No new climate deal in sight

Oh, so the US thinks there will be no new climate deal until 2020. Methinks that's a little late.

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20111122-714059.html

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--A week before international climate negotiations are scheduled to start, the U.S. has signaled it does not expect the world's economic powers to reach a legally binding agreement to cut greenhouse-gas emissions until 2020.

An ongoing stalemate between China, which has resisted agreeing to legally binding emissions cuts, and the U.S., which has said it only will agree to binding emission cuts if China does, is widely expected to continue at climate talks sponsored by the United Nations that are scheduled to start Monday in Durban, South Africa

 Nero fiddles while Rome burns. There is something seriously wrong with this scenario. By 2020 it will be too damned late! That's nine years away! Last year was the worst year ever for CO2 adding to the atmosphere. And we will get worse. How many heatwaves and droughts and needless deaths will there be in nine years? Nine years is a long time, even by geological standards.

We're screwed.

That's why they call me the Voice of Doom.

More bad news for Climate Change

There's more bad news coming on the climate front. Better get used to it.

Record-breaking temperatures, stronger winds and heavy precipitation in the form of rain and snow are becoming more frequent events in the 21st century due to climate change that evidence indicates is being caused by human activity, says a new assessment released Friday by governments from around the world.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Report+sounds+stark+climate+warning/5736485/story.html#ixzz1eCsrJ9yZ

 The problem for most of us is that "more frequent" has to do with probability and we humans are pretty poor at understanding probability. Not every heat wave, not every heavy precipitation event, not every drought is linked to climate change. They have always occurred and always will occur. So the nay sayers have plenty of fodder.

But the reality is that they will occur more often. And they will be more severe. Just ask Rick Perry, after the terrible drought that socked Texas last summer.

And there's more.

Energy-related carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2010 were the highest in history, according to the latest estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA) .

We haven't even begun to address the fact that carbon is continuing to be added to the atmosphere. I remember when commentators were saying the 90's were going to be the "turnaround decade." Twenty years later we haven't even begun.

Here's the way I see it. The US is still the leading global economy. Barak Obama is in deep trouble in terms of his re-election chances in a year. Will President Mitt Romney be much better? (You heard it here first!) I doubt it. As much as Obama is trying to move an agenda that makes sense against a backdrop of opposition. Romney will be trying to get his own people on board, which will be difficult, judging from the fact that there is so much opposition to the facts of climate change on the right.

So at least five more years will pass before we have another chance to address the US carbon issue. Perhaps by that time China's economy will eclipse the American economy. If the Chinese leaders perceive a threat from climate change, watch out! They will make changes in their economy faster than you can say "Gung hay fat choy!" That's one of the advantages of a fascist government.

Meanwhile in our democracies, we have to convince everyone to get on board. The truth that no politician will get elected on is that we need to consume less. We need to voluntarily become poorer in order to survive. Vote for that!

That's why I'm the voice of doom.

Limits to Carbon? I doubt it!

A soon to be released study says we must get carbon emissions below zero within 20 years to avoid excessive warming (over 2 degreees C). http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/20/us-carbon-climate-idUSTRE78J3IK20110920

If, like me, you've followed the US presidential race at all, you know this will never happen. Obama's administration is in crisis, it's worsening every day. The Republicans actually have a shot at toppling a sitting President in 2012. And who is the front runner? Climate change denying Rick Perry!

Just one of the contenders admits Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is real. One of this fossil-fueled group of walking brain-dead idiots is likely to become the next "leader of the free world." And he's not likely to want to limit carbon emissions.

Hell, even if there were a President who wanted to do something about it, I don't think he (or she) could. The system is just that messed up. The great vision of the founding fathers of the US was that the system is one of checks and balances. That way no one could hijack things and make radical changes.

But today a radical change is needed for survival. And we've got gridlock at the highest levels. Not only that, but there is a large faction of irrational people basing public policy on Biblical revelations, petroleum profits, and lobbyist pay-offs.

If we are lucky, the US economy will tank further. If the US becomes irrelevant, then perhaps the world can come to an understanding without the US. But as long as gun totin' V8 drivin' red-blooded Americans rule the world, we are doomed.

Get out your shorts. It's going to be a warm century ahead.

New Oil Pipeline, Great. Not!

Anyone out there who thinks a pipeline is going to be cancelled in this economic and political climate raise their hand.

Strange that I can't feel a cooling breeze from all the hands going up. Or not strange, if you're as pessimistic as I am.

A pipeline to Texas refineries from Alberta tar sands has passed one more step. http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/plan-for-canada-to-texas-oil-pipeline-moves-forward-after-environmental-review/2011/08/26/gIQA3iaJgJ_story.html

 Not a done deal yet, but with only one Republican presidential hopeful admitting to the possibility of anthropogenic climate change, it's not surprising that there is not a hope in hell that anyone in power will take concrete steps to block it.

Canada is not going to stop the pipeline. Our Prime Minister is from Alberta and is only recently admitting to AGW. He would probably be shot by his own caucus if he tried to pull the plug on this pipeline. Not that he has any inclination to do so. Our best opposition leader just died, leaving behind a caucus mostly composed of wet-behind-the-ears rookie MPs. There is no organized political party able to mount any kind of significant challenge to the Conservatives.

Perhaps Hurricane Irene will remind Americans that oil security is not as crucial as climate security. On the other hand, because climate scientists are stuck with telling the truth, such as we can't link one storm or weather event with climate change, it's not likely that anyone is going to become willing to make the kind of changes in priority that will result in significant changes to our economics resulting in diminished human effects on the climate.

I truly believe we will suck every last drop of oil out of the ground and push the climate past every pessimistic forecast. After all, look at New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. The rich were inconvenienced. Poor people died. Poor people are dying in Africa. Rich people around the world are able to make changes to adapt. And they want their oil. They are not going to give up their lifestyles easily.

So pump up that SUV. It's business as usual.

Raise Taxes Now!

Looking south of the border at the debt ceiling crisis in the US, I might have a feeling of smugness as a Canadian, but I don't. We tend to follow US trends closely, and with our current Conservative administration, the constant pressure to lower taxes is just as strongly felt here as in the US.

The problem is that for a balanced budget, you have two options, raise income or cut spending. We've been cutting spending for the last two decades and we are at the point where public services are suffering. In the US we've seen a bridge collapse, schools are failing, and prisoners have been let go free because of overcrowding (I'll save a piece on the stupidity of mandatory minimum sentences and three strike laws for another blog).

I know about non-balanced budgets. I had to declare personal bankruptcy once. After I got that over with, I went back to school, got a better job, and thought I was safe. I found myself in debt again. So this time I cut spending. But at some point you can't cut any more. I had no car, I spent the minimum on food, and I wore my shoes until people commented on the holes in them. I was just barely keeping my head above water. So I found a way to make some extra income. It has made all the difference. Just a few hundred dollars a month in my budget has made paying off debt a breeze. Governments need to do the same.

Last year, I earned about $59000 in my job plus a net of about $1000 for my extra income. I paid about $8200 on an income just over $60,000. That's an effective rate under 14%. And that's provincial and federal tax combined! I can hardly claim to be burdened with excessive taxation. But when I go to the passport office, twenty of thirty wickets are closed. When I visited the taxation office for a friend's audit, there wasn't even a receptionist and some poor delivery guy was trying to get our auditor to accept a package for some unknown person in the building. Come on! Raise taxes and let's hire some civil servants!

In this province there are wildlife protection officers who have thousands of miles of territory to cover. Does that protect us from poachers? Instead they put up signs in the bush asking us to "observe, and report suspicious activity."

So instead of taxing us up front, so those with higher incomes pay more, the government institutes "user fees" for public amenities. User fees are the same thing as taxes, except rich people can afford them more than poor people. So I can afford to take my kid camping at a public park for $25 a night, but someone with less money can't. Democracy is supposed to be about the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Without a good progressive taxation system, we're doomed. When will some political leaders have the guts to stand up and say that they want to deliver effective government and we need to pay for it?

Look around. People are lining up to pay $5 for some fancy Starbucks coffee. When I was a kid, I remember seeing a Cadillac for the first time. Today you can barely cross the street without being run down by people driving Audis, BMWs, Infinitis, and other luxury cars. I see Rolls Royces regularly. Ferraris are a daily sight. Don't tell me we can't afford to pay more taxes!

This is a selfish, self-centred society. We want services from our government that we don't want to pay for. Suck it up Canada (and my friends in the US). Pay more taxes now!

A hopeful sign? I think not!

Some scientists have determined that loss of Arctic ice might not lead to a tipping point leading to runaway climate change. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14408930 This is good news, and I'm glad to hear some from a credible source for once.

The complexity of the climate is one of the main planks in the skeptics' platform. I'm sure they will happily leap on this news as a sign that we don't understand the systems well enough to predict what will happen in a few decades. But to my the-cup-is-half-full-and-rapidly-leaking mind there are probably just as many ways that the climate models fail to predict serious consequences.

I think the mind plays a great role in how we take in information and assimilate it into our worldview. It takes a huge blow to make a paradigm shift. Skeptics are so invested in their point of view that they will make any mental leap to preserve it. I've been waiting for the end of the world news since the 1970s when I was fighting against the expansion of the use of nuclear power for electricity generation. If I were a Chernobyl resident, I would have already had my told-you-so moment. But even now I see that the threat from nuclear power plants is relatively limited and local. The disaster posed by greenhouse gasses is so much more widespread, yet innocuous appearing. As T.S. Eliot said "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang, but a whimper."

Massive Ice Island heading toward Canada

Well, the headline seems to be threatening enough. Get ready for a big bump. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43848004/ns/us_news-environment/

But the real story is a little different. We've had icebergs before and we'll have icebergs again. Even Manhattan sized ones. There are two things that struck me about this article. The first was that the first comment was "Nothing to see here. Global warming is just a liberal lie; this was just Al Gore with a hair dryer." Thanks Toasty. Other comments discourage me about the state of debate in the world.


I got a little side-tracked reading these comments. I noticed Toasty had commented also on Modern Humans had Sex with Neanderthals and I wondered if I could characterize him in my vision of the kind of right wing evolution-denying anti-global-warming crackpot that I envision stalking the margins of the internet. However, I could not discern a trend in his comments. Perhaps, as they say, "consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" (i.e. mine). I'd like to think I could keep a consistent set of attitudes and beliefs. Toasty clearly has eclectic beliefs. Good for him.


The other thing that got me down about the comments on the ice island story was the fact that Toasty got 23 thumbs up for his liberal lie comment. Other commentators went ahead and quoted stories on how our warming is not global http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_NotGlobal.htm and "your nuts" (sic) mentioned how the 12 hour weather forecast isn't accurate, so how can a century forecast be right? (Frankly, I wish he'd leave my nuts out of this and remember we know it will be hot next summer and cold next winter, but we don't know exactly which days will be the hottest or coldest until we get much closer.)


This "not global" theory is a new denialist tactic I've seen recently. By stating that the evidence of climate change is local, not global, they derail the data train. Even when we have evidence, they can state that the overall theory is wrong, even though some evidence seems to be right. You just can't win with these people.

Believe what you like

Believe what you like. I know you will, no matter what I tell you. And this is one of the basic problems of the state of the world today.

I blame Martin Luther. Not Martin Luther King, who worked tirelessly and non-violently against racism in the US, Martin Luther, the German monk who in 1517 detailed 95 ways in which the Catholic church was corrupt. In fact, I think we can lay the whole climate change problem, not just the problem of recognizing its existence, at his feet.

Martin Luther

Martin Luther King

I'm getting a little bit of this history from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther) which also reflects another aspect of the whole conundrum.

And what is the problem? Well, we believe what we want to believe because we have lost a sense of trust in authority. Back in the 70s, my friends and I used to sport buttons stating "question authority." Now I want one that says "Stop questioning authority!"

Some people discount the credibility of Wikipedia because it is edited by volunteers. Anyone can add information, or change information. We need an authority, like Encyclopedia Britannica, say these folks. But studies show, if you believe such studies, that Wikipedia is at least as reliable as E.B. and when it has errors, it can be quickly changed.

So Martin Luther said "Don't trust priests. Find out for yourself from the Bible." (Obviously these were not his exact words; he probably wrote in Latin, and more formally.) This change in thinking also led to people questioning everything, and eventually led us to the scientific method, the industrial revolution, the invention of the automobile, carbon in the atmosphere, and climate change. And the change in thinking led people to believe Bjorn Lomborg or David Suzuki, Mitt Romney or Barak Obama, and even Sarah Palin (in some crazy circumstances.)

I really believe in finding out for yourself. But I don't have the time or scientific knowledge to read the scientific studies and discern which are most credible. I can't wade through the statistical evaluations. I can't take polar ice cores. I can't measure the temperature around the globe. I have to go to someone else and get some information.

The really great place to get a sense of what the state of the debate is right now is in the comments section of articles about climate change. Many writers cite statistics and studies. You can read these and feel justified in your belief that the world is getting hotter, not hotter, hotter but not due to humans. Do you want to believe that it's all the sun's fault? Read this: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/05/geophysicist-dr-nils-axel-morner.html

I don't have the ability to wade through it. But to summarize (and I got this from one of the early paragraphs), it says the opposite of what the IPCC says. Go ahead and buy a Hummer; climate is driven by the sun.

My sense is that when you read an article that is skeptical about climate science, then the comments will be mostly filled by people who are also skeptical about climate science. If you read an article document some new way that we see the climate changing, then the comments will be mostly filled by people who believe the same. Where it gets interesting is when you read mainstream press articles. One of my local papers, the Province, and especially its chief idiot columnist Jon Ferry, seems to delight in keeping the idea alive that climate change is a hoax. My guess is that 90% of the comments to his articles exhorting us to buy more cars, build more suburbs, and generally use the planetary resources like they are so many McDonald's hamburgers are in agreement. British tabloids are worse.

There was a time in my life when I was young and naive, and I thought that people were rational and swayed by logical arguments. No longer. Most people have some vague notion that climate change is one more problem out there that they can do little about and don't really need to pay attention to the details of. Those who do care are mostly talking to one another, not trying to think about whether they should be changing their minds at all. I intend to post later about why I think this is an important consideration when we talk about the state of the world. In any case, we believe what we want to believe.

The bottom line about climate change is that we shall see. If you believe the above cited article, then keep your woolies because by 2020 things should be cooling down. If you believe, as I do, the scientific consensus, then by 2020 things should be definitely warmer. If I make it to a ripe old age, they may have a hard time digging me a grave in the frozen ground. Time will tell. Believe what you like.

But if the climate models on atmospheric gasses are correct, by then it will be too late to change.

UN gets it

Although the IPCC is a UN body, the Security Council sort of putters along talking about all the other ways that we in our artificial groups known as nation states create conflict with one another. But now they have actually acknowledged that climate change is a serious challenge which will create even more and bigger conflict. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15256444,00.html

Gwynn Dyer wrote a whole book on this and did a TV series several years ago. Climate change will force people to fight over water resources, flee their homes, and generally try to survive, even if it is at their neighbour's expense. Being Canadian and living next to water-hungry Americans, I should be nervous; however, I don't think the US will ever have to use force to get our resources. We've always been all too happy to sell them in the past.

The current situation in Somalia is the worst in 20 years. And the last 20 years in Somalia have been hell. So the UN has it right. We are going to see more death due to human conflict started because of climate change. Look for refugees showing up at a seaside near you.

Mitt Romney trades votes for our health

Mitt Romney, the only Republican presidential contender who made any noises about climate change has backed off of his position. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59313.html Now he's back to sucking up to rich (and/or stupid) conservatives who will deny the science behind climate change until they fry.

Now he's weaseling around by stating that carbon is not a pollutant in the sense that it harms our bodies. No, but 40 degree Celsius (that's 100+ to you Americans) temperatures certainly do harm our bodies. The fact is that any industrial discharge ought to be regulated. The problem with our economic system is that there has always been an incentive to use public space, such as water and air, for discharge of pollutants. Even when the garbage is innocuous, the person is still responsible.

There is a problem with the system. It's a time of crisis and we need leaders who will stand up and tell the nation things it does not want to hear. Like "one way or another we are going to get you to stop driving your cars." Mitt Romney is clearly not the man for that job.

In fact, it's impossible to be in the Republican party and support rational action based on climate science. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/us/politics/21climate.html

So what, I'm Canadian. I can't vote for him (or against him) anyway.

Voice of Doom. I just get to sit across the border and watch the largest economy on the planet lead us down the road of destruction.

Seen what's happening in Somalia? People are starving again. Climate change feels pretty real to them. They don't get to vote either.

Hey, you know what's ironic? The ads that come up on this blog are for car sales. That's why I'm such a pessimist. Capitalism just keeps rolling along. It has no self-awareness. It would sell us the tools for the revolution, if that were what we wanted. But I don't even want that anymore. I'm with Winston Churchill on Democracy. It's the worst system, except for all the rest.

Too much climate change?

I was intrigued by the headline that cropped up on the feed on my blog: "There's too much climate change..." I had to click on the link to see what the heck was going on.

In fact the headline was truncated to fit. It actually read "There's too much climate change denial on the BBC." http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/21/bbc_science_report/

This fits into an idea I had a while ago, before I started the blog, about one of the fundamental reasons we can't move forward into policy changes to ameliorate the climate change problem. The paradigm of journalism is to seek contrary points of view. I learned this forty years ago when I was a reporter covering London Ontario city council for a small community magazine. Every story has two sides. The reporter has to find the other side.

In those days, the other side was often obscure. In order to put forward our left-wing agenda, we had to look far and wide to find someone who could give an alternative point of view to the nice conservative people running city hall. And we did.

It's no different today on Fox News or the BBC. For every climate change story there needs to be a climate change denier. But it's not hard to find one, because unlike our socialist hordes in the 70s, these contrarians are well funded and ubiquitous. So the sense for the average reader is that there is a real controversy about the reality of climate change. People believe what they want to believe and what makes them feel more comfortable in their current state. Therefore the current model of journalism does not serve us well in a time of crisis when decisive action is needed.

Reporters should be covering a story and taking a stand. Giving a voice to the idiots who spout denial nonsense is not in the public interest. It's panic time folks! The time for debate is over.

Climate change sceptic pooh poohs green energy

I see Bjorn Lomborg is at it again. The Australian climate change denier is documenting the ways that green organizations are promoting their agenda, while continually claiming that it's the wrong direction, and won't make a difference anyway to the climate change that he says isn't happening.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/bootleggers-hijack-climate-change-debate/story-e6frgd0x-1226099304031

Let's face it, we need to replace an awful lot of energy with renewable sources. I actually believe, the sad news is that a lifestyle adjustment would be necessary. But the reality is that we won't see it in a democratic society. What politician will ever be elected on promises of less prosperity?

There seem to be several basic methods of climate change denial. One method is to find details of the science and pick at them. The strength of science is that scientists do their work and then publish it for all to see. The disagreement among scientists over details is the means for science to move forward. Deniers use disagreement over details to persuade the public that there is no agreement among scientists.

Another method of denial is to cite false statistics. In a future post I will try to detail more of these. But if you read certain publications, you would be convinced that the earth is not warming.

Lomborg's method in this article is to ridicule the alternatives. According to him, green energy will simply not suffice to support the demands of industrial civilization. I find this a particularly saddening argument. People, faced with an issue that they can't really understand deeply, will make decisions with their guts. So given the choice of moving toward a world of more austerity in ecological balance, or pretending there is no problem and continuing to consume blindly, many people will choose to believe there is no problem. Even if there is a problem, we can't do anything about it, so let's stay the course. It's also a faith that if there is a problem, someone will come up with a solution before I have to give up my comfortable lifestyle.

Well, tell it to the people in East Africa who are already suffering from climate change.