Stop Flying

There are many and varied theories about what went wrong at Copenhagen and what needs to happen now. It is interesting to note that the problems that states might have in dealing with climate change were anticipated 35 years ago by the Australian philosopher John Passmore.

In his 1974 book on environmental ethics, “Man’s Responsibility for Nature”, Passmore examined intergenerational equity, ie what sacrifices present generations should make for future ones, and why. He took climate change as his test case:

We know at least this much, however. Men will need the biosphere. And it is sometimes suggested that our present level of industrial activity is so heating up the atmosphere that large parts of the earth’s surface will – as a result of the melting of polar ice – eventually be rendered uninhabitable. So, it is concluded, we ought at once, for the sake of posterity, to reduce the level of that activity. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution concluded that ‘such eventualities are not only remote: they are conjectural’. But this case serves as a sort of touchstone, an extreme example both in its uncertainty and in the disastrousness of the consequences it envisages, were they to eventuate.

Passmore quoted the economist Pigou to the effect that everyone accepts that the state ought to protect future interests ‘in some degree’ against the ‘irrational discounting’ and preference of present generations over future ones.

But the state itself can undertake irrational actions. It is subject to lobbying, and can find it just as hard as individuals to properly protect future generations. Passmore considered whether the nation-state could act in time when faced with a conservation crisis:

There is also the question of time. The degree of urgency, on the view of some scientists, is very great; political action is generally speaking slow, and in this case is subjected to an enormous range of special interests. In these circumstances there is a strong temptation to fall back on the ideal of the strong man, who would conserve by the direct exercise of coercion. I have refused to accept this as a ‘solution’ to the conservation problem, partly because I do not think there is an good reason for believing that any ‘strong man’ who is likely to emerge after the collapse of democracy would be primarily concerned with conservation and partly because I do not believe this to be the kind of cost we ought to be prepared to meet, for posterity’s sake as well as our own. Much the same is true of the suggestion that what we should work for is the collapse, as rapidly as possible, of our entire civilization, as the only way of conserving resources. The cost would be enormous; the benefit more than dubious.

One possibility Passmore considered was a society in which environmental issues were dealt with by regulation issued by a ‘benevolently-despotic scientific research institute’ subject to lobbying, but only from scientific pressure groups.

He wondered if that was too autocratic, because he considered that the great strength of a democracy is the process it provides by which scientific findings and measures to respond to them, can be tested and kept under review.

Nevertheless, applying Passmore’s thinking on this issue from 36 years ago, perhaps the brightest hope is strong central regulation based on science. Which means that actions such as the US EPA’s regulatory approach, including its recent endangerment finding on CO2, may be the best way forward, rather than cap and trade and carbon tax schemes which are more open to political lobbying.

Johann Hari is a London based journalist writing for the Independent. He provides this simple metaphor on Copenhagen choices:

Imagine you are about to get on a plane with your family. A huge group of qualified airline mechanics approach you on the tarmac and explain they’ve studied the engine for many years and they’re sure it will crash if you get on board. They show you their previous predictions of plane crashes, which have overwhelmingly been proven right. Then a group of vets, journalists, and plumbers tell they have looked at the diagrams and it’s perfectly obvious to them the plane is safe and that airplane mechanics – all of them, everywhere – are scamming you. Would you get on the plane? That is our choice at Copenhagen.

Johann recently visited the Arctic and concludes:

The last days of the Arctic as we know it appear to have begun. Since the year I was born, 1979, nearly 40% of the Arctic’s summer sea ice has melted into the oceans, and the rate is accelerating. One day–some scientists predict around 2015, others say 2030, and a few hope for 2070–there will be nothing in summer but a silent stretch of water at the top of the world. The North Pole will be a point in the open ocean, accessible by boat. Perhaps somebody will found Sir John Franklin Shipping, in memory of the man who died in an unrecognisable landscape trying to reach this spot. The Arctic as it has existed for all of human history will be over.

In this paper, Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University, and Martin Hoffert of New York University calculate that:

over time, the burning of carbon heats the Earth about 100,000 times more through the trapping of outgoing longwave radiation than it does by direct heating through the release of chemical energy. In other words, when we burn carbon and release CO2 to the atmosphere, only 0.001 % of the total warming comes directly from the release of chemical energy during burning. The remaining 99.999 % of the warming is associated with the trapping of outgoing longwave radiation by that CO2 in the atmosphere.

Over at Climate Progress, Joseph Romm quotes a former lead engineer at Princeton Plasma Physics Lab who puts those numbers in perspective:

running a handheld electric hairdryer on US grid electricity delivers a planet-warming punch comparable to [the heat given off by] two Boeing 747s operating at full takeoff power for the same time period.  The warming is delivered over time, not promptly, but that don’t matter; the planetary heating is accrued, the accountants would say, the moment you hit the switch.

So, as you fly across the globe in a 747 its worth having this image in your mind, that you are helping deliver warming to the planet equivalent to 100,000 other 747s flying at the same time.

Not a great gift for the grandkids.

The calls for limits and rationing of flying are mounting in the UK.

In September 2009:

The Committee on Climate Change, set up to advise the UK Government on how to meet target to cut greenhouse gases by 34 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050, wrote to the Secretaries of State for Climate Change and Transport, that global aviation emissions need to be capped at 2005 levels by 2050. It cautioned that air travel may have to be rationed to achieve that goal.

Earlier, the Institute for Public Policy Research called for personal carbon rationing that “limits the amount they can spend on luxuries like air travel.”

The Tyndall Centre for Climate Research called for a managed recession to meet UK targets, including “a moratorium on airport expansion”.

In November 2009

The head of the British Environment Agency announced that, in order to reduce personal emissions from 9 tonnes to only 2 tonnes by 2050 the UK will probably need to adopt individual carbon allowances. These would:

involve people being issued with a unique number which they would hand over when purchasing products that contribute to their carbon footprint, such as fuel, airline tickets and electricity.

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers says that Britain will find it “almost impossible” to meet its target to cut greenhouse emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 without “drastic action.”

As part of that drastic action the country has to be placed on a war time footing. This means:

Individuals would also be expected to “do their bit” by reducing the amount of energy used in the home, flying less and switching to public transport rather than driving cars, the report said. Personal carbon allowances that limit the amount of energy used on transport, heating and flying could also have to be introduced.

….

people in countries like Britain may have to accept a level of “discomfort” by reducing energy and even a “loss of liberty” by travelling less but these changes in lifestyle will prevent worse suffering in the developing world due to climate change as well as the costs to our own society in the future.

Watch the amazing TV advert on this page. Now playing on UK TV in prime time.

Also here on youtube.

Two things to note:

1. The directness of the message and the lack of subtlety. No careful effort not to upset the audience. Or to try to coax people towards better habits. No time for that. Its all hands to the pump and do whatever is required.

2. Its gets pretty hard to justify a long haul flight for fun after seeing this.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change has said:

“The ad is directed at adults, but we know that the proposition to ‘protect the next generation’ is a motivating one.
“Climate change is not just a problem for generations of people far in the future; it’s happening now; it affects us and our children, and we owe it to them to take action now to prevent its worst effects.”

The scientists have now broken cover, spelling out as clearly as they can their extreme concerns about the current situation. We are in the grip of a global climate crisis.

Yet governments for the most part have not yet dared to openly discuss the extraordinary measures that will be required to meet this crisis. The talk is still of modest attempts to control emissions, modest charges on electricity or petrol over the next decade, some research, and no job losses.

In this situation the observations of Victor Klemperer, that extraordinary chronicler of the manipulation of language by those in power, become important. He believed that what governments say publicly, even when they seek to hide a truth, if examined closely, betrays much more than they think.

In NZ, we dont have any public statement yet about what is now required – a full national effort to drastically cut emissions to as near to zero as we can get them in about 10 years.

We have to assume that several ministers are sitting on briefing papers that explain that there is a crisis and that extraordinary measures are required. If they are not, that would be an awful failure of our public service to provide independent advice.

But you can readily detect signs of change and leakage in language used by the government.

Prime Minister John Key, in his address at the UN in late September, explained that NZ was researching ways to reduce livestock methane emissions while maintaining and growing agricultural outputs from those same livestock. In his carefully prepared remarks he explained that all countries had to do their part, NZ was doing its part, and it was aiming for greenhouse gas emissions to drop “between 10 and 20% below 1990 levels by 2020, if there is a comprehensive global agreement.”

Contrast this with Trade and Associate Climate Change Minister Tim Groser, announcing NZ’s involvement in a global research alliance on agricultural emissions a few weeks earlier in August 2009. He commented:

“In the past, research used to be a dirty word,” said Groser. “It was thought to be the Bush Administration’s codeword for saying ‘to hell with this climate change stuff, we’ll just pass it off to the boffins’. But everyone now realises if we don’t get research breakthroughs we’re stuffed.”

And:

“No one can delude themselves we can get to the goal of stabilising at around 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalents by 2050 without massive research breakthroughs.”

Even though Groser was defending research over more urgent direct action to cut emissions, his language is revealing – in particular his use of the phrases “we’re stuffed”, and the need for “massive” research breakthroughs.

There are all sorts of questions raised by this. A journalist might usefully have asked, “what precisely do you mean by “we’re stuffed”? If that indicates a very bad outcome, such as a meltdown of global ecosystems and economy, isnt relying on as yet uncertain “massive” research breakthroughs a pretty high risk strategy?

Mr Groser must also know by now (he should have ample briefing papers on this) that 450 ppm by 2050 will, in the opinion of reputable bodies such as the Royal Society in London “plunge the Earth into an environmental state that has not occurred in millions of years and from which there will be no recovery for coral reefs and for many other natural systems on which humanity depends.”

A journalist might ask, will agriculture be difficult in those circumstances?

Let me tentatively suggest that Mr Groser and others in the current government who use phrases like “we’re stuffed” are well aware that current climate change policy is, particularly at an intergenerational level, criminally inadequate and inappropriate, and economically disastrous.

I assume that the personal calculation they make is that the overall wellbeing of citizens of this country, including their own children and grandchildren, is served by doing their best as politicians to move this issue along as fast as they can. Perhaps they hope that a strong international agreement at Copenhagen will force the issue and NZ will get swept along into much more significant measures anyway.

But the pressure is building. That personal calculation is getting harder all the time. And it is seeping out in the language.

Here’s an example of what is urgently required, from the respected Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research:

‘Planned recession’ could avoid catastrophic climate change

Britain will have to stop building airports, switch to electric cars and shut down coal-fired power stations as part of a ‘planned recession’ to avoid dangerous climate change.

At the moment the UK is committed to cutting greenhouse gases by a third by 2020.

However a new report from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research said these targets are inadequate to keep global warming below two degrees C above pre-industrial levels.

The report says the only way to avoid going beyond the dangerous tipping point is to double the target to 70 per cent by 2020.

This would mean reducing the size of the economy through a “planned recession”.

Kevin Anderson, director of the research body, said the building of new airports, petrol cars and dirty coal-fired power stations will have to be halted in the UK until new technology provides an alternative to burning fossil fuels.

“To meet [Government] targets of not exceeding two degrees C, there would have to be a moratorium on airport expansion, stringent measures on the type of vehicle being used and a rapid transition to low carbon technology,” he said.

Who or what exactly are we awaiting for? Godot isnt coming. Its just us. And as individuals we have to act immediately. Stopping all non-essential air travel is a good way to start.