ThinkingShift

How fast is our Earth cooking up? Scientists have identified 9 tipping points that could hurl our planet into a future catastrophic climate state during the 21st Century. And they make for 9 pretty scary scenarios. The scientists have reported their findings in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and warn that anthropogenic climate change is very likely to result in sudden and dramatic climate changes.

And here are the 9 scenarios:

* Arctic sea ice: already seems to be shrinking and some scientists believe that the tipping point for the total loss of summer sea ice is imminent. No doubt we’ll see more photos of poor polar bears swimming endlessly around looking for some shrinking ice floe to rest on.

* Greenland ice sheet: total melting could take 300 years or more but the tipping point that could see irreversible change might occur within 50 years.

* West Antarctic ice sheet: scientists believe it could unexpectedly collapse if it slips into the sea at its warming edges.

* Gulf Stream: scientists are predicting a collapse possibly in the 21st Century.

* El Niño: warmer seas could affect the southern Pacific current, resulting in far-reaching climate change.

* Indian monsoon: relies on temperature difference between land and sea, which could be tipped off-balance by pollutants that cause localised cooling.

* West African monsoon: more monsoonal trouble - the West African monsoon has led to the greening of the Sahara in the past but in the future it could cause droughts.

* Amazon rainforest: I read recently that more than 20% of the Amazonian rainforests have disappeared. Couple this with a warmer world and further deforestation, then the rain system that supports this beautiful ecosystem could be kaput.

* Boreal forests: as the world heats up, trees suited to the cold climates of Siberia and Canada are dying as temperatures rise.

Source: Alternet

Came across this free resource, Carbon Capping: A Citizen’s Guide, whilst doing some research into carbon trading. There’s little doubt that the climate change issue is front and centre now (although there are still some naysayers out there). We’ve probably moved beyond the problem to trying to find solutions. And a leading solution could quite possibly be the Sky Trust.

The Sky Trust involves the notion of carbon capping. Climate change isn’t just an environmental problem. It’s the result of economic and political failure. Market failure because carbon dioxide is being dumped into the atmosphere with no limits or prices for doing so. The cost of all this will shift to future generations if we don’t do something pronto. And of course, we are all in the clutches of Big Business and Governments continue to allow corporations to pollute. In 2006, for example, 65% of US Federal energy subsidies went to fossil fuels.

So it’s really getting down to the question of “who should own the sky?” (Just as I reckon a future question will be “who should own the moon and its resources?”). The atmosphere belongs to the commons, it’s not private property. There are three possible answers to the question of who should own the sky. The first is Big Business who pollute the atmosphere and persuade Governments to allow them to pollute so that the economy will keep humming along. The price for emitting noxious carbon dioxide gets shunted to you and me. The second possible answer is Government and the third answer is us - all of us as co-owners.

To achieve the ideal solution of us all owning the sky, a descending economy-wide carbon cap will guarantee a pre-determined decrease in carbon emissions by a pre-determined date. Here’s how it works. A carbon cap would involve issuing of permits and each year the number of permits is reduced. To cut emissions 80% for example in 40 years, the number of permits would be decreased by 2% each year. It would be like a carbon tax, a decreasing carbon cap would drive up the price of fossil fuels. And as fewer permits become available, research and investment in finding cleaner alternatives would be the outcome. Less carbon would be swirling in the atmosphere.

To achieve this, it’s proposed that a trust be set up (either by Government or a not-for-profit) and the trust would sell a declining number of permits. The trust returns the proceeds to citizens and households through monthly dividends. But the dividends would depend on how much energy you use: the more you guzzle, the less return. If you conserve energy, you receive more. This is a cap-and-dividend system.

I think the Sky Trust is a really interesting and creative proposition but there are a few questions left answered for me. For example, I didn’t get a feel for how household use of energy would be measured in order to determine issuing of a dividend. Download the document and I’d be interested to hear what you think.

A Happy 2008 to all ThinkingShift readers! I’m sure, like me, you’ve pledged the usual New Year’s resolution and, if like me, around about late February you’ll be saying “what New Year’s resolution?”. I hope you’ve had a restful Christmas and New Year and now we need to focus on 2008. What does 2008, the Year of the Earth Rat in the Chinese zodiac, have in store for us? Well, I’m sure I’ll continue to slug it out with people who don’t believe in climate destabilization. Following my post the other day on this topic, I was beaten up on a social network that discusses global warming and labeled an “eco-entrepreneur”. I rather like the “entrepreneur” bit, but not quite sure what on earth an eco-entrepreneur is. But I enjoy a bit of a dust up, so no doubt there will be more fracas for me to get into during 2008

And so for 2008: we need to keep focused on important global issues like poverty reduction, slavery and of course climate destabilization, but here’s a sobering thought for the start of 2008. World food stocks are dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels. I was in the supermarket the other day (I try to shop organic where I can but where I live, it’s not always easy). I nearly fell over when I saw that capsicums were $AU 9.98 a kilo. And in Australia, we’ve been warned that the price of fruits and vegetables will rise fairly sharply because of our ongoing struggles with drought.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation is already seeing some alarming trends. The total cost of foodstuffs imported by the neediest countries rose 25%, to $107 million, in the last year. At the same time, reserves of cereals for example have dramatically declined - world wheat stores declined 11% this year, to the lowest level since 1980. And there are only 8 weeks of corn left in reserve. Whilst food stocks are dwindling, food prices are soaring. Wheat prices have risen by $130 per ton, or 52%, over the last year.

Demand for cereals and grains comes from two sources: an increasing global population and cattle that need to be raised and fed to cater for a growing population of meat-eaters. Higher oil costs also impact on shipping rates putting enormous stress on nations that need to import food. Climate destabilization has seen unusual weather events and patterns - such as droughts, floods and hurricanes - and these have decreased production in important exporting countries like Australia and Ukraine.

Scientists are suggesting that farmers can adapt to warmer weather (between 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) to 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees) by switching to hardier species and storing water for irrigation. But beyond 3 degrees Celsius - kaput.

Clearly, agricultural policies will need to be rethought and food aid programs will need to be helped. As we sit down to our next meal, let’s give a thought to people in this world who are facing increasing food shortages. Could be us next.

Source: International Herald Tribune

The Seattle Times carried a disturbing article recently about Pacific walruses. Seems earlier this year, thousands of walruses were killed in the midst of a stampede brought about, according to scientists, by climate change. The disappearance of sea ice caused the poor creatures to crowd onto the shoreline on the Russian side of the Bering Strait. Apparently, walruses can’t swim for long periods unlike seals. They have to heave themselves up onto ice or land to rest but, as the ice is rapidly disappearing, as many as 40,000 walruses made their way to land where they can become extremely skittish and stampede. A polar bear or a helicopter for example will cause a rush. Scientists estimate that as many as 4000 walruses out of a total population of 200,000 may have been crushed, including calves. They are also saying that the stampede matches predictions of what could happen to walruses should the ice recede, but they’re surprised by the magnitude.

By how much has the sea ice receded? Well, apparently sea ice cover fell to a record minimum in September 2007 - 4.13 million sq km, beating the previous low record set in 2005 by 23%. One specific ice mass that has been studied by scientists has slimmed down from being a 3.3m-thick slab of perennial sea ice to just half a metre. The slab lost 70cm off its top and 2.2m off the bottom, which is apparently 5 times what is normally expected. The amount of ice is not the only issue of concern, it’s also the thickness of the ice.

Arctic Ocean surface temperatures are to blame. They were 3.5C warmer than the historical average and 1.5C than the historical maximum. The warming is most likely caused by ice-albedo feedback, which is the heating up of increasing amounts of open water that absorb the sun’s rays. The more ice, the more the sun’s rays are reflected rather than absorbed.

And so ice-free summers are looking a lot closer than we thought and poor walruses may continue to stampede and die. In fact, the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free by 2012 according to scientists.

Source: BBC News. Image credit: ABC News

I was ferreting around YouTube last week and came across this video. Could be good to show to kids to easily explain what climate change (or the better term, climate destablization) is all about. Seems the video was made by a high school teacher in the US and it’s called How it All Ends.

There’s also a related video called How it All Ends: Index, which outlines an expansion pack of videos you can look up. Frankly, I’d start with this video. He even covers arguments for skeptics.

Just shows you what one passionate person can do.

Following yesterday’s post about the White House Press Secretary’s ignorance of basic US history, comes the news (shock, horror: I can hardly believe it!) that the White House may be guilty of manipulating information about climate change. A report from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is the result of a 16 month investigation into the Bush administration amidst allegations that the White House attempted to control which climate change experts could speak to reporters.

The report concludes that: “The Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policy makers and the public about the dangers of global warming. (It has) exerted unusual control over the public statements of federal scientists on climate change issues“. The most shameful activity occured in 2003 when presidential environmental adviser, James Connaughton, helped edit a draft legal opinion from the Environmental Protection Agency that denied the EPA had the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The report goes on to say that the White House:

• was “particularly active in stifling [scientists'] discussions of the link between increased hurricane intensity and global warming.”

• sought “to minimize the significance and certainty of climate change by extensively editing government climate change reports”.

Thankfully, the report has been written by a Democratic majority who are intent on surfacing what reporters and journalists have apparently known for years. Shameful. Thank goodness there is less than a year before Bush goes but what will be the cost of his legacy?

Source: CS Monitor 

I have SO had to control myself over the last couple of weeks while I take a pre-Xmas break. So much stuff to blog about! I’ll start off this post by saying I am very pleased that the Australian people had the good sense to kick out Howard and usher in the Rudd Government. Funny thing is that growing up, my family were die-hard Liberal voters. And I voted Liberal for many years. But a few things convinced me to give Rudd a chance - Howard wasn’t taking climate change seriously (until he caught on too late that it was a voting issue); he was a fear mongerer; and I couldn’t see what vision he had for Australia moving forward.

But what really convinced me was the debate between Rudd and Howard. Rudd is the first Labor leader who could hold his own against Howard, but what incensed me was the two naughty schoolchildren - Costello and Downer - in the audience, sniggering away whilst the debate was going on. And Costello as PM? NO thanks.

So we have a new Australian Government and probably Howard will go down in history as being leader of the first Western government to be brought down by the climate change issue. What is in store for Australia? Well, we know now that one of Rudd’s first actions was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol - good to see a core election promise already fulfilled and I can feel a little less embarrassed about living in a country that is a major carbon emitter. But ratifying Kyoto is a first and an easy step. But it is a step that hopefully will see Australia getting back to being a nation in its own right and not tied to the apron strings of the US. And by sending Senator Penny Wong, Australia’s first climate change Minister, to the Bali Climate Change conference, Rudd is signalling to the world that Australia is prepared to take a strong lead in global discussions - can you imagine one year ago ever believing that Australia would be sending an openly gay woman of Chinese descent to a global climate change conference!

But I’ll be watching to see if this is backed up with action. Australia is now legally bound to restrict greenhouse gas emissions to 108% of 1990 levels during the 2008-12 commitment period and penalties will be set out under the post-Kyoto deal that kicks in after 2012. Plus setting a target to reduce emissions by 60% on 2000 levels by 2050. So the heat is on so to speak - we are not on track to meet our 2012 target despite Howard having said yeah, we are. Labor is going to have to switch pronto from coal-fired power so emissions can start to drop. And what is really important is to clarify the 2020 target for emissions but I don’t think this will be done until the Rudd Government gets hold of the report by economist Ross Garnaut in 2008, which will outline the impact of interim emissions targets (Garnaut Review of Climate Change and its Economic Impact). Garnaut gave a lecture on November 29 and reading his notes gives me hope. Instead of focusing on the risk Australia may face because of the importance of our trade that derives from emission-intensive industries (ie the nasty fear mongering bit that Howard always yapped about), he talks about how Australia can take a lead internationally on climate change. Australia is well-positioned to:

• use our rich resources for solar, geothermal and wind energy
• we have large deposits of natural gas, the exports of which can be increased in a world focused on effective mitigation
• we have favourable sites for effective carbon capture and storage

Garnaut argues that Australia has many strengths that will facilitate and render less costly domestic mitigation. Garnaut states: “Australia can ensure that its own mitigation regime fits productively into the international regime which we judge to be feasible for the future. Our own announced emissions targets should relate approximately to the emissions budget that we judge to be likely to emerge from a global discussion of principles for allocating rights among countries. A complementary step would be to work with others, including developing countries in our region, to encourage their
own development of internationally compatible mitigation policies, encouraged by opportunities for trade in permits and technological exchange….We are too late to be one of the first to move amongst developed countries, but we can cease to be a laggard. Australia’s own adoption of an efficient mitigation approach, carefully designed to encourage others to move towards effective contributions to global mitigation, can play an important international role. Our action would be a step towards resolution of the repeated prisoners’ dilemma” (ie if there was a single international negotiation on climate change where each country took its own policy position, developed within the framework of its national interests and without communication with other countries, no country would choose to do anything). You can read Garnaut’s lecture and gain a sense of his thinking here.

One of the best memories I have is of the New England area in the US during autumn (or Fall). I was there in 1998 and 1999 - amazing coloured foliage. I’m no expert on the trees represented but I think I remember species called Dogwood, Red Maple and Sassafras. Rich autumnal reds and burgundies; pumpkin-hued leaves; crimson maples. And carpets of crunching leaves on the ground that you could run through.

But it seems that the spectacular foliage is fading. It’s less vivid, less sparkling. Intrepid “leaf peepers”, as tree and foliage lovers are known, make annual treks particularly to Vermont (where I was) to check out the Fall colours. In recent years, however, there are reports that the riotous rust-browns, oranges, reds and yellows of the various trees have shown their colours somewhat sparingly, with many trees changing from the dull green of late summer to the rust-brown of late Fall with no stopping for graduated hues in between.

A plant biologist from the University of Vermont believes that the Fall is now too warm to tempt the rich and vivid colours that used to be so resplendent of the area. Temperatures have been above the 30-year averages in every September and October for the past four years. The colour of trees is related to green chlorophyll, which declines as cold weather sets in. And warmer weather brings out fungi that attacks some trees, particularly the red and sugar maples that are responsible for the most spectacular palette.

Leaf-peeping is a tourist industry. 3.4 million visitors spent nearly $US 364 million in the fall of 2005. And accommodation is sometimes booked out two years in advance. So climate change could be the culprit and the trees used to be at their colour peak in the second week of October. But now the timing is later and some trees are simply going from green to bland and spotty.

Well, if the trees remain bland, leaf-peepers may have to do with looking at these fab pictures - Four Seasons in Each Picture - from Linkinn.

Source: Time.

I’ve been researching into corporate sustainability and have come across some useful resources that I thought I’d share with you. First up, is a new publication by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development - The New Role of Corporate Leadership in Global Development. Check it out here. A key message for business is: “Given the right conditions, the private sector can improve the lives of people in the low-income segment through direct employment, procurement from local suppliers and delivery of affordable products and services.”

Sorry, but having read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, I’m a tad skeptical about this. Seems to me that relentless privatisation just feeds greedy corporations and is creating a gaping wealth divide. So people in the low-income bracket don’t always get a share of the wealth. And will corporations actively worry about improving the lives of people in this income bracket?? I wonder.

The Wall Street Journal has a special issue on the environment. It looks at topics such as public attitudes towards climate change and personal sacrifice; building green and affordable; alternative energies. I also found the United Nations Environment Programme has just published the fourth Global Environment Outlook. Its compiled by 390 experts from observations, studies and data garnered over two decades. Pretty bad news: the report says that humanity is ravaging the planet so voraciously and so rapidly that future generations will be bequeathed a devoured planet. Earth has experienced five mass extinctions in 450 million years, the latest of which occurred 65 million years ago and the report highlights that a sixth major extinction is under way, this time caused by human behaviour.

Interesting and scary statistics from this report. Here’s a taste.

• climate is changing faster than at any time in the past 500,000 years
• global average temperatures rose by 0.74 degrees Celsius (1.33 Fahrenheit) over the past century and are forecast to rise by 1.8 to four C (3.24-7.2 F) by 2100
• global population is expected to peak at between 8 and 9.7 billion by 2050
• in Africa, land degradation and even desertification are threats; per capita food production has declined by 12% since 1981

The UN report presents four scenarios to the year 2050: “Markets First”, “Policy First”, “Security First”, “Sustainability First”.

Also news about rising sea levels and other disasters related to climate change. 33 cities are predicted to have at least 8 million people by 2015 and at least 21 of these cities are highly vulnerable - Dhaka, Bangladesh, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai and Tianjin in China, Alexandria and Cairo in Egypt, Mumbai and Kolkata in India, Jakarta, Tokyo and Osaka-Kobe in Japan, Lagos, Karachi, Bangkok, New York, Los Angeles.

643 million people or more than one tenth of the world’s population live in low-lying areas at risk of climate change. In descending order, China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, Egypt, the U.S., Thailand and the Philippines are countries most at risk.

Following up on yesterday’s post, I came across really fascinating news. I’ve always loved the Impressionist art movement - the vivid, fiery sunsets of a Turner painting; the dappled waters of a Monet reflecting the electric blue sky; the churning clouds; the emerald greens of a Renoir. I studied them in art school but have never stopped to think of Impressionist paintings against the backdrop of climate change. Until now…

Climate change scientists are busy analysing Turner’s paintings along with other Impressionist artists and sniffing out signs of climate change. In 1883, Krakatoa blew its top and coughed up rocks, dust and assorted debris that circled the globe. For many years, stunning sunsets were seen as the retreating light was scattered by reflective particles thrown high into the atmosphere. So the scientists have examined 181 artists who painted sunsets between 1500 and 1900 - before and after Krakatoa - and calculated the amount of material in the sky during the 1880s. This will feed into a scientific study of a phenomenon called global dimming, which is caused by air pollution blocking sunlight.

When Mount Tambora in Indonesia blew up in 1815 there was so much stuff in the atmosphere that 1815 was referred to as the “year without a summer” and there were massive crop failures in Europe, which led to famine and economic collapse.

The amount of red and green along the horizon in each artist’s painting has been calculated by a computer. Sunlight scattered by airborne particles appears more red than green, so the reddest sunsets indicate the dirtiest skies. And the result was most paintings with the highest red/green ratios were painted in the 3 years following Krakatoa’s eruption. There were 54 volcanic sunset paintings.

Interestingly, Turner was in the right place at the right time. He lived before, during and after several volcanic hissy fits: Tambora in 1815; Babuyan, Philippines in 1831, and Cosiguina, Nicaragua in 1835 and in each case the scientists found a sharp change in the red/green ratio of the sunsets he painted up to 3 years afterwards.

The team of scientists hope to check out 4o paintings from the 20th Century to see if the effects of pollution since the Industrial Revolution have been captured in sunset renditions.

Source: Guardian Unlimited
Images: Wikipedia