Ziptrek Ecotours

Changing The Political Climate

August 2009

The politics of global warming began to heat up this summer. With uncertainty and disappointment following the G8 summit’s attempt to create clear and substantial reduction targets for carbon dioxide, there is likely to be another series of meetings in September in anticipation of the critical talks in Copenhagen in December.

The UN-sponsored negotiations in Copenhagen in December are aimed at a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 treaty that will expire in 2012. At the political level, there are legitimate discussions taking place. There are serious social and economic consequences to the decisions that will be made. But it all means nothing if the science is ignored. And the best minds in the field are providing new information that needs to be heeded by politicians.

James Hansen, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, created one of the world’s first climate models thirty years ago. Nicknamed Model Zero, he used it to predict most of what has happened to the climate since. Hansen has now concluded, partly on the basis of his latest modelling efforts and partly on the basis of observations made by other scientists, that the threat of global warming is far greater than even he had suspected. CO2 is not approaching dangerous levels; it is already there. Unless immediate action is taken- including the shutdown of all the world’s coal plants within the next two decades- the planet will be committed to a change on a scale society won’t be able to cope with. Hansen has said, “The science is clear, this is our one chance.”

Hansen points to the history of CO2 on earth to make his case: Fifty Million years ago, CO2 levels were very high and the world was very warm: There was practically no ice on the planet, and palm trees grew in the arctic. It took millions of years for the CO2 to drop (there is still speculation on why this occurred) and now climate history is being run in reverse and at high speed, like a cassette tape on rewind. Carbon Dioxide is being pumped into the air ten thousand times faster than natural weathering processes can remove it.

For the 10,000 years prior to the industrial revolution, CO2 levels remained at about 280 parts per million. Today, CO2 Levels have reached 385 parts per million. Most official discussions have been premised on the notion that 450 parts per million is when “D.A.I.”, or “dangerous anthropogenic interference” will be reached. Hansen, however, has concluded that the threshold for D.A.I. is much lower, at around 350 parts per million.  (If current trends continue, 450 parts per million will be reached by around 2035)

The evidence for this is adding up. Antarctica had not been expected to show a net loss of ice for a century, but it is already shrinking. The Arctic ice cap has been melting at a shocking rate. Arid zones around the tropics have expanded more rapidly than early models had predicted. Heavily populated areas will soon feel the direct impact of climate change. Scientists are in agreement on this, as Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, said, “any reasonably comprehensive and up-to-date look at the evidence makes clear that civilization has already generated dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system.”

There is also broad agreement among scientists that coal represents the most serious threat to the climate. As Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize- winning physicist (now U.S. Energy Secretary) said, “There’s enough carbon in the ground to really cook us. Coal is my worst nightmare.”

The science is saying climate change is an even more immediate concern than previously thought, and phasing out the use of coal (before we use it up) will be necessary. The scientific reality must inform Copenhagen in December.