“Oh, shit.”They say that everyone who finally gets it about climate change has an “Oh, shit” moment—an instant when the full scientific implications become clear and they suddenly realize what a horrifically dangerous situation humanity has created for itself.
Listening to the speeches, ground-breaking in their way, that President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao delivered Sept. 22 at the U.N. Summit on Climate Change, I was reminded of my most recent “Oh, shit” moment. It came in July, courtesy of the chief climate adviser to the German government. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, chair of an advisory council known by its German acronym, WBGU, is a physicist whose specialty, fittingly enough, is chaos theory. Speaking to an invitation-only conference at New Mexico’s Santa Fe Institute, Schellnhuber divulged the findings of a study so new he had not yet briefed Chancellor Angela Merkel about it. If its conclusions are correct—and Schellnhuber ranks among the world’s half-dozen most eminent climate scientists—it has monumental implications for the pivotal meeting in December in Copenhagen, where world leaders will try to agree on reversing global warming.
Schellnhuber and his WBGU colleagues go a giant step beyond the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.N. body whose scientific reports are constrained because the world’s governments must approve their contents. The IPCC says that by 2020 rich industrial countries must cut emissions 25 to 40 percent (compared with 1990) if the world is to have a fair chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. By contrast, the WBGU study says the United States must cut emissions 100 percent by 2020—in other words, quit carbon entirely within 10 years. Germany and other industrial nations must do the same by 2025 to 2030. China only has until 2035, and the world as a whole must be carbon free by 2050. The study adds that big polluters can delay their day of reckoning by “buying” emissions rights from developing countries, a step the study estimates would extend some countries’ deadlines by a decade or so.
Needless to say, this timetable is light-years more demanding than what the world’s major governments are talking about in the run-up to Copenhagen. The European Union has pledged 20 percent reductions by 2020, which it will increase to 30 percent if others—i.e., the United States—do the same. Japan’s new prime minister likewise has promised 25 percent reductions by 2020 if others do the same. Obama didn’t mention a number, but the Waxman-Markey bill, which he supports, would deliver less than 5 percent reductions by 2020. Obama’s silence—doubtless a function of the fact that Republicans are implacably opposed to serious emissions cuts—allowed Hu to claim the higher ground at the U.N. Hu went further than any Chinese leader has before, pledging to curb greenhouse gas emissions growth by a “notable margin” by 2020. Obama dropped his own bombshell, however, urging that all G-20 governments phase out subsidies for fossil fuels. “The time we have to reverse this tide is running out,” Obama declared. Alas, the WBGU study suggests that our time is in fact all but gone.
G-8 leaders agreed in July to limit the global temperature rise to 2 degrees C (3.6 F) above the pre-industrial level at which human civilization developed. Schellnhuber, addressing the Santa Fe conference, joked that the G-8 leaders agreed to the 2C limit “probably because they don’t know what it means.” In fact, even the “brutal” timeline of the WBGU study, Schellnhuber cautioned, would not guarantee staying within the 2 C target. It would merely give humanity a two out of three chance of doing so—“worse odds than Russian roulette,” he wryly noted. “But it is the best we can do.” To have a three out of four chance, countries would have to quit carbon even sooner. Likewise, we could wait another decade or so to halt all greenhouse emissions, but this lowers the odds of hitting the 2 C target to fifty-fifty. “What kind of precautionary principle is that?” Schellnhuber asked.
There is a fundamental political assumption underlying the WBGU study: that the right to emit greenhouse gases is shared equally by all people on earth. Known in diplomatic circles as “the per capita principle,” this approach has long been insisted upon by China and most other developing countries and thus is seen as essential to an agreement in Copenhagen, though among G-8 leaders only Merkel has endorsed it. The WBGU study applies the per capita principle to the world population of 7 billion people and arrives at an annual emissions quota of 2.8 tons of carbon dioxide per person. That’s harsh news for Americans, who emit 20 tons per person annually, and it explains why the U.S. deadline is the most imminent. But China won’t welcome this study either. China’s combination of high annual emissions and huge population gives it a deadline only a few years later than Europe’s and Japan’s.
“I myself was terrified when I saw these numbers,” Schellnhuber told me. He urges governments to agree in Copenhagen to launch “a Green Apollo Project.” Like John Kennedy’s pledge to land a man on the moon in ten years, a global Green Apollo Project would aim to put leading economies on a trajectory of zero carbon emissions within 10 years. Combined with carbon trading with low-emissions countries, Schellnhuber says, such a “wartime mobilization” might still save us from the worst impacts of climate change. The alternative is more and more “Oh, shit” moments for all of us.
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Comments
View as Flat
davidtheprof Posted 4:19 pm
13 Oct 2009
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Javaman Posted 5:58 am
14 Oct 2009
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madeline11 Posted 7:09 am
14 Oct 2009
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BB1978 Posted 9:03 am
14 Oct 2009
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JoFerg Posted 10:10 am
14 Oct 2009
SEE:
http://envirogy.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/climate-change-are-we-screwed-yet/
Luckily I've also been considering the "bigger picture" as well
http://envirogy.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/the-big-picture/
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pauldanish Posted 10:21 am
14 Oct 2009
Assuming we continue to fight it by reducing our carbon footprint to zero, the real "oh shit" moment will come in two centuries, when the climate starts changing back to what it is today (or was at the end of the 18th Century) -- and the hundreds of millions of residents of Canada and Siberia, the product of seven generations of adaptation to a warming planet, realize they will have to start adapting to a cooling one.
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alex at ecoshock Posted 10:46 am
14 Oct 2009
http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/climate09/ES_Schellnhuber 4 Degrees.mp3
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Billhook Posted 5:09 am
15 Oct 2009
It is heartening to see a more accurate portrayal of the position decades of US hegemony has achieved.
With regard to the Per-Capita principle (that say Kenyans each have the same (tradeable) right to emit GHGs under a shinking global cap as do say New Yorkers) you remark that only Merkel among wealthy nations' leaders has so far endorsed this perception.
In fact, various other developed nations are basing their diplomacy upon it, with France and Britain having done so jointly and explicitly by declaring for "Contraction & Convergence" on the eve of the recent G20 meeting.
Sadly it seems that Grist has yet to perceive or to begin discussion of the seminal relevance of this widely adopted climate policy framework. An article by its originator seems long overdue.
One point I wish you'd address is the folly of people responding to this news from the Oxford conference with indulgent defeatist cant on the lines of "We're buggered", since this only advances the public apathy that is now the prevaricators' best hope of obstructing reform.
Surely the requisite response is to raise discussion (albeit belatedly) of just what is the viable framework for allocating the declining global GHG emission-rights internationally ?
And, further, to address the issue of Afforestation for Biochar so as to develop a scale of sustainable operation whereby sufficient recovery of airborne carbon is achieved to decellerate the rate of advance of the feedback loops ?
I should be very interested to read your thoughts on these issues.
Regards,
Billhook
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Tom Athanasiou Posted 9:14 am
15 Oct 2009
First of all, and most importantly, the WGBU is *not* Contraction and Convergence, as Bill Hook has implied above, The "budget approach," which it represents, is based on *cumulative* per-cap emissions.
Thus, the WGBU proposal is more akin to the "carbon debt" approach which has gained so much traction in the negotiations this past year than it is with C&C. See for example http://www.ecoequity.org/2009/07/the-remaining-emissions-budget/.
Notably, though, WGBU seeks equality in the 2010 to 2050 emissions window, which is pretty outrageous from a historical perspective. That is to say, all emissions prior to 2010 are written off.
It's really a sign of his desperation that he advocates such a late start date. Oh Shit indeed.
Cheers, toma
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amazingdrx Posted 10:18 am
15 Oct 2009
Somehow the concept of feedback loops (such as tundra melt and methane release) and exponential climate change has to enter the public lexicon. Simply claiming "we are scientists, take our word for it" isn't penetrating mass media and public opinion. And that allows right wing politicians to pander to teabaggers and claim it is a hoax and it enables more centrist politicians to decry the problem in private, but use the excuse of electability to ignore it in public.
Compound interest that causes exponential growth in savings might have been a good analogy back when people saved money, but that isn't happening anymore. Maybe compound growth in debt from adjustable rate mortgages, home loans, and credit card debt is an apt comparison now?
Somehow a national education in the fundamental math principle of compound growth needs to be made in the case of catastrophic climate change. Another compound growth phenomenon that can counter climate change actually is a source of hope. Commercial exponential growth in renewable energy and electric transportation and organic agriculture.
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katakanadian Posted 11:23 am
15 Oct 2009
The Crash Course
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sindark Posted 11:09 am
15 Oct 2009
I think the same is true of most of the supporters of the 350 movement.
See: http://www.sindark.com/2009/10/15/supporters-of-350-understand-what-you-are-proposing/
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Daniel Coffey Posted 5:16 pm
17 Oct 2009
http://www.sindark.com/2009/10/15/supporters-of-350-understand-what-you-are-
proposing/#respond
You (sindark.com) state: "When you argue to cap the atmospheric concentration at 350, you (350.org)
are arguing to cut the net human emissions of the entire planet to zero -
and to do so before we cross the point where the oceans can't draw us back
under the number. "
I am unclear what source of information is used for
this proposition, but whatever it is overlooks some basics of chemistry and
equilibrum principles. The RATE at which the ocean or other sinks take up
carbon dioxide will change in relation to the atmospheric concentration and
other driving forces, but the notion that all production of CO2 must cease
in order to return to a CO2 level of 350 ppm is simply incorrect.
Without getting into the nitty gritty details of chemical equilibrium,
suffice it to say that graduates of chemical engineering courses are well
qualified to answer some of the more complex RATE calculations.
Note that the rise in CO2 in the atmoshphere is due to the difference in the
rate of production minus the rate of absorption into various environmental
media (ocean, soil, biota, etc). That dynamic difference is reflected in
the rising CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Hence, if the CO2
production RATE is reduced, and the RATE of absorption remains roughly the
same (as would naturally be the case), then the RATE of decline in the
atmosphere concentration of CO2 will be related to how much the RATE of CO2
production is reduced. In other words, the net concentration which we refer is
actually a combination of what CO2 is produced as a function of time minus CO2
absorbed as a function of time. Therefore, the net difference can change up or down as a
function of time based on the combination of these two numbers.
To view the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere as static overlooks the plain reality that if CO2 production was not roughly balanced by absorption into the environment (trees, algae, etc), we would have long
ago - naturally - achieved very high CO2 concentrations.
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Daniel Coffey Posted 12:30 pm
17 Oct 2009
I would ask why it is that environmental groups are blocking renewable energy and transmission projects if the global warming problem is really as dire as is described? I don't get it. If environmentalist are not acting on their "oh shit" realizations to cut to the triaging and action, then why should staunch Republicans and listeners of Rush Limbaugh? If we are asking the world to give up the benefits of coal and oil, doesn't is make some sense that a few expediting actions and compromises are in order. Or am I wrong?
The aftermath of a messed up climate will not bring health and happiness to wilderness, seas, deserts and the wildlife that inhabit said environs. It will not bring happy community gardens, old growth forest, or healthy ecosystems. And it won't make people less likely to ravage the landscape for resources. Hence, shouldn't we environmentalist take some steps to intervene quickly instead of acting like time is on our side, studying things to death, and impeding every project for wind and solar? If its really an emergency, then maybe we need to cut to the chase and work on solving the problem - and I don't count legislation alone as a fix. Or is that just wishful thinking?
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piglet Posted 10:20 am
18 Oct 2009
ALSO: http://twitter.com/pdjmoo
OKAY GUYS. LET'S STOP THE MENTAL MASTURBATION AND UNDERSTAND THAT WE HUMANS CREATED THIS MESS AND ONLY WE HUMANS CAN COURSE CORRECT IT - IF THERE IS ENOUGH TIME. OUR CONDITIONED "SPECIALIZATION" THINKING SEEMS TO KEEP US FROM LOOKING AT THE CRISIS CONTEXTUALLY AND WE DROP DOWN INTO CONTENT. NATURE IS A WHOLE-ISTIC, ORGANIC SYSTEM OF INTERDEPENDENT, SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIPS OF WHICH WE HUMANS ARE PART..UPSET BALANCE IN ONE ...UPSET ALL THE OTHERS. WHEN WILL WE EVER GET THAT WE HUMANS ARE AT THE TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN AND EVERYTHING THAT GOES ON WITH THE MAGNIFICENT WEB OF LIFE AFFECTS US IN OUR SURVIVAL - FOOD, WATER AND LIFE. WITHOUT A HEALTHY, BALANCED NATURAL WORLD WE DO NOT EXIST. PERIOD. WE HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THAT WE ARE PART OF THE WHOLE ORGANIC BIO-WEB OF LIFE AND THAT WE CANNOT EXIST SEPARATE FROM IT. TECHNOLOGY AND MONEY ALONE CANNOT FIX THIS - IF INDEED IT IS EVEN FIXABLE AT THIS LATE STAGE. AND WE, THE HUMAN SPECIES, HAVE DONE IT TO OURSELVES. EVERY SPECIES IS EQUAL IN ITS OWN RIGHT AND EVERY SPECIES, INCLUDING HUMAN, IS ENTITLED TO EXPERIENCE THE DIGNITY AND RESPECT FOR THE ROLE WE PLAY IN THE GREATER SCHEME OF THINGS.
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guade00 Posted 11:39 am
20 Oct 2009
The planet and universe need no particular species for their own existence, and we are in the end a minor and relatively short-lived species, albeit one with a particularly voracious appetite and an unusually effective tool, our complex brains. So, in the words of Paul McCartney and John Lennon, let it be. We had a good go of it. Let the rats, crows, cockroaches, and microbes have a shot.
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