Someone took the words away

NZETS.jpgDone and dusted. My submission to the Emissions Trading Scheme Review has been safely committed to the tender mercies of NZ Post. It’s a bit long to be posted in full — it’s over 3,500 words (there’s a PDF of the full document here), but I will run through the main recommendations I make. Because the terms of reference were very widely drawn they gave me scope for a submission that tries to put the ETS into a wider climate policy context, and so I’ve taken the opportunity to make some fairly wide ranging suggestions.

[Update: No Right Turn notes that the deadline for submissions has been extended to Feb 27th. Good. But I wish I’d known earlier…]

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Smoke on the water

SmokeNZ.jpg

On Monday there was a haze over the Canterbury plains. It looked like someone was burning scrub to the west. Today’s MODIS Image Of The Day shows the source. The image captured on Feb 8th shows that smoke travelled from the Victorian fires (red dots top left — click image to see larger version) across the Tasman and over the South Island. Last weekend was also notably warm on the east coast, as air already warmed by Australia’s heatwave reached NZ and experienced additional heating due to the fohn effect when crossing the Southern Alps. The smoke followed along…

PS: For those not familiar with the local geography, the distance from Melbourne to Christchurch is roughly the same as London to Moscow, or Houston to New York.[Hat tip: MH]

[Deep Purple]

This better be good

Memo to self: finish polishing submission to the Emissions Trading Scheme Review committee, because it has to be delivered by Friday. It’s mostly done — I know what I’m saying — but it has to be put into proper form. I’ll have edited highlights up here on Thursday (with luck) after delivering the submission by email, but don’t let that stop you, dear reader, from making your own submission. The terms of reference are here, the guidelines on making submissions here, and a list of committee members here. I imagine the cranks will be out in force, and Rodney Hide angling to get them heard, so it makes sense to let the committee know that there’s a substantial body of opinion backing strong climate policy. Don’t delay, do it today!

[Update: The committee secretariat don’t seem to want PDF/email submissions, but will accept submissions postmarked Friday or earlier.]
[Fountains of Wayne]

The boatman’s call

Lovelock.jpg The Sunday Times has begun publishing a series of excerpts from James Lovelock’s new book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning, due out at the end of this month. It makes bleak reading for climate optimists:

So are all our efforts to become carbon neutral, to put on sandals and a hair shirt and follow the green puritans, pointless? Can we go back to business as usual for a while and be happy while it lasts? We could – but not for long. Apart from a lucky break of a natural or a geo-engineered kind, in a few decades the Earth could cease to be the habitat of seven billion humans; it will save itself as it dispatches all but a few of those who now live in what will become the barren regions. Our greatest efforts should go to learning how to live as well as is feasible on the soon-to-be-diminished hot Earth.

Lovelock is riffing on the theme he developed in The Revenge of Gaia: it’s too late to stop rapid and highly damaging climate change, so we should concentrate on saving ourselves. Climate change will cull humanity: from seven billion down to one billion will deliver effective emissions reductions. Meanwhile, we should start looking for lifeboats.

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Getting on with the job

Carbon Neutral by 2020: How New Zealanders Can Respond to Climate Change

Carbon Neutral by 2020: How New Zealanders Can Respond to Climate Change is in many ways a cheering book though its title, which was right on the mark when the book was published in 2007, has an aura of faded hope to it now. That fading is largely due to the many New Zealand business and farming leaders who continue to oppose any government move which might be effective in addressing climate change, and a new government which still doesn’t seem to know whether it’s going to take the issue seriously or not.  But the depressing backtracks of government and success of negative lobbying don’t obscure the fact that this book is a sensible publication which accepts the reality and looks at how we can get on with responding to it positively.

The editors are Niki Harrė and Quentin D. Atkinson, both psychologists.  They recognise that climate change is a tough call for the human psyche.  It can seem too big an issue for individuals to affect.  But they want us to own the problem and to find a sense of purpose and belonging in doing so.

They have gathered contributions from a wide range of experts covering many aspects of New Zealand life. The sustainable school programme has large potential for change in community attitudes now and in the future adult population. Housing and home renovation are key elements in reducing energy consumption. The shopping mall of the future offers many opportunities for carbon emission reduction. Computing can contribute on many fronts. The book follows the vision of a carbon neutral New Zealand by 2020 into these and several other segments of our national life – transport, organics, design, ethics, ethical investment, sustainable business, law and political action

What that vision might mean for each segment is pursued in detail, along with the strategies we would need to follow to get us there. In the section on sustainable design, for example, the vision is for a use of resources that does not jeopardise the needs of others on the planet or those of future generations. The strategies include new ways of designing which move us away from the landfill destination to objects designed so that every component can be separated and used again indefinitely.  Interestingly, the writer stresses that design can’t be considered in isolation from our governing and finance systems which militate against such a responsible approach to resources.

This theme of appropriate political and economic settings is never far away.  A central aim of the book is to let individual readers see what they can do in the organisation of their own lives and communities and businesses to contribute towards carbon neutrality. But the various writers are also often fully aware of the wider societal changes that are needed and how we might influence their direction. The chapter on transport, for example, includes steps individuals can take in reducing car use but is largely concerned with the government policy measures needed to change the transport systems so that we have much less need to rely on cars.

It is heartening to read authors in such a wide variety of sectors who are concerned about climate change and have a vision of how it can be addressed in their area of expertise. We need a sense of common concern and common effort in an overwhelmingly important issue. Books such as this reveal a more widespread readiness to confront the crisis than we might credit and encourage us to share in it.

But it remains seriously disappointing that our politicians haven’t come together as they should to communicate solidarity in tackling the questions.  It is hard to see the sort of goals presented in the book achieving realisation without strong governmental support.  So long as government remains tepid there is little chance of the general populace realising that we face a crisis which must be addressed, and little chance of the redirection of the economy which is central to change.  The final chapter of the book is on political activism, which seems to me to continue to be essential for success on the scale required.

This is not the sort of book one should expect to read in one swoop. It has many authors and each section needs separate attention. It could be considered a handbook for readers who want to find ways of engaging with the challenge confronting global society.  The editors have brought together an impressively varied selection of useful material. Publisher Craig Potton have played their part too, not only bringing to the public a book which engages with important issues but also treating it as an opportunity to practise emissions minimisation themselves, as explained in their publisher’s note.