Goal of holding temperature rise to only 2° C may be impossible

[dtotire]

Open thread for night owls: Goal of holding temperature rise to only 2° C may be impossible

http://www.dailykos.com/

Fiona Harvey at The Guardian writes Worst ever carbon emissions leave climate on the brink:

Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency.

The shock rise means the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius – which scientists say is the threshold for potentially "dangerous climate change" – is likely to be just "a nice Utopia", according to Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA. It also shows the most serious global recession for 80 years has had only a minimal effect on emissions, contrary to some predictions.
Last year, a record 30.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere, mainly from burning fossil fuel – a rise of 1.6Gt on 2009, according to estimates from the IEA regarded as the gold standard for emissions data. ...

• About 80% of the power stations likely to be in use in 2020 are either already built or under construction, the IEA found. Most of these are fossil fuel power stations unlikely to be taken out of service early, so they will continue to pour out carbon – possibly into the mid-century. The emissions from these stations amount to about 11.2Gt, out of a total of 13.7Gt from the electricity sector. These "locked-in" emissions mean savings must be found elsewhere. ...

Another telling message from the IEA's estimates is the relatively small effect that the recession – the worst since the 1930s – had on emissions. Initially, the agency had hoped the resulting reduction in emissions could be maintained, helping to give the world a "breathing space" and set countries on a low-carbon path. The new estimates suggest that opportunity may have been missed.

[Tesha]

1. We've known that (to a pretty good certainty) for a while now.

It's especially obvious when you factor in human behavior.

"But CFLs buzzzz and incite my asthma attacks!"

"But I need my truck to haul my boat trailer!"

Tesha

[GliderGuider]

2. The only thing that reduces CO2 emissions is global economic meltdown.

In 2008-2009 the global recession caused a sharp drop in CO2 emissions. In 2010 they rebounded thanks to the attempted recovery.

We can have a comfortable economy or a comfortable climate, just not both at the same time.

I'm rooting for a (Peak Oil, food price and complexity)-induced global economic crash. It's the only thing that will save us. :evilgrin:

[Nederland]

3. Or a breakthrough technology...

If a power source significantly cheaper than coal is developed, I can't believe countries won't start shutting down coal plants. Naturally it would have to either be quite a bit cheaper, or slightly cheaper with minimal upfront costs to motivate that move.

[GliderGuider]

4. Which is more likely, a magic technology or a continuing and worsening recession?

Sorry, I don't buy into the idea of magic tech. Hell, I don't even buy into the idea that the renewables we already have can save the day.

I do buy into the idea of economic disaster - it's well understood, we are already implementing it, it's infinitely scalable, and it has been proven to help.

[Nederland]

20. Actually the most likely scenario is that the Club of Rome is wrong

Given that they have consistently been wrong in their estimates of how quickly resource limits will be reached, I wonder why you place so much faith in their latest predictions?

[GliderGuider]

21. A Comparison of the Limits to Growth with 30 Years of Reality

http://www.csiro.au/files/files/plje.pdf

Published in 2008. From the conclusions:

As shown, the observed historical data for 1970-2000 most closely matches the simulated results of the LtG "standard run" scenario for almost all the outputs reported; this scenario results in global collapse before the middle of this century. The comparison is well within uncertainty bounds of nearly all the data in terms of both magnitude and the trends over time. Given the complexity of numerous feedbacks between sectors incorporated in the LtG World3 model, it is instructive that the historical data compares so favorably with the model output.

And:

The comparison presented here also emphasizes that the LtG did not predict collapse of the global system by 2000, contrary to pervasive but incorrect claims.

Did you actually read the book?

[Nederland]

22. Predictions about resource consumption have been accurate

The assumptions that the report made about the supply of those resources were not. For example the original Limits to Growth had peak oil occurring in 1992, which obviously did not happen because the supply of oil turned out to be much greater than what the report thought. More amusingly, the review you linked to defends the report by noting that "The World3 model was not intended to be predictive". If this is true, what is the basis for the warning the group made in 1992 (according to the Greer article) that if the industrialized world does not launch a massive program to achieve sustainability within a few years, the chance to prevent industrial collapse and die-off will have been missed?

You can't have it both ways. You cannot on the one hand say that the report makes no predictions while simultaneously calling for a "massive program" to save the world. Before you can call for the world to be saved, you have to in fact prove that it is in need of saving.

[GliderGuider]

23. Do I sound like I think the world needs saving?

I don't, actually. Salvation is for suckers. There is nothing to be saved for, nothing to be saved from. There's just life. Live it as you will. (When I said, "It's the only thing that will save us" above I was being ironic.)

If they did make that prediction about missing the chance, I think they were pretty much bang on. I think we did miss it, right in that 1992-1995 time frame. As a result things will be different in the future than they would have been otherwise. So what else is new? That's just the way linear, single-stream time works in this reality. You make a choice (or not), and the future unfolds from there.

Oh, and the basis for the statement about missing the chance was that they re-ran the simulation and realized we had entered overshoot. That would have been a good time to think about becoming sustainable, don't you think?

[wtmusic]

6. Before you pipe up with that theme in another thread

I'm wondering how you make the leap from the fact that it has reduced emissions, to the conclusion it's the only thing that reduces emissions?

:shrug:

[GliderGuider]

7. It's the only thing that has reduced them so far.

Nuclear power hasn't, renewables haven't. The world's economy is basically powered by fossil fuels, so it makes sense that the only thing that would reduce fossil fuel use is economic decline. Unless we somehow unlink the world economy from fossil fuels, this will continue to be the case. We have shown no signs of doing that yet, so I think that in this case the past is a reasonable first approximation of the future.

[kristopher]

8. That isn't true.

No one has expected renewables to "reduce" existing fossil fuel use as this point. There is an anticipated trajectory under current policies - that by 2020 we will be meeting all increases in demand with renewables, and that by 2030 we will start to significantly displace existing fossil generation.
I've seen no indication that we are not on track to do that.

[GliderGuider]

9. Show me the beef.

Policies are all well and good, but until they actually start showing results I'll reserve my opinion. The point is that if it takes us until 2020 just to meet new demand with renewables, and then until 2030 to start displacing FF, the possibility of holding the climate to 2 degrees C is a forlorn hope.

On the other hand, it wouldn't take us until 2020 to implement an economic disaster, especially since we've already made such a good start. We should be able to achieve a 50% reduction in economic activity by then, given just a 6% per annum decline in world economic output. When accounting for improving energy intensity and some small shift to renewables, that should net us a 60% decline in fossil fuel use.

It will be difficult of course, but nothing worthwhile is ever painless. If we all work together at this we should be able to meet the target and save the planet. :evilgrin:

[kristopher]

10. Slightly OT

Have you absorbed and considered the difference in the two parts of structure? Does it lead you to any conclusions about how we might change our trajectory?

2. STRUCTURE

A. Domestic Economy: Consists of a small number of people who interact on an intimate basis. They perform many functions, such as regulating reproduction, basic production, socialization, education, and enforcing domestic discipline.

B. Political economy: These groups may be large or small, but their members tend to interact without any emotional commitment to one another. They perform many functions, such as regulating production, reproduction, socialization, and education, and enforcing social discipline.

[GliderGuider]

11. Yes I have considered the difference

So far the main thing that occurs to me is that domestic economies are more amenable to rational restructuring. The situations a family needs to deal with are immediate, small enough in scale to be affected by individual actions, the members are more motivated to make changes, and the smaller number of people involved means that interference from the herding instincts of the brain's limbic system should be less pronounced.

On the other hand, political economies are larger and behave more like supertankers in terms of steerability. The problems they deal with tend to be (or at least be seen as) less immediate and are more abstract. This means that there is less motivation to change. Our herding instinct makes us believe that in the event of a problem someone else in the herd will get pulled down, not us - so long as we hide inside the herd those at the margins will get eaten first. As a result there's less incentive to make the herd change course. Also, the fact that so many players in a political economy need to agree in order for there to be significant change also works against rapid change, as we've seen with climate change conferences.

Political economies are models of stability in good times, but they are at a huge disadvantage in times of a rapidly unfolding, but abstract crisis (such as in banking, peak oil or climate change). Domestic economies are less stable in general, but more responsive.

In terms of how we might leverage that to change our trajectory, i come back to convincing individuals of the nature of the crisis period we're entering. Individuals can incorporate that awareness into their domestic economies, and act in their own interest despite what's happening on the political level. Like taking up cycling, gardening, home solar and reducing expenditures even though the political level insists there will be no intractable problems with oil, climate, food or banking

The differences makes me strongly favour a grass-roots approach, because I don't think that the political economy can catch this one in time. That leaves individuals, families and small communities as the domain of interest.

[GliderGuider]

13. John Michael Greer's latest article also addresses this issue.

Greer doesn't use Harris' terminology, but he clearly distinguishes between the inability of the political economy to address the oncoming crisis versus what it takes for a grass-roots response.

http://www.countercurrents.org/greer290511A.htm">Facing The New Dark Age: A Grassroots Approach

The Club of Rome team twisted their computer models nearly to the breaking point to find a plan of action that would avert catastrophe if it was adopted immediately. The resulting plan was politically impossible – it would have required the citizens of the United States to accept Third World living standards – and it never reached the stage of public discussion. Even such feeble measures as the Kyoto greenhouse gas accords failed to win global support, and the dubious Republican “victory” in the 2000 presidential election made any attempt to face the looming future a dead issue until 2005 at the very earliest.

Many people come out of school thinking of civilization as some vague assemblage of art, literature, buildings, and government. At its core, though, a civilization is a system for producing and distributing goods and services. Roman civilization included not only temples and emperors but also grain markets, aqueducts, roads, and soldiers. When Rome fell, the population crash that followed was not caused by a shortage of temples. It happened because grain no longer reached the markets, goods no longer traveled over the roads, and legionaries no longer kept barbarians on the other side of the frontier.

Once the problem is put in these terms, the core strategy of response is obvious. If industrial civilization faces inevitable collapse, the crucial step that must be taken now is the rediscovery and deployment of non-industrial means of survival. A few critical skills have already been preserved or rediscovered and passed on in this way; consider the case of the organic agriculture movement, which has evolved efficient, sustainable methods of growing food without petrochemicals using human muscle as the only energy source, producing yields exceeding those of modern industrial farming. Using such methods, a spare but nutritionally complete diet for one person for one year can be raised on less than 1000 square feet of soil. Unfortunately only a small minority of farmers and a somewhat larger fraction of home gardeners practice these essential skills.

What would a grassroots approach to the coming crisis look like? It would begin with individuals learning the skills needed to build a sustainable society within the shell of the collapsing industrial system. These people would revive the basic skills of postindustrial survival, learning how to light a fire, grow a garden, treat an illness, and fight off an assault without any help from the industrial system, using simple hand tools and the capacities of their own bodies and minds. These skills would be practiced and mastered, not merely learned intellectually, so they could be used and taught to others at a moment’s notice.

I agree with JMG that the future belongs to the gentle eccentrics among us who garden, weave, make cabinets and clothes, gather herbs, brew their own beer, cook from scratch and perhaps know how to shoot a bow and arrow. Even if their skills aren't required within the next twenty years, they are sure to be in demand sooner or later. History makes that abundantly clear.

[wtmusic]

14. Nuclear power hasn't reduced CO2 emissions?

Take America's daily utility CO2 output, multiply by .25.

That's how much CO2 is being reduced by nuclear power right now, every day of the year.

[GliderGuider]

15. Reduced, not "avoided". As in, made emissions actually decline.

I agree that the USA would be putting more CO2 in the air without nuclear power. But nuclear power hasn't actually reduced the amount of CO2 you're producing. Actual reduction of emissions is what is critical to fighting climate change, not simply doing more stuff with energy from other sources.

[guardian]

17. Rooting for DOOM

"'m rooting for a (Peak Oil, food price and complexity)-induced global economic crash. It's the only thing that will save us. "


Thank you for confirming.

[kristopher]

5. The IEA is controlled by nuclear exporting nations.

At this moment, given the focus on damage control related to the Fukushima disaster by France, the US and Russia, I would give little weight to "preliminary reports" from any entity known to serve the economic needs of entrenched energy industries. When numbers are final and reviewed, then I'll take them more seriously.

[XemaSab]

12. If my "goal" is to retire with $10,000,000 in the bank when I'm 30

and I'm 29 now and I have a crappy McJob and I spend every dollar I earn on booze and punk concerts, can the $10 mil really be said to be a "goal?" Or more like "wishful thinking?" 'Cause the idea that we have any power to hold temperature rise to 2 degrees when we're partying like we are now seems more like a fantasy than a "goal."

[kristopher]

16. Sez the person that can't be bothered to use a clothes line...

And who never met a renewable project that she didn't malign.

[XemaSab]

18. Sez the person who spent the entire day

digging out the lawn and planting drought-tolerant plants for birds, bees, and butterflies.

[kestrel91316]

19. Goal of saving human civilization from its own hubris likely impossible, too.