Second Sight

It is clear that the December Copenhagen conference on climate change will not result in a legally binding treaty committing countries to emission targets. The best we may hope for is political agreement, involving immediate action – to be followed, optimistically, by a treaty next year. Even then much depends on the US Congress passing its climate change bill; and several other countries have particular interests they want to protect.

No day seems to pass without at least one new study suggesting that the onset of global warming will be much worse or much better, and will come much sooner or much later. Once again I am thrown back, for reasons of prudence, on the broad, but not universal, consensus of the scientific community. The outcomes it predicts are not precise and cover a range of possibilities. Future assessments will vary the predictions and the time scales, but we must assume that the general thrust will remain much the same. The current general target is to limit warming to the “danger” threshold of 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Substantially greater cuts in emissions than have been agreed so far will be required to achieve this.

But the orthodox view smacks to me more of setting targets which countries may be induced to accept rather than the realistic probabilities which face us. Without doubt the world is becoming warmer, but frankly we don’t really know how much warmer. We can hope to alleviate its effects, primarily through reducing industrial emissions, and we can hope to adapt. But the best we can say about these strategies is that outcomes would be worse without them. As Gordon Brown has said, there is no Plan B which will save the world from a “catastrophe” of floods, droughts and killer heatwaves.

Different regions of the world will be affected in different ways, and on different time scales. But the general picture which the IPCC paints is not attractive. Both storms and droughts will become more frequent and more severe. In addition to death and disease arising from these, malaria and other infections will spread to more regions. Heart and respiratory problems will increase with the increase in ground level ozone. Coastal flooding and erosion will overcome large areas in Asia and Africa; small, inhabited islands will be totally submerged.

The impoverished nations, particularly around the equator, will be affected most immediately because they are highly dependent on climate, and lack the resources for adaptation. More temperate climes will have a longer time scale, and the resources to adapt, but, well within the predicted possibilities of temperature change, these too will become vulnerable. Unfortunately more recent studies are suggesting that these effects will be more severe and closer at hand than the IPCC was in a position to forecast. Global warming appears to be accelerating.

So we look, without great optimism, to mitigation and adaptation. The list of possibilities is long but their implementation is another question. The schemes for reducing emissions by replacing fossil fuels are essential but expensive. Ironically it is the developed regions, less affected by climate change, that have the resources to help the developing world. But the developing world can only provide its own resources by industrialisation which will depend on the cheap power which tends to produce high emissions.

There is much expensive work to be done on infrastructure, and there is the likelihood of large-scale migrations towards temperate areas. The danger from this cannot be underestimated: the need for new territory is a common cause of armed conflict. Universal martial law may sound extreme; but it may not seem so one day.

Those who are opposed to genetically engineered crops must leave the room. However good their motivations may have been, these count for nothing now. It has even been suggested that we should become vegetarian because of the methane produced by herd animals. We have now been told that a dog has a larger carbon footprint than a four-wheel gas-guzzler, so the lighthearted suggestion that we should start by eating our dogs is not so lighthearted after all. I hope we won’t have to go as far as Jonathan Swift’s ironic suggestion about the over-fertile and undernourished  Irish poor – that they should eat their babies.

Eating babies reminds us that the carbon footprint of humans has led to arguments for the reduction of population through widespread contraception. But contraception, whether through artificial or natural methods, only tends to make a difference in settled and prosperous countries. Then it needs no advocates, for people take to it like ducks to water. In any event, it is grabbing a tiger by the tail. Developed nations have shown that widespread contraception is a one-way street: population fertility cannot be turned on and off like a tap.

So I must return to my starting point of several columns ago. Climate change is not the only issue. We still have the daily struggle of conforming our petty lives to the love of God. We still live in a society which is riven through with corruption and selfishness. Yet none of us can neglect climate change as an overarching, cataclysmic threat to our children and grandchildren; nor can we – who have benefited from industrialisation –  ignore the countries which cannot help themselves. What was once the scenario of science fiction is now all too likely to become science fact. It will demand great sacrifice, and great political will. And that political will is simply a euphemism for what you and I, as voters, choose to do. The rest is in God’s hands. As for me, I shall either be in heaven or undergoing a severe global warming of my own

In my first column on climate change I discussed what responsibilities it might impose on us as Christians. The latest assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), from 2007, claimed that there was a 90 per cent probability that human activity was the main agent. Given the complexity of the factors there is room to question aspects of this assessment but I think it to be prudent to take the most comprehensive and broadly accepted evidence. I am not qualified to judge between the experts.

The first, and rather dramatic, clue is a graph which shows the growth in the greenhouse gases over the last 10,000 years. (Historical measurements are made through the analysis of ice cores.) It shows a nearly horizontal line until about 200 years ago, coinciding with the Industrial Revolution, which led to a sustained, sharp vertical upturn. Carbon dioxide, which is the major element, shows an increase of 35 per cent over pre-industrial levels; it is growing at its fastest recorded rate. Methane and nitrous oxide have also increased. Halocarbons, resulting from refrigerators and spray propellants, are a man-made new arrival. Our contribution to this is confirmed by the analyses which show that the major source is the burning of fossil fuels, and that the hotspots are located over the areas of high industrialisation.

There are, of course, factors which alleviate the situation: some result from human activity and some from natural conditions. Aerosols, which are airborne particles from sources such as dust storms, forest fire and volcanoes, help in reflecting sunlight back to source, although the process is not fully understood. Solar energy has made a contribution to warming but the effect is small at around a 10th of the whole. Land management has good and bad effects. Measurements taken in 2005 show that the contribution of human activities to climate change outweigh the other factors by a large margin.

Naturally we should expect to see changes caused by these factors: 11 out the last 12 years up to 2006 have been the warmest since 1850, when good records began. The upwards trend in global temperatures measured over the 20th century is accelerating, and the majority of the increase has occurred over the last 50 years. We now experience fewer frosty days and more warm days and nights. This is further confirmed by tree-ring data: the last warm period, around the end of the first millennium, was some degrees cooler than recent average temperatures.

Spring snow cover, which can have a marked effect on water conservation, had decreased in northern latitudes. The sea absorbs much of the additional heat, leading to natural expansion and rising levels. There have been marked reductions in permafrost and the melting of sea ice in Greenland and the Antarctic. Currently, there is insufficient data to judge whether the rate of rise is accelerating. Again, the graphs covering the last 100 years show a steady, threatening trend.

Water vapour in the atmosphere is largely controlled by temperature, and so this has been increasing. Various areas across the world have become wetter, while others have become drier. Disaster has often been the result.

Forecasting the future is a different problem. The principal method is the use of complex models which attempt to take account of perceived relevant values and their interplay. Educated assumptions often have to be inserted, and necessarily the room for error increases with the length of the period predicted. However, many different scientists applying their own models independently give a useful, if not infallible check. Indeed, the predictions made in the previous IPCC assessment in 2001 needed considerable updating in 2007. Some leading climatologists have recently argued that cyclical changes in atmosphere and ocean currents will actually cool the earth over the next 20 years; this may mask the underlying trend.

Many of the future outcomes are unavoidable because we have yet to undergo the full results of past atmospheric changes. Over the next 20 years various scenarios show that an increase similar to our recent experience will continue. Beyond that, the most likely scenarios suggest increasingly higher temperatures by the end of the century (compared to year 2000), in the order of 2°to 4° C, but could be half as much again. It was estimated that sea levels would rise by 30 to 40 centimetres. And accelerated loss of ice from Greenland and the Antarctic would increase this by up to 20 centimetres. Some more recent studies, which look closely at the possible effects of melting ice, suggest an overall sea level rise of a metre and over. A recent report by the Met Office suggests that these changes could occur within 50 years from now. But many factors, and their interaction, within these projections are not yet well understood, and doubtless they will become more accurate as these aspects are more closely studied.

Naturally, different regions of the earth will be affected in different ways and different levels of severity. In a future column on climate change I will look at how different regions of the world may be affected.

How long will the effects of climate change last? We are certainly talking hundreds of years. Hold on to your seat belts for a long and bumpy ride.

Readers who are familiar with the IPCC assessment, will be aware of the sparseness of my description. But I think it better for us to grasp the overall picture which the assessment paints than to get lost in detail. Many interesting and knowledgeable comments have been made to Climate Change – 1. I hope you will continue your critique and suggestions with this second instalment.

When a member of Second Sight blog asked me to write about climate change my first reaction was that it was an enormously important question for Catholics to consider. The second was that I knew little about the subject other than what anyone might read in the casual press. Fortunately, bloggers were very generous with their advice and their leads to fuller information.

They were almost too generous. I found myself in a maelstrom of studies, papers and controversy. Controversy was the immediate difficulty: there are a large number of climate change sceptics (including climatologists) and their arguments appear forceful. On the other hand, each view was countered by opposing, and equally expert, responses. Now, I love an argument but it is of little use to me when I am not a climatologist and therefore unable to assess respective merits.

So I have settled as my primary source the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in 2007. These reports can only be made at intervals since it is new observations over the passage of time which enable updating. Since the summary is over 70 pages, and I have had to mine deeper than that in several instances, you will understand that my account is broad-brush, and majors on questions rather than answers.

I start with an assumption that climate change is occurring, and will continue into the future. Its effects will be extremely damaging in many parts of the world. A major cause of the change is the industrial revolution, the emissions of which are the prime source of the greenhouse effect. This might be summarised by thinking of the atmosphere as a one-way filter: it allows heat in but prevents enough heat escaping. The evidence for the effects of human activity is not conclusive but extremely strong (in the order of 90 per cent). Since that assessment further data and new considerations have emerged from reputable sources.

Some of the worst effects may be mitigated through various actions such as reducing emissions or developing ways of giving protection to those affected. I hope to support and explore the evidence for this in future columns.

Why is this an important moral issue? The answer lies in a single word: charity. At my age I can expect to be dead before the effects of climate change bite. But Hugh, Tommy, Robert, William. Elé, Zak, Rachel, Liam, Abigail, Edmund, Sebastian, Matt, Alexander and Natasha will certainly experience them. I name my grandchildren to remind me that we are talking about real people. But our love extends beyond our own families, and remembers particularly countries and cultures likely to be worst affected.

But we can look behind the dominant peak of charity and also recall that Adam was given responsibility for the whole of the created world. We have inherited his mandate to act on God’s behalf. Beyond that, we have St Paul’s strange words (Rom 8:22): “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now…” As Fr Durrwell argued, material creation, with its absence of harmony and order, is incorporated in the Resurrection, and everything that we do to restore its harmony is grist for the mill of the Last Judgment.

Reviewing what readers and bloggers have sent to me, I find a prevailing emphasis on the virtue of prudence. Prudence in following the best evidence, even if it is not conclusive. Prudence in reviewing the interlocking effects of steps which might be taken to avoid the worst global warming or to mitigate its effects. Here, for example, the point was made that there is an obvious conflict between assisting developing countries in their growth towards industrialisation, and the greater level of emissions which will accompany this.

Consideration was given to whether there should be more focus on developing carbon free sources of energy or on personal behaviour. Does, for example, the need to change all our incandescent light bulbs, or charging gas-guzzlers more for street parking, make the whole cause unpopular, while contributing only minutely to a solution? Conversely, does the satisfaction we may experience, say, through recycling rubbish make us feel virtuously involved and readier to make the larger sacrifices which may well be called for?

One interesting, but controversial, suggestion is that population growth in itself will be a major contributor. Indeed, a recent report claims that more widespread family planning is a better investment (by a factor of five) than developing carbon-free economies. The claim is made that, currently, an individual in the West will cause 160 times the emissions of an Ethiopian. This appears to me such a myopic solution, defying any attempt at prudence, that it requires closer examination in due course.

And writing about “due course” leads me to consider future columns on this subject. The UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in December looms, and we should inform ourselves and be active in discussion. I shall only write on this from time to time because variety must rule. But I think I should look with you more closely at the strength of the evidence that climate change is largely man-made, and try to quantify this. Methods of reduction and mitigation must be reviewed, bearing in mind their side-effects. The likely effects on different part of the world must be considered, and good and bad scenarios taken into account.

O     O     O

It was Tim, a regular contributor to Secondsight, who suggested that we should look at the issue of climate change. So it’s thanks to him – and all the others who sent in or posted questions and points. As I see the schedule at the moment, my next column on this will be in four weeks, and the third four weeks later. This will bring us up close to the crucial Copenhagen meeting where we will see what the major countries propose to do. So do comment on the columns as they arrive – whether you approve of the line I take, or disapprove. Then we will all be in a good position to take an educated view when we discuss the question with our friends.