Clear and Present Danger: A Conversation With Nobel Laureate Steve Chu on the Risks of Climate Change
By The Climate Community | November 3, 2008 | In: Business, Science, Policy, Media, Social & NGOs
Since the IPCC report came out in 2007, new data point to even more alarming scenarios. We underestimate the risk and ignore the fact that the planet is threatened with "sudden, unpredictable, and irreversible disaster," says Steve Chu, one of the world's leading climate and energy experts.
Published by CITRIS and the Copenhagen Climate Council
Prepared by Diane Alexander with Mark Huberty and Nina Kelsey for the Copenhagen Climate Council and CITRIS (Center for Information Technology in the Interests of Society)-BRIE (Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy)
Former Vice President Al Gore is well known as a passionate, outspoken voice on global warming. If what he's saying sounds alarming, then the remarks of Dr. Steve Chu, the calm, straightforward, rational scientist, will be even scarier.
Dr. Chu is a Nobel Prize-winning professor of physics and molecular biology and Director of the famed Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is quietly passionate about the challenge and dangers of climate change, and has reoriented his research to pursue work on the subject. He understands it is difficult for people to see climate change as a clear and present danger, and is trying to challenge conventional wisdom and teach people to see how global warming is a crisis for our society. He is disturbed that despite the highly publicized release of the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for global warming education, the public's grasp of the crisis seems weak.
In our conversations with Dr. Chu, we discussed the most recent IPCC report, and why there is reason to believe that even this "gold standard" document may understate the problem, the magnitude of some potential effects, and the ways it will affect the public.
The IPCC and the Climate Debate
When we spoke with Dr. Chu, the first thing we asked was his take on the most recent report published by the IPCC. This body was established by the United Nations to provide governments and policy makers with objective and up-to-date information on global warming. The Panel reviews and assesses the latest findings, and provides extensive reports at regular intervals that summarize the state of knowledge on climate change.
The fourth and most recent report – released in 2007 – made headlines around the world: "The Debate is Over." The IPCC concluded it was very likely – defined as a 90% chance – that the global warming we are observing is caused by humans. Dr. Chu, however, believes that the attribution of climate change is essentially a settled question. He feels that we must instead focus the public's attention on the regional and local impacts of climate change, because these are the changes that will affect their lives.
Dr. Chu clearly agrees with the information stated in the report. He knows it is important for people to understand that the warming the IPCC talks about is not hypothetical. Eleven of the last 12 years (1995-2006) rank among the warmest years in global surface temperature since 1850. Glaciers and snow cover have declined, and ice sheets from Greenland and parts of Antarctica are melting. The ocean has been absorbing more than 80% of the heat added to the climate system, yet the average temperature of the ocean has increased up to a depth of 3,000 meters, causing seawater to expand and contributing to sea level rise.
As a consequence of global warming, hot waves and heavy precipitation are expected to increase in frequency and severity. Tropical cyclones will likely become more intense, faster, and carry more water into vulnerable coastal communities. Precipitation in general will increase in high latitudes and decrease in subtropical areas.
An interesting turn of the conversation came when we began to discuss what climate change will mean for everyday people. It is clear that reports of changing global averages do not impact people in the same way as a prediction of what will happen to them. Effects like these have long been difficult to pin down, but advances in climate science are starting to give us more specific information.
According to the IPCC report, nearly all European regions will be negatively affected; climate change is expected to exacerbate regional differences in the continent's natural resources and assets. Flash floods, coastal flooding, and erosion are likely to increase. Mountainous areas face glacier retreat, reduced snow cover, and extensive extinction, hurting the tourism industry. In North America, winter flooding and summer droughts are expected, intensifying water distribution problems in already water-stressed areas. Heat waves will put elderly populations at risk, and high-value coastal communities face increasing losses with the increase in storm intensity. These trends are backed up by the recently observed patterns of change.
Dr. Chu believes that this type of information could help transform public opinion, helping them to understand that the vague notion of global warming could result in specific problems close to home.
And, as both Dr. Chu and the IPCC report point out, these risks are not going to go away. Our best estimates of climate sensitivity tell us that the warming is very unlikely to be less than 1.5°C, and will most likely fall in the range of 2°C to 4.5°C. For the next 20 years, warming of around 0.2°C per decade is predicted across a wide range of projected economic and political scenarios. Even if greenhouse gas concentrations had been stabilized in 2000, the temperature would continue to increase by 0.1°C per decade. Due to the immense thermal momentum of the ocean, warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries. Even the best-case, lowest-emission scenario suggests an increase of 1.8°C, while the best estimate for the high scenario results in an increase of 4°C or more.
But what do these numbers really mean? How can the public put these figures into perspective? Compounding this, according to Dr. Chu the IPCC report is actually a conservative document. This statement has the power to fundamentally change the tone of the discussion, if only people would listen.
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Comments feed@Fiona Smythe:
It is funny to note, that those who believe, that the climate crisis springs form overpopulation always seems to think that it is somebody else, who is in excess...
Reducing population is not a project by itself. All studies have shown, that population will regulate itself on basis of the social conditions present, the access to abortion and contraceptives and other demands long advanced by the progressive womens movement.
In Denmark the largest emitter Maersk Aps is accountable for the same emissions as the rest of the country in total. It is obvious that people feel alienated by suggestions, that the climate crisis is their personal fault.
What puzzles me is that a summit like this one is promoting business-based solutions to climate change. Big business have known about these problems for years, but have not changed, politicians have known about this for years but have not reacted. How can we be amazed, that the public seems to view this problem with an apathetic stance?
This is not the time for promoting business based solutions, but for arguing, that the affected parties - the social movements and unions - should take a leading role in the restructuring of society in order to move towards a society not based upon the exploitation of nature.
I implore researchers like Chu to turn their attention towards the movements against climate change, the ordinary people organizing in order to call for a sustainable solution and offer their support to these movements instead of trying to affect politicians and businessmen (and -women) who care only about the profits, that can be reaped from this crisis.
The largest corporations have driven society into a major economic crisis. We can not trust them to solve the climatic crisis, which is just another face of the global crisis of society.
This is an enlightening and disturbing report. I'm pleased that Dr. Chu will be put in a position to address these problems. I'm always surprised, though, that one of the immediate and obvious solutions to the future increase in carbon levels is not mentioned. It seems obvious that reducing the number of people we add to the feedback loop will concurrently reduce the production of greenhouse gases. In addition to technological and behavioral solutions, we should be calling for an immediate, voluntary reduction in the number of children families are having.
We do not, as some people say, need more studies to determine if global warming due to human activity is a reality. Nobody who is not suicidal would seal themselves in their garage with their car running. Why? Because you are introducing toxic compounds into a closed system at an accelerated rate which would result in your death. Our planet is a closed system. A sealed garage. We are introducing at an accelerated rate several compounds that, while not all toxic, could ultimately have a toxic effect if not checked. This is junior science.
We don't need studies, we need action.
Converting to a less toxic economy doesn't mean we need to live like barbarians. We can have all the mod-cons and a healthy planet. There is no harm in this.
On the other hand, the potential harm of the route we are on could spell the demise of nearly all the life on this wondrous planet. Is it worth the risk when all the alternative will cost is cooperative effort?
The reason that many people do not believe the "climate change story" is because many people on the climate change band wagon have twisted the facts and have out right lied about the potential effects of climate change in order to scare them to obtain their support. The fact of the matter is nobody on this plant is really sure what increased CO2 levels will or will not do to our planet's environment, and the truth of the matter is it is the uncertainty that bothers people.
We need to put our efforts in to the science and stop all of the speculation. We need to migrate from I "feel" climate change is going to happen to using the available data for developing our understanding of the potential problem. We can not debate the historical knoweldge that significant climate change has occured on our planet in its history long before humans came along or even existed in large numbers.
There may be natural forces at work in our planets' and/or sun's systems that have nothing to do with us and will occur with or without us. We just need to understand the difference before we start making policy. Scientist have been wrong many times before. Are they right this time? Rarely do we get it right on the first try.
Thanks for this post. I'm reading this after I heard Dr. Chu was appointed head of the DOE by Obama. I'm glad to see Dr. Chu understands global warming so well. A great darkness is lifting in Washington. Obviously, Obama and Chu will need more support from the general population in the US than has been observed to be there so far to do much, but what a difference from anyone in the Bush administration.
The recent reports of methane boiling out of Siberian lakes and methane clathrate outbursts in wide swaths of the Arctic Ocean indicate things may be even worse than Dr. Chu thinks. Methane releases of this type may be kicking off a feedback loop that will make rising carbon dioxide levels look insignificant.