GLIKSON, Andrew. Dr Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleoclimate scientist: cut carbon emissions 80% by 2020

Dr Andrew Glikson is a Earth and paleoclimate scientist, Visiting Fellow, School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Research School of Earth Science and Institute of Planetary Science, Australian National University (ANU),Canberra, ACT, Australia (see: http://arts.anu.edu.au/AandA/people/visitors/glikson.asp ).

Dr Andrew Glikson interviewed by ABC Radio Australia, 2009, in response to the question ”what has to be done?”: “extremely rapid reduction in emissions … I would say, 80 percent within the next ten years or so [15% reduction in GHG annually for 10 years] … people like me have been looking at the evidence about this on a day to day basis and we have been doing it for years, and to look in to the abyss at this length is a daunting task.” [1].

ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) summary of the interview with Dr Andrew Glikson: "Despite urgent global warming warnings, there's little hope that December's Copenhagen climate change meeting will secure an international agreement. Even domestic measures are subject to bitter politics and trade-offs, like the Australian government's plans to cut emissions by five-to-15 per cent by the year 2020. Even if such measures did pass, one expert [Dr Glikson] says it'd be like giving aspirin to a cancer patient. He says nothing less than 80 per cent emissions cuts over the next ten years will avert catastophe". [1]

Scroll down to see the Attachments - detailed climate change summaries by Dr Andrew Glikson.

[1]. Dr Andrew Glikson interviewed by Linda Mottram, “Carbon emissions must be cut by 80% [by 2020] says scientist”, ABC Radio Australia, 23 July 2009: http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/connectasia/stories/200907/s2634156.htm .

Dr Andrew Glikson (Earth and climate scientist, Australian National University, Canberra) (2019): “ As the concentration of atmospheric CO₂ has risen to 408 ppm and the total greenhouse gas level, including methane and nitrous oxide, combine to near 500 parts per million CO2-equivalent, the stability threshold of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, currently melting at an accelerated rate, has been exceeded. The consequent expansion of tropics and the shift of climate zones toward the shrinking poles lead to increasingly warm and dry conditions under which fire storms, currently engulfing large parts of South America (Fig. 1), California, Alaska, Siberia, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Angola, Australia and elsewhere have become a dominant factor in the destruction of terrestrial habitats…

Allowing for the transient albedo enhancing effects of sulphur dioxide and other aerosols, mean global temperature has potentially reached ~2.0 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. Current greenhouse gas forcing and global mean temperatures are approaching Miocene-like (5.3-23 million years-ago) composition. The current carbon dioxide rise rate exceeds the fastest rates estimated for the K-T asteroid impact (66.4 million years-ago) and the PETM (Paleocene-Eocene Temperature Maximum) hyperthermal event (55.9 million years ago) by an order of magnitude…

To try and avoid a global calamity abrupt reduction in carbon emissions is essential, but since the high level of CO₂-equivalent is activating amplifying feedbacks from land and ocean, global attempts to down-draw about of 50 to 100 ppm of CO₂ from the atmosphere, using every effective negative emissions, is essential. Such efforts would include streaming air through basalt and serpentine, biochar cultivation, sea weed sequestration, reforestation, sodium hydroxide pipe systems and other methods. But while $trillions continue to be poured into preparation of future wars, currently no government is involved in any serious attempt at the defense of life on Earth” (Andrew Glikson, “The fatal nexus – atmospheric CO2 and the mass extinction of species”, Countercurrents, 6 November 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/11/the-fatal-nexus-atmospheric-co2-and-the-mass-extinction-of-species ).