A great article and thread here by Gar Lipow, on exactly how fast we need to cut GHG emissions. Of course I am thinking already that since positive feedback effects like ice melt/increased solar absorption and ice melt/methane release aren't figured into current climate models and estimates, where are we really at? And how can this climate be saved at this late date?
So far positive feedback mechanisms have been mostly ignored in favor of conventional wisdom. Gar's take:
At this point I don't think there is any doubt we need to be most of the way to zero by 2030. (Brown would say by 2020.) Maybe even more importantly, emissions have to peak and begin to drop by 2015, which means we have to start physically making changes by 2012 at latest, but better this year. If they continue to rise through 2020 as some advocate, the drop back to 350 ppm becomes almost impossible.
I think Lester Brown is referencing that feature of the situation in his call for quicker action. In fact he is being reasonable. Conventional wisdom that we have time to waste is a fantasy.
A gradual reduction of around 6% per year from conservation and conversion to renewables would be quick enough, but only if we start right away. Any delay at the start lets the exponential positive feedback effects get ahead.
Slow and steady will win. So far even that slow pace of 6% per year is too fast for conventional wisdom.
Denial for whatever reasons, economic or political are based on irrational conventional wisdom.
How could spending 1/3 of GDP have seemed even possible, much less reasonable, during WW II? And yet it finally ended the great depression.
Is it reasonable to invest in a green revolution to end climate disaster and economic recession/depression? Or is the conventional wisdom that it will take care itself the rational course.
History tells us to act now and avoid 10 or more years of economic and climate disaster.
Stimulus on top of the inflation from huge deficits and global financial ponzi schemes like "derivatives" and "credit default swaps" and the like have brought about, will cause more devaluation of our currency. That's a risk we have to take now.
But we need to recognize that risk by considering the disasters caused by rampant printing of money in the past. Post WW I Germany and the Russian Ruble are prime examples where inflation and currency devaluation bit back.
Investing the electronic printing press money in sound, productive green energy re-evolution will cut inflation to counter that natural inflationary trend. Why? Because energy cost inflation is at the heart of all inflation. It is multiplied through every step of marketing from wholesale to retail.
But simply getting to zero net carbon emissions won't do now, we have exponential feedback mechanisms to deal with, that ice is melting faster and faster year by year.
It's hard to tell where we are at on the scale of GHG emergency since methane and ice melt positive feedback haven't been integrated into warming models. It might already be too late to head off run away GHG disaster with zero GHG emissions.
A switch to organic waste (garbage, manure, crop waste,forest waste, weed and algae overgrowth, sewage)biogas/organic fertilizer and desalination of seawater to green deserts might provide enough extra sequestration to turn the situation around. Food and methane energy production even provides a profit motive for these activities.
Nations in the ME, like Saudi Arabia, who have extra cash due to oil, have and incentive to invest in these technologies. Once mass production of the devices necessary takes hold, they can be used to convert all agriculture to organic fertilizer and green enough desert area to reverse climate disaster.
What is the sequestration potential of soil? In the Minnesota prairie ecosystem it was measured to be 1.8 tons of CO2 per acre per year.
With GHG emissions at zero, how much land under organic fertilizer based ag and conservation land would it take to reverse GHG trends? is it possible?
How many acres of potential soil carbon sink are out there that could be greened in the deserts and rehabilitated in chemical ag croplands? And how fast could this proceed if it is started up simulataneously along with renewable energy and energy conservation efforts?
The thing that makes it possible to overtake GHG disaster is the same phenomenon that is propelling it. Exponential growth. An energy/ag re-evolution can proceed exponentially too. That's how products, like the automobile for instance, took over from the horse and buggy.
49 gigatons CO2 equivalent is causing our problems, if I remember the figure Jon quoted correctly. If that went to zero over 10 or 15 years and if organic ag and desert greening was able to ramp up to soak up 10 gigatons per year on that same time scale, where would the crucial GHG ppm be?
10 million square miles x 640 acres per square mile x 1.8 tons per acre per year = 11.5 gigatons per year of CO2 equivalent.
To visulize it: That would take 10 areas of land each 1000 by 1000 miles (or the equivalent) of desert greened and/or agricultural land converted to organic fertilizer or conservation land.
That is without the total benefit of eliminating nitrous oxide from chemical fertilizer (at 296x the GHG effect of CO2 equal to 2/3 of the CO2 sequestration of the crop fertilized), eliminating the methane release from stray waste stream products like manure and sewage and fertilizer run off, and the reflective cooling effect of desert cloud formation.
Maybe another 5 gigaton elimination effect could be added to account for this?
Please check my calculations! I am probably wrong, hehey.
Is it possible to add an area equivalent to 1000 miles on a side to desert greening and organicically fertilized cropland per year? Starting at near zero and ramping up to meet the 10 million square mile level over 10 to 15 years?
With 1.7 billion acres under cultivation? If that land could be returned to active carbon sink status, with organic fertilizer, that leaves another 3.3 billion to get to the 5 billion mark.
Renewably powered desalination and desert greening of an extra 3.3 billon acres of desert over 10 to 15 years, is that possible? 300 millon acres of newly green desert per year average over a decade. How mant acres of land are cleared for agriculture now? In places like Brazil, with 20 tractors proceeding down huge fields simultaneously? That must be the fastest ag growth we now see.
And where would it put the GHG ppm level at? If the sequestration rate could be boosted to 20% of that present 49 gigaton level.
Would it be enough to keep the ice caps, glaciers, tundra, and undersea methane ice from melting? And actually reverse the trend to increase ice formation year after year?
If we restored it all with organic fertilizer applied on an industrial ag scale, we could be looking at a huge shift in the GHG balance worldwide, maybe more than the 1.7 billion acres mentioned. Maybe restore another billion acres in conservation land from abandoned chemical cropland.
Leaving under 2 billion acres of desert to green to get to the 10 year goal of 10 gigatons extra sequestration per year.
Another source would be ocean greening. If you have objections to too much desert area, I would not want to harm ecosystems either.
By using abandoned cropland rehabilitation along with organic fertilizer in crop lands, and therefore minimzing the extra sequestration needed to reverse GHG effects, most of the sequestration could be acomplished with algae farming in the oceans.
A farm could be constructed consisting of a ring of wind/wave power stations that emit a carefully controlled amount of organic fertilizer and filter algae overgrowth through intake systems that form a large ring 100s of miles across. It would have a lot less impact than desert farming and have the added benefit of directly attacking the cO2 seawater concentration positive feedback problem.
Algae farms like this would be easy to expand rapidly with mass production of the floating wind/wave energy platforms.
Algae could be processed to yield biogas/electricity, and organic soil amendment to sequester the carbon onshore in the form of soil.
These areas would increase ocean life and could be used for floating aquaculture production. A way to revive over fished sea life is a big benefit. And boats use less energy than huge tractors carving up deserts.
Areas like the Mississippi delta could be crossed by these systems harvesting and recycling weed and algae overgrowth due to fertilizer, manure, and sewage run off. Cleaning the water and greening the energy for the local area.
