the climate blog

climate review July

2008-07-18T16:32:00.000-07:00

Media in the US have begun free reporting on climate change -- corporate and federal censorship seems to have ended. July 2008 marks the date that even the infamous Drudge Report started to post unwarped news. As a result, reality denial is eroding. Climate discourse is expanding.

Downunder, penguins are freezing in the rain. An ostensive definition of "global warming" would be to point to the South Pole -- it's winter in the Southern hemisphere ... and it rains in Antarctica.

On the other hand, an ostensive definition of "climate change" would be to point to the Bavarian alps --it's summer in the Northern hemisphere, and two runners up on the Zugspitze froze to death.

While last year was a ' year of records,' this year looks to become the 'year of consequences'. I wonder what information will emerge next year. Somehow it wouldn't surprise me if the ongoing series of empirical milestones will yield a conceptual breakthrough in 2009. I suspect such breakthrough will underscore (a) systems theory, (b) geophysiology, or (c) emergence. But I'm probably reading too much Laozi, Spinoza, and Kant ... For now, let's review the mid-year data flow. In mid-2008, here and now, three items stick out.

First, the polar melt is speeding up. It seems reasonably sure that the Arctic cap is going to be cornflower blue in a few decades. Greenland's icecap keeps melting off. The 2007 prediction of a sea level rise of a few centimeters, as per AR 4, has become unlikely. Assuming everything else holds steady and Antarctica won't slip, world sea levels will go up at least one and a half meters this century.

If you are a parent in Florida, consider showing the Everglades to your kid. Chances are the River of Grass won't make it. On average 30 cm above current sea levels, that particular biome is unique through its water mix -- fresh with a pinch of brine. By 2100 (and no Antarctic ice slip), what will be left is going to be mangroves.

Second, biological diversity is crashing. In this here Year of Corals, corals are dying. It's not just that by now, one third of reef-building coral organisms face elevated extinction risks, as Science reports. It's also the NOAA report that's so stunning. Since 2005, half of the corals in the waters around here, in the Caribbean and at Puerto Rico, have bleached into a boneyard. So ... take your kid down to Key Largo, rent the gear in the park, and go see the corals together. Looks like we're the final generation with reefs.

The third item that sticks out from the mid-2008 info is that the window of optimal opportunities has slammed shut. The chance to stay on the plus two degree centigrade track has come and gone. Now chances are climate will creep into the danger zone. Even if the Gringo Square folds into just another dumb & dead ideology; even if the Gang of Four, Bush, Cheney, Rice, & Rove, is sent to jail, and even if the Americans seize the moment -- in short, even if the evolution starts that's simulated as the "Kyoto Plus" scenario -- it'll be too late to keep the damage within safe bounds. Point is, even if Copenhagen 2009 will be a triumph and lead to maximum caps by 2012, by 2100 average temps will be up at least 3.3 C.

And that's bad, boys and girls! A runaway effect is unfolding. Conceptually, it's intriguing how an ineffable field of being - it's just weather, right? - moves through time as an inertial system gaining in momentum. Something as airy as climate is massing a runaway freight train ...

-- The next post will be a review of Heidegger, Politics, and Climate Change by Ruth Irwin at Auckland University of Technology, to be published by Continuum later this year. --

Apt Quote

"The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk."

Al Gore, A Generational Challenge to Repower America, speech 7.17.

CLIMATE EVENTS

... ice update & unfiltered US climate report 7.17.

... Calif. fires largest on record 7.17.

... penguins freezing in antarctic rain 7.16.

... dead penguins washed up in Brazil 7.20.

... "Bertha" longest lived July storm 7.15.

... Chesapeake blue craps dwindle 7.14.

... Russian scientists flee melting floe 7.14.

... oyster seeds dying 7.13.

... Wilkins Ice Shelf hanging by thread 7.10.

... Midwest climate floods 7.1.

CLIMATE POLICY

... A Revkin: (annotated) Gore speech 7.17.

... Gore sets 'moon shot' goal 7.17.

... Gore asks US to abandon fossil fuels 7.17.

... Gore's bold, unrealistic plan 7.17.

... the Pope: insatiable consumption 7.17.

... EPA regulates CO2 sequestration 7.15.

... W. Bello: the G8 anti-climate summit 7.15.

... Canada's Bush-made energy policy 7.15.

... Bush retarde la lutte contre les gaz à effet de serre 7.12.

... US allows all greenhouse gases 7.12.

... Schwarzenegger blasts Bush 7.11.

... G8 climate declaration 7.9.

... US climate cover up 7.9.

... China's stance on climate 7.9.

... Cheney as climate censor 7.9.

... Calif mandates vehicle CO2 scores 7.8.

... German carbon law 7.4.

GLOBAL MILIEU

... Oil tumbles 7.18.

... payback for debt-fueled growth 7.15.

... forests fall for food and fuel 7.14.

... J Jacquot: Bush on the environment 7.14.

... NYT climate editorial 7.13.

... Oil at $ 147 7.11.

... corn prices at record high 7.11.

... flat TV climate threat 7.9.

... biofuel and food crisis 7.4.

... climate and food crisis 7.4.

... Oil at $ 145 7.3.

... Oil at $ 143 6.30.

ENLIGHTENMENT

... Japan: space solar arrays (July)

... Calif.: Bush sewage plant makes ballot 7.18.

... Texas: wind power transmission lines project 7.17.

... vegetarians live longer 7.13.

... Pope: climate worries 7.12.

... Japan: solar Prius 7.11.

... Ariz. State U creates largest university solar project 7.10.

... ASU's rooftop solar grid would be among largest in nation 7.10.

... vegetarians prevent war 7.10.

... A Farago: coral reef meltdown 7.10.

... Bush to G8: "goodbye from the world's biggest polluter" 7.10.

... Spain: large solar array 7.8.

... Japan's frugal energy model 7.4.

... N Klein: state of extortion 7.1.

... A Revkin: 1988-2008 climate then & now 6.23.

DISENLIGHTENMENT

... US corn production feeds expanding Gulf dead zone 7.17.

... US opens new Alaska area for oil drilling 7.17.

... Bush lifts offshore drilling ban 7.14.

CLIMATOLOGY

... FWS: 20%-40% species could go extinct 7.19.

... EPA: poor, elderly to hurt most from climate change 7.17.

... U Texas: climate change means kidney stones 7.14.

... solar radiation holds steady 7.11.

... 33% of coral species risk extinction 7.11.

... EPA: smog could worsen 7.10.

... WWF: drought, disease in Russia 7.9.

... hot future shock: heat wave temps to soar (on Sterl, below) 7.2.

... NOAA: State of Coastal Reef Ecosystems Report 2008

... Sterl et al.: when can we expect extremely high surface temps? GRL 35 L14703

... Carpenter et al.: one third of reef building corals Science 1159196

... Prather et al.: NF3 the gas missing from Kyoto GRL 35 L12810

... Lawrence et al.: accelerated arctic land warming GRL 35 L11506

... U Ariz. Geosciences: climate and sea level maps

The Broome Paradigm

2008-07-10T13:09:00.000-07:00

** updated 7.15. **

This post is a review of the climate ethics cover of June 08 Scientific American. The review -- please scroll down -- has three parts. Good News is on the context. Broome's Paper is on the text. Problems with the Paradigm is on the limitations.

Note two newbies in Climate Philosophy Meets at right. There is a call for papers from the University of Central Florida, in Orlando (see the organizers' blog). I like the title of the Jan 2009 meeting--"evolution, the environment, and responsible knowledge". Kantian! And, if you add it up, evolution plus environment plus responsible knowledge equals non-paradigmatic climate ethics. By contrast, the prevailing paradigm of climate ethics would be environment plus responsible knowledge, sans evolution. Food for thought!

Then there's a call (pdf) from philosophers in Oslo & Victoria to join in the massive conference hosted by the Danish government March 2009. The Climate Conference Copenhagen is going to be a biggie. It'll be interdisciplinary as heck; philosophers will be one tribe only; this may be a historic event. The conference will be a run-up to the UN COP 15 Nov 09, whose goal is a REAL climate treaty for 2012ff.

The next post will be the July Climate Review. As a pre-view some info that popped up since the two June reviews (parts one and two).

ESA reports that an Antarctic ice shelf is "hanging by its last thread". The ice apron is not looking so good these days. Trippy about ESA's finding is that this is happening in the Antarctic winter.

NOAA released its States of Coral Reef Ecoysystems 2008 report (pdf, 580p.) Since 2005, half the reefs in the Caribbean have died. That's a fifty percent loss in three years (p.11). And then there's this: “continued increases in CO2 may result in acidification of waters to the point that calcification by marine organisms can no longer occur, which would prevent future coral reef growth altogether.“ (p. 15). A news blurb is here.

O yes. And on top of this, one third of coral reef building organisms is now facing extinction. The destructiveness of the Gringo Square has become tangible.

Personal updates: There is hope for a USF Honors Climate seminar. There may be a second bicyclist commuter in the USF faculty, rumour has he's a math guy. The USF Provost Office may be interested to consider solar panels and energy independence -- if only to stop the laughter at the Sunshine State without Sun Power.

'Nuff said. Now John Broome.

Good News

That Scientific American selects a philosophy paper as last month’s lead article (vol. 298.6:97-102) is excellent news for philosophers and a PR feat for our discipline. Now this particular paper is a study of climate change, and this shows the progression of research. As even die-hard Christians, dogmatic Humeans, and motoring Republicans know by now, climate change, despite federal attempts at censoring the information, is not in doubt anymore. The debates on the historic transformation of world climate have branched out from the empirical stage of inquiry and its questions of events, causes, and effects. Originally, debates revolved around the fact-based questions of trends, thresholds, tipping points, and feedback loops. Now, new branches are weaving a rational stage of broader inquiries. There, debates concern insight-oriented questions, such as of what it all means; how to value it, and what’s to be done.

In the arts and sciences, climate change has leapt over disciplinary fences like an unstoppable wildfire. What started out as a puzzle in chemistry, physics, and meteorology grew into a topic in geology, paleontology, geology, marine studies, ecology, and biology; next turned into a challenge for medicine, engineering, economics, and environmental management; and has now solidly emerged as an issue in ethical theory, in moral or practical philosophy. The hope of this blogging historian of ideas is that the problem of climate change will soon break out from the confines of ethics (and philosophy of science, for that matter), and invade foundational philosophy—phenomenology, hermeneutics, ontology, and the geography of thought. When that happens—when, not if—climate studies will have evolved from the factual and the practical to the truly conceptual.

We would then also have come full circle, or at least made one revolution on a rising heuristic spiral, namely from the Kyoto Protocol to the Kyoto School and Watsuji. But this is in the future. For now, and looking back, the news of Scientific American leading with a paper in Moral Philosophy adds weight to Tim Flannery’s 2005 prediction that the issue of climate change, in the years to come, will dwarf all the other issues combined, and that it will become the only issue.

Broome’s Paper

John Broome’s “The Ethics of Climate Change” is a valuable, well-informed, and informative paper. While I don’t agree with it a bit, I must reign in misgivings (more below), put my mouth on the leash, and see things in perspective. My misgivings are opinions outside the paradigm, and they are exotic compared to British moral philosophy. And regardless of mixed feelings, the fact remains that Professor Broome has done the discipline a service by showcasing the application of British moral thought to a world problem. This should make the conceptual sum of climate-plus-philosophy less counterintuitive to a broader audience, also in academic philosophy.

Broome has written lucid works at the intersection of economics and philosophy. Weighing Goods (1991) and Weighing Lives (2004) are two of them. His book, Counting the Cost of Global Warming (1992), was an early, if not to say pioneering, appraisal of the price tag of then looming climate change. “The Ethics of Climate Change” is reasoned in a similar vein as Counting the Cost. “The Ethics” is written in a non-technical style; the essay is simple, plain, and short. The brevity distils what would otherwise be fine-grained lines of reasoning into a compact mix of queries and conclusions. While this may not satisfy the expert, it helps in thinking about the issue, and it highlights the author’s perspective.

Sections of the paper have titles such as “ethics of costs and benefits,” “the richer future,” “temporal distance,” and “market discount rates?” One graph box (p. 98) is entitled, “discounting made simple—how much do we care about the future?” Another box is on Utilitarianism—here defined as the view that “assigns the same social value no matter how benefits are distributed” (p. 99)—and on the view Boone calls “Prioritarianism,” which assigns greater value to an increase in the wellbeing of the poor as compared to an increase in the wellbeing of the rich. Broome is for utilitarianism and against prioritarianism (p. 102). A final box (p. 100) leads with the question, “measuring catastrophe?”

Questions matter here. Two of them stand out: “how much should we sacrifice today to improve the lives of future people richer than we are?” (p. 98) And: “which is worse, the death of a child in 2108 or the death of a child today?” (p. 100)

And that, in a nutshell, is what this is about—a non-technical summary, more perspective than treatise, on the ethical and economic aspects of climate change. The thought is British. The viewpoint follows the Scottish Enlightenment and its successors. The ethical framework is utilitarianism. The economic framework is the free-market theory, or capitalism, and specifically, the discount rate. This rate refers to “how fast the value of having goods in the future diminishes as the future time in question becomes more remote” (p. 100). Broome is a disciple of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. Then again, if you teach philosophy at Oxford, you’re more or less expected to be.

For Broome, discounting is problematic and yet the only way to go—which means, on the one hand, that “we should be temporally impartial” (p. 102), hence not operate with the assumption of diminishing future value over time; and on the other, that low discounting à la Stern (of Stern Report fame) is desirable, in contrast to a high discount rate à la Nordhaus. William Nordhaus is a Yale economist, American optimist, and free marketeer, who doesn’t lose much sleep over climate change. Broome favors, with Stern, a 1.4% discount rate over the 6% rate proposed by Nordhaus. Broome and Stern put a “relatively high value on the wellbeing of future generations,” which translates into the demand to spend “1 percent of [the world’s] total production rate, or about $500 billion today, on efforts to reduce greenhouse gases” (box p. 98).

In sum, the essay is informative and reasonable. Broome says that climate change is a problem that is only going to get worse; that we need to pay respect to future generations (conundrums à la Parfit of their presently-obligating not-yet-existence notwithstanding); that the solution of the climate problem requires sacrifices; and finally, that it ain't right to favor ourselves unduly over the future, which rules out Prioritarianism, even though, economically, we are poor compared to the ever richer generations of the receding future.

And that’s that.

Problems with the Paradigm

Let me tackle the problems in terms of three questions.

First, can we afford to continue thinking in the Adam Smith box? Karl Marx was wrong: despite his predictions, capitalism didn’t collapse through internal contradictions. The system works alright. But the system is at odds with its context. A flourishing free market requires steady economic expansion; economic expansion means expanding resource exploitation, expanding productions of goods and waste, and expanding biospherical stress. As Nicholas Stern freely grants, climate change is "the greatest market failure the world has ever seen" (Stern Report, Summary of Conclusions, p. 3). Climate change is the result of the external conflict of capitalism with its physical context. None of what I write here is particularly controversial. So what makes Professor Broome and other British moral philosophers think that the paradigm that got us into the mess will get us out of it? Is it because, after the fall of communism, it's either capitalism or nothing? If so, he and his colleagues must suffer the reproach of being fresh out of ideas.

Second, can we afford to trust Adam Smith dogmas such as the discount rate? To be sure, the world economy, measured at constant prices, expanded about twenty-fold in the past century. This expansion took off in the industrial revolution two centuries ago. Since then, every new generation had been richer than the generation that preceded it. In such a dynamic matrix over time, and from the vantage point of any given generation, some discounting of diminishing future value made sense. But this was then. Now, in light of the crossing of virtually all sustainable yield thresholds of the resources and commons the world economy needs, and in light of of the failing biospherical capacity to absorb more greenhouse gases without ill effect, I wonder what can possibly justify this dated belief in future riches? Climate change changes things. How will future generations be better off than we are? Begging this question makes the paper sound dogmatic.

Finally, the paradigm tells us to conceive of climate change in one-dimensional terms: it’s a “problem,” and its solution is going to be “costly” yet necessary for the benefit of the “future”. Why don’t we turn things upside down? Don't see it as problem; see it as chance. Don't judge it costly; judge it beneficial. Don't think only of the kids then and there, also think of yourself, here and now.

Put differently, I suggest looking at what needs to be done not as a costly solution for the sake of the future, but as an overdue exit from a failing paradigm. Intergenerational equity is essential, but climate ethics is not reducible to it. We need to think outside the box, and this would suggest that the current events give us a chance for evolution. After the dumbing-down of US culture to the gringo square, we're finally forced to smarten up again! The utopian, enlightened, and ecosophical societies envisioned by Schweitzer, Leopold, Fromm, Naess, and the hippies, as well as by Laozi, Confucius, and Kant, are within reach. At last these visions aren't for dreamers anymore. They're for realists who wish to avoid a Darwin Award. Such social visions are now the only viable alternative to a failing present. In that sense, climate change is not a problem--it's a chance. It points beyond a paradigm that seems to be meeting its limit. And if my misgivings sound too romantic, kindly consider this: is it realistic to hope creating forces for the needed effort by seeing climate change purely in terms of costs for an abstract future?

climate review June (II)

2008-06-28T15:07:00.001-07:00

-- post revised/updated 7.1 --

The Mississippi rushes through a break in a levee

Events are unfolding. Trendlines are playing out. The 6.19. story in Scientific American confirms the title of the previous post (6.13.). Clairvoyance this isn't: eco-tailspins entail predictable information.

Two items in Scientific American's June issue (vol. 298.6, 2008): Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, wrote (p. 40) "Surging Food Prices and Global Stability". Kudos to Sachs for talking straight. Food prices are up b/c of overpopulation and overconsumption; because of climate shocks (Australia drought & worse to come); because of Gringo choices: subsidized diversion of the corn crop for profitable carbon-intensive ethanol production.

John Broome, professor of moral philosophy at Oxford, wrote (p. 97-102) "The Ethics of Climate Change". Kudos to the SciAm editors for this June cover. The cover title, in fact, is Ethics and Economics of Climate Change. (Broome is an economist-turned-ethicist.)

The June cover subtitle is Balancing Current Costs against Future Well-Being. The June online subtitle is Pay Now or Pay More Later? The article blurb says:

"Weighing our own prosperity against the chances that climate change will diminish the well-being of our grandchildren calls on economists to make hard ethical judgments."

Last term I argued, to no avail, with thick-headed administrators of the Honors College at USF, who reneged on their word to add a Climate Seminar to the Honors curriculum. Their curious argument, elliptically foreshortened, was that climate change is controversial, so only natural scientists should teach it, but social scientists and philosophers have no say. My reply, in a nutshell, had been that the Honors people are behind the times, because the scientific controversy is over (6.22.08 International Herald Tribune; "best quote" below). And because the scientific controversy is over, the debate starts in the social sciences. Trust me, I said. They didn't. You'll see, I said. Now they do. If Sci Am splays Ethics & Economics of Climate on the cover, I'll rest my case. Thanks, John Rennie!

(Fair Warning: on Professor Boone, en plus detail, in the next post)

Local news: Before the rains the Hillsborough River was dry and fish were flopping in the mud. There's not a single solar roof panel in Temple Terrace. This is historic: No solar power in the sunshine state! USF still doesn't have a car pool. I remain the only bicyclist.

Best quote:

A scientific and political consensus now exists on the threat posed to our civilization by climate change. The problem is generating the political will to take the steps necessary to radically reduce our consumption of fossil fuels. The present oil shock provides the answer to that problem - if our leaders have the courage to use it.

A. Lieven & A. Roswell, "Three strikes and we're out," IHT 6.22.08

CLIMATE EVENTS

... all-time wildfire record in California 7.1.

... olympic nightmare: red tide in yellow sea 6.30

... fish fade away, crabs take over 6.29.

... no ice at the North Pole this year? 6.27.

... what's really up with north pole sea ice? 6.27.

... climate change imperils native Cal. plants 6.24.

... typhoon fengshen: 700 dead in the Philippines 6.22.

... Mississippi river flood cresting 6.22.

... blistering heat wave continues in California 6.21.

... floodwaters breach levees in Illinois 6.18.

... jellyfish climate proliferation signal nature's out of sync 6.18.

... conflicts fuelled by climate change causing new refugee crisis, warns UN: total up 3m to 37.4m as downward trend reverses -- figures exclude those fleeing natural disasters 6.17.

... record heat wave continues in New York 6.9.

... too late to save Pacific nation Kiribati from submersion 6.6.

... forecast for big sea level rise 4.15.

CLIMATE POLICY

... N Stern to Washington: 'planet heading toward tipping point' 28.6.

... N Stern: cost of tackling climate change has doubled 26.6.

... warming threatens global security 25.6.

... K Annan calls for 'climate justice' 24.6.

... J. Hansen (I): 'tipping points near on global warming' 24.6.

... J. Hansen (II) warns U.S. Congress: 'this is the last chance' 23.6.

... J. Hansen (III) asking U.S. Congress: 'put oil firms on trial' 23.6.

... König Abdullahs Beruhigungstropfen 22.6.

... Saudia Arabia boosts oil supply 6.22.

... federal report: warming = more harmful climate extremes 6.19.

... Australia, Indonesia pledge climate cooperation 6.13.

... progress falters on Bali Roadmap to new climate deal 6.13.

... officials say UN climate talks too slow 6.13.

GLOBAL MILIEU

... tropical deforestation 2008 map 7.1.

... forecast for Dec '08: Oil at $ 170 6.28.

... Oil at $ 143 6.27.

.. the floods: a manmade disaster? 6.24.

... consumer confidence sinks to 16 year low 6.24.

... U.S. home prices tumble at record rate 6.24.

... life in U.S. exurbia becomes untenable 6.24.

... T. Friedman: the oil addict-in-chief 6.22.

... high fuel prices put brakes on indie band tours 6.22.

... wind power to drive UK's green revolution 6.21.

... householders could be forced to insulate homes in UK 6.21.

... the big pander to big oil 6.19.

... world population to hit 7 billion in 2012 6.19.

... how the rich confiscate natural beauty from the public 6.17.

... Midwest farmland flooding boosts food prices 6.17.

... world crude oil production has peaked: Pickens 6.17.

... is America's suburban dream collapsing into a nightmare? 6.16.

... how a Midwest flood can drag down a train-less nation 6.15.

... the decline of North Sea oil 6.9.

... Southern California home prices down 27% from '07 levels 6.16.

... Oil at $ 140 6.16.

... a legacy of salt in Uzbekistan 6.15.

... ABC News forum on surviving the century 6.12.

... the destruction of Africa 6.11.

... natural lab shows sea's acid path 6.8.

... China now no. 1. in CO2 emissions; USA in second position 5.31.

... surplus U.S. food supplies dry up 5.2.

ENLIGHTENMENT

... Austria levies carbon tax on fat cars 6.30.

... causal nexus: climate change-drought-wildfires 6.30.

... Amsterdam airport levies carbon tax 6.28.

... M. Davis: humanity's meltdown: farewell to the Holocene 6.26.

... UK's blueprint for a green revolution 6.21.

... G. Monbiot: leave fossil century behind to reach golden age 6.21.

... A. Goodman: weather reports are missing the story 6.19.

... J. Bageant: most Americans are afraid to feel outrage 6.19.

... Congress pushes to keep land untamed 6.16.

... Supreme Court rejects Exxon appeal in human rights case 6.16.

... J. Kunstler: status quo-oh 6.16.

... housing, inflation getting worse, data to show 6.15.

... native Americans: "water is alive; it hears our words" 6.14.

... climate change protesters hijack coal train 6.13.

... E. Savin: the solution: clean energy 6.11.

... US congressman moves to impeach Bush 6.10.

... M. Parry et al.: squaring up to reality 5.29.

DISENLIGHTENMENT

... McCain opposes trains 7.1.

... citing need for "assessments," U.S. stops solar energy 6.27.

... global energy demand up 50% until 2028, rely on coal & oil 6.25.

... no end seen on reliance on oil, fossil fuels 6.25.

... Bush calls for offshore drilling 6.18.

... McCain urges end to ban on offshore drilling 6.16.

... Bush regrets almost nothing 6.15.

... Republicans block extra taxes on oil companies 6.10.

CLIMATOLOGY FINDINGS

... D. Lawrence, "Accelerated arctic land warming and permafrost degradation during rapid sea ice loss" Geophys. Res. Lett. 35 L11506

... R. Kerr, "Variable sun and Maya collapse," Science 292 p. 1293

... "Climate change killed Maya civilization," Nat'l Geogr 5.13

... "Maya may have caused deadly climate change," Nat'l Geogr 2.29

... "Maya civilization done in by brightening of the Sun," Unisci 5.17.

... D. Bielo, "Ice core shows how fast climate changes," Sci Am 6.23.

... "Solar variability and climate change," Geosciences, June

... "Sea level rises and ocean temperatures: 50% higher," 6.19.

... C. Domingues et al. "Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise," Nature 543, p. 1090-1093

... D. Perovich et al., "Extreme Arctic sea ice melt summer 2007," Geophys Res Letters 35 L11501

... D. Khvorostyanov et al., "Vulnerability of Siberia's frozen carbon stores to future warming," Geophys Res Letters 35 L10703

... G. Brumfiel, "Bleak future for acid oceans: volcanic vents give a glimpse of world w/o corals & other creatures," Nature news 6.6.

... M. Kennedy et al. "Snowball Earth termination by destabilization of equatorial permafrost methane clathrate," Nature 453 p. 642-643

... Wired comment: "Could methane trigger a climate doomsday within a human lifespan?" 5.28.

... M. Lynas: "Climate chaos is inevitable. We can only avert oblivion." 6.12.

when the levee breaks

2008-06-13T18:36:00.000-07:00

... by the Led Zep, from Four Symbols 1971

A friend from the Johannes Kepler custodians advised me today,

Don't criticize those who misuse levee funds on waging war; instead look for a home at least 10 ft above sea level. Or-- don't warn of rising waters; instead buy yourself a house boat. Or -- scold the Moron at the Helm from a school in the hills. Or -- return to Bavaria and be 1,000 ft above sea level --
'cos when the levee breaks, it will be you they will crucify, just because you told them.

The advice is much appreciated. Yet shouldn't I stay put as long as there's a chance to co-design climate evolution? Tucking tail, fleeing from the Floridian heartland of the American Disenlightenment, and running for the high ground of a Bavarian shelter would be lame.

Unexcused, only cowards run away.

This is not a jibe at dear friends who did bolt. A Canadian neighbor and his wife were blessed with a son: giving birth makes it rational to head north. Sino-Canadian friends of ours left Florida last week: the wife is unemployed and sickly and needs to be where there's public health care; that is, in China or Canada. All this makes sense.

But I wouldn't have such excuses.

I have this vision: that one day, when I'm old, kids will challenge me: what did you do, Mad Hun, when it all went down, the data had solidified, and you lived as a philosopher? Where were you, in 2008, when the levees were breached and tipping points were reached?

I hope I can reply: I stood my ground and did my job. Blame my timid colleagues for being owned by the ownership society. Don't blame me.

For imagine yourself universalized: imagine everyone bolted and no one explored the switchover to optimodal postcarbon lifestyles, in the society that needed such explorations most. Then everything would get worse. Florida's conduct would wreak even greater havoc on the prospects of the territories I love, in Taiwan and in Bavaria.

Just see the fertile rice paddies and pepper fields in the river plain between the bamboo forests in Kaohsiung county. Now add three more degrees centigrade as annual mean temperature, thanks to G W Bush. How will the rice taste? How will the pepper grow? Will bamboo still bend? Or will it be splintered and broken in a wasteland?

Just see the Alps, and feel their kick-ass mountaineering joy. Envision the likely color change. Thanks to motorvating gringos, thanks to homo gringus flatulens, the green, blue, & snowcapped Bayrischen Alpen will grow yellow, brown, and barren patches. How far will the patches spread, over the years, and along their flanks? What will happen to the tall dark stands of trees?

Now imagine the opposite.

Imagine everyone, each in her or his station of life, just did what needed to be done, and rationally mirrored Nature's flow. Imagine everyone would do what it took to evolve; that nobody bolted, wimped out, or changed the topic. Imagine everyone would help with the switchover to a viable world -- the lawyers would sue the government; the politicians would impeach Bush; the engineers would build green transit; the teachers would teach deep ecology; the parents would look out for the long-term good of their children; the soldiers would quit fighting for oil and instead escape to Canada; the journalists would improve their professional standards; and the television producers and evangelical preachers would apologize for the damage they've done to the American mind.

Imagine the philosophy professors would start wondering about the outside instead of just their insides--imagine they'd start thinking, finally, about the world, and stop thinking so much about the human mind and human speech and human books; and they would reason, write, teach, and question accordingly. Imagine the logicians would start wondering about the logos of the clouds, create more systems theory, teach a rigorous calculus of nonlinear dynamics to their doctoral students and explain the informal fallacies of the bushist fairytale to their undergraduate kids. Imagine the ethicists would start working on the Wolffian ideas of rational design, the Kantian algorithm of sustainability, and the Nietzschean re-evaluation of values as seen from the optics of life. Imagine the aestheticians would find the balls to tango with ontology and turn to metaphysics. Imagine the metaphysicians would start to learn to think like clouds, explore the matrix of the field, return to the things à la Brentano and Heidegger, and leave pointless analytic engineering happily behind. Imagine the social philosophers would map out the Gringo Square and the American Disenlightenment, and imagine they'd help us, à la Wittgenstein, to show the fly the way out of the flybottle.

If you can imagine everyone just doing their job, we'd actually be fine and get out of this alright.

As long as I can still imagine this, I shall stand my ground.

But I promise to my Keplerian friend, when imagination fails me, I shall quietly run with my love to the hills, and design the future where hope persists.

climate review June (I)

2008-06-06T11:44:00.000-07:00

Sahara invading southeastern Spain, 6.2.08

It seems the trends visible last year are settling in for the long haul. The crossing of all sustainable thresholds pushes prices ever higher.

System failure has begun.

At least the Paris-based International Energy Agency got down to brass tacks, hammering out a plan for the global energy revolution.

In Germany, the Bonn Climate Change Talks 2008 opened on 6.2.08. It's a conversation about designing the future among 162 nations, or rather, a dispute of 161 nations with the oily, carboniferous USA. The point is to launch the renegotiation phase for Copenhagen 2009. And the point of that is to get everyone up to speed about Kyoto 2
(Kyoto 1 will expire 2012).

In the USA, on the day the Bonn meeting started, the first-ever climate bill reached the Senate floor (S. 3036) and is now being debated. Or rather was. Despite kowtowing to Adam Smith & the Carbon Trading boyz, it had been predicted to fail from the get-go. The Climate-Changer-in-Chief vowed he'd veto a U.S. climate bill.

This is history in the making. After proof positive of anthropogenic climate change passed peer review and was first published in 1981; after the Brundtland people formally defined sustainability in 1987; after the Global Village agreed on climate mitigation at Rio in 1992; after the Kyoto Accord came into Kantian, cosmopolitan being 1997; after all Developed Nations, except the U.S., ratified Kyoto in 2007 -- after all this, the Presidential Neanderthal makes it known he'd veto a climate bill. The U.S. president hates science, or children, and either way, and unimpeached, he represents America in 2008.

And he certainly represents his party: today's headline (6.6.08) is that the Republican Lawmakers Block a U.S. Climate Bill. The poor party of Abraham Lincoln! Consider this stunning decline -- and imagine the Darwin Award in the making! Imagine how the GOP is going to feel a decade from now. Imagine how ashamed children of such GOP members are going to be of their fathers and mothers -- how they will wish, then, they'd been born into different families.

As an anthropological aside, it's noteworthy that the first & failed gringo climate bill had been baptized the US Climate Security Act -- a label befitting the devolving zeitgeist.

The history of the American Disenlightenment is written post by post.

Best quote:

The battles of yesterday were fought over land ... Those of the present center on oil. But those of the future, a future made hotter and dryer by climate change in much of the world, will focus on a much more basic resource: water.

Elisabeth Rosenthal, "Desert is claiming southeast Spain," International Herald Tribune 6.2.

Best picture:

Spitzer telescope unveils highest resolution pic of Milky Way (link)

CLIMATE EVENTS

... vast cracks appear in Arctic ice 5.23.

... satellite pics reveal rapid forest loss in New Guinea 6.2.

... Sahara desert is claiming southeast Spain 6.2.

... water crisis to be biggest world risk 6.5.

... Nepal hard hit by climate change: minister 6.5.

... Schwarzenegger declares drought in California 6.5.

CLIMATE POLICY

... under pressure, White House issues climate change report 5.30.

... climate science gov link

... here's the report: Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Global ~~Climate~~ Change on the United States (NB: "climate" is censored)

... new round of climate talks open in Germany 6.2.

... UN FCCC Bonn Climate Change talks 2008 (link to site)

... the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008 (link library of congress; enter search query 'S.3036,' click on 'bill number')

... trouble with Congress' green gambit 6.2.

... Q & A: The Climate Security Act 6.2.

... US Climate-change bill: how it works and players involved 6.2.

... would cut CO2 and other g-gas emissions by 71% by 2050 6.5.

... Int'l Energy Agency: Energy Technology Perspectives (link)

GLOBAL MILIEU

... U.S. soldiers try to convert Iraqis to Christianity 5.30.

... food prices are rocketing all over Europe 5.31.

... Sen. B. Boxer: a critical week in the global warming debate 6.2.

... last flight of the honey bee? 6.2.

... Iraq death toll 'above highest estimates' 6.2.

... UN blames rich nations for food shortages 6.3.

... biggest jobless jump since 1986 -- Wall Street sinks 6.6.

... Dow Jones falls 400 pts 6.6.

... Oil at $ 139 6.6.

... $ 45 trillion needed to combat global warming 6.6.

ENLIGHTENMENT

... guerrilla gardener movement takes root in LA area 5.29.

... climate findings were distorted in US, probe finds 6.3.

... high gas prices lead to surge in mass transit 6.3.

... end for ~~retard truck~~ Hummer after sales dive 6.4.

DISENLIGHTENMENT

... increase in Republican doubt about global warming 5.13.

... Confederate flag to fly over ~~Moron City~~ Tampa 6.2.

... Republican lawmakers block US climate bill 6.6.

the sleepers awaken

2008-05-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

.

Remarkable in the past six weeks had been the tacit admission that the Bush junta deserves no respect. From the "Neanderthal"-remark in the German government to the statement by Indian officials on Bush's "widely known ignorance" to the silence in Washington DC -- there is change in the air. A problem is being understood.

Today (5.30) the New York Times reports that Under Pressure, White House Issues Climate Change Report. The news is that,

The Bush administration, bowing to a court order, has released a fresh summary of ... research pointing to large, and mainly harmful, impact of human-caused global warming in the United States. (...) Under a 1990 law, presidents must submit a report to Congress every four years summarizing what is known about impacts of climate change ... on the United States. The last such assessment, undertaken in the Clinton administration and published in 2000 ... was attacked by ... industries opposing restrictions on greenhouse gases. References to it were deleted from some government reports by political appointees in the [Bush] White House. Environmental groups sued to force the completion of a new study. In court, the White House contended that a series of ... studies requested by .. Bush in 2003 ... satisfied the 1990 law, but Judge ... Brown ... rejected that assertion ... and ordered a comprehensive assessment to be published by the end of May. "This assessment is an example of what federal scientists can and should be doing when they are freed from political interference and allowed to actually do their jobs," said Kassie Siegel, climate program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. Senator John Kerry ... who was the lead author of the 1990 law, strongly criticized the White House: "The three-year delay of this report is sadly fitting for an administration that has wasted seven years denying ... climate change ... In these lost years, we could have slowed global warming and advanced clean energy solutions, but instead America's climate change strategy has been at best rhetorical, not real."

A small step, sure; forcing the climate changers to release an uncensored climate report is not the same as forcing them to mitigate climate change. But it's a step in the right direction.

Another small step occurred a few days ago in the context of Dow Chemical Co.'s decision to raise its prices by up to 20% to offset the soaring cost of energy. The AP article (5.28), Dow: Country in "true energy crisis"; ups prices, cites the CEO of Dow Chemical:

"Washington has failed to address the issue of rising energy costs and ... the country now faces a true energy crisis, one that is causing serious harm to America's manufacturing sector and all consumers of energy," Andrew Liveris, Dow Chemical's chairman and chief executive, said in a written statement.

Some CEO told the truth, and more than that: the group the Bush junta claims to represent, Big Business, Big Money, and Big Oil, is breaking up. The synergy of the Big Three, helped along by gun smiths, mercenaries, foot soldiers, and lords of war, was stable only as long as its members closed ranks against reality and had their media deny what was plain to see for us little guys. Freedom, including the freedom of information, relies on powers divided and walls broken up. Truth is like a weed: it flourishes in cracks, but cannot thrive on a smooth wall. Cracks are good.

A key moment happened last fall (9.18.07 Greenspan clarifies Iraq war, oil link), when the former Federal Reserve Chairman admitted,

I'm saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil.

This remark, trivial as it was, and made by a key player, caused a crack between Big Oil and Big Money. Now another key player, the Dow CEO, makes another remark, and this new admission, while in substance trivial, opens another fault-line: between Big Oil and Big Business. Trivial: the Bushists give us an avoidable energy crisis. Trivial: what's good for Exxon isn't necessarily good for Dow and others in the manufacturing sector. Truth sprouts and thrives.

Jürgen Habermas articulated the principle of communicative action: just let people freely talk things out , and the ensuing data flow will be self-correcting and promote Enlightenment. One could add to Habermas' insight that it's remarkable how Enlightenment builds upon insights of the duh! variety. Perhaps one could say that Enlightenment is a Whole that's more than the sum of its parts, and that the extra amount, distinguishing a whole from a sum, is the energy that goes into the trivial (and thus absolutely true) parts working together as a rational field.

End of the month update:

Well. Maybe I'm too optimistic.
After all, look at the actual report the US government was forced to release: which bad & anti-gringo word is censored in the title?

The title is:
A Report of the Committe on Environment and Natural Resources: Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Global ~~Climate~~ Change on the United States (National Science and Technology Council, 2008).

... And no corporate media picked up on this!

The American Disenlightenment continues.

.

climate review May

2008-05-22T18:13:00.001-07:00

.

Biospherical information appears to be jelling into a new structure. This new structure is bad news for many people. For some it means diminishing wealth; for others it spells longer odds for survival; for most if not all it represents decline. Yet this matrix reload carries the promise of hope. Finally things aren't ambiguous anymore.

And clarity permits orientation at last. Even the US Republicans sense that they are the problem, not the solution. Everyone knows they've been in charge, and look what they've done. Regardless of whether your reference-frame is people, country, or world climate, US Republicans have devolved to cowboys in black hats. And their leader into a fool. Which is not new, of course. What's new is that everyone is now fine with it. On 5.13. International Herald Tribune reported that "Indians bristle at US criticism on food prices", with passages such as this:

I don't know who advised the president on his recent comments," [former World Bank economist] Agarwala said, but his analysis is "subprime." Bush's "ignorance on most matters is widely known and openly acknowledged by his own countrymen," The Asian Age argued May 5 in an editorial, but he must not be allowed to "get away" with an attempt to "divert global attention from the truth by passing the buck on to India."

The German government called Bush a "Neanderthal" last month, and everyone pretty much agreed. Environmental minister Polke, who made the remark, was not reprimanded by Chancellor Merkel; it didn't become an issue in the parliament; the German media didn't mind; the German public was fine with it as well. Add to this that American media reacted in kind. No US politician complained. The Neanderthal remark didn't provoke the ambassador to Germany to lodge a complaint either. And now Indian officials, so the IHT article, called Bush out as a fool -- and it's the same spiel all over again. No one in India seems to disagree. To my knowledge, the ambassador to India didn't disagree either. Domestically, papers picked up the story, but again, everyone is holding their peace, including Republican politicians.

I take this as a sign that enlightenment is attainable.

The first step to solving a problem is recognizing you have one. It's instructive to see how the analogy between Bush and Hitler is now breaking down (and, by extension, the analogy between Republicans and Nazis). German Nazis failed to question Hitler's authority and so invited their Darwin Award 1945. American Republicans, by contrast, have started to question Bush's authority and thus may still be able to avoid the national collapse that had been prepared by their subservience to the climate-changer-in-chief since 2000. Now, eight years later, members of Bush's own party desert their Neanderthal Fool; even McCain is planning a climate change tour.

Hope is in the air.

Best quote:

It is important to remind ourselves that we are privileged to live at the most exciting moment of creative opportunity in the whole of the human experience. The future is in our hands. Now is the hour. We have the power to turn this world around. We are the ones we have been waiting for.

David Korten, Navigating the Great Turning from Empire to Earth Community, 5.25.

Best link: the Ultima Tower (home page is here; post in Wired)

CLIMATE EVENTS

All salmon fishing banned on West Coast: the closure of commercial and recreational fishing for chinook salmon in the ocean off California and most of Oregon was announced by the National Marine Fishery Service. It followed the recommendation last month of the Pacific Fishery Management Council after the catastrophic disappearance of California's fabled fall run of the pink fish popularly known as king salmon. It is the first total closure since commercial fishing started in the Bay Area in 1848. ...

Two parched years -- punctuated by the driest spring in at least 150 years -- could force districts across California to ration water this summer as policymakers and scientists grow increasingly concerned that the state is on the verge of a long-term drought ...

Break in global warming? (Der Spiegel) According to German scientists the global heating observed in the recent years may be suspended in the next decade. This break is caused by a natural oscillation of currents in the Atlantic ocean, so Keenlyside and his colleagues at the Leibniz Institute in Kiel. Starting with 2020, rapidly rising temperatures will continue ... (Der Spiegel) Temperatures are rising worldwide, but for now there might not be any new heat records. German scientists draw a surprising conclusion in a new climate prognosis: in the coming ten years, the weather may well be cooler than previously thought ... cf. BBC. ... see Nature abstract with link to "Advancing decadal-scale climate prediction in the North Atlantic sector".

Book tip: C Barnett: Mirage: Florida and the vanishing water of the Eastern U.S. (U Michigan 2007)

CLIMATE POLICY

The United Nations is facing scathing criticism from the world's indigenous communities for its attempts to promote carbon trading as a tool to address climate change concerns 5.6.

... Herman E Daly: climate policy from 'know how' to 'do now' 5.13.

... an epidemic of extinctions: decimation of life on Earth 5.16. (this is long known but it's noteworthy that it makes now headlines)

... possibly "billions wasted on UN climate program" 5.25.

GLOBAL MILIEU

Three Chinese banks in world's top four 4.30.

... White House admits fault on 'Mission Accomplished' banner 4.30.

... China builds its large-scale future 5.1.

... China opens one of world's largest bridges 5.1.

... Exxon oil production falls dramatically 5.2.

... Gore calls Nargis a 'consequence' of climate change 5.6.

... Oil at $ 122 5.6.

... Oil at $ 126 5.9.

... Norway island stores wind power for still days 5.13.

... India to America: eat less, Fatties 5.15.

... Obesity contributes to global warming: study 5.15.

... Oil at $ 128 5.16.

... Prince Charles: 18 months to stop climate change disaster 5.18.

... Oil at $ 133 5.21.

... survivalists are preparing 5.24.

ENLIGHTENMENT

GM crops myth: modified soya produces 10% less food than its conventional equivalent 4.20.

... April U.S. car sales show shift to smaller cars 5.1.

... Students are leaving fundamentalist Oral Roberts University 5.2.

... Americans ditch SUVs 5.3.

... Asian bank in food crisis warning 5.3.

... DOE report: wind could power 20% of US grid by 2030 5.12.

... climate change in Washington: at least on global warming, there will be no third term for the Bush administration 5.13.

... gas prices send surge of riders to mass transit (in NYC and Denver; not in Tampa, see "Disenlightenment" 5.3. below) 5.10.

... M Kelley & P Raskin: how food riots, pricey gas, and home foreclosures point to a better future 5.10.

... Germany debates subsidies for Solar Industry 5.16.

... San Francisco first in nation to charge a Pollution Fee 5.21.

... FBI files indict Bush, Cheney as war criminals 5.23.

... Pesticides: Germany bans chemicals linked to honeybee devastation 5.24.

DISENLIGHTENMENT

BP and Shell post big profits in era of record oil prices 4.29.

... Friedman: dumb as we wanna be 4.30.

... Republican-caused defeat of commuter rail future for Tampa and Orlando in Florida legislature 5.3.

... Friedman: who will tell the people? 5.4.

... Florida teacher accused by Christians of wizardry 5.7.

... extreme gringo SUV commuter zombies (with pictures) 5.12.

... Americans leery of bicycles despite gas price jumps 5.16.

... Drop in US life expectancy shows US health care failure 5.18.

... "The invasion of Iraq (...) has trebled the price of oil (...) costing the world a staggering $ 6 trillion in higher energy prices alone." 5.25.

the bicyclist

2008-05-10T11:49:00.001-07:00

.

Today, on the way to campus, the long-desired finally happened.

I saw another bicyclist.

I cut across the 7-11 Citgo parking lot as usual, weaving my way through the gasoline stink of burbling behemoths, snarling SUVs, and humongous hummers. Confused carnivores yammering into cell-phones looked up to the posted prices: $ 3.71, $ 3.81, and $ 3.91, with diesel at the nearby Shell at $ 4.21. A behemoth suddenly backed away from the pump. I stared at a giant incoming bumper: support-our-troops-and-jesus-saves. Gripped the handlebar brakes.

When I looked up again, I saw him.

A slim human was bicycling. Gracefully he cut across the lot in the other direction. He had dark eyes and a black beard. He was clad in white and wore a turban. While he looked warily at gringo-machines, he maintained an air of peace.

Respectfully we greeted each other.

postscript 10 June 2008:

Since this post one month ago, there had been no other bicyclist. Gas is now at $ 4.21 and diesel at $ 4.79. It seems I remain the only velocipedaling commuter along Fletcher Avenue and 56th Street. Was the respectfully greeted Sikh gentleman just an apparition?

I am still "The One".

the solar promissory note 2008:

In the same vein, I wish that one day -- in Tampa, in the Temple Terrace patch between university and river -- I can record the first ever sighting of the first ever solar panel in the Sunshine State.

Wouldn't that be something?

Imagine: gringo homes & stores with bright solar panels on all roofs.
But ah, Mad Hun, ya crazy kraut, did ya forget to take ya medication?
Solar Energy in the Sunshine State -- haha, what a lunatic you are!

.

Bush, climate, and "Nargis"

2008-05-07T09:44:00.000-07:00

Cyclone 01B was born on 4.27 in the Bay of Bengal, east of the Indian Ocean, as a depression that deepened later in the day.
On 4.28, the infant storm, named "Nargis", hovered over warm ocean waters, gained strength, opened an eye, and grew to a category 1 hurricane.
On 4.29, she moved westwards, intensified to category 2, and faced Bangladesh. Then her strength flagged, the eye blurred, and she lost direction. She curled from west to north.
On 4.30, she recuperated, turned east, and faced Burma.
On 5.1, Nargis reopened her eye and accelerated to category 3, now spinning toward the Burmese coast.
On 5.2, cyclone Nargis peaked as the equivalent of a category 4 hurricane. She made landfall in the Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwady) delta and swept inland. Weakening, she curved north to Rangoon/Yangon.
Finally she washed out, a day later, on the mountain slopes dividing Burma/Myanmar from Thailand.

Numbers are jelling into facts that are still soft around the edges. BBC reported 5.5. that the Burmese storm toll 'tops 10,000'. On 5.6, BBC cited Burmese state media with the news that more than 20,000 had been killed, more than 40,000 were missing, and 1,000,000 are homeless. On 5.7 word had it that 100,000 may have died.

In terms of toll, Nargis was the worst storm in Asia for nearly 20 years, since a 1991 hit on Bangladesh, and the worst storm on the whole for a decade, since "Mitch" hit Central America 1998.

In terms of force, Nargis was not as bad as she could have been. This was not a category 5 storm. The category 4 peak lasted less than a day. Nargis was strong, but not exceptionally so. Nonetheless, the human toll is terribly high. Why?

I count five reasons that appear to have made things worse than they otherwise would have been.

The oppressors of Burma's citizenry reacted in typical military fashion and classified the emerging information. Instead of starting a standard evacuation of exposed settlements right after the storm vector pointed to Burma, two days before landfall, as any sensible leadership would have done, the lugnuts in charge just watched the disaster unfolding and kept the state media free of news, for security reasons. And now, with corpses bobbing in the water and survivors risking death by exposure, the uniforms may take a page from Karl Rove's 2005 Louisiana manual and broadcast in Burmese, "let's not play the blame game". While the differences between Katrina and Nargis are many, the similarities are thought-provoking. Both storms were bad, not extreme, yet the toll was extreme, not bad. Both governments were caught with their pants down. Both governments ignored concrete and detailed warnings over looming threats. The Myanmar junta is the Mickey Mouse version of the Bush regime, but the one is the mirror of the other. The Myanmar junta dismissed warnings of a storm track toward the homeland, not trusting evil foreign weather stations; the Bush regime dismissed warnings of climate change making New Orleans' levees insufficient, not trusting evil rational scientists. The toll, in both cases, is extreme, in part because the leaders rejected information instead of acting on it. If you want to eliminate the first cause, lift information control. Closed societies create extreme tolls. Open societies don't.

II.

Consider the damage done to coastal ecosystems prior to the cyclone. BBC headlined this cause 5.6., citing ASEAN's secretary-general, with mangrove loss 'put Burma at risk'. Storms like Nargis arise over warm water. The ocean has no barriers to growth. Storms whip up waves and vent until they blow themselves out. But dry land is an obstacle course. Each toppled tree, each hurled object, each downed wall bleeds wind energy away and helps to exhaust the force. A hurricane at the coast is just a rainstorm farther inland. The sea-land interface is vulnerable. Yet on the latitudes relevant here (Rangoon on the 19th, New Orleans on the 29th parallel), the interface tends to have natural protection. On the seaward side are mangroves, belts of biomass, which absorb wave and wind energy. On the landward side are wetlands, bluegreen sponges, which soak up further incoming energy and cushion weather blows. Eliminate mangroves (as done in Burma) or wetlands (as done in Louisiana, by National Geographic 206.4, October 2004, p. 89, "at a rate of 33 football fields a day"), and the hammer falls on a naked beach, flooding and flattening houses, killing people. If you want to avoid the second cause, stop beach development and restore coastal ecologies to help save lives.

III.

The toll is also extreme because population density is extreme. Consider the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. There have been waves caused by seaquakes since the dawn of time. There is nothing odd about tsunamis. Yet that tsunami killed a quarter million people -- which is the worst known tsunami toll since humans evolved on Earth. Still, don't blame the tsunami, and don't blame the hurricanes, cyclones, or typhoons either. Blame the species instead: world population quadrupled in the past century and is on the verge of doubling once more, and the greatest global density happens to be along coastal regions in tropical and temperate latitudes. Hence the extreme toll of such disasters. If we want to minimize the third cause, we must do some reverse engineering. You can't tell people not to live at the coast if they make their living at the coast. But you can decrease (slowly and over time, to be sure, but still, better than nothing), coastal density by decreasing overall density. And you can decrease overall density by lowering reproduction rates. You can lower reproduction rates by empowering women -- gender equality, as UN demographers know, is the best tool for family planning -- and by evolving new sexual mores. The species is suffering from a baby glut just when we're running out of things, including real estate. We need to learn, and teach, that sex, at least in the 21st century, serves recreational purposes only, and may lead to procreation only under exceptional circumstances. If we don't want to keep seeing the huge tolls of 21st century catastrophes, then it'd be a good start to trim our fat numbers and to leave 19th century values behind.

IV.

Actually, though, we cannot quite blame all these baby-making folks. After all, as UN studies have shown, they prefer to make less babies, and they request assistance. The third reason needs to be qualified by a fourth factor: that population density in developing nations is now higher is an effect of the Mexico City Policy by US president Bush 2001. Sure, we might argue that Myanmar wouldn't have let any of the NGOs affected by Bush's Global Gag Rule in anyway. But are we certain? As a rule, extreme tolls are made possible by high population density, and preserving high population density has been possible by the unilateral global implementation of the Mexico City Policy reinstated by the US. And even if Myanmar were the exception to the rule, the rule would still hold that the US since 2001 is guilty of aiding and abetting planetary overpopulation; that due to the US president, worldwide sex has led to more babies, and that due to the US president, a greater share of the babies born are babies dying. Thus blame Bush. If you want to delete the fourth factor of the toll, at least in categorical terms, rescind the Mexico City Policy.

Finally, blame Bush again. That Nargis happened is natural, and it could have been worse. But without Bush Nargis may well have been weaker. While the rest of the world is trying since Kyoto '97 to ease up on the oil addiction and to expand into carbon-neutral energies, Bush has done the opposite: he rejected Kyoto, dismissed until a few months ago the causal link of oil use and climate change, deepened American dependence on fossil fuels, ordered the resource-driven invasion of Iraq 2003, and had his minions sabotage binding emission caps at Bali 2007. Compared to the USA under Bush, there is no nation on the planet that drives as much, that farts so many greenhouse gases into the air, and that is as guilty of perpetrating planetary climate change. The measly five American percent of the total world population have created one third of global greenhouse gas emissions; the same five percent, under Bush, have prevented efficient carbon management; the same five percent, under Bush, are to be held accountable for a perfectly avoidable third of the heat our species has sunk into the seas. The same five percent, under Bush, are consequently to be blamed for a third of the climate-change-induced rise in more frequent and more intense seaborn storms. And this includes Nargis. Thus blame Bush. And while this may sound strange today, chances are it won't, in the not-too-distant future, to international tribunals and courts, when the litigation for damages starts. The right thing to do, for doing one's share towards preventing another disaster of Nargis' magnitude, is not just to donate to relief efforts, but also, and finally, to impeach the climate changer in chief.

It's never too late to do the right thing.

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