Subject:
[ambio] WHAT AL GORE HASN'T TOLD YOU ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING
From:
Margarida Silva
Date:
Sat, 13 Jan 2007 11:05:13 +0000

To:
ambio [at] uevora [dot] pt

http://www.precaution.org/lib/07/prn_what_al_gore_didnt_tell_you.070109.htm
AlterNet, January 9, 2007

WHAT AL GORE HASN'T TOLD YOU ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

[George Monbiot's new book Heat picks up where Al Gore left off on
global warming, offering real solutions without sugar-coating the large
personal sacrifices they will require.]

By David Morris

Al Gore is our generation's Paul Revere. Riding hard through the
country, he warns us of the impending arrival of climatic disaster. He's
proven an astonishingly effective messenger. An Inconvenient Truth may
receive an Oscar for Best Documentary. Overflow crowds greet his
presentations with standing ovations.

Which, come to think of it, is odd. When has someone ever delivered such
an ominous message to such tumultuous applause? (Aside from those who
insist we are in the end times and the rapture is near.)

In a recent speech to a standing-room-only audience at the New York
University School of Law, Gore declared, "We are moving closer to
several 'tipping points' that could -- within as little as 10 years --
make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable damage to the planet's
habitability for human civilization." The audience cheered wildly.
Presumably audiences are not cheered by the prospect of imminent
catastrophe. So what is going on here?

British journalist George Monbiot, author of Heat: How to Stop the
Planet from Burning (Doubleday, 2006) has a theory.

"We wish our governments to pretend to act," he writes. "We get the
moral satisfaction of saying what we know to be right, without the
discomfort of doing it. My fear is that the political parties in most
rich nations have already recognized this. They know that we want tough
targets, but that we also want those targets to be missed. They know
that we will grumble about their failure to curb climate change, but
that we will not take to the streets. They know that nobody ever rioted
for austerity."

Austerity? Hold on. Al Gore and the rest of the U.S. environmental
movement never utter the word "austerity." Their word of choice is
"opportunity." The prospect of global warming, they maintain, can serve
as a much-needed catalyst to spur us to action. A large dose of
political will may be required, but we need not anticipate economic
pain. We can stop global warming in its tracks, expand our economy and
improve our quality of life. We can, in other words, do good and do
quite well. A leading environmentalist, for whom I have a great deal of
admiration, summed up his position to an interviewer, "I can't stand it
when people say, 'Taking action on climate change is going to be
extremely difficult.'"

And there's the rub, as dear Hamlet would say. By claiming we can solve
the problem of climate change painlessly, environmentalists confuse us.
They offer stark and rigorous presentations terrifying us about the
near-term, dire consequences of global warming. And then they offer
generalized, almost blithe assurances about how we can avoid these dire
consequences without great sacrifice. We are horrified and soothed at
the same time. It's a dangerous strategy. Many who focus on the
catastrophic present-day images of An Inconvenient Truth believe we have
gone beyond the point of no return, which leads to cynicism and
passivity. Those who are spurred to action believe that buying a hybrid
car or taking an eco-vacation will address the problem.

Indeed, the "take action" section of Al Gore's website,
www.climatecrisis.net recommends the following steps. Put on a sweater.
Use more efficient light bulbs. Turn the thermostat down 2 degrees.
Drive less.

I'm sure Al Gore knows that even if millions of individuals were to
adopt such actions, the pace of ecological disaster would not slow one
whit. I presume he views these actions as a way for us to demonstrate
our willingness accept responsibility for our consumption habits. The
next, and far more important, step is to persuade us to work
collectively and aggressively for bold new policies. A recent letter
from Al Gore, emailed from MoveOn.org asked us to do just that by
signing a petition to push Congress to action.

Gore declared, "I'm ready to push for real solutions, but I need your
help ..." The email offered no policy solutions. Nor does Al Gore's web
site or speeches, except for his recommendation that America immediately
freeze its greenhouse gas emissions and then reduce them.

George Monbiot, a reporter for the British newspaper, Guardian takes up
where Al Gore and many others leave off. Heat is a remarkable book. For
it is not written to convince the unconvinced [of] global warming, but
to educate the already-persuaded, those who exited the theater after
watching An Inconvenient Truth with fire in their bellies, ready to
fight the incoming menace about what must be done, and ready to face the
significant sacrifices that will have to be made along the way.

Monbiot's assumptions differ only modestly from those of Al Gore. Both
believe the window of opportunity is short, and closing. Both believe we
must immediately freeze greenhouse gas emissions and then reduce them by
up to 60 percent below current levels by about 2030. (Gore may use the
2050 time frame). Monbiot recommends more rapid reductions than others,
but he argues persuasively that an ounce of reduction in the early years
can avoid the need for a pound of reduction in the later years.

A key contribution by Monbiot is that he addresses the question Al Gore
asks, but doesn't answer. "(W)hat would a responsible approach to the
climate crisis look like if we had one in America?" Monbiot asks the
question of his home country, United Kingdom.

Monbiot launches his investigation by asking a crucial question rarely
discussed by Al Gore and other U.S. environmentalists: How does the
responsibility of the world's largest polluters differ from that of the
rest of the world? The average American generates more than 10 times the
greenhouse gas emissions as does the average Chinese, and perhaps 30
times more than the average citizen of Bangladesh. (The gluttony of the
average citizen of the UK is not far below that of the average American).

When Al Gore says he wants to free emissions, presumably he's talking
about planetary emissions, not U.S. emissions. Otherwise, he's asking
humanity to freeze the current stark disparity in resource use in place.
That's politically impossible and morally disagreeable. Since the U.S.
and UK generate a disproportionate amount of global greenhouse gases, a
responsible approach presumably would require them to disproportionately
reduce their emissions.

Monbiot argues for a global carbon emissions cap allocated on a per
capita basis. Since all of humanity shares the biosphere, which has only
a limited absorptive and cleansing capacity and all humans are created
equal, then each should have equal use of that capacity.

The implications of biospheric equity are so profound and so disturbing,
that it is understandable why American environmentalists shy away from
discussing the issue. Currently, global carbon emissions are about 7
billion tons, roughly, 1 ton per person. But the average American
generates, directly and indirectly, some 10 tons per capita. Thus, to
save the planet and cleanse our resource sins, Americans must go far
beyond freezing greenhouse gas emissions. As a nation, we must reduce
them by more than 90 percent, taking into account the sharp reductions
in existing global emissions necessary to stabilize the world's climate.

Suddenly we realize that addressing the global warming problem will be
very difficult, not only politically but economically and
institutionally. And it may well entail significant sacrifice.

Consider the following: California has received much well-deserved
praise for enacting legislation that establishes a statewide carbon cap
for 2020 equal to the state's 1990 emission level. Achieving this goal
would mean reducing current emissions by about 13 percent. Another 80
percent reduction will be necessary if California is to achieve its fair
share of the global emissions reductions necessary to stabilize climate
change.

Monbiot recommends the per-capita carbon budgets be allocated
nationally. Nations would decide how to parcel out these allocations.
Ideally, these could be passed through to individuals. But Monbiot notes
the administrative costs involved in having people spend their carbon
allowances on tens of thousands of products and services, each one
denominated in carbon credits as well as currency. To simplify the
process, he recommends a strategy developed by two of his compatriots,
Mayer Hillman and David Fleming. They argue that since 40 percent of the
UK's carbon emissions result from the use of fuels and electricity and
it is relatively simple to develop a method by which individuals pay for
these energy sources with carbon credits, 40 percent of the nation's
carbon allocations should be passed through to individuals. The
remaining 60 percent would belong to the government, which might auction
them off to generate revenue.

The bulk of Heat is an exhaustive sector-by-sector, hardheaded
examination of the near-term technical and economic capacity for
wealthy, industrialized nations to achieve the necessary reductions. The
examination relies on an immense volume of technical studies and primary
research. Monbiot concludes that the UK can indeed achieve sufficient
reductions within the time frame, but just barely, and at a high cost.

Although none of the reductions will be easily achieved, Monbiot's
analysis concludes that those related to transportation may be the
hardest of all. To reduce ground transportation emissions sufficiently,
he suggests the need to severely lessen individual shopping trips. To
accomplish this, he proposes that goods be delivered. He cites a UK
Department of Transportation study that notes, "a number of modeling
exercises and other surveys suggest that the substitution of private
cars by delivery vehicles could reduce traffic by 70 percent or more."
Every van the stores dispatch, in other words, takes three cars off the
road. Monbiot also proposes to transform out of town superstores into
warehouses, to be visited only by vehicles that pick up supplies. That
will save even more energy, because warehouses use only 35 percent as
much heat and 29 percent as much electricity as do stores.

In only one sector does Monbiot fail to identify a technical solution at
any cost: air travel. Flying generates about the same volume of
greenhouse gases per passenger mile as a car. But, of course, flights
are many miles longer than drives. Fly from New York to California and
back and you will generate as much greenhouse gas emissions as you will
by driving your Prius all year.

Monbiot reluctantly concludes, "(T)here is simply no way of tackling
this issue other than reducing the number, length and speed of the
journeys we make." Knowing the audience for whom the book is intended,
he acerbically adds, this will mean the end of "shopping trips to New
York, political meetings in Porto Alegre, long distance vacations."

He urges his readers "to remember that these privations affect a tiny
proportion of the world's people. The reason they seem so harsh is that
this tiny proportion almost certainly includes you."

Monbiot sums up his findings, "I have sought to demonstrate that the
necessary reduction in carbon emissions is -- if difficult --
technically and economically possible. I have not demonstrated that it
is politically possible."

Is it politically possible? The last paragraph of Heat is not hopeful.
"(T)he campaign against climate change is an odd one. Unlike almost all
the public protests which have preceded it, it is a campaign not for
abundance but for austerity. It is a campaign not for more freedom but
for less. Strangest of all, it is a campaign not just against other
people, but also against ourselves."

Which may be why we hear so much talk about the problem but so little
talk about sacrifice.

For those who favor aggressively expanding renewable energy,
dramatically improving efficiency and abandoning our dependence on
imported oil, but remain unconvinced about the timing and severity of
climate change, the disconnect between rhetoric and reality doesn't
matter. They can view the threat of global warming as a means to an end,
a rhetorical device to stimulate people and governments to aggressively
embrace these objectives. If we do get 25 percent of our expanded energy
consumption from renewables by 2025, they will be satisfied. Indeed,
they will be ecstatic.

But for those who truly believe that widespread and perhaps irreversible
ecological disaster is imminent, for those who believe we have only a
10-year window of opportunity before disaster becomes inevitable,
expanding renewable energy and improving efficiency is not sufficient
unless it is done at a scale and on a pace that dramatically reduces
global carbon emissions by 2030, with emissions by nations like the
United States and United Kingdom being reduced by upwards of 90 percent.

By not sugar coating the means, Heat provides an important public
service. By clearly presenting his data, Monbiot lets us decide where we
agree and where we disagree. He invites a conversation. I look forward
to it. And I hope to soon see a U.S. environmentalist take up the
Monbiot challenge and put together an equally thorough and rigorous
examination of our own ability to tackle global warming.

David Morris is co-founder and vice president of the Institute for Local
Self Reliance in Minneapolis, Minnnesota and director of its New Rules
project.

--
Pedro Jorge Pereira

GAIA - Grupo de Acção e Intervenção Ambiental
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