by Roedy Green ©1996-2008 Canadian Mind Products“The world’s got a pretty simple choice here. It’s between George W. Bush and grandchildren.”
~ Bob Brown, Australian Senator, calling for a U.S. oil boycott because of George Bush’s refusal to sign the Kyoto climate change treaty.
The current Kyoto round calls for a greenhouse gas emission reduction of 6% in Canada and 5% in the USA.
Canada is the third worst polluter on the planet (after Australia and the USA). They have done absolutely nothing to reduce greenhouse gasses and the Conservative government elected 2008-10-14 has promised to do nothing in their term in office. If this were no bad enough, Canada tried to get offsetting Kyoto credits for any forests they did not level, as if destroying all forests were the expected norm. They also tried to excuse themselves on the grounds Canada has a small population. China could pull the same silly argument if they considered each province of China separately.
Measured in ppmv (parts per million by volume)
Global warming has already reduced the depth of the winter polar ice cap since the 1970s by 40% . Polar bears will become extinct if the ice retreat continues. 90% of all glaciers on the planet have retreated significantly in the last 50 years. As the white reflective snow melts, it leaves behind the darker earth which is even more efficient at absorbing solar energy. This causes an acceleration of the heating effect.
So what? Who likes snow and ice? Consider:
Computer models show we can expect a five degree centigrade (nine degrees Fahrenheit) increase in average temperature within 100 years. This is far from the worst case scenario. (The worst case is a runaway greenhouse effect.) Five degrees does not sound like much, however, consider that the earth is a mere five degrees warmer on average than it was during the last ice age. Another way of looking at it is that a five degree warming represents a change equivalent to moving from San Francisco (average temp 12.5c/54.5f) to Los Angeles (average temp 17.5c/63.5f), or from Los Angeles to San Antonio Texas (average temperature 22c/72f).
Well so what? Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a warmer climate? There are at least three drawbacks:
Earth’s average temperature from 1000 CE to 2100 CE.
The red line shows the average temperature of the earth over the last 1000 years. The grey vertical line represents the year 2000. You notice the red line is pretty flat then suddenly starts to take off matching the curve of greenhouse gas production that came along with global industrialisation. The last part is an extrapolation based on computer models. There are several lines, outcomes dependent on how lackadaisical we are about global warming.
You might wonder how scientists can possibly know the average temperature going back 1000 years. There are many sources of information that can be used to cross check each other including ice cores, chemical analysis of carbon isotopes, tree rings of 1000 year old trees, plant remains in silt layered deposits and of course civil records.
The United States pumps out more CO2 than the entire rest of the world combined. We as a species pump as much CO 2 into the air each year as you would get from burning down every tree in Canada each year.
Each person on earth breathes out about 0.85 kg (1.87 pounds) of CO 2 each day.
Transportation accounts for 40% of the problem. The number of cars is growing world wide ten times faster than the population. Every US gallon of gasoline burned produces 9 kg (20 pounds) of CO2. It would take a large tree about a year to absorb this much CO 2. One reader was skeptical the CO2 produced could weigh more than the gasoline. Recall your high school chemistry. When gasoline (an octane/hexane mix) burns each carbon atom (atomic weight 12) joins with an oxygen molecule containing two oxygen atoms (atomic weight 16) from the air. The oxygen forms 73% of the weight of the resulting CO 2.
“We’re about a degree Fahrenheit in the planet warmer than we were a century ago, but the vast majority of those who know something about it believe that at least half of that in the last 30-40 years is due to our using the atmosphere as an un-priced sewer to dump our tailpipe and our smokestack wastes. And every time we try to talk about getting a tax on those emissions, they tell us it’s an interference in the free market, as if, somehow, we should get our garbage collected for free.”
~ Dr. Stephen Schneider, professor of biological science at Stanford University, editor in chief of the Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather
Klein imagines that the Kyoto treaty will be costly to the oil interests in his province. He reasons, if we reduce emissions, we necessarily will necessarily consume less oil, therefore Alberta will sell less oil, therefore Alberta will make less money. Therefore, Kyoto must but stopped, the planet be damned.
I think Klein has it backwards. The way to reduce emissions is by using more efficient cars and machines that use less oil. This means the oil reserves will last longer. This means the oil producers can continue to collect money for a longer time. The oil monopolies will be able to raise oil prices, knowing that their customers now have more money in their pockets from using more efficient vehicles. Yet it won’t cost any more to produce the oil than now. Overall then, the oil producer would get more money for the same amount of oil in his reserves.
Though the vast majority of the world’s scientists are on board for cleaning up the atmosphere, a few can be bribed to lie or mislead the public. TV, in an attempt at balance, tries to some one anti-Kyoto expert for every one pro, even though scientists are about 1000 to 1 in favour of Kyoto.
Industry similarly screamed at the acid rain restrictions. Yet it turned out the acid captured in the smokestacks more than paid for the equipment to collect it. This same pattern has repeated itself over and over. Capturing and reusing a pollutant, or avoiding creating it in the first place always turns out to be “unexpectedly” profitable.
We don’t let children play with life support systems in hospitals, yet we allow alcoholic dufuses to meddle with the life support systems of spaceship earth. The politicians don’t understand the science needed to deal with global warming.
Others pooh-poohing global warming, quote president Bush, the man famous for lying about Iraq, 9/11, his military career and just about everything else.
Others quote Bjørn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist, who does not even have a BSc. See what scientists in the field have to say about this quack.
“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”
~ Mark Twain
The oil industry has gone so far as to found it own support group to attempt to refute such charges, and extraordinarily well-funded lobby called the GCC Global Climate Coalition, which initially included all the biggest oil, coal and auto companies. They spent $60 million on disinformation to oppose attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They of course were all strong Bush supporters. Bush lied to the people during his campaign that he was going to reduce CO2 emissions, then pushed through bills to increase them, such as the SUV tax subsidy. Many of their members have since seen the light and have abandoned the coalition. These include BP, Shell, Ford, DaimlerCrysler, Texaco, Southern Company and General Motors. There’s no point in fighting reality. You will make more money working with it. Even Bush and FOX’s Bill O’Reilly now admit the threat of global warming is real.
“Global warming is here. All these idiots that run around and say it isn’t here. That’s ridiculous.”
~ Bill O’Reilly
“I have said consistently that global warming is a serious problem.”
~ George W. Bush, 2006-06-26
“California will not wait for our federal government to take strong action on global warming. International partnerships are needed in the fight against global warming.”
~ Arnold Schwarzenegger
“The environmental and economic consequences of climate change and our dependency on fossil fuels compel both California and the United Kingdom to commit to urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote low-carbon technologies.”
~ Tony Blair
“Many people have the impression that there is significant scientific disagreement about global climate change. It’s time to lay that misapprehension to rest. There is a scientific consensus on the fact that Earth’s climate is heating up and human activities are part of the reason. We need to stop repeating nonsense about the uncertainty of global warming and start talking seriously about the right approach to address it.”
~ Naomi Oreskes, 2004-12-26
“If you compressed the atmosphere to a liquid, it would be about 1/500 the size of the oceans. It is not nearly as big as people assume.”
~ Tim Flannery, 2006-09-09
According to an article in Mother Jones, 2005-05/06 by Chris Mooney, from 2000 to 2003, Exxon funneled more than $8 million into a network of think tanks, quasi-journalistic media outlets, and civic and religious groups, to great effect. Peer-reviewed scientific journals contain virtually nothing that challenges the consensus on anthropogenic global warming.
Those who have a financial investment is playing ostrich, carefully avoid reading any of the thousands of books written by reputable scientists.
As you might guess, I think those claiming doubt about climate change are a bunch of paid shills without conscience. But let us give them the benefit of the doubt. If there is doubt about climate change, what is the prudent thing to do?
Buckminster Fuller explained that our planet can be considered a spaceship, with a life support system — the atmosphere. If you shank the earth to the size of a basketball, the atmosphere would be about as thick as a layer of saran wrap. In other words, it is fragile.
One does not jerk around doing experiments to a spaceship’s life support system. That is precisely what business wants us to do — insert massive quantities of novel chemicals into the atmosphere. We are sure the effects won’t be beneficial. The only doubt is whether they will be mildly or violently harmful.
Look for yourself at these data about tornado frequency: 1955-2000 and 2003—2006. Global warming predicts more violent weather, simply because there in more energy in the atmosphere. You can see the clear trend to increasing tornado frequency for yourself.
Exxon has been funding the deniers, liars and fudsters. The fools an Exxon don’t even recognise their own self interest. The longer oil lasts, the more money they will make.
“No, what I am supportive of is, frankly, not ratifying the Kyoto agreement and not implementing it.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, CTV News, 2002-09-06.This is the same man who lied brazenly on national television in 2008-10 claiming his political party had the strongest plan to deal with greenhouse gases. Cough!
“[The Kyoto Accord is] a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations… [The Accord is] based on tentative and contradictory scientific evidence about climate trends.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Canadian Alliance fundraising letter, 2002 fallHarper has lied about global warming so many times, I think he truly believes it himself. There is no controversy among scientists. There is unanimous consensus that global warming is real and a major threat, with an handful of hold-out shills and people without credentials funded the oil companies. Harper of course gets all his information from big oil, who continue to pump out FUD. If you have any doubt, just peruse some peer reviewed scientific journals or read about the Naomi Oreskes survey.
“Carbon dioxide does not cause or contribute to smog, and the Kyoto treaty would do nothing to reduce or prevent smog.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Toronto Star,004-06-10Yes, and Kyoto won’t do anything to help acne either. That is not what it is for.
“As economic policy the Kyoto Accord is a disaster. As environmental policy it is a fraud.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Address at the Ottawa Leader’s Dinner, 2002-11-20Harper is fixated on the costs of implementing Kyoto, estimated as high as 1% of GDP. However, he refuses to consider the costs of not implementing Kyoto which the famous economist Nicholas Stern estimated at 5 to 20% of GDP. Harper also refuses to consider the economic benefits of implementing Kyoto in energy saving, and the benefits of marketing Canadian green technology to other countries.
“[Kyoto] is designed to address the so-called ‘greenhouse gas’ phenomenon, the hypothesis that the increase of certain gases — not necessarily pollutants — contribute to a long-term global warming trend.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Address at the Ottawa Leader’s Dinner, 2002-11-20The phenomenon has been called the greenhouse gas effect since Fourier discovered it in 1824. This is hardly controversial or new. Harper is just trying the pretend there is doubt where there is none.
“The accord does negatively impact every region of the country. So rather than talk up separation, it is important to build a coalition across the country to defeat Kyoto.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Report Newsmagazine, 2002-12-16
“This is just the beginning of the biggest black-hole boondoggle in Canadian history.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, National Post, 2003-08-13On the contrary, doing nothing about alternative energy, efficiency and Kyoto is a boondoggle to put the country at the mercy of big oil, who will be able to jack their prices as high as they please because there will be no alternatives and a shrinking supply of crude.
“We think the deal itself [Kyoto] is simply bogus.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Rafe Mair Show, CKNW Radio Vancouver, 2002-11-29In sense, Harper is correct. Kyoto is just a baby step, about 1/30 of the job. However, refusing to even start guarantees failure.
“It might take another 30 Kyotos over the next century to cut global warming down to size.”
~ Jerry Mahlman, director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton, (born 1940-02-21)
“There is no environmental benefit [to Kyoto] of any kind.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Rafe Mair Show, CKNW Radio Vancouver, 2002-11-29Since Harper considers selfish economics as the only valid motivation for action I will confine myself to financial benefits. Given that global warming allowed to run rampant will kill billions, that will reduce Canada’s markets for goods. Global warming will submerge the Vancouver International airport, and other highly valuable land on the Fraser River delta. Global warming causes extreme weather (droughts, floods, high heat, hurricanes, tornadoes and forest fires from increased lightning, winds, heat and drought). Such weather is less conducive to agriculture. This will impair Canada’s ability to export wheat, beef, canola etc.
“Carbon dioxide which is a naturally occurring gas vital to the life cycles of this planet. Smog is an entirely different issue is not covered by this treaty.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Rafe Mair Show, CKNW Radio Vancouver, 2002-11-29Harper’s comment betrays an attempt to snow or his abyssmal ignorance. CO2 acts as a chemical global thermostat. It’s a Goldilocks problem. Too little CO 2 and you get an ice age. Too much and you sear the planet. It has to be just right. We have inadvertently jacked the planet’s thermostat way way up to unprecedented levels. It is up to us to rectify the problem we have created for the entire planet.
“The Kyoto protocol does not deal with critical environmental issues.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Address on the Kyoto Accord, 2002-12-09Of course. There are many environmental problems it does not attack, but it does attack the #1 threat to humanity. Just because there needs to be work on the #2 and #3 problems too is no excuse to do nothing about #1.
“Canada’s implementation will not lead to global reductions of CO 2. In fact the transfer of wealth, jobs and emissions to non-target countries virtually ensures that carbon dioxide emissions will increase under the Kyoto Protocol.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Address at the Ottawa Leader’s Dinner, 2002-11-20That makes no sense. If Canada reduces its emissions, the global emissions will still be lower than if Canada had done nothing. Canada can't very well chide other nations for failure to act until it has done its promised bit. Harper is like a guy who never cuts his lawn but runs around the neighbourhood with a bullhorn calling others deadbeats for imperfections in their lawns. You must lead by example.
“I don’t think we should consider signing on to a deal that makes us virtually the sole country in the world that is going to take any action.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Toronto Star, 2002-09-05Harper has it backwards. Canada is one of the few deadbeat countries which includes the other two biggest polluters Australia and the USA. The Europeans met they Kyoto targets.
“Kyoto does virtually nothing to deal with pollution and to deal with the quality of the air that we breathe. Let’s forget about this unworkable treaty… Kyoto’s never going to be passed.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Toronto Star, 2002-09-05Some of the techniques for reducing CO 2 also have a beneficial effect on other pollutants as well. For example, more efficient appliances means less coal has to be burned to produce the electricity, which means less sulphur and acid rain. More fuel-efficient cars mean less emissions of all types. Green technology for heating means less particulates emitted. Wind and solar don’t produce any emissions of any kind. But even if reducing green house gas had no beneficial effects on traditional pollution, you still have to do it. It threatens global human survival.
“Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Hansard, 2002-10-11If you are the government, you can define pollutant to mean anything you please, but that does not change the fact that excess CO 2 in the atmosphere has extreme lethal consequences. The function of a SCUBA rebreather is two-fold, to provide oxygen and to remove CO 2 which becomes fatal above 4%. It is not an inert gas like nitrogen or helium. Mr. Harper, I invite you to put a bag over your head and see if you don’t die from CO 2 poisoning to prove it is harmless. But even that is irrelevant. Excess CO 2 in the atmosphere causes lethal climate changes. 1/5 of all mammals are expected to go extinct soon. Are you not in the least curious? Frogs, that have survived billions of years on earth, are suddenly disappearing completely due to something we humans did. As leader, you had bloody well better know why. Instead of asking lobbyists in the oil industry, ask some qualified scientists who can give you a straight answer. You are like a miner with cageful of dead canaries and no curiosity.
“[Global warming is] a scientific hypothesis and a controversial one.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Toronto Star, 2002-09-05Global warming by greenhouse gases was discovered in 1824. There was some controversy about where the CO2 was coming from, but that too was long ago settled. We have very good records of all the fuel we burn.
“This may be a lot of fun for a few scientific and environmental elites in Ottawa, but ordinary Canadians from coast to coast will not put up with what this will do to their economy and lifestyle…”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Toronto Star, 2002-09-05I ride a bike. I would love it if diesel trucks emitted less crap in my face. That would be an improvement in my life style I would greatly enjoy.
“We can debate whether or not… CO2 does or does not contribute to global warming. I think the jury is out.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of interview on the Rafe Mair Show, CKNW Radio Vancouver, 2002-11-29That is simply not true. Harper is parotting FUD put out by big oil. Back in 1824 Fourier discovered the greenhouse effect (when Marx was still only 6 years old). Svante Arrhennius, the great Swedish chemist published his calculations in 1896 about how atmospheric CO 2 concentrations control the average global temperature, and how certain amount of CO 2 was needed to prevent an ice age.
“My party’s position on the Kyoto Protocol is clear and has been for a long time. We will oppose ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and its targets. We will work with the provinces and others to discourage the implementation of those targets. And we will rescind the targets when we have the opportunity to do so.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Ottawa Citizen, 2002-11-22This sounds a bit like a pact with the devil. Harper is pledging to increase green house gas emissions and destroy the earth. He even admits his motivation is money.
“We’re gearing up now for the biggest struggle our party has faced since you entrusted me with the leadership. I’m talking about the Battle of Kyoto — our campaign to block the job-killing, economy-destroying Kyoto accord.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Canadian Alliance fundraising letter, 2002 fallHarper can’t have it both ways that Kyoto is both job-killing and expensive. Spending on green technology obviously creates jobs. If it could be done without spending any money, it would not create any jobs. Jobs require money to pay the people who fill them. They are good jobs too, ones not easily outsourced.
“As the effects trickle through other industries, workers and consumers everywhere in Canada will lose. There are no canadian winners under the Kyoto accord.”
~ Stephen Harper (born 1959-04-30) anti-environmental Prime Minister of Canada, Canadian Alliance fundraising letter, 2002 fallGiven that doing nothing about global warming will lead to the deaths of billions of people and economic damage that makes a 30s style depression look like a picnic, I’d say there are no losers if you implement Kyoto.
The catch is we have overwhelmed the natural systems. Every 300 horsepower car acts like 300 straining horses converting oxygen to CO2. Every household appliance is like some Tazmanian Devil on cocaine. Every light bulb is like several marathon runners gasping. A furnace is the equivalent of 14 elephants rutting away in the basement. Every time you take a shower, it is the equivalent of 10 horses thrashing away to warm the water up with friction. It takes a large tree about a year to absorb the CO2 from burning even one gallon of gasoline.
CO2 forms only a tiny fraction of the atmosphere — about 375 parts per million. How could this insignificant gas make any difference to climate? The importance of CO2 in planetary heat regulation was discovered back in 1824. Even at tiny concentrations, CO2 is remarkably efficient at absorbing and hence trapping energy. Each CO 2 molecule is a bit like tiny solar-powered transformer, absorbing light and converting it to heat and emitting it, repeating the cycle over and over many times a second. It is that same ability that makes CO 2 useful in constructing infrared lasers.
With no CO2 at all, the earth’s average temperature would be -20°C (-4°F). With 375 parts per million, the current concentration, it is 14°C (57°F). The level is rising about 2.54 parts per million per year and is accelerating, mainly due to the unchecked emissions in the USA. Scientists are concerned even a 3°C (5°F) rise would cause mass extinctions. Some projections calculate a 6°C (11°F) rise if we don’t quickly mend our ways. If CO2 ever reached 1% of the atmosphere, the average temperature would be above boiling. Higher concentrations that than would sent it up to -500°C (-868°F), like the surface of Venus.
To summarise, CO2 acts as the planetary thermostat. Too little and we freeze, too much as we boil. We need to keep it just right. To add to the complication, CO2 is just one of many even more potent greenhouse gases, though it is the most important one.
| Greenhouse Gases | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Molecule | Formula | Composition | Potency
relative to CO2 |
Notes |
| carbon dioxide |  |
CO2 | One carbon atom flanked by two oxygen atoms | 1 | The gas that gives pop its fizz. plants use it during photosynthesis,
emitting oxygen. people, animals (and machines) breathe it out during metabolism.
if the concentration reaches 5%, it will kill you. though it forms only 387
parts per million of the atmosphere, it acts like a effective planetary
greenhouse. CO2 is one of the greenhouse
gases. When high energy rays hit a molecule of CO2,
it converts them to heat which cannot escape, warming up the earth. The same
molecule of CO2 can keep on converting
rays ad infinitum. Because we humans have been burning fossil fuels at an
astounding rate, we have hugely increased the amount of CO2in
the air, and this powerful warming effect is getting out of hand.
As you have probably noticed if you warm pop or shake it, the CO 2 fizzes out into the air. The same thing happens to CO 2 dissolved in the ocean as global warming heats the water. This creates a vicious circle where the CO2 released warms the water causing still more CO2 to bubble out. You have a run-away effect. |
| methane |  |
CH4 | One carbon atom surrounded by four hydrogen atoms in a tetrahedron. | 50 | Methane is fart gas. Globally livestock account for 18% of the greenhouse gas emissions. In impure form, used as a fuel, it is called natural gas, a cute euphemism. It can be harvested from decomposing manure or vegetation piles, and burned as fuel to form CO2, a much less problematic greenhouse case. |
| nitrous oxide |  |
N2O | Nitrogen atom flanked by another nitrogen atom on one side and an oxygen atom on the other. | 296 | It is used as a propellent in canned whipped cream. It is also known as laughing gas. It is the secret behind Viagra. The world’s agrifuel corporations plan to triple the amount of nitrogen entering the world‘s soil, a process which releases N2O. Even as it is, almost half of green house gases come from agricultural monoculture, and its attendant long distance transportation and fertiliser production. |
“What if we run into a tipping point where we have this kind of accelerated scenario of climate change? We’re gonna get our butts kicked.”
~ Paul Roberts, The End of Oil
“We have a lot of carbon stored in the permafrost, and those permafrosts are starting to defrost and when they defrost that carbon is going to be oxidized to carbon dioxide or brought out as methane… and that will be a dramatic increase in greenhouse gases.”
~ Douglas Crawford-Brown, Director, Carolina Environmental Program, UNC-Chapel Hill
“We’re going to run out of air to burn before we run out of fossil fuels to burn.”In other words, even before we run out of oil, we will have to stop burning it to avoid killing off the entire planet.
~ Richard Manning, Against the Grain
The problem is we are hopelessly dependent on oil for energy, chemicals, fertilizers, pumping water, making electricity etc. We have done almost nothing to prepare for the end of oil. Corporations are incapable of looking ahead more than a quarter or two, so that have not funded any research but window dressing. Government has been unwilling to fund research since campaign-contributing oil companies want the world to remain addicted to their products.
“Petrochemicals, fossil fuels, have become embedded in our food supply. If we run out of fossil fuel, that strategy will collapse in a heartbeat.”Without oil, the earth can only sustain the population it had roughly at the time of the American civil war, 1 billion. That means if we don’t plan for the end of oil, about 5 billion people will die so it is downright criminal to put your head in the sand or try to trick others into ignoring the problem.
~ Richard Manning, Against the Grain
“Our global population is going to be reduced.”The end of oil is not news. Even people in the 1800s understood oil was a finite, non-sustainable resource.
~ William Catton, Jr., Professor Emeritus, Sociology & Human Ecology, Washington State University
“Rational people will go quietly and meekly into a gas chamber if only you allow them to believe it’s a bathroom.”
~ Zygmunt Bauman
“There is no need to save the planet. It will be here a million years from now no matter what we do. We are really talking about saving humanity.”
~ Patrick Moore
“If you have a sick child and 98 doctors say she needs medication and two say she does not, I go with the 98 doctors.”Despite fact the world’s climatologists are in near unanimous agreement that global warming is a major threat, the bulk of Americans ignore the warning and pretend to themselves there is no problem. Why?
~ Arnold Schwarzenegger
To gain an understanding of the level of scientific consensus on climate change, a recent study by Naomi Oreskes examined every article on climate change published in peer-reviewed scientific journals over a 10-year period. Of the 928 articles on climate change the authors found, not one of them disagreed with the consensus position that climate change is happening or is human-induced.
These findings contrast dramatically with the popular media’s reporting on climate change. One recent study analyzed coverage of climate change in four influential American newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, and Wall Street Journal) over a 14-year period. It found that more than half of the articles discussing climate change gave equal weight to the scientifically discredited views of the skeptics.
If vehicles were more fuel efficient, oil companies could charge the same as they do now, yet pump less oil. This would increase their profits and also make the reserves last longer. Instead, the fools lobby for fuel-inefficient vehicles.
Other businesses besides oil also have much to gain from Kyoto. More efficient use of energy always means higher profit in the long run, simply because it means reduced energy costs.
As the oil reserves are consumed, by the law of supply and demand, the prices of oil will rise. Black gold will go platinum. So irrespective of global warming, the world is going to be forced to switch to energy-efficient machines and vehicles.
We Canadians must decide whether we want to be the providers or merely the purchasers of that high-efficiency, low-emission technology. The sooner we adopt the new technology ourselves, the more likely we will become the providers to the world.
Sharp and the Japanese government are already tiling the roofs of Japan with solar panels. With that experience they believe they will soon develop a solution at less that $1 per watt that will be cheaper than hydro electric or coal/oil-fired electricity and the Japanese will rapidly dominate the global energy market. Does it make sense to hand this giant market to the Japanese on a plate by playing ostrich and pretending we can do oil business as-usual forever?
“Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we’ve been ignorant of their value.”According to Amory Lovins in the 2002 Summer edition of Orion Afield we have very powerful techniques now that can triple or quadruple the energy and water efficiency of most existing buildings. In new building the energy savings can be more like 90 percent, and these buildings typically work better and cost less to build.
~ Richard Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller (1895-07-12— 1983-07-01)
“A 3mpg increase in the auto and light truck fleet is worth 1,000,000 barrels of oil a day.”With all the potential for saving energy, its obvious that protecting the climate is not costly but profitable: saving fuel costs less than buying fuel. That’s why DuPont the world’s biggest chemical company, announced that in this decade its energy use won’t increase, even though its business is projected to grow by six percent a year, because its goal is to get efficient at least that fast. STMicroelectronics, the fourth-biggest chip maker in the world has set a goal of zero net carbon emissions by the end of this decade, when they will be making 40 times the chips they made in 1990. British Petroleum just reached its 2010 carbon reduction goals seven years early — at a net profit of $650 million. These thing are being done in the name of shareholder value. Smart companies are behaving as if the USA had ratified the Kyoto protocol, because they make more money that way. Washington will be the last to know.
~ Ernest Moniz, Professor of Physics, [The giant tar sands of Canada, the last major untapped oil source, are projected to produce 3 million barrels of oil a day.]
Nicholas Stern, who heads Britain’s Government Economic Service and formerly served as the World Bank’s chief economist produced a report for the British Government on the economics of dealing with global climate change, pointing out the stupendous costs of ignoring the problem.
“Failing to curb the impact of climate change could damage the global economy on the scale of the Great Depression or the world wars by spawning environmental devastation that could cost 5 to 20 percent of the world’s annual gross domestic product.”
~ Nicholas Stern
“The best evidence indicates that we need to reduce our CO 2 emissions by 70 per cent by 2050. [Kyoto round one aims for only 6%]. If you own a four-wheel drive, and replace it with a hybrid fuel car, you can achieve a cut of that magnitude in a day, rather than half a century. If your electricity provider offers a green option, for the cost of a daily cup of coffee, you will be able to make equally major cuts in your household emissions. And if you vote for a politician who has a deep commitment to reducing CO2 emissions, you might change the world.”Unhappily, even if everyone in the world immediately reduced emissions to zero, we would still get a significant increased global warming caused by the gases we have already so cavalierly leaked into the atmosphere in the past. Even with a 6% reduction we are just making a tiny dent in the global warming problem.
Tim Flannery, The Weather Makers
So the 6% reduction is just a start, not sufficient to rectify the problem. You have to start somewhere. The worst polluters, e.g. Canada and the USA are scheduled first. The lesser ones such as China are scheduled to follow later.
The problem is we have already pumped so big an excess of CO 2 into to atmosphere, even if in 2004 we took the entire world back below 2004 levels of emission, there would still be four times as much CO2 as there was before the industrial revolution. We are pumping far greater amounts into the air than the natural systems, (trees, oceans, plant) can deal with. The natural systems can cope only with the natural sources (animals breathing, volcanoes), not with our overload.
“It might take another 30 Kyotos over the next century to cut global warming down to size.”
~ Jerry Mahlman, director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton
Canada is committed to reducing emission rates to 6% below what they were in 1990, which is 20% below the 2002 level, and 35% below the projected 2010 business-as-usual level.
Even so, Kyoto is just a token start at the problem. The economic effects of the 6% reduction would barely be noticeable since the positive economic aspects of the cleanup would offset the negative. Economic factors like interest rates, exchange rates, wars and tariffs would dwarf the Kyoto effects.
For home appliances (e.g. refrigerators and washing machines) we already have the technology to cut the energy consumption in half. All it requires is gradually phasing them in. For automobiles we already have high efficiency vehicles. All we have to do is provide incentives to both manufacture and buy them, and disincentives to both manufacture and buy inefficient SUVs.
An area 160.93 × 160.93 km (100 × 100 miles) in New Mexico covered with solar panels could provide all the energy needs of the USA. We need to create only a very few new clean energy plants to meet the 6% target.
Under George Herbert Walker Bush, the USA signed the Kyoto treaty on 1992-12-06. It ratified it in 1992-10-15. It came into effect on 1994-03-21. Under George Walker Bush, the USA reneged on the agreement in 2001.
There are only three other countries refusing to ratify the treaty: Australia, Monaco and Liechtenstein.
America’s excuse is that India and China should go first. Well, they have gone first. They have already ratified the agreement. The agreement was that Canada and the USA would develop the high technology required, field test it, then sell it to India and China.
When you work to reduce your energy and greenhouse gas footprint, you save money. Electricity costs about a kilowatt hour. If you left a 100 watt bulb on for a month, it would consume 100 * 24 * 30 = 72,000 watt-hours or 72 kilowatt-hours. That would cost . If you replaced that bulb with a 13 watt fluorescent, which is even brighter, it would cost only a month. This does not sound like much, but add up all the lighting in your house. Similarly consider other energy hogs like ovens (5000 watts), clothes dryer (5000 watts), water heater (3800 watts), microwave (1500 watts), toaster (1500 watts), fridge (200 to 700 watts), desktop computer with CRT Monitor (330 watts), TV (90 watts), LCD flat panel TV (40 watts). Anything you can do to replace these with more energy efficient devices, or turn them off then not in use will save you money. That computer’s power running 24/7 will cost you a month. If you turned on the hibernation feature, and you used the computer four hours a day, that bill would drop to 1/6 as much — . To get an idea of what these devices are costing you, try out this energy calculator. You can cut your hot water bill by 40% by using a hot water heater that prewarms the water from heat in your outgoing wastewater. Similarly, you can save on your heating bill by warming incoming ventilation air with outgoing exhaust air.
Sometimes they will make up childish objections, even though they know they have only a primary school understanding of science and no inkling of how the scientists came to their conclusions. They pretend to themselves that they noticed some anomaly that all the scientists of the world missed, that if exposed, would triumph over all other knowledge about global warming. Walter Mittys all!
Global warming deniers like to dismiss all scientists as Jeremiahs or Cassandras. Consider that Cassandra of Greek mythology, famous for her dire predictions, was always right. Her curse was that no one would take action to avoid the catastrophes, despite her track record.
If I predict that placing your hands across a 10,000 volt AC line will kill you, it does not make me wrong just because my prediction is dire. If a doctor tells you that you have lung cancer and likely won’t last the year, it does not make him wrong, just because that is the last thing you wanted to hear. You can always find some quack who will sell you snake oil at inflated prices and tell you that everything will be fine, but that does not make him right.
Similarly you should not believe someone just because they predict dire consequences. That, in and of itself, means nothing. The church has been using that trick for centuries to manipulate people and extort them out of “contributions”, given in the hope of mollifying the vengeful, angry, control-freak god du jour.
In summary, it is childish to evaluate the correctness of a scientific prediction based on how pleasant the expected outcome.
“If every American consumer brought their own reusable bags when shopping, we’ll cut more than a billion pounds of CO2 this month — that’s the equivalent of taking 1.3 million cars off the road!”Reusable bags are sturdier, bigger and more easier to carry than plastic or paper bags. My sister made me a big sturdy one of canvas with rainbow handles. If you buy a 24-roll package of Cascades recycled toilet paper, they bundle a reusable bag to carry it home in. Most organic grocery stores will sell you a hemp/canvas sack, nicely decorated. Some cities are outlawing plastic bags, and some are insisting on reusable bags. Perhaps your city should follow suit.
Rebecca Young, care2.org
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| CO2 emission per PKT |
So when you have a choice, pick bus or rail and avoid trucks and airplanes. Though not shown on this graph, helicopters are even worse than planes and SUVs are a type of light truck.
“Less than 10% of the fuel energy burned in automobiles is translated into forward motion of the vehicle, and even then most of this energy is needed to move the vehicle itself, which typically weighs 20 times more than its passengers.”The less your car weighs, the proportionately less CO2 it will emit. So use the lightest possible vehicle for any given transportation job. Switching to a hybrid cuts your CO2 footprint in half. Hybrids are particularly well-adapted to the stop-go conditions of city driving. The surprise is how badly urban transit as a whole does. Urban transit often indulges in wasteful practices like large mostly-empty buses, and diesel engines which are poorly adapted to the city’s stop and go traffic pattern. As they switch over to hybrids and fuel cells, and light rail, and optimally sized busses, their efficiency will improve.
~ David Suzuki Foundation 2002-09
Ideally we should institute a global value added carbon tax. It could be revenue neutral. Basically it would punish carbon emitters and reward those who reduce carbon emissions. If the VAT were global, there would be no incentive for an individual country to go dirty to attract industry. It could start with individual countries instituting the tax based on the total carbon footprint of a product including mining, manufacturing and shipping. This would discourage dirty production in foreign countries too.
What I find odious is the USA refusing to clean up, using as its excuse that China is dirty too. Imagine two dirty little boys refusing to take a bath, each floating the excuse the other is dirty, and staying dirty will encourage the other to bathe. What nonsense! If one boy climbs into the tub, the other is far more likely to conform too. You lead by example. You can’t very well demand behaviour from others you are unwilling to do yourself.
The idea of the carbon tax is to make people pay X dollars a tonne to release CO2 into the air. If this price is higher than the cost of modifying the equipment, then businesses will naturally prefer to make the modifications to avoid the tax. However, it has to get up about a tonne for this to happen. The Liberals are calling for about a ton and gradually ramping it up. The problem with this is nothing happens to start. It is just a way of raising money, not reducing carbon. The liberals say they will reduce income tax so that the average person will come out the same as before. Heavy “polluters”/consumers will come out worse. People with a light CO2 footprint (e.g. people who use public transport of bikes instead of cars) will come out ahead.
Factory A does this for other factories as well. The scheme thus has an incentive to get its emissions down to 0 right away, and to develop or buy the equipment to do it. This research makes it easier for factory B to reduce its own emissions.
Each year the government lowers the bar on acceptable emissions. This increases the cost of a traded tonne of carbon, putting more pressure on everyone to lower their emissions so they won’t have to buy any credits and so they will have some to sell.
This is a friendly system to industry since it lets them reduce CO 2 in the cheapest most efficient places.
“We would have to pull every truck and car off the street, shut down every train and ground every plane to reach the Kyoto target. Or we could shut off all the lights in Canada tomorrow.”This is a croque de merde (crock of shit). All it would take is some mandatory fuel efficiency standards on automobiles. Cars in 2006 are no more efficient than they were in 1982.
~ Rona Ambrose, Canada’s Environment Minister
The new Conservative government is dedicated to making global warming worse. They have pulled the website and the environment minister and the Prime Minister have been spreading FUD and outright lies about global warming. It is imperative they be removed form office quickly by hook or by crook, using all means fair and foul. It is also important to let them know you are doing that. They might change their tune.
“Stephen Harper is 300 pounds of condemned beef.”Premier Klein and the Alberta oil patch interests have put a ton of money into sinking Kyoto, even though it is against their own long-term economic best interests. Their propaganda was having an effect on Canadian public opinion, though it was not sufficient to derail Kyoto. Prime Minister Chrétien ratified the Kyoto treaty. Write to Stephen Harper to urge him to get on with implementation, and to tell him you will work to remove him from office by any means necessary if he does not.
~ Mary Walsh
Make a simple threat. “If you don’t get behind Kyoto, I will vote for someone who will.”
No postage is required to send a letter to any Member of Parliament. Only mail sent to the House of Commons is eligible. Just write the letters O.H.M.S. where you would normally put a stamp.
“Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to global nuclear war.”
~ Environment Canada (The Canadian equivalent of the EPA)
“Global warming threatens the survival of our species”
~ Lucien Bouchard, Environment minister in the Conservative Mulroney administration of Canada
companion book, DVD.
100
Scientists OK Gore’s movie for accuracy. Bittorrent 782MB
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recommend DVD⇒An Inconvenient Truth | ||||||||||||||||
| DVD | |||||||||||||||||
| by: Al Gore | |||||||||||||||||
| The most famous climate change documentary of them all. Gore gave his presentation hundreds of times, so it is polished to a brilliant shine. He is funny, engaging and entertaining. | |||||||||||||||||
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recommend DVD⇒The Truth About Climate Change | ||||||||||||
| DVD | |||||||||||||
| by: David Attenborough | |||||||||||||
| Britain’s most famous naturalist holds forth. Only available in Britain. Make sure to get the version you buy has a region than can be handled by your player. | |||||||||||||
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recommend DVD⇒The End Of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream | ||||||||||||||||
| DVD | |||||||||||||||||
| by: EndOfSuburbia.com | |||||||||||||||||
| About peak oil and the effect the end of cheap energy will have on suburbia. We simply won’t be able to use cars to live in suburbia. We won’t be able to afford to heat McHomes. We won’t be able to afford to transport the ingredients 3000 miles for a Caesar salad. We won’t be able to afford the gas to travel to barn stores like Wal-Mart, and they won’t be able to afford to transport goods all the way from China. We will have to start learning to make everything including food and energy locally. There is no point in building more gas-fired electric plants. We don’t have enough gas flow to drive them. The movie points out that even if nuclear (expensive), coal (dirty), hydro (none left to exploit), wind, solar, biomass etc. were all implemented in a crash program starting today, they would come nowhere near producing enough energy for our current energy-wasteful lifestyle. Hydrogen is not a fuel; it is just a way of transporting energy cleanly. You need electricity or natural gas to create it. No matter what, our energy-guzzling lifestyle will end no matter how much we whine and stamp our feet that it couldn’t or shouldn’t happen. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t fair. Nature and history don’t care. We will have to do more with less energy. We have absolutely no choice but to rethink our energy priorities, to cut back, to conserve, and to create more efficient ways to use energy. The people behind the film are in interesting assortment including:
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| Junk Science by Dan Agin | The Next American Metropolis by Richard Heinberg | How to Save the World in Your Spare Time by Elizabeth May |
| The Regional City by Peter Calthorpe | The Oil Depletion Protocol by Richard Heinberg | Stormy Weather by Guy Dauncey, Patrick Mazza |
| The Coming Oil Crisis by Colin Campbell | The Party’s Over by Richard Heinberg | Holding the Bully’s Coat by Linda McQuaig |
| Hard Choices by Harold Coward and Andrew J. Weaver | Powerdown by Richard Heinberg | Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning by George Monbiot |
| Earthfuture by Guy Dauncey | 2030: Confronting Thermageddon in Our Lifetime by Bob Hunter | Storm World by Chris Mooney |
| Re-Visioning the Earth by Paul Devereux | Geography Of Nowhere by James Kunstler | The End Of Oil by Paul Roberts |
| Collapse by Jared Diamond | Home From Nowhere by James Kunstler | Crossing the Rubicon by Michael Ruppert |
| The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery | The Long Emergency by James Kunstler | Sustainable Communities by Sim Van Der Ryn and Peter Calthorpe |
| Boiling Point by Ross Gelbspan | The Winds of Change by Eugene Linden | Good News For A Change by David Suzuki and Holly Dressell |
| An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore | Six Degrees by Mark Lynas | Geography of Hope by Chris Turner |
| The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann and Neale Donald Walsch | Against The Grain by Richard Manning | The End Of Evolution by Dr. Peter Ward |
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recommend book⇒Junk Science: How Politicians, Corporations, And Other Hucksters Betray Us | ||||||||||||
| hardcover | |||||||||||||
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| ISBN13: | 978-0-312-35241-7 | ||||||||||||
| ISBN10: | 0-312-35241-7 | ||||||||||||
| publisher: | Thomas Dunne | ||||||||||||
| published: | 2006-10-03 | ||||||||||||
| by: | Dan Agin | ||||||||||||
Dan Agin has a Ph.D. in biological psychology and thirty years of laboratory research experience in neurobiology. He is Associate Professor Emeritus of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology at the University of Chicago, and editor in chief of the online journal ScienceWeek. He explains how business, government, neocons and organisations twist scientific data for various nefarious purposes. He tackles a wide range of subjects besides global warming:
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