Power and Protest/”People Power”: (Social Movements in the 20th
Century)
(sm8) The Environmental Movement.
Part 2.
Notes on man-made climate change, global warming, the ‘sceptics’ etc.
Links to related documents:
Imagining Other
Contents Page.
Environmentalism
(pp22) (As a philosophy)
The
Environmental Movement (Part 1)
Part
3 - updates other than for climate change (sm8 part 3)
Part 4 - environmental issues in
Australia (sm8 part 4)
Part 5 - Val Plumwood
and the crocodile (sm8 part 5)
Contents:
1. Updates... #updates
(since 2009)
2. Response to a sceptic’s points on Global Warming as a
‘disaster myth’ (2012): #response
(i) No scientific consensus?
(ii) Sun spots etc.
(iii) Earth’s tilt/wobble.
(iv) CO2 is heavy.
(v) Volcanoes.
(vi) Famines not caused by climate change.
(vii) ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’
(viii) Polar ice is not melting.
(ix) The coalition government’s position. The role of
the oil industry and other interests.
(x) A response: who is saying what?
(xi) Conclusion: the ‘big picture’.
References for ‘Response’: #references.
3. Notes on climate sceptic David Bellamy (2011) - including arguments about ‘bias’ at the BBC, and ‘who
are the sceptics?’ #Bellamy
4. Notes from 2007 – 9: #notes
from 2007 - 2009
(i) Brief History of Climate Change (from Earthmatters, published by
Friends of the Earth, Summer 2009).
(ii)
(iii) Climate Change is
killing people… says Dr Simon Lewis.
(iv) Review by Philip Ball of book (Obs 15.11.09) by Christopher Booker
‘The Real Global Warming Disaster.’
(v) George Monbiot, Guardia 03.11.09 on Clive James’ scepticism.
(vi) Jonathan Friedland on targets for CO2.
(vii) ‘Green marketing’ – Shell and CO2 emissions.
(viii) George Monbiot on CO2 targets, feedback etc.
(ix) How to measure CO2 footprint of firms.
(x) George Monbiot reports (10.04.07) on how political pressure was
brought to bear on the IPCC etc.
(xi) Other points (letters to Guardian).
5. “The Great Global Warming
Swindle” (TV programme, 2007)
Responses
by Robin McKie and George Monbiot: #Great Global Warming
Swindle
*******************
1. Updates (notes since 2009):
Interesting that very
young children (as young as 3) can distinguish intention from accident –
problem is that cc is caused without intention... We construct social narratives
to deal with the issue e.g. we find someone to blame (e.g. oil industry,
capitalists etc whilst for denialists it is the leftist conspiracy etc). We
need a narrative of shared common purpose.
Sep 2014: Reviews of Naomi
Klein’s latest book: This Changes Everything.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/22/this-changes-everything-review-naomi-klein-john-gray
Gray is
his (usual?) pessimistic self: Klein’s argument is that corporate elites are in
denial (in fact the opponents of climate change are more on the ball when they
reject the predictions of catastrophe)
The first of the book’s three sections details how the environmental movement has been derailed by the financial crisis and the aftermath of austerity, together with the corporate promotion of climate denial. In the last of the three Klein deals with the movements that are springing up in a wide variety of contexts to challenge the neoliberal order. The second section, dealing with what Klein calls “magical thinking”, is in many ways the core of the book. Here she considers technical fixes for climate change, including schemes of geoengineering. In one of the more grandiose schemes, dimming the rays of the sun with sulphate-spraying helium balloons has been proposed in order to mimic the cooling effect on the atmosphere of large volcanic eruptions. The risks of such technical mega-fixes are obvious. As any climate scientist will tell you, we simply don’t know enough about the Earth system to be able to re-engineer it safely. Yet as Klein notes, such madcap schemes will surely be attempted if abrupt climate change gets seriously under way. [Does this means she accepts them?]
Gray argues the elites do not know what they are doing – and the chief danger today is from geopolitics as well as the unpredictable results of neoliberalism
She discusses ‘extractivism’ which started when we burnt coal on a large scale. She doesn’t tackle population...
Gray’s conclusion: The Earth is vastly older and stronger than the human animal. Even spraying sulphuric acid into the stratosphere will not trouble the planet for long. The change that is under way is no more than the Earth returning to equilibrium – a process that will go on for centuries or millennia whatever anyone does. Rather than denying this irreversible shift, we’d be better off trying to find ways of living with it.
From ? Sunday Times end Sep: by Camilla Cavendish: over-determined to make everyone a villain (even charities and some ‘greens’ – also the reinsurance industry, who have actually been warning about climate change for decades according to Cavendish) so gives the impression that climate change is a ‘leftist conspiracy.’ Not as shocking as her previous books, though it ought to be; good on why we find it difficult to accept (we move fast, climate change moves slowly) – and on mindless consumerism (but why do we crave material goods? We are not just victims of multinationals surely? Cavendish: ‘humans are deeply competitive, acquisitive beings who might retain those characteristics even if all corporations were abolished’ [not so!!].
Important: Reduce, re-use, recycle has not worked because we have only focused on re-cycling, since it allows us to go on shopping ‘as long as we put the refuse in the right box’.
Too simplistic to say ‘the elites have stolen all the power’? She praises the public sector (but Cavendish: the private sector innovates, invents and invests), and needs to explore what is meant by ‘a completely different economic system’. .
Dec. 2013:
VANDANA SHIVA quotes from an interview on women
and the environment/climate change etc (from Democracy Now! By Amy Goodman http://www.alternet.org/environment/jane-goodall-and-vandana-shiva-why-women-are-key-solving-climate-crisis?akid=11269.1136917.uAbe6M&rd=1&src=newsletter935975&t=16&paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark)
:
‘You know, a lot of the power
of the rulers comes from what Bacon said, the marriage of knowledge with power,
a particular kind of knowledge, a very mechanistic knowledge that defined
nature as dead—and, on the other side, women as passive. So, the exception to
the rulers, in this case, is about resurrecting the knowledges that are about
the living Earth and our tradition.’
On the legacy of the First Nations: ‘To me, this
is the United States of America, traditions that are totally submerged. So my
commitment has been, first and foremost, to really, you know, do a resurrection
of hidden knowledges and world views, which is what women bring to this
discussion’.
On ‘corporate patriarchy’: ‘People have knowledge. It might not be recognized by
the dominant system, which I call "corporate patriarchy" now. It was
"capitalist patriarchy" when Chipko happened, because the
corporations weren’t such big players in our lives. They were contained by all
the rules of democracy. And they’ve knocked those rules off bit by bit. The
other thing I always do is build the movement simultaneously, because I don’t
think you can fight these battles top to top. You just can’t. So, for every
study we’ve done and every piece of research we’ve done, one, we’ve counted a
paradigm. I mean, all my work on the green revolution—it was assumed the green
revolution produces more—found out, no, it doesn’t. Produces more commodities,
but commodities are not food. And then we build the movement. When I came to
know about how intellectual property rights were being put into the World Trade
Organization, I traveled the length and breadth of the country sitting and
holding workshops with farmers, who then rose, and 500,000 came to the street.
We’re talking about '92, before Seattle.
So it's a combination of major grassroots
mobilization as well as dealing with the paradigm wars.
And I think the challenge of this summit is
to put forth another paradigm about how to live on the Earth—what the Earth is
first, she’s not a—you know, she’s not there to be engineered, she’s not bits
of dead rock; she is the living Earth that we were reminded about—and also, through
that, bring forth another leadership for another world, because we don’t want
leadership in that rotten world of destruction. It’s not worth it anyway. It’s
not going to last too long. We want the seventh generation, cultivation of
leadership for the future. And it’s interesting, the seventh generation logic
that Janice talked about, that every action we take should bring to our minds
the seventh generation, in India we have the same, seventh generation. That was
what civilizations took care of. Uncivilized people rape the Earth for today.
The first thing is to bring it down from the
stratosphere. I think one reason the climate movement on the grassroots has
taken longer to grow than movements around biodiversity conservation or water,
etc., is because everyone got so overwhelmed with the parts per million, and
everyone was looking at the graphs and how they climb and the hockey stick. And
looking at the hockey stick is something that is out of control. There’s
nothing you can do. But every emission begins on the ground. And every
mitigation and adaptation action is on the ground. That’s why I wrote my
book, Soil Not Oil. I was starting to feel worried that not only
were we only dealing with the IPCC reports, that had kind of become
the only place you could act, and go to the climate summits, but we were
missing the biggest piece of where do greenhouse gas emissions come from.
You might remember the Kyoto Protocol was
supposed to reduce emissions by 5 percent, and by the time we went to
Copenhagen, emissions had increased 16 percent, because the solution in Kyoto
was allow the polluters to trade in emissions and buy credits from those who
don’t pollute. Not only did this make big money for the polluters, I know
Arcelor—the Mittal family, which bought up all the steel plants, including the
ones in Eastern Europe and France, he made a billion a year just through these
emissions trading. But worse, because it all became such a racket, all kinds of
really devastating activities started to be treated as Clean Development
Mechanisms. One example is the fact that this year, 15th, 16th, 17th of June,
we had the most intensive rains, and a glacial lake burst, and flooding like
I’ve never seen in my life took place. Twenty thousand people have died in my
region, the region where the Chipko movement started. The damage was
accelerated by hydro projects, which were all getting Clean Development
Mechanism money, in addition to all the benefits government gives.
Agriculture, industrial globalized
agriculture is 40 percent of the greenhouse gases. We can do something about it
today. If you notice, the official agenda is biochar. Biochar is burning
biomass without oxygen, basically how charcoal is made. That’s not what the
soil lives on. The soil lives on humus. But biochar is another place to make
huge profit, whereas humus is just giving back to the Earth what we’ve received
from her. And I think the word "humus" has such power, because I
think humanity comes from it, humility comes from it, humidity comes from it—everything
that gives life and creates our humanity comes from it. So, even though it
might look a bit strange, but I think creating organic farms and organic
gardens is the single biggest climate solution, but it’s also the single
biggest food security solution. And given the economic crisis, both in this
country—you watch southern Europe, you see the riots in Greece and Italy and
Spain, and I work with youth, unemployed youth, in all of these places, one of
the things I’m telling them all is go back to the land. You know, the banks
messed up your lives. The governments have given up on you with their austerity
programs. But the Earth will never abandon you. She is inviting you to be
co-creators and co-producers so that we can solve all these multiple problems,
which are interconnected.
And I think if there’s one thing women can
bring to this discussion, in addition to those beautiful words that Jane used
of love and compassion, the capacity to have compassion is the capacity to see
connections. That’s the disease that the deeply patriarchal mindset has not
been able to overcome, that they can’t transcend fragmentation and separation
and thinking in silos, and, worse, thinking as if we are separate from the
Earth, and therefore, as masters and conquerors, there’s just another
experiment of control that you need the freedom to have. And I think we need to
give a message saying, no, the Earth was not made by you, therefore you can’t
fool around further. You’ve already messed up enough. Stop these
geo-engineering experiments. We had a discussion on Democracy Now!, I remember, once about this. We need to
tell them this world is about life, not just about your profits and your bottom
line, so don’t reduce everything to a commodity, and don’t financialize every
function of the Earth and all her gifts. So I think this is really the moment
for another discussion, another thinking. And in all of this, the beautiful
thing is, the concrete solutions are the most radical ones. The abstract has
had its day.
Climate Change:
(From Alternet) London, 3 December -
Governments have set the wrong target to limit climate change. The goal at
present - to limit global warming to a maximum of 2°C higher than the average
for most of human history - “would have consequences that can be described
as disastrous”, say 18 scientists in a review paper in the journal PLOS One.
The scientists study,
uncompromisingly entitled “Assessing ‘dangerous climate change’: required
reduction of carbon emissions to protect young people, future generations and
nature”
With a 2°C increase, “sea level rise
of several meters could be expected,” they say. “Increased climate extremes,
already apparent at 0.8°C warming, would be more severe. Coral reefs and
associated species, already stressed with current conditions, would be
decimated by increased acidification, temperature and sea level rise.
The paper’s lead author is James Hansen, now at Columbia
University, New York, and the former NASA scientist who in 1988 put global
warming on the world’s front pages by telling a US government committee that
“It's time to stop waffling so much and say the evidence is pretty strong that
the greenhouse effect is here.”
Hansen’s fellow authors include the
economist Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia
University and the biologist Camille
Parmesan, of the University of Plymouth in the UK and the University of
Texas at Austin, USA.
Their argument is that humanity and
nature - “the modern world as we know it” - is adapted to what scientists call
the Holocene climate that has existed for more than 10,000 years - since the
end of the Ice Age, the beginnings of agriculture and the first settlement of
the cities.
Warming of 1°C relative to 1880–1920
keeps global temperature close to the Holocene range, but warming of 2°C, could
cause “major dislocations for civilization.”
The scientists case is that most political
debate addresses the questions of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but does
not and perhaps cannot factor in the all potentially dangerous unknowns – the
slow feedbacks that will follow the thawing of the Arctic, the release of
frozen reserves of methane and carbon dioxide in the permafrost, and the
melting of polar ice into the oceans.
23rd Sep 2013. 5th
Report of IPCC.
Observer, 23.09.13: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/21/climate-change-ipcc-global-warming.
Very important report - why Oh why is doubt/scepticism/denial increasing?
Rolling Stone article Sep 2013, going through how deniers have attacked
scientists who warn about man-made climate change:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warming-is-very-real-20130912
- includes an interesting series of comments. One has a diagram showing CO2
levels and temperature going back into prehistoric times, and apparently
showing temperatures going down while CO2 rises etc. I am sure there must be an
answer to this...
3rd Sep 2013. Michael
Brooks (‘Science’ New Statesman 9 – 15 Aug 2013):
Nature
Geoscience 28th July reports that clouds scatter light back into
space (as well as down to earth, which is why they look bright). On Venus, CO2
built up so much that became a hot, barren planet (a runaway greenhouse effect
in other words). We are a wet planet and so our clouds could prevent this. A
leaked IPCC report, which was publicised in the Economist, says the clouds may
slow down global warming. Whereas they had previously said that 445 – 490 ppm
of CO2 were likely to lead to a temperature rise of 2 to 2.4 degrees, they now
say the likely rise would be 1.3 – 1.7 degrees.
However,
while the Economist says that ‘some IPCC scientists think the projected rise in
CO2 levels might not have a big warming effect as was once thought,’ Brooks
points out that we have now discovered that methane is leaking from gas pipes
in urban areas in the US. Boston has 3,000 leaks in their pipelines – methane
is 25 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
2nd Sep 2013.
Guardian editorial on climate change – ‘There is no serious argument within climate science
about the link between carbon dioxide levels and temperature. Between 1970 and
1998 the planet warmed at an average of 0.17C per decade, and from 1998 to 2012
at 0.04C per decade. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, however,
continued to rise and are now higher than at any time in the last 800,000
years.
Twelve
of the 14 warmest years on record have occurred since 2000; the last two years
have been marked by catastrophic floods in Australia and record-breaking
temperatures in the US; and the loss of north polar ice has accelerated at such
a rate that climate modelers expect the Arctic Ocean to be routinely ice-free in
September after 2040.’
These
points are made in the light of the suggestion that the recent slowing in the
rate of warming is due to cyclic cooling of the oceans. It may be that the deep
oceans are warming. But there is no room for complacency: the greenhouse gases
emitted 20 years ago have still to make their effect – and the energy in heated
water in the oceans has to come out eventually.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/01/climate-change-warm-words-cool-waters
The comments following this
are both fascinating and depressing. Some fascinating specific points, plus
some (plenty of!) abuse and childishness. One good i.e. serious piece has the
following link: http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2013/08/learning-from-the-hiatus/
1st Sep 2013. Observer reports that Pacific atolls are at risk from
rising sea levels:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/01/pacific-islands-climate-change
1st June 2013. Book:
The Burning Question: we can’t burn half the world’s oil, coal, and gas, so how
do we quit? By
Mike Berners-Lee and Duncan Clark (Profile). Reviewed Guardian 01.06.13. Share
prices in oil etc are still high, even though we ought to be stopping
production – shareholders are gambling that we won’t. Global carbon emissions
are increasing by about 3% a year – and non-carbon substitutes are having no
effect. Solutions? Prof David McKay, chief scientific advisor at DECC says ‘You
need almost everything, and you need it very fast - right now.’
These
authors support nuclear (and the reviewer says the French cut 80% of their
carbon emissions by nuclear in the ‘80s) and CCS, and to work out a way of
doing photosynthesis to produce fuel (leaving natural photosynthesis for food
growth).
30th April 2013. CO2 likely to reach record
levels, according to US government’s Earth Systems Research Laboratory in
Hawaii. Current readings are 399.72 ppm, at peak, and average 398.5. Hourly
readings above 400 ppm have been recorded 6 times in the last week. Levels have
been rising for 200 years – they were about 280 ppm at the start of the
industrial revolution, and 316 ppm when the Mauna Loa observatory opened. We
could hit 450 in a matter of decades.
5th April 2013. New
president of World Bank calls for a bold and workable plan on climate change.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/04/world-bank-chief-poverty-hiv
The two biggest problems facing the world he says are poverty and climate
change. He expressed alarm that global temperatures could increase by 4 degrees
by 2060, and asked the leaders of the environment movement “where’s the plan?”
“We need to present [a plan]
to the population and say there are going to be trade-offs and life is going to
change a bit, but how much do you love your kids. The scientific evidence on
climate change is overwhelming, and if you believe the science it is about
family values. It’s not about your great grandchildren, it’s about your children.”
Jan 2013: awards for science blogs
manipulated by climate sceptics –
August 2012 – excellent account by George
Monbiot of how the melting of the Arctic sea ice (which is happening much
faster than expected – and faster than IPCC predicted) is probably affecting the
weather: the north polar jet stream normally functions as a barrier between the
cold wet weather to the north and the warmer drier weather to the south; its
meandering (the Rossby waves) is made steeper and wider by arctic heating (see
a paper in Geophysical Research Letters). Thus we get stuck with either wet
weather or warmer weather for longer periods than usual. See: http://www.monbiot.com/2012/08/27/the-heat-of-the-moment/
- for fully referenced version of the Guardian article of 28th Aug.
2012.
This piece does need updating
itself, though, since the Russian company Gazprom has decided not to try to
extract shale gas in the Arctic after all. Victory for Greenpeace!! However,
one of the reasons given is that US gas from shale is making the price drop...
(You win some, you lose some?)
See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/29/shtokman-russia-arctic-gas-shale
Update: Monday May 7th 2012 from Guardian, Leo Hickman
reports on Diageo (the drinks company) withdrawing support from the Heartland
Institute because of its advocacy of climate scepticism, when it ran a series
of adverts comparing people concerned about climate change to mass murderers
such as the Unabomber... General Motors has also withdrawn support, and
Microsoft (which has provided software) has rejected its stance. See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/06/diageo-end-funding-heartland-institute?INTCMP=SRCH
October 2011:
Sir David Attenborough’s TV series Frozen Planet gives his support for concern
about global warming. See the interview with Susanna Rustin:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/oct/21/david-attenborough-frozen-planet-climate-change
24.07.11: Robin McKie on bad reporting of science by the media: too much
focus on ‘fringe’ views:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/24/science-reporting-climate-change-sceptics
14.06.11: John Vidal on extreme weather – we had the warmest
spring for 100 years followed by the coldest winter in 300 years. In 2010 Eastern
Europe and Russia scorched – an extra 50,000 people died as temperatures stayed
6 degrees above normal for many weeks – crops devastated, wild fires broke out
– the hottest summer in 500 years. Freak weather events are occurring more
frequently.
Guardian May
2011: food prices already rising
because of global warming (Damian
Carrington)
26.12.10
Robin McKie article – we have known
about the danger of CO2 since David Keeling (climate scientist) installed
measuring devices on Mauna Lee in 1958. He found rising and falling
corresponding to trees in winter or summer – when he started the levels were
around 315 ppm, and today they are nearer 390 – and will touch 400 around 2015.
Climate sceptics have never refuted the Keeling curve. In 1990 we reached 350, which
many scientists believe was the most the planet could take without suffering
climate change. We have seen the average global temperature rise by 0.8 degrees
C, and if we stopped all emissions tomorrow they would still rise another 0.2.
If 2 degrees is reached then 3 billion people will suffer water shortages, and
global food production will be disrupted (says the UN).
See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/26/robin-mckie-carbon-emissions-up
Robin McKie: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/robinmckie?INTCMP=SRCH
Campaigners believe we should aim to restrict
emissions, but international agreement has only been found on temperature rise,
which is less likely to be effective.
Dec 2010: James Hansen, NASA scientist, in defence of 114 activists who planned break into
Eon coal-fired plant near Nottingham last Easter: the UK is the biggest
polluter per person because of its early industrialisation, so the onus is on
UK to lead the way and phase out coal-burning plants. ‘’We are going to have to leave fossil fuels
in the ground. The biggest one to leave in the ground is coal.’ (Tim Webb, G
30.11.10)
Nov 2010:
(John Vidal, G 24.11.10) UN report by 30
leading scientists says the pledges made by 80 countries to reduce CC
emissions fall far short of what is needed to reduce temperature rise by 2
degrees C. If they do all they promised (i.e. best case scenario – things could
work out worse), would still be a 5 bn tonne per year gap (equivalent to
emissions from all the world’s vehicles in one year).
If nothing is done the gap
would be 12 bn by 2010 – equivalent to all the world’s power stations
emissions.
Many countries committed to
max. temp. rise of 2 degrees by 2080 – but this means today’s 56 bn tonnes must
be reduced to 44 bn by 2020.
More than half the world’s countries
are pressing for max 1.5% rise – which would need annual cuts of 4 – 5% after
2010 (UN environment programme chief scientist Joseph Alcamo). Above a 2
degrees rise would mean more loss of icecaps, and more extreme weather events.
The report will add weight to
developing countries’ calls for more ambitious cuts by developed countries.
Chris Huhne says EU must accept 30% cut by 2020.
3rd Oct 2010 (Obs.) Stewart Brand: Whole
Earth Discipline (Atlantic Books) –
compiled Whole Earth catalogue in ‘60s; founded one of the first online
communities the WELL in 1985. Suggests we need more cities, nuclear power, GM
food, planet-wide geo-engineering to avoid disaster from global warming. Says
the green movement may be going this way. More people should get involved in
technology to ensure we use good technology to undo the harm of bad tech.
- but see George Monbiot on
Brand and
Sep 21st 2010, George Monbiot:
Climate summit to be held in Cancun,
Mexico: not likely to produce any results – ‘still huge differences between
developed and developing countries’ (Chinese official). Kyoto (only agreement
so far) expires in 2012 – it took 5 years to negotiate and 8 more years to come
into force. ‘Sandbag’ estimates carbon saved during second phase (supposed to
really get going in this phase) will be 1/3 of 1%.
Damian Carrington adds: Only
32m tonnes of pollution permits will need to be surrendered to meet the cap – a
tiny fraction of the 1.9bn tonnes of emissions covered by the ETS each year.
This saving is the result of the economic crisis having driven down economic
activity while the caps remain at the same level.
(GM): Recession has led to
rise in number of carbon permits waiting to be used. No likelihood of lowering
the caps either. Targets achieved are unreal anyway, since exclude net
emissions that arise from outsourcing (and buying back manufactured products),
also exclude tourism, shipping and aviation!!! If these were included our emissions
would have risen by 48%. Govt claims we have reduced emissions since 1990 by
19% when really we have increased by about 29%.
US Congress is loaded with
republican sceptics – only Mike Castle is not, but he was defeated by Christine
O’Donnell (Tea party!).
Meanwhile first eight months
of 2010 were as hot as previously recorded hottest eight months (1998) – even
though El Nino was warming in 1998 and cooling at present…
‘Greens are a puny force by
comparison to industrial lobby groups, the cowardice of governments, and the
natural human tendency to deny what we don’t want to see.’
2001: (?)
IPCC has revised its estimate for rise in temp of globe by 2100, because of positive feedback, from + 5.8C to +
6.4C. Melting ice-sheets: these reflect
nearly 80% of sunlight – if become soil/darker water, role decreases. Oceans,
soils and trees absorb half CO2 that humans produce. Oceans: phytoplankton
dying off as oceans warm. Soil will reach maximum absorption levels.
2. Response
to a sceptic’s points on Global Warming as a ‘disaster myth’:
(i) There is
not agreement among scientists that global warming is happening:
NASA has a graph on their website: http://climate.nasa.gov/keyIndicators/
which takes a mean temperature between 1951 and 1980 and plots the changes
since 1880. It shows that around 1880 the temperature was 0.4 (degrees Celsius)
below the mean, and now it is
approaching 0.6 above. You can either
say this is a 0.6 rise or I guess you could say it is 1 degree. I have seen
other figures of 0.8 (Robin McKie – science editor of the Observer newspaper)
or even more... and if, as many argue, the warming is a trend, then mean
temperatures are likely to carry on increasing. There is a great danger if the
upwards curve is, as Al Gore and others argue, exponential (see below).
These increases may appear small, but:
(a) only a few degrees (5 – 10) drop would produce an
ice age, and Robin McKie, drawing on UN sources, says that an increase of 2
degrees would lead to 3 billion people suffering water shortages, and global
food production being disrupted:
See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/26/robin-mckie-carbon-emissions-up
(b) taking a global average, the 20 warmest years have
occurred since the 1970s, and the 10 warmest years have occurred in the last 12
years (NASA) – the rate of change seems
to be accelerating (see the point below on exponential growth). However, an
increase in global temperatures does not mean that everywhere gets warmer! There is a difference between weather and
climate, and the weather effects of global warming are not easy to predict –
though Al Gore (An Inconvenient Truth, Bloomsbury 2006 – see point 9 below)
lists not just glaciers melting but also some places getting more rain, some
having droughts, more hurricanes and other extreme weather events; the more
frequent closing of the Thames flood barrier etc. The Association of British
Insurers has pointed out that claims from storm and flood damage doubled
between 1998 and 2003 (to over £6 bn) (sorry, I forget my source for this!).
A piece in New York Times
(Sat Apr 15th 2012) asks whether the more variable weather we now
see in the northern hemisphere is a result of climate change. In March parts of
the US were very cold, after a freak heat wave – in France it was the other way
round...
An IPCC report issued in late
March suggested there is a link, and that climate change is leading to
increased frequency of heat waves, and of heavy rainfall, and coastal flooding.
The most likely explanation is that this is connected to the melting of Arctic
ice, which has shrunk 40% since the early ‘80s – an area the size of Europe is
now water, which does not reflect heat away from the surface as ice does. Dr
Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University (quoted in the NYT article) says the
question is ‘how can it not be’ (how can the loss of sea ice not be affecting
atmospheric circulation). In particular, the heat is probably affecting the jet
stream, producing ‘kinks’ which disrupt the normal temperatures.
However, some scientists
dispute the link with climate change (loc cit): John R. Christy, University of
Alabama, says it is simply down to the very dynamic nature of weather. Martin
P. Hoerling, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration analyst, says what
is happening in the
But please note: these are arguments about the exact effects
of climate change/global warming, not about the underlying trends. The same
point needs to be made with reference to the criticisms of the IPCC report
which claimed glaciers would melt quickly: this section was written by a
separate group to the scientists who measured temperature change etc, and whose
task was to speculate about the impact. No errors have been pointed out in the
scientific summaries.
(c) the crucial point is that previous rises/falls
(going back 600,000 years – see below) have correlated very clearly with the
amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and the vast majority of scientists believe
the major cause of the increased global temperature is increased CO2, not other
factors you note such as:
(ii) Other
things, specifically sun spots are the cause of any ‘global warming’:
There has been a low
level of sunspot activity between 2005 and 2010 – the lowest levels recorded
during the satellite era. This means that the earth has been absorbing less
energy from this source – recent (2011/12) calculations by the Goddard
laboratory for NASA (cited on the NASA website – see References below, and in
Hansen’s book) show about 0.25 watts per square kilometer. But the earth’s
‘energy imbalance’ (the difference between energy absorbed by the earth and
energy returned to space) is 0.45 watts per square kilometer, that is: there is
more energy generated inside the system than the amount that exits (a positive
imbalance). Temperatures have been going up – but solar activity cannot be a
cause of this.
Solar activity varies over 11 year cycles – usually
pretty regularly, despite the latest dip (see the next point).
(iii)
Another key factor is the orbit and tilt/wobble of the planet:
There are of course natural cycles which affect the
climate (including variations in solar irradiation etc) – and no proponents of man-made
climate change would deny this! The point is that these are natural changes,
and pretty much predictable (because
their patterns are usually regular), which work over long cycles – whereas the
pumping of CO2 into the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels is not natural,
and can be shown to have affected the composition of the atmosphere
dramatically in a short time:
CO2 levels are now at 392 ppm (parts per million)
according to NASA. This is the highest they have been for 650,000 years –
previous highest levels have been around 300 ppm. The increase was first
measured by David Keeling in 1957 (Hansen p 116) – and he also noticed a 24
hour cycle as trees and plants absorbed CO2 during the day and gave off CO2
during the night. He also found that there were variations near to human
habitation – which is why he then made more measurements at a remote spot at
Mauna Loa, Hawaii. His measurements, which have never been refuted, (Robin
McKie) show that CO2 increased from around 310 ppm to over 390 between 1957 and
2010. (*) There is no doubt that the levels will continue to rise unless major
changes are made in the way energy is generated. Moreover, CO2 remains in the
atmosphere for some time so that there is a time-lag: even if we start reducing
our output now, the results will not be noticeable immediately.
Scientists believe it is important to reduce the level
to 350 ppm to restore the energy equilibrium of the planet.
(*) This is a rapid change over a short period of time
– and the rate of change seems to be accelerating. This is probably what is
called exponential growth – like a
compound interest savings account where the amount of increase each year goes
up if the interest is left in. However, in nature exponential growth is very
dangerous: nothing serious seems to be happening at first, but when the change
gets more rapid we get to a ‘tipping point’ beyond which it is impossible to
reverse the change. (The example I usually use to illustrate this is a pond in
a garden: if weeds, say, are growing exponentially this means that the time in
which it takes them to double the space they take up gets shorter and shorter.
It is quite possible for weeks of growth to occur before the weeds cover half
the pond, but they will then fill it entirely overnight! Your fish will
suffocate before you have done anything about it.)
(iv) CO2 is
a heavy gas and falls out of the atmosphere:
There is a CO2 or ‘carbon’ cycle – described by Hansen
on pp 118 ff: plants, the oceans and the land act as ‘reservoirs’ for CO2 (plants/trees
hold 600 billion metric tons [gigatons or GtC] primarily as wood in trees,
soils contain 1,500 GtC, and the ocean holds 40,000 dissolved GtC – the
atmosphere holds about 800 GtC as CO2).
Again, we know there are natural cycles such as the glacial to
interglacial periods due to the movement of the earth in space, and when the
ocean becomes colder it holds more CO2, so the atmosphere then holds less and
this leads to more cooling. When snow and ice melt, due to the earth’s changing
orbit or tilt, then more CO2 is released, leading to more warming. These are
examples of positive feedback – and Hansen says they account for nearly half
the interglacial global temperature change.
The crucial point, once again, is how human activity
is interfering with these natural cycles.
(v) Other
natural phenomena such as volcanoes affect the picture:
Yes
Hansen in fact identifies no fewer than 9
‘climate forcings’ – factors that affect the climate (p 6):
- CO2,
- other
greenhouse gases,
- ozone,
- black
carbon aerosols,
- reflective
aerosols,
- aerosol
cloud changes,
- land cover
change,
- the sun
- and
volcanoes.
Hansen gives
precise quantifications for the different amount of effect each has... and concludes that CO2 is the most significant. This is
neither a ‘myth’ nor what you call ‘denial’ (!) but scientific work based on
real, detailed and thorough measurements.
(vi) Global warming is being unfairly used by such scientists as those
at
(i) I am not aware of any
environmentalists who would say climate change is the only factor in food shortages. UNEP (UN Environmental Programme)
did suggest that the Darfur problem originated in climate change, and it seems
to me incontrovertible that failure of rainfall causes crops to fail. Of
course, civil conflict is a crucial factor as well in these crises, and in some
parts of the world civil war has aggravated food shortage, (see John Vidal,
Guardian 22.07.11, on the contribution of climate change + war to famine in
Somalia) but would you want to rule out climate change altogether?
(ii) Please remember that
‘climategate’ originated when the computer at EAU’s Climate Research Unit was
hacked into (by whom?) in order to release emails, which then were publicised
by Fox News and other anti-global warming media. Eight committees have since
investigated the CRU emails, and no evidence has been found of fraud or
scientific misconduct. The scientific
findings are not in doubt. The researchers did ‘fail to display the proper
degree of openness’ in responding to queries about their data. I suspect they
were bombarded with requests from would-be deniers and simply lost patience.
Every time I encounter a climate-change sceptic I get the same feeling!
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy
(vii) The film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was so full of errors that is was
banned from being shown in schools:
The film has not been banned, and the court that was
asked to ban it did not disagree with its central theme:
BBC (online) News 11th
Oct 2007: ‘the judge said he had no complaint about Gore’s central thesis that
climate change was happening and was being driven my emissions from humans.’ He
had reservations about 9 specific points which were not backed up by sufficient
scientific agreement, and said the film should have guidance notes accompanying
it to draw pupils’ attention to these points.
‘The government has sent the film to all secondary schools in England,
and the administrations in Wales and Scotland have done the same.’ A 60 page
guidance document now goes with it.
A campaign to stop the
government sending DVDs to all secondary schools as part of a climate change
package was started by a parent governor Stewart Dimmock (a member of the
[right-of-centre] New Party). The judge found 9 errors including: the claim
that polar bears have drowned because they have had to swim further (some have
died in storms); the claim that sea levels would rise by 6 metres in the near
future (it would take millennia said the judge); there was also ‘not sufficient
evidence’ that global warming caused hurricane Katrina; the melting of snows on
Mt Kilimanjaro, or evaporation of Lake Chad.
The book has many, many examples of the effects of
global warming, and it seems significant to me that the court ruled that only
the specific ones cited were doubtful.
(viii) Polar ice is not melting:
You can check out details of
all this on the NASA website, which has a ‘Global Ice Viewer’ that illustrates
dynamically the changes that have been taking place - e.g. the annual minimum amount of Arctic ice (it
shrinks in the summer and grows in the winter) has been decreasing by 11.2% per
decade over the past 30 years, and in 2007 reached the lowest recorded level.
Greenland’s glaciers are
losing 100 – 250 billion tons of ice each year and 400 billion tons has been
lost from all glaciers per year since 1994, W. Antarctica has been losing up to
150 billion tons of ice per year). It seems to me that even if (as you claim)
the ice is thickening - which the NASA
figures at http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
deny – still the area occupied by the
ice has shrunk, and so less heat is reflected back into space and the warmer
the planet gets (positive feedback).
Moreover, other changes have
occurred in the oceans:
- sea levels have risen by 6.7
inches (17 centimeters) in the last century (approx 4 mm per year)– the rate of change in the last decade has been double that of
the previous century.
- the oceans’ acidity has
also increased by 30% since the beginning of the industrial revolution (NASA –
full references on the webpage; a change of 0.1 pH = 30% acidification)
- plankton, which control the
carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle and part of the oxygen cycle (every second breath
we take is of oxygen from plankton), are dying off as the oceans warm.
(ix) The coalition government paid lip-service to the idea of climate
change but hasn’t done anything about it and is building more coal-fired power
stations – so there can’t be a problem:
Yes, governments say what
they think will get them votes, and then renege on their promises! The question
is why? In this instance the
interests of the energy industry have obviously out-weighed scientific opinion.
It is fairly clear that behind much of the ‘climate scepticism’ there are
voices backed up by the oil, coal, gas and electricity generating industries...
I do not agree with
everything George Monbiot writes (he’s pro nuclear power, and went over the top
in criticising the East Anglia CRU scientists) but he has done a thorough job
on looking into who is behind climate change denial e.g.: US coal companies
have set up a lobbying organisation called ICE; and Dr Patrick Michaels is
often quoted as an expert, but is paid by the industry; the Heartland
Institute, which also argues against climate change, was founded by Exxon (*).
See: http://www.monbiot.com/2009/12/07/the-real-climate-scandal/
(*) This is not to mention
the well-known climate expert Nigel Lawson, who served as Chancellor under Mrs.
Thatcher and who represents right-wing pro-market economics. Pro-market
economists and others have always resisted the idea of climate change, since to
deal with it would require government intervention... Are you happy to be in
this kind of company – along with the Republicans and the Tea Party in the USA?
Another well-known writer with no scientific credentials who nevertheless feels
himself qualified to debunk climate change is Christopher Booker, author of ‘The Real Global
Warming Disaster’. The book is reviewed by Philip
Ball, (Obs 15.11.09), who says that much of the book is ‘bunk’, and refers to
another website concerning temperature changes: http://tiny.cc/mpjJB
Monbiot takes two examples
from: Climate Cover-Up by James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore, Greystone Books,
2009, others are in books by Ross Gelbspan and George Monbiot himself...
Another ‘sceptic’, Stewart
Brand, wrote: Whole Earth Discipline (Atlantic Books) – but is paid by
industry.
It is sometimes argued that
TV companies etc are biased towards those who make the case for climate change,
but it is in fact the case that these scientists are often subject to political
pressure not to publicise their views. For example (drawing on George Monbiot’s
work again – article in the Guardian 10.04.07):
the
film “The Great Global Warming Swindle”: Broadcast
on Channel 4, Thursday 8th March, Directed by Martin Durkin, was not
only full of errors, but misrepresented the views of four scientists, including
the oceanographer Professor Carl Wunsch, who, when he complained that he had
been misrepresented, received a legal letter from Durkin’s production company
threatening to sue him unless he retracted this statement!
Martin Durkin claims he was subject to “invisible censorship” because
the Independent Television Commission found that he had misrepresented the
views of four complainants!
In America, the Union of Concerned Scientists carried out a survey to
find out about constraints that had been put on them – 279 climate scientists
working for federal agencies responded:
58% felt that they had been subject to pressure to remove the words
“climate change” “global warming” etc from reports, their work had been edited
by superiors to change the meaning, their findings had been misrepresented by
officials, reports on the web about climate change had disappeared or been
delayed. They reported 435 incidents of political interference over the past
five years.
Monbiot also claims that:
In 2003 the White House gutted a report by the EPA.
Thomas Knutson who published a paper in 2004 linking rising emissions
with cyclones, was blocked from speaking to the media.
In 2006 the top Nasa climate scientist James Hanson reported that his
bosses were trying to censor his lectures.
A former White House aide Philip Cooney – not a scientist – admitted he
made hundreds of changes to government reports about climate change on behalf
of the Bush administration.
(x) Finally, and consequently, I would argue we need to watch very
carefully who is saying what about climate change.
Al Gore in his book cites a study done by Dr Naomi Oreskes of
University of California, which was published in Science magazine. She took a random sample (about 10%) of all the peer-reviewed
science journal articles on global warming from the previous 10 years. There
were 928 articles in the sample, none of which raised any doubts about the
cause of global warming (though only three-quarters addressed the 'central
elements of the consensus' and the rest were about specific issues not to do
with CO2). Another study was done of all the articles in the previous 14
years from what were considered as the four most influential papers in the US
(New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times and Wall Street Journal). Again a
random sample was taken, amounting to almost 18% of the articles, and this time
53% gave equal weight to the 'consensus view' and to the opposition
(sceptics/deniers) - thus giving the impression there was disagreement in the
scientific community about the issue.
He follows this up with points about how the tobacco industry
adopted exactly the same tactics when the link with cancer was identified: a
memo was uncovered from the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company, written in
1960: "Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with
the 'body of fact' that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also
the best means of establishing controversy."
(xi) Conclusion:
In my (previous) lecture, on 'Environmentalism,' I pointed out that we do not simply
face one environmental problem (global warming), but a series of
inter-connected problems of pollution, resource depletion, population growth, and
land shortage – not to mention the evil that is the mal-distribution of wealth
and wellbeing, resulting in so many people throughout the world starving (and
which requires solutions in the field of politics).
In fact, the crucial questions really do not concern
the science (though that has to be right – which I believe it is), but the
understanding we have of our place in
the universe, and, building on this, the
strategy to be adopted to deal with a range of interconnected environmental
problems in order to make the world a place worth living in for the foreseeable
future.
Main References for ‘Response’:
An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore, Bloomsbury 2006.
Storms of my Grandchildren, by
James Hansen, Bloomsbury 2009.
Link to NASA site on climate change: http://climate.nasa.gov/keyIndicators/index.cfm#globalTemp
and see http://climate.nasa.gov/effects/
George Monbiot’s archive: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/georgemonbiot?INTCMP=SRCH
Articles by Robin McKie: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/26/robin-mckie-carbon-emissions-up
Profile of Robin McKie: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/robinmckie?INTCMP=SRCH
Additional source: 21.10.11:
The Berkeley Earth project
has compiled more than a billion temperature records dating back to the 1800s,
and found the earth is warming – and
has warmed by around 1C since the mid-1950s. This report should put an end to
the queries from some sceptics (probably only from the more serious ones –
others will remain in denial). In particular the report shows that several
issues that sceptics claim can cause global warming have no meaningful effect.
(Ian Sample 21.10.11)
3. Notes
on climate sceptic David Bellamy:
(i) On Bellamy’s claim that the BBC is biased and wouldn’t let him do programmes because of his
views on global warming:
I hadn’t realised how
intemperate he had become (!) until I found this article in The Australian. ‘The price of dissent on
global warming’:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/the-price-of-dissent/story-e6frg7b6-1111118127677
Interesting that he says he
opposed global warming theory as far back as 1996 – I’m not sure this is true
(see 3. below).
(ii) The science: I haven’t followed up his specific points about African lakes or
Russian use of water from lakes for growing cotton – he may be right; but his
general attack on global warming is a fringe view not supported by the vast
majority of scientists – see the latest ‘meta-study’ by a group of scientists
at the university of California, Berkeley, who were originally sceptical.
Here is a Guardian article
which includes a graph from the report – and makes the point that since global
temperatures fluctuate in the short term (up to 15 years) we need to take a
long-term view. This the graph does:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/mar/31/scienceofclimatechange-climate-change-scepticism
Here’s another article on the
same report:
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/10/best-paper-release
(iii) The real reason no one listens to Bellamy? According to Wikipedia, in 1997 Bellamy stood for the
Referendum Party against John Major, and acknowledged afterwards - in 2002 -
that this was probably why he was not asked to appear on TV any more “it was
probably the most stupid thing I ever did…”
It wasn’t until 2004 (as
George Monbiot also points out) that he challenged the theory of global warming
– yet he hadn’t been on TV for 10 years by then…
More importantly, in this
article, George Monbiot seeks out where David Bellamy got his ‘facts’ about glaciers
not melting.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2005/may/10/environment.columnists
(iv) Perhaps the BBC is actually biased towards
‘sceptics’ – the geneticist Steve
Jones wrote a paper (reported by Robin McKie in the Observer 24.07.11:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/24/science-reporting-climate-change-sceptics
- in which he says they do
not appreciate the nature of science, and fail to distinguish between
‘well-established fact and opinion’ and so they end up giving publicity to
marginal beliefs such as anti-MMR activists. Brian Cox made the same point in a
televised lecture (I think it was the annual Royal Society lecture). The reason
for this is probably that the media like a controversy – which is
understandable, but they need to get things into proportion surely?
(v) Who are the sceptics?
Bellamy’s scepticism was
reported on here, when he joined a group called The New Zealand Climate Science
Coalition. This was founded by a former neo-liberal MP.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10406591
My concern about many
‘sceptics’ is that their background and connections are either on the
‘libertarian right’ (like the Tea Party) – see the recent issue (29th
Oct 2011) of New Scientist:
- or they have connections
with business, and specifically with the oil and energy -industries. Here is a
paper on links between ‘climate sceptics’ and oil companies:
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/04/900-papers-supporting-climate-scepticism-exxon-links
Of course the ‘dissenters’
don’t speak with one voice, but there are some very dodgy bedfellows among
them:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/04/climate-change-scepticism-climate-change
(i) Brief History
of Climate Change (from Earthmatters, published by Friends of the Earth, Summer
2009):
1750 – 1800 start of industrial
revolution – rises in average global temperatures are measured as from
pre-industrial level.
1896 Swedish Chemist Svente
Arrenhuis describes how greenhouse gases work and predicts a doubling of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere could increase global temperatures by 5 degrees.
1977 FoE persuades Dept of
Energy to set up domestic insulation scheme.
1979 first World Climate
Conference highlights CO2 levels.
1988 FoE launches global warming
campaign in UK.
1990 IPCC: Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (established by United Nations Environment Programme,
and World Meteorological Organisation) 1st Report says human
activity likely to be contributing to climate change. Details of working
methods etc. of IPCC at: http://www.ipcc.ch/index.htm
1992 Rio Earth Summit – UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change (George Bush senior decides not to go).
1995 2nd IPCC Report.
1997 Kyoto Protocol signed by
141 countries to come into force in 2005.
2001 3rd IPCC Report.
2001 George W Bush opposes Kyoto
‘because it exempts 80% of the world from compliance and because it would cause
serious harm to the US economy’.
2002 Larsen B ice shelf breaks
up – a piece of ice a quarter the size of Northern Ireland falls into the
Antarctic Sea.
2003 estimated 35,000 Europeans
die in extreme summer temperatures.
2004 sudden cold temperatures
cause cracks in Empire State Building.
2005 Hurricane Katrina hits New
Orleans. (FOE launch ‘The Big Ask’)
2007 IPCC Fourth Report.
2007 IPCC and Al Gore share
Nobel Peace prize. Gore’s film/powerpoint presentation An Inconvenient Truth
wins an Oscar.
2008 Ed Miliband climate change
minister, UK passes Climate Change Act (world first).
2009 Barack Obama becomes
president and puts billions into renewables.
2009 ‘Climategate’ – e-mails
hacked from Climatic Research Unit at University of East Anglia – scientists
accused of distorting evidence and suppressing opposing data.
2010 Reports by Lord Oxburgh,
Sir Muir Russell and Commons Science and Technology Committee find no
malpractice, no withholding of evidence and no suppressing of dissenting views.
Public trust in climate scientists drops from 60% to 40%.
(ii) Copenhagen Nov. 2009:
Imagine getting 189 people
you know and asking them to agree on how to run a significant part of their
lives for the next 30 or 40 years… (Ed Miliband).
Alliance Of Small Island
States (43) is most concerned…
Need agreement on funding of
‘mitigation and adaptation’ (effects on developing countries, and how to avoid
in future). Britain, via EU had agreed
cut CO2 emissions by 34% by 2020 (on 1990 levels). EU govts have promised 22 –
50 bn euros (£20 – 45 bn) a year for developing world, as part of a global 110
euro package (though costs may be four times that…).
Controversial aspects: ‘clean
coal’, funding via private-sector carbon trading, and that UK has only pledged
£1 bn a year in direct funding for poorer countries, but UK is pushing harder
than many.
Investment in clean technology: need clear signal to markets,
otherwise development and investment will not happen says head of UN
environmental programme Achim Steiner. EU has offered $110 bn a year (£60 bn) by
2020 but this is at bottom end of what needed. Need $50 bn by 2015.
Total (global presumably) investment in clean energy 2008:
$155 bn. To limit global temp. rise to 2 degrees need: %500 bn a year by 2020.
160909: Jonathan Friedland on UN summit on climate change, preparing for Copenhagen in December: to prevent a 2 degrees warming, world temps. need to peak in 2015 and decline after.
Americans produce ave. 19
tonnes CO2 p.a., which more than double our own.
(iii) Climate Change is killing people… says Dr Simon Lewis (G260208): but there is no
monitoring, so we don’t know how many. He was an expert witness at a trial of
activists who shut down an EON power station to “prevent deaths” – judge said
this could not be proved. WHO estimates 150,000 die each year but this from a
2002 study, including only 4 impacts/causes: malaria, malnutrition, diarrhea,
flooding. Need to work out ways of measuring and to publicise!
(iv) Review by Philip Ball of
book (Obs 15.11.09) by Christopher Booker ‘The Real Global Warming Disaster’ – rounds up
criticisms of majority scientific view of global warming – some of it is true,
but much is bunk… stratagem of introducing climate sceptics with no comment,
but attacking non-doubters. Attacks ‘hockey-stick graph’ which now accepted not
reliable anyway. Devil is in details, so too much to cover in review, but does
e.g. use cold winter of 2008 as grounds for attacking global warming (one swallow…)
– also slight cooling since 2003, which doesn’t refute longer-term changes. See
http://tiny.cc/mpjJB (says Philip Ball). Crucial
point: either the world’s scientists have conspired to prove with computer
graphs etc that something is happening which isn’t – and only Bush and the oil
industry have not been foiled… or: they’re all wrong!
(v) George Monbiot, G 031109
on Clive James’ scepticism: surveys suggest number of people sceptical is
increasing: Pew Research Centre: proportion of Americans accepting global
warming has fallen from 71% to 57% in 18 months. Rasmussen: 44% American voters
believe global warming is due to natural causes, as against 41% that is result
of human action…Science Museum computer poll has had 1,006 endorsing ‘evidence
for man-made climate change [mmcc]’ and 6,110 rejecting. Top books at Amazon
are vs mmcc. Clive James claimed on radio 4 that there is a shift in scientific
opinion – none, says Monbiot – and that there is no consensus – rubbish… M
speculates that mainly older people are sceptical, and this due to ‘vital lies’
and ‘character armour’ which protect us from fear of death (Ernest Becker,
1973) – we engage in immortality projects and projects which boost our
self-esteem… Recently Janis L. Dickinson, in Ecology and Society, suggests mmcc
reminds people of death, and leads to strengthening of character armour in ways
that reduce chances of survival. Others eat/consume more!!!
(vi) 16.09.09:
Jonathan Friedland on UN summit on
climate change, preparing for
(vii) 21.01.08: Caitlin Fitzsimmons, mediaguardian: The Advertising Standards Authority
criticised Shell for claiming its waste CO2 was used to grow plants when only
0.5% of its waste was CO2. “Green marketing” one of the fastest growing areas
of consumer/marketing: 61% of marketers agree a company’s sustainability practices affect customers’ buying decisions
(Marketing Trends Survey Autumn 2007). Proctor and Gamble (Ariel), Innocent
Drinks, Head of Eurostar: green marketing an imperative now, or cies will be
left behind… Pitfall: accusations of “greenwash...” To avoid this accusation,
companies have to follow up on their claims. Social marketing is now part of
the profession. Makes a company good to work for, too. [see notes on ethical
marketing in csr notes]
(viii) 04.12.07: George Monbiot: recently
Brown and Stern have recommended we reduce CO2 by 80%, not 60%, by 2050, to
prevent 2 degree rise – previous figures based in 1995 paper. Monbiot
calculates reduction needed is much greater (95 – 98%)!!! Currently the average
production per person is 3.58 tonnes.
Problem of feedback: as climate warms, sea and
soil may produce more CO2, also tropical forests may die so the environment may
be less able to absorb CO2. Taking CO2 from air is possible but expensive: @
£256 – 458 per tonne, 3 x cost of wind turbines, 2 x cost of nuclear power,
slightly cheaper than tidal power, 8 x cheaper than domestic solar panels
(government figures). Kyoto has failed, as there has been an increase in
emissions - the rate now exceeds the IPCC’s worst case scenario, and “no region
is de-carbonising its energy supply” (Proceedings of US National Academy of
Science)
Also Prof Rod May, Imperial
College: the rate of growth of the economy causes a greater rate of growth of
consumption of resources (each doubling period leads to as much consumption as
all previous periods!!!).
(ix) Guardian
letter (07.11.07): How to measure emissions, and who pays?
Letter suggests that there should be “four protocols for green firms carbon footprint”:
direct emissions (by the organisation), indirect emissions (purchased from
electricity generators etc) other indirect emissions (supply chain e.g.
transport, waste disposal), and what about emissions caused by use of the
product? At present, this is down to the consumer, but products should be
manufactured in such a way that there is minimal CO2 used.
(x) George Monbiot reports
(10.04.07) on how political pressure was brought to bear on the IPCC, so that the final
report was watered down:
“The report released on Friday was shorn of the warning that “North
America is expected to experience locally severe economic damage, plus
substantial ecosystem, social and cultural disruption from climate change
related events.”
Accusations from “climate change deniers” (Dominic, Lawson, Tom Utley,
Janet Daley among others) that the environmentalists are trying to shut down
debate are thus the reverse of the truth!
Martin Durkin (The Great Global Warming Swindle see link below) claims he
was subject to “invisible censorship” because the Independent Television
Commission found that he had misrepresented the views of four complainants!
Professor Carl Wunsch, when he complained that he had been misrepresented,
received a legal letter from Durkin’s production company threatening to sue him
unless he retracted this statement!
The Union of Concerned Scientists carried out a survey to find out about
constraints that had been put on them – 279 climate scientists working for
federal agencies responded: 58% felt
that they had been subject to pressure to remove the words “climate change” “global
warming” etc from reports, their work had been edited by superiors to change
the meaning, their findings had been misrepresented by officials, reports on
the web about climate change had disappeared or been delayed. They reported 435
incidents of political interference over the past five years.
Monbiot also claims that:
In 2003 the White House gutted a report by the EPA.
Thomas Knutson who published a paper in 2004 linking rising emissions
with cyclones, was blocked from speaking to the media.
In 2006 the top Nasa climate scientist James Hanson reported that his
bosses were trying to censor his lectures.
A former White House aide Philip Cooney – not a scientist – admitted he
made hundreds of changes to government reports about climate change on behalf
of the Bush administration.
(xi) Other points (letters to
Guardian):
CO2: Climate
science: not true that no proof that CO2
can cause global warming: can
demonstrate in lab that CO2 absorbs infra-red radiation – satellites measure
emissions, etc. Just because the solar magnetic cycle etc can influence the
earth’s temperature - as Piers Corbyn of Weather Action says - (and as accepted
by climate-scientists) this does not mean it is the only factor. Keith Shine,
University of Reading, letter Guardian 25.07.07
Also: Martin Durkin, Director
of The Great Global Warming Swindle (see below!): claims that the average
global temperature peaked in 1998, then fell, then was static from 2001 – 2005,
then fell slightly in 2006 (according to the Climate Research Unit, UEA, as
used by the IPCC); also: when CO2 emissions rose during the post-war boom,
global temperature fell… (Letter, Guardian, date?)
5. “The Great Global Warming Swindle” (2007):
Broadcast on Channel 4, Thursday 8th March, Directed by
Martin Durkin, this programme has sparked off many responses. It would be
pointless to try to summarise more than one or two of these responses, but I
liked the following:
Robin
McKie, Observer, 04.03.07(?), points out that those who contest the
scientific consensus have often got a political agenda. To deal with global
warming, says McKie, quoting philosopher John Gray, will require government
action and intervention in our lives – and probably bureaucracy – all of which
is anathema to the sceptics, several of whom have pronounced pro-market views.
(We are told, for example, that Europe will ban the inefficient fluorescent
light bulb: I wonder if the Daily Mail will start a campaign to save it?!)
The names that McKie gives: Phillip Stott, Piers Corbyn, Nigel Calder,
Nigel Lawson – are of people who regularly can be heard on Today and seen on Newsnight (so they cannot claim, as they do, that there
is a conspiracy of silence over their views!).
And yet, as McKie points out, the problems caused by CFCs were dealt with – by government and
industry agreeing to phase them out and to find alternatives. All done with no
sacrifices or suffering on the part of the consumer. Global warming is such a
huge and widespread problem it simply has to be dealt with in the same way.
As – perhaps – Mrs Thatcher would have said: There Is No Alternative!!!
George
Monbiot, Guardian, 13.03.07:
- the claim is made that warming is due to sun-spot activity, as
discovered by Dr Friis-Christensen in 1991. But a paper published in Eos in
2004 shows that the Danish astronomer made incorrect use of the data: in fact
the length of the sun-spot cycle has declined recently, while temperatures have
risen
- the same astronomer then published another paper (with Henrik
Svensmark) claiming it was due to solar radiation, which he said correlated
with cloud cover – but the problem with this was they had used satellite
information which did not in fact measure cloud cover, and a paper in the
Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-terrestrial Physics shows no correlation when
the right data is used
- then Svensmark published an article claiming that cosmic rays could
form tiny particles in the atmosphere – but the press release that accompanied
took the argument way beyond what the paper actually showed – see Dr Gavin
Schmidt, of Nasa, at www.realclimate.org
- the ”Great Global Warming Swindle” film makers publicise Svensmark’s
claims as if they were unproblematic
- it then quotes Professor John Christy’s view that there are
discrepancies in temperature at different levels in the atmosphere. This was
shown to be incorrect by three papers in Science magazine in 2005. Christy
himself has accepted he was wrong
- oceanographer Carl Wunsch on the other hand says the film “completely
misrepresented” his views – not the first time the programme-maker, Martin
Durkin has done this, and Channel 4 had to apologise after the ITC found he had
(in a previous series of programmes) misled interviewees and distorted their
views through selective editing.