Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumCarbon, carbon everywhere.
In addition to our consumption of fossil fuels, we also release a certain amount of carbon that is not related to fossil fuels, but is population-coupled. It comes from things like soil disturbances from housing, farming, urbanization etc. This seems to be fairly constant at about 1 tonne of carbon per person per year.
By my count, at the end of the century we will probably have emitted:
900 GtC from fossil fuels;
700 GtC from population-related factors;
75 GtC from hydrates (an average of just under 1 GtC/year);
75 GtC from melting permafrost.
That gives a total of 1750 GtC. About half will stay in the atmosphere, to raise CO2 concentrations by 1 ppm for every 2.12 GtC.
If we hit that scenario, we'll have a CO2 level just over 800 ppm by 2100. Urk.
That would give us a temperature rise of around +5.7C by 2100. That assumes the visible effect of forcing by the end of the century is +2C per doubling, similar to we've seen so far. There would be a further rise of 2.8C still in the pipeline, leading to a temperature rise of +8.5C by 2200 or so.
I don't see any way we won't burn 900 GtC of fossil fuels in the next 88 years. We would do that even if we didn't increase our consumption much beyond today's rate of 9.5 GtC/year. And capping FF consumption eliminates any possibility of future economic growth - an idea that's utterly unacceptable to politicians and citizens alike.
Speck Tater
(10,618 posts)I don't know where the quote originated, but I first saw it here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1242711
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)JHK has a way with a phrase...
drm604
(16,230 posts)to remove and SAFELY sequester carbon from the atmosphere on an industrial scale. That would require a large amount of energy, which would have to come from renewable carbon neutral sources.
NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)With oil.
There's no success like failure, and that failure's no success at all
drm604
(16,230 posts)we'll still need to fix the atmosphere.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)And the size is enormous. We'd need to take out 200 gigatonnes of carbon to get back down to the level of 1800 or so.
"Laugh about it, shout about it,
When you've got to choose,
Every way you look at it you lose."
pscot
(21,023 posts)will send 130Gt of Powder River Basin coal to China, probably in the next 25 to 30 years. Urrk indeed.