Edwin Salter
CLIMATE AND SUSTAINABILITY IN CRISIS
Revised 1/ 2014
There is now certainty of a global climate change within this generation.
Saving ourselves from a catastrophe would create immensely valuable developments.
What prestige in the accomplishment, what energy and hope for a wiser humanity!
Much needs doing quickly to prevent an irreversible deterioration of our overexploited environment.
The ten hottest years recorded worldwide are all since 1998 and Arctic sea ice vanishes.
ORIGINS
Our huge population of 7,000 million is due to our fertility and our too slow adjustment to the increased survival
of children. In about a decade, building from this youthful base, 1,000 million more will join and worsen our plight.
What is the point of us all and our deeply unequal and polarised societies? Privilege is largely determined at
birth by class and nation, gender and race. Globalisation based on one cultural and economic model reduces the
variety of human life, undermines local traditions of community, trade and self-sufficient employment, and cripples
nations put into excessive debt. Our plague of consumers brings conflict and unending demand for resources fresh water, food, fuel, minerals, fertile and habitable land: we exhaust nature from ecosystems nearly to elements.
Far fewer happy, healthy, helpful people could better flourish with our diverse virtues and achievements, splendid
arts and sciences. Even now you are very fortunate if your own life comes near to fulfilling its individual potential.
The population explosion underlies the environmental problem. In an emptier world (120M-illion people?) Plato
commended small city states and Epicurus described a contented civilised life. But this Anthropocene age of our
dominance on Earth may become just a disastrous moment in its eventful story (about 4,500M years). Many seek
the unsustainable lifestyle of ‘developed’ nations, now with more stable long-lived populations. There is enough
food but strife, poverty, odd weather and high birth rates (populations in some African states doubled in 20 years)
create starvation. Self-righteous ambitions, perhaps of nationalism or faith, usually increase reproduction (most
religions promote authority, the subordination of women, and fertility). Rates slowly fall toward replacement level
(2 children per woman): China (1,350M) now exercises strict control but large others (by growth rate: Nigeria,
Bangladesh, Pakistan, India with 1,200M, Indonesia, USA) need restraint. To limit population and rebalance age
distribution well with social and economic function takes generations. (Global growth p.a.: in 1950 was 1.9%; now
1.2%; by 2050, with irresistible lifespan parity near, an optimistic guess is 10,000M, then 0.5% rising to 11,000+M.)
The children of the poor – often unwanted, unsupportable, untaught - are available to be exploited by all. In
Britain, the irreligious first took up the warning of Malthus about the wretched consequences of excess population,
and led reform to improve society by enabling birth control as a practical choice to break the link with disadvantage
and ignorance. Smaller families may also be encouraged (e.g. Brazil) by general health and security, support for
women, open discussion, incentives, media dramas and persuasive models. The kindly bringing up and humane
education of our fewer children, so they can think with sensible hope and consider evidence without prejudices, is
vital. New blights of junk food and inactivity, screen watching and poor social interaction, affect all ages, notably
infants and the disadvantaged (the overall effects of media and IT electronics on the environment are complex).
Prosperous developed states contribute very disproportionately to environmental impact and to global warming,
particularly by the burning of non-renewable carbon fossil fuels (world energy use is roughly: oil 1/3; gas 2/9; coal
2/9, largest reserves & worst emissions; biomass e.g. wood 1/9; non-carbon e.g. hydroelectric & nuclear 1/ 9).
China (with over 4x the population and fast rising industry and consumption) now exceeds USA in carbon dioxide
emission. (The natural ‘carbon cycle’ links the greenhouse and physiological gas CO 2 with bio/organic compounds
via plant photosynthesis and with inorganic/mineral carbonates.) Planet Earth is already insufficient, soon several
times over if all match the present excessive, increasing ‘carbon footprint’ of developed consumption and pollution.
A tiny social class has grotesque, part hidden, wealth and fewer than 100 individuals together own as much as
the poor half of the whole world (ratio 35M:1, confiscate if unjust/ill-used?). This impoverishes others and presents
a sham aspiration: the rich-poor gap widens rapidly almost everywhere, isolating the poorest as inadequate, sick
or 'bad'. The corrupting pursuits of money and power are warned against by simple decency, the biblical Jesus
and most faiths. Yet riches may be claimed as evidence of merit and be idealised by wealthy leaders despising
unprivileged or frugal lives: those advantaged easily reap further gains. A general disinclination to change and the
extensive private ownership and control of opinion via the media and of essential resources (from land, energy &
capital to mines, transport & manufacture) are likely to impede effective response to the new global dangers.
In finance, duration, expertise and involvement, the challenge before us might be comparable with the sum of
all space programmes plus a next half-century of annual Olympics. Both the immense crisis and the hope of
recovery need to become so plain that positive shared action is widely embraced and progress (e.g. Norway) can
be planned and made by incremental steps to build trust and support for a humanitarian outcome. At least a
quarter of water, food and energy supply could be saved by simple waste reduction. Practical solutions already
exist (just 50x50 sq.km. of desert solar power equals all UK electricity demand), so democracy needs education,
informative and ethical, for understanding and commitment. Attempting to cope only by patching up, or migrating
away from, the increasing disasters symptomatic of climate change will be ruinously costly and ineffective, and
must end in collapse. By use of large resources we can moderate causes and adapt to major consequences that
are now inevitable. Public money (tax? - in highly privatised economies governments are productively inactive
and lack other income) is essential because many projects will have costs not linked to specific capitalist profits.
RESPONSES
If we have needed encouraging to occupy, coerce and largely destroy the natural world, Genesis declared our
‘dominion’ (or Eden ‘to keep’, then a cursed expulsion) rather than stewardship. The faiths, Islam included, regard
this life and world as flawed and transitional, but they nevertheless conflict damagingly for mastery, many religions
having been destroyed. Intolerant fundamentalism can embrace a yearning for the time of origin, success and
certainty: ancient dogma and prophecy are preferred to observable evidence, tribal customs and laws to
innovation necessary for a very different future. Disasters do, of course, strike without regard to victims' beliefs
and prayers.
As for science, our rapid population growth (from about 1,200M in 1850) owes much to uncompensated
medical intervention that hugely reduced infant death and now lengthens all lives (from birth about 76m/82f years
in developed nations, double since 1850: potential problem of great gene effects for longevity). Industrialisation,
machines and computers that should bring leisure and quality to all have also led to lifestyles, technologies and
megacities ill suited to both environment and people (problems: air/land/water pollution; toxicity e.g. lead, DDT,
dioxins, microparticulates; rubbish, sewage & slums; widespread infections; unemployment & poverty; unworthy
toil & useless age; addiction & obesity). The water, food, agriculture and fishing industries must reduce waste and
damage (discarding & storage losses, soil deterioration & overfishing) and produce enough despite disruption and
urban sprawl (ideas: local supply; sensible diets & cookery; biological model ‘permaculture’; hydroponics; 'vertical
farming'; suspect possibilities of genetic engineering, tissue culture & synthetics). Slow understanding of warming
(atmospheric effects 1820s, fuel CO2 calculation 1896) delayed wide climatological alarm at the damage occurring
(1980s on - no likely natural cause by cataclysm, solar periodicities, or the very slow changes to Earth’s orbit &
tilt).
Without natural greenhouse gases (chiefly water vapour H 2O) Earth’s surface, average 14oC, would be much
colder (by some 30C), but the present rise both reverses pattern and is sudden (already +1°C: likely this century
+2-5°C, sea level +1-?m). Alternating warm and ice ages (warm peak 100,000 years ago; then ice; civilisation has
developed in 10,000 warm years) have endangered our species (perhaps reducing our genetic ancestors to single
m then f individuals). Agriculture, infrastructure, lifestyle and beliefs are so matched to familiar local climates that
even modest change causes upheaval and has destroyed societies (e.g. probably Saharans, Maya). Massive,
chaotic alterations to the systems and rhythms of atmosphere and oceans (jet streams, monsoons, Europe's Gulf
stream, Pacific Nino/Nina, etc.) already begin. Such change – showing in record-breaking weather, rapid loss of
Arctic ocean ice (after 1M? years gone by 2020?), storms, floods, droughts and fires - is not gradual but swiftly
accelerates by feedback (one factor is altered, it triggers others, and a vicious circle develops). Neither speed nor
extent can be reliably predicted, but some past global transitions (e.g. melt H/D-O events) have been sudden and
immense. (The utter catastrophe would be a +10?C energy peak with methane release, total ice melt, and sea
level rise +120?m. inundating e.g. most of N. Europe. Unstoppable once initiated, this would so transform all
environments that a majority would likely perish.) Our delay multiplies the severity of problems and and costs.
But politicians prefer familiar irrelevancies to confronting a reality indifferent to rhetoric, bribe or threat, and
institutions seek primarily to maintain themselves as if all well. Human beings are not best evolved for forward
planning on a grand scale and, like our flight/ fight response, much of our behaviour is triggered by what is actually
before us. Hence is the difference between beliefs about ourselves and our actual responses to circumstances:
our irrationality and our compliance to authority, however foolish or cruel, are both well researched. To escape
unwelcome facts some offer contrary anecdotes, average out extreme events, become politically angry, allege
conspiracies or mock that it is impossible to predict future local weather: climate change will be erratic over time
and place rather than uniform. But most would willingly adapt if legislation obliged everyone in an equitable way.
Evidence and reason have to struggle hard against the complacent desire to ignore or deny a great but
unprecedented threat that may not yet have affected us personally. For self-righteous profit, business continues to
exploit and ruin the environment: for example, the destruction of rain forest causes many physical and biological
harms. To succeed, negotiation requires a fair and rational basis, not a market of squabbling politicians (Kyoto,
Copenhagen). So initial greenhouse emission targets might be percentage decreases, or smaller allowances,
proportionate to how far national levels are above, or below, the global average. (Energy use per person is about
4x that in 1850 at 5 tonnes CO2 p.a.: Uganda 0.1, India 2, China 7, Russia 12, USA 18, Kuwait 30 – range 300x).
Popular headlines influence scientifically uneducated leaders more than sober expertise, so public alarm (not
panic) is essential for action. Finance can be met from the immense military expenditure (3% of the 80?MM US$
global GDP), the many damages of war and arms trade, fear and ‘security’. Costs will be less than the huge
losses due to business malpractice (as 2007 crash on: incompetence, recklessness, crime), excessive loans and
debts, lax money systems and weak, evaded taxation, all unmatched to real value. These faults require financial
reforms and controls. Employment and well-based prosperity would come from undertaking necessary large scale
climate and energy works, the expenditure anyway trivial compared to the dire consequences of folly or fatalism.
SOLUTIONS
The interventions for a systematic recovery involve adaptation and the acceptance of some regrettable losses
and limited risks, but also offer substantial advantages to our health, well-being and environment. Technology can
already provide elegant, effective solutions. A very quick 'technical fix' (probably albedo geoengineering plus solar
& fluid flow energy use) is now required, but so too is a basic life shift from the use of power towards the organic.
Such an enduring change of sympathy with less consumption (as ‘from car to care’) is no more impossible than
were schools and votes for all or the huge abrupt responses, national and personal, demanded by the World Wars.
Very urgent is temporary restraint of temperature rise, regardless of cause. Respite might be achieved by more
reflection from Earth (albedo about 30%: aim +2%?) to reduce heating by the sun. (Radiation: 1.4kW/sqm when
sun vertical; overall, half is initially absorbed at surface. Tiny help by 'quieter' sun?). Reflectors in space (at null
gravity L1? - lenses/dust via tether/gun/asteroid?) are barely conceivable. Stratospheric aerosol use (quickest? S
compounds?) is part taken up by murky air pollution (harms: health, ozone O 3 layer by CFCs, forests by acid rain):
such 'global dimming' somewhat hides the warming processes. Increasing the reflectiveness of ocean clouds, a
proposal for novel boats to spray mists that seed tinier droplets, is a safer form of white paint easy to try. The low
albedo of the vast (70%) area of dark ocean could be raised, as by floating reflectors (+ energy/habitat functions?).
And how best to rapidly protect and substitute for vital, shiny white but diminishing ice (sheets, sea ice, snow)?
Also needed is preparation for extremes, for restoration of rain forest, and for changes of regional climate (e.g.
desertification) and of area (sea/land/ice). Many developed, populous coasts are vulnerable to sea rise, but entry
to boundaried low land might be blocked (e.g. a UK Wash barrage?). Unpolluting useful treatment of industrial
and domestic waste (depackaging, sorting, ‘mining’, biodegrading, composting) is integral to an ethos of
moderation.
Clean power generation can be an almost immediate aim, but the crossover period confronts powerful business
interests. Ample forms of energy, relatively well distributed with quick, low harm access, are inexhaustible. Some
sources are in use (hydroelectric, wind, solar (easy?) photovoltaic & mirror heat, tidal (reliable) & wave,
geothermal & heat pumped): others, feasible to implausible, are in research (nuclear fusion (ideal/far off?),
photo/bio-chemical, sea temperature differences, water salinity differences, high altitude winds, space/moon solar
pv via microwave). Electricity, by energy conversion, is convenient and shareable over great distances (supply &
demand averaged over time & place: via HVDC?) but is not storable (indirect: chemical, batteries; mechanical,
pumped reservoirs). Hydrogen (gas H2,, explosive: production uses energy - methane ‘reforming’; water
electrolysis; biological?) might be a clean secondary fuel (pipe? to burn or for fuel cells). The running costs and
'environmental payback time' of non-carbon alternatives to polluting combustion reduce (near 'grid parity') as
efficiency and scale of use increase. Interim needs require traditional burning, some nuclear fission (problems:
sources, non-renewability, safety, weapons, plant costs, disposal), and biofuels (not truly sustainable e.g. ethanol
by fermentation) not at the loss of agriculture or nature. Superseding patchily located fossil fuels may end the
costly damage of oil wars (attacking Iraq etc.), conserving reserves for chemical use (e.g. plastics). Carbon
burning may near a maximum (‘peak oil’), new sources being more expensive and difficult, harmful and risky (deep
ocean wells, tar sand, shale+‘fracking’).
Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (about 100 km. extent but at uniform density merely 9km.) let sunlight
through, but partly absorb the warming infrared radiation returned by most surfaces. Reducing crucial very dilute
gases may take a century. Temperature rise links to the emission of carbon dioxide (our 28 giga-tonnes p.a. add
5% to natural sources: CO2 is now 400ppmv. a 4M year peak!; in 1958 was 315; before 1850 about right at 280).
Removal (oceans, sediments, plants) can be increased as useful wood (not to burn; also bamboo, hemp etc.) and
bio-production (algae etc. for fuel, foodstuff) or by separation (carbonate ‘scrubbers’; membranes/ sieves?) plus
pumping to a safe dump (porous rocks, oil wells to empty). Tiny marine organisms that at death sink carbon to the
sea bed might proliferate with extra nutrients (iron?): one proposal would use wave action to pump up nutrient
deep water (salp then feed on plankton: the cooler water may also calm tropical storms). Some plant material can
be charcoaled to inactive carbon (pyrolysis yielding biofuel, chemicals, soil improver). We also increase methane
(CH4 1.8ppmv), a potent warmer (over 100xCO2 by wt. but destroyed in air, half-life 9? years). Methane is emitted
biologically (by ruminant livestock, termites, wetlands; some bacterial uptake), and largely is ‘natural gas’ fuel
(other sources: sewage & landfill, possibly much from seabed & permafrost). Technological capture or destruction
of gases, in air or even concentrated at production as industrial pollutants, is currently both difficult and costly.
Key to safety and effectiveness during trials for all these initiatives are three criteria: that interventions should
be gradual in implementation, measurable in their effects, and reversible. A full disclosure of data and plans will
enable both scientific consensus and international political assent. Side-effects and commercial profits are to be
contained, and equity and security of essential resources provided for peoples and nations with different ways of
life and vulnerabilities: the most unlucky will not accept their fate passively. Financial support (or coercion) may
have a role, evasive ‘carbon trading’ very little; and guard is needed against misleading economic appraisals and
'cheapest best'. Compatible technologies (output-input matching), lower demand social systems (less commuting)
and fresh resources (materials from waste, new fisheries) must replace those declining. Interactive natural and
human systems require a sequence of readjustments. Necessary global adaptations include learning from
traditions established elsewhere, both as specifically relevant to the locally new climates (crops) and as generally
illuminating about practicable human values (compare Scandinavia and Kerala to Texas and Congo?). Tackling
sustainability and environmental issues, population size and quality of life, should preoccupy this 21 st century.
OUTCOMES
Perhaps you think the bad news is wildly exaggerated. Well, do you try to avoid risking life? How much do you
pay in insurance against major harms even if improbable? What uncertainty about a global crisis greatly affecting
your lifestyle, prosperity and safety within a decade or so would lead you, if only as a precaution, to make personal
adjustments and demand government action? New evidence revises estimates of change and weather variability
to forecast ever sooner, larger, and more likely unfamiliar events. Whether of a religious faith (perhaps promising
believers an eternal heaven) or not (such as humanists), what we know alike is only this one life, one world for
ourselves and our children - the shared reality in common which all can hope largely (not wholly) to conserve and
gradually to improve. Action, even if inessential, will at least be beneficial: mistaken inaction will be disastrous.
Sufficient but modest lifestyles (with family/home skills, allotments, bicycles etc.) with all contributing usefully to
more cooperative and equal societies (hence less distressed and violent, criminal and oppressive) would surely do
us good, physically and morally. Appropriate are a gentler (less abusive, sexualised and instrumental) valuing of
our natural bodies and minds, and an appreciation of our origin in small groups. Psychology confirms we would be
happier by diminishing the complex seductions of glamour and celebrity, hectic consumerism, unregulated profit,
and financial growth inflated by population and credit. Money calculations cannot properly care about values in life
(nor can the World Bank, WTO, IMF and transnational companies that exploit many: their dominance in open
markets ruins weaker business, even states). But economies for communal benefit would be more fair and stable.
New efficiencies involve simple village technologies, irrigation, local energy, lighting, insulation, construction,
urban planning, electronics, information, and transition programmes for whole towns and nations (e.g. Cuba). By
general prudence, cutting the impacts of transport (esp. road, air) and tourism, eating less meat (our animals eat
up to tenfold food), and the fundamental order of priority to ‘redesign-reduce-repair-reuse-recycle’, we can all aim
at a wiser future with minimal waste (usable for energy). People can adapt and be versatile, finding satisfaction in
achieving much from little. This well-known and ecologically aware ‘green’ approach is vital. But clearly it alone,
even if ‘carbon neutral’, cannot now save us and the useful, beautiful and life-enhancing treasures of biology and
of landscape and place that the future should inherit. Nature is denuded by our sheer numbers (national parks,
jungle walkways, indoor facilities etc. can help to spare environments from damage); and fires (forest, peat) add
both destruction and greenhouse gases. As conditions alter, habitats, whether wild or in reserves, can become
isolated death traps. Biological diversity, from species to ecosystems, many of unknown value, needs conserving
as possible (sequence: maintenance, relocation, gardens/ zoos/ eco-domes, cryo-/ seed/ gamete/ gene stores).
Geology records great changes to land, sea and atmosphere, from slowly over many million years to instant
(tectonic movement - changes continents & climates, forms mountains; erosion & deposition; glaciation & flood;
eruption & earthquake; meteor strike). The resulting extinctions and natural selection (changed environments +
mutations + competition lead to new species) irretrievably transform biology, of which we are part. Current sudden
loss affects all life forms - plant and animal, sea and land, unicellular to primate (global extinctions, e.g. amphibian,
near 1000x natural rate). Some (Gaia influenced?) supposed a self-healing Earth could maintain the
environments and climates we are adapted to by biological evolution and our very recent supremacy. Far more
serious is the deliberate political and commercial effort (as in USA despite warnings since 1978), for profit and
blame avoidance, to ignore the ultimate costs ('externalities') of carbon pollution and to promote argument, lies
and publicity that deny or minimise the crisis (or even commend CO 2 and warming) and its near certain origin in
human activity.
Enduring and 'weirding' climate perils are both increased by complex interactions as air and ocean flows much
modify latitude (e.g. jet stream shift because Arctic sea ice is now a quarter of its 1980 volume). The greenhouse
gases, in order of current effect, are: water vapour itself, easily largest (unavoidable: warmer air contains more,
7% per 1oC); next carbon dioxide, also causing toxic ocean acidity; then methane, a huge threat (large marine
hydrate deposits are barely retained by cold: some escape already occurs); last, ozone (necessary) and modern
chemicals (CFCs, N2O). Initial slight warming leads to a cascade of positive feedback, as when the melting of ice:
1) reduces reflectivity so increasing local solar heating; 2) exposes tundra so releasing methane; 3) leads to
storms and to eventual water level rise so flooding low land (often fertile or densely populated e.g. Bangladesh,
London); and 4) changes seawater characteristics so altering currents. Then it all goes around again, swiftly
multiplying impact on weather. Science provides much evidence to support this sketchy outline. Argument for
improbable non-human causes and mere blaming are both wholly irrelevant to immediate practicality as the
actions available for our survival and well-being remain the same. The careless view that ‘Climate change
happened before, it’s just nature - let’s do business as usual’ will simply ensure calamity for us in our now
overpopulated and overexploited world.
Are current major environmental disasters warning enough to shake us out of mindless consumption? Will the
foolishness of governments eyeing only their own advantage continue? How many sects neglect the creation of
their gods but again eagerly foretell a divine purpose to end sinful humankind (all events, benefits or sufferings,
can always be attributed to deity) with their own unique salvation? As for commerce, will it, as history suggests, go
greedily to the brink or beyond – fatally devoted to the ancient technology of fire, hunting the last whale? For how
long will wealthy consumers squander resources, pollute, and think themselves guiltless and protected by money?
Destructive wars (as by USA+UK) leave reactionary and ruined victims and prevent cooperation. If we fail to act
sensibly, perhaps through fear, nationalism or selfishness, the already evident human responses of despair, social
conflict, resource capture and opposed migration will escalate to create panic and chaos that accelerate collapse.
Such horror need not happen unless wilful ignorance triumphs. Almost all human tragedies fade within a few
generations, empires good or bad within centuries, but this crisis may quickly reach a tipping point into a sudden
and irreversible catastrophe. Most people, whatever their way of life and their beliefs, share the kindly goodness
of humanity and, if informed and helped towards equality, will work together towards a calmer, sustainable future.
We can seek, adopt, urge and fund a new creative vision for the next generation. Danger mightily
concentrates the mind and, if our response is sufficiently determined and swift, reason can triumph.
Solving the environmental crisis is also a chance to discard the burden of past follies,
to renew the progress of civilisation. It offers the greatest of historical opportunities.
Dr. E.A. Salter UK kl.humanfactors@talktalk.net
What prompt action can you take?
Join others, discuss, encourage, send this on,