For 45 years we have known that fossil fuel emissions caused global warming that could kill us — and have done nothing effective to stop them. Why?
In today’s Conversation three social scientists explore this conundrum that is both horrifies and fascinates them to consider. We’ve known the dangers. “Why do we condemn today’s children and future generations to live on a dangerous and hostile planet?” Their article tries to answer the question.
How long can fossil fuel hegemony continue as weather events become more extreme? Marcus Kauffman/Unsplash, CC BY / from the article
by Christopher Wright, Daniel Nyberg, & Vanessa Bowden, 7/11/2022 in The Conversation
Like watching a slow-motion train crash, the world’s leading climate scientists have for decades warned of the dangers of ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Political and corporate leaders knew of the threat more than a decade before it was key public knowledge. Back in 1977 [follow this link – it is important!], United States President Jimmy Carter was briefed on the possibility of catastrophic climate change. That same year, internal memos at one of the world’s largest oil companies [ditto] made it clear that continued burning of fossil fuels would dramatically heat the planet.
So why, in the 45 years since, has there been so little action in response? Why do we condemn today’s children and future generations to live on a dangerous and hostile planet?
In Australia, states probably have more capacity for effective climate action than the national government. Victoria’s upcoming state election should be an election focused on the only issue that really matters, climate.
Vote Climate One emerged to help people cope easily with complex ballots to focus on electing the kinds of candidates who we think can be trusted to legislate and lead effective climate action. We do this in two major ways: using our Climate Lens help you assess who is pro climate vs those who are not; and using Climate Sentinel News’s searchlight to highlight and explain the facts that show why climate change is so dangerous and climate action is so important.
Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.
The Guardian article shows we’re perilously close to the point of no return where global warming will be unstoppable. The UN says act now! Victoria needs to have a successful climate election as this is the only issue that really matters.
The featured image (from the Guardian article) shows no hint that the rising greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming have even slowed, let alone begun to reverse. In fact, as evidenced over the last three years (shown in the circle) methane emissions are currently accelerating. Over 100 years methane has more than 30 times the greenhouse potential than CO₂ (more than 80 X over 20 years!). Accelerating methane release from soils and permafrost is a highly dangerous source of temperature related positive feedback capable of driving temperatures higher than humans can possibly stop – to produce ‘runaway’ feedbacks forcing Earth’s climates into the ‘Hothouse Earth‘ state within a century or so that would most probably cause human extinction.
We face a real and existentially stark climate emergency. For humanity to have a future, WE MUST STOP AND REVERSE GLOBAL WARMING. Because this is a global phenomenon to have any hope of success, governments must coordinate and lead actions.
The UN environment agency’s report found there was ‘no credible pathway to 1.5C in place’ amid ‘woefully inadequate’ progress on cutting carbon emissions. / Photo Lukas Schulze/Getty Images
Key UN reports published in last two days warn urgent and collective action needed – as oil firms report astronomical profits
The climate crisis has reached a “really bleak moment”, one of the world’s leading climate scientists has said, after a slew of major reports laid bare how close the planet is to catastrophe.
Collective action is needed by the world’s nations more now than at any point since the second world war to avoid climate tipping points, Prof Johan Rockström said, but geopolitical tensions are at a high.
He said the world was coming “very, very close to irreversible changes … time is really running out very, very fast”.
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All three of the key UN agencies have produced damning reports in the last two days. The UN environment agency’s report found there was “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place” and that “woefully inadequate” progress on cutting carbon emissions means the only way to limit the worst impacts of the climate crisis is a “rapid transformation of societies”.
However, as dire as the UN’s predictions are, they almost certainly understate the magnitude of the risks. Government action is essential and urgently needed! Where Victoria is concerned we can elect such a government in less than three weeks.
In Australia, state governments probably have the most power to control and stop human sourced greenhouse gas emissions (CO₂ and methane) through licensing, permitting, and regulating (environmental and development). Even though the Andrews Labor Government in Victoria is doing a lot to act on the climate emergency, the voting record and its campaigning shows that Labor continues to support fossil fuel developments that will continue adding yet more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. This will keep pushing us ever closer to the point of no return beyond which warming will run away to a Hothouse Earth and likely human extinction. This is a very real climate emergency!
Thus, the upcoming State Election gives Victorian voters a chance to shift our government towards prioritizing action on climate change. What we need to do is to elect enough climate friendly independent, minor party and Green representatives in present Labor seats to put climate activists into the balance of power. As demonstrated federally, fossil fuel puppets and other losers will undoubtedly shout to the rafters that a hung parliament is a recipe for chaos and disaster, but recall that in terms of passing legislation the Gillard Minority Government was arguably one of the most successful governments in Australian history.
Vote Climate One shows Victorians how you can use your preferential voting system to maximize the power of your vote to elect a climate friendly representative.
Our Climate Lens Traffic Light Assessment process has determined where every candidate in every electorate stands on climate issues and ranks them in one of three classes: Green Light – trustworthy supporter of a strong climate policy; Red Light – bad climate policy, voting record or other history suggests can’t be trusted to support a good strong climate policy, or position on climate cannot be determined; Orange Light – weak climate policy and/or record but definitely better than those ranked Red Light.
For the Victorian Election, our Voting Guides for each electorate do not tell you who to vote for. However, if you want to elect a climate friendly government, we provide information about every candidate’s climate policies and an easy to follow voting strategy to maximize the chance to elect a person with a good policy.
Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.
Assessing parties and individuals running for Victoria’s Legislative Council (upper house) for Traffic Light ranking on climate policies reveals murky deals and unethical behaviors with strong odors of corruption. This corruption is made possible or even ‘encouraged’ by Victoria’s unique and arcane ‘group voting tickets’ (GVTs).
Group Voting Tickets defeat voter intentions
Some facts
Wikipedia gives a good explanation of how Group Voting Tickets work, and problems arising from them. Basically, they encourage establishment of a plethora of minor and micro parties and allow preference deals to be set up amongst groups of micro parties that more-or-less assure that at least one of the group is elected even with less than 1% of voter first preferences. This puts put single issue candidates from the far fringe into Parliament that otherwise wouldn’t have a hope of being elected in a fair proportional distribution of votes.
The most notable result in the election was that the Green voters were well and truly robbed. Although the Australian Greens had 4 seats in Parliament prior to the election and lost some votes going into the vote, after distribution of GVT preferences they ended up with only 1 seat, despite having 331,751 votes, coming 3rd in the count of first preferences. Eight (8) minor parties won 11 seats. Of these the largest number of preferences won by any one of them was, Hinch’s Justice Party with only 134,413 votes. Hinch’s Justice won 3 seats with 3.8% of the total votes, while the Greens won only 1 seat with 9.3% of the votes (the two ‘fair’ distribution methods both would have given 4 seats to Greens); and the Liberal Democrats won 2 seats with 3% of the vote. In other travesties, Sustainable Australia and Transport Matters Parties both won seats with substantially less than 1% of the first preference votes.
If you look at the ratio of votes to seats, the discrepancy is massive. Transport Matters won one seat off a statewide vote of 22,228, while the Greens only won one seat off 331,751 votes.
My objection is not to small parties winning seats – but to the arbitrary and undemocratic way that this is decided. If the Victorian upper house was elected by the Saint-Laguë method (a variation on D’Hondt which gives a boost to smaller parties) we would have seen two less Labor members, one more Liberal, and three more Greens. But we would have still seen two members of Hinch’s party win seats, along with six others. This would have included members of the Democratic Labour Party and the Voluntary Euthanasia Party, both of whom received more votes than Sustainable Australia or Transport Matters but missed out thanks to unfavourable preference flows.
One of the most extreme results was Transport Matters in East Metro. They won off 0.6%, thanks to preferences from almost every other group. Eleven other candidates started ahead of them in the race for the final seat, with the Greens leading on 9%.
It’s also worth looking at the result in the South-Eastern Metro region, where the Liberal Democrats won off 0.84% of the primary vote. If every vote flowed according to the group voting tickets, the Transport Matters party would have won a second seat off 1.3%, but enough below-the-line votes flowed elsewhere to knock out TMP before the Greens, at which point preferences instead favoured the Lib Dems.
For formal results of the 2018 election, see the Victorian Electoral Commission (scroll down to Overall Upper House results and further to Individual Upper House results for the results in each electoral Region.
Chanel 6 News blog from 10 October (with more recent updates) lists candidates for all upper and lower house electorates with comments on changes of status. This item includes an interesting interview with the Deputy Leader of the Freedom Party, Aiden McLindon, discussing motivation and lack of ethics enabled by Victoria’s Group Voting Tickets in the Upper House:
The Victorian State Legislative Council (Upper House) consists of 40 MPs, elected from eight multi-member electorates known as regions. Each region returns five members for a four-year term. How these are elected is unique to Victoria.
To understand how your one vote is apportioned to elect 5 different people, you need to understand what a Group Voting Ticket actually is. According to the Victorian Electoral Commission:
Two or more upper house candidates can register a group in a State election. Registering a group means that these candidates will be listed together on the ballot paper and will have a box above the line. Candidates who are not part of a group will appear below the line only.
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Groups can contain members of one political party, multiple parties, or independent candidates. Groups appear before ungrouped candidates on the ballot paper and the group name appears above the line.
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When completing the group registration form you can specify the order that members of your group will be listed on the ballot paper. Candidates can only be part of one group.
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Group voting tickets are used to determine how your group wants to direct preferences when someone votes above the line.
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The boxes above the line are groups of candidates that have registered one or more group voting tickets.
To vote above the line, write the number 1 in the box for the group you want to support.
When you vote above the line, your preferences will be decided by the group voting ticket.
A group voting ticket is a statement on how each party or group gives preferences to candidates. Every registered group voting ticket is made available on this website before an election and is also on display in every voting centre.
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All group voting tickets will be published on [the VEC] website from Sunday 13 November.
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Ungrouped independents are ONLY listed below the line.
In voting for the Legislative Council (Upper House) if you vote above the line, no numbers other than your 1 will be counted; and nothing you put below the line will be counted. i.e., there is no way you can vote above the line for an ungrouped independent.
If you want to vote for an ungrouped independent, you must vote below the line, and for your vote to count, you must number at least FIVE candidates below the line in your order of preference. Do not put any numbers above the line!
In 2018 Labor probably contributed largely to knocking out three of the four Greens candidates that would have won on a fair proportional vote: According to the Tally Room, “Labor is preferencing the Greens quite highly [so they look good to people concerned about the climate], but in every region they are preferencing a [micro party] candidate listed above ahead of the Greens, which means if they end up in a head-to-head race with the Greens at the end of the count, Labor’s preferences would help elect the little-known micro-party candidate.”
Personally, I would call this definitely unethical even though it entirely conforms to the provisions of the law!
This makes it clear why neither major party has shown any interest in reforming the ethically corrupt Group Voting Ticket law that wins them an extra upper house seat or so, and significantly reduces the number of Greens elected compared to what would result from a true proportional distribution. Keeping this law on the books also seems definitely unethical to me.
Summing up, if you are not a donkey or are voting only because you might be fined if you don’t, you will want your vote to elect candidates or parties who you think will support issues you deem to be important. If you vote above the line, your single vote will also go towards electing four other candidates below the top name on the party ticket – and you have NO SAY in deciding who these four candidates may be. Each party then allocates your vote to any other 4 candidates THE PARTY prefers. For large parties, this is why their tickets normally include 5 people. However, as the articles referenced above point out, based on largely hidden back-room preference deals among the parties, if you voted above the line your remaining 4 votes may be allocated by the group ticket you voted for to any one, such that the fifth choice may well go to a party whose policy is diametrically opposed to your interests.
E.g., if you voted above the line in the Eastern Metropolitan Region for Labor because you thought it has a better climate policy than the Liberals, Labor preferenced Transport Matters ahead of the Greens and successfully replaced the sitting Green member with the Transport Matters candidate:
EASTERN METROPOLITAN 2014: 3 Liberal, 1 Labor, 1 Green ABC Calculator: 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Transport Matters Projection: 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Transport Matters
Summary: In this count the major parties have two quotas each and Rodney Brian Barton (Transport Matters) appears to snowball from 0.62% of the vote to beat all others including the Greens (9.03%). Although Barton at one point falls to third-last, no threat to his victory has been identified.
Result: The provisional result is, as expected, 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Transport Matters. Update: This result has been declared.
Your vote above the line for Labor because they appeared to have a better climate policy than the Liberals, shifted the balance of votes by two further away from reliable supporters of climate action.
How Vote Climate One can help you elect the candidates YOU want
Group Voting Tickets encourage a plethora of micro parties to nominate candidates, because several of them actually have a chance of being elected in the Upper House even with microscopic numbers of first preferences if they make the right preference deals. Thus, if you want to vote below the line you may end up having fifty to perhaps a hundred boxes to number if you want to allocate all your preferences. Our TRAFFIC LIGHT VOTING system, VOTING GUIDES – VIC and pro-forma ballots make doing this something you can do in a straight forward way and relatively quickly at home, so that all you need do in the polling booth is copy your pre-decided numbers from your Upper House pro-forma to the formal ballot paper. We also provide similar help with the Lower House ballot in every district. Use these tools, and you’ll then have time for your Democracy Sausage after if you vote on Polling Day.
Why are we at Vote Climate One going to all this effort to try to help you?
If we don’t stop global warming soon, we’ll have fueled enough positive feedbacks that runaway warming to Earth’s ‘Hothouse Hell’ state will virtually guarantee human extinction.
However, if we can help get climate savvy governments in power soon enough, they may be able to mobilize enough action so we can survive our accidental disruption of Earth’s Climate System so our kids and grandkids inherit a world they can live in….
Let’s hope that we can stop global warming soon enough to leave them with a future where they can survive and flourish
Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.
If single parties can pass legislation on their own, it’s hard to stop them from becoming puppets of obscenely wealthy special interests
The climate scientist, Bill McKibben in his Critical Years blog article, “Big Oil is addicted, but it’s killing the rest of us“, explains that fossil fuel industry is ‘addicted’ to the super-profits it can generate by continuing to increase its production of products and their lethal greenhouse gas emissions. The industry will do anything it can to stay in this business, including using its vast wealth to corrupt government.
The Sacramento working group of Third Act held a die-in this weekend outside the fossil-fueled Chase Bank. For them it was powerful guerilla theater; for millions around the world it is reality / From the article
A shocking new summary of fossil fuel’s assault on public health
Yesterday afternoon, the British medical journal The Lancet published a vast and remarkable assessment of the health impacts of climate change. (Produced in Britain, the Lancet is among the world’s most venerable journals—it’s where Joseph Lister published his plan for antiseptic surgery in 1867.) Assembled by a team of more than a hundred researchers, the report found that
“Because of the rapidly increasing temperatures, vulnerable populations (adults older than 65 years, and children younger than one year of age) were exposed to 3.7 billion more heatwave days in 2021 than annually in 1986–2005, and heat-related deaths increased by 68% between 2000–04 and 2017–21.”
and also that
“the number of months suitable for malaria transmission increased by 31.3% in the highland areas of the Americas and 13.8% in the highland areas of Africa from 1951–60 to 2012–21, and the likelihood of dengue transmission rose by 12% in the same period. The coexistence of dengue outbreaks with the COVID-19 pandemic led to aggravated pressure on health systems, misdiagnosis, and difficulties in management of both diseases in many regions of South America, Asia, and Africa.”…
…[T]he fossil fuel industry has spent decades blocking the way—a massive three-decade campaign of deceit, denial and disinformation; an ongoing lobbying effort against renewables that the industry boasts will get even more powerful if the GOP wins the midterms; endless support for rightwing lawmakers to make sure that lobbying will work.
I think the question I get asked the most may be: why do these vast oil companies not simply convert to energy companies? Why don’t Exxon and Chevron decide to own the renewable future, instead of investing at most a few percent of their research budgets on clean tech?
And the answer is, if you think about it, sadly logical. You can make some money putting solar panels on people’s roofs—there will be solar billionaires. But you can’t make Exxon money, because once the panel is up there, the sun delivers the energy for free every day when it rises above the horizon. From Exxon’s point of view, this is the stupidest business model ever: they made their fortune by selling you more energy, every week for your entire life. They are hooked.
Because the fossil fuel producers are hooked, they will use their immense financial power in any way they can to ensure that governments make life easier for them to feed their daily addictions for their ever growing fortunes. This is irrespective of how many people are killed and the biosphere is damaged in other ways. The craving for the daily fix is more important than any concern about the future of life on Earth.
Majority governments are easy pickings. Political parties are addicted to power and will do almost anything to stay in power. Fossil fuel interests can do a lot (‘ethically’ or unethically) to help a party to gain majority power or (especially) to stay in power. Climate Sentinel News has given many examples of how Fossil Fuel subverts governments to feed emission producing addiction. Here are three:
It is much harder to corrupt a minority government that depends on the cooperation of several independent (and often shifting) entities to pass legislation. Probably the most difficult government of all to corrupt is one where the balance of power is held by community independents ethically representing the community of voters that selected and elected them. Such independents will work for the interests of those who voted for them rather than a party line representing special interests of major patrons working to keep the party in power.
Vote Climate One is working to provide Australian (and Victorian) voters with the information you need to elect representatives who will work for you rather than for the lethal addictions of the fossil fuel industry. See our Voting Guides – Vic for the upcoming Victorian State Election on 26 November 2022.
Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.
US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency summarizes evidence that humans are responsible for huge CO₂ emissions driving rapid global warming.
Rock solid evidence leaves no other explanations able to explain the observations. Humans caused the problem. Humans should be able to do something about it!
By Rebecca Lindsey, October 12, 2022 on Climate Q&A
The most basic reason is that fossil fuels—the equivalent of millions of years of plant growth—are the only source of carbon dioxide large enough to raise atmospheric carbon dioxide amounts as high and as quickly as they have risen. The increase between the year 1800 and today is 70% larger than the increase that occurred when Earth climbed out of the last ice age between 17,500 and 11,500 years ago, and it occurred 100-200 times faster.
In addition, fossil fuels are the only source of carbon consistent with the isotopic fingerprint of the carbon present in today’s atmosphere. That analysis indicates it must be coming from terrestrial plant matter, and it must be very, very old. These and other lines of evidence leave no doubt that fossil fuels are the primary source of the carbon dioxide building up in Earth’s atmosphere.
The featured image is from the article above. It shows the variation in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the last 800,000 years of time. The caption explains:
Global atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) in parts per million (ppm) for the past 800,000 years based on ice-core data (purple line) compared to 2021 concentration (dark purple dot). The peaks and valleys in the line track ice ages (low CO2) and warmer interglacials (higher CO2). Throughout that time, CO2 was never higher than 300 ppm (light purple dot, between 300,000 and 400,000 years ago). The increase over the last 60 years is 100 times faster than previous natural increases. [my emphasis] In fact, on the geologic time scale, the increase from the end of the last ice age to the present looks virtually instantaneous. Graph by NOAA Climate.gov based on data from Lüthi, et al., 2008, via NOAA NCEI Paleoclimatology Program.
If we do not stop global warming, there is probably enough carbon readily available for emissions in soil, permafrost, and biomass to drive temperatures high enough to exterminate most complex life on Earth (the 6th global mass extinction).
What can we do about it?
Because the climate crisis is a global threat for the whole of humanity, there is very little a single human can do in isolation to stop and turn around the warming process. Effective action has to be guided and managed at international, national and state levels before individual actions become effective. Consequently, the single most effective things individual people can do is to elect representatives to government who will respond actively and seriously to ensure that our governments are taking appropriate and effective actions.
Where governments are concerned, state governments probably have the most power to directly manage and control responses to climate change through their controls of environmental regulations, planning and permitting. In Australia, Victorians will have an opportunity around a month from now (on on 26 November 2022) to elect members for the next Parliament of Victoria. All 88 seats in the Legislative Assembly (lower house) and all 40 seats in the Legislative Council (upper house) will be up for election. The most important thing you can do to respond to the climate crisis is to elect upper and lower house representatives committed to effective action on the climate crisis.
Voting in Australia’s preferential voting system requires careful consideration if you care about the result.
Applying your decision to preferential voting on the ballot
If you believe that our present Victorian Labor government will govern in your interests rather than their corporate and union patrons in the fossil fuel and related industries, then go with the flow and don’t concern yourself with the likely consequences of going down their fossil fueled road towards runaway global warming. On the other hand, if you think it is better to work for a sustainable future where your children and their children can hope for long and happy lives, Vote Climate One can help you elect a government that will actively lead and support this work.
In general, we think a minority government led by Labor, where the balance of power is held by Greens and pro-climate community independents will give us the parliamentary representation that will give us the best outcome.
The trouble with party led majority governments is that the large parties are all disciplined to follow a party line. All too often super wealthy special interest patrons including non-citizen overseas entities strongly influence parties via large ‘donations’ and campaign support. Far better to give the last word on parliamentary decisions to MPs owing allegiance to the citizens who elected them than to people constrained to follow party disciplines..
Vote Climate One was formed for the specific purpose of studying and ranking all political parties and independent candidates on their policies and promises relating to climate and related environmental issues. What are they committed to do, and can you trust them to keep to their commitments. This is expressed in our Climate Lens Traffic Light Assessment process. (The results and their presentation are still being processed for the Victorian Election as this is being written).
Questionnaire used along with other kinds of evidence in our evaluation of candidates.
Our Climate Sentinel News provides access to factual evidence about the growing climate crisis to support your thinking; and our Traffic Light Voting System gives you easy to use factual evidence developed through our assessment process about where each candidate in your electorate ranks in relation to their commitment to prioritize action on the climate emergency. This should make it easier to decide your voting preferences before confronting a long ballot paper in the voting booth. We do the work so you can easily cope with Victoria’s complex party-based preferencing to plan your voting before you enter the booth.
We need to turn away from the the Apocalypse on the road to hothouse hell, and we won’t do this by continuing with business as usual!
It seems to have taken the clear thinking of Greta Thunberg, a 16 year-old girl who concluded school was pointless as long as humans continued their blind ‘business as usual’ rush towards extinction.
Listen to Greta’s speech live at the World Economic forum in Davos 2019. Except for her reliance on the IPCC’s overoptimistic emissions budget, everything she says is spot on that even she, as a child, can understand the alternatives and what has to happen.
In other words: Wake up! Smell the smoke! See the grimly frightful reality, and fight the fire that is burning up our only planet so we can give our offspring a hopeful future. This is the only issue that matters. Even the IPCC’s hyperconservative Sixth Assessment Report that looks at climate change’s global and regional impacts on ecosystems, biodiversity, and human communities makes it clear we are headed for an existential climate catastrophe if we don’t stop the warming process.
In Greta’s words, “even a small child can understand [this]”. People hope for their children’s futures. She doesn’t want your hopium. She wants you to rationally panic enough to wake up, pay attention to reality, and fight the fire…. so our offspring can have some hope for their future. As individuals, our most effective fire axe is to elect the right people to government who can lead and coordinate the fire fight.
Let’s hope that we can stop global warming soon enough to leave them with a future where they can survive and flourish
Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.
We live in dangerous times. Our state and federal parliaments will make life and death decisions about the climate crisis
Global warming is real. It was triggered by the ‘greenhouse effects’ in the atmosphere of exponentially increasing amounts of CO₂ emitted by humanity’s prodigious burning of fossil carbon beginning with the Industrial Revolution. The rate of warming is also slowly accelerating to a point of crisis, where positive feedbacks driving further acceleration may be unstoppable by anything humans can do. If the warming runs away, there is no evidence that natural processes will stop heating before the ensuing Hothouse Earth condition causes global mass extinction – including our own species.
These statements are real world facts substantiated by a vast array of scientific evidence. We deny the reality at our own peril.
Here is a tiny bit of the evidence:
Estimated changes in annual global mean surface temperatures (°C, color bars) and CO2 concentrations (thick black line) over the past 150 years relative to twentieth century average values. Carbon dioxide concentrations since 1957 are from direct measurements at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, while earlier estimates are derived from ice core records. The scale for CO2 concentrations is in parts per million by volume (ppm), relative to the twentieth century mean of 333.7 ppm, while the temperature anomalies are relative to a mean of 14 °C. Also given as dashed values are the preindustrial estimated values, where the value is 280 ppm, with the scale in orange at right for carbon dioxide. From Trenbarth & Cheng (2022), A perspective on climate change from Earth’s energy imbalance. Environ. Res.: Climate1 013001 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license)
Berkeley Earth corroborates Trenbarth & Cheng’s temperature observations above in great detail.
The rising concentrations of CO2 and other important greenhouse gases (GHGs) in our atmosphere are meticulously plotted by US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Global Monitoring Laboratory’s Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases project’s Trends pages:
The Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases – Trends pages show the most up to date measurements and rates of changes of the three most important greenhouse gases. Links to the individual graphs are: (1) Atmospheric CO2; (2) Annual Increase of CO2; (3) Global Monthly Mean CH₄ / Annual Global Increase of CH₄; and (4) Global Monthly Mean N₂O / Annual Global Increase of N₂O. These links also explain how the data were collected and analyzed to produce the graphs.
The ‘pump handle’ graph below begins by showing monthly readings from the various sampling sites around the world on the left (with the distance from the equator – S to N plotted on the horizontal axis), and the global averages on the graph to the right.
The northern (right) end of the plot of monthly readings jumps up and down showing the marked annual variation in the atmospheric CO2 as the gas is consumed by plants’ photosynthesis in the spring and released by dead and decaying vegetation in the fall. More CO2 is released into the atmosphere in each year than plants can use, causing the average to ratchet upward each year. The excess CO2 is mostly from the burning of fossil fuels that has exceeded the biosphere’s capacity to use it to support plant growth.
The inset map shows the the location of each site from which the CO2 in each month.
When the present time is reached the graph begins looking backwards in time. The different colors represent the different sources of information for the older readings back into the Ice Age.
History of atmospheric carbon dioxide from 800,000 years ago until the end of the most recent GLOBALVIEW+ CO2 collection. From NOAA’s Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases / Trends in CO2.
As shown by the first series of graphs, CO2 is currently the dominant GHG because of its high concentration, but on a molecule-by-molecule basis methane (CH₄) and oxides of nitrogen (mainly N20) are much more powerful. At the rate methane is being released compared to the other gases, it will soon replace CO2 as the dominant GHG. Because permafrost and frozen soil above and below sea level presently holds vast amounts of methane inertly as ice-like hydrates, a warming Arctic has the capacity to release many times the present volume of atmospheric methane.
All three gases are released from natural sources at a greater rates as the ambient temperature rises. This causes positive feedbacks on global average temperatures that are effectively beyond human control. To slow the natural emissions we must reduce those GHG emissions we can control FASTER than positive feedbacks are driving them higher or reduce the strength of the greenhouse either by actively removing and safely sequestering GHGs or by actively cooling the WHOLE PLANET by some kind of geoengineering process(es) that reflects solar energy before it is trapped in the Earth System. The point beyond which we cannot stop the warming process is literally a point of no return on the road to runaway global warming.
The observations show that there is actually a very real and very high risk of near term human extinction (i.e., an EXISTENTIAL RISK) if we do not act to stop global warming
Ample evidence shows there is enough carbon readily available for release in a runaway warming scenario in the Earth System to to raise global average temperatures by 5-10 °C within a century or so of passing the point of no return.
The truth is so dire and scary that even most scientists fear (consciously or subconsciously) to use the EXTINCTION word
As I argued in my 2022 presentation, linked above, this is especially the case of academic modelers with training in physics (rather than, say, systems engineering). Three issues likely have significant influences:
Scientific reticence – you don’t win grants or tenure or get promoted if you work too far outside the boundaries of your academic furrows (i.e., what your academic peers expect of you) – and this is especially true of you come to scary or unpopular conclusions,
Failure to understand how to deal with risks associated with non-linear feedbacks and mathematical chaos in complex dynamical systems: e.g., discarding models that sporadically ‘blow up’ and break, rather than accepting that these are more likely valuable indicators of how such system can behave in the real world. Systems engineers know systems break, and observe/test them until they do break (preferably many times in many different ways), and even have a discipline dedicated to that approach: ‘Failure Modes and Effects (Criticality) Analysis‘. Mathematical modelers work very hard to remove real-world chaos from their models because the underlying belief of most physicists is that physical processes should be exactly repeatable.
Failure to accept that an ‘existential’ risk is actually actually a factual statement that personal, species, and global mass extinction is a very real and even likely result if a runaway situation occurs. Physics happens irrespective of what any human might wish.
Mathematical models are useful for understanding possible behaviors of complex climate systems, but should not be accepted and acted on as accurate representations of how probable or costly a particular event or excursion might be. If an existential event occurs, its cost to humans will literally be infinite, because the denominator will be zero. The cost to society will huge in that no society will be left to pay it…..
However, even the prestigious science journal Proceedings of the (US) National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) does not take the consequences of civilization’s collapse in the face of runaway warming to the logical conclusion. Nevertheless, it follows from the substantial array of evidence on Climate Sentinel News and covered in the presentations linked above that we are already trending towards collapse. It follows from these considerations that:
Only mobilization of a massive and coordinated effort to stop ongoing human carbon emissions will suffice to stop the feedbacks from running away.
As temperatures continue rising increasing ecological changes will begin debilitating an increasing percentage of the human population, making areas of our planet effectively uninhabitable; and lead to the effective extinction of keystone species in natural and agricultural ecosystems – leading to their effective collapses.
Human organizations, economies, nation states, civilizations will be increasingly stressed until they too begin to collapse as a consequence of mass disablements and deaths from heat stress, famine, social disruption, disorder and lethal conflicts probably including nuclear warfare over dwindling resources.
As 3 progresses, at some (probably relatively early point in the process), humanity would no longer have the resources, coordination or physical capacity to mount the massive and coordinated effort to stop and reverse the accelerating warming process.
Given that surviving humans are no longer capable of stopping the warming process, the planet will continue to strengthen greenhouse warming until
the feedback is slowed as most of the readily available inert carbon in the Earth System has been burned and converted into greenhouse gases; or
some currently unknown process will kick in at some point on the temperature scale that allows Earth to shift its radiation balance from absorbing more solar energy than it can emit to emitting as much or more heat energy than the solar energy it is absorbing.
Earth’s geological record shows several heat spikes occurred over an ‘instant’ of geological time (e.g., the End Permian is the most obvious case) where global temperatures peaked so fast that most life on the planet could not adapt genetically fast enough to survive when their physiological limits were exceeded — resulting in global mass extinction events. Given the exponential nature of feedback-driven processes, runaway warming could easily raise global temperatures by 10 or more degrees within a century or two, that large, slowly reproducing organisms like humans simply could not adapt to genetically in 5 or 10 generations. This is because the knowledge for genetic engineering and the capacity to make the very sophisticated high technology required would be lost in the very early stages of societal collapse.
Thus, if humans fail to stop and reverse global warming very soon, human extinction within a century or two is highly probable. At the very best a few subsistence hunters and gathers might survive along with a few other remnant species in far polar regions. However, their chance of surviving with an intact knowledge base, infrastructure, and resources for any kind of industrial or high technology would seem to be nil. Fossil fuels will have been burned up into greenhouse gases even assuming other mineral resources could be found within the still livable areas of the planet.
The truth is….
As grim and frightening as this prospect should be to anyone facing the future reality with a family of loved ones, humans as we know ourselves would be fully extinct with no progeny, or at best our heritage would be no more than a few implausible myths and fairy tales told around camp fires in a few tribes of hunters and gatherers……
The truth also is we have a choice…. If humans can start working together with enough determination and effort, we probably still can stop and reverse the warming…
Personally, I do not think we have passed the point of no return, but that we are already close enough to it that by implementing world-war scale global mobilization of people and industry, and the expenditure of massive resources we, still have the capacity to turn the warming process around. Human efforts might seem to be too piddling to have any effect on planetary scale processes. However, consider this…. Accidentally, without thinking, human activities have managed to increase atmospheric CO₂ concentration from around 316 ppm to 416 ppm since (around 30%) since controlled measurements began to be made in 1958; or from an inferred 280 ppm (around 49%) since the beginning of the industrial revolution as shown in the Featured Image – a snapshot showing growth since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution that began around 1750.
Given that humans were able to have this degree of impact on Earth’s atmosphere more or less by accident, to me it is reasonable to believe that with total mobilization of human and modern technological resource we have enough knowledge to stop and reverse the warming. If the alternative to doing nothing is extinction, there is a strong business case for doing whatever it takes to stop extinction, however much it costs.
Unavoidably an intensely political process will be required to achieve the necessary mobilization and expenditure of resources.
It seems to have taken the clear thinking of Greta Thunberg, a 16 year-old girl who concluded school was pointless as long as humans continued their blind ‘business as usual’ rush towards extinction.
Listen to Greta’s speech live at the World Economic forum in Davos 2019. Except for her reliance on the IPCC’s overoptimistic emissions budget, everything she says is spot on that even she, as a child, can understand the alternatives and what has to happen.
In other words, wake up! smell the smoke! see the grimly frightful reality, and fight the fire that is burning up our only planet so we can give our offspring a hopeful future. This is truly the only issue that matters. Even the IPCC’s hyperconservative Sixth Assessment Report that looks at climate change’s global and regional impacts on ecosystems, biodiversity, and human communities makes it clear we are headed for an existential climate catastrophe if we don’t stop the warming process.
In Greta’s words, “even a small child can understand [this]”. People hope for their children’s futures. She doesn’t want your hopium. She wants you to rationally panic enough to wake up, pay attention to reality, and fight the fire…. so our offspring can have some hope for their future.
In our present situation where most of our governments are still supporting and even funding fossil fuel production and use, the most effective actions we can take as individuals is to change our governments to prioritize action on climate change above all other things. Nothing else matters if we have no future….
States are probably even more important than the Federal Government where climate action is concerned
States permit, enable and regulate mining and production of fossil fuels, and many of the important sources of emissions. Planning, industrial, rural, public safety and others are all primarily state concerns where political and administrative decisions may have considerable impact on regulating carbon emissions. Thus, if you are concerned to influence how your state acts in relation to the climate emergency, you need to elect representatives who will do this rather than bow down to wealthy patrons and vested interests who want to protect their short-term profits rather than humanity’s longer-term future.
The Victorian state election on 26 November is our next opportunity to begin focusing our state parliaments on the need to prioritize climate action. For Victorian voters, this may be the most important vote you ever make: Do you support major parties in their business as usual financial and regulatory support of the fossil fuel industry, or will you vote for a minor party or independent who is clearly focused on promoting and facilitating climate action?
Applying your decision to preferential voting on the ballot
If you believe that our present Labor government or the Liberals will govern in your interests rather than protecting and supporting their patrons in the fossil fuel and related industries, then go with the flow and don’t concern yourself with the likely consequences of going down their fossil fueled road towards runaway global warming. On the other hand, if you think it is better to work for a sustainable future where your children and their children can hope for a happy life, Vote Climate One can help you elect a government that will actively lead and support this effort.
Our Climate Lens Traffic Light Assessment process will help you to do this most effectively in both houses of Parliament. Also, our Climate Sentinel News provides access to factual evidence about the growing climate crisis to support your thinking, In the May Federal Election, our Traffic Light Voting System made it easy to use factual evidence about where each candidate in your electorate ranks in relation to their commitment to prioritize action on the climate emergency. We have modified this for the Victorian State Election in November. Part of our assessment process asks independent candidates the following questions:
Peter Trusler’s Self Portrait: Reduction
If we can get climate savvy governments in power soon enough, we may be able to mobilize enough action to survive our accidental disruption of Earth’s Climate System so our kids and grandkids inherit a world they can live in…
Let’s hope that we can stop global warming soon enough to leave them with a future where they can survive and flourish
Featured Image. Annotated snapshot from the from the Trends in CO2 video above. The pre 1958 measurements in orange were made from trapped air bubbles in precisely dated ice cores cut from the Law Dome in Antarctica as explained on the Trends in CO2 website.
Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.
Dr Norton is a specialist in theoretical physics and applied mathematics who has applied his analytical mind to issues relating to climate change and its dangers to humanity.
The UNFCCC is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – The intergovernmental body responsible for COP and IPCC processes relating to the understanding of and acting on the ongoing process of climate change.
The Global Stocktake established in the Paris Agreement (GST) is a process for taking stock of the implementation of the Paris Agreement with the aim to assess the world’s collective progress towards achieving the purpose of the agreement and its long-term goals (Article 14).Decision 19/CMA.1 outlines the modalities and sources of input for the GST.
The Vote Climate One submission states:
3.1 Best available science shows that supply-side action is required [Q5a]
The Paris Agreement has been relying on demand-side action (via emission reduction NDCs) to reduce the global GHG pollution rate. The world’s governments have been too slow to respond. Best available science shows that supply-side action to reduce fossil fuel (FF) production is now also urgently required: it is now physically impossible for reductions in GHG emission rates to alone suffice in preventing the climate chaos and catastrophic environmental losses that will ensue if warming is not limited to 1.5◦C.
3.1.1 Planned over-production of fossil fuels [Q1, Q4]
The Production Gap Report [1] — first launched in 2019 — tracks the discrepancy between governments’ planned fossil fuel production and global production levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5◦C or 2◦C. Key findings of the 2021 report (page 4) include,
• “the world’s governments plan to produce more than twice the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5◦C” • “Global fossil fuel production must start declining immediately and steeply to be consistent with limiting long-term warming to 1.5◦C”
The question of which countries need to take action on fossil fuel production is answered in the report (March 2022), Phaseout pathways for fossil fuel production within Paris-compliant carbon budgets [2].
From the Headline Finding on page 6: Based on a 50:50 chance of not exceeding 1.5◦C,
• “The report makes absolutely clear that there is no capacity in the carbon budget for opening up new production facilities of any kind, whether coal mines, oil wells or gas terminals.” • “A transition based on principles of equity requires wealthy, high-emitting nations to phase out all oil and gas production by 2034 while the poorest nations have until 2050 to end production.”
the Federal Government is still planning to rapidly expand Australia’s FF production and FF exports:
• There are 114 fossil fuel major projects in the Australian Government’s approvals pipeline [4] • The report (May 2022), “Carbon Bombs” – Mapping key fossil fuel projects [5], finds that Australia is planning 23 of the world’s 425 carbon bomb projects (each exceeding 1Gt CO2).
When Prime Minister Albanese was recently asked why Labor would not consider the Greens policy of “no new FF mines”, the final point he made to terminate the discussion was that the UN, “measure emissions based upon where they occur, not where the product comes from” [6]. Similarly, when Australia’s new Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek, was asked if the fastest way to reduce emissions wasn’t simply to say “right, no more coal mines”, she was obliged to reiterate Labor’s position [7]:
“We are responsible for the carbon pollution that we emit here in Australia.” [i.e. Our governments have no responsibility for Australian produced carbon that is burned overseas….]
Both Federal and State governments have many levers available to them that could stop or reduce the production of fossil fuels, irrespective of their claims (or not) to be working to reduce or eliminate fossil fuel emissions that are driving the climate towards lethal runaway global warming. Clearly, both major political parties are still working hand in glove with the special interests to keep the fossil fuel industry growing through subsidies and permitting activities.
This is likely to continue as long as the special interests’ supporters are comfortable that they can work for their patrons and still get re-elected. This cozy connection between Parliamentarians and the fossil fuel industry will continue until the puppets are replaced by genuine representatives of voters who care about the future of our climate and the world their children and grandchildren will live (or die) in.
There is a vast array of scientific and observational evidence showing that not only is the world growing ever warmer (thanks to the profligate burning of fossil carbon beginning with the Industrial Revolution), but that we have now warmed our planet enough that we are beginning to cross ‘tipping points’ for a number of positive feedback processes in the Earth System that will continue driving temperatures still higher even without further human intervention. Once positive feedback takes control of the thermostat, Earth’s temperatures will continue rising at an accelerating rate in a runaway global warming process until semi-stable ‘Hothouse Earth’ temperatures are reached. These temperatures will like be too hot and be reached too fast for large slowly reproducing organisms like humans to survive. The result will be our planet’s 6th global mass extinction event. At least two or three of the previous mass extinction events in our fossil record also seem to have been the result of runaway global warming.
Note: Straightforward laws of physics will produce this result unless humans can stop and reverse the process – and we are approaching a point of no return where no conceivable human intervention will be able to stop the feedback process before the fuel is exhausted or the system self-destructs.
Given that we are major users and producers of greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuels, we have to take the responsibility to do something about this….
We need to turn away from the the Apocalypse on the road to hothouse hell, and we won’t do this by continuing cosy relationships with fossil fuel producers and consumers.
In our present situation where most of our governments are still supporting and even funding fossil fuel production and use, the most effective actions we can take as individuals is to change our governments to prioritize action on climate change above all other things. Nothing else matters if we have no future….
States are probably even more important than the Federal Government where climate action is concerned
States enable and regulate mining and production of fossil fuels, and many of the important sources of emissions. Planning, industrial, rural, public safety and others are all primarily state concerns where political and administrative decisions may have considerable impact on regulating carbon emissions. Thus, if you are concerned to influence how your state acts in relation to the climate emergency, you need to elect representatives who will do this rather than bow down to wealthy patrons and vested interests who want to protect their short-term profits rather than humanity’s longer-term future.
The Victorian state election on 26 November is our next opportunity to begin focusing our state parliaments on the need to prioritize climate action. For Victorian voters, this may be the most important vote you ever make: Do you support major parties in their business as usual financial and regulatory support of the fossil fuel industry, or will you vote for a party or independent who is clearly focused on promoting and facilitating climate action?
Applying your decision to preferential voting on the ballot
If you believe that our present Labor government will govern in your interests rather than protecting and supporting their patrons in the fossil fuel and related industries, then go with the flow and don’t concern yourself with the likely consequences of going down their fossil fueled road towards runaway global warming. On the other hand, if you think it is better to work for a sustainable future where your children and their children can hope for a happy future, Vote Climate One can help you elect a government that will actively lead and support this effort.
Our Climate Lens Traffic Light Assessment process will help you to do this most effectively in both houses of Parliament. Also, our Climate Sentinel News provides access to factual evidence about the growing climate crisis to support your thinking, In the May Federal Election, our Traffic Light Voting System made it easy to use factual evidence about where each candidate in your electorate ranks in relation to their commitment to prioritize action on the climate emergency. We have modified this for the Victorian State Election in November.
Peter Trusler’s Self Portrait: Reduction
Featured Image Fig. 1 from Dr Norton’s submission to the UN’s Global Stocktake for the Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 27, etc.). Shows that when a country like Australia produces fossil fuel, the carbon emissions from that fuel end up in the atmosphere, wherever in the world
Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.
Global warming gives extreme weather more energy to play with. Unless global warming is stopped and reversed, economies will begin collapsing.
More areas will suffer more extreme damage more frequently, effecting more people…. Until economies can no longer repair the damage from the last catastrophe before the next catastrophe strikes, and begin to collapse into anarchy and chaos…. The same extremes will also begin collapsing whole natural and agricultural ecosystems, eventually leading to mass extinction as the process accelerates.
For example:
Structures and debris float near the shore in the aftermath of ex Hurricane Fiona in Rose Blanche, Newfoundland, on September 25. (John Morris / Reuters / via the Atlantic)
After causing heavy damage across parts of the Caribbean and Bermuda last week, Hurricane Fiona moved north toward Eastern Canada, making landfall this weekend as a post-tropical cyclone. The downgraded storm still packed heavy rain and winds, gusting up to 110 mph, driving storm surges and knocking down trees and power lines. Hundreds of thousands remain without power as emergency crews and utility workers work to clear debris and rebuild lines. Below is a collection of recent images from Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland.
After striking Puerto Rico and wiping out the entire electrical distribution network for the population of 3 million people on the island, Fiona sideswiped Bermuda, then its storm clouds smashed through the Canadian Maritime Provinces, and ended up as a pool of hot air and rain that melted a record lot of ice in southern Greenland:
On 9/26, the Greenland Ice Sheet experienced a late-season melt event related to the remnants of Hurricane Fiona. This was easily a record melt extent for our data archive for the second half of September. At the peak, more 245,000 sq km (94,600 sq mi) had surface melting. pic.twitter.com/p3pHc4etp8
A late-September surface melt event over southwestern #Greenland seems to be linked to Hurricane Fiona, whose remnants tracked into Davis Strait, bringing in warm conditions. Hurricane Fiona was the first major storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, according to @NOAA. pic.twitter.com/tlqkyqO7Z8
With continued global warming these catastrophes can only get worse — as demonstrated last week by Category 3 Hurricane Ian that smashed through Cuba, Florida, and North Carolina, killing at least 125 people as confirmed by body count. I’ve seen no statement of how many are still missing (many victims may have been washed away by the storm surges). This case will be discussed in more detail in another article under preparation.
…And then there is the continuing deluge in eastern Australia, where every river in NSW west of the Dividing Range is in flood as I write this.
There is a vast array of scientific and observational evidence showing that not only is the world growing ever warmer (thanks to the profligate burning of fossil carbon beginning with the Industrial Revolution), but that we have now warmed our planet enough that we are beginning to cross ‘tipping points’ for a number of positive feedback processes in the Earth System that will continue driving temperatures still higher even without further human intervention. Once positive feedback takes control of the thermostat, Earth’s temperatures will continue rising at an accelerating rate in a runaway global warming process until semi-stable ‘Hothouse Earth’ temperatures are reached. These temperatures will like be too hot and be reached too fast for large slowly reproducing organisms like humans to survive. The result will be our planet’s 6th global mass extinction event. At least two or three of the previous mass extinction events in our fossil record also seem to have been the result of runaway global warming.
Note: Straightforward laws of physics will produce this result unless humans can stop and reverse the process – and we are approaching a point of no return where no conceivable human intervention will be able to stop the feedback process before the fuel is exhausted or the system self-destructs.
Given that we are major users and producers of greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuels, we have to take the responsibility to do something about this….
We need to turn away from the the Apocalypse on the road to hothouse hell, and we won’t do this by continuing with business as usual!
It seems to have taken the clear thinking of Greta Thunberg, a 16 year-old girl who concluded school was pointless as long as humans continued their blind ‘business as usual’ rush towards extinction.
Listen to Greta’s speech live at the World Economic forum in Davos 2019. Except for her reliance on the IPCC’s overoptimistic emissions budget, everything she says is spot on that even she, as a child, can understand the alternatives and what has to happen.
In other words, wake up! smell the smoke! see the grimly frightful reality, and fight the fire that is burning up our only planet so we can give our offspring a hopeful future. This is the only issue that matters. Even the IPCC’s hyperconservative Sixth Assessment Report that looks at climate change’s global and regional impacts on ecosystems, biodiversity, and human communities makes it clear we are headed for an existential climate catastrophe if we don’t stop the warming process.
In Greta’s words, “even a small child can understand [this]”. People hope for their children’s futures. She doesn’t want your hopium. She wants you to rationally panic enough to wake up, pay attention to reality, and fight the fire…. so our offspring can have some hope for their future.
In our present situation where most of our governments are still supporting and even funding fossil fuel production and use, the most effective actions we can take as individuals is to change our governments to prioritize action on climate change above all other things. Nothing else matters if we have no future….
States are probably even more important than the Federal Government where climate action is concerned
States enable and regulate mining and production of fossil fuels, and many of the important sources of emissions. Planning, industrial, rural, public safety and others are all primarily state concerns where political and administrative decisions may have considerable impact on regulating carbon emissions. Thus, if you are concerned to influence how your state acts in relation to the climate emergency, you need to elect representatives who will do this rather than bow down to wealthy patrons and vested interests who want to protect their short-term profits rather than humanity’s longer-term future.
Applying your decision to preferential voting on the ballot
If you believe that our present COALition government will govern in your interests rather than their patrons in the fossil fuel and related industries, then go with the flow and don’t concern yourself with the likely consequences of going down their fossil fueled road towards runaway global warming. On the other hand, if you think it is better to work for a sustainable future where your children and their children can hope for a happy future, Vote Climate One can help you elect a government that will actively lead and support this effort.
Our Climate Sentinel News provides access to factual evidence about the growing climate crisis to support your thinking, In the May Federal Election, our Traffic Light Voting System made it easy to use factual evidence about where each candidate in your electorate ranks in relation to their commitment to prioritize action on the climate emergency. We have modified this for the Victorian State Election in November.
Let’s hope that we can stop global warming soon enough to leave them with a future where they can survive and flourish
Featured image: Debris surrounds storm-damaged houses in Port aux Basques on September 26. # (John Morris / Reuters — from the featured article)
Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.
The rate our green(ish) planet is warming is still rising due to humanity’s carbon emissions. Many species are dying to pay the price.
Nothing humans have done so far seems to have slowed the rate of increase, let alone stopping and reversing the rise. Most animal and plant species, including humans. have genetically determined thermal maximums, i.e., environmental temperature limits above which they cannot survive. The featured article here describes field studies that show what happens when these lethal limits are reached in the environments of some reasonably well known Australian birds.
Without stretching the metaphor, these birds are ‘canaries in the mine’ together with all kinds of other species dying out to warn us that we, too, are at risk of extinction if we fail to stop the process that is progressively warming our globe.
Sadly, many birds at the study site died on hot days. Author provided (from the article)
by Janet Gardiner & Suzanne Prober, 29/9/2022 in The Conversation
Heatwaves linked to climate change have already led to mass deaths of birds and other wildlife around the world. To stem the loss of biodiversity as the climate warms, we need to better understand how birds respond.
Our new study set out to fill this knowledge gap by examining Australian birds. Alarmingly, we found birds at our study sites died at a rate three times greater during a very hot summer compared to a mild summer.
And the news gets worse. Under a pessimistic emissions scenario, just 11% of birds at the sites would survive.
The findings have profound implications for our bird life in a warming world – and underscore the urgent need to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and help animals find cool places to shelter.
Read the complete article….
Continued emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the production and burning of fossil fuel is driving all complex life on Earth (including humans) towards extinction
Climate Sentinel News has published several articles that explain how rising temperatures driven by anthropogenic fossil fuel emissions are triggering further GHG emissions from warming soil, melting permafrost, burning forests and tundra and a variety of other sources. These emissions are making the weather more extreme. But, also, the additional heating from these sources drives global temperatures still higher through positive feedbacks. This will result in what is called ‘runaway warming’. The nature of positive feedback is that it accelerates the rate of change until the driving force is exhausted (i.e., the fuel runs out) or stopped by stronger external forces; or the system itself self-destructs.
Even if we stop all human GHG emissions immediately, it is probably too late to stop the positive feedback processes driving us towards near-term extinction. … However, removing the human contribution will give us more time to work out how to remove GHGs from the atmosphere faster than they are being added by the feedback process — thus providing the external force needed to stop the runaway process. However, if we don’t mobilize effective action very soon, the accelerating feedbacks will likely exceed anything humans can do to stop them.
THIS IS AN EXISTENTIAL CLIMATE EMERGENCY, REQUIRING EMERGENCY MOBILIZATION FOR ACTION TO STOP EMISSIONS AND RECAPTURE A RESPECTABLE FRACTION OF PAST EMISSIONS.
It is clear that our present governments are reluctant or are even refusing to take effective action to stop fossil fuel emissions. Even Labor governments at state and federal levels are committed to supporting new fossil fuel production projects, to say nothing of protecting the ‘rights’ of existing projects to continue their emissions.
We need to turn away from the the Apocalypse on the road to hothouse hell, and we won’t do this by continuing with business as usual!
It seems to have taken the clear thinking of Greta Thunberg, a 16 year-old girl who concluded school was pointless as long as humans continued their blind ‘business as usual’ rush towards extinction.
Listen to Greta’s speech live at the World Economic forum in Davos 2019. Except for her reliance on the IPCC’s overoptimistic emissions budget, everything she says is spot on that even she, as a child, can understand the alternatives and what has to happen.
In other words, wake up! smell the smoke! see the grimly frightful reality, and fight the fire that is burning up our only planet so we can give our offspring a hopeful future. This is the only issue that matters. Even the IPCC’s hyperconservative Sixth Assessment Report that looks at climate change’s global and regional impacts on ecosystems, biodiversity, and human communities makes it clear we are headed for an existential climate catastrophe if we don’t stop the warming process.
In Greta’s words, “even a small child can understand [this]”. People hope for their children’s futures. She doesn’t want your hopium. She wants you to rationally panic enough to wake up, pay attention to reality, and fight the fire…. so our offspring can have some hope for their future.
Victorian Labor with a majority in Parliament is still supporting the petrochemical industry and gas guzzling private transport; and a Liberal Government in power would be even worse! What we need is to have a minority government where climate friendly greens and independents have the balance of power to ensure that effective climate action is prioritized and mobilized.
How can we ensure this to respond effectively to the climate crisis?
Individual actions can help a bit, but real solutions demand concerted actions at all government levels (global, national, state, and local).
The UN through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and COP process is trying to provide the science basis and coordination. But is hampered by major nations such as the USA, China, Russia, and Brazil.
With the April Federal Election, Australia has made significant progress towards taking the climate seriously as enabled by the Teals and Greens decimation of the science denying Liberal Government to put Labor in power. But labor still supports continuing (and even expanding) fossil fuel production.
In Australia, the states actually have the most direct power over industry and environmental protection, but most are still working to protect the fossil fuel industries from from being harmed by environmental regulations, etc. as might be required to stop GHG emissions.
Even local governments can play a role in climate and environmental protection through zoning and development controls, but generally they work for the developers rather than citizens.
Victorians go to the polls on 26 November. All seats will be up for election/re-election. Voters have the possibility to completely change the government if they so desire. If you are a Victorian concerned about our future in a warming environment, assuming anyone is running on this issue, you can use your vote to help elect a candidate in your electorate who will work for action on the climate emergency. However, where the parties can heavily fund their candidates, and several independents and minor party candidates trying to be all things for all people, it is very hard to know how you should vote to have the maximum chance of electing a climate ‘friendly’ candidate.
Vote Climate One will help you make your choices for the upper and lower houses with our Traffic Light Voting Guides under preparation for the Victorian election (see our Climate Lens Traffic Light Assessment page for a foretaste). Voting for the Legislative Council is important, and we advise you to vote below the line to maximize your chances to elect a climate friend, but as Anthony Green explains, Victoria’s Group Voting Ticket makes it very difficult to ensure that some ‘preference harvesting’ deal doesn’t apply your vote to someone you wouldn’t want to elect on a bet. Our voting guides for the Legislative Council contests will be designed to make voting below the line as safe and easy to use as possible based on our analyses of each candidate’s climate credentials.
Featured image: A Jacky Winter at the study site showing signs of dehydration on the morning following a 47℃ day. Author provided (from the article)
Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.
Queen Elizabeth II waits in the drawing room at Balmoral [two days before her death] to receive Liz Truss, the incoming prime minister. Photograph: Reuters (via the Guardian)
The event
Queen Elizabeth’s funeral marks the end of an era.
What era?… And, exactly what have we been celebrating?…
Australia, and indeed, seemingly most the rest of the world has spent the last two weeks mourning the passing of a 97 year old lady on the other side of the globe with a panoply of highly organized pomp and circumstances that I don’t think has been equaled anywhere/anytime on the planet in my lifetime of 83 years. It has clearly been a celebration of the end of an era….
As an evolutionary biologist I tend to take a broader and longer term view of world events than most people. I have spent my life considering the diversity of life and the roles humans play in it (having taught university courses in biogeography and evolutionary biology). Where time is concerned, I have studied the history of life from its origin on Earth more than 4.5 billion years ago, to humanity’s likely path into the future and its impact on the planetary biosphere.
I will argue here that recent funeral is for very much more than just the end of the life of a respected old lady. For most of us we are celebrating the life of Britain’s longest reigning monarch (and the second longest reigning monarch anywhere in the world). As far as monarchs go, Elizabeth was undoubtedly exemplary. For 75 years she provided the ceremonial focus for an endless list of Commonwealth, British, regional and even local events and milestones — and truly ‘died with her boots on’ in the service of the state, appointing and welcoming her 15the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom only two days before her death.
Beyond this, QE2 reigned over the waning days of the of the island nation that had given birth to the Industrial Revolution and for a century or so had dominated the entire planet. Thanks to the debilitation caused by World Wars and the recent disconnection from the broader world leading to Brexit, there is even increasing pressure in the minor kingdoms of the UK (e.g., Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales) to disunite from England. And then there is the Commonwealth, where a number of its nations are progressively distancing themselves from the monarchy.
The extent of the Funeral, is at least partially a funeral for the lost grandeur of an Empire that is diminishing like a leaking and shrinking balloon.
Unprecedented logistics and costs
However, personally, I could not but ponder the monumental cost of planning, organizing, and organizing the logistics for the two week long event. Around 500 of the heads of state, royal families and other international notables, together with thousands of British notables, will be catered for (and guarded) at the main events. And then there are the hundreds of thousands over several days willing to queue for up to 24 hours just to pass by the Coffin to pay their respects. Beyond this there are the uncountable numbers of people filling public spaces just to watch the funeral procession pass by.
The hearse carrying the coffin of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth is escorted along the Long Walk towards Windsor castle in the funeral procession, on the day of the state funeral and burial, in Windsor, Britain, Sept. 19, 2022. Paul Childs/Reuters via ABC News
And then there is the phenomenal cost of all the perishable ceremonial gear. For example, several hundred to more than a thousand bearskin hats were worn by the ceremonial guards. The skin of a single Canadian black bear, costing around £750, is required for each hat, with no hint being provided re the cost of turning the skin into a hat, and then the cost of clothing and training the troops for their essentially absurd ceremonial duties.
Consider the Crown Jewels (most are crystallized carbon) being displayed for the Funeral…
Imperial State Crown of the United Kingdom. Source G. Younghusband; C. Davenport (1919). The Crown Jewels of England. London: Cassell & Co. p. 6.) Photograph: Cyril Davenport (1848 – 1941). Retouched by Firebrace to incorporate 1937 modifications for George VI’s coronation.
The Imperial State Crown has never been formally appraised, but on its own it is estimated to have a value of £1-5 BILLION ! The jewels consist of:
2,868 diamonds, including the the 317.4 carat Cullinan II diamond (third largest cut white diamond in the world)
269 pearls, including four large hanging pearls that belonged to Queen Elizabeth I
The Orb is a representation of the sovereign’s power, symbolising the Christian world, with its cross mounted on a globe, and the bands of jewels dividing it up into three section representing the three continents known in medieval times. During the coronation service the new sovereign is first anointed with holy oil, then robed in coronation robes, and then invested with a number of ornaments symbolising the chivalric nature of kingship. These include the spurs, swords and armills and then the Sovereign’s Orb, which is placed in the right hand of the monarch, before being placed on the altar.
To me, the display of the Coronation Regalia on the coffin and the surrounding pomp and antique tradition as the Queen’s remains progressed from Westminster Abby to their place of internment in Windsor Castle look back to the past majesty of the British Imperial power that no longer exists — a power that enabled the Industrial Revolution ad consequently dominated and exploited more of Earth’s human and natural resources than any other nationhas ever done.
Thus, we have spent the last two weeks commemorating a now passed world when humans (especially Anglophones) were taught and believed that they had a divine right to planetary dominion — and acted on that premise. We are now living with the consequences of that dominating world view.
Requiem for a once green and vibrant planet and a species that believed it had dominion over it
For nearly two weeks the only thing in our daily news (to the exclusion of almost anything else (except football finals) related to the Queen’s death, her funeral. her life and times, and her heirs. Clearly this was the only thing people needed to know and think about.
Personally, the fact that the inevitable death of a very old lady totally stops the news (and most action) on our biosphere’s progression towards mass death (including the likely end of our own species — probably within a century (which was, incidentally, the Queen’s lifespan) gives me little confidence that humans will act sufficiently stop our own progress towards oblivion. Thus, I could not help but see the funeral as a celebration of the accelerating decline and impending end of our past 3+ billion years of evolving life.
Very few large, long lived, and complex species of organisms will be able to adapt fast enough to cope with 10+ °C increases in average temperatures. They will either be killed directly as their genetically determined temperature maxima are exceeded, or will die-out as the ecosystems supporting them collapses through the death and extinction of keystone or foundation species providing ecological services other species require at some point in their individual life-cycles (corals and kelp are keystone species showing what happens when they die out).
I wonder how much progress towards stopping the progress of global warming would have been made if the same organizational and logistic effort spent on organizing and putting on the Funeral had been spent focusing on climate action to say nothing of what might be achieved by devoting Royalty’s immense wealth represented by their holdings in carbon crystals to developing practical methods for removing excess carbon from the atmosphere.
In a sense, the time and resources spent on the Funeral is delaying and possibly reducing the magnitude of responses that might effectively stop global warming in the short time remaining (assuming that it is still possible to stop).
Look Up! Don’t be distracted by pomp and circumstances
Listen to Greta’s speech live at the World Economic forum in Davos 2019. Except for her reliance on the IPCC’s overoptimistic emissions budget, everything she says is spot on that even she, as a child, can understand the alternatives and what has to happen.
In other words, Wake up! Smell the smoke! Look around and see the grimly frightful reality. Fight the fire that is burning up our only planet so we can give our offspring a hopeful future. This is the only issue that matters. Even the IPCC’s hyperconservative Sixth Assessment Report that looks at climate change’s global and regional impacts on ecosystems, biodiversity, and human communities makes it clear we are headed for an existential climate catastrophe if we don’t stop the warming process.
In Greta’s words, “even a small child can understand [this]”. People hope for their children’s futures. She doesn’t want your hopium. She wants you to rationally panic enough to wake up, pay attention to reality, and fight the fire…. so our offspring can have some hope for their future.
Because the climate emergency is such a major problem, there is no hope of surviving it without having government resources, leadership and intergovernmental cooperation. The fossil fuel magnates are still working very effectively to stop action that might be immediately harmful to their special interests (long term survival is beyond the range of their radars). They still buy the allegiances of the major parties to look out for their interests. For this reason your votes in national, state and local elections are still your most powerful tools for generating effective climate action.
Victorian voters: See VoteClimateOne’s Voting Guides for your electorates. The Victorian Guides will be posted on-line as soon as the Victorian Electoral Commission posts the final candidate lists. Our Victorian Guides will work much like our Federal Election Guides that provided how-to-vote information and more for each of the 151 federal electorates and the Senate. Assuming we can get some help from NSW groups, we’ll also produce information for the NSW State Election next year.
Featured Image: King Charles III follows behind the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II as it is carried out of Westminster Abbey. The hours-long ceremony reminded viewers of the power of silence. (WPA Pool / Getty Images) / via the LA Times (read the article)
Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.
