Canary in the coal mine

Methane is a deadly, odourless gas that seeps out of coal mines. Today, these are called 'fugitive emissions' and the escaping methane is one of the worst greenhouse gases.

It is largely due to the fugitive emissions from its coal mines that CO2-e emissions of Queenslanders are twice the rate of Australia overall.

Escaping methane is deadly for underground miners, so they implemented an early warning system that alerted them when they hit a pocket of the odourless gas. They took canaries down into the coal mines. The small birds are very susceptable to methane and after a few whiffs they keel over. When their little friends stopped singing, the miners beat a hasty retreat and many human lives were saved.

And so we got the English expression for an early warning system – the canary in the coal mine.

As the most dramatically visible effect of global warming, the rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice is often interpreted as the canary in the mine for anthropogenic climate change.

The Max Plank Institute for Meteorology says:

The ongoing rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice is often interpreted as the canary in the mine for anthropogenic climate change. In a new study, scientists have now systematically examined the validity of this claim. They find that neither natural fluctuations nor self-acceleration can explain the observed Arctic sea-ice retreat. Instead, the recent evolution of Arctic sea ice shows a strong, physically plausible correlation with the increasing greenhouse gas concentration.

Dr. Dirk Notz and Prof. Jochem Marotzke

 
Gretchen Hofmann, associate professor of biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, warns that pteropods, tiny marine snails the size of a lentil, that she refers to as the "potato chip" of the oceans because they are eaten widely by so many species, are endangered by ocean acidification. A collapse in pteropods would make them a canary in the coalmine of climate change.

Early warning systems demand rapid and decisive responses. What are nations and individuals doing in response? Could we act faster, more decisively?

Windmills move air like banks move money

Moving money from one money box to another will not make you richer.

Windmills move air around, they don't make it warmer.

A recent study showed that overnight ground temperatures near windmills were a little higher (0.72 C in winter) than otherwise. This phenomenon is well known by orchardists who sometimes prevent frosts by hiring helicopters to hover over their trees and keep the air moving.

The study found that daytime temperatures were not affected. So it appears that the windmills are just moving air around, like a kid moving coins from one money box to another.

This picture shows clouds formed in the wake of Denmark's Horns Rev windfarm – one of the world's largest at sea. While wind turns the turbines, the turbines also change the patterns of air movement.

Source: Aeolus on the Guardian

Scott Mandia used the banking analogy when he debunked the claim (in comments) that windmills cause global warming.

Putting on the brakes

When you're driving a car, you can slow down in seconds. When you're driving a truck it takes longer, and when you're playing with the planet's atmosphere, you need to start putting on the brakes decades ahead.

Today's greenhouse gases will affect Earth's climate for another hundred years. We're committing ourselves to a long, hot future. How hot depends on how quickly we put on the brakes.

According to UCAR:

• Greenhouse gases can stay in the atmosphere for 100 years or more. A sizeable chunk of what we emit today will still be around when our great grandchildren are growing up. Even if we were to stop all emissions today, the world will continue to warm from the gases we've already added to the atmosphere. Adding even more could push some ecological systems beyond the point of recovery. 

Some say that as well as applying the brakes, it would be good to take the foot off the accelerator!

According to International Energy Agency (IEA) research, 37 governments spent $409bn on artificially lowering the price of fossil fuels in 2010. Critics say the subsidies significantly boost oil and gas consumption and disadvantage renewable energy technologies, which received only $66bn of subsidies in the same year.

The IEA demonstrates that phasing out subsidies to fossil fuels, if well-executed, can generate important economic, energy security and environmental benefits. About half the identified countries have begun measures to withdraw subsidies from fossil fuels.

It's a start.

Stacking the deck

In a stacked deck the cards are no longer in random order, instead they are arranged to favour specific outcomes.

Climate change stacks the deck for certain types of extreme weather events. As the planet warms scientists expect heat waves to become more frequent, longer lasting, and more intense. With them will come droughts and wildfires. As well as more 'hot and dry' events scientists predict there will be more extreme wet weather including storms and flooding.

This has tremendous implications for water resources and agriculture. When we break records now—and we are breaking thousands of them—we break them by a lot.

Reinsurers like MunichRE report that extreme weather/climate events have increased in recent decades. This graph shows events for 1980-2010. It's interesting to see that geophysical (earthquakes, tsunamis & volcanoes) events have not changed much, whereas the climate/weather related events have increased markedly over the 30 years.

[Click to enlarge]

Global warming has stacked the climate deck towards more exteme weather events that will destroy livelihoods and wealth in rich countries as well as poor countries.

 
Heidi Cullen, Chief Climatologist for Climate Central, used the 'stacked deck' metaphor in a Daily Beast article (22/4/2012).

Addicted to oil

George W Bush famously declared in his 2006 State of the Union speech that "America is addicted to oil."

But either he didn't know much about addiction, or he didn't recognise his own addiction because he did nothing to help wean the U.S. off its oil addiction.  A few weeks after the speech, the budget he sent to Congress cut $100 million from federal energy conservation programs.

The addiction analogy is compelling and widely used. Andrew Sims uses it in this Guardian article that discusses our deep dependence on oil and our unpreparedness for necessary change. Carol Linnitt uses the addiction analogy in this Desmogblog article about the tactics used by Canadian governments to keep pumping oil regardless of the environmental damage.

In his article about Bikeshares, Adam Jones says says America is addicted to oil and that coming up with feasible alternatives to treat that addiction hasn’t been easy. Sticking to the analogy, Jones recommends Bikeshares as the "methadone of transportation".

Brigadier General Steve Anderson calls on Americans to wean themselves off their oil addiction. He says this should be a top priority for all politicians, regardless of party and says it starts with dealing in facts—not fiction—about the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and its nonexistent role in lowering gas prices.

Australian academic Samuel Alexander describes the Gulf of Mexico oil spill as testament to the world’s addiction to oil, because it suggests that the world would sooner go out on a limb and risk great injury,  rather than rethink consumption.

Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), lashes governments once more for their inaction.

Our addiction to fossil fuels grows stronger each year. Many clean energy technologies are available but they are not being deployed quickly enough to avert potentially disastrous consequences.

Maria van der Hoeven in the Guardian

To meet the carbon cuts that scientists calculate are needed, the IEA says the world needs to generate 28% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and 47% by 2035. Yet renewables now make up just 16% of global electricity supply.

Van der Hoeven puts the blame squarely on policymakers, and she challenges ministers to step up to the task of weaning the world off its addiction to oil.

Serengeti Strategy

Lions hunting on the Serengeti stand at the edge of a herd and pick out a single individual, then they hunt as a group to separate the individual and bring it down.

In his book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, Michael E. Mann says that climate change deniers use the same tactic. There are thousands of climate scientists working in a range of fields including meteorology, atmospheric physics, oceanography, geobiology, cryospherics, paleoclimate, geology, etc, etc. It's impossible to attack the whole herd, there are too many of them and they are too strong. So deniers have focused on a handful of scientists and thrown everything at them.

Michael Mann and James Hansen are two prominent climate scientists who have been targeted by climate change deniers in attacks ranging from political enquiries and media scorn through to death threats to their families.

Luckily for us, they don't take it lying down. They continue to conduct research and communicate their findings. Fortunately, the wider science community is beginning to recognise the Serengeti Strategy and it is gathering forces to protect individual scientists who are singled out by the denier camp.  Two of these initiatives are the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund and the Climate Science Rapid Response Team.

The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund helps cover the legal costs incurred in defending mischievous legal attacks.

The Climate Science Rapid Response Team locates relevant climate science specialists to answer questions or give informed interviews. This initiative puts journalists, politicians and citizens in touch with hundreds of credible scientists who know their stuff and can give timely responses.

The Serengeti Strategy doesn't work when it is recognised for what it is and when the herd acts decisively to protect those who are singled out for attack.

A grand symphony weaves complex patterns

While Mark Twain said “Climate is what we expect; weather is what we get,” Heidi Cullen, chief climatologist for Climate Central, describes climate as an orchestra.

I think of climate as being like an orchestra. It has so many elements, the way an orchestra has many sounds. 

Heidi Cullen, Climate Central

If you have listened deeply to complex orchestral compositions from different composers, you'll see that the analogy fits well. From mild, balmy climates to the freezing arctic or windy mountains, there's music to match.

Orchestral music can mimic the rhythms of climatic variation, the oscillating repetitions of El Nino or the Arctic Oscillation Index, as well as unexpected variations on a theme.

Cullen notes that climate change has added a new element to the music played by the climate orchestra— a steady drumbeat of warming in our climate system, caused by us.

What should you listen for when you listen to the climate orchestra? While you enjoy the seasonal riffs, the musical motifs and embellishments, the highs and lows, and the transitions, don't lose track of the rising tempo of the kettle drums up the back.

They are counting the increasing number of extreme weather events. Last year, 2011 set the record for the most billion-dollar weather disasters—14 of them, in one year.