If you’re not doing very much else on 15th July 2009, why not take a look at the Shell Dialogue, asking the question : “can technology reduce Carbon Dioxide emissions ?”.
https://www.shelldialogues.com
https://www.shelldialogues.com/technologiesforco2
You can submit your questions in person to Jan van der Eijk, the Chief Technology Officer at Shell.
There are times in conversation when you know, you just know, that it’s going nowhere, and that you’ll have to fold. Cue lame excuses, mumbling into beard/beer/brassiere, lower eyes, get up and walk away. “It’s not you, it’s me”, you’ll claim, or something similarly limp, obvious and contrite.
So many times in the last six and a half years since I read the British Government’s Energy White Paper of February 2003, I’ve had to bow out of conversations with employees and fans of the Big Energy companies and the World Nuclear Association and some people from the Government as well.
This is possibly going to be Renewable Energy’s biggest week ever in UK history.
And we’re going to need all the Wind Power we can get to meet Ed Miliband’s lofty ambition.
At the Oscars and the BAFTAS and so on, the winners, always bleary, always blubbing, always drunk, always start with an “I’d like to thank” speech, offering genuine (or coerced) gratitude very publicly to those who collaborated (or financed) their venture : “you made it all possible”.
In true TV award ceremony style, the British Government, plus “Special Adjunct” Tony Blair, in amongst their good work pursuing Energy Efficiency and True Renewables, appear to be virtually obliged to mention the Energy and Climate “solutions” of their closest lobbyists and corporate allies, or even relatives, in the case of Gordon Brown’s brother Andrew’s company Electricité de France :-
Remember the American Space Program ?
Very large sums of public tax money have been ploughed into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration over the years, peaking in 1966 :-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget
OK, it gave us the Moon landings and Teflon (TM), but just recently, I don’t see much in terms of really, really new things.
What’s happened to the innovation ?
News just in of some sloppy UK Government photoshopping leading to a serious lack of public confidence and some mild humour :-
Yes, Big Ben’s Clock Tower appears to be leaning to the right (or from Ed Miliband’s point of view, to the left).
[ UPDATE : See the end of this post for proof positive of image modification ]
Despite the fact that there are only about five (and dropping) Climate Change “sceptics” in the British Parliament; and despite the fact that all major scientific and academic bodies, institutions and societies all declare their support for cuts in Global Warming pollution; the Media are still galumphing about in the murky mud of the 1980s in terms of public psychology.
It is essential that there is meaningful debate in the public realm about what Climate Change is doing to our world, and how we can control emissions and work to protect against damaging outcomes.
The evidence is all around us. And gradually, increasing numbers of people are adjusting their mental aerials to tune into the greater ideas and the bigger picture. What we don’t need just now are obfuscation and turbulence and gleeful mischievous wreckers.
The “Standard Fossil Fuel” Peak, that of Coal, Petroleum Oil and Natural Gas, is probably within 10 years.
We really have to avoid “Alternatives”, like Tar Sands, Oil Shale…or we could create Climate Crisis in another 10 years.
When BP branded themselves “Beyond Petroleum”, when Shell expanded its Renewables division briefly, we thought it was Greenwash, we thought it was about a bit of token Renewable Energy…but I think they might be serious – about “Alternative” Energy resources that would be way, way more Carbon-intensive than Coal.
It’s not something David Rutledge at CalTech has factored in, I think. He used to be talking about keeping Coal in the ground, but now he’s more optimistic that standard Fossil Fuels will not bring us to Climate catastrophe…
Just because we’ve reached the summit doesn’t mean the mountain’s about to disappear. But we have to recognise that, from now on, things are going to be heading in a sinking and falling away direction.
Some will fear and shake, as the Earth seems to slip away under their feet. Some will have psychological tremours as they have to adjust their world views extremely radically, and rather rapidly.
Heaven knows what Aubrey Meyer must feel like some days.
For every ounce of frustration I feel about the sloth-like pace of the international Climate negotiations, he must feel a pound of nerve-wrecking agitational sweating stress.
The United States of America has been trumpeting its progressive politics again this week, asserting itself as the world’s Climate Change leader at the G8 talks in L’Aquila in Italy.
Received by e-mail
Dear Friend,
Again, could you circulate this as widely as possible, especially to people in London and on the South Coast. Apologies for cross posting.
If you possibly can, please join a rally to save the Vestas wind turbine plant, this Saturday 11 July 2009, 12 noon, St James Square, Newport, Isle of Wight (outside Millets)
PDFs OF LEAFLETS, POSTERS AND PETITION SHEETS AVAILABLE BY EMAILING INFO@CAMPAIGNCC.ORG
[ UPDATE : Things look more interesting that when I first wrote this. Changes are bolded. ]
Looks like the Copenhagen treaty deal thingy is doomed :-
Nicholas Stern, and other more bog standard Economists, all seem to believe in the magical power of Innovation. He writes about it in a reverential way in his book “A Blueprint for a Safer Planet”.
Innovation : gleaming, sparkling, wondrous dexterity : if there’s a buck to be made from shaving a saving, or fishing for an efficiency, it is assumed the holy Market Economy will be in there, innovating away.
Or that’s what Economists believe anyway, wholeheartedly, generally, generously, neo-liberally.
A number of organisations have been gathering round some key concepts to promote for the upcoming Copenhagen Treaty make-or-break Climate Change talks in December.
Ambitious. Fair. Binding. Effective. All those meaty, emotionally positive values.
But a Binding treaty – that could turn out to be worse than a nuisance – if that Binding treaty means we lock ourselves into funding expensive mega construction projects like new Nuclear Power and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).
As a bright-eyed Gospel-touting young person from a God-fearing Bible-bashing breast-beating Protestant Evangelical Christian family, one-time members of a troubled sect, I was drawn to the victim narrative of the Aid and Development agencies. Those poor people in those dirt-poor countries with their cripplingly poor lifestyles.
I needed to be a Campaigner, I reasoned. I needed to tell the World, make some converts to the Poverty and Development cause, draw some attention, create some devotion, raise some cash, raise some banners, wave some placards, get some pledges signed.
Not realising that this kind of missionary zeal marked me out as a complete lunatic, I applied to a Famous Development Agency for a job. I was interviewed but ditched, probably because I had wild eyes, and wouldn’t stop spouting fundamentalist claptrap.
This last year has seen a fine crop of fake Climate Change activist newspapers.
First it was the turn of the Yes Men (and others) with their 4th July 2009 New York Times newspaper circulated on 12th November 2008 in New York City.
I’ve been considering becoming a student again. “Retrain to gain”, they say, and I need to do something to justify a change in career path.
Here’s the course I’ve been considering : a Masters Degree in Science in Climate Change Management :-
Some simple analysis of the Carbon Dioxide emissions in the UK leads to several pertinent conclusions :-
I strongly agree with one central theme from Nicholas Stern’s analysis of how to tackle Climate Change.
In his book “A Blueprint for a Safer Planet”, he argues in depth that Climate Change Adaptation strategies for countries in the Global South must be combined with those strategies to beat Poverty and encourage Development.
Ah yes, time to pack up your trusty, dusty suitcase and head for the beach.
I hope you’re not thinking of flying.
And I trust you’ll take with you the Synthesis Report from the Copenhagen Climate Change science conference that took place between 10th to 12th March 2009 :-
https://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/files/synthesis-report-web.pdf
At the Climate Change campaign meeting on Saturday, “Six Months to Copenhagen”, hosted by the Fabian Society in London, Ed Miliband said some things I find astonishing admissions.
The Climate Change Committee, after having looked into the matter of Carbon Budgets on Carbon Emissions Reductions for the United Kingdom, made recommendations for our national targets :-
https://hmccc.s3.amazonaws.com/pdfs/LaunchPressRelease01.12.08.pdf
In the hallway supping on orange juice and ice, I turned off the Sky Eternal Non-News on a fat, loud TV because I saw someone standing in front of it in a hynotic trance. He complained, but didn’t demand the show turned back on. Thankfully that provided the quiet for us all to talk some to each other and read a little.
I mustn’t be too hard on the man, he’s just become a father. And he is most congenial, friendly and well-motivated in his heart-felt engagement with Climate Change.
But seriously, if he really wanted to engage the people in the room, he would have been more careful not to be so dismissive of the magician outside the front door who was trying to show everyone very theatrically that Carbon Trading doesn’t work.
As usual at these events, I bumped into a couple of political activists of various flavours and persuasions at the Fabian Society conference “Six Months to Copenhagen”, today, held in the faded-yet-still-grand setting of the Foreign Press Association, just off The Mall in London.
[ The Mall is the street that links Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace. It’s not a shopping centre ].
There’s news from the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) quarter.
A whole bunch of Aid and Development, charity, Third Sector and green groups got together today and were instilled with their responsibility to “hold politicians’ feet to the fire” by Ed Miliband, who just happens to be a politician.
Not just any old politician, no. Only the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in the United Kingdom.