By Roger Diamond.
Let me be clear — I am not a climate change denialist. But given the chance, that we all have, of selecting something meaningful to do with our lives, to leave a positive legacy or at least to reduce the negative impacts of our consumptive lifestyle, pick something tangible and manageable.
Climate change is more than just a buzzword — it’s become a sub-cult. A juggernaut that sweeps aside any sense and makes a mockery of any other environmental problem, hazard or threat. People just don’t take you seriously if you don’t bow to its superiority. The only way to make any headway on another environmental issue is to link it to climate change, otherwise you are kicked off the bandwagon, left to be dragged through the dirt and forgotten by all those serious trumpeters blowing their own carbon dioxide into the ever hotter atmosphere.
I am not recommending that we all forget about climate change, but rather that we see it for what it is — one of many environmental problems faced by humanity and this earth we share, and one of the more nebulous problems. Nebulous, politically sensitive, economically threatening, yet with money-making opportunities for carbon traders and industries. Vested interests, hidden agendas, predictive science, modelling and a whole bagful of uncertainties make tackling climate change like thrutching at soap bubbles in a howling south-easter! Sure, we can all take little actions that will surely make a difference, but you’re not going to see any difference, ever. Why? Why are we being told to pursue something so ungratifying as reducing the increase in the quantity of an odourless, invisible trace gas in the atmosphere?
OK, maybe I’m being a bit harsh. Some of the things you can do to address climate change are a little bit conspicuous, such as collecting your recycling, reducing your purchases of packaging, putting a solar geyser on your roof or using public transport. But the EFFECT of these on climate change is never going to show, if it is indeed going to have any effect at all. Why not pick something where you can see the positive effect?
So, what are all these other environmental problems? The list is so long, from disposal of nuclear waste to densification of urban settlements, let me pick just two that have great relevance in South Africa — soil erosion and invasive alien species.
South Africa is a dry country with limited plant cover and has remarkably steep slopes — a good recipe for soil erosion. Poor agricultural practices, such as overgrazing, cropping on steep slopes (without contour ploughing) and leaving no natural vegetation buffers next to watercourses, to name but a few, are all leading to immense erosion of the critical living envelope of the biosphere — the soil. Tackling soil erosion has immediate benefits. How to do it is generally obvious, yet it’s not happening. Farmers may soon be getting caught up in soil-carbon calculations and entering the global carbon trading market, whilst the fundamental resource of their livelihood is washing out to sea! Basic common sense surely dictates that we should be doing the simple, obvious thing of preserving our soil first.
Alien invasive species in South Africa are rampant. If you don’t believe this, read Leonie Joubert’s excellent book, Invaded. From European black mussels decimating indigenous mussel populations and smothering other littoral rocky coast dwellers, to black wattles throttling waterways in the Cape, alien invasives are consuming or displacing resources, from water to food to soil. Managing these horrors is an immense task, but tangible and manageable. You can do something and see the difference.
And finally, tackling these two problems, both very natural environment oriented, will put the environment in a healthier state and better able to withstand the predicted ravages of the juggernaut. So, coming full circle, all environmental problems are related, but my message is to catch the rat and put it to rest, rather than chase the dragon. After all, if you kill all the rats, it leaves the dragon nothing to feed upon, except your imagination.
The Kowie Catchment Campaign: http://www.kowiecatchmentcampaign.org.za
is doing excellent work in the Eastern Cape Kowie River catchment by raising awareness around alien invasive flora and littering. All river catchments in South Africa would benefit from local conservation organizations like the KCC
Organic farming will tackle soil erosion, alien plant invasion on farms, improve water harvesting and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that exacerbate climate change while feeding the population on healthier more environmentally friendly food and at the same time provide more jobs than oil intensive agriculture, which not only exacerbates global warming with CO2 emissions, but (N20) nitrous oxide released by oil based nitrogen fertilizers, motor vehicles, sewerage treatment etc. is now the largerst human contributor to ozone layer depletion.
What about solar energy, wave energy, wind energy and biogas from sewerage for energy and power?
There is no reason to defend big oil and turn a blind eye to climate change which is a monstorous global problem, millions of people will starve and lose their homes and livelihoods due to rising seas, freak weather, droughts, rampant diseases etc, so the large rich climate change polluters should pay for their share of the problem: -
African countries want rich nations to pay 67 billion US dollars a year to mitigate the effects of global warming on the world’s poorest continent.”
http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=1950
Outstanding!
It’s time someone put this carbon dioxide stuff in perspective.
If the world can just barely (if that) feed its population now, what will the food problem look like in 50 years when the population will have doubled? What will the townships look like then if they’re already horrible?
Maybe Roger Diamond fink we are stupid? But Oom Paul Kruger, past president of Die Ou Transvaal were convinced da erf are phlat and he were a solid man of strong beliefs so we no he were right. We also know global warming are kak news.
Roger – don’t take try to our eye off the ball!!
Environmentalists are not ignoring other environomental problems just because of global warming, they are being worked on all the time – research fo ryourself ‘Working for Water’, ‘Biowatch’, ‘Earthlife Africa’ and many others.
The difference is the hazards of soil erosion, overgrazing, and black wattles throttling waterways can be fixed in a relatively short time compared to the ramifications and destruction of climate change.
If 50% of the money put into spin and lobbying for the oil industry were put into educating people in South Africa on local environmental issues it would be a pleasure having only the global oil industry as the big Satan to deal with.
ENFORCED RECYCLING AND ZERO-WASTE IS OUR ONLY HOPE
Thank you Roger for out this irrational obsession with climate change. My belief is that a far more threatening factor than climate change is solid and liquid waste. Our industrial processes are producing huge volumes of compounds (including in everyday consumer objects that we discard without a thought) that are either toxic or decompose into toxic compounds.
I believe also that the growing abundance of toxic chemicals in our environment will be the factor (not climate change) that finally makes the Earth uninhabitable for life as we know it.
The problem has arisen because of the ease with which we can discard waste, at no financial cost. This makes re-cycling a high-cost option instead of the norm. The single thing that would be most useful is enforced re-cycling of EVERYTHING, incorporating a zero-waste production policy.
This would make all things far more expensive, but it is time that we accounted for the true cost of everything, instead of discounting the cost of disposal, which we have deferred until now… if we leave it any longer, we will find the cost is our future and in fact that of the Earth.
… oops, I meant “for pointing out this irrational obsession…”
Climate change is a big con by th eworld’s ruling elites and distracts resources and brain power away from the real issues messing up our world that can be fixed by human endevour.
Brent
Lobengula
The earth currently produces enough food for itself, it is the way it is distributed (capitalist free market system, free trade etc) that is the problem. People starve because they cannot afford to buy the food that is available. Poverty is the problem not amount of food produced.
In addition, converting food to biofuels is causing food shortages and according to a World Bank report has caused 75% of recent food price inflation.
Research shows that by introducing modern scientific organic agriculture in Africa, yields can be more than doubled.
If you ignore climate change due to CO2 emissions, the world will look like an even more ugly township in 50 years time.
Ignoring climate change is advocating genocide.
Brent
Wrong – The big con is by oil industry elites.
Obama Declassifies Spy Satellite Images Revealing Climate Change Devastation Bush Tried to Hide
http://redgreenandblue.org/2009/07/28/obama-declassifies-spy-satellite-images-revealing-climate-change-devastation-bush-tried-to-hide/
Havelock
Zerowaste is extremely important – http://www.grrn.org/zerowaste/zw_world.html
BUT ignoring climate change IS IRRATIONAL !!
How would like to have been one of the 31 Zambians killed due to climate change?
See “Devastation in Zambia as climate change brings early flooding”
http://www.u.tv/News/Devastation-in-Zambia-as-climate-change-brings-early-flooding/ae8786c2-ce96-460a-b421-1965c7e89434
@Andrew Taynton
The idea that the world has no problem with providing enough food is self-deception and so is the idea that science and technology will save us from ourselves.
The doubling of world population every 50 years and the ensuing bumfight over the planet’s limited resources will make global warming a side-show.
@Lobengula
The world population is expected to peak at 9.2 billion by 2050 according to a new study by the United Nations. It will not continue to double every 50 years, that is scare mongering.
In addition, we will be able to feed ourselves if resources are properly allocated and the correct economic models are in place.
One of the biggest threats to food security is climate change.
“Maize yields may drop by 17%, wheat by 12% and rice by 10% in irrigated areas in South Asia because of climate change-induced heat and water stress, if current trends persist until 2050, …. the International Food Policy Research Institute.”
http://www.livemint.com/2009/09/02215141/Food-security-under-threat-fro.html?d=2
That certainly does not look like a side show to me.
To Lobengula again…
(Further to my previous post above)
Feeding the Nine Billion
http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/feeding-the-nine-billion/
@Andrew
You make several errors in your zeal for the modern fashion of “climate correctness”. Unfortunately, zealots are typically closed to reason, so this won’t be an argument or discussion, but a statement of position.
Firstly, while it is correct that food production is adequate, to say that free markets and free trade is responsible for the distribution mess is simply spewing “green movement” dogma: if one thinks for oneself, it becomes clear that the biggest problem is government protection in the form of subsidies and protectionist policies that discourage farmers, co-operatives and agricultural distributors from seeking the most efficient markets and most appropriate crops. In fact, there is no such thing in the modern world as a free market. The recent financial meltdown has been
erroneously blamed on free financial markets, when in fact markets have been half-heartedly regulated according to guidelines determined by economic theory – something that is far too complex to be
understood (let alone modelled) in any meaningful completeness by any human being.
As for being killed by climate change, did you actually read that line before you sent it? In the first place it is simply not possible to link any anomalous weather-related event to sustained climate change as opposed to simple anomalous weather, and in the second place, even if sustained climate change IS a fact and DID cause the early flood, there is never a guarantee that the same would not have happened anyway due to an isolated weather anomaly.
@ Havlock Vetinari
You refer to me as a zealot and then make a statement of position that you say will not be open to argument or discussion.
Don’t you see the contradiction? Have a good look in a mirror if you want to see a zealot.
Then you accuse me of ‘green movement’ dogma on food production and the free market system, however, the 2,500-page International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development [IAASTD] report which is backed by the World Bank and most United Nations agencies points out that the present system of food production and the way food it is traded around the world has led to a highly unequal distribution of benefits and serious adverse ecological effects that are now contributing to climate change.
You say poorly regulated financial markets did not cause the current global economic meltdown.
Which right wing think tank do you get your climate and economic misinformation from?
You may be politically correct for Sarah Palin’s middle American zealots but that is not something I would boast about.
@ Andrew Taynton
“The world population is expected to peak at 9.2 billion by 2050 according to a new study by the United Nations. It will not continue to double every 50 years, that is scare mongering.”
Only if people stop screwing! Good luck.
Lobengula
Negative world population growth – You need to read up on ‘sub-replacement fertility’, already a reality in several countries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility
Also Google “contraception”, might come in useful!
Chow for now.
Pete Postlethwaite talks to the Guardian about his new film Age of Stupid, his eco-home in Shropshire, and what he thinks of climate change deniers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AYqFOlYzfc
Andrew
The sub-replacement fertility in the countries you refer to is being overcome nicely by immigration of people that have large numbers of offspring.
If contraception is so successful where is the high rate of HIV and AIDS springing from, especially in Africa? Seems to be a disconnect here.
@ Lobengula
Sub-replacement fertility rates are found when countries reach certain economic and educational standards. Currently immigration from third world countries is causing population growth in countries that already have sub-replacement fertility rates.
That is why it is so important to uplift the third world, which means we have to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change due to CO2 emissions fast.
Interesting that you deny the findings of the United Nations study that world population is expected to peak at 9.2 billion in 2050.
Where did you get that nonsense that the world population will double in 50 years?
@ Lobegula again…
What makes you think that successful contraception should stop HIV and AIDS? Please explain.
@ Andrew
1960 population…2,982,000,000
2000 population…6,070,000,000
2008 population…6,707,000,000
These are not future estimates, but past performance. Obviously a lot of screwing goes on.
You have a touching faith in the United Nations. I don’t. It is an ineffectual body that costs billions of dollars yearly maintenance and is of doubtful benefit.
“What makes you think that successful contraception should stop HIV and AIDS? Please explain.”
The most widespread contraception actually recommended to prevent HIV – AIDS is the condom. I would have thought you knew that.
@Andrew
Based on this, I won’t waste my time responding to anything further.
@ Havelock Vertini
Climate change denialists only stop responding to me because they are wrong:
The Final Proof: Global Warming is a Man-Made Disaster
by Steve Connor
Published on Saturday, February 19, 2005 by the lndependent/UK
Scientists have found the first unequivocal link between man-made greenhouse gases and a dramatic heating of the Earth’s oceans. The researchers – many funded by the US government – have seen what they describe as a “stunning” correlation between a rise in ocean temperature over the past 40 years and pollution of the atmosphere.
The study destroys a central argument of global warming skeptics within the Bush administration – that climate change could be a natural phenomenon. It should convince George Bush to drop his objections to the Kyoto treaty on climate change, the scientists say.
Rest of article
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0219-01.htm
@ Lobengula
Hmmm. Your response is exactly as I expected. No surprises there. Lets get back to the climate change topic.
Are you decended from the great Chief Lobengula who fought against colonialism in the Bulawayo area, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in the 1890′s. The white settlers won that round.
Hopefully you will stop letting the global oil industry colonise your mind with their climate change denialism, which would be another devastating blow for Africa.
Roger Diamond is very articulate at trying to take our attention off burning fossil fuels that cause CO2 emissions which cause climate change.
Africa will be one of the worst continents affected despite the fact that it burns very little fossil fuel per capita compared to the imperialist United States.
Are you going to let the global oil industry continue the suffering that white colonisation started in Africa, or are you going to stand proud and denounce climate change propagandists, like the great Chief Lobengula stood proud when he tried to resist white settlers?
@Andrew
Your colours are once again showing through, calling me a denialist. The way of the zealot: when all else fails resort to name calling.
Oh, and denialists probably stop responding not because they are wrong, but because discussing things with a zealot is a waste of time – you may as well talk to a brick wall.
@Lobengula
The ancestors in Africa are going to be very upset with you incorrectly claiming that the world population will double in 50 years, and for dismissing the harm global warming will cause Africa.
You should not dismiss the United Nations, they do much for the developing world that we cannot rely on global corporations like the oil industry who are profit driven.
Listen to the wisdom of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), they are elders we must respect.
Remember Ubuntu – I am my brothers keeper.
@ Havelock Vetinari
Coming back to me twice when you said you would not certainly shows zeal.
If you are untruthful on a small thing like saying you will not respond to me any further, then do it twice, how do expect me to take you seriously when you state “Thank you Roger for pointing out this irrational obsession with climate change. My belief is that a far more threatening factor than climate change is solid and liquid waste.”
I support Zerowaste Africa cause. I am on their email list, are you? I have never seen you post anything on the list.
In addition, for you to argue that there is an “irrational obsession” with climate change, when in fact far too little is being accomplished, while it is probably the biggest threat humanity faces right now, is in itself irrational.
Keep in mind who started the name calling Havelock – refer your post to me on Sept 14 2009 to me at 9.38pm. Now you know why I responded with look in the mirror if you want to see an [irrational] zealot.
I could of course check with one of my mates based in Durban where I live, and who runs Zerowaste Africa how active you are on the issue.
@Andrew
You missed it again… I said (clearly) that I would not discuss my position that global warming is distracting essential resources from more important and pressing issues, not that I wouldn’t come back to you.
I’m very glad to hear that you are a supporter of an important cause. However, I’m not on their mailing list and I’m not “active on the issue” at all – I find hardcore environmentalists tiresome (one of the environment’s biggest handicaps is hardcore environmentalists in my opinion – they tend to shoot themselves in the foot as a matter of routine)… so knock yourself out with your mate who runs Zerowaste (oooooh, I’m impressed with your connections! hehehe).
As to name calling… well yes you have a point – I did call you a zealot, but to contextualise that, it was a description of you based on your posts, not a political label as the word “denialist” is – which you called me without any factual justification.
But you trumped me with living in Durban… can’t top that. You have the sea, I’ve got the dust. No contest there!
Anyway, it’s been fun; see you around
Morning Monsieur Andrew
I strongly suspect Havelock Vertinari is the alias for an oil industry employee or spin doctor.
The “real” Havelock Vertinari the head of the fictional city state of Ankh-Morpork in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.
Au Revoir mon ami
Dear Havelock
Its a pity you cannot find a way to become involved in a worthwhile cause like Zerowaste if you think climate change is taking resources away from such an important issue.
I support both climate change issues and Zero waste issues.
However, I stick by a scientific approach and don’t let things get out of perspective.
“Climate change may be century’s greatest health threat” ….conclusions form part of a collaborative report on the effects of climate change on health from The Lancet medical journal and the UK-based University College London, published this week (14 May).
http://www.scidev.net/en/news/climate-change-may-be-century-s-greatest-health-th.html
Of course the normally highly respected and peer reviewed Lancet medical journal and the UK-based University College London could just be made up of a bunch of zealots or harcore environmentalists.
Damn, snookered again. You win.
@Havelock Vetinari
Your claim that “The recent financial meltdown has been erroneously blamed on free financial markets, ….” is nothing but popular myth.
World economic authority Professor Joseph Stiglitz predicted this meltdown years ago and has been calling for appropriate financial market regulation. Read his books.
While Robert Reigh’s book “Supercapitalism – The Battle for Democracy in the Age of Big Business” is highly recommended by top financial publications. Reigh also predicted this meltdown and explains what needs to be done to remedy the situation.
In future don’t call people zealots or accuse them of “spewing out green movement dogma” when in fact they are more informed than you. Your refusal to debate climate change with Andrew Taynton is extremely telling.
If you find so-called “hardcore environmentalists” tiresome, broaden your horizons, so that you don’t shoot yourself in the foot again.
Warm Regards
Mary-Anne
My dear Chief Inspector, you display all the native intelligence and wit we have come to expect from you (though none of the bumbling blind luck) in deducing that I represent the oil industry.
Further to the handicap imposed on environmentalism by the scientific incompetence and lack of objectivity constantly displayed by the hard-core radicals, this “oil-industry spin-doctor under every bed” does your cause no favours either.
Firstly, it blinds you to the possibility that scientific evaluation and conclusion is hardly ever as clear-cut as scientists (and the followers of their dogma) would like to believe. It is also a field vulnerable to the application of funding – funding is hard to come by for unfashionable fields; continued funding is even scarcer when unwanted conclusions are reached. Peer pressure (for what else is peer-review?) must also be accounted for when evaluating studies that support “field leaders”
Secondly, it is being used by the radical greens as the equivalent of a “race card”. When there is an unpopular study or theory, they pull out the Denialist Card and the Oil Industry Card, whether or not there is any merit to the accusations, and thus discredit any dissenting voices.
I chose Vetinari as my avatar because he is a beacon of clear thinking in a “Worlde Gonne Madde (with a 1000 elephants!!)”… did you choose Clouseau (that’s how it’s spelt) for his naïveté or for his idiocy?
Emperor Havelock Vetinari
You argue that Zerowaste is more important than climate change but so far have provided no evidence and have slandered others who have challenged your stance.
Have you heard about the Emperor with no clothes?
He was so obsessed with beautiful clothes that when his devious tailors said they could make him the most beautiful clothes that were invisible to anyone who was stupid, he paid them handsomely and paraded through the capital to show off, until a small child said “the Emperor is naked”.
Sound familiar?
@ Mary-Anne
If you read my comments about a free market carefully, you will find that I state that free markets can’t be blamed because there are no free markets. To illustrate – one can’t be convicted of a murder if one wasn’t present at the time of the murder.
Good for Prof. Stiglitz for his prediction and congratulations to him on publishing a book – he is certainly not the only one who can make those claims
As for regulation – this is the tricky thing: when you get to the word “appropriate”, things fall apart. You have to understand that Economics is a poorly understood field that is firstly massively complex in its dependencies and interactions (this is why economists make such liberal use of assumptions in their “models” – many of which simply do not apply to the real world); and secondly economics is highly dependent on human nature, which is in itself a minefield of uncertainties. So it is easy to say that Stiglitz’s proposed regulations would have done the trick, but in a field as uncertain as economics, the law of unintended consequences always applies.
So I’m not saying deregulate and I’m not saying regulate. I’m saying that economists (even Stiglitz) don’t necessarily know better, and I’m saying you shouldn’t rule out deregulation on the basis that free markets caused the crash, because they didn’t exist at the time of the crash.
end part 1 *sigh*
@Mary-Anne
My refusal to debate my position on climate change with Andrew is simply based on my impression, gained from his posts, that it would be equivalent to beating my head against a brick wall. Andrew has (please correct me if I’m wrong) made up his mind and is ready and willing to share his dogma (with supportive hyperlinks) until the sea boils over. I am familiar (if not in detail then at least in the abstract) with most arguments he will present, and in fact I have never said that I disagree substantially with the fact of climate change at all. This whole issue is about the relative importance of climate change in the context of environmental conservation as a whole.
I called Andrew a zealot because he demonstrated a failure to think clearly with regard to his “how would you like to be one of the 31 Zambians killed due to climate change?” remark which I addressed in an earlier post. That sort of cimate-change dominated tunnel vision is dangerous to the reputation of environmentalists everywhere, and it is unfortunately typical of the hard-core radicals (which is of course why I find them tiresome – their failure to think). As for broadening my horizons, I’m not the one who considers climate change to be the root of all weather-related evils.
I’m touched by your concern for the well-being of my foot
All the best,
V
@The Small Child
I am the Patrician of a city, not an emperor, and I always wear simple, serviceable black. Ok, I know, you were being metaphorical…
Nevertheless… let’s take your metaphor and run with it:
The emperor had no clothes because he believed what he was told when told what he wanted to believe. Now let’s assume that I’m a global warming dissenter (not an entirely accurate assumption in the first place): It is my understanding that most (not all) hard-core global warming activists are neither involved in the studies they quote, nor have the education to fully understand the research methodologies involved, the limitations applicable to said methodologies or the statistical methods and interpretations. All they have is the scientists’ interpretation. In other words they believe what they are told and, being green movement activists, what they are told is what they want to hear. They don’t consider that scientists are human and therefore fallible, often rely on research grants from institutions with vested interests, and are subject to peer review by a body of peers who have an established position and who are naturally not keen to have their position questioned (if you’re looking for peer respect and recognition, would you publish a contrarian paper?).
So who is the emperor without clothes? Is it those who would take a critical view of the polemic and ask the tough questions, or is it those who believe what they are told?
@Havelock Vetinari
Your ‘take’ on economics in your reply to Mary-Anne is as unconvincing as your post further back that “My belief is that a far more threatening factor than climate change is solid and liquid waste.”
You have not provided one reference for either of these arguments.
Professor Joseph Stiglitz is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal (1979) and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001).
He is also the former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. He is known for his critical view of the management of globalization, free-market economists (whom he calls “free market fundamentalists”) and some international institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
His numerous books and papers are all referenced.
Personally I find him more convincing than you.
@Andrew
“Personally I find him more convincing than you.”
Of course you do Andrew – you prefer to let others do your thinking for you. And if, after all I have written, you expect references from me, you haven’t understood a word. I do not rely on others’ thinking and my thoughts are just my thoughts.
While I laud Stiglitz’s awards – whether or not he is accurate, at least he took the trouble to think for himself – the simple truth is that awards and medals don’t make one correct. I believe the “rocket scientists” from Long Term Capital Management, Black and Scholes, were similarly recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences… My point stands that you can’t blame the free market for the disaster when a free market doesn’t exist. Once again (please don’t put words in my mouth) I do NOT NECESSARILY ADVOCATE A FREE MARKET AS THE ANSWER … is that clear enough for you? I merely point out that to accept Stiglitz’s theories because he got an award or two and because he (among many many others) predicted the economic crisis is to meekly accept a transfer from the frying pan into the fire as it were, on the basis that “at least the fire is not the frying pan”.
I advocate neither one road nor the other – regulation or deregulation – only that the free market should not be discarded as an option since it has not actually ever been tested.
@Havelock
‘Free market’ failures have been well documented and the almost ‘free market’ myth should be abandoned:
1) Free Market Failure Or Runaway Predatory Corporatism?: Revisiting …This paper analyzes the current Wall Street meltdown the ensuing economic crisis and the central governance issue of market failure using a political …
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p363975_index.html
2) Local examples that effect all our lives:
http://www.aliveness.com/kangaroo/Marketfailures.htm
As an oil industry representative (spin doctor) you would not have a job if you thought for yourself, you have to be very politically correct right now and pretend to be objective, but if the effects of climate change had been factored into the price of oil from day one, instead of letting the ‘free market’ prevail, we would have started to use renewable/clean energy long ago, and would only have zerowaste to worry about. What a breeze.
General interest:
U.S. CARBON EMISSIONS PEAK AHEAD OF COPENHAGEN CLIMATE NEGOTIATIONS
Full article available at http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2009/update82.
General interest:
U.S. CARBON EMISSIONS PEAK AHEAD OF COPENHAGEN CLIMATE NEGOTIATIONS
Full article available at http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2009/update82
@Havelock…..again
Thanks for your thoughts. I just find them radical.
My thinking and reading is much more mainstream than your thoughts, though I get lumped together with zealots, radicals, hardcore environmentalists etc.
Your thought that industrial waste is more of a threat than climate change is worthwhile debating though I am not aware of any authoritative source to back it up. That thinking is radical until it can be shown to have a reasonable amount of merit.
Arguing that totally regulated markets or totally free markets could work as they have never been tested is also radical. Near communism or totalitarianism has failed, why take the experiment further? ‘Free market’ fundamentalism has failed, why take the experiment further?
Numerous examples of appropriately regulated financial markets weathering the boom and bust in an era of socalled ‘free market’ globalization exist. Let us hone our knowledge in that area and adopt those strategies. My thoughts.
@Havelock and Others
What is your take on “Drastic Climate Therapy Could Make Things Worse” by James Lovelock?
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/21-6
I think it is an excellent article and enjoyed reading the comments posted at the bottom.