I made a comment on my previous post that the result (or lack of result) from COP is likely to be both discouraging to many activists and to provoke rethinking about strategy and tactics. In order to stimulate discussion about where things should go now, I’m republishing (with permission under a Creative Commons licence) an article by Rupert Read from Open Democracy beneath the fold [click through for the original with hyperlinks]. I’m not necessarily endorsing Read’s position, but I think the piece might be useful as a discussion starter.
As we move into 2010, the feeling of many people across this country seems to be that now is the time to give up on large-scale politics, and focus on small local-level solutions to the outstanding problems of our age, such as manmade climate change (the Transition movement, which began in Totnes and is slowly spreading worldwide, is an outstanding example of such ‘localist’ solution-seeking). It is natural that in the wake of Copenhagen’s failure many people are turning to ways that they as individuals can best contribute.
A series of letters to the Observer, published under the heading ‘Think global, act local after Copenhagen’, are among many striking examples. Professor Colin Campbell of York suggests that individual towns take the initiative in reducing emissions to compensate for increases in ‘twinned’ cities in the developing world. Jim McCluskey of Twickenham seconds Ed Miliband’s emphasis on the role of green NGOs and the public, as opposed to his own government. Duncan Kerr, MD of A Climate 4 Change, writes that “a groundswell of actions by individual communities led by local authorities, supported in turn by national government, is surely the most effective way of creating the climate for change that would tip our leaders into action.”
However, it is quite wrong to think that such contributions can possibly be enough. The problem, in a globalised economic system, as James Hansen among others has clearly recognised, is that if you burning less fossil fuel, others who are less eco-conscious will receive a price-signal that it is just fine to burn more fossil fuels. (Thus blunting much of the effect of your individual action.) Thus well-intentioned individuals and localities alone – or, indeed, this kingdom alone – cannot make a major contribution to preventing runaway climate change because, however well we do, our effectiveness will be partly cancelled out by the corresponding actions (or inaction) of others.
There is enough fossil fuel still in the ground to cook the planet. So the only solution is global constraint of others’ carbon emissions, as well as of your own. There simply has to be a replacement for the stalled COP15 process. If we as a species are not to die, politics cannot be dead.
What troubles me particularly about the end game at Copenhagen and about widespread assumptions about how COP15 might now move forward is the idea – the implausible assumption – that any workable proposal will emerge from or be initiated by the EU, US or China. For why not approach this deadlock from the other end? A proposal initiated by the G77 countries and the small island states (such as the Maldives and Tuvalu, which have actually emerged from the Copenhagen debacle with a huge amount of credit and public sympathy) would be one which the rich countries could then be challenged to buy into to avoid being held responsible for initiating ecocide – the gradual mass suicide of our species. And we – the conscious citizenry of those countries – could apply the pressure to make our leaders sign. Some such global political strategy is essential, if we are to bequeath a liveable planet to our children. I think it would have much more credibility if it came first from the poorest, rather than from the richest and the biggest emitters.
So: 2010 must be a year of climate politics, and ought, I suggest, to be a year in which such politics comes from the bottom up not in the sense only of local or individual action, but in the sense of action coming from the countries that have traditionally been at the bottom of the heap, globally. In this context, Evo Morales’ new call for a summit of movements on climate and capitalism is a hopeful development, pointing in just the right direction.
A clear summary of the proposals made by various nations at COP15 can be found at the Beyond Copenhagen blog. The proposal from Tuvalu is the closest we have to a workable climate-solution. Perhaps the key ‘bottom-up’ strategy needed now is for more and more of the world to get behind something like the Tuvalu proposal, and gradually prevent the developed countries (and India and China) from stymieing the climate-progress we need and can believe in.
If our low-energy lightbulbs and our Transition Towns and so on are going to mean anything, then we need also to get behind climate-initiatives such as that of Tuvalu which could provide the needed international framework to solve this unavoidably global problem.
Good discussion starter (I’ve put it in blockquotes to clarify that it’s reproduced
1) Strange pincer movement on the UN after Copenhagen: Radicals on the Left disillusioned with the process and hawkish liberals happy to offer token, half-baked multi-lateral institutions like the Major Economies Forum. See the MEF website to get a sense of how seriously to take it http://www.majoreconomiesforum.org/ (compare with unfccc.int)
2) The article refers to ‘the COP15 process’. Ouch. This suggests he wasn’t following things closely at all and has a poor understanding of the history of international negotiations. In Copenhagen, there were developments on governance reform of CDM under CMP.5 for example.
3) It’s not at all clear how the Tuvalu proposal is ‘bottom up’, also the author appears to have given up on ‘the COP15 process’, only instead offering a reference to Evo Morales’s suggestion to have a summit on climate and capitalism (ie. ending the latter to save the former). Does he really see this an alternative to the UNFCCC?
4) If we’re serious about a politics of climate change, surely this must also be a commitment to institutions with spaces for communicative reason (and I’m no Habermasian) ie. that are explicitly designed to accomodate civil society. The MEF and AP6 are a joke in this regard.
dk, yes, it’s a flawed piece, and it’s not possible to see Morales’ summit as an alternative. Having said that, it might have some interesting effects. I do think that there’s value in the article in terms of posing some of the questions that are raised, but its logic certainly could be sharper.
Yes I think the appetite for people to look outside the UN process will have very interesting effects. It’s an incredible, arcane process that I’d more or less dismissed until I participated/witnessed it first-hand in Copenhagen. I think people forget that things do actually get done there, even if the politics of ‘Longterm Cooperative Action’ are a bit disspiriting (which is what the media tends of focus on).
On a somewhat related note, can libertarians get any fucking weirder?
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/01/peter-spencer-rally-a-big-success/
Enforcing road safety laws is apparently ‘fascism by stealth’
Great initiative, Mark. This certainly will be the year when people have to start demanding action of their politicians. I agree with Read for at least the first three paragraphs. I also agree with the people who say “I’m not cutting back on anything until I see proper leadership from my government”. The reality is that cutting back is worthless until it is enhancing a significant other effort, because “cutting back” on its own is really fiddling around the edges.
Where I believe the “local action” solution has value is in the non urban environment. Solving rural emissions is a tough ask and will require many many solutions. This is where I feel some sort of Carbon bargaining does have a place, not as a solution to solve industry emission problems, but as an encouragement to promote real rural efforts. Pretty much 180 degrees about of how the CPRS came out.
When Al Gore starts living in a house smaller than mine, flying less than me and owning less cars and boats than me, then I will act.
When Rudd, Wong, Baldy, Flannery et al, do same – ditto.
When thousands of ‘activists’ stop flying to lovely destinations like Bali and Copenhagen – then I will take notice.
It is starting from a very low base but the Anti-AGW activism is finally getting some momentum. We have lots of catching up to do, but catch up we will and victory over the hypocrits and idealogues will be ours.
Razor said:
[some stuff about celebrities and their personal lifestyle, impugning their integrity because they aren't wearing hair shirts]
Seriously Razor … please explain why what Al Gore and Kevin Rudd or similar do in their personal or public lives is relevant to whether mitigation is called for.
I’d just like you to set out the reasoning, because, keen as I am to avoid impugning the motives of interlocutors (aren’t I on my best behaviour Mark?) I can’t think of any obvious explanation for your cliam that does not entail calling you disingenuous or keen to misdirect arguments about science into discussions about the people who we like or dislike.
AGW has been described as the greatest moral challenge of this generation and apocryphal forecasts made of the future of the planet. If this is true then those that believe in it should be demonstrating personal commitment and leadership.
As it currently stands it is as if the Pope and Cardinals (of AGW) are preaching as they normally do but living the life of Berlusconi.
Disagree. All you have to do is find something cheaper than fossil fuels. ie nukes.
I stopped posting and pretty much reading LP because of dumb one-dimensional comments (from all “sides”). Keep it up folks.
Going away again now.
I do understand the resentment expressed by Razor but I think the resentment towards the political obfuscation witnessed so far is a much more significant force. Tony Abbott knows that there is too much at stake for the proud snobs of Australia to not bend with the winds of certain change.
I know, it’s a fucking scandal that there are rich people who are enaged in climate change, isn’t it Rob.
Really, how deeply pathetic.
Rob @ 8, a bunch of unsupported assertions by some random loony on the internet is not really a substitute for a breaking story. As others have said, saying something does not make it so.
Oh yes Pachauri has been making a mozza off climate change, Rob.
Here’s a photo some smart paparazzo managed to get of him as he sped into the conference centre in Copenhagen in his armour plated Hummer.
http://twitpic.com/th1no
Agree with Peter @9 “All you have to do is find something cheaper than fossil fuels”. Cheaper or better. Either or both will drive change.
Disagree with Peter’s conclusion that the answer is nukes, but that does not negate his basic argument that global constraint may not be the answer.
To take a tangent, it appears that Blu-Ray is going to replace DVD in the very near future. Digital TV’s are replacing analogue TV’s. Similarly CD’s replaced cassette tapes some years back. Yours truely still has boxes of cassettes in the garage – totally worthless now, should have tossed them eons ago. Etc, Etc, Etc. History is full of change, and the pollies should know that.
A regular suspicion by better half and myself that we might be reluctant participants in “planned obsolescence”, to maintain corporate profits in consumer electronics, is pacified by the notion that the new technology is genuinely superior.
Anyway, humanity collectively moved on from the Stone Age, but not because we ran out of stones. We found something better, even though it apparently took us a rediculously long time to think of it. It seems the use of stones was not globally constrained, legally or practically.
It may not be necessary to globally constrain use of a technology, if something better is available. Finding the replacement would be a better focus, I reckon, than focussing loads of manhours on complex methods of global constraint, with all the issues of legislation, measurement, control, punishment, etc, etc.
Humanity has been a bit slow in finding a replacement for fossil fuels. In the case of oil, we may indeed “run out of stones” before we migrate to a substitute technology.
More fool us, with all our superior intellectual capability over the apes.
We have a shortage of clever manhours and talent for solving really difficult problems, so why do the pollies want to waste so many manhours on developing and maintaining a fiendishly complex system of constraint?
I reckon Canberra is overrun with lawyers, who don’t know any better. If the only tool is a hammer, everything is treated as a nail. Time some of them started thinking about different tools.
I’m not sure what any individual’s consumption matters, in fact I thought the entire point of this post was to point that out. So, way to miss the point team.
When we need concerted international action to stop bad actors from screwing everyone (including themselves), complaining that the leaders consume more than average is not just obvious, it’s irrelevant. Razor, your personal consumption is even less relevant than that of Rudd or Gore, because it’s smaller. So by all means, go ahead and burn tyres in your back yard for all the difference it makes. Just so long as at the same time you’re helping the campaign to acheive meaningful action at the required level.
This is a time when it might even pay to emulate the bad panda and take help from any source who’s willing to provide it (the panda is the WWF, corporate whore of the animal liberation movement). So step right on up all the usual suspects… “Beyond Petroleum”, Peter Jackson, Coca Cola, all the rest. Show us you’re helping and jump on board.
Razor, where personal action does matter is actually the seemingly contradictory areas of affluent green wankers who do live that ugly, high-consumption lifestyle but with much less impact than their peers. Al Gore with his solar-powered mansion is part of that – making greenwank popular with the hollywood types.
There was a good article in the SMH the other day (I think) comparing water usage with carbon emissions. The wild-eyed ecofascists of SE Queensland have slashed their water consumption per head by more than half in the last few years, without being reduced to crawling from dry pub to empty supermarket. The author suggested that something similar could be done with carbon emissions, with similar low impact on the broader economy.
I read piece like this and I can’t help thinking “what are you lot smoking?” even if the AGW believers are right about the science (which I doubt) surely someone like yourself Mark must realise that politically all of these wonderful solutions to the problem just won’t get up or be in any way sustainable for long enough to make any difference if by some miracle they were to be wished into existence.
I think that much of this sort of theorising is right up there with the apocryphal debates about angels an the heads of pins.
That said all we can realistically do is be flexible enough to adapt to any changes that may (or may not) happen to the climate.
Rob @18, I am finding your analogies a trifle confusing.
First we had lions and goats, then the lions have morphed into tigers, then the goat has been tethered by butterfly farmers…???
It seems to me that the lions &/or tigers have the upper hand, since they have the goat by the throat.
Are you are suggesting that them having the upper hand somehow helps the butterfly farmers?
I need some help in joining these dots…
dk@1, good point about the MEF website and the UNFCCC website. I have notices since COP 15 that quite a few progressives in the US have been playing down the role of the UNFCCC.
It is easy to criticise the UNFCCC and the difficulties involved with obtaining consensus, and there are certainly issues with things being blocked by countries like Saudi Arabia. A huge advantage of the UNFCCC is that it is much more transparent than other processes – it may be the case that discussion on legal form was blocked by Saudi Arabia, India, and China, but the whole world knows that. I could say the same thing about Japan supported by Russia and Canada putting the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol into question, or many other things. I can see there being an important role for institutions like the MEF when consensus is blocked, but these institutions are are not substitutes for the UNFCCC, they are complements.
The UNFCCC is the worst institution for international cooperation on climate change, except for all of the other ones.
Ok, I’m drawing a line in the sand. I’ve said several times that I’m not going to entertain boring and repetitive denialist commentary on my threads. There are endless spaces on the internet where such views can be expressed. The point of this thread is for people who are actually concerned about the issue to discuss where to go, and it’s impossible to do that if energy has to be wasted combatting trolls. So they can go languish in the moderation filter.
I’m also going to go back and delete all the comments concerned, so please don’t waste any energy posting new ones of the same kind, because the same fate awaits them.
Species come, species go; Civilisations rise, civilisations fall.
WRT politics and the elites: In Australia, the Bib and Bub of political parties, many but not all corporates, a lame media industry and many in the Labor movement aren’t doing the common folk, including the middle, any favours.
WRT the science: Above what level of ppm of CO2 does the earth’s current population begin to starve and set off the usual mass migrations? Oh noes, more brown people on leaky boats.
WRT to the actuality or prospect of global warming, man made or not: Wouldn’t it be terrible if we cleaned up the air, used capital in new industries for local benefit and with an export base or conserved water and other resources by mistake [You would need to spend a bit of time in the Upper Hunter to understand the bit about clean air and competition for water]. How about a bit of risk management? Attempt to eliminate the risk or plan ahead to minimise the risk, both the level of damage and the likelihood.
WRT action: Yes. In the broader political system, through the usual processes; In the local political system, through the usual processes; In the community, through local consciousness raising and modelling of individual and smaller scale carbon emission reducing techniques: Personally, through individual carbon emission reducing techniques.
Mug Punter @21, love your question:
“Wouldn’t it be terrible if we cleaned up the air, used capital in new industries for local benefit and with an export base or conserved water and other resources by mistake?”
Terrible??? Catastrophic!!!
It must be time to dust off the Change Management theories again?
In the late 1990′s the oil industry went through a calamatous period of low oil prices @ $10/bbl, causing mass redundancies, takeovers and restructuring (calamatous for oil companies and employees, but not for the owners and manufacturers of “gas guzzlers”). The witch doctor industry (aka management consultants) all morphed into Change Management Consultants.
Cue endless orgies of being “change managed” for the hapless, demoralised employees… Very deliberate, psychologically manipulative exercise, and I would argue not dissimilar to brainwashing in its intent. A whole body of case studies exist on this now, and Change Management is taught at august institutions like London Business School.
The only thing to be said for those profiteering consultant vultures, was that a detailed analysis was made of what stops people from changing, and how to pry them free of their attachment to past certainties.
Perhaps we could do worse than picking the eyes out of that body of work, for positive purposes, for the sake of humanity this time?
Spot on Elise @ (new) 14
There are now plenty of heads out there thinking of all sorts of ways to reduce our carbon footprint – mostly technological, but some demand management.
I draw the analogy between those that are ultimately likely to be successful and the internet. That was a technological development with huge and rapid uptake because it worked. It also worked quite independently of any economic modelling and outpaced the ability of the regulators and other assorted red tape progress undertakers to stop it.
There are now plenty of technologies out there (and I mean technically mainstream, not pie in the sky) to really lower carbon footprints. To answer the question posed in this thread, I suggest that the most effective immediate action is for governments and those-who-want-to-regulate-ers to not onle get out of the way of these technologies, but to actively facilitate them. But I am not holding my breath – I feel sure I will turn blue and start decomposing before it will happen.
On another matter, the point made by Razor is valid. If I may draw another analogy: If a powder monkey setting off an explosive charge is shouting “Danger! Danger” but is idly walking around the charge – those who are cautious will no doubt head away. However, the rest of those nearby will figure that if there really was some danger, the powder monkey would be making serious moves away from the explosive. Razor is right in this. If those in leadership positions do not act as if climate change were happening, they provide justification/ammunition for those who do not wish to take any action. I suggest that people who claim that AGW is happening, and then act as if it were not are far more danger to the planet than those who outright deny. At least you know where the latter stand.
So again, to answer the question posed in the thread, those who want a low carbon future should ensure that they are not being suckered by people who say the right stuff, but are in it only for the money, or the social power, or the right to legitimise aggression against others. (You know the type: “I am going to verbally assault you because your opinion on low carbon future is wrong…etc…etc.”
Activist intentions: maintain low impact/low energy living as a means of reassuring myself that within my own patterns of consumption there is no hypocrisy. Otherwise: union. What time is left: rebelliousness and pranksterism. I no longer attempt to pursuade others of the need for action but happily will expose lies and propaganda. Tactical aim: find the key points for opposition. No nuke power. Above all: advance democratic participation.
I hate to be horribly realpolitik and all, but the problem here is convincing US Senators and whomever is in charge in China that, to steal Penny Wong’s old favourite line, the personal costs to them in not acting exceed those in acting.
As ntoed in previous threads, that is a terrible shame, but we don’t have time to wait for a more sensible world.
Given that the capacity for activists to influence the priorities of the Chinese regime, except through the actions of western governments, are virtually zero. the question is then how the aforementioned US Senators can be convinced that it’s in their interest to do something.
Aside from the usual monetary way signals are sent in US politics, there is the question of how more of those Senators constituents can be persuaded that their Senators should act on this issue.
Given that the vast majority of self-described liberals in the US support action on climate change, it then becomes a matter of convincing “moderates” and even “moderate conservatives” (again, yes, these are very broad-brush descriptions).
If I may continue generalizing, the people who fit those descriptions have a rather different outlook on life than the average LP reader, and the arguments that persuade us that doing something about climate change is a good idea just haven’t worked on them.
The trick is to figure out what will.
If the sort of pant wetting hand wringing we’ve seen so far here is anything to go by, and this is from people who are committed to change, then we are totally fornicated. Look. Make trouble. The make some more. Demand an end to profit from coal. Bastard mine owners are rich enough anyway. Use the profits from the next twenty years of coal to fund renewable energy transition. Did I mention making trouble for the num-nuts middle classes? Give the NSW Police a reason to use that fucken water cannon. Show some spine. Tell krudd he is sissy. Tell Conroy he belongs in a tent show. Pete? he’s so far up himself he can’t see sunshine anymore. Respect only for those who give it by not bullshitting us. No compromise (you finish the rest…
“Give the NSW Police a reason to use that fucken water cannon.”
I like your thinking B’Ghost. Nothing like an authoritarian overreaction to get the sons and daughters of the bourgeois mobilised. And then their parents bailing ‘em out. Got Australia and the US out of Vietnam.
The way things are looking in US domestic politics at the moment I doubt you are going to see too many US Senators, let alone Congressmen, who are in marginal seats likely to be environmentally courageous after the health care debate before the next mid-term elections, let alone 2012.
(Courageous of the “Yes, Minister” kind)
Well, a minor point: I cant think of anything more friggin’ irrelevant to this debate on mass industrial carbon pollution than noting that people go to international meetings using the only transport available to them.
What’s the other option?
Just sayin.
I’m with dk.au and Robert above.
The real game is about convincing moderate conservatives that action must be taken. This is true in the US, as Robert mentions, but is also a continuing problem in the EU and Oz. Angela Merkel had to be dragged kicking and screaming to Copenhagen. I gather that once she was there Germany played a constructive role in trying to get a respectable solution. She clearly recognized that domestically position of the center-right in the big EU countries with respect to climate change has shifted.
“The way things are looking in US domestic politics”
Yeah well, US domestic politics has gone quite feral. Any semblance of reasoned debate within the body politic there has quite vanished in a cloud of fact-free and knee-jerking name-calling all around.
The last few times I was in America, I rather startled my US friends of all political persuasions by mentioning the most heated moment in Aus’s last election debate was over interpreting the minuet (sic) of OECD figures rather than claiming the nation’s psyche for their own electoral glory.
“What’s the other option?”
Well I’m seriously checking out booking a cabin on a merchant ship for one of my next OS jaunts. OK only as far as Hong Kong or Singapore. It’ll probably cost three times as much as an airfare. But think of the leg room.
With all that time to peck out on the laptop the ultimate Conrad meets Ballard novel as I bum blunts off the deckhands, suck on the officer’s messroom cache of Johnny Walker and do a bit of clay pigeon shooting with the ship’s pirate-repelling armory of a couple of clapped-out old 12 gauges, a fish-killing sawn off .22 and a Glock that fell underneath the Captain’s bed and can’t be easily retrieved.*
*This description is based on getting recently ratted with a merchant sailor mate.
Of course this will do nothing for the planet in the long run but it’ll be a great dinner party conversation piece in the short term.
Anyway, time to revive Zeppelins.
LE – small thing called the internet.
Going back to the original question in the post: ‘what sort of climate change activism?’
Applying the ‘optimism of the will, pessimism of the intellect’ maxim from the other thread, surely we get climate change action when there’s a buck in it. And I don’t mean the tired old denialist canard that Al Gore has made TRILLIONS and BAJILLIONS!!!111!! from teh AGW, but rather, market conditions and consumer choices that foster low-emission activities. eg. Going for a swim instead of jet-skiing. Trouble is, jet-skiing is fully monetised and swimming (or skinny-dipping!) mostly isn’t.
In addition, the do-nothing nihilists are much better organised now, and they really are the chicken littles of today. Every possible mitigation measure you can think of, they swear the sky will fall in if we do it. Yet in the 1980s, McDonalds and the fast food industry in general stopped using polystyrene containers for its burgers and switched to (now) renewable-sourced papers. Industrial refrigeration and processees replaced CFCs with more benign mixtures. The economy failed to crash as a result. So probably less time “debating” with denialists and more time just getting on with it will help, too.
Mercurious #34
The problem for activists, on this issue is as I suggested earlier that none of the things that they are advocating seem likely to make a scrap of difference. And the vast majority of the undecided people out there can see this and they just turn off when they see or read about some new protest or action. This is especially the case when you have idiots chaining themselves to coal trains or painting silly signs on power stations.
Their cause is even further undermined by the jet setting advocates like Gore or Flannery who seem to be in this cause fro the money and the adulation. To propagate any cause it is no good just enthusing a small and noisy minority you have to get and hod the attention of the general public and frankly the ferals who seem to be the face of activism do more harm than good in the eyes of the general public.
I disagree that the climate change deniers are better organised than climate action activists. Most of these organisations are relatively poorly funded and most are lone ranger libertarian types. Just look at the size of anti-AGW rallies as opposed to climate action rallies.
However, a major issue facing getting the climate action message out is that, frankly, climate denier copy makes money. The MSM may say they want ‘balanced opinion’ but really they want to push copy and trollumnists & climate change denialism do that.
Another problem facing climate change activism is that it’s a war on two fronts – holding the ground against deniers, and actually pushing for change. Deniers can just stand there, hold their hands on their ears, and shout ‘la-la-la’ all day long, and they would win. Resources will always be stretched in activism because change is expensive.
We have to take every approach possible, all the time, to get real action to happen, whether it’s local, regional or global. However, a tepid response to climate change would be far worse than no response, because we would see so many resources diverted to no effect, it would be like using a squeegee to mop up an oil spill.
If your best intellect is suggesting that we should go back to the “good old days” of sea travel, then I think that we should have a quick look at that.
http://www.travelwizard.com/luxurycruise/cunard-cruises/queen-elizabeth-2/
The QE2 will take 10 days for the Sydney LA crossing and at 433 tonnes of fuel per day will require 4.5 thousand tonnes of fuel to transport 1800 people on that route.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0118_050118_airbus.html
The A380 airbus on the other hand boasts
“The Airbus A380 will generate about half of the noise of a 747-400 [the biggest of the 747s], for example, and is also more fuel efficient than a small car,” said David Velupillai, a spokesperson for Airbus in Toulouse. “It is able to do this through a host of new technology—newer, more efficient engines from either Rolls-Royce or Engine Alliance [a joint venture of General Electric and Pratt & Whitney], better aerodynamic design, and the use of newer and lighter materials.”
Which means that for the 12,000klm journey it will take just 650 tonnes of fuel for the Airbus A380 aircraft to transport the same number of people, just 14.5% of the fuel required for the QE2 to achieve the same result.
There is insufficient data to do the calculation for your other best idea of Zeppelin travel.
BilB, I suspect Nabakov had his tongue firmly lodged in his cheek …
Well then he should do us all a favour and bight down hard.
How about someone go and climb up the Sydney Opera House and paint slogans on it again. The last guys that did it got away virtually scott free.
Off you go then.
I’m incited!
This will be one in the eye for all those denialists and horrible horrible sceptics. Real Climate is (would have been) a finalist for the best religious blog.
http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/realclimate-finalist-for-best-religious-blog/
Quite right too.
The words “Legally Enforceable Targets” (LET) might sound nice as they roll off the tongue but it is suggested that it was this expectation that LET was what Copenhagen was going to produce that undermined the whole process. Talk about LET focuses the mind on points of difference. In a globalized, free market economy it focuses leaders minds of the dangers of being locked into competitive disadvantage. It generates arguments about what is a fair target for each country and differences re what fair actually means. Even leaders who may be willing in principal to accept binding targets would balk at the idea of being invaded by the hordes of UN bureaucrats who will decide whether countries are meeting their targets.
Copenhagen would have had a better chance of success if there had been more focus on action for the next 5 to 10 years rather than targets and the preliminary work had focused on actions that most countries might actually agree on. For example, there are a swag of actions that would reduce emissions without risking economies or locking developing countries into lower standards of living than what citizens of the developed world enjoy. Actions to reduce fuel consumption, improve efficiency standards, limit the construction of new coal fired power stations etc. might have allowed at least some progress to be made and start the process of convincing people that the world can reduce emissions without destroying the world as they know it. Localized action also makes sense in this context as a generator of political pressure as well as an opportunity to innovate and share innovations.
The other problem is that climate change is not a stand alone issue. If we are to make the really big changes that the science is saying we need understand the interactions between climate change, world and local economies, the way we run our economies, free trade and the drive towards a fairer world. We need to identify the barriers that hinder the drive to reduce emissions and perhaps come up with radical changes that overcome these barriers.
For example, the Australian economy has to be kept within a very narrow growth band because of the way we handle shortages of work. At the moment, the pain of any slowdown is not evenly spread. We handle the slowdown issue by allowing the level of unemployment to change rather than making small adjustments to hours worked and pay that most of us could live with. So when Barnaby Joyce claims that CPRS will slow the economy the level of fear and insecurity is much higher than it would be if all we had to fear was a small reduction in earnings.