Latest Climate Warnings, Latest Climate Activism

Two prominent figures have issued renewed warnings about the risks of slow action on climate change. But it’s not all doom and gloom (not all) – one of the most exciting climate change activist movements is also about to launch its latest effort.

This isn’t strictly on-topic, but part of my interest in local food is in local food activism, and the risk of climate change is one of the clearest imperatives for a change to our unsustainable conventional food systems. It is important for activist movements not to become separated into single-issue causes, so let’s not lose sight of the links between climate change and food systems. Or miss out on learning from new activist movements.

James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and leading climate scientist, warned earlier this month that the EU and its international partners must

“urgently rethink targets for cutting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of fears they have grossly underestimated the scale of the problem.” (Guardian)

Hansen’s comments were based on his team’s latest research, the report of which is published on the arXiv.org website. The report, entitled Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?, concludes that the current targets set by EU countries of a reduction to 450ppm atmospheric CO2 are insufficient. The abstract states:

“If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm … An initial 350 ppm CO2 target may be achievable by phasing out coal use except where CO2 is captured and adopting agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.” (arXiv.org)

If you want a simple explanation of the research, listen to this summary from Ed Pilkington of Guardian Unlimited. The danger Hansen anticipates is clear. He said in an interview with the Guardian:

“If you leave us at 450ppm for long enough it will probably melt all the ice – that’s a sea rise of 75 metres. What we have found is that the target we have all been aiming for is a disaster – a guaranteed disaster.” (Guardian)

Hansen’s warnings were echoed by Sir Nicholas Stern this week in an interview with the Financial Times. Stern, whose report on the economics of climate change estimated the cost of mitigation at 5-20% of global GDP, said in the interview that his initial report had “underestimated the risks of global warming”. The Guardian reported Stern as saying he felt vindicated by the most recent findings from the IPCC, quoting him saying “People who said I was scaremongering were profoundly wrong”. He said that the commitments on emissions reduction taken on by governments now need to be translated into action. His comments, along with Hansen’s latest warning, and Rajendra Pachauri’s recent comments paint a worrying picture the onset of climate change.

The latest climate warnings are, however, producing new forms of climate activism. The 350 campaign is soon to be launched in the US. Bill McKibben, introducing the campaign, says this:

“We’re planning an international campaign to unite the world around the number 350, and we need your help. We need to make sure that the solutions the world proposes to climate change are to scale with the level of crisis that this number represents. Everyone on earth, from the smallest village to the cushiest corner office, needs to know what 350 means.” (350.org)

Building on the tremendous success of the Step It Up campaign last year, 350 aims to spread awareness of the latest target for emissions reductions around the world, not through large scale protests, but through thousands of individual actions. Get involved..