Al Gore has been telling all the young people, and well, all of us, really, to protest, in public, to make a downright law-unabiding nuisance of ourselves :-

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/114717-al-gore-calls-for-us-protests-on-climate-change-inaction

“Gore calls for major protests on government’s climate change inaction…In a post on his personal blog headlined “The Movement We Need”…”

Well, it won’t work to call people out onto the street. Most people are too busy credit-crunching, wage-slaving or favour-scraping to be able to commit to a short-term, potentially self-defeating public display of annoyance, frustration and shrill demands.

And if people do come out to the big protests, it won’t achieve much. News reports can be swept into the trash. Activists can be swept into holding facilities. Politicians can conveniently ignore anything that isn’t violent.

Drop the loud-hailers and home-made placards, I say, and do something more…focussed.

The Climate Camp want to target the Royal Bank of Scotland for financing Coal power plants and Tar Sands oil projects, which are very bad things to be doing, and smacks of huge corporate irresponsibility, considering the bank is largely owned by the British taxpayer, and I say, if you can’t make the camp (and I can’t for reasons which I shall not go into just now), do something about money in other ways instead.

What’s your money doing ? Which oppressive regimes in oil-rich countries is it supporting ? Which Fossil Fuel companies trashing your Environment do your bank support ? Why not switch your money to an ethical financial organisation ? Why don’t we all try to do this at the same time ? “Crowd-banking” could have an impact, you never know until you try.

Let’s pick, say, Monday 23rd August 2010. And let’s all spend our way out of Climageddon together on that day. Transfer your money to an ethical bank, or pledge to do so. Phone your bank and tell them you’re leaving for a sustainable bank.

Other actions possibly useful :-

1. Refuse to buy Fossil Fuels for a day.

2. Refuse to use any hot water for one day (most hot water is produced by burning Fossil Fuels). It’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere – come on – a cool shower won’t hurt you.

3. Don’t spend any money on anything that had Petroleum-based plastic or Natural Gas-based chemicals in its production – which would rule out 85% of non-food purchases, I reckon.

4. If you’re working for a company or an organisation who have anything to do with the Energy industry, make a point of asking your boss, or their boss, or the Chief Executive or something what the company/organisation intends to do about moving the whole business to Renewable Energy.

5. One short telephone call could have you moving from burning Coal for your home electricity to a Green Energy account.

This is not a riot – but it is an emergency, and the response should match the scale of the problem.

Our Climate – Not for Sale.

Bloody Oil from Felix Gonzales on Vimeo.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100025341/climategate-mad-sunday/

I have been rubbing my chin and hmmming quietly to myself, as I to try to understand it, and I think I might have a thread of an idea : money, or rather, the use of money…

Here is a short, very polite enquiry note I have written to him using his online contact form :-

http://jamesdelingpole.com/contact/

Dear James,

I am researching a short article on the possible relationships between financial investments and politics in the Media.

It occurs to me that not only do journalists follow the whims and wiles of their editors, who follow the foibles and fetishes of those who own their media vehicle, and those who advertise in their media; but that journalists may have personal investments, in say, pension funds, estates or businesses that may affect their public pronouncements.

Would you, James Delingpole, be prepared to go on the record about where you keep your money ?

Would you be willing to say publicly whose pension fund(s) you are relying on, and which kind of investments you are prepared to accept in making returns on that capital ?

Is your money ethically invested ? Do you take into account the risks and opportunities of fluctuating conditions when you decide your investments ? Do you follow future projections when making your financial decisions ?

Would you be willing to declare your interests in business and your professional associations ?

Would you be ready to admit which investments you have made, in order that I may ascertain whether this might influence your attitudes and opinions ?

You have the privilege of a very wide readership, and thus an influential platform from which to lead opinion, and so I feel it is important to discover whether your professed political positioning may relate to how you use your money.

Can you, hand on honest heart, declare that your writing is independent of your money, and that your politics is free from the influence of your investments ?

Inquisitively yours,

Phone your leader : http://bit.ly/6PNXMq

Sign the Greenpeace Petition : http://bit.ly/5k9aDj

Sign the Avaaz Petition : http://bit.ly/5sUuf1

There’s one thing we know : the Earth does not compromise. Politicians might think that they can compromise with the Science; and worse still, the Climate Change Deniers might think that they can compromise the public mind, but in the end the Data will have the final say.

One day, the fringe, radical opinion will be called upon by those at the centre of the debate. Not a debate about whether the climate is changing or not, but the negotiations about who will do what.

Some currently argue that the West was won (and the North) by the immoral earnings from the deep South (and the far East) : the industrialised countries have accrued their wealth on the basis of historical and continuing exploitation of the systems of trade and finance, to garner to their store all the material resource riches of the whole world.

This historical inequality, this chute of nature, taking food, minerals, fuels sliding Northwards and Westwards : for this the rich should pay : Carbon rights should not be “grandfathered” : the rich should not assume they have the free right to continue polluting as they have in the past. The rich should pay up on their historical debt.

Personally, I’m not convinced. Not by the argument on how the rich became rich and richer still. That documentation of historical fact is, indeed, fact. The West and North have the Rest of the World (ROW) to thank for their prosperity, and want to keep the same wealth-accumulation machine running.

The industrialised countries love the sound of spending money – throw money at the poorest countries in the name of “technology transfer” and watch the money come back to Western and Northern companies who take the clean technology to the ROW. Development was ever thus, in agriculture, machines, medicines.

What I’m not convinced by is this : that the industrialised countries can politically afford to spend the kind of money that will make a real difference. The public hand is on the tiller/rudder when it comes to money. The public can vote. They like a little charity, giving in the name of. But they don’t like radical economic adjustment. They will question how the money is spent. They will demand reparation. They will moan, whinge, groan, gripe, complain and make obstruction.

World leaders have arrived at Copenhagen with their fists stuffed full of printed paper money. But some of it is drawn from already-pledged commitments on Aid and Development. Some of it is vapourware : the money will never arrive.

Money is like mud, in a slide : it pours out of the waterlogged lake that bursts a bank, where it looks quite impressive, but spreads out so thinly over the surrounding area that it has no long-term effect (unless you happen to live directly under the lake wall).

Money is murky, like mud : it doesn’t always end up with the right people, and it doesn’t always pay for the things it should.

Money is a minefield : you can always spend more and still never root out the problem.

For the problem is this : Climate Change is already bringing measurable harm to several poor regions of the world, and yet they are still in debt to the rich regions of the world. Any money given by the rich countries to the poor countries for Adaptation to the detrimental effects of Climate Change, the alleviation of the damage, will only put the poor countries back in the same position as before : unable to develop because of the imbalanced trading arrangements and the leeching debts.

What are these debts ? For what purpose were they given ? Why are they still being repaid ?

Throwing money at Climate Change cannot cure the underlying scourge of odious debt.

Several years ago, early into the new Millenium, I read a summary of the figures, and it shocked me, truly :-

20 years ago, the Global South owed 600 billion Euros. In the last 20 years, the Global South has repaid 4,000 billion Euros on that debt. Today, the Global South still needs to repay 2,350 billion Euros.

Yes, some debt has been cancelled, theoretically, since then. But why is the Global North still demanding the repayment on any of these loans ?

Money will not solve Climate Change problems for the Global South, while there is still this kind of Debt.

Money will not make the Copenhagen Treaty “meaty”.

The only thing that will pull the Copenhagen Treaty into shape is real and serious commitment to cuts in Carbon Emissions.

In my view, everyone should stop bickering and balloting about money and start pledging to reduce pollution.

Zero Carbon or bust.

The original plan was to have all Carbon Allowances auctioned as of 2013. That won’t be happening now.

There will be more Carbon Dioxide floating away into the skies. And less revenues from the sale of Carbon Permits to finance Carbon Capture and Storage (which was part of the original plan).

Energy supply and Carbon-intensive industry : protected once again from serious change over Global Warming.

Who, exactly, is responsible for allowing these compromises to get through European legislation ?

Let’s face the dirty truth : money pollutes. Money-making activities pollute the atmosphere. Profit-making organisations have undue influence over policy. Money cannot control Carbon.

What we need is Contraction and Convergence, a system of fair and proportional, contracting allocations of the safety Carbon Budget.

http://www.stopclimatechange.net/index.php?id=26&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=769&tx_ttnews[backPid]=2&cHash=2909e1f6b3

04.11.09

Industry set for carbon cash-in, as EP environment committee majority agrees on ‘carbon leakage’ sectors

The European Parliament environment committee decided not to object to a proposal by the European Commission, which would lead to serious exemptions for non-power sector industries under the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS) from 2013 on.

A majority of MEPs on the ENVI committee voted against a proposed objection (1) to the draft European Commission decision. The Commission decision qualifies industries accounting for around 77% of emissions outside the power sector under the ETS as being exposed to significant risk of ‘carbon leakage’ – i.e. relocation to other countries where CO2 emissions would rise as a consequence. This makes these sectors eligible for 100% free allocation of emissions allowances from 2013. The decision is now set to enter into force, following the failure of the EP to object.

Green MEP and environment committee member Satu Hassi commented:

“It is seriously regrettable that a majority of MEPs in the environment committee have bowed to the pressure from polluting industries to grant them major exemptions in the EU’s emissions trading scheme. The result – handing out emissions permits to these industries entirely free of charge – flies in the face of the fundamental principle of emissions trading as it either nullifies the carbon price signal on the market or generates windfall profits for the biggest polluters. It also sends a negative message to the UN climate talks ahead of the Copenhagen summit.

“By establishing such an extensive list of sectors deemed to be exposed to significant risk of carbon leakage, the Commission is effectively renouncing the move of moving towards auctioning manufacturing industry allowances in the EU emissions trading scheme. ”

Dutch Green MEP and environment committee member Bas Eickhout added:

“As a concept, carbon leakage assumes that production outside EU is less carbon efficient, which is not always the case. The Commission decision is in clear conflict with the legislation on the ETS. It fails to implement the full criteria stated in the Directive, which require third country commitments and carbon efficiency to be taken into account in the assessment.

“The timing is particularly unfortunate. This long list of sectors to exclude from auctioning has been drawn up under the assumption that no global deal will be reached in Copenhagen. Once again, the EU has failed to improve the chances of concluding an international agreement in Copenhagen that will be consistent with limiting global warming below 2 degrees Celsius.”

Notes to editors:

(1) The proposal to reject the draft Commission decision was rejected in a vote by the EP environment committee with 19 votes in favour, 39 against, 1 abstention.