Rising Seas: Not the Only Danger of CO2.

As discussed in the August, 15, 2008, post, our sun, the star Sol, may be entering a cooling phase, which in turn could be related to sunspot cycles. As a slightly variable star, Sol's cyclic changes in heat output will take centuries to determine. However, a possible few decades of cooling could give Earth some relief from rising seas, i.e., if cooling is not extreme (See also August 15 post). However, other dangers of CO2 can't be muted by a cold spell.

30-50% of the world's CO2 is absorbed in the ocean, about the same also in plant life on land. Another serious danger of CO2, is that the ocean's acidity is increasing. Per LA Times articles, resurgence of ancient conditions, poisonous jellyfish, burning seaweeds, and toxic clouds from algae blooms are already being detected in many oceans. Important lakes, and rivers like the Hudson in New York, can be saved from pollution death by decades of effort, but what could be done for 140 million square miles of ocean if we let it get out of hand.

Luckily, efforts to fight deforestation (20-30% of CO2 emissions), are increasing. Per Project Earth show on the Discover channel, studies of large-scale forest reseeding from aircraft look practical. Also, discussions at Bali, for a treaty to replace Kyoto, seem headed toward financial incentives for indigenous people to save their forests. About time! Last year, the World Bank announced that they had G-8 support for a $250 million forest rescue fund, but they were not certain of investor response unless a new treaty covered the risks. (Even so, $250 million is not much money for the work that is so critical.) If most of this CO2, say 20% of the world's emissions, could be averted, it would be like 900, one-gig nukes, replacing 900, one-gig, coal-burning plants.

PS: Sol is at the low-point in its 11-year sunspot cycle. Sunspots should not be frequent, but last month, August 2008, was the first, full-month in a century, which has passed without a single visible sunspot (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, SOHO, satellite). Some experts think this may presage a cooler sun and cooler weather for Earth, but no one knows for certain.

Reprise: Will the Earth Get Hotter or Colder?

Why is the Earth's weather an emotional, political subject? There are scientific facts that can be found, and that should be reported precisely, so that over decades the public can clearly see how the Earth is doing. Scientists of good will can debate what the facts mean, and over time the public will come to understand who is on the right track.
The following statement was in my July 30, 2007, post: "Within the Little Ice Age, another drop of 3-degrees F, occurred worldwide for 70 years (1645-1715), due to lower Sun energy, in the so-called Maunder Minimum of sun spots. Sol is a slightly variable star. If such an event occurs now.....it would offset Global Warming to some extent." However, the world may get more than I bargained for. The WWW.dailygalaxy.com (2008/06), reported that there are currently no sunspots on the sun, and that the world cooled 0.7C, in one year through January 2008. Whether no sunspots means cooler sun is still debatable. This is the minimum period of the normal sunspot cycle, but some say “the sun looks dead” and some others are worried about how long it will continue.
In Nature, 326:52, 1987, Ribes E., et al, reported that during the Maunder Minimum of sun spots, the sun’s angular diameter was larger, and rotation slower, probably leading to a cooler sun for 70 years. This would certainly trump any human influences.
Per a statement in Scientific American, the ocean level rises two millimeters each year. Why do we not take a million or so satellite readings each month, and report the actual mm rise, even to the second or third decimal place? Why don’t we average millions of temperatures worldwide and give the Earth’s temperature each month as well? Why don’t we also measure “The Solar Constant” (misnomer or not) by satellite, and tell each month whether the sun is giving more or less heat? The heat may or may not relate to sunspot activity, but in decades, we should know where we stand.
Regardless of the climate, air pollution from fossil fuels, especially coal, will still be a problem, and fresh water will be critically scarce. Thousands of nukes, or millions of wind turbines, or some combination, will still be needed to get us through this century.

Jatropha Trees; Good; But.

Much is being made nowadays in newspapers, magazines, TV and websites about the remarkable jatropha tree. This oil bearing tree can produce good biofuel from marginal land. It does not need to use good farmland the way corn ethanol does. Furthermore, it is claimed that this tree can thrive in arid climates; it would therefore be drought resistant to a large extent. (This does not mean it couldn't do better with good soil and water.) This tree might be a better solar energy source than photovoltaic (pv) cells. Organic materials need no factory, just progressive growth by generations, from nursery to deployment. It would be labor-intensive, which could also be a good thing in poorer countries.
There is good data about India's large-scale jatropha tree farming for their national railways in 2006. From CNBC-TV, India produced 350,000 tons of biofuel from 650,000 acres (1,000 square-miles) (no info given on land/water quality).
Per google, one barrel oil is about 1/8 ton--India therefore produced 2,800,000 (2.8M) barrels on 1,000 square-miles in one year (BUT, this yearly crop is equaled by just 70 days average energy production from one, one-gig nuke; there is no free lunch with solar). Globally, if as much as one million square-miles (1000 times India's railway farm) suitable for jatropha could be planted (an enormous undertaking, but doable), 2,800,000,000 (2.8B) barrels of clean biofuel could be produced. This would be about 1/11 of the 30 billion barrels of current world oil consumption; 4% of the world's total current energy, since oil equals 40% of the world's energy supply. It would also be equivalent to about 200, one-gig nukes.
Subsistence farmers in poor countries, aided by government-supplied, seedlings and training, could hope for cash crops worth more than $2000/acre at current prices; even more money in coming years. African tree farms, possibly with millions of bored water wells, would be a natural benefit for rich European nations to use as Kyoto Treaty carbon offsets.
PS: Per Bloomburg.com, Japan, Italy and Spain face combined fines of as much as $33 billion (B) for failing to reduce emissions as promised in their agreement to the Kyoto Treaty. Just think how far tens of $billions would go toward starting a Green Revolution for Africa.

Is Ted Turner Right About Cannibalism?

Ted Turner was widely quoted recently, saying that starvation and cannibalism is facing the Earth within a very few decades. Cannibalism is not humanity's normal response to starvation; there has been much starvation in our past, and even today here is massive silent starvation in the form of malnutrition among the world's poor. America's agricultural policies are largely to blame and should be changed; but that is another subject.
However, Mr. Turner is probably alluding to runaway heating of the atmosphere and spreading droughts; much more serious even than the problem of rising sea levels. Climate change is surely happening, but not on the scale he threatens, unless he means an era of methane eruptions from frozen hydrates in tundra and oceans. Geologists believe that such eruptions occurred 55 million years ago, and raised atmospheric temperatures by as much as 14-degrees C. This era saw a large-scale die off of many species, our species could certainly not survive such a change.
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is currently studying the frozen hydrates, which dwarf the
combined known oil and natural gas reserves, to see what conditions might cause large eruptions, or "burps" of methane. I would like to ask the ORNL if it would be possible to mitigate this very serious problem, by flaring-off the plumes, if they should happen to occur. It is certain that the plumes could be detected by satellite; it seems likely that flaring would cause orders of magnitude less heat than letting this potent greenhouse gas spread through the air for decades; could plumes be ignited by incendiary rockets, lasers, or some such?

Greens Get Silly, But Are Very Right At Times.

To me, fighting construction of the Tellico Dam to save one unimportant species , the Snail Darter, was silly. Nature has tried and discarded gazillions of species over geologic time.
(To digress, it would be interesting to have a guess of how many different species there were in humanity's family tree, from the earliest forms of life to ourselves. My Christian educators never said that evolution could not have happened. Couldn't God have started life on earth, knowing that the Infinite Intelligent Design of the DNA molecule, would inevitably evolve creatures in God's image? God's Image could mean intelligence; i.e. intelligent creatures like ourselves capable of contemplating God's existence. The form that we would arrive at might not have mattered.)
Back to the Greens. They were right about the hole in the ozone layer. With that heads-up, the world is in process of trying to stem the problem. Couldn't loss of the ozone have forced us to live some form of nocturnal life, since sunlight would become deadly?
Likewise, I am firmly convinced that they are right about climate change, and the very serious consequences future generations will face. However, they then get all ideological and fight the hard-headed answer, nuclear energy. Since it is so difficult to get everyone moving in the same direction, I believe that diffused (weak) solutions, from conservation, efficiency, and better forestry, to solar, wind and biofuels will take too long to work. The massive, concentrated energy of nuclear plants is the best chance that humanity has for survival.

One Nuclear Kilowatt Equals Five of Solar

As a senior, concerned for humanity's very survival, who thinks that nuclear is the only clear answer, I would still be delighted to see 100,000 square-miles of pv cells, and thousands of concentrated solar energy plants in our future. However, there is not enough manufacturing capability in the world to produce such an immense array of structures this century, not even in several centuries beyond. This huge quantity would be needed because solar energy is so weakly diffused. In 12 hours of daylight, a pv cell can only accumulate 4, or at most 5, hours of sunlight for rated output. A nuke delivers rated energy more than 22 hours of the day, 95% of the hours of every year.
Solar enthusiasts make the most of the situation, by saying that a solar cell produces the energy during the heat of the day when it is most needed for air conditioning. This is only a small percentage of the electric energy a household needs. (NOTE: It is my belief that by 20-30 years from now, all air conditioning may well be outlawed; people will be able to survive without air conditioning.)
Other proponents point to houses constructed by experts, that have every possible detail of shape, materials, insulation, heat pumps, etc. in the design. Such houses can be energy neutral, or better. However, America's 300 million people, possibly 75 million households, are not likely to find more than a million with enough enthusiasm and resources to make this a practical part of the energy solution. Government programs can help, but only as a percentage play; unless climate change becomes so serious that everyone must sacrifice and join the fight. If we wait too long to see if to see if solar energy will work, this enlightenment may come too late. The massive potential of nuclear energy would give a much more certain future.

Scary Climate Modes: Universe Today Report (Part Three)

The so-called Greenhouse (GH) Effect is not similar to that in greenhouses for flowers. The real GH however, is in fact, essential to all organic life on Earth. The partial blanketing of Earth by water vapor, CO2 and other gases keeps our atmosphere near +15-degrees C (above freezing), rather than the minus 15-degrees C (a frozen planet), that it would otherwise be. Relative to life, CO2 plays a zero-sum game. Plants absorb CO2, helping them to grow with the C (carbon), and giving off the O (oxygen) . Plants then take back the O, combine it with C, to emit CO2 when they die and decay, or are burned. Higher up the food chain to animals, and humans, all other life operates the same way. This interchange is, and has been for millenia, in equilibrium; but in modern times the system has changed. Fossil-fuel burning creates excess CO2, deforestation (slash and burn) adds 30% more. Rich and poor nations therefore each have there own fronts on which to fight the anti-GH war. http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect.

Some respondents to the UT report, mentioned that humans and animals exhale CO2. Though that is right, its simply part of the life/CO2 equilibrium. However, there is a more dangerous gas, methane, that results from eructation (burping) and flatulence from cows, sheep and other ruminants. They can eat cellulosic food like grass, and digest it with unique microbes, producing the methane. Methane is only 6-7% of GH gas but stays longer in the air and is more efficient at increasing heat than CO2. Seemingly, there is no way to mitigate this gas, so we must do what we can about CO2; build thousands of nukes, and millions upon millions of wind turbines.

Some respondents acted as though the GH is ideological, especially because of Al Gore's climate proposals. He is a good man, but some seem to say there is no problem, simply because Al says that there is. This is as silly as extremists of the opposite stripe, who say that there must be skeletons of LGM at Roswell, because the USAF says there are none.