Top Quotes: “Atmosphere of Hope” — Tim Flannery

Introduction

“In 2014, we humans released a record 40 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere, of which 32.2 gigatons came from the burning of fossil fuels for energy (mostly electricity and transport). CO2 is only one, albeit an important one, of over 30 greenhouse gasses. The total figure of all greenhouse gasses would be about 49.5 gigatons. (A gigaton is a billion tons.)”

“If we planted forests over an area the size of the contiguous 48 states, this would only take 4 gigatons of CO2 out of the air.”

“We should be focusing on reducing emissions by the gigaton. Frustratingly, the objective of the current political negotiations is expressed instead in degrees Celsius.”

“The Paris Agreement gave us a 50–50 chance of keeping average global temperatures no more than 2 degrees Celsius warmer than they were prior to the Industrial Revolution. The deal might be subsequently improved, perhaps by providing a five-year review of the target.”

“You have to understand complex graphs and computer models to grasp climate change. But most people have by now experienced enough extreme and record-breaking weather to know that climate change is not only real but also threatening to their health, livelihoods, and society.”

“Solar and wind energy and electric vehicles are promising beginnings, but no more than that, for our emissions continue to grow.”

“2014 was the first year CO2 emission hadn’t increased (it stayed stable) at a time of economic growth.”

“Breaking the link between prosperity and pollution and creating new links between wealth and clean power are the best signs yet that we might keep ourselves safe.”

“Some contemplate geoengineering our way out of trouble with schemes to put Sulphur in the stratosphere or pump liquid CO2 into the ocean depths. But using poison to fight a poison is not a useful method.”

“A new concept — the third way — is to shed light on how Earth’s natural system for maintaining the carbon balance might be stimulated to draw CO2 out of the air and sea at a faster rate than occurs presently, and how we might store the recovered CO2 safety.”

“The carbon in fossil fuels has been safely buried for hundreds of millions of years and would stay safely locked in Earth’s crust if we did not dig it up. But the carbon stored in soil, trees, and other vegetation is part of the living carbon cycle. Oftentimes it will remain stored only as long as policies protecting it exist.”

“There’s no substitute for cutting emissions from fossil fuels hard and fast. Third-way technologies should be seen as a potentially valuable complementary series of options whose full potential may not be realized for decades.”

“It is possible for planetary processes to remove greenhouse gasses from the air at a scale, rate, permanence, and cost that will make a difference to our future climate. We may well fail to embark upon it, or we may progress too slowly along its intricate pathways, but it is a direction that is possible for us to take. It needs attention in terms of research, experimentation, funding, and political agreement right now if it is to provide mature methodologies and technologies in a few decades’ time.”

The Weather Makers (his original book in 2005): Right or Wrong?

‘’Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.’ — Wendell Berry”

“Climate trends have sometimes differed markedly in the northern and southern hemispheres. The medieval warm period was restricted to the northern hemisphere, an affirmation that CO2 causes warming. But such is the unprecedented volume of greenhouse gasses that humans have released into the atmosphere that the climate system is being overwhelmed, and today warming is occurring in both the northern and southern hemispheres.”

“In a system as complex as Earth’s climate, single factors are rarely the sole cause of anything, so it’s usual to talk in terms of influence rather than cause.”

“Our ability to causally link some kinds of extreme weather to climate change is very new, and is likely to revolutionize our understanding of how we are influencing Earth’s climate system.”

“Why has such a small increase in global temperature had such a large effect on extreme weather? Because around 90% of the extra heat captured by greenhouse gasses is transferred to the oceans, the oceans are warming dramatically. A second, more important answer is that you need only shift the average temperature a little to have a huge effect at the extremes.”

“Heatwaves are, increasingly, the most fatal of all changes flowing from the increase in average temperatures. Many people’s bodies become overstressed and unable to shed the excess heat, the majority of deaths occurring after a few days of extreme heat. 70,000 Europeans died during their 2003 heat wave. By mid-century, the conditions seen there are set to become the annual summer average.”

“Recent winters in some densely populated areas in the northern hemispheres have been unusually cold. So what’s going on? Some scientists are investigating the possibility that the polar vortex is being weakened by the rapid warming of the poles. The polar vortex is a strong current in the atmosphere that separates the frigid air lying over the Arctic from the warmer air to the south. A weak polar vortex is associated with cold winters in the northern hemisphere. When a weakened polar vortex encounters intense low-pressure systems, it can’t push through but instead flows around them to the north or south. When it’s diverted to the south, great masses of frigid air push south, while over parts of the Arctic, lobes of warm air penetrate deep over the normally frigid ice cap, melting sea ice and permafrost.”

“With every degree Celsius of warming experienced, lightning activity increases 5–6%, adding even further to the increase in frequency and impact of fires caused by a rising temperature. Plus, a long dry spell means that there’s less plant growth and land is more ready for burning. Each year, more than 300,000 people die worldwide from inhaling smoke from forest fires.”

“In northern China, air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels is causing people to die an average of 5.5 years earlier than they otherwise might. As the Earth warms, more ozone is created at ground level, and ozone, when combined with fumes from burning fossil fuels or from wildfires, creates photochemical smog.”

“Courtesy of global warming, the ragweed pollen season that affects hay fever sufferers has increased in length by between 11 to 27 days in the U.S. and Canada. And when photochemical smog or other air pollutants are present, exposure to them can spark heightened allergic reactions or asthma attacks.”

“The increase in heavy downpours resulting from climate change is also affecting health, through promoting an increase in the growth of mold. This compounds lung diseases, allergies, and asthma.”

“Diseases that are transmitted by insects (like Lyme disease) are spreading due to climate change.”

“Atmospheric CO2 is even degrading the nutritional value of crops, especially in Asia. The increased CO2 allows plants to grow larger and faster than previously, but because there are no more nutrients and minerals, their concentration is reduced. Declines were documented for rice, peas, and soybeans.”

“Climate change over the next few decades will mainly act by exacerbating existing health problems, widening the existing health gap between the rich and the poor.”

“As a worst case, our current trajectory could even erode the essential foundations of human population health — food yields, water supplies, and the constraints on infectious disease rates, population displacements, and war.”

The Waters of a Warming World

“A warmer ocean evaporates more readily, and a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor. When rainfall occurs under these warmer conditions, it is more likely to be intense. And when warm, moisture-filled air meets colder air higher in the atmosphere, this can result in colossal snowfalls. Most drainage infrastructure has been built with historical rainfall intensity in mind, so drainage systems and levees are likely to be easily overwhelmed.”

“Despite the increase in rainfall intensity experienced overall, shifting atmospheric circulation patterns are decreasing the amount of rain falling in some regions, making droughts more extreme.”

“Some parts of California’s mountains have lifted as much as 15 millimeters during 2013–2014 because the massive amount of lost snow is no longer weighing down the land, allowing the unburdened mountains to rise, a bit like an uncoiled spring.”

“There’s an 80% risk of a 35-year-long drought by the end of the 21st century in both the Southwest and Central Plains, if climate change goes unchecked.”

“The world’s oceans are rising at a rate of 3.2 millimeters annually. Sea-level rise has two components: ice melts, adding to the sea volume, and the expansion of water as it warms. By the end of the century, the oceans will rise between 11 and 43 cm due to heat transfer alone. Water added by melting ice is harder to predict, but in the last decade, the rate of ice loss over the Arctic has exceeded even the worst-case scenario of the climate models. We now expect to see the Arctic’s first ice-free summer (one with less than a million square km of ice) in over a million years sometime between 2040 and 2050.”

“80% of Antarctic sea-ice melts away each year, then grows again. Its minimum extent is about 3 million sq km and its maximum extent reached up to 20 million sq km in 2014, the largest ever recorded. The factors that might be affecting it are the ozone hole (which influences wind that can push ice northwards, thereby increasing its extent), the warming of the atmosphere (enabling it to hold more water vapor, which then falls as snow, causing fresh water, which freezes more easily, to collect on the sea surface), and changes in ocean current circulation, which can bring cold seawater to parts of the surface. But overall losses of land ice are occurring across all the major regions of Antarctica, enough to add almost half a mm of global sea-level rise annually. If the less stable West Antarctica Ice Sheet destabilizes and melts into the sea, it would add about 4.8 meters to the level of the ocean.”

“Big glaciers in Antarctica are melting away from below, and nothing can save them because the undersurface of the ice has melted to the point where the bedrock slopes back toward the glacier’s head. The remaining ice will detach from the bedrock and slide into the sea, melting as it goes. Just how long it will take is the big unknown, but the loss of the ice will add about 1.2 meters to the ocean level.”

“Human pollution is causing a strengthening of westerly winds and shifting them polewards as they circle Antarctica, warming the waters.”

Ominously Acidic Oceans

“If we continue emitting CO2 at the same rate, by 2100 ocean acidity will increase by about 10%, a rate that hasn’t been experienced for at least 400,000 years.”

“If atmospheric CO2 levels rise slowly, the oceans can compensate by absorbing the extra carbonic acid created by the CO2. But the current rate of CO2 increase is the fastest in Earth’s entire recorded history. This means that the natural processes that maintain the acid balance of the ocean are overwhelmed, and the excess CO2 increases the ocean’s acidity.”

“Some of the CO2 absorbed into the oceans reacts with water and carbonate ions to form bicarbonate ions, an intermediate stage in the formation of carbonic acid. Carbonate ions, which are used in this process, are necessary for creatures that build shells, and if there are fewer of them, the job of laying down a shell becomes harder and takes more energy. Because cold water can absorb more gas than warm water, acidification is being felt first in waters near the poles. Overnight, acidification can sometimes kill some sea species.”

“In places where CO2 seeps into the water from volcanic vents, the more uniform, species poor, and dominated by algae the life of the sea floor gets. Entire classes of organisms are missing, including sea urchins and snails that eat algae. And in the absence of those grazers, algae, fed with excess CO2, proliferate.”

“The oceans are 30% more acidic today than they were before the Industrial Revolution.”

“Because fast-growing seaweed takes in CO2 through photosynthesis as it grows, and is removed from the ocean at harvest, it is an excellent means of removing the acidifying CO2 from the water. (This has been successful in the Yellow Sea off Lidao Town in northeastern China.) Seaweed is hugely productive, outstripping the fastest-growing land-based crops many times over in its rate of growth and CO2 absorption.”

“Seaweed forests covering an area of 9% of the ocean’s surface would produce enough biomethane to replace all of today’s needs in fossil fuel energy, while removing 53 gigatons of CO2 per year from the atmosphere, thus more than offsetting all human CO2 emissions. A side benefit would be an increase in sustainable fish production, proving 200 kg per capita per year of fish for a population of 10 billion. But coastal infill, dredging, and pollution are threatening the ocean’s meadows and marine plants like seaweed. Unless we address these problems, all the aquaculture presently deployed could be insufficient to compensate for their loss.”

How Are The Animals Dying?

“We’ll lose more species of plants and animals between 2000 and 2065 than we’ve lost in the last 65 million years. It’s the age of the sixth great extinction. Where is the danger looming closest? Coral reefs.”

“The Great Barrier Reef encompasses an area roughly half the size of Texas. Half of it has already been killed. A delightful coral garden of a century ago is today a scene of utter devastation.”

“Coral bleaching occurs when underwater heatwaves stress the coral polyps, causing them to eject the algae living in their tissues, and so turn white. Without algae partners the coral polyps cannot grow the bony skeleton that forms the reef. Indeed, they cannot even properly feed themselves. Over a period of weeks the coal polyps slowly starve, then die. When added to the threat of ocean acidity, the attack is devastating.”

“If the Great Barrier Reef were to keep pace with a 4 degree Celsius rise in temperature, its complex ecosystems would need to migrate southwards at rates greater than 40km per year. Yet corals seem unable to migrate at rates greater than 10km per year.”

“Even if we slow the rate of change, scientists foresee that the majority of existing coral reef ecosystems are likely to disappear if the average global temperature rises much more than about 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level. Through inaction over the past decade we’ve already assured that the global temperatures will rise above 1.5 degrees Celsius and the Paris Agreement is aiming only to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius.”

“The factor that will decide the fate of polar bears is habitat — sea ice of about a year old. If the sea ice doesn’t last that long, seals don’t breed there, or if they do the seal pups drown. And if the ice is more than three years old, it becomes too thick for the seals to make breathing holes in, and is so unsuitable for them.”

“With ice cover and krill (which take seven years to reach sexual maturity, and which depend on the ice to feed), the Adelie penguins of Antarctica have lost 80% of their population from the 1970s to today.”

“Alpine species are especially sensitive to climate change. The American pika has been driven to extinction in one-third of its previously known habitat in Oregon and Nevada. Pikas may become the first mammals to become extinct in the U.S. due to climate change.”

“The mountain pine park beetle has infested 88 million hectares of forest in North America, killing 70–90% of infected trees, rapidly altering entire ecosystems. The reason for this is warmer winters, which allow the beetles to extend their breeding system.”

“Bushfires influenced by climate change are also permanently transforming some North American conifer forests into grassland, while drought and increases in water demand from heat-stressed trees are all adding to environmental mortality. As the forests die, so too will the myriad creatures that live in them.”

“The current global rate of extinction is 1,000 times greater than the normal extinction rate. Habitat loss is the most important factor, while invasive species and climate change are also strong influencers. As the century progresses, the influence of climate change will increase. Climate scientists warn of an overall species loss of 20% or more.”

The Great Climatic Event Horizon

“The last 50 years have seen the fastest growth rate for atmospheric CO2 in the entire geological record — faster even than that following the asteroid impact of 65 million years ago, which caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.”

“At current rates of increase, in 80 years global temperatures will have reached about 4° Celsius above the pre-industrial average, creating climatic conditions last seen 55 million years ago, when an enormous eruption of methane from the sea floor caused a rise in global temperatures that lasted 100,000 years, making the tropics largely uninhabitable, clothed in a tiny, spiny vegetation unlike anything that had existed previously, while lemur-like creatures lived in the tropical rainforests that sprouted on Greenland.”

“With a 4° rise, the Earth is likely to become entirely ice-free, raising sea levels by 67 meters.”

“With a 4° rise, much infrastructure in Australia’s largest cities will need to be abandoned, some cities and towns may be obliterated, and Australians alive today will see it.”

“Unless our trajectory changes, the 21st century will be marked by a ‘climatic event horizon’ — like another huge methane release from the seas.”

Coal: Decline of a Giant

“Three fossil fuels — coal, oil, and gas — lie at the heart of the climate problem. Most coal is burned to generate electricity, and high-quality coal is composed almost entirely of carbon, making it the most carbon-intense fuel.”

“Oil is composed of carbon and hydrogen, both of which yield energy, and is used primarily for transport. Gas is also composed of carbon and hydrogen, though it has less carbon relative to hydrogen than oil. It’s used for electricity generation, transport, and manufacturing fertilizers and chemicals.”

“Fracking has brought large volumes of cheap gas into the market, where it’s competing with other energy sources.”

“Coal use will soon overtake oil as the world’s largest energy source. The countries where use of coal to generate electricity looks set to grow are generally so poor that their leaders feel they have no choice but to generate electricity at the lowest cost, and then suffer the health, environmental, and climate change consequences. India is the biggest potential coal market. Even some wealthy countries, like Turkey and Australia, cling to coal and are expanding it.”

“But there’s a backlash to coal and policies to reduce dependence on it in China. Economic growth is happening nonetheless. Coal lost half its value from 2011 to 2015. There’s reduced demand due to improved efficiencies and various air quality and carbon emission regulations.”

“Plotting a linear decline in coal demand based on what is known to be feasible or policy today doesn’t achieve a world less than 2° warmer.”

What Future, Oil?

“The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the coal industry does not run the sun.” — Ralph Nader

“Fracking is drilling that extends vertically, then horizontally along gas-rich strata, typically shale. Following drilling, chemicals are injected to fracture the shale in order to release the gas. The Saudi government, whose cost of production is far lower, seems determined to kill this new source of competition by gutting the oil market.”

“The price of oil in 2015 was the lowest it’s been in five years. If the price of oil remains under $50/barrel, it will imperil parts of the shale gas industry (which uses fracking) in part because oil derived from condensates in the gas provide most of the profit. Traditional oil wells can produce for decades but shale gas wells need to be re-drilled every few years. The drilling of new wells in some shale oil seems economically unviable.”

“Oil reserves that are inexpensive to exploit will eventually run short, and in the longer term, the price of oil is likely to go up because many oil-producing countries need to make up for lost profits caused by low oil prices. Any alternatives, such as biofuels or electric vehicles, will price oil out of their market.”

“Seemingly small ‘go green’ initiatives and government policy are reducing demand for oil. In the ’70s, the fossil fuel industries could operate across a wide range of prices; today, they can operate only within a narrowing band of conditions, and a spike, or abrupt drop in price, is likely to see many of them off — this is due to competition from renewable energy.”

“Fossil fuels are used heavily at every stage of corn-based ethanol, yielding little carbon reduction benefits. Most other biofuels operate at a very small scale.”

“Demand for jet biofuels remains low so the manufacturers have been unable to raise the capital required to scale up their plants. Why? There’s little recognition from the public of the importance of biofuels and it’s unclear which type of jet biofuels are best for the environment. Until these constraints are overcome by a carbon price or some other mechanism, biofuels will remain less of a threat to fossil fuels than they could be.”

“Outside the transportation sector, the use of oil is being affected by the withdrawal of subsidies. In 2012, the G20 agreed to cut subsidies for fossil fuels and now 27 nations are doing so. Alternatives like solar lighting and efficient stores are becoming cheaper and widely available.”

Gas

“Investments in clean energy grew five-fold — from $60 billion to $310 billion — from 2004 to 2014. Solar is already cost-competitive with coal in areas with good sunlight and will be globally competitive by 2020.”

“Advances in materials have allowed the design of longer turbine blades and rotors that can operate efficiently at lower wind speeds. So costs of wind power are falling and closing the gap with the lower price of gas.”

“But even though there’s federal subsidies for wind, complex taxation arrangements allow gas pipeline operators to pay less income tax. Gas has a current economic advantage, but most agree that it’s not going to stay that way. The gas boom will either have little or a lot of impact on climate change — it definitely won’t solve the problem.”

Divestment And The Carbon Bubble

“At our current rate, we’ll have blown through our entire 2050 carbon budget by 2028. If humanity is to have a fair chance of a decent future, 80% of the world’s valued fossil fuel reserves (the carbon bubble) must be left in the ground.”

“The recognition that fossil fuel companies are fundamentally overvalued because most of their assets can’t be used if we are to have a stable climate has led to investors selling off their shares in various fossil fuel-based industries.”

“As of 2014, 181 institutions and local governments, 650 investors, six colleges, 17 cities, and 12 religious institutions committed to selling their stock holdings in fossil fuels and campaigns continue.”

“Divestment highlights public disquiet about increasing carbon pollution and a corporation’s ‘carbon risk’ is being taken seriously by more and more investors. Divestment is arguably the most powerful challenge to the fossil fuel industry’s social license to operate we’ve seen to date.”

“Economic research shows that better returns can be had by investing in industries with the best sustainability practices.”

“There’s concern that if fossil fuel companies, being so very large, continue to be overvalued because of inclusion of unusable assets on their books, the economic shock of a mass devaluation may destabilize the economy. An orderly process of asset devaluation for unusable resources of oil, coal, and gas is clearly in the best interest of economic stability.”

Nuclear

“Renewables grew from 19% of the world’s electricity in 2000 to 23% in 2012.”

“Nuclear power plants can generate electricity without emitting carbon pollution. It can also be cheap, especially if governments assume insurance risks and responsibility for waste disposal. But nuclear has fallen from providing 18% of the world’s electricity in 1996 to 11% in 2013.”

“Nuclear power is falling out of favor — its decline has been particularly steep in Japan since the 2011 tsunami that led to a meltdown of all six reactors at a nuclear plant north of Tokyo. A huge public backlash led to Japan’s last one being shut down by 2012 — a loss of 30% of energy generation. A major negative short-term impact was that Japan had to import more fossil fuels because renewables weren’t as competitively priced at the time.”

“The energy rationing following the shutdowns had some negative economic impacts but arguably positive societal impacts like more acceptance of working from home and office workers in insufficiently air conditioned offices adopting less formal dress.”

“Now wind and solar energy are subsidized in Japan and renewables are growing.”

“Germany followed suit — closing all nuclear power plants by 2022. Germany’s ‘Engergiewende’ (energy turning) promises to make the country a world leader in placing low emission technology at the heart of a highly sophisticated and industrialized power grid.”

“Nuclear power is only cost effective at a massive scale — a plant could cost $15 billion to build and take over 10 years. On top of this, long-term storage of nuclear waste remains problematic. The waste remains highly radioactive for several thousand years yet not a single long-term high-level nuclear waste facility exists anywhere on earth. Over a 60 year lifetime of an average nuclear plant, enough waste to fill an Olympic-size pool is generated. Given these factors, the chances of a nuclear revival seems slender.”

Sunlight & Wind: Winning The Race

“The U.S. reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 11% from 2008 to 2014 and the economy has grown. Starting in 2013, more renewable energy has been installed globally than fossil fuel-based generation worldwide every year.”

“Individuals, businesses, and communities can own their own renewable power plants and there are calls for some to be publicly owned.”

“The U.S. Department of Energy aims for wind to provide 20% of the nation’s electricity by 2030, which seems pessimistic!”

“Solar is also well ahead of projections — 20% of Australian households now have solar panels! The manufacturers of solar panels have cut production costs by over 80% in the past five years and costs are being driven down even further. Installers can now assess your roof with Google Earth instead of coming in person, cutting about $200 in costs.”

“Technological advances in the wind sector — gearless turbines, 3D printing repairs to rotor blades, and containerization of all windmill parts for easy transport — will cut its costs by 50% in the next five years.”

“Once wind and solar plants’ investment is made and maintenance paid for, they continue to run with minimal cost. Coal plants are expensive to start and stop.”

“Solar power allows individuals to generate their own electricity and so removes demand from the market — proving disastrous for electricity distribution companies. As consumers are lost, the cost per remaining customers rises, which means more and more of them buy solar panels.”

“The sun radiates more energy to the earth in a few hours than the entire human population consumes from all sources in a year. This means that solar panels, paired with batteries to enable power at night, can produce much more electricity than is consumed by all humans.”

Electric Vehicles

“30 models were available as of 2014. The Tesla Gigafactory in Nevada will be the largest factory in North America and by 2020 will be producing more electric vehicle batteries annually than were produced worldwide in 2013, so battery costs are expected to drop by 30%.”

“The cost of owning an electric vehicle will likely be lower than a gas car. Then electric vehicles could pick up real market share. This would enable vehicle-to-grid and vehicle-to-building technology to become a real player in grid power, after years of languishing for lack of enough electric vehicles to make it effective. Just 100 electric vehicles parked at an office building during the day could meet most of the building’s peak demand, shaving off the most expensive hours of the building’s power consumption. With widespread deployment, this could reduce electricity prices across the board.”

“There are several options for charging of electric vehicle batteries — from home-installed plugs that charge overnight to direct-current fast-charge stations that can recharge a battery in 30 minutes and are often located at highway stops to battery exchange facilities that can swap a battery in 1 minute.”

“The French government pledged to install 7 million electric vehicle charging stations by 2030 and make 50% of its public-sector fleet purchases electric vehicles. China plans to have 5 million plug-in hybrid and electric cars (the majority of which will be imported) on the road by 2020.”

Fight For The Future

“Climate change adaptation actions often fulfill other societal goals, such as sustainable development, disaster risk reduction, or improvements in quality of life and can therefore be incorporated into existing decision-making processes. And yet people often fail to take such actions because of limited funding or policy impediments or legal restrictions.”

“More than 1/3 of Bangladesh is submerged by flooding for some time every year. A nonprofit there deploys 100 shallow-draft vessels that serve as floating libraries, schools, health clinics, and gardens. Staff show people how to make floating gardens and fish ponds to prevent starvation during the wet season.”

“In the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, ‘wasteful’ water that arrives during winters that can damage crops is diverted into shallow basins where it freezes and is stored until the spring.”

“In southern Spain, a proliferation of greenhouse gasses (which reflect light back to space) has actually cooled the region by 0.3 degrees Celsius.”

“Painting mountain summits with a layer of sawdust and wet paint have prevented the melting of parts of glaciers in Peru.”

Geoengineering: A Way Out

“One idea is that if enough sulfur can be injected high into the stratosphere — about 8 miles overhead — it will stay there for a moderately long period, reflecting sunlight back to space, so allowing Earth’s surface to cool. Experts think that the sulfur could be sent aloft using balloons or artillery guns, at a cost of $25 to $50 billion per year and with possible unintended consequences like changing rainfall patterns.”

The Gigaton Challenge

“’Third-way’ technologies recreate, enhance, or restore the processes that created the balance of greenhouse gasses which existed prior to human interference, with the aim of drawing carbon, at scale, out of Earth’s atmosphere and/or oceans. Reducing O2 concentration by 1 ppm per year would require removing and sequestering it at a rate of 18 gigatons per year.”

“Biological methods remove CO2 via photosynthesis and store it in a variety of forms — from living forests to charcoal and plastics to storing it in the earth’s crust. Chemical removal options use the weathering of rocks, or artificial means, to capture atmospheric carbon, and then sequester it in a variety of ways.”

“The energy required to drive the biological processes is essentially free — powered by the sun via plants. This is a great advantage, but its flip side includes fundamental limits: photosynthesis only uses 1% of the sun’s energy available to it. And as we continue to damage ecosystems, we limit our ability to use the biosphere for third-way technologies.”

“The chemical category demands energy from electricity or the direct burning of fuels at some stage in the process.”

“Trees are cheap to plant, but we’d need to reforest the equivalent of the size of the continental U.S. to keep enough CO2 out of the atmosphere.”

“Carbon can be stored in soil, but the cost is staggering and its impact is unproven. Waste biomass can be buried and the CO2 captured and stored deep in rock strata but it isn’t economically feasible yet.”

“The word ‘alcohol’ comes from Arabic and means ‘the powder’ even though it doesn’t exist in powdered form — old alchemists often found a powdery residue at the bottom of their flasks while distilling.”

“We used to get our fuel from wood chemicals, which required lots of timber. Today, the product of charcoal (biocharcoal) is the most important wood chemical product. Biocharcoal rots slowly and if mixed in with soil or stored in old mines, it can be a secure carbon store for a century or more. One biocharcoal company makes biofuel that can be blended with gas — waste that would otherwise end up as CO2 is converted into biocharcoal and fuel that competes with fossil fuels. The problem now is biocharcoal would need to be huge scale.”

“Restoring wetland could capture a lot of CO2 because wetland plants grow fast and the oxygen-poor conditions in many wetlands are ideal for storing carbon.”

“Because seaweed grows very fast, seaweed farms could be used to absorb CO2 very effectively and at large scale. The seaweed could be harvested and processed to generate methane for electricity or to replace natural gas and the nutrients left could be recycled.”

“Covering 9% of the ocean’s surface with seaweed could provide enough biomethane to replace all of today’s needs in fossil fuel energy while removing 53 billion tons of CO2 per year from the atmosphere. No new technologies are required and by itself it comes close to being able to negate our current global emissions.”

Silicate Rocks & Cement

“Direct air capture involves exposing ‘sorbents’ to the air so they capture CO2, allowing the gas to be compressed and stored in deep rock strata. Exposing silicate rocks to weathering involves accelerating the weathering process that occurs in nature by breaking large rocks into smaller pieces to increase their surface area and thus rate of weathering. But 4–5 gigatons of rock is required to sequester one gigaton of atmospheric carbon.”

“Cement manufacturing contributes 5% of our current greenhouse gas emissions. An American company is taking CO2 from industrial waste and incorporating it into the cement, using less energy. To sequester a gigaton of CO2, 80% of the world’s cement production would need to incorporate carbon negative processes.”

“Carbon negative plastics combine air with methane-based greenhouse gas emissions to produce a range of plastics that can compete with oil-based plastics. But we don’t use enough plastic — our plastic production would need to quintuple for this to capture one gigaton.”

“A German company has discovered a way to create fuel by producing steam and then treating it to remove the oxygen from the H2O, finally combining the remaining oxygen with CO2.”

“Forestry, soil carbon, and biocharcoal, direct air capture, silicate rocks, carbon-negative cement, and carbon-negative plastics might capture four gigatons of carbon (15 gigatons of CO2) per year, equivalent to ¼ of current global emissions and below the 18 gigatons of CO2 we need to replace.”

The New Carbon Capture & Storage

“CO2 can be stored underground — it’s currently being used for oil recovery. Because of the enormous pressures of the water column, if CO2 is stored in marine sediments in waters 3,000 meters+ deep, it remains in liquid form. Over time, natural chemical processes in the water of the ocean sediments convert the liquid into a solid — in the form of stable hydrates which lock CO2 in the rock permanently.”

“The total CO2 storage capacity within the $200 million economic zone of the U.S. coastline is enormous — capable of storing thousands of years of current CO2 emissions.”

“CO2 could also be stored in frozen form on the Antarctic and Arctic ice caps.”

The 2030 Challenge

“Obama’s Clean Power Plan met little criticism from the coal industry even though it will reduce CO2 emissions by 30% from 2005 levels by 2030. It restricts CO2 emissions from existing power plants by the use of clean energy, improving energy efficiency, or installing pollution controls at the smoke stack — it’s up to the state which method(s) they use.”

“But the concentration of atmospheric methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, has begun to increase after flattening around 2005 due to U.S. fracking. Methane from the oil and gas industry is the last major unregulated emissions sector in the U.S.”

“The 2014 bilateral APEC deal between China and the U.S. deepened U.S. emissions cuts goals enough to limit warming to within 2 degrees Celsius and committed China to building more clean energy infrastructure over the next 15 years than it’s built in coal power in all of its history.”

“Developing nations’ emissions cuts pledges could lock them out of using fossil fuels before their economies can afford to so.”

“China and the U.S. are jointly responsible for 44% of global emissions from fossil fuels.”

“If the U.S. and China matched each other in each’s respective best-performing sector from an efficiency standpoint, they would make up 23% of the emissions needed to keep the planet within 2 degrees Celsius of warming.”

“We clearly have the tools needed to avoid more than 2 degrees Celsius warming. But will we use them?”

Deadline: 2050

“If 2 degrees Celsius warming is to be avoided, O2 capture from the air and sequestration plus sustained 90% global carbon emissions would have to be done.”

The Growing Power of the Individual

“Installing solar panels and buying a fuel-efficient vehicle are now common sense on environmental and economic grounds. Divestment from fossil fuel companies is looking like wise investment.”

“Legal action is taking on government for neglecting climate change. The public trust doctrine holds that certain resources are owned by and available to all citizens equally — great legal precedent.”