The consequences are upon us

The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.

That was Churchill in a speech to the House of Commons in 12 November 1936 as the clouds darkened over Europe, a speech Al Gore quotes as he illustrates with example after example that climate change is not an abstract or theoretical notion but an experiential reality. With superb graphics and spectacular photography the film pounds away with fact piled upon fact. Only the most recalcitrant could leave the theatre without a realisation that the planet is on the move, that dramatic changes are in train, changes that are not sympathetic to many existing life forms, including us.

This is accepted by many climate change denialists. They are not arguing against the facts on display but rather the cause of and responsibility for the changes. Any geologist, for example, knows that over 500 million years ago in the Proterozoic era the temperature fluctuated between 12 and 26 degrees Celsius (compare this with the pre-1900 average of 13.7C.) During the ‘Snowball earth’ episodes there were glaciers at sea level near the equator. Every geologist knows that we are in a long-term cooling trend going back at least 65 million years, albeit with markedly accentuated shorter term fluctuations. So inconvenient though it may be for homo sapiens, to whom the earth does not owe a living, for some geologists these things just happen from time to time in geological time.

At issue here is whether climate change is due to "anthropogenically generated global warming" (AGW for short) and more particularly whether we are guilty of "dangerous anthropogenic interference". In other words can we dig up all those billions and billions of tons of carbon sequestered deep in the earth over tens of millions of years, join each atom of carbon with two of oxygen so that each ton of carbon becomes 3.67 tons of CO2, then dump it all in the atmosphere within the geological blink of an eye and expect life to go on as before?

Also at issue is whether our only response can be adaptation to the climate change occurring naturally or whether there is anything meaningful we can do about mitigation.

As a non-scientist, my response is that on the face of it the notion is heroic, preposterous and absurd. We have been in a very sweet spot climate-wise for the last 8,000 years and, released by the invention of agriculture, we have colonised every corner of the earth. The earth has been good to us. But in the 100 years from when Gore was born in 1948, as he says the life-time of a baby boomer, the human population will explode from 2 billion to 9 billion. We have multiplied to plague proportions to place extreme pressure on the whole earth system quite apart from any changes flowing from global warming and climate change.

Gore’s answer is also an emphatic “no”. We are guilty as charged and there will be consequences. Old habits plus new technology lead to dramatically changed consequences, he tells us in the film. We have put our civilisation in collision with the earth. The decent thing, the moral thing to do for the sake of our children and grandchildren and disruption to other life, is to desist forthwith and to limit the damage as much as possible. This is possible, he tells us, all that is lacking is the political will. It is our (meaning America’s) time “to rise again and secure our future.”

The relationship between carbon emissions and temperature change is crucial to this question of human responsibility and whether there is any point in trying to reduce carbon emissions in the future. Gore shows us the graphs of temperature and carbon dioxide from 650,000 years of ice core measurements. That there is a relationship is a no-brainer. He shows us how the CO2 has fluctuated over the last seven ice ages between 180ppm and 280-300ppm on the large screen that occupies the whole wall behind him. He then mounts a “contraption” a hydraulic lift to take him up the wall to point upwards to where it is now at 380ppm. Given the axes the graph is essentially vertical. Then the graph soars even further above his head to where it is projected to go in the future on a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario.

It is of course conceivable that the relationship is mere correlation and that both are caused by other factors. We non-scientists have to decide which expertise we are going to trust. This is what two of the climate scientists at RealClimate say in their post on Al Gore’s film: ”But this is a case where there is a great deal of causality, and not just correlation. The Vostok T and CO2 data alone cannot be used to conclude that CO2 affects temperature, but together with other things we know about climate it is a real showstopper. You simply cannot get anything like this without a very significant effect of Co2 on climate.” - Ray Pierre

”Yes, I agree with Ray on this. The simple CO2 -T correlation = causation argument is overly simplistic, but it is not wrong. What is clearly going on in the glaciological record of climate change on long timescales is a positive feedback system -- temperature goes up, leading to more CO2, leading to increased T…” - Eric

Eric is Eric Steig, author of the post. This is an extract from his bio: ”Eric Steig is an isotope geochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle. His primary research interest is use of ice core records to document climate variability in the past. He also works on the geological history of ice sheets, on ice sheet dynamics, on statistical climate analysis, and on atmospheric chemistry.”

He’s published over 60 peer-reviewed articles in international journals and is an editor of Quaternary Research. This is what he said of the film in general: ”How well does the film handle the science? Admirably, I thought. It is remarkably up to date, with reference to some of the very latest research.”

Consistently Gore scores at 9 out of 10 or better, or at high distinction level if you prefer, from the people who really count, given the strictures of the context and format. I’d say his science is mainstream, but in the front pelaton in cycling terms.

James Hansen certainly gives him a big tick in his New York Review of Books article ’The Threat to the Planet’. He says: “Gore has put together a coherent account of a complex topic that Americans desperately need to understand. The story is scientifically accurate and yet should be understandable to the public, a public that is less and less drawn to science.”

Hansen is Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University's Earth Institute. (He appeared in the film as the public servant who had had his words changed, as it turned out under Gore’s questioning in Senate briefings in 1989.) Hansen has been to the fore in warning that the implications of global warming for sea level are likely to much more severe than had been estimated by the IPCC in 2001. On the latest thinking the 20 feet or so sea level rise graphically illustrated in the film is not sensationalist or exaggerated. Hansen sees the business-as-usual scenario producing 3 degrees Celsius of warming this century. The “equilibrium sea level responses” for such warming implies, he says, 25 metres, plus or minus 10 metres, (or 80 feet.) This would not happen instantly, perhaps taking a few centuries for the effects to work their way through, but implies potential for a system out of our control.

Hansen reminds us that coming out of the last ice age the sea rose 5 metres per century for four centuries at one stage. With Greenland worth over 6 metres and West Antarctica worth about 5 metres the 20 foot scenario in the film does not look extraordinary. Hansen regards warming greater than one degree Celsius and a sea-level rise of two metres as “dangerous”. The one degree is in large part already in the system from climate forcings that have already happened. On sea levels, three quarters of a metre from each of Greenland and West Antarctica, plus half a metre from other glaciers and thermal expansion would do the trick. The ‘tipping point’ is now, he says. We are there right now.

Gore told us that the serious accident to his 6 year-old son led him to re-evaluate his life and his “way of being in the world”. His personal narrative was injected into the film at the initiative of the director who pointed out that there is a dramatic tension in a personal live presentation and this human connection had to be created on the screen. It works. Gore becomes human and draws us into his quest.

Gore has two objectives, I think. Firstly, he wants to create more than just a constituency for appropriate political action. He is trying to create a grass-roots demand that politicians ignore at their peril. Each slide presentation and the film itself are just steps along the way. Gore is now setting up a new politically bipartisan body The Alliance for Climate Protection to persuade the American people to demand that the major parties compete to offer solutions to climate change. Gore himself will take a back seat concentrating mainly on fund-raising.

Secondly, he wants us also to re-evaluate our way of being in the world so that we are more respectful of the planet itself and recognise the fragility of the earth system as we have come to know it.

This is deeply conservative. This conservatism requires, however, radical personal and large-scale political action with every hope of success if we act soon, according to Gore.

The conservatism is represented by the achingly beautiful but obviously fragile shot of a running river presumably close to Gore’s home that he wants to preserve.

So we need to mitigate climate change as well as adapt to it. He makes the telling point that the changes are too fast by far for the biosphere to adapt, with the extinction rate 1,000 times the background rate. These are among the consequences of our interference.

I wish him every success. He makes his case superbly for all but those with closed minds. Often we hear how the world would have been different if Gore had become president in 2000. Well, yes it would have, but without the patient leg-work Gore is now doing it is unlikely that he would have had any greater luck with a recalcitrant Congress than he did when he approached them to sign up to Kyoto in 1997. At that time only one senator was with him.

Everyone should see this movie including every school child from about Year Three. It might just help us to re-evaluate our way of being in the world with a focus that spans more than a mere generation or two. The consequences of not doing so could be severe.