PRAG zoom meeting 16 January 8 pm UK time

[John Nissen]

Hi all,

You are all warmly invited to the fortnightly Planetary Restoration Action Group meeting, 16th January 8 pm UK time (GMT).  Robert T will send us the link.

Last meeting we had various items on the agenda which have not been followed up.  I'm afraid I still have a persistent cough and on top of this a bug last week.

We have the possibility to comment on the AGU draft, with its deadline moved to 20th January. Also we can provide input to the overshoot commission. And we need a robust response to the US Arctic strategy which expresses a desire to exploit the Arctic rather than refreeze it. 

All of these statements and initiatives totally lack any sense of urgency over the Arctic situation, despite the dramatic extremes of weather we have been experiencing, which threaten to make parts of the world uninhabitable if the jet stream regularly gets stuck in the same position.  The urgency for cooling intervention in the Arctic is now critical - supercritical.  The principle tipping points have already been activated.  Since the tipping processes are accelerating, the precautionary principle dictates immediate, rapid and at-scale intervention to cool the Arctic [1].  This is the nub of the climate crisis.

Therefore all efforts are needed to persuade influential people and the authorities that action is needed to prepare for deployment, with a view to ramping up SRM sufficiently to halt Arctic warming within 5 years.  This implies we need better data on the Brewin-Dolphin circulation in the stratosphere for stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI); we need to know how much cooling power is going to be needed (it could be as much a petawatt), and we need to have the modelling and monitoring capability for optimising effectiveness.

Please feel free to add to this list anything which I've missed and you think is important.  See you tomorrow.

Cheers, John

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901120308637

Second, if you understand regression to the tail it is clear what the main mitigating measures should be once a pandemic develops, namely: (a) cut the tail (by breaking the chain of transmissions through, e.g., lockdowns, personal protection equipment like face masks, testing, development of vaccines, etc.) and (b) the precautionary principle (rather a lockdown too many than one too few) – rolled out immediately, at speed, and at scale, worldwide

[rob...@rtulip.net]

The link for our meeting is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89101098507?pwd=TlhaVFgvR2RKbk1HRU1wd254cXBSZz09

 

8pm Monday UK = Noon Monday California = 7am Australia AEDT

 

Look forward to seeing you then.  I am interested to discuss John’s agenda points against the theme of Cooling Credits.  I have written the attached rough notes on this.

 

Regards

 

Robert Tulip

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[Robert Chris]

Important discussion on cooling credits.  Here's my quick and dirty (hopefully not too dirty) input.

In brief, claims that cooling credits are the way forward will not succeed until there is an unequivocal message from the scientific community that cooling is now on the critical path to avoiding climate catastrophe, and that message has been received and understood by the majority of the political incumbents in the leading 20 global economies.

By the time that happens the likelihood is that market driven responses to climate change will be wholly inadequate and a truly war-time footing will be required, again, by those leading economies.  The role that cooling credits might have in that regime can be left to emerge in response to the needs of the moment.

Ergo: let’s not get too lost in the weeds of designing a coherent cooling credit system now, rather let’s set out its broad parameters and devote most of our energy to getting the scientific community to get behind cooling and then getting that message through to the world’s political and economic elite.

Regards

Robert

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[John Nissen]

Hi Victor,

I'll reply to you briefly before replying to Robert. 

Thanks for your analogy, but I believe that the entity which is sinking the boat is heat, not CO2.  Therefore:

• Plugging the hole is cooling intervention (SRM)
• Bailing out is more SRM
• Keeping the ship afloat for the long term is reducing the level of GHGs in the atmosphere so the SRM can be phased out.

Cheers, John

On Mon, Jan 16, 2023 at 4:02 PM Victor Smetacek <Victor....@awi.de> wrote:

Hi all,

A few weeks ago there was a discussion on appropriate analogies/metaphors/similes to convey the global warming issue and the measures we could undertake against it to the public and politicians. I prefer the analogy/metaphor/simile of our planet as a leaking passenger ship beginning to list with 3 independent, mutually inclusive choices facing its inhabitants, the passengers and crew: a) plugging the leak (stopping emissions), b) bailing out the water already in the ship (negative emissions), and c) keeping the ship afloat with external means (SRM etc.). The leaks can be stopped by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and the water in the ship can be removed by various techniques ranging from handing out buckets to the passengers, to installing pipes and pumps of various diameter and strength respectively. Albedo enhancement (geoengineering) would then be the equivalent of propping up the ship by attaching buoys/barges to the outside, or, to introduce an element of danger, have hydrogen balloons pulling up the ship to keep it from sinking further and bringing it to the horizontal – for a while. The other GHGs could be illustrated with dissolved salts of different densities in the water flowing in.

 

The analogy/metaphor/simile of the sinking ship, (we are all in the same boat, the rats fleeing the ship for Mars, etc.) is already anchored in the public consciousness and can be related to global warming – we are “drowning” in heat, floods, and sea level rise – in a quantitative manner. It can be conveyed in language ranging from vernacular to poetic and depicted in cartoons. Poorer people living in lower decks and the rich higher up. It will also be clear why waiting for the crew to stop the leak before the passengers are allowed to start bailing out the water already inside the ship is so absurd. Since the ship is listing, propping it to the horizontal would benefit everyone on board. I can see cartoonists having fun here.

 

The amount of fossil carbon burnt to CO2 is reaching 600 Gt C soon. This number cannot be grasped but can be visualised by converting elemental mass into living volume: biomass, the stuff of organisms, is 80 % water and 20 % dry weight of which half is carbon (the other half is oxygen, nitrogen etc.). So, the volume of biomass in which 1 tonne of carbon is embedded will occupy roughly 10 m³ and 1 Gt carbon would be 10 cubic km biomass. So, 600 Gt C is 6,000 km³ of say, compressed seaweed. It also happens to be 50 Gt C more than the total amount of carbon in the biosphere, including the deep biosphere.

 

Now imagine a wall of compressed seaweed biomass or any plant material 1 km high, 1 km broad and 6,000 km long to visualise the dimensions of the legacy CO2.

BTW a meteorologist from my institute checked the website Windy (thanks Stephen!) and found that it was warmer over Greenland than in the US during the December "bomb cyclone".

Best wishes, see you all later today,

Victor

---

From: planetary-...@googlegroups.com <planetary-...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of rob...@rtulip.net <rob...@rtulip.net>
Sent: 16 January 2023 13:42
To: 'John Nissen'; 'Planetary Restoration'
Cc: 'healthy-planet-action-coalition'; ''Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings'; 'Achim Hoffmann'
Subject: RE: [prag] PRAG zoom meeting 16 January 8 pm UK time

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/planetary-restoration/007b01d929a8%240000b070%2400021150%24%40rtulip.net.

[John Nissen]

Hi Robert,

I agree that we will need to get some of the scientific community behind us.  This has proved extremely difficult because almost everyone was saying that SRM was "too dangerous" and "only to be used when all else fails".  Hansen's draft paper "Global warming in the pipeline" may be having an effect by showing that the rate of global warming is liable to double over the next 2-3 decades, i.e. long before net zero emissions is attained.  Thus "all else" is failing.  So there is an opportunity to build on his initiative.

In parallel we can work on the economics side.  The cost on refreezing the Arctic with SRM (MCB and/or or SAI), assuming it's still possible, would come to less than $1 per ton of oil, according to my calculations based on $11b per year for subpolar injection of SO2 into the stratosphere.

Most economists have been told that SRM has been ruled out by the scientists and the root cause of climate change is CO2 emissions. So they believe that a balance has to be obtained between the economic cost of emissions reduction and the economic damage caused by climate change.  Until recently that damage was relatively small in the West and the wealthier nations, as exemplified by the G20.  The global south and some poorer countries have already suffered considerable - even amounting to an existential threat for small islands.  But now the growth in extremes of weather is hurting everyone.  The economists still believe that SRM is dangerous, so there is a problem for them!  We need to exploit this, by pointing out that SRM is not dangerous, and it is ridiculously cheap.  Climate change could be reversed within a decade or two with $1 per ton of oil extracted from the ground.

Cheers, John

[Ben Ballard]

Hi all,

Here's my $0.02:

CO2 and the other greenhouse gases, which increase heat, are analogous to the water, which reduces buoyancy.

Increased heat, which destroys the survivable climate, is analogous to reduced buoyancy, which sinks the boat.

I think this set of analogies is more understandable to the general public.

Cheers,

Ben

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[John Nissen]

Hi all,

It was an excellent meeting, with a number of commitments to action coming out of it. Thank you, everyone involved.

During the meeting Robert Chris mentioned the Royal Society report into geoengineering, published on the 1st of September 2009 as I well remember.  What I had forgotten, perhaps subconsciously because there was a lot of anti-SRM sentiment around, was Steve Rayner's work to produce the Oxford principles [1].  To my way of thinking, they are designed to suppress SRM research.  But looking at this piece just now I was struck by the section on "Why Geoengineering" (Section 2).  It summarises quite nicely why indeed one might want geoengineering!   (Needless to say the Arctic is not mentioned; but as I pointed out at the meeting, the Arctic was not included in the Royal Society report, despite my own pleas to the chairman, Sir John Shepherd - that was tragic as it turns out, but it is water under the bridge and I hold no bitterness against him.)  They mention that SRM is Plan B, if emissions reduction (Plan A) fails.

I think our greatest chance of swinging the world to our point of view is that we now have a social tipping point: people in powerful positions, as well as most populations around the world, are recognising that the growth in extremes of weather is becoming a nightmare, and something needs to be done to reverse this trend.  Plan A has no chance to do it, but we can do it with our Plan B, starting in the Arctic.

Cheers, John

[1] https://www.homepages.ed.ac.uk/shs/Climatechange/Geo-politics/Oxford%20principles.pdf

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Victor--If I am not mistaken, 600 GtC is roughly the amount of above ground terrestrial biosphere--so all the forests, grasslands, shrublands, etc. in the world. Below ground amount is think is a bit over twice that amount. That is, 600 GtC is a huge amount.

Mike

On 1/16/23 11:02 AM, Victor Smetacek wrote:

Hi all,

A few weeks ago there was a discussion on appropriate analogies/metaphors/similes to convey the global warming issue and the measures we could undertake against it to the public and politicians. I prefer the analogy/metaphor/simile of our planet as a leaking passenger ship beginning to list with 3 independent, mutually inclusive choices facing its inhabitants, the passengers and crew: a) plugging the leak (stopping emissions), b) bailing out the water already in the ship (negative emissions), and c) keeping the ship afloat with external means (SRM etc.). The leaks can be stopped by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and the water in the ship can be removed by various techniques ranging from handing out buckets to the passengers, to installing pipes and pumps of various diameter and strength respectively. Albedo enhancement (geoengineering) would then be the equivalent of propping up the ship by attaching buoys/barges to the outside, or, to introduce an element of danger, have hydrogen balloons pulling up the ship to keep it from sinking further and bringing it to the horizontal – for a while. The other GHGs could be illustrated with dissolved salts of different densities in the water flowing in.

 

The analogy/metaphor/simile of the sinking ship, (we are all in the same boat, the rats fleeing the ship for Mars, etc.) is already anchored in the public consciousness and can be related to global warming – we are “drowning” in heat, floods, and sea level rise – in a quantitative manner. It can be conveyed in language ranging from vernacular to poetic and depicted in cartoons. Poorer people living in lower decks and the rich higher up. It will also be clear why waiting for the crew to stop the leak before the passengers are allowed to start bailing out the water already inside the ship is so absurd. Since the ship is listing, propping it to the horizontal would benefit everyone on board. I can see cartoonists having fun here.

 

The amount of fossil carbon burnt to CO2 is reaching 600 Gt C soon. This number cannot be grasped but can be visualised by converting elemental mass into living volume: biomass, the stuff of organisms, is 80 % water and 20 % dry weight of which half is carbon (the other half is oxygen, nitrogen etc.). So, the volume of biomass in which 1 tonne of carbon is embedded will occupy roughly 10 m³ and 1 Gt carbon would be 10 cubic km biomass. So, 600 Gt C is 6,000 km³ of say, compressed seaweed. It also happens to be 50 Gt C more than the total amount of carbon in the biosphere, including the deep biosphere.

 

Now imagine a wall of compressed seaweed biomass or any plant material 1 km high, 1 km broad and 6,000 km long to visualise the dimensions of the legacy CO2.

BTW a meteorologist from my institute checked the website Windy (thanks Stephen!) and found that it was warmer over Greenland than in the US during the December "bomb cyclone".

Best wishes, see you all later today,

Victor

From: planetary-...@googlegroups.com <planetary-...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of rob...@rtulip.net <rob...@rtulip.net>
Sent: 16 January 2023 13:42
To: 'John Nissen'; 'Planetary Restoration'

Cc: 'healthy-planet-action-coalition'; ''Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings'; 'Achim Hoffmann'
Subject: RE: [prag] PRAG zoom meeting 16 January 8 pm UK time

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/planetary-restoration/007b01d929a8%240000b070%2400021150%24%40rtulip.net.

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[rob...@rtulip.net]

Here is the link to the recording of the PRAG meeting.

 

https://youtu.be/6iQQzEbQYGg

 

The chat is attached. 

 

Thanks all who attended, very good discussion.

 

By the way, I will be in the UK in May-June and would like to catch up with people then.

 

Regards

 

Robert Tulip

 

From: planetary-...@googlegroups.com <planetary-...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of John Nissen

Sent: Tuesday, 17 January 2023 10:13 AM
To: Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; Robert Tulip <rob...@rtulip.net>
Cc: healthy-planet-action-coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>; 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>; Achim Hoffmann <ac...@woxon.com>

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[Bru Pearce]

Hi Mike and Victor,

 

As far as I'm aware this paper represents the most up-to-date estimate of the total amount of carbon in living biomass. Although I strongly suspect the marine biomass is underestimated. What to me is interesting is when you read into the paper they recognise that more than 50% has been lost as compared to 10,000 years ago.

 

Best wishes,

 

Bru Pearce

 

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