You may remember Paul Gilding, former executive director of Greenpeace International, from Tom Friedman’s Ponzi scheme column (see here and NPR interview here). I asked him for a post, and he has offered up this recent post from his website (– a good follow up to Large Antarctic glacier thinning 4 times faster than it was 10 years ago: “Nothing in the natural world is lost at an accelerating exponential rate like this glacier”).
In my work with companies around the world, one of my key messages is that business strategy needs to be based on science. The logic is simple. Whereas most future planning involves an array of complicated and interrelated uncertainties – like technology shifts, political moods, consumer behaviour, competitor actions – science is delightfully predictable. That’s the thing about physics and biology, the rules were written long ago.
Furthermore, climate science is deeply relevant and material to most businesses and to all economies. Therefore this week’s report (see here for BBC summary) that the Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica was melting 4 times faster than it was just 10 years ago, and is now dropping at 16 metres per year, should strike fear into the hearts of oil company executives and bring delight to the CFOs of electric car companies like Better Place (yes, such is the perverse logic of climate science in the business community).
Why is it so significant?
Despite the extraordinary increase in political focus and public attention on climate change, the real financial impact to date on the business community is marginal in most sectors. There is a lot of talk about emerging public expectations, furious lobbying on new government policy and certainly plenty of earnest commentary about corporate commitment, but nothing that really engages the CFO yet. Pine Island Glacier and similar developments could change all that.
As I argue in my Great Disruption writing and talks (see here for relevant links), human history shows we rarely respond to major threats until we declare it a crisis. This doesn’t have to be an actual physical crisis, it can easily just be a shift in perception – where, apparently suddenly, something on the edges of the mainstream leaps on to centre stage.
This is what will happen on climate change. The great weight of evidence that climate change is accelerating will break through the public consciousness and political leaders will suddenly have to deal with high expectations of action.
So that brings us back to Pine Island, one of the world’s largest glaciers. Just ten years ago, the best science said the Pine Island Glacier would melt in around 600 years, now they think it’s about 100 years. (What will be the forecast in 5 years time?) It’s not that this particular glacier is a key tipping point, though its melting could alone trigger sea level rise of 25-30 cm. The problem is that it’s just the latest in countless stories about glaciers and other ice stores melting much faster than expected. (See here for a well referenced overview of this from New Scientist “Sea level rise: It’s worse than we thought” and here for a recent article “Why it’s even worse than we feared” by Newsweek’s science editor, on the increasingly desperate warnings by leading scientists.)
So how will governments respond when the public suddenly comes to accept that we now face the potential for 1 – 2 metres of sea level rise this century? And what does this mean for business strategy?
Governments will do two things. Firstly they will panic about the global economic impact of a huge amount of residential, commercial and industrial infrastructure facing medium term damage or total loss and short-term collapse in value. Imagine for example if all affected housing, airports, ports, power stations and tourist developments were suddenly devalued by 25% for the risk of sea level rise.
Secondly governments will actually take action to cut emissions to reduce this economic risk. This is where it will get really interesting. Let’s take just one example, the auto and oil industries. They face a perfect storm of risk and transformational change when the inevitable sudden shift occurs in the political landscape.
This perfect economic storm already has a number of winds gathering speed. Firstly of course is the heavy government action to protect and boost the global auto industry with tax breaks, direct investment and loans. Secondly, electric cars, long sidelined as a marginal technology strategy are emerging as a serious global contender, driven by the success of petrol electric hybrids and responses like GM’s Volt. Thirdly is the acceptance of high oil prices being the norm, with peak oil a matter of when not whether. Fourthly and most significantly is the reluctant acceptance by the global auto industry of climate change as a game changer. The new assumption is that zero CO2 personal transport is inevitable, just a matter of when and with what technology.
So what would be a simple, politically popular, economically beneficial and environmentally significant action that governments could take if they were suddenly under pressure to act? How about using their leverage over the auto industry, taxes, standards and good old-fashioned political leadership to drive the auto industry towards an electric future, driven only by renewable power. Such a policy position, in the context of a global crisis on a scale commensurate to a war footing, would virtually overnight (i.e. a decade or so) transform the oil and auto industries. The politics and economics stack up very well, with massive job creation and new infrastructure needs along with powerful national and consumer economic benefits. (One of the leading disruptive contenders in the space, Better Place, claims per km running costs for electric cars are up to 70% cheaper, even allowing for amortised battery costs.)
The numbers at stake are staggering. Global oil trade in 2008 was around $3 trillion. The US alone sent $440 billion off shore for its oil, much to the delight of Middle Eastern oil exporters. Even little Australia spends about A$20 billion per year on retail petrol sales. Imagine the consequences of these numbers dropping by 25% or 50% with a focused government effort. Imagine the economic consequences of disruptive electric car companies like Better Place or China’s BYD taking this market away from the oil giants!
Seem far-fetched? Think again. Change at this scale is absolutely possible, in fact I believe an inevitable consequence of the science. In fact the good news for society and the bad news for any business not thinking this way, is that we’ve done it before. To quote Lester Brown from his excellent book Plan B 3.0 where he compares our current challenge to the real world experience in WWII. “The shift from producing cars to planes, tanks, and guns was accomplished within a matter of months. One of the keys to this extraordinarily rapid restructuring was a ban on the sale of cars, a ban that lasted nearly three years.”
So if your company isn’t monitoring the Pine Island Glacier very closely, I suggest your business strategy and your company may soon be under water. The Great Disruption is well underway.
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We are in transition now to the new energy paradigm. It will become more and more out of necessity to do so.
Lets be senisble and target coal first. Its the largest polluter and the technology to tackle it is primed and only requires some subsidization to get it going. Electric cars run on coal presently and hence require the renewable electricity infrastructure first and foremost. Infrastructure first.
This article does not persuade me that THIS glacier is the game-changer we’ve been looking for. There have been stunning pictures of receding glaciers circulating for over a decade (not to mention increasing warnings of sea level rise), and we’re still nowhere near a tipping point in American public opinion. The public needs to start connecting U.S. events– hurricanes, droughts, wildfires, pest invasions– to climate change for us to reach that point.
Paul: Great post, and it stresses the kind of big picture view, as in looking at climate change and peak oil together, that I’ve long advocated. We have far too many people sequestering themselves in one camp or another–they think that peak oil is “the” issue and climate change is “bad, but a lesser problem”, or vice versa.
The factor that has me the most concerned is something you mentioned (and doesn’t get enough attention in general, in my opinion): The fact we seem to be consistently behind the curve in our assessment of our unfolding climate mess. I think this is probably inevitable, given the normal (and wholly appropriate) conservative nature of the scientific process, plus how quickly we’re trying to bring our understanding of all the relevant climate mechanisms and interactions up to speed. In particular, I’m deeply concerned about all the recent news about Arctic carbon deposits, methane releases from hydrate deposits and defrosting permafrost. Every day that situation looks more like a time bomb about to go off
Pete: Kill coal first–no argument. But that’s increasingly looking like just the start of a long, difficult process. I think there’s almost no chance we’ll escape the need to employ one or more geo-engineering schemes to save our butts from the worst that’s coming, even as we take very aggressive mitigation and adaptation steps.
Josh: That’s the problem–what will it take to get a sufficient number of American voters to say, “OK, this really is a big problem, and we have to do something about it NOW.” (And by “sufficient number” I mean enough that the right public policy can be enacted, even with the residue of denier politicians that will still be in office when that cognitive flip happens.)
I’ve long said that I honestly don’t think any one event can change enough minds in the US. Americans are so in love with our “don’t tread on me”/”rugged individualism”/”I’m a rebel–what are you gonna do about it?” mindset that even something truly horrific, like a hurricane strike much worse than what New Orleans suffered in 2005, or a deadly heat wave worse than the one that killed 37,000 people in Europe in 2003, wouldn’t be enough.
I really hope I’m wrong, and that enough Americans would get active, both politically and in their own consumption habits, with far less motivation than those examples. But that’s not the way I’d bet my lunch money.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ technology/ 2009/ aug/ 19/ micro-wind-power-turbines
No technology usage changes, only different technology to use as we do now. Its a risky analysis and Tony Blair has been incorrect so many times in the time as UK PM that I cannot bring myself to agree with him totally. People should walk as much as they can as an example.
850 million vehicles in the world and 70 milion more each year added. It will be decades before our infrastructure is even ready for electric cars let alone seeling them in droves come 2012 for example. We do not want these cars running on coal.
Governments will do two things. Firstly they will panic about the global economic impact of a huge amount of residential, commercial and industrial infrastructure facing medium term damage or total loss and short-term collapse in value…Secondly governments will actually take action to cut emissions to reduce this economic risk. This is where it will get really interesting.
Well they could also go to war. Its going to be a close call what happens after Firstly and how the whole thing pans out. In any case if Firstly does not happen soon then the worst of the worst is upon us (this may already be so).
The situation is grave. In financial terms, I don’t think we will have anywhere near the current standard of living we enjoy now in the next 50yrs. (Civilization may have peaked around Woodstock)
Josh, not just the public. The Media (MSM) and our leaders. I listen to countless reports on events linked to CC and nout a mention of this, the main, big issue.
Just this morning there’s a report of the Canadian PM visiting the North to observe a military operation. Not a mention of why this is all happening! The arctic is melting and opening up to us, because of AGW.
Interesting article here demonstrating the ignorance of the powerful and wealthy…
Most in mining industry believe climate change is already hurting operations (except at senior levels).
http://news1130.com/ news/ business/ more.jsp?content=b194297627
Joe why did post 8 go to moderation?
OT: Hey Joe, SolveClimate and the AP (via NewsDay) have managed to write the kind of bark beetle story that “the newspaper of record” somehow never quite got around to. The first story describes how the warming climate has allowed the mountain pine beetle to destroy forests at latitudes and altitudes never seen before, and (news to me) the second describes how a variety of pests are already devastating boreal forest in Siberia and the Yukon, with the mountain pine beetle expected to add to the latter infestations in the near future.
The other major aspect of the story, the imminent encroachment of beetles (possibly in synergy with another pest, the jack pine budworm)into the main Canadian boreal forest running from Alberta to the Atlantic, is described in this press release about a researcher hoping to slow the spread. Times sure have changed — just a couple of years ago the Alberta provincial government was talking big about being able to keep the beetle from establishing permanently on the east side of the Rockies.
These are helpful things to point out to business leaders but I don’t think they represent much of a reed to lean on for solutions. After all, they led us over the cliff of the financial crisis when its approach was fairly obvious. The MSM, with a few major exceptions, is also derelict in make the issue clear to the public. The public, nevertheles, is concerned about climate change but not ceased with the necessary sense of urgentcy. Their concern and the logic of more and more serious impacts to come does open up the possibility of an effective broad based non violent civil disobedience campaign to call media attention to the crisis and move public opinion to demand international action. I, for one, will be supporting more and more actions like the Greenpeace one at the Kent coal station!
Steve Bloom, this is all true and I’ve seen it for myself (AK, CO, AB, BC). Here in Colo, you can’t drive anywhere in the mountains without seeing ‘red or dead’. But having the NYT print more stories (IIRC I’ve seen them there) isn’t going to change anything in an information asymmetric and overloaded First World. Societies don’t work that way, nor do individuals. They will when the threat is easily apparent, not before. That is human nature.
Best,
D
When the insurance companies realize that what is at risk is coastal properties valied at about a year’s worth of the entire world’s gross economic product, the massive rate increases and flood of policy cancellations ought to make the business community take notice, and just maybe if enough businesspeople pressure their representatives, the conservative politicians will finally change their tune. When the business community finally connects the dots and realizes that really big costs are going to hit them if nothing is done, that should pull the rug out from under the political opportunists who are trying to make hay out of climate denial and delay.
It’s hard to know what comes first when solving problems. We open our eyes to problems when they get bigger, but we also open our eyes to problems when we have a solution handy.
The rates of these two processes is part of the story affecting how the problem will be dealt with. If it just gets bigger, we’ll do a lot more panicking and other problems will arise. The more technologies such as electric cars break through, however, the more we’ll be willing to acknowledge the problem.
So maybe it’s more important to focus on solutions. Maybe in doing so, you’ll both get greater admission of the problem, and reduce the likelihood of panic and conflict as the problem gets bigger.
So I wonder if the author is right to link solutions and problems but should spin the story to re-emphasize the solution and that way possibly get more people acknowledging the problem.
Maybe the tipping point in world public reaction will come only after a “perfect storm” of global-scale severe weather, like:
In the US:
1)A category 3 or 4 hurricane (or even a series of them) making landfall over New York, Boston or Washington DC (note:take a close look at Hurricane Bill, now Category 3, it will pass very near these cities in next days), causing a Katrina-like disaster in the very heart of US power(could you imagine the mediatic impact of seeing the ex-World Trade Center or even worse, Wall Street underwater?)
2) After years of drought, a heatwave followed by strong winds hit western states, engulfing cities like Las Vegas inside dark clouds of dust and triggering fires in California that burn entire districts of Los Angeles and San Francisco.
3) An F-5 super-tornado hit the center of a city like Dallas, Oklahoma or Sant Louis
4)The Palin’s Alaska gasoduct break down as the ground collapses thank to permafrost melting.
In the Arctic:
1) The summer ice nearly dissapears, the Northwest and Northeast passages are opened from July, in late August ships are crossing for the first time across the geographic North Pole.
2)The Petermann Glacier, and the rests of Ward Hunt ice shelves disinterate nearly completely.
3)Massive fires spread in Siberia , Alaska and Canada, maybe reaching natural gas and oil extraction points.
In Oceania:
1) A sea heatwave causes massive coral bleaching in Polinesia and the Great Coral Reef.
2) After years of drought, a heatwave hit again south Australia, triggering(again) massive bushfires, but this time the fires are so big that reach the center of cities like Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra, the capital.
In South-Asia:
1)The summer monsoon collapses, and the resulting drought almost destroy the Hindu agriculture and spread massive fires across the region. In the resulting famine, the Naxalite maoist insurgency trives, controls most of countryside and menace the main Hindu cities (remember that now the Hindu goverment is a mayor global warming denier, calling AGW a “western fake”; with Naxalite insurgents at the doors of Delhi it surely will change idea and call for help from the Westerns, what do you think?)
In Europe:
1) A series of 2003-like heatwaves followed by fall massive floods cause thousand of deaths and billions in damages.
2) Some altlantic hurricanes reach England and France.
3) A big Atlantic storm hit the North British Sea, breaking the London Barrier and the Holland dams.London and Amsterdsam city centers are flooded.
In Africa and Soth America:
This areas are already heavy hit by disasters like the 1970s-1980s Sahel Drouht, the current war in Darfur and the 1997-1998 El Niño disasters in Peru, etc. This appeared in western news? No.
NOTHING HAPPENING HERE WAS BIG NEWS IN THE PAST, SO IT WILL NOT BE BIG NEWS IN THE FUTURE.
If all this disasters come together, the people cannot ignore climate change (remember the boiling frog metaphor), what do you think?
Three ingredients — and KEY ones — that influence how humans think and feel about something are intent, honesty, and fairness.
In other words, it would be one thing if Oil Company X, or Coal Company C, were being honest to us, had our genuine interests in mind (rather than ONLY their bottom line), and were acting fairly and justly with respect to the public good, future generations, the environment, and so forth. Perhaps their current stances and actions are the result of well-intentioned and honest mistakes? If that were the case, then we’d still have to make the changes (from CO2-producing energy sources to clean sources), but the tone and pathway of the present situation could be more positive.
It’s quite another thing, of course, if Oil Company X is acting selfishly, in misleading and manipulative ways, in ways that disregard the public interest and put Petroleum Profit alone on the Pedestal, and in ways that ignore matters of justice and equity. That sort of thinking gets people Motivated to change the situation. But, in order for people to get Motivated, they first need to “see” that this is indeed the case. I’m not talking about seeing this superficially, in a way that’s easily dismissed as being “expected” and “normal”. Instead, I’m talking about seeing the enormity of the harmful actions, irresponsible actions, deceptions and confusions, selfishness, and injustice. I’m talking about seeing the enormity of the two-faced nature of Company X. I’m talking about realizing that Company X doesn’t seem to Care about whether it harms Your Children and Your Children’s Children.
These are the sorts of realizations that get humans activated. Most humans are not activated by thinking about what molecules do. Instead, they are activated by realizing that someone (or some organization) is being dishonest with them, manipulating them, and doing very real things that will ultimately be harmful to them.
We need to genuinely and accurately provide that accurate picture. With some companies, this is indeed the case. Rachel Maddow (love your show, Rachel) began to shine light on some aspects of the API and the oil industry last night. We need MUCH more of that. And, there are many dimensions of the matter that paint (in a real way) the picture. It’s not just that the API and some oil companies support events and talk out of both sides of their mouths. There’s more to see — much more — and it’s all concerning and “motivating”.
I have sent packets of information off to you (Joe), to the Rachel Maddow Show, to The New York Times (several people there), to Bill McKibben and 350.org, to the Yale folks, to a few excellent schools of journalism, and to other relevant members of the media and climate-related organizations. The information — presented in a DVD — focuses on ExxonMobil in various relevant dimensions. I encourage all parties to watch it. Its aim is to help the media cover the matter. It contains very helpful and eye-opening information, I believe. (The presentation itself, which is very informal and not at all polished, is not the point. Instead, the point is in the information contained.) I’m trying to help the media understand, and shed light on, ExxonMobil. It’s troubling, to put it mildly.
We need more of the Rachel Maddow sorts of things, and more of the (accurate) light-shedding reporting, and more featuring of some of the largest culprits (ExxonMobil, etc.) here on ClimateProgress. We also need to begin acting solidly with our pocketbooks. Will you buy the products of companies that try to deceive you and that don’t really care about future generations, including your children? People who do, in some senses anyhow, “deserve what they get”.
And I’d also love to see this: J. Stewart interviewing Rex Tillerson. If Stewart does his homework (I’d be happy to send them a packet and DVD if they ask, as I can’t find their address and they don’t accept unsolicited submittals), then he would be able to do the world’s most amazing, and necessary, “informed roasting” ever witnessed. Of course, Tillerson (if he is smart) wouldn’t do it. But, Mr. Stewart, that shouldn’t stop you. Do it with a cardboard Tillerson! Wrestle with the oil patch. Let the real facts all hang out.
That’s it for now.
Jeff
It is nice to hear that Greenpeace is playing a helpful role based on science in the area of responding to the threat to the climate, but they have not had a science-based response to agricultural biotechnology. Instead they have spread falsehoods about GMOS (genetically modified organisms).
Let’s hope Paul Gilding’s assessment is right – but I suspect that by the time things are obvious enough for most Americans to demand action it’ll be too late. If it isn’t already – columns of methane bubbling up from the Arctic sea bed – ya’ think we might have a problem?
Nice post and the Pine Island Glacier deserves all the attention. It is one of the few game changers. My first job as a glaciologist in training in 1985 was to determine the ocean bottom topography, bathymmetry from recent cruise data. The reason for the survey was this was felt to be the weak underbelly of the West Antarctic ice sheet. The reason it is the weak underbelly is that the rest of the WAIS is surrounded by significant ice shelves which buttress ice stream flow and must be removed before a glacier can accelerate. The second reason is that some distance back from the glacier front 55 km is the grounding line. The grounding line is where the glacier tongue is no longer afloat. This is a point of stability. The grounding line for the Pine Island Glacier is on an are of high terrain, if it retreats significantly the terrain becomes lower and for the next 300 km inland along the flow path the glacier bottom is 1000 m below sea level or more and the tongue will not be grounded for long at this depth. Thus, we can a rapid retreat of the grounding line to where the terrain begins to rise more than 300 km further upglacier. this taps into the heart of the WAIS
(Josh) When I too read that a glacier was losing 16 meters per year… I thought about it… that is not much forward flow…no big deal.
But NO it is losing 16 meters of altitude per year across its entire basin. The river of ice is dropping down 16 feet lower each year.
THAT IS HUGE .. and the article did fail to note that.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/ 2/ hi/ science/ nature/ 8200680.stm
Mr. Pelto puts it well. Pine Island and Thwaites are critical.
But I disagree with Mr. Gilding on some points. I include the following text from my comment at his blog:
“I disagree with you about the perspicacity of governments. They are bought and paid for by oligopolies, and will only take action for fear of populist anger, which is, in turn, controlled by media owned by oligopolies. Therefore, governmental action will occur only after enough of the apex level predators realize a) the reality of climate change cannot be bargained away and b) they have a plan to profit from it
ergo, Waxman-Markey”