2 + 2 does not equal 4 and business becomes impossible

TWO plus two does not equal four. A rise in global temperatures of four-degrees is not just twice as bad as a rise of two-degrees. The effect is exponential. “Business in a four-degree world is not possible,” Ian Dunlop told a gathering in Canberra this week.

Dunlop is a former international oil, gas and coal industry executive and former CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, so he is not some woolly-headed Greenie.

The first warnings of global warming were called alarmist and government arguments that something had to be done were called a green-communist conspiracy to undermine capitalism.

But now capitalism might help save us when governments have failed.

Dunlop argues that if there is any conspiracy here it is not of alarmism, but of semi-silence. Governments have not done enough to warn us of the dangers of climate change.

A two-degree change might be manageable, but a four-degree change is a nightmare. He says at four degrees the world would be one of one billion people, not seven billion. Rising sea levels and the extra heat will have taken too much arable land.

Dunlop, whose early career was in the industry of digging up coal and drilling for oil, says we have to work towards leaving the rest of the fossil fuel in the ground.

It would be better if alarmist reports of end of fossil fuel were true, because then business would start investing in renewables, even if it required fossil fuel to make the wind farms and solar panels.

Certainly they should not be wasted on the search and development on fringe fossil fuels like shale oil.

“Australia is living in a Fool’s Paradise, ignoring the most critical issues,” he said. “Weighty reports are being published on our official future which would be laudable were it not for the fact that the critical scenario, of accelerating anthropogenic climate change and resource scarcity, is deliberately ignored – apparently too scary for political realism to contemplate.”

The gathering was for the launch of a collection of essays by Australia 21 entitled, “Placing Global change on the Australian Election agenda,” edited by epidemiologist Bob Douglas.

Australia 21 is a non-profit organisation that researches big issues that will affect Australia in the 21st century.

The book was launched by economist Ross Garnaut.

He said that ever-increasing population was by definition in conflict with finite natural resources. But it did not mean that economic growth of its was bad. Rising living standards reduced fertility in a way that was stronger than “imans and popes”.

Economic growth was not incompatible with dealing with climate change. Indeed, the efforts could stimulate economic growth. Better use of capital in a decarbonised world could raise economic growth and human well-being.

Garnaut obliquely warned the Coalition not to undo the carbon tax. He argued that targets were often too difficult. The important thing was to make a start and once people saw that the sky did not fall in you could start making more progress.

Of course, Australia has made a start and the sky has not fallen in.

Garnaut, who has done a lot of work in China, says that the argument that Australia should not wait until everyone else moves is foolish. China is already moving to decarbonise. It is introducing much stricter emissions standards.

“The power plants in the La Trobe Valley would be closed if there were China,” he said.

He was barracking for peak oil and oil scarcity because it would drive prices higher and business would then invest more in renewables.

Several of the essayists thought that some big corporations were at least recognising that business was impossible in a four-degree world and were looking to do something about it.

Garnaut ridiculed the idea of “abatement policies” to deal with the warmer climate. This idea came from the complacent view that humans have always dealt with difficulties in the past, or when they had not dealt with them, they had dealt with the consequences.

But climate change was different. The problem with dealing with the consequences of climate change, rather than preventing it, is that once the four-degree trajectory was in place, not only would abatement be impossible, but so would policy. There would be no government and no law and order to allow the policies to be implemented.

Julian Cribb, author of “The Coming Famine” pointed out that even a two-degree rise in temperature would result in mass famine.

He thought that the effects of climate change would not be gradual and therefore enable us to adapt.

Famine could come very quickly and result in a break down of law and order and riots.

He used the recent Queensland floods as an example. Just-in-time supply chains resulted in supermarkets emptying in 48 hours. Now, in that case the shelves could be replenished, but as extreme weather and general warming affected food output they would not be.

Famine would be inevitable because millions lived in the cities, but no food was produced there.

Dunlop and Garnaut stressed that this was not alarmist but reality. The science was in and the world is on trajectory for a four-degree increase. If anything the scientists were being too cautious.

Social researcher Richard Eckersley, however, pointed to the difficulty in persuading humans of the need to act. Some research showed that many humans were genetically wired to shut out things they did not want to hear.

“It may be that we will have to wait for a growing accumulation of catastrophes and calamities to make more real and immediate the relationship between the global and the personal,” he said.

That thought is interesting. Australians were more concerned about global warming in the lead up to the 2007 election –after drought and fires – than anytime since.

It seems we will have to hope for some early minor catastrophes to enable us to avoid the even greater catastrophe that awaits if we do not act.

DOT DOT DOT

The essays made me conclude that Kevin Rudd does not deserve to be Prime Minister again. Having told us that climate change is the biggest moral issue of our time, he backed away from doing anything about it because popular support seemed to be running against a carbon tax.

That is the biggest failure of Australian leadership in our time.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times on 22 June 2013.