No surprises; no surprises at all. As the world’s “leaders” gear up to converge on the vapourware that is the COP-15 Copenhagen Climate Summit, their objectives seem to be diverging: different governments are being seen as wanting different things, with the less-industrialised nations pointing the finger at (giving the finger to?) the industrial world, essentially saying, “You made the mess, you clean it up!” Among the industrial nations, Canada has no intention of even pretending to do anything, Europe is wading around in a greenwashing miasma of its own making, and the USA doesn’t quite know what to do. The Independent, on Friday 6 November, put the situation like this:

British Government officials believe there is no hope of signing a legally binding climate change treaty in Copenhagen next month.

The positions of major world powers are so far apart that another year or even more may be needed to negotiate a world climate treaty, senior British sources said at talks in Barcelona, which end today.

Writing today for The Independent the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, also admits that a deal in Copenhagen is now unlikely. “The barriers to agreement on climate finance remain substantial,” he writes. “Even if countries agree the levels of finance, few will want to hand over money if they lack confidence in the means of delivering it.”

The development has disconcerted observers at Barcelona, where it has become clear over the course of this week’s talks that countries are still so far apart on how to act on climate change – with the American position the farthest from everyone else – that the most that Copenhagen can now produce is a “political” agreement on climate change, which would not be legally binding like the current climate treaty, the Kyoto protocol.

But yesterday’s frank admission, for the first time, that it might take another year or even longer to produce a proper treaty, after 10,000 officials from 192 countries have already spent two years working to a Copenhagen deadline, showed just how bogged down the negotiating process has become.

Although there are various stumbling blocks, there is no doubt that the continued lack of a serious American offer on cutting its greenhouse gas emissions and providing climate finance for the developing nations – the bill which might provide them is stuck in the US Senate – is the principle obstacle to progress. “Copenhagen is one of the most important meetings in human history. But the politicians seem determined to blow it,” said Joss Garman, climate campaigner for Greenpeace.

Leaving aside the Greenpeace comment for the moment, you would think that even the industrial nations are oceans apart; yet anyone who has an awareness of how Industrial Civilization operates will be looking at this and simply thinking, “Business as usual.” And so we should, because neither Copenhagen, nor its successor Mexico City are the slightest bit relevant in the real battle against climate change. This battle, when it is played out, will be a silent, local, underground battle against the forces that comprise every government engaged in the so-called “negotiation” process. What the governments of the world are negotiating is simply the continuation of the industrial machine in the face of global environmental change, but almost no public opposition.

We are so brainwashed into thinking that the system has it right, that it comes as no surprise to hear people like Joss Garman referring to Copenhagen as, “one of the most important meetings in human history”, as though anything that will have any impact on climate change was ever expected to come out of it. We pin our hopes on summits in this way because we have grown up to accept the false authority of “our leaders”, and to deny that we can do anything significant ourselves. As I wrote in “Time’s Up!“:

The system has legitimized all its efforts to prevent change and suppress opposition because the vast majority of people who are subjected to its activities are fully paid-up members of Industrial Civilization. It is ‘right’ that civilization maintains its stability because without stability, civilization collapses and can no longer impose its will upon the population. Does that sound like a coherent argument to you? In all truth, that really is the best argument civilization has for its continued existence: it has to be maintained because it has to be maintained. Even a heroin addict, shooting up to get the fix that he agonizingly craves, knows that his habit will eventually kill him. Even a lifelong nicotine addict will admit that smoking is bad for her and she should stop. Hands up if you think Industrial Civilization should be stopped.

Every environmental organisation, every lone campaigner, every ordinary member of the public that will be holding their breath as the laughably-titled “negotiations” wrap up, is in denial of the reality that we are doomed so long as Industrial Civilization continues to dominate the globe. Copenhagen is just one more pebble in that river of denial.

Crazy days as the unreal world approaches Copenhagen: corporations and a fair few governments are balking at the potential deals on the table — even though, if we’re being truthful here, they are hopelessly, awfully, ruthlessly inadequate. You will see a HUGE amount of greenwashing going on over the next few weeks, and the astroturfs are going to be piling on the pressure to ensure that everyone, not just politicians, sees a 2 degree temperature rise as something easily avoidable while industry keeps being industrial.

Basically, no one is going to be happy, and the planet will burn because no one in the civilized world will face reality…except one, maybe:

In a sign that some of the oil majors, which are preparing to announce 60pc-70pc drop in net profits this week, are becoming bolder in their opposition to international efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80pc over the next four decades, a senior executive who spoke to The Sunday Telegraph said there was currently a large degree of wishful political thinking about the changes targeted by the global summit.

“If you look at the Copenhagen targets they are basically completely illusory,” he said. “There’s no way to hit those targets and it would be very silly to think that we can.”

At first glance, I reacted with anger; and then realised that, maybe without realising it, he had hit on that very deep truth that needs saying out loud again and again: Industrial Civilization cannot co-exist with a healthy planet.

It doesn’t need an awful lot of analysis to see this; basically, if you are an oil company, the existence of which depends upon people using oil (or a coal company, agribusiness, clothing manufacturer and so on, the existence of which depends on people using whatever you produce) then supporting anything that may hit that business model will be economic suicide. Even if an aspirational 80% reduction in carbon emissions (60% globally) by 2050 has absolutely no chance of stopping runaway climate change, it’s still enough to make the profits crumble, which is one pillar of Industrial Civilization gone, there and then. Make changes that are actually sufficient to rein back climate change — and no one really knows what they are, but let’s say 90% reductions by 2020 — then not only will the entire global economy collapse, but the entire way of life that much of humanity has grown up thinking is its birthright will have to go.

Climate Change Stopped = Industrial Civilization Ended

So, well done, whoever that anonymous source was: you’ve really put the cat amongst the pigeons now.

I sort of hated Stephen Harper before reading the new book by James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore, but after finishing Chapter Thirteen of “Climate Cover Up“, there’s no “sort of” about it. Whether you believe there is such a thing as Evil or not, by any discription of the term Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada has got to be partaking in Satan’s Brimstone Ball. From my point of view: he is a guy in pathological denial, so utterly inculcated in the industrial economy and all it stands for, that nothing good can exist that challenges this toxic orthodoxy.

So, because I’m feeling generous, I want to share the hate with all of you. Welcome to the world of Harper:

When Conservative leader Stephen Harper campaigned for the prime minister’s job in early 2006, he did so on an interesting two-track campaign. He promised first of all to be a law-and-order conservative who would crack down hard on people who broke the law. And he promised to abrogate Canada’s international legal commitment to the Kyoto Protocol. If any reporters noticed the contradiction, there is no record that they asked him about it. Once elected, the prime minister promptly handed the job of environment minister, which included defending the government’s climate change position, to the Alberta member of parliament Rona Ambrose. Ambrose came across as a Canadian version of the benighted Sarah Palin—attractive, initially popular, and totally out of her depth, which turned out to have been a policy decision. Government scientists in Environment Canada reported to their privatesector colleagues that Ambrose declined to be briefed on the science of climate change.

The Conservative hostility to Kyoto surprised no one. Prime Minister Harper was himself elected as a member of parliament from the oil capital, Calgary (his actual riding is Calgary Southwest), and his party’s base is preponderantly in resource-rich western Canada, and decidedly in oil-rich Alberta.

In 2006 Alberta was awash in cash. Between 1990 and 2006 fossil fuel industry revenues had climbed 61 percent. But that windfall had come with a complicating factor: industry-source greenhouse gas emissions had increased over the same period by 53 percent, accounting for almost half of the total increase in emissions recorded over the same period. Most of the rest came from transportation and from coal-fired electricity generation.

Harper’s position on climate change, that of a loyal Albertan, had been on the record—and perfectly unclear—for years. In a story published December 21, 2006 (“pm Denies Climate-Change Shift”), the Toronto Star’s Ottawa bureau chief, Susan Delacourt, chronicled the evolution of the prime minister’s thinking. In September 2002, for example, he passed off the issue as a controversy of little interest to Canadians: “It’s a scientific hypothesis, a controversial one and one that I think there is some preliminary evidence for . . . This may be a lot of fun for a few scientific and environmental elites in Ottawa, but ordinary Canadians from coast to coast will not put up with what this [the Kyoto accord] will do to their economy and lifestyle, when the benefits are negligible.” In 2004, Delacourt writes, the prime minister updated that position to say, “The science is still evolving.” And by 2006 he was still referring to “so-called greenhouse gases.” If you give him the benefit of the doubt, Prime Minister Harper seemed, even as he took over the reins of power, to be like those well-educated Republicans from Chapter 12, so steeped in uncertainty that he couldn’t bring himself even to believe in the existence of the greenhouse gases that Joseph Fourier had discovered in the early part of the 19th century.

In addition to announcing that he had no intention of trying to meet Canada’s Kyoto targets, the Canadian prime minister also set about dismantling all the climate change policies that the previous Liberal government had implemented to date. He shut down the government’s climate change Web site and removed all references to global warming, and especially to Kyoto, from federal communications, except to say that henceforth he would be resisting international pressure and pursuing a “made-in-Canada solution.”

Here Harper begins to use language that was actually made in America. The Republican spin doctor Frank Luntz was in Kingston, Ontario, in May 2006, speaking to the Conservative- linked Civitas Society and making time on the side for a personal meeting with Prime Minister Harper. (The prime minister confirmed in the House of Commons a couple of days later that he and Luntz had been acquainted “for some years.”)

In the weeks that followed, people started listening more closely to the Conservatives and looking for likely connections to the strategy document, as discussed in Chapter 6, that Luntz had written for the U.S. Republican Party (“The Environment: A Cleaner, Safer, Healthier America”). As Ross Gelbspan recorded on the DeSmogBlog on May 31, 2006, the Kitchener Waterloo Record reported the results in a story headlined “Tory Kyoto Strategy Mirrors U.S. Plan”:

In his 2003 memo, [Luntz] told Republicans not to use economic arguments against environmental regulations, because environmental arguments would always win out with average Americans concerned about their health. Luntz also told his U.S. clients to stress common sense and accountability. “First, assure your audience that you are committed to ‘preserving and protecting’ the environment but that ‘it can be done more wisely and effectively.’ Absolutely do not raise economic arguments first.”

Since the Conservatives took office, they have consistently stressed their commitment to clean air and water, and tried to avoid discussion of cutting back environmental programs— although many have been eliminated. “My mandate is to have accountability on the environment and show real results and action on the environment for Canadians,” [Environment Minister] Ambrose told the Commons last week.

Luntz advises that technology and innovation are the keys to curbing climate change, a theme the Conservatives have repeatedly echoed. “We will be investing in Canadian technology and in Canadians,” Ambrose told MPs.

Despite his general aversion to economic arguments, Luntz . . . advises putting the cost of regulation in human terms, emphasizing how specific activities will cost more, from “pumping gas to turning on the light.” Ambrose has claimed that “we would have to pull every truck and car off the street, shut down every train and ground every plane to reach the Kyoto target. Or we could shut off all the lights in Canada tomorrow.”

In this first year that the Harper Conservatives were in power, Canada was also the official chair of the un Framework Convention on Climate Change, which gave the country two special chances to drag down the process. First, Environment Minister Rona Ambrose was anything but a champion for action. She dismissed Canada’s own commitments, blew off Canada’s reporting deadlines, and on one occasion at least, declined even to attend a meeting, assuming her position as “chair” over the telephone.

Canada also increased international inertia on behalf of the Bush administration. Having refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, the United States was effectively sidelined from the process, forced to sit outside of the most critical meetings awaiting word of how the parties to the accord were planning to proceed. Given that the United States was the world’s number-one producer of greenhouse gases, there was only so much that could be decided by the remainder of the world’s powers, but the United States still feared that its interests could be marginalized by a concerted international effort to discourage emissions.

That was no threat with Canada in the room. Having backed away from its own Kyoto commitments, Canada also chose to join the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, a sort of anti-Kyoto coalition that included the world’s biggest polluters (China, India, Japan, Korea, and the United States) and the second-tier countries that sell them oil and coal (Australia and Canada). Even Republican Senator (and later presidential candidate) John McCain dismissed the partnership as “nothing more than a nice little public relations ploy.” McCain told Grist writer Amanda Griscom Little on August 4, 2005 (“New Asia-Pacific Climate Pact Is Long on PR, Short on Substance”), that the partnership had “almost no meaning. They aren’t even committing money to the effort, much less enacting rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” The group’s apparent determination to create an alternative organization that could be used to undermine the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, combined with the Canadian decision to join the Big Coal coalition during a year when Canada was nominal chair of the UN Framework process, dealt the UN body a telling blow.

At subsequent UN Framework conferences, especially in Bali in 2007, Canada’s obstructionist position became so obvious that people started to believe the Bush and Harper administrations were working together—that Canada was trying to prevent any progress that might demonstrate how badly the United States was out of step. But the theory broke down at the Kyoto Protocol update in Poznan, Poland, in December 2008. By then Barack Obama was already president-elect, though George Bush would retain the actual presidency until January 20, 2009. So the Bush negotiators were still in the room, but with no real mandate: everyone expected that the Obama administration would take a more aggressive tack in approaching climate change.

With the United States removed as a contrarian force, some people expected that Canada would shift to a more productive position as well. But if anything, Canada stepped up its obstructionism, urging other countries to back away from greenhouse gas reduction commitments they had made in Bali the year before. For its efforts Canada was granted the “Colossal Fossil” award. The environmental Climate Action Network chose a “Fossil of the Day” for each day of the two-week conference, and the country with the most nominations was judged to be the Colossal Fossil when the meeting wound down. Canada really earned that international embarrassment.

While dragging down efforts to build an effective greenhouse gas reduction policy on the world stage, the Harper Conservatives continued to emulate U.S. policy at home. Where in 2003 the Bush administration had proposed a Clear Skies Act that ignored greenhouse gases almost entirely, the Harper Tories followed with a Clean Air Act in 2006, which focused on smog and particulate pollutants and promised (still voluntary) emission targets by 2020.

With U.S. president George Bush advocating “energy intensity targets” as a way to address climate change, the same policy started appearing in Canadian climate documents only a short while later, such as in Environment Canada’s 2008 regulatory framework for industrial greenhouse gas emissions. An energy intensity target is something you might expect to get from Frank Luntz: it’s very specific. The definitions are clear and concise. But when you implement it succesfully, you get a public relations boost without any corresponding reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Consider, for illustration, the following definition from the World Resources Institute: “Greenhouse gas intensity targets are policies that specify emissions reductions relative to productivity or economic output, for instance, tons co2/million dollars gdp. By contrast, absolute emissions targets specify reductions measured in metric tons, relative only to a historical baseline.” That means that you can reduce energy intensity by a lot (the Canadian tar sands giant Suncor cut its energy intensity by 51 percent between 1990 and 2006) while at the same time continuing to make the problem worse (despite the “intensity” cut, Suncor increased its absolute emissions by 131 percent during the same period).

Thus, intensity targets are for people who don’t want to deal with the problem. Consider this May 7, 2001, statement from Bush White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer in response to a question about whether the president would urge Americans to change their world-leading energy-consumption habits: “That’s a big ‘no.’ The president believes that it’s an American way of life, that it should be the goal of policy-makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one . . . The president considers Americans’ heavy use of energy a reflection of the strength of our economy, of the way of life that the American people have come to enjoy.” True to his word, until oil prices spiked in the summer of 2008, the Bush administration held its position, touting energy intensity cuts while supporting the expansion of the coal-fired power industry and the aggressive extension of oil drilling into parks and oceans.

Here’s how things played out in Canada during the same period: the provincial administration in Alberta, home to the largest section of Canada’s huge tar sands deposit, announced a climate change strategy in 2008 that would call for no greenhouse gas emission reductions whatsoever before 2020. In a document titled Responsibility/Leadership/Action, Alberta also proposed to pursue energy intensity targets in the short term (2010), to “stabilize” emissions by 2020 and to “reduce” emissions by 2050 by 14 percent from 2005 levels. Put another way, Alberta was planning to give industry free rein until 2020, after which it would introduce regulations so gently that by 2050, the province still would not comply with the target that Canada promised in Kyoto to meet by 2012. Returning once again to the dark definition of Orwellian, it’s hard to imagine how that could seriously be described as responsibility, leadership, or even action.

Now, I get the feeling that you really want to do something about this imbicile; you’re not alone. Want to know the best way? So do I. But anything you can do to ruin his credibility and upset the system that he merrily wallows in has to be a good thing.

This is a beautiful, sad advert produced by an agency of the British government. Very powerful, very moving.

It tells us that we are responsible for “over 40% of the CO2”, which is caused by ordinary, everyday things, like heating, powering appliances and driving.

The governments and their corporate masters, decided that they couldn’t afford to tell people that around 30% of all the CO2 was the result of the generation of electricity; electricity that ordinary people use directly, or indirectly in the things they buy, and the things that form the infrastructure that we all use. That might make people go to extra efforts, and stop them doing lots of things that keep civilisation moving.

And the same corporations told the governments most emphatically, that they couldn’t mention the other 30% that was the direct result of manufacturing and transporting all the things that the adverts made ordinary people want to buy, for that would mean the ordinary people might stop buying things and the economy would stop growing, and the corporations would hurt.

The outcome of this was that the British government produced a beautiful film that lots of people would be touched by, and decide that, “yes” they would do their bit, and try and cut carbon emissions by just 40%.

And the other 60%?

Don’t tell.

I was digging around for a recording of something today and found this gem from December 2008 hidden away in the dark recesses of my hard drive. After listening to it and nearly spraying a mouthful of coffee over the keyboard, twice, I felt it had to go on The Unsuitablog as possibly the best example of Un-Joined Up Government ever committed to a sound file.

Click to play file, or right-click to save

[The silence halfway through is not a break in recording, just telephone silence]

Next time you feel like calling a civil servant or a government minister, remember this recording, then get on the train and visit the Department personally. Better still, just accept that governments have no intention of making things better, and do a bit of undermining — it’s far more satisfying, and ultimately a lot more effective.

(They never did phone back, by the way)

Also known as Waxman-Markey, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA) which is currently sitting in the US Senate awaiting approval, is being hailed by the environment mainstream as a real answer to anthropogenic global warming. Anyone with half a brain will realise that this is utterly false. One group, calling themselves Climate SOS, are making this point very loudly, and have written the following article just for The Unsuitablog.

Lots of mainstream enviros, especially those involved in the US Climate Action Partnership, are promoting the recent house climate bill as a great step forward. Then there are a bunch more who think it is “better than nothing”…or “the best we can get under the circumstances…”

Very thought-provoking, and worrying. Thanks to Rachel for the words.

Civilization has singularly failed to reduce its emissions, and so the planetary climatic, oceanic and biological systems are running into repeated and major tipping points, plunging us into increasingly dire trouble. No, this is not the future, this is now – there is nothing we can do about the greenhouse gases that Industrial Civilization has so far poured into the atmosphere, and there is very little indeed we can do to reverse the widespread effects of deforestation, marine ecosystem plundering and the multitude of different persistent chemicals currently polluting the food chain.

But we can stop things getting worse than they might. According to the Royal Society, what we need to do is to geoengineer the climate. The following story from The Independent outlines the “Plan B” project that is being drawn up by the Royal Society; see what you think:

Some of Britain’s most distinguished scientists have put their names behind controversial proposals to engineer the global climate with highly ambitious technology projects if international attempts to control man-made emissions of greenhouse gases show serious signs of failing.

The Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences, has warned that if political leaders fail to reach agreement and enforce a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions following the climate conference in Copenhagen this December there may be no other option left than to introduce drastic measures involving the “geo-engineering” of the global climate.

A group of eminent scientists appointed by the Royal Society said in a report published yesterday that future efforts to reduce greenhouse gases needed to be much more successful than they had been so far if geo-engineering was to be avoided as a way of cooling a dangerously overheated planet.

“Geo-engineering the Earth’s climate is very likely to be technically possible. However, the technology to do so is barely formed, and there are major uncertainties regarding its effectiveness and environmental impacts,” the report says.

Geo-engineering projects range from schemes to fertilise marine plankton with iron powder to injecting sulphate particles into the atmosphere in order to simulate the cooling effects of volcanic eruptions. All are controversial and none are without some risk but they should nevertheless be taken seriously if conventional measures to limit carbon dioxide emissions fail to stop potentially dangerous climate change, the Royal Society said.

Professor John Shepherd, an earth scientist at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, who chaired the Royal Society’s working group, said that geo-engineering had to be prepared as a backup in case the “plan A” discussed in Copenhagen fails. “[Geo-engineering] is a plan B, but a very real plan B that has to be taken seriously,” Professor Shepherd said.

“It is an unpalatable truth that unless we can succeed in greatly reducing carbon dioxide emissions we are headed for a very uncomfortable and challenging climate future, and geo-engineering will be the only option left to limit further temperature increases,” Professor Shepherd said.

“Our research found that some geo-engineering techniques could have serious unintended and detrimental effects on many people and ecosystems yet we are still failing to take the only action that will prevent us from having to rely on them,” he said. “Geo-engineering and is consequences are the price we may have to pay for failing to act on climate change.”

The report recommended that Britain should spend £10m a year on research into geo-engineering schemes, which is about a tenth of the Government research budget on climate change.

The Royal Society’s report, which took 18 months to prepare, was welcomed by Professor John Beddington, the Government’s chief scientific adviser, who said that it was time to treat geo-engineering seriously. “Some kind of modest investment in geo-engineering is what we should be thinking about now,” Professor Beddington said.

“There are going to be emergencies that we did not expect and we need to think about how to deal with them. Geo-engineering techniques are not the solution but they are part of the solution.”

In the past decades, geo-engineering has gone from almost pariah status to a subject that scientists can talk about in public without fear of ridicule. However, many climate scientists are worried that political leaders will use the debate to suggest that there is a workable alternative to deep and painful cuts in carbon dioxide emissions.

“Geo-engineering is creeping on to the agenda because governments seem incapable of standing up to the vested interests of the fossil fuel lobby who will use it to undermine the emissions reduction we can do safely,” said Doug Parr, from Greenpeace. “Intervening in our planet’s systems carries huge risks.”

‘Plan B’: The weapons in science’s armoury

Spraying seawater into the air to generate clouds and injecting sulphate into the atmosphere to simulate the cooling effects of volcanic explosions are two geo-engineering ideas considered by Britain’s leading scientific body. A Royal Society report defines geo-engineering as the deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the environment to counteract climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

The report divides geo-engineering schemes into two categories: techniques to remove carbon dioxide from the air to counterbalance emissions directly, and projects to offset the warming effects of increased greenhouses gases by reflecting sunlight into space. In terms of solar radiation, the report reviews ideas ranging from painting roofs white to space-based mirrors. It says these technologies are cheaper and faster-acting than carbon dioxide removal but have several drawbacks: they don’t address the root cause of global warming or ocean acidification.

It says methods to remove carbon dioxide would be preferable to solar radiation management methods, because “they effectively returned the climate system to closer to its natural state” and involved fewer uncertainties and risks. The problem with many carbon-reduction schemes that do not involve reforestation is that they are largely unproven and expensive. One idea is the enhanced weathering of silicate rocks, a natural process where carbon dioxide in the air reacts with silicate minerals to form carbonate rocks which effectively trap the gaseous carbon dioxide. Another is the capture of carbon dioxide by devices that can filter the air, perhaps using solar energy to power the process.

A variation on this theme is the proposal to fertilise the oceans with iron to stimulate algal blooms that could in theory capture carbon dioxide and convert it to solid material which would fall to the seabed. But the Royal Society warned of that project’s possible unintended consequences for the marine environment.

Let’s get this straight, as Doug Parr said, geoengineering is an excuse for corporations and governments to do nothing. Worse than that, by producing this report the Royal Society have, in effect, announced that “even” if business and governments don’t manage to reduce emissions sufficiently (which they obviously have no intention of doing), there is something waiting to take up the slack at the end of the rainbow. Cue even more reasons for everyone to do absolutely nothing – hooray, technology will save the day!

It is important to stress the comments in this article, by Royal Society members, about the inherent dangers of geoengineering — they cannot be stated strongly enough:

“Geo-engineering the Earth’s climate is very likely to be technically possible. However, the technology to do so is barely formed, and there are major uncertainties regarding its effectiveness and environmental impacts”

“Our research found that some geo-engineering techniques could have serious unintended and detrimental effects on many people and ecosystems yet we are still failing to take the only action that will prevent us from having to rely on them”

But those, deeply important statements will be conveniently swept under the carpet when the shit hits the fan, as suggested by John Beddington, Chief Scientist for UK Government Incorporated. And the Royal Society themselves are so obviously in thrall to the lie that there is only one way to live, as evidenced by the statement: “geo-engineering will be the only option left to limit further temperature increases”.

So, when I said at the beginning of this piece that we could stop things getting worse than they might, what was I thinking about? Certainly not geoengineering, which is the last catastrophic hoorah! in the civilized world’s great toxic party. Something far more radical in civilised terms, yet completely logical:

Getting rid of Industrial Civilization.

If you consider the alternative, then that doesn’t sound too bad at all, does it?

It’s a chilly autumn evening and you have some friends round for dinner. A beautiful cloudless night reveals the Milky Way in all its splendour, spreading a dusty arc across the sky. The chatter turns to nature, and the mention that it would be nice to spend some time outdoors now that the rain has cleared.

Your guests move to put on their coats, but you stop them: “No need to wrap up,” you call in the direction of the hallway, “it can be just as warm outside.” Of course! You had heaped scorn upon the neighbours with their patio heaters and the stack of butane heated air being released to the atmosphere; and then you chanced upon the Designer range of products from Ecosmart…

EcoSmart Fire (www.ecosmartfire.com) today announces their lower price-point Outdoor Range product line that will include four new fireplace models, which can be used interchangeably between indoor and outdoor spaces. As with all EcoSmart Fire products, the new Outdoor Range models are environmentally-friendly, designer fireplaces that are fueled by a renewable, modern energy (Denatured Ethanol) so they burn clean and are virtually maintenance-free.

The new Outdoor Range products include three new freestanding models – Cyl, Mini T and Lantern, and one new burner – Around Burner. Details about the new Outdoor Range products follow:

. Around Burner: Around Burner offers the ultimate flexibility due to its modular design, allowing you to create an open fire just about anywhere. The lowest priced EcoSmart Fireplace currently available, Around Burner retails for $990.
. Cyl: Cyl is a cylindrical shaped “tea light” inspired fireplace. Cyl features a stainless steel base and a cylindrical glass surround made of toughened glass panels which embrace the flame. Cyl retails for $1,990.
. Mini T: Mini T is a smaller version of its “big brother” Tower. Mini T features a brushed stainless steel base and a solid plinth, made from four toughened glass panels, which encloses the central, elevated flame. Mini T retails for $1,990.
. Lantern: Lantern is constructed from mild steel with a bronze patina. Each side is decorated with an abstract cut-out pattern so that when the Lantern is lit, the pattern is enhanced by the flame, creating a visually dramatic fireplace. Lantern retails for $3,990.

Through December 2010, the purchase of any EcoSmart Fire product qualifies for Federal Tax Credits for Energy Efficiency, with customers receiving up to 30% or $1,500 in tax credits, making the cost of an EcoSmart Fire considerably less.

Yeah!

Sucks to all those coat-wearing losers: let’s get outdoors and heat the air guilt free with this eco-friendly denatured ethanol stuff. No way is ethanol a greenhouse gas; it just comes like magic fairy dust from the big ethanol tree in the pixie forest, or maybe from the vast ethanol fields of no use for anything else.

Hey guys! Where are you going?

Sustainable Development is greenwash; it has always been greenwash, ever since the term was first coined nearly 40 years ago, not because Gro Harlem Brundtland was particularly hypocritical, but because there was never any chance of the word “sustainable” having anything like the significance of “development” in civilised society. A great article by Luis de Sousa on this subject was published on The Oil Drum a couple of weeks ago, and it was so good that rather than write the same thing myself, I asked Luis if I could repost it here, which he kindly agreed to.

Consulting an on-line Dictionary, a definition for Sustainability can be retrieved as the ability to perpetuate existence. In the same resource the definition for Development will be given as growth or progress. A concept gathering these two words together forms what the Greeks termed an oxymoron, an idea devoid of logical sense. Can Sustainable Development be sustainable? Naturally not, for merging together two antonymous concepts, it simply cannot exist.

So why is this oxymoron in the order of the day? Why does it get such attention? Why are so many so willing to discuss it so passionately?

Sustainable Development is one of several philosophical concepts (having as much eeriness as mythology) that emerged in the wake of a series of decades of breathtaking, unprecedented growth. Growth as in development, the physical expansion of the Human-sphere, its population and interactive processes with nature, harnessing energy and concentrated matter, deploying waste heat and dispersing matter. These mythological concepts are simply a reflex of a society intoxicated with growth in front of the first signs of physical constraints to its development.

Sustainable Development became the language of those that promise perpetual growth, and more, the profits that should come along with it. It is the language of those that do not want to reconsider their way of life. Of those who expect the XXI century to be the same as the XX century. Of those that expect to run all the cars on french fry oil or firewater. Of those who call Carbon Capture and Sequestration an energy source. Of those who promote the Hydrogen Economy, forgetting about the Nuclear energy system for which it was conceived. Of those touting Nuclear as Salvation. Of those touting Nuclear as Condemnation. Of those who expect Carbon Trading to reduce the OECD’s dependence on OPEC. Of those dreaming with a CO2 atmospheric concentration of 1000 ppm by 2100, accompanied by a 6ºC global temperature rise. Of those saying that the Earth’s hydrocarbons are not fossil fuels. Of those drilling their way forward. Of those waiting for the Free Market to replace Fossil Fuels. Of those thinking all they need is changing light bulbs to continue living in 400m2 cardboard houses. Of those claiming to be in their hands a reduction of Fossil Fuels consumption.

Sustainable Development is the philosophy of those fooling themselves, thinking that the Earth is flat, refusing to accept that the planet is a spherical object and thus finite. Of those refusing to face reality, refusing to wake up from their dreams.

A decade from now Sustainable Development will be out of the agenda. By then the word of the day shall be Survival. The Survival of a Culture, a Social and Political Framework, a Civilization.

Hopefully some will be able to wake up in time, leave the intoxicating dreams behind and face reality, however grim. Because then they’ll be able to devise a New Future. A Better Future. A Future founded on the real physical entities that run through our Economy, not in abstract, growth dependent, illusions. A Future where each man and woman have their place and are not enslaved by a spiral of virtual accumulation and spending. A Future where having more than the next man isn’t a goal in itself. A Future were work and excellence are rewarded by things that have real physical and meta-physical meaning.

A Future.

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What is the point of protest?

To create change. I would have thought that was obvious; it is the only rational response to the question. So why has so little change happened as a result of protest in the Western world in the last 30 years? This is obvious, too: because the activities that masquerade as “protest” in the modern age, have as little to do with protest as a Toyota Prius has to do with environmental sustainability. The vast majority of “protests” organised by groups such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth, are simply expressions of feeling; they are not even expressions of intent, because it is clear that there is no intention of going further than marching up and down the street, waving banners and placards, shouting slogans, beating drums and singing sings.

As I wrote in A Matter Of Scale:

So, go and protest, make some noise, wave some banners, sign a petition: just make sure you stay within the law. I mean it – protest of some form or another is permitted in most nations, but the severity and the type of protest allowed depends on the legislation that is in place; both standing legislation and the widely used “state of emergency” which, in fact is simply an extension of the existing laws. As the Zimbabweans ponder their electoral fate, the Mugabe regime has imposed “emergency” laws to prevent any form of gathering that may threaten the government. What the Mugabe regime knows only too well is that in Zimbabwe, as with many other African, South American and Asian states, protest often takes an entirely different form to the type of protest the people of the industrial West have become accustomed too. The Mugabe regime know that real protest is capable of overthrowing governments; whereas in the USA, for instance, it almost goes without saying that protest will lead to nothing more than a warm feeling in the hearts of those taking part…The laws in each country are tailored to suit the appetite of the population for change: a country full of people that want to fight for change needs to be kept tightly controlled; a country full of catatonic, drip-fed consumers can march all they like, be given a well-controlled soapbox on TV – and the voltage on the tasers can be turned right down.

As with any mass gathering of people, there will be friction between those on one side and those on the other, and in the case of the G20 marches and sit-ins, there were a number of inexcusable events that took place, including one death:

On the “protestors'” side, there were also a number of inexcusable activities, at least equal in quantity to the number of people who went along to the event thinking that by marching peacefully, they would make any difference at all. Of course they wouldn’t, and it is with this in mind that the UK Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights have decided to take advantage of the submissiveness of mainstream environmental and human rights groups (the ones who organise such “protests”) and proposed that a system of Objective Mediation be set up, ostensibly to protect the human rights of people taking part in such events.

Independent Northern Ireland-style go-betweens could ease tensions between police and protesters, say MPs.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights said poor communications lay at the heart of problems at the G20 protests on 1 April.

Its report says a decision to “kettle” some of the London demonstrators had failed to recognise their rights.

The Metropolitan Police said it learned lessons from G20 and was committed to working with all protest groups.

One man died after the London protests and investigators are looking at other formal complaints about police actions.

The committee said there was a “long way to go” before police put human rights at the core of their planning and live operations.

In its review of the G20 protests, the MPs and peers argued that the Metropolitan Police became heavy-handed after a lack of communication between the two sides.

“Both protesters and police must share information,” said the report. “Whilst this happens in many cases it is clear that at least some aspects of communication at the G20 protests were poor.

“Mutual distrust was apparent and the police and protesters seemed to have different expectations of what the dialogue should be about and how it should proceed.

“This ineffective communication led to frustration on both sides and, possibly, to the police taking a more heavy handed approach to the Climate Camp protest than would otherwise have been the case.”

(BBC News)

It will come as no surprise that the real reason for such “mediation” is simply to further dilute the already benign nature of public protest. As Ward Churchill states in Pacifism As Pathology:

One will find hundreds, sometimes thousands, assembled in an orderly fashion, listening to selected speakers calling for an end to this or that aspect of lethal state activity, carrying signs “demanding” the same thing…and – typically – the whole thing is quietly disbanded with exhortations to the assembled to “keep working” on the matter and to please sign a petition.

Throughout the whole charade it will be noticed that the state is represented by a uniformed police presence keeping a discreet distance and not interfering with the activities. And why should they? The organizers will have gone through “proper channels” to obtain permits. Surrounding the larger mass of demonstrators can be seen others…their function is to ensure the demonstrators remain “responsible,” not deviating from the state-sanctioned plan of protest

Set up a mediation system, and those running the “protest” have even more control over their charges by virtue of their elite status as official communicators with the mediators. Set up a mediation system, and the police have even more information with which they can micromanage the events as they unfold. Set up a mediation system and “protest” becomes little more than a state-sponsored media spectacle which threatens nothing, and leads to no change whatsoever.

Real protest doesn’t unfold according to a pre-agreed agenda; real protest is illegal; real protest creates change. The gulf between symbolic and non-symbolic action is widening as I write — it may be your last chance to jump over to the side which is actually going to achieve something.