CRUCIAL to effective action on the Climate Emergency is clearly INFORMING the public, politicians and climate activists about (a) Climate Emergency FACTS and (b) required Climate Emergency ACTIONS.
The following suggested SUMMARY of key Climate Emergency Facts and Actions for the 2009 Australian Climate Action Summit (Canberra, 31 January-3 February 2009) is a distillation of key concerns raised within the Australian Climate Emergency Network (CEN; see: http://www.climateemergencynetwork.org/ ) since its inception in Melbourne, Australia in 2008. Authoritative documentation of the following assertions can be found in many detailed documents placed on the Web for public information by the Melbourne-based Yarra Valley Climate Action Group (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/Home ).
Climate Emergency Facts
1. Expert opinion on Climate Emergency. We must take very seriously the views of top climate scientists and top scientists in relation to the Climate Emergency – just as we would the views of top medical specialists in relation to a serious medical problem – and many are stating that the World is facing a Climate Emergency and Sustainability Emergency e.g. Dr James Hansen (Head, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies) : “we face a climate emergency” (see: http://www.climatecodered.net/ ) ; Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty “we are in real danger” (see: http://uninews.unimelb.edu.au/news/4775/ ) ; Professor David de Kretser AC: “There is no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest problem confronting mankind at this time and that it has reached the level of a state of emergency” (see: http://www.scribepublications.com.au/book/climatecodered ).
2. Expert opinion on climate position. According to Dr Hansen and 8 UK, French and US climate change scientist co-authors (2008): “Paleoclimate data show that climate sensitivity is ~3 deg-C for doubled CO2 [carbon dioxide; atmospheric CO2 280 ppm pre-industrial], including only fast feedback processes. Equilibrium sensitivity, including slower surface albedo feedbacks, is ~6 deg-C for doubled CO2 for the range of climate states between glacial conditions and ice-free Antarctica. Decreasing CO2 was the main cause of a cooling trend that began 50 million years ago, large scale glaciation occurring when CO2 fell to 450 +/- 100 ppm [parts per million], a level that will be exceeded within decades, barring prompt policy changes. If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm” (see: http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126 ).
3. Expert opinion on where climate is going. Dr Andrew Glikson (an Earth and paleo-climate research scientist at Australian National University, Canberra, Australia): “For some time now, climate scientists warned that melting of subpolar permafrost and warming of the Arctic Sea (up to 4 degrees C during 2005–2008 relative to the 1951–1980) are likely to result in the dissociation of methane hydrates and the release of this powerful greenhouse gas into the atmosphere (methane: 62 times the infrared warming effect of CO2 over 20 years and 21 times over 100 years) … The amount of carbon stored in Arctic sediments and permafrost is estimated as 500–2500 Gigaton Carbon (GtC), as compared with the world’s total fossil fuel reserves estimated as 5000 GtC. Compare with the 700 GtC of the atmosphere, which regulate CO2 levels in the range of 180–300 parts per million and land temperatures in a range of about – 50 to + 50 degrees C, which allowed the evolution of warm blooded mammals. The continuing use of the atmosphere as an open sewer for industrial pollution has already added some 305 GtC to the atmosphere together with land clearing and animal-emitted methane. This raised CO2 levels to 387 ppm CO2 to date, leading toward conditions which existed on Earth about 3 million years (Ma) ago (mid-Pliocene), when CO2 levels rose to about 400 ppm, temperatures to about 2–3 degrees C and sea levels by about 25 +/- 12 metres. There is little evidence for an extinction at 3 Ma. However, by crossing above a CO2 level of 400 ppm the atmosphere is moving into uncharted territory. At this stage, enhanced methane leaks threaten climate events, such as the massive methane release and fauna extinction of 55 million years ago, which was marked by rise of CO2 to near-1000 ppm” (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/glikson101008.htm ).
4. Expert opinion about current and future biological consequences. With atmospheric CO2 at 387 ppm (versus 280 ppm pre-industrial and presently increasing at 2.5 ppm per year) and global average temperature 0.8 degree C above pre-industrial, the World is already seeing mass species extinction at rates 100-1,000 times that in the fossil record (see: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v427/n6970/full/nature02121.html and http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0107_040107_extinction.html); major ecosystems are being destroyed due to drought, deforestation, Arctic ice melting, tundra melting, glacier melting, and ocean warming and acidification (see IPCC: http://www.ipcc.ch/ ); world coral reefs have already been severely damaged and will die above 450 ppm CO2 from ocean warming and acidification (see: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/318/5857/1737 and http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2007/2115399.htm); ocean phytoplankton and the Greenland ice sheet go above 500 ppm CO2; (see Dr James Lovelock’s book “The Revenge of Gaia”); already 16 million people die avoidably each year due to increasingly climate-impacted deprivation (see my books “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ); and according to top UK climate scientist Dr James Lovelock FRS over 6 billion people will perish this century due to unaddressed anthropogenic global warming (AGW) (see: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16956300/the_prophet_of_climate_change_james_lovelock ).
Climate Emergency Actions
1. Our core values must be that we have no right to bargain away the lives of others – there must be a safe climate future for all people, all species, and all generations, NOW e.g. the survival of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is simply NOT negotiable.
2. Our core goals must be concurrent halt to man-made greenhouse gas emissions, removal of excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to less than 350 ppm, and active cooling of the Earth (by re-afforestation, biochar addition to depleted soils).
3. Core scientific risk management methodology must be generally adopted – this successively involving (a) accurate data (with zero tolerance for lying), (b) scientific analysis (this involving the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses), and (c) systemic change and INFORMING (to rationally minimize risk with requisite urgency).
4. Cessation of fossil fuel burning must occur ASAP with concurrent rapid uptake of non-carbon renewable (solar, wind, wave) and geothermal energy systems, the best of which are now roughly equivalent in cost to the “market cost” of coal burning.
5. To accelerate cessation of fossil fuel burning, society must insist that the “true cost” of fossil fuel burning (4-5 times that of the “market cost”; huge environmental cost and human avoidable morbidity and avoidable mortality) be identified, sourced and fully met by the perpetrators (the World may apply Sanctions against the worst climate criminal nations).
6. There must be immediate cessation of huge direct and indirect subsidies for fossil fuel burning (currently $10 billion per annum in Australia, population 21 million).
7. Livestock contribute 18% of annual man-made greenhouse gas pollution globally. Methanogenic livestock must be rapidly phased out (e.g. by high conversion efficiency fish aquaculture, soy milk, plant-derived protein and fat).
8. Deforestation contributes about 20% of annual man-made greenhouse gas pollution globally but can be halved for a mere $20 billion per annum disincentive paid to the Third World (cheap solar cooking can also make a massive contribution).
9. Non-carbon public transport must rapidly replace carbon-based private transport, freeway-based systems and the genocidal Western “food for fuel” biofuel perversion.
10. Urgent population control is required coupled with major resource use efficiency and global equity (e.g. Australia’s annual per capita carbon pollution is about 10 times the global average) – all achievable with truth, reason and cultural change.