Comments caractacus has made

Beyond IPCC

In terms of the science, there are more recent resources. The one that immediately springs to mind is last years Hadley Centre conference, the proceedings of which are available online.

http://www.stabilisation2005.com/programme.htmlOn Some thoughts posted 2 years, 10 months ago 72 Responses

Market principles and the phosphorous cycle

How are market principles going to prevent phosphorous from leaching away into the ocean?

I'm genuinely interested to know. On Is required green development smart public policy? posted 2 years, 10 months ago 15 Responses

Yes but ...

That's if you're assuming something approximating to standard US suburbs are the only possible way to produce low density housing on the peri-urban fringe. I'm not assuming that, because that's a daft way to house humans.

I've read yours, are you going to read mine?On Is required green development smart public policy? posted 2 years, 10 months ago 15 Responses

Irony

Ironically enough, the Union of Concerned Scientists has just put out an excellent report showing exactly how Exxon spent $16million on climate change disinformation over the last few years :)

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-Globa...

Follow the money eh?On The supposed 'middle way' is debunked posted 2 years, 10 months ago 39 Responses

Nothing happening

The problem is though, that government is there to serve the needs of its political sponsors, who are by and large corporations, major investors etc.

Neither public or private sector can therefore do anything at all that would seriously impact return on investment year on year. To his credit Stern has a pretty brave try at making a case that by using the World Bank/IMF to foist climate change insurance and GM crops on the parts of the world most affected, they can get a decent ROI out of the people they'll be starving, dispacing etc at 550ppm, but it's really not a very nice picture even if he could get it adopted seriously, which I doubt. On The supposed 'middle way' is debunked posted 2 years, 10 months ago 39 Responses

CO2e

Yes, you're right that he's using C02e, I didn't know about the recorded talk though and I certainly don't recall him saying 'we're already at 430 CO2e' in the report, but I just went back and had a look and it's right there in one of the footnotes of Ch13. Thanks for pointing that out JMGOn The supposed 'middle way' is debunked posted 2 years, 10 months ago 39 Responses

The problem with the 'mainstream'

The problem though, is that you can accept that climate change is happening, and still fail to take seriously the implications. A classic case in point is the Stern Review. On the face of it, the Stern Review is an excellent thing. Climate change being taken seriously by a major goverenment right? A perfect example of bringing it into the mainstream of public debate.

Stern is proposing policy aimed at stabilising emissions at around a 550 ppm CO2 equivalent, a figure which on most projections I've seen indicates some serious risks. Particularly to people in the developing world. (According to the Hadley Centre model, 550ppm has about a 70% probability of taking us to +3C)

What he's saying is in effect `450 is not achieveable without giving up growth, let alone the 400 ppm those naive greens keep on about, so let's just forget about it.'

He's then saying (and here I'm paraphrasing something he explicitly says) If we can reduce emissions by 1-3% per year, while growth continues at rates that can satisfy investors and if some optimistic assumptions about the biosphere's ability to regulate atmospheric greenhouse gasses are and remain true while we experience the effects of the emissions that have already happened, then stabilisation at 550 ppm may be feasible.

I say `remain true', because quite likely around 550ppm several key carbon sinks stop working so it's by no means certain that his assumptions about the rate at which the biosphere can self-regulate greenhouse gases will apply if we're going to approach 550ppm. That in turn calls into serious question his assumption that by reducing emissions growth by 1-3% per annum will do the trick, even if that is possible while growth increases at a rate acceptable to investors, which I personally beg leave to doubt.

At 550ppm, we're also in with a strong chance of seeing melting ice sheets, sea level rises of several metres and possibly runaway feedback caused by things like methane release due to melting permafrost and such.

He's talking about maybe stabilising at 550ppm, if a whole lot of things come together for his approach. Meanwhile a lot of people in the poor South are in very bad trouble, which is why he mostly discusses adaptation (ie learning to live with sea level rises, fresh water shortages, ecosystem collapses etc) in connection with the developing world. It also looks like part of the growth he's so keen on is going to come from lending them the money to adapt, so they can buy seeds with adapted genetics (presumably for growing under 2m of seawater) from Monsanto etc. Ch 12 and 26 make that bit fairly clear.

What he seems to be trying to do is make a case that by doing a little bit of regulatory fiddling here, at little bit of taxing there and a tiny bit of pump-priming where there is no alternative, that reducing carbon emissions globally can be turned into an attractive investment opportunity.

Stern's report targets a threshold (assuming they could really stabilise at 550ppm CO2 equivalent in the way he proposes) where we have a russian roulette player's chance of avoiding runaway climate change, and where the impacts on the UK, US and most of at least Northern Europe, are within a range that we can probably handle, given our fairly impressive technical and financial resources. It'd be pretty horrible, but not doomsday by any means.

The impacts at the threshold he's set of 550ppm are only likely to be massively fatal and otherwise completely disastrous for a few hundred million poor people in the developing world. Of course trying to save them, by aiming for stabilisation at 400ppm, would probably be impossible while maintaining the reproduction of capital on the scale to which we, or at least the ruling class, have become accustomed.

Which is why a few hundred million poor people are a sad but necessary sacrifice in the minds of our leaders (and a potential investment opportunity, let's look on the bright side chaps!).

I think he's aiming for a level of 550ppm CO2 equivalent, that is dealable-with (at a fat profit for some) in the UK (and the nice bits of the US), irrespective of the effects elsewhere, and that he thinks is compatible with continued economic growth. If he'd aimed for what the climate scientists are mostly suggesting as 'safe' (please take a paragraph or two of qualifications about levels of certainty and what 'safe' is meant to mean as read here) which is 400ppm, then the impossibility of continued economic growth would call the whole neo-liberal economic programme, and perhaps capitalism itself, into question.On The supposed 'middle way' is debunked posted 2 years, 10 months ago 39 Responses