Global Climate Change... Who's fault is it anyway?

[SeriousSam]

Well the Copenhagen climate summit is now here and despite the PR efforts of the climate change lobby it is beginning to look like there will not be a full binding agreement at the end of it. In fact in some ways the divisions between the various “camps” appears to be widening. Interestingly apart from a few countries positions (Saudi Arabia), this has nothing to do with the additional furore generated by the leaking of hacked emails from the CRU of the University of East Anglia*. What we are seeing more and more is an “us versus them” mentality in respect to the developed and developing nations.

*Now obviously this gave the “conspiracy” arm of the sceptics something in their eyes “meaty” to focus on in their attempts to derail the climate change juggernaut. But in a lot of cases Politicians have decided that “the case is proved, we just have to work out how to solve the problem”. You can read into this what you will, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out that their motives aren’t entirely noble. A number of people stand to make a lot of money out of carbon offsetting and other initiatives, so we should never expect the “right” decisions to be made even if it is staring them in the face.

As an example one amusing snippet I discovered being promoted is that even conflict in Africa is now apparently our fault due to a correlation between ambient temperature and amount of civil strive on that continent, i.e. the hotter it gets the more they kill each other. So as the developed world has caused global warming and climate change, the blood of Africa is on our hands...

Now I could write quite a sizeable bit of soap-boxery on why, as far as I am concerned, the developing world should be given no aid for climate change. In fact I’d give them no aid at all but the reasons for that are not that I have anything against them, rather in the long run it will be better for them due to reasons I’ll touch on later. However, starting an ethical debate on whether we should or not give them aid is not why I am writing this post.

What I am curious about is how people here on Hexus view the whole "Climate Change" issue. Plus it will be interesting to see if a debate on the subject here is more rational than those in more "Scientific" comment forums such as the one on New Scientist online. In fact if you need cheering up read the "discussions" below the article on the leaked emails, as it just goes to show how low NS has sunk as an intelligent publication. Well that and the poor state of scientific integrity and knowledge of rigorous methodology in some quarters.

So to kick things off I shall elucidate my thoughts on the matter, though I will admit to a degree of "duality" on the subject. On the one hand I find mankind’s exploitation of the planet abhorrent, as even at a basic level we change beautiful landscapes into monotonous housing estates. Then on the other I look at the bigger picture and realise that none of this actually matters as no matter what happens we as a species will get wiped out at some point. Well unless we manage to find a way round the catastrophic expansion of the Universe caused by dark matter, but in any case that would mean us no longer having a corporeal existence so the human race as it is would no longer exist.

First off you would have to really bury your head in the sand to not accept that the earth’s climate is changing, as it has being doing that ever since its formation. The real question is whether mankind is having a significant effect on this natural cyclic process due to industrialisation. Currently there is no concrete evidence to either prove or disprove this hypothesis, despite the evangelical like fervour demonstrated by believers on each side of the fence. We simply do not have enough understanding of the underlying mechanisms that control global climate change to be able to say for certain. Add to that if you look at the relative magnitude of energy between mans and the planets systems and we aren’t even significant. That’s not to say it couldn’t become significant, but if I had to bet on a fight between us and the planet I know where I’d put my money.

I'm sure at this point there will be those that will disagree with me on this, saying that there is plenty of evidence to back up man made climate change. But rather than go through the whole lot I’ll be happy to answer them in turn, as believe me you can pick logical holes in everything we are being spoon fed at the moment. Don’t get me wrong I’m not denying that we could be having an effect, but before we start running around setting targets on CO2 for example we should be damn sure that it will have a noticeable effect. There’s no way we will get a tax rebate if in the end it’s proved that CO2 doesn’t have a causal link with global temperature increase. That and we will have wasted a lot of energy chasing a red herring when we could have been focussing on more important issues.

Stepping back from the global scale then yes there is solid evidence of mans activities having an effect on aspects of the earth’s climate. Perhaps one “good” thing that came of 9/11 was that it allowed researchers to examine the effect of air travel on the climate in the USA. Ironically temperatures went up as the vapour and particles these planes spread across the sky help to cool the area beneath, so without them mainland US warmed by 0.5-1°C. The opposite of what some were expecting but still a demonstration that mans activity can have an effect locally and within a fixed timeframe.

To be honest though, I think the belief that humankind is having a “doomsday” effect on the planet is rather crass arrogance on our part. No matter what we do, nothing short of Nuclear War or something similar, is going to wipe out all life. Even then I’m sure that something will survive, as if living organisms have demonstrated anything it is an ability to adapt to even the harshest of conditions. Now we may be the harbingers of our own destruction, something which until very recently the green lobby has been studiously avoiding mentioning; focussing instead on issues such as animals becoming extinct and ecosystems disappearing. However, that is an entirely different situation compared to the effect climate has on other life on the planet.

No matter what we do the weather will change, species will become extinct and others appear to take their place, with the world carrying on turning as it orbits the sun. So it could be argued that the best thing to do is live it up while we can and not worry about it, as we are going to die one way or another anyway. Now that could be viewed as a rather selfish perspective that raises all sorts of counter arguments from a religious or spiritual perspective, but I’ll ignore them as otherwise this will get even more complicated. (Well that and the fact that I don’t believe in any of that nonsense). In truth it could be the best thing for the planet as we wipe ourselves out faster and do less total damage to the planet. But obviously we want to find a way whereby the human race can continue living on planet earth, though I doubt in the end that we will have any say in the matter as it will be forced upon us.

So where does that leave us? Personally I think we have to focus more on our direct impact rather than worrying about what might happen based on x or y. Ironically this means forgetting about trying to alter the course of climate change and get back to more pressing issues; pollution (especially the oceans), waste management, resource consumption, deforestation etc. That doesn’t mean we should forget about improving energy efficiencies and so on, but rather because that is the sensible thing to do in order to preserve resources for longer. There are probably others that I can’t think of at the moment, and one rather important one that I can.

However, putting that to one side for a minute I find it rather interesting that poverty and social justice has now become part of the rhetoric of Greenpeace as they run the risk of at the very least “diluting” their message. To quote their new leader, if that’s how you describe his position;

“More equality and the equitable sharing of the planet's finite resources are our only chance to save the planet for the future”

Now I sat and thought long and hard about this and the rest of the new agenda in a vain attempt to get it to stack up with “saving the planet”. Assuming that we don’t just divvy everything up (which isn’t going to happen and wouldn’t work anyway) but instead look for means to improve the lot of the developing world and lessen the gap between top and bottom, then how do we pay for it? Obviously the world economy would have to grow but with its current model that relies on utilising more resources, even if we drastically improve our efficiencies. So we have the odd situation whereby in order to improve the lot of the poorest nations we have to further “damage” the planet. Oh and add to that the somewhat unwanted fact that it would drastically increase the rate of rise of the earth’s population and in truth being fair would just make our situation worse.

This brings me back to my earlier comment in regard to the real issue at the heart of it all, the number of us humans living on the planet. There are without question too many of us competing for resources and land, a situation which at some point is going to come to a head with serious consequences. Of course the cynics / realists amongst us already believe that wars are being fought over control of resources (Iraq), in fact the initial skirmishes in what may well become global conflict.

It is at this point I am reminded of “Rabbits and Foxes”. One of the simple biological models used in teaching whereby the number of foxes is dependant on the number of rabbits. Though the relationship between them is skewed by external factors such that it never reaches a happy medium but rather an endless cycle where numbers of both species ebb and flow.

However, when it comes to man there is a different story. Since the advent of modern farming methods, the industrial revolution and so forth man has been able to increase his population out of step with nature. Now this is ok in a system with infinite resources but such a thing doesn’t exist, we are always going to be constrained by something. Of course we have been treating them as being infinite which is what has made the situation worse and left us with a population far too large for us to support.

So how do we deal with the population issue? Well imagine trying to limit families in the UK to only 2 children, something which there is actually a degree of support for according to a recent poll. There would be uproar, especially in the media, and civil rights lawyers would be rubbing their hands with glee. Oh and it wouldn’t even really make that much of a difference due to population growth elsewhere and that our birth rate isn’t that much more than that per average family. Now think about the fact that a conservative estimate puts a long term sustainable human population at 1Billion* (based on best available technology being widely available) and that it would mean an 83% reduction compared to current numbers. That puts the scale of our folly in perspective.

*More radical studies put this number much lower and there is at least one I’ve found which puts it higher, but that put in some rather “enthusiastic” predictions about technology advances, not least fusion power within 20years. In any case I’ve not yet found one that states our current population is sustainable let alone the 9Billion projected for 2050. There may be some out there and I would be interested to read them, not least to see how they explain where we will get the food and water from.

Now perhaps the man from Greenpeace had in mind that we all go back to being hunter gatherers, living off what the land provides in order for everything to be equitable. That would certainly solve the population problem as I doubt much more than 5% of the developed worlds population could actually survive living that way. The developing world would probably fare much better, especially where there is little westernisation. However, short of a global catastrophe I can’t see the human race ever going back to that form of civilisation. Not least because the majority of the worlds population have been brainwashed into believing the “materialist” way of life will make them happy, and that as long as the economy keeps growing we’ll all be fine. The fact that money and possessions only buy you a better class of misery seems to have passed the majority of people by.

So how do we solve the population issue? The simple answer is that there is no solution which does not involve a lot of us dying either due to our own actions or the planets, as the timeframe we are working within means that “natural wastage” is not an option. Personally I think it will be a combination of the two with the brunt of the loss being in the developing world due to starvation and disease as their populations far exceed their self sufficiency food resources. In fact some of our efforts to help developing nations will just make things worse for them when it does come to the crunch. Harsh as it may sound we aught to let nature take its course now and again, as in the end it will anyway whatever we do. How you decide on that sort of thing is another discussion entirely as you can’t use logic because it would dictate you either help all of them or none of them. No government in the western world would ever do the latter as it would be political suicide from a global perspective, even if it did win you votes from some quarters at home. Plus there is the small matter of being dependant on them for various commodities, so their governments would no doubt act against you in some form or another.

In the end there is no escaping the reality of the situation that we as a species are facing a very uncertain future. It is highly likely that unless something miraculous happens the coming generations will not enjoy the same lifestyle that we have. In fact it may be a smart move to start downsizing already to become more self sufficient and so forth, as well as teaching your children how to survive “Ray Mears” style. Whether it turns out to be due to man made climate change, natural climate change or lack of resources remains to be seen. My money is on the latter two, not that it makes much difference. The only real question for me is whether I’ll be around long enough to find out the answer… as there is very little I can do about it.

[[GSV]Trig]

Quick, semi related question.

I thought an iceberg or icecube or whatever you wanted to use in the argument displaced its own weight in water, if thats so, how will icebergs melting cause the sea level to rise?

[badass]

Quick, semi related question.

I thought an iceberg or icecube or whatever you wanted to use in the argument displaced its own weight in water, if thats so, how will icebergs melting cause the sea level to rise?

In short, they dont.* It's only land ice melting that raises the sea level.

However, the sea level is not and has not been rising. The pro climate change "scientists" measuring sea level as rising are simply only chosing data from the measurements where sea level has risen and ignoring the ones where it has receded in their reports. They have also been caught vandalising things that are evidence to the contrary.






* It actually does but the amount it raises the sea level by is miniscule enough to not have an effect - Appx 1/800th the volume of the top bit of the iceberg that is above the water.

[SeriousSam]

If I remember rightly it is something to with the difference in density between fresh and salt water, which comprises floating ice (I'll have to check into by how much to get an idea of the magnitude of the effect). Obviously land ice raises sea level because it isn't already displacing water. Of course the complicating factor in all this the non-linear relationship between temperature and water density.

[pp05]

The solution is not 1 dimensional. It has many layers. All that will have various results.

What is funny is you have decided that its down to number of people. Your entire post looks at the problem within our present capitalist economic model and keeping the status quo whilst dealing with this 'huge' problem. You can't have it both ways.

I would say it is this very model that is one of the MAJOR factors for all the problems we have. It is the root cause. Once removed we can truly think outside the box, blank canvas so to speak.

[Zhaoman]

Side question answer: If the arctic ice melts, the sea level will actually fall because water is a higher density than ice and the arctic ice is floating in water. It's the antarctic ice melting that will cause sea levels to rise because the ice is sitting on land, something like 3m globally if the biggest valley melts entirely but that is just a 'prediction'.

OK in response to OP, I think we have gotten too caught up in too many little details when there is only really two facts to worry about.

Firstly: global temperatures are rising and this suggests ice will melt and sea levels will rise. No need to get into the little details of whether trapped methane in the Siberian tundra will speed up this process, or whether this is man-made etc. Fact is temperatures have been on a continuous upward trend since accurate records to measure this have began. So we can take it that given the current trend some of the antarctic ice will melt, sea levels will rise and a lot of coastal cities (which are generally the important ones) will need protection or they will be submerged. So it's a no-brainer we need to protect those cities and those people as a priority regardless of whether we decide to cut down on emissions or whatever other policy the politicians think will win votes.

Secondly: We are using the planet's resources faster than can be regenerated. I'm not talking about fossil fuels either, this applies to everything including wood, food, water... everything. We get most of our freshwater supplies from lakes, but most lakes have a resumption period of 17 years and we are going through them quick as a knife through butter. So water is going to run out soon too. When you add the figures up, without thinking about the nitty gritty details of who's buying up who's land or whatever, it's inevitable that we are going to run into shortages of practically everything pretty soon. This means that either we need to find magic resources out of nowhere or we need to consume A LOT less than what we currently do or the number of people consuming resources will have to be reduced. You don't even need to look into the details to see that one of the above must happen to balance the equation and I don't think it's gonna be the first. I'm with SeriousSam in this one that it will be a combination of people cutting back and people dying to achieve this. And it's not unreasonable to think that a lot of people will die by some means or other when it eventually snaps.

So what can we do now? We need to cut back on energy use, on food consumption (becoming vegetarian or at least eating less meat is one of the best things we can do to reduce our resource consumption) and we definitely need to cut back on luxuries that were never sustainable such as everybody owning a car. This is the only thing we can do to try to reduce the impact but there's no stopping the inevitable now when our Earth can only support 200 million people living the lifestyles of modern americans

[pp05]

Side question answer: If the arctic ice melts, the sea level will actually fall because water is a higher density than ice and the arctic ice is floating in water. It's the antarctic ice melting that will cause sea levels to rise because the ice is sitting on land, something like 3m globally if the biggest valley melts entirely but that is just a 'prediction'.

OK in response to OP, I think we have gotten too caught up in too many little details when there is only really two facts to worry about.

Firstly: global temperatures are rising and this suggests ice will melt and sea levels will rise. No need to get into the little details of whether trapped methane in the Siberian tundra will speed up this process, or whether this is man-made etc. Fact is temperatures have been on a continuous upward trend since accurate records to measure this have began. So we can take it that given the current trend some of the antarctic ice will melt, sea levels will rise and a lot of coastal cities (which are generally the important ones) will need protection or they will be submerged. So it's a no-brainer we need to protect those cities and those people as a priority regardless of whether we decide to cut down on emissions or whatever other policy the politicians think will win votes.

Secondly: We are using the planet's resources faster than can be regenerated. I'm not talking about fossil fuels either, this applies to everything including wood, food, water... everything. We get most of our freshwater supplies from lakes, but most lakes have a resumption period of 17 years and we are going through them quick as a knife through butter. So water is going to run out soon too. When you add the figures up, without thinking about the nitty gritty details of who's buying up who's land or whatever, it's inevitable that we are going to run into shortages of practically everything pretty soon. This means that either we need to find magic resources out of nowhere or we need to consume A LOT less than what we currently do or the number of people consuming resources will have to be reduced. You don't even need to look into the details to see that one of the above must happen to balance the equation and I don't think it's gonna be the first. I'm with SeriousSam in this one that it will be a combination of people cutting back and people dying to achieve this. And it's not unreasonable to think that a lot of people will die by some means or other when it eventually snaps.

So what can we do now? We need to cut back on energy use, on food consumption (becoming vegetarian or at least eating less meat is one of the best things we can do to reduce our resource consumption) and we definitely need to cut back on luxuries that were never sustainable such as everybody owning a car. This is the only thing we can do to try to reduce the impact but there's no stopping the inevitable now when our Earth can only support 200 million people living the lifestyles of modern americans

Zhaoman you brought up a really great points and solutions without having to change our lifestyle too much. Becoming vegetarian or at least reducing our meat consumption drastically along with not throwing away everything.

I read somewhere if we stopped the global transport system that ships livestock and food to feed them all around the place - that alone would cancel out about 40% of greenhouse gas emissions. To put into perspective - thats more than the entire transport system of the world! So drive your petrol cars if you want! The food that goes into feeding these animals could be then put to use for people. Simply put - this one step alone would make an impact. But it's got to be done worldwide.

[[GSV]Trig]

Well thats part of the problem, you'll never get everyone to agree to do the same thing.

IMHO there are too many variables to say exactly what is going on and prove/disprove what is happening. The planet has had ice ages before, we know that, the Earths rotation is changing, we know that.
How do we know that were killing the planet, given that the data we have been collecting, in the grand scheme of things isnt really a lot of data at all compared to the age of the Earth.

I think the human race is having an effect, to say otherwise is being thick cut, as the bread joke goes.
Its the scale of that effect that is in question.
Yes we should all be "green", not because it'll stop the Earth dying because all it'll do it slow down the damage being done by the human race, but because its the right thing to do, we should all live cleaner healthier greener friendlier lives, not for the good of the planet, but for the good of the race.

[Zhaoman]

In relation to climate change, it really doesn't matter whether WE are causing damage or changes to the planet. Do you think the Earth gives two hoots to what's making it heat up or cool down a little bit? The problem is not whether we are doing damage but rather we know something is changing and we need to prepare for it. Too much discussion is about whether we cause the damage when it should be directed towards action to protect the people under threat cos at least we have proof that something is happening. And while we're at it, it wouldn't be a bad idea to cut down on our consumption cos that is something we have definite figures for and they are not looking good.

[SeriousSam]

The solution is not 1 dimensional. It has many layers. All that will have various results.

What is funny is you have decided that its down to number of people. Your entire post looks at the problem within our present capitalist economic model and keeping the status quo whilst dealing with this 'huge' problem. You can't have it both ways.

I would say it is this very model that is one of the MAJOR factors for all the problems we have. It is the root cause. Once removed we can truly think outside the box, blank canvas so to speak.

I'm not arguing that the solution is one dimensional, as it certainly isn't, nor am I arguing that we stay within the "capitalist model" as you put it (as I agree that it is what has put us in this position in the first place). Even if we did reduce the population down to 1 Billion we would have to radically alter the nature of our civilisation in order to survive in the long term. All it does is give us a better chance of finding a balance between technology and nature.

The point is that having a population of 6 Billion virtually negates the possibility of finding a solution before we do start running out of resources and the inevitable consequences that brings.

[TheAnimus]

Zhaoman you brought up a really great points and solutions without having to change our lifestyle too much. Becoming vegetarian or at least reducing our meat consumption drastically

Too much.

I vote we kill about 3 billion people, and I keep my meat.
(or mabye even switch to the plentiful produce that would be about!).