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Former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz on global warming
(original headline : “Joseph Stiglitz: ‘Politicians Like Blair and Brown Have Given Global Poverty New Prominence'”
Paul Vallely, UK Independent via Common Dreams
…A decade ago, Mr Stiglitz was a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Today, his concern about global warming has been turned into alarm. “Ten years back the theory was clear, as was the evidence of the increasing concentrations. But no one thought it would manifest itself as quickly, and in such a dramatic way.”
The high level of carbon emissions by the US is, he says, the elephant in the room on climate change. President Bush won’t do anything beyond trying to find technological fixes. “It really is a cause for concern. We have reached an impasse. And the problem is too important for that.”
Mr Stiglitz offers two solutions. The first is to create incentives for developing countries to get involved in global warming reductions. Carbon trading initiatives offer a market-based solution. But there is need for more. “Kyoto offered financial rewards to Third World countries for planting new forests, but not for maintaining existing ones. So Papua New Guinea can get money if it chops down its forest and replants it but not if it just keeps its forest. That’s silly.”
His second idea will prove more controversial. The US could be forced to take action on climate change using world trade laws, Mr Stiglitz says. The EU and others should apply to the WTO for a ruling which declares that America’s refusal to participate in carbon curbs constitutes a de facto subsidy to US industry, which is illegal under trade rules.
(20 February 2006)
The bulk of the interview concerns world trade and poverty.
Current climate models may underestimate future warming
Mike Millikin, Green Car Congress
A team of scientists analyzed three long sediment columns cored from the seafloor off Suriname to determine ancient ocean temperatures. The black box marks their research location.
Scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have found evidence that tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures may have once reached 107°F (42°C)—about 25°F (14°C) higher than ocean temperatures today and warmer than a hot tub.
The surprisingly high ocean temperatures, the warmest estimates to date for any place on Earth, occurred millions of year ago when carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere were also high, but researchers say they may be an indication that greenhouse gases could heat the oceans in the future much more than currently anticipated. The study suggests that climate models underestimate future warming.
(18 February 2006)
Bush’s chats with sf writer Crichton, agree in denying global warming
(“Bush’s chat With novelist alarms environmentalists”)
Michael Janofsky, NY Times
…In his new book about Mr. Bush, “Rebel in Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush,” Fred Barnes recalls a visit to the White House last year by Michael Crichton, whose 2004 best-selling novel, “State of Fear,” suggests that global warming is an unproven theory and an overstated threat.
Mr. Barnes, who describes Mr. Bush as “a dissenter on the theory of global warming,” writes that the president “avidly read” the novel and met the author after Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, arranged it. He says Mr. Bush and his guest “talked for an hour and were in near-total agreement.”
“The visit was not made public for fear of outraging environmentalists all the more,” he adds.
And so it has, fueling a common perception among environmental groups that Mr. Crichton’s dismissal of global warming, coupled with his popularity as a novelist and screenwriter, has undermined efforts to pass legislation intended to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas that leading scientists say causes climate change.
Mr. Crichton, whose views in “State of Fear” helped him win the American Association of Petroleum Geologists’ annual journalism award this month, has been a leading doubter of global warming and last September appeared before a Senate committee to argue that the supporting science was mixed, at best.
(18 February 2006)
Flagged by David Roberts at Gristmill.
After Kyoto: Japanese firms rush to cash in on gas emission reductions
Masaki Hisane, Znet
TOKYO — Japanese businesses are on an investment spree of greenhouse-gas reduction projects abroad, especially in Asia, as the nation is in hot water over its target for slashing emissions of such gases under the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
The “credits” these firms earn in return for gas-reduction investments in developing countries can be counted as cuts in their own emissions — and in turn, for Japan — under a system called the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), one of three Kyoto mechanisms introduced under the protocol to help industrialized countries meet their reduction targets. Developing nations that take part can receive technology transfers from their industrialized partners.
Japan … remains firmly committed to the Kyoto Protocol. There has been a strongly shared feeling among many Japanese that as the country where the protocol was born, Japan has a special mission to keep the pact afloat and rally international efforts to build on it toward the common goal of saving Earth. Even many Japanese businesses have come to realize the risks of losing their competitiveness in the global markets if they lag in prevention of global warming and energy-saving technological development.
Despite its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol, however, Japan’s gas emissions are on the rise. Although Japan must cut its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to 6% below the 1990 levels, emissions have actually risen by more than 8% since 1990.
Resource-poor Japan, which imports almost all of its oil, made strenuous energy-saving efforts and technological innovation since the two oil crises of the 1970s, making it the most energy-efficient in the industrialized world. As a result, it faces great difficulties in making further dents in greenhouse-gas emissions through domestic measures alone, such as further energy-saving efforts and carbon “sink” plantation projects. According to one estimate, it costs Japan about $110 to eliminate a ton of carbon dioxide, compared with about $80 for Europe and $50 for the US, on average.
Although the Environment Ministry has tenaciously pushed for the introduction of an environment tax on fossil fuels — which would be equivalent to 1.5 yen per liter in the case of gasoline — METI and domestic industry have opposed the idea, claiming that any such extra tax burden would erode corporate Japan’s international competitiveness. Therefore, the government and businesses are increasingly turning to the Kyoto mechanisms as attractive means to reach the reduction target at a lower cost while maintaining international competitiveness.
Masaki Hisane is a Tokyo-based journalist, commentator and scholar on international politics and economics. Masaki’s e-mail address is [email protected].
This is slightly abbreviated from a February 16 article in Asia Times.
(17 February 2006)
I wish this information-dense article were easier to understand, since it seems significant. Perhaps other writers can translate the ideas into a more popular style. -BA
At a scientific gathering, U.S. policies are lamented
Cornelia Dean, NY Times
ST. LOUIS — David Baltimore, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist and president of the California Institute of Technology, is used to the Bush administration misrepresenting scientific findings to support its policy aims, he told an audience of fellow researchers Saturday. Each time it happens, he said, “I shrug and say, ‘What do you expect?’ “
But then, Dr. Baltimore went on, he began to read about the administration’s embrace of the theory of the unitary executive, the idea that the executive branch has the power or even the obligation to act without restraint from Congress. And he began to see in a new light widely reported episodes of government scientists being restricted in what they could say in public.
“It’s no accident that we are seeing such an extensive suppression of scientific freedom,” he said. “It’s part of the theory of government now, and it’s a theory we need to vociferously oppose.” Far from twisting science to suit its own goals, he said, the government should be “the guardian of intellectual freedom.”
Dr. Baltimore spoke at a session here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Though it was organized too late for inclusion in the overall meeting catalogue, the session drew hundreds of scientists who crowded a large meeting room and applauded enthusiastically as speakers denounced administration policies they said threatened not just sound science but also the nation’s research pre-eminence.
(18 February 2006)
Also posted at Common Dreams.
Carbon Cycle series: Living in the Eemian
Stuart Staniford, The Oil Drum
After my short posting hiatus last week, I resume my slow progress to analyzing the carbon cycle, the consequences of carbon emissions, and what if anything can be done about it. Recall this is fourth in a series that so far includes:
* The carbon economy
* How fast should you boil a frog
* “Dangerous Anthopogenic Interference”
In the more distant past, we have also talked about
* Greenland, or why you might care about ice physics
and today we return to the issue of sea level rise. Sea level rise is a slower-fuse issue than I have come to believe the hurricanes are, but in the long term it is potentially more broadly devastating, and the latest evidence suggest that, again, we cannot safely assume that this is strictly a problem for our grandchildren.
(19 February 2006)
Long, informative article. See the original for links.
