Thanks for getting back on the CH4, John, and Veli … good luck with trying to extract the Rev Camping’s millions … especially now that he’s got another 5 months to spend it in. I think these people are funded by Dawkin’s to try and prove his point.

John, can I draw you back to the epistemology of CH4. How do we know what we think we know? In my email on this list to you of 12 May I drew attention to areas of scientific doubt, specifically http://www.sciencemag.org/content/329/5992/620.summary

In your “brochure” below you cite as your authority an article in the Independent. I share your concerns about CH4, but I also want reality checks, especially in a context of trying to jump start geoengineering. To repeat my question of the 12^th:

I am not doubting that methane remains a growing concern and the science of tipping points sounds sound to me. The general trend in the NOAA data for both gases is clear. I am just observing that, for a generalist human ecologist whose views come from weighing up the balance of authorities rather than from detailed direct empirical understanding, it is much easier to get a reality check on CO2 than it is for CH4, the graph of which jumps about more. As such, if we are going to make a bigger and bigger thing of it, perhaps inclining us towards geoengineering, what is your take on sources from which a fitting balance of reality checks can most reliably be derived?

Alastair

Hi Alastair,

I have been looking into the methane problem [1] aggrevated by sea ice retreat [2], but find it difficult to persuade people of the dangers so that they will support the necessary urgent action than has to be taken.

So I am fascinated by the "displacement activity" idea, that you put at the end of your email, and did a bit of googling to find this paper [3] by Ian McGregor et al.  Here they use the term "reactive approach motivation" (RAM), and find it a response to "anxious uncertainty" - typical in a patient before they have a major operation!  In this forum I have talked about "mortality salience" with respect to climate catastrophe, expecially catastrophe resulting from methane in the Arctic.  This obviously gives rise to much anxious uncertainty, therefore one might expect RAM as a kind of "motivated tunnel vision", as the paper puts it.

So what reaction does one see as a result of confronting somebody with the dire situation in the Arctic?  On this forum I have seen quite a lot of idealism coming out - how we all have to change our behaviour - how there has to be a world revolution to confront the forces of evil capitalism, etc.  This supports the paper's thesis:

From the RAM perspective, when faced with anxious uncertainties people would be expected to turn to their ideals, ideologies, meanings, and worldviews with heightened tenacity and vigor.

This reaction does not help!   I am desparately trying to find a way to get through to people the danger we are in, but this is almost self-defeating, because the more dangerous things look, the more the psychological denial effects come into play.  So what I'm trying to do is to explain this psychological block IN OTHER PEOPLE, so that you don't need to worry about it in yourself.  Thus I explain that the scientists who are responsible for explaining the climate situation to the rest of us actually have this block, which prevents them recognising the danger and also prevents them recommending action to avert the danger (because such action has the same mortality salience).  Thus any kind of geoengineering is denounced, or relegated to the distant future when most of us will be dead.

BTW it is very difficult to recognise and accept ones own bias and illusions.  There is a good article in New Scientist, May 14th, about this - well worth reading [4].

Anyway, here's my latest "brochure" about the methane threat.

--- quote ---

The Methane Time Bomb in the Arctic

Draft v1 2011-05-24

Dear environmental campaigner,

It is rather extraordinary what I’m going to tell you.  But I am finding it extremely difficult to get scientists to admit to the imminent dangers we face as a consequence of the unexpectedly rapid retreat of the Arctic sea ice.  This rapidity is due to the Arctic warming over twice as fast as the global average.  But the sea ice acts as a mirror to reflect sunlight and cool the Arctic, so its disappearance is causing acceleration to the Arctic warming and further retreat of the ice in a vicious cycle.  This in turn is liable to cause the vast store of carbon held in permafrost to be discharged as the potent greenhouse gas, methane.  There is potentially enough methane to cause global warming of so many degrees that humanity could not possibly survive. 

Matters have come to a head with reports of significant quantities of methane from permafrost appearing in the Arctic atmosphere.  Thus we not only have to cool the Arctic but also have to consider how to stop the methane from contributing to the vicious cycle of Arctic warming, in which the methane causes local warming which in turn melts more permafrost to release further methane.  If only 10% of potential methane were released, it would be enough to multiply global warming by over 40 times, leading to an uninhabitable planet within a few decades – i.e. well before the end of century.

Thus we have a veritable methane time-bomb in the Arctic [1].

How is it that climate scientists have been so quiet about this methane threat?  Why is the methane not considered in the any of their models of global warming?   Why do all projections of global warming this century ignore the methane?   Why are plans for a sustainable future all based on emissions reductions over many decades, when action is needed right now?  My answer is that the methane threat is simply too alarming to talk about! 

Psychologists tell us that there is a human instinct to avoid discussing issues that affect ones own mortality, either directly or imminently.  Such avoided issues are said to have “mortality salience”.   An example is given by Jared Diamond in his book “Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed”.  In an experiment, people living in a narrow valley below a dam were questioned whether they were concerned about the dam.  As expected, people far down the valley were less concerned than those closer to the dam – but only up to a certain point.  For those living even closer than this, the concerns diminished until zero just under the dam.  Diamond concludes that for those living so close to the dam, it was impossible to lead a normal life unless all concerns about the dam were banished from the mind.

I’ve observed what I believe is this mortality salience effect among top scientists to whom I have talked at Royal Society and geosciences meetings.  None of them have seemed able to confront the methane issue.  I suspect that only people with a military background, or who have faced up to mortal danger in some other context, are able to discuss such frightening issues in a rational way. 

A number of concerned scientists and engineers, including myself, have written a letter to the environment minister, Chris Huhne, about the need for action.  But I don’t believe that he will take us seriously. Unfortunately geoengineering is the only way we can hope to cool the Arctic quickly enough to save the sea ice and halt permafrost melt.  Several environmentalist organisations have declared that geoengineering is “tinkering with the environment”, and should not be done in any circumstances.  This is a suicidal attitude in the current circumstances.  Others say we should only consider geoengineering in an emergency, whilst refusing to accept that we have such an emergency.

Further local action has to be considered to stop the methane from permafrost from getting into the atmosphere and adding to the vicious cycle of Arctic warming.  There could also be action to remove methane from the Arctic atmosphere.

So I we desperately need action on several fronts.  I feel that we have been living through a period like the appeasement period before WW2, when very few people seemed to accept the danger looming ahead.  But this time it’s not just domination by a foreign power that is at stake – it’s the future of the whole of civilisation.

On top of all this, there are powerful interests for allowing the Arctic sea ice to melt away, especially to facilitate exploration for oil and minerals.

Time is not on our side.  The latest projections for end-summer sea ice disappearance are for the middle of this decade [2].  By then it could be too late to stop the methane, whatever we do. 

John Nissen

Chiswick, London W4

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-the-methane-time-bomb-938932.html

[2] http://climateprogress.org/2011/05/19/arctic-sea-ice-volume-death-spiral/

--- end quote ---

Does this now make sense?  Do you now accept the danger and the need for urgent action?  I'd be grateful for your feedback.  In particular, will such a brochure persuade people in the NGO world?

Cheers,

John

[1] and [2] as in quote above.

[3] www.yorku.ca/ianmc/readings/McGregorRAMJPSP2010.pdf

[4] http://www.newscientist.com/special/the-grand-delusion

---

On 24/05/2011 10:06, Alastair McIntosh wrote:

Folks …

Check out the Govt’s Sustainable Development Commission’s terminal statement at:

http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/presslist.php/119/what-next-for-sustainable-development

Quite something that this should have happened. I have heard it said that they – especially after the brilliant Prosperity Without Growth report - were upsetting people intent on growth. Could such a thing be true, I wonder?

Apropos where Govt stands on evading/massaging its carbon targets by export to China, see Monbiot’s latest at:

http://www.monbiot.com/2011/05/23/pass-the-parcel/  

Monbiot’s getting huge stick just now because of his changed position on nuclear. Whatever one thinks of his views, I have to say that I have yet to see the stick that can equal his integrity.

Lastly, 100+ people dead in the Deep South from the twister yesterday. Hundreds more a couple of weeks ago. Vast areas under water. Yet here, where April was the hottest ever recorded, it is treated as a minor news item: nobody any more seems to be mentioning “climate change” any more.

The madcap fundamentalists said the world was going to end last week. Always a joy for the Dawkins squad to find a case study of “Christians” acting bonkers. It was fascinating to see how the story went viral, initially on the web and then in the mainstream news media. It seemed to me like one of those tribal rituals where the real fear is fended off, is held in a way that seems containable, by putting on a wee pretendy ritual: and, lo and behold, it’s all OK after all. We don’t need worry about devastation scenarios because they’re all a hoax anyway, except in the US Deep South where it doesn’t matter because they’re all black, or poor white trash descended from the Irish.  Ethologists call it displacement activity. I’ll call it displacement reporting.  

Alastair.
 
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