Who sends out press releases on a Sunday? UCLA does when the content is expected to match Obama’s draconian climate announcement planned for Monday.
Reducing emissions will be the primary way to fight climate change, UCLA-led study finds
A new report by professors from UCLA and five other universities concludes that there’s no way around it: We have to cut down the amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere. The interdisciplinary team looked at a range of possible approaches to dissipating greenhouse gases and reducing warming.
Forget about positioning giant mirrors in space to reduce the amount of sunlight being trapped in the earth’s atmosphere or seeding clouds to reduce the amount of light entering earth’s atmosphere. Those approaches to climate engineering aren’t likely to be effective or practical in slowing global warming.
“We found that climate engineering doesn’t offer a perfect option,” said Daniela Cusack, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor of geography in UCLA’s College of Letters and Science. “The perfect option is reducing emissions. We have to cut down the amount of emissions we’re putting into the atmosphere if, in the future, we want to have anything like the Earth we have now.”
Still, the study concluded, some approaches to climate engineering are more promising than others, and they should be used to augment efforts to reduce the 9 gigatons of carbon dioxide being released each year by human activity. (A gigaton is 1 billion tons.)
The first scholarly attempt to rank a wide range of approaches to minimizing climate change in terms of their feasibility, cost-effectiveness, risk, public acceptance, governability and ethics, the study appears in the latest issue of the peer-reviewed scholarly journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
The authors hope the information will help the public and decision-makers invest in the approaches with the largest payoffs and the fewest disadvantages. At stake, the study emphasizes, are the futures of food production, our climate and water security.
Cusack, an authority on forest and soil ecology, teamed up with experts in oceanography, political science, sociology, economics and ethics. Working under the auspices of the National Science Foundation, the team spent two years evaluating more than 100 studies that addressed the various implications of climate engineering and their anticipated effects on greenhouse gases.
Ultimately, the group focused its investigation on the five strategies that appear to hold the most promise: reducing emissions, sequestering carbon through biological means on land and in the ocean, storing carbon dioxide in a liquefied form in underground geological formations and wells, increasing the Earth’s cloud cover and solar reflection.
Of those approaches, none came close to reducing emissions as much as conservation, increased energy efficiency and low-carbon fuels would. Technology that is already available could reduce the amount of carbon being added to the atmosphere by some 7 gigatons per year, the team found.
“We have the technology, and we know how to do it,” Cusack said. “It’s just that there doesn’t seem to be political support for reducing emissions.”
Of the five options the group evaluated, sequestering carbon through biological means — or converting atmospheric carbon into solid sources of carbon like plants — holds the most promise. One source, curbing the destruction of forests and promoting growth of new forests, could tie up as much as 1.3 gigatons of carbon in plant material annually, the team calculated. Deforestation now is responsible for adding 1 gigaton of carbon each year to the atmosphere.
Improving soil management is another biological means of carbon sequestration that holds considerable promise because soils can trap plant materials that have already converted atmospheric carbon dioxide into a solid form as well as any carbon dioxide that the solids give off as they decompose. Since the dawn of agriculture, tilling land has led to the loss of about half (55 to 78 gigatons) of the carbon ever sequestered in soil, the team reports. But such simple steps as leaving slash — the plant waste left over after crop production — on fields after harvests, so it could be incorporated into the soil, could reintroduce between 0.4 and 1.1 gigatons of carbon annually to soil, the study says. The approach would also improve soil’s ability to retain nutrients and water, making it beneficial for additional reasons.
“Improved soil management is not very controversial,” Cusack said. “It’s just a matter of supporting farmers to do it.”
The study also advocates a less familiar form of biological sequestration: the burial of biochar. The process, which uses high temperatures and high pressure to turn plants into charcoal, releases little carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Under normal conditions, decaying plant life inevitably decomposes, a process that releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But charred plant material takes significantly longer — sometimes centuries — to decompose. So the approach can work to keep carbon that has become bound up in plant life from decaying and respiring as carbon dioxide. And like working slash into the soil, adding biochar to soil can improve its fertility and water retention.
“Charcoal has been used as an agricultural amendment for centuries, but scientists are only now starting to appreciate its potential for tying up greenhouse gases,” Cusack said.
But not all biological sequestration would be so beneficial. The researchers evaluated the idea of adding iron to oceans in order to stimulate the growth of algae, which sequesters carbon. The approach ranked as the study’s least viable strategy, in part because less than a quarter of the algae could be expected to eventually sink to the bottom of the ocean, which would be the only way that carbon would be sequestered for a long period of time. The study predicted that the rest would be expected to be consumed by other sea life that respire carbon dioxide, which would end up back in the atmosphere. Additionally, increasing the algae blooms would likely wreak havoc by decreasing the oxygen available for other marine life.
The study’s second most promising climate engineering strategy, after carbon sequestration, was carbon capture and storage, particularly when the technique is used near where fuels are being refined. CCS turns carbon dioxide into a liquid form of carbon, which oil and coal extraction companies then pump into underground geological formations and wells and cap; millions of tons of carbon are already being stored this way each year. And the approach has the potential to store more than 1 gigaton permanently each year — and up to 546 gigatons of carbon over time — the study says.
However, a liquid carbon leak could be fatal to humans and other animals, and the risk – while minimal – may stand in the way of public acceptance.
“With CCS we’re taking advantage of an approach that already exists, and big companies pay for the work out of their own pockets,” Cusack said. “The hurdle is public perception. No one wants to live next to a huge underground pool of carbon dioxide that might suffocate them and their children – no matter how small the risk.”
Reducing the amount of sunlight that is heating up the atmosphere through measures such as artificially increasing the earth’s cloud cover or putting reflectors in outer space ranked as the study’s second least viable approach. While cloud seeding is cheap and potentially as effective as improving forestry practices, the approach and its potential impacts are not well enough understood for widespread use, the team concluded.
“Cloud seeding sounds simple,” Cusack said. “But we really don’t understand what would happen to the climate if we started making more clouds.”
Cusack’s collaborators were Jonn Axsen, assistant professor of resource and environmental management at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada; Lauren Hartzell-Nichols, acting assistant professor in the program on values in society and the program on environment at the University of Washington; Katherine Mackey, a postdoctoral researcher at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.; Rachael Shwom, assistant professor in human ecology at Rutgers University; and Sam White, assistant professor of environmental history at Ohio State University.
This is the same UCLA that has invited “Hanoi Jane” Fonda to address their School of Theater Film & Television.
http://www.deadline.com/2014/05/jane-fonda-2014-ucla-graduation/
Just from reading this post, it appears to me that they did the study with the underlying assumption that CO2 was the ’cause’ of warming/disruption/ whatever its called now, and they were evaluating options to reduce it. Given that I don’t find this study particularly groundbreaking, nor do I think it lends any support to the idea that excessive amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere is causing warming (and, OTOH, that reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere will reduce warming either).
The only way to ‘do’ climate science appears to be by fake consensus, threatening decree, or by employing unelected bureaucrats to ram home bizarre policies based on the first two.
“Cloud seeding sounds simple,” Cusack said. “But we really don’t understand what would happen to the climate if we started making more clouds.”
Does that mean they do understand what would happen to the climate if we reduce the amount of CO2 or what would happen to the climate if we reverse deforestation, etc? I don’t think we do.
… However, a liquid carbon leak could be fatal to humans and other animals, and the risk – while minimal – may stand in the way of public acceptance….
They’re out of their f*cking minds – concentrating CO2 in storage facilities will cause a catastrophe which will probably end the environmental movement.
Read what happens when 100,000 tons or so of CO2 – the output of a major power station for a couple of weeks – was accidentally released from a natural CO2 reservoir.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos#1986_disaster
Imagine something like this happening near a major city.
The rapid destruction of the rain forests is a huge problem. And yes, these are the ‘lungs of the world’ because in the cold climate forests, there is little uptake of anything during the long winters whereas rain forests grow year round and this is what is being decimated rapidly.
And unlike right wingers who talk about global cooling, we must understand humans cannot proliferate eternally. There is an upper limit to growth.
Of course, there is no warming at this point. What interests me is how my own forest which I own, is growing really great this year thanks to lots of rain and temperate cooling. It is the greenest I have seen in years. My trees love present CO2 levels.
Obama has a plan for some reason, I think he hates the USA, to destroy our economy…..simple as that.
Today i find this quote from a bloomberg article, also greasing the skids for obama’s reduced emissions plan:
“Scientists and physicians increasingly link a rise in allergies, asthma and other respiratory diseases to the elevated levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused by climate change.”
So now i am to understand that carbon dioxide is both a cause and effect of climate change?
The blurb acts as though these professor folks were of different viewpoints before the “collaboration” began. Yeah, right, especially the guys from Woods Oceanographic, who
you would think know at least something about the fraud of rising sea level claims – see the Wash Post, yesterdy or today, which has an article which claims (sinking Norfolk VA) is an example of climate change due to sea levels rising.
“We have the technology, and we know how to do it,” Cusack said. “It’s just that there doesn’t seem to be political support for reducing emissions.”
We’ve had the technology for thepast 60 years – it’s called nuclear power, you know, the power technology that you clowns have slandered with lies and misinformation for the past 30 years.
And you still don’t support it, even when your Godfather Hansen does. You’re not too stupid, now are you?
The interdisciplinary team looked at a range of possible approaches to dissipating greenhouse gases and reducing warming.
==============
what they did not consider is how to live with warming/cooling, and whether this would be more effective than trying to reduce CO2.
Because in the end the only way the world will reduce the CO2 going into the atmosphere is to keep billions of people in poverty. To deny people in Africa and Asia the same benefits that people in the US and EU enjoy.
In the end, CO2 and AGW is racism dressed up as “saving the world”. Keeping the poor of the world poor, so that the rich can continue to live high on the hog.
A co² leak from a lake in africa wiped out a village
Carbon monoxide is denser than air, too, and people die in low lying spots.
===========
The beauty of having Obama in the White House is that the inherent racism in CO2 reduction can be denied. The US and EU can push forward their policies to bribe the leaders of the poorest nations on earth to keep their people in poverty, using $100 billion dollars in taxpayer money. All the while claiming that since Obama is half black, these policies are not racism on a global scale.
In effect, The US and EU are proposing to give $100 billion dollars to sell billions of people into perpetual slavery, in the greatest crime against humanity ever conceived.
What do philosophers and political scientists know about climate science? Nothing.
This ‘study’ is an opinion piece with a token scientists to get a give it a sciencey look and feel.
Carbon monoxide is denser than air
=========
nope. carbon monoxide (CO) is lighter than air. it is only a danger in enclosed spaces.
carbon dioxide (CO2) is heavier than air and when it accumulates it has been responsible for mass killings over large areas.
Just look at the credentials of this bunch. I don’t think they are qualified to mop a floor, let alone save the planet from a fictitious demise. I wonder how much we paid them to read papers they don’t even have the capacity [to] understand?
Oh the pain!
I wonder if anyone has ever asked these yoyos “How are we going to stop ourselves from reducing CO2 to a dangerously low level?” Most of these plans are permanent in nature.
“Cloud seeding sounds simple,” Cusack said. “But we really don’t understand what would happen to the climate if we started making more clouds.”
That cloud thing again. Wherever they turn they find clouds that they do not understand. If they had a bit more self-awareness, they would realize that they do not understand the various effects of clouds on the environment and, therefore, do not understand the basic calculations needed to make predictions about warming. They are standing on a sandy beach wondering about clouds.
But CO-(A)GW is near zero: the atmosphere self controls.
Sometimes career experience and credentials do count. In this case the academic reporting team of three assistant professors, one acting assistant professor, and a postdoctoral researcher seems a little light for the chosen project assignment. The absence of professional engineers or economists is surprising. To me, it’s like a high school football team trying to compete in a Super Bowl. I for one am discounting the earnest analysis and advice.
“if, in the future, we want to have anything like the Earth we have now.””
Well personally I would like a better Earth in the future rather than the one we have now. And to achieve that requires innovation and encouraging new ideas. Both of which require growing economies and increased reliable energy supplies.
Relying on unreliable energy supplies and reducing per capita energy production will stagnate, if not reduce, the economy. And stagnant or negative economic growth, combined with reduced energy supplies will result in an Earth worse than the one we have now. It will trap billions of people in poverty and force millions more into poverty.
Mod assistance request,,,,, my “to” is missing. It should read, capacity “to ” understand in my post. It appears my tablet sequestered it 🙂
“Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.”
Great name for an Alarmist journal. Endless new points of view on human sins against Gaia.
Reducing man-made CO2 by 78% is absurd.