America Has Been Duped On Climate Change

Washington Post - Robert Brulle

Robert Brulle is a professor of sociology and environmental science at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He is co-editor of "Climate Change and Society: Sociological Perspectives."

Stacks and burn-off from the ExxonMobil refinery are seen at dusk last year in St. Bernard Parish, La. (Gerald Herbert/Associated Press)

Future generations will look back on our tepid response to global climate disruption and wonder why we did not act sooner and more aggressively. Climate change will adversely impact present and future generations, as well as all species on Earth. Our moral obligation to protect life requires us to act.
Yet even after the recently completed United Nations climate conference, we are still on track for dangerous levels of climate change. Why haven’t we acted sooner or more aggressively? One answer can be found in the split over the veracity of climate science.
Recent scholarship documents the coordinated efforts of conservative foundations and fossil fuel corporations to promote this uncertainty. Amplified by conservative media, this campaign of disinformation and omission has significantly altered the nature of the public debate and led to political polarization around the issue, making meaningful legislative action nearly impossible.
These findings are supported by recent investigative news reports, which show that since the 1970s, top executives and scientists in the fossil fuel industry have been well aware of the evidence that their products amplified climate-warming emissions. They conducted their own extensive research on the topic and participated in ongoing scientific discussions. The American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group, even circulated the results to its members. By 1978, a senior executive at ExxonMobil proposed creating a worldwide “CO2 in the Atmosphere” research and development program to determine an appropriate response.
Unfortunately, that path wasn’t taken. Instead, in 1989, a group of fossil fuel corporations, utilities and automobile manufacturers banded together to form the Global Climate Coalition. This group worked to ensure that the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions, was not adopted by the United States. In public statements, the Global Climate Coalition continued to deny that global warming was occurring and emphasized the uncertainty of climate science.
The spreading of misinformation continued. In 1998, API, Exxon, Chevron, Southern Co. and various conservative think tanks initiated a public relations campaign, the goal of which was to ensure that the “recognition of uncertainties (of climate science) becomes part of the ‘conventional wisdom.'”
While that coalition disbanded in 2001, ExxonMobil reportedly continued to quietly funnel climate misinformation through “skeptic” think tanks, such as the Heartland Institute, until 2006, when its funding was exposed. The company — the nation’s largest and wealthiest — continues to work with the American Legislative Exchange Council, a so-called public-private partnership of corporations and conservative legislators, to block climate change policies.
For years, ExxonMobil had been a participant in public efforts to sow doubt about climate change. Yet at at the same time, the corporation was at the leading edge of climate science and its executives were well informed regarding the scientific consensus on climate change. This allegedly deceitful conduct has generated public outrage and recently led New York’s attorney general to initiate an investigation into whether ExxonMobil has misled the public and investors about the risks of climate change.
While important, these legal proceedings cannot fully address the larger moral issues of corporate social and political responsibility. Just as Congress investigated the efforts of the tobacco industry to dupe the public into believing its products were harmless, we need a full and open inquiry into the conduct of ExxonMobil and the other institutions whose misinformation campaigns about science have delayed our efforts to address climate change.
The central concern here is the moral integrity of the public sphere. The Declaration of Independence says the legitimacy of government is based on the consent of the governed. But when vested interests with outsize economic and cultural power distort the public debate by introducing falsehoods, the integrity of our deliberations is compromised.
Such seems the case today when we consider the fossil fuel industry’s role in distorting discourse on the urgent topic of climate change. If vested economic interests and public relations firms can systematically alter the national debate in favor of their own interests and against those of society as a whole, then the notion of democracy and civic morality is undermined. Congress can and should act to investigate this issue fully. Only then can we restore trust and legitimacy to American governance and fulfill our moral duty to aggressively address climate change.


Links

• Inaction on global warming is as reckless as drunken driving
• Pope Francis was right on climate change
• If we’re going to fix climate change, we’ll have to get creative

Inaction On Global Warming Is As Reckless As Drunken Driving

Washington Post - Daniel Farber

Daniel Farber teaches environmental law and tort law at the University of California at Berkeley.

Schoolchildren touch an electronic globe to learn about the rise in sea levels by global warming during the 2015 Eco Products exhibition in Tokyo. (TORU YAMANAKA/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

Our moral duty to address climate change is based on a simple concept, straightforward enough to qualify as kindergarten fare. We tell our children that they need to be careful not to hurt their playmates. As we get older, we learn that we need to be careful when we engage in other activities too — we shouldn’t drive after drinking, or leave loaded guns around children. The same simple concept can take us a long way in thinking about our policies to address climate change.
Those who emit carbon don’t mean to cause harm, any more than a kid playing backyard baseball means to knock out a neighbor’s window. But it’s not enough to have good intentions. We’re not required to avoid ever doing anything that could possibly harm others — there’s no way to avoid every possibility — but we do have a duty to take reasonable precautions to prevent avoidable damages.
Defining what is reasonable in a particular context can be difficult, but it generally involves consideration of the foreseeable risks and the burden of installing preventative measures. As to climate change, the question is whether we have taken reasonable precautions in light of the available evidence.
There’s room for debate about when the dangers of climate change became clear enough to elicit a response, but the evidence definitely arrived well before the end of the 20th century. By then, scientists agreed that greenhouse gases were causing global warming and that continued warming was likely to become dangerous. In fact, in 1992, the world’s nations — including the United States under President George H.W. Bush — signed a treaty acknowledging the risks and the need for action.
Given that the risk from climate change is high and foreseeable, it seems clear that reasonable precautions are called for (and have been for some time now). Economists who have studied climate change carefully disagree with each other about just how fast we should reduce carbon emissions. Some say we should start out with modest emissions reductions; others call for immediate, stringent limitations. Still, taking into account the costs of reducing emissions and the risk to the planet, they all agree that reductions are necessary.
At the risk of oversimplification, one might boil this down to a simple mandate to phase out emissions from coal as soon as reasonably possible. Coal is the worst fossil fuel in terms of emissions. It’s often touted as a cheap energy source, especially for developing countries, but its price is an illusion once we taken into account the hidden costs. Coal mining remains a dangerous occupation, and mining can cause severe environmental harm.
But more important, emissions from coal cause more than climate change: They are the source of severe health problems. Even in the United States, which has been requiring improved pollution control for coal plants for decades, emissions continue to result in thousands of deaths a year. Our pollution issues are nothing compared with those of Beijing or many other cities in China and India.
Continued reliance on coal for energy is as foolish as drunken driving. We should develop alternatives as soon as possible, even in developing countries. As always, the standard should be what is reasonable — somewhere between shutting down coal plants today and waiting for new technology that could save us.
You might question comparing carbon emissions to ordinary careless behavior. It’s certainly true that identifying who is the injured party in a car accident is easier than defining who is suffering from the additional boost our own actions are giving climate change. But how can we justify carelessly harming others simply because it is difficult to identify who will be hurt?

Links

• Pope Francis was right on climate change
• America has been duped on climate change
• If we’re going to fix climate change, we’ll have to get creative

Humanity's Impact On Earth Opens Anthropocene Epoch, Scientists Say

Fairfax - Sydney Pead

Humans have produced enough concrete to thinly pave the entire surface of the Earth, while carbon dioxide emissions are rising 100 times quicker than at any time during the past 800,000 years.
Such dramatic transformations of the planet are showing up in the world's sediments and warrant the declaration of a new geological epoch - aptly known as Anthropocene to reflect humanity's role - according to a new paper published in the journal Science.
The research, compiled by two dozen scientists and academics, identified planet-wide impacts ranging from nuclear fallout from weapons testing to mining that displaces 57 billion tonnes of material a year - or almost three times the amount of sediment carried by the world's rivers.

Rio Tinto's Warkworth open-cut coal mine near Bulga in the NSW Hunter Valley. Photo: Supplied

Will Steffen, an adjunct professor at the Australian National University and a co-author of the research, said the Anthropocene epoch was quite unlike previous eras - such as the Holocene that began 11,700 years ago - that are defined by natural processes.
"We have very good evidence that the Holocene should last for another 50,000 years without human interference," Professor Steffen said.

The Super Pit at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.

The impact is global, with more than half the land surface transformed for humans' use, while plastics and other pollutants are also affecting the oceans. The scientists estimate the changes support the new epoch as having begun about 1950.
"There is a whole lot of evidence that says there were human imprints [on Earth] at various points, some of it quite significant," Professor Steffen said.
"But you really don't see the Earth's system as a whole being affected until the second half of the 20th century and beyond."

Brown coal stockpiles and a power station in the Czech Republic. Photo: Martin Divisek

Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard professor of science history, said the rising levels of carbon dioxide and the climate change they were driving, could dwarf other impacts over time.
"Already, the CO₂ influence is the most important and damaging [piece of human activity] if left unmitigated," Professor Oreskes said.
The related impacts of ocean acidification not mentioned in the report are still to come, Professor Oreskes added.

Devastation after two dams at a mine operated by BHP and Vale collapsed in Brazil in November 2015. Photo: AP

"If left unchecked, it will ultimately affect the abundance and distribution of marine life, and that will show up in the geological record in terms of the fossil assemblages."
Along with the rapid human population growth, technological advances and economic growth were altering the environment, the paper said.
Enough plastic is produced each year to wrap the planet, and enough aluminium to cover Australia, Professor Steffen said.

Plastic pollution washes up on a beach in Bali. Photo: Jason Childs

Half of the concrete produced has been poured in the past 20 years alone, as impacts accelerate, the paper said. Historically, production is in the order of 50 billion tonnes, or enough to cover every square metre with a kilogram of concrete.

Up for debate
The research, by the Anthropocene Working Group, is part of a larger body of work that will be presented later this year to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, a part of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). Stratigraphy is the branch of geology that studies rock layers.

Half of the world's land surface has been transformed for humanity's use, the report finds.

The Anthropocene would be the third epoch after the Holocene and the Pleistocene, which make up the Quaternary period starting 2.58 million years ago.
The commission will decide if there is enough evidence to warrant formal scientific recognition of a new age of humans and set new global standards.
Andrew Glikson, an ANU paleoclimate scientist who was not one of the authors of the report, said "there are several stages" to mark the arrival of the Anthropocene epoch "starting tens of thousands of years ago".
"This formalisation [of the new epoch] belongs more in legalistics, not in science," he said.

Illustration: Matt Golding

The formal recognition of a new epoch induced by humans would be far-reaching, said Duanne White, an Earth systems professor at the University of Canberra, currently conducting field research in Antarctica.
"Practically, the markers of disruption in the environment provide a way for us to correlate landscape scale around regions and the planet, enabling us to better understand the way Earth systems work," he said via email.
Still, the declaration of a new epoch should make mankind more aware of its influence on the globe, Professor White said.
"We actually have the power to change the course of the Anthropocene because it's caused by us," Professor Steffen said.
"We're leaving the Holocene but this isn't something we have to accept," he said. "We're causing us to leave ... so we can likewise pull us back."