A few rich individuals and great corporations have abrogated the right to do as they will with the air that we all breathe. They have usurped the commons!

In the Copenhagen Accord there are no deadlines, no assurances, and talk of keeping below 2C makes no link between science and the reality of continued pollution. Nothing at Copenhagen gets even near what is needed if a meaningful attempt is to be made to avert runaway climate change. The IPCC states that this Accord guarantees that global temperature will in reality reach over 3 degrees.

Even at 2 degrees the IPCC forecasts a 9m seal-level rise, and that could be in much less than the next 80 years. To get what this means I repeat what I wrote in the August FOOTPRINTS:

Lets assume that rising temperature follows a regular trajectory, and lets assume that there is a one-to-one correlation between temperature rise and its consequences. Such a regular trajectory is unlikely as the combination of growing C02-e, carbon and ice-melt feedbacks, solar cycles and stronger El Niño may join with extreme weather events and global tipping points to aler the trajectory of this process.

Though we don’t understand many of the complexities, the simplicity of this calculation has a lot to recommend it.

With continued steady linear growth the earth will be heated to 1C by 2012, and to 2C by 2030.

Paleoclimatic evidence shows that for every 1C rise we should expect a minimum 4-metre rise in sea levels. We have just calculated that by 2030 the conditions will be in place to guarantee a minimal 8-metre sea level rise. With the usual inertial delays of thirty years or so built into the earth’s system, and applying a regular trajectory for sea levels as we did with temperature, we could be looking at

A sea-level rise of 500mm within a decade and a full metre during the next (ie. before 2030).

During this time large areas of agricultural land will be gradually flooded, in Egypt, Bangladesh, northern China and the Philippines. Florida, Boston and London will be badly affected, as will Melbourne and much of our coastline. Food production will be lessened as the Himalayan glaciers melt, there will be a lot less to fish and land will be lost to drought and sea. In the same period global population will rise by one billion, most living in cities. We are fully aware of the refugee crisis that would follow such sea-level rise, and the likelihood that there would be war. This is a recipe for catastrophe if we dont prepare.

However we vary the parameters, this process shows we have run out of time and should prepare now for what cannot be prevented if we wish to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed and to which life on earth is adapted.

But Copenhagen has side-stepped that. George Monbiot again: We have now lost 17 precious years, possibly the only years in which climate breakdown could have been prevented. This has not happened by accident: it is the result of a systematic campaign of sabotage by certain states, driven and promoted by the energy industries. This idiocy has been aided and abetted by the nations we have characterised, until now, as the good guys: those that have made firm commitments, only to invalidate them with loopholes, false accounting and outsourcing. In all cases immediate self-interest has trumped the long-term welfare of humankind. Corporate profits and political expediency have proved more urgent than either the natural world or human civilisation.

Our political systems are incapable of discharging the main function of government: to protect us from each other. Goodbye Africa, goodbye south Asia; goodbye glaciers and sea ice, coral reefs and rainforest. It was nice knowing you. Not that we really cared. The governments which moved so swiftly to save the banks have bickered and filibustered while the biosphere burns.

These governments raised many trillions to keep the stock exchanges open. They could do the same to buy the support of the great polluters, on any terms, to stop this crisis. They could, but wont. Governments could do it without recourse to any elected body. They (Obama, Rudd, Brown etc) just did it through the Federal Banks. Why not again?

Do the frogs have to wait until the water is boiling?

Bruno Sekoli of Lesotho, Chair of the Group of Least Developed Countries said on behalf of over a hundred countries “1.5 degrees is nonnegotiable – more than that means death to Africa. It will cause unmanageable consequences – it will leave millions of people suffering from hunger, diseases, floods and water shortages.’
 How can it be realistic to condemn half of humanity?”

I paraphrase Andrew Glikson: The atmosphere is tracking into critical levels. An examination of the geological record indicates that, with the exception of major volcanic and asteroid impact events that triggered mass extinctions of species, never has atmospheric CO2 risen at a rate as fast as at present: 2 parts per million/year, the earlier highest record being about 0.4 ppm/year about 55 million years ago.

Early humans survived a rise of +3C about 2.8 million years ago. Homo sapiens survived abrupt temperature rise of about +5C during the two last glacial terminations 130 thousand and 14–11 thousand years ago, in part through migration. The species will survive.

It is less clear how civilization itself can survive a rise of over 2C, for the lives of 7 billion people are totally dependent on
1) mountain snow-fed river systems for agriculture in deltas that are prone to sea level rise,
2) on extensive cultivation of marginal desert regions such as in Australia and Africa that will turn into desert,
3) on regular monsoons as in India and east Africa that will change course, and
4) on coastal centres and port cities that are needed for the transport of food, and will be drowned under the sea. Little of our wealth and learning will survive such changes.

According to James Hansen at 2C “Science reveals that climate is close to tipping points. It is a dead certainty that continued high emissions will create a chaotic dynamic situation for young people, with deteriorating climate conditions out of their control.”

Enjoy your Christmas!

John James

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Agreeing to end fossil fuels wont work if we leave it until 2020. We need to cut all use by 10 percent every year until then. The men of money have sown doubts among us, with an exceptional attack on the integrity of the scientific community.

Why do we listen to them? George Monbiot suggests that denial is our habitual way of dealing with fear of death. This is like saying “We all know we are doomed if we do nothing. Yet we are too comfortable as we are. Lets roll over and go back to sleep, maybe it will just pass away!” Fat chance!

So, back to the present: Copenhagen. The summit is political. This means compromise between opposing forces. As in vector analysis, the resultant will be in between, which means significantly less than is needed.

There is no point in targeting politicians without also targeting the decision-making individuals who are hiding behind their corporate facades. To expect politicians to make decisions is pointless. We need to project ourselves directly onto the other force in the vector, on a personal basis.

Two million Australians will become sea-level refugees. How many of them run the companies causing the problem? This is where action should be directed.

John James

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The question for humanity is: can global warming be prevented?

There is now enough CO2 already in the air, so were we to STOP all burning of fossil fuels immediately, STOP driving all cars and trucks and STOP devastating our forests – and did so NOW – temperatures would still continue to rise for at least another two decades!

We wont be doing that – will we?
Nor will Big-Oil nor will Big-Coal nor will our governments!

Then watch out!! For by the time we get around to it – and convince China and India etc etc to do the same – the earth’s mean temperature could have increased by at least 2 degrees centigrade. This may not seem a lot, but when the whole globe gets close to this temperature we now know from recent scientific evidence that the following consequences are more than plausible, and these tipping points could happen abruptly:-

1. There are vast stores of CO2 and methane held in forests, in the oceans and in the soil. Before 2 degrees is reached these greenhouse gases will start to seep into the atmosphere. This will increase temperatures further, triggering the emission of more carbon dioxide and methane – and a dangerous and unstoppable feedback loop will have started. The warming of permafrost in Siberia is a major concern.
2. The affect of global warming on Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, especially Greenland and the Western Antarctic, will be devastating. The process of disintegration has already started, and will soon be irreversible. Complete collapse of these two areas would raise sea levels by more than 14 metres.
3. Trees will be under considerable stress, and whole species may be wiped out either by the heat or by insect pests that flourish in a warmer climate. This is already happening in north America. Bush fires will be more frequent and larger, each time releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
4. The great tropical forests of the Amazon, Borneo and the Congo are being over-logged and tests have shown they are likely to collapse if drought lasts more than three years. These forests are the major CO2 sinks.
5. As a result, supplies of food and water will be greatly diminished from flooding, sea level rise, drought and chaotic weather.
6. Close to a billion people will be forced to search for new homes. This unwanted immigration will force nations to resort to extreme measures including nuclear war.
7. Continued global warming will turn our lovely planet into a greenhouse of hell for all living things as habitats are threatened. It has happened before in the Eocene Warming and can again.

Therefore we have to prepare.
Government must galvanise now to protect our children from imminent danger

Everywhere, everyone, must STOP using fossil fuels, PLANT trees while
still PREPARING for the worst … within the next 8 years.

We cannot allow our world to be destroyed. Failure is not an option .

Every MOTHER knows that even a ten percent possibility
that we could DAMAGE OUR CHILDREN is unacceptable.

WOMEN EVERYWHERE – urge your men to read this and start running their lives differently.

YOU can prevent further warming NOW
Personally and Politically