The Copenhagen Charade

Ruminations on Climate Change

by Bronwen Griffiths

A thought provoking quote from a newsletter that popped into my inbox this morning, thanks to Natural & Organic Products Exhibition.

"Going green is no longer an option. It is not about climate change, saving the planet or a lost tribe of indigenous people in some far off land. This time it is about your wallet. It is time to save money with doing good, a by-product that will help climate change and yes, the entire planet."

If you take nothing else away from reading this article, then take this at least, green issues are no longer fringe issues that only really wacky people consider as being a requirement to normal life. Rather, being conscious of your impact on the wider environment is becoming something that is the sensible thing to do. Your motivation itself is less of an issue, you can believe that sustainability is a good idea for a range of reasons no matter how weird as long as your actions lead to a measurable increase in sustainability.

A South African contextualised carbon footprint calculator, with suggestions for projects that you can link into to offset some of your footprint is available online.

In this article I am going to explore what you can do as an individual, what you should watch out for, what to believe and what not to (or at least how to tell the difference between truth and total bollocks), and most importantly, a request to always ask questions and not just believe the popular press.

Global warming vs. Climate change

'Global warming' is in my opinion too simplistic a term. It merely implies that all parts of the world will experience a temperature increase. Users of the term, especially scientists, know that this is too simple a viewpoint and understand all the underlying scenarios that lead to the nett overall increase in Earth’s temperature. But the layman is seldom aware of these and is either confused or credulous when looking at temperature changes for their home town and, for instance, see a nett decrease, and reject the whole concept out of hand.

'Climate change' in comparison, acknowledges that the average world temperature may increase, although the scale thereof is strongly debated, but also indicates that on a local level the change will be less predictable. Some areas may in fact have a nett decrease in temperature, with others a much higher than norm nett increase. Further that individual weather events will become more extreme, or that the number of extreme events such as hurricanes may increase, more cold snaps, more heat waves, that the amount of rain in a year may stay the same total but occur in fewer much more violent storms and so on. The term climate change paints a broader image. It indicates that the climate of Earth is a highly complex and sensitive system that humans most certainly do not fully understand, and that expected changes are based on best knowledge at the time and may well be wrong.

An important point – 'carbon dioxide / CO2' is used instead of the term 'Greenhouse Gases' in most information presented across the range of media. This is simply because CO2 is a good indicator of atmospheric changes as it is relatively easy to monitor. Changes in the amounts thereof mimic or reflect that of other gases which may be harder to measure.

I personally prefer the use of the term 'climate change'. However, I ask only that irrespective of which term you use, remember that the term is only a catch phrase for the whole concept, not the whole idea.

Copenhagen Climate Change Summit 2009

The Copenhagen process has generated the following articles.

•"Climate change summit to produce as much CO2 as an African country. It is being hyped as the summit that will save the planet. But according to critics, next week’s climate change talks in Copenhagen are more likely to cost the earth."

•"The Copenhagen charade" by Ian Plimer

• "China leads accusation that rich nations are trying to sabotage climate treaty. Angry statement from 131 countries at climate talks in Bangkok claims rich nations are rejecting historical responsibilities."

• "Kyoto Treaty Is ‘Failing The World’s Poor’, Say Scientists ScienceDaily (Apr. 23, 2009) – Initiatives aimed at cutting emissions while encouraging economic development are failing the world’s poorest countries, leading scientists from Oxford University are warning."

• "Agenda 2009: Copenhagen Climate Summit. With a deadline for a UN climate treaty imminent, 2009 could become the most important year for climate change since the Kyoto Protocol was agreed in 1997. Will a successor to Kyoto emerge from Copenhagen in December?"

• "Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after 'Danish text' leak. Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement that would hand more power to rich nations, sideline the UN's negotiating role and abandon the Kyoto protocol."

• "Copenhagen Global Warming Conference: Why Didn't They Use Video Conferencing? The credibility of the climate-change gods is on the line once again. Changing their verbiage from global warming to climate change cannot conceal whatever they are hiding. Following on the heels of email gate, which reveals that warm-earth activist scientists silenced certain voices that differed from theirs, it may not be an exaggeration to brand this Copenhagen Climate Change Conference as the Who's Who of Global Warming Hypocrites. It seems like hypocrisy (a mismatch of belief and behavior) continues to be a hallmark of leading global warming activists, and this Mother of the Global Warming Congregation is the biggest "Do as we say, not as we do" sermon yet."

There are a plethora of other articles out there to read on these issues from varying viewpoints. An hour or two of playing with an internet search engine will give you almost too much information to consider, but it will let you start to weed out whether the information is valid. This will allow you to make your own considered opinion on what is actually going on. A useful site to start your search at, 'Agenda 21 and Local Politics', gives a reasoned critique and consideration of the "International Agreements to reduce Greenhouse Gases" (Agenda 21 ~ so-called blueprint for sustainable development into the 21st Century) running from the Earth Summit at Rio in 1992, to the Kyoto Protocol (‘the teeth’) and most recently to the Copenhagen Summit this year. The site provides a good overview of terms and concepts behind the whole convoluted international political process in enough detail to make , but not too much to overwhelm. The web-page is also well referenced with links to further reading.

Copenhagen and the whole fiasco of international interactions to date leading up to the Kyoto Protocol, and now to whatever ‘watered-down-due-to-political-shenanigans-agreement’ from Copenhagen, is in many people’s opinion, a waste of time and money. The carbon footprints’ of the attendees alone is ludicrous, especially given that they could have done all of it by video conferencing – the comment made that the human touch is needed is pathetic and shows a total misunderstanding of WHY the whole reduction in Greenhouse Gases process was even started.

Consider that the money already used getting to and staying at the various events (i.e. summits, preliminary meetings – both by the whole plenary and within each country) could have actually made a difference if governments had used that money as a carrot for good behaviour for those who actually voluntarily try to make a difference. Application of the stick has been shown to only do one thing in the human mind; look for ways to circumvent the requirements legally or push your luck when no-one is looking and hope you don’t get caught. In my profession environmental impact assessments done for developments were considerably much more thorough and effective before the requirement was legislated!

The flip side is that the carrot needs to be of sufficient value that it is worth the effort of industry, which is after all driven by profit - to want to obtain. I do not say that the carrot needs to be direct financial bonuses for being good, but rather should consider rebates, publicity, first dibs at opportunities, etc. This is where people should be getting creative.

If for instance a big industrial process uses a lot of electricity, even though it has done all it can to reduce that requirement, and further reduces its impact by running its process out of sync with the normal peak demands (interesting side effect – the staff will also travel to and from work out of peak traffic times), and finally if possible, feeds electricity back onto the grid when the process is offline, then it should be compensated in some manner. But the current pattern is to just see the total impact without considering all knock-on benefits and impacts and smack them firmly with the stick. This is counter-productive. Note that I am most certainly not saying that some of the larger industrial movers and shakers are not very good at playing the whole 'look for a loophole' scenario, bend the law as far as they can go, or even break it if no-one is looking.

Another whole issue related to the international process is that of politics (really should be a 4-letter word!). We have the fact that developed countries (call them industrialized) have a political agenda to ensure that they do not lose pre-eminence in the global economy. They are trying their best to ensure that the developing countries (mostly ex-colonies) are kept in their place. The potential exists, as indicated in some of the articles referenced above, that the controls resulting from the Copenhagen Summit will merely keep the division between developed and developing nations in place and may in fact make these divisions more extreme.

There are many other examples to consider and a lot more than you can find out about the whole Greenhouse Gases process, but I hope I have given you enough information here to allow you to carry on investigating on your own with a reasonable basis to start from.

Other possible reasons for climate change

I think that just saying that climate change is due to industrialization is too simple an explanation. Mankind is probably speeding up an already complex situation that is fed by Earth's natural cycles, but other causative impacts may in fact be the dominant drivers of the whole process. A good summary link, 'Global Warming Facts and our Future', gives both causes of climate change as well as so-called amplifiers. This article has full links to information of each cause and amplifier.

To summarize, the causes are given as: CO2 and other greenhouse gas variations; human activity and greenhouse gas; reducing other greenhouse gases; ocean circulation; volcanic eruptions; solar variations; orbital variations and land-use changes. The amplifiers are given as: aerosols; clouds; water; and ice-reflectivity.

A point to note the consensus is that climate change is due to a combination of factors, never just one cause. Some of the more interesting – and in some cases entertaining – theories for the causes of climate change include:

• The distance between the Earth and the Sun (orbital distance) is decreasing and thus Earth is being heated more. This theory has been around since 1991 at least. This is a periodic pattern and does not mean we are about to fall into the Sun *grin* but rather that as we get closer to the Sun, our mean global temperatures will increase, and the direct impact of sun-spot activities (e.g. magnetic fluctuations, modifications to the upper atmosphere, radio signal interference) will be more marked. An interesting article to start with also gives a summary of some of the other causes of climate change. See "The Sun and Climate" by Judith Lean & David Rind

• It can be taken further in that there are another 8 planets out there to influence our distance from the Sun, including the big brother of the galaxy, Jupiter. This entertaining article, 'Climate Change is caused by Jupiter', written by a Czech Republic resident Vitezslav Kremlik is rather anti-American but very interesting. "Climate change caused by… Jupiter? The solar inertial motion hypothesis predicts that the period from about 2010 to 2040 will be one of relatively severe cold throughout the world. The hypothesis predicts that the emergent Sunspot Cycle No 24 will be quieter than Sunspot Cycle No 23 and just like Sunspot Cycle No 14, the weakest cycle in the last 100 years, which began in February, 1902 and ended in August,1913." (3) This was written in 2006. Now in 2009 we know, that the prediction of a weak 24th sunspot cycle was correct. We do not know yet how exactly the inertial mechanism works. But this hypothesis is already producing correct predictions. Astronomy is a real science capable of predictions. Alarmist climatology (using half-baken computer-simulations of future under their bugged MS Windows) is not."

• We are due a reversal in the earth's magnetic poles? If you believe the Mayan calendar day zero will be on our Summer Solstice in 2012 (2012-12-21)... watch this space... *cheesy grin*. But back to proven science, this ‘flip’ has apparently that has happened at least 20+ times since the mid-Atlantic ridge has opened up after Pangea (the super-continent) split up. See 'Polar Reversal'. Expect it to be biased and/or a tad off the wall, but it is an interesting place to start.

• Solar flares are going through an increase at moment (i.e. sun is going through a high energy phase), this is apparently part of an 11 year cycle and thus more than 1 cycle needs to be gone through so that the impact of that alone can be removed from analyses to determine the scope of other impacts. See 'The sun shows signs of life'.

• Natural extinction of species over time is a really nice emotive topic, especially when the issue of how extinction has occurred in the past (gradual vs. step-wise – ‘fading away’ vs. some catastrophic event) is added to the conversation. Obviously mankind has altered this dynamic a lot, as the total change in land-use from undeveloped to developed land can be measured in double figure percentages per decade for most parts of the world. This means that quite simply other species, related ecosystems and biomes, are being squeezed out by human occupation. Some species and ecosystems do in fact adapt but in most cases the adaptation speed is too slow to stop demise of many species. The point to note here is that climate change is causing a loss in biodiversity; that is, it is an end result. The land-use changes are the assumed dominant cause, but it should be noted that other causative factors are also significant. See 'Impact of climate change on species: A growing need for species to adapt in a changing world.'

In a much more academic article an alternative to climate change is given for species loss, see 'An alternative to climate change for explaining species loss in Thoreau’s woods' by McDonald, Christensen, Deblinger & Woytek. This is a very specific consideration for a small area of woodland, but it again reminds you to not just accept what is punted by the press as being the ONLY reason for a perceived change.

• Plate tectonics (the movement of the plates making the crust of earth over geological time periods) may also in the long run have a climate change result. The continents are apparently starting to drift back towards the layout found with Pangea – the original super-continent. This will change ocean currents, proximity of areas to the nearest ocean, the centre of the continents are likely to be drier, new mountain ranges, etc. I have even seen a programme that maintains that if Earth returns to a super-continent it could lead to Earth becoming like Mars (i.e. minimal atmosphere and water) over a few geological epochs. Not that that will have much influence on us humans I have to admit. See the following site for an interesting consideration of plate tectonics and climate change 'Implications of plate tectonics: Plate tectonics and climate change'.

The reality is that the state of science and our information base is just not up to making a final considered and unbiased decision. Then again, science is not about decisions but is rather about the ongoing process of setting and then disproving hypotheses in a continual fine-tuning process, with occasional dumping of the whole concept into File 13. This is further clouded by the rumours that scientists have been threatened with loss of tenure and research budgets because they wanted to release a paper that said something different from the main ‘party-line’ on climate change.

We have a complex environmental model which is tweaked by socio-political games and agendas, linked to solar system dynamics which are highly complex, changes in other media other than the atmosphere (water, earth). All in all, climate change with all related factors is just too complicated to predict clearly defined end results (short and long term), as even small changes could make the whole system react in totally unexpected ways.

Man’s impact

There is no escaping that mankind’s impact on the change in Earth’s climate is real. The question that needs to be and is being asked is rather, what is our role in altering the rate of change or considering the probabilities of what the direction of change is from the natural end-point to some other unexpected or even potentially cataclysmic result. Read total change to Earth’s atmospheric functionality and knock-on impacts like changes to ocean currents and possibly looking a tad like Venus; highly corrosive and not exactly fit for life as we know it to survive on!

The speed of climate change has definitely ramped-up since the start of the Industrial Revolution, as opposed to the changes over the last few hundred thousand years. This fact cannot be denied. But is this significant when you consider all other possible causative impacts? For this reason, the question currently being debated is, how much of the noted change over time – usually determined through carbon dioxide amounts found in ice cores from the poles and certain glaciers (a nifty way of looking at the atmosphere back through time) – is due to humans or our activities vs. how much is a trend overlaying the existing natural trend due to other factors? This question is still being hotly debated and is only beginning to receive public notice as accusations of suppression of scientific papers that do not follow the ‘accepted global warming’ scenario have been made.

What can you do?

So what can you do – start small, add one small change a week and by the end of 2010 you could be making a major difference in terms of your total carbon footprint. Have a look at the following sites for some ideas:

• Eco Living

• Indalo Yethu

• Green Building

• Electricity cost in your household?

• Where to take your used glass?

• Bending the Curve

'Green' as a religion?

One interesting spin-off of the whole increase in green awareness over the last two or so decades is the increase in articles such as the following, CultureWatch: Bill Muehlenberg’s commentary on issues of the day 'The Copenhagen Cult, Green Religion, and Money Grabs'. "In 1982 Professor Robert Nisbet wrote a book called Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary. In his section on "Environmentalism" he said this: "Environmentalism is now well on its way to becoming the third great wave of the redemptive struggle in Western history, the first being Christianity, the second modern socialism. He went on to describe the religious and messianic nature of the environmental movement. We are now seeing the full-blown expression of this in the Church of Climatology and the current religious ritual known as the Copenhagen Summit. The Green zealots and the true believers in man-made climate change have all the fervour and devotion of any religious believer. And we are seeing this all played out big time this week in Copenhagen. And of course the mainstream media choir are following right along with all this."

We even have the case of 'Climate change belief given same legal status as religion'. "An executive has won the right to sue his employer on the basis that he was unfairly dismissed for his green views after a judge ruled that environmentalism had the same weight in law as religious and philosophical beliefs."

I shall not discuss this in detail as I believe this is a topic all on its own. It does not take a crystal ball to know that this topic is going to get a lot more airtime in the coming years.

Do you know that the number of scientists that are becoming, or openly declare themselves to be pantheists is increasing?

pantheism: the belief that God can be identified with the universe, or that the universe is a manifestation of God.

I believe that science and belief can be integrated without the science becoming flawed. For a very erudite and interesting take on environmental issues I recommend that you read the plethora of books written by L.E. Modesitt Jr. Yes, these books are fantasy and science-fiction, but Modesitt has a wide experience range (air force pilot, campaign manager to a senator, director at US Environment Protection Agency, a father, married to an opera singer, A-grade best-selling author since the 1970s). So, so what? What this means is that he is environmentalist with a socio-economic understanding, combined with a very wry and sobering viewpoint on man’s real impact to our environment given the highly complex dynamics and inter-relationships of politics, economy, ethics vs. morals, belief systems, self-interest and public vs. private agendas.

I hope that this article has, if nothing else, made you remember to take nothing at mere face value. Nothing on Earth’s surface is ever simple. The reality is that Earth / Gaia is a complex organism in her own right, and when you add the overlay of Mankind’s interactions, the system is highly dynamic and yes, potentially unstable. So simply, all I can suggest is that you minimize your own impact on that system, make sure that you make informed, not biased decisions, and most of all try to not have a negative impact on those around you.

May 2010 be successful, sustainable and blessed. And given that change is inevitable, may you grow and meet the challenges thrown your way, and find the balance necessary to walk across the chasm of pitfalls (which life often provides) with ease, grace and most of all enjoying the view afforded! Blessed be!