Canada Beyond Kyoto

Written By: nancymarie
Date: 2006-11-02 13:03:46
<a href="/article/80346353-canada-beyond-kyoto">Article Link</a>

Known for his pragmatism rather than alarmist speculation, Sir Nicholas, the World Bank's former chief economist, takes the purely logical argument that not taking action on climate change will be a lost economic opportunity of global proportions. By removing the emotional "save our planet" approach and focusing on the substantial financial cost of doing nothing, Sir Nicholas appeals to those who have yet to be swayed. And by focusing on the economic benefits of investing in carbon sinks, emissions trading and renewable resources, he offers Canada an opportunity to lead the way.

From a Canadian perspective, though, is it not the case that a transition away from fossil fuels would represent a threat to Canada's economic future, given that so much of our economy is dependent on coal, oil and gas resources? Well, no. Canada does have major oil and gas projects on the go. The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline is likely to go ahead, we will continue to develop the tar sands on a major scale, and coal will very much be part of the power solution in provinces such as Saskatchewan and Alberta.

But that does not mean we cannot do something about the carbon emitted from these projects and, by doing so, ensure our role as a global leader in carbon solutions, not problems. We can develop the technologies for redirecting carbon emissions from the air into the ground (known as carbon capture and storage). What makes this so interesting from a Canadian perspective is that we have an opportunity to be a world leader in these technologies. Carbon capture and storage will be a critical key to the global climate- change puzzle, particularly in the economies of major developing countries, such as India and China, that continue to rely on coal for development.

more: <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061102.wcomment1102/BNStory/National/home">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061102.wcomment1102/BNStory/National/home</a>

"It's time for Canada to step up to the plate and be a leader in clean energy systems and sustainable forestry and agriculture, in deed as well as in word."

Just some thoughts...
Has CIDA ever installed a wind farm or solar power plant, or is digging wells and other innovative ideas of yesteryear the extent of it's "development aid"?
Maybe someone should be helping the Iranians with their goal of clean nuclear energy?
Imagine how much quicker we could move the world forward if all the money spent on wars in the middle east in the last 5 years were spent developing clean energy solutions rather than securing dirty energy.
It is indeed a new century & time for some new ideas.

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Everybody got to deviate from the norm

Last week Monbiot's new book, Heat, showed up in my mailbox and I have been engrossed ever since. I have been going over his statistics and projections and ideas for how we can stay within the boundaries of GHG emissions and avoid the kick-in of very nasty positive feedback mechanisms that will remove things from human control such that "climate change will begat climate change", in George's own words.

The most uplifting new idea that he presented was taking the U.K. Met Office's projections of the 'safe' amount of global GHG emissions for the year 2030 (a widely recognized pivotal year as that is the estimated date when the 'tipping point' has been tipped if we go on like we are now)as the amount that must be fairly divided among the world's population to grant everyone on the planet an equal share of GHG emission allotment. At first the plan was uplifting, but not for long, because as I crunched the numbers according to his template I was shocked at the results for a typical Canadian citizen.
The example I first calculated was our individual GHG emission allowance for our cars/trucks/SUVs/minivans. Without going through the entire calculation here, the bottom line is there is enough for either: 1) 100,000 SUVs to drive 12,000 miles per year, or 2) 10,000,000 vehicles to drive 120 miles each per year. This fit in with the overall calculation of each individual Canadian's GHG emissions allotment of 0.33 tonnes per year, which would be a 98.7% reduction of our current emissions which clock in at 19.1 tonnes per Canadian per year.
Well, I am still shocked by the implications. No Canadian government will ever accept such an allotment, even though, as George points out, equitable rationing is the only fair way to proceed.
The whole exercise tells me that resource wars, depleted uranium contamination, cruel exploitation of half of the world's population, etc. is only a warmup for wiping out most of the world's population so that the remainder can have enough GHG emissions to live a "decent" lifestyle. Again, if we take the maximum allowable emissions at 2.7 b tonnes in 2030 according to the Met Office and calculate again, only about 200,000,000 people on earth can have an emission allowance of 13.5 tonnes per capita, which is sufficient (perhaps) for a lifestyle between that of Canada and France (which has a very low GHG emission rate of less that 7 tonnes now). There is zip for everyone else - nada, nil.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Gaian pioneer James Lovelock suggested this summer that we will have an 8 to 10 degree temperature increase within 10 to 20 years and that only about 200,000,000 people will be able to survive, and that will be in the Arctic. If we had individual allocations of 3.0 tonnes per person (as in an undeveloped country) we could support a global population of only 900,000,000 people.
Perhaps this puts a new spin on the 'concentration camps' being built in North America, the police states that are being fortified under the guise of the War on Terror, the usurpation of civil liberties everywhere.
The governments of the world are working for the survival of the policy-making elites who have "led" us into this mess, and that could mean the elimination of most of the people on the planet.
I have been fond of saying that my activism is nothing but a struggle for the planet and all of its people. Today I feel that those people have been consigned to death row.

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Michael

Very interesting calculations but in 2030 I doubt that our vehicles will be emitting much, if any GHG's, our home heating and electricity use can already be changed to geothermal/hydrogen fuel cells and wind farms and solar are easing demands of the Canadian power grid users in Alberta.
Your calculations also have to factor in what we can and might to to mitigate GHG production through reforestation and carbon sinks.

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Everybody got to deviate from the norm

"Very interesting calculations but in 2030 I doubt that our vehicles will be emitting much, if any GHG's, our home heating and electricity use can already be changed to geothermal/hydrogen fuel cells and wind farms and solar are easing demands of the Canadian power grid users in Alberta.
Your calculations also have to factor in what we can and might to to mitigate GHG production through reforestation and carbon sinks.

Well, the vehicles better be more efficient by 2030, but they only account for 9.9% of emissions in Canada today. If they are a lot better maybe we could have 2 or 3 million vehicles, but that would still only be 20% to 30% of the number we have now. As for residences, they only account for 5.7% of emissions, so how much difference will that make? Only 2 or 3% difference?

Remember, the base figure of 2.7 billion tonnes of GHG as a maximum emission in 2030 is not my statistic but that of the U.K.'s Meteorological Office which put in the "fastest computer in the world" to crunch the numbers for this model (I watched a special on BBC last year that was bragging about their global warming model predictive capabilities). I would hope that they were comprehensive when choosing the factors they put into their equations.

My concern at this point is that, as always, the governments are still doing almost nothing substantial, and we obviously need cuts in the range of 90% overall, which is a huge shock for everybody. I am afraid it will be the innocent poor of the lesser developed countries that are going to suffer the most, and they aren't even responsible. They will be wiped out, essentially by the rich countries one way or another.

So, the moral question for the richer countries is whether or not they will voluntarily share the maximum GHG emissions allocations equitably and fairly. Will it be more tempting to just wipe out billions of people to lessen the GHG emissions as well as eliminate the problem of mass migration as people flee submerging countries that are literally vanishing? How do you think nations like the U.S. and Canada might react?

The other problem I have with your comment is that I am not so sure that technology will come through this time. Look at what technology has done with GM food, the Green revolution, the fishing industry and, of course, automobiles. Even though cars are much better these days their mileage is essentially no better. I think way too many people are just thinking that they don't have to worry or change their lifestyle because some tech innovation will save them. They need to start changing lifestyles and stop consuming what is unnecessary right now.

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Michael

>>>>The other problem I have with your comment is that I am not so sure that technology will come through this time.
I think way too many people are just thinking that they don't have to worry or change their lifestyle because some tech innovation will save them. They need to start changing lifestyles and stop consuming what is unnecessary right now.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I think that technology alone will save the planet. You are absolutely right that we need to change our lifestyles. I only meant to point out that emerging technology, future technology as well as actions that may be taken to mitigate the effects of remaining GHG emmisions need to be included in those calculations in order to be as accurate as possible.
I think there is a little bit of hope in that, what we've seen so far in new technological advancements in energy efficiency and green energy, as slow as it has been, has been largely brought to us by free market supply and demand. Imagine how fast things could change if governments would commit money to the extent that they commit it to wars, killing people and stealing resource.

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Everybody got to deviate from the norm

A few nights ago I submitted this as an article to Vive. It wasn't posted, and for that I do not fault them. It is better posted IN a thread, rather than AS a news/opinion article.

It ties together some things from several threads, and while not solely focused on global warming, it does include it.

***

These are just a few thoughts I've had, and decided to share with my fellow Vivists.

Hope you at least get something to think about from them, even if you disagree utterly.

For some years now, a thought has been troubling me. It's this: things cannot go on the way they have been forever, and sooner or later this machine we call the economy is going to completely destroy itself and in all likelihood take our civilization down with it.

The blood of our economy is oil, and it will not last anywhere near forever. Without it's continuous flow, everything we take for granted stops.

And when that day eventually (or sooner if some points of view concerning Peak Oil already being reached are correct) comes, all hell is likely to break loose.

And that is just one thing that causes me concern.

Another is the fact that we are killing our oceans. Never mind the Amazon Rain Forest being the lungs of the planet, the real lungs of the planet are the phytoplankton in our oceans. We can survive without the ARF, but once we lose the plankton, it's game over for oxygen breathers.

Which leads me to my third concern: air pollution. There isn't anywhere left on this blue marble we call home where the air is pure anymore. The very oil that runs our global economy is also slowly choking us. Much as I like my car, if I have to choose between it and living, it's bye bye car.

Sadly, my one car won't make a damn bit of difference. We need some means that will allow for both sustainable local/global economies, and a viable transpotation infrastructure which does NOT depend on oil.

Right now, I don't see anything viable even on the distant horizon that will get the job done.

Sadly, air pollution becomes water pollution when it rains, and all the industrial waste we pump into the air ends up in rivers, lakes, and eventually in the ocean.

More poison for plankton to deal with.

The other point about air pollution that worries me is that phytoplankton thrive best in COLD water oceans, and global warming will warm the seas up as surely as night follows day.

Global warming will also cause sea levels to rise, and cause salinity shifts on all of our oceans due to melting polar caps.

More environmental stressors for phytoplankton to deal with.

Personally, while the submerging of earth's coastal cities would be a disaster, my main concern is the possible extinction of the human race.

Some worry that we will turn Earth into another Venus with 900 C temperatures. That cannot happen here simply because we are 25 million miles further away from the sun than our sister world.

No, far from a molten hell, our end will be a death by slow asphyxiation.

And after the vast majority (if not ALL) of us are gone, Earth will once more begin to heal itself.

Should any remnants of humanity remain, I sincerely hope that they will be far wiser than we have been.

These are the things I have nightmares about, the possible futures that rob me of sleep, and at times almost bring me to dispair.

And when I add to that how we treat our fellow human beings, I sometimes wish I had never been born.

This is the future that my children will inherit, and they deserve far better.

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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"

"The Weapon" - Rush

Actually, that piece is still in the Queue, because I don't know what to do with it. I was going to save it for a weekend op-ed piece, but since you posted it as a comment . . .

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"I think it's important to always carry enough technology to restart civilization, should it be necessary." Mark Tilden

No worries Dr C

It's all good.

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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"

"The Weapon" - Rush

Gaia always bats last.

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Michael

<blockquote> they do little to help Canadians understand the more complex issues </blockquote> Perhaps Canadians do not want to understand complex issues. Right after the birth of conjoined twins in BC, the usual flutter of how's, why's, and wherefore's clogged the press, revealing at least one tidbut of information. The tidbit was that, after studying conjoined twins for some twenty years, a doctor in the US concluded that a major cause is simple calcium deficiency. This is anecdotal, because it is necessarily difficult to set up a double blind study. Most people hardly know what a calcium deficiency is, let alone the causes for it, and how to remedy it. The medical profession is as obtuse in offering advice, and we will continue to birth children with physical and mental challenges because we are ignorant of our own bodies. In other words, Jared Diamond is right when he says in "Guns, Germs, Steel" that the more technical we get the stupider we become. There is such an overload of information that we react by not learning any of it, outside of our particular little niche. Climate change, and particularly catastrophic climate change, does not compute. "Specialization is for insects" - Robert Heinlein --- "Son, if you wanna get ahead in this world, never work for another man as long as you live."