Global climate breakdown (part three) - the science and politics of climate change

Posted by Rudy_Wittshirk

Posted: October 22, 2009 - 6:32 pm

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CLIMATE SCIENCE AND POLITICS -

“Science means it’s absolutely proven, right?“

For many years my friend had been a devout and aggressive religionist who believed that science was evil and inimical to spiritual awareness. Now he is trying to educate himself about science.

“No---you’re still thinking like a true believer,” I teased him, “it’s only science when you have used the scientific process to arrive at your conclusion.”

He seemed disappointed. His confusion was understandable---all his life he had been taught that science was a malevolent rival to his religion.

But science is not intended to fulfill human longings for absolute spiritual certainty---only to discover how material reality works. Scientists don’t deal in unqualified certainties---they merely have confidence in probabilities.

Here’s how it works: Science is a probability distribution function. That’s a fancy way to say that science deals with degrees of certainty and degrees of uncertainty. Science rarely traffics in absolutes---mostly in statistical probabilities.

Science is a peer review process where a bunch of third parties---other scientists in the field---check and evaluate one’s work according to strictly-defined standards of fact, evidence and (formal) logic. The strength of science is that other scientists in any given field of study (such as climate) must review, critique and approve any hypothesis before it ever becomes established science. Every argument and all evidence for and against any proposition must be “peer-reviewed.” Only when a large and overwhelming majority of peers in one’s field agree on a proposition can any principle be called “scientific.“ In this sense, scientists and their findings are extremely conservative.

The recommendations of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) previously cited in this series called for a 25 percent to 40 percent reduction in human-caused emissions by 2020 (based on levels in 1990) by the advanced, industrial (highest-emitting) countries in order to have any chance of avoiding catastrophic climate collapse.

This international panel of climate scientists agreed, to an extraordinary 90 percent degree of certainty, that human emissions effect global warming. These findings and recommendations are compelling because they were not only peer-reviewed but also government-reviewed.

These very conservative but notorious IPCC findings and recommendations are highly controversial outside scientific circles, widely criticized and actively resisted by business and government.

What I didn’t realize was that the IPCC findings and recommendations were watered-down---the conclusions and recommendations had to be approved by many countries before they could be released.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber is chief climate advisor to the German government and chair of another climate advisory council known as WBGU (German acronym). Schellnhuber is a physicist in the very highest rank of climate scientists. His advisory council published a study calling for the United States to cut emissions 100 percent by 2020.

Yes, that‘s right---the WBGU recommends ending carbon emissions entirely within ten years for the US. The reason is that we are worst polluter (see “THE PER CAPITA PRINCIPLE” below).

Germany, Italy and other industrial nations must end their carbon emissions by 2025 to 2030. China is to follow in 2035 and the entire Planet must be carbon-free by 2050.

According the to WBGU study the major polluters may "buy" emissions rights from developing countries in order to extend some of their deadlines by about ten years.

Not surprisingly, the WBGU schedule for reducing emissions is far more strict than anything so far being proposed by those governments planning to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this year.

The European Union has pledged 20 percent reductions by 2020, which it will increase to 30 percent depending on whether or not other nations like the United States follow suit.

Japan has proposed 25 percent reductions by 2020 (if others do likewise).

Chinese President Hu Jintao pledged, at the UN, to limit greenhouse gas emissions growth by a "notable margin" by 2020.

US President Obama has mentioned no specific numbers---probably mindful that Republicans are dead set against any significant emissions cuts whatsoever. He does support the Waxman-Markey bill calling for less than 5 percent reductions by 2020.

President Obama did urge all G-20 governments to phase out subsidies for fossil fuels. "The time we have to reverse this tide is running out," he said.

Tough talk but weak commitments from the President, who doesn’t seem to realize or wish to admit that, if the situation is so dire, the US will have to take the lead since it is the top polluter.

In July, President Obama and the G-8 leaders, agreed to limit the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius over the pre-industrial level.

During an invitation-only conference at New Mexico's Santa Fe Institute, Schellnhuber poked fun at the G-8 leaders, saying they had agreed to the 2 degrees Celsius limit "probably because they don't know what it means." He cautioned that even if the timeline of his own WBGU study was followed it might not meet the 2 degrees Celsius objective. He gave odds of two-out-of-three, “worse odds than Russian roulette…but it is the best we can do."

Quitting carbon emissions earlier than the WBGU timeline reduces the odds to three-out-of-four, says Schellnhuber. On the other hand, if we waited an additional decade to end all greenhouse emissions, the odds of meeting the 2 degrees Celsius target go to fifty-fifty. "And what kind of precautionary principle is that?" Schellnhuber asked.

THE PER CAPITA PRINCIPLE

An assumption of the WBGU study is the political principle that emitting greenhouse gases is a right to be shared equally by all people on the Planet. It’s called the “per capita principle," insisted upon by China and most developing countries.

Given a World population of 7 billion, the “per capita principle" calculates that each person on the Planet averages 2.7 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per individual. The reason the WBGU called for curtailing US emissions first and most drastically is that Americans emit 20 tons per person each year.

China isn’t happy either. It has many people but huge amounts of emissions, so it’s timeline for emissions reductions under the WBGU study is just a few years behind that of Europe and Japan.

Schellnhuber says he was "terrified” when he saw the numbers. He urged that governments agree to launch "a Green Apollo Project" in the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen on December 7-18, 2009.

Schellnhuber urges a “wartime mobilization” or something similar to John Kennedy's vow to land a human on the moon in a decade---anything to move the big economies toward a goal of zero carbon emissions within ten years. He suggests that carbon trading by high-emitting nations with the low-emissions economies might mitigate the most terrible economic impacts of climate change.

So who do we believe---the IPCC or the German WBGU study? Or none of the above?

I’m certainly not qualified to judge but I’ll go with the German guy---he released the findings of his advisory board without any government censorship whatsoever.

WHY REDUCE HUMAN EMISSIONS?

OIL

Oil was formed over a period of 200 million years by the bodies of plankton that fell to the sea floor, were covered by silt and compressed. Two-hundred million years worth of carbon was sequestered in those petroleum deposits, most of which have been burned, releasing their carbon into the atmosphere over the short period of the last 150 years. No way that’s not going to have a significant effect on the atmosphere and the oceans.

FEEDBACK LOOPS AND CASCADE EFFECTS - THE ATMOSPHERE AND THE WORLD’S OCEANS

By now, everyone must at least have heard about the classic climate change feedback loop: Warming air and warming seas cause shrinking areas of ice and snow which reflect less heat and expose more waters and lands which, being darker, absorb more heat. So simple a caveman can understand it.

At the present rate of ice melt Arctic seas will soon be open in the summers. Ice and snow reflect 80% of the sun’s light back into space. Dark water reflects only 20% of the sun’s light and absorbs more heat. This warming of the seas caused by loss of ice will, climate scientists say, alter prevailing wind currents and, perhaps even more importantly, prevailing currents within the oceans such as the Gulf Stream and the great underwater upwelling and circulatory currents. If these ocean currents are altered it will significantly change long-standing weather patterns and conditions worldwide. For instance, Western Europe is currently warmed by the Gulf Stream to an extent not indicated by it’s latitude, which is similar to Alaska‘s.

In other words, Europe's climate is milder compared to other places at the same latitude. Alaska and Greenland are both the same distance from the North Pole as Europe but are covered with ice and permafrost while most of Europe is not.

The ocean currents called the Gulf Stream bring warm waters up to Europe from the Caribbean and warm the countries in their path. Cooler water from Europe flows back toward the Caribbean in a continuous cycle.

These currents have already weakened by 25%. However, if they actually do shift it will occur rather suddenly---within a few years. It will be catastrophic. There are other currents as well---some of which bring nutrients from deep in the oceans. These currents are showing signs of changing.

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION

The world’s oceans---integral components of planetary weather and climate cycles---are absorbing literally six million tons of carbon a day; which is leading to rapid acidification of the waters; which is beginning to dissolve the shells of sea creatures; is causing the breakdown of corals; is leading to the breakdown of the oceans’ food chain and a breakdown of our sea harvests.

The Arctic Ocean is becoming acidic at an unprecedented rate. North Pole regions are expected to reach corrosive levels within a decade.

According to Professor Jean-Pierre Gattuso, of France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, "This is extremely worrying." At a recent international oceanography conference he said: "We knew that the seas were getting more acidic and this would disrupt the ability of shellfish, like mussels, to grow their shells. But now we realize the situation is much worse. The water will become so acidic it will actually dissolve the shells of living shellfish."

At a European commission conference, Oceans of Tomorrow, in Barcelona, Prof. Gattuso said, “This will affect the whole food chain, including the North Atlantic salmon, which feeds on mollusks."

The oceanographer stated that ocean acidification was more severe in higher latitudes, the Arctic and Antarctica, than around the equator---because more carbon dioxide dissolves in cold water than in warm water. "…the problem of acidification is worse in the Arctic than in the tropics, though we have only recently got round to studying the problem in detail."

High latitude coral reefs, unlike tropical reefs, consist of only a few species. Destruction of these high latitude formations will have an effect on those many species that depend on living coral reefs for food and shelter.

Proposed quick fixes to climate warming such as spraying aerosols in the upper atmosphere would not stop ocean acidification, which is expected to reach corrosive levels of 10% by 2020 and increase to 100% by next century.

One-fourth of CO2 emissions wind up being absorbed by the oceans. We have only studied 1% of the life forms in seawater, which we already know to be a rich “plankton soup.” Life forms from whales to salmon ultimately depend on this plankton---the corrosive effects of CO2 will drastically interrupt or destroy the life cycles of these creatures.

OCEANS RISING

The 2007 IPCC forecast is that that sea levels would rise by 20 to 60cm by 2100 due to human-caused climate change. Newer estimates forecast a rise of one meter or higher, flooding coastal areas.

Likewise, it is now estimated that a 3 degrees Celsius rise in global temperature by 2100 is thought to be too conservative---a 4 to 5 degrees rise could be expected causing melting ice caps, spreading deserts, heat waves, severe storms and snow gone from all but the highest mountain tops.

At one time, scientist James Lovelock---founder of the prescient GIA Theory---was dramatically predicting that the human species would be reduced to “a few breeding pairs” in the World’s Arctic regions. Brilliant but always an odd duck, Lovelock is now among those relatively few scientists encouraging the development of more nuclear power.

METHANE RISING -

As a greenhouse gas, methane is 25 times more noxious than CO2. There is scientific speculation that releasing great quantities of methane into the air could actually asphyxiate the human race.

In any case, there are methane “sinks” in the world’s oceans. Methane is already rising from “chimneys” on the ocean floor around Russia.
When the oceans’ waters warm up, some of the trapped methane bubbles up to the surface to join the methane already beginning to bubble out of the melting permafrost of Arctic tundra. More methane in the atmosphere means more warming which means more methane. This is one of the “feedback loops” that will lead to runaway warming if we are unable or unwilling to stop it.

The chaotic result of all this atmospheric and oceanic change will be drought in some places, deluges in others, catastrophic storms and flooding.

Again, there is the predicted rise in the level of the seas and the effects of storms driving the waters over low-lying lands like Bangladesh, the Marshal Islands and New Orleans.

For those who possess sufficient imagination the human suffering can be imagined.

TIPPING POINT

Some scientists have stated that we are already beyond the tipping point. That climate warming is now inevitable and there is nothing we can do to stop it---only slow it down.

Most scientists---mindful of the economic and political climate---are trying to be optimistic. Only due to the complexity and the unknowns involved can there be legitimate room for optimism. But even the most optimistic scientific outlooks assume radical and immediate changes in corporate mendacity, political culpability and the generally wasteful and extravagant human lifestyles we enjoy today---which, in my opinion, are unrealistic expectations.

Even worse, most greenhouse emissions and pollution are caused by industry---and the large corporate entities now dictate our foreign and domestic policies and control our economic system, especially here in the US.

Also, most of our resources are consumed by industry---the actions of individuals alone cannot stop global warming. More on this in part four.

SQUIRMING

Right about now I can sense the “drill, baby, drill” crowd gyrating right out of their swiveling computer chairs. Not to worry. In part four I will discuss what we humans, our politicians and their corporate masters are actually likely to do about global climate change and it’s not a whole lot.

Rudy Wittshirk

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