Climate Adaptation Planning

A 21st Century call for reformation.

v.2.0 2/5/2015

1: Global Warming

• The Earth is suffering an energy imbalance of, currently, over 1.7 watts per square meter (or per square yard in English units) of surface area on average.

• The amount of imbalance is similar to the heat added by one Christmas “sparkle” light per square meter across the globe.

1: Global Warming

• This may not sound like much until you realize that 2 W/m² is the same thing as over four (4) 1800 watt hair driers per acre (that’s over 2,650 driers per square mile) of Earth’s entire surface, blowing on full heat, 24/7.

• The number of “hair driers” is increasing on an exponential scale for centuries.

2: It’s an energy issue

• The energy imbalance comes from sunlight which enters Earth’s atmosphere, is absorbed on and near the Earth’s surface, and is re-radiated as heat.

• This heat cannot escape the atmosphere as it did in the past.

2: It’s an energy issue

• Another way to visualize the current energy imbalance of heat that cannot escape to space: o it is as if almost three hundred (300) extra

60,000 BTU space heaters were left running constantly above every square mile of the planet’s surface. That’s a lot of excess heat.

3: Heat trapped by GHG

• The Earth’s atmosphere contains a small amount of so-called “greenhouse gasses” (GHG) that reradiate heat inside and limit the amount that escapes back into outer space.

• Under natural conditions, these GHG warm the planet just enough to keep it comfortable (14 ° C, 58° F) instead of frozen (-6° C, 21.2° F) (Houghton 1997).

4: GHG vary in effectiveness

• These “greenhouse gasses” (GHG), rated by strength of heat capture (GWP-100, where 1=Carbon Dioxide and *=man-made, not natural) include:

5,700 – 22,000

CF4 to SF6*(Fluorinated Species)

1,600HFC-134a*(Refrigerant)

296N2O(Nitrous Oxide)

23CH4(Methane)

1CO2 (Carbon Dioxide)

Source: IPCC (2001) 3rd Assessment Report

5: GHGs stabilize climate

• For all of humanity the most abundant of the natural GHG have fluctuated in a steady cycle, mostly affected by plant and animal (organic) materials and solar cycles:o carbon dioxide (CO2) between 200 ppm and

300 ppm.o methane (CH4) between 400 ppb and 700

ppb.

5: GHGs stabilize our climate

• At the cyclic low end, only enough GHG remained free in the atmosphere to allow heat from the sun to keep the equatorial regions free from ice o (the “glacials”, 50,000 to 100,000 years long).

• At the cyclic high end, enough heat was trapped that only the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions remained covered by ice o (the “interstadials”, 10,000 to 20,000 years long).

6: Climate lag

• There exists a time lag between when increases in GHG translate to the corresponding full rise in temperature.

• This lag may be about thirty to forty years. 

o The issue of GHG lagging initial orbital temperature increases applies to natural, long-term glacial-interstadial climate change (Steig 2007). The short lag happening in anthropogenic change is opposite.

6: Climate lag

• For instance, the global surface temperature of Earth increased .8 degrees Celsius up through the present, yet enough heat was received to guarantee an additional response of 0.6 more degrees Celsius temperature rise over the rest of the 21st Century, even if human agency were to disappear entirely.

• (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page5.php, page bottom).

7: Causes of the cycle

• Cycles of natural climate change are driven largely by the formation of either ice or organic material over large portions of the Earth’s surface.

• These primarily fluctuate with tiny distance changes between Earth and Sun in their orbits.

• More importantly, these are linked to highly complex and nonlinear feedback mechanisms that attempt to center the Earth’s climate.

• Humankind has made great progress in studying feedbacks but does not yet fully comprehend them.

8: The fossil record

• Looking backward, remains of 12 (ten to twelve) identifiable ice ages over about the past million years has resided in the world’s tallest glaciers.

• Even further back, undisturbed ocean sediments also record a high-resolution record of the past 30 ice-age/interglacial cycles beyond two million years ago.

9: Last glacial maximum

• The Last Glacial Maximum plateaued 25,000 - 21,000 years before the present on a calendar time scale.

• The northern third of the continents were covered by glaciers several km thick and Antarctica was both fully covered and surrounded by great ice shelves.

• Surface temperature average was depressed by 5 degrees C (9 degrees F).

• Montane glaciers were common even in low latitudes. • Species of many kinds that are widely dispersed in the current

climate cohabitated during run-up to the LGM.

10: Global inundations

• Three giant freshwater floods with global effects occurred along with many smaller events as global ice (the cryosphere) progressively melted after the last glacial maximum ended 21,000 years ago.

MWP 1A – 14,600 ybp, 500 but perhaps as short as 200 yrs. duration

“Atlantis” Flood - 12,700 ybp, 200 yrs. duration “Noah” Flood – 8450 ybp, 1 yrs. duration

11: Three global floods ago

• The initial melt water pulse, termed “1A” by scientists, happened around 14,600 years before the present (Weaver 2003, 1709).

• The melt waters of almost ten millennia that had collected inside the massive remains of the continental glaciers collapsed and flushed the face of the planet, resulting in a sea-level rise of about 20 meters (66 feet) in less than 5 centuries (Bassett et al 2005).

11: Three global floods ago

• Almost nothing is known of presumed human settlements or civilization from that early period, other than some durable stone artifacts such as manufactured beads and cave carvings and paintings which may little represent the predominant urban cultures.

• It is possible that the most ancient and fantastical myths of the Himalayan Vedic oral tradition derive from survivors of this period, which impute a deep and complex history to advanced human civilization, including mythic manned flight, nuclear warfare and possibly extinct elements.

12: Two global floods ago

• A second cataclysmic melt water release followed about 12,700 years ago.

• Enough fresh water was released in this event to cause thermohaline (Gulf Stream) slowdown and within 200 years a 1,300 year return to dry, near-ice-age conditions known scientifically as the “Younger Dryas” (Broecker et al 1988, Clarke et al 2003, Teller et al 2002).

12: Two global floods ago

• The cataclysmic water burst caused massive destruction ending megalithic human civilization at the time, may have given rise to the Atlantis mythology.

• Some massive and puzzling durable remains from this period have been found above water on today’s islands of Malta and Japan, but far more remain underwater at depths up to roughly 120 meters (394 ft), which defined the ocean surface at sea level 12,700 years ago.

13: One global flood ago

• The last great melt water inundation happened 8450 years ago +- 25 years (D. C. Barber et al. 1999) with the sudden sub-glacial outburst of North American superlake Agassiz, then twice the size of the Caspian Sea.

• That megaflood, being the most recent, is the best known and most studied of the three.

• It may have provided the basis of the global flood myths of our own proto-civilizations, such as the Babylonian story of Gilgamesh, reflected in biblical Genesis as the story of Noah.

14: Cultural disruption

• These great inundations so catastrophically disrupted human settlements and civilization that except for surviving myths, each abrupt climate disruption was largely forgotten by the humans that came afterward.

• Almost no knowledge of previous settlements and civilizations appears to have transmitted across each disruption.

15: Cultural rebirths

• Each period of climate stability between the great meltwater flood pulses allowed human settlement and civilization to arise anew.

• Our “own” civilization still largely ascribes the beginnings of “its history” to the rapid rise of agrarian urbanity roughly 6500 BCE, coinciding with conversion of the cities of the Lake Agassiz subglacial outburst survivors into andro-centric city-states (Edward Soja 2000).

16: New underwater evidence

• Marine archeological evidence only discovered recently may prove that human urbanization significantly predated what we consider our earliest civilizations, perhaps even extending back into the last ice age.

• Knowledge of such was lost to history through the process of these great global super-floods during the meltdown of the last ice age between 15000 and 8000 years ago.

17: Physical extinctions: The end of births

• Predatory human activity has reinforced the tendency for extinction of large ice age mammals triggered by the progressive meltdown.

• Global climate change is vastly accelerating this trend to extend ultimately to about half of known species, which science already describes as the “6th Great Extinction”. Even in the near half-century, about ¼ of species risk extinction, with the other ¼ to follow over a much longer period.

17: Physical Extinctions: The end of births

• The “6th Great Extinction” is accelerating currently from 1000 times the natural rate of extinction.

• It will require about 20,000 human generations to recover the past century’s level of biological diversity, if it proves recoverable.

• Thus, the life choices exercised by humans during this decade will set the course of natural history for the next seven million years to come.

18: Hot Earth unknown to humansPrior to known hominid species and even before mammals gained the niches they have

occupied until now, Earth’s climate knew several stable eras in much warmer estate, about 10 degrees C warmer than our original.

Those hot and steamy climates did not fluctuate much for hundreds of millions of years because no sea ice was able to form.

19: Hot Earth’s giants

• Such an abundance of organic matter grew on Earth during hot, wet periods that the concentration of oxygen (O2) rose to as high as thirty percent (30%) by the late Carboniferous, allowing Mesozoic dinosaurs to “rule” Earth for hundreds of millions of years.

• Today O2 is about twenty percent (20%), though less at higher elevations and also less in large, polluted urban areas.

20: Prior “Cold Earth” eras

• To find the last event in geologic time when Earth ended an extended period of ice ages, we must look back before the dinosaurs to the event that finally buried the coal swamps, over 260 million years ago (Ma).

• It was then, at the Permo-carboniferous extinction, that 95% of life on Earth perished, opening the 185.5 million year “Hot Earth” Mesozoic era to the early dinosaurs that followed.

20: Prior “Cold Earth” eras

• During the development of life, only one earlier cold era around 460 Ma traded with longer warm eras prior to the onset of the Carboniferous ice ages (Snowball earth).

• This early “Cold earth” era at the end of the Ordovician period killed off the first primitive land plants and spurred development of sturdier vascular plants that produced the highest oxygen atmospheres 200 million years later during the middle Pennsylvanian Carboniferous.

21: Violent benevolence

• Short, extremely violent periods of climate crisis appear the norm as Earth’s climate “step-jumps” (with flickering) between the relatively stable climate states.

• This actually provides the most favorable conditions for life to diversify, survive and thrive during stable climates that extend as long as possible.

22: Causes of transition

• In the past, direct climate forcings such as slight differences in solar activity or orbital “wobbles” were magnified many times over by the natural interactions of energy inputs involving Earth, GHG, the cryosphere (ice cover), and living organic matter.

• Scientists call these magnifications indirect climate forcings or “feedbacks”.

23: High climate sensitivity

• All previous climate changes responded very sensitively to small natural variations, many of them indistinguishable from the level of “background noise” in the data.

• Abrupt jumps to new states proceeded upon reaching some complex, critical thresholds.

• Because empirical climatology finds climate highly sensitive to changes near the level of background noise, absolutely quantified thresholds are unknown and may be unpredictable.

24: Brief human control

• The trajectories of atmospheric GHG changes experienced during the natural past have already been hugely exceeded by human activity.

• This has effectively ended our historical geological epoch, the Holocene.

• It initiated a short period (about the 70 years after WWII) in which the climate and related biological systems increasingly fell under direct human control.

25: Unplanned human direction of Earth systems

• Most of the control exerted by humans on Earth systems during this period was and remains unintentional, unplanned and unguided.

• With certainty of scientific fact, humanity is firmly and directly shaping the future conditions of the thin spherical surface where all known life resides on Earth.

26: Most say it’s a sin

• Most systems of theological thought consider the crossing of this threshold a terrible transgression of the gods’ or nature’s own controls.

o Monotheism: Christianity, Islamic, Hebraic 52% of humans

o Polytheism: Hindu, Shinto, Other 27% of humans

o Atheism: Buddhist, Shamanist/Animist, Gaia/New Pagan 21%

27: Large & abrupt climate change

• It is possible that human out-gassing of carbon-containing GHG has already set in motion the natural mechanisms that will move the Earth climate into that long-gone “hot-box” regime which is foreign to current life forms, forcing adaptation or extinction.

• Scientists now believe natural feedback mechanisms that could accomplish this will wrest control of climate back from humans within the decade unless extreme actions are taken.

27: Large & abrupt climate change• This seems the

natural method that relocated and reopened many ecological niches.

• It is implicated in the five mass extinctions of the distant geological past.

possibly caused by a drop in sea levels as glaciers formed, then by rising sea levels as glaciers melted

Ordovician-Silurian, about

439 Ma

little is known about land organisms at the time, though I have visited the very large fish fossils from this era in the University of Michigan Natural History Museum

Late Devonian, about 364 Ma

Earth’s worst mass extinction, killing 95 percent of all species and an estimated 70 percent of land species such as plants, insects, and vertebrate animals

Permian-Triassic, about 251 Ma

most likely caused by massive floods of lava erupting from the opening of the central Atlantic

End Triassic, 199 to 214 Ma

probably caused or aggravated by impact of several-mile-wide asteroid that created the Chicxulub crater now hidden at the edges of the Yucatan Peninsula and beneath the Gulf of Mexico.

Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T), 65.5 Ma

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planetearth/extinction_sidebar_000907.html

28: Extinction Events & Climate

In each of the past five mass extinctions, the top trophic level was lost as NPP

shrank, e.g. the dinosaurs did not survive the last (K-T) major extinction episode.

29: Is it our time to go?

• Whether the current concentration of GHG, being unnatural, leads to a new sustained foreign climate regime, or causes a violent shorter-term climate disruption that resolves itself into a more familiar pattern, perturbing factors are likely to expire.

30: The 2° C upper limit

• Currently, the scientific consensus believes that only about two degrees Celsius (just over six degrees Fahrenheit) of increase since industrialization in the average temperature of the Earth’s surface can occur without triggering irreversible, catastrophic runaway climate damage (Juniper 2005, 1287).

• So far 1.6° C has already been inserted into the climate system, with nearly 1° C already apparent in current measurements (Hansen 2005).

31: A 5.8° C best guess

• The best climate models estimate expected increases to range from one up to ten degrees Celsius, centering on a most likely possibility of 5.8 degrees Celsius global temperature rise.

• This is beyond what will send the climate spiraling upward in temperature without any chance for human intervention.

32: Runaway climate crisis

• A three, four, five or more Celsius degree global temperature increase places the climate well into a runaway climate regime outside of human control.

• Thus the era of human control of the climate system may effectively end in less than ten years hence, long before significant shafts are seen.

• Feedbacks accelerating such a runaway climate crisis include the following, theses 33 to 41:

Feedbacks Summary 33-41

• 33: More harsh weather• 34: Biological decay modifier• 35: From reflector to collector• 36: Blooming spikes of GHG• 37: Rapid sea level rise• 38: Repeated sea incursions• 39: Runaway sea level rise• 40: Reflective aerosol reductions• 41: Fires shift land to upward climate forcing

33: More harsh weather

• The arrivals of super-strength hurricanes and typhoons around the world in 2005 may have signaled to many people the concrete beginning of great consequences from global heat buildup that will affect every part of human civilization, and indeed the entire biosphere on Earth.

• Changes in cloud formation and rainfall patterns may have counterintuitive effects because H20 is the strongest greenhouse gas, both a solar reflector and collector.

34: Biological decay modifier

• Rapidly melting tundra lands expose ancient frozen organic matter to sudden decay into GHG with potential to magnify human-caused global warming by up to a factor of 800.

35: From reflector to collector

• Sudden conversions of ice and snow covers into ocean melt water and waterlogged soils feed back perversely.

• Ice and snow reflect 90% of incoming solar radiation back into space.

• Water and soils reflect only 10% of incoming sunlight back into space, and absorb the other 90%.

36: Blooming spikes of GHG

• Expect massive blooms and die-offs with biological decomposition of existing organic matter into methane and carbon dioxide as food pyramids collapse, oceans expand and newly inundate productive areas.

• Heat redistributed below the sea surface will eventually deteriorate massive hydrate formations, first affecting shallower arctic and Antarctic formations.

37: Rapid sea level rise

• From six to around twenty feet of sea level rise may be expected within this century, and possibly as soon as its first half, depending on the unknown velocity of lags in the unprecedented climate shift we are undergoing.

• Science is inherently conservative about predicting these, but past examples of natural shifts this large have been discovered with a decadal range. Decadal means on the order of ten years’ duration (Hansen 2007).

38: Repeated sea incursions

• These permanent increases in sea level will generally arrive riding upon the incursions of violent seawater storm surges.

• Currently, these storm surges can reach a height of about 28 feet, as witnessed during landfall of Katrina, a strong Category 4 hurricane in 2005.

• Future storms will involve both greater and lesser strengths, so proportionately higher surges are possible.

39: Runaway sea level rise• If the Earth is committed to a runaway climate change

state over the next decades, ultimate sea level rise of 254 feet will occur when the last surface ice dissipates, submerging urban agglomerations that contain about half of U.S. population today. This rise does not appear likely to be greatly felt until the later 21st Century. Current rise rate is about 3 mm per year global average.

• Storm surge risks thus place the final level of safety over 282 feet higher than sea level stands today, and so hundreds of miles inland in flat coastal areas.

• Massive hardship for coastal communities will include border and resource pressures in nations most flooded, further decreased global primary production of nutrients (NPP) with deteriorating or destroyed local ecosystems.

40: Reflective aerosol reductions

• Loss of the northern hemisphere’s reflective aerosols will quickly escalate surface temperatures there by several more degrees Celsius within a matter of years. This is possible when:• Major pollution-emitting steam and steel/pulp/cement

plants shut down due to decreased economic activity or replacement by less polluting facilities.

• Oil-fired internal combustion engines shut off.

41: Fires shift land to upward climate forcing

• Fires in the remaining forests of the southern hemisphere, and as seen in Greece and CA recently likely also in the north, will become impossible to control at some future point.

• Results include a net climate forcing upward of about one additional watt per meter squared in those areas – a 50% bump compared to the excess heat the globe is dealing with today.

42: Alternative Path

• An alternative path toward limiting global warming exists but is not yet being pursued.

• Even those nations that have adopted the Kyoto Protocol that meet their treaty obligations would only accomplish a small (about 6%) “pilot” demonstration of the kinds of reductions in GHG emissions that will be required to stabilize the Earth atmosphere at an increased but survivable rate of heat gain.

• US proposals, including California's, are all slower than Kyoto in effecting GHG reductions.

The unwillingness of the United States of America to ratify the

Kyoto Protocol robbed it of moral high ground necessary to ensure

hegemonic success of global greenhouse gas reductions.

43: Leadership Was Lost

The cost and difficulty of accessing an alternative path increases with each

addition of GHG to the atmosphere and thus with every passing day.

Technologies and practices necessary to avoid “dangerous anthropogenic

interference” with global climate all exist, but entrenched economic and political

interests have so far prevented planning and implementation.

44: Technically feasible

An encouraging exception to thesis 44 above was a nearly complete 45-year effort by the nation of Brazil to

eliminate its dependence on imported oil resources by cultivating renewable

energy via sugar cane colonies to supply transportation ethanol in

sufficient quantities.

45: An Alternative Demonstrated

There is no single strategy that will accomplish the desired reductions of

GHG emissions (carbon mitigation initiative), but success is possible by concurrently implementing a

few major or thousands of minor initiatives over the next decade and following

them through (Socolow & Lam 2007) while migrating and adapting as needed

over a much longer period.

46: A Few or Many?

Initiatives include treating remaining reserves of fossil

organics as raw materials for closed-loop electro-chemical

processes, rather than as fuel to be oxidized in the open

atmosphere.

47: Develop alternative power and sequestration

Initiatives include replacing inefficient processes with ones that conserve energy to a much greater extent. Such strategies typically pay for

themselves many times over but also require substantial upfront capital

reinvestment and manifold changes in human practices.

48: Implement Conservation

Initiatives include a redefinition of the current value paradigm tied to

mass good scarcity to a new paradigm of value based on

diverse, dignified individuation.

49: A New Value Paradigm

Initiatives will generally require public sector political support for artificially

enhancing the economics of renewable energy resources and

penalizing the emission of carbon-containing gasses, against which stakeholders naturally react (e.g.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, 2008).

50: Strong Public Policy Required

These initiatives lead to radically different future lifestyles from those that people

aspire to today, and will exacerbate tensions on existing investments in both technological infrastructure and human

institutions.

If implemented within the next decade to control the global warming phenomenon, resulting societal changes

may create large intergenerational and international challenges within the span of a single human lifetime.

51: Dangerous Change Velocity

These initiatives provide an opportunity to advocate for

greater human equity but risk the perils of warfare in a period of

fluid movement and competitive change (Schwarz & Randall

2003).

52: Risks of Change

Current levels of human population and activity guarantee that the next

“ice age” has been postponed, perhaps indefinitely. Even if humans became extinct today, it would take many, many thousands of years for

the climate to settle back to a regime wherein the next ice age could

proceed.

53: The Change is Happening

The use of money as measure of value rather than simply a medium of

exchange provides false security today and in the world to come.

An innate focus on the collection of money wealth is misdirecting the life’s work of the vast majority of laborers

today.

54: Love of Money Evil Still

Following current practices for just ten more years will effectively set

Earth on the path to runaway climate change, without possibility of

intervention (Socolow & Lam 2007).Runaway or abrupt climate change has potential for

massive resource disruptions and rapid destabilization of the world geopolitical stage (Schwartz & Randall

2003).

54: Love of Money Evil Still

A better measure of the economic value of energy may be

DollarPounds/kWh.  This is a multiple of the dollar price responding to supply and the pounds of carbon or

carbon dioxide equivalent GWP responding to the threat of greenhouse enhancement.

55: The Old Value Paradigm is Not an Option

The new carbon economy is based not only on the scarcity of valuable goods but on avoiding

the danger of atmospheric carbon-bearing gasses blanketing

excess heat energy.

56: A New Low-Carbon Economy

Recasting the problem of global warming as one of controlling an

atmospheric energy surplus rather than one of reducing material

emissions to may lead to novel means for capture, storage and use

of energy potentials to help humanity manage Earth systems.

57: Global Energy Surplus

The free market is able to accomplish much, but not very much that is

guided, directed, targeted, focused or planned, though it try. This is the

reason that war planning often trumps the free market and why in crisis

dictatorial powers more easily arise.

58: The Free Market

59: Adaptation = Planning• Planning must

expand in theoretical scope to include the aim of secure development.

• The Planner’s triangle (Campbell) must become the Planner’s pyramid, triangulating development at the center of four competing planning motives.

Adaptation to the effects of the climate crisis will likely cost

more than the alternative path of avoidance/mitigation, so to

the extent these remain effective, they are manditory.

59: Adaptation = Planning

Also, new and replacement development must incorporate the state of the art in climate change avoidance/mitigation,

to delay the natural magnification of anthropogenic

causes. (Rosenzweig et al.)

59: Adaptation = Planning

• Climate adaptation planning must include all of the lessons learned in the past century of planning experience, ie.

59: Adaptation = Planning

Public participation in transparent processes

Muddling through on the best known information

Advocacy for social equity, environmental protection, economic development and long term security for those who cannot advocate themselves

Primarily improve quality of life by increasing the amount of free time and money people enjoy to interact with chosen others

Climate adaptation planning must develop a discreet, concrete, interlocking and self-reinforcing

system to displace suburban development with effective life cycle

development.

59: Adaptation = Planning

To avert the ambitions of the few at any extreme of various spectrums, the yearnings of the

population of the world for individual freedoms and self determination must be met with real,

participatory democracy supported by effective public education, enabled by modern

communication technology and respecting self-chosen social structures, adjudicated without

resort to war powers.

60: Satyagraha Training is Mandatory

Any initiative for democratic action must allow for completely

transparent information to help the people make decisions to the best

of their ability or to opt out of voting on matters they feel ill-

equipped to address.

61: Free and Accurate Information

Information cannot bear the individual bias of sources that

fund its production or dissemination, but must conform to the peer-reviewed standards of scientific inquiry and journalistic

integrity.

62: Peer Review Essential

Intellectual property rights may need to be reviewed, revised or waived for the greater good

or the definition of fair use expanded to effectively disseminate appropriate technologies and needed information at least cost to points of

application throughout the world.

Science, engineering and arts communities may require alternative forms of compensation in lieu of that based

upon copyright ownership.

63: Capital and Compensation

Communities dedicated to public service may wish to consider

reinvesting all available revenues toward solving the various

problems of relief, adaptation and stabilization as early as possible.

64: Revenue Redirection

Now exists an opportunity to define a new “greatest generation” in whose debt all future humans will live, even as those who struggled with the evils of domineering conquest during the

past century are now remembered by those of us that survive them.

65: Today’s Greatest

This new “greatest generation” will triumph chiefly in setting forth an

Adaptation Plan for Climate Change with an implementation plan identifying resources and proposing a

schedule.

65: Today’s Greatest

The common appellation “global warming” or its scientific euphemism “climate change” serves to enwrap many codependent and interrelated

effects, which operate to diverse ends in different places on Earth. All of

them result from the global uptake of heat in the biosphere.

66: A Global Variety

At the Earth and climate sciences end of the spectrum, this

phenomenon appears complex, but from a human perspective it is

really as simple as this: More carbon in the air means more of the sun’s heat gets trapped on Earth’s surface, messing it up.

67: A Complex Simplicity

Humans must stop burning (oxidizing) carbon-based things in the open atmosphere as rapidly

as possible.

68: It All Comes to This

Brief Intermission

• You have been patient to follow me through 68 of these 95 theses thus far.

• Please take a short break.

• If you like, the book excerpt clickable here transcripts the clear presentation in 1959 to the oil industry of why “global heating” requires energy sans fossil fuels.

69: Dr. Keeling’s Curve

The famous “Keeling curve” has been issuing an increasingly dire warning to the scientific community since

the early 1960s. Dr. David Keeling produced careful measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide at the top of

Mona Loa in Hawaii every four hours since 1958. The resulting curve revealed the precision of his measurements, recording the respiration of global plant life breathing in and

out day and night. It also revealed the annual pattern of northern hemisphere carbon dioxide being absorbed into

plants during the summer growing season and being released back into the atmosphere as organic matter died

off and decayed in winter.

The “Keeling curve” within only a few years contained enough detail to confirm the theory

that the overall concentration of carbon dioxide was increasing each year in an accelerating

trend. This pattern has continued to the present, and trend projection indicates that by at least 2050, CO2 will have reached a clear danger

zone of 450 ppm and increase from there. The yellow trend line shows the path we are on today, with the lowest possible long term

stabilization measure above 650 ppm.

70: Keeling Curve Projected

The international community accepts the reality of global warming, and is pressuring

American leadership.

71: International Agreement

The UN’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its AR1 report in 1990 noted much uncertainty but concluded a best estimate of global average surface temperature increase

during the 21st Century of about 6°C .

72: IPCC Initial Assessment Report (AR)

The IPCC in its AR2 in 1995 concluded climate “has changed over the past century” and

“balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”.

It also concluded that global average surface

temperatures could increase by from 1 to 3.5 °C by the end of the century.

73: IPCC Report AR2

The IPCC in its AR3 in 2001 finally concluded that most of the change in global climate that had occurred to that date had been caused by

human activities. It also concluded that global average surface

temperatures could increase by 1.4 to 5.8°C by the end of the century, translating to much greater increases at the polar latitudes and lesser changes in

equatorial regions.

74: IPCC Report AR3

The Fourth IPCC Assessment Report in 2007, though much of the working group material was completed and submitted by 2005, reported a

likely century temperature rise of

2.4°C to 6.4°C.

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in

global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising

global average sea level.”

75: IPCC Report AR4

This amount of increase, based on a best-case world scenario continuing to use

fossil fuels, is clearly dangerous.

Because observations of global warming since 2001 have been proceeding at a faster rate than contemporary climate science predicted, the timeframe for reaching dangerous levels may be

shortening substantially (Hansen et al).

76: A Shortening Timeframe

Advanced American climate scientists still maintain the assumption that

global climate is controllable at this point, and a critical threshold (turning point) will not be crossed for about a decade from 2005. Among these are

NASA’s James E. Hansen, now retired from Columbia University.

77: Scientists react: Americans say “Can-Do”

The most advanced thinkers looking comprehensively at the scientific, political

and personal realities of energy requirements in the U.S., India and China have already concluded that a strategy of

prevention or mitigation is too late for effective implementation, and that the

only option remaining open for preserving civilization is adaptation.

77: Scientists react: Europeans say “Too Late”

It is likely that climate change will trigger migrations on a scale never before experienced

in the development of Homo sapiens.

Early academic studies have acknowledged the possibility of around 3 million environmental refugees per year between now and 2050.

Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma in 2005 provided most American’s first experience with environmental refugees, though only at 1/6 the size of the median

annual number.

78: The Population Reacts

Philosophical reactions to climate change:

The population may choose to react to catastrophic climate change in several

ways. Nihilism and fatalism will become great attractions, because neither

requires effort to change behavior or perform personal sacrifice.

79: The Do-Nothing Response

Hedonism and spirituality/religiosity will offer anesthetic responses to catastrophic

climate change if the lack of good faith efforts toward GHG mitigation over the last decade indeed prove insufficient,

though conditions will continually trend toward “difficult for most people to obtain

true bliss.”

80: Anesthetic Responses

Abandonment of the Earth’s surface may become a functional response for some few people who attempt to maintain elements of

civilization against inhospitable conditions, living in protected spaces either below ground, in the

ocean or above the Earth’s atmosphere.

Until nothing remains for us other than to survive and attempt repopulation of the planet, let us cooperatively grow in humanity

toward one another while stabilizing the atmosphere with as small an increase in global mean temperature as possible.

81: Reactionary Responses

Because the vast majority of people on Earth are likely to feel failed by their governments,

religious affiliations and even fathers if climate changes quickly exceed the human grasp, one of the major impediments to climate crisis relief will

be distrust of all prior civic and religious institutions, leading to nearly complete societal

breakdown and horrible personal and state conflicts for water resources, arable land and

appropriate seed stocks.

82: Vindictive Responses

Ironically, some changes of consequence will occur before any physical effects of truly catastrophic climate change materialize.

SEC rules for publicly traded companies require disclosure of any potential liabilities that can be

foreseen. Global warming is one of those liabilities, and the first corporation admitting liability will open a

floodgate of legal actions that may lead them to seek federal protection limiting their liability (Hancock 2005).

The Enron corporate meltdown of $65 billion in assets showed the gravity with which stockholder trust can be affected. Enron also showed that

governance exerted by large investor groups such as pension funds cannot avert such a catastrophe from taking its course.

83: SEC Disclosure Rules

To avoid an industry-wide meltdown that would gravely limit the future

of the City of Houston, Harris County, the State of Texas and the

United States of America, fossil-fuel driven profits should be voluntarily split by the governors of each

company between takings necessary for continuing conventional operations as the market for petroleum shrinks in a post-peak and carbon-sensitive economy, and holdings for a public trust to be managed entirely by direct (apolitical) global

democratic action.

84: Voluntary SettlementPeter Barnes: http://www.earthinc.org/earth_atmospheric_trust.php

A global public trust must result from a binding voluntary settlement agreed and

mutually coerced by all stakeholders whereby constituent contributors place

into public trust a fair measure relative to the responsible amounts of GHG

emissions, from primarily fossil-fuel driven profits in the industrialized world, and

forest land and agricultural land uses in the rural world.

Tragedy of the Commons: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full

85: Living Earth Trust?

This democratically operated public trust would provide

necessary resources for mitigating actions in the adaptation to the

current climate.

Commenters have balked at this suggestion as too grandiose and

prone to corruption.

86: A Democratic Trust

An incomplete price signal is furthering use of fossil fuels well

beyond the “safety limit” of 350 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere.

As long as fossil fuels remain artificially cheap and profitable, their use will rise. Correcting this market failure requires their price to account for

their true social costs.

87: Market-driven Solution

The Cap and Trade approach of the Montreal Protocol (1988) has begun to heal the ozone hole above Antarctica.

Being the only successful existing model for international cooperation in the reduction of substances introduced to the atmosphere, Cap and Trade has been considered for greenhouse gases.

88: Carbon Permit Trading

A Cap and Trade solution requires the creation of a new market for

trading credits that allow an entity to emit a set amount of a certain type of

greenhouse gases.

Initial attempts to legislate this allowed too many loopholes by grandfathering large polluters, and no body exists that can

create a global market.

89: Cap and Trade

With the failure of Cap and Trade, a Carbon Tax was suggested to add a significant and slowly rising price on top of the other costs built into the

price of fossil fuels.

A taxation approach is also difficult to implement globally and is subject to

political interference in individual states, reducing its effectiveness.

90: Carbon Tax

Carbon Fee and Dividend is the policy proposal created by Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) to internalize the costs of

burning carbon-based fuels (https://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/).

This is the only solution put forth to date that

empowers a virtuous cycle of innovation without regulatory involvement or government entanglement.

91: Carbon Fee and Dividend

Carbon Fee Trust Fund revenues could be collected and distributed by the same thousand or so entities which initially owe the fees, potentially sustaining big oil, gas

and coal companies as consumer revenue stream providers while they

reposition hydrocarbons ASAP to more valuable closed-cycle feed stocks and up-

cyclable end products.

92: Carbon Fee Trust Fund

A. Immediate moratorium on any new coal plants lacking full CO2

sequestration.

93: Strong U.S. Public Policies needed immediately - #1

B. Utility rewards transformed so as to encourage increased

profitability as they achieve improved user efficiencies.

94: Strong U.S. Public Policies needed immediately - #2

C. Fair and gradually rising price on carbon emissions imposed,

to encourage a reduction in GHG emissions, with price determined bythe market as it is subjected to full

democratic consideration of  economic, environmental, equity &

security issues

95: Strong U.S. Public Policies needed immediately - #3

Thank you for your critical discussion of these 95 theses.Life as we know it is on the line, and how we respond this

year will largely determine its fate.

suckow@hotmail.com

--Paul M. Suckow,PhD Candidate, TSU, Houston, TX, USA

Epilogue:

Selected ReferencesBarber, D. C. et al. (1999). Nature 400, 344.

Bassett, S. E., G. A. Milne, J. X. Mitrovica, and P. U. Clark (2005). “Ice Sheet and Solid Earth Influences on Far-Field Sea-Level Histories”. Science 309: 925-928. 

Broecker, W. S. et al. (1988). Paleoceanography 3, 1.

Bruntland, G. H. (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Clarke, Garry, David Leverington, James Teller, Arthur Dyke. (2003). “Superlakes, Megafloods, and Abrupt Climate Change”. Science 301(5635): 922-923.

Füssel, H.M. (2007). “Adaptation planning for climate change: concepts, assessment approaches, and key lessons.” Sustainability Science, 2: 265-275.

Hancock, E. E. (2005). Red Dawn, Blue Thunder, Purple Rain: Corporate Risk of Liability for Global Climate Change and the SEC Disclosure Dilemma. Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, 17(2), 233-251.

Hansen, J. E. (2005-2008). Various papers and writings available at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/.

Hardin, G. (1968). “The Tragedy of the Commons”. Science 162 (3859): 1243-1248.

Houghton, J. (1997). Global Warming: The Complete Briefing (Second ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Juniper, T. (2005). "Global warming must be limited to 2{degrees}C, scientists say." BMJ 331(7528): 1287.

Prentice et al. (2000), Harrison et al. (2001), Bigelow et al. (2003) and Pickett et al. (2004). http://www.bridge.bris.ac.uk/resources/BIOMES_data/BIOME_v4.2.htm

Rosenzweig, C., D.C. Major, K. Demong, C. Stanton, R. Horton, and M. Stults. (2007). “Managing climate change risks in New York City's water system: Assessment and adaptation planning.” Mitig. Adapt. Strategies Global Change, 12, 1391-1409, doi:10.1007/s11027-006-9070-5.

Selected References, cont.

• Continued:Schwartz, P., & Randall, D. (2003).

An abrupt climate change scenario and its implications for United States national security . Washington DC: U.S. Dept. of Defense.

Socolow, R. H., & Lam, S. H. (2007). Good enough tools for global warming policy making. Phil.Trans.R.Soc. A, 10(1098), /rsta.2006.1961.

Steig, Eric. (2007).  http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/

Teller, E. in ENERGY and MAN, a Symposium, pages 53-72. (1960). “Energy Patterns of the Future.”

Teller, J.T., D.W. Leverington, J. D. Mann. (2002). Quat. Sci. Rev. 21, 879.

The Keeling Curve website at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, U.C. San Diego. https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/

Weaver, Andrew J., et al. (2003). “Meltwater Pulse 1A from Antarctica as a Trigger of the Bølling-Allerød Warm Interval”. Science Vol. 299. no. 5613, 14 March, pp. 1709 – 1713.

As my time and resources allow, I will try to provide an updated and expanded reference list in addition to the basic reading list provided above. An excellent introductory 2012 MIT report on Urban Climate Adaptation Planning contained a good reference list at: http://web.mit.edu/jcarmin/www/urbanadapt/Urban%20Adaptation%20Report%20FINAL.pdf