Stop Global Warming

Stop Global Warming
China at Fault for Copenhagen Clusterfail, But Everyone Blames the WestThe U.N's top climate official Yvo De Boer has told countries to stop arguing about who is to blame for Copenhagen's clusterfail, and to get on with the job in hand. Though many blame America, people who were there are suggesting it was in fact China who blocked an ambitious deal from passing...

Arguing with climate skeptics isn't easy: the science is complicated and ignorance is easy. Every "the sun is getting hotter" or "it is a natural cycle" requires a comprehensive rebuttal that needs to be longer than than a five word allegation. But scientists and the media are getting better at quickly dispatching these ignorant claims. And governments pay little attention to incoherent ramblings.

Al Gore recently explained "the special pleading of the carbon polluters and the existence of ideological deniers is probably an example of the so-called sunset phenomenon, where we have a spectacular display just before the subsiding."

The New Scientists has little trouble debunking all of the deniers' spectacular claims, going through the first 50 of them quite swiftly. The first might just be the best:

There is "no real scientific proof" that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from man's activity.

Technically, proof exists only in mathematics, not in science. Whatever terminology you choose to use, however, there is overwhelming evidence that the current warming is caused by the rise in greenhouse gases due to human activities.

Seriously though, most worrying is that for many this is becoming an issue of politics. Increasingly Republican don't believe in climate change. Why are conservatives ignoring the science? And where are the conservative solutions to climate change? Despite this turn, I'm optimistic. Governments are smart enough to trust the science and trust the vast majority of scientists, rather than give any time to a few noisy skeptics.


Marky Lynas wrote a piece for the Guardian entitled “How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room,” which is a fascinating read. It gives an insider’s view of the closed-door Head of State negotiations that took place on that final, fateful day of negotiations. But its critical flaw is in wanting to solely blame China.

Lynas writes: “To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China's representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. "Why can't we even mention our own targets?" demanded a furious Angela Merkel.”

It’s very interesting indeed to speculate on what China was actually trying to achieve. The country has actually been quite aggressive in developing renewable technologies. Did China object to even rich countries setting their own emissions targets so as not to lock itself into the same at a future date?

One point I vigorously disagree with Lynas on, however, is his assertion that, ““China's strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world's poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait.”


categories: Arctic & Antarctic, carbon emissions, carbon footprint, climate science, Climate Security, Environmental Justice, Greenhouse Gas, Science

Sometimes it's a little hard to sort out exactly why we should care about climate change. People always fall back on flooding cities but to my mind that's not really the biggest worry. In fact, it didn't even make my list of top worries. Here are some of the other things that will change the rest of our century.

10: Increased Disease - As a strong young man, I don't worry much about malaria or West Nile virus. There will be slight rises in disease during the century, but there will also be better vaccines in the developed world, where I live. Thank goodness. Sorry, Africa.

9: Disappearing Coral Reefs - I guess this isn't as worrying as some things. But the double whammy of more acid and warmer water (especially in shallow water) will obliterate our reefs. Humanity will soldier on but it will be a sadder, less colorful ocean. Sorry, unborn children.

8: Open Season on the Arctic - It seems clear that very soon we will be shipping across the Arctic Circle. Now I'm not against commerce - God knows I needs my Chinese-made trinkets. But a melting Arctic may open up new drilling opportunities. Feeding our oil addiction is not what we need. It's like telling a drug addict that you've hidden a bag of heroin under a pile of cocaine.

7: Strong weather - Again, no one knows if this has happened yet, but one of the hallmarks of climate change is the rising ocean temps. Unlike land temps, these are slow and do not turn on a dime. And as those who track hurricanes and El Nino know, warm water means strong weather.

6: Permafrost Melting - The great thing about PERMA-frost is that it never melts. That way, all the carbon in the peat underneath Siberia stays happily locked in. Unless of course it starts melting (which it is). Once that box is open, it doesn't really close.

5: Less Fruit - Even at three and a half degrees Fahrenheit higher (what most scientists agree is unavoidable at this point), we are going to see a big change in crop diversity. It's not the higher day temperatures that scuttle things like peaches, cherries, and grapes, it's the higher night temps. Without a certain number of chilly evenings, these fruits are in real trouble.

4: Melting of the Himalaya - Scientists are still not sure how and to what extent the top of the world is melting. But if it is as bad as the worst predictions say (God forbid) there will be trouble. Even moderate melting means that Asia will have to turn off the taps just as it develops. Free Tibet? Forget it if China is still thirsty.

3: Drought - Few people outside of California and Texas think much about drought. But they should because it affects wildfires, bark beetles and snow pack - all very expensive problems. Thankfully I have a solution. Turn off the taps for Caesar's in Las Vegas.

2: Extinction - Everyone loves polar bears, except those who are being eaten by them. But they are not the only (or even the most important) wildlife imperiled by climate change. Most of the real worries are little frogs or invertebrates that are very sensitive to changes and make up the basis for the food chain.

And the number one thing that keeps me up at night ...

1: Positive Feedback Loops - This is the big question mark in our atmosphere and the thing that scientists say privately (read: once they get a couple drinks in them) say really scares them. Positive feedbacks are anything where warming begets more carbon release and thus more warming. This could be anything from decreased reflectivity of the ice caps to wildfires in drought areas. Scientists now say it will be these feedbacks that determine how strong climate change will be.

As another year comes to an end, many are pessimistic about mankind's hopes to mitigate the effects of climate change. Today, we're reminded it's the fifth anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami and earthquake that killed 250,000.

Soon, 500,000 people a year will be dying due to climate change. The number is already 300,000, killing people all around the globe. That's 300,000 reasons to pressure leaders to take action, and there are 6 billion other reasons to continue the fight. This year, it hasn't been all bad news though, and we've had a few victories in the fight against climate change, despite dismally slow progress. Over the next five days I'll present five reasons to be optimistic, reasons to keep up the pressure and believe we can make progress:

Reason #5: Copenhagen wasn't a complete failure. Though there was no ambitious international agreement, or any binding targets agreed, China and the United States were engaged in talks, and countries agreed to limit temperature rises to 2 degrees in the Copenhagen Accord. Even better, Brazil, India and South Africa were all engaged at the highest level — developing nations have a voice, and are an increasingly powerful force, as the small island states like the Maldives and Tuvalu demonstrates.

The result of Copenhagen was far from a win, but more ambitious targets will be coming, and some groundwork has been laid for more successes in the future. Even the the Prime Minister of Bangladesh — a country many contend to be the country worst hit by climate change — considered the conference to have reached a "reasonable conclusion." Taking advice of experts on how to move forwards is an essential next step to ensure Copenhagen's "reasonable conclusion" is only preface to a fair, ambitious, and binding (FAB) deal being made in Mexico City at COP16. Of course, we don't need to rely solely on optimism. And we must not be passive. Join us here at Change.org as we spend the next 12 months taking meaningful direct action to make our voices heard.


Climate negotiations don't need to be restarted, or rebooted. And we don't need to rip up progress made and start again. Instead, we can maintain momentum, and "steer into the skid."

Since Bali, the politics and progress has gone in a backward direction. The authors of the paper explain that the likelihood of comprehensive deal emerging in Mexico is low following Hopenhagen not becoming a reality. But they suggest that rather than hitting the brakes (and completely rebooting) "deal makers need to steer into the skid by building on unprecedented engagement by heads of states." They suggest this can happen by demanding the United States pass legislation, and change how developing countries are engaged. Their specific recommendations are particularly compelling:

categories: Clean Energy, Copenhagen Climate Summit, Energy Effeciency, energy independence, energyefficiency, Fossil Energy, International Action, Policy & Legislation, Renewable Energy, Solar energy, wind energy

"Universal energy access" is a shorter and more official way of saying "don't leave the poor behind as we rich nations ride off into a clean-energy future." It's more than a matter of fairness. UN officials stated in one of the sessions at the Copenhagen conference that any agreement the world comes to on climate change will only work if the poor are given access to the technology they need to get with the program, and soon, according to SciDevNet.

Sha Zukang, under-secretary general for economic and social affairs, said that excluding people from clean technology because of expense or intellectual property restrictions will only serve to complicate the dynamics of reaching a solution that will work.

Billions of people in the developing world will be left behind and plunged deeper into poverty if they are shut out, which will serve not only to stall progress on clean energy use but will stir resentment among those who are losing out on development opportunities.

categories: Activism, Policy & Legislation, Politics

By now you’ve surely heard that, to anyone concerned about putting the planet over profits and politics, the UN climate summit in Copenhagen was a massive failure. But I just want to point out that there’s plenty of reason to be hopeful about the future of the planet.

For a couple reactions to the farce that was the outcome of these climate negotiations, check out George Monbiot’s take, as well as this scathing op-ed in The Independent by my colleague at Greenpeace UK, Joss Garman.

I titled this post “Keep Hopenhagen Alive” for two reasons. The first being not because “Hopenhagen” was a touchy-feely “campaign” paid for by Coca-Cola and Siemens – two companies who would like, apparently, to cash in on the clean, green future we’re trying to build – but despite that fact.

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