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Monbiot interview at Newsweek site
Jessica Bennett, Newsweek (web only)
Environmental writer George Monbiot has taken Lovelock’s pessimism and come up with a plan in “Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning” (South End Press). To avoid hitting the “critical threshold,” he says, the world’s total carbon emissions must be reduced to 60 percent below current levels by 2030-a target that would require the developed world to reduce emissions by 90 percent (to compensate for growth in China, India and other developing countries). Monbiot’s plan: each nation would be allocated a carbon limit based on urban population and each individual an annual carbon allowance. Governments, meanwhile, would redesign transport systems, generate renewable electricity, build energy-saving homes and offices, and update the old ones. Appliances would be “smart” enough to know when to turn themselves off. And his most radical idea: airline travel would have to be scrapped. Monbiot spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Jessica Bennett on what needs to be done. Excerpts:
…Q: What about leisure travel?
Monbiot: It is becoming morally unacceptable now to fly to go on holiday. The carbon emissions per passenger mile are roughly the same from a plane as they are in a car, but while in a car you might travel 10,000 miles in a year, in a plane you travel 10,000 miles in a day. So individually, by taking a flight, you are doing more damage than you could possibly do by any other means, and your luxury is depriving other people of their necessities.
Q: Have you given up flying?
Monbiot: The only reason for which I will fly is to campaign on climate change. I’ve stopped flying for holidays and for any other business.
Q: Do you think driving is morally unacceptable as well?
Monbiot: In the U.K., 40 percent of all our journeys by car are less than two miles long. If you are relatively fit and able, you can make a two-mile journey by bicycle in 10 minutes. And by doing so, you not only cut your carbon emissions, you can get quite fit.
… Q: What do you realistically think you can accomplish?
Monbiot: Already in Germany, we’re seeing a massive program of energy efficiency in homes that is surprisingly cheap and could easily be rolled out in every rich nation on earth. So something like that you could see happening with very little political difficulty. Cutting down the size of airports is more difficult, I admit. And it can’t happen unless a very big popular campaign demands that it happens.
…We have to have a framework of government action to make our individual actions meaningful.
Q: How close are we to that?
Monbiot: It depends which country you’re talking about. In the U.K., a lot closer than in the U.S. In Germany, about the same as in the U.K. In Sweden, quite a lot better.
Q: How optimistic are you that the world will take you seriously?
Monbiot: It’s pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.
(9 April 2007)
Carbon copy
Claire Dodd, The Guardian
Climate change may be a big story but many journalists still take emission-heavy trips abroad. So should they? And could they work just as well by phone.
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…The environment has become a big news story, with the prime minister, environment secretary David Miliband and Prince Charles being criticised by the press for the size of their carbon footprint. But journalists are at risk of sounding hypocritical. The sustainable level of emissions for each person in the world, is one tonne per year. The carbon footprint of the journalism industry, although impossible to calculate, is substantial. But does it need to be? Can we justify it and what impact will becoming environmentally friendly have on our work?
Flying is a particularly contentious environmental issue. Although it only accounts for 7% of global carbon emissions, these are released high in the atmosphere where they can do the most damage. Stephen Armstrong, who writes for the Sunday Times, Time Out, Word and MediaGuardian, believes that a reduction in travelling will mean poorer journalism. He travels to LA about four times a year to interview film and television actors, directors and producers.
…The National Union of Journalists agree that a trend towards writing articles on people or destinations without going there, although good for the environment, is bad for journalism. Tim Gopsill, editor of NUJ magazine the Journalist, thinks journalists should be encouraged, not discouraged to travel.
“We want journalists to go places rather than write about them from a distance. Too much journalism is now being produced using office-based research,” he says. Gopsill says the environmental cost is justified by the important contribution of journalists’ work to the public interest.
But which issues are important enough to travel to report on, and which aren’t? Reporting on environmental issues, although damaging, is surely justifiable.
(9 April 2007)
Just the beginning of what promises to be a period of soul-searching for various professions – “Is this trip really necessary?” In the case of journalism, there are plenty of alternatives. Before cheap air travel, correspondents would stay in foreign countries for extended periods of time. A side benefit is that they often learned the language and culture, and thus could go beyond superficial reporting.
What about using local reporters (“stringers”)? Or perhaps instead of running around, journalists could read, think and research — digging deeply, as did stay-at-home journalistic hero I.F. Stone. -BA
Mayors Take the Lead
Anne Underwood, Newsweek
The federal government has been dithering on climate change and energy conservation for years. Lucky for us, America’s local leaders are filling the vacuum.
(16 April 2007)
Alien Invasion: The Fungus That Came to Canada
Doug Struck, Washington Post
…[Several incidents of disease] would become pieces of a medical mystery centered on a tropical disease apparently brought to North America by a warming climate. An alien fungus took root on Vancouver Island eight years ago and has since killed eight people and infected at least 163 others, as well as many animals.
Similar cases have been found elsewhere in British Columbia and in Washington state and Oregon. Scientists say the fungus may be thriving because of a string of unusually warm summers here. They say it is a sign of things to come.
“As climate change happens, new ecological niches will become available to organisms, and we will see this kind of thing happen again,” said Karen Bartlett, a scientist at the University of British Columbia who played a central role in the search for the disease’s cause.
Her investigation eventually would focus on a fungus, a member of the yeast family called Cryptococcus gattii. The microscopic fungus is normally found in the bark of eucalyptus trees in Australia and other tropical zones.
(8 April 2007)
