Dear Planet: Sorry That We're Climate Assholes

50,000 protest climate chaos in London, UK
I THINK MOST CANADIANS LIKE TO THINK OF THIS COUNTRY as a warm and fuzzy place to be. Sure, we've got problems - genocide of the aboriginal population, all those Chinese who died building the railroad before we deported the ones who survived, the war in Afghanistan, that sort of thing. But all that imperialism and stuff aside, we're really quite lovely. The kind of people you'd like to have over for dinner and to meet your mom.
Sorry folks. While you were napping we elected a bunch of neanderthal wingnuts who are pretty retrograde on every issue. And the ones who aren't wingnuts, like Stephen "Napoleon" Harper, are certifiable sociopaths. I won't get into how we got stuck with them - that's for another post. But do you know what they've been doing about climate change? I mean, holy shit! Our kids are going to have to start sewing American flags on their backpacks when they go on vacation so that they don't get spit on and beat up.
First off, in 2006, the Tories abrogated our commitment to the Kyoto Protocol - the agreement that Canada had signed committing us to reducing our carbon emissions. Then we've spent every opportunity since then trying to derail any climate deal anywhere that would commit us to doing anything. Internationally acclaimed author and journalist, George Monbiot put it this way:

After giving the finger to Kyoto, Canada then set out to prevent the other nations from striking a successor agreement. At the end of 2007 it single-handedly blocked a Commonwealth resolution to support binding targets for industrialised nations. After the climate talks in Poland in December 2008, it won the Fossil of the Year award, presented by environmental groups to the country which had done most to disrupt the talks. The climate change performance index, which assesses the efforts of the world’s 60 richest nations, was published in the same month. Saudi Arabia came 60th. Canada came 59th.
In June this year the media obtained Canadian briefing documents which showed that the government was scheming to divide the Europeans. During the meeting in Bangkok in October, almost the entire developing world bloc walked out when the Canadian delegate was speaking, as they were so revolted by his bullying. Last week the Commonwealth heads of government battled for hours (and eventually won) against Canada’s obstructions. A concerted campaign has now begun to expel Canada from the Commonwealth.

The simple reason is oil, in particular, the Alberta Tar Sands. There's plenty of reasons why the Tar Sands are an absolute and total disaster. For instance, it takes up to four barrels of water to clean and process one barrel of oil. The giant toxic lakes of "tailings" that the refining process generates are so poisonous that special measures have to be taken to frighten off birds and other animals that would die were they to come in contact with it. Processing tar sands oil, which produces triple the carbon emissions of crude oil, requires burning enough natural gas each day to heat three million homes. By 2020 the tar sands will release more than twice as much carbon as all the cars and trucks in North America. But with the tar sands development valued at $200 billion so far it's no wonder that the Tories are committed to allowing Canada's carbon emissions to increase by 2% over 1990 levels. It is conservatively estimated that carbon emissions must be cut globally by 20-25% by 2020.

If the fossil fuel industry is allowed to proceed with its current plans, greenhouse gas emissions in Canada will grow to 827 million tonnes in 2010, 44% beyond what Canada is permitted under the Kyoto Protocol and a far cry from the 80%-100% reduction that scientist say is essential to stabilize the climate. If the world burned all of Canada’s estimated fossil fuel deposits, global concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere would rise by about 20% beyond 1990 levels.

All of this is to say that we ought to be ashamed of what these jokers are doing in our name to protect the profits of big oil companies like Shell and BP, and the big banks that have invested in tar sands development. There hasn't been nearly enough mobilizing in this country (and I confess I'm guilty of passivity on this also). With glaciers melting and sea levels rising it really is time to get our act together. Over in Britain, for instance, 50,000 people protested on Saturday, December 5 to demand action on climate change. It's time that we stepped up to the plate - after all, we're one of the worst offenders on the planet. It's the least we can do.

Climate Change: Permafrost Methane Releases Spell Big Disaster

It isn't exactly new that there was a theoretical possibility that by artificially raising temperatures as a result of greenhouse gases emitted by cars, industry, agriculture and the military, that carbon trapped in the earth's permafrost could be released. This enormous well of carbon - whether in the form of methane or CO2, whether in Canada's vast tundra or the frozen bogs of Siberia - would potentially generate a self-reinforcing cycle, where climate change releases frozen greenhouse gases, which causes more climate change, which releases more greenhouse gases. Well, evidence of this theoretical process is now emerging.

"Reporting to the European Geophysical Union last year, the scientists, affiliated with the University of Alaska and the Russian Academy of Sciences, cited "extreme" saturation of methane in surface waters and in the air above. They said up to 10 percent of the undersea permafrost area had melted, and it was "highly possible" that this would open the way to abrupt release of an estimated 50 billion tons of methane.
"Depending on how much dissolved in the sea, that might multiply methane in the atmosphere several-fold, boosting temperatures enough to cause "catastrophic greenhouse warming," as the Russians called it. It would be self-perpetuating, melting more permafrost, emitting more methane."

Of course, even saying that this was a theoretical possibility is unfair given that many commentators, including the inestimable George Monbiot, have been warning of this possibility for years and years - but neither governments nor most of the media have been listening. In an article at the end of 2008, Monbiot noted in relation to melting sea ice that:

"As the ice disappears, the region becomes darker, which means that it absorbs more heat. A recent paper published in Geophysical Research Letters shows that the extra warming caused by disappearing sea ice penetrates 1500km inland, covering almost the entire region of continuous permafrost. Arctic permafrost contains twice as much carbon as the entire global atmosphere. It remains safe for as long as the ground stays frozen. But the melting has begun. Methane gushers are now gassing out of some places with such force that they keep the water open in Arctic lakes, through the winter."

The disappearing ice isn't just a slow melt, like an ice cube in your vodka-tonic. These are massive shelves that are breaking off. Earlier this year the ice bridge that connected the Wilkins Ice Shelf - a hunk of ice half the size of Scotland - collapses, severing the shelf from an Antarctic island. This follows on from the collapse of the Larsen A & B ice shelves in the last decade and a half. Larsen B had been stable for 12,000 years and was the size of Rhode Island.

But it's not just in areas of deep freeze that carbon is being released from the soil. In all northern regions, with the rise in temperature - even if only by a degree - there is an increased process of carbon release from the soil taking place.

"Two weeks ago (Sept, 2005), scientists at Cranfield University discovered that the soils in the UK have been losing the carbon they contain: as temperatures rise, the decomposition of organic matter accelarates, which causes more warming, which causes more decomposition. Already the soil in this country has released enough carbon dioxide to counteract the emissions cuts we have made since 1990."

What is clear is that the measures proposed and funded by governments and industry - cap & trade, biofuels - are the equivalent of snake oil. They will do nothing and, in the case of biofuel, will contribute to the problem. Radical reductions in carbon emissions are necessary. We need to rethink everything from the private automobile to the suburban model of development to how we fuel industry. It may already be too late to save the ice caps and may even be beyond the tipping point at which a cascade effect will develop with increasing velocity that will flood coastal cities and stop the ocean current that warms northern Europe.

Government and industry will continue to do nothing as long as possible. The only question, to my mind is whether a movement will develop that is large enough, international enough and militant enough to force government and industry to take action. Here's hoping...

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot

Things are getting hot here on Mother Earth. Damn hot and there’s a very good chance that it’s going to get hotter before it cools off. And that’s very scary. It can seem to us mere mortals (as opposed to scientists) that it’s all very arcane, these debates over parts per million of CO2 or what effect an increase of 2 degrees will have on the planet. But a little reading makes it clear that these numbers matter and we better get to understand them very quickly.
One person who has done more than most to sound the alarm over global warming has been George Monbiot, a British writer. I would say, in fact, that he is the UK’s answer to David Suzuki.
Monbiot’s recent book Heat has gotten a lot of attention because it puts in plain terms the dangers that we face as a species and as a planet if we don’t get a handle on Climate Change. And fast. And he proposes a number of solutions. For these alone his book is worth reading.
In a recent response to a critique of his book, in particular his argument that we need to prevent temperatures rising greater than two degrees, he wrote the following (worth quoting at length):
“Two degrees of warming is the point at which up to 4 billion people could suffer water shortages, crop yields could fall in many regions of the poor world, mountain glaciers disappear worldwide and the irreversible melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which could eventually raise global sea levels by 7 metres, is expected to begin. It is also the point at which several important positive feedbacks could be triggered. The permafrost of the West Siberian peat bog, for example, contains 70 billion tonnes of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. If all of it were released, its warming effect would equate to 73 years of current manmade carbon dioxide emissions. The methane that escapes due to melting would accelerate global warming, melting more permafrost, which releases more methane. A two-degree rise in temperatures could cause the runaway warming of permafrost throughout the Arctic Circle.”
I read this kind of stuff and it scares the bejeezuz out of me. Basically, unless we do some drastic shit, we're fucked. And Monbiot has done an amazing job of letting us know what kind of changes need to happen, at least in terms of reduction numbers.
For me though, there is also a side to the argument that must be based upon hope. And hope is always more attractive than fear. It is this: the destruction of the environment is part of a system that also destroys our lives or at least makes them miserable – who wants to be stuck in traffic for an hour each way to and from work? Who wants to live isolated in the suburbs with a heart condition because you can’t walk anywhere and the only practical food (after 2 extra hours of travel time each day) is processed food filled with body-killing garbage? We can imagine and put forward a better world, a more humane world with a greater, more pleasurable integration with nature. Our motivation doesn’t only need to be avoiding death but also enjoying life. That sort of program will resonate with people.
The thing with Monbiot's argument though, besides being rooted so much in fear, is that it approaches the problem with a "blame everyone equally" perspective - at least in terms of solutions. As he says:
"But my scheme... is not an attempt at social engineering. Let us hammer the rich by other means, but let us not confuse this programme (ie. hammering the rich) with an attempt to cut carbon emissions. Fighting global warming is hard enough already."
The problem is - we're not all to blame equally for the state of the environment. And the class question is not separable from the environmental question: corporations are the biggest polluters in every sphere. To condemn - even middle class greens - with failing to reduce their own consumption, as he does, is a little ascetic for my tastes. And it misses the point about the entire structure of communities, available transport, housing, heating, food production, etc. etc., which are social questions - not individual ones. It is about enforcing a redistribution of resources towards environmentally friendly development. Changing my light bulbs to fluorescent is, to my mind, a dangerous illusion, a diversion from the real action necessary to stop the destruction of the planet.
So, to me, Monbiot's argument for a carbon rationing system - where we all get an equal amount of carbon points to spend - as a radical solution is, in fact, just a repackaging of that old (conservative) populist saw: the flat tax. Hey, everybody pays the same, right - how can that be anything but fair. Except that it doesn't address the fact that resources aren't distributed equally. Well, this will redistribute wealth downwards, he says, as the rich purchase carbon points off the poor so that they can fly around in their private jets. In other words it fundamentally leaves in place the market dynamics and class divisions that have gotten us into this mess in the first place.
And, frankly, it's neoliberal because it is about individualizing redistribution when it should be social. The $50 I get for selling my excess carbon could buy me a carton of smokes - or pooled and centralized via government, it could fund better healthcare, more research into alternative fuels, building materials, etc.
It is simply confusing and it won’t work. It is a strategy based in panic and not in a vision of a different world. For that reason, I think it is a non-starter.
That isn’t to say, however, that Monbiot shouldn’t be read and supported in all sorts of ways. He, like Suzuki, is raising some difficult questions. We will have to answer them – or the world will answer them for us.