The Geo-Engineering Debate

With each passing year the reality that the Earth’s climate is significantly changing becomes more and more prevalent: plants bloom earlier than in the past, arctic and Antarctic ice sheets continue to lose thickness and/or melt resulting in higher sea levels, animals migrate further north, tropical diseases are starting to take root in more temperate climates, etc. The progression of these changes only increases the odds for permanent climate change due to passage of tipping points. To argue that these changes are principally driven by anything but the continued consumption of fossil fuels and alteration of land for agricultural purposes by humans is foolish.

A significant portion of the Earth’s climate is driven by global temperature, which in its simplest form is the result of a balance between solar energy that strikes the Earth and the heat that is radiated back into space. The reflectivity of the planet is referred to as albedo. Humans have altered this energy balance through two different means. First, they have negatively affected Earth albedo largely through the release of large quantities of black carbon (soot) and various changes to land through cultivation1,2 Second and more importantly they have negatively affected the path of radiation reflection by dramatically increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere relative to its natural balance; the most notable increase has been carbon dioxide concentrations. Increasing atmospheric concentrations of certain gases increases the probability that radiated heat is returned to Earth instead of released into space, thus increasing surface temperatures.

Knowing the cause of these imbalances the best solution is clear: rapidly reduce carbon emissions. Unfortunately knowing the solution to a problem and executing it are two entirely different things and the rate at which humans are applying the solution versus the scale and speed at which it needs to be applied is lacking. This lack of urgency increases the need to delay the onset of the more permanent climate changes. Delaying the onset of these changes in effort to procure more time to reduce emissions demands that society address the other imbalance of albedo. However, due to the problems with greenhouse gases it is impractical to alter the albedo at surface level because the impact of any change will be negatively affected by the ‘reflective’ action of the gases. Instead the best means to change albedo in order to reduce the effects of climate change appears to be to limit the amount of solar energy that actually reaches Earth.

Techniques that accomplish this reduction in solar energy have largely been referred to as ‘geo-engineering’. Technically geo-engineering encompasses two different types of methodologies: the removal of carbon from the atmosphere (carbon remediation) and the aforementioned reduction of solar energy entry (solar radiation management).3,4 However, most individuals, especially in public discourse, define geo-engineering solely as solar radiation management techniques. For the purpose of clarity and due to the limited controversy surrounding carbon remediation techniques (other than iron fertilization) the rest of this blog post will associate the term ‘geo-engineering’ with solar radiation management techniques.

There are only three solar radiation management techniques that have demonstrated a sufficient level of credibility to be taken seriously theoretically: 1) injection of sulfur or other reflective aerosols into the stratosphere;5,6 2) deployment of a space-based solar mirror (with models usually placing the point of congregation at Lagrange Point 1);7 3) cloud seeding through water mist or other vapor injection to increase the number of marine stratocumulus clouds.8 While these methods are theoretically valid, most individuals do not believe that the deployment of a space-based solar mirror is economically viable or could be carried out quickly enough to avoid permanent detrimental climate changes. Cloud seeding is handicapped by the uncertainty surrounding whether or not clouds formed in this fashion would increase or decrease overall heat retention and potential issues regarding changes in precipitation patterns. Therefore, most of the attention given to solar radiation management techniques revolves around stratospheric sulfur injection.

Numerous model simulations have demonstrated that on theoretical level stratospheric sulfur injection can eliminate any existing warming (based on pre-industrial levels i.e. 1700s) and depending on the amount of sulfur injected can neutralize any warming gains.9-11 However, despite a theoretical success at the principle goal, opponents of geo-engineering have compiled a long list of objections to aerosol injection. Unfortunately most opponents have not taken the time to identify which of these objections are legitimate and which are driven not by logic, but simple bias against geo-engineering.

First, the insistence of geo-engineering opponents to incessantly cite the continuation of increasing ocean acidity even under solar radiation management techniques demonstrates the previously mentioned bias against geo-engineering that some individuals bring to the discussion.12 No rational person would expect ocean acidification to be corrected by solar radiation management techniques because that is not the rationality behind these strategies. Using increasing ocean acidity as a negative point of argument against any geo-engineering technique is akin to complaining that Prozac does nothing to lower cholesterol.

The irrationality of this complaint notwithstanding it may also be inaccurate on a more discrete level. While solar radiation management techniques cannot directly influence ocean acidity either in a positive or negative manner, it is possible that they could decrease ocean acidity in an indirect way. Discussed later will be the issue of plants increasing photosynthetic efficiency when exposed to more diffuse light. Greater photosynthetic efficiency typically results in greater levels of carbon dioxide absorption. Thus solar radiation management techniques that create more diffuse sunlight over direct sunlight could increase carbon dioxide absorption by plants, which would decrease atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide increasing the probability for oceanic out-gassing of carbon dioxide. This out-gassing would reduce ocean acidity.

However, it must be noted that while current theory suggests ocean acidity would decrease under a number of solar radiation management techniques there is no accurate means to determine the total increase in out-gassing potential provided by these strategies and it would be reasonable to assume only a small amount of out-gassing, probably insignificant overall, as a result of increasing diffuse light. In the end though it is silly to reject solar radiation management techniques on the basis that they will not solve the problem of ocean acidity.

One rather benign, but noteworthy side-effect of aerosol based solar radiation management techniques is that when aerosols are at sizes similar to photons the interaction between photons and these aerosols create a white cloudy appearance to the sky.13 In addition these aerosols can increase the probability of red and yellow skies during sunrises and sunsets.14 Some wonder if these visual changes, which would be ongoing and permanent during the application of these types of solar radiation management techniques, would have a negative psychological impact on the populous.

While it is possible that the loss of the normalcy of a blue sky could create psychological problems in some individuals, it stands to reason that the most severe problem that could be expected is a slight increase in depression. It seems improbable to anticipate any greater problems arising out of a non-blue sky. Also it must be stated that the application of geo-engineering techniques will not be carried out on a whim, but instead will be utilized to salvage a livable climate, thus to allow merely the possible increase of unknown magnitude in depression of certain types of individuals to prevent the application of such techniques seems incredibly foolish.

Another concern opponents have is that the delivery system designed to facilitate the solar radiation management technique will have a negative environmental impact. The extent of this concern should be tied to the type of system. For example the use of jets to release aerosols into the stratosphere would draw more concern than using balloons to release the aerosols. Thus, this concern is really only relevant pertaining to the selection process of the applied system not to whether or not any system at all should be applied. The major concern with delivery methodology is not the methodology itself, but the numerous times that it needs to be utilized over the lifetime of application. For example eating one apple a day is healthy, but eating 10 apples a day is not healthy.

This ‘damage through repetition’ has been discussed in the methodology of releasing aerosols from high flying jets as in one study it was suggested that one million flights per year would be required to release the recommended amount of aerosols under a given proposal.15 Initially it would be difficult to approve of such a delivery system based on the amount of carbon emissions released by those all of those flights because the chief goal of saving the climate requires a reduction in climate emissions, thus such a delivery system would be counter-productive, especially because there are other options. Artillery delivery does not appear to be without negative consequence as well namely the production and recovery of the spent shells as well as the energy required to fire the magnitude necessary. Thus the best delivery system appears to be the most benign in hoisting and tethering a balloon system to release aerosols. In fact it stands to reason that all energy requirements for such a system could be provided by a small module nuclear reactor or geothermal plant.

Some are concerned that if the application of the solar radiation management technique is stopped at sometime during the process due to some unforeseen circumstance (political or global strife, etc.) that global warming will then proceed at an accelerated pace.11,12 The reasoning for this conclusion comes from the understanding that solar radiation management techniques mask surface and ocean temperature increases brought on by global warming, but until the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are reduced in the atmosphere the underlying warming still remains. Opponents believe that masking this increase is detrimental because of the ‘sudden’ increase in temperature and greater difficulty the global environment will have at adjusting to such an increase if stopped.

The problem with this rationality is that it seem counter to the general trend in population-based genetic adaptation. Genetic adaptation, the only genuinely effective response, occurs over hundreds to thousands of years for a species. The current temperature changes have occurred only over the past 150-200 years and very slowly at that, thus plants and animals are not genetically adapting to the changing temperatures at anything near population levels. Current adaptation strategies largely involve animals scurrying north to colder climates.

Also the overall level of change between a scenario utilizing a solar radiation management technique and a scenario that does not is minimized because the failure of a solar radiation management technique does not significantly change the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Only the rate of change in temperature will change due to the stoppage of the technique. While one could argue that due to the overall impact of temperature that an increase of 0.1 degrees over 10 years accelerating into an increase of 1 degree over 10 years would provide more environmental detriment than an increase of 1.1 degrees over 20 years, the overall impact is negligible because the overall increase in temperature will exceed the habitat thermal maxima for most creatures anyways. Basically while a sudden stoppage of an applied solar radiation management technique after a significantly long time (probably at least a decade, but overall the minimum time period required to see any real change in temperature pattern is unknown) would result in a more rapid change, the total change will be insignificant because the overall level of change already outpaces genetic adaptation.

Interestingly enough some are concerned not about premature stoppage, but the ability to stop at all. The concern that once a solar radiation management technique begins it cannot or will not be stopped demonstrates a significant misunderstanding of the purpose of geo-engineering. The point of geo-engineering is to provide a sufficient amount of time to execute carbon mitigation and remediation strategies. To this point no solar radiation management technique is permanent. Aerosols injections can be stopped and what has already been injected will be consumed in natural atmospheric chemical reactions, space mirrors can be repositioned to change the amount of incoming sunlight and cloud formation/water vapor techniques can be ceased with eventual cloud dissipation. Both aerosol and water vapor residence times have been estimated at 3-12 months depending on the injection concentrations.10,16 Therefore, there is no rational reason to conclude that once a solar radiation management technique is started that it creates some unstoppable chain reaction forcing humans to adapt permanently.

The criticism of geo-engineering using the idea that it will replace mitigation instead of aid in its application by extending the amount of time society has to evolve its energy infrastructure to one using trace carbon is foolish. As mentioned above only a fool would support a solar radiation management technique without corresponding carbon mitigation strategies. In short this criticism, unfortunately a rather popular one, is entirely driven by bias and those who carry it care nothing about solving the problem of global warming.

Similar to the trepidation surrounding the concern regarding undermining emission mitigation are concerns regarding human error in the application of geo-engineering techniques. Not surprisingly people do not like uncertainty; however, the uncertainty that is associated with geo-engineering cannot be utilized as an excuse to refrain from its application. Using human error as an excuse improperly characterizes the role of geo-engineering techniques in the fight against global warming as a luxury. While the exact consequences resulting from continued climate change brought on by global warming are unclear, enough information can be surmised that they will be severely detrimental and significantly challenging to societal arrangement and long-term survival.

With a general understanding about the eventual global warming derived detriments it is rational to take action against the realization of those outcomes, hence the application of geo-engineering techniques. The application of these techniques are not on a whim, but designed to lessen the known future consequences of global warming. Think of geo-engineering like an experimental cancer treatment. Due to incomplete understanding regarding biochemistry and biology there are certain elements, usually mechanistic, to a given treatment that may not be understood which could result in detrimental side effects. However, experimental cancer treatments are not given to individuals with the flu, they are given to individuals with significant unresponsive cancer. Suppose there is a negative outcome and the cancer treatment does not work and even hastens the individual’s death; in the overall picture very little has changed because the patient was going to die soon anyways, thus the negative effects of the cancer treatment were of little consequence.

Also the probability of permanent detrimental results from the application of geo-engineering techniques is reduced due to the non-permanent nature of their application. The climate has certainly demonstrated a robustness that if a significant detrimental unforeseen outcome emerges from the application of a given geo-engineering technique the application can be ceased with assumed limited probability of long-term damage. However, although society can stop the experiments does not mean that caution should be excluded. For all applications of techniques that can influence the climate careful measurements need to be taken routinely and studied to identify any anomalies and decipher their causes. If necessary the applied techniques can be ceased to deduce their role, if any, in any developed anomaly.

Economics are always an issue with any strategy due to money being a finite resource. The general sparring over the cost of geo-engineering projects, especially solar radiation management techniques, is frequent between proponents and opponents. Proponents claim that most techniques will have limited costs relative to associated mitigation techniques.9,17 This thought process is incorrect because it develops a comparison mindset in that society only needs to execute either the geo-engineering technique or the mitigation technique. If society wishes to properly address global warming carbon mitigation is not negotiable or replaceable, mitigation must occur; thus geo-engineering will be complementary not competitive.

However, opponents to geo-engineering are also in error in the viewpoint that application of geo-engineering techniques is a sunk cost. This mindset appears to stem from overconfidence that society will embark on appropriate mitigation techniques with enough haste to prevent significant detrimental consequences to the environment. Based on past and current evidence of human inaction with regards to global warming and the scale of the problem, it is difficult to have faith in this viewpoint. Thus, functioning under the realistic conclusion that there will be significant detrimental consequences to the environment brought on by global warming before proper mitigation techniques can be completed, the issue of geo-engineering cost is encapsulated in the analogy ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’. Basically the ability of geo-engineering to delay the onset of these detrimental effects more than justifies their costs.

The element of time is generally ignored in the cost estimates of geo-engineering techniques, which is unfortunate because it is so important. The longer society takes to execute mitigation strategies the more cost-effective geo-engineering techniques become. The only justification for arguing cost as a negative factor for the application of geo-engineering techniques is if mitigation techniques can be applied very quickly. As mentioned above based on current patterns of evidence and behavior relative to the scale of the global warming problem it stands to reason that the costs associated with geo-engineering will be beneficial relative to the costs its application abates in any situation.

The final issue of cost relates to division of economic resources. Some argue that if mitigation is required then it would be rational to forgo the monetary and infrastructure development required for any geo-engineering technique and instead invest those funds in trace emission energy, energy efficiency and/or carbon remediation strategies. While on its face such an argument makes sense, there is a significant problem. One must never forget the scope of time that embodies the issue of global warming. Devoting financial resources from geo-engineering to mitigation projects would hasten their development, but based on the total scale of carbon that needs to be mitigated in the associated time period the application of those additional funds lose significance.

For example most estimates of aerosol based solar radiation management techniques have costs at hundreds of millions to tens of billions of dollars, yet even the most conservative estimates regarding carbon mitigation (transformation to a trace emission energy infrastructure) are in the trillions of dollars.18,19 Thus, a couple of hundred million to a couple of billion more is rather irrelevant, especially in the unfocused hodge-podge time-insensitive mitigation methodology currently practiced by the global community.

Theoretically the issue of technological control and global application of geo-engineering techniques should not be an issue. If, although sadly ‘when’ is probably the more appropriate word, geo-engineering techniques need to be applied the United Nations would be the group with sole control over their application. All governments would agree that any private application of these techniques would be immediately stopped with a seizure of assets by the government controlling the region where the unsanctioned technique is being applied. Funding for the U.N. program would come from the largest, by absolute tonnage not per capita because per capita is a bad measurement system due to it being a ratio, carbon emitters at a proportional scale. All governments would also disavow any patent protection to any methodology or chemical that was applied to solar radiation management techniques.

In fact a controversy surrounding a patent is what has temporarily stopped one of the first major controlled test of geo-engineering methodology that would be used in releasing aerosols. A European collaboration called “Implications and Risks of Novel Options to Limit Climate Change” was planning to release water from a tethered balloon over a kilometer in the air after pumping the water up a hose attached to the balloon in order to assess how the water behaved when released and extrapolate that behavior to other substances like aerosols. Unfortunately the experiment never got off the ground because certain private parties within the initiative had filed patents in the initial stages of the proposal and this action was viewed by other parties as controversial enough to delay the experiment.20

Note also that stripping patent protection only applies to solar radiation management techniques not carbon mitigation/remediation techniques because the mitigation/remediation techniques are not altering the climate directly in the short-term, but instead are either removing unnecessary greenhouse gases or are limiting the addition to unnecessary greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Therefore, due to the fewer negative effects and controversies associated with mitigation techniques over solar management techniques innovation in that particular field should not be restrained through patent blocks.

Excluding patent protection would heavily discourage private application of solar radiation management techniques because it would eliminate all short-term profitability and direct long-term profitability. Also due to the uncertainty of how climate changes in the future would influence various business practices most private companies could only view solar radiation management techniques as a sunk cost, not an investment. With no expectation of profit in the short-term and unclear profit projections in the long-term the probability that any private corporation would apply solar radiation management techniques is extremely low partially because they could not justify the associated short-term present costs to shareholders.

Some are concerned with interference by private companies in that those companies may try to utilize geo-engineering, not to help save the climate but as a form of terraforming, changing the localized temperature or climate of a particular region to improve agricultural production or some other activity/commodity that could generate a profit. Fortunately these fears are unfounded because localization is difficult to isolate in existing solar radiation management techniques. For additional protections all global governments could simply ban import of any product produced by an organization utilizing geo-engineering techniques; it would not be difficult to identify those utilizing them.

Any concerns over the military applications of geo-engineering are overblown largely because of the uncertainty factor. For example the ability to inject large amounts of aerosols into the atmosphere has been technologically available for decades, but no country has ever done it because of uncertainty regarding their overall benefits pertaining to a conflict against a potential enemy. In addition what is known also limits military applicability largely due to the free mixing of the atmosphere basically eliminating the ability to localize the influence of the aerosols over the long-term. The aerosols will simply mix with the atmosphere and spread all over the world instead of remaining above the given localized target area. Finally every country that has the reasonable ability to initiate and maintain such a methodology for military purposes has signed the U.N. Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD), thus violation of this treaty would result in severe global backlash.

Some raise the question of whether or not humans have the moral authority to further the alteration of the environment beyond natural processes through the application of geo-engineering techniques? One of the biggest concerns of climate scientists and some environmentalists is that there are certain environmental ‘tipping points’ that once passed will permanently alter the environment. These tipping points largely relate to surface and ocean temperatures, thus controlling those temperatures will either hasten or slow the passage of the tipping points. Both carbon mitigation and geo-engineering techniques have the ability to influence temperature with geo-engineering having a faster execution rate relative to impact and mitigation having an advantage in long-term stability.

The issue of moral authority for the application of geo-engineering techniques comes from the mindset of restoring natural processes. The application of geo-engineering techniques is in effort to restore the environment to a more natural state. As long as this is the goal of the application, not to change the environment of a given region as a means of punishment, control, economics, etc. then moral authority is not an issue. The non-permanent nature of geo-engineering techniques further the viability of this moral authority to restore nature. Arguing a lack of moral authority in this situation is akin to arguing that one cannot put out a fire burning down a house because it will further change the environment of the house.

The fear of the unknown and the potential detriment to the environment is a common tactic used by individuals who are opposed to a given strategy, in a similar vein to raising concerns about human error, and geo-engineering opponents are no exception. While concerns about the complexity and limited overall knowledge about the climate and how various geo-engineering strategies would operate is understandable the point of argument is mistaken. Once again it must be stated that geo-engineering strategies would not be applied on a whim, but instead are applied out of necessity. The necessary application is due to the fact that the environmental damage developed through a continued lack of scale-appropriate action will be devastating. In the scenario where civilization is seriously handicapped by environmental changes, there is little additional damage that can be catalyzed by the application of geo-engineering techniques. Also it must be noted that geo-engineering opponents never consider that unknowns could be beneficial instead simply assuming that all unknowns that come into play when applying geo-engineering techniques will be detrimental.

The most common and justifiable concern about geo-engineering is how increasing the concentrations of aerosols will impact the South Asian Summer Monsoon (SASM) with a number of individuals believing the impact will be negative. This influence is important because the SASM provides up to 80% of the annual mean precipitation for India.21 Overall the SASM is largely affected by both aerosols and greenhouse gases. Aerosols are thought to apply influence through a change in surface cooling creating a reduction in the meridional thermal contrast between the northern and southern Indian Ocean.22,23 Greenhouse gases are though to apply influence through their ability to increase sea surface temperatures, which weakens tropical circulation. This reduction also occurs because global precipitation levels cannot increase fast enough to compensate for the lower tropospheric water vapor concentration increase due to increased evaporation from higher atmospheric and sea surface temperatures.24,25 However, interestingly enough despite the weakening of the monsoon circulation, models project an increase in monsoon based rainfall if global warming continues as is.26

Unfortunately there appears to be some contradiction between what the models predict for the future and what has been happening empirically. Looking at the last 50 years there has been a significant reduction in precipitation (drying) over central-northern India and other parts of Southeast Asia with a slight increase in precipitation over southern India and northwestern India with Pakistan with an overall precipitation decrease in India of 4-5%.27,28 This decrease in rainfall despite increasing temperatures over the same time frame indicates that either the models are missing a significant component in their monsoon predictions or aerosols have increased faster than temperatures.

Based on empirical changes to society in Asia, an increase in aerosols appears to be a better explanation. This local increase in aerosols most likely stemmed from increased burning of charcoal and carbon black by economically poor Indians driven by an increase in population. Also natural forces have been calculated as too weak to produce the level of drying. Most models actually capture the drying trend adding support to their accuracy.29 Overall greenhouse gases and ozone are thought to cause a slow down in the circulation in the meridional equatorial zone due to an eastward shift in the convergence zone.29

The ability of aerosols to reduce the local land-ocean surface thermal contrast as well as the large-scale meridional atmospheric temperature and sea level pressure gradients results in the slowdown of the tropics-wide meridional overturning circulation which is another element to why the South Asian monsoon has weakened.29 Interestingly changes in the meridional SST gradient over the Indian Ocean could possibly be explained by an uneven distribution of aerosol forcing.23,27 If geo-engineering is executed there should be a more even distribution of aerosol coverage with sufficient consistency after a certain period of application. Could a more even distribution reduce some of the negative influence on the SASM? Regardless of the balance of distribution there is evidence to suggest that the increases in atmospheric aerosol concentration around India and other parts of South Asia have counter-acted the predicted increase in precipitation due to increased rates of evaporation brought on by global warming.

In fact monsoons have decreased in frequency, but increased in force and intensity,30 so much so that areas that typically do not receive precipitation have seen significant increases. Overall if there is counter-play between global warming increasing monsoon activity and aerosols reducing it, the real question is how will this interplay progress after applying geo-engineering?

At the moment temperatures in South Asia are increasing, yet the monsoon, partially due to increases in aerosol concentration, is weakening; more aerosols will need to be injected to control temperatures, which should lead to greater reduction of the monsoon. However, there is the issue of uneven vs. even aerosol distribution and how it may influence the monsoon. Finally it needs to be acknowledged that the monsoon is being influenced away from historical patterns by global warming, even without the influence of aerosols, thus doing nothing pertaining to geo-engineering will not salvage the monsoon if emissions are not rapidly reduced. Overall if geo-engineering is necessary, which it will be in the very near future, then temporarily adding another interference to the monsoon is a justifiable consequence.

Ozone depletion is one of the more interesting potential side effects of geo-engineering because of the positive and negative feedbacks associated with the interaction between the sulfur aerosols and ozone. Ozone depletion largely occurs through two methods one transient and one more permanent.31,32 The transient method occurs when solar energy from sunlight strikes an ozone molecule breaking it down into a free radical of oxygen and an oxygen molecule. However, due to the generally large concentration of other oxygen molecules in the upper atmosphere the free radical of oxygen typically reacts with another oxygen molecule reforming another ozone molecule to replace the photolyzed ozone molecule.

The more permanent method involves ozone breakdown due to interaction with a free radical catalysts like nitric oxide (NO), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydroxyl (OH) chlorine (Cl), chlorine monoxide (ClO) or bromine (Br). In these reactions there is no free radical of oxygen that can later bind to another oxygen molecule to reform the lost ozone molecule. Of the free radicals that drive this process chlorine is viewed as the most potent. In fact large (relatively speaking) concentrations of chlorine still exist in the stratosphere due to excessive chlorofluorocarbon use in the 1950s and 1960s before the passage of the Montreal Protocol and the lack of a natural removal process. Overall reactions that destroy ozone depend on UV flux, temperature or existing surfaces for heterogeneous actions.31,33

While large concentrations of chlorofluorocarbons were released into the atmosphere in the past, chlorofluorocarbons are not reactive to ozone they need to be broken down into more reactive species like free chlorine or chlorine monoxide. Two ways this breakdown occurs is through photolytic dissolution (not that efficient) or the formation of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) (very efficient). PSCs form at extremely low temperatures (at least –80 degrees C), which typically only occur in the lower stratosphere in winter around the Antarctic.34 The formation of PSCs hasten ozone destruction largely through increasing the probability of breaking down chlorine containing molecules releasing free chlorine by providing a specific surface to hasten chlorine-ozone reactions as well as reacting with nitric acid (one of the agents responsible for PSC formation) removing it from the stratosphere.32,35 PSCs are a significant reason why the first ozone hole was detected over Antarctica, but because they are seasonal due to the low temperature requirements ozone destruction hastens during the winter and is reduced during the summer hence why the biggest holes are seen in the spring.

PSCs are not thought to be significantly influenced by sulfur aerosols due to the heavy dependence on temperature and water vapor.31 However, similar to PSCs in colder stratospheric regions, sulfur aerosol particles provide the heterogeneous surfaces which aid chemical reactions that prevent nitric acid from reducing the probability that chlorine is liberated.31 Thus the larger the concentration of sulfur aerosols in the stratosphere the higher the probability that chlorine atoms are available to react with ozone. Such an understanding is important because unlike PSCs sulfur aerosols do not require such extreme temperatures to facilitate chlorine liberation, thus theory dictates that higher sulfur aerosols should deplete ozone at higher rates throughout the ozone layer in a more uniform manner. Fortunately because PSCs still exist Antarctica can still act as a ‘canary’ of sorts relative to the rate of how the addition of sulfur aerosols are affecting the overall ozone layer.

Empirical evidence exists for sulfur aerosols hastening ozone breakdown from both the El Chich´on eruption (3-5 Tg Sulfur)36 in 1982 and Mount Pinatubo eruption (10 Tg Sulfur) in 1991.37,38 Local ozone destruction for El Chich´on was approximately 16% at 20 km altitude at mid-latitudes36 and Mount Pinatubo generated a global column loss of 5%-7% for mid-latitudes39,40 and 2% for the tropics.40 Most of the hastened ozone destruction due to sulfur aerosols occurred in the lower latitudes with increasing ozone concentrations with respect to increasing latitudes. In fact at some high latitudes ozone concentrations actually increased.41

There are multiple additional points of note on the relationship between sulfur aerosols and ozone. First, almost no model estimates single release concentrations equal to those released in the El Chich’on and Mount Pinatubo eruptions, so to assume initial ozone destruction similar to those seen from those eruptions would be questionable over a short-time frame. However, the eruptions were single occurrence events and geo-engineering sulfur injection will require multiple injection events, so the rate of accumulation needs to be furthered studied to determine to influence.

Second, recall that sulfur aerosols do not actually destroy ozone molecules. The aforementioned free radicals are the actual reactants that lead to ozone destruction; sulfur aerosols simply increase the probability of reaction by providing a surface for reactions. Therefore, if the free radicals are removed from the stratosphere, ozone should not be destroyed regardless of how much sulfur is injected into the atmosphere. Unfortunately humans released so many CFCs into the stratosphere that it is estimated to take until 2050 until concentrations abate to levels where sulfur injections will do insignificant harm to the ozone layer.42 Some estimate that under certain sulfur injection regiments ozone damage will take an additional 20-30 years to recover versus if sulfur was not injected.42

Third, due to the sulfur solar radiation shielding effect there will be some compensation for the loss of ozone. The total level of compensation is unknown although a previous study attempted to estimate the compensation from the Mount Pinatubo eruption and concluded that there was some compensation, but greater UVB radiation did reach Earth due to ozone destruction.43 While that estimate is a good starting point, it may not be applicable to the compensation seen from geo-engineering based injection due to changing sulfur concentrations. Finally ground level ozone is becoming a greater problem in the environment; one question that has not been addressed in sulfur injection models of whether or not this ground level ozone will be influenced by sulfur injection.

One positive benefit of sulfur injection that most opponents of geo-engineering avoid is the effect of diffuse light on plants. The understanding that plant growth is enhanced during cloudy days over clear cloudless days is widely acknowledged.44-47 The different growth rates stem from the different transfer regimes between plant canopies for more dense regions and the non-linearity of photosynthesis.48 As the level of irradiant light strikes the leaf, electron transport photosynthesis increases in efficiency increasing growth. However, if irradiant light continues to increase the mechanism of photosynthesis eventually shifts from electron transport with RuBP regeneration limitation to Rubisco control,49 which reduces efficiency of growth due to saturation. Efficiency is also affected by the bimodal distribution of light striking a plant shifting between low intensity diffuse light and high intensity direct light. Under direct light saturation is attained quickly and at the highest levels can actually reduce photosynthetic efficiency due to elevated temperature and increased respiration.48

Basically due to the higher probability of wasted efficiency from saturation under direct light, diffuse light results in higher average light use efficiencies, thus greater plant growth and carbon sequestration over a large sample size (a forest or large above ground farm crop). However, the difference in efficiency between direct and diffuse light is also influenced by atmospheric temperature and vapor pressure, so there is no linear or static change in efficiency between light sources.48

The reduction in direct temperature change from contact with direct light in favor of diffuse light may also be important in the context of respiration. Unfortunately the dramatic increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has lead to the trend of less dense (up to 34%) stomata in various plants.50 This reduction in density reduces the amount of water vapor plants can release through transpiration, which affects the ability of the plants to cool themselves and the air around them. Less dense stomata could also reduce the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by plants. Finally this change in the water cycle of a given plant may also change the rate of photosynthesis with water becoming the limiting factor over carbon dioxide.

Another concern is that the continuous injection of sulfur compounds into the stratosphere will increase acid deposition in some context to the Earth either in liquid form (acid-based precipitation) or gas form and will harm the environment. Such a concern does not appear to be significant because various studies have demonstrated that any potential increase from reasonable sulfur injection methodologies will be negligible relative to the total sulfur cycle in the atmosphere.15,51 The perceived magnitude of this concern largely stems from the understanding that sulfur injection methodologies would result in an increase of 15-30 times the current non-volcanic sulfur concentrations in the stratosphere.15 Such an increase is certainly significant, but most of the sulfur that exists in the atmosphere resides in the troposphere and the increase in the stratosphere is small relative to the tropospheric concentration and its interaction with the lower environment.

However, there is an important issue that should be acknowledge in that while any increases in acid deposition from human-derived sulfur injection will be negligible on an absolute scale, there exists a small probability that small isolated environments will see a significant increase in acid deposition. Due to the overall rate of mixing that is desired in a sulfur injection methodology this probability is small, but early in the application of such a strategy society should be aware of any dramatic proportional increases of acid deposition in isolated regions and respond accordingly.

The biggest mystery element in global warming is the role of clouds. Incorrect interpretation of cloud influence in global warming could lead to bad climate decisions in the future. Uncertainty regarding clouds pertains to their dual nature in influencing temperatures. Clouds are able to trap outgoing long-wave radiation that is reflected from the Earth reradiating it to the surface increasing temperatures and are also able to reflect incoming solar radiation due to their inhabited ice/water particles, similar to aerosols, decreasing temperatures. Clouds are thought to scatter, depending on type, anywhere from 20 to 90 percent of contacted sunlight. The overall influence of clouds on temperatures is thought to be negative (decreasing), but how or even if that current influence will change during global warming is unclear.

One crucial aspect of the relationship with clouds and temperature is their altitude. Higher clouds are contacted by lower amounts of sunlight. Their cold temperatures also reduce their ability to return outgoing radiation as well, but because the net effects of clouds are negative and influence is generally proportionally handicapped higher clouds have a net warming effect. Not surprisingly lower clouds have a net cooling effect due to a higher albedo characterized by greater sunlight contact as well as equalized temperature profiles relative to the surface, thus lower clouds tends to emit similar amounts of outgoing radiation back to space as they return to Earth.

With respect to sulfur aerosol injection there are some who believe that the injected particles that fail to react in the upper atmosphere will fall to Earth and increase the probability for the formation of cirrus type clouds in the troposphere.52 This formation typically involves the formation of haze particles which homogeneously freeze at temperatures lower 235 K aided by a supersaturation condition.53

However, there are some concerns with this theory as some believe that if homogenous freezing is the chief formation method for cirrus clouds the chief influencing factors are local updraft velocity and temperature with little sensitivity to the number of aerosol particles in the local environment.54 The reason for a suspected little sensitivity regarding number of aerosol particles is that soluble particles are not the limiting factor in creating the requisite cirrus ice crystals.55

Heterogeneous freezing is different because of the multiple nuclei involved; an increase in ice nuclei can increase the number of ice crystals formed. In addition some believe that the addition of sulfur aerosols to a cloud where homogeneous freezing is largely dominant reduces the relative humidity relative to the amount of ice reducing ice crystal number density.56-58 Not surprisingly this effect is influenced by updraft velocity, temperature and number and properties of the ice nuclei in the region.56

Based on information comparing pre-industrial atmosphere to current atmosphere alterations it has been theorized that homogeneous freezing influences clouds that form between 100 and 250 hPa and in polar regions and heterogeneous freezing influences clouds that form between 250 and 500 hPa mostly in the northern mid-latitudes.59 So sulfur aerosols decrease ice crystal concentrations in higher cirrus clouds and increase ice crystal concentrations in lower cirrus clouds. Basically it appears that both types of clouds (those with a warming effect and those with a cooling effect) have their influences reduced by sulfur aerosols, the magnitude of that reduction is still unclear, but it is assumed that due to the dependency of long-wave forcings on cirrus type clouds the net overall influence of sulfur aerosol addition will be to cool the surface.59

Finally another viable concern regarding geo-engineering has been created by poor circumstances. The principle advantage of geo-engineering, blocking sunlight to reduce atmospheric and oceanic temperatures, becomes a disadvantage with regards to solar energy. Numerous individuals, despite a lack of future foresight regarding intermittence, storage and construction materials, believe that massive deployment of solar energy is critical to hastening emission reduction in the short-term. Unfortunately this mass deployment will be negatively affected by geo-engineering due to the increase in light diffusivity. This reduction in energy generation is a very serious issue because as previously stated it appears that based on current emission reduction patterns some form of geo-engineering will be required.

Thus, there is conflict for solar supporters who would argue that solar deployment should proceed as fast as possible to replace coal and gas in order to reduce emissions. If geo-engineering techniques are applied then these new solar instillations will more than likely suffer significant inefficiencies due to their inability to harness the energy of the more diffuse light. In this scenario replacing fossil fuels with solar will result in reduced energy generation more than likely leading to massive brown and blackouts or heavy power rationing. With a reduced energy payoff under geo-engineering, heavy deployment of a solar infrastructure may not be a wise strategy due to limited available resources; however, continuing fossil fuel energy generation is also a non-starter because emission reduction is the principle goal.

If geo-engineering is planned to be utilized society must explore compensation options with two immediately coming to mind. First, solar power deployment and resources can be redistributed to other trace emission technologies like nuclear and enhanced geothermal without question. One might suggest redistribution for wind, but with current wind expansion having taken the best producing land wind costs per MW generated will increase reducing their energy economics. Such reasoning is cautionary due to the sheer scale of energy that these alternatives, that would have included solar in most eyes, need to replace to fully displace fossil fuel use.

Second, an important experiment would need to be conducted measuring exactly how diffused light would interact with various solar cell designs. The necessity of this experiment is to quantify what type of an efficiency drop-off will be developed under an aerosol-based geo-engineering strategy. It stands to reason that based on the scale of energy that solar needs to supply, taking from deployment demands created by solar proponents, that any significant drop-off in efficiency under these diffuse light conditions (10% or greater) it would be difficult to consider an unmodified solar infrastructure in the near-future.

Therefore, either solar deployment needs to be delayed in favor of other options as outlined or one needs to develop a removable adaptor unit that can be placed on solar panels, which can enhance efficiency. The ‘adaptor’ needs to be removable because the geo-engineering technique will be temporary, thus the adaptor will be removed after the geo-engineering technique is stopped lest all of the solar materials constructed under the aerosol condition be wasted. This waste is presumed because it stands to reason that any ‘adaptor’ will not function as efficiency under more direct non-diffuse sunlight after aerosols dissipate. At least one company, Green Sun, is attempting to produce diffuse solar panels. Unfortunately as mentioned the direct manufacture of diffuse solar panels may be a mistake, but depending on the success level of Green Sun what is learned from their research can be taken to develop the attachment module.

Most of the concerns that are raised against geo-engineering are driven more by uncertainty and fear than actual potential for detrimental consequences. The three major potential negative issues surrounding the application of geo-engineering techniques are negative changes in the SASM, hastened destruction of the ozone layer and reduction in solar energy output. However, even among these three legitimate concerns the monsoon reduction is complicated by the influence of global warming and how it impacts the monsoon in a non-effective manner. The destruction of the ozone layer is the most difficult to reconcile even with some of the uncertainty. Society will simply have to accept a greater rate of destruction of the ozone layer as a side effect of geo-engineering with the understanding of a greater benefit coming from geo-engineering versus this particular detriment. The issue with solar energy output is more easily managed by foregoing the deployment of solar power in favor of other trace emission energy sources or, if possible, developing a means to temporarily harness the diffuse light. Overall the simple reality at this moment is that geo-engineering will be required to maintain a preferential climate for humans on Earth so people better start getting used to the idea and developing the appropriate methodologies for their application.

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A Qualitative Discussion Regarding the Development of an Air Capture Complex

The reality of the situation involving global warming is that both reduction in carbon emissions and carbon emission remediation will be required to significantly reduce detrimental damage to the environment, damage that will influence the future survival rate of humanity. For carbon emission remediation two elements take precedence: effectiveness and speed. Effectiveness is rather self-explanatory; if the process is unable to remove more CO2 from the air than is added over the lifecycle of the process then such a remediation strategy is not worth exploring. Speed is necessary because there is already a dangerous amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and the rate of carbon mitigation is not proceeding nearly fast enough relative to the capacity of natural sinks to remove CO2.

Therefore, although there are other more cost-effective ambient air capture techniques, which involve more natural processes (planting trees or synthesizing bio-char), these processes are significantly slower than technological methods. Speed is important, not just on a general level, because also a feedback level for during the process of removing the necessary CO2 the now more acidic ocean could lose a significant amount of its sink capacity has it begins out-gassing previously absorbed CO2 back into the atmosphere due to the change in the concentration gradient, thus the process must be fast enough to accommodate any further reduced sink capacity. Also the threat of some permafrost melt will also increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations which will need to be effectively managed beyond mitigation of directly derived human emissions.

Most economists are troubled by the calculated theoretical (no large scale system has been empirically tested yet) costs of technology driven air capture ($400-600 dollars per ton of CO2) and they should be, but as explained here the options available to the global community to address global warming consequences are quite small. Realistically due to the deficiencies of natural sinks there are only two choices: rapidly deploy both emission reduction programs and direct air capture technology or prepare to live in a much harsher environment which should reduce life expectancy. The reason for the parameters of the first choice is that natural sinks (land and ocean) will be unable to remove enough CO2 from the atmosphere, even in a scenario of rapid emission reduction because there is already too much CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, to avoid significant detrimental environmental effects.

However, these air capture unit must be efficient, otherwise they will lose their speed advantage over augmenting natural sources. Therefore, there are some important operational issues that must be addressed before deployment. The first major issue is water use. Regardless of the system, the chemical reaction utilized to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere requires the use of water. In most situations the water is supposed to act as a catalyst, but due to the open-air nature of the reaction system a significant percentage of the water (how much is heavily based on overall process design) is absorbed into the atmosphere becoming water vapor making water recovery more difficult.

Another important consideration is that most of the costs associated with air capture relate to gross costs per ton of CO2 captured because the estimates do not take into consideration what energy source is utilized to power the capture unit. A general background regarding where energy in most system designs is utilized can be found here. If a trace emission source is utilized (nuclear, geothermal, wind or solar) then the gross cost can be reasonably estimated as 90-99% efficient (thus the net cost will be 1.01-1.1 times more than the gross cost). However, if a fossil fuel source is utilized then the net cost will be higher than the gross cost (largely dependent on the exact fuel mix), but most of the time at least 1.3-1.5 times. Not only does the use of a fossil fuel energy source increase per unit costs and overall long-term costs, but it also reduces the overall speed of CO2 removal making technology air capture less attractive vs. natural sources. Therefore, it is important that all air capture units be powered by trace emission sources.

The final consideration is developing an endpoint for the captured CO2. A number of air capture developers have dreamt to using the captured CO2 as a marketed product either to enhance oil recovery, in a methane or hydrocarbon based fuel or in commercial industry (soda, etc.). Unfortunately the first two options add CO2 back to the atmosphere, just another means of disrupting the overall extraction efficiency of these units making them less desirable relative to expanding natural sources. The commercial option is incredibly insufficient at utilizing a vast majority of the CO2 that needs to be captured (gigatons of CO2). The best means to address this glut of CO2 appears to be sequestering it underground.

With all of these additional considerations to take into account it is not wise to simply build these air capture units at random. These units clearly need to be constructed in an orderly and cohesive manner perhaps even in a localized autonomous network. This network needs to contain a water source, a power source and a means of utilizing the captured CO2 in addition to having recycling pathways for all necessary materials used in the selected air capture reactions.

The most important element in such an air capture complex is selecting a power source. Recalling that volumetric speed is one of the principle elements behind the need for technology air capture the selected power source will need to be reliable and have as little downtime (intermittence) as possible. This requirement limits the viability of using wind or solar power as those energy methodologies cannot reliably power this proposed complex 24 hours 7 days a week.

Now one could argue that wind or solar would be appropriate with storage, but the general lack of storage options and empirical track record hurts the viability of this response. For example Solar Tres uses molten nitrate salt as a storage medium, but it is difficult to conclude that enough storage could be generated on a consistent basis to generate the 24-7 operational period. Remember energy can only stored if it is in excess, which will not be true most of the time if the solar panels are already providing power to various elements in the complex. Pumped hydro shares the same problem, as well as limiting the location for the complex because of its required topography. Also the addition of a storage medium would increase the cost associated with capture.

Without being able to rely on solar or wind power due to consistency concerns, viable energy options fall to nuclear power and geothermal. Nuclear power in a conventional plant is a little tricky because the provided power would be too much for the needs of the complex, thus if nuclear power was used in this way it would have to come from an outside plant, brought in by transmission lines. Another nuclear option may be to utilize a small modular unit design for a given complex.

Geothermal power is an attractive option when considering an Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) model, but not a conventional model. A conventional geothermal model is similar to utilizing a pumped hydro storage system in that it limits where the complex can be constructed. An EGS model is also attractive as a secondary means to utilize some of the captured CO2 as a supercritical fluid in the system itself. So it appears that from the perspective of the complex itself the best power sources in decreasing order of effectiveness are EGS > Nuclear > Solar > Wind.

There are two main strategies for developing a water source: desalination or atmospheric capture of water vapor. The advantage of an air capture complex is that both of these strategies can be utilized because the air capture unit itself does not rely on natural wind patterns, but creates its own direct air flow to drive ambient air into the reaction section. The only boundary condition for the unit is tied to the power source utilized. This flexibility advantage is useful because the air capture complex requires a system to provide the initial water and would be heavily aided by a system which recycles water (reduces loss from air absorption).

Therefore, the complex could be constructed near a source of salt water, use desalination to provide in the initial water supply and utilize atmospheric water condensers to limit the amount of water required from desalination after the initial reactant amount. Note that tapping a continuous water source (such as desalination) may not be necessary as long as a sufficient amount of water is made available at the beginning of the process until the atmospheric collectors can successfully begin the recycling process, it just appears to be an easier overall strategy.

Desalination use has always involved two major concerns: the energy required for the process itself and determining an endpoint for the brine. The energy requirement is not a significant issue if using one of the two best-fit energy sources for the complex. Under normal circumstances the brine is a very significant issue that has environmental repercussions as returning it to the sea (standard practice) is through to have serious detrimental effects in the localized region where it is returned. Other than injecting it back into the source, effective ideas to address the leftover brine are far and few between.

Similar to the absorbed CO2, the total raw amount of salt from the brine, which would be generated from such a desalination project, is so large that using it in commercial endeavors does not appear viable. Some have proposed ammoniating the brine and using it to increase the volume of CO2 capture. The concern with that strategy is providing the necessary ammonium to react with the brine to create a consistent and worthwhile reactant volume. Another option that has been floated is incorporating the brine into a set of molten salts that would be used in either nuclear power reactors or batteries. However, the viability of such an idea is still questionable.

It is understandable that if the economic impact of developing such a complex was quantitatively calculated that it would be high; however, the nature of the complex is that all of these elements will be required in the future based on the current environmental-use path humans have embarked upon, thus the cost is not based on luxury, but necessity. The idea behind such a complex is actually to lower costs by tying many of the air capture units into the same required operational elements, thus making the technology air capture strategy more economical, saving money for investment in other environmentally necessary avenues like emission reduction. Overall while the manifestation of such a complex may not be exactly as described in this blog post, the reality is that such a complex will be needed in one form or another.

The figure below is a crude visual representation regarding what the complex may look like without mileage delineations between units as such an element needs to be modeled to maximize the efficiency of each given operational unit.

A Reply to Geo-Engineering Trepidation

Asked to comment about the probability of geo-engineering deployment in the future, this was the response: [Might be the first time the first person is used at Bastion of Reason]


With all due respect (ah that notorious loaded statement) we will no longer live a ‘comfortable’ existence, able to listen to Taylor Swift and the like, go out for sushi, etc. without some form of geo-engineering. It would be wonderful if we could address progressive climate destabilization with mitigation strategies like increasing efficiency and transferring fossil fuel based energy to trace emission based energy alone, but do you honestly believe that is possible? Sadly sometimes I lament that at the rate things are going the epithet for the human species will be ‘Still waiting for the miracle that never came because we acted too late.’

I envision the most realistic miraculous scenario for emission reduction as: some genius individual or group within the next two years develops greater than break-even hot fusion (or something equivalent). This group then takes another two to three years to optimize the technology and over the next ten years after the optimization process fusion reactors are installed throughout the world both as energy providers and for transport reducing global carbon emissions to single digit percentages relative to 2005. That still puts emission reduction reaching single digits at 2025 notwithstanding the probability of such a scenario occurring is unfathomably small. Even if it does occur there is already so much slow feedback in the ‘pipeline’ that it is a debatable whether or not it is already too late without a form of significant ‘carbon dioxide removal’ based geo-engineering (planting trees and creating biochar will be useful, but definitely not fast enough to cut down positive feedback effects if this is the case).

If we cannot count on a miracle, what is the fastest rate of turnover? As previously mentioned in ‘Bastion of Reason’, some people want to drive a WWII mentality for clean energy deployment and conservation, but those individuals seem to have no plan beyond ‘build a lot of solar and wind power’. They take the attitude that 300-500 GW of trace emission energy can emerge if people just really wish that it would. It takes money, which is becoming less and less flexible and available at the Federal, State and entrepreneurial level and shows no signs of changing for the better at any point in the future, especially at the Federal level because Congress refuses to cut military spending. Side note: want to take a huge chunk out of the deficit make DARPA and anything related to direct funding for military personnel (salary, health benefits, GI bill, etc.) off-limits and then freeze any new military contracts for the next 10 years outside a declared state of emergency (initiated by 90% majorities in both houses of Congress and Presidential approval) and see how much money ‘magically’ becomes available.

However, I digress, not only is money required but so is time. It routinely takes 5-10 years to construct power plants and similar new infrastructure with any significant capacity where the probability of going over-budget is in the upper 90%. I laugh at anti-nuclear power individuals when they cite costs for nuclear power on the grounds that plant x is going over-budget because almost everything that is built goes over-budget both in money and time (solar and wind as well, yet conveniently anti-nuclear individuals rarely, if ever, address those delays). So it will take decades for these hundreds of GW of energy to be constructed, if they are constructed at all, all the while even in the best scenario humans are still emitting enough carbon into the atmosphere to raise the concentrations by at least 1.5 to 2 ppm per year.

Then there is everyone’s favorite red elephant… China. Some environmentalists like to proclaim that China is doing their part because of the billions that they are investing in clean energy over the coming decade, but based on energy requirement projections this investment is just a drop in the bucket; depending on what source you use China is still building a new coal plant every 8-14 days. Also they have ‘promised’ to cut their carbon intensity by 45%. Please, anyone that uses ratios in a discussion about carbon emissions whether it is carbon intensity or emissions per capita needs to realize that absolute values are all that matter. The environment does not give bonus points if country x is emitting 10 Gt per year, but has an emissions per capita of 10 tons vs. if that same country is emitting 10 Gt per year, but has an emissions per capita of 70 tons. (These numbers are merely for example purposes and do not reflect any specific country).

Carbon intensity is even worse than emissions per capita because as long as the economy continues to grow absolute emissions can continue to increase. Seeing that realistically the only thing that is stopping the Chinese populous from carrying out a revolt that would make anything that has happened in the Middle East look like nothing is the fact that the oppressive ruling party can point to the economic growth and say ‘Look at all the wealth we are creating leave us in power and some may “trickle” down to you’ it is logical to anticipate continued economic growth over the coming years for China. Tie this ‘avoid revolution’ philosophy to the theory that some economics have that China’s large economic growth values are artificially bolstered by an infrastructure craze (build, destroy, build, build, destroy, build…) China can ‘report’ large economic growth even if most of it is superficial. Gee I wonder why they ‘conceded’ to reducing carbon intensity instead of reducing absolute emissions? Heck, most Chinese officials that go public state that coal use will climb until at least 2025 probably longer. And that is just China, no one really talks about what India and Russia are doing, Russia being especially important because its economic stability is completely tied to their export of oil and natural gas occasional heat wave notwithstanding.

Another issue is that environmentalists like to lament that if only United States Republicans would stop being illogical and listen to the science of global warming everything would be ok; they seem to be missing the point that no other country outside of Western Europe (largely supported by France’s nuclear and pumped hydro trace emission energy backbone) seem to be actually reducing carbon emissions at any real significant rate when factoring out the effects of the global recession (at least as it is being reported). So even if these other countries ‘get it’ they are not applying that ‘getting it’ to making actual emission reductions. It reminds me of the old Samuel Clemens quote “Those who do not read good books have no advantage over those who cannot read them." The environmental equivalent: “Those who understand global warming yet do not reduce emissions should have no sense of superiority over those that do not understand or deny global warming.”

It can be argued that these countries are waiting for the United States to make a move because China is waiting for the United States to make a move and unless the United States and China get on board any environmental concessions will probably be meaningless. Therefore Republicans are indeed those primarily responsible for blame; however, with all of the limitations in current growth models (peak oil, peak coal, peak phosphorous, etc.) and a natural emission abatement when switching to a more trace emission driven economy, blaming the United States for a ‘lack of will’ to evolve seems foolish; however, the above statement in no way shape or form is meant to excuse the utter embarrassment the United States should feel for dragging its feet with respect to reducing emissions.

Additionally I am not sure if the contention that geo-engineering cannot address increasing ozone concentrations or ocean acidity is accurate. While I have little expertise in the field of and I am not a fan of its application, the use of Solar Radiation Management (SRM) techniques, depending on the atmospheric application would reduce the total amount of sunlight that is available to catalyze ozone synthesis reactions in the trophosphere reducing total ozone concentrations. While the reduction may not be overwhelming there exists the possibility for a significant reduction, dependent on how the SRM technique(s) is(are) applied. Also carbon reduction techniques like ambient air capture can reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations to a point that changes oceans from carbon sinks to carbon sources (emitting CO2 taken up over the last century) reducing acidity. Granted it is debatable how effective either of these strategies would be at reducing ozone concentrations or ocean acidity, but it may become necessary if mitigation efforts continue to only slug along.

Concern regarding the magnitude and uncertainty surrounding execution of geo-engineering technology is certainly appropriate; however, I believe most concern seems to be biased as it is immediately presumed that a higher probability for negative outcome over positive outcome is appropriate without taking into consideration the circumstances of its deployment. Regarding the uncertainty one can equate the situation to a patient with a severe disease. Geo-engineering is the untested experimental treatment: it can aid in curing the disease, do nothing or hasten the patient’s death. With anything the more study and preparation in the interim the higher the probability for success. Granted because of the black box of knowledge surrounding environmental complexities success can never be assured to be 100%, but we also have the ability of observation and adjustment.

However, the issue boils down to when does an individual stop waiting for the bus. The bus relates to an adage of a man waiting at a bus stop for a bus and the question of how long does the man continue to wait after the scheduled time if the bus has yet to come until finding another way to his destination. The bus may only be a few minutes late or may not come, how long does one wait? If one waits too long and the bus does not come then he will be quite late arriving at his destination, if he is too impatient he leaves before the bus arrives. The question is what rationality does he have for waiting vs. leaving. For the above analogy how long until humans believe the disease moves into a stage that requires the experimental treatment as a part of the treatment required to ward off death? The ironic thing about geo-engineering is that most of the difficulties will stem from not the techniques themselves, but their application. Just like mitigation it requires global cooperation as one or two ‘rouge’ nations looking out for their best interest(s) over that of the global community could spoil the entire strategy.

The conservation proposal put forth by environmentalists is all well and good, but it is what I call a ‘white board’ idea now one needs to step away from the ‘white board’ and outline the finer details of how that proposal will be executed. For example for the conservation frequently suggestion four issues immediately pop to my mind (although I am sure many more exist): 1. What definition will be used for ‘essential purposes’ when rationing energy and fuel? 2. How will governments take control of supply lines to limit access for general use to rationed items in our private corporation capitalistic driven world (using WWII as an example is probably not going to work because the logistics of rationing were much simpler then)? 3. How will government enforce this definition ensuring that people do not simply ignore or rebel against the rationing measures (the creation of black markets where there is money to be made…)? 4. Depending on the answers to the above three questions, what will prevent the world from plunging into the greatest (in magnitude and span) global depression ever while cleaner energy technologies take decades to fill the void left by the rationed products?

Question 4 is the issue that is apparently not considered by those that say ‘We need to stop all coal burning now’. Dr. James Hansen understands this unfortunate reality that alternatives are not ready to fill the void and advocates 20-25 years time frame to wean off coal. Finally the concern with the conservation method is its feasibility without strong-arm action. Environmentalists have advocated conservation for decades and yet that message has not accomplished what is deemed necessary. As cynical as it sounds environmentalist might not win until they can get Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber to walk on a concert stage wearing a green t-shirt that says ‘Save the Earth: Conserve Resources and Reduce Carbon Emissions with a Price on Carbon!’ or such.

Another problem is that right now too many are allowing the free market to dictate the evolution of a trace emission society without addressing future issues… hmmm last time I checked ignoring the future is what got us into this original environmental problem. For example look at this blog post, I rarely see anyone address these issues regarding energy generation (outside of those regarding nuclear power because of the fervor of the anti-nuclear crowd). What about the potential for average wind speed reduction in the future? Why do some laud the physics of human driven global warming, yet ignore valid potential consequences stemming directly from the physics of that warming which could cripple a highly touted solution? Even in the field of geo-engineering we need crazy ideas and then thorough analysis of those ideas. Realistically the best idea may not even exist yet. Take Erwin Schrodinger and transport him from 1911 to 2011 and upon seeing society his first words would probably be ‘how is this possible?’.

I could go on, but I think the point has been made. Reiterating from above, I would love it if mitigation and conservation were all it would take; it probably cannot be quantified how beautiful that would be, but there does not appear to be sufficient evidence to support that position. It appears that some form of technology-based geo-engineering will be required to abate carbon emissions and/or their consequences until the slow crawl of mitigation can do what is necessary. Remember I believe global society has reached the point where both mitigation and geo-engineering is possible; geo-engineering is not some magic bullet that can be used in lieu of mitigation. However, people need to start acting and studying geo-engineering in a manner that presumes one or more methods will be applied (too few legitimately study it at the moment), even if it turns out that they are not necessary because if they are needed and have not been effectively studied because of concerns about what they cannot do or their uncertainties we will be in even more trouble. Overall it seems the burden of proof has shifted to those who oppose geo-engineering to demonstrate that it will not be necessary at some point in the future rather than those that support its study proving that it will be necessary.

Re-energizing the Environmental Movement

On October 10, 2010 the environment movement, largely driven by the group 350.org, held a global coordinated effort comprised of over 7,000 independent gatherings in an attempt to demonstrate global solidarity behind aggressive and effective action to stem global carbon emissions. Such a large organized global gathering, consisting of individuals actually carrying out positive environmental actions, must have garnered significant and thorough media attention, especially in the main target countries of U.S. and China right? No, environmental gatherings rarely make any dent in the news cycle for either country; in fact for the U.S. the date 10/10/10 was noted more for the increased amount of weddings than anything else. So how has it come to this, how is it that the most important issue in human history, sustaining the strength of a living environment for a single-plant species, receives only substandard media coverage and enthusiasm from the masses?

One of the main problems is that environmentalists have no legitimate attack strategy against those that either deny the legitimacy of human driven global warming or oppose action to combat it due to selfish economic reasons. The general response to these individuals typically involves citing more and more scientific evidence supporting the validity of human driven global warming and its consequences. They have continually expressed the same warning for decades, yet there is little substance for such effort. In essence they have walked a mile to seemingly move a mere inch. Others plead for boycotts against the more powerful adversaries, but such an outcry is futile because the organization and will power to execute such a strategy is limited in the environmental movement. Their opponents have money, organization and a singular message/purpose. What does the environmental movement have… certainly not what amounts to the title of a Meatloaf song. So it is about time for environmentalists to wake up and effectively begin to counter these advantages.

First, forgot the idea of any type of boycott because such a strategy will simply waste time and resources. There are too many individuals in U.S. that depend on oil, coal and natural gas, especially on a socio-economical gradient. One of the problems with some in the environmental movement is that they seem to have a perception that millions of people have tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars of disposable income sitting in the bank and just don’t have the motivation to embrace the environmental movement and a boycott. Approximately 17% of the country is below the poverty line with bi-weekly stories about the vanishing middle class and yet some expect these people to go buy a 15,000 – 30,000 dollar solar panel system or a 30,000 – 40,000 dollar electric vehicle with the explanation that it is good for them because of a rate of return at 5-10 years, what nonsense.

Also look at some of the more successful boycotts in recent history, the ‘Mitsubishi: Don't Buy It’ campaign, the movement against De Beers and the National Mobilization Against Sweatshops vs. Donna Karan, why did all of those boycotts work? Three reasons: 1. a viable alternative was already available in the market; if you didn’t like Mitsubishi’s environmental policy in Mexico buy a vehicle from Ford; if you didn’t like De Beers screwing over the Kalahari Bushmen, then buy from Zales; if you didn’t like Donna Karan using sweatshops and screwing over its employees, then buy from another clothing designer as there are thousands of options; 2. the purchase/use of these products was not daily, weekly or even monthly. Basically the need of these products were not such that switching suppliers or not buying them at all significantly disrupted livelihood in any real way and less frequent purchasing meant that each purchase mattered more to the company; 3. the changes being demanded by the boycotters were rather small from an industry perspective and could be made by the respective companies without putting them out of business.

All three of these success parameters fail when considering a boycott against a company like ExxonMobil. Looking at the failure of the third point first, the point of the boycott is the very destruction of the company as it presently exists. Some may argue that the main focus would be to ‘encourage’ ExxonMobil to convert completely from an oil company to a bio-fuel company, but even this ideal basically destroys what exists as ExxonMobil today. This motivation then filters into the first point as in the De Beers case the goal was not to eliminate the entire diamond mining industry, but to rectify the circumstances surrounding a single mine. The alternatives that were available could be accessed to put pressure on De Beers; however, in the case of an ExxonMobil boycott, clearly purchasing fuel from BP does not support the overall goal of an ExxonMobil boycott and bio-fuel alternatives are not nearly in enough supply to put even a microscopic dent in ExxonMobil’s bottom line. Finally it is much easier for people to boycott consumer goods that do not heavily impact their lives, but can be viewed more as luxury items. Oil, largely in the form of gasoline, is a consumer good that is used far too frequently to induce enough people to make the dramatic switch from gas to another form of transportation medium. Thus any further discussion of a ‘major’ boycott against any oil and/or coal companies is just a waste of breath.

Second, sadly enough it appears that a single focus on the environment and its overall importance is an argument that has yet to spark the masses to action. In addition it does not appear that such an argument has an amplifying effectiveness where if people are just told about the future dangers to the environment and human species enough a light will eventually turn on and these individuals will magically now fight for the environment. Should one really expect someone that has denied global warming with the science at a 95% confidence level to change his/her opinion when a new set of studies upgrades the confidence level to 97%? That is like a person declining to play the lottery with numbers that have a 95% chance of winning instead waiting until given a set of numbers that have a 97% chance of winning, not a realistic psychological scenario.

The line in the sand has already been drawn regarding the role of human involvement in global warming and few people are dancing along that line changing their minds based on the latest news report or scientific paper. For most people ‘present egocentricity’ typically have them caring more about who Taylor Swift or Kim Kardashian might be dating over the prospect of Manhattan being underwater 30 years from now. Unfortunately this mindset also eliminates effective arguing for emission reduction from an ethical standpoint of saving a place like the Maldive Islands. It would take a local catastrophic event, not huge stable for thousands of years ice sheets breaking away from Greenland, to spur enough people to action using a ‘save the environment’ strategy and such an event does not seem in the cards until it is far too late. Therefore, despite their clear legitimacy, environmental dangers cannot be the main linchpin argument for action against global warming, at least not for the general public.

Expanding on the above point, although most of the issues regarding criticism of climate scientists were addressed here, one important point remains. Recently an extremely bias and problematic documentary entitled “Waiting for Superman” was released which purported to address the problems in the U.S. education system. Not surprisingly the film basically takes the position that all of the problems in the education system are a result of bad teachers and the evil teacher’s union and the simple solution to these problems lies within the widespread expansion of charter schools and their quality teachers. Sadly the film does not produce anything that has not already been heard thousands of times before from individuals or groups that are pro-charter school anti-public school/teacher, thus making it a meaningless propaganda tool that does nothing to actually solve the problems in the education system.

A number of individuals within the environmental movement also appear to be falling into this trap of ‘Waiting for Superman’. They believe that if enough climate scientists speak out directly to the public about the dangers of global warming that such action will turn the tide. Unfortunately there is no reason to suspect such an outcome. While any help from climate scientists would be appreciated, one must remember that some have certain internal pressures which may not allow them to behave with the requisite level of freedom and outspokenness these environmentalist expect. In fact the saddest thing about this entire hope is that in the eyes of the general public, regardless of it being wrong, climate scientists are commonly viewed with a level of enthusiasm not akin to Superman, but instead Supergrover.

Third, the appropriate argument needs to develop a personal tone focusing on how environmental policy tangibly helps specific individuals. At one time relating ‘green jobs’ to environmental policy may have been a good idea, but the messaging was carried out so poorly that, similar to the ‘doomsday’ environmental damage 30 years from now scenarios, most of the public seems to tune out such a message. For example suppose you have Stanley a blue-collar construction worker. Now the statement that investing billions of dollars in a new ‘green’ infrastructure over the next 10-20 years will produce millions of new jobs may not mean anything to him, unless Stanley digs deep and really studies the new suggested policy, but Stanley has things to do that he views as more important. However, what if it was clearly specified that of those 3 million new jobs, suppose 1.5 million are construction jobs with an average 3 year commitment, now that is a detail that should make supporting a ‘green’ infrastructure much more important to Stanley. The reason ‘green’ jobs has generally failed as a message is that the argument has been far too general, excluding the ‘what’s in it for me’ aspect. Remember, specificity solves problems generality perpetuates them.

Fourth, the environmental movement is not tapping into one of the most powerful elements in all of human history, nationalism. Joe Klein, a writer for Time Magazine, recently finished a tour of the country and he reports that for every person that carried about terrorism (which can be viewed symbolically as concern for survival), approximately 20 people cared about China and its growing influence in the world relative to the waning influence of the United States. That concern seems like an opening to tap into some good old-fashioned nationalism. Environmentalists have focused on attempting to convince people that investment in ‘green’ infrastructure is important in effort to keep jobs like PV and wind turbine manufacturing in the United States opposed to those jobs being done in South Korea or China. Again while this argument seems solid, a different focus can be applied from a nationalistic perspective. When trying to create a nationalistic fervor it is important to remember history. Recall the national climate when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Sure there was some fear, but for the most part Sputnik was an insult to U.S. pride. Basically a ‘No way we’re going to let the Soviet Union beat the U.S.’ mindset took over. Why hasn’t the environmental movement transmogrified this concern over China into boisterous competitive adrenaline?

What would be the best way to ‘take it to’ China? Clearly by slowing their economic growth and how is that done … investment in a trace emission energy infrastructure. How would the argument go: not only will creating a new infrastructure increase our economic output, but it would also increase our credibility on the international stage to facilitate an international carbon emission treaty which would force China to abandon its policy of constructing 1 coal plant per 10 days in order to feed the growing energy demands for its economic expansion. Therefore, if China wanted to continue their economic growth, which by all accounts they do, they would have to replace this loss with trace emission energy sources, which by design (due to the tremendous energy demands for manufacturing) they could not supply nearly enough in isolation. Instead they would have to import vast quantities of materials to continue the seamless construction of this new energy infrastructure to continue their current economic growth. Take one guess who should be the country supplying the bulk of this demand? Such a scenario would take a significant bite out of the trade deficit as well as allowing the U.S. to apply real economic pressure on China if any ethical issue arose. Basically this is the scenario that everyone who wants the U.S. to reaffirm its place as a global power should be striving for regardless of whether or not they believe global warming is driven by human activities.

Now the ‘green’ economy will not materialize by the invisible hand of the market at a fast enough speed to foster the ability to either reaffirm U.S. greatness or significantly reduce the probability of detrimental environmental damage. The most effective means of developing the resources to beat China will come from establishing a national price on carbon. The only way to establish a price on carbon is to elect officials that will vote on legislation creating such a carbon price with no offset loopholes. Voting for these individuals is accomplished through the above economic competition strategy, if the U.S. is to restore/retain its greatness then it needs to establish a trace emission energy infrastructure based economy and to do that voters need to elect congressmen and women that will pass legislation to put a price on carbon. So if that appears to be the most effective argument for creating a ‘green’ economy why is the domain name: “BeatChina.org” or “ReaffirmUSgreatness.org” still available?

Another bonus is that the “Reaffirm U.S. Greatness” campaign also neutralizes the sphere of influence created by those that argue against the legitimacy of human driven global warming because the focus of the issue is no longer ‘develop/deploy cleaner energy to save the planet’, but instead ‘develop/deploy cleaner energy to beat China’. Therefore, all nonsense like ‘climategate’ and potential Congressional investigations into global warming become moot. Using such a direct campaign slogan can create an attempted sidestep of the ability of global warming opponents to attack the environmental movement because doing so can be turned back in their faces that these individuals are against American prosperity and want China to take over the world. In fact one of the most useful elements of the “Reaffirm U.S. Greatness” campaign is it limits the scientific issue of global warming on an individual level. For example the following is a theoretical conversation between an individual that does not believe in human driven global warming (Person A) and an individual that does (Person B):

Person A: “Global warming is a complete hoax. The world is so big that there is no way humans could influence it in any meaningful way.”

Person B: “Do you think that government should put a price on carbon?”

Person A: “Uhhh, what, oh ummmmm…(Yes/No)”

Person B: (if yes) – “That’s a good point because by putting a price on carbon we can develop and expand new industries, so we can compete with and beat China. We need to make sure that we vote for candidates that will vote for legislation that puts a price on carbon so America can stay great and number one in the world.”

Person B: (if no) – “Why do you hate America? You really want China to win? I don’t see any other way the U.S. beats China other than by putting a price on carbon.

By changing the topic, Person B can direct the conversation to a more meaningful conclusion versus making a purely scientific retort to Person A’s initial claim which is normally countered by Person A saying something to the effect of: “oh yeah, well you can’t prove that!”. No longer having to deal with time-wasting ‘global warming is not real’ nonsense environmentalist will have more time to spread the word about the “Reaffirm U.S. Greatness” campaign, participate in detailed analysis about how the development of trace emission energy infrastructure in the U.S. should proceed or work to expand mitigation and/or remediation strategies. Note that if asked directly with genuine scientific curiosity why global warming is a threat then one can cite all of the scientific evidence about how humans continuing to release carbon into the atmosphere is unbalancing the carbon cycle, aggravating the Greenhouse Effect and leading to climate destabilization. However, overall the principle battle cry needs to be ‘help the U.S. transition to a trace emission energy economy so we can maintain U.S. greatness and beat China’.

Some have argued, most notably the Center for American Progress (CAP), that the U.S. should cooperate with China to hasten the development of new technologies like CCS in order to combat climate change. Unfortunately while in most situations cooperation should be preferred to competition the current situation is not one of them. As discussed above, people are concerned about China overtaking the U.S. in global and economic influence and stripping it of its place in the global community, cooperation with the ‘enemy’ as the see it will not allay that concern. Also China continues, and for all intensive purposes will continue, to hold the belief that the U.S. and other developed countries should have to provide the majority of the anticipated capital to convert China’s economy to a more ‘trace emission’ nature as a consequence of putting most of the carbon in the atmosphere despite currently being the highest emitter. For all of the publicity that China has received for the money they are investing in ‘green’ energy, most of that investment is insignificant relative what they continue to invest in fossil fuel energy and the overall energy demand that China will require in the future relative to its desired level of economic growth.

This is not to say that the U.S. and China should not cooperate on any cleaner energy methodology, especially when it comes to research and development as to allow a fantastic technological achievement to remain theoretical due to inadequate information exchange would be foolish; however, cooperation does not seem to have the ability to light the necessary fire under the American populous that competition with the Chinese would. Regarding potential conflicts with the Memorandum of Understanding, China’s behavior at Copenhagen demonstrates that cooperation may not be as forthcoming as anticipated; in addition a vast majority of the recommendations made by the Memorandum are slanted towards research and development anyways which is the one place cooperation should occur. Finally, the motivation behind such a nationalistic strategy should be upright and passionate competition with China and not fall into the paranoia, fear and hate which plagued the competitive relationship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Of course there are no guarantees that a “Reaffirm U.S. Greatness” campaign will work, but it seems like an important tool for the environmental movement that has been left in the toolbox.

While it is sad and troubling that the most promising piece of legislation, which would have established a carbon price, stalled in Congress some believe that the failure of this bill is less relevant than others because of a belief that the proposed 4% reduction of 1990 emission levels by 2020 was an insufficient goal. Most who harbor that belief also believe that there needs to be an emission reduction of 20-50% by 2020. To those that tout reduction goals of 20-50% by 2020, would you please explain your plan to attain that goal? It is easy to say ‘this is what we need to do’, but where is the methodology to do it? Current technological deployment does not lend itself to accomplishing this ideal without a significant blow to the economy, which would defeat the entire purpose of the action.

Ideally to reach any 20-50% goal almost all to all energy from coal would have to be transferred to another trace emission source (allowing natural gas to pick-up all the slack would not reduce emissions enough (only 12-18% depending on the total efficiency of natural gas plants)). With the total amount of electricity being supplied by coal at just less than 2 billion MW-hr (according to the EIA 2008 data), where is the replacement energy going to come from? Assume about 40% of the loss from coal is picked-up by natural gas and there is a 10% reduction in auto emissions (which makes up about 27% of total U.S. CO2eq emissions for a total reduction of 2.7%), so to meet a goal of 20% reduction by 2020 where is the remaining approx. 1 billion MW-hr going to come from? Some may argue that energy efficiency will carry the day and while such a result would be highly encouraging a number of energy efficiency strategies have existed for a while beyond the snazzy smart meters and most have yet to be implemented on a wide scale. In fact without new national energy consumption standards for buildings any real gains from energy efficiency in a piecemeal way are unlikely to be significant, but just for the sake of argument where is the remaining 900 million MW-hr going to come from?

Also remember that to reach the natural gas goal approximately 800 million MW-hr of new natural gas electricity will need to be generated which will involve huge levels of hydraulic fracking (how much is unclear) which will more than likely contaminate some number of underground aquifers. Also because there is uncertainty regarding how much of the transportation reduction will come from increased fuel economy vs. electrical vehicles there will be additional electricity demands for those electric vehicles. One could venture that these demands will exist because as this post demonstrates most meaningful transportation emission reduction will come from deployment of electrical vehicles.

Off the cuff it seems inherently unrealistic to assume that a significant amount of this 950 million - 1 billion MW-hr need is going to materialize from concentrated or PV solar power being constructed in the Mojave Desert or anywhere else seeing how little is currently in the construction pipeline and how dependent solar power is on government subsidies to bend the cost curve. Recalling, as the anti-nuclear crowd does so well, that power plant construction no matter what the medium almost always finishes over budget and behind schedule, how much more solar will even be in the pipeline before 2020 let alone actually built and operational?

The U.S. has exhausted almost all of its growth potential for hydroelectric and offshore tidal power has no realistic potential to do anything significant for at least 15-20 years. Wind power, while expanding rapidly in the last 5 years, is running into problems as the best locations have already been built upon, limiting its remaining potential for total power generation, effective capacity and cost effectiveness to fill in for a baseload power source like coal. Maybe new offshore locations help, but more than likely not nearly enough. Also the second coming of nuclear power in the U.S. seems to have hit a significant snag with the abandonment of a high-profile reactor in Maryland sponsored in part by Constellation Energy. Finally geothermal plant construction in the last decade does not inspire confidence that any significant gains will be had from geothermal energy. So again where is all of this extra necessary energy going to come from by 2020? Sadly these are only a small number of the real obstacles to achieving a 20-50% decrease in 1990 level emissions by 2020. Realistically there is almost no way, short of a miracle, like fusion magically becoming viable, that such a goal can be achieved without significant economical damage. Therefore to continue to talk about things that ‘need’ to happen in such a context does not appear to be useful.

Once accepting the fact that these short-term high emission reduction scenarios are fantasy, the environmental community then needs to accept the reality that some form of geo-engineering will be required to increase the probability of less detrimental environmental damage until proper mitigation methods can be scaled-up. The simple fact is that the world has two options: 1. carry out effective and widespread remediation and mitigation strategies; 2. face an environment radically different than the one humans have dealt with for a vast majority of their existence, one that is much less hospitable to our comfortable existence; of course when proposing the acceptance of geo-engineering, this does not include the impractical and illogical ideas like space mirrors or tubes to ferry CO2 from the atmosphere to space. However, there is the very real possibility that sulfur stratospheric geo-engineering will occur over a small time window maybe something like 3 – 5 years in effort to reduce global temperatures to ensure adequate growing seasons while mitigation efforts scale-up.

There are other strategies that have generally been more or less have been mischaracterized as ‘geo-engineering’ that focus more on remediation or rebalancing the atmosphere vs. the typical ‘geo-engineering’ strategy of counterbalancing. The most popular methods of remediation are widespread application of Bio-char in agriculture, air capture both at a point source and from ambient air and albedo restoration which commonly involves painting rooftops white and other surface visual lightening. While these methods are extremely important in limiting the overall environmental damage from climate change, a number of individuals in the environmental movement more than likely oversell the total effect of these methods; for example assuming that every house in the U.S. will have a white roof or that Bio-char will be in every agricultural plot everywhere in the world. The problem is not the general unrealistic nature of such a belief, although it would take a Herculean effort, but the fact that there is no plan to achieve such a feat which makes it unrealistic. No planning, just talking and waiting for the government to do it.

One final note regarding geo-engineering is the question of where are the eccentric ideas to tackle various remediation and mitigation problems. This blog has proposed some of these ideas here and here. While skeptics will say these ideas are not plausible (definitely possible), the same can be said for almost all of the technological advances in our history. Someone thought of a ‘wacky’ idea and told another person, who told another person, who told another and eventually the idea was analyzed, tested and the problems were identified and fleshed out and while most ended up failing, a number succeeded. Who cares about how wacky an idea may sound because it could stimulate the evolution of something that could be extremely helpful in warding off future environmental damage. The key is to put each idea through objective, transparent and rigorous analysis to ensure the highest benefit to cost ratio. This issue of invention cannot be stressed enough because it is highly probable that the saving grace game-changer has yet to be developed and such interactive creativity must be encouraged.

As alluded to above if the environmental movement truly wishes to advance their movement and help reduce the probability of detrimental climate change, they also need to go deeper in their recommendations and analysis. Climate scientists have done a remarkable job, especially amid all of the radical and vicious opposition, doing the best they can to describe the intricate details of what type of and to what degree environmental changes will impact the Earth as more carbon is released into the atmosphere. However, that is where the details end as potential responses and strategies to dealing with these outcomes have become generalized and repetitive. Such lack of detail in general public discourse is unacceptable if humans are to have any chance at maintaining a comfortable living environment.

One of the reasons it is important that the environmental movement begins to develop much more cohesive and detailed plans is the ability to pitch those plans to private companies and venture capitalists to create a more efficient and effective transition into a ‘green’ economy. For example if the Mojave Desert is going to be the saving grace for the solar power movement those that believe this need to create a detailed report of exactly every little detail regarding the construction of every solar plant in the Mojave, potential transmission losses, efficiency scales, electricity gaps that need to be covered by other mediums, water use and transport, etc.

Unfortunately instead of carrying out such a strategy a number of environmentalists simply make general statements like ‘All we have to do is build a bunch of concentrated solar power in 0.0x% of the Mojave Desert and that will provide all of our electricity needs forever.’ Such statements are incredibly useless. The environmental community is huge, where are these detailed through reports of analysis? Some of the discussions of the reduction of transportation emissions and possible strategies for remediation that have appeared on this blog try to be open and clear reports with regards to planning future strategy made available for public consumption. One should be saddened after the reading the above statement, not because the reports on this blog are of substandard quality, they are not, but because there is not significantly more information easily available or at least so it appears who knows how many other similar blogs have conducted similar studies and yet remain unknown.

Some may argue that the various reports put out by CAP and other similar think tanks do some of the work suggested, but when actually reading these reports one encounters more generalities and optimistic assumptions then one would like. Generality is fine when an issue is in its infancy, but clearly the danger global warming poses to our environment and the longevity of our species is not in its infancy. What one would like to see is instead of a statement like ‘developing a green economy will create millions of jobs’ is a detailed statement like ‘over the first five years of developing a green economy with investments of 10 billion per year most of the job growth will come from the manufacturing and construction sectors where we estimate the creation of 10 construction jobs lasting an average of 14 months and 5 manufacturing jobs lasting an average of 30 months for every 1 MW of solar power developed…’

Now that latter statement has a lot more significance to all involved over the former statement. Clearly the ideal should be to produce accurate, objective, detailed and transparent information, thus when producing reports of this nature all of the assumptions need to be laid out at the beginning. Transparent declaration of assumptions is critically important for accuracy and validity because as any scientist or engineer knows even a variance of one assumption in only a small way can dramatically change the identity of the best possible solution.

There are only two reasons to not be forthcoming with assumptions: 1. laziness, which would beg the question why create the report at all unless for cheap publicity for your organization; 2. fear, which would imply that the authors of the report realize that their conclusions are generalized and would probably not hold up under scrutiny, thus the assumptions remain hidden so the authors keep a level of deniability. Neither of those two rationalities is appropriate to justify withholding vital information like assumptions, which can be used to further support the superiority of an analysis or lead to the discovery of a critical flaw that makes it unsuitable for application.

Brave New Climate is one group that, despite a possible bias towards nuclear power, actually attempts to better understand which energy medium(s) should be utilized for a future non-fossil fuel infrastructure at a scientific and economic level. However, their analysis only goes so far to address what medium(s) should be pursued; it is a good start, but more needs to be done. It must be stated that not all environmental organizations have the overall mission objective, manpower or member expertise to create reports to the level of detail that is needed, but for those that do not they must at least command a better understanding of the demands behind creating a trace emission infrastructure than ‘all we have to do is build a bunch of solar plants in the Mojave and the Sahara, so let’s do that’. For those that have the ability to create these reports, overall there should be no reason to hide assumptions made or withhold details when conducting an analysis of the economics, necessary deployment time frame or whatever else regarding a new trace energy infrastructure; recall specificity solves problems and generality perpetuates them.

Another possible reason environmentalist are not making as much headway with the public as they should, beyond improper messaging, is that their primary information sources (websites) appear to be stuck in Phase I. For some reason for major environmental organizations like 350.org, Environmental Defense Fund, National Resource Defense Counsel, etc. the primary focus seem to be recruiting more members or soliciting monetary support. Initially continuous recruitment of new members should be viewed as intelligent and important, especially in an overall movement where numbers genuinely matter, but while the previous statement is true, it is only true when those numbers are given something to do, which is rarer for these movements. Unless you are in the inner circle, most of the activities that are available to members of these organizations are lacking in importance diminishing the importance of being a member. The biggest problem is a lack of motivational direction.

Suppose John cares about helping the environment, so he joins Environment Organization x (EOX). Inspired by joining EOX John prints out handmade flyers and walks door to door in his neighborhood passing out the flyers and having polite conversations with the people he meets about the danger facing the environment due to human activities and what to do about it. Next John researches for any price rebates available for installing solar panels on his home and makes a purchase appropriate to his situation. Finally John decides to plant a little switchgrass bio-char garden. Wow, go John! Sadly people like John are rare, most of the time unless there is some tangible reward or quid pro quo most people will not go the extra mile to research solar panels, create their own pro-environment flyers or create bio-char gardens. However, if the resources and/or information are provided in an easy to understand and easily accessible format then most people will take advantage of it and apply their time to advance the movement. This is Phase II of a movement, providing the depth of information necessary to allow members to maximize their potential.

More on Phase II in a little while, but there is another important problem within the environmental movement and that is a seeming lack of coordination and joint action. Now this assessment may not be accurate, but to an individual not at a leadership position in any of these major environmental groups, these groups seem a lot like all of the intelligence agencies in Washington. Once in a while they share information and try to coordinate a joint event, but the vast majority of their activities are performed independently. This strategy is the same nonsense that plagues charities. For example there are hundreds to thousands of charities in the United States alone designed to support cancer; how in the world is it more useful to have hundreds of charities over two or three strong cancer collective charities that can increase efficiency, decrease overhead and have a more effective collection, treatment and information network? Short answer, it’s not. So why doesn’t the public see more coordination between environmental movements?

Returning to Phase II execution, one of the principle requirements for these sites should be to act in part as a clearinghouse of information. So with this issue in mind what information can be generated looking at the home page for 350.org a day after the big 10/10/10 event?




Well browsing through the above section headers ‘about’, ‘10/10/10’, ‘media’, ‘campaigns’, ‘sign up’ and ‘donate’ the following intent can be identified. The 350.org site seems to focus on two elements: 1. providing scientific information at a layman’s level to demonstrate the dangers of climate change and what needs to be done to reduce the probability of detrimental damage on a very general level; 2. information regarding how to promote 350.org in your area and before the actual 10/10/10 work party event occurred how to promote and/or organize that event as well; at first glance focusing on this information may be appropriate, but how useful is it really?

For example suppose Susan visits 350.org because she heard about it from a friend and want to know what she can do to help? Susan already understands the general science behind global warming and climate change, so all of that information is rendered moot. Unfortunately beyond wearing a t-shirt or some other material object, the promotional material outside of 10/10/10 is rather scant. There appears to be no direct information for Susan if she wants to somehow make a lifestyle change regarding her carbon footprint. Susan is also out-of-luck if she wants to learn about the most recent news about wind power deployment.

Now it can be argued that hosting this information is not the responsibility of 350.org, which is a valid point, but certainly it has links to sources for this information, right? Well when visiting the most obvious location for these links, the friends & allies section, the following picture illustrates the first page.



Unfortunately this organizational method leaves much to be desired. Instead of being designed for easy and effective transition from 350.org to another site with the desired information, its design more symbolizes a kind of arrogance, almost a visual representation of ‘look at how many allies we have, that means we are important.’ While such a contention may seem harsh it cannot be argued that such a listing does little to aid the movement as a whole. However, Susan is diligent and eventually finds some information to answer her first inquiry about things she can do as an individual tucked away at the organizational wiki, not an easy find.

It stands to reason that a better strategy would use subject headers to direct traffic for those individuals that want to know about other environmental organizations, sites that have strategies for carbon footprint reduction, sites for general up-to-date environmental information, sites which discuss in more detail about a particular environmental topic, organizations which are developing new trace emission energy infrastructure solutions, etc. None of that information appears to be effectively presented on this page or any other page in 350.org. There are scattered links throughout the site, but most pertain to scientific inquiry about global warming.

Clearly due to the multi-national cooperation origins of 350.org, it would be inappropriate for it to sponsor any form of action for putting a price on carbon using competition with China as a motivational tool. On its face 350.org needs to organize local, national and global movements and do so more innovatively and frequently than one or two big demonstrations per year. For example there are some general fact-sheets available on 350.org, but it appears that no one has ever advocated a ‘Print out a fact-sheet and post it somewhere in your local community’ day. Where are the unique t-shirt designs that do not simply advertise 350.org? What is going to garner more attention (picture size aside), someone walking around with this on the front:



Or this on the front:



Whether it is viewed as droll, thought provoking or just silly the latter slogan certainly attracts more attention. In fact why hasn’t 350.org sponsored a contest to design some new t-shirts which would attract attention? The winners would be placed on the website and split any sales between the designer and 350.org. In general when looking at the 350.org site one sees so much untapped potential, which could fight against the somewhat ‘do-it-yourself’ mentality that tends to permeate within the environmental movement.

As for the other stuff that Susan wants information on the evolution of a site like 350.org should follow the course of becoming a logistical information powerhouse. Basically if someone wants to know the most cost-effective way to lower his/her at-home carbon footprint for $500, click this link; if someone wants a step-by-step guide to completely eliminate his/her at-home carbon footprint where cost is not an object, click this link; if someone wants to join a debate about whether or not pursuing PV solar energy is worthwhile, click this link; if someone wants to read the latest report on the viability of IFR nuclear power, click this link, etc.

For example what if the above point was somewhat mistaken in that there is plenty of detailed and thorough information, outside of government reports, regarding objective energy medium analysis, deployment scheduling, specific job growth statistics pertaining to capitalization of specific emission reduction strategies, etc, but it could not be located by this blogger? If so, then is it not the job of at least one of the major environmental websites to catalog these reports so that interested parties do not have to go through UN, EIA, IEA, GAO, CBO and EPA database searches and general search engine queries (which is rather futile for anyone wishing to find accurate and up-to-date detailed information) to extract this information? If such a catalog exists then it is important for major sites to make it known to new environmentalists. It is difficult to expect effective solutions to environmental problems when useful information remains scattered and by extension legitimate debate is fractured.

In addition while it is true that one can search the Internet for information regarding home-based solar panel installation or electrical car purchasing, it is a hassle for individuals, especially those who are not diehards, to sort through all of the information a general web search can provide to get the teeth of what information is actually helpful. Therefore, to improve their effectiveness as tools to help the environment these websites need to have either the necessary information organized in a useful and easy to understand and compare manner or at least easily found links to websites with the information in that format.

Regarding these websites the most interesting thing may be the contrast in style for some environmentalists act like they are waging war against those that oppose human driven global warming, but the principle websites that represent the environment movements are not organized for logistics and information exchange, critical components in any operation. No one single organization should be expected to do it all, but they should as a group and if one person knows about one of these organizations they should be able to easily locate information about all of the other major environmental organizations.

In the end the primary objective of the environmental movement should be to create a Congress that will place a price on carbon in order to foster the new era of a trace emission energy infrastructure in the U.S. Individual action is nice and should be continually encouraged, but overall has a rather minimalist effect on absolute emission reduction both within the U.S. and abroad. Unfortunately most in the movement do not appear to realize that it is highly unlikely that the ‘price on carbon’ objective will be achieved by continuing to express concern about the future dangers of unrelenting emission release at a scientific level. For whatever reason lack of moral authority, lack of believability, lack of immediate occurrence or something else the public is not willing to make the necessary leap to voting to facilitate a change in course on a single issue vote mindset based on that scientific argument.

Therefore, the environmental movement must change its line of thought when encouraging the general populous to focus on establishing a national price for carbon. Some environmentalists like to talk about how the U.S. needs a WWII type mobilization, yet fail to realize that the government didn’t come up with Rosie the Riveter and the mindset of liberty and justice for all did not drive the U.S. to enter the war, but instead nationalism against the Germans and Japanese was a chief motivating factor to get the public onboard. There needs to be more ‘legwork’ for the general populous both locally and online to provide better access to information that should increase the probability that they engage in environmentally positive behaviors like increasing energy efficiency at home, reducing transportation emissions and water conservation. Finally the environmental movement needs to better evaluate future energy development and deployment strategies using far more detail to smooth the transition between current fossil fuel energy infrastructure to a trace emission energy infrastructure while also working to reduce overall environmental damage. Just because the construction workers have not shown up for work yet does not mean that the foreman and lead civil engineer can lounge around without a competed blueprint.