Cars Might Fly
As I walk home humming to my iPod, I can pretty much keep station with the cars crawling along next to me. Sometimes one of us inches ahead of the other, but rarely do either of us have a decisive advantage. Many a time I have reflected on the absurdity of this situation as I realise that by some measures we seem to have hardly progressed since humans learned to walk on two legs.
As more and more of us become city dwellers (today over half the world’s population lives in cities), the car is becoming more and more ridiculous as a mode of transport as our cities’ arteries become increasingly clogged with cars barely travelling at walking pace.
But despite this problem becoming evermore obvious, we continue to cling doggedly to the car, wholly unwilling to give it up for the horrors of public transport.
So what’s the answer?
TalkClimateChange Takes a Holiday -Something To Consider In The Meantime
Some thoughts before TalkClimateChange takes a brief 10 day sabbatical.
The Blogosphere thrives on debate - the very nature of the medium encourages discussion and the presentation of alternative view points. This is the reason that TalkClimateChange exists, and the reason why Daryl, Matt and myself organise our viewpoints into Red, Green and Blue categories, often in direct confrontation with each other.
The results are always interesting, and whilst we have often disagreed with much, we’ve agreed on many points too. We’re also grateful for the many insightful comments and arguments received, both here on the blog and in the forum.
It’s always interesting to receive feedback on this approach, and I’ve recently had a number of interesting comments which are worthy of review:
Stern Report Not Right or Wrong, Just Irrelevant
Following the discussion on the Stern report’s projections for the economic cost / benefit of tackling climate change, I’d like to introduce a new perspective: The cost of climate change avoidance is irrelevant, since most of today’s avoidance schemes are wholly ineffective anyway.
I make this assertion following UK treasury projections that the “green levy” on motorists announced in this year’s UK Government budget will provide an additional £4 billion to the treasury, but reduce vehicle emissions by 1% (0.06 of the total Co2 emissions of the UK).
Despite the huge sums raised, current investment in energy research is approximately one tenth of the amount spent on space research, and there seems to be no coherent and encompassing plan to make significant cuts in CO2 emissions. If raising £4 billion in taxes achieves so little, then surely lofty goals of reducing emissions by 80% are pure fantasy?
At The Bar of TalkClimateChange
When former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern released his report of the same name last year, he brought about a fundamental shift in the climate debate – moving from an environmental to an economic focus.
Essentially, the Stern report concluded that the impacts of climate change are likely to far outweigh the cost of avoiding it: The effects of global warming could swallow 20% of the world’s GDP, compared to the 1% of world GDP required to implement measures to avoid the problem.
It is this very issue that polarizes myself and fellow TalkClimateChange writer Daryl, who would no doubt argue that Stern’s numbers are the wrong way around.
Thoughts On Global Emission Schemes and World Economies
Editor’s note: Daryl is actually feeling fine - we checked after reading this..
I’ve just read an article on MSN / Sympatico called “The cheapest way to save the Earth“, which actually made sense to me - and it is about lifestyle changes!
Now a caveat: I don’t actually agree with it all, but I do agree with the main premise - that going green is not about buying all the latest and greatest eco-alternatives that come along. Something I have been saying for years: you cannot consume your way out of catastrophic man made global warming (if you are so inclined to believe in it) to arrive at a better place.
Why I’m Green
Whilst I have written on occasion for the Red Team on TalkClimateChange, I am predominantly a Green Team writer – generally believing that environmental concerns should be at the forefront of our agenda. With increasing population and consumption I believe that we are driving down a cul-de-sac, blind to the consequences of our reckless use of the finite resources that support us.
That said, I don’t support blanket environmentalism either. I frequently support the blue point of view, based on the understanding that principle can rarely be put before practicality. Many of us enjoy unprecedented standards of living, have long life expectancies and enjoy more leisure time than ever before. The social and economic systems that have provided these benefits are as fragile as our climate and our transition to a low carbon economy must be carefully managed.
With this in mind, I much enjoyed fellow TalkClimateChange writer Daryl’s story “Red, Green and Blue - Living Together in Me” in which he echoes many of my sentiments, with one exception:
Something For The Weekend: Can Anything be Worse Than British Trains?
This post was originally published on EcoWorldly. It is loosely connected with climate change in that it concerns the potential for the mass adoption of public transport, although I post it here purely for your interest and to spread the message.
Putting pen to paper for Bus Transportation Week I began to make a few notes about bus travel in Switzerland – the country that I usually cover on EcoWorldly. My notes read: reliable, clean, efficient.
Not much of a story there.
When there is not much happening in Switzerland and I need to file an EcoWorldly post, I usually look at wider Europe. My notes on bus travel in other nations around Europe read: mostly reliable, mostly clean, mostly efficient.
Still not much to write home about.
Nationalise Energy Supplies for A Nuclear Future?
Philip Pullman, author of the excellent “His Dark Materials” trilogy, was recently quoted as saying with respect to energy and carbon rations, “We should have a fixed limit and if you use it all up in October, then tough, you shiver for the rest of the year“. That doesn’t sound so good, but since meeting the twin demand of energy stress and climate change is no laughing matter, something has to give.
UK electricity supplies were nationalised after the second world war over concerns regarding health and security of supply, leading to a massive expansion of infrastructure and energy availability. Considering our current energy and climate problems, and since we like to provoke, we ask here: should energy supply be nationalised to prepare us for a nuclear future?
25 Years Later, Climate Change Becomes the New War?
For some reason the announcement yesterday that George Bush planned to give a speech making new US commitments to tackle climate change completely failed to register with me. So familiar have I become with grand political statements on climate change that instead of eagerly awaiting the news I instead forgot all about it until reading this morning’s newspaper headlines.
Having read various commentary on the speech I expected to hear environmental campaigners declaring “too little, too late” in response to a scheme that would promise to do better, but only in a manner which precluded any actual immediate change.
I was pretty much correct.
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Impending catastrophe, or political scam? Whatever your belief, Climate Change will affect you in some way. TalkClimateChange discusses the issues that will affect us, and our world, from all sides.
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