For want of a nail...

... the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost’. Or in the words of Benjamin Franklin’s own synopsis (in his Maxims Prefaced to Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1758), ‘A little neglect breeds mischief’. It is a simple truth, concisely and graphically put; however, one risks plunging wildly overboard as soon as one extends the chain of reasoning to more than a handful of terms. How far can one take it?- to a message, a battle, a kingdom, planet Earth, Milky Way South East, universal heat death?

Isaac Asimov once suggested (I forget where) an interesting analogy for how history really works, as a kind of 'bow wave' in time. At first there is immense tumult as the immediate effects of a cause (an event, a great personality, and so on) spread and proliferate; but then a phase of sublimation supervenes, assimilating those effects to the broader, deeper currents of Universal history. The same applies for Great Men. What if Hitler had won World War II? It would certainly still have mattered in 2000 and even 2100, but what difference would it have made by 20,000 AD? Or 200,000 AD or 2,000,000? Indeed, looking at the history of Europe since the end of the Cold War, it is striking that, at least in terms of international politics, things look remarkably as they might have in 1925, had the First World War not intervened.

The whole logic of 'For want of a nail' rests on two false assumptions: that the world is basically atomistic, and that what changes is more vital than whatever remains the same. They are equally curious opinions, although entirely compatible with a world of fragmentation and distraction we inhabit now. But the universe is not just a concatenation of atoms but is on the contrary deeply and universally structured, local quantitative variations may be rapidly countered and any potential qualitative effects generally suppressed. And although we may not be interested in the same old same old, the universe and its human expression, history, takes it all into account.

Popular (mis)interpretations of chaos theory make a similar error. Contrary to the way in which it is sometimes alluded to, chaos theory does not say that chaos is fundamental. On the contrary, it says that apparent chaos is often actually the expression of profound (if also somewhat obscure) order and simplicity. That is why the old saw about a butterfly in Rio de Janeiro causing a thunderstorm in Peking is so misleading: not because the effects of its wing beats could not trigger a storm on another continent, but because they are only one of a massive number of other more or less profound effective causes. Especially on the global scale, weather consists, by and large, of immense and highly stable systems controlled by forces and laws operating on an incomparably vaster scale than all the life forms on the planet put together. Of course, a single butterfly may tip a system that is either exceptionally sensitive or already in extremis into a new mode or phase, but that is hardly the same thing. Having the trigger does not mean you don’t need the rest of the howitzer.

So what is this really about? My own view is almost equally simple: it is about a popular ideology designed to accept the unintelligibility and uncontrollability of the world, be it through popular wisdom or pseudo-scientific explanation or (in a previous age) the Will of God, or indeed by any other means. The reasons why the world is fragmented and full of distraction are beyond both the understanding and the control of individuals, and there are vast forces ranged against anyone trying to create either a popular understanding of exactly what those forces are or a political organisation capable of combatting them.

Computing a sense of proportion

The wor;d's single biggest problem is...? Climate change. So, when a list of the world's biggest computers is released, lo and behold, just a handful of the world's top 500 are devoted to weather, let alone climate change.

James Hansen and the inexorable slide toward nuclear power.

On his Storms of My Grandchildren site, James Hansen talks about how intolerable coal-powered power stations are in any realistic future, and claims that:

in most countries, phase-out of coal emissions requires also a carbon-free source of baseload electric power that is competitive in price with coal. Until we have another way to meet 21st century energy needs while eliminating coal and carbon emissions, nuclear power appears to be the only option.

From this he infers that even nuclear power would be the lesser of these two evils, concluding that

The (“3rd generation”) nuclear technology ready to replace the aging 2nd generation reactors in the United States and other counties is inherently safer than existing nuclear power, which already has an exemplary safety record – however, it still burns less than one percent of the nuclear fuel and leaves a long-lived nuclear waste pile. Hansen recommends initiating urgent development of a fourth-generation nuclear power plant. These “fast” nuclear reactors utilize more than 99 percent of the fuel and can “burn” nuclear waste, thus solving the nuclear waste problem that concerns so many.

This doesn't seem to me to follow. Why is he so confident that these fourth-generation nuclear power plants are any less pie-in-the-sky than carbon capture? It's the first time I have heard anyone suggest that the problems of safety and spent nuclear fuel could be a thing of the past. I would very much like to hear Hansen's reasoning. Not that I would like CCS any more than him, but it doesn't make much sense to be asked to choose between two mirages.

But there's a more important assumption in Hansen's commentary. He argues that, if we are to avoid both fossil fuels and nuclear power, then we need 'a carbon-free source of baseload electric power that is competitive in price with coal'. It is certainly a most attractive option. However, my reading of the technical literature leads me to two conclusions. One, such an option will not exist for many years to come. And two, we can't afford to wait that long.

So how is it Professor Hansen can claim that the solution needs to be 'competitive in price with coal'? Given the magnitude of the potential problem - a series of disasters and creeping destruction that will dwarf any previous human experience short of, perhaps, a re-run of the global plague in the 14th century, surely this is like saying that we should have decided our strategy for the Second World War on the basis of whether it would have been as painless as peace.

Plainly this would be nonsense, and as in the case of WW2, there is little doubt what the consequences of continuing prevarication will be. Add to this the impact of ever-expanding resource depletion, ecosystems collapse and 40% more people by 2050, and waiting for another cheap energy source to come along sounds like madness. It would be nice if we were in a position to choose between cheap, friendly, familiar options, but we aren't. Meanwhile, our social, political and economic system is awash with people and interests for which an effective solution would be anathema, if not fatal.

Of course, we are not at war, and such metaphors are as likely to be misleading as helpful. But to pretend that we can reach Professor Hansen's own goals without paying a price and making preparations comparable to a war strikes me as unwarranted optimism, if not self-deception.

Danny Chivers - Poet Laureate for the Environment

If you haven't already heard of him, take a listen to Danny Chivers. His poems on the environment and on business are brilliant, enthralling, funny and biting. He also knows his stuff, being (according to azclimatechange.com) a professional carbon footprinting consultant based in Oxford with two environmental Masters degrees.

For more on Danny, go to his blog, at A Daisy Through Concrete or his MySpace page. Or watch him on YouTube. And buy his new CD. We did, and it's excellent.

Get him to your children's school, to your local climate change event, to your front room. And pay him lots - we need more people like him.

Stop Climate Change March, London, 5 December 2009

I went on the Stop Climate Change March last Saturday. Depending on who you believe, so did somewhere between 20,000 and 60,000 other people.

Some interesting events straightaway. As we stand about in from Grosvenor Square, waiting for the off, I reminisce wistfully about the good old days of anti-Vietnam protests. Hoping he will share my nostalgia, I ask a middle-aged policeman whether we might not be allowed to sack the American Embassy. To my pleasant surprise, I am not arrested or (as far as I am aware) photographed. He replies simply, ‘Is it worth it?’ I am tempted to explain in some detail exactly what part the government and people of the United States currently play in our climate problems, but life is too short and the demonstration has started to roll down towards Piccadilly.

Almost immediately, we pass the Canadian High Commission and huge choruses of boos erupt – a mark of our enthusiasm for the Alberta tar sand projects. Yes, as George Monbiot noted the other day in The Guardian, the Canadians are finally the bad guys. Unimaginable in real life, of course, but then the Canadians no longer inhabit real life. Instead, their government has been hijacked by oil interests, while the great majority of real Canadians reject tar sands development as indignantly as they would slaughtering kittens. (I would say 'baby seals', but that would be a bit ironic with the Canadians.)

We pass by some of the most salubrious of London’s many salubrious properties, not to mention showrooms full of the fanciest of cars. I wonder what the average carbon footprint is around here. A bit more than the average American or Canadian, I suspect, and wonder exactly why popular protests do not focus on individuals and classes with environmentally obscene lifestyles as well as our cousins across the sea.

On down Piccadilly, skirting Trafalgar Square, and into Whitehall. As we pass Downing Street, I ask a policeman to ask Gordon Brown, our beloved Prime Minster, to come out, as his employers are here and want a word with him. The policeman is polite and at least a little amused, but feels unable to take my request forward. Apparently a delegation of representatives of the 100 or so organisations participating in the march got into No.10 to see Gordon, and no doubt reassuring platitudes were exchanged by all sides.

Which is a pity. Normally I have little confidence in our political class – not least because they still seem to be under the impression that climate change can be dealt with by the usual political wrangling. Nature, alas, does not negotiate, is unbeguiled by even the slickest of slogans and remains unimpressed by style and voter preferences. Yet I have the impression that climate change is just the sort of issue our beleaguered premier might be able to do something with, what with his apparently quite sincere (if recently wholly misplaced) moral enthusiasms.

Or maybe I should not be so easily fooled: for all his recent rhetoric, pretending to be a leader when you know full well no one is following you looks forthright and upstanding but risks little. It’s convenient for an unpopular politician facing the polls to be able to occupy the moral high ground (scarcely a position I expect the Tories to be able to occupy any time soon). I just hope he takes the problem seriously enough that millions will not have to move to a more literal high ground while he and his friends play games with the future of billions.

Prompted by a policeman remarking that if he weren’t on duty he’d join the march himself, I ask a couple of police officers whether they would join in if they weren’t on duty. Both reply that they’d be at home, looking after their children. I haven’t the presence of mind to suggest that that’s exactly what the march is all about, and I would like to know how they would have replied.

Do marches work? No. Or at least, no one could believe that they have much impact on their own, given how little was accomplished by at least twenty times as many people protesting about the war in Iraq. Will Blair ever be put on trial? No, of course not. But if he is, how many of the current crop would be up there with him? And what does that tell us about the likelihood that they will do anything substantial about climate change?

At 3 pm exactly we have the Great Blue Wave. Soon we are in Parliament Square. And straight past Parliament itself! Hang on, what’s the point of marching from one end of London to the other and then doing nothing? No great visible, audible protest? Why on earth not? Is it perhaps that the organisers couldn't get permission? Yes, that’s right, we need permission to express our opinion to our lords and masters about the way they are neglecting the planet. Which is, I suppose, as conclusive proof as you could want that they are indeed our lords and masters. And we go along with it, of course. Because, no doubt, we are British and middle class and jolly polite.

What do we want?
Modest and reasonable improvement!
When do we want it?
In due course!

Oh well. At least it’s quite interesting, having a ring side seat at the end of the world. I wonder what the average Roman senator felt like in about 450 AD?

The Limits to Growth

Just about the most convincing – and scary - book I ever read about the environment was The Limits to Growth. I would guess that everyone has heard of this book but my impression is that relatively few people have ever read it, or the two follow-up volumes. I read it when it first came out – almost four decades ago – and then again a few months back.

The book was written by a group of MIT researchers - Donella and Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers and William Behrens – and published in 1972 by the Club of Rome. The timing is interesting, as the first edition of The Limits to Growth is roughly contemporary with a number of other foundation texts in the overall environmental movement. 1971 saw the publication of Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb, which gave the growing concern with population growth a kick start. Then in 1972 Barbara Ward and the well-known anthropologists René Dubos published Only One Earth – a sort of semi-official UN report that attracted a lot of attention. And then in 1974, M. King Hubbard gave what was perhaps his most important summary of the position on oil and energy production, namely his testimony to Congress on the peaking of US oil production.

The reason I found The Limits to Growth so compelling – even more than Only One Earth or Silent Spring - was the simplicity and centrality of the question it posed and the directness of the method its authors used to answer it. Instead of endless facts and figures and yet another multi-faceted discussion of our environmental predicament, they simply asked what would happen if humanity at large continued with a small number of key trends:

• World population.
• Industrialization.
• Pollution.
• Food production.
• Resource depletion.

Their method was equally straightforward – so much so that, had I felt very doubtful about its validity when I first heard about it. They started with a very generalised model of these factors - the ‘World3’ model developed by Professor Jay Forrester (also from MIT). This is described in Forrester’s World Dynamics (published the previous year), which used a ‘system dynamics’ approach. This was really a very simple model - basically a suite of functional interactions (circular, interlocking, sometimes time-delayed relationships, etc.) between what the modellers regarded as the key social and natural phenomena. World3 was based on large, long-term factors, which it defined in self-consciously simple and gross terms, without much detail. It made little attempt to explain why these interactions were as they were.

When tracking what happened when the trends they were interested in unfolded, the Limits to Growth team were not looking for trouble. They made strongly optimistic assumptions when in doubt, and took into account most of the qualifications critics usually offer about predictions of environmental doom and gloom – resource substitution, the power of innovation, and so on. On the other hand, they did assume that all these factors tend towards compound growth - which is to say, that they grow by a constant percentage, and constantly accelerate, not by a constant amount, which would lead only to regular increments of the same size. They also interact with one another, which has the effect of overshoots and disruptions in one undermining the others.

A typical outcome of the model went like this:

1. Population cannot grow without food.
2. Food production can only be increased by growth of capital.
3. Creating more capital requires extracting and processing more resources.
4. Discarded waste from resource extraction, refining and usage become pollution.
5. Pollution interferes with the growth of both population and food.
6. So the system tends towards eventual collapse of both population and food production.

It’s crucial to understand that this collapse happens not only because a specific input is damaged or reduced (which might be ameliorated by resource substitution, innovation, etc.) but because the system undermines itself. That is, the initial success of the system destroys the conditions for its continuing success. This is, I think, why it makes relatively little difference to assume that we will eventually find far more resources than are currently expected, or that we can continue to have cheap energy.

The authors made multiple runs of the model based on different assumptions. Although, like most futurologists, they avoided claiming to be making strict predictions, the consistency of the outcomes is quite frightening enough.

The book analyses quite a few scenarios (though only a fraction of those actually run, apparently). The starting point was ‘business as usual’, which led to the following outcomes:

1. Massive industrial growth depletes resources.
2. Resource prices then rise and stocks are depleted.
3. So more capital used for obtaining resources, leaving less for growth.
4. Eventually investment cannot keep up with depreciation.
5. With that, the industrial base collapses, taking with it the service and agricultural systems, the tax base for government, and so on.
6. However, population keeps rising, so the death rate is driven upward by lack of food and health services.

Radical collapse comes ‘well before the year 2100’.

As I say, the authors presented other scenarios in which:

• Nuclear power is cheap and safe.
• We manage to discover vastly increased resources.
• Innovation and technology allow much reduced pollution.
• Agricultural yields are greatly improved.

And so on. By and large, these optimistic assumptions mean that the eventual collapse is delayed by a decade or two – never more.

Here’s another typical example: the Green Revolution. This has indisputably increased food production, but at a price. The specialised seeds require a great deal of fertiliser and water. The former accelerates fossil fuel use and depletion, while the latter extracts more water than natural systems can sustain. In addition, the need for extensive capital also leads to peasant farmers being evicted from the land by their landlords, and hundreds of thousands of landless peasants end up in Mumbai, Kolkata, Sao Paulo or Mexico City, where they have no resources and no relevant skills from what they might earn a living. This increases pressure on urban systems and causes fertile land to be built over by slums.

The increase in capital requirements – tractors, petrol, fertiliser, shipping etc. – needed to operate the Green Revolution hugely depletes resources, including oil and natural gas. What is worse, the intensive treatment of the soil under a monoculture régime means that it becomes less able to support any other sort of agriculture, so the system becomes even more locked into an inherently unsustainable ‘solution’, and by this remarkable ‘advance’ we have managed to convert what one would have thought was an inherently renewable resource – fertile soil – into a non-renewable resource. Aren’t we clever? Meanwhile, the planet’s carbon footprint is made that little bit bigger, global warming is given that small extra shove upwards, and the glaciers that feed the irrigation systems that feed the crops melt that little bit faster. More jam today, but not only less jam tomorrow but also a lot less ability to manage having less jam tomorrow.

More generally, the consistent result reported by The Limits to Growth was overshoot and collapse. If the present trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue, the limits to growth will be reached by 2070. The alternative scenarios only delay collapse: all end by 2100. The most probable direct outcome will be sudden, uncontrollable falls in population and industry – in other words, the ‘hundreds of millions’ of deaths predicted by the Stern Report. Only The Limits to Growth predicted it all three and a half decades earlier.

The authors conclusions about the ‘business as usual’ scenario are stark:

The unspoken assumption behind all of the model runs we have presented in this chapter is that population and capital growth should be allowed to continue until they reach some ‘natural’ limit. This assumption also appears to be a basic part of the human value system currently operational in the real world. Given that first assumption, that population and capital growth should not be deliberately limited but should be left to ‘seek their own levels’, we have not been able to find a set of policies that avoids the collapse mode of behavior.

As so often, the reactions to the original publication illuminating not only for the welcome offered to this absolutely vital book but also by the disdain expressed by those who could see no further than the status quo. It was described as ‘the most fascinating and the most disturbing book’, and it was said that ‘if this doesn't blow everybody's mind who can read without moving his lips, then the earth is kaput’. But it was also described as ‘a piece of irresponsible nonsense’ and ‘an empty and misleading work’.

The authors reviewed their findings in updates published in 1992 and 2004. These books are worth reading in their own right, as they both go far beyond updating the original methods and finding. Their original conclusions, they find, were sound. They needed some qualifications, but by comparison with the critics who greeted the original publication with such scorn and the deniers by whom they are still surrounded, they seem to have been pretty much spot-on.

Nor is this merely their own opinion. In 2008 Graham Turner published a comprehensive re-evaluation of the data, and concluded that:

The analysis shows that 30 years of historical data compares favorably with key features of a business-as-usual scenario…, which results in the collapse of the global system midway through the 21^st century.

In other words, we have done nothing significant to deflect our fate.

So are there no scenarios that lead to a happy ending? Maybe - it depends on what makes you happy. If you want interminable consumerism, then no, there aren’t. If you ever wanted a ringside seat at the end of the world, consumerism represents the front row. But if you are willing to settle for mere sufficiency, to imagine that there might actually be an ‘enough’, then yes, a somewhat reduced standard of living – something like the 1940s or 1950s, it is said – is available for all. Not bad, given the alternative, and hardly desperate poverty by any standard. It’s not as though we are any happier than we were then, though it might take a bit of getting used to. Nor need it look quite like that slightly dismal era – we start from here, not there, and a great deal can be done with a 1950s carbon footprint, give the science and technology of the 21^st century.

But there is a lot to be done – population control, the end of ‘the American Way of Life’ (which surely represents the biggest threat to the planet since the last ice age), serious support for developing countries, and so on. But it’s hardly worth thinking about – we never have done anything about these things, we show no signs of doing anything about it, and we are led by politicians, media and business people with as much grasp of our situation and as much interest in dealing with it as a bucketful of molluscs.

But not to worry – it will soon be too late to deflect the worst effects of our own actions, so we won’t have to worry about it any more. Just die in our millions. If you have ever wondered what the fall of the Roman Empire looked like, stay tuned.

Read this book.

References

Ehrlich, P. (1971). The Population Bomb. Cutchogue, N.Y.: Buccaneer Books.

Forrester, J.W. (1971) World Dynamics. Cambridge, Mass.: Wright-Allen Press.

Hubbert, M.K. (1974). Testimony to Hearing on the National Energy Conservation Policy Act of 1974, hearings before the Subcommittee on the Environment of the committee on Interior and Insular Affairs House of Representatives. June 6, 1974. Published as The Nature Of Growth by Technocracy.org.

Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J. and Behrens III, W.W. (1972). The Limits to Growth. A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York: Universe Books.

Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, and J. (1992). Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future. Earthscan.

Meadows, D.H., Randers, J., and Meadows, D.L. (2004). The Limits to Growth: The 30-year Update. Earthscan.

Turner, G. (2008). A comparison of the Limits of Growth with thirty years of reality. CSIRO Working Paper Series 2008-2009.

Ward, B., and Dubos, R. (1972). Only One Earth. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Negotiating - a numbers game the poor must lose

John Vidal had a very good piece on the pre-Copenhagen talks in the Guardian last Friday. Reading this article reminded me of something I have often read elsewhere - that one of the real reasons why developing countries will always lose out at the climate change talks is that they haven't enough negotiators or expertise - a stupidly simple, practical reason that western governments take ruthless advantage of.

Vidal reports that the whole of Africa - 55 countries - has only 145 negotiators - to cover every area, to be present at all the meetings. 'At least 50 countries have only one or two, but the WWF… has a team of 50'. What is more, 'the G77 has no offices, no permanent staff and no budget to meet in advance of conferences'. Even the language - invariably English - is against many of them. Meanwhile, the UK, USA and Denmark have 142 participants between them, plus innumerable lawyers, interpreters and consultants on tap, all armed with huge budgets, etc. The conferences are organised and run and the agenda and processes are comprehensively dominated by white diplomats from industrial countries. It's quite impossible for developing countries, and the real decisions are made when they are not present, in closed meetings.

But this is exactly the model on which the WTO operates - effective exclusion by lack of representation and expertise, the manipulation of meetings and a constant and quite deliberate war of attrition and divide and conquer against the poor and weak.

And why are they poor and weak in the first place? Because of the last couple of centuries of colonial and post-colonial exploitation.

So well done all you clever western negotiators! Who knows how many people will die because you exercised your talent for bullying and deceit so expertly in the name of the glorious western way of life! And how soon do you plan to start blaming the poor for their plight, or congratulating yourselves on your wonderful humanity? But I forgot -you started on that one the moment you set foot in their countries and heroically took up the White Man's Burden.

Words fail me. (Well, obviously not, Richard...)

One of nature's little jokes

One of the great hopes for environmentally clean energy to reduce the impact of climate change is of course wind power. One of the places where, through as combination of geography, technology and economy, you would have thought wind power had a good chance of proving itself is the American Midwest. Where, according to a paper just published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, wind speeds are have been falling for decades. Because of climate change.

Never let it be said that Mother Nature doesn't have a sense of humour.

Source: Pryor, S.C., R.J. Barthelmie, D.T. Young, E. S. Takle, R. W. Arritt, D. Flory, W. J. Gutowski, A. Nunes, and J. Roads (2009), Wind speed trends over the contiguous USA, J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2008JD011416, in press.

Global solutions: effective, efficient, equitable?

A persistent theme in much writing about the coming decades is the need for global agreements that go a good deal further than the technical questions of environment management. Nicholas Stern (the author of the authoritative Stern Review on the economics of climate change) is typical of this line of thought:

But we have to act together, to create a global deal – this is a problem that is global in both its origins and its impacts.

That global deal must be effective, in that it cuts back emissions on the scale required; it must be efficient, in keeping costs down; and it must be equitable in relation to abilities and responsibilities, taking into account both the origins and impact of climate change. (From Stern's A Blueprint for Safer Planet, p.4)

Everyone seems to say as much, and as a statement of how we should approach the coming decades, it is impossible to contradict.

I just don’t believe it will happen. In fact I suspect that the most we can realistically expect is that the actions we take will be moderately effective. Civilisation will probably not collapse. But as for efficiency and equity, what is it in our performance to date that would lead anyone to expect either? I doubt that, whatever the deals we collectively agree too, our collective response will be anything of the kind. There are far too many countervailing forces for that to happen.

The efficiency of any future global strategy is almost certainly out of the question. As everyone admits, we are faced with global problems. But we do not have global systems in place to deal with them. On the contrary, our systems are not only fragmented but also full of conflict and antipathy between individual nations. There is also a profound conflict of interest between the owners and senior management of global corporations - the other most powerful economic players on the planet - and the rest of us.

Of course, in some profound sense we are all in this together, and completely failure will be fatal for all of us. But between here and complete failure there are many decisions to be made, each of which will benefit some and burden others. Reluctant though I am to say it of my fellow human beings, those who control the decision-making at each of these branching points will, more often than not, make sure that the decision is made in their own favour. That is to say, they will be decisions which are efficient for them. In Stern’s very appropriate words, they will be ‘keeping costs down’. This may mean keeping down the costs for humanity at large, but it will almost certainly involve minimising the costs of those who control the decisions. If this means increasing the ‘costs’ – the poverty, the danger, the hunger, the misery, the disease, the fear, the agony – of everyone else, then that will be presented as the best – or at least the least bad – alternative. Those who do not control these decisions will take the consequences. Which, in many cases, will be fatal.

As for equity, we have never taken this seriously in the past and I believe it will be a lot harder to take seriously in future. In the current (relatively) stable and affluent industrial world, only a handful of the most wealthy nations ever fulfils its public commitments on aid. We announce and re-announce help for long term development and short-term disaster, and then fail to live up to either. Given that the sums involved – currently just 0.7% of GDP – are so small that we would not miss them if we paid them in full, what can we expect of decisions about disasters that are not yet even visible. And in a future world of successive environmental crises, mass migrations, resource wars and much else, there will be far less concern for, let alone commitment to, equity. On the contrary, most of humanity will not even show up on the radar screens of the key decision-makers.

Why then should we expect equity from any future arrangements to curb climate change, resource depletion, ecosystems degradation, population growth and other environmental threats? I suspect that the real fount of future ‘equity’ is likely to be what it has always been - the economic power that countries like China, India, Brazil and Russia are already starting to wield. In a world of declining fossil fuels, the European Union will not be allowed to forget that Gazprom alone controls a sixth of the world’s natural gas reserves. The United States Treasury has long since started to eye nervously China’s enormous dollar holdings - they currently hold nearly $2 trillion in US Treasury bonds, whose manipulation could easily hole the entire western economy. These are people we will treat ‘equitably’ – because they come to the negotiating table as equals, not to mention rivals. But the hundred-plus countries that are each smaller than all of the world’s hundred largest companies? If GlaxoSmithKline, Cisco Systems and Wells Fargo are unlikely to be granted a seat at the top table, what can lesser economic entities like Estonia, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Trinidad and Tobago, Ivory Coast, Panama, El Salvador, Tanzania, Bahrain, Jordan, Iceland, Bolivia, Ghana, Paraguay, Zambia, Uganda, Botswana, Honduras and the many other yet smaller countries expect?

But not even the effectiveness of any future ‘global deal’ can be taken for granted. There are after all degrees of effectiveness. I previously suggested three levels of outcome for our current position: a setback comparable to a world war; an impact on our civilisation as a whole comparable to the fall of the Roman empire; and a threat to civilisation as such, comparable to a new ice age. As I have previously said, I do not know which we are really facing, but for all the reasons that we should expect neither efficiency nor equity, we should expect the effectiveness of our actions to be limited too - perhaps to the point where the twenty-first century goes down as the worst in history.

More precisely, we should expect rich and powerful countries that are situated in relatively cool regions to do as little as possible until they have no choice but to act in their own interests. That is after all what they have always done about global problems and what they have done so far about our current environmental threats. Even if they have the foresight to recognise that disaster in developing countries now will mean disaster for them later, they will almost certainly do only what is needed to forestall the later disaster to themselves. This will almost certainly be much less than preventing or remedying the original disaster to developing countries, no doubt accompanied by a great deal of hand-wringing, protestations of good intentions and dishonest claims to be taking ‘appropriate’ action. The real focus being on deflecting the negative consequences for the rich and powerful. Again going by our experience of aid, we will even find opportunities to benefit from the suffering of developing countries. Again, we always have. And then millions and millions of people will die.

The upshot of all this is simple. Simply continually asserting that our approach must be efficient or equitable will result in neither. If we want our response to the many environmental threats we face in the twenty-first century to be efficient or equitable, we must take a very firm and explicit decision that it should be so. More than that, we must create global institutions that represent humanity at large – which is to say, people rather the most powerful corporations and nation states.

It is hard to imagine what such an institution would look like. After all, none of our existing systems operate at that level. But in any case, I can still think of no compelling reason to expect any such institutions to be created even if they could be easily described, and the chances of their coming into existence will recede faster and faster as the real problems caused by 3° and 4° temperature increases start to hit us, as the global economy starts to unravel in the face of accelerating oil and gas prices and whole populations start to move in the face of poverty, hunger, disease and war.

There's no money in saving the world

We continue to see the repercussions of relying on business to deliver our response to climate chaos, global warming and resource depletion. The last few days have thrown up these stories in the media:

• Canadian environmental groups on Wednesday accused Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s biggest energy group, of reneging on its promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at its oil sands project in Alberta. (FT, 8/4/09)
• At least five big wind energy projects are in danger of being delayed or shelved owing to higher costs and a shortage of credit, the British Wind Energy Association said on Wednesday. (FT, 9/4/09)
• Japan is expected to restart the world’s biggest nuclear power plant shortly – nearly two years after it was damaged by an earthquake. The prolonged shutdown of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant’s seven reactors knocked Tokyo Electric Power into the red and threatened Tokyo with electricity shortages during the hot summer months, when air-conditioner use pushes up demand. The facility accounts for 13 per cent of Tepco’s generating capacity and without it the company has been forced to rely on more expensive coal, oil and gas plants. (FT, 9/4/09)
• Several prominent energy companies have scaled back their commitment to renewables, including BP, Shell and Iberdrola. (FT, 9/4/09)

And so on. On the other hand, Mars and Cadbury have promised to move to sustainable, Fairtrade supplies of cocoa (FT, 9/4/09). So we don't need to worry about Peak Chocolate just yet. On the otehr hand, I would not be very confident that they would ahve done anything about this were it not for ethically motivated public and staff pressure - as Fiona Dawson, managing director of Mars UK, has said, consumers and employees expected Mars to “do the right thing” because “nobody has to buy confectionery”.

The fact is, a monkey will type Hamlet before profit-driven companies will create a credible and effective answer to our many, many environmental problems in the middle of a slump. (I was going to say that Hell will freeze over, but at least that is one outcome global warming protects us from.)

President Obama, the Climate President

So Barack Obama has flown over to the G20 Summit in London with 500 people and several identical helicopters, most of which are flying solely as decoys to potential assassins. To talk about climate change as a small (and probably completely perfunctory) part of the agenda of a conference that will involve just 4 and a bit hours of talks.

May be a clue there about a) exactly how much difference this will make, and b) what the cause of climate change is. Thank God the protestors are there: otherwise it would seem like a complete waste of time.

Fossil Fools Day protests

In case you're inclined to join in, here is a summary (kindly provided by the security people in a neighbouring City institution) of the protests planned for the end of the month.

G20 Meltdown - April 1st and 2nd
Anarchists and anti-capitalists intend to hold a 24 hr 'Reclaim the Streets' style event in the City, starting at 12:00 hrs at the Bank of England, Bank Junction. Intelligence also suggests climate related protests) and actions (this is also 'Fossil Fools Day) at RBS, 250 Bishopsgate and the European Carbon Exchange and Carbon Exchange Plc at 62 Bishopsgate. Attendance can be expected to be between 1,000-2,000, although this cannot be confirmed.

At 11:00 hrs, several gatherings will take place at the tube / train stations of Liverpool Street, London Bridge, Cannon Street and Moorgate. Each group will then snake their way to the Bank of England at 12:00 hrs, headed by the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Representing:

• Climate Chaos - Green Horse - Liverpool Street Station
• Anti-war - Red Horse - Moorgate Station
• Job / savings / pensions losses - Silver Horse - London Bridge Station
• Home repossessions - Black Horse - Cannon Street Station

Intelligence suggests that:

• The Liverpool Street convergence will be in the form of a FlashMob to raise public awareness, stretch police resources and avoid police 'corralling' action.
• Some anarchists may attempt an incursion into the Bank of England, using force if necessary.
• An overnight vigil in the City with attendees bringing tents to sleep in.
• Early morning attendance at the LSE on 2nd April (07:00 hrs) with a view to disrupt trading.

Other autonomous actions against banks, financial institutions and those linked to the climate industry, in particular those that have recently benefited from the government bailout and mergers (Lloyds, RBS etc).

Historically, this type of action usually takes the form of a party-type atmosphere with sound systems playing. This sometimes turns confrontational and can result in a mass rush towards the entrances of locations that they are seeking to occupy or a break out of police lines. Anarchists in the past have committed acts of criminal damage by causing graffiti or smashing windows and, therefore, encouraging looting. This should be considered due to the proximity of the Royal Exchange. Popular targets are those with a particularly capitalist image, e.g. McDonalds, Starbucks, banks, or those with Israeli links due to the recent events in Gaza.

As many will remember, the G18 actions of 10 years ago resulted in mass disorder and conflict with police. Actions included climbs, banner drops, barricades, storming of several buildings and the setting alight the Mercedes garage. Although there is no intelligence to suggest a repeat of these events, the planned days of action do bear some resemblance to those of G18.

Other related events:

• 28th March : The TUC will be holding a march & rally from Embankment to Hyde Park from 11:00- 17:00 hours. It is anticipated that up to 30,000 people will attend this event.


• 2nd April : G20 Conference, ExCEL Centre - It is possible that activists will attempt some kind of blockade or incursion at the event. There will be a robust policing plan in place.

London - Paris return: 10.9kg

I'm off the Paris tomorrow, to see my lovely daughter. So I thought I'd try to find out exactly how much CO2 I'm going to be emitting in the process. Starting from London, the answer is 10.9kg, Eurostar (the train company) tell me. All independently audited, etc.

Compare that with 122 kg - 11 times as much! - if I fly! And the door-to-door journey time is not noticeably different.

Two questions naturally spring to mind:

1. Why on earth would anyone prefer to have a truly wretched time traipsing out to Heathrow, hanging about and queuing for an age, and then being stuffed into a noisy, uncomfortable and (relatively) dangerous airplane?

2. Why is even still legal to do take the plane when the environmental difference is so vast?

No, the answer isn't freedom of choice. I don't have the freedom to shout in other people's ears in public places (though apparently advertisers do), so why should I have the freedom to pollute their air and endanger their planet? And the sooner we get used to that idea, the better for all of us. Especially for my daughter, her children and grandchildren.

Climate change: Back to the wrong drawing board

The head of the IPCC is reported today as saying that Barack Obama is unable to introduce the kind of carbon cuts EU countries are aiming at, lest he face social revolution. As a result, report the media, the new post-Kyoto climate deal is in jeopardy.

Tosh.

And the problem is, as with the perennial What about China? Conundrum, we have exactly the wrong approach to how climate agreements work. Look at it like this. Imagine that there are two hundred or so people – one for each country on the planet – standing in your neighbourhood park, evenly spread out, all wearing blindfolds and each carrying a gun. Every now and again they each fire in a random direction. Some, such as the ones representing the USA or China, fire more frequently than the ones who represent Somalia or Tanzania. Given how they are spread out, few bullets kill, but inevitably some do.

So what is the right solution to the rising death toll? To only stop firing when we all agree to stop? Or does it make sense for everyone to stop as soon as possible, regardless of what everyone else does? If I fire more slowly, I kill fewer people, and if I’m not firing at all, I don’t kill anyone. Why on Earth would I wait for anyone else to stop firing?

Likewise with climate agreements. If China and the USA and Australia and India and Russia go on putting carbon into the atmosphere – or depleting resources or encouraging population growth or allowing ecosystems damage - many will die. But regardless of what anyone else does, the rest of the world can minimise the casualties by slowing and then stopping the damage they are doing, and the USA and China and everyone else is more than welcome to join us - ASAP please.