Author: Bryan Walker

Big wind could wean China off coal

At least some Americans and Chinese are getting together to work on climate change. A team of researchers from Harvard University and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have been conducting a serious investigation into China’s wind power potential. Their work was the cover story for the Sep 11 issue of Science (sub required) and is reported in  the Harvard Gazette.  MIT’s Technology Review also carries a useful report.  

 “The world is struggling with the question of how do you make the switch from carbon-rich fuels to something carbon-free,” said lead author Michael McElroy, Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies. “The real question for the globe is: What alternatives does China have?”

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Stern words in Beijing

Nicholas Stern has been in the news again lately.  He spoke to students at the People’s University in Beijing on Friday with characteristic directness. He pointed out that although China is still a long way behind countries like the US and Australia in per capita emissions there are places in China where the picture is different. Thirteen Chinese provinces, regions and cities have higher per capita emissions than France. Six also overtake Britain.

“There are many parts of China where emissions intensity and emissions per capita are looking much like some of the richer countries in Europe.”

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Goff balks at the task

It doesn’t look as if we can expect transformational leadership from Labour leader Phil Goff so far as climate change is concerned.  Readers of my review of  David Orr’s Down to the Wire, may recall that Orr stated that one of the challenges of such leadership in the time ahead is to help us understand the connections between our energy choices and ecological consequences. Goff appears to be backing off from that before he starts.  In this morning’s Herald he nominates two initiatives of the previous government on energy use as “mistakes”.  One was the phasing out of incandescent light bulbs, the other encouraging builders to restrict hot water flow through showers.

“We’d stopped listening to what people’s priorities were and seemed to be working on issues they thought were sideshows.”

Ecological consequences?  That’s a bit much for politicians to be expected to handle.  Electoral consequences, now that’s something we know about.  New Zealanders don’t like those funny eco-bulbs.  Therefore we were silly to try to make them standard.

It wasn’t silly at all.  It was important and would have made a significant difference to our level of electricity use. It provides a large immediate gain in energy efficiency. Many other countries have seen this and are phasing out incandescent bulbs, including the EU, Australia, Canada, Argentina and parts of the US.  Gerry Brownlee’s action in reversing the decision was ignorant and irresponsible.  Goff should be saying so.

Another function of Orr’s transformational leadership is that it prepares the public to understand the scope, scale and duration of climate destabilisation. Goff doesn’t seem to want a bar of this:

“…people thought Labour should have been more focused on what really counted for them, such as the struggle to make ends meet.”

I was a little shocked by the degree of caving-in Goff’s remarks seem to indicate.  He could have said the public mightn’t have liked what we were proposing, but they were small but important steps in combating climate change, there would have been a lot more to come because this is an issue of enormous consequence for the human future,  and we’re going to keep making that absolutely clear in opposition.  Evidently they’re not.  Sad for us all if that proves to be the case.

More than a metre

Sea level will rise by more than a metre by 2100 according to the authors of the third chapter in the World Wide Fund for Nature’s new Arctic report, introduced by Gareth a few days ago. Eric Rignot, one of the two authors of the chapter, is principal scientist for the Radar Science and Engineering Section at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.  The other author, Anny Cazenave, is an internationally renowned research scientist from France’s national centre for space studies.

The value of the chapter is that it draws together, authoritatively and coherently, the evidence that points to considerably more sea-level rise over this century than projected in the 2007 IPCC Fourth Report (AR4). Happily politicians are taking IPCC reports much more seriously than in the past, but they should not rest on them.  Their responsibility is to be up to date with what the science is saying now. The WWF report assesses the most recent science, and finds that the impacts of warming will be more severe than indicated by the IPCC.

What follows is a summary of the main points made by the chapter.

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Down to the Wire

Down to the Wire Confronting Climate Collapse

“My subject is hope of the millennial kind.” So writes David Orr in his new book Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse. The challenges ahead are more difficult than the public is led to believe and than most leadership apparently understands.  There is a long emergency for us to get through -– E.O.Wilson’s “bottleneck” –- and the hope that he discerns is at a farther horizon.

Which doesn’t mean that action can be delayed. Orr, professor of environmental studies and politics at Oberlin College, is himself a strong proponent of action. He was part of the team who over a period of two years prepared recommendations for climate change action in the first 100 days of President Obama’s administration in a plan describing over 300 actions the president could take and including a legal analysis of the executive authority at his disposal. He describes this book as a companion of sorts to that project.

However, much in the book focuses on the longer haul and includes the wider environmental degradation of which climate change is the most important part.  One striking chapter describes his shocked viewing of the devastation wrought by coal-mining in the Appalachian mountains. It’s a sickening picture: “…mountaintop removal is destroying one of the most diverse and beautiful ecosystems in the world, rendering it uninhabitable forever.” It’s not surprising that this chapter includes a plug for what Spanish philosopher Unamuno called “the tragic sense of life”, a sober philosophy which among other things is free from the delusion that humans should be about “the effecting of all things possible” or that science should “put nature on the rack and torture secrets out of her”.

Sustainability will need to be built on something deeper than the application of more technology and smarter economics.  They may only compound our tribulations. He considers that the effort to secure a decent human future will need awareness of the connections that bind us to each other, to all life, and to all life to come. What is given must be passed on.  Every culture that approaches sustainability grasps the truth that nothing can be held or possessed. Substantial sections of the book explore such ideas thoughtfully and in highly readable prose. Philosophy, ethics, and to some extent religion underlie the diagnoses and prescriptions proposed.

What constitutes the long emergency? Orr’s book focuses on the U.S. but has high relevance for the rest of us. He names five converging challenges.  First, climate change driven by the combustion of fossil fuels and land management changes. Second, nasty surprises caused by the breakdown of ecosystems and the ecological services they provide. Third, peak oil and the failure to move to energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. Fourth, exorbitant military expenditure which buys little safety or security. Fifth, the necessity to reform an economy built on excess, debt, and dishonest bookkeeping. He notes that to these can be added continued population growth, emerging diseases amplified by warming temperatures, and the arcane complexities of global economic and financial interdependence.

The implications for the U.S. are becoming clear.  The top priority is to reduce U.S. CO2 emissions by 90% by 2050 and lead the global effort to hold the temperature rise to no more than 2 degrees. Energy efficiency measures and a strong move to renewable sources are the pathway to this.  A second implication is that governments must learn to handle an economy in which quantitative growth will slow and eventually stop. Orr frequently refers to the work of ecological economists such as Herman Daly.  A limited growth economy will require more attention to the challenge of distributing wealth fairly. He points to two further implications which may  startle American readers: preparing measures to relocate internally displaced people as the effects of warming and sea level rise begin to bite; and preparing, even in the US “to deal with the ancient scourge of famine.” All these measures point to the need for a coalition to change US politics, economy, and manner of living to fit bio-physical realities.

It is not surprising that Orr advocates transformational leadership. That is, leadership which will prepare the public to understand the scale and duration of climate destabilisation and to grasp that it is a challenge to the US system of politics and governance; leadership which will help people understand the connections between energy choices and ecological consequences; leadership which will be honest in the vision of the future and lay the foundation for authentic hope.  His indictment of the leadership of the Bush-Cheney administration, which did none of those things, is succinct, comprehensive and damning.

Orr doesn’t buy the idea that the public can handle only happy news. The public should be treated as intelligent adults who are capable of understanding the truth and acting creatively and courageously in the face of necessity. Wise transformational leadership will summon the people with all of their flaws to a level of extraordinary achievement appropriate to an extraordinarily dangerous time. Lincoln, Roosevelt and Churchill figure in his discussions.

The grounds for hope are not strong right now but he’s prepared to discern them a century or more ahead. The immediate steps are clear: preserve soil and forests, save species, use less, deploy solar technologies; on the political side, “throw the rascals out”, demand accountability, elect leaders with courage and intelligence to lead in the right direction. Might we still avert catastrophe?  In a sea of wishful thinking, evasion and half measures it’s not easy to be confident. In an extended passage he discusses what in us might enhance our long-term prospects. After looking at our limitations, at the risk of sounding naïve he lists examples of not uncommon traits of character, like sociability and kindness, which will serve us, as also will our affinity for life – what E.O. Wilson calls “biophilia”.  If public awareness of the crisis really is dawning, as he hopes, much will depend on how we make four fundamental changes:  the improvement of societal resilience by reshaping the way we provision ourselves with food, energy, water, and economic support; a shift in education methods so that learning is relative to the biosphere and ecological awareness; the recalibration of governance to the way the world works as a physical system; finally, and perhaps oddly to some readers, a revolution in kindness and generosity of spirit that allows us to gracefully forgive and be forgiven. It is worth noting here that Orr is very committed to the Gandhian principle of non-violence.

Although Orr has many excursions into reflections on what makes us human and how we fit into the web of life there is no mistaking the urgency of his practical advocacy.  He knows the times are critical. Throughout the book he displays full and detailed awareness of the danger in which we already stand.  But climate change, he says, is not so much a problem to be fixed but rather a steadily worsening condition with which we must contend for a long time to come.  Improved technology may buy us time, but what we most need is a more durable and decent civilisation.