The pause

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Jan 252010
 

Things have been quiet since Copenhagen and as is increasingly common there is a marked shortage of good news, forcing me to look carefully to avoid becoming terminally depressing.

The official NASA temperature results for 2009 are out, and we should at least hope to see the dissentients shut up about their “Its Cooling” rubbish. The Decade just completed is the hottest on record, while 2009 itself tied for the second hottest year ever with total warming since 1880 being about 0.8 degrees centigrade. The average temperature for the Southern Hemisphere in 2009 was the hottest ever as the graph below shows. All this during a solar minimum when the sun is delivering less radiation than normal. Given that the El Nino is continuing it seems likely that 2010 will be the hottest on record.

Its too early to say if the marked absence of any political activity is due to the normal festive season headaches, or to the Hopenfaden blues. However there is little movement in the USA which is trying to get some legislation through Congress in the next few months. Even worse the republican victory in the democrat heartland deprives the democrats of their theoretical filibuster proof senate majority, though they haven’t made great use of it so far. Inertia seems to be the order of the day.

Geoffrey Lean has an interesting take on China’s behaviour in Copenhagen where, amongst others, they allegedly refused to allow Europe to insert their own goals into the final accord. He suggests this is because they wish to hold back clean-tech development in the west while they become the dominant force in the area. Certainly China is making very significant moves internally while talking tough externally. A climate change arms race would finally be some good news, though the west isn’t trying at all hard yet.

A new report has confirmed what has become obvious; that carbon offsets are a rort and a gross waste of money. Unfortunately the proposed US climate legislation allows is heavily dependant on these and is even laxer than the European version. Basically you get to feel good and someone else gets to make money and the climate isn’t much affected.

Grist has a continuing series on the Washington DC schools program to replace prepacked meals with “fresh cooked” food. I found the first few articles (1, 2, 3, 4) quite horrifying, especially the first. If we are not careful the ubiquitous commercial interests will have perverted the entire language. The first meal described consists of pre-cooked “beef crumbles” (dull, greyish-brown items with ingredients shown as “beef, vegetable protein, caramel color” plus chemical flavourings and preservatives) with curly egg noodles heated up in a steamer. Then add canned tomato sauce (“tomato paste, dextrose/and or high fructose corn syrup, potato or corn starch”), spice it up with a little garlic powder, and some pre-shredded cheese. The scheme, as so much today, appears to be focussed on speed and ease of preparation by staff with minimal training, continuing our obsession with efficiency at the expense of quality. A quote from one of the customers: “I don’t like most of the food because it doesn’t taste good”.

Most of the rest of my news is just too depressing to report, including the book I have just finished. “What We Leave Behind” by Derrick Jensen and Derrick Jensen (Author)

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Aric McBay. They argue that there is no conceivable way that our industrial society can be made really sustainable (again a word which is being commercialised beyond all recognition) and that the only ethical option is to try and bring it down. While reading this is was struck by an advert for a seven seater Kia which I think claimed to be designed to save the planet. Heavy shit man as they used to say.

We have met the enemy and he is us

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Jan 042010
 

A few bits and pieces to start the year.

New Scientist included this article in their Christmas edition suggesting that our infatuation with “stuff” is deeply ingrained in humans and tied up with our mating habits (though it must be noted that NS does look for “lighter content” at Xmas and the studies did look a tad superficial. Regardless this may be part of what makes conspicuous consumption so prevalent. Amusingly when I went looking for the source of the quotation “We have met the enemy and he is us” I found that the original poster although 40 years old (Pogo by Walt Kelly) was incredibly appropriate.

Quite separately a recent study indicates that petrol fumes increase aggression in rats, allowing for the perfect excuse for road rage (“the petrol made me do it your honour”), and yet another health benefit of going green.

Post Copenhagen, the New Yorker Magazine has an article on China’s green initiatives, which states ” If China’s emissions keep climbing as they have for the past thirty years, the country will emit more of those gases in the next thirty years than the United States has in its entire history” Of course Chinese emissions intensity is already falling, though absolute emissions are still rising fast. Basically we have the biggest historical emitter and the likely biggest future emitter pointing fingers at the other, while the rest of us sweat (literally) on the outcome. The fact that their two economies are so bound together makes an optimistic outcome even less likely.

The long delayed debate between George Monbiot and Ian Plimer was shown on the ABC on Lateline and can be seen here. You may recall George agreed on condition Ian answer a set of written questions prior to the debate. The questions were sent but no answers were forthcoming from Ian. The “debate” is somewhat similar with George (and Tony Jones) repeatedly and forcefully asking questions that Ian never quite answered despite a fair amount of spluttering and hand waving. Worth watching or reading if you are interested in or impressed by the book.

James Hansen has published The Temperature of Science as a statement on the current condition of climate science. Brief (7 pages) and highly recommended.

John Kerry was asked why he has invested so much effort in fighting global warming. His answer: “I’m fighting so hard because this is literally about survival of the planet and life on the planet. People shouldn’t take this lightly. When scientists tell us that if the earth’s temperature warms more than two degrees C, it will be catastrophic, you better listen to them. And every bit of evidence that they have predicted would happen has happened. So you’ve got to take this seriously. I do. I think as a public official, if Dick Cheney can say we should go to war on a one percent chance that a terrorist might attack you, then when you have a near 100 percent chance that you’re going to have disastrous consequences from climate, we ought to go to the moral equivalent of war and do something about it. And that’s why I’m in this: I think its about life and about saving lives. It’s about preventing the spread of disease. It’s about preventing the destruction of natural resources. It’s about providing jobs to people. It’s about better health. It’s about America’s energy independence. You can run down a long list of things that are at stake here. I don’t think the stakes get much bigger than that”. I need to point out that the planet and life in general will survive; it’s just our sort of life that is at risk.

Finally if you have a spare hour this video by Richard Alley is an excellent lecture on carbon dioxide in Earth’s climate history. He is the author of “The Two Mile Time Machine” which is also well worth reading.

Wishing you all the best for 2010.

We must keep the global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha