Copenhagen and Carlow

All eyes should be on Copenhagen, as leaders from 190 countries gather to try to thrash out a workable treaty to deal with the immense challenges presented by climate change. One of the earliest theories of global warming was put forward in 1824 by the French physicist Joseph Fourier, who explained that gases in the Earth’s atmosphere can trap heat like a glasshouse – the “greenhouse effect”. In 1861 John Tyndall, born in Leighlin Bridge County Carlow, published a work on heat radiation. He was an ordnance survey and railway engineer who studied physics in Britain and Germany (under Bunsen, of burner fame) and became a celebrated mountaineer, touring with Darwin’s right-hand man T.H.Huxley and making the first ascent of the Weisshorn in the Swiss Alps. He showed that water vapour and other gases combine to create the greenhouse effect: “This aqueous vapour is a blanket more necessary to the vegetable life of England than clothing is to a man”.

Tyndall was one of the pioneers of climate science, and is remembered today through the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester. His early work spawned a vast body of research involving chemists, physicists, geographers, oceanographers, geologists, botanists, naturalists and just about any branch of science that you can think of. The unanimity of these scientists is almost total. The Earth is warming, potentially very dangerously. Ten of the thirteen hottest years on record have been since 1995. The planet is at a temperature level not seen for 1300 years, and is overwhelmingly likely to get hotter over the next century. Yes, there is a cyclical element in the rise and fall of global temperature, but this rise is very largely caused by man through use of carbon-emitting fossil fuels to power our industrial revolution and economic growth since the mid-18th century.

There is a general consensus that a 2C rise is the largest that can be safely absorbed by life on Earth and human society. That is what Copenhagen is trying to guarantee, with countries pledging to reduce carbon emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2020 This is a worthy goal and achievable if we adopt sustainable sources of energy (wind, water, waves, geo-thermal) or even nuclear power. In itself the consensus is that 20% is not sufficient to contain warming to 2C. Cuts of up to 80% on 1990 levels will have to be implemented within a generation, not easy when there are ”developing countries” wanting to ape the lifestyle of the materially prosperous, energy-greedy west. American and Chinese (and others’) pledges to cut emissions are currently way short of the short-term minimum requirement of 20%.

If you are a climate-change sceptic, or even a denier, then ask yourself if you are being rational. The unanimity of scientific judgement is so great, that to reject it without pointing to creditable research is no longer a valid position to hold. Yes, there is a small chance that tens of thousands of scientists are wrong, that they have colluded to mislead the public, that almost every government is deluded into backing the “20 by 2020” call. If they are wrong, then we should still take the chance to make changes to our lifestyle that will make a decent standard of life and living possible around the globe once fossil fuels run out in a few decades. Changes for sustainability need to be made anyway.

If moderate climate change opinion is right, we will all have to make adjustments to our lifestyle and to our values. Can we any longer place individual and national freedom above other considerations? Global standards and rules will be needed to get emissions to sustainable levels. Personal freedom to pursue economic growth and wealth is perhaps a value that is increasingly out of place in the new global reality. That doyenne of free-market capitalism and personal freedom, Margaret Thatcher, was herself a chemist by training, and as long ago as 1989 told the UN that “we are seeing a vast increase in the amount of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere. The result is that change in future is likely to be more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto”.

Climate change events are being held around Ireland this coming week. Try Kinnity Co, Offaly this Sunday (13th Dec) at 5.00pm. Show support for what more and more people are realising has to be done.

The Director of the Tyndall Research Centre, Prof. Kevin Anderson, has warned this week that 20% cuts are now simply token gestures. Global carbon dioxide emissions will peak much later than anticipated and will be reduced far too late for temperatures to be held at a mere 2C rise. He thinks we are almost inevitably on course for a 4-6C rise. This is a catastrophic scenario for human society and global life.