Pending Ecological Debacle

PED has moved to wordpress...

2010-11-26T03:42:00.000-08:00

Wordpress is just better, I'm afraid. Here is the new site.

UNFCCCC talks go nowhere - Colour Me Amazed

2010-10-09T20:58:00.000-07:00

Well, gosh, I am such a Nostradamus. Just last week I said to someone "these climate talks in China are going to achieve nothing." It was a brave prediction, that few could have dared to make. And so it is with grim satisfaction that I read on the BBC website that

UN climate talks in China have ended without a major breakthrough and with angry words about the US from Beijing.

At the talks in Tianjin, China blamed the US for failing to meet its responsibilities to cut emissions and for trying to overturn UN principles.

The US accused China of refusing to have its voluntary energy savings verified internationally.

Make this shit up. I defy you to.

Reasons we are in Denial

2010-08-22T12:35:00.000-07:00

From a 2006 spoof newspaper I did.

12 reasons why we are still in denial
MANCHESTER- A special investigation by this newspaper has revealed that Climate Change has been systematically under-estimated and under-reported. While no single villain is to blame, our reporters have identified several important factors.

Science is 'small c' conservative. Scientists are trained not to speculate beyond what the current empirical evidence will support. To do so, to go 'out on a limb', is to risk a career shelf-stacking at Asda.

Our ignorance is outstanding. The planet is fantastically complex, with all sorts of unknown influences, feedback loops etc. Assumptions that filled yesterday's text books are regularly over-turned. The new scientific and conceptual tools (Complex Systems etc.) at our disposal are absurdly new (40 years and less).

Prediction is difficult, especially about the future.

Some scientists still talking about how things will pan out in other fields 40 to 50 years hence, making it seem as if Climate Change is just one problem among many.

Our brains are limited. In most of our lives we encounter gradual change. We age one year at a time. Our wages (if we're lucky) creep up slowly. We are not regularly exposed to exponential changes, ‘phase shifts’ and the like. Without getting all evolutionary psychologist on your ass, we never needed to develop the mental tools for our current dilemma of positive feedback loops.

Our cultural selection pressures have always favoured optimists. Most folk flee from bad news. Never underestimate our amazing capacity to distract ourselves the latest baubles and trinkets, an upcoming holiday, coming and going in the Big Brother house.

We have a creeping expectation that God will rescue us, since we are obviously the most important thing in the Universe.

Profit-driven media systems exist to make money, not to inform. They need to establish a happy mood for people to read the adverts. The Pending Ecological Debacle doesn't really put the reader/viewer in the chucklezone.

Decisions on what and how to present science stories are largely made by arts graduates. They have been taught to get 'balance', meaning that until about two years ago, any old oil-company stooge could get equal airtime with a proper climatologist. Funnily, when doing stories on the Holocaust or the link between smoking and cancer, they don't ask David Irving or the Tobacco Growers' Association for a comment...

TV news stories have to be short, simple and have some good pictures. (Basically, what Herman and Chomsky refer to as “concision”)

We are coping with the legacy of ferocious and largely-successful ‘denial’ campaigns by capitalist interests in the 1990s (Global Climate Coalition is the prime example). This has left otherwise educated and bright people thinking that there is still doubt about climate change.

The general public is largely innumerate and woefully scientifically illiterate.

However, not all the scare stories are true: newspapers need to sell copies, so are attracted to the alarmist “we are all going to die next year” story, instead of the less controversial “we and most of the species on this rather pretty rock, are all going to die within the next 50 years”

People need to educate themselves about the basic science. Two really good places to start are Kate Evans “Funny Weather” and then www.realclimate.org. on which real climatologists speak to each other in something approaching English.

Scientists Wrong About Climate Change- It's Actually Far Far Worse

2010-08-22T08:57:00.000-07:00

Back in the day (i.e. 2006), when it looked like we folks around Climate Camp would be smart enough to actually make the network of NVDA really happen, there was a post-Drax meeting in Manchester. Where it all went wrong. But enough of that...

I produced a spoof newspaper, called "Socialist Lurker" and the lead story was, with a picture of a polar bear and a thought bubble that said "great, I can forget about the swimming lessons", "SCIENTISTS ADMIT CLIMATE CHANGE REPORTS WRONG:
It's actually far far worse."

For reasons to do with me posting a youtube video about Apocalyptic Language, I am now posting it...

This newspaper, after an investigation spanning two years, can today announce a startling pattern hidden in reports and research about climate change and carbon dioxide emissions. This pattern, invisible to the naked eye, has far-reaching implications, shaking the belief system of our civilisation to its core. Those who know the pattern can be identified by their tight-lipped semi-smile that might also be a stoical grimace. For this reason, the pattern is known as 'Da Carbon Code'.

The pattern has the following elements:

Journalists report that a group of scientists have reported their surprising/unusual/worrying/bowel-loosening information. This roughly corresponds to coverage of the same report in the Telegraph, the Times, the Guardian and the Independent respectively.

This information is in the form of direct evidence/findings/report/a computer model.

The journalist has found the report in a reputable journal, such as Science, Nature or, occasionally, something more specialist. Alternatively, the story comes from a press release from a body such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(1), the Royal Society, Hadley Centre or the like.

The report states that glacier melt(2)/ocean acidity(3)/ocean warming(4)/rainforest die-off(5)/methane hydrate release(6) etc(7). is happening quicker than expected.

At very least,it is happening twice as fast as had expected, but may even be happening faster than had previously been thought possible.(8)

The problem is caused by carbon dioxide emissions, and is likely to accelerate and also contribute to other environmental and social problems.

The pattern then continues with the journalist contacting a 'relevant authority' (either governmental or corporate) for a statement. The minister/PR flunky(9) looks shiftily at his- or more rarely her- feet and then out the window, before giving a ritual incantation of awareness and concern. He/she finally whines something like “Yes we are building more airports, but we're going to put low-energy light bulbs in all the departure lounges. And kittens are nice.”

By way of summing up the journalist will make the observation that 'tough choices' lie ahead, and that the 'political will' may not be present to meet them. In the deluxe version, they may mention that Kyoto, due to expire in 2012, was never much cop(10) anyhow.

Though this 'Da Carbon Code' has had little noticeable impact on the desires, assumptions and actions of the general public in the West, some among our Lords and Masters, the scientific community and the more alert environmentalists are starting to shit bricks. One campaigner was quoted as saying “It is probably too late to do anything actually worth the effort, but we should at least have a pop at the problem, for our own self-respect, if not for our kids. If we don't get Contraction and Convergence(12) adopted and implemented very soon indeed, it's definitely all over bar the shouting, wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

Footnotes to “Climate Reports Wrong”
1. The IPCC’s next report is due out in February 2007. It is likely to make for light, enjoyable bed-time reading. Not.
2. Check out the British Antarctic Survey www.antarctica.ac.uk See also footnote 8
3. The Natural Environment Research Council has a brilliant quarterly magazine called Planet Earth. The summer 2006 issue has a terrifying story on “Ocean Acidification: The Other Carbon Dioxide Problem” It’s available on-line, via http://www.nerc.ac.uk/publications/planetearth/
4. Jim Hansen, from NASA, is not a muppet. That was Jim Henson. Hanson's the guy with a cameo in Al Bore's Inconvenient Truth, fighting the good fight on Capitol Hill. 18 months ago NASA confirmed the oceans are heating up. http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/earth_energy.html
5. The Indie jealously guards its archive, but those criminals at climate ark have posted a story from 23 July http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=58635. Realclimate.org has a pretty good rebuttal, that you should read before you start disasturbating too much…
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/08/amazonian-drought/
6. The amusing thing about Siberia and Alaska melting will be that the quantities of methane will make any carbon dioxide reduction schemes that the simian bipeds come up with utterly utterly irrelevant. At that point, will they all just shrug their shoulders and say ‘burn baby burn’?
There was an article and letters in Nature in September 2006 about this, but the following article is also good. It’s from ‘Seed’, an American magazine aimed at arty scientists and arty types who seek scientifically literacy. A bit technophiliac, but you can’t have everything... http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/09/post_3.php
7. Et cetera indeed! Royal Society report “Impact of climate change on crops worse than previously thought (Liebig’s law stands, it seems)
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/news.asp?id=3084
The Gulf Stream switching off, from those cheerful chaps at NERC again
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/issues/climatechange/rapid.asp
(One is reminded of William Broecker- "We're poking the climate system by adding greenhouse gases" like carbon dioxide, the Columbia University scientist said in a July 22 Summer Sessions lecture. "Will poking this angry beast cause it to lash out?" )
Soil becoming a carbon source rather than a carbon sink.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1324379,00.html
I could go on all night…
8. Elizabeth Kolbert wrote a three part piece on Climate Change for The New Yorker, now a book “Field Notes from a Catastrophe”
Almost wherever you looked, temperatures in the Arctic were rising, and at a rate that surprised even those who had expected to find clear signs of climate change. Robert Corell, an American oceanographer and a former assistant director at the National Science Foundation, co-ordinated the study. In his opening remarks, he ran through its findings — shrinking sea ice, receding glaciers, thawing permafrost — and summed them up as follows: “The Arctic climate is warming rapidly now, with an emphasis on now.” Particularly alarming, Corell said, were the most recent data from Greenland, which showed the ice sheet melting much faster “than we thought possible even a decade ago."
9. For public relations and greenwash, check out www.prwatch.org and the book Global Spin by Sharon Beder.
And read this quote from the wonderful Donald Westlake’s wonderful ‘Humans’;
The fact was, Anglo Dutch had learned from Exxon's experience with the Valdez. Never keep your information officer around long enough to establish any kind of personal rapport with the media; that way indiscretions and uncomfortable leakage lie. Every two weeks, whip into the slot another trim slim thirty-four-year-old, bland and smooth and bright, male or female (makes no difference), who will give the company line a nearly human face; but before that face becomes completely human get it out of there, and start with a new one....
10. Jokes that have to be explained are bad enough, but footnoted ones?! COP= Conference of the Parties is the name of the 6 monthly meetings of the UNFCCC. At COP-3, in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was signed.
11. The idea that the mass media in the west is systematically skewed to support capitalist interests is unthinkable to those who benefit from it with fat jobs and fat heads.
www.medialens.org does an excellent job in tracking and challenging this invisible power. Specifically on climate change, see http://www.medialens.org/alerts/06/060131_welcome_to_mars.php
12.We must contract our carbon dioxide emissions and also gap in per capita emissions between rich and poor. C and C offers science-based targets, which we have ignored and will ignore until it is Too Late. If it isn’t already. www.gci.org.uk or else news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4994296.stm

Some cartoons to leaven the mood

2010-07-23T10:52:00.000-07:00

Haven't done this for a while...

We will jam our fingers in our ears till they touch...

2010-05-18T15:17:00.000-07:00

"The more serious the problem of climate change becomes, the more revolutionary the change needed to address it—the more we can expect powerful economic and social interests to deny the seriousness of the problem: playing up scientific uncertainties that always exist, and casting doubt on climate science itself. The object of such a response is to manipulate public opinion so as to sow confusion and arrest any attempt to alter business as usual."

Monthly Review May 2010

Overwhelmed by overwhelming overwhelmingness

2010-02-14T16:33:00.000-08:00

Another banality that occurred to me this morning: Few of us like to feel overwhelmed and at the mercy of forces we don't understand/can't control. And as children, that's mostly what we endure- we are told when to go to bed, what to where, what to eat. [See Stephen Jay Gould on why kids are fascinated by big lumbering brainless dinosaurs] Becoming an adult, you get to “choose” these things yourself (though often the choices you make are within the narrow bounds set by advertisers, but the crucial thing- for my rhetorical purpose- is that you feel free.)

And you get to stay an adult, with luck, until advanced old age crumbles that independence away from you and you get patronised by some NHS stooge a third of your age.

But look, here comes climate change. A huge force, arbitrary and beyond control and bargaining with that will take away so many of the 'free choices' - air travel, bling - that we deploy to tell ourselves and each other that we are now adults. [It's bad enough if for those willing to concede that some social problems need collective solutions. For staunch 'individualists' who hates the messiness of mass society, then it must be doubly hell.]
And so, like a teenager with a parent lecturing us, we turn up the volume on our iPod and say (to ourselves) “yeah, whatever.”

19th out of 19

2010-01-21T14:59:00.000-08:00

So, this little gem from the FT of Jan 18...

The new generation of Tory MPs due to take power after the election does not share David Cameron's professed commitment to tackling climate change, a survey being published this week suggests.

"Reducing Britain's carbon footprint" was rated as the lowest priority, out of 19 policies, by 144 Conservative candidates responding to the survey of the 240 most winnable Tory target seats. Rating each policy on a scale of one to five, where five was the most important to them personally, the candidates gave the climate change issue an average rating of 2.8, significantly below "more help for marriage" (3.6 rating) and "protecting the English countryside" (3.57 rating).

They rated "cutting red tape" as second only to tackling the budget deficit in terms of priorities, suggesting resistance to environmental regulation.

Where to begin? How stupid do we have to get, before it all goes tits up? Can we nominate the entire fracking species for an Arrhenius Award (like a Darwin Award, only for climate stupidity).

Oh, and those wonderful tables at the back of the rigorous Copenhagen Accord? The ones with the January 31st deadline. Yeah, well, screw that!

The Boiler Scrappage Scheme: a tale of bureaucratic hell

2010-01-16T02:50:00.000-08:00

In my bimbling innocence, I have been sucked into a bizarre parallel world of quangoese cockups that could drive a woman to... oooh believe that the state is incompetent and corrupt...
Gordon B announced with much fanfare a couple of weeks ago a boiler scrappage scheme, like the car scheme, which would replace G rated boilers with A rated ones, allegedly reducing CO2 emissions by the same amount as taking 45,000 cars off the road, and - the buzzword of the moment, create British jobs! Woohoo! What can go wrong, one asks.
The answer, of course, is that one can give the job of administering this scheme to the Energy Savings Trust, a clunking bureaucracy which isn't apparently up to anything more complex than sending out a few leaflets about changing your lightbulbs. It certainly managed to screw up the solar incentive scheme a few years back. Trying to make contact with this organisation is like dealing with some little organisation with three staff and a doggie on a string - you'd never guess its budget runs into tens of millions and it gets to second dozens of staff from government departments.
The sorry saga so far is that on the 6th January, my very on-the-ball boiler installer rang my at about nine o'clock at night to tell me to apply for the scheme. I went to the EST site next morning and, as per the instructions, emailed boilerscrappage@est.org.uk with a 'registration of interest' which included the make of boiler being replaced, the new one etc. I heard nothing back. So on about the 12th or 13th I rang up to chase this. The very nice, if somewhat woolly and confused-sounding woman on the phone told me they'd been 'snowed under' with interest (although I managed to get through straight away on the phone - obviously a good thing but not necessarily a sign of stretched capacity). She informed me that 'Steve' (not the name she said) would get back to my email - which rather (and worryingly) implied that a single bloke was actually dealing with this landslide of email interest.
Needless to say, by Saturday 16th I've heard nothing back. I tried ringing the national number, only to find that it's only staffed Monday-Friday 9-5. So how are people in work supposed to access a) the boiler scheme and b) the wealth of energy efficiency information the EST claims to be able to bestow? Not through the online forms on the site, that's for certain. I clicked through the same series of links I'd followed on the 7th, only to find that the instructions page has changed, and there is now a link to an application form for the scrappage scheme. Wahey! I thought. Yes, there is a question as to why everyone who sent in an expression of interest couldn't have been auto-emailed to tell them that this form was now up, but never mind. Now I can just apply...
Can I buggery. I fill in the form, not one but three times. Each time it all seems to go fine, I fill in the requisite fields - some of them dropdown menus, some typed fields. I tick the necessary disclaimer boxes. I press 'submit.' And then every single field on the form sprouts a kind of burgundy-purple message saying 'Please provide some information for the above field it is a required field,' or similar. It's not my browser - I fill in online forms all the bloody time.
So, I think, I'll at least let them know their form isn't working, and maybe I'll get something back telling me when it is. Or some such vain hope. So I go to the EST's standard contact form and write a little message to this effect. I also have to fill in a bunch of fields with my name, address, phone number etc, including one of those ones where you fill in your postcode and it finds your address for you. This works successfully. But when I press 'submit' - it all goes tits up again. Despite the form identifying my postcode enough to find my address, it's refusing to admit it is actually a postcode for the purposes of submitting the form. Great.
My last salvo is to try and email my message to the generic email addresses, which appear on various EST leaflets, ads etc, mail@ and info@. Neither of these are working either. There are completely unfunded organisations campaigning for the preservation of species no-one's ever heard of with more efficient communications than this over-funded shower. Withholding tax because irresponsible governments will just spend it on nasty nuclear weapons is a fab idea. But withholding it because their quangos are completely unable to perform basic tasks feels like an even better notion at this time...

This article was originally posted here.

Who are you?

2009-12-17T11:25:00.000-08:00

This from Al Gore in Copenhagen. Who are you?

Who are we?

If at some future date, the next generation faces the prospect of living in a world with steadily deteriorating prospects and no chance to reclaim the glories of this beautiful earth that we have enjoyed — if they look back at Copenhagen and ask, “Why didn’t you act? Why did you let this process fall into paralysis, and neither succeed or fail but become a symbol of futility? What were the arguments were again? You didn’t realize that we were at stake?”

If their conclusion was that the generation of human beings alive in the first years of the 21st century gathered together in Copenhagen with the leaders of virtually every nation in the world and instead of forthrightly addressing a mortal threat to the future of civilization, instead decided that the arguments were more important than the solution, that the compromises were just too difficult and allowed the process to fall into paralysis, thus condemning them to a life completely unlike what they deserve, they would be justified in asking of us:

“Who are you?

Didn’t you care?

Did you not feel any connection to us?”

The real source of the passion and the feelings that I have for this issue is a simple conviction: I don’t believe that’s who we are. I believe we are capable of rising to this occasion in spite of the difficulties. I believe that we are capable of resolving the remaining issues to the point where we can meet in Mexico City this July, in the aftermath of a successful action by the United States Senate in April, and conclude a binding international treaty that begins the process and builds our confidence and leads us to make bolder commitments and cuts in global warming pollution and provides the supports that are necessary until, like the Montreal Protocol process, we get to the point where we actually solve this crisis.

We can do it, we must do it, and as I have said many times, I believe political will is a renewable resource. Thank you very much.

Gort and Klaatu's Climate Slamdown!!!

2009-11-26T10:48:00.000-08:00

Big conference. Big strip.

The post-Copenhagen world?

2009-07-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

Sigh. Just putting the latest MCFly (issue 29. Oh god, what a rod for my own back/enablement of my martyr complex).

And on the stepper last night read a rather fun (in a "we are so toast" kind of way) piece by Alex Evans and David Steven, of the grandly named Centre on International Co-operation.

It's about the post-Copenhagen world, and it's catchily titled "An Institutional Architecture for Climate Change." It was commissioned by the Department for International Development.

So, the authors do that "scenario" thing that we have Per whatsit and Vince Cable to blame for. You know, they come up with three different ways things could go over the next 20 years or so, then spice it up with some glib "humour" about Chelsea Clinton becoming prez and so forth.

Their three scenarios are - (drumroll please)

"In Age of Climatocracy, early success in negotiations nonetheless fails to lead to a sustainable deal.

"In Multilateral Zombie, an early breakdown in international co-operation is followed by the eventual emergence of a new order based on a patchwork of bottom up solutions.

"Finally, in Operating System, a long-term deal proves sufficiently robust to deliver results, based on an ambitious effort to integrate all aspects of international reform, and an approach based on agreeing shared principles and a long-term route map rather than just incremental initiatives. "

In all of these I think they ignore what some of the smarter climate scientists are trying to say. Susan Solomon and the "it's later than you think" line, Stephen Schneider and the "unpleasant surprises", Wally Broecker and the Climate Beast thing. You see, Evans and Steven live in the dumb-bell world, and either won't or can't think about it all going horribly tits up in uncontrollable ways. I'm reminded of what some Daniel Finkelstein wrote recently in the Times about Robert McNamara upon the old fraud's death
"The first less is this: that men of action want to act. They are paid to act, they are brought into government to act. From his very first visit to Vietnam, McNamara could have learnt- if he wanted to- how difficult things were. But he was an executive type and he wasn't about to tell the boss that he couldn't get the job done. So doubt was excluded. The facts were altered to suit the theory."

The men of thinking (and they're damn good at it, btw. Check out their Global Dashboard) want to think, and to plot out continuities. But we are facing such radical uncertainty that... Actually, maybe I am being unfair to these guys; I guess nobody pays you to throw your hands up in the air and say "fucked if I know" for 50 pages.

Good points are made throughout. Here's a small selection that resonated with me as I stepped away on the stepper:
"This demonstrates a crucial point: action taken on climate change today is fundamentally influenced by expectations of what will happen in the future. By extension, the primary task for climate institutions is to shape expectations about future policy responses over the very long time periods associated with climate change. " (p16)

and

"Today’s institutions are structured in such a way that assumes that:

The likely impact of climate change will be considerably less than predicted by the IPCC. Emissions are climbing at a rate that makes more rigorous stabilization levels difficult, or impossible, to achieve.

The cost of reducing emissions far exceeds the benefits, while there is little need to insure against catastrophic impacts. Countries, firms and individuals behave as if they believe that they cannot afford the transition to low carbon development.

Short-term economic imperatives outweigh longer-term interests, including both economic and – especially – non-economic ones. While there is growing appreciation of the damage we are doing to future generations, there is not sufficient commitment to overcome the obstacles to collective action.

The needs of the poor should be given less weight than those of the rich. The poor, both acros and within countries, will suffer far more from climate change."
(page 17)

And there's ammo to sling at Ed Miliband next he uses the "we're 18% below 1990 levels" line on UK GHG emissions. Maybe (just maybe) we are on our production, but not on our consumption, not if you count the "embedded carbon":

"Dieter Helm finds that on a crude calculation, the UK’s consumption of greenhouse gases increased 19% between 1990 and 2003, even though production declined 12.5% – in line with the UK’s Kyoto target.
Other research suggests that only around half of China’s rapid emissions growth is due to increased domestic consumption; the rest are exported.
In effect, rich countries have exported ‘dirty industries’ to emerging economies, who then hav to bear the cost of investing in technologies for reducing their emissions."
(page 21)

And a good point on the UNFCCC negotiations:

"In climate change, this problem is compounded by the fact that agreements are negotiated by environment ministers who generally have low status within their governments, and whose position becomes increasingly exposed as the potential impact grows of any deal on economies. One understandable response is to increase centralisation, both within national governments (as heads of state take increasing responsibility for international issues), and at a global level (where there is a trend towards escalating hard issues to fora such as the G8 and, more recently, the G20).
However, the problem with centralisation is that it comes with very limited capacity. At national level, heads’ offices have small staffs that usually have to focus on the urgent rather than the essential. At international level, the limited ‘bandwidth’ of the network of sherpas that prepares the G8 agenda means that summit outcomes more often tend towards headline-friendly ‘initiatives’ instead of comprehensive plans to manage global risks. " (page 23)

and the final bit I'll cut and paste (promise) is one dear to my heart, namely, the complete lack of work done on "softening up" people for the meaning of a 'successful' Copenhagen deal:

"Public engagement is therefore paramount. At present, to a surprising (and alarming) extent, international climate policymakers act as though what takes place in the climate ‘bubble’ is the key determinant of success.

"But in fact, recent experience underlines the extent to which publics matter in foreign policy. The European Constitution and its successor, the Lisbon Treaty, were both examples of agreements where policy elites successfully reached a bargain, but then found it bluntly rejected during the ratification phase by publics who had been largely excluded from earlier deliberations. Many other international institutions struggle with public apathy or antipathy towards them.

"Accordingly, it will be essential for policymakers to engage early in the process with non-state constituencies – not only to gauge what public opinion is likely to bear, but also to build a broader sense of buy-in in order to prevent catastrophic public-driven ‘wild cards’ from defeating agreements late in the process. Yet it is astonishing how little governments and international agencies are actually doing to prepare publics for the prospect of a far-reaching global deal on climate change – particularly given that such a deal will, after all, be designed to catalyse a massive change in public behaviour. " (page 39

In summary- read this essay, it is worth it. Just don't take comfort from the scenarios....

Brilliant denial/acceptance post on "Climate Progress"

2009-06-08T14:22:00.000-07:00

I've used the "5 stages of grief" by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross a few times, and fellow PED author Marc Roberts' has done some great cartoons on the subject too.

So it was with great interest that I read Joe Romm's latest blog post -

Anti-science conservatives are stuck in denial, but for climate science activists the reverse is true.

The first three quarters of the post are about the various words you can use to describe so-called "skeptics", most of whose minds are made up, and are impervious to any reasoned or factual discussion. It's good stuff. But that on its own wouldn't have me urging you (yes, you, one single follower) to read the whole piece. No, it's when Romm continues that the fun starts -

THE FIVE STAGES IN REVERSE

And now let me end with what I promised — the five stages of grief in reverse.

Climate science activists begin with accepting the science. What else can one do? Science is the reason so many of us survived childbirth and childhood, science has fed the world, science is the reason computers and the blogosphere exist at all. And yes, science gave us our fossil-fueled wealth. I’m a scientist by training, but I just don’t see anyone can pick and choose what science you’re going to believe and what not. The scientific method may not be always be perfect in single studies — since it is used by imperfect humans — but it is the best thing we have for objectively determining what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen. It is testable and self-correcting, unlike all other approaches.

Really, you should read the whole thing, which ends with this-

Finally, you end up in a kind of denial. It just becomes impossible to believe that the human race is going to be so stupid. Indeed, my rational side finds it hard to believe that we’re going to avoid catastrophic global warming, as any regular CP reader knows. But my heart, in denial, is certain that we will — see “How the world can (and will) stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm: The full global warming solution (updated).” The great New Yorker write Elizabeth Kolbert perhaps best summed up this form of denial. Her three-part series, “The Climate of Man,” which became the terrific book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe, famously ends:

It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.

It is impossible to believe. I myself can’t believe it.

Bent As A Nine Bob Note?

2009-05-17T03:54:00.001-07:00

At last, a climate related link to the dismal tale of graft that has engulfed the two-faced pocket-liners that we entrust with our collective well being. Apparently they're a sorry shower of bent bastards. Imagine my surprise.

The circle is broken, etc...

On The Rebound

2009-05-15T05:52:00.001-07:00

Researchers suggest that our self indulgence might diminish our cleverness, as we consume more of what we save in a "rebound effect".
What price water and food when there's no water and food.

Elsewhere, Russia reserves the right to wage its own wars for oil; the planet becomes increasingly unbalanced; marine wildernesses go the way of all fish.

Some fine urban pollution materials here, at Urban Emissions.info

Active Listening

2009-05-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

Burnout is bad for the environment.

There are ups and there are downs, and then more ups and more downs. Keeping a level head is tricky. Maybe we should spend more time in the garden.

"To get credit for preserving the ocean or avoiding deforestation is like getting credit for not beating your wife," Tony Haymet, director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California, (climate feedback)

Con-Fusion?

2009-05-11T11:51:00.001-07:00

Whilst the usual oodles and squillions change hands across the boardroom tables, the actual hardware upon which we are apparently doomed to depend turns out to be a bit shit.

It seems we only stop shitting in the kitchen when we're constipated

The part of the brain that finds cars irresistible seems to be missing in my case, so I'm probably embarrassingly late with this. The Honda hybrid is called the Insight. Oh how we laughed.

Bad Dream Time

2009-05-10T13:24:00.001-07:00

Global warming is bad for your health - particularly if you're an aboriginal Australian, a Pacific Islander or a polar bear

The British police drum up a bit more business for themselves

Infernal Combustion

2009-05-08T11:21:00.001-07:00

Frank is feeling a little better today. Thanks for asking.

While the UK entrenches itself up to its neck in car culture, the scientific world debates whether it is best to starve us all and destroy our biodiversity in the name of biofuel or bio-electricity - whichever gives most miles per acre.
Those on two wheels had better watch their backs.

So many choices, so little accurate information.

What price action?

China and Italy invest heavily in renewables

Elephants in da house

2009-04-30T11:03:00.001-07:00

I didn't have room for the elephant.

We're going through the housekeeping like there's no tomorrow, borrowing ourselves into the middle of next week, whilst the tabloids bark nonsense. Oh well, what's the worst that can happen?

Some interesting background to the swine flu pandemic, from Craig Mackintosh

Divine Interventions

2009-04-27T12:36:00.001-07:00

The old sunspot chestnut raises its head again, threatening to give comfort to the denialists and maybe temporarily mask some of the unpleasantness so it can all crash down on us at once.

We at Throbgoblins International all trooped off to our local independent cinema yesterday, to watch "In the loop" and duly laughed our collective teeth loose. I mention this because the Westminster Prince of Darkness has set up a rival energy and climate power-base to scupper environmental legislation on behalf of business.

Creative Differences

2009-04-25T06:31:00.001-07:00

Shock-horror. It seems that the big polluters actually suppressed evidence and denied the conclusions of their own scientific advisors! Who'd have thought it. Shocking and wholly unexpected. I, for one, am shaken to the core that such paragons of civic and environmental virtue would stoop to such shit-splattering levels of sociopathic deceit.

Meanwhile, our fellow creatures continue to vacate history apace, whilst the diverse inheritance of evolution gets reduced cut by cut to what biologists refer to as "fuck-all".

More shock horror as humungous hive-building is seen as potentially risky strategy

The text of Al Gore's statement to the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environmnent, (courtesy of Climate Progress)

Equality and diversity

2009-04-22T13:01:00.001-07:00

As indigenous peoples worldwide are variously disenfranchised, de-iced and supplanted by agrobusiness and rip-offsets, their representatives gather to ask for some justice.

Meanwhile, great rivers turn to wadis worldwide whilst others are dammed to a future of post-glacial dribbling.
Oh - and the land's turning to shit

Should anybody soaked in the western press coverage be interested in triangulating a more thoughtful response to Ahmadenejad's UN speech, the full text is here.

Industry Exhales

2009-04-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

Ern is, perhaps, identifying a little too closely with his industry interests. He's not alone.
The US EPA paves the way for significant legislation by deciding that CO2 is hazardous to human health and well being, whilst The Uk gov't promises a massive investment in CCS infrastructure, whether it exists or not.

Ice and water continue to make the news

When Fixes Need Fixing?

2009-04-17T11:16:00.001-07:00

Grist provides these two links to reports of pending agricultural collapse in the Punjab due to (profit driven?) over-exploitation of resources.

The Huffington Post posts this , by Lise van Susteran, on Moral Obligation

Drinking for England

2009-04-15T12:47:00.001-07:00

The director of WWF Scotland - Dr Richard Dixon - has suggested that energy wastage should be regarded in the same anti-social light as drink-driving, and should be punishable under the law.

We are invited to stop passing the buck, seeing as it is easier to regulate one person who consumes a thousand watts, than a thousand people who consume one each.

Elsewhere - NCAR research suggests that we are not quite toasted yet, and Cuba and Rwanda are allowed some lifelines.

Aggravated Protest

2009-04-13T09:58:00.001-07:00

Just a quickie. Details are still a bit sketchy as I post, but it seems a mass protest now constitutes a conspiracy. Well, at least there were no fatalities. Small mercies, I suppose.

Elsewhere some context concerning the Somali piracy news-fest, and some things to back it up.

Some thoughts on robustness and efficiency from Grist, and some on fragility and incompetence, from the FT

Elective Deafness

2009-04-12T07:00:00.001-07:00

This weekend many of you will be celebrating the annual festival of Easter - when we commemorate the point at which our nation traditionally goes into ecological debt - consuming beyond our means and damning us and the rest of the planet to a joyful future of instability, expensively shagged soils and dry taps. We celebrate this with over-packaged chocolate eggs to demonstrate that we are blessed with the requisite amount of kiddy-friendly blind faith, and that we really couldn't give a toss.

The prognosis is poor, and we don't have time to "rinky-dink" with half-arsed, poorly financed quarter-measures.

Some folk would have us believe that what we need is to wait for the same people who got us into this mess - respectable, wealthy folks in nice suits - to come up with a new visionary realism that supersedes the green agenda and saves us at the last minute without upsetting anybody. And if they fail? Well, after 3 days we shall rise again....

We are steeped in messianic, exceptionalist thinking.

Wheels Within Wheels

2009-04-09T06:51:00.001-07:00

Gordon Brown and sheep-dog Boris both make extravagant claims about the greening of their budgets and the blissful cornucopia of fairy dust technology that will miraculously trump the ugly realities of a finite planet. Should be worth a few votes.

It's a shameless re-tread of this early Frank strip.

Meanwhile the Lords of Saudi Arabia make a surreal plea for special consideration, and plans are laid at the Doc Fiendish Institute

It seems to be very deep in our genes, this buying and selling lark

(whoops)

2009-04-09T06:51:00.000-07:00

Choice and Prosperity

2009-04-08T02:51:00.001-07:00

It's a conundrum, isn't it? Development and climate change. Such a dilemma -convoluted and labyrinthine, loaded and provocative. Whilst India pushes for escape from endemic poverty by pursuing a Nano for everyone, its' islands start to disappear, as do its' neighbours. The result of success will be failure. Hmm. Tricky. Plenty of arguments to be had there. Good job we're all totally focused on it and not distracted by beer and football.

Elsewhere the Murray dries up, as do the Cedars of Lebanon. Bankruptcy beckons.

The poles are not so far apart after all.

When even the CBI say we're not doing enough, we know we're in trouble.

More nails in Satire's coffin

2009-04-04T10:26:00.000-07:00

Truth is far stranger and dumber than fiction.

Noel Lynch brought the Tesco idiocy to my attention thus;

"Today's Guardian has a half page advert for TESCO. It is headed 'Turn lights into flights'. It shows a low energy light bulb and says that if you buy it you can get a clubcard voucher that you can turn into 60 Airmiles. So that's save a small amount of energy by buying a low energy light bulb and then consume a large amount of energy by flying an extra 60 miles. Doh!"

Quite so.

The Earth Hour folk drop a bollock with Alanis -really quite breath-takingly numb of them.

The Masters of the Universe would rather not be regulated, thankyouverymuch

We're probably all fucked now.

OPEC denies any part in Climate Change

An excellent cartoon from Martin Rowson in the Grauniad

Not a good week, on the whole. A lot of Obama-fueled Gordon Brown-nosing, coupled with a handful of pseudo-anarchist wankers playing to a phallanx of pseudo-journalistic cameras made for a poor display. Too much kettling and containment and predictably OTT PCs. A couple of non-committal half-statements at the end of an economists communique may quickly fade away.

Here's an excellent lecture by Dieter Helm. Succinct and informed and inarguably respectable.
(thanks to Richard Douglas via Marc Hudson)

Environmentalists should take the helm

2009-04-04T01:59:00.001-07:00

When the Stern Review came out in late 2006, I scanned the papers to see if any of the Great and Good pundits would write something along the lines of-

"Er, ok, we misunderestimated the ecological consequences of rampant growth. We acknowledge that the greens, of various shades, got there first, about twenty years ago. So, in our new spirit of humility, we will now look at what greens are NOW saying, and engage with that seriously,- regardless of how deeply it offends our cherished beliefs- so 20 years hence, we're not making the same sheepish announcement that we're making today."

Yeah, right.

But now, Dieter Helm, a respected (and IMHO, from previous reading I've done, worthy of respect) economist specialising in energy policy, has come out and said "the Environmentalists are right." Helm is no swivel-eyed loon, and cannot be dismissed as such.

His lecture is extraordinary, and provides a HUGE stick for Greens to wave around in debates about economics, climate change, our way out of this grotesque mess that we in the West have created for everyone and everything on this rather lovely planet.

I'll quote a bit, but the lead up and everything is worth close attention. It's only 12 pages, but it's the most vital reading you will do for quite a while.

The environmentalists are right

What then can we conclude? First, the conventional economic growth model is at best highly misleading when applied to the big environmental question of our time. The environment is not just another factor input. Second, our consumption is far too high, and incompatible with sustainability. Third, by focusing on consumption rather than production, the developed countries have a dominant responsibility to reduce carbon emissions and biodiversity destruction – including much of that happening in developing and poor countries. Fourth, the solution to our environmental problems is therefore a significant transfer of wealth, resources and technology to the developing world.

...

The solution to our environmental problems is not wishful thinking. It is cold, hard realism. That has not been helped by the selective quoting by politicians from the Stern Report. It is time to tell voters some unpleasant facts.

Can the Can

2009-03-31T11:38:00.001-07:00

The G20 and space-toilets

I can't imagine why this didn't end up extremely graphic and somewhat disturbing.

Apocalypse when?

2009-03-30T15:12:00.000-07:00

This was much funnier in my head. Never mind. What d'ya want f' nowt?

Here's the link

The "revolution" gets underway, and we'll all be first up against the wall. The revolution will not be televised.

Songs of t'Apocalypse

2009-03-26T15:44:00.000-07:00

What would you put on a compilation album of songs about the end of the world?
Excluding various strands of thrash/death/goth metal, natch.

No-brainers
"It's the end of the world as we know it" by REM
"The End" by the Doors
"We don't need another hero (Beyond Thunderdome)" by Tina Turner
"99 Luft Balloons" by Nena
"The Future" by Leonard Cohen

Less well-known/tenuous/tendentious
"Here at the End of the World" by David Rovics
"It's too late" by Carole King
"We'll all go together when we go" by Tom Lehrer

And this blog post on the same theme recommends "When the Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash

Taliking about the end of the world

2009-03-26T15:29:00.000-07:00

No, that's not a typo: all will be revealed.

So, the latest New Scientist is out, and Fred Pearce, author of the superlative "The Last Generation" (among many others) has a frankly terrifying piece called "Arctic meltdown is a threat to humanity".

It starts grim:

'"I AM shocked, truly shocked," says Katey Walter, an ecologist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. "I was in Siberia a few weeks ago, and I am now just back in from the field in Alaska. The permafrost is melting fast all over the Arctic, lakes are forming everywhere and methane is bubbling up out of them."

'Back in 2006, in a paper in Nature, Walter warned that as the permafrost in Siberia melted, growing methane emissions could accelerate climate change. But even she was not expecting such a rapid change. "Lakes in Siberia are five times bigger than when I measured them in 2006. It's unprecedented. This is a global event now, and the inertia for more permafrost melt is increasing."'

and just gets grimmer.

'The rapid warming in the Arctic means that a global temperature rise of 3 °C, likely this century, could translate into a 10 °C warming in the far north. Permafrost hundreds of metres deep will be at risk of thawing out.'

and grimmer

'Schuur estimates that 100 billion tonnes of this carbon could be released by thawing this century, based on standard scenarios. If that all emerged in the form of methane, it would have a warming effect equivalent to 270 years of carbon dioxide emissions at current levels. "It's a kind of slow-motion time bomb," he says.'

There's the usual bit where scientists admit that they have (for understandable and normally admirable reasons) underestimated the speed and scope of the changes:

'Put together, the latest research paints a disturbing picture. Since existing models do not include feedback effects such as the heat generated by decomposition, the permafrost could melt far faster than generally thought. "Instead of disappearing in 500 years, the deepest permafrost could disappear in 100 years," Ciais says.

And the talik thing?

' What's more, if summer melting depth exceeds the winter refreezing level then a layer of permanently unfrozen soil known as a talik forms, sandwiched between the permafrost below and the winter-freezing surface layer. "A talik allows heat to build more quickly in the soil, hastening the long-term thaw of permafrost," says Lawrence.'

Technobubble

2009-03-25T16:08:00.001-07:00

Biochar arguments are batted about, technofixes bite the dust and market stalwarts call for state intervention in the energy markets to ensure renewables targets are met.

Meanwhile, borders go missing in Europe

Socially unacceptable

2009-03-24T15:17:00.000-07:00

Ed Milliband seeks to shame NIMBYs into following the cuckoo into silence, while German researchers tell us that money is a drug. Who knew?

Bear essentials

2009-03-23T13:49:00.001-07:00

While humans concentrate on launching an "affordable" car for billions of bicyclers, and prepare to meltdown the amazon for palm-oil, the incredible shrinking polar bear seeks protection where it may

Water and space are at a premium

So... what are you advocating, exactly?

2009-03-20T13:50:00.000-07:00

There was a meeting of scientists in Copenhagen this week, ahead of a meeting of politicians, ngos and several thousand well-paid lobbyists this December.

They basically said our situation is Very Very Serious. As they've been saying for a wee while now.

And then Mike Hulme, former top bod of the Tyndall Centre, made another of his very useful (not) interventions, which you can read here. Normally I'd say don't bother, but it drew this response (posted below) from a mate of PED called Leo Murray (you may recognise him from this or that)

Hi Mike,

Leo Murray here, of Plane Stupid and so on. I thought you made a very good point about the key messages statement issued by the conference organisers last week in your BBC article. I couldn't help but wonder what you sought to achieve by writing it though. I would urge you to read through the comments that have accreted beneath your piece, so you can appreciate the actual effect of such critiques of calls to action on climate change.

What do you think you're doing, exactly? This is not a rhetorical question. I ask because I am interested in the answer. You're no fool; the exception you took to the disingenuous nature of the Copenhagen statement is extremely reasonable. When we met you made a convincing case that your over-arching ethical consideration is to the principle of justice, although there remained some unresolved questions over how this relates to your disdain for any and all proposed practical responses to the ethical question posed by climate change.

This latest article is genuinely puzzling to me, as it appears to be a vivid continuation of an ongoing crusade to deliberately sabotage any attempts to formulate a political response to the challenge we face as a consequence of anthropogenic climate change. Whilst the rigour of the internal logic of your critique is not in question, the purpose of this public intervention most certainly is. These outbursts have a real and eminently predictable effect, and it is to militate against our chances of avoiding extremely severe adverse consequences for human welfare and prosperity - and against 'justice', for the myriad innocent victims of dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate systems, both in the global south and in generations to come.

Can this really be your intention? If not, you're not as clever as you seem, as this is a fairly obvious and concrete outcome of using your expert status to speak out against 'urgency' and 'action' of any sort to prevent such outcomes. But I don't believe you are stupid.

So... what are you advocating, exactly? Is criticising 'action' endorsing inaction, as it is universally read? Or do you have some other 'action' in mind that you haven't told us about? Something non-urgent perhaps? Can you really be being obstructive just to make a point? Really?

I'm not stupid either Mike, but try as I might, I just don't get what you're about. If you're trying to help - stop it. You're not helping.

Regards,
Leo Murray

www.wakeupfreakout.org

Bang bang, you're dead.

2009-03-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

Frank is a cartoon character. Shooting people is wrong. Of course Frank would never actually DO anything like this. It's probably just a dream. We'll all wake up soon.

The great ice sheets may not be set to completely collapse overnight, but the processes being set in motion today will make that collapse unstoppable.

With our current "democratic" processes falling short, and road traffic increasing 25% in just 15 years, it looks like we're grabbing the shit end of the stick with both hands

Baby, you're a rich man too.

2009-03-18T14:13:00.001-07:00

Opportunities abound for those who dare, as China asks he who calls the tune to pay the piper, and we are all cordially invited to Cap the rich

Elsewhere, both Shell and the UK government go into bat for the opposition

Equal Rights

2009-03-13T12:13:00.001-07:00

Stern warnings followed by stern warnings, as drought pushes up grain futures

At least the handle is one of us.

2009-03-12T15:20:00.001-07:00

The
steady
drum-beat
of
increasingly
bad
news

with a syncopated back-beat

Media Friendly

2009-03-11T14:22:00.001-07:00

Cognitive Malfunction

2009-03-10T12:26:00.001-07:00

Our closest cousins show definite signs of being... well... our closest cousins, while the Heartland Jamboree keeps churning out the misinformation. There's a lot of it about

I'm not sure whether I'm contravening RealClimate's "Advice to Climate Bloggers" number 6, or adhering to number 13 here. It's a complex situation

Oh, and this story sums us up nicely, don't you think?

Kevin Anderson on Copenhagen

2009-03-09T15:01:00.000-07:00

I know Kevin Anderson. I like Kevin Anderson. I wish Kevin Anderson were wrong. But I don't think Kevin Anderson is.

Sigh.

"Two leading climate scientists have broken ranks with their peers to declare that hopes of getting a meaningful deal on halting global warming this year are already lost.
"Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, and Professor Trevor Davies, one of the centre's founders, told The Times that it was time to start looking for alternatives to an international deal.
"They made their comments on the eve of a three-day conference in Copenhagen this week in which thousands of climate change researchers will meet to discuss the latest discoveries in the field. The findings will be used in December when world leaders attend a UN summit, also in Copenhagen, to try to work out an international treaty on greenhouse gas emissions."

-continues-

A question of taste

2009-03-09T11:53:00.000-07:00

Readers from beyond these shores might like to insert the finance minister and business troll of their choice. Suggestions welcome. Thanks once again to Roy Bailey

While the Big Polluters hit the campaign trail and scientists warn that there's only a 50/50 chance of avoiding the shitstorm even under politics' best projections, the UK chancellor opts to pull the rug out from under any chances we might have.

Oh, and the police decide to bust the phantom custard flinger

Human Sacrifice?

2009-03-08T14:39:00.001-07:00

I may be being a bit previous here, as I have only one source for this story. Any confirmation or rebuttals welcome.

We in the west are so swamped with Christian and Islamist fundamentalisms that we spare very little media space for their Hindu co-delusionists.

As ever, the sea gets more toxic, and there's going to be a lot more of it, whilst clocks are cruelly turned back in DR Congo and the North of Ireland

Text is a verb

Today's stolen punchline comes with apologies to Roy Bailey who I saw today with Tony Benn at the Salford Lowry - inspiring as ever.

Still nothing to fear....

2009-03-07T03:31:00.001-08:00

Another repost (plain lazy, me) to celebrate the Guardian's uncovering of what everybody already knew - that the police keep information about anybody and everybody who pops their head up to exercise their democratic rights. They maintain an extensive database of personal details. Its all terribly selective and contains only absolutely everything they can get on absolutely everybody. Far be it from me to suggest that they do this in an effort to intimidate the citizenry into accepting whatever comes their way.

We've - got - a - file - on - YOU!

News Corpse

2009-03-06T03:16:00.000-08:00

Yes. It seems that Uncle Rupert will henceforward be using the unfathomable might of his media empire for good rather than, well, ...the other thing

meanwhile...In the spirit of quantative easing I went down to my local gargantmart with some freshly minted banknotes of my own design, in order to stimulate the economy. They didn't seem to appreciate the sound financial wisdom of my actions and there was an ugly scene involving a lot of shouting, some custard and a security guard. There's no helping some people.

In the news - there's a lot of stuff about Rainforests
and a lot of stuff about biofuels

Conditionality

2009-03-05T07:24:00.000-08:00

The expected punch lime was unfortunately a victim of structural adjustment.

This was sparked off by watching this video (which I must admit I abandoned half way when the flying saucers appeared) and reading this interview with Uncle Noam.

Holiday on Ice

2009-03-04T12:45:00.001-08:00

Bits crack off and bits fade away until the doo-doo is as deep as a philosopher's nightmare. Ho hum.

Birds of Prey

2009-03-03T11:08:00.001-08:00

Birds - forever the canaries in our coalmine -are first off the blocks in the race over the edge. Our own migratory upheavals will not be far behind.

Meanwhile - The EU bottles out of Climate Funding for poor nations whilst the media call for it all to be left to the philanthropic urges of uber-capitalists (who have been doing such a bang-up job lately)

The only sane response

2009-03-02T15:26:00.000-08:00

I alerted London-based friends to an upcoming seminar at the Royal Society (April 27th), given by Richard Leakey.
The title is "Climate Change and extinction."
Further details below these good suggestions from one recipient of the email...

No! Not of interest! Why would I want to go to a talk entitled 'Climate change and extinction'? Why can't you find me a happy seminar to go to? Like Willy Wonka Has The Answer: He's making Charles Fourier's utopia a reality, and using all the CO2 to turn the oceans into lemonade? Eh? Something like that? Planet Earth is Fucked But It's All OK Cos Willy Wonka Says There's Plenty of Room in His Great Glass Elevator? Mmm? Something like that? The Seas Are Rising But Worry Not, The Oompa-Loompas Will Build Us All A Dam. Come on. Get something like that put on at the Royal Society. Who's got Gene Wilder's number?

"Over one hundred years ago the first national parks were established in order that nature might be preserved for the enjoyment and benefit of the current and future generations. Today countless protected areas' for biodiversity are maintained at huge public and private expense. The question we must consider is whether our protection' strategies actually protect when the real threats are related to the current climate change.

"Mounting evidence suggests that the parks are in fact very vulnerable and mass extinctions may be the consequence.

"This lecture is free - no ticket or advanced booking required. Doors open at 5.45pm and seats will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

"This lecture will be webcast LIVE at royalsociety.org/live and available to view on demand within 48 hours of delivery.

Half in love with easeful death

2009-03-01T14:05:00.000-08:00

There was a little piece in the Lex Column of this weekend's FT

“Market stages of grief”- that used Kubler-Ross's “Stages of Grief” as a hook

“With tottering eastern European economies throwing an emerging markets crisis into the financial and real economy turmoil and trade levels collapsing in Asia, investors are not yet ready to move on to acceptance.”

That, and a fortuitous (for me, if not for you, gentle reader) unearthing of a scrap of paper suggesting that I compare the 'stages of dealing with your own mortality'/grief thing that Elizabeth Kubler Ross formulated and the Issue Attention Cycle of Anthony Downs, leads to this;

Kubler-Ross's “Stages of grieving”	Downs' Issue Attention Cycle	Comments
Denial	1. The pre-problem stage.	We've heard (and some have felt) the signs for a long time (20 years plus), but have stuck our fingers so far into our ears that they're now just about touching.
Anger	2. Alarmed discovery and euphoric enthusiasm.	A lot of the victims are getting angry. (Anyone taking bets on a vengeful nuke sometime in the next 25 years?) A lot of the perpetraitors (sic) are too deafened by the “ker-ching” sounds as they think about the carbon trading/money making scams that they see in all this to hear the mutterings.
Bargaining	3. Realizing the cost of significant progress.	The poor have nothing to bargain with. Within a few years we in the West will realise quite how much adaptation costs. For us that is. Screw the poor- we always have...
Depression	4. Gradual decline of intense public interest.	A lot of environmentalists (including some famous names who'll remain nameless) are battling a sense of hopelessness in themselves. And that's even before the inevitable clusterfuck of Copenhagen. The public has “gotten” climate change as much as it ever will, and moved on to the credit crunch and losing their jobs and houses and so forth
Acceptance	5. The post-problem stage.	Well, we are going to have to “accept” reality, at some point. Mother Nature doesn't do accounting tricks, or bailouts, after all. Post-problem stage? The only problem is that the public hasn't even really got its head around climate change. Properly I mean. You know, the feedback loops, the methane burp etc. We Don't Do Non-linear. We just don't. WAAGTD.

References

Kübler-Ross model
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model

Up and Down With Ecology: The "Issue-Attention Cycle"
http://www.anthonydowns.com/upanddown.htm

Glass half empty

2009-02-28T13:57:00.001-08:00

As 9 out of 10 firms ignore their supply chain emissions in calculating their climate impact, and the daily hate gets alarmed at something other than immigration, we hurtle towards Copenhagen without effective brakes

With thanks as ever to Dr Glenn Barry and Climate Ark for sterling work in digging up the links

Facilitating your protest in a safe and peaceful manner

2009-02-28T12:39:00.000-08:00

OK, this post should have been done 6 weeks ago. What can I say, I'm lazy.

The image is the two sides of an A5 flyer the police gave out to each person who chose to take part in the "Northern Climate Rush" at Manchester Airport in January 09 . No "ticket", no progression through the revolving doors.

That sound you hear is Kafka chortling, with a Max Weber chuckle in the background.

The police, to "Facilitate your protest" were willing and able to say how many, where and when and how long this little 'disruption' (sic) would continue. You can hardly blame them of course. Given their responsibilities and the danger of real egg on face, who would have done anything differently?
But you can wonder at the tactical nous of the protestors, announcing exactly where you will be and what you will do months in advance, when nimbleness is about all you have going for you. What did they hope to acheive by this?!

So, let's look at the balance of forces after this little event.

The Police
Now have dozens of photos of every single person willing to walk through an intimidating paparazzi to exercise their democratic rights.
Have doubtless racked up some impressive overtime payments processing this vital intelligence.

The Airport Security and PR teams
See above.
Feel relieved that they didn't have to do a public debate like after the very recent (i.e. November 2007) previous action.

The Protestors
Um. What HAVE they achieved by this?
Other than damaging their own credibility by claiming there were nearly a hundred people there?
What do the people who attended now know that they didn't before? How were they inspired or empowered? What can they do that they couldn't before?
Was their time well-spent?
Maybe some felt it was, but the (admittedly few) that I spoke to didn't think so.

The onlookers
Did anyone watching make any connection at all?

God help us all.

BBC complaints- morons who can't read.

2009-02-28T11:21:00.000-08:00

Yonks back I blogged about the December 6 interview Peter Sissons did with Caroline Lucas of the Green Party, where he trotted out a line we've not been subjected to for a while by the BBC, the "some doubt it's even happening" line.

Slightly less yonks back I got a reply to a complaint letter I sent.

Lucia Fortucci, of BBC information, kindly informs me that

"As an impartial broadcaster, we have to reflect all viewpoints. There are scientists who dispute climate change and Peter was simply pointing this out."

Bollocks. Bollocks on stilts. There are historians who dispute the Holocaust. There are tobacco company shills who dispute the cancer/smoking link. The BBC doesn't wheel these clowns out on Holocaust Memorial Day or when there's a Smoking-Bad-For-You story. As I pointed out in the letter I sent in, which she's not bothered to read...

Then Lucia tells me they have a website on climate change. No shit sherlock. I kind of already knew that, and it is patronising in the extreme to think that anyone who wrote in to complain as I did would be ignorant of this. The BBC correspondents do some very very good work on climate change (see here and here). Peter Sissons might try to pay attention to some of it.

What I got from Lucia is simply the "Send this crazy the bug letter" treatment. What a surprise.

Fourth World Reviewed (issue 149)

2009-02-28T07:28:00.000-08:00

Latest "Fourth World Review" slaps onto the doormat. (Last issue reviewed here)

Highlights include;

a provocative list of actions for re-imagining society by Will Sutherland,

"It is such a shame we cannot use the brains that evolution has given us. We may not be fiddling while Rome burns but rather frantically shopping until the planet is destroyed. 'Me now and feck thefuture' is the scream of a culture that is barely out of nappies. It is ugly and pathetic and will be viciously removed by nature- a rather unpleasant prospect for our children."

"How Green became a Screen" by Keith Farnish

"Greenpeace, WWF, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and every other mainstream environmental organisation believe that you can "fix" the problems inherent inthe system, to make this planet a better place; that you can appeal to the goodness of politicians and industrialists to make them curb their destructive behaviour; that you can bring about a sustainable society by urging people to change their light bulbs, shower instead of bath, travel a bit less, offset their emissions and recycle."

True, but doesn't address the institutional reasons for this, making it not just an issue of ideology, but practicalities (maintaining the flow of direct debits, relations with ministers, the need for regular victories etc etc). And the Thatcherite call- "what's the alternative?" is, to me, unanswered, here at least.

Transition Today- Peter North sort of responds to critiques made by Trapese, except he sort of doesn't.

"Planning a New World Order" by Donald Henry is- for me- the highlight of the issue, showing the conflicts of interest involved in planning consultancies when they work for councils and retailers, and the toothlessness of the regulatory bodies.

John Papworth closes out, as he does in every 4NW I've read so far, with some pungent observations.

"The motive power of the global economic system seems to have collapsed, and the prints, both tablids and broadsheets, appear to share a common ground of utter incomprehension, manifest contradiction and a capacity for limitless self-delusion."

All in all, worth a read, worth subscribing, which you can by sending a cheque payable to Fourth World Transition

FWR, 96 Gayton House, Knapp Road, London E3 4BY

Sheeple, frogs and walking out

2009-02-28T03:06:00.000-08:00

This Labour Government- slouching towards a massacre no later than June 2010- is like any other government, only maybe more so. Deeply suspicious of the population, unwilling to tell anyone what's going on [treating them like sheeple], and more and more up to its neck in alligators when it (says it) wanted to drain the swamp.

So, people opposing it, and its assault on civil liberties, should be trying to do the opposite, right? Telling folks what is going on, encouraging them to make links of their own rather than wait for Salvation?

Sigh.

I went to the Manchester "Convention of Modern Liberty" event this morning. I should still be there, but instead I am here at home, smashing my fingers into the keyboard in frustration.

The event programme looked a little passive for my liking- large chunks of time spent watching a bunch of the great and good pontificate in London, rather than figuring out what we are going to do, here, now, hearing about local successes, failures, challenges, lessons learnt. But still, a joined-up national conference is a worthwhile venture, and you got to dance with the one that brung you, so I sat there. And sat there.

The appointed start time of 9.45- to watch Shami Chakrabaty of Liberty give the keynote- came and went, with no announcement.

10am came and went and we were supposed to be watching video link of pontificators.

No announcement of welcome, apology for delay or -crucially- explanation of what was going on.

A few more minutes and then I went up to the front.

Me: "While we're waiting, can I encourage people [the room had filled up, but everyone was in rows, subdued] to talk to the people behind them?"
Chap struggling with a laptop: "For what purpose exactly?"

I was a little gob-smacked at that. Surely events like these should be about creating new networks, stronger weak ties? Or do the organisers imagine that everyone who attends will fall in serried ranks behind them and they'll then somehow magically storm the Winter Palace?

Anyway, permission granted, I gave a little spiel, and a fair proportion of people did indeed start talking to those behind them, or alongside them, and energy levels raised a bit.

And still we waited. No apology (and there were circumstances beyond the organisers control- the venue hadn't opened early enough for them). No welcome. Nothing.

If that's how No2ID treats potential members/volunteers, then I weep.

So I walked out. That's the law of two feet in action.

P.S. The frogs reference? Well, climate change and the erosion of civil liberties are both things that don't Happen Overnight. We aren't going to go to sleep one night in perfect liberty and wake up in a fascist regime. It is a slow chipping away, a steady erosion, where each new restriction seems not worth the effort to resist. Like, as the environmentalists are wont to point out, the frog: throw it in boiling water and it jumps right out. Put it in water of comfortable temperature and slowly raise the heat and the thing will just sit there, till it boils.

UPDATE: Reading through the Feb 23-March 1st edition of "The Big Issue in the North"- an excellent publication- I learn that "The convention is here so people can find others with similar concerns. And it's designed so that people can find groups campaigning in the area that concerns them and find things that they can go away and do."

Well, that may well be what the organisers aspired to, but they didn't begin as they meant to continue. Maybe it all got better later. I have my doubts.

Wipe-Out

2009-02-27T08:18:00.001-08:00

Toilet humour. I know. It's not big. It's not clever. Some sophisticated souls pull their faces over material like this and end up looking like a bulldog licking piss off a thistle. They think it devalues the currency. I pooh pooh such notions.
Anyway...American's dedication to a luxury defecatory experience leaves virgin forests depleted, with a nagging feeling that they could have done so much more with their lives. Maybe they could have been the mainstay of continental water equilibrium. Rather water than water closets. Maybe in another life.

The Age of Enlightentertainment

2009-02-26T13:29:00.000-08:00

In a sad and hopeless bid to upstage Dilbert...

Apparently this blog no longer materialises on some browsers. I suspect Ern has wedged a sabot somewhere in the gears.
For those few who remain....

The media don't take this stuff seriously. It's not good for business and its simply not sexy -so no matter that we're pumping it out faster than ever or that we're going to be left holding frazzled stalks of nowt come harvest time - we'll wait untill we're staring down the barrel before we think about dodging the bullet. We'll sell more ads that way.

"Eat me", as the gingerbread man said

2009-02-25T13:36:00.000-08:00

More on bees, and rabbits, and metaphors soon, but for now, this Dilbert cartoon...

Reposted from this rather excellent website

http://climateprogress.org/2009/02/25/dilbert-joins-the-climate-realists/

Char wallahs

2009-02-19T13:35:00.001-08:00

BioChar seems set to be a nice little earner for those unable to fill their boots with biodiesel. But before everybody runs away with the idea that this is some sort of tried and tested technology, lets have a little look at the downside, shall we. (with thanks to Almuth Ernsting and Rachel Smolker)
Especially in light of the unsettling ups and downs of the palnet's forests, the state of the larder and the urgency of the task

This is something of first for Throbgoblins International:
Of all the links we have included over the past year we have never had occasion to link to that great British arse wiper, the Sun. But there's always a first time, and their splash coverage of "The Age of Stupid" can be seen here.

Safeguarding our way of life

2009-02-18T10:30:00.001-08:00

The instinct of crisis hit government classes throughout time and across continents seems to be to keep the people down and dumb. This seems to be a default position of power and it is no surprise to see it exercised against green dissidents, despite the fact that their concerns are widely shared within the establishment itself.
So, as the Andes gets ready for structural readjustment, the food supply dries up and the North Atlantic gets ready to tip us all over into more interesting times, we are encouraged to distract ourselves with boffin-magic and unreachable stars

Meanwhile we dump our shite out of sight and out of our minds,

Much ado about nothing

2009-02-16T12:22:00.001-08:00

Things get worse and get worse quicker, and the media fudge and the businessmen run for cover.

Lots
of
bad
news
today

...so I'm posting a curate's egg of a cartoon, putting my feet up and watching some crap TV

Zombie repertoires

2009-02-15T23:17:00.000-08:00

If you keep doing a good thing too long, because it is in your comfort zone, it becomes a stupid thing. Fitness is about matching your actions to the environment (which your actions can play a small or large part in shaping, it's true). It's an iterative, dialectical process.

What the hell am I talking about?

I'm talking about a) Climate Camp keeping on doing the same thing, squeezing the lemon dry, rather than- as mooted in June 2006- doing different things to prevent ossification, burnout, colonisation by NGOs (this based on participant observation, a couple of friends' recent reports on the camp meeting in Oxford and- gosh- a PhD about climate camp that I've just read.)

I'm talking about b) flash mobs.

I can't say I was ever a huge fan because I'm a young fogey. They always seemed like pickets for the ADHD generation If they're followed up by intensive work on creating the conditions for further "proper" engagement, then fine, but they're not, I think (I could be wrong of course). So here in Manchester we recently had a charity "organising" a flash mob as a publicity stunt.

That's what this tweet conversation is about...

"Sarah_Hartley @MartinSFP @davemee charities r using the means & style.But is it flashmob in truest sense of the word or organised gathering?mobilisation"

When the corporates invade, it's just as bad as the cops figuring out tripods or tunnels or whatever, and it's time to get the creative juices flowing again.

In the meantime, we need some re-branding to stop "our" brand from being smeared by "their" use of the term. Phlash mobs? (like phishing, you see). Flash harries? Flush mobs? Answers on a postcard to the usual address...

Here's something I wrote from last September:

"Flash! Ah-ah, it'll save every one of us. Not." or "The revolution is just a t-shirt away?"

The title is ironic of course, no one is claiming that the latest Cool Tactic- Flash mobs- will save everyone. It's not like spokescouncils or social forums where the advocates claimed that direct democracy was here. And before that there was tripods, there was tunnels, there was camps.)

All of these things attract a bit of a buzz and then become passe. By this time next year, today's flash-mobbers will be chasing some Kewl new fad.

Flash Mobs perfect for this generation.

There are very very low "entry costs"
Unlikely to get nicked
Demands no particular forethought or preparation
Only requires a few minutes of your time
Get to express your individuality (or collectivity) by what you wear, totally in tune with what we're being told.
Capturable on your mobile phone. Youtube friendly. All ipoddy and so forth.
Oooh, all hip and daring to organise.

As with any action/event, we should be asking ourselves a set of questions-

What does it achieve?
Who does it threaten? How does it force them to change their ways?
What capacity does it build among those who participate? How are the participants smarter, more able to do things in the future?

NOT all actions have to have great answers for all of the above, but my god, Flashmobs achieve so fucking little, in inverse proportion to their popularity and sexiness. And the media will very soon get sick of them.

Groundhog Days

2009-02-15T22:58:00.000-08:00

In the autumn of 2006 I put together a spoof newspaper called "Socialist Lurker." It got handed out at the (in retrospect and at the time) disastrous meeting where the Climate Campers decided- with a little stalinist push from a couple of very hierarchical "non-hierarchicals", to keep doing big Climate Camps, bringing them to their current impasse and colonisation by NGOs.

The lead story in Socialist Lurker was "Scientists admit climate reports wrong: It's actually far far worse." I may get round to posting it here at PED, who knows. The point of my rambling is that the story pointed out that there was a discernible pattern of scientists recanting their previous predictions of the speed and scope of climate change's impacts of food production, glacier melt, ocean acidification, forest die-back etc etc. Science is too small-c conservative on this particular wicked post-normal science problem

The drumbeat of bad news gets louder and louder, with the latest example being, Dr Chris Field, a co-ordinating editor of the previous IPCC report (which got a roasting for its caution), telling a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that - you guessed it- the carbon dioxide emissio ns have been increasing a lot quicker than they'd thought. Ties in with the recent NOAA story that last year we went up 2.3ppm. Sink failure, positive feedbacks from forests and soil etc etc. What a doomed stupid species. And I remember that my mate Marc Roberts did a fantastic cartoon about this... (he's done fantastic cartoons about lots of things)

Glaxo, Baby.

2009-02-14T08:42:00.000-08:00

GlaxoSmithKline CEO Andrew Witty seeks to rebrand the Pharma giant with a raft of humanising proposals

Throbgoblins International let out a round of applause, a gasp of disbelief and a burp of rather tart cynicism.

Feeding The Hand That BItes you

2009-02-14T04:22:00.001-08:00

There's been a lot of debate lately about whether this or that extreme weather event - from China to Australia - is a symptom of Global Warming or merely a surprisingly large cluster of normal freak events. Are these disasters the last of the rare disasters or the first of the common disasters? This seems to me to be like asking - whilst under violent assault - whether one's assailant is the familiar local nutter or a scout for the rampaging army of zombie psychopaths that are on their way to ravage your neighbourhood but at present are still some miles away enjoying a breakfast of griddled brains in a nearby town. The fact of imminent zombie invasion should surely be focusing our minds rather better than it is. But the general consensus seems to be that, untill our shopping malls are actually being over run with slavering mutants, there is no need for any action that might interfere with the day's business.

Changing the lightbulbs in the mall isn't going to stop an army of zombies. We may need to choose a different battlefield

Trading Places

2009-02-11T13:41:00.000-08:00

The carbon market, being as bolloxed as every other market, has screwed the price of carbon into the ground. One result of this is that the contribution to emissions reductions made by Germany's world-beating renewables industry is offset by the ease with which less scrupulous players can get their hands on the newly liberated excess permits - thus enabling carbon spewers to party like there's no tomorrow.

We're old hands at this

Beast Market

2009-02-10T11:25:00.000-08:00

Seeing as the markets have done such a wonderful job of securing a safe and happy future for everyone, the British Conservative party suggest leaving the safeguarding of bio-diversity in their caring and capable hands

It'll drive us all mad in the end, but some folk have got off to a head start, (short sighted dinosaur politics in the North of Ireland? - who'd've thunk it?)

We begin to say goodbye to Asian water supplies, Indian rains and the salamander

End Daze

2009-02-09T14:05:00.001-08:00

As Australia burns in a record breaking drought -(as does China and, soon, California) - James Lovelock advocates a Churchillian battening of national hatches, whilst others man the barricades.

The kids are NOT going to be alright

2009-02-06T11:26:00.000-08:00

My wife and I decided years back we didn't want kids, for "environmental reasons". Not to "reduce our carbon footprint" (a semi-dubious concept anyhow) but because from our best analysis, the trajectories for this species are extremely unpleasant. Peak water, peak soil, peak democracy. The whole human civ thing is looking quite peakish.
So I had the snip (less plumbing, us blokes) back in 2004.

And then we did an interview for one of wifey's colleagues. And then it spiralled into a TV appearance. And more newspapers (the Absurder, Daily Hate Mail). And an Irish Radio interview for me. And a near miss the wife can blog about at length, on some mid-West radio station that rejected her because she wasn't the swivelled-eyed loon they needed.

Recently the World Service got in touch, and the researcher was keen to have me, even after I explained it wasn't "what our children would do to the planet, but what the planet would do to them". She phoned back, full of apology a few minutes before the programme was supposed to happen (live) to say her producer had nixxed it.

I'd expected that, despite her assurances, and wasn't bothered anyway. I get my 15 minutes hee and there anyhow. I also know a little of how meeja works. There's a frame, an angle, a line. And what wife and I are saying is just not within the frame they are (currently) operating. Give it a few years...

When I had the snip and explained why, people thought I was batshit. Since 2004, a lot more people have been able to read the writing on the wall, and I don't get the 'you're batshit' response anymore. People may not agree, but they see why I might think that.

So, the phone just rang. A Radio 5 hack wanting to speak to t'wife about the not-having-kids thing. They also wanted an opinion on the woman with the octuplets. Wife is out having a life, not chained to keyboard, so I Spaketh Upon Her Behalf.
I said, speaking for myself, that I wasn't going to lecture anyone (if he wanted that- then Jonathan Porritt has recently come out in favour of two maximum) but- deep breath-
it's not what the kids would do to the planet- it's a little late to be worrying about that- but rather what the planet will do to our kids, and that any child born now would hit adulthood with this realisation and that the sorts of things the radio producer and I take for granted will just NOT be available, that life is going to become worse than merely unpleasant, but truly appalling.

And guess what, the researcher knew where we coming from (i.e. he had done his research) and we didn't fit the bill, so I don't have to do the whole interview thing.

Environmentalism of the hand-wringing kind is legit, but a clear-eyed (or swivel-eyed: time will tell) view of where we are going is not (yet) permissible.

Singularity

2009-02-03T12:20:00.000-08:00

Fresh from mapping the ocean floor for our surfing pleasure, Google now joins forces with NASA to create a "SIngularity University" to ride that steep learning curve and maybe get us the jet-packs we so richly deserve

Elsewhere - being profoundly bolloxed gives the Australian government pause for thought.

Fart Gags and/or Climate Justice Analysis

2009-02-02T14:25:00.000-08:00

On a day when news reaches us of a shambolic and literally unendurable Climate Camp meeting in Oxford, and on a day when the Financial Times reports that the price of carbon in the EUETS is at a record low, with predictable negative consequences for investment in low-carbon technology, it's hard to find Reasons to be Cheerful.

Sure, there's the inevitable fart gags of Marc Roberts. But for once he is trumped (ho ho) in the RtbC stakes.

Danny Chivers [disclaimer- I know him a little] has written a very clear and actually amusing (no, really) summary of what is likely to be on the table at Copenhagen. More up to the minute than my look last June or so...

Chivers' piece is in the New Internationalist.

Cartoon Capture and Storage

2009-02-02T14:12:00.001-08:00

I could have gone for a serious exploration of the food crisis, or a sober appraisal of the possibilities of solar technology...... but I went with a fart gag with a poop punchline. Come the revolution humour will be resilient and sustainable.

There is no such thing as clean coal.

Fox Trot(?)

2009-02-01T09:31:00.000-08:00

And lo - Darkness is upon the face of the waters pretty much everywhere you look, whilst Australia maintains its historically low tolerance of humans. Is it any surprise that Uncle David Attenborough should feel moved to take a small swipe at biblical half-wittery in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species.

Jonathan Porrit also speaks out about the elephant in the room.

A price is put on life.

Elsewhere, disappointingly, - Jim Hansen declines to support those struggling against airport expansion - declaring it an irrelevance in the face of the real problems - which centre around coal. Of course Jim Hansen is not a man whose opinions one dismisses lightly - and he no doubt has well considered reasons - but we at Throbgoblins International consider that the cultural significance of the conspicuous carbon consumption of habitual frivolous air travel makes it a crucial target in the struggle for a resilient and sustainable post-carbon society.
Mr Hansen will no doubt be on Michael O'Leary's Chritmas card list this year

RSPB, WTF on CC??

2009-01-31T11:59:00.000-08:00

"Due to drive an hour to Luton at 06.00 on Monday morning, for flight to Belfast. Can any weather watchers give me the odds?"
http://twitter.com/Natures_Voice

This is a message I've just seen on Twitter. Some presumably official RSPB person (though I can't be sure- anyone can sign up as anything on Twitter) has publicly announced he is flying to Belfast.

Erm, am I missing something here? Isn't the RSPB a member of Stop Climate Chaos? Isn't the RSPB concerned about Climate Change? Aren't they supposed to be looking into their own carbon footprints?
Why not either
a) put this guy on a train and a ferry with a laptop so he's still productive or
b) teleconference?

Maybe there is something absolutely essential in what the guy needs to do in Belfast. I'd be intrigued to know.

Otherwise the RSPB are just more hypocrites.

Selective Seratonin

2009-01-30T11:18:00.001-08:00

A Greenpeace report implicates our obsession with beef - which pumps out 57 times more GHG emissions than would a similar obsession with potatoes - in up to 80% of deforestation.

Researchers believe that a build up of seratonin is at the root of the destructive swarming behaviour of locusts.

We at Throbgoblins International think studies should be funded into the effects of dangerous build ups of beef on the destructive swarming behaviour of humans. It might prove illuminating.

Thanks to Susan Anderson for the nod

Multi-Coloured Swop Shop

2009-01-28T11:15:00.001-08:00

As money dries up, more traditional means of exchange reassert themselves, whilst the pillage of the poor by the wealthy continues, for those with the means. Those without the means speak up where they can.

Elsewhere, sanity and gibbering madness compete for attention with hubris and incompetence

Plots and Plans

2009-01-26T13:29:00.000-08:00

Sowing and reaping becomes a more unpredictable affair as weather begins to dance to a new tune

Obama keeps his momentum going.

Please complain to the BBC about their shameful and cowardly refusal to broadcast appeals for humanitarian aid to Gaza. It won't take a minute.

Meanwhile, turbines get tougher, racism gets weirder and yeast levels begin to stabilise

Skulls and Bones: Obama as the New Boss

2009-01-22T14:54:00.001-08:00

Ok, it's crude and rude, but most fun things are. Anyone who's seen John Carpenter's crude (that word again) political allegory "They Live!" will know what's going on here.

In fact, there's probably a separate blog post to be written on "They Live!" and "The Arrival" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" as tales of subaltern resentment.

Maybe later...

Compost Mentis

2009-01-22T14:09:00.001-08:00

Obama puts a brake on Bush's last ditch planet mashers and The Democratic (?)Republic of Congo bravely attempts to put a break on deforestation (whilst scientists talk of bio-engineering solutions)

Meanwhile we run out of water, and water boarding

Carried Away

2009-01-21T12:32:00.001-08:00

Frank doesn't often get infected with enthusiastic optimism, but he's been listening to Frank Turner CDs and Barack Obama speeches so it had to happen sooner or later.

There are figures of every kind being hurled around at the energy summit in Abu Dhabi -amongst them these.

The electric car lobby still need to explain where all this extra capacity will come from - things being as they are. Lifestyle is still not on the table, it seems.

Smoke and mirrors and derivatives and energy

2009-01-19T22:57:00.000-08:00

This is cut and paste from an email the inimitable Roy Tindle sent to "Scalation," a discussion list about sustainable development/green issues generally. I've embiggened the last bit.

"Some interesting suggestions in the Tory low carbon policy but still some emphasis on decentralisation that owes more to belief than to science. All generation uses scarce resources, some of them increasingly so, but there is little research comparing the comparative yield between, say, large scale off shore wind turbines and small, local installations. Solar PV is even more significant; does it make sense to use scarce resources - silicon is plentiful but working it takes a lot of energy - to farm solar energy in northern latitudes? Energy security ain't worth a hill of beans if it ain't secure and Britain frequently experiences periods of overcast sky and
low wind speeds.

"The bit that is missing here and with the Government is the absence of any real policy on energy waste. On Sunday morning I took a camera on my regular stroll from London Bridge to the City church which I attend. One street light with a faulty time switch didn't really signify anything much but the number of large office buildings fully lit failed to suggest that the message has got through. We are told that we can save a significant amount of energy by switching off everything instead of leaving electrical kit on standby but major office blocks with every light blazing - and an entirely visible absence of people - does turn the standby turn off into a bit of a joke. It was noticeable that most of the smaller shops and restaurants had their lighting off: electricity bills obviously matter to them.

"I read, yesterday, a wonderful Chinese financial description of the derivatives formerly so beloved by bankers. Imagine a valuable book; take a mirror and the image in that mirror is a bond. Use another mirror to reflect the first image and one has a derivative. All that's missing is the smoke. Not so strange, then, that many of the blazingly lit City offices are connected with finance. When will they ever learn?"

A Many Splendoured Thing

2009-01-19T15:39:00.001-08:00

Obama's plans to relaunch the US and thus the world economy on a green and sustainable footing are ambitious and long overdue - after 8 years of swaggering, blue-blooded halfwittery. We at Throbgoblins International send our best wishes along in the hope that impossible expectations will be at least seriously addressed.

Sometimes it seems that it is the lot of the project of the left (in whichever or all of its historical forms) to simply bang its head against the walls of the house of power, which it can never enter without abandoning its virtue.
But times change. We'll see.

Flash mobbing hits sweet spot.

2009-01-19T14:51:00.000-08:00

There have been enough of them now so that journalists and editors (not the sharpest tools in the box, frankly) know what they are, and how to cover them and which stenographer-to-power to "report" the fun.

There haven't been enough of them yet for them to smell of Stale News. It's cheap and easy novelty. Photo of a pretty young thing dressed as this or that and voila, half of page 7 put to bed by noon.

There haven't been enough for the organisers and punters to be bored.

There haven't been enough of them yet for the police to have quite got their plays sorted yet (perhaps). [Though they played a blinder at Manchester Airport a week back...]

gam zeh yaavor

The price of oil

2009-01-17T07:45:00.000-08:00

Loath as I am to say anything nice about the BBC at the moment, given its revoltingly poor and misleading coverage of Gaza, I do want to record the harrowingly powerful Radio4 Saturday Play I just switched on by chance.
Stephen Phelps' 'Piper Alpha' tells, over 20 years since the disaster, the story of the hours in which 167 men died from the fire, smoke and explosions of a series of conflagrations on this production platform in the North Sea, 110 miles North of Aberdeen. The play's use of enquiry testimonies and reconstructed control centre and poice conversations, as well as events on the platform itself, not only evokes the horror of the incident itself but also the confusion and chaos of malfunctioning communications, and most importantly the utter corporate negligence of management who allowed gas and oil pipelines which ran through the platform to continue running, feeding the flames and explosions. Occidental Petroleum, which had failed to consider the possibility of the destruction of the control room in its plans for a disaster situation and had cut costs on its emergency equipment, as well as keeping the feeder pipes running, was found guilt in the Cullen Enquiry of having inadequate maintenance and safety procedures, but no charges were ever brought against it.
Piper Alpha was the world's biggest single oil platform disaster in terms of both loss of life and insured loss - £1.7 billion.
Occidental has also been responsible for other deaths around the world, including that of 17 civilians, including 7 children, bombed by the Colombian Airforce after Occidental officials identified them as a FARC guerilla group. Occidental was also the oil company involved in a long-running dispute with the U'wa indigenous people, also in Colombia. In 2001, Occidental finally withdrew from efforts to drill for oil on U'wa land after a nine-year struggle in which the tribe threatened to commit mass suicide if the expropriation of their land went ahead.

This post was first published on http://thethreeleggedcat.blogspot.com

More Ursine defecation

2009-01-17T04:36:00.000-08:00

Ah - boffin humour.
I don't wish to put all the onus on scientists here, but in an age of profound stupidity they are the ones whose answers stand between us and biblical catastrophe. The UK government appears to have misunderstood the climate science on aviation emissions, misreading it as a license to dish out backhanders left , right and centre. George Bush and his entire administration totally failed to get a grip on any of the science that came their way in eight years, and we have the evidence of that faith based idiocy all around us.
Climate science is complicated stuff. it's not weather. It requires that people actually focus their entire attention throughout a series of complex, multi-clausal sentences. The challenge of science is to get the bewildering intricacy of complex systems into a 5 second sound bite that can be jammed into the most resistant skulls at the end of long pole whilst the rest of the head chugs slushies and watches porn. Maybe the new Obama administration can spin one..

Thanks to Marc Hudson, Matt Bright and Cassidy Irving.

Sadnesses piling up.

2009-01-15T15:02:00.000-08:00

Sadness aout the Heathrow decision.

I mean, I knew the government would do it.

The 2003 White Paper was basically written by the aviation industry and sent over to the Department for Transport for mastheading and distribution. “Freedom to Fly” was a beautiful framing device, making it a question of liberty versus restriction, rather than indulgence versus survival.

And I intellectually knew most unions would be on board. After all, I suggested the theme for this cartoon by the absurdly prolific and sharp Marc Roberts.

But before reading my FT, I read my Morning Star, and it had a piece on...

"Airport workers addressed MPs at Westminster yesterday to "set the record straight" about Heathrow expansion. Workers from Heathrow and other British airports took the case for a third runwayto Parliament, concerned that the latest governmetn delay on approvignt he scheme was putting jobs and development at risk."

Workers of the World, Unite, you have nothing to lose but a habitable planet for your children.

And I am sad that the notion of a Just Transition hasn't gotten more traction, but I'm not surprised given the general cackhandedness and downright weirdness of many climate activists.

And I am sad to think that the Campaign against Climate Change Trades Union thing is wasting its breath.

And I am sad that Heathrow wasn't stopped before it got this far because now there the heroic eco-warriors are going to have to fight on at least three fronts- Airports, Coal and Copenhagen.

And I am sad to think that Manchester is so ill-served by the Manchester Evening News.

Yesterday the Council announced its climate plans. Today the MEN's front page splash was... wait for it...

“Drunk in charge of a stolen Asda scooter! Woman is banned from driving after trying to travel 10 miles home on a 2.4mph mobility buggy."

I. Shit. You. Not.

Nothing I could see in my paper edition on the climate plans (such as they are.) but on page 16 we have “Light fading fast in search for last 100-watt bulbs.”

I just checked their website, which I refuse to link to on principle.

They haven't even reported the Council's plans. And they call themselves a newspaper? They're having a bloody laugh.

What is wrong with this bloody species?? Anyone?

Bird-strike

2009-01-15T12:42:00.001-08:00

As was widely predicted the UK government ignored the advice of science and went with the urgings of panicky economists to authorise a third runway and sixth terminal at Heathrow.

Heathrow and Copenhagen

2009-01-14T22:53:00.000-08:00

Crunch time at the Copenhagen climate negotiations, December 2009.
It's late on the final night (already extended for an extra day). Everyone is ratty, smelly and desperate.
The British Foreign Secretary is trying to broker a deal between the Chinese and the Americans, to avoid the US-China Suicide Pact.

Brit: "But the Honourable Chinese represtentative surely agrees that we must all cut our emissions dramatically."

Chin: "How new many airport runways are you building, sunshine?"

Brit: "Er, well, there's the one at Heathrow, and the one at ..."

Chin: "Let me stop you right there: You. Are. Having. A. Laugh. Good. Bye."

OK, OK, I know this isn't how these things work, but Christ, what a stupid stupid decision from a scared and blinkered representative of a scared and blinkered species...

Property-Owning Democracy

2009-01-13T10:59:00.001-08:00

Climate change activists buy land to thwart Heathrow developers. Good work.

The Times reports, with innappropriate zeal, that, as increasing levels of worldwide deforestation are being slightly moderated by a small degree of partial regrowth in some areas, we might stave off the end by an additional twenty minutes. Hoorah.

Job Vacancy

2009-01-12T13:44:00.000-08:00

The sea's capacity to absorb CO2 diminishes, promising further escalations, whilst we leap into action by building more airports, preparing for climate-conflict and ever so slightly reducing the size of our TVs.

Elsewhere the IDF breach 900 Palastinian dead and receives applause from a Washington administration that cares not for the future.

The (spatial) fix we're in...

2009-01-11T08:10:00.000-08:00

Monthly Review has done an excellent issue recently (Nov 2008), called "Beyond Capitalist Ecology." A recurring theme across all of the articles, which are all worth very close attention, is of the 'spatial fix'.

"A certain portion of the total capital is literally fixed in and on the land in some physical form for a relatively long period of time (depending on its economic and physical lifetime). Some social expenditures (such as public education or a health-care system) also become territorialized and rendered geographically immobile through state commitments. The spatio-temporal ‘fix’, on the other hand, is a metaphor for a particular kind of solution to capitalist crises through temporal deferral and geographical expansion." (Harvey, The New Imperialism, 2003: 115)

This is also known as fucking something up and running away from the consequences, or, these days, exporting those consequences to some dark/poor/vulnerable people and places.

Marvin Harris has a good book called Cannibals and Kings. One of the arguments in it was that humans would learn out how to exploit one set of ecological niches for their energy, exhaust it, and then figure out some new technologies. At some point I'll get round to doing a blog posting about "biological taylorism".

Anyway, here's a quote from an article in that Monthly Review, namely Jason Moore's "Ecological Crises and the Agrarian Question in World-Historical Perspective"-

"Once ecological relations of production are put into the mix, one of the chief things that come into view is the production of socio-ecological regimes, on regional- and world-scales both. These initially liberate the accumulation of capital, only to generate self-limiting contradictions that culminate in renewed ecological “bottlenecks” to continued accumulation. Whereupon the cycle starts anew, and historically speaking this has entailed progressively more expansive and intensive relations between capital, labor, and external nature. This is not to say that the environmental history of capitalism is repetitive or universal in any rote fashion; rather, the system’s contradictions are resolved only through amplifying the underlying contradiction. It has been a spectacular form of temporal deferment. Although the point is certainly arguable, the moment of global expansion seems to have been central over the long run and it is not at all clear that capitalism can survive on the basis of the internal fix—pace David Harvey. This historical approach would get us closer to a more useful formulation of “ecological crisis” and to the idea of multiple forms of ecological crisis in the modern world, past, present, and future."

I haven't yet read Giovanni Arrighi's Spatial and Other “Fixes” of Historical Capitalism, but it looks good...

Gummer for Climate Committee?

2009-01-10T13:59:00.001-08:00

Rumours have it that the latest name in the frame to take over from Lord Adair Turner is one John Selwyn Gummer.

Yes, this is him...

The Climate Committee has released a very weighty tome indeed, possibly following the "bury them in bullshit" tactic.

see also:
"Long, detailed, impressive - but futile in the face of runaway climate change" by George Monbiot in the Grauniad.
Press Coverage of Lord Turner's Report at the Current Climate

a fair C.O.P.

2009-01-10T12:31:00.000-08:00

It might sound like Rex Tillerson is making a significant concession in recognising the reality of anthropogenic global warming and his industry's part in it. but, in the build up to Copenhagen, in the middle of a financial meltdown, Exxon are in fact seizing the initiative by putting their weight behind carbon taxation and against international regulation. That way they can stall meaningful action untill the public rebel and elect another bunch of redneck half-wits. Or am I being cynical?

For those unfamiliar with the reference . it is to the story of Sweeny Todd - the Demon Barber of Fleet Street - who killed his customers so that his mistress could turn them into pies.