tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27913602969089451402024-03-19T13:02:23.010-07:00Goodbye BangladeshArticles about climate change based on what the scientists say, not what the "global warming skeptics" (also known as the coal/oil lobby) want us to think.
All articles written by Zeeshan Hasan.Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-27807175194985535562021-11-17T03:20:00.002-08:002021-11-17T03:20:14.825-08:00Stop global warming with Molten Salt Reactors<p>By Zeeshan Hasan. </p><p>First published in Dhaka Tribune on 16 November 2021 at https://www.dhakatribune.com/opinion/op-ed/2021/11/16/op-ed-stop-global-warming-with-molten-salt-reactors<br /></p><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Decades of UN
climate negotiations have yielded few results; our use of fossil
fuels is still increasing, producing carbon dioxide emissions which
are heating up our planet to dangerous levels. And yet, things didn’t
have to be this way. Decades ago, visionary nuclear scientists like
Dr. Alvin Weinberg, author of “The First Nuclear Era” (published
1994), proposed that fossil fuels could be eliminated and global
warming solved by widespread adoption of nuclear power. Dr. Weinberg
was formerly head of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one of the
primary sites of nuclear reactor research in the USA, and co-inventor
of the “light water reactor” design which has become the mainstay
of nuclear power all over the world. However, he also foresaw that
the risk of serious nuclear accidents which could occur at light
water reactors (such as Chernobyl and Fukushima) would turn the
public against nuclear power, and limit its promise of supplying
fossil-fuel free energy to the world. Thus he designed a safer
nuclear reactor called the Molten Salt Reactor, which still promises
to be a safer and virtually limitless source of zero-carbon power.
The climate crisis and the urgency of replacing fossil fuels makes
this a critical discovery which everyone should know about.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Dr. Weinberg first
points out that his design of the light water reactor (also called
the pressurised water reactor) was adopted not due to either safety
or economy; but simply because Admiral Hyman Rickover of the US Navy,
found it most appropriate for the Nautilus nuclear submarine program.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">“The coolant for
the nuclear submarine reactor had yet to be determined. Rickover
himself seemed to favour high-temperature sodium… I naturally
called to their attention the ideas we had developed on the use of
pressurised water. For a submarine reactor, pressurised water had two
main advantages; first, a reactor based on it would be small enough
to fit comfortably in a submarine… second, water, unlike sodium,
was something the Navy ought to know about… Thus was born the
pressurised water reactor… not because it was cheap or inherently
safer than other reactors, but rather because it was compact and
simple and lent itself to naval propulsion. But once pressurised
water was developed by the Navy, this system achieved dominance.”
(page 59)</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">However, the
pressurised water reactor was not the only alternative for nuclear
power. Dr. Weinberg also also developed the Molten Salt Reactor,
which was designed to be inherently safe as it could not overheat and
experience “meltdown”. This was recognised as a risk for
pressurised water reactors if their nuclear control rod systems were
defective (as at Chernobyl) or if their water-based pumping and
cooling systems were stopped (as at Fukushima). The Molten Salt
Reactor was successfully tested over 3 years at Oak Ridge:</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">“The molten-salt
reactor began operation early in 1966 and achieved its maximum power…
in March of that year. It continued to operate remarkably smoothly,
though with interruptions for maintenance, until December 1969, when
its operation was terminated so that funds could be diverted to the
development of more advanced molten-salt systems. We were delighted
with the MSRE (molten-salt reactor experiment)” (page 126)</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Unfortunately, the
Molten Salt Reactor was too late to influence commercial reactor
design, which had already established an unstoppable momentum around
the light water reactor:</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">“By 1953, the main
line of reactor development in the United States was pretty well
established; it was the light water reactor (LWR)… the LWR… had
one overwhelming advantage; it had already proven itself as a
reliable power plant in the Nautilus” (page 133)</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">The selection of the
light water reactor by the commercial nuclear industry left it open
to the possibility of catastrophic failures, against which the first
generation designs of light water reactor did not have adequate
safety measures.
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">“Even before Three
Mile Island… I tried to convince the nuclear industry people that
drastic action was needed if nuclear was to survive… on the basis
of Norman Rasmussen’s estimates of the likelihood of a reactor
accident, a reactor meltdown was all but certain within a few
decades... the reactor would be destroyed, and this would bankrupt
the utility that owned and operated the reactor, as well as greatly
compromising the future of nuclear energy.” (pages 227-8)</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Dr. Weinberg’s
repeated warnings regarding the possibility of nuclear accidents in
light water reactors cost him dearly; ultimately he was fired from
his job as director of Oak Ridge National Laboratories.
Unfortunately, Weinberg’s worst fears came true when the Chernobyl
disaster occurred:</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">“Then came
Chernobyl in April 1986. The nuclear enterprise throughout the world
had to face the real possibility that the first nuclear era would be
aborted.” (page 232)</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Weinberg passed away
in 2006, but his prediction of nuclear disaster in light water
reactors was further reinforced after the 2011 Fukushima accident,
which effectively ended public support of nuclear power in most
Western countries. Weinberg’s prediction of the demise of the light
water reactor industry led him to call this initial phase of nuclear
power “the first nuclear era” (hence the title of his book). He
foresaw the safer Molten Salt Reactor design taking over the nuclear
industry afterwards:</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">“I visualised a
second nuclear era based on an inherently safe reactor… Once the
public realised that a meltproof reactor had been developed, its
objections to nuclear energy would disappear. ” (page 231)</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Unfortunately, Dr.
Weinberg never lived to see his dream of the Molten Salt Reactor
commercialised, largely due to the protests against nuclear power by
anti-nuclear environmentalists who favoured solar and wind over
nuclear energy. This was a tragic development, as nuclear has long
been the only zero-carbon large scale source of continuous energy
capable of replacing fossil fuels and stopping global warming.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">“Carbon dioxide
poses a dilemma for the radical environmentalist. Since nuclear
reactors emit almost no carbon dioxide, how can one be against
nuclear energy if one is concerned about carbon dioxide?… To my
dismay… this is exactly the position of some of the
environmentalists. Their argument is that extreme conservation, and a
shift to renewables – that is, solar energy – is the only
environmentally correct approach to reducing carbon dioxide. When I
point out to them that conservation may be feasible in industrialized
countries, but that it is hardly a choice for India and China, they
seem to ignore the point.” (page 237)</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">Fortunately, a
number of companies and government agencies around the world have
taken up Weinberg’s Molten Salt Reactor design and are currently
trying to commercialize it. The first proof-of-concept Molten Salt
Reactor is about to be completed in Wuwei, China. Hopefully, within a
few years, Weinberg’s dream of a second nuclear era powered by
inherently safe Molten Salt Reactors will become a reality. One hopes
that this will be in time to save the world from climate
castastrophe.</p>
<p><style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 115%; background: transparent }</style></p>Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-57211994591745293252020-09-22T11:59:00.005-07:002020-09-22T11:59:56.413-07:00Solving climate change with Thorium Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs)<p><i>First published on 22nd June 2020 in the <a href="https://www.dhakatribune.com/opinion/op-ed/2020/06/22/op-ed-solving-climate-change-with-thorium-molten-salt-reactors">Dhaka Tribune</a>.</i><br /></p><p dir="ltr">The daily headlines make it clear that the world is headed for climate catastrophe, with record heat and wildfires burning much of Australia in the past year. Climate scientists warn that only a decade or two is left to avoid catastrophic global warming of over 2C, which would submerge all low-lying areas under rising seas, creating millions of climate refugees, and endanger global food production, potentially causing huge famines. </p><p dir="ltr">Obviously, the world has to stop using fossil fuels, which are the root cause of climate change; Super Fuel: Thorium, The Green Energy Source for the Future by Richard Martin shows a path forward. We might have been already living in an alternate world powered by cheap, safe, and zero-carbon nuclear power if civilian nuclear energy had been allowed to develop freely without military interference. </p><p dir="ltr">The terrible accidents of Chernobyl and Fukushima could have been avoided if the safer alternative of thorium-based molten salt reactors had been chosen as the basis of civilian nuclear power. Instead, we still use fossil fuels as our main energy source, and the world remains at dire risk of extreme global warming.</p><p dir="ltr">Martin’s book outlines the development of the “light water reactor” design which dominates the world’s nuclear industry, and how this design was driven by military concerns rather than the need for safe nuclear power. The light water reactor was used for the first commercial nuclear reactor at Shippingport, Pennsylvania in 1957, as well as the first Nautilus nuclear submarine of the US Navy in 1958. </p><p dir="ltr">The common reactor design was no accident, but the result of development decisions by Admiral Hyman Rickover: In the 1950s, he headed the US naval nuclear submarine research team and also decided as a member of the US Atomic Energy Commission what shape civilian nuclear power would take. </p><p dir="ltr">The advantage of the light water reactor was obvious from Rickover’s naval perspective: “The Navy had the best plumbers in the world. They knew how to design and operate pumps, bearings and valves to transport water, including water at the high pressure required for a nuclear reactor inside a submarine” (page 106). </p><p dir="ltr">The selection of water as reactor coolant was dangerous, however; it created the possibility of water escaping as high-temperature, high-pressure steam, or even worse reacting with metals in the reactor to release hydrogen gas, which could then cause an explosion. So light water reactors needed large, expensive “containment vessels” to prevent steam or hydrogen explosions from releasing radioactivity into the surroundings. Thus a factor as arbitrary as the US Navy’s comfort with water-based plumbing was decisive in giving the world the inherently unsafe, yet expensive and difficult to build, light water reactor which dominates nuclear power today.</p><p dir="ltr">Alvin Weinberg, the head of Oak Ridge National Laboratories in the US and one of the original designers of the light water reactor, identified further safety problems; these reactors were built around a solid core containing uranium “fuel rods” which host the nuclear reactions. Slowing down the nuclear reaction requires a mechanical control system to physically move “control rods” in between the fuel rods. In a light-water reactor, any problem with the mechanical control system can cause the core to overheat and catastrophically melt down. </p><p dir="ltr">To solve these issues, Weinberg and his team designed the “molten salt reactor.” As Martin says: “The only truly inherently safe reactor is a liquid-core reactor, like the molten salt reactor that was created at Oak Ridge in the 1960s. For the purposes of a reactor designer, liquid -- whether it’s water, liquid metal, or some type of liquid fluoride [salt] -- has a marvelous characteristic; it expands rapidly when it gets hot … In a liquid core reactor, as the energy of the liquid rises, it expands and naturally slows down the reaction, making a runaway accident nearly impossible … When the reactivity goes down, the reactor is essentially turning itself off”(page 73). </p><p dir="ltr">This sort of passive safety (which does not require human or mechanical intervention to slow down the reaction) is missing from the light water reactors which now provide most of the world’s nuclear power.</p><p dir="ltr">While thermal expansion of the liquid core of Weinberg’s molten salt reactor provides passive cooling to slow the nuclear reaction, it’s still conceivable for an accident to happen due to unforeseen natural disasters such as earthquakes. However, even in the event of an earthquake or other accidents at a molten-salt reactor, the release of radioactive material into the environment and consequent damage to life and health is almost zero. </p><p dir="ltr">“Fluoride [salt]-based liquid fuels have one other characteristic that makes them ideal for reactor cores: They flow. Gravity, not elaborate control systems or so-called passive safety systems, gives liquid fluoride thorium reactors their ultimate protection against a serious nuclear accident. In a power outage or mishap, a specially designed freeze plug in the reactor vessel melts and the liquid core simply drains out of the reactor into an underground shielded container, like a bathtub when the drain plug is pulled. The fission reactions quickly cease, and the fluid cools rapidly … Meltdown is impossible”(page 74). </p><p dir="ltr">Again, earlier generations of light water reactors lacked such a passive safety measure to limit the release of radioactivity from nuclear accidents.</p><p dir="ltr">Weinberg’s molten salt reactor design had another innovation; it could be run on thorium-based nuclear fuel, which is not as rare as uranium, and consequently promises to be an affordable fuel source for much longer. This is important, as nuclear fuel has to be inexpensive and readily available in the long-term for developing countries which consume increasing amounts of power.</p><p dir="ltr">A thorium-based molten salt reactor (also known as Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, or LFTR for short) is also much more efficient with its nuclear fuel, in that it converts almost all of its thorium fuel to uranium-233 and then burns almost all of it. By comparison, a light water reactor utilizes only a tiny percentage of its uranium-235/238 nuclear fuel and so produces many times the volume of nuclear waste. </p><p dir="ltr">The nuclear waste produced by thorium molten salt reactors is also much less long-lived. “While LFTRs, like every other nuclear reactor, generate fission products that are highly radioactive, their half-lives tend to be measured in dozens of years, not thousands.” (page 77). </p><p dir="ltr">This means thorium-based molten salt reactors will not present the problems of storing radioactive waste for thousands of years that conventional nuclear plants face. In fact, new designs of molten salt reactors are now being researched which could consume existing stocks of radioactive nuclear waste as fuel, thus permanently removing the need for long-term storage of nuclear waste (pages 78-79).</p><p dir="ltr">Unfortunately, the US Navy invested heavily in light water reactors for its nuclear submarine programs; big corporations like GE and Westinghouse likewise invested heavily in marketing and constructing light water reactors around the world. </p><p dir="ltr">Both these powerful groups opposed further research into alternatives like the safer molten salt reactor. The US government under Nixon short-sightedly terminated funding for Weinberg’s molten salt reactor research. Weinberg’s outspoken criticism of the dangers of the light water reactor design ultimately led him to be fired from his job as head of Oak Ridge National Laboratories. However, disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima have shown that Weinberg was correct to be apprehensive about the safety of light water reactors.</p><p dir="ltr">Disasters at Fukushima and Chernobyl created panic, and have resulted in much public opposition to nuclear energy. This was a colossal mistake in environmental terms, as it has meant that countries like Germany and Japan have been replacing carbon-free nuclear power with yet more fossil fuels. </p><p dir="ltr">Many environmentalists also reject nuclear power in favour of wind and solar power; however, these renewable sources are intermittent, and can’t replace continuous fossil fuel-based power without colossal investments in electrical storage batteries which are both commercially and technologically infeasible. Thorium-based molten salt reactors in every country (in fact, in every city) are thus a much more realistic solution to the climate crisis.</p><p dir="ltr">The good news is that in the last decade, around a dozen nuclear start-up companies in various countries have emerged, developing new designs based on the thorium molten salt reactor, with considerable research taking place at the government level in India and China as well. Hopefully, thorium molten salt reactors will soon be available to be built in countries like Bangladesh which are acutely vulnerable to global warming and sea-level rise, and desperately need greener, cheaper, and safer alternatives to both fossil fuels and conventional uranium reactors. </p><p dir="ltr">One can only hope this happens before our dependence on coal, oil, and gas damages the earth’s climate beyond the capacity for human survival.</p>Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-86995205844353435162020-01-25T05:49:00.002-08:002020-01-25T05:49:43.279-08:00Saving the world with carbon taxes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This article was published in Dhaka Tribune on 25th August, 2019.<br /><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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Every day, the news
brings fresh stories about the urgency of stopping climate
breakdown.
The number of record hot years over the past decade keeps
climbing,
along with reports of severe storms, summer heat waves and melting
polar ice. And yet we continue burning
coal, oil and gas every day, generating more carbon dioxide
emissions
and making the planet hotter. Sometimes the scale of the climate
problem seems overwhelming. But the fact remains that stopping
global
warming is simple; it only requires implementing a policy of
global
carbon taxes. <br />
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Economist have
acknowledged for decades that global warming is essentially a
failure
of the market to price fossil fuels correctly. The abundance of
coal,
oil and gas means their minimum price is largely determined by
extraction
costs from the earth, which generally results in a low price
(particularly for coal, which is cheap to mine).
Unfortunately, the low prices of fossil fuels don’t reflect their
true cost to society: if global warming is allowed to raise the
Earth’s temperature by 4 or 5 degrees Celsius over the next
century
as projected by scientists, it could mean the end of much of the
world’s population through droughts, crop failure, famines and
ultimately warfare over food and water (a pattern already seen in
Syria). The long-term cost of unmitigated climate change would be
almost incalculable.</div>
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<br />
The rational,
economic solution is to tax fossil fuels at point of extraction or
import by coal, oil and gas companies. This would increase prices
of
coal, oil and gas and reduce their use, and thus slow down carbon
emissions and global warming. However, governments have been wary
of
carbon taxes as a political liability which could create both
unemployment and public dissatisfaction. In France, Macron’s
attempt to impose a carbon tax at the beginning of 2019 sparked
the
violent ‘yellow vest’ protests among low-paid workers who could
not afford higher transport and heating bills. </div>
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However, there is a
refinement of carbon tax policy which can solve the problem of
imposing any tax burden on the poor, namely 'carbon dividends'.
This is the subject of
economist James Boyce’s excellent new book, ‘The case for carbon
dividends’. A ‘carbon dividend’ simply returns carbon tax
revenue to the public as a flat payment per taxpayer. If all
carbon
tax revenue is returned this way, the net economic burden of the
carbon tax will be zero, and it will not create unemployment. An
example is helpful here; consider a simplified population of 100
people
consisting of 5 wealthy people and 95 lower-income people. As
wealthy
people buy more carbon-intensive goods like cars and aeroplane
flights, the wealthiest 5% may have 100 times the carbon footprint
and thus might each pay $1000 carbon tax (as opposed to $10 for a
lower-income person who doesn't fly or drive). Total carbon tax
revenue for a sample
population of 100 people would be (5 wealthy people x $1000 per
person carbon tax) + (95 lower-income people x $10 per person
carbon
tax) = $5,950. However, all taxpayers would receive an averaged
equal
carbon dividend of $5950/100 or $59.50 each. That means that the
wealthiest 5% of people would pay a net tax of ($1000 carbon tax -
$59.50 carbon dividend) = $940.50 each, which gives them a
powerful incentive to reduce their fossil fuel consumption. On the
other hand, the lower-income 95%
would receive a net benefit of ($59.50 carbon dividend - $10
carbon
tax = $49.50). This net benefit will help low-income people to pay
for higher costs of fossil fuels (due to carbon taxes) without
falling further into poverty, and thus help prevent political
backlash against the carbon tax. Even though it doesn’t cause any
net tax burden, the carbon tax will make all use of fossil fuels
more
expensive and speed up the transition to renewable energy. The
higher the
carbon tax, the faster the transition will be. <br />
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This carbon
dividend
policy is not invented by Boyce; he has just written the first
book
devoted to it. In fact, carbon dividends are the policy advocated
by
Citizens’ Climate Lobby (<a href="http://www.citizensclimatelobby.org/">www.citizensclimatelobby.org</a>)
a worldwide group of volunteers dedicated to educating the public
and
politicians about how to stop climate breakdown by implementing
carbon taxes and dividends. The imposition of a carbon tax and
dividend policy in Canada at the beginning of 2019 was largely the
outcome of years lobbying by this group. This initial success in
Canada needs to be replicated in every country if climate
breakdown
is to be prevented. Since Bangladesh is one of the countries most
vulnerable to climate change, and there is now a large expatriate
Bangladeshi population around the globe, one hopes that
Bangladeshis
wherever they are will join the campaign to stop global warming
through carbon taxes and dividends.</div>
</div>
Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-77560173053539680962020-01-25T05:46:00.000-08:002020-01-25T05:46:44.568-08:00Climate Changed: A graphic novel by Philippe Squarzoni<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This article was published <a href="https://www.dhakatribune.com/feature/2019/02/09/climate-changed-a-comic-book-warning-about-global-warming" target="_blank">in Dhaka Tribune on February 9th, 2019.</a><br />
<br />
French cartoonist Philippe Squarzoni has taken on the huge task
of trying to convey the complex science of climate science and the
global emergency that it implies in the form of his
autobiographical/documentary graphic novel, <a href="https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/climate-changed_9781419712555/">Climate
Changed</a>. Hopefully this will enable the general public,
which does not always seem inclined to wade through dense texts on
scientific topics, to get a better appreciation of the challenges
of global warming.<br />
The book starts with the author contemplating the difficulties of
tackling the subject of global warming in comic book form; unlike
most comic book stories, it’s a scientific phenomenon without the
conventional beginning and end of most stories. His solution is to
place a fairly detailed exposition of climate science in the
context of an autobiography. The end result is illuminating. It
serves to remind the reader that climate change is not just
happening to the globe. It’s happening to all of us, since we all
live on this planet that is rapidly heating up, and is already
presenting us with real consequences in the form of record high
temperatures, droughts and deadlier storms. His visit to his
childhood home and his observation of how much smaller and how
different it seems as an adult illustrates that the comfortable
planet we knew even a few decades ago is gone forever; the climate
has changed, and it’s a now a new, more dangerous world that we
live in.<br />
As a low-lying country which is both densely populated and
incredibly vulnerable to sea level rise, Bangladesh gets two
mentions in the book. Squarzoni quotes climatologist and World
Bank economist Stephane Hallegatte: with ‘a rise in sea level of a
little over 3 feet (1 metre)… numerous densely populated coastal
regions such as the Ganges and Nile deltas could be flooded.
Millions of people will be driven out, and agricultural production
will be severely affected. 20% of Bangladesh could be flooded.’
Bangladesh comes up again when Hallegatte discusses the potential
effect of millions of climate refugees on the international arena:
‘If 20 million people leave Bangladesh and head for India, what do
we do?… What will the India and Bangladesh of 2060 be like? Will
tensions between them have eased? Or will they be at war?’. Even
in Bangladesh, such long-terms concerns are rarely addressed in
the short-term new cycle.<br />
Unfortunately, the effects of climate change will be felt
disproportionately by the poor; this is made clear by Squarzoni’s
account of the severe flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina hitting
New Orleans in 2005. The wealthier sections of the populace all
evacuated upon hearing storm warnings a day in advance. The poor
had no means to escape, and had to survive for days on the roofs
of their submerged houses with most of the city being flooded with
up to 23 feet of water. 30,000 people took shelter above the flood
waters in the city stadium, until being finally evacuated by the
government to the surrounding states. Desperate people started
looting shops for supplies, with the result that a curfew was
imposed; US soldiers freshly returned from Iraq were called in
with orders from the state governor to shoot to kill. Total deaths
numbered 1293, and 2 million were displaced; hundreds of thousands
for over a year. Immense numbers were left in financial ruin with
no means of rebuilding their ruined homes. All this in the richest
country in the world. The question arises as to how poorer
countries would deal with similar storms and floods, which will
grow more common everywhere as global warming adds heat and power
to storm systems. Will wealthy countries treat poor countries any
better than they treat the poorest of their own citizens?<br />
‘So, how to end this book?’ Squarzoni asks as he draws to a
close. He observes that so far humanity has failed to deal with
the existential threat of climate change by curbing fossil fuel
use, and thus nearly closes on a pessimistic note; but as he says,
‘The story isn't over’. Everything depends on how successfully we
the public are able to lobby governments of the world to act over
the next decade (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report">which
according to the 2018 International Panel on Climate Change
report is all the time we have left </a>to make severe cuts to
fossil fuel use and thus prevent catastrophic climate change of
over 1.5C).<br />
<br />
</div>
Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-91216671461234176782017-01-23T18:19:00.003-08:002017-01-23T18:19:51.734-08:00How 'Merchants of Doubt' convinced the US to ignore climate change<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In 1988, Dr. James
Hansen, senior climate scientist at NASA, testified to the US Senate
that global warming caused by burning fossil fuels was a serious
threat. Yet for 28 years the world did practically nothing, and both
greenhouse gas emissions and global warming continued. Global
inactivity was largely due to successive US governments pretending
that the science of global warming was still uncertain and not worth
the expense of reducing coal, oil and gas use. The willful ignorance
of climate science on the part of the American politicians was
encouraged by a small group of right-wing scientists who were not
specialists in climate change, but were rather driven by ideological
opposition to the increased government regulation that would
obviously be required to tackle issues such as global warming.
Reluctance of US authorities to consider reducing fossil fuel use
resulted in all other countries refusing to to act as well. How this
happened is the subject of <u>Merchants of Doubt: How a handful of
scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global
warming</u>, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway.</div>
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Oreskes, a professor
of history of science at Harvard University, points out that a number
of the prominent scientific advisors of the US government (recurring
names are Fred Seitz, Fred Singer, Robert Jastrow and Bill
Nierenberg) started their careers in nuclear weapons and missile
research in the midst of Cold War conflicts with Russia. Thus these
scientists were reflexively anti-Communist and inclined to oppose any
scientific research that made a case for more government regulation;
they saw such regulations as a sign of the socialism which they had
opposed all their careers growing within the US. Hence this small but
influential group of senior scientific advisors continuously opposed
emerging scientific findings that tobacco caused cancer, that
industrial pollution caused acid rain, and finally that dangerous
climate change would be caused by burning coal, oil and gas.
Unfortunately, these anti-regulation/pro-market scientists found
support in the fossil fuel industry, various pro-market media and
think tanks, and various US politicians whose political campaigns
received money from coal/oil/gas companies. The result was that the
science of global warming and climate change was perceived by the
media, the government and the public as contested for decades after a
scientific consensus on these issues was in fact established. Due to
these manufactured doubts, government policy was slow to accept the
scientific evidence on the danger of man-made global warming.</div>
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<br />
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<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Of the various
scientific issues discussed by Oreskes, climate change has by far the
biggest impact on humanity as a whole and thus also created the most
resistance amongst anti-regulation scientists, corporate lobby groups
and politicians. Reading Oreskes' book, one sees how naïve it is to
expect that worldwide government policies regarding global warming
would be simply be decided based on scientific evidence. The fact is
that the political systems which have been established to govern
democratic countries are not set up to make decisions based on
science. Rather they are set up to encourage politicians to make
decisions based on the likelihood of winning the next election.
Multinational coal, oil and gas companies have more than enough money
to make political donations big enough to legally “buy” political
support for their industries in spite of dire scientific warnings.
The public has largely been deceived by fake science produced by
non-specialists in climate change presenting themselves as 'experts'
and muddying up the waters with doubt.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
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The past 30 years
has shown that voters around the world, and especially in the US,
have not been sufficiently informed of the dangers of catastrophic
global warming which could cause worldwide water shortage, crop
failures and famines resulting in hundreds of millions of deaths if
left unchecked. Fossil fuel companies and anti-regulation scientists
and politicians have taken advantage of the lack of knowledge of
climate science among the public to deceive and endanger us all.
Hopefully this will change as the media and the public wake up to the
threat of global warming. Otherwise the world will continue getting
hotter, and our children might grow up to inherit a climate running
amok.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Copyright 2016 by Zeeshan Hasan. First published in Bangladesh <a href="http://www.dhakatribune.com/op-ed/2016/jun/01/how-merchants-doubt-convinced-us-ignore-climate-change" target="_blank">on June 1, 2016 in Dhaka Tribune.</a></div>
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Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-75826868322028927942015-04-22T05:38:00.001-07:002017-01-23T18:26:11.219-08:00Global warming may cause "Climate Wars"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“Climate Wars: The Fight For Survival As The World Heats Up” by Gwynne Dyer investigates the worst case scenarios of global warming, via studies done by and interviews of risk-assessment professionals at the Pentagon and defense-related think tanks. Unfortunately, it does not make for reassuring reading. As the world heats up, the tropical and sub-tropical regions of Asia, Africa, Central America and South America are likely to become hotter and more arid; this is likely to decrease agricultural productivity and food production in these densely populated regions. The outcome could be a new age of warfare.<br />
One possible location for conflict identified by Dyer is South Asia. Many of Pakistan’s rivers are reliant on sources in the Indian Himalayas. Due to global warming, the overall climate of the region is likely to become more dry and arid. This could spark increasing tension between India and Pakistan over the water in their shared rivers, possibly ultimately resulting in warfare between these two nuclear-armed states. This analysis also holds true for India and Bangladesh; however, since Bangladesh is not a nuclear power, the prospect of meaningful warfare between these two countries is not seen as a realistic or large threat by Pentagon planners, and not discussed in Dyer’s book.<br />
As frightening as the possibility of an India-Pakistan war is the possibility of a Russia-China war. China is likely to become hotter and drier as global warming progresses. This is likely to affect water availability and agriculture, a major concern for a country of over a billion people. This may fuel expansionism on the part of China with the goal of controlling more land for food production. Any such expansionism might result in warfare with Russia, the dominant power among the ex-Soviet republics in the region.<br />
These concerns seem remote in today’s world, where the worst case scenario for a bad crop in any country is increased food imports. However, the worst case scenarios of global warming inevitably involve a hotter, drier globe with less productive agriculture closer to the equator. In this scenario, it is not clear where the required shortfall in food will be produced, and whether there will be enough to go around. It seems that we may be living in an age of plenty which will be cut short by climate change. Life on a warmed globe means an age of scarcity, and increased risks of conflict.<br />
By far the best outcome for everyone would be if governments around the world prevented global warming by real measures to cut carbon dioxide emissions. This requires taxes on fossil fuel use, and reinvesting the tax proceeds in renewable energy such as solar and wind power. Unfortunately, the governments of the world are still dragging their feet rather than taking real action. Further delay could well doom us to a future of climate warfare.<br />
<br />
Copyright 2015 by Zeeshan Hasan. First published in Bangladesh on <a href="http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2015/feb/16/global-warming-may-result-%E2%80%98climate-wars%E2%80%99" target="_blank">February 16, 2015 in the Dhaka Tribune.</a></div>
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Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-61401665544845358032014-11-29T23:07:00.002-08:002015-01-31T01:21:51.398-08:00The real threat of global warming<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
by Zeeshan Hasan</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Many people have a
false perception of an ongoing 'debate' regarding the dangers of
global warming and climate change. In particular, elected
politicians
intent on avoiding unpopular carbon taxes and higher fuel prices
continue to assert that the relevant scientific issues are
doubtful.
Unfortunately, until now the non-scientist public has been
deceived
by a large number of books and newspaper articles by misinformed
'skeptics' of climate science who themselves have no understanding
of
the science involved. Fortunately, a glimpse into the real world
of
climate science is available through <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Global-Warming-Understanding-David-Archer/dp/1405140399" target="_blank">Global Warming: Understanding The Forecast</a> by
David
Archer, an ocean chemistry professor at the University of Chicago.
Archer's book is
an introductory climate science text which aims to make the basics
of
climate science comprehensible to any one with a high school
background in science. </div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The basic science
of
how carbon dioxide emissions raise global temperatures is outlined
by
Archer. On the one hand, the earth is constantly being heated by
sunlight. On the other hand, the Earth is also cooled by loss of
heat
into space as infrared radiation. These two continuous mechanisms
of
heat gain and heat loss by the Earth result in a thermal
equilibrium
at the average global temperatures which we experience. </div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Heat gain from the
sun is relatively constant, varying only slowly over time;
however,
heat loss into space has been reduced significantly by humans over
the last century. Atmospheric 'greenhouse gases' such as carbon
dioxide have the property of absorbing the infrared radiation
which
carries heat from the earth into space, and thus reduce the
cooling
of the earth. This effect of carbon dioxide is called the
Greenhouse
effect; it was discovered over a century ago and is undisputed.
Since
the Industrial Revolution, humans have been continuously burning
fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas, and thus adding huge
amounts
of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This has resulted in an
increase
of the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere from 320
parts
per million in 1960 to about 400 parts per million today, or about
20%. This additional carbon dioxide functions like a blanket or
greenhouse around the planet, slowing down loss of heat into
space.
If the same amount of solar heat comes into the Earth, while
simultaneously heat loss from the Earth to space is reduced by
additional carbon dioxide, then the Earth has to get warmer. At a
higher temperature the Earth's heat loss by radiation into space
increases, because hotter objects lose more heat through infrared
radiation than cooler ones; and the planet once more reaches a
stable
temperature. </div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
A good analogy to
the above is a pot of food simmering on an oven above a low flame;
putting the lid on the pot does not change heat gain from the
oven,
but reduces heat loss through evaporation from the open pot and
thus
makes the food cook at a higher temperature. Our carbon dioxide
emissions are effectively putting a lid on the earth, making heat
from the sun 'cook' the planet at a higher temperature.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The question is
whether a hotter stable temperature of the globe would be one
capable
of sustaining human life as we know it. Climate scientists have
evidence from ancient ocean sediments that increasing the level of
greenhouses gases in the
atmosphere can cause temperatures to rise. Such an event took
place
55 million years ago, when thousands of billions of tons of
greenhouses gases were released into the atmosphere (probably
because
of a peak in volcanic activity). This event is known as the
Permian
Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). During the PETM, global average
temperature rose by about 5 degrees C and 90% of life on the
planet
perished. Such an increase in global average temperature today
would
have terrible consequences, rendering much of tropical and
sub-tropical Asia, Africa, central America and southern Europe too
hot and dry for agriculture. The consequences would be famine on a
scale never seen before, and billions of deaths.</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Dangerous global
heating events like the PETM may seem distant and irrelevant. But
as
a comparison, burning all world's known reserves of coal would
release about 5000 billion tons of carbon dioxide, comparable to
the
surge in greenhouse gases which caused the PETM. Our current
course
is to exploit not only existing coal reserves but also oil and
gas.
So it is entirely within our power to destroy our planet. </div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
Continuing our
current policies of exploiting all fossil fuels available
will literally ensure the end of the Earth as we know it. The
only way to stop it is to keep fossil fuels in the ground and
switch
to solar, wind or nuclear power, none of which emit carbon
dioxide.
This will require worldwide imposition of carbon taxes to raise
fuel
prices and make investment in alternative energy feasible. The
leaders of all countries need to make some hard decisions, which
they have failed to do in 20 years of climate negotiations. They
will only do so now if the public demands it of them. The public
needs to make their voices heard.<br />
<br />
(Printed in Bangladesh on <a href="http://www.dhakatribune.com/op-ed/2014/nov/30/real-threat-global-warming" target="_blank">Nov. 30, 2014 by the Dhaka Tribune</a>.) </div>
Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-44074272619985928722013-04-06T19:51:00.000-07:002013-04-06T20:01:47.009-07:00Global warming will change the world by 2100<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
by Zeeshan Hasan<br />
<br />
What will the world look like in the year 2100?
Climate scientists are now able to answer a substantial part of this
question, and the projections they have for us are unsettling. Yet few
people are aware of the findings of climate science due to an immense
smokescreen of doubt which the fossil fuel lobby has raised around
global warming research. These issues are dealt with in Global Warming
and Political Intimidation: How Politicians Cracked Down on Scientists
as The Earth Heated Up by Raymond S. Bradley (published by University of
Massachusetts Press in 2010). Bradley is Distinguished Professor of
Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in the United
States. <br />
<br />
Our modern world runs mainly on fossil fuels like coal,
oil and gas; burning these produces carbon dioxide, which traps heat
from the sun and causes global warming. But whether or not human carbon
dioxide emissions had actually produced real man-made global warming was
a matter of debate among scientists for decades. In 1998, Bradley and
his co-researchers published their 'hockey-stick graph' which depicted a
1,000-year decrease in average world temperatures, which was suddenly
reversed in the 20th century. The only explanation for the sudden
warming shown in the hockey stick was post-Industrial Revolution global
warming. The 'hockey-stick graph' effectively proved that burning of
coal, oil and gas has already changed the planet, and is changing it
further as you read this article.<br />
<br />
The publication of the
'hockey-stick graph' set off a tsunami of activity among the lobbyists
of the fossil fuel industry. In the US, Congressman Joe Barton of Texas,
who was on record as having received over half a million dollars from
the fossil fuel industry during his 2004 Congressional race, launched a
government-led witch-hunt, accusing Bradley and his co-researchers of
fraud. Fortunately, other members of the US Congress opposed this
blatantly political attack on science. However, attempts to discredit
Bradley and his research continued; in 2009, hackers stole e-mails from
the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in the UK in
an incident dubbed 'Climate-gate' by the press. An army of right-wing
bloggers, journalists and other supporters of the fossil-fuel industry
claimed that in one of the emails, another climate scientist had
admitted that Bradley and his co-researchers had used a 'trick' to 'hide
the decline' in world temperature, and that the research was therefore
false. Numerous academic enquiries were launched against Bradley and his
co-researchers; ultimately none found any wrongdoing on their part or
mistakes in their work. However, widespread coverage of the Climate-gate
email hacking had already served to discredit climate science and
global warming in the public eye. Though based entirely on false
accusations, Climate-gate contributed to the failure of international
climate talks on carbon emissions.<br />
<br />
What are the findings of
climate scientists that the fossil fuel industry has tried so hard to
discredit? The original 1997 'hockey-stick graph' only analysed
historical temperatures over the previous 1000 years. In his book,
Bradley gives an extended 'hockey-stick graph' to predict world
temperatures until the year 2100, given below.<br />
<br />
As visible from
the graph, at projected carbon dioxide emissions, the world can be
expected to heat up by about 3.0 degrees C by 2100. This is probably
enough to melt the Greenland ice cap, raising sea levels by about 80
feet (25 metres). Such sea level rise would submerge Bangladesh and most
coastal cities in the world, including New York, Los Angeles, London,
Sydney, Mumbai, Kolkata and Shanghai. Food will be more expensive and
famines more common as parts of Asia and Africa will become too hot for
farming.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0kkAmayv64zpEujOrdPoz5IgPkNEkNd4N8hyocqMRWH-9So6mO6eHGTVXYWUaOAO8PwvU6BH1lRNYlWqZO1UStgtSvdaS6tuJn66KsmnmkgIyfAVBqe7onLN1RHmSwYYgBJHjN-ZXRaE/s1600/hockeystick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="520" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0kkAmayv64zpEujOrdPoz5IgPkNEkNd4N8hyocqMRWH-9So6mO6eHGTVXYWUaOAO8PwvU6BH1lRNYlWqZO1UStgtSvdaS6tuJn66KsmnmkgIyfAVBqe7onLN1RHmSwYYgBJHjN-ZXRaE/s640/hockeystick.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<div class="inside_news">
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<div class="inside_image_title">
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How likely is this quantity of carbon dioxide to be emitted? Bradley gives details:<br />
"The
projected temperatures are from the future scenario... which envisions
carbon dioxide emissions rising to 16 billion metric tons by 2050...
then declining to 13 billion by 2100... This is a ¨middle of the road¨
estimate compared to the range of scenarios considered by the IPCC." —
Global Warming and Political Intimidation: How Politicians Cracked Down
on Scientists as The Earth Heated Up (Page 139)<br />
'Middle of the road'
actually means that the above is an optimistic projection; it assumes
that sizable reductions will be made in carbon dioxide emissions over
the next few decades. So far, none of these reductions has been made,
and emissions are still going up. Unless real action is taken quickly,
the above projection may well be a best-case scenario. The only way to
improve on this outcome is to quickly replace coal, oil and gas with
solar, wind and nuclear power. Anyone who wishes to see a better future
for his/her children and grandchildren needs to pressure the government
to that end.<br />
<br />
(First published on <a href="http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/index.php?ref=MjBfMDRfMDdfMTNfMV85Ml8xNjU2NjI=" target="_blank">7th April 2013 in the Financial Express </a>in Bangladesh) </div>
Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-24526116735313271832013-03-18T20:43:00.000-07:002013-03-19T07:25:49.799-07:00Burning coal, oil and gas may cause sudden, extreme climate change<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2249" style="font-variant: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2248" style="color: black;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2247" style="text-decoration: none;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2246" style="font-family: Arial;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2253" style="font-size: small;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2252" style="font-style: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2251" style="font-weight: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2250" style="background: transparent;">It
is scientifically established that our burning of fossil fuels and
the resultant carbon dioxide emissions will result in global warming,
and ultimately may cause dangerous climate change. But how fast can
that happen? 'The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate
Change And Our Future' (published by Princeton University Press in
2000) by climatologist Richard B. Alley, explores climate scientists'
answers to these questions. The author is Professor of Geo-sciences
at the Pennsylvania State University in the USA.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2261" style="font-variant: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2260" style="color: black;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2259" style="text-decoration: none;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2258" style="font-family: Arial;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2257" style="font-size: small;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2256" style="font-style: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2255" style="font-weight: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2254" style="background: transparent;">Alley
is one of the climate scientists who has spent years collecting and
analy<span style="font-size: small;">s</span>ing ice cores; these are long samples of ancient ice which have
been extracted from the two mile thick Greenland ice cap. This
massive layer of ice has been forming for over 100,000 years, and is
an repository of historical evidence to climate scientists. The snow
deposited each year is still visible as layers in the ice, and these
annual layers preserve much chemical information from which
scientists can extract a record of past snowfall and temperature. Of
particular importance is what the ice cores have revealed of the end
of the “Younger Dryas” ice age.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2273" style="font-variant: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2272" style="color: black;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2271" style="text-decoration: none;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2270" style="font-family: Arial;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2269" style="font-size: small;"><i id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2268"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2267" style="font-weight: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2266" style="background: transparent;">'At
the beginning of this book, we met the Younger Dryas, the last cold
gasp of the ice age between about 12,800 and 11,500 years ago...
Standing in the science trench in Greenland, I measured how thick the
annual layers were in the [ice] core across the end of the Younger
Dryas. I found that... many thick layers were followed by one
slightly thinner layer, one scarcely more than half as thick, one
scarcely more than half as thick, another slightly thinner than that,
then a lot of similarly thin ones grouped around a spike of thicker
ones. This is most directly explained as a twofold change in three
years, with most of that change in one year... So I cannot insist
that the climate changed in one year, but it certainly looks that
way.' (pages 110-111).</span></span></i></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2281" style="font-variant: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2280" style="color: black;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2279" style="text-decoration: none;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2278" style="font-family: Arial;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2277" style="font-size: small;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2276" style="font-style: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2275" style="font-weight: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2274" style="background: transparent;">So
science tells us that very significant climate change can occur in
just a handful of years. Similar warming may well be in store for us,
given that our carbon emissions are changing the atmosphere far more
rapidly than any natural process has in the past. Alley proceeds to
give details of the sudden, extreme temperature change that occurred
at the end of Younger Dryas ice age:</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">The
most direct interpretation... is that the surface of Greenland warmed
by about 15 F (8 degrees Celsius) in a decade or less. (page
112)</span></span></i></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">This
should frighten us. This sort of warming today would mean the end of
the world as we know it. Climatologists estimate global warming of 5
to 6 degrees Celsius today would render most of the world too hot
for agriculture (except a narrow northern band comprising Canada,
northern Europe, Russia and Siberia). Widespread famine, starvation
and war would be the norm. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">The
vast majority of humanity would almost certainly perish.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Alley's
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">conclusions</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">regarding</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">
the climate change which ended the Younger Dryas ice age should serve
as a wake-up call. The reason that no action has been taken by
governments to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and stop global
warming is that climate change is a</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">ssumed
to be</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">
something that will happen very slowly, and thus only impact the
distant future. However, this assumption is questionable given the
findings of climate science. The scientific record of the Greenland
ice cores shows that when climate change does occur, it can be both
quick and extreme. In that case it is not just nameless future
generations that our carbon emissions endanger. Rather, our addiction
to fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas may well sacrifice the lives
of our own children and grandchildren. All of us who wish for a
better future </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">than
this </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2293" style="font-variant: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2292" style="color: black;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2291" style="text-decoration: none;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2290" style="font-family: Arial;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2297" style="font-size: small;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2296" style="font-style: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2295" style="font-weight: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2294" style="background: transparent;">need
to start lobbying our governments to quickly replace fossil fuels
with solar, wind and nuclear power.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2293" style="font-variant: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2292" style="color: black;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2291" style="text-decoration: none;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2290" style="font-family: Arial;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2297" style="font-size: small;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2296" style="font-style: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2295" style="font-weight: normal;"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1363664272617_2294" style="background: transparent;">(Copyright by Zeeshan Hasan. First published in Bangladesh in the Daily Star on Mar<span style="font-size: small;">ch 19th, 201<span style="font-size: small;">3</span></span>). </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-56052749963117729652013-02-10T21:07:00.004-08:002013-02-10T21:07:52.445-08:00Disrupting Earth's climate is to awaken a sleeping beast<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Fixing Climate; The Story of Climate Science and How to Stop Global
Warming by eminent climate scientist Wallace Broecker and his co-writer
Robert Kunzig is an informative look at the science of global warming as
well as a summary of the options for solving it. Wallace Broecker is a
professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University,
and through his research first discovered one of the primary regulators
of the planet's climate; namely the “thermo-haline conveyor,” the
network of ocean currents which circulates hot and cold water over much
of the Earth's surface.<br />
<br />
A recurrent theme in Broecker's writing is
his view of Earth's climate as a sleeping beast which we awaken at our
peril. The relative stability of climate for the past ten thousand years
(since the end of the last ice age) is exactly what allowed humans to
develop agriculture and create civilisation. Thus, we have greatly
benefited from the long sleep of the climate beast. However, the carbon
dioxide emissions created by our modern society's dependence on fossil
fuels like coal, oil and gas risk disrupting the climate and waking the
climate beast. The consequences could be sudden and drastic.<br />
<br />
Whereas
we may think of climate change as being gradual and taking place over
centuries or millennia, climate science has shown that drastic changes
have happened very quickly in the past. A prime example is the end of
the “Younger Dryas” ice age, a cold period which lasted from 12,800 to
11,500 years ago.<br />
<br />
<i>“The [ice] measurements ... had shown that the
warming at the end of the Younger Dryas had been abrupt ... the ice
layers were suddenly half as thick ... most of that change had taken
place in just a few years”</i> (page 141).<br />
<br />
So the scientific evidence
is that climate change of sufficient magnitude to end an ice age can
occur naturally in “just a few years,” not centuries or even decades.
This bodes ill for our future, as our burning of coal, oil and gas is
now changing the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere faster
than any time in history. If a similarly quick global warming were to
happen now, humanity would have little time or ability to adapt to it.
The results would be catastrophic in terms of increased desertification,
reduced food production and famine.<br />
<br />
Aside from temperature rise,
the biggest threat to Bangladesh in particular is from sea level rise.
This is another area where research in climate science has made it clear
that big changes can happen at a frightening pace.<br />
<br />
<i>In the 1980's a
colleague of Broecker's, Richard Fairbanks, thought he could pinpoint a
time when sea level rose twenty metres in a single century</i> (page 171).<br />
<br />
The
above is indeed a stark contrast with the scientific conservatism of
the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) assessment of sea
likely sea level rise being 59 centimetres by 2100.<br />
<br />
<i>The IPCC
scientists specifically did not take into account the recent
observations of accelerated ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica --
essentially because they didn't know what to make of them</i> (page 183).<br />
<br />
The
problem is that scientists are generally cautious by nature, and
unwilling to talk about possible worst case scenarios until that outcome
is virtually certain. Unfortunately, if we wait until the worst case
global warming scenario is inevitable before we start doing anything, it
will be too late; the climate will have already changed, and humanity
will have to suffer the awful consequences. Scientific conservatism in
this case is lulling the public and world governments into a misplaced
sense of security. So what is to be done? The answer is clear.<br />
<br />
<i>Which
brings us to the one absolute certainty; no significant solution to the
[carbon dioxide] problem can emerge until governments worldwide, and
especially that of the United States, follow the lead of Norway and the
European Union and impose either an emissions cap or a direct tax on
[carbon dioxide] </i>(page 266).<br />
<br />
Broecker's conclusion is shared by
most climate scientists. To prevent dangerous climate change, carbon
dioxide emissions must be reduced by replacing fossil fuels rapidly with
nuclear, wind and solar energy. This will require huge investments, and
the only way the money can be raised is through a carbon tax. Those of
us who care about what the future holds for our children need to start
thinking about how to bring about this colossal change in the world
economy.<br />
<br />
(First published in Bangladesh in The Daily Star on 11th February 2013.) </div>
Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-18124555774341027802012-12-22T00:12:00.002-08:002012-12-22T00:27:03.313-08:00Will we collapse like Easter Island?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="display: block; margin: 10px 0px 0px;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA_3-dsCKyaYusaL37BZdFT3ffBx57VzRvpHjw37Eyww2O8gk_Ct5gbs0i6xu2ebxJLeB5RKHlbvFMWpZ9GjDP33F1O4vSZvIfpAnlm7cghtSzAurFQMAe2o4P1umMuMubZUAw4mSeIvg/s1600/easter-island-head.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA_3-dsCKyaYusaL37BZdFT3ffBx57VzRvpHjw37Eyww2O8gk_Ct5gbs0i6xu2ebxJLeB5RKHlbvFMWpZ9GjDP33F1O4vSZvIfpAnlm7cghtSzAurFQMAe2o4P1umMuMubZUAw4mSeIvg/s320/easter-island-head.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The spectacular statues
of Easter Island, a sparsely populated Pacific isle which is seemingly
so desolate that there are not even any large trees on it, have been a
mystery for centuries. How could an island of a few thousand people
produce hundreds of such statues, the largest of which are 33 feet tall
and weigh 82 tons? This question inspired Erich Von Daniken, a
best-selling author of the 1970s, to speculate that the statues were
erected by aliens from outer space. The real story of the statues and
the people who carved them are the subject of the first chapter of Jared
Diamond's book, 'Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Survive'
(published by Penguin in 2006). Diamond is professor of Geography at the
University of California at Los Angeles and author of several
award-winning books on the impact of the physical world on human
history. His Easter Island history turns out to have profound
environmental lessons for us even today.</div>
<div style="display: block; margin: 10px 0px 0px;">
Diamond
points out that archaeologists have proved that Easter Island was once
very different from today; before being colonised by people, it was
covered with forest typical of other sub-tropical Pacific islands. Once
settled by explorers who arrived by canoe from other islands, it seemed
to present itself as a hospitable place, and the human population
expanded rapidly. Incidentally, this solves the mystery of the statues; a
population several times bigger could more reasonably be expected to
erect such monuments. However, unknown to the new settlers, the soil of
Easter Island was much less fertile than that of other islands that they
had lived on. This infertility manifested itself in slower tree growth.
Thus when the Easter Islanders cut down trees for firewood, houses and
deep-sea canoes, they did this at a rate which may have been sustainable
on other islands that their ancestors had lived on; but on Easter
Island it brought disaster.</div>
<div style="display: block; margin: 10px 0px 0px;">
As
the population grew, people cut down more trees for firewood and
canoes. Canoes were necessary as dolphin-hunting provided a large
portion of the animal protein in the diet (along with wild birds and
other small animals from the forest). But once the forest cover was
removed, the exposed land eroded quickly in the rain and wind. Crop
yields decreased, and the islanders' solution was apparently to cut down
more trees to plant more crops and build more canoes for
dolphin-hunting. As a result, within a few centuries the island was
completely deforested. Without trees, there were no more wild birds or
animals to hunt, except rats. With no more wood available for canoes,
dolphin meat was also no longer available. The islanders descended into
famine, war and cannibalism (unfortunately, human meat was one of few
remaining sources of animal protein). Two-thirds of the population
perished in this terrible manner.</div>
<div style="display: block; margin: 10px 0px 0px;">
Diamond
describes other societies that collapsed primarily due to environmental
difficulties, including several more Pacific islands, the Norse colony
in Greenland, the native Anasazi culture of the southwestern US, the
central American Maya civilisation and modern Rwanda. He also presents
the case of Japan, which came close to such a fate but managed to avoid
it thanks to intelligent decisions and good leadership. </div>
<div style="display: block; margin: 10px 0px 0px;">
There
is a lesson for us here: in these times of global warming, it may be
comforting to believe that our leaders can be trusted to sort everything
out, and that humanity would never allow itself to be destroyed. But
such a faith would be unfounded; many previous societies have thought
this way, and failed. Long-term survival requires a real understanding
of the limitations of our environment and a strong political will to
live within those limits. </div>
<div style="display: block; margin: 10px 0px 0px;">
Like
the first settlers of Easter Island, we find ourselves in a new,
unknown environment; namely an industrialised 21st century world with
greenhouse gas levels higher than they have ever been in human history.
We no longer need to colonise a new island to experience unfamiliar
environmental conditions; our carbon dioxide emissions are altering the
climate of our whole planet, which will bring unpredictable new risks
for everyone. The lesson of Easter Island should make us think on the
failure of our own leaders to come to an agreement to prevent
catastrophic climate change even after 20 years of fruitless
negotiations.</div>
<div style="display: block; margin: 10px 0px 0px;">
Copyright 2012 by Zeeshan Hasan. First published in Bangladesh on <a href="http://www.fe-bd.com/index.php?ref=MjBfMTJfMjJfMTJfMV85OV8xNTM4OTU=" target="_blank">22nd December 2012 in the Financial Express</a>.</div>
</div>
Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-83062513564651578542012-12-01T01:41:00.000-08:002012-12-01T09:05:09.286-08:00How the fossil fuel industry deceives us and endangers our future<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="display: block; margin: 10px 0px 0px;">
For the past 15 years a
largely invisible struggle, critical to the future of the planet, has
been fought between the global community of climate scientists on one
hand and the think-tanks and politicians funded by fossil fuel
companies, on the other. During this time, climate scientists have
reached an overwhelming scientific consensus that the carbon dioxide
emissions caused by our reliance on coal, oil and gas have already
caused significant global warming, and will ultimately endanger our
planet unless all fossil fuels are rapidly phased out. Simultaneously,
the fossil fuel industry has run a huge misinformation campaign to keep
the public in the dark about climate change. Ground-breaking scientist
Michael Mann writes about this struggle in his new book, The hockey
stick and the climate wars; dispatches from the front lines (published
2012 by Columbia University Press).</div>
<div style="display: block; margin: 10px 0px 0px;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0vtBv122H0PxJX4kh9TnB5gb6PGqUDFW4lZ5xt_FPyFhXoVKNIGE2mDYxZsjW3NoHLBJSWPQilaA03FPwASYGw6k6yGxhtlwW2OfKpnsg1MnyfEhrOid7VPIMbSp8creh7XbbxRqzNHY/s1600/hockey+stick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0vtBv122H0PxJX4kh9TnB5gb6PGqUDFW4lZ5xt_FPyFhXoVKNIGE2mDYxZsjW3NoHLBJSWPQilaA03FPwASYGw6k6yGxhtlwW2OfKpnsg1MnyfEhrOid7VPIMbSp8creh7XbbxRqzNHY/s320/hockey+stick.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The
critical study which solidified scientific opinion about the truth of
global warming was the "hockey stick graph" discovered by author Michael
Mann himself in 1998, and highlighted in Al Gore's documentary on
global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. Mann's graph showed global
average temperatures slowly decreasing towards a distant new ice age for
most of the past 1000 years, only to spike sharply upwards in the 20th
century (like the end of a hockey stick). The 'hockey stick graph'
showed that man-made global warming was real, and was already happening.
The 'hockey stick graph' was confirmed by many subsequent scientific
studies; the handful of studies which contradicted it were found to have
critical errors. Among climate scientists, there was no longer any
doubt about the reality and seriousness of global warming.</div>
<div style="display: block; margin: 10px 0px 0px;">
The
fossil-fuel industry, composed of multinational coal and oil companies,
sought to protect their business interests by sowing public doubt in
global warming, and was quick to strike back at climate scientists. They
funded think-tanks and web-sites propagating reports by their own
"experts" who cast doubts on the 'hockey stick'. These experts were
usually economists and meteorologists/TV weathermen who knew little of
climate science, as well as an ever-shrinking minority of climate
scientists. The misinformation campaign took advantage of a public and
media largely ignorant of science, and unable to appreciate that the
real scientific debate on climate change was over. US Congressmen in the
thrall of oil and coal lobbyists undertook an official witch-hunt of
climate scientists in 2005. The US Congress was, however, unable to find
any problems with the climate scientists' views; but the damage was
done. Widespread media coverage of politicians like Senator James Inhofe
saying that climate change was "the single greatest hoax ever
perpetrated on the American public" ensured that doubts about global
warming continued in the public mind. The anti-climate science campaign
ultimately descended to criminal acts of hacking and baseless
accusations of fraud directed at Mann and his fellow scientists. In the
'Climate-gate' incident in 2009, unknown hackers stole thousands of
e-mail messages from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East
Anglia in the UK. One particular e-mail from another climate scientist
to Mann was repeatedly used as evidence to claim that Mann had used a
"trick" to falsify his 'hockey stick' data and was thus able to "hide
the decline" in global temperature. </div>
<div style="display: block; margin: 10px 0px 0px;">
Climate
change denialists had a field day. In actual fact, the word "trick" is
commonly used among mathematicians and scientists to describe a clever
means of solving a difficult problem, seemingly by magic; it did not
imply any wrongdoing. Likewise, the "decline" in that was being hidden
was a series of temperature measurements from one particular study
acknowledged by the original author to be doubtful due to pollution. A
number of subsequent inquiries were conducted, and none found any
wrongdoing on the part of climate scientists. Again, the damage was
already done; public belief in global warming and political will to
tackle it both fell dramatically. </div>
<div style="display: block; margin: 10px 0px 0px;">
The
fog of public doubt created over global warming had long-term
consequences. Firstly, President Barack Obama's attempts at regulating
carbon emissions were rejected by the US Congress. Secondly, the
'Climate-gate' hacking had been timed to occur just before the
Copenhagen summit on global warming in December 2009. Due to doubts
raised by the 'Climate-gate' as well as Obama's failure to pass any
carbon dioxide emissions legislation in the US, Copenhagen failed to
produce any meaningful international agreement to prevent global
warming. This failure has left the planet in continued peril of global
warming and consequent sea level rise, cyclones and drought. Hurricane
Sandy, US/Russian crop failures and high food prices in 2012 are the
beginnings of what is in store for us unless the public and politicians
start taking real action to replace fossil fuels with nuclear, solar and
wind power.</div>
<div style="display: block; margin: 10px 0px 0px;">
First published on November 30th, 2012 by the Financial Express in Bangladesh. Copyright 2012 by Zeeshan Hasan.</div>
</div>
Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-70705740090101565692012-10-07T19:23:00.001-07:002012-10-07T19:54:54.559-07:00Global warming and mass extinction of life on Earth<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
By Zeeshan Hasan<br />
<br />
Climate change is usually thought of as a threat in terms of rising
sea levels and increased drought; but science has revealed that it bears
further threats. These previously unknown dangers of climate change are
the focus of Peter D. Ward's book, "Under a Green Sky: Global warming,
the mass extinctions of the past, and what they can tell us about our
future" (published 2006 by Harper Collins). Ward is a professor of
biology and earth and space sciences at the University of Washington at
Seattle, and also works at Nasa. He is one of the biologists whose
analysis of the fossil record has helped scientists understand what
caused the numerous mass extinctions that have occurred during the
history of life on earth.<br />
<br />
The most famous of earlier mass
extinctions was the one which wiped out the dinosaurs; thirty years ago,
scientists confirmed it was the result of an asteroid hitting the
earth. Following that great discovery, scientists for years assumed that
all the other mass extinctions were similarly the result of asteroid
impacts. However, geologists were ultimately unable to find any evidence
for those supposed asteroids. Apparently, the extinction of the
dinosaurs was unique, and a different explanation was necessary for the
remaining mass extinctions. This was ultimately found to be global
warming due to excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It turns out
that large quantities of carbon dioxide can be released by volcanic
activity; this is especially likely in major tectonic events such as
when the Indian subcontinent collided with Eurasia (creating the
Himalayas). <br />
Ward's book investigates the mechanism by which
global warming caused mass extinctions such as the end-Permian
extinction event, which destroyed 95% of life on earth 250 million years
ago. Scientists have found that most mass extinctions were marked by
huge amounts of hydrogen sulphide, which is the smelly, poisonous gas
released by rotten eggs. The hydrogen sulphide was created by an
oxygen-free "Canfield ocean" (named after the scientist who discovered
it), a condition similar to that which now exists in the Black Sea.
Canfield oceans occur when global warming melts too much polar ice,
releasing so much cold water that the normal ocean currents which
circulate water from deep to shallow and keep the oceans oxygen-rich are
disrupted. Once this happens, the oxygen-breathing fish and other sea
creatures quickly consume all the oxygen left in the water and then
suffocate. The remaining oxygen-free water can sustain only anaerobic
purple bacteria which require no oxygen to live; by filling up the
ocean, these bacteria would also turn the ocean purple.<br />
<br />
Anaerobic
purple bacteria in a Canfield ocean produce massive quantities of
hydrogen sulphide gas, which then bubbles to the surface and poisons
animals on land. Hydrogen sulphide also damages the ozone layer,
exposing the remaining animals and plants to deadly levels of
ultraviolet rays from the sun (as a minor side effect, hydrogen sulphide
from a Canfield ocean would also turn the sky green; hence the title of
the book). Thus global warming has caused mass extinctions on both land
and sea which can only be described as apocalyptic.<br />
<br />
How far away
is this? We don't know exactly how much polar ice has to melt to create a
Canfield ocean and another mass extinction, but we do know the
following:<br />
Using [current carbon dioxide emission] rates, which
work out to about 120 parts per million per century, we might expect
carbon dioxide levels to hit 500 to 600 parts per million by the year
2100. That would be the same carbon dioxide levels that were most
recently present sometime in the past 40 million years -- or more
relevant, it would be equivalent to times when there was little or no
ice even at the poles. (Pages 164-5)<br />
<br />
In other words, by the year
2100, within two or three generations, carbon dioxide levels will be
high enough to virtually ensure another polar melt. This will likely set
into motion a Canfield ocean and mass extinction which humanity may not
survive.<br />
<br />
Our only chance to avoid this apocalyptic future is to
stop using fossil fuels like coal, petroleum and gas, and replace them
completely within a few decades with nuclear, wind and solar. This is
the only way to prevent further polar ice melting and a Canfield
ocean-created mass extinction. Unfortunately politicians and the public
are in a state of scientific ignorance and denial of climate change.
Anyone who cares about the survival of humanity beyond the next century
needs to try to remedy that.<br />
<br />
First published in Bangladesh in <a href="http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=252712">the Daily Star on 7th October, 2012</a>.</div>
Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-29224360400073366792012-05-14T17:17:00.003-07:002012-05-14T17:17:27.428-07:0060-90% chance of Bangladesh sinking under rising sea levels<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>This article was published in the <a href="http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=129679&date=2012-05-15">Financial Express in Bangladesh</a>.</i></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Science as a
Contact Sport; inside the battle to save Earth's climate” by
Stephen Schneider is an illuminating book by a world renowned climate
scientist and professor at the Woods Institute for the Environment at
Stanford University. In 2007, Schneider received the Nobel Peace
Price on behalf of the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC),
along with Al Gore. His book is a recounting of his efforts over
three decades to get the US government and the rest of the world to
pay attention to climate change science.
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The basic question
which climate science has tried to answer is: how serious is climate
change? But communicating a scientific answer to this question has
been impossible, Schneider says, as politicians, journalists and the
average person on the street does not understand that scientific
predictions and models of climate change can only predict
probabilities of particular outcomes. Unfortunately, the public and
the politicians have shown little desire to understand the
significance of these scientific probabilities. Instead, they are
generally interested in climate science only the extent that it
supports their own pre-conceived political beliefs that climate
change is insignificant.
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
If the above sounds
familiar, a particular example for which Schneider presents some
numbers should frighten all of us. <span lang="en-GB">For low-lying
countries like Bangladesh, one of the critical questions of climate
change is how high sea level rise will be. </span>The answer to this
actually depends on whether or not the Greenland ice cap melts; this
event would release enough water to raise global sea levels about 25
metres (about 80 feet). This would be the end for Bangladesh, sinking
perhaps 75% of the country. It would also be the end of most of the
world’s coastal cities like New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC
and London. Here are Schneider’s estimates of how likely this is:</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<i>For Greenland
to irreversibly melt, my own [estimate] would be roughly a 2 to 5
percent chance that it is already too late and it will happen over
the long run. At 1 degree Celsius more warming, I’d raise the odds
to 25 percent..." (page 274)</i></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So this is the
problem of climate science in a nutshell; the likelihood of a major
catastrophe like 25 meter sea level rise could be theoretically be as
low as 2 to 5 percent. So in the US, Republican politicians like
George W. Bush as well as numerous Democrats whose political
campaigns rely on donations from oil and coal companies will always
focus on the 2 percent probability and dismiss climate change a waste
of time. However, for those of us who have not been paid off and can
think for ourselves, the rest of the sentence should be shocking:</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>"...and at 2
degrees Celsius to 60 percent, at 3 degrees Celsius to 90 percent,
and so on.” (page 274 continued).</i></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Critically, the
basis for all international climate negotiations is to limit global
warming to 2 degrees Celsius (as most governments in the world have
already decided that it would be too expensive to do anything more
than that). This international consensus means that 2 degrees of
warming is inevitable, as everyone has accepted that it will happen
and will not even try to prevent it. Given that fact, Schneider’s
odds for a 25 metre sea level rise and the destruction of Bangladesh
becomes 60% to 90% (the 90% figure is still relevant, as it is always
possible for countries to fail to cut carbon dioxide emissions enough
to limit global warming to 2 degrees).</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
What to do now? The
only people who care about Bangladesh and have the capacity to change
anything are Bangladeshis living in Western countries. If they really
care about Bangladesh, they should all become climate activists and
pressure their governments to do something to prevent this. People in
Bangladesh have only two options; firstly, invest vastly more in
education and hope people can emigrate before the country sinks.
Secondly, invest vastly more in birth control, targeting a 22nd
century population of only the 25 million people, which would be the
maximum number that the country could support if it was reduced to
pockets of high land in Rajshahi division and Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Unfortunately, Professor Schneider died from cancer in 2010, and now
there is one fewer climate scientist to tell us how we can save
ourselves from catastrophic global warming.</div>
</div>Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-62881145474440476712011-10-16T09:36:00.000-07:002012-05-13T01:57:57.962-07:00Has Bangladesh already been doomed by climate change?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The Daily Star, Bangladesh's largest circulating English newspaper, <a href="http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=205959">just printed my article</a>. Unfortunately they didn't publish the map showing how much of Bangladesh will go underwater, but <a href="http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=25.0657,89.7803&z=10&m=20">here it is.</a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUeyh4JLGFXD7ctzhFHJ2GuxQ5-hajdSta7dj-crTgsa5FKGofapY7xMrgw9hMSokkxZUiXhjajF8Aqor5jjg88FHN5SsSPqJ1V_eSzz58JioXRYIds-VKLph6uJAzLSmjolSOYAD6W3g/s1600/BangladeshUnderWater.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUeyh4JLGFXD7ctzhFHJ2GuxQ5-hajdSta7dj-crTgsa5FKGofapY7xMrgw9hMSokkxZUiXhjajF8Aqor5jjg88FHN5SsSPqJ1V_eSzz58JioXRYIds-VKLph6uJAzLSmjolSOYAD6W3g/s320/BangladeshUnderWater.PNG" width="239" /></a></div>
Reading James Hansen's book, <i>Storms of my grandchildren; the truth about the coming climate catastrophe and our last chance to save humanity</i>
(published by Bloomsbury, 2009) is quite an experience. Dr Hansen is no
scaremongering quack, but one of the world's most respected climate
scientists and former director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space
Studies in New York. His book predicts the end of Bangladesh through
global warming.<br />
The average educated citizen could perhaps be
forgiven for thinking that global warming is a relatively minor problem;
how can individuals take it seriously when the media and the world's
governments ignore it? As Dr. Hansen elaborates, that is because the
supposedly democratic systems of government now commonplace have simply
resulted in the best governments that money can buy. It turns out that
the oil, gas and coal industries have more than enough money to bend
practically any government to their will with promises of cheap energy,
industrial growth and jobs. This is particularly true in the US, where
George W. Bush's refusal to ratify the Kyoto protocol on reducing
greenhouse gases led to the collapse of international climate change
talks and endangered all of our futures. Dr. Hansen gives a personal
account of how the same Bush administration tried to silence him as well
as the rest of NASA on the issue of global warming, going so far as to
remove any responsibility to study and protect the Earth from NASA's
vision statement. The truth is that every day we continue to burn fossil
fuels, the likelihood of catastrophic climate change increases.<br />
Perhaps
many people have heard and shrugged off the findings of the
International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) which forecasts a likely
sea level rise of only a metre or two in the next century. However, Dr.
Hansen points out that the IPCC estimate is most likely drastically
underestimated, as geological records tell us that sea level rise is
likely to be much higher. As he mentions on page 13, “Global warming of 2
degrees Celsius or more would make Earth as warm as it had been in the
Pliocene, three million years ago. Pliocene warmth caused sea levels to
be about twenty five metres (eighty feet) higher than they are today”.
Even a 20 metre warming is enough to submerge all of Bangladesh except
North Bengal and Chittagong Hill Tracts <br />
It should be mentioned
that the focus of all international climate change negotiations is to
limit global warming to 2 degrees. This is because 2 degrees warming is
the threshold that will cause severe consequences for much of the world,
not just low-lying areas like Bangladesh. In effect, this makes 2
degrees of warming the global target; most countries see no benefit from
the expensive and politically inconvenient cutting of carbon emissions
necessary to keep global warming less than 2 degrees. This logic
virtually ensures that actual warming will be 2 degrees, since that is
by definition what all countries will find it rational to aim for in
terms of their carbon dioxide emissions reductions. In that case,
Bangladesh has effectively been doomed by the global community, which
shows no sign so far of even ensuring that global warming is bound to
the 2 degree target. Current levels of carbon emissions could easily
cause 3 or more degrees of global warming and even more catastrophic
effects; not that it would matter for Bangladesh. We'd already be
underwater at 2 degrees.<br />
In that case, what are the options for
Bangladesh's 150 million people? The wealthy and educated will always
find some new country to migrate to. The lower 95% of the population
will face a grim end, though it may take a century or so for the full
effects of global warming to kick in. If climate change really becomes
as bad as Hansen says it will, then the only real way for Bangladesh to
adapt is to drastically reduce the population in a controlled way for
the next century. This could be done through a draconian one-child
policy, similar to China, but that would be extremely unpopular and
politically difficult. However, global warming may leave us with no
agreeable alternatives. <br />
It is astonishing that major scientists
like Hansen can seriously discuss scenarios such as the above in books,
and our policy-makers seem to care little about climate change other
than getting their fair share of climate change adaptation funds which
various donors are handing out. The idea of adaptation to 80% of
Bangladesh going underwater is simply absurd. If the rest of the world
had any real concern for Bangladesh's survival, it would admit that
adaptation to such drastic change is impossible, and try to limit global
warming to a level that would ensure our existence. This would need to
be considerably less than 1 degree Celsius, requiring almost completely
stopping burning of most fossil fuels very quickly. This is the only
happy solution; all fossil fuels, especially coal, need to be phased out
within the next decade. They need to be replaced by renewable energy
such as as solar or wind, as well as nuclear power; the latter is the
only immediately available non-fossil fuel based electrical source for
large industrial power requirements. Dr. Hansen's book is uniquely
personal, narrating how the birth of his grandchildren forced him to
accept responsibility for trying to safeguard their future by becoming a
anti-global-warming activist. Bangladeshis similarly need to start
worrying more about the world in which their future children and
grandchildren may be born into.</div>Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-56368747906902162022011-10-16T09:32:00.000-07:002012-12-22T09:44:03.908-08:00The Revenge of Gaia: how climate change will punish us<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmH7qQsBmh0Q9pJ3h8z5PqH5_qji6W-_XBhvR56y-fsjDPmzzLyFngasV_KGdxM2KYspMhAC_Z8JjgXe_Tc72tf04yXtJh9gJ7xlIUKZ4F2OZC_PXEIwuvzxOjrmVwG7LoA50Yb8fkEX0/s1600/Earth+5+degrees+warmer.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmH7qQsBmh0Q9pJ3h8z5PqH5_qji6W-_XBhvR56y-fsjDPmzzLyFngasV_KGdxM2KYspMhAC_Z8JjgXe_Tc72tf04yXtJh9gJ7xlIUKZ4F2OZC_PXEIwuvzxOjrmVwG7LoA50Yb8fkEX0/s320/Earth+5+degrees+warmer.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span id="internal-source-marker_0.8260453889734503" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Imagine
Asia without south Asia, the Middle East, Turkey, China or south-east
Asia. Imagine Europe without the southern Mediterranean countries of
Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Now imagine North America without
most of the USA except the northern states. On top of all this, think of
the world without any South America, Australia and Africa. Essentially
all that would be left is Canada, Alaska, the UK, Scandinavia, Russia,
the Korean peninsula, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Japan. This is the
mental exercise that the eminent British climatologist James Lovelock
forces the reader to undertake when reading his book on catastrophic
climate change, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Revenge of Gaia: why the Earth is fighting back, and how we can still save humanity</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
James Lovelock is the creator of Daisyworld, an early computerised
climate model, and one of the world’s leading climate scientists. There
is a world map on page 81 of his book which illustrates the above
scenario. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Impossible?
Not according to the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) and
the majority of the world’s climatologists. The above describes a world
which has warmed by about 5 degrees Celsius on average compared to
today. The land masses will still largely be there, except for some
unfortunately low-lying countries like Bangladesh and the Maldives,
which would vanish. However, at 5 degrees warming, countries outside the
most northern latitudes would simply be too hot and dry to sustain any
agriculture or food production.The IPCC has predicted that at current
rates of carbon dioxide emissions, global warming will be somewhere
between 1 and 6 degrees Celsius. So 5 degrees is not science fiction. It
could easily happen, unless the governments of the world start taking
climate change seriously.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How
close are we to 5 degrees warming and the end of perhaps 90% of the
earth’s population? Many current climate models say that the amount of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today virtually guarantees at least 2
degrees of warming. All bets are now off, as 2 degrees is the only
“safe” temperature rise. More than 2 degrees can start a runaway global
warming effects; at any point beyond 2 degrees, huge quantities of
methane gas could be released from under the Arctic snow and the ocean
floor, places it was previously trapped by ice and cold. Since methane
has a greenhouse effect many times greater than carbon dioxide, this
would rapidly lead to 5 or even 6 degrees warming and the end of the
world as we know it. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What
can we do to prevent this? The rapidity with which the world needs to
reduce carbon emissions is frightening. All fossil fuels essentially
have to be abandoned, as they all create carbon dioxide emissions.
Lovelock makes the point that all renewable energy such as solar, wind
and tidal power is now still at an immature stage, and not capable of
providing the bulk of the world’s power needs. The only proven
technology which can immediately be implemented to replace most of the
world’s coal and petroleum based power is nuclear. Unfortunately,
nuclear power has become unpopular because of disasters at Chernobyl and
now Fukushima; </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">a
pity, since both these reactors were built with decades-old technology.
Modern reactor designs provide for far greater safety. Even without
newer safety measures, nuclear is still safer than coal; the UN estimate
of 15,000 deaths due to the once-in-decades accident at Chernobyl
roughly equates to Chinese coal mining deaths every 4 years.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Essentially
the world needs to stop thinking about economic growth, and start
thinking about survival. The money that governments spend subsidizing
industry and building coal and diesel power plants would be better spent
on new nuclear plants. Climate change is the elephant in the room that
our leaders pretend doesn’t exist because they can’t think of any quick
fix; a most unwise course of action, since if the elephant actually
moves, it will squash all of us under its feet. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(This was published in the <a href="http://newagebd.com/newspaper1/archive_details.php?date=2011-09-26&nid=34657" target="_blank">New Age newspaper</a> in Bangladesh on 26th September, 2011)</span></div>
Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2791360296908945140.post-6524094568896264962011-10-16T09:28:00.000-07:002011-10-16T09:28:50.047-07:00Welcome to the Goodbye Bangladesh blog<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This blog will contain my posts about climate change and global warming. <div>My home country of Bangladesh looks set to disappear beneath the waves due to rising sea levels; hence the title.</div></div>Zeeshan Hasanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08505209344376387449noreply@blogger.com0