Climate Change Series Part 1: ‘It’s real, it’s us, it’s serious, and our window of opportunity is closing’
This is part one of a three-part series focused on presentations given at the IPCC Cities and Climate Change Science Conference held in Edmonton March 5-7, 2018. In Part Two we look at how climate change will impact Alberta and in Part Three we explore what some Alberta cities are doing to prepare for climate change.
A note from Nick Clark, Founder of Green Alberta Energy:
“We all know that Alberta’s Climate Leadership Plan, in an attempt to combat climate change, lower emissions, adopt a renewable energy strategy, and endorse energy efficiency programs, will cost all of us billions upon billions of dollars. In part it will be paid for by subsidies financed by money borrowed by the government, the carbon levy, capacity payments to new generators, and increased taxes. The bottom line, consumers will see retail prices and tax increase. Gone are the days when you paid 3.5 cents/kWh for electricity. The market will become more volatile and it will undoubtedly hurt some industries in the province while others will profit. Let’s forget all of this for a second and look at why we are doing this. Here are some of the arguments on both side of the fence.”
A note from Nick Clark, Founder of Green Alberta Energy:
“We all know that Alberta’s Climate Leadership Plan, in an attempt to combat climate change, lower emissions, adopt a renewable energy strategy, and endorse energy efficiency programs, will cost all of us billions upon billions of dollars. In part it will be paid for by subsidies financed by money borrowed by the government, the carbon levy, capacity payments to new generators, and increased taxes. The bottom line, consumers will see retail prices and tax increase. Gone are the days when you paid 3.5 cents/kWh for electricity. The market will become more volatile and it will undoubtedly hurt some industries in the province while others will profit. Let’s forget all of this for a second and look at why we are doing this. Here are some of the arguments on both side of the fence.”
Climate Change Series Part 1:
‘It’s real, it’s us, it’s serious, and our window of opportunity is closing’
By: Deanna McArthur
Since our launch in 2015, we have seen many questions and comments about climate change come our way both from our customers and the general public on our social media channels. Although we are not experts on the topic, we believe it is important for us to be as educated on the issue as possible, so that we can continue to provide up-to-date information in all of our communications.
At the beginning of March I was lucky enough to attend the community series portion of the inaugural IPCC Cities and Climate Change Conference in Edmonton. I am sure many can agree with me when I say that it is hard to decipher what information is credible, up-to-date, or misleading when it comes to the topic of climate change. I hoped that this conference would give me a better look into what is happening today and what could possibly be coming our way in the future.
About 800 municipal representatives, scientists and academics from around the world attended the conference to share the latest scientific research on climate change and discuss ideas to address what needs to be done by local governments.
First on the agenda was an update on the state of climate science by Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and associate professor of political science at Texas Tech University. Hayhoe is also the director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech and hosts her own online series “Global Weirding” which focuses on climate, politics, and religion.
If you haven’t had a chance to hear Hayhoe speak, I encourage you to check out her full presentation from the IPCC conference to get an even more in-depth look at the state of climate science.
Hayhoe was one of the lead authors on the latest update on the state of climate science, a document that was produced by the US Federal Government. According to Hayhoe, this 400-page document is the most up-to-date assessment of the state of the science we have in the world and is the most thoroughly reviewed document in the world, outside of the IPCC reports.
“Despite the reports breadth and depth, it can be summarized in just one sentence,” said Hayhoe. “It’s real, it’s us, it’s serious, and our window of time is closing fast.”
The report talks about four things:
Weather: temperature fluctuates from year to year
Climate: average of weather over 20-30 years
According to Hayhoe, the planet has been consistently warming, decade by decade. British engineer Guy Calendar collected long term temperature observations from around the world and in 1938 he published a paper concluding that through data and observation, the planet was warming due to the combustion of fossil fuels.
One of the most common comments we have seen about climate change over the years is that a changing climate is normal, and that the changes we are experiencing today are being caused by natural factors. Hayhoe explained that It is true that climate has changed in the past due to natural factors, but, according to the recent findings, the human influence is now overwhelming natural factors.
The report on the state of climate science says that it is extremely likely that that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century and there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the evidence.
Hayhoe took some time to debunk some common misconceptions on what is warming the world.
The Sun: If the sun was causing the change, the planet would be getting cooler because the sun’s energy has been going down for the last 40-50 years.
Natural Cycles like El Nino: The warming is not caused by natural cycles, because if that were the cause we wouldn’t see the entire planet warming. Those natural cycles move heat back and forth, up and down, atmosphere to ocean, and back again. They don’t warm the entire planet.
Ice Age Cycles: It can’t be the ice age cycles, because our warming after the last ice age peaked about 8,000 years ago. According to ice age cycles, the next ice age should have been arriving in about 1,500 years or less.
Historically, there has always been record cold and hot days, but it has been observed that over time, the record hot days are becoming much more frequent than the cold days.
“This is why I believe global weirding is a much better description of this problem than global warming,” said Hayhoe. “We are seeing things happening that are very unusual.”
One example of how a change in our climate has affected extreme events would be hurricanes. Last summer was a record breaking hurricane season. There has not been a long-term change in the number of hurricanes, but the impacts of those hurricanes are being exacerbated or amplified because of a warming world.
Hayhoe explained that as sea level rises, the storm surges get stronger because there is more water behind them. As the world warms, more water evaporates, which means there will be more intense amounts of precipitation associated with any given storm. Additionally, we are seeing more storms intensifying to category 3-4 and sometimes 5 as opposed to remaining as tropical storms or staying as category 1 or 2 hurricanes.
One event that is still very fresh in everyone’s mind is hurricane Harvey. To-date, there have been four studies done on Harvey. These studies found that:
According to Hayhoe, the last time carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere passed 400 parts per million was 3 million years ago. This spike was not due to human influence, it was just natural causes. At that time, when the climate had a chance to catch up with and balance out those high levels in the atmosphere, global temperature and sea level was much higher than it is today.
If our carbon emissions continue to grow, we could see atmospheric levels not experienced in 10s of millions of years.
“When I say there is uncertainty of what will happen in the future it is because we have never kicked our planet this hard and this fast,” said Hayhoe. “We can only estimate what is going to happen.”
Only 52% of Alberta respondents see conclusive or solid evidence the Earth’s average temperature has been growing warmer in the last few decades, while 16% said there’s little or no proof this is happening.
The poll also found that 46% of Alberta respondents felt the warming of the world is the result of natural patterns, rather than human activity.
We spoke with Barry Moore, a retired Mechanical Engineer who shares the views of those Albertans mentioned above. Originally from England, Moore came to Canada in 1961 and spent a large portion of his early career in Ontario working on nuclear research. In 1981 he moved to Alberta where he focused his expertise in instrumentation and control systems for the oil and gas industry.
About 15 years ago, Moore became increasingly interested in the topic of global warming, a topic now coined climate change. Since then he has spent his spare time reviewing technical papers, doing his own fundamental research and writing a series of his own papers.
“When I first became interested in the topic of climate change, it wasn’t so much the big political football that is it today,” said Moore. “I was just interested in it casually, but I asked myself the question all good scientists should, is there truth behind this?”
One of the most recent articles penned by Moore is titled “The Science and Politics of Climate Change” and is a call to convene a public inquiry, paneled by scientists to determine by scientific analysis, using the laws of physics, the effects of human made CO2 emissions on global temperatures.
Through his research over the last 15 years, Moore believes that the conclusion that human made CO2 emissions are having a detrimental effect on the globe’s climate is misguided and fundamentally fueled by political ideology.
In his paper, Moore questions the validity of the reports and data published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and says the political drive behind the topic of climate change can be seen at a global, national and provincial level. He explains that left wing politicians are always looking to increase taxes and increase the government’s revenues and the topic of climate change is a way to raise taxes without a government feeling any pain. He calls it a money grab.
But, he says he isn’t married to a specific stance on the topic.
“I am not making any claims, I am not saying that CO2 isn’t the cause or is the cause of climate change. I just think people need to stop, think, reassess, and do further studies. Science grows like a tree, the longer you feed it and the more you water it the stronger it grows.”
Click here to read “The Science and Politics of Climate Change” by Barry Moore P.Eng.
Click here to read “An Overview of the Impact of CO2 on Global Temperatures” by Barry Moore P.Eng.
Since our inception, Green Alberta Energy has been a place for discussion, to explore all sides of the renewable energy and climate change debate. We do not claim to be experts on the science and cannot agree nor disagree with any items in this blog, but rather are focused on providing a place where everyone can share their opinion.
Share with us, where do you stand on the topic?
Many cities, countries, and organizations have already started to take steps to mitigate their carbon footprint. Alberta for example has made a commitment to move towards a greener electricity grid and many companies have begun to invest in innovation and technology that has helped them reduce their emissions.
Albertans are starting to do their part as well, through programs offered by Energy Efficiency Alberta, Albertans avoided almost 3 million tonnes in greenhouse gas emissions in 2017. Additionally, competitive energy marketers with Green Alberta Energy have been offering consumers the option to green all or part of their electricity consumption since 2015. We have always encouraged our customers to be inspired by the story of the hummingbird and to just do what they can and green whatever they can afford.
Since our launch we have retired over 4,150,000 kWh worth of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) on behalf of our customers. What a difference a group of people can make!
In part 2 and 3 of this series we will look at:
This blog is just a summary of some of the points covered in Hayhoe’s presentation. To view the entire presentation click here.
At the beginning of March I was lucky enough to attend the community series portion of the inaugural IPCC Cities and Climate Change Conference in Edmonton. I am sure many can agree with me when I say that it is hard to decipher what information is credible, up-to-date, or misleading when it comes to the topic of climate change. I hoped that this conference would give me a better look into what is happening today and what could possibly be coming our way in the future.
About 800 municipal representatives, scientists and academics from around the world attended the conference to share the latest scientific research on climate change and discuss ideas to address what needs to be done by local governments.
First on the agenda was an update on the state of climate science by Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and associate professor of political science at Texas Tech University. Hayhoe is also the director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech and hosts her own online series “Global Weirding” which focuses on climate, politics, and religion.
If you haven’t had a chance to hear Hayhoe speak, I encourage you to check out her full presentation from the IPCC conference to get an even more in-depth look at the state of climate science.
Hayhoe was one of the lead authors on the latest update on the state of climate science, a document that was produced by the US Federal Government. According to Hayhoe, this 400-page document is the most up-to-date assessment of the state of the science we have in the world and is the most thoroughly reviewed document in the world, outside of the IPCC reports.
“Despite the reports breadth and depth, it can be summarized in just one sentence,” said Hayhoe. “It’s real, it’s us, it’s serious, and our window of time is closing fast.”
The report talks about four things:
- What we have known for a long time
- What we have learned more recently
- What we’re just now learning
- What we know we don’t know yet
What have we known for a long time?
The planet is warming. From here it is important to understand the difference between weather and climate.Weather: temperature fluctuates from year to year
Climate: average of weather over 20-30 years
According to Hayhoe, the planet has been consistently warming, decade by decade. British engineer Guy Calendar collected long term temperature observations from around the world and in 1938 he published a paper concluding that through data and observation, the planet was warming due to the combustion of fossil fuels.
One of the most common comments we have seen about climate change over the years is that a changing climate is normal, and that the changes we are experiencing today are being caused by natural factors. Hayhoe explained that It is true that climate has changed in the past due to natural factors, but, according to the recent findings, the human influence is now overwhelming natural factors.
The report on the state of climate science says that it is extremely likely that that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century and there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the evidence.
Hayhoe took some time to debunk some common misconceptions on what is warming the world.
The Sun: If the sun was causing the change, the planet would be getting cooler because the sun’s energy has been going down for the last 40-50 years.
Natural Cycles like El Nino: The warming is not caused by natural cycles, because if that were the cause we wouldn’t see the entire planet warming. Those natural cycles move heat back and forth, up and down, atmosphere to ocean, and back again. They don’t warm the entire planet.
Ice Age Cycles: It can’t be the ice age cycles, because our warming after the last ice age peaked about 8,000 years ago. According to ice age cycles, the next ice age should have been arriving in about 1,500 years or less.
What have we learned more recently?
More recently, scientists have been tracking extreme events such as drought, hurricanes, floods, forest fires, etc. It has been observed that weather phenomena are being amplified and shifted poleward in a warming world.Historically, there has always been record cold and hot days, but it has been observed that over time, the record hot days are becoming much more frequent than the cold days.
“This is why I believe global weirding is a much better description of this problem than global warming,” said Hayhoe. “We are seeing things happening that are very unusual.”
One example of how a change in our climate has affected extreme events would be hurricanes. Last summer was a record breaking hurricane season. There has not been a long-term change in the number of hurricanes, but the impacts of those hurricanes are being exacerbated or amplified because of a warming world.
Hayhoe explained that as sea level rises, the storm surges get stronger because there is more water behind them. As the world warms, more water evaporates, which means there will be more intense amounts of precipitation associated with any given storm. Additionally, we are seeing more storms intensifying to category 3-4 and sometimes 5 as opposed to remaining as tropical storms or staying as category 1 or 2 hurricanes.
One event that is still very fresh in everyone’s mind is hurricane Harvey. To-date, there have been four studies done on Harvey. These studies found that:
- The type of hurricane that Harvey was is 3-3.5 times more likely to occur now than it would have been 100 years ago
- Between 15 and 40% of the rain that fell during Harvey would not have occurred if it weren’t for a warming world
- Every year there is a 1% chance of another Harvey happening. This number could get as high as an 18% chance before the end of the century if we continue on our current path
What are we now just starting to understand, or that we don’t yet understand?
There is still much that we do not understand about the topic. We are currently living in a new geologic era, coined the Anthropocene, where humans are the primary influence on climate.According to Hayhoe, the last time carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere passed 400 parts per million was 3 million years ago. This spike was not due to human influence, it was just natural causes. At that time, when the climate had a chance to catch up with and balance out those high levels in the atmosphere, global temperature and sea level was much higher than it is today.
If our carbon emissions continue to grow, we could see atmospheric levels not experienced in 10s of millions of years.
“When I say there is uncertainty of what will happen in the future it is because we have never kicked our planet this hard and this fast,” said Hayhoe. “We can only estimate what is going to happen.”
Alternate views on climate science
It is no secret that the topic of Climate Change and the need for action is a divisive issue. There are people on both sides of the argument. In fact, a new survey by Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission actually found that fewer Albertans believe there is strong evidence for global warming than anywhere else in Canada.Only 52% of Alberta respondents see conclusive or solid evidence the Earth’s average temperature has been growing warmer in the last few decades, while 16% said there’s little or no proof this is happening.
The poll also found that 46% of Alberta respondents felt the warming of the world is the result of natural patterns, rather than human activity.
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About 15 years ago, Moore became increasingly interested in the topic of global warming, a topic now coined climate change. Since then he has spent his spare time reviewing technical papers, doing his own fundamental research and writing a series of his own papers.
“When I first became interested in the topic of climate change, it wasn’t so much the big political football that is it today,” said Moore. “I was just interested in it casually, but I asked myself the question all good scientists should, is there truth behind this?”
One of the most recent articles penned by Moore is titled “The Science and Politics of Climate Change” and is a call to convene a public inquiry, paneled by scientists to determine by scientific analysis, using the laws of physics, the effects of human made CO2 emissions on global temperatures.
Through his research over the last 15 years, Moore believes that the conclusion that human made CO2 emissions are having a detrimental effect on the globe’s climate is misguided and fundamentally fueled by political ideology.
In his paper, Moore questions the validity of the reports and data published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and says the political drive behind the topic of climate change can be seen at a global, national and provincial level. He explains that left wing politicians are always looking to increase taxes and increase the government’s revenues and the topic of climate change is a way to raise taxes without a government feeling any pain. He calls it a money grab.
But, he says he isn’t married to a specific stance on the topic.
“I am not making any claims, I am not saying that CO2 isn’t the cause or is the cause of climate change. I just think people need to stop, think, reassess, and do further studies. Science grows like a tree, the longer you feed it and the more you water it the stronger it grows.”
Click here to read “The Science and Politics of Climate Change” by Barry Moore P.Eng.
Click here to read “An Overview of the Impact of CO2 on Global Temperatures” by Barry Moore P.Eng.
Since our inception, Green Alberta Energy has been a place for discussion, to explore all sides of the renewable energy and climate change debate. We do not claim to be experts on the science and cannot agree nor disagree with any items in this blog, but rather are focused on providing a place where everyone can share their opinion.
Share with us, where do you stand on the topic?
What can we do about climate change?
Reading all of the information above can leave some people feeling pretty uncertain about the future, but if you look around, change has already begun.Many cities, countries, and organizations have already started to take steps to mitigate their carbon footprint. Alberta for example has made a commitment to move towards a greener electricity grid and many companies have begun to invest in innovation and technology that has helped them reduce their emissions.
Albertans are starting to do their part as well, through programs offered by Energy Efficiency Alberta, Albertans avoided almost 3 million tonnes in greenhouse gas emissions in 2017. Additionally, competitive energy marketers with Green Alberta Energy have been offering consumers the option to green all or part of their electricity consumption since 2015. We have always encouraged our customers to be inspired by the story of the hummingbird and to just do what they can and green whatever they can afford.
Since our launch we have retired over 4,150,000 kWh worth of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) on behalf of our customers. What a difference a group of people can make!
In part 2 and 3 of this series we will look at:
This blog is just a summary of some of the points covered in Hayhoe’s presentation. To view the entire presentation click here.