Scary climate change, scary cover up
If, for some reason, you need more convincing that climate change is real, happening, and terrifyingly dangerous, look no further than the Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change report that was published yesterday.
In the report, leading scientists told the Royal Society that time is running out if the effects of climate change are ever to be reversed. If carbon emissions are not being reduced by 2.6% every year by 2025, so much carbon dioxide will have been released into the atmosphere that it will no longer be feasible to reduce levels sufficiently. This is the “tipping point” that everyone has been talking about.
The report also highlights fears that if greenhouse gas emissions are not brought below dangerous levels, the Greenland ice cap could melt, causing sea levels to rise by 7 metres in the next 1000 years.
Scary stuff. Interestingly, the report’s introduction is written by Tony Blair, who seems to be taking the increasing threat of climate change seriously, unlike his brother-in-arms, George W Bush, who seems more concerned with covering it up, and with our own Labour Party who just ditched plans for a carbon tax – one of the only steps in the right direction that New Zealand was taking.
If you’re in Wellington and you’re interested in climate change issues (and let’s face it, in the face of this report, we all should be), you might be interested in Victoria University’s second annual public panel discussion on “Climate Change and NZ’s Future”, which is being held on Friday 3 Feb from 3 to 4pm at Rutherford House, Victoria University, 23 Lambton Quay. Entry is free and you’ll get to hear a panel of experts from Victoria University, NIWA, GNS, Antarctica New Zealand, the Ministry for the Environment, and IPCC representatives answer and discuss questions on current and future challenges of climate change on NZ’s society, economy and environment, and governmental strategies for adaptation and mitigation.
February 1st, 2006 at 2:52 pm
For those of you brave enough to look at the both sides of the global warming issue, I suggest you have a look at a summary of Michael Crichton’s findings:
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16386&CFID=309937&CFTOKEN=3 1415697
February 1st, 2006 at 3:13 pm
How exactly is reading Crichton brave? I’ve had a look, now can I have a medal?
I’ll go along with the broad scientific consensus here. Climate change is out of my field, but I’ll trust the climatologists provisionally and assume that it’s real and human-generated, just as I’ll go along with the majority of medical researchers on the risks of smoking despite some contrarian opinions out there.
February 1st, 2006 at 5:12 pm
I don’t need to read Michael Crichton or anyone else (although I have). I have friends who used to live in Nunavit. Ask anyone from there whether global warming is real, and they will ask you what’s wrong with your eyes.
February 1st, 2006 at 5:13 pm
LOL… why on earth would you trust an ex-MD who specialises in writing fiction to be an expert on climate change?
February 1st, 2006 at 5:46 pm
Simon Upton also adresses the issues in his latest missive. Upton basically says the Kyoto naysayers should put up or shut up and that having considered all the alternatives (like tradeable carbon credits) tax seems to be the only effective way for governments to nudge behaviour in the right direction.
Worth a read if you can be wade past the crowd pleasing stuff about trees in Auckland. Bugger, it was on scoop yesterday but I have lost the link. Anyone help out?
Without him National can barely string a rational arguement for anything these days.
February 1st, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Superdan: Whatever the science involved, personal experiences count for nothing in considering climate change, given that weather patterns can change drastically over centuries. Back in the 17th Century when Londoners could ice skate on the Thames in winter, it must have seemed like another ice age was coming. But their personal experience wouldn’t have been a good basis to judge that on. I’m not saying climate change isn’t happening, I’m saying it would be wrong to assume you could ignore the scientific arguments based on personal observation.
February 1st, 2006 at 8:51 pm
For those of you brave to enough find out about the science in Michael Crichton’s book, try these two pieces, where real, working, peer-reviewed climate scientists examine his thesis and find it, shall we say, “economical with the truth”:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=76
And as an side, I was very disturbed to find that two of Don Brash’s summer books (as listed in the Herald, I think) included Crichton’s novel and what he called “a centre-right think tank’s take on global warming” - actually a book by one of the most prominent contrarian US commentators, also noted for his economy with the truth and misrepresentation of the science. Don needs to learn that to be electable, he has to take serious issues seriously, not wear rose-tinted ideological glasses.
Pip pip!
February 1st, 2006 at 10:48 pm
Adam
Did it ever occur to you to notice that Crichton’s novels feature heavily in the FICTION section of the bookstore.
Or is there really an Island somewhere with Dinosaurs running about eating scientists?
BJ
February 2nd, 2006 at 7:04 am
Just in case you folks don’t realize how fortunate you are here… that the press still works to sorta-kinda bring news instead of infotainment… the process of “covering up” is far less thorough and obvious here.
The international edition of CNN….
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/01/30/uk.greenhouse.ap/index. html
The US edition
http://us.cnn.com/2006/LAW/01/30/dominatrix.acquitted.ap/index.html
There is a reason America is ignorant.
respectfully
BJ
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:56 am
psycho-milt… you are right, and I have followed the science (and even understood some of it). However I take issue with you saying that personal experience counts for nothing. The many personal experiences of people living in the arctic do count for something; they are one of the multiple lines of evidence pointing to current and future climate disruption
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:05 am
Simon Upton on climate change, as referenced by Jeeves above:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0601/S00233.htm
February 2nd, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Thanks Oliver. I see DPF now is in the “we should reduce CO2 ommissions camp”. The question for the Kyoto naysayers is what international agreeement can they put together that will achieve similar or better results? If the maintain their spinx like silence one can only conclude that they simply signed up to Dubbya’s view of what is good and right and will broker no other view of the world.
February 2nd, 2006 at 8:51 pm
Bumper sticker seen in Sydney…
“For a cooler planet, Vote Green”
February 3rd, 2006 at 9:04 am
its not fair, chipper says america igorant about warming, how can yous say that about yo country of birth chipper.especially when the leader of free world say them green things like america what gotta stop using petrol,and invent something else to guzzle, the new quixote medallions are out soon for licherature and jornalist chipper,
February 3rd, 2006 at 9:47 am
peter - If you read through the SOTU address you will note that he didn’t give more than lip service to the “warming” part of the argument, only to the problem of peak oil and the oil wells running dry. Like his daddy and his constituency, he’s way more interested in getting more, any way he can, than with living within his means. Also without getting into it too deeply, at the same time as he was SAYING this he was cutting the budgets of the alternative energy labs run by the govt.
I love good science fiction, but this ain’t even good enough to be bad.
respectfully BJ
February 3rd, 2006 at 11:26 am
George Bush SOTU address….
“i was born into a rich family that made their money laundering money for nazi companies. Even though i was a flunky at study, i partied hard for fortie years and am now president of the “free” world!!! (que aplause)
I would especially like to thank the military industrial complex and all our corporate friends, for without you, we couldn’t have taken over the country and completely corrupted the democratic principles of our system to continually fill the pockets of the top 5%. This war on terror is a serious BUSINESS, but with Paul Wolfy as head of the world bank, more tax breaks for the rich, deregulated pollution and toxin controls, cutting and privatisation of all social services and 500 billion per year in development of weaponry, i can look very smugly at you all and say we have no conscience of what we are doing what so ever!!(que applause)…and break for facial tiks resulting from cocaine abuse.
We will continue to spread democracy and freedom where-eva the oil takes us, since the new american century requires nothing less. These terrorists are ruthless, put no value on human life and are fanatically driven ideologues intent on destroying civilisation as we know it, there can be no half measures, you are either with us or agaisnt us, God bless america!!”
Was i close?
February 4th, 2006 at 3:57 am
Given that there is zero real chance that the human race will stop its carbon-burning activities; I actually think that Bush and co are being realistic about technology possibly being the solution.
If they found a way to sequester vast amounts of carbon from the atmosphere it could work- say some sort of sea-algae grown in salt water in the deserts of the world? How about the seeding of the oceans with some kind of algae growth booster? Worth some research at the very least, along with nuclear fusion and clean fission technologies to stop it getting worse.
Given that this probably won’t happen in time, I would imagine now is a prime time to buy some nice Central Otago beachfront property…
February 4th, 2006 at 8:49 am
uk-kiwi,
Under Bush, there is every chance that climate change will accelerate.
By doing nothing to alert his subjects to the fact that their behaviour * is part of the problem, and thus needs to be modified accordingly, demand for liquid transport fuels will continue to grow.
IEA projections point to a 50% increase in global demand by 2025 (not that far away). Bush’s research includes coal to liquid technology with its attendant CO2 emissions.
Any talk of sequestration is a diversion. The only sequestration that has been demonstrated to work is photosynthesis and that lacks scalability. Read Jeffrey Dukes
BURNING BURIED SUNSHINE: HUMAN CONSUMPTION OF
ANCIENT SOLAR ENERGY to get a feel for the amount of ancient sunshine we’re consuming each year, and what percentage of the current biota is required to replace it. It doesn’t scale too well.
Sequestration in the deep ocean has numerous technical and efficiency obstacles that most likely rule it out - and the fact that the CO2 will acidify the seawater with consequent issues make this a non starter (although look for its proponents shrill claims otherwise).
Sequestration in depleted oil and gas fields is untested, and most likely uneconomic given that end use occurs so far away from the producing wells. E.g. “Stranded” gas is called stranded gas for economic reasons.
Basic carbon cycle info and sequestration here.
* We can’t just blame the Yanks - we consume fossil fuels like there is no tomorrow and CoalCorp’s plans for Happy Valley are nonsense economically and environmentally.
February 4th, 2006 at 9:31 am
Even - yeah… pretty close. Some actual quotes that you wanted to include were perhaps these… teeth if you will, in that he actually said these things.
“We need an energy bill that encourages consumption.”
“First, we would not accept a treaty that would not have been ratified, nor a treaty that I thought made sense for the country.”
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”—Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004
and more and more and more…
http://quotations.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=quotati ons&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fpolitics.slate.msn.com%2F%3Fid%3D76886
respectfully
BJ
February 4th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Thanks Fastbike -
February 6th, 2006 at 10:11 am
uk_kiwi said: “Given that there is zero real chance that the human race will stop its carbon-burning activities; I actually think that Bush and co are being realistic about technology possibly being the solution. ”
I agree that technological change is a necessary part of the solution.
This is why a broad agreement like Kyoto is a good idea. It doesn’t say “use less coal” or “sequester more CO2″ or give any other specific solutions. It just says “Pay for the greenhouse gasses you emit - and pay the dosh to those who have cut down on their emissions”.
For transport you can do that by stopping driving. Or by creating better technologies so your cars so stop producing greenhouse gasses.
So if Bush REALLY believed that Good Old US Know-How would be able to provide a solution, then he’d have no problem with the Kyoto Protocol - or even with the much stronger, stricter protocols . But it’s clear that he doesn’t really believe it: not even enough to take the first step with Kyoto.
February 21st, 2006 at 4:20 am
Bush is a religious zealot. He’s a born again Christian, and like most Christian zealots he has a strong faith in the second coming and in redemption at any moment. His is not a faith culture that has a strong ethic to the future child or even to future selves. Apocolypse is coming, and the egotical born-again Baptists think it will of course come in this lifetime.
He’s also not that bright, and I’d say his very corrupt administration has control of him. He might even be well-intentioned for all we know. I’m not an apologist for Bush, just saying he’s but another cog, another wheel in the engine of that ferry chugging us towards the edge of Niagra falls.
Likewise arguing about sequestering carbon, tidal power, wind turbine efficiency won’t get us anywhere back upstream. We need oars. We needs some very large changes, immediately. This means we need a revolution, cause change usually takes ten, twenty, thirty years otherwise. We don’t even have ten years before it’s too late. I mean, for all we know…
We need a revolution from an industrial economic growth-based model to a high-tech, low-power, low-impact civilization (I wrote lifestyle first, but this won’t be a lifestyle. The time for choosing which lifestyle we lead is, well it’s over).
To achieve a social and industrial revolution we may need some very different use of political power and financial power from what we have seen until now. It make take a political revolution. Or, I hope, a political respite, such as a cabinet directing things more focused and efficiently that democracy does, as in wartime. Such cabinets and powers are reprehensible without a dire need, as they potential for errors and evil is immense. However in desperate times.
James Lovelock makes this point in his just published book ‘Gaia’s Revenge’, about the need for ‘enlightened leadership’ such as in wartime, but no one seems to have picked up on it.
Eventually we will need something like a military government, because I expect that overpopulation, fighting for limited resources, international pressures between countries over meeting carbon emission compliances and national/tribalism in the face of such pressures and fears are likely to lead to war, global economic depression, hysteria.
I don’t know whether anyone has noticed that in many global climate change modellings, Aoteroa is one of the few areas that is predicted as unlikely to go entirely unwater or become desertified, due to it’s line of Southern latitude, proximity to the Southern pole and island geography.
When things start getting really serious, in a few years, I should think there will be a lot of pressure to let immigrants into a country that has only a population of 4 million and a density of only around 12.5/km2.
Particularly if it is likely to be one of the last havens in a flooded, desertified world.
I hope to God, to Gaia, to the moon and back that James Lovelock, computer modelling predicitons and all of this is in error.
Or maybe, just maybe, we can win back from the brink.
But in the mean time, we gotta plan for a disaster. Sweet little Aotearoa needs to build a nuclear power generator. That’s been on the table since the Auckland power cuts a few years ago.
But now it’s obviously the only way. We need our waterways working. We may also need the water, as the country heats up. We also need our environment stable, and the waterways are a big part of the ecology aren’t they? I’ve seen the fish disappear from the river in Nelson since the damn was put in.
With global warming at the rate of increase currently by the time we build wind turbines, which are still horrendously inefficient, the winds may have started to change. And tridal power is a good option in places where the sea is already dead. Let’s keep our coastline clean and underpolluted by such mistakes.
And we will need abundant power to create an ecoonomy that can move away from dairy and sheep farming, overfishing and cutting down trees as an economic base. The cows are the worst, as all those frickin beasts of burden are burping and farting a whole lot more greenhouse methane gas than we dare to seriously consider. Added to which the farms are draining all the acquifiers under the Canterbury plains, and the nitrogen landen silage is doing awful things to waterways and farming areas, as well as running off to increase algal blooms.
So vegetarians unite, now you really can save the planet as well, not just stroke your egos. Now you, rather now we vegetarians must all learn about low-impact, ecological system vegetarian farming.
To the guy who wrote sentimentally about driving - I know where you are coming from. I love driving.
Still, bikes are a lot of fun.
And in a few years we could be back on the road again. If we all pull finger and claw back from the edge of disaster, then there is a good chance we’ll be on the roads again. I saw news here in Japan of a hydrogen fuel-cell car that reached 302km by applying four electric engines directly to the wheels, with no drive shaft and no engine housing. Powered by hydrogen fuel cells, the only problem usually with hyrdogen fuelcell cars is the cost of fuel cell production and inefficiency in conversion, but they’ve overcome this with a hybrid electric battery /fuel cell combination. There are only a few models running around the world of this one yet, but it’s the way forward once we get them produced and put out around the place.
See these links for more on hydrocars and electrics:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/news-item10.htm
http://www.ecoworld.com/Home/Articles2.cfm?TID=373
And on how human greed can take advantage of and destroy even the best things;
http://www.discoverthis.com/fuelcelcaran.html.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2003/05/ma_375_01.html
The most immediate changes we need are a nuclear power station, and some directed governmental advice and support to the public /private enterprise on how to convert our awful, aged car fleet into electric engines /hybrids /biomass engines. Would help if we start producing solar cells as well. Perhaps a couple of nuclear power stations would be better. Get the volume discount.
NZ may be one of the few places that can actually support a electric / biomass hybrid engine car fleet without using too much available for biofuel crops. Especially if we start reducing herds and phasing out high intensity animal farming, particularly dairy farming.
That should be radical enough for a start.
The latest global environmental report gave NZ the prize, but we aren’t doing well on energy and emissions. Am I wrong, or are the bloody whales and pesticides on my apples just so much blather when put beside energy use /production problems and CO2 emissions?
February 21st, 2006 at 4:22 am
Oh, and Michael Crichton is a great writer. Excellent fiction writer. Kind of a failure at non-fiction though isn’t he?
February 21st, 2006 at 4:41 am
I just wrote and sent a realllllly long post. Where did it go I wonder?
A sacrifice to the gods of the ethernet
February 21st, 2006 at 4:29 pm
Global Desert
Take a long slow breath ….. Panic will get us nowhere.
If things are truly that f..ked up then, we’re doomed and no amount of running around will fix anything. On the other hand, if we do have a bit more time, then we need to use it wisely.
As far as a nuke reactor in NZ:
1. economically doesn’t work for 4M people
2. where to put it (earthquake and volcano country remember)
3. one of the reasons we’re worried about issues like climate change is because of their impact on future generations - let’s not add to their woes by giving them a pile of long lasting radioactive waste to worry about as well
4. We waste more power than we use - let’s work at that
5. etc
February 21st, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Fastbike
I reckon it is truly that F>>d up but that NZ has a shot at retaining something that resembles a civilization. WE are in the roaring 40’s, the wind and water resources at the disposal of our small population are extravagant. The solar resources are substantial as well. We can do it.
respectfully
BJ
February 23rd, 2006 at 7:38 am
fastbike
THanks for the reply
I’m thinking on a longer time frame perhaps, and looking at prioritising needs in a time of crisis. Fact is the world is now crisis, and from here on it is no longer about pesticides on the apples and the sad, silly old whales. We have ten years for significant changes, or rather, massive changes in societal terms, to be able to reach 90% reductions in CO2 emissions by 2020. NZ also MUST reach these targets. To not think this way is to despair. To expect less will bring failure. Save the planet is now no longer a bumper sticker.
In reply:
1. NZ has around 4 million passports on issue, only 1 million of which are held within NZ. As news of the lastest, shocking, predictions break and global weather anolomies increase, a very large number of ex-pat Kiwis are likely to return. Immigration pressures are also likely to increase dramatically, and given NZ’s fertile land, low population density, green image and humanitarian society. Australians also all have access to NZ without limitation, and the Australian continent is likely to feel the effects of global crisis before other nations, particularly as current estimates of water limits sufficient to sustain a population are current in the region of 25 million, and Australia’s immigration policy is current taking the population beyond that figure. Refugees from Australia alone would increase the NZ population substantially within a short time frame. I would expect a very large increase in immigrants in the medium term, and to not plan for this now is irresponsible.
If you mean 4m is insufficient economically, then there are several options to overcome capital deficiencies, as our needs require. The UK is likely to be sympathetic, and will be able to provide the materials and expertise needed, as well as captial support. A long-term loan, perhaps over a 50 year term, is likely to be possible.
As for the need for so much power, solar panel production, hydrogen fuel cell production is energy intensive, and the option of being freedom from all current power sources, ‘renewable’ or otherwise, would allow us to keep other sources as emergency energy reserves, and possible support reductions in emissions in other countries through direct (to Aus) or indirect (such as making hydro fuel cells) use of the surplus would require a significant amount of energy.
I have yet to look into the amounts of power usage current in NZ and the wattage of power station to know how the figures stack up, but a surplus of energy would not be amiss.
Certainly it would be economically much more viable as carbon rationing, or some system like it, comes into place.
2. Japan has several nuclear power stations, and has more earthquakes than any other nation on Earth. It also has considerable geothermal activity. There are areas in NZ, such as the Central Otago plains, with minimal seismic activity and an absence of geothermal activity.
3. Now who’s panicking? Recent development of nuclear power station design make use of nuclear waste in further reaction. Moreover, the toxicity of nuclear waste is overstated, particular in terms of plant life.
3. Nuclear waste sites tend to have abundant life.
Nuclear radiation may shorten our lives and be a cause of cancer. However presently global warming is much more like to shorten our lives, and mean that our children are unlikely to last out theirs. Dying of cancer can no longer be our biggest fear. Industrial energy production is the source of significant amounts of CO2 emissions in NZ, around 20% according to a recent report*. Govt current has no plans to change the status quo in the next 20 years, This needs to end immediately, and we need cheap and sufficient power supply to do this and to convince business to make the shift.
According to J. Lovelock. the number of people who died in the Chernobyl meltdown was zero. He also puts forward that nuclear power has the best saftey record of any power industry, incluing hydro. It has the longest living staff, and the lowest no. of industry deaths, by a factor of 10 to hydro power.
Note; I have yet to research details on nuclear radition and effects in any reliable depth. However I will be living in Hiroshima from late March, and should have ample oppourtunity to do so soon.
Long term, the possibility of fusion is now becoming a reality. However this holy grail of energy will require fission power, at least initially, to get underway becuase of the huge temperatures required for fusion reactions.
4. We do waste more power than we use, I agree. The government already has plans to reduce this significantly. This is a first step, which we are already taking.
It is a measure that does not go nearly far enough.
5. etc?
Dogmatic beliefs are common among religious devotees.
Teleological arguments against nuclear power are equally common among greens.
The whole of NZ is unwilling to even engage on debate of the topic, and this has to change.
Current nuclear is a closed book, a source of national pride about how we beat the yanks, and started a domino effect of nations declaring against a nuclear world (?).
A power station is nothing like a bomb. A bomb is designed to explode and cause damage and death. A power station is designed to create plentiful power indefinately. If it stops doing this, then the design is a complete failure.
Even the recent govt Review of Climate Change does not consider nuclear power as an option. This is very short-sighted.
My question to you fastbike; what are the arguments for other power sources?
Respectfully,
Tobias
*see Review of Climate Change, Nov 2003
‘
BJ
Hi BJ, thank you for your reply.
I think things are fecked up, but certainly not without hope. The world has a chance for civilization, and it will take 10 - 20 years of considerable sacrifice to make this chance a real one.
Now is the time for action. I have heard of protests forming in the UK and USA. I wonder, is there anyone in NZ organising a carbon emissions protest, a protest against government procrastination, a protest against self-editing by media sources to protect revenue streams, a protest to get people listening and our of their cars?
Most people don’t (yet) know what’s going on. They only have a vague idea, no sense or understanding of the personal urgency of global change. They are yet to hear the convinced and trustoworthy news telling them the party is over.
Let’s act brother!
Tobi