Climate Restoration: The Only Future That Will Sustain the Human Race

By Peter Fiekowsky and Carole Douglis

People around the world recognize the dire threat posed by climate change. Governments, businesses, and individuals are making commitments to shift to renewable energy sources, trim consumption, and otherwise reduce their carbon footprints.

But what if these steps are woefully inadequate to ensure the future health-or even the survival-of

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rivertowns Books
• Release date: Apr 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781953943118

Peter Fiekowsky

Peter Fiekowsky is an MIT-educated physicist and engineer, a serial entrepreneur, a philanthropist, and a social innovator. He has worked at NASA and the Fairchild/ Schlumberger Artificial Intelligence Lab in Palo Alto; taught at MIT; and developed his own machine vision company, Automated Visual Inspection LLC (AVI). He holds 27 patents and is on the board of Solar Capex, a fintech company dedicated to tripling the rate of investment in solar projects. A decade ago, when it became clear that global warming would endanger humanity's future, Fiekowsky began working on climate restoration. Organizations Fiekowsky has built to help achieve this goal include:●The Foundation for Climate Restoration (FCR), which works with scientists, innovators, policymakers, citizens, faith leaders, activists, and students to create the understanding and policy needed to further climate restoration. The Foundation has been instrumental in the adoption of climate restoration as a goal by both the Vatican and the United Nations.●Methane Action (MA), a nonprofit organization dedicated to solutions that will reduce atmospheric methane concentrations to pre-industrial levels.●Methane Oxidation Corporation (MOC), which is enabling companies to neutralize their carbon footprint through the active reduction of atmospheric methane.●The Stable Planet Alliance, which is working to frame the next set of UN Development Goals under the umbrella of achieving a healthy, sustainable population by 2100.Fiekowsky has also been an investor in and advisor to many companies working in the climate restoration field. He lives with his wife Sharon in Los Altos, near his grown son and daughter in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Book preview

A Message from the Authors

Dear Reader,

Climate change is happening today. The danger signs are all around us, and to solve the problem we need to do more than the Paris Accords suggest. If we’re honest, most of us are resigned to a future that feels bleak—and inevitable.

But once you read this book, you’ll see that there is room for optimism. We now have ways to take CO2 and methane out of the air on an enormous scale. Climate restoration is helping nature restore itself to the conditions in which humankind has thrived for thousands of years. It’s the start of a dramatic transformation that will lead to a vibrant future rather than a catastrophic one.

So the volume you hold in your hands is much more than a book. It’s your invitation to join a community of like-minded people who understand the scientific and technological breakthroughs that can create a better future for us, our children, and our grandchildren.

Learn more about the excitement of this moment—and about how you can help to sustain its positive momentum—by reading this book, visiting PeterFiekowsky.com, and sharing the good news with friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues.

A promising new era is dawning. If we act together, we can guarantee its benefits for all humankind.

Yours truly,

Peter Fiekowsky

Carole Douglis

More Advance Praise for Climate Restoration

"Finally, someone has done the math on our #ClimateCatastrophe in a way that gives us concrete solutions. Peter Fiekowsky offers a bold, scientifically-grounded strategy that is both practical and immediately implementable. Yes, we have an enormous lift to remove the one trillion of tons of legacy carbon in our atmosphere. Luckily, as Peter shows, there are permanent, scalable, and financeable options for achieving this. Let’s stop tweeting #ClimateEmergency and start tweeting #ClimateRestoration."—Dr. Christopher K. Tucker, Chairman, American Geographical Society

"Peter Fiekowsky’s work on climate change restoration is beyond bold. It is inspired, pushes boundaries, and offers a realistic solution to the climate change crisis. It deserves a wide audience."—John Englander, oceanographer, President of the Rising Seas Institute, and author of Moving to Higher Ground and High Tide on Main Street .

"Fiekowsky proposes what may be the most important strategy for saving the planet from climate chaos—restoring a safe climate, rather than just trying to slow down our climate emissions. His logic is compelling, and his message is powerful, persuasive, and, most of all, empowering."—Durwod Zaelke, President, Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development

"Peter Fiekowsky continues to shift the climate paradigm from despair to realistic hope. Our opportunity to restore the climate is monumental but brief, making this book both timely and essential."—Rick Wayman, CEO, Foundation for Climate Restoration

Copyright © 2022 by Peter Fiekowsky. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Printed in the United States of America . April 2022 . I

ISBN-13: 978-1-953943-05-7

ISBN-13: 978-1-953943-10-1 (e book)

LCCN Imprint Name: Rivertowns Books

Rivertowns Books are available from Amazon, B&N.com, and other online merchants as well as from bookstores and other retailer stores. Requests for information and other correspondence may be addressed to:

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Contents

1.What Is Climate Restoration?

2.Job One: Completing the Energy Transition

3.Rocking the Climate: How Synthetic Limestone Can Help Save Humankind

4.Seaweed and Marine Permaculture: Forests of the Seas

5.Iron Fertilization: Restoring the Oceans

6.Enhanced Atmospheric Methane Oxidation: Insurance Against an Extinction Event

7.Population Restoration: Why Small Families Will Help Humankind Survive and Thrive

8.Planet Earth After Climate Restoration

9.What We Can Do to Make Climate Restoration Happen

Acknowledgments

Source Notes

Index

About the Authors

In the hour when the Holy One, blessed be He, created the first person, He showed him the trees in the Garden of Eden, and said to the person: See my works, how fine they are. Now all that I have created, I created for your benefit. Think upon this and do not corrupt and destroy my world, For if you destroy it, there is no one to restore it after you."—Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:13

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.—Alan Kay

CHAPTER 1

What Is Climate Restoration?

A Tale of Two Futures

It’s New Year’s Day, 2050. The goals set by the 2015 Paris Accords on climate change have been achieved. In just 35 years, net greenhouse-gas emissions have been reduced from their peak in 2019 to zero.

People celebrate with fireworks and parties across the globe. After 200 years of living with the environmental impacts of the Industrial Revolution, including 60 years of dire warnings about the threat from excessive CO2, the trend toward global warming has stabilized. The human population has also stabilized, as demographers predicted, at around nine billion—15 percent higher than in 2020.

Yet the readings from the observatory at Mauna Loa tell scientists that the global level of atmospheric CO2 is now 460 ppm. A T-Rex would love this level. But it’s 50 percent higher than the highest humans have lived with throughout our evolution and history.¹ It’s 67 percent higher than 280 ppm, the pre-industrial average, at which agriculture and the early civilizations of humankind were able to develop and flourish.²

The great coral reefs are gone, as high water temperatures and acidity persist. The oceans are largely devoid of their once-vast fish populations. Gone, too, are most of the old-growth forest and rainforests that once occupied large stretches of the planet’s surface. Most were razed to grow food for the nine billion; some have been destroyed to provide living space for the hundreds of millions of climate refugees displaced by an average global sea level rise of about two feet (two thirds of a meter). Gone, too, are the Arctic ice pack, the indigenous peoples who inhabited it, and the polar bears, sea lions, and many other species that lived in the far North.

This, then, is the climate and population stability that the international community set as its goal at Paris back in 2015. It’s the future you’ve likely heard about many times and perhaps promoted, without fully understanding what it would really be like.

Net-zero carbon emissions mean that the rise in atmospheric CO2 has stopped—but at historically unprecedented levels. Will humanity long survive on a planet where the climate patterns that all living things have relied on for 12,000 years have been permanently changed; where the last of the large fish and wild animals are on a path to extinction; and where human activity has taken over nearly all the land needed for diverse ecosystems?

We might, but we might not. We don’t know. We can’t know. The path of humankind in this scenario is a risky one from which there may be no turning back.

Fortunately, there is another future still available to humankind.

It’s New Year’s Day, 2050. Last month, December 2049, NASA’s observatory on Mauna Loa, Hawaii, reported that atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) has dropped back below 300 parts per million (ppm) for the first time since 1910—finally returning to levels that humans have survived long-term. We’re back at a safe harbor—the climate range in which humanity has spent its history. We made it. The age of climate catastrophe is over.

People celebrate with fireworks and parties across the globe. We have overcome the existential threat posed by runaway climate change and restored a climate that will allow humanity to survive and to flourish.

To be sure, the disruption of climate by human activity has left its mark on the planet. Some peoples who inhabited island nations or the Arctic tundra have had to relocate and may never return. Some coastal regions have been flooded. We’ve paid a price for decades of delay.

But the worst potential effects of climate change have been averted. In most regions, farmers now know when to plant again. Harvests are reliable again. The coral reefs are well on the road to full recovery. So are the fisheries on which so much of humankind depends. The hellscape of huge wildfires that once dominated the American West is a fading memory. The one billion men, women, and children who live in regions of Asia, Africa, and the Americas that were threatened by catastrophic flooding and who expected to become climate refugees can now remain home in safety. Extinction rates of plant and animal species have returned to their pre-industrial levels.

From this vantage point, it’s difficult to recall a time when the concept of climate restoration was an unfamiliar one. Decades ago, during the first half-century of climate action, few in the scientific community discussed climate restoration. It wasn’t until 2015 that anyone proposed it as a serious policy goal. It wasn’t until 2022 that a concerted effort was launched to convince policy leaders to make it a priority. Yet now, just 28 years later—it has been accomplished!

Climate Change and Cognitive Dissonance

The first scenario described above—the one in which we achieve net-zero emissions, yet still suffer unpredictable and potentially disastrous long-term impacts from climate change—is rarely invoked in the popular discourse. Yet it’s all too plausible; in fact, if we stay on the current path, it’s predictable.

In private conversations, I’ve heard many scientists and other experts acknowledge the possibility of hideous social dislocations and possible extinction of the human race even if we achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. But very few are willing to say so in public. Instead, nearly the entire climate community continues to publicly insist that meeting the Paris goals will avoid the worst effects of climate change. Whatever happens, we can say it could have been worse.

Later in this chapter, I’ll discuss some of the reasons for the gap between the public positions of most climate experts and the facts they’ll acknowledge behind closed doors. But first, I want to address the skepticism you are likely feeling. If you are like most people concerned about the climate, you may be shocked and disturbed by the dire sketch painted of our vaunted zero-emissions future. You may be muttering to yourself, This can’t possibly be correct. You may be tempted to dismiss my message and turn away to other activities.

Confusion and denial are normal reactions to new information or views that conflict with long-held views or beliefs. If you’ve taken a psychology class, you may recall that psychologists call this phenomenon cognitive dissonance .³ It’s a state of psychological distress people experience when confronted by new information that contradicts what they already know, believe, or value. It’s painful to hold incompatible ideas and disturbing to face alternatives to a long-held, strongly espoused belief.

People experiencing cognitive dissonance commonly do one or more of three things to relieve the pain: They attack the speaker who is delivering the message that causes the pain; they dismiss the message itself as false; or they decide to simply stick to their previous belief without even considering the evidence for the message.

I’ve experienced each of these three responses when I speak about the inadequacy of the Paris goals and the urgent necessity of climate restoration.

Millions of us all over the world have come to recognize and care about the seriousness of the climate change threat. That’s a great thing. However, some of the things we know about climate change aren’t quite true.

As I’ve already suggested, the first of these mistaken beliefs is the idea that the Paris goal of net-zero carbon emissions is sufficient to solve the climate problem for humanity. I’ll be offering substantive information to show why this belief is wrong—dangerously so.

Of course, I’m not the only person to realize that the net-zero goal doesn’t go far enough to protect the future health and happiness of humankind. This is a realization that is gradually being shared by increasing numbers of thoughtful individuals.

However, many of those who have begun to acknowledge the inadequacy of the Paris goals have moved on to embrace a second false belief—the idea that there is no alternative path we can take that will restore a truly healthy climate in the foreseeable future. They run the risk of succumbing to a deadly form of fatalism, assuming that net-zero emissions is the best we can do and that any vision of a better future is a mere fantasy.

My message to you is that this second belief is just as flawed as the first—that there are specific, concrete steps we can take that can bring about a restoration of the kind of healthy climate humankind has flourished under for ten thousand years. What’s more, I will show that climate restoration is not only feasible, but, once started, will pay for itself.

Again, it’s very possible that your reaction to this message may be one of shock, disbelief, and even anger. You may say Restoration is impossible! and ignore the data I’ll offer in support of restoring the climate.

If so, I suggest that you allow yourself instead to acknowledge that you are experiencing cognitive dissonance. That may give you the space to seriously consider the possible future I’m presenting.

I invite you to contemplate this suggestion. After all, it’s arguable that our most important job as members of the human race is to ensure the survival of our species. Hoping that we might survive with 50 percent higher CO2 and a population ten times higher than the highest levels humans and survived long term is too risky. Planning and action are urgently required if we are to move from hope to science and confidence.

In this book, I’ll explain how we can realize the first scenario described earlier, in which climate restoration is achieved by the year 2050. I do support the protocols for reducing carbon emissions laid out in the Paris Accords. But I also contend that they are only a first step, and not remotely sufficient in themselves to secure a healthy future for our species. I argue that simply following the Paris guidelines and hoping for the best is not a responsible option.

There is a better goal, and the paths to achieve it are easier to implement and less costly than you might imagine. That goal is climate restoration. Its objective is to restore the safe, healthy levels of greenhouse gases last seen on Earth over a century ago and do it by 2050, while we still can—while ecosystems, political, economic, and social systems are still relatively strong. Going beyond climate actions that focus on mitigating disaster—like those recommended by the Paris Accords—climate restoration will enable my children and yours, and generations beyond, to survive and flourish.

My Journey to Climate Restoration

A brief account of how I came to understand both the seriousness of our current climate disaster and the hopeful possibility of a climate restoration program may help you begin to overcome the cognitive dissonance that my first few remarks have likely triggered.

In my career as a scientist, engineer, philanthropist, and social activist, I’ve long been exposed to information about the impact of a changing climate on the human environment. But for decades, I actually avoided getting involved in efforts to address the climate change dilemma.

In 1975, I was an undergraduate at MIT when I first learned about global warming. I remember sitting on a sofa in the lounge one evening reading stories about climate change in Science News and Scientific American. The message was simple: Since carbon dioxide levels in the Earth’s atmosphere were rising, average temperatures across the planet were growing warmer. This was not surprising to me. Even then, it was well understood that CO2 is what we call a greenhouse gas . Like everyone else, I’d been in a greenhouse and felt its cozy warmth even on a frosty winter day.

Even then, the underlying math was reasonably clear. Scientists knew that pre-industrial levels of atmospheric CO2 had been significantly lower than current levels. Recent studies continue to confirm this, pinning down the normal preindustrial range at between 275 and 280 ppm. By 1958, when chemist Charles Keeling developed the first instrument capable of reliably measuring atmospheric CO2, the average level had already reached 318 ppm.⁴ By 1975—just 16 years later—CO2 levels had increased to 330 ppm, well beyond levels humanity had ever survived long-term. In my youth, the average level rose almost 16 ppm in 16 years, about one ppm every year.⁵ Today, with the global population having doubled again, it’s rising at twice that rate.

The obvious implication of these findings was that reducing the level of new CO2 emissions into the atmosphere—for example, by transitioning away from carbon-burning fossil fuels to renewable energy—would not be sufficient to restore a fully healthy climate. Since CO2 lingers in the air for millennia, even if humankind could somehow switch over to clean energy immediately, we’d also have to pull a lot of CO2 out of the atmosphere if we hoped to return to our safe-harbor level of below 300 ppm.

But back in 1975, as I read those articles, I wasn’t particularly alarmed. It seemed obvious to me that someone would take care of the problem of atmospheric CO2. After all, we humans had recently completed six successful missions to the moon, each of which had required that we solve technical problems far more complex and challenging than removing CO2 from the atmosphere. In fact, NASA improved CO2 removal technology for the mission, starting from what submarines had used for decades.⁶ What’s more, the newly created Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was then hiring chemical engineers and other experts to work on programs to remove toxic chemicals from the ground. I assumed that similar programs would be launched to get the excess CO2 out of the air in the last decades of the century, thus restoring our climate and creating a new set of scientist-heroes for the world to admire and honor.

Of course, this would take time. But the articles I read showed that the Earth’s atmosphere was big enough to handle what we were putting into it, at least in the short term. It had been clear for ten years that the year 2000 was a likely

Reviews for Climate Restoration

[lglowell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very well written. An excellent reality check on the state of our climate with actionable solutions to preserve our future survival.