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Green energy is not a middle-class conceit, more the only way forward
Geoffrey Lean, The Independent
So that’s it, then, choruses the commentariat. Collapsing confidence, crashing stock markets and credit-starved banks spell doom not just for the economy, but for environmental concerns. Saving the planet may be all very well in the good times, but is an unaffordable luxury when things turn bad.
The argument is pervasive, persuasive and gaining ground. Even some environmentalists half-accept it, believing they should mute their message. But it is plain wrong. Never have green concerns and measures been more important.
How so? The second best reason is that this financial crisis is mild compared with the environmentally driven ones ahead. The climate crunch, the Stern report concluded, will cost a staggering 20 per cent of global growth if not averted. Peak oil – when the cheap and abundant fuel that has powered our growth becomes scarce and expensive – is likely to be even worse in its impact, reducing supplies of humanity’s main source of energy, for the first time in history, before another can take its place…
(19 October 2008)
Don’t kill the planet in the name of saving the economy
Johann Hari, The Independent
We are living through two great meltdowns – the credit crunch, and the climate crunch. The heating of the planet is now happening so fast it’s hard to pluck a single event to fix on, but here’s one. By the summer of 2013, the Arctic will be free of ice. How big an event it this?
The Wall Street Crash hadn’t happened for 80 years. The Arctic Crash hasn’t happened for three million years: that’s the last time there was watery emptiness at the top of the world. The Arctic is often described as the canary in the coal mine. As one Arctic researcher put it to me this week: the canary is dead. It’s time to clear the mine, and run.
We now have higher levels of warming gases in the atmosphere than at any point in modern geological history. The last time they were higher than this was during the ecocene, 50 million years ago. Sea levels were 300 feet higher than today, and crocodiles swam at the poles.
So it seems strange that even here in Europe – the continent that has taken the evidence about global warming most seriously – many of our leaders are trying to use the credit crunch as an excuse to drive us deeper into the climate crunch…
(20 October 2008)
Bolivia’s climate challenge
Marcos Nordgren, The Guardian
As the growing season starts in Bolivia, thousands of families are struggling to cope with droughts in five of nine regions. The lack of water threatens to destroy a significant part of this year’s staple cereal crop, quinoa.
Some farmers have begun growing drought-resistant crops, like Brazil nuts, to adapt to this change in climate. (Bolivia now exports 75% of the world’s Brazil nuts, compared to just 20% from Brazil.) These efforts have been painfully slow, however, because they require not only fresh investment, but also expensive research to determine which parts of the country will be most vulnerable to droughts – and flooding. In other words, knowing what to prepare for, when to do it and where.
It is worth pointing out that Bolivia as a nation is responsible for less than 0.1% of the global emissions of carbon dioxide. This is mainly because it is the poorest country in South America and relatively under-developed as a result.
Clearly, to pull itself out of poverty, Bolivia needs to develop. The challenge will be to implement a development strategy that takes carbon emissions into account. I am a climate change adviser for CIPCA, which works with indigenous farmers around the country to help them improve their yields and adapt to climate change. In the UK, we receive support from Christian Aid, which is lobbying heavily in Europe for tighter controls on emissions…
(18 October 2008)
