A Reports Card for the Environment

“1 C, 3 B’s, 1 A and 1 Incomplete”

Michael Glantz

Director, CCB

(Consortium for Capacity Building, INSTAAR, CU)

McMaster University, Canada

www.fragilecologies.com ccb.colorado.edumickeyglantz@hotmail.com

March12, 2009

Time, tide … and now global warming … wait for no one

• These three processes are converging

Time, tide and global warming are linked together in a way that threatens all settlements and ecosystems along coastlines worldwide.

Global warming: what’s happening now

Sea level rise

Arctic ice melting rapidly

Glaciers melting worldwide

Warm ecosystems moving upslope

Infectious disease vectors shifting poleward

Increasing levels of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, etc)

High rates of tropical deforestation (“Lungs of the Earth?”)

Fossil fuel burning implicated

No Place to Hide

• In rich as well as poor countries• In industrial and agrarian societies• On all continents• Where humans and ecosystems meet• Especially in vulnerable ecosystems

No longer just for scientists

Politicizing the atmosphere

Are we developing a

“Law of the

Atmosphere”?

Shanghai Harbor

1988 2004

By the Way …

Climate is not the only thing that is changing

A reminder: Climate is not the only thing that is changing

1 C• Club of Rome’s

Limits to Growth (1972)

Model-based trends for …

•Industrialization •Population growth•Widespread malnutrition•Depletion of non-

renewables•Deteriorating environment

• In analyzing the club's follow-up volume-Eduard Pestel and Mihajlo Mesarovic's Mankind at the Turning Point (1974)-Rubin similarly argues that the extensive regional planning they propose is totalitarian because sectorial planning must be subordinated to the whole. Rather than focusing on parts and wholes, a framework that at times seems semantic, Rubin might have more instructively examined the tension between, for instance, technocracy, national sovereignty, and democracy.

• Reviewed by Kenneth R. Weinstein

3 B’s

• Brandt Commission Report – 1980

• Barney Global 2000 Report – 1980

• Brundtland Commission Report - 1987

Brandt Commission (1980)•Transition from oil-based world economy to sustained renewable energy sources

•Link together population, environment, trade, disarmament issues

•Cooperate to manage the atmosphere …

“This is a massive and important study, in which all relevant U.S. government agencies participated, of world trends in population, natural resources, and the environment. What emerges is a set of global problems of fairly alarming proportions. Serious stresses by the year 2000 are clearly visible in a world more crowded (6.35 billion as compared to 4 billion population in 1975), far more polluted, less stable ecologically, and more vulnerable to disruption. The progressive impoverishment of the world's natural-resource base raises concerns about the earth's capacity to continue to provide for human needs. Because this study is more comprehensive and moderate in tone than many others-such as the Club of Rome's-it may have greater credibility.” (Foreign Affairs book review)

Barney Report (1980)

Barney Report (1980)Study of world trends in …

•Population

•Natural resources

•Environment

Globe seriously stressed by 2000:

•More people

•More pollution

•Less stable ecosystems

•More vulnerability

•Impoverishment of natural resources

Brundtland Commission (1987)

•Set up in 1983 by UN to ...

•Ensure sustained progress through development, without bankrupting resources of future generations

•Link economic growth & sustainable development

•Engage corporations in environmental issues

1 AAgenda 21 (1992)

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

1992

Prepared for the Rio de Janeiro EARTH SUMMIT in 1992:

“Humanity is at a defining moment in history”

Disparity within & between nations

Worsening of …

•Poverty, hunger, ill health, illiteracy, ecosystems

•Integrate environment & development

Agenda 21

and … 1 Incomplete

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 1988 to present

UN Conferences (1970s)

• Conference on the Human Environment – 1972 (Stockholm)

• World Food Conference – 1974 (Rome)

• World Population Conference – 1974 (Bucharest)

• World Water Conference -1976 (Rio del Plata)

• World Habitat Conference – 1976 (Vancouver)

• Conference on Desertification – 1977 (Nairobi)

• Science & Technology Conference – 1979 (Vienna)

• First World Climate Conference – 1979 (Geneva)

We spend lots of time and money onenvironmental education for kids

The big question is not whether kids can learn, but …

SCEP 1970Man’s Impact on the Environment

Study of Critical Environmental Problems (SCEP)

M.I.T. Press

•Focused on global atmospheric problems

•Global problems do not necessarily need global solutions

•“In the foreseeable future advanced industrial societies will probably have to carry the major burden of remedial action”

SMIC 1971 Inadvertent Climate Modification

Report of the Study of Man’s Impact on Climate (SMIC)

Edited by SMIC

M.I.T. Press

“We recognize a real problem that a global temperature increase produced by man’s injection of heat and CO2 … may lead to dramatic reduction even elimination of Arctic sea ice.”

“This exercise would be fruitless if we did not believe that society would be rational when faced with a set of decisions that could govern the future habitability of our planet.”

“It was 20 years ago today, Sgt. Pepper began to play”

The Changing Atmosphere : Implications for Global Security

Toronto, Canada 27-30 June 1988

Called for …

•global pact to protect the atmosphere

•‘world atmosphere fund’ financed by tax on fossil fuels used by industrialized countries

•20% cut in 1988 global carbon emissions

•“International Law of the Air”

“LATE LESSONS from EARLY WARNINGS”

Concluding Thought

“To know the road ahead, ask those coming back”

Chinese Proverb

Could the 21st century become … The Climate Century?

Lingering

Fear