Fluff from the naval of my mind

There is much to hate about the Global Warming movement, especially the politics involved. Any query is met with, ‘denialist!’, irrespective of the merit of the question. There is also a tendency to overstate the case.

A Newsnight episode back at the start of December 2009 invited an ex-scientific advisor to the UK government to present the case for global warming to the great unwashed public. Almost the first words out of his mouth were, ‘if all land ice melted the sea level would rise by 100 metres’. Now, this may be true but it is nothing, nothing, to do with the current debate. The IPCC present a worst case scenario for the next hundred years, in which it predicts… Prepare yourself… A rise in sea level of… 0.58 meters.

Now, call me a cynic but 100m is just a little different in its impact that less than 60cm.

Yes. The world is warming.

This warming may even be a direct consequence of human activity (the case for this is less than overwhelming). But even if it is the case that current warming trends are wholly attributable to human activity this in no way implies that the solution lies in some form of self flagellation, hand wringing, or even self denial.

The problem is that current climate models are akin to Ptolemaic models of the cosmos. Somewhat shaky in the ability to make predictions and subject to constant revisions in the light of new data (and there is nothing wrong with this providing we do not pretend any degree of certitude where none exists).

I say, continue the research, continue improving our understanding of the immensely complex relationships that affect the climate, but for heaven’s sake do not pretend that by cutting carbon emissions we will fix things or even make them substantially better in the future. Even the IPCC‘s own report makes fairly conservative estimates of the difference such measures would make and even worst case predictions place almost all of human enterprise in a better position in 100 years than they are now, even if we do nothing.

Apart from the current inability to accurately forecast climate change, there is the more general problem of how we deal with the change when it comes (and the one thing of which we can be certain is that the climate will change in one way or another, it always has, and it always will).

So, do we succumb to the political promise of a globally concerted effort to change the climate, or do we unilaterally prepare for the worst while hoping for the best?

Let’s consider the global option first. This option assumes that all countries will agree to reducing carbon emissions for the greater good. Even if we assume such action will actually make a difference to the climate the chances of actually getting all countries of the world to agree and actually act on that agreement is so close to zero it might as well be zero.

The governments of the world cannot even agree on how best to control an entirely artificial system like the world banking system so what are the odds they will control something like the climate? What do you suppose the motivation is for rising industrial countries to curb their carbon emissions at the request of countries that have already accrued all the benefits from burning fossil fuels? And if countries like China and India do nothing, what will the response from the West be? Just sit back and lose competitive advantage? I doubt it.

So, there’s pretty much no chance of curbing the current carbon emissions in any serious way. Certainly not enough to actually change the climate significantly.

The alternative approach is to shovel money into dealing with the, pretty well inevitable, consequences of climate change. Figure out how to grow crops in arid conditions and obtaining greater crop yields, using genetic modification if necessary. Work on engineering projects to protect against flood or drought (according to need). Work on better utilisation of land for living to deal with denser populations. This is the approach mankind has always taken; use tools, make fire and clothing, in other words modify your immediate environment to suit yourself and protect against the vagaries of climate, weather and the external environment over which you have little control. It’s has been our evolutionary advantage for over 60,ooo years and I suspect it will continue to be into the foreseeable future.

In the meanwhile, work on alternative sources of energy. After all fossil fuels will eventually run out, even if they are not abandoned. Solar, wind, water are all eco-appealing and all of them are more or less uselessly inadequate to sustain the growing energy demands of the human race. Nuclear is the only realistic source of energy at the moment.

Although nuclear fission has done well, it is not very efficient and has that nasty tendency to produce byproducts that kill people. It is puzzling why governments are not investing more heavily in nuclear fusion research. (Well, actually it’s not puzzling when you look at tax revenue generated from fossil fuels and all the lobbying interests that accompany them.)

Nuclear fusion is safe (sustaining a reaction is so difficult that any accident at a fusion plant would almost instantly result in a failure of the reaction releasing little more than a bang and a cloud of water, hydrogen and helium) and the byproduct of, for example, hydrogen fusion is helium; neither of which pose a great risk in the small quantities required in a fusion reactor. Sadly, producing a sustained fusion reaction is still a few years away.

The really sad thing is that governments are not seriously finding fusion research, the one energy source that holds the promise of fulfilling the worlds energy requirements cleanly and cheaply. It’s more politic to keep talking about measures like carbon capture and carbon reduction. Measures that are easy to promise and almost impossible to deliver. Measures for which an easy promise will garner great headlines today, but with the promised (and far from certain) rewards decades away, politicians today will never be held accountable for their failure.