Stern says:

…what we do in the next 10 or 20 years can have a profound effect on the climate in the second half of this century and in the next.

And:

Tackling climate change is a pro-growth strategy for the longer term, and it can be done in a way that does not cap the aspirations for growth of rich or poor countries. The earlier effective action is taken, the less costly it will be.

I gather the aim of reducing carbon emissions by 60% by mid-century is to reduce emissions to a point where the earth system can absorb all emissions. Just two points.

First, advanced countries will have to do better than that to allow develoiping countries to grow.

Second, some damage may have been done to the earth system’s absorptive capacity.

There I go again!

http://www.celsias.com/blog/2007/02/12/inuit-take-complaints-to-washington/

Greta I was vaguely aware of the issue you raise. Thanks for the detail.

Your last link doesn’t work. I went to “edit” and found that http:// was repeated. fixed that, but it still doesn’t work.

I found the Inuit Circumpolar Council site, but can’t find the stuff you refer to.

The InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights (Organisation of American States) agreed last week to hear an unprecedented challenge to US policy on greenhouse gas emissions. A delegation representing Inuit peoples from the US, Canada, Russia and Greenland (some 167,000 people) will argue that global warming is destroying their way of life and that the US is responsible.

The case stems from a petition submitted in December 2005 by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. It documented the existing, ongoing, and projected destruction of the Arctic environment and the culture and hunting-based economy of Inuit caused by global warming.

The impacts of climate change, caused by acts and omissions by the US, it is argued, violate the Inuit’s fundamental human rights protected by the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and other international instruments. These include their rights to the benefits of culture, to property, to the preservation of health, life, physical integrity, security, and a means of subsistence, and to residence, movement, and inviolability of the home.

The petition asked the Commission to:

“Make an onsite visit to investigate and confirm the harms suffered by the named individuals whose rights have been violated and other affected Inuit;

“Hold a hearing to investigate the claims raised in this Petition;

“Prepare a report setting forth all the facts and applicable law, declaring that the United States of America is internationally responsible for violations of rights affirmed in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and in other instruments of international law, and recommending that the United States:

“Adopt mandatory measures to limit its emissions of greenhouse gases and cooperate in efforts of the community of nations – as expressed, for example, in activities relating to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – to limit such emissions at the global level;

“Take into account the impacts of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions on the Arctic and affected Inuit in evaluating and before approving all major government actions;

“Establish and implement, in coordination with Petitioner and the affected Inuit, a plan to protect Inuit culture and resources, including, inter alia, the land, water, snow, ice, and plant and animal species used or occupied by the named individuals whose rights have been violated and other affected Inuit; and mitigate any harm to these resources caused by US greenhouse gas emissions;

“Establish and implement, in coordination with Petitioner and the affected Inuit communities, a plan to provide assistance necessary for Inuit to adapt to the impacts of climate change that cannot be avoided;

“Provide any other relief that the Commission considers appropriate and just. ”

The full text of the 163-page petition is available here.

http://inuitcircumpolar.com/files/uploads/icc-files/FINALPetitionICC.pdf

An 8-page summary is available http://inuitcircumpolar.com/files/uploads/icc-files/FINALPetitionSummary.pdf“>here.

On that bleak note it’s back to the proofreading.

This GW/CC stuff works on large timelines. It will take hundreds if not thousands of years to turn the ship around. We are very unlikely to take drastic enough action to avoid dangerous effects and tipping points which carry the warming further no matter what we do.

Then there are all the problems about whether what we so is just tokenistic or window dressing. wbb said that only California and Sweden, I think, are truly taking an approach that might measure up. Or something along those lines.

Then who is going to meaningfully put the brakes on China and India who are way out of control?

I’m just listening to Flannery on Breakfast about what we need to do and what he’s going to tell the AWU.

The pity is that we almost certainly have the knowledge, but creating the will tends not to happen until people see things going pear-shaped around them and then it’s too late because of the timelines. This is worse in Asia. They put up with astonishing pollution of the air (leaving aside rivers and groundwater). But ironically if they clean it up (the aerosol issue), global warming becomes significantly worse.

Yeah, sleeping didn’t cure it. I’m still pessimistic.

Maybe I’m being too cynical, but I can’t take Branson too seriously on these issues.

That or a magical techno fix is turned up by Branson’s US$25 for someone to find a way of scrubbing the CO2 out of the atmosphere.

$25? Is that all? What a tight bastard.

Sorry Brian. Only joking.

Some years ago one bloke in a vigorous stoush on Radio National said that in 50 years time the human species may well be gone only to be remembered by a layer of toxic slime in the fossil record.

I think we’ve exceeded our design capacity in trying to create a civilisation that blankets the planet without destroying it.

It’s got something to do with the paradox of hierarchical organisations which allow us to achieve magnificent feats, but the head gets separated too far from the feet. About as dumb as a dinosaur, if truth be known.

Maybe the bonobos will take over and do a better job. They are said to be

often capable of altruism, compassion, empathy, kindness, patience and sensitivity

and

seem to prefer sexual contact with their group to violent confrontation with outsiders.

Make love not war!

It is a tragedy that there are enough people who understand the problem for it to be widely disseminated, but not quite enough people for a consequent politics of meaningful action.

But maybe there is still time. Not for the polar bears, of course, who will at least survive in zoos, but maybe there is time to avoid total catastrophe. It’s just I don’t feel so optimistic on this. Carbon trading is seen as a panacea. It’s not. It’s full of deficiencies. It’s more about creative accounting than reducing emissions.

It’s got so that, recently, I’m finding myself, out of desperation, drawn to opinions that Climate Change is wrong. In fact I think there is more chance that the science has got Global Warming wrong than that our species has sufficient cooperative abilities to conquer this danger if it is actually correct. Neither of those chances are very high, of course.

Flannery was passionate about the nanuk in his book. In this interview he says:

The best scientific data we have, the most up-to-date studies suggest it’ll be gone by 2040.

The actual trajectory we see in the Arctic over the last two years, if you follow that, that implies that the Arctic icecap will be gone in the next five to 15 years.

And this is an icecap that’s been around for 3 million years. And those predictions tell you a little bit about the conservatives of the IPCC, how rapidly the science is moving and how rapidly events in the real world are moving, far in advance I think of even the most sombre warnings by scientists working in this area.

The IPCC acknowledge these recent developments but are only willing to say that it might be ice-free in the summer towards the end of the century.

Common sense tells you though that it doesn’t look good.

Greta, I’d often wondered where the polar bears were during the last interglcial and came to the conclusion that they must have evolved since then.

There were double https in Greta’s link.

Best thing to do with this comment plugin is just paste the link in with no syntax.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/commonground/story/0,,1547227,00.html