Update: We still plan eventually to come back with something new! - but it is taking a little longer than anticipated…

The opening sentence of a newspaper article today provides the perfect pretext for a typical TalkClimateChange discussion:

The target of halving global greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of the century is not enough to avoid the major impacts of climate change, scientists warned yesterday.

We can debate this statement in many ways and from many different, yet familiar angles; Will halving emissions be enough, or will it be totally inadequate? Are emissions anyway irrelevant to global temperatures? How much will it all cost? What are the precise impacts of climate change, and who are these scientists anyway?

Then let’s consider the replies and rebuffs; My scientist is better than your scientist. It doesn’t cost that much / we can’t afford it. CO2 is plant food / CO2 acts a thermal blanket. The economic consequences will be positive / negative, this, that and the other..

Is any of this starting to sound just a little too familiar?

Whilst the climate change debate regularly brings new surprises, I’m starting to feel that at TalkClimateChange the dog has been chasing its tail lately - It’s time for a bit of a shakeup and a fresh approach, and I’ve recently become involved with a new project which promises to provide just that - a new and fresh TalkClimateChange is in the pipeline.

We’ll be taking a break for several months while this project comes together. In the meantime, I’ll continue to write at Green Options, and you can also catch regular updates on progress at my personal blog.

We’ll see you soon,

TalkClimateChange team.

Much has been written on TalkClimateChange of the challenges associated with the mass adoption of renewable energy.

Yet investors are apparently keen to throw money at renewable projects, despite lingering uncertainty over the plans of many governments to implement carbon credits as a means of incentivising such projects.

Keith Johnson wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal:

Spain’s Iberdrola Renovables, the world’s biggest clean-energy utility, said Sunday it will invest $8 billion in renewable energy (wind power, basically) in the U.S. over the next two years. That’s more than the company originally planned to invest in the U.S.

How to read this? For starters, it’s another sign the U.S. wind power market is going great guns regardless of what Congress does for clean-energy tax credits. As we noted last week, the Department of Energy figures wind power could provide 20% of U.S. electricity by 2030—with or without subsidies. And T. Boone Pickens put the first $2 billion down on his $10 billion bet on the world’s biggest wind farm in Texas last week, without waiting for the tax credits to be renewed.

So why the apparent enthusiasm when many commentators tell us that large scale renewable energy remains a green dream?

Without exploring the detailed economics of each project on a case by case basis, I can give at least one answer: Whilst replacing our current energy supply infrastructure with renewables may well be optimistic, renewable energy offers an easy solution to the growing energy gaps opening up in many nations as population and demand increases, and opposition to coal, gas an nuclear rises.

Whilst renewables are widely criticised for their unreliability and inability to generate constant power around the clock in all weathers, in some situations they may still deliver the goods. Take the case of Switzerland:

Today, Switzerland generates 95% of its electricity from carbon free sources, with a large amount of this coming from hydro-energy. But Switzerland faces a mounting shortfall in future years, and with just about every river in the nation already  dammed they have apparently few options that can be sold to the super environmentally conscious Swiss population.

Therefore, Switzerland is currently considering plans to encourage mass adoption of home solar installations through a favourable system of rebates and energy resale tariffs. With typical installations being capable of providing between 60 and 90 percent of a typical household’s daily electricity needs, the installation of home solar systems on a large scale has significant potential to fill the forecast 15% energy gap.

Although solar doesn’t generate energy during the night, the energy provided to the grid during daylight hours means that the flow rate of hydroelectric dams can be lowered during the day, providing additional capacity after dark, and the output of CO2 emitting generating stations can be limited to further reduce emissions. A tidy solution to a messy problem.

Agreed, challenges still exist - but the outlook for renewable energy seems to be getting better and better.

Unashamed plug for a colleague: Renewzle

This weekend, talks have been taking place among international leaders in Kobe, Japan. Setting expectations early, Yvo de Boer (head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat) told reporters that the G8 nations will likely agree to an “aspirational” target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 but shun mid-term goals at a July summit, although according to Reuters:

Ministers and their representatives said on Saturday that action was urgently needed to tackle climate change, but advanced and developing countries are split on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.

YAAAAWWWN. Is anybody else bored of this continuous cycle of governments telling the world how vitally important it will be to tackle climate change, whilst not actually doing very much?

Fortunately, it seems that this time the Japanese might shake things up a little with their more sensible and pragmatic approach:

Japan said the G8 needed to show initiative for developing countries to do their part in fighting climate change, blamed for droughts, rising seas and more intense storms.

“We need to send a message that we will make it easier for emerging countries to act, with financial mechanisms and technological cooperation,” Japanese Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita told reporters.

In other words, it is time for politicians of the developed world to stop talking, make something happen, and demonstrate the ‘leadership’ that leading Western nations are always so proud of. “Countries that haven’t committed themselves … the United States especially, should now commit themselves,” said South African Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk.

Those clever Japanese have also moved away from the absurdity and hyprocracy of the Bali Climate Change holiday talks with some practical actions which demonstrate some basic understanding of the issues (and with some canny marketing thrown in):

Eager to show off its green credentials at the meeting, Japan has sent fuel-cell and hybrid cars from its world-class carmakers to pick up delegates from the airport, and has called on participants to bring their own cups and chopsticks to cut trash.

The dress code will be “cool biz” — a Japanese campaign every summer for office workers to take off jackets and ties to minimise air conditioning and reduce emissions.

So maybe some optimism might be due here and this time around we have some genuine and interesting developments and agreements to write about.

I’ll share my thoughts on any outcomes as they happen..

With thanks to Reuters.

Mark

Remember when in March I said if the temperature at GISS was correct I would
write for the green team?

Well they revised their numbers and the temperature anomaly went from 0.67 to 0.60 magically.

So sorry, no green team posts for you!!

Daryl

Instead of spending my whole day researching this for a smart reply, I’m just going to respond by stating that the earth is still warming, and in fact Snowmen are in danger of becoming extinct.

Any reader comments on the revised figures will be keenly received..

Continued – read Part I here. 

Similar to climate change, World War II was a disaster which could have been prevented through decisive and early action. However, having failed to avoid climate change, we will need to fight it, and like WWII climate change will require the development of new technologies, the mobilization of millions of people, the formation of new political alliances, more cautious use of resources, and a strong resolve.

Rising to the challenge

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” announced Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who against expectations, lead Britain through it’s darkest hours and on to victory in 1945. It was a significant feat of leadership, taking a nation that was ill-prepared for war and close to being crushed during the Battle of Britain in 1941 through five years of hardship to eventual triumph.

There are many who have similar reservations as the world now braces itself for battle against a new enemy. If the worst predictions of the IPCC are to be realised the world faces similar levels of devastation as we struggle to grow food, loose habitat to rising sea levels and struggle to adapt as critical environmental constants begin to change. So, as we face this challenge, what can we learn from the leadership of Churchill to help us turn despondency into hope?

The study of Churchill’s conduct of the war reveals three key approaches which may form useful lessons and reminders to today’s leaders and decision makers as we struggle to find a clear path forwards.

The Ministry of Statistics – Having the Right Information

Churchill knew that to orchestrate something as complex as WWII he would need to have the best information possible. Building, arming and financing a military force 7.5 million strong, and planning campaigns around the world whilst tending to the needs of 40 million Britons at home under intense pressure from air raids and attacks on vital shipping supply routes required a constant flow of organised information.

Immediately after taking office, Churchill ordered the creation of the Ministry of Statistics. This organisation was charged with collecting and processing information on everything from shipments of food, aircraft production, acres of farm land under cultivation, the movement and readiness of troops and the number of installed air-raid shelters.

By having the right information at the right time, and by being able to instantly evaluate important trends in key areas, Churchill was able to focus resources and anticipate problems well in advance. By comparison, today’s fight against climate change lacks an information based approach in several important areas; climatology is far from being an exact science with notable gaps and questions in past data as well future projections. Making matters worse, a lack of coordination between governments means that impacts of decisions are rarely fully considered on a global basis leading to many questionable decisions which threaten to aggravate rather than resolve the issues.

Engagement of the Population

You cannot mobilize a nation to make sacrifice and fully engage new trials using standard government instruments such as taxation and legislation. It was only through charismatic leadership that Churchill was able to ensure such commitment from the population, to whom he confessed at the outbreak of war “We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.”

Of course, it helped that Churchill had a very clearly defined enemy with clear goals and targets. The case for climate change is somewhat less cut and dried, with too much science still open to debate, preventing engagement of large percentages of the population, and although today’s champions of global warming have better presentation tools than in the pre-Powerpoint age, their smooth arguments (many of which have been successfully contested in court) seem to have a less rousing effect than a grumpy old man speaking through a crackly old radio.

Churchill’s successful conveyance of the issues, without resorting to exaggeration, and his steely determination when many in the world believed defeat was inevitable meant that the majority of the British public were fully behind the government and its actions for the duration of the war.

I complete this point with an extract from one of Churchill’s most famous and rousing speeches:

We shall go on to the end,

we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air,

we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,

we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills,

we shall never surrender!

Leadership by example

EU leaders have recently watered down proposals to increase efficiency of government buildings, and particularly to limit the use of large, thirsty cars for official transport. Many leading climate change activists do a poor job of leading by example, living relatively lavish and carbon rich lifestyles.

Churchill, on the other hand, made a point of leading by example, often displaying reckless regard for his own safety. Walter Thompson - Churchill’s bodyguard - writes in his memoirs of Churchill wondering the streets of London during a bombing raid in order to “experience first hand the trials of the people of London.” With bombs landing only feet away, Thompson was finally able to convince Churchill to at least wear a helmet to provide a minimum of protection.

People are unlikely to connect with the need for change when they see public figures stepping out of chauffeur driven limousines in direct contravention to all that is supposed to be climate friendly. Never one to cower in an air-raid shelter, Churchill understood the importance of leadership by example and would today be the least likely person to use a private jet when an economy ticket would do just as well.

What would Churchill think today?

World War II was won at great expense, after many hardships and tragedies had been suffered by people the world over. Many people made significant contributions and sacrifices towards its successful outcome to whom we own a great debt which should never be diminished. However, Churchill’s contribution towards this struggle must stand out as being perhaps one of the single deciding factors of the entire episode.

So what would Churchill make of the approach being taken to today’s climate change challenges? Undoubtedly he would be appalled at the general misuse of information, lack of clear direction from world leaders and general ambivalence of much of the world’s population to the problem.

What would Churchill have done if he had fought climate change?

Who can say, but he would undoubtedly have taken early action to avoid a disaster of increasing scale as time passes. He would certainly have engaged the world in ways in which Mr Gore can only imagine. He would surely have faced harsh criticisms head-on, using his diplomatic abilities to forge a global coalition of world leaders committed to solving the problem.

And finally, he would have seized the opportunity to find ways to nurture mankind’s collective genius such that we may rally to the cause.

In this respect I’d like to examine some of the parallels between the events. As former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said "The further back I look, the further forward I can see" -  and as many environmentalists complain of poor leadership on climate change from world governments, what lessons can we learn from a man described by many as the greatest leader of all time?

The case for early action

Throughout the 1930’s, alarming changes were taking place in Germany with the rise of Hitler’s Nazi party, and the rapid militarization and armament of Germany, Europe’s most populous country. During this time the potential for conflict didn’t go unnoticed. However, despite repeated calls in the British Parliament to stop the Nazi menace in its tracks, the desire for peace in Europe following the horrors of the First World War were such that vocal proponents for action such as Churchill were simply branded as war mongers, with the British Government convinced it could resolve its issues with Germany by peaceful means.

Unfortunately, peace did not prevail. Germany’s military build-up continued unchecked, and between 1938 and 1940 the Germans quickly annexed Austria, invaded Poland, Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium and The Netherlands.

Having declared war only after the invasion of Poland, the British were ill prepared for major conflict. Churchill, having foreseen this disaster all along, yet described by many as an alarmist, was subsequently appointed as Prime Minister, and after many years of struggle Britain and the allies achieved a victory which dramatically altered the course of history.

Importantly, in 1937 the military strength of the allied nations of Europe in comparison with that of Nazi Germany put the allies at a significant advantage. Herein lies the real tragedy of the story: that the mounting conflict could have been solved at this time with a few firm demands, backed up by the movement of a few thousand troops as a clear statement of intent.

By 1938, with the German industrial machine at full capacity, the conflict might still have been resolved in a short space of time with a relatively trivial number of casualties.

Unfortunately, by the time war was declared, Germany’s pace of armament combined with two decades of disarmament and stagnation within the British and French military forces was such that resolution of the conflict resulted in a prolonged struggle against the odds, with horrific bloodshed and loss of life across the world.

The parallel I’ve been working towards in this narrative is, of course, that climate change may also have been easily preventable, at less cost, if tackled promptly and decisively. However, we continue to build fossil fuelled power stations and grow our economy based on oil just as the Nazi’s continued to build battleships, and we continue to make flimsy and ill conceived mitigation plans just as British Prime Minister Anthony Eden trusted Hitler’s initial promise to maintain the peace.

So if we are already too late to stop climate change, are there lessons from Churchill’s conduct of the war that can be applied to our struggle against it?

Continued in part II

We’ve consistently complained about, and argued against bio-fuels on TalkClimateChange. It’s fair to say that we really don’t like them.

However, whilst much of the blame for escalating world food prices that has been heaped upon bio-fuels is fully deserved, I’ve often felt that we’ve tended to overlook other important factors in our criticism. Notably, that food production is one of the most over subsidised and poorly governed industries in the West - factors which have contributed to much human misery long before we started putting food in the tank.

Additionally, I’m also guilty of criticising a ‘cow tax’ earlier this week (see: Most Stupid Idea Ever?) in ignorance of a few facts on the environmental impacts of massive increases in meat production.

With this in mind I was interested to read the following letters in this week’s Economist:

SIR – The economic distortion in food prices caused by subsidies for biofuel (“The silent tsunami”, April 19th) is dwarfed by the distortion caused by subsidies for livestock. In the West we continue to redistribute taxpayers’ money to farmers, but in the process have neglected to price in the massive negative environmental externalities of the livestock industry. As well as overgrazing, soil erosion, desertification and deforestation, manure products with gaseous emissions have also had an effect on the environment; a single cow produces hundreds of litres of methane a day.

Feeding the world’s poor is not an issue of insufficient global resources, but of inefficient resource allocation. We have diverted crops towards livestock, and now to cars, and away from hundreds of millions of hungry mouths.

Milan Shah, London

SIR – To blame policies that support biofuels for the overall high level of food prices is seriously misguided: how much rice, lettuce, or turnip is used for biofuel? Liberalisation in agriculture will increase the average price for food, but also its volatility. If you can’t “stomach” that, then you need to regulate.

Patrick Chatenay, Canterbury, Kent

SIR – Do my fellow well-off liberals appreciate that by insisting on inefficient and expensive “organic” products with lower crop yields we are driving up the price of food?

Eric Evans, Montclair, New Jersey

So should we start to forgive bio-fuels? Are they back in favour with TalkClimateChange?

No. Bio-fuels are bad not only due to their impact on food prices and agricultural sustainability. Bio-fuels are bad because they are an extremely narrow solution to an extremely wide problem.

There is no silver bullet that will allow us to keep the internal combustion engine alive and un-checked forever, allowing politicians to pretend that they are solving the climate crisis whilst pleasing farm lobbies at the same time. The real answers will require some smarter thinking..

Letters reproduced with thanks to The Economist.

“Global warming may ’stop’, scientists predict.” - Daily Telegraph

That’s one way of summarising the paper recently published in the scientific journal Nature documenting recent research by the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany.

This paper has attracted a lot of media attention on both sides of the debate, with some parties using it as proof that greens have been ringing the alarm bells unnecessarily, and other parties defensively disputing the results and raising concerns that the predicted delay in temperature rise will take the wind out of the sails of recent climate treaty progress. (See Daryl’s post on the challenged made by RealClimate.)

Just in case anybody managed to miss it - here are some of the statements made by the report and it’s authors which demonstrate how parts of the report can, and have been taken completely out of context:

“Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic [manmade] warming.“

versus:

“The results were just the initial findings from a new computer model of how the oceans behave over decades and it would be wholly misleading to infer that global warming, in the sense of the enhanced greenhouse effect from increased carbon emissions, had gone away.“

I’ve found the whole debacle interesting, and valuable, for the following reasons:

• The research represents a refinement of existing climate modelling capability - refinements to climate models are desperately needed to improve our decision making capability, as many models are way too approximate to help make sensible decisions about priorities
• The wide spread nature of the reporting brings the above issue to the fore - an issue which has been sorely under-represented by many lobbies
• The research clearly separates the concepts of natural variability from human induced climate change. A better public understanding of this separation might help get rid of some of the sillier arguments, such as “it’s freezing today, global warming must be a scam.”
• The study clearly shows that despite what may appear to be a reduction in the rate of warming since 1998, we are still facing a warming climate

However, not everybody was pleased with the research, and the way in which it has been reported: The gamblers at Real Climate have written “Why did we propose a bet on this forecast? Mainly because we were concerned by the global media coverage which made it appear as if a coming pause in global warming was almost a given fact, rather than an experimental forecast. This could backfire against the whole climate science community if the forecast turns out to be wrong.“

Whilst Climate Progress state that the original paper “has, in fact, been widely misreported” (that means you, Daily Telegraph) based partly on discussions with the lead author, claiming that the report is consistent with the following statements:
• The “coming decade” (2010 to 2020) is poised to be the warmest on record, globally.
• The coming decade is poised to see faster temperature rise than any decade since the authors’ calculations began in 1960.

Ultimately, the research does what it’s supposed to - drive the current state of knowledge forwards. If it is correct, then we know more now than we did before. If it’s found wrong, it will have motivated somebody else to challenge it and prove why, raising the bar once more.

Some will miss-quote the results, and claim that global warming is finished. Others will call those people names. Politicians may use certain gaps in the argument as excuses to delay any real decisions - which they are delaying as far as possible anyway.

Business as usual then..

I’ve been intrigued by the number of different interpretations following Nature’s recent publication predicting a temporary lull in global warming on which Daryl recently commentated.

Right now I am in the midst of putting together a post contrasting the different reactions, and - crucially - the impact this has on the world’s decision making as politics, self interest, pre-determined belief and ideology spectacularly collide.

But since mining the vast amount of material out there is taking longer than expected (as usual) I thought I would share something in the meantime that I found on Brett Anderson’s excellent Global Warming Blog.

Brett has created a listing of predictions made by climate researchers over time showing just how quickly and significantly opinions change - I reproduce some examples of Brett’s list here:

5/1/08….Next decade may see no warming due to changes in ocean currents. link

4/28/08….We could reach the global warming tipping point within 2-3 decades. link

11/15/07…..Climate change accelerating, scientists warn. link.

01/03/08…..2008 will be one of the top ten warmest globally since 1850. link.

12/21/07….More than 400 scientists cast doubt that man-made global warming threatens the planet. link.

04/23/08…….Prepare for an ice age. link.

02/12/08……Sea level rise could be twice as high as current projections. link.

03/27/08…….Expect more warming of extreme temperatures. link.

07/25/07….Huge sea level rises are coming unless we act now! link.

08/10/07…….Global warming will speed up after 2009. link.

04/30/08……..Global warming will stop until at least 2015. link.

09/16/06…..Scientists predict solar downturn, global cooling. link.

11/06/97……Brightening sun is warming earth. link.

04/14/08….Warming will mean fewer, but more powerful tropical cyclones. link.

01/23/08….Warming oceans reducing the # of land-falling U.S. Hurricanes. link.

08/26/06….Russian scientist predicts global cooling in coming decades then a warmer interval. link.

01/31/07….Sydney, Australia will see a 9 degree celsius increase in temp. by 2070. link.

08/13/07…..Expect CONTINUED warming over the next 10 years. (UK Met office). link.

04/27/08….Ten-year forecasts produced by the Met Office Hadley Centre CAPTURE this LEVELLING of global temperatures in the middle of this decade. From the article "Is global warming all over?" link.

Honestly, who knows what to believe?

edie.net writes that farmers in Estonia are to pay green taxes on greenhouse gasses emitted by cows.

I didn’t quite believe it as first either, and so I spent a couple of minutes with Google to confirm that it is indeed true. I also notice that a similar scheme was mooted in New Zealand, but protests killed the idea of pretty quickly.

This particular news has prompted one of those rare occasions where I write on the Red side - what exactly would a cow tax achieve? Are there alternatives to cows? Are there more efficient cows which may be used to reduce emissions? Or are we just supposed to give up on diary products for good?

Whatever next?

Following the discussion on the Stern report’s projections for the economic cost / benefit of tackling climate change, I’d like to introduce a new perspective: The cost of climate change avoidance is irrelevant, since most of today’s avoidance schemes are wholly ineffective anyway.

I make this assertion following UK treasury projections that the “green levy” on motorists announced in this year’s UK Government budget will provide an additional £4 billion to the treasury, but reduce vehicle emissions by 1% (0.06 of the total Co2 emissions of the UK).

Despite the huge sums raised, current investment in energy research is approximately one tenth of the amount spent on space research, and there seems to be no coherent and encompassing plan to make significant cuts in CO2 emissions. If raising £4 billion in taxes achieves so little, then surely lofty goals of reducing emissions by 80% are pure fantasy?

The new motor taxes have obviously been widely criticized, with the shadow Treasury minister describing it as “This is a massive tax hike which will have virtually no impact on the environment,” adding that “Despite their claims, the Government don’t expect this move to change behaviour at all - it is just another eco-stealth tax of the worst kind.”

To which the British government has feebly responded “The Government is committed to protecting the environment and tackling climate change. Part of this commitment involves promoting sustainable environmental improvements through tax and other economic instruments, and incentivising the development and uptake of lower emissions vehicles.”

The exact “sustainable improvements” they refer to are unclear. Motorists taxed off the road will be quick to point out that that the UK’s transport infrastructure is groaning under the strain of existing passenger volumes. Adding to the already disillusioned crowds of British public transport users hardly seems practical at this point.

Will green revenues be used to turn this situation around? Unlikely..

Many people argue that climate change has been embraced by governments as an excuse to collect additional taxes and enact additional legislation that would previously have been untenable. The problem I often have in arguing for climate change action is that they are largely right..

Essentially, the Stern report concluded that the impacts of climate change are likely to far outweigh the cost of avoiding it: The effects of global warming could swallow 20% of the world’s GDP, compared to the 1% of world GDP required to implement measures to avoid the problem.

It is this very issue that polarizes myself and fellow TalkClimateChange writer Daryl, who would no doubt argue that Stern’s numbers are the wrong way around.

Should myself, Red Daryl and Lord Stern find ourselves discussing this over a couple of beers one evening, the former world bank economist would no doubt repeat his warning last week, 18 months after publication of the original report, that his original analysis underestimated the severity of the situation:

“Emissions are growing much faster than we’d thought, the absorptive capacity of the planet is less than we’d thought, the risks of greenhouse gases are potentially bigger than more cautious estimates and the speed of climate change seems to be faster.”

Stern’s warning is based on findings published by a number of polar experts during the past year which claim that the Arctic and Antarctic are losing ice much faster than thought previously, meaning that sea level rises could be more severe than originally suggested by the IPCC. Further studies examining the way in which greenhouse gasses are transferred between land, sea and atmosphere suggest that scientists originally underestimated the speed and strength with which serious climate change will take place.

After getting another round of beers in, my friend Daryl would surely take issue with the economist, arguing most elegantly and articulately along the following lines:

We now have data that proves the earth is not warming, although CO2 levels are rising faster than ever. In fact, the Earth might actually be cooling - depending on who you believe in the temperature record department.

This apparent anomaly is called “natural variability” by the climate faithful, the same phenomenon that I was told repeatedly did not factor into the recent warming trend of the last century. While the recent period 2000-2008 is not long enough to be a trend, looking at the natural inputs to climate I think it is the start of one - my opinion of course - but the writing on the wall says the CO2 levels and the temperature have decoupled.

We cannot even begin to quantify the human impact on temperature from the natural noise in the system - the contribution is so small as to be undefinable. This is what we are really dealing with here, an un-measurable effect and over-inflated climate sensitivity theory.

Following another round of drinks, I would pitch my own opinion: Climate science is not absolute, and I won’t pretend to have a thorough enough understanding of the scientific detail (which very few commentators do) to be able to side comfortably with either argument about the nature and level of any impending catastrophe. An acceptance of some considerable risk is about as far as I’d like to go. I also believe that the 20% / 1% cost of inaction vs cost of action ratio is perhaps a little exaggerated, although managed properly I believe that the additional benefits of a carbon neutral economy outweigh the transition costs.

Summing up, and in consideration of all angles of the argument, taking account of the reliability and source of all claims, and balancing all likely impacts and outcomes, I’d have to say that preventing climate change is an investment we need to make - but make cautiously and with due process.

The discussion would no doubt go on long into the night as we debate the merits of the different scientific arguments, the economic and social impacts of different changes, and the complete impracticality of many proposals. As we finally stagger home after many hours we are unlikely to be in agreement, but it’s an interesting discussion.

That said, I don’t support blanket environmentalism either. I frequently support the blue point of view, based on the understanding that principle can rarely be put before practicality. Many of us enjoy unprecedented standards of living, have long life expectancies and enjoy more leisure time than ever before. The social and economic systems that have provided these benefits are as fragile as our climate and our transition to a low carbon economy must be carefully managed.

With this in mind, I much enjoyed fellow TalkClimateChange writer Daryl’s story “Red, Green and Blue - Living Together in Me” in which he echoes many of my sentiments, with one exception:

That’s correct, it [manmade climate change] does not exist - the minuscule change in global temperature is insignificant to the planet and to the climate in particular. To even think that we can somehow pick our climate and control the patterns of storms and floods by regulating a gas created or consumed by every living thing on the planet is so amazingly arrogant that it defies explanation.

At the risk of demonstrating the arrogance that Daryl talks of, and incurring the wrath of my learned friend in the process, I would like to set out my opposition to this statement and explain the principles at the root of my green attitudes:

I’ll take each of the specific points in Daryl’s statement in turn:

The miniscule change in temperature is insignificant – Yes, insignificant in that a half of one degree may not sound like a big deal. But in terms of the sensitivities of climatic systems to changes in global temperatures, together with the subsequent dependencies of ecological systems upon our climate these small shifts are a big deal. And yes, the temperature has changed before, but not at a time when 6 billion people were living on the planet, whose infrastructure and way of life were heavily dependent on certain sets of climate parameters.

It’s not about picking our climate – Right, I’d like a balmy 30 degrees for 9 months a year, followed by 3 months of cold fresh snow for Christmas and Winter sports, but unfortunately we will never be able to control a force of nature as strong as our climate. What we can do is influence the rate of change by reducing the vast quantities of greenhouse gas that we currently pump into our atmosphere. The principle here is not so much of control, but of reduction in negative influence.

By regulating a gas created or consumed by every living thing on the planet – “CO2 is not a poison, it’s plant food” is a favourite climate skeptic expression. It’s also very true, except that it conveniently ignores the greenhouse effect - the physics of which are easy to understand: increasing concentrations of CO2 increase the infrared opacity of the atmosphere, reducing the amount of heat which can escape into space. Yes, most of the CO2 in our atmosphere is a result of natural processes, but there exists a delicate natural balance between CO2 producers and consumers. The ever increasing rate at which we are releasing additional CO2 through the burning of fossil fuels has resulted in a 31% increase in its atmospheric concentration since the dawn of the industrial era, upsetting the natural balance and accentuating the greenhouse effect.

Ready for the backlash

Skeptics may easily pour scorn over these assumptions – citing research criticizing the physics of the greenhouse effect based on studies of the upper troposphere, citing temperature patterns which demonstrate anomalies in our climate patters unexplained by contemporary climate models, and disputing current global temperature measurements.

We could stay up all night to argue each specific point, conceding and gaining ground on each individual issue. However, the breadth of the topic and the range of scientific disciplines that it encompasses are such that no one person can claim to fully understand the complete truth, and it is for this reason that I believe a more macro level approach to its analysis is required.

Therefore, my position on the green side of the fence is based on the following three key principles;

Dependence – We are critically dependant on our climate. The production of food, the design of housing, the availability of land and the flow of water are all dependant on our Earth’s weather patterns. The level of this dependence is not always absolute, but is such that accommodating the changes required to mitigate shifts in our climate will be expensive and slow to implement.

Exploitation – Extracting billions of tons of material from the ground, burning it and releasing its stored carbon into the atmosphere, whilst simultaneously exploiting every natural resource on the planet to the limit in order to feed a global society that has ever increasing consumption as a core objective cannot continue indefinitely without consequence.

Management – The processes by which we manage our environment are at best inconsistent and at worst fundamentally flawed. We consistently pander to narrow interests, fail to take a global view, and have little concept of the future when making important decisions concerning the future of the resources that sustain us on this planet. This has to change.

Closing thoughts

Am I an alarmist? Am I ignoring important facts? Am I naive? Am I too gloomy? Or am I just plain wrong?

Well I am almost certainly not 100% correct – nobody is – but based on my best judgment these principles provide enough reason to take action and make changes.

The real debate, of course, is on the precise nature of these changes and our path towards them. Managing this change may be the most complex undertaking of mankind to date, and with so much at stake it is arguably the most critical. It is for this reason, that TalkClimateChange enjoys the views of those such as Daryl who approach the problem from different angles, challenge our assumptions and critique our proposals.

The criticality of the situation deserves such debate, and the proposals and beliefs stated on this website are much stronger for it. But I still think Daryl is wrong about global warming..