Bioenergy production from marginal lands

The conflicting interests related to biofuel production has been termed as "The food, energy and environment trilemma."  It looks like we might only have a dilemma between energy and environment now, if we can sustainably grow biofuel on marginal lands instead of agricultural land, as suggested by a recent Nature article.   Using long-term/20-year period data, this is "the first convincing study" of the impact of biofuel-production systems on climate change.

Estimating costs for climate change mitigation: which uncertainty matters most?

A paper in the latest Nature generated distributions of the cost estimates, talking into account four types of uncertainties: geophysical, technological, social and political.  They found that political choices have the largest effect, followed by geophysical uncertainties, social factors and lastly by technological uncertainties. 

My CSIRO colleague Steve Hatfield-Doddes wrote a very nice review about the paper called "Climate change: All in the timing" in the same issue.

"Climate change is a much more wicked beast..."

Quote from a Nature piece, talking about the design problems of the Kyoto Protocol.  The piece was part of a special issue in Nature that examines the 1197 treaty and the way ahead.

More quotes from the series.

"Just a decade ago, 'adaptation' was something of a dirty word in the climate arena...As progress to reduce emissions has slowed in most countries, there has been a turn towards adaptation...For both wealthy and poor nations, the challenge is to convince people to act before it is too late (Adapting to a warmer world: not going back)."

"The main problem with the Kyoto approach is that it does not address the carbon footprint — carbon consumption. A country's (and an individual's) carbon footprint is best measured by looking at the carbon embedded in the goods and services that each consumes... Instead of taking a top-down approach that requires global agreement, climate-change policies can be constructed from the bottom up using three key building blocks: putting a tax on carbon consumption; switching from coal to gas as quickly as possible; and boosting spending on new energy technologies (Climate policy: the Kyoto approach has failed)."

Why climate disasters might not increase concern about cimate change

A post by George Marshall, who founded Britain’s Climate Outreach and Information Network.  

His main argument was that "Disasters encourage powerful and compelling survival narratives (that can overwhelm weaker and more complex climate change narratives)."  Basically, at the time of crisis, people stick to their community and stick to what they have believed, and there might be no room for new messages.  

 

Climate negotiations under scientific uncertainty

The PNAS paper showed that collective action fails because of uncertainty about the threshold of climate change.  The insights from the study is that a threshold like 2 degrees Celsius, which is inherently uncertain,  will not be the best thing to focus on when it comes to climate negotiation.

Two alternative  strategies for collective actions as suggested by the authors are: 1) the use of trade restrictions again nonparticipating countries as in the case of Montreal Protocol, and 2) the use of technology standards as in the case of MARPOL treaty (the returns to each country of adopting a standard increase with the number of other countries that adopt the standard). 

Climate change: communication and behavioral science

Two open-access libraries on research about climate communication and behavioral science,  The former is from a UK-based partnership called Talking Climate, and the latter is a product of Garrison Institute's Climate, Mind and Behavior Initiative. 

Special issue: Climate Change Risk Perception and Communication

Risk analysis, 32 (6), 2012

Climate models at their limit?

A Nature comment argued that we have to act even though the climate models IPCC is working on are likely to produce wider rather than smaller ranges of uncertainty in their predictions.

Lies, dam lies and water plans

The wicked problem of managing the MDB is in the national and international media again lately. 

In his recent "The conversation" article, professor Lin Crase commented,

"Now that this first phase has passed, the public will be treated to the traditional jousting between states and the federal government. Sifting through fact and fiction in this jurisdictional debate will be no easier than judging the fairly simplistic cases presented by irrigators and environmentalists over the past five years. What both debates share in common are a predilection to communicate with little reference to history, scant regard to the role of uncertainty and even less attention to the cost-effectiveness of choices (referring to "the renewed enthusiasm for spending taxpayers’ money on irrigation infrastructure")."

Another economist, John Quiggin also said the infrastructure investments, which appeared to be what the government locked in to, are the most expensive way of reducing water use in irrigation.  In addition, "The big problem lies with the proposal that, instead of continuing to buy water rights irrigators who are willing to sell their entitlements, future policy should focus on engineering works designed to save water. This policy is bad for farmers, bad for the environment and bad for the community in general...."  Also, "The release of the revised proposed basin plan for the Murray-Darling brings us one step closer to the end of one of the most disastrously misconceived and mismanaged policy processes in Australian history (more details).."

Scientists, Policymakers, and a Climate of Uncertainty

A paper in BisoScience asked can research gain a foothold in the politics of climate change.  Here are a couple of interesting paragraphs. 

In practically all of the heavyweight studies of climate change, including those in the National Academies quartet, the panelists assumed that the federal government is the logical leader in climate policymaking, if only because climate does not respect local boundaries (or international ones either). But there are scant signs of leadership from federal officials, and there is active opposition to any climate action (or even the notion that climate change exists) among some national legislators.


“It all depends on how you describe it,” she said. “If you are describing the problem as a water-availability issue—if we are going to face a major issue with water available for irrigation; for municipal, for our fish, the salmon—you get people to listen. If you talk about it as global warming, it's immediately, ‘go away’.  “It's kind of sad to not call it by what it is, but it's much easier to communicate with the public and with the policymaker if you put it in these terms.”

Invasive Species Unchecked by Climate

A letter in the latest Science by P.E. Hulme argued that "it even more important for governments to design robust policy and regulatory frameworks to combat both the current and potential future threats of biological invasions" under climate change for a couple of reasons: 

1. "The spread rates of alien invasive species in terrestrial and marine ecosystems are between 20 and 30 times as high as the maximum velocities of climate change."
2. "the range expansions of alien invasive species are facilitated by increasing human trade, transport, and travel."

Impact of climate change on the future of biodiversity

A review paper in Ecology Letters and a general conclusion is that "Overall, our review shows that current estimates are very variable, depending on the method, taxonomic group, biodiversity loss metrics, spatial scales and time periods considered. Yet, the majority of models indicate alarming consequences for biodiversity, with the worst-case scenarios leading to extinction rates that would qualify as the sixth mass extinction in the history of the earth."

Figure 4 below demonstrated the points well.





Figure 4.  Projections of loss of biodiversity due to climate change, for different taxonomic, temporal and spatial scales. The width of the box illustrates three levels of generality: global scale and several taxonomic groups (), global scale and only one taxonomic group, continental scale and only one taxonomic group. The box is delimited by the upper and lower boundaries of the intermediate scenario, while maximum and minimum values of the whiskers indicate the highest and lowest biodiversity losses across all projections. This figure illustrates that the different studies (i) generally predict significant biodiversity loss and (ii) use a combination of different biodiversity metrics, taxonomic groups and spatial scale and time horizon, making generalisations difficult. Numbers correspond to references (see Appendix S2 for details and references).

7 steps for effective communication of climate change

Accrording to Peter Sandman, the guy who developed "Risk = Hazard + Public outrage," or "Perceived risk = technical risk + non-technical component."

"Number one, express regret for some of the solutions that are going to be unpleasant and costly. Number two, express uncertainty that you’re right, but conviction that the risk is too great to ignore. Number three, give people absolution for having dug this ditch without realizing that they were digging it. Number four, be interested in possible solutions that are less unpleasant. Take the possibility of a technical fix seriously. If we can’t find one, then we can’t find one, but environmentalists don’t want to find one. They’re very hostile to the idea that we might solve this problem without changing everything about our way of life. You know, be open to that. Number five, be more optimistic. Don’t try to say the world is going to hell in a hand basket where it’s already too late, we’re doomed, therefore use compact fluorescents. Nobody’s going to change their lives if we’re doomed. We have to have a good shot at solving the problem seriously. Last point…well, no next to last point, take adaptation seriously. You know, instead of just trying to reduce our vulnerability, or reduce the amount of climate change, try to reduce our vulnerability to climate change. Take seriously learning how to live comfortably in a hotter world with wilder weather. And finally, stop trashing the enemy. Be much more respectful of people who think you’re wrong, or people who think the cost is too high, or people who are in any of a variety of ways opposed to the climate change movement. They’re allowed to treat you with contempt. It’s a big mistake to treat them with contempt. (details)

More knowledge leads to more extremism

In the case of climate change, according to the findings from the Cultural Cognition Project (details).

Explanation: ideology trumps rationalism/our ability to acquire knowledge is linked up with our ability to figure out whom to trust about what.

Does the public want geoengineering?

Key results: 1) 72 percent 3105 individuals in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom support it but only 8 percent of us can define it, 2) “The strongest opposition comes from people who self-identify as politically conservative, who are distrustful of government and other elite institutions, and who doubt the very idea that there is a climate problem.”

“The results suggest that dialogue surrounding this topic needs to be broadened to include ideas of risk, values and trade-off (details).”

Communicating the science of climate change

A paper from Physics today (HT: Freakonomics)

Beyond Predictions: Biodiversity Conservation in a Changing Climate

Old model: heavily relied on prediction models, which has high level of uncertainty anyway
New model: integrated assessment (Science).

Vivid graphic for national carbon footprints

Here is the PDF.

HT: Bob Herendeen via GIEE list.

The economics of climate change is mainly about decision-making under extreme uncertainty

Said M. Weitzman in reviewing the limitation of deterministic CBA approach featured in Bjørn Lomborg's newly edited book (details).

"A striking feature of the economics of climate change is that rare but catastrophic events may have unfathomable costs. Deep uncertainty about the unknown unknowns of what might go wrong is therefore coupled with essentially unlimited liability. The resulting battle between declining probabilities and increasing damages is difficult to resolve. Alas, this uncertainty can figure prominently in evaluations of climate-change policies. Its absence in a book dealing with economic comparisons of smart solutions is a serious omission."