Save the Planet?
As we were told that the rise in greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere was due to man-made causes, I, in common with the majority fell for the belief that this was purely due to fossil fuel consumption and nothing else — no additional or qualifying factors were involved, it was just that we were burning too much fossil fuel. It was several years later that I realised that the term “man-made” didn’t actually specify which human activity might be responsible.
Today, however, global warming is happening so this is not climate change denial but rather an examination of all the factors leading to where we are today.
Which brings us to the matter of what we are doing about it — and what we should be doing.
You’ll hear of two forms of science related to the matter of environment and climate change. One — climate “science” consists of nothing more than statistics gathering followed by a series of guesses about what will happen in the future. The other — environmental science — is a hugely complex analysis of the events that human activities are affecting the world that we live in. On the one hand, so-called climate science closes down the debate to the matter of getting rid of excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere whereas, on the other hand, environmental science analyses how it got there in the first place and how we should best deal with it.
A number of events in the early 2000s led me to investigate the issues carefully. The character assassination of academic, Bjorn Lomborg for simply suggesting that we get together and discuss how best to address the problem set me off. Other events led me to dig deeper.
In the late nineties a group of academics, gathering as much information as they could, collated an assessment of the total amount of CO2 produced by fossil fuels over a period from 1880 to 2000. Their work, largely disregarded today, produced a single statement that they “could not account for half of all emissions”. A few years later, some environmental scientists took these figures and began to analyse them, decade by decade with some very interesting results.
What became apparent quite quickly was that between 1880 and 1960 there was no apparent increase in atmospheric carbon. This has to be qualified in terms of natural atmospheric changes. I apologise for the extent of the complications I have to refer to here but they are essential to understand how to interpret figures. In 1972 researchers working on the arctic ice survey determined that glacial/interglacial periods spanned about 12,000 years each and that we were about at the end of a warming period. Of course, the gutter press completely misrepresented it but it is important in understanding how natural warming was taking place.
In 1560 CO2 levels were about 260ppm. By 1880 they had reached 284ppm and that brings into play a further complication. The graph included here shows levels in 1960 at about 317ppm but it should be understood that global levels are not consistent. In areas of higher industrial activity or high population, CO2 levels tend to be higher. That
goes for areas of higher volcanic activity too. Readings at the Mauna Loa observatory are a little higher than some
elsewhere. In fact the most reliable is an aggregate of the 200 or so stations operated worldwide by NASA which show a global level of 296ppm in 1960. I have used the Mauna Loa graph because it is the easiest to show accumulated totals post 1960.
So, what did examination of the data reveal? The main part to notice is the relationship with emissions over the period between 1880 and 1960. During that period the world experienced two major recessions and two world wars. The resulting variance in industrial activity and subsequent emissions seems to bear no relation to the change in atmospheric carbon the steady minor increase of which can be attributed to factors other than fossil fuels.
But we reach 1960.
In 1962 Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring was published. Directed at the indiscriminate use of pesticides and chemicals, particularly in agriculture, it was the first to indicate the damage being done to the planet’s biosphere. James Lovelock’s Gaia Theory was published a few years later. These events helped set the pattern for environmental science for the decades to come. But it was a slow start with many disagreements along the way.
Between 1880 and 1960 the release of atmospheric carbon shows no effect related to industrial production separate from other effects. In other words, whatever was released by the consumption of fossil fuels was absorbed by the biosphere.
However, between 1960 and 2000 we saw a rather different effect of carbon in the atmosphere. While in the previous eighty years, no appreciable increase in CO2 levels was recorded, the following forty years showed a distinct measurable increase. Furthermore, the increases decade upon decade showed a lack of correlation with the increases in fossil fuel use in a remarkably different way.
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While there was no doubt that the increase in fossil fuel use was recorded in this period, the increase in atmospheric carbon exceeded the estimated increase due to emissions and that disparity only grew with each decade, indeed it has grown further still in the first quarter of this century. The question has to be — what is causing it? — clearly not simply the increase in emissions relating to global consumption.
And here environmental science steps in. The complexity of the work undertaken over the last sixty years has left the science playing catch-up with the more simplistic approach of the climate science “just stop oil” brigade who have hogged the publicity highlights so far but the findings show the damage which human activity has done to the planet’s biosphere. Since 1960 the ability of the biomass — the sum total of plants, animals, fungi, soil and all aquatic life — to absorb carbon and effectively use it to create more life, has declined by 53% by the end of 2025. Excess emissions have nowhere to go except into the atmosphere where those emissions stay.
Just as the climate change debate continues, there seems to be disruption within the scientific community about the causes and the effects of global warming. In my previous article, “Greenwash” I laid out the proportion of emissions which remain untouched no matter how many windmills and solar panels are installed worldwide — some 68.5%
There are no “renewables” without mining, an unsustainable practice turbocharged by the burning of fossil fuels. Yet, advocates of green technologies still believe that we could “somehow” electrify the recovery of critical minerals, and continue with civilization in a “business as usual but greener” manner. In reality, this could not be further from the truth.
Ref. The Honest Sorcerer
Companies are failing to act on the loss of nature despite knowing for years that it threatens their supply chains and profits, the head of the UN’s biodiversity body has said.
Astrid Schomaker, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, told Reuters that while some firms were closely engaged, many remained “on the sidelines” as governments prepare for a summit that will review targets the UN’s own draft report says are almost all being missed.
“Companies are not investing enough time and energy and resources into analysing their biodiversity impacts and dependencies and risk along the supply chain,” she said, speaking before preparatory talks in Nairobi this week.
Biodiversity loss has appeared among the World Economic Forum’s top global risks every year since 2020, a list drawn from surveys of business leaders and used widely in corporate planning.
“The paradox is that biodiversity and nature risk has been amongst the top risks for the past five or six years,” Ms Schomaker told Reuters.
Source: Independent Climate
So what of renewables? Well, the whole industry depends on the increased extraction of resources in a world already overstretched for resources.
And the consequences:-
Thacker Pass, Nevada, is a case study in this diffuse mechanism playing out as I write. The pass isn’t habitat anyone is trying to destroy for its own sake; it’s the site of what’s being developed as one of the largest lithium mines in the country, driven by demand for electric-vehicle and BESS batteries, and framed as part of the so-called “clean-energy transition.” The pass used to be a critical wildlife corridor linking two mountain ranges, prime greater sage-grouse habitat holding a meaningful share of the species’ entire global population, home to an endangered fresh water snail, and a pronghorn migration route that the mine has severed. Nevada’s own wildlife agency has warned of permanent impacts to the area’s wildlife and water resources. No one involved in developing the mine has sage-grouse, snails, or pronghorn in their sights. That’s precisely the point; it’s the ploughed-prairie mechanism again, just wearing the clothing of a different, ostensibly well-intentioned industry.
Ref. Elizabeth Robson — On Shifting Baselines
And so we move along — more environmental destruction, more loss of biodiversity and an inevitable increase in emissions. The truth is, climate change is not a problem. It’s a predicament. Anyone who thinks that it can be solved by using less fossil fuels — even if that were possible — is just dreaming. We can help to address our predicament but only by tackling the root cause instead of the symptoms and the root cause is the dramatic fall in the planet’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide — the loss of biodiversity and the combined extinction of species.
But to do so involves a dramatic re-evaluation of how we use the planet’s resources. This means a change in the way the entire current neoliberal system works — a change so dramatic that it can take years to achieve and has to be done at a global scale. Even if such a world- wide movement were to come into place tomorrow, the predicament of climate change is now something we need to cope with. It’s not going to go away. But whether we do it now or wait until absolute chaos develops, it needs to be done and the sooner we do it, the better.
And the key lies in saving the planet’s biosphere.
