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.
I love the radio station from the U of Calgary. The music , not the politics. the station manager is a very clever fellow, yet he is definitely on a socialism kick. Great idea in theory, but due to human nature , not so good in practice. The folly of youth, ………
Gordon Ford (20:37:46) Your third paragraph just described me to a “T”. I had a feeling I was going to be in trouble, ……
hareynolds (17:47:46) : “It is exciting to see”, says Hill, “that just as this sluggish stream reaches the usual active latitude of 22 degrees, a year late, we finally begin to see new groups of sunspots emerging.” [sic; ref today’s Mini Mini Teenie SC24 Spot]
“She wore an itsy bitsy tiny weenie yellow polka dot bikini” …
from: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/17jun_jetstream.htm?list173737
“June 17, 2009: The sun is in the pits of a century-class solar minimum, and sunspots have been puzzlingly scarce for more than two years. Now, for the first time, solar physicists might understand why.
At an American Astronomical Society press conference today in Boulder, Colorado, researchers announced that a jet stream deep inside the sun is migrating slower than usual through the star’s interior, giving rise to the current lack of sunspots.” and
The jet stream is now, finally, reaching the critical latitude, heralding a return of solar activity in the months and years ahead.
“It is exciting to see”, says Hill, “that just as this sluggish stream reaches the usual active latitude of 22 degrees, a year late, we finally begin to see new groups of sunspots emerging.”
The current solar minimum has been so long and deep, it prompted some scientists to speculate that the sun might enter a long period with no sunspot activity at all, akin to the Maunder Minimum of the 17th century. This new result dispells those concerns. The sun’s internal magnetic dynamo is still operating, and the sunspot cycle is not “broken.”
To quote Bullwinkle “This time for sure!!!”
From:
http://www.solarcycle24.com/
The small sunspot pictured below has faded. It lasted long enough to be numbered 1021 however. Solar activity will remain very low.
“raving from a fringe minority of attention seekers and professional refuters funded by the oil companies”
I thought I was in the wrong place. In any case, such people don’t have enough credibility to merit a response.
Maybe this guy should share whatever it is he’s smoking?
jorgekafkazar (19:12:28) :
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?
Maybe the most objective way in which to compare the two is to compare their output.
OT… Interesting little factoid… Anthony LLoyd Webber says that the lyrics in the song Polka Dot Bikini are the finest english lyrics ever written and he should know. In fact, Sarah Brightman may have divorced him since he sang it and hummed it incessantly. Perfection can be irritating.
Wait a second, I thought this was an editorial until I saw the bibliography. Was this published as a scientific paper?
Andrew (17:56:36) : Oil companies stand to MAKE money out of global warming. Why? Because
Agreed, but you left out: Enhanced recovery works best with LOTS of liquid CO2 that costs a great deal to make. How better to get it than to get someone ELSE to pay for it as “sequestration”.
These folks are sitting of “spent” oil fields from which they can get, roughly, the same total quantity of oil as they have already extracted but selling at far higher prices: IF ONLY they had a CHEAP source of liquid CO2 to do the well stripping….
Think about it. Just for a moment. Think about it….
On the subject of volcanic activity, there has certainly been an uptick in eruptions over the last couple of years compared to the mid-to-late 90s and early part of this century. Where can historical and recent measures of the Dust Veil (DVI) Index be obtained?
Mike D said: “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.”
Surely, you must know that it will be you in the US that freeze (maybe, not starve) if we stop digging up the tar sands. We’ll just have to do without some luxuries that we’ve gotten used to. Canada continues to be the principal exporter of oil to the US. We may not know which side our bread is buttered, but, with thousands of acres of rape-seed, we’ll always have margarine.
Jeff L
” 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.”
Jeff, sorry to say, but you missed the roadsign a mile or so back. It reads
“Perception is Reality”
Good post by the way…
Mike
E.M.Smith (21:10:08) :
“She wore an itsy bitsy tiny weenie yellow polka dot bikini” …
Brian Hyland (1960)
“Professional refuter”?
The Author doesnt do irony I think!
Thousands of highly paid jobs now depend on spreading fear and alarm throughout the world, indoctrinating innocent children with anti scientific mumbo jumbo to force them into accepting the propaganda that adults usually either dismiss or question.
The author notes a big problem that the AGW/MMCC peddlers have come across much to their annoyance I might add and that is people are starting to realise en masse that they are being lied to and they are not prepared to accept the lies any longer.
We get an invaluable insight into the believers mindset with this article, we see how the AGW/MMCC believers mind works and its very similar to a polititians, the message itself cannot be challenged only the method of propagation and the actual target of the propaganda.
When the commissars of the old USSR spewed out their fantasy statistics and those figures were laughed at by the masses then guess who the commissar class blamed? the ordinary workers were to blame of course! It was they who were too stupid or disloyal to blindly accept the lies, it was never thought by the commissars that the message was at fault and that in the end was their downfall, as the Russian peasant used to say ‘a party slogan will not fill your belly’ and ‘a commissars edict will not heat your home’.
Let the alarmists shout and spit, they are in fact dying like the commissars of the old USSR.
Jeff L (18:14:03) :
Well said sir! I’m an oil industry geologist myself and I couldn’t have put it better.
gt (17:47:14) :
Excuse me, but is “Arctic” a peer-reviewed journal?
As I have always said. what use is ‘peer review’ if the peers are all in on the game themselves?
“When I inquired about buying offsets, most were quick to dismiss them as a sham.”
Why do AGwers never consider applying the Precautionary Principle to their own ennobling precautions/”cures”? Maybe because regressing the World’s population back to the Stone Age would require a number of offsets only Al Gore could really afford, since he’d be selling them, too?
Fortunately the whole global warming debate has just became irrelevant.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6481997.ece
June 11, 2009
“Officials from Beijing told a UN conference in Bonn yesterday that China would increase its emissions to develop its economy rather than sign up to mandatory cuts.
Taro Aso, the Japanese Prime Minister, said on Wednesday that Japan would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 15 per cent by 2020 from levels in 2005. The Japanese commitment is a mere 2 per cent improvement on its commitment under Kyoto.
The UN chief made no attempt to hide his disappointment. “For the first time in my two and a half years in this job, I don’t know what to say,”
“E.M.Smith (21:22:13) :
Andrew (17:56:36) : Oil companies stand to MAKE money out of global warming. Why? Because
Agreed, but you left out: Enhanced recovery works best with LOTS of liquid CO2 that costs a great deal to make. How better to get it than to get someone ELSE to pay for it as “sequestration”.
These folks are sitting of “spent” oil fields from which they can get, roughly, the same total quantity of oil as they have already extracted but selling at far higher prices: IF ONLY they had a CHEAP source of liquid CO2 to do the well stripping….
Think about it. Just for a moment. Think about it….”
Nail, head, hammer. And Enron were the first, before their finacial fraud was exposed, company to start researching how they could obtain CO2 to do their well stripping at the same time controlling energy supplies (In much the same way as traders did with CA’s power suppliers/traders. “Hey pal, how long would it take to bring up a steamer? About four hours. Can you turn off a steamer for a while? Sure.”).
It’s 21st century bra-burning this.
Course, 40 years after all that feminist outrage, we are getting closer to sexual equality in the workplace, albeit with a few glaring cases of females abusing the system for their own ends.
Hopefully, in a generation, this will be looked back on as sensible forest management policies, sustainability of energy supplies etc come closer to reality……..
I’m quite looking forwards to when the Caitlin Expedition actually publishes something, when “Unreal Climate” headline it, I can pop over & denounce anything that comes out of it, as being due to its sponsorship by “Big Insurance”.
Sauce for the goose etc.
I’d have thought that masses of people being thrown out of their homes was a fairly big lifestyle change. So what if they didn’t volunteer, they are eco-heroes. Meanwhile it’s good to know there is still plenty in the kitty for pampered academics. Isn’t education wonderful?
It is useful to be reminded of those wonderful carbon offsets, claimed so freely to discount personal carbon emissions and maintain the moral high ground.
Why cannot AGW be dealt with simply by Governments of each country purchasing carbon offsets on behalf of all their citizens?
“I cannot tell the difference between the hight priests who decided that it was necessary to throw a virgin into the volcano”
Dang, I’ve never met a virgin(by choice)?!:p lol
My hypothesis/conjecture is that combined measurements of the stress on supplies of virgins already felt in the middle east, and VAGIS(Virgins and geeks into science) CPU models that have exhausted their memory sticks and climaxing a long time ago, have left the earth depleted of virgins.
Of course exceptions can be made for wuwt bloggers, but that’s a gi’me ! :p lol
The modern sexy modelers of today are projecting/predicting a drop of more then 96% vww(virgins world wide) by 2100. Yep, models don’t lie, there’s an “ALARMING”worldwide epidemic of de-virgining going on all over the globe. The west is not immune to this deflowerstation and the threat of 3.8 dpp( drinks per person) on the population adds to a already inebriated tipsy point.
Oh yes, alcohol IS the canary in the coal mine for virginity( no idea what that means?!), But the cap it/cork it and trade system in conjunction with technologically advanced thinkers at VAGIS and SSEX (Sexy Scientists and Elaborate Xaggerations) have a plan for sustainability for Future generations in a “virgin neutral” market!
Naaah, just another urban myth like AGW!
Reply: Hmmm…bordeline. Approved for now. ~ charles the prudish moderator
There is a story told about Mahatma Gandhi: A lady brought her son and said he ate too much sugar. She wanted Gandhi to tell him to stop. Gandhi said to bring the child back the next week. The next week she brought the child and Gandhi said “Stop eating sugar child”. And the child did. A month later the lady came back and said “My child has done what you asked, but why could you not have spoken to him the first time I came.” “Lady”, said Gandhi, “a week earlier I was still eating sugar”.
I’m sorry, I got to the end of the first paragraph but was laughing too much to continue. I’ll just have to take your word for it that there’s any merit in that piece of…er…
It’s all about Guilt with them. You must at least feel guilty about your “carbon sins”, confess them, and “do penance” for them. But, if you are a “scientist” working for the “good of the planet”, well then, that’s different, your carbon sins are forgiven, but you must, at least acknowledge them.
I am reminded of a weekly program called “One Planet”, carried by the BBC World Service which has the usual alarmist self-flagellating bilge. At the end of the program, the host Mike Williams actually confesses the carbon sins of the program for the week as well as since the shows’ inception, with ominously dark music. If you confess your sins, all is forgiven, and you’re good to go for another week of “sinning”.