WTF Climate Change News

[Innula Zenovka]

Climate impact of a transatlantic flight could cost global economy $3,000

Economic cost of climate crisis has cut 37% from global GDP this century, say researchers

www.theguardian.com

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

The news bit in Robocop where the orbital “peace laser” went out of control and set part of California on fire is so quaint now.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Life Philosophy

 

[Innula Zenovka]

20 meat and dairy firms emit more greenhouse gas than Germany, Britain or France

Livestock companies with large emissions receive billions of dollars in funding, campaigners say

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

An important part of the upcoming IPCC report is finished. The normal procedure would be to hand it over to the politicians, give them some months to edit it and publish the heavily watered down edition then finally to the public.

Not this time! Enough scientists forming a group called "Scientist Rebellion" are so fed up with this behaviour, that they've leaked the unedited and finished report to the public because they don't want to bear this behaviour any longer.

This is their message:

We have leaked part III of the upcoming IPCC report. There’s no time to wait around, there’s no time for continued inaction – the people deserve to know NOW what our corporate owned politicians have done to them.

The greatest crime ever has already been carried out – the perpetrators are still at liberty, but the victims are starting to pile up.

We leaked the report because governments – pressured and bribed by fossil fuel and other industries, protecting their failed ideology and avoiding accountability – have edited the conclusions before official reports were released in the past. We leaked it to show that scientists are willing to disobey and take personal risk to inform the public.

The report explicitly states that incremental change is not a viable option. It states that individual behavioural changes alone are insignificant. It states that justice, equity and redistribution are essential to climate policy.

It says that we need massive investment – to transform energy systems, transport, industry, land use and agriculture, housing, and to prepare for the accelerating effects of climate breakdown – not the death cult of conservative economics.

It shows that we must abandon economic growth, which is the basis of capitalism.

For thousands of scientists – mostly older, privileged, moderate – to agree on something so apparently radical demonstrates the severity of the present moment. But the real radicals are in power. They will plunder the Earth until it is but fire and ash, unless we stop them.

We plead with people to go into serious nonviolent resistance. To join us in the streets to apply unbearable pressure on this genocidal system – to take it down before it takes us all down with it.

The leaked documents can be found HERE.

We leaked the upcoming IPCC report! – Scientist Rebellion

scientistrebellion.com

 

[Beebo Brink]

The world’s biggest plant to capture CO2 from the air just opened in Iceland
The Orca, an installation built by Climeworks, will capture 4,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year — and serve as a blueprint for similar technology.

At the moment, the costs are high: about $600 to $800 per metric ton of carbon dioxide, Gebald said, far from the levels around $100 to $150 per ton that are necessary to turn a profit without the help of any government subsidies. The costs reflect both the hand-hewn nature of the technology — Climeworks’ installations are mostly built by hand for now, not through automation — and also the large amounts of energy needed to power the CO2 capture process.

Emphasis is mine, to point out the absurdity of adding carbon to the atmosphere, then expending yet more energy to remove it. The installation's test location -- which makes it suitable for carbon extraction -- is not scalable, so care will need to be taken in future to ensure this process doesn't end up making our carbon emissions worse, rather than better.

The Orca installation was built in Iceland both because the tiny island nation has ample supplies of climate-friendly geothermal energy as well as just the right underground geology to make it easy to capture carbon.

 

[danielravennest]

The world’s biggest plant to capture CO2 from the air just opened in Iceland

That kind of CO2 removal isn't very scalable. Put a million low-income people to work planting a hundred tree seedlings a day. In 30 years that's a trillion trees. A mature tree is about 10 tons, of which half is carbon. So 5 trillion tons of carbon. Takes about 80 years to reach maturity, so the trees remove 68 Gigatons of carbon a year. World emissions are about 14 Gigatons a year. Estimates are that there are 3 trillion trees on Earth, so this would be a 25% increase. Basically undoing past deforestation.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Well I read some basic calculation how many CO2 sucking plants with today's technologies and not some still to be invented new scifi tech we would need on a global scale to have a somewhat meaningful impact.

It was around 30000. Along that goes the simple requirement to heavily scale the electrical power generation to generate the required power for these plants. Building these sucking plants alone would mean an investment of up to 15 trillion US$.

The device that reverses CO2 emissions

Cooling the planet by filtering excess carbon dioxide out of the air on an industrial scale would require a new, massive global industry – what would it need to work?

www.bbc.com

Sounds a lot, then again many scientists are warning if we do nothing the consequence costs will be much, much higher.

 

[danielravennest]

Well I read some basic calculation how many CO2 sucking plants with today's technologies and not some still to be invented new scifi tech we would need on a global scale to have a somewhat meaningful impact.

It was around 30000. Along that goes the simple requirement to heavily scale the electrical power generation to generate the required power for these plants. Building these sucking plants alone would mean an investment of up to 15 trillion US$.

Meanwhile the trillion trees I talked about would cost about $0.20 each to plant, so $200 billion total.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Overall for sure a good building block, but the issue with planting trees is this:

a) the necessary area to do it, if I am not mistaken we would need roughly the area of the USA or so
b) time
c) the forests must be allowed to grow, and left in peace
d) carbon in the atmosphere is already at such a high level, that plants already become less efficient in filtering it out than they used before
e) the impact of massively new forests is disputed.

In my opinion mankind will get in this century so desperate that we are going to really start looking at geoengineering, and put some ideas into action, like artificially emulating the impact the outburst of the Pinatubo had on the global climate for a long period of years.

Which is a lot cheaper than sucking plants, but also quite a bad idea due to the unknown outcome of such methods.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[Beebo Brink]

e) the impact of massively new forests is In my opinion mankind will get in this century so desperate that we are going to really start looking at geoengineering, and put some ideas into action, like artificially emulating the impact the outburst of the Pinatubo had on the global climate for a long period of years.

Which is a lot cheaper than sucking plants, but also quite a bad idea due to the unknown outcome of such methods.

The problem with using particle-blocking is that it doesn't address the actual problem, it just provides an artificial mask that must be maintained ad infinitum to continue the protective effects. As an interim measure it could provide a shield while we work to reduce greenhouse gases, but if it's treated as the solution itself, then we're just postponing the inevitable. What are the chances that we could continue to inject particles into the atmosphere over the course of tens of thousands of years? Without interruption? Because the moment we let the particles degrade, the full force of the sun comes back into play.

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

Meanwhile the trillion trees I talked about would cost about $0.20 each to plant, so $200 billion total.

Which would be great if we could find some way to make them immune to wildfires.

Could try engineering some carbon-nomming sea algae, but it might be hard to turn something like that off once it's done it's job. Not to mention the impact on sea life, perhaps even currents and weather that it could have.

We should be constructing massive Sterling/Carnot engines to convert heat into kinetic energy that pumps water up to high altitude lakes that can then be used to run electric damns for local power. Won't help remove carbon or have enough of a dent on global temperatures but at least it would generate clean power.

 

[danielravennest]

Which would be great if we could find some way to make them immune to wildfires.

We should be constructing massive Sterling/Carnot engines to convert heat into kinetic energy that pumps water up to high altitude lakes that can then be used to run electric damns for local power. Won't help remove carbon or have enough of a dent on global temperatures but at least it would generate clean power.

Don't plant trees in fire-prone areas.

Pumping water to feed hydro is just adding more efficiency losses. If you have a solar Stirling engine, just use it to power a generator directly.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

The problem with using particle-blocking is that it doesn't address the actual problem, it just provides an artificial mask that must be maintained ad infinitum to continue the protective effects. As an interim measure it could provide a shield while we work to reduce greenhouse gases, but if it's treated as the solution itself, then we're just postponing the inevitable. What are the chances that we could continue to inject particles into the atmosphere over the course of tens of thousands of years? Without interruption? Because the moment we let the particles degrade, the full force of the sun comes back into play.

Well most stuff geoengineering involves would be required to be running over a long time. Another idea were sails preventing some sun light to reach the ground, but I guess this would need much stuff still to be figured out yet.

For me particle-blocking is a technology about which I am most certain mankind will get desperate enough in this century to at least give it a try to buy us some time or relif.

Then again mankind also build nuclear power plants at large, and the radioactive waste really needs containments which are safe for 1 million years. Nobody has any good idea how to achieve that.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Then again mankind also build nuclear power plants at large, and the radioactive waste really needs containments which are safe for 1 million years. Nobody has any good idea how to achieve that.

Our species has only been around for 300,000 years. And up until 5,000 years ago, we were using stone tools. I really don't think humans are an appropriate steward for any system that has to last tens of thousands of years, much less a million.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Yes, true of course. But many countries looking for a long term storage waste site want it to be safe around in that time. Which makes it quite hard to find, Finland for example wants to bury it into an old, abandoned granite mine. The problem is that some fear that these mines might be not so self contained, and could give off radioactive contamined stuff into the ground water sometimes.

 

[danielravennest]

Yes, true of course. But many countries looking for a long term storage waste site want it to be safe around in that time. Which makes it quite hard to find, Finland for example wants to bury it into an old, abandoned granite mine. The problem is that some fear that these mines might be not so self contained, and could give off radioactive contamined stuff into the ground water sometimes.

Perhaps you are not aware that granite is already radioactive. It typically contains a few parts per million of uranium.

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

Our species has only been around for 300,000 years. And up until 5,000 years ago, we were using stone tools. I really don't think humans are an appropriate steward for any system that has to last tens of thousands of years, much less a million.

Our ability to predict the consequences of our actions, as imperfect as it may be, makes us unstable. Feedback into a system based on anticipation, results in exponential adaptation and over-compensation that becomes unsustainable. Like audio-feedback loops or time travel paradoxes.

So, ironically, it is our own ability to anticipate the future which may very well deprive us of it some day.

 

[Fionalein]

Perhaps you are not aware that granite is already radioactive. It typically contains a few parts per million of uranium.

Just keep in mind that we still have no idea on predicting long term geological processes. Radioactive waste will still be super dangerous for way more years than have passed since we lost good olde Doggerland. If engineering these days is just about taking bribes from big companies without regarding archeological* and geological facts I don't wanna be an engineer no more - I'm a scientist not an actress.

*while technically a part of humanities prehistoric archeology has some pretty badass hard science vibes