Did you hear this on the news?
Posted: November 29, 2011 Filed under: durban climate talks Leave a comment »
Extract from a document from Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, in preparation for Durban Climate Talks (attached below):
Recent developments regarding climate science
There have been two deeply concerning developments in climate change science over the past few months. Firstly, a recent U.S. Department of Energy report highlighted that global greenhouse gas emissions have increased so significantly – even during a period of global recession – that they now exceed even the „worst-case scenario‟ that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had projected in their last main report in 2007.
Secondly, the International Energy Agency, has given its starkest warning yet about global energy consumption patterns. Its World Energy Outlook 2011 report concluded that “the door to 2°C is closing”, referring to the agreement reached at the UN climate change talks in Cancun last year to keep global temperatures no more than 2°C higher than they were in 1990. Their report continues by saying that, assuming that recent government policy commitments are implemented „in a cautious manner‟, „the world is on a trajectory that results in a level of emissions consistent with a long-term average temperature increase of more than 3.5°C. Without these new policies, we are on an even more dangerous track, for a temperature increase of 6°C or more.‟
Attacks on climate scientists are the real ‘climategate’
Posted: November 24, 2011 Filed under: durban climate talks Leave a comment »See the Guardian environment blog for Stephan Lewandowsky’s forceful argument that climate scientists’ emails are not a scandal but the attacks on those scientists and a growing anti-science movement are.
he reviews the lack of eveidence that any previous charges levelled at climate scientists were justified:
‘These real climategates are the tip of an iceberg of venality enveloping anti-science interests and their enablers.
And just a few hours ago, another illegal release of personal emails among scientists was dumped on to the world in the lead-up to the next climate conference in Durban. First Copenhagen, now Durban. When the science is so rock solid that it can no longer be reasonably doubted, all that is left is to steal private correspondence in a desperate attempt to disparage those who are trying to protect the world from the risks it is facing.’
a potted history of forests in the Scottish Borders
Posted: March 11, 2011 Filed under: tree-lines Leave a comment »
After the last Ice Age, 10 000 years ago, gradually forest established itself in Southern Scotland, mainly dominated by oak. The map above shows how much of that has been lost in the last six thousand years.
To quote from The Carrifran Wildwood Story (p17)
A few ecologists argue that complex natural factors – rather than human activities – are mainly responsible for forest loss in the Highlands and Wester Isles, but everyone agrees that hmans and their associated grazing animals have played the major role in the Southern Uplands. In this area, pastoralism became significant thousands of years ago and forest clearance accelarated in the [early Middle Ages], but the beginning of the end for the natural woodlands of the Scottish Borderlands came with the monastic exapnsion of the 12th century. the large and well documented flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, as well as the rarely mentioned goats, gradually inhibited the natural regeneration of trees and led to the development of increasingly senile woodlands.
In the following centuries, warfare often involved scorched earth policies and the felling of many trees, but as pointed out by Chris Badenoch …. the lawlessness of families and internceine strife may have had equaly serious impact on forests, and any attempt at enclosure and regeneration or replanting was doomed by action of one’s neighborus. There were efforts to conserve woods, but the are in the western Borders known as Ettrick Forest seems to have been largely denuded byt the 16th century. Reently it was estimated that in the Borders as a whole, only around 0.25% of the land carried semi-natural woodland.
The current situation is that most of the native woodlands have vanished, replaced by ‘sheepscapes’ – artificially maintained grassland – and commercial forestry, mainly monoculture of conifers.
Some references:
Source of map: The Carrifran Wildwood Story, by Philip and Myrtle Ashmole, Borders Forest Trust, 2009 (p16)Richard Tipping: (1997) Vegetational history of southern Scotland, Botanical Journal of Scotland49 (2), 151-162
TC Smout (Editor) People and Woods in Scotland, a history. Edinburgh University Press.
http://www.bordersforesttrust.org
http://www.treesforlife.org.uk
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/scotland
Naomi Klein: addicted to risk?
Posted: February 23, 2011 Filed under: environmental writing Leave a comment »Naomi Klein gave a TED presentation in January. The whole talk lasts 20 minutes – I’ll pick out her theme about stories. She asks why do people keep gambling with the environment? Why take the crazy risks we do? What greed, hubris, recklessness was evident in BP’s approach to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill … she referred to the power of story: narratives of frontier, pioneer, destiny, apocalypse, salvation are at work. An assumption of limitlessness is the master narrative. But we are hitting limits. So the message becomes about ignoring the creeping fears. Now, we begin drilling for oil in very dangerous places. For example the tarsands in Alberta, that she described as terrestial skinning, producing 3x as much greenhouse emissions as other kinds of extraction, devastating forest. A belief persists that at the last minute we will get saved – geoengineering projects, giant experiments where science states the risks are entirely unknown. Yet these stories can be greeted with relief, euphoria. We do not have to change our habits after all. She concluded we need new stories badly, with different kinds of heroes facing different kinds of risk – confronting recklessness head on, putting precautionary principle into practice, maybe using direct action. Replacing a linear narrative of endless growth with circular narratives: reminding us that what goes round comes round. This is our only home, there is no escape hatch. Call it karma or physics (action / reaction), but stories that hold life is too precious to be risked for any profit.
For Naomi Klein’s talk, go to:
thinking like a tree: significant humans?
Posted: February 7, 2011 Filed under: tree-lines Leave a comment »Aldo Leopold offers us a mountain’s view in Thinking like a mountain:
Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf … I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades. So also with cows. The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf’s job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea. (full text on http://www.eco-action.org/dt/thinking.html)
I decided to start by trying out thinking like a tree (some images on inthepresenttense.net) and to make hand puppets, following discovery of Paul Klee’s puppets made for his son, and also the inspiring work of Noa Abend. The first question: who are the significant humans for a tree?
In Phawhope, at the head of Ettrick Valley, significant humans include Fountains Forestry. The website indicates a multinational company, with interests in Europe, US, and Latin America. They broker sale of the rainforest, offer the opportunity for carbon sequestration … and offer a leaflet on woodland management, bristling with plastic tubes. 
No images of personnel.
Meanwhile the last week has seen an opposition day debate in Parliament calling for a rethink of the plans to sell forests – for example by 38 degrees:
Every single MP heard from hundreds of us this week. But a lot of them will be hoping the fuss will now die down. We need to get back in touch quickly, to prove we are here for the long haul. MPs need to feel we’ll keep watching them until our woods are protected for future generations.
It appears that my MP thought differently, casting a neo-liberal vote in favour of the Government’s plans for a ‘new approach to ownership and amangement of woodlands and forests’, shifting the balance from Big Government to Big Society.
Thinking bigger – from individual tree to forest – it seems that Ettrick Valley head is to be substantially replanted – an erasure of sheepscapes with another commodity production. Will it become a suitable site to reintroduce wolves? Might wolves restore it to a valley of colours, as Phawhope reportedly means?
Jim Crumley has described the wolf as ‘painter of mountains’, because the reintroduction of wolves to a heavily denuded landscape causes a gradual shift in colour across the lanscape, starting with the recovery of grasses, mosses and young trees, then the return of wildflowers, and so on.
no such thing as … clean energy?
Posted: February 3, 2011 Filed under: carbon landscapes, contexts Leave a comment »I am learning biofuels and biomass power stations cause ‘perverse incentives’ – with local and global damaging economic and ecological consequences.
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/reports.php#climatechange
Or here is a pdf of one of Biofuelwatch’s many useful briefings: briefing-paper-bioenergy_final_1
An image of a wind turbine – standing as a modernistic elegant white tower on an (unnaturally) green sward is seductive – an iconic image to balance the distressing sight of a polar bear on a shrinking iceberg.
Still, there are problems in how this is put into practice: – these notes will be expanded pending further info, but here are some points relevant to the Borders produced by a local forum. Questions of social equity are raised.
• The Southern Uplands are a key target area for wind farm developers because of the significant wind resource, the proximity of grid connections and the relatively easy access to the hill-tops. Within Borders, Dumfries & Galloway, South Lanarkshire and southern Ayrshire there are already 24 functioning wind farms with 2 being constructed. Another 13 have been consented and there are at least 40 in the planning process. There will no doubt be more in the pre-scoping stage.
• The Government urgently needs to look at what might be done to balance the national benefits of exploiting wind energy and the local costs to the economy.
• What will the impacts be on tourism to southern Scotland? Will walkers on the Southern Upland Way want to walk through a landscape where there is always a turbine in view? This will become the case – so will the long distance route survive? Will walkers or turbines generate most local economic benefit in the future?
• What are the current economic benefits of wind farm developments? At present the only significant benefit coming to southern Scotland is in the form of the voluntary contributions made by developers to local communities in the form of a “community benefit fund”. The size of this fund varies depending on the developer and the negotiation skills of the communities involved. The “industry standard” appears to be about £2000 per Megawatt installed (some deals have exceeded this). This amount is usually index-linked for a 25-year period. For local communities this can seem significant sum – but it is much less if considered as a proportion of the profits made by the companies.
• What jobs are created? Very few local job opportunities arise from the construction and maintenance of wind farms. The local landowners gain from the rents paid but much of the upland is in the ownership of very few people, so the local benefits of this are questionable.
• Wind farms are a key part of the Government’s drive to address climate change and increase renewable energy generation, and promote behaviour to reduce carbon emissions. However there is no obvious link between the construction of the wind farm and the energy used locally (other than a tenuous tie-in to the size of some community benefit funds). Thus the wind farms can be viewed as constructions that benefit high consuming urban populations, despoiling an otherwise pristine landscape. If the link between wind energy generation and local energy use could be reinforced, people might see them as being part of the solution, rather than a new problem. This could be done in a number of ways. Community ownership of a turbine (or a whole wind farm) is one way that has been successfully demonstrated elsewhere. Making a more direct link with energy generally is another. This could be by helping communities improve their energy efficiency through insulation or more efficient boilers. Specific support for the installation of income-generating renewable energy technologies such as PV cells, micro-hydro or biomass would also create a valuable legacy.
• While some communities have achieved great things, but many – maybe most – lack the confidence necessary to develop such proposals. If more expert local support could be offered, many more such developments would result. This facilitation could be supported by the wind farm companies if they were obliged to put a little more back into the rural areas they are currently exploiting.
We may be tempted to think that the internet saves energy. In 2009, this was raised as an issue, but seems to have dipped from sight. Sorry but, I still feel uneasy when I receive video downloads of folk’s winter holidays. While individual products might be getting more efficient, overall we are still consuming more energy. Some figures have it that the internet is as big a consumer as aviation.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/what-is-the-environmental-impact-of-the-internet.php
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5489134.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/may/03/internet-carbon-footprint
mitigation of institutional adaptation
Posted: January 31, 2011 Filed under: contexts Leave a comment »Glasgow University has a sustainable development network – a recent public talk was unmissable, but the audience was far too small given the significance of the matter. Hence this blog posting.
From the blurb:
“Speaker: Professor Sir John Lawton, CBE, FRS (Chairman Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, RCEP)
The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution’s recent report explores the challenges facing UK institutions as they respond to climate change. Adaptation is not an alternative to mitigation; even if CO2 emissions were to stop tomorrow, significant climate change is inevitable, and the less successful we are at mitigation, the bigger the challenges of adaption. These challenges include considerable uncertainty about the magnitude and rates of climate change in different parts of the UK; recognising that adaptation will need to be an ongoing process, not a single action; and a willingness to incorporate an adaptation test into all major decisions.”
http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/glasgowsustainabledevelopmentnetwork/newsandevents/previousevents/
You can download a copy of the report:
http://www.rcep.org.uk/reports/index.htm
The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution is about to be ‘burnt’ in the quango bonfire. Professor Sir John Lawton is the chair – his delivery was expert, encouraging, humorous, inspiring and very worrying. These are points he made, that add to what you can read in the report.
I believe this is the gist of what he said – please alert me to any misunderstandings if you were there.
After March, the government will not have an expert body to advise on environmental pollution. Because it has been disbanded, John Lawton no longer expects written ministerial responses to the RCEP report – which would otherwise have been necessary.
Climategate has done damage to the process of adaptation. In UK, 30% of the public do not believe. In US, 50%. (Possibly UK is not as bad as US because UK laws inhibit the publication of untruths in the media. Mostly people receive info from the media. In the media, climate deniers have not been subject to the same scrutiny of sources. It is absurd to cast climate science as a conspiracy to invent a problem. Science is organised scepticism. The evidence is irrefutable.
While many industries have not got hold of adaptation, tellingly, the insurance industry is right ahead of the game.
There has been progress with the Climate Change legislation in UK Parliament – and better in Scotland. But far from enough. At least in Scotland and greater London, there is a duty in law on public agencies. Elsewhere it is voluntary. Land use planning is central, and needs resourcing. There is some progress in Scotland (though it’s efficacy was questioned from the floor). At least in Scotland, the government departmens have the possibiity of talking to each other, impossibly big and divided in London.
The RCEP committee worked on principles of successful adaptation. It is more complex by far than mitigation. It must be done locally, flexibly to situations. It requires thinking of a range of probabilities. There is no endpoint. It requires working with many different interests and organisations. For example the interest groups in a coastal area are numerous – a spaghetti of committees.
What is adaptive capacity? framing, learning, implementation.
Local projections test climate science the most. Hampshire County Council is one of the more switched on. How nice! A climate like Bordeaux, it learnt from the climate projections. It also learnt the chalk streams will dry up and the beech woods will die by 2080. Less nice. Details, Sir John Lawton suggested assist public engagement.
The Thames Estuary 2100 is unusual – an innovative response, asking the right questions. Prioritising flexiblity, and community consultation.
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/104695.aspx
Loss of coastal land in the south east poses serious issues of social justice. Currently compensation is on the basis of property ownership. What if you rent? What if you lose business interest or family connections? The commission visited Happisburgh in Norfolk, which will not be protected by public resources and is fast disappearing, and found these issues becoming apparent there, with various responses from residents.
The above came from John Lawton’s talk. As a postscript, I have been part of a lobby of my MP about public agencies duties in resposne to climate change. The particular question was about how the NHS was curbing it’s carbon emissions in line with recent legislation. My MP passed this query on to Andrew Lansley, and we got his response this morning, restating this is the Greenest Government ever. Note this: “Following the recent White Paper Equity and Excellence [...] the NHS in England will be freed from political micromanagement and will be responsible at local level for taking appropriate measures to improve the health service, including carbon performance.” Our question was how carbon emission reduction would be ensured. It seems it won’t be.
I feel that governmental hands are being washed, of responsibility for adaptation, mitigation too.
PS A report on dismantling of the RCEP on http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/22/government-axes-sustainability-watchdog
Lovely Weather – work by Seema Goel
Posted: November 15, 2010 Filed under: carbon landscapes, wool Leave a comment »Seema Goel’s introduction to her work – see http://carbonfootprintproject.blogspot.com/2010/11/leave-only-footprints.html
“The term carbon footprint is understood to indicate a measurement of our consumed carbon. Usually discussed on the individual level (the singular footprint), it is rarely quantified and portends an aura of guilt by shifting the onus of green house gas emissions from large scale industry to individuals. In doing this it suggests that individual action/choices are at the root of climate change rather than global market forces. While this grand simplification of consumer power neglects larger market forces and economic structures, it could be argued that the term also works to empower people by awakening them to the gesture of personal choice as political act.
In contrast to a carbon footprint, I contend that there is also a carbon fingerprint to consider. It is not just the consumption of carbon, but rather an understanding of the specificity of what kind of carbon is consumed and a recognition that all materials maintain their history or trace when they are purchased. For example, if we added “how many things in your house are made in China” we would get a different number on the carbon calculator determining our footprint. A shift to local micro-economies offers an opportunity to reduce climate impact simply by opting out of the transport. It is not just how much carbon, but what kind, where, and how it is released/consumed.
The project Carbon Footprint engages on all of these levels. Taking local wool, hand-spinning it, and turning it into beautifully made garments is not so much about the garment as it is about the choice to act. In this work Inishowen wool and spinning are used as the primary metaphors to explore the above ideas and translate climate change data into something tactile. The project quickly went from singly driven to the work of many. ….”
Snaebjörnsdöttir / Wilson: Uncertainty in the City: Pests, Pets and Prey
Posted: October 5, 2010 Filed under: environmental art Leave a comment »Excellent and experimental environmental art dealing with uncertainty, ambivalence, in the relationship between us and other animals designated as ‘pests, pets and prey’.
See http://www.storeygallery.org.uk/programme.php?item=000001 for details – with details of the events programme on http://www.storeygallery.org.uk/programme.php?browse=whats_on
Beatriz da Costa – Exhibition: for the still living
Posted: October 5, 2010 Filed under: visual art Leave a comment »Open until 9 January in the Horniman Museum in London: http://www.4thestillliving.net/memorial.html
“Artist Beatriz da Costa creates a poignant commemoration to endangered species of the British Isles. A Memorial for the Still Living is a contemporary art installation which confronts visitors with the reality of British species threatened with extinction. It is a continuation of da Costa’s investigation into interspecies. Her interest here is to confront visitors with the only mode of encounter left once a species has grown extinct: the description, image, sound or taxidermed shell of a once thriving organism. However, rather than focusing on already extinct species, da Costa’s focus is on the ‘still living’; species that have been classified as being under threat, but which still stand a chance for survival if immediate action is taken.”
The exhibition website gives details of an artist’s talk, end November 2010.
See also the artist’s website: http://www.beatrizdacosta.net
Previous work includes Tactical biopolitics: art activism and technoscience, MIT press 2008, reviewed by Barragan in Books Forum (link on website)
“Two major topics seem to circumscribe the multiple politics arising from Tactical Biopolitics: first, the de-territorialization of knowledge and expertise—understood as an engaged effort toovercome disciplinary boundaries that prevent collaboration among scientists, theorists, artists and activists—and the ultimate comprehension of their motivations, products, actions and expectations; and, second, the acknowledgment that, in order to generate effective interventions into scientific practices, it is necessary to motivate the participation of multiple publics in these collective projects.”
A quote from da Costa – an interdisciplinary artist:
[. . .] has to be versatile within the theoretical framework developed in disciplinary areas such as science and cultural studies, acquire the technical and/or scientific skill base needed in her chosen area of investigation, and develop an artistic language appealing to peers in her field while remaining accessible to a nonexpert audience. (p. 366)
Beatriz da Costa is an artist who works with Critical Art Ensemble in the US – see www.critical-art.net
