27 March 2008,
The Hon Kevin Rudd, MP,
Prime Minister of Australia,
Australian Parliament,
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, 2600.
Dear Prime Minister,
Your leadership is needed on a matter concerning coal-fired power plants and carbon dioxide emission rates in your country, a matter with ramifications for life on our planet, including all species. Prospects for today’s children, and especially the world’s poor, hinge upon our success in stabilizing climate.
For the sake of identification, I am a United States citizen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Earth Institute. I am a member of our National Academy of Sciences, have testified before our Senate and House of Representatives on many occasions, have advised our Vice President and Cabinet members on climate change and its relation to energy requirements, and have received numerous awards including the World Wildlife Fund’s Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal from Prince Philip.
I write, however, as a private citizen, a resident of Kintnersville, Pennsylvania, USA. I was assisted in composing this letter by colleagues, including Australians, Americans, and Europeans, who commented upon a draft letter. Because of the urgency of the matter, I have not collected signatures, but your advisors will verify the authenticity of the science discussion.
I recognize that for years you have been a strong supporter of aggressive forward-looking actions to mitigate dangerous climate change. Also, since your election as Prime Minister of Australia, your government has been active in pressing the international community to take appropriate actions.
We are now at a point that bold leadership is needed, leadership that could change the course of human history.
I have read and commend the Interim Report of Professor Ross Garnaut, submitted to your government. The conclusion that net carbon emissions must be cut to a fraction of current emissions must be stunning and sobering to policy-makers. Yet the science is unambiguous: if we burn most of the fossil fuels, releasing the CO2 to the air, we will assuredly destroy much of the fabric of life on the planet. Achievement of required near-zero net emissions by mid-century implies a track with substantial cuts of emissions by 2020. Aggressive near-term fostering of energy efficiency and climate friendly technologies is an imperative for mitigation of the looming climate crisis and optimization of the economic pathway to the eventual clean-energy world.
Global climate is near critical tipping points that could lead to loss of all summer sea ice in the Arctic with detrimental effects on wildlife, initiation of ice sheet disintegration in West Antarctica and Greenland with progressive, unstoppable global sea level rise, shifting of climatic zones with extermination of many animal and plant species, reduction of freshwater supplies for hundreds of millions of people, and a more intense hydrologic cycle with stronger droughts and forest fires, but also heavier rains and floods, and stronger storms driven by latent heat, including tropical storms, tornados and thunderstorms.
Feasible actions now could still point the world onto a course that minimizes climate change. Coal clearly emerges as central to the climate problem from the facts summarized in the attached Fossil Fuel Facts. [See note below] Coal caused fully half of the fossil fuel increase of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air today, and on the long run coal has the potential to be an even greater source of CO2. Due to the dominant role of coal, solution to global warming must include phase-out of coal except for uses where the CO2 is captured and sequestered. Failing that, we cannot avoid large climate change, because a substantial fraction of the emitted CO2 will stay in the air more than 1000 years.
Yet there are plans for continuing mining of coal, export of coal, and construction of new coal-fired power plants around the world, including in Australia, plants that would have a lifetime of half a century or more. Your leadership in halting these plans could seed a transition that is needed to solve the global warming problem.
Choices among alternative energy sources – renewable energies, energy efficiency, nuclear power, fossil fuels with carbon capture – these are local matters. But decision to phase out coal use unless the CO2 is captured is a global imperative, if we are to preserve the wonders of nature, our coastlines, and our social and economic well being.
Although coal is the dominant issue, there are many important subsidiary ramifications, including the need for rapid transition from oil-fired energy utilities, industrial facilities and transport systems, to clean (solar, hydrogen, gas, wind, geothermal, hot rocks, tide) energy sources, as well as removal of barriers to increased energy efficiency.
If the West makes a firm commitment to this course, discussion with developing countries can be prompt. Given the potential of technology assistance, realization of adverse impacts of climate change, and leverage and increasing interdependence from global trade, success in cooperation of developed and developing worlds is feasible.
The western world has contributed most to fossil fuel CO2 in the air today, on a per capita basis. This is not an attempt to cast blame. It only recognizes the reality of the early industrial development in these countries, and points to a responsibility to lead in finding a solution to global warming.
A firm choice to halt building of coal-fired power plants that do not capture CO2 would be a major step toward solution of the global warming problem. Australia has strong interest in solving the climate problem.
Citizens in the United States are stepping up to block one coal plant after another, and major changes can be anticipated after the upcoming national election.
If Australia halted construction of coal-fired power plants that do not capture and sequester the CO2, it could be a tipping point for the world.
There is still time to find that tipping point, but just barely. I hope that you will give these considerations your attention in setting your national policies. You have the potential to influence the future of the planet.
Prime Minister Rudd, we cannot avert our eyes from the basic fossil fuel facts, or the consequences for life on our planet of ignoring these fossil fuel facts. If we continue to build coal-fired power plants without carbon capture, we will lock in future climate disasters associated with passing climate tipping points. We must solve the coal problem now.
For your information, I plan to send a similar letter to the Australian States Premiers.
I commend to you the following Australian climate, paleoclimate and Earth scientists to provide further elaboration of the science reported in my attached paper (Hansen et al., 2008):
Professor Barry Brook, Professor of climate change, University of Adelaide Dr Andrew Glikson, Australian National University Professor Janette Lindesay, Australian National University Dr Graeme Pearman, Monash University Dr Barrie Pittock, CSIRO Dr Michael Raupach CSIRO Professor Will Steffen, Australian National University
Sincerely,
James E. Hansen
Kintnersville, Pennsylvania
United States of America
To see letter with attachments click here:
www.aussmc.org.au/documents/Hansen2008LetterToKevinRudd.pdf
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
“Yet the science is unambiguous: if we burn most of the fossil fuels, releasing the CO2 to the air, we will assuredly destroy much of the fabric of life on the planet.”
I think a Galaxy Quest character did a much better job in describing a potentially scary hypothetical catastrophe:
“It has at its heart a reactor capable of unthinkable energy. If we were mistaken in our construction, the device would act as a molecular explosive, causing a chain reaction that would obliterate all matter in the universe.”
Greenies say much the same about the CERN collider when it is switched on.
This is another April Fool’s gag, right?
At the moment the AGW “defense” is that a strong La Nina is depressing planetary temperatures.
A question someone should be asking Hansen:
For how much longer does the planetary temperature
have to go sideways, or downwards, before AGW is formally acknowledged as wrong?
Hansen wrote a similar letter to the UK PM on 19th December 2007:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20071219_DearPrimeMinister.pdf
What next? Bugs Bunny writes to PM? There is that old tipping point crap again. The only tipping point is in the lard-like grey matter of Hansen et al who’s intellect is now capable of substituting extrapolation to the extreme for verifiable fact.
When Prof Hansen replaces the word “could” in his letter with the word “will”, then I will begin to think he is serious. Because when he does this, he accepts responsibility for any actions which flow from his recommendations.
For as long as he precedes his statements with “could” he is talking fluff.
Of course, Jim Hansen is entitled to his own opinion and take action accordingly. However, he needs to understand that finally the people you and me)will decide whether or not coal should be mined and used in coal-fired power plants. That’s how democracy works. We have to make a balanced decision whether increased CO2 is dangereous or not, based upon real evidence, unbiased debate and finally real alternative energy sources. Further, the question has to be raised whether we are willing to give in on wealth, health, prosperity and all other nice things in life we love so dearly.
Jim Hansen writes: “I was assisted in composing this letter by colleagues, including Australians, Americans, and Europeans, who commented upon a draft letter. Because of the urgency of the matter, I have not collected signatures, but your advisors will verify the authenticity of the science discussion.”
I understand that he is not able to collect all the signatures, but why doesn’t he list all colleagues who have reviewed and supported the letter? Now the impression is given that the letter is supported by all his colleagues (consensus), while it can not be verified. This looks a little bit strange, especially if you compare that with documents issued by “the other side”.
James
I think you may be right.
It would be nice if this lunatic came up with a bit of evidence once and a while. They are all total nutters at the Goddard Institute.
Mitigations “must include phase-out of coal except for uses where the CO2 is captured and sequestered”
Gobsmacking idiocy, CO2 is as sequestered in undisturbed soils as it can possibly be. CO2 is wonderfully water soluble, and impossible to sequester in its presence.
Hansen is certifiable.
Insults and ridicule come cheap – well maybe not that cheap, depends on how many of you are paid for your role in spreading mis-information and how many do it for free.
Not one word disputing the science I see. Hope you did read the attachment to Hansen’s letter?
I take it you are all better qualified than the scientists who are given as referees??[Professor Barry Brook, Professor of climate change, University of Adelaide, Dr Andrew Glikson, Australian National University, Professor Janette Lindesay, Australian National University, Dr Graeme Pearman, Monash University, Dr Barrie Pittock, CSIRO Dr Michael Raupach, CSIRO Professor Will Steffen, Australian National University]
The summer Arctic sea ice is one area where we don’t have to work with predictions, the changes are there for our instruments to measure. If you think tipping points are something to sneer about, explain this one away. The rapidly accelerating changes exceed the the worst case scenarios modelled by the IPCC. So, yes, it does expose the limitations of the modelling. However, it also exposes the moral backruptcy of those who create confusion inorder to pursue short term financial benefit. How can you live with yourselves? [Formatting is impossible to fix, but I imagine you can follow the drift.]
ARCTIC – ACCELERATING SEA-ICE LOSS
EXTENT LOSS: On 16 September 2007, the Arctic sea-ice minimum fell to a record low of 4.13 million square kilometres, compared to the previous record low of 5.32 million square kilometres in 2005, representing a precipitous decline of 22 per cent in two years. The loss was ‘1.19 million square kilometers… roughly the size of
Texas and California combined, or nearly five United Kingdoms,’ according to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre at the University of Colorado. The 2007 summer extent was only half the pre-1980 average.
Source: sidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/20070810_index.html
ICE THICKNESS: In the early 1960s the ice was 3.5 metres thick; by the late 1980s it was down to 2.5 metres, and now in 2008 large areas are only one metre thick. This thinning is accelerating, half of it occurring in the last
seven years.
Source: Maslowski, W. ‘Causes of changes in Arctic sea ice’, AMS ESSS Seminar, 3 May 2006
Bjornes, C. ‘International polar day, 21 September 2007: sea ice’, http://www.cicero.uio.no/webnews/index_e.aspx?id=10868
ICE VOLUME: Taken together, the shrinking ice area and the declining ice thickness mean that the total mass of summer sea-ice has dropped to less than twenty per cent of the volume thirty years ago. As the summer extent shrinks, more of the reset winter ice is new.
NEW WINTER ICE WILL NOT SURVIVE FOLLOWING SUMMER: In the northern winter of 2007-08, perennial
ice covers less than 30 percent of the Arctic, the balance is new (first-year) ice. Only three per cent of the first year ice typically survives the following melt season. The first-year ice is in a highly vulnerable state, so the
northern summer of 2008 will see even more open water.
Source: Julienne Stroeve (NSIDC) , 11 March 2008, personal communication; ‘Researchers say Arctic sea ice still at risk
despite cold winter’, 18 March 2008, http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/seaice_conditions_feature.html
PREDICTION: The summer ice is likely to be entirely gone in the next two to four years.
Here’s what he experts say…
◆ ‘The frightening models [of Arctic sea-ice loss] we didn’t even dare to talk about before are now proving to be true.’ According to these models, there will be no sea ice left in the summer in the Arctic Ocean somewhere
between 2010 and 2015. ‘And it’s probably going to happen even faster than that.’
— Louis Fortier, scientific director of the Canadian research network ArcticNet
Source: Marianne White, CanWest News Service, in ‘Times Colonist’ (Canada), 16 November 2007
◆ ‘Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007… So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative’
— Professor Wieslaw Maslowski, Naval Postgraduate School, California
Source: Jonathan Amos, ‘Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013’’, BBC News, 12 December 2007
◆ ‘The Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012’
— Dr Jay Zwally, glaciologist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Source: Amanda Beck “Arctic’s record melt”, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 December 2007
◆ ‘I think the tipping point for perennial sea-ice has already passed… It looks like [it] will continue to decline and there’s no hope for it to recover’ in the near period.
— Dr Josefino Comiso, senior research scientist, NASA Goddard Space Centre
Source: Mason Inman, ‘Global warming ‘tipping points’ reached, scientist says’, National Geog. News, 14 December 2007
◆ ‘Because of the usual pattern of winds and currents we can expect [to] start the spring melt with only one-year ice in Eastern Artic Ocean. This has never happened before in the period that humans have been up there.
Starting the summer with only relatively thin ice means that a summer like last year will break this up even
much more than in 2007.
— Professor Olav Orheim, University of Bergen from 1989 to 2005, Senior Adviser to the Norwegian Ministry of
Environment, Executive Secretary for the International Polar Year Secretariat, Research Council of Norway
private communication, 10 March 2008
◆ ‘What happens there [the Arctic], matters here.. Climate for the period of human record has depended on the ice being there.’ — Waleed Abdalati, chief ice scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Source: MSNBC News Services, 18 March 2008
◆ ‘The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming… and now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died.” — Dr Jay Zwally, glaciologist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Source: Seth Borenstein, ‘Arctic sea ice gone in summer within five years?’, Associated Press, 12 December 2007.
So JR. What this about
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/global_warming_or_cooling/2008/02/19/73798.html
I’m addressing the disparaging remark from paul re tipping points. Would you agree that important tippings points may have been reached or crossed with regards to the melting of the Arctic sea ice in summer? I assume that you are familiar with the science I’m referring to here?
Last I heard, coal is biomass.
Maybe there are new discoveries which prove that leaf imprints, etc. in coal have been left there by a Demon hoping to delude people into believing coal is biomass.
Nobody has lately offered proof of demonic influences in the production of coal, so I’m still thinking, it’s just plain biomass.
Doubtless, there’s a cult out there where they eat coal. But, most of us don’t.
So, why burn corn and soybeans for biomass when you can burn inedible (for the most of us) coal?
Gack.
Schiller you have to be joking…
I don’t think you can call coal biomass.
From wiki: “Biomass refers to living and recently dead biological material that can be used as fuel or for industrial production. ”
Coal is ancient biomass. Hence the term FOSSIL fuel.
“Posted at 3:10pm”
So who’s the fool?