Kate Sheppard

As my colleague Tim Murphy has previously reported, Glenn Beck has a new novel out about the right's favorite environmental conspiracy. Agenda 21 is a fictionalized account of the socialist sustainable development plan that paranoid tea partiers believe a decades-old UN treaty is going to bring upon us.

The book promises to be less than enlightening, even though it turns out Beck didn't even write it; he just bought the rights to a book that some woman had already written, and then turned it into "right-wing propaganda," as the book's editor described it in a Salon piece last month. Which is why this review of it from climate scientist Michael Mann over at Popular Science is rather amusing, as it attempts to seriously evaluate some of the book's "science":

And what about the book’s treatment of matters of science? I’m usually willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of a good fictional narrative. But the conceit that human beings might in some dystopian future be imprisoned as beasts of burden and raised and kept alive purely for the energy that can be harvested from them goes too far. Such a scenario problematically neglects the laws of thermodynamics. It makes little if any sense, after all, to employ a primary energy source (be it the incoming radiation from the Sun, the heat escaping from Earth’s core, or the energy released from the burning of fossil fuels) to manufacture proteins or raise crops, only to feed an army of macrofauna (i.e. human beings), only in turn to harness the energy they produce. If it is only energy that is being sought, such a chain of energy conversion processes is inefficient to the point of absurdity. The only sensible option would be to exploit the primary energy source itself.

I did my best to ignore the implausibility of this plot device when it first reared its head in The Matrix. But it is far less tolerable when used as a foundation for a misguided anti-environmental narrative. We are forced to accept, without explanation, how decades into the future no effort has been made to take advantage of far more plentiful and efficient renewable energy sources like wind and solar energy (which, by some estimates, could provide 70% of our energy needs in the U.S. in less than two decades). Not only have renewable energy technologies apparently not benefited from the increased efficiencies expected after decades of further research and development, they appear to have vanished altogether!

• Print
• Email
• Tweet

The United Nations talks in Doha weren't expected to produce much progress In addressing climate change. But the negotiations, which concluded Saturday, failed to meet even the low expectations that had been set for the negotiations.

Talks dragged into the evening (Doha time), as parties were still deadlocked on key points like extending the Kyoto Protocol, the emission-cutting treaty adopted 15 years ago that is poised to expire at the end of the 2012, and how to raise the $100 billion in funds to address climate change promised to developing countries. But negotiators ultimately emerged with what they're calling the "Doha Climate Gateway" (they seem to get more creative with these titles every year). Here's what it entails, as Reuters reports:

A package of decisions, known as the Doha Climate Gateway, would also postpone until 2013 a dispute over demands from developing nations for more cash to help them cope with global warming.

All sides say the Doha decisions fell far short of recommendations by scientists for tougher action to try to avert more heatwaves, sandstorms, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.

The draft deal would extend the Kyoto Protocol for eight years. It had obliged about 35 industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by an average of at least 5.2 percent below 1990 levels during the period from 2008 to 2012.

Preserving the Kyoto Protocol in a second commitment period (or KP2, as it is sometimes called) is a big deal, since Kyoto is the only legally binding global climate agreement we have. While the US and other major emitters like India and China are not parties to that treaty, it's something. This is especially important, since at last year's talks neogiators determined that they would not negotiate a new, legally binding treaty that includes the US and China until 2015, and that new treaty won't take effect until 2020. Brazilian Minister of Environment Izabella Teixeira summed up the outcome pretty well in her statement to the plenary session Saturday night:

We are not fully satisfied with the outcome achieved. We wanted more. We believe more is needed. But we also believe that a Conference that ensured KP2 is, by definition, a success.

But as you can imagine, small island nations and other vulnerable countries aren't exactly calling Doha a "success," given that waiting around a few more years could prove hazardous to their survival. Here's a statement from Nauru's Foreign Minister Kieren Keke, who serves as the chair of the Alliance of Small Island States:

This is not where we wanted to be at the end of the meeting, I assure you. It certainly isn't where we need to be in order to prevent islands from going under and other unimaginable impacts.

The biggest concern – and not just for small islands mind you – is the failure to deliver the mitigation ambition the scientific community says is essential to keep global warming from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius, to say nothing of 1.5 degrees, and the cascade of catastrophes that would follow.

Reactions are coming in from American and international NGOs that have been following the process in Doha. Here's Jennifer Haverkamp, the director of the international climate program at the Environmental Defense Fund, pointing out that after 18 years of meetings about how to mitigate climate change, we're now dealing with the fact that the changes are already here:

This is the next step in the UN's increasingly reactive response to climate change. First the focus was on avoiding emissions. When mitigation efforts proved inadequate, it turned more attention to adaptation. Now, as the effects of extreme weather and rising oceans hit communities from the Philippines to New Jersey, the UN has realized it must begin to grapple with the damaging effects of climate change it had been mostly trying to avoid.

And here's a statement from Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International:

Today we ask the politicians in Doha: Which planet are you on? Clearly not the planet where people are dying from storms, floods and droughts. Nor the planet where renewable energy is growing rapidly and increasing constraints are being placed on the use of dirty fuels such as coal. The talks in Doha were always going to be a modest affair, but they failed to live up to even the historically low expectations.

Harsh. Better luck next year?

• Print
• Email
• Tweet