Two Morons: Bush and Saakashvili

We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global warming on this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, “the end of living and the beginning of survival” for humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of our extinction.

The collapse of the polar ice caps would become inevitable, bringing long-term sea level rises of 70-80 metres. All the world’s coastal plains would be lost, complete with ports, cities, transport and industrial infrastructure, and much of the world’s most productive farmland. The world’s geography would be transformed much as it was at the end of the last ice age, when sea levels rose by about 120 metres to create the Channel, the North Sea and Cardigan Bay out of dry land. Weather would become extreme and unpredictable, with more frequent and severe droughts, floods and hurricanes. The Earth’s carrying capacity would be hugely reduced. Billions would undoubtedly die.

Watson’s call was supported by the government’s former chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, who warned that “if we get to a four-degree rise it is quite possible that we would begin to see a runaway increase”. This is a remarkable understatement. The climate system is already experiencing significant feedbacks, notably the summer melting of the Arctic sea ice. The more the ice melts, the more sunshine is absorbed by the sea, and the more the Arctic warms. And as the Arctic warms, the release of billions of tonnes of methane – a greenhouse gas 70 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years – captured under melting permafrost is already under way.

To see how far this process could go, look 55.5m years to the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, when a global temperature increase of 6C coincided with the release of about 5,000 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, both as CO2 and as methane from bogs and seabed sediments. Lush subtropical forests grew in polar regions, and sea levels rose to 100m higher than today. It appears that an initial warming pulse triggered other warming processes. Many scientists warn that this historical event may be analogous to the present: the warming caused by human emissions could propel us towards a similar hothouse Earth. The Guardian, UK

Now the boundary’s that certain people would like to keep us in the boundary’s of the mind is probably not a good idea anymore. Now are President said yesterday that this is a heck of away to act in the twenty first century. I think he maybe on to something there.

He claims that Saakashvili “would never dream of launching a massive military attack unless he got explicit orders from his bosses at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave”. What an arrogant, racist statement! Why would Washington “order” him to do something that anyone with a lick of common sense could see was going to blow up in Saakashvili’s (and Washington’s!) face?

He also puts forward as proof of this dastardly conspiracy the fact that “President Bush has avoided ordering Georgian troops to withdraw”. By what stretch of rascist delusion and political naiveté does Mr Whitney imagine that the President of the US would openly “order” the troops of a foreign country to do anything. Or that they would obey him! He doesn’t even do that to the Iraqi army! And, of course, he didn’t order the Russian army to stop fighting either! By Mr Whitneys’s logic that means that he wanted the Russians to continue the fight and that Medvedev is an American stooge!

Then he starts to contradict himself. First, the whole thing is about Russia, then it’s about Iran, then it’s about oil. Then it’s not an American operation at all but wiley old Putin (he adopts the neocon practice of refusing to recognise Medvedev!) consolidating his position in the rest of Europe. In other words, the whole thing was a Russian set up, which contradicts the idea of “orders” from Washington or “Pentagon planners … working hand in hand with Georgian generals for months in advance”! In other words, he claims that the Russians set up the Georgians to set up the Americans who would then set up the Georgians to set up the Russians to set up the Americans whereas the “inside” story is that Russia was really trying to set up the Georgians to set up the Americans to set up the EU. I hope I’ve got that straight!

Common sense tells us that Georgia was just a monumental screw-up, not some super-clever American conspiracy.