Greed is destroying the world

 

If you do not believe in climate change, this essay will not persuade you. If you wonder how we got to this point, this article could help you answer that question. If you want to understand why we, and the rest of the world, will fail to curb the climate crisis, read on.

“ No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them” (Oil Sands)

Justin Trudeau, speaking as the Prime Minister of Canada, made the above comment at the CERAWeek energy industry conference in Houston, Texas in 2017.

The main thrust of his address was the balancing of environmental and energy concerns. CBC News reported that he was;

 

“Touting his government’s approval of new pipelines, and the Liberal’s national plan to put a price on carbon, which were achieved at the same time.”

 

According to CBC News, his full statement was “No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil and just leave it in the ground. The resource will be developed. Our job is to ensure this is done responsible, safely and sustainably”

The statement was made about a year before he announced that Canada would purchase the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Therefore Mr. Trudeau should have finished his statement with the words, no matter what the cost to the environment and in human lives, instead of stopping at ‘responsible, safely and sustainably’ because that is what continuing to use fossil fuels has resulted in. The United Nation’s 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report made that undeniable when it came out recently.

 

The IPCC report states; “the world has rapidly warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels, and is now careening toward 1.5 degrees—a critical threshold that world leaders agree warming should remain below to avoid worsening impacts.” CNN August 9, 2021.

 

CNN went on to report a statement from Michael E. Mann, a lead author of the IPCC’s 2001 report which states “Bottom line is that we have zero years left to avoid dangerous climate change because it is here.” We have seen those changes in the historic droughts, landscape-altering wildfires and deadly floods that the world has been battling. The past two years (2020 and 2021) are just a taste of what the world will experience from now on.

 

An online report by CBCNEWS from August 4, 2021 starts with these statements. “As the world staggers through another summer of extreme weather, experts are noticing something different: 2021’s onslaught is hitting harder and in places that have been spared global warming’s wrath in the past.

 

“Wealthy countries such as the United States, Canada, Germany and Belgium are joining poorer and more vulnerable nations on a growing list of extreme weather that scientists say have some connection to human-caused climate change .”

 

Human-caused climate change is significant in the above statement. For year’s nay-sayers, fossil fuel spokes people, and many politicians have been spewing misinformation regarding the lack of proof regarding human-caused climate change, but for the first time the 2021 IPCC report concludes “it is unequivocal that humans have caused the climate crisis and confirms that widespread and rapid changes have already occurred, some of them irreversible.” CNN August 9, 2021. How did scientists and politicians allow things to get this dire? By ignoring the warnings that many scientists have been giving about climate change since the 1980s.

 

The following is an excerpt from the Columbia University Record of October 22, 1982 regarding the Ewing Symposium, a three day gathering of 100 scientists to discuss “what the earth’s climate will be like for the next century.” Comments are from Taro Takahashi, one of the organizers of the event.

“There are three competing effects,” Takahashi said. “First, we think that the earth’s climate is warming due to the ‘greenhouse effect,’ the retention of solar heat by the discharge of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, largely by the burning of fossil fuels. Second, volcanic and industrial activity is sending dust particles into the stratosphere that shade the earth and cool it. And third, the earth’s climate has a mind of its own—there are many natural processes that have been going on for ages. Scientists will evaluate the relative strengths of these components and discuss what the climate is most likely to be like in the future. Recent changes in the polar ice caps will also be discussed. The symposium is being supported by the Exxon Corp., the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Climate Program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration”

In November of 2017, Dr. James E. Hansen wrote a forward for the book Unprecedented Crime, Climate Science Denial and Game Changers for Survival by Dr. Peter D. Carter and Elizabeth Woody. Within the forward Dr. Hansen talks about organizing that 1982 Ewing Symposium with Taro Takahashi. He recounts that the most significant presentation of the complete symposium was a dinner speech by E.E. David, Jr. then President of Exxon Research and Engineering Company. Mr. David’s speech centred on; “the characteristic of the climate system that makes human-caused global warming so dangerous and such a problem”. The “critical problem” he was reporting on was the long delay before the effects of CO2 buildup would manifest themselves.

“Delayed response of the climate system, caused by the great thermal inertia of the ocean and the slow response of ice sheets to warming, creates the possibility that we could hand young people a planet undergoing changes that would be out of control.”

In order to avoid global warming he suggested that alternative renewable energy sources needed to be developed. “Fossil fuel companies would need to become energy companies—clean energy companies.”

Most fossil fuel companies (not all) chose to ignore the warning and invested decades and billions of dollars into the development of tar sands and shale oil resources.

For informed governments and knowledgeable fossil fuel companies to ignore the warnings of science for the last 39 years was bad enough, but the industry also chose to mount a campaign of misinformation and deceit surpassing even that done by the tobacco industry regarding the relationship of smoking to cancer.

Instead of doing what was right the fossil fuel companies chose to misrepresent the information, and cast aspersions on the science and the scientists. They led us to this disaster, but they were not alone in their efforts. Many politicians were goose stepping right along with them.

 

The following is from Wikipedia page Q208645, Revision July 17, 2021

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established an international environmental treaty to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system", in part by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. It was signed by 154 states at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992. It established a Secretariat headquartered in Bonn and entered into force on 21 March 1994. The treaty called for ongoing scientific research and regular meetings, negotiations, and future policy agreements designed to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.

The Kyoto Protocol, which was signed in 1997 and ran from 2005 to 2020, was the first implementation of measures under the UNFCCC. The Kyoto Protocol was superseded by the Paris Agreement, which entered into force in 2016. As of 2020, the UNFCCC has 197 signatory parties. Its supreme decision-making body, the Conference of the Parties (COP), meets annually to assess progress in dealing with climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty with 192 signatories. It commits the signatories to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (1) global warming is occurring and (2) that human-made CO2 emissions are driving it. It was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005.

It is interesting to note that the signatories or parties involved in the IPCC reports are required to review and agree on every statement made in the reports. The signatories represent the nations signing off on the report therefore there is no excuse, except for incompetence, for a politician to disagree with the statements. 

Canada was active in the negotiations that led to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The Liberal government that signed the accord in 1997 ratified it in parliament in 2002. Canada's Kyoto target was a 6% total reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2012, compared to 1990 levels of 461 megatonnes (Mt) (Government of Canada (GC) 1994). Despite signing the accord, greenhouse gas emissions increased approximately 24.1% between 1990 and 2008. In 2011, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper withdrew Canada from the Kyoto Protocol. Wikipedia, Page version 1036338067, Revised July 30, 2021.

Stephen Harper couldn’t get consensus and agreements from the provinces, so instead of alienating his base in the west (primarily Alberta) Harper gave in to the greed of the fossil fuel industry and pulled Canada from Kyoto in 2011, six years before President Donald Trump did the same in the U.S. Harper was a leader in supporting the fossil fuel industry’s misinformation efforts in a number of ways. He muzzled government scientists—who are paid using Canadian taxpayer’s dollars—by initiating a special media control centre where communications with the media were obstructed by delaying responses to inquiries past the reporter’s deadlines, or by making the process completely onerous. A 2017 article in Smithsoniamag.com by Joshua Rapp Learn reports that one request resulted in 110 pages of emails between sixteen different communication staffers.

The following diagram focuses on the misinformation campaign in the U.S of A. but many Canadian politicians are as complicit. The current liberal government of Canada talks a good game regarding controlling climate change, and have succeeded in putting a price on carbon pollution. This is a carbon tax that is applied to all fossil fuel purchases and is rebated back to individuals. It has a number of criticisms—mainly because some of the biggest polluters are exempt— but at least it is a step in the right direction. The previous conservative government dithered about doing something similar for years until they pulled Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol rather than govern effectively. Obviously they cared nothing about what would happen in the near future to the environment and the people of Canada which includes their own children and other family members. At their policy convention this year (2021) the Federal Conservatives voted down a policy proposal to declare that climate change is real. CBCNEWS March 19, 2021

I have wondered for some time—as I am sure others have—how the fossil fuel executives and their lackey politicians justified their decisions. They were aware that they were damaging the planet in a way that would eventually kill people. Was it simply because the problem was forecast for thirty or forty years into the future? Did they not care about what they were doing, or were they just more interested in their next re-election, paycheque, or yearly bonus. Can you imagine a person being tied for murder and defending themselves by saying; ‘sure I killed them, but there was a lot of money to be had’? Was it simply greed? I believe it was.

Thirty-nine years ago, back in 1982, Exxon executives and other fossil fuel decision makers had the choice to transition their businesses towards less destructive pursuits and to develop technologies that would alleviate the problems to come. Their own scientists told them what was going to happen if they continued down the path they were on. Instead of choosing the option best for the planet and the people, they went for immediate profits.

I highlight the word immediate to emphasise that the oil wasn’t going anywhere. They could have chosen to invest in clean energy or green technology, like electric cars, carbon capture, and carbon storage.

The Canadian government website states that;

 “Transportation is one of the largest sources of air pollution in Canada. The combustion of fossil fuels to power vehicles and engines (on and off road)—cars and trucks; large trucks and buses; recreational vehicles; lawn and gardening equipment; farming and construction; forklifts and ice resurfacers; rail and marine—has major adverse impacts on the environment and health of Canadians.

Initiatives to reduce emissions from vehicles, engines and fuels can have significant positive effects on air quality, acid rain, smog and climate change.”  https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-...

The EPA in the U.S.A  states;

“motor vehicles collectively cause 75 percent of carbon monoxide pollution in the U.S. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) estimates that on-road vehicles cause one-third of the air pollution that produces smog in the U.S., and transportation causes 27 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.” sites.psu.edu/hailstrompassions/2015/...

 According to a study commissioned by FuelPositive Corporation (TSX.V: NHHH) (OTCQB: NHHHF). If all carbon-free ammonia were used, the result would be a 15.3% reduction in Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions. financialpost.com › globe-newswire › fuelpositive-commissions 2021-08-17

 

If the fossil fuel industry had made an effort to reduce the amount of gasoline used in transportation back in the 1980s, there would be significantly fewer climate change problems today, and they still would have made lots of money. Oil is used in so many ways that the demand for it would still be there without using it for transportation fuel. Unfortunately we have reached a point where a complete stop to its use is now necessary, in addition to the corrective actions that are needed. Scientists suggest that pulling carbon from the atmosphere (carbon capture) and carbon storage are technologies necessary to try to keep the global temperature below drastic levels. In Greta Thunberg’s recent documentaries about her battle for meaningful climate change action, she looked at a few of the technologies that are being touted as a means of fighting climate change. In every instance building the facilities required will take longer than the world has. If the fossil fuel industry had started to develop non-polluting energy alternatives, carbon capture technologies, or carbon storage technologies back in the 1990’s the world would have  years upon years more time to use oil responsibly, but they didn’t. Why didn’t the fossil fuel industry start to work on solutions back when the problem first came to light? I can only suppose that they chose to preserve profits over lives.

It isn’t just the fossil fuel industry that let greed dictate their actions. We have seen and continue to see evidence of this behaviour by business executives all the time. In addition to overseeing the running of a company, a Corporate Executive Officer’s (CEO) job is to maximize profits, and like the executives at Exxon, lying to the public and their customers is second nature to them.

The tobacco industry lied about the link between smoking and cancer for years. The plastics industry has completely ignored the mess plastics have made of the world. “After 150 years of plastic production, this material has invaded every living corner of the Earth. Every room and building and object we purchase is covered in or surrounded by plastic: plastic wrappers, plastic toys, plastic signs, plastic building blocks…the list is endless.

“What the world has received in “convenience” via mass production, it has lost in health—of humans as well as nature. Seals and sea turtles choke on plastic bags, children ingest microscopic pieces of plastic every day, and viewing the stomach contents of dissected dead birds nauseates us.” Plastics: The Other Pandemic, by Alex Hertzog, resilience.org.

Businesses were not always run with the goal of maximizing profits over lives. In his book, Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World, Fareed Zakaria—a respected business analyst, an Indian-American journalist, political commentator, and author who writes a weekly paid column for The Washington Post—reported a comment by Bill Budinger, a highly successful entrepreneur then in his eighties, reflecting on businesses change in mentality. “I grew up when things were different, a time when profits were to be reasonable, not maximized.” The whole concept of maximizing profits and continuous growth has brought the world to its knees.

At the end of many of his nature documentaries, Sir David Attenborough, speaks to the destruction that climate change is causing. He has also asked about “the moral responsibility that wealthy people have.” You can ask the same question about large wealthy corporations. Do they have a moral responsibility? The conditions caused by their actions suggest that if they do they ignore it.

The following quotes are from, The IPCC Report: Key Findings and Radical Implications by Brian Tokar August 24, 2021. (Originally published by Climate and Capitalism.)

 

Of course more extreme events remain far less predictable, except that their frequency will continue to increase with rising temperatures. For example the triple digit (Fahrenheit) temperatures that swept the Pacific Northwest of the US and southwestern Canada this summer have been described as a once in 50,000 years event in “normal” times and no one excludes the possibility that they will happen again in the near future. So-called “compound” events, for example the combination of high temperatures and dry, windy conditions that favor the spread of wildfires, are the least predictable events of all.

 

The central conclusion from the overall linear increase in temperatures relative to emissions is that nothing short of a complete cessation of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions will significantly stabilize the climate, and there is also a time delay of at least several decades after emissions cease before the climate can begin to stabilize.

 

Third, estimates of likely sea level rise, in both the near- and longer-terms, are far more reliable than they were a few years ago. Global sea levels rose an average of 20 centimeters during the 20th century, and will continue to rise throughout this century under all possible climate scenarios — about a foot higher than today if emissions begin to fall rapidly, nearly 2 feet if emissions continue rising at present rates, and 2.5 feet if emissions rise faster. These, of course, are the most cautious scientific estimates. By 2150 the estimated range is 2–4.5 feet, and more extreme scenarios where sea levels rise from 6 to 15 feet “cannot be ruled out due to deep uncertainty in ice sheet processes.”

 

With glacial melting expected to continue for decades or centuries under all scenarios, sea levels will “remain elevated for thousands of years,” potentially reaching a height of between 8 and 60 feet above present levels. The last time global temperatures were comparable to today’s (125,000 years ago), sea levels were probably 15 to 30 feet higher than they are today. When they were last 2.5 to 4 degrees higher than preindustrial temperatures—roughly 3 million years ago—sea levels may have been up to 60 feet higher than today. Again these are all cautious estimates, based on the available data and subject to stringent statistical validation.

 

There is a very good video comparing current times to the Paleocene Epock—at the time of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). It is called The Last Time the Globe Warmed and is on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldLBoErAhz4.

 

During the PETM most of the world, including Antarctica was covered in lush jungles. Glaziers and ice caps did not exist. One of the main reasons for this was the release of carbon into the atmosphere over thousands of years. The chart below shows the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere during the PETM (on the left) and the carbon being released into the atmosphere today (on the right). The Last Time the Globe Warmed

 

The fossil fuel industry’s lies and underhanded dealings have put us into a situation where the other 99% of the population, if we survive at all, is going to suffer for hundreds if not thousands of years, and it was all because of greed.

 

The last two years (2020 and 2021) have been unequaled in the number of natural disasters and out of the ordinary weather phenomenon people have suffered through. The prediction is that it will get worse. But don’t give up hope. There is always hope, or so the media says, but our history doesn’t support that conclusion. Our actions over the past 30 to 40 years tell me that despite being aware of what is happening we are too complacent to change. Our business leaders and politicians are two greedy for profits and power to do what is needed. We are already at the event horizon where 99% of us are going to suffer countless disasters, and loss of life. We can try to minimize it by changing almost everything we do. Will we? I doubt it.

 

Take a walk outside, if you don’t believe me. Our roadsides are covered with litter. Beer cans, coffee cups, plastic bags, cigarette stubs and packages are everywhere, despite the fact that there are laws against littering that have been around for fifty years or more. If people won’t even stop littering, what hope is there for stopping climate change?

 

Business executives and politicians carry most of the blame for the state of the environment today, but the rest of us have to accept some responsibility also. Even if we don’t believe it we are going to carry the brunt of the consequences. We are going to suffer for our apathy, and for the actions of the greedy. How much we suffer depends on our actions now. We can no longer accept empty promises from our politicians, or lies from our business executives if we want our children to survive. Canada is in the midst of a federal election, and a meaningful, output oriented dialog on climate change is sadly missing. The future looks bleak to me, so I will end this essay by paraphrasing a little of the Vietnam Song, by Country Joe and the Fish.

 

Well there’s no more time to wonder why,

Whoopee! Were all gonna die.

 

© Dave Skinner 2021

Pg 10, Unprecedented Crime, Carter and Woodworth.

Pg. 10, Unprecedented Crime, Carter and Woodworth

Pg. 10 Unprecedented Crime, Carter and Woodworth.