Global Warming and CO2

There's a new batch of news articles, adding to our historical CO2 level data from 440,000 years to 650,000 years. The conclusion of the article is that atmospheric CO2 levels are at least 27% higher than the highest pre-industrial level over this period.

Example:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2005-11-24-bubbles_x.htm?csp=N007

For me it wasn't news. There's estimates that our current CO2 levels are higher than they've been for the last 20 million years, using measurements from fossilized shells under the sea.

The article also says the rates of change are 100x higher than prehistorical levels. That's a big claim, considering that CO2 levels rose rapidly when transitioning from glacial to interglacial periods. I'd tend to be careful on claiming rates, given I assume limited prehistorical data points.

Here's some data comparisons: (Law dome data, picking a relatively high variation interval)
Years: -127411 to -127004 (307 years)
CO2: 264.1 to 282.7 ppm
Rate: +0.061ppm/year

Years: 1950-2000
CO2: 312-368.1 ppm
Rate: +1.14ppm/year

So comparing these numbers, we have 18.7x faster change now compared to that 300 year period 127,000 years ago during the previous interglacial warm period.

Quoting the article says: Moreover, that rise is occurring at a speed that "is over a factor of a hundred faster than anything we are seeing in the natural cycles," Stocker added. "It puts the present changes in context."

Given limited data, I think this statement is overstepping the evidence. Of course the data itself is subject to uncertainty, as well as probably averaging CO2 levels over a range of years, so the fineness of the variations is lost, and rate calculations over short periods can't be done. That doesn't mean it's useless to consider our rate of change, only that there's no simple comparison.

I gave a speech a couple years ago, showing CO2 changes, but I was reluctant to offer a direct correlation of CO2 and atmospheric average temperature. Even if there was a PRE-HUMAN correlation, it doesn't prove the correlation with burning fossil fuels, since we have no prehistorical data on the burning of massive amounts of fossil fuels.

I get very frustrated by the "global warming" vs "skeptics" debate. I hate both sides for misrepresenting the evidence, at least in regards to CO2. The pro-GW are reaching the dark at least as much as the skeptics.

For me I'm more comfortable with the two-pronged position (1) Humans are changing our environment in unpredictable ways and rising CO2 demonstrates our global effects. (2) Humans are using nonrenewable energy which must end and with it possibly the collapse of our entire "modern age".

Rising CO2 can have many changes we are unable to see. Scientists will say that higher CO2 is beneficial for plants to grow. If it's just CO2, I imagine once we finish burning off our fossil fuel resources, nature will respond, even if in a few thousand years to consume the "excess". However there's lots of side effects. The "short term" warming (or even the added soot perhaps) is causing polar ice to warm and melt and the methane rich permafrost is melting, which may accelerate global warming since Methane (CH4) is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2!

And given the earth has been in a 4 million year "ice age", when talking thousands of years, a vast majority of this period has been much colder. So we might be extending our warm interglacial period OR we might create a reverse feedback mechanism that will pull us back into a new glacial period. Over hundreds and thousands of years we can't guess what will happen. I do sort of like the idea of Gaia hypothesis, of the living earth, able to adjust to stresses and pulling things back to equilibrium. I certainly have no hope in judging value in warm or colder periods or the cycles between. There's many species that create our environment, and humans may or may not continue our dominance over the next 1000 years.

I do hold appreciation for other statistics of rates, even if equally limiting, like extinction. They say extinction rates of species are also now equal or greater than the most large catastrophic periods of the past, largely due to humans destroying ecosystems. It seems foolish for people to claim we're not destroying just because they can't see it with their eyes.

It is scary to imagine a future when the earth's diversity is further reduced than now. I have ZERO confidence that awareness of long term self-interest is enough to overpower short term greed and blindness to destroy.

I hold appreciate for efforts at predicting what the future might look like if we continue on our current course, even if I must be skeptical of their accuracy. Overall it seems easier for me to believe the worst predictions. James Lovelock of the Gaia hypothesis liked to focus on the ability of natural systems to recover against destruction, most specifically he dismissed the Ozone hole as a real problem. Faith in the robustness of living systems to adapt is reassuring, but it seems wrong to use it as a defense against continuing senseless destruction and pollution. Senseless meaning against our long term interests - like slash and burn farming in the rainforests.

I really tend to be a pessimist, imagine in 100 years permanent open waters in the actic, and glacial retreat, methane spikes from permafrost melting, rising sea levels, desertification of the remaining tropical forests, massive droughts and heat waves destroying delicate ecosystems. I see fossil fuel availability lost and forests burned for fuel. I see wars over resources and massive migrations of populations away from areas that can no longer support them. I can't imagine technical solutions for our problems. In short I feel humanity is on a mountaintop looking down at the chaos of violence we've caused, and our supports are giving way and nowhere else to go but down. I can believe in the ingenuity of humanity to "make do", and I can't imagine species extinction for humanity, but I do imagine our numbers will plummet whatever we want.

Ah well, so much for objective data. I'm pretty much surrendered to the "waiting game", trying to keep things simple and clean while appreciating the wonder of opportunities in the present, but knowing it can't last. A new winter is coming, and we're not prepared. We don't know how to prepare. So will shall die, many of us.

Happy thanksgiving?

P. S. This also represents Kenneth S. Deffeyes' predicted date of statistical maximum world oil production. I think he's probably a bit early, but whether by a day, a year, or decade, not by much in my best hope.

Environmental protection?

Apparently the EPA has a plan to slowly decrease mercury emissions, basically coal-fired power plants, via cap and trade limits, while others are concerned about localized emissions as well as the rate of decrease.

I think I first heard the issue of mercury aroun 1995 from a speech by Winona LaDuke, lamenting the mercury pollution in the lakes of the White Earth Reservation, limiting the amount of fish people could eat.

Apparently there are different approaches to make coal plants less polluting, technological processes, and also burning "cleaner coal". Some coal sources are better than others.

There's new talk of "clean coal" with technology that can apparently reduce or eliminate all the air pollutants, even as far as capturing CO2! I must admit ignorance of how they do this. On the surface I'd expect all such efforts to "take energy" and so efficiency must go down in the sense of "less electricity output per lb of coal". In regards to CO2 sequestering, I certainly can consider the possibility that it might even take MORE energy to capture the CO2 than you can get out of the coal itself! I'm just saying I don't know, but this is a possibility, depending on the processes and perhaps even the coal quality. It might be some fraction of coal is of a quality that is sufficient to make a clean process work, and others not.

In any case, I think it's good if the cost of coal powered electricity is increased, it'll make other sources more competitive. Certainly it makes senses to either pay more to reduce pollution OR have a large tax applied to older power plants that pollute more, so eventually cleaner alternatives will exist that are price competitive.

This all seems good on the surface, even when there's hard political fights and slow progress.

STILL, I try to see further - what's the bigger picture? My main concern is basically that we're using the "cleanest" fossil fuels first, that eventually we'll be at a point where all the cleaner fuels are gone and then, if competitive alternatives have not appeared, OR that economic hardships will appear that make it easier to reverse environmental gains. What's the use of having a cleaner atmosphere NOW if we do this merely by using cleaner nonrenewable energy resources?

I suppose there's no resolution to future problems, so the question can't be answered. Of course the RIGHT answer is to say "All fossil fuels are nonrenewable and NO use is sustainable." The answer must set course to end fossil fuel burning. Efforts that merely try to make them less polluting will merely delay the day when we'll have to make harder choices.

IN SHORT, I'd have to say we ought to just admit that all coal burning for fuel is unacceptable, and set limits on burning it. That is, projecting a future date of no coal burning, and making a plan to get there, like via yearly reductions.

In contrast oil and natural gas limitations will pull us in the opposite direction - encouraging MORE coal burning.

I'm all for research on "clean coal", and perhaps there is a technical solution. I'm all for reducing pollution now as possible, but only to help us transition away from it.

I like the Native American saying that all decisions should be evaluated in regards to how it'll affect the 7th generation. It's easy to be idealistic and I know immediate concerns will take priority, especially in times of crisis. However when possible, at least the questions should be asked.

Intelligent Design - Sacred Imagination

It is strange, being an agnostic, happy to sit on the fence, hopeful to find acceptable compromise between religion and science, and then I'm forced to deal with school boards voting 6:4 in favor of "Intelligent Design" over "Evolution". A big UGH! seems a worthy response.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1592/5715501.html Kansas school board approves science standards casting doubt on evolution

I shouldn't be so defensive of science perhaps. It's not as if adding a little health skepticism to science class is a BAD thing. I'm the ultimate skeptic. I accept Evolution as more of a Hypothesis than a Theory, at least in regards to believing we've got the dominant mechanisms determined.

I play the "middle group", and say (1) The fossil record clearly demonstrates a chronological progression of change and continued complexification of life (2) The genetic structure of different species seems to be related, and in a branching relations (3) Microevolution via random mutation and survival of the fittest (Natural selection) happens in time periods we can observe.

I don't think anyone is arguing that dogs did not "evolve" from wolves, that all the wide variations of dogs come from a set of ancestors which were far less diverse. That's microevolution within a species, promoted through artificial selection. Similarly all the domesticated animals and plants have been selected by humans for what we think we want.

Science would extend this visible evolution, promoted by humans, to say that perhaps all animals (and eventually plants), come back to a small number of common ancestors.

Myself I'm most impressed by the genetic and skeletal similarities between animals. The idea that the skeleton of a human can be bone-for-bone "mapped" onto a fish skeleton is an amazing idea. It's not "proof" of a common ancestor, but you have to wonder, if species did NOT have a common ancestor, why not allow for even more variation?

There's plenty of different levels of resistance to evolution. Some literalists want the Garden of Eden to be history, simultaenous creation of all species, and Man and dinosaur walked the same earth apparently. Others will accept that evolution occured in the fossil record, but perhaps through catestrophic events (like Noah's flood) where the old species were wiped away, and new species were scattered onto the earth, completely independent of the previous generations. Others again might say perhaps evolution BETWEEN the species occured, but the steps were "God inspired", like a big chess game maybe, or perhaps with ennumerable angels watching over each little corner of creation, and adding a little salt and pepper here and there when no one was looking, maybe even Cupid's arrows being fired into sex-crazed animals trying to make the next generation.

Serious I accept these as valid philosophical questions, far beyond what I can imagine or attempt to properly catalog now. Myself I'm most interested in the angel theory. I sort of like the "parallel processing" model of life. Rather than "Intelligent design", I'd imagine "Sacred Imagination" as the source.

God being busy, having many more worlds to tend than just the earth, set forth a myriad myriad angel spirits to walk the lands and play on the seashores and see what they could make. Every once and a while they perhaps have tribal councils, and elect delegates to higher councils who do the same until a small band of brave angels go up and have a talk with god and tell them about their adventures. They compare notes and finally go back to their locales and get back to work, not being commanded from on-high for any specific goals or directions, but just building action upon potential upon vision of what is possible.

Pretty much my angels are like gardeners. They don't really have a deep understanding of how everything works, but they play around. They look for beauty and they let it grow upon itself into something new.

The result of this tinkering is what we call evolution and what allows us to imagine their existence.

Now if I were an atheist, I'd be unlikely to support such imagined gardeners. WHO are these angels anyway trying to manipulate MY life! There's a lots of anger in the self-made or random universe. We don't know WHY we're here, and WHY isn't GOD here NOW telling us why we're here! Angels are problematic, being too small to really see the big picture we want, and a little scary for possibly manipulating us against our little wills.

Now I now my little angel Gardener model for evolution is not much good for science class. I'm not likely going to scientifically determine methods of communication with such beings. Science best deals with dead things that can be dissected. Living spirits aren't prone to falling for the same experiment twice, so even if we tricked them into exposure once, they'd not likely fall for it again. On the other hand, I imagine they would like to communicate with us, and I imagine if they can do this, it's probably through our quieter moment, times when we have no ambition or worries, when we can really listen and imagine what it might be like to be such an angel in a beautiful world.

I really accept the Muses view of these angels - that inspiration and all consciousness is a gift from their work and at best we can just try to take in what we see with as little judgment as possible, and lots and lots of thanks.

Again, I don't think science can do much here. I think evolution can bring out the work of angels, even if we can't really understand all the mechanisms. We can appreciate their work better.

Sure, maybe I'd be happier if scientists all believed as I do, that there's little helpful spirit angels guiding evolution. It doesn't help their work, but it might help them see the beauty of it all. Well, I really think all scientists probably are about searching for beauty, even if they can get distracted by little power trips. Life is messy, humans are messy, and it takes a lot of work to clear the vision and see what's behind it all.

I wish the Kansas school district well for their experiments into Intelligent Design. I really don't get it, sorry, but happy landings. There's probably as many "Deadends" in religion as science, and a little playful effort in thought experiments doesn't harm anyone, right?

Senate passes budget cuts, Alaska oil drilling

http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/5706505.html
The bill, passed by a 52-47 vote ... The measure also would permit exploratory oil drilling in an Alaskan wilderness area.

A quick article, but interesting. Nice at least that both Minnesota Senators, Dayton and Coleman, voted against it.

I don't have a really good sense of the reasons against drilling in ANWR despite all the news. I mean I don't have the knowledge t firmly judge it on the facts of environmental harm. I can blindly accept the argument that it is possible to "drill carefully" and minimize the environmental impacts of new roads, pipelines, etc.

On the bigger issue, reducing our dependence upon petroleum, there I have more issues. On the one hand I accept the argument "We'll need it later" against drilling, but later might be sooner, since it'll take a decade for serious flow anyway.

I think I see the "bigger picture", that:
1) We CAN'T "drill" our way to oil independence.
2) Oil in ANWR is much harder to get at than the still cheap and easy production in the middle east.
3) We are the "Number One" world consumer and importer.

We worry about Billion+ China and India increasing their share of the world oil pie, while we think we can continue consuming 25% of the world's production. Not a smart bet, however offensive our military might look.

My "smart bet" is "managed oil decline", managed by high prices first, investment in conservation second, and investment in alternatives third.

Overall, I would say "ANWR oil is off-limits" until we create a national energy policy that recognizes our dependence and sets us on an honest attempt to reduce our consumption. Under any other condition, I see ANWR oil as merely delaying the Day of Reckoning for our consumption patterns.

Anyway, I guess I have a fatalist POV that says we're screwed whatever we do, so let the republicans make it easier for us to walk off the cliff. When the free fall begins, we'll think of something, maybe.

Let the party continue, another decade, if we can!