David Mitchell Curbs Enthusiasm

PLEASE IGNORE THE ADVERTISEMENT AT THE START OF THIS VIDEO. Video Credit : The Guardian

It’s great to see David Mitchell tucking into a big bite of the “Voluntary Behaviour Change” posse’s pie.

Let’s be honest : nobody wants to stop consuming and burning, but we’re going to have to if the Big Energy companies don’t change the way they provide us with power and fuel.

Yes, guilt is so old-fashioned. You can’t tell the public to change their consumption behaviour, trying to make them feel personally responsible for Climate Change, whilst still providing them with environmentally damaging products.

All electricity should be Renewable, all heating systems Carbon-neutral, all manufactured products Low Carbon.

Until that day, governments will continue to hire Public Relations consultants to convince the public to make different choices, and continue to fail to make any converts.

Nightmare on Easy Street

Every now and again, some well-meaning, or even lightheartedly jokey relative or friend lets me know I should calm down with the story of the risk of Climate catastrophe as it’s (a) not effective; (b) not necessary or (c) way off the end of the scale. Apparently I’m crying wolf, but there’s not even a messy puppy in the neighbourhood.

There are two narratives at work here. One is that people don’t like being preached too (neither do I), and they feel that the sum total of Climate Change communications amounts to somebody high up the authority chain telling them to change their behaviour, somehow making the common man (and woman) responsible for a problem that should actually be fixed by the governments, who have the power (or large companies and international corporations, who have the financial resources).

The moral of nearly every cultural telling of the Climate Change story is “ten things you can do to make a difference”, and a lot of people feel it will mean shivering in the dark with no car and more tax. People are so not into self-sacrifice and abstention from consumerism, and they react badly, even to the extent of skin rashes, to the fear of micromanaged austerity being thrust upon them.

But that’s not why I talk about Climate Change.

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Meltdown Himalaya

In all the uproar about the typographical error, and poor research citation, about terminally melting Himalayan glaciers in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, the facts have been overlooked.

Indian Scientists are reporting that Himalayan glaciers lost 16% in the last 50 years :-

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/global-warming/Himalayan-glaciers-shrank-16-in-50-yrs-Isro/articleshow/5733386.cms

““Investigations on glacial retreat were estimated for 1,317 glaciers in 10 sub-basins from 1962. This has shown an overall reduction in glacial area from 5,866 sqkm to 4,921 sqkm since 1962, showing an overall de-glaciation of 16%”, says the latest annual report of Isro. Snow cover monitoring of all basin has been completed, it said. Atlases for three years are ready and one for the fourth year is being prepared. Modeling response of Himalayan cryosphere to climate change has been initiated, Isro added. Meanwhile, a study on the impact of temperature and carbon dioxide (CO2) rise on the productivity of the four major cereal food crops — wheat, rice, maize and pearl millet — revealed that yield of all of them showed reduction with increasing temperature…”

Now, I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty serious, and should merit a barrel-load of news articles. People still need to be made aware that melting snow and ice pack around the world is a serious and permanent problem.

And they might just be bothered to care if they realise that Global Warming can affect their own future food and water supplies.

Curry and Rice

The Royal Statistical Society publishes a truly readable magazine called “Significance”, and until today I hadn’t realised it’s available online.

The front cover of the March 2010 Volume 7 Issue 1 edition shows an artist’s mock-up of severe drought and the headline question is “After Copenhagen : What can be done ?”

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Leave Africa Alone

Today’s news is that the pastoral life in Africa is sustainable, even with a certain amount of Climate Change :-

http://www.iied.org/climate-change/key-issues/drylands/african-livestock-can-triumph-face-climate-change

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Little Chicken

Now’s the right time to talk about gardening. Not just any old gardening, no. I mean food gardening, urban farming, home cropping, edible landscape-type gardening.

Now is the time to be thinking about enriching your soil for your next bumper harvest.

Get your resilience genes working !

http://www.londonwaste.co.uk/media/Compost%20Bag%20Leaflet_May09.pdf

OR

http://www.islington.gov.uk/Environment/RubbishAndRecycling/recycling_new/hrrc/compost_offer_HRRC.asp

Get into Transition mode !

In Transition 1.0 from Transition Towns on Vimeo.

Copenhagen : “Meaningful Agreement”

As the world leaders start to slip away back to the airport, some commentators are hailing a “meaningful agreement” has been reached at the Copenhagen United Nations Climate Change talks. Others say that no deal of any significant kind has been struck.

Reaction from the Developing countries is general dismay. The Non-Governmental Organisations, “civil society”, feel they have been blocked from taking part. It’s been a complete shambles.

The time has come to start spelling out the future in graphic, technical detail – not just about the damages that Climate Change will bring – but about the only real solutions.

Real solutions do not include Carbon Trading, nor Carbon Taxation. They don’t include technofixes and technofudges like Carbon Capture and Storage and New Nuclear Power. They certainly don’t include partial commitment on Avoided Deforestation.

We have to say it and say it again : whether the leaders and corporations agree or not, the future is Carbon Emissions Reductions. The Consumer Economy is being eroded by the minute. Peak Oil, Coal, Natural Gas and Uranium are just around the corner.

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Stop Consuming For Christmas

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10617

I know a couple of people who are not eating because of Climate Change.

It’s not that their country is experiencing drought, flood, famine, storm, trade disruption, economic seizure or war.

It’s because they believe in Climate Justice.

We have consumed, and we will be consumed.

All our Fossil Fuel burning and plunder from the forests and intensive agriculture has eaten up the Earth’s ability to maintain its cool.

The sky will rain down disaster, plague, heatwaves, hurricanes. The sea will rise up and drown our cities.

We have eaten too much, and now it is time to stop.

Just in time for Christmas.

http://www.buynothingday.co.uk

What Would Jesus Buy ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGi21YQFjMM

Rights. Fair shares. It’s time for a Global Carbon Budget.

Tesco Town : Electric Democracy

My, my, what a splendidly entertaining and lively Planning Committee meeting was held at the Walthamstow Town Hall yesterday evening.

The juggernaut of Tesco met the clamouring masses of the people of Hale End and Highams Park head on, and it wasn’t a walkover.

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Big Dry : Global Drought Update

Global Warming comes home.

It’s not the Polar Bears in a remote, formerly ice-locked location that I’m talking about. It’s the humans, in previously luscious fertile parts, now facing extraordinary and continuing drought.

Let’s do a quick review of some global human habitat locations and see how much good quality rain is no longer falling. Oh yes, there are sometimes storms, hurricanes, typhoons and flash floods, but this is “bad water”, running straight off the parched un-absorbing un-receptive land straight back into the waterways.

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Sharing Energy

At our best, we humans, when faced with crisis, we club together and act collectively. We invent new shared ways of doing, being and providing for ourselves. We pay attention to the needs of others. We give. We receive. We share. We eat together.
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Choose Life : Climate Change and the Ten Commandments

Towards the end of the Torah of Moses, in the last chapters of the book of Deuteronomy, we get a hymn to the Law of God, a kind of musical rendition of the Ten Commandments (see Deuteronomy 27 and compare to Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5).
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