I think with air travel, as carbonsink was saying further up the thread, people just don’t want to know about it as a problem, and I guess the more aware salve their consciences by buying offsets which are probably inadequate even as offsets.

In the long run we are probably going to have to regulate and perhaps have lotteries for use of a limited resource. But we are a long way from that at the official level. First we’ll have to start counting the emissions and find a way of allocating them. I guess it’s likely to start with the EU.

Hansen’s view, and I think you would agree with it, is that we are going to have to live without fossil fuel emissions, so why not start now? I’d have to go along with that.

But there is no point in forcing the issue.

I wasn’t meaning you specifically, Brian. My question was more general - when is society going to stop “humouring the Joneses” and not tolerate flying etc for things that are not essential to society as a whole?

Should we just say “there’s no time to dally any longer, so dammit, I’m forcing the issue!”, and should it be us, in the current temporal location who do it?

If all we are offered is fossil-fueled electricity, cars, etc, good behavior can do only so much. We need to change the system in which we are embedded so that when we plug something in the wall socket or try to get to work, the easiest course of action does not lead to carbon emission.

So on CO2 there can be no clear conscience for me, but I’m not going to beat myself up over it. In a real but imperfect world we make compromises.

BenW, there is no half way. I agree with Kenneth Caldeira

I had an opportunity to brief some congressmen, this was now a couple of years ago on this issue, and I was asked the same questions about the stabilisation targets that you started off with and I said the same thing about we need to think in terms of emissions targets. And they said, ‘Well, what’s the right emission target?’ and I said ‘Zero’, and they laughed…

He then went on to use an analogy I wouldn’t use, because it’s potential to distract. He said that if mugging little old ladies is wrong you don’t have a target for the rate of mugging little old ladies.

In spite of that I’ll bet any money you like that Kenneth Caldeira has been unable to arrange his life to avoid emissions. Most likely he hasn’t even done all he could do. But does that make him wrong and let you off taking any notice of him?

BenW again, all my rellies know my position in general terms on climate change. Some of them agree, some of them don’t. But I don’t harangue them about it. I tend to make comments from time to time that create little openings for people to follow up if they want to, rellies included. But there is no point in forcing the issue.

On this blog I can explore issues and share, but no-one is obliged to read it.

Can I remind anyone who is still here that the post was about more than air travel?

Chrisl, I wanted to go back to your preference for adaptation over mitigation. IMO it’s got to be both, but you need to come to terms with the notion that the last time we had GHG concentrations as high as they are now, about 3 million years ago, the temperature was 2-3C hotter and the sea level was 25 meters higher (plus or minus 10). OK, it won’t happen near term but we will be held responsible for our legacy.

Actually GHGs as such are higher now at about 455ppm CO2e. The cooling effect of some aerosols brings the net effect back to about 375, whereas 3mya they were thought to be 360-400.

They roughly know what I do here on the blog, but we don’t discuss it unless they want to

I am interested in this take on things. It’s the “unless they want to” part that I find difficult. I mean, do you think that there is really the possibility of practical progression in terms of peoples opinions on the issue? It’s like climate change denial - you either deny, don’t deny, or haven’t made up your mind. I don’t see that there is a point where you can be half denying and half not. For the issue of love miles etc, you either consider them alright or you don’t (and it’s no good saying “but I haven’t done it in X years”, because doing it means that you’re not not doing it).

So I guess I am wondering if it is the case that we, at a certain time, will have to discuss the things that people don’t want to hear and do (or don’t do, as the case may be) what is frowned upon even if people haven’t come around, simply because there is no gradual progression to acceptance on issues like this, and it must be forced suddenly.

And if that is indeed the case, then why aren’t we choosing to be the forcers, and why aren’t we choosing now to be the time to make the stand?

You have to keep the lines open if you want to change people’s views. And respect their position.

This, which you may or may not know about, does not detract from the wisdom/rightness or otherwise of what they say, which in it’s own way is does work in the world.

Not as much work perhaps as it does if they can demonstrate it in their praxis, but work nevertheless. But lecturers at university in the social sciences area don’t spend the last 15 minutes explaining how what they say has led them to change their life habits. Nor should they feel they have to.

If we ultimately need to get CO2 concentrations down to 280ppm and keep them there we’ll need to organise offsets so that we can produce essentials like food, shelter and necessary infrastructure. In that context we would need to collectively take a very different view of love miles.

What made her think was Richard Begbie talk on Ockham’s Razor. What made Begbie think about it was a question of Jeremy Leggett by John Rogers of the ANU at a Science Week session a year earlier. Begbie says we are going to have to lose the habit and revert to the practice of the 1950s when people went overseas once in a lifetime if at all. I like his last para:

Oh, and by the way, Ivan Illich revealed something else about transport efficiency. The most energy-efficient mover in the entire animal kingdom does indeed turn out to be a smart, perhaps even rational, member of our own species. It is a person on a push-bike. Now there’s a discussion starter.

wilful, when Hansen gave the Iowa testament he was still saying that we should limit CO2 to 450ppm (see note to Fig 30 on slide p49). Soon after that he revised the goal downwards to 350ppm. If you look at this piece (pdf) he talks about better forestry practice to use forestry as a sink rather than a source, biochar etc. He reckons drawing down 50ppm at $100/tC would only cost $10 trillion. At that price it’s still doable, given the will.

Certainly it would be a massive air quality improvement in Footscray.

Truly foul what happens when a long train with three engines chugs slowly through the middle of an inner suburb.

That’s all pretty doable.