HPAC comment on White House Office of Science and Technology Policy climate intervention program
Ron Baiman
Request for Public Comments:
In the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in coordination with relevant Federal agencies, was directed by Congress to develop a five-year “scientific assessment of solar and other rapid climate interventions in the context of near-term climate risks and hazards. The report shall include:
the definition of goals in relevant areas of scientific research;
capabilities required to model, analyze, observe, and monitor atmospheric composition;
climate impacts and the Earth's radiation budget; and
the coordination of Federal research and investments to deliver this assessment to manage near-term climate risk and research in climate intervention.
OSTP recognizes the importance of this research topic. With the assistance of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, OSTP is offering a brief comment period to enable public input while also providing a timely response to Congress. The focus of this plan will be on research associated with climate intervention, and comments are being requested in that context only.
Input should be narrative only (i.e., no figures, graphics, or attachments), should be limited to 1,000 words, should respond to the Congressional direction above, and should relate either to one of the four categories listed in legislative language or more generally to climate intervention research. Input must be submitted by 11:59 PM ET on September 9, 2022.
Posted, Aug 19, 2022
Open Notice, https://www.globalchange.gov/content/request-input-five-year-climate-intervention-research-plan
Individuals interested in submitting comment should visit contribute.globalchange.gov
HPAC Submission
Healthy Planet Action Coalition USGCRP RCI Comment
The Healthy Planet Action Coalition is a diverse international group of scientists, engineers, technologists, and public policy experts active in relevant fields spanning all aspects of climate change.
We are united by a determined and informed optimism that a threefold approach can prevent climate catastrophes and restore a more benevolent climate. We call this approach “The Climate Triad”.
The Climate Triad of Direct Climate Cooling (DCC), GHG Emissions Reductions, and Greenhouse Gas Removal (GHGR) works as a complementary system to stabilize and moderate the climate and ultimately restore a safe, healthy, and sustainable planet. Creating this system requires a collaborative, inclusive, and expedited research program with a priority focus on direct climate cooling. HPAC offers these recommendations for the development of such a program.
(1) The definition of goals in relevant areas of scientific research
The Healthy Planet Action Coalition calls on the White House to set direct climate cooling, greenhouse gas removal and emission reduction as co-equal priorities. An overall goal of keeping temperature rise below 1.5°C could be achieved by a primary focus in this decade on cooling technologies to increase planetary albedo, cut radiative forcing, and implement other methods for direct climate cooling. Urgent direct climate cooling is now necessary to reduce current and near term human and other species harm and risk from current and near term future levels of global warming. Due to this urgency, we ask that the proposed five year research and implementation plan, depending on the method, be accelerated to one or two years.
The following is a menu of proposed climate cooling approaches that we suggest merit early consideration and responsible investigation with actions that can be monitored and reported on:
Buoyant Flakes
Cirrus cloud thinning
Fizz Tops (Fiztops)
Ice Shields to thicken polar ice
Iron salt aerosol (ISA)
Making building and paving material more reflective and planting trees in urban areas.
Marine algal bloom stimulation
Marine cloud brightening
Mirrors for Earth's Energy Rebalancing (MEER)
Ocean thermal energy conversion
Restoring natural upwelling and kelp forest ecosystem services offshore
Restoring soil and vegetation
Seawater atomization (Seatomizers)
Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI)
Surface Albedo Modification (SAM)
Short summaries for most of these methods written or reviewed by climate cooling experts cited in the document are available here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TowThwi6j6cX3iLGBRrj22D30cYhKa_9/edit
Relevant scientific research on direct climate cooling methods and technologies currently being conducted include marine cloud brightening, stratospheric aerosol injection, sea-ice freezing, ocean thermal energy conversion, ocean and glacier microspheres, terrestrial and atmospheric mirrors, cirrus cloud thinning, iron salt aerosols, and white reflective rooftops and streets.
Refreezing the poles should be a global climate priority in support of national and international security, biodiversity protection, and reducing extreme weather and sea level rise. US encouragement of COP27 in Cairo to set goals on albedo and biodiversity would sharpen research priorities.
(2) Capabilities required to model, analyze, observe, and monitor atmospheric composition
A direct climate cooling program will require major capabilities in atmospheric science, enabling scientific experts to provide direct advice to government and industry on priorities and findings. Modeling, analysis, observation and monitoring of the atmosphere must guide climate intervention priorities and programs. Research, testing and deployment strategies require high level scientific skills in universities, supported by public and private investment.
A way to encourage investment in cooling expertise is to introduce direct climate cooling credits as a more immediate climate offset than carbon credits. Coordination of atmospheric science with governance systems is essential to enforce ethical standards, ensure safety and consultation through transparent and accountable planning and delivery, and link with international diplomacy on programs such as refreezing the Arctic.
(3) Climate impacts and the Earth's radiation budget
A focus on cooling technology is the best way to mitigate climate impacts and improve the Earth’s radiation budget in the near term, alongside ongoing work on emission reduction and GHG removal as they take effect over the longer-term. The best overall measure of climate impacts is radiative forcing, the excess of incoming over outgoing radiation at the top of the atmosphere. Government and private funds should be applied to methods that most effectively cut radiative forcing. Augmenting the current carbon credit system with a system of direct climate cooling credits would better cost the temperature impact of emission reduction, greenhouse gas removal and direct cooling technology.
(4) Coordination of Federal research and investments to deliver this assessment to manage near-term climate risk and research in climate intervention.
The USA should coordinate with other nations to develop a cooperative international program to refreeze the Arctic Ocean. Domestic US resources should be mobilized to support coordinated global and regional climate cooling. Arctic Amplification (with up to four times the temperature rise of the equator) and the role of Arctic sea-ice in regulating climate through the jet stream and ocean currents make the Arctic Circle the most serious planetary warming risk and cooling priority. Substantial cooling of the Arctic must be complemented by similar cooling of the Antarctic to achieve a stable global climate benefit. Ongoing disruption of these planetary systems is a major climate security risk, whereas action to reverse the disruption has benefits for peacebuilding, biodiversity and mitigation of warming. Climate security should be integrated with military security as part of national strategic priority setting and risk assessment. Diplomacy through the Arctic Council and COP27 and other relevant international bodies should engage on the urgency of cooling the pole, laying a foundation for the USA to work with other interested governments to test and deploy methods that will help reverse the current warming trend. Coordinated research and investment can be promoted by the USA taking a strong stance at COP27 and in other relevant international forums in favor of assessing direct cooling technology and refreezing the Arctic Ocean.
Andrew Lockley
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Ron Baiman
House request for comment (1000 words due Sept. 9, 2022):
Request for Input to a Five-Year Plan for Research on Climate InWhite tervention
The following notice is shared on behalf of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
In the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in coordination with relevant Federal agencies, was directed by Congress to develop a five-year “scientific assessment of solar and other rapid climate interventions in the context of near-term climate risks and hazards. The report shall include:
the definition of goals in relevant areas of scientific research;
capabilities required to model, analyze, observe, and monitor atmospheric composition;
climate impacts and the Earth's radiation budget; and
the coordination of Federal research and investments to deliver this assessment to manage near-term climate risk and research in climate intervention.”
OSTP recognizes the importance of this research topic. With the assistance of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, OSTP is offering a brief comment period to enable public input while also providing a timely response to Congress. The focus of this plan will be on research associated with climate intervention, and comments are being requested in that context only.
Input should be narrative only (i.e., no figures, graphics, or attachments), should be limited to 1,000 words, should respond to the Congressional direction above, and should relate either to one of the four categories listed in legislative language or more generally to climate intervention research. Input must be submitted by 11:59 PM ET on September 9, 2022.
Jessica Gurevitch
Jessica Gurevitch
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY 11794-5245 USA
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Jessica Gurevitch
Jessica Gurevitch
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY 11794-5245 USA
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Stephen Salter
Hi All
My submission below about marine cloud brightening will be familiar to most of you. I expect that they would prefer spending money in America.
A recent estimate from the Hadley Centre is that greenhouse gases are retaining 1.7 watts per square metre more than we would like. The mean 24-hour solar input is 340 watts per square metre so increasing world reflectivity by only 0.5% would solve the present problem.
Cloud reflectivity ranges from 25% to 75%. Low-level clouds cover about 18% of the oceans. Twomey studied cloud reflectivity with aircraft instrument observations. He found that reflectivity depends on the size distribution of cloud drops. For the same liquid water content, lots of small drops reflect more than a smaller number of bigger ones. Doubling the drop number increases reflectivity by a bit over 5%. The optics can be demonstrated with jars of glass balls of different sizes. His results have been replicated by Ackerman with good agreement and so carry more weight than computer models.
Cloud drop formation needs a high relative humidity and also some form of seed called a condensation nucleus. These are plentiful, 1000 to 5000 cm3, over land but scarce, often around 40 per cm3 in clean mid-ocean air. John Latham suggested that salt residues from the evaporation of a submicron spray of filtered sea water would provide extra condensation nuclei and so brighter clouds. Nuclei would be spread by turbulence through the marine boundary layer. Work by Köhler shows that the best drop size for 3.5% salinity is 0.8 micron. Latham was surprised at how little spray would be needed to return to pre-industrial temperatures. The solar energy reflected by a cloud drop is many millions of times more than the surface tension energy needed to make the nucleus on which it grew.
Much of the computer modelling for marine cloud brightening has been done for spray released at a constant rate, all the year round, rain or shine between latitudes 30 N and 30 S. It would be much better to migrate with the seasons. For two months there is more solar energy going into the poles than into the equator. Work by Stjern et al. at the Norwegian Cicero Laboratory restricted spray to ocean regions with low cloud. The mean of nine leading climate models showed that a 50% increase in the concentration of condensation nuclei gave a 4K cooling in Arctic regions and 10% increases of precipitation in most of the drought-stricken regions. Reduction of precipitation was mainly over the sea. With satellite data feeding information to quantum computers running parallel ‘what if’ climate models I am sure that the Cicero lab can develop an even more intelligent spray strategy. Work by Alterskjaer and Kristjansson showed that the choice of drop size and a narrow dispersion of diameter are important because spray in either the smaller Aitken mode or the larger coarse mode can warm. A narrow dispersion of spray diameters will prevent large drops nucleating before the smaller ones and grabbing all the available vapour to leave smaller ones in the dry.
Design of wind-driven spray vessels is nearly complete to the point where drawings and specifications could be given to potential contractors. Propulsion is by Flettner rotors, first used in 1926, and which now are increasingly being used for fuel-saving in large ships. Energy generation, up to 300 kW, is by the flapping motion of variable-pitch hydrofoils driving high-pressure oil hydraulics. Drop generation is by Rayleigh jet breakup of a flow through submicron nozzles etched in silicon wafers driven by a pressure of 80 bar. There can be 200 million nozzles in each 200 mm diameter wafer. Coagulation will be reduced with an electrostatic charge. The most difficult problem is that sea water often contains vast numbers of marine organisms many of which will block the nozzles. The same problem is faced by the even smaller pores in the membranes used for desalination by reverse osmosis. The solution is sequential back-flushing of each member of a ring of filters with part of the flow from the others. The filter manufacturer, Pentair, is confident of successful operation. The design of the spray heads allows back-flushing and ultrasonic cleaning of the wafers at sea.
Spray will be washed out by the next rainfall giving a control system with a high frequency response and low phase lag. Hydrofoil vessels can go faster than the wind. Depending on how well we can forecast wind speed and direction for a few days ahead we can develop a tactical control system to control hurricanes, El Niño events and the ocean temperature gradients across the Indian Ocean which affect monsoons. Restoring polar ice would reverse sea level rise.
Stephen
From: 'Doug Grandt' via Healthy Planet Action Coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: 09 September 2022 21:29
To: Ron Baiman <rpba...@gmail.com>; John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com>
Cc: healthy-planet-action-coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: HPAC comment on White House Office of Science and Technology Policy climate intervention program
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Thank you Ron and others who contributed to the HPAC submissions, and John for yours.
John, indeed there is an edit icon, which I invoked twice … it merely requests a short explanation of the intention of the edits.
I incorrectly read the deadline as 11:59am, and intended to dedicate all morning to drafting my submittal … but thrown off my regular morning research/reading routine, I panics when I sat down at about 11:30am.
I rushed to create an account and typical, Murphy’s Law slowed down that process until 11:45 … while time was ticking away, I was prioritizing all that I had decided to cover, and from 11:45 to 11:58 I managed to enter the key elements into a hasty single-finger-on-my-phone version including typos and a few missing clarifying words.
It took two EDIT iterations to fix the errors.
As for your draft, the only point that I emphasized that you may want to expand on is that the research and modeling should aim for <350ppm (<0.5°C) instead of 1.5°C. The final paragraph of my text:
Reset 1.5°C target to <350ppm CO2e (<0.5°C) and model temperature and economics
This is my submission:
World Energy Crisis Aversion & Endgame (W.E.C.A.R.E.)
LEGISLATION REQUIRING OIL & GAS CEOs to testify and submit their most responsible and expedient strategic plans to wind down production of oil and gas, and refining of crude and condensates,
Requires Oil & Gas industry to fund the retirement, dismantling, detox and scrapping refining and field facilities and pipelines, properly plugging all shut-in and abandoned wells, as well as site and easement restoration and other financial matters including paying down all debt and reimburse all institutional investors (insurance, foundations, superannuation) as well as ma & pa investors (excluding Officers, Executives and Board Members )—all “Final Expenses”—as well as removing double (2x) CO2 and CH4 Future emissions from future product distributions/sales to account for current AND past/legacy emissions.
Do not allow bankruptcy, but command and control and possibly nationalize all US companies and international companies that operate on US lands and coastal waters, and use Quantitative Easing to assure they stay in business even as profits turn to losses.
Evaluate all plausible means to remove GHG and cool the Arctic in order to draw down atmospheric concentrations and increase Arctic and global albedo in order to reduce Arctic and global temperature and IMPORTANTLY restore jetstream and polar vortex by reducing the poles-to-tropics temperature gradient.
Reset the 2050 target from the grossly inadequate arbitrary 1.5°C target to <350ppm CO2e or <0.5°C, and model all plausible pathways for temperature and economic impacts year by year.
============================
On Sep 9, 2022, at 2:55 PM, John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,
I drafted a submission yesterday, see below, and submitted it successfully. There was no indication that a submission could be edited up to the deadline time today, 11.59 PM, EDT. Assuming I can edit it, I would be grateful for any comment before 10 pm UK time (just over 2 hours from now). You may notice the mistake of including early Holocene evidence, which I will correct if I can.
Today I read in the Guardian about another report on tipping points but, looking at it in some detail, it seems to be based on models and completely out of touch with reality.
Cheers, John
The assessment
In the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in coordination with relevant Federal agencies, was directed by Congress to develop a five-year “scientific assessment of solar and other rapid climate interventions in the context of near-term climate risks and hazards. The report shall include: (1) the definition of goals in relevant areas of scientific research; (2) capabilities required to model, analyze, observe, and monitor atmospheric composition; (3) climate impacts and the Earth's radiation budget; and (4) the coordination of Federal research and investments to deliver this assessment to manage near-term climate risk and research in climate intervention.”
My submission
The IPCC objective of keeping global warming under 1.5C was justified on the grounds of avoiding tipping points. Arguably the most serious of these is the Arctic sea ice, which is tipping from a state of covering the Arctic Ocean throughout the year to a state of absent coverage by the end of summer. The associated albedo positive feedback has boosted Arctic temperature such that it is now warming nearly 4 times as fast as the global average; this is known as Arctic Amplification (AA). The Arctic's contribution to Earth's radiation budget as a result of snow and ice retreat since 1979 may have reached as much as 1.0 W/m2; this can and should be verified by satellite observation. An immediate effect of AA is increased disruption of jet stream behaviour causing a tendency to stick in locations for longer times. This is ostensibly the reason for the increase in extremes of weather and what many people identify as the climate emergency. The physical science behind this is simple: the energy in the Rossby waves is a product of the Earth's rotation and the temperature gradient between pole and tropics. With AA, this gradient has decreased, hence less energy to drive the waves eastward round the planet and a greater tendency for the waves to stick. This summer the waves were stuck in a No 5 pattern for weeks, causing extreme heat in 5 regions around the planet.
AA is also causing accelerated melt of the Greenland Ice Sheet, which if not halted will eventually lead to 7 metres of sea level rise or more. James Hansen has pointed out that continued doubling of meltwater every decade could lead to over a metre of sea level rise this century. But a sudden partial collapse of the ice sheet could occur, with cascades of ice blocks producing mega tsunamis; there is evidence that this occurred at the end of the Eemian and in the early Holocene.
And AA is causing accelerated thaw of both terrestrial and subsea permafrost, with methane emissions producing positive feedback to Arctic warming (hence greater AA) as well as contributing to global warming.
Thus the OSTP has at least three reasons to consider cooling intervention for the Arctic as the top priority for its assessment. In order to halt Arctic warming and start to refreeze the Arctic, the most powerful and available techniques should be considered, including stratospheric aerosol injection and marine cloud brightening. The possibility of cooling the Arctic using stratospheric aerosol injection from high-flying aircraft north of 50N has been proposed. There do not appear to be any significant disadvantages of this deployment and it would have the advantage of producing a blanket cooling. The OSTP should assess this proposal with a view to supporting near-term deployment (starting ASAP) with aircraft adaptations, logistics, modelling and monitoring. Both research and investment is needed.
Ideally injection would take place uniformly around the planet to produce a uniform blanket cooling north of 50N which would feed into the Arctic. However with the political situation in Russia, the injection might have to be restricted. The implications of this for effective cooling need to be considered.
John Nissen
on behalf of the Planetary Restoration Action Group
============================
On Fri, 9 Sep 2022, 10:53 am Ron Baiman, wrote:
Request for Public Comments:
In the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in coordination with relevant Federal agencies, was directed by Congress to develop a five-year “scientific assessment of solar and other rapid climate interventions in the context of near-term climate risks and hazards. The report shall include:
1. the definition of goals in relevant areas of scientific research;
2. capabilities required to model, analyze, observe, and monitor atmospheric composition;
3. climate impacts and the Earth's radiation budget; and
4. the coordination of Federal research and investments to deliver this assessment to manage near-term climate risk and research in climate intervention.
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Andrew Lockley
Sev Clarke
THREE CLIMATE SOLUTIONS
Introduction. As harnessing industry is likely to be key to prompt and effective climate action and investment, the text in blue bold below indicates some of the industrial applications of the three conceptual technologies. Some of them should be profitable. Most await independent assessment, modelling, development, governance and deployment. Supporting documentation is available on request. The three technologies are currently under active investigation by a consortium of renowned research institutes.
Buoyant Flake Ocean Fertilization (BFOF) is designed to nutriate oligotrophic surface waters with the necessary nutrients. Rice husks rich in opaline silica are coated in waste minerals containing iron, phosphate and trace elements using hot-melt lignin glue derived from straw or woody waste and a leavening agent to provide buoyancy. Reactive nitrogen is provided by nutrient-supplemented cyanobacteria that convert atmospheric nitrogen and CO2 into biomass. The flakes are pumped pneumatically from the holds of bulk cargo ships thinly over the sea surface, into which flake nutrients leach out over a year before the husks disintegrate and sink.
Modelling should be able to establish the theoretical cooling effect provided by increasing the albedo of these waters by increasing their phytoplankton concentrations. Modelling and experimentation should also be able to estimate the increase in marine biomass that would likely be generated by such supplementary fertilization, together with its beneficial effects on ocean de-acidification and the moving downwards (sequestration) of the carbonaceous material contained in marine faeces, dead organisms, marine ‘snow', flake residuals, and the bicarbonate released by bacterial and chemical action. It has been estimated that this could sequester from 6-13GtC/yr in the ocean depths - at very low cost, or even profitably.
The ultra-slow release of nutrients into nutrient-poor, and increasingly stratified, surface waters should allow a rich and stable marine ecology to develop. Furthermore, it would tend to prevent eutrophication and toxicity from occurring. The effectiveness of this proposed method has recently been given a major boost, as it was realized that krill and other diel, vertically-migrating (DVM) species form an Active Carbon Pump that, when supplemented by increased phytoplankton numbers fed by the minerals released by the buoyant flakes, could release sufficient carbon-rich faecal pellets and respiration at depth fully to offset annual anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. The commercial opportunities offered by this technology lie mainly in the additional fish catch or fishing royalties that it could provide. In time, independently-verified carbon credits might also become monetizable from proven carbon sequestration. The increase in ocean cooling albedo caused by the solar-reflecting phytoplankton and their cloud-thickening emissions is unlikely to be monetizable, though beneficial to the biosphere and humanity.
Floating Seatomizer (seawater atomizing) units, powered by offshore wind farms, could spray seawater into the lower atmosphere to humidify the air, form high-albedo marine cloud, cool the surface water, restore coral reefs, increase off-planet heat flow, and irrigate the land with additional, gentle precipitation. BETE’s commercial spray nozzles, when adapted to use higher and triphasic pressures, might generate droplets in the right size distributions to produce sea salt aerosols, cloud nucleation, atmospheric humidification up to the point where saturation occurs, marine cloud forms or thickens, and rainfall or snow may be induced to fall at predetermined distances downwind - saving crops, forests, and homes. Performed in arctic warm seasons, ice albedo and thickness could be protected.
Anchored arrays of Seatomizer units should be able to have significant regional cooling effects on the warming waters that power extreme weather events. The main effect is to increase the rate of evaporation of seawater, its turbulent uplift, and the subsequent long wave radiation of its released vapour heat content, on condensation, into space. A recent extension of this technology would allow for iron salt aerosols (ISA) to be sublimated to generate photocatalytic aerosols that destroy harmful atmospheric methane, black carbon, ozone and smog. Economically cooling selected marine waters, including those related to sensitive mariculture operations. Desert re-greening.
The ice thickening concept of Ice Shields is designed to refreeze those parts of the polar and subpolar oceans that have been progressively losing ice for the last several decades, as well as to sequester surface ocean and atmospheric CO2 and O2. The means used are cold-adapted, commercial floating wind turbines powering seawater pumps to thicken, and possibly ground, sea ice by up to seventy metres per year. Ice shield array growth should: increase global albedo and cooling; stabilise the polar vortex; save the ice sheets and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (AMOC); strengthen the marine biological pump; and help to control seabed methane emissions.
The carbon dioxide and oxygen sequestration in the depths would result from the gases’ concentration in the fast chilling and salinating seawater brine flowing intermittently in thin sheets and rivulets down the gently-inclined, conical ice shields (like lava) and off them into the sea to sink by density rapidly to the seabed. The arrays of ice shields could eventually cover most of the polar regions and subpolar seas, leaving only open water for polynyas and surface marine passage by ships and wildlife. The brine flows would sequester for up to centuries the atmospheric CO2 dissolved in them, as it would react with seabed carbonates (shells, bones and limestone) to form benign, dissolved bicarbonate. The additional oceanic oxygen and cooling would be beneficial to most marine life.
The thermals resulting from the heat released by the freezing seawater would convect ocean heat energy directly to the tropopause, whence it would radiate, almost unhindered by the otherwise-insulating GHGs, into deep space. In the non-freezing seasons, the seawater pumps could be applied to spraying low-micron, seawater droplets into the atmosphere so that it formed ice-protecting cloud cover. Some of the spare power might also be used for Seatomizer-like methane destruction by ISA. As corporate involvement is likely to be an essential component of this solution, profits might be derived from government contracts, carbon credits, coastal stabilization, habitat protection, renewable Arctic wind power sufficient to power most of the northern hemisphere, and the harvesting of ebullient Arctic methane.
Josh Horton
Ron Baiman
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