Climatron: Personal Blog of Kyle Vandercamp

“Climate change” is such a loaded term now. If I say “home” each and every one of us has a unique meaning for it. But climate change is becoming an homogeneous soup-of-a-term, fashioned out of doom, gloom and disputes about the significance of events.

Let all that go for a minute and return to the original notion of Global Warming. Within the extremely modest measure of our records, the NOAA announced March to be the warmest since records began. 0.77 degrees Celsius warmer than the mean.

NOAA State of the Climate Global Analysis March 2010

Detail from a picture by Olivier Vandeginste

You may have already seen this page.

A professor said to me once that the problem with watching footage of a nuclear bomb exploding was how distractingly beautiful it all was. Can’t say I share the sentiment exactly, but I get that there’s a grand aesthetic happening in real time, unrepeatable and thus unique.

So it is with volcanoes – they’re so beautiful! and they even come with amazing lighting conditions for photography. Hence these beautiful shots of Eyjafjallajokull, Aviation’s menace of the north!

Cancelled due to Volcanic Ash

Over a significant spread of the northern hemisphere, there’s not a big bird in the sky, so to speak. For the first time since September 12 2001, the skies are the domain of the fowl again. Back then, a US Study headed by David Travis found that the temperature in the three days following 9/11 increased and the skies appeared unusually clear:

We found that the change in temperature range during those three days was just over one degree centigrade. And you have to realize that from a layman’s perspective that doesn’t sound like much, but from a climate perspective that is huge.

Indeed.

Warning Will Robinson! Warning!

I’ve been researching geoengineering since before it was cool. You can search the chatter and surface the subject so frequently now and I find that mostly alarming… mostly. So thank you Martin Rees for stating caution so succinctly.

Micro Plankton Illustration

When the US Military admit to serious concerns of oil shortages by 2015 whether you’re left, right, or middle of the road – we’re all listening, no?

“”By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day… While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India… One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a number of totalitarian regimes that sought economic prosperity for their nations by ruthless conquest.”

Grim tidings that we’ve heard raised before. But even the end of oil has a bright side, we’ll be forced to find other ways to power our lives, carbon free. Fundamental change is driven by necessity, and we seem to be racing toward one here.

Asilomar 2010 Statement

The ASILOMAR 2010 Conference has wrapped and the Organising Committee’s Statement is out there:

Participants reaffirmed that the risks posed by climate change require a strong commitment
to mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation to unavoidable climate change, and
development of low-carbon energy sources independent of whether climate intervention
methods ultimately prove to be safe and feasible.

For me, this is like finding out that a person can pull the trigger. As someone involved in pure research, it’s a game changer… Still, they still have to be taken seriously…

I was surprised to find myself watching a series of ads all in a row last night – all trying to rally the public to make a change and in so doing help avert climate change.

The consistency of tone, one after the other, made me realise how offensive this form of messaging can be. From the so-called denialists and skeptics through to the millions and billions of people who know or care less when it comes to climate change, all can still be repulsed by the style and messages herein. I suppose this is advertising at its worst – trying to sell doom and gloom – whenever that happens bad ideas and corny executions follow.

Propaganda can sell hearts and minds when the message is a synthetic dopamine or a decisive cure for hangovers. But try selling solutions to famine, drought, poverty, catastrophic climate change, which all involve a change in mass psychology and it all falls apart!

Here are some impotent examples:

We still know too little about the nuances of geophysical systems to be confident in our ability to engineer changes without risking disaster. This alone is enough to make some otherwise technology-friendly environmentalists reject the notion of geoengineering out of hand.

Jamais Cascio has been writing about geoengineering for several years. Here’s a good introduction.

Jamais Cascio

Just watched Bill Gates at TED2010, calling for “Energy Miracles” to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to zero! I’m so impressed by this speech. For me, it’s easier to be excited than cynical when you see someone of his caliber get seriously involved in the debate. Watch it for yourself and see what I mean.

Of course, at the same time, it’s such a provocation, we’ll just have to wait to see what it actually means. Go Bill!

Yve De Boer: Copenhagen wasn't what I had hoped it to be

Look at this guy – compassionate, smart, deeply concerned by the petty squabbles of politicians young and old, that must have seemed all the more onerous in the shadow of years of inaction and inertia and avoidance of effective measures to reduce the world’s CO2 emissions.

What a job he would have had sleeping at night, if he took his job seriously. And by all accounts, he certainly did. De Boer’s stepping down in July and will focus on getting the world of business and industry to make the changes the politicians are failing to. “Copenhagen did not provide us with a clear agreement in legal terms, but the political commitment and sense of direction towards a low-emissions world are overwhelming… This calls for new partnerships with the business sectors, and I now have the chance to help make this happen.”

Well good luck with that Yve, here’s hoping you make something out of it.

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