Reason? I was going to say common sense. I'd love to be proved wrong,
because, like everybody else, I'd prefer not to have to resort to
geoengineering. But I don't think we have an option. And to save the
Arctic sea ice, we have to be mighty quick, since we are on course for a
major decline in extent by 2015. There are ominous signs of a minor
collapse occurring at this very moment [1].
Cheers,
John
[1]
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/06/17/501030/death-spiral-watch-arctic-sea-ice-takes-a-nosedive/
--
On 19/06/2012 15:55, Phil Thornhill wrote:
> No,they wouldn't.
>
> Certainly not to that (right or wrong) reasoning.
>
>
> Global Climate Campaign
> www.globalclimatecampaign.org
> +44 2078339311
> +44 7903316331
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Nissen [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 19 June 2012 3:40 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]; biochar-policy; Mayer Hillman; Phil
> Thornhill; Oliver Tickell; Emily; Gary Houser; GRAHAM KNIGHT; Itchin Cheng;
> Mike Koefman; Mark Lynas
> Subject: Ocean acidification - Beddington& Lubchenco in NYT
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> Sir John Beddington is chief scientific adviser to the UK govt, and Dr Jane
> Lubchenco is Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and is
> now heading NOAA. So their piece in NYT is important, politically [1].
>
> Ocean acidification is generally recognised as one of the greatest hazards
> of rising CO2 levels, though one sees little about this in the media or
> journals.
>
> Ocean acidification may be most dangerous in the Arctic, and the problem is
> worsened by methane release, as bacteria in seawater convert much of the
> methane to CO2.
>
> Does anybody have a feel for how important this is? At the CaCC conference
> last weekend [2], I suggested that we might need to get CO2 below 350 ppm by
> 2030 to be on the safe side. But that's just my guess, from what little
> I've managed to read. Is 2030 well before the danger point, or, on the
> other hand, might 2030 prove to be too late?
>
> Lubchenco herself gives a talk suggesting that acidification will be serious
> by the end of the century [3], but is this forecast like the IPCC sea ice
> forecast in 2007, suggesting the sea ice would last beyond the end of
> century [4]? I am afraid that many long range forecasts have been shown to
> be absurdly optimistic after only a few years! There is an optimism bias in
> human nature, but some scientists take this to an absurd degree. A quick
> google search threw up this to support my 2030 date [5].
>
> Assuming 2030 is our target, then we definitely need geoengineering to
> remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and I suggest a combination of agro and
> chemical means, e.g. combining biochar with rock crushing. If we can
> take as much carbon out as we put in, then we can have a world carbon
> neutral economy - possibly in ten years. After that we could bring down the
> CO2 level. How to pay? Get the oil and gas extraction industry to pay for
> the pollution that their product will cause! It's simple and logical. Have
> a carbon tax, ramped up over 10 years to produce carbon neutrality, then
> some further time to bring the CO2 level down to an acceptable level.
> Taxing at source makes the tax simple to collect and enforce.
>
> We'd also have a chance to keep global warming below 2 degrees.
>
> Of course, we also need to save the Arctic sea ice, but for that we need a
> different kind of geoengineering, known as Solar Radiation Management, to
> cool the Arctic [6]. This was the pamphlet I distributed at the conference,
> pus the 8 references [7], all explained in the AMEG session on Saturday [2].
>
> These could be simple messages for Rio, but would anybody listen to reason?
>
> Cheers,
>
> John
>
> [1]
> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/opinion/acid-test-for-oceans-and-marine-li
> fe.html?_r=2
>
>
> [2] http://www.campaigncc.org/altsummit
>
> [3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuttOKcTPQs
>
> [4] http://www.ualberta.ca/~eec/Stroeve2007.pdf
>
> [5] http://earthsky.org/earth/ocean-acidity-studies-raise-more-yellow-flags
>
> [6] http://ameg.me/
>
> [7] http://ameg.me/index.php/31-cacc
>
>
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