Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution these gases have risen rapidly from pre-industrial levels of 288 ppm (parts per million) to today's level of 387 ppm; a rise of about 40%, and growing at a staggering level of 4% per year.
These levels have not been exceeded in the past 400,000 - 500,000 years and possibly not during the past 2 million years.
The overwhelming number of climatologists attribute the rise in greenhouse gases, and the weather extremes being experienced around the globe, to the burning of fossil fuels by industrialised peoples (or what is known as anthropogenic climate change). Occasionally, deforestation and other land use changes are also included in the causes but rarely do they receive the same attention as fossil fuels.
The most prestigious group of scientists working on climate change is the I.P.C.C. (International Panel on Climate Change). It has produced four major reports. Each successive report, and the most recent one in 2007, has produced more alarming scenarios.
The first warnings about damage to the earth's climatic system from increasing levels of greenhouse gases was made approximately 100 years ago by the Swedish chemist and Nobel laureate Svante Arrhenius, and the first report to the US Congress was made in 1965 when President Johnson was in power.
In Australia, the CSIRO, independent scientists, various think-tanks and conservationists have repeatedly requested that climate change be given top priority by governments, businesses and individuals. Australia's Industry Commission conducted its first inquiry into climate change in 1991 in the lead up to the Rio summit on the environment.
By the late 1980's extreme weather around the world, such as the break up of the Antarctic ice shelf and increasing and prolonged droughts in sub Sahara Africa, was becoming harder to ignore. Insurance companies were raising premiums for storm damage and refusing to cover businesses in hurricane prone areas such as the Caribbean.
The media were having a field day, "the environment" was on the agenda, and climate change, at last, was making it into the mainstream debate - well, that was, for a while.
By the late 1980's and early 90's, cuts of 60% - 80% in greenhouse emissions were being called for at international conferences by conservationists and, notably, by the, then, Dutch government.
Since then little, if anything, has changed. Warnings went unheeded and emissions in the developed and developing nations (in an attempt to "catch up") have increased along with their expanding economies.
So, when politicians, captains of industry and public commentators say we should not "rush into any precipitous action to reduce emissions", it is, in fact, already very late - some would say it's already too late.
Recently, as evidence of global warning becomes harder to ignore, climate change has again taken centre-stage and now over-shadows a multitude of other equally serious threats to the earth's biosphere : threats such as human over-population; species extinction; deforestation; chemical, heavy metal and radiological pollution; degradation of soils, river systems and oceans, and ozone depletion and other damage to the stratosphere.
These threats are not separate from greenhouse gas pollution. They are intimately connected to it.
After ignoring (or completely denying) the problem for decades, government and big business now largely dominate the greenhouse debate as presented in the mainstream media and in high-profile forums. As such, the discussion is very narrow, revolving almost entirely around how we produce energy and how to maintain economic growth.
The climate change problem is debated in isolation from the other intersecting and interrelated problems; even deforestation and agriculture - both massive drivers of climate change - are not addressed.
However, climate change is not simply a matter of how we produce energy. To focus only on the type of energy is to completely miss the point : it is what we use the energy for that really matters. Because, a cheap and ready supply of energy - such as fossil fuels - greatly expands the rate at which we use up the natural world - or what economists call resources.
For a long time, we have been using up nature's bounty far quicker than nature can replenish its systems : In other words, we have been living beyond our means.
Take for example the changes in the rate of deforestation that have occurred as more concentrated sources of energy were exploited : The development of agriculture, and harnessing of draught animals, spurred deforestation and other detrimental practices such as irrigation, and the expansion of civilisations, fuelled by slavery and military power, resulted in the destruction of vast forests. The advent of steam power required more forests for fuel until replaced by coal. Coal and other fossil fuels, especially oil, now allow forests to be razed at phenomenal rates.
Imagine that, if by some miracle (and the technological optimists believe in just such a miracle), a non-polluting substitute for fossil fuels were to rapidly materialise and all the necessary infrastructure were to be installed overnight. Next, imagine that we continued to live in the same old way : driving cars, flying in jets, expanding large cities, sending rockets into space, supporting large armies and "defence" systems, relying on high-tech medicine, consuming all the latest gadgets etc. etc. would the natural world be saved ? No, of course not. Ecological crashes, such as the death of the Murray's Lower Lakes, would still be occurring. We would still be living beyond our means and exploiting natural "resources" (in this instance by taking too much water) faster than nature could replenish them. In the case of fossil fuels or the Great Artesian Basin (fossil water), the replacement rate is many millions of years.
Simply substituting less polluting fuels for fossil fuels is not going to solve much at all.
To demonstrate this point a little further, consider the way in which industrial agriculture contributes to greenhouse gas pollution while simultaneously reducing the ability of climate to recover from atmospheric disruption we are causing.
Broad acre farming in Australia and other developed countries is considered to be a very efficient food-producing system. However, this "efficiency" is achieved by the application of massive quantities of fossil fuels to drive the machinery, and in the form of inputs such as chemical sprays and fertilisers. Then, there is the fuel required to transport produce to highly centralised locations for processing and distribution to wholesalers, retailers and to ports for further transportation overseas.
O.K., now substitute the fossil fuels with the new non-polluting energy source and see what has changed - very little. Farmers would still be planting mono-crops (consisting of narrow-range of varieties) from horizon to horizon. They would continue to use a vast array of toxic chemicals, and to deplete their soil of micro-organisms and organic matter, and hence the ability of the soil to maintain carbon and moisture. Creeks, rivers and underground water would continue to be over-exploited and degraded, erosion of soils would continue unabated as would dust storms. Farmers would still maintain large flocks of stock and they would still not countenance the necessary revegetation of significant areas of agricultural land.
It is not hard to see that regardless of the source of energy used to drive industrial-scale systems, such as in agriculture, the end-result is the same : degradation of biological systems.
When land is cleared of forests and other vegetation for our various activities, it causes subtle changes in the absorption of energy and in wind currents which, in turn, can lead to substantial decreases in rainfall. The movement of moisture and convection currents which enhance rainfall are affected by the surface of the earth. Tree cover accelerates the movement of water from the soil to the atmosphere and back again and thus keeps the cycle replenished.
To only consider the type of energy we exploit ignores the significance of living organisms on their surrounding environment and their interaction with climate.
Living organisms are critical in affecting the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and are also important in affecting the earth's albedo : the reflectability of the earth's surface.
Living organisms in the form of algae, bacteria, fungi and plant roots play a role, for example, by greatly accelerating the weathering of rocks one-hundred or even one-thousand fold, thereby taking carbon dioxide (CO2) as well as acid rain components, such as sulphur and nitrogen oxides, out of the atmosphere.
In 1996, the science writer Peter Bunyard said that based on the work of people such as James Lovelods and Lee Klinger of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research, "Life is not an innocent bystander to climate. On the contrary, living organisms are intimately involved in determining the processes that make the earth's climate what it is by generating and absorbing greenhouse gases; mediating the interchange of gases between rocks and soil, so enhancing the weathering; dramatically changing the albedo of the earth's surface, and, not least, playing a key role in the hydrological cycles that shift energy around the globe through rainfall. If climate is indeed life-driven, the future climate of the earth will be determined as much by what happens to the earth's ecosystems as by future and past emissions of greenhouse gases. For it is the integrity of the earth's ecosystems that will largely determine the extent to which these greenhouse gases accumulate."
Perhaps because they can't do so accurately, computer modelling by the IPCC does not fully take into account the intricacies of the interaction between the earth's climate and ecosystems. This may, in part, explain why the speed at which climate change is now occurring is much greater than forecast by the IPCC.
Ally Fricker 2008-2010
This is produced by the group PRECIPICE
(People Representing Ecological Consciousness and Integrity of the Planet Instead of Committing Ecocide)
Phone (O8) 8581 8255.
International Phone (61) 8 8581 8255.
Write:
Ally Fricker
RSD 3
ROBERTSTOWN SA
5381
AUSTRALIA
Ally Fricker
RSD 3
ROBERTSTOWN SA
5381
AUSTRALIA
or Email kbarrett@adam.com.au.
