A modern 95 Theses to post on the "church doors" of our society, about spectacular adaptation needed to counter climate change and the planning that adaptation implies. Here's the link to how Exxon and the rest of the global oil industry learned definitively about the dangers of global warming, from none other than the real-world "Dr. Stangelove" during a symposium at Columbia University in 1959 to celebrate the industry's 100th anniversary (educational free use): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BziORi5jLFeuMGExM2FjZmEtNDJhNS00NzM4LTgwNDgtYTkyMjJkNmFkZDQz/view?usp=sharing

1. Climate Adaptation Planning
A 21st Century call for rapid
reformation.
By Paul M. Suckow, PhD. Candidate, TSU Urban Planning and Environmental Policy. v.2.2 9/10/2015

2. 1: Global Warming
• The Earth is suffering an energy
imbalance of, currently, 1.5 watts per
square meter (or per square yard in
English units) of surface area on average.
• The amount of imbalance is similar to the
heat added by one Christmas “sparkle”
light per square meter across the globe.

3. 1: Global Heating
• This may not sound like much until you realize
that 2 W/m² is the same thing as over four (4)
1800 watt hair driers per acre (that’s over 2,650
driers per square mile) of Earth’s entire surface,
blowing on full heat, 24/7.
• The number of “hair driers” is increasing on an
exponential scale for centuries (IPCC 2014).

4. 2: It’s an energy issue
• The energy imbalance comes from
sunlight which enters Earth’s atmosphere,
is absorbed on and near the Earth’s
surface, and is re-radiated as heat.
• A little less of this heat escapes the
atmosphere to space than has happened
in the past.

5. 2: It’s an energy issue
• Another way to visualize the current
energy imbalance of heat that cannot
escape to space:
o it is as if almost three hundred (300) extra
60,000 BTU space heaters were left running
constantly above every square mile of the
planet’s surface. That is a lot of excess heat.

6. 3: Heat trapped by GHG
• The Earth’s atmosphere contains a small
amount of so-called “greenhouse gases”
(GHG) that reradiate heat inside and limit
the amount that escapes back into outer
space.
• Under natural conditions, these GHG
warm the planet just enough to keep it
comfortable (14 ° C, 58° F) instead of
frozen (-6° C, 21.2° F) (Houghton 1997).

7. 4: GHG vary in effectiveness
• These “greenhouse
gases” (GHG), rated
by strength of heat
capture (GWP-100,
where 1=Carbon
Dioxide and *=man-
made, not natural)
include:
5,700 –
22,000
CF4 to SF6*
(Fluorinated
Species)
1,600HFC-134a*
(Refrigerant)
296N2O
(Nitrous Oxide)
23CH4
(Methane)
1CO2
(Carbon Dioxide)
Source: IPCC (2001) 3rd Assessment Report
“While water vapour is indeed the most important greenhouse
gas, the issue that makes it a feedback (rather than a forcing) is
the relatively short residence time for water in the atmosphere
(around 10 days).” - Source:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-
vapour-feedback-or-forcing/#sthash.c6jK8UpS.dpuf

8. 5: GHGs stabilize climate
• For all of humanity the most abundant of
the natural GHG have fluctuated in a
steady cycle, mostly affected by plant and
animal (organic) materials and solar
cycles:
o carbon dioxide (CO2) between 200 ppm and
300 ppm.
o methane (CH4) between 400 ppb and 700
ppb.

9. 5: GHGs stabilize our climate
• At the cyclic low end, only enough GHG
remained free in the atmosphere to allow heat
from the sun to keep the equatorial regions free
from ice
o (the “glacials”, 50,000 to 100,000 years long).
• At the cyclic high end, enough heat was trapped
that only the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions
remained covered by ice
o (the “interstadials”, 10,000 to 20,000 years long).

10. 6: Climate lag
• There exists a time lag between when
increases in GHG translate to the
corresponding full rise in temperature.
• This lag may be about thirty to forty years.
o The issue of GHG lagging initial orbital temperature
increases applies to natural, long-term glacial-interstadial
climate change (Steig 2007). The short lag happening in
anthropogenic change is opposite.

11. 6: Climate lag
• For instance, the global surface
temperature of Earth increased 0.85
degrees Celsius up through the present,
yet enough heat was received to
guarantee an additional response of 0.64
more degrees Celsius temperature rise
over the rest of the 21st Century, even if
human agency were to disappear entirely.
• (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page5.php, page bottom)
• (adjusted to 2014 using http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html).

12. 7: Causes of the cycle
• Cycles of natural climate change are driven largely by
the formation of either ice or organic material over large
portions of the Earth’s surface.
• These primarily fluctuate with tiny distance changes
between Earth and Sun in their orbits.
• More importantly, these are linked to highly complex and
nonlinear feedback mechanisms that appear to center
the Earth’s climate at one of two predominant types, the
“cold-box” (human) or “hot-box” (dinosaur) Earth.
• Humankind has made great progress in studying
feedbacks but does not yet fully comprehend them.

13. 8: The fossil record
• Looking backward, remains of 12 (ten to
twelve) identifiable glaciation cycles over
about the past million years has resided in
the world’s tallest glaciers.
• Even further back, undisturbed ocean
sediments also record a high-resolution
record of the past 30 glacial/interglacial
cycles over the past 2.58 million years.

14. 9: Last glacial maximum
• The Last Glacial Maximum plateaued
25,000 - 21,000 years before the present
after building up glaciers for 50,000 years
on a calendar time scale.
• The northern third of the continents were covered by glaciers
several km thick and Antarctica was both fully covered and
surrounded by great ice shelves.
• Surface temperature average was depressed by 5 degrees C
(9 degrees F).
• Montane glaciers were common even in low latitudes.
• Species of many kinds that are widely dispersed in the current
climate cohabitated during run-up to the LGM.

15. 10: Global inundations
• Three giant freshwater floods with global
effects occurred along with many smaller
events as global ice (the cryosphere)
progressively melted after the last glacial
maximum ended 21,000 years ago.
 MWP 1A – 14,600 ybp, 500 but perhaps as short
as 200 yrs. duration
 “Atlantis” Flood - 12,700 ybp, 200 yrs. duration
 “Noah” Flood – 8450 ybp, 1 yrs. duration

16. 11: Three global floods ago
• The initial melt water pulse, termed “1A” by
scientists, happened around 14,600 years before
the present (Weaver 2003, 1709).
• The melt waters of almost ten millennia that had
collected inside the massive remains of the
continental glaciers collapsed and flushed the
face of the planet, resulting in a sea-level rise of
about 20 meters (66 feet) in less than 5
centuries (Bassett et al 2005).

17. 11: Three global floods ago
• Almost nothing is known of presumed human
settlements or civilization from that early period, other
than some durable stone artifacts such as manufactured
beads and cave carvings and paintings which may little
represent the predominant urban cultures.
• It is possible that the most ancient and fantastical myths
of the Himalayan Vedic oral tradition derive from
survivors of this period, which impute a deep and
complex history to advanced human civilization,
including mythic manned flight, nuclear warfare and
possibly extinct elements.

18. 12: Two global floods ago
• A second cataclysmic melt water release
followed about 12,700 years ago.
• Enough fresh water was released in this event to
cause thermohaline (Gulf Stream) slowdown and
within 200 years a 1,300 year return to dry, near-
ice-age conditions known scientifically as the
“Younger Dryas” (Broecker et al 1988, Clarke et
al 2003, Teller et al 2002).

19. 12: Two global floods ago
• The cataclysmic water burst caused massive destruction
ending megalithic human civilization at the time, may
have given rise to the Atlantis mythology.
• Some massive and puzzling durable remains from this
period have been found above water on today’s islands
of Malta and Japan, but far more remain underwater at
depths up to roughly 120 meters (394 ft), which defined
the ocean surface at sea level 12,700 years ago.

20. 13: One global flood ago
• The last great melt water inundation happened
8450 years ago +- 25 years (D. C. Barber et al.
1999) with the sudden sub-glacial outburst of
North American superlake Agassiz, then twice
the size of the Caspian Sea.
• That megaflood, being the most recent, is the
best known and most studied of the three.
• It may have provided the basis of the global flood
myths of our own proto-civilizations, such as the
Babylonian story of Gilgamesh, reflected in
biblical Genesis as the story of Noah.

21. 14: Cultural disruption
• These great inundations so catastrophically
disrupted human settlements and civilization that
except for surviving myths, each abrupt climate
disruption was largely forgotten by the humans
that came afterward.
• Almost no knowledge of previous settlements
and civilizations appears to have transmitted
across each disruption.

22. 15: Cultural rebirths
• Each period of climate stability between the great
meltwater flood pulses allowed human
settlement and civilization to arise anew.
• Our “own” civilization still largely ascribes the
beginnings of “its history” to the rapid rise of
agrarian urbanity roughly 6500 BCE, coinciding
with conversion of the cities of the Lake Agassiz
subglacial outburst survivors into andro-centric
city-states (Edward Soja 2000).

23. 16: New underwater evidence
• Marine archeological evidence only discovered
recently may prove that human urbanization
significantly predated what we consider our
earliest civilizations, perhaps even extending
back into the last ice age.
• Knowledge of such was lost to history through
the process of these great global super-floods
during the meltdown of the last ice age between
15000 and 8000 years ago.

24. 17: Physical extinctions:
The end of births
• Predatory human activity has reinforced the
tendency for extinction of large ice age mammals
triggered by the progressive meltdown.
• Global climate change is vastly accelerating this
trend to extend ultimately to about half of known
species, which science already describes as the
“6th Great Extinction”. Even in the near half-
century, about ¼ of species risk extinction, with
the other ¼ to follow over a much longer period.

25. 17: Physical Extinctions:
The end of births
• The “6th Great Extinction” is accelerating
currently from 1000 times the natural rate of
extinction.
• It will require about 20,000 human generations to
recover the past century’s level of biological
diversity, if it proves recoverable.
• Thus, the life choices exercised by humans
during this decade will set the course of natural
history for the next seven million years to come.

26. 18: Hot Earth unknown to humans
Prior to known hominid species and even before mammals gained the niches they have
occupied until now, Earth’s climate knew several stable eras in much warmer estate,
about 10 degrees C warmer than our original.
Those hot and steamy climates did not fluctuate much for hundreds of millions of years
because no sea ice was able to form.

27. 19: Hot Earth’s giants
• Such an abundance of organic matter grew on
Earth during hot, wet periods that the
concentration of oxygen (O2) rose to as high as
thirty percent (30%) by the late Carboniferous,
allowing Mesozoic dinosaurs to “rule” Earth for
hundreds of millions of years.
• Today O2 is about twenty percent (20%), though
less at higher elevations and also less in large,
polluted urban areas.

28. 20: Prior “Cold Earth” eras
• To find the last event in geologic time when
Earth ended an extended period of ice ages, we
must look back before the dinosaurs to the
event that finally buried the coal swamps, over
260 million years ago (Ma).
• It was then, at the Permo-carboniferous
extinction, that 95% of life on Earth perished,
opening the 185.5 million year “Hot Earth”
Mesozoic era to the early dinosaurs that
followed.

29. 20: Prior “Cold Earth” eras
• During the development of life, only one earlier
cold era around 460 Ma traded with longer warm
eras prior to the onset of the Carboniferous ice
ages (Snowball earth).
• This early “Cold earth” era at the end of the
Ordovician period killed off the first primitive land
plants and spurred development of sturdier
vascular plants that produced the highest oxygen
atmospheres 200 million years later during the
middle Pennsylvanian Carboniferous.

30. 21: Violent benevolence
• Short, extremely violent periods of climate crisis
appear the norm as Earth’s climate “step-jumps”
(with flickering) between the relatively stable
climate states.
• This actually provides the most favorable
conditions for life to diversify, survive and thrive
during stable climates that extend as long as
possible.

31. 22: Causes of transition
• In the past, direct climate forcings such as
slight differences in solar activity or orbital
“wobbles” were magnified many times over by
the natural interactions of energy inputs involving
Earth, GHG, the cryosphere (ice cover), and
living organic matter.
• Scientists call these magnifications indirect
climate forcings or “feedbacks”.

32. 23: High climate sensitivity
• All previous climate changes responded very
sensitively to small natural variations, many of
them indistinguishable from the level of
“background noise” in the data.
• Abrupt jumps to new states proceeded upon
reaching some complex, critical thresholds.
• Because empirical climatology finds climate
highly sensitive to changes near the level of
background noise, absolutely quantified
thresholds are unknown and may be
unpredictable.

33. 24: Brief human control
• The trajectories of atmospheric GHG changes
experienced during the natural past have already
been hugely exceeded by human activity.
• This has effectively ended our historical
geological epoch, the Holocene.
• It initiated a short period (about the 70 years
after WWII) in which the climate and related
biological systems increasingly fell under direct
human control.

34. 25: Unplanned human direction of
Earth systems
• Most of the control exerted by humans on
Earth systems during this period was and
remains unintentional, unplanned and
unguided.
• With certainty of scientific fact, humanity is
firmly and directly shaping the future
conditions of the thin spherical surface
where all known life resides on Earth.

35. 26: Most say it’s a sin
• Most systems of theological thought
consider the crossing of this threshold a
terrible transgression of the gods’ or
nature’s own controls.
o Monotheism: Christianity, Islamic, Hebraic 52% of humans
o Polytheism: Hindu, Shinto, Other 27% of humans
o Atheism: Buddhist, Shamanist/Animist, Gaia/New Pagan 21%

36. 27: Large & abrupt climate change
• It is possible that human out-gassing of carbon-
containing GHG has already set in motion the
natural mechanisms that will move the Earth
climate into that long-gone “hot-box” regime
which is foreign to current life forms, forcing
adaptation or extinction.
• Scientists now believe natural feedback
mechanisms that could accomplish this will wrest
control of climate back from humans within the
decade unless extreme actions are taken.

37. 27: Large &
abrupt climate
change
• This seems the
natural method that
relocated and
reopened many
ecological niches.
• It is implicated in the
five mass extinctions
of the distant
geological past.
possibly caused by a drop in
sea levels as glaciers
formed, then by rising sea
levels as glaciers melted
Ordovician-
Silurian, about
439 Ma
little is known about land
organisms at the time,
though I have visited the very
large fish fossils from this era
in the University of Michigan
Natural History Museum
Late
Devonian,
about 364 Ma
Earth’s worst mass
extinction, killing 95 percent
of all species and an
estimated 70 percent of land
species such as plants,
insects, and vertebrate
animals
Permian-
Triassic, about
251 Ma
most likely caused by
massive floods of lava
erupting from the opening of
the central Atlantic
End Triassic,
199 to 214 Ma
probably caused or
aggravated by impact of
several-mile-wide asteroid
that created the Chicxulub
crater now hidden at the
edges of the Yucatan
Peninsula and beneath the
Gulf of Mexico.
Cretaceous-
Tertiary (K-T),
65.5 Ma
http://www.mysterium.com/extinction.html

38. 28: Extinction Events & Climate
In each of the past five mass extinctions,
the top trophic level was lost as NPP
shrank, e.g. the dinosaurs did not survive the last (K-T) major extinction episode.

39. 29: Is it our time to go?
• Whether the current concentration of
GHG, being unnatural, leads to a new
sustained foreign climate regime, or
causes a violent shorter-term climate
disruption that resolves itself into a more
familiar pattern, perturbing factors are
likely to expire.

40. 30: The 2° C upper limit
• Currently, the scientific consensus believes that only
about two degrees Celsius (just over six degrees
Fahrenheit) of increase since industrialization in the
average temperature of the Earth’s surface can occur
without triggering irreversible, catastrophic runaway
climate damage (Juniper 2005, 1287).
• So far 1.6° C has already been inserted into the
climate system, with nearly 1° C already apparent in
current measurements (Hansen 2005).

41. 31: A 5.8° C best guess
• The best climate models estimate
expected increases to range from one up
to ten degrees Celsius, centering on a
most likely possibility of 5.8 degrees
Celsius global temperature rise.
• This is beyond what will send the climate
spiraling upward in temperature without
any chance for human intervention.

42. 32: Runaway climate crisis
• A three, four, five or more Celsius degree global
temperature increase places the climate well into
a runaway climate regime outside of human
control.
• Thus the era of human control of the climate
system may effectively end in less than ten years
hence, long before significant shafts are seen.
• Feedbacks accelerating such a runaway climate
crisis include the following, theses 33 to 41:

43. Feedbacks Summary 33-41
• 33: More harsh weather
• 34: Biological decay modifier
• 35: From reflector to collector
• 36: Blooming spikes of GHG
• 37: Rapid sea level rise
• 38: Repeated sea incursions
• 39: Runaway sea level rise
• 40: Reflective aerosol reductions
• 41: Fires shift land to upward climate forcing

44. 33: More harsh weather
• The arrivals of super-strength hurricanes and
typhoons around the world in 2005 may have
signaled to many people the concrete beginning
of great consequences from global heat buildup
that will affect every part of human civilization,
and indeed the entire biosphere on Earth.
• Changes in cloud formation and rainfall patterns
may have counterintuitive effects because H20 is
the strongest greenhouse gas, both a solar
reflector and collector.

45. 34: Biological decay modifier
• Rapidly melting tundra lands expose
ancient frozen organic matter to sudden
decay into GHG with potential to magnify
human-caused global warming by up to a
factor of 800.

46. 35: From reflector to collector
• Conversions of ice and snow covers into
ocean melt water and waterlogged soils
feed back perversely.
• Ice and snow reflect 90% of incoming
solar radiation back into space, absorbing
only 10%.
• Water and soils reflect only 10% of
incoming sunlight back into space, and
absorb the other 90%.

47. 36: Blooming spikes of GHG
• Expect massive blooms and die-offs with
biological decomposition of existing organic
matter into methane and carbon dioxide as food
pyramids collapse, oceans expand and newly
inundate productive areas.
• Heat redistributed below the sea surface will
eventually deteriorate massive hydrate
formations, first affecting shallower arctic and
Antarctic formations.

48. 37: Rapid sea level rise
• From six to around twenty feet of sea level rise
may be expected shortly after this century,
depending on the unknown velocity of lags in the
unprecedented climate shift we are undergoing.
• Science is inherently conservative about
predicting these, but past examples of natural
shifts this large have been discovered with a
decadal range. Decadal means on the order of
ten years’ duration (Hansen 2007). /

49. 38: Repeated sea incursions
• These permanent increases in sea level will
generally arrive riding upon the incursions of
violent seawater storm surges, sometimes
exacerbated by high tides.
• Currently, these storm surges can reach a height
of about 28 feet, as witnessed during landfall of
Katrina, a strong Category 4 hurricane in 2005.
• Future storms will involve both greater and lesser
strengths, so proportionately higher surges are
possible.

50. 39: Runaway sea level rise
• If the Earth is committed to a runaway climate change
state over the next decades, ultimate sea level rise of
254 feet will occur when the last surface ice dissipates,
submerging urban agglomerations that contain about
half of U.S. population today.
• The first ½ meter to 2 m of this rise does not appear
likely to be felt until the later 21st Century. Current rise
rate is about 3 mm per year global average, and it is
increasing (IPCC AR5 Summary for Policymakers, p.11
and 13).
• Massive hardship for coastal communities will include
border and resource pressures in nations most flooded,
further decreased global primary production of nutrients
(NPP) with deteriorating or destroyed local ecosystems.

51. 40: Reflective aerosol reductions
• Loss of the northern hemisphere’s reflective
aerosols will quickly escalate surface
temperatures there by several more degrees
Celsius within a matter of years. This is possible
when:
• Major pollution-emitting steam and steel/pulp/cement
plants shut down due to decreased economic activity
or replacement by less polluting facilities.
• Oil-fired internal combustion engines shut off.

52. 41: Fires shift land to upward
climate forcing
• Fires in the remaining forests of the southern
hemisphere, and as seen in Greece and
CA recently likely also in the north, will become
impossible to control at some future point.
• Results include a net climate forcing upward of
about one additional watt per meter squared in
those areas – a 50% bump compared to the
excess heat the globe is dealing with today.

53. 42: Alternative Path
• An alternative path toward limiting global
warming exists but is not yet being pursued.
• Even those nations that have adopted the Kyoto
Protocol that meet their treaty obligations would
only accomplish a small (about 6%) “pilot”
demonstration of the kinds of reductions in GHG
emissions that will be required to stabilize the
Earth atmosphere at an increased but survivable
rate of heat gain.
• US proposals, including California's, are all
slower than Kyoto in effecting GHG reductions.

54. The unwillingness of the United
States of America to ratify the
Kyoto Protocol robbed it of moral
high ground necessary for
possible hegemonic success of
global greenhouse gas
reductions.
43: Leadership Was Lost

55. The cost and difficulty of accessing an
alternative path increases with each
addition of GHG to the atmosphere and
thus with every passing day.
Technologies and practices necessary to
avoid “dangerous anthropogenic
interference” with global climate all exist,
but entrenched economic and political
interests have so far prevented planning
and implementation.
44: Technically feasible

56. An encouraging exception to thesis
44 above was a nearly complete 45-
year effort by the nation of Brazil to
eliminate its dependence on imported
oil resources by cultivating renewable
energy via sugar cane colonies to
supply transportation ethanol in
sufficient quantities.
45: An Alternative Demonstrated

57. There is no single strategy that will
accomplish the desired reductions of
GHG emissions (carbon mitigation
initiative), but success is possible by
concurrently implementing a few major or
thousands of minor initiatives over the
next decade and following them
through (Socolow & Lam 2007) while
migrating and adapting as needed over a
much longer period.
46: A Few or Many?

58. Initiatives include treating
remaining reserves of fossil
organics as raw materials for
closed-loop electro-chemical
processes, rather than as fuel to
be oxidized in the open
atmosphere.
47: Develop alternative power
and sequestration

59. Initiatives include replacing inefficient
processes with ones that conserve
energy to a much greater extent.
Such strategies typically pay for
themselves many times over but also
require substantial upfront capital
reinvestment and manifold changes
in human practices.
48: Implement Conservation

60. Initiatives include a redefinition of
the current value paradigm tied to
mass good scarcity to a new
paradigm of value based on
diverse, dignified individuation.
49: A New Value Paradigm

61. Initiatives will generally require public
sector political support for artificially
enhancing the economics of
renewable energy resources and
penalizing the emission of carbon-
containing gases, against which
stakeholders naturally react (e.g.
Texas Governor Rick Perry, 2008).
50: Strong Public Policy
Required

62. These initiatives lead to radically different
future lifestyles from those that people
aspire to today, and will exacerbate
tensions on existing investments in both
technological infrastructure and human
institutions.
If implemented within the next decade to control the
global warming phenomenon, resulting societal changes
may create large intergenerational and international
challenges within the span of a single human lifetime.
51: Dangerous Change Velocity

63. These initiatives provide an
opportunity to advocate for
greater human equity but risk the
perils of warfare in a period of fluid
movement and competitive
change (Schwarz & Randall
2003).
52: Risks of Change
http://www.e-ir.info/2013/07/13/u-s-national-security-and-climate-change/
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/planet-
2/report/2006/3/an-abrupt-climate-change-scena.pdf

64. Current levels of human population
and activity guarantee that the next
“ice age” has been postponed,
perhaps indefinitely. Even if humans
became extinct today, it would take
many tens of thousands of years for
the climate to settle back to a regime
wherein the next ice age could
proceed.
53: The Change is Happening

65. The use of money as measure of
value rather than simply a medium of
exchange provides false security
today and in the world to come.
An innate focus on the collection of
money wealth is misdirecting the life’s
work of the vast majority of laborers
today.
54: Love of Money Evil Still

66. Following current practices for just
ten more years will effectively set
Earth on the path to runaway climate
change, without possibility of
intervention (Socolow & Lam 2007).
Runaway or abrupt climate change has potential for
massive resource disruptions and rapid destabilization
of the world geopolitical stage (Schwartz & Randall
2003).
54: Love of Money Evil Still

67. A better measure of the economic
value of energy may be
DollarPounds/kWh. This is some
multiple of the dollar price responding
to supply and the pounds of carbon or
carbon dioxide equivalent GWP
responding to the threat of
greenhouse enhancement.
55: The Old Value Paradigm is
Not an Option

68. The new carbon economy is
based not only on the scarcity of
valuable goods but on avoiding
the danger of additional
atmospheric carbon-bearing
gases continually blanketing
excess heat energy.
56: A New Low-Carbon
Economy
(Braungart & William McDonough published a book in 2002 called Cradle to Cradle:
Remaking the Way We Make Things)
Web sites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradle-to-cradle_design, http://www.c2ccertified.org/.

69. Recasting the problem of global
warming as one of controlling an
atmospheric energy surplus rather
than one of reducing material
emissions to may lead to novel
means for capture, storage and use
of energy potentials to help humanity
manage Earth systems.
57: Global Energy Surplus

70. The free market is able to accomplish
much, but not very much that is
guided, directed, targeted, focused or
planned, though it try. This is the
reason that war planning often trumps
the free market and why in crisis
dictatorial powers more easily arise.
58: The Free Market

71. 59: Adaptation = Planning
• Planning must
expand in theoretical
scope to include the
aim of secure
development.
• The Planner’s
triangle (Campbell)
must become the
Planner’s pyramid,
triangulating
development at the
center of four
competing planning
motives.

72. Adaptation to the effects of the
climate crisis will likely cost
more than the alternative path
of avoidance/mitigation, so to
the extent these remain
effective, they are mandatory.
59: Adaptation = Planning

73. Also, new and replacement
development must incorporate
the state of the art in climate
change avoidance/mitigation,
to delay the natural
magnification of anthropogenic
causes. (Rosenzweig et al. 2007)
59: Adaptation = Planning

74. • Climate adaptation planning
must include all of the lessons learned
in the past century of planning
experience,
ie.
59: Adaptation = Planning
Public participation in transparent processes
Muddling through on the best known information
Advocacy for social equity, environmental protection,
economic development and long term security for those
who cannot advocate themselves
Primarily improve quality of life by increasing the amount
of free time and money people enjoy to interact with
chosen others

75. Climate adaptation planning
must develop a discreet, concrete,
interlocking and self-reinforcing
system to displace suburban
development with effective life cycle
development.
59: Adaptation = Planning

76. To avert the ambitions of the few at any extreme
of various spectrums, the yearnings of the
population of the world for individual freedoms
and self determination must be met with real,
participatory democracy supported by effective
public education, enabled by modern
communication technology and respecting self-
chosen social structures, adjudicated without
resort to war powers.
60: Satyagraha Training is
Mandatory

77. Any initiative for democratic action
must allow for completely
transparent information to help the
people make decisions to the best
of their ability or to opt out of
voting on matters they feel ill-
equipped to address.
61: Free and Accurate
Information

78. Information cannot bear the
individual bias of sources that
fund its production or
dissemination, but must conform
to the peer-reviewed standards of
scientific inquiry and journalistic
integrity.
62: Peer Review Essential

79. Intellectual property rights may need to be
reviewed, revised or waived for the greater good
or the definition of fair use expanded to
effectively disseminate appropriate technologies
and needed information at least cost to points of
application throughout the world.
Science, engineering and arts communities may require
alternative forms of compensation in lieu of that based
upon copyright ownership.
63: Capital and Compensation

80. Communities dedicated to public
service may wish to consider
reinvesting all available revenues
toward solving the various
problems of relief, adaptation and
stabilization as early as possible.
64: Revenue Redirection

81. Now exists an opportunity to define a
new “greatest generation” in whose
debt all future humans will live, even
as those who struggled with the evils
of domineering conquest during the
past century are now remembered by
those of us that survive them.
65: Today’s Greatest

82. This new “greatest generation” will
triumph chiefly in setting forth an
Adaptation Plan for Climate
Change with an implementation plan
identifying resources and proposing a
schedule.
65: Today’s Greatest

83. The common appellation “global
warming” or its scientific euphemism
“climate change” serves to enwrap
many codependent and interrelated
effects, which operate to diverse ends
in different places on Earth. All of
them result from the global uptake of
heat in the biosphere.
66: A Global Variety

84. At the Earth and climate sciences
end of the spectrum, this
phenomenon appears complex,
but from a human perspective it is
really as simple as this: More
carbon in the air means more of
the sun’s heat gets trapped on
Earth’s surface, messing it up.
67: A Complex Simplicity

85. Humans must stop burning
(oxidizing) carbon-based things in
the open atmosphere as rapidly
as possible.
68: It All Comes to This

86. Brief Intermission
• You have been patient to follow me
through 68 of these 95 theses thus far.
• Please take a short break.
• If you like, the book excerpt clickable here
transcripts the clear presentation in 1959
to the oil industry of why “global heating”
is a reason to retire fossil fuels.

87. 69: Dr. Keeling’s Curve
The famous “Keeling curve” has been issuing an
increasingly dire warning to the scientific community since
the early 1960s. Dr. David Keeling produced careful
measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide at the top of
Mona Loa in Hawaii every four hours since 1958. The
resulting curve revealed the precision of his measurements,
recording the respiration of global plant life breathing in and
out day and night. It also revealed the annual pattern of
northern hemisphere carbon dioxide being absorbed into
plants during the summer growing season and being
released back into the atmosphere as organic matter died
off and decayed in winter.

88. The “Keeling curve” within only a few years
contained enough detail to confirm the theory
that the overall concentration of carbon dioxide
was increasing each year in an accelerating
trend. This pattern has continued to the present,
and trend projection indicates that by at least
2050, CO2 will have reached a clear danger
zone of 450 ppm and increase from there. The
yellow trend line shows the path we are on
today, with the lowest possible long term
stabilization measure above 650 ppm.
70: Keeling Curve Projected

89. The international community
accepts the reality of global
warming, and is pressuring
American leadership.
71: International Agreement

90. The UN’s International Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), in its AR1 report in 1990 noted much
uncertainty but concluded a best estimate of
global average surface temperature increase
during the 21st Century of about 6°C .
72: IPCC Initial Assessment
Report (AR)

91. The IPCC in its AR2 in 1995 concluded climate
“has changed over the past century” and
“balance of evidence suggests a discernible
human influence on global climate”.
It also concluded that global average surface
temperatures could increase by from 1 to 3.5 °C
by the end of the century.
73: IPCC Report AR2

92. The IPCC in its AR3 in 2001 finally concluded
that most of the change in global climate that
had occurred to that date had been caused by
human activities.
It also concluded that global average surface
temperatures could increase by 1.4 to 5.8°C
by the end of the century, translating to much greater
increases at the polar latitudes and lesser changes in
equatorial regions.
74: IPCC Report AR3

93. The Fourth IPCC Assessment Report in 2007,
though much of the working group material was
completed and submitted by 2005, reported a
likely century temperature rise of
2.4°C to 6.4°C.
“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as
is now evident from observations of increases in
global average air and ocean temperatures,
widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising
global average sea level.”
75: IPCC Report AR4

94. Even a best-case world scenario
continuing to use fossil fuels, has become
clearly dangerous. Only a stringent
mitigation scenario (RCP2.6) allows a
likely case below 2°C above pre-industrial
temperatures (IPCC AR5, 2014. p.8).
In other words, we’re up against it now.
76: A Shortened Timeframe in
IPCC AR5, 2014

95. Advanced American climate scientists
still maintained the assumption that
global climate is controllable at this
point, and a critical threshold (turning
point) wouldn’t be crossed for about a
decade from 2005. Among these
were NASA’s James E. Hansen, now
retired from Columbia University.
Unfortunately, it’s now 2015.
77: Scientists react: Americans
say “Can-Do”

96. The most advanced thinkers looking
comprehensively at the scientific, political
and personal realities of energy
requirements in the U.S., India and China
had already concluded that a strategy of
prevention or mitigation is too late for
effective implementation, and that the
only option remaining open for preserving
civilization is adaptation.
77: Scientists react: Europeans
say “Too Late”

97. It is likely that climate change will trigger
migrations on a scale never before experienced
in the development of Homo sapiens.
Early academic studies have acknowledged the
possibility of around 3 million environmental
refugees per year between now and 2050.
Theses 79 through 82 discuss the range of
possible human responses to climate change.
78: The Population Reacts

98. Philosophical reactions to climate change:
The population may choose to react to
catastrophic climate change in several
ways. Nihilism and fatalism will become
great attractions, because neither
requires effort to change behavior or
perform personal sacrifice.
79: The Do-Nothing Response

99. Hedonism and spirituality/religiosity will
offer anesthetic responses to catastrophic
climate change if the lack of good faith
efforts toward GHG mitigation over the
last decade indeed prove insufficient,
though conditions will continually trend
toward “difficult for most people to obtain
true bliss.”
80: Anesthetic Responses

100. Abandonment of the Earth’s surface may
become a functional response for some few
people who attempt to maintain elements of
civilization against inhospitable conditions, living
in protected spaces either below ground, in the
ocean or above the Earth’s atmosphere.
Until nothing remains for us other than to survive and attempt
repopulation of the planet, let us cooperatively grow in humanity
toward one another while stabilizing the atmosphere with as small an
increase in global mean temperature as possible.
81: Reactionary Responses

101. Because the vast majority of people on Earth are
likely to feel failed by their governments,
religious affiliations and even fathers if climate
changes quickly exceed the human grasp, one
of the major impediments to climate crisis relief
will be distrust of all prior civic and religious
institutions, leading to nearly complete societal
breakdown and horrible personal and state
conflicts for water resources, arable land and
appropriate seed stocks.
82: Vindictive Responses

102. Ironically, some changes of consequence will occur before any
physical effects of truly catastrophic climate change materialize.
SEC rules for publicly traded companies require
disclosure of any potential liabilities that can be
foreseen. Global warming is one of those liabilities, and
the first corporation admitting liability will open a
floodgate of legal actions that may lead them to seek
federal protection limiting their liability (Hancock 2005).
The Enron corporate meltdown of $65 billion in assets showed the gravity
with which stockholder trust can be affected. Enron also showed that
governance exerted by large investor groups such as pension funds cannot
avert such a catastrophe from taking its course.
83: SEC Disclosure Rules

103. To avoid an industry-wide meltdown that would gravely limit the future
of the City of Houston, Harris County, the State of Texas and the
United States of America, fossil-fuel driven profits should
be voluntarily split by the governors of each
company between takings necessary for
continuing conventional operations as the market
for petroleum shrinks in a post-peak and carbon-
sensitive economy, and holdings for a public trust
to be managed entirely by direct (apolitical) global
democratic action.
84: Voluntary Settlement
Peter Barnes: http://www.earthinc.org/earth_atmospheric_trust.php

104. A global public trust must result from a
binding voluntary settlement agreed and
mutually coerced by all stakeholders
whereby constituent contributors place
into public trust a fair measure relative to
the responsible amounts of GHG
emissions, from primarily fossil-fuel driven
profits in the industrialized world, and
forest land and agricultural land uses in
the rural world.
Tragedy of the Commons: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full
85: Living Earth Trust?

105. This directly democratic and
global public trust would provide
necessary resources for mitigating
actions in the adaptation to the
current climate.
Commenters have balked at this
suggestion as too grandiose and
prone to corruption. Other
alternatives?
86: A Democratic Trust

106. An incomplete price signal is
furthering use of fossil fuels well
beyond the “safety limit” of 350 ppm
CO2 in the atmosphere.
As long as fossil fuels remain artificially cheap
and profitable, their use will rise. Correcting this
market failure requires their price to account for
their true social costs.
87: Market-driven Solution

107. The Cap and Trade approach of the
Montreal Protocol (1988) has begun
to heal the ozone hole above
Antarctica.
Being the only successful existing model
for international cooperation in the
reduction of substances introduced to the
atmosphere, Cap and Trade has been
considered for greenhouse gases.
88: Carbon Permit Trading

108. A Cap and Trade solution requires
the creation of a new market for
trading credits that allow an entity to
emit a set amount of a certain type of
greenhouse gases.
Initial attempts to legislate this allowed too
many loopholes by grandfathering large
polluters, and no body exists that can
create a global market.
89: Cap and Trade

109. With the failure of Cap and Trade, a
Carbon Tax was suggested to add a
significant and slowly rising price on
top of the other costs built into the
price of fossil fuels.
A taxation approach is also difficult to
implement globally and is subject to
political interference in individual states,
reducing its effectiveness.
90: Carbon Tax

110. Carbon Fee and Dividend is the policy
proposal created by Citizens’ Climate
Lobby (CCL) to internalize the costs of
burning carbon-based fuels
(https://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/).
This is the only solution put forth to date that
empowers a virtuous cycle of innovation without
regulatory involvement or government entanglement.
91: Carbon Fee and Dividend

111. Carbon Fee Trust Fund revenues could
be collected and distributed by the same
thousand or so entities which initially owe
the fees, potentially sustaining big oil, gas
and coal companies as consumer
revenue stream providers while they
reposition hydrocarbons ASAP to more
valuable closed-cycle feed stocks and up-
cyclable end products.
92: Carbon Fee Trust Fund

112. A. Immediate moratorium on any new
coal plants lacking full CO2
sequestration.
93: Strong U.S. Public Policies
needed immediately - #1

113. B. Utility rewards transformed so as
to encourage increased
profitability as they achieve improved
user efficiencies.
94: Strong U.S. Public Policies
needed immediately - #2

114. C. Fair and gradually rising price on
carbon emissions imposed,
to encourage a reduction in GHG
emissions, with price determined by
the market as it is subjected to full
democratic consideration
of economic, environmental, equity &
security issues
95: Strong U.S. Public Policies
needed immediately - #3

115. Thank you for your critical
discussion of these 95 theses.
Life as we know it is on the line, and how we respond this
year will largely determine its fate.
suckow@hotmail.com
--Paul M. Suckow,
PhD Candidate, TSU, Houston, TX, USA
Epilogue:

116. Selected References
Barber, D. C. et al. (1999). Nature 400, 344.
Bassett, S. E., G. A. Milne, J. X. Mitrovica, and P. U. Clark (2005). “Ice Sheet and Solid Earth Influences on Far-Field
Sea-Level Histories”. Science 309: 925-928.
Broecker, W. S. et al. (1988). Paleoceanography 3, 1.
Bruntland, G. H. (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clarke, Garry, David Leverington, James Teller, Arthur Dyke. (2003). “Superlakes, Megafloods, and Abrupt Climate
Change”. Science 301(5635): 922-923.
Füssel, H.M. (2007). “Adaptation planning for climate change: concepts, assessment approaches, and key lessons.”
Sustainability Science, 2: 265-275.
Hancock, E. E. (2005). Red Dawn, Blue Thunder, Purple Rain: Corporate Risk of Liability for Global Climate Change
and the SEC Disclosure Dilemma. Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, 17(2), 233-251.
Hansen, J. E. (2005-2008). Various papers and writings available at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/.
Hardin, G. (1968). “The Tragedy of the Commons”. Science 162 (3859): 1243-1248.
Houghton, J. (1997). Global Warming: The Complete Briefing (Second ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press.
Juniper, T. (2005). "Global warming must be limited to 2{degrees}C, scientists say." BMJ 331(7528): 1287.
Prentice et al. (2000), Harrison et al. (2001), Bigelow et al. (2003) and Pickett et al. (2004).
http://www.bridge.bris.ac.uk/resources/BIOMES_data/BIOME_v4.2.htm
Rosenzweig, C., D.C. Major, K. Demong, C. Stanton, R. Horton, and M. Stults. (2007). “Managing climate change risks
in New York City's water system: Assessment and adaptation planning.” Mitig. Adapt. Strategies Global Change,
12, 1391-1409, doi:10.1007/s11027-006-9070-5.

117. Selected References, cont.
• Continued:
Schwartz, P., & Randall, D. (2003). An abrupt climate change scenario and its implications for United
States national security. Washington DC: U.S. Dept. of Defense.
Socolow, R. H., & Lam, S. H. (2007). Good enough tools for global warming policy making.
Phil.Trans.R.Soc. A, 10(1098), /rsta.2006.1961.
Steig, Eric. (2007). http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/
Teller, E. in ENERGY and MAN, a Symposium, pages 53-72. (1960). “Energy Patterns of the Future.”
Teller, J.T., D.W. Leverington, J. D. Mann. (2002). Quat. Sci. Rev. 21, 879.
The Keeling Curve website at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, U.C. San Diego.
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/
Weaver, Andrew J., et al. (2003). “Meltwater Pulse 1A from Antarctica as a Trigger of the Bølling-Allerød
Warm Interval”. Science Vol. 299. no. 5613, 14 March, pp. 1709 – 1713.
As my time and resources allow, I will try to provide an updated and expanded reference list in addition to the
basic reading list provided above. An excellent introductory 2012 MIT report on Urban Climate Adaptation
Planning contained a good reference list at:
http://web.mit.edu/jcarmin/www/urbanadapt/Urban%20Adaptation%20Report%20FINAL.pdf