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May 2007 Archives

May 1, 2007 - Starting out

It is with some trepidation that I find myself posting my first entry on a blog all of my own, given that I am rather less of an enthusiast for all things virtual and electronic than almost all of my colleagues at Forum for the Future and the Sustainable Development Commission.

But trepidation is mixed with anticipation – there are so many juicy SD-related issues buzzing around at the moment. The increased coverage and interest is just great, but an awful lot of it does seem to be more than a little bit flaky – and not uncontroversial. And there is nothing I like more than mixing it on those controversies!

Posted on May 1, 2007 9:35 AM | | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

May 2, 2007 - Flights of fancy?

If Jeremy Clarkson is my number 1 unsustainable bete-noir, then Michael O’Leary (Ryan Air) runs in pretty close. He is just so full of it – unsustainability, that is.

So imagine my sense of near panic as I find myself feeling vaguely supportive of some of the things he has been saying lately. Not the ignorant, belligerent denial about climate change, nor the astonishing assumption that everybody has a god-given right to fly anywhere in the world at the lowest possible price regardless of the impact on anyone else. But he has got a point about another aspect of the debate: today’s new strain of deeply unattractive eco-Puritanism about flying, where even so much as thinking about getting on a plane is castigated as a heinous crime against human kind, against all future generations, and against amphibians the world over heading towards extinction.

I hate to admit it, but I think it may just be that we are beginning to get this a little out of proportion. If the received line from now on is a 100% “no-flying” as the proper way to behave in a carbon-constrained world, missing out completely on “less flying” or avoiding flying wherever possible, then won’t we be just pissing off an awful lot of people who are just beginning to get to grips with this new insight into their own carbon footprints?

Posted on May 2, 2007 9:36 AM | | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

May 3, 2007 - Arnie's at it again!

The “Governator” has just regaled his Californian subjects with an illuminating insight into how to make sustainability work for all those cigar-chomping, beef-eating real men nervous about being seen as a wuss for wearing their green heart on their sleeve. Whatever else you do, don’t trade in your SUV or Hummer for one of those “puny” little Prius’s, just get them converted to run on biofuels and hydrogen.

He was quoted in last week’s News Week as follows: “God bless you if you like your little cars, but the real trick is to create engines that do not emit greenhouse gases. Take hydrogen. Total elimination. So you can 'pimp out' a dump truck”.

So now we know.

Posted on May 3, 2007 9:41 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

May 15, 2007 - Vancouver

Four days in Vancouver, courtesy of Alcan and Simon Fraser University. Such a good city. 750,000 people (so not exactly a big city), lots of water and mountains all around. Made one feel pretty good about urban living.

Came in on the back end of a bit of a shock, in that the Premier of British Columbia (deeply conservative, apparently, bordering on neo-con even) has suddenly “got” climate change. Very ambitious new targets on energy efficiency and climate change, “inclusive approach”, long term vision and so on.

It made me wonder how we might mass-produce these epiphanies. They seem to arrive so arbitrarily at the moment. Decades in denial, then a chance encounter with reality. And guess who provided the reality on this occasion? No less an Evangelist than Arnie Schwarzenegger himself – he of Hummer fame again. With his own unique brand of muscular environmentalism, full of scorn for boring environmentalists (“like prohibitionists at a fraternity party”), seeking to redefine sustainability in terms of passion for life rather than guilt. He has got a good point there, I have to admit. Sadly, Arnie is said to have given up on converting George Bush. Even the Governator has his limits.

Posted on May 15, 2007 4:50 PM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

May 17, 2007 - Population: boom and bust

Absolutely love the new campaign from the Optimum Population Trust: (PDF) do your bit for addressing climate change by having fewer children – or even no children.

The lifetime CO2 emissions of a UK citizen amount to 750 tonnes (the equivalent - apparently -of 620 return flights between London and New York), so the extra 10 million by which our population will rise between now and 2074 will, over their lifetimes, emit around 7½ billion tonnes of CO2.

I can’t recall any environmental or climate change organization ever suggesting that “births averted” is probably the most single most substantial and cost-effective intervention that governments could be using. Just to give another example, the Chinese government calculates that since the introduction of the One Child Family Policy in the early 80s, at least 400 million births have been averted.

Each Chinese citizen today emits an average of 3.5 tonnes of CO2 every year. Multiply the one (400 million) by the other (3.5 tonnes per annum), and you get a figure of 1.4 billion tonnes of CO2 per annum. By a million miles, that’s the biggest single CO2 abatement achievement since Kyoto came into force – a fact that George Bush conveniently forgets when he whinges on about Kyoto being useless because China doesn’t have the same target as the United States.

Mind you, everybody else ignores that too, including the vast majority of environmentalists. So, is this the very first time where George Bush and the whole of the environment movement are of exactly the same mind?

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Posted on May 17, 2007 8:03 PM | | Comments (32) | TrackBacks (0)

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