Harley Oliver and UNSWTV have released the second part of the book documentary with a much better and relaxed performance by Ben 
Happy holidays to all.
Monthly Archive for December, 2009
It is like being in another world when arriving into Copenhagen for the global climate climate summit this week. On the connecting flight I had from Zurich to Copenhagen on Monday morning, the IATA (international airlines association) issued a pamphlet to every passenger on there goal of reducing emissions by 50% by 2050. Apparently everyone who flew into Copenhagen on any flight got this pamphlet over the 2 weeks. Then I read a full-page ad in the IHT from Coca-Cola calling for strong action at the Copenhagen talks - with a campaign called Hopenhagen. Yes Coke wants strong action. Times are changing indeed when reading this before I even get to Copenhagen.
Now being in Copenhagen and having great expectations, I regret coming at all. The Copenhagen Diagnosis team had a press conference at 11:30am on Tuesday. We thought we’d head out to the conference centre to register. Heading out there with Matt England, we got to the centre at ~1pm on the Monday. There was about 100 people in a que out the front which seemed fine - well, that’s what I thought. Although this was supposed to be a que, it actually was a place to stand and go nowhere for hours in freezing conditions with no communication or ability to know if you would ever see people get let in, let alone yourself get in. This que after a couple of hours turned into a mosh-pit with some people being there for 7 HOURS - then it turned ugly with the police a very restless and cold crowd of delegates shouting, chanting and pushing. At one point the crowd parted like the Red Sea - and Al Gore slide past on his way out. It was a freezing disaster and I was not prepared for it - after 2 hours in the mosh-pit I went home and hoped tomorrow morning would be better. How wrong was I.
My friend, Michael Molitor and I got out to the conference centre at 7:30am on the Tuesday and the line was already about 200m. By the time they opened the doors, the line was apparently 3km! We had no chance to get in for our press conference at 11:30am- but we tried desperately, calling everyone from the head press officer of the conference to a friend in the UNFCCC executive. The thing is, the mosh-pit was filled with state government/city officials, ngo’s, press and all types of high-flyers. Saw NYTimes columnist Thomas Friedman in the line and let him know his next column: If the UNFCCC cant organise a conference, then how on earth can we expect them to help negotiate a global new deal on climate change!
Some of our scientists got through (another Stefan Rahmstorf waited 8 hours in the line!) and we were able to have the Copenhagen Diagnosis press conference - which I watched online from my hotel bed! With much hope I am heading home from Copenhagen deflated and frustrated, not at just our experience, but also the horrible impasse between haggling nations trying to do their best to not cut carbon emissions unless others do it!
Just like the Dow Jones Index tells us about stock market indicators, a new Climate Change index has been launched by an international science program (IGBP) of the Swedish academy of sciences. It is a simple and illustrative way to look at all climate change indicators each year and cumulatively. See below for the summary plot of the index and also a 2-minute video about the index.
Some people still question whether Earth’s climate is changing as rapidly and profoundly as the majority of climate scientists suggest. But, what if the complexity of the Earth’s climate were distilled down to one number, in the same way that the Dow Jones Index condenses volumes of data into a single figure? What, then, would be the general trend?
The IGBP Climate-Change Index is a first attempt to do just that. It brings together key indicators of global change: carbon dioxide, temperature, sea level and sea ice. The index gives an annual snapshot of how the planet’s complex systems – the ice, the oceans, the land surface and the atmosphere - are responding to the changing climate. The index rises steadily from 1980 – the earliest date the index has been calculated. The change is unequivocal, it is global, and, significantly, it is in one direction. The reason for concern becomes clear: in just 30 years we are witnessing major planetary-scale changes.
The index dips in just three years, 1982, 1992 and 1996 and looks effective at capturing major natural events that affect climate, and their knock-on effect on the planet. The dip in the curve in 1992 may have been caused by the massive Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption in Indonesia in 1991. The eruption was large enough to affect temperature and sea level on a planetary scale. The other falls coincide with the El Chichon volcanic eruption in Mexico in 1982 and the volcanic eruption on the Caribbean island of Montserrat in 1996. If this link proves robust, the index is an excellent visual tool to show how external events can have rapid planetary-scale effects. Of course, the overall direction of change – a climbing cumulative index – highlights the extent human activities are having on the planet’s climate system.
The Sydney Morning Herald published a piece of mine today in its Copenhagen special report. In Australia, we’ve been obsessed about either the fictituious debate over the science of climate change or the morals of saving polar bears, but the global economy is shifting rapidly to a low carbon economy. I try and point out that even if you think there is a vast conspiracy among thousands of scientists or dont really care about polar bears, meaningful carbon targets in Australia are critical to transforming our economy to one which is more productive in the things that the world will crave this century: the new low carbon fuels, cars, buildings, materials and technologies. If Australia protects the heavy polluters by issuing weak carbon-emissions targets, it will be the equivalent of protecting the typewriter industry at the dawn of the personal computer age.