This graph could define the climate change debate in the coming years, at least until the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) publishes its next assessment report, due in 2014.
It is commonly believed by those who think they know, that the concentration of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere is around 390 parts per million (PPM) giving us a good chance of avoiding dangerous climate change that will occur above 2-3 degrees. It is perfectly true that the concetration of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 390 PPM, but assuming that we still have time to stabilize this concetration at safe levels is based on a misinterpretation of the graph. Yesterday, the Guardian reported that even the 2 degree target that world leaders are prepared to risk is almost out of reach, with the International Energy Association's chief economist, Fatih Birol, commenting that it was a "nice utopia". In reality, the "exclusive" nature of the Guardian's report was slightly out of date.
If you look carefully at the graph, it does not actually measure CO2 at all, it measures something called "CO2 eq", which basically means all greenhouse gases, including for instance methane and CFCs. The potency of these emissions are also measured and adjusted as if they were CO2 to give a ballpark figure for the total amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The blue line on the graph shows the lowest conceivable eventual average global temperature increase for a given CO2 eq stabilization level (and were not even stable yet), the red line shows the highest, and the black line is what is expected. Given that the concentration of CO2 eq is not 390 PPM, but a frightening 470 PPM or thereabouts (the latest figures I had were two years old so I had to conservatively continue the trend to get this number but It makes little difference) you can see we have almost no chance of meeting the 2 degree target. It could even be worse than that. I collected as much information I could on previous CO2 eq calculations, and was only able to find them from 2001, 2004, 2007, and 2008. The picture is clear, the concentration is increasing exponentially. Between 01 and 04 it rose 4.33 parts per million per year, from 412 to 415, from 04 to 07 it rose 6.66 parts per million per year, from 425 to 445, from 2007 to 2008 it rose another 19 parts per million, and I have no figures after that but it could be over 500 now. Fatih Birol's "nice utopia" comment satisfies polite standards of newsprint but it would be clearer to say that we haven't got a f**k's chance in hell.
Have they, the politicians, given up? Or is the just some sort of nightmarish mistake? Furthermore, the concentration of CO2 eq is rising more than twice, possibly three times as quick as the concetration of CO2 alone. The rise cannot just be accounted for by anthropogenic (human) emissions, which indicates that natural "positive feedbacks" such as the melting of artic permafrost (which contains methane) have already begun. This is truly terrifying. As Nafeez Ahmed explains in this recent (and excellent) book - "A user's guide to the crisis of civilization" - CO2 eq concentrations rose from 425 PPM to 445 PPM from 2004 to 2007. (4.7% a year). CO2 concentrations alone rose 0.7% a year. However, human emissions of CO2 are much more significant than human emissions of the other greenhouse gases that account for the difference between CO2 alone and the CO2 eq figure, so the increased rate of change is probably driven by natural emissions of methane. Anthropogenic emissions of other greenhouse gases beyond CO2 and Methane are mostly falling, so it seems as if we have entered the era of runnaway climate change. Is that why they are not bothering to do anything about it?
Suppose we completely eliminated Carbon Dioxide emissions immediately. Of course, this is impossible, but let's be optimistic. Very optimistic. We would elimiate just 0.7% of the 4.7% a year rise in CO2 eq atmospheric concetrations, the stuff that really matters.
If I haven't made any big mistakes, then there is clearly little point in bothering about a low carbon economy any more. Even geoengineering, most viable forms of which remove only CO2, not the others, from the air, isn't going to address the problem of seemingly runaway natural methane emissions. Some clever clogs better think up a way of solving this problem or the shit is going to hit the fan big time. Be preapared. They probably won't. Firstly, hardly anybody understands the real problem, they are focusing on the out of date problem of carbon emisisons. Secondly, nobody who does understand has the money to do anything worthwhile.
So it is clear, either the people who run the world made a horrible mistake by focusing on CO2 when it wasn't the whole problem, or they knew, but couldn't be bothered to do anything about it for political reasons, in which case you can hardly blame the people who voted for them. Sure, many were gullible, but it's hardly as if they were well informed by the media. The best selling newspapers frequently run articles denying climate change. Most (in fact nearly all) of the worlds poor had never even heard of the damn thing, and it's hardly as if they were to blame anyway. Sooner or later, people are going to start getting very angry. The blame game could be nasty, but if it is direct at the right people, it serves them right.
When I was much younger, I remember my Dad once told me that we might only have 10 years to fix the climate. You can imagine why I was puzzled that as I grew up, the news continued to say that we had 10 years, for at least 10 years. Had time stopped, no, I suspect they just didn't want to admit that it was runnig out. Either that or they were just stupid. That was at least 10 years ago. I hope they were stupid; ignorance is far preferable than maliciousness, but something tells me that they thought they were trying to be kind by not telling people quite how bad it was. For years, I went along, pretending to myself that we still had time. Yet gradually I began to realise that we didn't. It seemed as if whatever anybody did or said, nobody would listen. Ok, a few did, but not enough, not nearly enough. I was astonished that the Green movement thought that just because one book had failed to bring about change, another would. Sure, climate change gained "prominence", but this didn't translate into any meaningfull action on a global scale. I guess people were niave to think that they could change the world. Despite what the globalists say, it really is much bigger than it was in the past. It's more difficult to get 7 billion people to act than 2 billion. The little people weren't to blame anyway. It was hardly as if they knew. How could they be expected to discern between the truth of the green movement and the bombardment of corporate sponsored media misinformation on climate change. Most of them weren't even literate.
In terms of who is to blame, it is the people who run the world, as well as the rich few who elect and finance them. I suppose you can't blame their "live for the moment" attitude, but you can certainly blame their ridiculous refusal to convert their lifestyle into a low carbon one, which would have been just as pleasant. Still, most of the rich few who caused the trouble didn't know. The worker zombies of the west were so overburdened with the hasseles of modern life, they were physchologically imprisoned by an elaborate daily routine predicated upon individualist economic competition. How were they supposed to learn about climate change if they didn't even have time after work to make a proper dinner, and had to have take-aways or ready meals?
The coming climate crisis brings with it many risks. We mustn't let anybody who doesn't deserve the blame recieve it, since this could lead to war, as it did in the late 1930s when the Jewish people of Germany were made scapegoats for the global economic crisis.
Far more terrifying than any political ramifications is the guarantee that exceeding the 2-3 degree tipping point means at least 4-8 degrees of warming above pre-industrial temperatures by the end of the century. Pre-industrial global temperatures averaged 13.5 degrees celcius, so average global temperature by the end of the century could exceed 20 degrees. That would burn the rainforests, melt the last remaining ice from the ice caps, and fry the planet. Forest loss could add a further 600 parts per million to the atmopshere, taking the total concentration far beyond 1000 parts per million, when all the other positive feedbacks are factored in, the planet would truly roast, and humans would die like a lobster in a bioling saucepan. Average global temperatures of 20 degrees celcius or more may not seem to bad, but when you consider that is an average, meaning that a distribution curve of days/frequency against temperature would show almost no cold days and lots of roasting hot days, there would never be enough time for water to be absorbed by the land before it evaporated, maing it near impossible to grow crops, let alone rer animals (which eat them) in almost every part of the world apart from the poles. Climate justice? You betcha!
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