Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: August 11, 2008 2:26:33 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: #1 on the Endangered Species List: Homo Sapiens
"No amount of 'adaptation' to drastic climate change can keep life
from becoming unbearable for most of the world's population, and even
for the lucky few in urban-industrial centers it'll be pretty damned
nasty"
On a planet 4C hotter,
all we can prepare for is extinction
There's no 'adaptation' to such steep warming. We must stop pandering
to special interests, and try a new, post-Kyoto strategy
Oliver Tickell
The Guardian, Monday August 11 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/11/climatechange
We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson
told the Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise
counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that
we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global warming on
this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal
words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, "the end of living and
the beginning of survival" for humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of
our extinction.
The collapse of the polar ice caps would become inevitable, bringing
long-term sea level rises of 70-80 metres. All the world's coastal
plains would be lost, complete with ports, cities, transport and
industrial infrastructure, and much of the world's most productive
farmland. The world's geography would be transformed much as it was at
the end of the last ice age, when sea levels rose by about 120 metres
to create the Channel, the North Sea and Cardigan Bay out of dry land.
Weather would become extreme and unpredictable, with more frequent and
severe droughts, floods and hurricanes. The Earth's carrying capacity
would be hugely reduced. Billions would undoubtedly die.
Watson's call was supported by the government's former chief
scientific adviser, Sir David King, who warned that "if we get to a
four-degree rise it is quite possible that we would begin to see a
runaway increase". This is a remarkable understatement. The climate
system is already experiencing significant feedbacks, notably the
summer melting of the Arctic sea ice. The more the ice melts, the more
sunshine is absorbed by the sea, and the more the Arctic warms. And as
the Arctic warms, the release of billions of tonnes of methane – a
greenhouse gas 70 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years –
captured under melting permafrost is already under way.
To see how far this process could go, look 55.5m years to the
Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, when a global temperature increase
of 6C coincided with the release of about 5,000 gigatonnes of carbon
into the atmosphere, both as CO2 and as methane from bogs and seabed
sediments. Lush subtropical forests grew in polar regions, and sea
levels rose to 100m higher than today. It appears that an initial
warming pulse triggered other warming processes. Many scientists warn
that this historical event may be analogous to the present: the
warming caused by human emissions could propel us towards a similar
hothouse Earth.
But what are we to do? All our policies to date to tackle global
warming have been miserable failures. The Kyoto protocol has created a
vast carbon market but done little to reduce emissions. The main
effect of the EU's emissions trading scheme has been to transfer about
€30bn or more from consumers to Europe's biggest polluters, the power
companies. The EU and US foray into biofuels has, at huge cost,
increased greenhouse gas emissions and created a world food crisis,
causing starvation in many poor countries.
So, are all our efforts doomed to failure? Yes, so long as our
governments remain craven to special interests, whether carbon traders
or fossil fuel companies. The carbon market is a valuable tool, but
must be subordinate to climatic imperatives. The truth is that to
prevent runaway greenhouse warming, we will have to leave most of the
world's fossil fuels in the ground, especially carbon-heavy coal, oil
shales and tar sands. The fossil fuel and power companies must be
faced down.
Global problems need global solutions, and we also need an effective
replacement for the failed Kyoto protocol. The entire Kyoto system of
national allocations is obsolete because of the huge volumes of energy
embodied in products traded across national boundaries. It also
presents a major obstacle to any new agreement – as demonstrated by
the 2008 G8 meeting in Japan that degenerated into a squabble over
national emission rights.
The answer? Scrap national allocations and place a single global cap
on greenhouse gas emissions, applied "upstream" – for instance, at the
oil refinery, coal-washing station and cement factory. Sell permits up
to that cap in a global auction, and use the proceeds to finance
solutions to climate change – accelerating the use of renewable
energy, raising energy efficiency, protecting forests, promoting
climate-friendly farming, and researching geoengineering technologies.
And commit hundreds of billions of dollars per year to finance
adaptation to climate change, especially in poor countries.
Such a package of measures would allow us to achieve zero net
greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and long-term stabilisation at 350
parts per million of CO2 equivalent. This avoids the economic pain
that a cap-and-trade system alone would cause, and targets assistance
at the poor, who are least to blame and most need help. The permit
auction would raise about $1 trillion per year, enough to finance a
spread of solutions. At a quarter of what the world spends on oil each
year, it is a price well worth paying.
------------------
The truth is, we're fighting for survival
Amid the trivial political squabbles, a stark truth lies hidden:
humanity is staring global catastrophe in the face
Joss Garman
guardian.co.uk, Friday August 08 2008 11:00 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/08/kingsnorthclimatecamp.climatechange
Up to 4 billion people left without water. Up to 5 billion at risk of
flooding. Half a billion left hungry as agricultural yields decline by
15-35% in Africa with entire swaths of the world ceasing food
production altogether. More than 80 million exposed to malaria in
Africa. The Amazon collapses and 50% of species go extinct. It's
basically the end of the world. And it's reported in this morning's
Guardian.
There is such a gaping chasm between the matter-of-fact reporting of
this nightmarish 4C scenario that government scientists now say we
should be planning for, and the total failure of apparently rational
people to understand what is happening on the Hoo peninsula this week.
Reports from Kingsnorth, the site of this year's climate camp,
completely fail to scrutinise the pin-striped criminals who are
pushing the planet towards the brink. Instead, the Press Association
runs stories on apparent conspiracies to attack police with knives
without even phoning the accused activists for a reaction to these
smears. What other set of people could be accused of conspiracy to
commit cop killings without being asked for any reaction? This is a
victory for the police and the rightwing media they leak to.
Equally, E.ON UK's greenwashing PR campaign is run without any
question. Every report repeats the myth that the proposed new power
station would be a "cleaner coal" plant. No one reports that in fact,
this coal plant will pollute as much as more than 30 developing
countries combined, that there will be no use of carbon capture and
storage (CSS) technology, and that the plant will be so inefficient as
to waste half of all the energy it creates. No mention of the fact
that Chris Davies, the Lib Dem MEP, who is notoriously pro-CCS coal,
has pledged to attend the camp precisely because Kingsnorth won't be a
"cleaner coal" plant.
E.ON UK keeps pumping out the spin that "we need coal to keep the
lights on", even following reports in the Financial Times that
independent energy experts, Pöyry, have proven (pdf) that if the UK
hit its existing renewables and efficiency targets, no new coal would
be required. Even when emails expose close contact between E.ON UK and
the business department, they are only reported in the Guardian.
As the prime minister has a last look at a bit of beautiful coastline
already succumbing to the sea, the media frenzy focuses on the same
old soap opera personality politics. Is so-and-so too remote/young/
jaded/damaged to be the next majorette marching us over the cliff?
Whoever it is, we know it'll be one of the same crew who got us into
this mess and can't get us out because the solutions don't fit the
electoral cycle. There is an echo here too of the US media's response
to Iraq. Even now, anyone who opposed the war is on some sort of
"radical fringe", and having supported the war, at least at the time
of its inception, is a necessary qualification to be seen as
"serious". With climate change, in order to be "serious" you need to
acknowledge that the end of the world is an interesting detail in the
broader pattern of economic "progress", but never succumb to the
incredible naivety of the protesters, who fail to realise that the
survival of life on earth is a bourgeois luxury which we can ill
afford in these times of economic constraint.
The harsh reality is that there is no way we could plan for a 4C rise.
No amount of adaptation is going to make that liveable for most of the
world's population, and it's going to be pretty damn nasty for those
lucky few of us living in the north as well. Despite this, we end up
with two possible stories – the front page banner "dangerous
anarchists threaten chaos", or, tucked away at the back of the paper,
"peaceful protest passes without incident". And all the time, not even
the liberal press is concerned that, even if every single person at
the camp arrived with a heavy machine gun, they couldn't kill half the
number of people who will die as a result of the effects of climate
change.
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