What do I think, What can I do?

Posts tagged ‘climate change’

Winter Olimpics, Winter Sports and Climate Change

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It is not necessary to be a visionary to guess that winter sports in general will suffer from climate change. In fact, they have been suffering with the limited amount of warming already experienced. Now that we have recently finished the winter olympics (I did not follow them, I admit), a study found that in the high emissions scenario (the one we are still in) most of the former host cities will not be suitable for another opportunity. And many sportmen claimed climate action.

Of course these kind of consequences will be secondary compared to sea level rise, extreme weather food security triangle. Yet, they are important for many people, and many jobs. In this case the effects are getting visible even now and reflect the huge economic effect climate change will have in many sectors. For example in the regions living from winter sports, are they conscious enough? I don’t think so, with climate  change many times happens that we are somehow aware of it but not to the extent of thinking about the possible consequences or implications, it is like a nightmare we expect to wake of.

The problem is that it will not disapear alone, the good news is that we can do a lot to reduce it.

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Interesting Consequences

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Some images from the last storm in the Gulf of Biscay

Photo from Aizkorri beachclose to Bilbao

Photo from Aizkorri beach close to Bilbao

One of the fastest consequences of climate change are the strong storms. The equation is simple: the more heat in the ocean the stronger the storms, helped by the small but noticeable increase of sea level rise. In fact, the first news of the sea level rise,
 
The beginning of the year has been particularly violent in the cost around here with many strong storms and one really impressive. This link provides some pictures from the beautiful city of San Sebastian. The damage of last storm was important (even more in some other towns/cities) and economic impact is greater than direct repairing works in a city getting high income from tourism.
 
The media have not been extensive in the comments regarding climate change link, though it was mentioned in some cases. But I was quite happy to hear some clear words from some colleagues not involved in these discussions.
 
Of course, it is important to be cautious with attribution as climate and weather are not the same thing and being too emotional can enforce the type of discussion that helps skeptics. I think that wise comments accompanied by account of economic effects are much better in the crucial discussion of what is more expensive? To start carbon emission decrease (mitigation)? Or pay the effects?    
 
 

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Interesting Consequences

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Cousera, Global Warming

Three months ago I finished my first Cousera course. I was new to this learning platform and even to the concept itself (the MOOCs), nevertheless my experience was great, sometimes more demanding than I previously thought but at the same time very satisfactory. In fact there were many courses  in Coursera about or around climate change and this is a significant data itself and perfect subject for another post. Concretely, the one I did was Global Warming: The Science of Climate Change by David Archer.

The basic data about the course: It is 8 weeks long, with quizzes, activities, (small problems), optional number crunchers (longer and more numeric problems) and a term project (not long, not determinant in the final grade and interesting). A good part of the problems was related with several web models about aspects of climate change that allowed a lot of play from the students. And the temperature data for the term project are really interesting. But the most important thing for me were the lectures, they were short, clear and well focused. So, this course offered me a good overview of the climate change problem, starting for the science of the whole carbon cycle and arriving to the consequences depending on several emission scenarios.

As an extremely short summary three paragraphs (not literal):

  • In the long term the deep earth carbon cycle (a geological cycle) will stabilize the CO2 and the climate again. But it will need a million years so we cannot wait for it. In the short term there are many uncertainties but we are facing the alternative of reducing our emissions clearly to approach a 2ºC warming or continuing in the business as usual scenario towards the 4ºC or more.
  • The important parameter is how much carbon we burn, the total amount and we have burnt half of what is considered “safe”. (David Archer has some doubts about the complete safety of the 2ºC target). All fossil fuels are important and even land use but Coal is the most dangerous because is cheap and there is a lot to burn.
  • As the total carbon budget is the key the earlier we start reducing the smaller the effort. If we start too late we will be at risk of arriving to unknown scenarios.
  • The consequences are not crystal clear but it is clear that can be very dangerous in the long-term for more than 2ºC. Sea level rise, water scarcity, extreme weathers among others can make our life difficult and our societies unstable.

Next month a new edition will start, very advisable for anyone with interest in this important subject, more considering the flexibility of MOOCs, you can participate actively or just watch some lectures to learn about particular aspects.

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Interesting Consequences, MOOC, Small Great things

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My wishes for 2014

Last months I haven’t written anything in the blog due to a combination of lack of time in my personal life and spending my remaining “free” hours in coursera platform learning about climate change. It has been a very well spent time, I have learned many interesting things about climate change, but I hope to talk about it in a further post. Today I want to greet the new year with some short wishes about climate change:

1.- It would be wonderful to stabilize the carbon emissions worldwide as many important countries have done in their particular cases. Or even better, to start reducing them making 2013 the peak emissions year.

2.- If the previous is too optimistic, it would be good at least to stop Coal plant growth in most parts of the world.

3.- And combine it with a robust growth of renewable energies.

4.- An international carbon tax would really help, adopted broadly, or at least by the greater emitter countries. Next COP would be a good place to agree on it.

5.- If all of these does not happen, or it is too weak, and international social movement could help to raise public opinion awareness and move some reluctant governments.

6.- or … we could just stop talking and act with the seriousness to be expected from an intelligent being.

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Climate change and politics, Renewable energy, Transportation

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IPCC 5th report in a tweet and two paragraphs

The tweet (more or less):

Climate change is real, induced by human emissions from fossil fuels and we have to act fast to avoid nightmare scenarios

Of course, this is a personal summary, far from the precise and scientific language of the report summary, but adapted to modern communication and fast to read. A very nice summary of the summary in 6 figures can be found in Carbon Brief. And with more or less extension or accuracy most newspapers mention it (some were even positively surprising for me). Skeptics employ several posts to counteract, in the last posts of WUWT, there are no less than 5 dedicated to that noble purpose, this shows its value.

However, with more or less coverage, my real worry is that I do not feel that the importance and urgency of the message has reach the world population, not in my close neighbourhood at least. And this is the 5th message in the same direction by an organization representing thousands of scientists. Or said in other words, even in many/most trust this scientific effort, it is not enough to act and make what can be done to reduce emissions drastically as needed.

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Climate change and politics, skeptical about skeptics

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Is India committed to continue to be low carbon and Germany to become so?

Some time ago, I mentioned the known fact that China and USA are the most important players in the World CO2 emissions game as the greatest emitters. But they are not  the only ones that matter. At least 25 countries are important in the world emission scenario, In this post I am going to mention two news about other two of those countries: Germany and India, the sixth and third emitter respectively.

News from India are positive: “India Plans To Build The Largest Solar Plant In The World”. In spite of being the third emitter in the world the percapita emissions are low, the lowest among great emitters and even close to the acceptable limit in the world, the ton per person as shown in the figures below. The problem is that the economic efficiency of the emissions has been erratic and the potential to grow in both, economy and emissions at the same time is huge. So, it would be great for the world that India would look for renewable energy to supply its growing demand, investing in their poor grid and forgetting coal or gas. Some studies even consider that wind is as cheap as coal for India, but the grid is a problem.

india_germany_2010On the other side, Germany had historically great emissions as a very industrial country not based on Hydro or Nuclear energy and loving good and fast cars without speed limits. But,then they decided to start the Energiewende, their self-convicted ambitious energy transition to get ride of fossil fuels and nuclear at the same time and to be energetically independent. The emissions / GDP rate (economic efficiency of the emissions) has improved dramatically as shown in the diagrams but the per capita emissions have not followed the same speed, and they still are close to 10 in 2010, ten times higher than the acceptable ton per person. I do not know the last figures but this year they have even increased emissions. So it is a bit discouraging to  see that the apparent multipartisan conviction  and serious efforts are not getting enough results, and even some doubts arose in last elections about economical effects. Nevertheless, I still believe they are committed to succeed and they need more time to show clearer results, if they do it would be a great example of transformation for one of the strongest economies in the world, a great example for China and USA and the rest of Europe.

So let’s hope Germany continues the started revolution and India grows in a revolutionary way, they could be very significant examples.

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Climate change and politics

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Is Sweden such a good example for the USA?

Climate Progress mentioned Obama’s praise to Sweden regarding their energy policy. And the same post shows a figure explaining the very low contribution of fossil fuels in the Swedish electricity production mix and some reasons that led them there. It is interesting and clearly reasonable as it is true that Swedish emissions from power stations are low based on hydro power and nuclear and total emissions per capita are a third of Americans. Even more the Emissions / GDP ratio, or the emission per economic unit are among the lowest in the world and certainly between rich countries, and they have improved a lot since the seventies in this emissions intensity (from 0.4 to 0.12).

But, and this is the problem, it is not enough. The problem is that it is not enough to be efficient as the Swedish, because their emissions per capita are in the 5 CO2 tons figure, 1 ton more than world average, 12 tons less than USA, close to China but 4 tons per person more than acceptable to stabilize carbon flux (data from IEA, 2010). Or, in other words, 5 times more than the reasonable objective for humans.

It is not enough to improve as the Swedish, we have to be really committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and we have to start fast if we do not want to reach too far. Although of course Sweden is still a good example for the USA and many others, an example to start moving.

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Climate change and politics

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When Renewables reduce electricity bill

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The following post mentions something that is repeated sometimes in the renewable energy debate.

How Maryland’s New Climate Plan Could Actually Lower Energy Costs

Depending on the regulations or feed-in-tariff, renewables can reduce the base cost as they can enter at 0 cost in the auction. This happens in Spain for example, but this does not mean that the final tariff is cheaper as renewable feed-in-tariff is added later. OK, the total amount maybe cheaper in the end or not (it was discussed here). Electricity cost definition is quite difficult to understand in many countries, in some too difficult. In my opinion, this is not the moment to discuss if solar energy or wind power are cheaper than gas or coal. Happily they have reduced their costs and are more and more competitive but they have been more expensive and will be in some places/cases for some time. I think that a much better and more clear message is to say that even if/when they are more expensive their costs will be much lower than a catastrophic climate change. Even when/if they are more expensive in the short-term, their long-term profitability will be evident. Otherwise, the pure current cost discussion can be quite disappointing, as in Kirguistan. So it is again a discussion between long-term and short-term, about our generation and the next ones.

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Climate change and politics, climate wars

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2312

Book cover, Image from Wikipedia

I recently finished reading this wonderful book, located 199 years from now, more or less. This science fiction novel describes a solar system vastly colonized and terraformed with many new worlds (Mars, Saturn league, Venus) starting to compete with an overpopulated and at the same time desastrous Earth planet. In many senses it is a continuation of the famous and successful Mars Trilogy from the same author: Kim Stanley Robinson. Many of the future trends are similar in both as the flourishing solar system colonies with a decadent but still strong Earth, the differences between spacers and terrans, the struggle between Earths capitalism and new Mondragon based cooperative economies, the longevity treatments and consequent change of living ages, relationships, social structures,… But there is an important difference, at least from this blog point of view, in Mars trilogy the Earths disaster explodes due to a volcano eruption in Antarctica, in 2312 it is climate change the main factor for social unrest and hunger in Earth due to sea level rise, loose of arable land, ocean acidification, extreme weather,…

Each time the book action closes to Earth the explicit climate change mentions are clear and countless (I have noted more than 15), for example:

  • Description of fife in the new Manhattan built over flooded streets is spectacular.
  • Same situation in other cities as Shanghai is mentioned.
  • Africa is suffocated by heat waves.
  • A terraforming project in Greenland is explained to stop ice cap melt.
  • The reanimation mentioned in the book consists of reintroducing several wild animals extinguished for loose of their habitats (animals struggling to survive nowadays).
  • …

This could be a the great book explicit and scientifically sound in climate change as Joe Romm asked, even if there are others from the same author more focused on that, I cannot talk about them because I have not read them, for the moment. This one is very clear and precise, considering what current scientific consensus thinks, and it is a great novel, already awarded a Nebula and nominated for the Hugo. And shows the importance gained by climate change challenge in the well informed Kim-Stanley-Robinson-future-world-prespective from the mid-nineties up to know (Mars trilogy was described as hiperealistic science fiction).

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Science Fiction

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How will it be the climate changed summer?

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This year I am enjoying my summer holidays in this beautiful coastal place called Sukarrieta. The summer up to date has been better than usual, and here this is definitively positive but I don’t intend to start a weather description typical of any skeptical blog. I just imagine for short periods of time how it will be the summer period for the people living or just spending holidays here.

And I imagine that many actions and enjoyments that are part of the everyday summer life here will have to adapt or disappear, as the small boat trips, the funny children swimming competition, the small or big beaches that form with the tides,…

Certainly, this town should have the potential to adapt to climate change. Maybe the whole wonderful area of Urdaibai will loose a lot of charm and biodiversity, and some more unpredictable things. Is everyone more or less conscious of this? I don’t think so.

However other places that live more from the weather based turism, and or that will become hardly enjoyable in summer will suffer much more and are as conscious.

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Interesting Consequences

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