Monster greenhouse gases release sets a record

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Some extremely bad news on the climate change front. The U.S. Dept of Energy released a report indicating that total C02 output world wide increased by six percent within one year, setting a record. The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago. In 2007 when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its last large report on global warming, it used different scenarios for carbon dioxide pollution and said the rate of warming would be based on the rate of pollution. Boden said the latest figures put global emissions higher than the worst case projections from the climate panel. Those forecast global temperatures rising between 4 and 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century with the best estimate at 7.5 degrees. "It's a big jump," said Tom Boden, director of the Energy Department's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center at Oak Ridge National Lab. "From an emissions standpoint, the global financial crisis seems to be over." Boden said that in 2010 people were traveling, and manufacturing was back up worldwide, spurring the use of fossil fuels, the chief contributor of man-made climate change. ^[1]








NASA scientist James Hansen has recently stated that based on estimated C02 output from the Athabasca Oil Sands, it would mean "it's game over" for any meaningful attempts at stabilizing climate change. The Canadian sands are considered to be the "biggest carbon bomb on the planet." The carbon footprint at recovering the oil would be extremely significant (23% to 41% according to this paper.) According to Real Climate, depending on several market forces (i.e. the prices of oil and coal in electrical power generation, oil and gasoline prices, etc) and how easily the oil from Athabasca is brought to market (about 634 gigatonnes ), world temperatures will increase by 2 degrees centigrade.^[2]

According to the National Academies of Science in their research^[3] the risks are significant:

• The peak warming is linearly proportional to the cumulative carbon emitted
• It doesn’t matter much how rapidly the carbon is emitted
• The warming you get when you stop emitting carbon is what you are stuck with for the next thousand years
• The climate recovers only slightly over the next ten thousand years
• At the mid-range of IPCC climate sensitivity, a trillion tonnescumulative carbon gives you about 2C global mean warming above the pre-industrial temperature.

It's depressing in a way to read this, it feels like you're on the Titanic. And but unlike them, we have warnings, and we chose to ignore them.

[1.] CBS News article "Monster Greenhouse Levels Seen.

[2.] Keystone XL: Game over?

[3.] Climate Stabilization Targets, Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts over Decades to Millennia. Published by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council.

Comments

[ytterbius.livejournal.com]

http://news.40777.cn/info_193794.html

What's interesting the last couple days are the rumors that are suggesting that my favorite Chinese Solar Company is going to go into the Coal business!

Short Story: The Province of Inner-Mongolia (massive coal resources) is offering Solar Companies rights to possibly Billions of Tons of Coal, in exchange for investments in Solar Production in the Province.

Note: Though the news of the investment in Inner-Mongolia is confirmed by the Company, the news of a Coal deal is not yet confirmed.

This is a really interesting concept to me. I see it as a way for Chinese Solar to make sure that Global "Big Fossil" can't crush their Solar Companies just by crushing demand for Solar. As long as Big Fossil is looking to profit off of Coal, if this news is confirmed, then Big Solar will be profiting off of Coal, too. Meanwhile, Big Solar (and LDK is the Biggest Solar) will take those profits and put them towards their main business, Solar, and continue to work to marginalize Fossils.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

If we put the atmosphere back to the conditions it was in for the dinosaurs, then maybe we can get them back. That seems like a fair trade.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure we'd be able to comfortably breathe that atmosphere.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

We'd be fine. We don't need much O2 to breathe.

I wish I could find the paper online but a guy who whatever it is you call guys who study the past of the Earth (slipping my mind right now) who said if we release all the trapped carbon that we're capable of releasing on the Earth it still wouldn't be game over as the Earth had much more released at certain points in the past and normal geological and biological processes trapped it all originally so it would just happen again.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Then we'd adapt. That's how it's supposed to work.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the Earth would be totally improved with Tyrannosaur-sized crocodilians.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Glad you agree.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Not so sure. There was less O2 during the dinos. Breathing would be difficult for us.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, sic transit gloria mundi.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

There is no global warming. And the problem with the economy is poor people, not criminal capitalists. Also, kill or be killed.

I hope I have made myself clear.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

The problem is the poor have too much power. We need to take their refridgerators. Then they will consume less power. If that doesnt work, the microwaves are next!

The future ...

[russj.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to homesteading in Antarctica...

Re: The future ...

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Plausible. Before the meteor hit, the Arctic was populated by dinosaurs year-round. Much more CO2 then.

The Earth is not warm enough

[foreverbeach.livejournal.com]

A warmer Earth means more vegetation, more farmland, more locations which can be inhabited, more water in the oceans to dilute pollution, more time which can be spent outdoors, etc.

FUCK THE COLD: CREATE CO2!

Is this supposed to be parody?

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

If so, you're doing a great job.

Re: The Earth is not warm enough

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It means none of these things. We're talking a global climate change, the local affects could really be none of these things whatsoever.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

I'll take this with all the terror and "worst case" scaremongering we've gotten for the past 40 years.

I mean as it is, based on their predictions made in the 1970s we need another 2ft rise (instead of the 2-3 inch rise we've had since then) to reach the predictions they had for 2030.

But I'm sure when we fall short of the worst case scenario the minor increase will still be bandied about by the same people.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Its going to be funny whe fox tells you to change your tune. I await with scorecards ready to rate your backflips.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I mean as it is, based on their predictions made in the 1970s we need another 2ft rise (instead of the 2-3 inch rise we've had since then)

Could you cite the specific scientific paper in the 1970s that gave the specific projection (you know there is a difference between a scientific projection versus "prediction") versus some general vague comment by someone who said "sea levels" will rise as a consequence of global warming?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Indeed, for all the fanatical threat of Islamist terrorism the most they've done is hold off eight years of war with Saddam Hussein and beat the Soviets with US money and weaponry. Big fucking deal. Let me know when Islamists are a threat to more than themselves. Or was this "terror" in reference to something completely different?

Oh hi guys

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

All I can say is I will be, as you will be as well, dead before all this shit happens. In the meantime I'm going to go ride in my spiffy Carbon Footprint™

Footprint™ - It gets you there :D

Once I hit 60 I am shopping for Cadillacs.

Re: Oh hi guys

[telemann.livejournal.com]

You have children or grand kids? What about their enviromental legacy.

Rick . . . .

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Didn't I just warn you away from GM?!? Get a Land Rover. Or a Lamborgini.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Oh sure, blame Canada ;o)

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

With their beady little eyes
Their flopping heads all full of lies. . . .

(Reaches for the lyric Braino)