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How can we undo the fossil fuel CO2? (A longer version: what are the most promising and sustainable strategies in carbon management and sequestration?
Posted on August 1st, 2009Categorized as Earth System, Interdisciplinary, Social-Ecological Systems Tagged as CO2, fossil fuel, sequestration
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Given the slowness of transition towards a low-carbon economy, we are bound for a high CO2 world. It is most likely that we will have to sequester CO2 and manage the carbon pools on land and in the ocean to keep the atmospheric CO2 below a dangerous level. The unintended consequences of our ‘geophysical experiment’ (Roger Revelle) will have to be undone by intended actions that are informed by the best science. Earth system research is in a unique position to answer such a question that involves an extremely large number of disciplines and their interaction with the human dimension.
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How can we develop a commercially economical method of making hydrogen?
Posted on July 27th, 2009Categorized as Other Tagged as climate change, fossil fuel, hydrogen, renewable energy
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Hydrogen is amply abundant in the form of H20, and if a viable way to separate it can be found, it can be used to produce energy and enable the world to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels considerably and go a long way toward mitigating climate change.
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How can society transition away from depleting conventional fossil fuel energy without exacerbating climate change by using poorer quality fossil fuels in greater quantities, such as coal or tar sands, and without causing major economic collapse(s) and or massive starvation and famine?
Posted on August 14th, 2009Categorized as Earth System, Interdisciplinary, Social-Ecological Systems Tagged as clean energy, climate change, consumption, fossil fuel, renewable energy
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Climate change is of the utmost importance but is, at a fundamental level, a symptom of over-consumption of fossil fuels. We live, to put it simply, in the Age of Oil, and oil is depleting rapidly, and to properly address climate change we need to properly address the cause of the symptom, not the symptom itself. Analyzing current energy consumption patterns so that we as a society are able to slowly power down from a fossil fuel based civilization to a solar based civilization will, in the words of Faber et al. (1996), define how we transition to the next “paradigmatic image of the world”.
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Are there scientifically and politically viable ways to counter-act the most serious consequences of human-induced climate change (i.e., loss of the Arctic, diversion of storm tracks, intensification of weather extremes, acidification of the environment, etc.) for at least the several decades of peak climate change that are inevitable even in the face of aggressive international action? How much more intensive would the impacts and counter-acting actions have to be if international action is delayed for several decades?
Posted on August 14th, 2009Categorized as Climate, Interdisciplinary Tagged as climate change, counter-acting actions, fossil fuel, geoengineering, mitigation
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With fossil fuels providing about 80% of global energy, it is going to take decades to decarbonize the energy system even with aggressive mitigation. As a result, it is virtually inevitable that the warming will head well past 2 C, leading to significant and likely irreversible impacts to climate, the environment, sea level, and acidification. The only potential way to keep the increase in global average temperature increase below 2 C (especially as SO2 emissions and aerosols decrease) and to limit some of the most severe impacts (e.g., to save the Arctic) is going to be to take counter-acting actions (often called geoengineering), We must determine if the potential to take such actions is scientifically justifiable, environmentally effective, and societally and politically acceptable–if research proves this so, we should be preparing to start soon to offset each year’s warming influence and perhaps take the climate back several decades; if not, we need to redouble and redouble our mitigation efforts.
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How can human development and survival be assured if industrial and other processes that contribute to global warming, ozone depletion, forest degradation, etc., are terminated?
Posted on August 27th, 2009Categorized as Earth System, Human Health, Interdisciplinary Tagged as development, environment's impact on mankind, fossil fuel, human survival, industry, natural resources
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This question is vital if earth system science is suggesting ways of surviving the planet. Humankind is part of the planet, and their own survival must be properly integrated into the whole. For example, we must extract and burn fossil fuel if man must live and survive in temperate and polar regions, or if man must move from place to place – requiring some means of transportation. Therefore, as we look at anthropogenic effects on global ecosystem changes, we should not forget to check the effects of environmental stresses to mankind, and how these would influence human interaction with environmental systems. So, can we stop cutting down the forest, burning fossil fuel, extracting uranium and running nuclear reactors, reduce our numbers, say, through birth control, etc., and still survive?
