Posts
Australia has started 2013 with a record-breaking heat wave that has lasted more than two weeks across many parts of the country. Temperatures have regularly gone above 48°C, with the highest recorded maximum of 49.6°C at Moomba in South Australia. The extreme conditions have been associated with a delayed onset of the Australian monsoon, and slow moving weather systems over the continent.What is causing Australia's heatwave?
Does the country's record-breaking heatwave have something to do with climate change?
Australia has always experienced heat waves, and they are a normal part of most summers. However, the current event affecting much of inland Australia has definitely not been typical.
The most significant thing about the recent heat has been its coverage across the continent, and its persistence.
It is very unusual to have such widespread extreme temperatures — and have them persist for so long. On those two metrics alone, spatial extent and duration, the last two weeks surpasses the only previous analogue in the historical record (since 1910) – a two-week country-wide hot spell during the summer of 1972-1973.
A good measure of the spatial extent of the heat is the Australian-averaged maximum daily temperature. This is the average of the highest daily temperature of the air just above the surface of the Australian continent, including Tasmania. The national average is calculated using a three-dimensional interpolation (including topography) of over 700 observing sites each day.
On Monday and Tuesday last week (January 7 and 8) that temperature rose to over 40°C. Monday's temperature of 40.33°C set a new record, beating the previous highest Australian daily maximum of 40.17°C set in 1972. Tuesday's temperature came in as the 3rd highest on record at 40.11°C.
Showing posts with label Global warming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Global warming. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Australia on the Front Line
Fascinating overview of Australia's record breaking temperatures. From The Guardian:
Monday, January 28, 2013
Old Style Thinking in a New World
 |
| Lake Mead via Wikipedia |
Actually, that's a little misleading. Really, it's about American hubris and Las Vegas. The world hasn't changed, it's just that capitalist/technocratic thinking hasn't been in the real world for a century or more.
Tara Lohan writes about the water wars of Nevada, with Los Vegas slowly and deliberately destroying the rest of the state with its water demands. As she puts it:
The future that Las Vegas and the rest of Nevada face is one where climate change is likely to make life harder, water scarcer, and decisions about the future tougher. And it’s a future that will be shared across the Southwest. K. Kaufmann writes for the Desert Sun about the National Climate Assessment Advisory Committee’s findings on climate change will affect the country. In the Southwest, Kaufmann writes:
Snowpack and streamflow amounts are projected to decline, decreasing water supply for cities, agriculture and ecosystems.The Southwest produces more than half the nation’s high-value specialty crops, which are irrigation-dependent and particularly vulnerable to extremes of moisture, cold and heat. Reduced yields from increased temperatures and increasing competition for scarce water supplies will displace jobs in some rural communities.Increasingly, wherever you live in the U.S. this will be a shared problem as water resources and potentially energy resources become strapped, if we continue unchanged on our current trajectory.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
If You Won't Stop Climate Change...
...then you should learn to love it. As it is becoming clear that we will not be doing a damn thing to stop global warming and the resulting chaos, we'd better plan on doing things differently in order to maintain our current capitalist lifestyles. Thus:
The area around this house is expected to flood every 20 years or so, and so this house is designed to cut loose from its foundation and float when that happens. The house is nearing completion in Marlow, Buckinghamshire.
The Guardian ran a short clip on the designers and the development that's been proposed.
From the article:
This, this is why we're all going to die. Probably screaming.
 |
| From the Daily Mail Online |
The Guardian ran a short clip on the designers and the development that's been proposed.
From the article:
They may lack the exotic ring of Venice's Piazza San Marco or Marrakech's Djemaa el-Fna, but Norwich's planned Rain Square and Flood Park may one day earn a little renown of their own in the epic battle with the weather.So really, why bother to fix the problem when 1 in 6 homes may be at risk of flooding, when that just gives you the opportunity for business as usual selling these creations? From the same article:
After England's wettest year on record, planners this spring will be asked to grant consent to 670 homes by the confluence of the Wensum and Yare rivers featuring these new public spaces, where half the site has a high probability of flooding and its edge is only 45cm (18in) above sea level.
The project, described as a folly by opponents, is a bellwether for Britain's readiness to tackle the twin pressures of rising floodwaters – which the Environment Agency estimates put one in six homes at risk – and ever increasing housing demand in popular places such as Norwich.
In a counter-intuitive attempt to persuade homebuyers to set aside their fear of the rising tide, the scheme proposes homes around marshes, squares that are designed to become ponds, and parks that become small lakes.
The Guardian has learned that the government chose to delay the introduction of critical anti-flood measures until 2014 after lobbying by Britain's biggest house builders. Regulations to demand better drainage of new housing developments using wetlands, reed beds, drainage channels and porous driveways to help prevent run-off flooding that threatens an estimated 2.8m homes was postponed last year after the Home Builders Federation complained to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) about the cost.
Barratt Homes, Redrow, Bovis and other house builders were supposed to take responsibility for building systems to ensure water that drains from new estates soaks into the ground rather than running off to cause flooding locally. But they have written to Defra minister Richard Benyon saying the standards, which have been championed by ecologists and flood experts, are "flawed and would raise design, cost and other problems for house builders". They also warned the scheme would "present a significant risk to the delivery of new housing", and the government announced an 18-month delay.
This, this is why we're all going to die. Probably screaming.
Soot, Diesel, and the Black Carbon Problem
 |
| Image via Wikipedia |
While the study is not yet published and will probably be behind a paywall when it is, the abstract is pretty clear:
However, global atmospheric absorption attributable to black carbon is too low in many models, and should be increased by a factor of almost three.[...]
Thus, there is a very high probability that black carbon emissions, independent of co-emitted species, have a positive forcing and warm the climate. We estimate that black carbon, with a total climate forcing of +1.1 W m-2, is the second most important human emission in terms of its climate-forcing in the present-day atmosphere; only carbon dioxide is estimated to have a greater forcing.Some 7.5 million tonnes of soots are released into the atmosphere each year, coming from cooking fires, open burning (like clearing land or wildfires) and diesel engines. This means that there's actually room to reduce soot production, with diesel engines producing about 70 percent of the soot emissions in Europe, North America, and Latin America. In Asia and Africa, wood burning domestic fires make up 60% to 80% of soot emissions. Coal fires are also a significant source of soot in China, parts of Eastern Europe, and former Soviet bloc countries.
Coal, one of the great evils in fuels, should already be seeing its use cut. Trimming diesel use would also provide other health benefits, as micro-particulates emitted from diesel engines have been linked to a number of respiratory ailments. And the whole cook-fire issue is another reason added to the heap of reasons for bringing the undeveloped world forward.
So bad news: soot is worse than we thought--by a whole lot. Good news? Soot production is something that could potentially be managed. Not that I expect we will....
Thursday, November 22, 2012
CO2
 |
| Atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa Observatory. Credit: NOAA. |
The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached a record 390.9 parts per million (ppm) in 2011, according to a report released Tuesday by the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO). That's a 40 percent increase over levels in 1750, before humans began burning fossil fuels in earnest.[...]
Although CO2 is still the most significant long-lived greenhouse gas, levels of other heat-trapping gases have also climbed to record levels, according to the report. Methane, for example hit 1813 parts per billion (ppb) in 2011, and nitrous oxide rose to 324.2 ppb. All told, the amount of excess heat prevented from escaping into outer space was 30 percent higher in 2011 than it was as recently as 1990.
The CO2 that remains in the atmosphere, meanwhile, takes centuries to dissipate, which is why the numbers continue to climb. As a result of all the extra CO2 pumped into the air, worldwide average temperatures have already risen by 1.8°F since 1900.
Yet despite all of this knowledge, the world has largely failed to act on reducing emissions. The best they could do at a UN-sponsored climate meeting in Copenhagen in 2009 was to agree to a non-binding target of limiting the world's greenhouse-gas-triggered temperature increase to no more than 2°C (3.6°F) above preindustrial levels to limit the potential damage. Just a year later, it was already clear that they wouldn't come close to making it.
Frustrated with this global inaction, the World Bank released a report on Sunday saying that without significant emissions reductions, the world's average temperature could climb by 4°C (7.2°F) by as early as 2060. The report highlighted the dire consequences for human health and safety — including dangerous sea level rise, heat waves, and other extreme weather events.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Worst Fears Being Realized?
There's an article at The Washington Post that talks about the accuracy of climate forecast models.
The IPCC report that set off panic in the boasrdrooms of the world's biggest corporations was not a worst case scenario report. Everything in it had to be vetted and approved by the governments involved, not just the scientists who wrote it. This meant that the report was closer to a best case rather than a wost case. Turns out that the worst case is the one that seems more likely. And just a reminder: atmospheric carbon has to stay below 350 ppm for the world to maintain the climate we've grown to depend on. Current levels are watching 390 ppm disappearing behind them.
No supercomputer is powerful enough to predict cloud cover decades into the future, so Fasullo and colleague Kevin Trenberth struck on another method to test which of the many climate simulations most accurately predicted clouds: They looked at relative humidity. When humidity rises, clouds form; drier air produces fewer clouds. That makes humidity a good proxy for cloud cover." “The models at the higher end of temperature predictions uniformly did a better job,” Fasullo said. The simulations that fared worse — the ones predicting smaller temperature rises — “should be outright discounted,” he said. " The models that predict less severe outcomes fared worse when tested against historical data. Just like Arctic ice cover is procceeding much more rapidly than expected.
Looking back at 10 years of atmospheric humidity data from NASA satellites, the pair examined two dozen of the world’s most sophisticated climate simulations. They found the simulations that most closely matched humidity measurements were also the ones that predicted the most extreme global warming.
In other words, by using real data, the scientists picked simulation winners and losers.
“The models at the higher end of temperature predictions uniformly did a better job,” Fasullo said. The simulations that fared worse — the ones predicting smaller temperature rises — “should be outright discounted,” he said.
The IPCC report that set off panic in the boasrdrooms of the world's biggest corporations was not a worst case scenario report. Everything in it had to be vetted and approved by the governments involved, not just the scientists who wrote it. This meant that the report was closer to a best case rather than a wost case. Turns out that the worst case is the one that seems more likely. And just a reminder: atmospheric carbon has to stay below 350 ppm for the world to maintain the climate we've grown to depend on. Current levels are watching 390 ppm disappearing behind them.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Why the Census Matters
The US Census Bureau has a great chart of population growth which shows where people have chosen to settle in the US from 1790 to 2010. It is a great way to visualise the data, but it also indicates why the US is going to face significant problems with global warming. With so many people living on the coastline, sea level rise and increased storm surges--as we saw with Sandy in New York--is going to affect a huge population.Census data, collected as consistently as possible over a long period of time, was necessary to both create the chart and to understand where the effects will be felt.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
The Road to 350: part 1
So post-Copennhagen, it is clear that our national governments are going to be little if no help in getting us back under 350 ppm of CO². At least, not now and not for a while. Unless you live in Germany, which has taken its environmental responsibilities quite a bit more seriously since Kyoto than our Canadian national government ever did. Between '97 and '07, Germany reduced its emissions by about 6%. Canada's have risen by a similar amount. But Under the Harper Conservatives, we've also become an international pariah nation; the Commonwealth is moving to kick Canada out because of our obstructionist tactics viz. global warming at the last couple of meetings for example.
And our behaviour at Copenhagen was pathetic at best (I hope the Honourable Jim Prentice was suitably embarrassed at giving Harper's speech for him, that he refuses such an assignment again. If our PM really had the strength of his own convictions, he'd have given the speech himself).
But what is made clear from Copenhagen is the strength and impact of our provincial and municipal governments in addressing climate change. We need the federal government to step up, but until they do, there is a lot that can be accomplished at the municipal and provincial level. Say what you will about Gordon Campbell (and he likely deserves it), at least he appears to have heard about global warming and the need to reduce carbon emissions. And he has, however poorly executed or followed up on, instituted a carbon tax in BC.
So getting to 350 (or less, as several undeveloped nations suggested at Copenhagen), is going to be tricky. No one wants to go first, extractive businesses don't want to go at all, and most of us have no idea how to move forward. So where do we start?
On a personal level, the most effect you can have is not, funnily enough, to stop driving. Yes, that's a good idea. And we need more people on transit to make it carbon-effective (a replacement I humbly offer up for "cost-effective"). But the number one action we can take is to significantly reduce our intake of animal protein. If we each restricted our diet tomorrow to three servings of animal protein a week, we could change to world. Well, as long as we didn't allow the surplus to be exported.
The energy input costs for animal protein are in excess of 30-1. Thirty calories in for every calorie out. That's a recipe for disaster in any system. And I can't think of any "green meat" (with the possible exception of a couple of backyard chickens), Dr. Seuss notwithstanding.
Weapon of Global destruction.
I'm as guilty as anyone; I purchase cruelty-free pork from my local grocer (who gets only two hogs/week to sell; so small producer and local), but that doesn't really change the carbon footprint of the meat that much. And its not transportation that's the culprit. It's the raising of the animal that causes the most problems.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (in 2006):
When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.
And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.
Worldwide, about 13.5% of GHGs are produced by transportation in various forms. Livestock, worldwide, contribute about 18% of the world's GHGs (at least in 2006).
In Canada, 55% of nitrogen fertilizer is used to produce feed and pasture forage, also according to the FAO. In Germany, that number is 62%, and in the UK, 70%. The raising of calories to feed livestock is a massive energy sink.
Worldwide, since the signing of the Kyoto protocol, meat consumption has gone from 214,940,709 metric tonnes in 1997, to 246,771,601 tonnes in 2002 (the last year for which records are available), a net increase of 31,830,892 tonnes in five years. (In Canada it was 2,906,689 tonnes to 3,380,823 tonnes in the same period--a period during which our corruption index (Bribe Payer's Index (Transparency International) Units: index units: 10=bribes never occur; 1=bribes often occur) went from 8.1 in 1999 to 7.5 in 2006. Though this may have a lot more to do with our descent into petro-state status (see Andrew Nikiforuk).
And our behaviour at Copenhagen was pathetic at best (I hope the Honourable Jim Prentice was suitably embarrassed at giving Harper's speech for him, that he refuses such an assignment again. If our PM really had the strength of his own convictions, he'd have given the speech himself).
But what is made clear from Copenhagen is the strength and impact of our provincial and municipal governments in addressing climate change. We need the federal government to step up, but until they do, there is a lot that can be accomplished at the municipal and provincial level. Say what you will about Gordon Campbell (and he likely deserves it), at least he appears to have heard about global warming and the need to reduce carbon emissions. And he has, however poorly executed or followed up on, instituted a carbon tax in BC.
So getting to 350 (or less, as several undeveloped nations suggested at Copenhagen), is going to be tricky. No one wants to go first, extractive businesses don't want to go at all, and most of us have no idea how to move forward. So where do we start?
On a personal level, the most effect you can have is not, funnily enough, to stop driving. Yes, that's a good idea. And we need more people on transit to make it carbon-effective (a replacement I humbly offer up for "cost-effective"). But the number one action we can take is to significantly reduce our intake of animal protein. If we each restricted our diet tomorrow to three servings of animal protein a week, we could change to world. Well, as long as we didn't allow the surplus to be exported.
The energy input costs for animal protein are in excess of 30-1. Thirty calories in for every calorie out. That's a recipe for disaster in any system. And I can't think of any "green meat" (with the possible exception of a couple of backyard chickens), Dr. Seuss notwithstanding.
Weapon of Global destruction.
I'm as guilty as anyone; I purchase cruelty-free pork from my local grocer (who gets only two hogs/week to sell; so small producer and local), but that doesn't really change the carbon footprint of the meat that much. And its not transportation that's the culprit. It's the raising of the animal that causes the most problems.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (in 2006):
When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.
And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.
Worldwide, about 13.5% of GHGs are produced by transportation in various forms. Livestock, worldwide, contribute about 18% of the world's GHGs (at least in 2006).
In Canada, 55% of nitrogen fertilizer is used to produce feed and pasture forage, also according to the FAO. In Germany, that number is 62%, and in the UK, 70%. The raising of calories to feed livestock is a massive energy sink.
Worldwide, since the signing of the Kyoto protocol, meat consumption has gone from 214,940,709 metric tonnes in 1997, to 246,771,601 tonnes in 2002 (the last year for which records are available), a net increase of 31,830,892 tonnes in five years. (In Canada it was 2,906,689 tonnes to 3,380,823 tonnes in the same period--a period during which our corruption index (Bribe Payer's Index (Transparency International) Units: index units: 10=bribes never occur; 1=bribes often occur) went from 8.1 in 1999 to 7.5 in 2006. Though this may have a lot more to do with our descent into petro-state status (see Andrew Nikiforuk).
Powered by ScribeFire.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Running, Not Walking
Visualize the planet as a globe. Now put a belt around it. Put another belt above and below that one. These are climatic zones; and they are expanding. The belt around the middle is widening, and the one above and the one below are slipping up towards the poles as the middle one gets bigger. How fast is this happening? About 0.42 kilometres (0.26 miles) per year. But that speed is not constant. To quote from the Carnegie Institute for Science release:
The researchers found that as a global average, the expected temperature velocity for the 21st century is 0.42 kilometers (0.26 miles) per year. But this figure varies widely according to topography and habitat. In areas of high topographic relief, where species can find cooler temperatures by climbing a nearby mountain, velocities are relatively low. In flatter regions, such as deserts, grasslands, and coastal areas, species will have to travel farther to stay in their comfort zone and velocities may exceed a kilometer per year.
That's fast. Forests may have moved that fast after the last ice age, but they didn't then face the fragmented landscape they now face. Agricultural land, cities, etc. mean that a lot of species--not just plants and trees, but vertebrates and invertebrates--may have simply nowhere to go. The question is not whether they can adapt to shifting climate zones, but whether they can move with the zone they currently live in. Below is an interview with Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology and a co-author of the study on the speed of climate movement.
The researchers found that as a global average, the expected temperature velocity for the 21st century is 0.42 kilometers (0.26 miles) per year. But this figure varies widely according to topography and habitat. In areas of high topographic relief, where species can find cooler temperatures by climbing a nearby mountain, velocities are relatively low. In flatter regions, such as deserts, grasslands, and coastal areas, species will have to travel farther to stay in their comfort zone and velocities may exceed a kilometer per year.
That's fast. Forests may have moved that fast after the last ice age, but they didn't then face the fragmented landscape they now face. Agricultural land, cities, etc. mean that a lot of species--not just plants and trees, but vertebrates and invertebrates--may have simply nowhere to go. The question is not whether they can adapt to shifting climate zones, but whether they can move with the zone they currently live in. Below is an interview with Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology and a co-author of the study on the speed of climate movement.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Post-Copenhagen
So what did Canada get from our little trip to Copenhagen? Well, our PM made it clear that when it comes to photo opportunities, he's your guy--witness all the shots with various heads of state on his carbon-intensive journey pre-Copenhagen. But when it comes to facing up to the results of his beliefs and actions, he's really not so ready to get in front of a camera (well, to be fair, with the exception of his trip to China where only the sight of him crawling would really satisfy the Chinese leadership. But I think back to a year ago when Harper wouldn't face parliament after a major miscalculation either. Not really good at owning up to mistakes, our PM.). So poor old Jim Prentiss was trotted out to deliver 9 paragraphs of irrelevancy.
But Canada did get what our government wanted; nothing really changed. A vague commitment to reduce our emissions by 20% from 2006 levels (non-binding and unenforceable) and a promise to contribute to an international fund (dollars that are likely to come out of our current Foreign Affairs budget anyway).
But in terms of real change? Well, all we're going to get is more of the same. Enbridge is trying to build a pipeline across northern BC to haul bitumen (our vaunted "heavy oil") from Fort MacMurray to a tanker terminal at Prince Rupert. The Dogwood Initiative is working hard to keep that from happening, and is experiencing some success. But the extraction at the oil sands is still set to expand without any controls or limitations.
Which is one of the reasons Harper was willing to eat shit in China; China doesn't care what people do in their own country, as long as they fulfil their contractual obligations. So war criminal, genocidal lunatic, or environmental criminal, none of it matters as long as the resources keep flowing. And the US has pointed out that it does have some reservations about Alberta's bitumen extraction process. Several states are now refusing to accept oil from the tar sands, and President Obama announced on his arrival in Copenhagen that the EPA was going to be able to regulate CO² emissions. So Canada is facing growing restrictions on its ability to export dirty oil to the US.
As an aside, the move to declare CO² a pollutant and regulate it through the EPA is an important step for the US. Recent studies have indicated that the introduction of pollution controls in the US in the 1970s was important to the US remaining an economic powerhouse through the rest of the century. By forcing industries to clean up their act, the US government forced production efficiencies on those industries, making them much more competitive. This despite the extra imposed costs. It seems obvious that the same reasoning and results would apply to restrictions on CO².
So our PM, having no intention of imposing restrictions of any type on Alberta's bitumen production (he is, after all, the son of an oil executive, and beholding to oil companies), has realized that its necessary to find new markets that will not put restrictions on methods of production. Enter China.
China indicated at Copenhagen that while they are willing to agree to CO² reductions, they really have no interest in international verification procedures. Regretfully, NASA failed the launch of a satellite capable of doing that monitoring; currently the satellite rests on the bottom of the ocean near the Antarctic ice shelf. So until the US comes up with another 230 million dollars, international monitoring of CO² emissions is nothing but a dream.
But despite their dislike of international monitoring, China bids fair to become the renewable/green energy powerhouse of the 21st century. With the ability to totally ignore local opposition, China has begun building large wind and solar installations to supplement their coal and oil power producing infrastructure. In Canada, we've lost that opportunity with the Harper government's decision to spend infrastructure funds on partisan projects. Instead of taking the opportunity to help Canada into the 21st century, Harper decided instead to continue to believe that its the 1950s, and spend on old school projects. And unless there's someone presenting an oversized Conservative-logo'd novelty cheque, good luck on finding out where our billions of dollars are being spent. The Bush regime perfected the art of spending the country into impotence as a technique of hobbling future governments. Harper does it by cutting taxes (yes, we've gone from an inherited 13 billion surplus back to deficit spending--mostly down to Harper's cutting of the GST and other taxes)(as an aside, I'm actually in favour of taxes like the GST/HST; being strictly consumption-based and applying across the board, they tend to act to discourage spending and encourage saving).
So post-Copenhagen, we're really no further along to where we need to be. No international binding agreement on CO² reduction. The sea levels continue to rise, the poles continue to melt, the death of billions over the next 50-100 years still looms, and future of human life on Earth still hangs in the balance.
But Canada did get what our government wanted; nothing really changed. A vague commitment to reduce our emissions by 20% from 2006 levels (non-binding and unenforceable) and a promise to contribute to an international fund (dollars that are likely to come out of our current Foreign Affairs budget anyway).
But in terms of real change? Well, all we're going to get is more of the same. Enbridge is trying to build a pipeline across northern BC to haul bitumen (our vaunted "heavy oil") from Fort MacMurray to a tanker terminal at Prince Rupert. The Dogwood Initiative is working hard to keep that from happening, and is experiencing some success. But the extraction at the oil sands is still set to expand without any controls or limitations.
Which is one of the reasons Harper was willing to eat shit in China; China doesn't care what people do in their own country, as long as they fulfil their contractual obligations. So war criminal, genocidal lunatic, or environmental criminal, none of it matters as long as the resources keep flowing. And the US has pointed out that it does have some reservations about Alberta's bitumen extraction process. Several states are now refusing to accept oil from the tar sands, and President Obama announced on his arrival in Copenhagen that the EPA was going to be able to regulate CO² emissions. So Canada is facing growing restrictions on its ability to export dirty oil to the US.
As an aside, the move to declare CO² a pollutant and regulate it through the EPA is an important step for the US. Recent studies have indicated that the introduction of pollution controls in the US in the 1970s was important to the US remaining an economic powerhouse through the rest of the century. By forcing industries to clean up their act, the US government forced production efficiencies on those industries, making them much more competitive. This despite the extra imposed costs. It seems obvious that the same reasoning and results would apply to restrictions on CO².
So our PM, having no intention of imposing restrictions of any type on Alberta's bitumen production (he is, after all, the son of an oil executive, and beholding to oil companies), has realized that its necessary to find new markets that will not put restrictions on methods of production. Enter China.
China indicated at Copenhagen that while they are willing to agree to CO² reductions, they really have no interest in international verification procedures. Regretfully, NASA failed the launch of a satellite capable of doing that monitoring; currently the satellite rests on the bottom of the ocean near the Antarctic ice shelf. So until the US comes up with another 230 million dollars, international monitoring of CO² emissions is nothing but a dream.
But despite their dislike of international monitoring, China bids fair to become the renewable/green energy powerhouse of the 21st century. With the ability to totally ignore local opposition, China has begun building large wind and solar installations to supplement their coal and oil power producing infrastructure. In Canada, we've lost that opportunity with the Harper government's decision to spend infrastructure funds on partisan projects. Instead of taking the opportunity to help Canada into the 21st century, Harper decided instead to continue to believe that its the 1950s, and spend on old school projects. And unless there's someone presenting an oversized Conservative-logo'd novelty cheque, good luck on finding out where our billions of dollars are being spent. The Bush regime perfected the art of spending the country into impotence as a technique of hobbling future governments. Harper does it by cutting taxes (yes, we've gone from an inherited 13 billion surplus back to deficit spending--mostly down to Harper's cutting of the GST and other taxes)(as an aside, I'm actually in favour of taxes like the GST/HST; being strictly consumption-based and applying across the board, they tend to act to discourage spending and encourage saving).
So post-Copenhagen, we're really no further along to where we need to be. No international binding agreement on CO² reduction. The sea levels continue to rise, the poles continue to melt, the death of billions over the next 50-100 years still looms, and future of human life on Earth still hangs in the balance.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Copenhagen
So the Copenhagen talks on climate change are under-way. They come on the heels of hacked emails out of East Anglia, the announcement that Barack Obama will attend after all, and Stephen Harper being compelled to attend (in all fairness to Harper, there is no upside for him; as a climate-change denier, he views the whole thing as a waste of his time. As the Prime Minister of a petro-state that is an international pariah all he can hope for is abuse internationally, and no help to his reputation at home. He's much more comfortable in Korea, talking neo-con bullshit economics to a country that knows better than most how full of crap he is). SO what happens? Someone freaks out and leaks the "Danish Text," not a Rosetta Stone, but an agreement between the US, UK, and Denmark (and clearly some others, still unidentified)to apply the global system of Third World exploitation to the climate change crisis.
Briefly put, the Danish Test suggests that the developing world be restricted to emissions of 1.44 tonnes per person, while the First World be restricted to 2.67 tonnes per person. In exchange, the World Bank will pay out funds for climate change adjustments (from purchasing ameliorating technologies to paying the boat fares to allow your citizens to flee while their county and homes disappear under the waves of an advancing ocean) as long as the countries affected follow rules set down by the World Bank and the First World governments footing the bill.
Briefly put, the Danish Test suggests that the developing world be restricted to emissions of 1.44 tonnes per person, while the First World be restricted to 2.67 tonnes per person. In exchange, the World Bank will pay out funds for climate change adjustments (from purchasing ameliorating technologies to paying the boat fares to allow your citizens to flee while their county and homes disappear under the waves of an advancing ocean) as long as the countries affected follow rules set down by the World Bank and the First World governments footing the bill.
"A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries [...] seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:
• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;
• Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called "the most vulnerable";
• Weaken the UN's role in handling climate finance" (The Guardian)
As usual, the First World is finding democracy--even the sad and crippled version typified by the U.N.--to be an impediment to their own desires. So, as usual, the goal is to take any constraints on the developed nations off the table, and to screw those who are trying to have better lives--not lives as good as the developed world, just lives that are better than the hell they currently live in.
James Hansen, "[t]he scientist who convinced the world to take notice of the looming danger of global warming says it would be better for the planet and for future generations if next week's Copenhagen climate change summit ended in collapse." He figures the direction of the developed world at Copenhagen is so wrong that it would set us on the wrong path for decades, condemning us all to the hell of +6°C warming.
The Deniers are so clearly on the wrong side that they've been reduced into hacking email accounts and mis-representing the results, and, here in Canada, breaking into the office of a UVic climate scientist. Is it any wonder that I think we're alll doomed?
Powered by ScribeFire.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Meanwhile, Here At Home
From The Guardian:
Attempts have been made to break into the offices of one of Canada's leading climate scientists, it was revealed yesterday. The victim was Andrew Weaver, a University of Victoria scientist and a key contributor to the work of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In one incident, an old computer was stolen and papers were disturbed.
In addition, individuals have attempted to impersonate technicians in a bid to access data from his office, said Weaver. The attempted breaches, on top of the hacking of files from British climate researcher Phil Jones, have heightened fears that climate-change deniers are mounting a campaign to discredit the work of leading meteorologists before the start of the Copenhagen climate summit tomorrow.
"The key thing is to try to find anybody who's involved in any aspect of the IPCC and find something that you can … take out of context," said Weaver. The prospect of more break-ins and hacking has forced researchers to step up computer security.
Attempts have been made to break into the offices of one of Canada's leading climate scientists, it was revealed yesterday. The victim was Andrew Weaver, a University of Victoria scientist and a key contributor to the work of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In one incident, an old computer was stolen and papers were disturbed.
In addition, individuals have attempted to impersonate technicians in a bid to access data from his office, said Weaver. The attempted breaches, on top of the hacking of files from British climate researcher Phil Jones, have heightened fears that climate-change deniers are mounting a campaign to discredit the work of leading meteorologists before the start of the Copenhagen climate summit tomorrow.
"The key thing is to try to find anybody who's involved in any aspect of the IPCC and find something that you can … take out of context," said Weaver. The prospect of more break-ins and hacking has forced researchers to step up computer security.
The International Editorial
Copenhagen climate change conference: 'Fourteen days to seal history's judgment on this generation'
This editorial calling for action from world leaders on climate change is published today by 56 newspapers around the world in 20 languages
Copenhagen climate change summit - opening day liveblog
- The Guardian, Monday 7 December 2009
- Article history
Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.
Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year's inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world's response has been feeble and half-hearted.
• How the Copenhagen global leader came about
• Write your own editorial
• Bryony Worthington: How to make an impact
• In pictures: How newspapers around the world ran the editorial
Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.
The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.
Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of American domestic politics, for the president cannot fully commit to the action required until the US Congress has done so.
But the politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June's UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline. As one negotiator put it: "We can go into extra time but we can't afford a replay."
At the deal's heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world covering how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided — and how we will share a newly precious resource: the trillion or so tonnes of carbon that we can emit before the mercury rises to dangerous levels.
Rich nations like to point to the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing giants such as China take more radical steps than they have so far. But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere – three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emitted since 1850. It must now take a lead, and every developed country must commit to deep cuts which will reduce their emissions within a decade to very substantially less than their 1990 level.
Developing countries can point out they did not cause the bulk of the problem, and also that the poorest regions of the world will be hardest hit. But they will increasingly contribute to warming, and must thus pledge meaningful and quantifiable action of their own. Though both fell short of what some had hoped for, the recent commitments to emissions targets by the world's biggest polluters, the United States and China, were important steps in the right direction.
Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down – with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of "exported emissions" so that the burden can eventually be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than "old Europe", must not suffer more than their richer partners.
The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance — and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing.
Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. The era of flights that cost less than the taxi ride to the airport is drawing to a close. We will have to shop, eat and travel more intelligently. We will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it.
But the shift to a low-carbon society holds out the prospect of more opportunity than sacrifice. Already some countries have recognized that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs and better quality lives. The flow of capital tells its own story: last year for the first time more was invested in renewable forms of energy than producing electricity from fossil fuels.
Kicking our carbon habit within a few short decades will require a feat of engineering and innovation to match anything in our history. But whereas putting a man on the moon or splitting the atom were born of conflict and competition, the coming carbon race must be driven by a collaborative effort to achieve collective salvation.
Overcoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over pessimism, of vision over short-sightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature".
It is in that spirit that 56 newspapers from around the world have united behind this editorial. If we, with such different national and political perspectives, can agree on what must be done then surely our leaders can too.
The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history's judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice.
This editorial will be published tomorrow by 56 newspapers around the world in 20 languages including Chinese, Arabic and Russian. The text was drafted by a Guardian team during more than a month of consultations with editors from more than 20 of the papers involved. Like the Guardian most of the newspapers have taken the unusual step of featuring the editorial on their front page.
This editorial is free to reproduce under Creative Commons
'Fourteen days to seal history's judgment on this generation' by The Guardian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at guardian.co.uk.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/02/guardian-environment-team
(please note this Creative Commons license is valid until 18 December 2009)
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Monbiot Comes To Canada
From The Guardian:
So writes George Monbiot in The Guardian today. I think my favourite line is "[Canada] is now to climate what Japan is to whaling." Although he gets one thing wrong; when he says that Canada is "turning itself into a corrupt petro-state," I'd have to point out that Alberta's been one for forty or fifty years, and the Canadian government has been following suit since Mulroney at least.
Heard Andrew Nikiforuk talk this past week. He too calls Canada a corrupt petro-state. In his recent book, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent, he carefully explains the defining characteristics of a petro-state and how Alberta and Canada fit that definition. He then sums it up with what should be a rallying cry (but will never be so): There is no representation without taxation. In his article Declaration of a Political Emergency (pdf) he continues; "Oil hinders democracy and corrupts the political process through the absence of transparent reporting and clear fiscal accounting. Alberta, a classic petrostate, has one of the least accountable governments in Canada as well as the lowest voter turnout."
When you think of Canada, which qualities come to mind? The world's peacekeeper, the friendly nation, a liberal counterweight to the harsher pieties of its southern neighbour, decent, civilised, fair, well-governed? Think again. This country's government is now behaving with all the sophistication of a chimpanzee's tea party. So amazingly destructive has Canada become, and so insistent have my Canadian friends been that I weigh into this fight, that I've broken my self-imposed ban on flying and come to Toronto.
So here I am, watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petro-state. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. The price of this transition is the brutalisation of the country, and a government campaign against multilateralism as savage as any waged by George Bush.
So writes George Monbiot in The Guardian today. I think my favourite line is "[Canada] is now to climate what Japan is to whaling." Although he gets one thing wrong; when he says that Canada is "turning itself into a corrupt petro-state," I'd have to point out that Alberta's been one for forty or fifty years, and the Canadian government has been following suit since Mulroney at least.
Heard Andrew Nikiforuk talk this past week. He too calls Canada a corrupt petro-state. In his recent book, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent, he carefully explains the defining characteristics of a petro-state and how Alberta and Canada fit that definition. He then sums it up with what should be a rallying cry (but will never be so): There is no representation without taxation. In his article Declaration of a Political Emergency (pdf) he continues; "Oil hinders democracy and corrupts the political process through the absence of transparent reporting and clear fiscal accounting. Alberta, a classic petrostate, has one of the least accountable governments in Canada as well as the lowest voter turnout."
Monday, November 23, 2009
and England's dreaming...
Well, it's worked. We're all going to die, and it will be ugly. From The Guardian:
Climate change sceptics and fossil fuel companies that have lobbied against action on greenhouse gas emissions have squandered the world's chance to avoid dangerous global warming, a key adviser to the government has said.
Professor Bob Watson, chief scientist at the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs, said a decade of inaction on climate change meant it was now virtually impossible to limit global temperature rise to 2C. He said the delay meant the world would now do well to stabilise warming between 3C and 4C.
His comments come ahead of key UN negotiations on a new global climate treaty in Copenhagen next month that the UK government insists should still aim for a 2C goal, despite doubts over whether a meaningful deal can be sealed.
In an interview with the Guardian, Watson said: "Those that have opposed a deal on climate, which would include elements of the fossil fuel industry, have clearly made making a 2C target much, much harder, if not impossible. They've clearly put the world at risk of far more adverse effects of climate change."
Water gone, across the board decreases in cereal grain production, sea level rise, and inconsistent weather patterns (meaning no year-over-year understanding of what the weather is likely to do, to say nothing of more and more frequent extreme weather events), man, the next century is going to really suck.
The UN released a press release today saying that we've never (since recording started in the late 1700s) seen GHG levels this high (CO², methane, and nitrous oxide).
Powered by ScribeFire.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Peak Oil
According to The Guardian:
The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.
The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves.
The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation's latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies.
Listen to an audio clip with Terry Macalister here.
A report by the UK Energy Research Council (UKERC) said worldwide production of conventionally extracted oil could "peak" and go into terminal decline before 2020.
The world has used less than half of the planet's conventionally extracted oil, but the remaining resources will be more difficult and expensive to get out of the ground, slowing production and increasing prices of crude.
With exploitation of the world's reserves running at more than 80m barrels a day, even major new discoveries such as the oil fields recently found in the Gulf of Mexico by BP would only delay a peak by a few days or weeks, the report said as reported by The Guardian.
The report, from the Peak Oil group, warns that the problem of declining availability of oil will hit the UK earlier than generally expected - possibly within the next five years and as early as 2011. [Also reported in The Guardian]
We don't have any plans in place to deal with peak oil: in Canada, we import the oil we use, and export the oil we produce (leaving most of us feeling WTF?). We peak out, everything falls apart. Our government is in denial, our corporate heads seem to be suffering a complete meltdown,and the general public just doesn't want to know. Any wonder why I'm a bit despairing of our future?
Powered by ScribeFire.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Canada and the World
Even 20 months ago, no one knew what 350 meant, nor why it mattered. That's less than 2 years back. Then 10,000 year old ice sheets disappeared in the Arctic, Stephen Harper got a north of 60 hard-on, the IPCC released a report based on data that was already out of date (some of it a decade out of date), and a book detailing how James Hansen's work was censored came out. We shook our collective head, and some of us began to realize that we had entered what James Kunstler has called The Long Emergency.
It didn't take long to realize that 350 was the upper limit of atmospheric CO2 that could be considered "safe" (meaning that we might be able to keep global warming to 2°C and we might be able to live with the consequences of that rise), and here we are today looking at 390 ppm of carbon dioxide, no significant efforts being made to reduce carbon emissions, and a future that's looking at a minimum of 4°C warming and 6 metres of sea level rise--meanwhile emissions continue to increase and atmospheric CO2 rises at about 2ppm/year.
Here in Canada, we've got a Conservative government that is lead by a Prime Minister who still yet to convince anyone that he actually believes global warming may be a problem. Stephen "American Corporate Lackey" Harper is busy fiddling while the globe--including the nation of which he is nominally a member--burns. All our divorced-from-reality leader can see is the NorthWest Passage opening up and all that lovely ocean open to commercial exploitation.
Last week, the British Meteorological Office released a map of what we can expect to happen when we hit 4°C. The equatorial countries will get hotter, true, but the further you get from the equator, the more extreme the changes. But even now, Environment Minister Jim Prentice wants special treatment for Canada, allowing us--well, really just Alberta and the oil sands--to continue increasing our GHG emissions, while insisting that developing nations like China and India agree to hard caps that we ourselves will not accept. And the Canadian Government still refuses to release specifics of its plan to reduce our GHG emissions by 20% from our 2006 levels--which is light-years from our commitment under Kyoto.
Today comes the release of a new report. Quite unlike anything released in Canada before, it was financed by the Toronto Dominion Bank, produced by the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation, with economic modeling by the well-respected economic consultants, M.K. Jaccard and Associates Inc. As John Ibbitson writes in the Globe and Mail; "A major bank has paid two environmental organizations to produce a groundbreaking report that, for the first time, calculates the costs of both the Harper government's modest plans to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and the much more ambitious targets set by the environmental community, nationally and regionally."
The report offers a regional breakdown of economic impacts based on both the Harper government's vague commitment to 20% by 2020 (from 2006 levels) and the impact from the deeper and harder cuts that environmentalists are calling for and that would put Canada in line with our international obligations. And guess what? Neither scenario would kill us!
According to the report,"The Conservative government's goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 can be achieved, but only by limiting growth in Alberta and Saskatchewan." Alberta's growth would be 8.5% less in 2020 than it would be under a BAU (Business As Usual) approach, the report concludes. Under the same scenario, Saskatchewan would lose 2.8% of its projected growth. Central Canada, on the other hand, might well see some additional growth added to its projection. To quote Shawn McCarthy's article in the G&M; "Despite the steep costs involved in meeting targets, the analysis concludes the Canadian economy would continue to grow, albeit at a slower pace, and that investment in renewable energy and efficiency measures would result in an overall increase in employment compared to a “business-as-usual” scenario.
And even with the significant reduction in Alberta's potential growth and employment prospects, the province would still lead the country economically over the next 10 years."
So our economy would continue to grow AND there would probably be an increase in employment as well. And the cost? A reduction in projected growth an Alberta and Saskatchewan, and a significant out-migration from both provinces back to central Canada.
To further quote Shawn McCarthy's article: "TD's chief economist, Don Drummond, said the bank has not endorsed any targets, though it has supported a policy of a national emissions cap. He said the bank's interest was to shed light on an area where there has been little informed debate: the likely cost of imposing regulations."
I'm actually not seeing any real downside here. The Globe and Mail editorial board does though. In today's editorial, we read: "[T]he study acknowledges that what is proposed is no less than an economic upheaval: “There is a migration of capital and labour out of carbon and trade exposed sectors (e.g., fossil fuels) to sectors that are less carbon and trade exposed (e.g., manufacturing, services and renewable electricity).”
Canada cannot take its national unity for granted and must not, in the service of international obligations, allow itself to be immolated by a government policy of such wrenching dislocation." And the editorial concludes: "[T]he target [of carbon dioxide emission reduction] may be unreachable without unacceptable damage to Canada's economy and national unity. In which case, it is time for new targets, and new policies."
I can't help but think that no-one raised much of a stink about the "wrenching dislocation" caused by the development of the oil sands on the communities of Atlantic Canada. And even Jeffrey Simpson concludes that the Harper government's targets are just so much smoke being blown up our collective asses.
And so we have serious economic modelling of the potential and problems with trying to meet our international obligations regarding global warming and CO2 emissions. And we can now point to the report and say, "Tough, yes. But it won't kill us, and will probably make us stronger." And what of the complaints sure to come from the political and ruling classes of Alberta and Saskatchewan? Well, both provinces have had a great decade, with both provinces posting significant surpluses in their budgets, and neither has done a damn thing to prepare for the inevitable crash (particularly Alberta under Ralph Klein). For Alberta, that's two oil-based booms they've pissed away under Conservative governments. So honestly, I have no great sympathy for the Alberta government. And regardless of any future whining, we can look at the economic model contained in the M.K. Jaccard and Associates Inc. report, and read again the conclusion that "even with the significant reduction in Alberta's potential growth and employment prospects, the province would still lead the country economically over the next 10 years." And the planet (well, the human part of it) would thank us for facing up to our responsibilities.
It didn't take long to realize that 350 was the upper limit of atmospheric CO2 that could be considered "safe" (meaning that we might be able to keep global warming to 2°C and we might be able to live with the consequences of that rise), and here we are today looking at 390 ppm of carbon dioxide, no significant efforts being made to reduce carbon emissions, and a future that's looking at a minimum of 4°C warming and 6 metres of sea level rise--meanwhile emissions continue to increase and atmospheric CO2 rises at about 2ppm/year.
Here in Canada, we've got a Conservative government that is lead by a Prime Minister who still yet to convince anyone that he actually believes global warming may be a problem. Stephen "American Corporate Lackey" Harper is busy fiddling while the globe--including the nation of which he is nominally a member--burns. All our divorced-from-reality leader can see is the NorthWest Passage opening up and all that lovely ocean open to commercial exploitation.
Last week, the British Meteorological Office released a map of what we can expect to happen when we hit 4°C. The equatorial countries will get hotter, true, but the further you get from the equator, the more extreme the changes. But even now, Environment Minister Jim Prentice wants special treatment for Canada, allowing us--well, really just Alberta and the oil sands--to continue increasing our GHG emissions, while insisting that developing nations like China and India agree to hard caps that we ourselves will not accept. And the Canadian Government still refuses to release specifics of its plan to reduce our GHG emissions by 20% from our 2006 levels--which is light-years from our commitment under Kyoto.
Today comes the release of a new report. Quite unlike anything released in Canada before, it was financed by the Toronto Dominion Bank, produced by the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation, with economic modeling by the well-respected economic consultants, M.K. Jaccard and Associates Inc. As John Ibbitson writes in the Globe and Mail; "A major bank has paid two environmental organizations to produce a groundbreaking report that, for the first time, calculates the costs of both the Harper government's modest plans to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and the much more ambitious targets set by the environmental community, nationally and regionally."
The report offers a regional breakdown of economic impacts based on both the Harper government's vague commitment to 20% by 2020 (from 2006 levels) and the impact from the deeper and harder cuts that environmentalists are calling for and that would put Canada in line with our international obligations. And guess what? Neither scenario would kill us!
According to the report,"The Conservative government's goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 can be achieved, but only by limiting growth in Alberta and Saskatchewan." Alberta's growth would be 8.5% less in 2020 than it would be under a BAU (Business As Usual) approach, the report concludes. Under the same scenario, Saskatchewan would lose 2.8% of its projected growth. Central Canada, on the other hand, might well see some additional growth added to its projection. To quote Shawn McCarthy's article in the G&M; "Despite the steep costs involved in meeting targets, the analysis concludes the Canadian economy would continue to grow, albeit at a slower pace, and that investment in renewable energy and efficiency measures would result in an overall increase in employment compared to a “business-as-usual” scenario.
And even with the significant reduction in Alberta's potential growth and employment prospects, the province would still lead the country economically over the next 10 years."
So our economy would continue to grow AND there would probably be an increase in employment as well. And the cost? A reduction in projected growth an Alberta and Saskatchewan, and a significant out-migration from both provinces back to central Canada.
To further quote Shawn McCarthy's article: "TD's chief economist, Don Drummond, said the bank has not endorsed any targets, though it has supported a policy of a national emissions cap. He said the bank's interest was to shed light on an area where there has been little informed debate: the likely cost of imposing regulations."
I'm actually not seeing any real downside here. The Globe and Mail editorial board does though. In today's editorial, we read: "[T]he study acknowledges that what is proposed is no less than an economic upheaval: “There is a migration of capital and labour out of carbon and trade exposed sectors (e.g., fossil fuels) to sectors that are less carbon and trade exposed (e.g., manufacturing, services and renewable electricity).”
Canada cannot take its national unity for granted and must not, in the service of international obligations, allow itself to be immolated by a government policy of such wrenching dislocation." And the editorial concludes: "[T]he target [of carbon dioxide emission reduction] may be unreachable without unacceptable damage to Canada's economy and national unity. In which case, it is time for new targets, and new policies."
I can't help but think that no-one raised much of a stink about the "wrenching dislocation" caused by the development of the oil sands on the communities of Atlantic Canada. And even Jeffrey Simpson concludes that the Harper government's targets are just so much smoke being blown up our collective asses.
And so we have serious economic modelling of the potential and problems with trying to meet our international obligations regarding global warming and CO2 emissions. And we can now point to the report and say, "Tough, yes. But it won't kill us, and will probably make us stronger." And what of the complaints sure to come from the political and ruling classes of Alberta and Saskatchewan? Well, both provinces have had a great decade, with both provinces posting significant surpluses in their budgets, and neither has done a damn thing to prepare for the inevitable crash (particularly Alberta under Ralph Klein). For Alberta, that's two oil-based booms they've pissed away under Conservative governments. So honestly, I have no great sympathy for the Alberta government. And regardless of any future whining, we can look at the economic model contained in the M.K. Jaccard and Associates Inc. report, and read again the conclusion that "even with the significant reduction in Alberta's potential growth and employment prospects, the province would still lead the country economically over the next 10 years." And the planet (well, the human part of it) would thank us for facing up to our responsibilities.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Copenhagen, Canada, and the End of the World
The Globe and Mail is reporting on an interview with Environment Minister Jim Prentice, saying that the chance of an agreement on climate change in Copenhagen is pretty much non-existent.
The world wants a climate change agreement in Copenhagen. The US is even onside, with President Obama actually understanding both the science and political realities of global warming. The EU wants an agreement, with Germany busy poaching Canadian alternative energy companies and the Brits launching the 10-10 campaign. China is even pursuing lower carbon emissions. So what's the problem?
The problem is the Canadian government. Canada has become the biggest roadblock to an international agreement to lower carbon emissions. According the the G&M article (23 October 2009, p A1 Ottawa dashes hope for treaty in Copenhagen) Canada is continuing to "insist that it should have a less aggressive target for emission reductions[...] because of its faster-growing population and energy-intensive industrial structure". The Harper government is also going to insist that any cap on industrial emissions will not be applied uniformly across the country, but will allow the Alberta oil sands to continue expanding. To quote the Environment Minister; "The Canadian approach has to reflect the diversity of the country and the sheer size of the country, and the very different economic characteristics and industrial structure across the country." The Harper government has also demanded that emerging economies (like China and India) agree to binding caps on carbon emissions, and has refused to release its own plan for carbon reduction until there is clarity on what the Americans are planning to do.
The New Democratic Party has a bill currently in committee that would commit Canada to an emission reduction of 25% from 1990 levels by 2020--a target that would meet our commitment under Kyoto and would be consistent with the EU's approach in the next round of negotiations. Ottawa has proposed a reduction of 20% from 2006 levels of emissions by 2020--our obligation under Kyoto was a cut of 6% from 1990 levels by 2012. The plan proposed by the Harper government would result in a 3% reduction from 1990 levels by 2020. Chief climate negotiator Michael Martin said to the committee considering the NDP bill that the Harper government's targets are "comparable" because they will be just as costly to achieve as the more aggressive NDP targets.
What becomes clear, as we follow the progress towards significant carbon emission reductions, is that the Harper government has no intention of ever reducing carbon emissions. Harper simply does not consider carbon emissions to be a problem (how can I say that? By simply looking at his record).
And our Prime Minister is dragging a lot of sceptics along with him. World-wide, temperatures maxed out in 1998, leading deniers to claim that temperatures have levelled off or are even declining. But new research to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, was carried out by Judith Lean, of the US Naval Research Laboratory, and David Rind, of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The research, "is the first to assess the combined impact on global temperature of four factors: human influences such as CO2 and aerosol emissions; heating from the sun; volcanic activity and the El Niño southern oscillation, the phenomenon by which the Pacific Ocean flips between warmer and cooler states every few years.
The world wants a climate change agreement in Copenhagen. The US is even onside, with President Obama actually understanding both the science and political realities of global warming. The EU wants an agreement, with Germany busy poaching Canadian alternative energy companies and the Brits launching the 10-10 campaign. China is even pursuing lower carbon emissions. So what's the problem?
The problem is the Canadian government. Canada has become the biggest roadblock to an international agreement to lower carbon emissions. According the the G&M article (23 October 2009, p A1 Ottawa dashes hope for treaty in Copenhagen) Canada is continuing to "insist that it should have a less aggressive target for emission reductions[...] because of its faster-growing population and energy-intensive industrial structure". The Harper government is also going to insist that any cap on industrial emissions will not be applied uniformly across the country, but will allow the Alberta oil sands to continue expanding. To quote the Environment Minister; "The Canadian approach has to reflect the diversity of the country and the sheer size of the country, and the very different economic characteristics and industrial structure across the country." The Harper government has also demanded that emerging economies (like China and India) agree to binding caps on carbon emissions, and has refused to release its own plan for carbon reduction until there is clarity on what the Americans are planning to do.
The New Democratic Party has a bill currently in committee that would commit Canada to an emission reduction of 25% from 1990 levels by 2020--a target that would meet our commitment under Kyoto and would be consistent with the EU's approach in the next round of negotiations. Ottawa has proposed a reduction of 20% from 2006 levels of emissions by 2020--our obligation under Kyoto was a cut of 6% from 1990 levels by 2012. The plan proposed by the Harper government would result in a 3% reduction from 1990 levels by 2020. Chief climate negotiator Michael Martin said to the committee considering the NDP bill that the Harper government's targets are "comparable" because they will be just as costly to achieve as the more aggressive NDP targets.
What becomes clear, as we follow the progress towards significant carbon emission reductions, is that the Harper government has no intention of ever reducing carbon emissions. Harper simply does not consider carbon emissions to be a problem (how can I say that? By simply looking at his record).
And our Prime Minister is dragging a lot of sceptics along with him. World-wide, temperatures maxed out in 1998, leading deniers to claim that temperatures have levelled off or are even declining. But new research to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, was carried out by Judith Lean, of the US Naval Research Laboratory, and David Rind, of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The research, "is the first to assess the combined impact on global temperature of four factors: human influences such as CO2 and aerosol emissions; heating from the sun; volcanic activity and the El Niño southern oscillation, the phenomenon by which the Pacific Ocean flips between warmer and cooler states every few years.
The analysis shows the relative stability in global temperatures in the last seven years is explained primarily by the decline in incoming sunlight associated with the downward phase of the 11-year solar cycle, together with a lack of strong El Niño events. These trends have masked the warming caused by CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
As solar activity picks up again in the coming years, the research suggests, temperatures will shoot up at 150% of the rate predicted by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Lean and Rind's research also sheds light on the extreme average temperature in 1998. The paper confirms that the temperature spike that year was caused primarily by a very strong El Niño episode. A future episode could be expected to create a spike of equivalent magnitude on top of an even higher baseline, thus shattering the 1998 record.
The study comes within days of announcements from climatologists that the world is entering a new El Niño warm spell. This suggests that temperature rises in the next year could be even more marked than Lean and Rind's paper suggests." (The Guardian Online).
The British Meteorological Office released a new map of the world (below) showing the current thinking on what the world will look like with a 4°C rise in the average global temperature. The 4°C rise mostly happens at the equator--the further you move away from the equator, the greater the changes. Here on Vancouver Island, we may only see an average 5°C rise, but up in Hudson's Bay, its looking more like 16°C. What this doesn't indicate is just how this will affect global weather patterns. If it was just going to get warmer, that wouldn't be the end of the world.But all that extra energy is going to change things in ways we can't imagine yet, much less model.
The Met Office says that climate researchers have discovered that:
- levels of CO2 have risen 40% since the Industrial Revolution
- Global sea levels have risen 10cm in the last 50 years [and that's a hell of a lot of water]
- temperatures in the Arctic have risen at twice the global average [which suits our Prime Minister just fine]
- snow cover in the northern hemisphere has dropped 5% in the last 2 decades
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Ah, I Can Feel It Working
From over at IPS:
In recent weeks, Greenpeace has staged three daring protests inside tar sands mines, temporarily shutting down parts of the world's largest energy project. On Oct. 3 and 4, activists blocked construction of an upgrader needed to refine heavy tar sands oil, belonging to Shell in Ft. Saskatchewan, Alberta.
Civil disobedience from Greenpeace, leading to 37 arrests, has enraged Alberta's conservative government. "We're coddling people who are breaking the law," complained Premier Ed Stelmach during a media scrum in early October.
"Premier Stelmach's public suggestion that he will use the 'force of the law to deal with these people' confirms his lack of knowledge of the limits of his authority and the clear rule that our system of justice cannot be interfered with or manipulated for political reasons," responded Brian Beresh, the defence lawyer representing arrested activists, at a news conference in Edmonton.
This is one of the uses of civil disobedience--like one of the uses of terrorism--to provoke those in power into over-reacting and doing something stupid that makes the instigator's point for them. Like the US after 9-11 made Al Qaeda's point that they were an imperial power by invading Iraq, the Alberta government is going to make Greenpeace's point for them. They are actually threatening to use anti-terrorism legislation to shut down civil disobedience at the tar sands.
"Canada's tar sands will singlehandedly produce more greenhouse gas emissions than Denmark, Ireland, Austria or Portugal by 2020 if the development continues expanding at its current rate, according to a recent report written by award-winning business reporter Andrew Nikiforuk. The tar sands already spew more greenhouse gas emissions than Estonia or Lithuania", the article continues.
It's not like Greenpeace stands alone on this; the head of the IPCC has also said that the tar sands should be shut down.
Keep in mind that this Saturday--October 24th--is 350 day, the international day of climate action. The 350 refers to the accepted maximum concentration of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere--the number we've blown past already. Last I checked, we were at 385. Write an MP, get out and be counted, ride a bike, whatever. Check the website for ideas. In Victoria, there will be a day of activities at Centennial Square on Saturday.
In recent weeks, Greenpeace has staged three daring protests inside tar sands mines, temporarily shutting down parts of the world's largest energy project. On Oct. 3 and 4, activists blocked construction of an upgrader needed to refine heavy tar sands oil, belonging to Shell in Ft. Saskatchewan, Alberta.
Civil disobedience from Greenpeace, leading to 37 arrests, has enraged Alberta's conservative government. "We're coddling people who are breaking the law," complained Premier Ed Stelmach during a media scrum in early October.
"Premier Stelmach's public suggestion that he will use the 'force of the law to deal with these people' confirms his lack of knowledge of the limits of his authority and the clear rule that our system of justice cannot be interfered with or manipulated for political reasons," responded Brian Beresh, the defence lawyer representing arrested activists, at a news conference in Edmonton.
This is one of the uses of civil disobedience--like one of the uses of terrorism--to provoke those in power into over-reacting and doing something stupid that makes the instigator's point for them. Like the US after 9-11 made Al Qaeda's point that they were an imperial power by invading Iraq, the Alberta government is going to make Greenpeace's point for them. They are actually threatening to use anti-terrorism legislation to shut down civil disobedience at the tar sands.
"Canada's tar sands will singlehandedly produce more greenhouse gas emissions than Denmark, Ireland, Austria or Portugal by 2020 if the development continues expanding at its current rate, according to a recent report written by award-winning business reporter Andrew Nikiforuk. The tar sands already spew more greenhouse gas emissions than Estonia or Lithuania", the article continues.
It's not like Greenpeace stands alone on this; the head of the IPCC has also said that the tar sands should be shut down.
Keep in mind that this Saturday--October 24th--is 350 day, the international day of climate action. The 350 refers to the accepted maximum concentration of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere--the number we've blown past already. Last I checked, we were at 385. Write an MP, get out and be counted, ride a bike, whatever. Check the website for ideas. In Victoria, there will be a day of activities at Centennial Square on Saturday.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
A Buzzing In My Ears
Earlier this year Dawa Steven Sherpa was resting at Everest base camp when he and his companions heard something buzzing. "What the heck is that?" asked the young Nepali climber. They searched and found a big black house fly, something unimaginable just a few years ago when no insect could have survived at 5,360 metres.
So begins this story in the Guardian. It's becoming depressingly familiar at this point; insects where they don't belong, glaciers retreating at an appalling pace, and (in this case) glofs, or glacial lake outburst floods.
So have a read, then pop over to the review of Superfreakonomics and have a read of this:
A large chunk of Superfreakonomics is given over to what Levitt and Dubner present as a simple, cheap alternative to all this depressing futility. They profile Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer of Microsoft, whose company, Intellectual Ventures, is exploring the possibility of pumping large quantities of sulphur dioxide into the Earth's stratosphere through an 18-mile-long hose, held up by helium balloons, at an initial cost of around $20m. The chemical would reflect some of the sun's rays back into space, cooling the planet, exactly as happened following the massive 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, in the Philippines. The primary objection to this plan, as with other "geoengineering" schemes, is that there's no predicting the unknown negative effects of meddling in such a complex natural system. And it's strange, given how much is made in both Freakonomics books of the law of unintended consequences, that they don't mention this in the context of Myhrvold's plan.
This is where we wait and wait and wait and then begin grasping at straws and stupid ideas, looking for the quick fix. The problem is not sunlight falling on the Earth, its the CO2 in the atmosphere. The sulphur dioxide "fix" does nothing but to help buy a little time. The ocean is still gong acidic (as one example), crashing what few food stocks are left. That will not be slowed by altering the amount of sunlight getting through the atmosphere. (Freakonomics; a bunch of untested and unproven correlations and ideas masquerading as breakthrough carved-in-stone facts. Mediocre speculative mutton dressed up as scientific lamb).
So begins this story in the Guardian. It's becoming depressingly familiar at this point; insects where they don't belong, glaciers retreating at an appalling pace, and (in this case) glofs, or glacial lake outburst floods.
So have a read, then pop over to the review of Superfreakonomics and have a read of this:
A large chunk of Superfreakonomics is given over to what Levitt and Dubner present as a simple, cheap alternative to all this depressing futility. They profile Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer of Microsoft, whose company, Intellectual Ventures, is exploring the possibility of pumping large quantities of sulphur dioxide into the Earth's stratosphere through an 18-mile-long hose, held up by helium balloons, at an initial cost of around $20m. The chemical would reflect some of the sun's rays back into space, cooling the planet, exactly as happened following the massive 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, in the Philippines. The primary objection to this plan, as with other "geoengineering" schemes, is that there's no predicting the unknown negative effects of meddling in such a complex natural system. And it's strange, given how much is made in both Freakonomics books of the law of unintended consequences, that they don't mention this in the context of Myhrvold's plan.
This is where we wait and wait and wait and then begin grasping at straws and stupid ideas, looking for the quick fix. The problem is not sunlight falling on the Earth, its the CO2 in the atmosphere. The sulphur dioxide "fix" does nothing but to help buy a little time. The ocean is still gong acidic (as one example), crashing what few food stocks are left. That will not be slowed by altering the amount of sunlight getting through the atmosphere. (Freakonomics; a bunch of untested and unproven correlations and ideas masquerading as breakthrough carved-in-stone facts. Mediocre speculative mutton dressed up as scientific lamb).
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)