Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
You can’t build a movement without numbers. If anyone understands that, it’s 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben. Standing in front of an estimated crowd of 50,000 people gathered for the Forward on Climate rally yesterday on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. he said, “All I ever wanted to see was a movement of people to stop climate change, and now I’ve seen it.”
While environmental advocates urge individuals to reduce their carbon footprint by taking small, simple actions, others argue that individual actions are irrelevant. Do such actions have meaningful impact on the global systems that drive severe weather? Or is policy—corporate and government—the only thing that will make a real difference?
Recent work cited in our report shows that the remaining global fossil fuel resources (mainly coal) would produce an enormous 9-13 trillion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. If all of it were burnt without capturing the carbon it would be enough to raise the average global temperature some 18 degree C, may be more. This 9-13 trillion tonnes is large compared with the 0.5 trillion tonnes already produced since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Nearly half of this 0.5 trillion tonnes remains in the atmosphere causing serious problems resulting from a warming of only 0.6 degree C. A recent report by independent consultants shows that there are planned mega fossil fuel projects which would add nearly 2 trillion tonnes of carbon by 2020 . Discharging all of this to the atmosphere would set the world on a path to warming 5 -6 degree C, already the stuff of nightmares. Discharging the additional 7-10 trillion tonnes would be an act of insanity.
•Wind power is now cheaper than coal in some countries •Global solar capacity breaks through 100GW barrier •Media campaign against windfarms funded by anonymous conservatives •EU should seek 100 percent green energy by 2050: WWF •Weatherwatch: Wind turbines impact on balance and distribution of species
Socrates said that the best way to live a good life is to know yourself.
Now, the good news is, we can make meaningful progress on this issue [climate change] while driving strong economic growth.” With that sentence from his State of the Union address, President Obama capitulated to paltry cynicism. Alas, he will not be the president who finally comes clean on the trade-off between economic growth and environmental protection. Obama is now committed to win-win, green-growth rhetoric.
•Sanders, Boxer Outline ‘Gold Standard’ Climate Bill •Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks •HSBC and Aviva back project to identify ‘stranded’ high-carbon assets •The transformational challenges of climate change: An interview with Professor John Schellnhuber and Professor Ottmar Edenhofer •Carbon trading has failed: scrap the ETS now •In historic turn, Sierra Club gets arrested for the climate •Fossil fuel subsidies and tax breaks are still rising •There is no such thing as climate change denial
Just a few days ago, the National Snow and Ice Data Center, based at the University of Colorado in Boulder, announced that ‘Greenland’s surface melting in 2012 was intense, far in excess of any earlier year in the satellite record since 1979.’ Our future is melting before our very eyes… When significant parts of the corporate media are openly embracing and indeed pushing climate ‘scepticism’, is there any meaningful justification for this in the climate science? No. Geochemist James Lawrence Powell recently conducted an exhaustive study of the peer-reviewed literature on climate science. Going back over 20 years, his search yielded 13,950 scientific papers. Of these, only 24 ‘clearly rejected global warming or endorsed a cause other than carbon dioxide emissions for the observed warming of 0.8 degrees since the beginning of the industrial era.’
It strikes me as very strange that we have known about climate change and the risks associated with it for many decades, yet individuals, politicians and business leaders are doing so little. With such overwhelming evidence, why do we find it so difficult to change? Change is perceived as hard. The unknown frightens us. We may be worse off than before, so why bother opening that door? But what if we changed our paradigm and open ourselves to a new realm of possibilities and potential?
This weeks guest is Ugo Bardi, Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Florence. He specialises in resource depletion, system dynamics modeling, climate science and renewable energy. He is also a member of the scientific committee of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, or ASPO, is the president ASPO Italy, and a contributor to the Oil Drum, the best energy blog on the web. He is the author of several books, including "The Limits to Growth Revisited”, his upcoming book "Plundering The Planet", and even finds time to write his own excellent blog, Cassandra’s Legacy. Our discussion covers the role of volcano’s, Georg Bauer, the father of mining, space aliens, and climate change.
Monbiot, Mann, McKibben, various Transitioners and others on what to do if your Transition initiative comes under attack…
