This article was written by M. A. Rodger and was originally posted at DeSmogBlog and is syndicated by an informal agreement and with the express permission of both the author and DeSmogBlog, without payment or charge.

GWPF Briefing Paper No1 – The Really Inconvenient Truth' will be a good test for this because “the GWPF is proud to publish this dispassionate but devastating critique of UK climate change policies, and of the alleged basis on which those policies rest.”

So says the foreword written by Lord Lawson of Blaby, the founder of the GWPF. Such a statement pretty much overrules the disclaimer that appears on the cover of these Briefing Papers (that views expressed are those of the author not the GWPF).

So will GWPF pride come before a fall?

REALLY INCONVENIENT AND REALLY TRUE?

The author of Briefing Paper No1 is Lord Andrew Turnbull, a retired senior civil servant and a GWPF Trustee. Turnbull has a “unique authority” for the task according to Lord Lawson. But a “unique authority” may not be adequate because the subject of Briefing Paper No1 encompasses not just UK climate change policy, but also the entirety of the work of the UN IPCC. Now that is a whole lot of subject-matter!

The Really Inconvenient Truth which Turnbull attempts to convey is that the basis for UK climate policy is shaky because it rests solely on the IPCC's findings. “The propositions of the IPCC do not bear the weight of certainty with which they are expressed,” he says.

However Turnbull is at pains to describe what he is attempting in Briefing Paper No1. He wishes only to point out the doubts and flawed procedures that exist. He does not seek to “replace“ the IPCC “propositions” with alternative propositions.

That is what he says. But what does he then do?

The gargantuan task Turnbull tackles in Briefing Paper No1 requires a seriously focused analysis but there is none of that here. Briefing Paper No1 is a sweeping account of the subject that strongly advances alternative “propositions.”

In essence, Turnbull's message is that “the IPCC view is a narrowly-based and over-simplified one … downplaying the role of natural forces.” The alternative view he advances sees a less dramatic climate change that would allow the world to adapt without reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Turnbull concludes (quoting the GWPF's inaugural lecture) that the IPCC view “is impossible to accept.”
Logic dictates this is a call for its “replacement.”

As already mentioned, Briefing Paper No1 analyses IPCC work in its entirety. It thus covers the science, the climatic impacts and the policy responses.

These will be examined here in reverse order – kind of upside-down.

1 POLICY RESPONSES

Turnbull argues at some length for what he calls “no regret” mitigation policies to reduce CO2 emissions, policies which would not impact greatly on the UK economy. Yet Turnbull is entirely disinterested in the CO2 reductions that such minimal policies would achieve. It really does beg the question why he argues for any mitigation policies at all.

Indeed he talks briefly of preferring “adaptation” policies, pointing to the Institute of Civil Engineers who allegedly think that too little attention is paid to “adaptation.” Confusingly, Turnbull gives no source for this allegation. So is he referring to the UK's Institute of Civil Engineers? It is strange if he is. Their policy statements on climate change are unequivocal and wholly opposite to Turnbull's allegation. This is true even in their 2008 statement Adapting the UK to Climate Change (whose title may have given rise to Turnbull's confusion, perhaps a new take on 'judging a book by its cover.').

2 CLIMATIC IMPACTS

Turnbull deals quickly with the IPCC work on climatic impacts. He calls it shabby and quotes twice the Inter Academy Council (IAC) Report 2010 on the IPCC. This time Turnbull's source is referenced so there is no mistaking Turnbull's misinterpretations.

Turnbull makes here two accusations.

Firstly he says the IAC strongly criticise the IPCC WG2 for using non-peer-reviewed material. On this Turnbull is wrong. The IAC say using such “gray” literature is “relevant and appropriate” and is only criticising particulars of how it is used!

Turnbull's second quote (from the IAC Executive Summary) is about the IPCC's use of unsupported or unclear probability assessments within the WG2 Summary for Policy Makers. Any reader of this WG2 Summary will see it is only a summary. It's probability statements are shoddy work but not the shabby underhand work of deception that Turnbull describes.

This second IAC quote is used to back up Turnbull's otherwise unsupported accusations of “a consistent pattern of cherry-picking, exaggeration, highlighting extremes and failure to acknowledge beneficial effects.” Here Turnbull is entirely at odds with the IAC report which never makes any such comment or anything remotely in this vein.

Indeed the IAC begins its conclusions “The Committee concludes that the IPCC assessment process has been successful overall and has served society well” showing Turbull's intemperate tirade against the IPCC WG2 is entirely preposterous!

3 THE SCIENCE

On the science, Turnbull concludes that the IPCC “sees calamity just around the corner, producing calls for dramatic and early CO2 reduction.” This is a blunt but fair assessment.

Yet Turnbull goes on to make many strong but largely unsupported accusations against the IPCC science. He says it ignores 'huge controversy', relies on 'unproven assumptions' since it ' ignored' certain possibilities. He says its findings have been 'strongly challenged' and cites “some scientists … many scientists” who hold alternative views. And for good measure Turnbull also rounds on the Hockey Stick curve, as did GWPF Briefing Paper No3.

None of this has any substance to it. The “many scientists” (in fact one misguided scientist working outside his specialism) was debunked  in Part 5 of this series.

As for the “some scientists,” again only one of these is named – climate 'skeptic' Professor Richard Lindzen (who is a member of the GWPF's Academic Advisory Council). It is difficult to support the idea that Lindzen's work has been ignored by the IPCC. Lindzen's work contributed to the 2007 IPCC report within two different chapters and he was even a Lead Author in the 2001 IPCC report on the very chapter relevant to Turnbull's comments.

While Turnbull makes no reference to any particular piece of work by Lindzen (and there continues to be a lot of that), it is safe to say that the available work relevant to Turnbull's discussion had been already shown as entirely flawed scientifically well before Briefing paper No1 was published.
 

THE REALY INCONVENIENT TRUTH FOR TURNBULL & THE G.W.P.F.

Be it in the science, the climate impacts or the policy responses, there is but one good word that can be said about GWPF Briefing Paper No1 – it is consistent.

It is consistent in being always wrong!

The same appears to be the case generally with GWPF Briefing Papers which have all now been reviewed by this series – consistently wrong and entirely flawed.

The 'debunking' process could be continued to other GWPF publications, searching for the merest hint of some improvement in its reporting, some publications that might show at least some merit. But enough is enough.

GWPF is a UK-registered charity. If a UK charity uses controversial material “such material must be factually accurate and have a well-founded evidence base” (emphasis added). Yet all GWPF Briefing Papers have been shown to be riven with controversial material that is in no way factual or well-founded in evidence.

This is made worse because the charitable “purpose” of the GWPF is to “advance the public understanding of global warming and of its possible consequences, and also of the measures taken or proposed to be taken in response to such warming” (emphasis added).

For an educational charity to be spreading so much untruth and error is surely unacceptable, even scandalous. It is evidently a significant non-compliance that impacts on the public trust in UK charities generally. On this basis, a formal complaint will now be made and pursued with the UK Charity Commission.

There does also remain one as-yet unasked question.

Why would a bunch of respected and otherwise sensible people make such fools of themselves in this manner?

The deep question is : why didn’t the UK Government just ban the tobacco companies outright at the start or tell them to diversify out of selling cancer sticks in order to keep their retail licences ? Well, the simple answer is that companies like British American Tobacco (BAT) are privately-owned capitalised companies, with many pension and other major funds heavily invested. The UK Department of Business, Trade, Enterprise, Industry, Information, Skills, Services and Manufacturing or whatever it’s been variously called over the last few decades, simply couldn’t tell shareholders to pull their investment out of death-by-inhalation stocks.

Everyone sees a return on investment in the industries of death generally, such as the arms trade, the junk food industry, and petrochemicals (ask yourself : how many people have suffered and died because of diesel particulate-provoked asthma ?) It takes a certain amount of time to reach the logical conclusion that wars do not need to be fought, making armaments redundant; for healthy food to become seen as essential to beat off diabetes and obesity epidemics; and for urban transport to be electrified to save lungs and hearts.

No, you just can’t ban an entire product range overnight because, finally, the science has broken through the doubt barrier and shown beyond reasonable scepticism that tobacco smoking causes cancer, emphysema and other serious and fatal conditions. No, you have to go at it step by painful step, reducing availability, changing the rules on presentation at the point of sale, putting up signs in public places.

And it all takes time, this gradualist approach. The tobacco industry may now wind down to a dribble in Britain (although it will continue to do well in Asia and Africa), and peoples’ savings for retirement will have soon all moved out of fag ends into something else.

Yet, we don’t have the luxury of time when it comes to the climate change and energy crisis. We simply don’t have the 25 to 50 years it could take to adopt a gradualist approach to energy sector change. Anything that takes longer than 10 years to begin to displace carbon out of the energy economy is too slow to be useful.

People are slowly beginning to wake up to the fact that their money is invested in climate change, and are making demands on their pension fund and bank account managers – but this is all happening too slowly – despite the keen interest in ethical investment.

The energy sector has got to change – and change fast. Changing the energy sector so radically and so quickly is not something that can be done by applying small changes to the costs of energy – particularly as the wider costs of energy are so volatile anyway. Gradually introducing renewable energy technologies with subsidies and grants and special tax breaks is not going to displace carbon fast enough.

Governments may not like the thought – but maybe they will consider starting to ban things – and not be shy about being explicit. However, this kind of action will generate significant resistance and dissent.

How then to rapidly alter the world’s entire energy sector ?

Start telling the truth about how the energy sector is scraping the bottom of the barrel in a number of fuels and fields ? Could this approach cause a run at the investment bank ? Could it tip the balance in energy systems deployment towards the less-intensive options – green energy – the only possible area of growth in the energy sector – which becomes the only possible logical conclusion ?

I would like you to consider the proposition that disbelief in climate change science is nothing more than an exercise in public mind-bending gone very, very wrong.

In the 1970s, climate change science began to accumulate some serious evidence and intelligent students. It became clear to a number of powerful players that the policy implications of global warming included a drastic reassessment of oil and gas dependence in the global economy.

Defence and national governance institutions all over the Free World, but most significantly in the United States of America, began to discuss the security implications of policy to combat global warming. The energy companies realised that the game was up if they didn’t act – they had their business profits to lose if carbon dioxide emissions became regulated.

Academics and researchers such as Naomi Oreskes and James Hoggan have documented what happened as a result – connivance from the oil, gas and coal companies to launch public relations exercises to qualm apocalyptic fear amongst the general population.

Certain scientists and engineers in the pay of the energy sector, and also close to the American federal administration, and some even in the US Department of Defense, took it as their personal mission to undermine confidence in climate change science, using tried-and-tested techniques from the public relations industry, sowing doubt in science.

Universities were targets for this psychological operation – the early versions of the Internet were ideal pathways for communicating the disinformation. Even very intelligent people became suspicious of climate change science, using the same route by which some environmentalists were invited to become suspicious of microwave ovens – but that’s a whole other story.

We all know what happened next – governments became shy of carbon policy : the result was a promotion of economic consumption at the expense of precaution. Developed economies around the world abandoned energy conservation for more extreme fossil fuel use.

An uneasy international balance was achieved by the USA devoting significant diplomatic effort to their relationship with Saudi Arabia, and protecting energy supplies by sending young white (and black) Christian martyrs into unholy wars on oil and gas producer nations.

It must be hard for some entrenched positions to hear that climate change is actually really serious, after all. We can end the conversation with these sceptics – there are other issues we need to focus on, such as the risks from the militarisation of the melting Arctic.

Climate change “dissenters”, “dismissers” and “deniers” might find it hard to listen to the US Department of Defense trying to be upbeat and re-capture the agenda and the platform. Here’s Leon Panetta outlining some of the new story :-

“Panetta: Environment Emerges as National Security Concern : By Nick Simeone : American Forces Press Service : Washington, May 3, 2012 : Climate and environmental change are emerging as national security threats that weigh heavily in the Pentagon’s new strategy, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told an environmental group last night. “The area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security,” Panetta said here at a reception hosted by the Environmental Defense Fund to honor the Defense Department in advancing clean energy initiatives. “Rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,” Panetta said. Panetta cited the melting of Arctic ice in renewing a longstanding call for the Senate to ratify the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea. More than 150 nations have accepted the treaty, which has been in force since the early 1990s, and a succession of U.S. government administrations have urged ratification. Among other things, the convention would guarantee various aspects of passage and overflight for the U.S. military. Panetta urged his audience to use their influence to push for treaty ratification. “We are the only industrialized nation that has not approved that treaty,” he said…”In the next fiscal year, we are going to be investing more than a billion dollars in more efficient aircraft and aircraft engines, in hybrid electric drives for our ships, in improved generators, in microgrids for combat bases and combat vehicle energy-efficient programs,” he said. “We are investing another billion dollars to make our installations here at home more energy-efficient, and we are using them as the test bed to demonstrate next-generation energy technologies.”

So, how will the international defence and intelligence communities take down the Frankenstein’s monster of opposition to climate change science that in effect they spawned themselves ? How are they going to bust the barricades of intransigent denial of the temperature and sea level gauges ?

You will find that the major meteorological research institutions in most developed countries are closely allied with their ministries of defence and intelligence. For example, the Met Office in the UK. There are competing issues at stake – the scientists cannot get too loud about climate change, because national security depends on economic stability – which rests partly on the profit and loss accounts of their energy sector businesses.

One or two scientists in the extended national security apparatus speak out – like James Hansen at NASA. But most people just keep their heads down.

This is where independent voices are so important to roll back the decades of climate change science scepticism. I hope knowledgable journalists and activists really rip to shreds the latest Heartland advertising campaign.

The human race has been treating the World Ocean as a dumping ground for global warming and excess carbon dioxide emissions.

It’s where most of the heat ends up, and almost half the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions as well.

Research shows that as humanity pours more carbon into the sky, the oceans are able to react by taking up more of it.

On the face of it, the oceans are increasing their capacity to suck carbon out of the air, either by biological means or through simply mixing with the air, so some argue that we should relax and rely on these carbon sinks to avert dangerous warming of the ground level atmosphere – maintaining a healthy atmosphere for all land-based life.

However, this net reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide due to this increased ocean carbon pump is masking the effects of global warming – for the time being. The oceans are warming, and this combined with increased overturning is resulting in the oceans giving up more carbon dioxide from their depths as a result.

For now, the ocean carbon sink is holding up and compensating for some global warming, but there are concerns should the carbon pump fail, or the effects of global warming overtake it.

The very latest research into changes in the World Ocean show clear trends in salinity – how fresh or how salty seawater is. These changes are associated with the higher energy in the Earth system : more heat captured by the ocean is making wind patterns more powerful, which makes ocean overturning stronger.

Of special concern is the effect this could have on the Southern Ocean. A stronger overturning would increase the upwelling of deep ocean water, which would draw long-sequestered carbon-rich gases from the deeps to the surface of the sea, where it would outgas to the atmosphere.

This is the scenario recently suggested to explain part of the process of how the Earth came out of the last glacial period over 15,000 years ago (“What causes the CO2 rise?”)

The biological productivity of the oceans, the levels of greenhouse gases in ocean water, and the strength of the carbon sinks will continue to be of intense concern as time passes.

Few, if any, really consider the pragmatic likelihood of their proposals being taken up.

I’d like to offer the first in a series of totally made-up statistics to show my view on the likelihood of some of these proposals being implementable (or is that “implementible” ?) and efficacious (effective).

I honestly don’t know why the media continue to discuss and discuss the merits and/or disbenefits of new nuclear power and geoengineering (which includes Carbon Capture and Storage or CCS).

They are not likely to be able to help in the next few decades, and so they might as well not be on the proposals table or board.

Methane is an important by-product of biological decomposition, and is also found in icy deposits known as clathrates – methane hydrates – estimated to be very widespread in marine and geological deposits.

An ongoing unfreezing of the sub-zero “Northern Wastes” would set up a constant flow of biological methane into the Arctic sky and so the warming would be continuous – a major risk to attempts to limit climate change – because it could not be controlled by altering mankind’s economic and energy activities.

Reports of high levels of atmospheric methane in the Arctic region in the last few months have been mangled by the media headline generation machine to raise their urgency value – making them into “news” – and the reaction from most sensible academics and commentators is to downplay talk of a catastrophhic “Methane Burp”.

Yet the data is interesting enough to warrant continued monitoring and explanatory power – for the methane story is complex and shifting. It may be time for alarm bells to ring, however we’re not sure exactly how much data we need to see before we do so.

The long picture for methane in the air is one of hundreds of years of acceleration :-

In the last few decades however, atmospheric methane started to level off :-

However, since around 2007, methane concentrations have been rising once more :-

Following the recent headlines about high methane readings in the Arctic, there have been a number of online discsusions about what it could signify.

Tamino’s Open Mind doesn’t see a dangerous increase in emissions when looking at a seasonally-adjusted selection of data from the World Data Center for Greenhouse Gases and Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) flask measurements of methane concentrations at around surface level :-

I asked Giovanni to chart recent measurements from the AIRS project, the Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder on board NASA’s Aqua satellite spacecraft :-

The months December 2011 to January 2012 show a significant peak in methane concentrations in the area 60 degrees North to 90 degrees North.

This peak seen by satellite does not appear to be reflected in the surface measurement charts I asked the online ESRL tool to plot for me :-

What could be causing the satellite reading peaks to be so high relative to the changes in ground-based measurements ? What is happening in the different layers of the atmosphere ?

Has there been some kind of “detonation” of the chemistry of the air above the Arctic, causing peaks in methane concentrations at high altitudes not seen at ground level ?

Do the AIRS readings need adjustment because of unusual pressure and temperature gradients around the Arctic over the boreal (Northern Hemisphere) winter 2011 – 2012 ?

Has there been a rapid release of methane somewhere, such as from an oil and gas production field somewhere in the region ? Will the international greenhouse gas inventories compiled by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Kyoto Protocol nations reveal anything about this ?

What on Earth is going on ?

A few resources

The starting point for atmospheric methane science is the UNFCCC IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.

Some recent research papers on atmospheric methane science :-

SCHAEFER, K., ZHANG, T., BRUHWILER, L. and BARRETT, A. P. (2011), Amount and timing of permafrost carbon release in response to climate warming. Tellus B, 63: 165–180. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0889.2011.00527.x

Seen from the journal page.

Dlugokencky, E. J., et al. (2009), Observational constraints on recent increases in the atmospheric CH4 burden, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L18803, doi:10.1029/2009GL039780

Seen from the journal page.

Bousquet, P., Ringeval, B., Pison, I., Dlugokencky, E. J., Brunke, E.-G., Carouge, C., Chevallier, F., Fortems-Cheiney, A., Frankenberg, C., Hauglustaine, D. A., Krummel, P. B., Langenfelds, R. L., Ramonet, M., Schmidt, M., Steele, L. P., Szopa, S., Yver, C., Viovy, N., and Ciais, P.: Source attribution of the changes in atmospheric methane for 2006–2008, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 3689-3700, doi:10.5194/acp-11-3689-2011, 2011 (Discussion Paper)

Seen from the journal page.

The Arctic Ocean could be a major source of methane

Joining the oil and gas industry in drilling the Arctic for clues

I haven’t written for a few days. I haven’t weblogged. I haven’t Tweeted. What’s going on ?

Some of you may be wondering if I’ve fallen off the edge of sanity, been taken into a secure institution; or be anxiously concerned about whether I might have fallen sick. Or something.

Some of you may be hoping, sneakily, that that was the last you would have hear from me. Well, no such luck. I’m still here, and I still have plenty of Bloggo and Tweetiness in me, and unless you support my new project, I shall carry on writing and speaking and being generally annoying until all the right things start happening about Climate Change.

I am known for not taking any nonsense, and believe me, I’m not about to start. There are people out there with positions of responsibility who are not acting with their full authority; there are people still trying to chip away at the foundations of good policy – they would love to see climate change science fall into disrepute, and climate change scientists relegated to the footnotes of history.

There are people who for good or bad intentions, continue to muddy the waters of the public conversations around the climate crisis and the energy solutions, and they need to be challenged, unmasked, and urged to stop.

There are energy producers and suppliers who haven’t seen the Peak Oil Event Horizon advancing on them like a Clipper in full sail; who haven’t realised that the tide has turned and that the future is low carbon energy or bankruptcy, and that their shareholders are catching on fast.

But you know, I’m not the only one who thinks like this. There are hundreds, thousands of others who have a great deal to say on the closely intertwining topics of climate and energy. Journalists may shower them with scorn, but activists, including scientists, writers, engineers, clean-techers, trend-watchers and entrepreneurs deserve a bigger platform. Maybe it can begin here.

I am in conversation with several people who would be ready to write articles for this web log, but they need to be paid a fair wage to do the work.

And so, if you want me shut up for a while and give somebody else the microphone at this web log, all you need to do is donate.

That’s right, give money to keep me quiet.

Here’s the details :-

Bank Name : smile
Bank Address : The Co-operative Bank p.l.c., P.O. Box 101, 1 Balloon Street, Manchester, M60 4EP England
Account Number : 12337020
Sort Code : 08-92-88
IBAN : GB03 CPBK 0892 8812 3370 20
BIC : CPBK GB 22
Payment Reference : JOABBESS

When you donate, please send me an email or Tweet that an independent auditor can tie up with the bank transactions. All the money, and any interest it earns, will go to other writers, not me. I will publish full details of money in and out. I shall not benefit from a penny of it.

If you don’t send any money I shall take it as a sign that you don’t want to read anybody else – you prefer to read what I am writing, and I shall try to live up to that expectation, with gusto and guts.

But if you want to see the work of other people here, the only way to let them have their say is to contribute towards their income. They write well, they have done good research, and they deserve to be paid.

I will commission writers with the money you give, and I will edit their work to make sure it’s up to my exacting standards of decency, transparency and factuality.

Remember – all the money you give will go to paying other people to write on climate change and energy. Dig deep into your soul and ask yourself – do you deserve a break from me ?

Vote with your wallet.

Image Credit : Eliasson Family

Walking out to buy a few household essentials from the corner shop, I ran into somebody I’ve known since my childhood, practically, returning from the drycleaners with two trailing kids in tow.

“Happy Spring !” I said, and smiled, and pointed out the lovely blossom on the urban street tree. Eldest child grumbled about hayfever. Parent mentioned April Showers.

“It’s been the wettest drought, ever !”, proclaimed eldest child, who I noticed was wearing a Team GB tracksuit and therefore probably up to speed with current events. “It has been rather damp”, I admitted, “and yet the drought’s not over yet. If you look at the Met Office records, you can see we’re still not up to normal levels of rainfall. And it was like this last year.” “And the year before that”, added parent, “although I expect for this month it might show we’ve had quite a lot more than normal.” (Select “Rainfall”)

I asked the children if they had checked the level of the (mighty) River Ching, (Wikipedia says intriguingly that “It is damned twice”) and we compared notes about the places where we see it regularly and how high it is at the moment, and how low it’s been over the last few seasons.

“We had to go in and get a lost ball”, said youngest child, “and it was only this deep” (dynamically indicating a bare finger-height off the pavement).

We discuss the idea of getting a stick piece of 2″ by 4″ wood and marking it off along its length in inches and then tamping it into the river bed and doing regular measurements of water level for a prospective school project.

I mention the Flood Map of the Environment Agency to point out that the condition of the River Ching (of the Ford) is a fairly accurate indicator of water levels.

Whilst the two children rescue their plastic toy from a neighbour’s front garden and I assiduously avoid noticing it, I explain that I had taken a very interesting college class where we were asked to use computer software to model a flood in Central London. Parent put on concerned face, and admitted that company’s disaster recovery facilities could be affected by Thames flooding – quite ironic, really.

I said, if global warming keeps worsening, Venice will be no more, and that the first place in London to be lost to rising sea level would be South London – admittedly quite a long way into the future.

We parted on a cheery note with the eldest child play-narrating a ride on the back of a shark. He imagined that tossing a 10p coin at the big fish’s dorsal fin would pay his way.

Then I was off to the Post Office to buy stamps before they become hideously more expensive. The very friendly counter staff and I shared notes on how expensive April has been in terms of bills, and I mentioned my good fortune in a couple of areas that allowed me the cash to save 40% on postage stamps by stocking up in advance of the price rise.

I explained that I’m only paying pennies a day now for water as I went over to a meter offered free by Thames Water. Another customer and the staff in the Post Office took this as a useful suggestion to follow up. And then the questions. “You don’t wash your car, then ? How big’s your garden ?”. “I don’t have a car, and I hand-water my plants – even when there’s no hosepipe ban. Showers instead of baths. That sort of thing. You just have to be careful.”

One of the other areas where I managed to save spending money this month has been in the area of home insurance. Whilst reviewing the policy offerings of several companies, I noticed this change to the policies of Co-operative Insurance Services (CIS) :-

“What IS NOT insured…Loss or damage arising from any gradually operating cause.”

“…Loss or damage…caused by a gradual rise in the groundwater level…”

“…depreciation, wear and tear, atmospheric, climatic or weather conditions, or any gradually operating cause…”

Uh oh. Whilst the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, and sometimes even the Daily Telegraph, keep insisting there’s no guarantee that Climate Change is actually very serious, it appears the insurance industry have decided that they can offer no guarantee against Climate Change.

The British Government’s solar power policy is not really going very well.

Ah well, at least the “nuclear power renaissance” is progressing…err, maybe not :-

“New nuclear electricity costs hit utility ratings – Moody’s : 27 Mar 2012

“Building a nuclear power plant is perceived as risky by credit rating agencies – and in some cases could lead to a ratings downgrade of the utility concerned, a senior analyst at US-based Moody’s told ICIS on Tuesday.”

“The analyst, who wished to remain anonymous, said an unfavourable attitude towards nuclear power stemmed largely from the scale of investment required, together with future uncertainties surrounding power prices.”

“”The risks are writ larger when you think of a nuclear project [than for other forms of generation], because construction and planning is that much more tortuous, construction risk is higher and from an operational point of they have a high fixed cost base,” the source said.”

Obviously, there is some, limited movement in the Coalition Government’s policy actions on stimulating renewable energy deployment.

However, the economics behind the Electricity Market Reform (EMR) do not look flexible enough to encourage the transition to a truly Low Carbon energy economy.

Those looking to the EMR to provide easy subsidy money to prop up their investment in Carbon Capture and Storage (via the measure now known as the “Feed-in Tariff Contracts for Difference”) cannot be encouraged by the appalling treatment of the solar Feed-in Tariffs – all boom and bust, but mostly bust.

And the nuclear power sector is so hesitant about proceeding, even with genuinely generous deals offered by the proposals in the EMR, that they might concede defeat to the demands of EdF’s Vincent de Rivaz yet and charge billpayers to finance new nuclear reactors.

At this rate, the UK Government will get around to understanding the need for targetting subsidy support at small-scale fast-to-grid power generation at around the time new solar power devices make installations cheaper than chips.

Image Credit : Christian Census on Climate Change

On Saturday 21st April 2012 at York Minster, Anglican Archbishop John Sentamu will preside over an event organised by the Christian Census on Climate Change.

Here follows the script for a speech to be given by Ruth Jarman, a Director of Operation Noah, climate change campaigner for the Christian Ecology Link, a trained chemist and electronics scientist and a mother of three.

The solution

1. We know from the Psalms that God has made us ruler over the works of his hands, that he has put everything under our feet.

2. Psychologists say that when humans are faced with something that is huge but not immediately life threatening our default response is paralysis and denial.

a. And isn’t that what we are seeing – in the response of the people we know, in the response of our government, and, let’s be honest, in the response of ourselves – don’t you wish Martin Hodges and Ben Niblett had had a few too many Yorkshire bitters last night and made it all up ?

b. And isn’t it the easiest thing to just allow ourselves to fall into paralysing despair ? The Welsh poet and activist Saunders Lewis said, “There is nothing more comforting than despair. Then one can go on and enjoy life.”

3. But you wouldn’t be here if you thought that denial and despair were the right responses. Plus, the solution to climate change is dead simple – we know exactly what we need to do – we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground. But we’re not. So if we are not to abuse the position God has given us, we have to do something. We can act in 3 areas – as individuals, as a nation and as a church:

4. Individually, as part of our Christian discipleship we can choose not to conform to the pattern of this world in its use of energy. So we shun air-freighted food and tumble-dryers not out of guilt, not to “do our bit” and then feel we deserve that holiday in the sun, but as part of our Christian walk, knowing we can never do enough. I find it empowering and invigorating to expand my faith and values into pretty-much all areas of my life in this way. It’s liberating to realise that we don’t have to do what the economic growth machine wants us to do, we do things that are good for us, for our children and for the earth. Living the low carbon life can be profoundly deeper and more fulfilling than the default all-you-can-buy way of living.

5. Nationally, until preserving life on this planet becomes more important than preserving the current economic system, it’s going to be hard to solve the problem. Unfortunately, the physical chemistry going on in our atmosphere will not wait patiently while we sort out the nation’s finances. Now is the time for a Real Green New Deal with massive investment to kick-start a low carbon economy. To invest tax payers’ money in energy and transport infrastructure that is not helping us on our journey towards a zero carbon Britain is not only short sighted and immoral but also great folly. The oil will some day run out. We have to make the switch at some point. Why not do it now when we have the added benefit of saving civilization while we’re at it ?

We all know why the government is not doing what is required. Of course it’s more important for governments to be popular than it is for them to do the right thing. Our government needs to be reminded, strongly and uncompromisingly, that of all the things it does, presiding over a switch to a zero carbon economy is the only thing that will really matter to our children and to the rest of creation.

6. Which brings us to the Church.

a. The church’s job is to be the prophetic voice the world needs. Who best to remind our government and the business community of their responsibilities to the future but the faith communities ? The church must give voice to the climate scientists – the prophets of our day – who are speaking uncomfortable truths to this generation.

b. The church is embedded in an economic system that is destroying creation. How comfortable should we feel about that ?

c. Church has in the past stood up and spoken out against systems in which it was entrenched. In the 1930s in Germany Karl Barth and others wrote the Barman Declaration which rejected the influence of Nazism on German Christianity. It was a Confession – a courageous statement of dissent on an issue which touched the very heart of faith.

d. Operation Noah believes climate change to be such a confessional issue. In February we launched the Ash Wednesday Declaration calling on the church to repent and act on climate change. The declaration has been signed by leaders of all denominations including the ABC [Archbishop of Canterbury], and endorsed by many leading organizations including Christian Aid and Tearfund.

I’m going to end with a call to conversion. The transformation that needs to happen to society requires nothing less than a transformation of our desires brought about by repentance. But repentance is not something that we can decide to do. It is something that happens to us when, in true humility, we open ourselves to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Only then will we, and the world, be saved.

So the church has a whole new field of mission. There is now new urgency, impetus and meaning to Jesus’ exhortation to us to “preach the good news to all creation.”

Let us pray

“May the Spirit bless us with discomfort
at easy answers, half truths and superficial relationships
so that we will live deep in our hearts.”

“May the Spirit bless us with anger
at injustice and oppression, the exploitation of people and earth
so that we will work for justice, equity and peace.”

“May the Spirit bless us with tears
to shed for those who suffer
so that we will reach out our hands to comfort them.”

“May the Spirit bless us with foolishness
to think that we can make a difference in the world
so that we will do the things which others say cannot be done.”

Amen

[Mark Wilcox. Copyright, 2004, St. Aidan Press, Holy Island]