Basing policies and capaigns on outdated information is not likely to lead to positive outcomes. Thats where this report comes in.

The ‘Climate Safety’ report gives a simple summary of the latest science, delivering a clear message that to have any chance of maintaining a safe climate, we must rapidly decarbonise our society, preserve global sinks, and address the problem with an unprecedented degree of seriousness.

Even with a commitment to 80% carbon cuts by 2050, “Climate Safety” warns that our current policy response does not match up to the scale of the challenge.

Get you climate science knowledge bang up to date with this report by well respected UK group PIRC. I think that George Monbiot’s puts it better than i could:

“You cannot overstate the importance of this report: it has opened my eyes to levels of climate risk far beyond those of which I was aware. Crisp, clear-headed and profoundly shocking, this report should be read immediately by everyone who cares.”

New ecological science increases calls for forest protection movement to unite in campaign to protect all ancient forests.

September 11, 2008
By Earth’s Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet (EI)
http://www.ecoearth.info/newsdesk/

A new study in the journal Nature finds old-growth forests are “carbon sinks” and continually absorb carbon dioxide [1]. Australian researchers recently found logging primary forests releases 40 percent of their carbon [2]. These findings discredit decades of thought that primary forests are carbon neutral and only young forests continue to remove carbon.

The Earth’s remaining ancient forests need to be fully protected not just because destroying them will release huge stores of greenhouse gases while destroying biodiversity – but because science now knows what many of us intuited — they continue in perpetuity to absorb massive amounts of new carbon dioxide. The environmental movement must respond accordingly.

This causes discomfort for groups like Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) that actively support ancient forest logging. They campaign for certified industrial first- time harvest of primary forests, and to establish some protected areas, while acquiescing to ancient forest logging
elsewhere. They work to end coal use, but not ancient forest logging. New ecological science indicates their discredited forest campaigns cause climate change and block ecologically
sufficient policies.

Thirty percent of global forests are unmanaged primary forests or regenerating ld-growth forests. These ancient forests in Canada, Russia and Alaska alone absorb 1.3 gigatonnes of carbon annually, about ten percent of global emissions. Much of their carbon, including in the soil, “will move back to the atmosphere if these forests are disturbed… Carbon accounting
rules for forests should give credit for leaving old-growth forest intact,” conclude Oregon State University researchers in Nature.

Greenpeace and RAN — and virtually every major forest campaign — continue to focus upon establishing protected areas in some remaining wildernesses, and making first-time
industrial logging less damaging elsewhere. After millennia of terrestrial ecosystem destruction by humans, and over a century of failed logging reform, ecologically driven activists question the dominant failed paradigm that logging primeval forests can ever be justified. This has led to a major schism in the forest protection movement, which is not going to go away easily.

Both RAN and Greenpeace recently celebrated Ontario, Canada’s promise to protect Boreal Forests in coming decades in exchange for continued industrial development now. Since the
announcement, plans to log old-growth forests in Ontario’s Temagami region have been fast-tracked, and logging giant AbitibiBowater has taken the agreement as a green light to
intensify logging. This occurs with Greenpeace and RAN’s blessing, because there may be some protections in 15 years.

Greenpeace activists last week boarded a logging ship in Papua New Guinea (PNG) to prevent Malaysian-owned logging company Rimbunan Hijau from exporting timber to China. “We need to
urgently protect these ancient forests to save our climate… Greenpeace is asking the PNG government to establish a moratorium on any new large-scale logging,” said campaigner
Sam Moko. Given PNG’s two earlier, largely Greenpeace inspired, temporary moratoriums in past decades, that led to no changes in forest policy, perhaps Greenpeace should work to END ancient forest logging in PNG and globally, before the forests are gone.

Britain’s Prince Charles called yesterday for the world to act with a “sense of wartime urgency” to protect the rainforests, warning they were “umbilically connected” to the phenomenon of
climate change. The heir to the British throne says rainforests “are the world’s lifebelt”, acting as the “world’s air conditioning system” and helping store the largest body of flowing water on the planet. Such ambitious, ecologically- based policy is welcome from the nation that unleashed industrialism.

For over a decade, Ecological Internet (EI) — the world’s leading exclusively Internet-based forest and climate campaigners — has called for an end to all primary and old- growth forest logging as necessary to save the Earth’s climate and biodiversity. Active campaigns seek to end ancient forest logging in Tasmania, Australia and British Columbia, Canada. EI has campaigned to have Greenpeace and RAN change their forest policies, and given current science, their hand to
continue doing so has been strengthened.

The response has been nearly total silence, with some ridicule and questioning of motives. Yet, there are important discussions regarding how forests relate to global ecological sustainability that must be held, and EI and allies will persevere. Are there enough ancient forests remaining to
sustain atmospheric processes? Can first time industrial logging of ancient forests ever be done carefully enough to maintain carbon, species and other values? Is wide-scale industrial development of primary forests acceptable if indigenous peoples so desire? Why are Greenpeace and RAN stonewalling such important questions?

According to EI President, Dr. Glen Barry, “Greenpeace and RAN must engage in public dialogue, and review their forest campaigns, to bring them up to date with ecological science and planetary conditions. Emphasis must be upon requirements to maintain the Earth’s atmosphere and all life’s habitats – regardless of difficulty — and this means leaving old-growth standing. Until all forest defenders embrace full protection for ancient forests, ecologically sufficient forest campaigns
cannot succeed. Continued refusal makes Greenpeace and RAN legitimate targets of protest.”

References:

[1] Old-growth forests as global carbon sinks. Nature 455, 213-215 (September 11, 2008).

[2] Green Carbon: The role of natural forests in carbon storage. ANU E Press (July 2008).

At the camp for climate action one idea that was certainly doing the rounds is that we only have 100 months to bring the planets emissions down to a level where they can be absorbed by natural systems. I`ve just traced this idea back to a website called onehunderedmonths.org which basically acts as the home to a new report (PDF) on tackling climate change. Word started to spread about this idea via The Guardian, and is now being helped along by emails and posters–the template for which can be downloaded from the website. Another interesting report (PDF) using the 100 months idea and from the same group of people is by a group calling themselves the Green New Deal Group…a very interesting enterant into the UK climate change arena.

Anyone interested in the science behind these ideas should check out EcoEquity, James Hansen or Malte Meinhausen for starters. I can send pdf’s if that would be helpful.

Twenty years after his first testimony to congress about the dangers of climate change James Hansen is back. According to the New York times he is back with attitude. Or more seriously, he has long since run out of patience with obstructionist politicians and companies that are pushing us all down a destructive path that we need not be on. The timeline of climate change and its public presentation durning the last twenty years is here.

Hansen called for the trial of oil company CEO’s who where involved in spreading misinformation about climate change in an attempt to stifle decisive action. An attempt that worked and that we are not paying the price for. Interestingly the NYT ignored this aspect of the story! We have to cross the channel and read the Telegraph or the Guardian to find out about Hansen’s statements on the parralles between big oil and big tabacco and how they delt with science.

Hansen tells the Guardian:

When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that’s a crime.

Against this backdrop it is rather sad to see Gordon Brown begging for more oil. New Labour don’t seem to get it–The opportunities of greentech, and the need for action, that is.

Given the current flooding in Iowa it’s probably not a bad time to publish one of the most comprehensive reports yet on North American weather and the way that it is being effected by climate change. Well, that what the US Climate Science Program has done.

Related:

• 4 Page Summary.
• Climate Science Posts on Climate Change Action.
• Posts relating to the USA on Climate Change Action.

No matter how deep the hole we’re in, you can always find willing shovellers. The road lobby is pressuring New Labour for an abandonment of any and all things green. With a perspective that only stretches as far as the next election they may well capitulate. Funny how industries without electoral clout are allowed to go to the wall of “economic conditions” but Middle England can be as unsustainable as it likes as long as it keeps the balance of power.

Meanwhile, now that the ice is clearing, Governments and MultiNationals are free to squabble over who should drill the shit out of the Arctic seabed and push us all that bit closer to the edge.

Alex Smith over at Radio Ecoshock produces a continuous stream of good climate change related discussions and interviews; so head on over and check out the extensive archives.

The latest shows that Alex has just informed me about cover:

1. The state of current climate science as compared to the latest IPCC 4AR. (MP3)
2. The denial tactics used by the fossil fuel industry, a talk by Ross Gelbspan.(MP3)
3. Tim Flannery talking about the sort of problem that climate change represents and some insperation for solutions from the past.(MP3)

Alex over at Radio Ecoshock passed this over to me, a facinating program by Ken Caledira of the Carnegie Institute speaking over at the amazing 3CR community radio out of Melbourne, Australia.

News climate science interview.

“And our simulations only went out about five hundred years, but at the end of five hundred years, you more or less have about as much warming as you had at the maximum warming after the CO2 emissions. And so this idea, that “Oh, this CO2 emission warms the Earth, and then in a century, or two centuries, it’s mostly away” is really the wrong picture. More accurate is to say that each emission of CO2 produces a step, you know, increase in temperature that remains pretty much level for many centuries, and then decays away over many thousands of years.”

James Hansen just sent this out on his email list:

I just did an interview with CNN (Miles O’Brien) re “censoring science”. The point I emphasized is that overreaching by the Executive Branch, trying to make government science
submit to political command and control, is a threat to our democracy, and, as a result, a threat to the planet. The scary part about this story is that seeds have been sown, and a playbook has been codified (although not written!), that will make the situation much worse unless the American public recognizes the problem and makes an issue of it. This is a bi-partisan problem – and neither party is trying to fix it. It is remarkable how wimpish Congress has become in accepting subjugation to the Executive Branch, contrary to designs and intents of our Founding Fathers.

Congressional testimony.

Do you know that before a government scientist testifies to Congress his/her testimony is typically reviewed and edited by the White House Office of Management and Budget? When I asked for a justification, I was told that a government scientist’s testimony “needs to be consistent with the President’s budget”. Huh? There have never been any budget numbers in my testimony or in the testimony of most scientists. And OMB’s editing of the scientific content is invariably designed to make the testimony fit better with the position of the political party in power (yes, it is a bi-partisan problem). Where is it stated or implied in the Constitution that the Executive Branch should have such authority? (Actually, does the Constitution not vest control of the purse strings to Congress?) Why does not Congress get incensed about this and fight back?

Offices of Propaganda.

The Public Affairs Offices (PAOs) of science agencies have become mouthpieces for the Administration in power. This, too, is a bi-partisan problem. Top people in the Headquarters Offices of Public Affairs can and often are thrown out in a heart-beat when an
election changes the party in control of the Executive Branch.

The Executive Branch has learned that the PAOs can be effective political instruments
and, with some success, they are attempting to turn them into Offices of Propaganda, masters of double-speak (“clean coal”, “clear skies”, “healthy forests”…) that would make Orwell envious. Again it is a bi-partisan problem, the control of PAOs being exercised by top political appointees who are replaced rapidly with a change of administration. It is these political appointees that are the problem – the career civil servants at the NASA Centers, e.g., are professionals of high integrity, as are most people at Headquarters.

One may wonder: why doesn’t the media object to this situation? I believe that I learned
the reason: it is encapsulated in the phrase “that’s hearsay!”. I heard that phrase over and over
again in 2004 after I stated publicly that NASA press releases were being spirited from NASA
HQ to the White House for either editing or deep-sixing, when they concerned “sensitive” topics
such as global warming. Even NPR did not seem to want to touch that story unless there were
multiple pieces of proof on paper.

The phrase “that’s hearsay” seems to make the media folks quake in their boots,
doubtless because of the threat of a lawsuit. That probably explains why the New York Times
stories about censorship of scientists at NASA that came out in early 2006 became a story about
a low-level 24-year-old, who then “resigned”. Reporters, New York Times included, knew that
the problem went much higher, but instead of focusing on the threat to democracy, it became
too-much an amusing story about a renegade trying to reverse scientific understanding of the
“big bang”, etc.

The actual story is made crystal clear in the new book “Censoring Science” by Mark Bowen (author of “On Thin Ice”, a gripping, albeit long, story about Lonnie Thompson’s quest for ice cores from alpine glaciers). Bowen gets insiders at HQ and elsewhere to provide extensive information, most of it “on the record”, about how PAO works to cover its tracks (“Gretchen, don’t e-mail me on this!” There are some heroines in this story, middle level people who refused to comply with orders from political appointees that they recognized as being inappropriate.) By the way, I gave Bowen some long interviews and documentation (and my
mug is on the book jacket), but I have no financial interest in the book.

The scary part of this story is that PAO political appointees are learning how to cover their tracks. The picture that Bowen presents is one in which PAO political appointees can communicate directly with the White House. One has to wonder, if the Administrator objected to the PAO political appointee activities, how long would it be before he was on the soup line? As the tracks are covered better and better, it is as if we have a shadow government organization controlling information that the public receives.

How to fix it?

There is an article “Freedom of Speech in Government Science” in the current
Issues in Science and Technology, Winter 2008, pages 31-34, by David Resnik. Presumably
Resnik is well-intentioned, but I take vehement exception to one of his bottom lines. The article
sounds fine for the most part, but keep in mind the common technique of telling you ten things
that are true followed by slipping in the whopper, the very questionable point or conclusion
concerning the main point of interest. Here is Resnik’s whopper:

“…when a government scientist communicates with the media, the public (or even
journalists) may mistakenly assume that the scientist is speaking for the government, when he or she is expressing only a personal opinion. If the scientist expresses an opinion that goes against official policy, this can creates (sic) confusion in the public mind. To minimize confusion and to enable an administration to convey consist (sic) policy messages, it is appropriate to allow public relations officers to review a government scientist’s communications with the media.”
Perhaps I am taking his statement out of context, but he seems to mean review the
statement before it is made. This is where we need the Mercedes-driving lawyers
(http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/distro_Lawlessness_070927.pdf) to help us. What Resnik is
saying, which PAO would latch onto in a heartbeat, consists of “prior restraint”, as he suggests
review prior to a testimony or statement being made, not correction after the fact by the
government. If prior approval for scientific opinions are required, a scientist does not have a
snowball’s chance in Hades of providing his unadulterated opinion on a “sensitive” subject.

This is true regardless of which party is in power. The most horrific experience that I
ever had with NASA PAO was in 2000 during a Democratic administration when I tried to get a
press release through on “Global warming in the twenty-first century: An alternative scenario”,
which emphasized the importance of non-CO2 climate forcings. After umpteen iterations, I threw in the towel.

Resnik suggests that the best way to safeguard free speech in government science is for a
scientific organization, such as the American Association for the Advancement for Science
(AAAS), to designate a committee or group to focus on these issues. That may do some good,
but by itself it will do little.

The presumption of democracy is that the public is informed, honestly informed.
Government scientists work for the tax payer and should be allowed to report their research
results without political interference. Elected officials can use scientific information as they see
fit – they must consider all factors in making policies, not just scientific data. But they should
not be allowed to torque the scientific data, or choose what information is allowed to be
presented and what information is deep-sixed. Such filtering, which is a recipe for bad decisions
and poor management, has never been as intense as in the past several years, in my opinion.

The main problems could be fixed as follows:

• Public Affairs Offices should be staffed by career professionals protected by civil service rules, not headed by political appointees,
• the practice of the White House OMB reviewing scientific testimony should be dropped.

These changes would be simple to make, they would allow the public to be better
informed, the government would have a more complete picture for making decisions, the tax
payers would get their money’s worth. So why doesn’t it happen? Because, when a new
Administration comes in they say “Hey, now WE can control the Offices of Propaganda (even
though they consider them offices of their enlightened truth) and make OUR administration look good!

What is needed is a bi-partisan agreement that these changes would be in the interest of
the nation. But it is just not going to happen unless the public gets involved. Politicians do not
give up instruments of political power AFTER an election that they have won, unless they made
an unambiguous promise before the election. We should be asking the candidates for President
“will you make these two specific changes, to take the politics out of scientific reporting?” And
then we must check to see that the changes are made when a new administration takes over.

Well, I failed to expound on the relation between the threat to our democracy and the threat to
our planet, but I am running out of gas and need to work on a scientific paper. The relation is
discussed in (http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/worldwatch_nov2006.pdf), and better in Bowen’s “Censoring Science” (Dutton, 2008). Would you believe that the current head of NASA PAO had a senior position in the Southern Company, the second largest holding company of coalburning utilities in the United States? Naw, just kidding. Or am I? Read the book.

‘IPCC 4AR Summary for Policy Makers‘ (PDF) finally released.

Sorry for being a few days late with this one. If, however, you haven’t read the entire IPCC report in three volumes then this is where the delay stops. Your excuses are at an end, this summary document is what government ministers and heads of state are expected to read. So if you want to know the basis on which decisions are made at the forthcomming Bali climate talks then this is the place to start. It’s only 23 pages so get to it!

The document is introduced and discussed in this webcast (via IPCC.ch)