Science – Page 76 – a sibilant intake of breath

Garnaut on managing risk

One of the better aspects of the Australian Garnaut Review of the economics of climate change is the straightforward language in which it is written. That particularly applies to the introductory and concluding chapters (PDF), the latter of which is entitled “Fateful choices.” Perhaps the finest passages in the whole work concern how we ought to respond to the uncertainty that remains in projecting future climatic change as a function of human emissions:

[T]he Review accepts the views of mainstream science ‘on a balance of probabilities’. That formulation allows the possibility that the views on climate change of the IPCC and the learned academies in all of the main countries of scientific achievement are wrong.

There is a chance that they are wrong. Just a chance. But to heed instead the views of the minority of genuine sceptics in the relevant scientific communities would be to hide from reality. It would be imprudent beyond the normal limits of human irrationality…

The mitigation process can be cut short, with due notice to those who have committed their capital to a new economy of low emissions, if at any time the international community comes to the view that new scientific knowledge establishes that the concerns of 2008 were erroneous to the extent that mitigation judgments based on them have become obsolete.

In this case, Australia would have paid 2 per cent of GNP as insurance against what would otherwise have been a high risk of immense damage. It would be a high price, but one that was reasonable on the basis of the evidence available at the time when decisions had to be made.

The consequences of inaction now are not similarly reversible. The arithmetic of Chapter 3 (PDF) about the new patterns of global growth takes away the time we may once have thought we had for experiment, talk, and leisurely decision making. It tells us that business as usual is taking us quickly towards what the science tells us are high risks of highly disruptive climate change…

On a balance of probabilities, the failure of our generation would lead to
consequences that would haunt humanity until the end of time.

The report concludes that an international agreement is vital. It needs to include a global goal for the concentration of carbon dioxide at the moment of stabilization (550 parts per million, perhaps, for an initial agreement – refined to 450 ppm in a subsequent iteration). The agreement needs to incorporate equity concerns, especially through the principle of contraction and convergence, and national commitments must add up to the global target.

It must be very much hoped that the UNFCCC Conference of Parties in Copenhagen next year will at least begin the process towards those outcomes. Barack Obama’s apparent seriousness about making climate change a priority is cause for optimism. If the US, China, India, Japan, and Europe can reach an accord, it seems likely that enough others will be drawn in to make the thing really work.

Head injuries and homelessness

A study recently published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal examined the correlation between traumatic head injuries and homelessness. 601 men and 303 women were surveyed, among whom 53% had experienced such injuries: 70% of those prior to their becoming homeless. Their overall rate for such injuries is five times higher than that of the population as a whole.

While the study does not seek to establish a causal link, the data is certainly suggestive. While it might be relatively rare for a head injury to be the exclusive cause of becoming homeless, it is certainly plausible that those who already lacked a social safety net could find themselves homeless as the eventual consequence of one.

It’s just another acute demonstration of how acutely unfair life really is. Providing long-term aid to those who require it is an onerous burden, and one that is perhaps borne poorly by impersonal governmental structures. That being said, the study does provide support for the ethical claim that society as a whole owes moral duties to the homeless, who may be in their present circumstance far more as the consequence of ill-fortune than as a consequence of any choices that we might feel make them undeserving of substantial assistance.

I learned about the study from The McGill Daily – a campus newspaper I picked up when I was visiting my brother in Montreal. Their story is available here.

ExRo promises more efficient wind turbines

A new type of generator for wind turbines promises to increase the range of wind speeds across which they generate electricity efficiently. The system, developed by ExRo Technologies of Vancouver, uses stacks of copper coils that can be activated and deactivated individually. That means the generator is capable of deriving small amounts of power from slow winds and larger amounts from faster winds. Crucially, the system also allows that to occur without the use of any moving parts: decreasing the cost and increasing the reliability.

For now, the company has only tested a laboratory-scale prototype. They are now aiming to scale up the technology for use in large multi-megawatt wind turbines. In some cases, it may even be economically efficient to install the new generators in existing wind turbines.

One reason for which the technology looks promising is that it could decrease the variance in power output from wind farms, decreasing the need to balance times of low output using energy storage or alternative forms of generation.

Climate change and forest management

Forest management is an area where climate-related challenges are considerable, particularly insofar as they relate to other ongoing developments. A case in point is forest fires. At one point, the ecological view was that fire suppression was beneficial for forest ecosystems. Now, it seems that the tide of opinion has shifted to the belief that fires have an important role to play in regulating forests. For instance, they are important for the propagation of giant redwoods (Sequoiadendron giganteum). Fires both clear the underbrush of plants that compete with the redwoods and cause redwood cones to open and release seeds. Also, the suppression of fires in British Columbia has increased the proportion of aged pine trees, which are more vulnerable than young ones to mountain pine beetle.

At the same time as fires are being recognized as an important natural element in forest life, we know that climate change is causing more and worse fires in North America, and will continue to do so. Should we step back from fire management, in the hope that fires will bolster biodiversity and resilience, or should we be more active in suppressing fires, so as to partially balance-out the warming effect of our emissions?

This touches upon a related question for conservation lands: namely, how should we respond to shifting biomes in parks? If a northern park like the Wapusk National Park in Manitoba seems likely to transition from taiga and tundra to boreal forest, should those charged with protecting it try to resist that change? The same question arises in relation to parks like Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan, where a transition from boreal forest to savannah and woodlands seems likely. It is entirely possible that nothing meaningful can be done to slow or stop the transition, but the possibility of doing so raises the question of what it means to protect nature in an era where no corner of it is unaffected by human activities.

One thing that we should certainly consider is doing a lot less monoculture planting. Regardless of whether the threat in question is weather, pests, or disease, a forest that contains a mixture of plant and animal species will be more resilient than one containing only a few. Hopefully, that is one of the major lessons that will be drawn from the ongoing mountain pine beetle outbreak in B.C.

Obituary for a father of the catalytic converter

Speaking of automobiles and the environment, it is worth noting that Carl D. Keith died on Friday. He was one of the creators of the three-way catalytic converter: a device that has reduced automobile emissions of unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and nitrous oxides significantly, improving the air breathed by billions of people around the world.

The advent of catalytic converters also accompanied the decline of leaded gasoline: Thomas Midgley‘s second deadly contribution to atmospheric chemistry, alongside the CFCs that destroy the stratospheric ozone layer.

It is regrettable that so little progress has been made on reducing the environmental impact of automobiles between the 1970s and the present. Hopefully, engineers of Keith’s mold will find themselves empowered by the world’s newfound concern about energy and the environment.

Ethanol and energy independence

Writing in Slate, Robert Bryce has produced a rebuttal of the idea that ethanol is part of the road to energy independence. Essentially, this is because it can only displace a portion of the demand for petroleum products in general:

The corn ethanol scam cannot, has not, and will not significantly reduce overall oil use or significantly cut oil imports because it only replaces one segment of the crude-oil barrel. Furthermore, all the talk about “cellulosic ethanol,” a substance that, in theory, can be profitably produced in commercial quantities from grass, wood chips, or other biomass, is largely misplaced because, like corn ethanol, it will only supplant gasoline.

If this analysis is correct, yet another problem can be lain at the feet of ethanol, alongside the low energy return on investment and dubious climate change benefits.

The world’s biggest coal reserves

In the absense of effective and affordable carbon capture and storage, coal has no future compatible with a stable climate. Eliminating conventional coal plants and preventing the construction of new ones is thus an important front in the effort to fight climate change.

To get a sense of where to concentrate that effort, it is worth examining where the world’s biggest reserves of coal actually are:

The United States – 242.6 billion tonnes (gigatonnes) – 28.6% of the global total
Russia – 157 gigatonnes – 18.5%
China – 114.5 gigatonnes – 13.5%
Australia – 76.5 gigatonnes – 9%
India – 56.6 gigatonnes – 6.7%
South Africa – 48 gigatonnes – 5.7%

According to the Energy Information Administration, burning one tonne of coal produces between 1.40 and 2.84 tonnes of carbon dioxide. That means that burning all these reserves would add between 973 and 1,974 gigatonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere. By comparison, the total quantity of human emissions to date is about 488 gigatonnes.

Ken Caldeira on geoengineering as contingency

In testimony before the British Parliament, Ken Caldeira has done a good job of expressing what I consider to be the appropriate perspective on geoengineering: the deliberate modification of the climate system, intended to counteract anthropogenic climate change. While it may well be possible to reduce the degree of temperature increase – or even reduce atmospheric levels of greenhouse gasses – though geoengineering, it seems nearly certain that doing so will produce harmful and unintended effects. There is also the danger that simply exploring the prospect of geoengineering will encourage us to use it as a perceived quick fix, rather than actually reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Those things being said, there is a strong counter-argument. We know from the paloeclimatic record that there have been times in history when climate changed violently, over the span of decades. We also know that we are pushing the climate system farther and farther from the equilibrium it was at prior to the Industrial Revolution. As such, the risk of abrupt or runaway climate change is very real and potentially catastrophic. This is especially true if the climate system is actually as sensitive as climatologist James Hansen has suggested in his recent work.

For the sole purpose of having a fall-back if disaster seems imminent, it seems sensible to investigate possible geoengineering technologies, assessing them in terms of probable effectiveness, secondary consequences, and overall risks. As Caldeira explains:

“Only fools find joy in the prospect of climate engineering. It’s also foolish to think that risk of significant climate damage can be denied or wished away. Perhaps we can depend on the transcendent human capacity for self-sacrifice when faced with unprecedented, shared, long-term risk, and therefore can depend on future reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. But just in case, we’d better have a plan.”

If we find ourselves suddenly on the cusp of the disintegration of Greenland or West Antarctica, the abrupt drying and burning of the Amazon, or the failure of the Asian monsoon, we may find ourselves glad to have conducted this research in advance, even if the ultimate result of that research is the knowledge that geoengineering is actually technically impossible or unacceptably risky. Better to learn that in advance than to roll the die at a time when no room for deliberation remains.

Failures in fish identification

Making an ethical decision about what kind of seafood to eat is very challenging. Considerations include environmental sustainability, the problems with different forms of fishing gear, and the maintenance of ecosystems and viable fish stocks. As this Vancouver Sun article points out, actually making good choices may be impossible for consumers in many cases because they are being lied to about what sort of fish they are buying.

In some cases, the guidelines for what you can call a fish are so loose as to be almost meaningless. In other cases, people simply lie. According to a study cited in the article, DNA tests of 91 seafood samples purchased in Toronto and New York revealed that 23 (25%) were mislabelled. In other cases, fish from depleted waters are labelled as originating in fisheries that are being more sustainably managed.

All this poses a big problem to the school of thought that suggests that educating consumers to make their own ethical choices is the best way forward. Even for those willing to put in the effort to investigate the state of various fisheries, as well as willing to pay more in time and money to find ethical fish, the failure to properly label products may make their efforts fruitless or counterproductive.

As with many other problems in food integrity, the solution may be a shorter chain from source to consumer, coupled with more stringent regulations and enforcement.

The article, along with several others in its series, was linked and discussed on Jennifer Jacquet’s blog.

Spying on North American weather

Most weather systems in the Atlantic move from west to east. As a result, the Allies had a tactical advantage during the Second World War. Their weather stations in North America provided information that was useful for making plans in the Atlantic and European theatres of war.

The Germans made a creative effort to alter that balance by secretly planting a weather station in Labrador. The automated station was transported by U-boat and installed under cover of fog. Unfortunately for the Germans, the station only operated for a few days and the U-boat sent to repair it got sunk.

You can see the weather station on display at the Canadian War Museum, which is free on Thursday evenings.