Could CO2 Density Go Down Soon? No!

There is too much inertia in the system for CO2 to go down, barring masive intervention with tech we do not have (yet). CO2 effects have barely started… At the present level… Let alone the higher one we will get very soon. Real level, all GHG counted, is above 600 ppm. In Earth’s full history 2,000 ppm was reached, but then there were palm trees at the poles… As palms try to migrate, Putins will bomb.

I am reading, among many other things, The Ministry of The Future (MotF), a sci-fi book recommended by no less than Obama, the did-nothing-much except getting personally wealthy president, my untrustable friend. The book, one of many books hijacking the CO2 crisis, is very interesting, especially for its flaws, all of them mainstay of the dominant fossil fuel propaganda. A solution is around the corner, just regulate! Carbon coins (whatever that is). Carbon credits (to enrich the rich), Electric cars costing twice more than median income, even if made thanks to Chinese slaves!

One glaring flaw originated in no less than domineering scientific circles. I denounced it long ago, and thus burned some of my bridges in academia: friends faded away, as it looks as if I turned into a danger for “funding” and general good repute. 

https://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/new-climate-lie-magical-co2-stop-possible/

As early as 2016, distinguished gentleman Bill Collins from Berkeley was seen preaching to the public that the climate catastrophe can stop on a dime… Perfect say the fossil fuel plutocrats: we will stop on a dime whenever we want. 

But here I am still camping on my positions. In MotF CO2 starts suddenly to come down at 5ppm a year (the rate at which it is augmenting now), thanks to “reforestation” and a “super depression”. 

This is of course impossible. We are adding roughly 50 gigatons of CO2 a year right now, from primary energy production, making cement, deforestation, and now even massive fires (the third producer of CO2 behind China and the USA).

 

Most of these 50 gigatons are going into the ocean, acidifying and killing it. However, ultimately, they will come out. And the warmer and more agitated oceans get, the more they will come out. So not only are the atmospheric ppm augmenting from things like peat fires in Indonesia or Siberia, or melting permafrost, but humongous quantities of CO2 are now traveling within gigantic deep ocean currents… on their way out, some time, or another.

 

Reforestation is a must. However the mood is still at deforestation. This is clear in California, where authorities, while talking one way, do their best to stealthily act the opposite. I have a glaring example next to me: there was a little fire in a precious forest of immense ecological value and authorities react by paying private contractors by cutting a maximum number of trees, including endangered species…

Reforestation cannot work very well, because large trees are those absorbing the most CO2. Once they are cut, it will take a century for them to become significant that way again. 

 

To reduce CO2, only direct carbon capture will work for sure (using CO2 capturing bacteria to produce fuel has been suggested; however a modicum of thinking shows that this, far from being a panacea, does NOT reduce CO2 ppm, as the CO2 is reconstituted when the fuel is burned). 

 

Direct carbon capture will require quasi infinite energy, namely cheap thermonuclear fusion (and that’s still in a potential future). Thermonuclear fusion that will have to be so cheap we could freeze CO2 out and inject it in appropriate basalt rocks… Yes we could pay Iceland to do it… But, considering the cubic kilometers of liquid CO2 which would have to be injected, geological problems are bound to require geographical dispersal (to avoid quakes, or just rock coagulation preventing further injections).

 

Conclusion? There is no easy fix. Books such as MotF, or authorities, worldwide, have been talking, for decades, as if there was an easy fix: fixing the CO2 crisis was a few regulations and gimmicks away. Most of the measures implemented were carefully crafted to make the wealthiest wealthier (surprise!) But the impact on the deterioration of the atmosphere and the oceans of these wealthy tricks has been nil. 

 

The present rate of CO2 increase is hundreds of times greater than those of the most dramatic and lethal augmentation of CO2 in Earth’s history (with the possible exception of an asteroid impact, 66 million years ago, which occurred in an area which would have released vast amounts of CO2… besides the forest fires it caused). 

 

To mitigate this lethal increase requires the massive deployment of new technologies: a country such as France is at the world average of CO2 emissions (4 tons per capita). But France accomplished this with great cost to its per capita GDP, comfort, and thanks to massive de-industrialization, and decrease of influence (whereas the greater the polluters, the greater the influence). 

 

Even then, French CO2 production scaled up, corresponds to 50 gigatons… Worse: the real French CO2 production, after factoring in offshorization, is more like 11 tons per capita… That is, scaled up, around 135 gigatons of CO2.   

 

As I have pleaded, some existing techs exist and have to be deployed (mostly nuclear, hydrogen… besides “renewables”). Also a new religion should be called upon: all large trees should be considered sacred, and protected. Reforestation and rewilding should be a must.

 

However the most important notions are these: there is no fix compatible with present civilization. That means war, and actually, war has started: the invasion of Ukraine is a lot about capturing Ukrainian fossil fuels and incredibly productive and irrigated Russian lands. Brazil expects a war with… France, about saving the Amazon. So says his president, and ordered the Brazilian military accordingly.

 

There is also already a catastrophe in the pipeline: the CO2 levels we have had for a few decades are the highest in three million years… And that reflects only partially how much CO2 has been pumped into the biosphere. Ergo most ice will melt outside of its core fortress in Antarctica.

 

Humanity has always found technological solutions. Now it, and the biosphere, need them more than ever.

Patrice Ayme 

Nature is not just wonderful, it’s us… California landscape with Monterrey cypresses

STANDARD CO2 WARNING, v 2022

There is immense inertia in the planetary climate system. Thermal inertia. Sea current inertia. CO2 sinks inertia. And so on. So the “climate changes” we have seen so far, are mostly changes of systems with small inertia. They are little warnings, rather than the full extent of what we are going to get.
In other words, all the effects we are seeing so far are just the shiny tip of the gigantic melting iceberg, and when it is disturbed enough, it will do what icebergs do, rotate, shatter or splatter suddenly.
In particular, small ice bound systems like part of Arctic regions, individual mountains, or mountain ranges have small thermal inertia, so the CO2 forcing is affecting them more readily. They are forecasting what is going to happen. Small inertia climate systems are on track for a 7 centigrade rise by 2100… And that means, therefore, a similar impact on large systems. Large impacts will simply enfold more slowly, but also more irresistibly.
California may end up like Costa Rica, as the equatorial climate cell extends northward… Meanwhile it should go through the desertic tropical climate zone…
In practice one should take vigorous countermeasures. Thanks to a craftily engineered confusion between total energy use and electric energy generation, most people do not realize that sun and wind renewables contribute little to the total energy generation (which is mostly fossil fuel, with significant nuclear and dams). So the non CO2 total energy generation needs to be augmented considerably… But that will not happen enough with the present strategy.
The CO2 crisis is way worse than realized…

Patrice Ayme

CO2 concentration keeps climbing up… In all locales (Barrow is at the northern tip of Alaska; Mauna Loa is in Hawai’i). Before the industrial, CO2 revolution, it used to be around 280 ppm…. It will become nonlinear self-accelerating at some point, from massive permafrost melting and reversal of oceanic sinks… By incorporating other greenhouse gases, CH4, NOx, CFlx, etc… one is around 600 ppm… This forcing in turn acts on H2O gas, the biggest greenhouse gas: it’s complicated…

The Antarctic Peninsula (the northwest tip near to South America) is among the fastest warming regions of the planet, almost 3°C over the last 50 years. Remote East Antarctica, by contrast, has until now been less impacted.

However, in the third week of March, research stations in East Antarctica recorded unprecedented temperatures. It rained on the coast! (Some of which is north of the polar circle… So it can be predicted East Antarctica may collpase…)

The warmth and moisture was driven primarily by an atmospheric river – a narrow band of moisture collected from warm oceans. Atmospheric rivers are found on the edge of low pressure systems and can move large amounts of water across vast distances. Nearly all the precipitation of California in winter of 2022 came from just two atmospheric rivers, one in October, and one in December, the latter making it the wettest December ever.

An atmospheric river in East Antarctica is rewriting record books and expectations about what is possible. Atmospheric rivers in Antarctica? Is Antarctica the new California? This is the new normal, in any case.

“We need to take action now or 1.5ºC will become out of reach, it will be physically impossible to get there. The report is very clear: we’re not talking about business as usual if we are to address #climatechange“ – #IPCC Working Group III Co-Chair Jim Skea at 4 April’s press conference for the release of the latest, 2022 #IPCC #ClimateReport on the mitigation of #climatechange.

***

The 2022 California snowpack results confirmed what those of us monitoring the state’s drought had feared: California’s snowpack is now at 39 percent of its average, or 23 percent lower than at the same point last year. This signals a deepening of the drought — already the worst in the western United States in 1,200 years — and another potentially catastrophic fire season for much of the West.

More from the same NYT article of 4/4/2022, saying what I hgave long been saying, namely that our models are lagging reality, just as the beatific models of tyrants’ characters, in particular Putin, lagged reality:

Many people have a rather simplistic view of drought as a lack of rain and snow. That’s accurate — to an extent. What it doesn’t account for is human activity and climate change that are now dramatically affecting the available water and its management. As more frequent and large wildfires and extended dry periods batter the land, our most important tools for managing water are becoming less and less accurate. At the same time, our reliance on these models to try to make the most of the little water we have is becoming more and more problematic.

Droughts may last for several years or even over a decade, with varying degrees of severity. During these types of extended droughts, soil can become so dry that it soaks up all new water, which reduces runoff to streams and reservoirs. Soil can also become so dry that the surface becomes hard and repels water, which can cause rainwater to pour off the land quickly and cause flooding. This means we no longer can rely on relatively short periods of rain or snow to completely relieve drought conditions the way we did with past droughts.

Many storms with near record-breaking amounts of rain or snow would be required in a single year to make a significant dent in drought conditions. October was the second-snowiest and December the snowiest month on record at the snow lab since 1970, thanks to two atmospheric rivers that hit California. But the exceptionally dry November and January to March periods have left us with another year of below-average snowpack, rain and runoff conditions.

This type of feast-or-famine winter with big storms and long, severe dry periods is expected to increase as climate change continues. As a result, we’ll need multiple above-average rain and snow years to make up the difference rather than consecutive large events in a single year.

Even with normal or above-average precipitation years, changes to the land surface present another complication. Massive wildfires, such as those that we’ve seen in the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains in recent years, cause distinct changes in the way that snow melts and that water, including rain, runs off the landscape. The loss of forest canopy from fires can result in greater wind speeds and temperatures, which increase evaporation and decrease the amount of snow water reaching reservoirs.”

Plutocracy: I Lie, Therefore I Am

Submission To High Finance From Propaganda To Corruption, USA To EU:

IN EUROPE, OR ELSEWHERE. WHAT IS IT TO BE PROGRESSIVE, OR ON THE LEFT?

The debate about what is progress has been going since before Marx was a toddler. Actually, one can go back to Voltaire, and even all the way back to philosopher Abelard fighting Saint Bernard (Twelfth Century).

Abelard believed in debate (“Sic et Non”). Whereas Saint Bernard was all about having explained the world, all by himself, by following the herd, just as the average Christian gnu. Bernard, one of history’s greatest criminals, and thus, a “Saint, said, with revealing madness: ”I believe though I do not comprehend, and I hold by faith what I cannot grasp with the mind.”

Nowadays, many emulate Bernard, holding by faith that what they call the “free market” is the way to whatever they believe we are going to. In the “Free Market”, which is neither free, nor a market, banksters are free to enslave Peoples with as much interest as catches their fancy:

Unemployment Reached Nearly 30% in Greece, To Serve Better Banksters & Their Obsequious Servants

[Well above 50% of the total Greek debt is interest. The graph shall be produced another day! Greece has been ravaged by plutocracy, but is starting to resist.]

My answer is the simplest, to guide those who want a better, or just survivable world: You want progress, go with the truth. And truth is always from debate. That is what should guide the “left”, or whatever they want to call themselves.

Want some simple truths?

***

WHY CLIMATE CRIMINALS ARE RICH:

Vanuatu was just lashed by a grade 5, maximum force hurricane. Those used to be very rare. But heat is energy, so more heat, more energy.

A truth that is simple: California is experiencing the greatest drought in millennia. This is directly related, in my learned opinion, to the general accelerated upwelling observed along such coasts, at such latitudes, worldwide.

Thus the unfolding California disaster (expect striking restrictions within weeks), is part of a much more general catastrophe.

Ironically, California, as the epicenter of USA propaganda, is punished by its own instruments.

This ecological disaster wisdom is percolating down. “70% of the unfolding catastrophes experienced today are caused by the climate change.” Just said in Japan, Laurent Fabius, the extremely experienced French Foreign Minister (an ex-Prime Minister).

His USA homologue, John Kerry warned: “future generations will not and should not forgive those who ignore this moment, no matter their reasoning… It is time, my friends, for people to do real cost accounting,” Kerry said. “The bottom line is that we can’t only factor in the price of immediate energy needs. We have to include the long-term cost of carbon pollution. We have to factor in the cost of survival. And if we do, we will find that pursuing clean energy now is far more affordable than paying for the consequences of climate change later.”

Survival is the concept I have been using for years.

When the greenhouse crisis will strike in full, BILLIONS will die. It’s not just a question of acidic seas rising. One thing will lead to another. Giant wars will erupt as ecological systems collapse.

The attack on Crimea by Putin was fully part of it: Crimea controls half of the Black Sea potential oil fields (and exploration was set to start; now it has been blocked by Western law; companies such as Chevron are blocked; corrupt and backward Russia does not have the tech). Ukraine also has potential vast reserve of Shale Oil and Gas.

One should speak of climate derangement caused by the CO2 CRISIS…

***

PAY SCIENTISTS WELL, THEY WILL SAY AS PLUTO WANTS:

It turns out that some “Climate Skeptics” were paid by the fossil fuel industries. All the way to the usual suspect, Harvard University. Cash for claims, that is the faith of academics who grew up in plutocratic universities (I have spent two decades in them, I should have seen many things; I did).

Says the New York Times: “For years, politicians wanting to block legislation on climate change have bolstered their arguments by pointing to the work of a handful of scientists who claim that greenhouse gases pose little risk to humanity.”

The New York Times then details the case of a Harvard-Heritage Foundation, Asian looking (that seems more serious), prostitute, who got at least 1.2 million dollars below the table to say absurdities about CO2.

“Historians and sociologists of science say that since the tobacco wars of the 1960s, corporations trying to block legislation that hurts their interests have employed a strategy of creating the appearance of scientific doubt, usually with the help of ostensibly independent researchers who accept industry funding.

Fossil-fuel interests have followed this approach for years, but the mechanics of their activities remained largely hidden.

[By the way, the recent revelation are coming, through Greenpeace, thanks to Freedom of Information Act, which acts only on government agencies, in this case the Smithsonian Institution; lying, private, plutocratic universities are not forced to reveal the corruption; and also: why did the Obama administration revealed it by itself?]

“The whole doubt-mongering strategy relies on creating the impression of scientific debate,” said Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at Harvard University…”

The god debate in the USA is the mother of all plutocratically founded brain washing: thousands of extremely rich people in the USA work for god, and are paid by taxpayers.

Plutocrats love god, because god works for them.

As Jesus will save all Americans, Americans should just lay nailed to the cross, as plutocrats walk all over them, and just thank them for giving us a hard time, easing our way closer to you, my lord (of Wall Street).

***

SWEDISH CIA WHORES CHANGING SONGS:

So Sweden, who told us that it was “illegal” to go interview Julian Assange for hard-to-believe sex charges, is changing its mind. Now that plutocrats have spent already 20 million dollars keeping him caged because he looked at a Swedish CIA woman funny.

After 1,000 days of detention in the Ecuadoran embassy, Julian Assange will be interviewed by Swedish prosecutors inside the embassy (for having sex in a non-Swedish way).

British plutocracy has spent more than 10 million pounds watching Assange. Yes, more than 18 million dollars.

Money in the pursuit of plutocracy has no limits. This, from a government which introduced PAY TO PLAY, all over Britain, including education.

It is widely expected that, as Sweden is a stooge for the USA, Assange would be deported to the Guantanamo Archipelago, to see his human rights trampled into nothingness. Nothing personal, it’s all about terrorizing Americans.

Sweden’s Minister of Justice, Bodström

Two women admitted to consensual sexual relations with Assange, but then asked him, they said, to stop what they had agreed to, and that he did not. After this sort of interrupted coitus interruptus, one woman lauded Assange on the Internet, and to the next future victim, who proceed immediately to be equally victimized, upon apparent recommendation of the first.

It turned out that one of the accusers of Assange provided the CIA torture program called “rendition” with victims. So Sweden’s Minister of Justice, Bodström tortures, and that is OK. (That was obvious all along, as he tortured Assange for all to see.)

Assange’s biggest crime? Publishing a video showing Americans pilots gunning down journalists, and then those who tried to rescue them. The Pentagon immediately claimed that WikiLeaks was a “security threat”.

It obviously said something about the USA, namely that the behavior of police in Ferguson is something that the USA finds so natural (shoot first, check later) that it is anti-American to reveal it.

***

HAVE THE COURAGE TO CALL POLITICIANS CORRUPT CRIMINALS:

Matthew Yglesias repeated like a parrot what I have said for many years: small-country, and even medium-countries (Sarkozy, Brown, Blair, Monti, Schroeder), or large-countries (Clinton) politicians generally have personal incentives to go along with troika, or plutocratic demands even if they are against their nation’s interests:

“Normally you would think that a national prime minister’s best option is to try to do the stuff that’s likely to get him re-elected. No matter how bleak the outlook, this is your dominant strategy. But in the era of globalization and EU-ification, I think the leaders of small countries are actually in a somewhat different situation. If you leave office held in high esteem by the Davos set, there are any number of European Commission or IMF or whatnot gigs that you might be eligible for even if you’re absolutely despised by your fellow countrymen. Indeed, in some ways being absolutely despised would be a plus. The ultimate demonstration of solidarity to the “international community” would be to do what the international community wants even in the face of massive resistance from your domestic political constituency.”

But a genuine government of the left would be very different. And this is what we have got in Greece right now with Syriza. — not because its policy ideas are wild and crazy, which they aren’t, but because its officials are never going to be held in high esteem, and great gratitude by the Davos, private jet set. Alexis Tsipras is not going to be on bank boards of directors, president of the BIS, or, probably, an EU commissioner. Neither he, nor Finance Minister Varoufakis even like to wear ties, and they have announced they won’t wear any as long as the Greek debt crisis goes on.

Yglesias’ cogent remarks are nothing new, I have been writing about them for more than a decade. OK, Yglesias is part of the establishment of sorts, he has high visibility, he went the plutocratic university par excellence, Harvard, studying philosophy, so he is supposed to be taken seriously (Krugman refers to him continuously, while censoring my declarations saying the same for years).

All right, so that leaders of small countries betray their countries to foster their careers, is not new, indeed. Draghi, for example is a pure product of AMERICAN plutocracy (PhD MIT, jobs at prestigious American Think (Sink?) Tanks, Goldman Sachs, etc.). So how come this pure pluto made in USA is one of the leaders of Europe? Because European plutocracy is the poodle of American plutocracy.

Not that I do not like Draghi. He is better than his Prussian alternatives. That was just an example.

The situation with Luxembourg and Juncker has been even worse: we are talking about 200 billions of tax evasion a year, there.

When there is no economy but corruption, Pluto is its prophet.

We need a name for all this activity. We have it: corruption.

OK, let’s take a rest. Next I will explain why, as in Greece, Nationalism may help. Syriza governs with a right wing party. In Israel, the corrupt Netanyahu may lose power to a left wing opposition which proclaims its nationalism (“Zionism”).

But it will not end before the fat lady sings, and it’s in France that she playing Valkyrie. Fear, little Plutos, the pain you visited on the world!

Patrice Ayme’