Song for Jasmine

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) is hosting a conference in Copenhagen in December (United Nations Climate Change Conference, Dec 7-18, 2009). It’s supposed to negotiate a successor for the Kyoto protocol, to map the road for reducing emissions of greenhouse gasses worldwide. As such, it’s an extremely important event, but how important is it really? Well, in the words of President Nasheed of the Maldives:

Until now, politicians everywhere seem to be claiming to be leaders in cutting emissions, while refusing to do anything until someone else does more. Everyone manages to find someone else to point the finger at. With all that hot air from the politicians it’s no surprise the globe is getting hotter!

There are few now who doubt that the global climate is being changed by mankind. Those who do are regularly debunked in the media as having not read or understood the scientific information they refer to, or they simply make up their own ‘facts’ to suit themselves. Some will tell you the climate is not changing. Some will tell you it is getting cooler. Some will say it’s getting warmer, but that it’s not our fault, or that it is our fault but it’s good for us, and so on. Like a child who hasn’t done his homework, they keep hunting for credible reasons.

On the other hand, scientists are agreed that the climate is changing, and that it’s our fault. Organisations as diverse as the World Bank and leading medical organisations around the world are calling for action to tackle climate change. Even religous leaders agree that the climate-change must be addressed.

If you personally have any doubts about the reality of global warming, one easy way to get some good information is to watch the Climate Denial Crock of the Week videos, by Peter Sinclair. These are a series of short videos that address some of the major claims by climate-deniers, showing where they are wrong in a very clear and entertaining manner. The facts are laid out very clearly, and he doesn’t pull his punches. Take a look, for example, at Denial was a River in Africa, and ask yourself if professor Hugh Montgomery might be correct in his claim that India is building a fence to keep Bangladeshi climate refugees out.

Other good starting places for more information on global warming are RealClimate.org and the New Scientist Guide for the Perplexed.

You do not have to look far to see evidence of climate change. The small island nation of Tuvala is already feeling the effects of rising sea-levels, while on the other hand, California is running out of water. Even the British government knows it must plan for a changing climate. Changing the climate in Britain might sound like a good idea, but it’s not. Decreases in rainfall will harm agriculture, while increased flooding will also occur. Even so, Britain will have it easy compared to other countries. August in Australia has been exceptionally warm this year, and the predictions are that it will only get worse there. These are only a few examples, there are many others, from all over the world. Just keep your eyes on the news, you’ll see more.

Back in July, a meeting of the G8 countries accepted that global warming should be limited to no more than 2 degrees celsius (3.6 degrees farenheit). The Alliance of Small Islands States has called for a limit of 1.5 degrees celsius, arguing that 2 degrees is too much. They’re right, even 2 degrees will be enough to drastically alter the climate of the earth. Our grandchildren will grow up in a world unlike the one we see today. 2 degrees is enough to ensure that, for example every summer in Europe is as hot as the summer of 2003, and that one killed tens of thousands of people.

So how do we limit the temperature rise to 2 degrees? To translate that number into action, you have to consider the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that we can allow in the atmosphere. 2 degrees corresponds to about 400 ppm of CO2 (according to the IPCC). So far, so good, we’re below that according to the little counter on the left of this page. However, that’s not the whole story. Barry Brook points out that lower emissions-targets are even better, in order to slow down the damage from the warming that has already begun. It’s like turning down the heat before the milk boils, so it won’t boil over. 350 ppm is now the widely accepted target, enshrined in the campaign by Bill McKibben at 350.org. As you can see, we’re way above that target already!

Whichever number you pick, the important point is that we are already in a dangerous situation. The world’s climate is changing fast, and in ways that are not good. There will continue to be big changes in climate whatever we do, but it is not too late to do something about it, not too late at all. The faster we reduce emissions, the sooner we reduce the damage to the environment, and the less sufferring there will be for man and beast alike. That is why Copenhagen is so very important.

Reducing emissions fast is possible, we know enough to be able to do it. Cleaner energy, higher efficiency cars and electrical appliances, recycling, reducing waste, and all the other things we keep hearing so much about, these all add up. Sometimes it costs money, for large-scale infrastructure like replacing coal-fired power stations, sometimes it saves money instead. Many big companies are going green, despite the economic recession, so cost can’t really be a big issue.

For individuals, too, reducing your carbon footprint can be as easy as small changes in lifestyle, neither expensive nor difficult. It’s quite possible to reduce your electricity use by half, for example. Solving global warming is more a political problem than a technical one, persuading people at all levels (families through to governments) that it must really be done.

Individual action is very important, of course, but the Copenhagen meeting must succeed if we are to reduce emissions globally and really begin to tackle climate change. That is why we have to make sure that our leaders do the right thing, instead of getting wrapped up in petty arguments and worrying that they will lose the next election. People power is crucial to making Copenhagen a success, and one way in which you can express your personal-power is to get involved in some of the demonstrations that are being coordinated around the world in advance of the meeting. 350.org is organising an International Day of Climate Action on October 24th, why not take a look and see if there’s something near you that you can go to? You might be glad you did, one day!

Climate Change in the American Mind was published in March 2009. It contains the results of a survey of Americans conducted during September and October 2008. The report is 56 pages long, and is packed with information. Not surprisingly, it has been talked about on the web. Unfortunately, some of the information from it has been summarised in a very misleading manner.

One particular question asked Americans how much they thought global warming would harm different groups. They were asked to decide which option (not at all, only a little, a moderate amount, a great deal, or don’t know) applied to a number of different groups:

• you personally
• your family
• your community
• people in the United States
• people in other modern industrialised countries
• people in developing contries
• future generations of people
• plant and animal species

The results are presented on page 30 of the report, figure 22. Nate Silver summarised the answers to this question on his blog, in “The Environmental Inverted Pyramid“, but the picture he presents there (reproduced here) is misleading.

There are several things wrong with this picture. I won’t be the first to point out that the size of each segment is not in proportion, others have already done that (e.g. “The environmental inverted pyramid, corrected“). Even so, it’s worth looking at some of the other ways that this picture is misleading.

First, let’s make the bars to scale. There, that’s better. Now you can see quite clearly that the narrowest bar (‘you’) is genuinely half as big as the largest. Not that steep a pyramid at all.

There’s also an issue with the size of the text. Putting ‘you’ in tiny letters makes it seem unimportant compared to the large text for ‘plant and animal species’. So let’s make all the letters the same size.

There. I don’t know about you, but that looks a lot fairer to me! So it looks like only 1 American in 3 thinks global warming will affect them, and 2 out of 3 don’t think it will.

Ah, but we’re not done yet. New Scientist points out that we’re actually using the wrong data! These numbers represent only the ‘moderate amount’ and ‘great deal’ categories. If we want to see how many people do or do not think they will be affected by global warming, we should not forget that some of those people think global warming will affect things ‘only a little’.

‘only a little’ is not very well defined. It could mean they don’t think they will be able to go on holiday because of more hurricanes in their favourite resort, or that they think they will have to pay more for food or water. I have no idea what those people who said ‘only a little’ thought, but I do know that we can’t simply ignore them. That would effectively put them in the ‘not at all’ category, which is wrong.

So let’s add those people to the chart, and see what it looks like.

Now it hardly looks like a pyramid at all! In fact, the categories ‘you’, ‘your family’, and ‘your community’ are very closely grouped, as are the categories of ‘people in the United States’, ‘people in other modern industrialised countries’, and ‘people in developing countries’. The question might as well have been simplified to ‘people near you’ and ‘everyone else’.

So we can safely say that over half of Americans believe that someone near them will be harmed by global warming, and almost 2 out of 3 believe that someone, somewhere, will be harmed, even if only a little. If you’re among the remaining third, you could do worse than to read “Bracing For Sea Change“, to see how easily climate change could affect the world around you.

The full report contains 39 charts, and looks to have a great deal of interesting information in it. I haven’t read it all yet, but I will do so soon. Even on a quick scan through, there are some interesting nuggets that are easy to find. For example, 82% of Americans think they need more information about global warming (figure 33), 82% of Americans would trust scientists for information about global warming, and 77% would trust their family and friends (figure 39). That tells me that the scientists and other people among you who are concerned about global warming need to speak up more, 4 people out of every 5 out there would listen to you. Go to it, people!

Finally, let me just quote a few of the highlights from the executive summary:

All that seems to me to be a long way from the tiny triangle at the bottom of the inverted pyramid.