ISSN 1019-3316, Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2009, Vol. 79, No. 1, pp. 4549.

Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2009. Original Russian Text K.S. Losev, 2009, published in Vestnik Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, 2009, Vol. 79, No. 1, pp. 3640.

Environmental Problems
The current strategy of global warming control is discussed. The advantages and drawbacks of this strategy are analyzed. The conclusion is made that a reduction in the industrial emission of carbon dioxide is not enough to stop temperature growth on our planet. DOI: 10.1134/S1019331609010067

Paradoxes of Global Warming Control

K. S. Losev*
The problem of global warming has been gaining momentum, especially against the backdrop of very warm years in the late 1990s and early 2000s, since the 1992 conference in Rio de Janeiro, which adopted the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Kyoto Protocol has been discussed since the mid1990s, and Russia nally signed it, which made its implementation possible. Then the European Union discussed this problem, and A. Merkels proposals on a drastic, compared to the Kyoto Protocol recommendations, 20% reduction in anthropogenic emissions by the EU countries were adopted. The pinnacle was 2007, when global warming became one of the two key issues at the conference of the Pacic Rim countries. Then the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to A. Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and, nally, a conference, held on Bali Island in Indonesia, was dedicated to reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, primarily industrial, and to the attraction of developing countries and refusers, the United States and Canada, to this process. The above activities have lined up a strategy of global warming control aimed at technological methods of reducing industrial carbon dioxide emissions. The choice of such a strategy cannot be considered optimal since it is one-sided and does not account for the majority of problems related to global warming. The rst problem is uncertainty about the real anthropogenic contribution to the warming value recorded. No doubt, there is such a contribution, but it overlaps the natural uctuations of the average global near-the-ground air temperature and prevents us from separating the anthropogenic component and assigning a reference point, because all meteorological stations of the world record the temperature of the near-theground atmospheric layer, which already includes the anthropogenic component.
*Kim Semenovich Losev, Dr. Sci. (Geogr.) is chief research fellow at the All-Russia Institute of Scientic and Technical Information, RAS.

The second problem is climate change forecasts for certain years of the 21st century (2025, 2030, 2050, etc.). These forecasts are based on modeling future temperature increases as a result of anthropogenic emissions. The suggested models (there are more than 100) use wide-ranging assumptions; variables are transformed into parameters; loosely justied values are assigned; and not all components of the climatic system are taken into account. The third problem is related to the fact that now the strategy of reducing anthropogenic pressure on nature takes into account mainly industrial carbon emissions. Meanwhile, enough data have been gathered to show a large contribution of human economic activity to the destruction of ecosystems. The fourth and most important problem is the need to account for the natural ecosystems role in regulating CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. The leading role among them in supporting the level of carbon dioxide and oxygen concentrations optimal for the existing life and humanity is played by forest ecosystems on land and by the biological pump in the ocean [1]. First, the interrelation of the above problems is noteworthy. The strategy of reducing carbon emission must rest on the above problems and their interrelation and keep prioritization in mind; and it must not deal solely with the reduction of industrial carbon emission and the use of mainly technological measures. The rst problem is the starting point for making critical decisions proposed by the Kyoto Protocol and follow-up actions initiated by the European Union, although the precise contribution of anthropogenic temperature stress has not yet been claried. It is also known that there are opponents to the concept of anthropogenic impact on global warming. Here is another argument to support this concept. A high-precision analysis of carbon dioxide concentrations in the previous interglacials shows that the temperature peak in all cases was reached at CO2 concentrations of 268 ppm (parts per million) and then a transfer to glaciation began. The last interglacial, the Holocene, witnessed
45

46

LOSEV

the birth of a civilization, and carbon dioxide concentrations began to change in a very different way. In the previous interglacials, only natural factors inuenced the climate, and they still affect it in a similar way; therefore, the different course of change in carbon dioxide concentrations and temperature in the Holocene is most naturally explained by the emergence of civilization. The uncertainty in measuring anthropogenic impact on global warming must not hinder adopting a strategy of reducing the industrial emissions of carbon dioxide, since potential warming threats are great, being reected in the contemporary growing anomalous meteorological and climatic phenomena and observed in environmental changes. Another threat is the growth of evaporation from the ocean surface as a result of increased global near-the-ground temperature. Growing vapor concentrations in the atmosphere, vapor being the main greenhouse gas, will lead to an additional amplication of the greenhouse effect, which will end up in accelerated warming. A very important additional factor for the carbon dioxide reduction strategy is social, since the emissions of CO2-associated toxic gases (sulfur dioxide, nitric oxides, ozone, and polycyclic hydrocarbons) will decrease, reducing the rate of observable global changes, in particular, the further northward advance of blood-sucking insects, the carriers of dangerous viral diseases. Global warming has already resulted in 150 000 deaths and in the loss of 5.5 million years of human life. Also important is the economic factor: improvement in the efciency of fossil fuel use. Finally, ecology has assumed the principle of preemptive actions even if dangerous ecological consequences are just anticipated. The second problem is modeling, on the basis of which scientists are trying to predict future average global near-the-ground temperatures. The main problem of climate models is that they learn from the previous series of observations, and therefore, their nal result is reiteration of the previous course of temperature changes. Attempts to step aside from parrotlike constructions lead to even greater arbitrariness, which may result in anything. Model games, no doubt, are useful, but they are not an instrument of forecasting due to the high degree of uncertainty. Their results may be considered only as speculative scenarios, which are no better than the well-known method of persistence forecast. The situation becomes even worse if one, two, or three such forecasts are chosen for model calculations of future changes in river ows, conditions of agricultural development, etc. In this case, uncertainty grows higher. Useful information appears to approach zero. Now such models have lled up scientic journals, and advances in electronics encourage them by providing the opportunity for quick recalculation of various options. Funny, some scientists who deal with modeling produce temperature changes decades ahead with an accuracy of tenths of a degree, which forecasters who predict temperature one day ahead cannot afford.

The climatic system involves random uctuations, each component being changed by both natural causes (usually unknown) and as a result of human economic activity. They can affect the resulting indicator, nearthe-ground air temperature, with different signs. The forecast horizon is very limited in such a stochastic nonlinear system, and the statements of some scientic predictors that it is easier to predict the climate than the weather are unfounded. Finally, global warming itself together with anthropogenic stress may lead to shifts in the climatic system, characterized by reciprocal positive and negative relations. If we draw paleoclimatic analogies, then, for instance, the last and the previous interglacials ended with the beginning of glaciation right after the warming peak. Therefore, modeling for the choice of a strategy is not feasible in principle. Feasible is the very fact of anthropogenic stress on global warming and the related global environmental changes, including a climate buildup, characterized by a wider range and frequency of meteorological deviations from climatic averages. The third problem is that the present strategy of anthropogenic stress reduction accounts mainly for industrial carbon emissions. Contemporary energy needs are met by six main sources: oil, 44%; natural gas, 26%; coal, 25%; nuclear power, 2.4%; hydropower, 2.5%; and about 0.2% of other sources (alternative energy). This valuation does not account for nonmarket sources: wood fuel and plant waste, which meet one-third of the energy needs of Africa, Asia, and Latin America and even up to 8090% of the energy needs in some of the poorest countries [2]. In 2001, fossil fuel production reached 7956 million tons of oil equivalent; carbon emissions were 6299 million tons, having decreased 96 million tons for the rst time since the 1997 maximum of 6395 million tons owing to a longterm reduction in fuel consumption per unit and per capita. Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere continued to grow reaching 369.4 ppm in 2001, which was 5.6 ppm more than in 1997 [3], and 380 ppm at the end of 2006 [4]. This means that there is an additional source of emissions. A serious drawback in the strategy of control over anthropogenic stress on global warming is that it excludes carbon emissions to the atmosphere as a result of the destruction of ecosystems. The high-precision values of CO2 in the Taylor Dome ice cores, Antarctica, over the last 11 000 years show that changes in carbon dioxide concentrations went similarly to such changes in the previous interglacials: the peak of late deglaciation 11 00010 000 years ago was 268 ppm of CO2; then this concentration started to decrease and was to reach 240245 ppm by analogy with the previous interglacials. However, an anomalous growth of carbon concentrations started 8000 years ago, reaching 280285 ppm by the beginning of the Christian era. Thus, the anomaly compared to the previous interglacials was almost 40 ppm. The above work analyzed different hypothesis of the anomalous growth in CO2 concentrations during the preindustrial period
Vol. 79 No. 1 2009

HERALD OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

PARADOXES OF GLOBAL WARMING CONTROL

47

and came to the conclusion that the main cause was carbon dioxide emissions due to the combustion and cutting of forest ecosystems and replacing them with plow lands and pastures during the formation of agricultural civilization. Before 1800, the preindustrial emission of carbon due to forest combustion was 320 billion tons. Temporary decreases of 510 ppm in CO2 concentrations over the preindustrial period, measured in the ice cores, are explained by periods of signicant population reductions as a result of large regional epidemics and pandemics. If we take into account the growing concentrations of methane in the same period, the cumulative warming effect was about 0.8C by 1800. This warming veiled a cooling trend caused by reduced summer insolation owing to the regular periods of the planets axial tilts and precession, which led to the Little Ice Age. It is assumed that, in the absence of the preindustrial anthropogenic stress on the greenhouse effect, the next glaciation might have started during the Little Ice Age in Canada [5]. Forest burning and cutting sharply accelerated in the industrial period. The area of arable land doubled from 750 million to 1500 million hectares over the 20th century. In the 1980s, different authors estimated that CO2 emissions increased from 1.5 billion to 2.4 billion tons per year owing to the cutting of tropical forests [6]. However, in addition to the forest cuttings recorded, there is unrecorded consumption of wood and bioorganic matter: rewood and charcoal, the production of which is not always accompanied by clear felling or tree felling, and the burning of agricultural waste. The estimations of these components for the early 1990s are given in the table [7]. If we add the previously given estimates of emissions resulting from forest cutting to the summary data from the table, the result will at least equal the industrial emission. In [8] the calculation based on carbon emission and sink shows that emission due to the destruction of ecosystems and constant pressure on them is no less than that from industrial sources. However, part of this emission is compensated for the next year by the growth of new crops, which requires additional research into the emissionsink balance. The above estimates of carbon dioxide emissions owing to biomass destruction change signicantly the approaches to anthropogenic stress on global warming, including the values of emission, sink, and input data for calculation and modeling. The fourth problem, which appears to be the most important, is the regulating role of natural ecosystems, where land forest ecosystems take the lead in sustaining a certain level of carbon dioxide concentrations and oxygen optimal for life. No less important a role is also played by the biological pump of the ocean, mentioned above. Ocean ecosystems are currently undisturbed or disturbed slightly. It has long been clear that forest ecosystems serve as a sink not only for industrial but also for total anthropogenic (industrial and living biomass destruction) emissions. In this connection, the proposed
HERALD OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Global carbon emission owing to biomass destruction, million t/yr Type of biomass Savanna Agricultural waste Tropical forests Wood combustion Moderate boreal forests Charcoal Total Mass 3690 2020 1260 1430 280 20 8700 Carbon emission 1660 910 570 640 130 30 3940

strategy of global warming control includes an increase in forest ranges, but the initial crucial step must be a stop to total forest cutting and the allocation of territories for natural reforestation. Meanwhile, the current strategy includes the opposite measures: the growing of cultivated plants for motor fuel or additives to it, which will require additional territories or a reduction in food production, the per capita value of which has been decreasing since 1984. As for the creation of articial forest cover, represented by plantings and plantations, they will indeed consume CO2 from the atmosphere; however, if it is a commercial plantation, the trees will nally be felled, and all carbon consumed by them will again be emitted to the atmosphere. Articial plantations cannot serve as the regulators of carbon dioxide and biogens; only natural forest ecosystemsthe surviving or slightly disturbed ecosystems of boreal forests mainly in Russia and Canada and tropical forests in Amazonia and Africaperform this function. Analysis of the currently discussed strategy of reducing anthropogenic stress on global warming is incomplete and insufciently objective, and the strategy itself often does not cover all problems, among which is the problem of regulating CO2 concentrations by natural ecosystems. The existing strategic solutions deal mainly with the process of reducing industrial emissions. To this end, different methods are proposed on the basis of the observed and anticipated growth of global energy consumption; therefore, a transfer to alternative energy sources, which do not form greenhouse gas emissions, and technologies that improve the efciency of the use of fossil fuel energy are being considered very actively at present. The representatives of the windmill industry in the EU countries actively lobby wind power and study the possibility of improving the performance of solar batteries and reducing their cost. As for the other alternative sources, they are either localized (thermal and tidal energy) or lack reliable and cheap engineering and technological solutions. If these sources were competitive, they would have long ago replaced the majority of fossil fuels. The use of renewable fuels produced from cultivated plants (sugar cane, rapeseed, corn, etc.) has started
Vol. 79 No. 1 2009

48

LOSEV

recently. This is, in fact, the use of food resources, which seems sacrilegiously amoral in the presence of about 800 million hungry people in the world; in addition, these fuels also discharge carbon. Their production would need additional land areas, which can be made available only by destroying natural ecosystems, i.e., by discharging additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Taking into account the above share of alternative sources in the global power industry, we may hardly expect a substantial decrease in fossil fuel consumption through their use. Therefore, countries that possess nuclear technology and that had abandoned further construction of nuclear power plants after the Chernobyl disaster have started to lobby actively the expansion of their nuclear power industries. The nuclear lobby is especially proactive in countries that lack large fossil fuel reserves, for example, in Japan [4]. This is also a way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. However, nuclear power implies many other problems, in particular, the problem of nuclear waste and global security. This path of development will make the creation of nuclear weapons easier for certain countries and nuclear weapons and nuclear materials readily available for terrorists. We may expect the beginning of a new phase of growth in the number of nuclear reactors in the world, and this phase will probably last until a new Chernobyl. There are no great expectations for thermonuclear power so far. Hydrogen power with its energy derived from water is similar to perpetuum mobile, since hydrogen separation needs more power than that generated by hydrogen produced like that. The problem of security has also not been solved for this power generation method. A more efcient use of fossil fuel is also envisaged. From 1950 through 2000, developed countries reduced their fuel costs per unit by 41%, but, at the same time, CO2 emission over the last decade of the 20th century increased by 9.2% in these countries and by 13% in the United States [3]. The above facts raise serious doubts about the ability to reduce carbon emissions by 20% in the foreseeable future, as proposed by the European Union. In addition, the cost of such a reduction has not been determined clearly (50 billion euros has been mentioned so far). Narrow technological approaches are insufcient and often incorrect, as they imply the economic interest of developed countries in commercial sales of such technologies to other countries. When prioritizing strategic solutions to this problem, the most important step would be the establishment of a UN International Fund for the Preservation and Expansion of Virgin Forests, whose goal would be an increase in their area by the self-regeneration of tropical and boreal forest ecosystems. Such an approach will need the restructuring of the forestry sector, which is considered to have forests under its control. This beautiful word implies forest cutting, dis-

turbing the natural cycle of biogens, and, under the ratio of forest cutting to forest regeneration being 10 : 1, additional carbon emissions. Let us take two examples that characterize such control. Foresters use the term old forest. This notion is unacceptable for natural forests. Virgin forests have been existing for thousands and tens of thousands of years, and we may conventionally consider them immortal. Another termdebrisstrewn forest, which needs cleaningalso belongs to virgin forests. In reality, the debris (leaf fall, fruits, dead limbs, windfall, dead trees, etc.) are an essential part of the natural cycle of biogens. The second in importance strategic objective of warming control is to preserve the most important natural regulator of CO2 concentrations in the atmospherestill undisturbed ecosystems of the world ocean, which is a sink for anthropogenic carbon. No doubt, we must improve the performance of fossil fuel per unit and per capita, but this work must include the whole complex: from extraction and transportation to combustion. The use of alternative sources remains crucial, but they will not meet human needs in the foreseeable future. The use of naturally grown and cultivated plants for fuel and the expansion of the nuclear power industry are unacceptable in terms of ecology and security. Human beings became the main actor in the biosphere in the 20th century thanks to the use of an additional power of 140 W. At present, according to the minimum estimation, 50 t of matter are extracted, transferred, and processed annually and on average for food for each resident of the planet, using 4 kW of power, 800 t of water, and a still unknown amount of air. On the one hand, this sustains human life and comfort at different levels: from survival to superconsumption; on the other hand, the end result of civilization is the destruction of natural ecosystems, environmental changes, the imbalanced climatic system, the creation and accumulation of waste in various states (gaseous, liquid, and solid) and degrees of toxicity, and biodiversity reduction. Each demographic and environmental forum discusses family planning and population regulation, since the primary cause of all changes is humans themselves and their system of attitudes to the biosphere as a source of resources and not as a home for humanity and the totality of species. The time has come to switch from destroying the foundation of this home to actually strengthening it. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grant no. 08-05-00102a.
Vol. 79 No. 1 2009

HERALD OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

PARADOXES OF GLOBAL WARMING CONTROL

49

REFERENCES
1. V. G. Gorshkov, V. V. Gorskov, and A. M. Makarieva, Biotic Regulation of the Environment: Key Issue of Global Change (Springer-Praxis, Chichester, 2000). 2. J. Chow, R. Kopp, and P. R. Portney, Energy Resources and Global Development, Science 302 1528-1531 (2003). 3. K. Ya. Kondratev, V. F. Krapivin, and V. P. Savinykh, Civilization Development Perspectives: A Multidimensional Analysis (Logos, Moscow, 2003) [in Russian]. 4. Y. Fuji-Ie, Can Nuclear Energy Support Civilized Society in the 21st Century?, Atomwirt.-Atomtechn. 51, No. 2 (2006).

5. L. D. William, The Little Age Glaciations Level on Bafn Island Arctic Canada, Paleogeogr., Paleoclimatol., Paleoacol, No. 25, 199 (1978). 6. Protecting the Tropical Forests a High-Priority International Task (Bonner Universitats-Buckdrucktrei, Bonn). 7. Global Environmental Outlook 2000 (Earthscan, London). 8. K. Ya. Kondratyev, K. S. Losev, M. D. Ananicheva, and I. V. Chesnokova, Stability of Life on EarthPrincipal Subject of Scientic Research in the 21st Century (Springer-Praxis, Chichester, 2004).

HERALD OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Vol. 79

No. 1

2009