Contents of the IPCC Sythesis Report Summary for Policymakers

For those not familiar with it, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up in 1988 to write periodic assessments of the state of climate science. Its goal is to produce policy-neutral reports that inform policymakers about the best thinking of the scientific community. These reports have tremendous impact on the debate, owing to the credibility of the IPCC process.

The IPCC is actually split into three working groups. Working group 1 focuses on basic climate science, working group 2 focuses on the impacts of climate change and human adaptation to it, and working group 3 focuses on mitigation efforts (efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions). In 2007, as part of the IPCC's fourth assessment report, each of the three working groups issued a report (e.g., see here for a discussion of the working group 1 report).

Now comes the final part of the fourth assessment report: the synthesis report. This report ties together the three working group reports in an effort to create a single unified picture of what we know about climate change.

Guess what happens when communities cough up cash?

Earlier today, we met with three folks from the Great Rivers Greenway District in St. Louis. Their organization owes its...

Land-use policy is not a laughing matter

It was just a fleeting moment amid the hours of presidential debate that have taken place through this longest of...

Delayers are replacing deniers

There's been some hand wringing about the fact that science does not have the traction it should in the political debate over climate change.

This is the genesis of the framing argument, most recently pushed by Chris Mooney and Matt Nisbet. Basically, this thesis says that scientists need to put their scientific results into a "frame" that allows the general public to better understand how to interpret their results.

I've never particularly liked "framing," and here's one reason: I think that the scientific community has been extremely effective at getting the word out about climate change.

Look at this article:

On Lieberman-Warner, long-term emissions targets, and picking a trajectory

I’ve heard quite a bit of protest about the fact that the Lieberman-Warner climate bill’s long-term target — 70 percent...

Fossil-friendly biz groups send letter to Senate requesting reversal of Supreme Court decision

Today, an extraordinary letter about the energy bill was sent to the U.S. Senate by a coalition of business groups...

The Congressional Budget Office savages the Lieberman-Warner approach to climate change pol

America’s Climate Security Act, the Senate climate bill offered by Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.), offers enormous giveaways...

Why has Gore suddenly left the country?

There’s been some blogospheric buzz over this item on the San Fran Chronicle blog. Al Gore was going to appear...

What a fossil-fuel free agriculture might look like

At some point in the future, humanity will have to produce its food without the help of fossil fuels and without destroying the soil. In a well-researched and succinct new essay, "What will we eat as the oil runs out?", Richard Heinberg analyzes the main problems with the global agricultural system, and proposes a solution: a global organic food system.

Heinberg lays out four major dilemmas of the current system:

The direct impacts on agriculture of higher oil prices: increased costs for tractor fuel, agricultural chemicals, and the transport of farm inputs and outputs ... the increased demand for biofuels ... the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events caused by fuel-based greenhouse gas emissions...[and] the degradation or loss of basic natural resources (principally, topsoil and fresh water supplies) as a result of high rates, and unsustainable methods, of production stimulated by decades of cheap energy.

He then goes into more detail concerning these four horsemen of the agricultural apocalypse, and shows how, even now, these crises are leading to a decrease in global food production.

Later in this post I will propose a thought experiment solution, based on Heinberg's solution of a fossil fuel-free agriculture: