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Mass Migrations and War: Dire Climate Scenario
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - If we don't deal with climate change decisively, "what we're talking about then is extended world war," the eminent economist said.
Icebergs in Vincennes Bay in the Australian Antarctic Territory in January 2008. It seems the dire warnings about future devastation sparked by global warming have not been dire enough, top climate scientists warned Saturday.
(AFP/Torsten Blackwood) His audience Saturday, small and elite, had been stranded here by bad weather and were talking climate. They couldn't do much about the one, but the other was squarely in their hands. And so, Lord Nicholas Stern was telling them, was the potential for mass migrations setting off mass conflict.
"Somehow we have to explain to people just how worrying that is," the British economic thinker said.
Stern, author of a major British government report detailing the cost of climate change, was one of a select group of two dozen - environment ministers, climate negotiators and experts from 16 nations - scheduled to fly to Antarctica to learn firsthand how global warming might melt its ice into the sea, raising ocean levels worldwide.
Their midnight flight was scrubbed on Friday and Saturday because of high winds on the southernmost continent, 3,000 miles from here. While waiting at their Cape Town hotel for the gusts to ease down south, chief sponsor Erik Solheim, Norway's environment minister, improvised with group exchanges over coffee and wine about the future of the planet.
"International diplomacy is all about personal relations," Solheim said. "The more people know each other, the less likely there will be misunderstandings."
Understandings will be vital in this "year of climate," as the world's nations and their negotiators count down toward a U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen in December, target date for concluding a grand new deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol - the 1997 agreement, expiring in 2012, to reduce carbon dioxide and other global-warming emissions by industrial nations.
Solheim drew together key players for the planned brief visit to Norway's Troll Research Station in East Antarctica.
Trying on polar outfits for size on Friday were China's chief climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua, veteran U.S. climate envoy Dan Reifsnyder, and environment ministers Hilary Benn of Britain and Carlos Minc Baumfeld of Brazil.
Later, at dinner, the heavyweights heard from smaller or poorer nations about the trials they face as warming disrupts climate, turns some regions drier, threatens food production in poor African nations.
Jose Endundo, environment minister of Congo, said he recently visited huge Lake Victoria in nearby Uganda, at 80,000 square kilometers (31,000 square miles) a vital source for the Nile River, and learned the lake level had dropped 3 meters (10 feet) in the past six years - a loss blamed in part on warmer temperatures and diminishing rains.
In the face of such threats, "the rich countries have to give us a helping hand," the African minister said.
But it was Stern, former chief World Bank economist, who on Saturday laid out a case to his stranded companions in sobering PowerPoint detail.
If the world's nations act responsibly, Stern said, they will achieve "zero-carbon" electricity production and zero-carbon road transport by 2050 - by replacing coal power plants with wind, solar or other energy sources that emit no carbon dioxide, and fossil fuel-burning vehicles with cars running on electric or other "clean" energy.
Then warming could be contained to a 2-degree-Celsius (3.4-degree-Fahrenheit) rise this century, he said.
But if negotiators falter, if emissions reductions are not made soon and deep, the severe climate shifts and sea-level rises projected by scientists would be "disastrous."
It would "transform where people can live," Stern said. "People would move on a massive scale. Hundreds of millions, probably billions of people would have to move if you talk about 4-, 5-, 6-degree increases" - 7 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. And that would mean extended global conflict, "because there's no way the world can handle that kind of population move in the time period in which it would take place."
Melting ice, rising seas, dwindling lakes and war - the stranded ministers had a lot to consider. But many worried, too, that the current global economic crisis will keep governments from transforming carbon-dependent economies just now. For them, Stern offered a vision of working today on energy-efficient economies that would be more "sustainable" in the future.
"The unemployed builders of Europe should be insulating all the houses of Europe," he said.
After he spoke, Norwegian organizers announced that the forecast looked good for Stern and the rest to fly south on Sunday to further ponder the future while meeting with scientists in the forbidding vastness of Antarctica.
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32 Comments so far
Show AllI have a question. What is the mean temp of the Halocene period?
I have a question as well. How many billions of people lived near coasts in the Holocene period? How many economies were dependent upon permanent infrastructure on the coasts, such as refineries and commercial ports? And, in the Holocene period, how many artillery pieces, combat aircraft, tanks, and nuclear weapons were there? Hmm? To compare what may come as no problem at all because it has happened before is utterly retarded. Severe climate change has at least once before nearly wiped out the human race. You don't think it could happen again?
theinitiate
Sigurdur
Why?
Why?
So we can be distracted by pointless obfuscation. Oh wait, there is the point - to obfuscate.
Here's a better question:
If humans increase atmospheric carbon by 50%, might this disrupt the Earth's climate? For some odd reason, there have been respected scientists making this claim for decades, and now field researchers and climatologists report evidence over the past 15 years that STRONGLY CORRELATES with predictions of disruption.
But never mind any of that pesky field research stuff. With all these crazed scientists and world leaders getting in a panic about our disrupted climate, it sure is nice to have Sig here to distract us, er, confuse us, i mean, inform us that there is by golly nothing to worry about! Stupid scientists and leaders...
And no matter what any of us say to Sig, he is sure to bounce up like a Rock-em Sock-em Robot with a fresh distraction to meet the need of the moment. Like, he can find scientists and world leaders who disagree or have concerns about the modeling, etc etc etc blah blah blah, so please remain uncertain about whether all these global scientific summits and UN conferences are a gigantic conspiracy, or maybe they are involved in a mass hallucination, or something...
And amidst all the uncertainty, there is ONE THING you can be certain of: no matter what any of us say to Sig, he will happily take up as much of our community space here as he possibly can, and will never acknowledge anything, even (as has happened repeatedly) when people point out that a link he has posted actually argues AGAINST what Sig is saying...
On some climate threads here, Sig literally posts half of all the posts. Hard working Sig...
In other words, your chances of convincing a denier are about the same as convincing a fundamentalist christian of the truth of evolution. Except in special cases, I no longer waste my time with those people. Got better things to do.
A hard decision. Do we ignore the obvious propagandists because we are tired of arguing the same old arguments?
I don't think we should. There are always new people coming who don't know the arguments and who may be swayed by lying vested interests, so we must continue our refutations as long as there are such liars in our midst.
Every climate change story on Common Dreams has the same tired climate change deniers spewing their pseudo science on the comment pages. Come to the interior of British Columbia where we are losing almost all of our great pine forests to the mountain pine beetle. It is not just an unproven theory when you can see the horrible effects of climate change all around you.
Well, that's because they are probably in the employ of various fossil fuel interests - the American Petroleum Institute, the coal group called "The Edison Electric Institute", the Western Fuels Association, the Global Climate Coalition between automakers, petroleum and coal interests - which is why U.S. auto companies were left behind by the competition - they were instructed to make big cars to boost U.S. fuel demand, not electric vehicles that would undercut it. Free market? What free market? Free market fundamentalism in reality translates into authoritarian rule and cartel-based economic systems (as does communism, for that matter).
Here's my favorite recent example of a fossil fuel funded front group that aims to undercut action on global warming: "The Breakthrough Institute".
The Breakthrough Institute was set up by advertising-market types in Berkeley, and draws its funding and office space from the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers, which was spun off from Rockefeller Financial Services some years ago. Rockefeller Financial Services is a large wealth management agency that has partially merged with Societe General, (noted for their trading disaster this past fall). According to their SEC filings, their largest holdings are in Chevron, Exxon, JP Morgan, General Electric and a host of Big Pharma corps, although they are quite diversified.
One of the Breakthrough Insitute's "Senior Fellows" is one Roger Pielke Jr., who is a political scientist whose father is a climate scientist - much like the Sherwood Idso -Craig Idso team behind the denialist web site "Co2science.org". These are people who are not adverse to using fossil fuel funds to promote themselves and win rewards thereby - as long as they sing the right tune.
This is a well-understood phenomenon, especially in pharmaceutical areas, environmental science areas - anything where large amounts of money are at stake. It's called propaganda - "third-party credibility."
After all, if the CEO of Exxon went around saying the CO2 from fossil fuels doesn't cause global warming, who would believe him? Instead, the CEO and shareholders pay millions to slimy PR monkeys to do the job for them - you can see their tediously dishonest work in the comments sections of every web article on global warming as well as in the coverage of the issues by the corporate press - who are owned by the same people who control the fossil fuel corporations and banks.
The only way to counter this is to actively promote anti-trust laws and an end to structured holding companies in media, period - no more conflict-of-interest, no more "diversified media, pharmaceutical and energy holdings" - it's anti-democratic bullshit, and it must end.
gunboatdiplomat, great post. The denial industry and its shameless minions must be exposed for who they are.
Every climate change story on Common Dreams has the same tired climate change deniers spewing their pseudo science on the comment pages. Come to the interior of British Columbia where we are losing almost all of our great pine forests to the mountain pine beetle. It is not just an unproven theory when you can see the horrible effects of climate change all around you.
I have a question. What is the carrying capacity of the Earth?
Year 2009 - 6,710,926,117 Humans, and some other pesky species.
Year 2200 - a few billion beetles and cockroaches, some jellyfish and pondscum.
Sorry, got the number wrong - 2009 - 6,790,062,216 humans.
My number was a year old. The human population increases by about 7 million a month.
Thanks, but what I meant was what is the carrying capacity of the earth, not what is the earth's population today?
That's an interesting question because, for our species, it requires value judgments about the quality of life and the sustainability of that quality. For example, many people point out the inefficiencies of food production as you go up the food chain. That is, it takes more land and energy (sunlight) to raise beef than to raise the grain that feeds the beef. If everyone ate a vegetarian diet, it is argued, the land could sustain more people.
As a second example, here in Seattle we have numerous farmer's markets where local produce is sold. Right now we have winter crops, root crops and apples from the harvest last fall. At the same time, I can go to the grocery store and buy blueberries from Chile. The apples are getting a little mealy in texture, but the blueberries are awesome (I tasted a couple). If I buy locally, it's more sustainable than if I (and the planet) pay for the cost of shipping from the southern hemisphere. Another value judgment.
If we take true sustainability (the ability of one generation to meet its needs without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to meet their needs) as a threshold, we see that the carrying capacity for a population of meat eaters is lower than the carrying capacity for a population of wheat eaters. Similarly, the carrying capacity for "global gourmets" is lower than the carrying capacity for "local gourmets."
So here's the tricky part: assuming we could set the carrying capacity where we want it, who gets to decide how we determine the carrying capacity of the earth for humans? What values should or shall prevail for a species that evolved as roaming omnivores? Omnivory or herbivory? Local, regional, national, or international food sources?
Now, having confounded your simple question, I'll offer the opinion that the current human population is way past sustainable, but I'm a pessimist, so let me go to Campbell and Reece's BIOLOGY, 7th Ed. (2005):
"For more than three centuries, scientists have asked, 'What is the carrying capacity of the Earth for humans.' The first known estimate, 13.4 billion, was made by Anton van Leeuwenhoek in 1679. Since then, estimates have varied from less than 1 billion to over 1,000 billion (1 trillion) people, with an average of 10-15 billion.
"We can only speculate about Earth's ultimate carrying capacity for the human population or about what factors will eventually limit our growth.... Exactly what the world's human carrying capacity is and under what circumstances we will approach it are topics of great concern and debate. Unlike other organisms, we can decide whether zero population growth will be attained through social changes based on human choices or through increased mortality due to resource limitation, plagues, war, and environmental degredation."
Personally, I think Campbell and Reece, in their last sentence on the topic, overestimate our ability to "decide" these issues, especially since, by their own admission, studies on ecological capacity indicate we've already exceeded the carrying capacity. Last year, more that 1 billion people lived on $1/day or less, and the food crises around the world threatened to drive another 100 million people down to that level.
"Famine traditionally means mass starvation. The measures of today's crisis are misery and malnutrition. The middle classes in poor countries are giving up health care and cutting out meat so they can eat three meals a day. The middling poor, those on $2 a day, are pulling children from school and cutting back on vegetables so they can still afford rice. Those on $1 a day are cutting back on meat, vegetables and one or two meals, so they can afford one bowl. The desperate—those on 50 cents a day—face disaster."
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11050146
I'm thinking we've already exceeded the carrying capacity...
Carrying capacity of a bio-region depends on available resources. If a desert will support one person per one hundred square miles, a lake-shore might support 100 persons per square mile. Carrying capacity has to be determined holistically.
But if we patch the population of all of earth bio-regions together we should get a fairly accurate number for the earth's carrying capacity. We may have to assume that all traditional sustainable societies will eventually adopt Western ways, sustainability would be replaced by convenience and the carrying capacity of the earth would vary in turn.
Simply put, the carrying capacity is the maximum number of people that the Earth could support out into infinity. That question is complicated by the fact that that number is a function of the average life style those people are living.
According to the New Economics Foundation, it would require 5.2 Earths to support the current world population if the average per capita consumption was equal to that of people in the US. According to Global FootPrint Network, one of the leaders in the field, the people of the Earth are taking about 30% more renewable resources from the Earth than the Earth can produce eg taking more fish from the ocean than it can produce. This of course means we are degrading the ability of the Earth to supply us with those things that we enjoy.
www.StudentsForTheEarth.org
In other words, the combined eating and shitting; building and growing and polluting; birthing and killing and dying of the current world population is beyond the carrying capacity. I think it is not easy to guess the carrying capacity in advance, but it becomes pretty bloody obvious when it's past.
It seems obvious to me that we have to simplify and clean up our lives in the rich countries and promote education and family planning for women everywhere. We should stop short of the carrying capacity in order to leave some breathing room, literally.
I would love to see zero population growth starting now to give the oceans and streams a chance to rebound. Also wind and solar energy everywhere. If we don't have peaceful planned population growth, I am afraid we will have violent and unplanned incidents that will reduce the population in miserable ways.
Joe
According to David Suzuki, renown Canadian environmentalist, that number is 25 million humans.
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in their moccasins - Native American proverb.
I admire Dr. Suzuki. Do you have a reference for his derivation of 25 million?
I'll have to search my library, but I think it was either his book "Inventing the Future" or "A Matter of Survival". I'll get back to you.
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in their moccasins - Native American proverb.
In the meantime, I'll look for those two in the library.
Thanks!
Actually, cockroaches are dependent upon humans to thrive, they love the temperature we keep our buildings at, not to mention all the food we have around. Without us, those perfect conditions for them go away.
the funny thing is the "global economic downturn" is the perfect chance for the world (esp. the u.s.) to reduce consumption patterns.
global elites (certainly obama, brown, etc., etc.) are fully aware of the possibilities of looming environmental catastrophe. one can only conclude they don't really give a damn.
Hey Siggi:
That's a tough one since all the charts use anomolies, and measurments before 1850 are reconstructions from proxies.
1. Base period 1900 - 2000 8.7 C (47.3 F). You have to scroll down to the table.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/anomalies.html
2. Holocene temps reconstruction chart. Starts off the scale at -1.5, climbs to above 0 then tails off again intil the 20th century. Let's guess avg holocene temp was 8.7-0.2 = 8.5 C
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
3. Last 200 years including measurement data since 1850. Lets guess 8.7 - 0.4 = 8.3 C, and right now its about 8.7 + 0.3 or 9 C. Isn't that what they say - we're about 0.7 C warmer than the pre-industrial period.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
Oops! Last 2,000 years!
Folks!
Did I luck out! If you can, find a copy of "The Great Ice Age" by J L Chapman and others.
It's 300 pages of comprehensible data, charts and theory, in small print on slick paper---a real tome. BUT expensive ~$50. So I asked the library to borrow it.
Truely amazing and authoritative. Happy reading.
Eat, drink and be merry because...well, what the hell else you gonna' do?
On my blog, I give a few ideas about the future but, who the hell cares?
Pass the wine and a chicken leg! Whose turn is it to tell a joke?
www.dangerouscreation.com
webwalk:
When faced with opinion, rather than fact, one has a tendacy to question that opinion. Our planet has stopped warming since 1998. IF you looked at the temp data you would see that. Solar cycle 24 has not started, that is also fact. We are certainly experiencing climate change as the planet always has. One does not expect a stagnant climate. Just not the way the planet works. As we continue to cool, people like you will lose the conservation agruement. That is the very sad part in all of this.
The earth has finite resources and those need to be managed well. It is time to stop argueing and start conserving those resources.
Look at the data, look at the graphs, and keep the dishonest nonsense to yourself - or go on with it. You provide a nice demonstration of just how corrupt and dishonest the public relations industry has become - you guys & gals would market crack to four-year olds if you thought you could make a buck that way.
For the real science, try this:
www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/07/global-trends-and-enso/
"The basic picture over the long term doesn't change. The trends over the last 30 years remain though the interannual variability is slightly reduced (as you'd expect). The magnitude of the adjustment varies between +/-0.25ºC. You can more clearly see the impacts of the volcanoes (Agung: 1963, El Chichon: 1982, Pinatubo: 1991). Over the short term though, it does make a difference. Notably, the extreme warmth in 1998 is somewhat subdued, as is last winter's coolness. The warmest year designation (now in the absence of a strong El Niño) is more clearly seen to be 2005 (in GISTEMP) or either 2005 or 2001 (in HadCRUT3v). This last decade is still the warmest decade in the record, and the top 8 or 10 years (depending on the data source) are all in the last 10 years!"
Yes, and the polar warming and melting continues, and the high altitude melting continues, and the global expansion of the subtropical dry zones (~15-45 deg latitude) continues, leading to global drought in bands around the planet - Australia, Arengentina and Africa, as well as California, Texas, Greece, Central Asia and China.
And yes, we have all the necessary technology to replace coal and oil with non-polluting energy sources like wind and solar - it will take a lot of hard work, but it can be done - but that means that the fossil fuel lobby, who pay the salaries of the PR monkeys, will no longer be providing for them. Something similar happened with the tobacco lobby, didn't it? All the tobbaco "spokespeople" (like Edelman) then went to work for the fossil fuel lobbies.
A skilled liar with no sense of decency whatsoever - that's your ideal PR monkey. Male or female, black or white, they're all the same.
I 'M NOT SURE WHAT YOUR READING BUT IT'S WRONG. THE PLANET IS WARMING,AND THATS A WARNING.