This is my short video for this morning, in which I ask if our major political parties trying to push us over the climate change precipice?
The transcript is:
You don't have to be green in this election campaign.
It is voluntary. For the parties, for you, and everyone else.
But frankly, the choice is, well, a dire one.
You can be green, and the world might survive. Or you can not be green, and I can guarantee you it won't.
All the leading climate scientists say that we are sitting on the edge of a precipice.
Five years or so, and then we're at a tipping point. A tipping point where we have no idea what the consequences of inaction will be.
And yet we are facing the fact that all our major parties are refusing to commit to any serious programmes to tackle the consequences of climate change at this election.
Are they really trying to push us over the edge? Quite literally.
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Agree
Given the current situation you dont have to believe in climate change to realise that there are significant economic benefits to reducing our dependency on (mostly imported these days or priced as if they were) fossil fuel
I fear we may already be beyond a tipping point. The emissions we have already made will continue to drive global warming for decades. But we can take action now to make it less bad. Or the world will adapt and it may become a place that is less adapted to housing 8 to 10 billion people.
What Andrew said.
“Or the world will adapt and it may become a place that is less adapted to housing 8 to 10 billion people.” This is the brutal explanation. If enough of the untermenschen die, we ubermenschen can continue to enjoy the lifestyle. All we ubermeschen have to do is survive on our no-citizenship superyachts until then.
We’re so used to a particular idea of freedom, which Wolfgang Streek referred to as unfettered consumption, which the majority parties seem wedded to – the fact that something is produced is viewed as justification enough for its existence and sale, and nothing ought to stand in the way. George Monbiot has noted that anyone with a mind to and sufficient resources can buy as much of whatever it is that they wish – land, houses, fossil fuels – regardless of the impact upon others, from which they will be protected – property is sacrosanct, people not so much. This is absurd, as is well documented, for instance, by those concerned with land justice (just 6000 estates own over 40 million of the UK’s 60 million acres, and with the MOD and COE owning most of the rest, over 60 million people live and work perched on just 3 million acres – this is not a minor issue, just familiar and hidden). Democratic influence is both metaphorically and quite literally kept outside the gates. Sustainability will not be achieved by replicating the current system but with wind turbines and solar panels, and neither will it be achieved unless it is fully recognised that just a tiny number of people are responsible for the majority of CO2 emissions. This would entail some people’s consumption and ownership being seriously curtailed, but since they are also the ones with the most power, I fear that this is a problem that will not be resolved, at least not peacefully. My feeling is that inaction will continue even in the face of the horrors that are doubtless coming, and the focus will be maintained on “everyone doing their bit”, which is just another way of making not destroying the world dependent upon individual consumer choice, and again placing democracy outside the gates.
I suspect the next El Nino period of the Southern Oscillation, (we are now returning to La Nina) will demonstrate that we are on or beyond a tipping point, and events will begin to accelerate rapidly without precipitate action.
IF things can be levelled off at 2ºC average, maybe there is some hope, but we are nowhere near that goal in emissions terms.
Whether even a severe El Nino will trigger any intensification of climate and habitat action is questionable, some additional mitigation of floods …maybe, but adaptation like banning private jets …doubtful.
There is both push back andinertia to overcome, plus the essential need for system reform, as growth economics itself equates to a stage 4 cancer diagnosis.
Meanwhile, fiscal rules will still be ironclad.
The corporate funded parties think they can kick the climate crisis down the road. They are unwilling to face up to the fact that in 5 – 10 years the globe will be increasingly uninhabitable. Any puny measures they are doing now will make not a jot of differerence.
The ‘framing’ implied or explicit across the media seems to be ‘its so expensive’ – so that major parties just wont touch it. Difficult not to despair at the state of our politics.
People would be very attracted by the idea of community owned solar and local wind – – whereas its all reduced to the ‘march of the pylons’ across our ‘beloved landscape.’
Labour muttering about carbon capture and green hydrogen – pie in the sky – while we rush towards the precipice – falling way behind the renewable energy target.
I agree ref politicos pushing us over the edge.
Sadly the word “green” is now being used in the same way as “woke”. Does not have to be that way.
Want UK energy independence coupled to fixed price energy? build loads of renewables.
Want warm confortable homes? undertake insulation programmes.
Want the Uk to grow loads of its own food? implement the lessons in Chapter 4 of Monbiots Regenesis
Want clean rivers and seas? sort out the water/sewage companies.
Any politico opposing the 4 points above (there are plenty more) is, frankly, a traitor.
They do not have the best interests of UK citizens at heart and should not be allowed to take part in any Uk elections. That the UK media do not discuss (green) in these terms shows that they, like many UK politicos, are traitors, they do not & never have focused on the interests of UK citizens. I have seen comments by some that in their consitutency voting LINO is the best way to get the tories out. But LINO is Tory – with an authoritatian smile, as opposed to a sneer. Furthermore, they have no policies wrt the 4 points mentioned.
Ref. Andrew’s point & more so Richard’s. There are multiple possible tipping points but always potential to act to make the future ‘less worse’. Essentially, once the emissions’ trend flattens likewise the global heating trend, which is considered responsive to GHG emissions’ trend: emissions stop shortly thereafter likewise rise in global heating. Currently, we’re tracking to 3C, maybe worse, by 2100 which threatens a precipice.
In overview, the problem is oil & gas production capacity (Stranded assets anyone?) is still expanding, with the world still building thousands of miles of pipelines every year. Fossil fuel consumption is intimately bound up with global consumption, which is largely driven by the military- industrial-media complex, its enabling paradigm of neoliberalism and the obscene wealth, where the richest 1% lay claim to about $42 trillion.
Solutions? Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas. So, hope needs to come from the bottom up. This is a climate AND nature emergency. There is huge potential to engage communities around climate, its real drivers, through action around nature and landscape-scale climate adaptation. Starmer, Reeves & co just do not get.
Our degraded National Parks should be in the vanguard of ecological spatial planning , deriving management plans & driving actions for transformation. Most Authorities need a rocket under them. Across these landscapes environmental granular data about flora and fauna is desperately needed, to grasp the: what, where & how for betterment.
The stupidity of approving 800 chicken farms on the Wye catchment, ultimately led to a fantastic citizen science project of about 200 monitoring points in the catchment. This shining example of excellence in citizen action is an example of hope. Pressing action for our degraded landscape and its ecology may also be the way to motivate discussion and action upon our paradigm that seems the engine for climate change. While the likes of Sunak, Starmer & Reeves do not get it, we need to. This is also why the march for Nature in London, this Saturday 22nd, is so important. To send a message & inspire.
I utterly despair. I live in Devon and climate change is already apparent in terms of rainfall patterns and the resulting flooding and drought a d cliffs falling into the sea. It’s obvious that the endless rain all spring followed now by an excessive dry period are making it very difficult for our farmers to grow food. And we will have less and more expensive vegetables.
It is so frustrating that simple measures like building properly insulated homes and onshore wind are seen as green crap, but the ridiculously expensive Sizewell is seen as necessary. We as an island are richly blessed with sources of renewable energy, but the fossil fuel companies effectively bribe our main parties into policies that are expensive and very poor policy choices,
I really hope Carla Denyer gets elected and is able as a renewables engineer to speak so e sense in parliament. Caroline Lucas has been amazing but I think has earned the right to campaign away from government and speak truth without the frustrations of our crazy so called democracy.
People will look back in horror at this period when all our main parties ignored climate issues, dismissing them as woke and irrelevant. The science is clear and the evidence already there for all to see, but there are none so blind as those who don’t want to see.