China - not only toys, but tokamaks too.

Four cables from Cathay, courtesy of this excellent Cable Search tool.

The first cable (Cable 1) is one of the last dispatches of Ambassador to the PRC Clark T. Randt, a long, analytical piece from January 2009. But it’s also perhaps the least interesting of the four.  This is because it is only a rehashing of the standard narrative that can be found on most editorials on the subject: the post-Mao economic liberalization; fast industrial expansion; pollution and demographic problems; etc. China’s prospects are underestimated, as I’ve argued in the past. For instance, he cites projections that China will overtake Japan in five years years and “could rival the United States in overall scale” by the late 2030′s. But these are surely very, very pollyannish (from the US perspective) since in actuality China overtook Japan this year (2010) and its real GDP is already 70% of America’s.

The real threat to Chinese – AND global – growth prospects are resource constraints. Surprisingly, perhaps, for a US government official, Randt cites estimates having China reach peak oil in the early 2010′s and peak coal “in the next 15 to 25 years” (I think coal production will plateau as early as 2015). However, these shortages will be partly mitigated by huge alternative programs – he cites China as being the world’s largest producer of renewable power and Cable 3 mentions plans to construct 70 new nuclear power plants in the next decade. He is almost certainly wrong in his optimistic ideas that China will buy into the US global order, rather than seeking to remake it in its own images (as all aspiring hegemons try to do). To take an example, the wish that China will make itself into a “reliable partner” for the US and other donor countries is put into question by Cable 4 from the very same embassy, in which a Kenyan ambassador expresses an African preference for Chinese aid over Western “conferences and seminars”. The cable finishes with some platitudes about the US needing to “push for the expansion of individual freedoms, respect for the rule of law and the establishment of a truly free and independent judiciary and press”, which must surely have the publisher of this cable spinning in his British prison cell.

The second cable (Cable 2), from July 2009, is a very informative, but short (so recommended reading), introduction to three major interpretations of Chinese politics: as “akin to… the executive suite of a large corporation, as determined by the interplay of powerful interests, or as shaped by competition between “princelings” with family ties to party elders and “shopkeepers” who have risen through the ranks of the Party.” In the first interpretation, Party General Secretary Hu Jintao is the CEO, with the 25 other members of the Politburo aiming for consensus in decision making. The Politburo members are also oligarchs in practice, having their own vested interests and administrative-economic clans. (BTW, this political system of corporate clans and fusions of economic and political power bears some resemblance to Russia’s).

Many casual observers continue to see China as a sweatshop manufactory of cheap, unreliable goods (poisonous toys, etc) produced by exploited workers on starvation wages, but this is very rapidly diverging from reality. The third cable (Cable 3), from February 2010, has a few examples. With just a fraction of the science and technology funding of developed country universities, Chinese institutions are managing to produce ground-breaking work in esoteric spheres such as nuclear fusion, quantum communications and nanotechnology. Of course, not all of them are “pleasant” advances, and reflect the Orwellian instincts of the Chinese state, such as a biometric sensor designed to identify people by how they walk. An authoritarian state, but one with hi-tech visions that are fast becoming realities.

The final cable (Cable 4), from February 2010, can be summarized by one quote: “[Kenyan Ambassador to China] Sunkuli claimed that Africa was better off thanks to China’s practical, bilateral approach to development assistance and was concerned that this would be changed by “Western” interference. He said he saw no concrete benefit for Africa in even minimal cooperation. Sunkuli said Africans were frustrated by Western insistence on capacity building, which translated, in his eyes, into conferences and seminars. They instead preferred China’s focus on infrastructure and tangible projects.”

Finally, one more piece of news on China, not Cablegate-related. As regular blog readers know, I think that educational capital and more broadly average IQ levels are one of the key – and frequently under-appreciated due to political correctness – determinants of economic development and whether or not convergence to developed country levels is even possible. Its much higher educational capital is one of the key reasons why I think China will continue doing much better than India in development, regardless of its “democratic deficit.” However, many people argue that China’s human capital must actually be quite low, because it doesn’t spend much on education, resources are bare in the provinces, statistical fudging under unaccountable governors, etc.

The recent results from the international standardized PISA tests in math, reading and science will make this an increasingly untenable position. Shanghai got by far the best results out of all the OECD countries (never mind the developing ones). Now while you might (rightly) argue Shanghai draws much of the elite of the Yangtze river delta, the Financial Times has more: “Citing further, as-yet unpublished OECD research, Mr Schleicher said: “We have actually done Pisa in 12 of the provinces in China. Even in some of the very poor areas you get performance close to the OECD average.””

Since countries like the US and France get scores “close to the OECD average”, this means that the workforces soon to be entering China’s economy, even from its poorest regions, will be no less skilled than those of leading Western economies (note too that the numbers of Chinese university graduates are soaring). And with China’s massive population, four times bigger than America’s, its road to superpowerdom must be all but guaranteed.

Cable 1

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR THE SECRETARY, DEPUTY SECRETARY, EAP A/S
HILL, S/P, EAP/CM
NSC FOR DWILDER

EO 12958 DECL: 01/05/2034
TAGS PREL, PGOV, ECON, EFIN, MARR, MASS, CH
SUBJECT: LOOKING AT THE NEXT 30 YEARS OF THE U.S.-CHINA
RELATIONSHIP

Classified By: Ambassador Clark T. Randt. Reasons 1.4 (b/d)

¶1. (C) January 1, 2009, marked the 30th Anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. This anniversary followed the PRC commemoration of roughly 30 years of China’s “reform and opening” policy under Deng Xiaoping, which led to China’s staggering economic growth.

¶2. (C) Thirty years ago, China was just emerging from the nightmare of the Cultural Revolution and 30 years of fratricidal misrule. China’s economy was crippled by years of disastrous policies like the Great Leap Forward. The population was coming to terms with the world’s most draconian population controls enacted in 1976 after decades of Maoist state-subsidies encouraging large families. Chinese foreign relations tended to be more influenced by ideological yardsticks than economic links since China had very few commercial links with the outside world. In 1979, Chinese urbanites on average made the equivalent of five dollars per month.

¶3. (C) Just as no one in 1979 would have predicted that China would become the United States’ most important relationship in thirty years, no one today can predict with certainty where our relations with Beijing will be thirty years hence. However, given the current significance of the bilateral relationship and the risk of missing opportunities to jointly address ongoing and predictable future challenges, below we look at trends currently affecting China with an eye to how those trends might affect relations. Several issues leap out, including China’ insatiable resource needs, our growing economic interdependence, China’s rapid military modernization, a surge in Chinese nationalism, China’s demographic challenges, and the PRC’s increasing influence and confidence on the world stage.

¶4. (C) China has been plagued over the millennia by unforeseen events that devastated formerly prosperous regimes. Mongol invasion, the Black Death, uncountable peasant uprisings, warlords, tax revolts, communist dictatorship, colonialism, famine, earthquakes and other plagues were largely unforeseen by the China watchers of the past. This report focuses generally on more optimistic projections. Given China’s history, however, the United States should also gird itself for the possibility that China will fall short of today’s mostly sanguine forecasts.

Resource Consumption

¶5. (C) Popular and scholarly works in recent years highlight China’s growing demand for natural resources and the possible impact that China’s pursuit of resources will have on its foreign policy. Since economic reforms began in the late 1970s, industrial and exchange rate policies have fueled investment in resource-intensive heavy industries in China’s coastal region, which currently account for approximately 55 percent of the country’s total energy consumption today. A construction boom over the past decade has also stimulated growth in heavy industries. China is now a leading steel producer and currently accounts for 50 percent of the world’s annual cement production. Reflecting China’s emphasis on resource-intensive industries, China’s energy utilization rate grew faster than its GDP between 2002 and 2006. In 1990, China consumed 27 quadrillion British Thermal Units (BTUs) of energy, accounting for 7.8 percent of global consumption. In 2006, it consumed 68.6 quadrillion BTUs or 15.6 percent of the global total. According to U.S. Department of Energy statistics, by 2030 China will account for 145.5 quadrillion BTUs or 20.7 percent of global energy consumption.

¶6. (C) China’s oil demand has grown substantially over the last 30 years. In 1980, China consumed 1.7 million barrels of oil per day, almost all of which was produced domestically. In 2006, China consumed 7.4 million barrels per day, second only to the United States. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China’s oil consumption will reach 16.5 million barrels per day in 2030. More than two thirds of the increased demand will come from the transport sector as vehicle ownership rates rise. China became a net importer of oil in 1993, and it now relies on imports to meet a growing portion of its fossil fuel needs. The IEA forecasts that China’s oil import dependence will rise from 50 percent this year to 80 percent by 2030, as domestic oil production peaks early in the next decade. To strengthen the country’s future energy security, the Chinese Government has adopted a “go out” policy that encourages national oil companies (NOCs) to acquire equity stakes in foreign oil and gas production. Today, state-owned Chinese oil giants CNPC/PetroChina, CNOOC, and Sinopec can be found in Sudan, Iran, Kazakhstan,

Venezuela, Angola, and the Caspian Basin.

¶7. (C) China has also increased its reliance on imported minerals, and many analysts have attributed the global commodities boom of recent years in part to China’s growing demand. Between 1980 and 2006, China became the world’s largest consumer of iron, copper and aluminum. Chinese conglomerates are ubiquitous in sub-Saharan Africa exploiting mineral wealth there, and Chinese multinationals have significant investments in Australian mineral and uranium production.

¶8. (C) China’s reliance on coal has come at an appalling environmental cost. This year, China surpassed the United States in carbon emissions, and it will soon become the world’s biggest energy consumer. Between now and 2030, the IEA estimates, China will need to add 1,312 gigawatts of power generating capacity, more than the total current installed capacity in the United States. Coal-fired power generation, a major source of air pollution, accounts for approximately 78 percent of China’s total electricity supply, and it will likely remain the predominant fuel in electricity generation for at least the next 20 years. Analysts predict that domestic coal production will peak in the next 15 to 25 years. China already became a net importer of coal in 2007, and coal imports are expected to grow in the coming decades to meet growing demand in China’s coastal provinces.

¶9. (C) The Chinese Government recognizes the need to reduce dependence on coal, and it is pursuing policies to diversify its energy mix. China is already the largest producer of renewable energy in the world, with major investments in large-scale hydro and wind power projects. Nuclear and natural gas power will also account for a greater proportion of energy production, but under current projections, efforts to diversify China’s energy mix will not have a large enough impact to curb greenhouse gas emissions growth.

¶10. (C) China’s energy intensive growth has also had tragic consequences for public health. By most measurements, at least half of the world’s most polluted major cities are in China. Rural residents, in particular farmers, have been affected by water pollution and dwindling water supplies, which are frequently redirected for industrial use. Respiratory disease, water-borne illness and tainted food scares are facts of modern life in the country. According to a recent WHO study, diseases caused by indoor and outdoor air pollution kill 656,000 Chinese citizens every year. Another 95,600 deaths are attributed annually to polluted drinking water.

¶11. (C) China’s increasing reliance on imported natural resources has foreign policy ramifications and provides opportunities for the United States. A China that is increasingly dependent on Middle Eastern oil might be more likely to support policies that do not destabilize the Middle East. Take Iran, for instance. We have long been frustrated that China has resisted (with Russia) tough sanctions aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program. In the future, a China increasingly dependent on foreign energy supplies may recalculate the risk a nuclear Iran would pose to the greater Persian Gulf region’s capacity to export oil.

¶12. (C) Another opportunity presented by China’s increasing resource consumption is in the joint development of technological responses to reduce carbon emissions and to diminish the public health impact of industrial growth. Scientific publications around the world conclude that the projected rate of global energy and natural resource consumption is unsustainable. Experts warn that we must find alternative forms of energy in order to avert calamities posed by global climate change. International efforts to develop and significantly utilize renewable energy, clean up our shared global environment, and conserve our remaining raw materials will not be effective without meaningful Chinese participation. As the world’s preeminent technological power and as a leader in multilateral energy and scientific organizations, the United States is in a unique position to work with China to overcome these challenges.

Economic Interdependence and Chinese Demographics

¶13. (C) In the next fifteen years, while China’s overall population is predicted to stabilize, its urban population will likely grow to almost 1 billion, an increase (of 300 million people) equal to the entire current population of the United States. China plans to build 20,000 to 50,000 new skyscrapers over the next two decades — as many as ten New York cities. More than 170 Chinese cities will need mass transit systems by 2025, more than twice the number now present in all of Europe. China is now surpassing Germany as the world’s third largest economy and is projected to overtake Japan within the next five years. By the end of the next thirty years, China’s economy could rival the United States in overall scale (although its per capita income will likely only be one quarter of the United States’).

¶14. (C) Behind these outward symbols of success will be an increasingly complicated economic picture. Since 1979, by reversing the misguided economic policies of the Mao era, liberalizing labor markets and prices, opening to foreign investment, and taking advantage of the West’s consumer-driven policies, China has maintained fast growth. However, the set of circumstances that allowed such impressive growth rates will no longer exist in the future.

¶15. (C) Many speculate that China has reached the limit to easy productivity gains by rationalizing the state-planned economy. The Economist Intelligence Unit expects China’s annual growth to slow from around 10 percent in the last 30 years to 4.5 percent by 2020. After 2015 when the labor force peaks as a share of the population, labor costs will rise faster. This will increasingly make other countries like India and Vietnam more attractive for labor-intensive investment. In addition, workers will have to support a growing number of retirees. Early retirement ages combined with the urban one-child limits creates the so-called “4-2-1” social dilemma: each worker will have to support four grandparents, two parents and one child. Savings rates will start falling as the elderly draw down their retirement funds.

¶16. (C) China will have to manage an economy increasingly dependent on domestic consumption and service industries for growth. Already, urbanites are buying 1,000 new cars per day, making China the world’s largest Internet and luxury goods market, and traveling abroad in growing numbers. By 2025, China will have the world’s largest middle class, and China will likely have completed the transition from the majority rural population of today to a majority urban population. These consumers of tomorrow will likely flock to products from around the world as their North American, European and Japanese counterparts do today, providing new opportunities for American business. If incomes continue to grow, it is likely that the Chinese middle class will react like educated urbanites in other countries by exerting pressure on the Government to improve its dismal performance on environmental protection, food and product safety. We are already seeing increased public activism over such issues today.

¶17. (C) China will face a challenge in the next thirty years encouraging this urban consumption while dealing with the social equality issues inherent in a rural population where over 200 million people still live on less than a dollar a day. China will also have to find a way to improve the lot of between 150 and 230 million migrant workers who today must leave their children and aging parents behind in their home villages to travel to the industrial centers of the relatively developed coastal regions to work in factories or on construction projects.

¶18. (C) With China’s phenomenal growth has come increased economic interdependence. This will likely increase, although some of the less-balanced elements of China’s economic interactions should be mitigated. Rising consumption rates should work to lower China’s trade surplus as well as its overabundance of foreign exchange reserves. More assets controlled by corporations and individuals, as opposed to the government, will diversify outward investment, reducing political control by Beijing, but also the utility of political suasion for U.S. policymakers interested in effecting the flow of capital to international hotspots.

Chinese Nationalism and Confidence on the International Stage

¶19. (C) As one of two main pillars of post-Mao Chinese Communist Party rule (the other being sustained economic growth), Chinese nationalism is growing and should be monitored closely. As witnessed during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Chinese are increasingly proud of the tremendous strides their country has made in recent years. More and more young people see China as having “arrived” and might possess the confidence and willingness to assume the responsibilities of a major power. However, as was evident during protests over the 1999 mistaken bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, the 2004 protests over Japanese textbooks, and more recently the anti-France diatribes that followed the roughing-up of a disabled Olympic torch bearer in Paris by Free Tibet supporters, this nationalism can also lead to jingoism. Chinese leaders of a system with few outlets to express political sentiments are faced with trying to give vent to the occasional uprising of nationalistic anger without letting it get out of hand or allowing it to focus on the failings of the central leadership.

¶20. (C) With notable exceptions like Zhou Enlai, Chinese foreign policy practitioners thirty years ago had little practical experience dealing with the West. Since then, Chinese diplomats and subject matter experts are increasingly well-educated, well-traveled and well-respected. Chinese diplomats at international fora such as the UN and the WTO have become adept at using procedural rules to attain diplomatic or commercial ends. This trend will likely continue in the coming decades, increasing the likelihood of American decision makers finding more able adversaries when we disagree on issues, but also more able partners where we can agree to jointly tackle a problem of mutual concern such as nonproliferation, alternative energy or pandemic influenza.

¶21. (C) While still reluctant to claim China is a global leader, Chinese officials are gradually gaining confidence as a regional power. By the end of the next 30 years, China should no longer be able to portray itself as the representative of lesser developed countries. This does not mean that it will necessarily identify with the more developed, mainly Western countries; it well might choose to pursue some uniquely Chinese path. In the coming 30 years, a U.S. President might be involved in negotiations with a Chinese leader seeking to reshape global financial institutions like the IMF or the WTO or establish rival institutions for non-Western countries in order to mitigate domestic Chinese concerns. Even so, China’s growing position as a nation increasingly distinct from the less-developed world may expand our common interests and make it easier for the United States to convince China to act like a responsible global stakeholder.

¶22. (C) Foreign assistance coordination is another area of opportunity. China is rapidly ramping up its global economic presence, not only via resource extraction ventures and cheap exports, but increasingly via direct investment and assistance. This investment and assistance are welcome in most less-developed countries, whether in Africa or Southeast Asia, and particularly in countries where China’s longstanding policy of “no strings attached no political interference” appeals to democratically-challenged dictators and kleptocrats. However, China is already facing blowback as a result of its more cavalier approach to issues that more scrupulous donors have wrestled with for decades. Scant attention paid to worker safety, job opportunities for local people, environmental protection, and political legitimacy has had negative consequences for China on multiple occasions, from a tarnished international image and being used as a political whipping boy by opposition groups in democratic countries to unpaid loans, expropriated investments, and even the deaths of Chinese expatriates. As a result, China is beginning to understand the merits of international assistance standards not for altruistic reasons, but for achieving China’s own bottom-line imperatives of a more secure international position and better-protected economic interests in third countries. This realization, coupled with China’s growing economic clout on the world stage, make it quite possible that, in the next 30 years, China will come to be identified by the average citizen in less developed countries not as “one of us” but as “one of them.”

¶23. (C) In all likelihood, a new-found (if still somewhat grudging) PRC interest in internationally accepted donor principles such as transparency, good governance, environmental and labor protections, and corporate social responsibility will have matured in 30 years’ time, making China a reliable partner for the United States, other donor countries, and international organizations in alleviating poverty, developing infrastructure, improving education and fighting infectious disease. And as one of the world’s premier economic powers, China can be expected to have all but discarded its over-worn and outdated “non-interference” rhetoric in the face of massive Chinese investment assets and other economic interests abroad.

¶24. (C) As evidenced by Chinese policies toward pariah states like Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma and Iran, China is still willing to put its need for markets and raw materials above the need to promote internationally accepted norms of behavior. However, the possible secession of southern Sudan (where much of the country’s oil is found) from the repressive Khartoum-based Bashir regime, the erratic treatment of foreign economic interests in Zimbabwe by Robert Mugabe, the dangers to regional safety and stability posed by Burma’s dysfunctional military junta, and the threat to China’s energy security that a nuclear-armed Iran would represent have given Beijing cause to re-calibrate its previously uncritical stance toward these international outlaws. If China’s integration into global economic and security structures continues apace, we would expect its tolerance for these sorts of disruptive players to decrease proportionately.

¶25. (C) China’s work in the Six-Party Talks and the Shanghai Cooperative Organization may provide guidance as to how to accelerate this trend. China plays a leading and often responsible and constructive role in both of these multilateral groups. Future U.S. policy-makers might usefully consider additional international mechanisms that include both U.S. and Chinese membership such as the proposed Northeast Asia Peace and Security Mechanism that may grow out of the Six-Party Talks. The Chinese themselves have suggested a Six-Party Talks-like grouping to address the Iran nuclear issue, perhaps a P5-plus-1-plus-Iran. In the future, we may wish to consider the United States joining the East Asia Summit (EAS).

¶26. (C) Likewise, as the Chinese economy takes up a larger portion of the global economy, it inevitably will become increasingly affected by the decisions of international economic and financial institutions. Similarly, China’s economic decisions will have global implications, and its cooperation will become essential to solving global-scale problems. Drawing China constructively into regional and global economic and environmental dialogues and institutions will be essential. More and more experts see the utility of establishing an Asia-Pacific G-8, to include China, Japan, and the United States plus India, Australia, Indonesia, South Korea and Russia; others say the time is ripe to include China as a member of a G-9. Giving China a greater voice is seen as a way to encourage China to assume a larger burden in supporting the international economic and financial system.

Role of the Military

¶27. (C) The disparate possibilities exist that in the coming decades the PLA will evolve into a major competitor, maintain only a regional presence or become a partner capable of joining us and others to address peacekeeping, peace-enforcing, humanitarian relief and disaster mitigation roles around the world. China may be content to remain only a regional power, but Deng Xiaoping’s maxim urging China to hide its capabilities while biding its time should caution us against predicting that the PLA’s long-term objectives are modest. In the years to come, our defense experts will need to closely monitor China’s contingency plans and we will need to use every diplomatic and strategic tool we have to prevent intimidating moves toward Taiwan. In the coming years, Chinese defense capabilities will continue to improve. The PLA thirty years from today will likely have sophisticated anti-satellite weapons, state-of-the-art aircraft, aircraft carriers and an ability to project force into strategic sea lanes.

¶28. (C) Thirty years ago the PLA was a bloated political organization with antiquated equipment and tactics. Today, the PLA is leaner and is becoming a modern force. Chinese military and paramilitary units have participated in UN-sponsored peacekeeping missions in East Timor, Kosovo, Haiti and Africa. In December 2008, for the first time, the PLA Navy deployed beyond the immediate waters surrounding the country to participate in anything beyond a goodwill tour to combat piracy off the Horn of Africa. It is likely that China will continue to support UN-sponsored PKOs, and if the piracy expedition is successful, China might follow up with expeditions to future piracy hotspots such as the Strait of Malacca or elsewhere.

¶29. (C) Over the past thirty years, Chinese officials have come to begrudgingly acknowledge the benefits to East Asia resulting from the U.S. military presence in the Pacific, especially the extent that a U.S. presence in the Pacific is an alternative to a more robust Japanese military presence. A peaceful resolution of the threat posed by North Korea might cause China to call for an end to the U.S. base presence on the Korean Peninsula. Perceived threats to China’s security posed by Japan’s participation in missile defense or by future high-tech U.S. military technologies might cause tomorrow’s Chinese leaders to change their assessment and to exert economic pressures on U.S. allies like Thailand or the Philippines to choose between Beijing and Washington.

¶30. (C) Whatever the state of our future relations with China, we will need to understand more about the Chinese military. Multilateral training and exercises are constructive ways to promote understanding and develop joint capabilities that could be used in real-life situations. In the coming years, the Chinese may be called upon to participate in regional peacekeeping and humanitarian relief exercises. Some of these could be handled under UN auspices, but others could be bilateral or multilateral. For instance, Cobra Gold, which is held every year in Thailand, is America’s foremost military exercise in Asia. It has a peacekeeping component and since the December 2004 tsunami in Indian Ocean has included a humanitarian relief element. With proper buy-in by the Pentagon and PACOM, we could create a program to engage the PLA more directly both with our military and with friendly militaries in the region. Modest efforts at expanding search and rescue capabilities on the high seas, developing common forensic techniques for use in mass casualty events, conducting exercises with PLA units tasked with responding to civil nuclear emergencies, or table-top exercises for U.S. and Chinese junior officers could be steps that promote trust with little risk. At the same time, more frequent, regularly scheduled high-level reciprocal visits between Chinese and U.S. security officials might eventually lead to a constructive strategic security policy dialogue on nonproliferation, counterterrorism and other issues.

Taiwan and Human Rights

¶31. (C) Taiwan was the most vexing issue holding up the establishment of relations 30 years ago and remains the toughest issue for U.S.-China relations despite significant improvement in cross-Strait relations since the election of Taiwan President Ma. It will remain a delicate topic for the foreseeable future. We should continue to support Taiwan and Mainland efforts to reduce tension by increasing Taiwan’s “international space” and reducing the Mainland’s military build-up across from Taiwan.

¶32. (C) Thirty years ago, the Chinese state interfered in virtually every aspect of its citizens’ lives. An individual’s work unit provided housing, education, medical care and a burial plot. Reeducation sessions and thought reform were common, churches and temples were closed, and average citizens had little access to the outside world. Today, Chinese have far greater ability to travel, read foreign media and worship. Nonetheless, the overall human rights situation falls well short of international norms. Today, China’s growing cadre of well-educated urbanites generally avoids politics and seems more interested in fashion and consumerism than in ideology; after all, outside-the-box political thinking, much less activism, remains dangerous. However, any number of factors in the future ranging from rising unemployment among recent college graduates, or growing discontent over the income divide separating rich urbanites from poor peasants, to discontent among the mass of migrant workers could lead to unrest and increased political activism. The Chinese Government still responds with brutal force to any social, religious, political or ideological movement it perceives as a potential threat. Chinese political leaders’ occasional nods toward the need for political reform and increased democracy suggest a realization that the current one-party authoritarianism has its weak points, but do not promise sufficient relaxation of party control to create a more dynamically stable polity in the long term.

¶33. (C) While the U.S. model of democracy is not the only example of a tolerant open society, we should continue to push for the expansion of individual freedoms, respect for the rule of law and the establishment of a truly free and independent judiciary and press as being necessities for a thriving, modern society and, as such, in China’s own interests. Someday, China will realize political reform. When that day comes, we will want to be remembered by Chinese for having helped China to advance. Randt

Cable 2

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BEIJING 002112

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/23/2034
TAGS: PGOV CH
SUBJECT: TOP LEADERSHIP DYNAMICS DRIVEN BY CONSENSUS,
INTERESTS, CONTACTS SAY

REF: A. BEIJING 2063
¶B. BEIJING 2040

Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Aubrey Carlson. Reasons 1.
4 (b/d).

Summary

¶1. (C) The need for consensus and the desire to protect vested interests are the main drivers of Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) decision-making and Chinese leadership dynamics in general, according to Embassy contacts with access to leadership circles. Contacts have variously described relations at the top of China’s Party-state structure as akin to those in the executive suite of a large corporation, as determined by the interplay of powerful interests, or as shaped by competition between “princelings” with family ties to party elders and “shopkeepers” who have
risen through the ranks of the Party. End Summary.

Hu Jintao as Chairman of the Board?

¶2. (C) Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo decision-making is similar to executive decision-making in a large company, two well-connected contacts say. xxxxx that Party General Secretary Hu Jintao could be compared to the Chairman of the Board or CEO of a big corporation.xxxxx, used the same analogy in a May 18 meeting with PolOffs. xxxxx said that PBSC decision making was akin to a corporation in which the greater the stock ownership the greater the voice in decisions. “Hu Jintao holds the most stock, so his views carry the greatest weight,” and so on down the hierarchy, but the PBSC did not formally vote, xxxxx. “It is a consensus system,” he maintained, “in which members can exercise veto power.”

¶3. (C) xxxxx had told PolOff previously that he knew “on very good authority” that “major policies,” such as the country’s core policy on Taiwan or North Korea, had to be decided by the full 25-member Politburo. Other more specific matters, he said, were decided by the nine-member PBSC alone. Some issues were put to a formal vote, while others were merely discussed until a consensus was reached. Either way, xxxxx stated sarcastically, the Politburo was the “most democratic body in the world,” the only place in China where true democracy existed. xxxxx said that although there was ”something” to the notion of a rough factional balancing at the top between the Jiang Zemin-Shanghai group and the Hu-Wen group, neither group was dominant, and major issues had to be decided by consensus.

Leadership Dynamics: Driven by Vested Interests

¶4. (C) xxxxx asserted to PolOff March 12 that the Party should be viewed primarily as a collection of interest groups. There was no “reform wing,” xxxxx claimed.xxxxx made the same argument in several discussions with PolOff over the past year, asserting that China’s top leadership had carved up China’s economic “pie,” creating an ossified system in which ”vested interests” drove decision-making and impeded reform as leaders maneuvered to ensure that those interests were not threatened. It was “well known,” xxxxx stated, that former Premier Li Peng and his family controlled all electric power interests; PBSC member and security czar Zhou Yongkang and associates controlled the oil interests; the late former top leader Chen Yun’s family controlled most of the PRC’s banking sector; PBSC member and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Jia Qinglin was the main interest behind major Beijing real estate developments; Hu Jintao’s son-in -law ran Sina.com; and Wen Jiabao’s wife controlled China’s precious gems sector.

¶5. (SBU) Note: In a development that could fan the “vested interest” rumor mill, China-related websites in the United States this week were reporting that a Chinese security technology company with links to Hu’s eldest son, Hu Haifeng, was being investigated in Namibia on charges of corruption. A July 19 article in a Malaysian paper, cited by a U.S.-based dissident website, wenxuecity.com, reported that Hu Haifeng was a “potential witness” in the case but was not himself a suspect. The report said that the younger Hu was a former CEO of Nuctech and currently the Party Secretary of its parent company, Tsinghua Holding Co. Ltd. According to the China Digital Times website at the University of California Berkeley’s China Internet Project, the Central Propaganda Department on July 21 issued orders to block any reference to the case in the PRC media. End note.

¶6. (C) xxxxx, had told PolOff earlier that leaders had close ties to powerful economic actors, especially real estate developers and corporate leaders, who in some cases were officials themselves. The same was true at the local level, xxxxx stated. He claimed that these interest networks had policy implications since most local leaders had “bought” their positions and wanted an immediate financial “return” on their investment. They always supported fast-growth policies and opposed reform efforts that might harm their interests, xxxxx. Vested interests were especially inclined to oppose media openness, he said, lest someone question the shady deals behind land transactions. As a result, the proponents of “growth first” would always be in a stronger position than those who favored controlling inflation or taking care of the poor, xxxxx.

¶7. (C) xxxxx that the central feature of leadership politics was the need to protect oneself and one’s family from attack after leaving office. Thus, current leaders carefully cultivated proteges who would defend their interests once they stepped down. It was natural, xxxxx said, that someone like Xi Jinping, who maintained a non-threatening low profile and had never made enemies, would be elevated by Jiang Zemin and Zeng Qinghong. Xi would act to ensure that Jiang was not harassed or that Jiang’s corrupt son would not be arrested, xxxxx.

Princelings vs. Shopkeepers

¶8. (C)xxxxx, separately described leadership alignments at the top of the CCP as shaped largely by one’s “princeling” or “shopkeeper” lineage. In separate conversations in recent months, xxxxx said that some argued that China’s ”princelings,” the sons and daughters of prominent Communist Party officials, including many who helped found the PRC, shared a perception that they, as the descendents of those who shed blood in the name of the Communist revolution, had a ”right” to continue to lead China and protect the fruits of that revolution. Such a mindset could potentially place the ”princelings” at odds with Party members who do not have similar pedigrees, xxxxx, such as President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao and Party members with a CYL background, who were derisively referred to as “shopkeepers’ sons.” xxxxx had heard some princeling families denounce those without revolutionary pedigrees by saying, “While my father was bleeding and dying for China, your father was selling shoelaces.”

Goldberg

Cable 3

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BEIJING 000263

C O R R E C T E D C O P Y – (ADDED SECSTATE ADDRESS)

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EAP/CM-BRAUNOHLER
STATE FOR EAP/CM
STATE FOR ISN/NESS
USDOE FOR NNSA/SCHEIMAN, GOOREVICH, WHITNEY
USDOE FOR NUCLEAR ENERGY-MCGINNIS
STATE PASS TO NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION (DOANE)
USDOE FOR INTERNATIONAL/YOSHIDA, BISCONTI, HUANGFU
NSC FOR HOLGATE

EO 12958 DECL: 01/20/2035
TAGS CH, ENRG, KPWR, MNUC, OSCI, PINR, PINS, SENV, TPHY,
TSPL

SUBJECT: PRC: NUCLEAR RESEARCH AT CHINESE ACADEMY OF
SCIENCES
BEIJING 00000263 001.4 OF 002

Classified By: BRENT CHRISTENSEN, ESTH COUNSELOR. REASON: 1.4(b,d,e)

1.(SBU) Summary: In response to an invitation by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), ESTH officer traveled to Hefei, Anhui Province, in December 2009 to visit several Chinese government-sponsored scientific institutions. During this time, ESTH officer learned of the below information through official presentations, personal observation, and informal/discreet conversations with CAS staff members. Most significantly, the Institute of Plasma Physics continues to conduct research on how to use nuclear fusion as a sustainable means to produce energy. At the same time, China is expanding its use of nuclear fission as an energy source and plans to open at least 70 nuclear fission power Qnts within the next 10 years. In 2009, CAS’s Institute of Plasma Physics budget was USD$20 million. Additionally, other CAS institutes are conducting research in biometrics, computational physics and material science, nanoscience and nanomaterials, soft-matter physics, environmental spectrometry, fiber optic wave-length division multiplexing, quantum communications, superconductors and spintroncis, and cognitive sciences. End Summary.

Institute of Plasma Physics – Nuclear Research

¶2. (C) In mid-December 2009, the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) in Hefei, Anhui Province was preparing for another cycle of experiments with its Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST). EAST was designed to be a controlled nuclear fusion tokamark reactor with superconductive toroidal and poloidal field magnets and a D-shaped cross-section. One of the experimental goals of this device was to prove that a nuclear fusion reaction can be sustained indefinitely, at high enough temperatures, to produce energy in a cost-effective way. In 2009, IIP successfully maintained a 10 million degree Celsius plasma nuclear fusion reaction for 400 seconds. IIP also successfully maintained a 100 million degree Celsius plasma nuclear fusion reaction for 60 seconds. One of IIP’s immediate goals is now to maintain a 100 million degree Celsius plasma nuclear fusion reaction for over 400 seconds. Currently, IIP is also conducting research into hybrid fusion-fission nuclear reactors that may be able to sustain nuclear reactions indefinitely, and at sufficient temperatures, to cost-effectively produce energy. IIP officials stated that China has the explicit goal of building at least 70 nuclear fission power plants within the next 10 years. IIP scientists claimed current Chinese nuclear energy production efforts use Uranium 235, but research is being done to make Uranium 238 a feasible alternative. IIP’s 2009 budget was USD$20 million – a two-fold increase over the previous year – and IIP leadership expects their budget to increase again in 2010.

[AK: cut.]

Institute of Intelligent Machines – Biometrics Research

¶3. (C) The Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) Institute of Intelligent Machines (IIM) in Hefei has developed a biometrics device that uses a person’s pace to identify them. The device measure weight and two-dimensional sheer forces applied by a person’s foot during walking to create a uniquely identifiable biometrics profile. The device can be covertly installed in a floor and is able to collect biometrics data on individuals covertly without their knowledge. When questioned about the device’s potential applications, IIM officials stated the device was being used by “secret” customers and was not available on the commercial market. IIM also said they were involved with China’s “Program 863.” (COMMENT: Program 863 is China’s national high-technology development plan that includes both military and civilian technology development programs; therefore, it is likely the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is one of the customers for whom this biometrics device was developed. END COMMENT)

Institute of Solid State Physics – Nanotechnology Research

¶4. (C) In mid-December 2009, the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) Institute of Solid State Physics (ISSP) in Hefei was conducting research in the fields of computational physics and material science, nanomaterials, and soft-matter physics. ISSP’s 2009 budget was roughly $6 million (USD). ISSP’s top priority projects are: one-dimensional nanomaterials, spin and charge research using perovskite manganese oxides, and the design and preparation of high-dampening materials. ISSP also conducts research on nanomaterials and nanostructures for China’s “Program 973.” (NOTE: Program 973 is China’s national plan for improving basic scientific research and development. END NOTE)

Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics – Spectrometry & Fiber Optic Research

¶5. (C) In mid-December 2009, the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (IOFM) in Hefei was modifying environmental spectrometry technology to detect TATP explosives for use in counter-terrorism efforts. IOFM was also conducting fiber optic research on wave-length division multiplexing (WDM) technologies using pulsed and continuous laser sources at both single-mode and multi-mode wavelengths. A cursory walk through one of their labs revealed that IOFM was specifically conducting experiments in the 980-1150 nanometer range, and that they were conducting experiments using hydrogen-filled fiber optic communication lines. (COMMENT: Hydrogen-filled fiber optic lines are technologically challenging to manufacture, but provide many advantages; one of which is increased security and protection from tampering. END COMMENT)

University of Science and Technology of China – Organization & Research

¶6. (C) In mid-December 2009, the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei had academic programs focusing on Math, Physics, Chemistry, Life Sciences, Nuclear Science, Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, Management, Humanities, and a department dedicated to the development of gifted young people. USTC has 37,000 staff and 40,000 graduate students. USTC oversees two national laboratories: the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory and the Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale (HFNL). HFNL has 95 faculty members and roughly 400 graduate students. HFNL research focuses on quantum communication, nanoscience, superconductors, spintronics, and cognitive sciences. In the area of quantum communication, HFNL was conducting research in quantum teleportation and free space quantum cryptography that scientists hope will result in “totally secure” communications. USTC also oversees China’s “Program 178,” although they did not describe the nature of this program. (COMMENT: A cursory walk through their labs seemed to indicate they had already succeeded in single-particle quantum teleportation and are now trying to conduct dual-particle quantum teleportation. END COMMENT)

HUNTSMAN

Cable 4

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BEIJING 000367

SIPDIS

STATE PASS USAID

EO 12958 DECL: 02/11/2020
TAGS PREL, ECON, EAID, EINV, CH, XA
SUBJECT: AFRICAN EMBASSIES SUSPICIOUS OF US-CHINA
DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION IN AFRICA

REF: (A) 09 BEIJING 955 (B) 09 BEIJING 1311 (C) 09 BEIJING 2836

Classified By: Economic Minister Counselor William Weinstein. Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

Summary

¶1. (C) African Embassy officials told EmbOffs that many in the African community were uncomfortable with the concept of US-China development cooperation in Africa. China’s fast, efficient, “no strings attached” bilateral approach is popular in the region, as is the PRC preference for infrastructure over governance projects. African officials fear that U.S. or European interference will slow down the assistance process and tie conditions to Chinese aid. In the past, the EU angered many African countries when it proposed trilateral cooperation. The Chinese subsequently backed out of discussions citing lack of African support. In addition, African officials believe that competition between donors has had positive consequences for African development, giving the African countries options after several decades of a largely “Western” development model. Despite apprehensions, one official believed that U.S.-China cooperation could be positive if carried out with active African participation. The UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) was offered as an example of an organization that has managed to collaborate well with China in Africa. End summary.

Threatening the Chinese way

¶2. (C) During a February 8 lunch, Kenyan Ambassador to China Julius Ole Sunkuli said he and other Africans were wary of the U.S.-China dialogue on Africa and felt Africa had nothing to gain from China cooperating with the international donor community. Sunkuli claimed that Africa was better off thanks to China’s practical, bilateral approach to development assistance and was concerned that this would be changed by “Western” interference. He said he saw no concrete benefit for Africa in even minimal cooperation. Sunkuli said Africans were frustrated by Western insistence on capacity building, which translated, in his eyes, into conferences and seminars (REF C). They instead preferred China’s focus on infrastructure and tangible projects. He also worried that Africa would lose the benefit of having some leverage to negotiate with their donors if their development partners joined forces.

Lessons from the EU experience

¶3. (C) South African Minister Plenipotentiary Dave Malcolmson echoed the same reservations in a February 9 meeting. According to him, lessons could be learned from the EU experience in 2008. When the EU put together a policy paper on trilateral development cooperation in Africa, many African countries were annoyed because they were not consulted on the issue. They argued that the third party in these nominally trilateral discussions was conspicuously absent. They perceived this as a Western attempt to reign in China’s Africa assistance. Malcolmson said the African resistance prevented any concrete progress coming out of this initiative as the Chinese then subsequently backed out of the discussion, citing African opposition.

Africans don’t want conditions, they want options

¶4. (C) African countries principally fear that the U.S. and other Western countries will use trilateral cooperation to try to attach governance conditions to Chinese development. Malcolmson, who previously worked at the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) secretariat, recalled that governance projects received a lot more support from Western donor countries than infrastructure projects. He opined that although governance, peace and security are crucial to African growth, they must be accompanied by measures to reduce poverty and build infrastructure.

¶5. (C) Malcolmson echoed Sunkuli’s comment that African countries also fear losing their bargaining power. China’s emergence in Africa as a counterbalance to U.S. and European donors has been very positive for Africa by creating “competition” and giving African countries options. He recalled that after the 2006 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit, when China announced its commitments to Africa to much international media fanfare, traditional donors changed their attitude. They recognized that they had to measure up to China and “came calling.” The EU proposed infrastructure projects (after having defacto given up supporting these types of projects) and the World Bank began to support more agriculture projects.

The DFID example and recommendations for the future

¶6. (C) Malcolmson clarified that if U.S.-China cooperation leads to a real escalation of resources then it could be a positive step, but many Africans expect that it would slow down development. He cited the DFID’s relationship with China as an example of healthy cooperation. DFID’s success has come from focusing on small projects and working largely outside formal channels (REF A). Malcolmson recommended working through regional African organizations like the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) as a way to alleviate African concerns. If both China and the United States contribute resources to promising African development projects, then Africans will welcome trilateral cooperation. He said this would have the added benefit of encouraging the Chinese to venture beyond bilateral development assistance and support regional projects.

Comment

¶7. (C) Sunkuli and Malcolmson’s comments are a potential warning sign as the USG prepares for the upcoming U.S.-China Sub-Dialogue on Africa. As the PRC continues to stress a policy of “non- interference” in the internal affairs of other countries, China could well use any voiced African opposition as an excuse to stop or slow progress on further discussions or collaboration. We should be careful to pick projects that would have broad support within the African community, preferably African-initiated and led, to get the development cooperation dialogue started on the right foot. In addition, we should clearly articulate the benefits of our cooperation to our African counterparts and include African voices in the debate on the U.S.- China-Africa relationship.

HUNTSMAN

Another excellent book on climate change that goes beyond the conservative conclusions of the IPCC reports, with the emphasis here being on change that happens with speed and violence after the crossing of certain tipping points, in contrast to the IPCC’s gradualist approach. Since Lynas covered most of the catastrophic climate change scenarios in his book Six Degrees (on which I made notes here), I will only be covering select chapters from this book – mostly those that add more detail to the most significant feedback trends, and original ones that dwell on unexplored territory like the influence of clouds and aerosol pollutants on warming and more exotic possibilities like a hydroxyl collapse. When reading this, it is a good idea to keep this useful conversion: 1 ppm by volume of atmosphere CO₂ = 2.13 Gt C, in mind. To keep things in perspective, current anthropic emissions stand at 8bn tons of carbon a year; atmospheric CO2 levels are increasing by around 2ppm a year, the rest still being absorbed by the biosphere (though as we shall see this state of affairs may not last long).

I repeat the disclaimer that since I am doing this mostly for myself as part of my research into my book on “future history”, I cannot guarantee this will be interesting.

Introduction. Though calling himself a “skeptical environmentalist”, Pearce believes the global warming story adds up – “nature’s revenge for man-made global warming will very likely unleash unstoppable planetary forces. And they will be sudden and violent”. According to NASA climate scientist James Hansen, “We are on the precipice of climate system tipping points beyond which there is no redemption”.

The Watchtower: Keeping Climate Vigil on an Arctic Island. The ostensibly pristine High North is paradoxically one of the most polluted places on Earth. It rains mercury, concentrates pesticides from Asia and the air is filled with acid fogs from Siberian factories.

Ninety Degrees North: Why Melting knows no Bounds in the High North. The Arctic is melting fast, being 40% thinner in the 1990′s from the 1950′s. Though melting takes a lot of energy, once complete the Sun warms the water left behind, which is darker and more heat-absorptive than the surrounding ice and hence warms more rapidly, heating the air around it. As such, melting is a threshold process. An immense pulse of warm water since 1999 burst through the Fram Strait (between Svalbard and Greenland), and worked its way through around the shallow continental shelves that circle the Arctic Ocean. Hours after reaching the Laptev Sea, the temperatures rose by 0.5C and since then it has stayed ice free in 2004. (AK: Is this water that previously disappeared down the Arctic chimneys?). Once the Arctic melts, the ice-albedo effect will accelerate warming and the reduces temperature differentials between the tropics and the Arctic will destabilize current air and ocean currents.

On the Slippery Slope: Greenland is Slipping into the Ocean. In lower Greenland behind the equilibrium line marking zero net ice gain, small melt-water lakes are accumulating and flowing down crevasses called moulins, with waterfalls of up to 3km high taking the water to the bedrock of the ice below (AK: That would be higher than Angel Falls in Venezuela!). And during warm years the km-thick ice sheet actually lifts off the bedrock and floats on the water, rising by half a meter or more! These lakes are like pots of magma beneath volcanoes – “more melting will mean more lakes in some places, more water pouring down crevasses and more disintegration of the ice”.

Glaciers are thinning and speeding up, with Jakobshavn losing 50cu km a year (equal to that of the Nile). Though it currently exits below the water line through submarine valleys via giant floating ice shelves that buttress them, as the oceans warm these shelves will themselves thin and collapse. “The picture, then, is of great flows of ice draining out of Greenland, lubricated by growing volumes of melting water draining from the surface to the base of the ice sheet and uncorked by melting ice shelves at the coast”. This nonlinear response implies an exponential increase in ice loss for the future; though conventional wisdom says they will take centuries to melt, it could in as little as several decades.

The Shelf: Down South, Shattering Ice Uncorks the Antarctic. Disintegration of Larsen B in 2002 – at the height of summer, melting snow formed ponds that put pressure on crevasses, wedging them open (water is denser than ice) and instigating the catastrophic collapse of 500bn tons of ice, releasing thousands of large icebergs. Other ice shelves are also in increasing danger, including the Ross and Ronne ice shelves. Though they of themselves won’t raise sea levels, since they are already floating, they do buttress the glaciers that feed them – like uncorking a champagne bottle, the “glaciers that once discharged their ice onto the Larsen B shelf are now flowing into the sea 8 times faster than they did before the shelf collapsed”.

The Mercer Legacy: An Achilles’ Heel at the Bottom of the World. West Antarctica is vulnerable since it is “perched precariously on an archipelago of largely submerged islands”. Though apparently safe since it is buttressed on two sides by mountains, and on the other two sides by the Ross and Ronne ice shelves. Yet if they were to give way, the entire shift could lift off and float away – once begin, disintegration may be catastrophically rapid.

It has a “weak underbelly” in Pine Island Bay, a large inlet on the Amundsen Sea. It is an outlet for two of Antarctica’s top five glaciers: Pine Island and Thwaites, which drain 40% of W. Antarctic ice sheet and are already the greatest contributors to global sea level rise. The surrounding ice shelves melt faster due to warmer waters; in turn, the two glaciers drastically accelerated. As ice shelves thin, more water penetrated beneath glacier…the “grounding line” is retreating 2km a year. Furthermore, inland amongst its tributaries the PI glacier sits on great lakes of melt-water. If the area they drain all melts, sea levels will rise by 1­2m. Thwaites taps into vast reservoirs of ice in the middle of the ice sheet…may drag them along with it. If you pull the plug, ice goes faster and there is thinning…will the plug reform further back, or will the ocean deliver enough heat for it to just blowtorch its way to the center? If the latter, the W. Antarctic ice sheet could collapse within the century.

In the East Antarctic, the Totten glacier drains an area with more ice than in the entire W. Antarctic. Since early 1990′s, catchment is losing enough ice to lower its height by more than 10m annually (despite raising ice levels in the flatter interior). Cook glacier is doing the same. Furthermore, like Pine Island and Thwaites, their grounding lines (farthest point downstream where ice makes contact with solid rock) of Totten and Cook is below sea level – by more than 300m in Totten’s case. Again “warmer waters appear to be loosing that contact. Should the grounding line begin to retreat, we can expect the glacier to begin
the familiar process of thinning and accelerating”.

In the Jungle: Would we notice if the Amazon went up in Smoke? The Amazon is the largest living reservoir for CO2 on the land surface of the Earth, with its trees and soils each containing 70bn tons of carbon. (AK: for comparison, human emissions constituted 8bn tons in the mid-2000′s, around half of which was absorbed). Unfortunately, the forest is fragile and is now believed to be “close to a tipping point beyond which  it will suffer runaway destruction in an orgy of fire and drought”. An experiment shows it can only handle two years of drought, with the trees extending their roots and slowing their metabolism; yet by the third year, the amount of stored carbon plummets by 70%. For starting with the tallest, trees begin dying with the tallest – exposing the forest floor to the drying Sun. Fires will begin, creeping low along the forest floor – no huge flames burst through the canopy and the fires are largely invisible to the satellites keeping a constant watch overheat. But many trees die, their bark scorched and the flow of sap from the roots staunched.

The Amazon is now a significant CO2 source and is gradually drying. It will not be able to recover beyond a certain point, ushering in the “savannization” of the Amazon. There was already a big drought in 2005 – killing trees, triggering fires and reducing the Amazon’s moisture recycling ability, thus increasing the probability of a future drought – caused by extremely warm temperatures in the tropical Atlantic (which also caused the big hurricane season, including New Orleans). In the future, starting from the vulnerable north­east, the rainforest dies and “ceases to recycle moisture back into the atmosphere to provide rainfall downwind”, resulting in a “wave of aridity” which travels west and culminates in a “mega­fire event”, in which rainforest turns to desert and carbon is released back.

The Amazon creates rain not just for itself, but for others – half of its moisture is exported to the south to water the pampas grasslands of Argentina [AK: an agricultural breadbasket], the Andes [AK: once it ceases, this results in accelerated glacier melting there on which Lima depends], southern Africa and the Caribbean. Also, the moisture carries energy; solar energy evaporates water off the forest canopy (hence the reason forests are cooler than the surrounding plains) and condenses it into clouds, releasing energy back into the air to power weather systems and high-­level winds called jets far into the northern hemisphere. This drives winter storms across North Atlantic towards Europe; once the rainforest expires, the hydrological engine sputters to a halt, leading to dessication in Europe.

Wild Fires of Borneo: Climate in the Mire from Burning Swamp. In 1997, a record-­breaking intense El Nino event in the Pacific stifled the storm clouds that normally bring rain to Borneo and the Indonesian islands. Landowners burned swamp forest to plant palm oil and other profitable crops, resulting in one of the greatest forest fires in human history. The deepest burning was in central Borneo, where “the fires had burrowed down, drying and burning a vast peat bog that underlies the forest” ­ which lasted for several months.

This was partly due to an early 1990′s decree by Suharto to settle the area, drain the swamps and make rice paddies to achieve food self­-sufficiency. Though this project failed because the soils were infertile, the 4000km of canals built for this purpose continue draining the swamps. The now dessicated peat burns every dry season, especially during strong El Ninos.

At least half the world’s are on Borneo, Sumatra and West Papua; they are especially concentrated in central Borneo. They contain 50bn tons of carbon, almost as much as the Amazon. During the El Nino events of 1997-98, the smoldering swamps lost 0.8­bn – 2.6bn tons of carbon into the atmosphere. US research showed 2bn tons more carbon than usual entered the atmosphere in 1998, some 2/3 of originating in SE Asia. Farmers in Borneo continue burning forest to clear the land for farming.

Sink to Source: Why the Carbon Cycle is set for a U-­Turn. Though the 1970′s – early 1990′s saw greater carbon uptake due to the fertilization effect of great CO2 concentrations, its power as a sink leveled off in 1993 and went into dramatic decline after the mid-1990′s as it became dwarfed by deforestation, dessication and decay. Examples: major fires in Borneo and Siberia in 1998; the European summer heatwave of 2003, which released 0.5bn tons of carbon over 2 months. So as the century progresses, in Europe, higher CO2 uptake in early spring is canceled out greater heat and watter stress during hotter, drier summers. Even in the High North the overall effect is diminishing, despite the advance of forests north (if they don’t fall prey to new plagues of insects).

Why? During the 1970′s – 1980′s, the increased CO2 temporarily led to an increased fertilization effect, with a time lag before it was translated into higher temperatures; now the temperatures are catching up, resulting in decay coming close to outstripping growth and absorption. The biosphere will go from being a negative to a positive feedback, eventually releasing 7bn tons of carbon a year – roughly equivalent to current anthropic emissions. Even today Britain is releasing 13mn tons of carbon a year, around 1% of its carbon store and canceling out all its efforts to comply with Kyoto.

The Doomsday Device: A Lethal Secret stirs in the Permafrost. The West Siberian landscape: scarred by human activity (fragmented by pylons, seismic routes, railways and pipelines), littered with industrial detritus (abandoned drums, pipes and cables) and wreathed in black smoke from natural gas flares. The accelerated Arctic warming is moving the permafrost boundary north, melting peat bogs and increasing decomposition rates. As the thawed vegetation rots, its carbon will return as CO2; but in the bogs and lakes without oxygen, it will be converted into methane gas by anaerobic bacteria. As temperatures get warmer, emissions rise exponentially. There is around 450bn tons of carbon locked up in the peat bogs of the Far North, a third of the all the carbon locked up in the world’s soils. If released at once as CO2, it will raise temps by 3C; if as methane, by tens of degrees – making it a Doomsday Device. (Fortunately, methane breaks down into CO2 after a decade or so).

The Acid Bath: What Carbon Dioxide does to the Oceans. Since the Industrial Revolution, the oceans absorbed 120bn tons of carbon, and are absorbing some 2bn more every year. It was a major see-saw governing the transitions between Ice Ages and interglacials. During colder periods, the land is cold and dry, and dust storms transport large amounts of minerals that fertilize the cold­-loving plankton (during last Ice Age 120bn tons of carbon moved from land and atmosphere to the oceans), forming a powerful negative feedback. Since warmer, more acidic oceans kill calcerous life forms (e.g. dissolves shells of pteropods, making them vulnerable to predators), the ocean will stop being a sink.

The Wind of Change: Tsunamis, Megafarts and Fountains of the Deep. Methane hydrates: “They are generally close to the surface of the ocean floor but frozen – confined not by physical barriers but by high pressures and low temperatures – in a lattice of ice crystals rather like a honeycomb”, and ­ probably form when cold ocean water meets methane created by microbes living beneath the sea bed. Usually just beyond the edge of continental shelves, many tap into even larger stores of gaseous methane beneath, where heat from the Earth’s core keeps them from freezing. Though today’s waters are colder than during the PETM, they are warming much faster – if so, “the trigger on the clathrate gun will be a lot touchier than it was 55mn years ago”.

Effects. Ships just sink flat (water becomes much less dense when saturated with methane bubbles; less buoyant), like at Witch’s Hole and Bermude Triangle? Methane releases lead to cascading submarine slides and tsunamis. Methane hydrates have been found on Black Ridge off eastern US, in the Barents Sea southeast of Svalbard, north side of Storegga Slide (site of past tsunami). Another hotspot (pardon the pun) is the northern coast of Spitzbergen, which is warming fast as warm water currents break through the Fram Strait into the Arctic – in an ancient slide, the cliff face there fell by 1400m, seven times more than at Storegga.

The situation is now similar to the past – fast ­rising sea temperatures penetrate sediment and defrost the frozen methane. Global warming leads to more blowouts, more craters, more releases – perhaps a tsunami crashing into Europe at the same time as a big methane outburst pushes climate change into overdrive. At least it will take centuries, right? But clathrates are sometimes found close to surface, especially in the Arctic; also, “seabed sediments often contain cracks that extend into the frozen clathrate zone. Warm water takes no time to penetrate the cracks and can quickly unleash the methane”. Oops.

What’s Watts?: Planet Earth’s Energy Imbalance. Currently there is a global energy imbalance, as Earth transitions into a warmer state. (Equilibrium is when absorption = radiation into Space). The growing energy gap is without precedent. Net warming is now going into heating the lower atmosphere and the oceans, the latter of which take the lion’s share because of their greater heat capacity. This means are there time lags – the oceans are deep and it will take a millennium to heat them fully; the current warming has only penetrated the top 750m. As this pulse progresses, the “oceans [will be] draining more heat out of the atmosphere than they will once the oceans atmosphere return to a long­term balance”.

Perhaps around 0.6C of warming is lopped off by the oceans – half of it will come within 30-40 years of atmospheric CO2 stabilization, and the rest over many more decades and centuries. The current 2% heat share accruing to melting ice is to increase, as melting becomes explosively rapid – resulting in faster sea level rise, reduced albedo and further accelerated temperature rise. [AK: once Antarctica starts melting bigtime, most energy goes to melting that ice – ocean surfaces may not warm so much. Good for fisheries, bad for hurricanes! Yeah! BUT bad for monsoons. So S. Oceans cool, switching currents to there (see last), while Arctic warms?].

When the ice sheets covered a third of the northern hemisphere,the  vast expanses of white raised the planet’s albedo, resulting in an average decrease of solar heating of the Earth’s surface by 4 watts / sq m. Now this will reverse. If the planet’s albedo drops by just a tenth, to 27%, that will be comparable to a 5x increase in CO2 concentrations! Especially in the Arctic, the albedo effect will become absolutely dominant.

Clouds from Both Sides: Uncovering Flaws in the Climate Models. Though most climate models predict 3C of warming during the century, some tend to as high as an apocalyptic 12C! There are three main things to climate models – ice, CO2 and water vapor, with the last one’s effects relatively unknown. Though it is known water vapor by itself amplifies the effects of CO2, the contributions of clouds are a big unknown.

During the day, clouds shade us from Sun’s rays and keep the heat down, but at night they offer an insulating blanket. This effect is most pronounced in deserts. Different clouds work in different ways – wispy, high cirrus clouds are good at absorbing Sun’s heat and re­radiating it below (AK: similar to contrails!); the low, flat stratus clouds of a dreary summer day keep the world cool. Currently, the net effect is neutral or even slightly cooling – though no­-one knows for sure, even a slight change in global cloud patterns can substantially affect the world’s albedo.

When the world warms, there will be more water evaporation and presumably clouds, making the world cooler. But the increased heat also burns off clouds faster, leaving behind blue skies. As such, clouds may end up forming, filling up with moisture, raining out and dissipating faster – perhaps the fluffy, long-lasting cumulus clouds of today will metamorphose into dark, short-lasting cumulonimbus clouds.

Especially in the tropics, there has been a trend towards clearer skies, for since the mid-1980′s the tropical convection processes that caused air to rise when the Sun is at its fiercest have intensified and storm clouds form and grow more quickly where the warmed air is rising (PS. The reason hurricanes are most intense in the tropics). Since these clouds rain out more quickly, the tropics turn drier and less cloudy. The main difference between the old models and the new scary models are in how they incorporate cloud feedbacks.

There is increasing haze and aerosols emissions from industrializing Asia (smoke, soot, dust, and highly-reflective sulphate particles). Though they both absorb and radiate, the overall effect is highly cooling – meaning that at times central Europe, the plains of India, the Amazon, and eastern China miss out on GW. This means that part of global warming has been masked by the cooling effect of aerosol pollution!! But as these nations get richer (or face industrial collapse, like post-Soviet Eastern Europe), they will expend efforts to clean up this mess to avoid the smogs and acid rain, and GW will hit with full force.

The big question is – how tightly is the spring coiled? Introducing these effects into the equation, the new range from doubling CO2 levels is a 6-­10C temperature rise, well outside the bounds of imagination. Furthermore, even barring their negative side effects the use of aerosols to stem global warming cannot be a permanent answer – unlike CO2, which accumulates in the atmosphere for centuries, aerosols are washed out of the atmosphere in mere days.

Other uncertainties. Though sulphate particles undoubtedly cool things, there’s uncertainty about soot (black carbon from incomplete burning of coal, biomass, diesel). It warms the surrounding air, but shields the ground underneath – so the net effect is intense local cooling coupled with overall warming.

A Billion Fires: How Brown Haze could turn off the Monsoon. Due to the millions of ill-maintained diesel burning buses and two­-stroke rickshaws plying its gridlocked streets, sulphur dioxide emissions from coal-­burning power stations and inefficient cooking stoves in the countryside, there is now a near-constant smog during the winter months over the north Indian plain. This “brown haze” now encompasses much of Asia. Even half a world away in Svalbard, “soot is falling out onto the snow and ice, making the white surface darker” and helping melt the Arctic ice cap.

Smoke emissions rural cooking stoves produce 1­2mn tons of aerosols a year, including 0.25mn tons of soot, making them responsible for 40% of India’s aerosol emissions! This reduces solar radiation reaching India’s surface by 22 watts / sq m, supposedly enough to cause massive cooling; BUT only 7 watts is lost entirely, since other 15 watts / sq m is backscattered into space – absorbed by the soot in the aerosols and reradiated, heating the atmosphere. In winter, it counteracts GW and cools the air across India by an average of 1.5C; in summer, when the pollution is rained out and skies are clearer, temperatures rose by 0.5C in line with the global average.

This cooling “delays the heating of the land that stimulates the monsoon rains”, which are vital for feeding 3bn people in Asia. They’ve increased in the traditionally wetter south, where the haze is less strong; and decreased in the north, where the haze is thickest. There is a similar situation in CHina, but where more of the pollution is in the form of sulphate particles from burning coal – the most polluted areas saw declines of 0.6C, altering rainfall patterns. Monsoons have become greater in the south and weaker in the parched north – not surprisingly, since “when climate models are programmed to include a strong Asian brown haze many of them produce strong rainfall in southern China, coupled with near ­permanent droughts in the north”

Forest burning in the Amazon and Africa to clear lands plays havoc with the atmospheric circulation – rainfall is reduced; aerosols stay in the air for longer; the upper atmosphere becomes wetter due to buildup of water vapor; it forms intense thunderstorms (“hot towers”), causing hail storms! More water vapor in stratosphere → more ozone destruction. According to climate models, soot emissions over India and China can trigger drought in the African Sahel and warming in western Canada.

Hydroxyl Holiday: The Day the Planet’s Cleaner didn’t show up for Work. Hydroxyl (OH) is created when UV bombards gases like ozone and water vapor; as soon as it’s created, it reacts with other molecule, mostly polluting substances, and is gone within a second. It is very rare, having an atmospheric concentration of less than 1ppt. Hydroxyl is the “atmosphere’s detergent”, reducing gaseous pollutants so they’re soluble in water and wash away in rain (oxidation), like converting SO2, which would otherwise clog the air for months, into acid rain that quickly falls to Earth. CO and CH4 are oxidized to CO2, or to NO2. The one pollutant it doesn’t affect is CO2, hence its relatively long life­time in the atmosphere. [AK: so if it disappears and stops washing out aerosols like sulphate particles, this could lead to global cooling].

Concentrations of hydroxyl much higher over the warm air in the tropics, where UV radiation is most intense, and close to non­existent in the Arctic, where despite the ozone holes there is usually little UV to make more hydroxyl. So “toxic chemicals that might survive for only a few days in the tropics will last a year or more in the Arctic air”. This is one reason why pollutants like acid hazes and pesticides accumulate in the Arctic.

Since it’s destroyed when oxidizing pollution, it may be getting overworked. Joel Levine suggested in the 1980′s there was a 25% reduction in hydroxyl over the previous 30 years. Not surprising, since it spends a lot of its time oxidizing carbon monoxide (emitted by forest fires, fossil fuel burning and small domestic stoves), concentrations of which TRIPLED worldwide during the 20th C.

Sasha Madronich – ­ “under high pollution, the chemistry of the atmosphere becomes chaotic and extremely unpredictable. Beyond certain threshold values, hydroxyl can decrease catastrophically”…many urban areas are “already sufficiently polluted that hydroxyl levels are locally suppressed”. Why? The sheer volume of pollutants and smog prevents UV light from penetrating into the air to create more hydroxyl. Ironically, not only more pollution, but also a thicker ozone layer, nature’s filter versus UV, will have the same effect.

The Big Freeze: How a Wobble in our Orbit triggered the Ice Ages. 100,000 year cycles of Ice Ages and interglacials, with rapid switchings back and forth (Agassiz). During Ice Ages, the world was covered in ice – sea levels were 120m lower and ice sheets were 4km high and covered 30% of the Earth’s land area. Temps fell by 5C globally. Beyond the ice sheets, the world was dry and cold – deserts covered the Mid­West, France and the lands between Germany and Mongolia; the Sahara expanded; the Asian monsoon largely vanished; the tropical rainforests of Africa and S. America contracted to a few refuges surrounded by sparse grasslands.

Eccentricity, inclination and precession. First governs the Ice Age cycles; other two trigger short warm episodes during Ice Ages (Croll & Milankovitch). Since actual change due to wobbles is small, there exist “powerful embedded amplifiers that can make it highly sensitive to relatively small changes” – 1) ice-­albedo effect (cold summers melted less ice and kicked world into inreasing ice cover, albedo and cooling, and 2) as deserts spread, the cold winds blew off nutrient-­rich dust into the oceans, feeding plankton, which love cooler seas and sequestered carbon down from 600bn tons to 400bn tons (now 800bn tons and counting) in the atmosphere. Even today main constraint on plankton growth is lack of iron (AK: hence the ideas for iron seeding the world’s oceans for geo­engineering). Two other feedbacks: dried up wetlands → fewer methane emissions; less water vapor → amplified cooling. This history demonstrates the sheer power of feedbacks.

The Ocean Conveyor – The Real Day After Tomorrow. The ccean conveyor = thermohaline circulation = meridional overturning circulation. The Gulf Stream → waters cooled in N. Atlantic by cold Arctic winds in winter; becomes saltier due to ice formation → becomes heavier → sinks to seabed and takes 1000­year journey round the world → resurfaces in S. Atlantic → returns to the Gulf Stream. Due to hotter Arctic temps, which lead to more Greenland melting, increased precipitation and runoff from rivers, the current may shut down suddenly.

Though the Labrador Sea cold flow is still OK, the flow from where the vanishing chimneys were has halved. Measurements suggest that the strength of Gulf Stream is down by 30% since the mid­-1990′s, so perhaps a Little Ice Age will be on the way once the Arctic sees substantial melting. However other measurements refute this and a big cooling trend is seen as unlikely (can instead lead to increase in floods and storms, more frequent and intense El Nino events, ocean anoxic event).

More Climate History: Very Brief Summaries

Arctic Flower: Four fluctuations during the last glacial­interglacial transition, probably caused by release of meltwater into North Atlantic, breakdown of Gulfstream and associated cooling – particularly during the four Dryas periods.

The Pulse: Medieval Warm Period (only in Europe – Mayan collapse due to drought, Anasazi, etc) and Little Ice Age (subsistence crisis throughout much of Europe – also abroad, like Greenland Viking collapse, Ming China collapse, Amazon drying, floods washing away Timbuktu). 1500 year cycles of flunctuating heat based on solar pulses – shows what a big amplifying effect the Earth can bring to bear, and as such the extent of change brought about by global warming.

The Fall: Sahara was savanna some time back, when Earth’s orbital path was more favorable, as was Arabian Peninsula – hence the big groundwater reservoirs there. Increasing droughts in 21st C – all the American West, Central America → Iraq / Arabian Peninsula, Mediterranean Europe. Strong El Nino → aridity over West N. America. Megadrought or Garden of Eden? Probably longer and more intense droughts, interspersed with brief, intense storms and floods.

See­Saw: The Sahara greens the Amazon – dust blown off travels across the Atlantic Ocean and fertilizes the Amazonian rainforest. If the Sahara becomes wetter, this effect will diminish.

The Dance: Poles or the Tropics? Who leads in the Climate Dance?: A major division amongst climatologists. Work towards synthesis. Polar view: orbital changes → ice albedo → cooling → oceans sequester more carbon → ocean conveyor shuts down → Ice Ages. Tropical view: tropics are where due to heat much of the global dynamics are made…poles are where major feedbacks kick in: ice albedo, permafrost, and alterations to ocean currents.

A Chunk of Coral: Probing the Hidden Life of El Nino. What is El Nino? During normal times, driven by the Earth’s rotation the winds and surface waters of the tropical Pacific flow from the Americas in the east to Indonesia in the west; a pool of hot water accumulates on the ocean surface again the Indonesian archipelago, which is 40cm higher than further east and up to 8C warmer than surroundings (the “firebox” – ­ like the N. Atlantic chimneys, it has a propensity for threshold change via El Nino / La Nina system)

The effects: drying Australia; drenches normally arid Pacific islands, reaching coastal deserts of the Americas; disrupts Indian monsoon; drought in the Amazon; affects African monsoon and flow of the Nile (depending on season); triggers rain in the hills of Palestine; damps hurricane formation in the N. Atlantic. It lasts 12 to 18 months, after which it goes into sharp reverse called La Nina – wet conditions in Indonesia, fierce drought further east.

Historically, El Nino appeared during cold conditions (end of Ice Ages, Little Ice Ages) and La Nina (medieval warm period) during hot conditions. The same precession shift that desertified the Sahara (colder conditions), also coincided with an increase in El Nino frequency from once every 15 years to once every 6. BUT, coral records show that El Nino has increased since the mid­-1970′s to once every 3.5 years. This affected the rich, cold­current sustained fisheries off the Peruvian coast, for since 1976 the cold current was pushed to ever greater depths, even during normal times – the system has been stuck in a quasi-­permanent El Nino state.

Really? Yes. In 1982-­83 there was most severe El Nino in the 20th C – you wouldn’t expect another such for 100 years, but in 1997­98 there was an even larger one, and minor ones in 2002 and 2004. The traditional El Nino is thought to no longer be sufficient to handle and redistribute the larger degree of warming and heat in the system. Models indicate that in the 21st C, cold La Nina’s will happen occassionally and with greater intensity; but they will be breakout events, while the normal situation will become more El Nino-­like.

[AK: big uncertainties, of course – since warmer periods historically indicated La Nina and colder periods favored El Nino. But note that it might have more to do with solar intensity patterns: in African Humid Period, the Sun blazed down square on Sahara, raising the hot air and generating a strong monsoon over it. It desertified when this heating stopped – perhaps the focus moved further south, where it warmed the SE Asia Ocean more even as it the world cooled / said ocean hottened up relative to its surroundings? What about the Asian Brown Haze – does it extend that far, and could it shift the focus of this system?]

Feeding Asia: What Happens if the Rains Fail? The monsoon – during winter, cold, dry winds blow from the Himalayas and Asia is mostly waterless. During summer, the land heats quickly, hot air rises, moist ocean air rushes in and farmers grow their rice that sustains 3bn people.

Unfortunately, strong El Nino’s tended to switch them off as they draw heat away from Asia. The trend appears to have broken since 1970′s, when El Ninos strengthened but the monsoons remained steady. What will happen later?

The strength of monsoons is also correlated with heat in the N. Atlantic. But which one is dependent on which – or did they both depend on the solar pulses? Theory that warm Atlantic sends warm winds to provide earlier melting of the Tibetan plateau – so if the melt starts earlier, then monsoon will be longer and more intense. So if the Atlantic conveyor fails, effects may be even worse for Asia than for Europe.

BUT according to the tropical school, the tropics affect both – cooling of the tropics both sends less warm water to the Gulf Stream and diminishes the Asian monsoons. Will certainly be different from history since 1) before changes were based on solar fluctuations, now on CO2 inputs and 2) complicated by Asian brown haze which cools the land.

Ozone Holes in the Greenhouse: Why Millions Face Radiation Threat. History – CFC’s (chloride form) used, will take 100 years to heal – if the international commitments are kept. (But if bromide variants were used, which is 100x more effective at destroying ozone, then probably the whole Earth would now suffer from an ozone hall). For ozone holes to form, you need temperatures of ­90C or less (to form polar stratospheric clouds) and sunlight – happens sometimes over Antarctica and even the Arctic.

Though ozone holes have been contained by the 1990′s and are gradually healing, global warming means the stratosphere is getting colder as (more heat is re­radiated into space) – especially over the areas with the most severe warming, like the Arctic! Also there is more water vapor in the stratosphere as stronger convection currents drive thunderclouds higher, which makes it easier for polar stratospheric clouds to form. Hence ozone problem may get worse before it gets better.

[AK: that said, I don't think cancer effects will be that bad – no high incidence amongst Inuit, for instance. BUT, northern populations lead lifestyles that predispose them more to chronic diseases – so ultimately uncertain. But ordinary life will probably be mostly unaffected].

New Horizons: Feedbacks from the Stratosphere. A new idea is that during the Ice Ages, the ocean conveyor didn’t shut down but got its new deep water from off Antarctica – so formed a seesaw between the poles? Recently found large lakes of liquid water beneath Antarctic icecap…might set off cascade of fresh water into Southern Ocean similar in scale to emptying of Lake Agassiz that set off the Younger Dryas cold snap?

Other surprises. Arctic Oscillation, the second largest climate cycle after El Nino on Earth…changes in relative air pressures strenghten or weaken the pervailing westerly winds that circle the Arctic. In positive mode, pressure differentials between polar and extra­polar regions are strong and winds strengthen, taking heat from warm oceans and heating the land – northern Europe, Svalbard, Siberia, Alaska and Atlantic coast of N. America. Was strongly positive for last 35 years, and contributed to half of global warming over the Arctic!

But GW is driving the AO itself too, though. Greenhouse gases cool stratosphere → alters energy distribution within stratosphere that enhances winds, inc. the stratospheric jet that swirls around the Arctic in winter  →  drives westerly tropospheric winds faster → warming. Same effect in Antarctica with the Southern Hemisphere Annular Mode.

Important amplifying mechanism, since when solar output changes, the change in UV is very great – but since its stopped by ozone, it has a much bigger effect on the stratosphere than at ground level. (AK: now that might change). Hence causes particular feedbacks over northern regions, e.g. during Maunder Minimum only Europe could really be said to have experienced Little Ice Ages.

Climate skepticism? But this is only amplifier. Though solar output is correlated more or less OK with temps for much of 20th C, the link is decidedly broken after the 1970′s which sees notable cooling with slightly diminished solar radiation.

No-one disputes the denier argument that greenhouse gases are essential for life on Earth. But there is such an concept as too much of a good thing. It is ostrich-like to deny that our CO2 emissions, proceeding at rates unprecedented in geological history, will not soon lead to substantial global warming – current atmospheric CO2 levels were last seen during the Pliocene, when average global temperatures were almost 3C hotter. And it is Pollyannish in the extreme to maintain that the effects on human societies will be anything other than deleterious. In this book, Mark Lynas shows us why.

As I warned in my first proper Notes post – on Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies – since I am doing this mostly for myself as part of my research into my book on “future history”, I cannot guarantee this will be interesting.

Introduction

Basing his work on the IPCC’s projections of 1.4-5.8C of warming for the 21st century, Lynas reviews the existing scientific literature as to the effects each degree of global temperature rise will have on our biosphere. To appreciate the scale of the upper range of these projections, consider that global temperatures were around 6C lower during the depths of the last Ice Age – when the North Sea was dry land, dessication affected even the tropics and massive ice sheets descended into central Europe, transforming it into a polar desert blasted by ice dust-laden winds.

In contrast to the conservative IPCC’s conception of climate change as gradual, he shows that there exist numerous positive feedbacks that will reinforce and accelerate global warming after the world warms by 2C – acidifying oceans will cease functioning as carbon sinks; the melting of polar ice will reduce the Earth’s albedo, making it more heat-absorptive; dying vegetation, including a possible Amazonian conflagration, will transform the world’s biomass from a carbon sink to a carbon source; melting Siberian permafrost will release previously trapped methane into the atmosphere, a greenhouse gas twenty times as powerful as CO2. Furthermore, anthropogenic global warming is occuring at rates unmatched in geological history as industrial civilization belches out carbon sequestered over tens of millions of years in decades, even as much of the world’s traditional balancing mechanisms – forests, biodiversity, mangroves, etc – have come under sustained human assault. Nor does it help that both palaeoclimate reconstructions and new models taking into account the “dimming” effect of human aerosol emissions indicate that the climate’s sensitivity to CO2 levels is as much as twice higher than previously thought. All this sets the stage for a massive extinction event by the time temperatures rise by 6C, as the world’s oceans turn anoxic, seabed methane hydrates are released and lethal hydrogen sulphide bubbles into the atmosphere from the dead seas, even destroying the ozone layer in the process.

Lynas decided to write the book on viewing the inundation of New Orleans, which he sees as a portal into the future – in which the rule of law is replaced by the rule of the gun, masses of climate refugees appear even in the world’s richest nations and industrial civilization fights its last wars for fuel and water with guns, grenades and nuclear weapons. Now for the degree by degree account.

One Degree

Though the Great Plains are one of the world’s great agricultural breadbaskets, a desert slumbers underneath. Increased dessication and pummeling storms will erode away the thin topsoil, recreating the Dust Bowl on a giant scale and re-awakening the sand dunes. More irrigation will only postpone the inevitable. There will be large-scale migration to the wetter Mid-West and Great Lakes regions. AK: actually called the Great American Desert during the 19th century!, and is now dependent on depleting Ogallala Aquifer.

Higher rainfall, glacial melt and strengthening Siberian rivers may interrupt the Gulf Stream (part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation system), drying western Europe and cooling it by as much as 2C – recreating the conditions of the Little Ice Age during the worst winters. However, most models predict this will be a slow death. AK: If not, expect increased European dependency on Russian gas during the 2010′s and 2020′s.

In Africa, Kilimanjaro will lose its remaining ice by 2020 – causing wildfires, fish stock declines and problems with hydroelectricity production. Based on palaeoclimate, in the long-term there will be a greening of the Sahara (into a savanna) and an enlarged Lake Chad…however, models say that there will only be a short interlude of heavier rains in the Sahel and on the West African coast, followed by even fiercer drought.

Coral reefs around the world will be increasingly bleached and taken over by seaweed; polar bears are pushed off the top of the world and creatures like pikas are shoved off the planet, accelerating the Anthropocene Mass Extinction event. Hurricanes will become stronger and more ubiquitous, spreading to the South Atlantic. More rockfalls in the Alps. Increased incidence of drought in the Amazon, pushing it to the brink. Atolls become doomed worlds, fated to submerge amidst the rising waves.

Two Degrees

China will face floods in the south and drought in the north – amplified by depleting fossil aquifers and burgeoning industrial demand for water. It is hoped that the resulting lowered crop yields, continental dust-storms and water stress will be mitigated through the construction of a vast megaproject to bring excess water from the Yangtze to the parched north.

The oceans will become too acidic to support calcerous life, further depleting the world’s fishery stocks and corals. The demise of plankton ecosystems will diminish the ocean’s role as a sink absorbing around half of the world’s CO2 emissions.

Crops losses, water shortages (for irrigation, hydroelectricity), grounded barge traffic and melting mountain glaciers afflict Europe as it moves to a North African climate, in which the summer heatwave of 2003 becomes the new norm. Mediterranean Europe becomes much hotter and drier, reversing current migration flows to the north. Drought and heat stress will transform its vegetation from a carbon sink to a carbon source.

Arctic warming unleashes the melting of the Greenland icecap, as meltwater forms lakes and bores icy sink-holes called moulins onto the bedrock beneath the ice sheet, lubricating its base and accelerating glacier flow. Glaciers begin to retreat, thin and accelerate at exponential rates – much of Greenland will be gone by the end of the century, raising global sea levels by up to 7m. AK: the effects will initially be particularly severe in north-east North America.

The Arctic meltdown intensifies, as lakes drain away, permafrost vanishes and infrastructure finds itself built on quicksand. A triple whammy feedback effect kicks in – earlier snowmelt (part of which is replaced by rain) causes more summer heat to go into the earth; steep, dark-colored shrubs and boreal forests encroach on once-white tundra; and melting Arctic ice is replaced by dark ocean water, raising local temperatures because of the vastly lowered albedo and making it difficult for next year’s ice to re-form. Propelled into oblivion by the ice-albedo effect, the Arctic will soon be ice-free throughout the summer. This opens up global shipping routes and huge new hydrocarbon reserves to exploitation, ushering in a geopolitical Great Game in the High North.

Agricultural decline in India of 8% as crop yields fall in increasingly drought-stricken north, though West Bengal sees improvements; experiences refugee influxes from Bangladesh as it is overwhelmed by a stronger monsoon. The glaciers supplying Peru‘s desert areas with water, including the capital Lima, will dry up – leaving it dependent on unreliable highland rainfall. Though temporary solutions like piped mountain water or desalination plants will be tried, in the end these settlements could be abandoned in favor of mountain villages, ushering in subsistence crises and upheavals. In California, smaller snowpacks (since more water falls as rain) means less water and earlier run-off in flooding will test its intricate hydraulic system to the limit – not helped by its burgeoning population and increased incidence of severe drought.

In the warming world, US food production holds steady but moves from the Great Plains and the West, to the north and Mid-West. Yields increase in western Russia and Scandinavia; overall Europe too remains steady, with a northward shift. There is great potential in Canada and Russia, but it will be difficult to develop rapidly. In South and Central America, the staple maize will decline everywhere except in Chile and Ecuador; much of Africa will decline, particularly its subtropical belt – though rainier Congo, and mountainous parts of Lesotho and Ethiopia, will benefit. In general, the countries that contributed to GW least are also the worst off – though mountainous and equatorial regions hold the line, yields decline in the drier subtropics, inducing structural famine in the most destitute nations.

The ongoing sixth great extinction event will be turbo-charged by climate change, which too many species are too slow, too specialized or too already-damaged to escape. It is moving north at 30km per year – much too fast for butterflies (2km), forests (1km) or beetles (0.2km) [AK: and bees?] to adapt to. More than a third of today’s species will die off, ushering in a hot, silent summer. In the coming Age of Loneliness, humans will have to try to replace nature’s prior services on an increasingly artificial and fragile world. AK: through hydroponics, species transfers, systems studies, fish farms, bioengineering, geoengineering, etc.

Three Degrees

Eventually, conditions will resemble those of the Pliocene, when stunted shrubs grew in the Transantarctic Mountains, conifers populated northern Greenland and East Africa was covered in lush forests. But as for the transition…

Even as the tropics and mid-latitudes drown in floods, the subtropics bake to death – including much of sub-Saharan Africa, where increased evaporation due to heat and much stronger winds erode away the topsoil to reveal the sand dunes of the greater Kalahari desert. Botswana is covered in dunes in its entirety, as is much of Zambia, Angola, Namibia, western Zimbabwe and northern South Africa – making human habitation impossible. Meanwhile, East Africa gets more humid – increased rainfall in Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, etc, results in more flooding and malarial infestation, further compounding Africa’s development crisis.

Much of the interior of and southern Australia becomes inhospitable because of an unholy trinity of fire, heat and drought – leading to general agricultural collapse, drying rivers, salination and gigantic conflagrations (pyro-cumulonimbus, black hail, tornadoes and huge smoke stacks).

There may appear a permanent El Niño, in which Peru and California suffer from more storms and floods; the Amazon desiccates; drought afflicts southern and northern Africa, India, Indonesia, and Australia; the US has milder winters and calmer Atlantic hurricanes; and Europe experiences drier winters.

Increasing dessication leads to the collapse of the Amazon rainforest. Home to half of global diversity, 10% of Earth’s net primary productivity and its main river containing 20% of all water discharged into the world’s oceans, the Amazon is already under siege from cattle ranching, soya plantations, roads and illegal logging. As it is increasingly afflicted by drought, its soils shift from being carbon sinks to carbon sources – further exacerbating warming. Fires spread, accelerating the downfall – its slow regeneration allows more sunlight to penetrate the forest canopy and further dry out the forest floor, while rainfall is suppressed by the resulting months-long clouds of smoke. The collapse starts from the north-east and spreads, culminating in a massive conflagration as walls of flame march across the remaining forest – covering the whole region in choking smog, raining down gray drizzles of ash and blotting out the Sun with a leaden pall. No vegetation survives except bits of grassland and savanna at the edges. The world’s former hydrological engine turns into a sweltering desert of Saharan temperatures, fierce sandstorms, and meandering, muddied gorges.

Central America is already suffering from overpopulation, destruction of forest cover and erosion, like the Mayans of old; global warming will lead to severe droughts, subsistence crisis and socio-political collapse, resulting in mass emigration that will again leave behind ghost towns and monuments to a lost culture. Although at first it may get weaker due to the Asian Brown Cloud, the Indian monsoon will then become stronger – leading to more variability (increasing catastrophic flooding AND droughts) and exacerbation of current humidity differentials (it will be wetter on the Indian west coast and north-east, Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal; drier in north India and south Pakistan).

Since the Indus Valley is essentially desert, with no rain coming in from either the Punjabi plains or the lawless mountains of Balochistan, the river is almost entirely reliant on Himalayan ice-water melt. As the glaciers dissipate, flows will at first swell, but will later crash for months at a time during the dry season. This will devastate the canal-watered Punjabi breadbasket, ushering in a subsistence crisis and translating into a wider crisis in the Pakistani economy due to the collapse of cash crops like rice and sugar. (There will also be problems in Western China and India, which are also heavily reliant on Himalayan melt – India may experience blackouts due to failing hydro-power production in summer, leading it to hold back water in reservoirs and thus stoke conflict with Pakistan). Pakistan devolves into a failed state in nuclearized anarchy and will possibly instigate a last-ditch war with India, as the shimmering white of old glaciers gives way to bare rubble and sun-baked soil.

Due to greater winter rainfall and quicker snowmelt, incidence of drought will increase on the American west coast – putting great strain on the plumbing system of the Colorado River and devastating agriculture in California, Washington and even Alberta.

From Houston to Shanghai, coastal cities will experience far more powerful storms due to hotter seas. New York City will become much more vulnerable to catastrophic flooding, as storm surges strengthen in response to more powerful hurricanes and nor’easters, which together with sea level rise will make parts of it economically unviable – in response, the city may construct billion-dollar flood barriers to shield itself. Stronger storms in the North Sea put London and Netherlands at increasing risk due to storm surges. Droughts and floods both increase, as Alpine glacier melting causes similar effects on Europe similar to that of the aforementioned Colorado on the western US – even as parts of the Mediterranean rim start desertifying.

Rainfall shifts north to Canada and Alaska, further exacerbating drying in western North America. Greenland is in rapid meltdown, as it loses water to emerging glacial rivers and new, blue lakes trapped between gravelly moraine and the retreating icecap. Iceland loses its ice even faster. Though growing seasons in the High North increase, their thin, rocky and acidic soils are unlikely to compensate for the desiccating breadbaskets.

Since grain yields decline at temperatures higher than 30C, agriculture in the arid sub-tropics becomes increasingly untenable – in central America, south India, Indonesia and (rain-fed) southern and northern Africa. Crop yields begin to slide in the tropics as it becomes simply too hot. In North America, agriculture moves north to the Mid-West and east Canada, even as the West and South-West is afflicted by drought, heavy rainstorms and new pests. There will be a net global food deficit after a 2.5C rise – even the mid-latitudes suffer due to extreme floods and droughts, while structural famine grips the subtropics and creates hundreds of millions of climate refugees. The rich world turns to isolation or fascism, while eco-extremist ideologies take root amongst the uprooted nomad masses.

Four Degrees

Since much of the base of the West Antarctic ice sheet is grounded below sea level, warmer oceans stand to erode its edges and call its whole stability into question – especially as most of the center of the great ice mass is even deeper below sea level than the edges, penetrating sea water could lift the icecap off its seabed foundations. Although it is shielded by the massive Ross and Ronne ice shelves, if they were to disintegrate the West Antarctic would get uncorked – resulting in much faster glacial outflow and adding 5m to global sea levels within decades. (Already three shelves have disintegrated – the Wordie, Larsen A and Larsen B). Though the East Antarctic cap is shielded by the Transantarctic Mountains, is too is anchored beneath sea level so it could collapse via the back door – eventually raising sea levels by a further 50m. Destabilization of both Antarctic ice caps and Greenland will result in unmanageably rapid inundation of the world’s urban commercial centers and low-lying farmland.

Entire nations like Bangladesh, Holland and Egypt will be put at risk; cities will become besieged fortresses under constant risk of catastrophic breakdown before the rising seas and gathering storms. Agriculture will need to move onto higher, more marginal lands. As the world’s coastlines retreat, the resulting economic shocks will destabilize society and break the insurance and credit systems – leaving fewer resources to support the hundreds of millions of newly-displaced people, as the world is wracked by the Scylla of inland drought and the Charybdis of coastal inundation.

Industrializing China is already in deep environmental decline – most lakes are polluted by agricultural or industrial runoff, the Yellow River is depleted and toxic, and it suffers from rapid topsoil loss, acid rain, dirty air in major cities and massive coastal pollution (sewage, farm pesticides, oil spills cause 90 poisonous red times year). China’s continuing industrialization is putting unprecedented and unbearable stresses on the world’s energy resources and ecological services. At a temperature rise of more than 3C, its production of food staples crashes by up to 40% – even excluding the impact of rapidly falling groundwater tables on irrigation systems. Though it could try to use its manufacturing-exports clout to close the gap on world food markets, by now agriculture will be crashing throughout the world’s mid-latitudinal breadbaskets, as the subtropics get too dry and the tropics too hot – the Great Plains, the western US, the Pacific coast of S. America, southern Africa, the western Indian subcontinent and Australia all see major declines. Droughts will prevail in SW North America, Central America, the Mediterranean, S. Africa and Australia – SE Asia during the winter, and the Amazon, Siberia and West Africa during the summer. Although(marginal) sub-polar lands will be opened up in Russia and Canada, and yields may rise due to new bio-engineered drought-resistant crops and the fertilization effects of increased CO2 levels, this will not close the gap – the situation will become ever more precaurious, for “with major global breadbaskets dusty and abandoned, rising demand will be chasing rapidly diminishing supply”.

Civilizational collapse will sweep the inter-connected globe like a neutron bomb, “overtaking a planet whose natural defense mechanisms have already been severely damaged by human activity” (fertile soils stripped of trees and grasses and appropriated for farmland, oceans sucked dry by gigantic factory ships, etc), endangering previously free ecological services (cloud-forming plankton, the Amazonian hydrological engine, the ocean’s carbon sequestration, etc) – at the same time as humans turned the heat on. Greenland is in full meltdown, the West Antarctic is collapsing and Atlantic circulation is shutting down (by now too late to significantly cool down Western Europe). The long days of summer reduce “forests to tinder and cities to boiling morgues”, even as the world’s “weather will go increasingly haywire, with wilder storms mobilizing undreamt-of ferocity as they strike ever larger areas”.

World map showing areas at risk of desertification

New deserts are spreading in Europe, which now suffers from perennial summer droughts and heatwaves in the Mediterannean, with ripple effects felt as far away as Ukraine and southern Russia. During summer, London and Switzerland see temperatures now associated with Marrakech. Temperatures soar throughout continental interiors, hitting hydroelectricity production and lead to imminent grid collapse [AK. Not helped by the fact the Earth's magnetic field is weakening]. The Caspian drops by 10m. Snow becomes an oddity even in eastern Europe, desiccating the summer North European Plain. On Lifeboat UK, drought in the south-east is punctuated by more severe floods on the low river plains; there are more severe but fewer storms in the north-west and Scotland. The flight to the north intensifies and extreme political movements gain ground as socio-political collapse looms near.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Alpine glaciers melt, in the process unleashing avalanches of suffocating wet snow and flash floods. Europe’s water tower dries up. Eventually, drought turns the Alps from verdant green and snowy white to a moonscape of baked-earth browns, with just a few hardy shrubs and grasses clinging on to life near the tree-line – just like the Atlas Mountains.

In a warmer world, rainfall becomes more convective – characterized by small, violent cloudbursts like thunderstorms with longer dry periods in between (as opposed to the gentler rain associated with the passage of frontal depressions). This is particularly noticeable in central and northern Europe, SE England and Korea – though overall rainfall may increase, increased temperatures also drive up evaporation, resulting in a much drier land surface. Even where cultivable soils remain, not succumbing to desert, these heavy cloudbursts accelerate erosion and convert once fertile plains into gullied badlands capable of supporting only marginal grazing.

By now, the Arctic is long ice-free and the sounthern permafrost boundary shifts hundreds of kilometers north – causing extensive infrastructure damage over large areas of Siberia, Alaska and Canada. Lakes drain and rivers alter course as 30% more fresh water drains into the Arctic Ocean from extra rainfall and thawing ground. In the mossy tundra, trees and bogs appear. This is going to release vast amounts of Siberian methane – 1) where lakes and marshes drain and dry out, bacteria breaks down nutrients to form CO2, 2) anaerobic bacteria moves into still wet areas to perform oxidising decomposition, producing methane – a much more potent greenhouse gas, and 3) in some areas carbon dissolves into water directly, and is later released as CO2 from lakes, rivers and the Arctic ocean. This is an extremely dangerous feedback that will catapult the world into…

Five Degrees

Resulting in a new world coming into being – one with a permanently ice-free Arctic, acidic oceans, collapsed ecosystems, burnt out rainforests, intense heatwaves and hurricanes, rapid inundation of coastal areas, outward spread of the world’s deserts and a climate increasingly bifurcated between wet and dry. Higher evaporation desertifies already semi-arid regions. Two globe-girdling belts of perennial drought appear – encompassing the central Americas, southern half of Europe, the Sahel and Ethipia, southern India, Indochina, Korea, Japan and the western Pacific in the north; southern Chile and Argentina, eastern Africa, Madagascar and Australia in the south. A more intense monsoon increases the flows of the major Indian and Chinese rivers; rivers in the Far North also become much more powerful. In tandem with depleting fossil aquifers, desiccation of continental interiors and disappearing snow and glacier melt, global warming will force biblical-sized migrations to the thin, poor, rocky and acidic soils of the Far North where the displaced will strive to eke out a subsistence existence. If the northern powers let them in, of course…

When all the ice melts...

Surrounded by agricultural and urban deserts, the world’s remaining oases of biodiversity – its denizens unable to flee, being too slow, too specialized and too isolated – will be rapidly submerged under real deserts.

Methane hydrates, an icelike combination of methane and water, are only stable when very cold or under high pressure. If destabilized by submarine slides of deep ocean warming, they can explosively sublime, releasing epic amounts of methane into the atmosphere. This will further accelerates global warming, leading to ever more acidic oceans, desertification, intense thunderstorms, topsoil washoff, more extreme downpours and lush redwood forests around the high Arctic (creating water vapor, insulating itself during the long polar darkness) – as during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) 56mn years ago. Because of its shallow depth and subjection to the most extreme warming, the Arctic Ocean is going to be the locus of methane hydrate releases – which will in turn destabilize sediment downslope of continental shelves in shallower seas, resulted in sumarine slides, tsunamis and further methane hydrate releases.

The resurgent monsoons will take time to work themselves up, thus postponing any relief for desiccated northern China or Pakistan. As the tropics become too hot for crops and the subtropics dry up, the belts of habitality contract towards the poles, both on land and on sea – ushering in a new era of enforced localism, in which globalization totally collapses. New refuges include: the High North, northern Europe, the British Isles, rainy highland areas of Africa, Tasmania, New Zealand, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, and newly-defrosted parts of Greenland and Antarctica – however, this is not enough and there will be wars for Lebensraum. Rising sea levels turn many coastal cities into wave-battered ghost towns and inundations of low-lying, fertile plains like the Nile, Yangtze and Meghna deltas further decimates agriculture. Life near the seas is precaurious due to heavy storms and tsunamis. The world descends into anarchic violence, ushering in a global Malthusian crisis as the global carrying capacity plummets – and is further reduced by masses of desperate foragers. During the “cull” / dieoff, there are new holocausts, wars are fought with guns, grenades and nuclear weapons, and the world population is reduced by the billions.

Six Degees

The Creteceous world saw a Mediterranean climate at the poles and tropical ones at high latitudes; extremely powerful storms, leaving behind tempestites and even hummocks on the ocean floor, were driven by extremely hot oceans (reaching 42C in the tropical Atlantic!, 32C in the subpolar Atlantic and nearly 20C at the North Pole). The Arctic was humid and temperate, supporting lush forests (there may have been evergreens at the South Pole); the mid-latitudes were warm and humid, but subject to intense droughts and burning; below them there was an arid belt; the equatorial tropics saw the heaviest rainfall and severest storms, but little biodiversity. Though warm and sticky, it may have been quite nice…but the current rate of change is unprecedented in geological history and our ecosystems have no hopes of adapting in time.

Instead, the world may repeat the end-Permian extinction event. The warm seas will expand, forming numerous shallow seas. They will also power hypercanes of incredible ferocity that will circle the globe repeatedly. Deserts spread as far north as the Arctic Circle. Yet the real “kill mechanism” will lurk in the deeps…

Methane releases from collapsed methane hydrates will dissolve throughout the water column over time, each successive layer of water gradually reaching saturation point and priming the explosive. Now all it needs is a detonator – a small disturbance on the seafloor. This drives a parcel methane-gas-saturated water, which releases a cascading stream of bubbles as the dissolved gas fizzzes out because of the falling hydrostatic pressure. This makes the parcel of water still more buoyant, accelerating its rise through the water column. As the water surge up, it drags the surrounding water up with it, spreading the process across the whole water body. At the sea surface, water is ejected hundreds of meters into the air as the released gas blasts into the atmosphere. This may generate a supersonic shockwave that ignites the exponentially growing methane blanket, pushing out an explosive front at speeds of 2km / sec and vaporising everything it is paths. This fireball of doom could release more energy than contained in the world’s nuclear stockpiles by orders of magnitude, resulting in nuclear winter followed by renewed warming.

And that is not all. The global ocean convection system will shut down, creating an “ocean anoxic event” that kills all oxygen-breathing marine life, building up lethal hydrogen sulphide in the ocean depths. Starting from partly enclosed basins like the Mediterranean or the Gulf of Mexico, or the already anoxic Black Sea, it too will be released into the atmosphere. Lethal in minute concentrations, the only warming will be the smell of rotten eggs before the olfactory nerve becomes paralyzed. It will be a silent killer, making its way from the coasts to the continental interior. Furthermore, it will break down what remains of the ozone layer – exposing any remaining survivors to carcinogenic UV rays.

Though humans are cleverer and more adaptable than the creatures of the end-Permiant – they can stockpile essentials, filter out poisonous gases and eat a wide range of foods. That said, human survival as a species is far from assured if this unholy trinity of spreading methane fireballs, hydrogen sulphide poisoning and UV radition comes to pass on an Earth rapidly transitioning into Mad Max in Death Valley surrounded by Waterworld.

Choosing Our Future

There are two big unknowns: 1) future emissions and 2) climate sensitivity.

Warming of at least 1C is already locked in whatever we do, making the Great Plains, the Great Barrier Reef and numerous species “living dead” (yet based on palaeoclimate, perhaps a Pliocene-like state with its 3C rise and 25m higher sea levels is inevitable). Though most models give a rise of 3C for a doubling of pre-industrial CO2 levels (from 280ppm), some project warming of as high as 11C (!) because of prior neglect of the role of sulphur aerosols in producing “global dimming” (which suppressed early signals about climate sensitivity to rapidly increasing CO2 levels). Since aerosols are scrubbed out of the atmosphere in a matter of days (in contrast to CO2 which lingers for centuries), this means that temperatures will from now follow the high end of the IPCC’s predictions of 5.8C, or even higher. AK: the fourth IPCC report actually raised the maximum to 6.4C.

Therefore Lynas says temperatures have to be stabilized below 2C, because from then numerous catastrophic feedbacks kick in – the burning of the Amazon (+1.5C) –> accelerated released of CO2 and methane from Siberian bogs –> ocean methane hydrate release –> mass extinction apocalypse. all this is ASSUMING A LOW CLIMATE SENSITIVITY, there is a 25% of overshoot at 400ppm (we’re currently at around 385ppm), and more than 85% chance at 550ppm – the only hope of salvation is to achieve peak CO2 emissions by 2015, and rapidly reduce them 90% by 2050.

He suggests a global contraction and convergence plan, but acknowledges it will be difficult in practice because of industrial civilization’s dependence on cheap fossil fuel even for its food. He refuses to engage in platitudes about renewables and notes that a shift from coal to biomass will result in renewed deforestation, as in today’s rich countries a century ago. Instead, he stresses the need for a values change towards post-materialism – now constrained by social pressures to live a high-energy lifestyle, indulge in blame games, denial, manufacture “needs”, faith in the technological fix and utter denial of resource limitations (e.g. the GDP farce).

He cites the idea of knocking in carbon “wedges” (seven will reduce 2055 emissions to those of today – i.e. still far too little, too late). Ideas include: raising vehicle fleet fuel efficiency from 30mpg to 60mpg; halving the average distance traveled by each car [AK: hard since vehicle fleet is rapidly expanding in emerging markets]; more efficient buildings; more efficient electricity generation; quadrupling of gas-fueled power stations to replace coal [AK: gas peak probable by 2020's!]; 700new 1GW nuclear power plants [AK: great idea!]; “carbon capture and storage” applied to 800 similar-sized coal plants [AK: CC is greenwash] – i.e., none of these ideas are currently feasible except the nuclear option. Furthermore, Lynas adds some of his own wedges: 2mn 1MW wind turbines (50x increase from today!); solar PVC increase by 700X from today!; 4mn 1MW turbines in place of coal; build a hydrogen transport system.

Lynas does not have the solutions

As for the solutions, I mostly disagree with Lynas. He opposes nuclear power – I think it is the one energy source that has a hope of saving industrial civilization, which is probably worth a somewhat elevated probability of nuclear proliferation. He emphasizes wind power, which can never be a major source of power because of its huge output fluctuations, low energy intensity and low EROEI). He proposes carrying through all these societal changed through market mechanisms, such as carrying through “carbon rationing” by using it as a parallel virtual currency that can be exchanged for real money – a monumentally stupid idea, since this is extremely regressive, will breed resentment against the rich and preclude the formation of new values.

As I said in my last post on AGW, the only hope of salvation – and without gambling on geo-engineering, it’s already a very small one – is to embark on the road to Green Communism.

]]> http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/2009/06/10/notes-lynas/feed/ 11 http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/2008/07/21/news-21-july-expansion-amidst-turbulence/ http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/2008/07/21/news-21-july-expansion-amidst-turbulence/#comments Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:38:00 +0000 AK http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/?p=47 Continue reading →]]> Let’s start with two excellent new resources I’ve recently come across. Russia: Other Points of View states its objectives thus:

We believe there is need in the public forum for a venue which offers opinions and facts that at times may differ from the prevailing view in western media.

Hmm… Sounds quite similar to Da Russophile, in fact, and makes a substantial part of our News posts redundant. As such I’ll be referring to it frequently.

The other is the Moscow Defence Brief, an English-language quarterly that offers analysis on Russian, Eurasian and world military affairs from a Russian perspective.

Moving onto developments in Russia, the economy continues to boom, driven by investment and consumption. The vast majority of foreign investors have made handsome gains and are bullish about future prospects, despite recent global financial perturbations that have cut the RTS back below 2000 by around a quarter from its peak. Manufacturing growth remains strong at 8.4% for the first half of 2008 (artificially brought down by 0.6% yearly growth on June, due to the effects of celebrating Euro08 successes on Russian productivity). Overall industrial growth of 5.8% is as usual lowered by anemic growth of 0.5% in the extractive sectors, including a 0.6% fall in oil production (as covered in the previous News, Russia has now almost certainly reached its oil production peak). While slowing down in Moscow, the construction boom continues apace in the rest of the country. Russia’s mean salary has surpassed 700$ this year and as of May in real terms salaries and pensions had increased by 14.5% and 13.8%, respectively, on the same period last year. The Sukhoi SuperJet 100 made its maiden flight and Cisco announces investment in venture capital fund to focus on Russia and CIS.

No wonder then that Russia has overtaken Germany as Europe’s biggest car market, with 3.8mn units expected to be sold this year (compared with 3.2mn in Germany) and Russia (with 2% of the world population) predicted to account for 20% of global growth in the automotive market through to 2015. The Economist has a much more detailed (and, unusual for it, quite professional) overview of Russia’s bourgeoning car market. Exploding purchasing power means car sales are expected to approach 4.5mn units by 2010, when it is expected car ownership will rise to 253 / 1000 people. Government industrial policy has led to the world’s major car producers rushing to build factories in Russia, with their new capacity by 2012 estimated at 1.6mn units (in effect doubling Russian car production from 2007).

On the other hand, the Economist‘s oily hallucinations continue (“Is it “peak oil” or a speculative bubble? Neither, really”). The last “really” says it all, really. When you were so really, really wrong on predicting 5$ oil back in 1999, might as well burrow your head even deeper into the conventional ‘wisdom’. (Really reminds me of Newsweek‘s ‘Russia is really, really weak‘ line, made fun of in the eXile.) And to connect these issues together, the Economist repeats its catechism that a) Russian oil production is stagnating due to a lack of investment as opposed to basic geological limits and b) its economy is more dependent than ever on oil. This is in stark contrast to the Financial Times (‘Running on empty? Fears over oil supply move into the mainstream‘), which is beginning to see the light. Gazprom predicts oil will reach $250 in 2009.

Nikitsky Fund released an apocalyptic-sounding issue of its excellent Truth and Beautnewsletter, the Crack of Doom. Many things, from medium-term American economic prospects to long-term global sustainability, do indeed look apocalyptic…

The World Bank has revised its GDP estimates for 2007. According to the new figures, Russia overtook the UK last year to become the sixth-largest economy in the world and second in Europe behind Germany. Its PPP gross national income per capita reached 14,400 $, which is comparable to that of Croatia or Poland.

Russia has managed to occupy 9 places in the list of the world’s top 500 supercomputers in June 2008. Although it doesn’t sound impressive, it is a significant improvement on previous releases of the list; and besides, it is dominated by just a few players (the UK, Japan, France, Germany and above all the US, which accounts for more than half). As I pointed out here, national strength in things like supercomputers, nanotechnology and electronic connectivity will be to this century as steel, oil and literacy were to the last. Moscow State University also released a list of the Top 50 supercomputers in Russia and the CIS.

Medvedev’s new Presidency has brought a new burst of rhetorical energy to themes such as fighting corruption, easing bureaucratic regulations on small businesses and computerization. My interpretation on this is that just as restoring state power and implementing a national industrial and socio-economic policy were the dominant talked-about themes at the start of Putin’s first and second terms respectively, and followed up by measures to that effect, so this is the prelude to the sort of institutional reforms that are becoming increasingly important for further economic growth and rapid convergence to advanced industrialism. But we’ll see.

Western hypocrisy is heroically exposed by Gorbachev, Russia’s UK ambassador and Medvedev.
The demographic situation continued to improve over the first five months of May, as noted in my recent Demographics series of posts. There was an almost 10% increase in the crude birth rate, which nonetheless strongly suggests the TFR will exceed 1.5 this year and thus more than exceed the projection in the High scenario. On the other hand mortality has stagnated, the crude death rate rising by 0.7%. Nonetheless, I strongly suspect this is just a short-term flunctuation, in particular in view of the fact that the alcohol / food price ratio has plunged this year due to huge food inflation (the close link between that ratio and death rates was explored in Demographics II; the fact death rates have stagnated, rather than plummeted (as in 1994 and to a lesser extent post-1998), may actually be a positive sign, since it would indicate mortality is slowly but incessantly becoming divorced from the affordability of alcohol). Here’s a table showing mortality and fertility in Jan-Apr 2008 by region and change over the previous year. A few notes. Lower mortality in Muslim and rich Russian regions (Moscow, Tyumen oblast), higher birth rates in Muslim and less densely populated (e.g. Urals, Siberian, Far East) regions.

(Two remarks. It seems that the bigger the increases in number of births per month, the bigger the increase in deaths. For instance, January and April both saw relatively big increases in mortality and fertility as compared to the previous year; February to a lesser extent. March saw a small increase in fertility and small drop in mortality. May say smaller fertility and a big drop in mortality. As far as I’m aware the number of days per month remains constant from year to year (with just one minor exception, leap year Februaries), Russian maternal mortality and even infant mortality is statistically insignificant here. So I ask the question, do more babies lead to more heart attacks or something? (Most mortality increase was due to heart attacks; deaths from external causes fell). Secondly, a prediction – mortality will increase during July. With all the celebrations ensuing after Russia’s football successes that month, this is more or less inevitable.)

I found an interesting demographics opinion piece from the Moscow Defence Brief, Russia does not need a pro-immigration policy. It is true that the benefits of immigration as a source of cheap labor (as opposed to an intelligent policy of letting in only well-qualified, easy to integrate, ‘especially desirable’ workers) are overstated. I disagree with two of its claims, however. The idea that Russia’s hypermortality doesn’t actually exist because of the effect of illegal immigrant deaths is complete nonsense (they make up, ultimately, only a small fraction of Russia’s population and most of them will be young people with comparatively very low death rates). Secondly, it is not a good idea to replicate American suburban planning (for the purposes of increasing fertility, according to the article) as it is even now becoming obsolete with the era of expensive oil.

Boosting Population a Vague Science – comprehensive, conventional article about Russian demographics from Moscow Times. Happiness in Russia has increased, which should help lower mortality (unhappy people tend to die younger and Russia, as with other post-Soviet republics, have one of the world’s lowest levels of happiness).

Rampant inflation and political crisis in Ukraine do not stop it from intensifying Russophobic moves in language, religion and NATO enlargement.

Russia, along with China, vetoed sanctions against Zimbabwe in the UN (pushed most aggressively by the UK, who I suppose dislike this particular African tinpot despot because unlike the others he messed with the British whites who got the land they stole from indigenous blacks, stolen back. And I find it a bit suspicious that you have all these piteous people who whine about supposed torture, genocide, etc, but seem free enough to find and talk with Western journalists, especially those from the BBC). While this is certainly not an altruistic action on Russia’s/China’s part, it’s not as if the West concerns itself itself much (at all) over the plight of ordinary working Zimbabweans, as proved by British insistence that their companies withdraw from the country and their ruthless, cowardly support for sanctions.

Tensions have risen over Abkhazia, with both Georgia and Russia warning of a risk of war, while Russia and the US have hosted suspiciously simultaneous war games in the region. The Rise and Fall of Georgia’s UAVs casts doubt on whether the video of a Russian fighter shooting down a Georgian UAV (as shown in the previous News).

As for the video provided by Georgia, there are several reasons why their authenticity is in doubt. First, UAVs are made to observe objects on the earth, not in the air. Their cameras are housed in a semisphere on the underside of the vehicle, which makes it extremely difficult to focus on another flying object. The chances that this sort of camera could have caught another flying object at the very moment when it fired a missile are simply nonexistent.

Second, as a rule, high-definition photos and video are stored on board the UAV, while only low-quality pictures are sent in real time, due to the restricted bandwidth of the transmission system. The video shown by the Georgians was ostensibly captured in real time, since the UAV was destroyed, and the low quality of the video does not allow for the identification of the type of plane, let alone the country to which it belongs. Arguments to the effect that «the aircraft has a twin rudder and is therefore Russian» simply do not stand up to examination.

This article concludes that the “Georgian Army would be quickly defeated if Tbilisi tries to settle the conflict by force”.

Further to the excellent NY Sun article casting doubt on the mainstream Western account of Litvinenko’s death (poisoned by polonium by nefarious KGB agents), the Independent produces a piece worthy of its namesake, The Litvinenko files: Was he really murdered? It mostly covers the same points.

BP has been treating Russians as subjects (Financial Times) - the point of view from the Russian oligarchs, who reject British claims of Russian intimidation and strong-arming, and argue that BP has thwarted the company’s expansion plans abroad and long-term strategic development, in a bid to shore up reserves for BP itself.

Assessing Russian fighter technology concludes that since the end of the Cold War, Russian military aviation has for all practical purposes closed the technological gap with the West. Very succinct and detailed. Nagorno-Karabakh: Shift in the Military Balance analyzes the balance of power between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and concludes it is tilting towards Baku. Russian nuclear forces, 2008. Baiting the Russian bear – US plans for ballistic missile defences in eastern Europe risk alienating Russia and stirring up old resentments.

I liked Sean’s little insightful scribblings, Surveying Putin’s Generation and Putin: Leader or Revolutionary? He also penned a cynical critique of Nemtsov’s White Paper.

Kissinger penned Unconventional wisdom about Russia, emphasizing for US concern for Russia’s strategic interests if it wants to have its way in the world.

Russia’s energy drive leaves US reeling – Russia continues to strive for greater control over Eurasian energy flows under Medvedev, this time venturing into Africa. Washington’s reprisal (blocking Russian oil companies’ access to Iraq) was met by further Russian interest in a gas OPEC, with Iran as the other main partner.

The ever brilliant Nicolai Petro reports on yet another Western MSM smear job on Russia in Mr. Levy and the Magic Media.

The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism – PhD thesis by an American graduate student at the University of St.-Petersburg makes a forceful argument that Russia has decisively shed its authoritarian past and is engaged in building up stable long-term democratic institutions.

Russia’s Other Great Victory – the War Nerd’s colorful (as usual) account of Russia’s crushing defeat of Japan in Manchuria in 1945. A Japanese POW’s life-affirming account of his time in Siberia.

Russia’s hawks (rather tellingly) support McCain, who will accelerate America’s decline (as per contributor Brother Karamazov’s theory). Not that that’s very relevant however since Obama will almost certainly win.

Michael Averko pens some excellent articles, including Chechnya, EU-Serbia and a Disputed Lands Update, Contradictions to the “New Cold War” Theme and book review of Not My Turn to Die.

For a laugh take a look at this Russphobic drivel (its volume continues to increase). School-child spanking afficianados from the conservative neo-imperialist Telegraph have decided Bully-boy Russia needs a lesson in manners. Loco Lucas indulges in more of his heartfeld mad rantings in Kremlin’s blast from the past in the Daily Mail (a British tabloid read by their near-illiterate football hooligans) and his spymania and Molotov cocktail fetish. The poor maiden Georgia is in jeopardy. Professional Russophobe freak Max Hastings belives Hopes of close cooperation between Russia and the west are now dead. I have a lively exchange with deranged La Russophobe here and sent a letter complaining about the inaccuracies in the Enough Rope for Russia WSJ Op-Ed, albeit to no avail.

Russia: A totalitarian regime in thrall to a Tsar who’s creating the new Facist empire takes the cake, however. The title alone wins it.

Russia performed far better than generally expected in Euro2008, losing only to the champion. I think it certainly has the potential to win the World Cup in South Africa; perhaps Hiddink’s luck could make it finally realize that potential. In any case it’s certainly not a bad bed (most bookies give returns of 25:1).

Finally, polls. Plans for summer holidays – since 1997, the number of Russians without money for holidays decline (from 30% to 20%), while a constant percentage plan to remain at home or on their dacha. Those planning to go abroad or to the Black Sea region remain few in number abut are on the increase. Russians tend to be positive about Israel and neutral/apathetic on the Palestine issue. Most Russians favor a policy of diplomacy and restraint towards regions of the former USSR. This detailed poll on corruption shows most Russians are tired of it, want greater measures against it and think it has registered a slight improvement over the past three years. Internet penetration is spreading fast but is still at relatively low levels nationally, especially amongst the older generations. Most Russians continue to read avidly.