NWR Climate change

I hate to be debbie downer here but I just don’t remotely see the kind of “doing less” strategy you propose as possible. You’re asking people to accept certain global economic collapse with absolutely horrific consequences that will be much more rapid and probably even more severe than those that may (and I stress may) occur from global warming. People simply won’t sign up for that in the developed world. They’ll find ways to deal with the heat or cold, flooding etc. long before they accept the doing less approach.
It won't be quite that sudden an economic collapse because many people and governments won't act at the speed necessary. Some will, thank goodness. As with vaccines, think collectively and we, er, might have a shot.
 
Many people and governments won't act at the speed necessary. Some will, thank goodness. As with vaccines, think collectively and we, er, might have a shot.
Sadly we inhabit the same world as the others! Completely different from vaccines.

ISTM that the only way that we could possibly affect what happens elsewhere would be development of the most amazing carbon capture technology that can somehow fix all the carbon being generated by all the others as well....

Edit to add: There's much about the "doing less" approach that will be of personal benefit quite aside from any impact it might have on climate change. I used to have a mug that said "All I want is less to do". I'm feeling it now!
 
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It won't be quite that sudden an economic collapse because many people and governments won't act at the speed necessary. Some will, thank goodness. As with vaccines, think collectively and we, er, might have a shot.
You seem to be agreeing with me (!!) except that I don’t see any govt “acting with the speed necessary” if your doing less approach is really what’s required.
 
A retrospective point on view on solar and battery is that the existing areas are in place to install solar panels and small or extraordinary large battery storage. Admittedly Winter throws a spanner in the works a bit. So the National government could fit panels to all of their buildings and encourage or legislate that all new builds must be self sufficient in regard to energy needs. Offer home owners an incentive, decentralize large concubations by placing government jobs out to the regional towns. Take the ice cars off the roads totally over 10 years and encourage cycling and walking. A healthier population is a must to aid the N H S
 
It is axiomatic that John Redwood is always wrong.
On the larger question, though, there can surely be no field in which whataboutery is less appropriate if anything is to be done.
 
It is axiomatic that John Redwood is always wrong.
On the larger question, though, there can surely be no field in which whataboutery is less appropriate if anything is to be done.
Funny that you should make that statement in this instance when the article confirms his statement was factually correct! Of course, the article goes on to show that you can look at the question of relative emissions in several other ways but none of that made his statement, prima facie, false.
 
'says Prof Andrew Watson of Edinburgh University. “The IPCC report gives a comprehensive update on the knowns of climate change, and that makes for grim reading. But it also makes the point that climate models don’t include ‘low probability-high impact’ events, such as drastic changes in ocean circulation, that also become more likely the more the climate is changed.'
 
I hate to be debbie downer here but I just don’t remotely see the kind of “doing less” strategy you propose as possible. You’re asking people to accept certain global economic collapse with absolutely horrific consequences that will be much more rapid and probably even more severe than those that may (and I stress may) occur from global warming. People simply won’t sign up for that in the developed world. They’ll find ways to deal with the heat or cold, flooding etc. long before they accept the doing less approach.
If I understand you correctly - what you seem to be saying is that actions which require meaningful changes in lifestyle for people in those capitalist democracies rich enough to avoid the worst potential consequences (at least for now) are not going to be acceptable to voters, and they will therefore resist doing what climate activists believe needs to be done. I guess relevant examples would include the current well-organised resistance to Low Traffic Neighbourhoods across London, or indeed the Maillots Jaunes protests in France, where small increases in the cost of fuel led to massive protests across the country.

This is possibly true - I don’t believe it but I think it’s hard to test either way. There are certainly counter examples of where comparatively wealthy countries *have* accepted great costs to do the long term right thing. Again (and I appreciate wartime metaphors are overused…) I think even the most extreme responses to Climate Change will not be as costly to peoples lifestyles as what was endured during the Second World War. Looking at the treatment of the Danube pre 1989 is another example of how capitalist democracies can actually be pretty effective (certainly more effective than any of the available alternatives) at managing common environmental goods.

I would also question whether "economic collapse" is certain. There is certainly an aggressive "degrowth" element in the environmental movement, who seem to take a positive delight in telling people how much harder things are going to be for them. While there will surely be changes, it doesn't have to be a given that they will feel like "doing less" - at least overall. Certainly - we can almost certainly expect to fly less, drive less, eat less meat - but cities which are more accessible by bike, more plentiful and accessible public transport, high quality jobs in emerging industries. And again - I know I keep banging this drum - but it's incredible JUST HOW CHEAP SOLAR HAS BECOME. I know that many people would argue that it is crazy to just wait until some technology comes along to magically fix the environment - that we have to act decisively and politically now. I agree with this - but it is equally crazy to assume that no technological advances are going to come along. Times of crisis lead to great advances, and the concerted will to do things right now will have huge impacts.

I guess one positive thing about all this is that most likely, what happens on our little island is only going to be of minor importance to anyone but the people who live in our little island. The real story is being played out between the US and China. If there's one thing that the US is good at, it's figuring out how to turn crises into economic opportunities.
 
My rant energy is strong this morning so I'm gonna keep going. If one compares Germany with France - the environmental movement in the former has historically been stronger, which has perversely resulted in greater CO2 emissions because they used far fewer nukes.

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We surely can't nuke the problem of global warming away, but ignoring any part of the solution for ideological reasons seems unwise to me.
 
Well, I think the problem comparing it to the war is that the war was an understood reality, whereas the reality of climate change is not quite so obvious and the understanding is miles behind.
Also climate change is a shared problem . Unilateral carbon neutral isn't going to cut it, so the "Why should I stop eating steak and flying on holiday while China continues to belch out smoke?" argument is hard to counter.
Imagine if, during the war a whole bunch of people carried on living as before with no rationing or anything, how would the hardships be tolerated then?
 
Well, I think the problem comparing it to the war is that the war was an understood reality, whereas the reality of climate change is not quite so obvious and the understanding is miles behind.
Respectfully - I think it may look like that now, but in the UK - certainly before the blitz, everything people knew about the war was second hand, taken on trust. If one accepts that recent weather events are a result of climate change then the climate crisis are at least as "understood reality" as the war was prior to September 1940.
Imagine if, during the war a whole bunch of people carried on living as before with no rationing or anything, how would the hardships be tolerated then?
Again - I think our recollection of that period makes things seem much more unified and contented than they were...the rich continued to be rich and indeed afaik restaurant meals were never rationed - I recall (although have not been able to find on a light google) stories of the outrage of the wealthy dining at Claridges and the Ritz while the rest of the people suffered.

Again - I do feel that success is far from certain, and there will be a lot of tragic mistakes made along the way, even if we are successful in combatting climate change - but I also don't believe that this problem is intractable or that some "tragedy of the commons" effects will prevent us from being able to solve it.
 
If I understand you correctly - what you seem to be saying is that actions which require meaningful changes in lifestyle for people in those capitalist democracies rich enough to avoid the worst potential consequences (at least for now) are not going to be acceptable to voters, and they will therefore resist doing what climate activists believe needs to be done. I guess relevant examples would include the current well-organised resistance to Low Traffic Neighbourhoods across London, or indeed the Maillots Jaunes protests in France, where small increases in the cost of fuel led to massive protests across the country.

This is possibly true - I don’t believe it but I think it’s hard to test either way. There are certainly counter examples of where comparatively wealthy countries *have* accepted great costs to do the long term right thing. Again (and I appreciate wartime metaphors are overused…) I think even the most extreme responses to Climate Change will not be as costly to peoples lifestyles as what was endured during the Second World War. Looking at the treatment of the Danube pre 1989 is another example of how capitalist democracies can actually be pretty effective (certainly more effective than any of the available alternatives) at managing common environmental goods.

I would also question whether "economic collapse" is certain. There is certainly an aggressive "degrowth" element in the environmental movement, who seem to take a positive delight in telling people how much harder things are going to be for them. While there will surely be changes, it doesn't have to be a given that they will feel like "doing less" - at least overall. Certainly - we can almost certainly expect to fly less, drive less, eat less meat - but cities which are more accessible by bike, more plentiful and accessible public transport, high quality jobs in emerging industries. And again - I know I keep banging this drum - but it's incredible JUST HOW CHEAP SOLAR HAS BECOME. I know that many people would argue that it is crazy to just wait until some technology comes along to magically fix the environment - that we have to act decisively and politically now. I agree with this - but it is equally crazy to assume that no technological advances are going to come along. Times of crisis lead to great advances, and the concerted will to do things right now will have huge impacts.

I guess one positive thing about all this is that most likely, what happens on our little island is only going to be of minor importance to anyone but the people who live in our little island. The real story is being played out between the US and China. If there's one thing that the US is good at, it's figuring out how to turn crises into economic opportunities.
We might even be able to make a buck out of it in Blighty!

There's a story in the family of a relative who kept a very large number of ducks because rationing only applied to hens eggs. I believe the same relative also proposed a car sharing scheme, as petrol was so severely rationed, to make the most of empty seats, but I don't know whether HMG took it up.

Also I was surprised by these percentages: "At the start of the Second World War in 1939, the United Kingdom was importing 20 million long tons of food per year, including about 70% of its cheese and sugar, almost 80% of fruit and about 70% of cereals and fats. The UK also imported more than half of its meat and relied on imported feed to support its domestic meat production. The civilian population of the country was about 50 million.[3]. Rationing in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia
 
There was a moment when there was a maximum charge of 5 shillings for restaurant meals which made Claridges etc very popular - my father certainly took the opportunity to eat out in the West End on occasion.

If you want a superb exposition of what it was like in the phoney war period, then Margery Allingham's book (real life, not one of her Albert campion detective books) The Oaken Heart is quite extraordinary and changed all my previous (mis)conceptions
 
Interesting op ed in today’s ft by a UBS analyst (Sam Arie) if you have access to it. In short, building a zero carbon supply chain would require $300 trillion in new investment vs humanity’s total investment today for everything we do of $20 trillion pa. Again, we need to focus much more on dealing with climate change rather than trying to stop it. Short of complete economic collapse, we aren’t going to do what’s needed to stop it.
 
Interesting op ed in today’s ft by a UBS analyst (Sam Arie) if you have access to it. In short, building a zero carbon supply chain would require $300 trillion in new investment vs humanity’s total investment today for everything we do of $20 trillion pa. Again, we need to focus much more on dealing with climate change rather than trying to stop it. Short of complete economic collapse, we aren’t going to do what’s needed to stop it.
I agree. I really do not think it is the right or responsible thing to do for the UK to spend tens or hundreds of billions of £ on mass projects to reduce our emissions rather than help us prepare for the impact of climate change. I am not saying do none of the former but unless the US, China and India make huge concessions and strides all our efforts would be in vain and we'd have spent all our £ on efforts to decarbonise rather than prepare for climate change. For a start why not forgo the investment in expensive heat-source pumps and instead put all that money into flood defences.
 
There was a moment when there was a maximum charge of 5 shillings for restaurant meals which made Claridges etc very popular - my father certainly took the opportunity to eat out in the West End on occasion.

If you want a superb exposition of what it was like in the phoney war period, then Margery Allingham's book (real life, not one of her Albert campion detective books) The Oaken Heart is quite extraordinary and changed all my previous (mis)conceptions
Fascinating that WW2 brought its own version of Eat Out to Help Out. That might not have been the intention, but certainly one of the consequences!
 
Interesting op ed in today’s ft by a UBS analyst (Sam Arie) if you have access to it. In short, building a zero carbon supply chain would require $300 trillion in new investment vs humanity’s total investment today for everything we do of $20 trillion pa. Again, we need to focus much more on dealing with climate change rather than trying to stop it. Short of complete economic collapse, we aren’t going to do what’s needed to stop it.
Wow, what a tissue-thin "argument". "In total we think as much as $300tn in extra investments could be needed to re-tool the global economy with assets that can be fabricated, distributed, operated and eventually recycled using clean energy sources alone." (My bold.) Yep, I'm totally sold. Let's totally change direction on the basis that this guy and his mates think that maybe it'll cost more than we can afford. I'm not saying he's wrong, but I would like to see a slightly more detailed analysis before I jump on board that particular boat. He uses the market for fridges as the example for his argument - we need to make lots of fridges because people are always replacing them and that means lots of carbon being released. Well, yeah, okay, but rather than just saying we need more money to pay for de-carbonising the supply chains, perhaps we could start doing more to stop people replacing their fridges every five years. I would love to see more about ways we can change the way our economic system works, rather than using that economic system as an excuse for not tackling climate change.
 
For a start why not forgo the investment in expensive heat-source pumps and instead put all that money into flood defences.
And perhaps we could just stop building on floodplains. But how long will those flood defences remain effective? They might work against the 1 in 100 year floods that are now coming every ten years, but what about the 1 in 1,000 year floods that are coming every 50 years? And how exactly do you mitigate against temperatures that make it impossible to grow crops? Don't most of the economic analyses that compare the cost of doing nothing to stop warming with the costs associated with the consequences warming always show that the latter is considerably more expensive?
 
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