Carbon Dioxide into Rock

A report in Science discusses an advancement in carbon sequestration. Instead of storing carbon dioxide gas in sedimentary rock, the gas is mixed with water and injected into basalt. Almost all the gas formed carbonate minerals within two years. The issue, as usual, is being able to do enough to make a difference. Chris Mooney:

The researchers are enthusiastic about their possible solution, although they caution that they are still in the process of scaling up to be able to handle anything approaching the enormous amounts of carbon dioxide that are being emitted around the globe — and that transporting carbon dioxide to locations featuring basalt, and injecting it in large volumes along with even bigger amounts of water, would be a complex affair.

Neoliberal Failure

A report from the International Monetary Fund reviews the impact of the "neoliberal agenda".

Our assessment of the agenda is confined to the effects of two policies: removing restrictions on the movement of capital across a country’s borders (so-called capital account liberalization); and fiscal consolidation, sometimes called “austerity,” which is shorthand for policies to reduce fiscal deficits and debt levels. An assessment of these specific policies (rather than the broad neoliberal agenda) reaches three disquieting conclusions: 

•The benefits in terms of increased growth seem fairly difficult to establish when looking at a broad group of countries.­ 

•The costs in terms of increased inequality are prominent. Such costs epitomize the trade-off between the growth and equity effects of some aspects of the neoliberal agenda.­ 

•Increased inequality in turn hurts the level and sustainability of growth. Even if growth is the sole or main purpose of the neoliberal agenda, advocates of that agenda still need to pay attention to the distributional effects.­

The report further states:

The increase in inequality engendered by financial openness and austerity might itself undercut growth, the very thing that the neoliberal agenda is intent on boosting. There is now strong evidence that inequality can significantly lower both the level and the durability of growth.

Ben Norton puts it more bluntly.

The IMF essentially admitted that many of the policies that it demanded countries implement for decades only made things worse.

An Inconvenient Projection

While Maddie Stone notes the continued rise in carbon dioxide emissions in the ten years since Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, a study published in Nature Climate Change examines the consequences of using up all known fossil fuels.

For this scenario of unmitigated fossil fuel burning, a total of 5 trillion tons would have found its way to the atmosphere by 2300 in the form of carbon dioxide.

Under this scenario, CO2 stabilizes at roughly 2,000 parts per million.

Five trillion tons of carbon would raise global temperatures by 6.4-9.5 C, relative to preindustrial times.

According to author Richard Allen:

This is a useful ‘what if’ study that exercises computer simulations to their limits. But, in reality, the damage to societies and ecosystems by such severe climate change would cripple economies to such an extent that it would be practically impossible to burn all the fossil fuel reserves.

Racist Politics

An analysis of negative ads put out by John McCain's 2008 campaign documents the use of darkened images of Barack Obama. And other studies correlate viewing darker skin with increased support for right-wing organizations. The campaign study finds that "darker images can activate [racial] stereotypes". Right-wing support "result[s], in part, from threats to the status of whites in America".

Never underestimate the existence of racial resentment in the United States. How many people still view Obama as unqualified and so why not just support any bozo? No serious person could give a reasoned argument in favor of the Republican nominee and so the whole election becomes a big joke to them--let's teach those Obama voters a lesson.

Update (June 28):  A survey from Pew Research Center shows that whites and blacks are far apart on views about race, especially white Republicans.

Update (June 29):  A poll from Reuter's/Ipsos about racial attitudes shows that supporters of the Republican nominee are more likely to hold negative opinions of African Americans than the supporters of other candidates.

Also, Lilly Workneh summarizes the Pew survey.

1. Most black people believe the country should do more to achieve racial equality, while less than half of white people say enough has already been done. 

2. Black and white America’s assessment of President Barack Obama’s impact on race relations widely differ. 

3. Most black and white Americans are aware of Black Lives Matter but have mixed views on their support and assessment of the movement. 

4. Black people believe institutional racism is a critical problem while more white people say individual instances of discrimination are a bigger concern. 

5. Black people experience discrimination at a much higher rate than whites. 

6. Racial gaps persist when it comes to household income and poverty.

Falling Middle Class

The Pew Research Center finds a shrinking middle class almost everywhere in the United States.

From 2000 to 2014 the share of adults living in middle-income households fell in 203 of the 229 U.S. metropolitan areas. The decrease in the middle-class share was often substantial, measuring 6 percentage points or more in 53 metropolitan areas, compared with a 4-point drop nationally.

One-fifth of Plants Face Extinction

A report called State of the World's Plants by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew finds 391,000 known species of plants. Up to 21 percent of all plant species are threatened.

The biggest factors threatening plant species with extinction are the destruction of habitats for farming (31%) - such as palm oil production and cattle ranching, deforestation for timber (21%) and construction of buildings and infrastructure (13%). Climate change is currently a smaller factor - 4% - but is likely to grow.

Sustainable Energy Transition

Ugo Bardi offers a "back of the envelope" calculation for what it would take to replace fossil fuels with renewable sources of energy. It won't be easy.

[W]e need to increase the installation rate [by] about a factor of 8 in energy terms. Assuming that the cost of renewable energy won't radically change in the future, we need to increase monetary investments of about the same factor. It means that we need to go from the present value of about 280 billion dollars per year to some 2 trillion dollars per year. This is a lot of money, but not an unthinkable investment rate. If we sum up what we are investing for fossils (about $1 trillion/year), for renewables ($300 billion/year) and nuclear (perhaps around $200 billion/year) we see that we are not far from there.