[GWSG] Starved reefs; low pH; slow species; 2.3 m/degree; Greenland buttery; CCS; 30 gigs for China; ghg investing

[Tilley, Al]

1.  Katherine Ricke and Ken Caldeira have calculated that we are altering the availability of the aragonite coral reefs require to form.  http://ecowatch.com/2013/coral-reefs-face-point-of-no-return/

2.  NPR’s Science Friday has an unusually good conversation with Richard Feely of NOAA on ocean acidification.  If your body’s pH had dropped as much as the ocean’s (30%, with 16% in the last 15 years), you would be approaching a coma.  http://www.npr.org/2013/06/14/191614377/with-climate-change-no-happy-clams?ft=1&f=1025

3.  The climate is changing faster than most species are able to adapt.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jul/14/climate-change-evolution-species-adapt

4.   A new study by the Potsdam Institute provides a “robust” estimate of 2.3 meters of sea level rise for each degree Celsius of global heating.  That’s 7 feet 5.5 inches.  A time table to go with the new study would be handy, but historical analogues are on longer time scales than we are devising, so schedules are a puzzle to prepare.  For one thing, we don’t know what to expect from the polar ice sheets.   http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jul/15/sea-levels-rise-global-warming

5.  The warming interior of at least one area of the Greenland ice sheet is taking on the consistency of butter, causing it to flow more readily.  http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/warm-and-buttery-greenlands-ice-flow-speeding-up  Recent mass loss in the Antarctic ice sheet comes more from melt than from calving.  http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6143/266.abstract

6.  It may be possible to reverse runaway warming by drawing greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere and sequestering them.  A Swedish research group suggests that burning trees for energy and storing the carbon might work (if we could develop a reliable way to do that).  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jul/11/dangerous-global-warming-reversed-scientists

7.  China plans to add 10 gigawatts of solar power each year for the next 3 years.  (That is enough to replace 50 600 megawatt coal plants.)  http://grist.org/news/china-plans-a-major-solar-spree/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed

8.  Achim Steiner, executive director of the UNEP:  “Quite simply, if institutional investors do not systematically reallocate capital from high-carbon to low-carbon investments, particularly in corporate equity and debt, a transition to a low-carbon economy will be virtually impossible.”  He says that the answer lies in analysis and disclosure of greenhouse gas-producing holdings so that the emissions decrease—that is, I gather, by bringing public pressure to bear, or perhaps simply by raising the consciousness of investors.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/financial-sector-low-carbon-economy
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