The Brutal Meaning of Immediately
I want whatever David Roberts at Grist is smoking.
In his latest why-don’t-you-fools-get-it post, Roberts takes aim at his own “climate hawk coalition,” for…um…trying
a new approach that backgrounds climate change and refocuses the discussion on innovation, energy security, and economic competitiveness.
Now why would they do that? The old (business as usual) approach–Climate doom! Civilization is toast! Game over!–seemed to be working fine, right?
Well, just you never mind, because the point is, as Roberts has previously intoned, you can’t save the world if it’s not going to be expressly done on behalf of climate change. Absent that, he now argues, the “new approach” that seeks to bypass the messy, divisive politics of global warming “cannot work”:
At least it cannot work if we hope to avoid terrible consequences. Why not? It’s simple: If there is to be any hope of avoiding civilization-threatening climate disruption, the U.S. and other nations must act immediately and aggressively on an unprecedented scale. That means moving to emergency footing. War footing. “Hitler is on the march and our survival is at stake” footing. That simply won’t be possible unless a critical mass of people are on board. It’s not the kind of thing you can sneak in incrementally.
Okay, that clarifies things. Just one teensy question, if I may: How immediately is immediately? Because if it’s not next week, or even next year, some people might actually give up hope, or start to wonder if there’s still time to avert climate catastrophe. Then what do you say to them?
Again, crying wolf has inevitable consequences and when it is this hysterical those consequences go exponential.
This kind of ‘argument’ only deserves to be mocked and laughed at – as you essentially did.
I wonder if anyone except this writer thinks he is actually helping the ’cause’ with this kind of absurd and desperate hyperbole?
Roberts states:
“According to the International Energy Agency, we’re currently on course for 6 degrees C [10.8 degrees F]. That is, beyond any reasonable doubt, game over.”
Does this guy get paid for writing such off-the-wall stuff? Humorous, except I feel for the poor souls who are frightened by this crap.
Making fun of a madman is too easy and unfair.
Congratulations on the reality check.
The AGW movement has far too few people willing to participate in reality.
At least you are being realistic about some of the movement’s failures.
Obviously I last posted this on the wrong thread.
When you talk about “immediately” I don’t think you can beat the urgency expressed in this latest headline 😉
Report: Global Warming May Be Irreversible By 2006
We have no real solution for non-carbon energy production.
Renewable just cannot provide enough power.
Only nuclear is really realistic – and we would have to build 300 plants.
That would take 30 years – even on an emergency footing.
Only technology and innovation can solve this problem – and we have not yet invented our way out of the problem.
No matter what the green people want – there are no solutions ready to adopt.
We are going to need time to invent our way out of this problem.
We’ve had this type of discussion for a long time now. We should have started in the 70-ies, as people did in the time of Carter, for different reasons. Though basically the same: our resources will eventually run out. In the 80-ies we had the big wave of ‘business’-like behaviour: ignoring the environment came in fashion. Then in the 90-ies the climate issue became pretty clear, and ever more urgent. Kyoto was negotiated. But then it was dumped by Bush who thought doing anything might be not good for the economy. And sadly he ifluenced how a lot of the world approached the problem. A few countries did get started, and have succeeded in growing renewable energy to a noticable part of electricity. Cars are much more efficient, buildings are insulated. Except in those countries that prefer to still ignore the future. For a brief time, Gore got people to listen to him, by indeed telliing in vivid and explicit terms how bad climate change could be. He even got americans to listen. It seemed to work.
We can make a huge difference by simply starting to act on the energy transition we need to make. Increasing our energy efficiency wont’ even cost a thing, we can even make money.
And now a scientist, the director of a climate research institute in the UK, says that things are really getting pretty late. We decided we wanted less than 2 degrees centrigrade change.. but if we still don’t start to do anything, it is likely to get much worse. And he tells us that significant heating over 2 degrees might kick off risks of positive feedbacks that could make things much worse.
This is also the moment that the world is having a climate conference, at which the biggest and dirtiest poluters are pretending they don’t need to do a thing.
.. and now .. you think that somebody like this english scientist, or Robert Grist, who reports what he says, should not tell about the true risks, that scientists warn us about. Why? Because it is getting too scary.
Maybe in the US, politics is so crazy that people like to close their eyes and ears to the problem, because republicans seem to have been able to turn talking about climate change into a taboo. But does that make sense? Should even those that worry about the problem hold their mouth shut, because people have been warning about ever more certainty on this problem since the 70-ies? And the poor americans cannot handle the truth, even after all this time?
It is definitely time for Europe to be a bit more aggressive. Institute not only carbon trade, and carbon tax, but also carbon tariffs, to keep a somewhat level playing field for business. And who knows: maybe other countries could be persuaded to join the club of countries that want to do something, and not wait another 10 years.
War footing. “Hitler is on the march and our survival is at stake” footing.
A simple reading of history will show that there was a substantial lag from the time ‘hitler was on the march’ and when the political will and industrial capacity to address the hitler problem was available. I would note the passage of a number of ‘Neutrality Acts’ in the US during that time lag.
If one wants to win a war then one goes to war with an Army that is sufficiently trained and equipped to do the job. That takes years.
It’s not the kind of thing you can sneak in incrementally.
Almost all wars are won incrementally.
I don’t think I want what Roberts is smoking, it would muddle my thinking to the point of being absolute nonsense.
#6 Rick, absolutely yes to all those points. The funny thing is that there is only one group of people who deny these obvious facts. They call themselves the “climate concerned” and mock anyone who disagrees with them as “denier.” It’s sad because “advocates” who insist on non-solutions never will achieve influence. It’s like advertising a weight-loss program that involves eating only cheesecake and never leaving the couch. Nobody is dumb enough to sign up, but such a movement would attract three types of people- the truly naive (it’s a campus movement!), cheesecake makers who want you to be forced to sign up (Al Gore, Solyndra), and the zealous who couldn’t care less if the plan works and only needs to know if it’s a government program and it can result in new tax revenue (Romm, Roberts).
Question though- is Roberts “bat shit crazy” today or is it still the people who “deny” the “reality” of what he says? Can we have a code phrase that lets me know when I’m being asked if I “deny’ global warming that I’m being asked about Robert’s visions? Seems like I’m always asked if I think Roberts is right and when I say “no,” I’m told I disagree with Lucia.
“Because if it’s not next week, or even next year, some people might actually give up hope, or start to wonder if there’s still time to avert climate catastrophe. Then what do you say to them?”
Presumably you tell them we are now facing civilisation-threatening climate change. I’m not sure why you consider that controversial. It’s not the same as saying there isn’t any hope, or that civilisation is now certain to collapse, just that it is now threatened by the climate change which is actually happening, not the climate change that is projected to happen as a result of continued uncontrolled eimissions in the future. It’s worse than it was.
Can I just clarify something Keith, if you believe that David Roberts thinks we are likely facing civilisation threatening climate change if we don’t take much more radical action in the immediate future (next 5 years?), which presumably you do believe, are you suggesting that he lies about his beliefs?
harrywr2
“Almost all wars are won incrementally.”
I’m not sure I really understand your meaning of the use of the term ‘incrementally’ here. There was certainly a slow build up to the war, but are you suggesting that there wasn’t then an exceptional mobilisation effort?
Once again,”2C doom” is a lazy strawman. Unless you understand the different possible impacts at 2C (which Grist discusses) and understand who gets impacted first and most (remember 2C is an AVERAGE) then your criticisms aren’t all that serious.
#10 OPatrick
Presumably you tell them we are now facing civilisation-threatening climate change.
Quoting David Roberts from this article
http://www.grist.org/energy-policy/2011-03-18-renewables-or-nuclear-maybe-we-do-have-to-choose
We do, however, need to bring on enough clean energy and efficiency to phase out half (yes, the coal half) of our current electric generation.
it seems a bit intellectually disjointed that we can solve ‘Global Warming’ that will ‘doom us all’ in just a few years if we just phase out coal.
In the US coal isn’t ‘half’. Oil is the biggest emitter accounting for 41% of emissions.
http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/1605/flash/flash.html
Reading Roberts is like going to the doctor and getting a long lecture that smoking will kill you then being told that if you just switch to ‘Light’ cigarettes you will be fine.
harrywr2 #8:
It was not a very appropriate analogy given his point. I have no idea why he chose it. Historically you seem to have the surer grip.
Alex
I have listened to the Kevin Anderson presentation (with slides) and if was David Roberts first exposure to such a view he could be pardoned for being a little shell-shocked.
It was but one presentation and some of the necessary details were a little skipped over but in essence I think the Anderson view on the emission scenarios necessary to achieve various stabilisations are supported by the IPCC science, that is the first part of the presentation, after that it goes places where I struggled to follow without querying much of it.
I found it a bit bizarre in so much as it emphasised that carbon is everything, which it isn’t. Perhaps given longer he could have explained why it is effectively everything. I beleive this is because he beleives that the others levers, say reducing methane and NOx, can’t be pulled. If that is the case it is something that I worry about and doubt also.
The assumption, as I understand it, is that we are already close to, at, or beyond our allowable combined WMGHG forcing limit for 2C. That we either have to stop burning fossil fuels, tomorrow, today, or sometime now gone. There are other stabilization scenarios, ones that assume that one can bring down all the anthroprogenic GHG emissions in parallel, (and incidentally the post industrial solar increase as well in one I have seen!) to 20-30% of the current level by some date 2050-2100. These result in a more gentle decline in emissions. If that cannot be achieved then something like the Anderson view gives the better picture (which is appauling) given the state of the science as I understand it.
I think that the methane/NOx issue needs much more coverage than it gets. It could well be the decisive factor in meeting any stabilization level. To a degree it is also an issue requiring additional science that could and is hopefully going on in parallel to the COPxx thread. I will try to write more on this below, though no expert I will try to get it discussed, if only for my benefit.
Alex
This type of column always reminds of the scene is Spinal Tap when Nigel talks about turning up the volume to 11.
Regarding methane/NOx levels.
My understanding of the science behind Kevin Anderson’s views runs something like this.
We are likely at or close to our WMGHG forcing limit to achieve stabilization at +2ºC.
In order to continue burning fossil fuels and stay at or below that level one of the following must occur:
the levels of methane, NOx, O3, stratospheric H2O, solar, etc must reduce or
we only burn the amount of carbon that is being taken up by the environment or
we capture the CO2 or
the climate sensitivity is around or below the low end of the IPCC estimates, or the oceans depths take up more of the heat than is anticipated or
some other beneficial factor is in play or
we deliberately or effectively geo-engineer a cooling.
Not knowing the degree to which we are already geo-engineering a cooling through sulphate emissions is a bit of a wild card in all this (my opinion).
AFAIAA, reduction of methane/NOx concentrations and the resultant stratospheric H20 follows the reduction of the emissions with a useful half-life (I think it is on the decadal scale), so some useful reduction in their forcings could be achieved in the proposed timeframe.
My understanding is that much anthropogenic component of these emissions is due to agricultural practices, bluntly feeding ourselves.
I believe that some of the more optimistic (compared to Anderson’s) scenarios see us getting back to the athroprogenic emission levels prevelant around the start of the last century by the end of the current century but with five times the number of people to feed.
If one thinks that more people will lead to emssions of methane and NOx that fail to decline in such a fashion then that amount of forcing comes straight out of the future carbon budget.
I dare say I have fudgerd this a little but I am trying to be illustrative not prescriptive, so please allow me the necessary latitude.
Alex
A brutal reality check:
To deal with a global problem, global commitment is needed.
The current approach is more about so-called “climate justice” than dealing with the problem: rich countries, cut emissions; poor countries, continue increasing emissions in the name of justice.
We’ll see some actions once the “developing” countries start to play the ball, too.