When Audrey walks her dogs, she follows an elegantly economical route to the park, pausing only to admire and be admired. But not Tozer and Chic. They're erratic and energetic, sniffing to the left, sniffing to the right, circling trees, running ahead or
pulling back.
Tozer and Chic are Temperature Change and they are all over the place. Up one day and down the next. Without Audrey (Climate Change) they would get nowhere and we'd be seeing the same weather patterns our grandmothers saw.
However, Audrey is making sure they get to the park. The trouble is – the park is a wasteland of drought, extreme weather, rising sea
levels and ocean acidification.
Check out this neat animation of a dog and his owner. It illustrates the difference
between variance (i.e. weather) vs. trend (i.e. climate). It shows that there are hot years and cold years, but climate change is driving the graph upwards with more record highs than ever before.
Source: Video from Siffer, Teddy TV. Animator: Ole Christoffer Hager
And check out this 2-minute gem where Richard Alley graphs temperature change for different periods of his life. It shows the same upward trend. It's getting hotter.
And finally, I need to apologise to Audrey for making her the villain of this piece. To redeem myself, I invite you to enjoy some eye candy of the delightful Audrey Hepburn and her beloved dogs, none of which was called Tozer or Chic as far as I know.
Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a bubble. Actually, we all live in our own custom-made bubbles that are shaped by our life experience and our education.
The world in my bubble is different from the world in your bubble. The TV show Madmen makes good dramatic use of this.
In an early episode, Betty comes home with her drycleaning. After a few minutes, the kids come running out of the bedroom playing at being spacemen. Sally has the thin plastic dry-cleaning bag over her head and body. Betty gets mad, as any mother would at this shocking sight. She chides Sally,
If the clothes from that dry-cleaning bag are on the floor of my closet, you're going to be a very sorry, young lady.
How times have changed! Betty is oblivious to our concerns about suffocation, and we're blind to her focus on well-pressed clothing.
When it comes to climate change and the transition to a low carbon economy, there are some very strong bubbles built largely on the capacity of the internet to foster colonies of like-minds.
There's a whole anti-AGW blogosphere bubble promoting the notion that climate science is not settled and 'do nothing' is the best course of action. There are virtually no practising climate scientists in this bubble, though there are related professionals like weathermen and engineers along with lots of backyard 'thinkers'.
Meanwhile, the usual practice of science continues through peer reviewed papers in academic journals.
How do we speak to each other across these bubbles? As a first step, we need to spend more time hanging out with people who live in different bubbles from ours. Natually, this is not as comfortable as hanging out with like minds. You have to make an effort and be prepared for some abrasion.
We can also make efforts to see the world from someone else's point of view. Why does Betty Draper ignore the suffocation risk when Sally puts the plastic bag over her head?
To see the world from someone else's point of view we need to listen with respect, as Katharine Hayhoe says,
If we approach this issue with mutual respect, with a desire for
identifying what we most have in common rather than where we differ, and
if we are prepared to listen and have two-way communication, rather
than just coming in there to instruct, then we can make some progress.
Without these efforts, we remain trapped in our bubble, our echo chamber. That makes us lousy communicators. More like Betty Draper than Katharine Hayhoe.
I didn't realise how much I try to negotiate my way through life until I had a baby. Babies do not negotiate. You feed them, or they cry. You walk them, or they cry. You keep them warm, or they cry.
My garden is like that too. If I don't water it, the plants die.
It's true for the whole biosphere. We live by nature's rules, she doesn't live by ours. The notion of 'conquering nature' is as ridiculous as an earth-centred solar system.
We have learnt to give up the idea that the sun goes around the earth, but we haven't given up the notion that our relationship with the earth is negotiable. We imagine we can 'conquer' nature with impunity. We act as though the earth's resources are endless.
Our economies are based on the false notion that we will never come to the end of the earth's resources. Our economies depend on growth. When they stagnate or shink a bit, people get unhappy and governments fall.
Right now, we're at a critical point in history where we are hitting some limits. One is the limit of oil production. World oil production plateaued around 2005 but demand keeps growing and this is sending prices up. By 2014, production is expected to fall short of demand. (Note: see update at end of this piece.)
The other is the limit on the amount of greenhouse gases we can pump into the atmosphere. Scientists say that 450ppm of CO2-e gases in the atmosphere will give us a 50% chance of keeping average global temperature increase down to 2C. Others argue that 450ppm is dangerously high.
Right now, we're at 396 ppm and increasing by almost 2 ppm each year. That gives us about 25 years to shrink our emissions to zero.
Paul Gilding describes our situation as one of unavoidable crisis where a long series of major economic shocks will gradually bring our consumption of resources into balance with the limited supply.
Just as a baby will cry when it is hungry, so these economic
shocks signal that something is wrong. Each time we address one of the shocks, we get a clearer picture of another way we are out of step with nature.
For Gilding, the global financial crisis of 2008, the Arab Spring of 2011, and now the Greek debt
crisis are evidence that we are in the midst of a system that is
breaking down. He warns that we need to give up the idea that these are glitches that can be overcome. We need to start the transition to a different system.
We need to recognise that we can't negotiate with nature.
Unlike human law, the laws of nature can be read, but not redrafted.
There's no borrowing from Nature without repayment. Greece has been negotiating with its banks and they have written off billions of dollars of debt, and still people are rioting in the streets because they don't want to pay.
Nature doesn't care if we riot. Riots are pointless tantrums. We will have to repay our debts to Nature in full. We will have to live with the full extent of the damage our actions have caused.
Paul Gilding describes these as apocalyptic times. He questions our childish wish to negotiate with Nature and asks:
What do we want to be when we grow up – when humans grow past adolescence? We'll be growing up in war. It's a war for civilisation itself.
UPDATE: 30 July 2012. A report by by Harvard University’s Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs concludes that oil supply capacity is growing worldwide and might outpace consumption, potentially leading to a glut of
overproduction and a dip in oil prices. The report also notes that at prices of $US70/barrel major new oil reserves (like shale oil) have become economic and this is what has added to capacity. In effect, this puts a floor under the price of oil. If oversupply causes prices to drop below $70 a barrel, the more expensive wells will be mothballed till prices rise again.
As many have noted, 'peak oil' is best understood as a pointer to the limits on cheap oil. Oil supply won't suddenly fall of a cliff, instead it will be squeezed by ever-increasing prices as the easy to reach reserves are exhausted and only the more expensive supplies are left.
Those advocating for urgent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions hoped that high oil prices would drive the uptake of renewables. Many will be disappointed to read this report and its suggestion that instead of rapid price increases, the price of oil is likely to move around the $70-90 mark for the next decade. Source: ClimateSpectator.
Fossil fuel dependence is a dead end, though you'd never know it the way the mining industry carries on.
Mining lobbyists like to scare politicians and the public, but global statistics for trends in new power generation show a dramatic decline for fossil fuels. Maybe the miners are stridently fighting a rear guard action?
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance and the International Energy
Agency, investment in renewables for power production rose from $50bn in 2004 to $260b in
2011. Over the same time investment in fossil fuel power production fell
from $250b to $40b. It looks like this.
This gives a clear picture of the road to the future. Personally, I find it very heartening to see that the world is moving towards renewables at a rapid rate. It's exactly what economists say we ought to do.
Climate Spectator (14 May 2012)has more detail: King Carbon.
Lobby groups that deny the planet is warming have built their structures in vulnerable locations. Their positions are being eroded by every newpiece of evidence.
As their foundations wash away, their time runs out and they become unsteady and more strident. Witness the recent own-goal by the Heartland Institute with its offensive Unabomber billboard. The billboard marked a dramtic shift to the extreme right. It lasted less than 24 hours, but it washed away a sizeable chunk of Heartland's foundations – 11 sponsors worth more than $800,000, board members, all the staff in their Washington DC office, several speakers at a forthcoming conference and a number of notable experts.
If we are patient, we can wait for the evidence of rising temperatures, rising sea levels and ocean acidification to wash away more of these noxious pests. This is the expensive option. Economists warn that the longer we leave it to reduce greenhouse emissions, the more expensive it will be to make the necessary reductions and to cope with the damage.
So, any time you get a chance to chip away at their flimsy foundations, go ahead and do it. You'll be speeding up the inevitable and doing everyone a favour.
Responsible journalists try to present a range of views on a topic. Called 'balance', this has become accepted practice in mainstream media.
And a good thing too. Without balanced reporting, we would get only single-sided world views. Unfortunately, the principle of balance comes unstuck when lobbyists and extremists dominate the field of available commenters. We have seen anti-vaccination campaigners offering alternate views on vaccination, and we often see deniers offering alternate views on climate change.
This might not matter if the alternate view was clearly labelled 'unsubstantiated personal opinion' or 'industry spokesperson', but that is not usually the case. Most alternative views are presented as having some credibility.
Programs like I can change your mindon Australia's ABC that give equal time to climate change contrarians are accused of false balance because they give unrealistic prominence to discredited views. America's PBS Newshour attracted the same criticism after allowing the extreme right lobby group Heartland to give its point of view in a report.
The phenomenon of media "Balance as Bias" has been thoroughly documented by Max & Jules Boykoff, and others.
So, how should the media address topics like vaccination and climate change where there is, in effect, no credible and informed alternative to the basic science?
I try not to believe [in climate change] because I don't like to believe the worst.
That works for me. Climate change contrarians who engage in denialism rather than good faith scepticism have as much credibility on the subject as linedancers.
As societies turn away from fossil fuels towards renewables will the dark carbon gods of coal and oil give way to mankind's original gods of sun, wind and water? Will we see a shift in cultural practice?
Already, we see beauty in solar installations like Gemasolar, near Seville in Spain, where the layout of the mirror array is guided by the patterns of seeds in sunflower heads.
New technology can be very techie, but as I have discussed, renewables are very lovable.
What's not to love in this new farming system that uses solar power to desalinate water and produce greenhouse crops in the desert. Sundrop Farms have developed the technology that uses trough mirrors to heat oil that boils sea water to run turbines to generate electricity. It also desalinates the water. The electricity, heat and water are used in greenhouses to grow vegetables. In 2010-2011 Sundrop trialed the high-tech system in the desert near Port Augusta. The trials went very well and in 2012 they will expand to have 8 hectares under greenhouses.
You can take a site visit –
The cool language of technology needs to meet the life-affirming language of love. Surely the capacity to grow nourishing food in the desert is nothing short of miraculous?
Where is our sense of wonder? Apollo and Neptune have joined forces to grow tomatoes in the desert of South Australia.
