Ed Miliband, leader of the British Labour Party, addressed the pre-party conference cameras in uncustomary casual attire, shelving his favourite suit, dazzlingly shiny tie and white shirt, you know, the one with the fat turned-over cuffs.
He sought to assure the nation that his one man mission is to relieve the financial pressure on the hardworking “squeezed middle” – fighting their corner against the profiteering railway companies and the moneygrabbing energy companies.
The little snippet of BBC TV News 24 that I saw cut to the correspondent raising doubts about whether this cost-of-living protection strategy would have any impact on the wider economy – whether measures to control transport fares and energy bills would create economic growth.
What does this little word “growth” mean to the BBC TV reporter, I asked myself. Does he think it means increasing employment, increasing incomes ? And how could employment be increased ? By increasing the “consumption” of goods, energy, water, transportation and knowledge economy services ? And how can this “aggregate demand” consumption be increased, if unemployment remains high and incomes remain stagnant ?
Allowing the utility and transportation companies to raise their prices allows them to remain profitable and build their businesses, presumably creating employment as well as giving a return to investors – those who have their savings in pension funds – where the fund managers invest in energy and transport. Why not allow energy and transport prices to rise ? People can learn to spend more on these valuable services, surely ? Pensioners will have their funds protected, and energy and transport businesses will stay profitable, paying tax into the state.
While everybody’s busy discussing ethics in the media, today’s been a great day to bury bad news – the shelving of the Energy Bill – and with it the Green Deal, the only hope Britain had left of economic recovery in the short-term.
And what of the Electricity Market Reform white paper and the National Policy Statements on energy ? Into the round wastepaper-bin-shaped recycling receptacle, possibly.
What next ? The revocation of the Climate Change Act and the dissolution of the Committee on Climate Change ?
I don’t know whether I should make overt political statements, but I think this news sugar ices the brioche, so I will : David Cameron’s “greenest government ever” has failed.
Hmmm. That’s a piece from a new generation of Nordhaus-es, Hannah, writing for the Breakthrough Institute, founded by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, authors of “The Death of Environmentalism“, a document I truly regret wasting the paper to print. As I read it, I started scratching hot red comments in the margins, so many, that in the end the pages were more red than black-and-white.
Hannah’s piece, like her book, “The Beekeeper’s Lament“, is more delicate and considered, I think, but still shreds decades of environmental thought and much science, without any justification in my view.
She writes, “…very quickly, many journalists settled on neonicotinoids — pesticides that are applied to more than 140 different crops — as the likely culprit. It seemed a familiar story of human greed and
shortsightedness. With their callous disregard for nature, big chemical companies and big agriculture were killing the bees — and threatening our own survival. The honey bee’s recent problems have occasioned a similar rush to judgment. Before any studies had been conducted on the causes of CCD, three books and countless articles came out touting pesticides as the malady’s cause. Had I been able to turn a book around quickly, I might have leapt to the same conclusions. But I was late to the party, and as more studies came out and I came to better understand the science, I became less and less convinced that pesticides provided a convincing explanation for beekeepers’ losses…”
Her argument appears to be that pesticides are bad for other pollinators, not bees; but that this makes life harder for the bees, who then have to do all that pollination instead :-
“In steps John Miller, a boundingly energetic and charismatic beekeeper, who tasks himself with the care and the sustainable keeping of honeybees. He is descended from America’s first migratory beekeeper, N.E. Miller, who, at the beginning of the 20th century, transported thousands of hives from one crop to another, working the Idahoan clover in summer and the Californian almonds in winter. Back then beekeepers used to pay farmers to keep a few dozen hives on their land. But now farmers pay beekeepers millions of dollars to have their crops pollinated by upwards of ten thousand hives. With the rise of the monocrop and increasingly efficient pesticides, there are simply not enough natural pollinators to complete the massive task of sexing-up millions of acres of almond groves.”
This kind of writing seems to me like a lot of anti-green writing, where a straw man is set up, only to bow down and worship it. The central framework of fallacy appears to be :-
a. Environmentalists are zealous, and therefore crazy.
b. They believe pesticides are dangerous to bees.
c. They must be wrong, and pesticides can’t be all that bad for bees.
Let’s just read a little around that idea, shall we ? Let’s start with Wikipedia, just to make it easy :-
“For the majority of pesticides that are registered in the United States, EPA only requires a short-term contact toxicity test on adult honeybees. In some cases, the agency also receives short-term oral toxicity tests, which are required in Europe. EPA’s testing requirements do not account for sub-lethal effects to bees or effects on brood or larvae. Their testing requirements are also not designed to determine effects in bees from exposure to systemic pesticides. With Colony Collapse Disorder, whole hive tests in the field are needed in order to determine the effects of a pesticide on bee colonies. To date, there are very few scientifically valid whole hive studies that can be used to determine the effects of pesticides on bee colonies.”
Actually, it’s not just “mad environmentalists” who are concerned about the effect of pesticides on honeybees. Here’s just one scholarly paper :-
What has this got to do with Climate Change. I can hear you asking ?
Well, it’s like this – in order to do intensive farming, agricultural chemicals are used on crops. Specialised herbicides, pesticides and fungicides are used on genetically modified crops, along with chemical fertilisers.
In order to convince people to accept Genetically Modified food, they’ve got to be encouraged to believe that pesticides, herbicides and fungicides are really alright.
Hence, pesticides cannot be fingered as a problem for bees, otherwise people might not accept GM crops…
Yes, it’s coming back round to tampering with our food genes. And it’s being sold to us as a cure for Climate Change.
At the bottom of this page there’s a transcript of a snippet from a television programme I was unlucky and incensed enough to have viewed yesterday. Called “The Wonder of Weeds”, it took us through the basic logic of modern-day plant breeding, including the role for genetic modification of plants – without once mentioning the words “life sciences”, “bioengineering”, “biotechnology” or even “genetic modification”.
The GM crops are presented as being the saviour of humanity, without once mentioning why conditions in the world may be damaging crops in new ways in the future, a lot of which will be due to climate change.
There was the usual category error – of confusing science with technology. Let’s repeat that one again. Technology is when you play with the genes of a crucial staple crop like wheat. Science is when you discover, maybe 25 years later, that it has had knock-on effects in the food chain. Oh dear. Too late for remorse – the genetically modified genome is now globally distributed.
The presenter of the programme, Chris Collins, didn’t even spot the cognitive dissonance of his own script. In the first part of the programme he talks about common weeds that are foreign invaders in the UK and cause untold trouble. In the second part of the programme he doesn’t even blink when he talks about modifying crops at the genetic level – not questioning that introducing foreign genes into vital crops might have detrimental, unforeseen impacts – rather like a microscopic version of the imported “plant pariahs”, Buddleia davidii, Rhododendron ponticum and Japanese knotweed. Oh yes, Oxford Ragwort, another introduction to the UK, is not such a hazard, but you can’t guarantee what happens when you get plant invaders.
I find it astonishing that such obvious propaganda on behalf of corporate plans to modify crops for their own private market profit is allowed into BBC television programming.
Climate Change is being used as the Trojan Horse rationale in which to bring GM crops to the UK, and elsewhere, as part of international agricultural development programmes. This is the ideological equivalent of a rogue gene inserted into the DNA of science. I find this an outrage.
I recommend you check the work of GM Freeze to counter this braintwisting manipulation.
And if you want a little bit more of an insider on what Dr Alison Smith, featured in the BBC show, is actually doing with her amazing knowledge of plants – it seems her work encompasses improving the production of alcoholic beverages, not feeding the world. I kid you not :-
https://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/news-events/news/2011/110615-pr-improved-crops-food-security.html
“Glucosidase inhibitors: new approaches to malting efficiency : Alison Smith, John Innes Centre : Improving the efficiency with which barley grain is converted into beer and whisky would reduce waste and energy consumption in the brewing industry, as well as ensuring profitability. This project aims to improve the efficiency of malting, the first stage in beer and whisky production, by building on new discoveries about how barley grains convert starch to sugars when they germinate.”
What is the BBSRC ? This is a research programme that’s “infested” with corporate people – whose agenda is money-making, not philanthropy.
And what’s genetic modification of crops got to do with Mark Lynas ? Well, just read his new book, “The God Species“, and you’ll find out.
The plain fact in my view is that we do not need genetically modified crops in Europe. In Africa, they’re too poor to afford the chemicals to use with the GM seeds. And in the not-too-distant future, the price of the chemicals will shoot up because of Peak Oil and Peak Natural Gas, making GM crops inaccessible to those North Americans who currently use it. So this particular technology takes us nowhere forward at all. We need to manage water and the root causes of poverty rather than tamper with genes.
“Travelling around the UK and meeting experts in botanical history, genetics, pharmaceuticals and wild food, Chris Collins tells the story behind the plants most people call weeds.”
45 minutes 20 seconds
…And the massive irony of all this is that the very crop that has become a monoculture at the expense of weeds, wheat, was once a weed itself…
Plant scientist Professor Nick Harberd of Oxford University has researched the moment a weed became wheat.
Nick : “About half a million years ago, there was spontaneously, in the wild, nothing to do with human beings, a cross-hybridisation, a cross-pollination if you like, between two wild grass species…”
“…So one can imagine that humans were cultivating this wheat [10,000 to 12,000 years ago] in a field and then by chance a weed was growing within that field. And there was again a spontaneous hydridisation event beteen the cultivated wheat and this wild grass that was growing in that imaginary field.”
“The whole process made a plant that was bigger and more vigorous. And as a result of this we ended up with the wheat crop we all grow and feed off today.”
Nick can exactly recreate exactly how wheat and weeds crossbred in a lab today…
47 minutes 40 seconds
Weeds helped us out millenia ago and now scientists in the 21st Century have turned to weeds once again for one of the most important discoveries in plant biology ever.
It could save lives by creating a super wheat.
It all took place here, at the John Innes Institute in Norwich.
Alison : “So come on in Chris. You need to sterilise your feet here…”
Chris : “So this means we’re not bringing in anything nasty from outside…”
Alison : “That’s right. No thrips or viruses or anything else that might come in.”
Dr Alison Smith is head of Metabolic Biology here.
Chris : “This is the first time I’ve ever dressed up to go and see a weed.”
Alison : “We look after our weeds very carefully here.”
Alison’s team have been studying a small common weed called Arabidopsis [thaliana] or Thale Cress, which is now used as the model to map the DNA of all plants on the planet.
Alison : “Well this weed is incredibly easy for us to work on. And all plant scientists almost in the world take information from this weed. And many plant scientists only work on this little weed.”
“The reason why it’s really useful is that like a lot of weeds it goes from seed to seed really quickly, so we can get through lots and lots of generations, and that makes it easy for us to do genetic studies to understand how the weed behaves and what all of its genes are doing.”
“But also, about 20 years ago, plant scientists got together. And at that time they were working on lots and lots of different plants. And they decided, let’s work on one plant together that can become the model from which we can develop our understanding of plants.”
“So about the same time as we were sequencing the human genome, we started to sequence the genome of this little weed. So in 2000 we got the entire gene sequence of this weed, all of the genes are known, the same time as we understood the human genome.”
Chris : “So really then, this small weed is a blueprint for all plants ?”
Alison : “This is the model for all plant life, that’s right.”
But the sequencing of the Arabidopsis genome is not just for the sake of it. Alison and her 600 colleagues are unlocking the secrets of the plant’s success, like its speedy growth rate and its hardiness, and are transfering those abilities to the crops that matter to us, like wheat.
This is one of the most important discoveries in plant biology ever, where one of the humblest weeds could save millions of lives around the world.
Chris : “Now we’ve seen our magic weed and you’ve got this genetic blueprint. How do you take that blueprint and apply it to arable crops like this wheat ?”
Alison : “Well we can start to tackle, using this blueprint, some of the real problems that we have with our crops like disease, for example. Our crops are quite susceptible to some diseases. We’ve been able to breed for that, but we haven’t known what genes we’re breeding for.”
“In Arabidopsis, Arabidopsis gets diseases as well, we can understand exactly how it’s resistant to those diseases. We know what genes it needs. And we can say right, where are those genes in wheat ? Can we make sure that our new wheats have the genes that make them resistant to disease ?”
“Another example would be how the wheat exactly makes its seeds. Obviously, this is the really important bit of wheat. This is what we eat. This is human food. We understand a bit about the process of about how these little seeds are formed, but in Arabidopsis we understand in absolute molecular detail how those seeds are made, and that helps us to understand how we make to make better seeds, bigger seeds, more nutritious seeds in wheat. We can apply that knowlege in wheat.”
Well, I know scientists don’t like to be too dramatic, but I’m going to be, because of simply what I’ve found out. Weeds can play a big role in arable crops like wheat, or even maybe the future of humanity.
Alison : “I think it was the starting point for what has to be a revolution in our crops, a revolution in understanding how they work and making them work better and doing that fast.”
“It’s taken our ancestors, you know, millenia, to get to this point. We can’t afford to take the next step in millenia. We have to take it in tens of years or less. And in order to do that, you’re absolutely right, the information from Arabidopsis has been the key to pushing us forward.”
It’s the resilience of weeds and the insights they give us into helping crops survive that makes them amongst the most useful plants on the planet…
The design of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change “Energy Infrastructure” website shows what appears to be an robotic, alien figure in a green and pleasant land under a wind turbine. It must be a trick of the light, but I’m sure you can see the join between its head and its body, and added to that, there’s an unearthly glow around its helmet :-
But what intrigues me more than the choice of photographs to adorn this website, and the curious, 1940’s style graphic of an electricity pylon used as a logo, is the mention of the recent permission granted to an CCGT/OCGT power station planning proposal at RWE npower Willington C in Derbyshire :-
“On 24 September 2010 the Company formally requested if section 36 consent was granted that it could be on the basis of a phased development, that is the construction of the open cycle gas turbine generating station, followed by the combined cycle gas turbine generating station once development consent for the natural gas pipeline had been obtained. The Company has explained that the open cycle turbines can be operated on distillate oil and would be used only for periods to meet peak demand or in response to intermittency in renewable generation”
But I’m asking myself, has no progress been made in energy policy ? Are we going to carry on burning oil refinery residue at times of peak demand ? The people and many of the Parliamentarians have shown their resistance to new coal-fired power stations, and there does appear to be a moratorium on new coal, kind of. But do people realise that some of the new “peaker plants” that are believed to be necessary will be burning fuel oil ? You see, Willington C is not alone :-
“In June 2011 we announced that we are investigating the possibility of developing a new distillate oil-fired open cycle gas turbine (OCGT) plant at our Fawley site. For more information about the proposals…” :-
So you see, people, if you refuse wind farms, you get Civil Service non-engineers agreeing RWE npower can carry on burning toxic oil refinery waste to provide your electricity. Great choice, Britain !
From the consistent and unrelenting rise in global carbon dioxide emissions, you would never have guessed that there’d been a downturn. But that’s because energy is cheap, and easily substitutes for economic production, labour and resources – within limits.
Fiona Harvey has gathered and presents some astonishing admissions from various key speakers on the issue of emissions, ahead of the annual mid-year United Nations climate change talks in Bonn :-
“Worst ever carbon emissions leave climate on the brink : Exclusive: Record rise, despite recession, means 2C target almost out of reach : Fiona Harvey, Environment correspondent, guardian.co.uk, Sunday 29 May 2011 : Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency. The shock rise means the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius – which scientists say is the threshold for potentially “dangerous climate change” – is likely to be just “a nice Utopia”, according to Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA. It also shows the most serious global recession for 80 years has had only a minimal effect on emissions, contrary to some predictions…”
Many news articles now follow a predictable path. Some awe-inspiring, statistics-shaking weather event hits town – in the case of Joplin, literally. Then some people muse about whether these extreme events could have anything to do with Global Warming. Then some other people smother the idea very publicly. “No one weather event can be attributed to Climate Change !”, they insist, and yes, in the grand scheme of things they’re right – you cannot say for certain that one freak tornado, hurricane, flood or storm can be cast iron guaranteed to have been caused by atmospheric heating and increased sky water vapour. There is No Connection, official, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief and donate to a worthy clean-up cause.
[ 02 JUNE 2011 : THIS POST HAS ALWAYS AND WILL ALWAYS FULLY RESPECT BP COMPANY CONFIDENTIALITY, AND HAS NOT AND WILL NOT INCLUDE THE REPRODUCED TEXT CONTENT OF E-MAILS FROM BP, ARISING FROM AN E-MAIL EXCHANGE WTIH JOABBESS.COM. NOTWITHSTANDING THIS CLEAR ATTEMPT ON THE PART OF JOABBESS.COM TO CONSERVE THE FULNESS AND THE ESSENCE OF COMPANY CONDIENTIALITY, IT HAS BEEN DRAWN TO THE ATTENTION OF JOABBESS.COM THAT EVEN JUST MENTIONING THE NAME OF THE CORRESPONDENT AND THE DATES OF THE EXCHANGE MAY TECHNICALLY CONSTITUTE A BREACH OF BP COMPANY CONFIDENTIALITY. SO, TO ENSURE THAT NO ACCUSATION OR COMPLAINT OF BREACH OF COMPANY CONFIDENTIALITY COULD EVER BE MADE, AND TO ENSURE THE PROTECTION OF THE CORRESPONDENT, THE NAME OF THE CORRESPONDENT AND THE DATES OF THE EXCHANGE HAVE BEEN REDACTED AND REMOVED AS OF TODAY. IT CAN STILL BE DEDUCED FROM THIS POST THAT AN E-MAIL EXCHANGE TOOK PLACE. THAT FACT, I THINK, IS NOT COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL, ALTHOUGH I EXPECT BP ARE WITHIN THEIR RIGHTS TO TELL ME IF THEY BELIEVE OTHERWISE, AND OPEN UP A PERSON TO PERSON CONVERSATION ABOUT THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION. THEY KNOW MY TELEPHONE NUMBER. IT’S AT THE TOP OF THE POST. WHERE IT’S ALWAYS BEEN. ]
From: jo abbess
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, BP
Date: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Dear XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,
Thank you for your time on the phone earlier this week.
Last year in February, I was part of a small group of students that were grateful to have the benefit of an interview with XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX at BP, then XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.
I am taking my research into the energy sector further for my MSc dissertation, and I would be grateful if I could have an interview with somebody in an engineering department who has an overview of the energy sector.
It doesn’t need to be a face to face interview, as I am quite willing to telephone people. It only needs to be 20 minutes in duration.
I have prepared a short list of open questions that I am considering would be suitable for my enquiry into the future of energy resources and technologies (see below).
I hope that you can point me in the direction of somebody within BP who would like to offer their thoughts.
Thank you.
…
Questions with a UK focus
1. What do you think have been the best developments in the energy sector in the last 20 years ?
(What do you think are the most significant developments in the energy sector in the last 20 years ?)
2. What positive or negative changes in energy production and supply will take place over the next 2 decades ?
(What do you think will be the most important developments in the energy sector in the next 20 years ?)
3. Which energy resources and technologies look the most troubled ?
4. Which energy resources and technologies look the most promising ?
5. Does the UK face an energy supply gap ? Can we keep the lights on ?
From: jo abbess
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Date: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx
Hi XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,
Thank you for your helpful reply.
What I am trying to achieve is a real conversation with somebody within BP who has a general overview of the energy industry – sadly, the annual Statistical Review and company report do not answer the scoping questions I have.
I am offering an opportunity for BP to voice a vision, on record, of how the company intend to navigate future change, using parameters that are not generally the basis of shareholder reports.
I am sure that somebody in the organisation has a view on the onset of Peak Oil and Peak Natural Gas – from conventional resources, and that there must be aims and objectives for BP to manage this issue.
I am convinced that BP has planned for a range of policy scenarios concerning climate change – both mitigation and adaptation measures.
I am also sure that somebody in BP has a plan for navigating political problems, such as the probability of continued unrest in the Middle East, with the accompanying likelihood of compromised oil and gas production.
In addition, I am sure that somebody from BP can speak on the company’s behalf about how it will deal with the threats of economic turbulence and still be able to meet the needs of shareholders.
Some sample questions that could take in part of this landscape :-
1. Do you think that we are heading for a period of global energy insecurity ? What are the factors that could cause this ? What are the timelines ? Who are the key players ?
2. What is aiding or blocking the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy ? What technologies look promising ? What technologies are stuck in the lab ?
3.. How do you think we will manage the transition to clean energy ? How will the economic actors be able to diversify out of fossil fuels and still retain balance in the world markets – and not disappoint their investors ?
4. Do you think that people generally are aware of the issues of energy security ?
It would be excellent if you could find somebody to speak to these or similar questions in a short interview with me. I can do interviews by telephone at very low cost, and I would e-mail the transcript for verification before using in my research report.
My central question is “are we ready for energy change ?” – major transition in the resourcing and use of energy – and I am seeking a full range of opinion on that question.
If you could point me towards somebody who is willing and able to speak for 20 minutes on the phone on energy security issues, I would be highly grateful.
They’ve never had it so cold. The British have just shivered through another long, centrally heated winter, and people are receiving enormous gas bills. Social campaigners and parliamentarians are rightly concerned that a clutch of harsher winters and risingenergy costs could reverse gains made in tackling fuel poverty. The UK Government’s recent Budget announcement to reduce fuel poverty assistance payments is another blow to maintaining decent and warm homes for the vulnerable, the elderly and children. Proposals to cap the amount that energy companies can charge people in their bills is welcomed by some, but feared by others – as it could jeopardise energy company funding for the Green Deal – a free-to-the-consumer loan scheme for insulation and renewable energy installation. And there’s another problem waiting in the wings. Unlike the United States and Australia, the average British home doesn’t have air conditioning, and it costs real money to install it. If outsized summer heatwaves continue to pop up more frequently in Europe, UK households will face “cool poverty” in summer – a lack of cooling.
“Draft of national climate change policy finalised : Noor Aftab : Monday, February 21, 2011 : Islamabad : The draft of National Climate Change Policy has been finalised after two years of deliberations and now the Environment Ministry would present it to the federal cabinet for final approval, the sources told The News here on Sunday. The sources said the recommendations in the draft would certainly test the government’s commitment as it has been proposed to go for alternative energy resources instead of using fossil fuel, considered one of the major reasons for environmental degradation. The sources said the draft recommendations prepared by a core group of the Environment Ministry mainly focuses on two areas including adaptation and mitigation with an aim to enable the country to cope with fast increasing environmental challenges. One of the top officials of the Environment Ministry told this correspondent that continuity of casual approach towards environmental sector has now made economic managers and policy makers feel the heat as environmental degradation has started costing five per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in Pakistan…”
“Sunday, February 20, 2011 : UK to keep helping Pakistan’s flood victims: Sayeeda Warsi : LAHORE: Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a British cabinet minister of Pakistani-origin, said on Saturday that the United Kingdom would continue supporting Pakistan in the post-flood operations. “Today I have been heartened to see and hear how the UK is helping millions of people in Pakistan rebuild their lives, but there is much more to do, with widespread malnutrition and the risk of disease outbreaks,” Warsi said while talking to reporters in Islamabad. The primary purpose of Warsi’s visit to Pakistan is to learn how the country is recovering, what more needs to be done, and to see how more than Rs 27.7 billion from British people is supporting the flood victims. “When I was here exactly six months ago in August at the peak of the floods with the UK International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell I saw scenes of devastation,” the British lawmaker recalled. She said that some areas of Sindh were still under water, adding that reconstruction of millions of houses, bridges and schools that were destroyed would take years…”
Making some very basic first order assumptions about liquid transport fuels, it becomes clear that a choke or tipping point will occur at around 2030.
The majority of the world’s road transport, and air and ocean-going freight will still be using liquid fuels, and the overwhelming majority of these will be hydrocarbons.
Around about 2030, a quarter of the world’s liquid transport fuel supplies will have evaporated, barring some miraculous new discoveries.
Even with some of the world’s Natural Gas and Coal supplies converted to liquid fuels, this point will still be reached at around the same time.
The world systems of trade will be severely affected, and that includes food imports and exports.
Chart Credit : Jo Abbess
The next breaking point will come in around 2040 (after Natural Gas has peaked on 2030) when BioMethane can no longer top up supply.
The depletion decline will be rapid.
This will affect electricity supplies and agricultural chemicals most of all. People will be able to get by without so much heating or hot water.
However, if a significant number of vehicles are running on compressed methane gas, they would be competing with food supplies.
Chart Credit : Jo Abbess
The generation of electricity could become the thing that tips the system back again – if the solar revolution kicks off seriously in around 2040.
However, for this to work, a lot of transport will need to become electric, as will space heating in homes and offices. Plus, increasing amounts of methane gases will have to be reserved for agricultural purposes, unless we can convert the entire world to organic farming.
The world would have the most juice in the wires it will ever have in around 2060 – the right kind of decade for building everything we need to make our future totally renewable.
Note : pessimistic assumptions have been made about the amount of Carbon Capture and Storage that can be developed, given that coal consumption is very high. Pessimistic assumptions have also been made about nuclear power, as fuel supply is the main limitation. Extreme pessimism is on display as regards shale gas and the development of previously unworked Middle East oil fields.
Caveat Emptor : these charts were composed from a very basic modelling tool and are based on a number of assumptions that some people could dispute.
Note : If the flaring or emissions of Natural Gas from oil fields around the world were capped and piped to consumers, this would keep Natural Gas production higher for longer – but it would still peak before around 2050.
Note : The figure for Natural Gas Liquids is probably too high – the reality is that the deeper an oil field has been sequestered, the more Natural Gas there is in it compared to hydrocarbon liquids.
Note : There is actually a potential for a substantial quantity of Anaerobically Digested BioMethane, but the infrastructure needs building first…that includes all the sewage and water treatment plants around the world, all major animal farms, food waste disposal systems, all communal eating places and all major food manufacturing plants.
Well, Mubarak’s made an exit – and real Egyptian democracy can begin – as long as the army don’t get crowd control ideas above their station and the old elites don’t interfere with the process of free and fair elections.
But democracy is not going to solve the problem of the price of bread.
“Food Speculation : What is the problem? : Banks, hedge funds and pension funds are betting on food prices in the financial markets, causing drastic price swings in staple foods such as wheat, maize and soy…”
“By now, you probably think your opinion of Goldman Sachs and its swarm of Wall Street allies has rock-bottomed at raw loathing. You’re wrong. There’s more. It turns out that the most destructive of all their recent acts has barely been discussed at all. Here’s the rest. This is the story of how some of the richest people in the world – Goldman, Deutsche Bank, the traders at Merrill Lynch, and more – have caused the starvation of some of the poorest people in the world. It starts with an apparent mystery. At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly and stratospherically. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent. In a global jolt of hunger, 200 million people – mostly children – couldn’t afford to get food any more, and sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in more than 30 countries, and at least one government was violently overthrown. Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level…”
“The hedge fund guy sitting beside me was asked about his next plan for global domination. He’d done houses and gold – what was the new new thing? “Food,” he said between mouthfuls of lobster. “We’re piling into food. Weather’s getting weird, so there’ll be crop failures. There won’t be enough to go around.”…”
Many blessings for your newly-born democracy, Egypt, and we hope you can win the fight to secure affordable food, too.
Ambient, sustainable energy is all around us, and sooner or
later we will find the ways to make use of it for the good of all.
The following is an appropriately edited transcript of a
conversation on the Claverton Energy Research Group
forum online, and was written by Nick Balmer, a consultant
in renewable energy.
__________________________________________________________
…The huge scale of the possible changes for all concerned is
causing all of the current Titans in the [energy] industry to deploy
the full force of the media [and their] PR [public relations] in an
attempt to manipulate the public and policy towards their own way
of thinking, or in such a way as to protect their own vested interests.
The great thing is that these issues are being aired out in the open,
and groups like [Claverton Energy Research Group forum] allow
people with knowledge of these affairs to debate these issues openly.
The big problem is that each of us has only a very detailed
understanding of some small fraction of the total issue.
Most of the public and government only has a very slight knowledge
of the total issue, and has had only limited access to ways to find out
in detail what is going on.
As Egypt is demonstrating today, everybody now has a voice and as
Wikileaks shows, sooner or later everything will come out into the
open.
All of us are struggling to come to terms with this explosion of
access to knowledge.
It is quite clear that lots of bubbles are being burst as a result of
the Global Financial implosion and the huge expansion in available
knowledge.
Just as banking and property has been shown to be an unaffordable
Ponzi scheme and to be vastly over-inflated, UK energy policy is now
coming under huge scrutiny.
We can now compare our energy systems with other countries.
Due to the huge geological accident of fate, since the 1700’s in coal,
and 1970’s in oil and gas, we have been extremely fortunate in being
able to live way beyond the lifestyle standards of most of the World.
We have not had to adapt.
Other countries that didn’t have this advantage had to change over
recent decades.
Places like Denmark, Austria, Germany [and so on] have made huge
changes because they had less energy from fossil resources.
Now we have reached the peak or crunch point, we find ourselves well
behind those countries that had to adapt earlier.
Everybody is concentrating on the Capital cost of deploying per
MW [megawatt] and overlooks the cost of fuels.
The cost of fuels over time is massively more important than the
CAPEX [capital expenditure on investment].
So even if windfarms cost 20 times per MW or GW [gigawatt] more to
build than nuclear or coal or gas, in the scheme of things,
[wind power] is always going to win, because the fuel is free and
unlimited for centuries to come.
Similarly [solar power technologies], or even more effective,
household insulation and cutting energy use.
And yet the media and government are blinded by the barrage of PR
and media from the energy vested interests who are working with
every muscle to stop this coming out into the open.
I often meet financiers in my work trying to promote and support AD
[anaerobic digestion of biological waste for the production of
renewable methane], biomass, solar and wind projects.
I am always struggling to prove to them that I have an offtake [return
on investment] and the fuel supply. This is often really hard to do
[but] I only have to do this for seven to 12 years to make my business
cases stack up.
I was really depressed at the end of one such presentation and
discussion, when one broadly sympathetic banker who had turned me
down said that he was having even worse problems with largescale
energy projects.
How do you predict the price and supply of coal forward for 25 years
or more ?
It has jumped 17% in recent months.
How do you prove that you are going to have offtake for huge power
stations in future years ?
Demand dropped 8% in 2009.
How do you raise the equity or debt for a billion [pound] project when
banks don’t want to lend more than £30 million each ? Imagine how
many banks that would take ?
We have reached a tipping point in our economy, sustainability and
future outlook.
Yes, the existing mega-power companies are fighting as hard as
Mubarak today to hold onto power, but they represent the past just
as surely as he does.
Those companies can rejuvenate themselves, unlike the Egyptian
President.
If they don’t, there are an increasingly large number of smaller and
more active players coming into the market.
The average household pays somewhere around £1,300 a year for
its heating and lighting.
The companies that come forward with a way to do that for £1,000 is
going to capture the market very quickly.
I have friends in Austria who only pay 65 Euros for services that I
pay £1,400 for.
They do this through insulation, triple glazing, solar and biomass energy.
Most [UK] households have less than £400 per year discretionary
disposable income. This prevents them making changes to their houses
they desperately want and know they need to make. This can
drop their energy demands hugely.
If somebody can unlock that Gordian Knot the benefits would be
enormous as there are something like 27 million households.
At a time when household debt is at an all-time high, incomes are
shrinking, and 40% live on ether government salaries, state
pensions or benefits.
Energy is a very high part of these households’ outgoings – if you
pay £1,300 a year and your house only brings in £11,000 to £20,000
per year.
A 50% increase in the £1,300 could bring great distress, and
possibly even civil unrest here.
The increases fossil power [companies] need to make their systems
bankable will increase energy bills. This will feed straight through into
government liabilities because 40% of us live on government payouts.
If government can drop the cost of heating and lighting quite easily
by £100 to £500 per household per year while at the same time
provide employment for hundreds of thousands of White Van men
cutting energy uses, doesn’t this make far more sense than building
unsustainable power stations that will have to be [bankrolled] by the
government, who will then have to buy back electricity at a price our
communities cannot stand ?
Project a similar calculation onto transport fuels and you get even
greater problems.
At $80 a barrel [of oil] industry is shrinking and relatively few
renewable fuel business cases work. At $100 a barrel most renewable
fuels can compete.
At $120 a barrel almost any alternative beats oil, and that is before
you start to look at issues like fuel security and the environment.
Although the battle is one of David and Goliath, or the Dinosaur and
those early mammals, between the new energy industries and the
existing vested energy industries, [it] has only one outcome.
It is only a matter of the co-lateral damage along the way.
Like Mubarak, it is clear they must go. Are they going to go
gracefully, or are they going to smash the place up first ?
“We are honoring the very bad weather, this 1800 mile wide storm descending now on New York, and the typhoon named Yasi in Australia. And we pronounce the natural disasters to be statements from a Fabulous Unknown who will instruct us what to do, now that we are standing on this painted wood stage together in a state of readiness. We have a lot of fabulous bad weather in our bodies. The deeply coded agreements between living things on this planet – how evolution presents new life – may not protect homo sapiens anymore. If it does, we are grateful. We’ll try to learn what the Earth is up to and help…”
“The fires and mudslides, blizzards and extinctions, tsunamis and quakes – are sweeping toward the chosen people. We can’t live by that expansionist, violent god of nations anymore. That is our promise by sharing this stage. The wilderness pulsing out there – has big plans.”
The documentary evidence shows that America’s business interests often outweigh its political progress. Yet it’s perhaps more concerning that, increasingly, corporate America is at risk of damaging good environmental governance.
With all the talk of free markets in international trade, the Coalition Government in the United Kingdom has felt the pressure to open up the back door to American energy businesses, whose highly-paid sales representatives in slick suits want us to buy their dirty energy projects – just take a look at the upcoming UK Energy Bill and its proposals for Electricity Market Reform.
American companies seem poised to sweep in and take all our public non-subsidy “support” for building new nuclear power plants. Viewers of a sensitive political disposition should look away now as this is a Wikileak :-
The country that brought you the engineering industry that brought you the giant Gulf of Mexico giant oil spill now wants to bring you unsafe deepwater drilling in Britain’s Continental Shelf – and the UK’s new Energy Bill would let them do that without demonstrating any learning from the BP April 2010 fiasco :-
There’s lots of talk in the energy sector and the financial markets about the American shale gas miracle “gamechanger” and how it can be replicated in Europe and across the world, and not enough discussion about the environmental dangers :-
It’s good to talk about local environmental damage from “unconventional” gas, but what’s not being discussed so widely is that these “new” resources of Natural Gas aren’t really very green, and neither are the “traditional” resources – in some cases they’re not much better than coal :-
We know that the Americans always seek to protect the interests of American-owned businesses – and we know they do that for the best of intentions – to keep America wealthy (except it’s really only a few people in America that have any wealth, but anyway…)
Yet I think there should be a limit to how far we have to bend over backwards to accommodate their needs for economic recovery.
To export all their dirty energy technology to Europe is just not helpful, and I think we should say no, no, no.
An unidentified group has taken advantage of all the turmoil in Egypt, gone undercover, and attacked a gas pipeline, which means that supplies to politically moderate Jordan (and the more hardline Syria) will be cut off.
Who planned this ? It’s probably too early to say, but I can think of several possible answers to the question, and none of them are pretty.
“Gas pipeline to Jordan, Syria set ablaze in Egypt…Unless the pipe is repaired quickly, it could become a big problem for Jordan, a country already spending heavily in fuel subsidies, a Jordanian senior official said….”
The key question tonight in Queensland is : how safe can we make the house before morning ?
The second key question that should tonight be asked in Queensland Australia is : are the damages from Climate Change likely to be more expensive than changing our energy sources to stop it ?
“27 January 2011 : Australia floods: PM Julia Gillard unveils new tax : Julia Gillard announces the details of the new tax : Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced a new tax to help pay for devastating floods that she says will cost A$5.6bn ($5.6bn; £3.5bn) in reconstruction. Ms Gillard said the 12-month tax, starting from 1 July, would be levied on those earning A$50,000 or more, and those affected by floods would not pay. “We should not put off to tomorrow what we are able to do today,” she said…”
“Gillard warms to permanent disaster fund : Phillip Coorey : February 1, 2011 : THE Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, is prepared to entertain the idea of a permanent natural disaster fund if it helps win the support of key independents in both houses. But she is not prepared to bend on the details of her one-off $1.8 billion levy to help with flood reparations in Queensland. As negotiations began with independents yesterday before the legislation for the flood measures is tabled in Parliament next week, Ms Gillard would not rule out a permanent fund. ”We’re happy to have a conversation about the longer term,” she said. But the floods, she said, were ”an extraordinary circumstance which requires a response in the short term”…”
My print copy of New Scientist magazine slithers through the letterbox in its biodegradable plastic sheath and plops weightily on the doormat. Hours later I pick it up, and it crinkles with the promise of lots of juicy new information. What I’m not prepared for is the disappointment of the sell-out on the inside of the front cover :-
“Win a trip to the high Arctic and the deep sea : Ever wanted to see polar bears and whales in their natural habitats ? Or how about visiting the sea floor ? Here’s your chance : New Scientist has teamed up with Statoil, the global energy company, to offer one lucky winner and a guest the trip of a lifetime – to sail around the Svalbard archipelago inside the Arctic Circle, home to polar bears and whales, and to fly to the giant Troll platform, where you will visit the bottom of the North Sea. To win this amazing prize all you have to do is tell us, in no more than 100 words, which engineering project you think will have the greatest impact on human life in the next 30 years, and why. To find out more and to enter the competition go to www.newscientist.com/engineeringgreats. The closing date for entries is 2 March 2011.”
A large part of the page is taken up with a photograph of a polar bear, a poster child for Climate Change.
The implication-by-association is that Statoil want to protect the environment. But what’s their real business ? Shipping large quantities of Natural Gas – not exactly zero carbon fuel.
Not only that, but pages 10 and 11 of the magazine are an “advertising feature” on behalf of Statoil. The infommercial is in exactly the same style and typeface as the rest of the magazine, which I think is plain deceptive. Perhaps it is there to make sure that people entering the prize competition nominate Statoil’s technology as the “engineering great” for the future. That’s a bit rich. In one fell swoop the global energy industry have co-opted not only polar bears but the New Scientist magazine into the bargain !
The “advertising feature” features Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), which is what Statoil is famous for with their Sleipner facility, where they inject excess Carbon Dioxide (CO2) from Natural Gas back into the field to store it. The “advertising feature” attempts to sell the “good idea” of CCS, but cleverly injects a bit of “balance” to take the reader along with it.
“…The conclusion so far is that the CO2 is safely stored…It’s not possible to be 100 per cent certain about this…”
I would have thought that if it’s not 100% locked down that some people might be quite unsure about relying on it. But anyway. It appears that the European Union and several other key players really believe in CCS technology, and are willing to put public funds into it :-
The only way that any business would buy into CCS would be if there is a carbon price differential implemented – as CCS adds costs to everything :-
“…Statoil made the choice to lock up the field’s CO2 for good business reasons: the Norwegian government would have levied a tax of $50 for every tonne of CO2 it emitted…”
But fitting CCS to power plants is going to be a lot different than the Sleipner project :-
“…Then there is the question of whether the technique can be extended to CO2 produced by combustion, in particular from fossil-fuel power stations…handling flue gases from power plants is going to require significant extra cost…”
So what kind of carbon price would support Carbon Capture and Storage ? $80 per tonne ? $120 per tonne ? That’s the kind of money our leaders are willing to shell out from tax revenues to support the continued burning of coal to make electricity. Wouldn’t it be better, more cost effective, to put the money into Renewable Energy technologies and just stop burning coal ? After all, coal could get a lot more pricey in the next few years :-
If I were in charge, I would recommend that nobody builds any new coal-fired power stations, and that we start a phase of withdrawal from coal-burning for power generation, forget about Carbon Capture and Storage and put the public money into financing the development of Biogas, BioSyngas and Renewable Hydrogen – zero carbon gas products that could replace Natural Gas and coal entirely.
Like RT, on my smaller canvas, I have found it valuable to link with contacts in many fields, some of which don’t usually come together.
I have found fruitful connexions between Rotary and renewables; Friends of the Earth and the church; The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts. Manufactures and Commerce and Fairtrade; and Starbucks and Nestle with Fairtade.
Whatever circles we move in, they need, like the symbol of the Olympics, to be interlinked for the strenthening of all.
Like RT I will talk to anyone and build on the best I find. Jesus surely showed us that. Joy and justice.
What you say resonates with my experience, also : ” I have found it valuable to link with contacts in many fields, some of which don’t usually come together.”
I, too, agree with RT’s central line of argument, that we should talk to everyone, in whichever circumstances we find them : “Like RT I will talk to anyone and build on the best I find.”
In addition, I think it is important that we are clear that we do not want compromise in terms of the ultimate aims and objectives that we believe in.
For example, 99.99% (rough guess) of people want a peaceful, stable society. There should be no compromise on that goal.
And the Climate Change Act is a serious affirmation that we should be cutting carbon dioxide emissions in this country by 80% by 2050 – or more, according to advice from the Climate Change Committee.
How will that 80% (90%) cut be achieved ? By not compromising. We need to have the building insulation, and we need to have the lights switched off. That is the responsibility of the consumers. However, we also need the energy supply companies to drop the use of fossil fuels.
Currently there is less happening in this realm than some observers think there should be. If you are invited to take part in a branded event sponsored by a coal-burning energy company, I would suggest you ask the question if the event will be asking you to change or asking the energy company to change.
If a fossil fuel burning energy company asks you as a consumer-citizen to change your energy consumption habits, then surely we should be asking them to change their fossil fuel burning habits ?
I’m quite sick of hearing ordinary people being asked to change their ways by large energy supply companies who are not changing theirs. I’ll talk to anyone, but I won’t restrict myself to their frame of reference.
I, too, have had problems accepting that I would have to deal with organisations and even individuals whose apparent raison d’etre seemed entirely opposed to mine. Back in ’79 I was peripherally involved in the early Viet Namese refugee reception, working for a peace organisation. The Home Secretary’s policy was to spread resettlement and to use voluntary groups to support. I soon found that this didn’t work – only by directly working with members of that new community, so I spoke, first, to the refugee charities and to the voluntary groups aiding the new refugees. I was politely told to go away. This was Thatcher’s Government and talking to them was anathema to very many. I had recently joined the voluntary sector, as a paid employee, and I really didn’t know what to do, so I pestered my employers and was told to write a reasoned report stating why the Government resettlement wasn’t and couldn’t work. That I did, I got my report to the then Home Secretary and was then summoned to the Home Office where I was polite and friendly, though it hurt, and, as a result, the Viet Namese were resettled in clusters, that were the foundations of community, and the Government increased the resettlement budget in order to pay full time field workers. My job was funded by a Home Office grant which, a few months later, was withdrawn. It was still very much worth it.
A few years later a similar problem arose in vocational training; in this case there was no budget for what was then termed ESL or English as a Second Language teaching so many young people and adults from refugee and immigrant communities could not get training. I certainly didn’t invent linked skills training, this had been done by, among others, the Manpower Services Commission in the North East, but the concept appeared to be unknown elsewhere in Britain. This time I took on Lord Young, then Secretary of State for Employment, but I did so with courtesy and with sound evidence.
This took several months of letters and the use of Telecom Gold; eventually I received a phonecall from the MSC’s head of vocational training who came to London, from Sheffield, to see Prince Charles in the morning and the Director General of the CBI in the afternoon. I fitted in during lunch. Again, a budget was dramatically increased and linked skills courses started across the UK. I then spent a few years attending MSC conferences as their ‘expert’ on ESL.
I do not mention this out of pride, I was in the right place at the right time doing, I believe, what God wanted me to do. I was entirely opposed to that Government: I had chosen to live and work among the poor and in minority communities, and that Government’s rationale was yet another attack on the ‘shiftless’ unemployed. Later I initiated and ran other campaigns in vocational training provision but, by then I had learnt the benefits of networking.
All of this was conducted without marches or protests and what was achieved was done by straightforward communication, often with people that none of us wanted to talk to. In the event I discovered that organisations are people and that God speaks to them as much as he did to me, though many would not recognise the process. And I found nice people, too, among my ‘enemies’.
I would probably draw [the] line somewhere before British American Tobacco or the arms trade but I trust that there are other Christians establishing dialogue there, too. In my experience, protest changes little but dialogue can help to establish change.
Many companies have investigated climate change and now species loss and resource depletion. Not surprisingly they have found major threats to their future operations. Of course there are some that are deaf but we have to help them to hear.
It is an unfortunate human characteristic that when we feel attacked we are likely to strike back. That can translate into strengthened resistance to change. So, I have no time for the brutality of police but I have not a great deal of respect for the Climate Camps, either. I recall the reporting of the refusal of protesters to meet with RBS in Scotland last summer.
Of course, greenwash hasn’t gone away but I believe that we need to encourage positive efforts rather than simply confront and it’s not easy, up front, to discern what is truly positive. It is always possible to condemn later and negative media coverage often reduces profitability whilst unnecessarily condemning an activity before it starts is more likely to delay or prevent future action.
The Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility does, indeed, have a grown up approach to asking for responsible behaviour but Climate Week is likely to reach out to far more ordinary people than the former. When I was working with the Viet Namese community, some of the most useful help that I received was from Business in the Community. I wrote to the then Archbishop of Canterbury and mentioned the newly emerging percent club concept, also referring to two leading companies that were headed by Anglicans.
The letter bounced all the way to the desk of the Director of BitC, then Stephen O’Brien, a deacon in the C of E, and we struck up a very useful relationship that came in useful again when I was working in vocational training.
I have very big concerns with EDF but, last week at an Aldersgate reception at the House of Commons, Chris Huhne was challenged on the Coalition’s support for renewables. The complaint was that continuing support for fossil fuels makes a mockery of the limited support being given to wind and wave. He was lost for a response to a serious question raised by a major companies executive. That may give him some cause to reflect but, again, it’s about communication. If we don’t talk to them how can we change them?
Finally, I have never spoken to an institution but to people working within them. I try to find a point of common interest and then to talk about what they are doing and how they could, perhaps, improve on that. That seems to me to be a very minor and modest reflection on what Jesus did: condemn the sin and not the sinner.
I think what you have done is simply amazing and proves that if somebody is in a difficult situation at the right time with the right information and the right attitude, then things can change for the better. Naturally, divine intervention is crucial !
In my 21 years of working in the Information Technology industry, I worked in a very wide range of companies and organisations, and I met and worked with a very diverse group of people of all ranks and status. I understand how to manage complex project situations, and the kind of patience and commitment needed to see the job done properly.
In the last ten years I have been attempting to learn about how to facilitate open discussions and debates using techniques of non-violent communication, and I have met and worked with a wider variety of people than ever before.
Some people ask me if I’m scared by some of the people in the environmental movement and I have to laugh ! Most of the greenies have a strong sense of autonomy – of doing what they want to. But true freedom carries obligation – of responsibility to others. Most eco-activists I have met are strongly self-censoring in their behaviour, and work hard to be at peace with others, and are highly cooperative and willing to learn and tolerate.
Some climate activists do not want to talk with any of the authorities – this month’s revelations about police infiltration and personal betrayal show that sometimes the authorities cannot be trusted. I am not concerned by this issue – I am entirely free to engage with anybody from any organisation, and hope to have constructive dialogue. I take care not to do anything that may break the law so that I can have a platform of integrity. I’m not perfect, but I try to be a good citizen.
I don’t believe that there are any enemies. I know there are many people in many corporations and companies that know what the Climate Change problem is and are trying in their roles to do something about it. I know and respect people at different levels of authority and jurisdiction who are pushing environmental change up the agenda.
The “enemy” is poor thinking, in my view. Poor thinking can come from any quarter, so I’m not singling anybody out. The problem of democracy is that there is too little, and too much, all at the same time. Protests, marches, demonstrations, rallies – they have limited political impact, I agree with you, but it’s necessary to try to engage the people in doing something with their political drive. The reason that protest happens is because the democratic channels are rather poor – so the energy has to channel its way somehow into something, and that something is protest.
I do entirely agree with you when you say, “If we don’t talk to them how can we change them? …I have never spoken to an institution but to people working within them. I try to find a point of common interest and then to talk about what they are doing and how they could, perhaps, improve on that. That seems to me to be a very minor and modest reflection on what Jesus did: condemn the sin and not the sinner.”
What often happens is that the communication is poorly conducted, with ultimatums and restrictions, as happened between RBS and the Climate Campers last year (and between the police and the Climate Campers all the time). The people from the activist movement do want to talk, but on equal terms, without pre-conditions, and I think that demand should be honoured.
You say, “Many companies have investigated climate change and now species loss and resource depletion. Not surprisingly they have found major threats to their future operations. Of course there are some that are deaf but we have to help them to hear.”
I would like to know how you would consider helping BP (for example) hear that their business model is dead in the water because of peak oil, and the likely introduction of carbon pricing in the next five years ?
The continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels is a major problem that is the responsibility of everyone and every company – it’s not just a consumption issue, it’s a production issue too.
I hold strong views about what needs to happen – but that doesn’t prevent me from dialogue. I talk with everybody I meet on the subjects of Energy and Climate Change, if they are willing to discuss them, because I know they are very important, and that there are many pitfalls in the public dialogue.
Thanks, Jo, I think that we largely agree and I’m sure that the rest of […] do, too. But I would suggest that the larger part of the problem lies with governments and with carbon pricing.
The founding purpose of the Aldersgate Group was to lobby for more effective environmental legislation such that those companies who act in an environmentally responsible manner are not disadvantaged by those who refuse to do so.
Electricity generation and distribution is a special case as a major generator which decided to change completely to renewables could find themselves at a strong economic disadvantage. We need our Government and those of our European neighbours to make the path of transition easy.
One of the very basic findings of Tim Jackson’s Resolve unit at Surrey University is that externalities usually have a greater effect than good intentions; make it easy and people will follow.
That is not to say that I let EDF off the hook, I don’t but not, primarily as fossil fuel burners. They operate Europe wide and in 2003 74.5% of their generating capacity was reported to be nuclear with only 10.2% derived from fossil fuels.
The Polish Government has today said that it will have nuclear generation by 2020; another country that will produce more fissile waste in a far from stable world and high grade uranium ore is depleting rapidly.
Our commitment to implementing renewable energy has been lacklustre and there has now been voiced a fear that the Government intends to allow Green Investment Bank money to be invested in nuclear – so, subsidies after all.
Of course this means less to be invested in wind, wave and the necessary high voltage pan European distribution grids that we need.
And that is another good reason for Aldersgate and for bodies like it.
It took me many many months to get biodiversity on the agenda and I’ve taken even longer to try to get membership for the Claverton Energy Group – a discussion group on energy issues, primarily made up of scientists and engineers to which both Jo and I belong.
Last year I pressed Chris Huhne to get his civil servants to listen to this body of considerable expertise but Clavertonians expressed a desire to not talk to politicians! Perhaps you can understand my frustration?
On a somewhat different but linked front, some media attention has been given to Boris’ latest folly, a floating walkway that follows the north bank of the Thames from Tower Pier to the vicinity of St Paul’s Cathedral. That could effectively block riverside access to the Thames and it could prevent the operation of Walbrook Wharf, a safeguarded wharf that is used for transporting City of London refuse. It would also prevent the River from being used for construction waste and building materials delivery.
Apparently, Boris has presented an award to the architects, Gensler’s who came up with the bright idea. I made a few, I thought, helpful comments on the appropriate page on GenslerOn website and received an invitation to talk to the lead architect. Now, I did this as a director of a new Thames environmental protection and access trust and it’s the trust that the architect wants to talk to. So I alerted the other directors and the first response I received was along the lines of ‘we can’t talk to them, they don’t understand the river and they are only out to exploit it’. I managed to persuade him otherwise, eventually! It probably won’t happen but I still want to take the opportunity to talk to them and, hopefully, to help them understand the nature and uses of this great River. One small point: close down the wharf and the City’s waste all gets moved by lorry thus adding to the City’s air pollution.
Talk first, try to persuade and then confront only when the conversation has failed.
Of all the macroeconomic proposals put forward over the last two decades for consideration by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the most ridiculous has to be Carbon Trading.
To imagine that a market can be created for something that the industrialised country economies are highly dependent on is an hallucination.
Carbon Dioxide emissions are in lock-step with economic growth, the creation of liquidity, if not wealth. To try to price Carbon Dioxide emissions would be to attempt to give a negative value to a positive commodity. It just won’t work. Nobody will want to buy it. And if they’re forced to buy it, they won’t want to pay much for it. And nobody can think of a way to force the developed countries to pay for their Carbon Dioxide emissions.
Even before the “serious” negotiating week of Cancun begins, the Kyoto Protocol has been pronounced dead on arrival :-
Nobody ever said the “KP” was perfect – it only committed countries to a very small level of emissions cuts. Some commitment ! Few of the countries in the KP have taken their responsibilities to cut emissions seriously. And if they have, they’ve just outsourced them to China.
But the Son-of-Kyoto Post-Kyoto Protocol Protocol could have been something, you know, if the industrialised countries admitted they needed to back down significantly from rising and large emissions profiles – if developed nations had not tried to lean on the “flexible mechanisms” that effectively legalised offsetting their emissions with emissions reductions in other peoples’ countries.
But, no.
It appears from Wikileaks that the United States of America have been scuppering the United Nations’s best efforts :-
“Secret diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks have revealed new details about how the United States manipulated last year’s climate talks in Copenhagen. The cables show how the United States sought dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming, how financial and other aid was used by countries to gain political backing, and how the United States mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the “Copenhagen Accord.””
If, as reports state, the United States are continuing to use any leverage they can to push countries to accept the doomed Copenhagen Accord, there can be no progress on Climate Change.
We may have just found the real Climategate.
You cannot buy or sell the atmosphere.
There is only one solution – that is to displace High Carbon Energy with Low Carbon Energy and that means goodbye to Tar Sands, Shale Oil, Tight Gas, deepwater Petroleum, dirty Petroleum, Coal, Coal-to-Liquids, anything that you can dig out of the ground and burn.
We have to stop mining for energy.
And that has serious implications for a number of international energy corporations and state energy enterprises.
Unless this basic issue is addressed, we are all heading for hell and high water.
The Climate Change talks have been window dressing for unworkable hypothetical macroeconomic policies, and continue to reduce chair people to tears :-
I learned about various views on social and positive impact investment, and about elements of the Coalition Government’s “Big Society” and the proposed Green Investment Bank.
Ethical Investment appears to have come a long way since I put some money into a Fair Trade company many moons ago, where I knew I would never see a dividend, or even be able to sell the shares at some point.
Grown up people in sharp suits and big name frocks now do moral banking, and often reap a healthy return on their investment – “doing well” as well as “doing good”, as Adam Ognall of UK Sustainable Investment and Finance says.
I was challenged to think about what faith communities do with their money around a month ago, all precipitated by a conversation I had with Martin Palmer of the Alliance of Conservation and Religions, and then I heard something at a recent meeting that caused me to investigate a little…
Peace would be truly green – besides eliminating a vast source of greenhouse emissions and environmental toxicity, the end to extensively militarised conflict would no doubt singlehandedly rescue the world’s major economies from the “double dip” or “permanent implosion”.
Thousands of marchers in London, England today repeated the public demands to de-escalate the “war on terror” :-
Forget Nigel Lawson and his struggle to keep the British energy system in the privatised 1980s by denying the realities of Climate Change.
The lords (and sadly, some of the ladies) of this land want to stay rich from their shares in fossil fuels and mining. They’ll say anything to protect the value of their holdings.
But where’s your new North Sea Oil and Gas, Nigel ? Do you want to bankrupt this country by forcing us to ramp up our imports of energy as the North Sea production falls away ?
The chief executives of the “traditional” energy companies of these islands are just trying to keep themselves in a job when they decry wind power, biogas, marine energy projects.
No, Vincent de Rivaz of EdF, we don’t want expensive, inflexible and toxic Nuclear Power. No, Dorothy Thompson of Drax, we don’t want dirty coal continuing to heat up the world, poison fish and raise coughing kids. No, Rupert Soames of Aggreko, we must maintain the Renewable Energy obligations we have agreed at the European level, and raise the bar even higher, to protect the economy going into an uncertain future, by having homegrown energy.
We need an energy evolution in this country.
And so, what is needed is a social movement – involving ordinary, working people, unions, communities, academics, trained professionals from the engineering trades, local political activists and faith communities.
