Abrupt Climate change

Table of Contents

• What it is
• What's the evidence?
• A Few Links on Abrupt Climate Change
• Some General Environmental Links (but not necessarily covering Abrupt Climate Change)
• EFN Links

What it is

The subject of Abrupt Climate Change has been seriously under-reported in the media. All the coverage is on Kyoto-style gradual global warming. Most of our friends have never heard of "Abrupt Climate Change".

In a nutshell the concept is this. Initial global warming causes fresh water to flood into the polar seas. The Gulf Stream (part of the 'Great Conveyor Belt') has had a moderating influence on Europe's climate by carrying warm water from the Carribean up on the ocean surface to the north, where it then sinks and travels back to the south along the ocean bottom. The problem is: if the polar seas become flooded with fresh water (which is, of course, lighter than salt water) then the Gulf Stream water won't sink in the north when it should -- and thus the Great Conveyor Belt shuts down. If this were to happen then Europe's agriculture could sustain only 10% of its population. Imagine the mass starvation and desperate wars for survival that would ensue!

The problem is that you don't get much warning before it happens. When a finger slowly pushes against a light-switch nothing happens until the switch reaches the 'tipping-point' and flips to the off position and the lights go off. There is no gradual dimming ahead of time to forewarn you. This may not be the most likely scenario but there is an unacceptably high risk of it happening some time in the next 50 years. This is an intolerable risk to be running and we should do something about it!

There are, in fact, two things we should be doing.

1. Stop burning fossil fuels -- and the only viable means of doing this is to produce electric power through nuclear generation (and perhaps hydrogen fuel cells for cars from nuclear-generated electricity as well). One of Canada's nuclear reactors avoids the emission of about 5 million tons of carbon dioxide each year -- the equivalent of that produced by 5 million Canadian motor vehicles.
   
   
2. Conduct the research Richard Alley recommended in his 2003 Testimony to the U.S. Senate (see below) which may enable us to stabilize the planet in the present equilibrium state (with the Gulf Stream continuing).

What's the evidence?

The main evidence is outlined in the 2002 National Research Council Report to Congress: "Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises". the NRC Committee which authored the book was chaired by Richard Alley of Pennsylvania State University (see also this Earth and Sky interview). Alley's book The Two-Mile Time Machine discusses the issues further. He points out that a shut-down of the Gulf Stream would mimic an event that happened some 11,000 years ago in the Younger Dryas Period -- and the cataclysmic change (once it begins) happens not over decades but over a 3-year period. Of course, cutting down greenhouse gas emissions is critical but Alley argues as well that with more research we should be able to stabilize the earth in one of its two equilibrium states (namely the one that has the Gulf Stream running). But is the research getting done?

A Few Links on Abrupt Climate Change

Ocean and Climate Change Institute

one of four institutes created by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)

a FAQ by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)

a FAQ commenting on the 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow and a 2003 Pentagon Report on global climate change risks -- though the FAQ, seems to us, a public relations document unfortunately telling people not to worry (when some public concern and concerted action is surely necessary)

Richard Alley's 2003 Testimony to the U.S. Senate

here Alley argues that "There is no need to be fatalistic about the threats posed by abrupt climate change" -- we can learn, through targeted research, how to eliminate this serious risk -- the Report's 5 recommendations are repeated here -- mainly dealing with "no-regrets" measures to reduce vulnerabilities and increase adaptive capacity

Is nuclear power the answer to global warming?

An excellent artice by Mike Hick, which appeared in the Cobourg Daily Star on August 19, 2005

Mike Davis, Has the Age of Chaos Begun?

A provocative article by Mike Davis (and a discussion of it by Tom Engelhardt) that, at least in one paragraph, makes reference to the sudden tipping point evidenced back in the Younger Dryas period and seriously under-reported in the media. Thanks to Rob Burton for the reference.

Some General Environmental Links
(but not necessarily covering Abrupt Climate Change)

And see the EFN Links below

As well as the separate page of EFN Links

Thomas Friedman

American journalist Thomas Friedman is the author of the recently released book The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. See particularly his Apr 5/05 interview with Amanda Griscom Little of Grist Magazine. This article is wonderful in the sense that his "geo-green" strategy is a way of attracting the neo-cons, who presently seem such enemies of environmental responsibility. His approach warrants careful investigation.

0footprint

0footprint is a new organization created and run by Dr. Ron Dembo, formerly CEO of Algorithmics Inc.

David Korten

David Korten is the author of the recent books: When Corporations Rule the World and The Post-Corporate World -- he is also the president and founder of People-Centered Development Forum (PCDForum) -- his wife, Fran Korten, is Executive Director of Positive Futures Network (PFN), which publishes Yes! Magazine

The Earth Charter Initiative

the charter itself can be found by clicking on "View Charter" at the bottom left corner of the top page

International Institute for Sustainable Development or also www.iisd.ca/

based in Winnipeg

The Sierra Club of Canada

the Canadian branch of the international environmental organization

EFN Links
(Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy)

A few highlights

A few highlights are noted below but for more complete coverage see EFN Links

The EFN Organization

a non-profit organization (already referred to above) centred in Paris but with over a dozen national sister organizations

• These national organizations now include a federally-incorporated not-for-profit Canadian organization: "Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy (Canada) Inc." (EFN-Canada), which has just recently been formed (in Feb/06) by a number of us. See the EFN-Canada website as well as our EFN Links page for more information.
• In particular, on the EFN-Canada website click on "Documents" to get a long list of extremely useful links on environmental and nuclear issues
• Also, if you wish, you can download our EFN-Canada-flyer (in pdf format).

James Lovelock

British scientist James Lovelock is the creator of the Gaia Hypothesis and countless books about it. The Gaia Hypothesis is about looking at the earth as a living organism. You don't call a chemist to cure human ailments (even though chemistry underlies them); you call a doctor who is used to looking at the human body as a systemic whole. So too we need to look at the earth.

• See in particular his Introduction to Bruno Comby's book Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy and its relationship to the non-profit organization Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy (EFN)
  • In the above Introduction, Lovelock refers to his childhood, when otherwise intelligent men and women "fearfully avoided places said to be haunted." Lovelock concludes that such irrational fears still persist but attached to new objects, such as "nuclear power plants that seem to stir the dread that in the past was felt about a moonlit graveyard thought to be infested with werewolves and vampires." Lovelock has commented elsewhere that he is indeed "green" and he wishes his green-minded friends would stop their wrong-headed opposition to nuclear power.
• Also see his article "Nuclear power is the only green alternative"
  • Here he argues "We have no time to experiment with visionary energy sources; civilisation is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear -- the one safe, available, energy source -- now or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by our outraged planet."

The Case for Nuclear Power

This is a paper produced by a non-profit group (of which I am a member). The paper comments that one of Canada's nuclear reactors avoids the emission of about 5 million tons of carbon dioxide each year -- the equivalent of that produced by 5 million Canadian motor vehicles.