NET ZERO WON'T SOLVE GLOBAL WARMING

 Unpublished article from 2024 

MORE THAN HOT AIR

Are surface temperatures being overlooked in the battle to tackle global warming?

Charlie Clutterbuck thinks so and it's bad news for the environment 

Coal, oil and gas, the exploitation of which took mankind out of the Dark Ages, took millions of years to mature. But unless we create some way of swiftly controlling their poisonous side effect’s they might just finish us off instantaneously. 

Which is why Unite is contributing towards the campaign for Net Zero emissions by backing plans to increase carbon, capture and storage (CCS) , in which Britain led the world until Thatcher took her axe to tests at Grimethorpe Colliery just prior to the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike.

 But might the rural sector be able to help out in tackling global warming? Unite’s own soil scientist Charlie Clutterbuck, who as Landworker readers will know constantly explores possible solutions to what are regarded as intractable problems, believes so.

“The most reliable global warming data since 1880 comes from NASA. In the next 100 years this reveals there were as many cold years as warm. Global temperature rose 0.3C,” explains Charlie.

“Yet from 1980 - 2020 it warmed 1.6C. That is the equivalent of 13x faster than the previous century. Every decade since the 1980s has been warmer than the previous one.

“The Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI) compares the warming effect of the main human-produced greenhouse gases to conditions in 1990. In 2022, the AGGI was 1.49, a 49% increase in 32 years when over the same period temperatures rose extra-ordinarily.”

Seeking explanations, Charlie is convinced of the need “to examine surface heat exchange where the sun’s rays hit the earth.” This complex equation (based on 2 aspects - albedo capacity and conductivity) happens before any GHG involvement.

Statistics reveal that solar radiation received from the sun totals 342 watts per cubic metre with 339 watts going back out.  The remaining 3 watts - 1% of the total - is energy. Its absorption by the earth warms it up. Altering that could be key.

Albedo is a key parameter widely used in land surface energy balance studies, mid-to-long-term weather prediction, and global climate change investigation. 

“As open ocean water has a moderate albedo of around 0.06 it absorbs a lot of sunlight, thus contributing to ocean warming, The sea though has high capacity to absorb heat without temperature increasing, and then conductivity to move it around. Again, we see it heating lots faster since 1980. Much more than GHGs alone could cause this,” states Charlie who first appeared in Landworker magazine over 50 years ago and who played a key role in the setting up of the Hazards Campaign and Magazine that has saved the lives of many thousands.

On land the albedo is, depending on the surface, more variable. Snow has high albedo (reflectivity) but when it melts the brown earth has low albedo, thus absorbing more heat. Forest and grassland are cooler than ploughed soil because of a mixture of albedo and capacity. It means that on hot days it’s pleasurable to lie on the grass but not on the soil,

Currently, ‘global’ temperatures measure just air temperatures and although water transfers 90% of our heat we do not even measure its effects. Land too is not measured and so there exists few worldwide comparisons of variation of warmth over different land practices.

“If we could alter that it could make a massive analytical difference,” states Charlie. “Because I feel it can help establish that soil surface temperature rises have played a major role in the rapid global heat increase.”

At Davos in 2023, delegates at the World Economic Forum were saying ‘soil is the solution’ because of its carbon content.

“But this shows how ‘reductionist’ carbon counting is. The soil is a living entity not lumps of carbon. Soil holds moisture that keeps the planet cool; thus pasture is better than arable land,” argues Charlie who is convinced that the soil in our cities that is now concreted and tarmacked over had previously held temperatures down by retaining water.  “Increasing numbers and the size of cities must have had an impact on global warming.”

Meanwhile, the ‘green revolution’ expanded dramatically in Asia & Africa after 1980 to produce grain and vegetables in monocultures. “That warms up land considerably more than grazed grassland. Previous civilisations – for example, Greek, Roman & Mayan -  have been eroded due to similar agricultural practices.”

Trees are even cooler than grazed grassland and so “the continuing chopping down of many forests increases surface temperatures by releasing moisture.”

Baking hot

Furthermore, an area half the size of Europe is degraded annually from ‘dryland ‘to desert.

“The impact of desertification on global warming must be enormous, with no trees, grass, clouds, water holding, life support and surface temperatures bouncing around. Re-growing the trees, grass and improved soil would help cool the planet and improve rural economies.”

In turn this should reduce emigration by millions of desperate people seeking to survive an ever-heating world.

Soilution?

“Some of the £1.5 trillion being earmarked towards ‘net zero’, where GHG emissions are, at around £40 a ton of carbon, balanced by increasing carbon absorption somewhere else, should be invested in paying attention to the earths’ surface temperatures.”

Rural road to ruin

Nationally, Charlie also fears that net zero plans encourage less food production and damage rural employment opportunities.

“Like other organisations, The National Trust have pledged to become net zero by 2030. In addition to increasing tree planting and restoring peat bogs they are now getting rid of sheep from their farms around Malham Tarn so they can ‘rewild’  the land.  Such policies will increase food imports, using other peoples' land, water and labour and increasing their soil temperatures. These new measures also take time and reduce jobs. Land for food production should be prioritised.”