The Long View: communicating the science honestly

First published in Crikey on 9 March 2011

It’s the Gillard versus Abbott drawcard event. The debate over carbon price legislation is a decisive battle in Australia’s climate policy war. Lines have been drawn; only one contestant will survive.

If Labor goes down, so do the prospects of further action. The Greens would be badly battered and Australia would remain a polluters’ paradise. But if legislation establishes an effective carbon price relatively free of rorts, all will be well. Or will it?

Given the centrality of scientific research to understanding the impacts of global warning, and Australians’ recent experience of extreme weather events, it is startling that this debate has been cast almost exclusively in economic terms.

For the major players, including environment NGOs, it’s about a big new tax or pricing pollution, utility prices and compensation, employment impacts and clean jobs, investment and business certainty. Reduced to a slanging match between Tea Party Tony fanning fear about power bills, and the government rationalising that a carbon price will bring investment certainty to the electricity sector and keep bills lower, Abbott will likely win. It suits a Coalition wanting to avoid focus on the science of global warming, on which there is sharp disagreement within both conservative parties.

4 degrees hotter: an adaptation trap?

"Can, and how would, we live in a world 4 degrees Celsius warmer?" is no longer an abstract question, but one that has become the subject of debate in scientific circles, and now in the community.
Global political failure to reach agreement on greenhouse gas reduction measures in accord with the scientific imperatives will result in 4 degrees Celsius of global warming by 2100, if only the present levels of commitments by nations are achieved.

But is talk of, and planning for, adaptation to a 4-degree warmer world realistic, or delusional?

Commentary

Beyond the carbon price, a Faustian bargain, Crikey, 6 February 2012
Carbon tax pitch misses the mark: it’s the climate, stupid, Crikey 18 July 2011
‘Most of Australia’ can expect more than 50 degrees by end of century, Crikey 15 July 2011
Risky business in planning for rising sea levels Crikey, 8 June 2011
'Direct Action' could reward polluters rather than discourage Crikey, 3 June 2011 Commission's call for carbon budget beyond political belief Crikey, 23 May 2011
Hot pink no laughing matter Crikey, 13 April 2011
The Long View: communicating the science honestly Crikey, 9 March 2011
NASA climate chief: Labor’s targets a ‘recipe for disaster’ Crikey, 27 January 2011
Emergency response needed for more than floods Crikey, 19 January 2011
The Long Road To Copenhagen New Matilda, 26 November 2009 
Copenhagen reality check #1: 25% by 2020 isn’t in the ball park Crikey, 9 November 2009
Please Adjust Your Expectations New Matilda, 3 November 2009
Illusions on the edge of a precipice The Age, 19 October 2009
Punting on coal is a loser, but try telling the government The Age, 10 September 2009

Why the climate catastrophe leaves no room for pragmatism Overland Winter 2009

Plan B: Ditch carbon trading and get ready to spend The National Interest, 8 May 2009
Suicidal Sweethearts New Matilda 5 May 2009
Warming gets cold shoulder from Canberra The Age, 29 January 2009
Bubbling our way to the apocalypse Rolling Stone (Aust), November 2008

This is an emergency! Speech to Adelaide public meeting, 10 October 2008
Middle of the road ... towards a cliff The Age, 8 August 2008
In the end, climate is not an economic question On Line Opinion, 8 July 2008
The perils of playing nice New Matilda, 4 July 2008
Not enough time to turn back the climate clock Adelaide Advertiser, 3 July 2008


After Garnaut, the big questions will remain unanswered ABC Opinion, 2 July 2008
Coming clean on ‘nice’ coal Crikey, 16 April 2008
Courting Tiger, like air travel itself, is unsustainable The Age, 17 March 2007

Rethinking a "safe climate": have we already gone too far?

It is hard to argue that anything above the Holocene maximum (of around 0.5 degrees above the pre-industrial temperature) can preserve a safe climate, and that we have already gone too far.  The notion that 1.5C is a safe target is out the window, and even 1 degree looks like an unacceptably high risk.

• NASA climate chief James Hansen says:
• At current temperatures, no "cushion" left to avoid dangerous climate change
• "... even small global warming above the level of the Holocene begins to generate a disproportionate warming on the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets."

by David Spratt, 23 January 2011

As global temperatures rise to be 0.8 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial level, is the planet already entering a zone of dangerous climate change?

With Arctic sea-ice in a "death spiral", Greenland in 2010 melting at an unprecedented rate, a seemingly extraordinary number of extreme climate events in the last year from the Russian fires to the Pakistan floods, and 18 countries setting new temperature records, have we already gone too far for a safe climate?

Emergency response needed for more than floods

First published in Crikey on 19 January 2011.

With the military on the job and perhaps the post-1945 Marshall Plan on her mind, Queensland premier Anna Bligh has designated recovery from the floods “a reconstruction task of postwar proportions.”

The words are deliberate: ‘”I want people to understand how big it is, and how long it might take,” because the machinery of government needs to be reshaped. The premier goes on to “hope and pray that mother nature is leaving us alone to get on with the job of cleaning up and recovering from this event”.

Yes, but … we also need to leave Mother Nature alone, and stop loading the atmosphere with carbon emissions, so that more extreme climate events which are part-and-parcel of a warming planet do not tumble down upon us with increasing frequency, as they have around the globe in the last year.

That will require action and a commitment of resources at a scale far beyond the failures that have so far constituted Australia’s climate policy.

Climate news

2012

11 March 2012
4 March 2012

26 February 2012
19 February 2012
12 February 2012
5 February 2012

29 January 2012
22 January 2012
15 January 2012
8 January 2012


2011
21 December 2011

• Read the archive of weekly media summaries at http://lists.topica.com/lists/carbonequityproject/read

Publications

Our climate: past and future Illustrated in 11 easy slides Download PDF Download Powerpoint	4 degrees hotter: A primer Download	Climate policy dissonance Download
A Rough Guide to Door-Knocking on Climate Download	A carbon tax... and then? Download	High Stakes: Climate Change, the Himalayas, Asia and Australia Download
A collection of provocative ideas and proposals for the 2010 Australian Climate Action Summit Download	The permafrost: Bubbling our way to the apocalypse Download	A collection of articles and ideas for the 2009 Australian Climate Action Summit Download
The October 2007 look at the Arctic story, which triggered the writing of "Climate Code Red". Download	"Climate Code Red" Find out more	A primer on sea-level rise Download

Putting politics before science is a dumb strategy

David Spratt

On the "Rooted" blog today, Tim Hollo asked: Is an ETS automatically more ambitious than a tax?

This debate is urgent, as a grouping of large NGOs enters the public arena to advocate for politically-based climate targets. It's disturbing to see that the Climate Institute and the Southern Cross Climate Coalition (SCCC) are it again, pitching for climate policy targets that fall well short of what the climate science requires.

[It is interesting that the SCCC sees the ACTU still linking with the Climate Institute, which was founded with philanthropic support, but is now financially dependent on big business, including GE, Westpac, KPMG, OgilvyEarth, PacHydro, AGL and Jemena!  This seems an usual relationship for the ACTU to be engaged in.]

The SCCC says a policy foundation is that "Australia’s domestic pollution levels are declining by 2013 and are able to be reduced by at least 25 percent by 2020 (from 1990 levels) as our contribution to an ambitious international climate agreement."

This blog has previously looked at how a number of large environment and NGOs went minesweeping for Labor's crook emissions trading scheme, and what's up with emisions reductions of 25-40% by 2020.

Testing Victorian Labor's climate credentials

Having watched federal Labor take a battering at the polls over its climate backflips, the Victorian Labor Government has learned some lessons in preparing for the state poll of 27 November.

Labor is working hard to get on the front foot on climate, especially in preparing to defend a number of northern inner-city seats which on the results from relevant booths at the federal poll would either fall to the Greens (Melbourne, Richmond) or are line-ball (Northcote, Brunswick). Whilst the Greens as yet do not appear to have released an election-ready climate and energy policy, Labor is promoting its recent climate initiatives, exemplified by this current local newspaper advertisement, on-the-ground campaign material, and social media.

But how well does Labor stack up? Premier Brumby has made much of the government's climate bill, but the Victorian Government has also promised a $50 million subsidy for a new coal power station in Victoria, to be built by the company HRL-Dual Gas. The project is currently seeking EPA approval. It will increase Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions by up to 4.2 million tonnes each year.

That's the same amount that emissions will be cut with Premier Brumby's plan to close one-quarter of Hazelwood power station. That's a dirty trick, saying you will close a small part of one coal power station because you care about the climate, then handing over taxpayers' money to build a new one!

Hazelwood was due to close in 2009, but instead the state Labor government extended its life past 2030. It is an industrial dinosaur and the dirtiest coal-fired power station in Australia.

Victoria’s brown-coal emissions have increased 10% in the last 10 years, and new, dirty brown coal reserves have been handed over to industry. Deals have been signed to dig up and export more brown coal.

Key messages of Climate Code Red

On the publication of "Climate Code Red" in mid-2008, we tried to elaborate some of the key themes in the book:

1. Our goal is a safe-climate future – we have no right to bargain away species or human lives

• No species has the right to consciously determine what proportion of all other species on earth should become extinct — as the compromise 2 and 3-degree temperature rise targets do. Lacking the collective will to act in a sustainable manner is no excuse.
  
• Humans have created the looming catastrophe of global warming and we have the capacity and duty to undo the damage and act in a sustainable manner, to cool the earth back to the safe-climate zone.
  

Bubbling our way to the apocalypse

Here's an article published in Rolling Stone in November 2008, which while focused on the permafrost issue, made some comments about the trajectory of the Rudd Labor government on climate. They turned out even worse that expected.

Bubbling our way to the apocalypse

Despite some public stunts that suggest concern about carbon, the Rudd Government's global warming plan just doesn't add up

by David Spratt and Damien Lawson

Kevin Rudd should send his climate change minister, Penny Wong, to Siberia.

Not as punishment, but because our future may depend on Penny Wong and climate policy-makers around the world understanding what’s going on there. For beneath its frozen landscape a catastrophe is lurking, and Siberia may about to become the scene of global retribution for our extravagant consumption of fossil fuels.

"Siberia" has become a metaphor for exile and deprivation. In the nineteenth century more than a million prisoners were deported there. Last century at last 18 million people were banished to the Soviet Union's labour camps for political and other prisoners, known as the Gulag, scattered across north-east Siberia.

What would 3 degrees mean?

David Spratt

The failure of international climate negotiations means that if all countries acted on ALL their commitments, the world would still warm by more than 3 degrees, according to Climate Tracker. 

So what would a world 3 degrees warmer llok and feel like? Scientists draw on a number of disciplines and methods to answer the question, including paleo-climatology (study of past climate history), complex mathematical models of the world's climate system tested and refined against past climate data, observation of current events and specific research testing hypotheses. Mark Lynas surveyed much of this research for his book "Six degrees: our place on a hotter planet" (Harper Collins, 2007). Drawing from his work and other sources, the following is an overview of some of the scientific projections as the world warms. These are not all certain events, but they are what scientific research thinks is likely. A full set of references on pp. 301-327 of "Six Degrees".

Three degrees of warming

Three degrees may be the “tipping point” where global warming could run out of control, leaving us powerless to intervene as planetary temperatures soar. America's most eminent climate scientist, James Hansen says warming has brought us to the "precipice of a great “tipping point”. If we go over the edge, it will be a transition to “a different planet”, an environment far outside the range that has been experienced by humanity. There will be no return within the lifetime of any generation that can be imagined, and the trip will exterminate a large fraction of species on the planet" ["Wild" magazine, April 2007].

Liberals would cut $1.5 billion in climate funding

A detailed statement outlining the savings measures or cuts that would be made by the Coalition has been released by the opposition's finance spokesman Andrew Robb.
Based on the content of the statement it seems the Coalition would cut over $1.5 billion in climate related funding set out in the Budget over the forward estimates (next four years). This includes the $653 million renewable energy and energy efficiency fund announced in the Federal Budget.
In addition they would also reduce funding to the Carbon Capture and Storage Flagships Program by $200 million.
Further evidence that the Coalition like Labor don't have a real plan to tackle climate change.

Door knocking in Coburg

Climate Action Moreland and the Climate Action Centre held our second day of door knocking in Coburg today.

Hundreds of residents of the city of Moreland found out about the campaign to Replace Hazelwood with Clean Energy and signed our petition.

Many commited to asking the local Labor candidate where she stood on the Hazelwood election test.

More door knock days are planned for inner city electorates to find our more sign up for email updates and keep an eye on the Replace Hazelwood page of the Climate Action website.

10 lessons for the climate movement

Damien Lawson

[First published for the second Australian climate action summit, Canberra, March 2010]

For the 2009 climate summit, I wrote a short article titled “Looking back - moving forward: ten lessons for the climate movement”. It attempted to articulate some of the challenges and opportunities for the community climate movement after two years of rapid growth in scope and capacity.

A lot has happened since the last summit: the dominance of the debate on the government’s carbon-trading plan, the failed Copenhagen conference, the division over climate in the Liberal Party and the emergence of the climate denier Tony Abbot as leader. In many ways the harsh reality of the terrain in which we are working is even more stark than it was a year ago, and requires us to face up to the enormous challenge we face.

Taking "Replace Hazelwood" to the streets

The Labor member for Northcote, Fiona Richardson, is greeted by members of Darebin Climate Action Now, Fairfield shops, Saturday 24 April 2010.
More on the campaign...
and help door-knock in Moreland

A climate of can-do

by David Spratt

[First published in Earth Song Journal (Perspectives in Ecology, Spirituality and Education), Autumn 2010]

In an Australia Day speech this year, prime minister Rudd evoked the "two great spirits, that of the can-do, that of the fair go, (which) essentially hold together the narrative of our nation" and "this great... ennobling attitude of Australians where we have the sense and the spirit of the fair go etched deeply into the Australian soul".

But are those attitudes simply to be lauded in others when the nationalist "spirit" peaks on ceremonial occasions, or they should they inform our national leadership in facing global warming, the great challenge of our time?

The greens’ proposal for a carbon tax

by David Spratt
[First published for the second Australian Climate Action Summit, 12 March 2010]

On 21 January, The Greens proposed a “levy on polluters” or carbon price/tax to break the Senate deadlock on climate change. The Greens are currently negotiating with the government on the plan.

How the Murdoch press got it wrong on the Himalayan big melt

Published in Crikey, 20 January 2010

by Damien Lawson and David Spratt

Drawing on a January 13 New Scientist story by Fred Pearce reporting on a debate among glaciologists about the IPCC's claim, The Times (UK) and subsequently The Australian and other Murdoch papers have tried to shift from a debate about timing to a questioning of global warming.

A climate con: Analysis of the "Copenhagen Accord"

By David Spratt and Damien Lawson
21 December 2009
Climate Action Centre Briefing Note

''In biblical terms it looks like we are being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our future and our people … our future is not for sale.'' Ian Fry, Tuvalu negotiator

"This is a declaration that small and poor countries don't matter, that international civil society doesn't matter, and that serious limits on carbon don't matter. The president has wrecked the UN and he's wrecked the possibility of a tough plan to control global warming. It may get Obama a reputation as a tough American leader, but it's at the expense of everything progressives have held dear. 189 countries have been left powerless, and the foxes now guard the carbon henhouse without any oversight." Bill McKibben, 350.org