Climate Chat

In this Climate Chat episode we discuss the current COP28 meeting in the UAE and whether the conference is considering the latest climate science and whether special interests have too much influence in the proceedings.

For more Climate Chat episodes, see our YouTube home page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3BXcpYFCzTndJ9Fisi32qg

In this Climate Chat episode we discuss the August 2022 paper "Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios" by Luke Kemp, Chi Xu, Joanna Depledge , and Timothy M. Lenton:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2108146119

The paper explores how the IPCC does not include proper risk assessment of catastrophic climate change scenarios and what proper risk assessment may reveal.

For more Climate Chat episodes, see our YouTube home page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3BXcpYFCzTndJ9Fisi32qg

In this Climate Chat episode we discuss the reasons that the world is not reducing emissions even though we are aware of the dangers of inaction and we understand the solutions we must implement. Much of the discussion revolves around climate scientist Kevin Anderson's response to a Guardian article, "Who are the polluter elite and how can we tackle carbon inequality?"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/22/who-are-polluter-elite-how-can-we-tackle-carbon-inequality?CMP=share_btn_tw

Kevin's response:

https://x.com/KevinClimate/status/1727671904725565909?s=20

We also cover the 2021 paper by Kevin and others that discuss the various societal elements that are preventing climate action: "Three Decades of Climate Mitigation: Why Haven't We Bent the Global Emissions Curve?"

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-011104

For more Climate Chat episodes, see our YouTube home page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3BXcpYFCzTndJ9Fisi32qg

Climate Chat host Dan Miller interviews climate communications host Joe Romm about his recent white paper, "Why direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) is not scalable and ‘net zero’ is a dangerous myth" Here is a link to the paper:

https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/web.sas.upenn.edu/dist/0/896/files/2023/11/DACCS5.0-11-8-23_RommJ.pdf

Some of Joe's other recent writings can be accessed here:

https://web.sas.upenn.edu/pcssm/publications/

Joe's home page is here:

https://joeromm.wordpress.com

See other Climate Chat interviews at our YouTube home page:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3BXcpYFCzTndJ9Fisi32qg

Climate Chat: Hansen: How We Know that Global Warming is Accelerating

In this Climate Chat, we discuss James Hansen's new "Global Warming in the Pipeline" paper. In the paper, Hansen shows why the IPCC's Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) is too low, and their estimates of aerosol cooling are also too low. This has profound consequences for our climate future.

Link to Hansen's paper: https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889

Link to YouTube video of Hansen and co-authors discussing the paper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8

A link to my Tweet with a quick summary of the paper: https://x.com/danmiller999/status/1720012449875984598?s=20

See more Climate Chat videos on our home page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3BXcpYFCzTndJ9Fisi32qg

This is the Climate Chat podcast for October 29, 2023. We discussed the recent paper titled "The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory" by William J Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Jillian W Gregg, Johan Rockström, Thomas M Newsome, Beverly E Law, Luiz Marques, Timothy M Lenton, Chi Xu, Saleemul Huq, Leon Simons, and Sir David Anthony King.

Here is a link to the paper:

https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biad080/7319571

Co-author Saleemul Huq died a few days ago.

Co-author Leon Simons joined our discussion starting at 1:20:30.

Join our Climate Chat discussions every Sunday at 10am Pacific (California) Time.

See selected Climate Chat interviews and discussions at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3BXcpYFCzTndJ9Fisi32qg

Climate Chat podcast from October 22, 2023. Discussion is based on the following article and paper:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-stopped-getting-greener-20-years-ago/

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aax1396

Dr. Klaus Lackner was one of the first scientists to explore how to remove excess CO2 from the atmosphere. In this wide-ranging masterclass interview, Klaus and host Dan Miller discuss the feasibility, scalability, safety, and cost of large-scale Direct Air Capture (DAC) and sequestration of atmospheric CO2.

Klaus Lackner is the director of Center for Negative Carbon Emissions and a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the

Built Environment of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University.

Link to Klaus' homepage: https://globalfutures.asu.edu/cnce/profile/kslackne/

Link to Climate Chat Club YouTube homepage: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3BXcpYFCzTndJ9Fisi32qg

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Introduction

00:00:50 Start of Interview

00:02:16 Klaus' background/Why carbon capture?

00:06:03 Moisture-swing carbon capture

00:09:18 Does carbon capture use too much energy?

00:10:51 Is there room underground for all our CO2?

00:12:53 Iceland

00:16:18 Other CO2 storage techniques including saline aquifers

00:19:09 Markets for CO2

00:20:07 Incentives to capture CO2

00:22:20 CO2-to-fuels

00:26:05 Two markets for air capture

00:26:45 1 part per million = 15 gigatons of CO2

00:27:26 Is carbon capture real?

00:28:59 Getting down to $50/ton

00:34:07 Is carbon capture environmentally safe?

00:36:51 The scale needed

00:38:58 $2 trillion/year for 40 gigatons/year

00:41:54 Is carbon capture a moral hazard?

00:46:19 "Natural" CO2 capture including planting trees

00:52:04 Beginning of Audience Q&A

00:52:16 CO2 into cement

00:54:14 What to do now to scale CO2 capture?

00:57:48 Area needed for natural CO2 capture using micro-algae

01:02:00 What are "Mechanical Trees"?

01:06:32 How to support scaling of CO2 capture

01:12:24 Impacts on oxygen and soils

01:16:09 What about ocean capture of CO2?

01:19:48 Embodied carbon and energy in CO2 capture systems

01:30:31 CO2 capture from air vs. ocean

01:33:29 CO2 capture prizes

01:35:22 Biomass solutions

01:41:42 How to convince people opposed to carbon capture?

01:45:03 Summing up

01:47:17 Out-tro

01:47:29 END

Gaming legend Henk Rogers discusses his efforts to move the world to clean energy.

Henk's Blue Planet Foundation: https://blueplanetfoundation.org

More Climate Chat Club interviews: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3BXcpYFCzTndJ9Fisi32qg

Time Stamps:

00:00:00 Introduction

00:00:56 Henk's Background

00:06:26 Hawaii's Energy Situation

00:10:26 Moving Hawaii on Energy

00:16:35 Training Climate Activists

00:18:24 Energy Storage

00:23:40 Action Beyond Hawaii

00:27:06 Gameifying Climate Action

00:35:14 Movie About Henk

Audience Q&A

00:38:44 Reaching people

00:45:49 Transportation

00:52:48 Rewards / Homebrew Storage?

01:01:03 Hydrogen for Ships

01:05:27 Hope vs. Sink or Swim

01:08:38 Wind Power

01:13:39 Earth Day

01:14:52 Food

01:21:18 Burning Man

01:24:55 Hydrogen vs. Batteries

01:32:10 Conclusions

01:34:28 Out-tro