Negative CO2 Emissions needed now to Save Planet

RedEarth

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Thu Feb-14-08 10:55 PM
Original message

Negative CO2 Emissions needed now to Save Planet

The latest scientific findings have dramatically superseded the 2007 IPCC Report warnings of severe problems in the developing world already and dire global consequences in future decades. The time frame has been dramatically reduced. Thus the top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen says that the “tipping point” for the melting of Arctic ice has already been reached at 385 ppm atmospheric CO2 and it is apparent that the present atmospheric CO2 is sufficient to completely remove summer-time Arctic sea ice (some scientists say this may be completely gone by 2013). However most alarming is the potential instability of large ice sheets, especially those of West Antarctica and Greenland.

According to Dr Hansen, in calling for an immediate moratorium on coal power, “If disintegration of these ice sheets passes their tipping points, dynamical collapse could proceed out of our control. If it melts completely, West Antarctica alone contains enough water to cause about 20 feet (6 meters) of sea-level rise. There are also tipping points in life systems. Today, as global temperature increases at a rate of about 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade, isotherms (a line of average temperature) are moving poleward at a rate of about 50-60 kilometers (35 miles) per decade. In response, some species are moving.”

.....

On Saturday February 9, 2008 I attended a Climate Convergence Conference in Melbourne of about 200 people from a variety of Climate Action Groups, This Climate Conference involved a series of talks from activists, workshops, audience participation (I wasn’t an official speaker but got a good response from standing up and telling them all about the mounting Third World Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust due to rising food prices) and the launch of an excellent, must-read, Friends of the Earth-sponsored book entitled “Climate Code Red – the Case for a Sustainability Emergency” by David Spratt (from Carbon Equity) and Philip Sutton (Greenleap Strategic Institute). The essence of “Climate Code Red” ( it can be downloaded: http://www.climatecodered.net/ ) is that the World is facing a Climate Emergency and a Sustainability Emergency because we have passed crucial atmospheric CO2 “tipping points”, “Climate Code red” further declares that, as demanded by Dr James Hansen, we need not “CO2 emissions reduction targets” or “zero CO2 emissions” but NEGATIVE CO2 EMISSIONS to return the Planet to a safe, sustainable 300-350 ppm CO2.

At this Melbourne Climate Convergence meeting various activist groups decided to form a Climate Emergency Coalition to urgently spread the message and to lobby for a Declaration of a State of Emergency in Australia and the World to meet the Sustainability Emergency. As Dr Hansen has said (see above), we urgently need a lowering of atmospheric CO2 to about 300-350 ppm and a major step nowmust be an immediate moratorium on coal power - we must keep fossil fuels in the ground to save Humanity and the Biosphere.

http://mwcnews.net/content/view/20133/42