Kevin Anderson's Response to the IPCC 1.5°C Special Report
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-10-09/response-to-the-ipcc-1-5c-...
Kevin Anderson, a professor at the University of Manchester, nails it, as usual.
Dress it up however we may wish, climate change is ultimately a rationing issue.
Almost 50% of global carbon emissions arise from the activities of around 10% of the global population, increasing to 70% of emissions from just 20% of citizens. Impose a limit on the per-capita carbon footprint of the top 10% of global emitters, equivalent to that of an average European citizen, and global emissions could be reduced by one third in a matter of a year or two.
No more second or very large homes, SUVs, business and first-class flights, or very high levels of consumption. Instead, our economy should be building new zero-energy houses, retrofitting existing homes, huge expansion of public transport, and a 4-fold increase in (zero-carbon) electrification.
He also points out the technology to adequately remove CO2 from the atmosphere is currently fictitious. Yes, we should invest in research and development of CO2 removal, but cannot put it in survival plans.
Ignoring this huge inequality in emissions, the IPCC chooses instead to constrain its policy advice to fit neatly within the current economic model.
Capitalism, endless "growth" and consumption must go.
IMO Kevin Anderson is an important voice of clarity.
[video:https://youtu.be/skilmEHMsMc]
Comments
1.5 is a decade away
http://www.climatecodered.org/2018/04/15c-of-warming-is-closer-than-we.html
David Spratt highlights the research in this article.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
IPCC report is conservative
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/10/michael-mann-even-closer-climate...
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
anyone else ever contemplated the irony in the
fact that some of the same people who insist that the climate models are weak and unreliable also express their confidence that IF things get bad, we'll figure out a way to engineer the climate back to stability?
uh ... like ... how do they imagine that would be done, except by using the same climate models they insist are weak and unreliable?
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Can you expound on that point?
I am interested. Are you suggesting that Kevin Anderson is the "same people" or that the folks making the report are the "same people" or someone else entirely???
Well yeah . . . expecting us to figure out a way to engineer ourselves back if it gets really bad . . . insane.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
no, quite the opposite.
it's the deniers who insist that the models aren't reliable -- at least, not reliable enough to be the evidence upon which we base a major overhaul of our infrastructure.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Was hoping to get a bit more discussion here . . ,
but really, what is there to say?
How are you going to get the big carbon emitters to change their lifestyle? Compared to the larger part of humanity, all of us are big carbon emitters.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
How can we all personally become the Amish?
Low tech low tech low tech.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
carbon emitters
As individuals, working-class Americans -- us -- aren't all that much to fault. Construction of a transportation infrastructure whereunder no American anywhere was forced to own and use a car in order to live would cure most of our difficulties, with birthrate reductions to the less-than-zero population growth levels taking up the remaining slack.
Where the cuts that count need to be made is in the behaviors of our richest (as the essay itself suggests), and of our military. As snoopydawg pointed out, a single modern fighter jet burns enough fuel in one hour to keep an upper-middle-class family of four going for a year. And armor isn't far behind in the carbon derby.
Worst of all, we can't all "go Amish". The Amish themselves are experiencing regular serious crime in their community for the first time in their history because their societal norms, based on limitless supplies of expansion land somewhere, are coming up short against the fact that there is no such thing any more. As a result, ever more Amish kids have to live "English" because there's no way to get all those couples into farmsteads. 100 years ago, that wasn't the case; it is now.
A good deal of the high tech we use is flatly necessitated by our sheer numbers. And those numbers have to be dealt with before low-tech solutions really have a fighting chance of working. Organic crop and animal yields are smaller than high-tech yields. Technology costs money, and farmers wouldn't be using it if it didn't pay for itself and then some; but it does, and therefore, they do.
Get the human population down, and much will take care of itself from that.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Not much at fault.
I agree.
This doesn't mean I won't continue to reuse, reduce and recycle, and to walk and bike more, and to compost, etc. I believe in these things, so I do them to maintain my own integrity.
However ...
My personal choice whether to use a plastic straw (as the most recent example) or not isn't the problem, or the solution. Even multiplied by millions, it's not. Yet, thanks to what's obviously been a very successful
awarenesspropaganda campaign, so many people I know are obsessively focused on this action instead of the giant elephant in the room.CStMS nailed this in a recent comment somewhere ... I'll see if I can find it.
The Kevin Anderson video
I posted above is from about a year ago. It's a discussion about climate foolish talk. The straw thing seems to fit in that category. Nonsense talk that offers no solutions.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Yes and yes and yes
Very good points. Thanks!
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Stop the fastest-growing populations from growing so fast
China did it with its one-child policy between 1979 and 2016 — the same period which saw hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty.
Keep national populations that are projected to decline due to low birth rates on that declining path. For example, Japan is particularly far along in this respect. The world should take Japan as a model and inspiration, instead of trying to dragoon it into allowing more immigration.
That means rejecting immigration as a ploy to pump population numbers back up and enable continued exponential economic expansion. Instead, redesign economies so growth is not necessary to prosper.
Stop subscribing to the growth-worshipping Economist magazine and its philosophy, and toss it in the recycling bin.
Modelling population dynamics and then changing them needs to be front and center.
If the climate crisis is really that bad, treating population as a taboo topic is something the planet can no longer afford.
Population decline
Do you have a link to info on the Japanese model?
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
One article (that still speaks of the decline as a bad thing):
https://www.tofugu.com/japan/population-decline/
The conventional economists’ view from the Economist:
https://www.economist.com/banyan/2014/03/25/the-incredible-shrinking-cou...
In general:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=japanese+population+decline
re-design economies
Dingdingdingdingding!! Give that lotlizard a Marijuana!
(I live in Colorado -- I can say that!!)
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty
IIRC, more millions than America has, all told!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Interesting point about the Amish
True that "Going Amish" is sort of a shallow remark. I really don't know much about their situation and it makes sense that they are running out of room. Certainly no way to purchase additional farmland. "Low tech" is just something I have been thinking about personally after reading Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy. Of course everyone can't do it.
Public transportation, lower population, reducing military waste. Indeed good points.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo