There is a curious sentence in the excellent article “The power of Europe’s rebel farmers” by Alice Hancock and Andy Bounds (FT Weekend, February 10). They write that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned of “‘substantive agricultural production losses’… if temperatures continue to rise.”
If? To quote the famed American diplomat George Kennan, writing in 1948 in another context “we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming.”
Every year we pour more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – almost 70% per annum more since policymakers first started mouthing the pieties 35 years ago. This year atmospheric concentrations will be 425 parts per million, 100pm more than when I was born in 1970. As charted by the United Nations Environment Program’s annual “Emissions Gap” report, the chasm (or abyss) between our alleged ambition and the physical requirements to keep temperature increases even below an unsafe 2 degrees above pre-Industrial levels. grows remorselessly, every year.
There is no “if” – or but – about it. Temperatures will increase, with all the consequences we can imagine, and more than a few we cannot. Might the FT lead the way in replacing “if” with “as” in its coverage?
It would be nice to live in Patrick J Allen’s world (FT letters “Getting mad at oil majors won’t solve energy crisis,” FT Weekend, 18 February). In that world innocent and disinterested oil companies are simply waiting for the world’s governments to agree a global carbon price.
Sadly, this world – the real one- is rapidly overheating. In this world oil companies have spent the last 35 years – from the very start of the climate negotiations – resolutely opposing such measures at both national and international levels. Whether the price is a tax or an emissions trading scheme, oil companies have been key players in the campaign of predatory delay, delaying deferring watering down either via direct lobbying, or by funding groups that deny the basic reality of 19th century physics.
Indeed, the call for a global carbon price is a classic delaying technique, because such a price would take decades to agree, even if it could be (doubtful).
These are decades during which two things would happen. One, the impacts of the carbon dioxide we have already put into the air would accelerate. Second, oil company profits would continue to climb.
Dr Marc Hudson
So, on the 19th century physics bit – before Arrhenius in 1896, there was this –
The French chemist Fourier in 1824/1827, showing that given the Earth’s distance from the Sun, and the temperature of the Earth, there must be *something* trapping heat, as in a greenhouse (see Jason Fleming’s excellent article).
Eunice Foote and John Tyndall in the late 1850s and early 1860s respectively showing that “carbonic acid” (essentially carbon dioxide in solution) traps heat…
On predatory delay –
Predatory delay is the blocking or slowing of needed change, in order to make money off unsustainable, unjust systems in the meantime.
“Predatory delay is the blocking or slowing of needed change, in order to make money off unsustainable, unjust systems in the meantime. For delay to be truly predatory, those engaged in it need to know two things: That they’re hurting others and that there are other options.”
Why I write
I LOVE the FT – not for its pro-growth, pro-capitalism ideology, but for its intelligence, the facts it displays, the quality of its writers. As Chomsky has said, if you want a tolerably accurate view of the world, read the quality business press (albeit with your bullshit detectors set to maximum settings), because these papers are written for the people who are actually running the show, and they need accurate information, not fairy stories they want to believe or they want/need other people to believe.
And that’s why I put effort into pushing back against bad narratives about climate change that appear in the FT. If the pushback gets published, then it appears in front of people who ‘matter’. As theories of change go, it’s not much, I agree, but at least it’s not going to make things actively worse…
Whoop, the Financial Times has published my letter!(31st December 2022)
The excellent letter from Patricia Finney (‘It’s simple physics and chemistry – climate change will kill us all’, FT 17 December) will hopefully give readers of the FT in high places pause for thought.
There are two points I wish to clarify. First, she states “scientists have been warning about it for 30 years.” Sadly, the warnings go back to the 1950s. Through the 1970s various UK civil servants and scientists became steadily more concerned. (see Jon Agar, 2015 “Future forecast – changeable and probably getting worse”: the UK Government’s Early Response to Anthropogenic Climate Change .Twentieth Century British History, Volume 26, Issue 4). Finally, in 1980 they briefed Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. who replied incredulously, “Are you telling me I should worry about the weather?” (see John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher. Vol. 2: The Iron Lady (London, 2003), 642-643.)
Secondly, Finney argues that “nothing else has worked, not petitions, not marches.” Agreed, but what hasn’t been tried, or tried repeatedly and reflexively enough, is the building of coalitions between workers, environmentalists, the young, pensioners, academics that can resist the lure of repeated feel-good mobilisations and also the dangers of being brought inside government and corporate tents for feel-good do-nothing roundtables and consultations.
Just Stop Oil has, I would guess, around 1000 activists. The UK has a population of over 65 million. In the words of the police chief in the film Jaws, “we’re going to need a bigger boat.”
