Vocal Voices

Remember the hole in the ozone layer caused by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)? We started to repaid that by banning them, but we needed another refrigerant.

Step up hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). They worked, our fridges kept working, our air-con kept us cool, we were saved. Until now, well a few years back.

We knew that HFCs did not harm the ozone layer, that is why they were brought in, what we did not realise is that they can be many 1,000 of times more effective in locking heat in the atmosphere than CO2. If that was not bad enough we are now making more fridges and air-conditioning units than ever before because of population growth and, ironically, climate change.

So, we have a plan. Phase them out by 2036. Slaps on the back all round. All we need now are safe alternatives....

Gasses for refrigeration have to be very reactive otherwise the pumps would have to be huge and chew loads of energy.

Reactive gasses all tend to have rather odious side effects. The next one chosen will have some other problem. Such is life.

It's funny how the world reacts isn't it. Ozone, real in your face problem right now. You could get cancer from the sun if we don't have Ozone. Got to fix it, regulations made, refrigerant changed, disposal regulations sorted, done.

Just as it should be right?

CO2. Now there's a problem. Not in your face, not going to kill you or give you cancer, nothing will happen in the next decade unless you regard the chance of being swamped by a monster hurricane, at some time, to be a real issue.

However CO2 will make the climate uninhabitable for 70% of the world's population. that means 2 out of every three of your family and friends children or grandchildren or great grandchildren (depending on what date you think it will really happen), will not survive it.

What is being done about CO2? A hell of a lot of hot air (pun intended), and not a whole hell of a lot of anything else. Loads of money being made but no real movement on the amount of CO2 we emit. As the Global CO2 graph shows.



August 2016: 400.47 ppm
August 2015: 396.85 ppm

Does that sound like a reduction to you? That graph shows that we have likely reached the bottom of the 2016 cycle and will now rise again. I thought that we might dip into 3xxppm one more time before leaving it behind forever (in human terms, 110 to 15 thousand years is "forever"). But the massive rise in 2015 at 2.9ppm is continuing. Year on Year, August is a 3.6 ppm rise which is why it has not dropped below 400ppm.

There is an organisation called 350.org which is campaigning for a sustainable biosphere at 350ppm CO2.

Dream on. We'll be knocking on 450 before the politicians realise that it's as urgent as the Ozone problem. Then it will be many decades too late to take the action needed because CO2 is self reinforcing and also everything we do to mitigate it will produce more CO2.

Now here's another nasty little slice of reality...

There is a DM article out there talking about the benefits of HCF reduction in reducing greenhouse gas temperature rise.

Last year's Paris Agreement set an over-riding goal of limiting a rise in average temperatures to "well below" 2C (3.6F), ideally just 1.5C (2.7F), to avert more droughts, floods, rising sea levels and food and water shortages.

Now let's do a reality check on that situation. 2016 is an strong El Nino year. That means temperatures are up and CO2 production is up. In 1998 we had another strong El Nino year which did the same. Temperatures jumped so high that, for a decade, the deniers demanded that the planet was cooling again and that there had been no warming for 15 years.

But, in 2005, the 1998 temps were reached, in 2010 they were broken and in 2016 they have been comprehensively decimated.

What does this mean in the statement above? 2016, so far, has reached a peak of 1.4C above pre industrial.

So, in a decade, the 2016 rise will be locked in. In 15 to 18 years it will be broken. Their fanciful "ideally" 1.5C comes around, there will still be at least 70 years to go until 2100.

Also CO2 is growing faster than at any time in the last 15,000 years. Which means that it may take less than a decade to exceed the 2016 temperatures and reach the 1.5C over per industrial temps. They way things are going, 20 years after that we'll be at 2C over pre industrial.

So by mid century we'll be living the bottom end of the 2100 scenario (well I won't unless I make 90 odd). By 2100, on this scale, those who survive us will be living the 4C scenario at the very best. In fact at 2C it becomes self reinforcing. 2100 could easily be 6C.

Reality's a bitch as the Americans say.