I read George Monbiot’s book Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning several months ago, since I’ve been told it’s the one book I really should be reading. I found it powerful, and challenging, and as I’ve continued with my climate work, I’ve found it ever more important. He poses a challenge to anyone serious about tackling global warming, and so even if this is sort of a book review, it’s also an ultimatum to my buddies in the youth movement.
Monbiot’s challenges are basically this: Are we moving fast enough to do what it takes? Are we thinking big enough about the types of changes we need to make? And finally, are we framing this transition in a way that will actually empower us to build solutions? I think we can all agree that in the current political framework, the answer must be an emphatic, almost desperate ‘no’. Unfortunately, I think when we ask the same question about the youth movement and other citizen allies across the country, we face the same challenge of inadequacy. Monbiot tends, in my view unnecessarily, on the gloomy side, and has been criticized for not getting all the solutions right, but we cannot afford to ignore his fundamental challenges. You should read this book: Heat will challenge you to be honest about the scope of the problem and the nature of the solution.
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The youth movement has used 80% by 2050 as its rallying cry for global warming action, and those on the leading edge are following Gore’s argument of 90% by 2050. We call these “science based goals” as opposed to the politically motivated goals of an accommodating administration. What does this actually mean though?
These goals agree with the reductions needed to avoid unacceptable impacts as the consensus-based IPCC studies predicts. This process, which is one of the most developed scientific studies in history, is ultimately reviewed and released by representatives of nations, though thankfully they can only voice objections on scientific grounds. As such, it is a strongly consensus-based process, discussing events and associated risks that appear quite certain. An 80% reduction by 2050 will give us a good chance of avoiding the worst of the slow climate impacts like rising sea levels or temperature rise that scientists are sure of, but what of all the other, more rapid, and potentially cataclysmic events of which scientists are unsure? Scientific uncertainty (which is inherent in trying to predict anything as complex as the future of the world) has often been used as an excuse for inaction, but Monbiot argues that it’s far more dangerous when we ignore the risk of far more serious events. I like to think of it in the frame of home insurance. Do you insure your home based on the certainty of mild events like rain, gusty winds, and other ‘typical weather’ or on the less than 1% chance of a massive disaster? In this case, the possibility of catastrophic events is far higher than with home insurance. Scientists are finding increasingly worrying evidence of tipping points (points of no return) almost every week. Instead of setting goals based on avoiding consequences of which we are sure, we should set goals that avoid what we consider unacceptable levels of risk of worse events.
Monbiot launches Heat by navigating through a series of scientific and ethical arguments starting with a widely agreed upon threshold (established by the European Commission) that above a 2 degree Celsius rise in temperatures above pre-industrial levels, we face a high risk of one or more tipping point events, like the melting of the Arctic Ocean, the collapse of the Amazon rainforest , the massive release of methane hydrates from the ocean floor, accelerated permafrost melting, the shut-down of the Gulf Stream, or oceanic acidification. Through a series of well reasoned steps involving estimations of atmospheric carbon forcings , the effect of sulfate aerosols, and the gradual loss of carbon storage, Monbiot concludes that the world needs to cut its entire carbon emissions by 60% below current (2005) levels by 2030. He takes these arguments from a layman’s paper backed up by some prominent scientists involved in the IPCC process. I’ve heard this research dismissed as ‘not consensus science’, but given the need to avoid devastating risks, consensus loses some of its importance. This scenario is seriously possible, so even if scientists cannot agree that it will happen, we need to deal with it.
60% below current levels doesn’t sound so far off the wall until one considers that it’s global. Monbiot uses a vital ethical tool to define equal rights to emit carbon world wide, meaning that high per-capita carbon emitters would have to take their fair share of the burden. When you fill that detail in, the UK needs a 90% carbon emission reduction by 2030. The US is closer to 95% by 2030. That’s 23 years away. We sometimes forget in our national focus that as the world’s worst emitter, we have to do our fair share of the change, which is well above the global average.
Is the government ready? Is the economy ready? Are you ready? I sure hope so. In any case, we are not yet moving fast enough and far enough.
On to number two: are we thinking big enough? The thing I find brilliant about Heat is that Monbiot approaches the question of how we solve global warming with neither the naive optimism that a few technological quick-fixes will solve our problems, nor despair that the challenge is unsolvable. Case by case, sector by sector, issue by issue he outlines a series of solutions, all of which must rapidly be deployed. He recognizes some major pitfalls in technical strategies that many often ignore. For example, he notes that without a wider incentive to avoid fossil fuels, increased efficiency encourages increased usage rather than simple savings – demonstrated by studies indicating that car usage tends to increase slightly when people switch to hybrid cars. While noting the shortfalls of our existing energy system, he also reveals the challenges of creating a new energy economy. We often brush aside the fact that with our current electrical grid, we can only achieve partial renewable energy saturation. While we should expand renewables dramatically, we shouldn’t ignore that we still have steps to figure out.
Similarly, in the field of transportation, Monbiot adroitly dissects the limitations of hybrid vehicles, biofuels, and hydrogen – noting that all may prove useful, but none are adequate. Instead he focuses on the lion-share of the solution: how do we design our cities, and build efficient public transit networks, so that we can simply drive much less? How can we redesign trade and shipping to foster local economic production and reduce transport energy needs?
I disagree, as many have, with many of Monbiot’s specific solutions: his future relies heavily on carbon-sequestration of natural gas, nuclear energy, and some others that are completely unnecessary . To some degree, I have to empathize since he specifically focuses on building solutions for Britain, which has far less renewable energy resources than my region – the Upper Midwest, so his gloomier perspective is more understandable. He points to yet another crucial conclusion: the complex web of strategies we must employ are going to be locally-specific. Despite the foibles, Monbiot is ready to be honest: these changes really will shape our lives, our society, and our future, and we can’t afford to hide from them. Yet, in his solutions portfolio, he demonstrates that it is possible.
The one sector that will probably cause the readers (and I’m sure the author) the most pain, is flight travel. The chapter is called Love Miles, because we fly to see the people and places we love. Flying is incredibly energy-wasteful, and besides leaves additional warming gases in the form of contrails. There’s also basically no alternatives – even advanced biofuels or hydrogen can hardly match the energy density and intensity of jet fuel. For more local travels, highly efficient trains can suffice, for global business, switch to online conferences. But in the end, for those of us who fly for travel and to visit friends and relatives, the message is rough: we have to make do with less of it. I find this particularly hard since a single 2,000-mile round-trip flight is about equivalent (in my rough estimation) to all the carbon I emit in a year (I’m below average, particularly since I don’t drive). This year, with all the climate action events I’ll be at, I’ll make at least 3 of those flights. I’m starting to use Amtrak whenever I have the time to take a day or so in transit (and I enjoy it more) but well, what is one to do?
As we struggle to pass 20% renewable energy standards, or increase CAFE standards by 10%, or try to support clean biofuel expansion, Heat asks us if we’re going for the real goals. Are we figuring out how to redesign our cities, build distributed energy grids, revamp global agriculture, slash energy usage in existing buildings by over 50%, or any of these other crucial steps we need to achieve. If we’re not ready to actually make these types of changes happen, we’re not ready for the climate crisis. This won’t simply happen by advocating policies that effect ‘somebody else’ – its going to change the way we do things.
This brings us to the final challenge: are we framing the debate in a way that will actually empower the types of solutions we need. Given that we have been primarily focused on the marginal fixes that can be achieved through immediate political support without a sweeping shift in public perspective, we’ve been talking marginally, about steps that will effect the every day person only moderately. Trying to explain that it won’t really leave too much of an impact on people’s everyday lives. Heat says that this is not the right course: it won’t make change deep enough. Monbiot says we should move from the defensive position of limiting the ‘damage’ that our solutions bring, and take on global warming as a responsibility that rejects the short-term powers we gain from fossil fuels and instead build a future we can actually live with.
Monbiot frames the book in the story of Faust, who sells his soul to the devil in return for incredible powers during his lifetime, though he faces a future in hell. We have gained those very same powers to move mountains, to whisk luxuries from around the world to our fingertips with barely a thought, and even to rule a global society. Now we face the choice of applying ourselves aggressively to the task of global redemption by denying ourselves the abuses those powers allow, or accepting a hellish future. I rarely here us talking about that kind of cosmic choice: to build a freedom where we cannot accept the demonic powers that give us control. In other words , we’re asked to seek a world in which we participate instead of manage. Perhaps this downsizes egos, but it empowers a new kind of openness and interdependency.
Monbiot is obviously spot on that this challenge really is fundamentally about how we live and relate to the world. My biggest disagreement with Heat is that Monbiot frames this choice as a moral sacrifice, rather than collective empowerment. Heat is brutally honest, but it feels almost like a weary acknowledgment of how much we will have to give up. Despite the exhaustive list of solutions that show that a comprehensive solution, however challenging, is possible, I don’t feel the inspiration. I don’t feel the potential for dramatically improving our lives, building new communities, and participating in innovative solutions. Monbiot gives us some sense of a road map, but little advice beyond the general ‘make changes in your community and get involved in politics to push for dramatic changes’ we so often here. On a related website, Monbiot gives a few more direct hints, buts its pretty basic.
This is not an instruction book. It is a picture of what we need to seek, and a challenge to us to actually live up to the scope of this problem. Its up to us to figure out how we make it happen. I think answering this challenge with vision, collaboration, and skill is the next task of the movement for climate solutions.
So the U.S. edition is finally out? (I checked Powells yesterday and they were selling the book; just want to make sure I get the right one)
i do wish that bookstores had volume discounts on this one…
It is extremely unlikely that mankind will cut their greenhouse gas emissions so severely, and so fast, that abrupt climate change and runaway global warming is avoided (i.e. 60% cut by 2030, and a 90% cut by 2050). For instance, oil and natural gas are being burned as fast as they are recovered, so it is manditory to place a moritorium on new dirty coal-fired plants, which is very unlikely, since developing nations will predictably try to “catch up” to developed nations per capita emission rates.
Instead of the unrealistic and weak mitigation strategy of drastically cutting emissions, I suggest the low cost method of remove CO2 from the air called biosequestration. Now nature removes about half of mankind’s CO2 emissions, but that is expected to reduce 30% by 2030. I suggest improving nature’s ability to remove the CO2 using genetic engineering-perhaps seeding a GMO into the ocean.
Monbiot has the scale and seriousness of the global warming problem right, but he is way off base in his prescription to address it. The staggering amount of money necessary to completely change our energy infrastructure is causing gridlock. Some policymakers doubt the problem is that severe, or even that it exists at all. In order to address this catastrophic threat to our civilization, a low cost, highly scalable solution has to be found, or it will be too late soon. That excess CO2 has to be removed from the air as soon as possible.
Brad,
The reason we want to stop global warming is to prevent extreme weather events, sea level rise, and the collapse of natural world that makes human life possible. The recklessness and arrogance of thinking we can ‘improve’ nature’s ability to sequester C02 by injecting a GMO into the ocean is exactly the kind of thinking that got us into this mess. The bedrock principle of avoiding catastrophic climate change is the precautionary principle.
However, I agree completely that we should not just be talking about mitigation. However, just shifting from traditional agricultural subsidies to those for organic agriculture would sequester carbon on a massive scale. Prairie restoration in the United States for fuel alone could sequester enormous quantities of carbon while producing carbon-neutral biomass. We have the technology, the policies, and the innovative thinking to not just solve global warming, but solve our energy dependence, and build a more just and sustainable world. Why gamble on something dangerous and unproven when all we lack is political will? That we can generate together!
Timothy, thanks so much for making this heard once again. Beginning in 2008, we better start getting serious about the issue and letting policymakers know that we need to work together with the different sectors to achieve the real cuts we need.
First to Brad: How do you expect we will extract the several hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 we’ve pumped into the atmosphere? Just like it was a huge quantity we burned, it will be a huge quantity we’ll have to take down from the atmosphere. You can turn deserts into forests and you still will have to deal with some warming. We have to scrap those plans that make no sense and stick to what needs to be done.
Back to Monbiot: You make a good point about treating this issue as something with so much uncertainty that we ought to pay for the risk. The scientists at the Hadley Center in the UK who have figured out that we better cut global emissions 60% by 2030, apart from using data up to 2005 (which misses all the tipping points found in 2006 and 2007, including the fact that the Amazon’s and the Antarctic Ocean’s carbon absorption capacities are decreasing), give a 66% chance of avoiding the 2C threshold. Hansen has stated that we have 10 years to really get global emissions down, and Lester R. Brown will publish his Plan 3.0 book making the case that we can cut global emissions in half by 2020 and that we ought to do so.
These are some reasons why there’s an online group of people who do not support any of the current bills in the Congress (regardless of the progress they make). These people state that any policy that is far from the target is a waste of time and money as it will prevent absolutely nothing and instead give the impression that something is being done about the problem to continue doing nothing serious. In a way, I’m supportive of their stance, though I don’t express it in anything I do because I have to push forward with what we have and slowly build it into people that we need to call for policies/solutions that will really deal with the problem.
I do hope that by 2008 (as we finish Climate Summer and Powershift), we organize the youth climate movement and the broader movement to discuss what our call should really be, given that “risks” should be taken into account and that we can’t afford to make steps that will prevent us from reaching the targets we need to reach. Some of us have been trying to get this out, but we haven’t succeeded thus far. We need to get on board in 2008, or else we can risk electing a president that will do what we’re calling for now and choose to do no more because he/she have done the boldest thing possible.
Great summary Timothy!
Carlos wrote: “Beginning in 2008, we better start getting serious about the issue and letting policymakers know that we need to work together with the different sectors to achieve the real cuts we need.”
Beginning in 2008?! Why not beginning right now (if you haven’t already started)?! There’s no time to waste, and in addition to working to ensure we elect the right President and Congress in 2008 to get the job done, we can start working now with politicians and industry leaders to lay the groundwork for what is to come.
No reason to wait until January 2008 to kick it into high gear. There’s plenty to be done today!
By the way, great review of the book, Timothy!
I also read Heat about six weeks ago and found it well worth the read. The UK-centric focus makes it a little less useful for us Yankees, but it is still worth reading to see an example of the kind of focused plan for greenhouse gas reductions that will be needed to forestall dangerous climate change. It’s a good thought exercise, and while I don’t agree 100% with his findings, it is pretty solidly-researched and well written. Reading the book inspired me to think harder about what could be done in the US. In some ways, we are better off, with more wasteful current practices (which means more low-hanging fruit), more renewable energy potential and a much larger country to work with.
I also agree with Timothy that it’s a bit more depressing than it needed to be. His book is inspiring in the sense that it gets the point across that there’s plenty of work to be done, and we’d better buckle down to get started right away. But it also ignores most of the positive benefits of transitioning to a sustainable energy future: kicking our oil habit, reviving our economy, creating healthier air, land and water, preserving resources for the future, etc. These should not be ignored in any discussion of global warming. As Timothy mentions, fighting climate change shouldn’t just be about taking on a grim moral responsibility. It should be an inspirational, transformative effort that builds a greener, healthier, richer, safer, stronger future for America and the world!
That being said, Heat is not a long read, and it’s well worth it, so grab a copy and check it out!
Either way, the CO2 has to be removed from the air by nature. Now about half of mankind’s CO2 emissions are removed by nature each year, but that is expected to decrease 30% by 2030. Meanwhile, carbon sinks will become carbon emitters in a warming world, with mega forest and peat fires, melting permafrost, and higher SSTs. In other words, if you are depending upon nature to clean up our air pollution after we drastically cut back rapidly our greenhouse gas emissions, think again.
Worse, when complex systems (like our climate) are forced (like by our emissions), they resist change, then abruply change to a new stable state. Ice core samples verify this. Global warming is non-linear, and we can expect more than just a .2C/decade increase, as climate change outpaces the ability of eco-systems to adapt. The result will be a rapid drop in the carrying capacity of the earth, with a lack of resources to do anything but crisis managment, not drastically reduce our emissions fast.
America, the riches nation in the world is too cheap to cut their emissions, so why do you think the developing countries will? China is adding dirty coal-fired plants at the rate of the size of Britains entire power grid each year. India will soon follow suit. Burning coal generates electricity at 1/6th the cost of oil or natural gas-that is why America generates half her power by burning coal. Worldwide demand for electricity is expected to double by 2030.
If you think we can feasible cut our way out of this global warming crisis, you don’t understand the scale of the problem. Unless we remove that excess CO2 soon, the carrying capacity of the earth will dramatically drop in the next couple of decades. CCS (carbon capture and sequester) technology for coal plants won’t be ready for decades, and as oil and natural gas demand outstrips supply, coal mined domestically will be increasingly burned in dirty coal-fired power plants (not phased out like Dr Hansen says is necessary to avoid catastrophe).
Hi Brad,
You, and I, and George Monbiot are all in agreement that existing carbon dioxide needs to be taken out of the atmosphere by natural processes. The issue is that biological sequestration will never be able to catch up to our current emissions rate, much less cut that AND reduce the overall concentration in the atmosphere. We are emitting way too much carbon. And since, as you correctly mention, the biological storage capacity is declining REDUCING our ability to sequester carbon, which is why we have to cut emissions so steeply.
Which DOES mean stopping building new coal plants, and phasing out old ones, and redesigning our urban systems, and rapidly increasing efficiency. If you don’t think the end of coal is possible, check this blog entry: http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2007/07/25/is-the-coal-rush-over/. Even China is trying to reduce coal growth in favor of efficiency, hydro, and wind.
And, you’re right, it’s a radical change: basically inventing new economy that’s not linked to dirty energy. Surprise! It’s quite easily more profitable than the current framework, it only requires a massive degree of upfront investment, a frame-shift in our decision-making systems, and a redefinition of development. I’ll be blogging more on this in the coming months.