In my last posting I wrote about some of the types of global warming denial I have seen. I think that often these are ways of avoiding unpleasant thoughts or feelings. But they are also ways of avoiding responsibility.
Many of the absolute deniers probably know at some level that if they admitted global warming was real and that humans are causing it, they might feel some responsibility to do something about it. I’m sure most don’t want to believe that the people they have been following have been wrong or that many have been intentionally misleading them. I think most of these people will never change their views, much less take on the responsibility of fighting global warming voluntarily. And unfortunately there are many people in this category.
Even if I thought the chances of global warming having the bad effects that scientists predict was small, as many people in the United States do, I would not want to take the risk unless I had to. We don’t have to take that risk, so why do so many people behave as if they want to? Every person who denies global warming or avoids it or does nothing is acting as if they want to take the risk. Based on the past successes of science, I’d say the chances are not very good that the vast majority of climate scientists are completely wrong. I know that some people are just confused by the misinformation being spread by others, so maybe I shouldn’t judge them too harshly. But their confusion doesn’t make the results any less dangerous to us all. And those who are intentionally misleading people are guilty of the worst crime.
The willfully ignorant often know on some level that it would be better not to ignore the subject. You can get away with ignoring many unpleasant things, but you ignore others at your own peril, and often the peril of others. Many people avoid going to the doctor when something is wrong because they are afraid of what they might find out. But it is almost always easier to deal with a medical problem if you catch it early. Ignoring a major problem like cancer is only going to make treating it more difficult and painful, or impossible if you wait too long, and it will affect not just you but everyone who cares about you or depends on you. I think everyone should learn at least enough to know what needs to be done, and then do what they can to help.
The people who don’t know how bad things could get or how urgent the situation is also need to learn more. Otherwise they will continue to think other problems should have priority. This includes the vast majority of liberals and even many environmentalists. Influential people like talk show hosts, commentators, bloggers, politicians, and other leaders have a special obligation to put important issues into perspective. Global warming is the most important issue for many reasons, but my best argument is that if it goes out of control, none of the other issues will matter any more. If you doubt this, read “Six Degrees” and really think about the implications of what the scientists predict. It’s not just that people living on the coast will have to move inland, it’s also that droughts, encroaching deserts, and melted glaciers will make food and water scarce worldwide, severe weather events will become common, diseases will spread, mass extinctions will occur, wars and conflicts will arise as people fight for resources, and so on. When all these things happen at the same time, I think the economy would inevitably collapse, along with most other systems we rely on and take for granted. Think about every issue that you think is more important than global warming, and ask yourself whether it will be relevant in a world like that. Don’t ignore other issues, of course, just give global warming the importance it deserves.
The head of the IPCC said recently that the minimum we must do is have emissions peak by 2015 and fall rapidly after that to 85% by 2050. Their reports also seem to indicate emissions need to fall 25-40% by 2020. This is projected to make the peak temperature 2.0 – 2.4 degrees C above preindustrial levels. A recent model says we need to reduce emissions 95% by 2020 to keep temperatures to 2.0 degrees C below preindustrial levels. I do not know which is closer to the truth, but my guess would be that it’s somewhere between those two estimates. In order to accomplish either, we have to make massive changes in a very short period of time. That means we have to start now just to have a chance of being successful. How could it be any more urgent?
I hope that the question in your mind now is, “What can I do?” The people most likely to survive cancer are the fighters, the ones who not only get all the information they can from the experts but who take the recommended actions and even do more. We need all the fighters we can get, and we need to fight on many levels.
One obvious level is to try to reduce your personal carbon footprint. Many people are already doing this, but most of us could do more. Still, as important as your personal carbon footprint is, it is not the most important thing you could do right now.
Communication is another important thing you can do, but it is not enough either. Many people have been talking and writing about global warming for years, and look where it has gotten us. The situation is way worse than ever before. Also, there are many people and organizations spreading misinformation and blocking progress any way they can. They are doing a very good job of making vast numbers of people think global warming is a hoax and have stalled meaningful action in this country for decades.
So communication and reducing your own footprint are both necessary, but it will take more to solve this problem quickly enough. The most important thing is to do whatever you can to influence your government, especially at the national level, to take aggressive action without delay. Government action is the most important right now, and it will get you the most bang for the buck.
This is such an important point that I want to explain my reasoning. A friend of mine said that the only solution is for each individual to do their part and that government can’t solve the problem. I would agree if I thought everybody would buy an electric vehicle and a solar panel big enough to supply all their needs, only buy locally grown food and locally made products, never buy any manufactured goods, and never fly, invest only in green companies, and so on. But do you even know one person who does all that? To think everyone will do this voluntarily is a fantasy, not a solution. The system as it exists now makes it almost impossible for people to do enough, even if they want to (and many do not want to). Electric cars and solar panels and wind turbines are still way too expensive for the vast majority of people. But if we changed the system in the right ways, we could make it much easier. We could even make it difficult not to do your part instead of difficult to do your part. If the only vehicle you could buy was electric or other zero-emissions vehicles, and if all of our electricity came from zero-emission sources, then it would require no special effort to dramatically reduce your personal carbon footprint. That is the type of changes to the system we need.
I think it is absolutely essential for government to get heavily involved. That doesn’t mean government can or should do everything. The task is so huge that government and other organizations working with individuals is the only solution. But almost no government is close to doing their part yet, so individuals need to push their governments much harder. Right now that is the most important part of each individual’s responsibility. The Copenhagen talks that will happen this December (2009) will set the stage for what happens all over the world for the next several years. I seriously doubt we can wait for the next such meeting. By then we would already be committed to such high temperatures that runaway global warming would be almost certain.
It might help if I compare this to a problem we faced in the past. Would a grassroots effort or personal responsibility have been the appropriate response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor and to Germany declaring war on the U.S.? It’s obvious that would not have worked. Even if everyone planted a victory garden and got their handguns and rifles ready, we would have been no match for the opposing armed forces. People may have tried to organize and do more, but it would not have been enough. For example, let’s say someone had the idea to get a bunch of people together to manufacture tanks. Most of the people who would have wanted to help would not have been able to, because they had a family to support, maybe a farm or business to run. And where would the money have come from? What about the expertise? Winning that war required not just personal responsibility, effort, and sacrifice, it also required heavy participation from the government, including ordering people and corporations to do what was needed. Nobody would seriously have considered a volunteer army. The government drafted people, essentially forcing them to fight. Of course many would have volunteered, but not enough, not quickly enough. And in the corporate realm the government had to be just as heavy-handed. For example, the federal government forced the auto companies to stop manufacturing cars and start building jeeps and tanks and other war machinery.
Another thing WWII required that is missing now is leadership appropriate to the task. That brings up the responsibility of the government. Why isn’t the federal government encouraging people to buy climate bonds to help fund the fight to stop global warming? Why aren’t they pouring money into research and recruiting scientists the way they did to create the atom bomb and all the other weapons and war machinery? Why aren’t we racing to a green energy future the way we raced to the moon? Why isn’t Obama using his great oratorical skills and passion to get people fired up about the greatest threat we have ever faced? The task is too great and the time is to short for anything less than an all-out effort such as this. We must all demand that our leaders do their part. That is part of our personal responsibility.
I have not even brought up the responsibility of corporations, because they don’t feel any responsibility that people don’t make them feel, and they think mainly about the short term. But we can influence corporations via petitions, boycotts, and encouraging the government to create rules and regulations that will force corporations to do what is in their own best long-term interests.
In one sense the climate scientists are the heroes of this story. They are the ones who first discovered the problem and have been getting us a clearer picture with every year. But I don’t think most of them are doing enough either. Some are too narrow in their vision to understand the big picture. They don’t think about the implications of their findings, in terms of the lives of people and other living things. Others think they must stick only to the science and stay completely out of policy or opinions of any kind. I think if any person knows something is threatening us all, it is their duty to speak out loudly and clearly. If nobody else is saying what needs to be said, or if the people propagating misinformation are drowning out the truth, you need to say something. Even most scientists who are willing to talk about the future speak in a way that trivializes the dangers. They use terms like “there may be increased pressures on the food supply” instead of “millions, perhaps billions of people could starve”. They will say that what we are doing is “not sustainable” instead of saying that if we don’t make drastic changes, our children or grandchildren may not live to have children of their own. If you are a scientist, those might mean similar things, but to non-scientists they have very different meanings. And it is the non-scientists you need to reach, both the people in power and the citizens. Be more like James Hansen, be more of a human being and talk to your fellow human beings in clear and unambiguous terms.
During WWII, Americans and people in many other countries made great sacrifices and did not make the excuse of being too busy. Many gave their lives, many suffered immensely. I think if people realized this threat is much worse than any war we have yet experienced, they would be willing to do much more. But it doesn’t feel like the threat is so great, because the worst is too far in the future and the problem is too abstract. I don’t feel threatened the way I would during a world war either, but I know the threat is there, and so I keep trying to do more and to think of ways to be more effective. Still, I feel like I am not doing nearly enough. David commented on my previous post that it is difficult to make a difference because of how rotten our system has become. I agree it is more difficult to make a difference now than it was in the 60s, but on the other hand they didn’t have the internet like we do now. Maybe we can take advantage of this amazing tool to get around the obstacles. I often feel like we need something very dramatic to shock people out of their complacency. If anyone has ideas for something dramatic, or any good ideas for solving this problem, please leave a comment.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Denial
This posting is different from others I have made so far. I was trying to focus mainly on the science to convince people this is a very real and very urgent problem. But I often wonder why so few people are taking global warming as seriously as the threat warrants, or even close. I think one reason is that the vast majority of people are in denial, in one way or another, especially in this country. In this posting will list some of the types of denial and avoidance I have noticed in people.
First are the absolute deniers. I think that most of them are conservative and therefore automatically against anything that seems “pro-environment”, which they see as a liberal cause. Others are invested in or funded by the fossil fuel industry so much that they are automatically against anything that might threaten their interests. Some simply believe that God would never let something so bad happen, or at least that is their excuse. The absolute deniers have usually made up their minds, and you can rarely change their minds with mere facts or science. They usually feel no need to provide any proof of their positions. Instead of looking at all the data and drawing their conclusions from it, they cherry-pick the data to support the conclusions they have already made. What they don’t understand is that the question of whether global warming is happening has nothing to do with politics, ideology, or belief. The laws of physics and chemistry do not care what anyone thinks or believes. These people and their children will suffer the consequences as much as everyone else will. But those who have been actively blocking any progress towards fighting the threat will be the most to blame.
Then there are the willfully ignorant. Some simply ignore the issue, perhaps out of laziness or boredom. Others accept that global warming is happening and is caused by human activity, but thinking about it makes them feel so bad (depressed, scared, helpless, hopeless, bored) that they avoid it whenever possible. If you bring up the subject with this type of denier, they will usually change the subject or leave the discussion. Sometimes they will come right out and say they don’t like to talk or think about it. Often the ones who do admit the reality to this extent make an effort to help, by recycling, driving less, and so on. But they miss a lot of opportunities by not being informed or involved in the political process. They usually have no idea how little time we have left or how this problem is unique, simply because they avoid it at all costs. If enough of these people would be willing to feel those uncomfortable emotions, our chances would be much better. If they would just admit to themselves that the lives of their children and grandchildren are at stake, they might do something about it. But it’s difficult to acknowledge anything when you try to ignore everything.
Then there are those who do not deny or ignore the problem, but they don’t have any idea (or won’t admit) how big it is. Many don’t know how bad it could get, and almost none of them have any idea how little time we have to stop it from going out of control. This includes most liberals and I think even most environmentalists. Many people are too busy to deal with it. They think many other things, personal or shared, are more important. The vast majority of liberal talk show hosts and commentators rarely mention global warming or climate change, or when they do it is only in passing. I would ask everyone to question whether any of the things they spend their time on about might be less important than whether most life on earth ends. I’m sure the vast majority could find some time to help in some way if they put the problem in perspective. We need everyone we can get.
I think most liberals and people who care about the environmental fail to grasp how this threat is different from others, how when feedback takes over it will be too late, how we won’t get a second chance, and most of all how none of their other causes will mean a thing if global warming does go out of control. For example, when the entire system has collapsed, it won’t matter whether we once had universal health care. Will it matter that much whether we found a cure for cancer when billions are dying of hunger? I’m not saying we should abandon all other causes. But I am saying we should recognize this cause is the most important one, and give it the amount of attention it deserves.
Some people have concluded that it is hopeless to fight global warming, and they use this as their excuse to ignore it and do nothing. Some of them came to this conclusion years ago, when we still had enough time to make relatively gradual changes. Others, when confronted with what we need to accomplish in a short amount of time will ask, “What if the scientists are wrong?” Others are confident that science will find a solution before it’s too late. But you can’t be sure it is hopeless until feedback actually takes things out of control. If your own life was at stake, wouldn’t you try as long as there was even a small chance? This is much more important than your own life, so we should not give up so easily. And of course the scientists could be wrong about how much time we have, but they are just as likely to be too optimistic as too pessimistic. If you don’t realize or admit this, you are just making excuses. And do you really want to let the future of your own children and many future generations depend on the chance that some miracle invention will be discovered in time? We have not been using the many inventions we already have all these years that we knew about the problem. What makes you think any new invention will be implemented to any greater extent? I think these are all really excuses for avoiding responsibility. In my next posting, I will talk more about responsibility.
First are the absolute deniers. I think that most of them are conservative and therefore automatically against anything that seems “pro-environment”, which they see as a liberal cause. Others are invested in or funded by the fossil fuel industry so much that they are automatically against anything that might threaten their interests. Some simply believe that God would never let something so bad happen, or at least that is their excuse. The absolute deniers have usually made up their minds, and you can rarely change their minds with mere facts or science. They usually feel no need to provide any proof of their positions. Instead of looking at all the data and drawing their conclusions from it, they cherry-pick the data to support the conclusions they have already made. What they don’t understand is that the question of whether global warming is happening has nothing to do with politics, ideology, or belief. The laws of physics and chemistry do not care what anyone thinks or believes. These people and their children will suffer the consequences as much as everyone else will. But those who have been actively blocking any progress towards fighting the threat will be the most to blame.
Then there are the willfully ignorant. Some simply ignore the issue, perhaps out of laziness or boredom. Others accept that global warming is happening and is caused by human activity, but thinking about it makes them feel so bad (depressed, scared, helpless, hopeless, bored) that they avoid it whenever possible. If you bring up the subject with this type of denier, they will usually change the subject or leave the discussion. Sometimes they will come right out and say they don’t like to talk or think about it. Often the ones who do admit the reality to this extent make an effort to help, by recycling, driving less, and so on. But they miss a lot of opportunities by not being informed or involved in the political process. They usually have no idea how little time we have left or how this problem is unique, simply because they avoid it at all costs. If enough of these people would be willing to feel those uncomfortable emotions, our chances would be much better. If they would just admit to themselves that the lives of their children and grandchildren are at stake, they might do something about it. But it’s difficult to acknowledge anything when you try to ignore everything.
Then there are those who do not deny or ignore the problem, but they don’t have any idea (or won’t admit) how big it is. Many don’t know how bad it could get, and almost none of them have any idea how little time we have to stop it from going out of control. This includes most liberals and I think even most environmentalists. Many people are too busy to deal with it. They think many other things, personal or shared, are more important. The vast majority of liberal talk show hosts and commentators rarely mention global warming or climate change, or when they do it is only in passing. I would ask everyone to question whether any of the things they spend their time on about might be less important than whether most life on earth ends. I’m sure the vast majority could find some time to help in some way if they put the problem in perspective. We need everyone we can get.
I think most liberals and people who care about the environmental fail to grasp how this threat is different from others, how when feedback takes over it will be too late, how we won’t get a second chance, and most of all how none of their other causes will mean a thing if global warming does go out of control. For example, when the entire system has collapsed, it won’t matter whether we once had universal health care. Will it matter that much whether we found a cure for cancer when billions are dying of hunger? I’m not saying we should abandon all other causes. But I am saying we should recognize this cause is the most important one, and give it the amount of attention it deserves.
Some people have concluded that it is hopeless to fight global warming, and they use this as their excuse to ignore it and do nothing. Some of them came to this conclusion years ago, when we still had enough time to make relatively gradual changes. Others, when confronted with what we need to accomplish in a short amount of time will ask, “What if the scientists are wrong?” Others are confident that science will find a solution before it’s too late. But you can’t be sure it is hopeless until feedback actually takes things out of control. If your own life was at stake, wouldn’t you try as long as there was even a small chance? This is much more important than your own life, so we should not give up so easily. And of course the scientists could be wrong about how much time we have, but they are just as likely to be too optimistic as too pessimistic. If you don’t realize or admit this, you are just making excuses. And do you really want to let the future of your own children and many future generations depend on the chance that some miracle invention will be discovered in time? We have not been using the many inventions we already have all these years that we knew about the problem. What makes you think any new invention will be implemented to any greater extent? I think these are all really excuses for avoiding responsibility. In my next posting, I will talk more about responsibility.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Climate Momentum
In my very first post to this blog, I described how changing the course of global warming and its effects is like turning a large, heavy, fast moving ship. You have to begin the turn way before you want the ship to be headed in the new direction, and if you wait too long, you won’t make the turn in time. Another way of saying this is that global warming has a lot of momentum. Scientists at Sustainability Institute, Ventana Systems, and MIT developed an online tool where you can see how different emissions reduction scenarios will affect CO2 levels, temperature, and sea level. Move the slider at the bottom of the charts to change the emission reduction scenario. This gives a clear demonstration how strong global warming momentum is.
http://www.bgrncol.com/
I wish the charts went past 2100, because the effects will continue for much longer, and I wish I had more control, such as to be able to duplicate the Waxman-Markey bill. But even only showing this much, it is clear that even if we reduce emissions around 50% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 (much more than the Waxman-Markey bill does in the short term, slightly less in the long term), the temperature will reach 2 degrees above preindustrial levels by 2080 and continue to rise after that. In fact, in order to limit temperature rise to around 2 degrees by 2100, we would have to reduce emissions 95% by 2020! Compare that to the 3.6% reduction by 2020 in the Waxman-Markey bill, and you will get an idea of how divorced from reality Congress is. Even the more realistic governments of Europe are only planning to reduce emissions 20% by 2020.
An even scarier thing this tool shows is that if all countries follow their most recent (March 2009) “publicly stated proposals” for CO2 emissions reductions, temperatures will reach almost 4 degrees above preindustrial levels by 2100, and from the shape of the curve, it looks to me like they will probably rise another couple of degrees after that. So if countries do what they say, we are set to experience the worse scenarios laid out in “Six Degrees”. It is even more depressing to realize that so far countries as a whole have not even done what they promised in the past.
And apparently, the models these charts are based on do not take the various feedbacks into account, because if they did, the temperatures should rise more sharply after reaching about 3 degrees, even if emissions are falling by then.
Even with the best case scenario these charts show, which I don’t think the world will come close to achieving, we are just barely able to keep temperatures to a roughly 2 degree rise. James Hansen said this to Congress in 2008: “The disturbing conclusion, documented in a paper I have written with several of the world’s leading climate experts, is that the safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is no more than 350 ppm (parts per million) and it may be less. Carbon dioxide amount is already 385 ppm and rising about 2 ppm per year. Stunning corollary: the oft-stated goal to keep global warming less than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is a recipe for global disaster, not salvation.”
If you want to see the paper he refers to in this quote, go to the links below. The top one is the paper, and the second one is supporting material for the paper.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1135.pdf
Many months ago, I had a feeling from everything I had read and the trends I had seen that we probably would not be able to avoid global disasters caused by global warming. Unfortunately it looks like that feeling was correct. But now it even looks extremely likely that feedback will take over, probably leading to the next great extinction. This does not mean we should give up, it means we should fight harder, as if our very lives depended on it. If we do, we still might be able to prevent another great extinction, caused by us this time. If we don’t, I guess our children and grandchildren will get what we deserve.
http://www.bgrncol.com/
I wish the charts went past 2100, because the effects will continue for much longer, and I wish I had more control, such as to be able to duplicate the Waxman-Markey bill. But even only showing this much, it is clear that even if we reduce emissions around 50% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 (much more than the Waxman-Markey bill does in the short term, slightly less in the long term), the temperature will reach 2 degrees above preindustrial levels by 2080 and continue to rise after that. In fact, in order to limit temperature rise to around 2 degrees by 2100, we would have to reduce emissions 95% by 2020! Compare that to the 3.6% reduction by 2020 in the Waxman-Markey bill, and you will get an idea of how divorced from reality Congress is. Even the more realistic governments of Europe are only planning to reduce emissions 20% by 2020.
An even scarier thing this tool shows is that if all countries follow their most recent (March 2009) “publicly stated proposals” for CO2 emissions reductions, temperatures will reach almost 4 degrees above preindustrial levels by 2100, and from the shape of the curve, it looks to me like they will probably rise another couple of degrees after that. So if countries do what they say, we are set to experience the worse scenarios laid out in “Six Degrees”. It is even more depressing to realize that so far countries as a whole have not even done what they promised in the past.
And apparently, the models these charts are based on do not take the various feedbacks into account, because if they did, the temperatures should rise more sharply after reaching about 3 degrees, even if emissions are falling by then.
Even with the best case scenario these charts show, which I don’t think the world will come close to achieving, we are just barely able to keep temperatures to a roughly 2 degree rise. James Hansen said this to Congress in 2008: “The disturbing conclusion, documented in a paper I have written with several of the world’s leading climate experts, is that the safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is no more than 350 ppm (parts per million) and it may be less. Carbon dioxide amount is already 385 ppm and rising about 2 ppm per year. Stunning corollary: the oft-stated goal to keep global warming less than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is a recipe for global disaster, not salvation.”
If you want to see the paper he refers to in this quote, go to the links below. The top one is the paper, and the second one is supporting material for the paper.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1135.pdf
Many months ago, I had a feeling from everything I had read and the trends I had seen that we probably would not be able to avoid global disasters caused by global warming. Unfortunately it looks like that feeling was correct. But now it even looks extremely likely that feedback will take over, probably leading to the next great extinction. This does not mean we should give up, it means we should fight harder, as if our very lives depended on it. If we do, we still might be able to prevent another great extinction, caused by us this time. If we don’t, I guess our children and grandchildren will get what we deserve.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
The Targets Are Wrong
First, there was an article about the warming of the Arctic “Study finds more evidence rapid Arctic warming isn't natural”. The article says the Arctic would be continuing to slowly cool if it weren’t for human activity.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/environment/story/74861.html
We already knew the warming of the past few decades was man-made, but that is more evidence to support it.
This article, “Not Even Wrong” has some new information that shows the targets the governments are using are not nearly enough to keep warming below 2 degrees C.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/08/31/not-even-wrong/
One nice thing about the above article is that it has footnotes with sources, so you can check them out if you want. I only checked out the summaries of two papers, but I didn’t see anything that would contradict the article.) I said in a recent post that the Waxman Markey bill disregards what the IPCC indicates is the minimum emissions reduction necessary to prevent more than 2 degrees of warming, and I also said the IPCC is usually too cautious in its conclusions, so the situation was probably worse. These newer studies are one more indication that is indeed true. Here are some highlights and my comments:
“In other words, governments’ hopes about the trajectory of temperature change are ill-founded. Most, including the UK’s, are working on the assumption that we can overshoot the desired targets for temperature and atmospheric concentrations of CO2, then watch them settle back later. What this paper shows is that wherever temperatures peak, that is more or less where they will stay. There is no going back.”
This quote references the same study as another article I talked about in my post “What Could Happen?” That study shows CO2 levels will go down so slowly that 40% will still remain 1000 years after we stop emitting greenhouse gases. And temperatures will stay at the peak for about 1000 years too. (And don’t forget they won’t return completely to normal for hundreds of thousands of years.) The quote above makes a good point that governments of the world fail to acknowledge. They all seem to be assuming that CO2 levels will fall as quickly as they are rising, but scientists have known for a long time that is not true. This is one of the ways the global warming problem is so different from conventional pollution and most other problems. It seems to be very difficult for most people to grasp.
The absolute minimum goal should be to minimize chances of global warming going out of control from feedback effects. If that happens, there will ONLY be going forward to hotter and hotter temperatures, and to more death, destruction, and suffering, until some new equilibrium point is reached. Most governments seem to have now agreed on 2 degrees C above preindustrial levels as the point at which the risks of feedback would be unacceptable. In my opinion, the effects from 2 degrees warming are so bad that we should never let it go that high even if feedback was not a danger, especially if those bad effects will last for a thousand years. But if feedback doesn’t take over at that point, we can probably survive, and biodiversity may not be so decimated that the world becomes a completely different place. Horrible things will happen, and we should all be pushing our governments to do everything they can to avoid those horrible things. But preventing feedback from taking over is the minimum goal anybody who places any value on life should demand, and there can be no compromise on this.
Keeping temperature rise to 2 degrees or less is what the next section of the article addresses, talking about a couple of studies that looked at the total emissions we can get by with and still keep warming to 2 degrees. I will focus on the conclusions:
“Writing elsewhere, the two teams gave us an idea of what this means. At current rates of use, we will burn the ration that Allen set aside for the next 500 years in four decades(4). Meinshausen’s carbon budget between now and 2050 will have been exhausted before 2030(5).”
Now, remember, this is talking about current rates of fossil fuel use, meaning the entire world would have to stop the current trends of using more and more every year. So the current reality is even worse than this indicates. But the crucial point is that waiting until 2050 to make significant reductions in emissions, as the U.S. government is planning as of now, is guaranteed to bring us past the 2 degree temperature rise. And this next quote amplifies this message:
“There are some obvious conclusions from these three papers. The trajectory of cuts is more important than the final destination. An 80% cut by 2050, for example, could produce very different outcomes. If most of the cut were made towards the beginning of the period, the total emissions entering the atmosphere would be much smaller than if most of the cut were made at the end of the period. The measure that counts is the peak atmospheric concentration. This must be as low as possible and come as soon as possible, which means making most of the reductions right now.”
This is what I mean when I say global warming is the most urgent problem we face, more urgent than the economy, healthcare, wars, human rights, or any other that I can think of. But I get the impression that the number of people who truly realize this and realize what it means are miniscule. I don’t think a single person in our government really gets it. As the next paragraph in the article said, referring to making big reductions soon, “None of this is currently on the table.” I discuss these things with very intelligent friends of mine, and I don’t think any of them fully grasp this point. I probably don’t fully grasp it, but I grasp it enough to be extremely worried. It is so unreal to think about what it means. It makes me feel like I’m living in a science fiction novel, but it’s really happening.
We have to reach the people in power, and we have to do it very, very quickly. We would truly have an almost impossible task before us even if our leaders knew the real situation and knew what we needed to do. It would be that difficult to make the changes quickly enough. But they don’t know, and we can never make the huge changes that are imperative unless our leaders encourage us, by changing the very system we exist in. How can those of us who understand the threat reach them? That is the question I keep asking, and I can’t find an answer, and neither can anyone I ask this question.
Addendum 9/13/09: The articles above accepted the 2 degree maximum temperature rise as a good target, but James Hansen thinks even that is too high. In his 2008 address to Congress, he stated, “The disturbing conclusion, documented in a paper I have written with several of the world’s leading climate experts, is that the safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is no more than 350 ppm (parts per million) and it may be less. Carbon dioxide amount is already 385 ppm and rising about 2 ppm per year. Stunning corollary: the oft-stated goal to keep global warming less than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is a recipe for global disaster, not salvation.” If he is right, then we need to make even bigger reductions sooner than the above article indicates. Unfortunately, Hansen usually is right, and when he has been wrong in the past, his predictions were usually more optimistic than what happened later.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/environment/story/74861.html
We already knew the warming of the past few decades was man-made, but that is more evidence to support it.
This article, “Not Even Wrong” has some new information that shows the targets the governments are using are not nearly enough to keep warming below 2 degrees C.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/08/31/not-even-wrong/
One nice thing about the above article is that it has footnotes with sources, so you can check them out if you want. I only checked out the summaries of two papers, but I didn’t see anything that would contradict the article.) I said in a recent post that the Waxman Markey bill disregards what the IPCC indicates is the minimum emissions reduction necessary to prevent more than 2 degrees of warming, and I also said the IPCC is usually too cautious in its conclusions, so the situation was probably worse. These newer studies are one more indication that is indeed true. Here are some highlights and my comments:
“In other words, governments’ hopes about the trajectory of temperature change are ill-founded. Most, including the UK’s, are working on the assumption that we can overshoot the desired targets for temperature and atmospheric concentrations of CO2, then watch them settle back later. What this paper shows is that wherever temperatures peak, that is more or less where they will stay. There is no going back.”
This quote references the same study as another article I talked about in my post “What Could Happen?” That study shows CO2 levels will go down so slowly that 40% will still remain 1000 years after we stop emitting greenhouse gases. And temperatures will stay at the peak for about 1000 years too. (And don’t forget they won’t return completely to normal for hundreds of thousands of years.) The quote above makes a good point that governments of the world fail to acknowledge. They all seem to be assuming that CO2 levels will fall as quickly as they are rising, but scientists have known for a long time that is not true. This is one of the ways the global warming problem is so different from conventional pollution and most other problems. It seems to be very difficult for most people to grasp.
The absolute minimum goal should be to minimize chances of global warming going out of control from feedback effects. If that happens, there will ONLY be going forward to hotter and hotter temperatures, and to more death, destruction, and suffering, until some new equilibrium point is reached. Most governments seem to have now agreed on 2 degrees C above preindustrial levels as the point at which the risks of feedback would be unacceptable. In my opinion, the effects from 2 degrees warming are so bad that we should never let it go that high even if feedback was not a danger, especially if those bad effects will last for a thousand years. But if feedback doesn’t take over at that point, we can probably survive, and biodiversity may not be so decimated that the world becomes a completely different place. Horrible things will happen, and we should all be pushing our governments to do everything they can to avoid those horrible things. But preventing feedback from taking over is the minimum goal anybody who places any value on life should demand, and there can be no compromise on this.
Keeping temperature rise to 2 degrees or less is what the next section of the article addresses, talking about a couple of studies that looked at the total emissions we can get by with and still keep warming to 2 degrees. I will focus on the conclusions:
“Writing elsewhere, the two teams gave us an idea of what this means. At current rates of use, we will burn the ration that Allen set aside for the next 500 years in four decades(4). Meinshausen’s carbon budget between now and 2050 will have been exhausted before 2030(5).”
Now, remember, this is talking about current rates of fossil fuel use, meaning the entire world would have to stop the current trends of using more and more every year. So the current reality is even worse than this indicates. But the crucial point is that waiting until 2050 to make significant reductions in emissions, as the U.S. government is planning as of now, is guaranteed to bring us past the 2 degree temperature rise. And this next quote amplifies this message:
“There are some obvious conclusions from these three papers. The trajectory of cuts is more important than the final destination. An 80% cut by 2050, for example, could produce very different outcomes. If most of the cut were made towards the beginning of the period, the total emissions entering the atmosphere would be much smaller than if most of the cut were made at the end of the period. The measure that counts is the peak atmospheric concentration. This must be as low as possible and come as soon as possible, which means making most of the reductions right now.”
This is what I mean when I say global warming is the most urgent problem we face, more urgent than the economy, healthcare, wars, human rights, or any other that I can think of. But I get the impression that the number of people who truly realize this and realize what it means are miniscule. I don’t think a single person in our government really gets it. As the next paragraph in the article said, referring to making big reductions soon, “None of this is currently on the table.” I discuss these things with very intelligent friends of mine, and I don’t think any of them fully grasp this point. I probably don’t fully grasp it, but I grasp it enough to be extremely worried. It is so unreal to think about what it means. It makes me feel like I’m living in a science fiction novel, but it’s really happening.
We have to reach the people in power, and we have to do it very, very quickly. We would truly have an almost impossible task before us even if our leaders knew the real situation and knew what we needed to do. It would be that difficult to make the changes quickly enough. But they don’t know, and we can never make the huge changes that are imperative unless our leaders encourage us, by changing the very system we exist in. How can those of us who understand the threat reach them? That is the question I keep asking, and I can’t find an answer, and neither can anyone I ask this question.
Addendum 9/13/09: The articles above accepted the 2 degree maximum temperature rise as a good target, but James Hansen thinks even that is too high. In his 2008 address to Congress, he stated, “The disturbing conclusion, documented in a paper I have written with several of the world’s leading climate experts, is that the safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is no more than 350 ppm (parts per million) and it may be less. Carbon dioxide amount is already 385 ppm and rising about 2 ppm per year. Stunning corollary: the oft-stated goal to keep global warming less than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is a recipe for global disaster, not salvation.” If he is right, then we need to make even bigger reductions sooner than the above article indicates. Unfortunately, Hansen usually is right, and when he has been wrong in the past, his predictions were usually more optimistic than what happened later.
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