MARCH/APRIL 2007

March 1st, 2007

This issue tries to deal with the issue of climate change.

Editorial This issue tries to deal with the issue of climate change. The evidence is there for all to see. David Miliband in an interview he gave to The Tablet, seems to see a role here for the churches and specifically the Catholic Church. To Miliband, climate change isn’t just about science or the economy. It’s a moral cause. He believes “It is human suffering that is going to be the consequence of the risks we take with nature. It involves profound questions of equity… Because there is not just suffering, there is a sort of sum total of suffering: but there is also how the suffering is distributed. This problem does require some pretty profound engagement with issues of equity and responsibility that great religions are well placed to address… Lent might provide people with a time for consideration and contemplation in this area.” CAFOD’s campaign LiveSimply offers us all an opportunity to change our habits in order to reduce our carbon footprints and so make a difference, however small, to those in the world who will suffer much more than us. It is up to us to make the changes to our lifestyles. We owe it to our grandchildren and their children. Chris Dove

There can be no more pretence. “We know that the climate is different now from what it was even ten years ago. Autumn 2006 in Britain, for example, was the warmest for 400 years. For the developed world of the northern hemisphere up till now this seems to be no bad thing – there is no immediate obvious disadvantage. The weather is warmer; the flowers bloom longer; heating costs are down. It has forced no changes in our life-style. In the developing world, on the other hand, the predicted effects: extreme weather conditions, drought or flooding, are already happening. Those who have benefited least from the great surge in the use of fossil fuels over the last century are suffering because the developed world has never had it so good. In ten or twenty years we will feel at first hand the harmful costs of the industrial and commercial boom times. The poor in Africa, Asia, and South America are paying that cost already. Our efforts to Make Poverty History will be negated by the collapse of fragile eco-systems. You cannot export crops that cannot grow. Education cannot stop carbon emission by industries 3,000 miles away. We are the main polluters. We can urge and encourage our governments to spend taxes on the development of non-carbon use technologies, on outlawing waste, on subsidising alternative energy generation. We can as individuals reduce wasteful use of energy.” Source: Climate Change…Making Poverty Worse! York Trade & Debt Justice.

Environment The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) written by hundreds of scientists from across the world, gave the starkest warning yet that failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions will bring devastating climate change within a few decades. “If we keep emitting greenhouse gases at current rates we will see bigger changes this century than we did in the previous century. The amount of warming will depend on choices that human beings make.” according to Susan Solomon, co-chair of the working group that prepared the report. The previous IPCC report, in 2001, said that failure to act could bring global warming of up to 5.8C by 2100. This latest prediction painted a gloomier picture because scientists have discovered feedbacks in the global carbon cycle that are adding to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Early estimates say that would be enough to raise temperatures by at least another 1C to 6.4C by 2100, with a rise of 4C most likely. An increase of 4C will mean: • Loss of food production – African crops could slump by 15-35%. • Increased flooding – Sea levels rise by up to 59cm • Melting ice – Europe loses 80% of alpine glaciers, half the Arctic tundra at risk. • More disease – mosquitoes thrive, exposing 80 million more people to malaria. • Loss of land species – 20-50% of land species threatened with extinction.

Were the earth to warm by just one degree, 11% of Bangladesh would be submerged, putting the lives of 55 million people in danger. The average Briton produces 48 times more carbon dioxide than someone living in Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world, with 50% of the population living in poverty and 51% of the children malnourished. Climate change in Bangladesh will result in floods, salinity intrusion and droughts, all of which will drastically affect crop productivity and food security. Source: Guardian Weekly, Feb 9-15 and Veena Khaleque, country director Practical Action in Bangladesh

Crunch time for decision makers The 10 billion people expected to be alive in 2050 will require double the world’s current energy supply, according to the UN’s international energy agency (IEA). If there is too little, say the economists, there will be a financial crash unlike any before. Produce the wrong sort, say the scientists, and there will be climate disaster. The breakneck rush for industrialisation in China, India, Brazil and Mexico, has caused a huge increase in demand for energy. China became a net importer of oil in the mid-1990s. By 2002 it had become the world’s second biggest oil consumer, growing by 19% in 2003, and by more than 10% a year now. China is now adding 2 million cars to its roads, and an extra 2 million people to its cities every year, and is scouring the world for oil and gas, steel and timber, plastic and metals, soya beans and maize, all of which need energy to extract or grow. Meanwhile India’s energy consumption is expected to rise by nearly 30% in the next five years, as its middle class grows to more than 300 million. But rich countries also want more energy. The OECD predicts a huge increase in demand for all fuels. There is enough coal for centuries but the world runs mainly on oil and it is not certain how much is left. There is plenty of evidence that the world is about to reach what is called “peak oil”, that point when half the total oil known to have existed has been consumed, beyond which extraction goes into irreversible and rapid decline, and prices soar. Industry expects gas to take up the energy slack if oil becomes scarce. The arrival of climate change, however, urgently changes the world’s energy equations. Over the next 30 years all rich and many developing countries will have to commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Alternatives to fossil fuels, such as hydro, nuclear, hydrogen, wind, crops, solar and marine, which at present make up only 20% of energy supplies, all have problems. Nuclear power is expensive to build and no one has satisfactorily dealt with the waste problem. Wind power is attractive but needs immense investment and scale to match other power sources; marine power has barely been developed; hydrogen needs renewable electricity to be emission free. Rich countries are expected to try to become more energy self-sufficient and to encourage “microgeneration”, by the use of wind and photovoltaic power on buildings. Developing countries are heading in a different direction. China and India will continue to exploit coal reserves. There are plans to dam the Congo river to provide electricity for much of central Africa, and solar power stations are being considered for Algeria, Egypt and Morocco. Indonesia, Brazil, Zambia and the Philippines are all developing large biofuel industries, growing maize, palm oil or sugar cane for ethanol for export, but then food and fuel crops will compete with each other for land which could lead to the devastation of Indonesian or Latin American forests. There is now a sense of urgency and possibility, says David Miliband, Environment Secretary, who estimates that 40% of all the UK’s energy plants and a similar percentage of its housing stock will be replaced by 2035. Solving the energy problem is now as much about political will, as employing new technology. Source: John Vidal, Guardian Weekly 9 February.

Running on Empty Five years ago 70 scientists working in 100 agricultural research groups set out to assess the world’s ability to grow food. At about the same time the UN asked 1500 experts to study the social effects of water scarcity in developing countries. In 2003 teams of executives from the world’s largest water, oil and chemical companies tried to forecast the effect of water scarcity on their own and national economies. All three groups have reported back with alarming unanimity. Each survey independently predicted supply, health or economic crises if there is no radical change in the way water is used. The farm study showed that a third of the world already faces water shortages and forecast demand to double in the next 40 years. The UN group found people switching to foods that need more water to grow. The industrialists said large economies could collapse. All the studies proposed a radical rethink of the way everyone uses water. The green revolution fed the world, but the cost was high. Twice as much food is grown today as in 1950, but it needs three times as much water to grow it. The future emphasis is expected to be on developing drought-resistant crops, improving the efficiency of rain-fed agriculture and more water storage. Avoiding pollution will also be crucial. More controversially as water becomes scarcer, some countries may have to give up growing certain crops and rearing animals. One quarter-pound hamburger needs about 11,000 litres of water, a cotton T-shirt 7,000 litres, a kilo of rice 5,000 litres. Rather than digging deeper and moving water further, the future will be about recycling water. The most profligate cities are moving rapidly towards desalination. The days of water profligacy are officially over, says the UN, which sees this new century as being defined by access to water. While scarcity will encourage the development of new water-saving technologies and better management of water by business, it will still need a radical change in the way we think about water supplies. Source: John Vidal. Reports from World Business Council on Sustainable Development, the UN Environment Programme and the International Water Management Institute.

Can we trust scientists? The US administration has been accused of systemic tampering with the work of government climate scientists, to eliminate inconvenient material about global warming, in a Congress hearing. The Union of Concerned Scientists reported that pressure extended even to prohibit the use of the words “global warming” and “climate change”. The report said nearly half of climate scientists at government agencies had been advised against using those terms. Scientists and economists had been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), funded by ExxonMobil to undermine the IPCC climate change report. AEI offered payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of the UN report. Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered. Source: The Guardian Weekly 9-15 February

Replacing Trident The Independent for 15 February listed 100 names of leading figures from politics, religion, science, the arts and military behind a call to stop Trident. Under the banner “Not in our Name”, it was a rebuke to ministers who, campaigners argue, are misleading the public over the replacement of Trident just as they did during the build-up to the war in Iraq. Four years ago, more than a million people marched in London – and elsewhere – many carrying banners bearing the slogan “Not in our Name”. The 100 included Professor Stephen Hawking, former UN diplomat Sir Richard Jolly, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, London Mayor Ken Livingstone, ex-Air Marshal Timothy Garden, Archbishop Rowan Williams, Cardinal O’Brien, Timothy Radcliffe OP, politicians Sir Menzies Campbell, Alex Salmond, and Diane Abbott, and from the Arts, Zadie Smith, Emma Thompson, Jarvis Cocker, Richard Rogers the architect. They question the wisdom of rushing into the replacement of Trident, call for more time for debate, and urge the renewal of diplomatic initiatives to renew the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation negotiations.

In the US too, well informed sources are calling for a review of their nuclear weapons policy. Former Cold War US officials: George Schultz, Henry Kissinger, [both former secretaries of state] William Perry, [former secretary of defence] and Sam Nunn, [former Democratic senator] reviewed current nuclear dangers and called for US leadership to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons. Their argument is as follows: • Reliance on nuclear weapons for deterrence is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective. • Terrorist groups are outside the bounds of deterrence strategy. • We are entering a new nuclear era that will be more precarious, disorienting and costly than was the Cold War. • New nuclear weapon states lack the safeguarding and control experiences learned by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. • The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NNPT] envisioned the elimination of all nuclear weapons. • Non-nuclear weapons states have grown increasingly sceptical of the sincerity of the nuclear weapons states to fulfill their NNPT obligations to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. • There exists a historic opportunity to eliminate nuclear weapons in the world. • To realise this opportunity, bold vision and action are needed. • The United States must take the lead and must convince the leaders of the other nuclear weapons states to turn the goal of nuclear weapons abolition into a joint effort. • A number of steps need to be taken to lay the groundwork for a world free of nuclear threat, including de-alerting nuclear arsenals; reducing the size of nuclear arsenals; eliminating tactical nuclear weapons; achieving Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and encouraging other key states to also do so; securing nuclear weapons and weapons-usable materials everywhere in the world; and halting production of fissile materials for weapons, ceasing to use enriched uranium in civil commerce and removing weapons-usable uranium from research reactors. Other former US officials such as Robert Macnamara and General George Lee Butler, former head of the US Strategic Command, have made similar arguments. The 19th century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said: “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” We have had ridicule and violent opposition, this truth may now be entering the stage of being self-evident. Source: National Catholic Reporter 26 January 2007. David Krieger president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation [www.waging peace.org] Barbara Hungin Chair 01642 784398 Sr Mary Walmsley CJ Secretary 01904 464919 Nan Saeki Treasurer 01904 783621 Chris Dove Editor 01947 825043 email: dove.whitby@phonecoop.coop or 22 Blackburns Yard Whitby YO22 4DS website:www.ayton.info/middlesbroughjp Mar 10 Live Simply Day with CAFOD York May 19 10th anniversary of Diocesan New Covenant with the Poor with AGM July 14 “Honouring Creation” Prayer walk in the Wolds Sept 15 Prisons and Prison Justice St Francis M’bro Nov 17 Youth Forum Middlesbrough

PROPHECY

When I planted the acorn, I knew that I would not live long enough to see the oak in its splendour, but I hoped my grandchildren would.

Now I know that I will not suffer from drought, floods, disease, and an influx of millions of refugees, but I fear my grandchildren will. A.M.D.