The previous post drawing analogies between the state of climate blogging and cable news drew a wide variety of responses, some here, some over at the Energy Collective, and some in private e-mails (if such a thing exists). There's no right answer to the question of how to respond to skepticism about well-founded scientific findings. I'm arguing that we may all benefit from taking a deep breath before raising our voices, from thinking about the big picture and not overreacting to every event.
Jon Stewart, whose call for civility inspired my post, compared himself to a climate scientist in an interview last week (thanks Keith):
This is—I‘m not saying—look, I love the voices that I hear on MSNBC. And there‘s a difference between—here‘s what‘s unfair about what I do. This is really what‘s a great—here‘s a great thing that I think is unfair.
You‘re one person with one great voice and sincere—but I‘m a climate scientist. I study weather patterns and climate. You‘re talking about the weather. Maybe these networks are not meant to be viewed in aggregate, but there is an aggregate. There is an effect.
A perfect analogy. Are the climate blogs dealing with the "weather"? Or with the climate?
[UPDATE: to hear other views, Keith Kloor is also asking readers this question]
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
The forecast for climate blogs
Monday, November 08, 2010
Climate blogs, cable news and some inconvenient truths
Will the climate blogs help mediate this coming debate? Or amplify it?
I began thinking about this after seeing highlights from the Rally to Restore Sanity. If there is one forum that needs some sanity restoration, it is the climate blogs (science and political ones). Blogs highlight the extremes of the other side. Bloggers call each other names. Bloggers get grandiose and self-righteous.
Yes, absolutely, you can blame the medium. It is impersonal. It is easy to be extreme when the opponent is a collection of pixels and text rather than a living, breathing person. Plus, blogging only works if you have readers. And more controversy equals more page views.
But add it all up, and what do you get?
Cable news. Steve McIntrye as Bill O'Reilly? Joe Romm as Keith Olbermann? Anthony Watts as Glenn Beck? (plus a lot of folks hoping to be Jon Stewart?)
Just as political pundits focus on political maneuvering rather than actual policy debates, many bloggers focus on bashing each other rather than discussing the issues. We do so because it appears that shouting is the best way to get heard. So just as cable news channels have trended towards the extremes and trumped-up scandals to capture the dwindling audience and dwindling advertising dollars, many bloggers end up focusing on the controversies rather than the consensus in part just to stay afloat in a crowded online sea.
If you write nice, reasoned posts, you are less likely to get a gang of dedicated readers. If you insult the skeptics or question the scientists, the readers will come. Michael Tobis has been caught up recently; he wrote a very reasoned critique of misguided uncertainty discussion by another blogger – but it was the vitriol at the end that drew all the attention. The personalities become the subject. The medium becomes the... ok, a Canadian can never get far into a media conversation without quoting Marshall McLuhan. No particular person is to blame for the dynamic and no one is entirely immune. I’ve fallen in myself on a number of occasions.
The question we have to ask is this:
What do we hope to accomplish by blogging? Do we want to play “inside baseball”, or do we want more people to pay attention to the game? I may be wrong, but I’d guess that most of the science bloggers began their blog with an aim to educate people about climate change and to foster discussion on science and policy. Sure, there's some subconscious pleas for attention and what not at work, but I'll trust that bloggers of every stripe honestly believed their blog would improve the public discussion.
Is it working? I'd argue that the escalation of tone is not expanding the
Behind the name calling and vitriol lies some neglected, one might even say inconvenient, truths.
You can think climate “skeptics” (or “alarmists”) are wrong, without thinking they are evil and/or in it for the money.
You can deconstruct an argument, without abusing the source.
You can trust the scientific consensus, but not be an alarmist.
You can agree with many of Joe Romm’s arguments, but disagree with his abrasive style.
You can disagree with Roger Pielke Jr. or Judith Curry most of the time, but agree with them sometimes.
You can know that the East Anglia e-mails have zero impact on the science of climate change and did not warrant one percent of the media coverage, but still be irritated with some of the scientists involved for the tone they used in a few of the messages.
You can agree with public statements by climate scientists about climate action, but think they are the wrong people to make such statements.
You can agree with the findings of a new study, but disagree that the findings are worthy of publicity.
You can trust the scientific consensus on climate change, but not believe that action is necessary. That may not be my personal judgment on the matter but I accept that the decision on climate action is about more than science.
And, yes, you can disagree with this post (and claim I've set up a straw blogger), but still give it some thought.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Investing in technology vs. pricing carbon
“While considerable interest exists among governments, media and environmentalists in promoting HEVs and BEVs, consumers will ultimately decide whether these vehicles are commercially successful or not,” said John Humphrey, senior vice president of automotive operations at J.D. Power. “Based on our research of consumer attitudes toward these technologies - and barring significant changes to public policy, including tax incentives and higher fuel economy standards - we don’t anticipate a mass migration to green vehicles in the coming decade.”
In the wake of the failed U.S. Climate Bill, the proponents of increasing government investment in research and development like the Breakthrough Institute have been out in force. One example is the report "Post Partisan Power" released by the Breakthrough Institute and Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute.
Of course, investing in R&D is a fine idea. Unlike others, I'd hesitate to call the proposed R&D policies, particularly those in the Post-Partisan report, a climate policy (try searching the document with the phrases "climate change" or "global warming"). The Breakthrough crowd's central thesis of R&D investment rather than emissions controls has always struck me as a bit of dodge. Spending on R&D is presented as an alternative to carbon pricing, as if the two policies could not or should not or would not act in concert, when in fact, most pricing schemes assume some of the proceed with go to R&D. By presenting R&D investment as an either/or question, the Breakthrough folks make it seems as though proponents of carbon pricing are opponents of R&D. In reality, we find that the R&D may not have the desired effect without some policy instruments to aide the technology transition.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Climate change and the Caribbean coral bleaching, again
When I give talks about climate change and coral reefs, I almost always use the two slides on the right. The first slide is a map of "degree heating weeks" (DHW), a measure of accumulated heat stress experienced by corals, in the Caribbean in mid-October in 2005. Severe bleaching and coral morality is typically observed when the values of DHW exceed 8 deg C-week. Basically, the same long period of warm water temperatures that helps spawn the destructive 2005 Atlantic hurricane season caused unprecedented coral bleaching event in the eastern Caribbean.
Five years later, a Caribbean "heat wave" has happened again. I've been writing for months that there was a strong likelihood of extensive coral bleaching in the Caribbean this fall according to NOAA's advance forecast of sea surface temperatures (in fact, we had a good inkling of this last summer). Now we're getting reports of bleaching from observers in the Caribbean. Add this to the observations (following predictions, once again!) from Southeast Asia and the Equatorial Pacific, and we have what may be the most, or second most, extensive "global" coral bleaching event in recorded history.
For all those writing about this event, keep in mind the predictions. This is what the scientific community predicted was likely to happen. An event which we calculated would be a once in a millennium occurrence without human impact on the climate, happened again five years later.
There are caveats, for sure. There is uncertainty in the model simulations of interannual variability which can affect the specific calculations of odds (see the 2007 paper for some details). And once-in-a-thousand year events can in reality happen five years apart; we'd need to collect data for thousands and thousands of years to properly calculate the statistics. Obviously, that's not feasible, which is the very reason we have computers help us do the math on these problems.
The real climate doesn't care about the political climate.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Coral Reefs at SciFest 2010 in St. Louis
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Collaborating with industry on publications and climate solutions
The article Geoengineering: The Inescapable Truth of Getting to 350 from online hybrid magazine / academic publication The Solutions Journal appeared in my inbox today.
We can argue back and forth about the societal and ecological implications of geoengineering. That's not the point of this post. What struck me as unique in this particular article is the focus on "bioenergy" solutions, namely 'The Case for Algae', out of all the many possible geoengineering proposals. It turns out the article is written by two academics along with the chief technology and science officer of Cellana. From the Cellana website:
Cellana was established in 2007 as a joint venture between Shell and HR BioPetroleum to develop technology for the sustainable and commercial production of biofuels and animal feed from algae
Let's be clear. Developing and implementing solutions to climate change will require working with industry. We live in a capitalist system; it is willful blindness to ignore the efforts of profit-seeking outfits. So there's not necessarily anything unethical about working with industry - there certainly are cases where it will be unethical, but it is not absolute guaranteed ethical violation. Having worked on the ecological impacts of biofuels, I've certainly encountered academic scientists who consult with algae companies, because the scientists concluded algae is a far better feedstock than corn.
Does the same apply to publishing peer-reviewed articles? Is this a good example of academics working with companies to find solutions, or of a journal bridging the gap between the ivory tower and the real world? Or is this article example of "the literature" being sullied by industry influence?
Friday, October 01, 2010
Senate candidate in Wisconsin questioning climate change
The state's flagship university in the capitol of Madison has a terrific Department of Atmosphere and Ocean Sciences, a place I was fortunate enough to do my PhD. There are many experts about the climate system walking to halls and the many stairs of the AOS Building.
There are reasonable arguments to make against federal climate policy. I may disagree with those arguments. That is a personal judgment - I'd like to think an informed from years of thinking and working on the issue - but a personal judgment nonetheless. It is another to use flip analogies to argue against overwhelming scientific evidence. Especially when there are qualified people just around the corner that can help. That's 1225 West Dayton St.; at 15 stories with a big orb on the roof, quite easy to spot. I'd guess about a nice 20 minute stroll from the Capitol Square, not counting a stop at the Buraka food cart on Library Mall.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Obama and Chu on piecemeal climate policy
This is from US President Obama's interview in Rolling Stone:
When I ask him [Stephen Chu] how we are going to solve this problem internationally, what he'll tell you is that we can get about a third of this done through efficiencies and existing technologies, we can get an additional chunk through some sort of pricing in carbon, but ultimately we're going to need some technological breakthroughs
It is an interesting and rather pragmatic characterization of the solution. The pricing could, of course, drive efficiencies, use of efficient technologies and the development of new breakthrough technologies. But we're seeing how a comprehensive pricing scheme is a practical and political nightmare. Implementing a national or international pricing scheme that touches on a limited set of carbon-generating activities, let one alone taxes carbon across the board, has been hard enough (in the case of Waxman-Markey, you end up with a complicated bill that alienates even the supporters of action).
Maybe people are finally coming to the realization that a piecemeal solution might actually work the best. If we can use adopt "wedges" thinking, rather than one grand solution, to reducing emissions, why not do the same for the policy that encourages the emissions reductions?
In Obama's words:
We may end up having to do it in chunks, as opposed to some sort of comprehensive omnibus legislation. But we're going to stay on this because it is good for our economy, it's good for our national security, and, ultimately, it's good for our environment.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Glacier melt and water supply in North America
It is easy to forget that many North American communities, particularly in the Canadian prairies, also depend on water that originates in mountain glaciers. Case in point, the stunning figure at right.
The shows the model-calculated river discharge of the North Saskatchewan River (at Whirlpool Point), which flows across Alberta and Saskatchewan, with (light blue) and without (dark) blue the contribution from glaciers in the Rockies. The figure was reproduced by Natural Resources Canada from an article by Comeau et al. in Hydrological Processes.
The key change, obvious from the figure, is that without the glacial water source, there will be a huge decrease in summer water flows. The result is a more typical snowmelt-dominated hydrograph (chart of seasonal river discharge), similar to something you'd see in another part of the continent.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Response to Monkton's blustering about coral reefs
This claim appears every now and then. It is a good example of the problems with all of Monckton's arguments about climate change: i) it is based on an analogy, rather than an actual physical mechanism, ii) it ignores time scales, and iii) some of the "data" used to advance his argument is simply made up.
I've included the full responses from the three experts on the coral question (Jeffrey Kiehl, Charlie Veron and Nancy Knowlton) below. Their incredulity says enough.
Response from Dr. Jeffrey Kiehl
It is ironic that Monckton will accept that the geologic record clearly indicates that high CO2 leads to warm climates (thus CO2 is a driver for climate), but then uses the existence of life at these times to conclude that we need not worry. The point is that past warm periods developed over millions of years of time and lasted for millions of years. Thus, species could adapt to these changes. However, we also know that some species did not adapt. The concern about the future is that the rate of warming that is occurring and will continue to occur over the next century is unprecedented in the deep past. It took over 30 million years for CO2 levels to drop from 900 ppmv to their present levels, we are returning Earth back to this level in a mere 90 years. The accompanying rate of warming will also be unprecedented, certainly over the lifetime of our species. The issue is that our species and others will experience a rapid and large change that will have significant impacts on survivability. So both of Monckton’s arguments are flawed.
Response from Dr. John Veron
It is not possible for me to make any sense of Mr. Monckton’s assertions as they are not based on any scientific data or views that have ever been published. The levels quoted are higher than any spikes known to have existed. The time intervals quoted bear no relevance to the history of life.
Specifically:
Cambrian Era: Calcium carbonate (limestone) of the Cambrian, which abounds, has nothing to do with atmospheric carbon dioxide. Estimates of carbon dioxide levels at this time are not known with great certainty. There were no corals in the Cambrian, symbiotic or otherwise: they had not evolved then.
The Jurassic: There were high levels of carbon dioxide possibly reaching 2000 ppm for unknown time intervals with unknown effects on marine life. The spike immediately before the Jurassic caused the third great mass extinction. This extinction, which defines the Triassic/Jurassic boundary, was so drastic that it has been known
since the early 18th century.
Response from Dr. Nancy Knowlton
This paragraph completely ignores the fact that the seawater chemistry and the buffering capacity of seawater were very different during the times described from what they are today… The problem with CO2 emissions today is that the effects of burning fossil fuels on ocean pH first operate on the scales of decades to centuries, thus causing the acidification that has been observed. Eventually the pH of the ocean will be buffered again, but for hundreds of years ocean organisms will be affected by abnormally high acidity (low pH), and it is the damages associated with acidification over the “short” term (the next hundreds of years) that concern biologists. (see also Assertion 4)
Response from Dr. Lee Kump
One must carefully distinguish between conditions that were acquired and sustained over millions of years such as these, and abrupt events such as fossil-fuel burning that disturb these longer-term equilibria. Over long time scales the carbon cycle is balanced, and the oceans (and the life in them) can form limestone at essentially any atmospheric CO2 level. On these long time scales, rivers bring the building blocks for the calcium carbonate skeleton to the ocean; when CO2 levels are high, these compounds must accumulate to higher concentrations to overcome the increased acidity generated by the CO2, but this adjustment takes only millennia.
Monday, September 20, 2010
The second "global" coral bleaching event
The NY Times article calls the concurrence of events "only the second known global bleaching of coral reefs". Though the characterization is awkward and not terribly accurate, as the bleaching is not really "global", it does point to the right comparison. The spatial extent of coral bleaching in 2010 is likely to be second to that observed in 1998, which people have taken to calling the first "global bleaching event". It is no coincidence that these "global" events occurred during two of the warmest, if not the two warmest, years in observed history.
It is also no coincidence that both 1998 and 2010 began with strong El Nino conditions, which later flipped to La Nina conditions. In a simplistic sense, that "maximizes" the area of ocean which experiences anomalous warmth that tends trigger mass coral bleaching events. This year, the El Nino event causes anomalous warmth in the eastern and central Equatorial Pacific. The migration of the West Pacific Warm Pool back westwards, as El Nino subsided, helped cause the high temperatures and bleaching in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. Atmospheric teleconnections may be responsible for some of the anomalous warmth in the Caribbean, as has been suggested in past studies. And as the article indicates, the recent switch to La Nina conditions is increasing concern about bleaching in the southwest Pacific, including the Great Barrier Reef, over the southern hemisphere summer.
One area of uncertainty in the science community is to what extent can coral reefs which have experienced bleaching in the recent past, whether 1998 or more recently, can become more resilient to future temperature stress. The year 2010 may serve as a great biophysical experiment.
[UPDATE: The Atlantic and Gulf Rapid Reef Assessment is inviting divers in the Caribbean to join them in "monitoring simple, ecosystem-
level pigmentation changes in live corals and any associated changes
in live coral cover using the newly updated BLAGGRA Line Transects
protocol (www.agrra.org/BLAGRRA). Sites can be very quickly and
repeatedly surveyed by small teams of 1-2 experienced divers. A
representative assessment can be made of reefs in the area affected by
bleaching, and/or sampling can be focused on special-interest sites
(such as within and outside of MPAs)"]
Friday, September 17, 2010
Another example of the Canadian government "muzzling" scientists
From the Montreal Gazette:
The Harper government has tightened the muzzle on federal scientists, going so far as to control when and what they can say about floods at the end of the last ice age.
Natural Resources Canada scientists were told this spring they need "pre-approval" from Minister Christian Paradis's office to speak with national and international journalists. Their "media lines" also need ministerial approval, say documents obtained through access-to-information legislation.
The documents say the "new" rules went into force in March and reveal how they apply not only to contentious issues including the oilsands, but benign subjects such as floods that occurred 13,000 years ago.
I'm always surprised by Canadian or American government efforts to limit or control public statements by scientists. Forget the logic of the communication policy itself. It goes without saying that controlling public appearances by scientists is bad policy in a democratic society. But it is even worse politics. Tales of muzzling always make it into the media. It's futile to attempt to hide such a policy in a world of Twitter, WikiLeaks and Youtube. And the eventual tale of "muzzling scientists" always makes the government look bad in the end. So why bother? Political masochism if you ask me.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Really, what does the Republicans "climate zombies" accomplish?
A colleague mentioned this list (also see Joe Romm) of statements about climate change by Republican candidates for Senate. With one exception, they all doubt that human activity is responsible for climate change.
Sure I agree with all the commentators that the stance of all these candidates is depressing. The similarity of their statements suggests that it has less to do with what the individual's actually think about climate change, than the fact that climate change has become so politicized in the U.S. that Republicans need to express doubt in order to win their party's nomination. From their vantage point, denial and doubt is the only viable option.
As such, what's far more depressing to me than the statements themselves is what those statements imply about the utter failure to communicate the science of climate change and the rationale for climate change solutions in a non-partisan way. Maybe this should serve as a lesson that years of doing things like calling people who question climate change "brain-dead zombies" hasn't accomplished anything but maybe "fire up the base" (which in itself, didn't accomplish much in the past two years!)
You can be right without being arrogant. I've said it before: rather than demonize people who question climate change, it's worth thinking about their motivation and their reasoning, faulty as though it may be. Otherwise, the water will be flooding the front steps here in Vancouver, and we'll still be having the same inane arguments.
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Drinking to save the climate
A group of Swedish scientists calculated the GHG emissions generated from the production of a number of different common beverages and the nutritional benefit of those beverages per unit emissions (left).
The verdict? If you want to minimize emissions, pas up on the wine and go for water, soy drinks and oat drinks (mmm?). Beer and milk are almost a dead heat in terms of emissions, though the authors caution against adding beer to your cereal in the morning [update: er, that's a joke. the paper doesn't venture into breakfast habits!].
If you want to maximize the nutritional value for each unit of climate damage (the "NDCI index"), it is milk all the way. The reason is that beer and wine offer basically zero nutritional value. Soft drinks too. Alas, it's true, there's no nutritional value to high fructose corn syrup!
With UBC being a sustainable university, milk and oat drinks will now certainly be a popular choice at all the undergrad parties and faculty functions.
The exact numbers should vary by city, region and country, based on transportation of the beverages ("drink miles"?) and production practices. I'd guess the general breakdown should be roughly similar in most locations, given that the nutrient densities are more or less constant from place to place and lower limits to the production emissions.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
A year of extreme weather: Is more bleaching to come in the Caribbean?
The heat waves have not only been on land. I mentioned a few weeks ago that high ocean temperatures has led to widespread coral bleaching over the past year, including occurrences in the Central Equatorial Pacific and Indonesia.
More may be to come. This is the NOAA Coral Reef Watch bleaching outlook for the fall, based on current temperatures and an experimental long-term forecast. It calls for the possibility of "Alert Level 2" thermal stress, which in general tends to cause mass coral bleaching and some coral mortality (in reality: the response is highly variable in time and space). If the forecast is correct, observations of bleaching would probably start to happen sometime in September.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Interview with Simple Climate
A couple weeks backs, I answered a few questions about coral reefs and climate for at Andy Extance's site Simple Climate.
At the end, he asked how I would explain the global warming situation to someone who had no previous exposure at all. Of course, like any scientist, my first instinct is to launch into a discussion about the radiative transfer, the carbon cycle, etc. But explaining the science without considering the context is pointless. Here was my quick answer for Andy:
I’d start with talking about how it can be hard to “believe” that people can change the climate. For thousands of years, we’ve assumed that only powers greater than us could possible influence something as vast as the atmosphere. That’s enshrined in most cultural and religious traditions. But today, there are so many people on the planet, and we’ve consume so much energy every year, that we generate enough waste products – greenhouse gases – to alter the climate.
I’d then stress separating the science from the politics. The science tells us that human activity is changing the climate. How you want the world to respond to that information is a value judgment. As a scientist working on this subject for a number of years, I can provide you a reasonably informed opinion on the costs and benefits of different responses. But the choice is not mine alone.
After all that, if the person was still awake and interested, I’d then talk about the scientific evidence.
Sunday, August 08, 2010
Climate change education: A blast from the past
"Our industrial civilization has been pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a great rate... If it remained, it would have a very marked warming effect on the earth's climate, but most of it will probably be absorbed by the oceans. Conceivably, however, it could cause significant melting of the great icecaps and raise sea levels in time."
From Planet Earth: The mystery with 100,000 clues, a brochure produced by the U.S. National Academy of Science as part of the first International Geophysical Year, 1957-1958.
The terrific, very 1950s, accompanying film "The Inconstant Air" describes the basics of weather and climate, including the greenhouse effect. What I find most fascinating is the film provides historical context to the viewer - i.e. mentioning that early human societies though that gods controlled the weather - something that is generally missing from education and outreach on climate change today. We are so buried in the politics, we forget and ignore history, and therefore fail to appreciate that the very premise (that humans are affecting the climate) is quite revolutionary.
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Yes, this is the Environment Canada forecast for Vancouver
The text version includes the phrase "Local smoke", which usually has other connotations out here on the West Coast.
It is very hazy outside, but the situation is far worse across the world in Moscow.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Widespread coral bleaching over the past year
Maribo's been quiet the past few months because of field work, other research, the Canadian summer and a major case of blog exhaustion. I may be inspired to write more on the exhaustion issue later, we'll see.
In the meantime: Last year, I mentioned that several parts of the Indo-Pacific were at risk of coral bleaching in the coming year. The same El Nino event that melted the Vancouver Olympics and weakened last year's Atlantic hurricane season, did indeed cause coral bleaching across the Central Equatorial Pacific from October through the spring. We're still putting together the data for Kiribati (home of this whimsical coral).
The Pacific since sloshed back towards more neutral or La Nina conditions, the unusual warmth has been pushed to the western Pacific and Asia, leading to bleaching in Thailand, Malaysia and other parts of SE Asia. Add it all up, and 2010, which the data shows may end up being the warmest or second year in the observed temperature record, may end up also having the most extensive bleaching since 1998.
The management response in Malaysia is impressive. The Department of Marine Parks has banned diving in several popular dive sites in order to give the reefs the best chance to recover (the Telegraph):
"We expect [the corals] to recover or at least improve." Mr Abdul Jamal said The Department of Marine Parks claimed the damaged coral was solely the result of rising sea temperatures and not tourism activities.
However, Mr Abdul Jamal explained that by banning diving, the coral will be given time to regenerate naturally. The closures are likely to affect tourism revenue over the summer, but authorities argue the priority is to safeguard one of the country's main attractions – its coral reefs.
Will this ensure the coral reefs recover to the previous state? No, but it increases the odds. Short of covering the entire reef with a sheet, you can't really stop a bleaching event. But you can manage the system to encourage recovery. This is the type of management - of climate change adaptation - that many of us in the community have argued is necessary to help coral reefs survive the predicted warming over the coming decades.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
"I think the sun has come closer to our island"
(why it is warmer and the copra dries faster than in the old days, according to a 97-year old Kiribati unimwane or elder)
The quote came to me second hand, via Kiribati religious leader I met while conducted a field project in the Central and Northern Gilbert Islands. It comes with the usual caveats about translation and the accuracy of anecdotal climate observations.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Record warmth continues in March
The unprecedented warmth across Canada stands out in the NOAA global temperature map for March. But Canada was not alone. According to NOAA's data, this was the warmest March and the fourth warmest January - March in recorded history.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Climate change and human rights
I had a nice long interview about different aspects of climate change with human rights expert Darren Thorne as part of a new podcast series Human Rights and Wrongs, hosted by the Mark. As always, feedback and comments are welcome.
[Update] On the podcast, we discuss the pitfalls of Canada relying on the US to determine climate policy. One of the problems is that it may be a long wait. From the Globe and Mail:
Environment Minister Jim Prentice is signalling further delays in imposing greenhouse gas emission standards on the oil sector and other industries, saying Ottawa does not want to lose jobs and investment by driving activity out of the country.
The Conservative government is waiting for the United States to decide how it will impose climate-change regulations before acting here. And the U.S. Congress could take up to two years to pass legislation that sets caps on greenhouse gas emissions, Mr. Prentice told a Senate committee Thursday.
Add the delay to the fact that the whatever US legislation is produced will be tailored to the US economy (i.e. provide loopholes for industries that are more prominent in the US than in Canada), and there's even more reason to pursue a national strategy.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
The Mark: Why U.S. environmentalists should support offshore drilling
Last week, President Obama shocked environmentalists by opening millions of acres of the American continental shelf to oil and gas drilling. The announcement reminded me of a backpacking trip I took to Malaysian Borneo several years ago.
Read more at the Mark.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Pod science: PRI's The World Science
For all those lamenting the decline of science journalism in print and on television, its worth checking out the growing number of science podcasts.
One great example is Public Radio International's The World: Science hosted by Rhitu Chaterjee. The show has a more global focus than most other programs, including some recent interviews with young inventors in India and this week's discussion of the international politics of geoengineering. The show also features a fun segment on the music that scientists listen to while they work. The music segment features yours truly this week, but don't hold that against the show!
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Tongue-tied on global warming
A few days ago, I waded into the old "global warming" vs. "climate change" debate to demonstrate a simple point about public communication.
The issue at hand is not which term is most appropriate. Of course, there is a legitimate argument to be had on that question. Michael Tobis intelligently advocates for climate change, as do most scientists. Others argue that the two terms describe different phenomena and should not be used interchangeably.
These arguments highlight the very disconnect between scientists and the public that I was getting at in the initial post. I'll obnoxiously quote myself:
Rights and wrongs of the different labels aside, the fact is that there is a disconnect here. We use a term that means less to people. And it puts scientists and others communicating the real scientific consensus at a disadvantage.
Too often, we are oblivious to the way the public perceives science. And if we do see the disconnect between scientific and public language (or style), we tend to stubbornly insist that our language (or style) is the only correct option. This only exacerbates the problem. High-minded debates about semantics like the phrase-ology certainly won't diminish the common view that academics and scientists are disconnected from reality.
Should we suspend those debates? Of course not. But let's save our energy for the more critical issues. We also shouldn't allow semantic debate to get in the way of public communication, as the Google search history I showed suggests may be the case. Like many scientists, I not wild about the terms global warming or ocean acidification or ozone hole; but if the price of increasing public understanding of the science is occassionally having to say one term instead of another, well, that's a pretty good deal.
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Coal ship runs aground on Great Barrier Reef
Ironic, yes. Why bother with that whole slow process of burning the coal and oil, then having to wait for the emitted CO2 to change the climate and alter the ocean chemistry, thus threatening corals that are the cornerstone of the Great Barrier Reef, when you can just ram a ship right into the reef itself?
From the Onion New York Times:
BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- A coal-carrying ship that strayed outside a shipping lane and ran aground in protected waters was leaking oil on Australia's Great Barrier Reef and was in danger of breaking apart, officials said Sunday.
Saturday, April 03, 2010
Global warming trumps climate change?
So much of the online climate "debate" is about effective communication, not science. Earlier this week, I met with a public opinion expert who critiqued the way many scientists and environmental groups speak about, er, climate change, no global warming, maybe the climate crisis, global heating, countdown to a meltdown, springtime for CO2, waterworld, the greatest threat facing humanity, well, you know what I mean.
The expert raised example after example of scientists, NGOs, government, etc. shooting themselves in the foot while talking about, um, the impact of human activity on the climate system. Take the oldest argument of them all: global warming or climate change?
At right is the Google trends graph of average worldwide searches for global warming (in blue) and climate change (in red). The top graph is standard Google searches, the bottom graph is news references.
The graph shows that "global warming" is far more common a search term. The average person is more likely to use and recognize the label "global warming", as evidenced by the search volume. But "climate change" appears more often in the news. Why? In no small part because all the writers, and especially all the people quoted in the articles, say "climate change".
Now, we can argue the semantics of the different terms. Generally, scientists reject the term "global warming", because it is not used in the literature and supposedly "less accurate" because the entire planet is not warming at the same rate. I've used that argument many times, and now wonder if it may be a mistake to do so (as has been pointed out to me, "global" simply implies the whole planet is warming, which is true!).
Rights and wrongs of the different labels aside, the fact is that there is a disconnect here. We use a term that means less to people. And it puts scientists and others communicating the real scientific consensus at a disadvantage. Do a Google search for "global warming" and "climate change". With "global warming", the term the public is more likely to use, a "skeptical" site comes up second [note: search is done from Canada, others may find different results].
Monday, March 29, 2010
An update to the provincial greenhouse gas targets
The government of Saskatchewan is working on a greenhouse gas policy that includes an target of a 20% reduction in emissions below 2006 levels by 2020. That translates to a 31% increase over 1990 levels (the Kyoto / UNFCCC baseline), because emissions increased 63% between 1990 and 2006 due primarily to mining and resource development. The target on the previous chart was calculated using older information.
This demonstrates that choice of base year for a federal opt-in program could be contentious, as Saskatchewan is unlikely to participate if the minimum acceptable target in the federal program is calculated using a 1990 baseline.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Climate policy on campus: UBC sets aggressive greenhouse gas targets
This is an example of how a climate policy framework can inspire the motivated.
The University of British Columbia (my institution) just adopted very aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets including a 33% reduction (below 2007 levels) by 2015.
Why? To set an example, for one. The other reason?
Under the province of British Columbia's system, all public institutions have to be carbon-neutral by the end of this year. That's virtually impossible for most institutions so UBC and other public institutions will be paying into a provincial offsets fund.
I do trust that independent of the BC climate policy, UBC is motivated to take action of greenhouse gas emissions. The policy gave the university the necessary nudge. That's the crux of my federal "opt-in" proposal. Nudge the willing.
The opt-in climate policy for Canada: Some details
Since people are asking, here's a little bit of background on my climate policy proposal in the Mark.
I trust that to many an "optional" climate policy smells fishy, like setting voluntary targets that companies or jurisdictions will then volunteer to ignore. There are three critical distinctions.
First, this policy is designed to mobilize willing participants.
Second, the provinces in the program will each have set binding, not voluntary, targets. The participation is voluntary, but once a province opts in, it is bound to the target.
Third, a point echoed nicely by Barry Saxifrage, the provincially revenue-neutral carbon tax means that participating provinces, though bound to the federal system, would otherwise have some freedom (financially) in achieving the target.
The current government is quietly awaiting a decision from the U.S. Negotiations are ongoing in the US Senate. There is no guarantee that any of the Senate bills will a) pass given current disagreements, b) be any more acceptable to the provinces with carbon-intensive industries like Alberta than any previous federal or international proposals, or c) gel with current plans in the more active provinces. And many of the programs in the existing Senate bills would not take effect for several years. Why not set a Canadian policy, one that mobilizes the very real and current enthusiasm for action in much of the country, now? If the US does eventually pass a Bill that is in the best interests of Canada and the climate, we can adapt our program to be compatible with that of the US.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The Mark: A new climate change policy for Canada
My proposal for a compromise deal that could break the long stalemate between Alberta and the other provinces on climate change appears in the Mark.
The compromise solution is an “opt-in” federal climate change program. The program would include a range of existing and proposed policy instruments, like a carbon tax that is revenue-neutral at the provincial level, targeted tax incentives or rebates for efficiency measures, and feed-in tariffs for renewable energy.
The key is that in order to join the program, a province would need to adopt an emissions target that meets or exceeds some minimum federal target. If, for example, the minimum was the U.S. target adopted by the Harper government, nine of the ten provinces would be eligible.
The level of access to the federal dollars in the program would be pro-rated to that province’s emissions target. Failure to achieve the target would lead to reimbursement of the federal program. If Alberta, or another province like Saskatchewan, elected not to participate, there would be no direct cost or punishment. Provinces outside the system could still negotiate targeted federal investments to support emissions reductions, like support for carbon capture and storage research.
Canada has been arguing about climate policy since the mid-1990s, and there is still no federal plan. This compromise could get the willing provinces working together to reduce emissions.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The warmest, driest winter on record in Canada
According to Environment Canada, the winter of 2009/10 was the warmest and the driest since national records were kept in 1948. The country was 4.0 C warmer and 22% drier than "normal", which for those of you scoring at home, is the 1971-2000 1951-1980 mean.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Meditations on climate change "skepticism"
The radio program "Are we alone?" from the SETI Institute does a regular series on skepticism in science. This week's show looks at climate change skepticism and features a terrific interview with Steve Schneider, as well as some thoughts from Naomi Oreskes. Former Apollo astronaut Phil Chapman offers his reasons for being a "skeptic", including the rather crazy unscientific claim that the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide may be natural. Rather than present climate scientist and skeptic as a journalistic he-said, she-said, the show lets the scientific experts on the subject explain where the less informed "skeptic" is wrong. As I've argued many times, it's worth thinking about the motivation behind skepticism and the genesis of skeptical arguments, faulty as they may be, in order to improve outreach and communication.
I'm on later in the program discussing coral bleaching and ocean acidification.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Will Coral Reefs Disappear? Results from AAAS Symposium
The talks on the role different bioeroders, carbonate budgets, and a Bermuda case study, lent support Silverman's results. Aline Tribollet's work on "microborers" that erode reefs and Kim Yates work on carbonate sediments suggested that Silverman's model could be a bit conservative. Andreas Andersson's work showed that Bermuda's high latitude reefs may be one of the canaries in the carbonate coal mine.
The headline may give the mistaken impression that there could be absolutely no coral rock left on the planet in 2100. Under the high CO2 conditions, the results suggest reefs would be dissolving faster than they build, leading to reductions in habitat complexity ("flattening" of reefs) over time. Add in the warming-induced bleaching reducing the living coral cover, and by 750 ppm CO2, reached in 2100 in a business-as-usual scenario, the area of living, calcifying reef will be negligible. If theses projections are correct, there will still be dead reef - i.e. rock - but it will be on net weakening and dissolving.
In the Guardian article, I'm quoted as saying "Even if we froze emissions today, the planet still has some warming left in it. That's enough to make bleaching dangerously frequent in reefs worldwide". That line comes from the results of this study published in PLoS-One last year - it's open access, so anyone can download a copy. The important caveat is that acclimation and adaptation by corals could postpone the forecast. For more on those dynamics, I recommend reading this post or the article itself.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Highlights of AAAS: Communicating science
The best line at the AAAS meeting came from Steve Schneider in a talk on science communication:
“Science is not a democracy. Quality trumps equality.”
It is a fantastic accurate description of the difference between the practice of science and the “balanced” approach to media coverage, from one of the best at coming up with analogies to explain climate science.
The fact that it took me three days to decide to post that line because of fears it would be misconstrued or abused – "Breaking News: Top climate scientist is a socialist" or "Fascism at top science conference" – says as much (about the current media environment) as the quote itself.
More highlights to come.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Will Coral Reefs Disappear? Symposium on Sunday at AAAS
The symposium Will Coral Reefs Disappear? Separating Fact from Conjecture takes place on Sunday at 1:30 pm at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This session examines the chemical, biological, and physical factors that control reef growth, and how climate change and ocean acidification are likely to affect these processes. I'll be delivering a talk on climate change and coral bleaching events, touching on the impacts on coral cover, potential for adaptation, and whether coral communities learn from past experience.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Spring Olympics: Vancouver is not always this mild
For all the East Coast-ers thinking that January and February in always spring-like in Vancouver:
This is a highly unusual winter, warmer than most would expect from a moderate El Nino event. So far this year, every single day in Vancouver has been warmer than "normal", using the Environment Canada definition of normal. Every day in January exceeded the 1971-2000 January mean temperature is 3.3 deg C. So far, every day in February has exceeded the 1971-2000 February mean temperature of 4.8 deg C. When the Canadian athletes paraded into the snowy white BC Place last night, it was 9 degrees and raining.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
The Vancouver Winter Olympics: A climatic photo essay
Welcome to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Spring Olympics. These photos were all taken by yours truly this week. Enjoy the cherry blossoms and crocuses, courtesy of our changing friend El Nino.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Groundhog Day: six more weeks of climate change debates?
Thank you for sticking with Maribo during the unannounced hiatus over the past seven weeks or so.
This blog started a few years back as an effort to reach people who were not otherwise actively reading or thinking about climate change. I'd imagined the audience as people like the old friends and family that don't follow the climate news but do pepper me with questions about the state of the science or the politics whenever I'm visiting. Over time, Maribo, like most other climate-focused blogs became enveloped in the online game of whack-a-mole between the 20% of the internet-savvy population that is actively concerned about climate change and angry about the lack of action, and another 20% who see climate change as conspiracy cooked up by Al Gore. The battles may be necessary to stamp out the egregious mistakes and misrepresentations that permeate the internet and the daily news (*). The battles are also tiresome.
I'd like to get back to thinking about the other 60% of the population. I've been working on new ideas and venues for outreach which may involve a re-imagining of Maribo and/or a venture into other media. Keep checking Maribo for updates and feel free to send along ideas and suggestions.
Thanks,
Simon
* The mistakes and misrepresentations, I should add, can come from the "skeptics" and the irrational "alarmists" among the climate change activists; human-created emissions of greenhouse gases are warming the planet, despite what the "skeptics" might say, but it is not going to drive us to extinction, as I hear far too often.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
2C or not 2C: Copenhagen and global temperature threshold (Part II)
In the previous post, we discussed the origin of the 2 deg C threshold for dangerous impacts of climate change.
An example is happening at Copenhagen. The Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) and the Caribbean nations are lobbying for establishing a warming limit of 1.5 C rather than 2C. The real-world value of setting a temperature threshold notwithstanding, the AOSIS position demonstrates that the acceptable limit of warming is a value judgment based on scientific results rather than an immutable law of nature.
Why 1.5 degrees C, rather than 2C? The argument is based on the effect that sea level rise (and storm surge height) and coral reef degradation from bleaching and acidification would have on the economy and society.
Monday, December 14, 2009
2C or not 2C: Copenhagen and global temperature threshold (Part 1)
Media coverage of climate change often gives the impression the world’s scientific community all met and firmly established that the warming beyond +2 degrees C is dangerous to the future of society.
The planet does not have one clear "dangerous" temperature threshold. Two things needs to be explained clearly. First, the definition of dangerous climate change or unacceptable climate change is a normative choice. That choice could be based on analyses of scientific results but it is not a direct outcome of the science. Second, even if society could agree on one definition of "dangerous", climate science could not possibly produce one exact temperature threshold (e.g. 2 deg C), rather a frequency distribution of possible values. Besides, if climate science could produce an exact number, it would be an amazing coincidence that the number turned out to be an integer.
The precise evolution of 2 degC towards its exalted status in the media is a bit of a mystery to me – I’m sure some of the readers have followed these developments in more detail, and their comments on the subject are welcome. It more or less began with efforts by scientists to define climate change impacts that could be construed as dangerous under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The common list of "dangerous" is the loss of major ice sheets, slowing of the thermohaline circulation, drops in food production, triggering a positive feedback like the release of methane from clathrates in ocean sediments, or loss of a major ecosystem like coral reefs.
Researchers tend to focus on physical and seemingly non-linear impacts like ice sheet melt rather than biological and gradual impacts like drops in food production or drops in biodiversity. True, there’s no ethical or scientific reason we should value sea level more than biodiversity or food production. In terms of policy, however, it is a more useful metric because we’re more likely to agree on whether losing the Greenland ice sheet is dangerous than what percent change in crop yields or biodiversity is dangerous. As well, future food production is fraught with technological, demographic and ethical uncertainties – although one could certainly argue the same is true for sea level.
Science can provide guidance for decision makers by projecting the impacts of different levels of warming, albeit with error bars. Beyond 2 deg C, paleo-climate results suggest possible long-term melting of the Greenland and /or West Antarctic Ice Sheets; studies have also pointed to the potential methane feedbacks and the degradation of the world’s coral reefs occurring at around 2 C.
But science alone cannot declare the "right" policy decision. Even such seemingly black-and-white definitions of dangerous like the loss of coral reefs or major ice sheets involve a normative judgment. Much of the world, for example, may decide that the productivity of coral reefs is acceptable collateral damage – it’s certainly possible that we’ve already inadvertently chosen that path. Although my colleagues and I who study the value of coral reefs to tropical cultures are likely to seriously disagree with such a decision to allow harmful impacts to reefs, we recognize (at least I do) that there is no immutable right or wrong policy decision that can emerge purely from our scientific results. Policy decisions need to consider real-world trade-offs that are often ignored by scientific analysis.
In sum, the oft-cited line that 2 degrees C is “what scientists conclude the world needs to avoid” is inaccurate. For one, the scientists disagree (Part II, coming soon). Moreover, though many of us may wish otherwise, the threshold can and should not emerge solely from science.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Turning down the volume (re-post)
This post from five months ago seems more apropos at this time:
While I was doing field work in Kiribati a few weeks ago, I started reading Voltaire’s Bastards, the 1992 polemic by Canadian philosopher John Ralston Saul about the failure of reason in western society. You know, some light reading for the beach.
Saul steps back from the sniping between right and left to ask whether our deference to reason and structure has created an unthinking, technocratic society. It’s amazing this book was written before the internet transformed communications and before politics became a marketing exercise. This quote, speaking about how things of changed since the time of John Locke, could be talking about the inanity of the online debates between climate skeptics:
Facts at that time were such rare nuggets that no one realized how they would multiply. Everyone believed them to be solid and inanimate – to be true fact. No one yet understood that life would become an uncomfortable, endless walk down a seashore laid thick with facts of all sizes and shapes. Boulders, pebbles, shards, perfect ovals. No one had begun to imagine that these facts were without any order, impose or natural – that facts were as meaningful as raw vocabulary without grammar or sentences. A man could pick up any fact he wished and fling it into the sea and make it skip. A practiced, talented arm could make it skip three, perhaps four times, while a lesser limb might make a single plunk with the same concrete proof of some truth or other. Another man might build with these facts some sort of fortress on the shore.
As for Locke, he certainly did not think that facts would rapidly become the weapons, not only of good men but of evil mean, not only of truth but of lies.
Gavin Schmidt over at Real Climate has a terrific post about the repetitive spiral of blogging. In his case, the subject is debunking the climate skeptics. The basic conceit could apply to blogging as a whole. The popular politic blogs suffer from a more severe case of this affliction, rehashing the same issues over and over again, creating an urgency that often does not exist in reality.
...
Thanks to technology, anyone armed with either a few good sound-bites or an important sounding title can become an expert these days (link to IPCC “expert reviewer”). We end up with these shouting matches, on air and online, with both sides throwing out numbers and figures without any real context. The good lines, sound-bite or video clip enter the echo-chamber and get repeated, cited or linked over and over again. And voila, the steadily increasing ratio of commentary to original research and reporting.
This craziness is why we should appreciate institutions like the IPCC. With this all war of context-free facts, figures and soundbites being fought 24 hours a day, 365.25 days a year, sound summaries of the actual original research are more necessary than ever.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
The path of climate science and the dissenting views
A scientific finding is not necessarily correct just because it appears in the peer-reviewed literature. There are a number of reasons. For one, not all journals are created equal. Some have less stringent review process. Some are more willing to accept papers from outside the editorial board's field of expertise or mandate. It's also important to remember that our scientific knowledge develops over time through trial and error via experiments done in the field, in the lab and on computers. Any one paper, no matter the author, no matter the journal, is not the law on a subject.
The trajectory of the publications and accumulated knowledge on a subject is going to be a better measure of scientific knowledge than the existence of one contrary publication, much like the multi-decadal temperature trends is a better indicator of what's happening to the climate than one year's weather.
A news story, I won't bother to link to the story, cited this list of "450 peer-reviewed papers supported skepticism of man-made global warming".
There are a few publications in well-respected scientific journals on the list. The large majority of those do not actually question the role of human activity in climate, rather point to complexity of climate change or the policy options(e.g. Zeebe et al. 2009 in Nature Geoscience). A large number are published editorials that do not actually contain any science. Many are from Energy and the Environment, a journal which advertises for papers skeptical of climate change, or Climate Research, where editors resigned because of a breakdown in the peer review process. And there are also papers from "Irrigation and Drainage", "Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology", "Latvian Journal of Physics and Technical Sciences", "New Concepts in Plate Tectonics", "Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons", "Iron and Steel Technology" and "The Electricity Journal".
The list is being used to claim that there is widespread disagreement among scientists disagree about climate change. It is actually evidence for the exact opposite. Even if you included all 450 papers as relevant, critical analyses of the evidence for human influence on the climate, they would represent a minute fraction of the papers published on climate change in the past thirty years. In that way, it is evidence that the accumulated knowledge has led in another direction.
There's also a more common sense way to think about this list. If there really was so much disagreement about climate change in the scientific community, would the people who compiled this list needed to have included the articles from "Iron and Steel Technology" and "Topics in Catalysis"?
Monday, December 07, 2009
One reason the US climate bill will pass
Today the US EPA announced its intention to pursue regulations on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Don't overlook this development. The only thing that carbon-intensive industries and senators from carbon-intensive states hate more than the US climate bill would be the EPA regulating carbon dioxide.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
The Climategate positive feedback loop
I've avoided writing about "climategate" because of the artificial nature of the "scandal".
There is certainly a need to reduce tribalism in the scientific community (not just climate science!), improve peer review and improve the assessment process - I'll cheer those initiatives with enthusiasm.
That's not why the hackers released those emails were released online. The timing of the online publication of those e-mails were no fluke. The goal was to create a grand diversion from the important policy issues of the day. From the Times of London:
The computer was hacked repeatedly, the source close to the investigation said: “It was hacked into in October and possibly earlier. Then they gained access again in mid-November.” By not releasing the e-mails until two weeks before Copenhagen, the hacker ensured that the debate about them would rage during the summit. Very few of the e-mails are recent. One, in which Professor Jones mentions a “trick” which could “hide the decline” in temperatures, was sent in 1999.
Bob Ward, director of policy at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, based at the London School of Economics, said: “From the timing of the release of the e-mails, it seems that the intention was not just to inform the public but to undermine mainstream climate researchers and influence the process in Copenhagen.”
Many scientists are now offering eloquent public explanations for the problems with some scientific practice and the assessment process. Terrific, but only in the abstract.
The problem is the impression given by a public blood letting. Climate scientists, people who trained in the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, realize that regardless of issues with how some scientists conduct and publicize their work, all the basic concepts are still solid. That's not true for everyone else. So by constantly questioning scientific practice in public forums, it gives people the mistaken impressions there is dissension about the basic concepts, no matter how many caveats are then offered about strength of our understanding of the basic concepts (caveats just make it look like you're dodging the truth!). Good intentions aside, it is fueling public misconceptions about science and feeding the 24-7 scandal machine.
Perhaps the hackers understand climate dynamics better than we assume; they sure knew how to initiate a positive feedback.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Huge disparity in emissions targets within Canada
Basically, the hydro-based and manufacturing-based provinces (the east and BC) are willing to be aggressive in reducing emissions and the more resource-intensive provinces are either reticent (Saskatchewan) or downright hostile (Alberta).
The objective of this post is not to dump on Alberta or the oil industry, rather to point out just how large the disagreement is within Canada. The huge disparity between the Alberta policy and that of all the other provinces does raise the question about what it is realistic for Canada. If, say, Alberta refuses to budge on its oil expansion and emissions plan, could neighbouring BC even come close to its reduction target? Keep in mind, a substantial quantity of the planned oil extraction may end up being piped across and refined in BC in order to be shipped to Asia.
