What will
our grandchildren experience in the year 2080? Or will some of you feel the
heat, the climate and social disruption as soon as 2060? Scientific studies are pouring out their
warnings - we have already passed the danger levels. And there is no sign of action to stop horrible climate change.
What if
the politicians fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep the
Earth's climate from warming? What if
the people of the world keep on pumping out carbon dioxide, as they now do. Can we survive? Will the Earth hit runaway climate change, morphing to another
Venus?
The
widely accepted danger line is 2 degrees Celsius, that's 3.4 degrees
Fahrenheit, global mean temperature rise over pre-industrial levels. We have already warmed at least .7 degrees
C. Counting the masking effect of other
pollution, the warming in the pipeline may already be around the 2 degree level
- and the major polluters show no sign of agreeing on steep cuts at the
Copenhagen climate treaty talks in December 2009.
So what
will happen?
In this
program, we're going to cover major new scientific reports about our climate
situation. Then, almost as a relief,
we'll go to an interview with one of the long-time activists with solutions,
from the UK, Dr. Jeremy Leggett. He's
an oil expert who crossed over to Greenpeace, before becoming a solar energy
entrepreneur.
I also
have some new climate music for you.
Right
now, we'll get hot and heavy with an international climate conference held at Oxford in Britain from
September 28th to the 30th. The title
is: 4 DEGREES & BEYOND. We'll hear
the results of some of the first scientific studies of a failed climate world.
MUSIC IN
THIS PROGRAM
"Radio,
Radio" by Elvis Costello
"Don't
Kilowatt" by Seattle group Million Dollar Nile
LINK
FOR AUDIO AND SLIDES
FROM "4 Degrees & Beyond" Conference:
http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/programme.php
1. Prof
John Schellnhuber, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research "Terra
quasi-incognita: beyond the 2 degree line. (past director of Tyndall Centre for
Climate Change Research)
2. Dr.
Richard Betts, Met Office Hadley Centre "Regional climate changes at 4+
degrees"
3. Prof
Nigel Arnell, University of Reading 4+ degrees C: impacts across the global
scale
4. Dr.
Pier Vellinga, Wageningen University, "Sea level rise and impacts in a 4+C
World
5. Prof
Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research,
"Sea-level rise in a 4 degress world
6. Prof David
Karoly, University of Melbourne "Wildfire in a 4+ C degree World
7. Dr.
François Bemenne, Sciens Po Paris "Cimate-induced Population Displacements
in a 4+ degree World
The
conference opened with one of the top climate advisors in the world. Professor John
Schellnhuber is from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact
Research. He is a past director of
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
The German version of his name is Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. He has directly advised many heads of
government, including Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, and even Barack
Obama. The title of his talk: "Terra
quasi-incognita: beyond the 2 degree line."
This was
a presentation to fellow scientists, so part of it is heavy going for the rest
of us. It was accompanied by slides,
and I'll give you the web address for those.
In order
to hit some key points from this speech, and several others from the 4 Degree
conference, covering several hours of audio, I'm going to attempt a digest of
this latest science.
Professor
Schellnhuber explains that the 2 degree target was set in 1995 as the upper
limit to avoid species extinction and other dangerous impacts.
The two
degree target was just adopted in the recent G8 meeting.
Schellnhuber
thinks a world-wide adoption of the 2 degree target is the best we can hope
for in Copenhagen - because, quote, "nobody should dream of the
possibility that there will be numbers reduction measure for each country in
the world, which will be sealed in Copenhagen this year. That's almost impossible."
2 degrees
is also the target set by the European Union.
It's a compromise: "of course we will lose the coral reefs,"
but we will save the Greenland Ice Sheet (if 2 degrees over pre-industrial
levels can be retained).
More
recent work published in the PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of
Science) this year, by J.B. Smith and
others, including Bill Hare, shows even the 2 degree limit may not be safe.
[Smith
J.B. et.al. 2009: Assessing dangerous climate change through an update of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ‘‘reasons for concern’’. PNAS,
February 26 2009. doi:10.1073/pnas.0812355106
Bill Hare was one of the authors.]
A meeting
of 2,000 scientists in Copenhagen last May issued another report which called
for a peak in global emissions by 2015.
Schellnhuber
says we are very lucky that the physics of Earth, which is usually non-linear
and very complicated, has provided us a simple yard stick to measure climate
change: the total amount of carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere. We can measure that easily, and perhaps
control it.
Clip 1
Total Climate Budget 1:14
How fast
we get off oil and coal, and how much time is left to preserve remaining
forests while controlling agricultural emissions - depends on when we start the
cuts. The later we wait, the more
wrenching the change will be.
Clip 2
Emission Reduction levels
So if we
wait until 2040 to start reducing greenhouse gas emissions - our total carbon
budget, allowing us to stay under 2 degrees, the total carbon budget will
already be spent. Then, we cannot emit
carbon, and must start reducing it, by some unknown technology.
The
German advisory council worked out a fair way of distributing of our
remaining carbon budget, aiming at a two thirds chance of staying under 2
degrees. They settled on a per capital
allowance among all the people of the world - balancing it out better each
year, but disregarding our historical
responsibility for past emissions. The
United States, which starts out emitting 20 tons of CO2 for each and every
person every year, would have to stop emitting CO2 altogether by 2020. Germany, which has a lower per capita rate
now, would have to stop by 2030. China
would have to peak by 2020, and phase out by 2035.
This
report was presented at a meeting with the Obama administration, but it was
felt the Senate would never agree to ending fossil fuels by 2020. Note that a zero emissions America by
2020 is the project promoted by Al Gore.
It exactly matches the science of what we need to protect the world
climate.
One
solution is to allow countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan, whose people use
produce very few emissions from their population - to allow these less
developed countries to sell their carbon credits to wealthier nations. The result would be the largest North to
South transfer of wealth in the history of the world. A reverse from the days of empires of Europe and North America.
The
physics of the Earth doesn't care who burns it, just the total emissions reaching
the sky.
Research
shows that if we double CO2 in the atmosphere, the result in the long run,
perhaps hundreds of years later, there will be a 50 meter sea level rise. That is 193 feet - enough to drown our
coastal cities.
Schellnhuber says, quote: "So even at two degrees, this is something which will sink most of our coastlines."
Another
scary result of climate disruption is the creation of dead zones in the ocean.
Clip 3
Oxygen holes in the ocean
We'll
hear more about the possibility of a deoxygenated ocean, leading to a possible
mass extinction event, when I interview Dr. Peter Ward about his new book
"The Medea Hypothesis".
That's coming up next week on Radio Ecoshock.
Meanwhile
we are digesting a speech by Professor John Schellnhuber at the "4 Degrees
and Beyond" climate conference at Oxford, UK September 28th.
Another
recent scientific paper shows that even if we stop greenhouse gas emissions
today, totally, the climate already warm to 2.4 degrees above pre-industrial
levels, with severe climate impacts. We
are committed now.
We don't
know whether the glaciers in the Himalayas will completely melt away from what
we have already put in the sky. They
are melting fast now. If we go beyond 2
degrees, Schellnhuber notes, those glaciers would go at some point - and they
provide the summer river water for all the major rivers of Asia, used by over a
billion people. Also interesting, some
have called the Himalayan glaciers "the third pole" of the Earth,
matching the Arctic and Antarctic. The
weight of the glaciers have geophysical implications. We don't know what will happen to the surface of the Earth if
that weight is removed from this new mountain system, built from a collision of
continents.
The
tipping point of the Greenland Ice Sheet, which is already thinning fast, is
also not known.
The giant
in the room, the biggest tipping point, is the carbon trapped in the
Siberian and Northern Canadian permafrost.
If that is released, we are toast.
Clip 4
Permafrost melts and we're toast. (That's what he said.)
Scientists
have been investigating how these various tipping points might interact. For example, if the Greenland ice sheet
melts, it will release a lot of fresh water.
How will that impact the ocean thermohaline circulation system -
including the Gulf Stream that keeps Europe warm?
Ocean
circulation also could impact the Summer Monsoon in Asia - the water that feed
billions, although flooding millions.
No
research has yet been done on these large scale interactions of tipping
points. Dr. Schellnhuber and many
others will be releasing a series of papers this December called the PNAS Special
Feature on Tipping Elements.
One of
the presentations will be on dust as a tipping element. It turns out the largest source of dust in
the world is the Bodele Depression, in the African Saharan country of
Chad. It used to be the bottom of Lake Chad. Half the dust required to fertilize the
Amazon rainforest comes from this Bodele Depression.
All the models agree that the Amazon rainforest will die back due to climate change. Other tipping points in the upcoming paper include the frozen methane on the ocean beds, called clathrates, and the impact of climate disruption on the El Nino Southern Oscillation in the Pacific, the heating of ocean waters that shapes so much of our weather.
There is
good news and bad news about the clathrates, the methane ice balls down on
the ocean floor. The good news is
scientists think clathrate melting, and release of climate heating methane gas,
will be slow, over centuries, or even thousands of years. The bad news is it will be unstoppable once
it starts.
Let's
hear Dr. Schellnhuber say it.
Clip 5
Methane Clathrates
That
study on clathrates, coming out next December, is by David Archer, our
guest on the September 18th, 2009 Radio Ecoshock Show. His new book is "The Long
Thaw". Download our
interview as a free mp3 from our website, ecoshock.org.
What
about the worst of the worst? Runaway
greenhouse effect. The temperature
increases until the oceans evaporate away.
Earth becomes like Venus. Is it
possible? Hans Joachim Schellnhuber
thinks not.
Clip 6 Runaway Greenhouse Effect
Black
body radiation?? It's a physics term and a little
complicated. For our purposes, when
considering a warming planet, we know that the molecules and atoms of our
physical reality vibrate more when they are heated more. For purposes of measurement, the amount of
radiation is compared to a standard - namely an ideal black body, which emits
nothing.
Everything
emits black body radiation (even you).
This is the scientific basis of the so-called greenhouse effect. The math formulas to calculate Earth's black
body radiation are complex, but the main variable is temperature.
I'm not a
scientist, so if I have described this incorrectly, please write me with a
correction. The address is radio at
ecoshock.org.
Schellnhuber
says black body radiation is a negative feedback - meaning it actually helps to
cool the planet.
That
cooling is overwhelmed by other positive feedbacks. Remember "positive" doesn't mean "good" - it
means a force which adds to an existing trend, such as global warming, or
increased precipitation.
The
positive feedbacks include more water vapor, evaporating in the increased heat,
and possible releases from Permafrost, etc.
Schellnhuber doubts there will be runaway climate change, the so-called
"Venus effect" - because there is no evidence it has happened in the
past.
However,
we could have a limited self-reinforcing warming, which would be disastrous for
most species, including us. And, it
turns out, no one has been able to calculate whether a runaway greenhouse
effect could happen. We just don't
know.
This is
Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith. That concludes our summary of the opening
speech at the 4 DEGREES & BEYOND International Climate Conference held at
Oxford, UK on September 28th, delivered by Prof John Schellnhuber, from the
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
The title was "Terra
quasi-incognita: beyond the 2 degree line."
You can
download audio of the whole speech, plus view the slides, and other speakers
from that conference from http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/
--------
Check out
our interview with Jeremy
Leggett in this week's show. He's a
geologist who worked for the major oil companies - before dropping out to use
his skills for Greenpeace. It was
Leggett, way back in the 1990's, who convinced insurance companies that climate
change was real and bad for their business.
They were the first major corporations to really "get it" -
after their storm disaster bills went through the roof around the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Leggett
Leggett
then went to big oil conferences, telling the corporations to spend less on
exploration, since eventually they weren't going to be allowed to burn the oil
found due to climate change and greenhouse gas controls. That's coming, but slowly, as the world
heats up.
Jeremy
went on to found his own solar power
company, one of the largest in Britain.
They specialize in solar power in dreary UK - and yes it can work, even
there! Leggett explains how.
http://www.solarcentury.com/
---------
Then we
take time for a little dirty energy news from Canada - the largest single
exporter of fossil fuels to the United States.
Not Mexico or Venezuela, or even Saudi Arabia - Canada.
Maybe not
for long. There's a world-wide rush to
grab a hunk of the world's biggest and dirtiest industrial project - the
Canadian tar sands. According to a
Globe and Mail article September 1st, by Nathan VanderKlippe, quote:
"Calgary-based Athabasca Oil Sands Corp. on Monday sold a 60-per-cent
interest in two of its undeveloped projects near Fort McMurray to the
international unit of PetroChina Co. Ltd.
The transaction will hand approximately three billion barrels of
Alberta oil to PetroChina, whose parent is the state-owned China National
Petroleum Corp."
And Dick Cheney thought he was going to get it all!
Just
imagine a re-awakened Canadian nationalism tries to shut down the Tar Sands
to... oh I don't know, save the Arctic climate. Good luck. Now it's an
international incident. Not that the
Yankee wouldn't have invaded for their share of the gooey stuff.
Might as
well make it an international party. The
French monster company Total SA is planning a 90,000
barrel a day expansion to it's project at Surmount, co-owned with
ConocoPhillips. That would boost
Surmount's production to a quarter billion barrels a day. It takes one barrel of fossil fuel to
produce just three barrels of oil.
Currently there is no price for carbon - just dump it all in the
Canadian atmosphere for free! Canadians
will just have to install a few more low energy light bulbs, to soak up this
storm of industrial CO2 pollution from the Tar Sands. The CEO of Total E&P Canada, Jean-Michel Gires, says his
company prices $40 a tonne for carbon - but wait, the oil friendly Canadian
government never collects it! No
legislation at all. A wild west for
climate pollution.
The
headline should read "France joins China in a gang-rape of the Canadian
landscape."
Greenpeace
broke into three oil sands plants in the last three weeks.
Jean-Michel
of Total agrees they have some image polishing to do, as they ramp up to high
production for 2025 - the year most Western countries need to be totally
fossil-free to protect the 2 degree global warming ceiling. They're talking about tar sands production
in 2035 - after rising seas and storms will have triggered mass migrations and
city devastation. Is this a good
investment, really?
Dump Total SA stock, and don't buy their climate killing gas.
Another
energy giant, TransAlta runs coal-fired power plants in Canada and the
United States. But they want to add a
nice green shine. So TransAlta
took their fossil fuel profits and purchased a greener company called Canadian
Hydro. Developers. Now TransAlta
has more hydro and wind power in it's system, taking the company from 15
percent renewables to 22 percent.
TransAlta
CEO Steve Snyder - we name names at Radio Ecoshock - says their deep coal
pockets will keep greener projects funded, even in difficult times. Or will they shut down some renewables
later, saying it doesn't pay? The jury
is out - and meanwhile, TransAlta remains a major force for climate pollution.
Contrast
that with a new study from the Tyndall Centre in Britain. These scientists have
the nerve to suggest that people in rich countries, quote: "must slash
living standards to fight climate change." This anti-consumerist treason is actually printed in newspapers
over in Europe, in this case by The
Times in London, on October 2nd, 2009.
Ben
Webster, the Times Environment Editor gives us the scoop. I'll quote the article here.
"Living
standards in Britain and other rich countries must fall sharply over the next
decade if the world is to avoid catastrophic global warming, according to a
leading climate research center.
Consumption
of energy-intensive goods and services should be cut and remain capped until
low-carbon alternatives are available, said the Tyndall Centre for Climate
Change Research.
The study
says that Britain’s carbon dioxide emissions need to fall twice as fast as
planned by the Government. It concludes that global greenhouse gas emissions
are rising much faster than previously thought.
It says
that Britain should commit to making all energy, including for electricity,
heating and cars, zero-carbon by 2025, at least 25 years earlier than planned.
The
center, a partnership of seven universities including Oxford, Cambridge and
Manchester, says that the economies of developed nations will have to shrink
and consumption of almost all types of goods will have to fall “in the short to
medium term”.
Speaking
to The Times, Professor Kevin Anderson, the center’s director, said: “The
wealthier parts of the world, including Britain, will have to seriously
consider reducing their levels of consumption over the next 10-15 years while
we put in place low-carbon technologies.
“That may
mean having only one car per household, a smaller fridge, buying fewer clothes
and electronic goods and curtailing the number of weekend breaks that we have.
“It’s a
very uncomfortable message but we need a planned economic recession. Economic
growth is currently incompatible with reductions in absolute emissions.”
The study
says that global emissions are rising much faster than has been assumed by
Britain and other countries in setting their carbon targets. It says that these
targets are “dangerously misleading” because they focus on distant dates, such
as 2050, and avoid mentioning the immediate cuts that are needed.
Professor
Anderson calculates that emissions in all developed countries must peak by 2012
and fall by 20 per cent a year from 2018 to prevent global temperatures from
rising more than 2C above the pre-industrial average."
The
current recession, which is actually stage one for larger Depression in my
opinion, is already starting to cut some emissions in wealthy countries. Americans drove a billion miles less last
year, and bought less crap at the malls.
As a result, by one report, overall CO2 emissions dropped by 9 percent
last year, from 2007 levels.
That's an
astounding result. If President
Obama had demanded a 9 percent cut, there would have been death panels and
teabaggers galore. Now the recession
has awakened at least a few people.
There is
already talk among a small cadre of scientists and political advisors that the
recession should be prolonged if possible, while we convert away from
fossil fuels. Even a false recession
might help prevent the Arctic ice fields, and the Himalayas from melting. Give Nature a break.
That may be our only way out. Another scientific study, published in the Journal Science on September 11th, says we don't have the tools to mount any response to a number of intersecting crisis. It's titled: "Looming Global-Scale Failures and Missing Institutions". Basically, the authors studied energy, food, water shortages, a declining ocean, emerging diseases and of course, climate disruption. They found that our system of national governments could not cope with these global issues, often choosing their own self interest over the global commons. Many other governments are simply unable to act, whether in Africa or the United States. The authors found no international institutions strong enough to deal with these issues either.
The
science is in. Humans can't cope,
and will likely just slide into one disaster after another. We knew that, but it's nice to see it made
official.
There's
mildly good news, and terrible news, on the Arctic ice front. Recall, we need the polar ice caps to
provide ocean and atmosphere circulation.
All agriculture and our civilization depends on these cold zones. The good news: The National Snow and Ice
Data Center has released new data showing older ice forming over the Arctic
Ocean. After the 2007 melt-down, there
was concern that a single year's ice layer would melt away quickly. But now we can find some ice two years old,
meaning the Arctic Ice might hold on a little longer. Nobody disputes it will disappear in the Summer in the next
decade or two. But the longer it
stalls, the better for all of us.
The
really bad
news comes from the British Arctic Survey, in a news release September
23rd, 2009. Satellite lasers show that
land-based ice fields in the Arctic and Antarctic are thinning quickly. Quoting from their press release:
"Reporting
this week in the journal Nature researchers from British Antarctic Survey and
the University of Bristol describe how analysis of millions of NASA satellite
measurements* from both of these vast ice sheets shows that the most profound
ice loss is a result of glaciers speeding up where they flow into the sea.
The
authors conclude that this ‘dynamic thinning’ of glaciers now reaches all
latitudes in Greenland, has intensified on key Antarctic coastlines, is
penetrating far into the ice sheets’ interior and is spreading as ice shelves
thin by ocean-driven melt. Ice shelf collapse has triggered particularly strong
thinning that has endured for decades."
The
results have been published in the journal Nature. Google around and find the new maps of both the Arctic and
Antarctic. The loss is visible and
ugly. Some glaciers have doubled their
speed toward the Sea. Greenland has
lost an incredible amount of ice. It's
thinning out, and nobody knows if it will simply crack and fail some day. With the melting now confirmed already,
estimates of sea level rise this century will go straight up.
Thank
heavens New Yorkers finally found out about it. They were oblivious to a city report saying rising seas would
flood the subways and cripple the city.
No wonder, as the New York Post is an adamant climate change
denier. At least it was.
100,000
copies of a special
edition of the New York Post appeared. The fake paper was jammed full of
the climate information New Yorkers had been denied - all factual. Greenpeace and the Yes-Men are rumored to
have floated the real news for New Yorkers.
The giant tabloid headline simply read: "We're Screwed".
That's
about it for Radio Ecoshock this week.
Visit our pitiful web site any time at ecoshock.org. You can even sign up for our podcast there.
Next
week, we'll brighten up a bit - with mass extinction expert Dr. Peter Ward. He says Mother Nature is actually a wild
killer.
Thanks
for hanging in there.
I'm Alex
Smith