Category Archives: Climate Change

The ethics of politically impossible

October 26, 2012Canada, Climate Change, Politicsclimate change, Politics, Ray Grigg, Shades of GreenRay Grigg

Most words are to be read and forgotten; others are to be read and remembered; and some few are to be read, remembered and considered carefully. The words of Michael Marshall fall into the last category. They appear in “Climate’s Dark Dawn”, an article in NewScientist (Dec. 31/11).

The poignancy of Marshall’s words derive from the scientific consensus that we can’t afford to warm the planet any more than 2°C without incurring climate change that could be catastrophically stressful to a global civilization already under pressure from other serious environmental threats. In response to this warning, our leaders at international gatherings have concurred with the scientific consensus, have adopt this temperature increase as their tolerable upper limit, and have pledged that regulations on allowable emissions will hold the global temperature increase below this critical mark.

But modelling of these pledges shows “that even if those cuts were implemented in full we would still see 3.5°C of warming by 2100,” writes Marshall. And this temperature increase could easily escalate to the 4.0°C that “could wipe out the Amazon rainforest and halt the Asian monsoons” (Ibid.).

So, here are Marshall’s words to be remembered and considered carefully. “The reality is that the 2°C target is technically and economically feasible,” he writes, “but politically impossible.” In other words, we have the technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to avoid the serious environmental consequences of raising the global temperature above 2°C. We even have an economy that can afford to do so. But our leaders lack the political will to rectify a problem that they both recognize and have the power to correct.

This failure of political will is disappointing, destructive and cancerous. It creates a metastasizing cynicism that infects optimism with pessimism. It transforms high hope into sinking despair. When forecasts are bleak but corrective resolve is weak, we abandon the best and resign ourselves to the worst. Everything we think and do is shadowed with frustration. Trust is replaced by suspicion. So we drift in confusion and conflict rather than moving together with focus and resolve. Indeed, if our leaders would publicly acknowledge that global warming and its haunting partner, climate change, were as serious as scientists describe, then we could unite in common cause and firm commitment. But without the political declaration, direction and leadership, we flounder.

This is why the future isn’t what it used to be. The mood of innocence and optimism that once pervaded our individual and collective lives is now sobered by the growing realization that we are confronting a major environmental crisis without leadership. We have reached the edge of yet another crucial limit without an initiation or coordination of remedial measures.

We now know that almost everything positive we want to do comes with negative consequences that weigh against the folly of proceeding with thoughtless habit. Old practices, once accepted and unquestioned, are presently complicated with unwanted results and complex ethical dilemmas. It is the role of our leaders to read this conundrum and steer us through a dangerous and difficult course. Instead, they are silent. Or even worse, they remain the proponents of the thoughtless habits that mire us in a deepening problem.

This is the root explanation for the rising chorus of public objections to mines, pipelines, oil tankers, tar sands, free trade agreements, international financial systems and a corporate world of manufactured venality and consumerism. All these practices are carrying us in the direction of environmental trouble rather than away from it. Negativity becomes the pervasive mood because the pervasive course is negative. We cannot be hopeful if we are moving in the direction of our undoing. When we are not actively pursuing solutions to difficult problems then the frustration accumulates as cynicism. If society’s energies are not directed in constructive behaviour, they are wasted in destructive diversions.

The role of political leaders is to inform and lead the public. If they are in denial about the global climate crisis, or if they are deliberately avoiding the scientific evidence, or if they are attempting to deceive, then their exercise is futile and defeating. This is the age of information. People know. They can recognize dishonesty because it appears as hypocrisy.

People also recognize honesty and bravery, the attributes of heroes, visionaries and leaders. “Politically impossible” is the acquiescing course of the opportunist who follows the path of old destructive habits even when a better route is known.

The present is connected to the future through the unfolding of circumstances. We know how those circumstances are unfolding. So, what will be history’s judgment of those who knew of the unfolding climate crisis but did not act to prevent it? When something could have been done, ethics require action. History has declared that “politically impossible” has never been an excuse for abject and wanton neglect.

Mark Hume: Businessman Russ George defends Haida Ocean Fertilization Project

October 23, 2012Geoengineering, Ocean Health, OceansCommon Sense Canadian

Mark Hume: Businessman Russ George Defends Haida Ocean Fertilization Project — Russ George, head of a controversial geoengineering project, in a 2007 photo (Thor Swift/The New York Times)

Read this column from Mark Hume in the Globe and Mail on the ocean fertilization project that caught the world by surprise last week, provoking criticism over fears of geoengineering and unintended ecological consequences. (Oct. 19, 2012)

Russ George, who designed a controversial ocean fertilization experiment now under investigation by Environment Canada, says he is being vilified for daring to go where none have gone before.

But he is not backing away from his research project or apologizing for the way the project was conducted, off the coast of British Columbia, saying that he is out to save the world’s oceans and demonstrate how to halt global warming.

While the damage from climate change mounts, he said, others are only talking – while he is acting.

“I am the champion of this on the planet,” he said in an interview on Thursday.

“If the world does nothing but look into the future about CO2 and says we have to reduce our emissions and we do nothing about the lethal dose we’ve already administered, then it doesn’t matter,” he said.

“If somebody doesn’t step forward to save the oceans, it’s too late.”

Mr. George, a California businessman, worked with the Old Massett Village Council, on Haida Gwaii, to dump 100 tonnes of an iron sulphate mix into the Pacific. The goal of the project was to trigger a plankton bloom in the hope of reviving salmon runs – and to demonstrate a theory that global warming can be blunted by using massive amounts of ocean plankton to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

The experiment took place this summer, apparently without sanction from any official body. There have been widespread expressions of concern from scientists, who fear the experiment could backfire, and political leaders, who are concerned international agreements banning ocean fertilization have been violated.

“Environment Canada did not approve this non-scientific event. Enforcement officers are now investigating,” Environment Minister Peter Kent said in Parliament on Thursday. “This government takes very seriously our commitment to protect the environment and anyone who contravenes environmental law should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada, said the project is alarming.

“This kind of experiment is very, very risky business. Scientists have warned us it can destroy oceanic ecosystems, create toxic tides, and aggravate ocean acidification and global warming,” she said. “The bottom line is that ocean fertilization has a high potential of catastrophic effects and a low potential of success.”

Mr. George said his group advised the government all along of its plans and got legal opinions that they are not violating any international accords.

He said since news of the project broke earlier this week, he has been “under this dark cloud of vilification,” with some suggesting his motive is to profit through a carbon-trading scheme.

“I’m not a rich, scheming businessman, right. That’s not who I am. … This is my heart’s work, not my hip pocket work, right?” he said.

Shrinking Arctic Sea Ice

October 14, 2012Climate Changeclimate change, Ray Grigg, Shades of GreenRay Grigg

Arctic sea ice reached a record low of 3.42 million square kilometres on September 16, 2012, surpassing by 18 percent the record set in 2007 of 4.17 million square kilometres. And this 2007 record surpassed the previous 2005 record by 22 percent. Dr. Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, summarizes the events this way: “On top of that [2012 record], we’re smashing a record that smashed a record” (Globe and Mail, Sept. 20/12). To set this in perspective, the Arctic’s summer sea ice in the 1980s covered an area slightly smaller than the mainland United States; now it covers half that area.

Adding to Dr. Meier’s statement is a comment from his colleague, Dr. Mark Serreze. “Recently the loss of summer ice has accelerated and the six lowest September ice extents have all been in the past six years. I think that’s quite remarkable” (Ibid.). With the exception of one “strong storm”, all this melt has been due to the day-by-day effects of a warming planet. As Dr. Jason Box of Ohio State University notes, “Arctic sea ice is one of the most sensitive of nature’s thermometers”(Ibid.).

As the Arctic’s temperature goes up, the effects are felt directly in the Arctic landscape. The increasing warmth melts permafrost so roads sink, building foundations collapse , shoreline settlements slough into the sea, while trees and power poles tilt helter-skelter as their footings soften. Except for the release of methane, these are incidental micro effects of relatively little environmental significance.

Even the geo-political complications of newly opened international shipping routes through melted Arctic waters are of minor importance. Canada’s jurisdictional disputes with China, Russia and the United States about authority over these passages will simmer more actively as the ice retreats even further. Many of these marine routes are still uncharted so vessels risk grounding or sinking. Oil spills become a constant worry in the pristine Arctic waters. Drilling for petroleum and gas resources becomes a contentious subject that didn’t exist before the sea ice began melting.

The more serious effects, however, are macro. Sea ice reflects about 90 percent of the sun’s heat — the so-called albedo effect that helps to cool both the Arctic and the planet. Without sea ice, about 50 percent of this heat is absorbed by the dark water that replaces it, a process that accelerates the effects of global warming and explains why the Arctic is warming at about twice the rate of the rest of the planet. In a positive feedback loop, the increasing areas of open water absorb even more heat, that melts even more ice, that raises the temperature even higher, that causes even more ice to melt. And the implications are not just local but global.

A warmer Arctic means that the temperature differential between northern and southern latitudes is reduced. And this has direct effects on both climate and weather.

The ocean currents that distribute heat around the planet are driven by the simple physical principle that cold water is heavier than warm water. Tropical water flows northward on the surface, bringing heat to northern latitudes. It then cools, sinks and carries cool water southward along the ocean’s bottom to alleviate high temperatures in the tropics. Global weather patterns are partly determined by this movement of ocean water. As Arctic waters warm, they are less inclined to sink, the convection currents slow, and the planet’s weather changes.

Melting Arctic sea ice has another macro effect. Jet streams, the high elevation winds that mix air around the planet, are affected by Arctic temperatures. When the temperature differential between high and low latitudes is relatively large, the jet streams tend to be more active, drifting north and south more vigorously and shifting weather with them. With a lower temperature differential, the jet streams tend to be less active, thereby locking weather patterns in place for protracted periods. This may explain why droughts tend to be more persistent and wet periods tend to be longer. It may also explain why the summer of 2012 brought record rainfall to the East Coast of Canada and record dry spells to the West Coast. Wildfires, crop failures, dried rivers, and floods are more likely when weather patterns are locked in place by stalled jet streams.

A warmer Arctic from melted Arctic ice also means higher humidity in the higher latitudes. The dry air of the northern desert becomes wetter. When this air is pulled southward by winter storms, the result is more rain and snow for lower latitudes. This dynamic may account for some of the extreme rain and snowfall of recent winters.

Weather, of course, is extremely complicated. But the changes occurring around the planet are supported by current data and are consistent with the most advanced computer modelling at our disposal. And Arctic sea ice is a significant factor in this complex matter.Alter it and everything else changes. We, too, are affected because we have built our cities, farms, industries and global systems upon a presumption of predictable weather. Agricultural crops are totally dependent on climate normality. Harvest failures affect food prices and economic stability, even reverberating into political security — the so-called Arab Spring that rocked Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and now Syria was triggered by food shortages caused by weather anomalies.

As climatologists have noted, the greatest experiment being conducted on the planet these days is not our search for the elusive Higgs boson at the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. Rather, it is our experiment with global climate and weather, conducted by the massive amounts of carbon dioxide we are emitting from burning fossil fuels. Melting Arctic sea ice is just one disruptive consequences of this huge, uncontrolled experiment.

Video: Record Artic Sea Ice Melt Defies Models, Dramatically Speeds up Predictions for Ice-Free Arctic

September 22, 2012Climate Changeclimate changeCommon Sense Canadian

Read and watch this story from CBC on the dramatic new records set this summer for arctic ice melt, defying even the most alarming scientific models and significantly speeding up predictions for an ice-free arctic. (Sept. 20, 2012)

Arctic sea ice has melted to a record low this year, say researchers at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.

According to scientists like David Barber from the University of Manitoba, what happens to Arctic sea ice is a huge indicator on what will happen to Canada and the world in terms of climate change.

“The thaw this year broke all the records that we had previous to this and it didn’t just break them, it smashed them,” Barber told CBC News.

“The Arctic is changing so rapidly right now and that is connected to our global climate system, so it’s really a precursor to what is coming for the rest of the planet and it really should be an eye-opener for people.”

Scientists say that at this rate there could be an ice-free Arctic as early as the summer of 2015.

Read story and watch video: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/09/20/arctic-sea-ice-melt.html

The Last Climate Change Skeptic

September 8, 2012Climate Changeclimate change, Ray Grigg, Shades of GreenRay Grigg

If Dr. Richard Muller, a professor of physics from the University of California, Berkeley, is not the last of the global climate change skeptics, he should be. For years he has been one of the highest profile critics of the procedures and conclusions of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), arguing that its current analysis of evidence is too flawed to definitively conclude a relationship between anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and rising global temperatures.

He has since changed his mind, offering an opinion piece in The New York Times (July 28/12) describing his “total turnaround” on the subject and defining himself now as “a converted skeptic”. His transformation is worth exploring.

Funded by the American multi-billionaire Koch brothers — themselves heavily invested in fossil fuels and major funders of climate change contrarians — Professor Muller gathered a team of a dozen scientists to examine the evidence from a single authoritative perspective. Rather than using the more diverse strategy of the IPCC, his team examined only raw temperature records, the data he believed would reveal whether or not the planet was warming and, if so, whether it correlated to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Professor Muller’s team began by examining 1.6 billion temperature records from 36,000 stations dating back to 1753, about 100 years longer than previous data sources. His Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project (BENT) eliminated all possible sources of error. It ruled out “urban heating” — cities generate their own heat, and large areas of asphalt and roofs also increase temperatures so the project used only rural temperatures. BENT ruled out “data selection” — previous studies compiled samples from a representative 20 percent while the BEST project used 100 percent of temperature records. The project ruled out “poor station quality” — not all temperature records were reliably accurate so it allowed for this error factor. And, finally, it ruled out “human intervention” and “data adjustment factors” by automating the data collection process so no element of subjectivity could intrude on the statistics.

The BENT project also took into account the effect of ocean currents on any heating, as well as solar variability — satellite information revealed the sun’s output of energy to be relatively stable and that sunspots had very little effect on any heating. And, finally, the project considered the cooling influence of particulate matter from volcanic explosions. The graph of temperatures from 1753 to the present shows distinct and sharp drops after every major volcanic eruption — Laki, Tambora, Cosiguina, Krakatoa, Agung, Chichon and Pinabubo — followed by an immediate recovery. The line of the graph arches slowly upward from 1753 until 1950 when its ascent increases markedly. The IPCC proposed the possibility that prior to 1950 the temperature rise may have been due to increased solar activity; the BENT project ruled out this possibility because the temperature rise correlates too closely to the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. In most respects, the BENT findings are even more dramatic than those of the IPCC. Professor Muller estimates that the global rise in temperature attributed to human activity has been 1.5°C since 1753, of which 0.9°C has occurred since 1950.

As a disciplined scientist, he jumps to conclusions carefully. “Much to my surprise,” he wrote, “by far the best match [to temperature increase] was to the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide, measured from atmospheric samples and air trapped in polar ice.” This match doesn’t prove conclusively that rising carbon dioxide levels are responsible for global warming, he notes. Correlation is not causality. But the correlation indicates “it’s extremely likely that at least 74% of observed warming since 1950 was manmade; it’s highly likely all of it was.” As a caution, he notes that, “To be considered seriously, any alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as does carbon dioxide.” Presently, nothing else comes close to being a candidate. Without a better explanation, the evidence compels the conclusion that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are “almost entirely the cause” of Earth’s rising surface temperature.

Professor Muller is also quick to note that no particular weather event can be linked to the global temperature rise of 1.5°C. He is technically correct. But his declaration raises an interesting question. What, if any, is the effect of a rising temperature on weather? Heat energizes everything — this what heat does. His study did not venture into the complex realm of climatology. It is inconceivable, however, that such a temperature increase could not have some effect on heat transfer, humidity, precipitation, wind patterns, jet stream flows and the myriad of other factors affecting weather.

Meanwhile, Professor Muller is intent to offer advice from his “surprise” discovery. “Science,” he writes in his New York Times article, “is that narrow realm of knowledge that, in principle, is universally accepted. I embarked on this analysis to answer questions that, to my mind, had not been answered. I hope that the Berkeley Earth analysis will help settle the scientific debate regarding global warming and its human causes. Then comes the difficult part: agreeing across the political and diplomatic spectrum about what can and should be done.”

Indeed, the next part will be difficult. The findings of the BENT project simply confirm a finding and focus an issue that is now beyond the bounds of reasonable dispute. Skeptics, deniers and habitual contrarians have just lost the remnant of their tattered credibility. So the moral weight for corrective action shifts to our political leaders — where the avoidance of their ethical duty is no longer an excusable option.

Climate change deniers are almost extinct

August 23, 2012Climate Changeclimate change, Georgia StraightCommon Sense Canadian

Read this article by David Suzuki in the Georgia Straight. Excerpt: “As evidence builds, deniers are starting to change their tune. They once said global warming isn’t happening, and some claimed the world is actually cooling. Now, heat records are being broken worldwide—this past decade was the hottest on record. Many scientists say the situation is even more severe than first thought, with temperatures and impacts increasing faster than predicted.

“Faced with the evidence, many deniers have started to admit that global warming is real, but argue that humans have little or nothing to do with it. (Richard) Muller’s study was just one of many to demolish that theory.” (August 21, 2012)

Carbon Costs

August 19, 2012Carbon Tax - Cap and Trade, Climate Change, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gasclimate change, Oil and gas, Ray Grigg, Shades of GreenRay Grigg

During nearly three decades of fruitless negotiating, the political leaders of the international community have failed to find an effective way to price carbon dioxide emissions and thereby ameliorate global warming and climate change. But simple causality guarantees that we will pay a carbon tax, even if we don’t have an official one. So a carbon tax is levied and collected by nature, usually inequitably and sometimes very cruelly.

In anticipation of this rising tax, the cities of Toronto and Halifax have already instituted expensive “adaptation” strategies to accommodate an increase in street flooding, storm water runoff, sewer backups, heat-related illness and storm emergencies.

Vancouver is the latest city to consider costly preventative measures that should reduce the astronomical costs associated with more active weather. The city is still stinging from a 2006 windstorm that left 250,000 people without electricity and required infrastructure repairs of $10 million. Then a 2010 rainfall flooded many homes, which resulted in lawsuits against the city. Said Sadhu Johnson, the deputy city manager, “The key for us is to be proactive. It will save us billions in the next century” (The Vancouver Sun, July 21/12).

And how much will it cost Vancouver to be “proactive”? Just the risk assessment studies for coastal flooding, urban forest management and fresh water challenges could be $1.3 million. The “adaptation” strategy is expected to cost $84 million for the years 2012 to 2014. All these re-engineering costs can be attributed to global warming. “The climate is clearly changing,” concludes Vancouver’s study, “and, in many instances, we are observing changes at the most extreme end of the projections made a decade ago.”

And what are the expected changes? Wetter winters with a 28 percent increase in “extremely wet days” by 2050. Heavy rainfall events that occurred every 25 years will occur every 10 years. Summers will get correspondingly dryer. Temperature increases will average 1.7°C by 2050 and 2.7°C by 2080. “Extreme heat events” that occurred every 25 years will occur every 8 years. Sea level rise, difficult to predict because of so many variables, could be from 1 metre to 2 metres by 2100, a change that could cause havoc with drainage systems, wharfs, buildings, roads, waterfront facilities and low-lying residential areas.

Although inland cities do not have to contend with rising sea levels, they often have to contend with flooding rivers, and may be subjected to more extreme weather because of their continental location — Manitoba recently spent $1 billion on dikes and flood management. So multiply Vancouver’s initial “proactive” costs by the number of other cities in Canada to get a vague estimate of the hidden carbon taxes that will either be payed in prevention or repairs. Then add the rest of North America’s cities and those of the world. “Adaptation” is a term describing people’s efforts to make the best of a bad situation. Call these costs a carbon tax.

Other carbon taxes are more severe. The four people who died in BC’s Johnsons Landing mudslide on July 12, 2012, were just a few of those paying a heavy carbon tax. Unusually heavy winter snowfall and torrential rains during warm summer weather created the conditions that brought down a mountainside on their idyllic homes in the Kootenays. But floods in China, Thailand, Brazil, France, Poland, Japan, India, Australia and the Philippines in the last two years have exacted a much heavier toll.

The floods in Pakistan in 2010 drowned thousands, submerged one-fifth the country and displaced 20 million people. These floods were followed by record high temperatures of 53.5°C. Saudi Arabia had temperatures exceeding 47°C in 2010, and Mecca had rain this summer when the city was sweltering at 42.8°C — the highest temperature at which rain has ever been recorded. Russia had 172 casualties from extreme rainfall on July 7th. Britain ended an extraordinary spring drought with incessant rain. A drought is presently parching much of the US corn belt, more damage to add to the $5 billion that Texas recently lost to drought.

Climate change deserves so much attention because the impacts are pervasive and fundamental, affecting almost everything related to our security and prosperity. The science of this process is indisputably clear. More than 40 different supercomputer models consistently predict nearly identical weather outcomes for rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, confirming repeatedly that the extreme weather events we have been experiencing in recent months and years are wholly consistent with the new reality we are inflicting upon ourselves. Much of this damage can be counted as carbon tax.

This tax cannot be negotiated or postponed. It is levied in accordance with the laws of physics. A rise of a single degree in temperature increases humidity by 8 percent. Humidity over oceans has already increased by 5 percent. More humid air coupled with higher temperatures transfers greater amounts of energy into storm systems and causes more extreme weather. More heat means more evaporation. Climate science requires that increasing amounts of evaporated moisture must eventually come down as precipitation. For some places, this means more droughts; for other places, this means more floods. The distribution is not based on any human notion of fairness. Nonetheless, it is a carbon tax, duly levied and dispassionately collected. Our own version would likely be less painful and more equitable — if ever the international community should find the foresight to implement one.

Carbon’s Terrifying Mathematics

August 12, 2012Carbon Tax - Cap and Trade, Climate Changeclimate change, Ray Grigg, Shades of GreenRay Grigg

Exasperation about the world’s ineffective measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was registered clearly on August 2, 2012, when Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and a principle founder of the environmental movement called 350.org, published a detailed article in Rolling Stone magazine called “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math”. As one of the most eloquent, passionate and informed spokespersons on the environmental threat of rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, McKibben’s article reads like a warning and an ultimatum. To give shape to his concerns, he identifies three numbers as key reference points.

The first is 2°C. This is the maximum global temperature increase that national political leaders have decided is prudent and safe. But even with this limited increase, climatologists warn, we have a one in five chance of losing control and far exceeding this number — it’s Russian roulette, McKibben reminds us, with five chambers instead of six. He quotes Thomas Lovejoy, former World Bank’s chief biodiversity adviser, who observed, “If we’re seeing what we’re seeing today at 0.8 degrees Celsius, two degrees is simply too much.” And James Hansen, one of the world’s foremost climatologists, concurs. “The target that has been talked about in international negotiations for two degrees of warming is actually a prescription for long-term disaster.”

Newscasts now commonly carry reports of unusual droughts, heat waves, forest fires, torrential rains, floods, landslides and windstorms. As the global temperature rise approaches 0.8°C, weather anomalies are already disruptive and costly. Even with this apparently modest rise, McKibben writes, “June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere — the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th century average…”. The odds of this “occurring by simple chance”, he explains, is 3.7 x 10 to power of 99 — “a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe.” A rise of 2°C represents two and a half times this temperature increase.

The second number he asks us to note is 565 gigatons. This, scientists estimate, is the additional amount of carbon dioxide we can emit into the atmosphere before we exceed the 2°C limit. Global emissions in 2011 were 31.6 gigatons, an increase of 3.2 percent over the year before. Projections are for continued increases, the result of wholly unsuccessful efforts to reduce the global output. “In fact,” McKibben writes, “study after study predicts that carbon emissions will keep growing by roughly three percent a year — and at that rate, we’ll blow through our 565-gigaton allowance in 16 years, around the time today’s preschoolers will be graduating from high school.” A more ominous prediction comes from Fatih Birol, the International Energy Agency”s chief economist. “When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of about six degrees,” a situation McKibben describes as “a planet straight out of science fiction.”

The third number McKibben asks us to note is 2,795 gigatons. This is the total carbon dioxide known to be held in storage in proven reserves of oil, gas and coal around the world. These reserves are the national property of countries and the private property of corporations. The present value of these reserves is about $27 trillion, an amount that the owners expect to recover by sale and the purchasers expect to burn as fuel. Notice that this 2,795 gigatons of carbon dioxide in storage is five times larger than the allowable 565 gigatons of emissions if average global temperature increases are to be held below 2°C.

As McKibben points out, this discrepancy reveals a worrisome dilemma. If the 2°C temperature ceiling is going to be met, then 80 percent of the fossil fuels held in storage will have to remain there, unburned, at a loss of about $20 trillion in assets. In McKibben’s words, “Yes, this coal and gas and oil is still technically in the soil. But it’s already economically above ground — it’s figured into share prices, companies are borrowing money against it, nations are basing their budgets on the presumed returns from their patrimony. It explains why the big fossil-fuel companies have fought so hard to prevent the regulation of carbon dioxide — those reserves are their primary asset, the holding that gives their companies their value. It’s why they’ve worked so hard these past years to figure out how to unlock the oil in Canada’s tar sands, or how to drill miles beneath the sea, or how to frack the Appalachians.” Countries relying on royalties and corporations expecting profits will have to forego most of their income to avoid the unleashing of a “science fiction” world of excessive heat and extreme weather.

These countries and corporations are not expected to willingly constrain their extraction of fossil fuels to save the planet from the environmental consequences. Their history and performance confirm this expectation. As McKibben points out, the melting Arctic ice has merely been an incentive for countries and corporations to rush northward to find even more gas and oil. Venezuela is intending to develop the Orinoco tar sands, a site even bigger than Alberta’s reserves. Burning the oil from just these two deposits would reach the 565 gigaton limit set for holding global temperature increases below 2°C. To paraphrase Naomi Klein’s chilling words, “…wrecking the planet is their business model. It’s what they do.” The Northern Gateway, Keystone and Kinder Morgan pipelines are all North American examples of such oil promotion projects. So are the daily tankers planned for BC’s West Coast.

If a way exists through this dilemma, it’s a global carbon tax that is sufficiently large to give renewable energies a competitive advantage and to leverage petro-states and fossil-fuel corporations to leave their assets in the ground. But this will take an unprecedented act of political will — one, it seems, we are not yet ready to take.

Stephen Hume on Extreme Weather

July 31, 2012Climate Changeclimate changeCommon Sense Canadian

Read this superb summary by Stephen Hume in The Vancouver Sun of the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events and what they portend for the future. (July 30, 2012)

The story that should dominate headlines is the series of extreme weather events which may be portents of a grim future in which much worse is to come.

Increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather is a key predictor of global warming.

Perhaps our bizarre weather is just a coincidence — certainly that’s the claim of global warming skeptics — but mainstream scientists are for the first time directly attributing extreme weather to the influence of human activities on climate.

For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the probability of increased extreme rainfall events in the 21st century is 66-100 per cent.

Skeptical or not, it’s been a wild July.

The month began with 18 reported dead in Uganda when torrential rains triggered landslides and flash floods; the mass evacuations of 32,000 people in Colorado in the face of advancing wildfires which have destroyed more than 600 homes; 80 dead and two million homeless in India as a result of flooding following torrential rains; chaos in the United Kingdom as a result of flooding and torrential rains; and 13 dead and two million without power following a storm of unprecedented violence — and torrential rains — in the eastern United States.

A week later, the U.K. was once again paralyzed by torrential rains and flooding; in Russia, similar downpours killed 144 in the Krasnodar region. In the U.S., the human death toll from a scorching drought ticked steadily upward – the total is now thought to be around 100 – while crops withered in the fields, ranchers began selling off livestock they could no longer feed or water, and more than a thousand counties in 26 states were declared crop disaster areas by the U.S. department of agriculture.

The week after that, four died in a mudslide caused by heavy rains in British Columbia’s Kootenays while another narrowly missed a major tourist resort; torrential rains caused flash floods and mudslides in Japan that killed 28; New York was pounded by marble-sized hail in a “freak” summer storm; and flash floods thundered through a Santa Clara pueblo after torrential rains fell on fire-denuded hillsides in New Mexico.

Next came drought and wildfires in Portugal which killed 16, two of them firefighters; torrential rains in China killed 95 people – 37 in metropolitan Beijing where a record 460 millimetres fell – and many remain missing; wildfires swept through Spain’s Costa Brava region, burning so fiercely that tourists leaped to their deaths from cliff tops to escape the flames.

And as July moves through its final week, torrential rains in Nigeria are reported to have caused flash floods which killed 35.

So, extreme weather in the form of drought or torrential rain has killed at least 535 people in the last three weeks, more than 44 times the number slain by the movie theatre killer in Colorado who so dominates the headlines.

This is likely just the start.

From Market Economy to Market Society

July 8, 2012Climate Changeclimate change, Ray Grigg, Shades of Green, species at riskRay Grigg

If we can accept the scientific opinion that the primary ecosystems of our planet are seriously degraded — a United Nations’ report recently warned they are on the verge of collapse — then why have we been so slow to seriously address a problem that is rapidly approaching a condition deemed grave? One answer comes from Dr. Michael Sandel, a Harvard political philosophy professor, in his new book What Money Can’t Buy.

Dr. Sandel concludes that, “We have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society.” The business of business, it seems, has infected society. Everything is now for sale and everything has a dollar value. We have stopped asking, “What are your principles?” Instead we are asking, “What is your price.” Life has been commercialized and money has become the primary measure of worth.

Want a law that favours your interests? Hire a lobbyist. Want to repair your damaged corporate reputation? Employ a public relations firm. Want to meet a powerful politician? Pay the $1,500 political contribution to a party’s fundraising event. Want special medical treatment? Go to a private clinic. Want to attend a special sporting event? Pay the ticket scalpers their asking price. Want to sell a product? Buy advertising. Want to avert the consequences of committing a crime? Hire a skillful legal team. Want to skirt the moral obligation of paying taxes? Hire a tax lawyer. Want environmental concessions? Invest huge sums in industrial development. Need fulfillment? Go shopping. Even the academic world is being skewed in the direction of money as universities are pressured to pander to commercial interests and students are lured toward business degrees rather than liberal educations.

The complicated moral and ethical issues of our time are reduced to monetary values. The virtue quotient is replaced by the asset balance. Wisdom is displaced by financial smarts. Success is measured by money, a gauge that somehow bypasses the old indicators of merit. So those with the most money are venerated with the greatest social approval. The result is a moral paucity, a materialistic quest that is swelling the ranks of the rich and the poor while shrinking everything between.

The evidence of this trend has been mounting for decades but only recently have some corporate remunerations become obscene enough to define the situation with shocking clarity. In 2009, the CEOs of the Canada’s top 100 corporations earned an average of $6.6 million per year in salary and benefits — 3 hours of their pay took their employees 12 months of labour to earn. In 2010, these same CEOs earned an average of $8.4 million per year while their employees’ wages remained flat. In 2011, a year of record profits for big American corporations, their CEOs earned an average of $9.6 million — a typical US worker would need to labour 244 years to reach the same remuneration. Such amounts of money can only be used to gain even more power to make even more money.

These numbers are astounding for their effect as well as their amount. As humanity’s inherent intolerance for unfairness is violated, the result is a rise in crime, social breakdown and pervasive discontent. Devious profit-making schemes, exploitive investments and reckless banking practices have shaken the global financial system. Anxiety and insecurity are increasing in an age of apparent plenty.
Although these disquieting effects are important, they fall within the realm of human affairs and can be corrected with a change of mind and legislation. Much more worrisome, however, is the environmental damage caused by a culture that has evolved from a “market economy” to a “market society”. When the fundamental value system of a society is in sympathy with market values, it elects similarly inclined governments, the constraints on money’s destructive power relax even further, disturbances to nature accelerate and, ultimately, we victimize ourselves.

This is the trend that is making scientists, historians, philosophers and a rising number of economists uneasy. A society living by “market” values has internalized the economic rules that are external to nature’s inflexible and iimpassive principles. This partially explains why the warnings of environmental experts go unheeded and why conservation policies are so difficult to implement. If the public has become a “market society”, it is not inclined to provide political support for environmental initiatives, and reform is seriously handicapped. A collective ethos that worships at the altar of Mammon will not understand that some things are more important than money. The impending collision of the two conflicting systems could be messy.

Nature is essential to our well-being. Virtually everything we do is dependent on it. But its accounting system doesn’t understand ledgers, promises, intentions or risks. A ruined ecology cannot be legislated back to health. An extinct species cannot be reintegrated into the biological fabric of life. Weather changes caused by burning fossil fuels will take centuries to subside, even if we were capable of a radical and immediate reduction of greenhouse gases. An acidified ocean will take millennia to return to normal. A massive species extinction — exactly what we are causing today — takes evolutionary processes about 10 million years to repair. The logic of a “market society” doesn’t synchronize with the logic of nature.

So we know the answer to Dr. Sandel’s rhetorical question, What Money Can’t Buy. We also know the alternative. It’s carved into a stone in the ruins of ancient Rome — the old and silent Latin words of “Salve Lucrum”, roughly translated as “Hurray For Profit!”

The Common Sense Canadian

Critical discussion of key issues shaping our economy and environment.