Who is Bankrolling the Climate Change Counter-Movement?

It’s mostly secret. A new refereed paper by Robert Brulle of Drexel University looks into it.

“The climate change countermovement has had a real political and ecological impact on the failure of the world to act on the issue of global warming,” said Brulle. “Like a play on Broadway, the countermovement has stars in the spotlight—often prominent contrarian scientists or conservative politicians—but behind the stars is an organizational structure of directors, script writers and producers, in the form of conservative foundations. If you want to understand what’s driving this movement, you have to look at what’s going on behind the scenes.”

So he looked, and he found this:

• The biggest known funders of organizations downplaying the importance of man-made climate change are foundations such as the Searle Freedom Trust, the John William Pope Foundation, the Howard Charitable Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation.

• Koch and ExxonMobil have pulled back from publicly visible funding. From 2003 to 2007, the Koch Affiliated Foundations and the ExxonMobil Foundation were heavily involved in funding the climate change countermovement. But since 2008, they are no longer making publicly traceable contributions.

• Funding has shifted to pass through untraceable sources. As traceable funding drops, the amount of funding given to the countermovement by the Donors Trust has risen dramatically. Donors Trust is a donor-directed foundation whose funders cannot be traced. This one foundation now provides about 25% of all traceable foundation funding used by organizations engaged in promoting systematic denial of human-caused climate change.

• Most funding for denial efforts is untraceable. Despite extensive digging, only a small part of the hundreds of millions in contributions to climate change denying organizations can be found out from public records. A group of 91 climate change denial organizations has a total income of $900 million per year—but only $64 million in identifiable foundation support!

All this is from the original paper:

• Robert J. Brulle, Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations, Climatic Change, 2013.

and this summary:

• Not just Koch brothers: new study reveals funders behind climate change denial effort, ScienceDaily, 20 December 2013.

Ironically, the original paper would probably be hidden behind a paywall if someone hadn’t liberated it. Get your copy now, while you can!

You can also get 120 pages of details—names and dollar amounts—here:

• Robert J. Brulle, Supplementary online material.

Here is Brulle’s pie chart of who is doing the (traceable!) funding—click to enlarge:

And here is his chart of the organizations who are getting funded:

Here is his graph showing the rise of Donors Trust:

And here is his picture of the social network involved in climate change denial. He calls this the Climate Change Counter Movement. You really need to enlarge this one to see anything:

Life’s Struggle to Survive

Here’s the talk I gave at the SETI Institute:

When pondering the number of extraterrestrial civilizations, it is worth noting that even after it got started, the success of life on Earth was not a foregone conclusion. In this talk, I recount some thrilling episodes from the history of our planet, some well-documented but others merely theorized: our collision with the planet Theia, the oxygen catastrophe, the snowball Earth events, the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event, the asteroid that hit Chicxulub, and more, including the massive environmental changes we are causing now. All of these hold lessons for what may happen on other planets!

To watch the talk, click on the video above. To see
slides of the talk, click here!

Here’s a mistake in my talk that doesn’t appear in the slides: I suggested that Theia started at the Lagrange point in Earth’s orbit. After my talk, an expert said that at that time, the Solar System had lots of objects with orbits of high eccentricity, and Theia was probably one of these. He said the Lagrange point theory is an idiosyncratic theory, not widely accepted, that somehow found its way onto Wikipedia.

Another issue was brought up in the questions. In a paper in Science, Sherwood and Huber argued that:

Any exceedence of 35 °C for extended periods should
induce hyperthermia in humans and other mammals, as dissipation of metabolic heat becomes impossible. While this never happens now, it would begin to occur with global-mean warming of about 7 °C, calling the habitability of some regions into question. With 11-12 °C warming, such regions would spread to encompass the majority of the human population as currently distributed. Eventual warmings of 12 °C are
possible from fossil fuel burning.

However, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum seems to have been even hotter:

So, the question is: where did mammals live during this period, which mammals went extinct, if any, and does the survival of other mammals call into question Sherwood and Huber’s conclusion?

Global Climate Change Negotiations

 

There were many interesting talks at the Interdisciplinary Climate Change Workshop last week—too many for me to describe them all in detail. But I really must describe the talks by Radoslav Dimitrov. They were full of important things I didn’t know. Some are quite promising.

Radoslav S. Dimitrov is a professor at the Department of Political Science at Western University. What’s interesting is that he’s also been a delegate for the European Union at the UN climate change negotiations since 1990! His work documents the history of climate negotiations from behind closed doors.

Here are some things he said:

• In international diplomacy, there is no questioning the reality and importance of human-caused climate change. The question is just what to do about it.

• Governments go through every line of the IPCC reports twice. They cannot add anything the scientists have written, but they can delete things. All governments have veto power. This makes the the IPCC reports more conservative than they otherwise would be: “considerably diluted”.

• The climate change negotiations have surprised political scientists in many ways:

1) There is substantial cooperation even without the USA taking the lead.

2) Developing countries are accepting obligations, with many overcomplying.

3) There has been action by many countries and subnational entities without any treaty obligations.

4) There have been repeated failures of negotiation despite policy readiness.

• In 2011, China and Saudi Arabia rejected the final agreement at Durban as inadequate. Only Canada, the United States and Australia had been resisting stronger action on climate change. Canada abandoned the Kyoto Protocol the day after the collapse of negotiations at Durban. They publicly blamed China, India and Brazil, even though Brazil had accepted dramatic emissions cuts and China had, for the first time, accepted limits on emissions. Only India had taken a “hardline” attitude. Publicly blaming some other country for the collapse of negotiations is a no-no in diplomacy, so the Chinese took this move by Canada as a slap in the face. In return, they blamed Canada and “the West” for the collapse of Durban.

• Dimitrov is studying the role of persuasion in diplomacy, recording and analyzing hundreds of hours of discussions. Countries try to change each other’s minds, not just behavior.

• The global elite do not see climate change negotiations as an environmental issue. Instead, they feel they are “negotiating the future economy”. They focus on the negative economic consequences of inaction, and the economic benefits of climate action.

• In particular, the EU has managed to persuade many countries that climate change is worth tackling now. They do this with economic, not environmental arguments. For example, they argue that countries who take the initiative will have an advantage in future employment, getting most of the “green jobs”. Results include China’s latest 5-year plan, which some have called “the most progressive legislation in history”, and also Japan’s plan for a 60-80% reduction of carbon emissions. The EU itself also expects big returns on investment in climate change.

I apologize for any oversimplifications or downright errors in my notes here.

References

You can see some slides for Dimitrov’s talks here:

• Radoslav S. Dimitrov, A climate of change.

For more, try reading this article, which is free online:

• Radoslav S. Dimitrov, Inside Copenhagen: the state of climate governance, Global Environmental Politics 10 (2010), 18–24.

and these more recent book chapters, which are apparently not as easy to get:

• Radoslav S. Dimitrov, Environmental diplomacy, in Handbook of Global Environmental Politics, edited by Paul Harris, Routledge, forthcoming as of 2013.

• Radoslav S. Dimitrov, International negotiations, in Handbook of Global Climate and Environmental Policy, edited by Robert Falkner, Wiley-Blackwell forthcoming as of 2013.

• Radoslav S. Dimitrov, Persuasion in world politics: The UN climate change negotiations, in Handbook of Global Environmental Politics, edited by Peter Dauvergne, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK, 2012.

• Radoslav S. Dimitrov, American prosperity and the high politics of climate change, in Prospects for a Post-American World, edited by Sabrina Hoque and Sean Clark, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2012.

What To Do About Climate Change?

Here are the slides for my second talk in the Interdisciplinary Climate Change Workshop at the Balsillie School of International Affairs:

• What To Do About Climate Change?

Like the first it’s just 15 minutes long, so it’s very terse.

I start by noting that slowing the rate of carbon burning won’t stop global warming: most carbon dioxide stays in the air over a century, though individual molecules come and go. Global warming is like a ratchet.

So, we will:

1) leave fossil fuels unburnt,

2) sequester carbon,

3) actively cool the Earth, and/or

4) live with a hotter climate.

Of course we may do a mix of these…. though we’ll certainly do some of option 4), and we might do only this one. My goal in this short talk is not mainly to argue for a particular mix! I mainly want to present some information about the various options.

I do not say anything about the best ways to do option 4); I merely provide some arguments that we’ll wind up doing a lot of this one… because I’m afraid some of the participants in the workshop may be in denial about that.

I also argue that we should start doing research on option 3), because like it or not, I think people are going to become very interested in geoengineering, and without enough solid information about it, people are likely to make bad mistakes: for example, diving into ambitious projects out of desperation.

As usual, if you click on a phrase in blue in this talk, you can get more information.

I want to really thank everyone associated with Azimuth for helping find and compile the information used in this talk! It’s really been a team effort!

What is Climate Change?

Here are the slides for a 15-minute talk I’m giving on Friday for the Interdisciplinary Climate Change Workshop at the Balsillie School of International Affairs:

• What is Climate Change?

This will be the first talk of the workshop. Many participants are focused on diplomacy and economics. None are officially biologists or ecologists. So, I want to set the stage with a broad perspective that fits humans into the biosphere as a whole.

I claim that climate change is just one aspect of something bigger: a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene.

I start with evidence that human civilization is having such a big impact on the biosphere that we’re entering a new geological epoch.

Then I point out what this implies. Climate change is not an isolated ‘problem’ of the sort routinely ‘solved’ by existing human institutions. It is part of a shift from the exponential growth phase of human impact on the biosphere to a new, uncharted phase.

In this new phase, institutions and attitudes will change dramatically, like it or not:

• Before we could treat ‘nature’ as distinct from ‘civilization’. Now, there is no nature separate from civilization.

• Before, we might imagine ‘economic growth’ an almost unalloyed good, with many externalities disregarded. Now, many forms of growth have reached the point where they push the biosphere toward tipping points.

In a separate talk I’ll say a bit about ‘what we can do about it’. So, nothing about that here. You can click on words in blue to see sources for the information.

What Is Climate Change and What To Do About It?

Soon I’m going to a workshop on Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Climate Change at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, or BSIA, in Waterloo, Canada. It’s organized by Simon Dalby, who has a chair in the political economy of climate change at this school.

The plan is to gather people from many different disciplines to provide views on two questions: what is climate change, and what to do about it?

We’re giving really short talks, leaving time for discussion. But before I get there I need to write a 2000-word paper on my view of climate change—‘as a mathematician’, supposedly. That’s where I want your help. I think I know roughly what I want to say, and I’ll post some drafts here as soon as I write them. But I’d like get your ideas, too.

For starters, the program looks like this:

Friday 25 October: What is Climate Change?

9:00 – 9:30 Introductory remarks
John Ravenhill, Director, BSIA
Dan Scott, University of Waterloo, Interdiscipinary Centre for Climate Change.
Simon Dalby, BSIA

9:30 – 10:45 Presentation Session 1
Chair: Sara Koopman, BSIA
John Baez, University of California (Mathematics)
Jean Andrey, University of Waterloo (Geography)
Byron Williston, Wilfrid Laurier University (Philosophy)

11:15 – 12:30 Presentation Session 2
Chair: Marisa Beck, BSIA
Chris Russill, Carleton University (Communications)
Mike Hulme, Kings’ College London (Climate Science)
Radoslav Dimitrov, Western University (Political Science)

1:30 – 2:30 Presentation Session 3
Chair: Matt Gaudreau, BSIA
Jatin Nathwani, University of Waterloo (Engineering)
Sarah Burch, University of Waterloo (New Social Media and Education)

3:00 – 5:00 Roundtable 1 (all presenters)
Chair: Lucie Edwards, BSIA
Discussant: Vanessa Schweizer, University of Waterloo

5:00 – 5:15 Wrap-up
Dan Scott and Simon Dalby

Saturday 26 October: What Should We Do About It?

9:00 – 10:15 Presentation Session 4
Chair: Matt Gaudreau, BSIA
Radoslav Dimitrov, Western University (Political Science)
Mike Hulme, Kings’ College London (Climate Science)
Jean Andrey, University of Waterloo (Geography)

10:45 – 12:00 Presentation Session 5
Chair: Lucie Edwards, BSIA
Jatin Nathwani, University of Waterloo (Engineering)
Sarah Burch, University of Waterloo (Environmental Education)
Chris Russill, Carleton University (Communications)

1:00 – 2:00 Presentation Session 6
Chair: Marisa Beck, BSIA
Byron Williston, Wilfrid Laurier University (Philosophy)
John Baez, University of California (Mathematics)

2:30 – 4:30 Roundtable 2 (all presenters)
Chair: Sara Koopman, BSIA
Discussant: James Orbinski, CIGI Chair in Global Health

4:30 – 5:00 Wrap-up
Dan Scott and Simon Dalby

Some thoughts

Though I’m playing a designated role in this workshop—the “mathematician”—I don’t think it makes sense to focus on mathematical models of climate change, or the math projects I’m working on now.

I will probably seem strange and “mathematical” enough just saying what I think about climate change! Most of the other people come from fields quite different than mine: they seem much more in tune with the nitty-gritty details of politics and economics. So, perhaps my proper role is to mention some facts and numbers that they probably know already, to remind them of the magnitude, scope and urgency of the problem.

It may also be useful to emphasize that with very high probability, we won’t do enough soon enough, so we need to study a series of fallback positions, not just an ‘optimal’ response to climate change. And these fallback positions should go as far as thinking about what happens if we burn all the available carbon. What to do then?

When I talked about this workshop with the mathematician Sasha Beilinson, he wickedly suggested that the best solution to global warming might be a global economic collapse… and he asked if anyone was looking into this.

Of course this solution comes along with huge problems, and anyone who actually advocates it is branded as a nut and excluded from the ‘serious’ discourse on global warming. But the funny thing is, a global economic collapse could be just as probable as some more optimistic scenarios, for example those that require a massive outbreak of altruism worldwide.

So it’s worth thinking about economic collapse scenarios, and ‘burn carbon until there’s none left’ scenarios, even if we don’t want them. And these are the sort of things that only the mathematician in the room may be brave—or foolish—enough to mention.

What else?

The North Pole Was, Briefly, a Lake

It happened over a month ago. The picture above was taken on 22 July 2013. It shows a buoy anchored near a remote webcam at the North Pole, surrounded by a lake of melted ice:

• Becky Oskin, North Pole now a lake, LiveScience, 23 July 2013.

Instead of snow and ice whirling on the wind, a foot-deep aquamarine lake now sloshes around a webcam stationed at the North Pole. The meltwater lake started forming July 13, following two weeks of warm weather in the high Arctic. In early July, temperatures were 2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) higher than average over much of the Arctic Ocean, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center.

Meltwater ponds sprout more easily on young, thin ice, which now accounts for more than half of the Arctic’s sea ice. The ponds link up across the smooth surface of the ice, creating a network that traps heat from the sun. Thick and wrinkly multi-year ice, which has survived more than one freeze-thaw season, is less likely sport a polka-dot network of ponds because of its rough, uneven surface.

This particular meltwater pond was “just over 2 feet deep and a few hundred feet wide”, according to this article:

• Hannah Hickey, Santa’s workshop not flooded—but lots of melting in the Arctic, 30 July 2013.

The pond drained out through cracks in the ice late July 27.

More important is the overall trend in the the total sea ice volume as estimated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS).

The trend line from 1979 to 2011 shows that Arctic sea ice is melting at an average rate of roughly 3,000 cubic kilometers per decade.

In 2010, 2011 and 2012, so much ice melted that the volume fell more than 2 standard deviations below from the trend line—that’s why the jagged curve falls below the shaded region at the far right of the graph. At the end of July this year, it was just about 2 standard deviations below the trend line. The ice volume seems unlikely to break last year’s record low.

As usual, click the picture for more details.