Gas
Roland watched the TV news, despondently hoping for a breakthrough deal in Copenhagen, or Kobnhavn, depending upon your point of view. It was depressing, watching the apparent cream of the crop from around the world bickering like schoolkids, while The Maldives, Kiribati and Tuvalu each sank a little lower into the briny deep.
The Chinese had apparently sent their “No” man to the negotiations, after he had won the Chinese Checkers match that put their “Yes” man on the outer, leaving the winner on the inner.
Binding agreements by other nations? “No”
Verifiable progress on emissions cuts? “No”
Commitment to a 2020 target? “No”
Commitment to a 2050 target? “No”
Commitment to a peak year of CO2 production? “No”
1.5 degrees Celsius maximum temperature increase? “No”
Can you make a decision on anything? “No”
Wny not? “I’ll have to call my superiors on that”
Barry O’Bama, President of the Free World, Defender of the Peace, Nobel Prize Winner and Great Consensus Maker, came on the screen and announced a deal that he had brokered between a group of significant nations, paving the way for a 2deg C increase in temperature over an unspecified number of years. The good news arising from this announcement would mean that anyone living less than 2 metres above the high tide mark in their part of the world was about to start enjoying regular saltwater baths, free of charge. It would also ensure famines in parts of Africa, a rare and nasty experience that everyone seemed to agree would be “cleansing” and “novel” for the good folk of Africa.
However, it turned out that no-one else knew about the deal, which was announced just in time for US news networks to pick it up and broadcast it to their parochial, carbon dioxide exhaling viewers, on their evening news shows. Mass confusion broke out, prompting the leaders of those countries that really don’t have much in the way of TV coverage to spit their collective dummies, circle their wagons and begin shoving hatpins into small effigies of poor Barry.
In all, it came down to 45,000 people descending upon a freezing cold town where you can’t even get a decent coffee and a Danish, to discuss how to reduce the amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere on a daily basis. Despite all of the hot air coming out of the whole crowd of them, not a single snowflake was melted as a result of their presence.
After achieving exactly nothing, they all got back in their jetliners and flew home to their shrinking, sinking paradises, punching holes in the sky and adding a lot more CO2 to the atmosphere in the process.
Finally, in sheer disgust, Roland threw the remote control at his 50 inch plasma screen TV. It bounced harmlessly to the floor, as the screen had been made in China and was therefore tougher and better quality than most other manufacturers’ screens.
Roland turned his clothes dryer back on and turned the ducted airconditioning down another degree as it was a bright, sunny day outside, and slightly warmer that it had been yesterday. There was a documentary on polar bears on the Discovery Channel, so he flipped over to watch it.
I have no doubt that if most ore bodies, and the associated productive populations of ore removers were situated close to areas of short term climate threat, we would have had an agreement. I doubt very much that industrialised nations, and populous nations, give more than a flotsam about their favourite paradise island falling into the hands of the lord of the flies, er, seas.
Which brings me to the point of the Gulf of Mexico, and the whole strip situated close to the equator. The most turbulent effects of climate change (regardless of its causes) will be felt at, or close to, the equator. Specifically where large sea masses meet large land masses. Simple angular momentum conservation tells you that. This will be a boon for Earth, not so much for the humans in those zones. About 600 million years ago the earth froze into a giant snowball. The last of the zones to freeze over (in fact it might not have) was the equatorial areas. This is because our sphere is an oblate shperiod. To conserve angular momentum our more energetic (those that are bound to the troposhere) atmospheric particles, do a lot of energy exchange at the equator. It is just further from the gravitational centre of earth. A vast amount of USA energy resource sits in this zone, and you might not have to fight anyone for it. It has served as an energy battery for almost a century. China’s (and Russia’s) recently discovered vast recources sit far from equatorial zones. Maybe this is their endgame?
My only problem is the soundtrack: I am partial to Blondie’s “Once I had a Love”, but I fear the world is going for Pink Floyd’s “Keep Talking”…