Author: Neville

Aussies join army drill in South Korea

DateApril 21, 2013 5 reading now

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Australian combat troops have for the first time taken part in annual South Korea-US joint military drills.

The 18-member army unit joined a landing drill held near the southeastern city of Pohang as part of the Foal Eagle US-South Korea joint military exercise, a South Korean defence ministry spokesman said.

Australia is a member of the 16-nation United Nations Command, and fought alongside South Korea during the Korean War against North Korea and China.

Australian casualties in the 1950-53 war numbered more than 1500, of whom 340 were killed, according to the Australian War Memorial’s official website.

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It was the first time combat troops from a United Nations Command member state had joined a US-South Korea joint exercise since the Korean War, the South Korean spokesman said.

The inclusion of Australian troops followed a request from Canberra ”to gain experience in joint military exercises”, he added.

The month-long exercises started on April 5, and involved 3000 South Korean and US marines.

The Korean peninsula has been in a state of heightened military tension since North Korea carried out its third nuclear test in February.

In response to fresh UN sanctions and joint South Korea-US military exercises, Pyongyang has spent weeks issuing blistering threats of missile strikes and nuclear war.

AFP

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/aussies-join-army-drill-in-south-korea-20130420-2i72q.html#ixzz2R4WV9gSh

Rio Tinto accused of environmental and human rights breaches

Native Mongolian herders angry that copper and gold mine is threatening fresh water supply and ecology
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Rupert Neate

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 April 2013 20.33 BST

Oyu Tolgoi mine
The workers’ accommodation area at the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in the South Gobi desert in Mongolia. Photograph: Adrian Bradshaw/EPA/Corbis

Protesters from around the world attacked mining company Rio Tinto for a string for alleged environmental and human rights breaches during a fiery meeting with shareholders in London on Thursday.

Native Mongolian herders claimed that a $5bn (£3.3bn) expansion of the company’s Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine in the Gobi desert threatened the fresh water supply of hundreds of nomadic people and the area’s unique ecology.

Sukhgerel Dugersuren, executive director of Mongolian civil society organisation Oyu Tolgoi Watch, said: “Water is a life and death resource. Rio Tinto is diverting water without the consent of the local community or the government.

“It is already evident that not only livestock but local communities are losing access to adequate water supply. Pasture … [and] water resources are being taken from us and fenced in by the mine.”

She claimed that a tailings pond used to collect waste material from the mine had leaked and told Rio’s board that the local community demanded assurances that “there isn’t going to be a catastrophe in the region”.

Sam Walsh, Rio’s new chief executive, said the company was committed to environmental protection and human rights and was closely monitoring the mine’s development to “ensure our neighbours have a healthy and prosperous future”.

At the company’s annual meeting, Walsh said Rio recognised the importance of water and would draw water from a deep level aquifer, not from surface water. He said a seasonal river was being diverted around the mine, but the company would create a new spring for animal grazing and water collection further downstream.

Walsh said the mine, which is 34%-owned by the Mongolian government, would provide a massive boost to the local economy and could represent up to 36% of Mongolia’s GDP.

Protesters also raised concerns about Rio’s planned mines in Bristol Bay, Alaska, a controversial iron ore mine in Guinea, and a nickel and copper mine in Michigan.

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Why a very fast train system will never fly

DateApril 20, 2013 6 reading now

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Jacob Saulwick

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There’s this scene in the film The Castle where Eric Bana and Sophie Lee get back from overseas and immediately start telling the family about the movies they saw on the plane, the complimentary sleeping masks – ”they were for free” – and the selection of beef wellington or fish the stewards were offering.

It’s funny – and it’s kind of true. People do often want to talk about their plane trip; I often do. If you don’t catch planes all the time, how you spend the hours and what you watch when you’re tucked into those weird little unnatural plane-spaces seems to matter more than it should.

But the plane trip as a staple of post-holiday conversation is probably, and perhaps sadly, drifting from fashion in this part of the world. People are travelling more. The dollar is high. A lot of us can at least pretend to be more sophisticated and knowing.

What hasn’t gone from fashion is the inevitable post-holiday comparison of how they do things overseas and how we do things here.

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For Australians, one of the main subjects of comparison – the deficient state of transport in this country – was placed in the foreground this month with the release of a $20 million government report into high-speed rail down the east coast.

They’ve had these fast trains in Japan for decades. You couldn’t get around the place without them. They’ve got them in Europe and they’re the best way to see the continent. But why, in a place like Australia, are they seemingly no chance to happen?

First up, and to be clear, no one is going to be building high-speed rail in Australia any time soon. The Gillard government isn’t putting up any money. And Tony Abbott seems to have the misguided view that the motor vehicle is the last word when it comes to moving people around. He’s not going to stump up the billions. But the fact is, we taxpayers spent $20 million on this report that looked into the economics, the finances, and the engineering required to get a high speed rail system up. We might as well see what it says.

One point that emerges from the study is that, in convenience terms, the fast trains would be brilliant.

The study compared the experience of a business traveller making their way from Melbourne’s inner east to Sydney’s central business district on train and plane. At the moment, that traveller would need a taxi or to drive to Tullamarine Airport. At the airport, checking-in and waiting around would take about an hour or more. The flight would be about 85 minutes. After landing at Sydney, you’d be lucky to get into the CBD by train or cab within 40 minutes of touching down.

But the experience with the hypothetical fast train could be about 20 per cent faster. You could take a much shorter cab ride or public transport to Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station, arriving there within 15 minutes or less to departure. The trip would be longer, at about 2 hours and 45 minutes. But if the fast train made it all the way to Central station, the business traveller could get from there to Sydney’s CBD in 10 minutes or so.

In fact, the report pretty much shows that if a system like this were ever erected, the domestic airline industry would be gutted.

If it was ever built, high-speed rail between Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney would attract 84 million trips a year by 2065, the report predicts. Of these, about 46 million of them would come from trips people would otherwise have flown for. (At the moment, the Australian domestic aviation industry carries about 56 million trips a year.)

The study argues that if high-speed rail did pose a threat to airlines, they would not compete by lowering prices. There has been so much discounting anyway that prices are probably low enough.

Instead, airlines would fly fewer planes on routes that compete with high-speed rail. They would shrink as businesses. This was the response in France when the Marseille to Paris TGV opened: Air France cut services, and easyJet left the route.

According to the study, the airline industry would cop a $9 billion hit to revenues from a high-speed rail line, using 2012 dollars. (The report assumes no second airport will ever be built in Sydney. This is strange because Anthony Albanese, the Transport Minister who commissioned the study, insists one is needed. The assumption also helps to make high-speed rail more commercially viable.)

There is no need, however, for Qantas, Virgin and Tiger to embark on a lobbying campaign to knock off the possibility of very fast trains. The study shows that if it were built, a fast rail network would be able to pay its way – including maintenance – charging fares comparable with those on domestic airline routes. But it wouldn’t be able to pay off the estimated $114 billion in construction costs (again in 2012 dollars) needed to build the system. And a price tag this big will ensure that articles like this one will remain projections of something many people would like, but governments are unlikely to ask them to pay for.

Ross Gittins is on leave.

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Coastal Cities Confront Global Warming-Induced Sea Level Rise

Posted: 04/19/2013 2:41 pm

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Six months after Hurricane Sandy lashed the East Coast, officials from coastal communities along the Eastern seaboard sat down for the first time to discuss the hurricane’s consequences and how to best protect their residents from sea level rise. The meeting, which took place in New York City on Wednesday, was sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The nonprofit science advocacy group released a report on sea level rise on Monday.

Rising sea level is what linked Sandy directly to global warming. Over the last century, the ocean off the New York coast rose 13 to 16 inches, making flooding from Sandy a lot worse. The super storm triggered an estimated $60 billion in estimated losses in New York and New Jersey alone.

“We got a glimpse of our collective future,” said Joe Vietri, director of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ coastal and storm risk management program, during a press briefing. “Clearly we know climate change and sea level rise are right here. We are living it right now.”

The 25 officials at the meeting — who hail from Florida, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Virginia — spent the day comparing notes on how their cities and counties are adapting to sea level rise. Each of them are facing comparable problems, including beach erosion, increased flooding from storm surge, saltwater intrusion into drinking water wells, and compromised drainage systems. The officials discussed a number of adaptation strategies, including elevating homes, building sea walls and floodgates, using marshlands and artificial reefs to buffer storm surge, and reevaluating new development in the most vulnerable areas. Some municipalities are even considering elevating their entire town.

For some participants, such as Stephen Marks, Hoboken, New Jersey’s assistant business administrator, Hurricane Sandy erased any doubts in his town about global warming. “The debate about climate change is essentially over,” said Marks, whose 2-square-mile municipality of 50,000 was overwhelmed by 500 million gallons of Hudson River water. “Hurricane Sandy settled that for, I would say, a majority of the residents of our city.”

For others, such as Broward County, Florida, Mayor Kristin Jacobs, Hurricane Sandy was just an extreme example of the same old same old. “We’ve been dealing with the effects of climate change for quite some time,” she said. Broward County, she pointed out, established a climate change “compact” with three other South Florida counties in 2009 to address chronic flooding and other global warming impacts. Based on local trends and global projections, the compact — which collectively represents 5.5 million residents — expects the sea level off its coast to jump 3 to 7 inches by 2030 and 9 to 24 inches by 2060.

Development pressure on U.S. coastlines is bound to make a bad situation worse in coming decades. In 2010, more than 123 million Americans — 39 percent of the U.S. population — lived in coastal counties, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA expects the coastal population to increase by 8 percent to 133 million by 2020.

Vietri, who is overseeing the Army Corps of Engineers’ Hurricane Sandy study, bemoaned the fact that despite greater public awareness of climate change and sea level rise, “You still have people by the truckload moving into high hazard coastal areas.”

Vietri also criticized coastal communities for rushing to rebuild boardwalks and other beachfront infrastructure without considering sea level rise projections and the growing threat of storm surge. “This is a subject of great frustration for me,” he said. “You would think common sense would dictate you would design your protection and then put your boardwalk in, not the other way around. … I would even argue if, in fact, you even should rebuild them.”

Elliott Negin is the director of news and commentary at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

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3 hours ago (12:47 AM)
I don’t understand all this fuss about Sandy. Historically, it was just a big storm – nothing unusual. Have a look back over storm records for the area.

Doesn’t anyone wonder why sea level is increasing in some areas and decreasing in others (eg Sweden)?

It’s true that we’ve been dealing with climate change for a long time – in fact, ever since humans appeared on the Earth. Sea level has generally been rising for the past 20,000 years – it’s nothing new.

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48 minutes ago ( 3:21 AM)
What makes you think sea level rise would be uniform? You should have a look at all the records broken by Sandy, in numerous states. It was quite unusual. Yes there have been storms before. Do you think that the experts who point out the aspects of Sandy that were exceptional are unaware of storm records?

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It will be a completely different world by 2060… they’ll have to redraw maps.

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Posted: 04/19/2013 2:41 pm

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Six months after Hurricane Sandy lashed the East Coast, officials from coastal communities along the Eastern seaboard sat down for the first time to discuss the hurricane’s consequences and how to best protect their residents from sea level rise. The meeting, which took place in New York City on Wednesday, was sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The nonprofit science advocacy group released a report on sea level rise on Monday.

Rising sea level is what linked Sandy directly to global warming. Over the last century, the ocean off the New York coast rose 13 to 16 inches, making flooding from Sandy a lot worse. The super storm triggered an estimated $60 billion in estimated losses in New York and New Jersey alone.

“We got a glimpse of our collective future,” said Joe Vietri, director of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ coastal and storm risk management program, during a press briefing. “Clearly we know climate change and sea level rise are right here. We are living it right now.”

The 25 officials at the meeting — who hail from Florida, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Virginia — spent the day comparing notes on how their cities and counties are adapting to sea level rise. Each of them are facing comparable problems, including beach erosion, increased flooding from storm surge, saltwater intrusion into drinking water wells, and compromised drainage systems. The officials discussed a number of adaptation strategies, including elevating homes, building sea walls and floodgates, using marshlands and artificial reefs to buffer storm surge, and reevaluating new development in the most vulnerable areas. Some municipalities are even considering elevating their entire town.

For some participants, such as Stephen Marks, Hoboken, New Jersey’s assistant business administrator, Hurricane Sandy erased any doubts in his town about global warming. “The debate about climate change is essentially over,” said Marks, whose 2-square-mile municipality of 50,000 was overwhelmed by 500 million gallons of Hudson River water. “Hurricane Sandy settled that for, I would say, a majority of the residents of our city.”

For others, such as Broward County, Florida, Mayor Kristin Jacobs, Hurricane Sandy was just an extreme example of the same old same old. “We’ve been dealing with the effects of climate change for quite some time,” she said. Broward County, she pointed out, established a climate change “compact” with three other South Florida counties in 2009 to address chronic flooding and other global warming impacts. Based on local trends and global projections, the compact — which collectively represents 5.5 million residents — expects the sea level off its coast to jump 3 to 7 inches by 2030 and 9 to 24 inches by 2060.

Development pressure on U.S. coastlines is bound to make a bad situation worse in coming decades. In 2010, more than 123 million Americans — 39 percent of the U.S. population — lived in coastal counties, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA expects the coastal population to increase by 8 percent to 133 million by 2020.

Vietri, who is overseeing the Army Corps of Engineers’ Hurricane Sandy study, bemoaned the fact that despite greater public awareness of climate change and sea level rise, “You still have people by the truckload moving into high hazard coastal areas.”

Vietri also criticized coastal communities for rushing to rebuild boardwalks and other beachfront infrastructure without considering sea level rise projections and the growing threat of storm surge. “This is a subject of great frustration for me,” he said. “You would think common sense would dictate you would design your protection and then put your boardwalk in, not the other way around. … I would even argue if, in fact, you even should rebuild them.”

Elliott Negin is the director of news and commentary at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

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rhjames
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3 hours ago (12:47 AM)
I don’t understand all this fuss about Sandy. Historically, it was just a big storm – nothing unusual. Have a look back over storm records for the area.

Doesn’t anyone wonder why sea level is increasing in some areas and decreasing in others (eg Sweden)?

It’s true that we’ve been dealing with climate change for a long time – in fact, ever since humans appeared on the Earth. Sea level has generally been rising for the past 20,000 years – it’s nothing new.

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48 minutes ago ( 3:21 AM)
What makes you think sea level rise would be uniform? You should have a look at all the records broken by Sandy, in numerous states. It was quite unusual. Yes there have been storms before. Do you think that the experts who point out the aspects of Sandy that were exceptional are unaware of storm records?

Permalink | Share it .

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10 hours ago ( 6:39 PM)
It will be a completely different world by 2060… they’ll have to redraw maps.

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Adolphus Busch Iv Nra Busch Beer Heir Deals NRA Serious Blow

Watertown Police Chace Gunfire, Explosions Reported In Watertown

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Boston Bomb Suspect Named

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Ruslan Tsarni Uncle Calls Suspect ‘Loser,’ Says Nephews ‘Deserve’ To Die

Tamerlan Tsarnaev Dead Boston Suspect One Dead

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Suspects Marathon Bombing Suspect Photos Released

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Acidification and Oxygen depletion in our Oceans

Scientists are warning that dead sectors will appear

in our oceans, in which no life can exist.

Many nations rely on seafoods for their existence.

Our coral reef systems will be killed off.

The many scientific reports on these issues are not

accepted by Govt’s or the media.

So what can we do about this, they will kill off all

life in future generations, unless they can be convinced

of the seriousness of the situation.

Australia’s population is at it’s peak and is becoming

unsustainable. When the Pacific Islands are swamped

we will also be swamped by Climate Refugee’s.

How, or rather if we will be able to cope, is unthinkable.

All our pollies are doing is fighting amongst themselves,

rather than address issues vital to our survival.

This is not good enough, the survival issues must be addressed.,

I would appreciate some discussion on this, as to how we can

influence Govt’s and the Media to give these matters their

undivided and urgent attention.

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Why can’t we quit fossil fuels?

Despite the clean technology of the past decade, we continue to extract and burn fossil fuels more than ever before
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Byline portrait of environment reporter Duncan Clark

Duncan Clark

The Guardian, Wednesday 17 April 2013 17.49 BST

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A coal-fired power station in Gelsenkirchen, Germany dwarfs a wind turbine in the foreground.
A coal-fired power station in Gelsenkirchen, Germany dwarfs a wind turbine in the foreground. Photograph: Image Broker/Rex Features

We have far more oil, coal and gas than we can safely burn. For all the millions of words written about climate change, the challenge really comes down to this: fuel is enormously useful, massively valuable and hugely important geopolitically, but tackling global warming means leaving most of it in the ground – by choice. Although we often hear more about green technology, consumption levels or population growth, leaving fuel in the ground is the crux of the issue. After all, the climate doesn’t know or care how much renewable or nuclear energy we’ve got, how efficient our cars and homes are, how many people there are, or even how we run the economy. It only cares how much globe-warming pollution we emit – and that may be curiously immune to the measures we usually assume will help.

The Burning Question: We can’t burn half the world’s oil, coal and gas. So how do we quit?
by Duncan Clark, Mike Berners-Lee

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Tell us what you think: Star-rate and review this book

There are three facts that tell you all you really need to know about climate science and politics. One: for all the uncertainty about the detail, every science academy in the world accepts the mainstream view of man-made global warming. Two: virtually every government, recognising the profound danger of tampering with the climate that allowed human society to thrive, has agreed the world must limit the global temperature increase to 2C – a level which isn’t by any means “safe” but may be enough to avoid the worst impacts. Three: the amount of warming we will experience goes up roughly in proportion to the total amount of carbon that global society emits – cumulatively.

Here is the rub. Even if we gave up on all the obscure and unconventional fossil fuel resources that companies are spending billions trying to access and just burned the “proven” oil, coal and gas reserves – the ones that are already economically viable – we would emit almost 3tn tonnes of carbon dioxide. No one can say exactly how much warming that would cause, but it is overwhelmingly likely that we would shoot well past 2C and towards 3C or even 4C of warming.

Four degrees might not sound much but at the planetary level it is. It is about the same as the temperature increase observed since the ice age’s “last glacial maximum”, when much of the northern hemisphere was trapped under ice as thick as the world’s five tallest skyscrapers stacked on top of each other. It is impossible to say what changes another three or four degrees would bring, but the impacts could very plausibly include a collapse in global food production, catastrophic droughts and floods, heatwaves and the beginning of ice-sheet melt that could eventually raise the sea level enough to wipe out many of the world’s great cities.
Impact of climate change: flooding in India. Impact of climate change: flooding in India. Photograph: Gideon Mendel/Corbis for Actionaid
Sceptics argue that this doomsday scenario might not come to pass – and they are right. If we are lucky, the impact of burning all that oil, coal and gas could turn out to be at the less severe end of the plausible spectrum. But that is hardly reassuring: it’s akin to saying that it is fine to walk blindfolded into a main road since you can’t be sure there are any cars coming. After less than 1C of temperature increase so far, we are already seeing some profound changes, including a collapse in Arctic sea ice coverage more severe than even the most pessimistic predictions from just a few years ago. (Brits secretly hoping for a hotter future, be warned: that collapsing sea ice may have caused the freakish jet stream behaviour that made 2012 the wettest English year on record and obliterated this year’s spring, both mere amuse-bouche for the feast of climate impacts expected in coming decades, even from the carbon we’ve emitted so far.)

Given what is at stake, it is no wonder that governments agree global warming must be stopped. But that is where the common sense ends and the cognitive dissonance begins. Because to have a decent chance of not exceeding the already risky global target, we need to start phasing out fossil fuels now at a fast enough rate to bring down emissions globally by a few percent a year, and continue doing so for decades to come.

Now compare that with what is actually happening. As with the climate, to understand the situation properly it is necessary to zoom right out to see the long-term trend. Doing so reveals something fascinating, worrying and oddly overlooked. As scientists from Lancaster University pointed out last year, if you plot a graph showing all the carbon emissions that humans have pumped into the air, the result is a remarkably clear exponential curve stretching all the way back to the mid-19th century. Zoom back in on the past decade and it is clear that for all the mounting scientific concern, the political rhetoric and the clean technology, nothing has made a jot of difference to the long-term trend at the global level – the system level. The growth rate in total carbon emissions in the past decade, at around 2% a year, was the same as that of the 1850s.
C02 emissions since 1850 (red); exponential growth (blue); cuts to hit climate target (dashed). CO2 emissions since 1850 (red); exponential growth (blue); cuts to hit climate target (dashed). Photograph: guardian.co.uk
That might sound hard to believe. After all, thanks to green policies and technologies, emissions have been falling in Europe, the US and many other countries. Wind turbines and solar panels are ever-more common, not just in the west but in fast-growing China. And the energy efficiency of cars, light bulbs, homes and whole economies has been improving globally for decades. So why isn’t the carbon curve showing any let up? Some might instinctively want to blame the growing population but that doesn’t stack up. The rate of population growth has dropped like a stone since the 1960s and is no longer exponential, but the carbon curve doesn’t appear to have noticed that any more than it has noticed the Kyoto protocol or whether you cycled to work this morning. For whatever reason, cutting carbon has so far been like squeezing a balloon: gains made in one place have been cancelled out by increases elsewhere.

To understand what is going wrong, it is necessary to consider the nature of exponential growth. This type of accelerating trend crops up when there is a feedback loop at work. For example, a credit card debt grows exponentially because interest gets applied to ever more interest. The number of algae in a jar grows in the same way: as long as there is food and air, there will be more algae and so they can breed faster.The fact that our carbon emissions have followed the same accelerating trend suggests that our use of energy is driven by a similar kind of feedback loop which is cancelling out apparent green gains.

That certainly fits with history. The industrial revolution that kick-started the human impact on the climate was driven by just such a feedback. The steam engine enabled us to drain coal mines, providing access to more coal that could power more steam engines capable of extracting yet more coal. That led to better technologies and materials that eventually helped ramp up production of oil as well. But oil didn’t displace coal, it helped us mine it more effectively and stimulated more technologies that raised energy demand overall. So coal use kept rising too – and oil use in turn kept increasing as cleaner gas, nuclear and hydro came on stream, helping power the digital age, which unlocked more advanced technologies capable of opening up harder-to-read fossil-fuel reserves.

Seen as a technology-driven feedback loop, it is not surprising that nothing has yet tamed the global emissions curve, because so far nothing has cut off its food supply: fossil fuels. Indeed, though our governments now subsidise clean-power sources and efficient cars and buildings – and encourage us all to use less energy – they are continuing to undermine all that by ripping as much oil, coal and gas out of the ground as possible. And if their own green policies mean there isn’t a market for these fuels at home, then no matter: they can just be exported instead.
Impact of climate change: ice melt in Antarctica. Impact of climate change: ice melt in Antarctica. Photograph: Peter McBride/Barcroft Media
This extraordinary double-think is everywhere to be seen. Take the US. Obama boasts that American emissions are now falling due to rising auto efficiency standards and gas displacing dirtier coal in the energy mix. But the US is extracting carbon and flowing it into the global energy system faster than ever before. Its gas boom has simply allowed it to export more of the coal to other countries such as China – which of course uses it partly to produce goods for US markets. Not happy with increasing US carbon extraction, Obama is also set to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline that will enable Canada to flood the global markets with crude produced from dirty tar sands. So much for carbon cuts.

Or take Australia, which in the same year introduced a carbon tax and started debating plans for a series of “mega-mines” that would massively increase its coal exports, helping build confidence among the companies and governments planning no fewer than 1,200 new coal-fired power stations around the world. Even the UK, with its world-leading carbon targets, gives tax-breaks to encourage oil and gas recovery and has been growing its total carbon footprint by relying ever more on Chinese factories – and therefore indirectly its reliance on American and Australian coal. And not just that. Although it rarely gets commented on, Britain – along with other supposedly green nations such as Germany – regularly begs Saudi Arabia and the other Opec nations to produce not less oil, but more. As journalist George Monbiot once put it, nations are trying simultaneously to “reduce demand for fossil fuels and increase supply”.

It is not just governments that are in near-universal denial about what needs to happen to the fossil fuel sector. Blithely ignoring the fact that there is already far more accessible fuel than can be safely burned, pension fund managers and other investors are allowing listed fossil fuel companies to spend the best part of $1tn a year (comparable to the US defence budget, or more than $100 for every person on the planet) to find and develop yet more reserves.

If and when we emerge from this insanity, the carbon bubble will burst and those investments will turn out to have been as toxic as sub-prime mortgages. Don’t take my word for it. HSBC analysts recently concluded that oil giants such as BP – beloved of UK pension funds – could have their value cut in half if the world decides to tackle climate change. Coal companies can expect an even rougher ride, and yet our financial regulators still allow them to float on stock markets without mentioning in their share prospectuses that their assets may soon need to be written off.

But for now, the fuel is still flowing freely. And for as long as that continues, the global energy feedback loop will ensure that many of the things we assume will help may be ineffective – or even counterproductive. More efficient engines may simply enable more people to drive more cars over greater distances, triggering more road building, more trade and indeed more big suburban houses that take more energy to heat. New renewable or nuclear power sources might just lead to more economic activity, increasing demand and supply of all energy sources, including fossil fuels. And local carbon cuts caused by green choices, population decline or even new economic models may simply free up more fuel for use elsewhere.

Of course, oil, coal and gas use will level off eventually no matter what we do. Fossil fuels are a finite resource and each year they get more expensive relative to renewables and nuclear. But given the continued acceleration not just in fossil fuel extraction but in the production of cars, boilers, furnaces and power plants that need oil, coal and gas to function, there is zero prospect of that happening of its own accord any time soon. Forget peak oil caused by dwindling supplies. At least until we’ve cracked cheap carbon capture, we need to bring about peak fossil fuels. Voluntarily. And soon.

We know how to do it. A properly designed global cap and trade scheme is one option. Stiff taxes on the production or sale of carbon-based fuels is another. Or we could simply oblige companies taking carbon out of the ground to arrange for a rising share of what they extract to be buried again. Any of these models could bring down global emissions and stimulate an explosion of investment and innovation in clean and efficient energy systems. But there is no avoiding the unpalatable side-effects: spiralling fuel and energy prices; a write-off of fuel reserves worth many trillions of dollars; and a fierce global squabble about how to share out the fuels we do decide to burn.

How would all this affect the global economy, or pension funds, or the financial health of the Middle East, the US and other carbon-rich nations doing most to resist a global climate deal? For all the confident opinion on both sides, no one can say for sure, just as no one can be certain how human society will fare in a warming world. But with so much money and power bound up with oil, coal and gas, one thing seems clear: constraining global fossil fuel supplies will take bigger thinking, harder politics and – crucially – a whole lot more public pressure. Voluntary carbon cuts are a great start but they are no match for a system-level feedback in human energy use.

Globally, the vast majority of people want climate change dealt with. But can we bring ourselves to prioritise a safe planet over cheap fuels, flights, power and goods? Can we face calling on our leaders to end the double-think and constrain oil, coal and gas supplies on our behalf? Can humanity muster the restraint and cooperation needed to leave assets worth trillions in the ground?

This article is based on the book The Burning Question by Mike Berners-Lee and Duncan Clark, which is published on 20 April by Profile Books, price £9.99. To order a copy for £7.99 with free UK p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846

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Environment
Fossil fuels ·
Energy ·
Climate change ·
Wind power ·
Renewable energy ·
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) ·
Carbon emissions ·
Coal ·
Carbon offsetting ·
Ethical and green living ·
Carbon footprints ·
Carbon tax ·
Global climate talks ·
Climate change scepticism

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