Jun. 01, 2021
1 June 2021
Dear Ms. Wyatt:
This email contains an entirely new, and somewhat disturbing, perspective on climate change. One I am confident you have not previously considered. It is for this reason that I am requesting a meeting with you and your climate change team. The goal of this meeting will not be to make a presentation; this email is the presentation. The purpose of this meeting will be to discuss three things: 1) The social and economic implementations of this new perspective on climate change, 2) to describe how the Earth Ship Program will explain the truth about climate change to the to Americans and the wider-world, and 3) to explain (and document) why corporations will gladly pay to participate in the ESP.
Please except my apologies if the formatting of this email is difficult to follow. My background in oil transport, alternative energy and climate change can be seen here: https://earth-ship.com/founder-dc-anderson/
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Mark Twain said, "It ain't what you don't know that's gonna hurt you. It's what you know for certain that just ain't so
There are two ways to view climate change: 1) Focus on the symptoms, things like GHG emissions, floods, droughts, storms, heatwaves, etc. This is what the entire world has been doing for decades or, 2) focus on the cause of the problem. Climate change is caused by variations in the Carbon Ratio. How is it possible we have all been looking at climate change from the wrong perspective? Until now.
The problem began, and continues to this day, because every scientists and academic on the planet is focused on the symptoms of climate change. The reason for that is because when Dr. James Hansen, then director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, went before Congress in August of 1988 and explained this new phenomenon - called global warming - to the world for the very first time, he did so by talking about the weather. Specifically, he used the “long-term statistical analysis of variations in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events,” things like floods, droughts, storms and melting ice. He used this technique because he is a scientist, and scientists like data. When Congress failed to act, Hansen left Government and for the next 32 years he conducted a campaign to explain climate change to the world. He did this by using the same statistical analysis of weather data that had failed to convince Congress. Unfortunately, weather has always been a part of our lives, and weather has always changed. How can anyone be expected to get serious about climate change when thinking only about the weather? This lack of certainty concerning the weather has contributed to an anemic response to the problem.
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What follows is an explanation of a problem we already understand, using terminology we already know. But this time the dots are connected differently. This new perspective on climate change will make the dire consequences that lie ahead both easier to understand, and impossible to deny.
100% of the man-made energy on earth comes from fossil fuels; 82% comes directly from fossil fuels, and 18% comes indirectly from fossil fuels.
There are no alternative energy sources, and no renewable energy sources. There are only supplemental energy sources. They are supplemental because they are created from, and maintained by, fossil fuels. Without fossil fuels, none of these energy sources would exist.
The amount of carbon on earth is the same today as it was when the earth was first formed. The only thing that has changed is the location of the carbon. It is the location of carbon that determines the earth’s temperature (Figure 1).
Figure 1
Carbon in the atmosphere warms the earth. If there was no carbon in the atmosphere the earth’s temperature would be about 11° F and there would be no life on earth.
When the earth was first formed there was too much carbon in the atmosphere. That made the earth too hot for life. (Figure 1, circle on the left).
800 million years ago the earth froze over from pole to pole because there was too little carbon in the atmosphere. The made the earth too cold for life (Figure 1, circle in the center).
Prior to the Industrial Revolution there was just enough carbon in the atmosphere to support agriculture and our civilization, i.e. the perfect Carbon Ratio (Figure 1, circle on the right).
In order for our civilization to continue we must maintain a specific ratio between the carbon in the atmosphere as CO2, and the carbon in the earth as fossil fuels; this is the Carbon Ratio.
Carbon is the earth’s thermostat. The Carbon Ratio regulates that thermostat.
The principal responsibility of any government is to maintain the well-being of its citizen. This includes maintaining the Carbon Ratio necessary for agriculture, and our civilization
The Carbon Ratio
Fossil fuels are carbon dioxide that has been taken out of the atmosphere, buried in the earth, compressed, heated and chemically changed. This carbon is no longer part of the carbon cycle. It is now part of the Carbon Ratio and can no longer be used to heat the earth.
It is not possible to put the same carbon back in the atmosphere in 100 years, if it took photosynthesis tens of millions of years to take out, and expect our world to remain the same.
It is not possible for any corporation, institution, or government entity, to claim any degree of sustainability while at the same time using the energy created from fossil fuels.
Civilization Needs Agriculture In Order To Exist
Agriculture Needs a Specific Carbon Ratio In Order To Exist
The only reason we have a civilization today is because our early ancestors developed agriculture. When this happened they stopped being hunter-gathers.
The only reason our ancestors could develop agriculture is because the climate became less extreme and therefore the weather became more predictable.
The only reason the climate calmed down is because there was less thermal energy in the atmosphere; more thermal energy, more weather; less thermal energy, less weather.
The only reason there was less energy is because there was less carbon in the atmosphere to trap the long-wave thermal energy radiating back into space.
The only reason there was less carbon in the atmosphere is because some of it was removed by photosynthesis and converted to fossil fuels. This carbon is no longer in the carbon cycle and can no longer be used to trap heat in the atmosphere. With less energy the earth cools.
If the Carbon Ratio continues to be disrupted it will inevitably bring about an end to agriculture, at least on an industrial scale, and then an end to civilization as we know it today.Period.
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Figures 2 & 3 are what allowed me to visualize climate change from this new and different perspective.
Figure 2 shows that that earth’s temperature did not rise above a certain level at any time during the last 800 million years. It couldn’t get any hotter because all of the carbon that was available to go into the atmosphere, was in the atmosphere. That’s as hot as the earth could get.
(Note: The scientific community is loath to speak to someone like me who is not a PhD in the sciences. It took me six months to speak to the lead author of the report that produced the drawing in Figure 2. After a long phone conversation I explained to Dr. Christopher Scotese what I determined was happening with carbon. His response came quickly, "I never thought of it that way. Makes sense.")
Figure 2
If carbon is what heats the atmosphere, and if fossil fuels are carbon taken out of the atmosphere, then the ratio between carbon in the atmosphere (CO2), and carbon in the earth (fossil fuels), is what determines the earth’s temperature.
Figure 3 covers a period of 100,000 years, or the last Glacial Period. About 12,700 years ago the angle of the earth’s axis, relative to the Sun, was decreasing. This brought an end to the last ice age. Then something unusual happened. Figure 3 shows, on the far right, that the earth’s climate mysteriously calmed down and remained that way until today. Scientists have reported they don’t know why this happened. There is no evidence something like this had ever happened before.
There is only one common sense reason why the earth’s climate could have calmed down. When there is too much carbon in the atmosphere there is also too much thermal energy. This causes the climate, and the weather, to be volatile and unpredictable. When there is too little thermal energy in the atmosphere the earth freezes over (Ref: Figure 1). For the past 50 million years the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere – along with the earth’s temperature – has been decreasing.
Figure 3
During the last 12,700 years the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere decreased to a point that was just right. There was just enough thermal energy in the atmosphere to melt the ice in the mid-latitudes, while still keeping both poles frozen, but not so much energy that the weather would be too extreme for agriculture. Our civilization evolved when the earth had the right amount of carbon in the atmosphere, and the right tilt to the earth’s axis, both at the same time. Maintaining the right temperature on earth is a matter of maintaining the right Carbon Ratio. Maintaining the right Carbon Ratio is the greatest challenge mankind has ever faced.
Maintaining the optimum Carbon Ratio is made all the more difficult by the fact that the earth and the oceans are a natural carbon sink. Each year nature removes about 6 GtCO2 from the atmosphere. This causes the earth to cool. If humans did not burn any of the carbon stored in the earth as fossil fuels, the carbon concentration in the atmosphere would continue to decrease until eventually the earth would, once again, freeze over from pole to pole and be uninhabitable.
But we do burn fossil fuels. In the early 1950s the global economy was about 11 trillion dollars and emitted about 6 GtCO2 back into the atmosphere. If we had kept the global economy the same size it was in the 1950s, there is a good chance our civilization would be able to continue for an indefinite period. That’s because we were putting the same amount of carbon back in the atmosphere, as nature was taking out. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. By 2015 the global economy had grown to about 71 trillion dollars. We now emit about 38 GtCO2. This means our civilization is currently putting carbon back into the atmosphere at a rate six times greater than we were in the 1950s. This rapid increase in the carbon concentration in the atmosphere will – eventually – bring about a monumental change in our civilization. This change is guaranteed to happen, but it won’t happen overnight thanks to the decades-long Carbon Delay.
Three Reasons for the Carbon Delay
The CO2 molecule is heavier than air. When fossil fuels are combusted at ground level it takes decades for the CO2 molecule to percolate up into the troposphere where it traps the maximum amount of thermal energy. Fifty percent of the anthropogenic CO2 now in the atmosphere has been put there is just the last 30 years. This means we haven’t even begun to experience the full impact of the carbon that has already been released.
Carbon in the atmosphere traps long-wave thermal energy as it radiates back into space. But 97% of the increase in thermal energy is either being absorbed by the oceans, or it is being used to melt ice. This means this energy is not directly impacting the weather on land. This will change in the coming decades as the oceans continue to warm, and the ice continues to melt.
The earth slowly wobbles on its access. This causes the normal glacial, and inter-glacial, periods. The earth is now in the process of tilting away from the Sun so we should be entering into another glacial period, but we’re not, because we can’t. The earth can no longer cool off because the atmosphere is trapping more and more heat due to increased carbon concentration. The decreasing tilt of the earth’s axis is serving to disguise climate change – for now.
The Carbon Delay Can Be Measured*
It took tens of millions of years for photosynthesis to naturally reduce the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere to 285 ppm. The rate of reduction was about 1 ppm per century. Our civilization is now putting the same carbon back into the atmosphere at a rate of 210 ppm per century.
Between the Industrial Revolution and today, the amount of anthropogenic carbon in the atmosphere has increased 46%, from 285 ppm to 415 ppm, but the earth’s ambient temperature has increased only 4%. This difference reflects the enormous amount of thermal energy being used to melt ice and/or being absorbed by the oceans. This will change over time.
The amount of CO2 emitted by the global economy has increased six fold between 1954 and 2015, from 6 GtCO2 to 36 Gt CO2, but during the same period the rate of increase in CO2, as measured by Mona Loa Observatory at 13,700 ft., has increased just three-fold.
The Consequences of Misdiagnosing Climate Change
The Carbon Delay is allowing each of us, as individuals, and collectively as a civilization, to continue along the same energy dense trajectory we’ve been on for the past 100 years. We continue in this manner because our leaders, in government, industry, and even academia, continue to talk about how to be sustainable, how to be carbon neutral, essentially how to keep doing what we have always done without fearing any serious consequences.
Our leaders are not doing this out of malice. They are doing it because elected officials do not get votes, and corporate CEOs do not increase sales, by telling the public bad news. Consequently, the public continues to think that climate change is a manageable inconvenience, and sustainability is an attainable goal. Both of these ambitions are physically impossible.
But maybe our leaders do understand what is happening but they chose to put off taking meaningful action because the consequences would be too disruptive. Or maybe our leaders took the bait Jim Hansen provided, supra, when he described climate change in terms of the weather.
It does not matter how we got here. What does matter is that we explain the truth about climate change to as many people as possible. This is essential because the level of change required in our civilization is so great that no government could ever force it onto the public. This level of change must rise up from the people in a massive, global, grassroots effort. This is the most effective way to proceed because, “If the people will lead, the leaders will follow,” Gandhi.
*The numbers used in this document are scientifically determined and easily verifiable
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America has the ability to lead the world. This time America must lead by example and not by decree or military might. One way to do that would be with the highly cost-effective Earth Ship Program. Corporations will underwrite the Earth Ship Program in exchange for an attractive profit: https://earth-ship.com/corporate-sponsorship/
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Captain D.C. Anderson
Earth Ship Limited, Inc.
Yorktown, NY
www.earth-ship.com/founder-dc-anderson/