Category Archives: Climate Change

Scientists as certain of climate change as they are that smoking kills

Scientists as certain of climate change as they are that smoking kills

Climate Change, Climate Science
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Scientists as certain of climate change as they are that smoking kills

by Seth Borenstein – Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Top scientists from a variety of fields say they are about as certain that global warming is a real, man-made threat as they are that cigarettes kill.

They are as sure about climate change as they are about the age of the universe. They say they are more certain about climate change than they are that vitamins make you healthy or that dioxin in Superfund sites is dangerous.

They’ll even put a number on how certain they are about climate change. But that number isn’t 100 per cent. It’s 95 per cent.

And for some non-scientists, that’s just not good enough.

In science, no such thing as 100%

There’s a mismatch between what scientists say about how certain they are and what the general public thinks the experts mean, experts say.

That is an issue because this week, scientists from around the world have gathered in Stockholm for a meeting of a U.N. panel on climate change, and they will probably issue a report saying it is “extremely likely” — which they define in footnotes as 95 per cent certain — that humans are mostly to blame for temperatures that have climbed since 1951.

One climate scientist involved says the panel may even boost it in some places to “virtually certain” and 99 per cent.

Some climate-change deniers have looked at 95 per cent and scoffed. After all, most people wouldn’t get on a plane that had only a 95 per cent certainty of landing safely, risk experts say.

But in science, 95 per cent certainty is often considered the gold standard for certainty.

“Uncertainty is inherent in every scientific judgment,” said Johns Hopkins University epidemiologist Thomas Burke. “Will the sun come up in the morning?” Scientists know the answer is yes, but they can’t really say so with 100 per cent certainty because there are so many factors out there that are not quite understood or under control.

George Gray, director of the Center for Risk Science and Public Health at George Washington University, said that demanding absolute proof on things such as climate doesn’t make sense. Gray, who was chief scientist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the George W. Bush administration, noted:

[quote]There’s a group of people who seem to think that when scientists say they are uncertain, we shouldn’t do anything. That’s crazy. We’re uncertain and we buy insurance.[/quote]

With the U.N. panel about to weigh in on the effects of greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of oil, coal and gas, The Associated Press asked scientists who specialize in climate, physics, epidemiology, public health, statistics and risk just what in science is more certain than human-caused climate change, what is about the same, and what is less.

Almost as certain as gravity

They said gravity is a good example of something more certain than climate change. Climate change “is not as sure as if you drop a stone it will hit the Earth,” Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer said. “It’s not certain, but it’s close.”

Arizona State University physicist Lawrence Krauss said the 95 per cent quoted for climate change is equivalent to the current certainty among physicists that the universe is 13.8 billion years old.

The president of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, Ralph Cicerone, and more than a dozen other scientists contacted by the AP said the 95 per cent certainty regarding climate change is most similar to the confidence scientists have in the decades’ worth of evidence that cigarettes are deadly.

“What is understood does not violate any mechanism that we understand about cancer,” while “statistics confirm what we know about cancer,” said Cicerone, an atmospheric scientist. Add to that a “very high consensus” among scientists about the harm of tobacco, and it sounds similar to the case for climate change, he said.

Easy to nitpick reports

But even the best study can be nitpicked because nothing is perfect, and that’s the strategy of both tobacco defenders and climate deniers, said Stanton Glantz, a medicine professor at the University of California, San Francisco and director of its tobacco control research centre.

George Washington’s Gray said the 95 per cent number the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will probably adopt may not be realistic. In general, regardless of the field of research, experts tend to overestimate their confidence in their certainty, he said. Other experts said the 95 per cent figure is too low.

Jeff Severinghaus, a geoscientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said that through the use of radioactive isotopes, scientists are more than 99 per cent sure that much of the carbon in the air has human fingerprints on it. And because of basic physics, scientists are 99 per cent certain that carbon traps heat in what is called the greenhouse effect.

But the role of nature and all sorts of other factors bring the number down to 95 per cent when you want to say that the majority of the warming is human-caused, he said.

Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears

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Ex-Harper Minister Solberg renews Flat Earth Society membership

Climate Change, Climate Science
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Flat Earth map drawn in 1893. The map contains several references to biblical passages and various jabs at the "Globe Theory"
Flat Earth map from 1893, containing several references to biblical passages and jabs at “Globe Theory”

Writing in the Calgary Sun the other day, former Conservative Party Cabinet Minister Monte Solberg claims there is “good news on the climate front.”

Now before we get into this too far, this is the same Solberg who in 2009 celebrated the end of global warming because it was really cold in Saskatchewan that winter. Conveniently missing the idea that it’s called “global” warming and not “Saskatchewan” warming, and we will see different rates of warming in different regions of the world.

Solberg’s latest “good news” refers to recent claims by conspiracy theorists, former energy lobbyists and bought-and-paid pretend climate experts that the upward trend in planetary warming has stalled out.

Now I’m not a scientist and neither is Solberg, but here’s a chart of actual warming measured by NASA over the years:

Nasa global temperature

Again, I am not a scientist, but that is one big giant upward trend in warming that starts right around the time we all started burning a lot of coal and oil in the late 1800’s.

Cool earth, flat earth

Of course, like any good 9-11 or moon-landing conspiracy theory, this chart of actual measured temperature rise will never convince folks like Solberg and other members of the flat earth society, that the earth is warming and will continue to rise.

Honestly, I could put up no end of charts showing the reality of our warming planet and there will be a dismissive argument for every one of them. Conspiracy theories are infallible, that’s why they just get nuttier and nuttier.

In his Calgary Sun opinion piece, Solberg relies on a very nuanced argument to downplay the whole reality of the situation we are facing on our planet, writing:

[quote]In 2007, leading science guys at the IPCC projected that the planet would warm at a rate of .2 degrees every 10 years. They now say the rate is only .12 degrees.[/quote]

Now go back to that NASA chart. Whether we are looking at .2 degrees or .12 degrees, that big upward spike in warming is the reality. No matter what Solberg or anyone else in the flat earth society wants to think. No matter how much they want to quibble on the fringes about computer models and projections, that big swoop up in actual observed global temperature is the reality.

Predictions coming true

We are coming into an age now where the scientific predictions made 20 years ago about a warming planet, atmospheric distruption and more extreme weather, are actually being observed in real life. We are even as a global society trying to soften this new reality by calling it the “new normal.”

So if that’s the reality, the question is: will you find solace in Solberg’s “good news” or will you look up and face the truth of the matter?

Honestly, I won’t blame you if you side with Solberg, because as the old saying goes: “Ignorance is bliss!”

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No flood insurance without better maps, says industry

No flood insurance without better maps, factoring in climate change

Climate Change, Economics
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No flood insurance without better maps, says industry
Calgary’s flooded Bow River on June 22

OTTAWA – Insurance executives say homeowners will never have access to comprehensive flood insurance in Canada unless there are new maps of flood-prone areas that take climate change into account.

That’s the finding of a study that surveyed senior executives at 13 Canadian insurance firms on extreme flooding, which devastated parts of southern Alberta and Toronto this year and is becoming more frequent across the country.

Affected homeowners are often surprised to learn their policies, while covering sewage backups, do not pay for damage from water entering basement windows from swollen rivers and streams.

Canada is the only G8 country where this so-called overland flood insurance is simply not available in the private sector.

“Most insurers agreed that existing flood maps are inaccurate, outdated and inadequate for insurance purposes,” says the study by two experts at the University of Waterloo, Ont.

[quote]This data gap poses a clear threat to the viability of flood insurance.[/quote]

Biggest insurance payouts come from flooding

The Canadian Press obtained an advance copy of the report by academics Blair Feltmate and Jason Thistlewaite, to be released today. Their research was paid for by the Co-operators Group Ltd., a large insurance firm.

The insurance industry is sharply focused on flooding, which in the last 15 years has become their biggest payout area. That’s because of extreme weather events that the executives agree are linked to climate change.

“The big cost now … is flooding basements, by a country mile,” said Feltmate. “So it’s really high on their radar screen.”

Canada has seen 289 flood disasters since 1900, the largest such category, more than the number of hail, wildfire and winter storm disasters combined in the same period.

Floods are expensive. The southern Alberta floods last summer are estimated to have cost private insurers $2.25 billion, even though damage to residences was generally not covered. In 2011, floods in Manitoba and Quebec also racked up millions in payouts.

The federal and provincial governments are also exposed to huge costs under the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements, which pay a disproportionate amount for overland flooding compared with storm, hail and wildfire disasters, which are often already covered under private policies.

Climate change upping flood costs

Existing sewage-backup coverage is also hurting private insurers’ bottom lines because climate change results in more torrential downpours that overwhelm aging municipal infrastructure and can’t be absorbed by an ever-more-paved urban landscape.

Feltmate cites the example of a Toronto neighbourhood, south of the Downsview airport, where a large percentage of basements were flooded three times since May this year.

Executives would consider offering overland-flood insurance, says the survey, but can’t begin to draft policies or set premium levels until proper maps accurately identify the new risks arising from a warming planet. Said Feltmate:

[quote]We need new flood-plain maps that take into account not the historical weather but the weather that can be expected going forward.[/quote]

The study says existing maps are badly out of date, and focus on historical hazards for land-use planning rather than potential risks in the decades to come.

Government orders new flood mapping study

The federal Public Safety Department acknowledged the cartographic gap recently by ordering a new study that will survey flood-mapping in six countries, including the United States.

The report, due next March, will also assess the state of flood mapping in Canada and estimate the costs to meet any new national standard.

The department notes that a previous federal program to generate floodplain maps was killed in the mid-1990s, and little has been done since.

Feltmate says the next phase of his research is a year-long survey of mayors, town councillors, premiers and others who will have to become part of Canada’s flood solutions.

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The study, also supported by Co-operators, will consult as well with bank executives, who Feltmate says are only dimly aware of the threat that increased flooding poses to their mortgage business.

That’s because mortgages are contingent on a homeowner obtaining insurance, and many insurance companies may begin to steer clear of properties prone to frequent basement flooding, such as in the Downsview neighbourhood.

“The banks have a much greater stake in this game than they currently realize,” said Feltmate

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Moral Hazard, Part 1- The Cost of Risk and Reward

Climate Change is the ultimate ‘Moral Hazard’

Climate Change, Economics
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Moral Hazard, Part 1- The Cost of Risk and Reward
Former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan
Moral Hazard, Part 1: The Cost of Risk and Reward

One of the factors compromising our prospects for a stable and secure environmental future is outlined by Bryne Purchase in the subject of moral hazard — a hazard he emphasizes simply by changing the title of his article in The Walrus (April, 2013) from “moral” to “mortal” (Mortal Hazard: Why catastrophic events like the sub-prime mortgage crisis and climate change are inevitable.) His ideas are insightful and timely, even remotely hopeful because he identifies a structural flaw in “the architecture of our decision making” that we could correct by being aware of it.

All reward, no risk

The flaw, Purchase explains, “is that in the pursuit of economic growth we privatize reward and socialize the downside risk.” Economists have borrowed the term “moral hazard” from the insurance industry to describe this process. “A moral hazard exists,” Purchase writes, “whenever decision makers in risky situations reap the rewards from their decisions without bearing all the costs.” This transfer of cost to others encourages risk taking, a shifting of responsibility that is even officially acknowledged in the term “limited liability”.

But the society that inherits costs also reaps rewards. Modern market capitalism, Purchase explains, has created an incredibly dynamic economy with unimaginable wealth since its inception a little more than two centuries ago. The material success of our global economic system is due primarily to this agreed distribution of risk and cost.

In exchange for the immense social and economic benefits provided by adventurous investors, their businesses are protected by corporate recognition, legislated support, government grants, tax benefits and even bankruptcy laws that limit personal responsibility for imprudence and outright incompetence. In exchange, society gets jobs, infrastructure, merchandise, services, opportunity, innovative new products, and the promising prospects generally described as progress.

Catastrophic failure

The danger in this system, however, is that it lacks the checks that provide appropriate restraints. Such a lapse in supervision occurs because both the economic system and the social system are joint beneficiaries of the risk process. Society, therefore, is reluctant to impose restrictive regulations on economic activity because any constraining effects may be felt by everyone.

This exposes modern market capitalism “to new orders of potentially catastrophic failure,” explains Purchase.

[quote]Catastrophic, because by the time a potential problem becomes recognized as clear and present danger, no action may be sufficient to prevent social and economic breakdown…[/quote]

The complexity of such a system produces “tipping points” that may have “viral effects”, the most dramatic and vivid example being the recent sub-prime mortgage fiasco of 2008-09 that came close to collapsing the world’s entire financial system — secondary and tertiary effects are still reverberating throughout the economies and societies of many countries.

Purchase quotes Allan Greenspan, the former chair of the Federal Reserve Board in the United States, who succinctly explains the forces of risk in the evolution of this financial shock:

[quote]A difficult problem is that much of the dubious financial-market behaviour that emerges during the expansion phase is the result not of ignorance that risk is badly underpriced, but of the concern that unless firms participate in a current euphoria, they will irretrievably lose market share.[/quote]

The competitive power of the system, therefore, sanctions inexcusable risk.

The psychology of risk

This, however, is but half the equation. The other half is the social and political psychology underlying the unfolding disaster. Notes Greenspan

[quote]I am also increasingly persuaded that governments and central banks could not have importantly altered the course of the boom either. To do so, they would have had to induce a degree of economic contraction sufficient to nip the budding euphoria. I have seen no evidence, however, that electorates in modern democratic societies would tolerate such severity in macroeconomic policy to combat a prospective problem that might not even materialize.[/quote]

Since everyone was benefitting from the surge in the housing market, and the cost only existed as conjecture for some time in the indeterminate future, no one would take the initiative to reduce the opportunities for financial gain. The present reward overruled the possible risk.

Climate Change: The ultimate moral hazard

Now transpose this entire argument to the subject of global climate change. “A moral hazard exists,” Purchase reminds us, “whenever decision makers in risky situations reap the rewards from their decisions without bearing all the costs.” Fossil fuel corporations and their investors, together with almost every member of a modern market capitalistic society, are all reaping the economic wealth accruing from the present unrestrained use of coal, gas and oil. The cost of billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere is calculated as possible risk projected into the future, cost for some other people to solve with some other ingenuity.

Moral hazard invites such deferrals and human psychology is willing to comply. And, as Purchase notes, “There are always politicians willing to offer the policy option with the least short-term cost or the greatest short-term benefit.”

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We are now, however, entering a transition phase. The environmental risk is beginning to impose its cost. The Arctic is melting, the oceans are rising, the temperature is climbing and the weather is getting more bizarre. The cost is floods, droughts, fires, political instability, crop failures, climate refugees, species loss and miscellaneous disasters that are surprising in their imaginative ingenuity. The deferred future is becoming the unfolding present.

Moral hazard is exacting its payment. Whether we continue to play the game of risk and cost remains an unanswered question.

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Suzuki, Morton headline Monday rally for science

Suzuki, Morton headline Monday rally for science

Canada, Climate Change, Climate Science, Politics
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Suzuki, Morton headline Monday rally for science
Salmon biologist Alexandra Morton (from “Salmon Confidential”)

Over the past several years, the Harper Government has waged an unprecedented war on science in Canada – in favour of advancing its fossil fuel agenda. This has prompted a series of rallies across the country this coming Monday, co-organized by the group Evidence for Democracy.

Rallies will take place in 16 cities, including Ottawa, Toronto, Halifax, Fredericton, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver (see below for a complete list with times and locations).

Vancouver rally

At the Vancouver rally – which takes place Monday, Sept. 16 from 11AM at the Vancouver Art Gallery – high-profile scientists like Dr. David Suzuki and salmon biologist Alexandra Morton will be joined onstage by leading conservationists Joy Foy from the Wilderness Committee and Dr. Craig Orr.

Morton has experienced firsthand the Harper Government’s “see no evil, hear no evil” approach to science as she’s tried to raise the alarm over salmon viruses in BC.

[quote]I have co-published on a European salmon virus in BC’s waters and have received no response from government, so I see the strong need to stand up for science. I believe our economy and our lives depend on it.[/quote]

Dr. Orr’s organization has taken the federal government to task for not taking action on the recommendations of the $26 million Cohen Commission into disappearing Fraser River sockeye.

Gutting environmental protections

The list of cuts to environmental laws, monitoring, enforcement and research under the Harper Government is too long to publish here – but here are a few of the big ones:

The list goes on and on – for a detailed review, I recommend Joyce Nelson’s story on the subject.

As Canada’s most recognizable advocate for science, David Suzuki has been the target of much of the Harper Government’s offensive. Following attacks from Harper and his Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, Suzuki extricated himself officially from his own foundation, so as to be able to speak freely without risking reprisals for the foundation. (Incidentally, Revenue Canada’s $5 million audit of environmental organizations – based on wild-eyed allegations of “money laundering” from Oliver – proved to be a total waste of tax dollars, finding not a single green group in violation of charitable laws).

In a story titled, “We ignore science at our peril”, published a few months ago in these pages, Suzuki noted:

[quote]We can and must change the way we act. That requires listening to scientists and those who are working on solutions, and not to the naysayers and deniers who would keep us stalled in a doomed spiral.[/quote]

A “Scientific Dark Ages”

To Morton, the covering up of fish science has been a constant concern – particularly the muzzling of DFO’s Dr. Kristi Miller after making important discoveries using leading-edge genomic research to zero in on salmon diseases.

“We’re in a form of scientific dark ages here and that was evident in the treatment of Dr. Miller, who discovered what is likely the cause fo the Fraser sockeye decline – a deadly virus,” Morton told The Common Sense Canadian by phone. “This government has has done nothing visible about Miller’s findings.”

Details for rallies across Canada

Vancouver
Vancouver Art Gallery – North plaza on Georgia Street, 11am – 1pm
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/364664120302614/
Contact: Pamela, S4S.Vancouver@gmail.com, 604-786-9521.

Salmon Arm, BC
Art Gallery front steps, noon – 1pm
Contact: Warren Bell, cppbell@web.ca

Abbotsford, BC
University of the Fraser Valley (33844 King Rd) – Meet on “The Green”, noon
Bring a lab coat and signs if you can.

Edmonton
September 14, Winston Churchill square, 2pm
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/569543279770489/
Contact: Krystal, StandUp4Science@outlook.com

Lethbridge
University of Lethbridge, noon – 1pm
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/289078114564171/

Yellowknife
In front of The Greenstone Building (5101 50th Ave), noon – 1pm
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/504283992999086/

Winnipeg
University of Winnipeg (in front of Wesley Hall), 12:30 – 1:30
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/612342002158861/
Contact: sosrallywpg@gmail.com

Toronto
South side of Queen’s Park, 11:45 – 1pm
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/371506262976184/

Hamilton
Press conference, City Hall, 9am

Ottawa
Parliament Hill, noon – 1pm
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/639576056054837/

Kingston
Queens campus – Stauffer Library (101 Union St.), noon – 1pm
Facebook event:https://www.facebook.com/events/297246783748951/
Contact: Raly Chakarova, r.chakarova@hotmail.com, 416-937-7302

Kitchener – Waterloo
Meet at Kitchener City Hall, 5pm
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/444399535673713/

Montreal
Complexe Guy-Favreau, noon – 1:30pm
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/606078736081800/

Halifax
Dalhousie Student Union Building, room 307, 1pm – 3:30pm
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/171325193051947/
Contact: Justin Singer, justin.singer@dal.ca, 647-407-2443

Fredericton
City Hall, noon – 1pm
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/122105531293444/
Contact: Jeff Clements, j.clements@unb.ca

St. Andrews, NB
Information rally and barbecue
Water St and King St, 10am – 1pm
Contact: Caroline Davies, sos.oceanscience@gmail.com

Background information on the Stand up for Science rallies is available here.

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Harper Govt spent $120 million helping Enbridge: Elizabeth May

Harper caught helping Enbridge while wooing Obama on climate

Carbon Tax - Cap and Trade, Climate Change, International, Politics
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Harper Govt spent $120 million helping Enbridge: Elizabeth May
Photo: Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press

While Stephen Harper was busy trying to green-wash his image with Barack Obama – acquiescing to climate targets to improve prospects for the Keystone XL pipeline – Green Party Leader Elizabeth May dropped a bombshell: the suggestion that the Conservative Government is spending $120 million in tax dollars to “grease the wheels” for Enbridge and its Northern Gateway pipeline bid.

May and her only elected Green cohort, BC MLA and Nobel Prize-winning UVic climate scientist Andrew Weaver, discussed the allegation at a press conference in Victoria on Wednesday. Said Weaver:

[quote]Documents obtained from Environment Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans reveal that at a time when core science is being cut across the Government of Canada, tax dollars are being spent to do Enbridge’s homework for them.[/quote]

Harper tries to turn over new leaf

The revelation was bad timing for the prime minister, coming on the heels of a letter he sent personally to Obama, promising “joint action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas sector.”

According to CBC, Harper reached out to his US counterpart in late August, in an attempt to persuade him to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta’s Tar Sands to refineries in Texas. The project is in limbo, with Obama twice delaying his decision on the matter, recently bumping it 2014.

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The Harper Government’s considerable lobbying efforts have yet to move Obama on Keystone. Some have even hampered their mission – like Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver’s attack of renowned former NASA climatologist James Hansen at a Washington, DC event. This failure is now compelling the prime minister to back off his earlier opposition to hard climate commitments, says CBC:

[quote]Sources told CBC News the prime minister is willing to accept targets proposed by the United States for reducing the climate-changing emissions and is prepared to work in concert with Obama to provide whatever political cover he needs to approve the project.[/quote]

Those sources also say Harper wanted to address Keystone with Obama at this week’s G20 Summit in Russia, but the pipeline project was drown out in the tempest surrounding Syria.

May’s allegations can’t be of help to the Prime Minster’s attempted image makeover, which is why his government was quick to respond this week. Harper’s top lieutenant on pipeline matters, Joe Oliver, fired back:

[quote]While the Green party and the New Democratic Party oppose resource development projects before the science is in, our government will not make decisions until an independent, scientific review determines they are safe for Canadians and safe for the environment.[/quote]

According to the Canadian Press, Ottawa said the money is going to “oil tanker safety studies on Canada’s coastlines…announced last March in Vancouver by Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver against a backdrop of tankers and shipping vessels in Burrard Inlet.”

(You may recall this event for the irony of a federal oil spill clean-up ship running aground en route to the press conference)

Government handout to Big Oil

May and Weaver aren’t buying this defense. To them, Ottawa is using tax dollars to subsidize things that Enbridge should be doing at its own expense – like $78 million for bitumen-specific marine spill studies. Add to that another $42 million to develop improved weather monitoring systems for the rugged north and central coast waters which tankers would transit if Northern Gateway goes ahead.

Federal monies for such core elements of Enbridge’s National Energy Board application amount to a government hand-out, says Weaver:

[quote]This is another example of federal money being used to essentially subsidize industry, and industry’s inability to actually provide effective response to marine dilbit (bitumen) oil spills because the tools don’t exist.[/quote]

For a leader who has spent the past several years gutting environmental laws, monitoring and enforcement staff, cutting research monies, and muzzling scientists, it won’t be easy now to suddenly convince Obama that he’s turned a new leaf. This is, after all, a president who has been heading in the opposite direction of late, earning accolades for his progressive talk on climate action.

By contrast, Harper’s egregious environmental record has spurred criticism from all corners – even two former Conservative fisheries ministers – leading to a series of “Stand Up for Science” rallies across the country on September 16.

If Keystone fails, it will be partly because the prime minister’s war on science and the environment finally caught up with him.

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David Suzuki on Chemtrails

David Suzuki on Chemtrails

Climate Change, Geoengineering
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David Suzuki on Chemtrails
Photos like this one appear all over the Internet, presented as evidence of “chemtrails”
Conspiracies fuel climate change denial and belief in chemtrails

I recently wrote about geoengineering as a strategy to deal with climate change and carbon dioxide emissions. That drew comments from people who confuse this scientific process with the unscientific theory of “chemtrails”. Some also claimed the column supported geoengineering, which it didn’t.

The reaction got me wondering why some people believe in phenomena rejected by science, like chemtrails, but deny real problems demonstrated by massive amounts of scientific evidence, like climate change.

Chemtrails believers claim governments around the world are in cahoots with secret organizations to seed the atmosphere with chemicals and materials – aluminum salts, barium crystals, biological agents, polymer fibres, etc. – for a range of nefarious purposes. These include controlling weather for military purposes, poisoning people for population or mind control and supporting secret weapons programs based on the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP.

Scientists have tested and used cloud and atmospheric seeding for weather modification and considered them as ways to slow global warming. With so many unknowns and possible unintended consequences, these practices have the potential to cause harm. But the chemtrails conspiracy theory is much broader, positing that military and commercial airlines are involved in constant massive daily spraying that is harming the physical and mental health of citizens worldwide.

I don’t have space to get into the absurdities of belief in a plot that would require worldwide collusion between governments, scientists and airline company executives and pilots to amass and spray unimaginable amounts of chemicals from altitudes of 10,000 metres or more. I’m a scientist, so I look at credible science – and there is none for the existence of chemtrails.

They’re condensation trails, formed when hot, humid air from jet exhaust mixes with colder low-vapour-pressure air. This, of course, comes with its own environmental problems.

From chemtrails to climate denial

But what interests me is the connection between climate change denial and belief in chemtrails. Why do so many people accept a theory for which there is no scientific evidence while rejecting a serious and potentially catastrophic phenomenon that can be easily observed and for which overwhelming evidence has been building for decades?

To begin, climate change denial and chemtrails theories are often conspiracy-based. A study by researchers at the University of Western Australia found “endorsement of a cluster of conspiracy theories … predicts rejection of climate science as well as the rejection of other scientific findings.”

Many deniers see climate change as a massive plot or hoax perpetrated by the world’s scientists and scientific institutions, governments, the UN, environmentalists and sinister forces to create a socialist world government or something.

Not all go to such extremes. Some accept climate change is occurring but deny humans are responsible. Still, it doesn’t seem rational to deny something so undeniable! In a Bloomberg article, author and Harvard Law School professor Cass R. Sunstein points to three psychological barriers to accepting climate change that may also help explain why it’s easier for people to believe in chemtrails: People look to readily available examples when assessing danger, focus “on risks or hazards that have an identifiable perpetrator”, and pay more attention to immediate threats than long-term ones.

Researchers Ezra Markowitz and Azim Shariff of the University of Oregon Psychology and Environmental Studies departments add a few more, including that human-caused climate change “provokes self-defensive biases” and its politicization “fosters ideological polarization.”

People who subscribe to unbelievable conspiracy theories may feel helpless, so they see themselves as victims of powerful forces – or as heroes standing up to those forces. Whether it’s to deny real problems or promulgate imaginary ones, it helps reinforce a worldview that is distrustful of governments, media, scientists and shadowy cabals variously referred to as banksters, global elites, the Illuminati or the New World Order.

The problem is that science denial is, in the case of chemtrails, a wacky distraction and, in the case of climate change denial, a barrier to addressing an urgent, critical problem. Science is rarely 100 per cent certain, but it’s the best tool we have for coming to terms with our actions and their consequences, and for finding solutions to problems. The science is clear: human-caused climate change is the most pressing threat to humanity, and we must work to resolve it. We don’t have time for debunked conspiracy theories.

Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Communications Manager Ian Hanington.

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The Carbon Dilemma

The Carbon Dilemma

Climate Change
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A sophisticated analysis of the global climate crisis is accelerating as quickly as it is approaching. But a gulf is widening between our understanding of this most serious of modern environmental concerns and our efforts to fix it. The latest example could be called the carbon dilemma.

The carbon dilemma first received public attention in 2012 when Bill McKibben, an American environmentalist and founder of 350.org, publicized the growing conflict between the known carbon that is stored in fossil fuel reserves — the equivalent of 2,795 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide — and the amount we can afford to burn, the equivalent of 565 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide. If the traumatizing effects of increased global temperatures are to be avoided, this means that 80 percent of these carbon reserves — presently valued at about $20 trillion — must remain unused in the ground.

Meanwhile, investment in fossil fuels continues unabated, as if the industry and its financial supporters are oblivious of this dilemma. Australia has spent $6.2 billion in developing new coal reserves in Queensland, a “mega-mine” that some critics have deemed the world’s second largest “carbon bomb”. Even though many coal companies and their backers profess to be taking global climate change seriously, they are still funding projects that, given the emerging calculations, seem risky at best and suicidal at worst.

The same might be said of Alberta’s tar sands, an investment adventure that now involves $120 billion and counting. Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where they share the Bakken deposits of North Dakota, are joining the rush for shale oil. British Columbia is frantically fracking for natural gas, while desperately looking for investors who will build the LNG facilities that are supposed to fuel the province’s future prosperity. The United States is similarly fracking to establish energy independence. In 2012, the world’s top 200 energy corporations spent $674 billion finding new fossil fuel reserves, an investment strategy that hardly seems compatible with any intention to reduce consumption.

As the carbon dilemma comes into sharper focus, it reveals a stark and disturbing contradiction in the energy strategy promoted by fossil fuel corporations — one even hugely subsidized by governments. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased 40 percent since 1750. The amount of radiant heat escaping from Earth has fallen by 30 percent between 1990 and 2011. This unequivocal scientific evidence should mean that burning large quantities of fossil fuels has a very limited future — even if we have access to such energy. But investment continues as if all that can be found can be burned. A haunting doubt must question the sanity of searching for more carbon than we can afford to release.

Efforts compatible with free-market principles have been made to reduce carbon emissions, the most obvious being the European carbon trading scheme. But it has failed because carbon quotas were initially set too high, because too many sellers and too few buyers have collapsed the value of carbon, and because the European parliament has refused to bail out the faltering scheme. The only realistic remaining option is a direct tax on carbon, a regulatory step that free market capitalism is reluctant to implement, that national governments are too cowardly to enact, and that competing global interests find too complicated to organize into binding agreements. (One of the few exceptions is British Columbia, where a careful academic study has shown that the implementation of a carbon tax in 2008 has lowered the province’s greenhouse gas emissions by 17.4 percent in the four years to 2012 without impairing economic growth, a reduction that compares to a 1.5 percent increase in emissions for the rest of Canada.)

So the carbon dilemma culminates in the realization that the 200 largest fossil fuel corporations in the world, worth an estimated $4 trillion in stock market value — they also have $1.5 trillion in debt — can only burn all their reserves if they intend to heat the planet to a devastating 6°C (Will Hutton, Guardian Weekly, Apr. 26/13). Without a miraculous means of capturing and safely sequestering all carbon dioxide emissions, this suggests two options: we can attempt to adapt to conditions that will likely be suicidally severe, or the fossil fuel corporations must acknowledge that most of their assets are unusable and worthless.

If this second option reaches a critical mass of awareness in the marketplace — as it eventually will — the world’s economic system will have to bear the shock of another financial crisis as trillions of dollars in investments disappear, and the cumulative impact of related disturbances send seismic shocks throughout the entire market place. Fossil fuel, in other words, is a carbon bubble that must eventually burst. The alternative to shocking the market is to spend trillions of dollars attempting to live with the consequences of a planet that is 6°C warmer, a hydrological cycle that will be 42 percent more active, and other surprises that we probably don’t want to imagine.

The stakes are unimaginably high. Our wealth, our value systems, our material security, our political stability, and just about everything we recognize about our modern civilization will be determined by the key energy decisions we make in the next few years.

The way this dilemma resolves itself will be unpredictable given the economic leverage and the lobbying influence of the oil, gas and coal corporations, not to mention the importance of fossil fuel as the primary energy source still powering the global economy. Willing or not, every single person in the world will become a player in this environmental drama. How it will end is uncertain.

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Is geoengineering a silver bullet for climate change?

Is geoengineering a silver bullet for climate change?

Climate Change, Geoengineering
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Is geoengineering a silver bullet for climate change?
Satellite imagery of a massive plankton bloom west of Haida Gwaii following an ocean fertilization experiment

Altering environments to suit our needs is not new. From clearing land to building dams, we’ve done it throughout history. When our technologies and populations were limited, our actions affected small areas – though with some cascading effects on interconnected ecosystems.

We’ve now entered an era in which humans are a geological force. According to the website Welcome to the Anthropocene, “There are now so many of us, using so many resources, that we’re disrupting the grand cycles of biology, chemistry and geology by which elements like carbon and nitrogen circulate between land, sea and atmosphere. We’re changing the way water moves around the globe as never before. Almost all the planet’s ecosystems bear the marks of our presence.”

One of our greatest impacts is global warming, fuelled by massive increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning oil, coal and gas. Thanks in part to self-preserving industrialists, complicit governments and deluded deniers, we’ve failed to take meaningful action to address the problem, even though we’ve known about it for decades. Many now argue the best way to protect humanity from the worst effects is to further alter Earth’s natural systems through geoengineering.

Geoengineering to combat climate change is largely untested. Because we’ve stalled so long on reducing carbon emissions and still aren’t doing enough, we may have to consider it. What will that mean?

As it relates to climate change, geoengineering falls into two categories: solar radiation management and carbon dioxide removal. The former involves reflecting solar radiation back into space. The latter is aimed at removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it.

Solar radiation management includes schemes such as releasing sulphur aerosols into the atmosphere to scatter sunlight and reduce radiation, creating or whitening clouds by spraying seawater or other materials into the air, and even installing giant reflectors in space. These methods don’t affect CO2 levels and so don’t address issues like ocean acidification, but they offer possible quick fixes to reduce warming.

An example of carbon removal is fertilizing oceans with iron. Iron stimulates growth of small algae called phytoplankton, which remove carbon dioxide from the sea and release oxygen through photosynthesis. This allows the oceans to absorb additional CO2 from the atmosphere. When the plankton die and sink to the ocean floor, they become buried under other materials, storing the carbon within them.

The Alberta and federal governments have spent billions on their favoured carbon-reduction method, carbon capture and storage – trapping CO2 released by burning fossil fuels and pumping it into the ground – but this method has yet to be perfected.

Many schemes are controversial and have shown mixed results in tests, and the danger of unintended consequences is real, including further catastrophic, irreversible damage to the climate system.

One major drawback with geoengineering is the mistaken idea that it can be a substitute for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. That many geoengineering projects are fraught with danger and would not resolve the problem quickly enough or even effectively – and would do little or nothing to resolve other fossil fuel problems such as pollution – makes this a critical concern.

There’s also the matter of who would decide what methods to apply and when and where. The issue of “rogue” geoengineering has also cropped up in my part of the world, when an American businessman working with the Haida village of Old Massett dumped 100 tonnes of iron sulphate into the ocean in 2012 for a salmon restoration and carbon-reduction project.

A U.K. Royal Society study concludes that geoengineering “should only be considered as part of a wider package of options for addressing climate change” and carbon dioxide reduction methods should be preferred over more unpredictable solar radiation management.

Scientists at the Berlin Social Science Research Centre suggest creating “a new international climate engineering agency … to coordinate countries’ efforts and manage research funding.” Because some geoengineering is likely unavoidable, that’s a good idea. But rather than rationalizing our continued use of fossil fuels in the false belief that technology will enable us to carry on with our destructive ways, we really need governments, scientists and industry to start taking climate change and greenhouse gas emissions seriously. We can’t just engineer our way out of the problem.

Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Communications Manager Ian Hanington.

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Canada’s Green Economy needs public investment

Canada, Climate Change, Economics, Energy and Resources, International, Politics, Renewables
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Both the Intergovernmental Panel and Climate Change and the International Energy Agency have concluded that public policies, rather than the availability of resources, are among the key determinants for a shift from fossil fuels to clean technology development and deployment.  Public banks are critical agents for change along these lines.

Public financial institutions and the green economy around the world

Starting with some of the largest public banks, in July 2013, both the World Bank and the European Investment Bank announced that they will limit to the bare minimum investments in fossil fuel projects, while shifting the lion’s share of their respective energy investments to renewables.

The World Bank’s Jim Yong Kim – the first scientist to head the institution – said it is impossible to tackle poverty without dealing with the effects of a warmer world.  “We need affordable energy to help end poverty and to build shared prosperity. We will also scale-up efforts to increase renewable energy and improve energy efficiency – according to countries’ needs and opportunities.”

Based on perspectives not very different from that of the World Bank, in July 2013, The European Investment Bank (EIB), in line with the current European Union climate policy, announced it will implement new lending criteria that skew heavily towards renewables and screen out nearly all coal and lignite plants.

The significance of the EIB shift is illustrated by the fact that the EIB invests, lends and leverages $13.2B/year for energy initiatives.  The leveraging of EIB investments in turn fosters private financing, especially important for the capital-intensive offshore wind sector.  Many offshore wind projects have benefited from the low cost EIB loans in recent years.

In the UK, the Green Investment Bank, headquartered in Glasgow, was created in 2012 with $3.6B (£3B) in initial capital to carry it through until 2015.  Its mission is to respond to the specific financing challenges of commercial green infrastructure projects by tackling the finance gaps which remain despite the advent of new government policies.  Like the EIB, this mission includes leveraging its investments to bring in other lenders and investors.

To raise additional capital, GIB’s capital base is, and will be, regularly reinforced with pollution permit proceeds and the newly announced carbon tax revenues.  Beginning in the 2014-2015 period, bonds will be issued to raise additional capital.

In Germany, the state bank, kfw, is backing offshore wind development to the tune of $7.2B (5B€).

Meanwhile, the Chinese Development Bank (CDB) has been a key player in making China the world’s largest clean tech player.  In 2012, total investments in renewables was $67.7B, compared to its closest rival, the US, with $56B in investments in that same year.

The CDB is a formidable player, especially because it appears to have no limits on the billions of dollars with which to work.  About 2 years ago, the CDB committed a whopping $45B over 5 years to smart grid development and deployment.  Smart grid platforms are the key to the massive integration of intermittent renewable energy production, such as energy from wind and solar sources, by storing surplus energy for redeployment as required.

More recently, the CDB provided Goldwind, a state-owned wind turbine manufacturer, with $6B to finance international business development.  Similarly, Ming Yang, a smaller Chinese turbine manufacturer, acquired $5B from the CDB for loans and credit facilities between 2011 and 2015 to prepare for its entry into international markets.

This significant CDB support for China’s clean tech sectors has contributed to accusations of global clean tech dumping – specifically from the US and the European Union.  Both the US and the EU have responded to the alleged dumping by imposing steep tariffs on imports of clean tech products from China.

By contrast, Canada has taken an opposite course by being oblivious to the problem of dumping of clean techs by China.  To this effect, the proposed Canada-China trade deal stipulates that there will be no commercial barriers applied to environmental technologies.  Evidently, the Harper regime is prepared to give China what it wants, in order for Canada to sell tar sands oil them.  Either the Harper administration is unaware of the significance of China’s request, it simply does not care, or a combination of both!

Yet another innovative model for public financial institutions to support domestic clean tech manufacturing is that of Brazil’s Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Economico e Social.  As of January, 2013, Banco Nacional requires that wind turbine manufacturers source 60% of components in Brazil and produce or assemble in Brazil at least 3 of the 4 main wind technology components – towers, blades, nacelles and hubs – between now and 2016.  Under the Banco Nacional model, turbine makers have to meet the staggered manufacturing phases established by the bank, which will be stepped up every six months, until 2016.

Turning to the US, there the US Export-Import Bank, which represents 7 US government agencies, was created to finance renewable energy projects in emerging markets and, most important, to support the US clean tech industry with its requirement for 30% US content.  India, one of the bank’s 9 key markets, accounted for approximately $7B of the its worldwide credit exposure as of the end of fiscal 2011.  Another example of Ex-Im Bank loans was the $1B credit package to fund wind power development in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, in collaboration with the Vietnam Development Bank.

Lastly, there is the pension fund green investment model, such as that established by Denmark’s Dong Energy. Dong is 75% owned by the Government of Denmark and is involved in 30% of all offshore wind projects in the world.  Currently, Dong uses Danish pension funds for its financial activity in offshore wind projects in Denmark and partners with the Japanese trading firm Marubeni for equity financing for projects outside Denmark.

These government and pension fund connections have translated into Dong being a very special kind of energy investor in that 85% of its current portfolio is associated with fossil fuels and 15% renewables – but its mission is to reverse this ratio by 2040.

Canada falling behind

With the examples of the World Bank, the European Investment Bank China, the UK Green Investment Bank, Germany’s kfw, the Chinese Development Bank, the US’ Ex-Im Bank and Brazil’s Banco nacional, showing the way to the effect that publicly funded investment institutions can play critical roles in assuring a migration to renewables and clean techs, the question to raise in Canada is as follows:  Why can’t Canada do similar things via the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) and Export Development Canada?

Indeed these Canadian investment vehicles offer excellent options for the financing the development of Canada’s clean tech sectors.  The BDC, like the other institutions mentioned in this article, could leverage its venture capital funds to attract additional support from Canada’s private banks and financial cooperatives.  What an excellent way to take on the challenge of reaching US equivalency with regard to 20% of venture capital activity in 2011 and 2012 going to clean tech sectors.

As well, the BDC could take a page from Brazil’s Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Economico e Social and include Canadian content requirements, thus assuring optimal benefits for Canadian economic development and job creation.  It is  conceivable that BDC-supported local economic development along these lines could fly under the radar of free trade agreements.

As for an approach for supporting Canadian exports of clean technologies, the models described like those of the Chinese Development Bank and the US Export-Import Bank, may be tough acts to follow, since these institutions have billions of dollars to work with. Nevertheless, the fact that the US Ex-Im Bank brings together 7 US national government organizations, suggests this US model could provide some insights for a made-in-Canada model.  For example, if the Canadian International Development Agency would partner with Export Development Canada, the Government of Canada would be able to support the setting up of clean energy micro-grids in isolated communities without necessitating the prohibitively expensive land infrastructure connections to distant, centralized electricity generation plants.

Canada’s pension funds could also have a role to play, along the lines of Denmark’s partially pension-funded Dong Energy. There are Canadian precedents for major investments of pension funds in clean tech sectors.  For instance, in February, 2013, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec – the financial arm for Quebec’s pension fund – invested $757M to purchase half of Dong Energy’s 50% share in the world’s largest offshore wind energy project, the UK’s 850 MW London Array.  Just prior to that, in January, the Caisse purchased $500M in shares of 11 Invenergy wind farms in the US and Canada, representing 1500 MW and including 2 wind projects in Canada, one of which is in Quebec.

This raises a second question: why can’t the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) create a clean tech portfolio to optimize Canadian participation in one of the world’s fastest growing industries for job creation, the clean tech sector?

From my previous dealings with the CPPIB, I know that their answer is that their job is to get the maximum return for pensioners and, consequently, no particular preference is given for Canadian investments. This is faulty logic for 2 reasons.

First, it is not unusual for investment vehicles to be associated with more than one objective.  Second, and most importantly, investments in growth sectors in Canada that offer high-paying jobs would bring additional revenues for the CPPIB in the form of greater contributions from both employers and employees – in addition to the traditional form of returns on investments.   Indeed, from time-to-time, the Caisse has adopted priorities for investments in Quebec with similar motivations.

It can be done

In conclusion: 1) innovative clean technology roles for the BDC and EDC to support and leverage venture capital and finance exports and 2) the creation of a clean tech portfolio for the CPPIB, could both significantly help Canada catch up to its competitors in the global migration to the high-growth and high-job creation green economy, all while making good money in the process.  Earnings from completed projects would in turn finance more projects.  These are opportunities that make good sense for Canada to embrace.

As Jack Layton used to say, “Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.”

Will Dubitsky worked for the Government of Canada on sustainable development policies, legislation, programs and clean tech innovation projects/consortia. He lives in Quebec.

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