calvinclimate.blogspot.com
Calvin on Climate: Why Climate is Already an Emergency
http://calvinclimate.blogspot.com/2014/11/why-climate-is-already-emergency.html
Critical essays on the more urgent aspects of climate change, by William H. Calvin, author of Global Fever (University of Chicago Press). Why Climate is Already an Emergency. As World War Two was starting in Europe, the American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the metaphor of a “four-alarm fire up the street” that needed to be extinguished immediately, whatever the cost. The situation in 1940 was not merely a crisis, what with Europe engulfed and Britain under attack. It was an emergency. The in...
calvinclimate.blogspot.com
Calvin on Climate: Climate: Is This the Best We Can Do?
http://calvinclimate.blogspot.com/2014/09/climate-is-this-best-we-can-do.html
Critical essays on the more urgent aspects of climate change, by William H. Calvin, author of Global Fever (University of Chicago Press). Climate: Is This the Best We Can Do? Suppose that you went to the dentist with a toothache. But instead of filling the cavity, the dentist merely told you to brush your teeth more often. But we’re doing something about it, right? Yet reducing emissions from tailpipes and smokestacks does not reduce the carbon dioxide accumulation, not any more than a drop in the intere...
calvinclimate.blogspot.com
Calvin on Climate: Plowing Under a Carbon-fixing Crop
http://calvinclimate.blogspot.com/2015/01/plowing-under-carbon-fixing-crop.html
Critical essays on the more urgent aspects of climate change, by William H. Calvin, author of Global Fever (University of Chicago Press). Plowing Under a Carbon-fixing Crop. The common criticism of ocean fertilization by upwelling nutrients from the depths is that it also brings up CO2 from the depths. If one does not explore the issue more fully, it makes one think that upwelling nutrients is counterproductive. Instead of sinking only the debris that is heavy enough to settle out, as in iron fertilizati...
calvinclimate.blogspot.com
Calvin on Climate: This New Era of Climate Instability
http://calvinclimate.blogspot.com/2014/09/this-new-era-of-climate-instability.html
Critical essays on the more urgent aspects of climate change, by William H. Calvin, author of Global Fever (University of Chicago Press). This New Era of Climate Instability. In our race to overheat the planet, hot spots have developed. Unless you reside on a yacht, you probably live atop one. A fireplace is merely a mini hot spot. As warm air rises, cooler air comes rushing in to replace it (the “draw”). With hotter spots, you get a stronger breeze. This generality tells us quite a lot about what’...
calvinclimate.blogspot.com
Calvin on Climate: Our Understated Climate Problem
http://calvinclimate.blogspot.com/2014/10/our-understated-climate-problem.html
Critical essays on the more urgent aspects of climate change, by William H. Calvin, author of Global Fever (University of Chicago Press). Our Understated Climate Problem. For climate disease, there is no doubt remaining about the diagnosis: global overheating, mostly from an insulating blanket of the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels. That’s what stirs up such knock-on effects as extreme weather and expanding subtropical deserts. But what’s left out of most simulations are the equally...
calvinclimate.blogspot.com
Calvin on Climate: The Climate Disconnect
http://calvinclimate.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-climate-disconnect.html
Critical essays on the more urgent aspects of climate change, by William H. Calvin, author of Global Fever (University of Chicago Press). The standard “take” on climate change sounds like this:. Fossil fuel emissions cause the gradual accumulation of heat-trapping gases in the air. This buildup is gradually overheating the planet. That global warming, in turn, is gradually changing other aspects of our climate. We can expect a nasty 2°C overheating by mid-century. But we can gradually adapt. Since the gr...
calvinclimate.blogspot.com
Calvin on Climate: The Emergency Cleanup of Excess CO2 via a Second Manhattan Project
http://calvinclimate.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-emergency-cleanup-of-excess-co2-via.html
Critical essays on the more urgent aspects of climate change, by William H. Calvin, author of Global Fever (University of Chicago Press). The Emergency Cleanup of Excess CO2 via a Second Manhattan Project. Pull up sunken nutrients to create CO₂-capturing plankton blooms, then. Push new organic carbon into the ocean depths before it reverts to CO₂. This push-pull pump. Avoids many of the problems of up-only pumps for fertilizing the ocean surface. Aim at removing all 350 GtC emitted since 1750. With no se...
calvinclimate.blogspot.com
Calvin on Climate: The Aerosol Silhouette in Geoengineering: Both Problem and Opportunity
http://calvinclimate.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-aerosol-silhouette-in.html
Critical essays on the more urgent aspects of climate change, by William H. Calvin, author of Global Fever (University of Chicago Press). The Aerosol Silhouette in Geoengineering: Both Problem and Opportunity. Holding a hand near the projection screen casts a well-defined shadow. Moving the hand back toward the projector makes the shadow indistinct: the edges are too fuzzy. Were thumb and forefinger creating a silhouette with a hole, it would become difficult to discern the hole. Weather disruption might...
calvinclimate.blogspot.com
Calvin on Climate: October 2014
http://calvinclimate.blogspot.com/2014_10_01_archive.html
Critical essays on the more urgent aspects of climate change, by William H. Calvin, author of Global Fever (University of Chicago Press). Who Will Support Climate Repairs? Avoiding catastrophe has not worked very well as a motivation for doing something about climate. Coleridge’s “suspension of disbelief” for stage performances seems to kick in for reality that sounds like a disaster movie. Nor has relying on the general environmental agenda been fast enough. A minor portion of the present sea level rise...
calvinclimate.blogspot.com
Calvin on Climate: The Important Warming Isn't Global
http://calvinclimate.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-important-warming-isn-global.html
Critical essays on the more urgent aspects of climate change, by William H. Calvin, author of Global Fever (University of Chicago Press). The Important Warming Isnt Global. Yes, the world is overheating. Yes, that tends to cause climate change in ways that go beyond hotter afternoons- say, the widening of the tropics, the desertification of the Mediterranean, and more extreme weather. Global" warming is global. Is just what you see on a globe—and thus a somewhat misleading use of the term. As the ocean s...
