Editor’s note: This commentary is by Jock Gill, of Peacham, an internet communications consultant who served in President Bill Clinton’s Office of Media Affairs. He is town energy coordinator in Peacham.
[I]t turns out that the recent IPCC report may well be much too conservative. It appears that the dangers of disruption may come much sooner and be much more severe. Beware of tipping points not included in the models.
The excerpt below, from an article by Nick Humprey, illustrates why I have been asking about drawdown (decarbonizing the atmosphere) as a key component of Vermont’s strategy for confronting climate disruption. Where, for example, is the action plan to get CO2 in the atmosphere down to about 260 ppm (350 ppm is no longer considered to be an adequate target level)? Climate disruption is an inadequate term as what will be disrupted is just about everything we have taken for granted the past few centuries.
Humphrey writes:
“So, to conclude … as the scientists behind the (IPCC) report have stated…technically, it is within the laws of physics and chemistry to accomplish what is necessary to avert catastrophic climate change. However, in order for humans to fix the problem, they would need to have the technical feasibility to 1) create an entirely new energy infrastructure as rapidly as possible, 2) create an infrastructure to remove and store the pollution of the previous energy infrastructure as rapidly as possible, 3) and do so while using the very same greenhouse gas (and other) polluting infrastructure. Based purely on what has already been done, we would expect extreme (greater than 2 C) warming, which would threaten to initiate a process toward a near-inevitable “hothouse” state as 1.5-2 C above pre-industrial is likely an “unstable” temperature state for the planet. And the instability … which, as the UN believed in 1990, may have started as low as 1 degree C, may be capable of non-linear processes which are hard to quantify.
“And as a side note … the IPCC completely avoids the science of abrupt climate change because of major tipping points which can amplify warming or climate circulations in other destructive ways. However, the concept that changes can happen on very rapid timescales (years to a few decades), is well known from paleorecords. (See discussion by Dr. James Lovelock and Dr. James White). Powerful tipping points include Arctic sea ice, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, mid-latitude jet stream, among others.” (More from Humphrey on Facebook)
At present, it can clearly be argued that Vermont’s current plans for addressing disruption are inadequate and substantially incomplete. They are neither at an appropriate scale nor do they even recognize the possibility of unknown tipping points nor any number of essential steps that must be taken. The question is simply whether Vermont is up to this challenge. Therein lies a great opportunity: Vermont and its educational system have a great interdisciplinary opportunity to work on the the challenges listed above.
For example, it would be interesting to see how the theological position that man was given dominion, an unequal relationship of superior to inferior, over the natural world has shaped our present condition. This was, as you know, a key argument used against Malthus at the start of the industrial revolution. I would further suggest that it would be rewarding to see how inequalities in economics, politics and social structures, etc., have contributed to climate disruption. Given that a broad range of fundamental inequalities have long been baked into the “American way of life,” this will be a challenging undertaking. In the end, any viable solution to disruption must include far more than technological solutions.
Vermont has so much to contribute.
