There are a couple of news stories about greenhouse gasses with a one hand/other hand pairing. Good news first - below the Orange Omnilepticon.
At New Scientist, there's a report that "the maddening pace of humanity's greenhouse gas emissions showed signs of a global slowdown."
...Importantly, the emissions rise is considerably less than the increase in global GDP of 3.5 per cent. "We see a decoupling of CO2 emissions from global economic growth," says Greet Janssens-Maenhout of the JRC in Ispra, Italy, a co-author on the report.
The three biggest emitters – China, the US and the European Union – which account for more than half of global emissions, all show this decoupling effect. The most dramatic drop was in the US, which cut CO2 emissions by 4 per cent last year, despite its economy growing by 2.8 per cent. US emissions are now 12 per cent below their 2007 peak, and back to levels of two decades ago, the US Energy Information Administration confirms. It says a big switch from coal to shale gas in 2012 was accompanied by a 5 per cent reduction in the energy needed to create each dollar of wealth.
There are several encouraging things going on here - the global economy is starting to pick up, but greenhouse gas emissions are NOT increasing at the same pace. This gives the lie to the oft heard claim that "We can't do anything about Global Warming because it would hurt the economy." It does seem to be possible to decouple the two.
Second, this is happening without a strong international framework to force such a change, which means - although such agreements couldn't hurt - progress is still being made. A companion editorial piece at New Scientist explores this in more detail.
BUT...
Over at the BBC, the flip side of this news is a reminder of how far we have to go.
The levels of gases in the atmosphere that drive global warming increased to a record high in 2012.
According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), atmospheric CO2 grew more rapidly last year than its average rise over the past decade.
Concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide also broke previous records
Thanks to carbon dioxide and these other gases, the WMO says the warming effect on our climate has increased by almost a third since 1990.
The WMO's annual greenhouse gas bulletin measures concentrations in the atmosphere, not emissions on the ground.
Carbon dioxide is the most important of the gases that they track, but only about half of the CO2 that's emitted by human activities remains in the atmosphere, with the rest being absorbed by the plants, trees, the land and the oceans.
350.org takes its name from the CO2 ppm number it has been calculated we have to hit to keep global warming under 2° C. What the BBC reports is:
According to the WMO there were 393.1ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2012, an increase of 2.2ppm over 2011.
This was above the yearly average of 2.02ppm over the past decade.
"The observations highlight yet again how heat-trapping gases from human activities have upset the natural balance of our atmosphere and are a major contribution to climate change," said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.
"It is a worry. The more we delay action the bigger the risk we cannot stay under the 2 degree Celsius limit that countries have agreed," he said.
emphasis added
It would perhaps not be altogether reaching to combine these two stories under the headline "Latest Measurements Show We're Killing Ourselves More Slowly."
There has been a pause recently in the rate at which global temperatures have been rising, which it now seems is due to the oceans acting like a heat sink. This is not the best news because A) there is only so much heat the oceans can absorb without consequences (Warmer water has less oxygen dissolved in it, which will affect marine life for example), and B) warming in the Arctic Ocean may lead to large scale releases of methane - a much worse green house gas than CO2.
FWIW, there does seem to be a growing awareness by some that we do have to make changes; in fact we may end up forced to do so. New Scientist has a piece by Jeremy Leggett warning that An oil crash is on its way and we should be ready. While Leggett admits his is a minority view, he does have some important points, among which is the deliberate obtuseness and denial among top executives in the energy sector, the insanity of allowing carbon fuel in the ground we can't possibly extract to burn to still count as assets on company books, and…
...Most of us believe the industry mantra that there will be adequate flows of just-about-affordable oil for decades to come. I am in a minority who don't. Crude oil production peaked in 2005, and oil fields are depleting at more than 6 per cent per year, according to the International Energy Agency. The much-hyped 2 million barrels a day of new US production capacity from shale needs to be put in context: we live in a world that consumes 90 million barrels a day.
It is because of the sheer prevalence of risk blindness, overlain with the pervasiveness of oil dependency in modern economies, that I conclude system collapse is probably inevitable within a few years.
Mine is a minority position, but it would be wise to remember how few whistleblowers there were in the run-up to the financial crash, and how they were vilified in the same way "peakists" – believers in premature peak oil – are today.
emphasis added
So, to continue the Good News/Bad News theme, change IS possible, IS happening, BUT it has to happen faster AND it may come in ways we won't enjoy IF we don't prepare.
An additional item: There are prominent climate scientists now publicly calling for environmentalists to rethink opposition to nuclear power. They're calling for investment in new designs with more safety features built-in. Despite the risks (amply demonstrated here), they've concluded
...While there will be no single technological silver bullet, the time has come for those who take the threat of global warming seriously to embrace the development and deployment of safer nuclear power systems as one among several technologies that will be essential to any credible effort to develop an energy system that does not rely on using the atmosphere as a waste dump.
With the planet warming and carbon dioxide emissions rising faster than ever, we cannot afford to turn away from any technology that has the potential to displace a large fraction of our carbon emissions. Much has changed since the 1970s. The time has come for a fresh approach to nuclear power in the 21st century.
Whether you agree or disagree with them about nuclear power, if nothing else their plea is a demonstration of just how serious they think our situation has become.
|
Help Us Spread the Word About Climate Change
For those of you on Facebook and Twitter: Please help to spread the word by hitting the FB and Tweet links at the top of this diary and if you have time, join the discussion with comments. Share such postings with friends, family, co-workers, and acquaintances.
Thanks, as all of this helps build the Climate Change movement as well as introducing critically important ideas about renewable sources of energy.
Please use hashtags #climate, #eco, and #climatechange to tweet all diaries about the environment.
"Green Diary Rescue" is Back!
After a hiatus of over 1 1/2 years, Meteor Blades has revived his excellent series. As MB explained, this weekly diary is a "round-up with excerpts and links... of the hard work so many Kossacks put into bringing matters of environmental concern to the community... I'll be starting out with some commentary of my own on an issue related to the environment, a word I take in its broadest meaning."
"Green Diary Rescue" will be posted every Saturday at 1:00 pm Pacific Time on the Daily Kos front page. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.
|