Comments on: World’s Carbon Budget To Be Spent In Three Decades

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 02:16:00 +0000

I read net in a different way.

Biomass/gas CO2 certainly isn’t a good thing, but if it keeps sequestered carbon sequestered then it’s something of an improvement.

By: JamesWimberley

JamesWimberley — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 01:53:00 +0000

That´s why I wrote ¨net carbon emissions¨. Biomass combustion just recycles carbon from the biosphere into the atmosphere and back again in a fairly short cycle.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 00:35:00 +0000

We’re not yet done in the Arctic. And some models predict that it will be relatively few years between the first summer meltout and a year round ice free Arctic Ocean.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 00:30:00 +0000

There’s a significant difference between using carbon that is already above the surface and carbon that is well underneath.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 00:26:00 +0000

India has already over build its coal plants and can’t supply them. Buying from overseas will drive up cost and push to PV/wind. The arctic melt impact on weather has already happen. That is why jet stream has been all over the place.

By: JamesWimberley

JamesWimberley — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 22:19:00 +0000

Yes, we need a few more plagues of frogs and locusts before Pharaoh – us – gets serious, if he wants to avoid the really bad one: the genocidal death of all the firstborn.

I partly share your technological optimism. But remember how that old story plays out: shocked a bit by each plague, Pharaoh promises to let the Hebrews go, but each time reverts to BAU and rescinds. Until it´s too late.

By: JamesWimberley

JamesWimberley — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 22:12:00 +0000

The eminent climate scientist Ken Caldeira argues that the ¨carbon budget¨ framing is wrong, because all net carbon emissions are damaging. It´s like saying your heart has a ¨grease budget¨ or your lungs a ¨smoke budget¨: you can probably consume a certain amount of junk food or cigarettes without getting into the red-light danger zone, but if you want to live a long and health life, the best bet is to stop now.
If you do use the budget frame, qualify it all the time.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 18:58:00 +0000

Between all renewables and the efficiency boom the world is going to be a vastly different place by 2030.

“We may have just about 30 years left”

By 2043 I doubt there will be many gas stations left. Antique car enthusiasts will be refueling with biofuel that they buy by the drum. A return to the good old days of automobiles.

Coal, I give ten years in much of Europe and North America. In NA existing coal plants are nearing their ‘used up’ date and won’t be replaced with coal. Europe is more level headed about climate change and will shut coal down. South America and Africa aren’t going to build coal plants and have to import fuel when they’ve got all the free sunshine, wind and deep Earth heat they can use.

China, I think, is serious about reducing both pollution and GHG. India will be forced off coal for financial reasons.

Natural gas supplies will be considerably less 20 years from now which will make the price much higher and push NG to a deep backup role.

In the next five years we are likely to see Arctic sea ice melt out for the first time since humans have walked on the Earth. That’s likely to whack our weather. We should also experience an El Nino event which, on top of the ongoing warming, is going to bake a lot of people. This extreme weather is going to greatly increase pressure to work harder.

I think we’re in the very early days of the transition off fossil fuels and installation/adoption rates are very flat compared to what is coming.

By: Shiggity

Shiggity — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 18:29:00 +0000

Solar PV is growing fast enough to decarbonize most of the world by the 2030s. Also by that time we’ll have weather modeling good enough to predict things further ahead of time.

Obviously it’s going to be a lot rougher on anyone within 100 miles of a coastline. Don’t be all doom and gloom! If you really are that worried about it, I’d start your planning now. Be resilient and plan ahead.