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• Rolling Stone, November 2008

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melts in large quantities, hell may break loose. Zimov says the situa- tion is grave: “Permafrost areas [in Siberia] hold 500 billion tonnes of carbon, which can fast turn into greenhouse gases. The deposits of organic matter in these soils are so gigantic that they dwarf global oil reserves . . . If you don’t stop emis- sions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, this will lead to a type of global warming which will be im- possible to stop [and it will make] the Kyoto Protocol seem like child- ish prattle . . .” Zimov is not alone. The National Centre for Atmospheric Research in the U.S. predicts that half of the permafrost in the Arctic north will thaw to a depth of three metres by 2050. Glaciologist Ted Scambos says: “That’s a serious runaway – a catastrophe lies buried under the permafrost”. Permafrost melts at the edges of lakes that previously were iced all year-round, accordi ng to Ka tey Wal- ter of the University of Alaska. She says organic material, the remains of rotted plants and long-dead animals which ha s been “locked up i n perma- frost since the end of the last ice age”, then subsides into the lake from the soil and “is being released into the bottom of lakes, providing microbes a banquet from which they burp out methane as a by-product of decompo- sition”. In dry conditions, the warm- ing soil releases carbon dioxide. The western Siberian peat bog is amongst the fastest-warming plac- es on the planet. In August 2008, Örjan Gustafsson, the Swedish lead- er of the International Siberian Shelf Study conrmed that methane was now also bubbling th rough seawater from permafrost on the seabed. So the question is no longer whether the per maf rost wil l star t to melt, but when the time-bomb will go off. When it does, it will sweep the climate system away from our capac- ity to stop further dramatic “tipping points” being passed. All the carbon in the permafrost is equivalent to twice the total amount of all carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so losing even a signicant portion of it will create a very different planet from the one we know. Scientists are warning that the temperature at which it will be trig- gered is closer than we think. Re- search published in mid-2008 by sci- entist Dmitry Khvorostyanov shows the trigger is warming in the Arctic of around 9ºC, and that once initi- ated it will maintai n itself, leading to three-quarters of the carbon being released within a century. If a time-bomb is ticking, we need to know how much time we have to defuse it. There are two factors. The rst is that warm ing is greatest at the poles. Global average temperatures have warmed just less than 1ºC since the Industrial Revolution, but aver- age temperatures in Siberia, Alaska and western Canada a re now 3ºC to 4ºC warmer than 50 years ago. So by mid-century the increase could eas- ily be 4ºC to 6ºC. The second factor is the rapid loss of eight million square kilometres of thin sea-ice that oats on the Arctic Ocean. Each summer it is melting fast, with a current loss by volume of 80 per cent, and it is likely to be entirely gone each summer within ve years. With the heat-reecting ice lost and replaced by dark, heat- absorbing seas, it is expected that regional temperatures in the Arctic wi ll incr ea se by aro und 5ºC . “Th e Arctic is often cited as the cana ry i n the coal mine for climate warming and now . . . the cana ry has died,” says NASA glaciologist Jay Zwally. These dramatic changes in the Arc tic have shoc ked the scie nti fi c community and called into question the adequacy of some of the projec- tions of the United Nations’ panel of climate scientists, known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). They had said the Arctic sea-ice would li kely last to the end of this century. Put these factors together, and add in human greenhouse gas emissions that are still increasing rapidly, and the result is spine-chill- ing as the clock ticks down. The “tipping point” for unstoppable per- mafrost melting could be reached as early as the middle of this century, and very likely by the end of this cen- tury, unless the world acts dramati- cally to stop carbon pollution. The USA’s most eminent climate scientist, James Hansen, says: “Re- cent greenhouse gas emissions place the Earth perilously close to dra- matic climate change that could run out of our control, with great dan- gers for humans and other creatures. There is already enough carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere for massive ice sheets such as West Antarctica to eventually melt away, and ensure that sea levels will rise metres in coming decades. We must begin to move rapidly to the post-fossil fuel clean-energy system. Moreover, we must remove some carbon that has collected in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution.”

I

n other words, we need

to build a zero-emissions economy quickly. Unfortu- nately this enormous task is not enough; we will also need to cool the planet so we can restore the Arc- tic sea-ice and stop the whole catas- troph e unfurli ng. This means ending logging of tropical and temperate forests, and taking carbon out of the atmosphere by planting more trees and storing it in the soil as agricul- tural charcoal. So how much does Penny Wong understand about the real perma- frost story and the recent science? Very lit tle, it seem s. In a mid -yea r meeting with a number of environ- ment organisations, she was asked whet her new dev elop ment s in cli - mate science since the last IPCC report (such as the rapid loss of the Ar cti c sea-i ce) mea nt the Gove rn- ment needed to rethink its approach. Her answer was that she did not un- derstand the question.

No wonder the Rudd Govern- ment’s climate policies are delu- sional, and those of the conservative Opposition worse. The Government is gambling with our future with its policy of allowing a 3ºC rise, which would destroy the Grea t Bar- rier Reef, tropical rainforests, cause wid espre ad des erti fic atio n, a ma ss extinction and a sea-level rise of per- haps 25 metres. At 3ºC the climate wi ll kic k int o a new stat e and ru n away from the human capacity to live with it. Tens, perh aps hundr eds, of millions of people will not surv ive. Our political leaders are not tak- ing the actions that the science de- mands, because the conventional mode of politics is short-term, prag- matic, increm ental and fearful of f un- damental change. Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong have adopted a tradi- tional Labor approach to the clim ate proble m: something for the environ- ment lobby and something for busi- ness. But the problem is that solving the climate crisis cannot be treated like a wage deal, with the demands of each side balanced somewhere in the middle. It is not possible to ne- gotiate with the laws of natu re. The planet cannot be bought off. There are absolute limits that should not

“With a 3

o

C rise, the climate will kick into a new state and run away from the human capacity to live with it. Tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of people will not survive.”

David Spratt

is the co-author of “Climate Code Red: the case for emergency action” (Scribe, 2008).

Damien Lawson

is National Climate Justice Coordinator for Friends of the Earth Australia

out of the loop