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Chapter 2

Ystad

Dr. Ilsa Hartquist, deceased at age forty-seven, was born and raised in the tiny medieval fishing village of Ystad, Sweden. Her parents taught math and science in the upper school. At home, they devoted their energies to supplemental education of their four children. Ilsa was the eldest and by far the most talented. Her parents did everything they could to advance her knowledge and academic skills as she rapidly progressed.

Ystad is the site of author Henning Mankell’s novels about detective Kurt Wallander, later made famous by the BBC television series based on his stories. Tourists come from around the world to take “conceptual guided tours,” following the rugged policeman’s imaginary footsteps along the town’s cobblestone streets.

Ilsa’s early exposure to the impact of media on her hometown, combined with her wide-ranging knowledge of science, social studies, and the humanities, set her on the path to prominence. After earning a PhD in Climate Science from Harvard University in 2000, followed by post-graduate training at MIT, she joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins University as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in 2006.

She immediately became an active climate research scholar and an active participant in the deliberations of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the committee that speaks most authoritatively on the global scientific consensus about the dangers created by the changing climate.

For several years, she had argued vigorously for prompt, effective regulatory action to reduce methane emissions along with carbon dioxide emissions. This advocacy made her a leader and the hero of environmental activists. The US EPA adopted methane rules as part of its program to satisfy US commitments under the 2015 Paris Accords.

In September 2017, Dr. Hartquist presented a pathbreaking paper to the IPCC that stressed the unacceptably high risk of immediate, irreversible consequences from climate change. The paper gained wide notoriety beyond the climate science community.

Shortly thereafter, Judy Woodmont, a nationally-known TV anchor, interviewed Ilsa on her nightly news program. Transcript excerpts went viral on the social networks interested in climate issues.

Woodmont: Dr. Hartquist, thank you for joining us this evening. I’d like to talk with you about your recent presentation to the IPCC. Your paper seems to be quite critical of the IPCC’s climate change modeling. What is wrong with their models?

Hartquist: It isn’t that the IPCC modeling is wrong. The problem is that it is overlooking the most dangerous, immediate threat from global warming. The IPCC’s one hundred-year horizon models project a smooth increase in earth’s temperature caused by carbon dioxide emissions that will eventually have a catastrophic effect on all life on earth.

But the IPCC has not given sufficient attention to the immediate effects of other, more potent but short-lived greenhouse gasses, particularly methane and HCFCs, a gas used in air conditioners around the world.

Woodmont: My understanding is that methane and HCFCs are included in the IPCC’s models. The IPCC hasn’t ignored them. What exactly is the error you see?

Hartquist: The IPCC does recognize that the Global Warming Potential, or GWP, for methane is twenty-eight times that of carbon dioxide over one hundred years. And the IPCC climate models use that GWP ratio for predicting global conditions in 2100. But the one hundred-year model assumes that methane’s effects will emerge smoothly over that time period.

That assumption disregards the fact that methane only stays in the atmosphere about twelve years on average. Most of that “28 times more potent” GWP occurs in those first twelve years. Before the methane dissipates, its global warming effect is over 8 times the one hundred-year average, or 224 times the GWP of carbon dioxide. The effects of increased methane emissions are front-loaded. In other words, their most powerful impact occurs in the first few years of their presence in the atmosphere.

HCFCs have an even shorter lifespan in the atmosphere, but they have a far stronger GWP, so their effects are even more front-loaded than methane.

Woodmont: But if the effect of these emissions averages out over the century, do the short-term effects really matter?

Hartquist: Yes, the short-term effects do matter. The fundamental conclusion of my analysis is that the IPCC needs to reverse its focus on the one hundred-year term. It won’t matter what the one hundred-year effect of carbon dioxide is, if civilization has already been drastically undermined in 2040 or 2060 by the disruptive effects of increased emissions of methane and HCFCs.

Human civilization as we know it may implode long before we reach the 70 Fahrenheit increase by 2100 that the IPCC is warning us about.

Woodmont: I’m not sure I understand how that would happen. Aren’t the long-term consequences the most important consideration?

Hartquist: Critical in the long term, but not the most urgent danger. Yes, we must stop emitting carbon dioxide long before 2100, if we are to preserve the planet as we know it. And substantial reductions in methane and HCFC emissions starting now would significantly reduce the one hundred-year average temperature increase, as the models illustrate.

But methane emissions are now 150% above 19th Century levels, and they have risen quite sharply in the last twenty years, as more natural gas wells and pipelines leak methane into the atmosphere. This increase doesn’t include the unmeasured emissions from oil fields damaged during the two Iraqi wars and various terrorist attacks on oil industry infrastructure.

I believe this front-loading of additional methane and HCFCs is what is causing the current unpredicted spike in global average temperatures. The world has set new temperature records almost every year since 2000, and that trend will continue as methane and HCFC emissions grow.

This effect is a much more immediate threat than the one hundred-year average. The current spike in earth’s temperature is already destroying vital features of our global ecosystem. That damage may be irreversible right now or in the near future if we don’t act.

Woodmont: What kinds of effects from this small temperature change, which currently amounts to less than 20 Fahrenheit, are you seeing?

Hartquist: The effects are showing up in scientific research results in many fields, from agronomy to oceanography to geology. The current and potential disruptions are of two kinds—secondary effects, and nonlinear irreversible impacts.

The secondary effects are evident everywhere. The current small average global temperature increase is much more extreme in the polar regions, causing the ongoing destruction of the polar ice caps. That loss is causing significant changes in weather and ocean patterns around the world.

We have recently seen the destruction caused by more frequent and more powerful hurricanes and forest fires. Less dramatic visually, but in many ways more severe, are the long-term droughts in many parts of the world, causing famines and mass refugee migrations.

The shifts in weather patterns everywhere are disrupting agricultural planting and harvesting cycles and facilitating the multiplication of destructive plant pests. Together, these shifts are progressively reducing crop yields, causing more frequent famines across the globe.

At the same time, ocean acidification and higher ocean water temperatures are causing the decline of sensitive fisheries around the world. Most of the world’s population depends on fisheries for protein. The destruction of fish populations means even more starvation and malnutrition.

Woodmont: What are these “nonlinear” threats you mentioned?

Hartquist: The nonlinear, potentially irreversible effects are even more frightening. Let me list a few of the many disaster possibilities that have recently been identified:

 Collapse of the Ross Ice Shelf or other Antarctic glaciers, which could produce a three- to six-foot rise in sea level within a few decades,

 Reduction in the freshwater runoff from Greenland and Iceland that drives global ocean currents, which would radically change climate conditions everywhere,

 Massive, irreversible releases of currently frozen natural methane from the Arctic permafrost, which could exceed current industrial methane emissions, and

 Saturation of the oceans with carbon dioxide, so they no longer absorb carbon, but instead release it into the air, accelerating global warming.

Woodmont: You’ve painted a grim picture of what we can expect if we continue on this path. Is there anything we can do to reduce the risk of these disasters?

Hartquist: That is the most complex question. Scientists in various fields have suggested several potential approaches that would intentionally change the earth’s oceanic and atmospheric chemistry. Collectively, they are often lumped together under the term “geoengineering.”

Adding iron or other nutrients to the ocean so marine organisms absorb more carbon is one proposal. Another method is solar radiation management, known as SRM, primarily in the form of a stratospheric veil. We could create the veil by dispersing chemicals into the upper atmosphere to reflect more sunlight away from the earth.

The difficulty with these proposals is that we cannot test and calibrate such a large-scale engineering project in the real world without risking adverse consequences. We have no “Planet B” to experiment with. On the other hand, our current situation is equally fraught with dangers.

I tend to think that a physical veil is simpler and less risky than a biological ocean fertilization approach that causes and depends upon the far more complex interactions of live organisms.

The scientific community has not reached consensus on what approach is the most feasible or least risky. But the current threats won’t wait.

Woodmont: Well! That’s a lot to think about. Thank you, Dr. Hartquist, for your enlightening explanation of this complex problem. I’m sure we will hear other views on this subject in the days ahead, and then we may want to talk with you again.

Hartquist: My pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.

Ilsa was pleased with the interview. She felt that Woodmont’s aggressive questioning had allowed her to articulate her disagreements with the IPCC clearly and precisely. She had drawn attention to methane and HCFCs and introduced the concept of a stratospheric veil to a much larger audience. She felt hopeful that her widely-publicized analysis would have a tangible effect on the policies of the US Government.

But the President continued to contend the whole idea of global warming was a hoax, even in the face of the opposite conclusions reached by the Federal Government’s November 2017 Climate Science Special Report.

That Report, cooperatively produced and reviewed by representatives of all the relevant Federal agencies, reached significantly different conclusions:

1 Global annually averaged surface air temperature has increased by about 1.8°F (1.0°C) over the last 115 years (1901–2016). This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization. The last few years have also seen record-breaking climate-related weather extremes, and the last three years have been the warmest years on record for the globe.

2 It is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.

Dr. Hartquist was outraged that the President was blatantly disregarding the considered judgment of the scientific community in and out of the Federal Government.

A year later, in desperation, she adopted a more radical position, which she announced in an Opinion column in the New York Times. She selected the publication date, October 1, 2018, with an eye toward influencing the upcoming US Congressional elections.

Her column began with a brief statement of the latest scientific consensus:

The natural atmospheric and oceanic systems that have sustained human survival for millennia are breaking down. These effects will likely disrupt and destabilize contemporary civilization long before the 100-year increase in CO2 makes the earth uninhabitable.

Her policy recommendations, however, were far more controversial:

In my view, governments around the world must promptly initiate a variety of active engineering projects that intervene in our climate system to increase the earth’s albedo—its reflectivity—and cool the planet.

First, governments must immediately pursue a program of solar radiation management (SRM), creating a chemical veil for the planet to scatter more sunlight back into space.

Second, governments must implement every other imaginable reflectivity mechanism on the earth’s surface as quickly as possible. All man-made structures and vehicles should be colored white, including building roofs, streets, and highways. Less valuable forests should be cut down and buried to create more reflective open land, even though that would reduce the amount of CO2 the earth’s forests will ultimately absorb.

Some will object that SRM or any other intervention must wait until we can resolve the scientific uncertainties about its potential adverse effects. But we no longer have the luxury of time. At this point, only radical steps can save us from the damage being caused by a century of mistaken and shortsighted policies.

When a person is drowning in an icy ocean, you don’t debate whether the life preserver or the rope will be most effective to save him. And you don’t try just one to see if it works before trying the other. You throw both, fully aware that he might not catch either one, or he might catch one and still freeze before he is rescued, or he might even get tangled in the lines and drown more quickly. Because action is the only hope.

That is the circumstance in which we find our home, planet earth. We must act now with the knowledge and tools we have at hand.

Finally, I must stress that while SRM may work to cool the earth and minimize the risk of immediate catastrophe, we still have only a few decades to end the use of fossil fuels. The most successful stratospheric veil will not affect many of the long-run destructive impacts of increased atmospheric carbon from fossil fuels.

The 2018 elections succeeded in breaking down the climate-denier majority in Congress. But the President didn’t reverse his decision to withdraw from the Paris Accords in 2019, which would make the United States the only nation in the world that was not a party. Less visibly, the EPA Administrator continued to nullify all regulations designed to implement the binding commitments the US had accepted in the Paris Accords.

Dr. Hartquist’s call to action produced no positive response either in the US or at the international level. At the same time, both back-to-nature environmentalists and reactionary climate deniers attacked her controversial views and her scientific competence.

By March 2020, she was emotionally spent. She continued to work at winning support for her critique of the IPCC and her SRM recommendations, but the only prospect that sustained her from day to day was the fantasy of another ocean cruise as Ingrid Halvorson.