By Don Miller
​
Living in Marlborough we are surrounded by opportunities for recreation.  For some of us this may have been why we moved here, while others have had this privilege all of their lives.  In my case it was the decades old memory of sailing in Pelorus Sound in an old yacht – one so small that we had to camp on land at night, that brought me back here.  The silence of the night followed by the dawn chorus is an integral part of those memories.
What do we mean by “Play green”?  To me it is just recreation that has minimal negative impact on the environment.
Playing green is almost synonymous with the sounds of nature, while burning fossil fuel is generally a noisy activity. 
While steady progress is being made toward using silent renewable energy for transport, we already have many options to Play green. For those living near the Sounds the marine options include kayaking, rowing, stand up paddleboard, sailing and swimming. A kayak lets you drift quietly along a forested shoreline and allows maximum exposure to our birdlife.  Some might prefer rowing which may be more convenient for groups which include small children. 
I have been surprised at the wildlife dramas being played out on the water that would be entirely missed in a power boat.   Have you ever watched the performance put on by a shag building its nest in a shoreline tree?  Despite the apparent chaos the nests do get built, although one does wonder how.
An exception to noisy powerboats is the recent advent of the electric outboard motor.  There were electric boats in use decades ago and my dentist in the 1950s had one made so that he could cruise on the Mahurangi River without making a great disturbance, but the development of the Lithium Ion battery has increased the range and reduced the weight of electric outboard motors and made them a viable alternative.  Battery drills have even been modified for use as improvised kayak motors.
The amount of power wasted by conventional petrol and diesel marine motors was brought home to me on a kayak excursion early on a recent wind-free New Year’s Day.  Once the power boats started heading out from Waikawa their combined wakes soon made the sea so choppy that our trip was abandoned.  Human, and wind power has many advantages for our health and our planet.
Cycling is an obvious “Play green” choice but for older folks whose joints might be a bit worn the electric bicycle is a dream come true.  The knees benefit from this type of movement but the stress on them can be adjusted to almost zero as the motor provides the required power.  Look at the tracks available for the mountain biker now too. The Queen Charlotte Track and the Link Pathway connect Picton to the Sounds already, with Kaikoura being on the horizon.
There is now a Fossil Free Multisport event, where competitors have to tow their kayaks with their bicycles.  Considering that one event involved cycling and kayaking from Christchurch to Port Levy over Dyers Pass, it was no mean feat. http://cyclingchristchurch.co.nz/2018/03/13/fossil-fuel-free-multisport-2018/
If you want to know more about how you can Play green, enjoy the outdoors, improve your health and avoid polluting our environment – come to the Marlborough Earth Day Party, Saturday 21st April A&P Park, Blenheim
  

By Peter Deacon

​At the Marlborough Earth Day Party on Saturday 21st April at the A&P Park, Climate Karanga will be encouraging all Marlburians to ‘Travel green’ - but what does ‘Travel green’ really mean?
 
You probably know about global warming, climate change, sea level rise and ocean acidification and how these are being caused by humans spewing billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year. One of the major sources of these gases are our cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes and ships burning fossil fuels inside their engines. These account globally for about 15% of human greenhouse gas emissions.
 
So if we want to stop putting these gases into the atmosphere we need  to - STOP BURNING FOSSIL FUELS!!  It really is that simple.
 
The only problem is that our entire economy and way of life has become so dependent on energy from burning these fuels that we don’t know how to quit. We have unwittingly become oil addicts, but now it is clear we have to find alternative sources of energy quickly, if we do not the planet to continue warming, and extreme weather, droughts and floods to become more frequent and damaging.
 
So what are some of the solutions?
 
There are dozens of things you can do to reduce your own transport emissions but the obvious first step is to choose alternatives to using internal combustion engines or at least use them less often.
 
The easiest and cheapest option is to leave your car at home and either walk or use a bicycle, an e-bike, a mobility scooter if you own one, or public transport if available.
 
Some parents and schools organise ‘walking buses’ where they supervise groups of children walking to school each day, or one day a week, and this helps the children become fitter and healthier as well as eliminating vehicle fumes. Imagine how many car journeys are saved by this simple step?
 
Another option is to car share with friends or work-mates so instead of 2 or 3 cars being on the road each day with one person inside, there is just one car with 3 people. This reduces overall fuel and running costs, alleviates traffic congestion, reduces pollution and helps lower greenhouse gas emissions.
 
If you are likely to replace your car in the foreseeable future you could consider purchasing either a plug-in hybrid vehicle such as a Toyota Prius or a fully electric vehicle (EV) such as the Nissan Leaf or Hyundai Ioniq.  Vehicles powered by electric motors and battery technology are clearly the future for road transport as they are cleaner, simpler to make, have fewer moving parts, cost much less to maintain and operate than petrol and diesel vehicles and emit much less greenhouse gas.
 
Most car companies are now rapidly converting their vehicle ranges to be fully electric or hybrid and several countries/states including Britain, France, India, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands and California have stated their intention to completely phase out all internal combustion engine vehicles within the next few decades.
 
Finally if you must use your car you can now offset all your emissions by purchasing carbon credits from either:-
EKOS:- https://www.ekos.org.nz/   OR
Greenfleet:- https://www.greenfleet.com.au/Individuals/Offset-Emissions
 
These organisations invest the money you pay for the credits into permanent reforestation programmes that sequester the equivalent amount of carbon you have emitted from your car and store it in the trees.  This helps lower greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and conserves habitat for our wildlife.

​

PM of Samoa did an opening address - Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Neioti Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi has been Prime Minister of Samoa since 1998.
 
Some things he talked about were -
 
The Blue Pacific Continent concept. 
​This article has more info about it.
Here’s a quote from the article -
“The Blue Pacific is a strong expression of Pacific Regionalism. It’s about reclaiming the identity that we are ‘one oceanic continent’ – and that as Big Ocean Stewardship States we can do more together than we can alone. It encourages us to see the collective potential of harnessing the energy and opportunity that lie both above and below our Pacific Ocean.”
 
Samoa has a target of having 100% renewable energy. They are planning a wind farm, 9 mini hydro plants and 5 solar farms.
 
Pacific Island nations get up to 40% of their income from selling fishing rights to foreign companies.
 
The Pacific Resilience Partnership was launched in 2016 and Samoa is a member along with several other Pacific nations. 
 
I went to a workshop later in the day where they talked about “The Pacific Disaster Risk Financing Initiative”. It’s an interesting initiative which is designed to deliver quick injections of cash to governments immediately after eligible disasters. There is more info in the above article about it.
 
Wesley Morgan.
 Wesley talked about the concept of “normative change” and global politics. It looks at what is appropriate behaviour. For instance slavery used to be normal but became unacceptable. There is a global norm shift happening regarding use of fossil fuels. Emitting GHG’s will become unacceptable just like slavery did. He said Pacific Island leaders are “Norm Entrepreneurs” who are at the forefront of instigating change and had a big influence at the Paris talks.
 
Bronwyn Hayward.
 She talked about bringing about a sea change in climate politics in NZ. She strongly believes that the regular people of the country are missing from the debate. Good science and decisive leadership are essential ingredients. We can’t reach the Paris targets without addressing issues such as sustainability, environmental degradation and poverty. They are all interlinked. Genuine democratic public debate is needed. The targets set in Paris require ratcheting up ASAP. If the top 10% of emitters reduced their emissions to the level of an average European it would reduce global emissions by 1/3. She raised the question of how we maintain functioning democracies with fairness and good citizenship through periods of constant change.
 
Jean Kahui.
 Talked about the drivers and victims of the fossil fuel industry in NZ. She lives in Taranaki and has witnessed the effects of oil drilling and fracking there. She said it’s essential all oil industry subsidisation and exploration is stopped. Capitalism cannot save the day how ever you wrap it up. We have to find another way. Indigenous cultures have the answer. We must educate ourselves into a fairer, more inclusive society. We have to decolonise from capitalism. Somehow the privileged must be forced to look at themselves. The oil companies supported by the government are the drivers of the status quo continuing. $87.6M was spent last year which is double what was spent in 2007. The subsidisation is usually indirect like tax breaks or NIWA doing data collection and the info is then made available to oil companies for free to entice them to drill here.
 
Here is an article from 2013 with interesting info about how it works.
 
Sarah Thomson.
 Sarah took the case against the government last year. She talked about CC litigation. The Netherlands government was forced by the courts to raise it’s Paris target from 17% to 25% after a successful case was brought against it. The court found that the government had a duty of care to protect citizens from CC. Good law needs to be in place to make litigation a realistic option.  This is called The Urgenda Case.
 
She talked about the Public Trust Doctrine which is being applied in the US. Here is an article giving more info about it.
 
The other pathway is “Tort” law. A tort, in common law jurisdictions, is a civil wrong that causes someone else to suffer loss or harm resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act.

The idea is to make the polluter pay, but it can be difficult to prove causation. For instance Exxon Mobil has produces about 3.5% of the global GHG so trying to pin damage on one company is difficult. Attorneys General from New York and some other cities in the States have taken Exxon and some other companies to court for costs to defend against SLR and other CC effects. The oil companies have taken a counter case accusing the AG’s of collusion because they met to discuss how best to take some action.
 
A Peruvian man Saul Lliuya has taken one of the biggest energy companies in the world, RWE in Germany to court. They produce 0.5% of global GHG’s. The glacier that supplies their water supply is drying up so he is asking them to pay 0.5% of the damage costs.
Here’s some info about this interesting case.
 
The Commonwealth Bank in Australia was taken to court by a couple who were shareholders asking them to disclose to investors what threats it faced to it’s assets from CC. The Aussie Financial Regulator has warned that CC poses material risk to the financial system. The bank ended up disclosing information to avoid any consequences.
Here’s some info. 
 
Sarah said the biggest obstacles to CC litigation are costs especially if costs awarded against you and the state of current law that may not provide good opportunities to take a case. She said the opportunities are that cases, even partially successful cases like hers create legal foundations for future cases. Also opportunities for collaboration and knowledge sharing are created.

It’s important to keep trying until the real ground breaking cases happen. Tobacco and asbestos are examples where many cases were taken until there were breakthroughs.
 
Nicole Smith.
 Nicole is a lawyer who has worked for Corporations and also for groups challenging them. She says  they can be ruthless and must not be underestimated. (The oil company’s challenge talked about above is an example) She talked about the group “Client Earth” that takes legal action on environmental cases. They have won cases against the UK government on breaches of statutory obligations in regard to air pollution. She said it’s important that new laws are enacted around the world to ensure no costs can be awarded against litigators in environmental cases if they pass a certain threshold. She talked about Leghari Ali taking a case in Pakistan to try and stop a coal mine.
 
Greenpeace Norway have been trying to stop the Norway government issuing oil exploration licences through the courts.
 
Nicole said there are principles that are emerging about the roles of courts, consensus on the middle ground of climate science. By countries signing the Paris agreement they are effectively saying they agree with this science. Causation is the biggest issue because it is a collective problem we all contribute to.
 
Michael Sharp.
 Michael presented along with Nicole about the role of indigenous people in legal cases. He talked about a Waitangi Tribunal claim (Wai 2607) and the general potential of indigenous peoples in the Pacific and elsewhere to bring climate change claims against governments.

Here’s a bit about it - “In June 2016 a claim was filed in New Zealand’s Waitangi Tribunal on behalf of the Mataatua District Maori Council alleging that the Crown was acting in breach of its Treaty of Waitangi obligations towards Māori as a result of the New Zealand government failing to implement adequate policies to address the threats posed by global climate change. It was hoped that the claim would be heard this year. This claim appears to be the first climate change claim brought on behalf of indigenous peoples. The claim is based around the Crown’s obligations of “active protection” towards Māori stemming from article two of the Treaty of Waitangi. Such obligations have parallels with the common law “public trust doctrine” upon which climate change claims in the United States of America are based. Under this approach the government is held responsible as a trustee of the environment on behalf of indigenous peoples to deal with the threats of climate change.”
 
Michael said it was based on Article 2 obligations under the Treaty to provide active protection towards Maori regarding the environment. That they are suffering prejudicial effects and the environment is suffering. That there has been ineffective government consultation and ongoing harm. It is now not being heard until 2020. They will revise the case when the government presents it’s new Paris targets. If they feel they are inadequate they will carry on with the case. This sort of case is similar to the “Public Trust” cases in the US.
 
Michael Mann.
 Some points from his keynote address after lunch.

• Recent research has shown that natural factors would have resulted in global cooling over the last couple of hundred years, which means that more than 100% of global warming is due to our activities. 
• Arctic sea ice is retreating faster than models predicted. Changes in the behaviour of the jet stream were not predicted. We are learning new information all the time. 
• Climate forcing can be steady but results can be abrupt when tipping points are passed.
• As new  info it added to models it looks more like 2 metres of SLR by 2100.
• CC means more people moving to urban areas resulting in more competition for land, food and water leading to potential conflict.
• Colleagues believe we can’t stay below 2 degrees.
• One third of US population live in States with CC policies aimed at meeting Paris targets. He believes USA will meet current targets regardless of Trump but the need is to substantially improve on current targets.

​Greetings!

This is a Stop the Bad Stuff call-out for action. Despite the more hopeful policies of our new government, the fossil fuel industry rolls on in New Zealand. The industry will be holding its annual summit on March 26-28 in Wellington. They say on their website, ‘New Zealand’s oil and gas sector is poised for action and ready for growth – exploration activity is progressing and there is genuine excitement about the opportunities available and the development underway.’
Growth? When our government has a goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050?  This means that extraction and burning of oil and gas must be phased out by or before 2050. Our Climate Declaration spells this out exactly. ‘Senior government officials’ are said to be involved in the summit. Will they be speaking of a phase-out?
The ‘carbon budget’ is a calculation of how much more carbon dioxide (or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases) can be emitted globally before the blanketing greenhouse effect will drive the global average temperature to increase by 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees. Obviously, the budget for 1.5 degrees is smaller than that for 2 degrees. The quantity of carbon in the carbon budget can be compared with the quantity of carbon in fossil fuels in known reserves. It has become clear that the carbon in known reserves is very much greater than the carbon budget consistent with relative climate safety. It follows then that a great deal of the already known fossil fuel reserves cannot be burned if we are to have a safe climate. Therefore there is no point, if we recognise this argument, in exploring for more. It is a waste of human and financial resources. This has to do with why many people are withdrawing their investments from fossil fuels in general.
Clearly, this argument is threatening to almost all in the oil and gas industry. There appears to be little mention of the issue in the conference programme, whereas it should be the highest priority issue for the industry. There is a panel on ‘the environment’, featuring the Minister for the Environment, the CEO of WWF and a representative of the industry’s environment and social concerns body (IPIECA).
We must add to this argument the damage that any industry extracting material from the Earth’s crust does to people, other species, ecosystems and landscapes. The people of Taranaki have suffered from this damage, greatly worsened by ‘fracking’. There is great concern about suffering inflicted on marine mammals from seismic exploration.
 
Time to say NO!
Our Climate Declaration specifies:
Phase out extraction and burning of fossil fuels by 2050. Clearly, such a phase-out is a huge undertaking, assisted by technological change, and must actively begin now.
End deep sea exploration.
End fracking.
 
There is a plan to blockade the conference in Wellington on March 26th to impede the delegates’ entry, as was done successfully at last year’s petroleum summit in New Plymouth and the previous year in Auckland. The conference planners know this is likely and haven’t yet announced the site of the summit. Oil Free Wellington and Greenpeace are lead planners. The idea is for groups to converge on the day, and to have hundreds of people with banners and signs blockading the conference.
 
Be there! Come to Wellington if you possibly can! Register with the Oil Free Wellington website for ongoing information  The day before the beginning of the Petroleum Summit, March 25th, there will be a meeting of activists for tactical planning.
  
SuperGrans
Those of us who are grandparents can have a special role in this event. We’re calling ourselves ‘SuperGrans’ to signify our special powers. We care deeply about the world we’re leaving to our mokopuna, and some of us are more easily able to risk arrest in nonviolent direct action. We’re planning to wear something that distinguishes us as SuperGrans. There will be some SuperGrans who will risk arrest, and others who will be important close supporters. In the lead-up time we can communicate by e-mail to decide on our main message, what we wear, our roles, our spokesperson. If you can consider being a SuperGran, please contact me directly, at joanna@atamaivillage.nz 

Here are the questions to ask yourself. It is the mission of this website to help you answer them.

• Q. Is the climate changing and if so, is it bad news?
• A. No one questions the fact that it is changing. It has always changed and the paleoclimate record from ice and ocean sediment cores confirms this very clearly. Scientists have analysed ice cores going back around 800,000 years and have now identified regions in Antarctica they say could store information about Earth’s climate and greenhouse gases extending as far back as 1.5 million years. By studying the past climate, scientists can understand better how temperature responds to changes in greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere. This, in turn, allows them to make better predictions about how climate will change in the future. Ice-cores contain little air bubbles and, thus, represent the only direct archive of the composition of the past atmosphere. The 3.2-km-long ice core completed in 2004 at Dome Concordia (Dome C) in Antarctica revealed 800,000 years of climate history, showing that greenhouse gases and temperature have mostly moved in lockstep as shown in this graph. Note that in 2015, the high point on the chart below passed the 400ppm mark!

©2015 SBC Energy Institute. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute copies of this work for personal or non-profit educational purposes. Any copy or extract has to refer to the copyright of SBC Energy Institute.

The activities of humanity have caused changes within 200 years that took thousands of years in the natural cycles of ice age and interglacial. Change that is this rapid leaves no time for evolutionary adjustment to the changing environment and mass extinctions of species result – humans could be among them.

• Q. What can we learn from these ice core records?
• A. Within the current major glaciation period, the past million years saw regular interglacial warm periods, initiated by natural variations in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun (~100,000 year Milankovitch cycles). The Milankovitch theory describes the collective effects on the Earth’s climate of cyclic changes in Earth’s orbit around the Sun. For each cycle, it took an average 5,000 years for temperatures to rise by 4 – 7°C and for the global average CO2 concentrations to rise by ~80 ppm. Current CO2 levels are ~400ppm, higher than at any time in the last million years. This is a rise of ~120ppm from the pre-industrial level of ~280ppm. During the natural cycles, Antarctic temperatures and variations in global CO2 concentrations appear closely correlated and CO2 concentration rises do not precede temperature rises:

• Temperature rises are initiated by Milankovitch cycles.
• Warmed oceans naturally release more dissolved CO2 into the atmosphere, causing CO2 concentrations to increase.
• The induced greenhouse effect amplifies the initial warming as part of a positive feedback loop.
• Overall, about 90% of the temperature rise is estimated to occur after the CO2 increase.
• We are currently in an interglacial warm period that started ~8,000 years ago.

The emissions of greenhouse gases due to human activities since the beginning of the Industrial age, have overpowered this natural cycle. By emitting large quantities of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, in such a short period of time, we have created an imbalance in the natural cycle. This has amplified the greenhouse effect and temperatures are steadily rising as a consequence. Currently the rise is roughly ten timesfaster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming.

• Q. Is climate change caused or affected by human activity?
• A. There is an overwhelming scientific agreement that it is. The scientists tell us that over millions of years, plants and algae took CO2 out of the atmosphere and sequestered it in the form of fossil fuels (coal, oil & gas.) In the past two centuries, since the industrial revolution, humans have learnt how to extract and burn fossil fuels and, over a short period, have released back into the atmosphere large amounts of CO2 that had been sequestered over many millions of years. At the same time, they have cleared away the forests that used to trap CO2 and often replaced them with domesticated animals that themselves produce methane – another greenhouse gas. Due to human activities, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 has been rising extensively since the Industrial Revolution and has now reached dangerous levels not seen in the last 3 million years. Human sources of CO2 emissions are much smaller than natural emissions, but sufficient to have upset the natural balance that existed for many thousands of years before the influence of humans. This is because natural sinks removed around the same quantity of CO2 from the atmosphere that was produced by natural sources. This kept CO2 levels balanced and in a safe range. But human sources of emissions have upset the natural balance by adding extra CO2 to the atmosphere without removing any. Although our output of 29 gigatons of CO2 is tiny compared to the 750 gigatons moving through the carbon cycle each year, it adds up because the land and ocean cannot absorb all of the extra CO2. About 40% of this additional CO2 is absorbed. The rest remains in the atmosphere, and as a consequence, atmospheric CO2 is at its highest level in 15 to 20 million years. (A natural change of 100ppm normally takes 5,000 to 20,000 years. The recent increase of 100ppm has taken just 120 years). Human CO2 emissions upset the natural balance of the carbon cycle. While fossil-fuel derived CO2 is a relatively small component of the global carbon cycle, the extra CO2 is cumulative because the natural carbon exchange cannot absorb all of the addition. The level of atmospheric CO2 is building up, the additional CO2 is being produced by burning fossil fuels, and that build up is accelerating.

• Q. How fast is the climate changing?
• A. Many of the world’s climate scientists believe it is happening at a rate that will threaten the stability of human populations due to major adverse weather events, famine, war, mass migrations, sea level rise and ocean acidification within the lifetimes of our grandchildren. Some argue that there remain serious gaps in scientific understanding and that each year of inadequate action increases the likelihood of the Earth reaching a tipping point where we move from the current rate of change into one that is disastrous or abrupt.

• Q. Why is CO2 a greenhouse gas?
• A. The temperature of the Earth depends on a balance between incoming energy from the Sun and the energy that bounces back into space. CO2 absorbs heat that would otherwise be lost to space. Some of this energy is re-emitted back to Earth, causing additional heating of the planet. Most of the light energy from the sun is emitted in wavelengths shorter than 4,000 nanometers (.000004 meters). The heat energy released from the earth, however, is released in wavelengths longer than 4,000 nanometers. Carbon dioxide doesn’t absorb the incoming energy from the sun, but it does absorb some of the heat energy released from the earth.

• Q. Should I be looking at my consumption of animal products?
• A. A large source of carbon emissions is from livestock farming. Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options is a U.N. report, released by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations on 29 November 2006. Based on this report, senior U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation official Dr. Henning Steinfeld stated that the meat industry is “one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems” and that “urgent action is required to remedy the situation.” Following a Life Cycle Analysis approach, the report evaluates “that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport.” In a 2009 issue of the Worldwatch Institute magazine, environmental assessment specialists Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang argued in “Livestock and Climate Change” that the FAO vastly underestimated the environmental impact of the livestock sector and that it accounts for at least 51% of global GHG emissions. Some criticisms included the FAO’s use of the 100-year Global Warming Potential (GWP) of methane (CH4) rather than the 20 GWP favored by Goodland and Anhang. However, Goodland and Anhang continue to use the 100-year GWP for anthropogenic greenhouse gases in their analysis, with the sole exception of methane emissions from livestock. More controversially, Goodland and Anhang argue that animal respiration should be included, despite widely adopted conventions that they be treated as part of the short-term carbon cycle and excluded. Suffice it to say animal agriculture is a large contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and something that needs to be taken more seriously at all levels of decision making. Currently very few people want to talk about it as it raises so many questions about our lifestyles and the economy that we depend on. Whenever the issue of animal agriculture and its associated emissions are discussed the common response is that it is a very difficult area in which to reduce emissions. Very few address the elephant in the room – that emissions can be very simply reduced by reducing animal numbers. Consider this fact. On average 1 hectare can produce about 28,000 kgs of plant-based food but the same area can produce only 280 kgs of meat. If we really want to play our part in contributing to food security at the same time as reducing greenhouse gases then the answer is clear and simple. The added bonus in the case of NZ is that reducing cow numbers will help restore some health to our waterways.

• Q. What is climate forcing?
• A. Climate forcing is one of the critical factors to understand if we are going to get our heads around what is causing the current rate of climate change. There are positive and negative forcings, which are natural and man-made. “In climate science, radiative forcing or climate forcing, is defined as the difference of insolation (sunlight) absorbed by the Earth and energy radiated back to space. Typically, radiative forcing is quantified at the tropopause in units of watts per square meter of the Earth’s surface.” Radiative forcing “The natural forcing due to insolation variations, averaged over the planet, is a small fraction of 1 watt/M2. This very weak forcing is effective only because, operating over long periods, it succeeds in bringing into play two powerful slow feedbacks: global surface reflectivity changes and greenhouse gas changes…. Humans, by rapidly burning fossil fuels, have caused global warming that overwhelms the natural tendency towards the next ice age…. But human-made climate forcing is now so large that decadel-mean climate will continue to warm for at least the next few decades….because of slow feedbacks, global temperature will continue to rise for decades and millennia unless we reduce human-made climate forcings.” (page 49 – ‘Storms of my Grandchildren’ by James Hansen)
​
Using current global climate simulations, NASA GISS shows in the image below, the changes in effectiveness of the main radiative forcings since 1880.

As you can see, greenhouse gases are shown to have the greatest sustained positive forcing on the climate system. Stratospheric aerosols from volcanic eruptions can also have a strong, negative cooling influence, but it is very short term. Also note the small influence of solar irradiance changes since 1880. The indirect cooling impact of the release of man-made aerosols is also having a significant impact.

• Q. What can we learn from ocean sediment cores?
• A. From ocean sediment cores we have learnt that about 55 million years ago, an enormous amount of CO2 entered the atmosphere in perhaps only 1,000 years, causing global temperature to rise. Much of the CO2 was absorbed by the ocean, quickly changing its composition. Younger sediments, which do not contain any carbonate shells, lie on top of older sediments, which contain many tiny shells. This sharp boundary indicates that many shelled organisms suddenly disappeared from the ocean at that time. One theory for the source of all this CO2 is that gradual warming of the ocean melted ices containing methane that were part of shallow ocean sediments. The released methane, in turn, reacted with oxygen in the atmosphere to form CO2. The amount of CO2 that was injected into the atmosphere 55 million years ago is comparable to the amount that humans will put into the atmosphere over the next century if we do not reduce CO2 emissions. So that event of the distant past could have important lessons for today.

• Q. If the climate is changing, is there anything I can do about altering the speed of change slowing or stopping it?
• A. You can do a teeny, weeny, little bit by altering your own carbon footprint www.karangapledge.org.nz However, if everyone took steps in this direction it would have a huge impact. You owe it to the future to do your little bit. Other big differences can be made by governments and economic pressure. There are many reasons why governments do not want to take the steps necessary. This can only be changed if they are forced to take action by a ground-swell of demand from their electorates. A massive grass-roots movement can do this. Help by signing the Karanga pledge. Economic pressure is being created by large organisations, such as investment and endowment funds, banks and cities divesting from fossil fuel investments. If enough momentum can be created so that people start to worry about fossil fuel investments becoming stranded assets then liberated funds can be redirected into renewables and new technologies.

• Q. How do New Zealanders emissions compare to other countries?
• A. Per person, NZ’s emissions are the 5th highest in the developed world (17 tonnes/person compared with 5.6 tonnes/person in Sweden – 2012). There has been a net 42% rise in NZ’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1990. This was the year of the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement that attempted to limit greenhouse gas emissions from developed countries, and which NZ ratified. (net figures include land use, land-use change and forestry inputs.)

Q. Why do carbon dioxide emissions weigh more than the original fuel?
A. The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that is produced from burning a fuel weighs more than the amount of the fuel itself, because during complete combustion, each carbon atom in the fuel combines with two oxygen atoms in the air to make CO2. The addition of two oxygen atoms to each carbon atom forms CO2, which has an atomic weight of 44 – roughly 3.6667 times the atomic weight of the carbon, which is 12.
For example, sub-bituminous coal is on average 51% carbon, so the carbon in a tonne (1,000 kg) weighs 510 kg. The carbon dioxide emissions from burning a tonne of sub-bituminous coal are approximately 1,872 kg, or about 3.67 times the weight of the carbon in a tonne of coal, and 1.87 times the weight of a tonne of coal.

Q. What part do the world’s oceans play?
A. Since 1955, over 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases has been stored in the sea ice, ice caps, and glaciers, and warming the land masses. Only the smallest fraction of this thermal energy goes into warming the atmosphere. Humans thus, living at the interface of the land, ocean and atmosphere, only feel a sliver of the true warming cost of fossil fuel emissions.
This 90% of extra heat taken up by the ocean is mostly in the upper 700 metres (m) layer (about 60% of total excess heat), while 30% is stored in layers deeper than 700 m. The ocean absorbs most of this “anthropogenic heat” because:

1. Water has a high heat capacity: It takes much more heat to warm 1 litre of water than it does to warm the same volume of air (or most other substances).
2. The ocean is deep: The world’s oceans cover 71% of the earth surface and are about 4 km deep on average. This represents a tremendous reservoir of heat.
3. The ocean is dynamic: Heat, carbon, oxygen and various other quantities exchanged with the atmosphere are mixed throughout the ocean through currents, internal waves, eddies, and various other circulation mechanisms.

As the scientific and policy community shifts its attention to the climate’s response to increased greenhouse gas emissions (a.k.a climate sensitivity), we must not underestimate the magnitude, variability, and uncertainty in the ocean’s ability to store and exchange heat with the atmosphere, which in turn influences climate on a global scale. One such example is the naturally occurring heat exchanges during El Nino Southern Oscillations events. Another example is the highly discussed role of the deep ocean and natural variability in the recent warming hiatus period.*

The complex interactions between continued emissions of greenhouse gases, consequent energy imbalance, and changes in the storage and transport properties of heat in the ocean will largely determine the speed and magnitude of long-term anthropogenic climate change impacts. These interactions have significant policy and economic implications, and must not be ignored in the climate policy discussions forum. As the climate negotiators are now shifting their focus towards reaching an agreement on appropriate stabilisation targets and designing mitigation and adaptations strategies required to meet those targets, understanding and incorporating the highly important role of ocean as the most powerful climate change mitigator becomes of utmost importance. http://www.oceanscientists.org/index.php/topics/ocean-warming

*Climate deniers have used the period 1998 – 2013, during which atmospheric temperatures did not rise as much as expected, as evidence that global warming was not happening. This has been termed the “hiatus” period. In fact now that we have a couple more years under our belt and 2014 and 2015 have been the hottest years on record it is now clear that the hiatus period is not outside the statistical trend-line. This is an example of using information selectively that suits an argument but doesn’t have wide enough parameters to give clarity. It now appears that the deep ocean absorbed more of the heat than expected during the hiatus period. This highlights the fact that the proportion of heat that is causing rising atmospheric temperatures is a small fraction of the total extra heat that can be attributed to greenhouse gases.

According to Craig Stevens, Oceanographer with NIWA (Radio NZ, Nine to Noon, 27/01/2016) research has shown that the upper layers of the world’s oceans have warmed by between 0.90C and 1.30C/decade over the last 40 years. The oceans have absorbed 20 times more heat than the atmosphere over the same period, resulting in their heat energy having doubled since 1997. He says if you took the amount of heat absorbed by the oceans and put it into the atmosphere the atmosphere would have heated by tens of degrees.
In other words without the heat sink effect of the world’s oceans we would all be cooked by now.

Q. The climate is always changing irrespective of human presence on earth or not. Why do we think that our actions make any difference?
A. Read this article and you should soon abandon such inspirations to complacency.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period-intermediate.htm

Answers at the bottom of the page.

​1. We use fossil fuels every day all over the world for essential purposes like cooking, heating, transport and manufacturing. What are fossil fuels? Choose the best answer.
a. coal
b. coal and oil
c. coal, oil and natural gas
d. coal, oil, natural gas and wood

​2. Why does our use of fossil fuels affect Earth’s climate?
a. fossil fuels are sources of energy and burning energy creates heat
b. burning fossil fuels releases stored carbon into the air as carbon dioxide gas
c. burning fossil fuels produces particulates that pollute the air
d. burning fossil fuels takes vital oxygen out of the atmosphere

3. The group of gases that cause global warming when they are released into the atmosphere are called greenhouse gases. Why?
a. they allow the sun’s heat to penetrate the atmosphere
b. they absorb infrared radiation from the sun
c. they prevent the sun’s heat from being released back into space
d. all of the above

4. Which of these gases is not a greenhouse gas?
a. carbon dioxide
b. water vapour
c. nitrogen
d. methane

5. As average global temperatures rise, does the Earth’s climate get wetter or drier? Or does Earth’s climate stay much the same?
a. average precipitation (snow and rainfall) increases
b. average precipitation (snow and rainfall) decreases
c. average precipitation (snow and rainfall) stays about the same
 
6. Carbon dioxide gas has been released into Earth’s atmosphere as part of a natural process for centuries. True or false?
a. true
b. false

7. The release of carbon dioxide and water vapour into the atmosphere are natural processes, so why is burning fossil fuels harmful to Earth’s atmosphere?
a. our use of fossil fuels is causing much larger amounts of carbon dioxide to be present in the atmosphere
b. carbon dioxide traps heat and increases the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere
c. the quantities of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere are upsetting the natural balance that was maintained in the past through the carbon cycle
d. all of the above

8. How long does the life cycle of the carbon dioxide gas we release into the atmosphere continue to have an effect on Earth’s temperature?
a. 10 years
b. 50 years
c. 100 years
d. more than 100 years

9. Even what appears to be a small change in average global temperatures is already having an effect on sea levels, on weather patterns around the world, and on the environment. Compared to 1850, how much have average global temperatures already risen?
a. 4°C
b. 2°C
c. 1°C
d. 0.5°C

10. 10 out of 11 of the hottest years on record have occurred when? In the last…
a. 100 years
b. 50 years
c. 20 years
d. 15 years

 11. Which part of the world is likely to warm most rapidly due to climate change?
a. the Arctic
b. the Antarctic
c. the tropics
d. Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific

12. Why are warmer temperatures predicted to be harmful to our planet?
a. melting ice at the North and South Poles will cause further sea level rise
b. there will be more frequent extreme weather events
c. drought and heat waves will occur more often and be more severe
d. changes in the environment will affect all living things and extinction of more species will be likely to occur
e. all of the above

13. Earth has been warmer at different periods in its past history than it is today.
a. true
b. false

14. In January 2016 a severe winter storm struck the north-eastern part of America. Emergencies were declared in 11 states and 85 million people were affected. Storms like this are evidence that scientists are wrong and Earth’s climate is not getting warmer.
a. true
b. false

15. How do scientists know how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere many centuries ago? By studying…
a. the atmosphere of Earth today
b. ice cores
c. past scientific records
d. soil samples

16. What methods do scientists use to compare Earth’s present day average temperature with temperatures in the past? They do this by…
i. observing when plants flower
ii. taking readings from thousands of weather stations all over the world
iii. using satellites and weather balloons to measure temperatures higher in the atmosphere
iv. using ships to measure sea temperatures
v. measuring the width and density of rings in tree trunks
vi. boring deep holes in the earth
vii. analysing ice cores
a. i, ii, iii, iv c. i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi
b. i, ii, iii, iv, v d. i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii

17. The highest proportion of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions comes from which sector?
a. agriculture/farming
b. energy/power generation
c. transport
d. industry/manufacturing
e. waste/landfills
NZ plans to greatly increase its dairy exports: stand by for take-off!

18. Almost half New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions (48%) are produced from the farming sector, mainly by sheep, beef and dairy cattle. Which greenhouse gas is produced as part of the digestive process of grazing animals?
a. carbon dioxide
b. methane
c. ozone
d. nitrous oxide

19. New Zealand is a small country. However, our carbon footprint is significant. What is New Zealand’s ranking compared to 40 other developed countries in relation to the level of greenhouse gas emissions per person?
a. 5th highest per person
b. 11th highest per person
c. 22nd highest per person
d. 32nd highest per person

20. New Zealand’s gross emissions have increased significantly since 1990, despite promises to stabilise and reduce them. The largest percentage increases have been in which sector?
a. transport
b. agriculture
c. electricity

21. What is the New Zealand government’s main policy tool to reduce emissions?
a. a $323 million fund to increase home insulation and clean heating
b. a new Centre for Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research
c. incentives for new energy technologies like sustainable biofuels, electric cars and solar water systems
d. an emissions trading scheme buying credits on the international market to offset emissions

22. Which of these organisations is the United Nations-based international authority on climate change?
a. IEA
b. ICC
c. IPCC
d. WHO

ANSWERS
1. We use fossil fuels every day all over the world for essential purposes like cooking, heating, transport and manufacturing. What are fossil fuels? Choose the best answer.
a. coal
b. coal and oil
c. coal, oil and natural gas
d. coal, oil, natural gas and wood
Answer: c. coal, oil and natural gas
Coal, oil and natural gas are called fossil fuels because they are mined from the ground having been formed 300 million years ago, during the Carboniferous Period, long before dinosaurs roamed the Earth. When plants and animals died, their bodies decomposed and were buried under layers of earth. Over millions of years, depending on conditions, heat and pressure transformed them into coal, oil and gas. This is why these fuels, which we have come to depend on so much, are non-renewable resources. Once we use them up they are not replaced.
One of the consequences. Ocean acidification – farewell to coral reefs.
​
​​2. Why does our use of fossil fuels affect Earth’s climate?
a. fossil fuels are sources of energy and burning energy creates heat
b. burning fossil fuels releases stored carbon into the air as carbon dioxide gas
c. burning fossil fuels produces particulates that pollute the air
d. burning fossil fuels takes vital oxygen out of the atmosphere
Answer: b. burning fossil fuels releases stored carbon into the air as carbon dioxide gas
Carbon dioxide gas (CO₂) is having a harmful effect on our climate because, together with a group of other gases, it traps heat from the sun. As a result our planet is getting warmer.
​

17. The highest proportion of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions comes from which sector?
a. agriculture/farming
b. energy/power generation
c. transport
d. industry/manufacturing
e. waste/landfills
Answer: a. agriculture/farming
Agriculture accounts for approximately  47 – 48% of our greenhouse gas emissions.’
​
18. Almost half New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions (48%) are produced from the farming sector, mainly by sheep, beef and dairy cattle. Which greenhouse gas is produced as part of the digestive process of grazing animals?
a. carbon dioxide
b. methane
c. ozone
d. nitrous oxide
Answer: b. methane
Methane is the second most common greenhouse gas produced by human activities, mainly from agriculture, but also from landfills and wastewater systems. Methane is also the main component of natural gas. It has a much shorter life cycle than carbon dioxide, but it is more efficient at trapping radiation, and over a 100 year period its impact on climate change is more than 25 times greater. Methane emissions make a significant contribution to global warming.

19. New Zealand is a small country. However, our carbon footprint is significant. What is New Zealand’s ranking compared to 40 other developed countries in relation to the level of greenhouse gas emissions per person?
a. 5th highest per person
b. 11th highest per person
c. 22nd highest per person
d. 32nd highest per person
Answer: a. 5th
Our high level of per capita emissions is largely due to the reliance of our economy on agriculture. Our level of greenhouse gas emissions per head of population (17.2 tonnes per person) places us ahead of countries like Japan, the UK, and China. Compared globally, New Zealand’s ranking for per capita emissions is 11th.The New Zealand government is spending millions of dollars on research into methods of reducing emissions from agriculture. So far, research indicates small reductions may be able to be made on these emissions in the future. If New Zealand is to contribute to the global effort to reduce emissions, our dependence on agriculture presents a challenge, and reductions we can make in other sectors are vitally important.

20. New Zealand’s gross emissions have increased significantly since 1990, despite promises to stabilise and reduce them. The largest percentage increases have been in which sector?
a. transport
b. agriculture
c. electricity
Answer: c. electricity
Electricity emissions have increased 91%, transport 70%, agriculture 12%. These are areas where most of us can make a change by using electricity efficiently, by biking or walking when possible, and by using public transport.

(b) Causes
(i) Clearing land
— For agriculture
— Mineral and fossil fuel extraction
(ii) Global warming
— Bark beetles are thriving at warmer temperatures, killing boreal forests.
— More frequent forest fires are destroying forests.
(iii) Population growth
— There are no problems – climate change, mass extinction, depletion of resources, killer pollution – that would not be eased by slowing, ending, or best of all, reversing population growth.
— Effects on climate:
(a) Robert I. McDonald and colleagues concluded that by 2050 population growth in cities in the developing world will multiply the number of people perennially short of water seven-fold, from 150 million to 1 billion. Projected climate change, they found, will add 100 million people to this number – no trivial growth increment, but still a much smaller one.
(b) More fossil fuel use
(c) More farming
Conclusion
So there are the facts of climate change, in a large nutshell. As you can see, there is a lot to it. We not only know that global warming and therefore climate change are happening now, and accelerating, and that they are caused by human activities, primarily the burning of carbon. We know how these changes affect heat waves, droughts, floods, ice melting, and sea level rise. What can be documented on another occasion are the consequences for the ecosystem, of which we are part, and the fact that amplifying feedbacks are now causing global warming to accelerate on its own, and might lead to runaway warming even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases. Also, the greenhouse gases we have already emitted will remain in the atmosphere for centuries, continuing to heat the planet. That is why our inaction has made the problem especially urgent.
Deniers will pick at details or claim that climate change is impossible, or it’s caused by other factors, but remember this: 1) All their objections have failed to disprove the main tenets of anthropogenic climate change and its effects; and 2) All of their proposed alternative explanations for climate change have been refuted. This article, already too long for many, can’t go into those refutations, although some links have been provided to them.
It is therefore no surprise that deniers have not come up with a robust theoretical framework that can be built upon scientifically, unlike the current theory of anthropogenic climate change.
Paul Brown is a retired brain scientist. His primary interests are threats to civilization and human existence: Corporate rule, militarism, and destruction of our planet’s ecosystem. He has published over 60 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals, and was author or co-author of several books, including Notes from a Dying Planet. His free esamizdat newslink emails can be subscribed to at pbrown4348@zoho.com.. Read other articles by Paul.
This article was posted on Monday, September 26th, 2016 at 5:38am and is filed under Climate Change, Environment, Oceans/Seas, Pollution, Science/Technology, Sustainability, Water.


And…. in answer to the ‘Climate has always changed, so let us relax’ argument:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period-intermediate.htmClimate Myth…Climate’s changed before
Climate is always changing. We have had ice ages and warmer periods when alligators were found in Spitzbergen. Ice ages have occurred in a hundred thousand year cycle for the last 700 thousand years, and there have been previous periods that appear to have been warmer than the present despite CO2 levels being lower than they are now. More recently, we have had the medieval warm period and the little ice age. (Richard Lindzen)
Science has a good understanding of past climate changes and their causes, and that evidence makes the human cause of modern climate change all the more clear. Greenhouse gasses – mainly CO2, but also methane – have been implicated in most of the climate changes in Earth’s past. When they were reduced, the global climate became colder. When they were increased, the global climate became warmer. When changes were big and rapid (as they are today), the consequences for life on Earth were often dire – in some cases causing mass extinctions.
So why is the myth wrong?The myth is wrong for two reasons:

• First, to infer that humans can’t be behind today’s climate change because climate changed before humans is bad reasoning (a non-sequitur). Humans are changing the climate today mainly via greenhouse gas emissions, the same mechanism that caused climate change before humans.
• Second, to imply we have nothing to fear from today’s climate change is not borne out by the lessons from rapidclimate changes in Earth’s past.

Third rock from the Sun – why we’re not deep frozen.A rocky planet this far from the sun should be frozen solid and lifeless at an average temperature of -18°C (0°F). The fact that it isn’t is due to greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, mainly CO2. These atmospheric gasses have been in a delicate balance with the Earth’s oceans, the biosphere, and even the geosphere (all the rocks and sediments). Whether it was frigid ice ages or the steamy climates of the Eocene and the age of the dinosaurs, every change in the Earth (like a decrease in the rate of tectonic plate subduction or an increase in the rate of mountain building) caused a proportional change in CO2 in the atmosphere and in the oceans, and every change in atmospheric CO2 caused a proportional reaction in global temperatures, climate and ocean chemistry.
Ice ages
Scientists have shown that CO2 and climate moved in lock-step throughout the Pleistocene ice ages. The ice ages were actually many pulses of cold glacial phases interspersed with warmer interglacials. These pulses had a distinct regularity caused by wobbles in Earth’s orbit around the Sun (Milankovitch cycles). When Earth’s orbit reduced the intensity of sunlight in the northern hemisphere, the Earth went into a glacial phase. When the orbital cycle brought increased the intensity of insolation in the northern hemisphere, ice sheets melted and we went into a warm interglacial. Because warmer oceans can dissolve less CO2, the CO2 levels see-sawed extremely closely with Earth’s temperature. It was a slow pace of change, taking tens to hundreds of thousands of years, and yes as the myth states, in the last million years the biggest orbit-induced cycles were every 100,000 years.
But we know these orbital changes are not behind today’s global warming. In fact our orbit dictates we should be cooling now, not warming.
The Earth was indeed cooling over the last 6,000 years due to Earth’s orbit, heading into the next glacial phase scheduled for about the year 3500 AD. But all that changed when we got to the industrial era. Global temperatures departed from that cooling trend, and instead rose parallel with our greenhouse gas emissions.
Greenhouse gasses and Temperature moved in lock-step through the Pleistocene Ice Ages, controlled by Earth’s orbit around the Sun (Centre for Ice and Climate, University of Copenhagen). Arrows show where levels were a few years ago, on the same scale.

CO2 doesn’t lag behind temperature
Until 2012, Antarctic ice core data suggested CO2 may have lagged behind the warming trend by hundreds of years. This was used by skeptics to question the link between CO2 and climate. More recent studies, with much more precise correlation between ice cores and global temperature records, have shown that temperature and CO2 changed synchronously in Antarctica during the end of the last ice age, and globally CO2 rose slightly before global temperatures.

Palm-fringed Arctic and balmy dinosaurs
It’s true that at times in Earth’s past the climate has been as warm or even warmer than temperatures projected for the end of this century and beyond. Aside from some warm interglacials, the average climate was last as warm as we expect in 2100 during the Pliocene epoch – before the emergence of the genus Homo which includes you and me. In that time, summer Arctic temperatures were 3°C (5°F) warmer than today, with CO2 levels similar to today’s and sea levels were 15-25m (50-82ft) higher than today. Rain-drenched forests fringed the Arctic Ocean at the time.
Going further back to the Eocene, the world then was very warm and humid – on average 10°C (18°F) warmer than today. Lush swamp forests fringed the Arctic, inhabited by turtles, alligators, primates, tapirs, and the hippo-like Coryphodon (just as the myth claims). Lowland Antarctica was warm and covered in near-tropical vegetation, and London was a mangrove swamp as rainforests spread across much of the planet. Going back even further to the age of the dinosaurs, life flourished in a time of high CO2 and generally warm average temperatures with high sea levels. Even Antarctica was forested and supported a healthy population of dinosaurs.
CO2 and Climate Changes in the last 400+ million years (note all human existence fits under the right-hand vertical axis line). CO2 proxy data from Dan Breeker, U.Texas, originally published here. Greenhouse events in part from Kravchinsky 2012.
Sudden vs slow changeLife flourished in the Eocene, the Cretaceous and other times of high CO2 in the atmosphere because the greenhouse gasses were in balance with the carbon in the oceans and the weathering of rocks. Life, ocean chemistry, and atmospheric gasses had millions of years to adjust to those levels.
But there have been several times in Earth’s past when Earth’s temperature jumped rapidly, in much the same way as they are doing today. Those times were caused by large and rapid greenhouse gas emissions, just like humans are causing today. In Earth’s past the trigger for these greenhouse gas emissions was often unusually massive volcanic eruptions known as “Large Igneous Provinces,” with knock-on effects that included huge releases of CO2 and methane from organic-rich sediments. But there is no Large Igneous Province operating today, or anytime in the last 16 million years. Today’s volcanoes, in comparison, don’t even come close to emitting the levels of greenhouse gasses that humans do.
Those rapid global warming events were almost always highly destructive for life, causing mass extinctions such as at the end of the Permian, Triassic, or even mid-Cambrian periods. The symptoms from those events (huge and rapid carbon emissions, a big rapid jump in global temperatures, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, widespread oxygen-starved zones in the oceans) are all happening today with human-caused climate change. The outcomes for life on Earth were often dire. The end Permian extinction saw around 90% of species go extinct, and it left tropical regions on the planet lethally hot, too hot for complex life to survive. The Triassic extinction was another, one of the 5 biggest mass extinctions in the geological record. Even in the end Cretaceous extinction, in which dinosaurs were finally wiped out by an asteroid impact, a major global-warming extinction event was already underway causing a major extinction within 150,000 years of the impact. That global warming 66 million years ago was due to catastrophic eruptions in India, which emitted a pulse of CO2 that sent global temperatures soaring by 7°C (13°F).
So yes, the climate has changed before, and in most cases scientists know why. In all cases we see the same association between CO2 levels and global temperatures. And past examples of rapid carbon emissions offer no comfort at all for the likely outcome from today’s climate change.


 Another such – extracted from a highly recommended book on the subject:Extract from “The Madhouse Effect – How Climate Change Denial is Threatening our Planet, Destroying our Politics, and Driving us Crazy” by Michael Mann and Tom Toles.
Science – How it Works
Science, Everybody says they are for it. So why the fire-storm of argument about the science of climate change? It’s an interesting question. With a disturbing answer. For all the complexity of detail in science, the process is actually fairly straightforward.
Science is unique among human endeavours in the “self-correcting” machinery (to quote the famous Carl Sagan) by which it is governed. That machinery ensures that science continues on a path toward an increasingly better understanding of the natural world despite the occasional wrong turns, dead ends, and missteps. The machinery consists of the critical checks that exist in the form of peer review and professional challenges, with the overriding maxim – again attributed to Sagan – that extraordinary claims especially require extraordinary evidence. Good-faith scepticism – that is, scepticism that attempts to hold science to the highest possible standard through independent scrutiny and questioning of every minute detail – is not only a good thing in science but, in fact, essential. It is the lubricant that ensures that the self-correcting machinery continues to function.
Unfortunately, the term sceptic has been hijacked, especially in the climate change debate, to mean something entirely different. It is used as a way to dodge evidence that one simply doesn’t like. That, however, is not scepticism but rather contrarianism or denialism, the wholesale rejection of validated, widely accepted scientific principles on the basis of opinion, ideology, financial interest, or all these things together.
We must distinguish true scepticism – a noble attribute found in all good science and all good scientists – from the pseudo-scepticism practised by armchair critics who misguidedly fancy themselves modern-day Galileos. As Carl Sagan also once said, “The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown”. For every Galileo, there are many thousands of Bozo the Clowns. When it comes to the fractious debate over policy relevant areas of science, the Bozos are too often the ones with the megaphones.


Scepticism.


True scientific scepticism takes many forms. Scepticism takes place in the give-and-take at scientific meetings, where scientists present their findings and then address questions, criticisms, and challenges from their colleagues in the audience. It takes place in the form of peer review: Scientists write up their findings and submit them to journals. The journals select several other scientists with expertise in the field to critically evaluate the submission. If they find flaws in the data, the underlying assumptions, the experimental design, or the logic, the authors must revise and resubmit. This process might be repeated a number of times for a single article. In the end, the article is published if and only if the editor determines that the authors have satisfactorily addressed any concerns or critiques raised during the review process and that the manuscript represents a positive contribution to the existing scientific literature.
The quality-control process of peer review isn’t perfect, of course, and flawed work inevitably does get published. Certainly, no single scientific article ever defines the collective body of knowledge. And so there is even peer review in the form of multi-authored scientific assessments, like those by the National Academy of Sciences, that evaluate the collective evidence in the peer-reviewed literature on a particular topic and summarise the state of knowledge on the topic. These assessments, too, are peer reviewed for accuracy, objectivity and thoroughness.
The fact of the matter, however, is that there is a weakness in the scientific system that can be exploited. The weakness is in the public understanding of science, which turns out to be crucial for translating science into public policy. Deliberate confusion can be sown under a false pretext of “scepticism”. And the scientific process is continually under assault by bad-faith doubt mongers.
There is, for example, the whole duplicitous game of assigning motives. Critics sometimes seek to cast suspicion on the scientific enterprise by suggesting that it is compromised by a conspiracy of ulterior-motive-driven individuals. “The scientists are in it for the money,” they say, seeking to “get rich off of government grant money.” Ironically, there is no small amount of projection here. These accusations, after all, are typically made by talking heads who get paid hefty sums by industry front groups to peddle disinformation to the public and to attack the scientists. But what about the substance of the accusation? Do climate scientists, for example, seek to reinforce the dominant narrative that climate change is real and caused by humans to generate concern from the public and policy makers just so they can guarantee the ongoing availability of government grant support for their work?
To understand just how absurd that premise is, we have to understand something about how science really works. In science, you don’t make a name for yourself by simply reinforcing the dominant narrative. You don’t get articles published in the premier journals “Nature” and “Science” by simply showing that others were right. The way you establish a name for yourself in the world of science is by demonstrating something new or surprising, by contradicting conventional wisdom. A record of novel, ground-breaking work is what gets you tenure, what helps bring in research grants, what leads to salary increases from your institution.
Any scientist who could soundly demonstrate that Earth is not warming would become an instant science celebrity. A scientist who could definitively explain the warming of Earth by natural rather than human causes would have prominent articles published in “Nature” and “Science”. He or she would appear on the network news and make the cover of “Scientific American”. Such an individual would be tenured, promoted, likely elected to the National Academy of Sciences. The scientist would go down in history as one of the great paradigm breakers of all time, part of the exclusive club that includes Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein and Wegener (of plate tectonics fame). Such a scientist would, in short, achieve both fame and fortune.
So the incentives for a scientist would appear to be rather the opposite of what the critics claim. But let us not forget that in science the more extraordinary the claim. The more extraordinary the evidence must be…….




More from the third chapter – The Bizarro World.


If you are a climate change denier, there is a good chance that you (1) aren’t reading this book anyway, (2) don’t read Tom’s editorial cartoons in the Washington Post or Mike’s commentaries and interviews, and (3) get your information about climate change from conservative media outlets committed to perpetuating the notion that climate change is a myth, a vast conspiracy by thousands of scientists around the world perpetuating a massive hoax to create a new socialist world order.
If that is your viewpoint, it probably doesn’t matter to you that the world’s leading scientists have reached an overwhelming consensus that climate change is (1) real, (2) caused by us, (3) already a problem. It probably doesn’t matter that the National Academy of Sciences, founded by President Abraham Lincoln, has stated this to be the case, as have the scientific academies of all the major industrial nations. It probably doesn’t matter that every scientific society in the United States to weigh in on the matter has done so as well. From your perspective, that’s all just evidence that the  scientific community conspiracy must run even wider and and deeper. It is this sort of epistemic closure that makes it increasingly difficult to reach hardened climate change deniers.
Science is litigated through the formulation and testing of hypotheses, the analysis of hard data, and an examination of the facts, not by television debates between talking heads with opposing viewpoints. Yet our mass media too often frame climate change precisely that way. Who do you imagine benefits from that framing?






Doubt is their Product.


When it comes to the public battle over policy-relevant science, special interests have long recognised that they enjoy the advantage of the prosecution in the court of public opinion. Their internal research, focus groups, and polling have revealed that they need generate only sufficient uncertainty about the scientific evidence in the public mind-set to ensure an agenda of inaction. “Doubt is our product” read one internal tobacco industry memo.
It is unsurprising that right wing media outlets serve as mouthpieces for this agenda. But what is more troubling is that the mainstream media have often played the role of unwitting accomplices. By perpetuating the notion that there are two equal “sides” when it comes to objective matters of fact such as evolution and climate change, mainstream media outlets have reinforced the perception that there is legitimate doubt about these matters. Comedian John Oliver had it precisely right when he brought ninety seven scientists out onto the studio floor to debate three climate change deniers. The split is ninety seven – three, not fifty-fifty, when it comes to support among actual publishing scientists for the scientific consensus on human caused climate change.
As we shall see, the success of the industry funded climate change denial machine derives in part from media outlets’ willingness to emphasise conflict over consensus, controversy over comprehension. Add a bit of Journalism 101 false “balance”, and you have a perfect recipe for industry front groups and their hired guns to bake up mass confusion and to do what they do best – obfuscate and obscure the facts and delay action.
The increasingly popular refrain among politicians, “I am not a scientist,” is just another formulation used to avoid an intelligent discussion of climate. It is not in any way a coherent response because logically the follow-up would be “so I will defer to the consensus of people who are scientists.” But the politicians never seem to get to that part.
They instead act as though unless there is 100% unanimity among scientists, nothing can be known. But they are also contradictorily fully willing to assent to a tiny minority of scientists who happen to be saying what they want to hear. As often as not, the scientists in question are not even climate scientists, but who cares?