Of course, we can’t know for sure. The crucial mistake we tend to make in complicated issues like climate, is to fail on very basic risk assessment and management. We don’t knowsociety definitelyfaces collapse, so we assume (or hope) it won’t and act accordingly. This is madness. If your doctor told you, “on balance I think your child will be dead in five years – I can’t be sure but the best medical science suggests a 90% likelihood. However, if you take these simple steps – steps that will be quite inconvenient and disruptive but totally doable – the likelihood of their death will fall to 5%.” What would you do? Wait for certainty? Which could only come when your child was on their death bed? Madness.
We also have 25 years of progress in both developing and delivering solutions. In 2008, when I wrote with Professor Jorgen Randers, the One Degree War Plan, showing how we could slash emissions by 50% in five years, commencing in 2018, it was seen by many as economic fantasy. Fast forward just 10 years and we see renewables blitzing fossil fuels in the market. The most recent annual report from Lazard on the levelized cost of energy concluded: “We have reached an inflection point where, in some cases, it is more cost effective to build and operate new alternative energy projects than to maintain existing conventional generation plants”. Consider that – it is often already cheaper (and getting cheaper every year) to build and operate newrenewable power plants than to just operateold (i.e. fully depreciated and paid for) fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. This is without strong policy on climate change – so imagine how fast we could move if we had it!
2. IPCC 1.5 degree report http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/ Note these reductions are from 2010 levels, with the task actually greater given 2018 emissions are higher. And this is for a low level of certainty of achieving the 1.5 degree goal ( 40% – 60% likelihood ).
Will 1.5 degrees Trigger a Death Spiral for Oil and Gas Companies?
Brilliant Paul. How truly appropriate that Churchill’s quote is right now. Is there a group of Extinction Rebellion that is within striking distance of Cygnet Tas 7112 that you know of?
Two minds with but a single thought. I joined XR but then got directed to a site for people outside UK but it seems to be just for workplace groups. Should we start a Huon Valley branch? Or perhaps wake up Circular Economy Huon?
Any chance of a similar call-out to XR’s London one here in the Huon Valley – with a bit more lead-time of course?
See Tassie Community Network on Facebook.
We need a respected, nonpartisan, and internationally recognized personality to lead the charge! This must be a global push? Who will do this? It has to be someone the world loves without question to come forward now. Any ideas?
You are supporting the oil barons in their quest for global control.
You have been deceived so massively that you are prepared to go to prison because of a fake fear they have instilled in your young foolish hearts.
Listen & learn from 3 activist elders.
Paul, the concept of The One Degree War has stayed in my mind over the past 10 years as sadly, possibly the only sequence of events that gives our planet and society a chance. It does feel like the world is in a cultural war already. As a technologist I’ve always believed the economics on moving to renewables will accelerate much faster than society expects, as happens with all technology, and this seems to be holding true. Maybe the combination of this change and real grass roots action will drive change. The small political wins, such as Wentworth, and the likely humiliation of Abbott in Warringah, and the underlying grass roots alliances that are facilitating this speak to a bigger opportunity to wrestle government (here and elsewhere) out of the hands of the special interests that currently seem hell bent on stopping progress.
I see lots of mentions of renewables but nothing on the real renewable that can reduce carbon emissions faster and more effectively, nuclear power, especially as the new Generation 3 and 4 plants come on line in the next decade. Ignore Greenpeace, XR, and advocate for nuclear power to be made legal in Australia.
Fair enough; if the small modular versions can be brought on line faster and people can be convinced of their safety and efficiency in reducing power costs then that’s a great outcome.
Geoff, there’s a cloud of paranoia surrounding the risk to human life in respect to nuclear plants. By far the worst nuclear accident relating to humans was Chernobyl, Ukraine in April 1986. A plethora of reports on the internet differ widely as to the impact but UN and WHO jointly put the figure of deaths to date at around 60,including those of the emergency workers, and around a total figure that may eventually rise to 4,000 (mainly due to development of thyroid cancer from radioactive Iodine 131). It is sad to note that this number may have been seriously reduced had authorities at the time distributed standard Iodine tablets to the local population in order to saturate their thyroids.
This particular Soviet designed reactor (RBMK-1000) had a basic fault termed positive void coefficient which, if configured in the West would have been immediately ruled out as viable choice of reactor. Also there was no secondary containment building provided, a fact which in itself was probably responsible for the level of radiation release being 10 times that of Fukushima.
In contrast there has most recently been reported that the first death has occurred as a result of the Fukushima nuclear incident some seven years on (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-06/first-man-dies-from-radiation-from-fukushima-nuclear-disaster/10208244).
Please note I am strongly in favour of renewable energy and there is plenty of need for renewables in our energy supply, especially the likes of hydro and geothermal, especially as our energy demand is said likely to double by 2050. But Australia has a dearth of both in relation to demand. Although we are blessed with a massive resource of solar radiation, some thousand of times greater than our total needs. We are also blessed with wind, wave and tidal energy resources but these are all intermittent, which unless there is reliable long term proven storage, such as pumped storage, their variability translates to problematic selection for electricity generators to prioritize re electricity distribution.
In my humble opinion these resources may be best used for pumping water to a storage facility where local water supplies and topographical features present themselves for hydropower generation or to generate hydrogen via electrolysis that can be stored at times of plenty and used in gas turbines or fuel cells in order to produce ‘dispatchable’ electricity.
As I’m fairly certain you will agree that we simply cannot afford to continue to lose this climate battle. Sad as it may sound that 4000, whatever deaths at Chernobyl will pale into insignificance if we do. We urgently need to get out from under. My argument is that we cannot risk not winning the war by placing blind faith in 100% RE especially as we will only have one shot at the target.
Let’s just hope we have enough time and carbon budget left to implement what’s is really needed.
The right action at the right time. The sanest action I can imagine.
Paul, there was a time I would have agreed wholeheartedly with you. Regretfully, as we are witnessing in The United States, my Province of Ontario, Canada, Brazil and so many other jurisdictions the world over, politics seems to have taken unexpected turns for the worst. As long as corruption and political arrogance is allowed to run roughshod over democratic constitutions, thes may delay the actions – and the magnitudes necessary to affect changes to our natural systems.
By no means should we just roll over and accept our lot. Paul’s point, as I have understood it, was regarding an amount of time it would take for a wider public to accept climate change to the point of actually getting down to collectively, and earnestly tackling the challenges represented by climate change. My point is regarding the unexpected complications/barriers to actually taking those larger collective actions particularly requiring political backing when corruption actually controls more governments than the will of the people.
How exactly we turn that around in time, strikes me as our greatest challenge.
Bernie, the barriers you mention are undeniable. But to those of us that have joined the XR in one way or another, it is about breaking them down. Warmly invite you to read this (https://www.monbiot.com/2018/11/19/hopeless-realism/) article by George Monbiot (published in the Guardian on Nov 14th), as well as watch the short video, about the reaction of Lizia Woolf to questions from journalists. Very powerful.
I’m rather pessimistic. I see the results of the American midterms, and notice that a carbon tax initiative in Washington State and a proposal to put some limits on fracking in Colorado were soundly defeated by big-oil’s mega-million dollar campaigns. One half the population of the U.S. doesn’t believe in truth anymore. Maybe the biosphere is headed for collapse, but wouldn’t it be worth it if we cooperated on a global scale to the best of our abilities, rather than letting it all descend into a nuclear war of all against all. I’m sympathetic with the Extinction Rebellion, but foresee that it could play into the hands of Fascists and populists, who are itching for a brawl. Trump’s Presidency is a warning that democracy is in danger. The emergency is political and it’s about our global slide into fascism. Environmental dangers, declining economic growth, growing inequality: all roads lead to Authoritarianism, an over-reaction of scared groups of humans. If democracy goes down, we are looking at WWIII. The emergency is political. This is triage.
Charles, I fully agree with you. We are acting on computer models of the climate/weather incorporating new findings all the time and to be reliable they should be calibrated to data some 20000 years back in time. We are also faced with the “base line” how much is natural? Depending on that answer, mitigation is also a necessary action. My worst fear is that we act on data/information with lack of understanding and knowledge and forget about other important threats to out existence , since we are dealing with wicked problems (there is no final solution and we are create a another problem through or “solutions”). Systemic thinking instead of “the wolf is coming” could clear our lenses.
Until you change the way MONEY works, sorry mate, you change nothing.
How incredibly profound Someoneinasia. Do you have any helpful advice as to how this might be achieved?
None, really. That’s why I’m not optimistic about any real change.
I take no credit for what I said in my first post, by the way. I’m merely citing a certain Michael Ruppert.
Sad indeed but so has the threat of all out nuclear war has the potential to render us all extinct but we seem to have escaped that scenario at least so far.
Start with making lobbying illegal as a way to get our politicians “clean”, we might have our hands on the leaver?
I consider capitalism and communism and socialism as “CAPITALISM” since they are basically the same but different. The tool they use to achieve their goals are different shades of MARKET ECONOMY. The core actor in the market economy perspective are we “consumers” and what strikes me as strange is that we just use one side of the coin (market economy) i.e. as buyers and ignoring the other side. The other side is a real power tool since if we (as consumers) do not collectively want to buy a product on Monday it will be off the shelves on Friday – ponder about that….we have 100% power available for us to use.
This is why I want the politicians freed from lobbying since they are shifting the power of the the market economy to the consuming side of the coin; they want to be reelected, reelected and reelected and they will be reelected as long as we are “good consumers.
The more buying power you have the stronger the impact on getting rid of things you do not consider as good for you and your fellow citizen – here we have our global problem highlighted: poor people need more consumption for survival and that tilts the global coin, very visible seen in the 17 SDG´s. They are driver of consumption since we all want others to have a “good life” with devastating long term consequences for our planet.
Since the buying power are higher in the western world we have more responsibility on our shoulders to tilt the coin toward responsible consumption, using a long term perspective to the benefit of future generations. If we do not think this way, why do we kids?
why do we have kids? meaning if we have kids why do we not act long term to ensure they will have a safe future.
no I do not! Still I strongly believe that politicians must be decoupled from organisations/ companies if we are going to solve the predicaments we are in as inhabitants of this planet. So in my mind I prepare myself for a catastrophe since this seems to be the only decision point we act upon. The company’s I have worked in were interested in change when the bottom line were red; a universal human trait?
It is a pretty crazy world, with so many contradictions and so much up in the air. What is new in the equation is the acceleration of consequences. There will always be the one-off hurricane, one-off wildfire, one-off flood. But as these intensify, it might hit people where it seeps into their consciousness.
One correction: We haven’t had 30 years of grassroots, cilimate activism– we’ve had 12 years of it. It basically didn’t exist before Hurricane Katrina in Sept. 2005, and in the next 12 months after that, it blossomed (Step It Up/350; Earth Hour; Transition Towns; Drax Climate Camp).
And there’s a lesson here– that a problem can stew for a while before people react. Which I think was one of the points of your 2009 book.
I’m wondering if the California wildfires might be a breaking point.
I guess I question the optimism surrounding renewables like wind and PV solar being able to actually replace large chunks of our current power generation. For one large swaths of power usage is technically resistant to electricfication (see A. Friedemann’s ‘Why Trucks Stop Running’). Second, without some way of doing on-the-fly load balancing either via storage or a smart grid, we can’t actually scale up wind and solar; storage isn’t an option that scales and the smart grid is still just a fantasy whos expense is likely to keep it so (talk with the outfits that currently build and maintain the high voltage power lines to learn just huge a barrier this is; line losses alone are enough to kill it). Lastly, there are several significant feed-ins for wind and solar – mining, manufacture, maintainenance – that are also highly resistant to electricfication and even if you could electricfy them that power needs to be fairly constant, nether of which wind or solar can deliver; it’s sort of a catch-22 situation.
The global problem, which all of humanity faced, is not the climate change itself, but consumer thinking and the loss of common humanity principles during climate change. And it is precisely this that endangers humanity more than the climatic changes themselves. Since if you help each other, put respect and mutual understanding at the top of the list, everything can be solved. And it’s possible not only survive in the face of climate change, but it’s also possible for everyone to live in normal conditions. And if in such conditions only care about oneself prevails in people, not thinking about the other people who are in the same situation, then it will be very hard for all of us.If you want to join the global climate control project ( https://allatra.tv/en/article/the-climate-control-global-project ) – so that together, relying on human values, to overcome the changes that are happening right now. Together we can overcome anything.
Noble and encouraging sentiments IGOR. Do you feel we have time to redirect the current flow? Sure thing it is worth a try.
Everything depends on the actions of each individual, in particular in their work at oneself: by changing material priorities we change the inner ones. When there are a lot of such people, we’ll be able to overcome everything. In fact, people often have a fear of not the event itself but of remaining alone and losing everything and that hardly anyone will give them a hand. When people start helping each other, this fear will disappear and life will become much easier and more pleasant.
You should make it a rule for yourself. Become a human, first of all for yourself: be sincere and true. The rest will follow, because similarities attract. When a person changes, the world around him changes too.