Olduvai theory – crackpot idea or dawning reality?

Figure 1 – The three phases of the Olduvai Decline.

Olduvai Gorge in East Africa is famous for its fossils of proto-humans and Palaeolithic (old stone age) tools. Fragmentary remains of some of the oldest representatives of hominids generally accepted to be our immediate evolutionary ancestors have been recovered there. To those interested in palaeoanthropology, it is a name steeped in (pre)history. So what of its relevance to the modern world? What the hell is ‘Olduvai Theory‘?

It’s an idea that’s been around for a while, developed about 20 years ago by Dr Richard C. Duncan. In brief, it is (somewhat ironically) an elaboration of the old denialist spleen-vent that our actions on climate change will take civilisation back to the ’stone age’. But the similarity is at best superficial and at worst misleading, because this is a well rounded idea that claims there is a near-inevitable pathway an industrial society must follow, which involves a peaking of energy supply and tech development, followed by a fast drop-off to a low energy state that is, for all intents and purposes, a return to pre-industrial conditions. A full description is given here (with references for further reading), here and here. In sum, this view holds that it will be inaction, not action, on climate change and energy development, that will throw us back to the stone age.

Those who subscribe to the general premises of the theory readily admit that the specific dates on the timeline given in Figure 1 may be out by a handful of years (or maybe not – just think of the ‘excitement’ of 2008), but they consider the phases of the transient-pulse theory of Industrial Civilization to be securely identified and the edge of the ‘cliff’ to be at most 1-2 decades away.

The general principles underpinning this idea have their roots deeply embedded in ecology and agriculture, and were given global prominence via the much-debated scenarios developed in the early 1970s by the Club of Rome, as described in the final Climate Change Q&A by Dr Michael Lardelli.

Deep down, I’m not a pessimistic person, but an honest appraisal of the current confluence of a major global finanical upheaval, a food and water shortage crisis, the (near) peaking of resources and traditional energy supplies, and rise of internecine conflicts in environmentally stressed regions such as Darfur doesn’t brighten the heart. In particular, I’d be interested in what others think about this basic question:

“If Olduvai Theory were valid, how far along the ’slide’ phase of the progression curve (figure 1) would we need to progress before it became generally accepted that we’d past the point of no return?” (or must we first step off the cliff?). Or put more simply, what constitutes ’sufficient evidence’ to act?

A similar issue relates to climate change and committed warming, which I’ll develop further soon.

The key way forward in both cases is to: (i) recognise explicitly that the problem (be it peaking conventional energy supply, environmental resource limits, climate disequilibrium) is close to Endgame, and that there is no time left for ‘wait-and-see’ or ’slow-and-steady’ strategies (this fact has now been recognised in the case of global finanical regulation of risk assessment – whether the ‘fixes’ work remains to be seen), (ii) coordinated community (bottom up) and government (top down) action, at sufficient speed, scale and duration to make the difference and halt (or reverse) the slide. This includes large-scale renewables and early systemic investments in energy efficiency, and possibly later investments in geoengineering.

Can we do it? Two of my friends recently wrote a book about (i) and (ii) with respect to climate change, called ‘Climate Cod Red‘. I’ll have to blog on it, and I strongly encourage readers to get hold of a copy.

Off to China

Well, I’m about to visit China for 16 days, visiting Universities in Guangzhou, Xiamen, Bejing, Xi’an, Lanzhou, Harbin and Jinan (see clickable map for locations). It’s part of a delegation from the University of Adelaide to foster research cross-collaborations between Australian and Chinese universities, and to encourage talented China Scholarship Council Research students to study for their PhDs in Australia (Adelaide!). I’ll also be giving plenty of talks on climate change and sustainability and its relevance to China.

It should be an exciting trip – because it is such a magnificent and diverse country – and also because it will give me a chance to witness, first hand what a decade of sustained, 8-11% pa economic growth looks like in reality.

China is pushing ahead fast on all development fronts, from emissions of greenhouse gases from their coal-fired power stations to large scale initiatives in renewable energy – literally, the good, the bad and the ugly.

The historical legacy of climate change sits squarely with the developed world, but the future course of climate change will be largely determined by whether nations such as China can quickly convert their energy supply to cleantech. That will be where a global agreement in terms of tech development and transfer will be crucial.

Anyway, I hope to be able to post regularly to the blog when I’m travelling, provided I can hook up to the internet from time to time. Indeed, China will be an apt place from which to post my next entry in the ‘How much warming is in the pipeline’ series, because a lot of the answer lies in that atmospheric brown cloud you can see in the picture at the top of this blog entry.

Stay tuned!

Devouring the pale blue dot

Guest post by Andrew Glikson and Emily Spence

(Andrew is an Earth and paleo-climate scientist, Australian National University who has contributed regularly to Brave New Climate. Emily Spence, environmental and social policy writer, Massachusetts, U.S.A.)

“Dear Caesar
Keep Burning, raping, killing
But please, please
Spare us your obscene poetry
And ugly music “
– From Seneca’s last letter to Nero

According to Albert Speer, German physicists, apprising Hitler of the possible development of an atom bomb in the spring of 1942, noted a reservation by Werner Heisenberg about a potential conflagration of the atmosphere: “Hitler was plainly not delighted with the possibility that the earth under his rule might be transformed into a glowing star.” The same awesome possibility, fusion of atmospheric nitrogen and oceanic hydrogen, turning the planet into a chain-reacting bomb, was considered a few months later by Edward Teller, Robert Oppenheimer, Arthur Compton, Hans Bethe and other physicists. New calculations indicated atmospheric conflagration was unlikely. The trinity nuclear test in the New Mexico desert went ahead.

A critical parameter in Drake’s Equation, which seeks to estimate the number of planets that host civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy, is L — the longevity of technological societies measured from the time radio telescopes are invented in an attempt to communicate with other planets. Estimates of L range between a minimum of 70 years and 10,000 years, but even for the more optimistic longevity scenario, only 2.31 such planets would exist in the galaxy at the present time.

It is another question whether an intelligent species exists in this, or any other galaxy, which has brought about a mass extinction of species on the scale initiated by Homo sapiens since the mid-18th century.

The history of Earth includes five major mass extinctions which define the ends of several periods, including the Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Each of these events has been triggered by extraterrestrial impacts, massive volcanic eruptions, or methane release and related greenhouse events. Yet, with the exception of the role of methanogenic bacteria in relation to methane eruptions in the past, the Sixth mass extinction is a novelty: For the first time in its history, the biosphere is in crisis through biological forcing by an advanced form of life, namely the activity of a technological carbon-emitting species.

The sharp glacial-interglacial oscillations of the Pleistocene (1.8 million years ago to 10,000 years ago), with rapid mean global temperature changes by up to 5 degrees Celsius over short periods of centuries and, in some instances, a few years (cf. Steffensen et al., Science Express, 19 June, 2008), culminated in an extreme adaptability of Homo. Of all the life forms on Earth, only this genus mastered fire, proceeding to manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum, split the atom and travel to other planets—cultural change overtaking biological change.

Possessed by a conscious fear of death, craving God-like immortality and omniscience, Homo developed the absurd faculty to simultaneously create and destroy, culminating with the demise of the atmospheric conditions that allowed its flourishing in the first place. The biological root factors which underlie the transformation of tribal warriors into button-pushing automatons capable of triggering global warming or a nuclear winter remain inexplicable.

Inherent in the enigma are little-understood top-to-base mechanisms, explored among others by George Ellis, who states: “although the laws of physics explain much of the world around us, we still do not have a realistic description of causality in truly complex hierarchical structures.” (“Physics, complexity and causality”, Nature, 435: 743, June 2005):

Sixty-five million years ago, huge asteroids hit the Earth, extinguishing the dinosaurs and vacating habitats for the flourishing of mammals. Fifty-five million years ago, in the wake of a rise of atmospheric CO2 to levels near-1000 parts per million, the monkeys made appearance. Thirty-four million years ago, weathering of the rising Himalayan and Alpine ranges sequestered CO2, Earth began to cool, ice sheets formed and conditions on land became suitable for large, warm blooded mammals.

Three million years ago, in the mid-Pliocene, when temperatures rose by 2- 3o C and sea levels by 25+/-12 metres, accentuation of climate oscillations were followed by the appearance of Homo erectus. The mastering of fire and, later, stabilization of the climate between about 10,000 and 8,000 years ago, saw the Neolithic and urban civilization take hold. Processes during this period, termed the Anthropocoene (cf. Steffen, Crutzen and McNeill, Ambio, 36, 614-621, 2007), led to deforestation and the demise of an estimated twenty thousand to two million species during the 20th century, ever increasing carbon pollution, acidification of the hydrosphere and radioactive contamination.

Acting as the lungs of the biosphere, the Earth’s atmosphere developed an oxygen-rich carbon-constrained composition over hundreds of millions of years, allowing emergence of breathing animals. Planetcide results from the anthropogenic release into the atmosphere to date of more than 300 Gigatons of carbon (GtC), the product of ancient biospheres stored by plants and animals, threatening to return Earth to conditions which preceded the emergence of large mammals on land.

Planetcide emerged from around pre-historic camp fires, from deep recesses of the mind, the imagination of individuals trying to survive adversity. Atavistic fear of death leads to a yearning for god-like immortality. Once the Holocene climate stabilized and excess food was produced, fear and its counterpart, aggression, grew out of control, generating pyramids dedicated to the idea of infinite immorality and sweeping murderous orgies, called “war”, designed to conquer death and appease the Gods.

War is a synonym for ritual sacrifice of the young. From infanticide by rival warlord baboons to the butchering of young children on Aztec altars to the generational sacrifice of WWI, youths follow leaders blindly to the death, women condemn defeated gladiators, fundamental priests promote ignorance, misery and crusades, breeding grounds for believers. Hijacking the image of Christ, a messenger of justice and peace, they promote a self-fulfilling Armageddon: “Hallelujah the rupture is coming,” while other see their future on space ships and barren planets.

With estimated profitable carbon reserves in excess of 5000 GtC, further emissions could take the atmosphere out of the ice ages back to Mesozoic-like greenhouse conditions, a state during which large parts of the continents were inundated by the sea. Most likely to survive would be the grasses, insects and birds, descendants of the fated dinosaurs. A new evolutionary cycle would commence. Homo sapiens will survive. Their endurance through the extreme climate upheavals of the glacial-interglacial periods has equipped humans to withstand the most challenging conditions.

The Sixth mass extinction does not rise exclusively from global warming, and can be brought about, separately or in combination, by design or accident, through the probability of a global nuclear cataclysm. As time goes on, a possibility becomes a probability becomes a certainty, an increasingly likely prospect on a warming planet burdened by resource wars. Following trials on the inhabitants of two Japanese cities, with time, the Damocles sword of MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) strategy can only fall. The hapless inhabitants of planet Earth are given no choice between progressive global warming and the coup-de-grace of a nuclear winter.

Further experiments with the fate of Earth are underway. Once the Hadron Collider has been deemed “safe,” pending further science fiction-like experiments yet to be dreamt by ethics-free scientists, Earth may not become a black hole. Unfortunately little doubt exists regarding the consequences of the continuing use of the atmosphere, the lungs of the biosphere, as open sewer for carbon gases.

As stated by the renown oceanographer Wallace Broecker in 1986, “The inhabitants of planet Earth are quietly conducting a gigantic experiment. We play Russian roulette with climate and no one knows what lies in the active chamber of the gun.” If the Nazi’s constructed gas chambers for millions of victims, ongoing climate change threatens to turn the entire Planet into an open oven on the strength of a Faustian Bargain.

From the Romans to the third Reich, the barbarism of empires surpasses that of small marauding tribes. In the name of “freedom,” they never cease to bomb peasant populations in their small fields. Only among the wretched of the Earth is true charity common, where empathy is learnt through their own suffering.

Planetcide challenges every faith, ideal and social system humans ever held. Individuals are crushed, as in H. G. Wells War of the Worlds, when cells rebelling against the insanity of a murderous global Martian society are destroyed by the parent organism.

Planetcide is a child of Orwellian “Newspeak”, where modern societies, underpinned by subterranean drug rings, weapon smuggling networks and intelligence agencies, poison their young’s minds with commercial and political lies, a propaganda machine Joseph Goebbels would envy.

Nature is full of examples of parasites, viruses destroying their host, sea anemones seducing their prey, but Homo sapiens has perfected untruths to a form of fine art. Defying the scientific method and the peer review system, so-called “sceptics”, lured by ego and money, serve as mouthpieces of air-poisoning lobbies, which have already delayed humanity’s desperate attempt at mitigating the fast deteriorating state of the atmosphere by more than twenty years.

Having lost the sense of reverence possessed toward the Earth by prehistoric humans, there is no evidence that civilization is about to adopt Carl Sagan’s sentiment: “For we are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: star stuff pondering the stars: organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for the Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.” (Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 1980)

Humans live in a realm of perceptions, dreams, myths and legends, in denial of critical facts (Janus: A summing up, Arthur Koestler, 1978). They wake up for a brief moment from an infinite universal slumber to witness a world as cruel as it is beautiful, a biosphere dominated by the food chain. An inverse relation may exist between the level of consciousness achieved by a species and its longevity, once it creates machines and processes that it can not control. If looking into the sun may result in blindness, so, according to as yet little-understood laws of entropy, the deep insights into nature that humans have achieved may bear a terrible price.

Existentialist philosophy allows a perspective into, and a way of coping with, all that defies rational contemplation. Ethical and cultural assumptions of free will rarely govern the behavior of societies or nations, let alone an entire species.

And although the planet may not shed a tear for the demise of technological civilization, hope, on the individual scale, is still possible in the sense of existentialist philosophy. Going through their black night of the soul, members of the species may be rewarded by the emergence of a conscious dignity devoid of illusions, grateful for the glimpse at the universe for which humans are privileged by the fleeting moment:

“Having pushed a boulder up the mountain all day, turning toward the setting sun, we must consider Sisyphus happy.” (Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942)

Two denialist talking points quashed

Two things that Professor Ian Plimer confidently touted during his presentation at the SA Skeptics annual conference was (1) the relevance of David Evan’s so-called missing tropical hotspot (as supposed proof against greenhouse theory) and (2) that sub-sea volcanoes along the Gakkel Ridge is likely to be the cause of accelerated melting of the Arctic summer sea ice. So what is the latest scientific opinion on these?

Well, regarding (1), as RealClimate reports, Dr Ben Santer (who recently gave a talk at my Institute at the University of Adelaide), Dr Tom Wigley (now retired to Adelaide and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Adelaide) and 15 other colleages, have published a new paper in the International Journal of Climatology on this very issue. It thoroughly quashes the Evan’s claim, and also hammers the related critiques of climate science, by Dr David Douglass, Dr John Christy, Dr Benjamin Pearson and Dr S. Fred Singer, which claimed a significant discrepancy between theory and observations in terms of the warming of the lower atmosphere. What’s particularly good news for the large non-scientific community who has interest in science behind these issues, is that the paper’s authors have also put together a FAQ. In it, they explain, using non-technical language, all the key sceptical arguments on this issue, and the latest evidence. The figure above is from the fact sheet. I’ll just quote a couple of key  points from it:

Using state-of-the-art observational datasets and results from a large archive of computer mode simulations, a consortium of scientists from 12 different institutions has resolved a long-standing conundrum in climate science – the apparent discrepancy between simulated and observed temperature trends in the tropics. Research published by this group indicates that there is no fundamental discrepancy between modeled and observed tropical temperature trends when one accounts for: 1) the (currently large) uncertainties in observations; 2) the statistical uncertainties in estimating trends from observations. These results refute a recent claim that model and observed tropical temperature trends “disagree to a statistically significant extent”. This claim was based on the application of a flawed statistical test and the use of older observational datasets.

AND

The bottom line is that we obtained results strikingly different from those of Douglass et al. The “robust statistical test” that they used to compare models and observations had at least one serious flaw – its failure to account for any uncertainty in the “signal component” of observed temperature trends (see QUESTION 7). This flaw led them to reach incorrect conclusions. We showed this by applying their test to randomly generated data with the same statistical properties as the observed temperature data, but without any underlying “signal trend”. In this “synthetic data” case, we knew that significant differences in temperature trends could occur by chance only, and thus would happen infrequently. When we applied the Douglass et al. test, however, we found that even randomly generated data showed statistically significant trend differences much more frequently than we would expect on the basis of chance alone. A test that fails to behave properly when used with random data – when one knows in advance what rresults to expect – cannot be expected to perform reliably when applied to real observational and model data.

Go read the whole thing (there are 10 frequently-asked-questions answered in all).

Then there is question of the influence of those sub-sea Arctic volcanoes. Could they possibly be the cause of the melting surface ice, due to a slow diffusion of heat from the ocean floor, many kilometres deep, to the surface waters? (and, one presumes, a recent increase in volcanic activity). NY Times investigative journalist Andy Revkin handballed this question to his extensive scientific contact list, to get a decent spread of informed answers. The response on this issue, by 7 different scientists who work in this area, is an unequivocal NO! I’ll quote a couple below, but I suggest you read the two posts by Revkin on this issue, here and here, for the full story and links.

Jamie Morison, University of Washington (I went with Dr. Morison and the rest of the North Pole Environmental Observatory team to the North Pole sea ice in 2003):

It occurs to me that we have primary evidence that heat from the bottom is not reaching the ice. Temperature profiles from virtually everywhere in the Arctic Ocean display a maximum temperature at a depth from 200-400 [meters]. This is associated with the Atlantic Water entering the basin from the Norwegian Sea. Fundamental laws of physics require that below the depth of this maximum, the heat flux is downward. Very near the bottom temperatures have been found to increase with depth indicating a small upward heat flux from geothermal sources, which help to heat only the very deepest water.

The heat flux above the Atlantic temperature maximum is upward. The rate of this flux of Atlantic Water heat flux is variable depending on depth of the maximum and overlying stratification (stratification is controlled by salinity in the Arctic Ocean). Treshnikov estimated it from Atlantic Water heat content to be a couple of Watt/m2 in much of the Euarasian Basin. It is smaller farther from Fram Strait and greater near Fram Strait. How this flux changes is potentially very important to the ice cover. Changes in geothermal heat flux are not.

AND

Dr. Schlindwein sees almost no chance of surface disruption from the eruptions:

I am currently working on a reconstruction of the Gakkel volcanic episode from 1999-2007 integrating seismicity data and water column observations and I have started to look at sea ice images as well. We know pretty well when the 1999 eruption took place; it will be easy to check for effects on the sea ice. I doubt there will be such effects:

In 2001, the volcano at 85E was still erupting explosively, although in a less vigorous mode (Schlindwein et al., GRL, 2005). The associated event plume in the water column is well surveyed and described in Edmonds et al. (Nature 2003). That plume of relatively “warm” water – temperature anomaly less than 1/10 degree – reaches a minimum water depth of about 1700 m, its center being around 2500 m water depth. These data make it very evident that the sea ice is not influenced by the heat released from the ongoing eruption.

So, two more sceptical questions bite the dust. But I wonder if Ian Plimer, David Evans, Fred Singer and others who have put store in these theories, will pay any attention?

Thinking big and fast on renewable energy

There is an old saying in strategic communications. Repeat your key point, again and again. Then repeat it once again. Keep doing this. When, at last, you are sick to death of saying it and can’t possibly imagine anyone would want to hear it again… say it again. That’s about the point when people really get it.

So, I do harp on a lot about large-scale renewables. But in many spheres, it’s starting to sink in, and get real traction. Many other highly credible people are saying it. This is no pipe dream. This is our future – so let’s start thinking big – fast.

In this context, I recently published an Opinion Editorial on NEWS.com.au which pushed hard on the renewable energy ‘vision thing’. As I’ve remarked previously, I think a vision for installed capacity in renewables is a far grander and more attractive target than clutching at the straws of an emissions reduction goal. Read below, and let me know if you agree…

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Solar Thermal Electricity: Can it Replace Coal, Gas, and Oil?

“I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100% of its electricity from clean energy within 10 years” – Al Gore

Al Gore says the United States should embark on a “man on the moon”-style effort to satisfy all of America’s electricity needs by renewable energy within a decade. Just 10 years. That’s an incredibly bold vision – a real stretch goal. But it is also what’s needed to avert a climate crisis.

So why not do the same in Australia? Here, it could become a “nation-building” symbol of pride, akin to the 19th Century construction of the Overland Telegraph Line or the post-WW II Snowy Hydro Scheme.

Eighty per cent of Australians support carbon trading. A carbon price will open up huge new 21st Century markets, as price signals lead to a retooling of our energy economy away from dirty power sources like coal.

Australia has more than enough wind, geothermal and solar energy to make it happen. The question is not the availability of resources. It is national will, adequate leadership and sufficient commitment.

Al Gore says his plan is “achievable, affordable and transformative.” It is, both in the US and in Australia.

Fossil fuels like coal and oil are rising in price due to scarcity and supply bottlenecks, coupled to spiralling demand. Meanwhile, the costs of renewables are falling due to innovation, research and development, and rapidly-increasing economies of scale. Just like computers and mobile phones, the more you invest in these technologies and the more widespread their use, the cheaper they become.

Also, unlike fossil fuels, there will never be scarcity in renewables – ever.  ”Peak sun” and “peak geothermal” remain billions of years away.  ”Peak oil” and “peak coal” are right around the corner.

It’s a win-win

Australia has never had such a perfect opportunity to make the shift. The Australian economy has been ignited over the past decade by mining prosperity due to unprecedented terms of trade for coal, gas and oil.

If Australia uses near-term export windfalls to invest in decarbonising the economy, Australia will have intellectual property and experience in “sunrise markets” to sell internationally later.  Fossil fuel exports now, renewables exports just around the corner.  It’s a classic win-win.

Renewable energy economics is radically transformative. Civilisation has never experienced a long-term epoch of declining energy costs such as it will see in renewable energy. Scarcity could become irrelevant. Renewable energy is an infinite resource that’s falling in price due to rapid technological research and development.

“Moore’s Law” has been successful since the early 1970s in predicting that computer prices will halve, and processing power double, every 18 months. This literally transformed modern society.

Falling energy prices due to the uptake of huge amounts of “flat price” (free once built) renewable energy could be even more positive. We only need to choose to follow this obvious path.

The time is right. We have a huge windfall of export receipts to invest in decarbonising our economy. Carbon trading will provide tens of billions of dollars more per year to invest in upgrading to cleaner energy sources.

If coupled with proper economic reform that progressively eliminates $10 billion of annual domestic fossil fuel subsidies in Australia , we could lay the groundwork for a “long boom” akin to the early years of the 20th century when our nation got rich on agricultural commodities

In the 21st Century, clean energy can be our export.  Instead of riding on the sheep’s back, we can bask in the sun. Change isn’t Australia’s greatest future danger. Stasis or old-fashioned thinking is.

High energy prices, the mess in the Middle East, global warming and the need to upgrade aging electricity systems dominated by coal-fired power plants and threadbare power lines. The world is being hit by a confluence of events that makes dramatic solutions not only possible, but imperative.

Twenty years from now, obscure names like Innamincka, Ceduna, Woomera and Mildura could hold the kind of instant energy associations that old-style coal era names like La Trobe and Hunter valleys hold today. And instead of talking about constant “technologies in development” like carbon capture and storage, we could talk instead about solar chimneys, parabolic troughs, big wind turbines and oceanic wave machines. These are the new, limitless energy sources of the future.

In this new vision, the Outback’s huge solar and geothermal resources could become the centre of our domestic energy complex. Instead of crusty explorers trekking into the interior with mules and shovels, they’d be equipped with drill rigs, mirrors and high-voltage power cable. Fatal mine accidents like that at Beaconsfield, Tasmania will become a rarity because renewable energy is intrinsically much safer than fossil fuels.

Crisis + opportunity

Climate change is an existential handwringer. It’s no doubt the thorniest global problem we’ve faced as a civilisation, world wars included.

But the urgency of solving it also represents a huge opportunity for Australia to move early to exploit her clean energy resources and progressively export that energy to the world. Doing so will make Australia richer as the world rapidly moves beyond coal and oil.

In the next 50 years, humanity will either go to hell in a hand basket, or it will totally revamp the way it does business. If it takes the bleak “do as little as possible, slowly” pathway, interior Australia may see a tide of climate refugees fleeing flooded coastlines, a destroyed national food bowl, a devastated tourism industry, and huge dislocation.

But if Australia has vision, plays its cards right, and becomes a leader in the global climate solution, we could be humming with global exports of clean energy as world-leading discoveries make exploitation of unlimited energy resources ever cheaper.

Australia is incredibly well placed among developed countries to move completely to renewable energy. We have huge, unexploited solar resources in our continental interior akin to the oil fields of the Middle East in the early 20th Century.

When the Seven Sisters oil companies exploited that resource, the global energy system changed forever. Today, Australia has all the makings of a global “green energy” superpower.

It’s impossible to overstate the significance of this “comparative advantage” in such a key 21st Century sunrise industry as cleantech.

In the early 1960s, South Australia, with its Woomera Base, held the lead in the global space race. Australia shouldn’t let the huge opportunities of solar/geothermal cleantech slip away from it now like it did with rockets.

It’s a once-in-a-century chance to get it right.

The global food system and climate change – Part I

Guest Post by Geoff Russell.

Geoff is a mathematician and computer programmer and is a member of Animal Liberation SA.

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Late in 2006 the United Nations Food and Agriculture organisation published one of those huge thick reports that gets a one column story in quite a few newspapers and then vanishes from sight. It is Livestock’s Long Shadow (LLS).

The report is a compendium of data and analysis on the impacts of the livestock industry on the earth’s eco-systems. There are major chapters on land degradation, air pollution, water pollution, biodiversity, with concluding chapters on policy options for reform and expansion.

This is the first of a few posts which will review major parts of the report. I’m not aiming at an comprehensive review, but rather at presenting key pieces with other relevant information which should allow people to appreciate the linkages between the global systems of food, feed, livestock and their impact on climate change. Remember always that food is what people eat, and feed is what livestock eats. We will begin by looking at the first two LLS chapters which provide structural background for the remainder of the report.

Keep in mind that LLS is written by people advocating an expansion of the livestock industry while I advocate a reduction. Hence my choice of the term factory farm instead of the more euphemistic intensive/landless used in LLS.

Let’s start with a couple of tables which serve to give an overview of the structure of the global livestock system. These tables will also show that the Australian livestock industry is somewhat unusual.

Global Livestock Output

The first table is a who’s who of agricultural commodities. Most of us live in a single dwelling and buy major items of metal, wood or plastic infrequently, but we all eat everyday and the global ebb and flow of food largely determines our appropriation of the planet’s resources. Forestry, for example, causes just 3% of Amazon deforestation. In Australia, we have cleared 100 million hectares since white arrival, but forestry operates in just 13.3 million hectares, most of which are not cleared. We crop just 24 million hectares and urban areas occupy just 1.6 million. Here as elsewhere livestock is the primary driver of land clearing and biodiversity loss.

	Meat Production Millions of Tonnes
	Production System
	Grazing	Rainfed/Mixed	Irrigated/Mixed	Factory Farm	TOT.	%
Mutton	3.8	4.0	4.0	0.1	11.9	4.9
Beef	14.6	29.3	12.9	3.9	60.7	25.1
Poultry	1.2	8.0	11.7	52.8	73.7	30.5
Pork	0.8	12.5	29.1	52.8	95.2	39.5
TOT.	20.4	53.8	57.7	109.6	241.5
%	8.4	22.3	23.9	45.4
	Food and Feed Production Millions of Tonnes
			Cereals		1886
			Roots/Tubers		692
			Soybeans		220
			Fruit/Veg		1336
			Fish, Seafood		128
			Fish-meal		7.6
			Palm/Soybean Oil		70

The data I’ve assembled in this table is an amalgam of parts of LLS Table 2.9 with a little data from the FAO and the US Department of Agriculture on plant food and seafood. The palm oil/soy oil figure of 70 megatonnes comes from USDA. It is faily evenly split between the two oils. The fish-meal figure is from LLS but was checked against with the International Fishmeal and Fishoil association. They give a similar figure and the implication is that global fish-meal, created annually from 30-35 million tonnes of fish, is entirely consumed by livestock (including aquaculture). LLS explains that as aquaculture expands it requires fish-meal, because the fish of choice, like tuna and salmon are carnivorous and require fish in their diet. Despite what you may have heard, people don’t need to eat sea food of any kind. As aquaculture diverts fish-meal from livestock feed, this leaves a hole filled increasingly by soy.

The top section of the table is meat production, the bottom is the major components global plant production, which is a combination of food and feed. We will see later just how much of this production is appropriated for feed.

This is a complex and dense table and we will spend a little time highlighting things that an Australian might find surprising. It is customary to quote meat figures as carcase weights. But you only eat 60-75% of the carcase, so the edible meat will be somewhat lower than this table indicates.

There are 4 kinds of production systems. The two in the middle are mixed systems. These are farms which grow some or all livestock feed for the animals they produce. This implies that some or all of the farm is suitable for crops — arable. A factory farm gets all its feed from somewhere else. So a factory farm competes with humans for the plant food products at the bottom of the table. Absent from the bottom of the table are fodder crops. These are important in many livestock systems. Australia, for example, has an area of irrigated hay and silage production about 50% bigger than our entire irrigated fruit growing areas. In 2005/6 we applied 770 giga litres of irrigation water to this area, which is about 100 giga litres more than we applied to fruit trees. Global fodder figures are missing from LLS but we will revisit the issue when we deal with Chapter 4 of LLS and water issues.

In Australia about 2/3 of beef and half of our dairy products are exported. Ignoring that, beef and chicken consumption are similar with pork being about half the size. Globally on the other hand, pigs dominate the meat industry and chicken production is bigger than beef. In Australia, almost all pig and chicken meat is produced in factory farms.

So the Australian meat production profile, with its beef dominance, is rather different from the global average. But since chicken and pig meat outsells beef locally, over half the meat consumed in Australia is produced in factory farms. Globally, factory farmed meat is just under half of all meat.

The total global production of 241.5 million tonnes sounds like a lot of food. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation also keeps accurate data on plant food production and contains what are called Food Balance Sheets on its statistical website. If you take the production figure, add the imports, subtract the exports and animal feed, you get the amount of each food left for people to eat. Divide this amount by the population and you get the calories per person per day.

All up, animal food, which also includes fish, milk and cheese, provides 17% of the daily average of 2808 calories. If you think that protein would be a more flattering measure of the value of animal production then you would be right. But until very recently in human history, a diet with adequate calories provided adequate protein. These days, a diet of coke and fries can simultaneously make you obese and protein deficient. For more background on protein see the section below.

Global Inputs

The LLS map on the left shows the distribution of livestock production systems which provide this 17% of global calories. Livestock graze 26% of the ice free surface of the planet, about 3.4 billion hectares (about 4.4 times the area of Australia). But we can see from the above table that this vast amount of grazing land produces a fairly small proportion of global meat. A grass fed cattle carcase in Australia or from the Brazilian Amazon comes in at 200-250~kg. But a grain fed feedlot animal produces a 350~kg carcase.

In addition to pasture, livestock consumes the output of 471 million hectares of the crop land. This is about one third of all current crop land shown on the left.

All up then, animal foods use 471 million hectares of crops + 3,400 million hectares of grazing + the entire and declining output of both fresh water and ocean fisheries but provide just 17% of global calories. Plant foods provide 83% of global calories from 940 million hectares of crops. Based on current cropping outputs, if people switched to totally plant based diets, we could return the full grazing area of 3,400 million hectares to other species, together with a significant proportion of the 471 million feed hectares. At the other extreme, if the entire 6.7 billion of the world’s population ate like the richest 1.4 billion, then massive increases in both grazing and cropping areas will be required.

Food becomes feed

	Feed use in 2002 (million tonnes)
	Developing	Developed
Commodity	countries	countries	Total
Grains	226.4	444.0	670.4
Brans	92.3	37.0	129.3
Oilseeds/pulses	11.6	15.7	27.3
Oilcakes	90.5	96.6	187.3
Root/Tubers	57.8	94.4	152.4
Fish meal	3.8	3.8	7.6
TOTAL	482.4	691.7	1,174.3
Biofuels			100.0

Now we are ready to look in a little more detail at the global feed consumption of livestock. So here it is, together with an added row giving the total biofuel use of grains in 2007. As you can see, the biofuel contribution to the current global food crisis is pretty much a straw on the back of a camel laid low by the burden of global meat production.

The oilcakes row is interesting. Oilcakes are a byproduct of making oil from soybeans, peanuts or various other oil yielding plants. Oilcake is typically very high in protein and minerals. Overall, LLS estimates that 77 million tonnes of protein is fed to animals in food suitable for humans for an output of 58 million tonnes.

Australian Grain Feeding
2005/6 million tonnes
Feedlot Cattle	3.542
Broilers	2.357
Layers	0.404
Pigs	1.587
Dairy	2.228
Grazing Sheep/Cattle	0.371
Total	10.734
Source: ABARE Feedgrains report 2007

Of course, when the global food crisis hit in early 2008, even Oxfam jumped on the blame-biofuel bandwagon while ignoring the industry which supplies the beloved Aussie BBQ. How much food do we use as feed in Australia? Here are stats from 2005/6. In the following year, 2006/7, because of ongoing drought in Australia, we imported about 2 million tonnes of feed grains. So, in a very real sense we helped to exacerbate the global food crisis in two ways. First with the import of grains, and second by the normal use of about 11 million tonnes annually to feed cattle, pigs and chickens.

Deforestation and land degradation

This map shows the global area regarded as either vulnerable (yellow) or critically affected (red) by livestock.

Unsurprisingly, LLS cites land use change as the leading cause of global biodiversity loss. Clear a forest for soybeans or cattle and the plants and animals of that forest will die. But of course, we reasonably put out own own need to eat above that of wildlife, but we can choose to minimise the damage. Or not.

LLS describes the mechanisms whereby livestock damage land. On rangelands, we have the holy trinity of extensive livestock production with which any visitor to the Australian outback who knew what to look for would be familiar: desertification, increased woody plants, and deforestation. Queensland’s destruction of Brigalow forests during the 1990s was particularly savage. On a per-capita per-hectare basis, this deforestation surpasses anything in Brazil or Indonesia – the two acknowledged superpowers in the deforestation race.

Factory farms produce different environmental problems. Any damage done during cropping for feed production should be attributed to them and not to plant food production. Water pollution can cause eutrophication, ground water contamination, red tides, blue-green algae and dead zones. Such events can have non-livestock causes, but modern livestock numbers can easily impose intolerable loads on natural systems.

In the US, there is often better data available than elsewhere and LLS presents a figure of 55% as the amount of erosion on both crop land and pasture which is due to livestock either directly or via feed production. This erosion and loss of topsoil has the potential to cause a crisis in global food production that will make this year’s crisis seem insignificant.

Typically, the manner of deforestation is more complete for crops than than cattle. So the obvious question is whether it preferable to clear a small area completely or to clear a much larger area, but less intensively, for grazing?

Forest and Soil Carbon Distribution (tonnes/ha)
	Above ground	Below ground
Wet Tropical Forest	130	213
Grasslands	0.4-3.8	30

This table isn’t from LLS, but from a key study into grazing systems relied upon by LLS (Asner et al, “Grazing Systems, ecosystem responses and Global Change”). It shows figures for above and below ground carbon for a tropical forest and grassland. Clearly, a grassland is a poor substitute for a tropical forest as a carbon store. In between grasslands and wet tropical forests are all manner of woodlands with values anywhere between these extremes. When a tropical forest is cleared, it isn’t only the above ground carbon which is lost, much of that below ground may be lost over coming years. Cattle grazing tropical soils compress the ground as elsewhere, but the result can end up with decomposition becoming anaerobic and the soil can become a methane source. More on this later in this series.

The basic transformation of livestock production during the past 50 years has been driven by the simple fact that grasslands which are both available and suitable for grazing are already used. They are not only used, they are frequently degraded. In Australia, we don’t need global studies like LLS to tell us about either deforestation or degradation. We are world leaders in both.

This map shows areas which are both highly suitable and available for grazing. I’ve shrunk the map, but the green areas are forest areas, the yellow are crop areas and the red are urban areas which are currently on land suitable for grazing.

As a result, increases in meat production that have been achieved during the past half century have been due to intensification or deforestation.

Jared Diamond estimated back in the late 1990s in “Guns, Germs and Steel” that gatherer/hunters need 10 to 100 times more land than farmers. Similarly, extensive livestock need more land than intensive livestock, for similar reasons. Most native grasses are, or have been thought to be, less than optimal for maximising livestock growth, so if you want maximum growth, grow the feed elsewhere (or locally) using intensive methods with plenty of water if possible, and fertiliser. Alternatively sow your pasture with grasses selected for maximum productivity and add fertiliser. Australia spent 70 years introducing 5000 species of grasses and legumes in an attempt to improve on native grasses for livestock growth. Fertilisation of non-irrigated pasture is common. In 2005, for example, non-irrigated pasture uses 39% of total nitrogenous fertiliser in New South Wales, 35% in the Northern Territory, 60% in South Australia and 44% in Victoria.

Apart from intensification, the second key to the increase in meat production over the past 50 years has been increased is by shifting from biologically inefficient feed converters, large ruminants, to efficient feed converters, pigs and chickens. The third key to increased production has been a spatial shift. Cattle grazed on rangelands have to be moved to where the consumer lives, typically nowhere near the rangelands. Pigs and chickens are kept in huge sheds fairly close to cities. It is far more efficient to ship feed to factory farms than to ship live animals to abattoirs.

In the next post, I’ll get down to the detail of climate change impacts of the food system in general and livestock in particular.

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Nutritional Appendix

We showed earlier that feeding the global population with plant food would release huge amounts of grazing land for other species and even some cropping land. This is an extreme in the spectrum of possible change and has a low social feasibility. But this post is only concerned with scientific feasibility. To show that this is scientifically feasible, we need to show that, contrary to popular belief, animal protein has no practical advantages over the plant proteins found in standard plant staples like, for example, wheat, beans or rice.

The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council’s 2006 Nutrient Reference Values of Australia and New Zealand lists protein requirements without distinguishing plant and animal protein requirements. This is because there are no relevant differences between plant and animal protein where food intake is adequate. And when food intake isn’t adequate? What then? The weapon of choice at present in saving malnourished children is a product called Plumpy’Nut. It is basically a fortified peanut butter. Compared with traditional fortified milk based products, the peanut based formula works better (restores growth and health faster), is less prone to infection with pathogenic bacteria, is cheaper and doesn’t look like milk. The latter is an advantage because health workers have a hard time persuading mothers to breast feed when the treatment for malnutrition looks like milk (Am J Clin Nutr 2003;78:302-7).

It is worth quoting one last statment on the adequacy of plant based diets from the Professor of Nutrition at New York University, Marion Nestle, who happens not to be a vegetarian, who states in her recent book What to Eat: “The meat industry’s big public relations problem is that vegetarians are demonstrably healthier than meat eaters.”

This of course is a statistical statement. Vegans and vegetarians consuming frequent meals of coke and fries will get sick just like anybody else eating too much of these foods.

So how much protein does animal food currently provide? All up, despite using 33% of arable land plus a massive grazing area, animal food production only supplies 38% of the daily average of 76 grams of protein for each person on the planet. This is likely to be an overestimate because of the use of carcase figures in the data. However animal food distribution is not uniform and makes up far more of the diet of the 1.4 billion people in the developed world with animal protein being about 50% of all protein. Animal protein is about 30% of protein in the other 5.3 billion people on the planet.

How much warming in the pipeline? Part 1 – CO2-e

You may have heard that the planet is committed to further warming and sea level rise, irrespective of what choices we now make to reduce carbon emissions. The global warming century trend that was observed from 1906 to 2005 was 0.74°C (with a 90% uncertainty range of 0.56°C to 0.92°C), with more warming occurring in the Northern over Southern Hemispheres, and more over land compared to oceans. Yet, based on our understanding of the climate impact of greenhouse gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O) and other trace gases, we should have observed even more warming than this. Actually, when you put all the pieces together, the expectation is for much more warming.

But before I tackle the critical issue of just how much more warming is still in the pipeline (in another post), it is important to explain the concept of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂-e). This term initially confuses a lot of people, but it’s not really that difficult to grasp once it’s been explained.

To start, you need to understand that from a global warming perspective, we are interested in the changes in GHGs – which causes an energy imbalance. The pre-industrial and current concentrations of well-mixed long-lived GHG are 278 parts per million (ppm) for CO₂ (now 383), 700 ppb (pp billion) for CH₄ (now 1,775), and 270 ppm for N₂O (now 320). Most of the other trace greenhouse gases (there are plenty), such as chloroflourocarbons (CFCs) and sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆), are almost exclusively a result of industrial activity. Now to quantify their relative contribution to global warming, we need to find a way of putting all of these individual gases (and other climate drivers) on an equal – or equivalent – footing. That’s where CO₂-e comes in.

The IPCC has two ways of expressing CO₂-e. The first is known as concentration equivalence, which has units of ppm CO₂-e. This definition asks: for a given change of a climate forcing agent (such as a greenhouse gas or aerosol), what change in the concentration of CO₂ would have been required to have the same effect as the additions of this forcing? ‘Effect’ is here defined in terms of radiative forcing (RF), which is (loosely) the change in the amount of incoming (to Earth) versus outgoing (to space) radiation/energy, measured in watts per square metre (w/m²). A positive RF warms, negative cools.

The other way of representing CO₂-e is by emission equivalence, which has units of the mass of CO₂-e per unit time. For instance, you could define the climate warming impact over a 100-year period of 1 million tonnes (Mt) of methane as being same as if you’d released 25 Mt of CO₂. If you shortened the time period to 20 years, that 1 Mt of methane would be the same as 72 Mt of CO₂. The difference between time periods is because methane is more powerful GHG than CO₂, but it breaks down more rapidly. This expression is also known as the global warming potential of a GHG.

Right. Now if you add up all of the GHGs (+100 ppm for CO₂, +1,000 ppb for CH₄, +50 ppm for N₂O, and so on), and multiply each gas by its concentration equivalence, then you come up with a number of 455 ppm CO₂-e for the atmosphere in 2005. Also, there is an uncertainty connected with the RF of each gas, due to incomplete scientific understanding. This means that the above quantity of 455 is actually just the average of a probability (statistical) distribution. I simulated this distribution in a computer, using the error bounds on individuals RFs given in AR4, and you can see the result in the figure at the top of this post (lower plot). 455 ppm CO₂-e is our best estimate, but it could be less than 400 or higher than 550 ppm CO₂-e. Hey, you ask, what warming does this commit us to? Well, you’ll have to wait for Part II for this answer!

Changes in radiative forcings between 1750 and 2005 as estimated by the IPCC

But here’s where the rub comes. If you want to understand what we are doing to the climate system right now, or indeed have been doing for the past few centuries, you can’t just look at changes in GHG. You need to consider all the other things, besides GHG, which can and do ‘force’ the climate (i.e., cause warming or cooling across the planetary system). Changes in the sun, for instance can have a positive (+ve) or negative (-ve) forcing effect. As can melting polar ice and snow (+ve), land clearance (+ve for the extra GHG, -ve for exposed land), aerosols (+ve for black carbon, -ve for sulphates, +ve or -ve for clouds). And so on… (More on this in Part II – for now, check out the figure to the right for a summary). Climate models, of course, consider all of these, and moreover, attempt to evaluate the effect they have on each other.

If you make the necessary calculation to add and subtract all of these climate forcings, then you get the total current concentration equivalence of CO₂. This is 376 ppm CO₂-e. By a queer coincidence, this number (at least the best estimate) is very close to the actual concentration of just CO₂ alone (383 ppm). But the probability distribution is pretty wide – the true value of CO₂-e could be as low as 300 ppm or as high as 450 ppm. The simulated distribution, using the IPCC RF error bounds, is also shown in the figure at the top of the post (upper plot). This value of 376 CO₂-e is the actual forcing that is currently acting to warm the oceans, melt ice, and cause gradual upwards changes in average air temperature.

In brief then, we are NOT currently feeling the impact of 450 ppm CO₂-e. Because of aerosols and other cooling factors, we are most probably experiencing the partial result of the extra energy being trapped by about 375 ppm CO₂-e. Indeed, we are not even feeling all of that, at least in terms of changes in air temperature, because so much energy is currently going into heating large bodies of water and melting huge chunks of ice. But we will, given time, feel all of this and much more, if/when most of the cooling forcings start to go away (Part II)…

Of course, if you are technically minded or require more convincing beyond the few paragraphs of explanation I provide herein, I suggest you read chapter 2 of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), which has 106 pages on the topic of Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing.

Or, for another take at this topic, BraveNewClimate reader Chris McGrath has made an excellent attempt to explain these concepts in simple terms, in comments posted here and here. I’ll reproduce them below (with some edited corrections), as they are very clear descriptions:

RealClimate gives a good explanation of carbon dioxide equivalents when used in terms of atmospheric concentrations rather than emissions at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/co2-equivalents/.

Garnaut was referring to 455 ppm CO₂-e in terms of the effect of all GHGs currently in the atmosphere without any reduction for the cooling effects of aerosols.

The IPCC (2007: 102) summarised the effects of GHGs and aerosols as follows:

“Atmospheric CO₂ concentrations [reached] 379 ppm in 2005 … The direct effect of all the long-lived GHGs is substantial, with the total CO₂ equivalent concentration of these gases [in 2005] estimated to be around 455 ppm CO₂-eq (range: 433-477 ppm CO₂-eq). The effects of aerosols and landuse changes reduce radiative forcing so that the net forcing of human activities is in the range of 311 to 435 ppm CO₂-eq, with a central estimate of about 375 ppm CO₂-eq.”

Here is my explanation of the background to these figures and the term “carbon dioxide equivalents” (Nb. I am lawyer, not a climate-scientist, so take this with a grain of salt. It comes from an article I wrote in a law journal last year):

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For ease of comparison and modelling greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric concentrations are commonly measured in a standard unit known as “carbon dioxide equivalents” (CO₂-e or CO₂-eq). This term is defined and used in slightly different ways in the context of emissions and atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. The unifying theme for the different uses is that they allow the effect of different greenhouse gases to be compared using carbon dioxide as a standard unit for reference. It may be noted also that some authors and inventories refer to “carbon equivalents” when discussing quantities or atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. Figures for “carbon equivalents” can be converted to “carbon dioxide equivalents” by multiplying by 44/12 to take account of the different molecular weights. Carbon equivalents can be a more meaningful term when considering carbon not held in the form of CO₂, such as coal. However, the IPCC generally uses “carbon dioxide equivalents”.

When referring to greenhouse gas emissions, “carbon dioxide equivalent” refers to the amount of carbon dioxide that would give the same warming effect as the effect of the greenhouse gas or greenhouse gases being emitted. It is normally used when attributing aggregate emissions from a particular source over a specified timeframe. It is used in this way at national and international levels to account for greenhouse emissions and reductions over time. Article 3 of the Kyoto Protocol states targets for emissions reductions in terms of “aggregate anthropogenic carbon dioxide equivalent emissions of the greenhouse gases listed in Annex A.” Using this approach, Australia’s net greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors in 2004 totalled 564.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. The expected carbon dioxide equivalent emissions from burning different fuels can also be calculated using a standard methodology (see http://www.climatechange.gov.au/workbook/pubs/workbook-feb2008.pdf).

When referring to atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, “carbon dioxide equivalent” refers to the concentration of carbon dioxide that would give the same warming effect as the collective effect of all of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Put in a more technical way, this means the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide that gives a radiative forcing equal to the sum of the forcings from all of the individual greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.

Houghton (2004: 259) explains that when converting from carbon dioxide only concentrations to carbon dioxide equivalent concentrations, the amount that needs to be added varies with different concentrations of greenhouse gases as the relationship between radiative forcing and concentration is non-linear. For example, setting stabilisation targets of atmospheric carbon dioxide at 450 or 550 ppm would become about 520 or 640 ppm carbon dioxide equivalents, respectively, due to the additional warming effect of other greenhouse gases. Stern (2007) used the term in this manner. These approaches exclude the cooling effect of aerosols.

However, the use of this term is not uniform when discussing stabilisation targets as some authors define carbon dioxide equivalent concentrations as the net forcing of all anthropogenic radiative forcing agents including greenhouse gases, tropospheric ozone, and aerosols but not natural forcings. Hare and Meinshausen (2006) is an example of this approach. The inclusion of aerosols alters the meaning considerably. As noted earlier, the IPCC’s latest report indicates that the current radiative forcing of non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases and aerosols effectively cancel each other, so that the net effect of all radiative forcing components is currently roughly equal to the effect of carbon dioxide alone. However, this offsetting effect is unlikely to remain in the future as improved pollution controls are expected to significantly reduce the cooling effect of aerosols over the course of coming decades: Meinshausen et al (2006).

With this context explained, it is understandable why Hansen et al (2008) prefer to use CO₂ only targets and avoid the use of CO₂-eq targets but for non-climate scientists (such as myself) we have to largely work with the approach adopted by the IPCC and international framework so we cannot avoid using CO₂-eq. It is important to understand exactly what people mean when they refer to the term.

References:

Hansen et al (2008) “Target CO2 – Where should humanity aim?” (in review – see draft at http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126).

Hare B and Meinshausen M, “How much warming are we committed to and how much can be avoided?” (2006) Climatic Change 75: 111.

Houghton J (2004), Global Warming: The Complete Briefing (3rd ed, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)

IPCC (2007), Climate change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge), http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg3.htm

Meinshausen M, Hare B, Wigley TML, van Vuuren D, den Elsen MGJ, and Swart R (2006), “Multi-gas emissions pathways to meet climate targets” Climatic Change 75: 151.

Stern N (2007), The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, Cambrige).

And…

Tony states that, “Garnaut says Australia should establish its emissions reduction framework within an agreed global target to stabilise atmospheric carbon at between 450 and 550 parts per million (ppm): the present level is 387 ppm.”

Garnaut recommended aiming between 450 and 550 ppm carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2-e) and he states in his supplementary draft report (at page 29) “Today, the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases is about 455 CO2-e ppm (2005)”.

Garnaut is using CO₂-e in a particular way. He is not talking about atmospheric carbon dioxide levels but the combined effects of all greenhouse gases and excluding the cooling effects of aerosols and land use changes.

Anyone who does not understand the difference between targets based on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations (which are currently at 387 ppm) and carbon dioxide equivalent concentrations needs to learn about these important terms if they are going to follow the policy debate on emissions reduction and stabilisation targets.

Carbon dioxide equivalents is a term used in different ways for emissions and atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases. Atmospheric carbon dioxide equivalent levels were around 455 ppm CO₂-e in 2005 if you ignore the cooling effects of aerosols but around 375 ppm CO₂-e in 2005 if you include the cooling effects of aerosols and landuse changes: see the IPCC (2007) Working Group III report at page 102, available at http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg3/ar4-wg3-chapter1.pdf.

Well said Chris!

Part II of this series will look at a new paper published recently in PNAS on committed warming, which I think, once explained, will blow your mind…

Climate ripe for transformative change

Opinion Editorial published in the Herald Sun, Wed 1 October 2008. Note that the Herald Sun version was trimmed in editing. The full version, hyperlinked, with a few key statements about energy costs included, is reprinted below.

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The Garnaut Climate Change Review is now complete. Its brief was to “examine the impacts of climate change on the Australian economy, and recommend medium to long-term policies and policy frameworks to improve the prospects for sustainable prosperity.”

To me, the concept of sustainable prosperity is the key to turning climate change mitigation into a win-win scenario. I’ll explain why in a moment. But first, some background.

Ross Garnaut, the economics professor from the Australian National University who had oversight of the review, was criticised by many climate scientists for proposing weak carbon emissions reduction targets. After all, the mainstream science says we are close to, or have already overshot, the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide that causes dangerous climate change.

Yet Garnaut’s initial proposal would have us increasing carbon dioxide by another 44%. This is a compromise goal, but one he considers feasible. After all, the difficulty in reaching international agreements on how each nation might wind back their carbon output is immense.

This mismatch between the policy and the science poses a significant problem. With it, we cannot hope to avoid most of the really serious economic and environmental impacts of global warming.

Garnaut calls it the ‘diabolical problem’.

But what if we are looking at the problem from the wrong way around? What if the diabolical problem is really just the ultimate gold-plated opportunity for the next economic revolution?

A reliable and continually growing supply of cheap, easily generated energy was the driving force behind the industrial revolution and modern communications age. This, in turn, has brought us high standards of living, amazing technological breakthroughs, and sustained economic growth.

The catch is that this cheap, reliable energy has come from fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Huge stores of carbon, buried safely for millions of years, are now being released back into the air by us at an astounding rate. Hit the climate system with a shock like this, and it hits back. Hard.

Experts also admit to another, little discussed problem. Our energy infrastructure needs a major overhaul, to replace ageing equipment and increase its capacity to supply more energy to an expanding economy. The International Energy Agency’s price tag is $US 22 trillion by 2030.

Then there is the peaking of fossil fuel supplies.

We are close to the point where we’ve reached maximum global oil production. Black gold, Texas tea – it’s getting harder and harder to squeeze out of the rocks at an economically competitive price. And demand from China for oil is growing fast. Prices are rising as a result, and they’re not ever heading back to the inexpensive days of the 1980s and 1990s.

It’s not only oil. There’s plenty of coal left in the ground (at least in some locations), but much of it is difficult to mine (it’s deeply buried), or it’s too hard to get it quickly enough to the heaviest users due to supply bottlenecks. The price of thermal coal, as a result, has tripled in the last 12 months.

So, we need more energy to prosper. But traditional sources of energy, based on fossil fuels, are becoming scarcer and more expensive. Their extensive use also causes dangerous climate change.

Put this way, the decision to invest heavily – and rapidly – in renewable energies like geothermal (hot rocks), solar thermal (desert mirrors), wave and wind power, and rooftop photovoltaic systems, is a no brainer. These technologies offer the only way to achieve an ongoing, growing energy supply. What’s more, unlike carbon-based energy, they are getting cheaper, not more expensive.

The Garnaut Review recognises these core issues, but its focus remains too heavily directed towards emissions reductions targets. I’d argue that if we concentrate most of our effort on helping the market get the renewable energy solution right, then carbon emission will fall rapidly as result. It’s an emergent property of fixing the energy supply. It doesn’t need to be an explicit aim.

Oh, and we get a prosperous, sustainable economy to boot. Win-win.