<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-2" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
Hi all,<br>
<br>
Here is an article
that gets to the heart of the climate crisis. These new findings
actually make
our jobs much easier, because they allow us to start saying to people
and policy makers that global civilisation must become a zero carbon
emitter as soon as possible. No more need to haggle about CO2 parts per
million, or percentages of reduction by this date or that one. We can
just start saying to people that we need to become a zero carbon
emitting civilisation as immediately as we can.<br>
<br>
Here is the article:<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/09/AR2008030901867_pf.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/09/AR2008030901867_pf.html</a><br>
<br>
<font size="+2"><b>Carbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert Danger, New
Studies Say</b></font><br>
<p><font size="-1">By Juliet Eilperin<br>
Washington Post Staff Writer<br>
Monday, March 10, 2008; A01<br>
</font></p>
<p>The
task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous
rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous
research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies
indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions
altogether within a matter of decades.</p>
<p>Their findings, published
in separate journals over the past few weeks, suggest that both
industrialized and developing nations must wean themselves off fossil
fuels by as early as mid-century in order to prevent warming that could
change precipitation patterns and dry up sources of water worldwide.</p>
<p>Using
advanced computer models to factor in deep-sea warming and other
aspects of the carbon cycle that naturally creates and removes carbon
dioxide (CO2), the scientists, from countries including the United
States, <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Canada?tid=informline"
target="">Canada</a> and <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Germany?tid=informline"
target="">Germany</a>,
are delivering a simple message: The world must bring carbon emissions
down to near zero to keep temperatures from rising further.</p>
<p>"The
question is, what if we don't want the Earth to warm anymore?" asked
Carnegie Institution senior scientist Ken Caldeira, co-author of a
paper published last week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
"The answer implies a much more radical change to our energy system
than people are thinking about."</p>
<p>Although many nations have been
pledging steps to curb emissions for nearly a decade, the world's
output of carbon from human activities totals about 10 billion tons a
year and has been steadily rising.</p>
<p>For now, at least, a goal of
zero emissions appears well beyond the reach of politicians here and
abroad. U.S. leaders are just beginning to grapple with setting any
mandatory limit on greenhouse gases. The Senate is poised to vote in
June on legislation that would reduce U.S. emissions by 70 percent by
2050; the two Democratic senators running for president, <a
href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/c001041/"
target="">Hillary Rodham Clinton</a> (<a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/New+York?tid=informline"
target="">N.Y.</a>) and <a
href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/o000167/"
target="">Barack Obama</a> (Ill.), back an 80 percent cut. The
Republican presidential nominee, <a
href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/m000303/"
target="">Sen. John McCain</a> (<a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Arizona?tid=informline"
target="">Ariz.</a>), supports a 60 percent reduction by mid-century.</p>
<p><a
href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/b000711/"
target="">Sen. Barbara Boxer</a>
(D-Calif.), who is shepherding climate legislation through the Senate
as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the new
findings "make it clear we must act now to address global warming."</p>
<p>"It
won't be easy, given the makeup of the Senate, but the science is
compelling," she said. "It is hard for me to see how my colleagues can
duck this issue and live with themselves."</p>
<p><a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/James+L.+Connaughton?tid=informline"
target="">James L. Connaughton</a>,
who chairs the White House Council on Environmental Quality, offered a
more guarded reaction, saying the idea that "ultimately you need to get
to net-zero emissions" is "something we've heard before." When it comes
to tackling such a daunting environmental and technological problem, he
added: "We've done this kind of thing before. We will do it again. It
will just take a sufficient amount of time."</p>
<p>Until now,
scientists and policymakers have generally described the problem in
terms of halting the buildup of carbon in the atmosphere. The United
Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change framed the question
that way two decades ago, and many experts talk of limiting
CO2concentrations to 450 parts per million (ppm).</p>
<p>But Caldeira and <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Oregon+State+University?tid=informline"
target="">Oregon State University</a>
professor Andreas Schmittner now argue that it makes more sense to
focus on a temperature threshold as a better marker of when the planet
will experience severe climate disruptions. The Earth has already
warmed by 0.76 degrees Celsius (nearly 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above
pre-industrial levels. Most scientists warn that a temperature rise of
2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) could have serious
consequences.</p>
<p>Schmittner, lead author of a Feb. 14 article in the
journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, said his modeling indicates that
if global emissions continue on a "business as usual" path for the rest
of the century, the Earth will warm by 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.
If emissions do not drop to zero until 2300, he calculated, the
temperature rise at that point would be more than 15 degrees Fahrenheit.</p>
<p>"This
is tremendous," Schmittner said. "I was struck by the fact that the
warming continues much longer even after emissions have declined. . . .
Our actions right now will have consequences for many, many
generations. Not just for a hundred years, but thousands of years."</p>
<p>While
natural cycles remove roughly half of human-emitted carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere within a hundred years, a significant portion persists
for thousands of years. Some of this carbon triggers deep-sea warming,
which keeps raising the global average temperature even after emissions
halt.</p>
<p>Researchers have predicted for a long time that warming
will persist even after the world's carbon emissions start to fall and
that countries will have to dramatically curb their carbon output in
order to avert severe climate change. Last year's report of the <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/United+Nations?tid=informline"
target="">U.N.</a> <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Intergovernmental+Panel+on+Climate+Change?tid=informline"
target="">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a>
said industrialized nations would have to cut emissions 80 to 95
percent by 2050 to limit CO2concentrations to the 450 ppm goal, and the
world as a whole would have to reduce emissions by 50 to 80 percent.</p>
<p>European
Union Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, in Washington last week
for meetings with administration officials, said he and his colleagues
are operating on the assumption that developed nations must cut
emissions 60 to 80 percent by mid-century, with an overall global
reduction of 50 percent. "If that is not enough, common sense is that
we would not let the planet be destroyed," he said.</p>
<p>The two new
studies outline the challenge in greater detail, and on a longer time
scale, than many earlier studies. Schmittner's study, for example,
projects how the Earth will warm for the next 2,000 years.</p>
<p>But
some climate researchers who back major greenhouse gas reductions said
it is unrealistic to expect policymakers to think in terms of such vast
time scales.</p>
<p>"People aren't reducing emissions at all, let alone
debating whether 88 percent or 99 percent is sufficient," said Gavin A.
Schmidt, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "It's like
you're starting off on a road trip from New York to <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/California?tid=informline"
target="">California</a>, and before you even start, you're arguing
about where you're going to park at the end."</p>
<p>Brian
O'Neill of the National Center for Atmospheric Research emphasized that
some uncertainties surround the strength of the natural carbon cycle
and the dynamics of ocean warming, which in turn would affect the
accuracy of Caldeira's modeling. "Neither of these are known
precisely," he said.</p>
<p>Although computer models used by scientists
to project changes in the climate have become increasingly powerful,
scientists acknowledge that no model is a perfect reflection of the
complex dynamics involved and how they will evolve with time.</p>
<p>Still,
O'Neill said the modeling "helps clarify thinking about long-term
policy goals. If we want to reduce warming to a certain level, there's
a fixed amount of carbon we can put into the atmosphere. After that, we
can't emit any more, at all."</p>
<p>Caldeira and his colleague, H.
Damon Matthews, a geography professor at Concordia University in
Montreal, emphasized this point in their paper, concluding that "each
unit of CO2emissions must be viewed as leading to quantifiable and
essentially permanent climate change on centennial timescales."</p>
<p>Steve Gardiner, a philosophy professor at the <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/University+of+Washington?tid=informline"
target="">University of Washington</a>
who studies climate change, said the studies highlight that the
argument over global warming "is a classic inter-generational debate,
where the short-term benefits of emitting carbon accrue mainly to us
and where the dangers of them are largely put off until future
generations."</p>
<p>When it comes to deciding how drastically to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, O'Neill said, "in the end, this is a value
judgment, it's not a scientific question." The idea of shifting to a
carbon-free society, he added, "appears to be technically feasible. The
question is whether it's politically feasible or economically feasible."</p>
<!-- start the copyright for the articles -->
<div id="articleCopyright" style="clear: both;" align="center">© 2008 The
Washington Post Company</div>
</body>
</html>