Hi Mark,
Just a few words then about what I've been doing...
I've always liked science, and have kept up all branches science
through avid reading of the Scientific American. But I found myself
after University in an engineering job developing computers,
computer electronics and computer software - so it was application
of science. What I learnt was to take a systems approach and follow
trends. This has been invaluable since retiring a few years ago,
when I started to concern myself over the science of global
warming. There seemed to be (and still seems to be) a lack of
understanding in the climate science community about positive
feedback - a common phenomenon in electronics. If one looks at the
control of the planet's environment as a system, the "Earth System",
then once can see that our planet has an exquisite mechanism in
place for controlling and modulating the temperature involving
amplification of Milankovitch cyclic signals [1] through the Gulf
Stream, North Atlantic Current and the Arctic sea ice, but, most
importantly, with negative feedback through meltwater to divert
those currents southwards and away from the Arctic. As any
electronics engineer will tell you, negative feedback is crucial to
achieve stable amplification.
Thus I see the basic problem facing our continued existence on this
planet as an engineering problem, where the basic mechanism has been
disrupted by the heat-energy forcing produced by a colossal pulse of
the greenhouse gas, CO2. The warming signal has been amplified by
the same mechanism of the Earth System that deals with Milankovitch
signals! However there's no negative feedback to keep the system
stable, so the amplification is running wild.
We now have very strong positive feedback in the Arctic, because of
the sea ice melting and exposing more water to sunshine causing
further melting in a vicious cycle. This positive feedback was
ignored by IPCC in their 2007 report, AR4. It may even be ignored
in their AR5 report, though by the time this comes out, the sea ice
extent may have collapsed, and everybody will know we are in an
emergency.
On top of the sea ice problem is the threat of methane from
terrestrial permafrost as the whole Arctic warms. But, in the last
few years, there have been growing signs of escalating methane
emissions from the Arctic seabed, especially north of Siberia. This
makes the risk of methane feedback extremely high/grave, where the
greenhouse effect of the methane leads to further Arctic warming and
further methane emissions, in an unstoppable cycle producing abrupt
and catastrophic climate change.
In trying to get action to avert disaster, a group of us wrote
letters to key figures: the IPCC chairman, the ex-chairman, and
various scientific advisers, without any real breakthrough in
acceptance of either the danger or the means to avoid it. Then,
last year, after a workshop on how to deal with the deteriorating
Arctic situation, we set up the Arctic Methane Emergency Group,
AMEG, as a campaign group for action. Recently we have been
directing our attention at the UK government through the Environment
Audit Committee, at which we gave evidence in their inquiry
"Protecting the Arctic" [2].
BTW, our latest contribution, a plea for rapid government action,
has only just been published [3], and should appear shortly on our
web site [4] under "latest developments".
Cheers,
John
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
[2]
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmenvaud/writev/171/contents.htm
[3]
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmenvaud/writev/171/arc31.htm
[4] http://www.ameg.me/
---
From: Mark Levene <[log in to unmask]>
[log in to unmask]"
type="cite">
Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:06:53 +0000
To: Alastair McIntosh <[log in to unmask]>,
'Jonathan Ward' <[log in to unmask]>, 'Christopher
Shaw' <[log in to unmask]>, 'John Nissen'
<[log in to unmask]>, "Dr. Nafeez Ahmed"
<[log in to unmask]>, John Ashton
<[log in to unmask]>, Jon Barrett''
<[log in to unmask]>
Cc: <[log in to unmask]>, Justine Huxley
<[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: : Saturday Nov 17, Crisis Forum/ Climate
Change nd Violence workshop, St Ethelberga's London/ please read!
dear good participants,
it seems to have taken me all day to try and organise your various
missives/jottings etc into something approaching coherence!
Before good Marianne puts some of this material on the website
would you care to have a care perusal of what I've edited and
collated together. Apologies if vast realms of 'stuff' on you or
your presentations have been cut. It does need to be as short as
possible. BUT if you feel I've got anything desperately wrong
please shout now.
While John Ashton's blurb is forthcoming, if I can have a brief
biofrom John Nissen, rather than simply culled from Wikipedia and
from Jonathan Ward (we have a lot of John's and Jon's for this
event!) that would be excellent
thanks all,
mark
----------------------------------------------------
Provisional Programme Information
Saturday 17 November 2012
Climate Change and Violence workshop 7
St Ethelberga's Centre for Reconciliation & Peace,
Bishopsgate, London
Provisional details of the workshop (these will be finalised in
the coming months)
Morning session
Registration 9.45-10.15
10.15 - 11.45
John Ashton, 'Where history, politics and culture collide'
A perspective on climate change from an escaped FCO diplomat (to
be continued).
Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed, 'Overcoming the Crisis of Civilisation:
Transformative Pathways for Socio-political, Economic, Ethical and
Technological Transition to a Post-Carbon World'
Over the coming decades an unprecedented convergence of
civilisational crises on a global scale, will lead either to
unmitigated disaster, or open opportunities for renewal and
transformation. In this presentation, Nafeez will outline some of
the key areas for structural transformation, and - based on
lessons learned so far - how a viable post-carbon civilisation
capable of surviving and perhaps even prospering in the 21st
century might look.
coffee break 11.45-12.00
12.00 - 1.30 Facing off collapse ? Whose voices get heard in the
climate change debate?
John Nissen and Chris Shaw, with Jonathan Ward, round-table panel.
The Earth System embraces mechanics, climate, heat dynamics and
cryogenics, together with biological, biochemical, chemical and
physical processes and cycles. In the face of what is clearly now
imminent collapse in key domains of the system, John Nissen will
be arguing for an engineering approach to ensure the planet can
continue to support our civilisation in a sustainable and
hospitable way. Set against John's proposition that such remedial
action is one of absolute necessity Chris Shaw will pose whether
geo-engineering might simply be the cloak under which neo-liberal
ideology reproduces 'business as usual', leaving humanity more
wedded (and marginalised) than ever to implicitly undemocratic
discourses and constructions of climate change when actually the
phenomenon might be providing us with the necessary lever for
radical social change.
1.30-2.15 lunch
2.15- 3.45 'So what is to be done? A basic call to
consciousness, empathy and antisyzygy'
Alastair McIntosh and Jon Barrett
What kind of a world do we need to work towards to bring about a
reduction in violence as set against the realities of
accelerating climate change? What are the social, political,
psychological and spiritual dynamics of such a challenge? And,
perhaps more the point, where they might contradict one another
how do we hold such contradictions together so that we
don't end up compartmentalising ourselves and each other through
splitting, projection and demonisation?
3.45-4.00 coffee break
4.00 -5.00 final plenary, all available speakers
Brief biographical notes.
John Ashton was formerly Special Representative for
Climate Change at the FCO, as well as in the Department of Energy
and Climate Change, and in the Government more widely, with a
remit to building a stronger political foundation for an effective
global response to climate change. In 2002, he founded the
independent think tank E3G, and later played a key role during
the approach to Copenhagen in designing the FCO¹s climate change
network and strategy, with its shift in focus from the environment
to the politics of security, prosperity and equity. With a
distinguished public career prior, John has been active in
climate diplomacy in various capacities since 1997.
Jon Barrett has spent many years in developmental work with
people in difficulty with their lives especially young and adult
offenders and people tackling addictions, and especially through
the Scottish charity Basecamp Trust, which he founded and
directed. Since 2008, he has been an independent researcher,
writer and educator on the Œconverging crises¹ of human and
ecological unsustainability. His primary interest continues to be
in Œwhat works¹ to engage so-called Œhard-to-reach¹ population
groups and to motivate enduring pro-social/pro-environmental
behaviour change. Jon and his wife, Louise live on the north
Finistere coast in France where in renovating a derelict farm as a
home and public resource they continue to explore what
Œsustainability¹ really means for our 21st century lives
and expectations.
Alastair McIntosh is a Scottish writer, broadcaster and
activist on social, environmental and spiritual issues. His many
books include Hell and High Water, on the cultural and
deep psychological elements of climate change and which was
described by the Archbishop of Canterbury as 'inspirational' in
preparing his address to Copenhagen in December 2009. His lectures
round the world embrace WWF International, the World Council of
Churches, the Russian Academy of Sciences and also the Joint
Services Command and Staff College, where for a decade and a half
he has articulated the case for non-violence at the most senior
levels of the British military establishment. Alastair and his
wife, Verene Nicolas, have lived in Govan for the last 7 years
where Alastair is founding director of the Gael Gael Trust for the
regeneration of people and place.
Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed is Executive Director of the
Institute for Policy Research and Development (IPRD), an
independent think tank focused on the study of violent conflict in
the context of global ecological, energy and economic crises.
Having published widely on international terrorism and the ŒWar
on Terror¹, his current research on the radicalisation of violent
conflicts in strategic regions, as rooted in the structure of the
global political economy, is developed in A User¹s Guide to the
Crisis of Civilisation: and How to Save It (2010). This has
also been more recently developed as a feature documentary 'The
Crisis of Civilisation' with the filmmaker Dean Puckett.
John Nissen
Christopher Shaw is a Research Associate at the University
of Sussex. His current interest is in developing responses to
climate change based on explicit and socially progressive value
systems. His progress can be followed at www.notargets.org <http://www.notargets.org>
Jonathan Ward