Climate change is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the future of humanity. It's just one piece of a far greater problem that won't be solved with a minuscule carbon tax.
For years I've argued that we can't hope to thwart climate change if we treat it as some standalone threat which is precisely what we've been doing. That cavalier approach could, probably will be our undoing.
Climate change is just one existential threat that is tightly interwoven with others. To sort even one we must sort them all. I have tried to lump them into three categories: climate change, overpopulation and over-exploitation of the planet's finite resources.
Johan Rockstrom, co-director of the Potsdam Institute, warns that when it comes to averting climate breakdown, eliminating fossil fuels is the easy part. He says there are nine planetary boundaries we must not cross if human civilization is to survive.
'(The framework) answers where are the biophysical processes in the Earth's system that regulate our ability to have a stable climate system and planet. And what you find is that it's not only about carbon, it's also about biological systems and processes. It is taking all the planetary boundaries seriously and (recognising that) they all interact with each other.'
'If you read the 1.5°C report carefully, it tells you that, yes, we have to basically decarbonise the world's energy system by 2045, 2050 by the latest, to stand a chance at 1.5°C. But the assumption is, and it's really a prerequisite to that feat, that the overall resilience of the planet is maintained, that carbon continues to be sequestered (stored) in all our natural ecosystems.
'How we deal with natural capital and the living biosphere will be fundamental to whether we will fail or succeed with Paris (the Paris Agreement to limit global warming).'
'We focus all our attention on coal, oil and natural gas, but when you look at the agenda overall, that's the easier part of the climate challenge. The much more challenging part is water, soil, biodiversity, nitrogen, phosphorus, the bio dimension of the economy and of the climate challenge.
'The key here is to take a systems approach (i.e. understand how ecosystems and climate interact) and to take a full life cycle approach, and then to look at the systemic challenges around all the aspects of the bioeconomy. If one does that, I think many solutions will emerge.'So we have these planetary boundaries and our survival depends on staying within them. Which brings us to another line of argument routinely advanced on this blog - the need to shrink the global economy until it is safely within the finite limits of our planet's ecology.
'The first task is to define, through Earth system analysis, where the boundaries are. That's the task that I, and my scientific peers with me, have focused our attention on. The planet boundary framework is in no way a solution or a monitoring scheme. It gives you the boundaries within which we have a good chance of maintaining a stable planet.Then comes the hardest part - equity. Not only do we have to find a way forward that's not driven by perpetual exponential growth, we have to find ways to fairly allocate resources and budgets, nation by nation, sector by sector. It's an odd form of rationing among nations and we're either going to accept it or we're finished. It's that simple and that obvious.
'Then, of course, the exciting question is, where are we and how are we progressing over time against these boundaries? Now, can we measure that? Yes, we have increasing (measuring) capabilities ... based on data from, for example, global Earth observation systems.'
'We are working very hard, as are very many research groups around the world, to develop methodologies of how to quantify the boundaries for different nations and for different sectors and in society. That is a challenge, definitely. It is possible, scientifically, to define, for example, that 10 million tonnes of phosphorous maximum are allowed to flow into the oceans each year. That's a global boundary number.
'Now the question is, how do you distribute that between Germany and the US and China in a scientific but also in a transparent and equitable way - i.e. how is the global phosphorus budget to be distributed in quantitative budgets between nations?'Here's Rockstrom giving a TED Talk from way back in 2010 or, as I like to call it, "the good old days".
Has Rockstrom missed a tenth planetary boundary we must not cross? I'd add human population. We crossed that boundary 60 years ago.
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ReplyDeleteHe seems to imagine we can manage a population of 9 billion if, and this is a huge "if," all of the other boundaries are respected. That's plainly a theoretical argument because the chances we will meet all of those boundaries are near nil. Rockstrom ignores the worst of human nature. If we cannot get public support for a minor carbon tax what chance is there that we will agree to a major redistribution of assets and pollution quotas?
We need to have a conversation about how giant corporations are destroying the planet and what we are hearing is that individuals are eating meat and sucking straws. (with apologies to the originator of that statement) Why would people at large accept a carbon tax when they see government giving concessions to the rich and very wealthy corporations.
ReplyDeleteYou've seen the statistics. Those big container ships and oil takers burn the worst bunker oil and spew far more pollutants than automobiles yet we are told to take a bus. Etc. I don't think that the average person should be let off the hook but for crying out loud, governments have to go after the big polluters.
One would think that, after the climate conference, our Environment Minister will come home and shut down the Tar Sands. Get ready to hear more excuses.
With multi corporations buying up huge tracks of land in Canada, not to farm but to acquire water rights, do you think it should be top of the list?? Anyong
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ReplyDeleteToby, the fact is I can't imagine we'll deal with these boundary lines. There's neither the political nor popular will for that because it entails some measure of "sustainable retreat" which means sacrifice that today's "entitled" public will not accept.
ReplyDeleteAnyong, I don't understand your point. What corporations and where are these vast tracts of land? The top of what list? Why would you have Canada's freshwater in priority and over what else?
3:56...Jason Kenney's land sale plan.
ReplyDeleteCanadians ought to be very concerned regarding "Land Grabbing" within this country of ours by such people as "Blackstone Group, the world's largest investment firm and the largest land-lord in the US, which buys up land everywhere. Blackstone Chairman, CEO and co-founder Stephen Schwarzman "the most powerful banker on the Planet," oversees $344 billion of which Canada's Brian Mulroney, former Conservative Prime Minister, has been on the board of the Blackstone Group since 2007, when he was appointed along with such luminaries as retired Deloitte & Touche CEO William Parrett and Lord Nathanial Rothschild, heir to the banking dynasty. An important article for the "Watershed Sentinel" in 2013, Susan MacVitte revealed that Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland & Labrador have no restrictions on foreign ownership of land. An unnamed investor with a US management company recently acquired almost four per cent of Nova Scotia's land mass. Similarly, the National Farmers Union (NFU) in October 2017 expressed alarm at "the rate at which Prince Edward Island land is being transferred to large corporate interests. Investors, local and international, with big money, seeing low return on their investment in the financial sector, are turning to securing their future wealth by investing in land, which they presume will increase in value. Government appears not to be properly enforcing the PEI Lands Protection Act so that limits on acreage ownership are "closely monitored to avoid exploitation of loop-holes in the Act." As the NFU puts it, it's basically only governments that have "the capacity to trace the money, to uncover the source of the investments, and to publicize these." Saskatchewan has the toughest restrictions where land is seen as a natural resource that should not be controlled by outsiders. However, interest in Canadian land has spurred would-be buyers to establish Canadian residency. Because of Climate Change, people like BlackRock Inc., who has shares in Monsanto, Syngenta, Tyson Foods, Deere and Co., and ADM (Archer Daniels Midland) think that farmland or land of any kind is Canada's "hottest asset". Usually, the goal of such big farmland investments is to set up large-scale industrial farming operations, which prevent small-scale farmers from accessing good land. But the real reason for people like Blackstone Group to announce that "It was coming to Canada" as reported in the Globe and Mail in April of 2014 is: "Around the world a lot of "land grabbing" is actually all about gaining control of water, which is far more scare than land; without water, you cannot farm, animals cannot survive, people cannot live, and a lot of land grabbers are from water-scarce countries. Do we actually know why Jason Kenny is planning the selling of Crown Land in Alberta? Supposedly at this point, it comes down to paying off Alberta Debit but what are the loop-holes in such a venture? Is our precious resource really protected for the use of Canadians? All we have to do is look to Nestlé. Nestlé Canada currently has permits that allow it to extract up to 4.7 million litres of water a day from sources in Ontario and then sell it back to Canadians at $1.50. With Brian Mulroney on the Blackstone board, the company's investment opportunities in Canada have widened significantly. Will we really know what will happen to Alberta land under Jason Kenny?
Oh...the above ... that's me, Anyong
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