COVID-19 & CLIMATE: BOTH GLOBAL, TEMPERATURE INCREASE If we wait for a crisis, it’s too late: Time after drastic action: COVID, months; CLIMATE, century. The COVID “stay in place” reduced greenhouse emissions up to 17%. Reduced population. Non-US-Deficit Increasing solution: Carbon fee plus dividend for all. What we can do: more vegetarian diet, less airline travel, more nuclear reactors

1. CONFRONT
COVID-19
&
CLIMATE
NOW
Paul H. Carr

2. Fall foliage near site of Thoreau’s 1845-47 Cabin on Walden Pond, MA.
Fall now comes later than in Thoreau’s day: evidence of climate change.

3. COVID-19 & CLIMATE OUTLINE
BOTH GLOBAL, TEMPERATURE INCREASE
• If we wait for a crisis, it’s too late.
Time after drastic action: COVID, months;
CLIMATE, century.
• The COVID “stay in place” reduced greenhouse
emissions up to 17%. Reduced population.
• Non-US-Deficit Increasing solution:
Carbon fee plus dividend for all.
• What we can do: more vegetarian diet

4. Protective measures after the first case lowers the number of cases.
Waiting for a large case crisis, increased the number of cases for
both COVID-19 and Climate.
FLATTENING THE COVID CURVE

5. When COVID-19 appeared in New York, Governor Cuomo was hesitant to close schools
because of poor children’s nutritional needs. As COVID-19 cases increased, he ordered
everyone to stay-at-home.
When Taiwan identified the first coronavirus cases, they quarantined the individuals and
did contact tracing. Everyone wore face masks. Borders closed.
New York had 33,000 deaths, with 1700 deaths per million population.
Taiwan had only 7 deaths, with 0.3 deaths per million.

6. NY City had the most antibodies in the world. Still vulnerable to 2nd outbreak until vaccine.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/28/upshot/coronavirus-herd-immunity.html

7. WHEN WE WAIT FOR A CRISIS, IT’S TOO LATE
COVID-19: Months for lock-down results.
CLIMATE CHANGE REDUCTIONS: 100 yrs
CO2: 100 years to reduce:
Sea Level Rise
Heat Waves
Forest Fires,
Hurricane Flooding & Winds

8. NASA photos of Thwaites Glacier, size of Mexico, W Antarctica.
Richard Alley, a glaciologist at Penn State University,
an author of the last IPCC report:
“If the Thwaites Glacier breaks free from its rocky berth, it
could raise sea levels 2- 10 ft.” 8
CLIMATE CRISIS: SEA LEVELS COULD RISE 2 -10 FEET

9. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 3761–3812, Mar 2016 www.atmos-chem-
phys.net/16/3761/2016/ doi:10.5194/acp-16-3761-2016 © Author(s) 2016. CC Attribution
3.0 License.
Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from
paleoclimate data, climate modeling….
James Hansen1, Makiko Sato1, Paul Hearty2, Reto Ruedy3,4, Maxwell Kelley3,4, Valerie Masson-Delmotte5, Gary
Russell4, George Tselioudis4, Junji Cao6, Eric Rignot7,8, Isabella Velicogna7,8, Blair Tormey9, Bailey Donovan10,
Evgeniya Kandiano11, Karina von Schuckmann12,….
1Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions, Columbia University Earth Institute, New York, NY 10115, USA
2Department of Environmental Studies, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, NC 28403, USA 3Trinnovium LLC,
New York, NY 10025, USA 4NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2880 Broadway, New York, NY 10025, USA
5Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (CEA-CNRS-UVSQ), Gif-sur-
Yvette, France 6Key Lab of Aerosol Chemistry & Physics, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Xi’an 710075, China 7Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109,
USA 8Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA 9Program for the Study of
Developed Shorelines, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC 28723, USA 10Department of Geological Sciences,
East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858, USA 11GEOMAR, Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research,
Wischhofstrasse 1–3, Kiel 24148, Germany 12Mediterranean Institute of Oceanography, University of Toulon, La
Garde, France 13Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027,
USA
Published in Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss.: 23 Jul – Accepted: 18 Feb 2016 – Published: 22 Mar 2016

10. Sea levels could rise by 1 m (3 ft) by 2050. Could we take action to prevent a 5 m
(18 ft) rise by 2058? The lifetime of CO2 is 100s of years.
Atmos. Chem. Phys., March 2016.
J. Hansen et. al.
1 M TIPPING LEVEL

11. 5 Meters (18 Feet) Sea Level Rise
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago
Palm Beach

12. 40 % of the world’s population lives near the
sea-coast.
A 10-foot rise in sea levels worldwide would
be major humanitarian and economic crisis.
Big Initiative: Eliminate Greenhouse gas
emissions to stop global warming.
The next slides show the results of getting
CO2 emission down to “net 0” in 10 years.

13. Reducing CO2 burning to stop its increase in our atmosphere.
CO2 has a 100-year lifetime. ( Alan Emery, www.StableClimate.org)
Measurements

14. Temperatures will still rise, but a slower rate, as CO2 is still present.
Alan Emery

15. Sea levels will still rise, but at a slower rate.

16. 16
March for
Science,
Earth Day,
April 22,
2017
Poster.

17. COVID-19 & CLIMATE OUTLINE
BOTH GLOBAL, TEMPERATURE INCREASE
• If we wait for a crisis, it’s too late.
Time after drastic action: COVID, months;
CLIMATE, century.
• The COVID “stay in place” reduced greenhouse
emissions up to 17%. Reduced population.
• Non-US-Deficit Increasing solution:
Carbon fee plus dividend for all.
• What we can do: more vegetarian diet

18. GLOBAL WARMNG IMPACT
FIRES IN CALIFORNIA: 119,00O HAVE EVACUATED
August 22, 2020
How to find COVID-free shelter for 119,000 evacuees +
12,000 firefighters? (Bradenton, FL has 60,000 people).
Smoke pollution makes COVID lung attacks worse
Global warming increases dryness that loads the dice for
for more severe fires.
Warmer winters do not destroy the pine beetles, which
kill more trees for kindling.

19. 5 million acres, size of Massachusetts, in CA, Oregon, and Washington State burned.
Increasing trend line
since 1980 exceeded.
CRISIS ?

20. San Francisco skyline 10:25 AM Wednesday, Sept 9, 2020
Air pollution from nearby forest fires.

21. Attribution of western US forest fire area to ACC. Cumulative forest fire area estimated from the
(red) observed all-metric mean record of fuel aridity and (black) the fuel aridity record after
exclusion of ACC (No ACC).
John T. Abatzoglou, and A. Park Williams PNAS
2016;113:42:11770-11775©2016 by National Academy of Sciences
ACC: Anthropogenic
Climate Change.
An 8-fold
increase
in area
burned
since 1985

22. COVID-19 lock-downs reduced
greenhouse gas emissions
• Reduction of fossil fuel burning : -
Cleaning our atmosphere & --
17% in CO2 reduction to slowing global
warming.
• Reduced meat production is also slowing
Methane Greenhouse gas emissions.

23. GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS in CHINA
December 2019 February 2020 Mid-March 2020

24. Oil price dipped from reduced COVID demand &
increased as the world economy recovered.

25. The price of oil has not returned to pre-COVID levels

26. Published: 19 May 2020
Temporary reduction in daily global CO2emissions during
the COVID-19 forced confinement. 17% Decease
Corinne Le Quéré, Robert B. Jackson, Matthew W. Jones, Adam J. P. Smith, Sam Abernethy,
Robbie M. Andrew, + 8 more authors https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0797-x

27. FUNDING TO DEAL WITH COVID UNEMPLOYMENT
COULD REDUCE CLIMATE CHANGE
Grants for more energy efficient homes and businesses
could make jobs for local contractors. The resulting lower
energy costs with lower carbon dioxide emissions would
repay the cost several times.
Millions of construction workers are needed to rebuild our
crumbling infrastructure, including aging nuclear reactors.
They generate 20% of our electricity without CO2
emissions.
Americans are developing advanced reactors that are
smaller, safer, and more efficient at half today’s
construction costs.

29. MIT’s COOL SOLUTIONS:
• A nuclear reactor build-up
(at historically feasible rate) could
completely decarbonize the World’s power
sector within 30 years
• The energy storage costs needed to make
wind and solar 24/7 would make them up
to four times more expensive than with no
nuclear.

30. REACTORS ARE THE SAFEST
New Scientist crunched the numbers.
That maximum death-toll estimates from that analysis
show:
• Natural gas is 1.3 times as dangerous as nuclear
• Coal is 27 times as dangerous as nuclear
• Hydroelectric is 46 times as dangerous as nuclear
In absolute terms, nuclear energy prevents about 80,000
air-pollution-related deaths a year, according to a 2013
study.

31. Low-Cost 'Miniature', Modular Nuclear Power Plants. They can fit on the back of a truck.
JOSH HRALA 20 JAN 2017
Working with the US Department of Energy (DOE), NuScale Power, Portland, Oregon, plans
to build a 12-module plant in Idaho
The 50 MegaWatt design is approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and will be
mass produced to reduce cost by 2030.
Self contained light water reactor(s) installed in a concrete lined hole in the ground.
Water circulates by convection. Automatic shut down.
Westinghouse plans to have its eVinci SMR commercial by 2024.

32. NON-DEBT INCREASING SOLUTION
• Capitalistic Carbon Fee + Dividend.
• Energy Innovation & Carbon Dividend
Act, H.R. 763
• 40% emissions reduction in 12 years.
• www.CitizensClimateLobby.com
• The COVID-19 low price of oil will help.
People used to higher oil prices.

33. 33
Of the 100 ways of
reducing global warming
the following were rated:
3. Reduced Food
Waste
4. Plant-Rich Diet

34. 34
Peter Kalmus, PhD,
atmospheric
scientist at Caltech,
lives with his wife
and 2 children on
1/10th the fossil
fuels of the average
American.

36. STOP EATING RED MEAT: BEEF AND PORK
Agriculture accounts for 24% of our greenhouse emissions.
• Cattle & pigs emit the greenhouse gases methane, CH4. They eat
grains needed for humans.
• In addition, deforestation—clearing land for crops, for instance—
removes trees that pull CO2 out of the air,

37. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ZtTWhdx0IxksjSu
LUb1p00rYHEk56gi2z22Owq83INo/present?fbclid=IwAR0Zm
xU1JJpe1O2qywKlkAZSIsmJVl_RrGV-
5VuACpWPkQN3taqyCIx15yc&slide=id.p11

38. LIMIT COVID CONTACT RISK
NATIONAL LOCK-DOWN, RAPID TESTING,
CONTACT TRACING

39. China Acceleration May Not Rescue World
From Virus Slowdown WSJ, 10/19/2020
Hopes are rising that China can pull the
globe out of its coronavirus-induced funk,
much as it did during the global financial
crisis more than a decade ago—but
economists offer a long list of reasons to be
skeptical.
Heard on the Street:
China’s Economy Is Almost Over Covid-19

40. Audience at concert, Aug 8, 2020, Taipei, Taiwan
Deaths. Deaths/Million
Taiwan 7 0.3
US. 225,000 687
Our friends in
Shanghai, China tell us
that masks are only
required on public
transportation.
Elementary school
children do not need to
wear masks.
Eating at restaurants is
back to normal.
We would like to travel
there.

41. The US opened up its economy too soon

42. Oct 5, 2020

43. CONFRONT COVID & CLIMATE NOW
BOTH GLOBAL, TEMPERATURE INCREASE
• If we wait for a crisis, it’s too late.
Time after drastic action: COVID, months;
CLIMATE, century.
• The COVID “stay in place” reduced greenhouse
emissions up to 17%. Reduced population.
• Capitalistic Non-US-Deficit Increasing solution:
-Carbon fee plus dividend for all.
- Economic incentive for de-carbonization.
• What we all can do now: more vegetarian diet

44. American Scientist, Sept – Oct 2020, pg 311

45. Reducing human CO2 emissions to full zero takes centuries for atmospheric CO2 to decrease.
Graph credit, Alan Emery

48. Deaths/Million
China. 3.3
S Korea. 6.0
Japan. 9.1
Germany 113
Denmark 105
Sweden. 570
US 548
Spain. 617
• Countries with higher COVID deaths/Million
have a bigger GDP decrease.
• Economies recover, people are not resurrected.
( one exception).
Sweden’s no stay-
in-place cost lives.
GDP loss same as
Germany.

49. SENSITIVITY 80% infection probability, 2600 deaths/day.
70% contact probability. 600 deaths/day

50. God blessed America,
The future’s in Canada:
Where sick don’t go bankrupt &
College doesn’t break the bank.
As the South gets too hot,
Canada will always be cool.
Canada is such a jewel.
By Paul H. Carr

51. COST OF ENERGY STORAGE OPTIONS.