The solution space

Yes, the crispness of winter is in the air (at least here in the US), so it’s COP season again. This is what passes for global governance on “climate”. Despite many efforts over the centuries, Earth is not a democracy, a republic, or a dictatorship (fortunately!). At the very best, it’s a loose affiliation of aligned regional interests. So, I don’t expect much from this one (or any of the COP n ’s to come, for that matter). The conference is more of a VIP party on an expense account anyway. To the delegates, I say, “Enjoy the conversation! See you again next year!”

We’re no closer to a solution because we haven’t agreed on a solution space, the set of all solutions that can solve a given problem. I’ve at least tried.

To that end, I hate feeling like a broken record. As an aside, I also hate that such a descriptive expression is lost on today’s youth, who think all music is digital and even compact discs are outdated. So, let me explain this to my younger readers. This does not refer to a broken “world” record! In my day, music was recorded as an inwardly spiraling groove on a rotating vinyl disc (a “record”), allowing sound patterns to be reproduced as analog vibrations of a needle. If a record were scratched (“broken”), the needle would hop back one revolution, causing the music to repeat. Endlessly. So, the expression means that I feel like I’m constantly repeating the same message over and over and over again.

So, what is the solution space? Let’s consider the evolution of this particular “newsletter”. Over the years, the scope has narrowed considerably from its initial intent, which was to describe the problem space (of “global warming”, “climate change”, or “the climate crisis”, take your pick) to an intelligent but non-scientific audience. Understanding the problem intrinsically suggests a solution space, which I’ve described extensively in detail over the past two-plus years .

I’ve continued to look for alternative solutions, such that my “pinned” entry, provocatively titled “The Only Solution, 1 ” (written over two years ago), has been joined by at least two other approaches here 2 and here 3 . To summarize, these are the solutions I’ve proposed:

1. Use carbon-free energy to desalinate seawater for irrigation, thereby capturing (in net) atmospheric carbon as soil carbon.

2. Remove (and stabilize) the carbon stored in biomass from areas where water is abundant. This encourages more productive new growth and could be accelerated by planting fast-growing crops with C4 carbon metabolism.

3. Collect already-desalinated rainfall from weather systems over the ocean and transport it (using wind power) to coastal areas for terrestrial agriculture. The effect is the same as in #1.

All three are viable, and together, they describe a solution space. To expand this space, I think it’s essential to appreciate the big picture behind climate stability in the pre-industrial period. After all, “addressing climate change” aims to stabilize our current climates (per IPCC) or, ideally, return the atmosphere to its pre-industrial composition. If we don’t understand what stability is, then we’ll never find it.

To visualize the forces acting on climate stability in a more prosaic context, consider your checking account. Periodically, you have more money (say, after your paycheck is deposited) and less money (like after your bills are paid). If you’re living on what you earn, the balance in your checking account is stable—on average, you have the same balance month after month. [In this analogy, decarbonization is like quitting your job because you decide you don’t like money!]

The message here is that focusing on detailed accounting (of carbon or money) is less important than focusing on the net. If you’ve ever tried to stick closely to a budget, you know that, in a phrase, “Shit happens.” Carbon accounting to get to “net zero” in the purest “engineering” sense faces the same damned issues—for example, forests planted with the intention to capture carbon can burn down! But it doesn’t mean that balancing expenses with income is pointless!

Before industrialization, carbon was recycled between the biosphere (primarily 4 ) and the atmosphere (primarily). During this stable period, every year, on average, Earth (primarily through photosynthesis) absorbed as much carbon as it released (primarily through respiration). [Note: During this period, human civilization had already learned how to harness solar and wind energy and use biofuels for transportation and heat. Renewables are ancient.]

Since industrialization, initially driven by coal, the balance continues to be affected by humans, who dig carbon out of the ground and burn it. Initially, the effects were negligible because Earth is large, but over centuries, we’ve accumulated a surplus of carbon in the atmosphere. That’s the problem in a nutshell.

Indeed, reducing the practice of burning geologic carbon (i.e., decarbonization) can slow the decay if scaled globally. But, left to physics alone, carbon dioxide lasts too long in the atmosphere for “natural processes” to adjust. As I love to point out in my climate conversations, at least half of the carbon released by Watt’s first steam engine (1712) is still in the atmosphere.

Except that is not true because of biology! That carbon has been exchanged many times since it was released. This insight makes the solution space simple: We must capture and retain more carbon by exploiting the natural process. Whether we take it out of the atmosphere or the biosphere doesn’t matter. And control is simple: All it takes is water and sunlight, et voila , nature-based carbon capture and sequestration! Plus , that’s more carbon from land that we can use for food, fuel, and other stuff. The missing piece, on a global scale, is water.

It might seem to make sense to “model” the effect, but the uncertainties in biology and the tendency of modelers to predict the obvious make that process worthless. Experimental proof is what matters, but we don’t have the time to wait for a carefully controlled study that measures the effect of mass irrigation. Plus, ecologists don’t have the balls to do the “cut the rainforest down, plant sugarcane, and measure the consequences analytically” experiment that could refute their whole LULUCF argument. Honestly, it’s scientific malpractice.

Nevertheless, it is possible to look at specific regions where irrigation has been employed over long periods to see how quickly newly irrigated deserts accumulate carbon. I have 5 . The simple answer is “fast enough to make a difference.”

I have supported these assertions in considerable depth, and I am 100% confident in my analysis. If you’d like to add to or dispute them, be my guest! If there are additions to a true solution space, the entire world will benefit.