Bio-diversity of thinking key solution to multiple crises

The conventional wisdom sees Climate Change and population growth causing water scarcity, storm damage, sea-level rise leading to a lowering of average food harvests. More recently the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the Global Food Crisis have been linked in so far as the financial resources are unavailable to address the scope of the food problem. In fact many are now discussing this multi-factorial nature of crises that are mounting up. In an article, by Tony Burke, “Food for thought as other crisis hits hard”, 19th Nov 2008, he states that, “The world is facing a challenge to produce more food, while combating climate change, which further exacerbates, water scarcity and a global financial crisis’.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization met in Rome to discuss these inter-locking crisis, whilst primarily concerned with food production, climate change was never far away from the discussions. Food prices in 2008 have risen worldwide and food riots have occurred in Africa and South-East Asia this year, and prices are predicted to worsen in years to come.

Lower agricultural production is not just an impact of Climate Change but current methods of food production are in fact the largest single source of Climate Change.

An excellent video with many facts on the use of fossil fuels in agriculture is called, “How Cuba Survived Peak Oil”- Power of Community. In Cuba agriculture, before 1990 consumed more oil than cars and houses in a ration of 10:9:7. Cuba has become a laboratory experiment when it faced in the early 1990s an artificial energy famine, an economic and energy crisis when the Soviet Union collapsed. During the Special Period 1989-1994, Cuban food imports collapsed by 80%. Oil imports dropped from 14 million to 4 million tons.   Cuba had no access to the World Bank or IMF. Faced with food scarcity, no imported oil, no electricity, no refrigeration, no air-conditioning and having to cook daily and pull water from ropes, the Cubans were forced to embark on survival agriculture. They have 2% of the population of Latin America, but 11% of scientists who took over Cuba’s agricultural systems. They developed urban gardens, sustainable agricultural practices and land redistribution. Before the special period Cuba was the most intensively farmed country in Central and Latin America and agriculture was set up for export markets based on plantation agriculture. Today Cuba is self-sufficient in food and 80 % of food grown is organic.The Cuban experience is a model of what needs to be done when confronted with multiple crises.

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If you wake up today and look at the global crises in our lives and read the paper online or in hand, it just got a whole lot worse. The World Energy Outlook is calling for a global energy revolution to avert 6C degree of warming. The International Energy Agency (IEA) says global temperatures are on course to rise by 6C unless radical changes are adopted in the way the world produces energy.

Mark Lynas warned of the catastrophe that would befall us if we went to 6 C of warming in his book titled, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (Paperback). Mark Lynas writes an excellent blog also.

In an article summarizing his position in the London Sunday Times on the 15^th of March 2007, Mark Lynas describes what happens to the earth with every one degree of temperature increase from 1 to 6 degrees. Six degrees does not sound much, it takes average global temperatures up from 15 to 21 degrees C, but it is hotter than the age of the dinosaurs. The earth is uninhabitable by humans. If the IEA is publishing dire warnings consistent with Lynas’s projections we need to move fast.

Lynas said, “If global warming continues at the current rate, we could be facing extinction. So what exactly is going to happen as the Earth heats up? Here is a degree-by-degree guide.

1 degree centigrade increase

Ice-free seas absorbs more heat and accelerates global warming as ice reflects heat; fresh water lost from a third of the world’s surface; low-lying coastlines flooded

2 degree centigrade increase

Europeans dying of heatstroke; forests ravaged by fire; stressed plants beginning to emit carbon rather than absorbing it; a third of all species face extinction

3 degrees centigrade increase

Carbon released from vegetation and soils speeds global warming; death of the Amazon rainforest; super-hurricanes hit coastal cities; starvation in Africa

4 degrees centigrade increase

Runaway thaw of permafrost makes global warming unstoppable; much of Britain made uninhabitable by severe flooding; Mediterranean region abandoned

5 degrees centigrade increase

Methane from ocean floor accelerates global warming; ice gone from both poles; humans migrate in search of food and try vainly to live like animals off the land

6 degrees centigrade increase

Life on Earth ends with apocalyptic storms, flash floods, hydrogen sulphide gas and methane fireballs racing across the globe with the power of atomic bombs; only fungi survive

Chance of avoiding six degrees of global warming: zero if the rise passes five degrees, by which time all feedbacks will be running out of control.

To avoid this catastrophe, in its 2008 World Energy Outlook, the IEA said that if present trends continued greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of coal oil and gas would be driven up inexorably putting the world on track for a doubling in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by the end of the century. The IEA said that to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent - which would limit the  temperature increase to a more manageable 2C and prevent a runaway greenhouse effect, a drastic drop in all emissions would be necessary from 2020 onwards.

On the face of it, the New Zealand Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill passed on September 11 looks good. It is broader, covering more sectors than the first cut of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and UK Emissions Trading Scheme as it brings in early the transport and the utility sector under a regime that sets limits on the amount of greenhouse gases they can emit.

Planet Ark noted that, the New Zealand scheme is the “the first national cap-and-trade scheme outside of Europe”, joining 27 other nations that have adopted Climate Change bills. The bill was passed into law on a 63-57 vote in parliament, a relatively slim majority. Those that breach their limit will have to buy credits from users that produced emissions below their ceiling.

The New Zealand trading scheme phases in the less difficult sectors first across the economy such as emissions from forestry from 2008, transport by 2009, stationary energy such as coal-fired power stations by 2010 and agricultural waste by 2013.

The New Zealand emissions trading scheme will include liquid fossil fuels used in transportation beginning in 2011, and covers gasoline, diesel, aviation gasoline, jet kerosene, light fuel oil, and heavy fuel oil. Emissions from fuel used for international aviation and marine transport are exempted from the scheme, consistent with the Kyoto Protocol.

In Europe, the transport and power sector are where the big emissions are, whereas in New Zealand, the converse is true. About 60 percent of New Zealand’s power comes from hydro-electricity, while agricultural emissions, such as methane from livestock, comprise about 50% of the nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions, so this is no doubt why the agricultural sector is planned to be tackled last.  I am not up on the best ways to reduce methane emissions from livestock, but last time I looked at this sector, there were mostly plans afoot for flatulence pills in animals. Eating less meat did not seem like a likely solution as this would affect New Zealands exports. See the New Zealand government’s agricultural research efforts on agricultural emissions.

So paradoxically, transport is easier to do in New Zealand and the government is making a meal of this fact. It states the transportation sector accounts for 19.2% of New Zealand’s CO₂emissions. This sounds fantastic except this number needs to be looked at closely as there are 6 greenhouse gases that trap heat more powerfully than CO_2. They are usually referred to as CO₂ e (equivalents). Methane (CH₄) is one of the gases produced from livestock and is 21 times more powerful than CO₂ in trapping heat. So the overall number needs to be what percentage is the transport sector of all greenhouse gas emissions, my guess is it is probably half of 19.2% around 9.6%, so tackling transport in New Zealand is easier than Europe.

There is a positive here and that is if NZ is prepared to tackle transport emissions it could very easily embrace the Israeli model and become totally independent of oil from transport and develop models for use by other countries. See my next blog coming.

I understand that all countries have to get their Climate Bills through parliament. Australia is a long way from a vote and is still going through various consultative processes, Green papers followed by white papers. Australia is also an export oriented economy, with top heavy emissions from just one or two major sectors. The juggling act for countries is how to include the sector that produces most of the emissions and is the mainstay of the economy.  In the case of Australia the mining and energy sector are increasingly our major export earner, the drought partly due to climate Change has reduced exports from agriculture.

The USA will no doubt have a very complex process, if as both candidates Senator Obama and McCain say they intend to pass national Climate Change legislation, Kyoto compliant or not. (In other words will the US come up with their own Bill outside of the Kyoto accord).

The positive side of the US economy is that its exports are not so resource intensive such as raw materials, energy and agriculture. The domestic economy, which is very broad-based is powered by oil in transport and coal for energy. This is the US problem but it is a problem they have control over.

However, if the U.S could embrace alternative sources of energy and energy efficiency for power generation, and alternative transport fuels, they could find themselves in a much better place than export oriented economies.   See the US Climate Plans from Senator Obama and Senator McCain.

See Senator McCain proposed Climate Bill. and Senator Barack Obama proposed Climate Bills.

According to Guardian reporter, George Monbiot, August 5^th 2008, “Everything now hinges on stopping coal. Whether we prevent runaway climate change largely depends on whether we keep using the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. Unless we either leave it - or the carbon dioxide it produces - in the ground, human development will start spiralling backwards. The more coal is burnt, the smaller are our chances of future comfort and prosperity. The industrial revolution has gone into reverse”.

Monbiot is supporting the Climate Camp outside the coal plant at Kingsnorth in England aimed at stopping more coal fired power plants from being built as a social justice supporter,

“It is not because of butterflies or frogs or penguins or rainforests, much as I love them all. It is because everything I have fought for and that all campaigners for social justice have ever fought for - food, clean water, shelter, security - is jeopardized by climate change. Those who claim to identify a conflict between environmentalism and humanitarianism have either failed to read the science or have refused to understand it.

The Guardian further reported this week, “Up to 4 billion people will be left without water with up to 5 billion at risk of flooding. Half a billion will be left hungry as agricultural yields decline by 15-35% in Africa with entire swaths of the world ceasing food production altogether. More than 80 million exposed to malaria in Africa. The Amazon collapses and 50% of species will go extinct. It’s basically the end of the world. And it’s reported in this morning’s Guardian. There is such a gaping chasm between the matter-of-fact reporting of this nightmarish 4C scenario that government scientists now say we should be planning for the worst”.

GHG Science is confirming global warming is responsible for the Australian drought in the Murray Darling basin. Reporter Tim Jeanes of the World Today team 14th July 2008, interviewed Associate Professor Mathew England form the University of New south Wales: “there’s more and more evidence that greenhouse build-up has caused a decline in rainfall in Australia, and they’re warning that the situation is likely to get much worse, with southern Australia particularly vulnerable” he said. www.abc.net.au

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Diane Dandaneau, Executive Director of the ConservEd Project and Colorado Interfaith Power & Light, is back from Nashville, Tennessee. She is one of the talented 1000, chosen to attend Al Gore’s training sessions on global warming.* “It was amazing!” she tells me this evening from Colorado.

Attending The Climate Project sessions are NASA scientists, biologists, pastors, musicians, psychologists, foresters and many others. Here in Maine, The Coastal Journal (”Proudly Serving Maine’s Midcoast Community Since 1969″) runs a front-page series, “Next Energy: Looking at Living with Less Oil.” A lead story recently, “Global Warming Messenger from Damariscotta,” describes the experience of Paul Kando, who, like Diane, went to Nashville. I spoke with Paul on the phone; like Diane, Paul is back in his home town, spreading the message.

In Nashville, Diane met a Microsoft sustainability expert, and she spoke at length with Gore’s “science guy.” Asking him of peak oil, he said, “there’s so much fossil fuel, it’s toast before we burn it all.” In other words, it’s not about peak oil; it’s about getting to zero.

* Terry Gross’s “Fresh Air” interview with Frank Luntz ran on NPR this week. Luntz says he advises the Republican Party to call ‘global warming,’ ‘climate change,’ because ‘climate change’ sounds more scientific, less polarizing and less radical…less like enviros who, according to Luntz, are extremists.
This is trippy stuff. In the recent past, I was told that ‘global warming’ was coined by the naysayers of the science, because ‘global warming’ sounded palatable and non-threatening (everyone loves warmth, right?) ‘Climate change’ in contrast, was the term to avoid, because ‘climate change’ smacked of science. And ‘change’? Nobody likes ‘change,’ so call it ‘global warming.’ Everyone will love it!
Quite possibly everybody did, but not as intended.
It’s quite possible that, like the term ‘politically correct,’ the term ‘global warming’ was created to fend off public outcry by those who opposed the science; it was then usurped by ‘the opposition’ and oozed out into the public consciousness, the opposite of its intended, manipulative meaning.
Quite possibly, Luntz fueled the PR machine with ‘global warming,’ found it usurped by the extremists (the enviros), and now is advocating ‘climate change.’
At this point, who the hell cares, except Luntz and his PR machinery…and his publisher?

Good news. Methane concentration in the atmosphere has not increased during the past 8 years. Methane is estimated to be responsible for 9 to 17% of the global warming caused by human activity. During its total life in the stratosphere, methane does 23 times the heat trapping damage of CO2 over a 100 year period.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas) Fortunately methane released into the atmosphere largely dissipates in about 12 years. CO2 stays as part of the heat trap for about 100 years.

Back in 1860, before we became big users of fossil fuels, methane concentration was 750 ppb. By the year 1998, it was 1,750 ppb, a frightening increase. Since 1998, however, there has been no increase. This represents major progress in the battle to stop global warming. We should celebrate.

The good news was reported by Dr. Sherwood Rowland, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for co-discovering the atmospheric damage caused by another family of greenhouse gases – chlorofluorocarbons (CFC). Dr. Rowland and his team at the University of California at Irvine have been carefully monitoring greenhouse gas concentrations for many years. I had the good fortune of taking chemistry from Dr. Rowland when I was a student at UCI.

The growing atmospheric concentration of CFC was the result of using the chemicals in refrigerants, hairspray and more. A life threatening hole in the ozone was developing. The ozone layer protects us from getting zapped and fried by gamma rays, x-rays, and ultraviolet rays. This ozone shield was saved thanks to the brilliant work of Nobel Prize chemists Dr. Sherwood Rowland, Dr. Mario Molina, and Dr. Paul Crutzen. (http://today.uci.edu/Features/profile_detail.asp?key=90)

Although the news is good about reducing emissions of methane and CFC, CO2 concentration continues to increase at a rate which threatens our future. What works? What needs to be done?
Methane concentration may have stopped growing because natural gas prices have skyrocketed, and natural gas is typically 90% methane. Natural gas is often a byproduct of oil drilling. When natural gas was cheap, oil producers let it vent into the atmosphere. As more power plants have used natural gas, its price has increased. In 1946, natural gas cost only 5 cents per thousand cubic feet. By 2000, $3.68. Now it makes money to capture it and sell it, or produce energy on the spot.

Landfills are the #1 emitter of methane in the USA (http://www.epa.gov/methane/index.html). The city of Burbank formerly let landfill gas go into the atmosphere. Now it pipes the gas into 11 microturbines that generate 5500kW of electricity (http://www.burbankwaterandpower.com/microturbines.html). The city estimates that it achieves a 100% return on investment annually. As committed to in the City’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, 20% of the power used by Burbank’s residents and businesses will come from renewable sources by 2017.

Major emitters of methane include the oil and gas industry, the coal industry, and landfills. All now have the technology and market incentives to capture natural gas for power and fuel. Another major source of methane is cattle ranching. If methane emissions were priced into beef, we would be less likely to say “supersize me.” Ranchers would raise more wind towers and less cattle.

CO2 emissions must be brought under control. Because CO2 has an average atmospheric lifetime of 100 years, it is accumulating at a dangerous rate. From a preindustrial concentration of 280 ppm, it now nears 400 ppm. Business as usual, in our lifetime, could take it to 600 ppm. This growth creates the risk of runaway effects. For example, should the ice melt on large land bodies now covered with ice, there could be huge methane releases. Another runaway danger is if tropical forests and oceans stop absorbing CO2. The fastest way to reduce our CO2 emission is to reduce our use of coal and oil. With coal, it is a double bonus because reducing coal mining also reduces methane emissions. Coal is used to feed power plants. Most of the energy input from coal is lost through inefficient power plants and inefficient use of energy in homes and industry. Energy efficiency and renewable alternatives are the best ways to reduce coal usage. Oil reduction can be achieved if we spend more time riding together, riding less and riding clean.
It is most possible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. CFC concentrations are starting to decline because on September 16, 1987, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was signed into agreement by the major countries of the world (originally 24 countries, now 175). A process for all nations to phase-out production of dangerous CFCs and halons was established. Later, other dangerous chemicals were added to the list. Now, the phase-out is largely complete.

International treaties work. Market mechanisms work. International treaties that include market mechanisms for trading greenhouse gas emissions work great. A new treaty with binding targets and pricing mechanisms is needed. It is time for the world’s biggest emitters, the USA and China, to lead the process to a health future and away from a reckless joy ride towards climate chaos.

John Addison is the author of the upcoming book Save Gas, Save the Planet. He publishes the Clean Fleet Report (www.cleanfleetreport.com) and is a popular speaker.

The big news on the cleantech front in the last week was the release of the Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change. This report was commissioned by the U.K. Treasury, and was overseen by Sir Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist of the World Bank.

For those of you who missed the press coverage, here is some sample reportage, from MSNBC. U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair introduced the Stern report, calling it “’the most important document on the future’ that he had read since becoming prime minister.”

At its essence, the report aimed to quantify the costs of dealing now with climate change (about 1% of global economic activity), relative to the costs of dealing only later with climate change (estimated between 5-20% of global economic activity).

In Stern’s words, climate change could cause “disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century.”

In the words of Madison Avenue, as in the old advertisements for (I think?) Fram oil filters, “you can pay me now, or pay me later.”

Blair added further strong statements surrounding the report’s unveiling, claiming that the report “demolished the last remaining argument for inaction in the face of climate change.” Of course, the Stern report and Blair’s supportive statements didn’t definitively end the debate, but just added more fuel to the fires. Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute — not just a skeptic but seemingly an outright enthusiast on climate change (they’ve been funded by ExxonMobil among other climate miscreants) — countered that “the report’s estimates for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are laughably rosy, while the assumptions about the impacts of global warming are ridiculously overblown.”

Actually, I suspect that Ebell may be right — at least in regards to underestimating the costs of immediate significant action to mitigate climate change. Based on my understanding of energy economics, and the costs of emission reduction options, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by any significant quantity will not come easily or cheaply.

This view is more or less corroborated by the noted Danish academic Bjorn Lomborg, who wrote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal dissecting the Stern report. Lomborg is a formidable force when wielded effectively by climate change “do-nothings”, in that his arguments against dealing with climate change are not the rants of a madman, but rather a reasoned and seemingly rational analyst using sound logic underlain by good facts and grounded assertions.

Lomborg ends up concluding that, while climate change is a real concern, there are other more urgent and higher-return investments that deserve our incremental public policy dollar. That presupposes that we have a future inhabitable planet to live on.