Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning  

Alex at WorldChanging has a fairly detailed review of George Monbiot's Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning up at WorldChanging.

These are hard days, but thrilling. They're difficult, and scary, because for the first time we're coming to understand that things are worse than we thought, and the time we have to act on climate change should perhaps be measured in years, not decades. They're exciting because we're beginning to see paths forward that could lead us out of this catastrophe and into a better future: they're still faint, and we're far from home and night is not far off, but they do exist.

George Monbiot's new book, Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning,is, at its core, a personal quest to find such a path. Indeed, Monbiot fairly declares that he was prompted to write the book in part because of a member of the audience at one of his talks in which he had declared the need for an 80% reduction in carbon asked him "When you get your 80% cut, what will this country look like?"

In actuality, he discovers, many scientists are now arguing that the developed world probably needs to cut its climate-changing emissions by 90% by 2030, if we are to avoid runaway catastrophic climate change. "This is the task whose feasibility Heat attempts to demonstrate."

It's a good book, and worth reading. Monbiot has some extremely annoying tics -- a tendency to call ideas which are already well-debated his, a certain parochial view of the nature of modern life which probably describes well life in the UK but completely misses the mark for various reasons in other places, a certain scolding leftier-than-thou vibe, a disdain for technology -- but he also does a fine job of pulling together some good thinking about how we might go about radical carbon-cutting.

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All in all, Monbiot's made a real contribution here. Heat isn't the book to get your skeptical uncle, but it does have some good ideas and clear thinking in it.

Perhaps more importantly, it is part of a new generation of climate change books, ones which are more interested with debating what we should do about global warming than whether or not it exists, and that shift is a cool breeze on a hot day

This weekend's Australian Financial Review also had a review of the book - originally rpinted in the New Statesman. For someone who dislike's "woolly thinking" I found the reviewer's conclusion spectacularly woolly - "just deal with it" (ie. don't both reducing carbon dioxide emissions) is ignoring that if we keep making the problem worse, trying to live with it becomes ever more difficult - until eventually the planet finds itself (minus us and other large animals) back at the end of the Permian.

In Heat, the environmental activist and thinker George Monbiot tries to bring the debate about climate change closer to known facts and reasonable conjecture, avoiding the woolly thinking that is so prevalent on the subject. The result is a book that anyone who thinks they know what should be done about global warming must read. One virtue of Monbiot's consistently heretical inquiry is that he recognises the magnitude of the danger: if present trends continue, the result could be a climate shift analogous to that which wiped out much of the world's biodiversity when the Permian era came to an abrupt end roughly 250 million years ago. Even if the change turns out to be much less dramatic, we can forget about carrying on with business as usual.

Monbiot clears the mind of a great deal of cant. As he shows, many fashionable environmental nostrums are either pointless or harmful in their effects. Micro wind-turbines are not worth the time and money spent on them: Britain needs a larger national grid, not a smaller one. Biofuels are a particularly dangerous panacea. To reduce our dependence on fossil fuels significantly, we would need to plant them on a vast scale, further reducing the world's shrinking inheritance of land and water. A large part of the present crisis is a result of the agricultural destruction of wilderness, which plays a vital role in maintaining global climate. Between 1985 and 200o, production of palm oil - currently the cheapest source of biofuel - accounted for nearly 90 per cent of deforestation in Malaysia. A large-scale shift to biofuels - as advocated by George W Bush, for example - could have a comparable effect worldwide, increasing the harm done by farming while diminishing food production. The result would damage human welfare and the biosphere as a whole. As Monbiot notes: "Biofuel production is a formula not only for humanitarian disaster but also for environmental catastrophe."

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Here and throughout the book, Monbiot is torn between the angry passion of the activist and the stoic lucidity of the analyst. Like nearly all environmentalists, he believes we would lose nothing by moving towards a more sustainable way of life. But is this actually the case? If there is a 30 per cent chance that the ground on which we are standing is going to give way whatever we do, what is the point in focusing all our energies on trying to make our position more sustainable? Growing numbers of scientists believe the probability of highly disruptive climate change occurring during the present century may be a good deal higher than 30 per cent. If this is so, will we not be better employed preparing to cope with the disruption than by pretending that it can still be stopped?

There are some useful things that can be done. In Britain, we can increase flood defences against rising sea levels, secure our electricity supplies by commissioning replacements for existing nuclear power stations, develop new technologies for cleaner coal and create wildlife corridors to help other species adapt. But first we have to accept that we cannot control the process of climate change we have set in motion. Unfortunately this requires an insight into the limits of human power that is beyond most environmentalists. Like the rest of humankind, they cannot bear very much reality.

Jonathan at Past Peak also has some thoughts on a recent column by Monbiot - along with some reposts on exponential growth.

Someone I always make a point of reading is Britain's George Monbiot. Here are excerpts from a recent piece of his on getting real about global warming:

Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaust denial. But I'm not celebrating yet. The danger is not that we will stop talking about climate change, or recognising that it presents an existential threat to humankind. The danger is that we will talk ourselves to Kingdom Come.

If the biosphere is wrecked, it will not be done by those who couldn't give a damn about it, as they now belong to a diminishing minority. It will be destroyed by nice, well-meaning, cosmopolitan people who accept the case for cutting emissions, but who won't change by one iota the way they live. [...]

While environmentalism has always been characterised as a middle-class concern, and while this has often been unfair, there is now an undeniable nexus of class politics and morally-superior consumerism...[C]arbon emissions are closely correlated to income: the richer you are, the more likely you are to be wrecking the planet, however much stripped wood and hand-thrown crockery there is in your kitchen.

It doesn't help that politicians, businesses and even climate change campaigners seek to shield us from the brutal truth of just how much has to change. Last week Friends of the Earth published the report it had commissioned from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, which laid out the case for a 90% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. This caused astonishment in the media. But other calculations, using the same sources, show that even this ambitious target is two decades too late. It becomes rather complicated, but please bear with me, for our future rests on these numbers. ...

Greed kills — and greed comes in many forms. Most insidious, perhaps, is our greed for comfort and convenience. Humans, like other organisms, generally take the path of least resistance. We're supposed to be more intelligent than other organisms and therefore better equipped to understand what's going to be the real path of least resistance over the long term, but it never seems to work that way in practice. Everybody wants to be comfortable now. And besides, if the people around you aren't changing how they live, you feel like your own little contribution is meaningless. But that is a sure path to disaster for us all.

Tom Paine has an article on the "World Bank's Dirty Power Plan".

A closed-door meeting wrapped up Wednesday in Monterrey, Mexico that may determine the fate of the earth’s atmosphere. There, energy and environment ministers from the world’s eight wealthiest countries (the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Italy and Russia) were sitting down with their peers from the world’s most populous and prosperous developing countries (China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico) to discuss how to tackle climate change.

The plan they were discussing was not developed through any United Nations agency or other open process. Instead, the plan was developed by officials at the World Bank, acting on the 2005 request from leaders of the Group of Eight countries (G-8). While some initially saw this new “investment framework” on climate change as an opportunity to break the logjam in climate negotiations, according to a recent report issued by the Institute for Policy Studies and others, the plan assumes business as usual: a sea-level rise of at least 3 feet over the next century, and the massive extinction of a large share of the world’s plant and animal species. Of course, among those most threatened are the world’s poorest populations.

Equally troubling, among the technologies the World Bank advocates as “solutions” to climate change is nuclear power, despite massive subsidies that are its only key to viability and global concern over nuclear accidents, waste and terrorism.

The World Bank also promotes integrated gasification combine cycle and carbon capture and storage, two untested technologies for use on coal-fired power plants. Yet there are serious environmental concerns associated with coal mining and burning, and cost concerns associated with these technologies. The World Bank deceptively claims these technologies can “eliminate most of the emissions of CO2.” But the anticipated efficiency gains are only 7 to 13 percent for gasification. And this technology will add between 30 and 60 percent to the price tag of an ordinary coal burner, which means more debt for the poorest.

The World Bank promotes these and other technologies to the detriment of renewable energy, such as wind, a fast-growing, competitive and clean source of energy—and despite the fact that even the G8 recognized the potential of renewables: Its Renewable Energy Task Force developed a plan in 2001 that would have provided renewable energy to 1 billion people by 2010. (The U.S. killed that initiative.)

The World Bank is heavily invested in the outcome of the prescriptions it is promoting. For example, it has invested over $25 billion in oil, gas and coal projects since 1992, when the Climate Convention was signed, and remains heavily invested in these and other greenhouse gas-emitting sectors, despite recommendations from its own panel of experts, which urged the Bank to divest itself of all oil and coal investments by 2008.

Simultaneously, the World Bank is rapidly gaining monopoly control over the carbon trading market, which it actively promotes, claiming the vast majority of finance for clean energy will come from this sector. Yet early results show the market is actually encouraging polluting industries to delay reducing their emissions of pollutants in order to profit from the new carbon market.

Tom Paine also has a post on"The Stench From Texas" (and its not Dubya's sulphurous reek that El Hugo was complaining about at the UN).

It’s like an old-time Texas shootout. Think of the Texas Rangers in a firefight with cattle rustlers. Only this time the shootout involves smokestacks rather than smoking guns. And the result may tell a lot about whether we as a nation are really going to take global warming seriously.

The modern-day rustlers here are Texas Governor Rick Perry—former lieutenant governor to then-Governor George W. Bush—and TXU Corp., one of the nation’s biggest polluters.

The Rangers are made up of a unique alliance of Texas mayors, environmentalists and cattle ranchers.

The fight involves TXU’s plan, backed by Perry, to build 11 new coal-burning electric power plants during the next several years. Other power companies seek to build a half dozen additional coal plants.

Granted, if you live in Texas, this is bad. But it’s going to be bad for individuals who live outside the Lone Star state as well. Aside from the fact that the new power plants could threaten air quality in some communities—Dallas Mayor Laura Miller predicts a “tsunami of emissions” in parts of the state—collectively these plants in Texas would emit the equivalent of 19 million automobiles' worth of carbon dioxide every year. If all were up and spewing, Texas would emit nearly as much carbon dioxide as California, New York and Florida combined.

WorldChanging has a post entitled "Without Renewable Power, U.S. Army Could Fail in Iraq " - of course, by the same token, if we embarked on a massive program to adopt renewable energy, the US army (and others) wouldn't need (if thats the correct word for it) to be in Iraq...

In a July 25 memo to the Pentagon, U.S. Marine Corps Major General Richard Zilmer made a “Priority 1” request for solar—and wind-powered generators to help with the fight in Iraq. “Without this solution, personnel loss rates are likely to continue at their current rate,” Zilmer writes. “Continued casualty accumulation exhibits [the] potential to jeopardize mission success.”

The “thermal signature” of diesel-powered generators currently in use can enable enemies to detect U.S. outposts, experts say. And missions to supply the generators with JP-8, the standard battlefield fuel, are vulnerable to ambush. Without “a self-sustainable energy solution,” Zilmer notes, the U.S. Army will “continue to accrue preventable… serious and grave casualties.”

Although Zilmer’s memo shows a growing focus on incorporating renewable energy sources into combat operations, it is not the first time the U.S. military has embraced the benefits of renewables. A 2004 study conducted for the Army reported that using solar panels to recharge equipment batteries was a better option than having soldiers carry disposable batteries into combat. Pentagon research from June 2005 illustrates the costs and benefits of using solar power to reduce fuel use. And four wind turbines currently supply roughly 25 percent of electricity needs at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

According to a 2004 study by the Rocky Mountain Institute, more than 50 percent of all fuel consumed in the battlefield is used by support units, not frontline troops. Before the recent rise in oil prices, the U.S. Army spent some $200 million annually on fuel and paid personnel an estimated $3.2 billion to transport it. The Defense Energy Support Center reports that in 2005, the U.S. military spent around $8 billion on some 128 million barrels of fuel; in 2004, it spent $7 billion on 145 million barrels. Zilmer’s memo estimates that a hybrid solar and wind power system, though expensive initially, would cut costs by 75 percent and pay for itself in 3­–5 years.

In addition, if we were no longer oil dependent, and thus weren't in Iraq, we wouldn't have crazed vigilantes harrassing their fellow air passengers.

Another airplane passenger false alarm:

Seth Stein is used to jetting around the world to create stylish holiday homes for wealthy clients. This means the hip architect is familiar with the irritations of heightened airline security post-9/11. But not even he could have imagined being mistaken for an Islamist terrorist and physically pinned to his seat while aboard an American Airlines flight -- especially as he has Jewish origins.

Turns out that one of the other passengers decided to take matters into his own hands.

In Mr Stein's case, he was pounced on as the crew and other travellers looked on. The drama unfolded less than an hour into the flight. As he settled down with a book and a ginger ale, the father-of-three was grabbed from behind and held in a head-lock.

"This guy just told me his name was Michael Wilk, that he was with the New York Police Department, that I'd been acting suspiciously and should stay calm. I could barely find my voice and couldn't believe it was happening," said Mr Stein.

"He went into my pocket and took out my passport and my iPod. All the other passengers were looking concerned." Eventually, cabin crew explained that the captain had run a security check on Mr Stein after being alerted by the policeman and that this had cleared him. The passenger had been asked to go back to his seat before he had restrained Mr Stein. When the plane arrived in New York, Mr Stein was met by apologetic police officers who offered to fast-track him out of the airport.

Even stranger:

In a twist to the story, Mr Stein has since discovered that there is only one Michael Wilk on the NYPD's official register of officers, but the man retired 25 years ago. Officials have told the architect that his assailant may work.

Following on from my recent post on theories about financial collapse, here's some tinfoil economic analysis from Cryptogon.

Here is the Dow Industrials with all three groups of traders as classified by the CFTC. What is important to note here is the level of net percent holdings by group. Commercials: 38.2% net short, Non-Commercial (Large Traders): 8% net long, Non-reportable (Small Traders) 30.2 % net long.

What does this mean? It means the least knowledgeable, least capitalized group of traders is holding the greatest OI (open interest, in this case long positions) against (betting against that is) the most knowledgeable, most heavily capitalized traders. Normally Large traders (hedge funds and the like) offset Commercials but their net long position is anemic. It might be time to pop the popcorn, pull up a chair and watch how this turns out or position oneself to take advantage of the rout should it occur.

There are a number of influential folks who would dearly like to see the "rally" extend to November 3 (for instance, those incumbents running for Congressional offices). But it remains to be seen if their pals will keep buying the "rally" to goose it along until the incumbents are duly re-elected on a platform of "lower gasoline prices and continued prosperity, as proven by the new Dow record high." Or, maybe even the "Plunge Protection Team" won't be able to maintain air pressure in this phony Dow "record."

Billmon is somewhat aghast at the latest round of big lies coming out of the buzz machine - as always I can't resist a pertinent Orwell quote.

Everything I said above applies to the googolplex power to other GOP talking point de jour -- the claim that House leaders demanded Foley's resignation as soon as they learned about the "really dirty" stuff, i.e. his sex chats with former pages.

As the Think Progress blog makes definitively clear, this is categorically a lie, because Foley resigned before ABC News even reported the existence of the tell-tale IMs.

According to Hastert, the ABC report was the first time he learned -- ever -- that there was a problem with Foley. (The Walrus's story, and he's stickin' to it, is that he was out of the loop when Foley was confronted earlier this year with the less naughty e-mails.) He even prepared a formal statement to that effect:

No one in the Republican Leadership, nor Congressman Shimkus, saw those messages until last Friday when ABC News released them to the public. When they were released, Congressman Foley resigned. And I'm glad he did, if he had not, I would have demanded his expulsion from the House of Representatives.

But now the Rovians have turned the timeline completely on its head, and are claiming Hastert demanded Foley's resignation because of something the Speaker himself says he knew nothing about.

This may seem a trivial matter, given all the other lies, big and small, that have come rattling down the propaganda assembly line over the past six years. Foley himself is just a sideshow geek compared to the three-ring circus that gave us the war in Iraq. But if there's been a more brazen attempt to rewrite history -- last week's history! -- I can't remember it.

True, the Rovians are desperate, but this clearly reflects their belief that they can say anything, any fucking thing at all, and not be called on it by the corporate media, at least not in any kind of time frame that matters. And as far as I can tell, they're right -- they haven't been called on it, except by Think Progress and the wild-eyed bloggers and the other tattered remnants of the left opposition.

I know, I know: So what else is new? But I've enough journalist left in me to still be astonished at how deeply and sincerely so many in my old profession has learned to love Big Brother. And they didn't even have to have cages filled with carnivorous rats strapped to their heads.

I'll close with one of Past Peak's recent collections of Bush jokes.

We're covering a story about a certain congressman. Let's call him. Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida. He spent most of his career protecting children from Internet stalkers. Turns out he was doing it so he could have them all to himself. — Jon Stewart

But in fairness to the Republicans, let me just throw this out — who invented the Internet? That's right — Al Gore, a Democrat. If it wasn't for him, none of this would have happened. Run with it Fox News. — Jimmy Kimmel

(Foley's) in rehab, which means it only happened because he was drinking. We've all done it folks — drunk dialing. It's just that in Foley's case, it was drunk texting erotic messages to underage pages about masturbation. It's simple. You drink, you forget things — especially things that could endanger minors. And I know people are wondering why Condoleezza Rice can't remember a July 2001 meeting with George Tenet where he warned her an al Qaeda attack was likely, even though White House records prove the meeting happened. She probably just blacked out. She was playing a drinking game. Every time you hear George Tenet say "imminent," you take a shot. — Stephen Colbert

This is like the worst thing to happen to congressional Republicans since last Thursday...Most people think GOP stands for Gay Old Pedophile. — Jay Leno