Anthropogenic global warming needed to be addressed 50 years ago. It wasn’t. Now we all must accept the consequences, from inconveniences to major death and destruction, and possibly major wars. And the profitable solutions.
It is an article of faith among the Market Fundamentalists that the only duty of corporations is profit. But more than 40% of coal-fired power plants are operating at a loss, and the bottom line on the entire fracking industry from the beginning is hundreds of billions in losses. Almost every country and almost every US state operates its energy market at a loss. Coal, oil, gas, and nuclear all cost more than renewables, but we don't give up running them, and even subsidizing them hugely.
Iceland, Denmark, Rwanda, and Costa Rica are the most notable exceptions, where all or nearly all of their electricity comes from hydroelectric, geothermal, wind, and solar, and they either sell their surpluses to neighboring countries, or recruit energy-intensive business like aluminum smelting to use their super-cheap power.
In the meantime, the environmental losses also keep mounting up.
Note: This Diary grew out of a comment I made in reply to liberaldad2 in Here are eight reasons why the Paris Climate Agreement doesn't matter. I always thank people who get me thinking.
So what about those hard problems that go with Global Warming and feed into it? What about the various tipping points that we might be approaching that we fear could propel us into irreversible catastrophe? What about population, or the rest of the technology that got us into this mess, or pollution, or Capitalist profit?
We have answers to those problems. I have documented some of them in these Diaries. But there is a lack of political will to apply them fully, and ferocious opposition from fossil fuel interests, the Christian Right, and their allies, to doing anything so sensible, not only in the public interest in the US but in the interests of humanity and the entire Earth. Not even the fact that solving the problem is profitable is enough to overcome the savage greeds and hatreds that animate many of them.
The earth is a massive ecological system with many forces determining climate equilibrium, but unfortunately, anthropogenic global warming is an external force that has triggered numerous positive feedback mechanisms…Here are a few:
I cannot promise that none of the following will happen. They are all sound reasons to get on with the program, past Peak Carbon and Carbon Neutrality, all the way to going sufficiently carbon negative to restore the atmosphere and oceans to pre-industrial carbon levels. That means removing and sequestering something at least ten gigatons of carbon (more that 30 gigatons of CO2) annually. We'll come back to that below, and regularly in the future.
First lets look at some known hazards that liberaldad2 is severely worried about, and see whether we have enough useful facts to discuss them meaningfully.
Fact #1: None of these irreversible catastrophes has happened during recent interglacials. Volcanoes emitting CO2 have sometimes warmed the Earth over millions of years so that there was no ice anywhere, but that was a very long time ago. Capture of CO2 in minerals over millions of years has apparently produced Snowball Earth episodes, with the oceans frozen to the Equator, also a very long time ago. Changes in the shape of the Earth's orbit have warmed it and cooled it over millions of years each time. But not all at once, all of a sudden, because of some simple tipping point.
Arctic Sea Ice Minimum
Arctic sea ice reaches its minimum each September. September Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 12.85 percent per decade, relative to the 1981 to 2010 average. This graph shows the average monthly Arctic sea ice extent each September since 1979, derived from satellite observations.
Melting permafrost
Once the earth starts to warm, frozen permafrost regions in the northern hemisphere begin to melt, releasing trapped methane, resulting in more greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and further permafrost melting, accelerating the release of even more methane.
Arctic permafrost isn't thawing gradually, as scientists once predicted. Geologically speaking, it's thawing almost overnight.
Wetland peat
Once the earth starts to warm, wetlands dry out and peat fires become common, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere and accelerating global warming. Methane is also released from wetland peat bogs, resulting in more greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, accelerating the release of even more methane.
Subsea floor
Once the oceans start to warm, sea floor methane hydrates begin to melt, releasing trapped methane, which vents to the surface, resulting in more greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, accelerating sea floor warming and the release of even more methane.
Ocean sink
The oceans of the world can absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide, which makes them more acidic (ocean acidification is another severe climate issue, for another diary). However, as the ocean surface temperatures rise, CO2 solubility decreases, the transfer of CO2 from the atmosphere is inhibited, resulting in less absorption from the atmosphere, which accelerates the heating of the ocean surfaces even more.
Rainforest die-off
The ability of the Amazon rainforests to absorb atmospheric CO2 may be decreasing. As the earth starts to warm, wildfires and drought increase in the rainforests, converting carbon stored in trees into CO2, which is released into the atmosphere, accelerating the heating of the earth even more. Fewer trees also mean less CO2 absorption, which removes one of the negative feedback mechanisms.
Atmospheric CO2 levels: NASA scientist James Hansen has warned that atmospheric CO2 levels above 350 ppm, compared to pre-industrial levels around 280 ppm, would trigger melting of arctic sea ice and many of the other tipping points mentioned above. We passed 350 ppm in 1990, and we have continued to generate CO2 at an accelerating pace, resulting in continued increases in CO2 levels, assuring that the tipping points will not recover.
We are now at 413 ppm.
IPCC climate scenarios
The only climate scenarios that the IPCC shows returning the planet to safe equilibrium levels involve removal of atmospheric CO2, not just reductions in CO2 production, i.e., negative emission technology. To date, no removal mechanisms are known to exist that can create the necessary CO2 removal rates.
That is, we know how to plant trees, which could take up a significant fraction of excess CO2, but not enough. We could put carbon into soils, but not enough. We could react CO2 with various minerals to form stable carbonates, but not enough so far.
Here are those questions as asked by Errol Nelson in a comment to liberaldad2's Diary Here are eight reasons why the Paris Climate Agreement doesn't matter.
This is an excellent diary and discussion of the major problem that is facing humanity. However, you are describing the ‘results’ that are occurring — CO2 increase, global temperature increase, ocean acidification, rising seas, etc — and not addressing the causes that are creating those results. Quick aside: I have been an environmental professional for almost 50 years and seen and heard many reasons, and excuses, about what is happening.
There are several causes of what we are seeing, and I have commented about them here regularly. I often end a comment with the meme:
Mommy (Nature) don’t do bailouts.
There are many other forms of this thought.
A man said to the Universe,
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," the Universe replied,
"That fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.
Stephen Crane
The Universe is not answerable to my personal will.
Zen koan
Stop and think about what that means. Basically, humanity has gotten itself into this mess and it is up to humanity to get themselves out of it.
Or as Buddhists put it, we brought our suffering on by attachment to desire, and we have to give up the attachment to see the solution, which involves Right Thought, Right Livelihood, and the other six steps in the Eightfold Path.
The standard alternative in any Environmental Assessment or Impact Statement is the Do-Nothing Alternative. What happens if we just keep doing what we are presently doing? That is contingent on how much human involvement has already affected the present environment: i.e. a pristine forest is much different than an area like a residential subdivision with roads and houses.
Again, an ancient Buddhist teaching: We cannot possibly undo an effect if we refuse to abandon the cause.
OK, what ARE the causes? This is a really short, incomplete summary.
1. There are too many people. The population of Terra has increased from 3 billion people in 1950, to 4 billion in 1975, to over 7 billion in 2017. Each person is nanopolluter, of CO2 and a host of other pollutants: gaseous, liquid and solid. How do we lower them? One is to reduce the number of people. I will leave it to each of you to figure out how.
There are various projections about when the world will reach Peak Humanity, but it is known to be possible by 2050 using best practices for economic development, education, and health care (including family planning) in the poorest countries. That, of course, is what Fundagelicals and the most reactionary Catholics will not hear of.
2. Technology has made a significant contribution also. Switching from horses to trains to cars has affected the CO2 emissions also. Switching from fossil fuels to renewables (electricity from solar and wind, etc) can make a major difference though.
Technology has given us renewable energy cheaper than coal and natural gas, economically viable grid storage, and electric vehicles with ranges of more than 200 miles, about half of what we need to take over most of the mass market. More technology is on the way, for synthetic fuels or biofuels, hydrogen for making ammonia, and so on. But the troglodytes who live (in their minds) under the Earth with their fossil carbon resources claim that all of this will bankrupt the world, when in fact it will only bankrupt them, and even that only if they refuse to get with the program to the bitter end.
3. As in 2, Corporations have also been allowed to use the air, water and land as a dumping ground, in addition to extracting elements and compounds from them. If the disposal of these unwanted materials was part of the cost of manufacturing, it would reduce the pollutant load. And what is the likelihood of that happening?
Pollution should be taxed. Arthur Pigou laid the foundation in real economics for this, so such taxes are called Pigovian taxes. Tax sulfur, mercury, carbon, and all the rest. But to the aforementioned troglodytes and their political puppets this is nothing but theft! and Tyranny!!! And only Market Fundamentalism and Voodoo Reaganomics and (for the Kochs especially) Bircherism are real, the rest is a Chinese hoax!!!!@!
4. The Capitalist Economy that rewards Profit Uber Alles. Until all parts of the manufacturing process are required to minimize pollutant emissions and make it a priority over profit, we can’t meaningfully reduce the pollutant levels that are occurring.
Profit is fine in its place, which is where markets actually work, as with renewable energy right now. It is not in areas of market failure where non-profits and government can do much better. Defense, public safety, health care, education, and reining in the troglodytes and financial pirates, for starters. We need to get to the point where we can pop asset bubbles before they get out of hand. First, that means we have to be able to talk about them publicly before they result in crashes. We could also do with a good labor shortage to spread the wealth around.
Basically, reducing the pollutant load on Terra starts and ends with the individual. Ignorance is no longer an excuse because the Real Commons (air, water, land, etc) takes precedence over the Artificial Commons (corporations, government, politics, money, etc) generated by man to conduct his affairs. Cooperation, not exploitation, with the Real Commons, is the only way we will get out of this mess.
It is not that we can end Global Warming by installing LED lights at home and other such small actions, as important as they may be. It means individual action on joining together to produce political and market forces that can no longer be ignored.
Liberaldad2 thanked me for the following comment in his Diary, Here are eight reasons why the Paris Climate Agreement doesn't matter. The comment was supposed to be a reply to Erroll Nelson, but I put it in the wrong place.
We have known solutions to your four problems, but a lack of political will in the US to do anything about them. There are severe positive obstacles, which are, however, declining in their political power and in a running-in-circles panic about it, blaming the whole world, us, and each other.
When in danger,
When in doubt,
Run in circles,
Scream and shout.
Snarky military maxim