Even though written from a biased perspective, with comments such as “raving from a fringe minority”, this article speaks clearly to things like the absurdity of the Catlin Artic Ice Survey. It used tremendous amounts of fuel (and left fuel depots on the ice yet to be retrieved) compared the the simple flyover in a DC-3 by German researchers at the Wegener Institute to measure ice thickness.
Then there’s the new “Deep Black” supercomputer being installed by the UK Met Office that will use 1.2 megawatts of power to run climate models.
That’s enough to power a small city
Yet there’s “no shame” in any of this as long as its being done to “save the earth”. Even though Mr. Brook is on the other side of the argument from me, I’m glad to see I’m not the only one that wonders about these “do as I say, not as I do” things. – Anthony
Ignoring the Elephant in the Room:
The Carbon Footprint of Climate Change Research
by Ryan K. Brook from ARCTIC VOL. 62, NO. 1 (JUNE 2009) P. 253–255
http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic62-2-253.pdf
Despite some ongoing raving from a fringe minority of attention seekers and professional refuters funded by the oil companies, most scientists now accept that climate change is a reality and that human activity is the root cause (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007; Jacques et al., 2008). Many scientists have worked tirelessly to ensure the science is solid, and each new study contributes to understanding the big picture. In all of this, scientists should be immensely proud. Global efforts to convince the general public that climate change is a reality and that our collective actions need to change have been much less successful. Perhaps this failure stems from the misguided notion that climate change is really only an environmental issue, not a social problem.
It seems that while the general public is now much more aware of climate change and its potential impacts than ever before, perhaps the majority believe that global warming is still in debate and that scientists are far from reaching a consensus. For example, a recent poll in the United States found that only 41% of respondents blame global warming on human activity. Even worse, despite some important success stories, there has been a global failure to respond with real reductions in carbon dioxide output. In 2008, a poll of 12 000 citizens in 11 countries, including Canada, found that only 47% were prepared to make personal lifestyle changes to reduce carbon emissions, which is actually a decrease from the 58% willing to do so in 2007. Canada signed and ratified the Kyoto Accord with strong public support, yet it has failed miserably in reaching even these modest goals (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2009). The United States, on the other hand, signed and then promptly ignored Kyoto. Some European countries have led inspirational initiatives, and there are definitely some bright lights throughout the world, but globally we are losing the battle to control carbon output. Badly.
If the science of climate change is so compelling and the risks of maintaining the status quo are so overwhelming (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007), why is the message not translating into meaningful action? One reason, I believe, is that the scientists sounding the alarm are, in fact, part of the problem because we are saying “Do as I say, not as I do.” Scientists who study climate change, especially in the polar regions, have large carbon footprints themselves. By not openly discussing this issue and actively addressing it, we seriously undermine our credibility andour message. Of course, there is no question that the science is absolutely essential and that the data generated will have significant positive impacts on our understanding of climate change and development of policy and mitigation strategies.
But it is increasingly difficult to make a convincing case for how serious the problem is when we, ironically, are doing little to reduce our own research-related carbon footprint. Perhaps most troubling is the almost total absence of dialogue among researchers on this issue.
I think we are generally aware of the vast amount of carbon our research produces, but most of us have not done much to reduce our CO2 production or even calculated its amount. Like most scientists working in polar regions, I travel a great deal throughout the Arctic to do research and teaching, as well as to conferences and meetings in the south.
Recently a student of mine calculated the carbon footprint for a course I teach in the Arctic, and the numbers were sobering. For a research team of 20 people, calculating only the propane and gasoline used in our remote camp on the Hudson Bay coast for one week and the helicopter fuel needed for the short 40 km flights in and out, we produced 3500 kg of CO2.
For the purposes of this essay, I estimated my carbon footprint for helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft use, including commercial travel to get north and travel to four North American conferences annually over the last decade. On average, I have produced 8300 kg of CO2 per year through research alone. I suspect that my total is about average, if not on the low side, compared to other researchers.
For comparison, the average citizen living in Toronto produces about the same amount of CO2 per year in daily life (8600 kg) as I do in my research alone. In the global picture, the total amount of CO2 produced by all scientists is relatively small, but it is the perceptions created by scientists who travel extensively in helicopters, planes, and large ships to do research that has an influential impact on the general public and their willingness to make personal changes. An important first step is calculating our individual research footprint; a far more challenging step is to do something about it.
How can we argue to the world that reducing CO2 output is so important if we are not willing to undertake change on our own? Yet how can we reduce our use of fossil fuels while still conducting research and monitoring in the North? Clearly these are not easy questions to answer, but it is time to start thinking and talking about them. The International Polar Year (IPY) has led to a vast number of training opportunities for graduate students who will form the next cohort of northern scientists. I fear that the science community as a whole is not doing enough to recognize the impacts that we are having through our research activities, and there is an immediate need to identify ways to reduce our negative impacts and take ownership of the issue. Will our inaction result in future scientists who also ignore the issue and do nothing?
Lately, I have been raising the issue of carbon footprints and what should be done about them with colleagues, but surprisingly, carbon production from research and the possibility of offsets doesn’t seem to be on the radar of many. When I inquired about buying offsets, most were quick to dismiss them as a sham. Indeed, there do seem to be some issues with offsets, and it is clearly more effective to deal with emissions at the source rather than absorb them later or stop them somewhere else (Wright, 2007; Galik and Jackson, 2009). But offsets are one tangible way to start at least discussing the issue and working toward viable solutions. I also inquired several times to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to seek some leadership on this issue, but of these only NSERC responded and had no advice, ideas, or support to offer. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, there is virtually no general dialogue or leadership on the issue of researchers’ carbon footprints. It would seem that the leadership will have to come from within.
When I talked with a colleague in the ecotourism industry, who also has a large carbon footprint, it quickly became clear that many in the tourism industry are way out front on this issue. He had built offsets into programs and said that cap-and-trade requirements will soon become a part of how business is usually done. The David Suzuki Foundation has already produced a comprehensive, practical guide to help businesses reduce and offset greenhouse gas emissions (David Suzuki Foundation, 2008), and many similar resources are available worldwide. The World Business Summit on Climate Change, held in Copenhagen at the end of May 2009, also planned to emphasize discussions on low-carbon options for business and facilitate conversation regarding business action on climate impacts (Copenhagen Climate Council, 2009). So if the business sector can become organized around quantifying and mitigating carbon footprints, what can the science community do to catch up? Better yet, what might we do to become leaders in this? Scientists could begin to provide leadership on this issue by sharing data about their carbon footprints and perspectives on how to reduce them. We can also share our collective experience in ways to minimize reliance on fossil fuels during travel and fieldwork, as there have been some important success stories (Figs. 1 and 2a, b). We can also minimize the number and extent of our trips and work collaboratively with northern communities to collect the data we need (Fig. 3).
The International Polar Year has facilitated much greater collaboration with northern people and has built capacity for community-based research and monitoring. Meetings held using video-conferencing and other technologies can both lower carbon output and save money. The year 2009 may be an important milestone in climate change action, with the United Nations Climate Change Conference fast approaching. This conference, to be held in Copenhagen in December, represents an exciting opportunity for scientists to emerge as leaders, not only in the science of climate change, but also in the process of recognizing and reducing carbon footprints.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thank Susan Kutz, Leanne Niblock, and Murray Gillespie
for insightful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript and
Celes Davar of Earth Rhythms for his thoughtful perspective.
My research is currently funded by the Nasivvik Centre for Inuit
Health and Changing Environments, the Department of Ecosystem
and Public Health in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at
the University of Calgary, the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada PromoScience Program, and
an International Polar Year grant to the CircumArctic Rangifer
Monitoring and Assessment Network.
REFERENCES
Copenhagen Climate Council. 2009. World Business Summit
on Climate Change, 24 – 26 May, Copenhagen. http://www.
copenhagenclimatecouncil.com.
David Suzuki Foundation. 2008. Doing business in a new climate:
A guide to measuring, reducing and offsetting greenhouse
gas emissions. www.davidsuzuki.org/Publications/Doing_
Business_in_a_New_Climate.aspx.
Galik, C.S., and Jackson, R.B. 2009. Risks to forest carbon offset
projects in a changing climate. Forest Ecology and Management
257:2209 – 2216.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2007. Climate
change 2007: Synthesis report. www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/
index.htm.
Jacques, P.J., Dunlap, R.E., and Freeman, R. 2008. The organisation
of denial: Conservative think tanks and environmental
scepticism. Environmental Politics 17:349 – 385.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
2009. Kyoto protocol status of ratification. http://unfccc.int/
files/kyoto_protocol/status_of_ratification/application/pdf/
kp_ratification.pdf.
Wright, M. 2007. Carbon offsets deliver where it matters. BBC
News: Viewpoint, 23 July. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/
tech/6912336.stm.
Ryan Brook is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Ecosystem
and Public Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, at the
University of Calgary (rkbrook@ucalgary.ca). He has worked in
northern Canada for the last 16 years and is currently focusing
on community-based caribou research.
What a bunch of machine generated bloviation ! I know people who can write a program that will write an endless string of Haydn Symphonies; maybe even Mozart Symphonies; but certainly not Brahms or Mahler Symphonies.
I’m sure they can generate the like of the above Bovine Scat to order, to fit any form of information outlet from Parents Magazine, to Scientific American and Barron’s Weekly; not to mention modern elecronic media.
Do they not realize how lame brained you need to be to trot out this oil company drivel, when it can easily be shown that that the freebie government handout of Taxpayer earned funds to otherwise unemployed out of work “scientists” simply dwarfs what all the energy companies on earth spend on climate research. And energy companies do spend a lot, because they need to know how much of what fuels to manufacture during what season to utilize the resource in the most efficient way; So they really need to knwo what weather and climate is REALLY going to do to steer their way through endless red tape so they can continue in the energy business.
If you are a climatologist/AGW believer, put your money where you mouth is, and eschew fossil fuel consumption immediately; not next week; but drive your car home tonight and park it, and get out your bike.
Stop eating meat and rice, and other resource wasting foods; don’t buy foods that are trucked into some local mart by dieslel smelly truck; grow your own in your own chemical free garden; organic food, unless you know how to make actual inorganic food so you don’t have to kill either animals or plants; make it out of rocks like mother nature does,a dndon’t use anything but renewable green energy in the process.
No matter how much daily news there is reporting all the lastest instances of nothing untoward happening anywhere on earth; these people keep on trotting out 30 year old garbage and predictions, as if nothing has happened to show that so far none of those predictions; sorry projections has come to pass.
Who was it that first said that insanity is keeping on doing the same thing and expecting to get a different outcome. Well we have kept on doing the same thing pretty much for the entire duration of the recent temporary episode of warmer mean global temperature anomalies; and so far nothing has changed; the weather still changes from day to day, the climate still changes from place to place and year to year; decade to decade; but none of the projections of climate computer models has actually come to pass.
Throw in the political charlatans into the mix, and you have a whole clack of people who are borderline criminally insane; who will sit on the shoreline in their rocking chairs and tell the tide to stop rising; well it isn’t rising; at least any more than it has been for the last 10,000 years due to natural causes, and the CO2 is still rising, but also at the lowest levels that earth has ever “enjoyed” that may soon become problematical as it denies us adequate food production for all of the mouths to feed. Of course the warmist alarmists are planning on not having anywhere near that number of mouths to feed; I invite them to be the first to voluntarily exit the picture.
Well I fear the eminent collapse of my soapbox; so I will exit stage right while I have a chance.
George.
PS just got notice of acceptance of another peer reviewed technical article with the obscure title:
” # 7,495,837 Collimating Lens Structures. ” Yes even with two lls in collimating. It was published by the United States Patent Office; and I have no more room on my office walls to hang it alongside the previous publications. You might find it interesting if novel optics is something you like. It ought to be found in any college optics text, since it combines three very important funamental optical principles, into a totally unique design. But you won’t find it in any optics text anywhere; but who knows, you could actually be using a Logitech Laser mouse that uses it.
All those big screaming AGW prophets of doom with their extra large clown carbon footprints, would look really good with a few hundred million typical working American carbon footprints tattooed all over their backsides as they limp away into the shadows of history.
Sorry.
Fringe minority of oil financed attention seekers.
Reliant on IPCC reports
Full belief in carbon causing AGW
These items put me off reading the article in full. The first statement leads me to believe that the author is a single minded obsessive. Probably very good in his field but like a lot of other academics, that field is the only subject he is competent in.
Bizarre, a smart guy, lives in Calgary, it’s been cold there, and he’s still stressed out over his carbon footprint? He needs to visit the tar sands to see how much petroleum his country is producing.
http://caribounews.blogspot.com/
He has a mail signature that is quite appropriate: “Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers.” Grossman’s Law
The above quote marks where I stopped lending any credence to the author.
You only get one chance to make a good first impression.
Related; http://noteviljustwrong.com/blog/9-general/104-republicans-and-their-st-films-must-be-stopped.html
Interesting times… It’s not just that these folks are being hypocrites by having enormous “carbon footprints”, it’s also that they are being so transparently political. As a former leftist fool, I no longer trust anything the left says. I know better.
“professional refuters funded by the oil companies”
Well Mr Brook, I work for an oil company & I would put my scientific integrity up against yours any day. The fact of the matter is geoscientists in the employ of oil companies have a better understanding of historical climatology than pretty much any profession – as our jobs depend on it. Paleo-climatology controls both source rock & reservoir distribution, so if you don’t understand it, you wont find hydrocarbons & you won’t have a job. And the current climate changes we have witnessed over the last 100 years pale in comparison to changes on a geologic time scale – which I can guarentee you were not driven by any human activities as there were no humans. Why would one think that processes that have gone on for hundreds of millions of years suddenly don’t exist in the modern era can only be atrributed to shear ignorance or driving a political agenda in spite of the scientific evidence. The smugness & arrogance of those who don’t understand the historical record is astounding. The dis-service they do to the world in the name of their personal politics is borderline criminal. Mr Brook, next time you power your way to some boondoggle that you call research, you can thank ” a professional refuter funded by the oil companies” that found you that hydrocarbon – who actually understands the historical record.
The bibliographic references are in themselves a giveaway… University of Calgary is among the institutions that gave Al Gore an honorary doctorate…
“In 2008, a poll of 12 000 citizens in 11 countries, including Canada, found that only 47% were prepared to make personal lifestyle changes to reduce carbon emissions, which is actually a decrease from the 58% willing to do so in 2007.”
The reasons are simple. The warmists have shown themselves to be fringy cultists who cannot admit they are wrong (the elephant). So fixated are they on their vision of global warming – they have slipped into denial of the hard science. As the world cools and prediction after prediction from IPCC fail – people conclude it is merely PR hype. Like a movie trailer screaming, “Explosive action, sizzling seduction and heart-breaking redemption!” You know it’s all fiction.
Mr. Brook is to be commended for his sincerity. He is unfortunately deluded to think that his reformation of carbon footprints will alter the global climate. The warmists have yet to look hard at their claim that CO2 is a pollutant. Were this truly the case – could anyone justify our consumption of carbonated beverages? Should we immediately ask the Dept. of Health to suspend all sales and quarantine them in a secret underground city until destroyed?
Let’s worry about real pollutants Mr. Brook. Scrubbing the SO2 and particulates out of China’s new smokestacks will far better humanity than lowering your carbon footprint.
That volcanic eruption is just what’s needed to supress ‘not quite an El Nino’ currently in the Pacific, as many pointed out here doesn’t have some of the usual things associated with El Nino, and forget the effect it could have later this Summer, it may mean you need plenty of firewood to get through next Winter if it’s anywhere like Pinatubo, or especially if it’s like Tambora
The question here is how to put this elephant into the refrigierator in order to cool down.
The answer is simple.
Open the door of the refrigerator, put the elephant in and close the door.
Problem solved.
(Phantasy probles are in need of phantasy solutions, this is one of them.)
A hilarious parody, surely?
Speaking of “do as I say and not as I do”, doesn’t that elephant at the lead of this story look a little bit like a former vice president who now makes a very good living sounding the AGW alarm?
Mike Bryant (18:08:10) :
Mike, we don’t need a few hundred million butt-kickers. American ingenuity has solved the problem very efficiently: click
Care to start pedaling? I’ll take over when you get tired.
Or maybe we can hook it up to a solar array, or a windmill…
Just thinking about carbon footprints… It seems obvious to me that most tasks that are worthwhile, urgent and moral require a person or an organization that has the ability to release tons of carbon immediately. This simple fact is pretty much acknowledged by Ryan K. Brook above. Also, Al Gore and the other carbophobes do not shrink from releasing carbon into the atmosphere in tons or megatons, if they believe it helps to spread their message of doom, or guarantee their air-conditioned comfort in their mansions, limosines and houseboats.
I wonder what the United States’ carbon cost was to free the world by engaging in, and ending WWII?
Within a few years, the only organization that will be capable of pressing their carbon footprint advantage will be China. I would like it to be known that I have the utmost respect for the Chinese I have met, because of their industry, fair-dealing and general all-around good nature. The Chinese may be the only hope of sanity in our world. I WAS hoping that the USA could fill that role but now I am not so sure.
Using carbon to make the world (and plumbing) better,
Mike
Smokey,
If you can back ol’ Al up to that machine, I would consider it a rare privilege and honor to pedal…
I have a speech balloon for the guy in the last photo of the post…
“Duck, it looks like you’re about a quart low…”
On my websites we cover caribou research in some depth, but I have never heard of Ryan K. Brook. I do know that the Univ. of Calgary is funded in part by the huge fossil fuel industry in Canada.
More to the point, should global warming happen (ha ha), Canada would benefit greatly. On the other hand, should the globe cool significantly, Canada will be a useless pile of ice, as was the case during most of the last 1.8 million years.
However, it’s not my country. If Canadians want to shut down their largest industry and turn all the lights and heat off so that their citizenry starve and freeze to death, I think that’s their business. I am for building border wall/fence up, though, to keep starving and freezing Canadian refugees out of the U.S.
I have no sympathy for fools who inflict suffering on themselves. Call me cold-hearted.
Reading this article was too funny! I could barely stand to read it all (I didn’t). It was so tedious: “I need to do my research but I’m outputting all this CO2 to do it, and I feel guilty.” He even measured how much CO2 his research operation is emitting. I think Brook needs therapy. There’s a bigger issue going on here. Does he feel guilty for his existence? Does he have OCD? I half expected him to say somewhere “I emitted X Kg of CO2 while I was writing this. Oh dear. And I must calculate how much CO2 that’s being emitted by the power station that’s powering the web server that’s hosting this article. Let’s see…Oh dear…”
Yes, be conscious of how you’re polluting if at all, and how much energy you’re using (it’ll help save on the bills), but otherwise my attitude is don’t sweat it!
He somehow thinks that people don’t believe in AGW because the scientists are hypocrites. That’s not even on the radar, though some do wonder about Al Gore’s extravagant living (though he’s not a scientist) while telling others to cut back.
The biggest reason people aren’t buying AGW is the WEATHER! We all noticed how cold it was last winter. Did Brook?
Tom (18:31:26) : “Speaking of ‘do as I say and not as I do’, doesn’t that elephant at the lead of this story look a little bit like a former vice president who now makes a very good living sounding the AGW alarm?”
Nah. The elephant has a way tinier…er…vocabulary?
quote: “When I inquired about buying offsets, most were quick to dismiss them as a sham. Indeed, there do seem to be some issues with offsets, …. But offsets are one tangible way to start at least discussing the issue and working toward viable solutions.”
Ryan Brook seems to accept that offsets are a sham, but then says at least they are a way to start discussing the issue. I take this as another confirmation of its okay to exaggerate or lie about AGW as long as one means well. Fraud and deceit that steals people money seems to be just fine.
I cannot tell the difference between the hight priests who decided that it was necessary to throw a virgin into the volcano to appease the gods and the AWG believers. Both are absolutely sincere in their beliefs and seem to never do the harsh examination to ensure their data and theories are valid. They KNOW they are right. My life is absolutely dependent on oil, coal and natural gas but like the virgin I am to be gagged by lies about being paid by the oil companies so I do not scream and cry too much and upset the villagers.
Nice article, very long. Perfect, in fact, just the right size. My friend Polly likes it, too. Polly want a fig newton?
Hi, my name is Dave and I’m a carbonholic!
And another thing, perhaps the key take-home point:
Those of us who labor to stem the global warming madness do so not for personal gain — there is none, only sacrifices — not for fame or personal aggrandizement — slurs, slanders, and threats are our only reward — but for the good of humanity in general. We seek to prevent catastrophic taxes, the deconstruction of economies, the devolution of civilization, the poverty, starvation, and suffering of billions of people, for motives purely altruistic, benevolent, and moral.
The truly moral imperative is entirely on the side of climate realists who refuse to knuckle under to gross hardships that would be imposed by authoritarians for the most unreasonable and fraudulent of excuses.
“When I inquired about buying offsets, most were quick to dismiss them as a sham. Indeed, there do seem to be some issues with offsets, …. But offsets are one tangible way to start at least discussing the issue and working toward viable solutions.”
Young one… I am the Magister Carbo Ludi. I do not purchase offsets because I am the master of the school and the players of the game. The game is the reason that the research is done. The footprint is the mark of the unworthy. Only the unworthy have the footprint. As a Castalian, you have none. Be still and know, young Brook. And as a brook, quietly babble the great truths to the unwashed. And play the game if you yourself would become a master. Do not embarrass us further else you will be removed.
Mike D.
Yes, build that wall. We will need it to keep the dissilusioned Democrats from overrunning Western Canada. We will be building a wall along the Manitoba / Ontario border.
We westerners (of that certain age) remember the National Energy Policy, a left wing Liberal policy designed to enrich the “East” at the expense of the hard working energy producing conservative west.
The proposed US Cap and Trade policy is designed to do the same thing using Carbon Offsets. As carbon offsets are carbon emissions that did not and will not exist they have no identification number and are not regulated they can be sold many times and no-one is the wiser. As the big players will be given emission pardons, who will pay?
As always, the little guy with a wife/spouse and 2.3 kids, a mortgage and two sets of vehicle payments and dirt under his/her fingernails.
Ryan K. Brook does, to his credit, make two valid points.
1. Carbon offsets are a sham.
2. Research, or just living, in the north has a huge carbon footprint. All that energy in whale blubber or even more desireable fresh seal heart came from a long succession of energy (carbon) consuming organisms. (Seems the same applies to JP4 and winter diesel, those who have worked in the north will understand!)
Time to fold up my soap box!