Category Archives: Climate Change

10 ways to see Earth’s temperature rising

January 20, 2013Climate Change, Climate ScienceRay Grigg

The subject of global climate change is critically important, irresistibly fascinating and incredibly complex. The following are relevant slices of information on this amazing subject.

1. According to the science journal, Nature, predictions of global temperature increases made by leading climatologists in 1990 have proven to be incredibly accurate. They estimated that from 1990 to 2030, the global temperature increase caused by greenhouse gas emissions would be 1.1°C — it was 0.39°C at the halfway point in 2010. The second 20-year period allows for slightly higher rate of increase because of the delayed response of ecosystems to existing carbon dioxide emissions and the effect of continuously higher emissions throughout most or all of the 20-year period. This would bring the global temperature increase well above the 2.0°C considered safe.

2. Human emissions of carbon dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere in 2011 were 34.7 billion tonnes, up about 1 billion tonnes from the previous year. If billions are too big to comprehend, these total emissions translate into 1,100 tonnes per second — about the weight of 500 cars dissolving into the atmosphere 60 times every minute (Globe and Mail, Dec. 4/12).

3. In addition to supplying a valuable nursery for many of the ocean’s small animals and fish, scientists have discovered that for thousands of years seagrass ecosystems have been locking an estimated 27.4 million tonnes of CO2 annually into marine soils — as much per hectare as forests. But dredging, pollution and siltation are destroying these seagrass ecologies at a rate of 1.4 percent per year, releasing about 299 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere annually. Scientists worry that expanding dead zones, global warming and ocean acidification caused from burning fossil fuels may ultimately kill these special ecologies. Dying seagrass ecologies would eventually release the 19.9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide presently stored in them (NewScientist, May 26/12).

4. Australia’s summer of 2012 has been exceptionally hot and dry. Temperature records kept since 1883 have been shattered. New South Wales and Tasmania are suffering from extensive wild fires. After labelling the increasingly threatening conditions as “serious”, “dangerous” and “critical”, scorching temperatures of 45°C with winds of 100 km/hr have prompted fire officials to add “catastrophic” to their ascending order of warnings. A code “purple” has been added to the warning system for temperatures above 50°C.

5. In April, 2012, for the first time in human existence, the mean concentration of measured atmospheric carbon dioxide throughout the Arctic and in Japan reached 400 parts per million. The levels usually peak about April before plants begin to absorb carbon dioxide during their annual growth cycle. The year-long average for 2012 will likely drop to about 393 ppm, up considerably from the 280 ppm that preceded industrialization. Pieter Tans of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Laboratory concedes he doesn’t know the level that can be deemed safe. But he says that by continually raising this concentration, “We’re playing a very dangerous game” (NewScientist, June 9/12).

6. Some of the huge quantities of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels eventually dissolve into the oceans to form carbonic acid. As oceans become more acidic, small animals in the crucially important marine food chain are unable to form their calcium carbonate shells. Oregon and Washington oyster growers discovered this in the mid-2000s when their “larvae” were unable to develop into the “seed” needed re-populate their oyster beds. Upwelling ocean currents carrying 50 year-old concentrations of carbon dioxide were mixing with CO2-rich surface water to create pH levels too acidic for the larvae to survive. The oyster growers have temporarily solved the problem by importing larvae from elsewhere.

7. During a tweet connection from the International Space Station to a school in Bedford, Nova Scotia, a student asked the new commander of the ISS, Canadian Chris Hadfield, if any signs of global warming were visible from space. Hadfield quickly replied that evaporated lakes, shrinking glaciers and desertification were all clearly evident (CBC Radio, Jan. 5/13).

8. In CBC Radio’s popular science program, Quirks and Quarks, listeners were invited to predict the future, and then experts were asked to respond (Jan. 5/13). One prediction was that by 2075, 50 percent of Canada’s boreal forests would be burned by forest fires. The expert disagreed — he said the amount would probably be in excess of 55 percent. In the 1970s, he said, the loss to fires was about 1 million hectares per year (m/ha/yr). Today it is about 2 m/ha/yr. By 2075 it will be at least 4 m/ha/yr. A rise of 3-4°C in boreal temperatures by 2075 will mean that forest fires will become larger and more common, making human habitation more risky — the 2011 forest fire that raged through the Alberta town of Slave Lake destroyed half its buildings and caused $750 million in damage. A precipitation increase of 40 percent would be needed to compensate for the warmer conditions. Many burned areas will naturally re-seed but, if fire cycles are more frequent than every 20 years, boreal forests will revert to grassland rather than regenerate.

9. Arctic ice melt reached record levels in September, 2012.

10. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced in October, 2012, that the previous month had been the warmest September on record, tying the 2005 title (Globe and Mail, Oct. 17/12). Using temperature records that stretch all the way back to 1880, September, 2012, “marked the 331st straight month with above average temperatures, and the 36th straight September with global temperatures above the 20th century average.” This means that “the last below-average month for any month of the year occurred in February 1985”, and that everyone who is 27 years-old or younger has never lived in a cooler than average month.

Climate Change a failure of political will

January 7, 2013Climate Change, International, PoliticsRay Grigg

Politicians who almost universally claim to be so well-informed that they can run countries, cannot also claim to be so ill-informed that they do not appreciate the gravity of the unfolding environmental crisis Continue reading Climate Change a failure of political will →

The Fracking Mess

December 17, 2012Climate Change, Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Water and Hydrocarbonsclimate change, fracking, Oil and gas, Ray Grigg, Shades of GreenRay Grigg

Since international agreements have been unable to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions — 20 years of negotiations and effort have resulted in emissions going up rather than down — those concerned about global warming had hoped that the anticipated decline in petroleum supplies would force a solution. If the availability of accessible oil and natural gas were to dwindle, nations everywhere would be compelled to find energy sources that were less carbon intensive. But fracking has put an end to that hope.

The relatively new technique of “hydraulic fracturing”, a process of drilling horizontally in shale beds and then breaking the rock by injecting a concoction of water, sand and toxic chemicals under extreme pressure, is releasing huge quantities of oil and natural gas. In addition to polluting a subterranean frontier, the global result is a total reconfiguration of the energy equation.

The economic effects are the most obvious. Natural gas is flooding the energy markets in North America and Europe, and is likely to do so elsewhere. Fracking is releasing massive amounts of natural gas in the US, reducing the price below production costs and undermining the market value of Canadian exports of gas. The economic result for BC and Alberta is a collapse of royalties to governments. And low natural gas prices may threaten the economic viability of gas lines and LNG plants planned for BC’s West Coast.

The same economic dynamic is occurring with oil. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the success of fracking could make an oil-starved America into the world’s largest producer by 2020, and a net exporter by 2030. This reduced dependence on foreign oil questions the Canadian government’s wisdom of relying on the export of petroleum resources as the country’s principal economic plan. It also casts doubt on the viability of the energy-intensive methods used to extract oil from the tar sands.

These new supplies of domestic oil in the US and other countries are likely to change global geopolitics. Saudi Arabia, for example, may lose its privileged position in the global energy equation, and thereby lose the Western support that has been key to its political security. China and India might make moves to replace the West as the strategic friend of existing oil producers. Meanwhile, generous oil supplies will reduce its market price, thereby encouraging world economic activity and further eroding the only effective incentive that has reduced oil consumption, cut carbon dioxide emissions and slowed global climate change.

So the fracking that has become the solution to shortages of gas and oil now presents a host of problems that will ultimately be far more serious than the challenge of slowly weaning our modern civilization from petroleum. “The climate goal of limiting warming to 2°C is becoming more difficult and more costly with each year that passes,” notes the IEA.

The reality is that we are running out of manoeuvring room. “Four-fifths of all carbon emissions that are supposed to be allowed by 2035 to keep warming below two degrees Celsius are already locked into power plants, factories and buildings,” writes Jeffrey Simpson in the Globe and Mail (Nov. 21/12). “If strong action is not taken by 2017, all the emissions necessary to keep warming below that level will be locked in,” he adds. Global consumption of oil, thanks to fracking, is expected to rise a third by 2035, driving “the long-term average global temperature increase to 3.6 degrees Celsius” (Ibid.).

We are already feeling the impact of global temperature increases of 0.8°C. An increase of over four-times this amount would have environmental consequences that we can scarcely imagine. George Monbiot, writing in the Guardian Weekly (Oct 26/12) provides a hint. “A paper this year by the world’s leading climate scientist, James Hansen, shows that the frequency of extremely hot events…has risen by a factor of about 50 in comparison with the decades before 1980. Forty years ago, extreme summer heat typically affected between 0.1% and 0.2% of the globe. Today it scorches some 10%.”

Ocean levels are already rising, causing coastal US cities such as Norfolk, Virginia, to flood regularly from heavy rainfall and small storm surges. Although the disasters that recently befell New Orleans and New York cannot be attributed specifically to global climate change, weather modelling suggests that such events will likely become so commonplace that smashed and flooded coastal cities will appear in lists rather than individually. Severe droughts and storms would become almost too routine to be news. All but the most extreme of the extreme weather events would just be dismissed with generalizations such as “just another bad day on Earth”.

Climatology tells us that during the last 10,000 years we have been living in one of the most benign, stable and accommodating periods in all of human history. Our global civilization is founded upon this predictable comfort. Our cities crowd shorelines because these locations have been safe and convenient. Our food production is based on mild and rhythmical weather. Our renewable resources depend upon a regular climate for regeneration. We alter this normalcy at our peril.

The carbon dioxide we are adding to the atmosphere is now occurring at a rate six times faster than the most rapid natural emissions of any geological epoch of which we know — we are doing in 500 years what nature once did in 3,000 years. This single, traumatic past event caused one of the planet’s most disastrous biological extinctions. Put simply, a future created by excessive carbon dioxide emissions is not going to be comfortable or promising.

Our ingenuity is not an asset if it is used to solve the wrong problems. Indeed, if the biggest threat now confronting us is caused by burning petroleum as our principal energy source, then the more we do to find and use this fuel, the worse our problem becomes. In a future review of our history, we will likely conclude that fracking created a bigger mess than it solved.

In praise of Science and Reason

December 11, 2012Canada, Climate Change, Climate Science, Politics, Western CanadaPolitics, Stephen HarperMiranda Holmes

I’ve never been a member of a political party, although I did consider joining the NDP earlier this year, just so I could vote for Nathan Cullen in the leadership contest. Now I’m considering joining the Liberals, just so I can vote for Joyce Murray.

In the rarified air of Parliament Hill, where so many Opposition MPs seem to exist in an alternative reality, these two brave souls have pointed out what any sane Canadian can already see: if we want to escape from Harperland and return to something resembling the Canada most of us know and love, the NDP, the Liberals and the Greens are going to have to co-operate and run candidates strategically in the next federal election.

It is (perhaps) interesting that both these MPs are from the invisible province of British Columbia. I say “invisible” because, in the current debate about the East/West divide, it seems to have escaped the notice of many eastern commentators that there is an entire province to the west of Alberta which, by and large, does not share its eastern neighbour’s rapacious, laissez faire attitude towards the environment.

I can remember a time when American backpackers wore Canadian flag pins to make their appearance in many countries less unwelcome. Other than Israel (where our Foreign Minister’s shamefully vitriolic rejection of the Palestinian people’s statehood aspirations were very welcome indeed), I’m not sure how helpful a maple leaf is these days.

I hate feeling embarrassed about being a Canadian. And on an almost daily basis the number of reasons for embarrassment grows. No sooner had the Harper Tories rejected efforts to supply cheaper generic drugs to desperate countries, then our International Co-operation Minister was boasting about how useful the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) can and should be to Canadian mining companies and other corporations. (Anyone wondering why this is a very bad idea should read Samantha Nutt’s excellent book Damned Nations.)

If I had to pick one reason – and it isn’t easy – it would be the Harper government’s flagrant disdain for science (which, for the Prime Minister and his oil sands cronies, really is an inconvenient truth).

Denying the existence and dire consequences of manmade climate change would almost be less embarrassing than paying lip service to both, then tossing its Kyoto protocol obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions out the window, as this government has done. Then there’s the embarrassment of watching the Harper contingent swanning around this month’s climate change negotiations in Doha attempting to stymie any meaningful action by others. When pundits conclude that Canada could learn from the US on emissions reduction, you know you’re in serious trouble.

Meanwhile, back in Ottawa, following a limited debate, the number of rivers and lakes protected by the Navigable Waters Act was reduced this month from more than 2.5 million to 159.

Protection of Canada’s ocean ecosystems had already been tossed out the window with the decision by the Harper government that the primary remit of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans should be boosting fish farms. This “trade uber alles” mandate was threatened last year when the Cohen enquiry heard from Fred Kibenge of the Atlantic Veterinary College in Prince Edward Island that Infectious Salmon Anaemia virus had been found in samples of BC salmon. Kibenge predicted that he would be attacked by the government and he was right.

Unfortunately, attacking independent scientists, gagging or simply firing vexatious government scientists and gutting existing environmental legislation is not enough for this government. As Dr Darryl Luscombe warns in a recent Watershed Sentinel article, a primary goal of the controversial Bill C-38 is to curb the participation of an informed public in environmental reviews of contentious projects.

Neil deGrasse Tyson once said: “To be scientifically literate is to empower yourself to know when someone else is full of bullshit.” Sadly, scientific literacy does not help when your government legislates against it.

And so I appeal to the Liberals and the NDP and the Bloc and the Greens: For the sake of Archimedes and Galileo and Darwin (and all of Canada’s dedicated and currently harassed government and independent scientists), please put partisanship aside and bring back informed, civilised debate.

Not Much of a Generational Gap on Energy and Environment, Studies Show

December 10, 2012Climate Change, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gasclimate change, Oil and gasCommon Sense Canadian

Check out this story from Metro on different generational attitudes toward energy and environmental issues – the subject of an intergenerational dialogue in Vancouver Tuesday night. (Dec. 8, 2012)

Stereotypes and many a bitter blogger suggest Baby Boomers are to blame, or thank, for supporting the rapid expansion of Canada’s oil and gas sector.

But polls suggest Boomers’ views are surprisingly close to those of their Generation Y offspring — and the vast majority of Canadians want to see a transition away from fossil fuels to a clean energy economy.

Marc Lee, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, is speaking about the issue Tuesday in Vancouver at Bring Your Boomers, a series designed to foster intergenerational dialogue. The theme of the panel discussion is power and energy.

“The overarching problem is that no generation is really having influence on the political system relative to the concern that exists,” Lee said in a phone interview Friday.

“Every generation wants action on these issues, but we have a breakdown in our political system because our politicians are not acting on those concerns.”

A Harris/Decima poll commissioned by Tides Canada this summer found there was almost no difference between the generations in their sense of urgency about exporting more of Canada’s oil and natural gas.

Asked to rate it as a top, high, medium, low or non-priority, 33 per cent of people across the country rated it as high or top priority. Responses hardly varied among age groups, however seniors’ support was slightly higher at 39 per cent.

The biggest differences were revealed when pollsters asked how much of a priority should be placed on reducing carbon pollution and our reliance on fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal.

On the question of reducing carbon pollution, the percentage of Generation Y respondents that answered high or top-priority was 74 per cent, Generation X averaged 61 per cent and Boomers 65 per cent. However, given the sample size of 1005 respondents, the variations lie within the margin or error and could be statistically insignificant.

When asked to rate the importance of reducing Canada’s reliance on fossil fuels, 75 per cent of Generation Y respondents aged 18 to 34 called it a high or top priority, compared to 65 per cent of Boomers ages 45 and up, and 61 per cent of Generation X, ages 35 to 44.

Merran Smith, director of Clean Energy Canada at Tides Canada, said support was uniform across age demographics and consistently higher than two-thirds for using a portion of the country’s oil wealth to invest in and create more jobs in renewable energy, as well as improving energy efficiency.

“The gap’s not that big,” she said. “You could definitely say all generations are widely in support of transitioning our economy…. But younger generations are definitely more concerned about carbon pollution and Canada taking a role to reduce our carbon footprint.”

The Surrender of an Ecowarrior

December 9, 2012Climate Changeclimate change, Ray Grigg, Shades of GreenRay Grigg

When does heroism become folly? When does struggle become futile? When does surrender become liberation? When is enough, enough? Then what? These are just some of the questions that come streaming into focus from a poignant personal essay by Lynn Lau, a 37 year-old environmentalist who, after 21 years of conscientious effort, has finally decided to abandon her quest to “Save the Planet”. Her story is worth relating and pondering.

Lau’s essay recounts when, as a girl of 16, she stopped eating meat as her “personal contribution to reducing global carbon emissions” (Globe and Mail, “An Ecowarrior Retires”,

Nov. 6/12). Then her quest for a better environment escalated to writing letters, waving banners at protests, running for political office and donating money. She tried raising chickens, growing her own vegetables, cultivating worms in her compost, and adhering strictly to the principles of the 100-mile diet. She sampled communal living to reduce her ecological footprint.

When she married and had a baby, she used flannel diapers so they could be washed and recycled. And she even attempted to become a teacher, assuming her influence on schoolchildren would eventually elevate society’s environmental consciousness. Her conscientious efforts covered nearly half of the 50 years since Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring first sounded global ecological alarms.

And the result? Lau’s answer is a blunt assessment of the impact of her own efforts, together with the collective work of the army of environmental warriors who have been her companions on this quest to “Save the Planet”. Her conclusion is “abject failure”. Ecological deterioration continues largely unabated. The trajectory “over the cliff of our planet’s carrying capacity” has accelerated during the five decades of defining, measuring, documenting, predicting and talking, talking, talking.

Lau concedes that all this effort has “raised awareness” but admits to the “embarrassing” revelation that “solving the world’s environmental problem is going to involve something much more powerful than a magnanimous sentiment toward Mother Nature, no matter how widely felt.” In her opinion, “reverent feelings” and “useful tidbits about flora and fauna” are not going to meet the challenge.

Besides, she admits, “to be an environmentalist you need to be a misanthrope at heart”. You need to be “individualistic” and “distrustful of authority”, qualities that do not win the support of the general public. She hints that environmentalists have an impractical idealism that matches neither the profound complexity of the problem to be solved nor the fundamental change in attitude that an entire modern culture must undergo.

The other reason environmentalists are not going to be successful, she concludes, is that, “We live in a society that solves massive problems through the co-ordinated efforts of specialists.” Their expertise with satellites measures the general health of the biosphere while their detailed scientific study evaluates its specific health. Their vast digital networks are our communication systems. Politicians, bureaucrats, technocrats, economists and others of many disciplines design, implement and operate the civic machinery that is the essential structure of societies. The business of humanity functions because of specialists. If “raised awareness” is not a part of this process, as she suggests, does this then mean that all the effort of environmentalists has been a waste of time and energy?

In the larger scheme of things, vision always precedes knowledge, just as information always precedes action. The “raised awareness” provided by all the effort of environmentalists is preparation for the work of the specialists. The “abject failure” described by Lau is merely the usual delay that occurs between understanding and behaviour.

This delay presents two questions. The first concerns the height to which “raised awareness” must rise before reaching a critical mass that is powerful enough to translate into action by the specialists. The second concerns people. Specialists are activated by political processes, when the collective will of the community directs the specialists to mobilize and correct an identified problem. We have not yet reached this critical mass of collective will. Confusion and ambivalence have not yet been replaced by conviction and resolution. We are still in at intermediate stage where environmentalists continue to raise awareness but their concerns have not yet translated into significant corrective action.

It’s helpful here to think of history rather than individuals. Lau’s sense of time moves faster than the slow march of civilizations. Her sense of frustration and futility is explainable and justified from her personal perspective. But the large change that she wants will require a paradigm shift, a wholesale adjustment in the way we collectively see ourselves and relate to the world. Not surprisingly, the momentum of humanity’s habitual behaviour doesn’t match her expectations. And she may be forgetting precedence. History suggests that humanity rarely acts with foresight.

Yet, despite Lau’s judgment of “abject failure”, she still offers hints of optimism. “I don’t know what specialists can save us from ourselves,” she confesses, “but I hope they’re out there, mixing intelligence and ingenuity with money, getting something accomplished on a really big scale.”

After 21 years of heroic effort she’s probably tired, disillusioned by the distance between where we are and where we need to be. Besides, she realizes she can’t get off the “sinking ship we’re on”. So, as she says, “I’m going to quit bailing for now and take a seat on the deck to enjoy the scenery.” She deserves the rest. And while she’s enjoying the scenery, increasing numbers of others will be bailing and raising awareness.

‘Apocaholics’: A New Word for New Times

November 24, 2012Climate Changeclimate change, Ray Grigg, Shades of GreenRay Grigg

For people who like words, “apocaholics” is a new and ingenious one. It instantly conveys the impression that those with a dystopian view of the future have a neurotic compulsion that is unhealthy and unfounded. The word is instantly dismissive and pejorative, suggesting an irrational fear, a baseless apprehension, an addictive dependence on pessimism that needs therapy, like those who are debilitated by alcohol. It’s a word that garners immediate attention.

Apocaholics made its debut in the popular media in a conversation Brian Bethune of Maclean’s magazine (Oct. 22/12) had with Brian David Johnson, the chief futurist for Intel Corporation, one of the world’s largest makers of computer chips. Johnson, of course, is optimistic about Intel’s prospects and is promoting the use and value of “putting chips into all sorts of different devices…to enrich people’s lives.” Bethune replies by noting the pessimistic mood that is so common these days. “…You do not like our current dystopian attitude toward the future. You want to change the narrative.” Johnson’s reply warrants its full paragraph.

“I do. I do,” he says. “There’s been some research recently that human beings seem to be ‘apocaholics’ — always seeing something right around the corner that’s going to kill us all. I understand it. As human beings, we’re hard-wired for a world where, if you heard a twig break behind you, you jump and you have a physical fear reaction. That was okay when that snap was a sabre-toothed tiger, but we don’t live in that world any more. Now that reaction blocks us from coming up with the really great ideas, so I’m on a crusade against fear, because being afraid of the future means we’re giving up our power. You can’t let the future happen to you, you can’t sit back and be passive — you need to be an active participant. We all, as human beings, personally build the future, whether it be our own, our family’s, the world’s. We have to own that fact and we need to do something about it.”

Johnson presents a convincing argument for the power of trust, optimism and volition, for the merit of taking control of our destiny and believing in our ingenuity. Indeed, considering our accomplishments to date, the prospects for tomorrow should be bright and promising. So, why the gloom? Perhaps the best reply to Johnson’s argument comes from Surviving Progress, a recently released documentary distributed by Canada’s National Film Board.

As a sequel to anthropologist Ronald Wright’s brilliant book and Massey Lecture series, A Short History of Progress, Surviving Progress reminds us that the very brain that is managing our computers, nuclear bombs, fossil fuels, global finances, and the full suite of our modern technological complexity, is the same brain that responded reflexively to Johnson’s example of the breaking twig. Our brains are virtually unchanged in 50,000 years. The ingenuity that is determining our future is the same electro-chemical hardware that met the sabre-toothed tiger. This mismatch between our inner capabilities and our outer challenges does not exactly warrant confidence in the outcome. Indeed, a dash of fear and caution might be precisely what we need. If the same visceral intensity that attacked the sabre-toothed tiger with clubs and spears now operates intercontinental ballistic missiles, the mechanism of international economics, the ethics of transnational corporations and the processing magic of computers, then this is legitimate cause for apprehension.

Surviving Progress also makes the poignant point that progress is not synonymous with improvement. The ingenuity that could kill a mammoth was probably useful. The ingenuity that could kill two mammoths might have been better. But the ingenuity that stampeded whole herds of mammoths over cliffs was an excess that may have caused the extinction of a valuable food source. Arrows might have been an improvement over clubs but thousands of nuclear warheads poised to obliterate most life on Earth hardly seems like the progress that induces confidence in our ingenuity.

Indeed, our reflexive response to the breaking twig may be the human failing that has prevented us from anticipating consequences and restraining the impulse to extremes. A succession of best first responses doesn’t necessarily lead to a desirable ending. Agriculture fed more people than hunting-gathering but this innovation, that occupied only 0.2 percent of human history, has left a legacy of local ecological disasters and a population of seven billion people responsible for global ecological problems. The automobile eliminated the tonnes of horse manure littering city streets but a billion cars now clog the world’s roads, filling the air with toxins and spurring the quest for ever-greater amounts of oil — another extreme of its own. And the essential goods we need for survival and comfort have morphed into an epidemic of consumerism that is polluting the planet while burdening our lives with excesses.

True, as Brian David Johnson says, we “can’t let the future happen” to us. We “can’t just sit back and be passive.” We have an obligation to “personally build the future…”.

How much future we can “personally build” is a mute point these days. A corporation such as Intel doesn’t consult with humanity about the life-enriching benefits of “putting chips into all sorts of different devices”. Monsanto doesn’t ask people about the need for genetically modified crops. Pharmaceuticals don’t solicit from citizens a priority of diseases to be cured. Television stations don’t design their programs to elevate the collective wisdom of society. Advertising invents wants and then indiscriminately elevates them to the status of needs. Petrochemical industries design exotic concoctions that subject living organisms to calculated risks. Global financial traders wreak economic havoc by playing loose with monetary prudence. This might be progress but it is not necessarily improvement. And, for most people, it isn’t choice.

As Brian David Johnson proposes, we each “must personally build the future”. Then, for emphasis, he adds, “We have to own that fact and we need to do something about it.” Apocaholics are simply people who are taking his advice, are assessing our present situation, and are reaching their own conclusions.

Where Was the Climate in US Presidential Election? Ben West in the Huffington Post

November 19, 2012Canada, Climate Change, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Politics, Western Canadaclimate change, Oil and gas, PoliticsCommon Sense Canadian

Read this column from Ben West in the Huffington Post on the lack of attention focused on climate and environmental issues in the recent US Presidential election and what that means for concerned Canadians. (Nov. 5, 2012)

“It’s global warming, stupid!” Believe it or not, that is what it says on the cover of Business Week right now. This is of course a reference to Bill Clinton’s internal campaign slogan from 1992 — “It’s the economy, stupid” — which was made famous by the documentary film The War Room. The slogan is a play on the old adage, “Keep it simple, stupid,” sometimes known as the “KISS” principle.

As Canadians, we are well aware that we are sleeping next to an elephant, and that the choices made by the American president have broad implications not only for Canada but for rest of the world.

Much to the chagrin of many conscientious Canadians, the implications of a changing climate were off the radar in the American election before Hurricane Sandy swept in. The topic was not raised even once during the 2012 U.S. presidential debates. You would think it would be a no brainer to talk about this issue, given that the United Nations has called climate change “the single biggest threat facing humanity today.”

This “climate silence” has perhaps been a reflection of the power of the fossil fuel industries in U.S. politics. In one of the debates, Obama and Romney actually fought over who was more supportive of the coal, oil and gas industries. Romney attacked Obama for stopping the Keystone XL pipeline and Obama responded by bragging that he had built enough pipeline during his presidency to “… wrap around the earth once.”

The fact checkers at Politifact checked it out and it’s true. Over 29,000 miles of oil and gas pipelines were built in the U.S. in the last four years; the circumference of the globe at the equator is a little less than 25,000 miles.

Even with that, Obama looks like a tree hugger compared to Romney, who is heavily backed by barons of the oil industry — like the infamous Koch brothers who are behind much of the junk science that still to this day is trying to undermine the international consensus that human activity is causing climate change.

The new Cuban Missile Crisis

November 4, 2012Climate Changeclimate changeRay Grigg

The Cuban Missile Crisis that occurred just over 50 years ago can provide us with some important insights about ourselves and how we might address the global environmental challenges unfolding around us.

The Crisis, between Monday, October 16th and Sunday, October 28th, 1962, was 13 days of the Cold War that came despairingly close to becoming an extremely hot nuclear Armageddon that could have incinerated both the Soviet Union and the United States.

The scenario was set when the Cuban revolution ended. Fidel Castro had declared his country a communist state and had allied with the USSR. To protect its new strategic interests just a few convenient miles from Florida, the Soviets had stationed some 40,000 troops in Cuba and used the opportunity to balance the nuclear threat coming from the United States by installing both short and long-range missiles on the island. To halt this threat, the US countered with a naval blockade 500 miles from Cuba, warning that any ships that crossed that line would be sunk. The Soviets countered by defending their interests with submarines carrying nuclear-tipped torpedoes.

The background details are even more scary. America’s failed invasion of Cuba the year before at the Bay of Pigs had convinced a volatile Castro that war was inevitable, so he was urging the Soviets to strike the US with nuclear missiles before it could launch another attack. Meanwhile, the hawks in the US military and Congress were urging President John F. Kennedy to bomb the Soviet’s Cuban missile installations. Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, had his own military hawks to worry about, in addition to an unpredictable and uncontrollable Castro. Professor David Welch of the Political Science Department of the University of Waterloo writes that the whole situation “was an incredibly messy, dangerous interaction” (Globe & Mail, Oct. 15/12). Both Kennedy and Khrushchev were “scared to death” about actions their bellicose generals might initiate if not closely supervised, and both leaders were sometimes out of communication with their military.

Two incidents illustrate the precariousness of the situation. In one instance, in the middle of the Crisis and against standing orders, a Soviet general shot down an unarmed US high-altitude spy plane over Cuba. In a second instance, US warships were dropping depth charges on a Soviet submarine that had violated the blockade. The submarine’s captain decided to launch a nuclear-tipped torpedo at the American warships, an event that could have ignited a full nuclear exchange between America and the Soviets. Only impassioned pleas from the Soviet sub’s crew dissuaded the captain from launching the torpedo (John Ibbitson, Globe & Mail, Jul. 30/08).

When the Crisis ended on October 28th, the only fatality was the spy plane’s pilot — and, of course, truth. American propaganda praised the US military for staring down the Soviets, creating the mythology that unilateral power can win in such circumstances. The reality was very different. Kennedy and Khrushchev were in frequent communication, and neither wanted a nuclear exchange. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant, negotiated between two hastily assembled diplomatic groups at UN headquarters, while also managing to subdue the volatile Castro. By agreement, the Americans would not invade Cuba, the Soviets would take their missiles back to the USSR, the body of the pilot would be returned to the US, and the American missiles in Turkey that threatened the Soviets would be secretly removed.

The Cuban Missile Crisis has its parallel in the global environmental challenges now unfolding around us. The threat is not nuclear annihilation but a gradual increase in ecological and climate disturbances that will trigger all manner of political conflicts relating to oceanic fish resources, Arctic sovereignty, refugee migrations, water allocations, technology sharing, food stresses, population management, mitigation costs, economic inequality, property damage and humanitarian assistance.

Driving and exacerbating these conflicts are greenhouse gas emissions. They are the nuclear bombs slowly but inexorably exploding in every nation around the world. The Climate Vulnerable Forum, a 20-country gathering of scientists, economists and policy strategists estimates that abnormal weather is already causing $1.6 trillion in damage every year, reducing GDP by 1.6 percent and killing 400,000 people (Ibid. Eric Reguly, Sept. 29/12). These emissions must come down. How will this happen? What will the national commitments be? Who will monitor, supervise and enforce them? How will the global financial system be adjusted to facilitate emission reductions? Should some high emitting nations compensate others for damage? What are the ethical and moral dimensions of this profoundly human and ecological event?

Bluster and bravado are counterproductive when everyone is responsible. Might and power are negated when when everyone is the victim. Negotiations, diplomacy, sharing, co-operating, helping and compromising are going to be the new watchwords when no one can win without everyone losing.

Climate change is like another threatening nuclear holocaust. It’s going to spin out of control if the “generals” of industry push the limits of brinkmanship. The consequences will be devastating if the “Kennedys” and “Khrushchevs” of the world don’t have the imagination to gauge the severity of the situation. As with the Cuban Missile Crisis, we need an international forum like the United Nations to mediate, negotiate and communicate the complexities of this issue so it can be resolved for the benefit of all. Failure will leave no heroes or victors.

New York Mayor Bloomberg Endorses Obama Over Hurricane Sandy, Climate Change

November 3, 2012Canada, Climate Change, Politicsclimate change, PoliticsCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from the New York Times on New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s last-minute, surprise endorsement of Barack Obama for president – citing Hurricane Sandy and his sense that Barack Obama will more seriously address the growing challenge of climate change. (Nov. 1, 2012)

In a surprise announcement, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday that Hurricane Sandy had reshaped his thinking about the presidential campaign and that as a result, he was endorsing President Obama.

Mr. Bloomberg, a political independent in his third term leading New York City, has been sharply critical of Mr. Obama, a Democrat, and Mitt Romney, the president’s Republican rival, saying that both men had failed to candidly confront the problems afflicting the nation. But he said he had decided over the past several days that Mr. Obama was the better candidate to tackle the global climate change that he believes might have contributed to the violent storm, which took the lives of at least 38 New Yorkers and caused billions of dollars in damage.

“The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to New York City and much of the Northeast — in lost lives, lost homes and lost business — brought the stakes of next Tuesday’s presidential election into sharp relief,” Mr. Bloomberg wrote in an editorial for Bloomberg View.

“Our climate is changing,” he wrote. “And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it may be — given the devastation it is wreaking — should be enough to compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s endorsement is another indication that Hurricane Sandy has influenced the presidential campaign. The storm and the destruction it left in its wake have dominated news coverage, transfixing the nation and prompting the candidates to halt their campaigning briefly.

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