COP21 Day Douze

There is agreement! All that we have been waiting and anticipating has come true. Today at about 10:30 Central Time we received word that there has been an agreement at the conference.

This means big news and changes for our world in the next few years! Not only will we start to make changes towards reducing our carbon emission but we also will be working towards keeping our world below 2^oC and if possible, 1.5^oC.

In the geo-engineering sector this could mean the beginning of more funding, research and discoveries. With the need for better ways to manage our carbon output (and now intake from new carbon reducing technology), the geo-engineering field will flourish.

New technology will likely be developed to take carbon out of the atmosphere. There also will be a push for finding a way to store of use the captured carbon so industries such as plastics or machining would flourish from being able to use this carbon.

There will also be a push monitor the amount of carbon we are taking out of our atmospheres. Even though it is harmful in the levels that we are putting into the atmosphere now, carbon dioxide is essential for things like plants on our planet. If we take too much out me might detrimentally effect plant life.

Carbon dioxide emissions are also what has kept us in the period that humans have developed in (the Holocene). By burning wood and fossil fuels in the early days of humans we essentially inadvertently geo-engineered our climate to become more stable and warm enough for life to develop. If we do not monitor how much carbon we take out we could send ourselves into the next ice age by taking out too much.

Week Thirteen - Policy Briefing

The first images of space. This was probably the beginning of what we now think of as a globally minded world. Before this many people would only think of the world as that consisting of their little spot or “bubble” in the world.

These images allowed us to capture just a glimpse of how small and insignificant our own little “bubble” and world for that matter, is in the grand scheme of things. This has led to many global minded decisions and actions ever since and climate change is no exception to this.

Climate Change by definition should be thought of as a global issue and thus be dealt with as such. Through discoveries in atmospheric and meteorological studies were are able to somewhat understand how events in one part of the world can effect another. Large amounts of carbon released in one part of the world can cause poor air quality and weird weather pattern in another.

Because of this fact we need to think of and combat climate change in the same type of manner. It is not enough for just one part of the world to cut their carbon emissions and go green. It needs to be a fully collaborative effort from all party sides. If not we will only end up combating the problem halfway.

Just like how those first pictures of our planet from space started a movement for us to become more globally minded, we now need to use this new agreement made in Paris to unite as a global force.

Week Twelve - Climate Policy and Politics

Once the draft passes this December in Paris, we are going to be faced with a few more problems than many might realize. Sure it may seem simple to put a tax on carbon or say the big industrialized countries need to clean up the damage from carbon they have already done but, that leaves an interesting question when it comes to the issue of developing countries.

Developing countries are rising the standard of living for the people of their country. Do developed countries have the right to tell them that they do not have the right to develop and raise the standard of living in their country because it would pollute the world too much? I would like to believe that many would answer this question by saying that they do have the right to develop.

This is a big question facing policy makers when designing a draft for combating climate change. How can developing countries be allowed to develop without harming the environment even more than we have already?

I believe the answer comes from the new technology that has been developed by developed nations. By implementing the new technology from these countries into developing countries as they develop, we will be able to reduce the amount of carbon needed for them to industrialize.

This plan also calls for developed nations to drastically take charge of their carbon emissions and utilize the technology that they have. If both developed and developing countries work together in this plan they will be able to reduce the amount of carbon needed to raise the standard of living in developing countries while also implementing new green practices into both the developed and developing countries.

Week Eleven - Technological Solutions

Once a deal is passed the December in Paris is when the real work begins. Signing an agreement is only the beginning of our long road to climate recovery though. The next step to cleaning up our carbon mess will come in the form of geo-engineering.

Geo-engineering involves processes of manually fiddling with the knobs of the earth climate by means of reversing the warming we are seeing from too many greenhouse gases (GHGs) in our atmosphere or by physically taking carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it (the picture above is of an artificial tree that is being developed to capture and store carbon). Both of these approaches have proven controversial due to the effects seen in computer models that simulate what the world would be like if we implemented them. I would like to argue though that though the effects from geo-engineering might be devastating for some, geo-engineering should still be researched and used alongside GHG emission strategies in order for us to be able to stay below the crucial 2^oC benchmark set back in 2010.

At the current rate that we are putting carbon into our atmosphere, it is going to take us awhile to ween ourselves off of fossil fuels. In that time I believe that we should use geo-engineering as a way to take the carbon we are still putting into our atmosphere out. By doing so we will start to come closer and closer to becoming carbon neutral and eventually when we do ween ourselves off of fossil fuels we will already have the technology to take carbon out of the atmosphere and return to pre-industrial levels.

Though geo-engineering opposition states that this type of engineering could become out of control because we are messing with forces that humans only have a vague understanding about, I still believe that research into this area should still be allowed. With advancement in computer and technological systems coming to a point where we can model situations before we implement them, geo-engineering will become less and less of a mystery. The effects of a geo-engineering method could be understood before any such process is started and with new research comes new findings as well. We could very well find out more things than we ever imagined about our atmosphere and planet if we allow research in this area to continue. That is how science works. I mean where would be today if research into the mystery of electromagnetic waves was not allowed to be conducted? I know for a fact you wouldn’t be reading this in the same way you are now if that was the case.

Week Ten - Sociopolitical Solutions

A big problem when trying to have your voice heard in any political situation from a standpoint is when it comes to scale. In the area of climate science that scale comes in the form of time and is generally very long. This presents issues when trying to cross the science/policy barrier. On one hand having a long outlook of data may be good for looking at what will happen we continue on certain paths but that presents problems in and of itself as well. Most policy does not work on the same timescales as science and upon seeing such a long outlook of time, many policy makers might think that they have until then to fix the problem so they might put it off.

This is not the right idea. When it comes to climate change we need to use these long scale outlooks but we should interpret them for policy makers so that they are to better understand them.

One thing our current trajectory of carbon consumption does not have is time. If we allow our policy makers to have a false sense of time we will end up being too late to save the planet that we hold so dear.

Week Nine - Climate Strategy at CSB/SJU

When it comes to combating climate change on a smaller scale there is no better place to implement good practices in young people (aka the future leaders of our planet) than in college. This is the time in people’s lives where they are learning the type of person they are going to be in the world and also the habits they are going to use in it. By implementing good climate practices into the everyday lives of college students we will create a generation that will practice and instill these values to perhaps the next generation and so on and so forth. We will start a movement to care and have a sense of responsibility towards our planet.

Here on the St. Ben’s/St. John’s campus we are starting to see these practices already. From things such as recycling in every dorm and apartment to alternative forms of energy used to power our campus, we are starting to make that shift. There are a few other things such as composting at the St. John’s campus and solar panels at the St. Bens campus that still need to be implemented but we are making great strides towards achieving things like this and many more.

With a new agreement coming out in Paris we might be able to see more changes start to come to campus. When the deal in Paris passes in December we might see a greater push on campuses to become carbon neutral at a much faster pace than they already are on.

As stated before I believe that these steps are what is going to be necessary to achieve a happy and healthier climate. By instilling good practices in our young people we are teaching the next leaders of our world how to care for and have a better sense of responsibility towards caring for the earth.

COP21 Day Onze

Yes! Yes! Yes!!! We are coming close to an agreement! A good friend of mine just posted an article on Facebook talking about how close we are coming to an agreement. This agreement though might come after going into overtime at the conference.

This could mean big changes for life as we know it on earth! We now will start to reduce our carbon emissions that will not only help our environment but also our health! We now will start to transition towards new forms of renewable energy.

The past few drafts had a lot of discrepancy over how many degrees to keep the global temperature from rising. Discrepancy was mainly over 2^oC or 1.5^oC. This new agreement sought a combination between the two and agreed to keep temps below 2^oC but aim for 1.5^oC or below. This is huge for small island states that will be greatly impacted with a 2^oC warming as it will most likely start to still put them underwater and out of a home.

Though 1.5 would still be detrimental for small island states it is our best bet in trying to save most nations. As I said in my earlier post, science is still unclear on how fast the glaciers and ice will melt but still over the timescale of a few centuries all outlooks are not good if we do not change our ways now.

We are so close to being able to combat the dramatic changes that we have created here on earth. Though this may seem like one final push, this is just the start of a climate revolution!

COP21 Day Dix

Recently there has been much debate between skeptics and believers of climate change about the science behind what is happening to our climate. A fact I would like to point out to most skeptics is that the “not all scientists agree on climate change” argument will not work anymore. Climate change is happening and most if not ALL scientists agree that it is. If you would look more into your argument before you speak you would realize that what they are disagreeing about is the specifics of climate change. Just because you disagree on the specifics of something though does not mean that you can discredit the overall theme.

I recently came across this article on a favorite website of mine called “I F***ing Love Science” that talked about the disagreement among scientists over this issue. In the article it talked about many of specifics that scientists are trying to come to a consensus on. A few of these issues include cloud cover, ocean absorption, and even how much of climate change are we responsible for! All of these uncertainties among scientists are about specific things like how much of a feedback clouds actually play and how fast sea level will rise. These quantities are over numbers and specifics, not over the overall idea. Science agree that these things will happen if we continue on our current path of carbon emission and the fact the even science is stumped as the specifics of the effects should worry us.

Here is a link to this fantastic article so you can read up for yourself!

I F*ing Love Science

COP21 Day Six

Well a little update for those of you not able to follow the news coming out of Paris, we have a draft! Yes I said it, we have a draft! I was able to sit in on some debate over the wording of this current draft and mostly it sounds like they are just nitpicking over the wording of certain phrases such as naming the draft an agreement when it is not an agreement yet and so on. I highly believe that this is a good sign that we will have an agreement at the end of this week. If pretty much all of debate is not focused on the big issues that means that they agree that something is happening and has to be done!

On another side note I was able to sit in on a side event on smart and resilient cities on Thursday. This talk was great and very well organized. It started by looking at how to “greenify” cities on a large scale and then worked down towards a smaller scale.

First up was looking at how to make the power grid in America more efficient. To quote the main speaker on this issue “If Thomas Edison were to come back and look at our electrical grid now there is not much that he would not recognize from our current electrical system.” This is quite scary when you think about how far we have come in the technology department. The solution that they are suggesting would be to start to convert our huge interconnected grids into smaller microgrids. This technology is already present in things such as hospitals and also in other countries.

This provides advantages in that it allows for the monitoring and adjustment of energy demands that fluctuate throughout the day. This would allow us to lessen the amount of power output from a source on an almost second by second basis! We would also have the ability to fix our grids better in the event of disasters. If one part of a city becomes flooded, power will not necessarily go out for the rest of the city if they were on a different microgrid.

I think this technology holds great potential but the problem with this (and other progressive plans) is that they cost a large amount of money upfront. I want to argue though that the savings from switching to these smart grids will far outweigh the initial cost. Smart grids will save money by making repairs and energy outages more localized. They will not affect businesses and homes as much because power will be localized. It will also allow us to deal with power fluctuations and provide the ability to be able to adjust accordingly. If these were implemented we also would be able to switch to other forms of energy easier because we would be able to do it on a grid by grid basis

Week Six - Future Climates

One thing that is really going to help us to combat climate change in the next coming years is the use of computer models. I’m not talking about how technology will basically run our lives in the coming future but about how computer models can be used to help us to be able to look at what a possible future might look like given a certain set of variables.

Current technology has the capability to take complex systems and solve them faster than humans are currently able to. They also are able to take these complex systems and apply them to more complex systems much like that consisting of our climate. The thought behind computer models is to be able to take this technology and apply it to our current climate situation to find out what path we are on.

This technique is used a lot by people in civil engineering and climate science. Since it would not be advisable to implement geo-engineering techniques without knowing the effects it would have, computer models offer us an opportunity to be able to see what would happen to our earth is we used such techniques.

Many computer models have not shown positive results when it comes to either our current climate trajectory or implemented geo-engineering techniques. Many have shown catastrophic effects for distinct parts of the world through such things as localized drought and floods.

Overall computer models are the closest thing to a futurist prediction of earth’s climate as we are going to get. I believe that computer models should continue to be used for previews of implementation of certain climate actions even if the results they show are not something positive. By using them we are able to save our planet from more catastrophic anthropogenic effects. 

Week Five - Denial, Skepticism, and Contrarianism

One thing this week that I, like many others, had not considered before was the thought that people of other religions (some even very similar to your own) might be in climate denial for different reasons often relating to their religious preferences. Last week I had talked about how religion should be a basis in which care for God’s creation but this week I have read an article that takes a different approach to how religion views climate change.

This week in particular focused on evangelical Christians. Though many would assume that Christians in general would acknowledge climate change as something that we have caused on God’s good earth and need to try to fix, as it turns out, some evangelical Christians have interpreted climate change in a different way. Some view climate change as the start of the apocalypse or pose to ask the question “If God is all good, why would He allow something so bad to happen? Climate change must therefore be something good.”.

As far as the apocalypse goes, there are not very many arguments that can be made against evangelical’s point. At the end of the New Testament it is said that the world will end in a series of natural disasters such as famine, disease, drought, and floods after the covenant with the antichrist is broken. This is certainly in accordance with what we are seeing in the world today due to the effects of climate change. The conflict comes though when you bring up the point I had said last week. God made us to be stewards of his good earth. We can clearly see that by burning fossil fuels, we are not helping or caring for our earth but rather making it quite ill. If we are clearly not taking care of our earth than isn’t it our own actions that are making our earth this way and not the antichrist?

To address the other point of why climate change would be bad if nothing God made can be bad, I would like to bring up a very common example of something God made that went totally sour, Lucifer. Lucifer was God’s own right had angel and he ended up to be a bad apple and even turned away from his creator! If that doesn’t show how not all of God’s creations can be something good I don’t know what does. It goes to show just how mysterious God can be. He can create things that we would not necessarily be considered good but they all serve a purpose in the end that can end up for the greater good.

COP21 Day Quatre

One of the most substantial resources we have here on earth is water. It comes in 2 basic forms and is what many scientists agree to be key to finding other life in the universe. Water is what sustains us but it won’t if we don’t learn to take care of it. Currently by emitting CO2 we are contributing to the deterioration of our water here on earth, mainly in our world’s oceans.

When CO2 in emitted into the atmosphere, 90% of it will be absorbed by the ocean. This is a problem because most of the carbon that was emitted was taken from the land before being sent into the atmosphere, not the ocean. By having this land CO2 being absorbed by the ocean, we are creating a surplus of carbon in our oceans. This leads to ocean acidification and the death of many species due to large amounts of carbon that can in a sense “crowd out” the oxygen that is vital form them to flourish underwater.

Another way our oceans are being affected is by sea level raising. I was able to sit in on a talk yesterday that emphasized how it will not just be the melting of our world’s largest store of fresh water (glaciers) that will cause waters to rise but also the sheer law of physics that things that are warm, expand (also known as thermal expansion).

Water has a very distinct property called latent heat. This is what causes the water in your glass with ice, to stay a constant temperature until all of the ice is melted. To put it basically water is very resistant to changes in temperature. This means that once our oceans start to warm, even though it will take a longer time than the land surrounding it, it also means that once temperatures start to decrease, the oceans will stay warmer for longer than the land.

SO what does this mean for us exactly? Well it could mean that even though we might start to combat the changes seen from our CO2 emissions and bring the temperature down, the effects of the damage we have already done will continue to be seen for a number of years after the fact. If we are going to act on climate change we are going to have to act now. The changes seen in our oceans will be very detrimental to all life on our planet due to the fact that life exists because of this essential resource. If we act now we might still have a chance to save life from having to experience these changes and hopefully before we go through years of unwanted side effects 

COP21 Day Deux

"We cannot manage what we cannot control". That is the theme when it comes to technology and our climate. This is the problem that scientists are trying to combat then they look for ways to monitor carbon fluctuation around the world.

Fluctuation are observed through means of satellite. Images or spectral analysis is done on the atmosphere as a satellite rotates around the earth at about 7 m/s. At this speed it takes a satellite about 8 days to orbit around the earth (from pole to pole) and collect data about CO2 concentrations.

There is a new push to have satellites that are geo-synchronous (stay directly above one part of the earth). This push comes from the fact that if we have satellites at this position, we would be able to in a sense "stare" at a certain sector of the earth and collect data from it continuously.

This new type of geo-synchronous satellite is actually very plausible. We currently have satellites that orbit the earth in this way that provide us with cellular coverage. A new one is launched every few months and half of the vessel is essentially empty. If we could use that space and fill it with the equipment that could monitor CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere we would not only be able to have data to monitor our CO2 contributions but also a way to manage them by holding countries accountable for the amount of CO2 they are putting into the atmosphere.