The Arctic becomes an island as ice melts

Hi again

It has been a while since an update on the meltdown of the Arctic (due to uncertainty about what was happening allied to a lack of connectivity), but having finally concluded the Climate Wars email just sent, I have just had time to turn up this.

Don't have much time to pontificate, but the Daily Telegraph of all papers seems to have had an exclusive on this story published on 31 August.

The Arctic becomes an island as ice melts

It reports the 'historic development' that

'The North Pole has become an island for the first time in human history as climate change has made it possible to circumnavigate the Arctic ice cap.'

as the North-West and North-East Passages are now both open, detaching the Arctic from Europe, Asia and the Americas.


As well-informed as ever on climate change, The Telegraph states

'shipping companies are already planning to exploit the first simultaneous opening of the routes since the beginning of the last Ice Age 125,000 years ago.'

Most scientists are of the opinion that the last ice age was considerably more recent, peaking around 11,000 years ago, but no doubt they have got it wrong.

It reports

'Prof Mark Serreze, a sea ice specialist at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in the US said the images suggested the Arctic may have entered a "death spiral" caused by global warming.'

As, heartbreakingly, it would seem have our original friends, the polar bears we all began aspiring to save, who

'have been spotted off Alaska trying to swim hundreds of miles to the retreating ice cap.'

It has been more widely reported that this year's melt is now the second biggest ever, and we are waiting to see if the remaining melt, which usually ceases mid-September, will top the record, leaving the smallest extent of Arctic ice ever.

It may well do so, and as this was not a particularly favourable summer in terms of the factors influencing melting, the writing seems to be ever larger on the wall.

Well done The Telegraph for leading on this. On the bright side, if this report also marks the beginning of the paper's historic conversion at least the tide of public opinion is starting to turn in a positive direction.

Try your hardest, folks, whilst the possibility remains...

Be happy

Gwynne Dyer - Climate Wars

'US and UK military strategists have already started planning to deal with the threats posed by climate change: failed states, famines, floods, new warzones, and millions and millions of refugees'


Greetings

Rather a long time ago I stated an intention:

'finally, if it remains possible, to draw the main environmental and geopolitical strands together to make some tentative predictions of the main factors likely to be at play, to give some indication of where we might be heading on present trends.'

Clearly I've spun out hopelessly on that to date, but happily this fellow has spared us all the trouble. More happily still, being a strategic analyst of such eminent standing he is syndicated to 175 journals in 45 countries, he does so with an authority that is infinitely more credible than any layperson could ever hope to muster.

Which is just as well given the logical conclusions anyone considering the human and planetary predicament objectively and with clarity must inevitably come to.

Gwynne Dyer gave an interview on the Late Night Live show on ABC (by approximation, the equivalent of the BBC in Oz) on 26 August. The billing for the programme states:

'US and UK military strategists have already started planning to deal with the threats posed by climate change: failed states, famines, floods, new warzones, and millions and millions of refugees'

It is the first I am aware of that someone of his stature and with access to the necessary privileged (ie classified) information has spoken out candidly and coherently on this subject, rather than partially and piecemeal.

The interview runs one by one through the main strategic risks such as food scarcity, water, mass migrations and so on, and analyses the likely geo-political effects on each region of the globe. As you would expect from a defence analyst, the tone is absolutely measured throughout, yet the conclusions are as sensational - read frightening - as any currently abroad.

As such it is an analysis of the deepest importance which I would encourage all to spare the 40 minutes necessary to listen to here.

But for the sceptical or more heavily pressed, a short yet telling report which went out on the Environmental Network News on 29 August can be found here.

As an appetite whetter, here is a snippet from the latter:

'there is a sense of suppressed panic from the scientific and military leaders.

"And it's not just the analysts. I spent the past year doing a very high-speed self-education job on climate change but I think I probably talked to most of the senior people in the field in a dozen countries," Dr Dyer said.

"They're scared, they're really frightened. Things are moving far faster than their models predicted. "You may have the Arctic ocean free of ice entirely in five years' time, in the late summer. Nobody thought that would happen until about the 2040s - even a couple of years ago." Dr Dyer says there is a sense of things moving much faster, and the military are picking up on that. He also says we will be playing climate change catch-up in the next 30 years. "The threshold you don't want to cross, ever, is 2 degrees Celsius hotter than it was at the beginning of the 1990s," he said.

"That is a margin we have effectively already used up more than half of. It would require pretty miraculous cooperation globally and huge cuts in emissions." And if the world does not decarbonise by 2050, you don't want to be there, according to Dr Dyer. "My kids will and I don't think that is going to be a pleasant prospect at all, because once you go past 2 degrees - and you could get past 2 degrees by the 2040s without too much effort - things start getting out of control," he said. "The ocean starts giving back to the atmosphere the carbon dioxide it absorbed.

That world is a world where crop failures are normal.'

Inevitably he discusses James Hansen's critical role in alerting us to this and Hansen's current view that the safe limit for CO2 equivalent in the atmosphere is 350 ppm (covered with references in my email of 02 May entitled “Finding oil isn't the issue – it is whether we want to find it, burn it and all fry” - do ask if you would like it resent). According to this interview we are currently at 387 ppm. That is not a typo.

He also considers that the current consensus to be that 425 ppm is the ultimate threshold beyond which you may as well forget about a future because everything blows. It is pertinent to note here that the fourth IPCC report, which remains current in that all political solutions are based upon it but is now hopelessly out of date scientifically, considers 450 ppm to be the goal to be aimed for. That is not a typo either. Allow the implications of those figures to permeate your consciousness.

Also:

'"[There will be] huge falls in the amount of crops that you can grow because there isn't the rain and it's too hot," he said. "That will apply particularly to the Mediterranean... and so not just the north African countries, but also the ones on the northern side of the Mediterranean. The ones in the European Union like Spain and Italy and Greece and the Balkans and Turkey are going to be suffering huge losses in their ability to support their populations.'

He also predicts the militarisation of the US border with Mexico within ten years.

The rest I leave for you.

In passing, I have had no success in downloading the podcast from ABC, but the streaming works perfectly via either channel offered; and there are a few inaccuracies in the ENN report - for instance the date of the broadcast, which is possibly something to do with the dateline.


Finally, in response to some very kind requests to make these discussions more widely available they have been posted on a rather rudimentary blog. It is still in beta and rather rough round the edges, but functional. All the material circulated over the last year or so is there (after a long list of vibes, hopefully to inspire, which speak of our predicament), including that originally posted on the now defunct Wild Law forum. In addition there is an RSS feed which, if you subscribe to it, has the advantage of alerting you to new postings automatically as they appear. All at

http://pensiveprognosticator.blogspot.com


Hope it helps

Stay happy

Orangutans Revisited

As Simon Boyle is on leave, out of the country and probably not reading today's Guardian, am taking it upon myself to draw the notice of those who took an interest in the mock trial exercise at the last Wild Law weekend to the very issue surfacing for real in political debate.

Peter Ainsworth, shadow secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, uses it as his final thrust in damning government policy in a for and against debate with Ruth Kelly, secretary of state for transport, over the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation which comes into force tomorrow.

It remains to congratulate all those concerned for being so far-sighted in their contribution to the exercise, despite the sad fact that real developments appear to be bearing out its worst predictions including, tragically, the extinction of the orang-utan as a species.

Ruth Kelly reminds us that the use of cars and other forms of transport are the UK's third largest source of CO2 emissions and the only one forecast have grown by 2020. Yet reprehensibly the debate on all sides seems to be predicated on the idea that this level of use is both inevitable and unavoidably necessary for reasons unstated, be they economic, social or otherwise.

I would simply like to remind everyone that this presumption is utterly and completely unfounded. Most car use at present is entirely vain and frivolous, could be eliminated absolutely without any effect on economic performance, and arguably with a positive social return were the population only prepared to reject the 'life in the fast lane' as the only mode of living. It is one that has rarely brought happiness and is at the very heart of these devastating problems. It is utterly reprehensible, as well as indicative of the depth of the challenge before us, that both main parties remain utterly supine over this question.

Ironically the same edition headlined the fact that developing nations are unwilling to sign up for the urgently needed replacement to Kyoto Treaty because they are appalled by the lack of progress the developed world has made in cutting its emissions and are 'dismayed' by the lack of leadership shown. This comes from the top: the vehicle of this news is none other than Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC and Nobel laureate.

Who can blame them on this evidence?

And what chance avoiding total meltdown if they do not?

According to Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

'if the carbon emissions of China and India continue to grow at the same pace as their economies, mankind would be unable to prevent a critical level of warming.'

That means no chance.

Time to get out of your cars, folks. Right now.

And to persuade everyone else you know to do so too.

For your own preservation, as well as the orang-utan…




The background is well set out in both contributions, which can be found on p26 under 'Biofuels: blueprint for the future?' or at

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/14/biofuels.energy



'Rich states failing to lead on emissions, says UN climate chief' can be viewed at

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/14/climatechange.carbonemissions



PS

Letter to the Guardian


Having now seen your lead article (“Rich states failing to lead on emissions, says UN climate chief”) would either Ruth Kelly or Peter Ainsworth ("Biofuels: a blueprint for the future?") wish to change their position over their ultimately shabby, supine failure to get us to face up to the obvious – that the days of 'life in the fast lane' are well and truly over. It would seem that it is not only the survival of the urangatan that is at stake, but everyone else's too.

It didn't get printed, inevitably enough. Instead, a few days later they published an editorial to the opposite effect, more or less.

The chips are now irrevocably down, and there will be absolutely no second chances

The discussion which follows was circulated immediately before the Easter holiday as an email entitled 'The chips are now irrevocably down, and there will be absolutely no second chances'. Whilst it could probably do with polishing, it appears here exactly as circulated other than the correction of a few typos.

References can be found at the end.




Dear friends one and all

Greetings for the equinox and the arrival of spring, and whatever else you may be celebrating over the next few days.

Hoping you will be blessed with a pause which allows time for reflection and reconnection, here is something to reflect upon which ought galvanise and realign the lives of everyone alive, if only they take on its full implications.



Last Friday The Guardian reported that Tony Blair is to lead a new international team aiming to secure a global deal on climate change, including a cut in carbon emissions by 50% by 2050. In this he is reported to have the backing of the White House, the UN, Europe, Gordon Brown and The Climate Change Group (a not for profit organisation representing big business interests). He is supported by a team of experts including the economist Nicholas Stern and specialists from China, Japan, the USA and Europe.

This is news of the most profound significance, both positively and negatively. Yet despite being the paper's lead story and the disquieting quotes included, its full implications remain obscured behind the narrow scope of the reportage.

It is their absolutely critical nature that causes me to write to bring them to the attention of as wide an audience as possible as issues of the utmost urgency which demand an immediate and intelligent response from everyone of us.



On the upside, the very fact that this initiative is being launched offers a ray of hope in what is otherwise a very grim future. It is as if the generals have, after dithering for so long, finally got around to despatching the cavalry, and if we are exceptionally blessed they may actually arrive in the very nick of time to save the day. For whatever one may think about Tony Blair and his crimes against humanity, he is indisputably exceptionally able at brokering strategic deals over issues that have proven the most intractable and entrenched, as in the Middle East and Northern Ireland. Why it wasn't Al Gore and why it hasn't happened far sooner remain mysterious.



But it is the downside that is most portentous. First, it is finally being acknowledged publicly at the highest level that our situation is already perilous and that time available to resolve it has almost run out already.

Blair says the world has less than two years to secure a deal or accept that global warming is irreversible. But nothing to bring home what that actually means. The closest we get to it is that he is quoted to say:

“The fact of the matter is that if we do not take substantial action over the next two years , then by 2020 we will be thinking seriously about adaption rather than prevention.”

The almost universal tendency with statements of that kind is to take them lightly and relegate them to the back burner. Adaption to changing circumstances is what we do all the time to, say, the vagaries of the economic cycle, so is merely normality and nothing much to trouble ourselves about. 2020 is more than a decade away – few are tempted to sacrifice even the slightest detail of the good life now for something so far in the future which may never happen anyway. Even if it does their relative success today proves them to be at least as well-adapted as anyone else to bend successfully with adversity. Thoughts like that, which seem very prevalent over climate change.

Or simply to decide the future, or more often the changes demanded by reality, are simply too frightening or overwhelming to deal with, and repress them by some mechanism or other. Keeping ourselves forever busy and distracted; booze, drugs and sex; straight denial of the facts; the ability to simply blank out on unwelcome realities as if they do not exist; fanatical dedication to some other interest despite the fact that our beds are burning. The mechanisms of denial seem almost infinite, though for anyone struggling with this type of problem - which must be all of us directly or indirectly - The Ecologist has done an exceptional job of identifying them and dealing with the issue, referenced below.

Those responding along such lines need to look closely at what irreversible climate change actually means. According to Peter Harper of Zero Carbon Britain and the Centre for Alternative Technology in his presentation at the Gaia Foundation on 07 February, the scientific consensus changed around 2003/4. Prior to that, a linear model of climate change had held sway. In it the effect of human activity on the climate was considered directly proportional to the amount of greenhouse emissions we generate on a one to one basis.

Three or four years ago that was replaced by an exponential model, which remains as universally accepted as a scientific theory ever can be. It had become clear that increases in global temperatures were starting to trigger the release of huge amounts of greenhouse gases previously locked up in such sinks as the tundra ice and the deep ocean sediments, facts only recently discovered and unaccounted for in the linear model. As a result, rather than a one to one relationship, small increases in greenhouse gasses caused by man's activities can produce extremely large increases in total greenhouse gasses and hence massive increases in global warming. It is these that are forecast by the exponential model.

What is most disquieting is that with this model there is inevitably a tipping point, and one which must be avoided at all costs. Once this has been passed, even were man's activities and greenhouse emissions to cease immediately, a mechanism cuts in which leads inevitably to runaway global warming. What happens is the rise in global temperature already triggered leads to a further release of greenhouse gases from these sinks, which by themselves are sufficient to cause a further increase in temperature, triggering the release of more gases, and so on and so on. This process will continue until the mechanism somehow exhausts itself in a way that can only be guessed at, say by all the sinks being released, or perhaps resultant cloud cover blocking out the sun on a major scale. In the meantime global temperatures would have spiralled into the stratosphere, taking much of what we know and depend on for life as we currently enjoy it with them.

It is not a pretty picture, nor one anyone sane would wish to experience.

Yet this is what Mr Blair is alluding to when he says that we have less than 2 years to get a global agreement, and that if we do not take substantial action over the next two years we will be thinking seriously about adaption rather than prevention. We are that close to Armageddon.

Peter Harper was fairly similar in his predictions. He said that by 2012 it would be clear whether the trigger point had been crossed, and considered it a fate impossible to avoid without a binding global agreement to radically cut carbon emissions.



What are the inescapable conclusions?

First, that it is imperative for our survival, at least in the lifestyle we currently enjoy, that the trigger point must never be reached or exceeded.

Second, that to prevent that it is absolutely imperative that cast-iron global agreements are put into place with the utmost urgency, and that even a delay of a year or so may render them too late.

Third, that those agreements must be sufficiently robust in the measures they encompass to be absolutely certain - if such a certainty is still possible - that we fall on the right side of the tipping point by the greatest possible margin.

Therein lies the rub. We have almost no room for manoeuvre as we are very clearly balancing on the brink already, if we did not crossed it some time ago. In addition, Peter Harper was very clear that all of the limits and reductions currently proposed, negotiated, or in force were based upon the old linear model. In other words they are scientifically inadequate and probably insufficient to avert disaster. So why are they still in vogue? Partially for historical reasons, primarily because of political expediency - politicians will only go as far as leaves them re-electable, so will normally quarantine anything that might prove unpopular with voters as politically undeliverable. That is why Tony Blair said:

"People often say to me there are a lot of climate change plans out there, and I say 'how many of them are doable? So the experts are providing technical knowledge, and specialist insight, but what I am trying to do is guide it politically".

And:

"Essentially what everyone has agreed is that climate change is a serious problem, it is man-made, we require a global deal, that there should be a substantial cut in emissions at the heart of it, and this global deal should involve everyone, including in particular America on the one hand and China on the other, so it is the developed and developing world.

" The question is what is the framework that gets everyone in the deal?"

And:

"This is extremely urgent. A 50% cut by 2050 has to be a central component in this....We need a true and proper global deal, and that needs to include America and China."

From all of this we can conclude there are three great risks in the process he is taking forward. The first is that no agreement is reached. The second is that it is reached, but too late to avert disaster. The third is an ineffective compromise: that in making it politically doable, the remedy is too diluted to prevent the tipping point being reached anyway.

To put the last of these in perspective, recognising the inadequacy of proposals to cut emissions by 50 or 60% by 2050, Zero Carbon Britain has instead proposed a blueprint for reducing the UK's carbon footprint to zero in 20 years time, a target it believes is necessary to prevent runaway global warming from cutting in. While acknowledging it inevitably involves a fairly radical change to life as currently lived in consumer society, Peter Harper emphasises the positives of a change to a more relaxed and locally-based lifestyle. And let's face it, who can you point to who is genuinely peaceful, happy, content and fulfilled living frenetically in the rat race anyway?



Why bring all of this to your attention? Simply because it is now clear what we are bringing down upon ourselves and everything else on the planet, how quickly we must react and reorder our lives to avert irreversible catastrophe, and that on present form the inevitable conclusion is that we are not going to make it.

We have precious little time to alter that. We now have less than two years to make the critical changes and put our house in order. If we do not, we face absolute disaster which will see much of what has been depended upon and taken for granted since the emergence of humanity swept away irretrievably or put in the deepest jeopardy by changes that are permanent and irreversible.

So it is absolutely imperative that a workable and effective international response is up and running with the utmost urgency. But given the enormous political obstacles, that is very much an uphill process, and the reprehensible lack of progress to date provides absolutely no grounds for being optimistic that it will happen. Negotiating international agreements is a notoriously slow process, and the sacrifices demanded by this one are such that it will be a difficult deal to close even though it is in everyone's self-interest.

Further, any agreement reached will take further time to implement, and when we are talking about industrial processes and consumer behaviour the benefits are unlikely to start feeding in quickly. On this note well that that Mr Blair said:

"The fact of the matter is that if we do not take substantial action over the next two years , then by 2020 we will be thinking seriously about adaption rather than prevention.”

Even if an agreement can be hammered out in time, it is currently hard to see much concrete action having resulted by then.



So what does it mean for us as individuals?

Fundamentally that the chips are now irrevocably down, and there will be absolutely no second chances.

It is absolutely critical to find the time to do everything in your power to make sure that this does not happen. Whatever your priorities, whatever excuses you have employed to date, no matter how worthy the causes and other things you currently occupy your life with, if you do not do now what is required by this moment it will be too late. Permanently.

It calls for a response at three levels. First, it is vitally important to do everything in your power to make reaching the most powerful international agreement the most urgent political issue on the agenda. However exaggerated this might sound, bear in mind that everything else is rendered entirely futile if there is no viable planet to live on.

And that the new British 'national security strategy' unveiled yesterday by Gordon Brown, states that climate change is potentially the greatest threat to global stability and therefore to national security.

This requires action in the political sphere, doing your utmost to hammer home to your government and your representatives at all levels that this must happen with the utmost urgency and not be diluted for political expediency. It is only if politicians globally are made pointedly aware of the degree of public support that an effective agreement will result. And persuading everybody you can to do likewise. Even if you have never been active ever before.

The second is to make the changes that are demanded in your own life now, even before such an agreement comes into force. After all, laws and treaties are only necessary when the population will not do what is prudent of its own volition. And if you do not act very quickly, it will be forever too late. The quicker you make the change, the bigger the impact it will have. In addition it hits home with the politicians, since unpalatable measures become infinitely more doable politically if there is a proportion of the population already putting them into effect of their own volition.

Bear in mind that although we can be sure where things are heading and approximately when, chaos theory tells us that we can never tell the precise amount necessary to tip the balance until after it has happened. In the end it will be triggered by just one more molecule, and that will be because of all the ones each of us have already added through having other priorities in life, through not taking the trouble to cut our ecological footprints. It is down to each and every one of us.

The third is to convince everyone you possibly can to do likewise. In which nothing helps more in that than having already put it into practice yourself. Not to mention the mutual support and encouragement from which everyone benefits.



For those who remain sceptical, reluctant, or emotionally opposed to so doing, I would simply say this.

Time has almost run out. If runaway global warning does kick in, everything you are currently doing and consider more important will be rendered increasingly, and finally absolutely, futile as a result. That the risks of not behaving prudently are simply too great to contemplate. That it is in your own self-interest to evoke the precautionary principle and act prudently whilst that is still possible

While for those who simply cannot contemplate giving up their gas guzzlers for good, try looking at it this way. By 2012 the situation should be clear. If runaway global warming has kicked in, you can get the thing out of the garage and burn up to your hearts content for the rest of your lives. Because by then the amounts of greenhouse gases being released out of deep storage will be so great that it will make no difference.

Or to put it another way, we are doomed anyway.

But for now, we all need you to restrain yourselves for what may be our very last breathing space, and by all accounts appears to be our very last chance.

And the same for consumers generally. It is time to stop.



Thanks for reading this far. My apologies for labouring. And for finding myself again in the role of prophet of doom over all of this. That said, things could be worse. Unless I am hallucinating badly, the four horsemen of the apocalypse are next up and not far behind, as they are already strutting their stuff in the poorer parts of the globe not fortuitously cushioned by wealth and a benign climate.

Nonetheless, may you remain positive always, have a happy holiday, and the greatest of strength with whatever you decide to do in response.

The last word rests with Tony Blair who in his new role said that the world now faced catastrophe. This happened to be reported in the Guardian in an article announcing that the world's glaciers appear to be melting at the fastest rate for 5,000 years...

'...revealed in the latest report from the World Glacier Monitoring Service and will add to growing alarm about the rise in sea levels and increased instances of flooding, avalanches and drought.

'Based on historical records and other evidence, the rate at which the glaciers are melting is also thought to be faster that at any time in the past 5,000 years, said Professor Wilfried Haeberli, director of the monitoring service. 'There's no absolute proof, but nevertheless the evidence is strong: this is really extraordinary.'

'Experts have been monitoring 30 glaciers around the world for nearly three decades and the most recent figures, for 2006, show the biggest ever 'net loss' of ice. Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), told The Observer that melting glaciers were now the 'loudest and clearest' warning signal of global warming.

'The problem could lead to failing infrastructure, mass migration and even conflict. 'We're talking about something that happens in your and my lifespan. We're not talking about something hypothetical, we're talking about something dramatic in its consequences,' he said.

'Lester Brown, of the influential US-based Earth Policy Institute, said the problem would have global ramifications, as farmers in China and India struggled to irrigate their crops.

'This is the biggest predictable effect on food security in history as far as I know,' said Brown.'

In the same report, Mr Blair is reported as saying:

'We have reached the critical moment of decision on climate change. Failure to act now would be deeply and unforgivably irresponsible. The scale of what is needed is so great that the purpose of any global action is not to ameliorate or to make better our carbon dependence; it is to transform the nature of economies and societies in terms of carbon consumption and emissions.

If the average person in the US is, say, to emit per capita, one-tenth of what they do today and those in the UK or Japan one-fifth, we're not talking of adjustment, we're talking about a revolution.'

Folks, better get with it while you still can.


20 March 2008




Sources

1 Blair to lead campaign on climate change
The Guardian Friday 14.03.08 pages 1 & 2
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/14/tonyblair.climatechange

2 The Ecologist – Beat denial 12 point plan
http://www.theecologist.org/archive_detail.asp?open=y&content_id=683#7130

3 Zero Carbon Britain
http://www.zerocarbonbritain.com

4 “Climate change is potentially the greatest threat to global stability and therefore to national security”
The Guardian 20 March 2008 p15 reporting on the 'national security strategy' announced by Gordon Brown on 19 March.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/20/military.defence

5 Glaciers melt 'at fastest rate in past 5,000 years'
The Observer 16 March 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/16/glaciers.climatechange1


PS:

'politics:policies may be unable to keep pace with the environmental changes of the future.'

The Guardian 20 March 2008 p23, reporting a forecast by 35 leading environmental sciences on factors affecting biodiversity in the UK. Risks cited include nanotechnologies, invasive species, especially pathogens, and policy responses to climate change.


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The Tragedy of the Commons

The highly suspect economics essay called ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ is well known in Wild Law for being heavily leaned by Professors Warren and Lea in attempts to discredit its practicability at the first Wild Law Conference (papers available elsewhere in the forum).

Here is a new take on the subject from the Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC) which everyone should read.

It points the finger rather differently – there is even a telling graphic to that effect.


http://blog.mec.ca/2007/09/index.html


To those unfamiliar, MEC started as a co-operative amongst a small group of Canadian students who wanted to buy their rucksacs economically.

Out of that one initiative has grown an organisation with over two and a half million members, which must make it one of the largest co-ops anywhere in the world as well as one of the largest retailers of outdoor equipment.

A highly green, ethical and democratic organisation, MEC is keenly engaged in promoting and protecting the wilderness – Canada being one of the relatively small number of countries with significant amounts to still to protect. Its purpose is not to make money or sell gear:

‘Our mission is to help people access self-propelled wilderness-oriented recreation by providing equipment, services, and expertise.’

A freshing difference. And a heartening example of how small, local acts can sometimes produce enormous consequences when their time is right.



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Website of the Day: Transition Towns

Transition town is a term that keeps popping up when you start checking out alternatives. As it is something of an innovation, and perhaps rather mysterious one at that, today’s offering is the result of an attempt to find out what it is all about, for those not already familiar.

Transition Towns turns out to be a community based, bottom-up movement. Each community aims to develop an ‘Energy Descent Action Plan’ to prepare for and respond to the twin crises foreseen approaching – energy scarcity and climate change.

Much of the emphasis is on the concept of ‘Peak Oil’ – that we have lived through a period that started around 1960 in which energy supplies were more or less inexhaustible and at ever lower prices – which is now coming to an end.

The whole movement is conceptualised in Permaculture terms, so it is no surprise that both the solutions typically envisaged and the processes for arriving at them are conceived along those lines. Not that there is anything inherently wrong in that, as Permaculture is probably the most coherent response we have to the multiple challenges we now face.

These include a return to the local economy, moves towards sustainability and self-sufficiency, ecological building, low energy use, local food production and so forth.

Another key concept is ‘the great deskilling’. This refers to the fact that through socialisation and education society has produced a population of people very highly educated and incredibly skilled in all manner of extremely specialised things, all of which have only one thing in common – that they are all unfortunately absolutely useless from the point of view of survival – whilst simultaneously loosing almost completely in only a few generations their birthright of traditional skills, some of which have been passed down largely unchanged since the Stone Age or earlier, and that are indispensable to living harmoniously with the planet. How to grow and nuture, make and repair things, knowledge of the uses of the things of nature, how to live with the weather, the seasons, one’s own body. Things like that.

The ability to prepare food is the latest one phasing out, in favour of convenience foods and eating out, because people now consider themselves to be ‘too busy’ for such unworthwhile activities as cooking.

The net result is a population absolutely incapable of meeting any of its survival needs in any way whatsoever other than to buy them, and which is therefore totally dependent upon the system and condemned to a consumer lifestyle – in the true sense of the word – as a result. It therefore has no alternative than to work for money in whatever way the system requires.

It is a fundamental part of the problem, and has simply left people climbing over each other to get the most comfortable spots available within that model. For better or worse, from that point of view law has to be amongst the most desirable.


Transition Town status appears to be entirely independent of conventional local government, though there is great emphasis on the need to get it on side to get individual aspects of the plans put into practice, and hopefully to get the Energy Descent Action Plan endorsed and perhaps one day fully adopted. Only when there are sufficient local communities up and running in an area will the process be expanded on their backs to the regional level or higher.

It seems the movement started in Totnes, Devon, UK around summer 2006 and has gone on rapidly from there.

Within the UK, the site lists 22 places that have officially recognised as Transition Towns, and another 200 where initial processes are underway.

Elsewhere it identifies Transition Towns in France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Israel, Oz, New Zealand, Canada and the USA.

Oakland, California, USA is listed as the front runner to be the first Transition City.


The main site is a wiki still under development. It also links to the websites of the Transition Towns individually. The most useful page to start at is

http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/TransitionNetwork

where the links top right lead to some interesting stuff.


There is a telling illustration of how money haemorrhages from the local economy if you don’t shop locally, quantified at

http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/LeakyEconomy


Finally an article about the movement from the Guardian of 19 April 2007 is at

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/apr/19/energy.ethicalliving



END

Website of the Day: The World Land Trust

The feelgood factor from being an investor in Triodos Bank is marvellous, knowing that your money is helping only really inspiring organisations with a positive ecological and social benefit, and not arms dealers, the manufacturers of nuclear power stations and other unconscionable things.

But tops in this respect has to be The World Land Trust. It’s a charity that doesn’t just talk about things, it gets right on and does them.

Its purpose is to buy up habitats of major ecological importance that are under severe threat just as fast as it can. As there are a lot of these, it has a lot to do.

Since 1989, the WLT has helped protect over 350,000 acres (142 hectares) of tropical forest, coral reefs, arid coastal steppe, and ancient beech woodland.

Just £25 buys half an acre of rainforest that typically holds more than 220 species of tree. Compare that with the ‘singularly impoverished’ native tree population of the entire British Isles which consists of just 36 species. You can pump up the number to 65 by adding 8 ‘larger shrubs which occasionally reach tree size’ and 21 naturalised species if you are embarrassed, but its perilously close to cheating. Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trees_of_Britain_and_Ireland


All due to the speed with which the North Sea filled up after the last Ice Age, apparently (Collins Tree Guide, 2004, p7).

Then you really feel you have done something extraordinarily worthwhile with your money. And that is before you take account of all the things that live in them!

If that doesn’t appeal, instead invest in a piece of a corridor for endangered Indian elephants to put their trunks in. Seems they are getting into big trouble with – you guessed it – humans, for doing no more than tramping the ancient migratory trails they have always followed, so there is a need to buy them up fast before the inevitable outcome plays out.

And the nice thing about elephants is that, unlike those two-legged animals, they are happy to share with all the other species, so everyone gains - with the exception of a few misguided people.

Patrons this time around are none other than David Attenborough, so you can have absolute confidence in science and the utility, and, for some reason, David Gower. Bill Oddie is also on board, and we even have a lawyer as one of the trustees. He is Simon Lyster, qualified in both the UK and USA, who is Chief Executive of LEAD International, an international network of folk whose shared mission is to inspire leadership for a sustainable world. He’s a former Director General of the Wildlife Trusts and worked for 10 years with WWF.



As the Wild Law workshop is currently in full flight, the proposition is that all participants should consider buying half an acre this weekend to do something positive, concrete and instantaneous that really makes a difference, and to help to offset the impacts that are an inevitable consequence of gathering together, no matter how worthy the cause.

Most of all for the sheer elation. To know that today you saved a big chunk of rainforest and all the things that live in it, for little more than the price of a round of drinks, has to be one of the best things you can do with money anywhere. The kids will love you for it, too.

http://www.worldlandtrust.org



END

Website of the day: Earth Jurisprudence Website

First up today has to be the brand new Earth Jurisprudence site launched earlier this week by the Gaia Foundation.

Visually stunning and nicely targeted, it already assembles a wealth of essential information in one place for the first time, and will no doubt be doing lots more exciting things in due course.

This excellent step forward must be obligatory viewing for all interested in Wild Law, so little more need be said.

http://www.earthjurisprudence.org/index.html

The site is still under construction, so the opportunity remains to make positive input – to Guy at the Gaia Foundation on

guy@gaianet.org


.

Arctic Sea Ice Melts to its Lowest Ever

POSTED 22 september 2007

ARCTIC SEA ICE MELTS TO ITS LOWEST LEVEL EVER

This article appears in today’s Independent. It reports a 22% shrinkage in minimum area over two summers, and predicts an ice free Arctic by 2030 or sooner and the extinction of the polar bear by mid century.

It reports the latest findings of US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), which monitors the state of the Arctic.


Key points:

‘The sea ice of the Arctic shrank to its lowest-ever level this week, shattering the previous record, set two years ago, by an enormous amount…’

‘In what will be widely seen as one of the most alarming signs yet of accelerating global warming, the summer melt-back exceeded the September 2005 low point by 22 per cent – an area of 1.2 million square kilometres – more than 385,000 square miles. This represents an area five times the size of the UK.’

"It's the biggest drop from a previous record that we've ever had and it's really quite astounding…this is really accelerating the trend."

‘By Sunday last week, it had shrunk to 1.6 million sq miles. This compares with the 2005 low point of 2.07 million sq miles.’

‘The contrast is even greater with the long-term average over the past 20 years or so. Between 1979 (when regular satellite monitoring had just started) and 2000, the long-term average minimum was 2.6 million sq miles.’

‘…now scientists are increasingly thinking the models have seriously underestimated the rate, and [the arctic becoming ice free] may happen much earlier.’

A senior NSIDC researcher said it might take only 25 years or less.

"If we were talking even two or three years ago, I'd have said the transition to an ice-free Arctic summer might be between 2070 and 2100…But we're starting to see that that is rather optimistic, and an educated guess right now would be 2030. It's something that could be within our lifetime."

He added:

"We're on strong spiral of decline; some would say a death spiral. I wouldn't go that far but we're certainly on a fast track…”

‘What the melting of the Arctic ice will do is spell doom for much of the wildlife of the region, led by polar bears, which need the ice to hunt seals. Polar bears were officially notified as threatened species last year by being included in the Red List of the World Conservation Union. Some conservationists think they could be gone by mid-century.’

Comment:

The thing to note here is the trend. The Arctic fell in enduring size by 22% from of 2.07 million sq miles in 2005 to 1.6 million sq miles over just two summers. Extrapolating that very crudely on a straight line basis would actually imply an ice-free Arctic in only 8 years time – in 2013 – or earlier. But it is on an accelerating trend, suggesting even earlier still.

Comparing the current figure of 1.6 million sq miles with the long-term average between 1979 and 2000 of 2.6 million sq miles, a drop of 38%, is more conjectural. However this figure is interpreted it can only be viewed as alarming.

It is important not to overlook that the effects on climate will already be happening, and will do so with increasing force as the melt continues.

It is not the case that everything is fine until the last iceberg melts in 2013, 2030 or whenever. Also during the last few years of its existence, the Arctic will be so small that its moderating effects on weather and its influence on global circulation patterns in the oceans will have already largely been lost.



Please bear in mind that even if we were to react today with absolute decisiveness there is absolutely nothing we can do to halt global warming for a decade or more, possibly much longer. Like karma, the consequences have already been decided by our past actions and are absolutely inescapable.

The only sane response has to be a most urgent and fundamental re-evaluation of our lives, our values and our actions on an individual level, accompanied by an equally rigorous examination and realignment universally.

Please, do not prevaricate.


http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2987778.ece


.

Website of the day: Indigenous People's Cultural Support Trust

Emily, Sue and Patrick, three of the trustees from the IPCST came along to Andy Kimbrell’s outstanding presentation at the Gaia Foundation on Wednesday 19 September.

It is a small and apparently very efficient charity which works for the Indian tribal people in Brazil in the catchments of the Xingu and Araguaia rivers in the States of Mato Grosso and Pará.


They are looking to Wild Law – and indeed any law – to help protect the integrity of the reserves and to protect the tribal peoples whose way of life depend on it.

Both are under severe threat to the extent of becoming unviable as a result of encroachment, logging, serious contamination of the catchment upstream, and conflicts with non-indigenous settlers.

The water problems are caused by a massive sediment load due to deforestation, to the extent it is no longer possible to see fish – the main food – to spear them.

In addition there is a health problem with sewerage carried in from settlements outside the reserve.

Patron of the charity is Professor Sir Ghillean Prance, Science Director of the Eden Project in Cornwall, and a former Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.



Start here to get an overview, including bios on the interesting lives of Emily, Sue and Patrick, then browse from there for details of the projects, satellite photos showing the problem etc:

http://www.ipcst.org/about.htm#members


There is also a short document on the impact of climate change which is worth visiting for a graphic satellite image showing the desolation outside the reserve. It reminds us:

‘Deforestation contributes 75% of Brazil’s total greenhouse gas emissions; despite Brazilian people having a relatively small individual carbon footprint, Brazil is the world’s fourth largest climate polluter.’

at:

http://www.ipcst.org/images/HoB_ClimateChange.pdf


IPCST’s work is featured extensively on the BBC’s Portuguese website which is highly recommended even for non-speakers for the stunning photos (em imagen). Find them at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/portuguese/forum/story/2007/08/070808_projetoxingu17.shtml



Any legal expertise that might help with the predicament of these endangered peoples, a fast disappearing part of our global heritage and of the Earth community, would be greatly appreciated.


.

'Too Late to Avoid Global Warming' Say Scientists

This article was published in the Independent yesterday.

It reports on the latest study issued by the IPCC on 19 September.



Key points in the IPCC report are:

‘A rise of two degrees centigrade in global temperatures…is now "very unlikely" to be avoided.’

‘Very unlikely’ means a ‘1% to 10% chance of limiting the global temperature rise to two degrees centigrade or less’.

A two degree rise is considered to be

‘the threshold for catastrophic climate change which will expose millions to drought, hunger and flooding…’

It

‘put the inevitability of drastic global warming in the starkest terms yet, stating that major impacts…are unavoidable and the focus must be on adapting life to survive the most devastating changes.’

"If warming is not kept below two degrees centigrade, which will require the strongest mitigation efforts, and currently looks very unlikely to be achieved, the [sic] substantial global impacts will occur, such as species extinctions, and millions of people at risk from drought, hunger, flooding."

The article states:

‘For more than a decade, EU countries led by Britain have set a rise of two degrees centigrade or less in global temperatures above pre-industrial levels as the benchmark after which the effects of climate become devastating, with crop failures, water shortages, sea-level rises, species extinctions and increased disease.’

Two years ago, an authoritative study predicted there could be as little as 10 years before this "tipping point" for global warming was reached, adding a rise of 0.8 degrees had already been reached with further rises already locked in because of the time lag in the way carbon dioxide – the principal greenhouse gas – is absorbed into the atmosphere.


NB that means only 8 years from now.



The IPCC report states

‘the effects of this rise are being felt sooner than anticipated with the poorest countries and the poorest people set to suffer the worst of shifts in rainfall patterns, temperature rises and the viability of agriculture across much of the developing world.’

The Met Office scientist who co-chaired the committee said:

"Ten years ago we were talking about these impacts affecting our children and our grandchildren. Now it is happening to us."

‘…he believed it would now be "very difficult" to achieve the target…’

and

" You cannot mitigate your way out of this problem... The choice is between a damaged world or a future with a severely damaged world."

Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC, said that 2015 was the last year in which the world could afford a net rise in greenhouse gas emissions, after which "very sharp reductions" are required.



The article contains many moving examples of the devastation this would mean in practice, many of which are drawn directly from the IPCC report. Perhaps the most stark example is:

‘Asia: Up to a billion people will suffer water shortages as supplies dwindle with the melting of Himalayan glaciers.’

Others relevant to this topic are:

‘Polar regions: The seasonal thaw of permafrost will increase by 15 per cent and the overall extent of the permafrost will shrink by about 20 per cent. Indigenous communities such as the Inuit face loss of traditional lifestyle.’

And no doubt the polar bears, too.

'Small islands: Low-lying islands are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels with the Maldives already suffering land loss.’

The IPCC report would simply seem to reconfirm the argument set out in the topic ‘Is there time for Wild Law?’

In terms of averting catastrophe the answer is clearly no. But that merely reinforces the urgency for its universal introduction at the earliest possible opportunity. We simply cannot go on like this a moment longer.

The changes inherent in a Wild Law system of environmental and economic regulation are required with the utmost urgency to mitigate the effects of what we have already irreversibly done.

And scandalously are continuing to do with absolute irresponsibility.

It also hammers home the futility of waiting for governments – or anyone else for that matter – to act.

There is now an absolute moral imperative on each and every one of us to do all we can to put our lives in order without prevarication or excuses, to minimise our ecological footprint to the absolute in recognition that many are yet to start doing so, and to try to just as hard as we can to convince everyone we know to do the same.

It may sound drastic. But on the very best science the outcome now seems inevitable, and it would be foolish and irresponsible – as well as ultimately self-destructive – to do otherwise.


http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2976669.ece



.

Wild Law Website

Only one question.



Where is it?



A matter of priority for this weekend, surely.



If fleshing out is needed please do say.


.

Website of the day: The Centre for Alternative Technology

The origins of CAT lie in the attempts of a visionary millionaire and a load of hippies to establish a entirely self-sufficient community in the arguably less than ideal setting of a disused slate quarry on the south edge of Snowdonia in 1975.

It quickly became apparent that this implied going back more or less to the stone age and, as this was not considered palatable, the direction was shifted into what was then called Intermediate Technology. It has been of Europe’s leading demonstration centre in sustainability every since.

For most of that time its was dismissed by decision-makers – as just a load of old hippies – with the one exception of overseas development, where the wisdom, applicability and economic efficiency of its solutions won respectability with government agencies.

Undeterred, CAT worked away steadily at developing workable solutions and educating the public in both the issues involved and their resolution.

Extraordinarily it become one of the top tourist destinations in North Wales, and established itself as the leading consultancy for small scale off-the-grid power installations – solar wind and hydro - eco-building, energy conservation in buildings and several other disciplines.

Almost overnight the situation flipped when governments woke up abruptly to the environmental issues CAT had been advertising for 20 years or more. It suddenly found itself at the centre of mainstream thinking, with numerous government departments scrambling over themselves to hurriedly reformulate policy in areas hitherto unknown to them, particularly with respect to wind energy which almost no-one else in the country knew anything about at that time, and energy conservation in buildings.



CAT is a more or less obligatory visit for anyone seriously interested in positive, practical solutions to our environmental crisis.

It has an excellent shop for sustainability items and an outstanding range of books on every aspect of sustainability, including many of its own publications. There is also a very good organic vegetarian restaurant.

CAT also runs a wide range of short and long residential courses on anything from blacksmithing to organic gardening, installing wind turbines – you can even make one out of recycled materials – to building your own eco-home. Even how to convert your car to run on chip fat – or biodiesel. These are perhaps the best way to really understand the breadth of vision of the place.

It also offers a number of MA/MSc courses related to architecture, energy, and environmental management.

Do try to visit if you have not already.


http://www.cat.org.uk/index.tmpl?refer=index&init=1




END

Ego (Wild Law in Seven Words part III)

Your ego seized control of you mind. Long ago.

Now it keeps your heart prisoner in a dungeon it has constructed out of fear and doubts it insinuates whenever you hear your heart calling.

The thousand and one ‘common-sense’ reasons that paralyse you after you begin to soar elated at the heart’s inspiration. It is only common because it is so ubiquitous.



Money. Insecurity. Status. Reactions of others you live in fear of. Nightmare scenarios of a future it is not yours to know in advance. And money again.



So you close your ears to the voice of your heart within, and turn back to what you have always known. To what is poisoning the planet.

Because it is safe. Because it is respectable. Because it involves no risk.

Because that is what you have been told you should do all your lives.

Because it is demanded of you from all sides, for it is what the system depends on.



But your soul weeps quietly, and you cannot but hear its sadness. So you attempt to blank it out in hyperactivity, in haste and busyness, distracting yourself unremittingly so you do not have time to listen.

Or seek escape in booze and drugs, or hopelessly desperate sex that you cling to as a drowning person cleaves to the lifesaver. Even as you drown them too in your desperation.

Because it is the last contact with nature that remains in your urban, industrial lives, the last piece of your authenticity left for your natural being, for what you really are, to manifest through.

That is why it is so radical and so potent, and so subversive.

And why it has become so distorted.

It is nature’s strongest force, and its most alchemic. Even alone it is only the best of you that can deal with it well.


But you add to its force all that lies crying within at its imprisonment trying to escape through the last chink that is left.

It blasts out as a torrent after a cataclysm, and its pent-up force is far more than you are capable of handling. Too often it carries everything in its wake.

Too constrained to express your true nature, or even your distorted nature, it seeps out sideways in a prurient interest in the sex lives of others. The rich and the famous and the egoists on Big Brother, even the people you know in your daily lives.

Nothing fascinates you more, because your needs and your creativity lie repressed within you.


.

Hearts and Minds (Wild Law in Seven Words part II)

They came back to give us some advice. They can see we have wandered off so far, and may have got so lost that we have forgotten how to find our way back.

They don’t mind how long we take for the journey. They just want us to relax and enjoy the experience of returning, and the wonders we will rediscover along the way.

Their concern is that we might be so lost we go on goofing up and making an even bigger mess. Of everything.

So here is what they say.

Follow your heart. That is all you need to do.

It will show you the way.

And it will do so perfectly. Every step of the path you must travel.

In ways that are too wondrous to imagine, which your head would not believe possible.




Do not let your head overrule it.

That is how you became arrogant and strode purposely out of Eden, adamant that you could do better.

Now just look what you have done.



Decisions are for your heart. Then your head can attend to logistics.

That is its purpose and that is what it excels at.

That is the natural order of all things.



For it is the divine which speaks to you thus.

And it is only by returning to harmony with the higher order

that you can find the peace and happiness that evades you.

.

BBC Drops Planet Relief

'Mark Lynas dismissed the argument that Planet Relief was dropped for purely editorial reasons as "PR guff". "This is all to do with the fact that climate change is such a political issue and it's too hot for the BBC to handle," he said. "It's intellectual bankruptcy. The entire scientific community is telling the world that it's the biggest threat to human civilisation. What more evidence do you need?"'

http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2934318.ece

.

Melting icecap shockwaves are triggering earthquakes

An article was published in the Independent on 08 September entitled

‘Shockwaves from melting icecaps are triggering earthquakes, say scientists’

This relates the chilling news that the melting of Greenland's ice sheet has accelerated so dramatically that it is triggering earthquakes for the first time which register up to 3 on the Richter scale.

Key points to note are:

1 These glacial ice quakes were unknown in that region 3 years ago.

2 The paper considers them to be ‘among the latest ominous signs that an unprecedented step change is under way’.

3 That the acceleration in melting is so great it is outstripping the ability of scientists to predict it, while proving current predictions hopelessly optimistic in a matter of months – we are already at 2040 on a model produced 5 years ago, and will be at 2050 next year; an IPCC report issued this February is already considered out of date.

4 Glaciers are also starting to move rapidly – at up to 2 metres an hour – as a result of the lubrication caused by melt water, causing them to discharge into the sea at an accelerating rate.

5 Similar effects are being felt in Alaska where tectonic activity is being triggered by the relief of pressure due to the reduced amount of ice resting on the plates.

6 The predicted sea level rises in IPCC 4 (the latest) of 50 to 60 cm are now extremely dubious, and the consensus according to the article is now around two metres. The difference is critical.

7 In the north of Sweden, mean temperatures have risen above zero for the first time on record – ie it is in net meltdown for the first time since the last ice age or longer.


All that has been said in previous posts has dealt solely with the meltdown of the North Polar region. In other words it was made on the basis of an unrealistic and very optimistic assumption because it ignored the melting of the Greenland Icecap and Antarctica.

The reason for that assumption was that there seems now to be irrefutable evidence for the former; whilst the latter are clearly melting, the implications are more conjectural.

In the case of Greenland and the Antarctic, there have been extremely worrying signs from both for a considerable time. However because of their very different character, the unprecedented nature of the events unfolding, the lack of clarity as to what is happening to them and their responses as a system, their situation remains open to interpretation and the scientific position has yet to form a firm consensus.

In other words we don’t really know what is going on or what it is going to lead to.

As most will be aware, both regions are true continents lying beneath several kilometres of ice, while the North Polar region is nothing but a layer of ice floating in the sea. In comparison it is extremely thin – the submarines which surface through the ice can only do so where it is less than three and a half metres thick.


A critical issue is sea level rise. The melting of the North Pole makes no difference at all to sea level, because it is already floating in the water. That is not the case for the ice-bound continents. As the article says:

‘Greenland's ice cap is immense, the second largest in the world, and its break-up would be catastrophic. The packed ice is up to two miles thick and its total collapse into the ocean would raise worldwide sea levels by seven metres.’

In addition, we must assume that corresponding effects are happening to Antarctica during the Southern Hemisphere summer.

‘Estimates of the likely rise in sea levels this century vary, and the IPCC published a conservative range of between 20cm-60cm. But those estimates are now heavily disputed, with many scientists insisting that new data collected since the IPCC report suggested a rise closer to two metres.’

This will spell the end for many island states, for instance Vanuatu in the Pacific where the highest point is 4 metres above sea level. The knock-on effects would be dramatic, and the effects on climate of an increased proportion of sea on the earth’s surface unpredictable.


These finding illustrate most clearly the absolute frailty of the predictions we are relying on to determine our response to climate change. In a very short space of time the best science has been shown to have produced predictions that are completely unrealistic and hopelessly optimistic.

The lesson is clear. In such a situation the only sane response is to follow the precautionary principle to the letter.

Tragically we continue to do exactly the opposite.


The article should be read in full if at all possible. But for those lacking the time, a few more highlights are quoted below the URL.

http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2941866.ece

‘The speed of the arctic ice melt has accelerated to such an extent that a UN report issued in February is now thought to be out of date by its own authors who describe the acceleration [in melting] as "massive".’

A key member of the IPCC said

"It's moving toward the sea at a rate of two metres an hour. It's exuding like toothpaste, moving towards us at 15 kilometres per year."

‘As the reality of the unprecedented thaw becomes apparent, the consequences are outstripping the capacity of scientific models to predict it.’

‘Predictions made by the Arctic Council, a working group of regional scientists, have been hopelessly overrun by the extent of the thaw. "Five years ago we made models predicting how much ice would melt and when," said Mr Vallio. "Five years later we are already at the levels predicted for 2040, in a year's time we'll be at 2050."’

‘This dramatic warming is being felt across the Arctic region. In Alaska, earthquakes are rocking the seabed as tectonic plates – subdued for centuries by the weight of the glaciers on top of them – are now moving against each other again.’

‘In the north of Sweden, mean temperatures have risen above zero for the first time on record.’

.

Website of the day: Crystal Waters Permaculture Village

The impression often created is that Earth Jurisprudence is a recent thing, and that Wild Law dates from 2002 when Cormac Cullinan’s ground-breaking book of that title was published.

Whilst that may possibly be true of the consciousness of the legal profession as a community, I suspect that view is a partial one as a result of the rather artificial world that lawyers inhabit, which Cormac Cullinan was forthright and candid enough to acknowledge when he spoke at ‘Earth is Community’ on Saturday 15 September.

http://www.earth-is-community.org.uk/


Meanwhile in the world as it actually exists, even leaving aside indigenous peoples and subsistence farmers entirely, small groups of people have been actively living according to Earth Jurisprudence for much longer, though often without the need for written law or statute to constrain them to do so.

The need for formal rules only seems to be felt when people form into communities established on an hierarchical, power-based system. These appear to arise when ownership becomes an issue – in other words when we cease nomadic existence and start to claim a quite imaginary right to the exploitation of a piece of land, almost inevitably on an exclusive basis.



Crystal Waters Permaculture Village is an example where this formalisation has taken place into an explicit set of by laws governing the human community intended to establish and safeguard its nature as a Permaculture community. Rights of a Wild Law character have been formally recognised for the entire Earth Community accordingly, with the exception of a few species of plant considered pests – groundsel in particular.

Although it had been an intentional community since 1975 (for a period of a rather dubious legal status), Crystal Waters began yet another incarnation in 1985 when Max Lindegger, one of the earliest and most committed movers of Permaculture (who has gone on to found the eco-village movement) was called in by the residents to redesign it as a Permaculture village.

This involved dividing the 259 hectares of exhausted farmland – originally cleared bush – and native eucalyptus forest into 80 residential lots arranged in clusters, each comprising of about one quarter of a hectare. The remainder of the land is held in common by a cooperative to which all owners and tenants belong and contribute to financially, in kind, and with their energy in various ways.

Legally this required the formulating an entirely new and quite complex legal structure, with a Body Corporate and a co-operative to which all residents belonged, and individual titles to the 80 lots.

The cooperative owns the land held in common and infrastructure, a number of buildings for community purposes, and a camp site. Residents requiring more land – for instance for growing crops commercially – can rent it from this body.

Physically it required the design of the site on Permaculture principles sympathetically handling the rights of existing beings – for instance trees – and the installation of the infrastructure – dams, access roads to the various clusters, drainage and a reticulated water supply.



The Body Corporate By-Laws, which came into force in 1987 (from memory) are clearly based entirely on Earth Jurisprudence principles.

They establish the primacy of the principles of Permaculture:

− ‘Care for the Earth and
− Care for the People and
− No use or activity upon any lot or upon the common property shall be performed or conducted contrary to such principles.’


In addition:

‘the flora and fauna are to be observed and enjoyed at all times and in such manner as will preserve the environment with full recognition of the environmental sensitivity of the area.’

Dogs and cats are specifically prohibited because of the serious negative impact these animals have on the native wildlife.


The by-laws can be found at

http://www.ecologicalsolutions.com.au/crystalwaters/history/by_laws.html



The population of the community seems to float at around 180 to 200 including about 60 children. One of the most valued features is the fact that the children can grow up in a natural environment in which they can roam freely and explore entirely unsupervised, without the usual preoccupations over safety and security, in the sure knowledge that they can seek out and be taken care of by supportive adults if need be. This also benefits parents, who are relieved of the unending pressure to supervise their offspring.

So successful have these by-laws been that Crystal Waters was awarded a UN World Habitat Award in 1996 for its "pioneering work in demonstrating new ways of low impact, sustainable living", and has won several other awards.


There are a number of web sites to browse. The overview at Max Lindegger’s EcoLogical Solutions site is perhaps the most authoritative:

http://www.ecologicalsolutions.com.au/crystalwaters/overview/overview.html

This includes an interesting review of what has been accomplished over 15 years, though the photo links are somewhat disappointing.


A better visual impression can be gained by clicking on the photo caption links on:

http://www.squidoo.com/crystalwaters


There is no such thing as a typical lot at Crystal Waters, with house designs of every type and ecological construction. They range from tipis and a converted railway carriage through to rammed earth and mud brick, by way of timber-framed and straw bale. However an example is

http://www.ecologicalsolutions.com.au/crystalwaters/real_estate/lot_73/lot_73.htm


A sample of businesses currently being run by community residents are


EcoLogical Solutions

http://www.ecologicalsolutions.com.au/index.php


Crystal Waters Guest House (nice photos)

http://www.waterbreath.com/welcome.htm


SEED International

http://www.crystalwaterscollege.org.au/sections/faculty/SEED_Int.html


The Village Organic Farm

http://www.thevillageorganicfarm.com.au/crystal-waters.html




Regrettably few of the images give a fair impression of this extraordinary, and extraordinary beautiful, place. But a nice account of a visit by someone from the Findhorn Community aptly entitled ‘Treading Lightly on the Earth’ can be found at

http://www.findhorn.org/forums/global/story.php?id=317


.

Website of the Day: The Centre for Earth Jurisprudence

My profuse apologies go to all at the Centre for Earth Jurisprudence, as this most inspiring example of the rapid penetration being made by earth jurisprudence was intended to be posted on day one. Please forgive the delay.

It will be well-known to many, as a sizeable party took an active part in Wild Law 2 in November 2006, just as it was getting off the ground.

‘Its mission is to re-envision law and governance in ways that support and protect the health and well being of the Earth community as a whole.’

The Center for Earth Jurisprudence is a joint initiative by both St. Thomas and Barry Universities in Miami, Florida, USA, and began formal teaching in the spring of this year.

Do check out the history page, which also has a link to an indispensible listing of fellow travellers on a global basis. Its at

http://www.earthjuris.org


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Website of the Day: Earth is Community

Most will already be aware that the life and work of Thomas Berry, ‘one of the greatest thinkers and visionaries of our time’ will be celebrated at this major conference in London tomorrow.

Thomas Berry inspired Cormac Cullinan to conceptualise Wild Law and was instrumental in its formulation.

Cormac Cullinan will be speaking on “The Transformation of Law”.

Other speakers are Matthew Fox, Vandana Shiva, Satish Kumar and Peter Reason.

There will also be some eco-poetry, and some music too – eco or otherwise.



Tickets are available on the door @ £39.


http://www.earth-is-community.org.uk


With apologies for short notice – computer crash.


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