SciBlogs

Archive 2010

Long way around the sea Gareth Renowden Sep 03

Join the conversation at Hot Topic

With the northern hemisphere summer fading into autumn, time for a quick overview of Arctic events. The sea ice is nearing its annual low point, and appears to be heading for a minimum somewhere between 2009 and 2008 — 2007′s record minimum appears to be beyond reach. The latest batch of forecasts for the SEARCH exercise mostly agree, but it’s still a bit early to make a final call — reductions in extent can continue right up to the end of the month. This graph of sea ice extent (from the University of Bremen) puts the current situation in context (click to see a large, updated version):

Bremenextent030910.gif

Now let’s see what that data looks like on a map…

Bremenextenntvisual020910.jpg

White areas have high concentrations of ice, fading through grey, black (about 50% ice, 50% open water) and then dark blue to no ice at all (click the image to see the latest updated version with key). It looks to me as though there are very large areas of low concentration ice — some very near the Pole, something confirmed by looking at the MODIS Arctic Mosaic daily satellite images. Some of that low concentration ice will probably melt out before the autumn freeze-up begins, but how much is a very open question. It’s possible that the 2008 minimum could be beaten, particularly if wind compacts regions of ice that are currently well scattered.

The best place to monitor the melt season denouement, the final furlong, or as Neven prefers to call it, the fat lady’s closing chorus, is at his Arctic Sea Ice blog. He’s devoting a great deal of time and energy to covering the melt, and his commentariat are contributing a lot of interesting perspectives.

Meanwhile, there’s something of a race developing between the plucky Norwegian team in their catamaran Northern Passage and the Russian boat Peter 1 (aka Peter the Great) who are both aiming to circumnavigate the Arctic Ocean via both NE and NW Passages in a single season. At the time of writing, the Norwegians were at 69˚41 N, 170˚50’ W, in the middle of the Chukchi Sea halfway between Siberia and Alaska. Here’s an extract from their latest blog post:

It is obvious that the conditions met by the early explorers such as Vitus Bering, Fridtjof Nansen, Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld and Roald Amundsen no longer exists. We passed through in a few weeks, while our predecessors were forced to overwinter once or even twice. Still, it is not an easy passage for any kind of boat or vessel.

The Russians, meanwhile, have crossed the 180º meridian — not too far behind, though the last time I checked, their Spot Adventures page was still showing them at their last port of call. The yachts face an interesting choice of routes through the NW Passage because both the southern route used by Amundsen (and most recent small boats), and the wider, deeper northern passage through the Parry Channel are both open, as the NSIDC noted last month. The southern route is probably safer, but the northern faster. What ever happens to the minimum, the progress of the boats is going to be interesting to watch. As a matter of interest, the first circumnavigation of the Arctic Ocean in a sailing vessel was made by the French boat Vagabond in 2002-3. It took them two summer seasons. Things are certainly changing…

[Low]

Bjorn again: Lomborg’s convenient change of heart Bryan Walker Sep 02

Join the conversation at Hot Topic

Climate protestors at AberdeenBjorn Lomborg is in the news again. He’s changed his tune, says a Guardian headline, announcing the forthcoming publication of a new book edited by him, Smart Solutions to Climate Change: Comparing Costs and Benefits. That was a pretty quick change, I thought, recalling what I heard him say on a panel at the PEN World Voices Festival, back in May. He followed the famed Norwegian novelist Jostein Gaarder and the leading climatologist James Hansen. I wrote about it on Hot Topic at the time. Neither the passion of Gaarder nor the scientific logic of Hansen was for him. He admittedly presented himself as an advocate for tackling global warming, but without a shred of scientific reference he spoke of the need for “balanced information” and a move from the end-of-world kind of story.  “Apocalyptic information” turns people off, he said, and is part of the reason why there has been a decline in public concern about global warming over the past year. That, plus problems in the IPCC report such as those relating to the Himalayan glaciers. In other words, it’s the scientists who point to the great danger we are in who are to blame for the lack of public concern. The relentless denialist campaign seemingly has nothing to do with it. As I listened I simply thought you obviously haven’t bothered to follow the science. You’ve sniffed out a strategic political position, safely positioned between science and denial. Perhaps that was unfair of me. But I’d reviewed Howard Friel’s painstaking book The Lomborg Deception a few weeks previously, and what Lomborg was saying fitted Friel’s analysis.

Then just last month he produced an article (accessible from here) claiming that we have the capacity to readily adapt to even a 6 metre sea level rise. Only 400 million people would be affected, about 6% of the world’s population, and most of them live in cities where they could be protected relatively easily.

“94% of the population would not be inundated. And most of those who do live in the flood areas would never even get their feet wet. [...] The point isn’t that we can or should ignore global warming. The point is that we should be wary of hyperbolic predictions. More often than not, what sound like horrific changes in climate and geography actually turn out to be manageable – and in some cases even benign.”

This hardly presaged a change of tune. I haven’t seen a copy of the new book, nor will I be seeking to. But books take time to publish and the things that an author is saying and writing in the months preceding release are unlikely to be at variance with what the forthcoming book will have to say.

Joe Romm, who is deeply unimpressed by the news of the book, quotes from its penultimate paragraph:

“It is unfortunate that so many policy makers and campaigners have become fixated on cutting carbon in the near term as the chief response to global warming.”

“Seriously” is Romm’s one-word response.

It’s not that Lomborg thinks we can avoid responding to global warming. It’s rather that he has a better way than cutting emissions. His final paragraph:

“If we care about the environment and about leaving this planet and its inhabitants with the best possible future, we actually have only one option: we all need to start seriously focusing, right now, on the most effective ways to fix global warming.”

That involves using money raised by a carbon tax (a small one of $7 a ton, in case that alarms anyone).

“Investing $100bn annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century.”

Sounds like good news. And in some ways it is. The areas that Lomborg and his fellow writers propose spending money on include research and development of clean energy options, planting more trees, reducing soot and methane, and investigating geo-engineering projects such as “cloud whitening”. There’s little to argue with there, and presumably that’s how he managed to get a commendation of the book from Rajendra Pachauri, who welcomed Lomborg’s statement that we have ‘long moved on from any mainstream disagreements about the science of climate change’.

So it looks like a change of emphasis from Lomborg, though he maintains he has never denied anthropogenic global warming. He even acknowledged to the Guardian reporter that there could be “something really bad lurking around the corner”. But it’s hardly change enough. Cutting carbon emissions is our only hope of avoiding really serious multiple consequences from global warming. That is the clear message of the science. The notion that we can get by without seriously addressing that need is not founded on science. Lomborg’s message is welcomed by fossil fuel vested interests because it suggests we can carry on doing what we are at the same time as covering any damage we may be laying up for the future. Gerry Brownlee’s draft NZ Energy Strategy fits very nicely into that delusion.

I’ll give Howard Friel, writing in the Guardian, the last word.

“Lomborg still argues in this book, as he did in the others, that cost-benefit economics analysis shows that it is prohibitively expensive for the world to sharply reduce CO2 emissions to the extent required by the scientific evidence.

“…what will happen to the earth and human civilisation when atmospheric CO2 concentrations rise – essentially unchecked, if we followed Lomborg’s recommendations – to 450 parts per million, 550ppm, 700ppm, 800ppm; and when the average global temperature rises by 2C, 3C, and 4C to 7C?

“Climate scientists have set 350ppm and a 2C average temperature rise (from 1750 to 2100) as the upper range targets to prevent a global climate disaster. Since we are already at 390ppm and since a 2C plus rise is a near certainty, how does Lomborg’s appeal to forgo sharp reductions in CO2 emissions reflect climate science? He argues that there are ‘smarter solutions to climate change’ than a focus on reducing CO2. This is hardly smart: it’s insanity.”

The Quadruple Squeeze Gareth Renowden Sep 01

Join the conversation at Hot Topic

Required viewing: Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Centre talking at TEDGlobal 2010 about the “quadruple squeeze” we’re putting on the planet through overpopulation, climate change, ecosystem loss and the problem of surprises — tipping points in the system. Rockström was lead author on last year’s Nature paper on planetary boundaries and is an interesting and compelling presenter. Bottom line? We face a huge challenge, but there are ways we can fix the problem… [Hat-tip to Resilience Science]

IPCC report: done well, could do better Gareth Renowden Aug 31

Join the conversation at Hot Topic

The InterAcademy Council report on the IPCC — Climate Change Assessments: Review of the Processes and Procedures of the IPCC — released yesterday, calls for “fundamental reforms” to the IPCC’s management structure and review processes. Climate Central provides a useful summary of the key findings:

  • The IPCC should create an Executive Committee to run the organization in between major conferences.
  • Rather than have the IPCC director serve for two six-year terms, a new director should be appointed for each major assessment report (there have been four so far). Since the IPCC is well into the fifth assessment, it isn’t clear whether Dr. Pachauri will step down (he’s evidently said that any decision will have to wait for the next IPCC meeting, in Korea in October).
  • The reviewers who decide what makes it into the final report and what doesn’t should work harder to address comments from authors, and to let dissenting views be reflected more fully in the finished product.
  • Statements about certainties and uncertainties about climate science need to be more explicit, need to be based on a more uniform set of criteria, and need to be clearer about how they were calculated.
  • The IPCC in general needs to be more open and transparent about how it goes about its business.
  • The IPCC needs to improve the way it deals with so-called “grey literature”– that is, non-peer-reviewed reports that contain valuable information, but which haven’t already been subjected to strict scientific scrutiny.

Professor Martin Manning, Director of the Climate Change Research Institute at Victoria University of Wellington told the Science Media Centre that he welcomed the report:

The IAC has run a detailed review of the process used by the IPCC for assessing scientific understanding and this has produced a number of useful comments that I think most climate scientists will agree with. Their report accepts that scientific understanding of climate change is developing rapidly and this means that the process for assessing it for policymakers needs to become more dynamic.

More reaction: Roger Harrabin at the BBC, Guardian, New Scientist, plus the UN webcast of the press conference is here.

My take? It would be a miracle if a 22 year old organisation with minimal full-time staff that has seen its raison d’être move up to the top of the list of global priorities couldn’t be improved. The suggestions look sensible, and if they help to defuse the continuing attacks from the usual suspects, so much the better.

The secret migration Gareth Renowden Aug 30

Join the conversation at Hot Topic

Acouple of weeks ago, a comment on carbon footprints and immigration kicked off a brief exchange of views on New Zealand’s vulnerability to climate-forced migration. It’s an interesting subject, worth more attention, and so in this post I’m going to set out how I see NZ’s position in the context of the likely future flows of climate-forced migration.

Let’s start by defining the probable sources of migrants. The first and most obvious are refugees forced to move by climate impacts. The horrendous situation in Pakistan gives some idea of the sheer scale of the problems likely to be faced by some of the world’s most populous and least-wealthy countries. Here’s how the New York Times describes the situation in Pakistan:

Initial estimates for the scale of damages and human suffering for Pakistan’s worst flooding in 80 years, is larger than the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, 2005 Kashmir earthquake, 2008 Cyclone Nargis disaster in Burma and 2010 Haitian earthquake — combined.

Each of the great Asian megadeltas — in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and China — could face similar problems if the Asian monsoon intensifies further, or if sea level rise picks up pace. The potential for tens of millions of people to be made homeless, to start a desperate search for dry land and food is obvious — but that’s not where New Zealand’s principal vulnerability lies.

Refugees

The climate refugees that will put pressure on life in NZ will not be desperate people making heroic voyages across the Tasman in leaky boats. Climate impacts in any part of the world will hit the poor hardest, because they have little or no resources available to cushion the blow. There’s a technical term to describe it: they have little adaptive capacity. The people who will ride out the storm — and who may look in New Zealand’s direction — will be the well-off and wealthy, especially those with some sort of relationship with the country.

Expats

It’s difficult to get any sort of precise figure for NZ citizens living overseas, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume that there are around half a million expats scattered around the globe. The majority are in Australia, but there will also be sizeable numbers in the UK and USA. Every NZ expat has an absolute right to return home at any time. It’s worth noting that about 20% of NZ residents were born outside New Zealand, and are therefore likely to have ties to at least a few family and friends overseas.

Aussies

New Zealanders have an automatic right to become resident in Australia, and Australian citizens have the reciprocal ability to set up home in NZ. There are currently 22 million people living in Australia, against 4.37 million in NZ. At present, net migration is from NZ to Aussie, which occasionally stirs up a political reaction in both countries (though usually for different reasons: NZ moans about a brain drain, while Aussies whinge about dole bludgers).

Tourists

To the expats and Aussies you have to add the legacy of decades of long distance tourism. New Zealand has assiduously built a tourism brand around its “clean green image”, for the last ten years marketing itself as 100% Pure New Zealand. However threadbare that brand may look to those of us on the inside, there is no doubt that to the average visitor, New Zealand appears (as Tourism NZ says) “relatively pristine“. When you’re relating NZ to what remains of the natural environment in the cities of Europe, North America or Asia, it’s not difficult to see why NZ is such a popular destination, and why tourism is such a large part of the NZ economy (employs 1 in 10 people, earns $50m per day). The net result of being a successful tourist destination is that there are millions of well-off people around the world who have a soft spot for Godzone.

Pacific

We also need to consider the likelihood of increased migration from Pacific Island nations. Auckland is already considered the largest Polynesian city in the world and there’s no doubt that NZ will continue to attract islanders, especially those with families already here. Some increased migration may be forced by climate changes, though the major driver — rising sea levels — is probably not going to be very significant in the near term.

Scenarios

With the interested parties established, let’s look at how the impacts of climate change could play out. Here are a couple of scenarios to consider:

  1. a relatively gradual accumulation of impacts, perhaps with relatively infrequent Pakistan flood-type disasters building awareness in the general population of the risks facing the world, but with no single crisis moment
  2. a “climate crisis” where extreme weather events pile up in such spectacular fashion that the geopolitical situation is irrevocably changed, perhaps spurring a huge effort to geoengineer a solution to warming, or a rapid decarbonisation of the global economy.

In terms of probabilities, I’d suggest that something like scenario one is inevitable — and perhaps now well under way. A “climate crisis” is possible, but we have no real idea of how probable it may be. Too many wild cards in play. But it’s a worst case that needs to be considered.

Perception

Whatever happens, the most important factor is how our NZ-aware population perceives climate change. If they think that change is happening and likely to damage their lives, and if NZ is perceived to be a safer haven than their current home, then they may consider a move. If scenario one is playing out, then I think we will begin to see an increase in numbers of returning expatriates, both from Australia and the wider world, because for them the barriers to entry are low. Most will have families and friends to cushion their return, many will have the proceeds of property sales in expensive places to reinvest in New Zealand. One expat based in the UK asked me a year or two ago when he should come home. I suggested he keep a close eye on the Arctic sea ice…

Tasmania provides Australians with a climate refuge — there are already signs that it’s being regarded in that way — but Australian citizens also find it easy to move to and settle in New Zealand. The direct impacts of climate change are expected to be relatively minor in NZ in the medium term, but possibly much more dramatic in Australia — a hot dry continent that’s expected to get hotter and drier. I already know of at least one Aussie family that has relocated to NZ explicitly because they felt it would be a good place to ride out climate change, and you don’t need a very big crystal ball to guess that will become increasingly common if dramatic climate impacts like heatwaves and bush fires continue to make news. I think it’s more or less inevitable that the balance of migration between NZ and Australia will swing back in NZ’s favour as returning expats and Aussie climate migrants begin to outweigh those attracted by Australia’s higher wages and sun-loving lifestyle.

In addition to expats and Aussies, we have to consider the people who have visited NZ, enjoyed themselves, and who might think that living here was preferable to their current home. A good number of current migrants arrive here precisely because they have spent time in the country and enjoyed the experience. For the well-educated and well-off, the barriers to entry are not too onerous. Again, if NZ is perceived to be a good place to be in a time of global weirding it will only increase the country’s attractiveness as a migrant destination. Amongst this group will be some of the world’s most wealthy, who might regard owning a chunk of New Zealand a useful bolt-hole in the event of trouble.

As scenario one proceeds, the changes in migration patterns will be gradual — perhaps almost imperceptible at first. The reasons why people move between countries are many and various, but climate change will become an increasingly significant motivation as time goes by. When it is seen to be driving increases in NZ’s population, I confidently expect immigration will become a political hot potato — because immigration policy often is a flashpoint, as the political career of Winston Peters demonstrates.

Geopolitics

What if change is something less than gradual? One special case that needs to be considered is how climate impacts develop in Australia. If they are severe enough to motivate significant numbers of people to relocate to New Zealand, then a whole new dynamic will enter the political relationship between the countries. The ties between Australia and NZ are deep-rooted, and economically important. Australian businesses are deeply involved in the NZ economy — owning all but one High Street bank, for instance.

New Zealand is the smaller, weaker partner in the relationship. What happens when the bigger, more powerful nation across the Tasman starts to value New Zealand as a climate refuge, source of food, maker of better wine? ;-) How does little New Zealand say no to the potential influx of Australians? How will New Zealand’s national interest best be served? Can we retain our distinctive and separate identity, or would it be better (as some already argue) to deepen our relationship with Australia in the expectation that we will do better in the long run.

This is not simple xenophobia (though I expect that will be one consequence for many), but speaks to a larger question: how many New Zealanders is enough? At what point should we attempt to put the brakes on migration? 4.4 million on two big islands exporting food to the world is one thing. Double that number and you double the size of the economy, something that would be welcomed by many in the business community. But if 4 million are finding it difficult to live a low-carbon lifestyle, how much harder will it be for 8 million? The pressure on the natural assets that have been our marketing edge will be increased dramatically. The asymmetry of our relationship with our nearest neighbour could mean that the answer to the big question will not be determined by us.

Climate crunch

Exploring the full ramifications of my second scenario is well beyond the scope of this post. Gwynn Dyer’s book Climate Wars is a good place to start for some well-realised “disaster” scenarios, but from New Zealand’s perspective if the world is going to hell in a handbasket we have some major advantages, but also a few serious disadvantages. On the plus side we’re only close to Australia (where “close” is defined as equivalent to the distance from London to Moscow), and that should mean that we will not be an immediate target for an influx of poor refugees. Australia will act — as it already is — as a buffer between NZ and Asia. We will probably also be warming more slowly than most, and so should be able to feed ourselves for the foreseeable future.

But those two factors are also vulnerabilities. The NZ economy depends on food and primary produce exports and income from tourism. If the global economy and particularly global trade is stressed by the need to recover from successive climate extremes, our high-value tourists might disappear — or turn up waving cheque books, looking for somewhere to escape. At the same time, our ability to grow food might make NZ a very attractive prospect for countries struggling to feed their billions. Chinese interests are already investing in New Zealand agriculture (and in other parts of the world), and while this can be viewed as a relatively harmless consequence of Chinese economic growth and the globalisation of agriculture, it could also be seen as a loss of sovereign control over our natural resources. The current unease over increasing foreign ownership of our agricultural land might be the first sign of an issue that could become a political flashpoint in coming decades.

The climate crunch may never come — or be late arriving — but it is still something we should factor into the design of policy. We are happy to invest a large amount of money in our defence forces, in the hope they will never have to be used at home. We need to take the same attitude to developing resilience to possible climate shocks. Building the ability to survive and recover from the worst that the future may bring means beginning to discuss some of the questions I’ve raised in this article. I’ve often said we need a “national conversation” to build consensus on climate policy. That applies equally to policies to reduce emissions and those required to adapt to the changes that are inevitable — and means taking a hard-nosed look at our relationship with Australia and the world. Here’s your starter for ten: how many New Zealanders is enough?

[Mercury Rev]

Questionnaire Gareth Renowden Aug 30

Join the conversation at Hot Topic

The Cognitive Science Lab at the University of Western Australia has put together an internet survey to test people’s attitudes to science. Prof Stephan Lewandowsky describes it thus: “the rationale behind the survey is to draw linkages between attitudes to climate science and other scientific propositions (eg HIV/AIDS) and to look at what skepticism might mean (in terms of endorsing a variety of propositions made in the media)”. He’s particularly interested in the views of people who follow science blogs, so please go along and give it a try. Anonymity assured, and the results will find their way into the literature eventually.

[Rutles, if only for the lyrics...]

Time to ring some changes Bryan Walker Aug 29

Join the conversation at Hot Topic

Climate protestors at Aberdeen The results of the first climate trial in Scotland’s history were declared a few days ago when the court imposed modest fines ranging from £300 to £700 on each of nine activists who had broken into the Aberdeen airport in protest against the soaring carbon dioxide emissions caused by aviation.

Dan Glass, one of the nine, has commented:

“We’re not terrorists, we’re people who believe delivering our message on climate change is worth being charged and fined…We are secretaries, parents, cooks, community workers, architects and saxophonists. We are part of a growing movement of concerned citizens who are prepared to put our bodies in the way of dangerous high-carbon developments.”

He spoke of their action as “justified, proportionate and necessary” in the face of catastrophic climate change, and quoted Michael Mansfield QC, one of Britain’s best-known defence barristers, who a couple of days prior to the sentencing said:

“As I write, one fifth of Pakistan, already blighted by earthquakes, is covered with flood waters threatening the health and safety of over six million people. Without conscientious and principled protest which focuses on the undoubted factors which contribute to this decimation of the environment, the urgency of the problem will not be addressed. I trust these entirely legitimate and selfless objectives will be reflected in the way the Climate 9 are judged by the court.”

It looks as if they were.

They certainly were last year in the UK when the Kingsnorth protestors, charged with criminal damage after painting messages on the chimney stack, won a jury  acquittal, aided by the testimony of expert witness James Hansen. The defence lawyer Michael Wolkind QC wrote afterwards:

“The formal document served on the court set out our position: the defendants acted in order to protect property that included ‘the Siberian permafrost and tundra regions, especially the Kola peninsula; the continental ice sheets; the Tibetan peninsula; the Yellow river in China, its banks and connected waterways; public and private property in Bangladesh; property belonging to or cultivated by subsistence farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, such as Senegal, Namibia and Mozambique; private and public property in coastal regions and inland waterways of Indonesia and Sri Lanka, including farm land producing crops; property belonging to the Inuit people of the Arctic, northern Alaska, eastern Greenland and Canada’.”

The statutory framework was according to the law:

“A person shall have a lawful excuse if he damaged property in order to protect property belonging to another and at the time of the act he believed (1) that the property was in immediate need of protection and (2) that the means of protection adopted were reasonable having regard to all the circumstances.”

Across the Atlantic  in June last year James Hansen announced his readiness to engage in civil disobedience:

“If the Obama administration is unwilling or unable to stop the massive environmental destruction of historic mountain ranges and essential drinking water for a relatively tiny amount of coal, can we honestly believe they will be able to phase out coal emissions at the level necessary to stop climate change? The issue of mountaintop removal is so important that I and others concerned about this problem will engage in an act of civil disobedience on June 23 at a mountaintop removal site in Coal River Valley, West Virginia.”

He did that and was arrested as a result.

In a recent statement he explores the issue.

“‘How did you become an activist?’ I was surprised by the question. I never considered myself an activist. I am a slow-paced taciturn scientist from the Midwest. Most of my relatives are pretty conservative. I can imagine attitudes at home toward ‘activists’.

“I was about to protest the characterization – but I had been arrested, more than once. And I had testified in defense of others who had broken the law. Sure, we only meant to draw attention to problems of continued fossil fuel addiction. But weren’t there other ways to do that in a democracy? How had I been sucked into being an ‘activist’?”

He explains his disappointment that even green governments like Norway’s find it too inconvenient to address the implications of scientific facts. (I reported that disappointment recently.)

“It becomes clear that needed actions will happen only if the public, somehow, becomes forcefully involved. One way that citizens can help is by blocking coal plants, tar sands, and mining the last drops of fossil fuels from public and pristine lands and the deep ocean.”

He then delivers what will no doubt be denounced as a call to further acts of civil disobedience:

“To the young people I say: stand up for your rights – demand that the government be honest and address the consequences of their policies. To the old people I say: let us gird up our loins and fight on the side of young people for protection of the world they will  inherit.

“I look forward to standing with young people and their supporters, helping them develop their case, as they demand their proper due and fight for nature and their future. I guess that makes me an activist.”

Non-violent civil disobedience has a long and honourable tradition back through Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Thoreau and many others.  Thus far in relation to climate change it is sporadic but if governments continue to ignore their responsibility to drastically reduce emissions we may expect to see more of it.  Understandably so. What else will serve to communicate the deep seriousness of the issue? The capacity of governments to blandly absorb the climate message, sometimes to acknowledge it, and then to carry on regardless is beginning to seem limitless. Civil disobedience puts a strain on the body politic which the kind of people who engage in it would normally seek to avoid. But there is much at stake.

Thoreau in his famous essay on civil disobedience was forthright:

“How does it become a man to behave toward the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave’s government also.”

It will be protested that failure to act on climate change is hardly in the same league as condoning slavery. Perhaps not – though how do you class an issue that threatens so much human misery and will make fragile the bases of human civilisation? And like the abolition of the slave trade and slavery it is being put off because of the economic dislocation it will allegedly cause. Vested interests trump democratic processes.

[Richard Thompson]

Report clears IPCC head Pachauri, UK paper apologises Bryan Walker Aug 27

Join the conversation at Hot Topic

Back in March I posted on IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri’s stout defence of the IPCC report against the attacks to which it was being subjected by hysterical denialism.  But he has also had to defend himself against accusations in an article by Christopher Booker and Richard North in the Sunday Telegraph in December which claimed that the UN climate chief was “making a fortune from his links with ‘carbon trading’ companies” and that payments from his work for other organisations “must run into millions of dollars”.

KPMG was engaged by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the non-profit organisation Pachauri heads, to conduct an independent review of personal financial records of Dr Pachauri and other records of TERI to confirm if there is any evidence that suggests that Dr Pachauri misused his position for personal benefit as alleged.

The KPMG report has now been made public.  The Guardian reports:

“The KPMG audit, completed in March, showed the allegation that Pachauri had made millions of dollars could not be further from the truth. In addition to his annual salary of £45,000, the auditors found that in the period 1 April 2008 – 31 December 2009, Pachauri received 20,000 rupees (£278) from two national power commissions in India, on which he serves as director; 35,880 rupees (£498) for articles and lectures; and a maximum of 100,000 rupees (£1,389) in the form of royalties from his books and awards.

“Any money paid as a result of work that Pachauri had done for other organisations went to TERI. The accounts also show that Pachauri also donated to the institute a lifetime achievement award from the Environment Partnership Summit – a 200,000 rupee prize he would have been entitled to keep.”

The Sunday Telegraph has removed the article from its website and apologised, hardly handsomely but apparently to avoid libel proceedings:

“[The article] was not intended to suggest that Dr Pachauri was corrupt or abusing his position as head of the IPCC and we accept KPMG found Dr Pachauri had not made ‘millions of dollars’ in recent years. We apologise to Dr Pachauri for any embarrassment caused.”

George Monbiot has made trenchant comment.

“Has anyone been as badly maligned as Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ?

“…The story immediately travelled around the world. It was reproduced on hundreds of blogs. The allegations it contained were widely aired in the media and generally believed. For a while, no discussion of climate change or the IPCC appeared complete without reference to Pachauri’s ‘dodgy’ business dealings and alleged conflicts of interest.

“There was just one problem: the story was untrue.

 “It’s not just that Pachauri hadn’t been profiting from the help he has given to charities, businesses and institutions, his accounts show that he is scrupulous to the point of self-denial.”

The Sunday Telegraph article also complained that we don’t know “how much we all pay him” as chairman of the IPCC. The answer, as Monbiot reports, is nothing.  This was information that the journalists could easily have obtained but driven by their intention to malign preferred not to.

This won’t be the end of the matter for denialists of course. North on his blog puts the apology down to the paper’s need to avoid libel proceedings from an “unethical law firm” and continues undaunted:

“If you wish to believe that means Pachauri didn’t make millions of dollars, that is your affair. But the crucial thing is that the paper has not apologised for accusing Pachauri of making millions of dollars. That accusation stands uncorrected. The paper simply accepts that KPMG has a claim in this respect.”

Monbiot expects that the smear campaign will continue, and become ever more lurid as new charges are invented.

“The best we can do is to set out the facts and appeal to whatever decency the people spreading these lies might have, and ask them to consider the impact of what they have done to an innocent man. Will it work? I wouldn’t bet on it. As we have seen in the United States, where some people (often the same people) continue to insist that Barack Obama is a Muslim and was born abroad, certain views are impervious to evidence.”

If we need reminding, denialism will stop at nothing in its campaign to denigrate the science of climate change. That is what the attacks on Pachauri are about. He is chairman of the IPCC. Portray him as dishonest and hope thereby to spread doubt about the IPCC reports. It is determination to suppress the science which informs the attacks on him and on the scientists who have been falsely accused of various malpractices.

Ramping up renewables Bryan Walker Aug 26

Join the conversation at Hot Topic

There may be conflicting reports as to whether renewable energy can replace fossil fuels in time to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and there are still plenty of people in positions of authority, like our own Energy Minister, who see little reason to hurry the process. The heavy lobbying influence of big oil and coal interests remains powerful. But it’s heartening to be reminded from time to time that transition is nevertheless under way in many parts of the world and that it’s gathering pace. An Earth Policy Institute article has arrived in my inbox offering just such a reminder. It refreshes what Lester Brown had to say about the shift to renewable energy in his book Plan B 4.0.

I reviewed the book on Hot Topic last year, but at the risk of repeating myself I’ll report some of the points which he now reiterates and updates. The first is that the transition to energy powered by wind, solar and geothermal sources is moving worldwide at a pace and on a scale we could not have imagined even two years ago. Texas, the oil state, is a prime example. It has 9,700 megawatts of wind generating capacity online, 370 more in construction, and a huge amount in the development stage. When all of these wind farms are completed, Texas will have 53,000 megawatts of wind generating capacity—the equivalent of 53 coal-fired power plants. This will more than satisfy the residential needs of the state’s 25 million people, enabling Texas to export electricity, just as it has long exported oil.

South Dakota has begun development on a vast 5050-megawatt farm that when completed will produce nearly five times as much electricity as the state needs. It will become an exporter, as some ten American states and several Canadian provinces are planning to be.

Brown then moves across the Atlantic to point to the hopes of the Scottish government for the development of an enormous off-shore wind generating capacity of some 60,000 megawatts. I reported  on Hot Topic a few months ago on a major survey which has identified North Sea potential from wind and wave of even larger potential, capable of producing six times as much electricity as is currently used in the UK. If joined to a northern super-grid it could enable access to a single European electricity market and export opportunity.

Algeria plans to build 6000 megawatts of solar thermal generating power for export to Europe via undersea cable

It’s not only the developed world that is embracing renewable energy on a rapidly growing scale. Brown instances Algeria’s plans to build 6000 megawatts of solar thermal generating power for export to Europe via undersea cable. He points to their awareness that they have enough harnessable solar energy in their vast deserts to power the entire world economy. Solar energy is clearly of enormous potential not only in the Mediterranean region but also in the south-west US and the Indian desert and China, and there is regular news of new developments in all of these areas.

Brown touches on Turkey where construction  permits are being issued for 7,000 megawatts of wind generating capacity, in response to bids to build a staggering 78,000 megawatts. In Indonesia the state oil company Pertamina is responsible for developing most of a planned 6,900 megawatts of geothermal generating capacity.

“These are only a few of the visionary initiatives to tap the earth’s renewable energy. The resources are vast. In the United States, three states—North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas—have enough harnessable wind energy to run the entire economy. In China, wind will likely become the dominant power source. Indonesia could one day get all its power from geothermal energy alone. Europe will be powered largely by wind farms in the North Sea and solar thermal power plants in the North African desert.”

The 20th century saw the globalisation of the world energy economy as countries everywhere turned to oil, much of it from the Middle East. This century, says Brown, will see the localisation of energy production as the world turns to wind, solar and geothermal energy. It will also see the electrification of the economy.

“The transport sector will shift from gasoline-powered automobiles to plug-in gas-electric hybrids, all-electric cars, light rail transit, and high-speed intercity rail. And for long-distance freight, the shift will be from diesel-powered trucks to electrically powered rail freight systems. The movement of people and goods will be powered largely by electricity. In this new energy economy, buildings will rely on renewable electricity almost exclusively for heating, cooling, and lighting.”

Can renewable energy be expanded fast enough? Brown thinks so, encouraged by the phenomenon of the extraordinary growth of the communications and information economies in only the last thirty years. Others don’t. Barry Brook in Australia is one, with his views summed up in this recent article and much more on his Brave New Climate website. Not that he’s arguing for fossil fuels – in his view nuclear power is the only technology that can get us there fast enough and economically enough. 

Lester Brown falls back on the analogy of the Second World War when the American economy changed direction with extraordinary speed and prospered in doing so. He’s not alone in sounding this theme, but he was an early proponent of it. The difficulty with this concept is that our societies are hardly yet ready to see climate change in the stark terms which obtained in 1939 and 1941. 

Whether renewables will be ratcheted up quickly enough or not they certainly represent one of our best hopes of containing climate change impacts. Don’t forget to tell Gerry Brownlee so before September 2, when submissions on the new draft energy strategy close. I’ve said elsewhere on Hot Topic what I see as wrong with the draft.  Simon Boxer of Greenpeace has put it succinctly:

“It’s a document that lacks vision and goals. It shows that the Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee is ignoring the climate crisis. It’s a route map to a dead end.

“The Government’s energy strategy prioritises drilling and mining for more oil and coal, while providing virtually no stimulation for the development of renewable energy and clean technology. It fails to acknowledge the seriousness of climate change and makes no attempt to set measurable emissions reduction targets.”

If you’d like some suggestions the Greens offer a thoughtful submission guide.  If you’re lacking time a shortcut is offered by Greenpeace or WWF . Many of the 40,000 submissions received by the government on Brownlee’s proposals to mine conservation land no doubt used form statements provided by organisations. They still count, so use one of the offered quick responses rather than pass the opportunity by.

Keep right on to the end of the road Bryan Walker Aug 24

Join the conversation at Hot Topic

When one spends a good deal of time following what scientists working on climate change are saying, it’s hard to understand how the community at large and politicians in particular can appear so unaffected by the prospect ahead if we don’t radically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. The only conclusion is that they haven’t yet understood the full reality of the science.

James Hansen is notably one scientist who has been much exercised by this fact. He and his co-writers offer some reflections on the communication of the status of global warming to the public in a summary discussion at the end of their revised paper Global Surface Temperature Change, which has been accepted for publication in Reviews of Geophysics. The comments on communication are carefully characterised as opinion and differentiated from the primary scientific contribution of the paper. But it is entirely understandable that scientists should be exercised about why there appears to be so much difficulty having a subject of such “surpassing importance” communicated clearly to the public.

The paper notes first that weather variability hampers lay people’s perceptions, a difficulty which can best be addressed by drawing attention to the changes in frequency and magnitude of changes from the norm apparent on decadal time scales as warming increases.

The writers then remark the media’s difficulties in framing long-term problems as news, the preference for sensationalism, the generally low level of familiarity with basic science, and the preference for ‘balance’ in every story.

The politicisation of reporting of global warming compounds these difficulties. The paper acknowledges that politicisation is perhaps inevitable given the economic and social implications of altering the course of human-made climate change. Alleviating it is made more difficult by attacks on the character and credibility of scientists, which appear to have been effective in causing many in the public to doubt the reality or seriousness of climate change.

What can scientists do about this? Keep on keeping on:

“…the best hope may be repeated clear description of the science and passage of sufficient time to confirm validity of the description.”

Hansen acknowledges the danger is that while we wait for this to happen the climate system could pass tipping points that cause major climate changes to proceed largely out of humanity’s control.

“Yet continuation of careful scientific description of ongoing climate change seems to be essential for the sake of minimizing the degree of future climate change, even while other ways are sought to draw attention to the dangers of continued greenhouse gas increases.”

The paper, these reflections apart, continues precisely such careful scientific description, updating and discussing the Goddard Institute’s analysis of global surface change and showing that contrary to popular misconception the rate of warming has not declined.

“Global warming on decadal time scales is continuing without letup… we conclude that there has been no reduction in the global warming trend of 0.15-0.20°C/decade that began in the late 1970s.”   

The Australian Academy of Science last week produced a worthy effort to communicate the science with the publication of Climate Change: Questions and Answers (web, pdf). It is a lucid account for the lay reader of the central features of climate science as currently understood by its practitioners. In his foreword the President of the Academy, Kurt Lambeck, points to some of the complexities which beset the communication of climate science. It is at the intersection of a number of science disciplines and sub-disciplines.

“It is at this intersection of the disciplines where uncertainty can and will arise, both because of the yet poorly understood feedbacks between the different components of the climate system and because of the difficulty of bringing these components together into a single descriptive and predictive model.”

Equal complexities may be evident in many other areas of experimental science, but they bear special weight in climate:

“What makes climate change different is that the consequences are not only potentially global and serious but also that they occur over long time scales (decades to centuries) so that actions need to be contemplated before full understanding is achieved.”

The Academy has produced the document to try to aid public understanding and to tread a path through the often contradictory public commentary on the science. Lambeck emphasises that it is not intended as a formulation of a public response, but as “an attempt to improve the public understanding of the science upon which any policy response should be constructed.”

The document is a model of clarity in its explanations of the science and restrained in its presentation of the impacts of global warming. Look at the careful language which communicates truly alarming but well-founded predictions:

“If emissions continue unabated, current mid-range estimates are for 4.5°C higher global average temperatures by 2100 which would mean that the world would be hotter than at any time in the last few million years. Sea level would continue to rise for many centuries. The impacts of such changes are difficult to predict, but are likely to be severe for human populations and for the natural world. The further climate is pushed beyond the envelope of relative stability that has characterised the last several millennia, the greater becomes the risk of passing tipping points that will result in profound changes in climate, vegetation, ocean circulation or ice sheet stability.”

What policy response should be constructed on that?  A 5% reduction in emissions in Australia by 2020 from a 2000 base says Tony Abbott, who prevaricates on whether humans are causing climate change.  It depends what a citizen’s assembly comes up with says Julia Gillard, who affirms she believes in human-caused climate change. 

Scientific bodies must use measured language. But it shouldn’t be asking too much of policy makers and the educated public to translate it into the urgent awareness that it demands from anyone who takes the trouble to attend to it. How much longer will that be delayed?

[Harry Lauder!]

« Older Entries