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N.J. native is one of the world's most influential thinkers
BY STEPHEN LEAHY
IPS NEWS AGENCY
UXBRIDGE, CANADA — Lester Brown says his views sometimes appear extreme - because the mainstream media largely doesn't understand the urgency and challenges in avoiding catastrophic climate change.
The founder and president of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute, he is also considered by many to be one of the world's most influential thinkers.
"It looks like I'm a radical because the mainstream media aren't reflecting the reality of our situation," Brown says.
A farmer from the eastern U.S. state of New Jersey, Brown entered the U.S. Civil Service in the 1960s, becoming an expert on foreign agricultural policy before leaving to found the Worldwatch Institute in 1974.
The winner of many awards and honorary degrees, Brown is the author of 50 books. In 2001, he founded the Earth Policy Institute to provide a roadmap for achieving an environmentally sustainable economy.
His most recent book is "Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization", the fourth and perhaps most urgent version of the Plan B series, available for download at the institute's website. In Plan 4.0, Brown calls for carbon emissions cuts of 80 percent by 2020.
"We cannot afford to let the planet get much hotter," he explains simply.
IPS environmental correspondent Stephen Leahy recently spoke with Brown on the launch of his new book.
IPS: You are calling for global carbon reductions of 80 percent by 2020. That's far, far more than what any country is proposing to do right now.
LESTER BROWN: Political leaders look at how much of a cut in emissions is politically feasible. At the Earth Policy Institute, we looked at how much of a cut is necessary to avoid the most dangerous effects of climate change.
Already the massive Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are melting at accelerating rates. If they melt completely, it would raise sea levels by 12 meters (39 feet). Mountain glaciers around the world are shrinking and at risk of disappearing, including those in the mountains of Asia whose ice melt feeds the continent's major rivers during the dry season.
To stabilize the climate and keep future global temperature rise to a minimum we need to keep the concentration of CO2 (carbon dioxide) to 400 parts per million.
IPS: Is such a huge global reduction in emissions even possible?
LB: It will take a worldwide mobilization at wartime speed. First, investing in energy efficiency will allow us to keep global energy demand from increasing. Switching lighting to LEDs (light emitting diodes) and use of smart sensors like motion detectors could reduce the amount of electricity used in lighting by 90 percent.
Then we can cut carbon emissions by one-third by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources for electricity and heat production. In a few years time, Texas will quadruple its wind energy output to 8,000 megawatts. And it plans to grow to 40,000 megawatts, the equivalent of 50 coal-fired power plants. The rate of change is breathtaking.
A further 14 percent cut in emissions would come from restructuring our transportation systems and reducing coal and oil use in industry. Ending net deforestation worldwide can cut CO2 emissions another 16 percent. Last, planting trees and managing soils to sequester carbon can absorb 17 percent of our current emissions.
None of these initiatives depends on new technologies. We know what needs to be done to reduce CO2 emissions 80 percent by 2020. All that is needed now is leadership.
IPS: Most people, including our political leaders, don't seem to feel any sense of urgency or danger about climate change. What will motivate this wartime mobilization?
LB: Change is happening already and it's accelerating. Carbon emissions in the U.S. are down nine percent this year and it's not just due to the recession. I doubt that a new coal plant will be built in the U.S. in future - 22 are being closed or converted this year alone. When rising sea levels become more evident, then people will act.
This is bit like the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. There were years of widespread discontent before the fall that festered and engaged many people at the local level and then seemingly overnight there is a political revolution that changes everything. We are moving towards this kind of tipping point.
IPS: What other signs do you see that we are reaching a tipping point?
LB: I see a change in socializing patterns. At one time, getting a driver's license or owning a car was the key to social interactions for young people. That's changing. In Japan, socialization now happens through the internet and new car sales are in decline. Even in America, the car fleet is shrinking and bike use is going up.
I also see a lot of value searching going on: what are the health affects of cars and our commuting lifestyles? How can we build complete streets with sidewalks, bike lanes that are safe for everyone? The economic downturn has also shifted thinking, I think we will emerge as a much less materialistic society.
IPS: Will this be enough to restructure the world's economies?
LB: I don't know. In the end, the race to save civilization is between social-political and natural tipping points.
The supposedly “final” text of the IPCC’s 1995 Second Assessment Report emphasized that no studies had found clear evidence that observed climate changes could be attributed to greenhouse gases or other manmade causes. However, without the authors’ and reviewers’ knowledge or approval, lead author Dr. Ben Santer and alarmist colleagues revised the text and inserted the infamous assertion that there is “a discernable human influence” on Earth’s climate.
Highly accurate satellite measurements show no significant global warming, whereas ground-based temperature stations show warming since 1978. However, half of the surface monitoring stations are located close to concrete and asphalt parking lots, window or industrial-size air conditioning exhausts, highways, airport tarmac and even jetliner engines – all of which skew the data upward. The White House, EPA, IPCC and Congress use the deceptive data anyway, to promote their agenda.
With virtually no actual evidence to link CO2 and global warming, the climate chaos community has to rely increasingly on computer models. However, the models do a poor job of portraying an incredibly complex global climate system that scientists are only beginning to understand; assume carbon dioxide is a principle driving force; inadequately handle cloud, solar, precipitation and other critical factors; and incorporate assumptions and data that many experts say are inadequate or falsified. The models crank out (worst-case) climate change scenarios that often conflict with one another. Not one correctly forecast the planetary cooling that began earlier this century, as CO2 levels continued to climb.
Al Gore’s climate cataclysm movie is replete with assertions that are misleading, dishonest or what a British court chastised as “partisan” propaganda about melting ice caps, rising sea levels, hurricanes, malaria, “endangered” polar bears and other issues. But the film garnered him Oscar and Nobel awards, speaking and expert witness appearances, millions of dollars, and star status with UN and congressional interests that want to tax and penalize energy use and economic growth. Perhaps worse, a recent Society of Environmental Journalists meeting made it clear that those supposed professionals are solidly behind Mr. Gore and his apocalyptic beliefs, and will defend him against skeptics.
These and other scandals have slipped past the peer review process that is supposed to prevent them and ensure sound science for a simple reason. Global warming disaster papers are written and reviewed by closely knit groups of scientists, who mutually support one another’s work. The same names appear in different orders on a series of “independent” reports, all of which depend on the same original data, as in the Yamal case. Scientific journals refuse to demand the researchers’ data and methodologies. And as in the case of Briffa, the IPCC and journals typically ignore and refuse to publish contrary studies.
Scandals like these prompted EPA career analyst Alan Carlin to prepare a detailed report, arguing that the agency should not find that CO2 “endangers” human health and welfare, because climate disaster predictions were not based on sound science. EPA suppressed his report and told Carlin not to talk to anyone outside his immediate office, on the ground that his “comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision,” which the agency supposedly would not make for several more weeks.
The endless litany of scandals underscores the inconvenient truth about global warming hysteria. The White House, Congress and United Nations are imperiling our future on the basis of deceptive science, phony “evidence” and worthless computer models. The climate protection racket will enrich Al Gore, alarmist scientists who get the next $89 billion in US government research money, financial institutions that process trillion$$ in carbon trades, and certain companies, like those that recently left the US Chamber of Commerce. For everyone else, it will mean massive pain for no environmental gain.
Then get on your telephone or computer, and tell your legislators and local media this nonsense has got to stop. It may be that none dare call it fraud – but it comes perilously close.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control (IPCC) tells us that humans contribute 5% of atmospheric carbon concentrations, and Carbon Dioxide from man’s activities needs to be reduced to save the planet. For the sake of argument let’s accept their number of 5%.
Since we also know that the carbon dioxide currently makes-up thirty-eight one-hundredths of one percent (.0038) of our atmosphere, it is easy to do the math to determine the outcome should we do what they tell us needs to be done. In fact, lets go farther by pretending that every man, woman, child and SUV has died and use the full 5% instead of the far smaller reduction they now expect to achieve with us all stubbornly staying alive.
By multiplying 38/100 of one percent by 5% (.0038 x .05) you get the number of .00019, or 19/1000 of 1%. Now think about that. If every person disappeared off the face of the Earth we would achieve a reduction of a colorless, odorless, harmless inert gas called Carbon Dioxide by .00019 the total of all atmospheric gases. Think about it, all this nonsense about changing our atmosphere by less than nineteen one-thousandths-of-one-percent.
It’s astoundingly stupid.
Think about what they are asking us to do to change the atmosphere by far less than the number we just calculated. Think about how many jobs they are asking us to give-up for that number. Think about the freedom they are asking you to sacrifice to accomplish so little. Think about the absolute poverty they are asking the third-world to endure to achieve this insignificant statistic.
The furor over AGW is not only absurd, it shows you just how craven and dishonest the global left has become in their quest to lord over the rest of us rubes and peasants. Simple math demonstrates what an outrage this fraudulent Anthropogenic Global Warming campaign is. Too bad the press can’t do simple math.
Charles McFarling
Indianapolis, IN