Benedict on responsibility

"Human beings let themselves be mastered by selfishness; they misunderstood the meaning of God’s command and exploited creation out of a desire to exercise absolute domination over it. But the true meaning of God’s original command, as the Book of Genesis clearly shows, was not a simple conferral of authority, but rather a summons to responsibility."

- Benedict XVI, Message for the celebration of the World Day of Peace 2010.

Since he is sure to be much in the news today (becoming the first Bishop of Rome to abdicate his See in almost 600 years), I thought a quote might be apposite.
H/T Liz Jakimow.

Five soundings in national energy policies

China announces peak coal usage. This is fascinating. It may be an ambition that fails by a wide margin, but it is nonetheless a very interesting development, not least for Australia, which is still planning to double coal exports in the next decade.

Spain announces that wind produced more electricity over the last three months than any other source (a first).

The US has been reducing carbon emissions by some surprising amounts, for a variety of reasons (not all of them straightforwardly good).

Meanwhile, UK plans for nuclear renaissance seem to getting further bogged.

Ethics of emissions trading

"Emissions trading sounds like a compelling idea in principle but the practicalities are much less attractive. [...] it's depoliticized over-consumption (i.e. we are told it no longer matters who causes what harms, provided we all pay the right amount) [...] emissions trading carries a series of practical problems. A weak cap means increased emissions but a tight cap, based on a effective climatic targets would likely lead to regressive social consequences, for instance, privileging a Londoners' stag party over a Polish OAPs' warmth."

- Dr John Broderick in "Should we stop worrying about the environmental impact of flying?", Guardian 31st Jan 2013.

This neatly summarises one of my concerns with emissions trading schemes. The question of the relative social good associated with a particular set of emissions is assumed to be answered through a direct equation with the economic cost of that good. If a stag party for a rich Londoner costs as much as heating the home of an elderly Polish couple, then these social goods are deemed equivalent, despite the fact that one is a luxury while the other may well be a necessity under certain circumstances. In some ways, it is a similar issue to the globalisation of the food market. If there are wealthy people willing to pay for a luxury cash crop on another continent, this is taken as justifying the eradication of local food autonomy in a developing country.

But not all goods are commensurate on a common scale. It is not possible to put a price on everything. The logic of the market is not universally applicable.

Happy Amnesia Day

Language NSFW. Colonialist guilt NSFL.

Carbon offsets: you've got to be kidding

"[Y]ou shouldn't "kid yourself" that carbon offsetting can somehow lead you towards a status of carbon neutrality. It patently can't. But that shouldn't disguise the fact that many of the projects that carbon offsetters support are in of themselves "good" projects worthy of our support. My problem has always been - and is, in all probability, likely to remain - that carbon offsetting is both a distraction and a delusion. Fine, support those projects, but do so because they are worthwhile causes, not because you think it is somehow ameliorating your carbon "sins"."

- Leo Hickman, "What's the best form of carbon offsetting?", Guardian 6th July, 2010.

This is a good summary of my own position on person carbon offsets. I have not yet found reason a compelling reason to revisit that conclusion.

Climate change prayer

Holy God,
earth and air and water are your creation,
and every living thing belongs to you:
have mercy on us
as climate change confronts us.

Give us the will and the courage
    to simplify the way we live,
    to reduce the energy we use,
    to share the resources you provide,
    and to bear the cost of change.

Forgive our past mistakes and send us your Spirit,
    with wisdom in present controversies
    and vision for the future to which you call us
in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

©Anglican Church of Australia Trust Corporation. Used by permission This text may be reproduced for use in worship in the Anglican Church of Australia

Hope in adversity

Finding hope in adversity is one of the themes of Christmas. Jesus was born into a world full of fear. The angels came to frightened shepherds with hope in their voices: "Fear not", they urged, "we bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord."

Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves - from our recklessness or our greed. God sent into the world a unique person - neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.

Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God's love.

In the last verse of this beautiful carol, O Little Town Of Bethlehem, there's a prayer:

O Holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us we pray.
Cast out our sin
And enter in.
Be born in us today.

It is my prayer that on this Christmas day we might all find room in our lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord.

- HM Elizabeth II, Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Christmas 2011.

It's not often you hear anything of this theological depth and clarity from a head of state in a public address to an audience of millions, so I thought it would bear repeating one year later.

Merry Christmas.

The moment of darkness

“Papa, Father Christmas lives at the North Pole!” my daughter announced with the confidence of a four-year-old.

Yes he does, I said, wanting her to experience this magic while she can. What is the North Pole like?

“Well, it is covered with ice and ... snow ... all white and cold ...and …”

But by the time she stops believing in a few years, I think to myself, it might not be. The 2007 ice shocked everyone, shrinking so much that the sea drew near the Pole. That year the IPCC had predicted a new ocean there by 2070. Two months later a new projection said 2030. Two months later they said five years. I'm already talking about Santa Claus; what else should I pretend?

What animals would Santa see at the North Pole? I ask.

“Well,” she begins, “there are polar bears, and seals, and ...”

Perhaps not for long. The polar bears eat the seals that eat the fish that eat the plankton, and the plankton are dying – 73 percent down since 1960. Half the plankton – almost half the animal mass of the Arctic – have disappeared since the Simpsons’ first episode. Maybe it’s because the oceans are growing warmer, maybe because they are getting more acid, maybe it's the plastic and chemicals we've poured into the oceans in my short lifetime. We just don't know.

- Brian Kaller, The Moment of Darkness.

What can small children understand and handle? What can we do to prepare them for a bumpy future? What does hope look like today? This is a moving Christmas Eve reflection from the father of a young girl as he looks to the future from amidst a moment of darkness.
(H/t Dave).

Global warming over the last 16 years

A brief response to a common claim.

Fear and identity: the insufficiency of facts

Katharine Hayhoe - mother, evangelical Christian, pastor's wife and highly regarded professor in atmospheric physics - makes an excellent point. Climate change threatens more than ecosystems, economies and the stability of societies; it also threatens certain identities, and we often hold those even closer than our children's future.

Burden of proof

Yes, 0.1% = 1 in 1,000, not 1 in 10,000. But otherwise, amen.

"By leaves we live"

Ice sheets: A new study confirms with greater accuracy than ever before that world's major ice sheets are melting at an accelerating rate. This is why sea level rise is happening 60% faster than was expected in the most recent IPCC report.

Coal boom: 1200 new coal plants planned. Three quarters of the new plants are to be located in China and India. A breakdown of the countries is available here. Though India's expansion plans need to be taken with a grain or two of salt.

Extinction is forever: Tim Flannery reflects on the challenges facing Australian biodiversity and suggests that the current approach isn't working. With a reply from David Bowman. Perhaps how do we triage conservation priorities?

Coal seam gas: Recent measurements (yet to be peer reviewed) suggest coal seam gas production may have significant "fugitive emissions" of methane that render the claims of the gas industry to be somewhat less bad for the climate questionable. Some have suggested that natural gas is methadone to coal's heroin.

Fracking: Stories from the front line in the US. In the UK, academics have just advised the government that it is "categorically clear" that pursuing a shale gas dominated energy strategy is incompatible with legislated UK climate targets. But it looks like they are going to do it anyway.

Big cats, small space: Only 25% of the original African savannah remains undeveloped, leaving less and less room for the iconic megafauna that call it home. Lion numbers are plummeting and they may soon be listed as endangered.

IPCC: The IPCC has been repeatedly wrong on climate change, frequently underestimating the rate and impacts of change.
Note that the first link makes an embarrassingly obvious mistake in its opening claim, confusing carbon with carbon dioxide and so getting the numbers hopelessly muddled.

Trees: All around the world, ancient trees are dying at an alarming rate.

Landfillharmonic orchestra

God doesn't do waste.
H/T Ruth.

In the blink of an eye

During the 24 hours of the earth's history, the 77 seconds of "humanity" include only 4 seconds of anatomically modern homo sapiens sapiens, 1 second of behaviourally modern homo sapiens, 0.23 seconds of agriculture and less than 0.04 seconds since Christ.

And in the last 0.001 seconds we have deforested half the world's tropical forests, dammed or diverted more than 80% of the world's major rivers, sent tens or hundreds of thousands of species extinct, killed more than one third of all wild vertebrates, altered the energy balance of the planet (melting more than 75% of summer Arctic sea ice), shifted the chemistry of the oceans (30% more acidic), removed roughly 90% of marine apex predators, dumped tens of millions of tonnes of plastic into the oceans, degraded more than 50% of coral reefs, introduced thousands of novel chemical compounds, disrupted the nitrogen cycle and caused dozens of other dramatic impacts.

Don't breathe too deeply, and other stories

Air pollution: 97% of EU citizens are exposed to levels of tropospheric ozone above WHO recommended limits. "On average, air pollution is cutting human lives [in Europe] by roughly eight months and by about two years in the worst affected regions". The situation is considerably worse in many parts of the world. The true cost of the public health burden on respiratory function of burning coal in China, for instance, is perhaps as high as 7% of annual GDP, even before climate costs are considered. A 2011 study of the external costs of coal in the US (excluding climate costs) found an annual price tag between 1/3 and 1/2 a trillion dollars.

Climate change is here: Climate change is already contributing to the deaths of nearly 400,000 people a year and costing the world more than $1.2 trillion, wiping 1.6% annually from global GDP, according to a new study. The impacts are being felt most keenly in developing countries, according to the research, where damage to agricultural production from extreme weather linked to climate change is contributing to deaths from malnutrition, poverty and their associated diseases. Air pollution caused by the use of fossil fuels is also separately contributing to the deaths of at least 4.5m people a year, the report found. That means failing to tackle a fossil fuel based economy will contribute to something like 100 million deaths by the end of next decade.

Warming oceans: warming and acidification will cut the productivity of fisheries in many countries. "About 1 billion people depend on seafood as their main source of protein. But some of those countries most dependent on fishing are expected to lose up to 40% of their fish catch by the middle of the century." Hardest hit will be the Persian Gulf, Libya, and Pakistan. Of course, this is just from carbon-related changes and does not take into account patterns of overfishing, invasive species, pollution, eutrophification, stratification, shifting currents or habitat loss from coral reef degradation. And even the size of fish will shrink in warmer oceans.

Dying trees: Who will speak for the trees? Trees are dying by the millions all around the world due to a wide range of factors. Not just deforestation - which, though it has slowed down a little in Brazil, still continues with increasing rapidity elsewhere - but also due to ground level ozone pollution, infectious diseases (a third of all UK trees face wipeout from a new fungal threat that is expected to wipe out over 90% of Danish Ash trees) and a variety of threats associated with climate change, such as heat stress, invasive species (pine bark beetle) and droughts. For instance, last year's drought in Texas killed over three hundred million trees (or about 6% of all its trees). Heat stress has been linked to widespread tree mortality in scores of studies over the last few years.

Ocean acidification: A basic primer with FAQs, including excellent brief answer to common misconceptions.

Killer cats: How much do cats actually kill? The Oatmeal summarises some recent research. There are hundreds of millions of domestic cats around the world, and tens or hundreds of millions of feral cats. They are taking a big toll on small wildlife.

Australian coal: Australia's carbon price, far from signalling the "death of the coal industry" as claimed repeatedly by the Opposition, has apparently done little to dent the explosive growth of coal exploration in the country. Australia is the world's largest exporter of coal, fifth largest extractor of fossil hydrocarbons globally and has the highest per capita domestic carbon emissions in the OECD. Despite setting very modest carbon reduction targets in recent legislation, both government and industry are planning on a doubling of coal exports in the coming decade, representing emissions many times greater than Australia's tiny domestic reductions, which will largely come from international offsets in any case.

Scotland: world's greenest nation?

For all kinds of reasons, I love living in Scotland. One of them is the fact that I can pay for 100% renewable electricty for what is now a lower price than most of those who are relying on fossil fuels.

Indeed, Scotland is something of a world leader in its carbon reduction goals. Scotland has the world's most ambitious legally-binding carbon reduction goals (42% from 1990 levels by 2020 - compare Australia's target of a 5% reduction from 2000 levels by 2020). It is also aiming to produce enough renewable electricity to cover 100% of domestic demand by 2020, and is largely on track towards this goal. It is leading the field in research into some promising new varieties of renewable power based on waves and tides.

But the current Scottish Nationalist government also plans to exploit its large (though rapidly declining) North Sea oil and gas reserves, which, when extracted, refined, sold and burned, will add something like 5-10 billion tonnes of CO₂. It will take many decades for the emissions saved by the previously mentioned targets to "pay off" this carbon debt. The value of these reserves is critical to the government's economic case for Scottish independence, yet exploiting them seriously undermines the image of an independent and green Scotland that First Minister Salmon wants to sell.

In the end, if we want a habitable planet that bears any resemblance to the one we currently enjoy, we need to leave the vast majority of fossil hydrocarbons safely underground.

In place of a post on nuclear power

Since even before the disaster at Fukushima, I was planning a lengthy post (or series) considering the place of nuclear power amidst our climate and ecological crises. Towards this post, I now have thousands of words and scores of links (as I do on a number of other topics that are too large for me to find the time to address them with anything like the attention they deserve).

As it seems unlikely that I am going to publish these thoughts anytime in the immediate future (given other deadlines), it seemed like a waste if I did not at least point any thoughtful readers towards this discussion between George Monbiot and Theo Simon. Consisting of a somewhat lengthy email interchange over the last few months now published by George on his website, it is is far and away the best exploration that I have found of the some of the key ethical and political issues behind the nuclear debate, which can get often mired in the technical and economic aspects of the question (as important as they each are).

So consider this discussion a primer for the day when I get around to putting forward my own thoughts in public. For those who may be interested to know where I stand, I will simply say that I am deeply sympathetic to both authors. Now go and read the thread.

First World Problems

For the next time you're stuck with a First World Problem. H/T Matheson.

Can we destroy creation? Hubris and self-destruction

We can't destroy creation. Alpha Centuri is going to be just fine, climate change or not. We can't even destroy the planet. It's survived meteors, tectonic upheavals and ice ages. It's a pretty durable lump of rock.

Nonetheless, I frequently see people claiming that it is arrogant to think that tiny little humans are having such a large impact of the functioning of planetary-scale systems as is implied by the mainstream science of climate change, ocean acidification, soil degradation, biodiversity loss and so on. Sometimes this objection has a dose of piety injected: God is in charge of the world; we can't damage it (at least, not more than superficially or locally).

But isn't it arrogant (and historically ignorant) to think that our capacity for destruction does not extend to wiping out entire ecosystems? We have done so on colossal scales in recorded history. Vast forests have disappeared in the face of the axe and bulldozer; seemingly endless prairies have all but disappeared under the plough. Haven't we grown to seven billion and rising, spreading into every continent and visibly altering huge tracts of the earth's surface? Why would we be surprised at anthropogenic climate change or ocean acidification or biodiversity decline when we consider our collective effects in a wide range of areas? Aren't our nuclear arsenals capable of obliterating the vast majority of life on earth at a moment's notice? Haven't we fundamentally altered the appearance, behaviour and distribution of species through millennia of domestication and exploration? Haven't we sent thousands of recorded species (and likely tens or hundreds of thousands of unrecorded species) extinct? Haven't we damned and/or diverted the majority of the world's great rivers, and even (almost) dried up what was previously the fourth largest lake in the world? Haven't we flung craft into orbit that can monitor many of these changes in astonishing detail?

If human civilisations (even ones who considered themselves Christian) have risen and fallen in the past, why would we assume that ours will be immortal? And if human actions have contributed to historical collapses, why would we rule out such influence today?

If we have done all this, then if we have also dug up and burned over 300 billion tonnes of fossil hydrocarbons, might not here, as in so many other places, our capacity for altering our surroundings be manifest? If we have changed the chemical composition of the atmosphere and oceans in measurable and statistically significant ways, might not these changes have far-reaching consequences and implications for life (human and otherwise) throughout the atmosphere and oceans? If we can measure the changes in radiation that occur as a result of these alterations, if we can measure shifts in the timing of flowerings, growing seasons, hibernations and migrations, observe massive and alarmingly rapid alterations to the frozen places of the planet, notice systematic and unprecedented shifts in humidity, precipitation, temperatures over land and sea (and in the waters) and rising sea levels - if we can observe these changes occurring and have an excellent theory that accounts for all the data and which has withstood every criticism levelled against it, seen off all competing explanations and gained the acceptance of every single relevant scientific body of national or international standing in the world, then what is to be gained by withholding judgement? And if we have good reason to be deeply concerned about the already manifest and likely future consequences of the observed, modelled and projected trends, if these consequences threaten the habitability of the planet and its ability to provide sufficient food for our societies and habitat for all our fellow creatures, if our neighbours are deeply vulnerable to these changes, if the most vulnerable are also those who have done least to contribute to the problem (the poor, future generations and other species), then might not Christian discipleship embrace humble acceptance of our predicament and an earnest search for responses that express repentance, care and prudence?

Furthermore, if many of the social and personal changes required are not simply consonant with, but already actively required by, Christian discipleship due to the rejection of idolatry, greed and consumerism, if the infrastructural changes are both affordable and viable, if those most vocally opposed to these changes have a history of engaging in less than honest advocacy and have a business practice that currently kills millions of people annually, then might we not have a strong case for prophetic witness in defence of the goodness of the created order, in pursuit of justice for the suffering, in the hope of wise care for our children's future?

There are no merely local famines

In a globalised society, there are no merely local famines, or revolutions, or failed states.

Many of our most severe ecological threats converge on the stability of the global food supply. The most explosive consequences of food shortages are not population decline from starvation, but civil unrest and conflict (as well as increasing vulnerability to disease/pandemic). During the 2008 food price spikes, there were riots in sixteen countries. And the most visible political consequence of the 2010 food price spike was the Arab Spring (though again there were protests and riots in many other countries). Yes, of course there are other underlying factors in every country affected, but the spike in the price of bread was the initial spark in nearly every country that saw significant instances of civil unrest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The protests that ultimately brought down governments in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt (and possibly Syria) all had the price of bread as their trigger (as did those in Bahrain and elsewhere). And why were prices so high in 2010? Again, all kinds of systematic reasons (biofuels taking an increasing share, changing diets, speculation, government hoarding in response to an initial rise), but the short term trigger was almost simultaneous crop losses from extreme weather events in Argentina, Australia, Pakistan and Russia (which famously stopped exporting wheat after its six sigma heatwave). Food price spikes are inconvenient in the west, where we spend less than 15% of our income on food, but disastrous in the many places with otherwise somewhat stable governments where large parts of the population spend more like 75%+ of their income on food.

The consequences of political unrest are not confined to the poor country. To pick one consequence: our taxes here in the UK recently went towards funding war in Libya, despite an austerity programme of slashing government services in response to the worst recession since the Great Depression. Refugee flows from all the various places involved have also increased. Major protests in the US and elsewhere this time last year questioned the direction of the present economic order. These explicitly drew both inspiration and organisational links from elements of the Arab Spring before being brutally suppressed - perhaps not as brutally as in Syria, but if you had your eyes open last autumn there was plenty of state-sponsored violence happening against protesters in free(r) countries, much of which was never acknowledged or addressed by the justice system.

This is not at all to claim that climate change "caused" the Occupy movement in any straightforward way, simply to chase one strand of causal links as an illustration of the global implications of crises in a single region.

Failed states have all kinds of knock-on effects on their neighbours and the rest of the world. Think about the extra costs to global shipping due to Somalian piracy (leading to many shipping companies eagerly awaiting the further opening up of Arctic shipping lanes to avoid the area entirely), about the seedbed of terrorism that Afghanistan has represented since the US turbo-charged the factions against Soviet invasion, about the effect on global oil prices (and hence the global economy) of war in Libya (or Iran...), about the ongoing repercussions of the Arab/Israeli conflict partially driven by the planned failure/sabotage of the Palestinian state. And so on. The global system can handle a few failed states, but since it does so by distributing the costs across the whole system (UK taxpayers paying for wars in Libya), it does so by increasing the stress on the system as a whole. Electricity grids are a good analogy here, actually - grids can handle the sudden failure of a certain number of elements in the grid, but do so at the cost of placing the entire grid at greater risk of collapse. Globalisation is a super-grid for economic and political stability: failure in one part can be accommodated by increasing stress across the board. But only to a point.

This is why Joseph Tainter says in the final chapter of his intriguing and seminal book, The Collapse of Complex Societies that there can be no local collapses in a global system. The term "catabolic collapse" is sometimes used, which refers to a collapse in one part of a system becomes self-reinforcing and ends up taking down the whole show (see here for a much more detailed and insightful discussion of this concept by John Michael Greer).

So when you read about the coming food price spike of late 2012 as the effects of the US drought kick in, don't just think about poor Indians struggling to put food on the table, but also think about the $700b-odd the US spends on its military (over $1t on "national security" as a whole), about the possible break-up of the EU (troubles in Greece are complex, but one of the causes/manifestations/worsening of their crisis is the fact that they receive per capita more refugees and undocumented immigrants fleeing struggling MENA countries than almost anywhere else in the EU and it has seen a big jump in recent years), about deforestation in Indonesia and elsewhere (which is linked, in complex ways, to food prices), and so on.

Global crises require global (as well as local, provincial, national, regional) responses. We can't simply pull up the drawbridge and hope to weather the storm.

Coal world

Covers a lot of ground in 2 minutes, but there is a lot of ground that is planned to be uncovered in the coming years (to get at the coal underneath).