Climate Change

[javelina]

To get back to the issue of cheap passenger airline flights, I guess it can be said that Joe Six-Pack isn't exactly "creating" the demand. But s/he is definitely taking advantage of the supply. So it's a 2-way street in that regard.

In the U.S. alone there are an average of between 25,500 and 28,000 commercial airline passenger flights per day taking off and landing within our borders. I would like to emphasize that these numbers are for commercial passenger flights only.

And the last I read (about four months ago) EU traffic control is "routinely managing about 29,000 flights per day" within its circumscribed air space. I don't have statistics for any other countries at the moment but I should think that just these two sets of numbers would get people's attention.

Then there is the air cargo sector, which has grown between 7 and 15% per year since the mid-90's. We can thank the Free Trade slash globalization supporters for that contribution to the steadily-increasing degradation of the only atmosphere we have.

Unfortunately the emergent global economy is now dependent on the rapid and efficient transport of product from one country/one hemisphere to another. This is an extremely competitive business sector in which the U.S. in particular intends to maintain dominance. Ergo, any threat to the aviation industry is going to be perceived as a threat to The Economy.

I have a great deal of statistical information to back up what I'm saying here in perhaps too few words. But I don't think this situation is all that complicated.

The bottom line is that we do have a choice. We can have our on-demand, dirt-cheap weekend flights to foreign cities, our out-of-season produce all year round, plus all the junk from China we can possibly buy from the WalMarts that are more than willing to stock it - or we can start moving back to the idea of healthy local economies and eschew insistence on the continuous availability of literally everything under the sun.

On a personal note here, after 20 years I finally had to replace a little battery-operated Braun alarm clock this weekend. I looked in five different stores and I could not find one single clock that was made in the United States - or in Europe for that matter.

[Wayne Hall]

From
Arianna Online

Quote:
Originally Posted by Boomer Chick
"Cool It on Global Warming"

An op ed piece resonating with Jay Reynolds. Actually it's just a letter to the editor!

pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune...s/s_334845.html

Comment from halva

Would Gregory Chrash 'can it' if Ross Gelbspan took the line with him that I took with 'epitaph' at Open Democracy?

[Wayne Hall]

Javelina, on your previous posting, the policies you recommend are something that only elites, aided and abetted by social forums, could implement.

[javelina]

Wayne said:

Javelina, on your previous posting, the policies you recommend are something that only elites, aided and abetted by social forums, could implement.

I'm not sure what you mean when you refer to "policies" and "elites."

I guess I was unconsciously drawing from my own experience when I wrote that we, as in "we the world's inhabitants", do in fact have a choice as to what kind of living environment we wish to support.

For example, I've been eating about 90% organically for almost 30 years. Most of what I eat happens to come from local or regional sources - that's the way it generally works out. I make a point of supporting local farmers - although it's harder to do this in the winter when produce does have to be transported in from south of my location or from California. But you get the idea. And my diet is anything but boring, by the way!

Secondly, I make a very consistent point of supporting small, independent businesses rather than forking my money over to overweening entities such as WalMart and similarly massive enterprises. I'm by no means a rich person but I'll spend an extra dollar or two on a purchase to support small businesses. They offer a better product in most instances and much of what they sell is made locally or at least regionally and so doesn't have to be flown in from halfway around the world. Also, I enjoy doing business with actual humans and developing mutually rewarding relationships in this way.

I have never owned a car. Of course I lived my entire adult life in a major urban venue until two years ago and didn't need a car. And I do realize that most people would find it genuinely difficult to be without one. Still - I'm currently living in a relatively isolated mountain community in the American southwest and have done quite well without a car so far. We have an outstanding 5-route shuttle bus system here with wonderful, friendly drivers - and I love to support that for the 10% of the time I'm not walking to get where I need to go. It runs every half hour, all routes, from 5:30am until 10:00pm. People need to show a great deal more support for good public transportation by actually using it.

I try in general to avoid buying anything that has to be flown into the U.S.

And so on.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that only "elites" can be involved in "implementing" these and similar ideas. Do they have to become "policies" in order for people to engage in them?

[javelina]

Re: the above-referenced Letter to the Editor by Gregory Chrash entitled, "Cool It With Global Warming":
pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/letters/s_334845.html

I finally got around to reading that today and found it utterly ridiculous. This guy sounds like he's getting his lines directly from the Frank Luntz Playbook.

I doubt very much that Ross Gelbspan could be bothered to even acknowledge let alone respond to him.

[Wayne Hall]

Javelina, both of the above postings revolve around the same issue: force of personal example vs politics.

There is a posting in the climate change discussion at Open Democracy that puts the case for personal example.

Some leftists like to polemicise with such 'personalisation of the political'.

I don't want to add to their number by doing the same myself.

Nevertheless, on the question of whether e.g. Ross Gelbspan could be bothered arguing with Gregory Chrash: it's not only a matter of whether it is appropriate for an intelligent and well-informed person to become involved in debate with an idiot. There is also the question of the political struggle in which the debate is imbricated. Are people like Ross Gelbspan closing their eyes to or shying away from the factors that keep climate change activists in a permanent state of opposition?

Remember that at Arianna's I was offered the "solution" of blocking out Jay Reynolds' postings as an individual rather than continuing to insist that he should be kicked off. In a way blocking off his postings individually would be a 'force of example' solution. I could invite others on the forum who feel like me to do the same.

Well, of course I had already done both of those things at Arianna's some months ago. But nobody (including you) followed my example.

It seems that what it all boils down to in the end is, as Humpty Dumpty said to Alice in Wonderland: "Who is to be master."

[javelina]

Wayne said:

Javelina, both of the above postings revolve around the same issue: force of personal example vs politics.

Why does it have to be force of personal example "vs" politics. Cannot the two energies be encouraged to at least operate in pursuit of the same goals if not exactly by the same modalities?

There is a posting in the climate change discussion at Open Democracy that puts the case for personal example.

There are postings in a great many venues which speak quite eloquently for the inspiring potential of personal example.

Some leftists like to polemicise with such 'personalisation of the political'.

Yes, well. That's kind of an archaic mantra, left over from the aggregate of 60's political and social change movements that more or less peaked in the late 70's (in the U.S. anyway.) I hate to say this but I'm not really interested in "left" or "right" or similarly preconceived idealogical characterizations. In my personal experience these characterizations have an ultimately numbing impact on the creative process that is (or should be) the driving force of life on Earth.

I don't want to add to their number by doing the same myself.

Nevertheless, on the question of whether e.g. Ross Gelbspan could be bothered arguing with Gregory Chrash: it's not only a matter of whether it is appropriate for an intelligent and well-informed person to become involved in debate with an idiot. There is also the question of the political struggle in which the debate is imbricated. Are people like Ross Gelbspan closing their eyes to or shying away from the factors that keep climate change activists in a permanent state of opposition?

I don't agree that Gelbspan (or those like him) are closing their eyes to or shying away from the factors that keep climate change activists in a permanent state of opposition. In fact my observation has been quite the opposite. Gelbspan, David Suzuki, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to name just a few, are acutely aware of those "factors" and have been quite articulate in identifying them for exactly what they are.

Remember that at Arianna's I was offered the "solution" of blocking out Jay Reynolds' postings as an individual rather than continuing to insist that he should be kicked off. In a way blocking off his postings individually would be a 'force of example' solution. I could invite others on the forum who feel like me to do the same.

Well, of course I had already done both of those things at Arianna's some months ago. But nobody (including you) followed my example.

I did try in the beginning to do as I always do, which is to ignore people like Reynolds and simply submit my contributions. It was when he started libeling me that I had to speak out on my own behalf.

Wayne, with all due respect, you came in about four years late on a situation about which you still know relatively little. That is a big part of the issue here and anyone who's been around for the five-plus years that I have will tell you the same thing. That's just the way it is.

We can see what's become of the climate change forums at Arianna's now that little Jay-Jay has achieved his victory in the psy-ops department. There is practically no place else on the Web where he would have been allowed to get as far as he has at AO. It simply would not have mattered what people did there in order to deal with him. As long as he was allowed to post there at all there was only one possible outcome - the eventual destruction of the venue itself. It appears he has succeeded in this regard.

It seems that what it all boils down to in the end is, as Humpty Dumpty said to Alice in Wonderland: "Who is to be master."

Well, that's certainly the way it looks at the moment, I'll grant you that. To say the least.

But I'm still crazy enough to believe that the concept of "master" is only as real as we are willing to let it be by buying into it in the first place.

[javelina]

20 May 2005

New York Times Editorial

Climate Signals
www.nytimes.com/2005/05/19/opinion/19thu1.html

Hardly a week goes by without somebody telling President Bush that his passive approach to global warming is hopelessly behind the times, that asking industry for voluntary reductions in greenhouse gas emissions won't work and that what's needed is a regulatory regime that asks sacrifices of everyone. He's heard this from his political allies here and abroad - from Tony Blair, George Pataki and Arnold Schwarzenegger, to name three - and now he is hearing it from the heaviest hitters in the business world, including, most recently, Jeffrey Immelt, the chief executive of General Electric.

Mr. Immelt runs the biggest company in America, and for that reason some environmental groups hailed his speech last week on climate change as a tipping point in the global warming debate. Mr. Immelt chose his words carefully and did not directly criticize Mr. Bush. But he left no doubt that he believes mandatory controls on emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, are necessary and inevitable. And he said he would double investments by G.E. in energy and environmental technologies to prepare it for what he sees as a huge global market for products that help other companies - and countries like China and India - reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

Mr. Immelt's speech is not the only sign of impatience among Mr. Bush's business allies. In New York, two dozen leading institutional investors managing more than $3 trillion in assets recently urged American companies to address the risks of climate change and to invest more heavily in strategies to reduce those risks. They met under the auspices of the United Nations Foundation and Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental interests.

Perversely, the administration insists that all this voluntary activity will eliminate the need for a national strategy. Yet these gestures represent only a small slice of the economy; industry as a whole will not spend money to reduce emissions as long as the rules (or, more precisely, the absence of rules) confer a competitive advantage on the businesses that do nothing. Indeed, it is precisely to achieve a level playing field that more and more big utilities - the very companies Mr. Bush and Vice President thingy Cheney thought they were letting off the hook - are now calling on Congress to consider mandatory controls.

Absent a response from the administration, which still maintains, incredibly, that there is insufficient scientific understanding to justify mandatory limits, the country's best hope for meaningful action at the national level rests with the Senate, which will shortly take up an energy bill.

The bill by itself would not impose limits on emissions, although there is some talk that Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman may offer a bill imposing industrywide caps as an amendment on the Senate floor. But a properly drawn energy bill has the potential to do much good, especially if it avoids rewarding the old polluting industries, as the House version does, and focuses instead on putting serious money behind cleaner fuels, cleaner power plants and cleaner cars. That these measures would also ease the country's dependency on overseas oil is, of course, a persuasive side benefit.

[Wayne Hall]

Some more dialogue at Open Democracy today.

[Wayne Hall]

G-8 bows to U.S. on climate change
Action plan weaker after Bush team exerts pressure

Washington -- Bush administration officials working behind the scenes have succeeded in weakening key sections of a proposal for joint action by the eight major industrialized nations to curb climate change.

Under U.S. pressure, negotiators agreed in the past month to delete language that would detail how rising temperatures are affecting the globe, set ambitious targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions, and set stricter environmental standards for World Bank-funded power projects, according to documents obtained by the Washington Post. Negotiators met this week in London to work out details of the document, which is scheduled to be adopted next month at the Group of Eight's annual meeting in Scotland.

The administration's push to alter the G-8's plan on global warming marks its latest effort to edit scientific or policy documents to accord with its position that mandatory carbon dioxide cuts are unnecessary. Under mounting international pressure to adopt stricter controls on heat-trapping gas emissions, Bush officials have consistently sought to modify U.S. government and international reports that would endorse a more aggressive approach to mitigating global warming.

Last week, the New York Times reported that a senior White House official had altered government documents to emphasize the uncertainties surrounding the science on global warming. That official, White House Council on Environmental Quality Chief of Staff Phillip Cooney, left the administration Friday to take a public relations job with oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp., a leading opponent of mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

The wording of the international document, titled "Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development," will help determine what, if any, action the G-8 countries will take as a group to combat global warming. Every member nation except the United States has pledged to bring its greenhouse gas emissions down to 1990 levels by 2012 as part of the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- who currently heads the G-8 -- is trying to coax the United States into adopting stricter climate controls.

In preparation for the summit, negotiators are trying to work out the wording of statements on climate change and other issues that leaders of all eight nations are willing to endorse. The language is not final, but the documents show that a number of deletions have been made at U.S. insistence.

Although the new statement by G-8 leaders may not dramatically alter the other nations' policies on global warming, what it says could mark a shift for the United States. U.S. officials pressed negotiators to drop sections of the report that highlight some problems tied to global warming, warn of more frequent droughts and floods, and endorse the Kyoto Protocol.

One deleted section, for example, initially cited "increasingly compelling evidence of climate change, including rising ocean and atmospheric temperatures, retreating ice sheets and glaciers, rising sea levels, and changes to ecosystems." It added: "Inertia in the climate system means that further warming is inevitable. Unless urgent action is taken, there will be a growing risk of adverse effects on economic development, human health and the natural environment, and of irreversible long-term changes to our climate and oceans."

Instead, U.S. negotiators substituted a sentence that reads, "Climate change is a serious long term challenge that has the potential to affect every part of the globe."

"It's very important to view (the deletions) in context," said James Connaughton, who heads the Council on Environmental Quality. "The overall context is one of strong consensus about a shared commitment to practical action, as well as defined management strategies."

But environmentalists criticized the administration for trying to water down the international coalition's initiative. Some are urging the seven other G-8 members -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia -- to adopt their own global warming plan rather than accept a milder statement that they say would provide the Bush administration with political cover.

"The U.S. will just not budge," said Hans Verolme, director of the World Wildlife Fund's U.S. climate change program. "We'd rather not have a deal than have a deal that lets George Bush off the hook."

Bush's top science adviser, John Marburger, said he is frustrated with such charges, because the administration is seeking to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through technological advances and other voluntary measures.

"From the beginning, this administration has acknowledged the Earth is getting warmer and we're going to have to take responsibility for our emissions," he said. Critics claim the White House believes "climate change is not happening, which is not true."

Several officials involved in the talks said none of the document's wording is fixed, and it could change before the leaders adopt a final version for the summit.

[Wayne Hall]

From: Fred Krupp [environmentaldefense.org]

Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 3:12 PM
To: Claudia Slate
Subject: Thank you for your help on global warming

Dear Claudia,

Yesterday was an historic day on Capitol Hill, and I want to thank you for being a part of it.

Throughout the afternoon, the Senate chamber echoed with the voice of one Senator after another speaking out in favor of action to cut America's global warming pollution.

While the vote on the McCain-Lieberman bill fell short of passage, a later vote in favor of a non-binding "Sense of the Senate Resolution" earned 54 votes. This puts the Senate on record for the first time in recognition of the need for a mandatory cap on America's global warming pollution.

The votes and the afternoon of debate signaled a clear shift in climate policy in the United States. The Senate is moving beyond a discussion of whether America will deal with global warming, to how. See more details about yesterday's votes:
actionnetwork.org/ct/77aBME61BmdN/

Thanks to you, Environmental Defense was able to pull out the stops to build momentum in the Senate. Here are examples from the last four weeks of the difference your support made:

* You helped recruit over 10,000 new Emissions Petition signers, bringing our total number of citizen co-sponsors to 460,000.

* You made thousands of phone calls to Senate offices in the last 48 hours before the votes.

* You contributed more than $150,000 to our "final push" campaign.

* Your support helped us advertise, organize in critical states, commission opinion polls and work the halls of Congress.

This all helped keep the issue front and center and moved the Senate to a vote on this important issue. Your support still matters -- today, please email America's political leaders and tell them we need stronger action: actionnetwork.org/campaign/globalwarming

While we didn't win majority support for McCain-Lieberman this time, yesterday was a turning point in this debate. We look forward to working with the Senators who made a sincere commitment to solving this problem and will continue to keep our members and online supporters engaged on this issue.

Thank you and stay tuned!

Sincerely,
Fred Krupp
environmentaldefense.org

[Wayne Hall]

Arnold Schwarzenegger: It's not a time for talk. It's a time for action

The Terminator: There's no doubt about the science. Now we must all gear our economies to take on global warming
Published: 03 July 2005

I don't know how apparent it is to people in Britain, but California has long been a leader in environmental protection. We have never taken for granted the clean air, clean water and natural beauty that make our state such a desirable place to live, to work, and to raise our families. That žs why, when I became Governor of California, I announced a bold agenda to continue and strengthen our commitment to meeting the many environmental challenges we face.

During the past 18 months, we created the 25 million-acre Sierra Nevada Conservancy, the largest conservancy in the nation; we opened the path to the Hydrogen Highway, which will encourage the building of hydrogen fuelling stations and the use of hydrogen-fuelled vehicles; we sponsored the first Ocean Protection Act in the nation to protect and restore our ocean resources; and we secured permanent funding to reduce emissions from dirty engines and equipment.

In addition, with our Green Building Initiative, we have put the biggest user of electricity in California - the state government itself - on an energy diet. By requiring new state buildings to use the latest environmentally friendly and energy efficient design and construction methods, we will reduce electricity and water use by more than 20 per cent in our state-owned facilities.

Now it is time for Californians to seriously address the issue of climate change and its potential to create havoc with our environment and economy. The debate is over. We know the science. We see the threat posed by changes in our climate. And we know the time for action is now.

I launched our effort when California hosted the United Nations World Environment Day Conference in San Francisco last month, where leaders from around the world gathered to discuss our shared responsibility for protecting the earth. It was there that I signed an executive order to establish clear and ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in our state: by the year 2010 our goal is to reduce our emissions to less than those we produced in 2000; by 2020 our goal is to make our emissions lower than 1990 levels; and by 2050 our goal is to reduce overall emissions to a full 80 per cent below those we produced in 1990.

Greenhouse gases are emitted from every sector of the economy, and these pollutants blanket the globe, trapping heat and creating the "greenhouse" effect, often referred to as global warming. Global warming threatens California's water supply, public health, agriculture, coastlines and forests - our entire economy and way of life. We have no choice but to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In order to achieve our goals, we are implementing California's landmark greenhouse gas law, which requires lower-emitting vehicles to be sold in our state, starting in 2009. We are accelerating the timetable to get more energy from renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geo-thermal and bio-mass conversion to 20 per cent by 2010 and 33 per cent by 2020. We have implemented the world's most stringent appliance and building efficiency standards. We are aggressively pursuing with the legislature my proposal to have one million solar-powered homes and buildings in California to save energy and reduce pollution. We are greening the state's fleet of government vehicles, to be the most fuel-efficient in the world.

These steps are great for the environment and great for our economy, too. Many people have falsely assumed that you have to choose between protecting the environment and protecting the economy. Nothing could be further from the truth. In California, we will do both.

That is why I am travelling around the state and my administration is holding a series of conservation summits for businesses around California, spreading the word that pollution reduction is good.

Pollution reduction has long been a money saver for businesses. It lowers operating costs, raises profits and creates new and expanded markets for environmental technology.

Many private businesses in California are cutting greenhouse gas emissions by simply improving efficiency. Others are also implementing cutting-edge hydrogen fuel technologies, installing advanced solar power systems and constructing environmentally friendly buildings.

And best of all, many California companies are participating in the public and private partnerships that are being formed with the state and some of our leading universities and research centres to find innovative means to create a cleaner and healthier environment.

All of these environmental technologies will allow us to conserve energy, cut pollution, protect our natural resources and create jobs for Californians. We must all accept the challenge to protect our environment. In California, I am pleased that we are once again providing leadership in this critical area. We understand that in this world in which we live, our actions sometimes have unintended consequences for our land, air and water. As John Muir, an immigrant from your islands who launched America's conservation movement here in California, once said: "When one tugs at a single thing in nature he finds it attached to the rest of the world." I ask citizens and governments everywhere to do their part by conserving energy, reducing the use of fossil fuels, reducing waste and taking every opportunity to work together for a cleaner, healthier tomorrow. It is not enough for us to be just caretakers of the world that we have been given, we must leave it a better place for future generations.

This is our duty to those who share this world with us and to those who follow us.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is Governor of California

I don't know how apparent it is to people in Britain, but California has long been a leader in environmental protection. We have never taken for granted the clean air, clean water and natural beauty that make our state such a desirable place to live, to work, and to raise our families. That žs why, when I became Governor of California, I announced a bold agenda to continue and strengthen our commitment to meeting the many environmental challenges we face.

During the past 18 months, we created the 25 million-acre Sierra Nevada Conservancy, the largest conservancy in the nation; we opened the path to the Hydrogen Highway, which will encourage the building of hydrogen fuelling stations and the use of hydrogen-fuelled vehicles; we sponsored the first Ocean Protection Act in the nation to protect and restore our ocean resources; and we secured permanent funding to reduce emissions from dirty engines and equipment.

In addition, with our Green Building Initiative, we have put the biggest user of electricity in California - the state government itself - on an energy diet. By requiring new state buildings to use the latest environmentally friendly and energy efficient design and construction methods, we will reduce electricity and water use by more than 20 per cent in our state-owned facilities.

Now it is time for Californians to seriously address the issue of climate change and its potential to create havoc with our environment and economy. The debate is over. We know the science. We see the threat posed by changes in our climate. And we know the time for action is now.

I launched our effort when California hosted the United Nations World Environment Day Conference in San Francisco last month, where leaders from around the world gathered to discuss our shared responsibility for protecting the earth. It was there that I signed an executive order to establish clear and ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in our state: by the year 2010 our goal is to reduce our emissions to less than those we produced in 2000; by 2020 our goal is to make our emissions lower than 1990 levels; and by 2050 our goal is to reduce overall emissions to a full 80 per cent below those we produced in 1990.

Greenhouse gases are emitted from every sector of the economy, and these pollutants blanket the globe, trapping heat and creating the "greenhouse" effect, often referred to as global warming. Global warming threatens California's water supply, public health, agriculture, coastlines and forests - our entire economy and way of life. We have no choice but to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In order to achieve our goals, we are implementing California's landmark greenhouse gas law, which requires lower-emitting vehicles to be sold in our state, starting in 2009. We are accelerating the timetable to get more energy from renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geo-thermal and bio-mass conversion to 20 per cent by 2010 and 33 per cent by 2020. We have implemented the world's most stringent appliance and building efficiency standards. We are aggressively pursuing with the legislature my proposal to have one million solar-powered homes and buildings in California to save energy and reduce pollution. We are greening the state's fleet of government vehicles, to be the most fuel-efficient in the world.
These steps are great for the environment and great for our economy, too. Many people have falsely assumed that you have to choose between protecting the environment and protecting the economy. Nothing could be further from the truth. In California, we will do both.

That is why I am travelling around the state and my administration is holding a series of conservation summits for businesses around California, spreading the word that pollution reduction is good.

Pollution reduction has long been a money saver for businesses. It lowers operating costs, raises profits and creates new and expanded markets for environmental technology.

Many private businesses in California are cutting greenhouse gas emissions by simply improving efficiency. Others are also implementing cutting-edge hydrogen fuel technologies, installing advanced solar power systems and constructing environmentally friendly buildings.

And best of all, many California companies are participating in the public and private partnerships that are being formed with the state and some of our leading universities and research centres to find innovative means to create a cleaner and healthier environment.

All of these environmental technologies will allow us to conserve energy, cut pollution, protect our natural resources and create jobs for Californians. We must all accept the challenge to protect our environment. In California, I am pleased that we are once again providing leadership in this critical area. We understand that in this world in which we live, our actions sometimes have unintended consequences for our land, air and water. As John Muir, an immigrant from your islands who launched America's conservation movement here in California, once said: "When one tugs at a single thing in nature he finds it attached to the rest of the world." I ask citizens and governments everywhere to do their part by conserving energy, reducing the use of fossil fuels, reducing waste and taking every opportunity to work together for a cleaner, healthier tomorrow. It is not enough for us to be just caretakers of the world that we have been given, we must leave it a better place for future generations.

This is our duty to those who share this world with us and to those who follow us.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is Governor of California

[Wayne Hall]

Adding fuel to the fire

Car ownership in developing countries will overtake the west, but oil demand threatens global stability. By John Vidal

Thursday June 30, 2005
The Guardian


In 1989, when the environment was briefly top of the UK national agenda, a group of Chinese planners came to London. Many of the people who met them wanted to know how the country had managed to get so many citizens to ride bicycles - something the British authorities were unable to do. The Chinese were perplexed. "You don't understand", said one. "In 20 years time, no more bicycles. All cars."

That prediction is being realised. Beijing's roads, once kerb-to-kerb with bikes, are now choked with cars. In terms of traffic, noise and air pollution, Shanghai could be Lagos or Cairo.

City after Chinese city is widening its roads, building flyovers and underpasses to cater for the increasing number of cars. The fastest automobile explosion the world has ever known is underway across the world's most populous country. The bike, just a generation ago the transport of choice, is literally being driven off the street.

Last year, the Chinese reportedly bought four million new cars. Auto numbers there, says the World Bank, are now doubling roughly every four years.

Commentators suggest that the country's 1.3bn people will have more cars than the US within 25 years. Even now, the world's leading carmakers are spending billions on setting up plants, vehicle prices are dropping precipitously, and the car has become the object of the new consumer's dreams.

Driving demand

It is a similar story throughout the developing world. For the first time, more than one million new cars were sold in India last year, and the automobile industry there is growing at a rate of about 20% a year. The car fleets of Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, and Nigeria are growing at similar rates.

But compared to the West, these numbers are as nothing. Private car ownership in the US is about 745 vehicles per 1,000 people, with slightly lower rates in Europe. There may be one car for every 2.4 British people, but only eight Indians and Chinese in 1,000 so far have a car.

Transport, says the Energy Saving Trust, accounts for 26% of all Britain's greenhouse gas emissions and is the fastest growing source of global emissions. While the US is by far the greatest source, figures released this month by the European Environment Agency figures show emissions are still rising in Europe, making it unlikely that EU countries, as a bloc, will meet their Kyoto target.

Transport in developing countries, however, could exceed those in the industrialised world within five years.

Three years ago, US energy secretary Spencer Abraham suggested that there would be 3.5bn motor vehicles by 2050 - almost four times as many as there are today.

Unless there is a dramatic switch away from inefficient petrol and gas-driven cars towards biofuels, hydrogen, solar and clean electric power, this growth will be an impossibility. At the simplest level, there will not be enough oil. At the moment, oil supplies and refinery capacity can only just meet world demand from 795m vehicles.

Andrew McKillop, author of The World's Final Energy Crisis, calculates that China, India and other developing countries will never be able to achieve the vehicle "saturation" ownership levels of the US.

"There is simply no prospect of China, India, Malaysia, Brazil, Turkey, Iran, Ukraine, Mexico and other emerging car producers being able to achieve US, west European, Australian or Japanese rates of car production and ownership," he says.

"At current consumption rates, the estimate of 3.5bn motor vehicles would increase world oil consumption by about 70%."

Clear the air on tyres that are about 40% oil by weight, often on tarmac (oil-based) roads. The real volume of oil needed to equip the world with cars is much higher than expected.

In fact, the petrol used to fuel a car is the very end of a massive industrial process that requires oil at every point. Each car requires up to the equivalent of 55 barrels of oil, and runs on tyres that are about 40% oil by weight, often on tarmac (oil-based) roads. The real volume of oil needed to equip the world with cars is much higher than expected.

"Not only is an explosion of the world car fleet a serious threat to the global environment," McKillop says, "but through its impact on oil demand, it will become a threat to international stability."

The west's road transport emissions may be growing by just 1% or 2% each year, but aviation - spurred by cheap flights and a thrusting industry backed by national governments - is expected to grow enormously in the next 20 years.

The world's aircraft have increased their greenhouse gas emissions by 50% in the past decade, and these are growing by 4% a year. The British government expects people to travel three times as much within the next 25 years.

Aircraft already contribute 3.5% of the world's greenhouse gases, but if unchecked, this will reach 5% within 25 years. Should this happen, says the EU, all the carbon savings made via the Kyoto treaty will be cancelled out. And at the moment, the aviation industry has no economic or physical limits.

This leaves the developing countries in a fix. If just 10% of the present population of China and India - about 200 million people - adopted a western lifestyle, and took the equivalent of a return flight from London to New York once a year, about 850m extra tonnes of greenhouse gases would be emitted. This is roughly what Britain emits in about five years. The effect on the climate would be immense.

But the demand for personal mobility is now so great, and the need to control emissions so urgent, that a simple, easy-to-understand technology that can get people from A to B cleanly and efficiently is desperately needed.

A case, perhaps, for the wheel coming full circle, and people taking to bicycles once again.

[Wayne Hall]

CLIMATE CHANGE AND GEOENGINEERING

One element that is missing from ecological and social movement discussion about climate change is the ‘geoengineering’ dimension. This is one of the words used for techniques being proposed more and more frequently by scientists and commercial journalists as a ‘politically realistic’ remedy for climate change.

An article recently published in the magazine Popular Science provides a characteristic example of these kinds of proposals:

Describing a meeting in the White House in September 2001 organized by the US President’s Climate Change Technology Program to discuss ‘Response Options to Rapid or Severe Climate Change’, the article frankly admits that ‘while administration officials were insisting publicly that there was no firm proof that the planet was warming, they were quietly exploring potential ways to turn down the heat.’

In March 2001 President Bush had withdrawn US support from the Kyoto Protocol. This meeting therefore represented something like a US counterproposal to Kyoto, an ‘alternative approach to climate change’.

Edward Teller, in his 'Sunscreen for Planet Earth' made a similar alternative proposal.

The physicist and economist David Keith, who was present at the White House meeting, is quoted in the article as saying ‘if they had broadcast that meeting live to people in Europe, there would have been riots.’

Anyone can see what the ‘geoengineering’ proposals were simply by reading the relevant article in Popular Science.

For those for whom that is difficult, the proposals included: 1) underground storage of carbon dioxide, 2) wind scrubbers to filter carbon dioxide from the air, 3) ‘fertilization’ of oceans with iron to encourage growth of plankton, 4) petrification of carbon dioxide, 5) deflection of sunlight from the earth through the use of a giant space mirror ‘spanning 600,000 square miles’.

One point worth mentioning at least in passing is that, apart from the question of how effective these measures would really be, all these highly oil-dependent ‘solutions’ to problems largely caused in the first place by burning fossil fuels, are being prepared for a world that is beginning to run out of oil. (!)

In the case of at least one geoengineering measure, by no means the most ‘outlandish’, namely: ‘Enhancing Clouds to Reflect Sunlight’, a mass of eyewitness evidence for all over the world suggests that, despite official denials, a programme serving some such purpose is not merely a proposal but a reality and has been under implementation on an immensely large scale for at least a decade.

How significant are official denials? Note that the Popular Science article itself admits that the US administration’s words about ‘proof that the planet is warming’ do not match its deeds. If untruthful official denial of global warming is possible, why should untruthful official denial of actually ongoing measures, supposedly to combat global warming, not similarly be possible?

The international ecological and social movements should take the following position:

1) If geoengineering projects of the kind proposed by the US President’s Climate Change Technology Program are actually being implemented and are harmful to the environment and human health, they should be stopped.

2) If a significant section of international scientific opinion (for example the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) believes that such measures against climate change are necessary, the measures must be legalized. Only in this way are citizens who regard the measures as harmful to the environment and human health enabled publicly and legally to oppose them.

If such geoengineering programmes are actually being implemented and governments and scientists all deny that fact, the only beneficiaries from this are the ‘conservative’ climate-change-sceptic party-political lobbies supporting President Bush who seek to deny virtually all environmental problems and in this way politically marginalize ecologically-active citizens.

[Wayne Hall]

Here is a new version of the text drafted in response to on-line and off-line criticism:

CLIMATE CHANGE AND GEOENGINEERING


‘Geoengineering’ must be included in public discussions of climate change.

Geoengineering is defined as ‘intentional large scale manipulation of the global environment’, e.g. by altering climate with the primary intention of reducing undesired climate change caused by human influences. ‘Geoengineering schemes seek to mitigate the effect of fossil-fuel combustion on the climate without abating fossil fuel use; for example by placing shields in space to reduce the sunlight incident on the Earth.’ (Keith D.W. 1999. Geoengineering, Encyclopedia of Global Change, New York).

In relation to ‘geoengineering’, the ‘Climate Change 2001’ report of the ICPP
www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg3/176.htm
confirms that it ‘includes the possibility of engineering the earth’s climate system by large-scale manipulation of the global energy balance. It has been estimated, for example, that the mean effect on the earth surface energy balance from a doubling of CO2 could be offset by an increase of 1.5% to 2% in the earth’s albedo, i.e. by reflecting additional incoming solar radiation back into space…. Teller et al. (1997) found that ~107 t of dielectric aerosols of ~100 nm diameter would be sufficient to increase the albedo of the earth by ~1%. They showed that the required mass of a system based on alumina particles would be similar to that of a system based on sulphuric acid aerosol.’

If, as very many indications suggest, such programmes and such ideas are already under implementation on a very large scale and outside the framework of international law, then they must either be stopped or legalized.

There is no point in ecological organizations disagreeing with them ‘behind closed doors’ and in public confining themselves to objections at the ‘philosophical’ level.

If the political parties, parliaments and mainstream mass media are not willing to bear the political cost of honesty in relation to ‘geoengineering’ then the Social Forums must exercise the necessary political leadership.

If geoengineering is already under way and governments and scientists deny this, the only political beneficiaries are the ‘neoliberal’ or ‘neo-conservative’ lobbies supporting President Bush, who attempt to deny virtually all ecological problems.

Distinguishing between non-military climate mitigation and the techniques of ‘climate as a weapon’ also becomes virtually impossible in situations of secrecy and non-transparency.