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October 02, 2006
| Talk Is Cheap | Environment |
Someone I always make a point of reading is Britain's George Monbiot. Here are excerpts from a recent piece of his on getting real about global warming:
Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaust denial. But I'm not celebrating yet. The danger is not that we will stop talking about climate change, or recognising that it presents an existential threat to humankind. The danger is that we will talk ourselves to Kingdom Come.If the biosphere is wrecked, it will not be done by those who couldn't give a damn about it, as they now belong to a diminishing minority. It will be destroyed by nice, well-meaning, cosmopolitan people who accept the case for cutting emissions, but who won't change by one iota the way they live. [...]
While environmentalism has always been characterised as a middle-class concern, and while this has often been unfair, there is now an undeniable nexus of class politics and morally-superior consumerism...[C]arbon emissions are closely correlated to income: the richer you are, the more likely you are to be wrecking the planet, however much stripped wood and hand-thrown crockery there is in your kitchen.
It doesn't help that politicians, businesses and even climate change campaigners seek to shield us from the brutal truth of just how much has to change. Last week Friends of the Earth published the report it had commissioned from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, which laid out the case for a 90% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. This caused astonishment in the media. But other calculations, using the same sources, show that even this ambitious target is two decades too late. It becomes rather complicated, but please bear with me, for our future rests on these numbers.
The Tyndall Centre says that to prevent the earth from warming by more than two degrees above pre-industrial levels, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere must be stabilised at 450 parts per million or less (they currently stand at 380). But this, as its sources show, is plainly insufficient. The reason is that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not the only greenhouse gas. The others – such as methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons – boost its impacts by around 15%. When you add the concentrations of CO2 and the other greenhouse gases together, you get a figure known as "CO2 equivalent". But the Tyndall centre uses "CO2" and "CO2 equivalent" interchangeably, which leads to an embarrassing scientific mishmash.
"Concentrations of 450 parts per million CO2 equivalent or lower", it says, provide a "reasonable-to-high probability of not exceeding 2 degrees C". This is true, but the report is not calling for a limit of 450 parts of "CO2 equivalent". It is calling for a limit of 450 parts of CO2, which means at least 500 parts of CO2 equivalent. At this level, there is a low-to-very-low probability of keeping the temperature rise to below 2 degrees. So why on earth has this reputable scientific institution muddled the figures?
You can find the answer on page 16 of the report. "As with all client-consultant relationships, boundary conditions were established within which to conduct the analysis. ... Friends of the Earth, in conjunction with a consortium of NGOs and with increasing cross-party support from MPs, have been lobbying hard for the introduction of a 'limate change bill' ... [The bill] is founded essentially on a correlation of 2°C with 450 parts per million of CO2."
In other words, Friends of the Earth had already set the target before it asked its researchers to find out what the target should be. I suspect that it chose the wrong number because it believed a 90% cut by 2030 would not be politically acceptable.
This echoes the refusal of Sir David King, the chief scientist, to call for a target of less than 550 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere, on the grounds that it would be "politically unrealistic". The message seems to be that the science can go to hell – we will tell people what we think they can bear.
So we all deceive ourselves and deceive each other about the change that needs to take place. The middle classes think they have gone green because they buy organic cotton pyjamas and handmade soaps with bits of leaf in them – though they still heat their conservatories and retain their holiday homes in Croatia. The people who should be confronting them with hard truths balk at the scale of the challenge. And the politicians won't jump until the rest of us do. [...]
So the question which now confronts everyone...is this: how much reality can you take? Do you really want to stop climate chaos, or do you just want to feel better about yourself? [Emphasis added]
Greed kills — and greed comes in many forms. Most insidious, perhaps, is our greed for comfort and convenience. Humans, like other organisms, generally take the path of least resistance. We're supposed to be more intelligent than other organisms and therefore better equipped to understand what's going to be the real path of least resistance over the long term, but it never seems to work that way in practice. Everybody wants to be comfortable now. And besides, if the people around you aren't changing how they live, you feel like your own little contribution is meaningless. But that is a sure path to disaster for us all.
Posted by Jonathan at October 2, 2006 10:06 PM
Comments
Jonathan, by far, your best post to date.
Coca-Cola did an excellent job with their ads showing us how friendly, cuddly and well-mannered polar bears are. Polar bears are now killing each other. It's believed this is an effect of global warming - with fewer glaciers that in the past attracted other wildlife, the polar bears have nothing to eat and are now turning on themselves.
Humans will, for the reasons stated above and other reasons as well, simply plod along until the first major effect of global warming captures the attention of the entire planet. One event so big it will change everyone’s reality overnight.
Are we that different from polar bears?
Posted by: Jeff at October 2, 2006 10:56 PM
The link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues.
The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment.
Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
Subject : A thinking mind cannot feel.
Subject : Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys the planet.
Subject : Environment can never be saved as long as cities exist.
Emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking.
If there are no gaps there is no emotion.
Today people are thinking all the time and are mistaking thought (words/ language) for emotion.
When society switches-over from physical work (agriculture) to mental work (scientific/ industrial/ financial/ fast visuals/ fast words ) the speed of thinking keeps on accelerating and the gaps between thinking go on decreasing.
There comes a time when there are almost no gaps.
People become incapable of experiencing/ tolerating gaps.
Emotion ends.
Man becomes machine.
A society that speeds up mentally experiences every mental slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.
A ( travelling )society that speeds up physically experiences every physical slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.
A society that entertains itself daily experiences every non-entertaining moment as Depression / Anxiety.
FAST VISUALS /WORDS MAKE SLOW EMOTIONS EXTINCT.
SCIENTIFIC /INDUSTRIAL /FINANCIAL THINKING DESTROYS EMOTIONAL CIRCUITS.
A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY CANNOT FEEL PAIN / REMORSE / EMPATHY.
A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY WILL ALWAYS BE CRUEL TO ANIMALS/ TREES/ AIR/ WATER/ LAND AND TO ITSELF.
To read the complete article please follow either of these links :
http://www.planetsave.com/ps_mambo/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&Itemid=75&func=view&id=68&catid=6
http://www.earthnewswire.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=89&page=viewtopic&t=11
sushil_yadav
Posted by: sushil_yadav at October 3, 2006 01:25 AM
Sushil,
I believe in your general concept that most humans live a life that is not natural, and in doing so become desensitized to many things. You make some bold statements, presented as fact that I do not agree with, namely that fast, large societies cannot feel pain, remorse and empathy, and will always be cruel to nature. It's your use of the words cannot and always that are incorrect here.
I invite you to watch two NOVA documentaries that follow the lives a few Harvard medical students. Medical training is scientific thinking, and is probably the most fast passed and intense scientific training that exists. Throughout these documentaries you will find students clearly experiencing pain, remorse and empathy.
I acknowledge that these students are young adults and that at least some of their emotion can be attributed to the stress of medical training, but not all of it. I'll also acknowledge that many seasoned doctors become desensitized to what they deal with on a daily basis. But an argument could easily be made that some degree of desensitizing is required if they are to function efficiently.
Overall I agree with your general concept; humans are the only animal capable of living unnatural lives and in doing so our emotional circuits are wired differently then nature intended. I just think you've taken this a bit to the extreme.
(replace [dot] with actual periods)
http://video[dot]google[dot]com/videoplay?docid=4712750534935180626&q=genre%3Adocumentary+duration%3Along+NOVA
http://video[dot]google[dot]com/videoplay?docid=-6080598893257177108&q=genre%3Adocumentary+duration%3Along+NOVA
Posted by: Jeff at October 3, 2006 11:46 AM