by Mark Lynas
Reviewed by Dave Mitchell
Six Degrees is the best, and the most sobering book I have yet to read on global warming. Mark Lynas, the author, is a British journalist, as well as an envi¬ronmental activist, who reviewed thousands of studies on the issue, using hundreds of them as sources for his book.
Mr. Lynas structures his book with each chap¬ter devoted to the effects of an increase of one degree Celsius. Mr. Lynas bases his book on the United Nations IPCC temperature ranges for vari¬ous scenarios, from 1.4 degrees- to 5.8 degrees Celsius ( 2.6-10.4 degrees Farenheit).
There are several facts and conclusions arrived at in Six Degrees, which are sobering, at minimum, and truly terrifying at the maximum. In order to avoid runaway global warming, the generation of feedback loops that cannot be stopped, Mr. Lynas concludes total CO2 emissions must be capped at 400 ppm by 2050. The current CO2 load in the atmosphere is about 380-390 ppm (parts per million). In order to achieve the level of 400 ppm by 2050, global emissions must decline by the year 2015, and then decline steadily until an 80% reduction has been achieved.
The above achievement will stabilize the CO2 load in the atmosphere at approximately the current level, and will give the Earth, as well as humanity, a 3 in 4 chance of keeping global warming under 2 degrees Celsius. If this cannot be done, runaway global warming will result, with eventual increase to 6 degrees Celsius, at which point there will be mass extinctions of species.
At three degrees Celsius, the entire Amazon rain forest will be destroyed, mostly by fire, and the desert will rise in its wake. Approximately 80% of the Arctic sea ice will have been lost, and Greenland, glaciers, and ice caps will be disgorging phenomenal amounts of water. The ecosystems we humans have always known will be in the process of being destroyed. The runaway global warming process will be well on its way.
Mr. Lynas notes that all of humanity’s efforts to this point to reduce carbon output have been for naught, including the Kyoto treaty. He notes that the collective disgorging of CO2 emission since 1996 has risen 4x faster (per his quote of the 2006 Global Carbon Project) than previously. Further, he quotes the International Energy Agency, projecting the world’s energy demands will increase 50% by 2030, with 80% of this energy coming from fossil fuels, rather than clean energy sources. These are grim statistics in the extreme.
Clearly, humanity is on a suicidal path, as well as a homicidal one, the killing of the biosphere as we know it. All through the use of fossil fuels since the beginning of the industrial age late in the 18th century. A crisis point is being reached, and Mr. Lynas is trying to let us know there must be a significant change in our course.
Six Degrees cannot be read, without feeling the greatest sense of alarm, as well as the recognition of the necessity of changing the way we conduct our lives, the way we develop and use energy.
What is beneficial about Six Degrees is the delineation of specific goals which can be done to eventually slow down, and reverse the collective CO2 output. Mr. Lynas cites the work of Robert Socolow and Steve Pacala, from Princeton University, in discussing “wedges”.
Wedges are the saving of a billion tons of carbon, by the year 2055. There must be the development of at least 11-12 wedges by that time, in order to achieve the 400 ppm goal. One wedge could be gained by increasing vehicle fuel efficiency to 60 miles per gallon.
Another wedge could be gained by increasing solar power by 700 fold, and another by building two million one megawatt wind turbines, a 50 fold increase. You get the idea. The halting of the destruction of the world’s rain forests would give another wedge. Obviously, each wedge is massive in scope, requiring efforts on a scale never before achieved.
Mr. Lynas devotes some discussion in his last chapter on the issue of human denial, and how the dynamics of this process of denial must be broken, if there is to be change enough, soon enough.
Despite all assertions to the contrary, we really are living in the Dark Ages, in terms of our ability as a species to live without the very real threat of destroying the one planet we live on. The cumulative forces of industrialization, population growth, ignorance of the issues, as well as outright denial of the problem of global warming, are leading to the eventual destruction of the biosphere.
Collectively, there must be a decision to act in a positive direction, and this means much more than buying a Toyota Prius, or riding a bike to work. Mountains must be moved, and this can only be done when mankind is seized by a fervor, a fervor fed by the recognition of the danger at hand, and the consequent actions taken.
It is incumbent upon each one of us, especially those of us in the U.S., as participant destroyers of the biosphere, to add our voice, our actions, to the needed transformation that must occur.