Progressively Worse

There's another round of UN climate talks underway, predetermined to be useless.  Which is not to say there isn't any climate crisis news.  There is.  Well, it's news but not new.  More evidence that the climate crisis is well underway.  And more evidence that not nearly enough is being done to prevent it from becoming far worse.

The climate crisis now: A UN report finds that sea levels are rising 60% faster than predicted.  The European Environment Agency issued a report saying that the climate crisis is evident across Europe, and it's about to get worse.  Etc.  Update: In a new NOAA study, which sounds exactly like old NOAA and other studies, the Arctic experienced record sea ice loss in 2012.

The future impacts: Another UN report quantifies the consequences of a permafrost thaw that releases methane stores.  A research paper suggests that regional consequences of global heating will likely be more complex and extreme than previously thought, due to atmospheric flow.  And the World Bank released a report on the consequences of a 4C rise, and they are dire, and unsurprisingly hit the poorest areas the hardest.

Previous international efforts have been aimed at capping the temperature rise at 2C.  But according to the latest report on actual carbon emissions, goals set at the Copenhagen and Kyoto are becoming "unattainable."  Carbon emissions increased 3% in 2011 to their highest levels ever, and are set to increase another 2.5% in 2012. 

Depite the treaties and all the efforts, only two major countries reduced their carbon output: Germany (by 4%) and the U.S. (by 2%.)  Japan was up very slightly, and Canada was up by 2%.  But by far the biggest addition was from China at a 10% rise, followed by India at 7%.

The burgeoning industrialization of China and India are not covered in the Kyoto Treaty, which sought to bring carbon pollution down 5% from 1990 levels.  Carbon pollution is now 54% above 1990 levels.

Yes, the phrase "we're cooked" does spring to mind.

There's ample reason to note the contribution of China and India, for economic growth.  But none of us are immune to denial, displacement and excuses.  China's factories are busy making stuff for the U.S. consumer market, and prices are kept low not only by low low wages but low energy costs from China's most abundant source: coal. 

There's no sense in guilt-tripping ourselves as individuals and measuring carbon footprints with a meaningless precision, versus the large scale changes that must be made.  Still, let's not kid ourselves either--especially the tech-happy progressives, who frown deeply at conspicuous consumption but snap up the latest instantly obsolete electronics: the cell/smart phones, etc. that will be ewaste in months.  Not to mention the vast amounts of power and manufacturing involved in server farms and the Internet.  It may seem ethereal, but it is based on wires, cables and machines that eat energy sources that all together account for a big chunk of energy costs.

So merry fuck the planet fuck the future Christmas.

There are positives--that sneaky 2% drop in a country that can't even talk about the climate crisis without starting a flame war.  Progress on scaling up clean energy and promising new clean energy tech.  And one little story from today:  President Obama is "putting in place the building blocks for a climate treaty requiring the first fossil fuel emissions cuts from both the U.S. and China," Businessweek reports.

"State Department envoy Todd Stern is in Doha this week working to clear the path for an international agreement by 2015. While Obama failed to deliver on his promise to start a cap-and-trade program in his first term, he's working on policies that may help cut greenhouse gases 17 percent by 2020 in the U.S., historically the world's biggest polluter."

The headline on this Political Wire item is that President Obama is "quietly" working on this.  In the current political climate this makes sense, and there's an historical template for such an effort.  The U.S. and the Soviet Union quietly negotiated on a nuclear test ban treaty in the early 60s.  Powerful elements within both nations were against it, fervently. When the talks stalled, President Kennedy made his historic American University speech on the issue, and it so impressed the world--and the Soviet Premier--that it instantly revived the talks, which (thanks in part to the work done already) quickly came to an agreement.

There was substantial political opposition to the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 in the U.S. Senate (which had to ratify it.)  The country was split.  But President Kennedy went out and made speeches supporting it all across the U.S., and by the time the Senate voted, it had clear public support and the political opposition faded.

Nothing now is going to change the climate crisis we need to prepare for, and need to prepare for the world of the next several generations.  The world is not likely to ever be as it is now for maybe thousands of years.  But we can do quite a bit so it doesn't become even worse, hundreds of years from now.