Global Climate Change: A Clear Explanation and Pathway to Mitigation

Global Climate Change

A Clear Explanation and Pathway to Mitigation

David W Spitzer

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ISBN: 9781932095203 (Paperback)

ISBN: 9781932095210 (Hard Cover)

ISBN: 9781932095227 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024911881

Previous Title: Global Warming (aka Climate Change): An Understandable Data-Driven Explanation and Pathway to Mitigation

Previous ISBN: 9798877871540 (Paperback)

Previous ISBN: 9798877878990 (Hard Cover)

Previous Library of Congress Control Number: 2024902261

This book was updated on 16July 2024.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Ida, Deborah, Michael, Rebecca, Javier, and especially Harrison, Gabriel, Madeline, and Isabella, that they may ferret out facts and data, analyze them impartially, and think before reaching conclusions and acting.

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges Kathleen Brush, Ph.D., MBA, Michael J. Furniss, and Ross Topliff for the time they spent providing sometimes brutal comments that were invaluable to writing this book. In addition, the author thanks Kathleen for providing encouragement, Michael for providing a broader perspective, and Ross for weeding out bias.

About the Author

David W Spitzer is an award-winning Professional Engineer and ISA Life Fellow who has written over 500 technical articles and 10 books. David’s career has been dedicated to making industry more efficient and hence, more environmentally friendly. David currently consults, teaches, and performs forensic engineering.

About the Cover

Book covers in this genre often depict an industrial plant billowing large amounts of black or white smoke. The black smoke would be pollution, which was largely mitigated via regulation in the second half of the 1900s. The white smoke would be water vapor, which is environmentally benign. What cannot be seen is the colorless carbon dioxide in the emissions, which is a significant environmental concern.

The cover of this book reflects different outcomes that depend on whether appropriate actions to address carbon dioxide emissions are taken at appropriate times, or not.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1: Tools of the Trade 3

Chapter 2: The Search for Facts and Data 15

Chapter 3: Evolution of Daily Life 28

Chapter 4: Transition from a ‘Life of Death’ to a ‘Life of Life’ 42

Chapter 5: Rising Living Standards 61

Chapter 6: Energy Sources and Combustion 67

Chapter 7: Steam Boilers and Electricity 76

Chapter 8: Energy Consumers 84

Chapter 9: Greenhouse Gases 89

Chapter 10: The Effects of Greenhouse Gas 104

Chapter 11: Climate Change and Climategate 133

Chapter 12: Approaches to Reduce Carbon Emissions 154

Chapter 13: Electricity Generation Sector 172

Chapter 14: Transportation Sector 186

Chapter 15: Industrial Sector 196

Chapter 16: Residential and Commercial Sectors 201

Chapter 17: Emission Reduction Strategy 209

Chapter 18: Potential Emission Reductions 220

Chapter 19: Current Trends 226

Chapter 20: Climate Change Politics 235

Chapter 21: Success Hiding in Plain Sight 257

Chapter 22: The Consequences of Solutions 272

Epilogue 281

Table of Contents and Subsections 282

Endnotes 289

List of Figures and Tables

Table 2-1 Comments on Rosling Instincts Applied to Text

Figure 3-1 Urbanization over the past 500 years, 1500 to 2016

Figure 3-2 Percent Completion Among Persons Ages 25 and Older (USA)

Figure 3-3 Average years of schooling

Figure 3-4 - Help Wanted Advertisement (1854)

Figure 4-1 The size of the world population over the last 12,000 years

Figure 4-2 Global child mortality

Figure 4-3 Mortality rates of children over the last two millennia

Figure 4-4 Average Number of Babies per Woman from 1800 to Today

Figure 4-5 Maternity mortality ration, 1751 to 2020

Figure 4-6 Child mortality rate (under five years old) in the United States, from 1800 to 2020

Figure 4-7 Fertility rate: children per woman

Figure 4-8 Fertility rate: children per woman

Table 4-1 Hypothetical World Population Projection

Figure 4-9 World Population: Past, Present, and Future

Table 5-1 Estimate of Number of People Living at Each Level in 2017

Figure 5-1 Share of population living in extreme poverty, World, 1820 to 2018

Figure 6-1 Global primary energy consumption by source

Figure 6-2 Carbon Dioxide Emitted per million BTU of Various Fuels

Figure 8-1 U.S. energy consumption by source and sector

Figure 9-1 Carbon Dioxide Levels in the Atmosphere (400 million years) Without Projections

Figure 9-2 Carbon Dioxide Levels in the Atmosphere (60 million years) Without Projections

Figure 9-3 Carbon Dioxide Levels in the Atmosphere (80,000 years)

Figure 9-4 Carbon Dioxide Levels in the Atmosphere (10,000 years)

Figure 9-5 Carbon Dioxide Levels in the Atmosphere (2000 years)

Figure 9-6 Carbon Dioxide Levels in the Atmosphere (1800-2020)

Figure 9-7 Mauna Loa Monthly Averages 1960 to 2020

Figure 9-8 Mauna Loa Daily, Monthly and Weekly Averages 2021 to 2023

Figure 9-9 Annual Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Figure 9-10 Carbon Dioxide Emitted and Absorbed

Figure 9-11 Carbon Dioxide Absorbed vs. Concentration

Figure 9-12 Annual Greenhouse Gas Index

Figure 9-13 NO2 Concentrations in China Before and During COVID-19 Shutdown

Figure 10-1 Radiation Transmitted by the Atmosphere

Figure 10-2 Sources of Absorption

Figure 10-3 Temperature of Plant Earth

Figure 10-4 Global Temperature Change Over the Last 2019 Years

Figure 10-5 Temperature Variation and Carbon Dioxide Concentration

Figure 10-6 Global Average Surface Temperature

Figure 10-7 Temperature, Carbon Dioxide, and Dust Concentration (400,000 years)

Figure 10-8 Heat Wave Characteristics in the United States (1961-2021)

Figure 10-9 Annual Heat Wave Index in the United States (1961-2021)

Figure 10-10 Post-Glacial Sea Level Rise

Figure 10-11 Global Sea Level

Figure 10-12 Global Absolute Sea Level Change, 1880-2021

Figure 10-13 Coastal Flood Days in the United States

Figure 10-14 Ocean Acidity Over the Past 25 Million Years (without predictions)

Figure 10-15 Ocean Acidification

Figure 10-16 Snow-Covered Area in North America

Figure 10-17 Arctic Sea Ice Extent

Figure 10-18 1850 Arctic Sea Ice Extent

Figure 10-19 Antarctic Sea Ice Extent

Figure 10-20 PBSG Polar Bear Population Estimates

Figure 10-21 Polar Bear Population Estimate

Figure 10-22 Average Global Sea Surface Temperature (1880-2020)

Figure 10-23 Cumulative Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Figure 10-24 Global Fossil Fuel Consumption (1990-2000)

Figure 10-25 Ocean Conveyor Belt

Figure 10-26 Annual Precipitation Anomalies Worldwide, 1901 to 2019

Figure 10-27 Tornados by Decade, 1950-2018

Figure 10-28 Storms and Hurricanes, 1878 to 2020 (adjusted)

Figure 10-29 Wildfire Frequency in the United States, 1983–2021

Figure 10-30 Wildfire Area Burned in the United States, 1983–2021

Figure 10-31 Global Total Wildfire Carbon Emissions

Figure 11-1 IPCC Temperature Data (1990)

Figure 11-2 IPCC Temperature Data (2001)

Figure 11-3 IPCC Representative Concentration Pathways (2014)

Figure 11-4 Global Mean Surface Temperature Variations

Figure 11-5 Temperature Data from the Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP)

Figure 11-6 IPCC Representative Concentration Pathways (2014)

Figure 11-7 Unshifted and Shifted Carbon Dioxide Concentrations

Figure 11-8 Carbon Dioxide Trends Based on Measurements

Figure 11-9 Average Northern Hemisphere Temperature and Solar Cycle Length

Figure 12-1 U.S. Gasoline Supplied by Month

Figure 12-2 Retail Gasoline Prices

Figure 12-3 Climate Change Protest Sign

Figure 12-4 – Energy to Capture a Tonne of Carbon Dioxide

Table 13-1 Summary of Power Generation Plants in the United States

Figure 13-1 Mini Nuclear Power Plant

Table 14-1 Minerals Required for 80 Million Electric Vehicle Batteries

Figure 14-1 Carbon Dioxide Emissions for Gasoline, Diesel, and Electric Models

Figure 16-1 Footprints by Diet Type

Table 18-1 United States Carbon Dioxide Emissions Before and After Transition

Table 18-2 Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions Before and After Transition

Figure 19-1 Per Capita Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Figure 19-2 Annual Carbon Dioxide Emissions by World Region

Figure 19-3 Electricity Production by Energy Source

Figure 19-4 Per Capita Death Rate from Natural Disasters

Figure 21-1 Cowboy After OSHA Inspection

Preface

The genesis of this book was driven by my curiosity, and the frustration of seeing people with little or no technical background espouse information about climate change, the validity of which could not be readily determined. On the other hand, seemingly credible sources of information were not believable because their statements contained outright errors or, more often, errors of omission.

There are numerous books available about climate change and global warming that range from doomsday scenarios to the justification of the Green New Deal to denial. My quest for information did not uncover a comprehensive understandable source of information that utilized science and data to determine if global warming is real and, if so, provide a rational approach to mitigation.

To the contrary, virtually all the books were biased in some form, typically by misrepresenting data, making untrue statements, incorporating circular arguments, utilizing flawed information, committing errors of omission, and presenting opinion as fact. Scientific papers were typically focused on one aspect of climate change or global warming to the exclusion of other important factors. Curious and frustrated, I humbly set out to apply my technical knowledge and forensic experience to uncover the truth about climate change and wrote this book during the journey.

And what a journey it was. The original plan was to write about the science of burning fossil fuels and then analyze actual data to determine if global warming exists, what should be done about it, when it should be done, and gauge our progress to mitigate it. A pathway to mitigation was not in my original plan yet resulted logically from the analysis. Stated differently, there were no preconceived notions of problems or solutions prior to writing this book.

Research revealed that discovering the role and importance of global warming in context involves understanding life before fossil fuels were burned in quantity and recognizing that our response to global warming has been largely shaped by seemingly incompatible worldviews. The first few chapters, which describe several general concepts and life around 1800, and the final chapters, which suggest that global warming can be part of a larger agenda, became important afterthoughts of researching and writing the middle of the book, which shows that the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a more immediate concern. Despite best efforts and much hoopla, no previous actions have addressed this accumulation aggressively. However, it appears that technology will soon be available to start meaningful mitigation and, at the same time, slow, stop, and reverse global warming. Read on to find out why and how.

Introduction

A fast way to get to the bottom of a mountain is to jump off a cliff. --- David W Spitzer

Climate change is no laughing matter because it can profoundly affect you, me, and every other living organism on Earth. Yet there is considerable debate about the issue and, much more importantly, what should be done about it. The stakes can be catastrophic when incorrect actions are taken or when correct actions are taken at the wrong time.

Some people claim that burning fossil fuels causes the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which warms the Earth. This represents an existential climate crisis, so humans should stop burning fossil fuels and immediately pivot to renewable energy sources.

Others claim that there is no immediate existential climate crisis because carbon dioxide is a trace gas that has not been proven to appreciably affect the temperature of the Earth.

What we have here is no less than an existential crisis that is not an existential crisis, and global warming that is occurring and is not occurring. Amazingly, these two diametrically opposite conclusions were presumably reached by educated people who had access to essentially the same information.

As is often the case, the truth lies somewhere in between, because each group presents its own truth, but not the whole truth. Nonetheless, the very existence of these two diverse opinions screams for an objective investigation driven by data, and not by ideology or preconceived notions.

This book analyzes the intersection of human evolution, scientific advancements, demographics, population growth, combustion, energy consumption, greenhouse gases, and meteorological data to determine if global warming exists and, if it does, to put it in perspective before identifying trends, proposing actions, and quantifying results. By providing a working knowledge of global warming and its manifestation in daily life, this book will help the reader better understand what is said and the results of actions taken.

Instead of presenting complex calculations, data is presented largely in graphical form that should be understandable to laypeople and informative for those with a technical background. In addition, this book provides an understanding of many related subjects and tools that can help the reader analyze information and claims about global warming and climate change.

Disclaimer: Knowledge is constantly evolving, so the author reserves the right to supplement the data and analysis herein should additional information become available.

Chapter 1: Tools of the Trade

A bad workman blames his tools. --- Proverb

Did you know that I caused the northeast blackout in November 1965 that plunged over 30 million people into darkness for about 13 hours in the northeastern United States and part of Canada? I was at home, minding my own business, just as it was getting dark outside. I turned on the light above my bed, and suddenly, all the lights in the apartment went out.

I went outside only to discover that the lights were out as far as I could see. The traffic lights were not working, so random people manned intersections to direct traffic. Back in my room, my little transistor radio was able to receive local broadcasts that slowly began reporting the extent of the outage. What they did not report was that it was I who caused the entire outage by turning on the light above my bed. After all, the lights went out just as I turned on my light, so my light must have been the reason that the blackout occurred.

As you might have suspected, the actual cause of the blackout was not my light turning on but rather a chain reaction that started when a mis-programmed safety relay tripped.

---xxx---

It is well known that no person can know everything about everything. However, people can do research and get information about almost everything. Solving a problem involves defining what information is needed, determining how to obtain that information, and pragmatically assessing how much detail is required about that information. Implementing these actions often involves more art than science.

For example, the solution to a problem might entail knowing the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere 100,000 years ago. An investigation will reveal that this information is contained in air bubbles that were frozen in ice 100,000 years ago in Antarctica. An investigator could learn all about ice core technology and dig ice core samples in Antarctica. However, it would be faster, easier, and less expensive to locate the results of ice core sample experiments and read the concentration from a graph. In other words, it is assumed that the people who performed the ice core experiments and developed the graph were experts in the field, knew what they were doing, and generated the graph correctly. Therefore, a reasonable investigator can accept the concentration information and does not have to thoroughly research ice sample technology and practices, with the important caveat that questionable data or new information may require a deeper investigation and a reevaluation of the results based on the findings.

For example, global warming may have adversely affected the Arctic polar bear population. Fundamental to this analysis is data relating to the past and present Arctic polar bear populations to determine whether the Arctic polar bear population is increasing, decreasing, stable, or something else. A polar bear organization published information that indicates that the population is decreasing. However, further investigation revealed that it is virtually impossible to determine the past or present populations. In addition, there is a book that shows that the population is increasing. The takeaway is that no one really knows, so the information is suspect and should not be used for analysis.

In general, further research is warranted when information seems suspect or when the subject just happens to be of personal interest.

Addressing Global Warming

Of immediate interest are the answers to the following questions.

Does global warming exist?

To what extent has global warming progressed?

What should be done (if anything) about global warming?

Selecting where to start is paramount because the perceived nature of events can change when analyzed from different vantage points. The Earth has been warming, cooling, and evolving since its formation approximately 4.5 billion years ago. ¹ The Earth’s birthday seems like a logical place to start. However, there was no life on Earth at the time.

Approximately 200 million years ago, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was four times its current concentration. Another spike occurred approximately 50 million years ago. This data gives the impression that the current concentration should not be an issue because the Earth has already survived high concentrations. However, these data points might not be all that relevant, because the Earth had different flora, fauna, and geography millions of years ago.

Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere started to increase considerably around 1950. The temperature of the Earth started increasing steadily in 1977. Whatever caused these changes had been occurring for some time, so 1950 is too late to start an analysis of global warming.

Steam engines were invented in the early 1700s but were not in wide use until around 1800, when the burning of fossil fuels to operate machines became more common, thereby increasing fossil fuel consumption. This looks like a good time to start an analysis.

Climate change and global warming cannot be fully understood and adequately addressed in a vacuum, because it is effectively the price that humans are paying for enabling the global population to expand and live a ‘life of life’ instead of the ‘life of death’ that was the human condition for thousands of years and is still the human condition for approximately 10 percent of the Earth’s population, as will be more fully discussed in Chapter 4.

Spoiler Alert: Chapters 3, 4, and 5, chronicling various aspects of this amazing human journey that started around 1800, are not about climate change per se but have everything to do with human progress and how the human condition will be adversely affected if incorrect actions are taken or if correct actions are implemented too quickly. Chapter 2 presents some tools that can be used to identify suspect information and help obtain additional information so that analyses can be based on the best available data, and not flawed information, errors of omission, or opinions.

The combustion of fossil fuels, such as coal, gas, and oil, generates carbon dioxide that is accumulating in the atmosphere. A working knowledge of combustion and energy consumption processes is fundamental to understanding this process and its mitigation. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 explain the fundamentals of energy sources, combustion, electricity, and end-uses to enable the reader to understand how global warming is rooted in science, and not in emotion.

Chapters 9, 10, and 11 discuss greenhouse gases, how they affect the Earth, international agreements, and disagreements therewith. Chapter 12 presents broad strategies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions that are more fully developed in Chapters 13, 14, 15, and 16 for electricity generation, transportation, industrial, and residential and commercial energy end-use sectors, respectively. Chapter 17 presents suggestions to reduce the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere that are quantified in Chapter 18. Chapter 19 provides perspective on where the Earth is in its journey to a lower carbon future, while Chapter 20 addresses some of the politics of climate change. Importantly, Chapters 21 and 22 investigate how climate change and global warming fit into a larger agenda.

The underlying data for the above analysis is presented graphically, sometimes with different granularity to show causality, coincidence, or no correlation between parameters.

Coincidence and Causality

In the previous example, an increasing Arctic polar bear population would not support the premise that Arctic polar bears are being adversely affected by global warming. However, a decreasing population might just be a coincidence caused by other influences.

All too often, people conflate events that occur coincidentally and conclude that one caused the other. For example, global population growth started around 1800. What happened in 1800? For starters, Napoleon marched into Austria, the Library of Congress was founded, the United States census was released, John Adams became the first president to live in the White House, and the United States Congress held its first session in Washington, DC.

Given these choices, one could opine that the existence of the Library of Congress, the issuance of the United States census, and where John Adams lives should not affect the global population. Napoleon’s march into Austria would tend to reduce the population, but Austria had relatively few people. Therefore, it must be the location of the United States Congress meeting that caused the global population to increase, just like me causing the northeast blackout. This conclusion does not make sense, but a tortuous and logically challenged case could be made that Washington is at fault, and it all started when Congress moved. Some legitimate explanations can be complex, but beware of explanations that are overly complicated, tortuous, or use questionable logic.

One case in point is the original statement that something happened around 1800. However, the events listed occurred in 1800. This small, seemingly insignificant word change (that most people would not notice) eliminates many important events and processes that occurred during the years, decades, and centuries around 1800 that are related to the increasing global population. One must be careful to ensure that issues and analyses are accurately described. It helps to listen attentively, read slowly, and write carefully.

It is extremely important to understand the difference between coincidence and causality. Just because two events happen at the same time does not mean that one caused the other. It may just be a matter of coincidence. However, when one event follows similar events consistently, the two events may be linked by causality. For example, it is not a coincidence that looting tends to increase during blackouts and subside shortly after electricity is restored.

Implying causality from coincidental events is rampant. People and the media often conflate events to promote their own viewpoints, as appears to be the case with the Arctic polar bear. Similarly, information and data related to climate change and global warming are rarely presented to the public fairly, completely, coherently, and in context.

Granularity

The measure of the amount of detail present in data is its granularity, where data containing more detail is more granular. The level of granularity that is useful is different in different circumstances. Data may be required every day, month, year, decade, century, or other period, depending on the issue being analyzed. For example, a granularity of millions of years might be sufficient to analyze information about dinosaurs, while annual data is appropriate for analyzing recent global population trends. Faster processes can require data every few minutes to perform a valid analysis.

Selecting the appropriate granularity is often more a matter of art than science. Too much granularity can make analysis cumbersome and difficult, whereas analysis may not be possible when the available data has too little granularity.

Incongruent Occurrences

It is not uncommon to analyze a situation and determine that two seemingly opposite forces occur at the same time, such as something bad that is also improving at the same time. Bad refers to the current state, while improving indicates that the current state is changing for the better. For example, a person might be admitted to an intensive care unit due to a lung injury caused by an automobile accident but two days later the person is breathing better and requires much less oxygen. The situation is still bad, but the person’s health is improving.

Approximately 10 percent of the world's population currently lives in extreme poverty. It is terrible to describe the lives of almost 800 million people in this way. However, as we will discover, almost 80 percent of the world's population in 1800 lived in extreme poverty. Things may be bad now, but the lives of billions of people have improved tremendously in just two centuries.

Similarly, things can be true and irrelevant at the same time. In the previous example, start with the premise that one person in poverty is too many. We can agree on this because we do not want anyone to live in poverty. However, starting with this premise is unrealistic because we all know that there will always be someone in poverty somewhere. Therefore, the mantra ‘one person in poverty is too many’ is irrelevant and tends to stifle meaningful discussion. If allowed to continue, such narratives can become distorted in a manner that may be self-serving and result in actions that are a detriment to the greater good.

Forensic Analysis

Most analysis in our daily lives is performed by starting with a certain event and then determining how the consequences of that event affect the future. For example, turning on an oven will cause the oven to get hot, cook food, and produce carbon dioxide that will be dispersed into the atmosphere. Note that the events are in chronological order in the forward direction.

Much of the analysis in this book is forensic and fundamentally based on artifacts that are available now but that can be used to determine what occurred in the past. In other words, the analysis is performed backwards to determine what occurred in