Look
behind you!
It's
climate change we need to worry about, not economic growth
and
al-Qaeda
It
almost seems fitting.
The
country that uses the most oil, that has produced the greatest
amount
of CO2 emissions for decades and that has consistently denied
the
evidence of climate change, has received the slap it required.
With
tens of deaths, a crushed infrastructure and billions of
dollars
worth of damage, Hurricane Sandy was the wake up call America
needed. More than that, it was an event to which we should all
pay heed. It
is time to stop wasting money on fake wars and start spending
it to
protect us from a much graver threat.
In
October 2012, I attended the General Assembly of The Club of
Rome, in
Bucharest. There, we were presented with the latest evidence
on the
effects of climate change, and they were scary. Predictions
made
just five years ago have already proved wildly wrong. In 2007,
scientists said that they thought the Arctic would be ice free
by the
end of this century. At the current rate of melting however,
it will
now be ice free in the summer of 2015. It will be ice free all
year
by 2030.
This
is not the main worry, however, as this is floating ice. When
it
melts it does not raise sea-levels. The real worry is the
Greenland
Ice Shelf, which is also melting at an unprecedented rate. If
this
disappears too, the effects will be catastrophic. Sea levels
around
the world will rise between six and seven metres, wiping out
cities
like New York, London and Shanghai. The addition of so much
cold
fresh water into the seas would also change ocean currents and
weather patterns in ways we can barely imagine. At the same
time,
rising temperatures in the northern hemisphere now risk
melting much
of the Siberian permafrost, which will release vast clouds of
trapped
methane, accelerating the speed of climate change even more.
This
risks starting a chain reaction, which we could do nothing to
stop.
The
effects of what we are doing to the planet are all around us.
From
the storms and floods this year, to the record droughts. Since
1980,
the number of natural catastrophes has risen from an average
of 400 a
year to nearly 1,000 now, according to Munich Re. Ironically,
North
America has already been more affected by “extreme weather”
than
anywhere else.
We
need to make urgent changes to the way we live if we want to
avoid a
crisis. The changes now anticipated will not just affect our
children and grandchildren. They will affect us all.
When
predictions were made a few years ago, scientists said it
would all
be more or less okay if we limited the rise in average global
temperatures to 2ºC. Yet we will miss that target now. Because
we
have not actually done anything to halt the damage we are
doing, the
amount of gas being released into the atmosphere has continued
to
grow. Without change, we are now heading for a 4ºC rise, which
will
take the Earth's average temperature back to levels last seen
40
million years ago. This will cause the Antarctic to melt too,
with
sea levels rising 60-70 metres. The droughts and floods we
would
experience along the way would make the planet virtually
uninhabitable.
While
these changes have been happening, while they have been denied
and
ignored, we have been fighting two senseless wars instead. The
first
has been the fight for growth. Governments around the world
have
spent trillions trying to prop up their economies, to keep
them
growing and keep people spending. In the process, they have
kept us
digging up ever more of the world's raw materials and
consuming even
more stuff we don't need, making the changes to the climate
even
worse.
The
second senseless war has been the War on Terror. According to
a
study by Brown University last year, the cost to America in
the first
ten years after 9/11 was a staggering $4trn. Trillions more
have
been spent in Europe and elsewhere. During all this time,
there have
been just 251 terrorism-related deaths in the developed world
and
none in the US. Over the same time, tens of thousands have
been
killed by climate change. According to Munich Re, 30,000
people have
been killed in North America alone, between 1980 and 2011
because of
weather related incidents.
For
more than a decade we have been chasing the wrong demon. The
biggest
threat to our existence is not the lack of economic growth,
nor
al-Qaeda. It is the Earth itself. Unless we learn to treat it
with
respect and start responding to the signals it is sending us,
it will
consume us all.
Graeme
Maxton is a Fellow of the International Centre of the Club of
Rome
"This will cause the Antarctic to melt too, with sea levels rising 60-70 metres."
ReplyDeletei'm not sure what to think of that scenario. it sounds rather extreme, and mainstream climate science would probably say its not that likely to happen. however, i'm beginning to think they have been ridiculously conservative considering the unfolding situation in the arctic.
maybe its time for all scientists to get political, and just call for an immediate end to growth. and its certainly time for the people high up in power that are responsible for pushing growth to be listed and made aware they will be held directly responsible for any commons damage caused, and that they will receive the severest punishment for it. at the moment, we have the ridiculous situation of there not being any personal risk in promoting these unscientific political ideas. but we need to start holding people accountable for what they promote.
The problem's not growth per se, but consumption of non-replenishing resources in a damaging and unsustainable fashion.
ReplyDeleteWe could very easily move to negative 'growth' and still destroy the planet.
That the 'growth' meme should die is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition.
Phil,
Deletewhy should "growth" meme die, if its coded in our DNA???
Alex
"We could very easily move to negative 'growth' and still destroy the planet."
DeleteThis looks to me like the default position that would occur if we failed to gather the collective will to overcome the US policy of awaiting the climatic destabilization of its Chinese rival for global economic dominance.
In this sense, the passion for ending economic growth can be added to that of population control, anti-capitalism, veganism, solar power, etc, that each claims to be the prerequisite change that will resolve the climate threat, but which are actually distractions from the paramount task of advancing a commensurate global climate treaty.
Only a treaty can agree and enforce a global carbon budget, and only a treaty can mandate the crucial governance of the requisite geoengineering.
Regards,
Lewis
but a global climate treaty runs counter to the globally unquestioned economic growth paradigm. so unless that idea is put in the dock by science, thus forcing the public to be aware of its nonsense thus making the mention of growth become a vote loser, a treaty is a non starter, as history has shown. governments won't even think about climate change now as its in their interests to ignore it. they are ONLY concerned with popular opinion and keeping their corporate paymasters happy, and as things get worse they will get even more desperate. to these idiots, climate change only exists as another fringe topic to get a few crumbs of attention in the good times. as economists, business people and loony lefties at best, they simply lack the capacity to see the bigger picture from outside a short term human centered perspective.
ReplyDeleteScientific reticence is partly to blame.
ReplyDeleteBut you're assumptions "Hurricane Sandy was the wake up call America needed" will be proven false.
Americans are woefully under-informed and undereducated regarding climate science and the latest developments. Several studies have shown that Big Oil is behind almost all of this "dumbing down". Money always controls the so-called "debate". Greed rules in people's minds and corporate boardrooms.
It will take far, far more then Hurricane Sandy to waken the people to clamor for climate action, or support a treaty. Climate is considered low-priority, intangible "benefits", even if this actually translates to the survival of the human race. People and especially politicians simply cannot make the connection or justify the so-called cost.
There really is no doubt about what we are going "to do". Just look around, the evidence is everywhere. The answer is very obvious and very simple: Nothing.
It's also very obvious that "stopping climate change" is impossible already. Positive feedback and decades-long lag times are already in effect. We are only currently experiencing the effects of 1970's era emissions. What does this mean when the effects of the 80's and 90's and the millennium are finally experienced?
Gigantic methane releases are now a documented fact. Methane hydrates are destabilizing in the Northern Hemisphere. This will greatly contribute to runaway warming.
It took less the 2% additional heat to melt the Arctic to where it is today, yet the energy absorption is far higher then that.
An ice-free Arctic is now virtually guaranteed -- and so is the loss of Greenland ice except for a small lingering amount (maybe). Antarctica is losing ice, including entire sections the size of small countries. These events cannot be "stopped" by any human endeavors, certainly not by treaties or even geo-engineering now.
What you fear the most will most certainly happen.
Most scientist are VERY reticent about all of this, but if you look carefully, you can indeed find the evidence that this will all definitely occur.
Humanity does not have the time that it wrongly assumes to adapt (forget "stop"). Mitigation remains "too expensive", so they'd rather just "deal with the problem" when it arrives (somebody else's future). Cognitive dissonance helps, but it all means what you think it means -- humanity has really screwed itself over.
What is needed will NEVER be considered. Desperation will increase in direct proportion to effects and events. Failure however, is really all that awaits as the climate continues to destabilize. Eventually and new equilibrium will occur, but not for hundreds if not thousands of years. By then most life forms on the planet will be dead.
This sounds very doomerish, but it's actually all based upon scientific facts and evidence. Wet-bulb temperatures will make many regions inhospitable to any life.
So "discussions about what we can do" are woefully incorrect on the many assumptions being made. We are indeed chasing the wrong demons - asking the wrong questions - attempting to address the wrong issues. Our plight is severe, more serious then anyone can imagine. What we could be doing, what we SHOULD be doing isn't even being discussed. ~Survival Acres~
although i agree climate change will probably lead to the 6th mass extinction, and therefore the extinction of humans and most larger mammals and birds, i don't buy 'the end of all life on earth' scenario. i dont think that is very likely going by past extinction events which failed to wipe out even a phylum let alone all life.
ReplyDeletehowever big 'our' event becomes, it would certainly pale into insignificance to the last one, the KT event asteroid impact 65 million years ago. not only a continent sized fireball and blast that killed everything in one hemisphere, it caused a global tidal wave several hundred or thousand meters high that swept over the entire earth several times over, and plunged the earth into darkness for several hundred years, making plant growth for anything more than dim light loving ferns almost impossible. that event has been calculated to have released more energy instantly than all the worlds hydrogen bomb arsenal put together. but several hundred times over (or thousand - i cant remember the exact figure, but it was a truly astronomical event). but even that was far less than was required to wipe out 'all life', or even a fraction of it. in fact apart from a few large animals at the top of the food chain, it was a mere blip in the story of life on earth. the next few million years saw life rebounding with a different set of animals, and having much the same diversity as before. i dont want to sound like a climate change denier, but we mustn't forget the negative feedbacks that will occur as higher temps are reached; those that bring temperatures down and prevent it spiraling up forever. higher global temps will mean relatively more heat will escape into space, and higher temps will increase the chemical process in erosion that sequesters carbon. these feedbacks will slow warming eventually at levels that most groups of plants and animals can survive at, even if only in pockets. they will then sweep back to colonize any dead areas as climate normalizes. in geological time scale, i would expect life to quickly spring back to its former abundance with new animals evolving to replaces ones that become extinct.
The article's justification for combating climate change by comparing it to terrorism is just silly. Why not compare it to hunger? Far more people have died because of hunger than terrorism, but I suppose that is climate change's fault. Now what they (Club of Rome) are saying is that climate change is the cop out answer/solution - and that is just even more silly.
ReplyDelete