Economic Crisis? What About the Climate Crisis?

Like many others who have voiced their opinions on this page, I have several misgivings about the $700 billion bailout plan that is being shoved down our throats by Congress and the Bush administration -- not the least of which is whether or not it will even prove effective at stemming the economic downturn. Set aside the moral hazard implications of the plan, and you're still left with what Nouriel Roubini, an economist whose pessimistic outlook on the economy has been consistently vindicated by events, calls a "disgrace":

Thus, the Treasury plan is a disgrace: a bailout of reckless bankers, lenders and investors that provides little direct debt relief to borrowers and financially stressed households and that will come at a very high cost to the US taxpayer. And the plan does nothing to resolve the severe stress in money markets and interbank markets that are now close to a systemic meltdown.

Now I'm no economist -- my understanding of economic theory can best be described as nebulous -- and I am aware that others whose views I hold in high regard, such as Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman, have come out in (very) tentative support of the plan (despite having their own deep misgivings), so I won't dwell on its merits.

What I do know, and understand, is that we risk tipping the planet into a perpetual state of runaway climate change if we continue not to act. Two discoveries have recently come to light suggesting that we may be on the verge on entering an unprecedented era of climate change: the release of millions of tons of methane from below the Arctic seabed and the sustained decrease in carbon dioxide uptake by terrestrial ecosystems following anomalously warm years.

The preliminary findings about the potentially large-scale leakage of methane deposits from beneath the Arctic sea are extremely worrisome. Not only is methane about 20-23 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but its escape could precipitate a dangerous positive feedback loop -- a "carbon bomb" -- in which a warming climate causes, and is abetted by, the continuous melting of permafrost and release of ever more methane into the atmosphere.

Were we to create such a situation, it would become much more difficult to avert the worst of climate change. Scientists believe that the sudden release of methane in the past was responsible for causing prolonged periods of intense climate change and mass species extinctions.

The other discovery I mentioned, though perhaps less dramatic-sounding, is a critical one as well. It was the first study of its kind to definitively show that terrestrial ecosystems subjected to periods of abnormally high temperatures -- similar to those predicted to happen later this century by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- responded by drastically reducing their carbon dioxide uptake, by up to two-thirds, for at least two years.

While it remains to be seen whether this effect applies uniformly to all plant species, it does suggest that science still has much to learn when it comes to climate-ecosystem interactions. What this means for us is that we can't just expect climate change to happen in a vacuum. Sure, we know that the ice caps are melting (and that they could be gone by century's end), that water shortages are on the rise and that species extinctions are likely to accelerate over the coming years. But there are many other things we don't quite understand, or that we take for granted, that could suddenly change -- to our detriment.

There are no easy solutions to this crisis. As our representatives did in trying to push for a bipartisan bailout plan, so must they come together to establish a set of forward-looking policies that mitigates the threat of climate change by ushering in a "clean energy revolution" and by divesting what Al Gore calls our "subprime carbon assets."

Saving our economy from collapse is important, but so should be saving our planet. If we can afford to invest $700 billion in our faltering financial sector, then we can certainly spend as much, if not more, to create a new "green" revolution.

Follow Jeremy Jacquot on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jejacquot

Comments

[KillTheMessenger]

The sad part about this is that it all ends at the public's ADHD timescale. As a herd animal that is normally just intermediate on the food chain, man is incredibly good at switching direction with everyone else in an instant whenever there is a life threatening short term threat. But apply a slow and gradual change (like climatic change) and we will stay, hold on, make up the most desperate excuses why moving on would be more dangerous than sticking around, no matter how poor conditions get. And since there are no really hard consequences for not acting, the herd is staying put. On the other end of the spectrum the daily barrage of celebrity nonsense takes up all available bandwidth and there is no focus on the important things in life.

The financial crisis will be all but forgotten in a month until the next bubble bursts (credit card companies, anyone?). And climate change, well, that seems unavoidable as far as the US is concerned. Maybe the rest of the world will pull the potatoes out of the fire, this country has decided that it's not worth the effort.

[veracitatus]

It turns out that these two crises are related at a deep level. This author has been exploring the deep connection and what it means for our future.

http://questioneverything.typepad.com/

[mgloraine]

Unfortunately, we CAN'T afford to squander the $700 bil on the bail-out. But BushCo and Congress don't care about that, they're going to take the money anyway and distribute it amongst the wealthiest people in the world, which doesn't include any of us. That's a deficit-bomb which will effectively defund all aspects of a progressive agenda, including investments in anything which doesn't make those wealthy corporatists wealthier.

If you were thinking the government was going to do anything helpful about global warming, you were misled. BushCo is taking pains in its last months to impose new secret rules on the EPA (and other agencies) intended to compel them to carry out the BushCo agenda even after they're gone. The EPA is being totally eviscerated and subjected to partisan and corporate pre-emption. They no longer have a mission of protecting the environment in any way , but are instead directed to find ways to conceal environmental hazards from the populace, and to work as advocates for corporate polluters to legalize or legitimize the environmental devastation they are unable to cover up.

There will be no alternatives to carbon fuels in America as long as carbon fuel pushers continue to control our government's energy policies. That's not likely to change as long as corporatists own and operate Congress through their lobbying machines. Corporate lobbyists with access to Congress are the source of most corruption in the legislature, and they are they greatest impediment to democracy which we face today.

[realpolitic]

Other aspects of climate change, such as the outbreak of the mountain pine beetle in Canada, are reducing the carbon uptake of forests and turning what were carbon sinks to carbon sources.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v452/n7190/full/nature06777.html

"By the end of 2006, the mountain pine beetle had ravaged 130,000 square kilometres of forest in western Canada. Though not the first time an outbreak has occurred in the region, the latest is an order of magnitude larger than any previous attack and brings the total area of forest destroyed between 1997 and 2007 to 13 million hectares.

With fewer healthy trees available to absorb the greenhouse gas and more trees decaying and dying, this will further contribute to the warming that is facilitating the pest's territorial spread.

According to the new calculations, by 2020 the beetle outbreak alone will have released 270 megatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That's exactly the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that Canada is committed to reducing by 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol.

http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0805/full/climate.2008.35.html

Milder winters since 1994 have reduced the winter death rate of beetle larvae in Wyoming from 80% per year to under 10%, and hotter, drier summers have made trees weaker, less able to fight off beetles.

http://climateprogress.org/2008/04/25/nature-on-stunning-new-climate-feedback-beetle-tree-kill-releases-more-carbon-than-fires/