Aug 19 2009
An objective assessment of Climate Change circa 2009 AD
By David Finnigan
Thanks partly to Fiona McDonald’s ‘Are humans still evolving?‘ piece on this blog, and partly to Portopolitico’s ‘The Failings of the Green Left‘ post on his Armchair Critique, I have been needled into looking around me at the situation of the environment circa 2009 AD.
It’s surprisingly difficult to assess the situation with any objectivity.
For the last 20 years, the public discussion around climate change has been dominated by the increasingly-shrill carbon lobby funding one climate denier after another, until they have no-one left but the dregs and the lunatics.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the information I was seeking was easily available. While the media’s coverage of climate change has focused on the grudging retreat of the energy lobby (”it’s not happening” -> “it’s happening but it’s not serious” -> “it’s serious but it’s not our fault” -> “it’s serious and our fault but it’s too hard to fix”), the political and military policy-makers have been seriously assessing the consequences of climate change, and making real and practical recommendations based on these consequences. What follows is a brief review of some of these (publicly available) texts.
This report was produced by a Washington DC policy thinktank co-directed by Kurt Campbell, recently sworn in by Barack Obama as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
It examines outcomes resulting from three climate change scenarios: expected, severe and catastrophic. “In all three scenarios,” says the report, “It was projected that rising sea levels in Central America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia and the associated disappearance of low lying coastal lands could conceivably lead to massive migrations—potentially involving hundreds of millions of people. These dramatic movements of people and the possible disruptions involved could easily trigger major security concerns and spike regional tensions. In some scenarios, the number of people forced to move in the coming decades could dwarf previous historical migrations. The more severe scenarios suggest the prospect of perhaps billions of people over the medium or longer term being forced to relocate.”
Privatising water: good idea? Image: Wikimedia.
Other sample quotes, plucked more or less at random: “As drinkable water becomes scarcer it will become an increasingly commercialized resource. Governments, lacking the necessary resources, will privatize supply. Experience with privatized water supply in poor societies suggests the likelihood of violent protest and political upheaval.
“Massive social upheaval will be accompanied by intense religious and ideological turmoil, as people search for relief and hope. For this purpose, it is fair to consider that certain kinds of political doctrine may be thought of as religious. Fascism and communism certainly filled that role for true believers during the 20th century.
“Among traditional religious beliefs, the “losers” are likely to be those faiths that have formed the closest associations with the secular world and with scientific rationalism. Among political systems, authoritarian ideologies would certainly be the “winners.” One way or the other, severe climate change will weaken the capacity of liberal democratic systems to maintain public confidence.”
(Let me flag again that this document, which would be dismissed as ‘alarmist’ by most public media outlets, is being used by the Government of the United States as a guide to developing their policy. Just saying.)
Cleo Paskal
2. How Climate Change is Pushing the Boundaries of Security and Foreign Policy
A briefing paper from the UK’s Chatham House by former BBC foreign correspondent and current adjunct-Professor of Global Change Cleo Paskal. This paper looks at several key climate affected conflict-triggers, including changing maritime boundaries and the question of low-lying island nations:
“As sea levels rise, coastlines will retreat and lowlying islands may become uninhabitable. Long before the islands disappear completely, inhabitants may have to be evacuated as salt water infiltrates groundwater, killing vegetation and animals and leaving those without desalination plants also without fresh water.
“Already some islands have had to be abandoned. It is very likely that eventually at least one entire nation will have to be completely resettled. The one mentioned most often is Tuvalu in the South Pacific… The core foreign policy question is, can a nation exist without a physical state? If Tuvalu goes under the sea or is abandoned, will it lose its seat in the UN?”
At its highest, Tuvalu is 4.5m above sea level. Image: Wikimedia.
A ‘Statement for the Record’ given by Dr Thomas Fingar to several committees of the US House of Representatives in June last year. Dr Fingar (who is, by the way, Chairman of the National Intelligence Council) states the situation from the USA’s point of view, though he does make the point that southern Australia is likely to experience continued drying.
What is more significant from Australia’s point of view is the situation in South-East Asia: “Some projections indicate as many as 50 million additional people could be at risk of hunger by 2020. By the 2020s increasing consumption patterns and growing populations indicate that 120 million to 1.2 billion people will continue to experience some water stress.”
Climate refugees. Image: Wikimedia.
The result will presumably be massively increased immigration to Australia:
“We judge that economic refugees will perceive additional reasons to flee their homes because of harsher climates. Many likely receiving nations will have neither the resources nor interest to host these climate migrants. Receiving nations probably will have increased concern about migrants who may be exposed to or are carrying infectious diseases that may put host nation populations at higher risk.”
I’m going to stop here, though I’ve barely even scratched the surface. The point I wanted to make is simple: in comparison with the ‘fair’ and ‘balanced’ reporting of climate change in the media, I’m an alarmist. I’m an alarmist and so is everyone who is taking this seriously.
August 20th
Climate change videoconferences (ongoing)
August 21st
Café Scientifque – Climate Change: Global Warning (ACT)
August 27th
What will our coral reefs look like in 2050?
