The Wacky World of the Keystone XL Pipeline Proposal

The saga of the Keystone XL pipeline seems to have more twists than The Da Vinci Code. Just when it seems that the project to bring tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada to oil refineries in our leading greenhouse gas producing state, Texas, has been rejected it invariably regains life in some new form. You just can’t kill this thing. Yet another Wach-A-Mole project to keep climate activists like Bill McKibben wacking away. McKibben actually is probably partly responsible for beginning these strange turn of events when he and about 1,200 other people got arrested in front of the White House protesting the pipeline which must have put the project on Barack Obama’s political radar screen. To make sure the president got the message McKibben later got about 5,000 people to surround the White House in another protest. Also, much of the state of Nebraska making noise about what this potentially polluting pipeline could do the aquifer that they rely on for water was heard by Obama. Then after Obama decided to delay the decision to after the election the Republicans came up with the bright idea of attaching approval of the pipeline to bills that Obama wants to sign. On their first attempt Obama turned down the project, saying there was not enough time to review the changes, so the Republicans simply keep attaching it to more bills. And now the never-say-die company that wants to build the pipeline, TransCanada, came up with their own bright idea, to break the project into two parts. The southern part would extend from Oklahoma to Texas and since it would not cross the border from Canada it will not need State Department approval making life much easier for TransCanada.

Somehow it looks like this thing will be built, or will it? Waiting in the wings just in case TransCanada or the Republicans eventually give up is an existing pipeline that goes from Portland, Maine to Montreal. This pipeline now brings oil from Maine to Canada but if the flow is reversed a pipeline from Alberta to Montreal could be built and no State Department approval would be needed to get the tar sands oil to Portland. Wack! Wack! Wack!

Will Al Gore Endorse Rocky Anderson for President?

No nonscientist is more associated with urging action to fight global warming than Al Gore. His film An Inconvenient Truth woke up the nation to the dangers of global warming in 2006 and ever since he has been trying get out the message that urgent action is needed. Will the profound understanding he has about the urgency of the situation make it difficult for him to endorse Barack Obama for president? Ever since he took office in 2009 Obama has been sort of sleepwalking through the climate crisis. He hasn’t given a hint of urgency and rarely even acknowledges the problem. So how can Gore possibly endorse him for another term when it means four more years of inaction? A win by Obama pretty much guarantees that the battle Gore has been waging will be lost. Sure decisive action can be started ten, or even twenty years from now but catastrophic climate change will almost surely occur if we have to wait that long. Therefore, is it conceivable that instead Gore will endorse Rocky Anderson, the Justice Party candidate, who claims he will put aggressive leadership on climate change high of his agenda? Anderson’s extraordinary track record of reducing greenhouse gases when he was mayor of Salt Lake City suggests he will do as he says. Gore seems to be part of mainstream politics and endorsing a third party candidate would appear to be a stretch for him but maybe, just maybe, he will break out of the mainstream mold and endorse Anderson.

We Need the Justice Party

The need for a third party became much clearer to me when I read Jeffrey Sachs’ new book The Price of Civilization. The creation of a third party that is not dependent on taking large sums of money from corporations appears to be the only way to peacefully change the system so that the government primarily serves the people of the United States as it is supposed to do. It was shortly after finishing that book that I found out about the Justice Party, which was formed late last year by Rocky Anderson, a former two-term mayor of Salt Lake City. Anderson was a member of the Democratic Party until this past August. In an interview on a radio show he said "We've been voting as a nation against our own interests year after year. Most Americans — whether they consider themselves on the right, left, center, whatever — understand that their interests have been undermined by these folks in Washington, both in the White House and in Congress, who are acting as if they're on retainer with their largest campaign contributors rather than doing what's in the public's interest." That is a sentiment that seems now widespread and growing.

The Justice Party stands for economic, environmental, and social and civic justice. Since Anderson decided to make a run for president the party could have an immediate impact on this year’s election. With the window of opportunity closing on effective action to prevent dangerous climate change it is reassuring that Anderson makes a statement on the first page of his website which says “Climate Protection Leader=The Candidate You Have Been Waiting For.” He points out that he has been called “The Greenest Mayor” and “One of the 15 Greenest Politicians in the World.” With the system completely stacked against someone like that winning the presidency it would be foolish to raise expectations, but it would also be foolish to give up all hope. If we want to live on a planet that remains suitable for human habitation we cannot just submit to living in a corporatocracy which has replaced our democracy. If a third party is the only vehicle that can get us out of this quagmire then hopping aboard seems to be the way to go.

Rocky Anderson for President

The high expectations that President Obama would lead the world to a meaningful agreement to prevent dangerous climate change have been totally shattered. He has now been in office for more than three years and has yet to give even a single major speech on climate change. Even when comprehensive climate change legislation was stalled in the Senate in 2010 he said virtually nothing to move the legislation toward passage. In his State of the Union address in 2011 he didn’t even mention climate change and in his State of the Union address earlier this year he mentioned it only once, saying that it was not possible to pass such legislation at this time. In 2009 many people expected that a legally binding agreement would result from the climate summit in Copenhagen but all Obama got was an agreement for voluntary reductions. Expectations were lower in 2011 at the climate summit in Durban, South Africa and all that was achieved was a vague agreement for something legally binding beginning in 2020. While Obama has some notable accomplishments in improving the gas mileage standards for cars and trucks, and stimulating growth of renewable energy he has become an advocate for offshore oil drilling, sending large amounts of coal to China, and “clean coal.” He also seems to have a favorable attitude toward tar sands oil and shale gas obtained by fracking. All in all, Obama is not protecting the climate as he promised during his campaign and is unlikely to do so if he is elected for another four years. Of course, the Republican Party is only offering candidates for president who are professed global warming deniers. Whether or not they really don’t believe in global warming is besides the point, they have to deny it to remain viable candidates. In a two-party system that leaves us with no one to vote for who will assume a leadership role in dealing with the climate crisis. Just the way Big Oil wants it. The big bucks they have contributed to political candidates have paid off big time. The only hope in this despair-filled situation appears to be the longest of long shots, the former mayor of Salt Lake City, Rocky Anderson who is running for president as the candidate of the newly formed Justice Party. By not taking any corporate money and limiting contributions from individuals to $100 Anderson provides a glimmer of hope that the plutocracy that has taken control of our government can be vanquished and democracy of the people restored. On the issue of global warming Anderson’s credentials are almost off the chart. Here is how these credentials are described on his website:

“Rocky Anderson is the only candidate who has won the EPA’s Climate Protection Award, the World Leadership Award (for climate protection programs), the Sierra Club’s Distinguished Service Award, and the Respect the Earth Planet Defender Award. Rocky was named by Business Week as one of the top twenty activists in the world on climate change and served on the Newsweek Global Environmental Leadership Advisory Committee. Anderson is the only US mayor who has presented in conjunction with the United Nations Climate Change Conferences in New Delhi, Buenos Aires, and Bali. He consulted in London with the assistants to heads of state in preparation for the 2005 G8 Conference, at which climate change was one of only two major agenda items. A founder and co-host of “Sundance Summit: A Mayors’ Gathering on Climate Protection,” Anderson has also presented at numerous conferences throughout the US, as well as in Australia, Canada, China, and Sweden.”

The choice is clear. Rocky Anderson for president.

Shrink the Economy to Fight Global Warming Says Author of “Losing Our Cool”

How many times have we heard Al Gore, Thomas Friedman, and others say that unleashing green technology to fight global warming will also drive economic growth? But is economic growth really compatible with fighting global warming? No it isn’t says Stan Cox, the author of a new book entitled “Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths about Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer).” In an interview posted on Grist he cites a paper by an economics professor at the University of Utah which concluded that to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide below 450 ppm, considered by many scientists as the threshold for dangerous climate change, “the world economy is going to have to shrink by 1 to 4 percent per year over the next 40 years.” If that isn't bad enough news for consumption-obsessed societies he also says that we will need “a pretty massive transfer of wealth from wealthy individuals, areas, or countries to those that are less wealthy. When you say we have to reduce the output of the economy by so much each year, there are many, many people in the world that have nothing to reduce. They actually need a bit more production just to get the basic necessities of life.” That’s probably not going to go over too big in Tea Party circles or in the executive suites of major corporations.

A similar conclusion about the need to shrink the economy was reached in a study by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Britain. The study called for a reduction in living standards in the wealthier countries over the next 10 to 15 years.

Cox says that a different economic system is required. He also admits that “Unfortunately I'm not, and I'm not sure who is, smart enough to know how to get out of our situation.”

It seems our best hope is that these studies that call for a shrinking economy, a redistribution of wealth within countries and among countries, and even the end of capitalism are wrong. It seems impossible to imagine such radical change taking place within the next few years, which is when it would have to occur to be effective. Right or wrong it should be a topic of discussion in the mainstream press but even that seems too much to ask for.

India Moves into Third Place among Greenhouse Gas Polluters

India has a long way to go to catch up to China and the US when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions but it has finally passed Russia on the list taking over third position. At the moment India only accounts for 3% to 5% of emissions compared with 23% and 22% for China and the US, respectively, but with its huge and growing population and rapidly growing economy it is bound to close the gap with at least the US over the coming years. As it is, India, China, and the US account for about half of all emissions and this proportion will grow as India and China keep lifting people out of poverty and having such people adopt a much more energy hungry Western type of lifestyle.
Those who say that these three countries should get together and come to an agreement on limiting greenhouse gas emissions instead of relying on the UN process which requires that almost two hundred countries arrive at an agreement seem to make more and more sense as the UN process appears to be getting nowhere. The UN meeting in Cancun, Mexico in a couple of months should provide more information about whether or not the UN process should be abandoned. A more or less complete failure should be a signal that a new type of process is needed.

Jimmy Carter's Solar Panel Stays off White House Roof

It is probably just as well that Bill McKibben was unsuccessful a couple of days ago in his effort to have Barack Obama place on the White House roof one of the thermal solar panels that Carter had put on the roof when he was president only to have Ronald Reagan a few years later take them down. To many Americans the association of Jimmy Carter with energy policy brings to mind having to make personal sacrifices like turning down the heat in winter and wearing thick sweaters to keep warm. Americans won’t even pay higher taxes to support costly wars so forget about lowering the thermostat. Jimmy Carter had a profound grasp of our energy problems back in the 1970s and how we should overcome them. When Ronald Reagan came into office it is was like returning to the Stone Age when it came to environmental issues, which for many Americans still seems to be the best place to be. Reagan thought trees were a major source of pollution. Now we have global warming deniers. Just because time passes doesn’t mean intellectual thought has to progress. Apparently thousands upon thousands of scientific peer-reviewed papers showing that global warming is real and that it is largely caused by humans means nothing to minds frozen in time, obsessed with denying the scientific reality. Better to believe some talk show host who never took a physics or chemistry course but claims that the vast majority of climate scientists are dead wrong. Bill McKibben and others who correctly comprehend the danger posed by global warming certainly have their work cut out for them to get this country off the suicidal path that the deniers are keeping us on.

No More Mr. Nice Guy for Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben, the environmental writer who wrote the first popular book on global warming over twenty years ago and who founded 350.org, has apparently come to the conclusion that being nice means losing the political battle over climate change against the super wealthy fossil fuel industry and that more aggressive tactics are needed to advance the climate movement. So he and leaders from two other environmental organizations have issued a letter which asks people to suggest ideas for mass climate action. The goal is to transform the climate movement so it more resembles the civil rights movement or women's suffrage movement of the past. Will asking people to put their bodies on the line work? Can they actually find enough people to do this? The first answers should start coming in next spring when it is expected that the initial mass direct actions will take place.

No Nancy Pelosi, it Isn’t about Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

It is Labor Day so the topic is jobs or at least promises of jobs. This brings to mind a very short but memorable speech by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi just before voting took place last year on the American Clean Energy and Security Act (Waxman-Markey bill), the comprehensive climate bill passed by the House. The debate that took place before the vote was somewhat surreal with few House members referring to the changes in the physics, chemistry, and biology that are taking place on our planet due to greenhouse gas emissions. Because of these changes we are heading toward disaster. Many Democrats argued that it was a job-creating bill and many Republicans argued that it was a job-killing bill. Some House members said it was all about achieving energy independence. When Nancy Pelosi spoke at the end of the debate she said it was about one thing, creating jobs, jobs, jobs. Is that true?
A climate bill should create a large number of jobs in a number of industries such a solar, wind, and home insulation. But it should also wipe out a large a number of jobs in the coal industry and oil industry. In should cause a major disruption with winners and losers. There doesn’t seem to be any alternative.
Whether to adopt a strategy of frightening people about climate change or adopt a strategy that is aimed to what people really care about, having better lives now, has divided climate activists. The great conundrum is that neither strategy appears to have any chance of success. The general experience is that most people don’t want to listen to the scientific facts about climate change. These facts should create a sense of urgency but they just tune out messages about parts per million in the atmosphere, etc, not caring whether the target is 450 ppm or 350 ppm or staying below 2C or 3C or getting down to 1 or 2 tons of carbon per capita, etc. Most people will listen to messages about creating jobs or achieving energy independence but these goals do not convey the sense of urgency that is needed and are too limted, for example, many people do not need jobs and energy independence only addresses oil, saying nothing about coal, the most important source of greenhouse gases. So no strong political moment has been created to counter the filthy rich fossil fuel industry that has spent vast sums of money to protect their profits from climate legislation and as a result we drift onward toward catastrophic climate change.

Where Is Obama’s Climate Change Speech?

Many of us who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 expected him to give a major speech on global warming during the first year of his presidency. Well here we are toward the end of his second year in office and so far there has been no speech. Even with a comprehensive climate bill stalled in the Senate there was no speech. What gives Mr. President who promised change we can believe in? We are still mainly relying on greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuels for most of our energy needs and an end to this madness is nowhere in sight.
Is a major speech on global warming really necessary? With domestic and international efforts to fight global warming going nowhere it would seem the only way to break the stalemate would be for the President of the United States to take a political risk and give a major speech on global warming followed by many other speeches the way he did to push through healthcare legislation. There doesn’t seem to be any other way to convince the public about the dangers of global warming and the need for urgent action. All other attempts to get out the message have been successfully countered by climate change deniers. For all the books, articles, talk shows, blogs, etc. on why urgent action is needed there are books, articles, talk shows and blogs by deniers claiming that global warming is a hoax or is based on bad science or some other nonsense.
The government has a website on climate change where the scientific facts are readily available. The days of George W. Bush trying to hide the scientific facts are behind us. But that really hasn’t changed anything. The fossil fuel industry still seems to call the shots. The House did pass a climate bill but it was woefully weak and at best could have been viewed as a first step forward, coming nowhere close to what the climate scientists say is needed. So far, the Senate has been unable to even get a climate bill to the floor for a vote and apparently it will not happen at all this year.
So as we watch the volume of ice in the Arctic get smaller each summer, and the melting of ice on Greenland accelerate, and record high temperatures outnumber record lows by a two to one margin, and global temperature trends upward, and the oceans acidify, and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere steadily increase from one year to the next, and climate computer models spin out disastrous predictions which are almost hard to believe there is still no big speech by Obama, no major push to try to break the political stalemate that is preventing needed action to stop a threat that many say could ultimately result in the demise of modern civilization.

Opposition to California Geoengineering Conference Is Growing

The Asilomar International Conference on Climate Intervention Technologies will be held from March 22-26 2010. This conference is being organized by the US-based Climate Response Fund and its Scientific Organizing Committee. While some scientists may think this conference is a good idea there are people who do not and an open letter opposing the conference has been posted by the ETC Group for opponents of the conference to sign. The first paragraph of the letter states “As civil society organizations and social movements working to find constructive solutions to climate change, we want to express our deep concerns with the upcoming privately organized meeting on geoengineering in Asilomar, California. Its stated aim, which is to «develop a set of voluntary guidelines, or best practices, for the least harmful and lowest risk conduct of research and testing of proposed climate intervention and geoengineering technologies,» is moving us down the wrong road too soon and without any speed limit.” The open letter ends by saying “It is vital that the international debate about geoengineering not be left in the hands of those with a self-interest in its facilitation, pursuit, and profit. It concerns us all and must be brought out into the open where all can participate. That will not happen in Asilomar.”

One of the problems with geoengineering seems to be that no one is sure how to go about it. It looks like there will be many battles ahead as efforts to move geoengineering forward take place.

Effect of Soils on Global Warming Greatly Underestimated Say Finnish Researchers

Climate models may have to be revised to account for greater release of carbon dioxide by soils as the temperature increases. According to an article from AFP, Finnish researchers using radiocarbon measurements found that slowly decomposing compounds in soil are more sensitive to increasing temperature than more rapidly decomposing compounds. The scientists, who published their study in the journal Ecology, noted that if global temperatures increase by 5C above preindustial levels soils would release 50% more carbon dioxide than predicted from the usual methods that are used, which rely on short-term measurements.

The Finnish Environment Institute released a statement saying “The climatic warming will increase the carbon dioxide emissions from soil more than previously estimated. This is a mechanism that will significantly accelerate the climate change. Already now the carbon dioxide emissions from soil are ten times higher than the emissions of fossil carbon. A Finnish research group has proved that the present standard measurements underestimate the effect of climate warming on emissions from the soil. The error is serious enough to require revisions in climate change estimates. In all climate models, the estimates of emissions from soil are based on measurements made using this erroneous method. Climate models must be revised so that the largest carbon storage of the land ecosystems will be estimated correctly.”

If this research is confirmed we may be reaching catastrophic climate change even soon than thought. Revision of climate models based on this research could produce even more alarming results than they have already.

Research Ship Data Indicates Arctic Could Be Ice-Free by 2013

Once again changes are happening faster than climate models have predicted. This time it is the rate that ice is disappearing in the Arctic. According to an article in The Vancouver Sun scientists from Canada who studied the Arctic ice from a research ship last winter found much more melting than expected. In fact the melting was so profound that is was the first time a research ship was able to remain in open water during the winter. The leader of the research team, Professor David Barber from the University of Manitoba, said that the melting was occurring “much faster than our most pessimistic models suggested” and estimated that the Arctic would be ice-free during the summer between 2013 and 2030 (the article incorrectly says winter). Although the rate of melting surpasses the models Barber refers to other scientists have predicted the Arctic being ice-free by 2013 before. A BBC article from 2007 describes this prediction by Professor Wieslaw Maslowski from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California.

The findings by the Canadian scientists appear to confirm the possibility that sooner rather than later instead of ice reflecting sunlight in the Arctic during the summer months the darker ocean will be absorbing the sunlight, thereby creating more warming which in turn could speed up the thawing of Arctic tundra which could release the greenhouse gas methane which would produce more warming and so on. It seems hard to believe but according to the latest scientific research in only a little more than 1,000 days we may reach this ominous situation.

Will CO2 Catchers Start Catching On?

With hopes of avoiding catastrophic climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions rapidly fading it is getting time to look at what to do as a last resort. If there is any feasible last resort it may be employing millions of CO2 catchers to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere and then probably store it underground. One major obstacle is that successful working models of these devices do not yet exist. The big problem is that while capturing CO2 is not difficult it tends to take a lot of energy to release it once it has been captured, which basically makes such a device impractical. However, there are reports that this major hurdle may be close to being solved. A Columbia University research team led by Klaus Lackner has been working with a synthetic resin which according to Lackner in an article posted on Spiegel Online International “attracts CO2 strongly when dry, but releases it again easily when wet.” and “the process produces only about a fifth as much CO2 as the device collects.” He estimates that to offset between 10 and 15 percent of annual emissions would require 10 million CO2 catchers. A blog on Grist reports that researchers in the Netherlands have developed a copper-based catalyst that can capture CO2 and then release it in a different form using relatively little energy. News of this discovery was reported in the January 15th issue of the journal Science. So if a landscape filled with wind turbines and solar panels isn’t enough to save us from global warming perhaps adding millions of CO2 catchers will do the trick.

Don’t Blame Me Says IPCC Head Pajendra Pachauri

Apparently, Dr. Pajendra Pachauri, chief of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, doesn’t believe that when mistakes are made by the organization he heads that the buck stop with him. In an interview with The Guardian Pachauri refused to accept any blame for the erroneous claim in the IPCC’s 2007 report that the Himalayan glaciers could be completed melted by 2035. Pachauri says “You can’t expect me to be personally responsible for every word in a 3,000 page report.” Clearly, Pachauri is no Harry Truman. It is not very comforting that the head of the IPCC won’t accept any responsibility for an important error. With the climate skeptics trying to take full advantage of any mistake that comes to light it would be desirable to have the IPCC led by someone who can accept blame for what happens on their watch. Instead there is Pachauri.

Copenhagen Accord Pledges Add Up to Climate Catastrophe

If anyone believed that the leading global warming polluters would have an epiphany and pledge greenhouse gas emissions reductions that would save us from climate catastrophe they must be sorely disappointed. Fifty-five countries met the deadline of January 31 to pledge for the hastily drawn up Copenhagen Accord and did exactly what they said they would do, which is nowhere near enough to avoid having the global temperature soar beyond the ominous 2C mark above preindustrial levels. An Associated Press article reports that the US stuck to its miserly pledge of 17% reduction below 2005 levels by 2020 and the biggest global warming polluter of all, China, will not pledge to reduce emissions but only to reduce emissions growth. Of course, these pledges are not legally binding so not only are they insufficient but may never be adhered to. So it looks like just about everyone is resigned to go over the climate cliff together. What does that say about human intelligence? Somehow it doesn’t translate into sane actions on a national level. It looks like mass stupidity has triumphed after all. Who would have guessed that millions of years of evolution would lead to that?

There Is Now No Clear Path to Preventing Catastrophic Climate Change

With the Copenhagen climate meeting ending with the UN taking “note” of the Copenhagen Accord agreed to by the US, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa the belief that a UN agreement signed in 1992 would lead to the world taking steps to prevent catastrophic climate change has been proven to be an illusion. Instead of the world trying to solve the global warming problem we are left with a blame game for who is to blame for the failure. The environmental organization Friends of the Earth is blaming the rich countries. Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of the UK, a rich country, is blaming China and some other developing countries. And so forth. The Kyoto Protocol, ratified by all developed countries except the US was supposed to be the first step toward stopping global warming and the meeting in Copenhagen was supposed to be where the details of the second step would be agreed on. Well, it looks like there is no second step. Apparently the billions of people in the world will be left to face the consequences of the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere not to mention the acidification of the oceans that threatens to wipe out marine life. So far Barack Obama hasn’t given us any indication that he can step in and stop this hurtling toward self-destruction. Up against the powerful fossil fuel industry, a public that largely doesn’t want to pay more for electricity no matter what the long-term consequences, coal miners and many others who depend on the coal mining industry for their jobs, and a Republican party that just seems to say no to any call for change by the Democrats, what can Obama really do? Probably he should have spoken out more about this problem, but would that really have helped? I guess we better get ready to pass some climate tipping points. This is not going to be pretty.

Copenhagen Accord Provides Hope of Avoiding 5°C to 6°C by 2100

It is hard for climate scientists to find any good news in the Copenhagen Accord that was hammered out at the climate meeting that just ended but Andrew Waston from the University of East Anglia in Britain told the French news agency AFP that “At least it may signal that there is some willingness to take action, so that we might have a hope of limiting the rise to 3.0°C to 4.0°C and avoid the really unknown territory that lies beyond.” That unknown territory seems to be where we are heading by the end of this century according to some recent scientific studies. So if the bar is set low enough maybe the meeting wasn’t a failure after all. For all the talk at the meeting about staying below a 2.0°C or 1.5°C rise in global temperature above preindustrial levels it seemed none of the big polluters really cared about those targets at all. Based on their pledges to lower emissions or lower the rate of increase in emissions, staying below 5.0°C seemed good enough although that was never uttered in public. So perhaps the only positive legacy of the Copenhagen meeting will be getting us on track to avoid 5.0°C. That’s probably about as low as the bar can be lowered.

Can Obama Save the Climate Summit?

It is hard to believe that anybody can save the Copenhagen climate summit as the final two days for negotiating approach but British environmentalist and columnist George Monbiot thinks Obama can do it. In his column in The Guardian Monbiot writes that “Because of the size and weight of the United States, and the moral power invested in the current president, it is Barack Obama, and Barack Obama alone, who can rescue the climate negotiations from dismal bickering into which they have slumped.” I doubt if very many Americans believe Obama can save the day. After all, whatever he proposes has to be approved by the US Congress. How is that for an unmovable obstacle? Here is what Monbiot says Obama should say in his upcoming speech: "I hereby commit the United States to cutting greenhouse gases by 50% against our 1990 levels by 2020. I commit to this cut regardless of what other nations might do, but I urge you to compete with me to exceed it. We should be striving to outbid each other, not to undercut each other.” Congress is having trouble passing a bill with target as low as about 5% below 1990 levels. What Republican or Blue Dog Democrat would vote for 50% below? Monbiot says Obama should end his speech by saying "I have no illusions about the resistance these proposals will encounter. This will be the political battle of my life. But I know it is a battle worth fighting. If I duck it, future generations will never forgive me, just as they will not forgive anyone in this room for failing to rise to our greatest challenge. This is the battle we owe to our children and to their children. This is the time to do not what is expedient, but what is right." Last I heard Obama is hoping to get something passed on health care reform very soon and then take on financial regulatory reform and job creation next year. Where would he have time for waging this fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? At this point it doesn’t appear that President Obama or anyone else on the planet can save this meeting from tanking.

Keeping Global Temperature Rise Below 1.5°C Is Almost Impossible

When it comes to global warming there is little that the countries of the world seem to agree upon except perhaps that the rise in global temperature should be kept below 2°C (3.6°F). But now even that point of consensus has been shattered by a proposal at the climate meeting in Copenhagen by small island nations and poor African countries that the rise in temperature should be kept below 1.5°C. But according to climate science is that even possible? In a report from the BBC, the head of climate science at the UK’s Met Office, Vicky Pope, says "There's no way you'd get a 50% chance of avoiding 1.5°C…If you reduced everything to zero immediately you'd still get about 1.3°C because of the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere." She noted that policies to ensure a reasonable chance of remaining under 1.5°C would involve "negative emissions" - sucking CO2 out of the air. So why are so many countries and climate activists embracing what seems to be virtually an impossible goal? Perhaps it is a symbolic way at making a statement that the richer countries are not doing enough. Or perhaps it is an act of desperation since anything approaching a rise in temperature of 2°C would probably lead to a sea level rise that would obliterate many of the small island countries and cause climate change in Africa that would be devastating.

What should the goal be? The 2°C target would expose us to a high risk of catastrophic climate change but while extremely difficult to meet according to the experts it remains realistically possible whereas the 1.5°C target would reduce the risks of catastrophic climate change but is apparently an unrealistic goal. Having postponed real action on this issue for two decades the world is left with no good choices.