End of the world – or a new beginning?

Australian climatologist Tim Flannery
paid a flying visit to New Zealand last month.
His message of the urgency of global warming is having an impact worldwide both through his writing and his speeches.
Below is a digest of his Dunedin lecture.

What event would drag a thousand Varsity students from their cosy flats on a damp, cold Dunedin evening? Not a beerfest – or a rugby game. It was an hour-long lecture relayed round three of the University’s largest venues, delivered last month by prominent Australian climatologist Tim Flannery. In 2006 Flannery was voted Australian of the Year for his widely acclaimed book: The Weather Makers: the history and future impact of climate change.

Flannery is not one of your mind-blowing prophets of doom. He bears no resemblance to the old-time Bible basher signalling that the end of the world is at hand. He is quietly spoken, simple of speech, uses colourful and immediately intelligible metaphors. It is his message which is compelling. The 1000 students were not disappointed. In fact Flannery’s basic thesis is one of hope and encouragement. It is simply that human beings are largely responsible for the present rapid and calamitous change in the earth’s climate -– and it is human beings who can put it right. They have done so in the past. They can do it again now.

Global warming
Flannery was not always convinced of the climate change crisis. He was trained as a geologist and his scientific mind was shaped by the ideas of the 19th Century ‘father’ of modern geology, Charles Lyell. Lyell taught that the way to understand the formation of the rocks of the Earth’s crust is to look at what is happening around us. It took thousands of years to create the strata we see on a cliff face or in a railway cutting. It is a very slow and gradual process.

Flannery observed the evidence of climate change while studying the flora and fauna in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. But he was convinced that these natural processes of evolution took time. He saw no need to panic over climate change.

So what changed his mind? First there was the opinion of an increasing number of climatologists. But the crucial evidence came from systematic studies of ice cores taken from Greenland and from the Antarctic. These ice cores take us back hundreds of thousands of years. If you study the air bubbles trapped in the ice you have a record of changes in atmospheric composition and temperature across centuries or across decades.

It was found that sometimes these changes occur very rapidly. Percentages of greenhouse gases can rise suddenly and cause as much as a 10 degree Celsius rise in temperature in a decade. This is far quicker than anyone imagined. And if it has happened before, it can happen again. These samples are a reliable indicator, because the circulation of the earth’s atmosphere is always even and rapid.

How big is the change– and how fast is it happening?
The earth’s atmosphere is a very delicate system. The biologist Alfred Russell Wallace likened it to a “great aerial ocean”, in which we are all immersed. We swim in it, yet because we cannot see it we tend to take it for granted. We breathe it from the moment we are born until the moment we draw our last breath. Life totally depends on it. The atmosphere is delicate because there actually is not much of it. If the air were turned into liquid it would occupy less than one-five hundredth of the volume of the water covering the earth. That is why catastrophic change can happen so rapidly.

The so-called ‘greenhouse’ effect was first identified in the late ’80s. Gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) are the products of the burning of fossil fuels. When present in the air, their effect is to reflect back the radiation from the earth’s surface. The earth is heated by solar UV light. It reflects back infrared radiation. But CO2 and CH4 reduce this infrared radiation. Everything warms up. It is like getting too hot in bed because your duvet is too thick!

The principal greenhouse gas is CO2. For centuries the CO2 content of the air has remained steady at 0.03 percent – until the last 100 years or so. Now it is increasing year by year and the rate of increase is accelerating. It is possible that it could rise to 0.045 percent within ten years if nothing is done to stop it. This is a huge increase. No one now doubts it is industrial action – and specifically the burning of fossil fuels – which is the major cause.

These statistics have been challenged by some scientists especially in the United States. They say the models used are too unreliable to justify crisis action. Many agriculturalists in Tim’s native Australia are equally sceptical. They claim that the drought conditions there are cyclic. Tim Flannery disagrees absolutely. He says that the models of climate change may be crude and inaccurate; but the latest real statistics (taken between 2000 and 2007) show the model to be deficient only in failing to predict the urgency of change. The figures predicted by the model were too low!

Flannery says that atmospheric change is ‘telekinetic’. That means that local change produces effects over a wide area. He talks about a threshold, meaning that change can happen for a considerable period without producing major effects – but suddenly a threshold is crossed and it triggers a crisis. He compares it to a light switch. You compress it with your finger until it reaches a certain point when the switch flips.

Our whole biological environment is tuned to a certain temperature range. Fluctuations occur without causing calamitous consequences... until there is a major shift. Then a crisis ensues. Just such a situation is happening now. We are facing a two degree Celsius rise in world temperatures in the next few decades. Such a rise would produce a 20 percent likelihood, says Flannery, of crossing the threshold into calamitous change.

One immediate effect (already being observed) is a rise of up to two metres in the level of the oceans. This is caused both by the melting of glaciers and polar ice and by the thermal expansion of water. Such a rise will destroy many of the world’s great cities, like London and New York. It will displace perhaps 500 million people, producing the greatest refugee problem ever encountered in human history. That quite apart from the drastic changes in climate which will affect everyone on earth.

Can human beings arrest these changes?
Flannery cites a series of examples of environmental crises in recent history which produced precisely the sort of solutions now being demanded.

• the great cholera epidemics of the 19th Century. A scientist at the time showed that cholera was a water-borne infection, not airborne as had been presumed. In London, the authorities were persuaded to spend millions of pounds constructing the huge network of sewers which still serve the city. Cholera, as a threat to life, virtually ceased to happen. Good sanitation became standard in the world’s cities.

• acid rain. During the ’70s reports were published of the devastating effects on vegetation, especially the defoliation of trees, due to sulphur in the atmosphere. British scientists demonstrated that the culprits were coal-burning power stations used to generate electricity. Burning coal releases sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, which was borne across northern Europe by the prevailing westerly winds. The rain contained damaging levels of sulphuric acid. The remedy was simple: build ‘scrubbers’ on the power station chimneys to wash out the sulphur before it was released. Acid rain was quickly alleviated.

• the ozone layer holes. The layer of ozone in the stratosphere is very thin and delicate (about six parts per million). Nevertheless it is vital because the ozone layer protects us from excessive ultraviolet radiation. During the 1980s, holes were observed in the ozone layer especially over the South Pole, which rapidly expanded in the spring. This Antarctic ozone hole was growing bigger year by year.

Scientists in America discovered the main culprit to be the CFCs used in aerosols. These compounds float up into the stratosphere and, in the course of time, degenerate and release chlorine gas which destroys ozone. In 1987 the Montreal protocol was enacted, which produced a world ban on the use of CFCs. Once again the cure was effective. This was the first time a solution had come about as a result of world-wide action.

All these examples demonstrate that as soon as a critical situation was diagnosed, a solution was found and put into effect. It has happened before. It can happen again. All that is needed is the will to make it happen.

The solution
In simple terms, the solution is to reduce the use of fossil fuels world-wide by 80 percent before 2050. This may seem radical, even unachievable. But it is no more drastic than the changes triggered, say, by World War II – or the speed of the electronic revolution we are presently experiencing.

Solar cells, wave energy, wind power: all these new technologies will need to be developed more rapidly. Biofuels (renewable carbon energy) will have to replace fossil fuels. Commodities will have to be transported by rail and by sea more than by road or air. Tropical countries will need to undergo rapid reforestation, since forests act as carbon sinks.

If New Zealand wants to sell its farm and horticultural produce overseas, it will have to develop more efficient ways of sea transport, including a return to wind power. New Zealand is not too small, says Flannery, to be a trailblazer. Sweden and Denmark are already leading the way in renewable energy development. We should be alongside them.

Tim Flannery acknowledges that in terms of climate change his fellow Australians have dragged their feet, like their American counterparts. Their governments and industries have been in denial. But an encouraging sign is that while China is rapidly overhauling the US as the world’s greatest polluter, the Chinese are suddenly waking up to the consequences and are starting to put their house in order.

A crucial moment will be December 2009, when a world climate conference will take place in Copenhagen. The Kyoto protocol will be due for revision at this conference. This time, the great powers will have to come on board. It may be the last chance – a final opportunity to save our planet. Cross your fingers and say your prayers!