Climate Reader 2009

8/3/2019 Climate Reader 2009

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/climate-reader-2009 1/28

climate readercompiled by the Melbourne Climate Action Centre and Carbon Equity

January 2009

open letter to Obama • ten lessons from2008 • Penny Wong in Siberia • rewritingthe terms of debate • missing the point



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in this reader Ten lessons for the climate movement 3

Coal 6

End game for the climate policy paradigm 7

Bubbling our way to the apocalypse 10

Missing the point 13

Keys to a safe climate 17

An open letter to President Obama 18

Dear Jim 19

This is an emergency 21

Climate action groups to Ross Garnaut 26

Resources 30

whyThis collection of provocative ideas, stories, re ections

and science has been assembled by the Climate Action

Centre (Melbourne) and CarbonEquity as a contribution for

participants in the rst national Australian Climate Action

Summit held 31 January to 3 February 2009 in Canberra.

For more try www.carbonequity.info and see back page.If you like our work you can make a donation to help it

continue at www.carbonequity.info/donate.html.

Climate Action Centre

Level 5, New Building, VTHC, Cnr Lygon and Victoria

Streets, Carlton South 3053 Australia

phone 03 9639 3660

[email protected] January 2009

Based on a slide by Robert Corell, Director of Global Change Programs at the Heinz Center



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Looking back at the growth o the climate move-ment, it is clear we have made signi cant progress.More climate groups, better coordination o grass-roots actions, increasing public concern, and eventhe election o the Rudd government are signi cantmarkers.

However, that progress is yet to translate into ameaning ul shi t in policy, let alone spark the trans-ormation o society in Australia and globally that isneeded to prevent catastrophe and ensure a returnto a sa e climate.

1 Changing government does notmean a change in policy

The honeymoon o the Rudd government onclimate is over; divorce is in the air. Many peopleare outraged with the outcome o 5% by 2020 (4% on1990 Kyoto levels) and the polluter- riendly tradingscheme.

But did we really think that the level and deptho mobilisation we have seen to date would lead tothe type o trans ormation that is needed? Even thescale o the Whitlam government re orms, whichrepresent the most substantial changes made bya peacetime Australian government, are minorcompared to the trans ormational changes that areneeded to halt climate change. So we will need apublic mobilisation that dwar s any that Australiaor the world has seen. This means ar more than achange in government.

Yet the strategy o most environment NGOs in2006–08 seemed to be one o mobilising the com-munity to elect a Labor government, and then talkso tly to the new government behind closed doors,rather than continue the mobilisation. As we learnedin 2008, lobbying is meaningless unless the one

looking back moving forward:

ten lessons for theclimate movementby Damien Lawson

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you,then they ght you, then you win.”

– Mahatma Gandhilobbied believes there will be real political conse-quence rom them ailing to act.

2 Continuousmobilisation

So our aim must be the continuous mobilisationo the community. Not turning people on and olike a tap when an issue or election comes up. This

means a ar greater depth o education, communityinvolvement and coordination. For example, whywas The Big Switch website which sought to linkindividuals in their community with their local MPsput in the reezer a ter the election? Arguably thistype o resource is needed more now than ever. Wemust also see our e orts to mobilise community asa long-term project o getting every organisation ina particular locality to recognise the ull implica-tions o climate change and to put the heat on localMPs until they become advocates or the movement,not barriers to action. We need to create movementresources that can do this; the Melbourne ClimateAction Centre is one such modest attempt.

3 If we are not frightenedthen no-one else will be

For a long time there has been a debate in the envi-ronment and now the climate movement about “ earversus hope”. Some say talking too much aboutthe problem will depress people too much or causethem to switch o . We need to advocate “positive

solutions” is the common catch-cry. But this alsedichotomy is o ten a mask or conservative posi-tions that seek to maintain a delusional strategy onclimate change, which sees advocacy o smallimmediately “achievable” steps as the only



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moving forwardapproach that will work.

But the desire to propose small steps that can beeasily adopted by government not only leads to

advocacy o solutions that won’t solve the climateproblem, but o ten also prevents the truth about thereal extent o the climate problem being told. As USactivist Ken Ward points out, there is an odd dis-connect between our raising o the alarm and thenadvocacy o tiny steps that can lead to a disbelie onthe part o those who receive our message.

It is reasonable to be terri ed knowing where theplanet is heading. But the truth is, unless we behavelike terri ed people then why should anyone else?And unless people are terri ed they will notsupport the scale o action that is needed to solvethe problem. As Oscar Wilde said: “The basis ooptimism is sheer terror.”

4 Knocking on doors is asimportant as climbing

smoke-stacks

The grassroots movement has contributed to publicunderstanding o the urgency o the climate prob-lem by civil-disobedience actions that create mediaattention and fag the seriousness with which some

citizens take the issue. But there is a danger that aone-sided emphasis on such actions can substituteor the less glamorous work o engaging the com-munity. We need to nd ways to take the urgency oclimate change direct to people in their communi-ties through door knocking, local events and otherdirect communications. Imagine a national door-knock day where grassroots activists an out acrossthe suburbs bringing a single message o the needor urgent action. Imagine a day where we all pro-test on sports ovals that will be destroyed by climatechange or mark the sea-level rises on our oreshoresand in our community.

But climbing smoke stacks is still important too.We do need more civil disobedience not less.However, the task is to ocus on actions that canmobilise large numbers in civil disobedienceactions, rather than small heroic groups. Smallactions can be part o such mobilisation but cannotsubstitute or wider mobilisation. Only when wehave thousands gathered to sit-in at power stationswill such actions move rom the symbolic and become truly power ul.

5 Alliance building is morethan box-ticking

It’s easy to “build alliances” by having some takingheads sign a joint statement at the end o a one-dayseminar. But i it goes no urther, this is not alliance building, it’s just box ticking. I all it does, or ex-ample, is give a green stamp-o -approval to “cleancoal”proponents or wel are groups who opposeeed-in tari s, it’s worse than doing nothing. Theimportant action is not the signature and the mediarelease, its about the allies – whether they be wel-are groups, unions, churches, armers o businessgroups – taking committed action to educate, re-source and mobilise their member organisations andtheir individual members in support o the proposi-tions and commitments signed on to. Alliance build-ing is about being able to mobilise real political orceacross diverse sectors, and i that isn’t the powerthan has been gained by building alliances, then inthe long run they are not worth the paper they arewritten on.

6 Propose solutionsthat will work

Rudd’s 5% policy should make clear the bankruptcyo the strategy, as one environment NGO leaderdescribed their own climate campaign decision-making, o taking the science and put it througha “political lter”. The targets and proposals wepropose as a movement will be used by politiciansto judge how much and how little they must do,and by the public to assess the actions o politicians.I we continue to advocate policies just beyond whatthe government wants to do (the approach adopted by most o the big climate NGOs), then we will getless than that and have mislead the public as well.

Surely the only credible and viable approach is topatiently build support or a solution that can ullysolve the problem. This means educating the politi-cians and public about why such a solution is neces-sary. Initially the actions o politicians will all shorto our goals, but then they must ace the judgemento an educated public armed with the truth, not the“truth” put through a “political lter”.

When leading scientists are talking about the sa ezone being 280 to 325 ppm and the need or zeroemissions, why can’t the leading climate NGOs get

on board and put the science rst?



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ten lessons7 Stop talking about the reef and

start talking about people

The latest campaign by the ACF about Australia’siconic places is an example o the communicationsailure o the movement. As long as we continue totalk only about the Great Barrier Ree and Kakadu,we will continue to rein orce a perception o climatechange as a threat only to the environment and notthe whole o society and civilisation. We alsomessage a sense that it can be managed like otherenvironment problems.

To make progress, climate needs to be under-stood NOT as an “environment sector” issue, but asa whole-o -society problem that is as much abouthuman rights as anything else. Fundamentally weneed to talk more about the impact on people, not beauti ul places.

The emphasis on Australian impacts by many othe environment NGOs also rein orces this problem.Because it means, or example, the more than one billion people acing the loss o the Himalayan gla-cial melt water are not part o the debate. The ideathat Australians only care about Australian places inthe context o a globalised cosmopolitan society isnarrow in the extreme.

8 But is it the economy,stupid?

The movement was taken down a rabbit hole partlyo its own making a ter the election when we al-lowed the debate to be about the “economic cost”o climate change. As long as the terrain o debateremains on costs, we will lose because while it istechnically possible to show how the “cost oinaction” is greater than the “cost o action”,politcally and emotionally it rein orces a ear o eco-nomic down-turn, loss o jobs and cost to the public.The bankers and corporations we will always winsuch a debate, as we have seen. The planet cannot be reduced to the economy.

Instead we should show clearly that the scale othe disaster means we must act regardless o thecost. The emergency message and the war-time

analogy are crucial in this debate.

9We are activists not

policy advisorsThere is a danger in all movements o being so closeto an issue that we start to believe that all we needto do is create and describe a per ect solution andour job is done. But in reality policy outcomes arenever about the elegance o a solution, but aboutpower. As long as we continue to ocus on emissionwedges and the technicalities about how to get tozero, we will keep losing. Our job is to convince thepublic that the government must x the problem,not come up with the per ect solution. This has

been the use ulness o the message about “climateemergency” because it encapsulates in one phrasethe scale o the problem and the scale o the solutionthat is needed.

10 Our movement is andmust be global

The argument o the Howard and the Rudd gov-ernments that China and India must act and thatclimate change is a global problem has o ten beenstrongly opposed by the climate movement and orgood reason. This argument is used as an excuseor inaction by Australia . However we should notlet such a debate prevent us rom seeing the truthin elements o Rudd’s argument. We cannot solvethe problem in Australia and we do need globalaction and cooperation. For us this means creatingmore global links and cooperation amongst grass-roots movements and continue to leverage o eachother’s actions, as we have done with the ClimateCamp, or example.

We must look or opportunities in 2009 to workwith groups and networks locally and international-ly which have as a goal the mobilising o the globalcommunity around science-based demands.

Damien Lawson is coordinator o the ClimateAction Centre, Melbourne and works or Friends othe Earth Australia. 19 January 2008

“The basis o optimism is sheer terror.”– Oscar Wilde



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Here’s some gures to make youqueasy a ter all that rich Christmas

dinner. As was reported recently,Australia’s bold new short-termgreenhouse gas reduction target isto reduce carbon emissions by 4%on year 1990 levels by 2020. Whatdoes that mean in real terms? Well,according to the National Green-house Gas Inventory, our totalemissions in that re erence yearwere 552.6 Mt (million tonnes) ocarbon dioxide equivalents (CO2-e), with 286.4 Mt o that comingrom energy generation. In 2006(the latest inventory year), it was576.0 Mt, with a whopping 400.9Mt o that now coming romenergy.

So, our world-leading aim is to ‘only’ be emitting530.5 Mt CO2-e by 2020 — a saving o 22 Mt on 1990levels. Forgive me i I’m less than impressed.

But in reality, it’s ar, ar worse than that —actually, ridiculously so.

Why? Go read this news story. To quote Prime

Minister Kevin Rudd:...$580 million o today’s investment will be usedto expand capacity and rail corridors to service the Hunter, the Hunter Valley Coal mines, and o coursetheir connection to the Port o Newcastle.The reporter then blandly notes that this invest-

ment will more than double the export capacity atNewcastle (New South Wales) rom 97 to 200million tonnes o coal a year.

Hmmmm. Let’s see — that’s an extra 103 Mt ocoal being shipped out each year. Now, when you

burn a tonne o coal, you yield about 3.6 tonneso CO2 (since the carbon atom combines with 2 xoxygen atoms). So that’s $580 million o taxpayersmoney being channeled into a handout to the ossiluel industry that will result in an additional 371 MtCO2-e being pumped into the global atmosphereeach year.

Oh, but silly me — it’s all heading o shore, so asthe cartoon says, it’s no longer our problem. Easy asthat! Never mind that this tidy little hal - billion buck in rastructure by the Rudd governmentwill ‘o set’ (read: cancel) our measly 2020 savingsalmost 17 times over...

But wait, there’s more! Actually, this was romearlier in the year, but the wound still smarts whenyou rub salt into it. In April 2008, ‘Environment’Minister Peter Garrett gave the green light or a

COAL: Save a bit here,ship a whole lot there

multi-billion dollar three-phase plan to expandthe Wiggins Island Coal Terminal in Gladstone(Queensland), such that it will be able to export anadditional 84 Mt o coal per year — a decisionapplauded by the Queensland State Government.

Okay, so that’s another 302 Mt CO2-e released by someone, somewhere, up into the great aerialocean. But hey, again, it’s or export, so it’s just notour problem. All 371 + 302 = 673 Mt CO2-e o it. Itdoesn’t matter that these two in rastructure projects,announced in 2008, will result in emissions 17%greater than Australia’s TOTAL CO2-e annual emis-sions, and cancel out our 4% reduction by 2020commitment more than 30 times over. Nah, nosweat. It’s all covered by o shore sequestration.

Treasurer Wayne Swan reckons the above stimu-lus is our ‘best shot’ at avoiding recession. What hedoesn’t say is that it’s also our best shot at ensuringdeadly climate change. But it’s the economy, stupid!So, we’re stu ed, because as Jim Hansen said:

I we cannot stop the building o more coal- red power plants [or supplying them in Australia’s case], thosecoal trains will be death trains — no less gruesomethan i they were boxcars headed to crematoria, loadedwith uncountable irreplaceable species.Reduce 22 Mt here, add 673 Mt there. Yet Mr

Rudd says this trade-o “...gets the balance right“.

Professor Barry Brook holds the Foundation SirHubert Wilkins Chair o Climate Change and is Di-rector o the Research Institute or Climate Changeand Sustainability at the University o Adelaide.http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/12/26/save-a- bit-here-ship-a-whole-lot-there/

Barry Brook



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We elevate climate policy above other avenues because we believe that it is the primary responsibil-ity o environmentalists to cra t the climate changesolution.

Why so? Because we think that i we hit upon just the right ormula – the per ect blend o incen-tives, quasi- ree markets trappings, tax breaks andso on – we can accomplish the political equivalent o

changing lead into gold, and pass e ective climatelegislation without major opposition. But politicalpower is immutable and we are not alchemists.

Policy – a plan o governmental action – is anoutcome o power, not a means o achieving it. Wedo not have enough power to win unctional climatepolicy in the US, and until we do so, there will beno global climate solution.

For twenty years we have approached the prob-lem by pre-negotiating with ourselves on behalo our opposition. We don’t think about it in thoseterms, but that is what climate policy is all about.We calculate what concessions are necessary toplacate whichever interest, power or nation isthought must be molli ed, and then devise ascheme to t within those limits.

There are power ul arguments against the any-thing-is-better-than-nothing philosophy, but there isan even more basic problem with our “policy- rst”approach. The world can only draw back rom theclimate tipping point by trans ormative politicalaction. The details (i.e. policy) o that action are un-knowable to us because we are unaware o , and can-not predict, the conditions, resources and timetablethat will dictate the terms o action when Americadoes accept responsibility or global leadership.

It is possible or us to talk about what America cando when we mobilize to ace a global threat, by draw-ing on US history. The Marshall Plan and post-WWIIreconstruction are o ten used as analogies or a climatesolution, but the US gear-up or war a ter the bombingo Pearl Harbor is more use ul example o the potentialspeed and scale o American mobilization.

A ter Pearl Harbor, the US government toldDetroit to stop manu acturing automobiles orprivate use, and start building tanks and other warmateriel. Automobile production was 162,000 in1941 and zero in 1942. Tank production was <300 in1940 and 25,000 by 1942.

When the US does act decisively on climate, ourgovernment will tell the private sector to stop burn-ing coal and start getting power rom renewableswithin one year, and they will do it because iteasible. The US can’t solve the climate crisis uni-laterally, so we will pay or China to go solar inexchange or shutting down its coal mines (the twonations control 40% o the worlds coal reserves), just as we couldn’t win the war alone, and paid theSoviet Union to keep the second ront open.

Our agenda must aim or that level o action,nothing short o it is su cient, and the details will

not be worked out be orehand. Our present agenda,ocused on US domestic emissions and anything-is-

better-than-nothing, has more in common with thepre-war policies o isolationism and appeasement,

The people sitting on olding chairs in low carbonootprint workshops are much more sophisticatedthen they were a ew years back, and they’re noteasily snowed by charts and graphs peppered with

labels – “wedges” this and RPS that – that purportto show how emissions can go down without ourpower rst going up.

What we have going or us is truth and righteous-ness. What we need is a disciplined, committedclimate core. Both are compromised i we keep fog-ging fimsy policy that cannot solve the problem.

We must be upbeat. Everyday we we receive communications rom ourorganizations enthusing about this or that victory.Here’s one...

Great news. Yesterday, the House o Representatives passed a strong renewable energy standard requiringutilities to provide 12.5% o the state’s electricity romclean, renewable energy sources like wind and solar by2025.I the world must immediately shut down coal

plants to get below 350 ppm, as Hansen advises,then the utilities mentioned in the blurb above have just won themselves a great victory.

We can’t have it both ways. I we are on the astroad to cataclysm and nothing short o massive,global trans ormation is meaning ul, then we muststop seeking and celebrating dinky achievements.At the very least, we must rephrase how they aretrumpeted...

Yesterday, the House o Representatives passed arenewable energy standard requiring utilities to provide12.5% o the state’s electricity rom renewable energysources like wind and solar by 2025. That is 1/6 o totalcuts utilities must make in coal emissions to pull back rom the climate “point o no return.” We believe it iscrucial to get the renewable standard language ontothe books, and have accepted the low percentage. [Ourcampaign] is pledged to immediately return to thelegislature to speed up the trans er rom coal to solarand wind.”

Climate must be pitchedto other interests . Climateprograms spanning the gamut rom Rising Tide, toApollo and NWF assume that people won’t respondto direct calls or climate action. Whether this masscommunications approach is advisable is neitherhere nor there, because it is certainly a disaster orthe climate core and it is a terrible bargain to tradea small but deeply committed base or a supposedmajority that is paper thin.

The olks at the Global Warming Ca é heard two



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di erent stories. Ross talked about the end o theworld, yet managed to encourage hope in the aceo darkness. The gist o our story is that we don’t believe climate change is nearly the problem Rossand the scientists say it is.

We convey our skepticism in two ways. First,we blur our descriptions o the problem so as notto be too alarmist, and second, we put the primary

case or climate action in terms other than avoidingdisaster.To cry catastrophe! and then list bene ts like

green jobs and reduced oil imports to be gained iwe take preventative measures, is odd and con us-ing behavior, like running into a crowded movietheater and shouting “Fire! ,,, and don’t orget to buy popcorn on the way out, with all theunexpected tra c, it’s on sale!”

Unmoored from principle. We are in crisis because the Climate PolicyParadigm has demonstrably ailed to solve theproblem. It also prevents us rom perceiving thatwe are in crisis. One unambiguous signal that wehave sailed into murky waters is our abandonmento the precautionary principle – environmentalism’scentral assumption – without debate.

Environmentalists won inclusion o precautionarylanguage in the Rio Declaration on the Environmentand the Kyoto Protocol. Climate scientists consis-tently re er to this language as the benchmark ordeciding are necessary and appropriate responses to

climate change.In 2005 Jim Hansen published “On A SlipperySlope,” laying out the case or a 450 ppm “brightline” and outlining a scenario o glacier sur ace icemelt leading to ice shel break-up and rapid sealevel rise. Hansen’s position was signi cantly moreconservative – that is, precautionary – than the 550ppm Kyoto target, and was not endorsed by anymajor US environmental organization or severalyears (even, ironically, as US environmentalistsrushed to support Hansen when the Bushadministration sought to gag him).

Three years later, Hansen has circulated a papermaking the precautionary case or a swi t return below 350 ppm atmospheric carbon. Once again,nothing is heard rom US environmentalists but adea ening silence. As a matter o intellectual hon-esty, we have two options: endorse or re ute. As amatter o environmental principle, there is no op-tion, and the longer we remain silent, the greater themoral burden, the tighter our grip on the amiliar,and more impossible the task that can commenceonly when the way is cleared.

A second unambiguous example that our think-ing is out o whack is that we have yet to take eventhe simplest o steps to join orces. The Paradigmevolved rom decisions o energy advocates andprogram o cers, whose calculus o environmental

power was organizational, rarely coalitional, notinstitutional, and never movement based.

Ten years ago, that kind o thinking might beexcused, but today? Where is the gathering o GreenGroup leadership to plan strategy? Where is thenational training con erence or our core? Where isthe proposal to create in rastructure (communicationscenter, training academy, undraising, technology,

etc.)? An organization or oundation that representsitsel as addressing climate change based on its ownresources and program alone, has not acceptedreality.

`Easing out from under

the paradigm. We can keep ploddingdown the dark road o deepening despair, rigidde ense o inadequate policy, and preservation oorganizational power at the expense o commonpurpose until our base disintegrates and/or an

internal fash point is reached.Or, we can acknowledge that our Climate PolicyParadigm has ailed, experiment with new programand campaigning, and cra t a more robust approach.[I have argued that we might bridge the gap by cre-ating an in-house, experimenting campaigns centerto germinate and test new ideas.] Even small stepsin this direction will be instantly rewarded, as a newatmosphere o creative erment supplants sterilelabor. When reality – however terrible – is acceptedin place o alse optimism, we will tap a wellspringo courage, joy and hope.

How we choose to act at this critical juncture de-termines whether environmental principles and ourinstitution will survive; whether a just and sustain-able climate solution will be put be ore the world;and whether America will be mobilized to lead alast minute global drive to avert collapse o civili-zation and eco-cataclysm. To achieve these things– to save the world – we must do what may be thehardest thing humans are ever called upon to do;give up deeply held belie s o which we are barelyeven aware. In our case the challenge is made easy because we have merely to unearth the values andprinciples we already hold but have held too long insecrecy.

Which vision will go over best at the next GlobalWarming Ca é? Two years back it would have beena tough call whether the climate core pre erredterrible truth + long odds but unctional globalsolution, or bu ered truth + personal action andcom ortable but ine ective politics. Now, i o eredan alternative to civics by pre-packaged constituentemail and activism de ned as re using junk mail,

there is little doubt they would seize it, because theyhave accepted reality and it terri es them.

Ken Ward is an environmental strategist and former deputy director of Greenpeace USA.



10Rolling Stone, November 2008 • 53

Despite some public stunts that suggest concern about carbon, the RuddGovernment’s global warming plan just doesn’t add up

Bubbling Our Way tothe Apocalypse

Illustration byRocco Fazzari

Kevin r udd should send the min-ister for Climate Change and Water,Penny Wong, to Siberia.

Not as punishment, but becauseour future may depend on Penny Wong and cli-mate policy-makers around the world understand-ing what’s going on there. For beneath its frozenlandscape a catastrophe is lurking, and Siberia may be about to become the scene of global retributionfor our extravagant consumption of fossil fuels.

“Siberia” has become a metaphor for exile and deprivation. In the nineteenth century more than

a million prisoners were deported there. Last cen-tury at least 18 million people were banished tothe Soviet Union’s infamous labour camps, knownas the Gulag, scattered across the stunningly in-hospitable region of north-east Siberia.

The land is cold, its average temperature zero.It holds the world record for the lowest surfacetemperature of -71.2°C in the eastern town of Oymyakon. For scientist Sergei Zimov, this for-bidding landscape holds the key to our planet’s fu-ture. Zimov is Director of the Northeast ScienceStation in Cherskii, inside the Arctic Circle and

just 150 kilometres south of the Arctic Ocean. Heis consumed by a deep concern that global warm-ing will literally melt the world beneath his feet, with apocalyptic consequences.

Twenty per cent of the world’s land mass (half of it in Siberia) is covered by permafrost, or per-manently frozen ground, rich in organic car-bon and tens of metres in depth. As this ground thaws, methane and carbon dioxide – the twoprincipal greenhouse gases – are released intothe atmosphere.

While carbon is frozen, it is safe; if permafrost

By David Spratt and Damien LawsonH H



11 54 • Rolling Stone, November 2008

melts in large quantities, hell may break loose. Zimov says the situa-tion is grave: “Permafrost areas [inSiberia] hold 500 billion tonnes of carbon, which can fast turn intogreenhouse gases. The deposits of organic matter in these soils are sogigantic that they dwarf global oilreserves . . . If you don’t stop emis-sions of greenhouse gases into theatmosphere, this will lead to a typeof global warming which will be im-possible to stop [and it will make]the Kyoto Protocol seem like child-ish prattle . . .”

Zimov is not alone. The NationalCentre for Atmospheric Researchin the U.S. predicts that half of thepermafrost in the Arctic north willthaw to a depth of three metres by 2050. Glaciologist Ted Scambos

says: “That’s a serious runaway – a catastrophe lies buried underthe permafrost”.

Permafrost melts at the edges of lakes that previously were iced all year-round, according to Katey Wal-ter of the University of Alaska. Shesays organic material, the remains of rotted plants and long-dead animals which has been “locked up in perma-frost since the end of the last ice age”,then subsides into the lake from thesoil and “is being released into thebottom of lakes, providing microbesa banquet from which they burp outmethane as a by-product of decompo-sition”. In dry conditions, the warm-ing soil releases carbon dioxide.

The western Siberian peat bog isamongst the fastest-warming plac-es on the planet. In August 2008,Örjan Gustafsson, the Swedish lead-er of the International Siberian Shelf Study con rmed that methane wasnow also bubbling through seawaterfrom permafrost on the seabed.

So the question is no longer whether the permafrost will start tomelt, but when the time-bomb will gooff. When it does, it will sweep theclimate system away from our capac-

ity to stop further dramatic “tipping points” being passed. All the carbonin the permafrost is equivalent totwice the total amount of all carbondioxide in the atmosphere, so losing even a signi cant portion of it willcreate a very different planet fromthe one we know.

Scientists are warning that the

temperature at which it will be trig-gered is closer than we think. Re-search published in mid-2008 by sci-entist Dmitry Khvorostyanov showsthe trigger is warming in the Arcticof around 9ºC, and that once initi-ated it will maintain itself, leading tothree-quarters of the carbon being released within a century.

If a time-bomb is ticking, we need to know how much time we have todefuse it. There are two factors. Therst is that warming is greatest at the

poles. Global average temperatureshave warmed just less than 1ºC sincethe Industrial Revolution, but aver-age temperatures in Siberia, Alaska and western Canada are now 3ºC to

4ºC warmer than 50 years ago. So by mid-century the increase could eas-ily be 4ºC to 6ºC.

The second factor is the rapid lossof eight million square kilometres of thin sea-ice that oats on the ArcticOcean. Each summer it is melting fast, with a current loss by volumeof 80 per cent, and it is likely to beentirely gone each summer withinve years. With the heat-re ecting

ice lost and replaced by dark, heat-absorbing seas, it is expected thatregional temperatures in the Arctic will increase by around 5ºC. “The Arctic is often cited as the canary in

the coal mine for climate warming and now . . . the canary has died,”says NASA glaciologist Jay Zwally.

These dramatic changes in the Arctic have shocked the scientificcommunity and called into questionthe adequacy of some of the projec-tions of the United Nations’ panelof climate scientists, known as theIntergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC). They had said the Arctic sea-ice would likely last to theend of this century.

Put these factors together, and add in human greenhouse gasemissions that are still increasing rapidly, and the result is spine-chill-ing as the clock ticks down. The

“tipping point” for unstoppable per-mafrost melting could be reached asearly as the middle of this century,and very likely by the end of this cen-tury, unless the world acts dramati-cally to stop carbon pollution.

The USA’s most eminent climatescientist, James Hansen, says: “Re-cent greenhouse gas emissions placethe Earth perilously close to dra-matic climate change that could runout of our control, with great dan-gers for humans and other creatures.There is already enough carbon inthe Earth’s atmosphere for massiveice sheets such as West Antarctica

to eventually melt away, and ensurethat sea levels will rise metres incoming decades. We must begin tomove rapidly to the post-fossil fuelclean-energy system. Moreover, wemust remove some carbon that hascollected in the atmosphere since theIndustrial Revolution.”

In other words, we need to build a zero-emissionseconomy quickly. Unfortu-nately this enormous task is

not enough; we will also need to coolthe planet so we can restore the Arc-tic sea-ice and stop the whole catas-trophe unfurling. This means ending logging of tropical and temperateforests, and taking carbon out of theatmosphere by planting more treesand storing it in the soil as agricul-

tural charcoal.So how much does Penny Wong understand about the real perma-frost story and the recent science? Very little, it seems. In a mid-yearmeeting with a number of environ-ment organisations, she was asked whether new developments in cli-mate science since the last IPCCreport (such as the rapid loss of the Arctic sea-ice) meant the Govern-ment needed to rethink its approach.Her answer was that she did not un-derstand the question.

No wonder the Rudd Govern-ment’s climate policies are delu-sional, and those of the conservativeOpposition worse. The Governmentis gambling with our future withits policy of allowing a 3ºC rise, which would destroy the Great Bar-rier Reef, tropical rainforests, cause widespread desertification, a massextinction and a sea-level rise of per-haps 25 metres. At 3ºC the climate will kick into a new state and runaway from the human capacity to live with it. Tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of people will not survive.

Our political leaders are not tak-ing the actions that the science de-

mands, because the conventionalmode of politics is short-term, prag-matic, incremental and fearful of fun-damental change. Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong have adopted a tradi-tional Labor approach to the climateproblem: something for the environ-ment lobby and something for busi-ness. But the problem is that solving the climate crisis cannot be treated like a wage deal, with the demandsof each side balanced somewhere inthe middle. It is not possible to ne-gotiate with the laws of nature. Theplanet cannot be bought off. Thereare absolute limits that should not

“With a 3 oC rise, the climate will kick into a new state and run away fromthe human capacity to live with it.

Tens, perhaps hundreds, of millionsof people will not survive.”

D a v i d S p r a t t is the co-author of “Climate Code Red: the case for emergency action” (Scribe, 2008).D a m i e n L a w s o n is NationalClimate Justice Coordinator for Friends of the Earth Australia

out of the loop Leading scientists are concerned Prime Minister Kevin Ruddand Minister for Climate Change, Penny Wong, aren’t aware of new developments.



12

Rolling Stone, November 2008 • 55

be crossed, and doing something, butnot enough, will still lead to disaster.

Since signing the Kyoto protocolin December 2007, the Rudd Gov-ernment has continued its rhetoricon the threat of climate change. Butinstead of declaring a war on carbonpolluters, the Government has ad-opted a policy of appeasement of thefossil fuel industry.

There can be no solution to theclimate problem without confront-ing the problem of coal. Half of thegreenhouse pollution from fossilfuels has come from coal. Yet as theoil runs out, burning of coal is setto grow. Coal is Australia’s biggestexport, generating 13 per cent of export revenue. Australians are the world’s biggest exporter of coal and this feeding of the world’s addic-tion doubles our carbon footprint.Most of our electricity is generated through burning coal, which is why we have one of the highest percapita greenhouse gas emissions inthe world.

As during theHoward years, thecoal industry ma a seems again to be writing the script.The Rudd and Victorian LaborGovernments havecommitted to fund-ing a new coal- red power station in Victoria’s La Trobe Valley. And whileEnvironment Min-ister Peter Garretthas stopped coaldevelopments inQueensland’s Shoalwater Bay wil-derness, many other coal infrastruc-ture projects have been given thegreen light.

Over $9 billion in subsidies go tothe fossil fuel industry each year,much of it to coal. The coal industry received as much for research and development in the last budget as the whole of the renewable energy sector.

The power of the coal industry comes from its corporate and nan-cial muscle. While many of the coalcompanies are foreign owned, they generate big revenues, particularly for State Labor Governments. It would take Churchillian courage tostand up to the coa l industry.

Instead, the Australian Govern-ment is punting on two main policiesto reduce emissions, neither posing much threat to the coa l industry.

The first, promised during the2007 election, is a target of 20 per

cent of all electricity generated by 2020 to come from renewable sourc-es, known as the Mandatory Renew-able Energy Target (MRET). Withincreasing emissions from economicgrowth and a rising population, this would likely do little more than hold emissions from generating electric-ity at their current level. Even thisis under threat from a governmentreview of climate change policies by finance bureaucrat Roger Wilkins,

who says the MRETis “distortionary” of the market.

A large MRETset at a level in ac-cordance with sci-enti c advice could drive investmentin solar, wind and geothermal en-ergy, but the Government’s currenteffort falls short of the mark.

The second main policy is a carbon trading scheme, which aims toput a total limit (or cap)

on emissions which is reduced overtime, so that carbon polluters mustbuy permits which will rise in costas less emissions are allowed. Like a carbon tax, it wi ll mean polluters pay and pass on the cost to consumers.

The reports outlining carbontrading by the Labor-appointed Gar-naut Review and the Government’s

own “green paper” are gloomy read-ing. The proposed reduction is toosmall (Europe’s target is a reductionof 30 per cent by 2020 compared to Garnaut’s recommendation for Australia of 5 to 20 per cent). Many emissions will not be accounted for,and free permits will be given to thebiggest polluters. Many polluters will be able to avoid their respon-sibility by buying dubious carboncredits from the developing world.

The more serious consequence isthat it will d elay the serious actionthat needs to be taken right now.In his report released in September,economist Ross Garnaut dropped the ball, and we are now being posi-tioned by him and the Federal Gov-ernment to accept slow suicide.

The only effective alternative is tobreak out of this politics-of-failureand campaign with all our heart and strength across the country for anemergency response – where we setout to fully solve the problem – and stop at nothing to get a result. Thereis no other choice.

The only realistic answer is that we must devote as many resources

as are necessary, and as quickly aspossible, to the climate emergency.During the last global mobilisation, World War II, more than 30 percent – and in some cases more thanhalf – of the economy was devoted tomilitary expenditure.

We need to be prepared for thatlevel of commitment again if we areto save most humans and speciesfrom a global warming apocalypse.Shifting to a war-type economy will

require us to live better by con-suming less as we rebuild a moresustainable society.

In July, former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore challenged America’s leaders to commit hisnation “to producing 100 percent of our electricity from re-newable energy and truly cleancarbon-free sources within 10 years . . . This goal is achiev-able, affordable and transfor-mative. To those who arguethat we do not yet have thetechnology, I’ve seen what they [entrepreneurs who will drivethis revolution] are doing a nd Ihave no doubt that we can meetthis challenge.” With now overa million supporters and plenty of money it is possible his cam-paign will succeed in taking America in a new direction.

Climate change was a majorreason for Labor’s election vic-tory last year. Al Gore opened Kevin Rudd’s post-electionClimate Summit in Canberra,but he is unlikely to be invited back to talk about his new, bold plan. But he should be, if only to tell Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong about the extraordinary scene Alex Rodriguez of theChicago Tribune witnessed inSiberia earlier this year.

“Sergei Zimov waded throughknee-deep snow to reach a fro-

zen lake where so much methanebelches out of the melting permafrostthat it spews from the ice like smallgeysers. The Russian scientist struck a match to make a jet of the greenhousegas visible. The sudden plume of rethrew him backwards . . . ‘Sometimesa big explosion happens, because thegas comes out like a bomb,’ Zimov said. ‘There are a million lakes likethis in northern Siberia’.”

Keeping the Arctic permafrostlargely intact is non-negotiable. Aus-tralia’s climate policy must be based on this understanding. As oceanog-rapher Richard Spinrad says, “Whathappens in the Arctic . . . does notstay in the Arctic.”

the Coal tru h

Not only is Siberia groundzero for global warmingindicators, the region isalso rich in resourcesincluding coal, oil ironand natural gas.Right: Australia’s mainsource of energy is coal,making us amongst theworld’s biggest per capitagreenhouse gas polluters.

Courtesy Rolling Stone Australia



13

During 2008, political attention in Australia was drawn to advocacy of emission cuts of “25 to 40% by 2020”.In the USA, Bill McKibben launched a campaign for a stabilisation target of 350 ppm (parts per million)of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) greenhouse gases (GHGs). Both these targets are scienti cally

unsupportable and should not be adopted by any movement that wants to prevent catastrophic climatechange. This paper outlines the problems with a 350 target, which if achieved would very likely fail to fully

re-establish the Arctic sea-ice and therefore avoid crossing signi cant tipping points. Likewise the higher 450

target (which is consistent with the 25-40/2020 scenario) is now widely recognised by many scientists as notdefensible, who view the range 280–325 ppm as necessary.

missing the point?Is 350 “the most important number on Earth”?

During 2008, US environment writer Bill McKibbenand colleagues established the climate activist group350.org, with the aim o spreading the message thatpolicy targets need to refect the scienti cimperatives.

The target o 350 ppm was embraced by Al Goreat COP14 in Poznan: “Even a goal o 450 ppm,which seems so di cult today, is inadequate,” saidGore, adding we “need to toughen that goal to 350ppm.” In a blog rom Posnan, Australian Conser-vation Foundation (ACF) CEO Don Henry calledGore’s speech “the high point” and wrote that Gore“said that even stabilizing greenhouse emissions at450ppm was inadequate and that the science wasindicating the we would need to move to 350ppm.”But Henry has not indicated whether ACF, whosecorporate branding uses Gore prominently, wouldadopt this target or whether ACF’s Gore presenterswould be permitted or encouraged to include Gore’snew target in their public presentations.

In Poznan the Least Developed Countries caucusand the International Youth Climate Network sup-

ported the 350 target, and 350.org used the occasionto announce an international day o action on 24October 2009 to spread the number.

Why 350? The website proclaims 350 as “the mostimportant number on earth’’. McKibben says that “ayear ago, nobody had ever heard o 350. But it turnsout it’s the most important number on the planet...I people around the world know nothing else aboutglobal warming, we need them to understand that350 represents a kind o sa ety – i we can get thatmessage across, then they’ll demanddramatic action rom their leaders.”

In a recent article or Mother Jones, McKibbenexplains why:

The nal piece o the puzzle came early this year, andagain rom James Hansen. Twenty years a ter his

crucial testimony, he published a paper with severalcoauthors called ‘Target Atmospheric CO2’. It put, nally, a number on the table-indeed it did so in theboldest o terms. ‘I humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developedand to which li e on Earth is adapted,’ it said,‘paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate changesuggest that CO2 will need to be reduced rom itscurrent 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm’.But that is only hal the story. Here’s what else

Hansen et al. said (emphasis added) in their articlein Open Atmos. Sci. J.2:217-231:

Equilibrium sea level rise or today’s 385 ppm CO2is at least several meters, judging rom paleoclimatehistory. Accelerating mass losses rom Greenland andWest Antarctica heighten concerns about ice sheetstability. An initial CO2 target o 350 ppm, to bereassessed as e ects on ice sheet mass balance areobserved, is suggested.It is important to note that this paragraph is not

about the Arctic sea-ice tipping point, it’s aboutAntarctica. Hansen explains in the same article that350ppm is a precautionary target to stop global losso ice-sheets, because the paleoclimate record shows450ppm ± 100ppm as boundary or glaciation/deglaciation o Antarctica. In the next paragraph,attention turns to the question o Arctic sea ice:

Stabilization of Arctic sea ice cover requires, to rst approximation, restoration o planetary energybalance. Climate models driven by known orcings yield a present planetary energy imbalance o +0.5-1W/m2. Observed heat increase in the upper 700 m o the ocean con rms the planetary energy imbalance,but observations o the entire ocean are needed orquanti cation. CO2 amount must be reduced to 325-355 ppm to increase outgoing fux 0.5-1 W/m2, i other orcings are unchanged. A urther imbalance reduction,and thus CO2 ~300-325 ppm , may be needed to



14

restore sea ice to its area o 25 years ago.The central point is that Arctic sea-ice

is undergoing dramatic loss in summer,having lost 70-80% o its volume in the last50 years, most since 2000. Without summersea-ice, Greenland cannot escape a trajec-tory o ice-sheet loss leading to an eventualsea-level rise o seven metres. Regionaltemperatures in the Arctic autumn arealready up about 5˚C, and by mid-centuryan Arctic ice- ree in summer, combinedwith more global warming, will be pushingSiberia close to the point where large-scaleloss o carbon rom melting perma rostwould make urther mitigation e ortsutile. As Hansen told the US Congress intestimony last year, the “elements o a per ect storm,a global cataclysm, are assembled”.

In short, i you don’t have a target that aims to

cool the planet su ciently to get the sea-ice back,the climate system may spiral out o control, pastmany “tipping points” to the nal “point o noreturn”.

And that target is not 350 ppm, it’s around 300ppm.

Hansen says Arctic sea-icepassed its tipping point de-cades ago, and in his presen-tations has also speci callyidenti ed 300-325ppm as thetarget range or sea-ice restora-tion (slide image above right),as did the paper quoted above.This view, by probably themost eminent climate scientistin America, is rein orced byHans Joachim Schellnhuber,head o the Potsdam Instituteand climate adviser to GermanChancellor and the EU, wholikewise is one o Europe’sleading climate scientists. On

15 September 2008, David Adam reported:Pro essor John Schellnhuber, director o the PotsdamInstitute or Climate Impact Research in Germany,told the Guardian that only a return to pre-industriallevels o CO2 would be enough to guarantee a sa e uture or the planet... He said even a small increasein temperature could trigger one o several climatictipping points, such as methane released rom melting perma rost, and bring much more severe globalwarming. ‘It is a very sweeping argument, but nobodycan say or sure that 330ppm is sa e,’ he said. ‘Perhaps

it will not matter whether we have 270ppm or 320ppm,but operating well outside the [historic] realm o carbondioxide concentrations is risky as long as we have not

ully understood the relevant eedback mechanisms.So 350 ppm is the wrong target because 350 ppmCO2 cannot restore the Arctic ice to its ull extent.The people who run 350.org probably now recog-nise that, because their language is changing. One

o their slides used to say: “Weneed to be here: 350”, it nowsays “we need to be lower than:350ppm”. McKibben now talksabout 350 ppm as being “theupper limit”, and in a recentradio interview said pre-indus-trial levels might be the onlysa e zone (http://globalpublic-media.com/reality_report_bill_mckibben). But it’s too late toadvocate targets that are only asignpost towards the target wereally need to get to.

Sorry, Bill and the crew at350.org, you’re wrong about 350 being our campaign target or2009 and the lead-up to Copen-

hagen. The most important number on earth is 300.That’s what Hansen is saying, that’s what Schelln-huber is saying. There’s no point campaigning onan inadequate target. We only get one chance at this,and advocating targets that will still ail to ullysolve the problem is the most de-mobilising actionwe can take.

Target 300 puts the science rst.

[For a more detailed analysis o the genesis o the350 target, see http://target300.org/350_ppm.html]

Sorry, Bill and the crew at 350.org,you’re wrong about 350 being our campaign target for 2009 and thelead-up to Copenhagen. The mostimportant number of earth is 300.That’s what Hansen is saying, that’swhat Schellnhuber is saying. There’sno point campaigning on an inade-quate target. We only get one chanceat this, and advocatingtargets that will still fail to fully solvethe problem is the mostde-mobilising action we can take.



17

1. Our goal is a safe-climate future – we have noright to bargain away species or human lives

• No species has the right to consciously determinewhat proportion o all other species on earth should become extinct — as the compromise 2 and 3-degreetemperature rise targets do. Lacking the collectivewill to act in a sustainable manner is no excuse.• Humans have created the looming catastrophe ofglobal warming and we have the capacity and dutyto undo the damage and act in a sustainable man-ner, to cool the earth back to the sa e-climate zone.

2. We are facing rapid warming impacts: thedanger is immediate, not just in the future

• Serious climate-change impacts are already

happening, both more rapidly and at lower globaltemperature increases than projected. Signi cant“climate tipping” points have already been passed.These include large ice sheet disintegration, signi -cant sea level rises o up to 5 metres this century anddevastating species loss. The Arctic will soon be reeo summer sea-ice and the Greenland ice sheet is inimminent danger.• Temperature increases of 2 degrees are effectivelyalready in the system, unless we act dramatically tocut emissions towards zero as quickly as humanly

possible. Humanity will no longer have the powerto reverse the processes we have set in motion i wepass the “point o no return”.• The IPCC reports are dangerously conservative.A temperature cap o 2–2.4°C, as proposed withinthe United Nations ramework, would take theplanet’s climate beyond the temperature range othe last million years and into catastrophe.

3. For a safe climate future, we must take actionnow to stop emissions and to cool the earth

• The tipping points for large ice sheet and speciesloss were crossed when we exceeded 300-350 ppmo carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a point passeddecades ago.• It is no longer a case of how much more we can“sa ely” emit, but whether we can quickly enoughstop emissions and produce a cooling be ore wehit tipping points and positive eedbacks — suchas carbon sink ailure and perma rost loss — thatwill take the trajectory o the earth’s climate system beyond any hope o human restoration.• Hansen notes that we either begin to roll backnot only the carbon emissions but also the absolute

amount in the atmosphere, or else we’re going to get big impacts.

4. Plan a large-scale transition to a post-carboneconomy and society

• We face a multi-factor sustainability crisis andsystemic breakdown.• The obstacles to implementing climate solutionsare political and social in character, not technologi-cal or economic.• Speed is of the essence in constructing a post- carbon economy as quickly as humanly possible.• An imaginative, large-scale programme compa -rable in scope to the “war economy” or the trans or-mation o the Asian “tiger” economies is required.

5. Recognise a climate and sustainabilityemergency, because we need to move at a pacefar beyond business and politics as usual

• These imperatives are incompatible with the“realities” o “politics as usual” and “business asusual”. Our conventional mode o politics is short-term, adversarial and incremental, ear ul o deep,quick change and simply incapable o managing thetransition at the necessary speed. The climate crisis

will not respond to incremental modi cation o the business-as-usual model. Climate policy is charac-terised by the habituation o low expectations and aculture o ailure.• There is an urgent need to reconceive the issuewe ace as a sustainability emergency, that takes us beyond the politics o ailure-inducing compromise.• Even moderate goals (25-40% below 1990 by2020) now require immoderate rates o change onlyachievable by shi ting to an emergency ooting.• As Ian Dunlop, the former fossil fuel industryexecutive and CEO o the Institute o Directorswrites: “The stark act is that we ace a globalsustainability emergency. But it is impossible todesign realistic solutions unless we rst understandand accept the size o the problem. “Climate CodeRed” is a sober, balanced analysis o this challenge,unadorned by political spin, proposing a realisticramework to tackle the emergency. It should beessential reading or all political and corporate lead-ers, but particularly or the community. I we are tohave a reasonable chance o maintaining a habitable

planet, placing our e orts on an emergency ootingis long overdue. We only play this game once; atrial run is not an option.’

keys to a safe climate



18

Dear President Obama, James and Anniek Hansen urge you to pay atten-

tion to the particulars o your administration’s climatepolicy as a rst order o business. The devil’s in thedetails, the Hansen’s argue, and the broad languagewith which you address the crisis does not seem toacknowledge the “pro ound disconnect” betweenclimate policy and climate science.

Your approach to global warming was de tly cra tedto appear strong and be vague, o course, a smartreading o what the electorate, even in Democraticprimary states, would tolerate and one reason why youtriumphed in a eld o candidates, including several

who tried to run on climate.It is one thing to sidestep a campaign issue votersare unwilling to ace, but pragmatic campaign deci-sions are not binding on the President o the UnitedStates o America when the world is coming to an end.

You are aced with an insoluble crisis and areweaker or the subtle campaign strategy that helpedelected you. There is no unctional solution to theclimate catastrophe in policies now on the table andyou take o ce with no mandate to advance one.

The US cannot muster the resources and resolvenecessary to lead the world to sa ety i your admin-istration does no more than plump domestic “green jobs” and “equitable stimulus” programs – progressiverhetoric or the stump and nothing more – and endorsedecades-old cap & trade policy ginned up by environ-mentalists looking or policy acceptable to corporate“climate action” partners.

As our rst organizer President, you know that theright course o action is not to tinker with the details opolicy, as Hansen does, but to rewrite the terms o thedebate. The problem is that there is no confict and it isthere ore di cult to bring the resources o the “bully

pulpit” to bear.The bold move is to do nothing.It will require immense determination to orestall

the political orces coiled in anticipation o quick ad-ministration action on climate, but you must sti -armyour advisers, step outside the Congressional climatequagmire, leave environmentalists hanging, and delayinternational engagement.

It is crucial that the nation does not move directlyrom the old confict, “is global warming real?” directlyinto action, without rst acing the terrible questions“how bad is it?” and “what do we need to do?”

There are two aspects to our national character,and the fip side o our re usal thus ar to deal withthe gathering crisis will be another great awakeningo American optimism, energy and willingness to

sacri ce. That national spirit is only called orth byterrible risk and resolve in leadership.

By breaking ree rom awkward compromisesand dismal trade-o s and fexing unilateral powerso the Presidency, a dynamic, realistic, yet optimisticagenda can be set in motion that will draw our re-luctant eyes to the danger, put dramatic examples orapid change on display, and demonstrate bold andvigorous leadership. Then the time will be propitiousto propose a new domesticand international agenda.

Consider how di erentthe political climate i youwere to take the ollowingactions as your rst ordero business.

Gore’s Challenge.Although there is somequestion about whether ornot you actually endorsedAl Gore’s call to shi t USelectricity generation torenewables, no matter;make Gore’s challengeUS policy, Mr. President, by issuing an ExecutiveOrder setting a nationalgoal o zero carbon emis-sions electricity generation by 2020.

275 ppm. As JimHansen suggests, the Na-tional Academy o Sciences should review and com-ment on recent climate science ndings. You shoulduse the opportunity, Mr. President, to explain theprecautionary principle to the American people and

demonstrate both intellectual integrity and politicalcourage by asking the NAS to consider whether arapid return to pre-industrial concentrations oatmospheric carbon (265-275 ppm) is warranted.

Climate Civil Defense. FEMA shouldundertake a nationwide inventory o civil de ensepreparedness or storm surges on rising sea levelsand conduct preliminary engineering studies on theeasibility and costs o erecting dikes, constructinghurricane barriers, reconstituting coastal wetlands,and other necessary measures to protect coastalhomelands.

Driving Hybrids. O 60,000 vehicles added tothe US government feet in 2008, 239 were hybridsand 2 were all electric. You should combine vehicleneeds or the next our years, roughly 250,000 ve-

An open letter to President Obamaon how to make the climate challenge real and urgent to Americans

As our rst organizer President, you knowthat the right course of

action is not to tinker with the details of policy… but to rewritethe terms of thedebate… It is crucialthat the nation does notmove directly from theold con ict, “is globalwarming real?” directly

into action, without rstfacing the terriblequestions “how badis it?” and “what do weneed to do?”



19

hicles and put them up or bid, Mr. President,speci ying standards or a hyper-e cient, highlycrash resistant, durable feet o hybrid vehiclesaveraging 65 mpg.

Climate Early Warning. There are threeice shelves large enough to end the world, yet noneare being monitored on a constant basis. Congress

should be asked or immediate, emergency undingto place permanent research camps on the Easternand Western Antarctic Ice Shelves and in Greenland,military satellite capacity should be reassigned tomonitor ice shelves or early signs o breakup, otherkey actors (i.e. ocean temperature/current) shouldall be monitored and an international commandcenter established to coordinate in ormation (e.g. anNSA or climate intelligence).

Hawaii Poster Child. Go home, hang withyour riends, ocus the nation on our own island-in-rising-seas story and invest hugely in makingHawaii a demonstration renewables state. Alreadyon the ore ront, with a ederal partnership andunding, Hawaii could aim or a realistic zero carbon(net) goal.

US Military & Renewables. Iraq has taughtsome in the U.S. military that renewables strengthenwar- ghting capabilities. The military has set therelatively ambitious goal o generating 25% o itsenergy rom renewables by 2025 and is making goodheadway, but more in response to ad hoc initia-tives than determined Pentagon leadership. Acting

as Commander in Chie , Mr President, you shoulddouble the goal. This will strengthen centers oleadership aiming to put the US military onto a newooting o e ciency and renewables (the same olksthinking in terms o climate challenges), and use theinstitution to uller advantage as an important agento US social change.

Solar Iraq. Electricity demand in Iraq is4000MW greater than utility supply, the di erencemade up by neighborhood entrepreneurs with dieselgenerators. The US should insist that hal o the $12 billion (World Bank) to $35 billion (Iraq Ministry oElectricity) o US, Japanese and European unds es-timated necessary to rebuild Iraq’s shattered electricutilities be budgeted or solar and wind generation(GE, which just signed a $3 billion contract with theMinistry o Electricity won’t be ru fed a bit).

Measures such as these will go a long way totrans orm a vague and distant worry into an urgent,local, political problem and your stalwart re usal totake action until the nation is ready and the momentis ripe will be compared with the genius o anothertall, thin Illinois politician.

Sincerely,Ken Ward21 January 2009

Ken Ward is a former Executive Director of NJPIRGand RIPIRG, Deputy Executive Director of Green-peace USA, cofounder of organizations includingGreen Corps (Senior Trainer), National Environmen-tal Law Center (President), Public Interest GRFX,Environmental Endowment for New Jersey, Fund for Public Interest Research and AmeriCorpsWater Watch, and author of Response to The Deathof Environmentalism, published by Grist in March2005. In writing to President Obama on 21 January,he also wrote to Jim Hansen...

dear jim January 20, 2009Dear Jim,

I’ve enclosed a post (to Gristmill, reproduced atle t) that was prompted in part by your recent letterto the President, and I write to o er you someadditional thoughts.

I do not write because I disagree with yourarguments or researching 4th generation nukesand carbon capture & storage (though I do), nor toanswer your complaints about environmentalists.

In my view, US environmentalists have ailed inour three most important responsibilities – our civicobligation to sound the alarm, our moral respon-sibility to bear witness, and our pragmatic chargeto build a durable political base or undamentalchange. As a result, we just funked the acid test othe ‘08 election.

Several actors account or the decline in con ron-tational campaigning, e ective direct action andorganizing the environmentalist core that has le t uswith wide yet shallow support, but the chie induce-ment was the allure o policy and the misbegottenidea that US environmental oundations andorganizations could cra t and advance a climatesolution acceptable to sections in the private sector,

thereby skipping the di cult challenge o orcingthe nation to a point o sharp confict and avoidingthe uncertainty o a public debate.

The ction that there is an easy way out collapsedlast year, battered by the data and your own re-morseless logic, though our major organizations andoundations continue to spout the line. The limitson corporate “climate action” were laid bare and wehave had nothing to all back on. We traded our cowor beans that weren’t magic a ter all.

Both parties headed into the primaries withserious candidates running on climate action; noneared particularly well and the tricky problem ohandling global catastrophe within the necessar-ily upbeat ramework o a presidential campaign became even more inconvenient when gas pricessurged. Obama temporized and McCain was orced



20

to repudiate a ormer position o remarkableintegrity.

As I write this, I’ve been checking posts on Gristand Facebook coming in rom riends at the inaugu-ration and I’m blown away by how giddy everyoneis, considering the brisk slap in the ace Obama justdelivered on climate. Any number o small ges-tures could have been made to signal that President

Obama is seriously concerned about climate – thePresident might have devoted a serious aside inhis address, climate might have been identi ed asa speci c danger or which the nation must needspull together in the Proclamation o Reconciliationissued yesterday, the President might have appearedin person at LCV’s event installing solar panels on aDC elementary school (instead o sending SecretaryChu), you might have been honored or showcasedin some manner, and so on.

Groping or a way to put the day in context, Ithought, what i the anti-abortion movement pickeda candidate early in the primaries, who had lessthen 100% rating on the issue but good prospects;who ran and won on a moderate anti-abortionplat orm with the acquiescence o movement leader-ship? You can be sure that the inauguration would be orchestrated to showcase the leaders and com ortthe worried rank and le. Nothing o the sort per-tains with climate and environmentalists becausewe have built no base o climate partisans, properlyskeptical o a new President who endorses o -shoreoil drilling and irate that the world’s approach toclimate tipping points rates no more than a passingmention in the inaugural address.

Part o the Faustian bargain we made long agowas to downplay climate change risk. In any otherarea and any other issue, scientists provide data andconservative assessments. Environmentalists applyprecautionary reasoning, duke it out with which-ever sector has a big stake and (in recent years)either lose outright or accept a compromised bargain. On climate, however, we ignored theprecautionary position because it didn’t work wellin undraising, was incompatible with moderatepolicies, and discom orted prospective corporatepartners and oundation boards.

You, with a hand ul o other scientists and acouple o ex-journalists, were our climate PaulRevere, and in consequence, are now leaders o USenvironmentalism. Your role in this terrible debate islarger than this, o course, but it would be a mistakenot to appreciate your standing as an environmentalleader. It does not go unnoticed that your journalarticles more eloquently and clearly expressenvironmental values than anything produced byour own organizations.With that in mind, I ound the your Obamamaterial to be troubling or what it implies aboutyour thinking on strategy, how to shape the nationalclimate narrative, and how you conceive and use

your power base. None o these matters are anyo my business, and I have no ormal standing orposition, but I expect you agree that the times andcircumstances press us all to step outside ordinary bounds.

Stated in brie , I think it is a mistake to spendany o your personal capital on the particulars oUS Government climate policy (at this time) and it

is disadvantageous strategy to encourage PresidentObama to do so as well. This is the route US envi-ronmentalists went down and it’s still a bad bar-gain. Trying to cobble together a backdoor technicalsolution because the leadership we require has notarrived, the confict rom which such leaders mightemerge has not yet been joined, and the orceswhich might bring confict to a head remainquiescent, won’t work because there is an irredu-cable political orce required to win any unctionalsolution. We’ll either get it, in which case theparticulars can then be dictated, or we won’t.

Your primary power and – excuse me or puttingit so bluntly – your value is your moral author-ity. You are a symbol; part Galilean reasoning, partFranklinian common sense and concern or civicsa ety, and part rational ecologist. Your personality,as it projects, has a good mix o keenness, aestheti-cism and incorruptibility, and your principled standagainst the Bush gag e ort showed that you aren’t just or show. Your achievement is to see the terriblerisk be ore anyone else, to adjust your assessment asthings got worse, and to state in simple terms whatneeds to be done. Your skill is to tell a story well.Most o these attributes are diminished i youhead o in the direction o your recent letter, Iwould argue, and your moral authority, power andvalue (to put it bluntly again) are reduced.

I don’t know that I need to lay out the argumentsin any great detail here, because it is clear rom yourwriting and actions that you already wrestle withthe tension between simpli ying what’s at stake,driving confict and aiming or wholesale changeversus incremental steps on the margins via secondtier governmental action.

I think your moral weight is ar more valuablethan your practical advice, though I can imagine thedrive toward hands-on action must eel intense. Tohave a shot, we require a simple, uncluttered storywhere the bad guys are coal companies and utilitiesand environmentalists are good (i we are to be vili-ed, let us be vili ed or not being environmentalistenough).

I urge you to stay the course, keep with the bigpicture, act as a Mandela and not a Lech Walesa.

With highest regard,Sincerely,Ken Ward



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this is anemergency by David Spratt[Presentation to public orum and con erence,Adelaide, 10–11 October 2008 at the ormation oCLEAN (Climate Emergency Action Network) SA.]

A year ago I was researching what was intended to be a short submission to the Garnaut review, whenevents in the polar north turned the world o cli-mate policy upside down. It was ound that eightmillion square kilometres o sea-ice — an area thesize o Australia — was melting, in the immortalwords o one glaciologist, “a hundred years aheado schedule”.

Yet the international policy debate carried on asi this had not happened. Out-o -date scenarios, re-search and observations were being used to proposeemission reduction targets that would still lead tocatastrophe even i ully implemented.And so a short submission became a long detourinto how the climate debate is being constructed,and the result, with Philip Sutton, was a book wedid not intend to write,Climate Code Red.

We came to the conclusion that most o the publicpolicy debate on climate is delusional, that is, axed, alse belie resistant to reason or con ronta-tion with actual act. In the newQuarterly Essay, Tim Flannery says “There is no real debate abouthow serious our predicament is,” nor has there been

the “understanding o just how pro oundly we areinfuencing the very Earth processes that gives usli e.”

Major political parties fail to addressclimate changeNeither o the major political parties at the nationallevel have bothered to tell the electorate what theyconsider to be dangerous climate change. Neitherparty in government has ever said how hot would be too hot — one degree, or two, three, our or ve?— and then committed themselves to actionsconsistent with that target. And both seem to havedi culty in saying unambiguously that the loss othe Great Barrier Ree (now inevitable) or the salina-tion o Kakadu (predicted to occur with a hal -metresea-level rise this century) mean that global

warming is already dangerous.The Rudd government’s climate vision does not

extend beyond the terrain described by the reportso the IPCC, which Flannery notes are “pain ullyconservative” because the IPPC “works by consen-sus and includes government representatives rom

the United States, China and Saudi Arabia, all owhom must assent to every word o every nding”.Thus the IPCC’s most recent report has already beenound badly wanting on such issues as the Arcticsea-ice, ice sheet loss and sea-level rises, nor did itnot seriously concern itsel with the possibilities onon-linear climate change and the long-term e ectso carbon-cycle eedbacks (carbon emission-inducedwarming causing the release o more carbon into theair, or example by the melting o perma rost).

Put simply, the debate in Australia is not evidence based. Political pragmatism, window dressing andincremental solutions that will ail take precedenceover the scienti c imperatives. The result can only be a suicide note or most people and most specieson the planet.

The conclusion we came to was that unless weadopt the strongest measures — emergency action— it will be too late. It is no longer a matter o howmuch more we can heat the planet, but how quicklycan we cool it.

Recent climate science indicates climate

change is happening much faster thanpredictedSerious climate-change impacts are already happen-ing, both more rapidly and at lower global tempera-ture increases than projected. In 2005 the eminentclimate scientist Dr James Hansen warned that: “Weare on the precipice o climate system tipping points beyond which there is no redemption.” Three yearslater, we now know that we have already crossedsome o those tipping points: or ice-sheet disinte-gration, signi cant sea-level rises and species loss.Hansen says that the “Elements o a “per ect storm,”a global cataclysm, are assembled.”

The complete loss o the Arctic sea-ice in summeris now inevitable. “The Arctic Ocean could be nearlyice- ree at the end o summer by 2012”, says Dr Jay



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Zwally, a glaciologist at the NASAGoddard Space Flight Center. Heconcludes that: “The Arctic is o -ten cited as the canary in the coalmine or climate warming... andnow as a sign o climate warming,the canary has died.”

The Arctic is key to the world’s

climate, and Arctic changes havethe potential to seriously desta- bilise the global climate system.Dr Neil Hamilton, Director othe WWF Arctic programme,says that Arctic climate modelsare breaking down and no lon-ger work because “we are moving to a new Arcticclimate system”. He says the WWF is no longertrying to protect the Arctic eco-system because it isno longer possible to do so, and that carbon sinks inthe Arctic are changing very, very quickly and it isnot clear what any Arctic ecosystem will look like in50 years.

The danger is that an ice- ree state in the Arcticsummer will kick the climate system into run-onwarming and create an aberrant new climate statemany, many degrees hotter. The Arctic sea-ice is therst domino and it is alling ast. Other dominoswill inevitably all unless we stop emitting green-house gases and cool the planet to get the Arcticsea-ice back.

Those dominoes include the Greenland ice sheet.The loss o the Arctic summer sea-ice will cause alarge local warming in the Arctic region o around5˚C and a smaller but very signi cant global warm-ing o around 0.3˚C. This urther warming o theArctic will add to the speed o disintegration o theGreenland ice sheet. “We are close to beingcommitted to a collapse o the Greenland ice sheet”,says Tim Lenton o the University o East Anglia. IGreenland totally melts, global sea-levels will rise by 7 metres. The question, given the present trajec-tory o the climate system is not i , but how ast?The general view is 1–2 metres this century, but WillSte en o the ANU says 4 metres cannot be ruledout; in past climate history 14,000 years ago,sea-levels rose as ast as 5 metres per century.

I are not aware o any well-in ormed climatescientist who thinks that it is possible to have a sa eclimate or avoid dangerous sea-level rises with thepermanent loss o the Arctic summer sea-ice. Thistopic is not being addressed in Australia, though itmust rame the whole debate. To not orce ully con-sider the Arctic is to ignore the biggest issue todayin global warming.

The loss of sea ice is leading tothe loss of permafrostThe rapid regional warming consequent to the sea-ice loss also has grave repercussions or the perma-

rost. The National Centreor Atmospheric Research inBoulder predicts that hal othe perma rost in the Arcticnorth will thaw to a deptho 3 metres by 2050. Glaci-ologist Ted Scambos says,“That’s a serious runaway

... a catastrophe lies bur-ied under the perma rost.”Perma rost specialist SergeiZimov says: “Perma rostareas hold 500 billion tonneso carbon, which can ast turninto greenhouse gases ... I

you don’t stop emissions o greenhouse gases intothe atmosphere ... the Kyoto Protocol will seem likechildish prattle.” The western Siberian peat bog isamongst the astest-warming places on the planet,and Sergei Kirpotin o Tomsk State University callsthe melting o rozen bogs an “ecological landslidethat is probably irreversible”. In August 2008, ÖrjanGusta sson, the Swedish leader o the InternationalSiberian Shel Study con rmed that methane wasnow also bubbling through seawater rom perma-rost on the seabed.

So the question is no longer whether the per-ma rost will start to melt, but i and when thetime-bomb will go o . When it does, it will sweepthe climate system away rom our capacity to stopurther dramatic “tipping points” being passed. Allthe carbon in the perma rost is equivalent to twicethe total amount o all carbon dioxide in the atmo-sphere, so losing even a signi cant portion o it willcreate a very di erent planet rom the one we know.Scientists are warning that the temperature at whichit will be triggered is closer that we think. Researchpublished in mid-2008 by Dmitry Khvorostyanovshows the trigger is warming in the Arctic o around9˚C, and that once initiated it will maintain itsel ,leading to three-quarters o the carbon beingreleased within a century. It could happen as earlyas mid-century.

2 degrees global temperature risewill lead to catastropheFor these and many other reasons, I can only con-clude that a temperature cap o 2–2.4°C, as proposedwithin the United Nations ramework, would takethe planet’s climate beyond the temperature rangeo the last million years and into catastrophe. “Twodegrees has the potential to lead to three or ourdegrees because o carboncycle eedbacks” , says theUniversity o Adelaide’s Barry Brook.

And so the conclusions we reached in November2007 were:• Because of the dangerous knock-on effects caused

by its loss, the Arctic sea ice must be restored to itsnormal extent as ast as

I are not aware of any well-informedclimate scientist who thinks that itis possible to have a safe climateor avoid dangerous sea-level riseswith the permanent loss of theArctic summer sea-ice. This topicis not being addressed in Australia,though it must frame the whole de-bate. To not forcefully consider theArctic is to ignore the biggest issuetoday in global warming.



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possible.

• To get the Arctic sea ice backwe need to cool the earth byabout 0.3˚C. I we don’t, wecannot avoid very danger-ous climate impacts. There isno third way. This is the newvery inconvenient truthpoliticians seek to avoid.

• To cool the earth fast enoughto get the Arctic sea-ice backquickly, we need to move tozero greenhouse gas emis-sions as ast as the economycan be restructured, and isenvironmentally sa e to doso, and take about 200 billiontonnes o carbon dioxide out

o the air. We also need to ndenvironmentally-sa e mechanisms to actively coolthe earth while navigating this transition.

• Taken together this is a staggering task in terms ofthe necessary scale and speed o action, but thereis simply no alternative i we are to avoid cata-strophic climate change.

We were not alone. In December 2007, James Han-sen spoke o his very similar conclusions. He says:

Recent greenhouse gas emissions place the Earth

perilously close to dramatic climate change that couldrun out o our control, with great dangers or humansand other creatures. There is already enough carbon inthe Earth’s atmosphere or massive ice sheets such asWest Antarctica to eventually melt away, and ensurethat sea levels will rise metres in coming decades.Climate zones such as the tropics and temperate regionswill continue to shi t, and the oceans will become moreacidic, endangering much marine li e. We must beginto move rapidly to the post- ossil uel clean energysystem. Moreover, we must remove some carbon thathas collected in the atmosphere since the IndustrialRevolution.

The situation in 2008 is worseIn September 2008, Pro . Hans Joachim Schellnhu- ber, director o Germany’s Potsdam Institute orClimate Impact Research and advisor to the Germangovernment and the European Union, told DavidAdam o The Guardian that only a return to pre-in-dustrial levels o carbon dioxide would be enoughto guarantee a sa e uture or the planet. He saidthat current political targets to slow the growth in

emissions and stabilise carbon levels were insu -cient, and that ways may have to be ound toactively remove carbon dioxide rom the air. Adamreported: “[Schellnhuber] said even a small increasein temperature could trigger one o several climatic

tipping points, such as methanereleased rom melting perma-rost, and bring much moresevere global warming. ‘It is avery sweeping argument, butnobody can say or sure that 330ppm [part per million carbondioxide] is sa e,’ he said. (The

present level is much higher at387 ppm.) ‘Perhaps it will notmatter whether we have 270ppm or 320 ppm, but operatingwell outside the [historic] realmo carbon dioxide concentrationsis risky as long as we have notully understood the relevanteedback mechanisms’.”

Talk to most climate scientists,and they will privately agree.Many are already concerned

that it may be too late (partially because o theirvery jaundiced view o the political elite up close),and they know that the politicallyaccepted targetscannot be scienti cally justi ed as likely to save theplanet rom disaster.

Recently, 49 Australian grassroots climate actionand environment advocacy groups told Ross Gar-naut in an open letter that “the tipping points orlarge ice sheet and species loss have already beencrossed, as we are witnessing in the Arctic. It is nolonger a case o how much more we can sa ely emit, but whether we can quickly stop emissions andproduce a cooling be ore we hit tipping points andampli ying eedbacks — such as largescale release ogreenhouse gases rom melting perma rost — thatwill take the trajectory o the earth’s climate system beyond any hope o human restoration.”

This statement was endorsed by ve state-basedconservation councils, and Greenpeace is alsomoving to this “new realist” position. And o all thelarge environment-oriented organisations, it wasThe Greens’ Christine Milne who took the lead in

recognising that “that the expectation o ailure has become the norm in climate policy” and engagedwith the zero emissions goal.

Public perspective of scientists and mostenvironmentalists is changingSo we can see a sweeping change in the public per-spective o scientists and most environmentalists,whom opinion polls show are the two most crediblevoices in the climate conversation. Un ortunately,some o the more corporate-cuddle climate groups,trapped in a conservative mode o operation,are caught a long way behind the contemporarydebate and the new, evidence-based understand-ing o the urgent need or zero emissions and thecooling o the planet back to a sa e zone. Stop allgreenhouse gas emissions and cool the planet: it

So we can see a sweeping changein the public perspective of scien-tists and most environmentalists,whom opinion polls show are thetwo most credible voices in theclimate conversation. Unfortu-nately, some of the more corporate-cuddle climate groups, trapped ina conservative mode of operation,are caught a long way behind thecontemporary debate and the new,evidence-based understanding of the urgent need for zero emissionsand the cooling of the planet backto a safe zone.



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sounds impossible, but it isnot. I am convinced that theobstacles to such a path arenot principally technologicalor economic, but political andsocial. [Other speakers at thisorum will be talking in detailabout what those solutions can

be.] Renewable energy is notrocket science, nor is electri y-ing our national train network,improving energy e ciency orplanning to live sustainably. AMcKinsey&Company reportnds that many o the emissionreduction opportunities areactually cost-positive (they costless than they save in energycosts). And rebuilding a post-ossiluel economy will be job rich.

Al Gore’s challenge to AmericaIn July Al Gore issued his challenge to America”

Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing100% o our electricity rom renewable energy andtruly clean carbon- ree sources within 10 years...This goal is achievable, a ordable and trans ormative. Tothose who argue that we do not yet have the technology... I’ve seen what they [entrepreneurs who will drivethis revolution] are doing and I have no doubt that we

can meet this challenge.Here is a key: the challenge o climate is politi-cally trans ormative.

In the dense og that passes or the nationalclimate policy debate, the major players stumblerom one lamppost to the next, unable to see the

bigger picture in the murky light. Devoid o context,their climate view is so constrained that they ail toidenti y the core problem: that the world stands onthe edge o a precipice beyond which human actionswill be no longer able to control in any meaning ulway the trajectory o the climate system, or the ateo human li e in a rapidly degrading natural world.

Climate policy is characterised by the habituationo low expectations and a culture o ailure. There isan urgent need to understand global warming andthe tipping points or dangerous impacts that wehave already crossed as a sustainability emergency,that takes us beyond the politics o ailure-inducingcompromise because we are now in a race betweenclimate tipping points and political tipping points.

Our political leaders are not taking the actionsthat the science demands, because the conventionalmode o politics is short-term and pragmatic. Itseems to be about solving 10% o the problem, or blaming the other side or problems, or putting it otill a ter the next election, or pretending it doesn’t

exist at all. Politics is more andmore spin and less and lesssubstance.

Kevin Rudd and Penny Wonghave adopted a traditionalLabor approach to the climateproblem: something or the en-vironment lobby and something

or business. But the problemis that solving the climate crisiscannot be treated like a wagedeal, with the demands o eachside balanced somewhere inthe middle. It is not possible tonegotiate with the laws o phys-ics and chemistry. The planetcannot be bought o . There areabsolute limits that should not be crossed, and doing some-

thing, but not enough, will still lead to disaster.They seem wedded to market-based solutions

rather than having the imaginative capacity to con-struct a uture nation in which we will actually beable to survive. We ace systemic breakdown. Speedis o the essence in making the transition to a post-carbon economy as quickly as humanly possible. Wecannot wait or the market to build a sustainable so-ciety. We all have to be part o it. Even the Presidento France has declared that “laissez- aire is over”;Sarkozy say: “the idea that the market is alwaysright is a crazy idea.” Stern says global warming isthe greatest market ailure o all time, so in climatepolicy what do the major parties turn to: a carbonmarket!

The climate crisis will not respond to incrementalmodi cation o the business-as-usual model.

Adopting climate emergency modeFortunately we have another model we can turn towhen we really want to ully solve a problem: emer-gency mode, whether it be food or re or tsunamior earthquake. In these circumstances we don’t waitor market mechanism or price signals or policiesthat will be implemented in 2 or 3 years time tosolve it. No, government authorities go and directlyapply the people and resources to ully solve heproblem. The same is true in wartime, where thegovernment controls the economy to produce whatis needed quickly and e ciently in order to solvethe problem. In war i you only hal solve the prob-lem, you lose. The same is true o the ght againstglobal warming.

What we need to do is recognise, as people suchas the UN Secretary General, the head o the UN-FCCC, the Victorian Governor in launchingClimate Code Red, and many others have said, thatwe ace an emergency that requires emergencyaction.

In the dense fog that passes for thenational climate policy debate, themajor players stumble from onelamppost to the next, unable to seethe bigger picture in the murky light.Devoid of context, their climate viewis so constrained that they fail toidentify the core problem: that theworld stands on the edge of aprecipice beyond which humanactions will be no longer able tocontrol in any meaningful way thetrajectory of the climate system, or the fate of human life in a rapidlydegrading natural world.



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We need leadership and courageThe climate emergency requires leadership andcourage, and an imaginative capacity almost com-pletely lacking in Australian politics today. We needto inspire people with the idea o trans ormativeaction, the willingness to promote a new vision othe uture and make it the number one goal o oursociety and economy. It requires governments toput much o the enormous wealth generated by oureconomy into solving the climate crisis.

So how much economic capacity should be de-voted to making the necessary rapid transition to apost-carbon society? The only realistic answer is thatwe must devote as many resources as are necessary,and as quickly as possible, to the climate emergency.During the last global mobilisation, World War II,more than 30 per cent, and in some cases more thanhal , o the economy was devoted to military ex-penditure. Yet today we have a delusionary public

discussion about how spending hal or one per centon the problem is too much!We need to be prepared to make that level o

commitment again i it is necessary to save mosthumans and species rom a global warming apoca-lypse. Shi ting to a war-type economy will requireus to live better by consuming less as we rebuild asustainable society. We can’t drill and burn our wayout o the current crisis. But, working together, wecan invest and invent our way out.

We can only play this game once

I politicians cannot lead, then we all must, in build-ing a movement across society that uses the brutalreality o our position to advocate and inspire thenation to take trans ormative action. We can onlyplay this game once. I we don’t do enough, or atsu cient pace, in building a post-carbon economy,the climate system will get away rom our capacityto correct it. Trial and error climate policy is not anoption. Waiting or the market is not an option. TheArctic is our Pearl Harbour.

And the impacts will be global and overwhelm-

ing. For example, the scienti cally-conservative 2007Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)report said that the Himalayan glaciers might begone by mid-century. One-sixth o the Earth’s popu-lation relies on the melting o glaciers and seasonalsnow packs or water, yet Labor’s uno cial targeto three degrees is consistent with their destruction.

A billion people will lose their water suppliesif Himalayan glaciers are lostTaken together with those on the neighbouringTibetan plateau, the Himalayan–Hindu Kush gla-ciers represent the largest body o ice on the planetoutside the polar regions, eeding Asia’s great riversystems, including the Indus, Ganges, Brahma-putra, Salween, Mekong, Yangtze and Huang He.

The basins o these rivers are home to over a bil-lion people rom Pakistan to China. The Himalayassupply as much as 70 per cent o the summer fowin the Ganges and 50–60 per cent o the dry-seasonfow in other major rivers. In China, 23 per cent othe population lives in the western regions, whereglacial melt provides the principal dry season watersource.

The implications o the loss o the Himalayanice sheet are global and mind-numbing, but such acalamity rarely rates a mention in Australia.

Do our politicians understand how global warm-ing impacts in the Himalayas will unravel the liveso a billion people? In their letter to Garnaut, thegrassroots climate groups asked: “What are ourvalues here? Should we ‘wait and see’ i the wholeworld will act, be ore we do? Or should we take theonly possible moral course and do what we need todo now, without waiting, because i other nations

were to act similarly it may be possible to stop those billion people acing a catastrophe beyond words?”

We simply cannot wait and see“We cannot wait, as one o the world’s highest percapita emitters, we have a greater responsibilityto lead, in proportion to our responsibility or theproblem... Playing a game o ‘blink’ with the inter-national community when the stakes are the surviv-al o most people and species is clearly inde ensible.I all nations know that we all have to take drasticaction, then the rst and best choice is or all nationsis to act unilaterally, because we can and must. Wedo not have to wait or an international agreement.To decide not to act with urgency now is to chooseailure. In so doing, bold leadership would replacethe pervasive ailure on climate in Australia poli-tics.”

Sir Nicholas Stern said that climate impacts werelikely to be greater than the two world wars and theDepression put together, and that’s on the light side.When profigacy wrecked the global nance mar-kets in 2008, governments and central banks readily

stumped up more than a trillion dollars to “bail out”the economy. But when profigate human carbonemissions threaten the planet, such a rescue plan isnot even the subject o serious conversation.

Perhaps we may take solace in the thought thatwhen global capital, at whose behest most govern-ment rule, understand the new climate realism andconclude that they can’t build an economy on a dy-ing planet, then those who have sat on their handsat the global negotiating tables will miraculouslynd the political will to plan and build a zero-emis-sions economy at great speed. Our role is to leadpeople across this nation to understand that thetrans ormation to a sustainable society, and rebuild-ing our economy, is now an emergency.



net resourcesCLIMATE SCIENCE

Nature Reports Climate Change www.nature.com/climateNew Scientist www.newscientist.com/topic/climate-changeReal Climate realclimate.org

NSIDC nsidc.org/arcticseaicenewsJames Hansen www.columbia.edu/~jeh1

History of climate science www.aip.org/history/climateCLIMATE NEWS

The Daily Climate www.dailyclimate.orgEco Earth www.ecoearth.info

Environment News Network www.enn.com

Guardian www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climatechangeCOMMENTARY

Barry Brook bravenewclimate.comGeorge Monbiot www.monbiot.com/archives/category/climate-change

Gristmill www.grist.org/topic/climateClimate Progress climateprogress.org

Coal Swarm coalswarm.typepad.com/coalswarm/SAFE CLIMATE

Climate Safety report www.climatesafety.orgAUSTRALIA

Climate Movement www.climatemovement.org.auClimate Emergency Network www.climateemergencynetwork.org

Carbon Equity www.carbonequity.infoFriends of the Earth www.foe.org.au/climate-justice

Greenpeace www.greenpeace.org/australia/issues/climate-changeAustralian Youth Climate Coalition www.aycc.org.au

Tippings pointsin the climate

systemSource: Schellnhuber,

after Lenton et al, PNAS,2008

Climate Reader 2009

Documents

Transcript of Climate Reader 2009