Climate change is drowning in populist politics
Jan 4th, 2010 | 18 responses
Dealing with climate change may be the most important issue for human progress but 2010 is likely to see it move to the backburner because creating jobs is better politics in the US, Europe and elsewhere.
President Barack Obama’s presence surrounded by 5 cabinet members, many senators and tens of top journalists at the recent Copenhagen conference failed to persuade major players like the European Union, China and India to accept his outstretched hand.
The reason is a widening divide between the US and most other countries about the responsibility for global warming and how the burdens of reducing carbon emissions should be shared within the international community. The climate change debate is flooded by suggestions on reducing carbon emissions and how to pay for them while offering new technologies to poorer countries to prevent them from worsening global warming. But populist politics is preventing a breakthrough because no politician anywhere likes to tell people to make sacrifices.
The substantial concessions offered in Copenhagen failed to overcome the fundamental rift between the interests of heavy energy users and those still waiting to encounter its benefits. Out of a combined population of about 2.7 billion, India and China contain over 1.8 billion who use almost no energy. Vast swathes of Africa have few energy sources while two-thirds of the 5 billion people living in developing countries receive energy supplies intermittently. In contrast, the 1.2 billion people living in developed countries enjoy abundant energy supplies.
To the extent that climate change remedies involve hydrocarbons, the pressure has centered on finding ways to reduce carbon emissions. Of course, this is vital in the developed countries where per person emissions are very high but gets less attention in developing countries. There, the key moral, economic and political imperatives center on raising people out of living standards incompatible with human dignity.
Throwing billions of dollars at those countries in the hope of reducing carbon emissions would be folly. Creating new funds through small taxes on global financial transactions or various carbon trading schemes will not solve the problem. That is because the political will and institutional structures needed to make a difference are still lacking especially in developing countries.
The necessity in developed countries is to reduce carbon emissions by changing the patterns, modalities and mix of various energy forms. That is not the imperative in poorer nations. Even emerging powers like China, India and Brazil have too many people living in dire poverty for their governments to deny them energy even if it emits carbon.
Of course, there is a common moral imperative for rich and poor to cooperate in preventing or delaying catastrophes predicted by climate scientists through credible scientific studies. The Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change has established that global warming is a reality, it is manmade and its consequences are potentially catastrophic. Copenhagen put to rest hoary debates about the credibility of the science but the jury is still out about the Panel’s predictions and remedies. The Panel’s science is now five years old and recent data does not contradict its findings. But scientific process involves theorizing about consequences based on empirical sampling. It moves forward through willingness to alter or abandon theories if new facts emerge or new ways emerge of analyzing the previous data.
The Panel’s science is not written on stone but emotions and polemics are very intense among believers, sceptics and disbelievers. Many governmental officials and non-governmental campaigners also accuse large corporations of trying to fudge the science to continue making profits. This is not entirely justified. Companies make profits by selling things to all of us. If they could find ways of supplying usable non-carbon energy at prices we are willing to pay, they would rush to cash-in.
However, no one yet knows how to give us safer forms of energy at sufficient scale to satisfy the profligate lifestyles of the rich while lifting the poor out of backwardness. Clearly, awaiting that, we should not slow down efforts to reduce carbon emissions because the next small gain may be the long sought blessing for humankind. But it is time to cool down emotions and populist rhetoric to better recognize the limits of what is feasible in the short term within available technologies and financial means.
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18 Responses to “Climate change is drowning in populist politics”
Not really.
We are actually doing something here, what are they doing in India? I suspect nothing at all until cashing in becomes more plausible, such is the Indian mindset.
I wonder, as Miami Beach continues to drown, how long this will continue? Buildings that were built in the 1920's & '30's had basements that began flooding in the 80's and can't be used now. Storms are routinely breaching the sand dunes.
Nothing is happening quickly … sump pumps are installed and running 24/7. When those fail to keep the water out, bigger ones are installed. Dunes are restored at State government expense. Beaches are “replenished.”
The problem is not simply 'populist politics' but the fact that a large and growing number of people see “Global Warming” as a self-serving fraud unsupported by empirical evidence. The weakness of the “science” was revealed by the whistleblower at East Anglia who leaked clear evidence of data manipulation, intent to destroy data, attempts to corrupt the peer review process, and actual destruction of the entire raw dataset of historical temperatures.
And nature has not cooperated. After being told repeatedly that this was an urgent problem worsening every year which brooked no delay for further consideration, the fact is that global temperature has not increased in over ten years. The response was that a ten year period didn't really mean much. Why then the demands for immediate action? No global warming alarmist in 1998 was saying “relax, it could be a decade or more before the temperature rises again”. The fact is that the models were flat out wrong when tested by empirical data and the demand is that we accept them now on faith — as if this were a religion.
The agenda of Copenhagen was captured for all to see when Hugo Chavez called on the world to “Smash Capitalism” to the wild cheers of the delegates. This is the underpinning of a massive redistribution of power to the UN, and of wealth to the Zimbabwes of the world. Rather than fixing their systems which cannot produce wealth they will simply take ours if we are stupid enough to give it to them.
The economic downturn in the developed nations has at least slowed this fool's rush. But it has also given us the opportunity to have another look at the data, the theory, and the not so hidden agenda driving this train. And a lot of us don't like what we see.
The brighter side of this is that those in the developing world who actually want development and not a handout are the natural allies of those in the developed world who want to stop this nonsense about appeasing the God of Carbon and get back to growing the world economy for us all. That's not populism, but good common sense.
“And nature has not cooperated.”
Tell that to the folks whose islands are being breached.
And tell that to the building owners in Miami Beach that run pumps 24/7 to keep the water out.
It may snow in Houston, but the shoelines are flooding.
Sea levels have risen and fallen hundreds if not thousands of times before the first SUV hit the road. Florida has been almost completely submerged in the past and also have a much larger land area. Humans have always adapted to such fluctuations, some better than others. Look at Holland for a good example.
Turning the world economy upside down because of some gradually flooding basements in Miami Beach is not a good idea. It is highly unlikely that what humans do will make any difference at all. But even if it did, wouldn't it be better to base the decision on models that actually work?
I can't help but think of King Canute ordering the tide to stop rising. Do we need to repeat that experiment?
” Humans have always adapted to such fluctuations, some better than others. Look at Holland for a good example.”
No humans lived in Florida or in Holland when the seas were as high.
If you don't want to “turn the world's economy upside down” then tell people to live in Iowa rather than the coast(s). Preferably well away from the rivers.
In Europe, they should live in the Alps. Now that the glaciers have melted, it ought to be nice.
Climate change is also drowing in bad information being sometimes promulgated and further entrenched by leading media sources. For example, the Washington Post, here http://newsaffair.info/?p=216
and here http://newsaffair.info/?p=232
Meanwhile the NY times just published a horrific op ed that heavily promoted most of the disinfromation on this subject, and essentialy said “y2k was nothing, some people like apocalypses, Mary Shelley created “frankenstein,” climate change is the same, the end.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/01/opinion/01dut…
You don't need to read about it, go see for yourself. Go to the ocean and look. If you can't see the differences, just in the last 30 years, then you are blind.
Vey9,
among other key things you are missing is the rate of change this time. first off,the level of change we are likely to see is not something that is routine,for very fundamental reasons (see link below, these reasons are physics based). . secondly, it has usually happened over slow periods. when it has not, it has been the result of a climate forcing, and if it was severe, the mass ecological impact has been enormous, usually mass extinctions (most mass extinction events tied to this).
but most important of all is the fact that the atmospheric heat trapping gas increase forcing that we have created, is essentially instantaneous, from a geologic perspective. It is also severe, and growing — levels of the two most important GHC are well above levels at any point in the past three quarters of a million years, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081… and they have essentially shot straight up on a geologic graph, AND WE ARE ADDING TO THEM, really rapidly, along with our growing knowledge that most of the warming seems to be happening at the Poles,the absolute worst possible place (why gets into a lot of interesting science, well beyond “melting glaciers.”)
this is not just some slow flooding in a Miami basement.
see this piece, and the link there in to the basic facts and, this, it will cover some of the basics (also, in particular, see the endnote here http://newsaffair.info/?p=291
Brij
I agree with your point here, think it is extremely key “Throwing billions of dollars at those countries in the hope of reducing carbon emissions would be folly.” even many billions.“Creating new funds through small taxes on global financial transactions or various carbon trading schemes will not solve the problem.” agree with that.
“The necessity in developed countries is to reduce carbon emissions by changing the patterns, modalities and mix of various energy forms. agree with this too.
Here is the underlying basis for a potentially very critical and positive (and economy growing) way to accomplish this, particularly in our own country,while at the same time beginning to offset the tremendous business disadvantage that non polluting productions and uses of energy have versus polluting ones because of the lack of external harm being factored into the more destructive production processes pricing structure. and do so in a way that will inspire the market to increasingly move in the right direction at the same time,and do so in a way that minimizes the need for excessive command control or overly top heavy regulation (which is politically unappealing, highly inefficient, and also overly restrictive.)
“To the extent that climate change remedies involve hydrocarbons, the pressure has centered on finding ways to reduce carbon emissions.”
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Plants drink in CO2. They love it. And they exhale O2. How handy. Revegetation may go more than just a slight way towards helping the issue.
Also in the land of chemistry is the high value for the specific heat of the water molecule. Specific heat is the amount of heat energy required [either absorbed in going from solid to liquid etc. or released in going the other direction] to change a given substance from one form to another. As the icecaps melt we can expect freak cooling trends as the ice absorbs the heat in order to melt, alternating with heatwaves the magnification of the sun's heat gets trapped in our lovely greenhouse.
I proposed a truly sci-fi solution to this issue of inundating vast lowlands in the Sahara to increase localized evaporation/cooling/moisture, maybe even take the super-saline results and make thermal gradient/ ponds like the one in Israel. The weather in the Sahara would be expected to see more rainfall and in turn more greening. It may be a bit simplistic but it was sure fun to brainstorm. Would be great though to convert excess seawater into fresh reserves in this way if an area like that could be stabilized, regreened, cooled and remoistened. Pretty sure the earth has recovered itself without man's intervention over longer periods of time by just these types of happy accidents. More greenery would absord more CO2 and so on.
Maybe something for the Sci-fi channel. Or maybe Discovery? Who knows?…
“this is not just some slow flooding in a Miami basement. “
Ah, but this is something that one can SEE and TOUCH instead of looking at numbers and models.
Statistics can be manipulated, but who will you believe? The models or your eyes? Those folks that are having to move off their Pacific Islands don't care a whit for your “theories.” All they know is that they have to move.
You better not put all your AGW eggs in that Miami basement basket. Those basements were constructed in a maritime hammock area (about 10-13 ft above seal level) which was a naturally occurring vegetative area on the leeward side of the coastal dunes (aka barrier islands). As urbanization progressed, the dunes were disrupted and no longer provided the barrier effect to the leeward side. Yes, the ocean is going to flood those basements out of existence, but that is going to happen just as a result of the continuous surge and ebb of the tides over time.
Yes, it is sort of a man-made disaster, but not the one you're suggesting.
vey9
im not sure I understand any of your comments. nothing I wrote is inconsistent with the comments you make where you seem to be taking issue with me. including the first one. just after the first one, which I had not yet sen, btw, I entitled a comment “vey9″ which was referring to damav (he/she was replying to you, and glancing at quick, I read the wrong name.) that was my bad, but I dont really understand how you could write that the people that have to move off their island homes don't care a whit for may theories, as if anything I wrote is inconsistent with that. everything I wrote supports the ideas that they are losing their land, and that we will seethis on an increasingly rapid scale. (you gotta read man (or gal). .
anyway, you should read the links, i dont think you find them to be contradictory to what you seem to suggest, but also offer more support.
also, as for modeling, I dont know where you get this from. I believe we are overemphasizing modeling, frankly, and also that this is a physics, not data, driven issue. and,as for observation, I wouldnt necessarily use a miami flooding example, but i agree with you (had a discussion with one of the exxon funded scientists recently over this and some of their paper's taking issue with warming data), we are slowly getting to the point where observationally we can start to see significant changes. (for an example you probably can't see, but could if you were there, go to the siberian peat bogs where several years ago they were largely frozen,and in a matter of a few years lakes cropped up everywhere, which if continues is going to release an awful lot of methane. –casual oberver, you might want to check that out, as well as the accelerating pace of change at the poles, and the fact that most of the warming is occurring there ) anyway, so I agree on that point also.
silhouette — plants breathing co2 does help growth, if there are no limiting factors. but water often becomes a limiting factor with increase heat, so there is no net positive
as ice melts, it will have somewhat of a cooling effect, but this will only temporarily offset the speed, say, of warming, it will not necessarily counteract it, because along with that melting are other factors,including reduced albedo, for example, but yeah, it is one of the many examples of why just looking at temperature data, even over years, tells us almost nothing…
Actually the glaciers are melting more slowly in Switzerland than they did in the 1940s. Despite the slightly higher temps. It's just another indication that we don't understand these complex systems as well as some would like to think.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/03/swiss-eth…
vey9
“You don't need to read about it, go see for yourself.”
Citing anecdotal evidence is not proof. England is currently enduring its coldest winter in a hundred years, Calcutta is recording its coldest winter ever, and 2/3 of the US is in a deep freeze. None of those examples help your anecdotal claims.
As to Miami, consider the ancient city of Alexander. It is currently located in about 60 feet of ocean, and it has been submerged that way for centuries. Sea levels have obviously been rising for longer than oil use.
The polemic surrounding AGW is due to a world economic struggles and shoddy scientific implementation. The result from this is we really can't trust what the settled science pro-ports. If the CRU emails had not come to light, the political “consensus” would continue to simply call skeptics “deniers.” They did come out, and the basic assumptions of AGW have been affected.
If the medieval Warm period was as warm or warmer than it is today, then the current temperatures are not the calamitous problem being touted. If current ground station temps were adjusted for urban heat sink spikes, our fear would be lessened. The terrible effect of the CRU Emails is that the real state of affairs is currently not known due specifically to political agendas overriding scientific method.
Nice job of cherry picking the intro. The last paragraph isn't what the deniers would want:
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