Lord Stern on global warming: It's even worse than I thought
Author of definitive report on climate change sounds ominous new warning
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Lord Stern, the economist who produced the single most influential political document on climate change, says he underestimated the risks of global warming and the damage that could result from it.
The situation was worse than he had thought when he completed his review two-and-a-half years ago, he told a conference yesterday, but politicians do not yet grasp the scale of the dangers now becoming apparent.
"Do politicians understand just how difficult it could be, just how devastating rises of 4C, 5C or 6C could be? I think, not yet," Lord Stern posed to the meeting of scientists in Copenhagen.
"A rise of 5C would be a temperature the world has not seen for 30 to 50 million years. We've been around only 100,000 years as human beings. We don't know what that's like.
"We haven't seen 3C for a few million years, and we don't know what that looks like either."
Lord Stern said new research done in the past two or three years had made it clear there were "severe risks" if global temperature rose by the predicted 4C to 7C by 2100. Agriculture would be destroyed and life would be impossible over much of the planet, the former World Bank chief economist said.
Now a professor at the London School of Economics, Lord Stern referred to the higher temperature rises several times at the conference. The scientists are meeting in the Danish capital as a precursor to the major UN meeting in December which aims to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty.
Commissioned by Gordon Brown when Chancellor, and issued in October 2006, the 700-page Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is the single most influential political document on global warming yet published. It has been closely studied by the governments of every major country.
The report said the costs of acting to counter climate change, by stabilising emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, might be about 1 per cent of annual global GDP by 2050. But the cost of doing nothing was found to be far greater – risking up to 20 per cent of the world's wealth.
Yesterday, Lord Stern revised this prediction, saying the cost of inaction would be "50 per cent or more higher" than his previous highest estimate – meaning it could cost a third of the world's wealth.
The conference has been hearing detail on research done following the Stern review, including claims sea levels are likely to rise twice as fast as predicted in the last UN climate change report in 2007.
Lord Stern said the world's population needed to be aware of the implications of climate change, with many areas devastated by hurricanes and others drying out.
"Much of southern Europe would look like the Sahara. Many of the major rivers of the world, serving billions of people, would dry up in the dry seasons or re-route."
Billions of people would have to relocate as a result, he said.
"What would be the implication of that? Extended conflict, social disruption, war essentially, over much of the world, for many decades.
"This is the kind of implication that follows from temperature increases of that magnitude. I think it's vital that people understand the magnitude of the risks, but also that they understand that [by cutting emissions] we can reduce the probability of going there very dramatically," Lord Stern said.
Then and now: How Stern's view changed
Temperatures
A central assumption of the 2006 Stern Report was global temperatures would rise by between 2C and 3C over the current century if nothing was done to counter global warming.
Stern also mentioned the possibility of a 4C rise.
Yesterday, Stern said 4C, 5C, 6C and even 7C degree rises were a real possibility by the end of the 21st century, taking the world into new territory - agriculture would be destroyed and life impossible in many areas.
Costs
Stern created a sliding scale in the 2006 report which measured the costs of doing nothing on climate change. At the upper limit was the chance the damage would amount to 20 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product – a fifth of the world's wealth.
Yesterday, Stern revised his estimate saying the cost would be 50 per cent higher "or more" than the previous highest guess – risking a third of the world's wealth or a 30 per cent plus reduction in consumption per head.
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The previous predictions were wrong, but these predictions are correct, and you believe them.
Why not go for the gold medal of overheated hysteria and assume 6,000C. Oh wait, that temperature has been claimed by the sun's outer visible layer. You don't suppose that has any effect on our planet's temperature, do you?
No, changes in the Sun's activity amount to heat output change of about 0.1%, which has almost no effect on Earth, especially when compared to the 35% increase in the level of carbon dioxide over teh past 200 years.
Prof Diamond explains that there are a number of ecological and geographic variables that effect the collapse of a civilisation. Climate change would agitate a quicker, acute change in conditions that would challenge the global civilisation's ability to fend off absolute collapse.
Of the human factors identified - the short term desires of the elites clashing with the long term "public" good almost inevitably leads to collapse. At the same time, nothing in the history of the world shows that public opinions or will can be changed by anyone other than the elites (elites in this case mean "professional revolutionaries", scientists etc. as much as the ultra-affluent .01%).
In short - the outlook for the world is wholly pessimistic.
Even at this late stage in the game, with the planet being pushed over the edge, just as forecast, 'nobody' (well nobody in any position to make a difference to the future of the planet) listens to the the people who DO KNOW WHAT THEYA RE TALKING ABOUT, since to do so would necessitate some sane policy responses which would put an end to absurd and criminal lifestyles of the wealthy and privileged, and interrupt the money flow to money lenders.
Instead, as cronyblatcher noted, the government continues to squander public money supporting utterly ridiculous lame duck projects that ahve no future and will make all aspects of life worse, such as supporting the motor vehicle industry. It's rather like the compulsive gambler who mortgages his house to place a bet, but loses, so, then sells all his furniture to place a bet, but loses, so then bets the shirt on his back to place a bet. Our politiicans and business leaders are similarly addicted to destructive behaviour based on entirely false paradigms.
I see the climate change deniers are a bit slow off the mark today.
By the way, heavy snow falls are exactly what we would anticipate as ocean surface temperatures rise; a cooling of the upper atmoshere is exactly what we would expect if more heat is trapped in the lower atmosphere ..... entirely consistent with global warming theory. But perhaps we should stop talking about global warming or climate change and start talking about CLIMATE INSTABILITY. Surely nobody would be in favour of that.... on the other hand, I guess there is a veritable army of uninformed people out there who would think climate instability would be just great.
The planet warms, the planet cools. It has always had "climate instability." Maybe great, maybe not, but here nevertheless.
The good news is that even with a very rapid abrupt climate event that wipes out most of the wolrd's population (including the children of climate change deniers), the average temperature of the Earth is unlikely to rise by more than about 12oC, which means that Antarctica could become habitable for humans (as Sir David King suggested several years ago).
The bad news is that Antarctica is unlikely to support more than a few million people at best, since the growing season would be rather short and night is rather long (6 months).
Global temperatures peaked in 1998, and appear to have been on a gradually declining trend since then.
The sun has been extraordinarily quiet, with an extended minimum. Serious cooling has followed similar previous episodes. If the current trend continues, starvation beckons for billions.
Sea levels worldwide now appear to be falling.
Arctic ice substantially reformed last winter. North America has just suffered one of its coldest and snowiest winters ever. I doubt that the last winter in the UK could be described as mild.
In ten year's time, many will look back and wonder at human ability to delude itself.
Looks as if the the southern US is enduring a very significant drought that falls into the pattern forecast given Global warming. Texas cattle operations are in severe decline as range vegetation is dramatically undergoing shifts to increasingly permanent arid conditions. It is ironic that those in last bastions of republicanism, the southern US, with its high density of global warming deniers, shall be among the first in the US to experience just what this means to agriculture. The sad fact is that California, the largest producer of vegetables for the entire nation, will not be too far behind. Nearly all of California is now in drought alter overdrive. One wonders, how much catastrophe and anarchy they propose to impose on the rational before even they begin to finally catch on to the reality of the situation.
7c would be a holocaust.
Any carbon diet strategy would be dependent upon clean coal:
"The vast majority of new power stations in China and India will be coal-fired; not "may be coal-fired"; will be. So developing carbon capture and storage technology is not optional, it is literally of the essence." --"Breaking the Climate Deadlock," Tony Blair, June 26, 2008
But, Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, has estimated that capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fire plants at current rates would require moving volumes of compressed carbon d ioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide -- a massive undertaking requiring decades and trillions of dollars. "Beware of the scale," he stressed."
"The alternative (to geoengineering) is the acceptance of a massive natural cull of humanity and a return to an Earth that freely regulates itself but in the hot state." --Dr James Lovelock, August 2008
If consumerism at its source of production (China) and at its greatest source of consumption (US) where to contract massively, apart form the social consequences of mass unemployment and poverty, what would be the effect upon the climate?
It appears to me that the economics of the West, that so supports consumerism, is simply being propped up by the likes of Obama and Brown for the benefit of the China and Asia but to the detrement of the planet.
If we are to tackle climate change then we need to tackle the economic models we are so in love with. It is simple - politicians pay lip service to cliemate change yet acknowledgement that our way of lives are to blame and therefore must change is not even on the agenda.
I would recommend the following web-site if you want to see what you are really up against.
www.breathingearth.net/
Everyone talks about reducing greenhouse gas emission as it is the cause of global warming. But surely the final situation will occur no matter what as the process of burning fuels releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that had been locked away effectively in the fuel. (In otherwords not part of the general carbon cycle.) The only way I can see to prevent this happening would be to prevent the fuels being burned in the first place. So is this correct or I am not seeing the whole picture.
An economist who wrote a report stating what the government wanted it to cannot be considered any authority on climate science, so his report is a long, long way from being "definitive" of anything but government propaganda.
Climate Change is real... but it has happened since year zero!
The current hysteria is lobby group polar saving tosh IMHO.
And then, along came the 'global recession' which wiped 'global warming' off the front pages. Damn! How do we get back the initiative (and keep the research funding rolling in) when the World's wealth is about to be reduced by 50%? I know! Let's hold a conference in Copenhagen, invite all like minded people, and just 'up the ante' by posing the question 'how bad will it be if temperatures rise between 4-7 degrees C'? That should get them going again (and keep the research funding rolling in), even as the World's wealth is being reduced by 50%. And for good measure we'll tell them that they are all going to be toast within 100 years.
God help us if this recession turns into a Depression. It is likely to cause a World temperature rise of at least 10 degrees C, and the cancellation of the 2012 Olympics, owing to lack of competitors and audiences.
Perhaps one might just accept alarmists saying global temperatures are rising when data proves otherwise. Or even that sea levels are rising alarmingly, again when other experts use the same data to prove otherwise. But to propagate this deliberate lie about Polar Bears is just plain disgusting because it is obviously attempting to influence children. Much of this disgraceful propaganda originated with Al Gore whose film, An Inconvenient Truth, was found by a high court judge to have nine deliberate untruths.
The Climate Spooks have Spooked themselves at Copenhagen.
No one one believes them.
No one in the future will as well.
For the planet is cooling and will continue to cool for the next few decades, warm up for the second half of the 21st Century before cooling again as we go into a mini ice-age in the 22nd Century.
On the ohter hand, since the rate of addition of carbon dioxide to the atmopsphere is now beyond all precedent, humans may succeed in braeking all records and generate a 15oC rise in average temperature, particularly if there is depseration to keep the global economy going using coal. However, population die off of around 5 billion (associated with the collaspe of the industrial food supply) over the next coulple of decades is likely to hold down the temperature increase to below 10oC by the end of the century ... which will probably finish off any humans that have not starved to death by that time.
" Every Opinion Poll Shows That Public Opinion Is Cooling As Fast As The Climate Itself"
The fire started in the kitchen of the supermarket. It could never have happened, but it did. The owners of the supermarket (who must bear the responsibility for the lack of fire safety measures) were completely unprepared, panicked and cost a lot of people their lives in a wild attempt to try to not lose money.
Everybody could be wrong. Even the leading scientists who predicts drastic changes in our climate and global ecosytem. All scientific evidence is bias; it's impossible to emit that bias. What studies are made are influenced by who wants to finance them, and even the conclusions drawn by scientists from the evidence are swayed by their own personal experiences and opinions.
The problem is the gamble we take if we assume there will be no disaster. And the thing that frightens me is that most of us aren't even in the supermarket. We're the owners who didn't bother to prepare for the fire.
If you live in an era where there is a small probability (current risk models suggest 50-90% probability) of an event happening (global climate change) that has a large impact if it did happen (drought, flood, unbearable temperature change, loss of species diversity, death of large numbers of people) then you act to address or at least mitigate the risk because it is (a) more cost-effective to do so in the long term and (b) because of the impact on society. This is risk management.
To paint it as a certainty is misrepresenting the facts (and, like the boy who cried wolf, has a detrimental effect on the likelihood of action being taken). To present it as being no risk ignores the possibility that it might happen and the severity of the consequences if it does (and, like the supermarket owners, only positive action to mitigate the risk - putting in risk management, provable measurements, controls and "doing something" - is financially and morally acceptable).
These folks don't want to change their lifestyle and fight any evidence that challenges it. They are the new ignorati, the neoliths of our time.
The problem I have is not the general trend to recycling etc...I don't want to be forced into recycluing because of some incoherent pseudo-science that is foisted on me by people who -on average- wouldn't understand all the complexities of this pseudo-chaotic system, even if they knew them. That it has become a matter of "fact" is due to the hysterical snowball effect bad-science has on the masses. If you had said the earth wasn't the centre of the earth a few hundred years ago you would have encountered a similar herd-mentality of denial despite most people having absolutely no useful knowledge of the subject.
Don't try to tell me I'm ignorant and using "belief" without taking a good look at how exactly you arrived at your own views. (Does it not worry you that what you say mirrors what any moron with a TV would say on the subject? Another armchair "scientist" perhaps?)
I urge everybody - especially politicians - to educate themselves pronto. It's only too typical that this article isn't even in the list of 'most-read articles' this morning. If you think global warming is something for the grandchildren to worry about...you're wrong. Dead wrong.
It's supremely arrogant to imagine that man's influence on the environment has any effect on what has, is and will happen to planet earth. It will survive. It's just that we won't be around to see it. The planet will regenerate, as it has throughout geological history. So, eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow....