[DEBATE] : (Fwd) Monbiot on catastrophic climate breakdown

[peter waterman]

Dominic:

In your dismissal of Monbiot as some kind of conservative environmental 
nutter, are you not concerned at the company (or corporate elite, Tory 
or Shmory) you are joining?

Or is it simply a matter of 19th century progressivism, optimism and 
instrumental rationalism? Seems that, for vulgar Marxists, the only 
catastrophic breakdown permissible - indeed inevitable - is that of the 
final crisis of the capitalist political-economy.

Peter W

(sharpening his claws after a month or so of illness)



Dominic Tweedie wrote:
> Shear Tory animal panic.
>
> It really is appalliing.
>
> I think we should call it a nutter.
>
> Or "Nervous Breakdown".
>
>
> Domza "Greenland Glacier" VC
>
>
>
>
> 2009/3/14 Patrick Bond <pbond at mail.ngo.za>:
>   
>> Friday, March 13, 2009 by The Guardian/UK
>> Climate Change? Try, Climate Breakdown
>> What's clear from Copenhagen is that policymakers have fallen behind the
>> scientists: global warming is already catastrophic
>>
>> by George Monbiot
>>
>> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/13-0
>>
>> The more we know, the grimmer it gets.
>>
>> Presentations by climate scientists at this week's conference in Copenhagen
>> show that we might have underplayed the impacts of global warming in three
>> important respects:
>>
>>   * Partly because the estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
>> Change (IPCC) took no account of meltwater from Greenland's glaciers, the
>> rise in sea levels this century could be twice or three times as great as it
>> forecast, with grave implications for coastal cities, farmland and
>> freshwater reserves.
>>   * Two degrees of warming in the Arctic (which is heating up much more
>> quickly than the rest of the planet) could trigger a massive bacterial
>> response in the soils there. As the permafrost melts, bacteria are able to
>> start breaking down organic material that was previously locked up in ice,
>> producing billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane. This could
>> catalyse one of the world's most powerful positive feedback loops: warming
>> causing more warming.
>>   * Four degrees of warming could almost eliminate the Amazon rainforests,
>> with appalling implications for biodiversity and regional weather patterns,
>> and with the result that a massive new pulse of carbon dioxide is released
>> into the atmosphere. Trees are basically sticks of wet carbon. As they rot
>> or burn, the carbon oxidises. This is another way in which climate feedbacks
>> appear to have been underestimated in the last IPCC report.
>>
>> Apart from the sheer animal panic I felt on reading these reports, two
>> things jumped out at me. The first is that governments are relying on IPCC
>> assessments that are years out of date even before they are published, as a
>> result of the IPCC's extremely careful and laborious review and consensus
>> process. This lends its reports great scientific weight, but it also means
>> that the politicians using them as a guide to the cuts in greenhouse gases
>> required are always well behind the curve. There is surely a strong case for
>> the IPCC to publish interim reports every year, consisting of a summary of
>> the latest science and its implications for global policy.
>>
>> The second is that we have to stop calling it climate change. Using "climate
>> change" to describe events like this, with their devastating implications
>> for global food security, water supplies and human settlements, is like
>> describing a foreign invasion as an unexpected visit, or bombs as unwanted
>> deliveries. It's a ridiculously neutral term for the biggest potential
>> catastrophe humankind has ever encountered.
>>
>> I think we should call it "climate breakdown". Does anyone out there have a
>> better idea?
>> © 2009 Guardian News and Media Limited
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>     
>
>
>
>   

-- 



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* 'Challenging Empires: The World Social Forum. (2nd Edition, 488 pp). Ordering: http://www.blackrosebooks.net/wsf.htm  

* 'Back in the (Ex-) USSR': http://zope2.netzwerkit.de/RusRepLatest.pdf

* 'Recovering Internationalism; Creating New Global Solidarity', http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/6439.html  

* 'Prague 1968: "Workers of the World, Forgive Me!"', http://www.tni.org/archives/waterman/prague1968.pdf  

* 'A Union Internationalism for the 21stC', http://www.plutobooks.com/cgi-local/nplutobrows.pl?chkisbn=9780745327563  

* 'International Labour Studies in the UK’, in "Work Organisation Labour and Globalisation", Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 180-200. http://www.analyticapublications.co.uk/