For those of us with academic backgrounds in ecological science and/or a couple of years of climate debate behind us several of its chapters are climate change science and policy repetition. But for me – working on mapping the links between natural resources and conflict – chapter 1 is a great summary with extra insights to the geopolitics of predicted climate change impacts.

And the factual chapters are interspersed with scenarios which are great and briefly outlined below. Being eager to dissect the book for information I find the structure of the factual / non-scenario chapters a bit too mixed up to help make the book as a whole more of a page turning thriller. COP15, for example, is summarized in chapter 6, Real World Politics. Perhaps I could have done with the part about the Copenhagen Accord [p. 209]:

Only a last minute intervention by the British, Americans and Australians, who called for an adjournment and used it to bundle the hapless Rasmussen out of the chair [My emphasis. I have a thing about the obvious incompetence of the Danish prime minister], prevented the ‘Copenhagen Accord’ from being formally rejected at the plenary session. During the recess, they managed to negotiate a last minute compromise in which the accord was neither accepted or rejected. It was simply ‘noted’. And with that, everybody went unhappily off to bed and thence to the airport.

But not only is that entire chapter about COP15 – the topic is mentioned several other places in the book. Similar little issues with, for example, the necessary scientific explanations which come and go in different chapters. Exactly where they are needed, perhaps, if you don’t know them already and isn’t a “book dissector” like me. And underlining the fact that diplomacy and war are each others extensions.

The Dyer scenarios

The future scenarios are not predictions. They are more like not unlikely cases told with some necessary filling from Dyer’s imagination. The longer into the future one tries to imagine the more uncertainty is in play – but the first scenarios are quite imaginable. Although summed up in chronology below they are not necessarily interlinked while also not mutually exclusive.

Incident scenarios

Scenario 2, Russia 2019: The Colder War. The oil and gas revealed beneath the melting North Pole and the new trade routes opening between fewer and fewer icebergs does not lead to war between Russia and the USA. Of course. But it does lead to a lot of discussions on interpreting traditions for drawing sea borders as well as incidents of alleged violations of said disputed borders. Not just regarding drilling but also with incidents of detained fishermen. After years of non-violent conflict – during which the negotiations under UNFCCC has suffered greatly – Russia comes out much stronger: Its northern shores have benefited most from new sea routes due to their head start with a strong fleet of sea ice capable ships and well settled infrastructure, they have strong claims for some of the new resources and it’s all coupled with some positive climatic impacts on the nations agriculture.

Scenario 3, United States 2029: The US-Mexican border is finally sealed off forcefully and completely after surges of refugee influx caused by runaway desertification in a country whose farmers are already struggling financially. The United States of Mexico collapses and several northern regions are effectively ruled by warlords. Inside the USA a strong ethnic group of Mexican heritage is increasingly in opposition to the rest of the country.

Scenario 4, Northern India 2036: India and Pakistan have shared glacier fed rivers for their water supply for decades although otherwise having a periodically hostile relationship. Droughts worsened by climate change, growing populations and increasing consumption have tempted governments to blame the hardships of their peoples on externalities – the neighbours – and forced Pakistan to ration food. After years of fragile peace a military coup and an attack on a dam escalates into an exchange of nuclear warheads. The result is hundreds of millions of casualties and two devastated countries still ruled by the same governments.

Scenario 7, China 2042: During the ’30ies two kinds of terrorist groups are added to the ones previously known to be desperate enough: some from disgruntled oil exporting countries experiencing unforeseen financial losses and some from within the West made up of “leftists” furious at their governments for doing much too little of what they have been asking for (renewable energy etc.) while stepping up efforts on what they have been arguing against (geo-engineering, nuclear power etc.). The former cannot attack inside the West and instead aim at those of their neighboring countries who have begun exporting, for example, sunlight generated power. The latter accomplishes some minor attacks on airlines and even a more serious one on a nuclear power plant. While the world heats and the people of the West become increasingly divided over geo-engineering suddenly China and Indonesia acts without anyone’s agreement. The Earth is dimmed by “artificial volcanic sulfur” being released into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, shortly after the project has begun working a real mega-size volcanic eruption triples the effect. The following years harvests fail world wide: hundreds of million of people die from starvation and almost as many from the armed conflicts, local genocides and mass-migration it incites.

Scenario 1, The Year 2045: The EU has collapsed and the Northern Union of Scandinavia, Poland, Germany, Benelux and France is fending off hordes of immigrants while the north of Italy has separated itself from the south of Italy. Russia is enjoying relative prosperity due to positive effects on its agriculture but is also facing some trouble over disputed Siberian territories eyed by a re-united China. Britain and Japan is guarding their shores fiercely while stacking nuclear arms. Temperatures are up and still rising.

Scenario 6, United States and United Kingdom 2055: The American people never learned to understand the problem of climate change. Peak oil hits hard and the globalized food trade largely collapses: “in this new and unforgiving world, self-sufficiency was the sole basis for security” [p. 182]. Gulf Coast states are devastated by hurricanes and floods, California’s agriculture collapses from perpetual drought. A third party – called “The Goddies” – gains major political influence and the borders are shut tight. Similarly in Europe, the northern countries are getting overrun by people leaving the southern EU states. European Union collaboration starts to strain as food aid is sent south and northern borders tighten despite treaties. Increasingly, the border patrols sealing off Africa and the Middle East is made up of soldiers from northern Europe but eventually these countries decide to pull back and guard only their own territories.

Multi-year scenarios:

Scenario 5: A Happy Tale: Sincere and determined action is taken to combat climate change – but only after conversely harsh shocks from peak oil causing price leaps, a series of brutal natural disasters around the world and a Bangladesh threat a radical geoengineering initiative on their own if the rest of the world does not cooperate in combination shake up humanity. Global diplomacy works – but too late and too little. A green society keen on geoengineering is created but only some are fortunate enough to survive with it.

Scenario 8, Wipeout: 150-200 years into the future the average temperature has climbed by about 9 degrees from failure to curb climate change. Two groups of civilized settlements survive along the Arctic shores and small, more primitive societies here and there where conditions allow. Inland territories on continents suffer complete desertification. Increasingly, the oceans start to smell like rotten eggs. A process is being initiated in which hydrogen sulfide is being released to deteriorate the quality of air for all breathing forms of life while also breaking down the ozone layer. Which in turn will help scorch the remaining life in ultraviolet radiation. Only the harshest and luckiest life forms will make it to the other side of the “greenhouse extinction” event. A phenomenon that was known to paleontologists, not climatologists. The progress of which no human will live to experience, only few will recognize as it starts.

So, Dyers book is really good. But my own will be even better!

Related info

Video interview with transcript: Democracy Now!, July 2010 / Gwynne Dyer on “Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats”, Gwynne Dyer at Wikipedia, Gwynne Dyer’s website. Plus the following video interviews / speeches:

Now a second, extensively edited and revised version of this book has been published in Melbourne: “Climate Code Red- the case for emergency action” by David Spratt and Phillip Sutton (Scribe, Melbourne, 2008). This revised version is very readable and accordingly ideal for getting this extremely serious message across to the general public.

I must confess that as a scientist I preferred the first version for scientific cultural reasons because of the detailed scientific literature documentation provided and in particular for a 2 page colour insert that summarized the core data in a series of Figures. Indeed, when I reviewed the first version it was very convenient to base the bulk of my review on this 2 page data review. However as a lover of poetry, plays and novels as well as of dispassionately presented scientific rigour, I readily concede the Two Cultures argument to the extremely well written second version of Climate Code Red. Further, a selection of key references are provided for each chapter and a key photograph, a key Figure and a key Table are provided to complement the argument.

The hard, scientific case for emergency action presented in “Climate Code Red” is best summarized in the following quotation from a scientific article by top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen (Head, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies) and his American, British and French colleagues:

“Paleoclimate data show that climate sensitivity is ~3 deg-C for doubled CO2 [carbon dioxide; atmospheric CO2 280 ppm pre-industrial], including only fast feedback processes. Equilibrium sensitivity, including slower surface albedo feedbacks, is ~6 deg-C for doubled CO2 for the range of climate states between glacial conditions and ice-free Antarctica. Decreasing CO2 was the main cause of a cooling trend that began 50 million years ago, large scale glaciation occurring when CO2 fell to 450 +/- 100 ppm [parts per million], a level that will be exceeded within decades, barring prompt policy changes. If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm. The largest uncertainty in the target arises from possible changes of non-CO2 forcings. An initial 350 ppm CO2 target may be achievable by phasing out coal use except where CO2 is captured and adopting agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects”.

In the last analysis, while cognizant of the need for sensible open-mindedness, rational risk management means we must take very seriously the advice of top scientific experts at the cutting edge of climate change research – just as we would take very seriously the advice of top specialist medical experts in relation to a life threatening medical condition. Top US and World expert on climate change, Dr Hansen, commented thus on “Climate Code Red”: “A compelling case … we face a climate emergency”.

Eminent medical scientist and Governor of the State of Victoria, Australia, Professor David de Kretser launched “Climate Code Red –the case for emergency action” in the Victorian State Parliament House in Melbourne recently and used the following unambiguous words:

“The book draws on a vast array of information to build a cogent and compelling case that we do have a genuine emergency on our hands if we are to limit the rise of greenhouse gas emissions to a level at which we can limit the degradation of our planet to manageable levels … There is no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest problem confronting mankind at this time and that it has reached the level of a state of emergency”.

Outstanding Australian scientist and Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty has recently published a related book entitled “A Light History of Hot Air” (Melbourne University Publishing, 2007) in which he states : “We are consuming the future and it’s up to us to develop and use renewable resources”. In an interview about this Professor Doherty summarized the dilemma thus: “Everything is about hot air. Political and in the atmosphere. We are in real danger. The recent CSIRO report suggests that temperatures could rise as much as five degrees by 2070. The ice is melting much more quickly than anyone expected. The Himalayas are melting very fast. We are now talking about the Arctic being ice-free by 2030”.

David Spratt (climate policy analyst and founder of Carbon Equity) and Phillip Sutton (convenor of the environmental strategy-based Greenleap Strategic Institute) are economic analysts and not scientists, but were driven, in part, to write “Climate Code Red” by the apparent silence (with notable exceptions ) of the scientific community. This problem of academic and institutional timidity has been perceived by no less than outstanding UK and World climate change scientist Dr James Lovelock FRS (2008): “I hate academia. Most of the scientists who work there are not free men any more and they can’t speak out. That’s no way to do science”.

“Climate Code Red” is divided into 3 parts, specifically Part One, “The Big Melt” (the threat to the biosphere due to global warming and the ice melting in the polar regions), Part Two “Targets”( where we are headed in terms of temperature increase of over 2 degrees Centigrade, massive sea level rise and huge loss of ecosystems and human sustainability – and where we have to aim for to avoid catastrophe), and Part Three “The Climate Emergency” (how to achieve a safe climate economy and deal effectively with the Climate Emergency).

Part One “The Big Melt”deals with the accelerating loss of Arctic sea ice (if you want to be shocked see the latest images and data on the official US National Snow and Ice Data Center, NSIDC), the thawing of Greenland, the Himalayan glaciers, the tundra and the Antarctic and the threat from rising sea levels. Chapter 6 deals with the current mass species extinction phenomena and the threat to ecosystems across the world. Chapter 7 “The Price of Reticence” deals with the institutional scientific conservatism (and cowardice) that has been dishonestly exploited by “dirty energy” big business and the climate sceptics.

Part Two, “Targets”, begins with the sentence “Something is wrong and we must make it right”. Successive chapters explore what is a safe climate zone (less than a 2 degree C rise above pre-industrial; we are already 0.8 degrees C and on track for a 3-6 degrees C increase above the 1750 value as indicated in the quote from Dr Hansen given above). How we can get to a safe zone will require mechanisms for a draw-down on atmospheric CO2 to less than 350 ppm (renewable energy use, cessation of carbon burning, re-afforestation, return of carbon as biochar to soils).

Part Three, “The Climate Emergency”, gets into the economic systems management area of professional expertise of the authors. Successive chapters deal with how we must deal with the Climate Emergency. Chapter 26 “In the End” draws upon the experience of World War 2 and the dramatic increase in military outlays as a percentage of national income in the US, UK, Germany and Japan i.e. we have already an extraordinary precedent for extraordinary, short term societal effort.

The 2008 current market collapse has already provided an example of the rapid global action currently being taken at enormous expense to protect the vested interests of the very people (Top Capitalists) primarily responsible for the Climate Emergency. Earlier this year Nobel Laureate Al Gore urged dramatic requisite action to save the planet : “Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years … So I ask you to join with me to call on every candidate, at every level, to accept this challenge – for America to be running on 100 percent zero-carbon electricity in 10 years. It’s time for us to move beyond empty rhetoric. We need to act now”.

Dramatic changes in technology mean that Al Gore’s vision is achievable NOW – the energy cost cross-over point has finally been reached and the best renewable and geothermal power options now cost essentially the same as the (heavily subsidized) “market cost” of coal power (see “One Day Pathétique” Symphony Painting. HOPE – Best Renewables Now Cost Same as Coal Power”).

“Climate Code Red” is a powerful statement of the case for emergency action to deal with the Climate Emergency and Sustainability Emergency. Most importantly, “Climate Code Red” is a very well written and eminently readable book directed at sensible citizens in general. Inevitably one can make criticisms such as those made above at the beginning of this review – but more Tables, Figures and Scientific References would have been to the detriment of readability and hence of public education. In some ways “Climate Code Red” did not go far enough. Thus matters that could have been raised include the “true cost” of coal burning-based power (4-5 times the heavily subsidized”market price) and the avoidable death of 0.2 million people each year world-wide from the effects of coal burning pollutants (see Yarra Valley Climate Action Group). Also absent was the likely death of over 6 billion people this century due to unaddressed climate change (according to Dr James Lovelock FRS).

“Climate Code Red” was condemnatory of both scientific reticence and climate sceptic ignorance, and indeed represents a major step towards reversing public ignorance about the Climate Emergency. However “Climate Code Red” could have gone even further in exposing and condemning the core of the problem that lies in a culture of ignoring, of wishful thinking and of “looking away” that is actively promoted by a dominant political and media culture committed to carbon-based economic growth.

Indeed Dr James Hansen recently advocated criminal prosecution of climate criminal corporate heads involved in self-interested misinforming of the public to the detriment of public safety (see James Hansen: Try Fossil Fuel CEOs for “High Crimes Against Humanity”) . In my own modest way I have acted by exposing the extraordinary Culture of Ignoring in Australia’s media, political and academic Establishment over the Climate Emergency and other very serious matters (see “Climate Emergency, Exceptionalism & Ignoring Downunder. Letter to Eminent Australians over Public Honesty”).

There is zero tolerance for lying in science and this now needs to be made a general rule in a world facing a Climate Emergency. “Climate Code Red – the case for emergency action” sets an important baseline for climate reality and public responsibility. This important book should be in every school and institutional library. “Climate Code Red – the case for emergency action” is a cogently argued blueprint for the survival of Humanity and the Biosphere.