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Post by jcurio on Jan 8, 2017 19:52:12 GMT -6
đ on the other hand, if we know we are "depleting the ozone layer", shouldn't we be aggressively trying to harness more of the suns power? Why isn't "solar energy" taking over? đ
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Post by swamprat on Jan 8, 2017 20:26:51 GMT -6
"Why isn't "solar energy" taking over?"
Very simple; the power companies, big oil, and coal companies don't want solar to "take over". Unless or until they can figure out how to make money off of it....)
Do you know, in the state of Florida, you cannot live "off the grid"? You can have solar panels and wind vanes out the wazoo, but you still must pay the local power company access fees, even if you don't use any of their power.
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Post by swamprat on Jan 8, 2017 20:41:21 GMT -6
YAWN......Is Prager University (PragerU) right about everything they say?Matt Jackson, Interested Amateur Observer Written Dec 21
*ell no.
Prager U is famous, or infamous depending on your political orientation, for having a very strong right wing bias. Prager University is a non-profit online service created by Dennis Prager who is a staunch neoconservative and everything in Prager U is pretty much just a reflection of his views.
Sometimes they are capable of making good points when it comes to left wing excesses, which they are more than happy to do, but everything else is so clearly and obviously right wing to the point of almost being ridiculous.
Prager U is known for promoting climate change denial, militarism, American exceptionalism, Europhobia, Zionism and even a video tying to justify how wealth inequality is somehow good for society. They even made another one titled âwhy the right is rightâ.
Basically everything that comes out of Prager U has a right wing bias and should be taken with a very big grain of salt.
www.quora.com/Is-Prager-University-PragerU-right-about-everything-they-say
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Post by skywalker on Jan 8, 2017 20:46:20 GMT -6
That doesn't mean what that dude said ain't correct.
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Post by skywalker on Jan 8, 2017 21:06:53 GMT -6
đ on the other hand, if we know we are "depleting the ozone layer", shouldn't we be aggressively trying to harness more of the suns power? Why isn't "solar energy" taking over? đ đ There's a lot of reasons why solar energy isn't more prevalent. The main ones are that it isn't very efficient and it costs more than other forms of energy. The fossil fuel industry has been around for more than a hundred years because it's cheap and plentiful. There will come a day when solar energy will replace fossil fuels, when technology improves to make it more efficient, but that day isn't here yet. Here's an article on why storing solar energy is very difficult. www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/It-Is-Surprisingly-Hard-to-Store-Energy
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Post by jcurio on Jan 18, 2017 20:23:50 GMT -6
Now, look at that overall picture just posted by Cliff, (the nasa video), and tell me why all my life I have been consistently told that the hottest area of the Earth is the equator?
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Post by swamprat on Jan 20, 2017 18:25:58 GMT -6
Way back when the Earth WAS cooler! Frozen Niagara Falls , 1911.
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Post by swamprat on Feb 4, 2017 10:18:12 GMT -6
The skiing industry believes it, even if Trump doesn't.....
A future for skiing in a warmer world
Date: February 1, 2017 Source: SINTEF
As the world struggles to make progress to limit climate change, researchers are finding ways to adapt to warmer winter temperatures -- by developing environmentally friendly ways of producing artificial snow.
Chances are if you know anything about Norway, you know it's a place where skiing was born.
Norse mythology describes gods and goddesses hunting on skis, and 4000-year-old petroglyphs from northern Norway include some of the earliest known drawings of people on skis. One of the most recognizable Norwegian paintings worldwide depicts two skiers in 1206 fleeing to safety with the country's two-year-old prince, HĂĽkon HĂĽkonsson.
Over the centuries, skiing in Norway has evolved from a practical mode of winter transport to a sport that is deeply ingrained in Norwegian culture. Norwegians themselves like to say they enter the world uniquely prepared for their northern home -- because they are "born with skis on their feet."
But warmer weather due to climate change has made for less-than-stellar ski conditions in Norway and across Europe. Advances in snowmaking, where water is "seeded" with a protein from a bacterium that allows snow to be made at temperatures right around freezing, simply aren't enough to keep up with the changing climate.
In response, a team of Norwegian researchers has been awarded a NOK 2.3 million grant from the Norwegian Ministry of Culture to develop a new approach to snowmaking -- one that would allow snow to be made in an energy-efficient way, even at warmer temperatures. The project has been named, appropriately enough, "Snow for the Future."
Putting heat pumps to work Traditional snowmaking makes up for a lack of snow by spraying water into cold air, and letting physics do the rest. But if temperatures are above freezing, this simply won't work, for obvious reasons.
Researchers at SINTEF, Scandinavia's largest independent research institute, and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have worked extensively with a type of technology called a heat pump. They think that heat pumps could be key to producing snow in an environmentally friendly way, even at higher temperatures. Your refrigerator and freezer are examples of appliances that use heat pumps to regulate temperatures.
"One of the main aims of the project will be to find out how we can produce snow regardless of the outdoor temperature, and to develop energy-efficient ways of doing it," says Petter NeksĂĽ, an energy research scientist at SINTEF.
NeksĂĽ thinks that one feasible approach is to develop heat pumps where the cold side can be used to produce snow, while the warm side is used for heating.
"If the air outside is cold, traditional snow cannons work very well. But these are temperature dependent," says NeksĂĽ. "At higher temperatures, you need a refrigeration plant to make snow. The advantage is that the process is independent of air temperatures." What can make the process energy efficient is heating a building with the heat generated by the heat pump as it cools water to be made into snow, NeksĂĽ says.
"In this way, we can heat indoor facilities while also making artificial snow for ski slopes outside -- virtually cost free," he says.
Using heat and cold from heat pump technology The approach involves adapting current heat pump technology, says Jacob Stang, one of NeksĂĽ's colleagues at SINTEF.
"A traditional snow production facility that makes snow at zero degrees outdoors has no 'hot side'," Stang says. "That means we need a heat pump that has the properties of a refrigeration plant. We have to adapt components, such as an evaporator and condenser, to get them to work together."
Storage and use The project will be conducted in collaboration with the city of Trondheim, where SINTEF and NTNU are based, and the Norwegian Ski Federation (NSF).
The researchers are also hoping to develop better ways of storing snow, which is an approach many ski areas use as a hedge against warmer temperatures. Currently, many ski area use sawdust to store artificial snow that can be spread on slopes and trails when the weather doesn't deliver the white stuff on its own. While this is a proven approach, over time the sawdust loses its insulating properties and has to be replaced.
The project will also identify new ways of making sure that ski areas get as much benefit as they can out of manufactured snow. The researchers will look at everything from the design and drainage of ski runs, to protection from sun and rain, salting and snow preparation.
Technology transfer from the fisheries industry Researchers will conduct lab experiments, use computer models and simulations, create prototypes and undertake field tests. "Norway has a long tradition and expertise in this field," says Trygve M. Eikevik, a professor in NTNU's Department of Energy and Process Engineering. "The fishery sector produces around 300 thousand tonnes of ice each year for fish export. This is enough to cover an 8-metre-wide, 150-kilometre-long ski trail with a layer of ice that is 0.5 metres thick. It is more than possible to manufacture snow for skiing."
The NSF hopes the project will increase the chances that Norway will be able to host World Championships in skiing in the future, but officials are most concerned about maintaining skiing as a pastime in Norway. Communities across the country promote skiing by maintaining easily accessible, lighted and groomed ski trails and encouraging ski clubs. This strong system recruits young people to skiing, which has led to Norway's prominence in both alpine and cross-country ski competitions. It also helps keep people healthy, by encouraging them to get outside to exercise in the winter.
"The challenges posed by climate change represent perhaps the greatest threat to ski sports. This is why we're very pleased that this project is taking off," says Marit Gjerland, who is a ski run consultant for the NSF. "Good results from the project will mean a lot for the future of ski sports."
She says the technology could also expand the popularity of skiing, by making snow available in places where it previously wasn't. "Just like we have artificial football pitches, we could also create future snow parks," she says.
Research centre for snow technology One of the aims of the project is to establish a snow technology research centre based in Trondheim, where both Norwegian and international projects could be carried out.
"We envisage the development of more efficient refrigeration plants and snow production concepts, facilities designed for combined snow and heat production, and a total concept that integrates data models with meteorological data," says Eikevik.
"We hope this will help promote innovation and business development related to future snow production facilities," he says. ________________________________________ Story Source: Materials provided by SINTEF. Note: Content may be edited for style and length. ________________________________________ Cite This Page: SINTEF. "A future for skiing in a warmer world." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 1 February 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170201093251.htm>.
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Post by swamprat on Feb 4, 2017 10:21:19 GMT -6
And then there is this: 1880--2016 The Earth is getting HOTTER!
But WAIT! There's MORE!
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Post by jcurio on Mar 14, 2017 19:39:18 GMT -6
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Post by swamprat on Mar 16, 2017 8:40:20 GMT -6
Do human beings deserve this planet?
The sad thing is, I don't think Trump cares....Great Barrier Reef is dying By Deborah Byrd in Earth March 16, 2017
Authors of a cover story in journal Nature this week called for immediate global action to reduce the magnitude of climate warming in order to secure a future for coral reefs.
Bleached coral in 2016 on the northern Great Barrier Reef. Image via Terry Hughes et al./Nature.
Great Barrier Reef â the worldâs largest reef system â is being increasingly affected by climate change, according to the authors of a cover story in the March 15, 2017 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Nature. Large sections of the reef are now dead, these scientists report. Marine biologist Terry Hughes of the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies led a group that examined changes in the geographic footprint â that is, the area affected â of mass bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef over the last two decades. They used aerial and underwater survey data combined with satellite-derived measurements of sea surface temperature. Editors at Nature reported:
They show that the cumulative footprint of multiple bleaching events has expanded to encompass virtually all of the Great Barrier Reef, reducing the number and size of potential refuges [for fish and other creatures that live in the reef]. The 2016 bleaching event proved the most severe, affecting 91% of individual reefs.
The NY Times published this map on March 15, 2017, based on information from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. It shows that individual reefs in each region of the Great Barrier Reef lost different amounts of coral in 2016. Numbers show the range of loss for the middle 50% of observations in each region. Study authors told the NY Times this level of destruction wasnât expected for another 30 years.
Hughes and colleagues said in their study:
"During 2015â2016, record temperatures triggered a pan-tropical episode of coral bleaching, the third global-scale event since mass bleaching was first documented in the 1980s âŚ
The distinctive geographic footprints of recurrent bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef in 1998, 2002 and 2016 were determined by the spatial pattern of sea temperatures in each year. Water quality and fishing pressure had minimal effect on the unprecedented bleaching in 2016, suggesting that local protection of reefs affords little or no resistance to extreme heat. Similarly, past exposure to bleaching in 1998 and 2002 did not lessen the severity of bleaching in 2016.
Consequently, immediate global action to curb future warming is essential to secure a future for coral reefs."
According to the website CoralWatch.org:
"Many stressful environmental conditions can lead to bleaching, however, elevated water temperatures due to global warming have been found to be the major cause of the massive bleaching events observed in recent years. As the sea temperatures cool during winter, corals that have not starved may overcome a bleaching event and recover their [symbiotic dinoflagellates (algae)].
However, even if they survive, their reproductive capacity is reduced, leading to long-term damage to reef systems."
earthsky.org/earth/great-barrier-reef-bleaching-dying-nature-2017?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=444a4b2706-EarthSky_News&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-444a4b2706-394368745&mc_cid=444a4b2706&mc_eid=9b2daed519
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Post by swamprat on Mar 16, 2017 8:42:37 GMT -6
Meanwhile, up North..... Real-life Hoth is disappearing By EarthSky Voices in Earth March 15, 2017
Hardangerjøkulen, the Norwegian ice cap better known to Star Wars fans as the ice planet Hoth, is melting and may disappear by 2100.
(This article is republished with permission from GlacierHub. This post was written by Holly Davison.)
Any Star Wars fan will recognize the remote ice planet Hoth, the location of some of the most iconic scenes from Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, including the attack on the Rebel Allianceâs Echo Base by Imperial Walkers and Han Soloâs daring rescue of Luke Skywalker after his tauntaun was attacked by a wampa. Not many people, however, would know that those legendary scenes were filmed on a Norwegian ice cap called Hardangerjøkulen.
When the movie was filmed in 1980, the crew had to cope with subzero temperatures and freezing winds. However, nearly forty years later, the real-life Hoth is disappearing. According to a recent paper by Henning Akesson et al., published January 27, 2017 in The Cryosphere, the ice cap is extremely sensitive to small changes in temperature, and therefore vulnerable to climate change as global temperatures continue to increase.
Akesson explains in an article for ScienceDirect that due to increasing temperatures, it is feasible that Hardangerjøkulen could fully melt by 2100 if the trends continue. Once it melts, he and his team maintain that the ice cap will never return.
As the authors of the study explain, Hardangerjøkulen is located in southern Norway and measured 73 square kilometers (28 square miles) as of 2012. It is generally flat in the interior and has several steeper glaciers along the edge of the ice cap that drain the plateau. Two of these glaciers, Midtdalsbreen and Rembesdalsskaka, have retreated 150 meters (492 feet) and 1,386 meters (4,547 feet) respectively since 1982. Akesson et al. base their study of Hardangerjøkulen on modeling, as opposed to measurements or observations.
The team used a numerical ice flow model to produce a plausible ice cap history of Hardangerjøkulen thousands of years before the Little Ice Age. Using a modelled history of the ice cap, they examined the sensitivity to different parameters. They found that it is âexceptionally sensitiveâ to changes in temperature. These changes in temperature impact the ice capâs surface mass balance, which is the gain and loss of ice from a glacier system.
The possible disappearance of Hardangerjøkulen has many implications, including impacting Norwayâs tourism and hydropower industries. 99 percent of all power production in Norway comes from hydropower, which depends on glaciersâ water storage and seasonal water flow. Glaciers help contribute to water reservoirs used for the hydropower, and Norway itself contains nearly half of the reservoir capacity in Europe.
The ice cap is also a popular destination for hiking and glacier walking, as well as for Star Wars fans hoping to visit the location of Hoth scenes.
Local residents have remarked on noticeable differences in Hardangerjøkulen. Grete Hovelsrud, a senior researcher at the Nordland Research Institute and vice-president of the Norwegian Scientific Academy for Polar Research, told GlacierHub that the potential loss of Hardangerjøkulen is âvery sad.â She added:
"It is such a beautiful place. I skied across it last spring, and it really feels like being on top of the world."
Bottom line: The Norwegian glacier Hardangerjøkulen, known to Star Wars fans as the ice planet Hoth, is melting and may disappear by 2100.
earthsky.org/earth/real-life-hoth-glacier-melting-hardangerjokulen?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=444a4b2706-EarthSky_News&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-444a4b2706-394368745&mc_cid=444a4b2706&mc_eid=9b2daed519
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Post by swamprat on Mar 19, 2017 16:23:10 GMT -6
Global Warming â 1922?Rumor: A 1922 newspaper article warned that climate change was melting Arctic ice and disrupting wildlife.
Claim: A 1922 newspaper article reported that âradical change in climatic conditionsâ was melting Arctic ice and disrupting wildlife. ________________________________________ TRUE ________________________________________ Examples: [Collected via e-mail, December 2009]
The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulafft, at Bergen, Norway.
Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.
Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.
________________________________________ I apologize, I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922. As reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post â 88 years ago!
Origins: One of the key issues in the global warming debate is whether modern scientists have sufficient data and tools to determine that current warming trends are indicative of long-term climatic changes rather than relatively short-term weather pattern variability. The text above seemingly provides an example of the pitfalls of mistaking the latter for the former, purportedly reproducing a 1922 newspaper article warning that the Arctic ocean was experiencing a radical change in climatic conditions which was warming its waters, melting ice, and disrupting wildlife.
The text in the above example is a genuine transcript of a 1922 newspaper article, an Associated Press account which appeared on page 2 of the Washington Post on 2 November of that year:
That article in turn was based on information relayed by the American consul in Norway to the U.S. State Department in October 1922 and published in the Monthly Weather Review:
The Arctic seems to be warming up. Reports from fisherman, seal hunters, and explorers who sail the seas about Spitzbergen and the eastern Arctic, all point to a radical change in climatic conditions, and hitherto underheard-of high temperatures in that part of the earthâs surface.
In August, 1922, the Norwegian Department of Commerce sent an expedition to Spitzbergen and Bear Island under the leadership of Dr. Adolf Hoel, lecturer on geology at the University of Christiania. Its purpose was to survey and chart the lands adjacent to the Norwegian mines on those islands, take soundings of the adjacent waters, and make other oceanographic investigations.
Ice conditions were exceptional. In fact, so little ice has never before been noted. The expedition all but established a record, sailing as far north as 81° 29Ⲡin ice-free water. This is the farthest north ever reached with modern oceanographic apparatus.
The character of the waters of the great polar basic has heretofore been practically unknown. Dr. Hoel reports that he made a section of the Gulf Stream at 81° north latitude and took soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters. These show the Gulf Stream very warm, and it could be traced as a surface current till beyond the 81st parallel. The warmth of the waters makes it probable that the favorable ice conditions will continue for some time.
In connection with Dr. Hoelâs report, it is of interest to note the unusually warm summer in Arctic Norway and the observations of Capt. Martin Ingebrigsten, who has sailed the eastern Arctic for 54 years past. He says that he first noted warmer conditions in 1918, that since that time it has steadily gotten warmer, and that to-day the Arctic of that region is not recognizable as the same region of 1868 to 1917.
Many old landmarks are so changed as to be unrecognizable. Where formerly great masses of ice were found, there are now often moraines, accumulations of earth and stones. At many points where glaciers formerly extended far into the sea they have entirely disappeared.
As interesting as this nearly century-old article might be from a modern perspective, however, it isnât substantive evidence either for or against the concept of anthropogenic global warming. As documented elsewhere, the warming phenomena observed in 1922 proved to be indicative only of a local event in Spitzbergen, not a trend applicable to the Arctic as a whole.
Last updated: 10 March 2015
www.snopes.com/politics/science/globalwarming1922.asp
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Post by swamprat on Mar 24, 2017 14:02:22 GMT -6
PAGE 1 OF 2
Not surprising that Trump rolls his eyes when talking about the Paris Climate Accord. The next fifty years will be interesting, to say the least.....Scientists made a detailed âroadmapâ for meeting the Paris climate goals. Itâs eye-opening.by Brad Plumer Mar 24, 2017
Where weâre going, we definitely need a roadmap. In 2015, the worldâs governments met in Paris and agreed to keep global warming below 2°C, to avoid the very worst risks of a hotter planet. See here for background on why: www.vox.com/2014/4/22/5551004/two-degrees , but thatâs the goal. For context, the planetâs warmed ~1°C since the 19th century.
One problem with framing the goal this way, though, is that itâs maddeningly abstract. What does staying below 2°C entail? Papers on this topic usually drone on about a âcarbon budgetâ â the total amount of CO2 humans can emit this century before we likely bust past 2°C â and then debate how to divvy up that budget among nations. Thereâs a lot of math involved. Itâs eye-glazing, and hard to translate into actual policy. Itâs also a long-term goal, a distant target, easy for policymakers to shrug off.
So, not surprisingly, countries have thus far responded by putting forward a welter of vague pledges on curbing emissions that are hard to compare and definitely donât add up to staying below 2°C. Everyone agrees more is needed, but thereâs lots of uncertainty as to what âmoreâ means. Few people grasp how radically â or how quickly â weâd have to revamp the global economy to meet the Paris climate goals.
Surely thereâs a better, more concrete way to think about whatâs required here. And a new study out today tries to do just that. Fair warning: Itâs jaw-dropping.
A simple (but daunting!) road map for staying below 2°C In a new paper for Science, a group of European researchers lay out a more vivid way to frame the climate challenge â with details on what would have to happen in each of the next three decades if we want to stay well below 2°C.
They start with the big picture: To hit the Paris climate goals without geoengineering, the world has to do three broad (and incredibly ambitious) things:
1) Global CO2 emissions from energy and industry have to fall by half in each decade. That is, in the 2020s, the world cuts emissions in half. Then we do it again in the 2030s. Then we do it again in the 2040s. Itâs simple but staggering. They dub this the âcarbon law.â Lead author Johan RockstrĂśm told me they were thinking of an analogy to Mooreâs law for transistors, and weâll see why.
2) Net emissions from land use â i.e., from agriculture and deforestation â have to fall steadily to zero by 2050. This would need to happen even as the world population grows and weâre feeding ever more people.
3) Technologies to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere have to start scaling up massively, until weâre artificially pulling 5 gigatons of CO2 per year out of the atmosphere by 2050 â nearly double what all the worldâs trees and soils already do.
(Rockstrom et al, 2017)
âItâs way more than adding solar or wind,â says RockstrĂśm. âItâs rapid decarbonization, plus a revolution in food production, plus a sustainability revolution, plus a massive engineering scale-up [for carbon removal].â
So, uh, how do we cut CO2 emissions in half, then half again, then half again? Here, the authors lay out a sample âroadmapâ of what specific actions the world would have to take each decade, based on current research. This isnât the only path for making big CO2 cuts, but it gives a sense of the sheer scale and speed required:
2017-2020: All countries would prepare for the herculean task ahead by laying vital policy groundwork. Like: scrapping the $500 billion per year in global fossil fuel subsidies. Zeroing out investments in any new coal plants, even in countries like India and Indonesia. All major nations commit to going carbon-neutral by 2050 and put in place policies â like carbon pricing or clean electricity standards â that point down that path. âBy 2020,â the paper adds, âall cities and major corporations in the industrialized world should have decarbonization strategies in place.â
SEE NEXT POST FOR PAGE 2
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Post by swamprat on Mar 24, 2017 14:08:08 GMT -6
PAGE 2
2020-2030: Now the hard stuff begins! In this decade, carbon pricing would expand to cover most aspects of the global economy, averaging around $50 per ton (far higher than seen almost anywhere today) and rising. Aggressive energy efficiency programs ramp up. Coal power is phased out in rich countries by the end of the decade and is declining sharply elsewhere. Leading cities like Copenhagen are going totally fossil fuel free. Wealthy countries no longer sell new combustion engine cars by 2030, and transportation gets widely electrified, with many short-haul flights replaced by rail.
In addition, spending on clean energy research increases by âan order of magnitudeâ this decade, with a sustained focus on developing new batteries, drastically reducing the cost of carbon capture and storage (CCS), and perfecting low-carbon processes for producing steel and concrete, plus improving smart grids, greener aircraft systems, and sustainable urbanization techniques.
Meanwhile, efforts to start pulling carbon dioxide out of the air start this decade. That means reforesting degraded land and deploying technologies such as direct-air capture or bioenergy with CCS to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere. By 2030, weâd need to be removing 100 to 500 megatons of CO2 each year and have a sense of how to scale up.
2030-2040: By this decade, hopefully, weâre reaping the fruits of major technological advances in clean energy. Leading countries like Denmark and Sweden should now have completely carbon-free grids and have electrified virtually all of their transport, heating, and industry. Cars with internal combustion engines âwill have become rare on roads worldwide.â (Let that sink in.) Aircraft will be almost entirely powered by carbon-neutral fuels, say, biofuels or hydrogen. New building construction will be largely carbon-neutral, by using emissions-free methods for steel and concrete or through other techniques. And âradical new energy generation solutions will enter the market.â
Meanwhile, weâd need to be sucking about 1 to 2 gigatons of CO2 from the air each year, with a heavy R&D effort on expanding that further.
2040-2050: By the early 2040s, major European countries are close to carbon-neutral, and the rest of the world is moving toward that goal by the end of the decade. Electricity grids are nearly entirely carbon-free: âNatural gas still provides some back up energy, but CCS ensures its carbon footprint is limited. Modular nuclear reactors may contribute to the energy mix in some places.â Lower-income countries are still using some fossil fuels, and the world is still emitting a small bit of CO2 in 2050 (about one-eighth the amount of today), but work continues on eventually phasing that out.
Finally, by 2050, weâd need to be removing more than 5 gigatons of CO2 per year from the atmosphere. Itâs possible this is simply impractical â if we tried to do that all by burning biomass for energy and sequestering the resulting carbon (a ânegative emissionsâ process), we might well run into serious land constraints that hinder agriculture. If, in the 2020s, we realize this will be the case, then weâll have to revamp the road map to cut CO2 emissions from energy and industry even faster.
The paper also notes that the precise details of any road map will be tentative â after all, the nature of unpredictable technological change means itâs difficult to say what the world will look like in 2030 or 2040 or 2050. So policymakers will need to meet regularly, take stock of where they are, and revise as needed.
This road map is staggering. Thatâs the point. Itâd be entirely understandable to look at this all and say, âThatâs insane.â Phasing out sales of combustion engine vehicles by 2030? Carbon-neutral air travel within two decades? Cities going entirely fossil fuelâfree in the next 13 years? Come on.
And fair enough. None of this is easy. It might well prove impossible. But this is roughly what staying well below 2°C entails â at least without large-scale geoengineering to filter out sunlight and cool the planet (a risky step). This is what world governments implicitly agreed to when they all signed on to the Paris accord.
âWe wanted to show what meeting those Paris goals requires,â says RockstrĂśm. âUp until now, we felt that scientists havenât been very effective in communicating what these carbon budgets actually mean in terms of concrete action.â
RockstrÜm and his colleagues argue that future UN climate talks should strive to create a much more detailed decade-by-decade road map along the lines of their Science paper, in order to gain much more clarity on what needs to happen to stay below 2°C.
RockstrĂśm adds that the road mapâs sheer difficulty doesnât mean climate action is hopeless. âYou could just as easily see this becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy,â he says. âCountries start taking these targets seriously and then begin pursuing the innovation needed to make this come true.â Thatâs what Mooreâs law did for the semiconductor industry; the prediction that chip performance would double every 18 months helped guide firms in thinking what they needed to do to make that come true. A âcarbon law,â RockstrĂśm argues, could do the same for countries and cities and companies.
Oliver Geden â a German climate policy analyst who wasnât involved in the Science paper but who has criticized scientists and policymakers for obscuring what the 2°C target really requires â praised the broad approach here, though noted that some of the details were debatable.
âOne thing I like is that this is not just another global calculation [on CO2 emissions] that doesnât talk about actors or policies,â Geden told me by email. âI think this should be the way forward, translating [overarching climate goals] into âpolicy portfoliosâ and then asking policymakers if they are going to do it or not.â
For example, the paper lays out a specific timeline for deploying technology to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Most modeling scenarios for staying below 2°C now envision massive CO2 removal efforts, but few policymakers have acknowledged this fact. Presenting them with a detailed proposed timeline could, hopefully, change that. If it turns out that scaling up bioenergy with CCS is logistically impossible (as it might be), then at least weâd come to terms with that sooner, rather than keeping it as an unspoken background assumption in broad climate plans.
Of course, itâs possible that if policymakers really grappled with what staying below 2°C entails, they might come away thinking itâs impractical or undesirable. They might decide that maybe we should aim to stay below 2.5°C or 3°C, and just try to deal with the severe risks of a hotter planet, from higher sea level rise droughts to crop failures, that come with it.
But something has to force that conversation. If this 2°C climate goal is going to loom over every international climate meeting, every white paper and discussion, then the least people can do is take it seriously.
Brad Plumer is a senior editor at Vox.com, where he oversees the site's science, energy, and environmental coverage. He was previously a reporter at the Washington Post covering climate and energy policy.
www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/3/23/15028480/roadmap-paris-climate-goals
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