The environment – Page 147 – a sibilant intake of breath

Young ice

This image from NASA is very compelling. It contrasts the average makeup of the Arctic icesheet between 1985 and 2000 with the situation this year, in terms of how old each section of ice is. Whereas the 1985 to 2000 average included a large are of ice six years or older, the entire region of multi-year ice (two years or older) is about the same size today. Between 1985 and 2000, most of the ice area was more than two years old. Now, most of it has only frozen since this past summer.

Given how cold this winter was – largely due to La Nina – this summer may be especially instructive. If we see an ice minimum similar to last year’s aberrant plummet, we will need to start worrying a great deal about the short-term viability of the icecap.

Monbiot on British carbon capture plans

Of all the comprehensive plans I have seen to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from developed states, the one in George Monbiot’s Heat is the most ambitious. Whereas most people aim at stabilizing atmospheric GHG concentrations by 2100 or so, he thinks it must happen before 2030 is we are to avoid a mean temperature increase of more than 2°C and the very serious (potentially catastrophic) consequences such an increase would have. Part of Monbiot’s plan does involve continued use of fossil fuels, specifically the use of natural gas coupled with carbon capture and storage (CCS) for electricity generation.

While Monbiot stands behind the belief that CCS can work and can contribute to climate change mitigation efforts, he is increasingly critical of how the British government is planning to use the technology:

In principle, carbon capture and storage (CCS) could reduce emissions from power stations by 80% to 90%. While the whole process has not yet been demonstrated, the individual steps are all deployed commercially today: it looks feasible. The government has launched a competition for companies to build the first demonstration plant, which should be burying CO2 by 2014.

Unfortunately, despite Hutton’s repeated assurances, this has nothing to do with Kingsnorth or the other new coal plants he wants to approve. If Kingsnorth goes ahead, it will be operating by 2012, two years before the CCS experiment has even begun. The government says that the demonstration project will take “at least 15 years” to assess. It will take many more years for the technology to be retro-fitted to existing power stations, by which time it’s all over. On this schedule, carbon capture and storage, if it is deployed at all, will come too late to prevent runaway climate change.

He also suggests that using CO2 from power plants for enhanced oil recovery risks actually increasing emissions. On the one hand, that is because it will allow extra oil to be extracted from declining fields, which will subsequently emit CO2 when burned. On the other, he touches upon concerns that CCS using depleted oil and gas fields will not be safe or permanent enough to effectively and indefinitely sequester carbon.

As with nuclear power, the issue of timelines is critical. Even good technology, when installed at a plodding rate, could propel us into very serious danger. Even if it does prove possible to start slow and late and still make the transition to a low-carbon economy, it seems highly likely that the total costs of adjustment will be much higher: a crash-building program akin to the one undertaken by Russia after Germany turned against it during WWII, rather than an economically optimal trajectory towards a low-carbon global economy.

Cooperation tipping points?

All regular readers of this blog will be familiar with the idea that there are physical tipping points in the climate system: places where one additional unit of warming produces much more harm to people and natural ecosystems than the previous units did. Politically, it is worth considering the possibility that another kind of tipping point exists, namely one beyond which the willingness of various actors to cooperate on climate change alters dramatically on the basis of some critical increment of climate change effects.

It’s possible that the effect could be one of rallying – the world suddenly realizing the seriousness of the issue and thus taking immediate action. States previously obsessed with exactly who should pay how much and exactly what timeline should be followed might just buckle down and do what needs to be done. A fair number of people seem to think that only a pretty substantial disaster will make the threat of climate change sufficiently concrete for enough people for the hard work of stabilization to begin.

The other possibility (mentioned here) is that the world will pass from hesitation and avoidance of the issue directly into conflict, accusation, and counter-productive action. Severe climatic impacts could drive states and individuals to focus on their own short term internal and external security, rather than making serious efforts to address the root of the problem. This is a classical prisoner’s dilemma scenario and, unless it flips to a state of desperate cooperation once things got really bad, it could push the world across the physical thresholds that are so worrisome.

In any case, it is as necessary to be aware of the existence of hidden feedbacks within public sentiment and government planning as within ecosystems or patterns in air and water currents. Of course, that just adds additional uncertainty to a very threatening brew.

More evidence from the cryosphere

A new study of 100 glaciers has shown that ice loss in 2006 was unprecedented. Between 1980 and 1999, average rates of loss were 30cm per year. In 2006, 1.5 metres were lost.

Overall, the data is not encouraging:

During 1980-1999, average loss rates had been 0.3 metres per year. Since the turn of the millennium, this rate had increased to about half a metre per year.

The record annual loss during these two decades – 0.7 metres in 1998 – has now been exceeded by three out of the past six year (2003, 2004 and 2006).

On average, one metre water equivalent corresponds to 1.1 metres in ice thickness. That suggests a further shrinking in 2006 of 1.5 actual metres and since 1980 a total reduction in thickness of ice of just over 11.5 metres or almost 38 feet.

Glaciers play a critical role in the fresh water cycle. They help to conserve winter snowfall, contributing to river flow in summer. They also affect patterns of downwind precipitation, especially past the Himalayas.

In his infamous address to the White House Press Corps, Stephen Colbert joked about how “your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.” If these trends persist, that might be an accurate prediction.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

In many ways, Lady Chatterley’s Lover reminds me of Anna Karenina. Each uses a relatively straightforward narrative as a means of conveying philosophical positions about the changing nature of the world – often through nakedly analytic passages. Chatterley seems largely concerned with the question of how to endure in an unnatural world: how to persist in humanity despite the challenges brought by capitalism, industry, and global interconnections. The major conclusion seems to be that the best one can hope to do is opt out, rejecting societal expectations and returning to some kind of natural intimacy with a fellow refugee.

At the heart of the book are contrasts between situations and personalities: between coal mines, the literary world, high society, and a simple pastoralism. Also, between Constance’s crippled husband and her intentionally unsophisticated lover; between Constance herself and her sister; between Constance and Mellors’ relationship and that between her husband Clifford and his nurse and confidant. By setting these things against each other, Lawrence gains both an opportunity to share insight and a platform from which to issue condemnation. Usually, the crime a person or situation stands accused of is being compromised in nature and inauthentic. Constance’s return to authenticity is thus a triumph, even if it does little to alter any of the societal forces that led her initially to a hollowed-out life.

The book also has a certain ecological concern, though more in the spirit of a lamentation for the passing of pastoral life than in the form of an argument for social reform and improved behaviours and conditions. The coal mines are condemned – and the kind of lives that the miners have built around them – but the situation is treated as one almost fated. Similarly on the issue of class separation, some negative aspects are identified, but the book never really rallies for reform. It is all about individual resurrection despite society, not any hope that society might change so as to better foster and accommodate authentic individuals. Connie chooses to withdraw from her place in society, though never considers sacrificing the automatic income that makes her an aristocrat to start with: an income as tied to the stratification and industrialization of society as Clifford’s coal wealth.

No short review can cover all the insightful flourishes that pepper the book, arising, as they do, from a slightly odd omniscient point of view that happily flits through characters both major and minor. The books is intriguing, convincing, and clearly written. To a greater degree than I would have expected, it also speaks directly to some of the major tensions in the modern world. Though a venerable classic of literature, it is in no sense dated.

Tomorrow Today report

A group of Canadian environmental NGOs has put out a 28 page list of suggested areas of action and recommendations for Canadian policy. Tomorrow Today (PDF) is divided into sections on energy, wild species and places, oceans, water, food and agriculture, human health, and economic signals. The report reflects the work and positions of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, David Suzuki Foundation, Ecojustice, Environmental Defence, Equiterre, Greenpeace Canada, Nature Canada, the Pembina Institute, Pollution Probe, Sierra Club Canada, and WWF Canada.

Some of the more interesting recommendations include:

Carbon prices of “$30/tonne CO2e in 2009 and increasing to $50/tonne by 2015, and to $75 a tonne by 2020,” with revenus from taxes or auctions to be “directed mainly towards investments in further actions to reduce GHG emissions.” (i.e. not revenue neutral like the new B.C. carbon tax)
Reduce total GHG emissions to 25% below 1990 levels by 2020, and 80% below by 2050.
“A Nuclear Accountability Plan that includes legislation requiring full-cost accounting of nuclear energy; fully shifts the liability and cost of insurance for nuclear power and long-term waste disposal facilities onto electricity rates; moves oversight of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission from Natural Resources Canada (where the department is in a conflict of interest overseeing sales and safety of reactors) to Environment Canada; and eliminates all direct and indirect taxpayer subsidies to nuclear energy.”
“In 2008, announce a federal initiative to reconnect children with nature by providing outdoor natural experiences for all children in grades 4 to 6.”
“Immediately prohibit bottom trawling and other harmful forms of fishing in sensitive areas, prohibit expansion of bottom trawling into previously untrawled areas, and restrict its use to areas that have already been heavily fished for decades.”
“By 2010, implement mandatory labelling policies that include comprehensive nutritional information, country of origin, fair-trade, organic standards and genetic modification content. And amend Canada’s Food Guide to provide information about the climate impacts of food choices.”
“By 2012, implement a comprehensive program to encourage organic agriculture, the production and consumption of locally produced foods, and to educate Canadians on the health advantages of low-meat diets.”
“Immediately implement the precautionary principle by regulating toxic chemicals in the federal Chemicals Management Plan. In particular, implement bans or phaseouts for all non-essential uses of substances known to be harmful where safe alternatives exist and maintain such restrictions until credible evidence is presented that the chemical can be safely used or released.”
Reducing existing subsidies for the mining and oil-and-gas industries and committing to a ban on any new subsidies or financial incentives for mining or oil-and-gas projects, such as for the Mackenzie Gas Project.

Clearly, some of the suggestions are more feasible and realistic than others. It is interesting to see what priorities and approaches NGOs agree on when they collaborate.

Given how slick the report overall is, the PDF is of rather poor quality. It has a bunch of layout calibration marks all over it, and selecting text doesn’t work properly because of large, irregularly shaped invisible elements.

Climate change ‘delayers’

There is a good post over at Grist on the proper nomenclature for what are generally called ‘climate skeptics’ or ‘climate deniers.’ It argues that calling them skeptics is inaccurate, since they don’t actually treat information with skepticism:

Skeptics can be convinced by the facts, but not the delayers [the author’s preferred term]. Skeptics (and real scientists) do not continue repeating arguments that have been discredited. Delayers do. Skeptics believe in science, in well-tested theories backed up by real-world observations, but delayers do not.

“Denier” is also problematic, both on its own and as a half-reference to Holocaust deniers. This is both because they don’t generally outright deny the existence of climate change and because their ‘denial’ concerns something ongoing, on which action must be taken, rather than something that has already passed.

The piece makes some good points about the state of the discussion:

By calling them “deniers” we are making the focus of our response the climate science; we are fighting on their turf, so they still win. In fact, the science has long since passed the realm in which the delayers try to debate it. The key question for humanity today is not whether human-caused global warming does or does not exist — it is not even whether human-caused global warming is a serious problem. It is already past a serious problem. The only serious question facing the human race now is whether we will act strongly enough and quickly enough to avert a catastrophe that is both beyond historical comparison and probably irreversible for centuries, if not millennia.

Despite the unambiguous nature of the science, that really doesn’t seem to be the understanding that is dominant within popular culture. It is not clear whether additional scientific evidence or reports would ever change that. As such, the kind of rhetorical arguments that this post is addressing have considerable importance.

In general, I see good reasons for using the term ‘delayer’ but, unless it catches on fairly widely, it will always be necessary to explain it. I plan to do so by linking back to this post.

Project BudBurst

Project BudBurst is an interesting initiative aiming to collect data on plant behaviour using scores of volunteers. The ‘citizen scientists’ are to record phenomena such as the “first bud burst, first leafing, first flower, and seed or fruit dispersal of a diversity of tree and flower species, including weeds and ornamentals.” All in all, the project is meant to provide useful data on climate change and the effect it is having on plant life.

To have much value, such a project would need to be maintained for many years. That’s the only way year-to-year random aberrations in weather can be isolated from genuine climatic trends. That said, it could be a valuable source of information on how plants are responding to changes in the global environment. Other studies have already shown that the ranges inhabited by plants and animals are shifting in response to changes in temperature and precipitation. What is most interesting is what happens when those gradual changes encounter an obstacle: when creatures moving upslope towards colder air find themselves at the top of the mountain, or when plants flowering earlier miss the time when the insects pollinating them are active.

At present, the project only covers the continental United States. It aims to track 30 native trees/shrubs, 24 native wildflowers, 3 common exotic weeds, 2 common exotic ornamentals, and all of the U.S.A. National Phenology Network calibration species. The Woodland Trust does similar work in the United Kingdom.

Another climate resource

For those of you hunched over your keyboards, despairing at the lack of reading material on climate change available online, here is a new resource:

The University of Buffalo Climate Change Resource Page

It is largely focused on the United States, but has at least a link or two relevant to virtually every climate change related issue or area.

Natural gas flaring

Gas flaring is probably the most wasteful use of hydrocarbon fuels on earth. Natural gas is often found in the same deposits as oil and, in many oil exporting states, the gas released during oil extraction is simply burned, rather than shipped off for use. In Iraq, enough gas is flared each year to double electrical output if used in turbines instead. Worldwide, oil and gas refining and processing produces about 6% of global emissions. In Canada, flaring produces 5.5 megatonnes of emissions annually. Flaring is also common in some West African states, where poor access to electricity is already hampering development.

This is the sort of area where international cooperation could make a big difference. It might not be worthwhile for firms in oil exporting states to install equipment for transporting and using natural gas, but doing so may be cheaper than reducing emissions from other kinds of firms elsewhere. Rather than shutting down production, a cement plant in Canada might pay the up-front costs of a natural gas capture and transport project in Russia. Rather than being burned uselessly, the gas could be used in place of dirtier forms of power: whether replacing dirty coal plants with efficient gas turbines or being used to fuel vehicles. The result would be less waste, and the more efficient use of an increasingly scarce non-renewable resource.