New Year Honours

[Flyfisher]

Once again, I've been overlooked.
The system only supports the Status Quo.

 

[philpjuk100]

Ah! but did you know the queen decorated her own Christmas tree this year? (it got the MBE!)

 

[biffvernon]

Where are the climate scientists in the list, heroes of our time?

Our air now contains about 388ppm of CO2, rising by about 2ppm per year. At this level more heat is arriving from the Sun than is leaving for space: the planet is warming.

If we stop burning all fossil fuel the Earth will continue warming until enough ice from Greenland and West Antarctica has melted to drown the homes of a billion people, a sixth of the world’s population.

If we continue burning the coal, the oil, the gas, the tar-sands, and the oil-shales, the Earth will warm until all the ice has gone and sea level is 70 metres higher than now. Then the methane hydrates will be released and the Earth will be like it was 251 million years ago when 95% of creatures became extinct.

To prevent this we have to stop burning the coal. And we have to remove CO2 from the air and store it safely.

The problem is simple. The solution is simple. We have to change what we do. A lot.

Happy New Year!

 

[FamilyWiggs]

The solution is simple. We have to change what we do. A lot.

Biff - the solution is indeed simple if you say it quickly enough. However, the realities and practicalities, as we have rehearsed on here many times, are far from simple.

I think the "heroic" climate scientists would garner more respect if they also referenced a solution that restricted economic development and reduced world populations. Both of these are as important, if not more so, than switching to non carbon-based fuels. If we don't address these too, then an expanding population will simply find another life-limiting resource to threaten us - water, food, space, disease, etc. We can't maintain the fantasy that 6 or 9 billion of us can all lead a first world lifestyle - or that it is somehow wrong to suggest life isn't fair.

But a Happy New Year to all - perhaps we really should "party like it's 1999"!!

 

[Flyfisher]

The problem is simple. The solution is simple.

Nonsense. If you really think it's all so simple then I rather suspect you don't understand the problem. Did you learn nothing from the Copenhagen farce?

Humanity can't even solve really simple problems like ensuring that children around the world don't go to sleep hungry. This (and it's just one of many possible examples) is happening right now, it's not something that will probably happen in 50-100 years time, and yet the vast majority of people in the developed world are now emerging from the biggest festival of ritualised over-consumption of their year with very little concern for whether their hard-earned monies could have been better spent improving the lives of those less fortunate. The problem is simple - millions of children are hungry and dying of malnutrition. The solution is simple - give them sufficient food, there's plenty to go around. Funny how the problem persists though, isn't it?

Sorry, Biff, but you'll have to come up with something rather more practical as a solution to AGW - or do you think that the massed ranks of the great and good at Copenhagen couldn't figure out the 'simple solution' of immediately stopping burning coal and sequestering CO2 to get the atmospheric levels back to 350ppm?

 

[biffvernon]

Oh I really do understand the problem and the solution really is simple. So simple it only takes four words. Do not burn coal.

What you are doing is looking at hard questions, like how do politicians enact a policy that achieves the solution without immediately losing office and/or triggering mass unrest and worse around the globe. That may be such a hard problem it will turn out to be impossible, in which case our species' days are numbered.

 

[Penners]

Really?

Really??

All we have to do is stop burning coal and the whole global warming thing will be solved?

Leaving aside the impossibly complex political ramifications of that "simple" concept, would that one move really solve the problem? Over the past few years, so many other contributory factors have been thrown into the mix by scientists that I find it very hard to believe that coal is the one major lynch-pin of the whole mechanism.

Just relying of my impossibly fallible memory, I can remember Damocletian warnings about reduced heat reflection from the (disappeared) ice caps, massive releases of methane from under the melting tundra, ditto from the sea bed, fart gases from the livestock that feeds carniverous humans, reduced CO2 sequestration due to deforestation, atmospheric pollution from oil-burning transport - particularly aircraft... and so on. All of these have been cited as dangerous contributors to global warming.

So would a global ban on coal-burning really relegate all of these other factors to the status of mild, background annoyances?

 

[biffvernon]

Really!

If you have a seemingly intractable problem with a multitude of interlocking factors it is easy to get lost.

But if you can identify one humongously big factor behind all the clutter, isolate it and deal with it, all the other problems fall away and can be tackled at leisure.

Coal is far and away the big one. Of course we have to be mindful that we don't create other problems. The tar-sands and the oil-shales have the potential to create disaster so we absolutely must leave that lot underground too. They are not much of a problem now but could be in the future if we remain stupid. The conventional, easy to get oil will take care of itself. We will burn it and then it will be gone. Of course, like the tar-sands and oil-shales, we must not go looking for the last drop of oil in deep water or the arctic. Just let the existing oil-fields run down and the price of oil run up. Population will settle out somewhere round 9 billion no matter what we do. For sure all the little things we do to encourage people to have fewer, better cared for children, are good and important, but not show-stoppers in themselves.

Yep, stopping using coal is the one simple thing to really concentrate on. Don't for a moment that simple means easy. Removing that much energy from the world economy will probably bring most things to a grinding halt. Everything will be completely different. Except that Earth might just remain a survivable planet. That's a good enough reason to do it.

 

[Flyfisher]

Sorry Biff, but your consistent refusal to acknowledge practical implications renders your input to helping solve the problem completely worthless.

But if you can identify one humongously big factor behind all the clutter, isolate it and deal with it, all the other problems fall away and can be tackled at leisure.

But that's precisely the issue; "Do not burn coal" can't be isolated and dealt with, so all the other problems won't fall away to be tackled at leisure. It's cloud-cuckoo-land thinking. You may as well wish for the faeries to fix the problem.

What you are doing is looking at hard questions, like how do politicians enact a policy that achieves the solution without immediately losing office and/or triggering mass unrest and worse around the globe. That may be such a hard problem it will turn out to be impossible, in which case our species' days are numbered.

And what you are doing is ignoring the hard questions. I contend that it will turn out impossible to stop burning fossil fuels (and I suspect I'm in good company, judging by the results of Copenhagen), but I fail to see why that means our species' days are numbered. There are alternative scenarios - not ideal ones, I admit, but probably no worse than your "burn no fossil fuel" nonsense and maybe a lot better.

 

[Penners]

stopping using coal is the one simple thing to really concentrate on. Don't think for a moment that simple means easy.

Hell, no. I glossed over the political and sociological issues above, because (a) Flyfisher touched on them, and (b) I can't begin the imagine what they will be, in any terms other than utterly disastrous.

If/when the kind of energy consumption that we're used to becomes increasingly difficult/impossible, all I find myself able to foresee are nations with increasingly dog-in-the-manger attitudes to their own energy resources and to international demands that their energy consumption should be cut. As I've said before, I have a deeply pessimistic view of the chances of an orderly progression to a low-energy planet.

Above all else, politicians want power. In order to be in power, they have to be elected. And I can't imagine any of them selling themselves to their electorate on a manifesto of truly painful reductions in energy consumption.

Sure, they'll tiffle around the edges and hold themselves up as saviours of the planet because they've increased fuel duty (thereby increasing the Treasury's tax take) or subsidised double-glazing. But politically-driven REAL cuts in energy consumption? Not a snowball's chance in hell.

 

[biffvernon]

Flyfisher, the point I am trying to make is that unless we stop burning coal all is lost. It doesn't matter how many light bulbs etc we change, the big issue is coal. I am saying we have to stop burning it. Simple. I've not said that will be easy. In fact I said it "may be such a hard problem it will turn out to be impossible".

You almost agree with me except to take a more pessimistic line by saying "it will turn out impossible to stop burning fossil fuels", changing me 'may' for your 'will', though you raise the bar by including all fosil fuels rather than just coal. I had already acknowledged that the easy oil and gas will be burnt whatever.

But here follows the crux: you say "I fail to see why that means our species' days are numbered. There are alternative scenarios".

The science is now clear. Burning the coal introduces so much CO2 into the air that the likely outcome is condiitions similar to the end-Permian, 251 million years ago, when 95% of fossil forming creatures went extinct. If that happens I think it is safe to assume Homo not-so-sapiens will be amongst the 95% rather than the 5%.

Penners, you say "I glossed over the political and sociological issues above, because ...I can't begin the imagine what they will be, in any terms other than utterly disastrous." Indeed. Except that I would reserve the adjective 'utterly' for the extinction of our species. The end of our civilization might one day, with enough hindsight, be viewed as about as disastrous as the end of the Ancient Roman civilizaton. Disastrous but survivable, out of which, eventually, something else cold be built.

Perhaps that leads to the stark choice we have. End the present civilization and save our species or party on (after all, it's not our generation in Britain that will bear the brunt) and hope that in millions of years hence a new intelligent lifeform will evolve from the deeper recesses of what remains of the biosphere.

 

[Flyfisher]

Well, I agree that we almost agree. Also, whatever happens, it ain't going to be pretty.

We could debate whether I'm pessimistic or realistic about all the coal being burned, but I really can't imagine a scenario whereby it won't happen. Besides, how on earth could it be policed. No, the very survival ethic we will eventually have to rely upon will ensure that all available resources are used to their maximum. Come on Biff, not burning coal is not even on the agenda as far as I can see. At least there have been murmurs of 'clean coal', but absolutely nothing about 'no coal' - it's completely untenable.

As for alternative scenarios, I wasn't really thinking about the climate and am quite prepared to accept a prediction of an end-Permian climate if we do burn all fossil fuels. My alternative scenario is that I don't see this is a guaranteed death sentence for H. Sapiens. Who knows how adaptable our technology could become in a couple of hundred years? We are undeniably unique in that respect and it gives us an incredible advantage. Yes, of course, we might blow it but we wouldn't be the first species to have come and gone in the blink of a geological eye.

Perhaps we're really just arguing over our cup being half-empty or half-full? :wink:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59NNupminV8

 

[biffvernon]

but absolutely nothing about 'no coal' - it's completely untenable.

Absolutely not so. Front person is James Hansen, Director of NASA Goddard Institue of Space Studies (that's like the top climate scientist in the world):

http://www.allgov.com/ViewNews/Replace_Cap_and_Trade_with_Fee_and_Dividend__James_Hansen_100102

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100111/hansen

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/

http://www.stormsofmygrandchildren.com/

And check out the carbon tax in British Columbia.

If you only have time to follow up one of the above links, make it this one http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100111/hansen It's Hansen's piece in The Nation last week, extracted from his book, Storms of my Grandchildren, published three weeks ago.

There is still a glimmer of hope.

 

[Flyfisher]

OK, I should have written "absolutely nothing about 'no coal' that anyone is taking seriously". That was my earlier point about solving world hunger by 'simply' giving everyone enough to eat. Easy to say, possible in an absolute sense, but impossible in a practical sense.

I'm currently reading Hanson's book. So far, I think Lovelock has a better grasp about how things are going to play out and what we can be doing. At least Lovelock seems to be grounded in reality.

 

[robgil]

just to throw a spanner in the works , global warming may be worse than we suspect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming

if there is such a thing , which i am pretty sure there is , take this away and we have a far warmer planet than we first realise.

apparently the huge famines in africa were caused by global dimming as well , smog over europe (us) stopped the sea temperature from rising and as a result the rains that were supposed to fall over northern africa didnt because the weather couldnt shift as it normally would.
so , basically while we were singing 'feed the world' and bringing bags of sugar into school to help feed the millions of starving people in africa it was our addiction to burning fossil fuels that caused it in the first place.

 

[biffvernon]

OK, I should have written "absolutely nothing about 'no coal' that anyone is taking seriously".

The Government of British Columbia?

I'm currently reading Hanson's book. So far, I think Lovelock has a better grasp about how things are going to play out and what we can be doing. At least Lovelock seems to be grounded in reality.

That's a curious comment. Where do Lovelock and Hansen disagree? I rather suspect that much of Lovelock's work must be based on the science that Hansen and his colleagues have done. Lovelock himself made a couple of very important contributions to climate science, a way of thinking about the planet and a technology for detecting trace quantities of gases, but the observational data has come from Hansen's team.

 

[Flyfisher]

Where do Lovelock and Hansen disagree?

From what I've read, Lovelock seems to be advocating that we focus on adapting to inevitable climate change whereas Hanson seems to be chasing a dream of getting back to 350ppm by "simply" not burning coal reserves and removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

Given the state of world opinion revealed by Copenhagen, I'd say Lovelock has a greater grasp on reality than Hanson - not in terms of the science, of course, but in terms of practical ways to address the problem.

 

[biffvernon]

Yes, Hansen still thinks there is a chance that the world will come to it's senses, politicians will act and the public will give support once they understand the situation. Lovelock has pretty much thrown in the towell and suggests that a few people may eke out an existence near the pole if they're lucky. Hansen has not yet given up on his grandchildren's survival.

I think I prefer Hansen's appoach. While there's life there's hope.

 

[Flyfisher]

I don't think Lovelock is suggesting "that a few people may eke out an existence near the pole if they're lucky". I certainly don't see that happening. Just because climate goes "back" a few hundred million years doesn't mean we'll give up our technologies (and the advances to come). Our numbers may be drastically pruned but not necessarily the survivor's standard of living.

The grandchildren thing is also a bit emotive. None of us can control if we become grandparents in the first place, never mind what happens with succeeding generations.

I certainly agree that while there's life there's hope, I just don't see climate change as a black and white issue. The climate will undoubtedly change and we'll undoubtedly adapt. Life may never be the same again but just look how much it has changed in the past 200 years. Imagine sitting down with someone from 1810 and describing what life is like today. They'd probably regard it as a vision from hell. :wink:

 

[biffvernon]

I don't think Lovelock is suggesting "that a few people may eke out an existence near the pole if they're lucky"....The climate will undoubtedly change and we'll undoubtedly adapt.

Lovelock certainly is suggesting that.
That we will adapt is very much in doubt. If we burn the coal, tipping points are reached - the ice melts, lower albedo increases energy imbalance, the ocean temperature rises, the methane hydrates melt releasing methane, this much stronger greenhouse gas increases warming. We reach the situation which occurred at the end-Permian, 251 million years ago. We know it can happen because it has happened. 95% of life went extinct that time. Why should humans not go extinct next time?

Let's hear it for the Aldabran banded snail Rachistia aldabrae

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-iw-lUKL0I

But there will always be hope while there are people like Anita Sancha around making animations like this: http://bit.ly/4QwMxp