Bad news about coal ..... and future climate policy.

Coal fired power plants, like the Scherer plant in Georgia shown above, are notable for several reasons. First, they currently provide roughly 50% of US electricity. Second, coal is a comparatively plentiful fossil fuel and, despite projected cost increases, remains comparatively cheap. Third, power plants are massive sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide: according to data from CARMA, the 8,000 power plants in the US are responsible for roughly one-sixteenth of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. But not all power plants are created equal. Nuclear plants have minimal emissions while the twelve largest carbon emitters (of which Scherer is the largest) are all coal fired plants (emitting between 17 and 25 million tons of C02 annually).

New power plants cost billions to construct and operate for decades. Thus, in a rational world, carbon emissions would be a significant consideration when constructing new plants. And, since it is widely recognized that large scale deployment of 'clean coal' technology is 15-20 years away, one would think that power companies would be shying away from the construction of new coal fired plants. But, as a recent review of documents by AP has shown, this isn't the case.

An Associated Press examination of U.S. Department of Energy records and information provided by utilities and trade groups shows that more than 30 traditional coal plants have been built since 2008 or are under construction.

The expansion, the industry's largest in two decades, represents an acknowledgment that highly touted "clean coal" technology is still a long ways from becoming a reality and underscores a renewed confidence among utilities that proposals to regulate carbon emissions will fail. The Senate last month scrapped the leading bill to curb carbon emissions following opposition from Republicans and coal-state Democrats.

"Building a coal-fired power plant today is betting that we are not going to put a serious financial cost on emitting carbon dioxide," said Severin Borenstein, director of the Energy Institute at the University of California-Berkeley. "That may be true, but unless most of the scientists are way off the mark, that's pretty bad public policy."

Federal officials have long struggled to balance coal's hidden costs against its more conspicuous role in providing half the nation's electricity.

Hoping for a technological solution, the Obama administration devoted $3.4 billion in stimulus spending to foster "clean-coal" plants that can capture and store greenhouse gases. Yet new investments in traditional coal plants total at least 10 times that amount — more than $35 billion.

Approval of the plants has come from state and federal agencies that do not factor in emissions of carbon dioxide, considered the leading culprit behind global warming. Scientists and environmentalists have tried to stop the coal rush with some success, turning back dozens of plants through lawsuits and other legal challenges.

As a result, current construction is far more modest than projected a few years ago when 151 new plants were forecast by federal regulators. But analysts say the projects that prevailed are more than enough to ensure coal's continued dominance in the power industry for years to come.

Sixteen large plants have fired up since 2008 and 16 more are under construction, according to records examined by the AP.

Combined, they will produce an estimated 17,900 megawatts of electricity, sufficient to power up to 15.6 million homes — roughly the number of homes in California and Arizona combined.

They also will generate about 125 million tons of greenhouse gases annually, according to emissions figures from utilities and the Center for Global Development. That's the equivalent of putting 22 million additional automobiles on the road.

The new plants do not capture carbon dioxide. That's despite the stimulus spending and an additional $687 million spent by the Department of Energy on clean coal programs.

While the news itself is troubling, it is what this news implies about the future of US climate change policy that is truly disturbing. As anyone who has followed the comments of talking heads about the current unemployment situation knows, uncertainty kills investment. This isn't simply a talking point, there is empirical economic research documenting the connection. Thus, the paradox: In the wake of the collapse at Copenhagen, conventional wisdom renders the future of climate negotiations uncertain, a business environment that, typically would lead firms to delay major infrastructure investment.

But this is not what the power companies have done. Instead, they have massively increased their commitment to coal. There seems, to me, to be only two possible explanations. 1) These guys are collectively stupid and betting billions on an uncertain regulatory future or 2)they know they have enough politicians under their control that there is no serious likelihood of future regulatory change that would undermine their investment in coal. My bet is on the second.

Update:

No sooner had I finished this post, than I came across an article by George Monbiot. He discusses lots of interesting political developments that are worth knowing about and I've linked to the referenced version of the piece. Here is the concluding paragraph, which largely echos my conclusion:

Yes, man-made climate change denial is about politics, but it’s more pragmatic than ideological. The politics have been shaped around the demands of industrial lobby groups, which happen, in many cases, to fund those who articulate them. Right-wingers are making monkeys of themselves over climate change not just because their beliefs take precedence over the evidence, but also because their interests take precedence over their beliefs.

Pakistan, Russia and Sasakatchewan

The news just keeps rolling in: 2010 is turning out to be one of the most horrific years for cataclysmic events related to climate change in this decade, surpassing Hurricane Katrina and the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. There are too many disasters to cover coherently, so I want to focus on just three: Pakistan, Russia, and Saskatchewan.

First Pakistan. What started out looking like a typical monsoon flood of the Indus River has rolled into an unparalleled flood disaster. Twenty million people have been affected by the flood in Paskistan, almost one fifth of the land mass is under water. The UN reports that 4 million are homeless. Floods have ruined an estimated 1.6 million acres of agricultural land. Sixteen hundred people have been killed as a direct result of the flood, while small outbreaks of cholera threaten the region.

UPDATE: DN reports that one million Pakistanis face starvation in Balochistan, southwest Pakistan.

Jane Cocking: "What we have is a single long event, which has the scale of the tsunami, the destruction of Haiti and the complexity of the Middle East. And in twenty years in responding to humanitarian crises, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like this."

Russia.

Everyone thought there would be climate "winners and losers" due to climate change, even the climate scientists thought so. Northern countries that border the Arctic, such as Russia, Canada and Norway, were thought to be safe from the worst effects of climate change, and might possibly benefit from longer growing seasons and warmer weather.

Right. The conflagration of the peat bogs in Russia, along with record-breaking heat waves that have destroyed one-third of Russia's arable land, have stubbed out that notion like a discarded cigarette butt.

"Analysts said Russia's grain output could fall from 100m tons in 2009 to 65m tons this year. Farmers have already begun to slaughter livestock early because they expect to run out of feed."

Saskatchewan.

Floods in June caused 300 million in damage to Saskatchewan's infrastructure and affected one-fifth of the Province's population. The floods, caused by rainfall that was 70% higher than normally expected in June, rendered 5 million hectares, or 20% of its agricultural lands, unseedable.

"It just rained and rained and rained and wouldn't let up," said Redman. "I've been farming for 23 years and my dad's been farming 20 years longer than that and neither one of us has seen it this bad."

So my point in bringing these three stories together is this:

1) Climate change is happening now;

2) it is terrifying and cataclysmic beyond anything we had ever imagined.

This is not turning colder climates like Canada into fruit-producing Bermudas. This is turning millions of acres of arable land into wasteland and leading to the death, displacement and starvation of millions of people.

3) I don't want to hear anymore about "all we have to do is change our business model to a green-tech non-profit cooperatives and that will solve all our problems."

4) We have to stop working, producing and consuming so much stuff altogether and focus on a localized subsistence way of life, and thereby shrink our entire system of economic production and consumption by at least 60%. We saw that during the economic collapse of 2008, emissions in the West were reduced to well below 1990 levels, far lower than the agreed upon target reductions.

5). We have to get our global carbon emissions down to 350 or below.

The cheap flight search engine Fly.co.uk recently put up the following set of statistics about CO2 emissions.

There are a number of interesting comparisons here, though I'd feel more confident about their reliability if I knew their sources and how the calculations were made.

The Upside of Down: Economic Crisis Curbs CO2

C02 emissions from rich western countries went down by a record seven percent in 2009 due to the global recession, except of course in the US. Steep declines in western emissions were offset by sharp increases from India and China. Overall, CO2 emissions remained unchanged in 2009. It will be interesting to see what China has to say about emissions as it hosts an extra session on Climate Change at the next G20 meeting in Seoul, S. Korea. From the Guardian UK, July 1, 2010.

UPDATE: According to a report at The Oil Drum, China is set to consume half of the world's coal for its power plants in 2010. China is also the world's top producer of coal, so they are consuming what they produce. However, if they intend to be a leader in the global campaign for climate change in Seoul, they will have a lot of explaining to do.

"The figures will come as a relief to the world's rich countries which – the US aside – are legally committed to reducing emissions by a collective 5.2% on 1990 figures by 2012. As it stands, says the Dutch agency, they are now 10% below 1990 levels, well below the Kyoto target level."

Will the Real #1 Driver of Climate Change Please Stand Up?

As I study energy and climate, statistics fly at me from every direction and it gets really hard to sort things out. Everything, it seems, is "the largest single producer of carbon emissions" and there is no way to sort out which really is the largest.

NASA recently conducted a study of all the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions and their net effects on climate change.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/51744

Clearly, electric power production is the largest single source of C02, but it is offset by aerosol-cloud effects and sulfates that actually cause global cooling, thus the net global warming effect of electricity production is about the same as the Industry sector.

Likewise, the road transportation sector produces less C02 than the Industry and power sectors, but road transportation does not have the aerosol offsets that would reduce it's impact on global warming. Thus, while the road transportation sector produces less C02, it actually contributes more to global warming than Industry and Power—today.

However, if you look at the title of the article, it says "Road Transportation Emerges as Key Driver of Warming." While is this is true in a qualified sense (it is "a" key driver), that statement doesn't make as much sense when you look at the first graph. Electric power production produces the most C02, and in fact, the NASA data shows that in the future, assuming BAU, electric power production will continue to be the largest driver of global warming, with road transportation second. As we build cleaner power plants that produce fewer aerosols, the warming effect of power production will increase dramatically. Road Transportation as "the" key driver only appears when you look at the second graph, which is an estimate of emissions for 2020.

What the article doesn't consider is the behavioral effects of car use. Driving increases casual consumption exponentially. The reason why we shop more, eat out at restaurants more, live, work and play at greater distances, is because of the power and convenience of the automobile to get us to every destination cheaply and efficiently. Cars exponentially increase the speed and amount that we are able to consume. This increased consumption creates a demand for more products and services, which in turn creates a demand for more electric energy production and more industrial production, which also leads to an increase in road transportation. So in that sense, road transportation is indeed a KEY driver in global warming. Ecologists call this effect a "positive feedback loop."

Major Conservation Groups Accept Big Money from Big Polluters

Democracy Now featured Johann Hari who wrote an article in The Nation about the practice of major conservation groups accepting large donations from the largest polluters in the world. In turn, these conservation groups, including Conservation International, the Sierra Club, and the National Wildlife Federation, back the polluters' position on climate change and actually enhance their ability to increase emissions. The conservation groups set up PR outfits that portray their polluting donors as "green". But there are large environmental justice groups that don't accept corporate donations, including Greenpeace.

Interestingly, Hari argues that the grassroots environmental movement in Britain has refused to play this political game and has used direct action to stop the building or expansion of new coal-fired power plants and airports. Climate Camp UK is one such group that has successfully used direct action to stop new coal-fired power plants.

An Up-Side to Corporate Concentration?

Generally speaking, I'm not a big fan of mega-corporations. My fast food consumption is close to nil. I buy something at WalMart once or twice a year. The one significant exception is Amazon. I collect relatively obscure art photography books. There is no place in town to satisfy that desire. While I'll get really obscure ones directly from the small presses, the lure of price and easy availability (30% off! Free shipping on orders over $39!)lures me into Amazon's clutches. But, interestingly, that same level of buying power that corporations have traditionally used to eek out every cent of profit for themselves (yes, I'm aware of how Amazon has forced local bookstores out of business and driven down the price that publisher's receive) can also be used for other purposes.

Thus, we have WalMart's plan to make its supply chain greener. In essence, WalMart is using its buying power to force its suppliers into examining the carbon lifecycle of their products. While it is the suppliers, not WalMart, that will bear the costs of modifying the product, general estimates place about 33% of energy efficiency gains as cost effective. Thus, in many ways, WalMart is only using a stick to get companies to make changes that are already sensible -- such as reducing packaging -- but require some sort of incentive to get the manufacturer to make the effort to change.

The press release claims that the plan will cut 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from its supply chain by the end of 2015 -- the equivalent of taking 3.8 million cars of the road for a year. You can read more about it here.

We'll see. But on the face of it, this initiative makes sense for both WalMart and the suppliers. The carbon reductions will come from situations where efficiencies are cost effective and, hence, allow WalMart to further reduce prices at the same time that the suppliers are reducing both their carbon footprint and their production costs. The down side? In ten or twenty years, when all the economic efficiencies have been weaned out of the system, we end up with even more corporate concentration and a less resilient system at the time when hard, uneconomic reductions in carbon are necessary. At that point, all that corporate concentration, actively lined up against making the necessary changes, will come back to bite us in the butt.

Copenhagen: One Big Step ..... Sideways

With all the ink (both literal and electronic) that has been spilled over the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, it is stunning to me how little understanding there is of what happened there. Structurally, Copenhagen was supposed to be the next big step forward -- the place where the post-Kyoto Protocol would be agreed on. Thus, on one level, the widespread disappointment that emerged when this didn't happen is understandable. But to anyone who has followed the negotiations closely, it has been clear for years that Copenhagen wasn't going to deliver its promised result. So, while I'm not surprised by the general public reaction, I am both surprised and concerned at the lack of understanding among the 'experts'.

To understand the significance of what happened at Copenhagen one needs to stop thinking of the negotiations as a linear process and start focusing on the negotiating positions of the US and China -- the two largest contributors to global emissions, neither of which is bound by the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol. On December 17, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton outlined the details of a US proposal aimed at 'breaking the impasse' in the existing negotiations. That proposal had two key provisions: 1) support for an initiative to mobilize $100 billion per year by 2020 for developing countries to help them mitigate the impacts of climate change and 2) pressuring developing countries to agree to emissions cuts along with the industrialized world for the first time. The Chinese response is succinctly summarized in Mark Lynas' article "How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room" which documents how "China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful "deal" so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame."

In short, the negotiations broke down over a dispute between the two largest emitters on the nature of the path forward. But understanding that dispute requires a bit of history. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change divides the nations of the world into two categories: developed countries (Annex I countries in Kyoto Protocol jargon) and developing countries. This division reflects a philosophy that emerged from a decade of discussion between the global North and global South which culminated in the Brundtland Report (Our Common Future). The Brundtland Report popularized the term 'sustainable development' as a mechanism for squaring the equity circle that divided the North and the South: development would still be possible, but that development must be sustainable. This, in practice, was interpreted as meaning that the developing world (which was already enjoying the benefits of development and was disproportionately responsible for the existence of global environmental problems) should go first in remediating those problems. This is the logic for the structure of the Kyoto Protocol. Developed countries (Annex I countries) were expected to commit to binding targets while the developing countries were not covered by the protocols and were not expected to make any emissions reductions prior to 2012 when Kyoto expired. While not part of the formal Kyoto agreement, the general expectation was that a) the Annex I countries would fulfill their commitment and b) the next major agreement (i.e., the Copenhagen agreement) would broaden the number of countries included in Annex I to include some of the developing countries that were not covered by Kyoto.

Viewed in the context of this history, the US proposal aimed to divide the developing world into two camps: a) China and other rapidly developing countries (who would be expected to commit to emissions cuts) and b) the rest of the developing world (which would receive a large amount of aid and not be expected to make emission cuts). The Chinese response was designed to maintain their status as a developing country not expected to make emissions reductions.

In both cases, these countries are responding to internal political pressures. The Obama administration knows that it has no chance of getting an international agreement ratified by the Senate unless it covers China. The politics of this have been clear for over a decade. In 1997, by a vote of 95 to 0, the Senate passed the Byrd-Hagel resolution, which stated that the Senate would not ratify Kyoto if developing countries were not required to participate on the same timetable. Thus, the Obama administration was attempting to divide and conquer the developing countries in a strategic move aimed at getting an agreement that could be ratified by the US Senate.

From the Chinese point of view, it is unreasonable to expect China and other developing nations to commit to emission reductions at this point when the US has not formally agreed to emissions reductions (i.e., to 'go first' as expected by the UNFCC process) and many of the Annex I signatories have failed to meet their Kyoto commitments. In contrast to some, however, I don't think the Chinese are global warming deniers. They are well aware of the climate change models and the significant implications they have for China -- particularly in relation to agriculture and the melting of the Himalayas. They are just bargaining hard -- primarily so they can continue to generate power by whatever means possible in order to maintain the economic growth that is necessary to stave off internal social unrest.

That, in a nutshell, is the problem: the two largest global emitters are not covered by the current agreement. The US wants the next agreement to cover both. China wants it to cover only the US. Copenhagen didn't make any appreciable progress towards resolving the problem. It did, however, bring a fundamental problem that has been hidden in the depths of negotiation out into the open. Unfortunately, comparatively few people seem to have noticed.

(Individuals interested in the Chinese government perspective on their role in the Copenhagen talks can get that information here.)

Richard Alley: The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide in Earth's Climate History

As the holidays conclude and the new year beckons, its time for a bit of summing up and a new beginning.

Today's post highlights a recent talk by Richard Alley, author of The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future and Chair of the National Research Council's report on Abrupt Climate Change. We'll close out this segment on climate change with our take on the events at Copenhagen. Stay tuned.

Alley's talk, available here, surveys data covering millions of years in order to clearly, interestingly and entertainingly show how CO2 is a key part of the Earth’s climate regulatory system or -- in Alley's terminology -- how CO2 is the 'biggest control knob.'

Comparative Fuel Efficiency by Country, 1970-2005

Poverty, Gender, Vulnerability and Resilience.

I'm posting this from St. Andrews, NB because St. George doesn't have internet (in my part of town). It's my contribution on this International Day of Action for Climate Justice, part of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.

I have been researching "definitions of resilience" for my dissertation the Transition Towns movement in Canada. About a month ago, I contacted Rob Hopkins of Transition Towns UK, who put me in touch with Neil Adger of the (now infamous) University of East Anglia Center for Climate Change Research. This resulted in an email exchange with Rob, Neil, Katrina Brown and Helen La Trobe. I've been so swamped with course work I didn't have a chance to review them until now—but this post is a summary of those messages. In addition, Neil sent me a copy of the chapter, "Vulnerability and Resistance to Environmental Change." Co-authors Neil Adger and Katrina Brown gave me permission to post the chapter to this blog. If I figure out how to embed the document, I'll post it over the next week.

I told Neil I had been looking for a definition of "resilience" to use in my research. The first thing he wrote to me was "a good theory is better than a good definition":

"In response to your major points, let me say that you need to explore resilience as both an emergent system property – i.e. something you can observe independently, as well as resilience as a normative social goal." (Neil Adger.)

A discussion ensued about the many definitions and normative goals of resilience. An emerging question for me, and for the others, was whether "maintaining system stability" (i.e. sustainability) becomes "rigidity" or "resistance to change." Resistance to change, or "stability at all costs," can keep a system stable and keep people and communities intact for a short duration, but in the long run, it becomes counter-evolutionary, that is, it is maladaptive to changes that need to happen, either for normative social reasons or as a response to environmental shocks.

“The message of resilience is more radical for policy-makers than that of sustainability. The agenda implied by resilience actually challenges some widely held tenets about stability and resistance to change that are implicit in how sustainability is formulated in environmental and social policy arenas around the world. Promoting resilience means changing, in particular the nature of decision-making to recognise the benefits of autonomy and new forms of governance in promoting social goals, self-organisation, and the capacity to adapt. In a policy world focussed on resilience there is less scope for global blueprints, which are high on central control but low on equity – such blueprints create their own vulnerabilities and render some problems and issues invisible [3]. Promoting resilience is concerned with the knowledge required to facilitate robust governance systems that can cope with environmental changes and social, demographic and democratic transitions.” (Neil Adger)

"Resilience is not about promoting growth or change for its own sake. It is about promoting the ability to absorb shocks and stresses and still maintain the functioning of society and the integrity of the ecological systems. However, resilience also requires communities and societies to have the ability to self-organize and to manage resources and make decisions in a manner that promotes stability. Most important of all, resilience requires societies to have the capacity to adapt to unforeseen circumstances and risks. These objectives give generic guidance on how to promote sustainability at different scales.” (Helen La Trobe)

In human communities, it becomes very difficult to sort out what kind of change is "good in the long run", even though initial shocks are disruptive, and what kinds of change are damaging and maladaptive. As a bright line example, stepping down capitalist production and trade would cause serious shocks and disruptions to many communities in the over-developed world, but in the long run would slow climate change and help us adapt to a post-fossil fuel economy. On the other hand, Hurricane Katrina was a sudden ecological shock that was severely detrimental to poor people of colour in New Orleans and offered few opportunities for beneficial adaptation.

Which brings us to the next topic. Neil Adger and Katrina Brown's chapter on "Vulnerability and Resilience to Environmental Change" looks at several examples from cultures around the world that have experienced different kinds of ecological shocks: economic and environmental. To quickly sum it up, poverty and gender are factors which significantly effect a community's ability to adapt to shocks. In an example from Cameroon, "structural adjustment" policies led to a reduction in government employment and sent thousands of city dwellers back to the rural agricultural areas. Men who re-ruralized adapted well by growing cash crops. Women who had traditionally done farming became excluded from the land, and were relegated to producing household services and cottage crafts. The men prospered (relatively speaking) and the women suffered severely, There were other examples in the article which showed that women and the children they care for are more severely impacted by ecological shocks and less able to mount a beneficial adaptation to change. The power differential between men and women is a factor affecting resilience.

By the same token, there are several examples in the article which show that poverty makes people unable to adapt to serious ecological shocks, whether resulting from climate change, loss of water, farmland or other natural resources, political and economic shocks, etc. In other words, systemic poverty and powerlessness caused by race, gender, and economic exploitation sets poor people up to be devastated by ecological shocks, such as hurricanes, typhoons, droughts, floods and fires.

That is why today's protests in Copenhagen, the International Day of Action for Climate Justice, is such a powerful statement of this profound truth. Europeans and North Americans, as well as Indigenous and People of the South, who are protesting today in Copenhagen, have intuitively understood this profound truth: adaptation to climate change is possible only with the achievement of equity and justice around the world. The elimination of poverty and equitable access to resources and decision-making are fundamental conditions for adapting to climate change. The over-developed world needs to ratchet down its capitalist conquest of the world, share its resources, stop emitting any more carbon and greenhouse gasses, phase out fossil fuels, and share appropriate technologies and self-empowered development strategies with the South.

Climategate

A thoughtful response to the claim the data have been cooked.



The Open Mind blog recently addressed another skeptic argument, the notion that the past decade has seen a decrease in global temperature.

Green House Gas: China, US and the World

Social and Natural Systems in the Decline of North America's Megafauna

One of the most striking characteristics of humans is that we are adaptive generalists. Unlike most species, which are adapted to specific ecological niches, humans have radiated out to populate virtually every land-based ecosystem on the planet. We can do this because we build shelters, transport food and otherwise make arrangements for the necessities of life in those parts of the globe that would otherwise be inhospitable.

It is this capacity, the ability to transform situations to meet our needs, that lies at the root of the interconnection between social and natural systems. The most obvious example of this interconnection is climate change, where humans are pumping the carbon stored in the ground as fossil fuels into the atmosphere and, hence, fundamentally altering both atmospheric chemistry and the global climate.

But what lies at the root of this human capacity? The standard answer is technology. Through technology we transcend the limitations and constraints placed on other species. But a recent article by Christopher Johnson in Science (Science 20 November 2009: Vol. 326. no. 5956, pp. 1072 - 1073) detailing the process of magafaunal decline in North America casts doubt on this account. Here is the story in brief:

Twenty thousand years ago, North America had a more impressive array of big mammals than Africa does today; by 10,000 years ago, 34 genera of these mammals were gone, including the 10 species that weighed more than a ton. Many other drastic changes occurred in this interval, all of which have been advocated as possible causes of megafaunal extinction. The climate flipped from cold to warm, then back to cold in a 1000-year chill (the Younger Dryas), before rapidly rewarming. There were more, larger fires, and the structure and species composition of vegetation changed drastically. People arrived, and the Clovis culture—with a characteristic style of beautifully crafted stone spear points—flourished for less than 1000 years. Some scientists have argued that an extraterrestrial object struck Earth ~13,000 years ago, triggering the Younger Dryas, starting fires, killing the megafauna, and putting an end to the Clovis culture. ....

What about people? It has long been argued that Clovis artifacts signal the first arrival of people in North America south of the boreal ice sheets and that the Clovis people were specialized big-mammal hunters who caused a crash of megafaunal populations from prehuman abundance to extinction within a few hundred years. This “blitzkrieg” scenario is supported by the fact that terminal dates on megafaunal fossils range from 13,300 to 12,900 years ago, which coincides almost exactly with the Clovis period. But the new data show that the megafaunal decline had begun more than a thousand years earlier. If people were responsible for that decline, they must have been pre-Clovis settlers. The existence of such people has been controversial, but archaeological evidence is slowly coming to light and is consistent with their arrival around the beginning of the megafaunal decline. It is beginning to look as if the greater part of that decline was driven by hunters who were neither numerous nor highly specialized for big-game hunting. Clovis technology may have been a feature of the endgame, possibly reflecting an intensified hunting strategy that developed once megafauna had become rare, possibly wary, and harder to hunt. ...

Before 14,800 years ago, the environment around the site studied by Gill et al. was an open savanna or parkland, probably with scattered spruce and rare broad-leaved trees growing over a short grass-dominated pasture, and almost no fi re. As the megafauna declined, woody biomass increased, mainly by growth of broad-leaved trees that had presumably been suppressed by the large herbivores. The result was a transitory spruce/broadleaf woodland, the like of which does not exist today. Big fires broke out ~14,000 years ago, and for the next few thousand years, major fires returned every few centuries. These changes were widespread: Fire increased throughout North America ~14,000 years ago, and the transitory “no-analog” woodland extended over a vast area.

In short, we begin with an ecosystem dominated by open savanna and numerous species of megafauna. Humans arrive, and apparently without the aid of significant technology, kill off the majority of the megafauna thus setting loose a cascade of ecological changes that ultimately result in the replacement of the savanna by a "no-analog" woodland. Thus we have a clear, early example of the interconnection of social and natural systems, but one that seems not to implicate technology as the fundamental driver.

What Global Warming?

We sure had a cold summer here in New Brunswick. I didn't even go swimming until the heat finally hit in August. Summer was unusually cold not only in this Province, but all over the United States. Isn't that proof that we're moving toward a cooling period?



Right . . . If you were in North America this year, you were in the spot with the most abnormally cool temperatures on the planet. Nonetheless, NASA reported 2009 as the hottest June to October temperatures on record, tied only with 2005.

"What makes these record temps especially impressive is that we’re at “the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century,” according to NASA."

But it was in the Arctic that temperatures were above normal by up to 5 degrees Celsius. Most of the surface warming is happening at the Poles, especially in the Arctic Circle, where Alaskan and Siberian permafrost, and Greenland's glaciers, are melting at ever increasing rates.

The problem is that temperatures in the temperate zone (like the US) have such a wide range of natural variability that it becomes difficult to sense--from every day experience--that the planet is warming.

But aside from increasing surface heat, the greatest global temperature rise comes from a warming of the ocean.

Still, it's easy to understand why people get confused. It also makes it hard to get the planet's largest carbon emitter, the United States, to do something about climate change when people are wearing sweaters on summer evenings in July.

The Ebenezer Scrooge Carbon Reduction Plan

The Ebenezer Scrooge Carbon Reduction Plan

1. Am I obliged to give you a day off every 15th of December so you can go to Copenhagen to protest at the climate change conference? I suppose if I didn’t you would think yourself ill used.

2. The Middling Classes should buy as much stuff as possible so the Rich will be rich enough to afford all that expensive technology, like carbon capture and storage. So get back to work, you ungrateful slug.

3. Shut down the coal-fired power plants? Are you mad? Coal-fired power plants spew millions of tons of sulphur dioxide and ash into the air, which everybody knows causes global dimming. We should build as many coal-fired power plants as possible, at least one a week.

4. The poor should stay as poor as possible so the Rich can continue to be industrious. Any increase in consumption by the poor would only turn the rest of us into toasted Welsh Rabbit.

5. Climate change is caused by overpopulation. There are simply too many people on this planet, billions too many. Mass starvation is Mankind’s best Natural defence. If they are going die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.

6. There is nothing more to be done about the mass migrations of Unfortunates driven from their homes by climate change. Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

7. Binding reductions? Bah, humbug!

Copyleft 2009 Shaun Bartone

Cap and Trade or Carbon Tax?

As we wind our way toward Copenhagen, debate about climate change policy has intensified. Particularly interesting is the US debate, where a seemingly trivial administrative ruling is having tremendous implications. Back in the Bush years, the EPA ruled that CO2 was not a pollutant and, hence, could not be regulated by the EPA. In April, 2009 (following a 2007 Supreme Court ruling) the EPA in the Obama administration ruled CO2 was a pollutant. The implications of this are huge. It means that CO2 emissions are covered under existing legislation and, hence, the EPA can create administrative rules limiting CO2 emissions WITHOUT having to pass legislation through Congress. While there are legal constraints on the types of rules they can come up with under existing law (which mean this probably isn't the best way to go), this gives the Obama administration a really big hammer to use on Congress: do something significant about climage change or the EPA will act unilaterally.

Two EPA lawyers with 20 years of experience dealing with cap and trade legislation, Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, have recently inserted themselves into the debate. As the Obama administration moves toward cap and trade legislation in Congress, they are advancing an alternative -- a carbon tax (or, since tax is a bad word in the US, a carbon fee and rebate system). This is a scheme similar to that proposed by Stephen Dion (though that didn't go over very well, did it?) and, increasingly, by thoughtful economists like Nobel winner Joseph Steiglitz, who served as Chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton administration. Their recently posted YouTube video is below. For more info, go to their website.



It is tempting to think of this as just a policy debate. But, at its root, it is an argument about creating social rules to facilitate cooperation. Their basic complaint is that cap and trade, as a big accounting scheme, is subject to all sorts of accounting tricks. This means both that it is ineffective and, equally as significant, that it will be seen as inequitable. Since cooperation depends on trust, this means that, over time, an inequitable cap and trade system may self-destruct. Since there really isn't time to limit emissions by trial and error -- that is to try one policy, see if it works and adjust it if it doesn't -- we need to get the policy right the first time. Stated another way, the policy needs to take account of social theory -- our understanding of processes related to social rules and trust -- as well as economic theory. More about rules and cooperation later.

World Development Report 2010 focuses on Climate Change

The most recent World Bank Development Report, WDR 2010, focuses on development and climate change. The main ideas of the report aren't particularly surprising: a) both developed and developing countries need to address emissions now and b) developing countries can shift to lower-carbon paths while promoting development and reducing poverty, but this depends on financial and technical assistance from high-income countries.

However, there are a number of interesting specifics. Among them this map showing the predicted global changes in agricultural productivity. Canada, Northern Europe and Russia are the big winners, with the southern hemisphere suffering substantially.


Another graph compares the emissions savings from more fuel efficient cars in the US with the additional emissions needed to provide 1.6 billion people in developing countries with electricity. Quite a thought provoking comparison.

Landmark Study on the Cost of Carbon Reduction for Canada

A landmark report on climate change shows that Canada can meet its carbon reduction targets. The study was conducted by the David Suzuki Foundation, the Pembina Institute and Toronto Dominion Bank.

"Ottawa will have to lead a massive restructuring of the Canadian economy, with wealth flowing from the West to the rest of the country, if it is to meet its climate-change targets.

The Conservative government's goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 can be achieved, but only by limiting growth in Alberta and Saskatchewan."

The report states that economic growth in Alberta and Saskatchewan would be reduced by 2.8 percent, growth in other provinces would be static, and central Canada would increase its rate of employment. Even with emissions reductions, Canada's overall GDP will grow by 2.2 percent per year until 2020.

This study reveals the key technological approaches needed to achieve major reductions in Canada’s GHG emissions.

The most important of these are

• capture and storage of carbon dioxide from the oil and gas industry and power plants

• reduction of “fugitive” emissions from the oil and gas industry and from landfills

• increased energy efficiency throughout the economy (e.g., in vehicles and buildings)

• increased production of renewable energy (e.g., wind power accounts for 18 per cent

of electricity generated in 2020 when meeting either of the two targets, compared to

less than two per cent now)

• replacement of fossil fuels by cleaner electricity (e.g., for heating buildings).

The accompanying technical reports shows that switching from burning of fossil fuels to electricity generation from clean sources (such as electrifying home heating and transport) reduces emissions by 33 megatons of C02e. However, switching from fossil fuels to nuclear power in electricity generation yields the smallest reduction in emissions from that sector, a nearly negligible 0 to 1 megaton of C02e by 2020.

It's a little unclear what "Reduced fossil fuel output" refers to, but it appears to mean a reduction in the production of oil and natural gas, located primarily in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and yields a drop of 43 to 64 megatons of C02e by 2020. Carbon capture and storage yields a reduction of 30 to 76 megatons of C02e.

However, it should be noted that another report issued in September by Greenpeace CA estimated the cost of using carbon capture and storage at the tar sands projects would cost Canadians 2 to 3 billion dollars per year for the next 20 years.