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James Hansen	Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Assessing “Dangerous…	4:18 AM (4 hours ago)

Neville Gillmore <nevilleg729@gmail.com>	9:03 AM (0 minutes ago)

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: James Hansen <jimehansen@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 4:18 AM
Subject: Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change”
To: nevilleg729@gmail.com

Press ? for Keyboard Shortcuts.

2 degrees hotter not an acceptable climate target but a disaster, say leading scientists

Posted: 02 Dec 2013 04:37 PM PST

Countries round the world have pledged to try and limit the average global temperature rise to 2°C above pre-industrial figures. That’s way too high and would threaten major dislocations for civilization say a group of prominent scientists.

Lead author James Hansen

by Tim Radford, Climate News Network

Governments have set the wrong target to limit climate change. The goal at present – to limit global warming to a maximum of 2°C higher than the average for most of human history – “would have consequences that can be described as disastrous”, say 18 scientists in a review paper in the journal PLOS One.

With a 2°C increase, “sea level rise of several meters could be expected,” they say.  Increased climate extremes, already apparent at 0.8°C warming, would be more severe. Coral reefs and associated species, already stressed with current conditions, would be decimated by increased acidification, temperature and sea level rise.
The paper’s lead author is James Hansen, now at Columbia University, New York, and the former NASA scientist who in 1988 put global warming on the world’s front pages by telling a US government committee that “It’s time to stop waffling so much and say the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here.”

Hansen’s fellow authors include the economist Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University and the biologist Camille Parmesan, of the University of Plymouth in the UK and the University of Texas at Austin, USA.

Their argument is that humanity and nature – “the modern world as we know it” – is adapted to what scientists call the Holocene climate that has existed for more than 10,000 years since the end of the Ice Age, the beginnings of agriculture and the first settlement of the cities.

Warming of 1°C relative to 1880–1920 keeps global temperature close to the Holocene range, but warming of 2°C, could cause “major dislocations for civilization.”

The scientists study, uncompromisingly entitled “Assessing ‘dangerous climate change’: required reduction of carbon emissions to protect young people, future generations and nature” differs from many such climate analyses because it sets out its argument with remarkable directness and clarity, and serves as a useful briefing document for anyone – politicians, journalists and lay audiences – anxious to better understand the machinery of climate, and the forces that seem to be about to dictate climate change.

Its critics will point out that it is also remarkably short on the usual circumlocutions, caveats, disclaimers and equivocations that tend to characterise most scientific papers. Hansen and his co-authors are however quite open about the major areas of uncertainty: their implicit argument is that if the worst outcomes turn out to be true, the consequences for humankind could be catastrophic.

The scientists case is that most political debate addresses the questions of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but does not and perhaps cannot factor in the all potentially dangerous unknowns – the slow feedbacks that will follow the thawing of the Arctic, the release of frozen reserves of methane and carbon dioxide in the permafrost, and the melting of polar ice into the oceans. They point out that 170 nations have agreed on the need to limit fossil fuel emissions to avoid dangerous human-made climate change.

“However the stark reality is that global emissions have accelerated, and new efforts are underway to massively expand fossil fuel extractions by drilling to increasing ocean depths and into the Arctic, squeezing oil from tar sands and tar shale, hydro-fracking to expand extraction of natural gas, developing exploitation of methane hydrates and mining of coal via mountain-top removal and mechanised long wall-mining.”

The scientists argue that swift and drastic action to limit global greenhouse gas emissions and contain warming to around 1°C would have two useful consequences. One is that it would not be far from the climate variations experienced as normal during the last 10,000 years, and secondly that it would make it more likely that the biosphere, and the soil, would be able to sequester a substantial proportion of the carbon dioxide released by human industrial civilisation.

Trees are, in essence, captive carbon dioxide. But the warmer the world becomes, the more likely it is that existing forests – the Amazon, for example – will start to release more CO2 than they absorb, making the planet progressively even warmer.

“Although there is merit in simply chronicling what is happening, there is still opportunity for humanity to exercise free will,” says Hansen.

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Josh Creaser – 350.org Australia josh.creaser@350.org.au via list.350.org	5:50 PM (4 hours ago)
to me

Dear friend,

“Australia has seen brutal summer heat in recent years; now it’s time to turn up the heat on those responsible – the out-of-control fossil fuel industry”, – Bill McKibben

Right around Australia, individuals like you are stepping up to show Tony Abbott what a real direct action plan on climate change looks like.

Already hundreds of people have pledged to take on the fossil fuel industry this summer and beyond. Yesterday, we projected their images on to the heart of the industry lobby – the Minerals Council of Australia headquarters – to launch our Summer Heat campaign and to demonstrate the diverse and inspiring movement that is building to halt fossil fuel expansion in Australia.

Like and share these photo highlights from the day and our campaign launch video…

The fossil fuel industry plans to triple Australia’s coal and gas exports. Mines such as those proposed in the Galilee Basin and at Maules Creek will lead to more pollution, higher sea levels and more extreme weather events such as the recent bushfires in New South Wales and the typhoon in the Philippines.

That’s why, with the Abbott Government failing to lead, we’ll be taking our own direct action. As the temperature rises over Summer, people from communities right across Australia will be stepping up campaigns to target the industry and their radical plans.

We aren’t a movement of radical activists. We are mothers and fathers, grandparents, church leaders, lawyers, teachers, nurses and students. We are a community standing up to a radical industry that is trashing our future.

Join the movement today and let’s get going with our summer of real direct action! There’s already plenty of actions registered, and there’s more on the way – sign up and we’ll keep you posted!

In solidarity,

Josh, Charlie, Aaron, Blair and Simon, and the rest of the Summer Heat team

P.S. Check out our blog about the launch and this message of support from

Felix Riebl of the Cat Empire

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George Monbiot news@monbiot.com via google.com	6:14 PM (56 minutes ago)
to me

“Managing Transparency”

Posted: 02 Dec 2013 12:42 PM PST

Politicians and officials are desperately seeking to justify their transatlantic assault on democracy.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 3rd December 2013

Panic spreads through the European Commission like ferrets in a rabbit warren. Its plans to create a single market incorporating Europe and the United States, progressing so nicely when hardly anyone knew, have been blown wide open. All over Europe people are asking why this is happening; why we were not consulted; for whom it is being done.

They have good reason to ask. The Commission insists that its Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership should include a toxic mechanism called investor-state dispute settlement. Where this has been forced into other trade agreements, it has allowed big corporations to sue governments before secretive arbitration panels composed of corporate lawyers, which bypass domestic courts and override the will of parliaments(1).

This mechanism could threaten almost any means by which governments might seek to defend their citizens or protect the natural world. Already it is being used by mining companies to sue governments trying to keep them out of protected areas(2,3); by banks fighting financial regulation(4); by a nuclear company contesting Germany’s decision to switch off atomic power(5). After a big political fight we’ve now been promised plain packaging for cigarettes. But it could be nixed by an offshore arbitration panel. The tobacco company Philip Morris is currently suing Australia through the same mechanism in another treaty(6).

No longer able to keep this process quiet, the European Commission has instead devised a strategy for lying to us. A few days ago an internal document was leaked(7). This reveals that a “dedicated communications operation” is being “coordinated across the Commission”. It involves, to use the EC’s chilling phrase, the “management of stakeholders, social media and transparency.” Managing transparency should be adopted as its motto.

The message is that the trade deal is about “delivering growth and jobs” and will not “undermine regulation and existing levels of protection in areas like health, safety and the environment”. Just one problem: it’s not true.

From the outset, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership has been driven by corporations and their lobby groups, who boast of being able to “co-write” it(8,9). Persistant digging by the Corporate Europe Observatory reveals that the commission has held eight meetings on the issue with civil society groups, and 119 with corporations and their lobby groups(10). Unlike the civil society meetings, these have taken place behind closed doors and have not been disclosed online.

Though the Commission now tells the public that it will protect “the state’s right to regulate”(11), this isn’t the message the corporations have been hearing. In an interview last week, Stuart Eizenstat, co-chair of the Transatlantic Business Council, instrumental in driving the process, was asked whether companies whose products had been banned by regulators would be able to sue(12). Yes. “If a suit like that was brought and was successful, it would mean that the country banning the product would have to pay compensation to the industry involved or let the product in.” Would that apply to the European ban on chicken carcasses washed with chlorine, a controversial practice permitted in the US? “That’s one example where it might.”

What the Commission and its member governments fail to explain is why we need offshore arbitration at all. It insists that domestic courts “might be biased or lack independence”(13), but which courts is it talking about? It won’t say. Last month, while trying to defend the treaty, the British minister Kenneth Clarke said something revealing:

“Investor protection is a standard part of free-trade agreements – it was designed to support businesses investing in countries where the rule of law is unpredictable, to say the least.”(14) So what is it doing in an EU-US deal? Why are we using measures designed to protect corporate interests in failed states in countries with a functioning judicial system? Perhaps it’s because functioning courts are less useful to corporations than opaque and injust arbitration by corporate lawyers.

As for the Commission’s claim that the trade deal will produce growth and jobs, this is also likely to be false. Barack Obama promised that the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement would increase US exports by $10bn. They immediately fell by $3.5bn(15). The 70,000 jobs it would deliver? Er, 40,000 were lost. Bill Clinton promised that the North American Free Trade Agreement would create 200,000 new jobs for the US; 680,000 went down the pan(16,17). As the commentator Glyn Moody says, “the benefits are slight and illusory, while the risks are very real.”(18)

So where are our elected representatives? Fast asleep. Labour MEPs, now frantically trying to keep investor-state dispute mechanisms out of the agreement, are the  exception(19); the rest are in Neverland. The LibDem MEP Sir Graham Watson wrote in his newsletter, before dismissing the idea, “I am told that columnists on The Guardian and The Independent claim it will hugely advantage US multinational companies to the detriment of Europe.”(20) We said no such thing, as he would know had he read the articles, rather than idiotically relying on hearsay. The treaty is likely to advantage the corporations of both the US and the EU, while disadvantaging their people. It presents a danger to democracy and public protection throughout the trading area.

Caroline Lucas, one of the few MPs who remains interested in the sovereignty of parliament, has published an early day motion on the issue(21). It has so far been signed by only seven MPs. For the government, Kenneth Clarke argues that to ignore the potential economic gains of the trade agreement “in favour of blowing up a controversy around one small part of the negotiations, known as investor protection, seems to me positively Scrooge-like.”(22)

Quite right too. Overriding our laws, stripping away our rights, making parliament redundant: these are trivial and irrelevant beside the issue of how much money could be made. Don’t worry your little heads about it.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. http://democracyctr.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Under_The_Radar_English_Final.pdf
2. http://action.sumofus.org/a/mining-costarica/

3. http://democracyctr.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Under_The_Radar_English_Final.pdf

4. http://corporateeurope.org/trade/2013/06/transatlantic-corporate-bill-rights

5. http://www.tni.org/briefing/nuclear-phase-out-put-test

6. http://www.mccabecentre.org/focus-areas/tobacco/philip-morris-asia-challenge

7. http://corporateeurope.org/trade/2013/11/leaked-european-commission-pr-strategy-communicating-ttip

8. http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/businesseurope-uschamber-paper.pdf

9. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/business/international/european-officials-consulted-business-leaders-on-trade-pact-with-us.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimesworld%20&_r=0

10. http://corporateeurope.org/trade/2013/09/european-commission-preparing-eu-us-trade-talks-119-meetings-industry-lobbyists

11. http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2013/november/tradoc_151916.pdf

12. http://www.br.de/fernsehen/das-erste/sendungen/report-muenchen/interview-stuart-eizenstat-100.html

13. http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2013/october/tradoc_151790.pdf

14. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/11/eu-us-trade-deal-transatlantic-trade-and-investment-partnership-democracy

15. http://www.epi.org/publication/trade-pacts-korus-trans-pacific-partnership/

16. http://www.epi.org/publication/trade-pacts-korus-trans-pacific-partnership/

17. Paul Krugman has explained the simple economic rules which make this happen: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/trade-does-not-equal-jobs/

18. By email. You can read Glyn Moody’s posts on the issue here: http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/

19. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/06/david-cameron-eu-us-trade-deal-investor-state-dispute-settlement

20. http://www.grahamwatsonmep.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1653&catid=8&Itemid=159

21. http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2013-14/793

22. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/11/eu-us-trade-deal-transatlantic-trade-and-investment-partnership-

Stan Steam ‏@StanSteam2 1h

No school will be worse off… Zanetti cartoon #auspol #Gonski #hypocrisy #pyneocchio pic.twitter.com/3tk5TQr54Y