conducted on the basis of science rather than politics.

 

Here is the quote I shared from The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, quite relevant to our discussions, and setting quite a different and more optimistic tone than the quote you shared.

“all prudent princes ought to regard not only present troubles, but also future ones, for which they must prepare with every energy.  Because, when foreseen, it is easy to remedy them, but if you wait until they approach, the medicine is no longer in time because the malady has become incurable.  For it happens in this, as the physicians say it happens in hectic fever, that in the beginning of the malady it is easy to cure but difficult to detect, but in the course of time, not having been either detected or treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to detect but difficult to cure. Thus it happens in affairs of state, for when the evils that arise have been foreseen (which it is only given to a wise man to see), they can be quickly redressed, but when, through not having been foreseen, they have been permitted to grow in a way that everyone can see them, there is no longer a remedy.”

 Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favourite authors.  Did you know the Flying Spaghetti Monster was based in part on Slaughterhouse Five?

Jared Diamond’s Collapse is a great book.  I have only read part of it, but it builds upon his anthropological research in Guns, Germs and Steel, which is one of my favourites.

Regards

 

Robert Tulip

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[Robert Chris]

Doug

There's a significant caveat in there - assuming we 'eventually get to net zero', and a significant ethical assumption - that policy relevance is limited to a century timescale.  And a further physical climate assumption - that cascading tipping events will not be triggered on any plausible current and short term policy regime.

If you set the rhetoric aside, there's little evidence to suggest that by mid-century or even for a decade or more after that, we'll get to net zero.  Your 'eventually' is doing a lot of work here!  For this to happen requires  us to start the decommissioning of fossil fuel assets now and scaling GGR/CDR to close to or beyond GtCO2e/yr within the next few years.  Current geopolitics shows no sign of substantive action to match the rhetoric on either of those, or the likelihood of any imminent breakthrough that might materially accelerate things.

As to the ethical assumption, if the ethics are constrained to consider only the scenarios in which we get to net zero, then you need to be pretty damn sure you're going to get there.  But we're far from being sure about that.  So limiting policy relevance to the century timescale is tantamount to declaring that what happens beyond that is no concern of ours.  This is like setting a discount rate that reaches infinity on 1 Jan 2100 (or maybe 2103) - all benefits and costs thereafter have no present value today so we don't need to worry ourselves about them.  An ethics so constrained seems to me seriously dysfunctional.

On the tipping events, the literature on this suggests that we are already treading on thin ice.  Is it sane to base our policy regime on the assumption that there are no tipping points that might derail our smooth but slow transition to net zero?

Regards

Robert

[Douglas MacMartin]

Robert,

 

I agree with almost everything you write, except for your belief that what you wrote is in any way in conflict with what I wrote.

 

doug

[Robert Chris]

Doug

It seems that mistakenly I thought you were justifying the appropriateness of the models.  Apologies.  On a closer reading, the following emerges:

Your final words 'That isn’t what the models are intended to do', in context, mean that we shouldn't criticise the models for not being policy-relevant even though they exclude millennial factors because the models are not intended to be policy relevant.  They are just models that produce certain outputs based on certain inputs and certain algorithms.  The degree to which the models are a faithful predictor of the range of plausible futures is unknowable until that future arrives, and made more so by the absence of the millennial factors.  Policymakers use these models at their (and our) peril.

Have I got that right?  If so, it might be a good idea if someone told the policymakers that they're basing their policies on the wrong data.

Regards

Robert

[Douglas MacMartin]

I did not state that the models are not policy-relevant… both because I don’t agree with that being a binary statement of either they are or they aren’t (rather, they are useful for answering some questions and less useful for answering others), and because the specific issue I was responding to is not the most relevant factor in thinking through that question. 

 

I disagree completely with your assertion that if we don’t correctly capture what the temperature would be in the year 3000, then it follows that our models are utterly useless for making near-term policy choices.  Rather, I think that what happens in the next century or two actually do matter.  I agree with you that what happens beyond then *also* matters, but I don’t think it is essential that a climate model correctly capture that.  You don’t need to run a climate model to say that we’re in trouble if we maintain elevated CO2 concentrations for the next 1000 years, as this thread points out, and climate models aren’t necessarily useless simply because they ignore physics that isn’t (necessarily) relevant to predicting nearer-term impacts.

 

And I do agree that the degree of uncertainty in heading into uncharted territory is not well understood, including the possibility of more rapid changes than are predicted in current climate models.  But I think there’s a lot of room between “climate models are perfect representations of the future” and “climate models are not policy-relevant”; just because they are obviously not perfect does not make them totally useless as you seem to suggest…

[Robert Chris]

Doug

This more nuanced response covers the bases.  Thanks.  I particularly relate to your comment that the policy relevance of models is not a binary 'they are/they aren't'.  Unfortunately that isn't how they're regarded by many influential people who should know better.  The real value of models is their ability to interrogate the relationships between baskets of climate relevant variables and not in their ability accurately to predict future climate states of the planet.  The models may well have their own internal consistency but it is a challenge, even for the better informed, to grasp the extent to which they are truly predictive.  This isn't helped by the use of global aggregates and averages that mask wide spatial and temporal variability.

BTW, I wasn't suggesting that 'if we don’t correctly capture what the temperature would be in the year 3000, then it follows that our models are utterly useless for making near-term policy choices'.  The point I was trying to make is that we need to abandon the idea that any short term policy goal, e.g. net zero by 2050, is job done, global warming solved, let's move on.  Whether net zero by 2050 is even sufficient to avoid a climate catastrophe in the relatively near future is an open question.  But crucially, so long as we've got 8 billion or so people all wanting the latest gizmo and longer vacations in far away places, global warming is a situation that will have to be continuously managed into the distant future and therefore our short term policy choices should always be open to adaptation as the future unfolds.  That requires more of a change in policymakers' and the public's attitude towards the science, than it does in the processes of science itself. 

Of course if in a century or so we're back down to 1 billion or so, where we were not so long ago, then most of the global warming problem gets sorted by natural ecosystems.  Maybe that's the most cost effective way of addressing global warming - sit back, do next to nothing to make the unsustainable sustainable and just let nature take it course😉.

Regards

Robert

[Ron Baiman]

Updated data calcs.  The 2019 estimate had been reduced so going forward requires 4.7% yearly reduction rather than 6/.1%,  but as all of the decline in global GHG from 2019 to 2021 was due to Covid, the big question is whether global GHG emissions will plateau in 2023?  In other words any sustained decline in GHG is still not clearly visible in the data.  Latest calcs and links to data summarized below:

Global GHG emissions would have needed to decline by 4.65%/year from an estimated 54.82 GT CO2e in 2019 (https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions#annual-greenhouse-gas-emissions-how-much-do-we-emit-each-year) to achieve a 35 GT CO2e level in 2030 and a 66% chance of limiting average global temperature increase to below 1.8 C (file:///C:/Users/rbaiman/Downloads/EGR2022-3.pdf , Table ES.2). However, global GHG emissions declined by an average of only 0.3% a year from 2019 to an estimated 54.49 GT CO2e in 2021 (https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions#annual-greenhouse-gas-emissions-how-much-do-we-emit-each-year ). As  a consequence , we must now reduce global GHG emission by 4.7% per year to reach 35 GT by 2030.

There is no  real-world scenario under a system  of voluntary NDCs that will produce a 4.7%/year reduction in CO2e.  Indeed, the 0.3% yearly GHG reduction from 2019 to 2021 is less than 1/15th of the 4.7%  yearly reduction needed, and that reduction was largely attributed to the Covid-10 Pandemic.  In 2022, global GHG emissions increased and, depending on the state of the economy, could potentially plateau in 2023 or increase, not decline (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-global-emissions-plateau-in-2023-four-trends-to-watch/)

Best,

Ron

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[Michael MacCracken]

Apologies for being offline for a bit--trying to catch up.

To be terminologically correct, albedo feedback was what made the climate sensitivity so high; such changes, being integral to the climate system, are not considered an external driver such as the changes in the orbital parameters that redistributed incoming solar radiation by season and latitude.

Mike MacCracken

On 4/10/23 9:02 PM, Gene Fry wrote:

Albedo changes were the primary drivers of past temperature changes, most notably during the ice ages.

When there is a lot of ice to melt, the Earth’s temperature is more sensitive to changes in greenhouse gas levels.  Lots of albedo change to be had - like uncovering 60% of North America.

When there is not so much ice left to melt (now), Earth’s temperature is much less sensitive to changes in greenhouse gas levels.  Because albedo changes are smaller.

Sensitivity was greater during the recent ice ages than it is now.  No longer 16° for doubled CO2.

More like 6° now, with only about 1/3 as much ice (deduced from sea level changes) left as at the Last Glacial Maximum.

When all the ice is gone, Earth’s climate is not very sensitive to changes in greenhouse gas levels.  Maybe 2°C.

Still, sometimes there are huge changes in GHG levels  (e.g. 55 Mya), so temperatures can still change quite a bit.

Gene Fry

On Apr 10, 2023, at 4:29 PM, Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org> wrote:

It’s just the regression of Antarctic Ice temperature versus CO2 data. The sea level regression implies +23 meters.

 

When I did it in 1990 there was only one glacial cycle of data, but Eelco Rohling independently did the same analysis when there was 800,000 years of data, and got essentially identical values.

 

The models must be serious underestimates to fall so far off the actual long term climate data.

 

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<Balancing Atmospheric CO2.pdf>

[Michael MacCracken]

Dear Gene--Am I wrong in noting that the paper does no accounting for the change in orbital elements and their effect on the climate? In that the timing of glacial cycling is driven by the orbital cycles, I don't understand how this factor can apparently be ignored.

The effects of the changes in orbital cycles can cause large changes (something like plus or minus 7%) in summertime radiation in the high mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, just the latitude region where ice albedo effect can play an important role. And the NH is key because in the SH there is so little land and so the surface heat capacity for the ocean is far larger than for the land in the SH, allowing the change in radiation to have a much greater effect on the surface temperature. These effects of the orbital changes are what "drive" the ice age cycling, and make the albedo feedback so very large during the glacial-interglacial transitions.

Another feedback not mentioned has to do with ocean temperatures. To get the snow buildup to create the glaciers, there is a need for wintertime ocean temperatures to be relatively high and summertime temperatures to be relatively low (a result of reduced incoming solar due to orbital elements). Without warm winter ocean temperatures and so not as much sea ice, there is just not enough evaporation going on to build up the ice sheets. Conversely, in the times of coming out of the glacials, one wants not only increased summertime solar (and so high NH land surface temperatures), but also relatively cold winter ocean temperatures (and so increased sea ice extent) so that there is reduced evaporation of moisture and snow onto the ice sheets--and note that when summertime solar in high NH midlatitudes is high, wintertime solar is even lower than normal.

Through the combined orbital drivers and the resulting feedbacks, the orbital factors drive the very large climate changes associated with glacial-interglacial changes (so of order 6 C changes in global average surface temperature) even though there is essentially no change in the global integral of incoming solar radiation in that ice-sheet-related albedo changes are really internal to the Earth's climate system. If one then applies the IPCC approach to calculating forcing--namely, using the change in the annual integral change in global forcing--then essentially zero forcing is causing the largest changes in climate that the Earth has experienced and so a near infinite climate sensitivity. What this sort of says is that there are some problems with the simple concept of taking global, annual average forcing--namely, one has to consider the changes in the seasonal and latitudinal pattern of changes in solar radiation and the different hemispheric and latitudinal land-ocean distribution.

So then what about applying what is learned from the paleo record to get the sensitivity of the Earth system to a change in the greenhouse gas loadings. Well, at least for CO2, the radiative forcing is quite smoothly spread of the global and season, and over the centennial (even millennial) time period there is essentially no influence of changes in orbital elements. Given these differences from glacial-interglacial cycling, it is not at all clear that the responsiveness of the global average temperature (so climate sensitivity) will be near as large as when the orbital element driving forces were adding to the temperature response. On the other hand, if one considers the ice sheets, the effect on sea level sensitivity might be much greater due to changes in GHG forcing, first because of the generally higher level of CO2 but also because the orbital element aspect had a seasonal influence, so, especially when the CO2 concentration went down to of order 200 ppm, the ice sheets were able to radiate away any accumulated solar energy during the polar nigh and so could really chill down as they went into summer. With the higher CO2 concentration, however, adding heat to the ice sheets in the IR (so avoiding the albedo feedback) and also adding the heat all year round, the ice sheets simply don't get to really ever shed the heat and get deeply chilled, so their vulnerability would seem be increased compared to the situation with glacial-interglacial cycling (and this also would affect sea ice as well--in reality and in the model simulations).

So, given the differences in what is happening and causing changes in the energy balance, etc., I think one has to be hesitant in trying to directly use glacial-interglacial values to estimate the temperature and sea level sensitivities without some consideration of a number of nuances. On the other hand, what glacial-interglacial cycling does show is that the Earth's climate (temperature, sea level, etc.) can change by a very large amount as a result of seemingly pretty small changes in the Earth's energy balance and the notion that the climate sensitivity is very low, as a number of climate deniers assert, is just not tenable.

Best, Mike MacCracken

On 4/11/23 12:42 PM, Gene Fry wrote:

On Apr 11, 2023, at 11:48 AM, Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org> wrote:

Thanks, Gene, can you please send a copy of your paper?

 

Eelco Rohling’s book discusses these issues in more detail.

 

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance

Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
President, Biorock Technology Inc.

Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK

37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

gor...@globalcoral.org
www.globalcoral.org
Skype: tomgoreau
Tel: (1) 617-864-4226 (leave message)

 

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392

 

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734

 

No one can change the past, everybody can change the future

 

It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think

 

Those with their heads in the sand will see the light when global warming and sea level rise wash the beach away

 

Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse climate change

 

 

 

From: Gene Fry <gene...@rcn.com>
Date: Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 11:42 AM
To: Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org>
Cc: Michael MacCracken <mmac...@gmail.com>, "healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com" <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>, Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com>, Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>, 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>, geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: 5-8° climate sensitivity

 

My analysis of ice age data used only 430K years of data, at 10K year intervals.

For 13+°C climate sensitivity at Vostok.

Not quite 16°.

 

8.2° estimated globally over ice ages, using Snyder’s (2016) polar to global ∆°C conversion.

 

The ice age climate sensitivity analysis can be partitioned

into CO2 and CH4, well correlated, for about 5° for CO2 alone.

 

This figure shows a basis for climate sensitivity over millions of years, most of which I don’t know of data for CH4.

 

<image001.png>

 

Gene

 

 

On Apr 10, 2023, at 9:02 PM, Gene Fry <gene...@rcn.com> wrote:

 

Albedo changes were the primary drivers of past temperature changes, most notably during the ice ages.

 

When there is a lot of ice to melt, the Earth’s temperature is more sensitive to changes in greenhouse gas levels.  Lots of albedo change to be had - like uncovering 60% of North America.

 

When there is not so much ice left to melt (now), Earth’s temperature is much less sensitive to changes in greenhouse gas levels.  Because albedo changes are smaller.

 

Sensitivity was greater during the recent ice ages than it is now.  No longer 16° for doubled CO2.

More like 6° now, with only about 1/3 as much ice (deduced from sea level changes) left as at the Last Glacial Maximum.

 

When all the ice is gone, Earth’s climate is not very sensitive to changes in greenhouse gas levels.  Maybe 2°C.

Still, sometimes there are huge changes in GHG levels  (e.g. 55 Mya), so temperatures can still change quite a bit.

 

Gene Fry

 

 

On Apr 10, 2023, at 4:29 PM, Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org> wrote:

 

It’s just the regression of Antarctic Ice temperature versus CO2 data. The sea level regression implies +23 meters.

 

When I did it in 1990 there was only one glacial cycle of data, but Eelco Rohling independently did the same analysis when there was 800,000 years of data, and got essentially identical values.

 

The models must be serious underestimates to fall so far off the actual long term climate data.

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/EB42CBFB-16D9-4188-A469-4C6668168C9B%40globalcoral.org.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

<Balancing Atmospheric CO2.pdf>

[Michael MacCracken]

For the glacial-interglacial cycling, the changes in the CO2 concentration are a feedback--that is the changes are part of the internal system and basically a natural carbon cycle feedback.

For the present situation, fossil fuel emissions are a driving force in changing the climate. What is of great worry is that the climate change that is occurring is now exciting the natural climate feedback (so, for example, thawing the permafrost, altering carbon uptake by the biosphere due to changes in the climate, etc.).

So, John, the jury is not out--there are two different situations. As the world moves C from geological storage in fossil fuels to the atmosphere in a selective way that Nature simply could not do anywhere near as rapidly--so considered an external influence (agreed, on slow time frame, volcanoes move some geologically stored carbon back to the atmosphere)--and  so the increased CO2 drives warming and temperature follows CO2. Conversely, when external factors (or at least are considered external factors) such as changes in the Earth's orbital elements change the Earth's energy balance and temperature, they can change the temperature first and this can then excite natural carbon feedbacks that further change the temperature and this further changes the CO2 loading, etc.  So, both happen and all is physically consistent--the jury is only thought to be out because of how climate critics/deniers are manipulating the message.

Mike MacCracken

On 4/12/23 5:06 PM, John Nissen wrote:

Hi Gene,

I am a maverick when it comes to climate sensitivity. The jury is still out on whether CO2 forces temperature or vice versa in palaeoclimate. If you look at 3 glacial cycles between 400kya and 100kya carefully, you see that the CO2 peaks follow the temperature peaks. These cycles are driven by Milankovitch orbital signals. When oceans are warmed they tend to give off CO2 and when cooled they absorb it as after Pinatubo, see Keeling curve kink. 

Cheers John from mobile 

On Tue, 11 Apr 2023, 16:42 Gene Fry, <gene...@rcn.com> wrote:

My analysis of ice age data used only 430K years of data, at 10K year intervals.

For 13+°C climate sensitivity at Vostok.

Not quite 16°.

8.2° estimated globally over ice ages, using Snyder’s (2016) polar to global ∆°C conversion.

The ice age climate sensitivity analysis can be partitioned

into CO2 and CH4, well correlated, for about 5° for CO2 alone.

This figure shows a basis for climate sensitivity over millions of years, most of which I don’t know of data for CH4.

Gene

On Apr 10, 2023, at 9:02 PM, Gene Fry <gene...@rcn.com> wrote:

Albedo changes were the primary drivers of past temperature changes, most notably during the ice ages.

When there is a lot of ice to melt, the Earth’s temperature is more sensitive to changes in greenhouse gas levels.  Lots of albedo change to be had - like uncovering 60% of North America.

When there is not so much ice left to melt (now), Earth’s temperature is much less sensitive to changes in greenhouse gas levels.  Because albedo changes are smaller.

Sensitivity was greater during the recent ice ages than it is now.  No longer 16° for doubled CO2.

More like 6° now, with only about 1/3 as much ice (deduced from sea level changes) left as at the Last Glacial Maximum.

When all the ice is gone, Earth’s climate is not very sensitive to changes in greenhouse gas levels.  Maybe 2°C.

Still, sometimes there are huge changes in GHG levels  (e.g. 55 Mya), so temperatures can still change quite a bit.

Gene Fry

On Apr 10, 2023, at 4:29 PM, Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org> wrote:

It’s just the regression of Antarctic Ice temperature versus CO2 data. The sea level regression implies +23 meters.

 

When I did it in 1990 there was only one glacial cycle of data, but Eelco Rohling independently did the same analysis when there was 800,000 years of data, and got essentially identical values.

 

The models must be serious underestimates to fall so far off the actual long term climate data.

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/EB42CBFB-16D9-4188-A469-4C6668168C9B%40globalcoral.org.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

<Balancing Atmospheric CO2.pdf>

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[rob...@rtulip.net]

Hello Bruce

 

Ruddiman’s work is of immense importance.  He shows that methane from cows and rice stopped the natural cycle of the Pleistocene, the hundred thousand year pattern of glaciation of the last million years, and created the stable sea level of the Holocene by preventing the cyclic return to ice after the interglacial.  Your point about Ruddiman’s work on the major role of deforestation in creating the Holocene climate anomaly combines with his analysis of the methane factor from agriculture to explain why we are not now in an Ice Age.

 

Earth System Sensitivity is very high.  Our planet has a fever.  The changes to CO2 and methane since the Neolithic have created the current hothouse planetary trajectory.  Only by applying equal and opposite cooling by brightening the planet can we reverse this trajectory, stabilising the planet/patient while longer term cures are discovered and deployed, enabling Holocene conditions in perpetuity.

 

Toward global thinking.

 

Regards

 

Robert Tulip

 

From: planetary-...@googlegroups.com <planetary-...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Bruce Melton -- Austin, Texas
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2023 1:13 AM
To: Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org>; Bru Pearce <b...@envisionation.org>; Gene Fry <gene...@rcn.com>
Cc: Michael MacCracken <mmac...@gmail.com>; healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com; Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [prag] Re: 5-8° climate sensitivity

 

A very good point indeed. That is a lot of carbon tied up in cycling, much of which is now free range.

Ruddiman points our that beginning 7 to 8,000 years ago, the Early Anthropocene Hypothesis is based on human's cutting down over 300 Gt C in forests (over a trillion gigatons as CO2), up until the dawn of the Industrial Era. During the Industrial Era we have cut down an additional 150 billion Gt C.

Ruddiman, The early anthropogenic hypothesis - Challenges and responses, Reviews of Geophysics, October 31, 2007.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2006RG000207

One of the most beautiful pieces I have ever written was published in Truthout in February. I used repeat glacial retreat photography and those cool webpage photo comparison sliders to illustrate the importance of bigger thinking when it comes to the meaning of climate change -
Melton, Melting Glaciers Show Why Climate Targets Below 1.5°C Are Needed, February 7, 2023, Truthout.org
https://truthout.org/articles/melting-glaciers-show-why-climate-targets-below-1-5c-are-needed/

Steep trails,

Bruce

 

 

 

On 4/11/2023 11:44 AM, Tom Goreau wrote:

Great point! Destroying around half the biomass has crippled the ability of the biosphere to respond and undo the damage. unless we actively regenerate ecosystems.

 

Natural recovery is insufficient, it has been largely prevented, for example mangroves can’t migrate inland with sea level rise because there are sea walls, roads, and entire cities in the way.

 

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance

Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
President, Biorock Technology Inc.

Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK

37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

gor...@globalcoral.org
www.globalcoral.org
Skype: tomgoreau
Tel: (1) 617-864-4226 (leave message)

 

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392

 

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734

 

No one can change the past, everybody can change the future

 

It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think

 

Those with their heads in the sand will see the light when global warming and sea level rise wash the beach away

 

Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse climate change

 

 

 

From: Bru Pearce <b...@envisionation.org>
Date: Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 12:40 PM
To: Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org>, Gene Fry <gene...@rcn.com>
Cc: Michael MacCracken <mmac...@gmail.com>, "healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com" <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>, Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com>, Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>, 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>, geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: 5-8° climate sensitivity

 

I fully agree that Tom, but I would like to point out to everyone that the paleo comparison to what was happening during the last interglacial and almost certainly four or five previous interglacial's is that back then the integrated biosphere systems were functioning with double the amount of life on land and in the oceans that exists now, and all of those self-regulating feedbacks added up to a climate regulating system that was far far healthier than is our biosphere now. Placing us in uncharted waters and greatly magnifying the urgency of our situation.

 

Bru Pearce

 

E-mail   b...@envisionation.org  

Web www.envisionation.org  

Skype  brupearce  

Work  +44 20 8144 0431    Mobile  +44 7740 854713

Salcombe, Devon, UK

Information contained in this email and any files attached to it is confidential to the intended recipient and may be covered by legal professional privilege.  If you receive this email in error, please advise by return email before deleting it; you should not retain the email or disclose its contents to anyone.  Envisionation Ltd has taken reasonable precautions to minimise the risk of software viruses, but we recommend that any attachments are virus checked before they are opened.  Thank you for your cooperation.

 

From: Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2023 5:14 PM
To: Bru Pearce <b...@envisionation.org>; Gene Fry <gene...@rcn.com>
Cc: Michael MacCracken <mmac...@gmail.com>; healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com; Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: 5-8° climate sensitivity

 

Not worth getting hung up on the different estimates, we are all talking in the same ballpark, within the variability, we can all agree that 2C is 2 much, and 2 much more than that will be disastrous!

 

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance

Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
President, Biorock Technology Inc.

Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK

37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

gor...@globalcoral.org
www.globalcoral.org
Skype: tomgoreau
Tel: (1) 617-864-4226 (leave message)

 

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392

 

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734

 

No one can change the past, everybody can change the future

 

It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think

 

Those with their heads in the sand will see the light when global warming and sea level rise wash the beach away

 

Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse climate change

 

 

 

From: Bru Pearce <b...@envisionation.org>
Date: Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 12:04 PM
To: Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org>, Gene Fry <gene...@rcn.com>
Cc: Michael MacCracken <mmac...@gmail.com>, "healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com" <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>, Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com>, Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>, 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>, geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: 5-8° climate sensitivity

 

I expect most of you have seen David Wasdell’s work on Climate Dynamics  ESS at 9.8C I have found it hard to disprove. https://www.apollo-gaia.org/harsh-realities-of-now.html

 

 

 

Bru Pearce

 

E-mail   b...@envisionation.org  

Web www.envisionation.org  

Skype  brupearce  

Work  +44 20 8144 0431    Mobile  +44 7740 854713

Salcombe, Devon, UK

Information contained in this email and any files attached to it is confidential to the intended recipient and may be covered by legal professional privilege.  If you receive this email in error, please advise by return email before deleting it; you should not retain the email or disclose its contents to anyone.  Envisionation Ltd has taken reasonable precautions to minimise the risk of software viruses, but we recommend that any attachments are virus checked before they are opened.  Thank you for your cooperation.

 

From: noac-m...@googlegroups.com <noac-m...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Tom Goreau
Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2023 4:49 PM
To: Gene Fry <gene...@rcn.com>
Cc: Michael MacCracken <mmac...@gmail.com>; healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com; Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: 5-8° climate sensitivity

 

Thanks, Gene, can you please send a copy of your paper?

 

Eelco Rohling’s book discusses these issues in more detail.

 

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD

President, Global Coral Reef Alliance

Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
President, Biorock Technology Inc.

Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK

37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

gor...@globalcoral.org
www.globalcoral.org
Skype: tomgoreau
Tel: (1) 617-864-4226 (leave message)

 

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392

 

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734

 

No one can change the past, everybody can change the future

 

It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think

 

Those with their heads in the sand will see the light when global warming and sea level rise wash the beach away

 

Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse climate change

 

 

 

From: Gene Fry <gene...@rcn.com>

Date: Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 11:42 AM
To: Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org>

Cc: Michael MacCracken <mmac...@gmail.com>, "healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com" <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>, Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com>, Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>, 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>, geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: 5-8° climate sensitivity

 

My analysis of ice age data used only 430K years of data, at 10K year intervals.

For 13+°C climate sensitivity at Vostok.

Not quite 16°.

 

8.2° estimated globally over ice ages, using Snyder’s (2016) polar to global ∆°C conversion.

 

The ice age climate sensitivity analysis can be partitioned

into CO2 and CH4, well correlated, for about 5° for CO2 alone.

 

This figure shows a basis for climate sensitivity over millions of years, most of which I don’t know of data for CH4.

 

 

Gene

 

 

On Apr 10, 2023, at 9:02 PM, Gene Fry <gene...@rcn.com> wrote:

 

Albedo changes were the primary drivers of past temperature changes, most notably during the ice ages.

 

When there is a lot of ice to melt, the Earth’s temperature is more sensitive to changes in greenhouse gas levels.  Lots of albedo change to be had - like uncovering 60% of North America.

 

When there is not so much ice left to melt (now), Earth’s temperature is much less sensitive to changes in greenhouse gas levels.  Because albedo changes are smaller.

 

Sensitivity was greater during the recent ice ages than it is now.  No longer 16° for doubled CO2.

More like 6° now, with only about 1/3 as much ice (deduced from sea level changes) left as at the Last Glacial Maximum.

 

When all the ice is gone, Earth’s climate is not very sensitive to changes in greenhouse gas levels.  Maybe 2°C.

Still, sometimes there are huge changes in GHG levels  (e.g. 55 Mya), so temperatures can still change quite a bit.

 

Gene Fry

 

 

On Apr 10, 2023, at 4:29 PM, Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org> wrote:

 

It’s just the regression of Antarctic Ice temperature versus CO2 data. The sea level regression implies +23 meters.

 

When I did it in 1990 there was only one glacial cycle of data, but Eelco Rohling independently did the same analysis when there was 800,000 years of data, and got essentially identical values.

 

The models must be serious underestimates to fall so far off the actual long term climate data.

 

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/EB42CBFB-16D9-4188-A469-4C6668168C9B%40globalcoral.org.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

<Balancing Atmospheric CO2.pdf>

 

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[Robert Chris]

Ruddiman's work is new to me but searching the literature it seems that his ideas are controversial.  See for example this piece (co-authored by Will Steffen) that questions his hypothesis about the climatic effects of pre-industrial human activity.  It is a detailed and nuanced critique that treats Ruddiman's work with respect but seeks to identify its limitations. 

Regards

Robert

[Michael MacCracken]

See https://methane-possible-tipping-points-or-surprises.confetti.events/?

Mike MacCracken

[Chris Vivian]

All,

See the full list of all the webinars in the Tipping Points Discussion Series - https://tippingpointsseries.confetti.events/.

Chris.

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[Michael MacCracken]

US moves out of summer time on Sunday, so consider that as well.

Mike

On 11/1/23 5:58 PM, John Nissen wrote:

Hi everyone,

CEST appears incorrect.  I believe that Central Europe time has moved out of summer time, from CEST to CET, which is GMT + 1.  The UK moved from BST to GMT last Sunday.

Somebody needs to check what the actual start time is!  If the organisers say CEST they may have made a mistake.

Cheers, John

On Tue, Oct 31, 2023 at 11:59 PM Bruce Parker <br...@chesdata.com> wrote:

Thank you for registering for: Methane: possible tipping points or surprises. Why is methane rising, how are sources and sinks changing, what is the risk from hydrates?

The event will take place on 7 November, 15:30-17:00 CEST.

 

 

Bruce P

 

From: noac-m...@googlegroups.com [mailto:noac-m...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Nissen
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2023 5:30 PM
To: Michael MacCracken
Cc: Tom Goreau; Veli Albert Kallio; Gene Fry; healthy-planet-action-coalition; Robert Chris; Planetary Restoration; 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings; geoengineering
Subject: Re: Meeting of possible interest

 

Hi Mike,  they give a time for the webinar but no clue I could see for the time zone.  Do you know what it is?

 

Cheers John from mobile 

 

On Tue, 31 Oct 2023, 20:54 Michael MacCracken, <mmac...@gmail.com> wrote:

See https://methane-possible-tipping-points-or-surprises.confetti.events/?

Mike MacCracken

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[Ron Baiman]

Good catch John!  Google says central europe moves to CET on the last day of Oct, so it appears, per John, that the Nov 7 conference time must be in CET not CEST.  Per Mike's comment East Coast US goes back to EST Nov. 5 (MacMartin HPAC talk today 11/2 is 3:30 pm EDT).

Best,

Ron

On Wed, Nov 1, 2023 at 4:58 PM John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi everyone,

CEST appears incorrect.  I believe that Central Europe time has moved out of summer time, from CEST to CET, which is GMT + 1.  The UK moved from BST to GMT last Sunday.

Somebody needs to check what the actual start time is!  If the organisers say CEST they may have made a mistake.

Cheers, John

On Tue, Oct 31, 2023 at 11:59 PM Bruce Parker <br...@chesdata.com> wrote:

Thank you for registering for: Methane: possible tipping points or surprises. Why is methane rising, how are sources and sinks changing, what is the risk from hydrates?

The event will take place on 7 November, 15:30-17:00 CEST.

 

 

Bruce P

 

From: noac-m...@googlegroups.com [mailto:noac-m...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Nissen
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2023 5:30 PM
To: Michael MacCracken
Cc: Tom Goreau; Veli Albert Kallio; Gene Fry; healthy-planet-action-coalition; Robert Chris; Planetary Restoration; 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings; geoengineering
Subject: Re: Meeting of possible interest

 

Hi Mike,  they give a time for the webinar but no clue I could see for the time zone.  Do you know what it is?

 

Cheers John from mobile 

 

On Tue, 31 Oct 2023, 20:54 Michael MacCracken, <mmac...@gmail.com> wrote:

See https://methane-possible-tipping-points-or-surprises.confetti.events/?

Mike MacCracken

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