In Part 1, we saw that

1. Adaptation as primary strategy for dealing with climate change is widely oversold.
2. This is especially true as atmospheric Co2 concentrations approach 800 to 1000 ppm, a likely outcome if we listen to either the delayers or deniers.
3. And a leader adaptation advocate and apparent delayer-1000, Roger Pielke, Jr., “labels adaptation what is in fact mitigation, and his idea of mitigation is apparently research into adaptation.”

Let me elaborate on these points. The day before the dubious pro-adaptation L.A. Times piece, one of Pielke’s fellow Prometheus bloggers, Jonathan Gilligan, pointed out

… if our political system stinks at managing floods, coastal storm risks, and fresh-water resources in the absence of anthropogenic climate change, why would it manage better if climate change does turn out to significantly increase the mean severity and/or variance of the distribution?

I made a similar point last year on the second anniversary of hurricane Katrina, a catastrophe that “showed the limitations of adaptation as a response to climate change“:

… a classic adaptation strategy to deal with rising sea levels is levees. Yet even though we knew that New Orleans would be flooded if the levees were overtopped and breached, even though New Orleans has been sinking for decades, we refused to spend the money to “adapt” New Orleans to the threat. We didn’t make the levees able to withstand a category 4 or 5 hurricane (Katrina was weaker at landfall than that, but the storm surge was that of a category 4).

… even now, after witnessing the devastation of the city, we still refuse to spend the money needed to strengthen the levees to withstand a category 5 hurricane. We refuse to spend money on adaptation to preserve one of our greatest cities, ensuring its destruction, probably sometime this century.

If we won’t adapt to the realities of having one city below sea level in hurricane alley, what are the chances we are going to adapt to the realities of having all our great Gulf and Atlantic Coast cities at risk for the same fate as New Orleans — since on our current path, climate change will ultimately put many cities, like Miami, below sea level?

For some, of course, adaptation is a complete ruse:

The fact is, the Denyers don’t believe climate change is happening, so they don’t believe in spending money on adaptation. The Center for American Progress has written an important paper on hurricane preparedness, which is a good starting point for those who are serious about adaptation.

But don’t be taken in by heartfelt expressions of faith in human adaptability. If Katrina shows us anything, it is that preventing disaster would be considerably less expensive — and more humane — than forcing future generations to adapt to an unending stream of disasters [which is to say a permanently altered climate].

The nation and the world will obviously have to spend serious money adapting to global warming for two reasons. First, we’ve delayed action to reduce emissions for so long. Second, delayers like Pielke (and President Bush, Bj¸rn Lomborg, and Newt Gingrich) still have the upper hand in the debate (as the L.A.T article and this Revkin NYT piece make clear), because the 1) technology trap is so appealing, 2) action requires a lot of effort, and 3) procrastination is always attractive option when someone is whispering in your ear that it is actually the best option.

Note: The cleverest delayers, like Pielke, never oppose action completely, they just never tell you specifically what their targets and actions would be. So they get to take the high road and argue out of both sides of their mouths, effectively arguing — “We need both mitigation and adaptation, but even though I don’t think the problem requires urgent action like the advocates, take my word that I support just enough mitigation to avoid the part of climate change that can’t be adapted to.”

Unfortunately, the part of climate change that can’t be adapted to is coming much faster than we feared. If we can keep total warming from preindustrial levels to 2°C or lower, than genuine adaptation is possible. The more we go above 2°C, the more adaptation will be replaced by suffering.

LIVING/SUFFERING IN A 1000 PPM WORLD

I listed only three catastrophes that would probably occur at 800 to 1000 ppm because I think those are the most serious and most inevitable. But they are hardly the only ones. A major 2005 study of the impacts of about 800 ppm on the United States found in the second half of this century (from 2071 to 2095) a vast swath of the country would see average summer temperature rise by a blistering 9°F.

Houston and Washington, DC would experience temperatures exceeding 98°F for some 60 days a year. Oklahoma would see temperatures above 110°F some 60 to 80 days a year. Much of Arizona would be subjected to temperatures of 105°F or more for 98 days out of the year–14 full weeks. We won’t call these heat waves anymore. As the lead author, Noah Diffenbaugh, of Purdue University said to me, “We will call them normal summers.”

Climate scientists don’t spend a lot of time studying 800 to 1000 ppm, in part because they can’t believe humanity would be so self-destructive as to ignore their increasingly dire warnings and fail to stabilize at well below 550 ppm. The IPCC notes that if equilibrium CO2-equivalent concentrations hit 1000 ppm, the “best estimate” for temperature increase is 5.5°C (10°F), which means that over much of the inland United States, temperatures would be about 15°F higher.

This increase would be the end of life as we know it on this planet. Interestingly, 5.5°C is just about the temperature difference between now and the end of the last ice age, the difference between a livable climate for human civilization that is well suited to agriculture and massive glaciers from the North Pole down to Indiana.

Is it 100% certain that 1000 ppm would result in

Read more

RealClimate has a good introductory post on air capture, which they explain as:

The idea would be to let people emit the carbon dioxide at the source but then capture it directly from the atmosphere at a separate facility.

This is going to be a relatively expensive and complicated strategy for decades — and, of course, you need a place to put the carbon dioxide. That said, a lot of work is going on to see if one can do air capture driven by heat.

Why does that matter? The world has a LOT of zero carbon waste heat not currently being used for anything. Indeed, U.S. thermal power plants alone throw away in waste heat as much energy as Japan uses for every purpose! That’s more than 20 quads. And that doesn’t even count the heat thrown away in industrial processes. Now the smartest thing to do with that heat for the next few decades is obviously either generate electricity with it or use it for heating buildings or industrial processes.

But we should surely do a fair amount of research on air capture, since, by not later than the 2020s, we’re going to get desperate for emissions reductions, and by the 2030s, we’re going to be very desperate and willing to pursue expensive options we that aren’t yet politically realistic.

Indeed, it seems rather likely to me that something like air capture will be needed by the second half of this century. Assuming we actually seriously try to keep emissions below 450 ppm (currently, a doubtful proposition), we’ll probably need to go back to below 400 by 2100 and 350 by 2150, in my optimistic spin on Hansen’s latest paper.

In summary, air capture is not a near-term or medium-term solution, but possibly a long-term strategy.

Late last week, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) held the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) board meeting previewed in Killing the Electric Car Again Part 1 and Part 2. CARB appears to have put on a partially choreographed show.

Agency staff played the role of “bad cop.” Before the meeting they proposed cutting ZEVs by 90%, setting the scene for the Board appointees to play “good cop” and change the cuts to 70%. This allowed CARB to spin it as a tripling in the numbers in their press release:

The Air Resources Board today voted to triple the amount of zero emissions vehicles that staff had proposed for automakers to produce from 2012 through 2014, while directing staff to look at overhauling the program to account for climate
change benefits.

If FCVs with 300-mile range are used, then the cut is actually 79%; only 0.08% of new vehicles would have to be ZEVs.

Some of the board members insisted on playing the role of “bumble cop”, as they seemed to have little understanding of exactly what they were voting on. Even board members who had initially stated they thought the numbers should be increased, not decreased, seemed suddenly to forget those remarks and docilely follow the lead of board member Dr. Daniel Sperling, who near the end flashed up a slide filled with a table of numbers (presumably prepared in advance), and suggested that the board go with only 2,500 (1,785 if 300-mile range) FCVs a year. The board followed 7-0.

During the meeting, over fifty speakers took 3-minute slots explaining to the board why CARB should not retreat on its 8,333 per year mandate for 2012-14 (approximately 0.4% of California vehicle sales). The other dozen or so speakers primarily represented automakers and other interests requesting changes peculiar to their particular situations (issues such as the transition from intermediate to high volume manufacturer status, hydrogen internal combustion engines, and so on).

Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey testified at the CARB meeting on the wastefulness of diverting resources to hydrogen fuel-cell programs and the need to get plug-in cars on the road soon in order to reduce U.S. dependence on oil and to increase national security. Former Secretary of State George Shultz and former Deputy Under Secretary of Education Peter R. Greer, both of whom served under President Ronald Reagan, wrote to Gov. Schwarzenegger imploring him to help get more electric vehicles on the market.

Read more