Gordon Browns His Trousers and Goes Green

http://www.climate-resistance.org/2009/10/gordon-browns-his-trousers-and-goes-green.html

October 20, 2009, 16:37:12 | Editors

When Gordon Brown spoke of 'catastrophe' yesterday, he wasn't talking about his
premiership or
worrying about the UK under a Tory government.

Brown has always been rather quiet on climate change. His government hasn't, but he has.
We've
always had the impression that he went along with the greening of New Labour a tad
reluctantly.
It's
as if he thought there were more pressing matters, even if he wasn't quite sure what they
were.

He suddenly seems to be making up for lost time.

PM warns of climate 'catastrophe'

The UK faces a "catastrophe" of floods, droughts and killer heatwaves if world
leaders fail to
agree a deal on climate change, the prime minister has warned.

Gordon Brown said negotiators had 50 days to save the world from global warming and break
the
"impasse".

Fifty days?! Talk about the zeal of the converted.

Radio 4's The World Tonight summoned climate change secretary Ed Miliband to ask him if
Brown was
exaggerating:

No, I don't think he was. The science is very clear about this.

Etc

Which would seem like a good moment to remember the cautionary words of climate scientist
Mike
Hulme:

The language of catastrophe is not the language of science. It will not be visible in next
year's
global assessment from the world authority of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change
(IPCC)[Note: AR4]. To state that climate change will be "catastrophic" hides a
cascade of
value-laden assumptions which do not emerge from empirical or theoretical science.

Brown's catastrophism and the catastrophic state of his premiership and government are
linked of
course. As his authority continues to melt spectacularly, his desperation to connect with
the
media, the electorate and his party is forced to the surface. A few strong words about
catastrophic
climate change are about the only straws he has left to cling to. Not that it will cut any
ice at
the ballot box. Brown is just one more green obstacle for the electorate to navigate
around.

Here's the entirety of what Brown said:

In every era there are one or two moments when nations come together and reach agreements
that
make history. because they change the course of history. And Copenhagen must be such a
time. There
are now fewer than fifty days to set the course for the next few decades. So as we convene
here, we
carry great responsibilities, and the world is watching. If we do not reach a deal in the
next few
months, let us be in no doubt. Once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no
retrospective global agreement in some future period can undo that choice. By then it will
be
irretrievably too late. So we should never allow ourselves to lose sight of the
catastrophe we face
if present warming trends continue.

Only last week we saw new evidence of the rapid loss of Arctic sea ice.

Brown is talking here no doubt about Professor Peter Wadhams's announcement that the
Arctic is set
to be ice-free in summer. This was in no way 'new evidence', however. Wadham was speaking
at the
launch of the findings of the Catlin Arctic Survey, and was simply reiterating, in equally
vague
terms, what has been bandied about for years. His statements were effectively a damage
limitation
exercise on behalf of the Catlin expedition, an insurance-sponsored venture that
spectacularly
failed to provide much at all in the way of data.

And in just twenty-five years, the glaciers in the Himalayas which provide water for
three-quarters of a billion people could disappear entirely.

What's happening to the glaciers? If they are melting, then there is no reason why there
should be
less water for the millions of people who live downstream. Glaciers which neither grow nor
shrink
must have equal output as input. Meanwhile, if there is a growing water shortage problem
(whatever
its cause), a global deal at Copenhagen won't help those facing it to build new water
infrastructure. Nor will it give them one

IPCC estimates tell us now that by 2080 an extra 1.8 billion - equal to a quarter of the
world's
current population - could be living and dying without enough water.

The only claim to this effect that we could find in the IPCC's literature was this PDF of
a
presentation. It says:

A 3°C temperature increase could lead to 0.4 -1.8 billion more people at risk of water
stress.

Notice that Brown omits to inform us what could produce the effect, which is a
particularly high
estimate anyway, and takes the upper range of the effect, which is more than four times
higher than
the lower. Moreover, the figure is premised entirely on those who are likely to experience
such
effects being unable to develop any water infrastructure. Even the worst-case
projection/scenario
considered by the IPCC in AR4 does not estimate that global temperature could increase by
3 degrees
until 2080 - 70 years in the future. That's plenty of time to start building water
infrastructure.

[graph]

Brown continues:

If the international community does nothing to assist the rainforest nations in protecting
the
world's rainforests, the damage not just to climate, but to biodiversity, to watersheds
and to the
livelihoods of millions of people will, as you know here, be incalculable.

Which is simply meaningless.

The recent report of the Global Humanitarian Forum led by Kofi Annan suggests that 325
million
people are already seriously affected by drought, disease, floods, loss of livestock, low
agricultural yields, and declining fish stocks. A further 500 million people are at
extreme risk,
and every year the effects of climate change are already killing 300,000 people - the
number killed
by the Indian Ocean Tsunami. And the toll could rise to half a million each year by 2030.

We have looked at the GHF's claims previously (here and here). And as we showed, there is
no reason
to take them seriously. As with the WHO's claim that 150,000 people are killed by the
effects of
climate change, each and every single one of these deaths would have been avoided had
there been
the level of development in those regions as there is in the West. It cannot be argued,
therefore,
that climate change is responsible for those deaths. Poverty was responsible for them.
Moreover,
the number of deaths attributed to climate change is lower than for any other effect of
poverty
according the UN's very own figures. Here they are again:

[table]

More than 26 million people seem to die prematurely in the developing world, yet Brown
thinks their
biggest problem is climate change.

98 per cent of those dying and otherwise seriously affected live in the poorest countries,
and
yet their countries only account for 8 per cent of global emissions. This is the great
injustice of
climate change. Those being hit first and hardest by climate change are those who have
done least
to cause it.

Brown seeks legitimacy for his climate change policy-posturing by claiming to be
interested in
helping the world's poor. Yet at the same time, it appears that he is not making an
argument for
the world's poor to enjoy our lifestyles, and our level of wealth. Thus he is not making
an
argument for them to be equipped with the means to make themselves less vulnerable to the
effects
of climate, and of climate change. To what extent then, is Brown making an argument for
the defence
of the interests of the global poor?

Brown isn't interested in them at all. What Brown is interested in is sustaining his own
role and
his own function. He is clothing himself in scientific factoids and dubious statistics so
that he
can make-believe that he is a planet-saving super-hero. Transparently, he fails.

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Antworten

chemist (21.10.2009 19:39)