A safer future? Don’t bank on it

July 22nd, 2010 by John Gibbons

“Disaster myopia” was a new phrase to enter the lexicon of Irish political life this week. This condition manifests itself in an “increasing tendency to discount the probability of a disaster occurring, the longer the interval of time that has elapsed since a disaster last occurred”.

Disaster myopia is, we also learned, reinforced by competitive pressure: “Dealing with the threat from competitors and defending or increasing market share is real, but disaster is an abstraction until it breaks.”

“Was the scale of risk-taking such as to be reckless? Looking back from a point in the middle of the wreckage, recklessness seems like a reasonable word to use but, of course, this is hindsight bias at work.” At the time the future looked different. …Undoubtedly the sceptics could have and, with the benefit of hindsight, should have, articulated their doubts much more consistently.

“Whether this would have made much difference is something we will never know, but it is a matter of profound personal regret to me that I wasn’t more forceful in setting out the contrarian view and didn’t work harder at analysing its implications.”

The above epiphany comes courtesy of Jim O’Leary, a former director of AIB and offers a piercing insight into how groupthink, self-interest and chronic short-termism all conspired to create the circumstances in which the financial bubble-and-bust disaster not only was likely to occur, but in fact became almost inevitable. It also calls to mind the great JK Galbraith’s injunction not to confuse insight and intelligence with the possession of large amounts of money.

Regulars to ThinkorSwim will no doubt have spotted where this argument is headed, given that some disasters are, well, more disastrous than others.

The US National Academy of Sciences yesterday issued a 180-page report entitled ‘Stabilisation Targets for Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases’. It could have been sub-titled: “How to know when your Goose is Cooked”. A small flavour below:

The Earth is now entering a new geological epoch, sometimes called the Anthropocene, during which the evolution of the planet’s environment will be largely controlled by the effects of human activities, notably emissions of carbon dioxide. Actions taken during this century will determine whether the Anthropocene climate anomaly will be a relatively short term and minor deviation from the Holocene climate, or an extreme deviation extending over many thousands of years.”

In summary, the National Academy report (these are the heaviest of hitters in the field, with more Nobel laureates can you can shake a doctorate at) sets out the stark conclusion that (a) we’re in the last-chance cafe; (b) it’s five to midnight and; (c) last orders have just been called…

A man who understood disaster myopia – and climate science itself – better than almost anyone else on the planet was Stanford University climatologist, Dr Stephen H. Schneider, who died suddenly on Monday, aged 65. I met and recorded a 35-minute video interview with Dr Schneider in March 2008. I found him a genial host, generous with his time and his expertise, and patient in filling in the many gaps in this interviewer’s knowledge on complex issues.

Dr Schneider has been the victim of a concerted hate campaign for having the temerity to try to alert the public to the extreme hazards atmospheric destabilisation poses to all life on Earth. A comment of his on the anti-science lobbying campaign funded by corporations sums it up well: “Can democracy survive complexity?”.

An FBI investigation recently found he was named on a neo-Nazi “death list,” and Dr Schneider was bombarded with hundreds of hate e-mails a day. “What do I do? Learn to shoot a magnum? Wear a bulletproof jacket?” Dr. Schneider said in a recent interview in the US. “I have now had extra alarms fitted at my home, and my address is unlisted. I get scared that we’re now in a new Weimar Republic where people are prepared to listen to what amounts to Hitlerian lies about climate scientists.”

He had a wonderful line for the deniers: “When somebody says ‘I don’t believe in global warming,’ I ask, ‘Do you believe in evidence? Do you believe in a preponderance of evidence?’ ”

Our sympathies to his wife, biologist Dr Terry Root. Her loss is our loss too.

Dear Willie: when in a hole, stop digging

July 15th, 2010 by John Gibbons

Well hallelujah! We’ve been waiting years to read something bordering on sensible from UCC’s ‘Public Awareness of Science’ officer and Irish Times columnist William Reville on the subject of climate change and by golly, this week’s offering was very, very nearly there.

Reville did a review/critique of sorts of Duncan Stewart’s excellent recent RTE documentary, ‘A Burning Question‘ (though he didn’t actually manage to get the title right). Regarding Climategate, Reville has had little short of an epiphany. Today he writes: “…it soon became clear that most of the suspicious e-mail content was just insider jargon and “macho” posturing and did not weaken the overall scientific case for climate change”.

What a fascinating volte face from the ‘Public Awareness of Science’ expert! In the same column in the same paper last December, Reville was, well, revelling in the exposure of the great climate swindle: “The e-mails appear to reveal scientists on the majority side of the debate massaging data to suit their anthropic global warming (AGW) hypothesis, dragging their heels on freedom of information requests, and conspiring to block scientists who oppose AGW from publishing their results”. This was, he breathlessly reported, an “explosive development”. Read the rest of this entry »

EU “may adapt” 10% biofuel target

July 6th, 2010 by James Nix

The scientific perspective could “kill biofuels” – that’s what the head of the EU’s agriculture unit said to colleagues in response to data showing the global ramifications of dedicating land in Europe to biofuels.

The new Commissioner has said “if it is confirmed … that there is a serious problem related to indirect land use, we may adapt our legislation”; more below.

SPECIAL REPORT-Europe finds politics and biofuels don’t mix

* Environmental damage from land use change sparks debate
* Commission split over science behind biofuel goals
* Scientists disown reports they say were doctored
* Has Brussels tweaked studies to fit pro-biofuels policy?
* New German Commissioner hints at change

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6641FD20100705 Read the rest of this entry »

Ming shows our bogs no mercy

July 4th, 2010 by John Gibbons

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”. So wrote novelist Upton Sinclair, and boy, did he have a clear understanding of human nature.

Last Thursday’ PrimeTime on RTE featured a report on what it called ‘Turf Wars’, the latest skirmish in the ongoing east-west battle to define what country we really are, and perhaps, what century we see ourselves in. I wrote about this at length last August – one para from that article is below:

“Ireland doesn’t have any significant coal deposits to burn. What we have instead are some of the world’s most important bogs. Peatlands comprise almost a fifth of Ireland’s land cover, and lock away a massive 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon. They are also home to around half our endangered bird species and around a quarter of endangered plant species. Peat bogs are amazingly efficient carbon sponges. A healthy bog typically stores 10 times more carbon per hectare than any other system, including forests. Peatland protection, according to the UN Environment Programme is “among the most cost-effective options for mitigating climate change”. Damage to peat bogs is now producing the equivalent of over a tenth of total global fossil-fuel emissions.” Read the rest of this entry »

A burning question

June 28th, 2010 by John Gibbons

Fair play to Duncan Stewart. He was in combative form on Saturday’s Marian Finucane Show on RTE radio. The subject of his interview was the one hour documentary film special, ‘A Burning Question’, which airs this Tuesday (29th) at 10.10pm on RTE 1 and featuring many of the great and the good in the field, from the UN’s Ban Ki Moon to Mary Robinson, Prof John Sweeney and economist and late eco-convert David McWilliams (I’m in there somewhere among the interviewees). Click here to view the film online (in two parts).

The documentary promises to take a forensic look at the ever-expanding chasm between what the science of climate change is telling us and how this critical issue is being presented (and misrepresented) via the media. Read the rest of this entry »

Book Review: Whole Earth Discipline

June 25th, 2010 by Graham Strouts

Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto

by Stewart Brand

Atlantic Books 2009 ,316pp

Reviewed by Graham Strouts
(first appeared on Zone5)

“Civilization is at risk, but civilization is the problem”

Stewart Brand is one of the iconic founders of the environmental movement, an original old hippy whose influence on the boomer generation  should not be understated. With his latest book Whole Earth Discipline he takes that same movement to task for rejecting science and getting sidetracked by ideology at the very time when the practical application of science through engineering and technology may be the only way to save ourselves.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday Times shows its hand. Again.

June 23rd, 2010 by John Gibbons

Last April, I gave a lecture to the Met Society of Ireland in Glasnevin. A Sunday Times reporter was in the audience, though she did not make herself known to me, ask any questions or attempt to speak to me afterwards. However, five days later I got a call from said reporter, picking up on some choice observations on my part about the, em, quality of journalism on display post-Climategate/Copenhagen and the winter cold snap.

It must have been a veeery slow week, because two days later, a whopper of a ‘news’ article appeared in the ST, covering around two thirds of page 3 (appropriately enough, for a Murdoch title). I covered this incident on this blog back in April.

And now they’re back. From outer space. Those irrepressible Sunday Times hacks, ever eager to please their billionaire publisher, just couldn’t  wait for another juicy ‘climate’ scandal story, they just galloped ahead and made up their own! Read the rest of this entry »

Oil: supply shortfall & getting a sense of the scale of BP’s spill

June 21st, 2010 by James Nix

We’re now beginning to see government agencies put figures on the oil supply deficit in coming years.

The US Department of Energy information agency say that current data points to a supply deficit of 5 million barrels a day by 2015, rising to 20 million barrels a day in 2020. This estimate, calculated in April 2009 after the economic crash in western countries, is based on slowly rising global demand, largely on foot of increased consumption in China and India.

But rather than translating into queues at petrol pumps, the deficit is expected to prompt price increases over time as demand runs ahead of supply.

Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency advises that “we have to leave oil before oil leaves us”. Signs of that remain thin on the ground, the car park of Leinster House being a case in point.

And the ill-fated attempt to drill for oil one mile below the ocean surface off the coast of Louisiana is testament to the complexity, even desperation, brought on by peak oil. It’s not easy to manage oil exploration 1,500 metres underwater where divers can only operate locked inside submarines.

What’s more, gaining a picture of just how much oil is escaping every day in the gulf is very difficult. In a ‘worse-case’ scenario, the spill could rise to 100,000 barrels a day, according to BP. The current estimate is 60,000 barrels a day, according to the US government. Let’s take the lower figure.

Some 60,000 barrels converts to 9.6 million litres. What would that be in terms of Irish dairy production, for example? To produce 9.6m litres of milk a day would take a staggering 420,000 cows. Or put it another way, the standard home delivery oil truck carries 20,000. Now picture 480 of these trucks circled on the beaches of a small island spilling their contents into the sea every day.

Lloyd’s of London on Peak Oil and Climate Change: Business as usual is no longer an option

June 15th, 2010 by Paddy Morris

Lloyd’s of London recently published a white paper called “Sustainable Energy Security: Strategic risks and opportunities for business (PDF)“.

It would appear business as usual is no longer an option. The paper is available for free online and is essential reading.

The executive summary is worth quoting verbatim:

1.  BUSINESSES WHICH PREPARE FOR AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE NEW ENERGY REALITY WILL PROSPER – FAILURE TO DO SO COULD BE CATASTROPHIC

Energy security and climate change concerns are unleashing a wave of policy initiatives and investments around the world that will fundamentally alter the way that we manage and use energy. Companies which are able to plan for and take advantage of this new energy reality will increase both their resilience and competitiveness. Failure to do so could lead to expensive and potentially catastrophic consequences. Read the rest of this entry »

Next stop: make up our mind time

May 31st, 2010 by James Nix

In the last post Paddy Morris noted that we need a vision and implementation strategy along the lines of the Marshall Plan to shield us from the worst of the energy and climate crises.

He’s right. Avoiding oil consumption and carbon dioxide emissions would then guide our investments. Paddy’s post, and John’s before it, sent me looking through my notes on the biggest single transport investment proposal ever put forward in Ireland – Metro North.

Does energy or climate get a look in?

An Bord Pleanala is due to give its decision towards the end of the July. The planning appeals board held almost 40 days of hearings into Metro North earlier this year and in late 2009. Read the rest of this entry »

Peak oil – what happens next?

May 28th, 2010 by John Gibbons

Wednesday night last saw an interesting session to kick off several days of the 15th Convergence Sustainable Living Festival, organised by Cultivate.

The two-hour session was entitled: ‘Planning our retreat from fossil fuels: exploring the ramifications of Peak Oil’ and featured a panel of three speakers, David Korowicz of Feasta (and author earlier this year of the jaw-dropping report, ‘Tipping Point‘), Richard O’Rourke, director of the Irish branch of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) and Green Minister of State, Ciaran Cuffe. Read the rest of this entry »

Notes from a conference: ‘The need for road research’

May 21st, 2010 by James Nix

There was a seminar yesterday morning jointly organised by TCD + UCD titled “The need for road research”, and held in Foster Place.

Overall, it was biased in favour of transport by private vehicle with insufficient recognition of the capability and future role of simple and cost effective solutions, namely cycling, walking, and public transport. Indeed references to walking, cycling and public transport – when they did come – came largely from the floor, or prompted by questions from the floor. Read the rest of this entry »

Sobering Questions from the Island Mountain

May 16th, 2010 by Tony Kinsella

Most media attention on the eruption of the volcano under Eyjafjallajökull (or the island-mountain glacier in Icelandic) has understandably focused on how its ash plume plays havoc with modern air transport. The deeper lessons, including evidence of yet another extinct species, have hardly featured – perhaps because they offer a highly unflattering image of our societies.

Volcanic ash and modern aircraft engines, either jet or turbo-propellor, do not mix well. The negative effects vary in function of the composition of the ash, which in turn depends on the nature of the eruption. Volcanic ash is less disastrous for piston-engined aircraft but such engines are now only used to power light aircraft. Read the rest of this entry »

Can industrial civilisation and the biosphere both be saved?

May 11th, 2010 by John Gibbons

Even when you don’t agree with him, Monbiot remains essential reading. Whether you regard the Dark Mountain Project as a bunch of  dystopian doomers, or simply realists probably depends on how you feel about peak oil (in the shorter term) and (in the medium term) just exactly what might happen when we do indeed succeed in doubling concentrations of atmospheric CO2 from their pre-industrial levels and usher in, as predicted, a brave new climatic order for the next few millennia… Read the rest of this entry »

Exposed: climate change doubter with PhD only in spin

April 30th, 2010 by John Gibbons

Looking to a statistician or economist for expert guidance on complex scientific matters makes about as much sense as consulting a neurosurgeon or a hairdresser for advice on investing in some arcane corner of the derivatives market.

However, when it comes to climate science, this is exactly what has been happening. A small band of people operating in fields entirely beyond their training or competence have, largely thanks to their skill in gaming the media, emerged as de facto international experts, advising politicians and shaping policy, with a patina of science jargon glossing over a hard core of ideology. Read the rest of this entry »