Good And Bad Climate News
By Dr Gideon Polya
14 January,
2009
Countercurrents.org
The World is acutely threatened by man-made climate change and it may already be too late to stop catastrophe – however there is GOOD NEWS as well as BAD NEWS.
The BAD NEWS is that top UK climate scientists, Professor Kevin Anderson
and Dr Alice Bows of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research,
University of Manchester, made the following shocking conclusions
in a 2008 paper in the prestigious Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society: “According to the analysis conducted in this
paper, stabilizing at 450 ppmv [carbon dioxide equivalent = CO2-e,
atmospheric concentration measured in parts per million by volume]
requires, at least, global energy related emissions to peak by 2015,
rapidly decline at 6-8% per year between 2020 and 2040, and for full
decarbonization sometime soon after 2050 …Unless economic growth
can be reconciled with unprecedented rates of decarbonization (in
excess of 6% per year), it is difficult to envisage anything other
than a planned economic recession being compatible with stabilization
at or below 650 ppmv CO2-e … Ultimately, the latest scientific
understanding of climate change allied with current emissions trends
and a commitment to “limiting average global temperature increases
to below 4oC above pre-industrial levels”, demands a radical
reframing of both the climate change agenda, and the economic characterization
of contemporary society.” [1]
Yet, for example, Australia remains the world’s biggest coal exporter, the OECD’s worst annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter and a world leader in per capita GHG pollution. Extrapolating from US Energy Information Administration data on Australian coal and liquid natural gas exports in the last decade, the recent decisions of the Australian Federal Government mean that Australia's annual Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution will actually INCREASE by 40% over the 2000 value by 2020 and by 80% by 2050. [2]
The Australian Great Barrier Reef will die above 450 ppm CO2 due to ocean acidification and warming. Professor James Hansen (top US climate scientist, head, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies): “We face a climate emergency”. Australian Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty: “We are in real danger.” Professor David de Kretser AC (eminent medical scientist and Governor of Victoria, Australia) “There is no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest problem confronting mankind at this time and that it has reached the level of a state of emergency.” Dr Andrew Glikson (palaeo-climate scientist, ANU, Canberra): “The continuing use of the atmosphere as an open sewer for industrial pollution has … raised CO2 levels to 387 ppm CO2 to date, leading toward conditions which existed on Earth about 3 million years (Ma) ago (mid-Pliocene), when CO2 levels rose to about 400 ppm, temperatures to about 2–3 degrees C and sea levels by about 25 +/- 12 metres.” Top UK climate scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS predicts that only 500 million people will survive this century as a result of unaddressed, man-made climate change – Climate Genocide. [3]
And yet
the GOOD NEWS is that the best non-carbon and renewable energy options
(solar, wind, geothermal, wave, tide and hydro-electric) currently
yield power at roughly the same market price as coal burning-based
power. [4]
It is NOT necessarily too late to urgently cease carbon pollution and apply existing non-carbon energy technologies, re-afforestation and returning carbon to soil as biochar in order to necessarily REDUCE atmospheric CO2 to below 350 ppm as urgently advocated by leading climate scientists. Please send this message and the One-page summary “Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions” of the Melbourne-based Yarra Valley Climate Action Group to everyone you can. [5]
Yours sincerely,
Dr Gideon Polya
29 Dwyer Street, Macleod, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Telephone (day & night): 03 9459 3649
References.
[1] Kevin
Anderson & Alice Bows, Proc. Trans. Roy. Soc, A, 2008: http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/
journal_papers/fulltext.pdf .
[2] “Australia’s
5% off 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” endangers Australia, Humanity
and Biosphere”: http://sites.google.com/site/
yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/
australia-s-5-off-2000-ghg-pollution-
by-2020-endangers-australia-humanity-and-biosphere .
[3] Climate
Emergency Facts Sheets of the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group: http://sites.google.com/site/
yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/system/
app/pages/sitemap/hierarchy .
[4] “Hope
– best renewables now cost same as coal power. “One Day
Pathétique” Symphony painting”:
http://mwcnews.net/content/view/26137/42/
.
[5] One-page
“Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions”: http://sites.google.com/site/
yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/
climate-emergency-facts-and-required-actions