This is The ChangeUnderground for the 24th of April 2023.
I’m your host, Jon Moore
Decarbonise the Air, Recarbonise the Soil!
Quote:
The United Nations General Secretary, Antonio Guterres, has urged governments to pick up the pace and accelerate climate action.
He is calling for deeper, faster emissions cuts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius as well as a massive scaling up in investment in climate change adaptation and resilience.
His statement comes as the World Meteorological Organisation launched its State of the Global Climate 2022 Report which shows the planetary scale of changes on land, in the oceans and in the atmosphere caused by record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
The WMO report confirms that the years 2015-2022 were the warmest eight-year period on record despite the cooling impact of a La Niña event for the past three years.
End Quote
That was the RTE website dated Friday April 21 2023, entitled: Warmest eight-year period on record – WMO report.
We’ve lived through this, obviously, but what the actual???
It reminds me of that meme showing a timeline. On the left starting around 1990 and running towards about 2010 and underneath is the phrase, “Global Warming is a hoax.” 2010 to 2020, “Maybe it’s real.” 2020 to 2025 “Ok this needs to be dealt with 2026, “Oh Shit”.
I’d advise rewatching “Don’t look up” that movie from the lockdown world where the scientists are ignored, the plan is to make money from an incoming asteroid and it impacts even though there was just enough time to get things sorted.
We, as a public, as a species, as individuals have been sold a pup. It’s all our fault because we exist. The corollary of this thinking is humans need to go. Somewhere in the middle we have the just don’t eat meat, everyone live in battery hen boxes, she’ll be right, mate and a few, a lonely few, actually responding to the crisis.
We require a root and branch redesign of things. Let’s look, slightly off topic, but actually instructive, at the current levels of inflation and the responses by central banks. Back in the olden days, 1960s to 1980s say and even further back to be fair, inflation was attacked by tightening lending requirements. So a buyer would need 25% of the purchase price of a house rather than say 10% during periods of inflation. This meant more savings less spending but without screwing over mortgage holders or renters. Another way of doing this was to require the banks to hold more of their capital in liquid assets. This avoided runs on banks. The higher the inflation the more the banks need to hold. These were referred to as statutory holding requirements. Interest rates tended to be left alone. This had two effects. Banks didn’t profit from changes in interest rates and borrows weren’t squeezed by increasing interest rates. You can see the problem with a return to this system. The banks don’t make anywhere near as much profit under this reserves system.
Vested interests, no pun intended but I’ll take it, in the financial system, as we have seen blatantly since 2007/8/9, have captured the policy makers.
Let’s cast this lens across the climate debacle. The right wing, here in Aus and elsewhere but not universally, have taken the “nothing to see here, we’ll sort things out with technology if we really have to” approach. The Greens here in Aus had the opportunity to get the ball rolling on climate action after Labor was elected back in 2007 but they weren’t happy with the initial legislation and defeated it in the upper house because it wasn’t “green” enough. Our issues today would be far less arduous had they been more accepting of steps along the way. Instead we ended up with a decade of lunatic right wing “They’re coming to steal your weekends” because “electric cars”.
I’ve mentioned that our immediate past Prime Minister had brought a lump of coal into parliament as a stunt to show it wasn’t any to be scared of and his first speech after electoral defeat was to a bunch of prosperity gospel nutjobs where he stated that “He didn’t believe in government.” I kid you not.
Meanwhile the world keeps warming, the Pacific Islands are continually inundated with salt water, parts of Florida too, glaciers shrink, droughts run on to be ended with torrential floods, wars go on, Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen and on and on.
Back to economic reasoning. If we managed to destroy all the pollinators or just enough to make the job now a human one, that is individuals with soft paint brushes moving through orchards and pumpkin fields spreading pollen from flower to flower, wherever this happens, that country’s Gross Domestic Product increases because there’s an increase in individuals who have employment. It is truly mind boggling how we have come so far down this dead end. I of course refer myself back to those two words: vested interests. But what the actual????
Yes we can all do things, especially in the developed world to make a difference, probably not enough of a difference but still worth the effort. Plant trees, food trees, nuts and fruits. Grow more of our own food. Look, I’m as guilty as anyone. Coffee doesn’t yet grow here in Tassie and neither does tea and I could probably live without either. Especially when the working conditions of the producers are taken into account. A Fair Trade band aid makes me feel warm inside, as does the coffee but I’m not convinced it changes the world for the better by very much.
And there’s always unintended consequences. The Royal Navy stumbles upon lemon juice to ward off scurvy. Sicily develops a huge lemon industry and gives birth to the mafia as well as supplying the Royal Navy and thereby supporting and sustaining English colonisation around the world. Everything is connected to everything else.
That being said, itn should be possible to transition from fossil fuel to carbon neutrality quickly if we can only find the points to apply change. The ripple effects will be quick and effective. Where those points are eludes moi. If you have any suggestions, let me know, I think we need to apply as much effort towards these points of change as possible and the rest falls into place.
If you have any thoughts on this email me or go to ChangeUndergroud Podcast group and let me know. Even if you’re not 100% sure your ideas will work, just let me know, please.
Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil!
Thank you all for listening and I’ll be back, all things being equal, next week.
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Warmest eight-year period on record – WMO report.
https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2023/0421/1378241-climate-wmo/