To assume that Covid was fakery produced by government conspiracy, or that scientists were paid to fake data, you might have to make a lot of assumptions.
You would have to assume: a) that Donald Trump had approved the payments to scientists in the USA and b) that his government was exaggerating the dangers of Covid, rather than playing them down and telling people it would pass. This seems somewhat contradictory.
You would have to assume that Russia, the UK, France, Australia, Iran, Brazil, China and India (amongst others) also conspired together to lie about Covid, even when their governments were pretending there was not much of a problem. This also seems improbable, especially given they rarely can agree to do anything together.
That does not mean there could have been no conspiracies.
It seems more likely that some governments conspired to pretend that covid was not a big deal to keep the economy going, and keep the people docile at work, and were annoyed when scientists would not all go along with this.
It may also be the case that some governments, through intermediaries, publicised fake information about covid in the hope that people in other countries would take their advice and do nothing, or people would refuse to accept the quarantines, and those other countries would be ravaged by the disease and destroyed.
Did some governments try to shut down dissent? Well they certainly used the virus to shut down climate protests, school strikes, and some BLM events… So possibly they did. But I don’t see any really huge differences in the US, UK etc…. produced by Covid. Of course I could be wrong.
The virus appears to be unlike the flu or the common cold, although it is often alleged by politicians that it is similar. It has different effects on the body, can affect livers, hearts, brains etc…. For some people it continues for months. It seems to have killed as many people in the US in a year, than about 10 years worth of flu.
Of course the death figures could be all faked, but again it seems improbable, especially given that many governments wanted everyone to get back to work and suppressed figures, and its easy to under-find deaths from Covid, because Covid can have consequences for a business (such as a retirement home), or the Covid death looks like stroke, or heart attack or lung embolism etc….
If the Vaccine is a mind control device, as some people allege, then we have heaps of secret tech knocking around that most scientists seem unable to understand, or explain. If the tech was that advanced you probably would not need to pretend there was a deadly virus to spread it. You could just put it in people’s food, or in normal vaccines or normal medicines – that way it would be much easier to hide.
One thing you might notice, if “you did the research”, was the amount of taxpayers’ money going to help the wealthy, in terms of subsidies and tax breaks, or used to shore up companies dying from other causes, but that is pretty normal nowadays, and is rarely commented upon.
I’d suggest that there may already be a conspiracy to turn the US into a dictatorship, or a form of corporate plutocracy. Republicans seem to have been running this conspiracy since the 1980s, and have won over much of the supposed opposition. This conspiracy is generally known as ‘neoliberalism’ or ‘free market economics,’ and seems designed to benefit established corporations and wealth, at the expense of everyone else.
I’d be much more concerned about that conspiracy than about a Covid conspiracy, but somehow that idea gets far less publicity than the fake news around Covid.
Oh and those neoliberal free market supporters, just seem to be the ones promoting the idea that covid is fake and being used to increase government tyranny. Wonder if that is a distraction, from what they are doing?
This is a summary of a report that already has a summary website, but hopefully this summary might get some more recognition for the report. The ‘Executive Summary’ and the Report itself, are both linked on that site.
The initial point is similar to ones that have been made repeatedly:
Over the period 1990–2015, nearly half of the growth in absolute global emissions was due to the richest 10%, with the wealthiest 5% alone contributing over a third (37%).
Action targeted to change the behaviour of these people will be more effective, than action that targets poorer parts of society, even if as many people as possible need to be engaged.
To come anywhere near meeting the target of peaking at 1.5 degrees C.:
the richest 1% of the global population needs to reduce their emissions by a factor of at least 30 by 2030, while the poorest 50% of humanity could increase their emissions by three-times their current level.
An Oxfam report says something similar:
From 1990 to 2015, a critical period in which annual emissions grew 60% and cumulative emissions doubled, <despite knowledge of the dangers> we estimate that:
The richest 10% of the world’s population (c.630 million people) were responsible for 52% of the cumulative carbon emissions – depleting the global carbon budget by nearly a third (31%) in those 25 years alone
The poorest 50% (c.3.1 billion people) were responsible for just 7% of cumulative emissions, and used just 4% of the available carbon budget
The richest 1% (c.63 million people) alone were responsible for 15% of cumulative emissions, and 9% of the carbon budget – twice as much as the poorest half of the world’s population
The richest 5% (c.315 million people) were responsible for over a third (37%) of the total growth in emissions, while the total growth in emissions of the richest 1% was three times that of the poorest 50%.
In terms of global wealth, most (but not all) middle class people in the West, and often elsewhere, probably count as in that wealthiest 10-20% of the world population. In other words, almost anyone who is living a comfortable material lifestyle could help reduce emissions directly by cutting their own emissions, and teaming up with others to reduce emissions and eco-destruction in their local areas. The more that wealthier people end excess carbon emissions, then the more the transition is likely to be welcomed by those who are poorer and help boost their sense of agency and participation. The process could become a circular, with one group of people encouraging another and this coming back to encourage the original people. This is part of “just transitions” theory, in which everyone participates, people who loose livelihoods are compensated and few suffer, as opposed to neoliberal transitions theory in which sacrifice is extracted from poorer people.
This means “sustainable behaviour change” is an essential element of any attempt to reach useful climate targets. Social and cultural involvement is vital for success, and we may need to help cultivate a real and accurate sense that this movement is a collective effort to deal with an urgent existential threat. There is a risk that with massively divergent carbon emissions, people might think that their emissions are unimportant, that those at the top are doing nothing, or that it should be someone else who is doing the work.
If poorer people want to emulate the producers of massive pollution then everyone is sunk. If poorer people start to find new (or old ways) ways of organising and looking after the world without destructive lock-in, and assert their authority in the world, then that will absolutely help. While the movement does not have to be led by richer people, and indeed it may be more successful if it is not, wealthier people do have to change as well. We need climate generosity. We need people to start reducing their own emissions without waiting for others, and without waiting for fairness. We need people to organise themselves with others to reduce their emissions, as much as we may need to help wealthier people lower their emissions and eco-destruction.
It is even possible that with leadership from the poor, the wealthier may start to come along. Through the interlinks of complexity, even small local changes to reduce emissions and eco-destruction can be emulated and spread, and have large effects.
[W]e need both individual and systemic change, and the key challenge is to ensure that they reinforce one another”
Wider social action means dealing with the causes of over-consumption of carbon. Which they say includes:
excessive working,…. [and] the bombardment of advertising glamourising frequent air travel, large cars and large houses.
Which really comes down to changing consumerist capitalism, and the pursuit of happiness, contentment, wisdom, love and so on, through earning money and purchasing largely pointless items on a market. We may need to change the economic system, so as to enhance survival, rather than simply carry on defending a system which is not delivering, and not helping that survival. This could involve “embracing ideas of wellbeing and sufficiency” instead of attempts to produce wellbeing through over-consumption. But it can also involve simple measures such as buying less, changing buying patterns, and using any shareholdings to support those who are arguing for an end to corporate destruction of ecologies.
As Ban-Ki Moon says elsewhere:
…our current economic model has been an enabler of catastrophic climate change and equally catastrophic inequality. The COVID-19 pandemic provides an incontestable imperative to rebuild better and place the global economy on a more sustainable, resilient and fairer footing. Addressing the disproportionate carbon emissions from the wealthiest in society must be a key priority as part of this collective commitment.’
The Cambridge report adds the possibility of restricting the availability of high carbon products and services, but recognises that undoing unsustainable behaviours is much harder than preventing unsustainable products from coming to market in the first place (Executive Summary). But if we don’t manage to change our attitudes at the same time, then people are likely to think that they are being restricted, rather than freed, and companies will object because they (and their shareholders) may see themselves as coming to a dreadful end.
This is why there needs to be research into “key points of leverage and traction that bring about shifts of the scale (as well as speed) now required to tackle the climate emergency” (Executive Summary).
On the positive side the report recognises that this movement involves developing new infrastructure to make low-carbon choices easier for poor households, particularly through measures around travel, energy, housing and food.
They further suggest:
Attitude Change:
embracing ideas of wellbeing and sufficiency, rather than consumption as an end in itself
recognising that what works in one place may not work in another, without being caught in the trap of thinking everyone else has to change but not us.
Help people to participate in creative problem solving.
Restrictions:
frequent flyer levies – flying frequently should not be encouraged
bans on selling and promoting SUVs and other high polluting vehicles
dietary shifts away from destructive foods to more sustainable foods
abolishing tax credits for those who pollute and destroy ecologies
Support:
increasing green grants for homes and electric cars
electric public transport and other forms of low-cost electric transport,
community energy schemes,
insulating homes to address energy poverty and reduce emissions.
rewiring the economy [although they don’t mean this, we also need to change and extending the grid]
lowering working hours (redistributing wealth back to producers)
Political Change:
severing ties between polluting and destructive industries and the political system. Perhaps finding a way to prevent politicians from lobbying for big companies after they have finished their political careers
control the process through Citizen Assemblies and democratic engagement – protecting and expanding spaces of social and citizen innovation
Stop subsidies (tax and environmental) for fossil fuels.
Phase out fossil fuel drilling and mining.
Lower ecological damage and pollution of all types.
Support regenerative agriculture.
Restore the oceans, by ceasing over-fishing, bottom trawling, and enforcing world national parks in oceans so fish can come to flourish again.
Help people to recognise complexity, the primacy of functional ecologies and the existence of planetary boundaries.
Be careful with changes in land use, and reduce rates of dispossession of people from their land or traditional land.
Increase the input of citizens into corporate governance.
Revoke neoliberalism.
Recognise the problems of using corporately owned, and corporately sponsored, media to try and promulgate the solutions, and find other ways of communicating, as well.
They conclude:
We need an account of the role of behaviour change that is more political and social, that brings questions of power and social justice to the fore in order to appreciate how questions of responsibility and agency are unevenly distributed within and between societies….
social mobilisation is crucial to pressuring governments and businesses to show leadership and accountability for major decisions that lock-in carbon-intensive behaviours. Examples include the divestment movement and community energy programmes, as well as pressure for pedestrianisation and car-free cities, and against airport <and highway> expansion….
Harnessing… social innovation and mobilisation towards the goal of scaling behaviour change is vital to the success of collective efforts.
The goals of the Paris Agreement… cannot be achieved without radical changes to lifestyles and shifts in behaviour, especially among the wealthiest members of society, and on the part not just of individuals, but all actors in society.
We don’t have to wait for governments and others to act. We can act now, we can act with others, we can try and do local research as to what involves other people, and we can support the change that is happening.
World societies, especially large scale societies, have almost always been global to some extent, with people trading and interacting over most of the globe for a long time. So any kind of modern periodisation is bound to be inaccurate. Think of this post as an experiment, and please offer corrections.
One set of modern periodisations can be described as Colonisation, Post Colonial and Neoliberal:
First Period: Colonisation and Imperialism from about the 16th Century.
In this period, globalisation largely exists in terms of benefit for the coloniser/conqueror, and depends on the relative military strength and fast transport developed in the West, and a ruthless and expansionary politics, brought about by an apparent need to increase access to resources, and a relative peace and stability amongst the dominant groups in European countries (particularly after the mid 17th Century) which helped reduce the internal feudal battles for land.
This form of globalisation involves mass movements of people both forced and relatively voluntary. First there is the collaboration of European merchants and Islamic slavers boosting the African slave trade, at the demand of the Europeans, almost unimaginably and, at a lesser level, Europeans using transported convicts and indentured labour to work ‘new’ conquered lands. Consequently, there is massive dispossession of people from their traditional lands, both in the Europe (particularly the UK with the enclosure movement dispossessing traditional farmers into the cities) and much more harshly in the Americas with the destruction and plunder of South and North American Civilisations. Many of the people dispossessed in Europe moved to the conquered lands, as there seemed only a miserable future at home, and further occupy or steal those lands. Some suggest this era sees the birth of ‘white racism’, as the conquerors needed a justification for the theft, and to prevent conversion of slaves meaning they were now part of Christendom and no longer slaves.
In summary, this period is fueled by violent theft, dispossession, slavery, plunder of gold, silver and land in the Americas, eventually moving on to theft elsewhere such as in Africa, or India, in the latter case, largely through the depredations of the East India Company and the British Government, officially trying to reign in the company. The period ends in the First World War, some suggest because the European powers had run out of planet to despoil, and is largely destroyed by the Second World War.
Second Period: post-Colonialism, post-WWII globalism
This short period is entwined with the ‘Cold War’, ‘developmentalism’, ‘modernisation’, and ‘socialism’ with developmentalism being welcomed on all sides of politics, and begins to come to an end with the oil shock and stagflation in the 1970s. This can also be considered to be the post-colonial period with many places regaining independence, while still being overshadowed by the effects of the previous period.
Basically, throughout the world, the Western US model dominated, even the communist states seemed to think that American life was worthy of emulation. This was the era of ‘scientific management’, which led in some cases to ‘accidental’ disasters such as the ‘green revolution’ or the growing of monocrops with artificial fertilisers, insecticides, and dispossession of small farmers in favour of industrial agriculture. The era consolidates progress towards the contemporary ecological crisis, but at the same raised considerable opposition and popular left wing movements against corporate domination, which had to be stopped before they threatened dominant interests. The new post-colonial states also sought to become a movement independent of the West and the oil shock can be seen as partly about showing the West it did not run everything any more. There were relatively large scale movements of colonised people into the the colonising states, which slowly began to be used to provoke internal tensions, and slow down socialism.
Third Period: The Triumph of Neoliberalism,
During the 1980s, neoliberalism began to become dominant, mostly as a solution to popular radicalism, with a kind of leave-it-to-efficient-markets globalism or the ‘Washington consensus’. However, this consensus was rejected by some successful Asian States such as Singapore. This third stage resulted in the return of financial instability, growing national inequality and increasing power for large scale business. Most places were now trapped in a global market run for business, and held to strict rules of expenditure (especially if they had debt). Sovereignty of small states was precarious because of these rules. Popular socialism was suppressed and effectively died. Mainstream left wing political parties moved to the right, to gain corporate funding. Despite growing knowledge of the ecological and climate crisis and agreements aimed at stopping the destruction, companies and governments continued the practices that boosted destruction and profit.
A left-wing anti-globalist movement developed which was opposed to the corporate and market dominance of the world, and the apparent inability of democratic states to curtail corporate power. This later mutated into the Global Justice Movement, which largely collapsed in the 2000s.
The power of globalism may well have led into a boosting of national social categories as a form of defense mechanism. Fundamentalist Islam became global (partly in response to western warfare in the middle east), as did growing nationalism and purity movements, and right-wing Christian evangelism. Right wing anti-globalisation took off in the 2010s – the popular forms aiming to boost national sovereignty, tighten borders and defend nationalist social categories, in a form of retreat or defense of the home from global pressures. The more elite forms of right wing anti-globalisation take advantage of this movement with the aim of removing any democratic governance of corporations, allocation of responsibility to corporations, remove countries from international agreements and responsibilities (such as preventing US citizens for being tried for war crimes), and to weaken national sovereignty through agreements like the Energy Charter Treaty, except when nationalism acts to get people supporting them.
A significant technological change in this era, building upon colonialism, was speed of transport. At the beginning of the second period, most people still moved across the globe by ship, by the third period, this moved into air transport. Electronic communication began in the second period, but came into popular usage in this period, linking people all over the globe, building new alliances, new conflicts, and furthering both new forms of knowledge and ignorance, while allowing the quick global transfer of money – which fostered new forms of speculative trading, and new forms of financial peril. The speed of transport boosted the likelihood of pandemic explosions, but this was largely held in check until COVID-19.
The era muddied on through completely unnecessary wars such as GW Bush’s war on Iraq – supposedly in response to the 9/11 attacks, and against truly massive popular opposition which was completely ignored. This war did not bring glory as intended, but (as predicted by many) massively destabilised the “Middle East,” as large numbers of people (possibly millions) living in the area were maimed or killed and societies rendered precarious and vulnerable to fundamentalist warfare. The war lost the USA much power and status, as well as costing billions of dollars and distracting from its real challenges. The wars overlapped with the financial crisis, dispossession of US home owners, and the taxpayer rescue of inefficient and corrupt companies, adding further stress and weakness to the USA as well, which helped compound the destabilisation.
We are still in this third phase, but it is changing with the growing dominance of China, and the growing decay of stability and consensus in the US, the apparent running down of the EU with Brexit, and the failure by anyone in the world to deal with Climate Change, Covid or economic instability.
Conclusion
Whatever the violence of the causes, and whatever happens in the future, we are now in a thoroughly global word. Wherever we humans live, we cannot be isolated from what happens in the rest of the world, and so need to pay attention to it, whether we wish to withdraw into our own borders and cultures, as a form of security, or not. The world stands together or falls apart.
As part of the general neoliberal thrust, resources companies, especially oil companies, were worried that that governments might ‘interfere’ in the market and cost them profits. In particular, former colonies might nationalise resources, weaken the companies’ control over these resources, increase royalty demands, or otherwise hurt corporate business models. Decolonization was a risk. The idea was to team up with banks, who would presumably have their income streams threatened if the companies were unable to pay off loans, and construct a international legal regime to protect their interests. Western governments also supported this movement, which helped come into being, but they ‘forgot’ (?) that it could apply to them as well. The eventual solution became known as ‘investor-state dispute settlements’, or ISDS. [1]
Energy Charter Treaty
The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) is one such ISDS treaty. It is:
an international agreement from the mid-1990s. Investor rights apply to 53 countries stretching from Western Europe through Central Asia to Japan, plus the EU and the European Atomic Energy Community. It grants corporations in the energy sector enormous power to sue states at international investment tribunals for billions of dollars, for example, if a government decides to stop new oil or gas pipelines or to phase out coal.
The ECT gives sweeping powers to foreign investors in the energy sector, including the peculiar privilege to directly sue states in international tribunals consisting of three private lawyers, the arbitrators. In these tribunals companies can claim dizzying sums in compensation for government actions that have allegedly damaged their investments, either directly through expropriation or indirectly through regulations of virtually any kind….
This investor-state dispute settlement system – also known under the acronym ISDS – can be used to dispute any action by a nation state that could affect an investment: laws and regulations from parliaments, measures by governments and their agencies, and even court decisions, no matter whether they are taken at the local, regional, or national level. ‘Investment’ is interpreted so broadly that mere shareholders can sue and corporations can claim not just for the money invested, but for future anticipated earnings as well.
The treaty is sometimes defended as it means that States have to continue to support any renewable energy provisions they made to attract investors, but it would also apply to any rules that had encouraged or allowed dangerous or ecologically destructive fossil fuel developments and investments, and this is more likely to be an issue as fossil fuel exploitation has gone on much longer (One Treaty to Rule Them All. p.77).
As Secretary General of the ECT Urban Rusnák has said: “The ECT is technologically neutral…. We have to use the entire variety of energy sources available and the ECT is friendly to all of them.”
This treaty sets up “Investor-state dispute settlement” (ISDS) mechanisms which are common in most ‘free trade’ treaties. Chris Hamby on Buzzfeed (not the most respectable news source) writes of ISDS in general.
An 18-month BuzzFeed News investigation into ISDS for the first time casts a bright light on the use of these threats. Based on reporting from Asia, Africa, Central America, and the US; interviews with more than 200 people; and inspection of tens of thousands of pages of documents, many of which have never before been made public, the series has already exposed how executives accused or convicted of crimes have turned to ISDS to help them get off the hook…. Today’s story reveals how corporations have turned the threat of ISDS legal action into a fearsome weapon, one that all but forces some of the countries where these corporations operate to give in to their demands….
Only companies can bring suit. A country can only defend itself; it cannot sue a company. Arbitrators who decide the cases are often drawn from the ranks of the same highly paid corporate lawyers who argue ISDS cases. These arbitrators have broad authority to interpret the rules however they want, without regard to precedent and with almost no public oversight. Their decisions carry extraordinary power. Often, countries are obligated to obey ISDS judgments as if they came from their own highest courts. And there is no meaningful appeal.
ISDS is so tilted and unpredictable, and the fines the arbitrators can impose are so catastrophically large, that bowing to a company’s demands, however extreme they may be, can look like the prudent choice. Especially for nations struggling to emerge from corrupt dictatorships or to lift their people from decades of poverty, the mere threat of an ISDS claim triggers alarm. A single decision by a panel of three unaccountable, private lawyers, meeting in a conference room on some other continent, could gut national budgets and shake economies to the core.
Any action which might cause a foreign company to lose money is a target of the ISDS.
Executives convicted of crimes in a country can use ISDS mechanisms to intimidate that country.
Companies can sue countries, but countries cannot sue companies.
The justice of the cases is decided by a tribunal of lawyers who use the system to make money by suing countries under ISDS.
These lawyers apparently have the power to decide how the agreements work, and so are likely to oblige fellow lawyers who might be sitting on a case they are participating in, later on.
The fines are punitive, often making it a good strategy to yield when such a case is brought..
The buzzfeed article goes on to detail several cases, which are relevant to mining.
Australian response
The Australian Government remarks that such an agreement does not prevent the Government from:
changing its policies;
regulating in the public interest;
regulating in the interests of the environment;
regulating in the interests of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme or health system.
ISDS does not freeze existing policy settings. ISDS claims must be based on breach of an investment obligation. It is not enough that an investor does not agree with a new policy or that a policy affects its profits.
there has been just one ISDS tribunal hearing against Australia. The dispute was brought by Philip Morris Asia challenging Australia’s tobacco plain packaging legislation. On 18 December 2015, the tribunal issued a unanimous decision agreeing with Australia’s position that the tribunal had no jurisdiction to hear Philip Morris Asia’s claim. More information on this case is available at Tobacco plain packaging – investor-state arbitration.
Perhaps the ECT is one reason why most Australian political parties seem to shy away from any restrictions on gas and coal, and they do not wish to admit there lack of sovereignty, which is usually such a big trigger for them.
A Boon to Fossil Fuel Companies
Paul de Clerck, the economic justice coordinator at Friends of the Earth claimed that:
the treaty was outdated and “a boon to dirty fossil fuel companies”…. “As soon as people hear about this obscure pact undermining the public interest and the fight against climate change, they will be outraged. Either the EU and member states fundamentally revise it, or pull out,”…
Friends of the Earth Europe is one of 260 civil society organisations and trade unions that have warned the ECT is incompatible with climate action because it contains measures to protect energy investments even where they contradict climate goals.
Activists tell us that the treaty has already been used to extract compensation for government action:
The risk is illustrated by Vattenfall’s €4.3 billion lawsuit against Germany over the shut down of two nuclear power plants. The ECT can also be used to put significant pressure on governments to allow new projects which would accelerate climate change and further lock-in fossil fuel dependence. This is illustrated by Rockhopper’s ECT challenge to Italy’s ban on new off-shore oil drilling projects….. as well as ECT litigation threats against laws to put an end to fossil fuel extraction (in France), and to ban the use of coal for electricity production (in the Netherlands)…. Also, When in 2019 the opposition British Labour Party planned to take the energy industry back under public control, arbitration lawyers predicted a “flood of claims” under the ECT and other investment deals. [for the Labour Party see also [1], [2]]
Another telling example comes from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada, and Mexico, which includes investor rights similar to the ECT’s. In 2013 oil and gas company Lone Pine sued Canada under NAFTA for US$118.9 million due to a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing…
TransCanada sued the US for a stunning US$15 billion in damages over the Obama administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would have increased CO2 emissions by up to 110 million tons per year. While the company withdrew the lawsuit when the Trump administration approved the project, it is worth noting legal experts thought that TransCanada had a good chance of winning
foreign investors can bring ISDS cases against states without exhausting local remedies – a privilege exclusive to foreign investors. Further, international arbitrators protect foreign investors’ expectations, but not the expectations of states or local communities. This legal regime also allows oil companies to strike back after local courts find them responsible for environmental degradation, like Chevron did in the Lago Agrio (Ecuador) case. A few weeks ago, Shell did the same thing. It launched an ISDS case against Nigeria after a domestic court ordered the multinational giant to compensate the Ejama-Ebubu community.
Today no other trade and investment agreement has triggered more investor-state lawsuits than the ECT. By October 2020 a total of 134 ECT investor lawsuits were listed on the website of the ECT Secretariat. Both the number of cases and the amount of money at stake for public budgets and taxpayers is on the rise.
Another cause for concern is that the possibility of such action against States, not just from the Energy Charter Treaty but other trade agreements, is now considered a potential corporate asset
The sums awarded in damages are so vast that investment funds have taken notice: corporations’ claims against states are now seen as assets that can be invested in or used as leverage to secure multimillion-dollar loans. Increasingly, companies are using the threat of a lawsuit at the ICSID to exert pressure on governments not to challenge investors’ actions…..
There is no appeals process – only an annulment option that can be used on very limited grounds. If states do not pay up after the decision, their assets are subject to seizure in almost every country in the world (the company can apply to local courts for an enforcement order). While a tribunal cannot force a country to change its laws, or give a company a permit, the risk of massive damages may in some cases be enough to persuade a government to reconsider its actions.
These laws, aimed at protecting companies and investments, help to discourage energy transitions, and recompense the fossil fuel companies for no longer being able to destroy the world.
Looking at the Treaty itself UNFINISHED
The Section of the Treaty most relevant to our consideration is “Article 19: Environmental Aspects”.
each Contracting Party shall strive to minimise in an economically efficient manner harmful Environmental Impacts occurring either within or outside its Area from all operations within the Energy Cycle in its Area, taking proper account of safety.
In doing so each Contracting Party shall act in a Cost-Effective manner.
In its policies and actions each Contracting Party shall strive to take precautionary measures to prevent or minimise environmental degradation.
The Contracting Parties agree that the polluter in the Areas of Contracting Parties, should, in principle, bear the cost of pollution
I’ve complained a bit that Labor’s climate policy seems an incoherent mess. We now have some clarification points from Chris Bowen, on the 14th April? as described in an article in Renew Economy and described on his own website, which seems to be this talk/interview on youtube.
He starts saying “good climate policy is good jobs policy” and that the Government’s policy, driven by a fear of what they call “Negative globalism,” is “a sell out of our national interest.”
Australia is now operating and trading in a mid-century net zero environment. With over 120 countries, and 70% of our trading partners committed, that is just a fact.
Australia is the only developed country not committed to reaching net zero by 2050
This lack of framework will cost Australians jobs <especially if Mathias Corman cannot stop carbon tarifs>. But if we take the rest of the world seriously, then “Deloitte estimates over 250, 000 Australian jobs can be created.”
There are three ways to generate jobs “Energy generation, resources and manufacturing”. Climate change is not, as the government wants to portray it, and austerity measure. <We might note that the Coalition are often keen on austerity, when it affects the lowest income earners>
We don’t need less economic growth.
What we do need to do is cut the cord between economic growth and emissions….
we are going to need to generate a lot more electricity, not less.
We need to electrify our passenger transport, and basically anything else capable of sensibly being transferred to electric power.
He then suggests that the areas which provided Australia with fossil fuels and electricity are the very areas which can take advantage of this situation and export clean energy. We can also export the minerals used in solar generation and battery storage.
To do this they propose $15 billion for a National Reconstruction Fund, and Rewiring the Nation (in partnership with the private sector).
And we’ve just announced a $200 million investment in 400 community batteries around the country, as well as providing tax cuts to incentivise electric vehicles and a commitment to develop Australia’s first electric vehicle strategy.
<So that problem is solved, it exists>
^^^
According to RenewEconomy he also said of the gas led recovery that: “It’s a slogan, it’s not a policy. It’s simply a fraud,… There’s not been one job created, and there won’t be a job created of this alleged gas fired recovery.” He also tried to reassure the gas industry:
Gas will continue to play a role in firming and peeking our grid as we transition to renewable energy. We need to massively increase the storage in our grid through batteries, pumped hydro and hydrogen, which have various levels of development… But that’s going to take time. And there’s varying views are around about how long that will take or indeed what role gas will play as we do that, but that is the role of gas
While Labor saw a continued role for gas, he said he would need to be “very convinced” on the need for taxpayer subsidies for new gas infrastructure.
I think you’ll see a much stronger emphasis from the Labor Party on the economic opportunities of climate change. I refuse to accept this false trade-off that the conservatives peddle at every election that somehow ambitious action on climate change comes at a cost to the economy… We don’t win that argument during an election campaign. We’ve got to win that argument now and every day between the election and including the election campaign
The only targets discussed were 2050 targets.
I could announce wonderful targets for 2030. But unless we have outlined policies underneath it to get there, it’s going to be pretty meaningless. So we need to be doing the roadmap, the strong roadmap, and I am committed to providing that to Australian people before the next election, as well as the policy levers which underpin that roadmap
I don’t know if he said anything about continuing coal exports and opening new mines, which seems so important to their electoral ambitions in the Upper Hunter….
This talk was to people attending an Australia Institute forum. So may be he was tempted to be a bit more explicit than normal, or perhaps he was just speaking to his audience.
In an article predicting a speech by Labor leader Anthony Albanese, The Guardian reports that Albanese ‘will say’:
For more than 20 years, the Liberals and Nationals have rejected scientific advice and chosen to portray the rise of clean energy as a threat to jobs and exports… At their worst, they have deliberately misled Australians, pretending we can ignore change, even as it happens right before our eyes….
He will argue that Australia cannot afford to keep delaying a transition with “huge potential” to create hundreds of thousands of secure, well-paid jobs for “today’s Australians and for future generations.” ““Low-cost renewable electricity looms as the key to unlocking jobs growth for decades to come,” and this will require new grids.
“We have the technology. We have the best natural resources in the world. We have an opportunity to act now to secure a better future for ourselves and our children. We must seize the day.”
The Labor leader will say Australia will continue to export carbon-intensive commodities such as coal “based on global demand” and that the opposition “respects” traditional industries for the jobs they create.
This is better than saying they will expand coal and gas…. but it seems clear that they will help satisfy global demand, rather than get out of the market.
Biofuels have been a major part of the supposed energy transition. They have been the subject of much investment, governmental legislation and subsidy, to make them attractive and sometimes to force consumption.
The fundamental problem is that as biofuels work through burning, they produce greenhouse gas emissions now, and do not lower greenhouse gas emissions (even in theory) until the emissions released in their production are recovered through regrowth, and it is generally much quicker to burn material than to grow it back again. They may never reduce emissions if they do not replace other worse sources of emissions and pollution, rather than being used in addition to fossil fuels, or producing no incentive to lower fossil fuel consumption.
That biofuels fulfil either of these conditions is dubious, but they can also produce systemic problems:
Biofuels may take a lot of energy and land to produce and transport repeatedly to places of consumption, so their EREI could be extremely low while pollution could be high.
Farming, or extracting, these fuels, can: require fertile land and dispossess small holders, forest dwellers, and dependent labour from land (increasing food problems); bring about destruction of old growth forests (increasing CO2 emissions); decrease biodiversity; increase systemic vulnerability to plant disease; and increase price of food by taking land away from food production.
Using genetically modified algae for biofuels could risk ecological damage, if the algae escape.
Using organic waste, usually for the production of biogas, may remove natural fertilisers from the soil, and increase the energy consumed in making replacement chemical fertilisers. It may also lead to the deliberate production of ‘waste’ to fuel the biofuel plant – as with wood chipping.
Using plastics as sources of biofuels, is simply using fossil fuels in a rather complex way.
Harmful, or dubious biofuels may be used to boost the illusion of a progressing renewable energy transition, and take attention away from more beneficial technology.
All of these factors make the ecological and social situation worse.
To solve the ‘burning problem’ people and organisations have proposed using biofuels with Carbon Capture (BECCS), but this assumes carbon capture is feasible and works, and that we can store or use the extracted gas without risk of releasing it. This seems to be largely an argument from fantasy.
This does not mean that all biofuels are useless in all circumstances. There are small scale exceptions when locally made biofuels can be used locally to add power to villages which are not connected to reliable electricity, or who suffer from a lack of traditional fuels, but even then replanting trees, and regenerative agriculture may be necessary as well.
Atmospheric CO2 readings from the 1970s until today.
Yes we have done nothing but make the situation worse in a very short period of time.
A case could be made for a return to the economic levels of the 1980s It would be interesting to know whether the level of economic ‘development’ in Europe in the 80s, if spread throughout the world, using contemporary renewables and so on, would still result in a reasonable level of CO2 in the atmosphere?
19 May 1974: 333.37
13 April 1980: 340.98
08 April 1990: 356.17
09 April 2000: 372.17
11 April 2010: 392.93
09 April 2017: 409.03
15 April 2018: 411.26
14 April 2019: 413.82
12 April 2020: 416.51
11 April 2021: 418.96
Pre-industrial base: estimated 280
Supposed safe level: 350
Increase of about 78 points in 42 years (since 1980). Thats about an increase of 23%.
Neoliberals put faith in the virtues of the market they structure to favour established corporations. They call this “THE market,” or “THE free market” so people may not wonder if markets can be structured in any other way or any significantly different way. The “THE” implies this market is the only type of market there is, the only type possible. So this is one form of ignorance that neoliberals create – there are, and have been, many types of markets and societies in human history. There is no reason we could not have a more egalitarian, less destructive, more sustainable, or effective, market – or even all of these at once…
This particular form of ignorance is fundamental to neoliberal power, and could be said to be cultivated. However, there are other indirect types of ignorance or misinformation that circulate because of neoliberalism.
For example. Let us assume we accept the idea that THE market is the perfect information processor as Hayek and others have argued. Then:
Putting faith in this market as the arbiter of truth means that it is impossible to distinguish hype from reality, other than by success. Truth is what works in the market so, if hype works and produces profit or defers the business collapse of the hypers, then the hype is effectively or ‘pragmatically ‘true’, no matter how much destruction is caused, or how false the statements.
Attempts by humans to gain knowledge are useless, or pointless, as human knowledge cannot contain (or process) the information of THE market, so ignorance is to be valued, other than when it is used to constrain the market. As all knowledge is ignorance, other than knowledge that THE market is the best we can do, then all other knowledge is to be disallowed, especially if it contradicts the perfections of THE market.
If knowledge is pointless. then it is not worth having. Neoliberals truly did not need to know about coronavirus. Neoliberals did not need to know how we have slowed pandemics in the past. Neoliberals did not need to know about the consequences of ecological destruction. Neoliberals do not need to know about Climate Change. Neoliberals do not need to know about poverty, or the condition of the working poor. Indeed Neoliberals need everyone to be as ignorant, or misinformed, on these topics as possible
All neoliberals need to know is that THE market will solve the problem (if it is a problem), if THE market is left alone to do its work, because THE market is the perfect information processor, and human knowledge is beside the point.
That is; if climate change, or the energy system, or the pandemic, is a problem then THE market will fix it, as best it is possible to hope for. If people die, that is not a problem as long as its not the hyper-wealthy.
The idea that THE market always produces the best possible, result is both Neoliberal positive thinking and positive ignorance. You can only think THE market always produces the best possible result, by cultivating ignorance of history.
For example if THE market always delivers, then the answer to any problem with government service is to privatise it. You don’t have to do any research to find out if privatisation has worked well in the past, solved the problems which were alleged, or generated efficiencies; you just know that it must have worked well. In particular you don’t have to do research in to which forms of government provided service have been replaced adequately and which have not.
The ‘perfection of THE market’ is an article of faith, which cannot be contradicted by reality. We have a true ‘Vision of the anointed,’ full of self-congratulation to use Thomas Sowell’s terms. If there was such a contradiction between reality and THE market, then THE market could not be the ultimate decider of human virtue and fate, and powerful people might be disturbed by the actions of less powerful people.
Lack of knowledge amongst ordinary people is truly a good thing, as it stops them interfering with THE market – hence Murdoch and others.
Neoliberal ignorance also depends on cultivating people’s ignorance of the idea that markets are contained within planetary ecosystems.
If anything at all is the ‘perfect information processor,’ then it is the global ecology. Anything which disrupts that ecology is likely to be eventually wiped out as the ecology moves into its new form of chaotic equilibrium – and the wipe out is likely to include THE market.
Ecologies take no notice of human requirements, or human politics, or human power. Especially if the human systems not only cultivate ignorance of the ecologies they depend upon, but attempt to destroy them or subjugate them.
Neoliberalism heads towards the destruction of everything, and celebrates the process, by blocking its ears, eyes, mouth, touch and brains.
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Comment
A friend writes:
How do the neoliberals square this idea of the market as always being the best approach given its failure in the dotcom bubble, and the GFC? They seem like clear counterexamples, and one only needs a single counterexample to disprove a theory.
I think that, in general, people always try and get around counter-examples rather than give up their theory, especially when its tied to their status, money, and ways of making sense of the world. However, I would agree that there seem to be a large number of counter examples as to the efficacy of THE market.
However, neoliberals always say that the crashes were caused by the government interfering with the market.
Given that the market has to have some regulation and that capitalists always seek to regulate for their own sectional benefit, they can always point to the existence of some regulation. A market which gives massively unequal wealth gives massively unequal power, and hence THE market is always structured by politics. Consequently, given the ease of blaming the government, rather than the corporately controlled market and government, they are never at a loss for a way out of the problem.
As well, the corporately owned and sponsored media tends not to blame the neoliberal, pro-corporate market for the problems of that market, and the counter examples can get hidden.
Australia made two big experiments in turning over government to private enterprise and they nearly resulted in the collapse of Victoria and West Australia.
In the post A New Report on the possibility of Renewable Transition, I discussed the politics of the way the Australian National Energy Market was being designed (and restricted) to maintain reliability, stability and security, and whether fossil fuels were a necessary part of that design. One of the main players in the process was the Energy Security Board.
Another main player is the government. As the reader probably knows the government is in favour of massive investment in methane gas, which is probably not that economic, and will just lock us into high levels of methane emissions, but their plan for the electricity market seems to be centered on keeping gas going.
Methane, Methane and more Methane
Angus Taylor, the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, has made the backing of methane, very clear. He said:
The Government backs the gas industry, backs Australians who use gas and it backs the 850,000 Australians who rely on gas for a job. The manufacturing sector alone relies on gas for over 40 per cent of its energy needs.
Gas is a critical enabler of Australia’s economy. It supports our manufacturing sector, is an essential input in the production of plastics for PPE and fertiliser for food production.
In 2019, we overtook Qatar to be the largest LNG exporter in the world, with an export value of $49 billion.
No mention that Australia received less than $2 billion in royalties from these sales between 2016 and 2018 under the petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT), whereas Qatar is estimated to have received $26 billion in royalties. In 2019, tax credits for oil and gas companies, taking Australian fossil fuels rose to $324 billion – that is there is $324 billion in tax the companies owe but do not have to pay [1], [2], [3]. I guess the idea is that taxpayers have to subsidise mining, and they have to keep methane gas going.
Taylor continues:
This Government will secure a future gas market that is attractive for gas development and investment. This will allow us to remain one of the top LNG exporters.
We will ensure that long-term domestic gas contract prices are internationally competitive to support our manufacturing and industrial sector.
We will ensure that there is sufficient new gas generation to maintain a reliable grid.
We have proven through the Snowy project at Kurri Kurri that the Morrison Government doesn’t bluff.
Our National Gas Infrastructure Plan will identify the major priorities for investment. If we don’t see the investment that we need to keep our gas market strong then we will act.
It is terrible when fossil fuels shut down, and the government will threaten to build methane gas powered energy, if other people will not.
ANGUS TAYLOR: What’s very clear is in the last few years, there hasn’t been enough investment in dispatchable generation [this means fossil fuels, even though coal is not ‘dispatchable’ because it is slow to ramp up or down], at the same time as we’ve seen big closures like we saw at Hazelwood in Victoria a couple of years back. So it’s that dispatchable generation, making sure there’s enough of that in the system is where it’s gone awry. Now, you know, we’re now saying to the big energy companies, if you don’t invest in that dispatchable generation, we will do it ourselves. That’s exactly what we’ve said we’ll do in the Hunter Valley at Kurri Kurri [with methane gas]. But it is true, there hasn’t been enough of that investment. Now, there has been some and it is increasing. I opened a gas generator in South Australia, for instance, around a year ago, which was has made a real difference in the South Australian grid. Helped to drive down prices, increased reliability [presumably unlike the batteries?]. But we need to see more of that. And if the private sector doesn’t do it, we’ll step in. That’s exactly what we said we’ll do in the Hunter Valley.
The government argues that the closure of the Liddell power station…
will leave NSW 1000 megawatts short of electricity. Others dispute this, including the agencies tasked with regulating and maintaining the energy system: the Australian Energy Market Operator and the Energy Security Board.
KERRY SCHOTT, CHAIR, ENERGY SECURITY BOARD: The operator AEMO who keeps a close watch on the availability and what they need in the system, has said that there’s a gap when Liddell goes in 2023 of about 200 megawatts or so.
This is a fair difference, and this perhaps sets the ESB, the AEMO and the government on a collision course.
Last night the ABC program, 4 corners, reported that:
Four Corners understands the federal government became so frustrated with the Energy Security Board chief’s refusal to support their position on gas that the minister’s departmental secretary called Kerry Schott and urged her to resign.
KERRY SCHOTT, CHAIR, ENERGY SECURITY BOARD: It was a private discussion
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN, REPORTER: Right, so there was pressure on you though?
KERRY SCHOTT, CHAIR, ENERGY SECURITY BOARD: Oh, there’s always pressure on me.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN, REPORTER: Why did your head of department call Kerry Schott and suggest she resign?
ANGUS TAYLOR, FEDERAL ENERGY MINISTER: Well, he didn’t. So I reject that, absolutely. But what I will say is that there was an independent review of the ESB that proposed and recommended the abolition of the ESB. Obviously, there was discussion about how best to respond to that recommendation. We’ve ultimately made the decision we want to support the ESB to completing the 2025 market design work. This is a crucial piece of work about the future of our electricity grid. And we strongly supported Kerry to lead that work.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN, REPORTER: Four Corners has also been told that last year the minister personally intervened to try to pressure the head of the Australian Energy Market Operator to change its forecasts, which were unfavourable to gas.
AEMO boss Audrey Zibelman refused to do so.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN, REPORTER: AEMO’s Integrated Systems Plan published in July last year also makes a clear case that if gas is going to compete with batteries in electricity generation, the price will need to be well below $4 gigajoule by 2030 and beyond. And that battery charging costs would need to stop falling. Now, why did you feel it necessary to try to pressure Audrey Zibelman to change those conclusions?
ANGUS TAYLOR, FEDERAL ENERGY MINISTER: Well, look at the end of the day, there has to be a balance in the system and gas is part of that balance. Batteries can play a particular role over shorter durations, particularly in that period when you’ve got destabilization of the grid, we’ve seen batteries play an enormously important role, but the longer duration storage or the longer duration backup overnight or during periods when we’re getting less sunshine or wind, we actually need a source of energy … Can I just, is that me? Sorry, mate. I have no choice.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN, REPORTER: The bells signaled a parliamentary vote and cut our interview with the Minister short.
The ESB’s Market Design Options Paper has now been handed to Angus Taylor. RenewEconomy comments:
there is serious concern about the lack of transparency in this process and [for] the creation of a new [market] structure that leaves Taylor in apparent sole arbiter of the process, acting for a government which has been opposed to wind and solar and which has mocked new technologies such as big batteries.
MATT KEAN, NSW ENERGY MINISTER: Let’s get the facts on the table: using gas to create electricity is a really expensive way to do it. If you’re interested in driving down electricity prices, then you’d be mad to use gas….
The cheapest way to now deliver electricity or energy, is a combination of wind, solar, pumped hydro, and renewable technologies. So it’s not fossil fuels, it’s now cleaner energy. Those people defending old technologies are the equivalent of defending Blockbuster in a Netflix world.
DAN VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN, SA ENERGY MINISTER: We’ll use less and less gas over the time. We have four grid-scale batteries operating at the moment in South Australia, we have two more already established to, started construction, and we’ll get more and more of those.
And that methane gas might be replaced with hydrogen
DAN VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN We in South Australia actually have the largest hydrogen electrolyzer in the nation operating at the moment in Tonsley, in the Southern suburbs of Adelaide. It’s actually a relatively small one at 1.25 megawatts, but it’s the largest in Australia. We are right at the leading edge of that, and it’s all operating from renewable energy. So we are determined to deliver, well, we’re determined to produce, and to consume, and to export green hydrogen in South Australia.
Another view on whether methane gas is useful for leading recovery
A Grattan Institute report argues that:
Far from fuelling the recovery from the COVID recession, natural gas will inevitably decline as an energy source for industry and homes in Australia…
The east coast has already burned most of its low-cost gas, and will not go back to the good old days of low prices…
Even if the Government could significantly reduce gas prices, the benefits to manufacturing are overstated. The companies that would benefit most contribute only about 0.1 per cent of gross domestic product, and employ only a little more than 10,000 people. And much of this gas-intensive industry is in Western Australia, which has low gas prices already.
a ‘backstop’ for the power system – used for relatively short bursts to maintain reliability…, [but this] contrasts strongly with the idea of gas as a ‘transition fuel’…
This [backstop] role doesn’t need lots of gas or cheap gas, but it does require flexible gas. The Federal Government’s recently announced policies focus on supporting new gas production and pipelines…., but these require relatively constant gas demand to keep average costs as low as possible
moving to a system with 70 per cent renewable energy – and closing about two-thirds of today’s coal-fired power plants – would not materially increase the cost of power but would dramatically reduce emissions….
The economic modelling suggests that moving to a system with 90 per cent renewable energy – and no coal – could also be reliable. But some additional costs – such as more generation, transmission, and storage – would be necessary to ensure supply…
Gas is likely to play the critical backup role, though not an expanded role. Australia will make a gas-supported transition to a net-zero emissions electricity system – but not a ‘gas-led recovery’ from the COVID recession.
The determination to force more methane gas on to Australia, to counter predicted declines, is probably the reason that Angus Taylor has been so hostile to the idea that the electricity grid needs modernising and expanding, to deal with the energy transition and the kinds of ‘solar traffic jams‘ we have discussed before.
The Australian Energy Market Operator’s offered a 20-year blueprint, known as the ‘Integrated System Plan’ (ISP) and the Labor party pledged $20 billion to modernise the grid to support the the plan [2].
Taylor tweeted that:
The ISP had been recommended by the Finkel Review and endorsed by all governments at the Coag Energy Council which Taylor chairs.
AEMO has made it clear that these upgrades are essential to modernise the grid, and improve reliability and security, with the happy bonus that it will cut emissions and keep down prices.
So it seems clear the government, at this moment, do not want the grid improved so that the transition can work better. This may be because they don’t want to do anything to help further the decrease of fossil fuels, because they don’t to risk public money on something constructive, or they just don’t believe there is a climate problem and we can keep on with fossil fuels endlessly.
Conclusion
The question then is whether politics can hamper and disrupt supposed ‘economic reality’. I’d argue it can. It has mainly been politics that has delayed response to climate change, and which makes it hard to expect that we can now solve the problem before facing major disruption, and that has continually involved weirding markets to favour the old ways.
Cross Cultural Christian theologian Raimon Panikkar makes what seems like an important point in dealing with complexity and in producing peace.
He suggests that people conditioned by Modern Life, or Western consciousness or culture, can run away from both reality and wider eco-systems in order to live and participate in their societies. These societies are hostile to ecologies and to humans because they seem to seek complete domination and control over the ‘world and events’, rather than accept the dynamics of ‘world and events’ and work with them. People in these societies seek security through that sense of domination, and through the assurance that any disruption of required order will be temporary.
Climate turmoil is particularly threatening because it undermines that sense of domination and the sense of security which has grown around the idea of controlling the world. It clearly states we do not have control, and that the control we do have is going to lead to disaster. Hence, what I’ve called the Existential Crisis of Climate Change.
Complexity thinking is also a challenge, as recognising the real complexity of social and ecological systems also threatens that sense of security and control, as we can then perceive that our best-intentioned, and most understood, actions are likely to provoke unintended consequences.
If we place ourselves in a continual rush, without regard to likely futures, and the trajectories from the past, it becomes easier to suppress the trauma provoked by awareness of climate failure and complexity, and to carry on destroying the world without facing deliberation or awareness. Society helps generate that rush through work, and distracts us from anything ongoingly important by daily scandal, or the emergency of the moment – often without putting the emergency into historical context, so it is just another overwhelming event (hopefully happening to others). This does not produce peace. Indeed this society apparently requires upset and strife.
Panikkar’s solution is simple, but perhaps difficult to practice, and resembles what I understand of Daddiri.
Panikkar emphasises the importance slowing down, and of cultivating a receptive attitude, rather than a dominating attitude, when working with life and complexity – and everything is complex.
Receptive in this case means accepting what is happening and allowing the dynamics of what is happening to be present, while:
Not attempting complete control over, or complete security in, the situation.
Not running away; because accepting does not make things worse, it only increases awareness of how bad things are, and allows us to face the fears undermining us,
Not trying to change what is there immediately – giving it, and yourself, space to be,
Suspending attempts at total understanding, as they are not possible,
Being ok with normal ignorance, but learning what you can,
Not isolating the present completely from previous experiences, but not dominating it with previous experiences, it is both unique and continuous with other experiences.
His idea is to start with maximal awareness of what is – including perhaps awareness of death – and then to proceed gently without force, and with flow, while still being receptive to events as they occur whether expected or not.
This process encourages us to retain our memories and experience, while giving us context for understanding, and making change. In this way we can acknowledge and mourn our losses (anticipated or otherwise), honour the value of what is lost, or may be lost, and bring what might be the future into our present consideration.
It would be interesting to know whether the level of economic ‘development’ in Europe in the 80s, if spread throughout the world, using contemporary renewables and so on, would still result in a reasonable level of CO2 in the atmosphere?
Climate, technology and chaos Blog 