How much global warming is too much?
According to Phil Mitchell, that’s the wrong question to ask. He said the right question is: “should we be conducting an out–of–control experiment on our own life support systems?”
Guest post from Phil Mitchell of the 2People.org website.
Serious discussions of global warming these days focus on the question of how much we can heat the planet without causing irreparable harm. A top NASA climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, has said that further warming of two or three degrees implies practically a different planet – and, according to Hansen, not a pleasant one. (Continued below the chart …)
This chart – from the recent Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change – shows predictions for changes in the natural and human worlds induced by various levels of increase in global warming over the coming century.
But asking how much warming is too much is the wrong question. It’s wrong because we can’t answer this question with any certainty.
The one thing we do know about the global climate system is that we don’t understand it very well. Dr. Wally Broecker, who pioneered the study of abrupt climate change, has said, “The Earth climate system has proven beyond any doubt that it is capable of jumping abruptly from one state of operation to another. ... My lifetime study of Earth’s climate system has humbled me. I’m convinced that we have greatly underestimated the complexity of this system.”
The right question then is: should we be conducting an out–of–control experiment on our own life support systems?
Indeed, there is abundant evidence that fixing the global warming problem will bring more benefits than burdens: less pollution, more jobs, a stronger economy, increased prosperity around the globe.
Consider these facts:
First, DuPont has already reduced its global warming emissions 72% below 1990 levels. How much did it cost? Nothing — in fact, doing so has saved the company $3 billion dollars. Companies such as BP, Alcoa, and Dow Chemical have had similar experiences reducing emissions and profiting from it.
Second, the half–million square foot headquarters of ING bank in Amsterdam uses 92% less energy than its neighbors and requires no air conditioning and almost no heating. It saves about $3 million per year in energy costs and many times that in increased worker productivity from features such as natural lighting and ventilation. It was built in 1987 — in other words, with technology that is now twenty years old.
Meanwhile, vehicle fuel economy in the U.S. has not improved since the mid–1980’s (it has actually declined), and the average U.S. home still has single–pane windows, uninsulated ducts, and no insulation on the water heater. We are living in an Alice–in–Wonderland world.
Stop for a moment and ask yourself: would you be better or worse off if your car got 100 mpg and your total home energy bill was $50 per year? These figures are not pipe dreams, but based on technologies available now or easily within reach. But until now, business has had no incentive to provide them.
The question, then, is how much of a planetary gamble should we accept, given that the alternative is a thriving, superefficient, low pollution economy? The answer, of course, is: none. Rather than trying to guess how much warming is safe, we should be launching a new Apollo project to solve this problem on three fronts:
1. Decarbonize the industrial world.
2. Assist the developing nations to industrialize with clean energy, not fossil fuels.
3. Halt global deforestation (which produces 20% or more of all global warming pollution).
The challenges we face are not fundamentally technical (though there are technical challenges) or economic (though there will be costs). The only real challenges are political. Can we as a society overcome the vested interests who are so caught up in their business models that they can’t see that they are bringing down the world around us?
I say we can. What do you say? You can join a growing movement that says: Don’t play dice with the future of our planet.
Phil Mitchel is the founder of 2People.org, whose mission is “sustainability in one generation.” According to the 2People website, “... we have come to believe that the disruption of our climate threatens to make all other sustainability goals unachievable. Therefore, our immediate goal is to build an overwhelming public mandate for real solutions to the climate crisis. We are a non–profit organization. Contact us at (info) at (2people) dot (org), or visit the 2People.org. website.
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why does the global warming causes lots of damage?
i dont hav a comment but i hav something 2 say. If we dont deal with global warming soon, the earth will no longer exist!! we hav 2 do something, not only one person can do it on their own. we need help from high authorities, the equipment! get people involved with something as little as helping keep the envirinment clean, getting schools involved once a month 2 clean up the playgrounds or/and near by parks, jus recycling and not littering using the garbage bins. something as little as that can make a bit of change. it can help us, help the environment, and the species on this earth which we need 2 survive with. we can do it if we work together, but we need help spreadding the word around. A voice that stands alone no one hears. Please help me, help us, but most of all, help our environment the earth we live on. Thats all i had to say. Thank you
That’s a really scary chart!
Dear Phil Mitchell and Friends,
Thanks for your efforts to break the silence that is evidently ‘paralyzing’ many too many scientists, as seen in the variety of their symptom presentations: willful blindness, hysterical deafness and muteness.
We are seeing the development of virtual mountains of scientific data that are related to certain “overgrowth” activities of the human species now spreading over the surface of the Earth. These activities are 1) increasing and unrestrained per capita consumption of limited natural resources, 2) untethered and seemingly endless expansion of production capabiilities of economic globalization, and 3) unbridled increase of absolute human population numbers worldwide.
Where can we find experts who are willing to discuss emerging scientific evidence of human overgrowth activities, human population dynamics, and the human overpopulation of the wondrous planetary home we inhabit?
Thank you.
Steve
As the day of celebration for Martin Luther King, Jr. approaches, perhaps it is timely to remember his simple words:
OUR LIVES (and the human species, I suppose) BEGIN TO END THE DAY WE BECOME SILENT ABOUT THINGS THAT MATTER.
There is so much on the internet about global warming. Even NASA has come around, apparently, to allowing its scientists to speak more freely about global warming. See NASA puts its weight behind warming signs, from MSNBC.
The fact is that we don’t know how much warming is too much.
And we’re already committed to a certain amount of human-caused global warming … no one knows how much. It’s not as if we can suddenly just stop the world from getting warmer, over the coming decades.
What we do know is that the 6.5 billion humans on the planet are in this thing together. So anything we can do to hear each other … to work toward solutions together … would seem wise at this point.
I’m trying to say that the issue isn’t global warming. The issue is humanity itself, and our ability to learn to work together for the common good.
Dear Deborah,
Thanks for noting that the problem is really not global warming. As you realistically report, “The issue is humanity itself…..”
I agree with you; however, good scientific evidence related to certain activities of the human species are ignored. And in these many instances, SCIENCE becomes a victim of its true enemy…..SILENCE.
As examples, where are scientists discussing emerging data from Dr. Hopfenberg and Dr. Pimentel on human population dynamics and the human overpopulation of Earth? When will scientists examine data indicating that the seemingly infinite expansion of human production conglomerations is patently unsustainable in a finite world? How much longer will we wait for scientists to share the supressed understanding that the current scale and rate of increase of unrestained per human consumption cannot be maintained with the limited resources of a planet the size of Earth?
Let us imagine for a moment that per human consumption, economic globaization and the propagation of the human species, when taken together, produce an overwhelming impact on natural resources, ecosystem services and integrity of Earth. Would reasonable and prudent people not choose to at least consider how FURTHER UNBRIDLED INCREASES of per capita consumption, big business expansion and human reproduction could be sensibly and humanely limited?
Such steps would certainly mean, as you put it, Deborah, that human beings would necessarily choose to exercise “our ability to learn to work together for the common good”.
Thanks always to Deborah Byrd,
Steve
Dear Deborah, i dont understand how people can just sit back and say that global warming isnt happening. i mean isnt it odvious it out there? and to those scientist that are trying to blame something other them global warming, a like 50 years they are going to realise that it is global warming after all and all they will have to say after that many years of research is i have found out something important “ the tempreture is rising” well why wait for them to piont out the odviouse and do something about it while they are wasting time trying to find out what we already no
i mean i could be wrong. i mean im only a 15 year old girl that has realised that sociaty has to change its way of lifing and stop over populating our selfs and do something about global warming because sitting behind the tv is not doing anything
thank you once again, Deborah, Elly
Elly, thanks for writing! I completely agree with you.
Deborah
Great work, Elly.
Dearest Elly,
I also want to agree with you, but need to add that your call to action could “falling on deaf ears.” Expecting changes in behavior from many people in my “not so great” generation could lead to disappointment. We prefer to ignore the real challenges of our time. If you ask the leaders of my generation why we doing as we are, they will tell you that we have other, much more important things to do than saving the Earth and life as we know it for you, my children, all children and coming generations.
Perhaps your generation, Elly, will help those in my generation see the errors in our ways of living.
Sincerely,
Steve
Dear Elly,
The problem facing my generation, in my humble opinion, is that we believe we know the best way for everyone on Earth to live. OUR one way to live life is all that matters and is non-negotiable. Our way of life is not something we question or want to talk about.
Please do not ask us to consume less. Please do not expect us to change our way of living. That is non-negotiable. Because we like things just the way they are, thank you, we want to make sure that everyone else gets you enjoy life the way we do. The fact that what we are doing is patently unsustainable is not something we talk about.
Do not ask us to conduct our business activities so that the Earth is not polluted, degraded, dissipated and overly warmed. There are unacceptable business costs associated with such changes. We believe in the primary importance of economic success.
Do not ask the leaders of my generation to fund family health and education programs, provide condoms, limit wildly extragavant resource consumption, restrict the ravaging of Earth by business conglomerations, etc. You need to see what such changes could mean for profits, expanding markets and cheap labor.
We are masters of the universe and know what is best; let me assure you of that. My generations believes in “staying the course” with the firmest possible conviction that we will be proven “right” in the end, whatever that means.
WE UNILATERALLY INSIST UPON INFINITE INCREASE, IN ENDLESS GROWTH OF HUMAN POPULATION NUMBERS, UNRESTRAINED PER HUMAN CONSUMPTION AND UNTETHERED ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION. These objectives must be maintained. Nothing else is more important. That what we are doing, and recommending as THE one AND ONLY WAY to secure YOUR FUTURE is patently unsustainable is not something we want to talk about. Silence is golden.
We need help, Elly.
Sincerely,
Steve
Hi Earth & Sky…
Remember when I stated last September:
Doug said…
OK…I just can’t leave without one more comment…the close proximity of the earth to the sun of late is causing an increase absorption of solar energy into one of the largest…no…the largest heat capacity body on the earth….the world’s oceans…this increase in thermal energy , coupled with the angle of the earth’s rotation now at 24 degrees is seriously altering the coriolis forces affecting both ocean thermal currents and atmospheric conditions…I suspect this winter along the Pacific Northwest will see increasing violent wind forces resulting from energy absorbed in the pacific ocean during this time of the year as the earth passes closely to the sun and equatorial waters of the pacific are now increasing in thermal energy…I’ll check back in in late December through February….
9/12/2006 06:58:00 AM
Well…in mid December the Pacific Northwest experienced a severe wind storm with wind speeds up to 100 mph along the coastline. Now just last week violent windstorms wracked Germany and other Eastern European countries. So you going to shut this blog down as well now that I’ve ‘enlightened’your audience once again?
Dear Douglas P. Jackson,
Thanks for your comments above. If you do not mind, please check out the report at the following link.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/01/23/climate.report.ap/index.html
Your thoughts about global warming in light of the explosion of data from IPCC would be welcome.
Sincerely,
Steve
please visit www.friendsofscience.org and then make your own decision. they have a couple of great “Al Gore” type movies.
Another interesting source of information about Global Warming and Climate is www.co2science.org
“Now you listen to me, and you listen good. I don’t give a damn which way you go, just don’t follow me. You got that?”
PLEASE do not follow me either. The path of my generation of elders is dominated by hubris, faulty reasoning, intellectual dishonesty, political convenience, economic expediency and hoarding of wealth. YOU got that?
“Now you listen to me, and you listen good. I don’t give a damn which way you go, just don’t follow me. You got that?” ...
I don’t know how often I tell my unwelcome flatulence that exact phrase!!! x)
Dear Sumomuso,
I like good humor as much as the next person; however, in this instance when global challenges of such import are being discussed, your flatulence appears as distracting behavior that aims to ignore the potentially pressing problems looming ominously before the human community :)
Steve
ASSES
Dear Friends,
The path ahead could soon be filled with formidable global challenges for the human community for which the current masters of the universe and many elders in my generation are simply not prepared. The elders are the ones who have played a large role in electing our present leaders. Afterall, we have most of the wealth in a society in which money matters most. Real wealth makes an actual difference because it, not people, decides elections. We are told it will take a billion dollars to run for US President in the 2008 election. Perhaps there is something not quite right about a democracy in which vital questions of founding principles, fair play, equity and governance itself are automatically subordinated to considerations of money and the unbridled yearnings of monied interests for seemingly endless amounts of wealth.
For example, there is no surprise when vital questions of biodiversity preservation, environmental support, and maintenance of the integrity of Earth are met with responses from politicians like:
unacceptable business expenses would be imposed
or
intolerably low profit margins would result
or
attention to these concerns will wreck the economy.
There are many more rationalizations for protecting the US economy at all costs. You have probably heard them bandied about so pervasively by the mass media that we and our children might doubt our own God-given capacity to think straight about the way the world works and about the place of the artificially designed, man-made economy within God’s created natural world.
And I only imagine now, but most people probably know of that small-brained animal called the ostrich. When it has a problem, it puts its head in the sand and, I imagine, tries to ‘think’ with its behind. You have probably seen this behavioral repertoire exhibited among human beings. Unfortunately, it would appear, such a small-brain approach to understanding the world has too often been adopted by members of the large-brain human species.
Putting ones head in the sand and trying to think with ones behind inevitably produces poor outcomes, I believe. Human beings are possessed of astonishing intelligence, a capacity for experience, and an abundance of other wondrous attributes. To squander what God has provided us by keeping our heads in the sand seems maladaptive and a woefully inadequate response to the requirements of reality by a splendid species.
Our children will surely do better than we have done. We in the elder generation have got to find ways to use our heads to DO good works that are more nearly in keeping with what we KNOW to be good.
Always,
Steve
Hello again,
This is not rocket science. Do people or money rule? Is God or Mammon worshipped?
People are working harder and earning less; the wealthy are not working, living life without regard to biophysical limitations, and leading humankind down a primrose path to the loss of life as we know it and to the degradation of the Earth. Is there not something the matter with this picture?
Sincerely,
Steve