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H simmens

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Nov 2, 2023, 8:31:58 AM11/2/23
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H simmens

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Nov 2, 2023, 8:47:06 AM11/2/23
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The key language on cooling in the paper:

Third, we must take action to reduce and reverse Earth’s energy imbalance. Highest priority is to phase down emissions, but it is no longer feasible to rapidly restore energy balance via only GHG emission reductions. Additional action is almost surely needed to prevent grievous escalation of climate impacts including lock-in of sea level rise that could destroy coastal cities world-wide. At least several years will be needed to define and gain acceptance of an approach for climate restoration. This effort should not deter action on mitigation of emissions; on the contrary, the concept of human intervention in climate is distasteful to many people, so support for GHG emission reductions will likely increase. Temporary solar radiation management (SRM) will probably be needed, e.g. via purposeful injection of atmospheric aerosols. Risks of such intervention must be defined, as well as risks of no intervention; thus, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences recommends research on SRM [212]. The Mt. Pinatubo eruption of 1991 is a natural experiment [213214] with a forcing that reached [30] –3 W/m2. Pinatubo deserves a coordinated study with current models. The most innocuous aerosols may be fine salty droplets extracted from the ocean and sprayed into the air by autonomous sailboats [215]. This approach has been discussed for potential use on a global scale [216], but it needs research into potential unintended effects [217]. 

This decade may be our last chance to develop the knowledge, technical capability, and political will for actions needed to save global coastal regions from long-term inundation. (My bolding) 

Herb Simmens
Author of A Climate Vocabulary of the Future
“A SciencePoem and an Inspiration.” Kim Stanley Robinson
@herbsimmens
HerbSimmens.com


On Nov 2, 2023, at 8:31 AM, H simmens <hsim...@gmail.com> wrote:



H simmens

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Nov 2, 2023, 10:13:42 AM11/2/23
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Here’s a response/rebuttal from Michael Mann to Hansen. The game is now on between the two most prominent US climate scientists. Let’s see if the mainstream media pick up on it  

https://michaelmann.net/content/comments-new-article-james-hansen

Let’s hope that Michael is correct with regard to the science and not Jim’s SRM advocacy which he labels a ‘gambit’.  

Herb

Herb Simmens
Author of A Climate Vocabulary of the Future
“A SciencePoem and an Inspiration.” Kim Stanley Robinson
@herbsimmens
HerbSimmens.com


On Nov 2, 2023, at 8:47 AM, H simmens <hsim...@gmail.com> wrote:



Douglas Grandt

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Nov 2, 2023, 11:33:29 AM11/2/23
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Herb,

THIS is “the new climate war” and it’s time to play hard ball with the Mann camp.

IMHO Mann is fighting for his reputation and book sales by conflating the specific taboo”  GLOBAL SAI with the umbrella “geoengineering” leveraging the associated emotions and “baggage”:

injection of massive amounts of sulphate aerosol into the stratosphere (euphamistically called "solar radiation management"). And this desparate action is motivated by what I consider to be a fallacy

We need to clearly debunk the singular “conventional” GLOBAL SAI argument with a definitive juxtaposition with other benign forms, and demand separate and specific assessments of both ends of the riskiness spectrum:

7. Finally, I'm deeply troubled by this throwaway line in the paper:

Temporary solar radiation management (SRM) will probably be needed 
 
This is policy advocacy, and misguided policy advocacy in my view. 

I think posing the question, “would you bet the farm on defensive rhetorical statements that are based on the unacknowledged incomplete models’ faulty assumptions?

But in terms of what we can expect in the decades ahead, there is no reason, based on the collective evidence from the paleoclimate record, to expect a climate trajectory substantially different from what current generation (i.e. IPCC) models predict. And there is no reason that we can't prevent dangerous levels of warming through concerted efforts to decarbonize the global economy. The obstacles, at least at present, are political, not physical or even technological. 

… and* …

I feel that this latest contribution from Jim and his co-authors is at best unconvincing. I don’t think they have made the case for their main claims, i.e. that warming is accelerating, that the planetary heat imbalance is increasing, that aerosols are playing some outsized role, or that climate models are getting all of this wrong. And I certainly don't think that they've made the case for engaging in potentially disastrous planetary-scale geoengineering projects.

… or … would you be comfortable betting the farm on a safer approach backed by the critical reassessment of the “conventional wisdom,” unhampered by the fear of lost book $ALE$ and real risk of a tarnished reputation and fall from revered status.

Mann has thrown down the gauntlet.

Let’s mull over options for responding.

Best,
Doug 

* Note Mann’s strange change of font




Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

On Nov 2, 2023, at 10:14 AM, H simmens <hsim...@gmail.com> wrote:


Here’s a response/rebuttal from Michael Mann to Hansen. The game is now on between the two most prominent US climate scientists. Let’s see if the mainstream media pick up on it  

https://michaelmann.net/content/comments-new-article-james-hansen

Let’s hope that Michael is correct with regard to the science and not Jim’s SRM advocacy which he labels a ‘gambit’.  

Herb

Herb Simmens
Author of A Climate Vocabulary of the Future
“A SciencePoem and an Inspiration.” Kim Stanley Robinson
@herbsimmens
HerbSimmens.com


On Nov 2, 2023, at 8:47 AM, H simmens <hsim...@gmail.com> wrote:



The key language on cooling in the paper:

Third, we must take action to reduce and reverse Earth’s energy imbalance. Highest priority is to phase down emissions, but it is no longer feasible to rapidly restore energy balance via only GHG emission reductions. Additional action is almost surely needed to prevent grievous escalation of climate impacts including lock-in of sea level rise that could destroy coastal cities world-wide. At least several years will be needed to define and gain acceptance of an approach for climate restoration. This effort should not deter action on mitigation of emissions; on the contrary, the concept of human intervention in climate is distasteful to many people, so support for GHG emission reductions will likely increase. Temporary solar radiation management (SRM) will probably be needed, e.g. via purposeful injection of atmospheric aerosols. Risks of such intervention must be defined, as well as risks of no intervention; thus, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences recommends research on SRM [212]. The Mt. Pinatubo eruption of 1991 is a natural experiment [213214] with a forcing that reached [30] –3 W/m2. Pinatubo deserves a coordinated study with current models. The most innocuous aerosols may be fine salty droplets extracted from the ocean and sprayed into the air by autonomous sailboats [215]. This approach has been discussed for potential use on a global scale [216], but it needs research into potential unintended effects [217]. 

This decade may be our last chance to develop the knowledge, technical capability, and political will for actions needed to save global coastal regions from long-term inundation. (My bolding) 

Herb Simmens
Author of A Climate Vocabulary of the Future
“A SciencePoem and an Inspiration.” Kim Stanley Robinson
@herbsimmens
HerbSimmens.com


On Nov 2, 2023, at 8:31 AM, H simmens <hsim...@gmail.com> wrote:



This appears to be the real thing. The long awaited paper by James Hansen and colleagues:

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robert...@gmail.com

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Nov 2, 2023, 11:34:03 AM11/2/23
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Game on!  It'll be interesting to see how Hansen responds, if indeed he does.  For us lesser mortals, it seems quite important that these titans sort this out because such critical differences at this level can only undermine policy progress in whatever direction it should be taken.

Regards

Robert


On 02/11/2023 14:13, H simmens wrote:
 Here’s a response/rebuttal from Michael Mann to Hansen. The game is now on between the two most prominent US climate scientists. Let’s see if the mainstream media pick up on it  

H simmens

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Nov 2, 2023, 11:47:13 AM11/2/23
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The only direct interaction between Mann and Hansen I’ve been able to find is this brief exchange in July (Mann’s tweet is at the top)

image




Herb Simmens
Author of A Climate Vocabulary of the Future
“A SciencePoem and an Inspiration.” Kim Stanley Robinson
@herbsimmens
HerbSimmens.com


On Nov 2, 2023, at 11:34 AM, robert...@gmail.com wrote:



H simmens

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Nov 2, 2023, 11:51:44 AM11/2/23
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Here’s Doug Macmartin’s Cornell colleague Dan Visioni attempting to capitalize on Hansen‘s SRM support. 

It would be interesting to ask Doug today what he thinks the impact of Hansen’s SRM support will be. 

Herb

image

Herb Simmens
Author of A Climate Vocabulary of the Future
“A SciencePoem and an Inspiration.” Kim Stanley Robinson
@herbsimmens
HerbSimmens.com


On Nov 2, 2023, at 11:47 AM, H simmens <hsim...@gmail.com> wrote:


The only direct interaction between Mann and Hansen I’ve been able to find is this brief exchange in July (Mann’s tweet is at the top)

image.png

Bruce Melton -- Austin, Texas

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Nov 2, 2023, 2:29:54 PM11/2/23
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Ahhhh... I am seeing something now that I have missed with the zero warming commitment hypothesis. Mann played his hand in his rebuttal to Hansen. This statement that once emissions cease, warming ceases, has always been incredulous based on the much larger body of findings from many different lines that have supported warming in the pipeline for a generation. This is what Mann says about the understanding of the zero commitment hypothesis, "This understanding goes back more than a decade... It is the basis of the concept of a “carbon budget”, including the widely-cited rule of thumb that we must reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2050 to avoid more than 1.5C warming." This conundrum of zero committed warming is scenario biased, of course... The scenarios tell us that if we hold to our carbon budget, we get no more warming than 1.5 C. Because we are so close to 1.5 C now, this means no more warming if we meet our carbon budget goals.

Mann has always been a creature of the scenario bias. This is why he cannot conceive of restoration or direct cooling. This makes perfect sense as so many others are afflicted with the inability to conceive of solutions other than emissions eliminations and further warming to 1.5 C -- these things are two of the basic tenets of the scenario bias in climate science. 

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On 11/2/2023 9:13 AM, H simmens wrote:
 Here’s a response/rebuttal from Michael Mann to Hansen. The game is now on between the two most prominent US climate scientists. Let’s see if the mainstream media pick up on it  
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Douglas MacMartin

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Nov 2, 2023, 5:36:19 PM11/2/23
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There’s nothing incredulous about ZEC being plausibly near-zero; that’s a perfectly reasonable first-order guess.

 

People constantly confuse zero-emissions with constant-concentrations.

 

The latter of course has considerable warming in the pipeline.  But just as the planet isn’t yet in thermal equilibrium with current forcing, the ocean CO2 isn’t yet in equilibrium with atmospheric CO2.  And both of those are driven in part by the long time-scales of ocean mixing.  So zero emissions means atmospheric CO2 goes down, with a reasonable guess that that might be roughly fast enough to balance the committed warming, with emphasis on words like “guess” and “roughly”.

 

And, at least in models, the ZEC isn’t strongly scenario dependent (that is, not strongly dependent on how much you emit before you get to zero or how fast); it’s a statement about physics.

 

What Mann gets completely wrong is any grasp of the concept of uncertainty.  ZEC might be near zero, but it might not be… the other factor required for it to be near zero is for the warming from methane to roughly balance the cooling from tropospheric aerosols, but that second is highly uncertain, and my rough understanding of Jim Hansen is that he estimates a much larger masking of warming by aerosols, which would imply that ZEC may not be small.

Ye Tao

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Nov 2, 2023, 5:36:27 PM11/2/23
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Mann might be out of his mind to quote the toy model output from the 2018 special report 15 as his first major point.  I hope he simply never looked into that model and had no hand in making those graphs.  I hope he is simply being busy and overwhelm to have  a moment to think for himself. 

I did an analysis and critique of that toy model and "data massaging" to get the <1.5C output by 1) choosing the wrong input (low end of distribution) for the magnitude aerosol forcing and 2) shifting of baselines.   Time mark 10:00-10:40

Ye

On 11/2/2023 10:13 AM, H simmens wrote:
 Here’s a response/rebuttal from Michael Mann to Hansen. The game is now on between the two most prominent US climate scientists. Let’s see if the mainstream media pick up on it  
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Ye Tao

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Nov 2, 2023, 5:36:36 PM11/2/23
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This post by Mann demonstrates that he lacks an understanding of time-dependent dynamics: things like impulse and step response function. Or maybe he does, but is playing into the general ignorance of the public regarding such things.

Not sure which one is worse and what that says about how we choose academic leaders.

Ye

Robert Chris

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Nov 3, 2023, 5:17:48 PM11/3/23
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Hansen et al’s long awaited paper Warming in the Pipeline was finally published on 2 November after several revisions following its prepublication appearance towards the end of last year.  This allowed Professor Michael Mann to get his rebuttal in a day early.  With Hansen challenging the ‘orthodox mainstream’ view that rapid cuts in carbon emissions are no longer a sufficient policy response, with Mann claiming they are, the stage is now set for a mighty battle between these two titans of the science of climate change.  I am a mere spectator in this.  I’m not qualified to be in the ring, but I am qualified to judge the fight.

Mann’s rebuttal wins him few points in this opening round.  Rather than critique Hansen et al’s work, he sets out his own opinions and supports them with many references (of varying quality) to what he refers to as the orthodox and mainstream position and several straw man arguments.  This amounts to little more than a claim that his facts are bigger and better than Hansen’s.  Much like an old fashioned pissing contest. This is a level of argumentation that does no justice to the gravity of the issues at stake.  Until their differences are resolved, policymakers will understandably sit on their hands genuinely not knowing what to do in the best interests of humanity and the rest of life with whom we share this planet.  It is critical that that resolution be achieved without undue delay because if Hansen is right, it will be vital to lose as little time as possible in coming to terms with the policy implications. 

Hansen et al’s paper, like most such academic works, consists of an argument in the form of a series of premises linked together by logical reasoning to reach a set of conclusions.  To rebut the argument and demonstrate that the conclusions are unsound, it is necessary to show either (or both) that one or more of the premises is untrue, or the reasoning is invalid.  Mann does neither. 

Restating his own argument, however well referenced, is not a rebuttal of Hansen’s because it does not allow for the possibility that there are problems with the premises and reasoning of his own case.  He ignores the possibility of systemic bias and groupthink that often characterises such orthodox and mainstream positions before they crumble in the wake of paradigm shifts.  The history of knowledge is replete with such instances.  Indeed, were that not so, we’d still be living in caves.

Two critical factors that will need addressing are risk and uncertainty both of which contribute to our sense of urgency.  Both Mann and Hansen agree that rapid deep cuts in emissions are essential and not yet happening at anything like the necessary pace.  But what Mann does not make clear is the nature and extent of the risk of that continuing not to happen at sufficient pace, and how that impacts urgency.  If the risks of under-reacting are not too great, then we have the luxury of waiting to see how things unfold.  However, if the risks of under-reacting are severe, even existential, there is considerable urgency, and prudence dictates that we should overreact.  A proper risk analysis of our situation and options is essential if policymakers are to act in our best interests.

It is to be hoped that either directly or through their champions and proxies, Mann and Hansen will sort this out in the very near future so that the rest of us know what best to do.

In the following paragraphs I give a brief review of Mann’s rebuttal in terms of the quality of his argumentation.  This is not about which of Hansen and Mann has a better grasp of the climate science, but solely whether Mann’s rebuttal of Hansen’s position is presented in a convincing manner.  I hope that Prof Mann will read this and take the opportunity to produce a more robust critique of Warming in the Pipeline that in turn will provoke a resolution of these two currently conflicting positions.  It is vital that these issues are resolved at the earliest opportunity.

Mann gives seven ways in which he considers Hansen et al to have failed by ‘a longshot’ to have met the necessary standards to challenge ‘the prevailing scientific understanding’.  Let’s have a quick look at Mann’s arguments.

1.       No warming is in the pipeline – Mann argues that the zero emissions commitment (ZEC) clearly shows that on achieving net zero emissions, surface temperatures stop rising.  He therefore claims that there would be no warming in the pipeline once we get to net zero.  Whatever one’s view of ZEC being at or close to 0oC, Hansen et al do not discuss it other than briefly to dismiss net zero as likely to be achieved any time soon.  It seems perverse to criticise their paper on these grounds since they are clear that their case is built on constant atmospheric GHG concentrations.  As Mann acknowledges, in that scenario there would be considerable warming in the pipeline.  A more coherent criticism might have been to argue for the unsoundness of the premises that net zero emissions would not be achieved sufficiently soon or that atmospheric concentrations would not remain at their current level.  Mann doesn’t do that.  This is a straw man argument.

2.       EEI is not increasing – Mann refutes Hansen et al’s claim by citing a competing source of which he was a co-author.  He does not explain what is wrong with the sources on which Hansen et al base their claim that EEI has doubled since 2000, one of which is titled ‘Satellite and ocean data reveal marked increase in Earth’s heating rate’.  There is no examination of why his source is better than Hansen’s.

3.       Surface warming is not accelerating – Mann goes to great lengths to show that there is no evidence of surface warming accelerating due to the recent changes in aerosol emissions.  This rebuttal was unnecessary because Hansen et al did not claim that there had been.  They explicitly refer to ‘predicted’ warming as being an inevitable consequence of these aerosol changes.  Another straw man argument from Mann.

4.       IPCC models not under-predicting human caused warming – here Mann’s refutation implies that Hansen et al wrongly claim that that models have under-predicted the warming.  Again, they make no such claim about past warming.  Their claim in this regard concerns future warming, which self-evidently is not yet evident.  Another straw man argument from Mann.

5.       No evidence that recent reductions in ship aerosol emissions ‘have played any substantial role at all in recent warming trends’ – Mann cites two sources to support his rebuttal of Hansen et al’s predictions in this regard.  Mann’s first authority is a paper published in 2009, before the recent changes in shipping emissions.  His second authority is a 2023 Tweet from Hausfather that just refers back to the same 2009 paper.  It is difficult to see how research undertaken before the aerosol emissions were reduced could show evidence of what had not yet happened.  Mann needs to provide a more convincing rebuttal than this.

6.        Paleoclimate records have climate sensitivity about right – Mann supports his rebuttal of Hansen et al’s interpretation of paleoclimate evidence in assessing equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) by citing his own non-peer reviewed article in New Scientist.  He then asserts that ‘there is no reason, based on the collective evidence from the paleoclimate record, to expect a climate trajectory substantially different from what current generation (i.e. IPCC) models predict’.  If there is one thing that Hansen et al do do, it is to explore in considerable detail the implications of new evidence from the paleo record.  Mann makes no attempt to engage with this material, seemingly summarily dismissing it as valueless.  This is not a worthy response from someone of Mann’s standing..

7.       Solar radiation management is potentially dangerous and a need for it is ‘motivated by what [Mann] consider[s] to be a fallacy, advanced by the article, that large-scale warming will be substantially greater than current-generation models project’.  Mann’s views here reflect the difference at the heart of this debate, namely, how much risk is associated with the predictions of those models.  Risk is generally understood to be the product of the probability of a peril occurring and the costs (monetary and otherwise) arising from that peril.  For Mann’s critique to have any purchase, he needs to flesh out the detail in this regard.  This will require a broadly based investigation of the various possible perils from different plausible climate change scenarios and their cost.  Mann has to do more than just assert his own opinion on these questions.

I close with a comment on Peter Eisenberger’s contribution below in which he says:

We certainly are facing a great threat but there is no science basis for arguing that [emissions reductions and removals alone (ERA)] are not adequate.

We all need to ponder the full implications of this statement.  First we must note that there being no science basis to argue that emissions reductions and removals alone are not adequate is the complement of there being no science basis that they are.  If you don’t know it’s inadequate, you can’t know that it's adequate .  Conversely, if you know it’s adequate, then you also know it’s not inadequate.  The sum of the probabilities of it being one or the other will always be 1 – it is logically certain that ERA will be either adequate or not.  Peter’s statement can thus be rewritten as:

We certainly are facing a great threat but there is no science basis for arguing that [emissions reductions and removals alone] are adequate.

Given Peter’s claim that we don’t have a science basis for arguing that ERA is adequate, should we not be looking for something else to create a portfolio of responses that in aggregate would have a science basis to support their adequacy?

There are many good reasons, from basic physics to the analogue of volcanic eruptions, to know with certainty that there are ways to directly cool the climate to  reduce the risk of excessive global warming.  The issue is whether this can be done in ways that reduce that risk while not creating unacceptable risks elsewhere.  The question that Prof Mann and Peter might want to reflect on is, given that we don’t know whether ERA is sufficient, and moreover, that there are some good reasons to believe that it might be insufficient, albeit that these reasons might not be conclusive, why would we not want to begin the process in earnest of developing and deploying direct climate cooling in a controlled and responsible manner such that it can be terminated if it emerges that its beneficial potential cannot be realised without overwhelming offsetting negative effects?  How does that make scientific sense?

Regards

Robert Chris


On 03/11/2023 07:12, Peter Eisenberger wrote:
Most importantly we are in fact all on the same team and we all agree time is running out. 

Mann and Hansen are each acting in the best tradition of scientific disagreement. 
From my perspective they both seem to fail to take CDR into account into their scenarios 
even though the majority of the scientific community including the IPCC has acknowledged it needs to 
be part of the solution. Net emissions -amount removed from the atmosphere minus the amount emitted 
is the critical variable and this is critical  because the poor on this planet need to have their basic needs met. Zero emissions means to them a reduced rate of eliminating poverty . One is left to speculate whether the people focussed on eliminating fossil fuels is a result of their long and important battle with the energy industry in the past. The energy industry has recognized climate change and they are acting to address it which was not the case even five years ago. They still remain critical to economic prosperity in the global south.  In my opinion it is time to move on beyond demonizing the energy industry. To be clear I greatly respect the efforts of Mann and Hansen both scientifically and because being a whistle blower  is never easy - in fact it is always hard and gets personal. 

My concern about the response of the SAI community is that it does  seem  to depend on arguing we are facing a doomsday future 
and the inadequacy of alternative paths. We certainly are facing a great threat but there is no science basis for arguing that the alternative paths are not adequate. At its core it depends on creating fear about the future. We know the fight or flight response to fear and that  fear has caused many conflicts. I am certainly not suggesting that advocates for SAI do not believe what they are saying.  

My view for what it is worth is that we all have to come together in the spirit of Manns response to JIm and together 
determine the best path forward based on the knowledge we have. We need to  make the hard choices about the best path forward. We need to agree  to focus our talents and energy on the path selected. In this sense the real limitation is not what distortions the external world has that prevents acting but it us for our failure to make the hard choices and provide them to the decision makers. 
Let me end as I b egan -Most importantly we are in fact all on the same team and we all agree time is running out. .
Peter 
        


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Nov 3, 2023, 7:11:21 PM11/3/23
to Robert Chris, Peter Eisenberger, Ye Tao, H simmens, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, via NOAC Meetings, Healthy Climate Alliance, Nadia Kock, Nicholas Moore Eisenberger, Matt Atwood, James Hansen, Carbon Dioxide Removal

On 11/3/23 4:17 PM, Robert Chris wrote:

given that we don’t know whether ERA is sufficient, and moreover, that there are some good reasons to believe that it might be insufficient....

This precisely pinpoints the main flaw I found in the Mann rebuttal. He opened and closed by restating, without support (even from IPCC), that ERA will be sufficient and therefore no CDR or SRM should be necessary.

But see:

Randers, Jorgen, and Ulrich Goluke. "An earth system model shows self-sustained thawing of permafrost even if all man-made GHG emissions stop in 2020." Scientific Reports 10.1 (2020): 18456.

(appended)

According to Randers and Goluke, we need at least 33 GtCO2e CDR per year. "In other words, building 33,000 big CCS plants and keep them running forever."

We should also be thinking about slowing permafrost melt.

See also:

Lenton, T. M., Rockström, J., Gaffney, O., Rahmstorf, S., Richardson, K., Steffen, W., & Schellnhuber, H. J. (2019). Climate tipping points—too risky to bet against. Nature, 575(7784), 592-595.


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Nov 3, 2023, 7:27:58 PM11/3/23
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Most importantly we are in fact all on the same team and we all agree time is running out. 

Mann and Hansen are each acting in the best tradition of scientific disagreement. 
From my perspective they both seem to fail to take CDR into account into their scenarios 
even though the majority of the scientific community including the IPCC has acknowledged it needs to 
be part of the solution. Net emissions -amount removed from the atmosphere minus the amount emitted 
is the critical variable and this is critical  because the poor on this planet need to have their basic needs met. Zero emissions means to them a reduced rate of eliminating poverty . One is left to speculate whether the people focussed on eliminating fossil fuels is a result of their long and important battle with the energy industry in the past. The energy industry has recognized climate change and they are acting to address it which was not the case even five years ago. They still remain critical to economic prosperity in the global south.  In my opinion it is time to move on beyond demonizing the energy industry. To be clear I greatly respect the efforts of Mann and Hansen both scientifically and because being a whistle blower  is never easy - in fact it is always hard and gets personal. 

My concern about the response of the SAI community is that it does  seem  to depend on arguing we are facing a doomsday future 
and the inadequacy of alternative paths. We certainly are facing a great threat but there is no science basis for arguing that the alternative paths are not adequate. At its core it depends on creating fear about the future. We know the fight or flight response to fear and that  fear has caused many conflicts. I am certainly not suggesting that advocates for SAI do not believe what they are saying.  

My view for what it is worth is that we all have to come together in the spirit of Manns response to JIm and together 
determine the best path forward based on the knowledge we have. We need to  make the hard choices about the best path forward. We need to agree  to focus our talents and energy on the path selected. In this sense the real limitation is not what distortions the external world has that prevents acting but it us for our failure to make the hard choices and provide them to the decision makers. 
Let me end as I b egan -Most importantly we are in fact all on the same team and we all agree time is running out. .
Peter 
        

On Thu, Nov 2, 2023 at 2:33 PM Ye Tao <t...@rowland.harvard.edu> wrote:

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James Hansen

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Nov 3, 2023, 7:28:07 PM11/3/23
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Hi Peter,

I'm not leaving CDR out, I'm just pointing out that it's cost is still high. Keep up your efforts to bring the cost down and it may play a significant role. It will all come out in the wash, if and when we get a rising price on carbon. Without that, CDR, at least direct air capture, will continue to be a rather small contributor in the big picture.

Best, Jim
--
Jim Hansen, Director
Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions Program
Columbia University Earth Institute

Ye Tao

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Nov 3, 2023, 7:28:16 PM11/3/23
to Peter Eisenberger, H simmens, Robert Chris, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, via NOAC Meetings, Healthy Climate Alliance, Nadia Kock, Nicholas Moore Eisenberger, Matt Atwood, James Hansen

Hi Peter,

Thank you for trying to create consensus, in spite of the the disagreement resulting from a key visible person, for one reason or another, deciding to sacrifice logic and reason for ideology and abhorrence for the fossil fuel industry.

On a side note about you statement that: "We certainly are facing a great threat but there is no science basis for arguing that the alternative paths are not adequate." Whether or not your statement holds depends on how one defines "adequate".   Let us define "adequate" =: avoiding global average temperatures surpassing 2C by2060.  For this definition, we have ample scientific and engineering knowledge to definitively show that 1) 100% rebuildable energies, 2) a global campaign for one trillion trees, 3) a global wartime mobilization towards direct air capture of CO2, and 4) ocean based carbon capture schemes, are NOT "adequate" either in isolation or in any linear combination constrained by global available resources and energy flux.

Ye 

Bruce Parker

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Nov 3, 2023, 7:29:28 PM11/3/23
to H simmens, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, via NOAC Meetings, Healthy Climate Alliance

Michael Mann’s rebuttal (see below) to Hansen’s contention that “surface warming is currently accelerating” is simply based on his (Mann’s) (1) definition of over what time period “currently accelerating” is most important (2) definition of what “statistically-supportable evidence” means, and (3) which dataset is used for the analysis.  I analyzed the data that Mann said he used (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/global/time-series/globe/land_ocean/ann/12/1880-2023 - see actual data below), using Excel’s “Slope function” to determine the slope of the temperature change between two specific years.  I found the following:

 

Data set

Start Year

Middle Year

End Year

Slope from Start Year to Middle Year

Slope from Middle Year to  End Year

Change in Slope

Change/ decade

Percent Change

NOAA

1970

2008

2022

0.0171

0.0283

0.0112

0.112

66

NOAA

1970

2010

2022

0.0172

0.0261

0.0089

0.089

52

NOAA

1970

2012

2022

0.0167

0.0242

0.0075

0.075

45

NOAA

1993

2008

2022

0.0218

0.0283

0.0065

0.065

30

Mann's

1993

2008

2022

0.0230

0.0280

0.0050

0.050

22

 

 

I reached the following conclusions:

 

1.        The decadal average temperature increase from the period 1970 to 2022 changed significantly around 2010 (from around 0.17°C  to about 0.26°C  per decade) and was most significant (a 66% increase) if 2008 is used as the “inflection point”

 

2.       The decadal average temperature increase from  the period 1993-2008 to the period 2008-2022 was about 0.065°C/decade, an increase of about 30%

 

I compared the data that Mann recommended to his chart and found serious discrepancies

The NOAA data shows a larger increase than Mann found  (0.0065 vs 0.0050)

Even the change that Mann reported (0.0230 to 0.0280) looks significant to me – why does Mann conclude that it is not?

The NOAA data shows that the surface warming has increased by about 30% in the past few decades (from  0.218°C/decade for 1993-2008  to 0.283°C/decade for 2008-2022) –How does he conclude that the warming rate has been remarkably constant for the past few decades? What does Mann mean by “remarkably constant”? 

 

3.       We know that the decadal average temperature increase has risen significantly since the period 1970 to 2010 (likely by 50-60%). Given the unprecedented temperature increase this year,  I would think that discussing whether not the temperature increase is currently accelerating is a distraction from a much more important discussion - what is the current rate  of warming and when will the temperature increase likely reach 1.5°C.

 

Bruce Parker

==========================================================================================================================

NOAS temperature data

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

0.27

0.32

0.48

0.35

0.5

0.63

0.42

0.43

0.55

0.62

0.63

0.55

0.7

0.66

0.66

0.55

0.66

0.73

0.63

0.66

0.68

0.77

0.91

1.03

0.95

0.86

0.98

1.01

0.86

0.91

==========================================================================================================================

 

 

Michael Mann’s rebuttal:

 

3. There is, furthermore, no statistical support for the climate that surface warming is currently accelerating. It is certainly true that the rate has increased since the 1970s, but that's related to changes in aerosol forcing at that time that are not relevant to the warming of the past few decades. Over the past few decades, there is no statistically-supportable evidence of an increase in the rate of surface warming. Surface warming has continued at a remarkably constant rate for the past few decades, as I recently showed in this thread on twitter (see plot below). The warming of the planet (and all of the worsening impacts associated with it including extreme weather events and intensified hurricanes) will continue until we bring carbon emissions to zero. The truth, once again, is bad enough.

 

 

 

 

Mann’s “tread on twitter” responds to an opinion piece by Zeke Hausfather in the New York Times which argues for an acceleration of recent surface warming: https://nytimes.com/2023/10/13/opinion/climate-change-excessive-heat-2023.html  .  Mann starts off by CONFIRMING the recent acceleration (Mann used the data at https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/global/time-series/globe/land_ocean/ann/12/1880-2023 )

 

I not only reproduced Zeke's result, but found an even bigger effect, with the trend from 2008-2023 a whopping 70% greater than the trend from 1970-2008 (the difference in trend is statistically significant at the p=0.01 i.e. 99% level)

 

Mann continued:

 

In fact, why not compare trend over must recent 15 year period with the preceding 15 year period? That's what I did here. In this case, the increase in warming rate is only 28% (and the difference in trend is not statistically significant)

 

Surely if there is truly acceleration of warming in recent decades, it shouldn't only be evidence over the past 9 months. So I repeated the preceding analysis, but I eliminated the year 2023 data from the regression analysis

 

And this is what I now get. The rate for the recent period ~20% larger than that for prior period & the difference in trend is statistically insignificant. In other words, there's no statistical support here for the claim of a recent acceleration in the rate of global warming

 

Image

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Dana Woods

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Nov 3, 2023, 10:48:09 PM11/3/23
to healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, Ye Tao, Ye Tao, Stephen Salter, Douglas MacMartin, jimeh...@gmail.com
Ye said

"This post by Mann demonstrates that he lacks an understanding of time-dependent dynamics: things like impulse and step response function. Or maybe he does, but is playing into the general ignorance of the public regarding such things.

Not sure which one is worse and what that says about how we choose academic leaders"

Talk about moral hazard !!

I was going to quote Robert (Tulip) though now can't find his comment regarding how the US media would be covering Dr Hansen's  paper (and the disagreement between him and Micheal Mann) and I just wanted to
say that I STILL haven't had the time or taken the time) to read the paper . With a google search I see it's thankfully being covered by A LOT of print media. Id+'d also like to see it covered by MSNBC (who
CONSTANTLY has Micheal Mann on the show and CNN to cover it (especially since so many Americns don't actually read news) I suggest that some of you who have read it get in touch with MSNBC and/or
specifically Chris Hayes (who we could ask to interview him !!) and CNN and ask them to please fing cover thi s !! I can do so but, as I said, I haven;t read the paper yet

It's good to see you participating here Dr Hansen. . Are you now a member of one of these groups and/or should I add your name to emails?

Regards, Dana







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Douglas Grandt

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Nov 4, 2023, 12:08:39 AM11/4/23
to James Hansen, Peter Eisenberger, Ye Tao, H simmens, Robert Chris, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, via NOAC Meetings, Healthy Climate Alliance, Nadia Kock, Nicholas Moore Eisenberger, Matt Atwood
Jim,

Glad to hear “1.5 is deader than a door nail” officially this morning!

Pursuant to my 1/17/2023 email re: [CDR] Excess warming linked to reduced sulphur emissions from ships, please comment whether or not the trajectory of the dark brown curve [$] reflects Pipeline’s 50% greater rate of temperature rise if we adjust it from 0.36°C/decade (double the recent rate suggested in your newsletter a year ago) to 0.27°C/decade [^] and resize the rectangular “slope” box accordingly.

Such adjustment would shift the dark brown curve down to approximately coincide with the light brown curve.

Presumably the light brown curve would also shift downward a bit.

The overall message of this diagram is that cooling and drawdown are both required, with the expectation that cooling and refreezing the Arctic is a logical starting point.

Best,
Doug Grandt

image0.jpeg



Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

On Nov 3, 2023, at 7:28 PM, James Hansen <jimeh...@gmail.com> wrote:


Hi Peter,

I'm not leaving CDR out, I'm just pointing out that it's cost is still high. Keep up your efforts to bring the cost down and it may play a significant role. It will all come out in the wash, if and when we get a rising price on carbon. Without that, CDR, at least direct air capture, will continue to be a rather small contributor in the big picture.

Best, Jim

On Fri, Nov 3, 2023 at 3:12 AM Peter Eisenberger <peter.ei...@gmail.com> wrote:
Most importantly we are in fact all on the same team and we all agree time is running out. 

Mann and Hansen are each acting in the best tradition of scientific disagreement. 
From my perspective they both seem to fail to take CDR into account into their scenarios 
even though the majority of the scientific community including the IPCC has acknowledged it needs to 
be part of the solution. Net emissions -amount removed from the atmosphere minus the amount emitted 
is the critical variable and this is critical  because the poor on this planet need to have their basic needs met. Zero emissions means to them a reduced rate of eliminating poverty . One is left to speculate whether the people focussed on eliminating fossil fuels is a result of their long and important battle with the energy industry in the past. The energy industry has recognized climate change and they are acting to address it which was not the case even five years ago. They still remain critical to economic prosperity in the global south.  In my opinion it is time to move on beyond demonizing the energy industry. To be clear I greatly respect the efforts of Mann and Hansen both scientifically and because being a whistle blower  is never easy - in fact it is always hard and gets personal. 

My concern about the response of the SAI community is that it does  seem  to depend on arguing we are facing a doomsday future 
and the inadequacy of alternative paths. We certainly are facing a great threat but there is no science basis for arguing that the alternative paths are not adequate. At its core it depends on creating fear about the future. We know the fight or flight response to fear and that  fear has caused many conflicts. I am certainly not suggesting that advocates for SAI do not believe what they are saying.  

My view for what it is worth is that we all have to come together in the spirit of Manns response to JIm and together 
determine the best path forward based on the knowledge we have. We need to  make the hard choices about the best path forward. We need to agree  to focus our talents and energy on the path selected. In this sense the real limitation is not what distortions the external world has that prevents acting but it us for our failure to make the hard choices and provide them to the decision makers. 
Let me end as I b egan -Most importantly we are in fact all on the same team and we all agree time is running out. .
Peter 
        

On Thu, Nov 2, 2023 at 2:33 PM Ye Tao <t...@rowland.harvard.edu> wrote:

This post by Mann demonstrates that he lacks an understanding of time-dependent dynamics: things like impulse and step response function. Or maybe he does, but is playing into the general ignorance of the public regarding such things.

Not sure which one is worse and what that says about how we choose academic leaders.

Ye

On 11/2/2023 11:46 AM, H simmens wrote:
The only direct interaction between Mann and Hansen I’ve been able to find is this brief exchange in July (Mann’s tweet is at the top)

<image.png>




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Douglas Grandt

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Nov 4, 2023, 12:36:17 AM11/4/23
to James Hansen, Peter Eisenberger, Ye Tao, H simmens, Robert Chris, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, via NOAC Meetings, Healthy Climate Alliance, Nadia Kock, Nicholas Moore Eisenberger, Matt Atwood
Jim,

Not sure what happened … the diagram failed to transmit … here it is …

Doug 

image0.jpeg


Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

On Nov 4, 2023, at 12:08 AM, Douglas Grandt <answer...@mac.com> wrote:


Jim,

Glad to hear “1.5 is deader than a door nail” officially this morning!

Pursuant to my 1/17/2023 email re: [CDR] Excess warming linked to reduced sulphur emissions from ships, please comment whether or not the trajectory of the dark brown curve [$] reflects Pipeline’s 50% greater rate of temperature rise if we adjust it from 0.36°C/decade (double the recent rate suggested in your newsletter a year ago) to 0.27°C/decade [^] and resize the rectangular “slope” box accordingly.

Such adjustment would shift the dark brown curve down to approximately coincide with the light brown curve.

Presumably the light brown curve would also shift downward a bit.

The overall message of this diagram is that cooling and drawdown are both required, with the expectation that cooling and refreezing the Arctic is a logical starting point.

Best,
Doug Grandt

Clive Elsworth

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Nov 4, 2023, 8:05:46 AM11/4/23
to Dan Miller, Robert Chris, Peter Eisenberger, Ye Tao, H simmens, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, via NOAC Meetings, Healthy Climate Alliance, Nadia Kock, Nicholas Moore Eisenberger, Matt Atwood, Jim Hansen, Carbon Dioxide Removal
Nicely put, Dan.
 
All very good points.
 
Clive
On 04/11/2023 05:29 GMT Dan Miller <d...@rodagroup.com> wrote:
 
 
Hi Robert:
 
I’ll weigh in here. I agree with your analysis showing that Mann did not provide a cogent rebuttal to Hansen’s paper.
 
A few other points:
 
1. First, I summarized Hansen’s paper “for the masses” in a tweet that some might find useful:
James Hansen, @LeonSimons8 et al released their peer-reviewed “Global Warming in the Pipeline” paper! Here are some key points: 1/9 https://t.co/TpYIamnWrO
Dan_Miller_4643R_Small_Square_200x200.jpg
 
2. Mann implies we can stay at 1.5ºC by reaching net zero by 2050! This is absurd. We are 1.5ºC (or very close) *this year* and will likely be at 1.6/1.7ºC next year. As Hansen points out, if we do hit that next year and El Niño going away drops temps by 0.2~0.3ºC, then we are effectively at 1.5ºC trend “for all practical purposes” next year! To claim we can stay within 1.5ºC by reaching net zero in 2050 makes me believe, as others have said, that Mann is smoking “hopium”. I believe this alone disqualifies Mann’s rebuttal.
 
Mann: "It is the basis of the concept of a “carbon budget” (i.e. the notion that there is a specified amount of cumulative carbon emissions up to a given point in time that keeps warming below a specified level), including the widely-cited rule of thumb that we must reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2050 to avoid more than 1.5C warming."
 
3. Note that "Net Zero by 2050" is as much of a scenario as "holding GHG concentrations constant" is. 
 
4. Hansen et al is saying that aerosol cooling is more than the IPCC says and GHG warming is also more. That’s why the Hansen and IPCC model net temps are about the same. But if Hansen is right (and I think he is), then there will be more warming when we eliminate aerosols (as part of going to Net Zero) and there will be more warming from the remaining GHGs than is assumed in Mann's ZEC scenario. Therefore, ZEC won’t result in temps that stop rising, though they will stop rising at some level above the temp we are at when zero emissions are achieved (assuming tipping points haven’t kicked in by then!). Another factor that may play out at ZEC is that the EEI is high, Hansen says. So at ZEC, the EEI (warming in the pipeline) is supposed to be canceled out by lowering CO2 levels caused by the oceans continuing to take up CO2 after emission stop. But if EEI is higher than assumed when those ZEC studies were done, then they might not exactly cancel and temps will be higher.
 
5. Mann implies that we can stay below 2ºC and that would be OK. As Hansen has pointed out in his Young Peoples paper, 1.5 or 2ºC is dangerous if we stay above those levels too long:

Hansen: "These considerations raise the question of whether 2 C, or even 1.5 C, is an appropriate target to protect the well-being of young people and future generations. Indeed, Hansen et al. (2008) concluded that “if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, . . . COwill need to be re- duced . . . to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that”, and further “if the present overshoot of the target COis not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.

A danger of 1.5 or 2 C targets is that they are far above the Holocene temperature range. If such temperature levels are allowed to long exist they will spur “slow” amplifying feed- backs (Hansen et al., 2013b; Rohling et al., 2013; Masson- Delmotte et al., 2013), which have potential to run out of hu- manity’s control. The most threatening slow feedback likely is ice sheet melt and consequent significant sea level rise, as occurred in the Eemian, but there are other risks in pushing the climate system far out of its Holocene range. Methane release from thawing permafrost and methane hydrates is an- other potential feedback, for example, but the magnitude and timescale of this is unclear (O’Connor et al., 2010; Quiquet et al., 2015)."

6. On top of other risks that Mann ignores, we now know from Hansen and Danish researchers, that an AMOC collapse is expected around mid-century. This is the mother of all near-term tipping points. Since it is caused by fresh water inflow into the North Atlantic from a melting Greenland, it is clear that ERA will not stop a collapse. If we are lucky, Sunlight Reflection Methods (SRM) may prevent it.
 
7. Regarding who we should believe:
 

Imagine you are about to put your children on an airplane. But Mechanic Hansen says there is a problem with the engines & Mechanic Mann says everything is fine. Do you allow your children to take the flight?

 

Why do we treat the Earth, with all our children on it, differently?

 

Dan
 
image.png
climatechange.jpeg
 
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Dan Miller

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Nov 4, 2023, 8:42:23 AM11/4/23
to Robert Chris, Peter Eisenberger, Ye Tao, H simmens, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, via NOAC Meetings, Healthy Climate Alliance, Nadia Kock, Nicholas Moore Eisenberger, Matt Atwood, Jim Hansen, Carbon Dioxide Removal
Hi Robert:

I’ll weigh in here. I agree with your analysis showing that Mann did not provide a cogent rebuttal to Hansen’s paper.

A few other points:

1. First, I summarized Hansen’s paper “for the masses” in a tweet that some might find useful:

2. Mann implies we can stay at 1.5ºC by reaching net zero by 2050! This is absurd. We are 1.5ºC (or very close) *this year* and will likely be at 1.6/1.7ºC next year. As Hansen points out, if we do hit that next year and El Niño going away drops temps by 0.2~0.3ºC, then we are effectively at 1.5ºC trend “for all practical purposes” next year! To claim we can stay within 1.5ºC by reaching net zero in 2050 makes me believe, as others have said, that Mann is smoking “hopium”. I believe this alone disqualifies Mann’s rebuttal.

Mann: "It is the basis of the concept of a “carbon budget” (i.e. the notion that there is a specified amount of cumulative carbon emissions up to a given point in time that keeps warming below a specified level), including the widely-cited rule of thumb that we must reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2050 to avoid more than 1.5C warming."

3. Note that "Net Zero by 2050" is as much of a scenario as "holding GHG concentrations constant" is. 

4. Hansen et al is saying that aerosol cooling is more than the IPCC says and GHG warming is also more. That’s why the Hansen and IPCC model net temps are about the same. But if Hansen is right (and I think he is), then there will be more warming when we eliminate aerosols (as part of going to Net Zero) and there will be more warming from the remaining GHGs than is assumed in Mann's ZEC scenario. Therefore, ZEC won’t result in temps that stop rising, though they will stop rising at some level above the temp we are at when zero emissions are achieved (assuming tipping points haven’t kicked in by then!). Another factor that may play out at ZEC is that the EEI is high, Hansen says. So at ZEC, the EEI (warming in the pipeline) is supposed to be canceled out by lowering CO2 levels caused by the oceans continuing to take up CO2 after emission stop. But if EEI is higher than assumed when those ZEC studies were done, then they might not exactly cancel and temps will be higher.

5. Mann implies that we can stay below 2ºC and that would be OK. As Hansen has pointed out in his Young Peoples paper, 1.5 or 2ºC is dangerous if we stay above those levels too long:

Hansen: "These considerations raise the question of whether 2 C, or even 1.5 C, is an appropriate target to protect the well-being of young people and future generations. Indeed, Hansen et al. (2008) concluded that “if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, . . . COwill need to be re- duced . . . to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that”, and further “if the present overshoot of the target COis not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.

A danger of 1.5 or 2 C targets is that they are far above the Holocene temperature range. If such temperature levels are allowed to long exist they will spur “slow” amplifying feed- backs (Hansen et al., 2013b; Rohling et al., 2013; Masson- Delmotte et al., 2013), which have potential to run out of hu- manity’s control. The most threatening slow feedback likely is ice sheet melt and consequent significant sea level rise, as occurred in the Eemian, but there are other risks in pushing the climate system far out of its Holocene range. Methane release from thawing permafrost and methane hydrates is an- other potential feedback, for example, but the magnitude and timescale of this is unclear (O’Connor et al., 2010; Quiquet et al., 2015)."

6. On top of other risks that Mann ignores, we now know from Hansen and Danish researchers, that an AMOC collapse is expected around mid-century. This is the mother of all near-term tipping points. Since it is caused by fresh water inflow into the North Atlantic from a melting Greenland, it is clear that ERA will not stop a collapse. If we are lucky, Sunlight Reflection Methods (SRM) may prevent it.

7. Regarding who we should believe:

Imagine you are about to put your children on an airplane. But Mechanic Hansen says there is a problem with the engines & Mechanic Mann says everything is fine. Do you allow your children to take the flight?


Why do we treat the Earth, with all our children on it, differently?

Dan


On Nov 3, 2023, at 2:17 PM, Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:

image.png





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James Hansen

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Nov 4, 2023, 8:42:52 AM11/4/23
to Dana Woods, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, Ye Tao, Ye Tao, Stephen Salter, Douglas MacMartin
Does anyone remember the exact quote and the famous physicist (it was not Einstein) who said, about a century ago:
"If you need statistics, you should have done a better experiment."
or something close to that.
It was taped on one of my bookshelves in NY for years.
The point of the figure with a yellow area is that within several years, no statistics will be needed.
That time scale is the appropriate one because it will be at least several years before it is possible to take global scale purposeful actions.
By putting that figure out before we have reached that point may help with education and help show that we know what we are talking about.
It must first be clear that "a miracle will occur" is not a good prescription and is not going to occur, in order for people to be ready.
Besides, who knows for sure? We are all searching for a miracle.
Jim

Tom Goreau

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Nov 4, 2023, 8:52:08 AM11/4/23
to James Hansen, Dana Woods, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, Ye Tao, Ye Tao, Stephen Salter, Douglas MacMartin

Lord Rayleigh is supposed to have said that if he ever did an experiment that required statistics to interpret the result he would throw away the data.

 

 

 

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Tom Goreau

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Nov 4, 2023, 9:00:48 AM11/4/23
to James Hansen, Dana Woods, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, Ye Tao, Ye Tao, Stephen Salter, Douglas MacMartin

 

The quote is from Rutherford, but Rayleigh said it more pithily!

 

alb...@thefarm.org

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Nov 4, 2023, 9:00:52 AM11/4/23
to Planetary Restoration
On 11/4/23 6:42 AM, James Hansen wrote:

Does anyone remember the exact quote and the famous physicist (it was not Einstein) who said, about a century ago:
"If you need statistics, you should have done a better experiment."

That is generally attributed to Arthur Eddington, who also said, "Shuffling is the only thing which Nature cannot undo."



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The Global Ecovillage Network has a YouTube channel.

Please consider helping migrants along The Green Road: Refugees from the conflict in Ukraine are being assisted, resettled and fed by more than 300 ecovillages and permaculture projects. See this piece in Mother Jones. You can grow a garden, buy a mattress or help a schoolteacher purchase more workbooks by donating to The Green Road, sponsored by Global Village Institute. Your donations are tax-deductible in the USA.

James Hansen

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Nov 5, 2023, 12:47:37 PM11/5/23
to Tom Goreau, Dana Woods, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, Ye Tao, Ye Tao, Stephen Salter, Douglas MacMartin
That's interesting, especially to a person who cut his scientific teeth on light scattering, but the quote I'm searching for was from a more recent scientific giant, ony a century or so ago.
Jim

James Hansen

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Nov 5, 2023, 12:47:52 PM11/5/23
to Tom Goreau, Dana Woods, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, Ye Tao, Ye Tao, Stephen Salter, Douglas MacMartin
Found it:
  • "If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment." Lord Ernest Rutherford

Bruce Melton -- Austin, Texas

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Nov 6, 2023, 11:04:06 AM11/6/23
to Douglas MacMartin, H simmens, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, via NOAC Meetings, Healthy Climate Alliance

Hi Doug and all - Great show at HPAC Doug, thank you.

Incredulous - I referred to as; relative to the much larger body warming in the pipeline work dating to way back.

~ ~ ~

Near 90 this week in Austin. In SW Austin we had 7 to 8 inches of rain in October, versus an inch and a half total back to July through August. The 7 to 8 inches in October is more than double our normal for October of 3.88, which is not a rare departure though uncommon. The summer total July through September is about 7 inches so our departure was quite rare. Austin's precip has increased 16 percent in the last 30 years, contrary to increased duration and intensity of drought including a new Drought of Record 2011 -2013.

Steep trails,

B

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

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Nov 6, 2023, 11:25:38 AM11/6/23
to Peter Eisenberger, Ye Tao, H simmens, Robert Chris, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, via NOAC Meetings, Healthy Climate Alliance, Nadia Kock, Nicholas Moore Eisenberger, Matt Atwood, James Hansen

Peter E and all,

On justice, equity and further warming... Thanks for bringing this up Peter E. There is a mistaken philosophy that further warming to 1.5 C reduces climate change-caused injustice and inequity. Austin adopted what their Climate Program labelled a Climate Equity Plan in 2020. I was one of 120 volunteers who helped the Climate Program put together this 5-year revision to Austin's first climate plan. It is a 1.5 C, net zero 2040 plan with 30 percent offsets and about 6 percent of net zero needs met by natural systems. It also conflates 1.5 C with net zero, and offers no path to 1.5 C, only a path to net zero that includes those 30 percent offsets because there is no other path to reach net zero otherwise. Like all large efforts like this it was a compromise between many shared thoughts and that 1.5 C was the standard, and restoration was being done by nobody and could not be considered.

The team realized that inequity and injustice were already bad from warming, and nowhere in the Plan suggested that they will become not just more extreme, but nonlinearly more extreme with further warming because they are tied directly to effects that increase nonlinearly with warming.

This is one of the pivotal arguments we should be making to progressives or anyone who value such things. Further warming to the accepted 1.5 C target increases injustice and inequity nonlinearly above today's already strong levels, and requiring the elimination by the poor and underprivileged of the simplest, most portable and most widespread energy source ever, is grossly unjust and inequitable via the simple concept of "we got ours, but you can't have yours." 

Steep trails,

B

Bruce Melton PE
Director, Climate Change Now Initiative, 501c3
President, Melton Engineering Services Austin
8103 Kirkham Drive
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(512)799-7998
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Bruce Melton -- Austin, Texas

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Nov 6, 2023, 11:39:32 AM11/6/23
to James Hansen, Peter Eisenberger, Ye Tao, H simmens, Robert Chris, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, via NOAC Meetings, Healthy Climate Alliance, Nadia Kock, Nicholas Moore Eisenberger, Matt Atwood

Jim and all,

There are already more than 200, 1 million plus ton per year units committed because of the enhancements to IRS45Q in the IRA. There is no cap on the new cash payment of $180/ton, and most of the units committed are direct sequestration not enhanced oil recovery. Because the three main processes  being utilized (lime-potash, amines and cryoseparation), are all 100-year old and widely adopted in industry, and their components even more widely adopted, and there is no cap on pay; widespread scaling will be rapid and robust because literally trillions in revenue are on the line.

The cost today of Kieth's lime-potash process is quite likely below $50 a ton because his $100 a ton minimum was actually $94 a ton with $0.03 kWh natural gas. Using renewable utility scale energy for half the 87 percent of total costs that are energy related, drops the price to the $50/ton range, today, with no further process refinements or scaling from Kieth's 2018, 1 million ton per year suggestion based on scaling their demonstration at Squamish using off the shelf components  with known scaling factors.

Below my signature is a collection of CDR commitments based on IRS45Q.

Steep trails,

Bruce

Bruce Melton PE
Director, Climate Change Now Initiative, 501c3
President, Melton Engineering Services Austin
8103 Kirkham Drive
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(512)799-7998
ClimateDiscovery.org
ClimateChangePhoto.org
MeltonEngineering.com
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Ongoing Industrialization of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), Direct Air Capture (DAC) and Sequestration ... Industrialize

Industry seems to think there is money here, lots of it. Industrialization is moving forward fast indicating that these processes are revenue generating programs.

Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) Processes - New or Mature? ... We have been using industrial processes to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere since 1907 when the recyclable lime/potash process was developed and widely used in World War II to remove CO2 from submarines to keep sailors safe from carbon dioxide poisoning, since the 1930s with cryogenic distillation, and also since the 1930s with amine chemicals (ammonia–based) where amines are now one of the most important chemicals in industry.

October 21, 2023 – National Academies, Carbon Utilization Infrastructure, Markets, Research and Development… "Carbon materials pervade many aspects of modern life, from fuels and building materials to consumer goods and commodity chemicals.  Reaching net-zero emissions will require replacing existing fossil-carbon-based systems with circular-carbon economies that transform wastes like CO2 into useful materials.  As requested in the Energy Act of 2020, this study will explore regional and national market opportunities as well as infrastructure and research needs to help decisionmakers better understand how carbon utilization can contribute to the nation's decarbonization effort."

Input Requested -
https://mailchi.mp/nas/open-sessions-carbon-dioxide-utilization-markets-infrastructure-research-and-development?e=ea90c6bd4e
National Academies - Carbon Utilization Infrastructure, Markets, Research and Development
https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/carbon-utilization-infrastructure-markets-research-and-development?utm_source=NASEM+News+and+Publications&utm_campaign=1859c5e164-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_10_20_03_03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-1859c5e164-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&mc_cid=1859c5e164&mc_eid=ea90c6bd4e

 

 

April 20, 2023 - Frontier Air Capture… Commitments top $1B with four new members: Autodesk, H&M Group, JPMorgan Chase, and Workday. Since April 2022, Frontier has facilitated purchases from 15 carbon removal startups.
https://frontierclimate.com/writing/new-members?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

December 3, 2022, NGK CO2 air capture – 1) Ceramic substrate and 2) Freezing with Natural Gas excess cold from compressor stations… 1) Ceramic substrate like automobile catalytic converters, unspecified capture agent, normal liberation heating, 2) and cold from natural gas compression to "liquefied" before transmissionto freeze the CO2 out of the ab-adsorbant.
Shimizu, New technology to capture CO2 from air set for Japan trials, Nikkei Financial,November 28, 2022.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Environment/Climate-Change/New-technology-to-capture-CO2-from-air-set-for-Japan-trials

November 26, 2022, One Million Tons Per Year "Hub" in Louisiana by 2030... "Direct air capture (DAC) company Climeworks and Louisiana-based Gulf Coast Sequestration (GCS) signed a memorandum of understanding on Nov. 21 to develop the first DAC hub on the Gulf Coast in Louisiana. The project aims to enable the permanent removal of one million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere by the end of the decade, with the potential to expand to multi-million-ton capacity in future years."
Doneva, Climeworks And Gulf Coast Sequestration Partner To Launch Direct Air Capture Hub On The Gulf Coast In Louisiana, Carbon Herald, November 22, 2022.
https://carbonherald.com/climeworks-and-gulf-coast-sequestration-partner-to-launch-direct-air-capture-hub-on-the-gulf-coast-in-louisiana/

November 20, 2022, $882 million in carbon capture funding, 2nd quarter 2022…
https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/carbon-capture-venture-capital-investment

September 8, 2022 - Project Bison, Wyoming, 5 million tons per year by 2030, a Direct Air Capture (DAC) project of Frontier Carbon Solutions and CarbonCapture, Inc. … "A Los Angeles-based company kicked off on Thursday what it said will be the first large-scale direct air capture (DAC) project to capture and store 5 million tons of carbon dioxide per year by 2030, benefiting from new U.S. government incentives." Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, McKinsey
CarbonCapture Inc. Announces Five Megaton Direct Air Capture and Storage Project in Wyoming…
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220908005446/en/CarbonCapture-Inc.-Announces-Five-Megaton-Direct-Air-Capture-and-Storage-Project-in-Wyoming
CarbonCapture, Inc, modular… "A generalized DAC platform for solid sorbents that allows for incremental upgrades, minimizes obsolescence, and speeds up development cycles." Sorbents include amines, MOFs (metal-organic framework), zeolites and more.
https://www.carboncapture.com/
EXCLUSIVE New law helps U.S. firm launch Wyoming direct air carbon capture project…
https://www.reuters.com/markets/carbon/exclusive-new-law-helps-us-firm-launch-wyoming-direct-air-carbon-capture-project-2022-09-08/



CarbonClean…
CycloneCC – worlds smallest carbon capture tech…
https://www.carbonclean.com/industrial-carbon-capture-technology?hsCtaTracking=4d330ef7-b427-4507-ba9c-5ce011059864%7C2a75a2d9-05f6-49ca-bd6f-a63edf949004
Ebook…
https://www.carbonclean.com/industrial-carbon-capture-technology?hsCtaTracking=4d330ef7-b427-4507-ba9c-5ce011059864%7C2a75a2d9-05f6-49ca-bd6f-a63edf949004

Carbon Xprize … 1133 teams
https://illuminem.com/energyvoices/b02e09de-a3ad-41dd-8811-0bf7c7cc36cb

Carbon Engineering – Oxy, 1PointeFive

September 13, 2023 – Amazon buys 250,000 tons CO2 capture from Oxy… Over the next ten years
Dramne, Houston Chronicle, Direct air delivery: Amazon buys into Oxy’s big West Texas carbon capture hub, By Amanda Drane STAFF WRITERSeptember 13, 2023.
https://digital.olivesoftware.com/olive/odn/houstonchronicle/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=HHC%2F2023%2F09%2F13&entity=Ar02602&sk=F88217EE&mode=text#

 

August 15, 2023 – Oxy contracts with Carbon Engineering to build 100 air capture units… "U.S. oil and gas producer Occidental Petroleum (OXY.N) on Tuesday agreed to pay $1.1 billion for technology supplier Carbon Engineering Ltd to help it develop a string of carbon-capture sites it hopes will profit from tackling climate change. The U.S. oil producer aims to build about 100 plants using direct air capture (DAC) technology that strips carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere to bury underground or for use in making products such as concrete and aviation fuel."
https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/occidental-petroleum-buy-carbon-engineering-11-bln-2023-08-15/

 

May 6, 2023 - Occidental Begins Work On The World’s Largest Direct Air Capture Plant
Violet George, Carbon Herald…
$1 billion, 500 million ton facility 20 miles south of Notrees, Texas.
bonherald.com/occidental-begins-work-worlds-largest-direct-air-capture-plant/

April 28, 2023 - Stratus in the Permian Broke Ground
https://www.newswest9.com/article/news/local/oxy-groundbreaking-carbon-capture-plant/513-3251a044-624a-40aa-888e-fa5ebb0b533b

March 2, 2023, 1PointFive Oxy Carbon Capture and Sequestration Hub in Southeast Texas… The 55,000-acre site has resource potential to store approximately 1.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide… The Bluebonnet Hub is located in Chambers, Liberty and Jefferson counties near expected to be operational in 2026, will provide for CO2 captured off-site to be securely stored in saline formations that are not associated with oil and gas production.
1PointFive Announces Plan to Develop a Carbon Capture and Sequestration Hub in Southeast Texas, NASDAQ, March 2, 2023.
https://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/1pointfive-announces-plan-to-develop-a-carbon-capture-and-sequestration-hub-in

November 9, 2022, 20% increase in first plant cost due to inflation, number of proposed plants up from 70 to 100 because of IRA… "Government incentives and passage of the Inflation Reduction Act allow it to plan 100 DAC facilities by 2035, from 70 before, Hollub said. Land for half of them has been secured."
Valle and Soni, Occidental's project to capture CO2 takes a hit from inflation, Rueters, November 9, 2022.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/occidental-raises-costs-direct-air-capture-project-due-inflation-2022-11-09/

October 31, 2022, 1PointFive, 30 million tons per year, no EOR, 20 percent improvement in capture efficiency … Carbon Engineering begins work on supporting multi-million tonne Direct Air Capture facilities in Kleberg County, Texas (King Ranch). The site is expected to provide access for the potential construction of multiple DAC facilities that would be capable of collectively removing up to 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually for dedicated sequestration.
Carbon Engineering Press Release -
https://carbonengineering.com/news-updates/multi-million-tonne-south-texas/

August 25, 2022 Occidental, OnePointFive, Carbon Engineering, Permian Basin – Construction update, PH1 500,000 tons/yr
https://carbonengineering.com/news-updates/construction-direct-air-capture-texas/

06/07/22 Occidental 1PointeFive…
An oil-company spinoff wants to help build 70 direct air capture plants by 2035
https://www.fastcompany.com/90758711/an-oil-company-spinoff-wants-to-help-build-70-direct-air-capture-plants-by-2035?partner=rss&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=rss

DAC1, IEA on Carbon Engineering , Oxy and The Permian facility… "In Q1 2021, OLCV awarded the Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) phase to global professional services provider Worley. The FEED phase of DAC 1 is focused on a first capture train with a planned capture capacity of 0.5 MtCO2/year; the total capacity of the project will subsequently increase to 1.0 MtCO2/year. The project is supported by a multi-million dollar investment from United Airlines, and, upon approvals, two key policies: California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard and the United States’ 45Q tax credit."
https://www.iea.org/reports/ccus-around-the-world/dac-1

1PointFive...
https://www.1pointfive.com/

July 12, 2022, Drax, North Yorkshire UK $2 billion British pounds for 8 million tons per year through BECCS (forest pellets)… First unit operational in 2024. "The company plans to invest £2bn in the 2020s in its plans to develop two bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) units."
https://www.drax.com/press_release/drax-submits-plans-to-build-worlds-largest-carbon-capture-and-storage-project/

September 21, 2022, Drax commits to 12 million tons Co2 per year…  "Drax aims to deliver 12 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide removals per year using BECCS by 2030 and this deal will relate to the CDRs produced from Drax’s North American BECCS facilities."
https://www.drax.com/press_release/worlds-biggest-carbon-removals-deal-announced-at-new-york-climate-week/

 

May 10, 2022, Bayou Bend Project - Talos, Carbonvert Bring Chevron Aboard to Propel CCUS Project Offshore Texas…  225-275 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the shallow waters near Beaumont and Port Arthur.
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/talos-carbonvert-bring-chevron-aboard-to-propel-ccus-project-offshore-texas/
 

March 23, 2022 - Occidental and Carbon Engineering in the Permian…  good new numbers and 70 Air capture hubs, three operational by 2025.
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/occidental-to-spend-5-of-2022-capital-on-permian-carbon-removal-plant-69498606

Occidental Chemicals and Carbon, MIT -
Temple, Why the world’s biggest CO2-sucking plant would be used to … err, dig up more oil? And how it might even be a good thing. MIT Technology Review, May 27, 2019
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613579/why-the-worlds-biggest-cosub2-sub-sucking-plant-would-be-used-to-err-dig-up-more-oil/

Oxy Net-Zero Goal, December 3, 2020 -
https://digital.olivesoftware.com/olive/ODN/HoustonChronicle/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=HHC%2F2020%2F12%2F03&entity=Ar01500&sk=EFF8B3CA&mode=text#=undefined

 

July 25, 2022 –Air Products Cryodistillation Facility -- Announces Additional "Third by ‘30" CO2 Emissions Reduction Goal, Commitment to Net Zero by 2050, and Increase in New Capital for Energy Transition to $15 Billion… Air products claims they will be the world's largest when completed. $15 billion total investment 2022 includes 30 percent reduction in scope 3 emissions by 2030, in addition to Scope1 and 2 reductions.
https://www.airproducts.com/news-center/2022/07/0725-air-products-announces-additional-sustainability-commitments

October 14, 2021 – Air Products, 5 Million tons per year… Louisiana: $4.5 Billion, 5 million tons per year, online in 2026 from Blue Hydrogen reformation out of natural gas. - https://www.airproducts.com/news-center/2022/07/0725-air-products-announces-additional-sustainability-commitments
https://www.airproducts.com/campaigns/la-blue-hydrogen-project


HOUSTON, Feb. 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- 1PointFive announced today its selection of Worley for the Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) phase of its first direct air capture (DAC) facility in the U.S. Permian Basin—DAC 1.
https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/1pointfive-selects-worley-for-feed-on-milestone-direct-air-capture-facility-837514192.html

Carbon Engineering Funders, March 21, 2019 – Occidental Chemicals, Bill Gates, Murray Edwards, BHP, Chevron Technology Ventures, Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, LLC, Bethel Lands Corporation Ltd, Carbon Order, First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital, Rusheen Capital Management, LLC, Starlight Ventures, Thomvest Asset Management and others.
https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2019/03/21/1758562/0/en/Carbon-Engineering-concludes-USD-68-million-private-investment-round-and-proceeds-with-commercialization-of-carbon-dioxide-removal-technology.html#:~:text=CE's%20investors%20now%20include%3A%20Bill,an%20affiliate%20of%20Peter%20J.

Carbon Engineering and Storegga, (June 23, 2021) 500,000 to 1,000,000 tons per year in Scotland, operational in 2026…
https://carbonengineering.com/news-updates/uks-first-large-scale-dac-facility/

Exxon Mobile and Global Thermostat, September 21, 2020 - "Expanded their joint development agreement following 12 months of technical evaluation… Global Thermostat's 'breakthrough technology' using amines… ExxonMobil has more than 30 years of experience in CCS technology and was the first company to capture more than 120 million tonnes of CO2… $3 billion to advance plans for over 20 new CCS opportunities: U.S. Gulf Coast, Wyoming, Netherlands, Belgium, Scotland, Singapore, Qatar ."
Press Release -
https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/News/Newsroom/News-releases/2020/0921_ExxonMobil-expands-agreement-with-Global-Thermostat-re-direct-air-capture-technology
MIT Technology Review, June 28, 2019 - https://www.technologyreview.com/f/613901/another-major-oil-company-tiptoes-into-the-carbon-removal-space/

May 30, 2023 - Sumitomo Corporation invests in Direct Air Capture technology pioneer Global Thermostat…

 

Sumitomo Corp

https://www.sumitomocorp.com › topics › group

 

With our multi-patented portfolio of solutions for capturing and removing CO2 directly from the atmosphere, Global Thermostat is working to help ...
https://www.sumitomocorp.com/en/easia/news/topics/2023/group/20230530

April 4, 2023 - Global Thermostat unveils one of the world's largest units for removing carbon dioxide directly from air…
NEWS PROVIDED BY - Global Thermostat

COMMERCE CITY, Colo., April 4, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Thermostat, a pioneer of carbon removal technology to address climate change, today unveiled one of the largest Direct Air Capture machines ever operated. The unit has been capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere since the end of 2022 with a capacity of over 1,000 tons a year, the threshold to qualify for a tax credit under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, and is the first of many planned.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-thermostat-unveils-one-of-the-worlds-largest-units-for-removing-carbon-dioxide-directly-from-air-301789992.html

 

Amazon

665,000 tons Co2 comitted from IPointFive (Oxy), Heirloom nad Carbon Capture Inc.

$2 billion Climate Pledge
https://www.aboutamazon.com/planet/climate-pledge

Carbon Capture, Inc. - 100,000 tons
September 12, 2023 - Amazon supports the world’s largest deployment of direct air capture technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere,

 

 

September 12, 2013 - Amazon supports the world’s largest deployment of direct air capture technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere, Amazon Staff

 

Heirloom

September 10, 2023 - Microsoft buys 350,000 tons CO2 over ten years…

King, Microsoft signs industry impacting Heirloom CO2 removal deal, Sustainability, September 10, 2023.
https://sustainabilitymag.com/articles/microsoft-signs-industry-impacting-heirloom-co2-removal-deal

 

 

University of Arizona (Klaus Lackner) and Silicon Kingdom Holdings (SKH) April 29, 2019 -https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-carboncapture/do-mechanical-trees-offer-the-cure-for-climate-change-idUSKCN1S52CG


University of Arizona (Klaus Lackner) Carbon Collect (formerly Silocn Kingdom) April 15, 2022 - April 15, 2022 - Carbon Collect’s MechanicalTree, based on the research of ASU engineer Klaus Lackner, will collect carbon from the atmosphere and help fight climate change - First 'MechanicalTree' installed on ASU’s Tempe campus.
https://news.asu.edu/20220415-solutions-first-mechanicaltree-installed-asu-carbon-collect-tempe
Carbon Collect -
https://mechanicaltrees.com/

Blue Planet and Mitsubishi
September 23, 2020 - Mitsubishi is working to develop technology for locking CO2 in concrete as part of a separate project with Japanese construction group Kajima and Hiroshima-based utility Chugoku Electric Power
 
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Environment/US-startup-s-carbon-capture-concrete-wins-Mitsubishi-s-backing

Blue Planet and Chevron
Houston, Texas, January 14, 2021 — Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) today announced a Series C investment in San Jose-based Blue Planet Systems Corporation (“Blue Planet”), a startup that manufactures and develops carbonate aggregates and carbon capture technology intended to reduce the carbon intensity of industrial operations.
https://www.chevron.com/stories/chevron-invests-in-carbon-capture-and-utilization-startup

ExxonMobil, February 1, 2021… $3 Billion, mostly on 20 direct air capture projects. "ExxonMobil has more than 30 years of experience in CCS technology and was the first company to capture more than 120 million tonnes of CO2, which is equivalent to the emissions of more than 25 million cars for one year. The company has an equity share in about one-fifth of global CO2 capture capacity and has captured approximately 40 percent of all the captured anthropogenic CO2 in the world."
https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/News/Newsroom/News-releases/2021/0201_ExxonMobil-Low-Carbon-Solutions-to-commercialize-emission-reduction-technology

Exxon Labarge, Wyoming,  expands to 8 million tons per year from 6 to 7 million tons, May 5, 2022…
ExxonMobil to Expand Carbon Capture and Storage at LaBarge, Wyoming, Facility
https://www.yahoo.com/now/exxonmobil-expand-carbon-capture-storage-135000912.html

Exxon Labarge EPA Verification Plan, 2018…
https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2018-06/documents/shutecreekmrvplan.pdf



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Michael MacCracken

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Nov 6, 2023, 4:54:53 PM11/6/23
to Peter Eisenberger, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, James Hansen

Peter--I'm rather astounded at your paragraph:

"My concern about the response of the SAI community is that it does  seem  to depend on arguing we are facing a doomsday future 
and the inadequacy of alternative paths. We certainly are facing a great threat but there is no science basis for arguing that the alternative paths are not adequate. At its core it depends on creating fear about the future. We know the fight or flight response to fear and that  fear has caused many conflicts. I am certainly not suggesting that advocates for SAI do not believe what they are saying. "

Paleoclimatic analyses suggest that the equilibrium sea level sensitivity to global average temperature is of order 15 meters or so per degree C. Coming out of the last glacial maximum (LGM) melted 2/3 of the land ice and this raised sea level by of order 120 meters. There is still enough land ice to raise sea level another 60 meters or so and indications that when the Earth was several degrees warmer there was very little land ice. With the disturbing signs of ice stream stabilization in both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and indications that coming out of the LGM sea level was rising on average a meter/century while the global average temperature was rising at a rate of 1 C every 20 centuries whereas today the global average temperature is rising at 1-2 C/century, the risk of movement to much greater rates of rise (quite plausibly coming in pulses) seems very high. And with such a large fraction of the global population living on land (and mostly in major urban areas) not much above sea level, the potential for societal disruption is huge--and while the poor are likely the most directly to be impacted, the relocation of coastal cities is going to cost all of society.

The disruptions to the hydrologic cycle and likelihood of extreme weather are both changing at far faster rates than the seemingly innocuous changes in global average temperature. Looking instead at changes to heat index associated with the projected temperature changes, regions of the world are going to be virtually impossible to live in for increasing parts of the year unless able to retreat to air-conditioned buildings. The result of all these types of changes and more are going to be significant generation of environmental refugees with the potential to disturb presently mostly stable governments and populaces as the people quite naturally seek conditions where they can survive.

It is not just imaginings that those of us interested in SAI are concerned about. That IPCC does not want to go as far as we do has to do, in my view, the quite cautious approach of IPCC and the scientific tradition in coming to findings--the risks are rising rapidly and assurances of 50% or so likelihoods of being able to limit warming are hardly assuring. It has been interesting that each of the sequence of IPCC assessments has been describing worse and worse consequences at each level of global warming and urging stronger and stronger action over shorter and shorter times, bringing into their summary projections what previous assessment rounds had refrained from including, but were being suggested at the cutting edge of the science (and often in Hansen papers).

The problem with waiting until such risks are fully accepted is that by then it is often too late to take action to avoid great harm--consistent with the precautionary principle enshrined in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the due diligence approach used by much of society (i.e., financial institutions, infrastructure builders, the military)  to keep societal risk to acceptable levels.

Best, Mike
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Peter Eisenberger

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Nov 6, 2023, 5:06:32 PM11/6/23
to Ye Tao, H simmens, Robert Chris, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, via NOAC Meetings, Healthy Climate Alliance, Nadia Kock, Nicholas Moore Eisenberger, Matt Atwood, James Hansen
Ye 
I know of no such evidence. There may be articles that make such  assertions but they are not backed up by facts 
and many are motivated by viewing CDR as a way for the energy industry to stop using fossil fuels. That assertion is itself 
untenable(ideological) because of the energy needs of the global south to lift their people out of poverty. 
In fact DAC based CDR has no land, material, environmental , and energy constraint 
that prevents it from removing 50 giga tonnes of CO2.

The only question is the rate of scaling DAC and other CDR  
and that in turn is still possible to meet the climate threat  if governments do what FDR did when he finally took the threat of Germany seriously. https://elkcoastinstitute.org/energy-equity-and-the-climate-crisis-report/ 
  
My main point about SAI is that getting to a global consensus on it is even more difficult than getting global mobilization 
for CDR. I want to be clear that I believe that research should be carried out on SAI but not based on that other approaches
cannot work but instead base it upon understanding better all the consequences of increasing the particles in the air. 
Since SAI can be implemented (scaled rapidly ) that research could lead to its use if indeed we fail to scale DAC/CDR at the rate needed. 
Peter   

Michael MacCracken

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Nov 6, 2023, 8:05:11 PM11/6/23
to Peter Eisenberger, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, James Hansen

Hi Peter--I think I'd say that, now 30+ years since the UNFCCC and with emissions still going up, it is time to admit that the present set of approaches has failed (or is at least sure to fail given how long it will take to get emissions to zero, or near there). What we ask of others is how long it will take for others to admit this--how much more damage and irreversible change must the world go through until it is agreed that mitigation alone is not occurring anywhere near fast enough to ensure a safe climate. While we are all for CDR, in the interim until it can take over, SAI can prevent rates of damage going even higher (and maybe lower them a bit) while mitigation and CDR are built up to get things under control so that SAI can be phased out.

Best, Mike

On 11/6/23 5:41 PM, Peter Eisenberger wrote:
Dear Mike 
We do not disagree about the severity of the threat we are facing which your and others efforts have tried to get 
the world to acknowledge. We also agree at the failure and even resistance of policy makers and governments  to acknowledge
how serious it is . We agree this is the first milestone we all should work on together because time is our enemy -. In fact i have been arguing that all climate warriors should put aside their differences of how to address the climate threat and even exactly how bad it s  and work together to get it acknowledged how serious the threat is and how inadequate our response currently is. 

Where we seem to disagree is on what to do to meet the threat. Here I have my view and others have different views 
My solution is to have a process like the manhattan project where different technical solutions are proposed 
and debated and a consensus is reached because inaction is not an option. Once the path i chosen we should like the people in Ukraine stop if needed to do what we were doing and contribute our expertise to plan chosen. We need a coherent effort if we are going to have a chance . 

My main point about SAI is that getting to a global consensus on it is even more difficult than getting global mobilization 
for climate. I want to be clear that I believe that research should be carried out on SAI but not based on that other approaches
cannot work but instead base it upon understanding better all the consequences of increasing the particles in the air or reflectors etc . Since SAI can be implemented (scaled rapidly ) that research could lead to its use later if indeed we fail to address the climate challenge rather than just dealing with its symptoms. Also as noted above by putting our solutions first we all are 
making it more difficult to have the world recognize the dire situation we are in. Without that all we are doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic . WE NEED TO COOPERATE AND GLOBALLY MOBILIZE NOW !
With regards 
Peter  

John Nissen

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Nov 7, 2023, 10:33:35 AM11/7/23
to Michael MacCracken, Peter Eisenberger, Planetary Restoration, healthy-planet-action-coalition, James Hansen
Hi Michael,

You are absolutely right. And, as Jim says, we should be aiming to reduce the global temperature to a "Holocene-level temperature".  SAI has the strength to do this.

You rightly say, in your previous email, that we can expect sea level to rise quite rapidly this century, judging by sea level rise since the last glacial maximum (LGM).  In fact, as Jim pointed out some years ago, the sea level rose 20 metres in 400 years (5 metres per century) following the end of the Younger Dryas, 11.7 kya.  Greenland ice cores suggest that the Arctic temperature rose 7-10C in around 50 years, which we could see happen again this century, if Arctic amplification continues at x4 global warming as it has been since 1980.  Thus a pulse of 5 metres this century is on the cards.

The most immediate danger is from the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS), which is suffering from the effects of both global warming affecting the Gulf Stream temperature and Arctic warming with loss of snow and sea ice.  Thus SAI to cool (and eventually refreeze) the Arctic and the water flowing into the Arctic seems even more urgent than SAI to cool the planet.  Doug MacMartin has shown that SAI injection at 50N or 60N could do the job.

Refreezing the Arctic would also inject energy into the jet stream Rossby wave, driven as it is by a combination of the Earth's rotation and the temperature gradient from pole to tropics.  This refreezing might actually reverse the trend towards extremes of heat, drought and flood which largely constitutes the climate crisis in the eyes of the world.

The urgency for refreezing the Arctic could not be greater.  As you say, the current trends are making the planet less hospitable and are preludes to mass migration and, I would add, a food security crisis.  Cooling the planet as a whole back to a Holocene-level temperature and the Arctic back to its previous (late Holocene) frozen level would have huge benefits for humanity at large.

Cheers, John



Peter Eisenberger

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Nov 7, 2023, 12:37:08 PM11/7/23
to Michael MacCracken, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, James Hansen
Dear Mike 
We do not disagree about the severity of the threat we are facing which your and others efforts have tried to get 
the world to acknowledge. We also agree at the failure and even resistance of policy makers and governments  to acknowledge
how serious it is . We agree this is the first milestone we all should work on together because time is our enemy -. In fact i have been arguing that all climate warriors should put aside their differences of how to address the climate threat and even exactly how bad it s  and work together to get it acknowledged how serious the threat is and how inadequate our response currently is. 

Where we seem to disagree is on what to do to meet the threat. Here I have my view and others have different views 
My solution is to have a process like the manhattan project where different technical solutions are proposed 
and debated and a consensus is reached because inaction is not an option. Once the path i chosen we should like the people in Ukraine stop if needed to do what we were doing and contribute our expertise to plan chosen. We need a coherent effort if we are going to have a chance . 

My main point about SAI is that getting to a global consensus on it is even more difficult than getting global mobilization 
for climate. I want to be clear that I believe that research should be carried out on SAI but not based on that other approaches
cannot work but instead base it upon understanding better all the consequences of increasing the particles in the air or reflectors etc . Since SAI can be implemented (scaled rapidly ) that research could lead to its use later if indeed we fail to address the climate challenge rather than just dealing with its symptoms. Also as noted above by putting our solutions first we all are 
making it more difficult to have the world recognize the dire situation we are in. Without that all we are doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic . WE NEED TO COOPERATE AND GLOBALLY MOBILIZE NOW !
With regards 
Peter  

On Mon, Nov 6, 2023 at 1:54 PM Michael MacCracken <mmac...@comcast.net> wrote:

Ye Tao

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Nov 7, 2023, 12:37:19 PM11/7/23
to Peter Eisenberger, H simmens, Robert Chris, healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, via NOAC Meetings, Healthy Climate Alliance, Nadia Kock, Nicholas Moore Eisenberger, Matt Atwood, James Hansen

I apologize to most people on these lists who have already received, multiple times, these slides demonstrating the energy infeasibility of DAC (by 2 orders of magnitude). 

Ye

CROI of feasible climate solution.pdf

Tom Goreau

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Nov 7, 2023, 3:51:13 PM11/7/23
to healthy-planet-action-coalition, Planetary Restoration, James Hansen, Ye Tao, Ye Tao, Stephen Salter, Douglas MacMartin

Exponential increases in high-temperature extremes in North America

Scientific Reports volume 13, Article number: 19177 (2023) Cite this article

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Abstract

Global warming in the 21st century will alter the frequency of extreme climatic events, such as high-temperature anomalies and “heat waves”. Observations of extreme high temperatures during recent decades have detected upward trends in their frequency of occurrence, and recent state-of-the-art Global Climate Models (GCMs), e.g., Climate Model Intercomparison Projects (CMIPs), notably CMIP5 and CMIP6, have predicted acceleration of temperature trends and high-temperature events by 2100 under projected greenhouse-gas emission scenarios. Hence, the 21st century is expected to experience substantial shifts in the occurrence of extreme events, where present-day, extreme-but-rare high-temperature events will become common during the summer months. The increasing frequency of extreme heat may affect the health and resiliency of social, biological, and infrastructure systems in many regions worldwide, underscoring the need for accurate and reliable long-term assessments of climatic change across global and regional scales. So far, many investigations of high-temperature extremes have been carried out under end-point scenarios, e.g., by comparing GCM-projected changes in the frequency of high-temperature extremes expected in the late 21st century to the late 20th century. In this study, we use extreme value theory and decades of observations of high-temperature extremes at thousands of meteorological stations across North America to investigate continuous shifts in the frequency of extreme high-temperature events due to projected local warming trends. We find that the odds of exceedance of 50-year extreme high-temperature events increases exponentially with increases in mean local temperature. At a majority of the stations studied here, a local mean temperature increase of 0.5–1 C can double the odds of exceedance of 50-year extreme high-temperature events. Based on time-dependent temperature projections, the odds of exceedance of 50-year extreme high-temperature events doubles approximately every 20 years (or sooner) for  96% of the stations. Moreover, we find that, for  80% of the stations in North America, investigated here, the 50-year extreme high-temperature events will be exceeded annually before 2100.

 

 

 

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