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Subject: [GWTF] Six Inconvenient Truths
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  SIX INCONVENIENT TRUTHS

by Andrew R.B. Ferguson

 

In the film An Inconvenient Truth, ex vice-president Al Gore presents 
the facts about climate change.  It is a bravura performance.  He makes 
use of brilliant presentational techniques to put before us all relevant 
current knowledge about climate change.  He lightens the factual burden 
with humour, and by including some interesting autobiographical 
vignettes showing how various things in his life brought him to see the 
subject as being of pre-eminent importance.

Although I am fairly familiar with the subject, he introduced me to a 
telling statistic.  He said that over 900 scientific peer reviewed 
papers had been published, yet none had argued that global warming was 
not taking place.  As part of the same survey, over 600 popular media 
articles were analysed.  More than fifty per cent of them presented the 
subject in such a way as to appear that it was still an open question 
whether global warming was taking place.  Doubtless the media do this 
partly because they think that controversy is more interesting, but as 
Al Gore pointed out, they are helped by the industrial lobby, which 
thinks that it is to their benefit to create uncertainty where none 
should exist.  Such activities have been manifest in the tobacco 
industry as well as in the energy industry. 

As a presentation of the inconvenient fact of climate change, the film 
can be recommended merely on the basis of the pleasure of seeing 
something being done as well as it possibly could be.  But there are 
five other inconvenient truths which are of equal importance which were 
largely ignored by Al Gore.

The second inconvenient truth is the immense difficulty of replacing 
fossil fuels.  Fossil fuels contain energy by virtue of having 
accumulated millions of years of solar energy.  To replace fossil fuels 
we have two options.  One is to tap nuclear energy.  Nuclear fission -- 
of uranium and thorium -- is limited by the restricted supply of 
suitable resources (apart from any other dangers).  Nuclear fusion is at 
a stage where it needs still to be regarded as a possibility rather than 
a probability, and there is a good chance that even if it becomes 
possible to achieve, so much waste heat would be released in the process 
that the 'cure' would be worse than the 'disease' of inadequate energy 
supplies.  Nuclear fission leads to the overheating of rivers, and is 
already a problem in that regard.

The second possibility, in addition to nuclear energy, is that of 
capturing solar energy as it arrives on the Earth.  There are 
intractable problems to which evolution has not provided a solution, so 
we would be wise to withhold judgement as to whether the human race will 
be able to.  Where power density is fairly high, as with wind, 
photovoltaics and tidal stream, uncontrollability (i.e. intermittency) 
is an immense problem.  Where uncontrollability is either no problem or 
little problem, as with biomass and hydroelectricity respectively, power 
density is low.  Biomass captures and stores in its mass only about one 
thousandth part of the energy that falls on it, which is why I say that 
evolution has not provided an answer to how to store the immense 
quantity of energy that is needed to make it possible to sustain our 
present population. 

These difficulties lead those who have studied the matter to conclude 
that without fossil fuels the Earth is only likely to support about 2 
billion people, rather than the 9 billion that are likely to be here by 
2050.  Al Gore did not mention the number of people who might live on 
Earth in reasonable comfort with diminished energy resources.

The third inconvenient truth is that even a large reduction in fossil 
fuel usage by the developed nations -- one so large as to be barely 
conceivable, a 60% reduction -- is likely to be cancelled by a wholly 
justifiable increase by China, India and Indonesia.  If this 60% 
reduction could be achieved by 2050, China, India and Indonesia are 
likely to have increased their present per capita consumption by an 
amount that would match the decrease in the developed world.  Moreover 
their per capita emissions would still be less than the developed world 
after the mooted 60% reduction.  Thus the overall effect is likely to be 
little reduction in present emissions, even according to the most 
optimistic hopes.  Yet the world is currently emitting about two and a 
half times as much carbon as it should be to have a hope of stabilizing 
atmospheric carbon at a 'safe' level.  The conclusion to this is that 
while taking action to reduce carbon emissions may help to mitigate some 
of the dire problems seen by Al Gore, it will not prevent most of them, 
so preparing for those problems needs to be as high on the agenda as 
attempting to reduce the emissions.  Al Gore sees hundreds of millions 
of refugees as the inevitable outcome of substantial sea level 
increase.  One of the most sensible methods of preparing for this is to 
do all that can be done to slow population growth.  Failing to take note 
of this inconvenient truth, Al Gore did not mention that much remains to 
be done to (a) change the Vatican's belief that only 'natural' methods 
of contraception are permissible, and (b) combat the influence of the 
'right to lifers'.  In short to ensure that contraception is easily 
available to all those who wish to use it, and that abortion is readily 
available when contraception has failed and the mother does not want 
another child.  That inconvenient truth is about as inconvenient as 
inconvenient truths come!

The fourth inconvenient truth arises from the fact that it is bound to 
be a slow process to reduce the per capita emissions of the developed 
nations.  Thus the action that would most rapidly ensure that there was 
some mitigation in burgeoning use of fossil fuels would be to prevent 
the populations of the developed nations growing by net immigration (as 
is happening in the USA and to a lesser extent in the European Union). 

The fifth inconvenient truth is that a powerful driver for fossil fuel 
consumption is globalization.  There is little hope of making frugal use 
of energy while globalization requires that goods and consumables are 
unnecessarily transported around the world.  There are many problems 
associated with globalization, but this aspect is the one which is 
relevant to excessive use of fossil fuels, thus overloading the Earth 
with carbon.

The sixth inconvenient truth is that the belief of economists and the 
commercial world in ever continuing growth is impossible.  We need to 
change our capitalist system so that it works reasonably well without 
growth, with goods lasting as long as possible and designed so that they 
can be repaired when they go wrong, and with products being made only to 
satisfy real needs, not 'needs' invented by business to expand their 
markets.

Every one of those six inconvenient truths is of great importance, yet 
Al Gore attended in depth to only the first.  While he did mention 
population as a problem, he gave no indication of the immense reduction 
in population that is needed if everyone is to live even moderately 
well.  He indicated, with a passing remark, how he justifies that to 
himself, namely that he is himself party to the delusion that renewable 
energy can replace fossil fuels.  As to the other inconvenient truths, 
perhaps he did give an implicit explanation of why he kept quiet about 
so many important matters.  He mentioned that he had observed long ago 
that it is almost impossible to persuade someone of the truth of an 
argument if that person's salary depends on their believing the argument 
not to be true.  After the above survey, I think we might extend that 
observation to conclude that it is almost impossible to persuade a 
politician of the truth of an argument, if that politician's chance of 
office depends on their believing the argument not to be true! 

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<h1><b><font size="3" color="navy" face="timesroman"><span lang="EN-GB"  style="font-size: 12pt;">SIX INCONVENIENT TRUTHS </span></font></b></h1>
  
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 15pt;"><font  size="3" color="navy" face="timesroman"><span lang="EN-GB"  style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: timesroman; color: navy;">by Andrew
R.B. Ferguson<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
  
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15pt;"><font size="3"  color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"  style="font-size: 12pt; color: navy;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-->&nbsp;<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
  
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 14.5pt;"><font  size="3" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"  style="font-size: 12pt; color: navy;">In the film <i style=""><span  style="font-style: italic;">An Inconvenient Truth</span></i>,<i  style=""><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></i>ex vice-president
Al Gore presents the facts about climate change.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>It
is a bravura performance.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>He makes use of brilliant
presentational techniques to put before us all relevant current knowledge
about climate change.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>He lightens the factual burden 
with humour, and by including some interesting autobiographical vignettes 
showing how various things in his life brought him to see the subject as
being of pre-eminent importance.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
  
<p class="MsoNormal"  style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.65pt; line-height: 14.5pt;"><font  size="3" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"  style="font-size: 12pt; color: navy;">Although I am fairly familiar with
the subject, he introduced me to a telling statistic.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>He
said that over 900 scientific peer reviewed papers had been published, yet
none had argued that global warming was not taking place.<span style="">&nbsp;
</span>As part of the same survey, over 600 popular media articles were analysed.<span  style="">&nbsp; </span>More than fifty per cent of them presented the subject
in such a way as to appear that it was still an open question whether global
warming was taking place.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>Doubtless the media do this
partly because they think that controversy is more interesting, but as Al
Gore pointed out, they are helped by the industrial lobby, which thinks that
it is to their benefit to create uncertainty where none should exist.<span  style="">&nbsp; </span>Such activities have been manifest in the tobacco industry
as well as in the energy industry.<span style="">&nbsp; </span><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
  
<p class="MsoNormal"  style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.65pt; line-height: 14.5pt;"><font  size="3" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"  style="font-size: 12pt; color: navy;">As a presentation of the inconvenient
fact of climate change, the film can be recommended merely on the basis of
the pleasure of seeing something being done as well as it possibly could
be.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>But there are five other inconvenient truths which
are of equal importance which were largely ignored by Al Gore.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
  
<p class="MsoNormal"  style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.65pt; line-height: 14.5pt;"><b  style=""><font size="3" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span  lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; color: navy; font-weight: bold;">The
second inconvenient truth </span></font></b><font color="navy"><span  lang="EN-GB" style="color: navy;">is the immense difficulty of replacing
fossil fuels.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>Fossil fuels contain energy by virtue
of having accumulated millions of years of solar energy.<span style="">&nbsp;
</span>To replace fossil fuels we have two options.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>One
is to tap nuclear energy.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>Nuclear fission &#8212; of uranium 
and thorium &#8212; is limited by the restricted supply of suitable resources (apart 
from any other dangers).<span style="">&nbsp; </span>Nuclear fusion is at a stage
where it needs still to be regarded as a possibility rather than a probability,
and there is a good chance that even if it becomes possible to achieve, so
much waste heat would be released in the process that the &#8216;cure&#8217; would be
worse than the &#8216;disease&#8217; of inadequate energy supplies.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>Nuclear
fission leads to the overheating of rivers, and is already a problem in that
regard.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
  
<p class="MsoNormal"  style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.65pt; line-height: 14.5pt;"><font  size="3" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"  style="font-size: 12pt; color: navy;">The second possibility, in addition
to nuclear energy, is that of capturing solar energy as it arrives on the
Earth.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>There are intractable problems to which evolution
has not provided a solution, so we would be wise to withhold judgement as
to whether the human race will be able to.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>Where power 
density is fairly high, as with wind, photovoltaics and tidal stream, uncontrollability
(i.e. intermittency) is an immense problem.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>Where
uncontrollability is either no problem or little problem, as with biomass
and hydroelectricity respectively, power density is low.<span style="">&nbsp;
</span>Biomass captures and stores in its mass only about one thousandth
part of the energy that falls on it, which is why I say that evolution has
not provided an answer to how to store the immense quantity of energy that
is needed to make it possible to sustain our present population.<span  style="">&nbsp; </span><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
  
<p class="MsoNormal"  style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.65pt; line-height: 14.5pt;"><font  size="3" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"  style="font-size: 12pt; color: navy;">These difficulties lead those who
have studied the matter to conclude that without fossil fuels the Earth is
only likely to support about 2 billion people, rather than the 9 billion
that are likely to be here by 2050.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>Al Gore did not
mention the number of people who might live on Earth in reasonable comfort
with diminished energy resources.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
  
<p class="MsoNormal"  style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.65pt; line-height: 14.5pt;"><b  style=""><font size="3" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span  lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; color: navy; font-weight: bold;">The
third inconvenient truth </span></font></b><font color="navy"><span  lang="EN-GB" style="color: navy;">is that even a large reduction in fossil
fuel usage by the developed nations &#8212; one so large as to be barely conceivable,
a 60% reduction &#8212; is likely to be cancelled by a wholly justifiable increase
by China, India and Indonesia.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>If this 60% reduction
could be achieved by 2050, China, India and Indonesia are likely to have
increased their present per capita consumption by an amount that would match
the decrease in the developed world.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>Moreover their
per capita emissions would still be less than the developed world <i  style=""><span style="font-style: italic;">after the mooted 60% reduction</span></i>.<span  style="">&nbsp; </span>Thus the overall effect is likely to be little reduction
in present emissions, even according to the most optimistic hopes.<span  style="">&nbsp; </span>Yet the world is currently emitting about two and a half
times as much carbon as it should be to have a hope of stabilizing atmospheric
carbon at a &#8216;safe&#8217; level.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>The conclusion to this is
that while taking action to reduce carbon emissions may help to mitigate
some of the dire problems seen by Al Gore, it will not prevent most of them,
so preparing for those problems needs to be as high on the agenda as attempting
to reduce the emissions.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>Al Gore sees hundreds of millions
of refugees as the inevitable outcome of substantial sea level increase.<span  style="">&nbsp; </span>One of the most sensible methods of preparing for this
is to do all that can be done to slow population growth.<span style="">&nbsp;
</span>Failing to take note of this inconvenient truth, Al Gore did not mention
that much remains to be done to (a) change the Vatican&#8217;s belief that only
&#8216;natural&#8217; methods of contraception are permissible, and (b) combat the influence
of the &#8216;right to lifers&#8217;.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>In short to ensure that
contraception is easily available to all those who wish to use it, and that
abortion is readily available when contraception has failed and the mother
does not want another child.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>That inconvenient truth
is about as inconvenient as inconvenient truths come!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
  
<p class="MsoNormal"  style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.65pt; line-height: 14.5pt;"><b  style=""><font size="3" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span  lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; color: navy; font-weight: bold;">The
fourth inconvenient truth </span></font></b><font color="navy"><span  lang="EN-GB" style="color: navy;">arises from the fact that it is bound
to be a slow process to reduce the per capita emissions of the developed nations.<span  style="">&nbsp; </span>Thus the action that would most rapidly ensure that there
was some mitigation in burgeoning use of fossil fuels would be to prevent
the populations of the developed nations growing by net immigration (as is
happening in the USA and to a lesser extent in the European Union).<span  style="">&nbsp; </span><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
  
<p class="MsoNormal"  style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.65pt; line-height: 14.5pt;"><b  style=""><font size="3" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span  lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; color: navy; font-weight: bold;">The
fifth inconvenient truth </span></font></b><font color="navy"><span  lang="EN-GB" style="color: navy;">is that a powerful driver for fossil fuel
consumption is globalization.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>There is little hope
of making frugal use of energy while globalization requires that goods and
consumables are unnecessarily transported around the world.<span  style="">&nbsp; </span>There are many problems associated with globalization,
but this aspect is the one which is relevant to excessive use of fossil fuels,
thus overloading the Earth with carbon.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
  
<p class="MsoNormal"  style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.65pt; line-height: 14.5pt;"><b  style=""><font size="3" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span  lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; color: navy; font-weight: bold;">The
sixth inconvenient truth </span></font></b><font color="navy"><span  lang="EN-GB" style="color: navy;">is that the belief of economists and the
commercial world in <i style=""><span style="font-style: italic;">ever continuing
</span></i>growth is impossible.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>We need to change
our capitalist system so that it works reasonably well without growth, with
goods lasting as long as possible and designed so that they can be repaired
when they go wrong, and with products being made only to satisfy real needs,
not &#8216;needs&#8217; invented by business to expand their markets.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
  <font size="3" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span lang="EN-GB"  style="font-size: 12pt; color: navy;">Every one of those six inconvenient
truths is of great importance, yet Al Gore attended in depth to only the
first.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>While he did mention population as a problem,
he gave no indication of the immense reduction in population that is needed
if everyone is to live even moderately well.<span style="">&nbsp; </span>He indicated,
with a passing remark, how he justifies that to himself, namely that he is
himself party to the delusion that renewable energy can replace fossil fuels.<span  style="">&nbsp; </span>As to the other inconvenient truths, perhaps he did give
an implicit explanation of why he kept quiet about so many important matters.<span  style="">&nbsp; </span>He mentioned that he had observed long ago that it is
almost impossible to persuade someone of the truth of an argument if that
person&#8217;s salary depends on their believing the argument not to be true.<span  style="">&nbsp; </span>After the above survey, I think we might extend that observation
to conclude that it is almost impossible to persuade a politician of the
truth of an argument, if that politician&#8217;s chance of office depends on their
believing the argument not to be true!<span style="">&nbsp;</span></span></font>
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