Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Gleick: Loose talk still costs lives.

I can’t help but feel Peter Gleick would have been better prepared if he had read a couple of John Le Carré books before venturing into the world of amateur espionage. If he had read The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, for example – a chilling tale in which the British ‘Gentlemen’ spies were hoist on the petard of their own amateurism – perhaps he might have realised that covert actions are not for the faint-hearted, nor for those afflicted with an inappropriate sense of conscience (and who inevitably end up as cannon-fodder).

Climate change, Durban, and why we are not doing the right thing. Yet.

It seems to me that, on the eve of the Durban conference, the environmental movement is fast reaching an impasse, where none of us know what else we can try, what else we can say or do, that will actually bring about a response in keeping with the scale of the problem.

The fatalism that pervades most writing on the subject is regrettable, but how much longer can we continue to write optimistic pieces advocating agreements we know will never be reached, solutions we know will never be implemented, aid we know will never materialise? Frankly, I think we’re stuck, all of us.

Climate Change Denial: Who can you trust when you don’t trust yourself?

In a CiF blog thread a poster made some derogatory remarks about “the ease” with which I make my various claims. This was the usual snidery and demands no discussion, but it got me thinking about another conversation taking place between myself and KingInYellow, who pops by here from time to time; the curious left/right political divide along which the climate debate has split.

I started off thinking about relative intelligence – daft to suggest the right or left have any deficiencies on that score. Are the right less interested in science? Nope – another daft idea. In fact, I couldn’t really come up with any convincing explanation for the division, except perhaps that because it is the political right who have conflated science with politics, out of a combination of anxiety and self-interest, the only proponents of the science are those who are…er…left. It isn’t that the left have some more technical leaning, or that Marxists gravitate toward science, it’s that the right have run away from science since it will not support their anxious view. I admit however, in the privacy of this blog, that my ‘explanation’ is not entirely convincing.

Population Part 2 – Perverse solutions: Involuntary suicide and driving evolution in reverse gear

In my previous post, I laid out arguments against us finding equitable solutions to the burgeoning global population and its relentless expansion. I say equitable because there are some other solutions which invoke exactly the kind of draconian measures the supporters of climate science are accused of favouring – totalitarianism by any other name, I guess.

It’s a silly argument for the most part, just another cliché in the histrionic vocabulary of denialism. More frustrating is that the kind of measures they fear – the advent of which I too find very worrying – will be brought about by pressure. The failure to address and mitigate anthropogenic climate change will be one of those pressures felt and reacted to with more urgency and ill-consideration than was necessary because of the delay in prudent action advocated by the complacent and self-interested.

One reaction under pressure, for example, might be war. This of course would reduce the population, especially if it were nuclear. I don’t think I’d be overreaching to suggest that a war between a failing US and an increasingly powerful China is a distinct possibility. China is now building its first aircraft carriers, the carrier group being the primary military tool for the projection of power. They recently allowed news to emerge of the first Chinese stealth fighter.  Here’s a few snippets from a March 2011 Guardian story (my emphasis):

Population growth: all questions, no answers

There isn’t much that shocks me these days. I’ve read enough history, and lived long enough, to be aware of the generally venal and violent nature of much of our past. I’ve personally witnessed a series of wars waged on poor, backward countries like Vietnam and Iraq. I’ve seen the rise of pop music, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the USSR, the moon landings, 9/11, and England winning the world cup (the last being a real ‘once in a lifetime’ experience). I’m as cynical as one might expect at my age and disposition; the repetitive nature of so much of what I’ve witnessed does induce a certain intellectual ennui.

For all that, a story in the Guardian really did take me by surprise. In case you haven’t seen it, and before revealing what it said, let me ask you a question: what percentage of the world’s population would you say were disabled…?

Is climate change the best thing to happen to civilisation rather than the worst?

In the Guardian, Damian Carrington suggests, rather belatedly, that we need a new economic model to stave off climate change (Climate change demands we re-engineer the world economy now). I don’t think there’s a hope in hell of this happening, and now I’m not even sure if mitigation would be the best thing in the long run. The rather fatalistic analysis presented here is also a contributory factor to the lack of posts recently, since I’m no longer certain there is anything worth saying about climate change that I haven’t already said, or that fighting to keep this civilisation going is actually worth the effort in the long run.

Damian

Surely by now it must be apparent to you, as I think it is to Monbiot, that mitigation simply will not happen. The chance to achieve the 2 degree limit disappeared like so much polar ice as the new millennium was ushered in, and no amount of good intentions will bring that about now, so I do wonder why environmental writers still keep plugging away at a cause as hopeless as an appeal to a denier’s rationality.

The societal effects of anthropogenic climate change can be extrapolated in the same way as we can for the physical effects of warming on the ecosystem. Let’s consider where all this is really going.

HVDC Power grids: just the latest demonstration of human interdependance

A story in the Guardian today highlights the latest venture to trade energy across national boundaries – and in particular the wet stuff that makes the UK the strange island nation it is (BritNed power cable boosts hopes for European supergrid). The article tells the story of a new High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) cable laid between Holland and the UK, the significance being that HVDC transmission loses less power than conventional Alternating Current (AC) systems, making long-distance transmission practical – a key ingredient in any renewable mix, since the wind always blows somewhere, as the sun always shines on half the world. The potential for endless renewable (and non-polluting) energy is boundless – nobody is expecting the sun to go out any time soon or the tides to turn one last time – and the future of energy generation is as exciting and challenging as fossil fuels are limited and damaging. It is also the case that we have barely scratched the surface of such potential, made rather too casual and complacent by the ease with which we could suck oil and gas out of the ground, with little effort and tremendous potential profit. Those days are over.

Climate change protest funded by big business: the power of paradox

Getting to the point straight away, there is a most fundamental paradox at the heart of capitalism, one clearly articulated in the debate over the funding of ‘green’ activities by corporations. The paradox emerges when you weigh good against bad. Corporations create wealth. They create jobs. They spread employment – and therefore wealth – around as they expand into new markets. They innovate, they develop new products and they pay through corporation taxes for a significant part of the state’s spending on social necessities like law and order, affordable healthcare, education, and governance itself, while the the lion’s share is generated by the jobs, direct and indirect taxes that we all pay as employees. All largely to the good then.

Except…except that they also manipulate the crap out of us through advertising and intrusive marketing. They pollute the planet, act in corrupt and rapacious ways, care little and with some infrequency about their workforce, make many kinds of goods that are designed to fail in a set period and be unrepairable when they do. And they display a social conscience inevitably suborned to, and perpetually compromised by, the desire to make ever greater profit.

The paradox. Good and bad then: can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.

Wishful thinking: my ‘Green’ budget incentives

As our ‘greenest government ever’ gets ready to cut some more sustainable options, here are some things I’d like to see from a ‘green’ government (not holding my breath, obviously):

1) Focus on public transport. This is one possible way to address many environmental concerns, and clearly the benefits would be considerable – a train journey in most European countries is quite an eye-opener (and rather shaming, frankly – in Germany, and to the amusement of the other passengers, I had to ask if I’d got into a first class compartment by accident, so immaculate and pleasant was the standard carriage). I don’t believe the obsession with personal transport is viable, even with a massive uptake in electric vehicles, since we still need energy to power the damn things. It is simply an inefficient way to move things about, as any form of commercial transport demonstrates.

Climate change and the picture that is worth a million words

Hard to imagine being able to come up with a illustration of climate change quite so stunning, and apt – this is art at its best and I’m full of admiration for both the concept and the execution. Wish I could think of things like this…

With a hat-tip to John Cook at Skeptical Science. The picture is by Ferdi Rizkiyanto, reproduced here under the Creative Commons license.