Pessimism is justified, says scientist 09 December 04

I was once told by a businessman that a wrong decision is better than no decision. This seemed to be intuitively incorrect but his point was how terrible indecision really is. The premise for avoiding indecision is that we can never be perfect as human beings. No matter how hard we try, we will always make mistakes. As we develop and implement plans, there will be errors that occur and opportunities for modifications that can correct past mistakes from happening again.

This philosophy I think can be debated because some decisions clearly can be worse than doing nothing. This would be especially true when doing nothing will have no dire consequences. Indecision in matters of an emergency would not be considered appropriate. A doctor who has the choice of amputating a leg or saving a life chooses disability over death for his patient. Doing nothing in this case means death.

The leaders who are faced with decisions that can prevent climate change may be forced into a similar reality and like the doctor must choose between the lesser of two evils. No responsible leader can make these decisions lightly and it demands extreme courage to weigh difficult decisions when the whole planet is on the line.

The major strength of the environmentalists is their ability to vigorously study the negative side effects of our industrial enterprises and modern cultural habits on delicate ecosystems. In their quest to create a world more closely aligned with natural ecology, environmentalists have a vision of purity. Environmentalists are constantly in a position of vocal opposition to the negative side effects of corporate decisions.

However, I think that environmentalists struggle with compromise, especially when doing so feels like a defeat since any deviation from the natural order is still not quite good enough. This is understandable. Great environmentalists, when facing a well defined enemy, cannot easily compromise their positions and must follow the courage of their convictions to raise concerns. I think this can be a weakness when there is the weight of hard choices. I think that this may be a weakness for some green groups.

Policy makers should be clear as to the state of climate emergency. Even if uncertainty makes them procrastinate, every preventative idea still should be considered for vigorous research at least. This should include implementation of actual experiments to study how to refine any strategy for large scale implementation.

It would be prudent to have ready at our disposal as many options as possible and to have all unknown risks to the environment researched to the highest levels of precision possible. Computer models could be further enhanced to test the unknown benefits and risks of any viable ideas.

The only way the policy environment may change is when it is clear to the policy makers that we have a solid emergency. Being prepared for the worst case scenario before it becomes solidly evident should be sellable at some level.

The fear is will we be too late to act? The promise is, when it does become totally clear, then you have the whole of humanity engaged and the funding of our ingenuity rises dramatically!

I have another comment to make along the lines of pessimism and the availability of clean options. I call it the coal trap and it illustrates a real world dilemma we face.

Coal contributes large amounts of carbon dioxide plus a score of other pollutants which include hundreds of tons of mercury and sulfates. The carbon dioxide buildup from these coal plants everyone knows (almost everyone) is much to blame for our current situation.

Many less people understand that the sulfate pollution has had a cooling effect which is extremely significant. Without atmospheric sulfate pollution, we may be in a runaway situation right now. The sulfates act like the cooling sulfates from a volcanic eruption.

Now, if we take coal plants off line, will the decrease in sulfates warm the planet offsetting the decrease in carbon emissions? Would it be unwise to reduce the sulfur out of the smokestacks at this time even though sulfates cause tremendous environmental damage?

I do not have a direct answer from numerical analysis. However, I surmise that the sulfates stay in the air for a much shorter period than carbon dioxide does. Therefore, the carbon buildup will dominate over the small decline in annual carbon from these coal plants being taken off line even if it is replaced with a clean renewable source. When the sulfates decline, then the massive carbon buildup takes over and warms the planet.

So, I call it the Coal Trap! The Coal trap is an example of the hard choices that spoil our desire for a clean way to prevent climate change. I think it also adds to the concerns that Mark was sharing about the scientist warning that we need to take some of this massive carbon buildup out of the atmosphere to be successful!

So, I say we may have to abandon utopia and think more in pragmatic ways. This happens to be the most difficult problem we have ever faced since our ancestors roamed the planet during the last ice age. It is too bad that these primitive humans from eons ago are not present today. Their experience could provide a testimonial that our collective degree of concern of modern times should be much higher!

Why not do everything we can to stop GW – conservation, efficiency, alternative energy, reduce-reuse-recycle, carry a hanky to wipe our hands (instead of using paper towels), plus explore “carbon cleaning” and fusion (I saw a science article the other day that said cold fusion was not entirely off the plate). I hate nuclear for many reasons, but it seems France is doing sort of OK with it.

The important point is to do everything we possibly can, starting yesterday, not tomorrow – and everything we can to get the message out.

But I’ve got his “Carbon” book! He seems so much an anti-GW. I don’t get it. Sure, he has to sell his solar panels—how else can he keep SolarCentury operating? And what’s wrong with promoting alternative energies, even if they aren’t the whole answer to the GW problem?

This bothers me. Does W.B. know something that we don’t? Any way to find out the answer to that question? This is no time to diss allies in this fight, not without good, provable reasons!

Thanks for letting me vent….

I think there is a danger from swinging from being too pessimistic and being too optimistic. (I think it is part of the human psychology that we do that! There are always any number of examples to justify almost any position you want to take.).

I followed a few links from the last ones you gave, Mark, and I rather like this one which talks about about successes and failures since the Earth Summit in Rio 1992. Let’s celebrate our successes and learn from our failures. Also, we should never forget just how important all of this is!

http://www.iisd.org/briefcase/ten+ten_contents.asp

Sustainable Development Successes and Failures Since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit

Summer 2002 Published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development

I agree with your vent and it seems absurd that Professor Broecker would lambaste Jeremy for more fundamental reasons.

In making a case to pull carbon directly from the atmosphere, would it not be easier to take carbon out of the atmosphere by also reducing the rate at which we place carbon into the atmosphere to begin with? Am I missing something here? Would not solar panels help achieve both objectives?

Jeremy might have had an opportunity to turn this around by asking this question back to the professor:

Professor Broecker, Every time my solar panels are used it prevents X amount of carbon buildup So, Professor Broecker, would not reducing the rate of carbon buildup be an intricate part of your approach?

I intentionally use my understanding of human psychology to better understand the concepts of pessimism and optimism. The correct balance is critical to success.

I equate pessimism as to the temporary depression associated with an idea called a reality check. In facing up to a sad reality, we must accept unpleasant truths. This is difficult for everyone. Pessimism is usually associated with a realistic focus on future prospects coupled with the loss of things from the past that can no longer be.

Climate change fits this category when we cannot prevent it totally at some level or simply when implementing preventative strategies encourages restrictions on our lives we do not want.

Pessimism should only be an emotional side effect of healthy introspection. Its only value for me is that when we are in this temporary state of mind, we then realized that we just increased our understanding about ourselves and our views and we are closer to reality than we were before.

However, once the new reality is acknowledged, then staying pessimistic ceases to have any more value.

In healthy minds, pessimism is a very temporary condition unless it is profound like the trauma of grief which might take a little longer to deal with.

Christopher Reeves, the real life superman, had plenty of reasons to stay pessimistic but he intentionally chose a path of optimism instead. He focused on a goal and set the bar very high.

Many experts found his attitude to be overly optimistic and unthinkable based on all scientific understanding of his condition. Mr. Reeves persisted nevertheless and never allowed a despairing thought to guide his actions.

It is true that Mr. Reeves never walked but he was able to move his finger to the surprise of many. His optimistic and courageous attitude advanced the science and the realm of possibility whereby others in the future may benefit where he did not.

He died not achieving his goal for himself. But, Mr. Reeve’s persistence and courageous optimism in the face of discouragement lives on in others who he influenced. He died an optimist!

So, I equate optimism in being a morale booster so we keep energetic and focused. I think an optimistic attitude enables one’s creative effort and drive to be more effective and productive. I cannot be enthusiastic and creative if I constantly speculate on future failure and despair.

There is always reason for optimism as long as the situation has not proved conclusively hopeless and we still have available options to pursue.

If you strive to save the planet, it is better to go down by putting up a stiff fight than to capitulate when we still have many options left to pursue. That for me is the present reality.

The use of optimism is urgently required for us to vigorously pursue all our options and I have found another benefit from my own optimism.

I am finding additional preventative ideas constantly from my own thinking and every idea, no matter how small, excites me!

You sing my song! I agree with your attitude 100 percent!

Mr. Broecker is right.

It won’t be enough.

On a large scale our options are limited to renewables COMBINED WITH capturing carbon dioxide from large point sources (such as coal fired power stations – better to do it this way than a large ‘vacuum cleaner’ as it’s far more efficient), and put the carbon dioxide into long term geological storage (such as depleted oil fields which have successfully contained oil & gas for millions of years) AND/OR nuclear power.

Not forgetting that electricity generation only accounts for 1/3 or so of anthropogenic carbon dioxide.

Solar panels can go a long way to reducing the 1/3 from domestic heating.

And build better public transport infrastructure – use the train not the SUV – that attacks the other 1/3.

All are technologies which could be employed where the rate of increase in anthropogenic carbon dioxide is greatest – China & India.

America – If China can build a high speed rail line (It has recently signed a contract), why can’t you??

I agree with Professor Wallace Broecker that solar panels are not the answer to global warming. Solar panels are expensive with a long pay back period. More importantly, a considerable amount of energy is needed to make solar panels, so that several years of energy savings are required to balance the embodied energy of the panels.

Nature provides the answer to global warming. Each year 50 billion tonnes of carbon, equal to 180 billion tonnes of CO2, is absorbed from the atmosphere via photosynthesis. This is huge compared to the 8 billion tonnes of carbon emitted from fossil fuels.

Nature recycles most of the 50 billion tonnes of carbon back to the atmosphere via plant decay, and fire.

Man could work with nature by extending the life of the stored carbon before it is returned to the atmosphere. This cound be done simply by burying logs in swamps where tehy can still be useable after thousands of years.

A smarter way is to bury them where they can save energy, and provide comfort to humans for hundreds of years, and still be reusable. This is done by making massive wood walls with very high R values. An example of this method can be seen on www.massivholzmauer.de

Michael Cambridge New Zealand

Your vague analysis is a strange way to promote your website’s building material. What your houses use is similar to the Log Cabins commonly used by us hundreds of years ago.

With regard to thermal mass, masonry walls also provide thermal mass. Thermal mass helps to balance temperature swings during a 24 hour period by absorbing or giving off energy during high and low temperatures. The greater the temperature swings, then the more thermal mass helps in a given climate.

Houses constructed partially below ground use thermal mass to an even higher degree. Many houses here have an entire floor level much of it buried underground using this concept of thermal mass. We call them basements.

Our primordial ancestors utilized thermal mass of both stone and earth in their houses without and they used no heating system. They called them caves!

Your construction material would improve R-value with the air gaps but it would consume too many trees I think to be of widespread in the USA!

A good combination of R-Value and thermal mass would be an all brick home with 2 X 6 frames filled with cellulose or foam insulation plus a high R-Value foam sheathing material. There is always an air gap between the brick and the sheathing. This wall construction would be better than your wall construction.

The most important structural elements are the windows. Without high grade energy efficient windows, the most massive walls can fail to compensate for the energy drain especially if the window area percentage is large.

There are many other factors other than these which include aspects of the heating and cooling systems. Air duct leakage is the worst offender in homes constructed in the USA.

I worked with energy building codes at one time here in the USA so thermal mass is a good thing but not the most important thing required to make a house energy efficient.

I like your question about oxygen reduction from increased fossil fuel burning and I sought an answer for you and others.

Based on simple elementary chemistry, O2 levels must fall if CO2 rises. Burning fossil fuel requires the removal of oxygen from the atmosphere which creates carbon dioxide, CO2, water vapor, H2O, and other combustion compounds (mostly pollution).

Now, our carbon fuels consume more oxygen, O2, than produce carbon dioxide, CO2, because hydrogen atoms are also oxidized! For example, in a balanced equation, 1 molecule of methane, CH4, requires 2 molecules of oxygen to produce 1 molecule of carbon dioxide, CO2 and 2 molecules of water, H2O. So methane consumes 2 molecules of oxygen for every 1 molecule of carbon dioxide produced.

Other fuels will have ratios which are not as high as this 2 to 1 ratio of methane. Propane has a 5 to 3 ratio and consumes 5 molecules of oxygen for every 3 molecules of carbon dioxide produced. Ethyl alcohol has a 3 to 2 ratio so it consumes 3 molecules of oxygen for every 2 molecules of carbon dioxide produced.

There are other combustion byproducts other than carbon dioxide and water, such as nitrous oxide, N2O, carbon monoxide, CO, ozone O3, etc, but as fuels go, it is mostly carbon and hydrogen. The cumulative average is somewhere between 1 to 1 and 2 to 1 when looking at the oxygen consumed to carbon dioxide created.

Now, if we know the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the percentage buildup of carbon dioxide, then at a minimal level the consumed oxygen decrease will be equal to or greater than 1 to 2 times the percentage increase in carbon dioxide buildup.

I say at a minimal level since carbon dioxide is partially absorbed by the ecosystem and there are processes in nature that absorb carbon dioxide and do not release oxygen.

So, for the answer, I now consult the Internet on current atmospheric percentages:

Nitrogen = 78.084, Oxygen = 20.946, Argon = 0.934, Carbon Dioxide = 0.035.

Pre-industrial Carbon Dioxide = 0.028:

Current Carbon Dioxide Change = 0.035-0.028 = 0.007

Minimum Oxygen Reduction = 0.007 / (20.946 – 0.007) to 0.014 / (20.953 – 0.007)

Minimum Oxygen Reduction = 0.033 to 0.067 percent!

Carbon Dioxide increased by 25 percent but the decrease in oxygen appears to be much less significant and important!

To comment on your 2nd part, I will use the concept of insulating blankets.

I am too hot so I remove blankets to cool down but as I try to remove 1 blanket, someone places 2 or 3 more on me so I just can not remove my blankets fast enough until that idiot quits placing more blankets on me.

So, in essence in order for Professor Wallace Broecker to be successful in removing carbon buildup effectively, it seems appropriate that we have to reduce our annual increase of carbon buildup at the same time.

Sequestering carbon dioxide in depleted oil fields seems like a great idea to me. Your point that these fields have successfully contained oil & gas for millions of years is an important one. And since they contained a gas like methane, they should contain a gas like carbon dioxide just as well.

For those concerned about leakage: If they leak, then I say so what? I doubt they would at all and if they did, it would have to be very little. How could this ever be worse than our current immediate dumping of all that carbon and pollution directly into the atmosphere?

My main concern is reduction in atmospheric sulfates which cool the planet. Their reduction would have the net effect of increasing warming from the accumulative carbon buildup.

It seems that we will have to address the accumulative buildup of carbon after the rate of increase is reduced so we can eventually rid ourselves of sulfate pollution without warming the earth.

Now about nuclear and its waste problem: I propose a question based on your previous thoughts Martin. If we go deep enough and I mean VERY deep into the earth’s crust, is there a point at which nuclear wastes could be contained successfully for millions of years with no hope of them ever being able to reach ground water?

I confess I know VERY little about nuclear waste issues but in order to properly use nuclear, I believe the fears about it need to be addressed by adequately solving the problems.

Nuclear accidents in the 20th century have mandated that the nuclear industry pose a very convincing case to respectable critics. This current quiet time of no accidents has no doubt helped to make this case better.

I do believe nuclear energy can be made manageable and cost effective. Maybe it already has become this at some level. I believe the nuclear engineering community along with geologists and ecologists can insure this.

My only point is that this must be done and when it is, it needs to be communicated effectively to reduce anxiety. If you have expertise in this area, then I think your frank objective disclosures of the benefits and risks would benefit us all on this site.

I find that many people are way too polarized and it seems that the truth is somewhere in the middle. For me, polarization with respect to climate change prevention is unacceptable. Unity and clarity of thought are of more benefit.

Solar Panels: Not only can solar panels help domestic heating, but so can better insulation and windows and using geothermal heat pumps. Passive solar designs using the correct window orientation coupled with thermal mass storage can work like panels

I agree the rate of increase in carbon dioxide is greatest in China & India and this can cancel the best attempts at reductions by us and others. However, since so many products I buy here say: Made in China, are we not a large part of China’s growth and emissions from our own consumerism? I hate to go there because the finger always seems to point to us!

Why cannot America build a high speed rail line like China? Good Question! First, America has to acknowledge climate change. Second, I believe we want to bolster the airline industry.

Finally, could you articulate more the benefits of high speed trains and how they would be best utilized to be a viable option in America and how they help with respect to emission reductions? I simply am curious and know little about this.

is to shake off our Western “silver bullet” mentality that looks for a single solution.

We need to do EVERYTHING we can, no matter how small. This includes solar panels, wind power, carbon storing, carrying hankies to wipe hands (to offset using paper towels). Nothing, but nothing is too small to be done to reduce GW. There are thousands of simple and a few big things we can do. We can pick those feasible to us. We can be creative and innovative. We should stop focusing only on the obvious. Nearly every product (from resource extraction to disposal) has a multiplicity of GH gas components.

STEP ONE: (this goes for households & businesses) do everything that saves you money (in the long run), without lowering your standard of living or productivity. A $6 low-flow showerhead may cut your hot shower water use to 1/2 (as it did ours), saving energy to pump & heat the water (a double reduction of GH gases). I figure one could save $2000 over the 20 year lifetime of that showerhead. Of course, we could shave a minute off our shower – or at least stop using it as a sauna. That will get you (and each developed nation) down to about 2/3 to 1/4 of your previous GH emisions.

STEP TWO: using some of the savings from Step One, start doing things that do not save you money long run or that are minor sacrifices. For instance, my 100% wind powered electricity costs me about $5 more per month (after I had already lowered my KHW by 1/3). (Someone pointed out it was government subsidized, but I’ll tell you, not nearly as subsidized as oil, even if you do not figure in the cost of war.) That should put us down to 1/4 to 1/10 our GH emissions. A minor sacrifice would be to take vacations close to home, etc.

STEP THREE: Now that the developed societies are down below 1/4 their 1990 GH emissions (and the developing world, using similar approaches is stablized at a comfortable, healthy living standard), we can start really sacrificing (without sacrificing our health or lives), if necessary.

If you don’t believe this scenario, please read NATURAL CAPITALISM by Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins, and/or learn more from the Rocky Mountain Institute website: www.rmi.org