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Climate Change Doesn't Scare Us. That's Frightening
We've just ended a two-decade experiment in global problem solving.
It failed: Now we must figure out how to manage the consequences.
That's the main conclusion as the dust settles on the uninspiring Copenhagen climate summit, itself the dismal culmination of 20 years of negotiations to reduce the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
The final "accord" says the international community wants to keep Earth's average temperature from rising more than two degrees Celsius but includes nothing that compels any nation to do anything to achieve the target.
What's touted as the major breakthrough - an agreement rich nations will provide billions to help poor countries to cope with climate change - promises less than will be required, contains no indication where most of the money will come from, creates the possibility donations would simply be transfers from foreign-aid budgets and, most important, would do nothing to halt climate change.
The divisions that stymied the 14 previous annual UN conferences remain as wide as ever, despite the self-congratulatory puff that emanated from the Danish capital as 15,000 delegates and many more hangers-on headed home.
In the aftermath, it's being acknowledged that huge international meetings are no place for negotiations. While these costly exercises will continue - the 2010 version is slated for Mexico City - many predict the task of actually cutting emissions will fall to the 30 or so countries - including Canada - responsible for 90 per cent of the human-sourced carbon entering the atmosphere.
The United States is expected to dominate this process if Congress passes legislation to cap greenhouse emissions and establish an emissions trading system.
A major stumbling block at Copenhagen was the unwillingness of China, India and other rapidly expanding economies to agree to caps of their own or allow independent verification if they claim emissions cuts. As the world's biggest importer of manufactured products, the U.S. could insist that if these trading partners want continued access to its huge market they must match its policies.
But this intriguing idea is marred by questionable assumptions about how tough the U.S. would be and how desperately others would want to sell to it. With alternative markets developing, the debt-ridden U.S. might become less significant. Besides, the proposed American law is weak; imposing it on other nations wouldn't accomplish what's required.
Another drawback: This process would exclude the poor nations being hit first and hardest by climate change. Also missing would be the sense of global crisis and shared mission that's been the subtext of the annual conferences. It hasn't provided enough impetus, but what motivation might replace it?
In the obvious absence of political leadership, activists say it's now up to the people, en masse, to take charge. They're correct: Large numbers of individuals must alter their lifestyles and demand governments enact ambitious wider-scale solutions.
But most humans dislike change and act only on threats that are close and imminent. Climate change, so far, is neither: Melting polar ice caps, drought in Africa and the inundation of Pacific islands are too remote to move the majority. "Our perceptions are based on feelings, values, a lot of emotional assumptions toward climate change that conflict with what makes sense," says David Ropeik, a risk-management analyst based in Boston. "Our inability to act is based on our inability to be purely rational."
Nothing that happened in Copenhagen, or that's likely to occur at the conventional political level, will prevent the worst of climate change. Unless people accept that the threat is real, and act as if it is, the coming decade will usher in another experiment - this time, in global crisis response.
40 Comments so far
Show AllThe necessary remedies are so drastic and so unpopular that they will never be implemented voluntarily and no one has the might or political will to tackle US, China and India over it.
The obvious problem with big conferences like Copenhagen is that CLimate Change is being treated like a political issue that can be horse-traded and bargained away. On that basis, nothing will get solved.
We're left with three choices: Disease, Famine and/or War.
The only possible silver bullet would be a breakthrough in some form of truly non-poluting energy, but we're still overpopulated, already by a factor of 6:1 and birthrate reduction wasn't on the list of topics, let alone a total moratorium on births for a couple decades.
Over-population as a problem is debatable, and neither is it directly connected to climate change. If the bulk of atmospheric pollution is caused by manufacturing, mega-farming, and other such highly industrialized activities, it's difficult to point the finger at the areas of greatest birth rates, i.e. Africa, without raising the specter of racism since that continent is not industrialized nor is it a major consumer base.
The birth rate in all parts of the world is actually declining already, and some attention should be paid to the theory that as the standard of living and life expectancy increase, birth rates decline. Ditto for increased women's equality.
I don't think people should add to their shopping cart of things to be afraid of, but certainly public awareness of current and future effects of global warming/climate change could be raised and their participation in finding solutions invited.
"Over-population as a problem is debatable, and neither is it directly connected to climate change."
Wrong on both counts.
Until women everywhere are all empowered and educated (= "led out of ignorance" and taught or allowed to think, i.e. not brainwashed) there will be no way out of the cul-de-sac we find ourselves in.
"I don't think people should add to their shopping cart of things to be afraid of, but certainly public awareness of current and future effects of global warming/climate change could be raised and their participation in finding solutions invited."
One child per family for several generations. I don't see governments having the courage to work on this, but thinking women might just want to avoid seeing their chidren starving or being taken for cannon fodder.
"Over-population as a problem is debatable..."
Let me contribute to the debate.
Ultimately our maximum population could be defined as the number of humans genetically engineered to photosynthesize that could be supported by the total amount of sunlight reaching Earth. Under those conditions no other life would be able to exist except for certain forms of bacteria and viruses. A quick calculation of incident radiation and photosynthetic efficiency suggests that each human would require 2.5 sq. meters of sunlight for 12 hours each day. This would allow for a maximum population of about 200 trillion covering the entire planet, land and ocean packed like sardines with frequent starvation and death due to overcast days. We could achieve such a population with only 16 more doublings or about 800 years if we maintain the rate of the last 50 years. Such a stark view of our population bomb emphasizes the need to establish our communities living in harmony with the Earth.
i love it! Thanks Prof!
What i do not love is posts that GIVE NO RATIONALE but insist "population is not a problem" or "population as a problem is debatable."
If i say population is a problem, THAT DOES NOT MEAN i advocate any racist policy that immediately jumps to your mind.
Nor does it mean that i am claiming that overconsumption and capitalism and wealth disparity and oppression of all sorts are NOT problems.
If anyone, in the face of arguments about carrying capacity, arable land, ecosystems balance and simple math (like the Prof's absurdio ad infinitum example), is going to assert that population is NOT a problem, WITHOUT bringing an actual explanation of how 7 billion humans can live and eat and create culture in complete sustainable harmony with a thriving living Earth, then i am going to ask for the explanation.
Over-population as a problem is debatable
-----------------------------------------
Tell that to the non-humans who are being driven to extinction by hunting and habitat theft.
" atmospheric pollution is caused by manufacturing, mega-farming, and other such highly industrialized activities" which are all necessary to sustain the mass of people that live on this rock. And don't assume that I'm pointing the finger at Africa or any other country full of brown people. One American uses twentyfive times the energy and resources that one Cuban uses. Reducing OUR population is just as crucial as reducing Indonesia's.
And no, I'm not speaking metaphoricly or hyping for effect. This planet can support about a billion people using conventional/organic methods on the arable land. We are currently at 6.5 billion and climbing rapidly. When we get to 8 billion, we should see some rather catastrophic effects. That would be Gaia's immune system kicking in to rid her of us, the virus in sneakers.
Unfortunately, we've just had a vivid demonstration of the futility of trying to convince people to do the right thing. Climate chaos (toth: ED) is being addressed as if it's some political fad that can be resisted or bargained with. But no one will face the bottom line, #ell, they won't even face the minor sacrifices like downscaling our lifestyles. Even in the midst of the worst economy in 75 years, in the week of the Copenhagen Conference, Americans spent "Only" $600 on average on more junk to give each other on a holiday that most of them don't actually believe in! That's down from $1000 each on average 2 years ago. People are still buying Cadilac Escalades. They aren't likely to change that behavior without major upheaval. And to downscale in order to save some little Pacific Atoll nation from submerging? What are you smoking?
Copenhagen convinced me that the Human Race has a suicidal streak that's coming to the fore, that nothing that a tiny group of Enviros can do to counter the tide of stupid and selfish.
Lost faith in the Race.
Let it burn.
Don't give up. People are trusting. They believe the liars. What we need to do is expose the liars for what they are, and offer people a new paradigm they can support.
Not so.
I suspect we can forget the silver bullet concept, but solutions are unpopular only relatively and circumstantially.
For instance --
Forced sterility would be drastic and unpopular, deservedly so. However, wherever women are educated and a social network exists that takes care of the elderly, families shrink.
Educating women is not unpopular. Nor is social security, much less systems that actually offer enough to live on. Neither is socialized health care.
You probably do not expect me to take a "total moratorium on births for a couple decades" seriously or literally, but I will answer the sense of radical change that I suspect it to represent by answering the analogy itself.
A moratorium on births would be impractical even if enforceable. Even if enforced, which we probably agree is unlikely, it would disembowel the educational system and disrupt already disintegrating conventions related to childrearing, and assuming that people took up where they left off, you would just have a generation of late families and a super-concentrated baby boom.
Alright, it likely was not a serious suggestion, but the principle extends to less obvious measures: for individuals, opportunities motivate better than repression. (For corporations, btw, I would hold the opposite to be true, but that's another post.)
Human energy use is not fixed, though. People lead pleasant lives on less than a tenth of average American usage. There isn't a silver bullet, but there are more ways forward than I can track, even just to tell about it.
Here are just a couple enormous ones that seem to get missed.
- Wind and solar actually are practical and inexpensive - so the breakthrough on low-polluting energy, if not zero polluting energy, has been made and need only be implemented. (Coal, nuclear, gas, and petrol-based plants are considered inexpensive because almost all of the costs are externalized).
- Houses made of earth are cheaper, more comfortable, less pest-ridden, and many times more energy efficient than traditional American homes. Strawbale houses are similar in cost (I am given to understand) to standard frame houses and far superior in terms of insulation.
(I believe labor times are somewhat reduced on the straw bale houses, too, though someone had best check me on that).
Transportation is tough, but fewer people and far, far less goods need be transported. Also, much transport is what is called local, and that can be improved monumentally by providing free public transportation in urban areas and not subsidizing the autos by distributing the charges for roads across the entire public while charging those who use public transport by use.
Then there are all those small personal things, many of which are commercial money traps, and many of which could be mandated without drastic consequences. Shrink-wrapping is damaging and fairly useless, for example, but will probably require government intervention to get rid of.
Far more energy goes to screwing people over than anything constructive. Is stopping the oil wars drastic?
You surprised me, B. Your response to CV reads as though you were perhaps rushed, and resorted to the Archive Of Stock Credos. :-(
Being afraid of the inevitable is unproductive. Everyone of us is going to die eventually and we make plans based on that fact but we don't live life in a state of fear. Climate change is inevitable. Climate change is already taking place. A civilization based on the burning of fossil fuels will not suddenly revert to oxen drawn plows and using corn cobs instead of toilet paper. If you disagree with this then try this experiment. Toilet paper is all made by large corporations which clear cut forests and produce lots of CO2 in the manufacturing process. And then the paper has to be transported long distances. So...stop using corporate made toilet paper. Only use locally produced paper made by artisans in an environmentally friendly manner. None of those around? Then YOU become the local toilet paper producer! And just how are you going to produce environmentally friendly toilet paper? I haven't the slightest idea. Neither do you. And you won't stop using corporate made toilet paper. Not today, not next week, not next year. Global warming will not stop you from using corporate made toilet paper or using corporate internet systems or driving corporate made cars or eating mass produced food or anything else that contributes to global warming. Why? Because you are not really afraid.
Oxen-drawn plows are not the alternative.
kayaker December 26th, 2009 12:26 pm – I agree and have made similar arguments. Convincing people that the situation demands action now faces many obstacles. For example:
As the article says in quoting David Ropeik, the relatively minor problems that seem to be in the offing at this point, such as melting polar ice caps, African drought, and inundation of small islands, are too remote to motivate people to make even modest sacrifices like no longer using toilet paper (although technology could be developed that would be much more expensive and much less practical, and probably minimally better environmentally, than toilet paper). The kind of motivation we've seen in world wars would be needed to bring about the sacrifices warmists are demanding.
The problems already in evidence haven't been related to anthropogenic GHG's in terms of the amount of influence of GHG's and what it would take to reverse that influence. Even if anthropogenic GHG's could be eliminated completely, there's no guarantee that what we describe as global warming wouldn't continue.
It would be easier to deal with the effects of global warming (however caused) by adaptation than by eliminating or reducing GHG's; adaption like moving populations to higher ground or places where water is more abundant, growing crops farther north, strengthening infrastructure vulnerable to violent storms, etc.
At least for the present, the dire predictions (e.g., complete melting of the north polar ice cap, the reaching of some kind of "tipping point") haven't panned out; it even seems that the globe may have temporarily cooled since 1998 or 2005. Moreover, good effects of global warming, such as opening arctic sea lanes and making northern areas available for farming, will offset much of the negative effects.
International cooperation will be necessary to accomplish the goals of Copenhagen. It's a daunting enterprise, and would be extremely difficult even if one central authority could require all countries to stop the production of GHG's.
It seems wiser to work at reducing pollution, which in many ways is a more immediate and much better understood problem.
Too simplistic. But you know that don't you. For every positive consequence from increased CO2 there are lots of negatives.
For instance, carbon dioxide dissolves in sea water and lowers the pH. This change is detrimental to many phytoplankton at the bottom of the food chain and to corals. These changes to a fundamental part of the ocean carbon cycle, far outside the range of natural variability, are irreversible and will last for thousands of years. Increasing sea temperatures are also detrimental.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/07/the-acid-ocean-the-other-problem-with-cosub2sub-emission/
Sorry if I have replied to the wrong comment.
Parallax December 26th, 2009 7:11 pm – I don't know if you were replying to me. But, continuing with kayaker's example, the adverse effects you mention on phytoplankton and corals mean little to all but a few people. These are in the same category as the effects on the polar ice caps, African drought, etc.; that is, few ordinary people will ever be willing to sacrifice their toilet paper to avoid such consequences. It's only when, for example, there are no edible fish in the ocean that people in general will consider sacrifices on the order of those kayaker supposes. But of course by then, the damage may be done with no hope of reversal.
Well, i've never driven a car so i'm not driving a corporate made car, and i'm pretty close to being entirely off the corporate food system, although that is tougher in a city, we have a quarter-acre and grow a lot of our own food and we buy commodity grains and such from nearby independent farmers with minimal transport. We're getting there.
Ag and transport are two of the largest contributors to climate catastrophe so i think my minimal toilet paper use pales in the comparison. The toilet paper we use is made from recycled fiber and is unbleached, but certainly uses way more resources than makes any sense to wipe my parts. We certainly WILL stop using toilet paper when it suddenly becomes unavailable...
Maybe the Pentagon is the largest other source of GHG, i try to minimize my taxes in support of that by working part time etc.
Also i'm not sure it's really true that people are not afraid. Fear can go hand in hand with paralysis.
People do need to call into question in a serious way all common everyday practices in our insane culture of commodified death...
AH, Fixate not on toiletries grasshopper.(grasshopp(a)
Think candles, how to make and sell them; retail for 50 cents apiece?
What sounds more scary---"climate change", or "global warming"?
It seems obvious to me. So why then has practically the entire world started calling it climate change???
I don't get it.
Climate change is more appropriate because the earth will not uniformly get warmer. Some places will get hotter some may actually get cooler, some will get more wet some more dry etc. As an example, climate change may effect ocean currents in the Atlantic which could cause the British Isles to have a colder climate much more appropriate to their northern latitude.
Thanks for the explanation Kayaker. What you say makes sense---but it seems that all the various changes are still caused by an underlining warming of the globe. I think the term "climate change" can be used by deniers to belittle the true impact of global warming. Like saying Alaska will be more temperate, or Canada will produce more food etc.
Earth (the planet) will get uniformly hotter, but that overheating won't be expressed by the same weather behavior everywhere, and certainly not by the historical patterns.
That's why I prefer to call it "climate chaos." It should NOT be neutral-sounding or imply a process that we can live with, because we can't.
Definetly gobal warming is scarier. But it's not really progressing as predicted so they had to kinda change it around. More funds for research if it is more vague. Climate change can be used to describe any unusual weather pattern whereas global warming is narrower. I guess whoever handles advertising for these guys knows their stuff.
This is an example of the media controlling the dialogue. It is the added heat that is causing climates to change. Global warming is an appropriate term.
I'd suggest that 'global warming' implies a mild change, and that it would be both more accurate and more energising (npi) to use the term 'global overheating' (we don't mind warm, we DO mind hot)
Global hyperthermia.
If enough people had enough Greek to know what 'hyperthermia' means.
You're right about that. I don't mean to look down on my fellow Americans, but 70% of people don't know where Irak is and you've been occupying it for 7 years.
Your library probably has a copy of Gore's book, "An Inconv Truth", for sale cheap.
Buy it and study the big chart of CO2/Temp.
Answers many questions that Al didn't cover.
"The United States is expected to dominate this process if Congress passes legislation to cap greenhouse emissions and establish an emissions trading system."
Absolutely not going to happen now.
Drought in Australia is to remote a concern to Australians to alarm them enough to reduce coal mining and exporting. People will live in Hell if there is a job there for them. Look at any industrial city,like Gary Indiana in the 50's and 60's for example. As a small town boy in the fifties seeing Gary for the first time at the height of it's, before the Clean Air Act, filthiness I could not understand how or why it existed or people would live like that, under the cloud and stench of belching coal smoke. But live they did and still do flock to such opportunities.
The major stumbling block is, a.how to grow an economy by using less energy, b. how to transcend a political system that is controlled by the interest you are trying to subvert and c, how to convince a culture that is based on self-interest and materialism that it is in its self-interest to become less consumeristic and more altruistic, when this means using and having less.
We need to convince the 'bird and bunny' crowd that nuclear power is preferable to coal so we can begin building those plants to replace coal plants. Read James Hansen's new book,'Storms of My Grandchildren ' for a the case he makes there. We need to stop thinking that what we have been doing can still be done going forward. That is nearly impossible.
It means not buying the 51 inch flat screen TV, for example. Tell that to your brothers and sisters.
Anyway on and on we go.
dreamlot174, excellent post. Important questions, too - all of them - a,b and c. Except, I would like to point out, that "growing" an economy is not always needed after a certain level of growth; what's needed is to maintain a certain standard of living without having to "grow" any further. Innovation, improvements, yes. Same as a human body after it reaches adulthood. James Hansen's book is on my list to read. Your last message is important too - today, especially - on boxing day.
Gary Indiana
Years ago, I did a contract job for Wisconsin Steel located there. Standing at the top of a cooling tower and looking over the adjacent neiborhood, I realized that there wasn't a blade of grass within sight. The ground was rendered barren.
Pollution-driven climate destabilization.
***
The emissions from human activity have in fact significantly altered the chemistry of Earth's atmosphere, oceans, inland waterways and various soils.
Earth's atmosphere, oceans, inland waterways and soils are rapidly losing the ability to process the waste generated by human activity. In other words, we are now generating more waste than our life-support systems' self-cleansing mechanisms can keep up with.
In other words, we have altered the chemistry of our life-support systems.
Speaking only for myself, I do not want to "learn to adapt" to an increasingly sick environment.
I want to be a part of beginning to HEAL it.
Thank you.
The most prolific emitter of greenhouse gases is the burning of coal to produce electricity. This is totally unnecessary.
An economic replacement for this that uses waste heat from the atmosphere (residual solar), from industry, from oceans, lakes and Urban Heat Islands, can be developed with an investment which is less than is spent in one day in Iraq and Afghanistan. It can be ready for widespread deployment in less three years and reduce carbon emitted from fossil-fuel based electricity production by 50% in less than ten years.
Ref: http://vortexengine.ca
Secretary Chu...can you hear me now???
These failed efforts remind me of the League of Nations, except this time the cost of failure won't be a minor scuffle like World War II.
I wonder if deer laying waste to an island ever had such discussions?
"You graze too much"
"You have too many fawns"
"Let the wolves take care of it"
"We'll move to another island"
"It's all a hoax"
...cut to randomly-scattered antlers and skeletons...
Very cool, funny way to present the situation. I think Molly Ivins would have approved.
Under the radar, Obama pushes for Patriot Act renewal
http://joshfulton.blogspot.com/2009/12/under-radar-obama-pushes-for-patriot.html