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Man-made eruptions – ‘Plan B’ in the battle for the planet
Steve Connor, Science Editor, The Independent
Some of Britain’s most distinguished scientists have put their names behind controversial proposals to engineer the global climate with highly ambitious technology projects if international attempts to control man-made emissions of greenhouse gases show serious signs of failing.
The Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences, has warned that if political leaders fail to reach agreement and enforce a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions following the climate conference in Copenhagen this December there may be no other option left than to introduce drastic measures involving the “geo-engineering” of the global climate.
A group of eminent scientists appointed by the Royal Society said in a report published yesterday that future efforts to reduce greenhouse gases needed to be much more successful than they had been so far if geo-engineering was to be avoided as a way of cooling a dangerously overheated planet.
…”It is an unpalatable truth that unless we can succeed in greatly reducing carbon dioxide emissions we are headed for a very uncomfortable and challenging climate future, and geo-engineering will be the only option left to limit further temperature increases,” Professor Shepherd said…
(2 Sept 2009)
We’re pumping out CO2 to the point of no return. It’s time to alter course
George Monbiot, The Guardian
Until a few months ago, government targets for cutting greenhouse gases at least had the virtue of being wrong. They were the wrong targets, by the wrong dates, and they bore no relationship to the stated aim of preventing more than 2C of global warming. But they used a methodology that even their sternest critics (myself included) believed could be improved until it delivered the right results: the cuts just needed to be raised and accelerated.
Three papers released earlier this year changed all that. The first, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in February, showed that the climate change we cause today will be “largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop”. About 40% of the carbon dioxide produced by humans this century will remain in the atmosphere until at least the year 3000. Moreover, thanks to the peculiar ways in which the oceans absorb heat from the atmosphere, global average temperatures are likely to “remain approximately constant … until the end of the millennium despite zero further emissions”.
In other words, governments’ hopes about the trajectory of temperature change are ill-founded. Most, including the UK’s, are working on the assumption that we can overshoot the desired targets for temperature and atmospheric concentrations of CO2, then watch them settle back later. What this paper shows is that, wherever temperatures peak, that is more or less where they will stay. There is no going back.
…But someone, at least, has a radical new plan. This afternoon the team that made the film The Age of Stupid is launching the 10:10 campaign, which aims for a 10% cut in the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions during 2010. This seems to be roughly the trajectory needed to deliver a good chance of averting 2C of warming. By encouraging people and businesses and institutions to sign up, the campaign hopes to shame the UK government into adopting this as its national target. This would give the government the moral leverage to demand immediate sharp cuts from other nations, based on current science rather than political convenience…
(1 Sept 2009)
Climate Camp set up in the footsteps of the Peasants’ Revolt
Michael McCarthy and Chaitantya Netkalappa, The Independent
The symbolism was eye-catching. Britain’s climate campers set up their annual protest camp yesterday on Blackheath, the historic London open space that was key in the peasants’ revolt.
The 1,000-plus green activists are camped this morning on the fields where Wat Tyler’s peasant army assembled for its assault on The City of London in June 1381. And they are planning their own assault – on what they see as the companies, institutions and government departments helping to cause global warming (or not doing enough to stop it).
Over the next week the climate campers will be carrying out a series of “direct actions” from the camp against at least a dozen prominent targets, from the headquarters of oil giants such as Shell and BP to Heathrow Airport and the Bank of England. These will consist of demonstrations, entrance blockings and even attempted occupation of the offices of what the campaigners have labelled “climate criminals” – although the site itself is not likely to see any mass demonstrations, in contrast with the previous climate camps at power stations and Heathrow Airport…
(27 August 2009)
