Ecocide: a corporate anathema

'Eradicating Ecocide highlights the need for enforceable, legally binding mechanisms in national and international law to hold to account perpetrators of long term severe damage to the environment. At this critical juncture in history it is vital that we set global standards of accountability for corporations, in order to put an end to the culture of impunity and double standards that pervade the international legal system.'

So says Bianca Jagger in her endorsement of Polly Higgins’ book, Eradicating Ecocide. And rightly so.

If corporations are not immediately reined into prevent them from persisting in acts which, directly and indirectly, are the primary causes of our global ecological meltdown; in continuing to maintain and aggressively promote a corporate and societal culture which prioritises profits over all other concerns and obligations so as to be able to persist in perpetrating those acts to those ends, then we must anticipate a substantial destabilisation of the biosphere in the not too distant future, one which will make life untenable for many species and cause immense, almost unimaginable, human suffering.

To give but one example, as James Hansen says, if the Keystone XL Pipeline is approved, it is game over. (Use the tag or search for previous posts on Jim Hansen, and for inspiration check out the end of the one paragraph version of his c.v. accessible here)

Be that as it may, we already know far more than enough to be certain that the corporate world will oppose the criminalisation of ecocide to the absolute limits of its power, a power which in practice appears almost irresistible.

The evidence for that is overwhelming - it is irreconcilably hostile to any limitation placed on its freedom to operate and resists implacably with every means at its disposal. Ever since they were introduced, it has been waging a concerted and heavily-resourced war of attrition to roll back the advances made in environmental protection in the second half of the last century. By now it is quite clear that it is winning substantially.

We simply could not be in this most dire of predicaments were that not true. On every front, in every aspect of our multi-faceted environmental calamity, be it deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, loss of biodiversity, water, soil or any other you care to look at, the damage is being done, facilitated and enabled by corporate activity, and almost always on a scale which is still ramping up despite the known impacts that will result and their indisputably disastrous consequences.

Yet in every example, almost without exception, you will find that all attempts to stop, limit or mitigate the damage and its consequences are being powerfully opposed by the corporate lobby, almost always by the very corporations which undertake the activities concerned and profit by them. There are some noble exceptions, it is true – Patagonia being the most outstanding example, the principled companies aiming to be a part of the solution rather than of the problem - but most are minnows in the grand scheme; the general picture is as described.

Environmental protection measures have been under constant attack on every front: the doctrinaire, alarmist and irrational - that things will go very badly economically and hence very badly in general if market forces are not allowed free rein; direct attacks on legislation and the legislative process pressing for the watering down or repeal of existing measures and opposing new proposals; undermining the credibility of the scientists whose work underpins environmental regulation, and, most notably over climate change, well-documented attacks on the science itself via devices which employ bogus institutes, maverick scientists and pseudo experts to mislead and bamboozle the public; by drawing the teeth of regulators through similar assaults on the regulatory bodies concerned, attacking their funding or even their very existence (currently on the Environmental Protection Agency no less), through tying up their limited resources in legal challenges, or merely by being able to intimidate them into submission using the probable costs should they decide to so challenge.

Lobbying funded on an gigantic scale, together with the manipulation of public perceptions through the mass media are ubiquitous weapons in this war, and the influence now wielded over politicians, particularly those in power, seems to have reached a degree where their independence and representational purpose is very seriously in question.

One has only to look to what is currently unrolling in America, the extraordinary transformation of President Obama, The Citizens’ United decision by the Supreme Court last year (covered by Common Cause here and here, and by the New York Times here), and the assault on the continuing existence of the EPA to see how things panning out.

In the UK too, the process seems relentless, with attack after attack, be it frontal or guerrilla, by the Government itself on existing environmental protection measures, justified on almost any context imaginable. Spending cuts, economic efficiency, deregulation, public benefit, ideology...

Whether we ever lived in democracies is open to question; what seems clear is that in practice the dominant powers in the developed world have now morphed into corporatist states and superstates, in which the superficial trappings of what was never anything more than what is euphemistically termed 'representative democracy' have become a mere puppet show to distract an impotent and gullible populous, deliberately hypnotised by a constant stream of diversions and banality; a populous which has been intentionally socialised and educated to be incapable of thinking sufficiently deeply to comprehend the issues, what is happening, how it will affect their lives and their families, to even take an interest in its own vital interests, let alone react intelligently to what it perceives, while remaining emotionally incapable of doing so anyway, should that unlikely occurrence actually happen. That our collective response to climate change can objectively be described as insane would alone seem to prove all of this beyond dispute.

So the corporate world as it currently exists will never be anything but implacably hostile to the criminalisation of ecocide, be its opposition overt or covert. Its credo is the entirely unfettered, globalised free market, where all and everything is decided by market forces and nothing else, where everything is commoditised without exception. If we still have a regime where the costs of environmental impacts can continue to be externalised and discounted more or less totally, it is no accident. It is the result of sustained, massively resourced and extremely sophisticated politicking by the corporations, conducted over very long time frames and on a global scale, and which continues with increasing vigour even now, as we watch our future (or at least a benign one) slipping relentlessly into oblivion.

Yet, bizarre as it may seem, to the extent that the corporate world can ever be reconciled with the prospect of criminalising ecocide, once it has understood the terms it is being offered, the corks will be flying in boardrooms around the globe.

The reasons for this unlikely and counter-intuitive conclusion must wait for the next substantive post - the one immediately following being a quick update on coverage of the mock trial, which seems to have been very well received.

Climate Politics in 2 minutes 20

This may look flaky, but don’t be fooled. It is as hard as they come, thumping home the facts with the sequential subtly of a pile driver.







Although scripted before COP16 in Cancun, anyone believing the Cancun Agreement renders its message irrelevant need only consider that, even after the accommodations made, we remain on course for temperature increases of at least 3.5ºC on International Energy Agency figures.

Anyone who views this as a success is referred to Six Degrees by Mark Lynas, winner of the Royal Society Science Books Prize in 2008.

Or, as Lord Julian Hunt, Visiting Professor at Delft University, Vice-President of Globe, and former Director-General of the UK Met Office put it recently in a Reuters Davos Notebook briefing for the World Economic Summit on the outcome of COP16 (my emphasis throughout):

‘However, despite these initiatives, we are now at a point at which preserving our current environment is probably unobtainable.’

‘Far from being another unsuccessful international environmental meeting, as some predicted, the Cancun Summit is likely to be looked back upon in years to come as a seminal moment. The accord endorsed the various actions of countries to limit green house gas emissions. However, more significantly for the long term it accepted that preserving the global environment in its present state is probably unattainable.’

‘In the absence of moves towards a much stronger, global and legally binding deal, the world is thus on the path of the ‘business as usual’ scenario envisaged recently as an unlikely worst case. And, the international community now has got to therefore consider unprecedented changes.’

‘What is absolutely clear is that temperature rises of a 3-4C magnitude will, most likely, pose an irreversible tipping point for continental sized areas of changing land cover, and for ice on sea and land. As a result, millions (if not tens of millions) of people are likely to be displaced by the effects of desertification and rising sea levels, and mountain snow melt.’

‘And, with this in mind, politicians and the public would do well to follow the Netherlands Delta commission; the report of the UK Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Committee on Climate Change; and China’s scientific agencies and seriously begin to consider planning for the monumental changes that will be apparent in the decades to come.’

And in closing:

‘The rising costs of dealing with these effects, such as coastal defences, reducing desertification and urban overheating, mean that preventative actions have to begin right away. It would be folly of the highest order to delay this process until economies grow further, as some influential economists continue to argue.”

END

Open email to Ed Miliband

Here's an email sent this weekend to Ed Miliband, the lead UK minister for climate change, taking issue with his view that it is "outrageous" to suggest that what little remains wild in Britain should remain so.

[15 December: Ed's email stating this (to which this is a response) is now appended]

Ed in general has been doing an outstanding job on climate change. Most impressive and more or less unique is Ed's Pledge, his on-line campaign to build the critical mass of support needed to get the right result from COP 15 in Copenhagen.

However he has somehow not yet fully grasped the biodiversity arguments. Instead he has managed to come to the conclusion that what little remains wild in the uk should be sacrificed to windfarms and the like to meet consumers' insatiable demand for cheap energy.

Anyway, read on for the arguments.

Numbers make an enormous difference to such things. So should anyone happen to be moved to support, just paste a copy into an email with the heading:

re: Sign My Letter to David Cameron

add your comments and send it to "Ed Miliband"

info@email-new.labour.org.uk

(well that's the one he gives out, anyway. Given that address, might be an idea add to that you want him to receive it in person.)

In closing, should add that this is not a foray into politics. Just an exercise in rationality, attempting to reason objectively with those so engaged.






Dear Ed

Congratulations on Ed's Pledge and the tremendous work you are doing, especially in respect of COP 15.

Sorry to have to come back to you on this at a supremely busy time, but there is a fundamental flaw in the thinking here, and one that could prove fatal.

Ken Clarke was right on this. It is not a question of nimbyism, bourgeois values, or sentimentality.

It is the indisputable fact that wild places and undisturbed ecologies are absolutely essential for our survival. Simple as that. Because they provide the ecological services on which we all depend for our existence.

The various environmental crises which confront us so forcibly are simply the result of having failed to respect that immutable fact. The underlying reason for our current plight is that we have commandeered massively more than our sustainable share of the wilderness to serve our perceived (and often highly questionable) needs.

James Lovelock calculates that sustainability requires leaving no less than 90% of Earth in its natural state, entirely uninterfered with by human activity. Instead, the entire UK has been so modified and subordinated to human desires that there remains no wilderness to speak of, very little in the way of wild places, and the vast majority of the land mass is altered massively and detrimentally to serve human demands.

The solution to climate change is not to still further compromise or destroy those last remnants for the purpose of meeting demands that are grossly inflated by our refusal to accept our ecological limits. That is the critical mistake in your thinking.

In reality that is to add one of the final nails to our coffin by further undermining ecological integrity and the planetary life support system as a whole - which can already be seen on many measures to be approaching collapse. All in the perceived furtherance of living standards which are the root cause of the problem in the first place. Thus terminates our viability.

Its is as flawed a logic as to conceive the solution to be cutting down what remains of the Amazon rainforests to provide fuel to meet our energy requirements. Or to put up wind farms, for that matter. It would the same process. The only difference is that the UK is more advanced in the delivery than the Amazon nations.

If one of the richest countries in the world is not prepared to relent from subjugating all of nature to economic ends it renders bankrupt your negotiating position towards the developing countries - especially in respect of REDD, and indeed in the maintenance of ecological integrity generally. You can hardly expect the developing nations with their real and pressing needs to accept what you consider to be 'outrageous' when merely suggested for the UK. And if we do not have ecological integrity we have nothing, for on that everything depends.

Yet the importance of REDD must already be clear to you. Similarly the critical role of biodiversity. The Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity has already stressed that biodiversity is part of the solution to climate change; that healthy terrestrial and marine ecosystems are essential to the health of the atmosphere; and at COP 15 he has submitted a further expert report driving home that critical message.

Vital, then, that you appreciate wilderness is absolutely essential, and not a luxury to be traded away. To solve climate change and our other ecological crises we urgently need more, not less. And every nation has an inescapable duty in that respect.

To this end, please recognise the pivotal importance of large scale ecological restoration, as exemplified astonishingly by the Chinese on the Loess Plateau - an area the size of Belgium - and the groundbreaking work of John Liu at Rothansted.

And please understand that the world will no longer accept the implied imperialism in expecting the developing nations to deliver the ecological services which the UK considers completely dispensable on its own turf, and is prepared to undermine absolutely in the furtherance of preserving its standard of living.

So it is critical that you re-evaluate and take this on board urgently, even as you are in the process of negotiating the Copenhagen Treaty. It is absolutely vital that it is understood. By you. By Gordon Brown. By the other world leaders. And by everyone else involved in the negotiations.

The answer to climate change is not to complete the historical process of subjugating all of nature to meet human desires to provide more and yet more again. That is the endgame in our current and historical trajectory, and it ends - inevitably - in our self-destruction.

It is have the wisdom and humility to learn how to live well and happily within our ecological limits. Which is what we are now called on to do. That must mean valuing, protecting and restoring natural ecosystems over our more frivolous and debatable needs - even our indulgent, inflated demand for cheap energy on a massive scale - as well as getting back to real values.


We have no choice in this. You can negotiate all you like with each other, and for as long as you wish. But there can be no negotiating with Nature. And we can but accept her timing, or be swept away.

Canute showed that a long time ago. Please do not make the same mistake. Have the vision to re-evaluate now and rise to a pivotal role in changing perceptions - and in pulling us out of the fire.

That's Ed's Pledge. Thank you for it, profoundly.

Wishing you the absolute best for the rest of the summit.

PS
The importance of wilderness is far more eloquently argued by The John Muir Trust, the leading British actor in this field, which has been promoting the re-establishment of wilderness in the UK for over 20 years, and putting it into practice on its own lands and by assisting others similarly moved. Becoming fluent with their thinking would add new dimensions to your understanding and vision both domestically and internationally, and is most highly commended.



Ed's emails

Email 1

On 21 Oct 2009, at 15:06, Ed Miliband wrote:

If you can't see this email correctly, please click here

Last week it was a backbencher, today it's one of the most important shadow cabinet members undermining the fight against climate change.

Last week I told you about a backbench Tory who said those of us concerned by climate change were part of a 'lunatic consenus'. Over a thousand of you wrote to your local newspapers, letters were printed in newspapers across the country and we made it clear that the public have had enough of climate change deniers. To all of you who wrote, thank you.

But today I'm writing to you again with worse news. Ken Clarke - one of the most important and best known Tories - has gone on record today opposing wind farms, saying: "My view is that those few wild and open (land) spaces that we have left in Britain should not be used for wind turbines."

I've decided to write personally to David Cameron, asking him to overrule Ken Clarke and make their policy clear. I'm going to deliver the letter tomorrow morning but need your support if it's to have impact.

Click to co-sign my letter to David Cameron

Ken Clarke's comments are outrageous and have an immediate effect of putting off investors and stopping the creation of green jobs in our renewables industry.

If one thousand of you sign this letter with me TODAY it will have much more media impact and show Ken Clarke that the British public want their politicians to take climate change seriously.

Click to co-sign my letter to David Cameron

Let's send another clear message that those undermining the fight to combat climate change will be challenged every step of the way.

Ed

PS – Once you’ve signed the letter please forward this email to your friends and ask them to sign as well – the more of us there are, the stronger we are.


To unsubscribe, please click here.
Privacy: we won't pass on your email address to anyone else. See http://www.labour.org.uk/privacy

Reproduced from an email sent by the Labour Party, promoted by Ray Collins, General Secretary, the Labour Party, on behalf of the Labour Party, all at 39 Victoria Street, London, SW1H 0HA

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Email 2

Begin forwarded message:

From: Ed Miliband
Date: 22 October 2009 13:30:38 BST

Subject: Success

If you can't see this email correctly, please click here

Thank you and well done.

After a huge effort by people who've signed up to the Ed's Pledge campaign, the Guardian has reported that Ken Clarke has retracted his comments calling for an end to the building of windfarms on land.

Yesterday was an incredible victory for everyone who’s signed up to the campaign.

Help recruit more people to this campaign - to fight for more victories like this

We set a target of getting 1000 signatures for my letter to David Cameron - you broke it within an hour. We set another target of 2000 signatures - you broke that too. Right now over 3000 of you have signed with more still coming in.

Winning arguments like this makes a differ ence. Climate change is too important to be left to be dealt with by people who resist the low carbon technologies of the future.

You showed that the power to make a difference lies with thousands of people working together.

Help recruit more people to this campaign - to fight for more victories like this

The more people we get involved in our campaign, the stronger each of our individual voices become.

So I'm asking you, with 46 days to go until the make-or-break Copenhagen summit, to bring more people into this campaign.

Today’s victory shows that, together, we really can make change happen.

Click here to tell your friends about Ed' s Pledge and the victories we can achieve together

Thanks

Ed

Another moment of terrible significance

If the breaking of the ice bridge on the Wilkins Ice Shelf at the start of April was, as a Times leader so rightly reported, a moment of terrible significance, (covered here and here) then what is now happening has to be all the more so.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf has since destabilised and is starting to calve - in other words its seaward edge is starting to break up on a massive scale.

This was reported a few days ago the European Space Agency - though there seems to be no report to be found on its rather rudimentary website - and covered 3 days ago by the news agency UPI. However the mainstream media has in the main been slow to pick up this key development.

From what has trickled in subsequently we learn that 'about 700 sq km of ice - bigger than Singapore or Bahrain and almost the size of New York - has broken off the Wilkins this month and shattered into a mass of icebergs.'

Scientists estimate that 'over the next several weeks the Wilkins shelf will lose some 1,300 square miles (3,370 square kilometers), an area larger than the state of Rhode Island, or two-thirds the size of Luxembourg.'

While more forebodingly: 'even more ice could break off "if the connection to Latady Island is lost" though it is as yet unclear that will happen.'

The best impression can be had by viewing the image slideshow on the ESA website on which Latady Island is clearly visible, while making allowance for the fact that the accompanying text is hopelessly retrospective.

While here is a sample of the press coverage.

The Independent reports

'Humbert told Reuters about 700 sq km of ice - bigger than Singapore or Bahrain and almost the size of New York - has broken off the Wilkins this month and shattered into a mass of icebergs.
'She said 370 sq kms of ice had cracked up in recent days.'


The Guardian story went out 9 hours ago, which tells us

'"The retreat of Wilkins Ice Shelf is the latest and the largest of its kind"'.

'The Wilkins shelf, which is the size of Jamaica, lost 14 percent of its mass last year'

'Average temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula have risen by 3.8 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 Celsius) over the past 50 years — [sic] higher than the average global rise, according to studies.
'Over the next several weeks, scientists estimate the Wilkins shelf will lose some 1,300 square miles (3,370 square kilometers) — [sic] a piece larger than the state of Rhode Island, or two-thirds the size of Luxembourg.

'"We are not sure if a new stable ice front will now form between Latady Island, Petrie Ice Rises and Dorsey Island," said Angelika Humbert of Germany's Muenster University Institute of Geophysics.
'But even more ice could break off "if the connection to Latady Island is lost," she said, "though we have no indication that this will happen in the near future."'


The Telegraph adds

'David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey said: "The retreat of Wilkins Ice Shelf is the latest and largest of its kind.
'"Eight separate ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula have shown signs of retreat over the last few decades.
'"There is little doubt that these changes are the result of atmospheric warming on the Antarctic Peninsula, which has been the most rapid in the Southern Hemisphere."'

We should be watching with absolute attention as this drama unfolds, with the key question being how the glacier behind disintegrating ice shelf will respond.

Yet also for the historic drama. Not often in humanity's history have we been presented with the chance to bid farewell to an Earth feature as old as the hills - literally - and forever.

Should ever it reappear it will not be in be in the foreseeable future. Nor prior to the next ice age. So make sure your kids get the chance to witness this for themselves.

Wild Law: EPA v ESA

This is just to post up a story from the New York Times mainly of interest to wild lawyers, climate activists, and those concerned over the fate of species threatened by climate change, as well as those interested in politics and current affairs more generally. And of vital interest to polar bears.

The issue is the sparring currently going on to determine whether the Environmental Protection Agency has the right to act over climate change under the Endangered Species Act to protect such animals. In the lead for ursus maritimus are The Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups represented by Earthjustice.

'For now, the decision rests with Obama's Interior secretary, Ken Salazar. Congress has given him authority to strike the greenhouse gas exemption and other Bush-era changes to the Endangered Species Act. He must act by May 10.'

So a pretty hot topic - read on if it grabs.

Apocalyse shortly! - Lovelock

Last October the prognosticator carried Apocalypse shortly? We should know next by next summer.

It was prompted by the disquieting discovery in the dying days of the last Arctic summer of the unprecedented release of methane in large quantity from the Arctic sea floor, and attempted to distill the grave implications resulting.

James Lovelock's latest thoughts on the matter are simpler. They come from an interview carried in the Irish Times of 16 April under the title The genial prophet of climate doom.

Why? Because for Lovelock, it is not a question of if. It is now a certainty.

Along with most climate scientists and specialists in the region, in the case of the Arctic ice the debate is no longer of whether it will endure, merely one of when. From there the process is inevitable:

'Within 30 years, he believes, the Arctic’s floating summer sea ice will all be melted. The polar caps will no longer reflect sunlight back into space and, instead, the ocean will absorb sunlight, heating up. The permafrosts in northern Canada and Siberia will thaw out, releasing carbon dioxide (CO2). At the same time, the tropical forests, which play a critical role in taking CO2 from the atmosphere, will die out. Global temperatures will rise by between five and six degrees in a short period of time, rendering most of the world uninhabitable for the vast majority of mankind.'

'“It is out of our hands. When the floating ice finally melts, it will be the equivalent of nearly all of the CO2 we have put in the atmosphere to date, so the earth begins to join in the act of global heating, doing it in a big way,” he says. “The earth is already moving to its hot stage. The hotter it gets, the faster it goes – and we can’t stop it.”'

'The problem, as Lovelock sees it, is that we have trashed the planet, destroying ecosystems and pumping harmful levels of CO2 into the air. The damage is already done.

'The temperature rises will be permanent, he predicts, and Gaia will adjust. Life will survive, but there is no guarantee that human beings will.'



'He pours scorn on the idea that climate change can be reversible.'

Quite rightly he points out that geoengineering - the concept that we can somehow fix climate change using technology, in essence manage both the planet and its climate - is an absolute conceit and utter folly.

'He pours scorn on the idea that climate change can be reversible.'

We only have to look objectively at our present predicament to see that.

'“I think humans just aren’t clever enough to handle the planet at the moment. We can’t even handle our financial affairs. The worst possible thing that could happen is the green dream of taking charge and saving the planet. I’d sooner a goat as a gardener than humans in charge of the earth,” he says.'

Odd, though, that he attributes that aspiration to the green lobby, as it seems misplaced. Perhaps a small portion of it. But most green solutions are based on living more ecologically and closer to the Earth.

The proponents of geoengineering are those still wedded to technology as the be all and end all (possibly quite literally) of life. In other words those who somehow remain able to believe that the industrial and economic system that has put us on the very brink is miraculously also to be our saviour.

Part of this is a naive and misplaced faith in the powers of science and technology to develop such a solution and on a scale totally unprecedented by orders of magnitude, and to do so perfectly, first time, without any prior testing. That is quite a belief.

But the main reason it is favoured is because it is the ideal recipe for the maintenance of that system as it is - massive investment in new technologies offering a bonanza for all concerned: stockbrokers and financiers; scientists, engineers, designers; manufacturers, materials suppliers; real estate; engineering and construction companies. So the perfect economic stimulus on a planetary scale, just when it is considered so desperately needed.

That is what swings the enthusiasm and support. The system marches on triumphant and unaltered. All predicated on the madness that economic well-being is paramount. Or at least on a par with having a future. Strange kind of thinking, really.

Here is where it has got us so far:

'QUITE THE MOST dire of his predictions is that the human race will be reduced in numbers to around one billion people by the end of this century. The biggest problem, he believes, is that there are just too many of us. Simply by existing, we and our lifestock [sic] account for a quarter of all man-made CO2 emissions.'

Yet like all good stories, this one still manages to surprise by reconciling things against all odds in a happy ending:

“I lived through the second World War and I thought it was exciting even though I was a pacifist. Life is going to be the opposite of boring. Young people will not regard the catastrophe in the same way as our generation will do.”

So there you go.

In closing, for James Lovelock's sake, we should note one error. The Gaia theory is not 'that the world is itself a living organism.' It is that the biosphere behaves in a manner analogous to a living organism in acting to sustain optimal conditions for the continuation of life on the planet. He is not well enamoured with that New Age interpretation.

Lovelock's scientific Gaia theory is by now thoroughly proven. The process it describes is what we have thoroughly derailed by our energy profligate ways of living.

What price a future?


For those wanting more, here is a review of both his latest book and his biography by John and Mary Gribbin which were published simultaneously in February.

Pig Business - More 4 tonight 2200

The flurry of important environmental events at short notice continues apace.

The latest is Pig Business, a film by Tracy Worcester, which is being shown tonight on More 4 at 2200.

Tracy did a brilliant job chairing the launch of the groundbreaking and quite possibly historic Wild Law research paper last Tuesday, by all accounts. More on that later.

While if all of us had her commitment to building a better world, just imagine how much better things would be. Here's what she does according to Wikipedia - amongst other things.

In 1989, Tracy Worcester began working with Friends of the Earth. Since then, she has been active in green politics as Patron of the International Society for Ecology and Culture, a Trustee of the Gaia Foundation, the Schumacher Society and the Bath Environment Centre, Patron of the UK's Soil Association, and as a member of the advisory board of The Ecologist magazine and a member of the International Forum on Globalisation.

And still has time for making movies!

Pig Business exposes the unconscionable costs of bringing home the bacon on four fronts:

- animal rights

- destroying small farmers - at an astonishing rate as the market is globalised by multi-national farming conglomerates

- polluting the environment - in a big way...

- jeopardising our lives


For example on the environment (my bolding throughout, other than titles)

'One-third of the world’s total cultivable land is dedicated to growing cereal and soya to feed livestock, while a further 7% is used for grazing animals. Eighty per cent of the world's soya beans and 60% of its maize and barley are grown for livestock feed.

'Much of this land is acquired by destroying forests, a major cause of CO2 emissions and loss of biodiversity. Between 2004 and 2005 around 1.2 million hectares of rainforest were cut down as a result of soya expansion, almost entirely for animal feed and livestock pastures.

'How livestock production contributes to 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions

Source: McMichael et al. (2007) Food, livestock production, energy, climate change, and health. The Lancet, 370(9594), 1253-1263

'In Latin America the land devoted to soya crops doubled between 1994 and 2004, and deforestation, particularly of the Amazon rainforest, now accounts for around 75% of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions. Soya cultivation in Brazil to date occupies an area of land the size of Great Britain.'

On the threat to our lives:

'Because of the crowded and unnatural conditions in which factory farmed animals live, they are frequently given antibiotics to prevent disease or bolster their weakened immune systems. Across the world half of all the antibiotics used are administered to livestock. Around 80-90% of all antibiotics used for humans and animals are not fully digested or broken down, leaving them to pass through the body and enter the environment intact through waste.

'Evidence suggests that this over-use of antibiotics is helping to spread drug-resistant strains of diseases such as MRSA and E. coli, which can cause humans serious illness and death. The transfer of MRSA from pigs to humans is already recognised in the Netherlands, and it is feared this new strain of MRSA affecting pigs in some countries will spread to the UK, exacerbating the existing problem.

'Workers at risk
'... at least a quarter of factory farm workers consistently suffer from respiratory diseases, including bronchitis, mucous membrane irritation, asthma-like syndrome, and acute respiratory distress syndrome.

'A deadly environment
'Studies repeatedly show that air and water quality are threatened in and around factory farms. Noxious gases in the atmosphere from manure containing hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, and dangerous pathogens cause ill health not only to those working with the animals but those living nearby. Many local residents report unusually frequent headaches, eye irritation, excessive coughing, nausea and asthma. Hydrogen sulphide may cause nausea, blackout periods, headaches and vomiting, and breathing in too much ammonia can cause severe respiratory damage.

'Excessive spraying of faecal material onto fields results in run-off into nearby lakes and rivers, poisoning the water table, eco system and drinking water. The North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources has discovered that 1 in 10 drinking-water wells near factory pig farms contains unsafe levels of nitrates, which has been linked to risk of blue-baby syndrome. Six-month-old infants, pregnant women and adults with immunity deficiencies are especially vulnerable.

'President George W. Bush, in one of his last acts before he leaves office, has proposed to free industrial-scale pig and cattle farms from the Clean Water Act if they declare they are not dumping animal waste in lakes and rivers.

'Exploiting the poor
'In the US, intensive pig farms are clustered typically in non-white areas near low-income communities where people are extra vulnerable to the hazards of factory farms because of existing problems of poor health, poor housing, low income, and lack of access to medical care.

After all that, one may ask why not go the whole hog, keep the poor old hog whole, and just go vegan? George Monbiot came to that conclusion, at least intellectually, in this article last April:

Credit crunch? The real crisis is global hunger. And if you care, eat less meat A food recession is under way. Biofuels are a crime against humanity, but - take it from a flesh eater - flesh eating is worse

While there are some telling environmental arguments put forward by the Vegan Society here and in the side links dealing with land, water and energy.

Perhaps most telling, particularly for those inclined to blame climate change on the growing human population is this:

'World meat production has quadrupled in the past 50 years and livestock now outnumber people by more than 3 to 1. [2] In other words, the livestock population is expanding at a faster rate than the human population.'

And consuming a substantial proportion of the available resources, particularly land, food and water.

More than enough said.

The Age of Stupid premier Sunday 15 March

Very briefly this is something positive and vitally important. The Age of Stupid takes up the baton from An Inconvenient Truth. It promises to make the vital change perceptions to climate change on a grand scale. The film made a big impression when previewed in the House of Commons tea rooms packed to the limit. Here's what some famous people have already said.

Equally important is that Polly Higgins will be speaking at the premier to give The Trees Have Rights Too campaign its first large scale public airing. The campaign calls for a United Nations Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights to fundamentally repair our broken relationship with the planet, and is the best chance we have of salvaging something from our self-imposed predicament. More on this later.

Little time to say more, so below are some other folks' take on it.


From Wise Women

FIRST SOLAR POWERED PREMIERE LIGHTS UP LEICESTER SQUAREEveryone invited to world’s biggest film premiere!At 6pm on Sunday 15th March, London’s Leicester Square will be hosting the world’s first premiere in a solar cinema tent for the highly anticipated climate change film, The Age of Stupid.The Age of Stupid stars Pete Postlethwaite as an old man living alone in what is a devastated world of 2055, looking at “archive footage” from 2008, asking “why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?”. Directed by Franny Armstrong (McLibel) and produced by Oscar-winning John Battsek (One Day in September), the £450,000 budget for the film was raised entirely by “crowd-funding” whereby 228 people invested between £500 and £35,000.Held in a tent in the gardens of the square, the premiere also gives the British public an opportunity to be included in the events on the night. Green carpet arrivals and a post-film Q&A will be beamed around the UK via live satellite link-up to over 70 cinemas including the Eden Project in Cornwall, creating a truly exceptional experience and a “People’s Premiere”.Tickets now on sale. You can buy tickets at your local participating cinema for the record-breaking People's Premiere on March 15th (16,000 seats simultaneously at 64 cinemas across the UK!)


From Embercombe

The Age of Stupid has arrived!See the trailer at: http://www.gmx.com/fm07/cgi/derefer?TYPE=2&DEST=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ageofstupid.net%2Fvideo%2FtrailerHere’s the press release: FIRST SOLAR POWERED PREMIERE LIGHTS UP LEICESTER SQUAREEveryone invited to world’s biggest film premiere!At 6pm on Sunday 15th March, London’s Leicester Square will be hosting the world’s first premiere in a solar cinema tent for the highly anticipated climate change film, The Age of Stupid.The Age of Stupid stars Pete Postlethwaite as an old man living alone in what is a devastated world of 2055, looking at “archive footage” from 2008, asking “why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?”. Directed by Franny Armstrong (McLibel) and produced by Oscar-winning John Battsek (One Day in September), the £450,000 budget for the film was raised entirely by “crowd-funding” whereby 228 people invested between £500 and £35,000.The UK Film Council, which is keen to support new and groundbreaking methods of distribution, is supporting the film’s distributor Dogwoof with funding towards the live satellite transmission of the premiere and Q&A to cinemas across the UK. Oscar Nominee Pete Postlethwaite stars as the narrator of the film and will be joined on the “green” carpet by a glittering array of British talent all lending their support to the film and the climate action campaign, “Not Stupid”. Held in a tent in the gardens of the square, the premiere also gives the British public an opportunity to be included in the events on the night. Green carpet arrivals and a post-film Q&A will be beamed around the UK via live satellite link-up to over 70 cinemas including the Eden Project in Cornwall, creating a truly exceptional experience and a “People’s Premiere”. The public can buy tickets at their local participating cinema.With 16,000 expected attendees across the country, the Guinness Book of Records expect to confirm it’s the largest ever premiere.See the trailer at: http://www.gmx.com/fm07/cgi/derefer?TYPE=2&DEST=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ageofstupid.net%2Fvideo%2FtrailerTickets now on sale!1. For the record-breaking People's Premiere on March 15th (16,000 seats simultaneously at 64 cinemas across the UK!): http://www.gmx.com/fm07/cgi/derefer?TYPE=2&DEST=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ageofstupid.net%2Fpremiere2. For the national cinema release on March 20th (10 cinemas so far): http://www.gmx.com/fm07/cgi/derefer?TYPE=2&DEST=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ageofstupid.net%2Fweekone>>>



Aberdeen: THE BELMONT>>> Bath: THE LITTLE THEATRE>>> Birmingham: VUE>>> Blackburn: VUE>>> Bristol: VUE>>> Bury: VUE>>> Cambridge: VUE>>> Cardiff: THE CHAPTER CINEMA>>> Carlisle: VUE>>> Cheshire Oaks: VUE>>> Clones, Co. Monaghan: Clones Film Club>>> Croydon Purley Way: VUE>>> Edinburgh: VUE>>> Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh: FERMANAGH HOUSE>>> Exeter: EXETER PICTUREHOUSE with talk by Mac Macartney of Embercombe>>> Glasgow: GLASGOW FILM THEATRE>>> Glasgow: ODEON Braehead>>> Guilford: ODEON>>> Harrow: VUE>>> Hartlepool: VUE Hartlepool>>> Hatfield: ODEON>>> Hull: VUE>>> Inverness: VUE>>> Kingston: ODEON>>> Leeds Kirkstall: VUE>>> Leeds Light: VUE>>> Leicester: VUE>>> Lincoln: ODEON>>> Liverpool: FACT>>> Livingston: VUE>>> London: ODEON Greenwich>>> London: ODEON Wimbledon with talk by Suzy Edwards of Embercombe>>> London: SOLAR POWERED CINEMA TENT Leicester Square>>> London: VUE Acton>>> London: VUE Finchley Rd>>> London: VUE Fulham (Youth)>>> London: VUE Islington>>> London: VUE Shepherds Bush>>> Maidenhead: ODEON>>> Manchester-Lowry: VUE>>> Naul, Co. Dublin: THE SEAMUS ENNIS CENTRE>>> New Ross: ST. MICHAEL'S THEATRE>>> Newcastle West, Co. Limerick: DESMOND ABILITY RESOURCE CENTRE>>> Newcastle-under-Lyme: VUE>>> Newcastle: TYNESIDE CINEMA>>> Oxford: PHOENIX PICTUREHOUSE>>> Plymouth: VUE>>> Portlaoise, Co. Laois: DUNAMISE ARTS CENTRE>>> Portsmouth: VUE>>> Preston: VUE>>> Reading: VUE>>> Romford: VUE>>> Scunthorpe: VUE>>> Southport: VUE>>> Staines: VUE>>> Swindon: EMPIRE>>> Tinahely, Co. Wicklow: THE COURTHOUSE ARTS CENTRE>>> Tunbridge Wells: ODEON>>> Watford: VUE>>> Wigan: EMPIRE>>> York: VUE


Enjoy and be galvanised

Exclusive? Gulf Stream to weaken by 25 to 30%

'It is very likely that the northward flow of warm water in the upper layers of the Atlantic Ocean, which has an important impact on the global climate system, will decrease by approximately 25-30 percent.'

Well here's one that seems to have gone straight under the media's radar. Probably because its scare-mongering, you might be thinking.

Who is it making these exaggerated and irresponsible predictions? Some group of eco-nuts way out west of Greenpeace, skeptics might well presume.

Unfortunately not. In fact it is the Geological Survey of none other than the United States of America - good 'ol Uncle Sam in person, in effect, previously a.k.a. the self-proclaimed climate change skeptic in chief.

Astonishing what a change at the top will do. Let us just hope its not too late. It is now perilously close to it - wait for the update on CO2 and others, later this week, Inshallah.

An unimpeachable source, then. Or as near as we are likely to get to one. Here's what they have to say in their Newsroom feed March Science Picks released on 6 March (all bolding is mine):

'The United States faces the potential for abrupt climate change in the 21st century that could pose clear risks to society in terms of our ability to adapt. A new report led by the USGS makes the following conclusions about the potential for abrupt climate changes from global warming during this century:

'Climate model simulations and observations suggest that rapid and sustained September Arctic sea ice loss is likely in the 21st century.

'The Southwestern United States may be beginning an abrupt period of increased drought.

'It is very likely that the northward flow of warm water in the upper layers of the Atlantic Ocean, which has an important impact on the global climate system, will decrease by approximately 25-30 percent. However, it is very unlikely that this circulation will collapse or that the weakening will occur abruptly during the 21st century and beyond.

'An abrupt change in sea level is possible, but predictions are highly uncertain due to shortcomings in existing climate models.

'There is unlikely to be an abrupt release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere from deposits in the earth. However, it is very likely that the pace of methane emissions will increase.'

The feed summarises US Climate Change Synthesis and Assessment Report 3.4. Abrupt Climate Change. Assessment and Findings which is a quick read in 4 pages replete with graphs, excellent diagrams and some pretty pictures.

It all sounds positively reassuring until you adjust to the cool scientific language. Then you may not find statements like those that follow quite so reassuring.

(The AMOC referred to is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, of which the Gulf Stream is perhaps the most famous component.)

'Inclusion of these ice-sheet and glacier processes into future modeling experiments will likely lead to sea-level rise projections for the end of the 21st century that substantially exceed those presented in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change fourth assessment report (IPCC AR4).'


'It is very likely that the strength of the AMOC will decrease by approximately 25–30 percent over the course of the 21st century in response to increasing greenhouse gases, which will affect the distribution of heat in the North Atlantic. Even with the projected moderate AMOC weakening, it is still very likely that on multidecadal to century time scales a warming trend will occur over most of the European region downstream of the North Atlantic Current in response to increasing greenhouse gases, as well as over North America.'

'It is very unlikely that the AMOC will undergo a collapse or an abrupt transition to a weakened state during the 21st century. It is also unlikely that the AMOC will collapse beyond the end of the 21st century because of global warming, although the possibility cannot be entirely excluded.'

'The summer arctic sea-ice cover has undergone dramatic retreat since satellite records began in 1979, amounting to a loss of almost 30 percent of the September ice cover in 29 years. Climate model simulations suggest that rapid and sustained September arctic ice loss is likely in future 21st century climate projections. It is notable that climate models are generally conservative in the modeled rate of Arctic ice loss as compared to observations, suggesting that future ice retreat could occur even more abruptly than simulated in almost all current models.'


'While a catastrophic release of methane to the atmosphere in the next century appears very unlikely, it is very likely that climate change will accelerate the pace of persistent emissions from both hydrate sources and wetlands. Current models suggest that wetland emissions could double in the next century. Methane release from the hydrate reservoir will likely have a significant influence on global warming over the next 1,000 to 100,000 years.'

On the last, my suspicion is that the data used did not include the latest findings which came in right at the end of the Arctic summer last September covered previously in 'Apocalypse shortly? We should know next summer.'

As to a 25% to 30% reduction in the Gulf Stream, for those living in the atypically warm areas on the west coast of Europe bathed in its currents the best analogy I have been able to come up with so far is someone turning the central heating down permanently by that a quarter to a third.

Enough to make most folks complain, it would seem fair to say. As well as reach for the duvet jackets...if not take to bed permanently, were it not for the countervailing effect of global warming

'a warming trend will occur over most of the European region downstream of the North Atlantic Current in response to increasing greenhouse gases, as well as over North America.'

expected to result in a net rise in temperature.

Put the two together,and that sounds like they are expecting the planet to heat up. I suppose you could say 'quite radically'. Which all sounds like bad news all around - particularly for most of the rest of the world that does not have the countervailing effect of a weakening Gulf Stream to cool them.

Add in unstated, highly uncertain effects on the weather, and there is a lot to be concerned about.

Cap, Trade and Lobby

Much remains to catch up on, but here is one hot off the press.

It is James Hansen's reflections following his testimony to the Committee on Ways and Means of the US House of Representatives on 25 February.

His testimony lays out starkly the reasons why cap and trade - which he argues should properly be called 'tax and trade' - is intrinsically incapable of addressing climate change effectively.

Because it is inherently inefficient, far too slow, and wide open to exploitation, as well as just plain unjust.

More than just disquieting, then, that cap and trade is the principal and more or less unique mechanism world leaders are prepared to envisage as a response to the perils of climate change.

Here are some key quotes from Hansen's testimony:

'A ‘cap’ increases the price of energy, as a tax does. It is wrong and disingenuous to try to hide the fact that Cap is a tax. Other characteristics of the “cap” approach: (1) unpredictable price volatility, (2) it makes millionaires on Wall Street and other trading floors at public expense, (3) it is an invitation to blackmail by utilities that threaten “blackout coming” to gain increased emission permits, (4) it has overhead costs and complexities, inviting lobbyists and delaying implementation.

'The biggest problem with Cap Tax is that it will not solve the problem. The public will soon learn that it is a tax. And because there is no dividend, the public will revolt before the Cap Tax is large enough to transform society. There is no way that the Cap Tax can get us back to 350 ppm CO2.

'We need a tax with 100% dividend to transform our energy systems and rapidly move us beyond fossil fuels. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we cannot let the special interests win this fight.

'Our planet is in peril (1). Climate disruption threatens everyone, but especially the young and the unborn, who will bear the full brunt through no fault of their own. Recent science makes it clear that if we continue to burn most of the fossil fuels we will leave our children a deteriorating situation out of their control.

One scientific conclusion is crystal clear (1): we cannot burn all of the fossil fuels without setting in motion a process of climate disruption that threatens the very existence of many species on our planet. This potential injustice is not limited to the innocent species we exterminate. The greatest injustice is to our own species (2) – our children, grandchildren and the unborn, and people who live with nature, who we may call ‘undeveloped’, indigenous people who want only to live their lives without bearing burdens that we create.'

[please see the paper for footnotes 1 and 2 - link below]

Instead he argues passionately for a 'Carbon Tax & 100% Dividend' where the entire yield of the tax is returned to the community so as to reward low carbon users whilst penalising profligate ones. This is a simple measure that can be quickly introduced which will immediately change consumer behaviour directly. One reason is that it will shift the balance decisively in favour of renewable energy over carbon.

In his testimony he suggests:

'a tax large enough to enough to affect purchasing decisions: a carbon tax that adds $1 to the price of a gallon of gas. That’s a carbon price of about $115 per ton of CO2. That tax rate yields $670B per year. We return 100% of that money to the public. Each adult legal resident gets one share, which is $3000 per year, $250 per month deposited in their bank account. Half shares for each child up to a maximum of two children per family. So a tax rate of $115 per ton yields a dividend of $9000 per year for a family with two children, $750 per month. The family with carbon footprint less than average makes money – their dividend exceeds their tax. This tax gives a strong incentive to replace inefficient infrastructure. It spurs the economy. It spurs innovation.

'This path can take us to the era beyond fossil fuels, leave most remaining coal in the ground, and avoid the need to go to extreme environments to find every drop of oil. We must move beyond fossil fuels anyhow. Why not do it sooner, for the benefit of our children? Not to do so, knowing the consequences, is immoral. The tax rate likely must increase in time, but when gas hits $4 per gallon again most of that $4 will stay in the United States, as dividends. Our vehicles will not need as many gallons. We will be well on the way to energy independence.'

On the way we get some insights into the world of climate change politics and lobbyists in particular:

'the number of lobbyists in DC working to influence federal policy on climate change increased in the past few years by 300% to 2,340 lobbyists -- four climate lobbyists for every member of Congress.'

'The question is: who will Congress listen to? Protesters (bringing no gifts - it's hard enough to pay their own way) or lobbyists (with lobbying expenditures last year of about $90M).

'Young folks, if you need an indication of what you are up against, let me give you one example. Peabody Coal (a.k.a. Peabody Energy) hires Dick Gephardt, paying him $120,000.00 per quarter in 2008. The amount of money going into lobbying is increasing rapidly. As Shakespeare would say, gird up your loins.

'If democracy does not win this one, if the lobbyists win, perhaps the best we can do for our grandchildren is buy them a ticket to another planet. Of course, Congress would have to borrow the money from our grandchildren. But at least we would show that we are giving them some consideration.'

And I guess that goes equally for every one of us too.

Gird up your loins, folks. The Last Battle approaches. Truly.

For those with the time, his testimony is well worth a look to see how the world's top climate scientist summarises our position and policy responses to it. Find them all at

http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2009/02/james-hansen-ways-and-means-and.html

“Finding oil isn't the issue – it is whether we want to find it, burn it and all fry”

Dear friends

Another contemplation for the holiday weekend, if it so grabs you.

This one deals with the most significant scientific developments since Easter. All adding to the alarming impression that we have missed or are missing the boat, unfortunately.

Nevertheless, within society as a whole there remains what seems to be an overwhelming sense that none of this is that important, that life on a world devoid of its north polar ice cap will carry on much as before, and that the environmental threats upon us are nothing we need concern ourselves with unduly. Certainly not enough to go to the inconvenience of changing our lifestyles, nor to take the trouble to understand sufficiently to react coherently. Or even objectively.

As that may prove to be a catastrophic or even fatal mistake, the intention had been to follow up the discussion of the grave implications of Tony Blair's international initiative with one dealing succinctly with why such assumptions appear unrealistic.

However with so many developments over the last month hinting ever more strongly that run-away global warming may already have set in, reporting those has had to take precedence, so it has had to be held over until next time

The aspiration is to continue the argument in later papers:

First by setting out what ought by now be obvious to anyone taking the space to step back and think about it - that there is simply not going to be a scientific or technological solution to climate change. There is no quick fix that will rescue us from our fate as the chips go down ever more weightily against us, and the possibility of one emerging are slight.

Then one to point out what is now equally apparent. There is not going to be a political one either.

It will then remain to explore a little more what is preventing us - somewhat akin to suicidally - from reacting intelligently, coherently, and with sufficient vigour, when under galvanising threat.

And 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.


All Inshallah as they say in Islamic circles, including major developments, catastrophic events and more mundane happenings not interceding.




The 07 April Guardian led with a story so important it ought - rightly, in an objective world - be sufficient on its own to convince anyone that we cannot go on like this a moment longer, and are being utterly self-destructive by doing so.

It reports a paper published by a most eminent group of climate scientists which the newspaper describes as “a startling reappraisal of the threat”.

It suggests that we have grossly underestimated the scale of the problem, and calls for a major downward revision in C02 limits if

"humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed".

The situation is as dire as that.


The source of the paper is absolutely unimpeachable. Its lead author, James Hansen, is as big as it gets in climate science. He is head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, was one of the first to bring the climate crisis to the world's attention in testimony to Congress in the 1980s, and has been at odds with the Bush administration over climate change to the extent of having accused the White House and NASA of trying to censor him.

Hansen has steadily revised his analysis of the scale of the global warming and was himself one of the architects of the 450ppm target which is the holy grail of current negotiations, considered politically to be the resolution of climate change. Of that he now says

"I realise that was too high."

The fundamental reason for his reassessment is what he calls "slow feedback" mechanisms which are only now becoming fully understood (discussed briefly in my previous email).

The paper predicts that a rise in atmospheric CO2 levels to the EU limit of 550 ppm – currently the most stringent on the planet - would cause the Earth to warm catastrophically - by 6 degrees Celsius instead of 3 degrees as currently thought. (To remind everyone again, there is a significant school of opinion which holds that a 2 degree rise is enough to bring civilisation as we know it to an end.) And that even a 450 ppm limit, which is proving so intractable to negotiate because of opposition by the US and others, would nevertheless lead eventually to complete meltdown and a 75 metre rise in sea levels.

Hansen now regards as "implausible" the view of many climate scientists that the shrinking of the ice sheets will take thousands of years:

"If we follow business as usual I can't see how west Antarctica could survive a century. We are talking about a sea-level rise of at least a couple of metres this century."

Depending on which baseline you take, this amounts to an overnight lowering of the bar under which we are trying to do a very ungainly limbo by 18% on the already ambitious, possibly politically unachievable, target of 450ppm; and by a staggering 36% in the case of the EU 550 ppm limit.

It is widely recognised that the latter figure was never going to work, but nonetheless it enjoys a certain popularity. It is an agreement, at least, and having an agreement that is not going to remedy the problem or save us is seen as progress nonetheless, and a positive thing. Better an unworkable agreement than none at all. If nations have managed to ratify a treaty on a hopeless goal they are comfortable with, they are much better disposed to going on to revise it for something that might possibly work at some later date as yet uncertain. Or so the thinking goes.

Well lets hope so!


These are chess-like moves in the realms of grand diplomacy which are intended - hopefully - lead to the right agreement in the end. The problem remains that the players of such games are used to setting the timing with reference to themselves and not much else. Unfortunately Nature is on the other side of the table in this one, and she is not much impressed with their proposed solutions, nor their imperiousness over timing, nor their game playing.

The main cause for alarm is the scale by which the bar has dropped overnight, and the tiny size of the gap we are left to squeeze through if we are going to come out of this debacle more or less in one piece.

It is particularly disquieting because it was never looking likely that we were going to make it under even the highest of these limits, not least because we are doing almost nothing concrete to achieve it; while the 450ppm limit remains utterly hypothetical more or less to the point of fantasy. Nothing has been negotiated; the negotiations look as if they are hopelessly stalled before they have even started as a result of intractable national and factional differences and a general disposition of small-mindedness; and are so far from achieving anything at all that will actually deliver concrete, measurable changes that the entire proposition might as well be treated as hypothetical – at least until it proves otherwise.

Now, on top of that, we are confronted with science which shows that in addition to the political improbability of these negotiations resulting in any significant concrete effect in the small amount of time in which it remains possible to do anything to affect the outcome – i.e. our fate - their goal is entirely futile anyway, and we must now somehow find a way to crank the screws down another 18 or 36% to have even a chance of scraping through.

It is starting to look more and more like hoping for miracles to expect this stuff to be negotiated, ratified and yield the necessary results in time under prevailing attitudes.

Disquietingly, the only eventuality foreseeable that is likely to change that is a catastrophic chain of events of one sort or another, devastating enough to shake the global electorate sufficiently to their senses.

But by then it will inevitably be too late....

“The IPCC numbers are underestimates”

Hansen's claims on sea level rises were more or less vindicated by researchers meeting at the European Geosciences Union conference who reported the pace at which sea levels are rising is accelerating, that we should expect higher sea levels than the IPCC predict, and that we should expect 0.8-1.5 metres rises over this century.

Due to melting glaciers, disappearing ice sheets, and warming water, which together could displace tens of millions of people. The conclusions result from a new prediction of sea level rises which takes into account ice dynamics for the first time.

"For the past 2,000 years, the sea level was very stable," They rose just 2 cm in the 18th century, 6 cm in the 19th century and a greater 19 cm last century. "It seems that rapid rise in the 20th century is from melting ice sheets"

The latest IPCC report took no account of ice dynamics – the more rapid movement of ice sheets due to melt water which could markedly speed up their disappearance and augment sea levels. This effect is now expected to generate around one-third of the future rise in sea levels, according to an American researcher quoted.

The rise would not be uniform around the globe and more research is needed to determine the effects on individual regions. Inevitably the hardest hit will be the developing nations in Africa and Asia who lack the infrastructure to build up flood defences. Countries like Bangladesh, where almost all the land surface is a within a metre of the current sea level.

"If [the sea level] rises by one metre, 72 million Chinese people will be displaced, and 10 percent of the Vietnamese population”

Doesn't look good for a lot of other places, either. Those living in the Netherlands know it and have been mindful for generations. Inhabitants of the overcrowded British Isles, for instance, may wish to take account of the fact that approximately one third of its current land mass is maintained by drainage, pumping, and sea defences of one sort or another.

“Emissions are growing much faster than we'd thought, the absorptive capacity of the planet is less than we'd thought, the risks of greenhouse gases are potentially bigger than more cautious estimates and the speed of climate change seems to be faster."

Those were the words of none other than Sir Nicholas Stern, warning that the disquieting predictions of his high-profile 2006 review of the future effects of global warming underestimated the risks, and that climate change poses a bigger threat than he had realised.

Stern said that new scientific findings showed greenhouse gas emissions were causing more damage than was then understood. He cited last year's reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and new research which shows that the planet's oceans and forests are soaking up less carbon dioxide than expected.

He said that increasing commitments from countries to curb greenhouse gases now needed to be translated into action. Indeed.

But who is listening? The same week Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC, said the lack of such action by developed countries was likely to deadlock and derail attempts to seal a new global climate treaty at the crucial meeting in Copenhagen next year - aiming for the 450ppm limit discussed above.

The 2006 Stern Review, which was conducted for the UK government, was credited with shifting the debate about climate change from an environmental focus to its economic impacts. It said the expected increase in extreme weather, with the associated and expensive problems of agricultural failure, water scarcity, disease and mass migration, meant that global warming could swallow up to 20% of the world's GDP, with the poorest countries the worst affected. The cost of addressing the problem, it was then thought, could be limited to about 1% of GDP, provided it started on a serious scale within 10 to 20 years.
Clearly this timing, at least, must now be considered obsolete as far too relaxed. Last year the IPCC said steps to curb emissions were needed by 2015 if the worst effects of global warming were to be avoided. Since, experts have warned that the Arctic and Antarctic are losing ice much faster than thought, and that the sea level rise could be more severe than the IPCC suggested. Other studies, focusing on how greenhouse gases are swapped between the land, sea and atmosphere, have suggested that the speed and strength with which serious climate change will strike has been underestimated.

'Last October, scientists warned that global warming will be "stronger than expected and sooner than expected", after a new analysis showed carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere much more quickly than predicted.'

All of these reports are major revelations in their own right. Collectively, just as they stand, they present a predicament of the utmost gravity.

But perhaps the most disquieting thing that characterises them all is the universal reference to the pace of change being faster than had been previously predicted and to be speeding up. Quite apart from the sheer magnitude of the phenomena being discussed - which is strongly persuasive in itself - it is exactly what you would expect if run-away climate change is starting to cut in; if the tipping point has already been passed.

Which brings us back to the opening quote. If one did not know otherwise, one would be forgiven for presuming that the source was the kind of person dismissed as some variety of eco-nut. Or perhaps me.

Happily, though, it turns out to have an unimpeachable one. None other than Dieter Helm, the UK energy advisor – Mr Energy himself in these parts. The Guardian of 15 April reported him saying

'the world is not running out of oil; much exists under the now melting ice caps.

“Finding oil isn't the issue – it is whether we want to find it, burn it and [as global warming increases] all fry”'

So now we know. When it comes down to it, it is a straight choice between dispensing with the vehicle and frying in the future.

As if we didn't before...

The anecdotal impression, North West of London, is the inhabitants are plumbing almost unanimously for the latter, based on their observed behaviour since being made aware of the choice.

Perhaps that is only to be expected in a land in which big fry-ups form a pivotal part of the national cuisine. And perhaps its psyche also, if such a thing actually exists.

One is only left to wonder: 'Have their brains been fried, too?'


Stay happy



References

1 The Hansen Paper
Climate target is not radical enough – study
The Guardian Monday 07 April 2008 p1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/07/climatechange.carbonemissions

2 Sea levels 'will rise 1.5 metres by 2100'
Newscientist.com Special Report Climate Change 16 April 2008
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn13721-sea-levels-will-rise-15-metres-by-2100.html
3 I underestimated the threat, says Stern
The Guardian Friday April 18 2008 p15
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/18/climatechange.carbonemissions

4 Surprise discovery off coast of Brazil may confound the oil and gas doom -mongers.
The Guardian Wednesday 15 April 2008 p27
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/apr/16/oil.brazil


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