ONE TOWN SQUARE: at the intersection of peak oil, climate change, and land use

A new study by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program finds that the water melting from Greenland’s ice sheet has increased by 30% over the last decade.

The study estimates that, as a result of the melting, sea levels will rise by 0.5 to 1.5 meters by 2100, threatening coastal cities and flooding island nations. That amount of sea level rise is double that estimated by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007. The IPCC estimate did not incorporate sea level rise due to the melting of the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets.

Lead author Dorthe Dahl-Jensen of the University of Copenhagen said in a press release:

Greenland’s Ice Sheet is the single largest body of freshwater ice in the northern hemisphere. It contains around 3 million km of ice and, if it were to melt completely, this would cause global sea level to rise by roughly 7 meters . . . . Already now we are seeing how the areas experiencing surface melt are expanding northwards and that the periods of melt in southern Greenland are getting longer. The development in the last decade has taken scientists by surprise and it is still uncertain how the ice will react to future climate change.

The Summary – The Greenland Ice Sheet in a Changing Climate: Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA) 2009 is available at the AMAP website, as is the full Science Report.

Another new study published in the journal Nature adds further support to the AMAP results. The research team reconstructed the sea levels in the last interglacial period, around 125,000 years ago, at which time polar temperatures were around 3-5C warmer and equatorial sea-surface temperatures were around 2.5-3.5C warmer than today. The results showed that sea levels around the world during the last interglacial were between 6.6m and 9m higher than today, which implies significant melting of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets.Even as the AMAP study is being released in Copenhagen, the climate talks, with less than two days to go, are blowing up. Even though the targets on the table are so weak and full of loopholes as to make the proposals meaningless, negotiators have given up on a replacement for Kyoto. The only remaining hope is that they will be able to come to a “politically binding” agreement to serve as a foundation for a legally binding agreement to be negotiated later.

The world’s poorer countries are blaming the world’s rich countries – and capitalism itself – for destroying the world, while rich countries are refusing to change targets that clearly fall short of what’s needed.

George Monbiot at The Guardian writes that the talks at Copenhagen are bigger than climate change – it’s a battle to redefine humanity.

This is the moment at which we turn and face ourselves. Here, in the plastic corridors and crowded stalls, among impenetrable texts and withering procedures, humankind decides what it is and what it will become. It chooses whether to continue living as it has done, until it must make a wasteland of its home, or to stop and redefine itself. This is about much more than climate change. This is about us.

And, as the words and stance of the world’s poorer nations show, it’s about fairness. Global warming cannot be addressed without addressing the issue of fairness. Sharon Astyk writes that people will even act against their best interests – even if it means their own destruction – if they perceive they are being treated unfairly:

I think it enormously unlikely that we will respond to climate change as we must. But if we do, it will only happen if people see themselves as part of a story in which the distribution of discomfort and trouble is done fairly, and they are ensured a fair share. Fairness may not be logical, but it is essential.

The “cult of economics” that dominates our political ideology assumes that people always always rational, always act for their own gains, that markets are always efficient, that economics doesn’t have anything to say about equity or fairness – and that nothing is wrong with any of this, ever.

The situation we find ourselves in demands unselfish behavior and acts, toward a common good; which in turn require redefining prosperity and a wholesale reworking of the globe’s economic system, including its goals and its metrics.

It should be obvious to everybody that an economic system that results in wrecking Earth’s climate and destroying Earth’s ecosystems – squandering humankind’s “natural capital” in pursuit of growth – has failed to produce prosperity. We desperately need another model.

Expect catastrophic climate change within 50 years.

So says a new study prepared for the British Department for Energy and Climate Change.

Met Office: High End Temperature Change

Comparison of surface temperature projections from the high-end emissions scenario, without carbon cycle feedbacks. Temperature increases between 1961-1990 and 2090-2099, averaged over all high-end members.

That bad news is reiterated in a new report issued by the United Nations Environment Programme, entitled “Climate Change Science Compendium 2009.”

An average global temperature rise of 7.2F (4C) could happen by 2060, causing droughts around the world, sea level rises and the collapse of important ecosystems.

The Arctic could see an increase in temperatures of 28.8F (16C), while parts of sub Saharan Africa and North America would be devastated by an increase in temperature of up to 18F (10C). Britain’s temperature would rise by an average 7.2F (4C).

The study included new figures on increased emissions from fossil fuels and considered the effect global warming will have on the ability of the oceans and rainforests to absorb carbon dioxide.

The global picture shows rainfall could decrease by 20 per cent in Central America, the Mediterranean and parts of coastal Australia, causing mass drought. Temperature rises in the Amazon would cause the rainforests to die, while Alaska and Siberia would see the melting of the permafrost causing more carbon dioxide to be released.

NASA reports we’re already seeing increased atmospheric methane levels due to melting permafrost, caused by global warming. Unusually high temperatures in the Arctic, the burning of tropical forests, and heavy rains in the tropics drove a global increase in atmospheric methane in 2007 and 2008 after a decade of near-zero growth (the longer periods of rainfall and larger wetland areas resulted in microbes producing more methane). Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide – and it’s more than 20 times as potent.

Both reports stress that it will be possible to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change only if there is immediate, cohesive and decisive action to cut emissions.

But the world’s governments continue to fiddle while Earth burns.

Copenhagen is dead. Not that the talks aimed at improving or replacing the Kyoto Protocol ever amounted to a serious attempt to avert global warming.

As James Hansen keeps pointing out, burning the world’s remaining oil and gas is enough to get us into a dangerous zone for atmospheric carbon dioxide – but not so far that we couldn’t solve the problem. If you add coal and put that carbon in the atmosphere, then there is no practical way to solve the problem. No climate policy is serious if it allows coal to continue to be used and emit the CO2 in the atmosphere.

So you just have to look at the proposed policy and see what it does with coal. No government or intergovernmental organization is proposing to eliminate coal. The World Bank is spending billions on coal-fired power stations. Three countries – the U.S., China and India – are planning to build nearly 850 new coal-fired plants, which would pump as much as an extra 2.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide, five times as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the Kyoto Protocol aims to reduce. Waxman-Markey not only assures that we will continue to run existing coal plants, it actually gives approval for additional coal plants.

At the recent G-20 meeting, negotiators were patting themselves on the back for agreeing to the tiny step of eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, claiming this would make a major contribution to curbing energy demand and emissions growth (according to the International Energy Agency, energy subsidies in the 20 largest non-OECD countries amounted to a staggering $310 billion in 2007). The final agreement on fossil-fuel subsidies, naturally, includes no timeline. With no deadline, it won’t happen.

Obama in his address to the UN said he was proud that “the United States has done more to promote clean energy and reduce carbon pollution in the last eight months than at any other time in our history.” But not one word about coal, except to boast “we’re investing billions to capture carbon pollution so that we can clean up our coal plants.” Earth is burning, and Obama is singing the siren song of clean coal.

The absence of any talk of banning coal is proof that no country, no intergovernmental organization, is yet taking the climate crisis seriously.

You can bet they won’t. Until it’s too late.

The G8 countries this week issued a  declaration stating that global temperatures, which already rose by 0.7ºC in the 20th century, should not be allowed to rise by more than 2ºC compared with pre-industrial levels. This is the first time the United States, Canada, Japan and Russia have endorsed a position on the climate already taken by the European Union.

This is to be done while continuing “business as usual”: the declaration pledges to “return the global economy to a strong, stable and sustainable growth path” and to “ensure lasting economic recovery.”

As David Cohen points out, the embrace of two seemingly contradictory goals – emissions reductions and continued economic growth – is a very radical idea, one that is contrary to all human experience. Emissions are a proxy for fossil fuel consumption. Historically, fossil fuel consumption correlates very closely with economic growth. Do we really believe that techological progress will be sufficient to break our dependency on fossil fuels to achieve economic growth? Even if we believe it, will it prove to be true?

Unfortunately, reducing global emissions by 50% by 2050 won’t enable us to hit the 2ºC target. Global emissions would have to be reduced by 80% in order to accomplish that. And the 2ºC target, which implies limiting atmospheric CO2 levels at 450 ppm, is itself out of date. The science now suggests we’ll have to reduce atmospheric CO2 to 350 ppm or below if  we are to avoid catastrophic consequences.

Also unfortunately, the countries signing on to the target failed to say how they intended to achieve it. The rich states’ undertaking did not specify any short- or medium-term goals on cutting emissions, over which their leaders could have any control. They conveniently kicked the can down the road, to 2050.

Even more, some countries immediately started backtracking. A Russian official declared that, for Moscow, the 80% target was unacceptable. Canada’s environment minister, Jim Prentice, blithely remarked that it fitted well with the pathway that Canada is on, which is to reduce emissions by mid-century “by as much as 60% to 70%.” I guess Canada’s tar sands are just a figment of our imagination.

Meantime, the City of Los Angeles is demonstrating how to actually do something to reduce emissions. The New York Times reports:

Plans for a new coal-fired power plant in central Utah were canceled after the city of Los Angeles — the plant’s biggest power purchaser — signaled its intention to be “coal free” by 2020. . .

The decision came after Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced last week that the city — which purchases about 45 percent of the IPA’s power — wants to end its use of coal-fired power by 2020. Villaraigosa said that the city will replace its coal-fired electricity with energy from renewable sources, natural gas, nuclear and hydroelectric power.

See, that wasn’t so hard. Just start planning now to phase out coal, and let power companies know you’re serious about it.

The harder thing will be letting go of growth as a goal worthy of pursuit.

The “market” that we have enshrined should be thoroughly discredited after leading the U.S. and global economies over a cliff. Yet we’re still so blinded by our faith in markets that all we can envision are market-driven tools such as cap-and-trade or carbon taxes. This is very odd.  Despite being abused by the existing market system, we can’t leave the relationship or demand to be treated with dignity and respect. We can’t see that societies have the power and ability to change markets instantly by making decisions about what is acceptable or not acceptable.

Killing the Earth by burning coal is not acceptable. Let’s make markets operate only within social parameters that are acceptable.

In preparation for the upcoming climate change talks in Copenhagen in December, an international scientific congress on climate change convened in Copenhagen in March 2009. Approximately 2500 researchers came together to present new knowledge that has emerged since the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report was published in 2007.

The Synthesis Report summarizing the presentations at that conference has now been released. The Report contains this stark warning:

The scientific evidence has now become overwhelming that human activities, especially the combustion of fossil fuels, are influencing the climate in ways that threaten the well-being and continued development of human society. If humanity is to learn from history and to limit these threats, the time has come for stronger control of the human activities that are changing the fundamental conditions for life on Earth.

The Report carries the following messages that, if ignored, mean the end of the Earth that has succored human life:

• Greenhouse gas emissions and many aspects of the climate are changing near the upper boundary of the IPCC range of projections. Many key climate indicators are already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which contemporary society and economy have developed and thrived. These indicators include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, global ocean temperature, Arctic sea ice extent, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. With unabated emissions, many trends in climate will likely accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.

• Societies and ecosystems are highly vulnerable to even modest levels of climate change, with poor nations and communities, ecosystem services and biodiversity particularly at risk. Temperature rises above 2°C will be difficult for contemporary societies to cope with, and are likely to cause major societal and environmental disruptions through the rest of the century and beyond.

• Rapid, sustained, and effective mitigation based on coordinated global and regional action is required to avoid dangerous climate change. Weaker targets for 2020 increase the risk of serious impacts, including the crossing of tipping points, and make the task of meeting 2050 targets more difficult and costly.

• Climate change is having, and will have, strongly differential effects on people within and between countries and regions, on this generation and future generations, and on human societies and the natural world. Tackling climate change is integral to enhancing equity throughout the world.

• If we do not deal effectively with the climate change challenge, adaptation to the unavoidable climate change and the societal transformation required to decarbonize economies will not be achieved.

• If the societal transformation required to meet the climate change challenge is to be achieved, the inertia in social and economic systems must be overcome.

I fear entrenched interests will prove too powerful, people will prove too deeply committed to their worship of wealth and “progress”, and societal inertia will prove to be too great to overcome. We are witnessing the greatest tragedy in the history of humans’ time on Earth unfold before our eyes.

The climate talks in Bonn are wrapping up today (Friday, June 12. French climate ambassador Brice Lalande sums up the last two weeks:

Everybody knows that global emissions have to be halved by 2050 [compared with 1990 levels], which implies that industrialised countries reduce theirs by 80 percent. And everyone knows that emissions by developing countries have to start falling by 2025 at the latest. But nobody’s signing up.

The European Union (EU) is offering a cut of at least 20% below 1990 levels. Japan and the United States are proposing to make reductions of around 8% and 4%, respectively. China, India, and Brazil are refusing to sign up to any binding emissions targets.

It’s important to remember:

In the 1960s, faced with ideological competition from the USSR and China and the prospect of starving millions, a loose coalition of scientists, government officials and philanthropists launched a “Green Revolution” in India.

Back then, “green” didn’t mean organic – far from it. It meant growing crops the modern, American way. It meant abandoning traditional food crops such as grains, beans and vegetables in favor of cash crops from high-yield hybrid seeds rather than heritage seeds saved from the farmers’ last harvest. It meant abandoning traditional methods and using tractors instead of oxen and chemical fertilizers instead of cow dung. It meant abandoning reliance on rainwater – the new crops were thirsty, and that thirst was satisfied by tapping virgin aquifers with electric irrigation pumps. The “green revolution” was intended to turn farmers’ fields lush green with crops and farmers’ pockets green with cash.

Today, the Green Revolution is collapsing. The water that supports the “modern” system of agriculture is disappearing as the water table is dropping dramatically, as much as three feet each year. Farmers have had to deepen their wells every few years, first from 10 feet to 20 feet, then to 40 feet, now to more than 200 feet — and water table keeps dropping below their reach. G. S. Kalkat, Director of the Punjab State Farmers Commission, warns the heartland of India’s agriculture could be barren in 10 to 15 years.

As the farmers dig deeper to find groundwater, they have to install ever more powerful – and more expensive – pumps. Farmers are often already deeply in debt and can’t get loans for the pumps from banks, so are forced to turn to borrow money from “unofficial” lenders at usurious rates.

The intensive farming methods are also destroying the soil. The high-yield crops suck up nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorous, iron and manganese, exhausting the soil. Farmers now must use three times as much fertilizer as before, to produce the same amount of crops.

And then there’s the salt. The irrigation waters leave a salt residue, and the accumulating salt is now poisoning the crops.

The “green revolution” that seemed to work miracles is now proving to lead to financial disaster for area farmers. The old style of farming didn’t need cash. The modern system relies on cash at every stage: cash for seeds, cash for fertilizers, cash for tractors and tractor fuel & maintenance, cash for well drilling & irrigation pumps, cash for the electricity to power the pumps. And cash for all of the material things that have made farmers appear prosperous. A study by the Punjab State Council for Science and Technology calls it a “vicious cycle of debt.”

Kalkat says Punjab’s farmers are committing ecological and economic suicide – suicide that has been prompted through national and international policies that encourage farmers to destroy the environment and trap themselves in debt.

UPDATE: 1,500 FARMERS IN INDIA COMMIT SUICIDE

Over 1,500 farmers in an Indian state committed suicide after being driven to debt by crop failure, it was reported today. The agricultural state of Chattisgarh was hit by falling water levels. ”The water level has gone down below 250 feet here. It used to be at 40 feet a few years ago,” Shatrughan Sahu, a villager in one of the districts, told Down To Earth magazine.

“Most of the farmers here are indebted and only God can save the ones who do not have a bore well.” Mr. Sahu lives in a district that recorded 206 farmer suicides last year. Police records for the district add that many deaths occur due to debt and economic distress.