Copenhagen to Port-au-Prince - An inconvenient truth

Copenhagen charade

The December 2009 Copenhagen world summit illustrated the difficulty, if not futility, of trying to reverse the upward trend in carbon emissions contributing to climate change. Futility, in that a city of 750,000 people is added to the world's energy-consuming infrastructure every single week.

Global warming? Yes, we are causing it. No, we can't reverse it. Nothing significant we can do about it. Mankind must plan for the consequences.

Haiti disaster

And then there are horrendous random events like the Haiti earthquake. It happened and couldn't be stopped either. Mankind is now forced to plan for the consequences.

It must seem totally ridiculous and ironic for the hapless survivors of the awful tragedy in Haiti to reflect on that Copenhagen jamboree. How many of the 16,000 international delegates who wined and dined and whined in Copenhagen will turn up to help in Port-au-Prince this week?

Face reality

Maybe the time has come to accept that from the evidence of history, whilst we don't like it, major changes in many aspects of our total environment, random or progressive, have the inevitable certainty of tidal advance. Recycling, emissions control, renewable energy - all very worthy, creditable and desirable - won't stop the inexorable flow.

Elephants

These green initiatives just give us the warm feeling that we are doing our duty, as we ignore the two elephants in the room. That the only real ways to halt and reverse emissions are; 1. to halt and reverse population growth and 2. to lower general consumer expectations worldwide.

David Attenborough has got it right. The growth junkies have got it wrong. But the two elephants are unlikely to just go away, you know.

Instead of sitting like Canute or posturing like Copenhagen, maybe we should just focus on radically adapting our businesses, politics, lives and aid programmes to cope with the inevitable changes inherent in the new realities of our future.

Contrasts - Third world despair

Those poor people in Haiti were existing in abject poverty before the earthquake and the more fortunate of them are now surviving in smashed and broken abject poverty among the ruins. Tens of thousands are dead and millions badly injured or homeless.

Was there an adequate contingency plan for such a disaster in Haiti? Probably not, if we are to judge by the lack of any earthquake resistant buildings. And in a world of scarce resources it appears clear that more priority is assigned to global expenditure on reducing long-term carbon emissions than creating sustainable economies to alleviate third world hardship.

Contrasts - First world privilege

We in our first world societies have wonderful technology and opportunity for innovative success. Hard-working entrepreneurial companies and ambitious people with positive aggression will flourish in periods of change. We can look forward with hope.

Just reflect on the fact that unlike the poor in Haiti we have the choices and opportunities to adopt positive attitudes in the face of change. We can adapt our already privileged positions in many ways to ensure our future relative comfort and at the same time, assuage our consciences by driving hybrid cars.

Emissions of hope?

I'm certainly not with the flat-earth climate change deniers; nor am I with the naive anti-fossil fuel, anti-nuclear greens. Actually, a strong middle of the road case can be made for the good that is done in this world as a result of emitting carbon! It has delivered immense improvements in western living standards over the past 100 years and allows great comfort to us, together with aspirational hope to people in less developed regions.

A burning question

Now the emerging nations are burning coal to get their share of the goodlife - and burning it at a rate that negates any western efforts to reduce overall emissions.

Can we not see past all this idealistic cant, get real, burn a bit more cheap coal, build fewer windmills, stop trying to fix the climate of 2050? And use the savings to alleviate today's poverty and suffering wherever it exists.

The really tragic inconvenient truth is that renewable energy appears to have a higher western-world profile and priority than safe renewed Haitians.

Copenhagen summit, Mega-rich Bankers, Steel Magnates and Quota-traders - the law of unintended consequences

Following the massive injection of funds into the world financial system, we now hear that investment bankers will be paid huge bonuses, not for any particular skill they have shown, but purely as an unintended consequence of the unique circumstances.

That well-known disciple of Mother Teresa, John "Two-Jag" Prescott, is apoplectic!

But enough about bankers and bonkers already.

The Sunday Times reports that ArcelorMittal, the steel giant headed by Britain's richest man Lakshmi Mittal, will profit by between £1 billion and £3 billion from the carbon emissions trading scheme aimed at reducing global warming.

Now, very few individuals can make that kind of dosh.

A man who lives in a £70 million house with a personal fortune of £11 billion making a few billion more over 2 years! - and to rub salt in the wound of the green lobby, as he trousers these unearned billions his world-wide steel plants are spewing vast quantities of carbon into the atmosphere day and night.

Acccording to emissions trading scheme specialist Anna Pearson, “Between 2008 and 2012 ArcelorMittal stands to gain assets worth 1 billion pounds at today’s prices for scant effort. For them, the ETS has been turned into a system for generating free subsidies. The cap on emissions was set too high and too many permits were issued.”

Shades of the EU Common Agricultural Policy, or what? When will we ever learn?

The ETS scheme grants companies ‘permits' to emit carbon dioxide up to a specified limit and they are also allowed to buy and sell unused permits on the open market.

Sounds OK, but the spectre of inevitable unintended consequences poses the question; is this really the way that climate change campaigners want things to turn out?

This week the Copenhagen climate change summit will hammer away at trying to get agreement on extending emissions controls and if "success" is achieved then President Obama and the world leaders will congratulate themselves on a great step forward.

But the well-intentioned impact, whatever emerges, is unlikely to lead to any significant reduction in global warming. It will however, result in unintended consequences such as those currently enriching the investment bankers. The effects may also be even more economically, environmentally and socially destructive than those of Europe's Common Agricultural Policy.

For a saner climate change perspective, look at the writings of Copenhagen-based Bjorn Lomborg - Google him.

Despite the fact that he lives in the city of the summit he won't get much of a hearing there, but in my view his perspectives and suggested priorities are altogether more convincing and practical for the good of mankind - and are unlikely to enrich bankers, steel magnates or quota-traders in their implementation.

Ration and cap high salaries? - Why stop there?

The Copenhagen summit on climate change next month will see world leaders pay lip service to the crisis but agree on precious little that will make any difference to the global uses of energy.

They are unlikely to address what, in my opinion, is the neglected key issue. Waste! Waste of energy - for which every one of us is responsible.
And the same goes for that other global scarce resource, food, though our individual culpability here is even more glaring and inherently unfair. Waste of food!


We are all in such a swiz about capping the obscenely high salaries of those who "got us into this financial mess", (we all did our own bit to create the mess ourselves by the way) that we ignore our disgustingly wasteful system, still continuing, where we dump 1.6 million tonnes of perfectly good food into landfill every year.

And this takes no account of the much greater annual waste - equally disgusting - where we stuff millions of tonnes of food into "peoplefill" through gross unnecessary overeating. The results are plain to see waddling up and down every street in the country.


Appeals for voluntary restraint just have not worked nor will they work. The only long-term answer, which has a proven effectiveness in crisis situations, is food and fuel rationing.


I remember when I was a wee boy seeing my mother get the ration books off the mantlepiece and set off to buy the groceries.
There was no waste in our house in those days and yet we survived by eating just enough, throwing nothing away and growing our own food where possible. There was no alternative.


In that post-war time of severe shortages, this ration system was the only way the country could live within its limited resources and ensure that the distribution of food and fuel to individuals was reasonably fair.


We are arguably in as great a crisis today, so it should not be beyond the capability of our über-bureaucratic nanny-state to implement appropriate effective rationing.
Such radical action would save the vast amount of value in food and energy that is currently being dumped through profligate unrestrained waste and in the process is despoiling our planet and destroying our health.


I haven't been invited to Copenhagen, so if you agree that rationing would reduce waste please pass this blog on and maybe someone influential (like you) will read it.
If you don't agree, then post a comment. What is your solution to waste?