From Popular Mechanics comes this headline on 22 April 2024: Trillions of Tons of Carbon Are Missing from Climate Models. The story begins with three bullet points: (1) While the world’s soils are home to lots of organic carbon—such as leaf litter and animal waste—inorganic carbon, which is often in the form of solid carbonates, can also leak into the atmosphere. And it isn’t accounted for by current climate models; (2) A new study focuses on the role of soils as both a storage for and emitter of carbon, and found that 23 billion [metric] tonnes of inorganic carbon could escape soil over the next 30 years; and (3) Good land management—as well as other practices, such as afforestation and improved rock weathering—can help slow down this significant source of CO₂.

Here’s the lede: “The sole purpose of people and programs combating climate change is finding ways to keep carbon out of the atmosphere.” The first paragraph continues: “Planting trees is a big help, as their woody roots lock away carbon for decades, and companies are hard at work trying to find artificial means of sucking greenhouse gasses from the air and sequestering it underground. But in this obsession with tracking CO₂ levels, one significant source of both emission and storage has been overlooked—the soil.” A minor detail is worthy of mention: Planting trees is not necessarily a big help, as I pointed out previously in this space.

The article goes on: “the top two meters of soil beneath our feet currently hold roughly 2.3 trillion [metric] tonnes of inorganic carbon—five times more than all of the terrestrial plants on Earth combined.”…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

0.04%: Small Does Not = Immaterial

April 26, 2024

0.04%: Small Does Not = Immaterial

Think CO2 Concentration at 0.04% is Low? These 10 Toxins are Deadly at Far Lower Concentrations.

Photo by Markus Spiske / Unsplash

If you follow me on Twitter , you’re probably familiar with the onslaught of nonsense from the anti-science crowd.

I’m fine with respectful, reasoned responses, but many of the arguments are insulting, childish or conspiratorial.

I know, if I were trying to win these people over I shouldn’t belittle them. But I’m not trying to win them over. There’s plenty of objective data showing why they’re wrong, but they choose to believe their feelings and political loudmouths instead of science. Nothing I do will change their minds. So I continue to make my observations about the world – take it or leave it.

Frankly, I don’t understand how these people have the time to scour Twitter for posts outside their world view. This brigade of deniers with nothing better to do has clearly gone through the same training program. They make the same points and share the same charts. Often, their ‘rebuttal’ has nothing to do with the original tweet. It’s like they’re blindly copy-pasting from their “how to be a science-denier” guidebook.

I usually ignore (or block) these comments, but once in a while something drives me nuts.

One argument I’ve heard on repeat recently is that CO2 is only 0.04% of the atmosphere, therefore it cannot affect the climate.

I’m being kind when I say this is a simplistic argument.

Small does not = immaterial.

To prove my point, here are 10 things that are deadly at levels far below 0.04% concentration:

Botulinum toxin: It can be lethal at about 1 nanogram per kilogram of body weight. This equates to incredibly minute concentrations, roughly 0.0000000001% in the body.
Ricin: A dose of about 22 micrograms per kilogram of body weight can be lethal. This is also a very low concentration, about 0.0000022%.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Understanding climate warming impacts on carbon release from the tundra

April 23, 2024

Understanding climate warming impacts on carbon release from the tundra

The warming climate shifts the dynamics of tundra environments and makes them release trapped carbon, according to a new study published in Nature. These changes could transform tundras from carbon sinks into carbon sources, exacerbating the effects of climate change.

A team of more than 70 scientists from different countries used so-called open-top chambers (OTCs) to experimentally simulate the effects of warming on 28 tundra sites around the world. OTCs basically serve as mini-greenhouses, blocking wind and trapping heat to create local warming.

The warming experiments led to a 1.4 degrees Celsius increase in air temperature and a 0.4 degrees increase in soil temperature, along with a 1.6 percent drop in soil moisture. These changes boosted ecosystem respiration by 30 percent during the growing season, causing more carbon to be released because of increased metabolic activity in soil and plants. The changes persisted for at least 25 years after the start of the experimental warming—which earlier studies hadn’t revealed.

“We knew from earlier studies that we were likely to find an increase in respiration with warming, but we found a remarkable increase—nearly four times greater than previously estimated, though it varied with time and location,” says Sybryn Maes of Umeå University, the study’s lead author.

The increase in ecosystem respiration also varied with local soil conditions, such as nitrogen and pH levels. This means that differences in soil conditions and other factors lead to geographic differences in the response—some regions will see more carbon release than others. Understanding the links between soil conditions and respiration in response to warming is important for creating better climate models.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Bye-bye Carbon

March 18, 2024

Bye-bye Carbon

Ours is a carbon based economy. On the other hand, carbon emissions are wrecking the climate; for proof just take a look at this short tour de force from Paul Beckwith. In related news UK emissions in 2023 fell to lowest level since 1879. But why is that so? Are we on a path to a green Nirvana, or something entirely different is going on? If you suspect that it is the latter, then this one is for you.

For starters, take a look at this chart, from the Carbon Brief article linked above. Wow, the UK is back to 1879 levels of emissions, when steam locomotives were all the hype, and we didn’t have neither airplanes nor cars! I mean, isn’t that shocking?! This is a precipitous, relentless fall, clearly signalling an end to an era.

There is one minor snag though: this has little to nothing to do with climate policies. And while the well researched and fairly objective Carbon Brief article admits so, it fails to name the elephant in the room. Beyond the many blips and dents what you can see on this chart, dear reader, is a textbook example on how peak carbon looks like. The UK has unwillingly provided us with a Petri-dish experiment on how the depletion of a finite energy resource puts an end to an era of economic, military and geo-strategic dominance together with rising living standards.

Missing entirely from the conversation around both emissions and economic growth is the fact that this is what happens when a country is running out of cheap and easy to access carbon, like easy to mine coal, or oil and gas gushing out from a well. Take a glance at the chart above once again…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Coming Soon: Your Travel Will Be Restricted By Personal Carbon Allowances

November 30, 2023

Coming Soon: Your Travel Will Be Restricted By Personal Carbon Allowances

“Experts suggest” your standard of living be reduced by over 85%

A report on the future of travel and tourism, co-authored by a travel agency called Intrepid Travel and The Future Labs Institute, posits a future deeply impacted by climate change and restrictions on tourist travel to combat it.

“A Sustainable Future for Travel”, warns of “travel extinction”, where some areas suffer such radical climate change that all tourism there ceases, and “personal carbon allowances” that will restrict how often one is permitted travel.

From the report (pardon the length, emphasis added):

“Carbon Passports

A personal carbon emissions limit will become the new normal as policy and people’s values drive an era of great change.

As demonstrated by a worldwide tourism boom, the frequency at which we can fly is once again seemingly unlimited.

Conscience and budgets permitting, we feel free to hop on planes from one place to the next. But this will change. ‘On our current trajectory, we can expect a pushback against the frequency with which individuals can travel, with carbon passports set to change the tourism landscape,’ says Raymond [Martin Raymond, Future Laboratories co-founder]

Personal carbon allowances could help curb carbon emissions and lower travel’s overall footprint.

These allowances will manifest as passports that force people to ration their carbon in line with the global carbon budget, which is 750bn tonnes until 2050.

By 2040, we can expect to see limitations imposed on the amount of travel that is permitted each year.

Experts suggest that individuals should currently limit their carbon emissions to 2.3 tonnes each year – the equivalent of taking a round-trip from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia..

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Report: majority of carbon offset projects globally are “likely junk”

September 26, 2023

Report: majority of carbon offset projects globally are “likely junk”

Analysis found that 39, or 78%, of the 50 environmental projects were categorised as “likely junk or worthless” due to one or more “fundamental failing”.

Reforestation is one of the most common projects traded within the VCM. Credit: Richard Whitcombe via Shutterstock.

The “vast majority” of environmental projects most commonly used within the voluntary carbon market (VCM) to offset greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions seem to have “fundamental failings” and cannot be relied upon to tackle global warming, according to a joint investigation from the Guardian and non-profit climate watchdog Corporate Accountability.

The investigation analysed the top 50 emission offset projects, selected because they have sold the most carbon credits within the global VCM, and found that most of them exaggerate climate benefits and underestimate the potential harm caused by the project’s activity.

The most popular projects traded globally include forestry schemes, hydroelectric dams, solar and wind farms, waste disposal and greener household appliance schemes across 20 countries, most of which have developing economies. The data comes from Allied Offsets, the world’s biggest and most comprehensive emissions trading database, which aggregates information about projects traded within the VCM from their inception.

The analysis found that 39, or 78%, of the 50 projects were categorised as “likely junk or worthless” due to one or more “fundamental failing” that undermines its alleged emissions offsetting power.

Eight others, or 16%, look “problematic”. There is evidence to suggest that they may have at least one fundamental failing and could therefore be “junk”.

The effectiveness of the remaining three projects could not be assessed properly or classified definitively, largely due to a lack of available public, independent information. The analysis also found that $1.16bn worth of carbon credits have been traded so far from those projects classified as “likely junk or worthless”.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Exploring the Massive Clean Energy Boondoggle of Burning Trees as Carbon Neutral

November 1, 2022

Exploring the Massive Clean Energy Boondoggle of Burning Trees as Carbon Neutral

To the shock of everyone with any semblance of common sense, we are clearcutting forests and burning the trees based on the idea the process is carbon neutral.

EPA Declared That Burning Wood Is Carbon Neutral

In 2018, the EPA Declared That Burning Wood Is Carbon Neutral.

Yesterday [April 23, 2018], the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would begin to count the burning of “forest biomass”—a.k.a. wood—as carbon neutral. The change will classify burning of wood pellets a renewable energy similar to solar or wind power.

[But] Even if a tree is planted for every tree converted to fuel pellets, trees regrown on plantations don’t store the same carbon as natural forests. One recent study suggests it would take 40 to 100 years for a managed forest to capture the same amount of carbon as a natural forest. And since most plantation forests are harvested at 20 year intervals, they will never make it to the carbon-neutral point.

“Unless forests are guaranteed to regrow to carbon parity, production of wood pellets for fuel is likely to result in more CO2 in the atmosphere and fewer species than there are today,” William Schlesinger, President Emeritus of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies writes for Science.

Doomberg picked up on this idea in an extensive set of Tweets.

Doomberg Tweet Thread

In the second half of the 16th century, Britain plunged into an energy crisis. At the time, the primary source of energy driving the British economy was heat derived from the burning of wood, and Britain was literally running out of trees.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Managing plant surplus carbon to generate soil organic matter in regenerative agriculture

September 26, 2022

Soil degradation is a global problem. A third of the planet’s land is already severely degraded, and soil is being degraded at a speed that threatens the health of the planet and the civilizations that depend on it (Whitmee et al. 2015). Depletion of soil organic carbon (SOC) resulting from extractive agriculture is a key driver of soil degradation (Lal et al. 2015). Much of this SOC has been released to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO₂), a potent greenhouse gas contributing to ongoing climate change, including extreme weather events. Soil degradation also diminishes water infiltration and retention, biodiversity, watershed functions, and the nutritional value of food. Reversing soil degradation is a top global priority (UNCCD 2017).

Yields of major crops have increased substantially in the last century, primarily through intensive chemical fertilization. However, the greater aboveground plant biomass production resulting from chemical fertilization has usually not led to proportional gains in plant inputs to soil and soil organic matter (SOM) accrual (Khan et al. 2007; Man et al. 2021). Instead, these practices, in concert with other intensive agricultural practices such as intensive tillage, monoculture, application of pesticides, and bare fallows, have caused declines in SOM, increases in greenhouse gas emissions, and pollution of waterways (Loisel et al. 2019). However, adopting regenerative agricultural practices, such as substituting chemical with organic fertilizers like compost or manure, reducing tillage, intensifying and diversifying crop rotations, and cover cropping, often increase SOM (McClelland et al. 2021). The mechanisms underlying the positive effects of regenerative agricultural practices on SOM, however, are not well understood. Elucidating these mechanisms would advance our capacity to design agricultural strategies to reliably enhance agroecosystem SOM content, which would assist in reversing soil degradation and enhancing soil quality, food security, and climate change mitigation globally (Amelung et al. 2020).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Carbon-Tinted Glasses

August 21, 2022

Carbon-Tinted Glasses

Most of us have heard the phrase rose-tinted glasses, meaning a tendency to view the world from an optimistic, rosy, point of view. As we also know, when we look at things through only one perspective, we can gain an unrealistic view of reality. There is nothing wrong with being optimistic, but if that blinkers us to other aspects of life and the world, then there is no need to work for social change or environmental justice.

Rose-tinted however, are not the only style of glasses we can wear. Over the past decade or two we have become accustomed to wearing carbon-tinted glasses. There are many within the climate change movement wearing these glasses, and many too (sadly) within the environmental movement.

What do I mean? First, I’ll briefly outline how we have come to be wearing carbon-tinted glasses, and then secondly, point out how those glasses blinker us.

What are carbon-tinted glasses?

Since we began to learn about climate change (from the time that it was known as the “greenhouse effect” and on) we have slipped into our western pattern of attributing linear thinking and a simplistic cause and effect mentality. It goes like this: 1. The atmosphere is warming up, 2. It is warming up because of the build-up of carbon, 3. Carbon is being added to the atmosphere because of human causes, 4. Primarily, the burning of fossil fuels, 5. What is the solution? 6. Replace fossil fuels as the source of energy with “renewable” energy sources (particularly solar and wind.)

Central to this linear thinking is the role of carbon. Within this tightly framed mindset the issue becomes simply one of reducing carbon.

Thus, we get blinkered by our seeing the world through carbon-tinted glasses.

What are we blinkered to?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Carbon-Reduction Plans Rely on Tech That Doesn’t Exist

July 23, 2022

Carbon-Reduction Plans Rely on Tech That Doesn’t Exist

Instead of scaling up renewable energy, researchers promote unproved ideas

Carbon-Reduction Plans Rely on Tech That Doesn't Exist

Credit: Katie Louise Thomas

At last year’s Glasgow COP26 meetings on the climate crisis, U.S. envoy and former U.S. secretary of state John Kerry stated that solutions to the climate crisis will involve “technologies that we don’t yet have” but are supposedly on the way. Kerry’s optimism comes directly from scientists. You can read about these beliefs in the influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Integrated Assessment Models, created by researchers. These models present pathways to carbon reductions that may permit us to keep climate change below two degrees Celsius. They rely heavily on technologies that don’t yet exist, such as ways to store carbon in the ground safely, permanently and affordably.

Stop and think about this for a moment. Science—that is to say, Euro-American science—has long been held as our model for rationality. Scientists frequently accuse those who reject their findings of being irrational. Yet depending on technologies that do not yet exist is irrational, a kind of magical thinking. That is a developmental stage kids are expected to outgrow. Imagine if I said I planned to build a home with materials that had not yet been invented or build a civilization on Mars without first figuring out how to get even one human being there. You’d likely consider me irrational, perhaps delusional. Yet this kind of thinking pervades plans for future decarbonization.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Permafrost: a ticking carbon time bomb

November 3, 2021

Permafrost: a ticking carbon time bomb

In Sweden's far north, permafrost beneath the Stordalen mire is up to thousands of years old — In Sweden’s far north, permafrost beneath the Stordalen mire is up to thousands of years old.

Sheltered by snow-spattered mountains, the Stordalen mire is a flat, marshy plateau, pockmarked with muddy puddles. A whiff of rotten eggs wafts through the fresh air.

Here in the Arctic in Sweden’s far north, about 10 kilometres (six miles) east of the tiny town of Abisko, global warming is happening three times faster than in the rest of the world.

On the peatland, covered in tufts of grass and shrubs dotted with blue and orange berries and little white flowers, looms a moonlander-like pod hinting at this far-flung site’s scientific significance.

Researchers are studying the frozen—now shapeshifting—earth below known as permafrost.

As Keith Larson walks between the experiments, the boardwalks purposefully set out in a grid across the peat sink into the puddles and ponds underneath and tiny bubbles appear.

The distinct odour it emits is from hydrogen sulfide, sometimes known as swamp gas. But what has scientists worried is another gas rising up with it: methane.

Carbon stores, long locked in the permafrost, are now seeping out.

Between carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane, permafrost contains some 1,700 billion tonnes of organic carbon, almost twice the amount of carbon already present in the atmosphere.

With average temperatures rising around the Arctic, the permafrost has started to thaw.

Methane lingers in the atmosphere for only 12 years compared to centuries for CO2 but is about 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas over a 100-year period.

Thawing permafrost is a carbon “time bomb”, scientists have warned.

Vicious circle

In the 1970s, “when researchers first started showing up and investigating these habitats, these ponds didn’t exist”, says Larson, project coordinator for the Climate Impacts Research Centre at Umea University, based at the Abisko Scientific Research Station.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Carbon Starvation – A Crisis Of Our Time?

September 10, 2021

Carbon Starvation – A Crisis Of Our Time?

Are we beginning to see carbon – the fundamental building block of all life – as a pollutant? Instead of demonising carbon as a cause of climate breakdown, we need to restore balance in the natural carbon cycle that has been disrupted by the use of artificial fertilisers. In advance of his upcoming series on farming within planetary boundaries, Stuart Meikle offers a primer on the complex role of carbon in our soils.

Carbon is everywhere, in us humans, in all animals, birds and aquatic life, in all plant life, in the soil, be it alive or dead, and in the atmosphere. With the agenda increasingly dominated by Climate Change, we could, however, be forgiven for thinking that the only carbon that counts is in the atmosphere. We even count other greenhouse gases, which may not even contain carbon (like nitrous oxide), in terms of carbon (dioxide) equivalents.

As a consequence, are we beginning to see carbon, the fundamental building block of all life, as a pollutant?

In recent months, building upon other published articles, some of which appeared also on the ARC2020 website, I have been researching and thinking about what sustainable food systems look like. They start with the soil. And that becomes more apparent when one considers artificial fertilizers in the context of fossil fuel availability, their physical availability, and their propensity to pollute and emit. Agriculture is beginning a whole new ball game.

When it comes to understanding the vital plant-soil-plant interactions, I would highlight the work of three soils specialists: Dr Christine Jones, Dr Elaine Ingham and Jon Stika. And there are many others…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Heal the Planet for Profit – Redux

February 17, 2021

Heal the Planet for Profit – Redux

Giorgione The Tempest 1508

“Mankind’s only chance to not destroy its planet lies in diverging from all other species in that not all energy available to it, is used up as fast as possible. But that’s a big challenge. It would, speaking from a purely philosophical angle, truly separate us from nature for the first time ever, and we must wonder if that’s desirable.”

I wrote that 4 years and 2 months ago today, and I’m still thinking about it. It came to mind again, along with the article it comes from, see below, when I saw a few recent references to climate change, and to how any policy to halt it should be financed. It’s all painfully obvious.

Bill Gates, while on a virtual book tour, says governments should pay. In particular for the innovation needed. We’re going to solve it all with things we haven’t invented yet. That kind of thinking never fails to greatly boost my confidence in people and their ideas.

Overall, Gates’ words feel like a stale same old same old been there done that tone. But one thing is changing. Since Joe Biden became the most popular US president ever, according to his vote count, there is now a climate czar at the US Treasury, and a climate change team at the US Fed. Progress! At least for those seeking to use your money to solve their problems.

Bill Gates: Solving Covid Easy Compared With Climate

Mr Gates’s new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, is a guide to tackling global warming. [..] Net zero is where we need to get to. This means cutting emissions to a level where any remaining greenhouse gas releases are balanced out by absorbing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate Change and the Mitigation Myth

February 2, 2021

Climate Change and the Mitigation Myth

It is not nice to be told that you have been diagnosed with a terminal condition. It is even worse to be given false hope that if you did this or that you could mitigate the problem or turn it around when it cannot. If a medical practitioner does this, they lose their job. But climate scientists do this frequently, and probably to keep their job. It is virtue-signalling to agree with national and international climate agreements which propose that we can fix this by reducing (mitigating) our carbon footprint and carbon emissions… and so continue ‘business as usual’ and live happily ever after.

My response to this is in three sections:

Anthropogenic (human-induced) warming from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must be understood in the context of the natural carbon cycle, which until about 150 years ago was in equilibrium.
The mitigation myth is that we can reduce the effects of worsening climate change by reducing anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions e.g., net-zero by 2050, or earlier.
The big problem is not climate change. It is global ecological overshoot: when our ecological footprint exceeds biocapacity or sustainability. Global warming is a result. Overshoot leads to collapse and eventual extinction. The planet is now in irreversible collapse.

1. The Carbon Cycle is out of Equilibrium

Greenhouse gases (GHG) are necessary in the atmosphere to keep the planet warm at an average of 15°C surface temperature.[1] The level of natural GHGs in the atmosphere has been in equilibrium for millennia because the earth has both emitted and absorbed natural GHGs in mostly equal measure (the natural carbon cycle). This all changed with the industrial revolution, about 1750. Since then, anthropogenic or human-caused greenhouse gases have almost doubled the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, and this has been the main driver of global warming. The problem has been compounded by the destruction of carbon absorbing plants and forests.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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