Month: October 2008

NDP opportunism and Conservative concealment

Perhaps the biggest disappointment in this federal election campaign is the opportunistic and irresponsible opposition of the NDP to carbon pricing. It is now extremely clear that global emissions need to fall – both in times of economic strength and weakness. Those in economies with excessive per-capita emissions need to fall soonest and fastest, and Canada has an appalling record in that regard. Cutting emissions in an economically efficient way means establishing a national price for carbon: either through a cap-and-trade scheme or a carbon tax. As such, parties that support a Canadian climate policy that is effective and internationally responsible would do well to either make such a proposal or support one already advanced by another federal party. Jack Layton may be more concerned with social welfare than with the environment, but he really needs to realize that failing to deal with climate change will produce enormous amounts of suffering and that those who will be hardest hit will be the poorest and most vulnerable in Canada, and around the world.

The other big disappointment is the failure of the Conservative Party to publish a platform. It is truly bizarre for a sitting government that is seeking an eventual majority to not publish the details of what they plan to do with the country. It leaves the opposition without the opportunity to comment, and Canadians in general without the opportunity to make an informed choice.

[Update: 9 October 2008]: The platform is out (PDF).

Global preferences regarding US presidential candidates

Given the degree to which the American president influences events all around the world, there is a certain degree of sense in polling the rest of the world to see which of the two current presidential candidates they prefer. This page on The Economist‘s website is doing just that. It is set up to mimic the American electoral college system, with each country getting three votes by default plus additional ones by population. In total, there are 9,875 votes.

At the time of writing, Canada’s 49 electoral college votes are going to Obama, who is preferred to McCain by 87% to 13%. The 432 American votes are also going to Obama, reflecting a 79% to 21% preference. The only countries that are toss ups or leaning towards McCain seem to be Macedonia (5 votes) and Andorra (3 votes). As such, Obama is leading by 8,360 to 8.

Of course, there are huge methodological problems with this type of survey. It is amalgamating the preferences of those who have volunteered to take it, and who therefore presumably have some knowledge of The Economist. It is neither a random nor a representative sample. Even so, the results are pretty striking.

The Met Office on the urgency of emission reductions

The Met Office is the official national weather service of the United Kingdom, subsidiary to the Ministry of Defence. Their website provides a wealth of information about climate change. For instance, they have projections based on in-house models, a PDF containing “the known facts about climate change.” One page on the site lists the six key facts about the issue of global warming:

  1. Climate change is happening and humans are contributing to it
  2. Temperatures are continuing to rise
  3. The current climate change is not just part of a natural cycle
  4. Recent warming cannot be explained by the Sun or natural factors alone
  5. If we continue emitting greenhouse gases this warming will continue and delaying action will make the problem more difficult to fix
  6. Climate models predict the main features of future climate

It is very refreshing to see this kind of thing from an authoritative source: providing comprehensible information on the strength of the scientific consensus. The head of the Met Office recently published an article in The Guardian stressing the urgent need to cut greenhouse gas emissions:

Even with large and early cuts in emissions, these projections indicate that temperatures are likely to rise to around 2C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. If action is delayed or is slow, then there is a significant risk of much larger increases in temperature. The uncertainties in the science mean that even if the most likely temperature rise is kept within reasonable limits, we cannot rule out the possibility of much larger increases. Adaptation strategies are therefore needed to deal with these less likely, but still real, possibilities…

Even if emissions start to decrease in the next two years and reach a rapid and sustained rate of decline of 3% per year, temperatures are likely to rise to 1.7C above pre-industrial levels by 2050 and to around 2C by 2100. This is because carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere will be around for many years to come and the climate takes some time to respond to these changes. Only an early and rapid decline in emissions gets anywhere close to the target of 50% reduction in emissions by 2050 put forward by the G8.

Contrast that with a world where no action is taken to curb global warming. Then, temperatures could rise as high as 7C above pre-industrial values by the end of the century. This would lead to significant risks of severe and irreversible impacts.

Clear, scientifically-informed, and forcefully expressed – we would be lucky to see climate change discussed in such a manner in some of the developed and developing nations less progressive on the issue than the United Kingdom has generally shown itself to be.

Re-jacketed

I once again have cause to praise the excellence of Mountain Equipment Co-Op as well as W. L. Gore & Associates. Two years ago, I got one of their excellent but now discontinued Aegis rain jackets. Recently, I noticed that a patch on the back near my right shoulder was starting to de-laminate: the Gore-Tex was coming apart from the nylon.

I took the jacket into MEC today to ask if there was any way to stop the patch from spreading. They told me that Gore-Tex has a lifetime guarantee that their jackets will not delaminate and that they would refund me the original purchase price. I used it towards a new MEC Synergy Jacket. It is dramatically lighter than the Aegis and has waterproof zippers instead of flap-covered ones. The only obvious downside is that there are fewer and somewhat less capacious pockets. The new jacket is less cumbersome and takes up less space in a pack. It is also made from Gore-Tex Pro Shell, which is supposedly more waterproof and breathable than the Gore-Tex XCR the Aegis was made from. I hope I get the chance to climb some rainy mountains in the new garment – ideally back in British Columbia.

North/South historical versus future emissions

It is common to hear officials from developed states say things akin to this: “Yes, we are the ones who have historically done the most to create climate change – but we will be eclipsed by developing nations in the future.” While probably valid to some extent, there are many possible responses to this. There are arguments about who got rich how, as well as whose current per-capita emissions are high or low. What I am objecting to here is the curious methodology sometimes used to describe the developed/developing past/future dynamic.

Sometimes, states say both (a) developed states will continue to increase their emissions, in line with how they have been rising recently and (b) we will cut our emissions, according to our existing plan. If you step beyond that to compare your target future numbers with your business-as-usual projections for developing states, you make them look like a huge problem by comparison. One problem with this is that it is akin to saying the following: “I know I have been a problem gambler, but I have a plan to cut it down. I am going to halve my annual gambling losses in three years, and eliminate 80% of them in five. My buddy here, however, is a really compulsive gambler. He keeps losing more and more at an increasing rate. As such, his projected future losses are huge. Indeed, the amount I have lost so far is tiny compared to the amount he is going to lose in the future.” It is paradoxical because you are using the assertion that you will do better in the future to avoid present demands that you do more to reduce future emissions.

You are basically assuming that you can and will change, while others will not. No rich country government that has adopted targets for cutting emissions claims that cutting emissions requires cutting GDP. Nobody in power is touting a “stop climate change through recession” approach. As such, they must believe it possible to maintain economic growth while cutting emissions. While that may or may not be a valid assumption over various spans of time, it is an assumption that must be applied to developing states as well as developed ones.

In short, both developed and developing states need to cut emissions. The large probable future emissions from states like India and China are relevant to climate planning, partly insofar as concern about them could prompt useful transfers of wealth and low-carbon technology towards those states. At the same time, the wealth of the developed world – and the historical emissions that helped generate it – are also highly relevant. So too are the much larger non-climatic challenges being faced in the developing world. The developed world needs to start taking the kinds of steps necessary for actually hitting their 2020 and 2050 targets, in the process demonstrating to developing states how the transition can be accomplished in a politically acceptable way.

Bearded men and climatic doom

The Onion has a brief article that may seem uniquely pertinent to readers of this blog:

A man with a piece of food stuck in his beard is currently addressing an auditorium full of world leaders and prominent scholars on what seems to be the subject of global warming, sources are reporting. The food particle has been dangling from the man’s facial hair for more than an hour while he has mentioned such phrases as “sulfides,” “ice caps,” “immediately, otherwise we all may,” “underwater tomb,” and “of human life as we know it.” It was briefly dislodged during a particularly animated portion of the presentation in which complete global apocalypse was remarked upon, only to fall one inch and reattach to a lower portion of beard.

It joins such favourites as: U.N. Orders Wonka To Submit To Chocolate Factory Inspections and Fundamentalist Aesopians Interpret Fox-Grapes Parable Literally. My all-time favourite remains: Bush Regales Dinner Guests With Impromptu Oratory On Virgil’s Minor Works.

An idea for reducing problems with dead links

As mentioned before, one of the most frustrating things about the internet is the likelihood that following a link will lead to a page that has moved, changed, or vanished since the link was posted. Given the massive increases in bandwidth and storage space that have taken place, I had an idea for combating this. Basically, it would be an automated system that saves a cached copy of any linked page, then allows anyone viewing the linking page to view the saved version of the linked page, in the event the latter became unavailable. That means a blog post linking to a news story or other blog entry would be able to provide access to either of the latter, even at a point in time when they are no longer available in their initial contexts.

It would work a lot like Google’s cache: saving text and formatting, with links to any images and video in their original locations. As such, the maximum amount of content would be retained without using too much disk space. To begin with, the system could be integrated into content management systems like WordPress. Eventually, it may be sensible for every link created to express this behaviour by default – at least on websites that choose to enable it.

Like so many useful things, the system would but up against copyright restrictions. That being said, Google has thus far been successful in defending the legality of their own caching practices. Perhaps the courts would be willing to consider the kind of enhanced links I described as a fair use of potentially copyrighted material.

Banned books week

The last week of September was Banned Books Week. This blog managed to miss it, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some interesting news coverage to link. This blog has a piece on why the week matters. Philip Pullman also has an article on it in The Guardian.

Google also has a page listing books that have been banned at various places and times. To those with a bit of spare time, I recommend reading a couple. It is an excellent way to celebrate the fact of living in a society with a limited capacity to suppress thought.

Parallels between AIDS and climate change

New research suggests that the AIDS virus first emerged in human populations about 100 years ago. That seems a bit surprising, given the way in which the impacts have exploded in the last few decades. The explanation is simply to consider the lag times and exponential growth curves involved. In 2007, 2.1 million people died of AIDS, from among the 33.2 who were infected. Despite improved access to antiretroviral therapies, the sheer extent to which the disease has spread means that the deaths in any recent year probably far exceed the combined deaths from the first few decades of the disease’s existence.

Disturbing parallels exist in relation to climate change. Once again, there is a lag between the cause (contracting HIV or emitting greenhouse gases) and the effects (destruction of the immune system or climatic change). Once again, the rate of growth in the underlying cause has been exponential. Thankfully, there is reason to hope that we are still not too far along the path, when it comes to climate change. It is like having discovered AIDS decades before we actually did – it would have allowed more time to develop and deploy treatments and encourage changed behaviours. It would also have made the peak in number of infections lower and sooner to arrive, before crossing over to the long and difficult slide towards elimination.