Future generations might need to employ a nearly $20 trillion vacuum cleaner to suck pollution and deadly carbon emissions out of the atmosphere, according to a study from former NASA scientist James Hansen.
Climate change could force younger generations to use special “negative emissions” technology for pulling carbon dioxide out of the air if world leaders do not set a 1-degree target on Earth’s temperature, Hansen’s study notes. A recent lawsuit brought by 21 children against the government for supposedly failing to act quickly enough on global warming inspired the study.
The young plaintiffs in the lawsuit want to use a court order to force the U.S. into phasing out fossil fuel use and reduce atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million by the end of the century. Hansen is one of the plaintiffs in the children’s climate crusade, which is expected to go to trial in 2018.
Hansen and his colleagues argue that the Paris agreement on climate change’s target of limiting global temperatures within to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit of their preindustrial levels isn’t strong enough. The Earth is experiencing temperature levels today on par with those during the interglacial period, which resulted in six to nine meters of sea level rise, they noted.
If people immediately begin reducing greenhouse gas levels by 6 percent each year, then costs for the vacuum technology could range anywhere from $8 trillion to nearly $18.5 trillion. But if the world does not double-down on Paris climate-like reductions, then the costs could rise above $500 trillion through the end of the century.
Some of Hansen’s fellow activists have noted a hint of skepticism about the study and suggest that the founder of the global warming movement is reaching.
Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, for instance, told reporters Wednesday that some aspects of the study were “alarmist” and that if changes come slowly enough, society will be able to adapt to them. He also said the 1-degree target is unjustified and thinks that even 1.5 degrees is “unrealistic.”
The study is meant to impress upon people the importance battling man-made global warming, Hanen wrote in the study, which was published Tuesday in the journal Earth Systems Dynamics.
“Some consequences [of climate change] are already becoming inevitable, but as yet it could be moderate if we begin to reduce emissions rapidly,” Hansen noted in the study. “So that’s the objective — to try to get the global community to understand the importance of beginning those emissions reductions soon, and keeping the task that we’re leaving for young people one that they can manage.”
Activists have been using children as reasons to fight global warming. Former President Barack Obama, for example, used his own daughter’s asthma attacks to personalize the climate debate. Environmental groups have jumped on this bandwagon and routinely claim global warming will make asthma and other respiratory illnesses much worse.
Hansen, who has been called the grandfather of the global warming movement, has consistently expressed disdain for the Paris agreement’s non-binding component. The deal obligated the U.S. to reduce by 30 percent its greenhouse gas levels.
Read more at Daily Caller
A big vacuum to suck up all those Climate change advocates the DiCaprios and Gores and especialy those trouble makers from Greenpeace and the EFD as well as the Center for Biological Diversity,Sierra Club and just about every one of these eco-wackos
CO2 has no effect whatsoever on asthma – or COPD for that matter. And Gina McCarthy admitted they couldn’t quantify the numbers.
Co2 is greening the planet it’s fuel poverty that is actually killing people . Global warmy cheerleaders were the witch burners of yonder years .
Oh so let’s see a $20 trillion vacuum or gee how about following the visionary wisdom of the founder of the internet and only spend $17 trillion . What complete dipshits .
Communism and socialism also kill incentive.
CO2 has “been estimated to kill 7 million people a year around the Earth”?
What kind of farce is that? How can anyone POSSIBLY quantify such a thing, and what kind of person accepts and repeats that?
The fact that the statement came immediately after an apology for socialism says it all. This has never been about science. Socialist politics is both the means and the end for the climate change agenda.
Here’s something that is much easier to quantify:
The historical death toll attributable to Communist regimes in the 20th century include not only mass murders or executions that took place during the elimination of political opponents, civil wars, terror campaigns, and land reforms, but also lives lost due to war, famine, disease, and exhaustion in labor camps. High-end estimates of the death toll range between 85 and 100 million people. So let”s be kind to Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and other Communist leaders and say that ONLY 70 million people suffered death because of their regimes.
I’ll take my chances with CO2 any day.
Moderated Democratic Socialism his favored in many countries…what terrible thing do you think will happen to you…….You get Guaranteed access to A operation when one is Required ? ? ?
https://futurism.com/heres-what-real-climate-scientists-have-to-say-about-global-warming/
“CO2…the pollutant !
.
It’s been estimated to kill seven million people a year around the Earth.
Particularly in countries like China, it’s thought to be killing about a million people a year.
Even in the United States, it’s causing probably 10,000 or more deaths a year.”
Unfortunately, Toon may be underestimating the number of US deaths resulting from air pollution.
A 2013 study out of MIT found that air pollution causes roughly 200,000 early deaths in the US each year.
And there’s still the general problem that carbon in the atmosphere
(not the same as air pollution) really isn’t something that will go away anytime soon.
Toon: “Carbon dioxide has a very, very long lifetime. Early IPCC reports would often say carbon dioxide has a lifetime of 50 years.
Some people interpreted that to mean it’ll go away in 50 years, but what it really meant was that it would go into equilibrium
with the oceans in about 50 years. When you go somewhere in your car, about 20% of that carbon dioxide that
is released to the atmosphere is still going to be there in thousands of years.
The CO2 has lifetimes of thousands and thousands of years, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
It’s not reversible.”
Trenberth: “Every springtime, the trees take up carbon dioxide and there’s a draw-down of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,
but then, in the fall, the leaves fall on the forest floor and the twigs and branches and so on, and they decay and
they put carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. People talk about growing more trees,
which can certainly take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to some extent, but then what do you do with all the trees?
That’s part of the issue. Maybe you can bury some of them somewhere, but it’s very difficult. It’s not a full solution to the problem.”
Without CO2 the world wouldnt support life.
Actually, try 4-5 years for CO2. And it’s not pollution.
If socialism takes over, the world will suck so bad gravity will die.
“Some consequences [of climate change] are already becoming inevitable”
No. The consequences of climate change ARE inevitable and natural so keep a coat handy.
Hansen… the moon has a nice Vacuum. When sunlight hits the moon’s surface, the temperature can reach 253 degrees F (123 C). The “dark side of the moon” can have temperatures dipping to minus 243 F (minus 153 C). Take your BS science there.
Hansens like broken vase a total cracked urn he defenetly needs a trip to the Looney bin the nut house his screws have become loose and they need to be toghtened
I didn’t know James Hansen was working for the Hoover Institution…