Hollande beats the Drum in Manila

Visiting the Philippines, one of the globe's most devastated places as a result of increasingly violent storms and high seas, French President François Hollande made a strong showing today on behalf of the Climate Change movement. Interestingly he did so as prospective host to the Paris COP 21 conference, assuming some responsibility for the success of the conference. With a glamorous entourage of movie actresses--Marion Cotillard, a Greenpeace activist and Oscar winner, and Mélanie Laurent--as well as the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and UN official Christiana Figueres, Hollande planned to visit the site of Typhoon Haiyan's worst destruction in 2013, in an effort to raise the profile of the climate issue.

At the midpoint of Hollande's less-than-distinguished presidency he has the chance to seize the initiative for France, and for his own legacy, on the world stage, as Le Monde was quick to notice, as well as to cement some climate-related contracts with French businesses in the vulnerable precincts of the Philippines. At the same time the Philippines is asserting its leadership of what an official called the "G-20 of most vulnerable nations."

Meanwhile in the US, the only coverage of Hollande's 'Manila Appeal' (overtones of General DeGaulle?) seems to be the extremely negative account by the AP, calling attention to the limited funds raised so far for mitigation among poorer countries such as the Philippines. Yes, the developed countries will have to pony up much larger sums, as Hollande did note, and yes, those funds may be hard to pry loose (though Environment Minister Ségolène Royal pointed to sources in the financial sector). The importance of Hollande's profile-raising exercise is nonetheless confirmed by the continuing near-blackout of major efforts like this one to build momentum for Paris.

The Eco-modernist Challenge (part 2)

As noted in my previous post, I have just started to delve into a provocative literature that is gathered under titles such as 'eco-modernism' or the 'good anthropocene,' and is supported by the Breakthrough Institute, among others. The arguments put forward about Climate Change and the policies that would address it pose a significant challenge, since the eco-modernists present themselves as adversaries of the whole traditional environmentalist 'narrative' that leads to stabilized or sustainable or limited growth, reduced energy consumption, dependence on carbon-free energy sources such as solar, wind, or hydro, and --crucially--opposes nuclear power on other grounds. What are some of the main lines of argument?

• E-M-ism is techno-optimistic. The symptomatic phrase "lessen worry" in Jesse Ausubel's liminal essay runs directly counter to the tone of urgency that informs movements such as 350.org. Solutions will be found in technologies such a carbon capture, hydrogen conversion, nuclear power, by a process of 'decarbonization' that is described as 'evolutionary,' that is, operating by its own laws of motion to reduce the carbon content of the energy humans use.
• E-M-ism is market-friendly. The decarbonization process will allow vast corporate and sovereign interests in coal, oil, and natural gas to run their course over most of this century while other cleaner technologies gradually become more efficient and less expensive. The externalized costs of extreme weather, adaptation to rising sea levels, and other noxious effects attributed to increased carbon levels are to some degree dismissed as scientifically uncertain. More largely, the slogan of 'leave it in the ground,' and the argument put forward by Naomi Klein that carbon reduction is incompatible with multinational corporate capitalism, is set aside by E-M-ists, who align themselves with market mechanisms and consumer choice.
• Tolerance for carbon levels of 450-500 ppm: Ausubel casually acknowledges that the unforced decarbonization process will bring us to such levels before the conversions and capture he sees in our future will have taken hold. The arguments that such increased carbon levels will in themselves be intolerable are set aside with the nostrum that comparable increases (280 to 360 ppm) have occurred with "no discernible harm." As we reach 400 ppm one wonders whether that dismissal can still hold. Furthermore the frightening prospect that increased global temperatures at some point induce an irreversible feed-back mechanism of further carbon release, greatly accelerating the carbonization of the atmosphere, is not addressed in this leisurely timetable of evolutionary decarbonization. 
• Rejection of renewables such as solar, wind, and hydro: Ausubel's main argument is one of scale, claiming that the low-density of such technologies would entail impossible quantities of dedicated land-use to replace current levels of fossil-fueled energy. Again, experiments in scale, particularly solar, have multiplied in the past 15 years, and solar capture has improved. Is the density argument still valid? And does it apply to sea-based wind farms, or to decentralized land-based ones, or highly decentralized use of solar panels, which are becoming more feasible?
• Nuclear power appears as an ultimate solution not just in Ausubel's work but more generally, as in Martin Lewis's influential essay "The Education of an Ecomodernist," which ends with the exhortation to "split atoms, not wood." But the dangers of nuclear, both ecological and geopolitical, need to be addressed, as well as issues of cost, before this conveniently high-density, carbonless solution can be treated as the silver bullet E-M-ists regard it as. (Joe Romm's rebuttal of a NYTimes article rehearsing Ausubel's arguments is a useful brief on this point.)

Is Eco-Modernism a welcome reframing of the Climate Change debate? Inasmuch as it offers gradualist, capital-compatible, and rather sweeping solutions to the problem--and thus a reprieve from the stress and hopelessness that risks to break apart any rational debate--yes, it offers a sustaining counterpoint. But only if its assumptions are as reasonable as its rhetoric. And there I have serious doubts, not just on the science, where I am out of my depth, but on the larger philosophical assumption that we 'good anthropocenes' underrate ourselves. (The collection Love Your Monsters is an interesting point of reference.)

In any case I hope to pursue these questions through this blog--and would invite rebuttal and discussion--and will be looking closely to see how the controversies between eco-modernists and more traditional environmentalists play out in the run-up to Paris 2015.

Chillin' with Eco-Modernism

I worry about Climate Change. A lot. So when I came across a paper titled "Some Ways to Lessen Worries about Climate Change," it caught my eye. The author, Jesse Ausubel, a research director at Rockefeller University, was a college classmate (I barely knew him), but that wasn't the point. His essay, dating from 2000, debunks much of what is now taken as baseline truth in climate science, and presents a point of view that has ramified and developed over the last 2 decades, and has acquired an inspiring movement identity: eco-modernism.

Though the first essay I saw is now 15 years old, Ausubel has hardly recanted, but steadily intensified his polemic. And he has company. The Breakthrough Institute, founded in 2003 by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, gathers a large team of writers and researchers under its umbrella, and its flagship journal offers an array of literate, carefully argued essays. Last year the Institute gave Ausubel its Paradigm Award for his many years contesting the "classical environmental narrative."

The eco-modernist narrative contains many chapters but at its heart is relentless, unapologetic techno-positivism. Its proponents advance the idea of the 'good anthropocene': on the one hand pointing out that homo sapiens has been an eco-degrader of immense scale since human hunters first extinguished many of the large mammal species they pursued. On the other, more sophisticated science in our age can lead in restoring nature and its wilds, containing the imprint of humans on the earth, and developing more sustainable technologies, not the traditional pre-modern ones but radically new and potent ones, beginning with 'clean,' high-density nuclear power.

What are some implications of eco-modernism for the Climate Change movement? I will defer a closer analysis to a second post, but the essential term is 'de-carbonization,' understood as a natural evolutionary tendency in human practice, driven by market efficiencies. From wood to coal to oil, now to methane (or natural gas), and eventually to what Ausubel calls the "nuclear millenium," we anthropocenes will find our way, without further prompting, from carbon-based to uranium- and hydrogen-based energy production. Meanwhile, concentration of fossil-based electrical production in mega-plants--eco-modernism picks no fights with existing extraction industries, and presumes that coal and oil will run their course--will facilitate carbon capture--an essential ingredient in the 'no worries' logic the movement exudes. We may--no, we will get to 450 or even 500 Carbon ppm before this new age of clean nuclear energy dawns, but ... no worries.

Still somehow as I immerse myself in the often quite brilliant literature of this clan of scientists, I find myself worrying all the more. In my next post I'll try to say more specifically what it is that worries me about the seductions of eco-modernism.

Breaking Up with Fossil Fuels

Carbon parts per million are past 400 and counting, but the folks at 350.org are undeterred. Students at numerous campuses here in Boston were demonstrating for divestment--themed for Valentine's Day as 'Breaking up with fossil fuels'--including at Harvard, where students occupied the offices of Harvard's President to demand that the world's largest private endowment come clean. President Faust once again said no, but what can you expect from a President named Faust? Similar actions were taking place at Boston College, Boston U., Brandeis, and campuses across the state and nation. Apparently the young understand better than many of their elders what sort of world we are preparing to leave for them.

Meanwhile 350.org reports actions in 188 countries in favor of divestment. No, the big energy corporations aren't going to agree voluntarily to leave their trillions of assets in the ground--even though the simple math tells us that that's the only path back from disaster. But the symbolic demand of these climate change foot soldiers is a useful reminder of how large a change is necessary in the structures of capital investment, profitability, and the energy mega-industries. As Neil Sedaka tells us, Breakin' up is hard to do.

Geneva Climate Conference Warming Up?

A flash mob appeared in front of the Hall of Nations in Geneva today, where delegates from some 200 countries are laboring frantically to sustain the momentum of the process that leads to Paris. Demonstrators urged attendees on with their work, but it isn't clear the delegates needed any prodding. Their task is immense, but clearly defined--and perhaps unprecedented in human experience: they need to bring together an enormously complicated consensus on the framework of the agreement they hope to reach 10 months from now in Paris.

How complicated? David Waskow of the International Climate  Initiative has identified three of the more complicated dimensions of that agreement:

1) The enormous range of particular solutions, innovations, sustainable projects and technologies that will reduce greenhouse emissions and head off global warming need to be identified and evaluated, country by country. This has caused the more generic draft document created in Lima in December to triple in size, from some 30 pages to nearly 100, as each particular nation introduces its own approach. Somehow the aggregate effect of these many policies will have to be tallied next fall in order to see where the proposals stand in relation to the overall global goal.

2) Some system for tracking implementation going forward needs to be agreed upon, so that after Paris the world's governments can in effect keep an eye on each other and exert the 'peer pressure' that may be the main mechanism for compliance. Bold promises in Paris without meaningful follow-up will not be very useful, so the actual structure of that follow-through is essential--but as yet indeterminate.

3) Finally, and perhaps most sensitive, there remains the question of what Waskow calls "legal architecture," i.e. the structure of the agreements and enforcement mechanisms that nations will formally agree to. Whether legally binding treaties are even conceivable seems doubtful: most observers seem to think that voluntary compliance and self-monitoring--combined with some system of accountability and 'peer pressure' that may be obtainable--is the best that will emerge from Paris.

When one considers the resistances among the three largest polluters--India, which has declared that its anti-poverty growth measures trump any climate policies, China, whose rate of pollution increase and coal-driven economy pose staggeringly large problems, and the US, whose policies must to some degree pass through the Senate committee chaired by Senator Imhofe, possibly the world's most idiotic spokesperson on these issues--the magnitude of the challenge becomes clearer.

Nonetheless, the specter of the world's family of nations, gathered in Lima, now Geneva, next Bonn, then Paris, struggling to resolve these vast differences on behalf of our children's children and the survival of our species--it's a mighty spectacle. A flash mob of millions, not hundreds, would have been more in scale.

Wise Words

Wind Power or Hot Air?

Naive and under-informed as I am, I have always had a soft spot for wind power. What could be cleaner? The wind blows, the turbines spin, and voilà: free electricity. Well, maybe I'm not that naive, but I am caught by surprise to discover the complexity of the Viking wind power proposal, which just won approval from the UK's supreme court to proceed with its massive installation on the Shetland Islands.

At first glance it seems like a natural idea: land-based on the thinly populated main island of the Shetlands, with maximal exposure to North Atlantic winds, the massive (32,000 acres) collection of giant structures (109 turbines at heights up to 145 meters) could serve as many as 175,000 homes, possibly making it the largest wind power producer in the world.

Legal challenges were focused on protection of an endangered bird species, but a glance at the website of Sustainable Shetlands makes it clear that far more substantial problems accompany the project. One is longevity: the life-span of the farm is estimated at 25 years. This raises questions of payback: to build it, massive investment in construction facilities and roads will consume resources, including carbon fuels. More seriously, the farm is to be located on peat bogs, massive carbon sinks whose CO2 will be released by excavations to create a large deficit of clean energy benefit before the first turbine turns. To balance the equation, Viking Energy and its parent corporation, the large UK energy company SSE, make comparison with fossil fuel-produced energy, a false comparison which overlooks the actual composition of competing energy supplies. Once factors including alternative hydrology estimates, transmission costs from the island to the mainland, and other variables are included, Sustainable Shetlands estimates the 'carbon payback' could take 67 years, much more than the farm's anticipated lifespan.

Who's right? More expert opinion than mine would have to answer that. I can understand Sustainable Shetlands' resistance on aesthetic grounds--the turbines will dominate the low-lying landscape--and ecological ones--disrupting extensive bird and other animal habitats, as well as the peat itself is a heavy price. On the other hand, not building 'sustainable' projects on this scale has its price as well. Can we get this right while there is still time? That's one of the big questions along the road to Paris.

How Green is Syriza?

Answer #1: Syriza, arguably the most leftward government to reach power in Europe in nearly 80 years, arrives with high ambitions: its program includes "planned transition to renewable energy" within the context of "a new paradigm of social, environmental, and economic development." Prominent among its supporters are a cadre of altermondialist and environmental activists, whose hopes include "local, small-scale renewables," according to an informed article from the International Council for Science (ICSU), and indeed "movement away from a growth-based economy toward one embracing the increasingly popular concept of 'degrowth.'" In this view Syriza stands poised to show the EU and the world not just how to reduce carbon emissions but how to rebuild a sustainable global economy beyond the reach of the large corporate interests that will never relinquish their fossil-fuel dependency before it's too late.

Answer #2: The situation in Greece and within Syriza, is, alas a bit more complex. Small renewable energy projects, supported by the EU, have advanced for two decades in Greece's private sector, not surprisingly given the high potential for solar, wind, and tidal energy in that country. Investment in those areas, however, has altogether dried up in the wake of Greece's credit difficulties and deep recession, and numerous bankruptcies have poisoned the sector. Along the way, such small, private, mostly Northern European-directed ventures have come to be viewed as 'green colonialism,' a hostile and costly threat to the indigenous Greek energy industry, heavily grounded in ... lignite (AKA "brown coal").

Syriza must thus negotiate between its green supporters and its red ones, the union-based coal workers, whose 'resource nationalism' in this instance is diametrically opposed to the local alternative energy projects favored by environmentalists. Syriza must also consider its pledge to bring electricity to the 300,000 Greeks who have lost theirs, and who will not want to wait a decade or two for solar and wind programs to reach fruition. Dirty coal is the cheap, sensible way to restore their power, and it would be hard to argue against doing it ASAP.

For the longer term, finance minister Varoufakis has pledged a Keynesian, New Deal-modeled investment program in carbon-free energy, but how that investment stimulus proposal will sit with Germany and the Troika is of course the biggest question looming over Greece's future. Implemented, it could under Syriza's sympathetic guidance possibly convince a suspicious labor force to believe in the future of clean energy jobs. But will Greece's creditors even give it a chance?

In sum: There are many ways Syriza's well-intentioned energy transformation program could fail, and many reasons why the largest corporate interests--especially Europe's fossil-fuel monopolies--would want them to. Progressives are rooting for Syriza--as in this paper from Trade Unions for Energy Democracy--to point the way to a centrally-funded, locally-controlled, clean energy sector organized outside the profit-seeking economy with users' interests foremost. They see Syriza's unique position--soon to be buttressed perhaps by Podemos--as the chance to stare down the corporatist EU and institute that 'Other Europe' that has long functioned as a rhetorical trope, if nothing else, of the mainstream Left. Is this the moment when that trope becomes a fact on the ground?