Last week, Tamino at Open Mind, Eli at Rabbet Run and I began an experiment in mob-blogging’ about the carbon cycle. Following on our initial posts, profilic Eli has posted a couple interesting CO2 concentrations maps that highlight forest fires and fossil fuel emissions.
For a refresher on where all the carbon goes, the graph at right shows the IPCC's breakdown of the resting place, for now, of fossil fuel emissions over the past 25 years. The atmospheric build-up is measured (see Tamino's post) and the ocean uptake in well-constrained by measurement: that allows us to back-out the land uptake.
The drawback to this logic is that the land is both a prominent anthropogenic carbon dioxide source (e.g., deforestation, biomass burning) and a prominent carbon dioxide sink (e.g., net regrowth of vegetation). The positive uptake by land means that the sink is greater than the source. That, however, could change in the future, which would mean a larger fraction of carbon emissions would remain in the atmosphere. To answer that, it helps to study where the net carbon uptake occurring on land, and why?
One culprit is carbon’s chemical sibling nitrogen, that’s #7 on your periodic table if you’re scoring at home. Like many siblings, carbon and nitrogen are quite co-dependent, and, one might argue, a bit resentful about the whole thing. Carbon fixation - photosynthesis, plant growth – is limited by the availability of nitrogen. Though only up to a point. If there’s too much nitrogen, things get saturated, and the carbon-based plants pout and refuse to grow more.
You might find it strange that nitrogen is limited, given that N2 or di-nitrogen gas makes up the majority of the atmosphere. However, N2 is unreactive. It only becomes available to plants when converted to reactive form by microbes. In the process of making fertilizer and burning fossil fuels, we not only have increased the rate at which this conversion happens, leaving more nitrogen in our soils and waterways, we've emitted nitrogen in other reactive, gaseous forms, like nitrogen oxides or NOx. (eli, thanks for the suggestion - ed)
The IPCC map to the right shows nitrogen oxide (NOx) concentrations in the lower atmosphere. Notice the high levels above and downstream of North American, Europe and China. Deposition of this nitrogen could be increasing carbon fixation in forests.
A recent paper in Nature found just that: nitrogen fertilization, not forest regrowth after logging, may explain the majority of the net carbon sink in northern forests. The authors used chronosequences – yes, that’s a real word, not some star trek science word referring to data taken from a forest with trees of varying age that can be used to represent different stages of tree growth – to estimate mean carbon uptake at sites across the northern hemisphere.
By integrating uptake over entire rotations (from planting to forest replacement), the authors were able to get a more complete representation of carbon uptake by forests. Using that data, they found a strong relationship between nitrogen deposition and carbon sequestration, implying nitrogen fertilization may be driving the land carbon sink.
Nitrogen oxide emissions and nitrogen deposition are expected to increase in the future without tougher air pollution policies here and especially in Asia (see this paper). That could increase the carbon sequestration in northern forests, presuming those forests do not become N-saturated. Of course, hopefully the world will reduce NOx emissions and improve air quality. Unfortunately, that could also reduce carbon uptake and thus allow a larger fraction of carbon emissions to stay in the atmosphere.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Where does all that carbon go? Part II
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Return to carbon-land
Thanks to new, serious long-term climate change policies in the province of Saskatchewan and the state of Minnesota, I've had to update the carbon-land map. The original was a play on the Jesusland cartoon circulated after the '04 US election.
Expect more states to leave carbonland in the coming months. My current home state of New Jersey, already a member of the States United for Climate due to participation in RGGI, also just set one of the most aggressive emissions reductions policies in all of North America.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Where does all the carbon go?
This is the first in a series of group posts by a few of us bloggers interested in the science of climate change. For our first “mob” post, Tamino at Open Mind, Eli at Rabbet Run and yours truly here at Maribo are all writing about the carbon cycle and atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Much of the discussion on Maribo centers around the science politics of setting a short- and long-term GHG or carbon emissions target in order to stabilize atmospheric concentrations and avoid ‘dangerous’ climate change.
The emissions targets depend on how much - and for how long - the carbon dioxide we emit actually remains in the atmosphere. We need to understand the ability of the planet to take carbon out of the atmosphere, and how that itself is sensitive to climate change. The figure (IPCC WG1, Fig. 7.4) shows the annual fraction of fossil fuel emissions that remained in the atmosphere (black line is a five year mean). I'll come back to this.
The atmosphere is often compared to a bathtub. The emissions of carbon dioxide – the flow into the bathtub – are currently greater than the uptake of carbon – the flow out the drain. So carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmospheric tub.
Personally, I like to say emissions are currently faster than the planetary uptake. Over geological time, millions of years, carbon is removed from atmosphere by weathering of rock and by burial in marine sediments. Burning fossil fuels releases this ‘fossil’ carbon to the atmosphere; deforestation and biomass burning quickly releases carbon that was stored over decades or centuries in trees. We’ve effectively sped up the flow of carbon into the atmosphere.
The increase in atmospheric CO2 since the Mauna Loa record began in the 1950s is only about half (~55%) of fossil fuel emissions. The rest has been absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems.
The ocean ‘sink’ is best understood and easiest to measure. It can be almost entirely explained by the dissolution of CO2 in sea water, the reason the pH of the oceans is declining. Since solubility of CO2 decreases with temperature, much of this uptake has occurred in cold waters of the Southern Ocean. Other potential, but currently negligible on a global scale, ocean sinks include increases in photosynthesis by plankton [and deep-water burial of the ‘fixed carbon’] and changes in ocean circulation.
So we know with good confidence that about 30% of fossil fuel emissions have been absorbed by the oceans and the remainder by terrestrial ecosystems. The remainder must be taken up by terrestrial ecosystems.
The land sink is more challenging to quantify. We know there has been a net uptake of carbon on land. The knowledge of anthropogenic emissions and good estimate of the ocean sink allow us to infer this total land uptake or land sink. So that means carbon uptake by photosynthesis by terrestrial ecosystems is greater than carbon emissions by those ecosystems, from respiration, but also from disturbances like fires and deforestation.
Notice that I did not include deforestation as a CO2 sources above – just fossil fuel emissions. Deforestation is responsible for about 20% of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions; fossil fuels and the like for the other 80%. But since I’m talking about the net exchange of carbon between land and the atmosphere, carbon emissions from deforestation is folded into the equation.
Anyhow, field observations, including forest inventories, satellite observations of terrestrial productivity, data from ‘flux’ towers at specific locations, and modeling point to a few key players:
- Re-growth of forests on abandoned farmland in the Northern Hemisphere has led to a net uptake of carbon (at least until the trees reach maturity)
- Higher concentration of atmospheric CO2 can increase rates of photosynthesis and hence carbon uptake (“CO2 fertilization”).
- Deposition of nitrogen, emitted by burning of fossil fuels and application of fertilizer, may also be unintentionally ‘fertilizing’ forests
Knowledge of the sinks lets us calculate how anthropogenic CO2 emissions translate into increases in atmospheric concentration. Eli’s post provides a model for doing some simple experiments.
Why does this matter? Our understanding of the modern-day carbon cycle underpins to all that stuff about climate policy that you read, see, hear and smell in the news. Right now, we emit about 8 Gt of C per year, and that translates to, as Tamino points out, an increase of about 2 ppm of CO2/year in atmosphere. But what if climate change alters that way the oceans and the land take up carbon? Then the model has to change.
This is one of the great challenges in climate change science AND climate change policy. To work out what percent reduction is necessary to hit a stabilization level, we need to understand carbon cycle feedbacks: how will climate change alter the fraction of emissions that remain in the atmosphere? Here are three (of many) possible feedback effects:
ii) Drying in the tropics: Reduced rainfall in the Amazon would reduce carbon uptake and increase carbon release through fires
iii) Ocean circulation: A slowing of ocean circulation could limiting productivity in the surface ocean and sinking of carbon (via increasing stratification – topic for another day)
One way to get at these questions is to examine the year-to-year variability in CO2 growth in the atmosphere. What you see in that IPCC figure at the top of the post is that the rate of uptake by the planet varies widely year to year, from less than 20% of emissions, to over 70% of emissions.
There are a few interesting features. The year-to-year variability mostly originates from tropical forest. For example, you can see high airborne fractions or high growth rates during El Nino events (e.g., 1997-1998, 1972-3, 1982-3) due to related droughts (less C uptake) and fires (more C release). That’s not too surprising. It does serve as a warning: future drying in the tropics, due to climate and/or deforestation, could reduce the carbon sink.
In the past, most of the general circulation or climate models used in the IPCC assessments did not included a complete carbon cycle. The atmospheric CO2 concentrations were imposed based on externally generated scenarios. With a complete representation of the carbon cycle, we could instead impose emission, and allow the model to simulate the change in concentrations and uptake by land and oceans.
The latest IPCC assessment includes a comparison of some ‘coupled’ climate-carbon cycle models. All the models predict a decrease in the sink or an increase in the fraction of emissions that remain in the atmosphere. But more on that next time.
Monday, June 11, 2007
The aftermath of Gonu
Maybe comprehensive coverage of a human tool of a storm in the Middle East is too much to expect of a N. American news media obsessed with things like, as a commenter on Chris Mooney's blog wrote, Paris Hilton going to prison?
In searching for updates on post-Gonu flooding in Iran, I found few articles that focused on anything other than oil prices. Those few that did had the "we interrupt this tale of human suffering for breaking news on oil prices" dynamic going. Is it really too much to ask that the news on oil prices and the news on the dead from Cyclone Gonu at least be divided into separate, maybe adjoining, articles?
Try this schizophrenic headline from an Environment News Service story this morning: "Cyclone Gonu kills 70, leaves oil ports unscathed". Sure, headlines today are rarely poetry. At best, they are a way to convey the most information in that least words. And maybe that is all the editors consciously aiming to accomplish by adding the comma and second sentence fragment. Sub-consciously? Might as well just add replace the comma with "but, don't worry, it".
For a short bit of news on the aftermath in Iran, try Reuters and this Iranian news service. The blog sadaboutgonu, mentioned in comments below, has a fascinating set of photos and video from Oman.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
The G8 statement on climate change
The G8's climate change declaration has been called "a major step forward" (Tony Blair), an "important step" (Stephen Harper), a "big success" (Angela Merkel), a "very substantial coming together" (Tony Blair, he's good with the quotes) and "a bold, audacious plan that will unite the world against the problem of climate change" (George Bush).
Ok, I made that last one up. It is rather sad that the US agreeing to seriously consider greenhouse gas reduction targets is a big success. That shows how low the bar has been set for international climate negotiations with the Bush Administration. Ever been told you will be seriously consider-ed for a job? Did you get the job?
You can read the text of the agreement yourself. The very first item on climate change (#40) contains this statement: "Tackling climate change is a shared responsibility of all". True. There are more like this (#53):
We therefore reiterate the need to engage major emitting economies on how best to address the challenge of climate change. We embrace efforts to work with these countries on long term strategies.
True again. But in policy-speak, these statements mean the US refuses to accept a hard emissions target unless China and India accept a similar target (something both countries have already rejected, and that would be unfair). The stalemate will continue unless the US Congress overwhelmingly passes legislation in the fall, and there's so much political pressure that President Bush does not use his veto power. The real battle for international climate policy could happen not (at the UN negotiations) in Indonesia this fall, but on the floor of the US House.
In the end, I suppose the G8 declaration is a step forward, in that at least the Bush Administration is not rejecting the science, and is recognizing that someone out there might want to do something about greenhouse gas emissions. If I were the leaders of the other G8 nations, I would not be too proud, however. It sure looks like they just got bullied one more time by the Bush Administration.
More on Gonu
The remnants of Cyclone / Hurricane Gonu have caused severe flooding in southern Iran. The overall death toll on Oman and Iran has passed 70, including 12 killed in Iran from flash floods. These are places not accustomed to severe rainfalls. Based on the little decent news coverage (not to defend the source) I was able to find, it appears the Iranian villages were unprepared for a deluge of this size.
This image (scroll down) shows the cyclone tracks in the northwest Indian Ocean since 1985. Notice no storms passed into the Gulf of Oman (upper left). The global image on Wikipedia shows just how rare it is for cyclone to even approach the Arabian peninsula or Iran.
The anamously warm sea surface temperatures off Oman played a role in steering the cyclone on that unusual track. NOAA's Coral Reef Watch has a "bleaching watch" for the coast of Oman. That means sea surface temperatures are nearing a level at which some coral bleaching may occur. Since both can be driven by warm ocean temepratures, the concurrence of intense hurricanes and coral bleaching is not so unusual; the largest coral bleaching event in the Caribbean took place in 2005, also the strongest hurricane season.
Given that this blog is devoted in large part to climate change science and policy, I'm normally wary of writing about a specific storm or weather event as it can give the false impression that one could reasonably argue that that storm or event is a clear result of climate change.
In this case, I'm writing about the storm because it is a rare event, because of the human impact, and because, frankly, the North American news coverage has been just abominable. CNN.com interrupts its coverage of the human toll to discuss oil prices. This is a direct quote:
At least 35 people were dead, most of them in Oman, and 30 were missing.
The storm spared the region's oil installations, and oil futures fell Friday on a wave of profit-taking that followed a surge in prices a day earlier. News that Cyclone Gonu had spared major oil installations in the Gulf of Oman also alleviated supply concerns. Light, sweet crude for July delivery fell 62 cents to $66.31 U.S. a barrel in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange after dropping as low as $65.55 early in the session.
At least 32 Gonu-related deaths were reported in Oman, including members of police rescue squads, and 30 others were reported missing, police said. Rescue teams were searching for victims using helicopters and boats, he said.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Hurricane Gonu strikes Oman and Iran
This is an amazing, rare and possibly devastating event. Thanks in part to the warm surface temperatures (NOAA Coral Reef Watch anomaly data) in the northwestern Indian Ocean, Cyclone / Tropical Storm Gonu veered north into Oman and is moving into Iran.
As Jeff Masters' wunderblog explains, it may be entirely without precedent in the observed record. And, sadly, that means the region is underprepared. The only predictable part of this: the news coverage seems to be more concerned about the impact on oil infrastructure and oil prices than the impact on the people living there.
Hopefully, not too many commentators will be tempted to scream "aha - it must be global warming" and, if anything, stick to some reasonably informed winking.
China, the G8 and emissions intensity
Earlier, this week China announced a vague climate change policy that includes no GHG emissions targets. While hardly a surprise, the refusal to consider any emissions targets, or even any aspirational emissions goals pretty much destroyed whatever little chance there was that UK, Germany, Japan and the G8 countries would oppose the US effort to block the use of hard emissions targets.
China may be one place where the intensity-based metrics make some sense. With low per capita emissions and a smaller historical contribution to emissions, forcing China to drastically restrict economic development would hardly be a globally equitable solution to climate change.
As I discussed a couple weeks ago, China’s GHG emissions intensity rose in the past decade. China is at the stage of development where “carbon” generation is outpacing economic development. In terms of carbon efficiency, you can imagine China being around where the West was back in 1920s, before the global peak in emissions intensity (see the global intensity graph)
So at least new Chinese policy calls for a 20% decrease in energy intensity, the energy consumption per $ of GDP. Whether that policy has any teeth, or whether the emissions data is trustworthy, who knows? But it is a start.
The Canadian government proposal that G8 countries adopt intensity-based targets is ridiculous for Western nations. Europe, Japan, Australia and North America passed their peaks in emissions intensity, or lows in carbon efficiency, decades ago. For those countries, targets have to be based on the actual emissions.
For China and other rapidly developing nations, however, setting initial targets based initially on the “carbon” efficiency or intensity of the economy may be the only sensible solution to the global policy stalemate. Perhaps the only global plan that is equitable is one in which: i) the U.S., Europe, Canada and other Annex 1 nations accept hard caps on their own emissions, and ii) China and other developing nations use intensity-based targets until the per-capita emissions reach some threshold, beyond which hard emissions caps should be applied.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Exporting a bad idea to the world
First, the US proposes setting a global GHG emissions "goal" - an object to which effort or ambition is directed, rather than a "target" - an amount set as a (minimum) objective. Then, the effort to undermine the push for a global emissions agreement at the G8 Summit was savaged, by foreign governments, by Democrats and by commentators, like a tofurkey at a Greenpeace rally.
Now, quel horreur, the Canadian PM says his government wants to play peacemaker (CBC).
Prime Minister Stephen Harper told a German business audience Monday Canada won't meet its Kyoto targets to lower greenhouse gas emissions, but can be a world leader in battling climate change.
And here it comes:
Harper did say he believes his government's plan for intensity-based targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions will be more effective than setting overall reduction targets.
I was so dumbfounded by this, I double-checked on the CBC's French language service:
Selon la solution canadienne, il n'y aurait pas une réduction draconienne des gaz à effets de serre, mais l'encouragement de mesures moins polluantes dans chaque unité de production industrielle.
That's right. Canada is championing the emissions intensity policy as the solution to it all. Could it work? Only if the intensity-based targets, not aspirational goals, are set such that total emissions actually decline. However, that is not the case in the Canadian policy.
The joke is, er, the tragedy is, not only has the Canadian policy been ridiculed by experts across the spectrum, it is not even original. It was lifted, almost digit for digit, from the equally toothless American policy.
Let's hope the rest of the world looks at this graph. And that someone out there has a calculator that can do compound interest.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Ok, this biofuels thing has gone too far
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican farmers are setting ablaze fields of blue agave, the cactus-like plant used to make the fiery spirit tequila, and resowing the land with corn as soaring U.S. ethanol demand pushes up prices.
The switch to corn will contribute to an expected scarcity of agave in coming years, with officials predicting that farmers will plant between 25 percent and 35 percent less agave this year to turn the land over to corn.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Moving forward on climate change, backwards on evolution
President Bush announced that the US will push for global greenhouse gas emissions targets (correction: the word is "goals") in a post-Kyoto framework by the end of the year. It may be cynical attempt to undermine the G8 summit and the other post-Kyoto plans. Even if so, the fact that the Bush Administration feels it necessary to be so openly disruptive is a sign they are concerned that the other G8 members could actually be successful in advancing a post-Kyoto strategy. A moral victory, either way.
While I'm hesitant to veer off my main topic into the head-scratching debate in this country about evolution, the op-ed piece by Republican Presidential candidate Sam Brownback in today's NY Times requires a response, other than the spit-take I performed while reading it.
In a recent post, I wrote:
... the ten Republican candidates for President were asked if “anyone here does NOT believe in evolution”. Three of the candidates raised their hands.
Brownback was door #3. The column, presumably intended as self-defense, tries, and fails miserably, to show how faith and reason can peacefully co-exist:
The scientific method, based on reason, seeks to discover truths about the nature of the created order and how it operates, whereas faith deals with spiritual truths.
Hmmm. You see, Brownback believes in evolution, just not the "exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence". The column about bridging science and faith devolves to this:
While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the nature of man’s origins, we can say with conviction that we know with certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.
Don't worry America, I'll defend you from the immoral scientific hordes.
That doesn't sound like science, or even like religion, which is analyzed and questioned by theologians every day. It sounds like irrational fundamentalism.
In essence, his thesis is: religion, or his religion, is the truth, and cannot be questioned. Aspects of that theory should be firmly rejected as theology posing as science.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
The danger of a one year drop in US emissions
The Washington Post reports that US carbon dioxide emissions dropped by 1.3% in 2006.
A good sign? Perhaps. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration is attributing the change to "effectively confronting the important challenge of global climate change through regulations, public-private partnerships, incentives, and strong economic investment."
Oy. Just as we can't look at one warm year and declare global warming has happened, we can't look at a one year drop and claim an emissions policy is working. CO2 emissions vary year-to-year because of the weather (reduced heating required during the warm winter), changes in the economy (higher gas prices, less fuel use), etc. There's no evidence any Bush administration initiatives, it's not even clear what policies or investments that statement could possibly be referring to, are having any measurable effect on emissions.
The danger, here, is that the one-year drop may convince some people the US is on the right track. Cover your ears as that 1.3% is tossed about by opponents to federal emissions controls during the impending debate over climate legislation in the US Congress.
Monday, May 21, 2007
A climate policy lesson, courtesy of Monty Python
Every once in a while, a story or news item reminds me of the classic Monty Python skit “Four Yorkshiremen” in which Eric Idle et al one-upped each other with increasingly absurd tales of their tough upbringings.
“House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of falling. “
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in the corridor!
Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us!“
Usually, it takes an exaggerated tales of climatic hardship, the old I-remember-when, to conjure up memories of John Cleese intoning “Well, when I say it was a house it was only a hole in the ground covered by a tarpaulin, but it was a house to us”.
You know those conversations. Ah, kids today have it easy. When I was young, we battled – 30 C temperatures and mountains of snow every day on the walk to school (granted, my parents grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, it is entirely possibly some of those stories are true).
Last week, however, it was Presidential Candidate Bill Richardson’s climate and energy plan that reminded me of Cleese and the gang. Richardson’s plan is easily the most aggressive of all the candidates, thus far. Following a cue from Al Gore, he calls for a 90% reduction in GHG emissions by the year 2050 (and 80% by 2040).
Not 50% below 1990 levels, as may be proposed, er, and rejected by guess who, at the G8 summit. Not 60%, like the British plan. Not even 80%, a la those nutty West Coasters California and British Columbia.
Ninety percent.
I applaud the effort. I applaud the recognition that we must aggressively reduce GHG emissions to avoid the dangerous long-term implications of climate change. What follows is not a criticism of Richardson, persay, but of the current, er, climate of climate policy in the US. As I wrote last year, I fear that in an effort to attract the green, and I mean the environment AND the almighty dollar, vote, politics is descending into Python-dom. What’s next? “As a show of dedication to the cause, I pledge not to exhale CO2 during this campaign”?
First off, the specific 90% pledge, well-intentioned or not, is I suspect a bit of showmanship. The baseline for most emissions projections, for international policy, is usually 1990. The older 50-60% reduction targets, and often the 80% targets, are based on the 1990 baseline. The 90%? The baseline, presumably, is today. In that case, the total emissions reduction (for the US) is similar to an 80% reduction from 1990 levels.
Regardless, the candidates engaged in a bout of climatic chest-bumping would be wise to learn a lesson from Canada. Yes, we need national targets. But as Canada’s haphazard Kyoto promise has clearly demonstrated, a target is not enough, nor is an implementation plan full of lofty goals. Former PM Chretien pledged to a 6% reduction target under Kyoto, rather than the 0-3% agreed to with the provinces, purely to match the US (and, yes, to use a British-ism, Canada was snookered). Not only was no serious plan for meeting that, or the lesser target, the one-up-man-ship alienated the provinces and seeded the ongoing discord.
A pledge to aggressively reduce greenhouse gases should not be made lightly, in the heat of a campaign. And a pledge to aggressively reduce greenhouse gases cannot be one of a hundred campaign promises. It goes to the root of energy, of transportation, of agriculture, of industry. If it is to work, if it is to happen, it must be a central organizing theme of the government, it must underlie all policies and programs.
The actual target is important -- I’ve been hammering the Canadian government on this point for three years. We Canucks like to gripe about how Canada is ignored by the US. This is one time that Americans could really learn from Canada - Canada's mistake. If one hopes to actually reach, or even approach, an aggressive target, be it a 60% reduction, or a 90% reduction, that target can’t be a part of the policy package, it can't start only as a way to win votes. The target has to lead off off every speech, every policy declaration, every conversation the candidates have.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Speaking with students about climate change
A couple weeks ago, I had the chance to talk about climate change to an auditorium full of high school students in northern New Jersey. The students showed a surprising amount of interest in my presentation; in high school, I could barely stay awake during class. But these students were alert, they asked questions, and many stayed afterwards to thank me for explaining the basics of the science.
The next week, I spoke again about climate change to a group of high school science supervisors from around the state. Inspired by the experience with the packed auditorium, I settled on a core message, which went more or less like this:
"Like it or not, the life of your students will be defined in large part by climate change. They will experience the impacts of climate change. And their generation, along with mine, will be responsible for coping with and/or solving the problem.
Whatever their chosen path in life, whether they become mechanics, scientists, architects, farmers, government workers, you name it, climate change and the effort to mitigate and adapt to climate change, will in many ways define their lives.
If students do not learn the science and the evidence in a formal, organized way, as can happen only in school, we are not only doing the world a disservice, we are doing them a disservice."
Naturally, this led to a discussion about the oft-proposed solution of showing An Inconvenient Truth in schools. Many of the teachers and supervisors spoke openly about their concerns with the film. I think it is an ideal film for a current events or social studies class. It can be a springboard for discussions on crucial topics like the ethics of climate change, the balance between adaptation and mitigation, how science should be used by society, etc.
My feeling is that it should not, however, be shown in science class. Not because Al Gore botches the science: the basic explanation of climate change in the first half of the film is quite good and not terribly different from what I often present myself (although the discussion of impacts in the second half is too loose and vague about timing of things like sea level rise). But because we don’t teach use popular films to teach students the guts of Newtonian physics or Mendelian genetics*.
We shouldn’t here either. Students can, and should, learn about the climate and climate change the way all science is taught. Classroom lectures, problem sets, tests, essays, etc. Unlike people in the working world, the students of today have the great opportunity to learn about climate change in an organized fashion, in school, rather than in the public sphere, where the science is warped by media bias, by overly "framing" science, or by political rhetoric.
* A blog footnote: My first instinct in writing that sentence was to use evolution as an example of a pillar of science education. Sadly, that is not true in much of this country. In a recent debate, the ten Republican candidates for President were asked if “anyone here does NOT believe in evolution”. Three of the candidates raised their hands. I admit I did too, though only to smack myself on the forehead.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The IPCC on emissions intensity
The IPCC Working Group III report – the one on mitigation and adaptation – contains some more interesting data on emissions intensity. Once again, emissions intensity is a handy concept for comparing economic efficiency, but a pointless metric for climate and emissions policy.
The report summary explains that world GHG emissions increased by 70% from 1970 to 2004, a statement widely referenced by the press. The next line of the report, not as widely referenced, explains that despite this GHG emissions increase, there was a 33% decrease in energy intensity (energy supply per $GDP) and 40% decrease in emissions intensity (emissions per $ GDP) over the same time period. As I’ve been arguing for weeks, both here and over at Worldchanging, it is important to read the IPCC summary reports yourself.
So I’ll say it again. Emissions intensity naturally decreases over time, even as total emissions increase. Setting an intensity-based target is a foolish way to reduce total emissions. And, yes, I intend to keep hammering away at this point until emissions intensity is removed from North American policy.
The above figure from the IPCC report shows that the more economically developed countries tend to have lower emissions intensity (on the y-axis). In other words, as the economy develops, it tends to become more greenhouse gas efficient. The graph also shows that emissions intensity is much higher in the US and Canada than in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the EU. You could argue that reducing emissions should be “easier” for the US and Canada because we are less greenhouse gas efficient than other countries at a similar stage of economic development. While there is some truth to that argument, it ignores the large differences in sources of emissions in North America (e.g., large energy production) than in Europe.
What about China? Bucking the global trend, the emissions intensity in China has increased in the past decade. As the IPCC reports, the economic boom has been fueled by dramatic increases in coal and other carbon-based fuels. This is not surprising – it is just what happened in the west during the Industrial Revolution (see here). Emissions and emissions intensity rose until the early 1900s. Economic growth and emissions then began to decouple – emissions continued to soar, but the economy grew even faster.
If anything, the fact that China is bucking the global trend demonstrates the tremendous lack of leadership from western nations on this issue. Rather than learn from our experience, China is reliving it.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Let the wrangling begin
US President Bush has announced that he will push lawmakers to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, as was more or less required by a recent Supreme Court decision.
This should be a momentous day. Unfortunately, with the track record of the Bush Administration on this issue, it is hard to know what this announcement will actually mean.
In the coming days and weeks, there will be much debate about the merit of market-based strategies vs. actual standards and regulations. There will also be, at least there should be, much consternation about the long-term consequences of 'mitigation-light' (ie. weak emission reductions legislation that falsely convinces that public and lawmakers that climate change is being 'solved').
It is too soon to predict. Hopefully, with all that has come to pass in North America over the past several years, and with the public pasting that the Canadian government has taken on climate policy, the Bush Administration and Congress will at least have the sense not to use intensity-based emissions targets this time.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Climate change and the limits of reef restoration
Last week's NY Times had a feature article on coral reef restoration, namely growing corals in tanks and transplanting them to degraded reefs. This was my response, printed in today's Science Times:
Re “Coral Is Dying. Can It Be Reborn?” (May 1): The coral farming and transplantation efforts described in Cornelia Dean’s article may prove useful in restoring individual patches of reef in popular tourist sites. However, such labor-intensive and costly coral reef restoration work is no match for the threat that global climate change poses to coral reefs worldwide.
Hundreds of millions of people in the developing world who depend on coral reefs for food, income and shelter from ocean waves will suffer. Perhaps we should focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, rather than protecting our favorite dive spots.
We should not delude ourselves into thinking that we can regenerate the world's coral reefs by transplantation. The article alludes to that point (and includes some good quotes from Nancy Knowlton) but the grand headline and large photos give another impression.
What the article misses entirely is the inequity of restoration efforts. This is an example of where the developing world is not only experiencing greater impacts of climate change, it is receiving less of the adaptation money.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Emissions intensity: Declining for decades
In case you are still not convinced that the emissions intensity concept is a sham, take a look at this graph.
In fact, don’t just look at it. E-mail a copy to the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Or fax it to the Environment Minister. Or walk around Ottawa with it stapled to your forehead (er, ok, you can use tape instead).
I’ve calculated the change in global emissions intensity since 1750, using data on manmade CO2 emissions by (Oak Ridges National Lab) and a recreation of world GDP expressed in 1990 dollars.
The data is not perfect. Obviously the 1800 GDP is an estimate. But it demonstrates the point. Emissions intensity increased during the industrial revolution, as the world learned how to burn coal, drilling for, etc. Afterwards, we became more efficient in the way we produce and use energy.
Emissions increased throughout the 20th century, but not as fast as the economy. The global emissions intensity has been naturally decreasing - at an average rate of around 1.5%/year – since the early 1900s! The pace actually accelerated over the last few decades. Global emissions intensity dropped 27% during the 1990s alone.
The moral of the story: Emissions intensity is naturally decreasing as the economy becomes more efficient. This has been happening for a century. The idea – promoted in the Canadian government’s new climate plan and the Bush Administration’s 2002 policy – that reducing emissions intensity by a couple percent a year is the way to tackle greenhouse gas emissions is a complete farce.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Further adventures in carbon-land
While my Carbonland vs. States United for Climate map is intended to be whimsical, it does nonetheless reflect the reality of climate and emissions reductions policy-making in North America. The latest example is this week's debate between the Canadian premiers. B.C. and Ontario want an emissions trading system between the provinces, or between provinces and US states. Quebec prefers regional trading, with the eastern provinces and northeastern states. Canada's carbonland (largely Alberta) is against every proposal.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Adventures in Carbon-land
