Russia has indicated it opposes further international efforts to negotiate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions [ark]. It joins the United States, China, and India as the top polluting nations [search] obstructing international cooperative measures to cut carbon emissions by at least 80% [ark], necessary to address climate change. What is it about these filthy, addicted to economic growth and rapidly over-developing countries that make them unable to act to avert a very serious crisis of their own making?

In the face of unprecedented global ecological crises, the nation state system of government setup under the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 has proven unwieldy and ineffective. It may well be that the necessary social change to protect against global heating, water shortages, ecosystem loss and related crises of militarism and hunger cannot be addressed under the current system. Given leading nations' failure to lead when it is needed most, saving ourselves and the Earth may require changing both our lifestyles and our governments.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (5) | More on failure national climate change leadership

A new study indicates the degree to which humanity has overwhelmed the atmosphere's ancient carbon cycle [ark]. Human activities are putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere 14,000 times as fast as historic natural processes. Global change [search] at this rate and scale is utterly unprecedented and devastating. Feedbacks such as mountain weathering [search] that historically removed carbon dioxide are being inundated and are unable to continue maintaining relatively constant atmospheric balances and thus climatic patterns.

As humans have become a force of nature, the Earth system's atmosphere is now entirely out of equilibrium. All this energy must go somewhere. In addition to global warming -- increases in average global temperature -- more troublingly we are set to experience spiraling chaotic climate changes. The Earth is already, and will continue, experiencing a complete break down in seasonality, extreme weather events and generally unreliable climatic patterns and oscillations. This is why "climate change" is the more accurate, powerful term to describe the forces that have been released and will impact the Earth for the rest of human history.

Deadly climate change is here, yet its magnitude and whether it can be survived is yet to be determined. Everything long predicted is playing out including energy shortages, extreme weather, reduced agricultural production and a breakdown in societal security. For far too long dominant economic and spiritual belief systems have thought humans above and separate from nature. This is the root of our conundrum. Any meaningful, sufficient response will require individuals and social systems to reintegrate with the biosphere and the web of life.

The speed with which economic and political systems begin to use all their resources to end greenhouse gas emissions -- including taking hard decisions like ending the use of coal and old-growth forests -- will determine whether humanity and her sister species survive. Given acceleration of emissions and no clear trend emerging regarding their urgent reduction, it is quite possible humanity will go extinct, but not before making the Earth uninhabitable for complex life.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (17) | More on climate carbon equilibrium

Last year atmospheric carbon dioxide levels increased [ ark | more\ark] by 0.6 percent or 19 billion tonnes. Methane which is twenty-five times as damaging [ark] rose by 0.5 percent or 27 million tonnes after a decade of virtually no increase. Rising carbon dioxide concentrations [search], the primary driver of anthropogenic climate change, have now gone from 280 parts per million (ppm) in 1850 to 385 ppm. As we have pointed out, this is problematic given recent indications are 350 ppm is a critical threshold beyond which impacts are permanent and not fully known. Valuable time is being lost and the lack of serious attention to the global climate change planetary emergency is most troubling.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (6) | More on greenhouse gas increase

Ecological Internet and this blog are dedicated to highlighting the severity of global ecological crises [search], including threatened abrupt climate change [search], while promoting rigorous and sufficient biocentric responses. Now more main-stream think tanks and environmentalists are catching up with us.

New Scientist recently published two articles on "The Collapse of Civilization", exploring why the demise of civilisation may be inevitable. They note "recent insights from fields such as complexity theory suggest... once a society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile... it reaches a point at which even a relatively minor disturbance can bring everything crashing down." The article highlights several keys to staving off collapse including promoting decentralized production of food and energy, and allowing for partial collapse and renewal. Several important books on the subject are noted.

A new report by a leading British security think tank finds the global response to climate change to have been slow and inadequate, and warns of conflict on the scale of World Wars lasting for centuries [ark]. The report calls for a ten-fold increase in climate change research and development [ark]. Even Al Gore admits his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" [search] raised awarness, but did not prompt action [ark]. It is hoped Gore's coming sequel [ark] will focus upon highlighting the global ecological crisis in its entirety and sufficient responses.

It is good to see mainstream scientists, activists and policy-makers delving into ecological limits to growth and the likelihood, should the current status quo continue, of global ecological collapse. There is a growing consensus that an increasingly ecologically diminished, complex and networked world has made civilisation very vulnerable.

To the consternation of some, even my environmental brethren, the organization I head, Ecological Internet, frequently emphasizes that the inevitable outcome of current environmental trends is apocalyptic ecological collapse [search] that can only be averted through personal sacrifice and societal change. I have studied and worked on global ecology and limits to growth issues for 21 years including degrees in Political Science, Conservation Biology and Sustainable development and a PhD in Land Resources. This is my learned observation.

How ironic that broad-based acceptance that the world is heading towards global ecological collapse is good news. Yet despite clear trends, the outcome is not assured, and once a problem and its severity are fully acknowledged, it can be solved.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (19) | More on climate ecological collapse

Climate scientists have long warned methane hydrates [search] stored in the Arctic ocean floor -- hard clumps of frozen ice and methane at high pressure -- could become unstable due to global heating. This would free massive amounts of the potent greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere. Researchers have found preliminary alarming evidence that methane hydrate thawing has started [ark] in the Russian Artic and methane gas stores are being released.

If confirmed, this positive feedback could increase the atmosphere's methane [search] concentration by twenty times and has the potential to dramatically accelerate climate change. Again ecological science shows it is way past time for governments and individuals to commit to personal and social change sufficient to solve climate change and related global ecological crises.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (16) | More on methane hydrate feedback

U.S. Presidential candidate John McCain is given accolades for accepting rock solid climate change science [search] (apparently this is progress within the flat Earth, born again, "value voter" crowd). Yet apparently his concern is secondary to populist pandering on federal gas taxes [ark] -- as he suggested yesterday they be waived over the summer.

McCain's attitude, thinly veiled under a bitter temper and sense of entitlement to the Presidency, is damn the climate, it can wait until I am elected. How will necessary climate policies be maintained when even the issue's supposed champions so easily bend? McCain shares much with his predecessor -- formerly hard partying, war criminals, who are willing to say or do anything to get elected. A McBush presidency means continued war for oil whose burning is destroying the atmosphere.

Not that the Democrats are much better, as all play politics with the climate and pander on gas prices [search]. Given its increased scarcity, tremendous environmental damage and societal addiction -- gasoline remains at reasonable, even under-priced levels. Gas taxes provide critical funding for transportation infrastructure, and an expanded true carbon tax [search] could ensure necessary changes in societal and personal behavior while channeling funds from terrorists and oil companies (rather similar actually) to energy conservation, efficiency and renewable energy investments.

I considered blogging on news that Bush is to support "intermediate" climate targets [ark] but decided not to waste the electrons on this climate criminal. This is so transparently further obstructionism of any policy adequate to address climate that may disconvenience his oil oligarchy buddies.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (2) | More on climate politics McCain

Australia's new "climate friendly" government preaches global forest protection for climate benefits internationally, while continuing to industrially clear its own native primary forests in Tasmania and elsewhere, and this unseemly hypocrisy must end

TAKE ACTION: Australia continues to industrially clear their last native ancient forests [search], even as their government promotes forest protection internationally to combat climate change. Australia's new government led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has ratified Kyoto [search], appears genuinely committed to global climate change policy, and speaks often of how Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the world must protect primary forests to solve global climate change.

Yet in an act of unseemly doublespeak, the country that is perhaps most impacted by climate change continues to log its last centuries old trees found in ancient forest ecosystems vital for holding both carbon and water. Why is forest protection a good idea internationally but not for Australia's much reduced and climate impacted natural habitats? Australia's new government must be called upon to stop their hypocrisy and end logging of their own old growth forests as a keystone response to climate change, biodiversity loss and ecosystem sustainability.TAKE ACTION!

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (10) | More on forest climate Tasmania Rudd

As climate change caused deaths surge [ark | more\ark | search], the world's leading climate scientist is urging the European Union to urgently reconsider their atmospheric carbon dioxide target [ark] of 550 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide. Dr. James Hansen warns this target -- which informs global policy efforts -- must be slashed to 350 ppm [ark] if "humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed". Unfortunately the world is already at 385ppm. Meanwhile the recently completed UN meeting of world governments in Bangkok has agreed upon an agenda for talking about more talks [ark], following upon the victory of the Bali roadmap which, you guessed it, agreed that more talks were desirable.

The growing awareness that carbon levels have already overshot limits that will lead to certain severe impact does not mean we should give up. Whether concentrations are stabilized at 350, 450, 550 or higher is yet to be determined and will have grave impacts upon the habitability of the Earth. What is clear is that humanity must strife for virtually zero carbon emissions -- which means no coal or primary forest logging -- while pursuing activities that remove carbon from the atmosphere. To do otherwise means avoidable climate change caused deaths already estimated at 150,000 per year, half in Asia [ark], will only intensify exponentially. What we do now and in the short to mid term has never been more important in determining the course of human history and the Earth's ecological and evolutionary trajectory.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (17) | More on climate change deaths

The World Bank's climate change record [search] is very bad, its economic and environment work are rife with conflicts of interest, and thus it must not be entrusted with managing financial resources raised to address global climate change. It makes much better sense for the UNFCCC to be entrusted with the role of climate change international financier [search]. I am not alone in this assessment, as developing countries and environmental groups have accused the World Bank of making a power play [ark] to seize control of the billions of dollars of aid that will be used to tackle climate change in the next four decades.

Despite having an international infrastructure in place, the Bank is ill-suited to play an honest, good-faith role in environmental conservation. Fundamentally the World Bank is (not surprisingly) a bank concerned with economic growth and implementing capitalist economic dogma. The World Bank has and continues to subsidize fossil fuels, mega-dams, monoculture agriculture, rainforest logging and a host of other environmental ills. When trusted with international environmental funding in the past, as with the World Bank portion of the Global Environmental Facility [search], they have proven unable to reconcile environmental conservation with their economic role.

The Bank's many high-quality environmental policy specialists' efforts are not mainstreamed within the broader Bank, and as such they frequently are simply ignored as economic policy overwhelms any environmental good brought about at the margin. The Bank is simply unable to make the break with the past and pursue ecology based economic policies required to achieve global ecological sustainability.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (1) | More on climate finance World Bank

The United States climate delegation negotiating a Kyoto successor in Bangkok has suggested the U.S. will be unable to provide funds to poor nations [ark | more\ark] fighting global warming because of worsening economic conditions, but may be able to provide loans. So after decades of booming economies and growth in emissions in the rich countries, developing countries are now left in the lurch, even as the rich super predatory consumers seek to maintain their high levels of consumption for a wee bit longer. This has been described as "the moral equivalent of having someone drive a car into your house and offering you a loan to pay for the damages."

The Earth is in real danger from a global heating meltdown as action is delayed over concerns about price and as a skeptic led public backlash continues to grow. Recently I wrote a personal essay entitled Economic Collapse and Global Ecology where I noted "sufficient climate policies enjoy political support only in times of rapid economic growth. Yet this growth is the primary factor driving greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental ills." Therein I academically investigated the possibility that in terms of prospects for the Earth and humanity it may be better for the economy to collapse now rather than later.

This may or may not be the case, yet it is clear that expenditures to address climate change and related global ecological crises must be maintained regardless of economic conditions. The IMF recently predicted "policies needed to reduce emissions by 60% from 2002 would leave the global economy about 2.6% smaller [ark | more\ark] than it otherwise would be in 2040", yet the "economy would grow about 2.3 times between 2007 and 2040". I repeat, the economy is expected to grow by 230% and at a cost of 3% we can maintain the climate. Even if underestimated, as I believe likely, this seems like a ridiculously easy investment to make.

Without such modest investments some have predicted a horrific future for humanity, including Ted Turner's recent prediction of cannibalism by climate survivors [ark]. No one can see the future, yet all trends and current ecological knowledge illustrate global ecosystems are collapsing. The developed world has been partying like there is no tomorrow, and now it cannot expect others to clean up either its economic or ecological mess.

Simple measures such as assigning a price to carbon [search] through a carbon tax will make tremendous contributions to solving the climate problem and must be embraced whatever the cost. Unless we can be satisfied with 220+% growth or thereabouts rather than 230%, there is no chance of achieving global ecological sustainability and vibrant, just, equitable and sustainable economies for all.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (4) | More on climate policy economic downturn

Large-scale solutions to climate change [search] such as biofuel plantations, hydropower and even forest protection are threatening indigenous peoples [ark]. Sadly, a new UN report finds that frequently these large-scale climate policies threaten indigenous peoples [search] least responsible for, and most at risk from, global heating. Even as traditional societies flee rising seas, their lands are being dispossessed and other conflicts arising from ill-conceived climate mitigation projects. Too often efforts to protect rainforests try to eliminate rather than incorporate continued traditional indigenous rainforest uses [search]. Climate policies that stress industrial responses, seek to maintain unsustainable developed world lifestyles, and cause further harm to the world's most vulnerable are unjust, inequitable and unsustainable and must not be tolerated.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (2) | More on climate change indigenous