Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Climate scientist David Lowe is horrified democratic governments like New Zealand are only charging double digit carbon prices – he thinks the true cost of carbon is around $1000 / ton, and should be imposed in a way which spans administrations.
Humans already have the tools to combat climate change but we lack leadership
In this extract, top atmospheric scientist Dave Lowe explains why despite political inaction he believes we can build a sustainable future
Dave Lowe
Mon 10 May 2021 06.00 AESTWhen it comes to the political will and leadership needed to drive the world towards a sustainable future, I’m a pessimist. Time and time again, I’ve heard rhetoric from politicians focusing on short-term goals at the expense of planning for the future. In 2021, the mainstream media promote responsible journalism and take a hard line with climate deniers. Many journalists hold governments to account over climate change goals. However, hard scientific data is often still manipulated and cherrypicked by politicians. I’ve spoken to many and liken the experience to walking through treacle.
Does their bland decision-making have to do with the structure of democracy itself, with its short electoral terms and lack of incentives for incumbent politicians to make hard and binding decisions for the decades ahead?
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Crucial to the urgent transition towards a low carbon future will be the skills and experience of engineers. Over the years I’ve spoken to many groups of engineers, including oil and gas engineers, about climate change. You’d think that a climate scientist talking to a gas engineer would lead to an argument, but that has not been my experience.
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Their skills are transferable to an economy making widescale use of “green hydrogen”, for example. Green hydrogen, produced by electrolysis of water using excess electricity derived from wind and other renewable energy sources, is already being used in steelmaking, energy storage and transport in Germany and a number of other countries.
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If you ask a chemist how, and how much it would cost, to remove a tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere, they would probably throw up their hands in horror, come up with a figure of NZ$1,000 per tonne and a very complex apparatus. A climate scientist would reply to the question with another, like, “How much do you think the 2020 wildfires in Australia, California, Colorado, Siberia and the Arctic cost?” And a New Zealand economist would quote the current carbon price on the New Zealand emissions trading scheme site, which in early 2021 was about NZ$37 per tonne. To me that sounds ridiculously cheap, measuring in crude economic terms the cost of the damage by carbon emissions into our only atmosphere.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/10/humans-already-have-the-tools-to-combat-climate-change-but-we-lack-leadership
Here’s a thought Dave. Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is?
Instead of pontificating about how we should all be paying $1000 / ton, why don’t you lead by example, and start a project where climate believers can pay you $1000 to physically remove a ton of carbon from the atmosphere?
Chemical extraction of CO2 from air is simple, not complicated, as you suggested. All you need to extract CO2 from air is to bubble air through a big tank of saturated lime water.
Calcium hydroxide (garden lime) is slightly soluble in water, but calcium carbonate (limestone) will precipitate and drop to the bottom of your tank. This process has been used for centuries to assay the CO2 content of a stream of gas, it is even taught in schools as a basic chemistry experiment – students blow into a tube, and watch clouds of calcium carbonate appear in the bottle they are blowing air into. Lime water is very good at grabbing CO2 out of the air, or out of people’s breath.
Of course, lime production is a very carbon intensive process, so you really need to recycle your calcium carbonate precipitate. Part of your CO2 recovery process should involve regenerating the lime from the precipitated calcium carbonate in a solar furnace, and disposing of the concentrated CO2 recovered from the regenerator. And you will need a rather large tank of lime water to absorb a ton of CO2 in a reasonable timeframe. But the chemistry is simple.
All the components of your plant should be manufactured using renewable energy, but hey lets be generous – since it is a pilot plant, I’ll give you a pass if you use solar panels and structural steel and plastic and copper and whatever else you need, all manufactured in the coal furnaces of China.
I doubt I will be one of your customers – but I assure you I will report on your progress, in winning customers for your $1000 / ton carbon disposal system. You never know, you might even make some money – there are plenty of rich celebrities dumb enough to pay $1000 to dispose of a ton of CO2. You could send customers a nice framed certificate thanking them for helping to save the Earth.
“….start a project where climate believers can pay you $1000 to physically remove a ton of carbon from the atmosphere?”
Not bad money to remove CO2 with forests. Maybe 3-4 acres in New England will remove that much in a year. There are people working on this but their solutions are heavy on the bureaucracy.
I think there are some kind of carbon credits in California involving forest land but a group in San Francisco has complained that it is not working as it should…maybe some profiteering going on?…$39 billion involved. CO2 is not a problem but scams involving CO2 are a problem.
Cool! Lets us slap his tax on him, first, at a rate of 100%. F**king leftarded c&nts.
“F**king leftarded c&nts.” Classy comment. WUWT standards certainly has plummeted lately.
Well, I think the true “cost of carbon” should be around $10,000 USD per ton . . . so there!
Expect my check in the mail.
Whatever the cost of wildfires may be, where is the proof that taking CO2 out of the atmosphere would reduce them? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to better prosecute arsonists?
How about the upper levels of forest mismanagement?
Gruesome Newsome and his crew in Commifornia should be held to account for the mess they’ve made of the forests of the Sierras and Coastal Ranges! Maybe an investigation of his handling of the ChiCom virus should take precedence, but he needs to answer hard questions about the wildfires and blackouts, too!
We should just tax stupidity and this dimwit’s contribution alone should be enough to build a couple of nuclear power stations.
So, the greening of the planet is a negative according to him. He has no clue that no gas at any concentration in the atmosphere can warm the climate. It’s that simple.
It is disappointing how many supposedly highly educated people do not use their brains and their academic training, regarding how to investigate and learn new things, and drink the climate Kool Aid.
This makes them complete idiots—people who really have no idea what is going on around them. They live in their emotional and virtuous minds and not in reality.
For that matter, I question what a climate scientist is? In what areas do they have expertise? I have to say I am a biochemist and marine biologist, but in the course of this I covered everything that affects the oceans, which includes climate, micro biology, invertebrate biology, atmosphere. and cosmology. So many climate scientists are simply products of a very biased education. At one college I taught at years ago, the Physics department did not requite students to take any biology or chemistry as the main researcher of the department was in glass physics and did not think any of that was relevant. How about simply educating well-rounded scientists who are no tunnel-minded and myopic?
Highly educated, complete idiots!
Daniel Flynn wrote a book about these types in 2004 titled ‘Intellectual Morons!’ I think he describes Mr. Lowe to a tee!
I am pretty well rounded ( I love beer) but that does not make me a scientist. But then I would not consider climate science a legitimate calling. Nobody is likely to live long enough to earn a significant understanding of all the sciences involved.
He says “If you ask a chemist how, and how much it would cost, to remove a tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere, they would probably throw up their hands in horror…A climate scientist would reply to the question with another, like, “How much do you think the 2020 wildfires in Australia, California, Colorado, Siberia and the Arctic cost?”
An actual scientist would first be able to prove a connection between atmospheric CO2 and the referenced wildfires. No one has.
I would think the connection would be… (thinking cap on)…
… enough CO2 would put the fires out.
We need more CO2!
“Climate scientist David Lowe is horrified democratic governments like New Zealand are only charging double digit carbon prices – he thinks the true cost of carbon is around $1000 / ton, and should be imposed in a way which spans administrations.”
The climate scientists have all been wrong, they should required to return 1/2 of what they have been paid by the tax payers.
We live in world with a cold ocean, and more than 90% of “all global warming” has been warming this too cold ocean.
The ocean has been getting cold for over 34 million years, long before humans existed.
There is no evidence of Humans warming the ocean, maybe Humans should try to warm these cold waters {if it doesn’t cost money to tax payers}.
We live in an Ice Age. An Ice Age is a cold ocean. A build up of ice, and more desert regions.
The largest desert region are in the polar regions. Then the next largest is the Sahara desert.
Whenever interglacial period gets warmer, the Sahara desert, becomes less of a deserts- getting grass lands and forests.
The last time sahara desert was glass lands, was over 5000 years ago, during the Holocene Optimal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum
“West African sediments additionally record the African humid period, an interval, between 16,000 and 6,000 years ago, when Africa was much wetter. This was caused by a strengthening of the African monsoon by changes in summer radiation, resulting from long-term variations in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. The “Green Sahara” was dotted with numerous lakes, containing typical African lake crocodile and hippopotamus fauna. A curious discovery from the marine sediments is that the transitions into and out of the wet period occurred within decades, not the previously-thought extended periods. It is hypothesized that humans played a role in altering the vegetation structure of North Africa at some point after 8,000 years ago, when they introduced domesticated animals. This introduction contributed to the rapid transition to the arid conditions found in many locations in the Sahara.”
The “It is hypothesized that humans played a role..” is wrong, every time it’s been warmer the Sahara desert has been greener. And there are “theories” that cattle could be used to make the Sahara desert greener {though I suppose they would need to be “woke” herders}. And the myth of humans causing the Sahara desert is quite old and long debunked, and was stupid as the pseudo science of “the greenhouse effect theory”.
Quote from “climate scientist” David Lowe in the above article:
“If you ask a chemist how, and how much it would cost, to remove a tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere, they would probably throw up their hands in horror, come up with a figure of NZ$1,000 per tonne and a very complex apparatus. A climate scientist would reply to the question with another, like, “How much do you think the 2020 wildfires in Australia, California, Colorado, Siberia and the Arctic cost?” And a New Zealand economist would quote the current carbon price on the New Zealand emissions trading scheme site, which in early 2021 was about NZ$37 per tonne.”
However, if you asked the same question to a practicing biologist or naturalist, he would likely say it would cost less than US$100 to remove a tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere in one year . . . from a single person planting seeds or seedlings of fast growing trees (maybe even bamboo) a rate of about 250 plantings per hour at a labor rate of US$50 per hour, more than twice average minimum wage in the US.
Those 500 young trees could easily remove a tonne of CO2 in growing over one year, based on the fact that a single mature tree absorbs carbon dioxide at a rate of 48 pounds per year (ref: http://www.tenmilliontrees.org/trees/#:~:text=A%20mature%20tree%20absorbs%20carbon,the%20average%20car's%20annual%20mileage. )
Conversion rate is about US$1 = NZ$1.37, so say about NZ$150 to remove a tonne of CO2 the easiest, most benign, most natural way . . . if you actually think about the most practical solution. BTW, no yearly maintenance required!
I don’t think I read that he would be willing to pay $1,000 per tonne of CO2 he was personally responsible in his lifetime.
I’d like to see a “carbon” tax implemented, and then see these people get a back dated bill. Might change their thinking.
No fool like an old fool
The new “Great green wall of Africa” will receive a significant boost – likely un-acknowledged of course – from CO2.
A green belt across the Sahara.
Here’s a link
https://youtu.be/7y77B1Y05SU
These fools think that taxing CO2 emissions in their particular fiefdom will reduce World-wide production. They do not understand that the only result will be the relocation of the industries to other countries not participating in the economic suicide, like China and India. Their thinking involves A to B and ignores the subsequent C & D.
Lowe wants to add an addition $10 to a gallon of gasoline. A fifteen gallon fill for your SUV would be around $180.
Ouch!
David Lowe is from the University of Waikato in New Zealand, a well known hot bed of climate extremism. You can read more about him at http://earth.waikato.ac.nz/staff/lowe/ from which you will see his lifetime professional career has had almost nothing to do with climate. In this field he is no more than a vociferous amatuer. The basic chemistry of his proposed solutions will work but he has given no thought to their mass flows, energy requirements or their source. He is likely to have been quoted only because he was a Professor of something or other at the local university.
Dave. Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is? – giggle snort!!!!
Yeah, Dave, as much CO2 as you personally produce with your GI tract contributions, never mind flapping your silly lips, you’re a bigger contributor to the problem than the rest of us. If you won’t follow your own ideas, then do the rest of us a favor: STFU.
And wear a big glass globe helmet with rebreather equipment included.
The irony is that all this fuss about CO2 is a huge mistake. Curtailing it will have no effect on climate and will stop the improvement that its increase has had on food production (plant growth).
The only greenhouse gas that has a significant effect on climate is water vapor (WV). Global WV trend has been increasing about 1.5% per decade which is faster than is possible from temperature increase (feedback). Global Climate Models calculate WV increase. The calculated result is that WV increases with temperature at approximately constant relative humidity. This is wrong. The actual average global WV increase trend, measured by NASA/RSS using satellite instrumentation, is about 43% greater than calculated in the GCMs.
An analysis with optimum combination of only three factors closely matches measured average global temperature for as long as it has been accurately measured worldwide. The match has been 96+% 1895 to 2020. CO2 is not one of the factors.
How can this bloke be called a ‘scientist’ when he obviously has not bothered to analyse the climate/CO2 data freely available on the Internet? It clearly shows that temperature has determined the rate of generation of CO2. There is no indication that CO2 has caused any global temperature effect. This is what has actually happened while “climate scientists” have been dreaming up all manner of catastrophes in order to justify their salaries.
“If you ask a chemist how, and how much it would cost, to remove a tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere, they would probably throw up their hands in horror, come up with a figure of NZ$1,000 per tonne and a very complex apparatus”
On the other hand, if you ask someone who is not a chemist they will tell you that trees do it for $0 and want more CO2 to grow faster
8 billion humans produce 8 billon tonnes remove this guy and we are on the way
only need all these climate nuts to become lemmings and jump off the cliff in the name of the planet
Mann, and Attenborough should flow
Poor old fellow, tres embarrassment
There wierd people everywhere, in NZ they believe they are the well balanced ones and to prove it they have a chip on both shoulders.
How can econazis be so hyper sensitive about wildfires, drought, coral bleaching, everything green yet still advocate policies that are ridiculously expensive and yet do nothing to fix the problem? Lament about wildfires but won’t allow cleating of all the dry brush, etc., that’s just waiting to ignite, and pretend that co2 reductions will help even though they know co2 is going to increase for decades.
“Humans already have the tools to combat climate change but we lack leadership…”
That leadership is a tax? Right!
Only a trillion dollars to remove a gigaton then. Sounds like a bargain.