CO2 equivalents, ancient evolution, CCS and how to stay Operationally rational

CO2 equivalents is a useful term for climatologists when comparing the relative heating-effect between various greenhouse gases. But the term may also be Operationally confusing and even misleading in the public discourse, just like Carbon Capture Storage (CCS), ancient events of climate change and many more. It is the global civilization’s own actions that allow CO2 to increasing systematically in the atmosphere. This is the dominating factor of climate change. It is part of very complex webs of interconnectedness where scientific data are interesting and valid in themselves. But a sound political skepsis is called for, when things like CO2 equivalents, CCS and ancient historical events are allowed to obscure the debate on what to do.

More in detail:

1. Methane, for example, is a greenhouse gas with a much higher heat-increasing effect than CO2 per emitted amount. The relationships that arise when comparing greenhouse gases in this way are counted as “CO2 equivalents”. The higher the number, the greater the inherent heat-increasing effect of the respective gases.
2. The ancient temperature history of the Earth’s evolution is interesting. As is the 4.5-billion-year physical evolution from the birth of the Earth and the 3.5 billion years of Nature’s biological evolution.

It is when people believe, and/or say, that we ought to politically contemplate such things the arguments become false. Because they have got little or nothing to do with survival of civilization, if that is what we want to achieve.

(i) Nothing new First, the CO2 equivalents and calculations that take those into account, is nothing new in the scientific discourse on Climate change. Scientists as well as politicians and the environmental movement have been increasingly talking about this since at least the 70s. There are lists of many, many gases expressed in terms of their respective CO2 equivalents.

(ii) Volumes of CO2 emissions dominate What makes scientists on climatology righteously focus so much on CO2, is that the total emissions of this gas are so large that this gas in fact dominates climate change. (At this point, don’t forget that soil degradation contributes to about 20% of the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere).

(iii) Resistance from Fossil- and car-industry. Linked to risks of misunderstanding the notion of CO2 equivalents, is that it may lead psychologically to an attempt to talk about other gases than CO2. That serves as a loophole to those industries that emit the most CO2. (And consequently have the greatest potential to forcefully change our energy systems). It is their perceived reduced income from such a change that contributes to a resistance to act. That is, we are talking about the entire industry that has lobbied so vigorously and for so long for fossil fuels, including, for example, the car industry that has lived from this raw material.

(iv) Carbon Capture Storage (CCS) This is like CCS , that has long functioned at such a loophole to the fossil industry: “We are not opposing the view that climate change is a serious issue, but let’s now prioritize the development of CCS with its great future potential and…”. Smokescreens! The CCS industry is interesting when we talk about future measures that are added to a complete fossil fuel phase-out, to curb the consequences of the extra CO2 amounts we have already put into our atmosphere.

(v) Nature’s climate cycles And who does not recognize arguments about “Nature herself”, having historically undergone cycles of climate change. Typically, by neglecting the obvious flaw of logics already upfront: If nature would be a dominating factor behind climate change, does that increase, or decrease, our safe zone to adding more heat to a natural baseline that would increase already by natural causes?

(vi) Complexity managed only by design-science Altogether, piecemeal arguments from science may, when it comes to what to do, be purely scientifically deceptive. Instead, we need to act broadly, with great force, on clarifying news from (re)design-science. If not, we will operationally drown in complexity.

(vii) More on complexity to further explain need for design-science The complexity is further increased by the fact that the effects of many of the green-house gases are coupled. Large parts of the methane emissions, for instance, do not only come from fenced-in ruminant cattle. Another source is emissions of methane from permafrost-land in the North that begin thawing from the heating. In re-inforcing viscious cycles. Furthermore, cloven-hoofed animals roamed in the wild even before the advent of civilization 10,000 years ago. Now we have increased the number of cattle through agriculture and partly changed their former free-roaming role to stand on fenced agricultural land, where they trample the soils which, through micro erosion, releases greenhouse gases. All while the cattle are fed inputs such as soya beans that have been imported from ghost areas in Brazil. Where the Soya farms are linked to forest degradation and even more CO2 emissions that way as well.

(viii) But there is also a type of more promising animal husbandry, which partly involves having fewer animals and thus promoting public health through a better diet and partly returning to a more natural way for the cloven-hoofed animals. There are projects that demonstrate their function as soil improvers by staying for a while on one land and then moving from there to another when grazing becomes scarce on the first. After which the vegetation gets an extra boost from the manure left behind with its soil-improving effects. In other words, really like when cowboys and Sami people carry out animal husbandry by driving the animals over large areas. So now this has reached the modern action list against climate change namely, to expanding on a cowboy-type cattle breeding, to reduce desertification and even restore deserts to fertile vegetated lands. Correspondingly acting as CO2 sinks.

There are many more items on such a list, but it all ends up with us having to start at the other end – that is moving away from piecemeal tackling of scientific data around impacts downstream on the one hand, to a re-design of organizations and communities upstream on the other. Only there, complexity is possible to manage. That is, a review using ‘ABCD in the Funnel’ as the base-lie Operative system. As always, starting with a primary sketch of what may be attractively modelled futures within 8 boundary conditions of re-design, “A”, followed by ping-pong reflections under B (current situation with its assets and challenges), C (optional measures to move towards A including choice of, and use of, any “App” out there), and D (prioritizations from C to arrive at a stepwise planning):

In the future of civilization, “A”, if there is to be one, we have completely changed energy systems, transport systems, agriculture, forestry, material flows, Human relations… so that all these sectors are sustainable within the 8 boundary conditions of FSSD individually as well as together. And to this “A” we must hurry through ABCD exercises everywhere, on a broad front, and by linking synergies between the developments of all the sectors modeled within the same boundary conditions. That way, we will keep discovering lots of innovations, which are missed if we look silo-wise, through “straws” at, for example, “CO2 equivalents”, CCS or Nature’s cycles of climate change.

An example is how the health and food industries can join forces so that we learn to eat less red meat, and how we then get a chance – through lower intensity in the meat industry – to drive an integrated management of green areas including the forest, with zero need for ghost areas to feed cattle, and with no loss of carbon from soil-degradation but the opposite. And/or how biofuels can be swopped for raw materials for the chemical materials industry and/or ploughed into soil improvement measures (see other Reflection on this).

To manage complexity, and stand a chance to survive as Civilization, we need to learn, upstream in myriad complex cause-effect chains, that there are but 8 basic flaws of our current civilization design. Or, in other words, this gives us an opportunity to model attractive futures within the 8 boundary conditions for re-design, and map the ways to get there with increasing economic returns from upfront – also the fossil industry (see FSSD). To share this competence for co-creation across value chains, stakeholder groups, regions, countries is more innovative, income bringing and fun. From upfront.