Comments on: The Parallel Universes of Climate Change. Where do you live?

By: Simon Gunson

Simon Gunson — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 21:44:57 +0000

Klem you are right about this being a creepy blog. It’s hysterical pseudo science as well. In 2007, I became curious about claims that flying was the great carbon emission evil. I took a typical domestic flight in my country New Zealand over 260 nautical miles and calculated the carbon which this flight would emit, then compared it with what if every passenger paired with another to hire a car. The same journey by that many people would have emitted 23 times more carbon, or 43 times more carbon if they each drove a car. For a train journey over the same distance the carbon emission was 15 times greater than by jet. Trains are only efficient hauling bulk freight, not passengers. The net result of forcing everyone to stop flying would result in a forty fold increase in emissions. These high priests of psuedo science seem incapable of applying common sense or reason.

The answer is not emotional over reaction. I for one do not accept that carbon emission is causal to climate change, but even if that were so, Market forces already are pushing society to use hybrids and alternate energy sources.

Even Al Gore himself said you only have to reduce emissions by 7%. Grounding the world’s airlines destroys commerce and it is commerce which is driving the uptake of new technologies. If the cure is going to kill the patient then count me out.

By: ab.to

ab.to — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:47:04 +0000

Corporate entities not only control our economy but are given the legal status of a person, but when their irresponsibility is seriously challenged the entity can declare itself invisible. Here’s a Churchillian call to action that I’ve held onto:
Eyeweekly, Toronto, June 8, 2006 Editorial
“Our finest hour. The PM wants to back out of Kyoto — we suggest a different approach”
My fellow Canadians:
I address you tonight to confront a grave danger to our civilization. I have asked the leaders of the opposition parties to join me, for the crisis we face is beyond politics, beyond ideology.
It is global warming.
There can be no mistake about the severity of the threat: already, the polar ice caps are melting at an exponentially increasing rate; the number of severe hurricanes has doubled in recent decades; glaciers are disappearing before our very eyes; droughts and forest fires are spreading; animal species are vanishing — I am determined that humanity not be among them.
The enemy we face in global warming presents a danger unrivalled by the darkest depths of human tyranny, almost unimaginable in scale. If we do not act, our grandchildren will burn; their children will drown. The great cities of the world will be submerged in the oceans or swallowed by the earth. Our civilization will be crushed. The price of inaction is certain death.
But, my fellow citizens, there is hope. We have not chosen this fight, but fight we must, and fight we will. I say to every Canadian, and to everyone who does business in Canada: your nation and your planet call you to serve. Victory in this battle will require the toil and tears and sweat of every woman, every man, every child in the country. Every agency of the government, every large corporation and small business, every church and school and social club must devote itself to the fight.
This will require sacrifice. Some will see their prosperity threatened as we move dramatically to sever our dependence on oil. There is no honour without sacrifice: those who have grown rich in the service of our enemy must now join in our defence against it. We can tolerate no treasonous disloyalty in the name of greed. We say to all captains of industry: you are either with us or you are against us.
And we will need to marshal the resources of our brightest minds in the service of our mission. For a time, attention must be diverted from other necessary projects as we embark on an entire rebuilding of our infrastructure. Massive investment will be required, and also massive effort.
Even the common householder — even the smallest child — has a role to play. A vital role. We must examine every detail of our lives in battling this emerging evil. No action is so small that it does not help, no level of neglect so small that it does not contribute to our defeat.
Nothing in our national history will have been more difficult or more expensive. And yet nothing has been more necessary.

By: mitchell porter

mitchell porter — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:49:11 +0000

Within a few years the debate is not going to be “do something, or do nothing?”. It is going to be “emissions reduction, or geoengineering?”. It is possible to have both. But it is reasonable to ask whether emissions reduction alone is in any way at all enough (especially if you’re a 350-ist); and once you consider geoengineering, it is reasonable to ask whether anything else matters.

To be informed on the topic of geoengineering, the very first step is to differentiate, as Britain’s Royal Society did in its recent report, between “carbon dioxide removal” and “solar radiation management”. Carbon dioxide removal is the real solution, it’s the endgame. It’s what trees do, it’s what rocks do (but too slowly), it removes the real problem – the excess CO2. “Solar radiation management” refers to everything else, and even the best options here, like cooling aerosols in the stratosphere, are just temporary offsets that do nothing about ocean acidification.

I am fairly certain that if the human race decided to drain the excess CO2 from the atmosphere at high speed, we could do it, any time we chose to do so. The quantities are vast; the amount of excess CO2 that’s up there now, in solid form, adds up to something like a small continental mountain range. But there are also huge holes in the Earth, the places where we dug up all this stuff to begin with. If we can’t find any more efficient and economical way to do it, we can put it back where it came from, in neutralized form. (I am particularly thinking of ‘mineral carbonation’, whereby CO2 is induced to interact with minerals and form solid carbonate compounds.)

To be honest, I think this will all be over by 2030 anyway, because we are going to have advanced nanotechnology by then. And that is going to make the situation completely different. Draining CO2 from the atmosphere will be cheap and easy, but that will also be the least of our troubles. But even if you don’t posit the near-future existence of advanced molecular technologies (even though we are palpably heading in that direction), it is clear that we can start building large CO2-draining and -sequestering infrastructures any time we choose, on any scale we choose. And this ought to be part of the thinking of people who are trying to see the paths open to us.

By: Asher Miller

Asher Miller — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:05:30 +0000

Thanks Paul. It’s a useful analogy, though the reality was of course far more complicated. First, things did not start on September 1, 1939 with the invasion of Poland. Western Europe tried to appease the Nazis years before in order to avoid war–which only emboldened them–while the Soviets and Germans made a secret pact to split up Eastern Europe.

Churchill didn’t need to order any economic studies when Poland was invaded because Great Britain had already begun its military build up months before. And sure, the ability of the US to turn over its manufacturing on a dime to the war effort in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor is an amazing thing to consider. But Roosevelt was planning and laying the ground work for war long before.

I’d love to believe that Obama and other world leaders have been planning behind the scenes, but when the government opts to give away trillions of dollars to the financial sector and bail out the auto industry rather than put that money to use in building a green jobs workforce, I don’t see that as a sign of anyone “getting it,” at all.

2009 may be like 1939. But the US didn’t get formally get involved until the end of 1941. And it wasn’t until we were attacked that Roosevelt had the political cover to directly engage. In the interim, Congress had passed laws forbidding the government from “taking sides” by providing any financial aid to the Allies. And that’s what we have with ACES–an attempt at appeasement, this time for entrenched corporate interests, for which we will be sorely judged by future generations.

This challenge is far bigger than WWII, both logistically and politically. By the time people feel “attacked” by global warming, it’ll be too late to avoid it. Unlike the auto plants of the US in 1941 and 1942, the atmosphere cannot turn on a dime no matter what we do.

Asher

By: dk.au

dk.au — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:49:07 +0000

“We are still stuck in ‘no regrets’ policy. Lets do the fun stuff, the visible stuff and maybe the stuff that will create some jobs – but dont touch the hard stuff.”

That’s a great summary of the policy zeitgeist, Richard.

By: Louise

Louise — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:21:59 +0000

The denial and excuses must end!

It is so frustrating being an citizen of a world full of people who, as you point out in your great war effort analogy, can do anything if they just put their minds to it. People, as individuals or collectively, have achieved incredible things in every sphere: travel to the outer reaches of the solar system; the irradication of countless diseases; art, architecture and music crossing all cultural and linguistic barriers to inspire and approach something divine.

What is going to jolt us into getting together and saving our own mother, earth?

Is it true that we have the technology now to save her, and it is only mutual procastination preventing us from actually doing it?

I do my little bit to minimise my carbon footprint, but I know it is a drop in the ocean when I hear that a new coal-fired power station goes online in China every week.

HELP!!!!

By: The Parallel Universes of Climate Change. Where do you live? – Paul Gilding | Serendipity

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:44:26 +0000

[...] This post by Paul Gilding sums up my experience very well: Some days my head hurts, as I shift between what feels like two parallel universes in the climate change debate. First I have these conversations with world-class scientists who calmly lay out the scientific view of the various risks posed by climate change and their relative scale and likelihoods. They tell me the science says it is almost certain the impacts will be serious and destabilising for our society and our economy. The science also describes a lower level of risk – which they find hard to quantify but generally say between 10% and 50% – that the impacts of climate change will be catastrophic, perhaps even civilisation threatening. This could include widespread famine, war and economic collapse. Not certain, but a reasonable possibility. [...]

By: “The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.” | Climate Vine

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:28:13 +0000

[...] executive director of Greenpeace International, has another piece I’m reposting, “The Parallel Universes of Climate Change. Where do you live?” You may remember Gilding from Tom Friedman’s Ponzi scheme column (see [...]

By: Tom Bennion

Tom Bennion — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:31:38 +0000

Paul

Great post. Its turned up in blogs in NZ.

I am an environment lawyer with 2 kids, third on the way. I argue about environmental risk every day and the bizarre dual reality is evident.

“You are talking to your children (add 20 years to their current age) and explaining what it was like in 2009 – what the scientific consensus was and how you personally responded, then and there, when the reality became clear. What did you do in 2009 and why?”

I have asked myself exactly the same question.

My answer: http://www.stopflying.org

Its the right level of cut in personal emissions, painless financially, painless morally (easier than deciding whether or not to use the car for deliveirng kids to school), and you have to explain yourself to friends and colleagues.

Tom Bennion

By: disdaniel

disdaniel — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 19:22:48 +0000

As I read your thoughtful post, I started to wonder what the proverbial frog (or in this case “a corporation of frogs”) thinks as it is being boiled alive. For clearly that is what we face.