Scientists: Time for Plan B on Climate Change
By Susie Madrak Saturday Jan 03, 2009 6:00amAnother piece of the Bush legacy, according to a poll of leading scientists carried out by The Independent. The collective international failure to curb the growing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has meant that an alternative to merely curbing emissions may become necessary.
The plan would involve highly controversial proposals to lower global temperatures artificially through daringly ambitious schemes that either reduce sunlight levels by man-made means or take CO2 out of the air. This "geoengineering" approach – including schemes such as fertilising the oceans with iron to stimulate algal blooms – would have been dismissed as a distraction a few years ago but is now being seen by the majority of scientists we surveyed as a viable emergency backup plan that could save the planet from the worst effects of climate change, at least until deep cuts are made in CO2 emissions.
What has worried many of the experts, who include recognised authorities from the world's leading universities and research institutes, as well as a Nobel Laureate, is the failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions through international agreements, namely the Kyoto Treaty, and recent studies indicating that the Earth's natural carbon "sinks" are becoming less efficient at absorbing man-made CO2 from the atmosphere.
Levels of CO2 have continued to increase during the past decade since the treaty was agreed and they are now rising faster than even the worst-case scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body. In the meantime the natural absorption of CO2 by the world's forests and oceans has decreased significantly. Most of the scientists we polled agreed that the failure to curb emissions of CO2, which are increasing at a rate of 1 per cent a year, has created the need for an emergency "plan B" involving research, development and possible implementation of a worldwide geoengineering strategy.
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experienced in miniature what awaits us.
intelligently, but fertilizing algae (or any other plant) to boost growth (for CO2 absorption) does not come without consequences. Nitrogen and phosphorous, used for fertilizer, always impact the water supply negatively. Somehow, I can't think that this is a good idea.
and not nitrogen and phosphorus.
From: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/10/...
It doesn't look too promising:
"There are two major concerns," Buesseler said of iron fertilization experiments. "There are potential major ecological changes, and we don't know if it will work. Growing algae is not enough to be an effective solution to removing greenhouse carbon dioxide. You need to remove algal carbon from the surface to the deep ocean. In SOIREE we saw no increase in carbon export on sinking particles, which implies no removal or sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere. Carbon could stay in the surface waters for weeks or months but end up being returned to the atmosphere."
----
And they don't know if it will work...
Thanks for the info and
yikes!!
near metro area beaches, it is near sewage and storm drain outlets, where N and P concentrations are high. Hadn't heard about using Fe to stimulate blooms before, but apparently these are deep-water algae.
They are talking about mid-ocean, thousands of miles away from the nearest land. When you get far away from land, in deep-blue ocean, usable nutrients are largely gone. The ocean in these zones is usually even devoid of fish, because the underlying food chain is not there..due directly to an absence of plankton and algae. It's kind of hard to think of it in those ways, but the oceans in these areas are deserts, devoid of life. If you fly over these areas and spray a solution containing dissolved iron, it provides enough of a vital substances that is required in the nutrient chain to initiate growth. A few days after the spraying, you get an algae bloom. There is no real danger of it getting out of control, because the cycle cannot be sustained without continued spraying.
The algae grows, lives and dies and the dead material eventually settles down to the bottom of the sea, mimicking how petroleum was originally formed. Algae provides about 70% of the world's oxygen and is responsible for about 70% of the world's carbon dioxide removal. Algae, can double it's mass, under ideal conditions, about every four hours, achieving prodigious carbon removal rates. The thinking is that if vast areas of the ocean could be put into temporary algae production, it could significantly offset the rate of atmospheric CO2 build-up. It could work. within months after spraying stopped all traces off algae blooms would be gone.
The idea is a reflection of just how deep is the hole that we are digging ourselves into.
I was wondering what the possible effects of stimulating algal blooms were. I knew that the ocean and algae were responsible for most of the planet's oxygen, but causing massive growth of blooms worried me: what effect would it have on other members of these ecosystems? Now that I think about it, you're correct in that open oceans are fairly desert-like, though there are organisms that live in the depths and surface at night to feed. This may have some effect on ecosystems living near thermal vents, but the effects should hopefully be minimal since these ecosystems aren't dependent on photosynthesis anyways.
Does anyone have information on what specifically are these carbon sinks mentioned? Are they plant-based, or are they some physical feature that aren't organisms?
Carbon sinks generally refer to natural means of removing CO2 other than photosynthesis. For example, the largest carbon sink is the ocean. Carbon dioxide dissolves in the oceans, initially forming carbonic acid. The carbonic acid then reacts with free calcium and is utilized by corals and shell producing animals to form coral reefs or oyster shells or whatever. Over geological times spans this process produces carbonate rocks. Limestone. The carbon so contained is removed from the ecosphere for geological time periods.
When they talk about sinks being used up, as in the case of the oceans, it means that more CO2 is entering the oceans than can be, for example, utilized in the limestone making process. In this instance, the excess CO2 remains dissolved as carbonic acid, and it is acidifying the oceans. This is a disaster all of its own in the making, because as the seas beome acidified beyond a certain point, it becomes progressively more difficult for shell-building species to survive...their shells dissolve as fast as they are formed, and the species start dying off. We are seeing the beginning of that process now.
Carbon sinks are also those process which produce petroleum and coal. At the rate we are destroying forests, it's a synch that no coal formation is going on at any meaningful rates. It can relate to the rates at which frozen methane is created and stored at the ocean bottoms or in permafrost. The key to all carbon sink cycles is that they are based on rates of removal versus rates of insertion of carbon from the ecosphere. We are dumping CO2 into the ecosphere faster than it can be removed by all combined means, and are thus exceeding the planet's equilibrium-state carrying capacity for CO2. We have unbalanced the planet., and that cannot happen without consequences.
One of the consequences that has so far received little attention, but surely will as this all unfolds, is the toxicity of CO2 to photosynthesizing organisms. You and I can tolerate up to 50,000 parts per million (ppM) CO2 (50,000 pounds of CO2 per million pounds of air), before experiencing toxic effects. Because C02 is a metabolic/catabolic substance for photosynthesizing organisms, it exhibits toxic effects on plants at much lower concentrations than on mammals. We are approaching 400 ppM of CO2 in the atmosphere. Starting at about 800 ppM, it is toxic enough to kill plants through a process called carbon dioxide bleaching. At the rate at which we are releasing CO2, we'll be in that range by the end of the century. And, when we start killing off the photosynthesizing plants, we destroy the basis of the terrestrial food chain, not to mention a significant source of oxygen. When that happens...it mass extinction event time.
Not meaning to seem like a tin-foil behatted alarmist, but we really are running out of time to fix things.
A lot of good information, and it answers some questions I had about the acidfying of oceans.
I had also wondered about CO2 toxicity and how much is considered toxic not only for O2 breathers, but also for plants. I know humans experience oxygen toxicity in certain situations and wondered if the amount of CO2 would account for any of the ineffectiveness of photosynthesis-based carbon sinks (though it sounds like the definition of carbon sink need to be non-photosynthetic.)
Oxygen toxicity is an equivalent analog of what I discussed. It's a case of too much of a good thing.
Interesting. I was not aware that plants had a fairly narrow tolerance level for co2 concentrations. How wide spread is this toxicity level among plants? Does it apply primarily to terrestrial plants? I am of the impression that the Earth's atmosphere had a higher concentration of CO2 early in its life. If this is true, have plants changed (evolved for a narrower tolerance) since they began? Please excuse my ignorance, but I find this fascinating.
in coming years.
What worries me izzat it may also become a spur to increased authoritarianism...
that's the whole idea.
this is about de-industrialization, and population reduction.
without the economic growth that the world has enjoyed, and the resultant increase of food availability,
there will be a die-off.
much to our elites delight.
george bush has spent 8 years taking away your rights and spying on you.
along with a compliant Congress with its share of democratic party collaborators.
this is not about left vs. right. this is about elites and the made members of the criminal aristocracy versus the middle and lower classes.
anything else is a phony meme.
The article is disturbing. However, spelll check shoulld have been used.
Anyone criticizing spelling or grammar is bound to make a spelling or grammatical mistake in their response.
sorry, DE, but I use sardonic ways to avoid being abrasive sometimes, think it was Fccfc's deliberate self-mocking use of double ll's - twice.
And on subject, the rapidity of the increase in global warming is being remarked on in N.TX newscasts without noting why, as the four warmest years on record have occurred in the past decade. 2008 was second warmest.
..it's important to note that the "record" all these folks refer to is not all that long - 100 to 125 years or so. That's a nanosecond in the billions-of-years history of planet Earth.
I'm sure we need to curb our pollution of the atmosphere and oceans, and stop the deforestation of large portion of continents, etc. and all of the other things we humans have been doing to degrade Mother Earth. However, I'm not yet convinced that "global warming" per se is a real phenomenon that requires the unleashing of mad scientists at this point.
Actually, the record goes back about 680,000 years...through 7 separate ice ages and their intervening warming cycles. that's more than long enough to draw many legimitmate conclusions.
also, its the warming cycles that are shortest periods. The ice ages, little or big, are the prevalent climatic condition.
Feel free to ignore this question if you like, but what is it that you do Paul? You seem much more knowledgeable about this topic than your average blog poster.
I'm a chemist, Mrs. W. I've spent the last 30'ish years of my life working in energy and the environment. I'm a physical chemist (a person that is concerned with the physics of chemistry). All of these environmental discussions relate directly to what I do for a living.
You've been listening to WAY too much Rush and Hannity. Both of those clowns spend countless on-air segments lamenting the LIBERAL CONSPIRACY OF GLOBAL WARMING... repeating their knuckle-head pseudo-science claims that the effects of man-made pollution in no way effect climate change.
It's sad that they have so much populer influence.
...thanks for your concern, but I don't listen to Rush or any of the clowns you apparently like to model your behavior after.
I am allowed to have my own opinions based upon what I've read and learned. And, like Paul, I know that the Earth has gone through many climate changes for millions of years. Apparently, that happened sans HUMANs making "man-made" pollution.
My only concern is that we are not once again being manipulated into doing things that will end up making things worse - as opposed to just stopping the stuff we're doing now to alter the environment.
If this goes BOOM! than all discussion about global warming is academic.
http://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_113559...
Fact are that small animals like rabbits already fled the scene four months ago, the top of the vulcano has risen by one meter (in American about a yard). A barrage of earthquakes of magnitude 3 is going on for the last few days....
If that one blows it will create an actic winter!
is perhaps attempting to rid herself of a terrible ecopathogen which
ironically calls itself "homo sapiens."
Damn homos!
Homophobe!
Were there to be a full-scale eruption, life as we know it would be doomed.
And it will still be Bill Clinton's fault...
Isn't it time to start blaming Obama for everything yet?
All of that seismic activity is probably secondary to that terrorist fist bump.
We have had recent earth quakes in Pennsylvania, I didn't feel anything???? supposedly not far away from me either, we have baby shakes out here I guess.
This is simple the Natural magical earth has had enough of the hate, the republicans, Christians, Muslims, and all the nutz in between. She is ready the shake off some of the haters, I know, I for 1 will be safe, because I don't lie cheat steal hate or vote republican, :P
Increased global seismic activity was one of the predicted consequences of global warming. A few years ago, I read of one model (sorry, I can't provide attribution..but it is probably Googlable) called the "Orange Peel Effect" that, amongst other things, predicted catasprophic seismic disasters born of the rapid melting of many trillions of tons of water from the polar regions. The melted water would eventually migrate to the equatorial regions, due to the centrifugal forces arising from the rotation of the earth. The significantly reduced loading on the earth's crust in the polar regions would produce major stress-relieving flexion of the earths crust, eventually peeling the crust away from the lower mantle and core. It would be like an orange peel that is freed from the orange, just by rolling it around on a hard surface. The seismic activity in such a model is predicted to be biblical in its proportions, sufficient to cause an extinction event, and would also include such things as a reversal of the earth's magnetic poles.
Very scary for us to be intervening in this way. Too many unintended consequences that no one can predict. Of course, many leading scientists will allow their huge egos to say that they have it all figured out.
This plan B stuff makes me nervous for two reasons. First, the law of unintended consequences. Who knows what unanticipated bad things might happen as a result of some of these approaches. We've already f*d the planet up enough unintentionally, now we are going to consciously f* with it some more? Computer models of climate can tell us a lot but one of the reasons they are reliable is that we have decades worth of data to validate and refine them.
Second, there are still many businesses and individuals who are so close minded and selfish that they will grab any excuse they can to continue business as usual. They will grab on to these ideas as the solution to global warming and then say we can continue to throw more green house gas into the atmosphere.
The earth has an amazing capacity for self repair if we give it a chance, and start seriously using alternative fuels which we haven't even tried yet.
Science has already given us too many wonders that are destroying us.
Let's try both, just to be sure.
What a bunch of irresponsible pieces of shit the human race is... seriously we don't deserve this planet
Envision, if you will, a virus that is running amok, out of control. Devouring everything in it's path, leaving only waste and wreckage behind. This is how I see the human "race" if left on it's own without responsible constraint.
the people who have those viruses capable of running amok, are also "our" leaders.
The Centers for Disease Control, are not called the Centers for Disease Eradication for a reason.
The Native Americans had the continent for 12,000 or more years, without screwing things up. The Australian aboriginals had their continent for 50,000 years without screwing it up. You don't need technology to screw the world up, just the wrong cultural paradigms. The white folks came with their "dominion over the earth" paradigms and started screwing things up from the git go.
What we need to continue doing is what the majority of us (humanity) are learning to do now, learning a better way. If we succeed, we'll survive. If we fail, we'll take ourselves out.
There were quite a few less of us then, and even less of us now. Had there been 6.7 billion NA's, I'm sure we would have done damage. But I'll admit they did keep the balance well. Then again, I'm understandably biased.
As mentioned by Whitehouse above, if Yellowstone blows, life as we know it will be gone. We won't be needing any plan B,C or Z.
And it has been predicted, just didn't think it would be in my or my kids lifetime.
It wouldn't matter much anyway. Mankind will try and try and try any solution other than what is required. No one wants to suffer now for the benefit of others later.
We had an excellent chance with the financial meltdown. With a depression era stoppage the factories and vehicles and such would have decreased dramatically and we might have had a chance at lowering the CO2 levels naturally, but what do the so called "free market" gov'ts do, go straight to the social welfare system; what hypocrites. Mankind, and the western world especially can't stop itself as system as we know it is set up to consume, consume, consume. Unless we find a way out of this cycle it will all come tumbling down sooner or later. Hope we can find our way out.
Nothing personal, but "we're all going to die anyways" isn't a valid reason for not trying.
I thought taxing cow farts was Plan B.
...and Champagne bubbles! are both greenhouse gasses!
so is human exhalation.
don't think THAT hasn't crossed the elites minds.
if carbon dioxide is to be regulated, how long do you suppose it will be before they, the elites, want to limit the number of humans?
...the number of humans...
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/9484
it says so on the Georgia guidestones! (see # 1)
yes, a population reduction of nearly 90% or more.
I wonder how they will accomplish that.
That Human Genome project wold come in handy in custom tailoring specific pathogens for undesired races of people.
Gee, where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, the PNAC document, Rebuilding America's Defenses. Race-based bioweapons.
"I wonder how they will accomplish that."
My bet is an avian flue pandemic, engineered for maximum strength, with only enough vaccines stocks to protect the "elites" and the serf classes that the "elites" would find useful to supporting them in the fashion to which they have become accustomed. Just a hunch. The infrastructure for such an event is already in place.
We do need to limit the amount of humans. The question is, where to start? Unfortunately, it's poor minorities (though they are majorities in their native lands) that are currently dying in droves from starvation and AIDS. It's part of the reason why I support birth control and education subsidies in third-world countries. We can't support the killing off of people now, so preventing preganacy is our best bet.
Mrs. W,
Googel "George Bush - the unauthorized biography". Then read the entire thing - it's available on line. After you have read it, think about what you have just written.
...that gives me a little hope!
http://www.blacklightpower.com/
Cranbury, NJ (December 11, 2008)—BlackLight Power (BLP) Inc. today announced its first commercial license agreement with Estacado Energy Services, Inc. in New Mexico, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Roosevelt County Electric Cooperative, (Estacado). In a non-exclusive agreement, BLP has licensed Estacado to use the BlackLight Process and certain BLP energy technology for the production of thermal or electric power. Estacado may produce gross thermal power up to a maximum continuous capacity of 250 MW or convert this thermal power to corresponding electricity.
BlackLight Power is committed to announcing all future progress as it occurs.
here is a CNN story on it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymlc8nk7Mdk
That's a fascinating development! I just hope it isn't too late to have a positive impact on the fossil fuel pollution and geopolitical conflicts that are poisoning the earth.
Mixing chemicals in water to produce heat, uh military does that.
How bout this.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7365...
and this.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5738...
That we know what to do. But I for one do think we are experiencing global warming. I can see the changes happening around me. What gets me are the people that deny it only because they think that the results will not happen until after they are dead. That sounds like the type of reasoning I hear from republicans.
Then we wonder what is wrong with the world!
I thought it was pretty cold this year! (still is!)
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_o...
Its probably better to be warm. Aren't just in-between geological ice-ages anyways?
I remember seeing that its the warm periods that are the shortest, and it is theorized that the earth was entirely frozen over. Entirely.
http://www-eps.harvard.edu/people/faculty/hof...
That's funny, I keep seeing 3-4 days at 20F, then 3-4 days at 50, the birds are still migrating, some birds think it's spring and this is now, December in PA. Besides Global warming doesn't mean that exactly it is also a bubble, like the great republican Hubba Bubba bubble that just popped. After we melt down all the ice caps, we will probably and hopefully go into an Ice age.
Like the movie with the squirrel chasing his nuts? I thought politicians and scientists were already chasing their nuts!
Please don't confuse climate with weather.
(From Wikipedia)
Unusual snowfalls are also a part of the global warming symptoms.
Toxic algal bloom kills fish and other marine-life as well as humans who eat that seafood.
http://www.science-house.org/nesdis/algae/bac...
And it's already known that iron triggers the growth of toxic algal bloom:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/...
So back to the drawing board, boys! Don't wear blinders. Everything in nature is connected and finely tuned, even its destructive forces. Open your minds and take everything into account -- your actions could boost the rate of the death of life on earth if you kill its marine life trying to bring down the temps.
the notion that we can geoengineer ourselves out of this problem is dangerous.
we can't.
geoengineering is today's "the ferrets will eat the out-of-control rabbit population in australia" solution to the problem, except on a global level.
It looks like it already may be being tried on a massive scale in another area. Google "chemtrails".
On New Year's Day, here in Houston it was a stunningly beautiful day. The sky was as blue and crystal clear as I ever remember seeing it. This was 0900. By 1030 several high flying jets had obliterated the sky view by flying back and forth, crisscrossing and back again leaving residual chemtrails (Similar to Con-Trails, the condensation "smoke" jets expel that dissipates in a few minutes) that mucked up the sky for most of the rest of the day. After this aerial barrage of God knows what, a white-ish haze ever so slowly fell to the earth. And it clouded the sky for hours. And of course, Not a single syllable from anyone that should notice such things. I shudder to think what that stuff actually is that our government is showering down on us.
When this is going on, if you get a hi-res digital camera with a high-end telephoto lens, you can, on occasion, see unexpected sights.
I have a multi-plan that will solve allot of problems in 1 solution, very easy to implement. Grow HEMP! It will take the co2 out of the air, create a self sustaining fuel source, plastics, clothes, healthy foods, It would create a new product the rich people can suck off of, and the government to tax, would create many jobs, also would make sure republicans never win again, pot smokers don't do war.
If we plant enough in Yellowstone it just maybe able to hold that volcano together, lol.
until the Pharma and Liquor corporations can figure out a way to monopolise hemp.
Think of the millions in lost revenue as people no longer need to buy pharmacutical anti-nausea, analgesics, appetite stimulants, tranquilisers, and anti-depressant meds.
And if people had the choice of using an intoxicant that causes no hangover?
And you can grow it in your backyard?!
Too much of a risk for our corporate masters.
Maybe if you look at it a different way, all the foreclosures and unemployment, soon none of us will own anything and be homeless. I'd say that makes a great combination for the corporations that own all land to start growing hemp and paying us 3rd world wages ...
Certainly it will calm the magma down. Everyone knows you can't get angry while on dope ;).
Finally, we can beat Pele at her own game!
...you need to get out more. AND LOOK UP!
I could go on but I suggest you do your
own research. Teh Google works wonders.
They've just announced the other day that Texas has had another record year for heat in 2008. The record it beat was only set in 2006. Four records have been broken and reset since just 2000.
A couple of weeks ago I saw a bird who looked like he went beserk. Overnight it went from 80 degrees to 20 or 30 degrees. I was waiting for the suburban train, and this bird flew smack hard into a plexiglass kiosk, that had posters on it and everything. He flew back stunned and then tried 2 or three times more. Seeing how hard he was flying into the thing, and his relative small size, it would be like if I suddenly became a marathon runner running right into a wall repeatedly.
the cardinals and robins who live in my suburban neighborhood in PA have been bashing themselves into my windows for decades. I think it has something to do with seeing their reflection and thinking it's a lothario coming to steal their mate. Check with your local ornithoigist..or is that gynecologist?
Well to employ a Britishism they both have to do with checking out the birds.
Rimshot, please.
Wait until the food runs out.
is already implementing plan B. Look for another world to pollute because greedy people will not change. Those who have, want more and those that don't have want to have some. It's that simple.
Lots of them.
Interesting. I was not aware that plants had a fairly narrow tolerance level for co2 concentrations. How wide spread is this toxicity level among plants? Does it apply primarily to terrestrial plants? I am of the impression that the Earth's atmosphere had a higher concentration of CO2 early in its life. If this is true, have plants changed (evolved for a narrower tolerance) since they began? Please excuse my ignorance, but I find this fascinating.
Originally, the atmosphere was almost oxygen-free, akin to the atmospheres of Jupiter or Saturn. It was the photosynthesizing algae that showed up early on, as a mutation of pre-existing single celled orgamisms, that changed the environment by "poisoning" the air with oxygen. It was not until millions of years after the algae had modified the atmosphere that higher plant forms began evolving. After each mass extinction event, which seem to happen about every 65 million years like clockwork, the algae play a crucial role in re-establishing higher plant life forms, and that is after they restore the atmosphere to an oxygen rich system.
Thanks Paul!
BTW, the answer to your question about specific concentration, toxic effect become noticeable at about 800 ppM. A concentration of 5,000 ppM is lethal to all plants that have been tested. Different species have differing tolerances. For example, tomatoes get bleached and start dying at around 800 ppM, while some grasses can tolerate much higher levels.
What we are setting ourselves up for is a serial catastrophe. Once it gets rolling, the bad news is just going to keep coming in.
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