On a cold January Saturday in London, 140-odd people turned out tonight for a public meeting. The subject: climate change, and specifically Friends of the Earth's The Big Ask. What struck me was the number of people who said, during the question time and afterwards: "I've going just got involved in this." "I just realised this is really important."
There were people fitting the usual stereotypes of environmental campaigners in the audience, but there were plenty who didn't, among whom I'd include myself. It was only on January 1 that I joined the Green Party, and I'll be heading out tomorrow for my third Sunday of canvassing for it for local government elections coming up in May.
What FoE is asking for is legislation committing the British government to step-by-step, year-by-year reductions in carbon emissions, up to the target of a 60 per cent reduction by 2050. This move apparently has the backing of a majority of MPs, but that in no way, of course, guarantees that it will become law. It has to be their priority, and almost certainly, the government has to be forced to support it.
And at present, the UK is heading in the wrong direction, with emissions rising, and this matters because while the long-term target is needed - and has been calculated on a worldwide basis that should produce only a two-degree rise in worldwide temperatures. This will be hugely damaging but hopefully not totally destructive. However, that is a calculation based on a gradual fall in emissions. A sudden fall - say in the last decade - will result in an overshoot, because - I was told tonight - every molecule of carbon dioxide emitted today will go on heating the world for a century.
Two MPs were present last night - both from the Labour Left and central London, Frank Dobson and Emily Thornberry. Both did the usual political things, shying away from criticising the government and mouthing slogans, although the latter's "the biggest challenge for our generation is to ensure that is not our generation that kills the planet" certainly got to the heart of the manner.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - David M. Brown
A good corrective to ill-founded global-warming scare-mongering (like the unsubstantiated claim that "your great-grandchildren will still be suffering from today's carbon emissions") is Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media by Patrick J. Michaels, which I review at the linked page. Red Sky at Morning, one of the books advertised, is pure bunk, by the way. I haven't looked at High Tide but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it is of the same class. Examine any of the catastrophic scenarios proposed by the Greenpeace types with the following questions in mind: what's demonstrated fact, and what's unproven assumption piled on top of unproven assumption on top of unproven assumption, extended into infinity? Anybody can play at that game.
2 - lumpy
I wasn't aware that England was still plagued by unfiltered coal plants and high emission vehicles. I had heard that they were the closest nation in Europe to meeting the Kyoto standards on schedule. Given that the US has reduced auto emissions to almost nothing in 20 years I'm surprised England hasn't done as much.
3 - Natalie Bennett
England is on track to meet Kyoto standards, but has set tougher standards for itself, which it isn't meeting. And as the article outlines, the final endpoint is not what matters (although it is important) - the calculations are based on a steady reduction.
And David, there was a good comparison made last night with the science on smoking. There are still a few extreme scientists who claim it doesn't cause significant ill-health - you can always find a few contrarians on any subject. But on global warming, as on smoking, the vast body of respectable scientific opinion - including government officials, respected professors etc - is in agreement. Global warming caused by greenhouse gases is simply a fact.
4 - Eric Berlin
Great piece and report on an important topic, Natalie. It amazes me that the United States could not see its way to passing Kyoto.
5 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Nice job, Natalie. You've done what your conscience told you to do. You joined a minority party.
Not that long ago, an Israeli I know managed to figure out how to make substitute diesel fuel from vegetable oil and cut emissions 95to 97%. AND SAVE MONEY.
it's not the best solution - but if it leaves cleaner air in this polluted country, it would be great! Ten percent of the population suffers from asthma here.
Gee, I wonder why?
6 - Eric Berlin
Interesting, Ruvy! Energy is going to be very near the top of issues the world will grapple with this century. There's so much opportunity (political, economic, not to mention environmental!) along with the challenges in finding an alternative to oil particularly!
7 - Luke
Natalie, the question is, is global warming a bad thing? We can probably all agree that cancer is bad for a person, but is a warmer climate bad for the planet?
8 - Dave Nalle
Great piece and report on an important topic, Natalie. It amazes me that the United States could not see its way to passing Kyoto.
It amazes me that anyone in America could believe that signing Kyoto - which as a giant social engineering plan rather than an ecological treaty - is a good idea.
Dave
9 - Natalie Bennett
Interesting question - why is global warming bad? Well first, as you no doubt learnt in high school science, putting more energy (heat) into a system makes it more unstable. Hence a heated climate will be a more unstable climate - more floods, more hurricanes, even more hideous cold snaps, as Russia is experiencing at the moment. And many millions of humans are highly vulnerable to such extreme events.
Secondly, all of our crops, and wild plants and animals, are adapted to our current conditions. (And the nature of modern societies - land ownership, national borders etc - means that you can't just shift production, or indeed wildlife refuges - around easily.) Certainly in the past species have adapted to changing climatic conditions - but changes have been far slower than this one is going to be, and even then often many species have been lost.
10 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
It might be helpful to take a look at what is going on in China. There is more than one way to skin a cat. The solution suggested in the article, an artificial sun, was somethig I read about in the science fiction novel "Heat."
Evidently the Chinese are only a couple of months away from achieving their goal. While there may be "many a slip from cup to lip" a direction is being set, and we ought to be paying close attention.
11 - Natalie Bennett
And No 3 in the reasons why gobal warming is bad is, of course, the rising ocean levels. Goodbye Bangladesh, goodbye most major world cities (which tend to be on coasts) - hello massive changes in ocean circulations, and hence further huge upset to the climate.
12 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Gosh, I'm glad I live in the mountains of Judea.
13 - Natalie Bennett
But how many people will fit on them?
14 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Well, I live in the biggest city in Israel, with about 700,000 people or more. I live on a horseshoe hill and people build buildings of 6 storeys or so...
If you add all the people living in Israel you have about 9,500,000 all tolled. A third of them live near the coast. Erase the coast for as few kilometers and you still would have about 6.2 million or so.
15 - troll
into hot fusion - ? here's DOE's plan as of 2004
will it save the coast and reverse the ongoing pattern of extreme weather - ?
...it's 'a day late and a dollar short'
troll
16 - Victor Plenty
Rapid global warming is bad for humans. The planet will adapt to changing conditions. Some species of plants and animals will prosper, while others decline. But rapid changes on this scale will not be easy for human communities to handle.
17 - Dave Nalle
Victor, humans are about the most adaptable creatures on earth. With global warming we're talking about a worldwide change of just a few degrees and localized changes in weather patterns which are no worse than moving from one part of the US to another. People will find ways to cope.
Plus, if there is a warming phase it's not going to last too damned long since the mini ice-age is going to hit within the next decade anyway.
Dave
18 - Mark Saleski
are about the most adaptable creatures on earth
yes, unfortunately, all of the other creatures that we kill off are not.
19 - Natalie Bennett
Dave, you have a remarkable arrogance about the capabilities of the human race. As Katrina showed - among many other examples - the power of nature far outstrips anything we can assemble.
I couldn't find broad figures, but this site, with figures for 1997 broadly confirm my recollection that total world grain reserves are usually around 20 per cent of ONE YEAR'S consumption. One really disasterous year will easily wipe that out. But what if it is a disastrous decade?
20 - Eric Berlin
Dave, your last bit is one of the more ludicrous prognostications you've made. How the hell can you know what the impact of global warming will be? Can people who live in coastal cities "adapt" to living under 100 feet of water?
21 - Dave Nalle
Eric, your suggestion that global warming would lead to coastal cities being under 100 feet of water is pretty ridiculous in its own right. And one of the main methods of adapting for humans is to MOVE. Something which people seem weirdly averse to recently. They won't move out of flood plains, they won't move the get a better job. It's like they've lost their will to live or at least to prosper.
Natalie, Katrina happened suddenly and those impacted were too poor and ignorant to prepare or respond properly under the conditions. With global warming people should just gradually realize that other places might be more enjoyable to live in.
As for the grain reserves, I don't see them as a major problem. The US is currently using only a tiny fraction of its arable land to produce enough food to feed the population and export overseas. Modern agriculture has resulted in increase crop yields of phenomenal proportions and huge amounts of land being allowed to go back to a wild state. Northern states which were one covered with farmland are now covered with forests instead, to the extent that we have more forested land than we did in the US 100 years ago. The same climate change which reduces Texas from 3 growing seasons to 1 would give midwestern farmers 3 seasons instead of 2 and Canadian farmers 2 seasons instead of 1.
No matter what happens with global warming, the earth still remains a ball, and the truth remains that in the northern hemisphere there is far more land located far north of the equator than there is closer to the equator - the globe is topheavy - so warming will result in more arable land, not less overall. Take a look at Canada and Siberia sometime.
This of course assumes that the result of global warming will be actual warming, which evidence is increasingly showing is likely not to be the case except in the very short term. The projected mini-iceage is likely to have a much harsher impact on agriculture, but it should do less damage to coastal cities, which is a good thing.
Dave
22 - Mark Saleski
why are you folks arguing. dave knows all.
all of those 'scientists'? full of shit. all of 'em.
except for the ones who think along 'conservative' lines.
i'd love to know what's 'conservative' about not caring about things like the disappearence of the glaciers...and the melting of the permafrost. (ya, people ARE moving...because their houses are sinking)
23 - Natalie Bennett
Dave, I know you very concerned with economics. Can you imagine the economic effect of putting underwater all of the world's most expensive real estate, all of those shipping and port facilities, all of the factories on low ground, etc etc? And of making all of those warm places people are moving to now too hot to live in?
It might have been simple for hunter-gatherers or subsistence farmers to move uphill if the sea level rose, so us it is ever so slightly more difficult.
24 - Martyn
I think whether humans will cope with rapid change has been covered - and I guess it is probably the case that some will at the expense of others.
But at a recent academic forum I saw modelled maps of the "climate envelope" for all sorts of species of animal and plants - showing the area in which the weather was appropriate for particular species both now and in the future using the IPCC predictions of how the climate will change.
What was striking is how far many animals and plants will have to move to hit an area with an appropriate climate - sometimes right across continents. It really is hard to see how this can happen even for animals, never mind plants or trees which can only "travel" as fast as their seeds spread. This could be a major mass extinction as well.
25 - Natalie Bennett
And indeed for humans, the effects of even moderate change will be catastrophic. I just found this collection of statistics. An example:
"A one-meter rise in sea level inundates 3 million hectares in Bangladesh, displacing between 15 to 20 million people. ...
South American cities would suffer some of the worst economic effects. A one-meter rise in sea level would displace 600,000 people in Guyana â€" 80 percent of the population and cost US $4 billion, or 1,000 percent of its tiny GNP."