The recent University of Queensland survey of more than 300 federal, state and local government politicians found that:
more than 40 per cent of those questioned said they believed it would be safe for the planet to warm by 4 degrees Celsius, despite scientific warnings that a global temperature increase of 2 degrees or more could be dangerous.
Indeed:
Nearly 7 per cent of politicians believe a rise of up to 6 degrees would be safe.
At 6C we are in ‘the end of civilisation as we know it’ territory. At 4C we can look forward to a new world, but not, I’m afraid, a better one.
Mark Lynas’ 2007 book Six degrees gives us a thumbnail sketch. Lynas spent years reading peer-reviewed papers and grouping the forecast implications according to temperature rise. Each chapter describes the scenario. He uses ‘One degree’ for the changes up to 1C. So the chapter ‘Five degrees’ descibes a world with temperatures from 4 to 5C. This is how it begins:
With five degrees of global warming, an entirely new planet is coming into being – one largely unrecognisable from the Earth we know today. The remaining ice sheets are eventually eliminated from both poles. Rainforests have already burned up and disappeared. Rising sea levels have inundated coastal cities and are beginning to penetrate far inland into continental interiors. Humans are herded into shrinking zones of habitability by the twin crises of drought and flood. Inland areas see temperatures ten or more degrees higher than now.
This may seem more extreme than some descriptions, but I’d make the following comments. Firstly, though a non-scientist, Lynas’ book was favourably reviewed at RealClimate. Secondly, most scenarios limit themselves to effects that are likely to appear bye 2100. Sea level rise, for example. will take centuries or even millennia to stabilise in relation to a particular temperature. Lynas is looking to the longer term. Third, when you go significantly past 2C just about anything can happen. You are in the region where tipping points associated with methane release, the frying of the Amazon and other rainforests and the serious disintegration of the ice sheets are probable rather than possible.
On sea level rise I’ve used this image several times before:
The image comes from climate scientist David Archer and I think Stefan Rahmstorf. It was published in Climate Code Red. This graph shows what a distraction the IPCC projection is when considering sea level change in the long term.
Still, many current midpoint projections for 2100 come in around 1.1 to 1.2 metres, which is problematic enough in terms of flooding fertile river deltas, threatening major cities, penetration of saltwater into freshwater underground supplies, dramatically increased risk of storm surges, and so on.
Global warming will, of course, change precipitation patterns, soil moisture, runoff and evaporation rates. The following image comes from the IPCC Working Group 1 report, Figure 10.12:
That would be for a 3C world by 2100. Pity about the Murray-Darling.
It may be assumed by the 40% of our pollies with their heads firmly inserted where the sun doesn’t shine that temperature rise will be even. This image gives a rough idea of a 4C world:
I’ve just moved to a new computer and some of the bookmarks didn’t come across for some weird reason, so I can’t verify the source of the image. But generally speaking it looks about right. The oceans will be cooler than the planetary average and the polar regions considerably warmer. Not good for the ice sheets.
That’s enough from me. Here are a few links.
The Age recently carried a story that Climate Interactive’s Scoreboard has forecast an increase of 4C by 2100 while the Potsdam group were going for 3.5C. I haven’t watched the video, but I understand the forecasts were not based on BAU, rather on the mitigation commitments already made by the nations of the world.
Here’s a story from The Mail Online Doomsday: How 4C temperature rise this century will change world beyond recognition and threaten human survival.
Then last year there was an Oxford conference exactly on the topic of 4C and beyond. Plenty of material there for recalcitrant pollies to read at their leisure.
Here’s an article on the conference which quotes lead speaker H. J. Schellnhuber of the Potsdam Institute thus:
The first speaker, H. J. Schellnhuber of the Potsdam institute, laid out why the delay in controlling emissions could have an oversized impact by focusing on what’s needed to limit the total atmospheric content to 1750 GtCO2. If we were to start reducing emissions by 2010, we’d only have to drop them at a steady rate of two percent a year to stay within this limit. Waiting another decade would allow significant further accumulations, however, and require dropping emissions by 6 percent a year; leaving it to 2030 would require cuts of over 20 percent annually. (Emphasis added)
This highlights the folly and the cost of delay. He uses the following graph to illustrate his point:
Leaving peaking world emissions until 2020 means we have to go negative before 2050. And that’s to stay within the guard rail of 2C considered by many, including Schellnhuber I suspect, as too high for a safe climate.
My question is can we afford to elect these foolish and ignorant pollies, currently more than 40% of the crop?
Clearly we can’t, but assuming we do, what can we do about it?
And if Labor is elected, how can we give Gillard a cattle prod in the backside? The planet won’t wait.
Ha, ha, ha.
What a good thread start opener.
So a lot of pollies think its ok for runaway global warming to happen? Mainly country party or alternatively, nsw right types?
Ah well, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Why does Richo’s face keep appearing in my mind’s eye?
You see, paul, it’s all happened before. Ian Plimer said so, and indeed it did, but not for yonks and not since we possessed the earth through the Holocene period.
3. Brian it’s always been their ambit to turn the clock back, but forty millions years?
Imagine that tomorrow some new magic technology appeared allowing us to do most of the necessary things we do — generate power, produce concrete and steel, refrigerate, move people and goods, produce polymers, pesticides and fertilisers, store putrescible waste — without adding to atmospheric CO2. Our political leaders decide right away to act and CO2 accretion in the atmosphere stops tomorrow.
Even better, they decide to reafforest, and to build algae farms to resequester CO2 and bury it. As a result of this and the action of our intrepid coccolithophores and other marine phytoplankton, concentrations of CO2 start falling at 2PPM per annum. I think all of us would think this an absolutely fabulous outcome, and we’d be right. But would it fix the problem? Probably not. When a jet lands on the tarmac, it slows sharply, but unless it stops before the end of the runway, there’s a disaster. The pilot knows where the nend of the runway is, but we don’t know and can’t know where the tipping point for catastrophe is.
Assuming we haven’t passed the the point at which disastrous warming is inevitable (and we have no business assuming that — this is really a hope) we will continue to approach that point because until we get back to about 280ppmv we may assume that the world will continue to warm. That point would be reached in 2065 on this heroically optimistic (technically impossible) schedule. If the tipping point is before that, we lose. And we are entitled to assume that it will be well before that. That Arctic Permafrost will not accept 1.5degC of warming without delivering a massive payload of CH4, and unless we can prevent that, all our puny efforts will be wswept aside. If the more realistic of the optimistic scenarios are held, we will stabilise at 425PPMV by about 2030, and on that basis we have to hope the tipping point is after 2155 if that is to be adequate. If it is before that, we lose the West Antarctic and Greenland Ice masses, the Himalayan Glaciers and the world is a radically more hostile place for humans to live.
How long can we prevent Arctic warming of 1.5degC? Not long since this region is warming much faster than the rest of the planet. IMO, we need to look very seriously at co-extensive geoengineering if we are to buy ourselves the time to carry out the mitigation we can realistically hope to get done. It is simply impossible to believe the world’s governments will act with the speed necessary to forestall and irreversible series of roiling disasters.
Adding about 0.5% sulphur to jet fuel in craft flying at high altitude would give us something like the mid-century temperature plateau we had despite accreting CO2. If we could stabilise early and then reverse the concentrations over the course of a century to about 280 we could then phase out augmentation.
The point is that simply slowing grwoth in emissions is not enough Even stopping new CO2 emissions is not enough. We must stop warming, which is one step further.
I think the question most politicans are actually answering is “do you think anything dramatic will happen to the climate in the next couple of electoral cycles”, and answering accordingly.
I really don’t think we’ve got a culture where big questions can be meaningfully considered. Wanting to do that is seen as something that people grow out of, and thus a symptom of immaturity. Changing this is hard, and I think we are making progress. But at best I’m cautiously optimistic.
Dick Smith’s Population thing and the qanda afterwards was interesting in that regard. The question was “how many people should we have” but most respondents seemingly struggled even to understand that that was the question, instead seeing it only as “how many more people should we have” or “how fast should Australia grow”. My partner, interestingly enough, framed it entirely as an emotional issue and responded that we have an obligation to open our borders to anyone poor who wants to come here.
Thanks Brian.
As to what we can do about it, my view (like Fran’s) is clear. We are not going to mitigate emissions in time. Therefore, we have to be making contingency plans.
I am optimistic that we can avoid additional mass extinctions (of both the human and natural variety) but I suspect it will be much, much, much more costly – in terms of human and environmental costs – than it would be if we had had been acting appropriately for the last 20 years.
Moz
Your partner’s sentiment is admirable. Of course, the question is not one that admits a general answer. The best answer is a practical one — what is the best way to ensure that everyone gets what they are entitled to? and the related one — to what is everyone entitled?
Often, moving people to where resources already are or can be created easily is best, and sometimes it is better to move the resources to where the people are. An important variable is the quality of governance, as is the capacity and willingness of host communities to receive people and furnish them with what they need.
It seems to me that overall, it would be better if the world focused more on looking after the people we have and empowering women and children socially. This alone would curb population growth. Secondly of course, we want to ensure that older people are also kept healthy enough beyond 65 to participate actively in the workforce and in social life more generally. If we could manage these two thing, stabilising at 9 billion AND improving the living standards of the poorest 2-3 billion are realistic goals. Over the ensuing century, our successors could look at population drifting back to something more sustainable (say 5-6 billion) while continuing to improve relative equity.
Quite right Robert. Realistically, many of the things people are now willing to consider are things that should have been done in the 1950s. Energy efficiency, urban consolidation, better designed mass transit, etc. Even then, it was clear that fossil resources were finite. Even then, the consequences of the human footprint were obvious, without even considering CO2.
Mass literacy and empowerment of women and children, dealing with poverty were likewise essential in purely human terms. You didn’t need to think through the consequences of burgeoning population in the developing world to warrant it. You also didn’t need to think through the consequences of them duplicating the worst of the choices made by the first world in its industrial grwoth pattern either. But of course, the US was then fully engaged with protecting western civilisation as it saw it from the threat of “communism”. Its desire to play this odious game dragged it into Indochina and the Middle East with the disastrous consequences we saw.
We have basically wasted six decades in this. We are entitled to howl about the cognitive dissonance of the majority of those born in the early years of the 20th century whose stand condemned as reckless fools.
Of course, our generation knows even more than they did, and what have we done?
Incredibly, there are some people around here who deny any sort of evidence at all for any change whatsoever in climate or even in local weather variations; they hold to their beliefs with the zeal of religious fanatics. Problem is that their opinions and their money are quite influential.
Vote Green.
At some point they have to notice, and respond to, the massive bleed of votes to The Greens.
10#, a cattleprod is what it would take.
What I’m waiting for, is when labor and libs gang up on the Greens like they did in Tasmania in the nineties.
Fran, watching the doco+Q&A ended up taking about 5 hours. After a couple of false starts we managed to watch the whole doco before discussing it, but I ended up making a reading list (everything from basic philosophy to Flannery) and it’s going to take a fair bit of discussion before we are both happy. Unfortunately that willingness to discuss and research puts my partner way ahead of the political pack.
I think it would be really useful to include mass education and empowerment in as climate change mitigation strategies, but also quite problematic. Just because “we” educate and empower “them” doesn’t mean they’ll agree with us or act as we wish afterwards. There’s considerable danger that a democratic China, for instance, would embrace consumerism and the citizens would demand their right to pollute as much as everyone else has before starting to reduce. The ecofascist side of me leans strongly toward a new world order with global law for all.
Perhaps some of the education needs to cover the stagnation of the decades after the 60′s, where happiness and quality of life remained virtually unchanged despite a great increase in consumption. The suggestion that we could reverse that needs to be put quite forcefully IMO.
Paul Walter @11. Yeah, me too. Maybe cynicism comes with experience. Neither will I forget or forgive the way the support lent by the Frorestry division of the Tasmanian branch of the CFMEU for Howard even going so far as to have a state secretary appear on a platform with him. This was in opposition to an offer from Beazley of literally gazillions to retire old growth logging. The significance of this is that the unions and the Labor right cannot be trusted, even at the expense of selling out their own party of tradition, to not act on a basis of short term self interest. Watch out for further alliances between unions and big dirt over coal.
Moz said:
Not at all. It fits well within MDG and the broader sweep of NGO work.
They are human beings. Women will discover that being empowered is better than being an article of trade of one’s father and brothers. They will discover that being pregnant all the time is not compulsory or desirable. They will discover that quality transport, housing, health and education are possible and that accountable government and the rule of law is worth having.
There’s no progress without risks, but the forces constraining this in China are considerable. Even if coal were unlimited — and it isn’t — they are short of water in much of the country and this imposes its own constraint on the development of thermal coal plants.
I think you attribute too much of the responsibility for this to the masses. When people are socially disempowered, finding indentity, meaning and escape in what we have come to call “consumerism” is a plausible response — not an optimal response, but one that is the path of least resistance. If one can do nothing about the wotrld, then building your own slice of heaven in one tiny portion of it has appeal. Yet it is important to recognise in this the expression of people who when pressed, understand that this is the bargain they have struck with people whose power and privileges are apparentyly decisive to look the other way as these latter decide how they’d like to divide up the lion’s share of the spoils of human labour.
That’s why equity and inclusion lies at the heart of empowerment.
- Can we afford to elect these foolish and ignorant pollies? Not if they want to spend our money and not the polluters.
– What can we do about it? I went to Walk Against Warming… reasonable turn-out, but I think there’s a lot of fatigue. Education and awareness are still great: Australia Academy of Science has done a good thing releasing a simple PDF this month. Greens BOP hopefully. Gotta wait to July 2011 though… more waiting, perhaps more protest.
– how can we give Gillard a cattle prod in the backside? Very tough. Oakes tried to embarrass here on the citizens assembly… didn’t work. Reminding (possibly new) local members about NOAA data and costs of extreme weather is good. I also gave Swanny a serve.
The tagline for the new Wall Street movie is “Money Never Sleeps”… and that’s what people who want action have to do: persistence.
Sorry reference to NOAA data from previous post.
What really counts is the amount emitted in the next forty years rather than the rate of emissions for any particular year in this time span. In this context it is worth noting that dropping emissions by 10% right now will reduce the 40 yr emissions by 10% while doing the same in 20 yrs time will only reduce the 40 yr emissions by 5%.
We have spent far too much time in the last 3 yrs arguing about the rate of emissions in 10 or 40 yrs time and talking about grand schemes such as the CPRS that were only going to bite one or two elections in the future.
What we need to do after the election is to focus on the tangible, quantifiable action that will be taken in this term of parliament instead of more procrastination.
Brian,
I only see one minor problem. The science accurately relating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to temperature increase (and as a result potential sea level rise) isn’t really concrete or settled yet. There still seems to be a fixation in relation to carbon dioxide and controlling carbon dioxide will control climate.
Natual variability and the impacts of ALL the human influences on global temperatures have not been accuratley quantified.
I’m in agreement that the human race cannot continue to consume resources and generate waste as it does today, however our economic system is based on growth and obsolescence. This is the driver of “our problems” until we address this our impact on the planet can only increase.
A tax on carbon or a carbon trading scheme isn’t the solution, and it isn’t going to control the climate.
Oh!! I forgot to say, we can’t afford to elect foolish and ignorant politicians.
The problem we have, is that pollies are not neccessarily educated in their portfolios subject. Hence we do elect politicians that are ignorant in many aspects of the knowledge that should be compulsory for their positions. It is the political system we have and it is not good . Would you allow an elected mechanic to work on your car ( and he has never used a spanner or had any training)
Just posted on ABC – Report aims to combat climate ‘misinformation’
“The statement makes the point that no scientific conclusion can ever be absolutely certain.
But Professor Lambeck does not think that leaves the conclusions open to sceptics and critics.
“The underpinning parts – the fact that CO2 is increasing, the fact that CO2 increases results in global temperature rises, the fact the CO2 has a long residence time in the atmosphere – these are facts that are extremely unlikely will ever be overturned by new information,” he said.”
Kuke @20: On your ABC link Professor Lambeck says that
To my mind the most important thing is that people have been convinced that the cost and disruption of climate action will be unacceptable. This may me true if we go back down the CPRS route but it is not true that we cannot achieve substantial gains without unacceptable costs. For example, our per capita consumption of electricity is about 10,000kWh/yr (includes power used for producing exports etc.)- Which means a one cent/kWh price rise will cost each of us a massive $100/yr! (27 cents/day!!!!)
WE need to look hard at how we can achieve low cost reductions in emissions and relate this to the cost per person instead of leaving it to scare campaigns.
Have already posted this link & quote over the political thuggery climate change thread, but it’s worth highlighting here as well:
Related news: Report aims to combat climate ‘misinformation’
I’m planning an event in Australian high schools and primary schools where students and teachers and p&c members vote on whether they want effective action on climate change (p&c motion, staff meeting, roll-call) and the students would organise themselves into a big letter across the school oval. with many many schools you could form sentences, and with many schools whole electorates could be covered and their willingness accounted for. this is for any of the weeke 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 in Term 4. Anyone want to lobby their school for it? Other campaigns are in the planning too.
school oval if there was more than 75% agreement in all the classes. hence, consensus.