Not living up to the promises
Same old same old. It’s a dire emergency, and we won’t do anything to stop it.
The US envoy on climate change John Kerry has warned that the war in Ukraine must not be used as an excuse to prolong global reliance on coal.
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Kerry criticised a number of large countries for not living up to the promises they made at the COP26 climate summit.
I can explain. Promises are easy. Living up to them is hard.
The fragile unity shown in Glasgow last November is likely to be tested in Bonn as countries deal with the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the cost of living crisis.
Mr Kerry told the BBC that despite these drawbacks, “as a world we are still not moving fast enough,” to rein in the emissions of warming gases that are driving up temperatures.
“We can still win this battle,” the former senator said, but it will require a “wholesale elevation of effort by countries all around the world”.
Which is not going to happen. Why? See above: “the cost of living crisis.” The immediate problems always take precedence. We’re just animals. We don’t have it in us to make radical painful changes for the sake of people who don’t exist, i.e. future generations. Our immediate needs always shove long term needs onto the back burner, and by “back” I mean somewhere in the middle of Antarctica, watching the ice melt.
So how much progress on climate has been made since COP26?
Bluntly, not a lot.
A BBC analysis shows that across a range of issues, very little has been achieved.
The world emerged from Glasgow into an energy crisis sparked by a rapid rise in the price of gas. This has been massively compounded by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and ongoing problems in global supply lines.
Shortages! Price rises!
Both put the climate crisis into deep deep shade, because that’s how we’re wired.
Sure, because capitalism is always in more danger. Danger of what, I don’t rightly know.
In my experience, even people who accept global warming squeal loudly when gas prices go up. The first thing they do (conservative and liberal alike) is wheel out the poor. “It’ll be hard on the poor! Don’t you care about the poor?”
I care enough about the poor to know that cheap gas creating a car culture has been extremely damaging to the poor. What the poor needs is not cheap gas with all the expenses of needing to own and maintain a car. What they need is affordable, reliable mass transit.
Climate change will also fall disproportionately on the poor. Most of my environmentally aware friends know that, right up until the moment they have to pay more at the pump.
I’ve often thought of energy consumption as a kind of collective addiction. It has all the traits of a classic, individual addiction. That being the case, it doesn’t seem like there is any solution other than total failure of the collective; addicts don’t normally, all on their own, just heal themselves.
I have a tendency to look at problems and simply examine them without suggesting solutions. So, to me, suggesting that rising gas prices will have a disproportionate effect on the poor is a simple statement, not one that insists rising gas prices needs to be avoided. To me, someone complaining about rising gas prices is making a complaint, not a policy decision.
I agree that transportation costs are a problem for poor people. I am not convinced that mass transportation is the answer for poor people who do not live in urban areas. It would help a lot of people, certainly, though, especially in urban areas. (I would have guessed that the vast majority of poor people live in urban areas, but that isn’t the case; only about a quarter do, with a larger group in suburbs, a smaller group in small metro areas, and the smallest group (around 15%) in rural areas.) Maybe there are good ways to reduce transportation costs for suburban and rural populations, but I don’t know what they might be. Maybe mass transportation is a part of that, but it doesn’t sound like a whole solution.
Maybe poor people just shouldn’t live outside of urban areas? Or rather, hardly anyone should? It seems ridiculously unsustainable for populations requiring a lot of support to live outside efficient infrastructure.
Maybe that is your approach, but that has not been my experience. People use it to tell me what should be done, who should do it, and why.
As for the poor that live outside the metro area, I imagine there are solutions, but I don’t propose to have all the answers. We shouldn’t be required to have all the answers when we ask questions, but I have been shouted at many times. “Don’t bring up the problem if you don’t know the solution!” Stupid, and a way to shut down uncomfortable discussions.
I know in Nebraska, the problem of mass transit is difficult since the bulk of the state is rural. It is, however, doable, but we have no intention of doing it. After all, people managed before there were cars. They were called trains, and they stopped in nearly every small town here. Many of them, in fact, were once larger. When the train no longer came through, the population plummeted.
So, yeah, trains can be done, they have been done, and they were actually good for a lot of communities. Bullet trains to connect major cities. High speed rail inside cities. Shuttles could handle some of the rest of it, as well as bus routes, plus limited use of private cars. Add in bicycles and feet, and we might be on to something.
BKISA @ 5
I agree, that would be better, for many reasons.
iknklast @ 6
Wholehearted enthusiastic agreement, I HATE that kind of sentiment. How can anyone possibly devise a solution without understanding the problem in the first place? How many hastily created “solutions” have turned out to be complete disasters? So I don’t see anything wrong with my manner of looking at problems and not thinking much about solutions.
I think some of the ideas you suggest could help a lot. My impression of mass transit is based on my experience in NYC and Boston, where it is possible to live comfortably without even owning a car. Maybe that’s possible in some suburban areas, with trains and buses. It seems less likely in rural areas. All I’m trying to get at is that a lot of people seem to suggest reflexively that mass transit is the answer to the demand for gas, and it seems more complicated than that. The elaboration you provide in #6 clarifies several points for me, thanks.
I would add, as a potential solution, in light of #5, move people into cities, out of the suburbs and rural areas. I doubt it is realistic, but why not throw the idea out there.
So you have just destroyed the whole basis of agriculture – a ready pool of low cost easily manipulated labour.
There are also good reasons for poor people to live in rural areas. Lower cost of housing, a greater sense of community, for those raising children, and less exposure to drug and violent culture. There is also the greater connection to nature and the ability to grow your own food or at least benefit from farm gate prices.
Your comment smacks of the upper middle class latte sipping culture that sees the poor as a problem to be solved, rather than the fellow citizens who could do with support.
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Disclaimer – comments based on the Australian economy. Individual results may vary.
No, it doesn’t, come on now. The subject is what we (all, the whole species) need to do in light of the climate catastrophe. The issue isn’t where poor people should live in the abstract, it’s in the context of the rapidly approaching comet of climate catastrophe.
Rich people should live in rural areas even less, because they would use more fuel.
But moving people around and making “more efficient” energy distribution systems is not the answer. It cannot be the answer. The only real solution is reducing, or at least limiting consumption. This idea that we can just infinitely expand our economies and populations is crazy and absurd. Talk all you want about “green” energy, but it’s not solving the underlying problem, because humans are out of control. There are limited resources on this earth; that is a fact. No matter what we do, we will reach those limits as long as we continue to think that we can keep having as many children as we want and slurping up all the oil and minerals that the earth has left.
My curmudgeonly addition to a favorite quote here in this thread:
I must say that the idea of living in a city forever is a notion that I equate with hell. Cities ARE hell.
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.”
Cities, ringed with sufficient agriculture to sustain them and connected via bullet trains with vast swathes of parklands/wilderness in between would be ideal. Nature unsullied by human habitation.
And yes, I am that latte sipping middle class type (despite being a welder) who recognizes that the poor function only as a supply of slaves to power our economy, increasing human misery. The sooner we replace as many as possible with robots (slaves without mind or feelings) and scale down economic development the better.
And is it really such a trade off when your kids are exposed to Confederate flag waving, racist, sexist, anti-semitic anger machines? And are socialized that direction?
Trust me, drugs and violence are not limited to cities. I have students frequently out to go to court on drug charges, students just out of jail for drugs, students who shoot anything that moves for target practice, students who think going out to the school (which is outside of town and therefore somewhat remote) and racing cars up and down the street (a state highway!) is the best fun and the smartest thing they could do. I wouldn’t raise my son here if it was the last job on earth. I am glad I was able to remain within the city while my son was young, because…a number of reasons. Lots of them. I absolutely hate the rural areas and wish I could persuade my husband to retire in a city; he still wants small town life, and I do not.
And…these people out here are all “drill baby drill”. They don’t want anything to change with the big fertilizer, big pesticide, big water use agriculture, and actually complain when we get good rains because they can’t get the irrigators in the field. They honestly believe that rain water is inferior to irrigation water. And if they find an endangered species, well, the proper thing to do is kill it. If it goes extinct, no one will have to worry about it anymore.
I am tired to death of people saying “move out of the city for your kids. It’s so much more wholesome, and you don’t have to worry about them there”. There are problems for kids everywhere. Kids are impressionable. It is as easy for them to fall in with the neo-Nazis as with the Sharks or Jets.
Sorry about the rant. I am on the verge of retirement, and wanting to get the hell out of Nebraska before I lose my mind. It might be too late.
For you. Sounds like a version of hell to me.
The human brain being what it is, I’m increasingly inclined to think that any human society what so ever is always going to be “Hell”, or at least worse than Mercury.
The Norwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe once commented that “an uninhabited planet is no tragedy”. His view, which I happen to share for somewhat different reasons, was that the best thing the human species could do would be to stop reproducing and let time take care of the rest. There is a tendency to talk as if nothing is ever bad if other things are worse (cf. “Dear Muslima”), which is rather equivalent to arguing that -100 can’t be a negative number because it’s > -1,000,000*. The real question, when we add up all the good and bad, shouldn’t be “does it add up to better than Auschwitz?” but “does it add up to better than Mercury?” (representing Zapffe’s uninhabited planet). There is nothing “good” or “bad” going on on Mercury. It’s neutral. It just is. Doesn’t sound like Hell to me…
*Of course, by the same logic, -1,000,000, or any number >-∞ (i.e. any number what so ever), can’t be negative either…
@inklast re #12.
Rant is fine, but that is why I posted the disclaimer that I am basing my comments on my Australian experience. Last October I moved from Adelaide to Waikerie, a rural town of just over 2500 people. On the banks of the Murray River, it offers a great retirement lifestyle and is a major producer of citrus and grapes. We seem to have very little crime, the teenagers are mostly friendly, even to a 70 year old curmudgeon like me.
I don’t think we will ever resolve the climate problem unless we go back to a pre industrial revolution life style. Even if all fossil fuels were abandoned for renewables would still need to dig a finite amount of “stuff” out of the ground. Wind mills need steel, aluminium, copper, and I don’t know what else. Same for solar panels, which also need silica in addition to the other bits. Both have a finite life and need repair/replacement.
Then, we come to transport. EVs need either more copper wire to carry and distribute the electricity and batteries that need a lot of rare earths to be mined.
I don’t want anyone to think I am advocating no action, because even if we reduce pollution and nothing else, it is still an improvement.
I just don’t see a way out of this conundrum that doesn’t involve a return to a life that was brutish, nasty, and short.
Trying to work against natural flows in urban-rural migration tends to fail. It’s like trying to wall a border when the economic needs contradict the wall. It will develop holes.
We are not rational actors. If we were people would have demanded more efficient energy in the 1970s when we realized how susceptible the market is to being controlled by dictatorship and bad faith power-hungry corporations. But here we are with urban heavy duty trucks as daily drivers 50 years later.
Whatever solutions we come up with are going to have to reflect people’s wants in order to be sustainable. It’s just a fact.
We’re
Time for my rant:
The silver lining to all the current dark clouds is that people might realize that the unreliables (wind & solar) are not a major part of the solution to global warming. Nuclear is.
For some data on what works to cut CO2 emissions see:
https://app.electricitymap.org/map
It shows how much CO2 is emitted per kWh of electricity generated for regions where they get data.
Color coded from green for very low through shades of brown to black for very high.
You can click on a region to get how much electricity came from what source over the last hour or day.
Spoiler alert:
The regions that are consistently green use a mix of hydro, geothermal & nuclear for most of their electricity.
The regions that try to use a lot of solar or wind vary from fairly green to quite brown, because when the wind isn’t blowing & the sun isn’t shining they burn natural gas to provide the electricity they need.
Germany has been closing nuclear plants & importing Russian natural gas to generate the electricity they need. There is now at least some talk of restarting the plants they have not yet dismantled.
Build nuclear plants & expand & electrify the rail systems to replace as much fossil fuel use as possible.