I just posted this thread on Twitter:
The world is heading for climate catastrophe. That is not an overstatement. That is a fact. But what can we actually do? What follows may seem radical, but if we aren't radical in the face of the risk of extinction when else will we be? A thread….
First, we must make our companies account for the cost of stopping their climate emissions, and insist that they do it now. And I mean stopping those emissions. That has to happen.
We also need to accept that if a company can't stop its climate emissions then it needs to go out of business by the time we have to get to net-zero, or be run under strict government emissions control.
Alternatively, if a company thinks it can be net-zero on emissions we must make it show how, and where the money is coming from to do this. This accounting is key to our future. Maybe 100 companies create 70% of emissions. They must literally be accountable now.
Then we must label all products for their emission content to the time of use. We need to know about this now so we can make informed choices. And I mean all products sold by large companies must be covered by this. Then we know what our actions mean for the planet.
After that we have to tax flights. When 92% are for holidays and a small proportion of society do most of that flying this has to happen. And it has to be progressive, by distance flown and by number of flights a year. It can be done because airlines know who is travelling.
We need to plan increased fuel taxes too. But it is vital that public transport be improved massively, and be significantly cut in cost, to make this possible. We can't just hit people with extra costs and offer no alternative.
After that, we must require the thermal insulation of all buildings, and that they become power stations in their own right. Homes create 25% of emissions. Those emissions have to be cut dramatically. Grant and loan funding is essential to achieve this.
If grants and loans are linked to energy use via utility suppliers it's pointless to pretend that we can keep a domestic energy market going. It has to be under state control to integrate the support for energy efficiency required. Nationalisation has to be done.
The same is true of transport, of course. Buses need to join trains back in state control, and under state management too and no new sham management contracts are needed.
We also have to rethink food supply. We have to reduce meat consumption: it may need to be rationed. And we must promote more veg based lifestyles. It's not that hard, as I am discovering.
Then we tax advertising, and make the rates very progressive: the more expensive the product being sold the higher the tax rate for advertising it, I suggest. Profligacy has to be discouraged. But we must also target high waste products e.g. cheap clothing.
This requires something else: we need to work out how to keep the media going without advertising. That's a massive requirement, and essential. We cannot depend on burning the plant to get the media we need.
Then ban the vendor of any product from selling debt finance to buy it. The desire to keep us indebted fuels the drive for growth companies pursue. I am not saying ban debt. I am saying stop its instant accessibility to reduce excessive consumption.
We also have to rethink leisure as a low emission activity. That's a big challenge, except for those of us who probably do it that way already.
What then? Close down coal. Limit gas as soon as possible. Stop wasting money on carbon capture. Invest in tidal energy, because it always flows. Make every building a power station.
Protect our coasts. Build new dams, for example on The Wash and to protect London, and many more places, whilst planning for the likelihood that nuclear power stations will be submerged if action is not taken.
And train everyone who needs the new skills required for this new economy.
In other words, begin the great rethink now - and take action to deliver on it very, very soon. There is no longer any time to wait.
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My worry is that by saying that it is already here, the fight to stop it or slow it will be undermined.
I do hope that the insurance industry is very pro-active on this matter because that is one area where the costs will mount up from what I’ve seen.
I agree 100% with all you proposals here. The jobs that could be created – it all makes sense to me.
To me too….but not to conventional wisdom I suspect
Transport needs to be public and by necessity electrically driven. Electric cars are not the answer, as there is almost certainly not enough resources in the world for for all those batteries. This is apart from the resources to make the cars. So major investment in electrically driven public transport, including getting goods off road onto rail. Does anyone remember freight liner terminals that were being developed in the 1960’s?
If we need more capacity, what’s wrong with the idea of putting rail lines and tram lines up motorways, as there must be very many fewer cars and lorries on them.
Electrically driven trams must inevitably form the backbone of city transport systems, fed be battery buses from outlying areas, with only a few battery cars for disabled people.
This will free up town and city streets for cycling and walking.
And please, no-one talk about the stupidity of the hydrogen economy.
There is much more that could be, and needs saying along these lines. (no pun intended).
China, Russia, N Korea, the Middle East States.. how do you influence their behaviour??
Have you heard of diplomacy?
Do you believe in mutually assured destruction as an alternative?
We should accept what everyone has known for decades, that the world simply cannot afford a nuclear war, and stop threatening each other with one. Then, redeploy all those highly skilled engineers on a new mission: to crack the problem of generating electricity from waves and tides in the next 10 years. It shouldn’t be left to private enterprise: like the Manhattan Project and the moonshot, it should be directed by the public sector – for the common good.
@ David Lucas
That’s a good battery name!
Entirely agree about Freightliner and rail and have suggested as much:
http://www.progressivepulse.org/economics/tyres-are-carbon-why-dont-we-realise
Goods onto rail are the only justification for HS2 – in order to create additional capacity.
But I’m not convinced on that necessary speed for the passengers…
Doing all of that in the UK (1% of the world’s population in round numbers) would make very little difference to the direction of atmospheric CO2 levels.
But a CO2 capture and storage system if successfully developed in the UK could pull down the CO2 level in the whole world. On that basis I don’t understand the objection to spending money on developing it. Even woodland if chopped down and chucked in a quarry while the plantation regrows is a functional CCS system. But then I thought – what if an engineer came up with a sensational CCS system that could in theory draw down CO2 levels so far that they fell below those of the 18th century – it would be an incredible weapon, and could extinguish much of the plant and dependent animal life on earth if it fell into the wrong hands. When atmospheric CO2 drops below about 200ppm most flora on earth struggles to grow at all. Obviously the country using it would have laid in stores of food energy for a decade or two and also would get away with using this weapon for a while on other countries on the PR grounds that it was for their own good.
So if that is your objection to the technology being allowed to exist then fair enough.
I see no chance of a successful ccs system
Hence my suggestion
All it represents is an excuse for inaction by the carbon sector
CC would be used to push out more tight oil. Remember, we are dealing with the psychopaths in charge. Cutting down forests and burying them in the hope of new growth is also ludicrous. Old trees store much more carbon than young trees and each old tree is an ecosystem.
Surely all pets have to be banned and birth control introduced?
I think the pet issue requires debate. As a dog owner I now doubt I would have another one, partly fir this reason
How would you enforce birth control? That is very difficult
I am also not convinced. Many countries already have declining populations
Educating women is the best form of birth control
Richard Murphy’s ‘to do’ list is fine, but he question is why is no no even starting it?
Why not seems obvious to me, and everyone else has a blind spot, but as I appear to be in a tiny minority, I must be the one with the blind spot.
My insight (as it seems to me) is in my weblog: https://www.clivelord.wordpress.com:
If ordinary folk are to accept the ghastly measures necessary to stave off climate meltdown, they must be guaranteed security.
m
[…] Cross-posted from Tax Research UK […]
roughly 1 in 4 U.S. adults aren’t worried “very much” or “at all” about climate change.
https://morningconsult.com/2021/08/09/climate-change-natural-disasters-ipcc-report-data/
Three quarters are then
That is enough
Yes we can do something about it but is there enough will, or collectivism, in the world to tackle the problems we face.
The World is a living organism and like all life will at some time cease to exist. Just as we have a National Health Service to support and prolong the life of all of our citizens we need an International Health Service to support and prolong the life of our planet. How long can we continue with the belief in a Capitalism which needs to be fed by constant growth with greater inequalities as the result. Just dreamin’….
Part of the problem is that a lot of people find it difficult (perhaps wilfully, perhaps not) to understand how they can reasonably reduce their personal CO2e footprint.
I’d like to see a law under which all goods and services marketed for sale must display the total CO2e emissions generated in producing and transporting the item being marketed and that this is displayed at least as large and loud as the financial price for which it is being sold.
We could take this further and require every invoice, supermarket receipt, boarding pass etc. to display this figure large and loud.
Guilt and embarrassment can be very effective weapons.
Businesses will tell you that is an unbearable administrative burden. Tosh. If they can work out the price a customer has to pay for purchasing their product, they are perfectly capable of working out the price the planet has to pay for them to produce it.
I very much agree with your second para
I reflected that in what I wrote
Among all the ideas being thrown about, electric cars (not good) wind turbines, solar etc, I have yet to meet a Green (middle class in wellies) who understands the Jevons Paradox. The more efficient we make engines, food production etc, the more energy we use, more oil, more gas, more coal and more wood. Wind turbines are made from oil etc, the more you make, the more oil you use, more copper mining for electric cable, more tree clearing for cable runs etc. Lithium mining for batteries is a huge energy intensive and polluting operation. It just gets worse with each ‘remedy’. It is Capitalism and never ending growth and consumerism which is digging our grave but we can imagine the end of the planet sooner than imagining the end of capitalism. Also, if we suddenly wake up and threaten Capital, the backlash from the psychopaths running our governments and corporations will be violent. The only times CO2 has paused was in 2008 as something happened then and last year when the zombie apocalypse hit. We need a complete pause whilst we think of a way out and it will never happen with the people we have allowed to rule us. And what happens when millions of refugees head north? The trickle over the North Sea has revealed the poison deep within our society driven by Farage (Koch funding) and Patel etc. Imagine a billion people heading out of Africa, India, Asia? Look at the backlash within his own Party when Corbyn proposed a very modest GND. The establishment is buried deep within our political PArties throughout the world and they will brook no dissent among us. We only had the IPCC report this week and already the Oligarch owned media has moved on (deliberately) to something else. And don’t think about protesting. Artists are being arrested in their studios here in the UK and others banged up for standing outside the Mail offices. It isn’t going to be pretty.
Your last sentence sums it up
I was pleased you mentioned tidal power, having been rather shocked at a recent news item suggesting tidal turbines are only just being trialled (barrages would work, but introduce a new set of potential ecological problems). Tidal flow is predictable, with timing changing around the coast to permit a constant supply without needing fossil fuel generating capacity as back up in the way wind and solar do.
Someone mentioned carbon capture, and exploration of technologies is important. But as far as I understand we are far too distant from a solution for it to figure in any current plan. Nevertheless, a lot of ancient carbon is already tied up (fossil fuels themselves, and the huge geological chalk and limestone formations) and any way of expediting that process would assist an eventual future strategy of completely balancing carbon-creating processes with carbon-sequestering ones.
Much to agree with in what you write but in para. 13 did you really mean to write “We cannot depend on burning the plant to get the media we need”. Or might you want to have “planet” instead of “plant” here.
Planet
I do typos…..sorry…..it’s the price of blogging a lot around the day job