How many years left to save the planet?
Five, according to the World Wildlife Fund in 2007 (i.e. by 2012) http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Sky-News-Archive/Article/20080641265731?f=rss
Seven according to Bill McGuire in 2008 (i.e. by 2015) http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/20/politics.roundupreviews
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and a few other examples of estimates
Doug replied:
So clearly there must be nothing to worry about!
............
And of course, Doug's right: James quoted varying estimates (which, to be a bit more precise, were really about the time remaining to prevent runaway climate change, not vaguely "save the planet") to list examples of supposed confusion in climate science.
But there's no confusion. Human produced carbon is warming the planet. This warming, if it reaches worst-case scenario levels, will create a fundamentally different world than the one civilization developed on. We can look to our sister Venus for an extreme example of just how terrible things can turn out when energy is inputted but has insufficient outputs due to green housing.
So yes, James was having some fun. However, he unintentionally highlighted a deep problem.
Climate change is one of the most complex challenges our species faces. So complex in fact, it's full meaning defies description. Scientists and ecological activists increasingly use catastophist language to help people understand the urgency of what we're up against. Over the years, once calm advocates for action such as NASA's James Hansen have moved from quiet encouragement to grim and loud declarations of doom. That's understandable; time is indeed short. And as our knowledge grows, it appears to be shorter all the time.
But is this talk about drowned cities, burning forests, increased disease virulence, an even greater insect population (of all the nastiest sorts) and the rest of it helpful?
Sometimes, people will say that after they had a kid their opinions on climate change shifted. That's laudable, but people who are still on the fence or flat out denialists have kids too. They don't love them less because they don't see the urgency.
Why are we still debating this instead of getting to work de-carbonizing our infrastructure?
Part of the answer, I think, the part that might be an issue even without the capitalist obstacle, is that the world looks fine.
You look up at the sky and it's blue on clear days and grey on rainy days. Although we've noticed changes in the length and intensity of seasons since we were children (if say, you're 25 or older) climate events still seem to occur within a natural range. Our naturalness, that is, our embeddedness in the natural world (which some mistakenly suppose we abandoned for PS3s or whatever) defeats technical warnings of future calamity.
Another part of the answer is that various interest groups -- led by the energy sector -- spent millions over a long period of time to make sure a pliant media enforced "balance" in climate science stories. If, for example, James Hansen appeared on the Today Show to wave a red flag, some Exxon supplied flack would counter him with talk about solar variations or 'lack of evidence' or similarly pernicious nonsense.
Although this is much less of a problem now than in the past, the effects still linger.
Yet another answer can be found in what BLDGBLOG's Geoff Manaugh called "liberation hydrology" --
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http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/liberation-hydrology-miami-2107-ad.html
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"...the main problem I have with using maps and scenarios [of disaster] to get people worked up about climate change is that these warnings often seem to have the opposite effect.
In other words, these things are actually so evocative, and so imaginatively stimulating, that it's hard not to get at least a tiny thrill at the idea that you might get to see these things happen.
Nothing against Miami, but all of south Florida under several meters of water? With Cape Canaveral lost under a subtropical lagoon and St. Petersburg an archipelago? The problem, it seems, is that climate change scientists, in describing these unearthly terrestrial reorganizations, are science fictionalizing, so to speak, our everyday existence. The implicit, if inadvertant, message here seems to be: hey, south Floridians, and all you who are bored of the world today, sick of all the parking lots and the 7-11s, tired of watching Cops, tired of applying to colleges you don't really want to go to, tired of credit card debt and bad marriages, don't worry.
This will all be underwater soon.
It could be called liberation hydrology.
Climate change becomes an adventure – the becoming-science-fiction of everyday life."
[...]
Full at the link above.
Well, those are some of the problems. But what is to be done?
We all know the answer: addressing climate change must become a central part of coordinated international effort. Presidents, PMs, Chairwomen and men and all the rest of them should create ministries, cabinet level positions and so on and so forth leading globally inter-linked agencies for planet wide de-carbonization. The UN should receive hundreds of billions to distribute new technologies around the globe. Geo-engineering should be seriously investigated. Old power grids should be replaced with new. Homes and businesses retrofitted with 'intelligence' to reduce our energy use while preserving the benefits of modern systems. Coal fired plants must be replaced with renewables or maybe even new generation nuclear. (Sorry ultra greens, nukes are currently troublesome because they're managed by capitalists -- the tech isn't inherently evil. Get over it.)
What stands in the way? Not just 'capitalism', generally defined, but neoliberalism. The capitalism of the 1950s could, after wasting time delaying the inevitable to get the best terms, have turned on a dime to respond to climate change. The grey flannel suit era was quite adept at large scale, coordinated, cross industry effort.
But the neoliberal era of 'personal responsibility' and savage class war (hidden beneath a Watchman-esque smiley face) has dismantled much of the integrated social and technological networks and capabilities (and the necessary *faith* in both community and big, applied science) we desperately need to tackle this thing.
The mania in eco-activist circles for small scale, individualist responses such as growing your own tomatoes (not simply to have a garden, but as a supposedly political act) are the consequence of the neoliberal era. Responding to climate change becomes yet another category of moral imperative for hearth and home instead of the unprecedentedly massive effort it absolutely must be if we're to succeed.
.d.