Book Review: Climate Code Red-the case for Emergency Action

Climate Code Red

The Case for Emergency Action

David Spratt and Philip Sutton

Scribe Publications 2008

Spratt and Sutton have written an important book that looks at the current state of climate science, compares the projections for likely catastrophic and irreversible climate change to the policy measures and government reactions so far, and finds the latter seriously lacking. If we carry on with our current targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, we will effectively guarantee climate disaster.

They are too little, too late and seem designed more to allow “business as usual” commerce and industry to continue with minimal pain rather than responding sufficiently to the extreme gravity of our situation; and as the authors continually stress, we have only one shot at solving the problem. The decisions we make now will determine the future of life on earth, and so far, there is little evidence that we are taking the threats to civilisation seriously enough.

It’s time, they argue, to face the reality that we are confronting a global climate emergency, and we had better start reacting with an appropriate sense of urgency.

The problem with the book I found is that despite the language of “emergency” -and we should know by now this is certainly what we should be talking about- the book doesnt go nearly far enough, confing itself to largely technological and economic methods of reducing carbon emissions and cooling the planet while ignoring the call from other authors- Ted Trainer for example- to change our lifestyle and revolutionize the ideology that underpins the growth economy.

Throughout the book the authors survey a wide range and reports concerning the three variables of:

-how much warming before we pass the tipping point that will take us into “dangerous runaway climate change”?

-what is the levels of greenhouse gases which are likely to lead to this level of warming?

-what % cuts will we need to keep atmospheric levels of GHG below the dangerous threshold?

I found myself getting slightly confused as to who was saying what exactly and how these three variables actually relate to each other, and a couple of graphs would have been really useful here to provide a ready reference point.

But the long and the short of it seems to be, the conventional view of keeping warming to below 2 degrees of pre-industrial levels (we are currently at about o.8 degrees) is probably too high, but in any case- and this is the crucial point- at current rates we are already committed to exceeding this and are likely to propel the world into a radically different climate regime.

To avoid this we will need to a)reduce emissions to zero by 2050; b)actively remove GHGs from the atmosphere by carbon sequestration and other technological cooling mechanisms.

The planet is already too hot and there is little evidence that the world is even slowing its rate of increase in emissions- the task of reducing emissions to zero seems indeed daunting.

The science of climate change is covered thoroughly, and the authors also add to the discussion by asking why there has been such a gap between the science, public understanding, and policy.    On the subject of whether the changes in the Arctic are a result of man-made climate change or not, James Hanson of NASA is quoted as saying:

The scientific response was, if we might paraphrase, ‘We are not sure, we are not sure, we are not sure…Yup, there is climate change due to humans, and it is too late to prevent loss of all.’ If this is the best we can do as a scientific community perhaps we should be farming or doing something else.

The professional caution of scientists not to over-state the case for fear of being accused of scare-mongering has lead to them understating the case-   the worst-case scenarios of the recent IPCC reports taken by events in the Arctic even as they were being published.

In addition, policy makers seem to be trying to walk a path between what is indicated as necessary by the science while trying to find a policy that is politically acceptable and will not harm the economy. The 2006 Stern review for example called for a 60% reduction on emissions by 2050 to achieve a 50% chance of keeping warming below 3 degrees- even though 3 degrees has been assessed by Hanson and others as being highly likely to be beyond the tipping point to runaway warming because of feedbacks in the system.

Spratt and Sutton ask: why have policy makers been willing to accept such watered-down responses when these will not solve the problem?  Using the analogy of the calamitous Apollo 13 mission, “failure is not an option”- and yet it seems we are currently headed on a course that will lead to disaster because we are not willing to allow planetary survival to take precedence over the economy.

Part of the reason for this they argue is a vicious cycle that every stakeholder has bought into: the environmental lobby knows it can only ask for so much at a time; the scientists are sensitive to being called scaremongers; the policy makers cannot be seen to call for more reductions than the most extreme environmentalists.

he authors make some interesting points about psychological denial, arguing that

The complexity and seriousness of climate and sustainability problems makes our current political world of trade-offs, compromises, and decision-making obsolete, along with most of our experience about how to act effectively. this is an extraordinary challenge, because our acculmulated skills in the art of compromise become less useful. Perhaps the best way through is to adopt, whatever one’s age, a youthful willingness to live with uncertainty and to view the prevention of climate catastrophe as an invigorating process of innovation, learning and imagination.

A compelling case is made that we need to adjust to an emergency situation, but the repeated reference to how quickly the economies of the west were transformed wholesale to fight the second world war as an historical precedent I find unconvincing: this was at a time of rising energy availability, and the war itself was arguably fought partly for access to new markets and energy sources, and the shift to weapons manufacture itself being hugely profitable. It is not clear that the same can be said for carbon sequestration and renewable energy, and although the authors certainly acknowledge peak oil and the need to address the two issues together, they fail in my view to get to grips with what this will entail.

Unlike Pat Murphy’s Plan C (review coming soon) there is no analysis of how energy availability and use is the main driver of the economy as well as pollution and population growth; and little consideration of how a powerdown approach will be necessary to re-localise economies during energy descent. Increasing efficiency, and switching to renewables are discussed but if these responses take place within the current growth paradigm, they seem to me destined only to keep the system going a little longer, and do nothing to really tackle the emergency.

Participatory democracy is mentioned as one key to achieving emergency action, but this is not fleshed out into how a sustainable culture will emerge beyond the emergency.

There is no real attempt to tackle the growth economy and show how it needs to be replaced, and population trends are assumed to just continue, rather than being shown to being part of the problem. In short, the book does a fine job of making the case for emergency action, and the need to go for a “safe climate” scenario rather than just the bare minimum to avoid climate catastrophe, but fails to get to grips with community solutions and localisation, which are aspects coming more from the peak oil community.

To finish, I want to brainstorm what society might do if it really did think we were facing an emergency:

-place an immediate halt to all new road and airport developments, and institute a 5-10 year plan to reduce these modes of transport;

-place a huge tax on all recreational and non-essential electrical products;

-provide incentives for people to stay at home more and gorw some of their own food, develop community gardens and local food plans;

-require all new planning permissions to include requirements to demonstrate how the householder will produce some of their own food by providing an integrated permaculture design for the property;

-provide rolling information on tackling peak oil and climate change on all major news outlets, including up to date assessments of the latest science and avioding the trap of giving equal time to climate change deniers;

-create  Ministry’s for Transition whose job it is to provide resources for Community Powerdown;

-make gardening and permaculture part of the curriculum for all schools, colleges and universities; and use part of the school green spaces for community gardens;

-provide funding for Energy descent Plans, with resource and skillls directories to be created for all communities;

-underpin all this with discussions on and plans for  long-term population reduction.

Many of these things are of course the backbone of Transition Towns and similar movements; we need to  replace the myth of “Growth” with a  culture of Community self-reliance.