I wrote the following to serve as a one-page introduction, laying out some of the key items for consideration and listing some of the most accessible and reputable sources of information about climate change. For more information on specific subjects, see my climate change index.
The key elements of the general climate science and policy consensus are:
- On average, the planet is warming.
- Most of this is because of human emissions of greenhouse gases.
- Continued warming would be harmful, and perhaps very risky when it comes to human welfare and prosperity. Anticipated changes include melting glaciers and polar ice, more extreme precipitation events and heat waves, agricultural impacts, wildfires, heat waves, increased incidence of some infectious diseases, sea level rise, ocean acidification, and increased hurricane intensity.
- By most accounts, the cost of mitigation is less than the cost of adaptation. Some anticipated changes may overwhelm the capacity of human and natural systems to adapt.
While there is a public perception that there is a lot of scientific disagreement about the fundamentals of climate science, this really is not the case. Back in 2004, a survey of peer-reviewed work on climate science demonstrated this. There is also a notable joint statement from the national science academies of the G8, Brazil, China, and India.
To borrow a phrase from William Whewell, there is a ‘consilience of evidence’ when it comes to the science of climate change: multiple, independent lines of evidence converging on a single coherent account. These forms of evidence are both observational (temperature records, ice core samples, etc) and theoretical (thermodynamics, atmospheric physics, etc). Together, these lines of evidence provide a conceptual and scientific backing to the theory of climate change caused by human greenhouse gas emissions that is simply absent for alternative theories, such as that there is no change or that the change is caused by something different.
Readers who are dubious about the validity of mainstream climate science, or unsure of what to think, my page for waverers may be useful.
1) Climatic science and history
There are some good primers available from reputable organizations online. For instance, the United Kingdom’s Met Office has a quick guide.
The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the most authoritative review of the scientific work that has been done on climate change. The summary for policy-makers for the synthesis report is available online.
For detailed information on the physical science of climate change, the technical summary of the IPCC’s Working Group I report is a good resource. Unlike the summaries for policy-makers, which are vetted though a quasi-political process, the technical summaries are prepared exclusively by scientists.
For Canadians who want to read one book about climate science and policy, I recommend University of Victoria Professor Andrew Weaver’s book: Keeping Our Cool: Canada in a Warming World.
For those looking for a concise history of the entire development of climatic science, starting in the late 1800s, I very much recommend Spencer Weart’s The Discovery of Global Warming. In addition to the book form, it is available free online.
For a more specific history of what we have learned about climate from ice core samples, see Richard Alley’s The Two Mile Time Machine. For an excellent (though somewhat technical) discussion of the relationships between the carbon cycle and biological organisms, see Oliver Morton’s Eating the Sun.
2) Climate change mitigation
Ultimately, the only way to keep the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere constant is to reach the point where humanity has zero net emissions. Getting there fundamentally requires two things: the shifting of the energy basis of the global economy to low- and then zero-carbon sources, and the stabilization of the biosphere through actions like ending net deforestation. It is widely accepted that setting a sufficiently high price for greenhouse gas emissions is a vital way to drive mitigation actions.
Three excellent books that evaluate options for moving to a low-carbon economy are:
- George Monbiot’s Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning. (In which he considers how the UK could achieve truly dramatic rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions)
- Joseph Romm’s Hell and High Water (focused on the United States)
- David Mackay’s Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air (in which he evaluates renewable and efficiency options from first principles, but in a very accessible way – available free online.)
On the costs of climate change mitigation, the most comprehensive work is probably that which has been done by Nicholas Stern, beginning with the Stern Review. The review’s executive summary is also accessible online. More recently, he has argued that the costs of inaction are even more significant than those projected at that time.
On the political and ethical side of things, the best short summary may be Stephen Gardiner’s article “Ethics and Global Climate Change,” published in Ethics. Volume 114 (2004), p.555-600. One key idea related to international equity and climate change mitigation is contraction and convergence: an arrangement in which the emissions from all states eventually fall to zero, but where the per-capita emissions of developed and developing states also converge over time.
3) Other major climate change issues
Other areas relevant to climate change policy-making include:
- Abrupt and runaway climate change scenarios
- Adaptation to climate change
- Carbon sinks (physical, such as the oceans, biological, such as the forests, and geological, such as rocks that erode and form carbonates)
- Economics (carbon pricing, risk management, etc)
- Emission pathways (and their international breakdown)
- Equity issues (historical responsibility, climate change and development, etc)
- Global politics and international law
- Planning and design (cities, buildings, etc)
- Science (climatic equilibria, models and projections, etc)
- Sociological and philosophical issues (ethics, communication, political theory, etc)
- Targets (stabilization concentrations, temperature change, etc)
- Technologies (renewable energy, transport, nuclear, efficiency, etc)
I can recommend resources in all of these areas, if someone has a particular interest.
4) Good sources of climate related news
Probably the best scientific climate change blog is RealClimate.
Good responses to climate ‘skeptic’ arguments can be found in the How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic series. I also keep track of my own arguments with climate change deniers.
Climate coverage in mainstream media sources is often inconsistent in quality. The BBC and The Economist often publish good information, but also sometimes include incorrect or misleading information.
5) A few key graphics
This ice core record of carbon dioxide concentrations illustrates one major reason why we should be more concerned about human-induced climate change than about natural variation. Our use of fossil fuels is generating a spike in greenhouse gas concentrations that is set to rise far above anything in the last 650,000 years, at least.
The above shows how observed warming is inconsistent with climate models that do not incorporate human greenhouse gas emissions, but consistent with those that do.
The wheel on the right depicts researchers’ estimation of the range of probability of potential global temperature change over the next 100 years if no policy change is enacted on curbing greenhouse gas emissions. The wheel on the left assumes that aggressive policy is enacted. (Credit: Image courtesy / MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change)
I would be delighted to answer and questions, or suggest further resources in other areas of interest.
Last updated: 10 December 2009
{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
Can I suggest rewording “not all anticipated changes can be adapted to” to something like “and adaption is not possible for some of the anticipated changes”. Or if you’re really attached to the present wording then maybe add some punctuation (semi colons for the list and then a full stop) because at present it sort of looks as tough you lost part of the sentence.
Re-punctuated, and re-worded. The text ’some anticipated changes may overwhelm the capacity of human and natural systems to adapt” is very close to or identical to text from the IPCC AR4.
What do you think would be the most intuitive short title to include in the navigation menu at the top of the page?
Or something else entirely?
Wow! what a great resource you have provided for your readers. How about “The One Stop Climate Manual” for a title? I am writing a paper on why the Kyoto protocol is failing fast, and need a good source that is current. I am using your Oxford thesis as a source too.
Nobody ever expected the Kyoto Protocol to singlehandedly deal with the problem of climate change, so it is important to understand it in context.
With many environmental problems, states agree to a convention, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These conventions are then expanded upon through protocols, such as the Kyoto Protocol.
The case of ozone depleting substances is illustrative. The original treaty addressing it was the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer. It was eventually made fairly effective by the ratification and implementation of the Montreal Protocol.
In most cases, the Kyoto Protocol has not succeeded in curbing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, either in developed nations that adopted hard caps or in developing states that participated through mechanisms like the Clean Development Mechanism. That said, the Kyoto Protocol was just one step on the route towards an effective international regime for climate change mitigation. The aim of the UNFCCC summit in Copenhagen this December is to try to create a successor treaty. While that may or may not happen this year, it does seem more likely than not that there will eventually be another protocol to the UNFCCC, or perhaps a new convention to replace it.
The Kyoto Protocol has, at the very least, given states more experience with some of the key mechanisms that will be involved in dealing with climate change – including carbon pricing and the transfer of technologies to developing states. The worrisome thing is that we don’t have all that much time to get global emissions to level off and begin falling towards zero. Whereas the costs associated with inaction on issues like acid rain or persistent organic pollutants were moderate, those associated with climate change are potentially catastrophic.
In some senses, the Kyoto Protocol has ‘failed’ insofar as it didn’t establish sufficiently effective mechanisms that states genuinely trying to cut their emissions could use. There have been problems with the carbon markets it established, for instance.
At the same time, it is probably truer to say that states failed to live up to the obligations they voluntarily took on through the Kyoto Protocol, with Canada among the worst offenders. If states like Canada had accompanied ratification with a plan for actually reaching its target – and had then applied the level of effort necessary to implement that plan – the outcomes associated with the protocol as a whole would be quite different.
Kyoto is Ineffective
Objection:
The Kyoto treaty, even if fully implemented, would only save us about a tenth of a degree of future temperature rise many decades from now. What a waste of effort! You can see for yourself here at Junk Science’s website.
Answer:
There are three big problems with this claim.
Firstly, this is really a red herring. The purpose of Kyoto is to establish an international mechanism for dealing with global warming by taking the first tentative steps towards a difficult goal. Political and economic mechanisms need to be worked out and agreed on. You may as well time me waking to the side walk where I parked my car () bicycle, and then tell me at this rate I will never get home.
Secondly, Kyoto is a step by step process whose second phase (much less third, fourth etc.) has not even been negotiated yet, so how can anyone claim anything about how effective it is going to be? Junk Science and other sources of this propaganda are starting their dubious calculations from the assumption that Kyoto ends in 2012 when round one is over, this is just Plain Wrong.
Thirdly, the temperature several decades from now is to a large extent already determined by the current energy imbalance due to the extra CO2 already in the atmosphere right now, so short of a complete cessation of emissions today, there is no foreseeable way to avoid the bulk of the warming that is “in the pipeline”. This is mostly the result of the extremely large thermal inertia of the oceans and therefore the climate system as a whole, and it means that our actions today, or our inactions, will have consequences felt several decades hence.
Finally, a rather personal peeve I have with this type of criticism. In general I have a big credibility issue with people who vociferously criticize any attempt at a solution and yet propose nothing in its place. You’d think if they were so sincerely concerned about how ineffective Kyoto will be (as frankly, they should be!) they would be agitating for more action, rather than shrugging their shoulders and saying “I guess we should just sit it out”. It makes me think of some guy standing on the sidewalk watching all the neighbors fight a house fire, saying “you’ll never make it, [you] don’t [have] enough people.”
Shut up and help!
Thank you for this one page primer.
I would suggest introducing “Change” after “Climate” into whatever short title you choose.
Would you like to write this presentation for me? Thanks for the tips. I need to find more info about China as I plan to use Canada and China as examples. I have lots of detail about Canada. How do I site your thesis and your blog?
David MacKay, whose excellent book I reviewed before, has been appointed Chief Scientific Advisor of the Department of Energy and Climate Change in the United Kingdom and given a staff of 50.
I like ‘Climate science and policy-making’ – reasonable short, non-contentious and covers the focus well
Too long for the navigation menu. I would prefer something shorter than ‘climate in one page,’ actually.
This entire post has been copied verbatim (with hotlinked images, to boot) over at World Changing Canada. While that is consistent with my copyright policy, it does seem a touch excessive.
A short explanation of the greenhouse effect might be a good thing to include.
RealClimate has a good ’start here’ page.
Climate change is on your doorstep
11 November 2009, by Tamera Jones
If you think climate change is something for the next generation, think again. In a detailed study of trends in UK ecosystems, researchers have found that not only has the environment changed, but everything from butterflies and beetles to soil, is responding.
Researchers measured differences in climate, air pollution, soil chemistry, plant abundance and type, and the numbers and spread of butterflies, moths, bats and beetles across 12 sites in the UK between 1993 and 2007. Reported in the journal Biological Conservation, it’s the most detailed study of UK ecosystems to date.
‘Nowhere else in the world has anyone looked at such a large range of different factors and brought them all together,’ says Dr Mike Morecroft of Natural England, who led the study.
The scientists show that temperatures have risen faster than the global average and rainfall has increased over the period 1993 to 2007 at the 12 sites. But the acidity of rain has dropped dramatically, as a direct result of a clampdown on sulphur emissions since the 1970s, leading to less acid soils at some sites.
Fossil fuel CO2 emissions up by 29 percent since 2000
Published: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 – 13:31 in Earth & Climate
The strongest evidence yet that the rise in atmospheric CO2 emissions continues to outstrip the ability of the world’s natural ’sinks’ to absorb carbon is published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience. An international team of researchers under the umbrella of the Global Carbon Project reports that over the last 50 years the average fraction of global CO2 emissions that remained in the atmosphere each year was around 43 per cent – the rest was absorbed by the Earth’s carbon sinks on land and in the oceans. During this time this fraction has likely increased from 40 per cent to 45 per cent, suggesting a decrease in the efficiency of the natural sinks. The team brings evidence that the sinks are responding to climate change and variability.
The scientists report a 29 per cent increase in global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel between 2000 and 2008 (the latest year for which figures are available), and that in spite of the global economic downturn emissions increased by 2 per cent during 2008. The use of coal as a fuel has now surpassed oil and developing countries now emit more greenhouse gases than developed countries – with a quarter of their growth in emissions accounted for by increased trade with the West.
The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know WeWe’’re Not Wrong? (PDF)
Naomi Oreskes
History Department & Program in Science Studies
University of California, San Diego
Responses to Questions & Objections on Climate Change
Dr Brett Parris
Chief Economist, World Vision Australia
Research Fellow, Monash University
“The greenhouse effect, by which gases such as carbon dioxide absorb heat, setting up a warming blanket around the world, was first postulated by the French mathematician and physicist Joseph Fourier in 1824. Fourier understood that solar energy heated the Earth, which then reflected that heat back into space in the form of infrared radiation. In effect, the sun’s heat bounced off the Earth’s surface. In the 1850s the Irish physicist John Tyndall figured out a way to actually test and measure the capacity of various gases, including nitrogen, oxygen, water vapour, carbon dioxide, and ozone, to absorb and transmit radiant energy. By 1858 he had effectively proved Fourier’s theory.
Hoggan, James. Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming. (p.17 paperback)
State of the Climate: Much Worse than Predicted
By Richard Littlemore on US
Given the dated nature of the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a panel of some of the world’s most respected climate scientists have put together an update called The Copenhagen Diagnosis.
The news is worse than predicted on every front.
“So there it is: the solution to global warming is as easy to describe as it is difficult to put into practice. Emissions of the six kinds of air pollutants causing the problem – CO2, methane, black carbon, halocarbons, nitrous oxide, and carbon monoxide, plus VOCs – must all be reduced dramatically. And we must simultaneously increase the rate at which they are removed from the air and reabsorbed by the earth’s oceans and biosphere.”
Gore, Al. Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis. (p. 49 paperback)
For Kids, Books that Demystify Climate Change
By Katherine Gustafson
Two new books will help kids, and perhaps their adults, understand what is happening and what they can do to help.
Our Choice: How We Can Solve the Climate Crisis (Young Readers Edition), by Al Gore, is a version of an adult book adapted for youngsters. A follow-up to his famous An Inconvenient Truth, this book departs from Gore’s previous one by emphasizing actions we can take and the hope we can hold on to.
We Are the Weather Makers: The History of Climate Change, by Tim Flannery, is aimed at middle schoolers and high school students, and makes an excellent introduction to the topic for young readers. Its pages cover a range of topics, sometimes technical, including the planet’s carbon cycle, fossil fuels, greenhouse gases and sea-level rise, among others.
It’s a scary and confusing world out there, and kids know it. Turning to some experts for a little child-friendly help is one of the best ways to put fears to rest and to talk about how to face those that can’t be put away. Do you know any other good climate change resources for kids?
In his book, What’s the Worst That Could Happen?, Greg Craven has come up with a useful chain of reasoning, based on the paleoclimatic record:
Collectively, this is one way to argue that humanity’s big experiment with boosting the concentration of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) in the atmosphere is dangerous. The records we have on the history of the climate suggest it can be changed quickly and dramatically. As we continue to emit GHGs, we are pushing towards whichever of those tipping points are closest.
You need think about it. Despite the emails, the overwhelming evidence showing global warming is happening hasn’t changed.
“The e-mails do nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus . . . that tells us the Earth is warming, that warming is largely a result of human activity,” Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told a House committee. She said that the e-mails don’t cover data from NOAA and NASA, whose independent climate records show dramatic warming.
‘the radical prescriptions for climate change, the ones that come from the green pressure groups, the ones of which politicians instinctively think, “Nah, the electorate will never wear that” are the only ones that are actually going to work. … I find that quite hard to take on board myself, but the implication is unavoidable. In the end it’s a simple choice. One way will work, the other won’t.’
-Michael McCarthy
Pembina Institute
Key Resources on Climate Science
The world’s top climate scientists agree that human activities are forcing climate change at an extraordinary rate — with disastrous consequences if we fail to change course.
In July 2009, Prime Minister Stephen Harper signed on to a G8 summit declaration recognizing the broad scientific view that the increase in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels ought not to exceed 2°C.
The question is no longer whether the climate is changing, but how long we have to act before those changes become irreversible. The following resources summarize the most up-to-date and authoritative climate research.
For someone concerned about climate change, what would you suggest they do?
In order of priority:
Oh, and please keep contributing to discussions here.
What about something to combat deforestation?