Saving The Planet - Empty Gestures

[Trinity]

Saving The Planet: Empty gestures
Do you recycle - and then fly to New York for the weekend? It's the inconsistency of our attempts to save the planet that really bugs Nigel Pollitt

Published: 25 January 2007

At Christmas I was given a copy of the book of the film An Inconvenient Truth, by the American politician Al Gore. It was from two people. One of them drives an SUV and both are frequent fliers. I was given the present at a gathering under recessed halogen spotlights, a popular system that, typically, doubles the electricity consumed by a room's lighting and greatly increases ceiling heat-loss. Few in the room were wearing anything that, by the standards of earlier ages, could have been considered winter clothing. Some of the food on the table - figs and blueberries - originated several thousand miles away. And, while tap-water in the area is quaffable, bottled mineral water from France accompanied our celebration.

The six adults and two children present were people who, if cornered, would probably say that Something Should Be Done about rising carbon emissions. As well as this, all the adults were cooks, and cooks are the people most likely to understand that doubling a very small but potent ingredient can have a very big effect on a result. Carbon dioxide is less than 1 per cent of the atmosphere. Yet doubling it, which is what we're heading towards, is sending the planet to the emergency room.

This month, the EU's environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas, called the struggle to halt climate change a "world war". The Tories are pitching for an 80 per cent cut in UK carbon emissions by 2050. Even the Confederation of British Industry has a task force on it.

But we, in our homes and on holiday, go on as before. The friend who raved about the Al Gore film whacks up the heat and wears a T-shirt indoors. I bang on about halogen downlights but do nothing about the picturesque but colossally leaky wooden sash windows in my picturesque but colossally leaky Victorian house. If my 1880s stained glass was under threat, I'd get a handgun. What's going on?

"People see it as such a big, difficult problem. They ask how on Earth can they influence it in their day-to-day behaviour," says Nick Pidgeon, a professor of applied psychology at Cardiff University, and the co-author of several studies on attitudes to climate change. "They say overwhelmingly that the Government or international community should be responsible for action, but are not changing their own behaviour because it all seems too much."

It's also about connecting, he says. "We understand the consequences of climate change, but there's a disconnect with our actions. People don't think about climate change when they get in the car. And when taking a risk [of damaging the climate] has personal benefits, there's much less pressure to change behaviour. Getting in the car has an immediate benefit."

And although Commissioner Dimas talks of world war, Hitler hasn't invaded Poland yet. There has been Katrina and some extra drought, but the Gulf Stream still pumps Caribbean warmth to Europe. We haven't seen crop failure in Hampshire. Bread still comes from the supermarket.

There's also that tic that psychologists call cognitive dissonance. If reality has square edges, you file them down. You buy a diesel car. Then you read about the dangers of unburnt nanoparticles, but brighten up when a friend says that diesel cars have lower CO2 emissions.

Last year I was invited to India by a friend. I felt awful about burning, in a few hours, the equivalent of a couple of years of my normal carbon output and, for this among other reasons, did not go. But I could have filed down those square edges, couldn't I? Reduced the dissonance. After all, as one friend said, we only produce 2 per cent of global carbon in Britain. China and India are the problem. The friend who invited me commented: "I think the plane is going to fly that day whether you are on it or not."

My own response was to say, if there were rationing of long-haul flights to a globally sustainable level, I would go. There isn't, and I didn't.

The point is that, bizarrely, dealing with climate change is, so far, presented to us as a lifestyle choice. The current ads from the Energy Saving Trust urging us to switch off are the equivalent of wartime posters saying how it would be really helpful if you could black out your windows during air-raids. Accordingly, our response to the threat of climate change is lost in complex and contradictory individual responses. There's the sense too, of the futility of boycott. Why should I stop flying if no one else does?

As Mike Childs, a climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, points out: "At the moment the economic signals [to the individual] are that climate change doesn't really matter. The economic signals don't suggest you should do the right thing. So there may have to be punitive taxes on flying to India or Prague, so you say, 'that's a ridiculous amount of money, I can't afford to fly there'."

Should there be rationing? Coupons for carbon? "The idea of a trading scheme, with tradeable quotas, say in aviation, has its attractions," says Childs. "Then it's not all down to the individual." He accepts, however, that there may have to be "catastrophe that creates a groundswell of public pressure" for drastic action.

In the past, wars were won using the brutality of conscription. Cities were defended and populations fed through regulations and rationing. If human populations are to survive against a far bigger threat than Hitler or al-Qa'ida or avian flu, won't governments have to be brutal? Turn off the power, perhaps? It's been done before, so surely it's do-able. We won't fly for our holidays and we won't drink Evian and maybe we'll even enjoy the spirit of the carbon blitz. If we're lucky, the Gulf Stream won't turn off and we won't end up with the climate of Newfoundland.

But according to Professor Pidgeon, we're just not going to change our behaviour enough voluntarily. "We could all end up with low-energy lightbulbs but still flying to the Alps for the weekend. Under those circumstances, a government is going to have to take some pretty tough action."

We are challenged, morally, to change our behaviour, as individuals, but the bigger challenge is for our leaders to come up with a proper coordinated survival plan. They'll need our backing.

Goto Original Article

[jonny2mad]

I did a experiment a few weeks ago I asked on several different forums if you thought you yourself were damaging the enviroment and causing global warming and resource wars ,what would you be prepared to do .

"Would you give up air travel , cars ,plastic products , how about non home grown food chocolate rice ect.

How about the situation where you have a choice between damaging the enviroment by using something like nuclear power or powerstations that cause greenhouse gases and global warming , or using your computer watching tv, having lighting, or electric cookers, washing machines, heating.

Its perfectly possible to do without a tv or a computer, playstations, a washing machine or heating or electric light in the uk but its not as easy a lifestyle

Ive done without all those things, you can wash clothes with some large buckets and a posser or clothes dolly or a hand crank washing machine and a mangle .

You can go to bed when it gets dark, people have done all this stuff in the past , in most of the uk you can live in a house even without heating as people manage to survive in tents on glaciers if dressed right and in the right bedding

Anyway would you be prepared to do any of this stuff, every thing you buy has a energy cost could you buy less to damage the enviroment less , would you take time to repair thing like clothes."

On every one of the sites I posted people said they have changed their lightbulbs and that was about it they seemed pretty happy about that, I have a thread going at the moment on a hippy site about stopping flying and its all "but man I collect for greenpeace and if I want to fly to india thats my business , and flying five times a year lifts my soul and makes me a more enlightend being "

[Trinity]

Good questions
Alas, all we can do is take responsibilty for our own actions.
Trinity
x

[crazymumma]

I have a thread going at the moment on a hippy site about stopping flying and its all "but man I collect for greenpeace and if I want to fly to india thats my business , and flying five times a year lifts my soul and makes me a more enlightend being "

Wow. That makes me sad If hippies collecting for Greenpeace to "save the world" are happy to use the most polluting form of transport on earth, what hope is there to make the rest of the population see the writing on the wall?

[Clara]

Hmmm yeah, I´ve heard the hippy-india thing and variations thereof so many times. As far as I can tell there are two major modern attitudes fuelling this, one is the emphasis on the importance of the individual over the collective (the western world is awash with promises of "personal happiness" - whether that´s a big car or a yoga retreat in the himalaya) and the second is the notion that we NEED to travel in order to be a well-rounded human being, yet many never truly experience what is on their doorsteps (but then in this world experiences that you don´t have to pay for are completely devalued).

Makes me cross but makes me sad too.

Clara x.

[Martin]

rant alert!
We are now facing a battle for our very survival - it is in essence, a war against our own stupidity.........I get close to physical assault on the pea-brains who glibly spout on about how they "deserve" to fly to go on holiday, or the vacuous middle-classes who "go on eco projects" in Brazil, and fly out there 5 times a year!
I lived quite successfully through an age when nearly nobody flew anywhere - we still had holidays, we didn't die of anything because we couldn't fly. I flew once, way back in 70's, and decided that it was undoubtedly the most unutterably dreadful way of getting anywhere ever devised, and haven't bothered since! I don't consider I've "missed out" in any way whatsoever, but have still travelled using things like trains and ferries - it takes a little longer, but gives a far better sense of scale!
I think what we need globally is a "Chill" ethos.........cut out "rush" in all it's forms (except for emergencies) - taking holidays as an example - rather than going through all the hassle and stress of air travel, just to have a short journey time, take a day or two to get to virtually anywhere in Europe - meet the people, see the countryside, appreciate the country and culture of where you're visiting!

[Jarmara]

the thing that really gets my goat is this
this lady was goes on and on about how green she is and how she cares for the enviroment etc etc she drives an old 2CV which leaves plumes of black stinky smoke in her wake,buys imported fresh fruit and veg and leaves her radio on to keep her dog company when she is out,but according to her she is the greenest person in town.

[cat]

Pleasantly surprised by my daughter's school today. They are looking at OUR impact on world pollution, and have to decide what they are going to to reduce their personal contribution to the problem.
By making them decide they consider various possibilities. The rest of the family are joining in too. Great idea to get them thinking about it now (11 - 12 year olds)

[Karen_Grace]

I agree Martin
I went skiing with my school in the 70's and havn't been on a plane since. Never really felt the need to go abroad.
Cant understand why people want all the stress. After all you're the same person wherever you are!
Karen

[flower]

but surely, if you never enjoyed flying anyway it wouldn't be any big deal for you to give it up!
For some people flying is the only option to see beloved relatives on the other side of the world and so it would be a huge personal sacrifice to quit.

Personally, I have given up flying. I used to holiday abroad but now, if I do at all it is to Europe and I go by ferry, train and car.
However, I concede that this is easy for me having already seen many awesome sights, differing cultures etc.
There are many wonderful reasons to travel abroad.
Travel can enlighten.

I don't believe the argument should be about whether we should want to go, but rather how can those who do want to get there.

[cat chloe]

what do you all think about "carbon credits" where you do stuff like plant X number of trees in exchange for flying X miles?

[Martin]

we give air miles with ours!

[biffvernon]

As we enter the post Peak Oil world, oil production will be limited by supply, not by demand. If we stop flying the fuel saved will be burnt elsewhere in the economy and just as much carbon dioxide will be emitted. There is a chance that the oil will have been used for something more useful than flying, or maybe not.

I don't believe we are going to beat the oil depletion curve, no matter what the taxes on flying or the lightbulbs we change. These sort of measures are absolutely vital to help get us unhooked from oil but they won't help the climate problem.

[Muddypause]

what do you all think about "carbon credits" where you do stuff like plant X number of trees in exchange for flying X miles?

I think it's not as simple as it might appear. If we want to truly offset the fossil carbon that is released by flying (or any other activity that releases fossil carbon) we are going to have to make sure that the tree we plant will, during its life cycle, absorb as much carbon as we have released.

But it doesn't stop there. If the tree, or part of it, dies and decays, or is burned, much of that carbon which was absorbed will be re-released back into the environment, so in the end it will have counted for very little as a means of offsetting our flight. The only way to make the offset permanent is to make sure that the tree is either continually replaced, or all the wood from it is never destroyed. This is a tall order, with time scales beyond which we can reasonably predict.

Besides which, to offset everyone's flying is going to take massive afforestation. And if we fill the land up with trees, just where are we going to put all the windfarms, grow all the bio-fuel, and build all the eco-houses?

[Bonniegirl]

If you've got time, this topic has been covered quite a bit on an NZ forum, it makes for an interesting read:

http://www.lifestyleblock.co.nz/forum/t ... on,credits