George Monbiot, as ever, crystallises the issue, pointing out that governments can and have paid out trillions of dollars to bail out the banks (the US alone provided $7.7 trillion), but can’t bring themselves to provide a lesser amount to save civilisation. Even the business community acknowledges the problems, with a Harvard Business School study involving top executives suggesting Income disparity, resource depletion and potentially cataclysmic climate change represent major risks to capitalism, though they didn’t suggest any solutions. The recent UK refusal to join the EU treaty is yet another case of governments acting in the interests of business rather than their citizens.

Science fiction authors have speculated that the reason we haven’t seen any sign of other intelligent life is that most destroy themselves in exactly the way we are pursuing – failing to find a way to curb our exponential growth before it trashes the planet.

Studies continue to show that we can transition to a low carbon economy at an acceptable cost (here and here) and in some cases we are already doing so – just not quickly enough, while even the current level of research continues to throw up improvements to existing technology. PV especially is improving rapidly with both minor improvements and longer term breakthroughs likely to keep costs reducing for another decade. Given that PV is cost completive with the retail electricity price in most markets (although this is not being well publicized), expect a lot more PV installations. Separately studies looking outside the square show that we can even make agriculture more sustainable as this article on seaweed aquaculture demonstrates.

The media continues to do a poor job, with a recent Australian study showing a significant bias in reporting, especially in the News Ltd papers.

The Arctic continues to be a worry, n at least two fronts. Firstly the methane feedback, where the rapid warming in the Arctic releases methane stored in tundra or under the ocean, which further increases the warming. Studies are suggesting significant releases are already happening, and will add at least 380 billion tons of carbon dioxide this century (the studies don’t calculate the effect on releases of the added warming so clearly underestimate the actual amount).

Secondly this article describes current thinking on how the loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic (40% between the start of satellite observations in 1979 and 2007) is affecting the weather in the US and Europe, producing the cold snowy winters seen recently as well as the extreme events such as the Russian heat wave. It also notes that the extent of ice loss is equivalent to 44% of the US or 70% of Europe! As Dr. Jennifer Francis, the author of the study says “The question is not whether sea ice loss is affecting the large-scale atmospheric circulation…. It’s how can it not?”

Lastly an article from a Peak Oil perspective by John Michael Greer which suggests that we have a disconnect between the paper money economy and the ‘real” economy, which is fundamentally built on “producing goods and services by applying energy to an assortment of raw materials”. He suggests that as the price of energy increases, compounded by the “superstructure” of complexity that we have built up during a century or more of cheap energy means that fewer and fewer projects will make a profit, including those which are key to reengineering our energy industry. Highly recommended.

Given that the science clearly says we need to act now, and the cost of action goes up exponentially the longer we delay this is rank stupidity and just about guarantees that we will exceed the 2 degrees “safe threshold”. The graph above clearly shows the slippery slope we are on; if emissions peaked in 2020 we would need to reduce them by 5.3% per year to have a 50% chance of staying under 2 degrees. If as is much more likely from an agreement which starts in 2020, they peak in 2025 it needs to be nearly 10% per year which just won’t happen. If we had peaked last year only 1.3% per year would be needed. Remember this is for a 50% chance of avoiding “dangerous climate change”. Do we feel lucky?

Meanwhile it keeps getting hotter and more extreme. The World Meteorological Organization announced that the decade to 2022 – 2011 is tied for the record of hottest decade since records began. This confused me at first as I couldn’t see another decade which it tied with, but they mean 2001- 2010. It is obvious that warming is real and accelerating as even the dissentients now concede.

Researchers at Princeton University have published a study which shows that the weather is becoming more extreme and variable. This affects both rainfall and solar radiation, with the variability of both increasing significantly in the last 30 years.

In news that seems to have been ignored Japan’s science ministry announced that 8% of the country has been contaminated by radiation from Fukushima. The radiation is at levels where it might be wise to keep children indoors, and in fact kids studied are growing much less quickly (0.8kg last year versus 3.1kg previously). Given that the major contaminant has a half life of 30 years this will be a problem for a long time, and is fuelling even more distrust of government and commercial interests. Speaking of which the Guardian has two articles on the occupy movement that are worth a look. The first is an animation showing the relative growth of rich and poor in the USA, while the other is an analysis of the over-reaction by authorities. The journalist was not convinced by the mainstream media reporting that the movement had no real goals and asked US members “What is it you want?” 100 responses were received in short order, and the top three are instructive:-

1. Get the money out of politics.
2. Reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation.
3. Draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.

Personally I can’t see anything wrong with any of the above, though I can see why the political class might prefer the mainstream media version!

Our responses to climate change are often a bit weird. Rather than going after the major issues (renewable electricity, efficiency and storage) we seem to get carried away. Here for example is a house which is a 3m cube. I’m all for downsizing but a standalone building for one person is a bit ridiculous. Even worse is a scheme to paint the oceans white to increase the earth’s albedo. Just imagine the possible side effects!

A bit of good news to end on. Bloomberg reports that Investments in Renewable Power Plants this year is greater than Fossil Fuel Plants for the fist time. Renewables were $187 billion last year compared with $157 billion for natural gas, oil and coal. It’s a start but very far from enough.

Unfortunately we are also being reminded that we are now almost certain to exceed the 2 degree “safe” limit for which this blog was named, the extreme weather keeps getting more extreme, and every climate science report that is published seems to be worse than the last.

Let’s look at the good news first.

George Monbiot has a cracker of an article discussing whether executives are worth their millions. He quotes studies that show most high flying traders results are no better than chance, and that many executives score higher psychopathic scores than the psychopaths locked up for violent crimes, and goes on to show that most folk have gone backwards of late while the very rich have done very well. A couple of quotes will give you the flavour, but please read the whole thing. “If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire” “Such results have been widely replicated. They show that traders and fund managers across Wall Street receive their massive remuneration for doing no better than would a chimpanzee flipping a coin”.

The success of the occupy movement is welcome. It has gone global, is being supported by many high profile celebrities and more importantly causing a wave of supporting comment in the press (here and here for example). Annie Leonard with perfect timing has come out with a new video called the Story of Broke very much from the American perspective but looking at where the money they don’t have is being spent. Worth watching.

A curious quiet followed by a fair bit of mumbling greeted the final results of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study (BEST). This study, funded by the oil powered Koch brothers was the last hope of the dissentients in showing that the naughty scientists had been exaggerating the scale of the warming. Not only did the study show that the previous numbers were reasonable, they concluded that they were on the low side!

“We find that the global land mean temperature has increased by 0.911 ± 0.042 C since the 1950s…. our analysis suggests a degree of global land-surface warming during the anthropogenic era that is consistent with prior work (e.g. NOAA) but on the high end of the existing range of reconstruction.”

Given that this study was funded by outspoken oil barons who are consistent funders of denialists and headed up by Richard Muller who has often sounded rather dissentient himself despite being a real scientist, though not a climatologist, this drives the last nail in the “we aren’t warming” coffin. Muller now says “The existence of global warming is pretty much beyond dispute now”. Climate Denial Crock of the Week has this excellent video which details the whole sorry story. This of course is not exactly good news as it confirms we are headed for trouble even quicker than we thought. To any who would still prefer to ignore the real world I commend this elegant little ditty called the denial tango.

The World Resources Institute has published their Climate Science 2009-2010 review, and there is no good news. 2000-2009 was the hottest decade on record, ocean acidification is proceeding faster than expected and multi-year winter sea ice area decreased by 42 percent in the 4 years to 2008!

The respected Meteorologist Jeff Masters reports on a large ozone hole which has opened in the Arctic. This was unexpected as the well known Antarctic hole is supported by the colder stratospheric temperatures caused by intense circum-polar winds there, and the Arctic has only seen slight ozone losses in the past. It appears that a much colder than normal vortex in the Arctic has caused the hole, which in turn may be due to the same changing weather patterns which gave the northern hemisphere such cold recent winters. And yes both the colder stratosphere and the changing patterns are predicted causes of global warming.

And to cap it all that conservative industry focused organisation the International Energy Agency is warning that if we don’t stop building fossil fuelled power stations in the next 5 years we are stuffed. They don’t put it quite like that of course, but they do point out that the emissions from new fossil power stations built to service our inefficient homes and factories will over their expected lifetimes destroy our last hope of staying under 450ppm of CO2. Please note that many scientists no longer regard 450 as a safe level and are instead shooting for 350. Put another way they say “Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”

The chief economist at the Agency, Fatih Birol, said. “I am very worried – if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum. The door will be closed forever.”

Eleven of the world’s large engineering organisations have issued a statement saying that we already have all the technologies we need to cut emissions by 85% by 2050, but we are just not developing them quietly enough. They say:-

“While the world’s politicians have been locked in talks with no output, engineers across the globe have been busy developing technologies that can bring down emissions and help create a more stable future for the planet. “We are now overdue for government commitment, with ambitious, concrete emissions targets that give the right signals to industry, so they can be rolled out on a global scale.”

It’s possible the cartoons below describe why.

The recent case of the overly candid trader on BBC has obviously shocked many, and has surely helped to swell the growing dissatisfaction with our current financial system, which has effectively become a tax on anyone who tries to save money (which is most of us given superannuation schemes and pensions). To make it worse the proceeds don’t go to governments but to a small group of bankers and traders. The fact that this individual is salivating about the money to be made from a financial crash and doesn’t seem to connect that crash with the lives of millions of people shows clearly what is wrong. Regulation has been systematically dismembered over decades, and has not been materially improved in the wake of the GFC, leading to more and more schemes which make a quick buck out of other’s misery. Short selling (to pick on one problem amongst many) now makes it easier to profit from a crash than a company’s profits, partly because it is more obvious that it is going to happen, and partly because many of those profiting are large enough to influence the outcome. So what’s next? Will they decide that the US would make a good feast, or go after easier prey such as Spain, Portugal or Ireland? I’m not arguing that Europe and the US are blameless here; just that short selling and the like are an abomination. They are purely destructive, and even supporters only claim that they speed up the market. You would think that just at the moment the market could do with a bit of slow. There are many things wrong with the system but surely a basic rule should disallow making money from destructive acts of this type. Two Swiss students doing a thesis on the psychology of share traders were shocked to find that on average traders are even more “reckless and manipulative” than psychopaths.

I’ve previously addressed the fact that speculation on food is also rife, with estimates that 70-80% of trades are speculative. Again it distorts markets, making a few rich and many miserable, and again governments are reluctant to intervene.

And there does seem to be growing dissatisfaction at the way business has pursued profit at all costs, and has perverted the political landscape. While the Hoi polloi are not exactly revolting they are muttering darkly. I would suggest it’s the main reason for the near universal fall in status of politicians. In most places including Australia it remains unfocused, but recent events suggests it could gain traction. The Occupy Wall Street protests in the US have been a surprising success, helped along by some stupid policing, and Avaaz for one has had over 150,000 signatures on its online petition.

Some pollies understand the dynamic, though none of them seem to be in power. Ed Miliband at the recent labour conference in UK promised a tough fight to recast a new capitalism built around British values that reward the hard-working grafters and producers in business, and not the asset-stripping “predators”. He was predictably derided by the business community, but picked up a fair amount of support from the press.

Even in growth obsessed China, there are serious efforts to measure more than just GDP. Niu Wenyuan has proposed a GDP quality index which measures environmental, resource efficiency, social, quality of life and governmental quality. He is an adviser to the Chinese state council, chief scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and director of the Chinese Ecological Economics Society, and has been trying to formulate a Green GDP for some time.

Al Gore has also weighed into this debate, saying “In the language of computer culture, our democracy has been hacked” and argued that America has suffered a “breakdown in democratic governance”, because members of Congress are obsessed with appeasing special interests in return for campaign funding.

And it’s not difficult to see why people get upset when some of the conflicts of interest are so blatant. For example the public hearings into the proposed pipeline to bring carbon intensive tar-sands oil to the US are being run by a contractor for the pipeline company.

In the same speech referenced above, Al Gore also warned that there is now clear proof that climate change is directly responsible for the extreme and devastating floods, storms and droughts that displaced millions of people this year. “Observations in the real world make it clear that it’s happening now, it’s real, it’s with us”.

And the weather has by any objective measure been weird. NASA reports that sea levels fell by a record 6mm this year (against a regular 3mm rise), due to the extreme La Nina which dramatically increased precipitation in many areas. This Climate Progress article details the extra rainfall and flooding and includes this quote from The Economist Magazine report on the subject:-

“When reality is changing faster than theory suggests it should, a certain amount of nervousness is a reasonable response.”

In a nice ironic twist Monsanto is selling a new variety of broccoli which is claimed to “help maintain your body’s defences against the damage of environmental pollutants and free radicals” Those would be the pollutants that Monsanto’s GM foods have helped increase (This report showed that herbicide use increased as a result of GM foods).

Finally Guardian contributor David Mitchell, has a good rant putting the onus back on the dissentients. Well worth the 3 minutes.

Back to the book; Jackson points out, as many have, that our current economy is based on continual improvements in productivity, which along with any increase in population, requires growth to be at least the product of the two increases just to stand still. Reducing or stoping growth without the loss of jobs which accompany recessions, requires that we not only stabilise population, but find a way of offsetting that labour productivity, and he points out that there are already many good ways of doing this, from the increased leisure we say we want (but don’t pursue very hard) to community infrastructure and the environment. Critically he also points out that income is only important to wellbeing up to a point. He looks at life expectancy, infant mortality and education versus income and shows that once average income reaches $15,000 per year the best of the “poor countries” meet or exceed western countries. Recommended reading.

Meanwhile in the “real world” talk of zero growth is still likely to mark you as part of the loony fringe, although the current economy, dominated by the large corporate, and slavishly worshiped by our political classes, is showing definite signs of running out of growth room, making viable alternatives rather urgent, and many commentators on the left are starting to demand a change of direction, while those on the right are demanding we become more laissez-faire, meaning we will probably endure a few more increasingly rapid and painful crashes and recessions before we start looking for alternatives. I tend to agree with Leopold Kohr, who 50 years ago was ignored for warning that allowing (even encouraging) our companies and institutions to grow bigger would inevitably lead to collapse.

Speaking of Growth or lack of it, Charlie Brooker has an amusing comment in the Guardian called “If capitalism has failed, how the hell do we pay for our Shreddies?”. I suspect many will agree with him when he says that we knew in our hearts that our current consumer paradise (for some) was unsustainable.

“The complete collapse of capitalism would bring on an identity crisis of staggering proportions. You mean we listened to all those advertising jingles for nothing? We memorised PIN codes and coveted “brands” and shuffled round shopping malls in search of personal validation – and we were wasting our time? And those eerie puppet people who dressed like Apprentice contestants and sat on the Bloomberg channel burping out phrases such as “collateralised debt obligations” and “securitisation” and “facilitate” and “drill-down” and “going forward” – those people were boggle-eyed bullshitting lunatics and the entire system was a tosser’s delusion? None of us could ever have guessed. We didn’t have to guess. We knew. We knew. We knew in our hips and our hearts and our heads that this stuff was nonsense, but we just had to keep going. We had to, didn’t we? Because that’s what everyone else was doing.”

Thomas Friedman asks “Is It Weird Enough Yet?” discussing both the weather and the apparent requirement that Republican candidates deny climate change (and large slabs of science in general).

Meanwhile we keep pushing the envelope, playing a game of double or quits with Gaia, who seems always to collect her gambling debts. Hot Topic, with masterful understatement labels a recent article on CO² emissions “Not Good News“. Bryan Walker reports that while emissions fell slightly (by 1%) in 2009 they rebounded by 5% in 2010, or more than twice the long term average of 1.9%. This puts us on course for a 3-4 degree rise by the end of the century. He finishes by trying to stave off pessimism by hoping that Paul Gilding is correct in his book The Great Disruption when he predicts a major turnaround sometime this decade when folk see collapse is inevitable. If that’s the good news it’s going to be a rough ride…

It’s worth noting in conclusion that our politicians have committed to keep warming to 2 degrees, though they don’t mention it much, haven’t done nearly enough to achieve it, and are obviously more worried by the absence of growth. They look like they have run out of ideas and are just going through the motions and hoping that things don’t collapse completely on their watch. So maybe another major financial collapse or two would be good news in the long run, if it hammers in the impossibility of endless growth and allows us to focus on what is important to all of us, Not another iGadget, but enough good food, clean water, and the ability to participate meaningfully in society. Tim Jackson calls it “Flourishing within Limits”, the US Declaration of Independence calls it “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” and Jimi Hendrix said “I dig anything as long as it don’t hurt anybody”. There are very large differences in social well being between countries, and, at least in Europe, well being is significantly worse in those countries that have promoted consumerism, as well as falling dramatically over the last 30 years. In UK, a study of the health of communities concluded “Even the weakest communities in 1971 were stronger than any community now”.

The weather keeps getting weirder, prompting concern that we have seriously underestimated the effect of increasing global temperatures on extreme weather. Texas, home of the Climate Denier presidential candidate Rick Perry, has been through a record breaking spell lately and despite Rick’s prayers for rain, it looks as if it is likely to continue. 80% of the state is rated as “Exceptional Drought” and the state’s climatologist says “It’s Likely Much of Texas Will Still Be in Severe Drought next August, With Worse Water Shortages”. The graph below shows a plot of summer temperature (on the vertical scale) versus rainfall (horizontally) and shows just how “off the scale” the weather has been.

Further north, it’s the rain. In Binghamton, New York, 7 ½ inches fell on the 8^th September, breaking its all-time 24-hour precipitation record by a 60% margin. This is the second year in a row Binghamton has recorded a 1-in-100 year rain event. Meanwhile my mother who lives in Scotland is complaining of the most miserable summer she can remember (in Scotland that is quite something).

Even further north it’s also the water, or rather the absence of ice. 2007 smashed the ice extent records with the help of some quite unusual weather patterns. Now 2011 is just dipping below some of the ice area and extent records set that year (without the help of the unusual weather), and of course the ice volume has also declined to a record low. Area and Extent are two different was of measuring ice area; with extent being the total area including enclosed areas of water, while area tries to remove these. Both these measurements are quite easy to obtain from satellite records, while ice volume is considered more important but much harder to measure. RealClimate has more graphs here.

Still in the Arctic, and very related to the record low ice area comes the news that Exxon, who have led the way in funding climate deniers, have just signed an extensive deal with Rosneft, the Russian state oil company, to develop promising offshore oil and gas deposits in the Arctic Ocean. This will only be possible if the ice continues to melt, and is therefore a clear acknowledgement that they believe the Arctic is and will continue to warm. Another clear indication that corporate “ethos” allows them to say and do anything (however contradictory) in pursuit of profit.

And now I’m back on the old corporate kick, and the influence it has on politics. In an article titled “Public health policy at the mercy of corporate greed” the SMH reports that the UN is having trouble agreeing on any meaningful action to reduce cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer, which are responsible for two-thirds of deaths worldwide, because the richer countries are fighting to water down the agreement. Separately Robert Redford asks “Is the Obama Administration Putting Corporate Profits Above Public Health?” and says

“One reason I supported President Obama is because he said we must protect clean air, water and lands. But what good is it to say the right thing unless you act on it? Since early August, three administration decisions — on Arctic drilling, the Keystone XL pipeline and the ozone that causes smog — have all favored dirty industry over public health and a clean environment.”

Climate Progress has a horrifying article by ex Republican Congressional staffer, Mike Lofgren. He says “Both parties are captives to corporate loot. But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP… It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult“. Worrying for Australians as the right wing of our political class seem hell bent on emulating them.

More bad news if you have the stomach for it. The Oil Drum has an interesting article on why decline is usually faster than growth, often named the Seneca Effect after the Roman Stoic philosopher who said “It would be some consolation for the feebleness of our selves and our works if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid”. Modelling shows that adding in the effects of persistent pollution has the effect of speeding the decline. I suspect that there is another, unmentioned effect in that as we get richer we also get more protective (think occupational health and safety which while a good thing in principle has got to the silly stage where I had to be trained to use a wheelbarrow before I could act as labourer while building our house). We also get less fit, especially lacking the endurance needed to earn a crust in pre-industrial societies. A fine example is the reconstruction of a Greek Trireme, which crewed by modern athletes, failed to come close to the long distance speeds detailed in the classics. Even accounting for some exaggeration it is likely that hard physical labour (and the odd battle) would have made our ancestors tougher than even our elite athletes. Mentioned in the Seneca article is a review of the “Limits to Growth” report 30 years after it was written. This compared the various projections to the actual historical data for those 30 years, and shows that history is consistent with the “standard run” scenario which predicts a collapse in the middle of the 21^st Century. This report was published by CSIRO in 2008 but was not well publicized – I guess you don’t want to alarm the punters – they might stop consuming – and that would be bad for business.

At a recent energy auction in Brazil wind power was cheaper than natural gas. The short term thinking of most energy companies and politicians that seek to swap to gas rather than biting the bullet is further undermined by a report showing that partly swapping from coal to natural gas would slightly accelerate climate change through at least 2050, rather than reducing it as has been claimed. This happens even assuming zero methane leaks during production, so reality is definitely worse. The expression “Do it once – do it right” springs to mind.

The Guardian reports on a proposed experiment to test a method of injecting sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere, which is one of the front running options for geo-engineering the climate. I’m torn between being horrified at the possible risks (which are down the road – the initial experiment is on a small scale and uses water vapour) and reassured by the fact that someone is at least trying this out before we need to use it in a hurry. Rather than ignoring the problem till it gets so big we have to do something this dangerous we need much much more of this sort of technology – Glass roof tiles which capture hot air like a greenhouse. The tiles match existing shapes and should last longer than normal tiles. Simple and effective.

The Fin de siècle feeling is enhanced by the youth of today running riot in England to the backdrop of the latest in a near constant series of economic meltdowns, and weird weather. I find it hard not to believe that there is something fundamentally broken in the world’s financial system. Either Europe and the US have been living way beyond their means or the bankers have been creaming off far too much, or we are getting near the end of our ability to grow exponentially forever on a finite planet. Either way it’s probably not particularly good news. I’ll take the first as a given, but there are undoubtedly elements of the last two in the mix. If capuchin monkeys go on strike when they sense unfairness then you can probably assume that we will have similar responses. George Monbiot has another excellent piece in the Guardian which points out that though we have done unprecedented damage to the environment in the last sixty years, the gains to the normal citizen in the western world peaked and then declined during the last half of that period. While that may not be true in strict financial terms (especially as average wealth is skewed upwards by increasing inequality) I suspect it is very true in quality of life terms. We should therefore expect the current low levels of satisfaction to continue to decline leading eventually to more riots etc. This is in my opinion also a factor in the rise of the feral politician, as folk embrace simplistic emotional nonsense because they are so heartily sick of politics as usual. This shows frightening parallels with the situation in 1930′s Germany. George’s article also addresses the endless growth problem, by pointing at one of the few economists to look at how the economic system might work in a zero growth world. Professor Tim Jackson, author of Prosperity Without Growth. I haven’t as yet read the book, but the general thrust of his argument looks to be moving in the right direction. George says “He finds that the redistribution of both income and employment (through shorter working hours) is essential to the project. So is re-regulation of the banks, enhanced taxation of resources and pollution, and measures to discourage manic consumption, such as tighter restrictions on advertising”.

George also quotes Nouriel Roubini, Professor of Economics at the Stern School of Business at New York University “So Karl Marx, it seems, was partly right in arguing that globalisation, financial intermediation run amok, and redistribution of income and wealth from labour to capital could lead capitalism to self-destruct (though his view that socialism would be better has proven wrong)”. Roubini also says “Recent popular demonstrations, from the Middle East to Israel to the UK, and rising popular anger in China – and soon enough in other advanced economies and emerging markets – are all driven by the same issues and tensions: growing inequality, poverty, unemployment, and hopelessness. Even the world’s middle classes are feeling the squeeze of falling incomes and opportunities.” (My emphasis).

It is certainly increasingly acknowledged that the current political and financial system is no longer working well. Some blame increasing corporate influence over Government and the resulting inequality (here and here) while others blame the lack of investment in “Human Capital” (education and community). What seems clear to me is that as we have allowed corporations to get bigger they no longer compete as they did when smaller, by innovation, but more by seeking to change the rules or pressure their suppliers to reduce costs, leading to a rush to the bottom in quality. Australian retail prices are very worrying in this context, they are clearly much higher than in the US and Europe, but why? Are they just inefficient, greedy, or have the overseas retailers moved more of their costs to others?

Climate Progress has an amusing spoof on the US downgrade, reporting that Standard and Poor’s has downgraded Earth from its unique HHH rating—the only one in the galaxy—to HH+.

The latest Climate Denial Crock of the Week looks at the juxtaposition between the last year’s heatwaves and droughts in the US, and the denier’s claims that we are still cooling. There is an interesting picture two thirds of the way through of the temperature records plotted by position which form an obvious map of the continental US (especially the night-time highs, which is exactly as the science predicts).

Lastly the Scientific Integrity Editorial Cartoon Contest has posed its shortlist for 2011, and I enclose two of my favourites below, both with considerable resonance to Climate Change.

In general, the proposal is marginally better than Kevin Rudd’s ETS, giving away a little less to vested interests and promising more clean research dollars, and making more allowances for further tightening down the road. This view is common among those that actually analyse the content of the legislation, here, here and here. By the way The Conversation is a relatively new site with a lot of good commentary. The Murdoch press, as ever, is openly hostile, and many people are just so tired of the political process and/or Julia and the Labor Party that they have stopped listening. Tony Windsor is correct in stating that at least Labor is trying to do something, and he is probably also correct when he doesn’t think they will win the next election. Ah well, maybe the horse will learn to sing. Certainly there is now more negative comment on the Liberal proposal, mainly focused on the fact that it plainly won’t work, or will cost vastly more than suggested.

Meanwhile Sir David King, the UK’s former chief scientist has released a clear but damning report, summarised here in the Guardian which suggests we abandon any attempt to continue the Kyoto Protocol, but quickly move to a population based system. He says Kyoto has had very little effect outside Europe, and more “realism” needs to be injected into the current negotiations.

“I can’t see the Kyoto protocol making any headway – there are enough blocks in place, especially from the US and China, that it is wholly unlikely that it will go on. We need to be pragmatic.”

“Since 1992 [when the first talks took place], 192 nations have achieved remarkably little – despite the fact that no other single topic in the world has been given so much of policymakers’ time,” he said. “But in parallel, national actions and actions by business have brought about very substantial change.”

He is also dismissive of current emission reduction pledges in “developed” countries, with only Japan and Norway getting a “very good” along with several Latin American countries, including Brazil and Mexico, and Indonesia. The European Union was rated “good” in terms of its progress, and the US, Canada, Australia and parts of the Middle East were classed “very poor”. The report includes the graph below which shows the dramatic reduction in emissions that is required to stabilise co² and concludes that that the current pledges equate to a    greater than 50% chance that warming will exceed 3 °C by 2100.

And it continues to get hotter. Brave New Climate has a post on the numbers with a good set of graphs, Hot Topic reports that the Arctic is still melting as fast as ever (currently faster than at the same time in 2007 was the lowest extent on record) and both George Monbiot and Climate Progress describe how jellyfish are massively outcompeting their predators and competitors in a more acidic ocean. They have even closed down two power stations by blocking their cooling inlets.

Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who is speaking at a conference in Melbourne called Four degrees or more? is another who believes our current course is disastrous, saying that in 4-degree warmer world, the population “carrying capacity estimates [are] below 1 billion people”. Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change in Britain is not any more optimistic:-

”For humanity it’s a matter of life or death … we will not make all human beings extinct, as a few people with the right sort of resources may put themselves in the right parts of the world and survive. But I think it’s extremely unlikely that we wouldn’t have mass death at 4 degrees.” ”If you have got a population of 9 billion by 2050 and you hit 4 degrees, 5 degrees or 6 degrees, you might have half a billion people surviving.”

No wonder many commentators (here and here) pieces in the SMH and a very clear comment in The Conversation) are tired of the media and its refusal to face the facts. Some of the quotes:-

“You know the debate has gone downhill when you hear politicians question the validity of current climate science because we ”exhale carbon dioxide and therefore it must be safe” (We are also largely made up of water, but are devastated by drought and floods and can drown in a very small volume of the stuff). How often do you hear average punters question the science behind quantum mechanics, the theory of gravity or the mechanics of air travel? I know I wouldn’t attempt to, unless I’d spent years informing myself on those topics”

“Mature debate on our future needed, not Tea Party-style militancy”

The very clear comment in The Conversation is entitled “The false, the confused and the mendacious: how the media gets it wrong on climate change”. They say:-

“You drop a phone, it falls down. Fact. Science tells us that this is due to gravity, and no one doubts its inevitability. However, while science has a good understanding of gravity, our knowledge is only partial. In fact, physicists know that at a very deep level our theory of gravity is inconsistent with quantum mechanics, so one or both will have to be modified. We simply don’t know for sure how gravity works. But we still don’t jump off bridges, and you would be pretty silly to drop your phone onto a concrete floor in the hope that gravity is wrong. Climate change vs. gravity: Greater complexity, comparable certainty” (my emphasis)

“Finally, no truthful analysis of the Australian media landscape can avoid highlighting the maliciousness of some media organisations, primarily those owned by Newscorp, which are cartoonish in their brazen serial distortion of scientists and scientific findings. Those organisations have largely escaped accountability to date, and we believe that it is a matter of urgency to expose their practice. For example, it is not a matter of legitimate editorial process to misrepresent what experts are telling Newscorp reporters — some of whom have been known to apologize to scientists in advance and off the record for their being tasked to return from public meetings, not with an actual news story but with scathing statements from the handful of deniers in the audience.”

“It is not a matter of legitimate editorial process to invert the content of scientific papers.”

“It is not a matter of legitimate editorial process to misrepresent what scientists say.”

“It is not a matter of legitimate editorial process to prevent actual scientists from setting the record straight after the science has been misrepresented.”

“None of those sadly common actions are compatible with legitimate journalistic ethics, and they should have no place in a knowledge economy of the 21st century.”

And to finish, Marc Roberts indulging himself a little to celebrate the slight weakening of the Murdoch’s iron grip on the UK’s media. Please let it happen here as well, and especially in the US where Fox News must surely hold the record for the most brazen disregard for reality.

No it’s just that I have found a very pretty new WordPress theme, and thought it was about time the site had a bit of a refresh. So this is to warn you regular readers (all three of you) to expect changes over the next few weeks, which are long overdue, and will start with the aesthetics and finish with some of the content which also needs to be brought up to date.

All the best

Al

The latest revelations in the News of the World Hacking Scandal show the extremes that a newspaper can sink to in the cutthroat world of UK tabloids. Payments to police, hacking into and deleting messages from the voice mail of a missing girl who was later murdered, hacking into the phones of relatives of terrorist victims and dead soldiers amongst many others. It is now clear that this was not one or two rogue reporters but widespread in the company. More worrying is the fact that Prime Minister David Cameron’s former press spokesman was editor at the newspaper and resigned amidst concern about his involvement.

The Stanford prison experiment in the 1970′s showed that we are very susceptible to peer pressure, and will abuse and torture others quite willingly if it is accepted by the whole group. The same sort of thing seems to be happening in the pressure cooker world of our corporate giants, who pursue profit relentlessly apparently without regard to any ethical standards. Add to this the size and power of the largest companies and their undoubted influence over governments and it is easy to see why the interests of the general population are being eroded. Even now with the whole of the UK baying for blood, the PM is still resisting calls for a judge to lead the investigation he has just pledged to call, raising more concern over corporate – government links.

Respected meteorologist Jeff Masters believes that the weather during 2010 has been the most extreme since 1816, the “Year Without a Summer” which was caused by the largest volcanic eruption in centuries. Although we are well into 2011, which looks to be continuing the trend, it has taken Masters this long to collate the very long list of extremes, which are documented in detail in the link above.

So what are the connections? Simply put:-

• Big business is obviously wedded to perpetual growth and business as usual and will manipulate the political process in their favour and against our interests. You only have to listen to the chorus of business flacks predicting that the sky will fall and we’ll all loose our jobs if a carbon tax or a mining tax or whatever is implemented. Studies after the event have shown that these predictions are usually wildly exaggerated.
• Governments have become much more cautious, not to say timid, and there is much more cross fertilization between public servants and industry which naturally or unnaturally reinforces the commercial bias. It is also naturally difficult to prioritise actions that are painful now and only show benefits decades from now when you are elected for a three or four year term.
• Media companies are out to make money, and pursue profits without regard for those old fashioned concepts of truth and balance. They therefore give much more prominence to the loony fringe of the Climate Deniers (the potty peer Lord Monckton who is the subject of another excellent climate denial crock of the week below, positively springs to mind) than they deserve. How can a man who claims to have invented a cure for everything from the flu through malaria and muscular sclerosis to HIV-Aids be taken seriously, when he rightfully deserves to be treated as barking mad (as even he seems to agree in the video below). More and more scientists and even some politicians say they are not getting their side of the climate story out because of media bias. Will Steffen, executive director of the ANU’s Climate Change Institute and the only climatologist in the advisory group to the multiparty climate change committee, is bemused, frustrated and appalled by the debate in Australia. On Monckton he says ”He is not taken seriously in the UK, yet he gets 10 times the media coverage of James Hansen, one of the most eminent climate scientists in the world [and who visited Australia last year].”

So we look like being stuck in this rut, with those in power determined that the economy must grow continuously, while the environment, meaning everything from the climate down to the human systems of city traffic, electricity and water supply, and even neighbourhood social links gradually degrade. Eventually this will come to a head, but fortunately, with a bit of luck, I suspect we can stagger on for quite some time before the wheels completely fall off. This might give us time to gradually get used to the idea and accelerate the painfully slow start we have so far made.

The scientific community, while they can fight bitterly amongst themselves, are usually reticent when making public statements, but this is starting to break down. James Hansen has been involved in several protests and even arrested, saying he couldnot bear the thought that his grandchildren might hold him responsible for a burned-out planet. The Guardian has an interesting article on the subject including a video which proves that a PhD is no ticket to music stardom. All power to them regardless.

I have been reading James Lovelock’s latest book “The Vanishing Face of Gaia” which I strongly recommend. I found this book was a key to understanding his thinking, though the first part of the book is irredeemably gloomy.

Finally the Climate Denial Crock of the Week, featuring the “intellectual rape” of James Delingpole, and of course, Moncton’s medical madness.