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Age of Stupid to be screened in Toronto at M.U.C.K. film festival and forum Saturday October 3rd at 6:30 pm

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The engaging docu-drama about climate change, The Age of Stupid, will be screened this coming Saturday, at 6:30 pm at The Royal Cinema, 608 College Street (Little Italy) (416 534 5252) at the M.U.C.K. Film Festival and Forum.

The M.U.C.K. film festival and forum runs from Thursday October 1st to Sunday October 4th and features "movies of uncommon knowledge" that aim to "enlighten, enrage, engage and change", along with panels comprising the film makers and experts.

Read Dawn Bazely's review of the film, here.

United Nations General Assembly passes landmark resolution about climate change

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Last Thursday, while in Ottawa, during the 2030 North conference, I turned on the tv to see a beautiful young woman from Palau, with a flower behind her ear, talking about a historic UN General Assembly resolution that was passed on Wednesday. Small island states have been running a campaign about the threat that rising sea levels pose to their security. The link between climate change and the security of many countries was formally recognized. We heard a lot about this issue at our "Ecojustice: How will disenfranchised peoples adapt to climate change?" conference, in April, 2009.

Here's some of the press release:

"Introducing the draft in the Assembly today, on behalf of the Pacific Small Island Developing States, Nauru’s representative emphasized that rising oceans could, sooner than previously thought, leave little of that regional group’s already tiny homelands above water unless urgent action was taken. Already, the impact of climate change included inundation of heavily populated coastal areas, loss of freshwater, failure of agriculture and other results of saltwater intrusion.

As a result, resettlement and migration were already occurring and dangers to international peace and security would soon increase, she stressed. The Assembly’s adoption of the text would encourage dealing with climate change in a holistic manner, while demonstrating serious concern for the survival of whole populations and the existence of their lands.

Nicaragua’s representative, speaking before the vote on behalf of the “like-minded group” -- Bahrain, Bolivia, Ecuador, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen and Venezuela -– said the group would join the consensus on the compromise text. In addressing the issue, however, it was vital that Member States, particularly industrialized nations, promote sustainable development, while adhering to the principle of common but differentiated responsibility, and fully implement Agenda 21 and other relevant development commitments.

Following the Assembly’s adoption of the resolution, the representatives of many small island developing States took the floor to underscore the dire nature of the threats that climate change posed to their nations, including the Marshall Islands, Palau, Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Samoa and the Maldives.

Palau’s representative said: “We do not carelessly call climate change a security threat. When we are told by scientists to prepare for humanitarian crisis, including exodus, in our lifetimes, how can it be different from preparing for a threat like war?” All United Nations organs, most particularly the Security Council, must act urgently. Under Chapter VI of the Charter, the Council may investigate any dispute or situation that might lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions must be the focus, and the goal must be effective, enforceable action to that end."

Dawn R. Bazely

Gwynne Dyer on Climate Wars at 2030 North in Ottawa, 2009

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I have recently been attending loads of conferences and workshops at which climate change is on the agenda. Most of them were permeated by a complete lack of any sense of urgency about what climate change will mean for North Americans in the next 20 years. So, I found Gwynne Dyer's gloom and doom in his talk on Climate Wars, sponsored by WWF, and delivered in conjunction with the 2030 North conference in Ottawa this week, to be very refreshing.  In his presentation on  the state-centred security dimensions of climate change, three main points stuck with me:

1. military generals in the USA are pondering how to deal with forthcoming events such as Florida disappearing when the ice caps melt. This contrasts with what I found when I flew into Ft. Lauderdale for a 2003 conference on invasive plants. I made a point of asking about 10 staff at my hotel whether they were at all worried about the sea level rises that would inevitably accompany the melting ice caps: I should note that I have teaching research into global warming in my ecology courses since 1990.  Without exception, the staff all looked at me as if I had just grown 2 heads!  How times change - at least in some parts of North American society.

2. a retired US General that he interviewed, said that he viewed the potential for nuclear attack during the Cold War as a "low probability, high consequence event" whereas Climate Change (warming) is a "high probability, high consequence event".

3. never mind about the Arctic, northern nations should worry about the nations to the south, where a 2 degree temperature rise (we are now hearing about a 4 degree temperature rise scenario), will mean that crop plants can't grow and survive.  A government that can't feed it's population is unlikely to be stable.

Hmm - the lights in the hotel ballroom where the talk took place were blazing, and I couldn't tell if there were low energy light bulbs - I hoped so.

Dawn R. Bazely

Obesity adds to global warming – but where’s the paper?

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The reason why I found blogging so tough to sustain, was that I could not overcome my urge to check into every last detail, and the time needed to fact-check my blogs was getting way out of hand. Here's one hitherto unpublished blog: last May, 2008, the Globe & Mail's Life section had an article about the research of Dr. Phil Edwards, Senior Lecturer, and Prof. Ian Roberts, at the prestigious London School of Hygeine & Tropical Medicine. Basically, the Globe (along with other media outlets, including the USA's MSNBC site, CNN and the UK's Daily Telegraph) carried the story, entitled "Obesity adds to global warming", about the research that describes how obese and overweight people "require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat", and then makes the link between this and the greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, that is driving climate change. I interpreted this as leaving me with the following take home sustainability message - "eat less and lose weight, and not just for for your own health, but for the environment."

This reported research finding illustrates two really important things about the pain of peer-reviewed research: As scientists, we often take years to show that intuitive ideas and guesses do hold. There are no surprises about this particular result - it takes more energy to move heavy goods (you pay more for it at the post office). BUT - I am more likely to take this finding seriously because it comes from academics who have published their research through the highly-scrutinized peer-review process. This is known as "publish or perish" and it's what makes university-based research more reliable than non-refereed, unscrutinized research.

The second thing, is that as a scientist, it's not enough for me to read about this in the newspaper. I immediately went to access The Lancet, the prestigious journal in which the study was published. And this is where the fun began. First, I could not find any such article in the latest on-line issue, which I accessed through the York University Library. So, I searched the entire contents of the journal. I found a just-published article called "Transport Policy is Food Policy" by the two authors, which I thought MUST be the journal paper that all the media outlets were referring to. BUT, the download link to the pdf was wrong and it gave me another article (this does occasionally happen with on-line science journals). After a bit more persistence, I DID get the article, which turns out not to be a full journal article, but an item of correspondence. Hmm - I wonder what the review process is for 'correspondence'?

Next I found, by googling a bit more, that there are numerous peer-reviewed journal articles making the links between greenhouse gas emissions, food transportation policy and obesity. Wow - I had no idea that this was such an academic issue. Next, I read some articles that quote a bunch of US Academics who counter the point of the Edwards & Robert's paper.  Wow, this could have taken the entire weekend to research, so, in the end I gave up my Saturday morning blogging in frustration at the time sink I was turning it into, and grabbed another cup of coffee. Next time someone asks me exactly how the kind of thinking that I do about sustainability differs from non-professorial sustainability thinkers, I will direct them to this blog.

Dawn Bazely

Climate change action flounders on North-South divide

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With the G8 hunkered down in the mountain resort of Toyako, discussing the food crisis over 18-course meals and putting on the usual parade of feighed concern for the world's problems, their inability to move forward on the great issues of the day has become more and more apparent.

While climate change activists again slammed leaders for their timid and dithering attitude to the crisis, it was a block of prominent emerging nations that provided the coup-de-grâce to the proceedings. Trumping the G8 declaration towards maybe possibly moving towards 50 per cent emission reductions by 2050, the gang of five (Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, India, and China) put forward tough conditions that tightly coupled reductions in developed countries with their historical legacy in creating the problem in the first place. The five also echoed the contract and converge strategy, calling for responsible consumption in the North, increase of foreign aid to 0.7 per cent of GNP (an old UN target that was never reached outside of Scandinavia), and financial and technical assistance for adapting to climate change.

Unfortunately, these have been deal breakers for the North in the past. Indeed, the US has used the excuse of non-inclusion of developing countries in the first round of Kyoto targets to renounce the treaty altogether. The impasse is further complicated by China and India's skyrocketing emission levels based as they are on increasing affluence on the Western pattern of consumption and motorization (an insane proposition as it intensifies their reliance on fossil fuels when both countries had perfectly good formal and informal transit systems based on trains and peddle power).

George Monbiot recently made note of this paralysis:

The stone drops into the pond and a second later it is smooth again. You will turn the page and carry on with your life. Last week we learnt that climate change could eliminate half the world’s species(9); that 25 primate species are already slipping into extinction(10); that biological repositories of carbon are beginning to release it, decades ahead of schedule(11). But everyone is watching and waiting for everyone else to move. The unspoken universal thought is this: “if it were really so serious, surely someone would do something?”

Monbiot also cites The Road by Cormac McCarthy as what could possibly happen if the biosphere collapses. The terrifying novel (how they intend to film it with its more harrowing passages is unimaginable) doesn't seem so farfetched when we realize that our impact on the atmosphere had already caused similar devastation.

Flat screen TVs blamed for accelerating global warming

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"A gas used in the making of flat screen televisions, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), is being blamed for damaging the atmosphere and accelerating global warming."

Read the full article

I found this interesting to read especially considering that this gas isn't a part of the Kyoto Protocol. As such it is probably a good idea to do some further research on the subject as it seems to be a possible environmental threat. Also, there is an equally interesting discussion happening in the comments section.

Canada, a climate change safe haven?

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The UK's Independent reports that a British consultancy Maplecroft has scaled the world's nations along a climate change vulnerability index. The Climate Change Risk Report places Canada at the top of its list of Northern countries that will have the greatest ease in weathering the climate crisis, while sub-Saharan Africa will receive yet another mortal blow.

Given this recurring pattern of disparity, Canadians must ask themselves what their high-energy lifestyle (with energy consumption per capita eclipsing the US) will cost the world. This time with their greenhouse gas emissions and huge ecological footprints, Canadians are directly driving a climate catastrophe in the equatorial belt where most of the world's people live while escaping most of its effects.

For the most part, our abundance of land, water, and energy has given us Canadians a level of comfort and complacency unparalleled in the world. The Canadian North has been even more fortunate with a miniscule population sitting on top of vast natural resource reserves. Fortunately, protected area and alternative energy planning are quite advanced in the Northwest Territories, although energy-intensive and resource-based development are threatening to eclipse this progress. In Alberta, the picture is quite different with the province's unseemly and unsustainable rush to develop its tar sands, a ruinous path thankfully challenged by the recent Youth Climate Summit in Edmonton.

Interestingly, the Independent asks in a follow-up article whether Brits should think about moving to Canada. If the future holds even what even the most conservative climate change models predict, we may see a lot more people flocking to Canada as ecological refugees. For a look at this future, see David Brin's 1990 novel, Earth, with the founding of Little Nigeria in the Yukon.

Farewell to the Holocene

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Bestselling author and public intellectual Mike Davis reports in his recent epic essay, "Farewell to the Holocene", that the Geological Society of London has recently unanimously decided to declare the Holocene epoch over, accepting the increasingly popular view that the Anthropocene, marked by the emergence of a global urban-industrial society, has already commenced. Davis notes that:

They [GSL] adduce robust evidence that the Holocene epoch -- the interglacial span of unusually stable climate that has allowed the rapid evolution of agriculture and urban civilization -- has ended and that the Earth has entered "a stratigraphic interval without close parallel in the last several million years." In addition to the buildup of greenhouse gases, the stratigraphers cite human landscape transformation which "now exceeds [annual] natural sediment production by an order of magnitude," the ominous acidification of the oceans, and the relentless destruction of biota.

In fact, the GSL argues that the heating trend that marks the birth of the Anthropocene will have a permanent impact on the course of evolution, putting to paid the sunny optimists' view that the biosphere will somehow escape unscathed our planetary civilization's eclipsing of biophysical processes as the chief power governing the planet's fate.

Davis' article is extremely sombre reading, as he takes apart many of the climate solutions that have gained currency in recent years. He particularly warns against strains of eco-corporatism or even eco-fascism that might prove popular amongst the wealthy as they strive to insulate themselves from the suffering caused by their own oversized ecological footprint. Davis returns to the central question of human solidarity and whether it might fail altogether under the strains of an unprecedented planetary emergency that will accompany even the rosiest climate predictions. Unfortunately, his "apocalyptic" vision has few if any caveats.

Project 350

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Bill McKibben, veteran environmental thinker and author of the bestselling book, End of Nature, has a new initiative out called simply Project 350. The number refers to a "red line" for atmospheric carbon dioxide levels (as acknowledged by NASA scientists like James Hansen), above which climate change will exact a heavy toll from human civilization. While based on hard climate science, McKibben and the 350 crew hope to sear the number into the collective conscience of humanity through an international awareness raising campaign.

Recently, the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere reached 385 ppm and the rate of increase is only accelerating. McKibben noted this dire fact in last Sunday's Los Angeles Times, balancing stark warnings with the tiny sliver hope afforded by organizing on a mass scale via the Web. While it may seem like a tiny hook to hang one's hopes on given the immensity of the challenges, it is also important to remember that McKibben is not alone. Groups like Oxfam Canada are also working on this front, lobbying in Oxfam's case for both action in mitigating climate change in an equitable way and helping poor communities adapt to the impacts of catastrophic climate events.

The Main Findings of our Carbon Offset Survey

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Earlier this year a group of us at IRIS began surveying the York student community about their opinions of climate change and carbon offsetting. The online Carbon Offset survey was a result of the exciting and precedent setting carbon offsetting initiative for course kits launched between the York University bookstore and Zerofootprint.

In all, around 500 student members of the York community, representing all of the University’s diverse faculties, were surveyed. This is about 1% of the York student community, which we were satisfied gave us a statically accurate picture of the range of opinions.

 

Impact of Paper Production Background Information

-York produces 75,000 course kits a year.

-If produced using 100% virgin paper this would result in 131.5 tonnes of CO2 being emitted.

-If produced with 30% post-consume recycled paper this amount of course kits would emit 116.9 tonnes of CO2.

 

To put these amounts into context, one tonne of CO2 is equivalent to running the average North American home for 60 days.

 

Major Findings

1) In response to the question asking who should take the most responsibility for acting on climate change issues: government, industry, individuals, institutions, or everyone because we all have equal responsibility, we were quite surprised to find that 70% of respondents said that everyone must share responsibility for acting. The second highest group, at 17%, placed the onus on government. This seems to signal a shift in which students at York recognize that all segments of society have a responsibility to do something about an issue as complex as climate change. Our finding supports some of the results of a recent Harris-Decima poll on the New Environmentalism. In response to a question about whether industry or individuals were the most responsible for addressing climate change, 79% of the 10,000 surveyed, stated that both are equally responsible.

2) York students are willing to pay significantly more for environmentally friendly products or services. Our survey first asked, "are you willing to pay more", and if so, how much more? 65% of respondents were willing to pay more, and 49% said that they’d be willing to pay 5-10% more. That is up to 10 cents on the dollar.

One concern that was raised about our survey was whether a disproportionately high number of Faculty of Environmental Studies students were responding. In fact, while there were a high number of FES students taking the survey, they were not more than 14%, and when their responses were excluded from the results, we found that the fundamental trends and results did not change. In the category of those willing to pay 5-10% or even more for environmentally-friendly and sustainable products, we found that 70% of the students outside of FES were willing to do this, while 83% of the Environmental Studies respondents would pay 5% or higher prices. Clearly, willingness to be environmentally friendly in one's personal decisions is not a direct feature of one's personal educational choices and social views. Nor does the Faculty of Environmental Studies have a monopoly on York students who are concerned about the environment.

3) The last significant finding was that a majority of the York community surveyed would like to see investment in environmental initiatives at the local level in renewable energy or energy conservation projects. While respondents could select all three investment choices; renewable energy, energy conservation, and tree planting, renewable energy was the most popular choice at 72%. Interest in local offsetting initiatives was the most popular choice, at 55% said yes, with the Toronto area gaining the highest support. Other options included York University, Ontario and Canada.

Overall, the survey results will help the development of future climate change and sustainability initiatives at York University. The York community, like Canadians as a whole, are concerned about the environment and realize that responsibility belongs to everyone.

For full survey results contact IRIS.

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