Climate Change Conference in Canada

I have recently been spending some time in Canada, in both the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia and the prairies of Alberta. It is hard to travel to foreign countries without thinking about how climate change may effect them over the coming decades.

It is easy to forget that the effects of Actual Global Warming are not just warmer average temperatures. The real threat is extreme weather situations becoming more frequent, more powerful and more likely to cause more damage.

Speaking at the MD of Bighorn’s Living in the Natural Environment speakers series earlier this month, Dave Sauchyn with the Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative discussed the likely effects that climate change may bring to Alberta. In the prairies, the extreme weather situations could include floods and droughts, tornadoes and lighting storms and in the Rockies, flash floods and mudslides are also a potential danger.

“The big issue is not the averages, but how the extremes will change. The problem is not warming, it is the climate extremes. The big question is not how much warmer will it be in winter, but when are we going to get the next 25-year drought, because it is coming.”

Sauchyn knows the climate is changing, but also knows that is always has been. Some warming is natural. Over the past 150 years, that natural trend can be seen in the temperature records data. However, in the last 30 years, there is difference between the warming that would be expected to occur naturally and the temperatures observed.

“If you look at the entire period going back to 1975, there is a very clear and quite dramatic increase in global temperature. Climate change is a trend, it is a tendency, it is not what is happening today, this winter or the last couple of years. It is what has been happening the last 150 years and what we expect to occur over the next century.”

The discrepancy occurring over the past 30 years has been put through various models and the only explanation for it is the increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Whether the nations of the world actually acknowledge and/or take action on greenhouse gas levels or not, societies the world over are going to have to adapt to a changing climate and the extreme events that will accompany it.

“If you think we have had warming already, wait until you see the warming we expect over the next century, depending of course on the amount of greenhouse gases we expect people to produce. It would not be possible for us to be here today if we did not adapt, but we have to adapt even more to sustain our economy and communities with a changed climate.”

UKIP depresses, dress impresses

It has been announced that previously single issue anti-EU party UKIP, the United Kingdom Independence Party is developing its environmental policy. At the heart of their new policy is hard-line climate change denial. The headline policy is the proposal to BAN Al Gore’s climate change film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ in British schools. Also, and really this is absolutely true, they have made a pledge to build new coal-fired power stations and axe funding for wind farms. The Telegraph writes that they are seeking to capitalise on what it calls “widespread” scepticism.  Only one in five people in a survey of 1000 said that they believed in mane-made climate change.

Climate change is a matter of science, not belief. I can believe that pi is exactly 3 that doesn’t make it so. No, science is about what you can measure, and no the fashion world has had a blow struck for empirical fact. Danish design company Diffus has designed a very special dress. Unlike other dresses this one contains tiny electronic circuits that detect CO2. All it needs to go with it is some high tech lingerie that can detect right wing nonsense.

dress detects warming gas

Obama Calls For Nuclear Power

US president Barack Obama has announced federal funding to create create 2 new Nuclear Power Stations in America. The Decision is a landmark for Nuclear Power in the USA as it has been over 30 years since the last nuclear power stations were built.

The US has avoided Nuclear power since the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, an accident that was caused by the partial core meltdown of one of the reactors at the site in Pennsylvania, which resulted in a release of radioactive gases into the atmosphere. The move ticks many of the boxes of Obama’s agenda, helping to reduce emissions and prevent climate change whilst ensuring a more secure energy future, as well as creating jobs.

According to BBC News just one nuclear plant will cut carbon pollution by 16 million tons each year when compared with a similar coal plant. It won’t persuade all the environmentalists, but it is an argument that does weigh heavily with some of them. Nuclear Power stations have much less emissions that conventional coal power stations, but can still lead to environmental damage when disposing of nuclear waste.

“To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we’ll need to increase our supply of nuclear power. It’s that simple.” President Obama

There are currently 104 operating nuclear reactors across 31 states in the US, which provide about a fifth of the country’s electricity. Meanwhile, there are currently 56 new nuclear reactors being built around the world.

London Marathon Celebrity Fundraisers

The 2010 London Marathon is attracting its fair share of celebrity runners this year. Sir Richard Branson is racing his two children – they have got youth on their side, but will be part of a 32 person caterpillar whilst he will be running unencumbered with Jenni Falconer, Natalie Imbruglia, Michelle Heaton, Ricky Whittle and Tegla Loroupe (Kenyan marathon champion). The group will be raising money for Virgin Unite – a non-profit foundation of the Virgin Group which supports vulnerable young people in Britain.

The Red Arrows will also be taking part – without their planes, and hope to raise around $40,000 for the RAF Association’s Wings appeal ‘Miles More Minute’.  Its not clear whether or not they will be running in formation and any smoke might annoy the other runners.

I can’t find a definitive list of all the celebrity runners in the marathon this year, apparently it will be available from 05 April, previous runners have included Gordon Ramsay, Steve Redgrave and Patricia Potter.

The London marathon raises the largest amount for charity of any one day event in the world, this year marks the event’s 30th anniversary and the cumulative total raised is expected to top £500 million.

Australia Grumbles From Down Under

Are Australians Too Proud?

Australians have the biggest ecological footprint out of any people on the planet, cause the extinction of more mammals than any other country.

Recently overheard a loud whining response from an Australian when asked why they celebrate Australia Day – (note it’s interesting that there is no reference to the landing of the British near Sydney)

We have pride in our nation, we have pride in our sporting teams, we have significantly better hospitals, government, court system, safety net, pension system, banking system than the UK. We never went into recession our unemployment only rose to 5.6%. political correctness does not rule here, plus we have the best two major citys in the universe Sydney and Melbourne. And surrounded by the warm blue pacific ocean as we are sinking to nothing our tiny carbon footprint we are the lucky country, none better. We pity you Brits having to shell out loads of money for flights to Australia just to grab a few weeks of paradise.

Don’t listen to the Aussies talking themselves up – it’s what they do best. In reality their country is likely to be seeing environmental refugees fleeing the place before long: for ’sun-drenched’ read dangerously high UV readings with the highest skin cancer rate in the world’. 80% of the country is inhospitable and its economic strength is built on digging huge wounds out of the earth and selling the rocks to the Chinese.

G’day

Economic Growth Vs Climate Change

One of the main arguments in politics about climate change is the potential cost of acting to prevent it. Changing the way we get our power, the way we travel and the way we build and manufacture things is far from cheap. Thanks to some of the richest people in the world trying to get richer at our expense, our economies are not exactly rolling in money right now.

For politicians, the appeal of spending billions on acting on climate change is not great at a time when most of their economies are still shrinking. This is perhaps the key subtext as to why the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference was a complete failure. Now the New Economics Foundation (Nef) has released a new report claiming that global economic growth “is not possible” if nations are to tackle climate change. The report also claims that only “unprecedented and probably impossible” carbon reductions would be needed to hold temperature rises below 2C.

“We urgently need to change our economy to live within its environmental budget. There is no global, environmental central bank to bail us out if we become ecologically bankrupt.”

As bleak as it sounds, it does not mean we are all doomed. It simply means that if we carry on as the way things are, we are doomed. This is a fact. Western economies are built on a lie, that you can consume the worlds recourse as much as you like for as long as you like. The blueprints of our economies are unsustainable: fact. Continuing to ignore this fact will be the end of us, but seems to be the number one priority for politicians and business leaders. Our economies simply cannot keep growing forever. We are trapped in a cycle of boom and bust and sooner or later the busts will become too big to fix.

The report concluded that for a economic growth rate of just 3%, the carbon emissions of the global economy would need to fall by 95% by 2050 from 2002 levels. This would require an average annual reduction of 6.5%. “Magic bullets – such as carbon capture and storage, nuclear or even geo-engineering – are potentially dangerous distractions from more human-scale solutions”

The only way to prevent dangerous climate change is to fix our broken economic system. We could have economic growth whilst preventing climate change, but with the current system we can have only neither. It may well be in most individuals personal interests to continue to ignore these facts but it is in humanities best interest that we go back to the drawing board and design a system that works for everybody and our planet.