BPSDB
- Your lying eyes
- Climate change performance index
- Climate Safety: In case of emergency…
Your lying eyes
Let’s begin with a simple visual presentation using graphs of where we are with respect to climate change:
Global Temperature
More on Temperature
Ocean Temperature
More on Ocean Temperature
Sea Levels
More on Sea Levels
Glaciers
More on Glaciers
Arctic Ice
Time series of area of perennial sea ice
More on Arctic Ice and Cyrosphere Today
Does there really need to be any discussion of these trends to see what is happening? Can there be any rational doubt? If there is, simply click the appropriate links and read the posts you find there.
So what are we doing about it?
Climate change performance index
The NGO Germanwatch has published the Climate Protection & Adaptation to climate change The nutshell is that they have created “The Climate Change Performance Index” (CCPI):
“On the basis of standardised criteria the index evaluates and compares the climate protection performances of the 57 countries that, together, are responsible for more than 90 percent of global energy-related CO2 emissions.”
First key point, no one is doing enough, absolutely no one. We knew that, but it can’t be stated often enough.
Second key lesson, the worst ten by performance:
51 Greece 44.7
52 Malaysia 44.3
53 Cyprus 43.2
54 Russia 42.6
55 Australia 41.7
56 Kazakhstan 40.6
57 Luxembourg 40.4
58 United States 39.8
59 Canada 38.9
60 Saudi Arabia 32.8
Do you see the perennial whipping boys China or India among the worst ten? I don’t either. In fact the worst 4 are among the wealthiest nations on the planet.
Third, Index ranking of the 10 largest CO2 emitters:
Germany
India
United Kingdom
Korea, Rep.
Japan
Italy
China
Russia
USA
Canada
There’s China and India, but until we in the West have surpassed them in our performance we are in no position to be pointing fingers. Not at them, and not at Russia either.
We are the problem, not them. The good news is that since we are the problem we are in an excellent position to take actions that will have real benefits.
Which brings us to.
Climate Safety: In case of emergency…
I am still going through it, but to an extent it is the text version of the graphs and lists presented above and more.
The description on the website: ” ‘Climate Safety’ provides a simple summary of the latest science, delivering a clear message that to have any chance of maintaining a safe climate, we must rapidly decarbonise our society, preserve global sinks, and address the problem with an unprecedented degree of seriousness.
Even with a commitment to 80% carbon cuts by 2050, “Climate Safety” warns that our current policy response does not match up to the scale of the challenge.”
Conclusion:
It has become clear from on-the-ground measurements that, in many cases, the observed impacts of climate change have raced ahead of the predictions made in the IPCC’s 2007 report, even in the short time since it was published. [emphasisi added]
Which is a lot to pack into 45 pages, but it is certainly in accord with everything I have seen about where we are and where we are headed.
Of the report they quote George Monbiot (author of “Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning“) as saying:
“You cannot overstate the importance of this report: it has opened my eyes to levels of climate risk far beyond those of which I was aware. Crisp, clear-headed and profoundly shocking, this report should be read immediately by everyone who cares.” [emphasis added]
More good news is that there are chapters on “Solutions” and “Actions” which will undoubtedly provide future content for this blog. They had me sold when they began the Solutions chapter with:
“It is no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”
Winston Churchill
The Lotus eaters will persist in their attempts to be Anti-Peter Pans, viz thinking that if they just focus on happy thoughts and disbelieve hard enough it will all somehow go away. Lacking fairy dust their prospects for success are bleak.
The rational adults need to get going on actual action, particularly those of us in the West. A good start would be to download the report and read it.
We give our consent every moment that we do not resist.
Denier “Challenge” aka Deathwatch Update: Day 62 … still no evidence.
Greenfyre's 
and this would be “my” actual
ranking of the worst co2 emitters:
USA
China
Russland
India
Japan
Germany
Great Britain
Canada
South Korea
Italiy
Thank you for posting this. Hard to argue with numbers though there are those who will always try.
I’d like to mention Sweden yet, together with
Germany “best Climate Pupil”. Both countries
(of a list showing 57 co2-emitters responsible
for 90% of mankind’s total output) acchieved
their reduction goals not fully, but came closest.
Thanks for that, I hadn’t spotted that one.
It’s a very good read. I do have a couple of minor quibbles with it, though.
I think (and hope) that they’re being overly pessimistic about the state of the Arctic sea ice:
I find it difficult to believe that the Arctic will be ice-free in Summer as soon as 2010-2015. That just seems far too fast given that the current long-term trend (for September) is -11.1 (+/- 3.3) % per decade.
Secondly, they repeatedly suggest that climate sensitivity is higher than the IPCC’s ‘best estimate’ of 3 degrees Celcius.
They favour 4.5 °C.
There is a lot to be said for using a higher figure for risk assessment, and they have a lot of very sensible things to say about risk assessment – but to suggest that the IPCC “got it wrong” will (unfortunately) probably just add grist to the denialist mill.
Apart from the above, I think it is excellent.
I particularly liked the section on grid access. Living in windswept northern Scotland I can relate to this.
My nearest windfarm is about an hour’s walk away – I go there quite often. There are seven 2Mw turbines there, enough to power everything in a 15 mile radius.
They could have built more turbines on the site, but the existing grid would not be able to cope with the extra power.
Right. Notice how even the sea level rise has flattened. This science fraud is over.
http:// graemebird.wordpress.com/
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I notice that you have dishonestly failed to update your first graph. It ought to show the 30’s and the 90’s as about on a par.
Any explanation for this dishonesty?
http:// graemebird.wordpress.com/
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you have dishonestly failed to update your first graph. It ought to show the 30’s and the 90’s as about on a par.
poor bird. That would only be in the U.S, here. The rest of the planet was warmer. Can’t you ever get the facts correct? Your ideology doesn’t get its own facts, you know. You really ought to be less credulous in the types of ideological sites you choose to believe.
Best,
D
Oh, wait: Greasemonkey works here.
Bye, bird.
Best,
D
“I notice that you have dishonestly failed to update your first graph. It ought to show the 30’s and the 90’s as about on a par.
Any explanation for this dishonesty?”
the explaination is you are an idiot.
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No you are just full of shit. Now you ought to be dealing with updated information. Not the constantly manipulated jive that Goddard comes out with.
http:// graemebird.wordpress.com/
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Just doing my weekly science reading.
Re. the acceleration of the melting of the Arctic sea ice much faster than earlier predictions.
Stupid question: Why is the heating going so quickly? I understand that the melting ice (open water) is a darker surface and is accelerating the trend via absorbing/holding more heat from the sun, but what else do they think is happening? Maybe the answer’s here, but I’m skimming and don’t seem to see it. [1]
Also, it would be great to have the ‘solutions’ section start up, soon. I know we see alot of blogs on individual journeys toward change, but it would be great to see discussion of the policy and labour issues that will be part of the necessary broad societal changes. [2]
Thanks! 🙂
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Nice collection. For an orthogonal look at glaciers, I recommend the well-done Swiss Glacier website, and especially the second chart on advances versus retreats.
Of course, it’s a geographically-limited area, but it’s meticulously documented and difficult to cherry-pick, and of course, many of these glaciers can be seen from the local towns.
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Martha,
It isn’t a stupid question, it’s a very good one.
A good place to start might be the NSIDC, where you can browse reports for the last three years.
Thanks, all – and for your extra encouragement, S2 🙂
I am about to set-to on the recommended reading.
p.s. GreenFyre, when I suggested interest in policy discussion, I didn’t mean the familiar green energy/emissions reduction policy discussions – although those discussions are obviously so crucial at all levels of government and citizen involvement.
I mean social policy, such as employment development, structures of public accountability, health and welfare, etc.
It especially interests me because discussion (and support) for individual action is quite common and badly needed; but discussion about the necessary changes in the infrastructure of society and the government base are much less common.
Citizens can and should be talking about and deciding lots of things e.g. should the private sector be managing the energy sector? etc., in addition to how they will change personal habits.
The clincher is that global surface temperatures have been mapped way way back, and this warming pattern not so coincidentally begins around the same time humans began to develop agriculture (cutting down forest to make way and releasing CO2 into the atmosphere).
Climate change deniers always have a way of distorting facts, though.
Tim Lambert in Australia is pretty good at pulling apart skeptic manipulation of data:
In this example local regression used on temperature data produces accurate result:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/01/sixth-degree_polynomial_fits_j.php
Where as sixth polynomial curve fit produced by a ‘skeptic’ results in a false indication of falling temperature in the future:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/01/the_australians_war_on_science_32.php
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World Glacier Monitoring Service preliminary results for 2007:
http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/mbb/mbb10/sum07.html
Heeeelp i’m melting!
The first graph gives global temperatures since 1880. I wonder how many of these temperature measuring stations were there altogether and what was their level of accuracy and where they were located. I imagie most places in the world had never seen a thermometer in the late 1800s and early 1900s.