Fast forward to the End of the Earth?

I enjoyed reading an article by Martin Wolf in the FT (Wednesday 22/5/2013) entitled 'Climate sceptics have already won'.

Not content with just complaining about it Mr Wolf went so far as to offer a number of solutions with a view to buying time so that humanity can get its act together and so avoid catastrophe.

So far so good.

The solutions proposed were, in a nutshell:

• Tax carbon emissions
• Go nuclear
• Impose really tough emissions standards on cars
• Create secure global trading regime in lower-carbon fuels
• Develop ways to finance technology transfer
• Invest in research
• Invest in adaptation
• Think through geo-engineering.

You can be for or against any of these proposals, each of which has its merits.

Cars makers are already doing a lot to reduce emissions from their vehicles, for example. Geo-engineering seems a bit risky to me. Well-managed nuclear energy goes a long way to decarbonising the economy. Etcetera.

Many, or in fact all of the solutions, involve government action, not just regionally but globally. This is no doubt the greatest obstacle to any meaningful action being possible.

Our governments do not appear to be capable of formulating effective policies liable to affect GHG emissions, let alone habitat loss, mass extinction and other threats to the Earth System, Gaia or however you wish to call or planetary home.

The feeble way in which they are managing the depression/recession illustrates how incapable they seem to be.

The mantra of our leaders sounds like 'markets and the economy cannot be managed or controlled, we are helpless and will just have to wait for growth or whatever to come along'.

Woe betide us if climate change is viewed in the same way.

You can do only so much on a personal level (live an a low energy home, use public transport or stay put, grow your own food, recycle everything, only acquire things which have been recycled, support local businesses and produce etc).

What does it take for a governments to do something similar on a national, regional, global level?

The stark fact remains that it may already be far too late to avoid cataclysmic climate change induced by human activity. The only solution will be the sort of adaptation proposed by James Lovelock in order to preserve what can be preserved.

Things, such as Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets, are moving faster than we can imagine.

Nuclear subs (2)

The recent news (BBC and elsewhere 29th March) that two large energy companies RWE npower and E.ON have withdrawn plans to build new nuclear power stations comes as no surprise. There is not enough money in it for private investors. The enormous risks involved are clearly putting them off.

The only organisation which can possibly undertake this type of very long term nuclear power investment is the state. No private company will ever make sufficient returns for it to be viable for them and they may not be in existence long enough either (some states appear to be a bit shaky too). They will wait until the government decides to make the initial investment and allow them to make the returns from the captive customer base of the energy consumer (similar pattern to the railways, water and even more favourable than the current privatised energy supply industry).

These companies can clearly see more profits and less risk in oil, gas and coal. I would expect that gas obtained via fracking will soon be the next big thing, as this country appear to have large reserves of it. The government appears to be intent on burning fossil fuels for as long as they are available and are offering £1bn to anyone who can come up with a viable carbon capture scheme (3rd April in case you were thinking April Fool)).

There is already a viable carbon capture scheme in existence: is it known as the Earth system, Gaia, Nature or whatever you care to call it. It has been doing this free of charge for billions of years, but we seem to be intent on destroying it.

Natural Wine, China, the Universe and Everything

It is customary to make a list of things one would like to do or which one would like to see in the year ahead (world peace and harmony etc). I will not be doing this, as all this would amount to would be a litany of 'voeux pieux' as the French say - pious wishes which will never come to pass, made only to give oneself a warm feeling and show others how caring one is. I would like to set out some things I might be glad to see or which may have special significance over the next year. Here are a few of them.

With a spot of good fortune the 'debate' on Natural Wine will calm down and surpass the for or against, disgusting or delicious level; proponents of biodynamic or organic production will be looked upon as rational beings who have made an important choice rather than silly romantics or much worse. One day all of this will be the norm, at least among reasonable people. Let us get on with it. After all, what makes wine interesting, both from an organoleptic and philosophical standpoint, is it's diversity and ability to move the human spirit, to sooth the savage breast.

It would be great if instead of subsidising the middle class obsession with 'solar panels' aka photovoltaics our government could spend money on raising the abysmal standard of this country's existing housing stock, allowing the poorest people to benefit from warm, dry, comfortable homes, low energy costs and all the other benefits bestowed by living in a pleasant environment. It is a much more efficient use of resources to invest in energy conservation than spending on producing more and more appliances to produce more and more energy at a very high subsidised cost.

I would like Kevin McCloud to be successful in bringing more of his well insulated luminous homes to market and that George Clark will bring more empty houses into use. George's campaign is especially efficient as the buildings already exist;  only limited resources are required to produce a great living environment unlike the dreaded lookalike new builds.

The (human) world will change utterly. I do not know whether a 'terrible beauty is born' but the 27th December 2011 headline (Le Figaro) that China and Japan will use the Yuan directly without converting to US Dollars seems to me to be particularly significant. It marks the end of European/American domination of the world.  News that the Chinese have established an organisation similar to NASA and plan exploration of the Moon and perhaps Mars, as well as a space station, spell the end of serious manned space exploration by the USA and Russia. In future we will all be passengers of the Chinese or privatised space tourism outfits. This could all be good news for the Earth system, as the Chinese are well aware of the destruction caused to the environment by our species (they have extremely direct experience of this) and intend to do something about it (eventually-after they have achieved crushing economic dominance first, as they seem destined to do).

It will soon be possible to observe the atmospheric signature of small earth-sized planets orbiting neighbouring stars and identify the presence of oxygen, that sign of life only found where precious photosynthesis takes place and where life has formed its world, such as here on Earth. Or perhaps we will never find such signs, no matter how hard we try, and come to realise how precious Gaia is and change our ways. Whatever happens, may we realise that we must protect life wherever we find it and rejoice in it whether on this planet or on some distant body.

There. I think that will do for now. I can think of lots more but will not bore you with them today.

True Value

How much is a Ladybird ?

Who can put a price on Art or Nature ? What price a species wiped out by humans through greed or stupidity or usually both ?

Look at paintings such as the many versions of the Card Players or the representations of apples by Paul Cézanne or innumerable works by Claude Monet or Pablo Picasso or any of the other great painters of the 19th and 20th centuries. These works are beyond monetary value; whether they are in public or private collections they belong, in some sense, to all humans, such is their profound emotional presence. Having seen the recent BBC programme in the Storyville series about the Barnes collection - 'valued' at $25 billion, I have my reservations about putting a price on things, and about those who do so for their own mercantile motives. Some things are simply too precious and valuable to be judged in terms of some currency or other. It is common knowledge that money can all of a sudden become worthless, but throughout the short history of humanity, value still remains. From the earliest stone tools, to the first representations of animals or humans, to the cave paintings at Lascaux to the most exuberant Matisse, some of the things made by humans are the most loving, joyful, masterful creations of the Tribal Monkey.

Who can dispute this profound emotionality who has approached the Guernica by Pablo Picasso in the Reina Sofia in Madrid. It's presence is brooding and felt even when it is out of sight - probably because you are treated to some of the artist's sketches and drawings in preparation for the painting as you draw near. When you actually see it it is rather like a blow to the stomach such is the wave of emotion which fills you and overwhelms you. What is the value of this painting ? If it were to be sold, who could afford it ? Spain might be tempted in its hour of economic need. Its sale could make a dent in the deficit no doubt, but whether a price could be put on it is uncertain.

One thing on which a price has been put but which is not valued is energy and energy production. We have been brought up to believe that energy, be it electricity or petrol or gas or coal is freely available in unlimited quantities and can be bought cheaply, so cheaply in fact that it matters not how much we use or waste. Modern societies are founded on the fact that vast quantities of energy on a scale unimaginable to our ancestors who were limited to mainly wind, wood and animal power are immediately available to us for transport, manufacturing, home heating etc. Now that is probably less so now than it was only a few years ago mainly because speculators have driven up the price of oil, but it must be said that the price of fossil energy particularly bears no relation to how precious and finite a resource it is. Air transport in particular pays no premium of any kind on its use of energy. Nor does the price take account of the damage to the earth system done by large scale emissions of carbon dioxide and the risks that this implies for the future stability of our climate,  and the availability of food and water for the multitudes of humans now present on this planet.

Would it not be better to price energy fairly and enable people to use less of it and more efficiently in a society which is good at using small amounts of energy from mainly renewable resources to produce prosperity and stability ? The means, financial and technological, already exist for us to achieve this. What is lacking is the will to do so. Our governments must act to produce the conditions for this to happen. Oil companies would do well to divert their vast resources into energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. We as individuals should look at the little things we can do to make our own lives more efficient, less wasteful, more at peace with existence. What is the cost of a species lost through our fault or more precisely negligence. What price can you put on a Ladybird or a Great Auk, an Otter or a Peregrine ?

Future Frights

What does the future hold for us and the Earth as a functioning system ? One can be optimistic or pessimistic. In fact there are two forms of pessimism: the glass half empty kind and the sort where there is no water in the glass at all.

I find myself sometimes feeling uneasy about what might come. At other times I am glad to live in a country such as this which usually does nothing extremely dangerous or life-threatening and appears mild-mannered at all times, and will sustain us for ever, more or less without fail. It is not however being so mild mannered at the moment, reminding us that water in the form of rain is not something to be taken for granted.

What frights might befall us ? Rationing of energy and other resources (food, water and everything else) and the corresponding reduction of personal liberties. After all if you can't have fuel or energy your movements will be limited physically. But they will also be limited by governments who will have the task of keeping large populations fed and watered without a total breakdown. There may well be possible restrictions on reproduction. A war footing will be the norm. Will it be sustainable ? Possibly in temperate countries such as this which escape the worst of climate change and manage to limit their populations. Elsewhere, who knows ?  Needless to say the elites will be even more elite, having access to all the energy and other resources they require. Perhaps all government will be privatised and only accessible to those with the required financial resources. The rest may be sustained, but no more.

The Earth and the humans who inhabit it are resilient, though. Remember when rivers like the Thames or the Rhine were dead, used as open sewers ? The scene is very different today. I would not want to do much bathing in the Rhine or even the Thames, but fish and other form of life now thrive there because we have realised collectively that we have poisoned these water courses and take action to reverse this. Nature has done the rest, without hesitation. We should really be thankful for the irrepressibility of life.