A slow bicycle race is a novelty event found mainly at school fetes and community events. The winner of the race is the person who takes the longest time to cover the course.
The current trend towards bicycling lifestyles, downsizing and the general slow movement is bringing a resurgence in this old favourite. The slow bicycle race has even been used as a teaching tool for university physics.
It's a pity that so many nations have treated the transition to a low carbon economy as a slow bicycle race. Somehow, they imagine that being the last to decarbonise will give them a competitive advantage.
Yes, it's necessary. A very good idea. We should do it. You go first.
This is like saying,
We're shocking polluters, but look! those guys are too. We won't fix our pollution till they fix theirs.
Other countries are going first. Countries like Germany, Denmark, Spain and Great Britain took the lead by implementing renewables even when wind and solar were much more expensive than fossil fuels. Then transition countries like China joined the race with strenuous efforts to implement renewables, placing them neck and neck with Germany and the U.S. in 2010.
In recent weeks, South Korea and Mexico have announced carbon pricing schemes. California and New York are connecting their carbon markets and the upper Amazon
state of Acre is negotiating with California to participate their cap-and-trade system.
Do you know those velodrome races where everybody hangs back, jostling for position, then suddenly, heads down, legs pumping, they're racing flat out to the finish line? Is this what is happening now?
Are countries on the cusp of realising that it's not a slow bicycle race, it's the Tour de France? Countries that are late to decarbonise will be the losers in the longer term.
Dylan's words apply again...
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Solar power is the teddy bear of energy sources. What's not to like about the sun, the source of all life? Best of all: No wars have ever been fought over solar power (though I'm sure that teddy bears have been at the centre of a good few sibling battles).
Eric Curren gives a comprehensive round-up of the status of solar power at Transition Voice as at November 2010, in the U.S.
He notes that solar is cute and lovable right now because it is mostly small scale and individuals can have their own pet systems.
This will change when large scale solar becomes more common as countries like Saudi Arabia (investing $109 billion in solar over the next 20 years) start to roll out big solar generators in desert areas and upgrade their national grid networks. In Australia, Beyond Zero Emissions advocates for Concentrating Solar Thermal in their Stationary Energy Plan.
Schemes are being sketched to augment Europe's power supply from large scale solar plants in North African and Middle Eastern (MENA) countries connected to Europe by HVDC transmission lines.
Source: 2050 Desert Power report (click to enlarge)
Locals in MENA countries who see industrial scale solar generators and the transmission lines carrying the power to rich northern neighbours may not see solar as a lovable teddy bear. If they are given a share of the power at a price they can afford, they are likely to see solar more like a fairy godmother.
Continuing the teddy bear metaphor, Eric Cullen asks:
What will it take to help the solar teddy bear grow into a
thousand-pound grizzly, ready to rip to shreds high energy costs,
polluting fuels and dangerous nukes?
Now THAT'S a future I want to see!
_______________________
The 2050 Desert Power report is discussed at ReNewEnergy. You can download the report here.
“Hug the monster” is a metaphor taught by U.S. Air Force trainers to those headed into harm’s way. It's a technique that helps individuals act constructively in terrifying situations by channelling their fear into action. Without a technique like this, fear can be paralysing.
Bill Blakemore on Nature's Edge, an American ABC News blog, uses the metaphor to observe that in recent years scientists and media have held back from talking about the dire consequences of unmitigated climate change. Perhaps the denier tactic of labelling honest discussion as 'alarmist' was a factor, and perhaps there was some concern about public levels of anxiety or panic.
To avoid the unpleasant, scary bits, the strategy has been to focus on the upside of mitigation and adaptation strategies, also call bright-siding. In this approach (there's an example here) the focus is on clean energy jobs, greater efficiency, and fuel security.
Michael Tobis sketched this schematic in 2010 to illustrate the discrepancy between informed opinion and public discourse.
Schematic by Michael Tobis
Blakemore observes that the avoidance phase seems to be coming to an end with a turn towards more realistic discussion.
Established scientists, community and government leaders and
journalists, as they describe the disruptions, suffering and destruction
that manmade global warming is already producing, with far worse in the
offing if humanity doesn’t somehow control it, are starting to allow
themselves publicly to use terms like “calamity,” “catastrophe”, and
“risk to the collective civilization.”
Of course, climate scientists have been 'hugging the monster' for the decades they have been working to collect the
evidence. Over time, they have come to recognise the catastrophic
consequences of BAU climate change. Recently, their sense of urgency has increased
and scientists like James Hansen and Jason Boxhave become activists, getting arrested in protests against fossil fuel mining.
I couldn't maintain my self-respect if I didn't go. This isn't about me, this is
about the future. Just voting doesn't seem to be enough in this case. I
need to be a citizen also, because this is a democracy after all, isn't
it?
Jason Box, climatologist at Ohio State University, in the Guardian
David Spratt observes that bright-siding is a tactical mistake because it leaves out the most compelling reasons for action. Why bother with solar power at all if you aren't aware of the dire consequences of business as usual fossil fuel burning?
He notes that all great behavioural change campaigns have two elements, first they point to the downside of current behaviour and then they recommend a feasible behaviour change.
Road accidents cause injury, seat belts save lives, buckle up!
Smoking causes cancer, take up <this remedy> to stop smoking.
Drunk driving causes car accidents, have a designated driver.
Now that the tactics of the denier camp are becoming more visible, thanks to books like The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars and Heartland's own-goal with unsavoury billboards, we can look forward to more forthright talk about the consequences of climate change.
We'll need to fortify ourselves to be able to look realistically at what lies ahead. There are monsters to hug.
Climate change deniers are worse than householders who refuse to pay their annual $75 fire protection fee because not only do they not pay the fee, they advocate strenuously that no one else should pay it either.
Fire services in Tennessee have taken to standing back and watching non-subscribers' houses burn, while ready to protect neighbours' properties. City officials hope that householders get the message and pay the fee.
Steve Zwick, here and here, says that climate change deniers should be asked to pay a penalty for advocacy that blocks and delays action to mitigate or adapt to climate change.
He's getting a lot of heat for it! From the denier commetariat of course.
In June, you can attend or follow to conferences like the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, or the Florida Summit on Sea Level Rise where responsible parties (governments, scientists, citizens) are acknowledging climate change problems and working together to mitigate and adapt. Or you can hang out at the Heartland denier conference where those who acknowledge global warming are called "murderers, tyrants and madmen".
I'm with Steve Zwick as he says –
... the ideal solution is to get our collective act together and
prevent [climate change] from happening, but we need a fall-back – a mechanism that
puts responsibility for damages on the shoulders of the shirkers and
deniers who cause it and profit from it, and we need to build that
mechanism before the damages materialize.
The men from Koch — and the groups, politicians, and disinformation they fund — are now the Sith Lords of climate and clean energy inaction in the country.
It is no coincidence that countries with large mining sectors have the lowest levels of public support for the transition to a low-carbon economy. Renewables have been implemented most strongly by European countries with limited fossil fuel reserves and small mining industries. As a result, they have no home-grown propaganda industry to restrain investment in renewables.
Public opinion in the U.S., Canada and Australia has been strongly influenced by propaganda campaigns and misinformation as well as fear mongering and lobbying by the mining sector.
These miners protect their own interests at the expense of the wider community and the whole ecosphere. As well as direct political ads and lobbying, miners regularly fund climate change deniers and support their attack campaigns.
Paul Gilding describes the Koch brothers as "the corporate bad guys from central casting".
Little wonder that Joe Romm calls corporate deniers the Sith Lords. In Star Wars mythology, the Sith Lords represent the dark side – the forces of destruction, division, selfishness, and chaos.
Mother Jones reports on 'Dark Money' – the secretive funding for U.S. political campaigns.
In the climate wars, the forces for good are ranged against the forces for evil.
Climate change deniers claim that "the most prominent advocates of globabl warming aren't scientists. They are murderers, tyrants and madmen".
Do they mean it literally or metaphorically? Who knows?
They throw caution and logic to the wind as they unleash these blind and crude insults in a living example of the Climate Wars.
How to respond? This is not a time for reason, or for the finesse of metaphor. The most effective retaliatory action is to demand that responsible corporations withdraw their financial support from the offensive Heartland 'Institute'.
Below is the petition we will send to the CEOs of Microsoft, State Farm, Pfizer, and every other corporation that funds the Heartland Institute.
All corporations should immediately pull their funding from the Heartland Institute in light of Heartland's ongoing and extreme support of climate change denial.
You can add your name here. A previous Forecast the Facts petition was successful in getting General Motors to withdraw funding from Heartland, so there's a good chance that this petition will be effective too.
But only with your help!
And after you have done that, check out the parodies this foolish billboard has generated. Heartland pulled the billboard after 24 hours because it "angered and disappointed many of Heartland’s friends and supporters". This lapse of judgement has associated them with the loony fringe and made them a figure of fun. Very satisfying. [You DID sign the petition, didn't you?]
UPDATE: Johnny Walker and Moet and Chandon owners, Diegeo, will no longer fund Heartland. (Why did they ever??)
Scott Mandia's open letter to his insurance company, State Farm, a Heartland donor, is eloquent and powerful. Your letter can be as brief as a postcard. It only takes a postcard and a couple of sentences for customers to have an impact.
UPDATE: 8 May, State Farm announced on Facebook that: "State Farm is ending its association with the Heartland Institute. This
is because of a recent billboard campaign launched by the Institute." They're getting lots of approving comments.
E&E Publishing report that this gaffe has cost Heartland hundreds of thousands of dollars from insurance companies and alienated key staff. They quote Brad Kading, president of the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers, as saying:
The billboard just crystallized what the divide was. It just
means the brand is tarnished and there really is no way to separate
yourself without just leaving.
UPDATE 14 May: Eli Lilly, BB&T and Pepsi will no longer support the Heartland
Institute. That brings the number of companies dropping Heartland to
11. According to Forecast the Facts, more than 150,000 citizens have
weighed in against the organization’s messaging strategy. Board members, staff and 'Heartland Experts' have also left the organisation. Source: Climate Progress.
UPDATE 17 May: Peter Sinclair made this brilliant 11-minute video to debunk Heartland nonsense by presenting some of the key advocates for climate change since 1950s. The video is framed around Margaret Thatcher's key speech on global warming.
Click 'share'... it deserves to go viral.
UPDATE 24 May: The Heartland Conference (an annual gathering of climate change deniers and disinformers — mostly hardcore libertarians — who attempt to spread doubts about climate science) was a washout. Cancellations and no-shows resulted in attendance of about 170, compared with 800 in some previous years. Heartland announced that they will not run the conference again.
Some people reject new systems and technology saying, "If it worked it would
already have been done".
This is like the economist who says that
the twenty dollar note lying on the pavement doesn't exist, because if
it were there, someone would already have helped themselves.
We are in the midst of a massive decarbonisation of world economies that is bringing rapid and dramatic changes to technology and systems. Things that weren't feasible 10 years ago are not only possible now, they are highly desirable. Look at how affordable solar PV has become.
Note: 'Today' = 2009. Source Emmanuel Sachs (MIT)
To see a $20 note on the ground, we only need to open our eyes. To decarbonise the economy we have to look for opportunities, not obstacles.
