Fragilecologies

Tag: Climate Change

  • Climate Change and Energy Development

    Climate Change and Energy Development

    – We Live in Two Different Worlds

    If the climate scientists’ projections about the dangerous impacts of the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases are valid and if the energy community’s optimistic projections about future fossil fuel production are correct, the climate change and energy development worlds are on a collision course. As a proverb goes, “if you stay on the path you are on, you will get to where you are going.” To avoid this otherwise inevitable collision, we need to get on a new path.

    For the past several years I have been straddling two different worlds, that of the climate community and the world of oil and natural gas. The former world is the one I have worked in as a researcher for about 40 years. Focusing on climate, water and weather variability and extremes and on climate change. With regard to the world of the oil and gas, I have been just an observer listening to energy projections out to 2050, for exploration, production and consumption of oil and gas.

    For climate issues I focused on concerns about how societies might cope with yearly variability and extreme event as well as with foreseeable consequences of a 1 or 2 degrees C warming in the 21st century. I witnessed debates between climate change believers and climate change skeptics (I now believe human activities are the culprit for steadily increasing heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere).

    In the other world — that of the oil and natural gas community— it is not at all apparent that there is a high level of concern about fossil fuel-related greenhouse gas emissions. In a corporate way, this is understandable. Oil and gas corporations are expected to find, extract, refine and bring to the global marketplace oil and gas supplies. They do it well. In fact, time is on their side; constantly emerging new locations and technologies and improved efficiency and conservation techniques for oil and natural gas extraction seem to have put peak oil worries on the proverbial backburner.

    The climate community warns about the dangerous influence of increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere. The UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) states this fear in the following way:

    The ultimate objective of the Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) is to achieve “… stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

    Most likely there are temperature thresholds in the climate system that, if crossed, will wreak havoc on the climate system and on societies as we have come to know them. However, scientists do not yet know precisely where those thresholds of adverse changes are, despite scientific and media speculation. In theory and in practice precaution should rule the day, but in this case it does not. The following link to a NASA website highlights observations of the climate warming trajectory that our planet has been on between 1880 and 2011.

    Please go to this link: http://www.globalissues.org/video/798/global-temperature-anomaly

    The climate community has proposed that policymakers consider planetary “geo-engineering schemes.” Such schemes attempt to tamper with the planet’s climate regime by, for example, mimicking volcanic eruptions, dumping iron particles in the ocean, putting millions of mirrors in space, planting more trees, and design mechanical trees to capture carbon and sequestering carbon beneath the Earth’s surface.

    Meanwhile, members of civil societies worldwide have become involved in projects to reduce the carbon content of the atmosphere: better light bulbs, recycle, hybrid cars and buses. They are increasingly demanding green, if not low carbon, societies and a greater dependence on wind, solar and water energy.

    As for oil and gas, the amount of recoverable oil and gas worldwide even with today’s technology is mind-boggling. And new discoveries and techniques (such as horizontal drilling for fracking operations) seem to be occurring each new year. So, if there is a fossil fuel resource still in the ground I believe it will be extracted when the price and the demand deems it opportune to do so. Perhaps a good representation of the rapid exploitation of fossil fuel resources is a brief video of the expansion of exploration and extraction of fossil fuels from the Bakken formation in north central US (the states of North Dakota and Montana) and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Some have suggested that the gas reserves there are double those to be found in Saudia Arabia.

    exponential exploitation of fossil fuels extraction as a result of new technologies (e.g., horizontal fracking)

    These are the two worlds: one filled with dire predictions about the consequences if increasing dependence on fossil fuel burning to achieve growth and development goals; the other filled with joy at every new oil or natural gas find somewhere, anywhere, on the globe. Neither of these worlds has direct influence on the other.

    I now believe that these two worlds will collide in this century, and more sooner than later. I believe all of the proposals to provide “sunshade to the planet” in attempts to modify the human enhancement of the naturally occurring greenhouse effect or to sequester carbon or to green the economies (these are not the same as low carbon economies) are like band-aids to deal with a gaping wound. At best these are short-term technological fixes for processes that, if left unaddressed, will likely challenge the existence of humanity itself.

    Written 42 years ago, climate scientists concluded in a 1971 MIT Conference “Report of the Study of Man’s Impact on Climate (SMIC),

    We recognize a real problem that a global temperature increase produced by man’s injection of heat and CO2… may lead to dramatic reduction even elimination of Arctic sea ice.” This exercise [convening of a conference in inadvertent climate modification] would be fruitless if we did not believe that society would be rational when faced with a set of decisions that could govern the future habitability of our planet.

    Neither climate scientists nor today’s (or even tomorrow’s) policymakers will resolve the global warming dilemma. Governments are in the fossil fuel business. They rely on cheap energy at least for foreseeable future in the absence of other bountiful sources of cheap energy. Yet governments also fund the climate research that produces the scary scenarios and warnings about continued global dependence on fossil fuel consumption.

    It is time to unleash engineering ingenuity, whether in a formal lab or in a home-based workshop. In fact, engineers gave us all the technologies we depend on today. Maybe the unbridled engineering thinking will devise ways to “suck” carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases directly out of the atmosphere in great amounts and dispose of it. Within the engineering community lies a key to reducing fossil fuel emissions. The engineering community needs to move quickly to center stage on the climate change issue.

    It is time to create an International Engineering Panel for Climate Change (IEPCC). Maybe it is a blind faith in technology that causes me to believe that engineers will save us from two worlds colliding. As key governments waste precious time talking past each other on what to do to avert dangerous changes to the climate system, all they are doing is giving false hope that catastrophes will either not occur at all or at the least they will not occur during their term in office. Engineering minds got us into this fix. Let’s call on them to get us out of it. I think they can do it, given the challenge and incentives to do so.

  • Global Warming: Stakeholders can’t see the forest for the trees.

    Each tree represent an organization or perspective about the climate change issue. Without looking at the big picture — climate change as a global phenomenon — one’s views are distorted by what is going on only in one’s surroundings. This is an obvious play on the adage that “one can not see the big picture because they are thinking locally,” that is, that one cannot see the forest because the trees are in the way!

    I tried to see why it has been so difficult to get the US political leaders to take action to cope with the causes of climate change, primarily the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) and less so tropical deforestation.

    Maybe you can come up with a different graphic about this situation? To download a PDF enlargement of the this forest image just click on the photo above.

  • True Believers and Naysayers – Durban, S. Africa

    True Believers and Naysayers – Durban, S. Africa

    Views on climate change negotiations converge at COP17

    – Durban, South Africa

    The views of those setting up the COP 17 event in South Africa, many negotiators and skeptics’ seem to have converged. Generally speaking, no one believes that anything of value will take place at the conference as a step toward an agreement to restrict let along roll back carbon dioxide emissions in the near term. Their views converge for different reasons.

    Strange Bedfellows?
    The naysayers (a category that includes legitimate skeptics as well as deniers) revel in the release of the second set of emails by unknown hackers in advance of the COP 17 round of Kyoto Protocol-related negotiations. They lobby that unnamed evil forces have rigged climate change science in order to make money by shifting societal dependence on fossil fuels to renewable energy sources (they called the climate change issue a hoax).

    For their part negotiators have been disheartened ever since the crash of hopes and expectations in Copenhagen at COP 15 in December 2010. Since the summer of 2011 (maybe even earlier), following the COP 16 non-plus meeting in Cancun, Mexico, expectations were lowered to such a level that anything at all appearing as some sort of political consensus might be viewed as success of sorts. Those in charge of overseeing the negotiation process lowered expectations of success. In other words negotiators as well as onlookers were told to expect less from the COP process and, sadly, it is easier for governments to meet lowered expectations than to match elevated ones. So, yea-sayers and naysayers now agree that the UNFCCC Conference of Parties process is one of window-dressing with nothing of substance in the window. This gives proof to the saying, “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

    Glantz modification of Davies J-curve <www.fragilecologies.com>

    Apparently this is the first of recent COPs in which no American congressperson has attended: too busy they say; too far says others; not a major conference says still others. The naysayers’ side point to the hacked emails of “climategate” (it should have been called ‘email-gate’) to claim victory. And the governments leading the push for control on greenhouse gas emissions now point to the financial crisis that plagues them: sorry, no funds can be spared now (to spare the Planet’s inhabitants of foreseeable dire global warming consequences).

    The truth of the matter is that the major polluting governments are really reluctant to deal with the heart of the matter, economies fueled by and dependent on fossil fuel availability and use. There was no will to attack climate change before the financial crisis when money was available and it is likely that after the financial crisis has been resolved some years down the road they will still find other reasons to continue “business as usual” with regard to fossil fuel consumption.

    Killing the hope for and the prospects of success at least in the near to mid term from the climate change negotiating process has been achieved. Governments are still not taking seriously the need to avert foreseeable adversities that are associated with global warming. While the current set of political leaders might not be alive to see the adversities, their younger yet-to-be-chosen successors will. By then we will likely be in a climate-related disaster bubble from which there would be little chance of escape.

  • US Congress and Climate Change

    US Congress and Climate Change

    – Proof Positive That American Education is Falling Behind

    Lately I’ve been wondering about how some US Congresspeople (senators and representatives) can still flatly deny the possibility that human activities are emitting gases that can heat up the temperature of the atmosphere. So many scientists around the globe have researched the global climate system as well as ecosystems worldwide and have come to a consensus that human activities are heating up the atmosphere. Yet, a few key senators and some likeminded congresspeople continue to block efforts at the local as well as federal level to deal with the global warming reality (note the emphasis is on global not national). The US is a major contributor of carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, though China has recently surpassed the US in this regard.

    True, there is still a lot to learn about the interplay of climate, society and the environment. In scientific research there is always some degree of uncertainty. Nevertheless, evidence of worrisome changes in climate and in the impacts of those changes on ecosystems, if not yet on society, has been mounting especially in recent times. At first (from 1898 to the mid-1950s) a warming of the atmosphere was viewed as a good thing, because it would hold back the Ice Age that was likely awaiting its onset. But after 1956, the warming began to take on the image of a bad thing.

    The rest of the world scratches their collective heads over the lack of political interest in joining other nations to accept, let alone combat, global warming. Civil societies in distant lands, especially their youth truly concerned about global warming, watch the media in disbelief about a U.S. Congress that seems to be science-illiterate (examples are many. Here are two: attempts to reduce the involvement of the US Environmental Protection Agency in setting limits for greenhouse gas emissions or the attempt to strip NOAA of much of its early warning capabilities).

    People in America want to believe that America is a world leader today, as it had been in much of the 20th century. The reality is that it is not. According to the Alliance for Excellent Education (USA, 2008),

    “The United States ranks 21st of 30 OECD countries in scientific literacy, and the U.S. score of 489 fell below the OECD average of 500 (OECD 2007b). One quarter (24.4 percent) of U.S. fifteen-year-olds do not reach the baseline level of science achievement. This is the level at which students begin to demonstrate the science competencies that will enable them to use science and technology in life situations (OECD 2007b).”

    And America’s poor performance is not restricted to science alone. The Alliance also noted,

    “But as globalization has progressed, American educational progress has stagnated. Today, the United States’ high school graduation rate ranks near the bottom among developed nations belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). And on virtually every international assessment of academic proficiency, American secondary school students’ performance varies from mediocre to poor. Given that human capital is a prerequisite for success in the global economy, U.S. economic competitiveness is unsustainable with poorly prepared students feeding into the workforce.”

    To me many of our congresspeople are proof positive of that American decline in scientific understanding and reasoning. I sometimes wonder if they believe that the Earth is flat! They are also proof positive that the US Congress must increase its support to education at the k to 12-grade level, instead of being hell-bent to cutting that support.

    How then can we — The People — bring sense to a senator like Sensenbrenner or hope back to a senator like Inhofe? Through improved education a smarter, wiser public will lead to a smarter, wiser Congress (both Houses of Congress) and a better appreciation of the importance of educating Americans from “K to Grey.” Get Smart, Congress. Put aside your petty political ambitions and strengthen K to 12 education NOW. Don’t destroy American education in order to save it. that is a failed strategy.

  • Geo-engineering the Earth’s Atmosphere: Is Seward’s Icebox Becoming America’s Oven? Mickey Glantz. January 5, 2011

    Geo-engineering the Earth’s Atmosphere: Is Seward’s Icebox Becoming America’s Oven?
    Mickey Glantz
    January 5, 2011
    It’s the End of the World as We Know It
    This is a story in three parts.

    1) In 1867, the US bought Alaska from the Russian Empire for $7.2 million in gold. Here’s a photo of the original check used to pay for it.
    At the time, opponents of the purchase labeled it Seward’s Folly. William Seward was then the US Secretary of State, and he negotiated the sale. The land that he purchased (now Alaska) was then a territory completely unexplored by any but its native populations. It was perceived by the American public as being little more than a cold, snow-covered tundra, inhospitable to any possible future human settlement. Hence, Seward’s Folly. (more…)

  • “Nobody Wanted Global Warming. But Nobody Wanted World War I Either” Mickey Glantz. January 1, 2011

    “Nobody Wanted Global Warming. But Nobody Wanted World War I Either” Mickey Glantz. January 1, 2011

    “Nobody Wanted Global Warming. But Nobody Wanted World War I Either”
    Mickey Glantz and Gregory Pierce (CSU). January 1, 2011. HAPPY NEW YEAR.

    Forty years ago, R.K. White wrote a book entitled “Nobody Wanted War” about the perceptions and the misperceptions that led to the war in Vietnam and other wars in history. Especially interesting is White’s discussion of the interrelationships and egocentricities across the empires of Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century that led to World War I, the so-called ‘war to end all wars’.
    (more…)

  • “Twenty Somethings” of the World Unite (Prepared at COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico). Mickey Glantz. 8 December 2010

    “Twenty Somethings” of the World Unite (Prepared at COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico). Mickey Glantz. 8 December 2010

    “Twenty Somethings” of the World Unite (Prepared at COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico)

    Mickey Glantz
    8 December 2010

    This is a quick note (that is, I wrote it as if I were speaking to someone) that was first sent to the group of students who participated in the First International Graduate Conference on Climate Change and People” held 15-19 November in Kathmandu, Nepal. I have been learning a lot (see, old people can still learn!) being at the COP16 side event, though I was not there as an active negotiator. Negotiations that have occurred in the first week may end up having little to do with what will happen in the second week (now in progress) when the Ministers’ level gets involved in negotiations. They are likely less familiar with the details and nuances of climate change science and its impacts that the negotiators have been dealing with and they are more political I believe than most of their national negotiators. (more…)

  • GUEST EDITORIAL: “Spain’s Climate Challenge: A brief reality check.” Lino Naranjo, Meteo Galicia. August 9, 2010

    For many people in the World, Spain brings to mind a sunny warm country with beaches along the Mediterranean Coast, with excellent food, friendly people and “Fiestas” with brave bulls. They might also think of Pamplona and the “running of the bulls” on narrow streets filled with young people. It is like talking about a piece of the tropics in the heart of Old Europe. However, the real Spain is much more than that. In fact it is vastly different from and broader than this touristic view.

    If we travel across the country from, South to North and from West to East, we come to realize that Spain is like a kaleidoscope with different cultures, peoples, languages, and especially different landscapes and very different climates. From the Mediterranean, passing across the arid, hot land of its South, to the cold and rainy regions of its North, Spain could be considered a paradigm of diversity, far from stereotypes built up over the decades. However, there is one thing where no difference exists among regions; that is, a varying but high vulnerability to the consequences of long-term climate change (a.k.a. global warming).

    One of the main pillars of the Spanish economy is its climate; in fact, climate-dependent activities like tourism, the wine industry, commercial livestock, are worldwide signatures of Spain. Climate in the Iberian Peninsula is becoming warmer and drier. Change rates are different among regions but warming trends are roughly the same. Regarding temperatures, The National Agency for Meteorology (AEMET) and others regional meteorological institutions such as Meteo Galicia in the Northwest have been identifying warming trends of between 0.4 to 0.8 ºC since the 1970s. That is about four times the long-term trend for the last 150 years. Precipitation seems to be a trend toward drier conditions in the past decades, mainly in the South and East, although in the North no significant change has been detected. Climatic projections from a standard GEI emission scenario indicate that these trends should continue in the next several decades.

    In addition, there is an increasing worry that weather extremes appear to becoming more frequent; severe drought in the South, heavy winds and storms in the North, heat waves in the summer and snowstorms in the winter are becoming usual headlines in the newspapers.

    All these changes, regardless of whether they are part of a long-term climate change or simply a multi-decade fluctuation of climate’s natural variability, present a strong challenge now and in the future of governance to the various levels of government in Spain, and more broadly on the Iberian Peninsula.

    Aside from the impacts of climate variability, extremes and change, Spain is also undergoing a long- lasting economic crisis along with stormy societal conflicts that compromise its own surveillance as a Nation. Therefore, consequences of the additional stress generated from a changing climate could be devastating, regardless of the regions, landscapes, cultural differences or languages, or people into this kaleidoscope called Spain.

  • Another point of light has gone out today: Steve Schneider passed away today

    I just got word that Stephen Schneider of Stanford University and former colleague at NCAR and forever a friend passed away returning from Sweden. Steve has been a relentless crusader and messenger to the world about the importance of climate-society interactions. Some years ago I wrote an editorial about the passing of another point of light, Roger Revelle. Sadly, and before his time, I find my self needing to write a similar comment about Steve at this moment. It’s a sad day for family, friends and science.

  • GUEST Editorial by Edward Carr. July 9, 2010. “Apparently, we have learned nothing . . .”

    GUEST Editorial by Edward Carr (University of South Carolina) July 9, 2010

    “Apparently, we have learned nothing . . .”

    www.edwardrcarr.com/opentheechochamber/

    I am part of Working Group II of the 5th Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). As some of you might know, Working Group II of the previous Assessment Report (AR4) was the one that caught a lot of flak for problematic conclusions and references regarding Himalayan Glacier melt and whatnot. On one hand, these were stupid errors that should have been corrected in the review process (which will be part of my job in AR5).  On the other, they really did not affect the overall conclusions or quality of the report – they just gave those who continue to have an issue with the idea of climate change an opening to attack the report.

    Part of the problem for the IPCC is a perceived lack of openness – that something is going on behind closed doors that cannot be trusted.  This, in the end, was at the heart of the “climategate” circus – a recent report has exonerated all of the scientists implicated, but some people still believe that there is something sinister going on.

    There is an easy solution to this – complete openness.  I’ve worked on global assessments before, and the science is sound.  I’ve been quite critical of the way in which one of the reports was framed (download “Applying DPSIR to Sustainable Development” here), but the science is solid and the conclusions are more refined than ever.  Showing people how this process works, and what we do exactly, would go a long way toward getting everyone on the same page with regard to global environmental change, and how we might best address it.

    So I was dismayed this morning to receive a letter, quite formally titled “Letter No.7004-10/IPCC/AR5 from Dr Pachauri, Chaiman of the IPCC”, that might set such transparency back.  While the majority of the letter is a very nice congratulations on being selected as part of the IPCC, the third paragraph is completely misguided:

    “I would also like to emphasize that enhanced media interest in the work of the IPCC would probably subject you to queries about your work and the IPCC. My sincere advice would be that you keep a distance from the media and should any questions be asked about the Working Group with which you are associated, please direct such media questions to the Co-chairs of your Working Group and for any questions regarding the IPCC to the secretariat of the IPCC.”

    This “bunker mentality” will do nothing for the public image of the IPCC.  The members of my working group are among the finest minds in the world.  We are capable of speaking to the press about what we do without the help of minders or gatekeepers. I hope my colleagues feel the same way, and the IPCC sees the light . . .