Climate Resilience
This is the slide deck I presented at the Asia Pacific Centre for Social Enterprise (APCSE), Griffith University, Open Lecture Series this week.
This is the slide deck I presented at the Asia Pacific Centre for Social Enterprise (APCSE), Griffith University, Open Lecture Series this week.
This TED talk is a useful summary of Paul Gilding’s book, The Great DIsruption. Listening to the first half of his presentation, one could be forgiven for thinking that Gilding has thrown in the towel, based on his projected level of doom and gloom. This is not entirely the case. Yes, things do look grim, but Gilding is not nearly as pessimistic as James Lovelock or Clive Hamilton. The book goes into great detail as why he (and his collaborator Jorgen Randers) believe there is a future for humanity with their One Degree War Plan.
Image source: bbc.co.uk
There is a characteristically controversial piece in The Guardian today by former NUM President, Arthur Scargill. While it is almost sacrilegious for me to say it — given my support for the miners during the famous 1984-85 strike — I’m unconvinced by his arguments. If clean coal technology were readily available this would be a no-brainer but, unless I am mistaken, there is a lot of work to do yet before this becomes a serious possibility. Unfortunately, as James Lovelock points out, we don’t have the luxury of time.
Image source: bbc.co.uk
On BBC news today (RealPlayer required), there was a pretty scarey piece on the latest environment news to come out of China. Last week, a master plan was unveiled that spoke of China’s aim to bring about a 20% improvement in energy efficiency by 2010. This week it has been revealed that now TWO coal-fired power stations are being commissioned each week. It is inevitable that China will overtake the US as the world’s leading polluter soon (if it hasn’t already), but what can be done to halt environmental catastrophe? As The Guardian reports today, the Chinese are still way behind the US on an emissions per person basis, but what if all the Chinese live like Americans? How many more power stations would need to be built? The prognosis is not good and it seems the Chinese central government is unable to control the regions as they forge ahead disregarding national policies and directives. Even if there were some compliance, data collection techniques are so poor, quantitative restrictions on emissions are meaningless. The answer, it seems, is intervention by western governments to assist with technology transfer that might help to wean China off high-polluting coal powered energy (even if it is using coal in a more efficient manner).
There is an interesting piece in The Observer today, A dirty business, that reflects on the 1984-85 miners’ strike in the UK. I have quite vivid recollections of this dispute, not least because I was in the thick of it. Recently qualified as a school teacher, I was resident in South Yorkshire at the time and could not avoid becoming politicised by the whole affair. The battle between police and pickets at Orgreave and the police ‘occupation’ of Armthorpe were real eye-openers for me, and a sad indictment on life in Thatcherite Britain.
