Policy Statement on Climate Change
The following is an excerpt. To read the full article, download the PDF. This article was originally published May 4, 2011.
The Global PROUT Policy Parliament (GPPP) is a volunteer group of Proutists from around the world who evolve proposed policy statements on topical issues. The material may be used freely provided GPPP is quoted and linked at http://proutglobe.org/resources/policy-statements/. All policy statements are subject to ongoing evaluation and may be altered in the future.
Introduction
Global climate change is no longer a conjecture; its effects are now evident. Nine of the ten years of hottest global average annual temperatures on record have occurred since 2000. And the three years of greatest Arctic ice melt happened in the past four years. Along with rising temperatures and diminished sea ice have come increasing impacts on societies and ecosystems. The pain of climate change is now being felt, and humanity is compelled to make an immediate and effective response to reverse its causes. For this to occur, proper policies and approaches must first be conceived and put in place.
In response to this need, the Global Prout Policy Parliament (GPPP) offers the following policy statement on mitigating global climate change.
Findings
Global climate change is a complex phenomenon. Any effective formulation to global climate change policy must be based on a clear and comprehensive understanding of the concerned physical science and of the social responses that have arisen. The following findings provide understandings that inform the GPPP's global climate change policy statement.
Physical Science Findings
1] While change in the Earth's climate is known to occur naturally — driven both by cyclical earth changes (eg, ocean temperature oscillations, cyclical variation in solar radiation, ice age cycles) and by powerful anomalous events (e.g., major volcanic eruptions and large meteorite impacts) — there is a preponderance of scientific opinion that the dramatic increase in human produced greenhouse gases is the major cause of the present global climate change.
2] Global climate change should not be characterized simply as "global warming". The climate changes that are occurring are not limited to rising temperatures — as significant as this is — but also includes such phenomena as increasingly severe wind storms, more powerful winter storms, and drastically changing rain patterns.
3] Climate scientists have developed predictive models that give a range in the rate and extent of global warming as the result of human augmented climate change. The actual rate of global warming has been at the high end of the temperature increases predicted by climate change models. That is, global warming is occurring at an unexpectedly fast rate.
4] Scientists have identified several positive climate feedback processes that have the potential — if not the demonstrated capacity — to accelerate global climate change. Significant among these positive feedback processes are: (1) the melting of the Arctic sea-ice (which increases the ability of Arctic waters to absorb solar heat), (2) the melting of the permafrost in the northern tundra (which releases the highly potent greenhouse gas, methane), (3) the increasing frequency and intensity of forest fires (which releases stored-up carbon in plants into the atmosphere), and (4) ocean acidification due to increased absorption of carbon dioxide (which may indirectly decrease ocean cloud cover, thereby increasing the earth's albedo and allowing more solar heat to penetrate the atmosphere).
5] Inherent in the occurrence of climate destabilization are possibilities for unanticipated climate phenomena or unexpected environmental impacts. As with change in all natural systems, tipping points can be reached in which there is not just incremental global warming but a sudden shift to dramatically different climatic patternings. Of particular concern is the possibility that a sufficiently increased flow of glacier and sea ice melt in Greenland and the Arctic Ocean could "shut off" the North Atlantic Current — responsible for Europe's comparatively warm climate — bringing a harsh Siberian like climate to much of Northern Europe.
6] Scientific research has generated a large body of findings as to the ecological changes that have resulted from human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to increased average land temperatures, these include at least the following: rising ocean surface temperatures, more extensive forest and grass fire damage, earlier snow pack melting, receding glaciers, greater temperature extremes, changing rainfall patterns, diminished sea ice, changing ocean salinity levels, a heightening of the lower atmosphere, and increasing terrestrial and marine desertification.
7] Public discussion of climate change has focused upon increasing levels of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, as the driving force of global climate change. However, methane, nitrous oxide, and several fluorinated gases, though much less plentiful than carbon dioxide, are even more potent greenhouse gases on a molecule per molecule basis. Methane, a gas produced in significant part by cattle, has a greenhouse gas potency many times that of carbon dioxide. And nitrous oxide, created (among other sources) from the breakdown of nitrate fertilizers, over time has 298 times more impact per unit weight than carbon dioxide.
8] Water vapor is, by quantity, the most abundant greenhouse gas. While human activity has almost no direct effect on atmospheric water vapor, the general effect of global warming is to increase water vapor concentration, as warm air holds more water vapor. The long-range effects of increased atmospheric moisture are at present not well modeled. There is evidence that this may result in more moisture carried to polar regions where it may cause additional Arctic heating when the moisture condenses, releasing latent heat.
9] While climate change is occurring globally, its immediate effects are greater in some regions than in others. Temperature rise is far greater in the Arctic and West Antarctica peninsula than elsewhere on the planet. Drought will be felt most keenly in arid and semi-arid areas. Severe windstorms will occur with greatest intensity in regions where hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones occur. And sea level rise (caused by ice melt) will have greatest impact on low-lying coastal areas.
10] In relation to impacts on human life, the impacts of climate change, while pervasive, will be mixed. A few high-latitude regions may benefit from improved climatic conditions for agriculture. But, in the main, global climate change will bring extensive human misery. Human settlements in low-lying areas will be inundated by rising sea levels; some island nations will disappear entirely. The Indian subcontinent may experience particularly great mass suffering, due to the loss of a steady flow of water in its Himalayan Mountains glacier-melt fed rivers.
11] In relation to the impacts of climate change on non-human life, there will also be much variation. Many animal species may be able to follow the migration of warming climate to higher latitudes or higher elevations. Other species, such as the polar bear and some alpine animals, may see their natural habitat disappear, thereby bringing their extinction. Aquatic life in the earth's oceans may be particularly vulnerable, as one effect of global climate change is ocean acidification, which may decimate many species at the bottom of ocean food chains.
12] The earth's natural processes that absorb atmospheric carbon — and thereby maintain a balanced concentration range — are inadequate to rapidly reestablish a level of CO2 necessary for a stable climate. The amount of excess carbon already in the atmosphere will take centuries to absorb. Because of this, efforts to moderate climate change that rely solely on reducing atmospheric carbon may take millennia before returning the Earth's carbon cycle to a balanced state.
13] A number of technological fixes to global climate change — called geoengineering — have been proposed. The most compellingly advocated approach involves dispersing sulfur dioxide in the Arctic stratosphere (thereby imitating the global cooling effect of a major volcanic eruption) and increasing the density of cloud cover (as clouds reflect much sunlight into space, so that less sunlight can reach and heat the earth). Geoengineering proposals face skepticism from climate change activists convinced that the only viable approach to climate change involves reducing fossil fuel use and downsizing consumption. They also raise genuine cause for caution due to uncertainties over the adverse weather events, crop failures, etc. that they may cause and the challenge of negotiating international agreements to assign liability should the geoengineering technologies go array — as well as due to our present limited knowledge of planetary processes.
Social Response Findings
1] The scientific method deals in probabilities, not certainties. This is especially true for making climate change predictions, given the complexity of factors that interact to create climate. While scientific findings on climate change necessarily include uncertainty, the process of deciding public policy for dealing with climate change seeks a certainty that science cannot provide. In this situation, many concerned scientists urge application of the precautionary principle, which asserts that policy-makers have a social responsibility to prevent public exposure to harm when scientific investigation has found a plausible risk — even though there can be no assertion of certain risk.
2] There is a vocal, dissenting viewpoint within the scientific community that global climate change either is not occurring or is not human-caused. This is a distinctly minority viewpoint, and most scientists espousing it are not climate scientists. It is significant that many scientists who are climate change deniers are associated with (if not funded by) the energy lobby, industry associations, and free market think tanks. While there are legitimate climate change skeptics, there is reason to believe that most of the dissent being put forth is an organized attempt to undermine prevailing scientific opinion on climate change in order to protect financial interests.
3] Strategies for controlling climate change — both those involving greenhouse gas reduction and those attempting geo-engineering fixes — are severely hampered by the lack of a strong global governmental authority. There are strong voices that speak for the nations and for the corporations, but who speaks for the Earth? With respect to global climate change, national sovereignty is not a principle to laud, but an impediment to global survival. If a pathway is not found to cede sufficient authority to a global body or global commission that can act in the best interests of humanity and the biosphere, national and corporate interests will continue to paralyze effective global action to reduce greenhouse gases.
4] The degree of concern over the looming threat of global climate change varies significantly from nation to nation, as well as among demographic groupings within nations. In general, those nations and peoples who face more immediate impacts from climate change, such as low elevation island nations and arctic peoples, invest more energy in immediate and concerted action. And, in general, those nations and peoples more engaged in fossil fuel production, or more wedded to fossil fuel energy sources, or more invested in high rates of economic growth, are less motivated to adopt meaningful change. But there are fracture points where such alignments may break down. India, for example, seeks rapid development (making use of fossil fuels), yet the increasing impacts of climate change on its agricultural productivity may reorient national policy toward one of climate change activism.
5] Certain proposed policy approaches to global warming mitigation have the potential effect of protecting the privileged economic status of developed nations. Or, their financial impact may fall disproportionately upon the poor. Cap-and-trade carbon emissions trading, in particular, could have the effect of a huge, regressive tax. To the extent that climate change policy maintains global inequalities, there will likely be diminished international cooperation. The lack of adequate support by affluent nations for financing technological changes in less developed nations will also diminish cooperation, as well as efficacy, in tackling global climate change.
6] The global action required to assure the protection of humanity and ecosystems from the potential effects of climate change must be based on the assumption of greater rather than lesser impacts. Given the strength of scientific opinion that abrupt and destructive impacts of climate change could occur in the near future, it would be irresponsible of global leaders to gamble on a slow rate of climate change onset, or a minimal extent of global warming, or there being adequate time in the future to initiate more committed actions. Humanity's future must be fully protected by assuming and preparing for a worst-case scenario.
7] To date, constructive action to abate global climate change has occurred mostly in the arenas of public education and local initiatives. Constructive responses at the international level — critically important as they are — have not been commensurate with the severity of the problem at hand; the 2009 Copenhagen climate change conference outcome is generally regarded as especially discouraging. This has been true for most national responses as well. The profound inadequacy of action at national and international levels is creating popular frustration and giving rise to vocal, grass roots advocacy movements.
8] In some nations, climate change policy has become highly politicized. Much of the politicization is driven by campaigns of disinformation, funded by powerful vested interests. It is driven as well by appeals to the fears of people who believe that their affluent lifestyle is threatened by climate change policy initiatives aimed at downsizing consumption, reducing energy use, or radically altering living patterns.
9] While many sincere scientists and policy-makers are engaged in developing either geo-engineering fixes to climate change or methods to capture and sequester carbon emissions from coal-burning power plants ("clean coal" technologies), there is legitimate reason for concern that the emphasis given to such strategies provides an excuse to avoid dealing with the problematic aspects of fossil fuel energy. Rather than lavishing vast sums on researching clean coal and geo-engineering fixes, far more benefit would come from promoting greater efficiencies in energy use and from rapid adoption of clean, renewable energy sources.
10] The development and deployment of renewable energy technologies, and the development and popularization of alternatively fueled vehicles, are regarded as having special importance for reducing atmospheric carbon created by the combustion of fossil fuels. Such technologies create little or no atmospheric carbon in their operation; however, an evaluation of their efficacy as a sustainable technology cannot be made without consideration of the total embodied energy that goes into the full life cycle of their development, manufacture, operation and disposal. In the case of biofuels, any significant production would require use of vast areas of agricultural land, which could pit fuel production against food production.
11] A preponderance of funding for greenhouse gas reducing innovations goes toward advances in technologies used in the developed world. Comparatively little consideration is given to opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions originating in less developed regions. Yet, such innovations as efficient wood-fueled cooking stoves and simple to construct solar ovens would significantly reduce both carbon-laden smoke and the deforestation for wood-fuel that reduces forest carbon sequestration — and do so to greater effect per unit investment than can be achieved with exotic high-tech innovations in the developed world.
12] Although global climate change will bring great suffering and disruption, the majority of humanity does not feel a strong investment in, or support for, taking aggressive preventive action. Public opinion among the majority remains muted. This occurs for several reasons: other issues (particularly economic hardship) are more pressing, many are influenced by a well-organized campaign of climate change denial, those in underdeveloped economies fear that carbon emission controls will mean the loss of opportunity for material progress, and many in developed countries feel threatened that their way of life based on unrestrained energy consumption and material affluence may be curtailed.
13] The global climate change crisis cannot be viewed as an independent problem, as it is interrelated with several other major crises with which it interacts in complex and mutually exacerbating ways. Consider the sequence of economic events which began in early 2008: Limitation of oil supply — due in major part to oil depletion — caused gas prices to rise, which fueled a cost of living surge; this then became a contributing proximate cause of the American mortgage crisis. Mass foreclosures, in turn, precipitated the credit meltdown, which put the brakes on the global economy. Reduced economic activity lowered demand for oil. As gas prices then dropped, political pressure diminished for fast-tracking development of alternative energy sources intended to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate climate change.
14] Global climate change is a problem of unprecedented proportions, a problem that will affect most life on the planet. Humanity should use the opportunity presented by this crisis to reflect on how it is that human life has come to have such a destabilizing effect on the earth's natural functioning. Based on this reflection, changes should be made in the values, developmental paradigms, lifestyles, and technologies responsible — even if this requires making systemic change.
A Principle-Guided Policy Framework
The global climate change policies put forward for consideration by the GPPP are guided by several principles:
1] Climate change policies and actions should be solution-oriented; they should emphasize viable, positive alternatives and not dwell on fears or political posturing. Humanity should appreciate that implementing these solutions will bring opportunities for a better life.
2] Proposed solutions should emphasize dealing with the root causes of climate change and make use of the opportunity to build a proper balance between human activity and the ecological integrity of the natural world.
3] Recognizing that global climate change is interconnected with other important global problems, climate change solutions should be preferred which simultaneously help resolve other major crises facing humanity.
4] Approaches to mitigating climate change should be taken that foster global equity and that provide positive opportunities for underdeveloped regions and peoples to gain increased cultural and economic self-determination.
5] The value of social or technical approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions must be holistically evaluated; with respect to energy conserving technologies, there must be whole cost accounting of the embodied energy in a product's entire life cycle.
6] A balanced policy framework should be formulated that emphasizes both local empowerment and global cooperation; local communities and cultures have scope to express grass-roots wisdom and initiatives, and global councils must establish common expectations.
7] The politics of special interests and polarizing rhetoric should be brought under control so that humanity can face the threats of global climate change with maximum unity. This requires a strengthening of morality and of citizen participation in the political arena.
The above is an excerpt. To read the full article, download the PDF.