geoengineering and the four climate change truths ...exceptionalism environmental patriotism •...

Geoengineering and the Four Climate Change Truths:

Perspectives of a Lawyer-Scientist

A Presentation at the Research Triangle Institute, International

November 18, 2008

Center for Environmental StewardshipThomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy


Views of a Lawyer-Scientist

• Politics drive climate science

• Cost-efficient engineering will drive political solutions

• None of this is good for traditional environmentalism


Environmentalism Through a Political Lens

• Pre-1960 environmentalism reflected stewardship and could be described as encompassing American Exceptionalism

• Post-1970 environmentalism split into two groups, traditional greens and watermelon greens.


American Environmental Exceptionalism

• Traces to de Tocqueville and his seminal work Democracy in America(1835), consisting of three elements:

1.dynamism

2. religiosity

3.patriotism



Dynamism

• a wide-open scientific entrepreneurialism

• a very visible and loud debate regarding the quality of temperature data and modeling

• consensus on the science would rise from academic campuses as piecemeal science and not from a political international body



Religiosity

• reflects traditional scientific mores

• competition in ideas would produce vigorous challenges of any postulate or prediction

• scientists that study how to predict future events would evaluate the basis of climate alarmism and identify strengths and weaknesses

• valid criticisms, new information about actual climate conditions and new theories on the determinants of global climate would cause climate projections to evolve



Environmental Patriotism

• stewardship would produce private cautionary action

• businesses would revise long-range strategies

• private institutions and governments would increase scientific investigation

• government intervention would be limited by constitutional powers

• governmental actions would not cause the export of economic opportunity


Greens, Watermelon Greens and Gramscianism

• Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), a Marxist intellectual and politician devised a seven step strategy for culture war.

• Traditional greens adopt the mores and values of Tocquevillian free-market environmentalism

• Watermelon greens are green outside and “red” inside and adopt neo-Marxist Gramscian revolutionary tactics


Marxism?

Culture war?

Revolution?

Whoa!


Gramscian Purposes

• Reverse the correlation of power from the privileged to the "marginalized“

• The “environmentally marginalized” are not humans!

• There can be no revolution without a proletariat.


Gramscian Methodology

(1) Delegitimize the dominant belief systems, specifically human dominion (hegemony) over nature.



(2) Supply an alternative set of hegemony values that the environmental elite title “sustainability” and is which requires a reduction in human population and consumption.



(3) Permeate all spheres of civil society with the replacement values, for example through movies such as “An Inconvenient Truth”, in school curricula, by calendars, notebooks, tee-shirts, and every sort of promotional opportunity.



(4) Create a revolutionary“consciousness” through transformation of conscious-ness, typically seen as by some as “education” and by others as “indoctrination” and done while permeating all spheres of civil society, starting with children in grammar schools



(5) Create an “organic” intellectual elite who specializes in the environmental revolution and are supported by dedicated organizations such as the Sierra Club, The Pew Environmental Group, and the Natural Resources Defense Council



(6) Subscript “traditional” intellectuals who “change sides” and are well positioned within established institutions, such as corporate CEOs, legislators and university professors



“The latest scientific data confirm that the earth’s climate is rapidly changing. … The cause? A thickening layer of carbon dioxide pollution, mostly from power plants and automobiles, that traps heat in the atmosphere. … [A]verage U.S. temperatures could rise another 3 to 9 degrees by the end of the century … Sea levels will rise, [and h]eat waves will be more frequent and more intense. Droughts and wildfires will occur more often. Disease-carrying mosquitoes will expand their range. And species will be pushed to extinction.”

“So says the National Resources Defense Council, with agreement by the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, National Geographic, the US National Academy of Sciences, and the US Congressional House leadership. Concurrent views are widespread, as a visit to the internet or any good bookstore will verify.”

Step (6) Exemplar:



(7) Reject the concept of moral absolutism and replace it with situational ethics that presumes morality is nothing more than a social construction.

Thus, an act is moral if it serves the interests of the “oppressed” or “marginalized”, which in environmental terms means anything not anthropogenic.

This final step demonizes human interests and actions, and places them subservient to “environmental” interests.


Gramscian Climate Science

Question Posed on the Google Geoengineering Group:

“Are we certain we have sufficient quality and quantity of data samples to identify accurate assessment of climate change risks and mitigations?”

Response of a “Watermelon Green” Professor of climate science:

“Read the IPCC Working Group I report. All your questions and concerns will be answered there.”



Response of a “Traditional Green” Member of the National Academy of Engineers:

Ask [the Watermelon green] what is the meaning of consensus and does it have any relevance to science, which is not decided or ordained by consensus which explains nothing. Only when it meets strict requirements does hypothesis become theory. Blessing does not convert crap into science although it may convert non believers into believers; heaven help them. The IPCC report is not the third testament.”



Response of Dick Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the MIT:

"Picking holes in the IPCC is crucial. The notion that if you’re ignorant of something and some-body comes up with a wrong answer, and you have to accept that because you don’t have another wrong answer to offer is like faith healing, it’s like quackery in medicine – if somebody says you should take jelly beans for cancer and you say that’s stupid, and he says, well can you suggest something else and you say, no, does that mean you have to go with jelly beans?"



The IPCC projections rely on models that do not comport with actual climate phenomena.


Non-Gramscian Climate Science

The IPCC models show effects that have not occurred as projected.


Non-Gramscian Climate ScienceGlobal Temperature Anomoly

1978-2008

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Tem

pera

ture

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IPCC Temperature Prediction

Actual 30 year TrendWith 95% Confidence Interval

Current 8 year Trend

Traditional scientific hypothesis testing “falsifies” IPCC projections



IPCC models do not conform to traditional scientific requirements for credibility.



The IPCC disregards non-CGM alternative predictive models.

Projection based on multivariate correlation of known solar and temperature cycles.


Despite the ongoing scientific debate on the nature of global warming, the Gramscian environmental power elite has won the science battle:

Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe:

By every measure, the U N 's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change raises the level of alarm. The fact of global warming is "unequivocal." The certainty of the human role is now somewhere over 90 percent. Which is about as certain as scientists ever get.I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.



Conclusions of the Environmental Elite

• It is too late to wait.

• We will face a catastrophe unless we reduce our carbon emissions immediately.


Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy

2001 IPCC Goal 400 ppmIncludes a safety factor

2004 IPCC Goal 450 ppmNo safety factor

2008 IPCC Goal 550 ppmThe probability that this would prevent

catastrophic climate change is only 2.5%

Source: IPCC SPM3


Solutions

Gramscian Answer:

• Reduce carbon emissions without using nuclear power and regardless of the cost.

• This “sustainability” agenda sought to reduce population and consumption.

• “Carbon reduction only” is the replacement for the failed “sustainability” revolution.


The Gramscian Non-Solution• It is too late to rely on a "carbon emissions

reduction only" strategy. This is the first climate change truth.

• China and India won’t play.

• The economic dislocation is greater than the “traditional greens” will accept, just as they rejected the implications of the sustainability agenda.

• The political ramifications have already altered legislative proposals, allowing a safety valve on the “cap”.


• For stabilization at 450ppm we require an almost immediate reduction of emissions below the ‘no-climate-policy’ baseline, while at the same time maintaining a global economic growth rate of around 2% per year.

• Reductions required relative to today: 2030, –11%; 2050, –37%; 2070, –54%.

• Reductions required relative to baseline: 2030, –42%; 2050, –68%; 2070, –79%.

• Reductions made this rapidly would require all new power plants to have zero net CO2 emissions

The Gramscian Non-Solution


The Gramscian Non-SolutionCarmen Difiglio: IEA’s 450 Scenario … requires a complete transformation of investment in the electric power sector by 2012. …To quote the World Energy Outlook 2007, p. 191: “exceptionally strong and immediate policy action would be essential for [the 450 Scenario] to happen and the associated costs would be very high.”

Jeffrey Sachs: “… current technologies cannot support both a decline in carbon dioxide emissions and an expanding global economy.” (Scientific American, April, 2008)


Tocquevillian Answer:

• Reduce carbon emissions where it is cost-effective, including nuclear power;

• Cool the planet with geoengineering so as to stretch out the time available to transition to non-carbon energy;

• Encourage entrepreneurialism that would cost-effectively extract carbon from the air;

• Promote cost-effective adaptation;

• Expand scientific inquiry to reduce uncertainty.

Solutions


The Second Battle of the Climate Change Culture War

American Exceptionalism will defeat environmental socialism on how to respond to

climate change because:

• The greens, and the rest of the society, reject the moral absolutism of a “carbon emission reduction only” strategy in light of its inefficacy, costs and required changes in lifestyle.

• This is the second truth on climate change.


Geoengineering

Geo-engineering is the deliberate modification of Earth's environment on a large scale "to suit human needs and promote habitability".

Geoengineering is at present the only economically competitive technology to offset global warming. The geo-engineering option may be considered costless.6

William Nordhaus, Yale


Geoengineering

Responses to climate changeMitigation:• A defined term• Means emissions reductions• Does not mean consumption reduction

Adaptation:• Build a dyke and wear sunscreen

Geoengineering:• Deflect sunlight

(SRS - Solar radiation management)• Sequester environmental carbon


Solar Radiation Management

The Magnitude of the Problem:

• Average solar radiation absorbed by the Earth is 236 W / m2

• Doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration (from the pre-industrial value of 280 ppm to 560 ppm, or today’s value of 380 ppm to 760 ppm) prevents about 3.7 W m2 of energy from leaving the Earth

• This is approximately 100 times greater than the total primary power used by human civilization on Earth (not including solar inputs to agricultural production)

• 1.6 % of absorbed solar radiation would need to be deflected to compensate for a doubling of atmospheric CO2.


Solar Radiation Management

Ways to Deflect Solar Radiation:

• Cost-efficient Proposals

• Stratospheric Aerosols

• Cloud Whitening

• Cost-inefficient Proposals

• Space Mirrors

• Whiten the earth


Cloud Whitening


Cloud Whitening

The vessel produces 30 kg/sec of 0.8 micron drops of sea water. Salt residues from evaporated drops are ideal cloud condensation nuclei.

The Twomey equation predicts that, in the right conditions of cloud, sunshine and clean mid-ocean air, the extra solar energy reflected from cloud tops will be about 10 million times more than the wind energy needed for spray generation.


• To achieve a 4 W m2 offset it would be necessary to seed at least a third of the suitable marine cloud coverage.

• it could hold the Earth’s temperature constant for a significant number of decades.

• It would likely be only one of a suite of geoengineering techniques uses.

• Could use dedicated ships, but could also use existing platforms.

Cloud Whitening


Stratospheric Aerosols

Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering Mimics Volcano Eruptions

0 2 4 6-6 -4 -2ºC

GeoengineeringTemperature change

2 x CO2

2 x CO2and1.8% reduction insolar intensity

Caldeira et al., 2008

Area where change is significant at 0.05 level based on 30-yr climatology

2 x CO2

2 x CO2and1.8% reduction insolar intensity(Significant over 12 % of Earth’s

area)

Caldeira et al., 2008Area with significant temperature change

Area where change is significant at 0.05 level

based on 30-yr climatology

2 x CO2Significant over 47% of Earth’s area

2 x CO2and1.8% reduction insolar intensitySignificant over 4 % of Earth’s area

Caldeira et al. 2008

Area with significant precipitation change

Geoengineeringand plant growth

In the model, plants grow much better in the geoengineered world than in the natural world.

Geoengineering results in CO2 fertilization without the increased heating that leads to increased plant respiration

Govindasamy et al., 2002


Two arctic geoengineering scenarios remove ~0.37% of total solar insolation

Caldeira, 2007

Annual mean temperature response

2xCO2 - 560 ppm CO2, normal solar radiation

Temperature change (ºC)Caldeira et al., 2008

0 2 4 6-6 -4 -2 ºC


Geo71.25 560 ppm CO2, 25% solar reduction north of 71ºN

Caldeira et al., 2008.

Temperature change (ºC)0 2 4 6-6 -4 -2 ºC


Geo61.10 560 ppm CO2, 10% solar reduction north of 61ºN

Caldeira et al. 2008

Temperature change (ºC)0 2 4 6-6 -4 -2 ºC

Modeled September sea-ice

Caldeira et al.,2008.

Engineering options for placing aerosols in stratosphere

• “Smokestack to the stratosphere”– Skinny pipe/hose, ground to ~25 km-high HAA (DoD)

• Artillery (shooting barrels of particles into stratosphere)– “…surprisingly practical” – NAS Study, 1992

• High-altitude transport aircraft– “Condor/Global Hawk, with a cargo bay”– Half-dozen B-747s deploy 106 tonnes/year of engineered aerosol;

towed lifting-lines/bodies for height-boosting the sprayer-dispenser an additional 5-10 km above normal cruising ceilings

• Other options– Anthropogenic (mini-)volcanoes– Tethered (set-of-)lifting-body – a high-tech kites

Courtesy Lowell Wood


Kelemen and Matter 2008

Sequester Environmental Carbon

Natural Peridotite Hydration and Carbonation

• 1.5 km3 injection formation = CO2 emissions from U.S. coal-fired power plants

• $20 per ton CO2 for in situ sequestration

http://www.steel-trp.org/Briefing07slides/08-TRP9957_COLUMBIA-07IBS.pdf


Matter has been working on a separate project in Iceland, where volcanic basalt, shows promise for absorbing CO2 produced by power plants. Trials there are set to begin in spring 2009, in partnership with Reykjavik Energy, and the universities of Iceland and Toulouse (France).




Ocean Iron Fertilization - OIF

• Plankton that generate calcium or silica carbonate skeletons, such as diatoms, coccolithophores and foraminifera, account for most direct carbon sequestration.

• When these organisms die 20-30% of their carbonate skeletons sink.

• Remain in deep ocean for 4000 yrs.


• NASA scientists have reported a minimum 6~9% decline in global plankton production since 1980 and others report 10~12% losses.

• A full-scale international plankton restoration program could regenerate approximately 3~5 billion tons of carbon sequestration capacity worth €75 billion or more in carbon offset value.

• $6.35 per ton CO2

• The London Convention / London Protocol: You may fertilize if the intent is to grow fish but not if the intent is to dispose of carbon in the ocean. Hence, focus on “restoration”.


Ocean Iron Fertilization - OIF


Geoengineering

• Geoengineering research, and especially carbon sequestration research, has only just begun.

• Watermelon greens reject geoengineering because it does not result in reduction of human appetites for natural resources.


The Third Truth - we are going to see a federally mandated climate response.

The Fourth Truth - We are going to see important environmental actions sacrificed on the alter of global warming response.


Mission Statements:

The mission of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy is to provide Virginia’s political, business, academic, community and media leadership with thoughtful, realistic, useful and non-partisan analysis of public policy issues confronting our Commonwealth.

The mission of the Center for Environmental Stewardship is to promote environmentalism within the context of meeting all human needs.

David W. Schnare, Esq. PhDDirector

Center for Environmental [email protected]

http://www.thomasjeffersoninst.org/main/centers.php?subcategory_id=8Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy

http://www.thomasjeffersoninst.org/main/main.php

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