Climate change deniers trade in disinformation

A draft of the next major report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been leaked on line by a small-time climate change denier, doubtless seeking to enter the big time.

Childishly grabbing one out-of-context sentence from the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), US Republican blogger Alec Rawls claims the report supports the idea that any warming is due to natural effects. A riot ensues on the internet, the major well-paid climate denial bloggers pitch in and Fox News is ecstatic.

Then Professor Steve Sherwood, one of the report's authors and director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, responds saying: "Oh that's completely ridiculous. I'm sure you could go and read those paragraphs yourself and the summary of it and see that we conclude exactly the opposite, that this cosmic ray effect that the paragraph is discussing appears to be negligible."

So I did, and here's AR5's actual conclusion: “The lack of trend in the cosmic ray intensity over the last 50 years provides another strong argument against the hypothesis of a major contribution of cosmic rays to on-going climate change."

So there you go – I have single-handedly refuted the key plank of climate denialology in one short hour – assisted, naturally, by every single respectable and qualified climate scientist in the world.

AR5 is a highly technical summary of all the current climate change science. That a minor right-wing blogger with no scientific qualifications was able to get the draft by signing himself up as one of 800 "expert reviewers" underlines just how flawed the review process is. Indeed our very own climate sceptic eccentric Lord Monckton (qualification: a degree in Classics from Cambridge University) is signed up as an expert reviewer.

Rawls has done us all a favour by publishing this draft before the reviewers get their hands on it. Whilst the IPCC can ignore low-level bloggers like Rawls and Monckton, the politically appointed big guns brought in by, for example, the US and Chinese governments will have plenty of influence.

AR4, the first global report to state that man-made climate change is an undeniable fact, was changed at review to say it was 90% certain. In fact the IPCC has been accused of frequently underestimating the speed of climate change, because including all respectable studies creates a certain levelling effect.

For example, the 2007 report concluded that Arctic sea ice would not completely melt until 2070 at the earliest though even there was plenty of evidence of a faster trajectory, which has proved right with ice-free summers likely by 2030.

Meanwhile more information emerges about shady corporate funding for climate change deniers. Documents leaked to Desmogblog expose the role of the Heartland Institute in channeling corporate cash to climate change deniers.

For example Fred Singer, a history professor at a Jesuit University who is notorious for his role in the Channel 4 documentary The Great Climate Change Swindle, gets $5,000 per month, plus expenses.

In Australia, Robert Carter gets $1,667 per month. He is a paleontology professor at the University of New South Wales, but also has time to work for Heartland AND be a Senior Policy Advisor at the Institute of Public Affairs, a right-wing free-market Australian think tank.

Craig Idso, another US blogger, writes for the Heartland-sponsored Nongovernmental  International Panel on Climate Change, a shadow organisation that exists solely to challenge IPCC reports. Idso is now researching carbon capture and storage. You could ask why, if emissions are not a problem? Still it is likely to be a lucrative new field with funding from the US coal industry.

In spite of modest salaries and constant departmental cuts, not one respectable climatologist has been bought into the ranks of the deniers. That tells us that money only buys distortion, misinformation and downright lies.

Penny Cole

Environment editor

'Uncharted territory' as Arctic sea ice shrinks to new low

We are talking about more than “warning signs” now, or even approaching “tipping points”. Climate change is taking its toll in the here and now and only far-reaching, drastic, emergency measures to cut carbon emissions can even begin to have an impact.

Yet governments around the world are either paralysed and/or increasing the output of coal-fired power stations, intensifying heavily-industrialised agricultural production, drilling new oil fields and building more cars.

All are committed to an unsustainable system of production of goods that put profit margins above environmental considerations. The recession has increased risk-taking and cost cutting is the norm. Health and safety? Forget it, say the ConDems. Too expensive.

The latest evidence about the shrinking of Arctic sea ice is conclusive evidence that waiting for long-term “solutions” based on green technology, solar power, wind power or voluntary, individual reductions in emissions is not going to change the dire predicament we are already in.

The Arctic Ocean is blanketed by sea ice that expands during the Arctic winter, reaching a maximum extent in March. Sea ice retreats during the summer, reaching its minimum extent in mid-September. The shiny white ice reflects light and heat that the ocean would otherwise absorb, keeping the Northern hemisphere cool.

Yesterday, scientists at the Colorado-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) reported that sea ice extent has fallen to 3.41 million square kilometres (1.32 million square miles) and is now the lowest summer minimum extent in the satellite record.

“We are now in uncharted territory,” said NSIDC Director Mark Serreze. “While we’ve long known that as the planet warms up, changes would be seen first and be most pronounced in the Arctic, few of us were prepared for how rapidly the changes would actually occur.”

The Arctic used to be dominated by ice that survived through several years. Now the Arctic is increasingly characterised by seasonal ice cover and large areas are now prone to completely melt away in summer. Ice extent has shown a dramatic overall decline over the past thirty years. This year’s minimum will be nearly 50% lower than the 1979 to 2000 average.

This period coincides more or less exactly with the rapid growth in commodity production as the corporate-driven globalisation process took hold. In other words, climate change is unarguably the result of reckless, profit-motivated-and-damn-the-consequences expansion. There’s no escaping the connection between the two.

Even MPs on the Commons environmental audit committee have recognised signs. Their report published today suggest that the ice cap may be at risk of total summer collapse, a view previously discounted by scientists. The MPs warn:

A total collapse would not only lead to further warming of the Arctic, but would be disastrous for its unique ecosystem and wildlife, and may have damaging ramifications for regional and global climate. There are also a number of other tipping points in climate-driven systems in the Arctic that may be approaching with potentially disastrous consequences, such as increased methane emissions from thawing permafrost, runaway melting of the Greenland Ice-sheet and a collapse of the thermo-haline circulation of the Atlantic. These together comprise a wake-up call to reinvigorate efforts to tackle climate change.

Unfortunately, they, like the rest of the political establishment, trade in fine words and are essentially asleep at the wheel. The report limits itself to suggesting that drilling for oil in the region ought to be halted until proper precautions are taken against spills. Talk about missing the point.

The NSIDC’s findings confirm that there is a planetary emergency. Inaction by governments, corporations, the UN and other agencies make them complicit. The global corporatocracy stands indicted and while it remains in place, climate change will accelerate faster and run wild.

Join us on September 27 in London to discuss the eco-crisis and solutions, led off by US senatorial candidate Professor David Schwartzman

Paul Feldman

Communications editor 

Sea ice melt puts ecosystem in jeopardy

Normally by this time of year the Arctic sea ice summer melt would be over. But it’s still melting at a rate of 100,000 metres per day and by the weekend, middle of next week latest, a larger area than ever before will have thawed. A halt to the melting process is now not expected for several weeks.

Climate change has kicked in with a vengeance, producing dramatic changes that are take only a few days to manifest. Pictures from the NASA earth observatory show “an extreme melt event” on the Greenland ice sheet with some degree of melting across its entire surface.

On average in the summer, about half of the surface melts, but this year has seen a dramatic jump. Satellite data shows an estimated 97% of the ice sheet surface thawed at some point in mid-July.

Researcher Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory first noticed that most of Greenland appeared to have undergone surface melting on July 12. He says: "This was so extraordinary that at first I questioned the result: was this real or was it due to a data error?"

Then other researchers confirmed the findings. It all happened really quickly, with satellite pictures on July 8 showing about 40% of the surface had melted – by July 12, it was 97%. There has been a strong ridge of warm air, a “heat dome”, over Greenland, one of a series since the end of May, each stronger than the one before.

As the ice sheet and sea ice melt, the planet’s air conditioning system is undermined. Ice reflects the sun’s heat back into atmosphere. Life on earth is not possible without this effect. The functioning of the present ecosystem is thereby put in jeopardy.

This summer has seen extreme weather across the globe. America’s eastern seaboard has suffered ferocious heat and storms, and there is a new dustbowl developing in Texas. In the UK, heavy rains and lack of sunshine have brought flooding and damaged crops. The picture is the same everywhere. Another global food crisis looms, with spiralling prices leaving the poorest to starve.

But not one political leader has commented on what’s happening in the Arctic – not Obama, not Cameron, not Hu Jintao, not Putin. They are variously indifferent, in a rush to exploit the changing conditions or simply tied closely to the fortunes of energy corporations.

Obama is locked in a race to the bottom with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, to see who can offer the coal industry the easiest ride. New mining permits are being handed out to Koch Industries and other coal barons, and approvals made for coal-fired power stations with no commitment to carbon capture and storage.

Russia’s Gazprom is cashing in on the Arctic melt, stepping up oil drilling as is Norway. A Chinese icebreaker just sailed from the Bering Straits to northern Europe opening a new, cheap trade route. China, the biggest coal burner, has just one experimental carbon capture project, proceeding at a snail’s pace and with no evidence that storing CO2 in spent oil or coal seams will work.

There is some progress with carbon capture. A project in Canada is extracting food grade CO2 from flue gas using an organic solvent and feeding it to greenhouse grown plants. All that is left is a carbon free vapour which is safely released into the atmosphere. 

The problem is the same as with all new technologies, including new types of tidal energy generation – it is small scale, experimental and not immediately profitable. So governments and corporations won’t invest to speed up progress. And that exposes the main stumbling block in tackling climate change.

Production for profit, regardless of the consequences, is the main driver of climate change. Only production on a not-for-profit, sustainable basis can unleash the potential that exists both to mitigate the now unavoidable impacts of climate change and reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

That requires a democratic revolution to establish a social system where the majority, organised in local national and global assemblies, plan to meet the needs of everyone on the planet whilst conserving and improving our ecosystem.  

Penny Cole

Environment editor

Climate change tipping point

Another day, another set of warnings that runaway climate change is pushing the planet to a tipping point beyond which serious impacts cannot be avoided. Climate change researchers have found the Arctic region is warming faster than the rest of the world, and that this is happening much sooner than expected. 

They have told the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union  (AGU) that air temperatures are higher than normal for autumn, because the sea ice melted in the summer, building up heat in the oceans. As the air cools in autumn, the sea releases this heat, which the scientists have been able to measure. 

It seems the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) worked with figures suggesting this “Arctic Amplification”, would not happen for decade at the earliest. The new figures show it has been happening for the last five years. 

This matters because if the sea ice covers less of the total area in winter and disappears altogether in summer, the climate will be profoundly affected. Some possible impacts are a permanent drought in the south-western United States, more storms and a shift in the Arctic Conveyor – the sea current that makes Europe and America habitable for humans and other animals. The meeting AGU heard that the IPCC model underestimates rising sea levels. They were looking at a predicted rise of between 28cm and 42cm by the end of the century. The new estimate is as much as 150cm by the end of the century. 

Of course we shouldn’t worry too much, because global capitalism and their supporting governments are on the case. Or are they? The  International Energy Authority this week helpfully published a report which shows how an increase in demand for fossil fuel up to 2030 can be met by dragging every last dirty ounce out of the ground as quickly as possible. 

And the German government caved in to heavy industry and energy corporations to doom the already inadequate European emissions reduction plan. Finally, the international climate change meeting in Poznan decided – well, it decided not to decide anything. Instead they are waiting for the glorious day when President Obama rides to the planet’s rescue with – well, with exactly the same policies that have failed to cut emissions since Kyoto 12 years ago, actually. 

The problem we face is that in a whole number of areas millions of us know what to do – it is simply that we lack the power to do it. For example, everyone knows that the answer to mortgage default is not to evict people from their homes, but to create a shared way forward where they can stay put and pay a fair rent. But still the banks go on with the evictions and the government won’t stop them even after the state bail-outs. 

On climate change, the action plan put forward by A World to Win in our book Running a Temperature is only one of many that show how to transform energy, transport, housing etc. before it is too late. The difference is that only our plan states clearly that without a transformation of democracy and power, we cannot even begin. 

And so as you watch the ice cube melting in your drink this holiday (and by the way, cheers!) make it a symbol of your decision to start next year by signing up to join A World to Win, becoming a local advocate and campaigner for the new People’s Charter for Democracy, and creating a movement take our fate into our own hands in 2009. 

Penny Cole
Environment editor