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<font size="+1"><i>September 23, 2018</i></font><br>
<br>
[ick, drek]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://climatecrocks.com/2018/09/21/florence-waters-and-fears-still-rising/">Florence
Waters, and Fears, Still Rising,</a></b><br>
September 21, 2018<br>
Duke estimated that the storm had washed away more than 2,000 cubic
yards of coal waste -- enough to fill more than 150 dump trucks.<br>
On Friday came more bad news. The company said the dam separating
the Cape Fear River from man-made Sutton Lake, which holds water
used to cool discharges from the power plant, suffered one large
breach and several smaller ones.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://climatecrocks.com/2018/09/21/florence-waters-and-fears-still-rising/">https://climatecrocks.com/2018/09/21/florence-waters-and-fears-still-rising/</a></font><br>
- - - -<br>
[video of NC floods and VA tornado]<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLhtnRf-Lmg">Climate &
Extreme Weather News #137 (16th-21st September 2018)</a><br>
Understanding Climate Change<br>
Published on Sep 21, 2018<br>
06:46 The USA: Carolina floods & Richmond tornado<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://youtu.be/bLhtnRf-Lmg?t=6m46s">https://youtu.be/bLhtnRf-Lmg?t=6m46s</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[firefighter finally throws dirt at firenado that takes his hose]<br>
<b><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BnwjbYfHwkB/">famous hose
suck firenado video</a></b><br>
<blockquote>mar.lowsky Fire tornado destroyed our line. It threw
burning logs across our guard for 45 minutes and pulled our hose
100 plus ft in the air before melting it. That's definitely a
first. #firenado #startthepump #wildfire<br>
Note: It got over 200ft tall but the smoke was too think to see it
clearly on video. Sorry for the profanity.<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BnwjbYfHwkB">https://www.instagram.com/p/BnwjbYfHwkB</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[Ethics and Climate- reviews related papers]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://ethicsandclimate.org/2018/09/21/new-evidence-that-climate-change-poses-a-much-greater-threat-to-humanity-than-recently-understood-because-the-intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change-has-been-systematically-underestimating-climate/">New
Evidence That Climate Change Poses a Much Greater Threat to
Humanity Than Recently Understood Because the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change has been Systematically Underestimating
Climate Change Risks</a></b><br>
Three papers have been recently published that lead to the
conclusion that human-induced climate change poses a much more
urgent and serious threat to life on Earth than many have thought
who have been relying primarily on the conclusions of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This paper first
reviews these papers and then examine the ethical questions by the
issues discussed in these papers.<br>
<b>I. The Three Papers</b><br>
On July 31, 2018, a paper was published in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences which should create a shiver of fear in
all humans everywhere. The paper, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://macroecointern.dk/pdf-reprints/Steffen_PNAS_2018.pdf">Trajectories
in the Earth System in the Anthropocene</a> by Steffen et.al.,
explains how human-induced warming is rapidly approaching levels
that may trigger positive climate feedbacks which could greatly
accelerate the warming already plaguing the world by causing record
floods, deadly heat waves and droughts, increasing tropical
diseases, forest fires, more intense and damaging storms, sea level
rise, coral bleaching, and acidification of oceans, all of which are
contributing to increasing the number of refugees which are
destabilizing governments around the world... <br>
- - - - -<br>
Another recent paper published in mid-August in Nature
Communications by Anthony et. al., <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://wordpress.redirectingat.com/?id=725X1342&site=ethicsandclimate.wordpress.com&xs=1&isjs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41467-018-05738-9%23author-information&xguid=8b469845476b574454882376a9ecc024&xuuid=efd3b793aaac8cbd2246eef82360d662&xsessid=6ea37a8d458a1117f7a3fdca02a71084&xcreo=0&xed=0&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fethicsandclimate.org%2F2018%2F09%2F21%2Fnew-evidence-that-climate-change-poses-a-much-greater-threat-to-humanity-than-recently-understood-because-the-intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change-has-been-systematically-underestimating-climate%2F%3Futm_source%3Dfeedburner%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3DFeed%253A%2BEthicsAndClimate%2B%2528ETHICS%2Band%2BCLIMATE%2529&xtz=420&jv=13.9.2&bv=2.5.1">21st-Century
Modeled Permafrost Carbon Emissions Accelerated by Abrupt Thaw
Beneath Lakes</a>, concludes that models used to predict climate
impacts have failed to incorporate abrupt carbon feedback from
permafrost decay that recent evidence has revealed is now possible.
In fact, the paper claims that early stages of processes that lead
to permafrost degradation are already underway. This paper further
concludes that carbon emissions from melting permafrost could
increase soil carbon emissions by 125–190% compared to gradual thaw
alone...<br>
- - - - -<br>
This paper summarizes major conclusions from a third recent paper
which analyzes IPCC's consistent underestimation of climate change
impacts. The paper, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/148cb0_a0d7c18a1bf64e698a9c8c8f18a42889.pdf">What
Lies Beneath: On the Understatement of Climate Change Risks </a>,
(hereinafter "WLB") recently published by the Breakthrough
Institute, claims both that the risks posed by climate change are
far greater than is evident from the conclusions of IPCC and
examines why IPCC has frequently underestimated threats from climate
change.<br>
<br>
The WLB report also further concludes that climate change is now an
existential risk to humanity: that is an adverse outcome that would
either annihilate intelligent life or permanently and dramatically
curtail its potential...<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://ethicsandclimate.org/2018/09/21/new-evidence-that-climate-change-poses-a-much-greater-threat-to-humanity-than-recently-understood-because-the-intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change-has-been-systematically-underestimating-climate/">https://ethicsandclimate.org/2018/09/21/new-evidence-that-climate-change-poses-a-much-greater-threat-to-humanity-than-recently-understood-because-the-intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change-has-been-systematically-underestimating-climate/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[#5 from another newsletter]<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="nikkijones5@hotmail.com">News email
from Nikki - Sept 22 2018</a><br>
<blockquote><span style="font-size:16px; text-align:left;
background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span
style="color:rgb(0,36,81)"><span style="font-size:16px;
background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span
style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">Yesterday I read that <b><a
href="https://www.ft.com/content/57334796-bcc8-11e8-8274-55b72926558f"
title="https://www.ft.com/content/57334796-bcc8-11e8-8274-55b72926558f"><span
style="color: rgb(12, 136, 42);">Trump has blasted
the world with another tweet packed with eye-popping
implications.</span></a></b> OPEC should get oil
prices down now!... <b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;
line-height:115%;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">'We
protect the Middle East, they would not be very safe
without us, and yet they continue to push for higher
and higher prices'</span>.</b> It's hard to know
where to start with this one... Is this a threat that the
US <i>will withdraw</i> from the Middle East if Saudi
Arabia doesn't get the cartel to <i>do what the US would
like, now...</i>? In fact both Saudi Arabia and Russia
have increased production in the last few weeks. (Please
see <b><a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE8t7tvMdlU&list=PL23Cko0LytPlNRbe6GU6zlBzU6dj9NVhy&index=3&t=86s"
title="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE8t7tvMdlU&list=PL23Cko0LytPlNRbe6GU6zlBzU6dj9NVhy&index=3&t=86s"><span
style="color:rgb(12,136,42)">this lecture</span></a></b>
for an explanation on the role of Saudi Arabia and why oil
prices are much more complicated than simple supply and
demand. Maybe I should send it to Trump.....)</span>
The
tweet looks even more bizarre when you consider that two
supply-side developments affecting the current price <b>come
from within the US.</b> It appears that the boom in <b
style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; font-size:11pt"> <span
style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif; color:#0C882A"><a
href="https://www.ft.com/content/13b4fae2-b1c3-11e8-8d14-6f049d06439c"
title="https://www.ft.com/content/13b4fae2-b1c3-11e8-8d14-6f049d06439c"
style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; font-size:11pt"><span
style="color:rgb(12,136,42)"> US shale oil may
finally be faltering</span></a></span><span
style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif; color:#0C882A">.</span></b><span
style="color:rgb(0,0,0); font-size:12pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> There are
now major problems in the disposal of waste water and
waste gas, and in labour and pipeline costs. It is <b>shale
oil that has masked the 'peak oil' that everyone was
concerned about in the mid-2000s</b> - it has filled the
gap left by the failure to discover and develop more
'conventional' large oil finds. Unlike conventional oil,
shale can be drilled relatively quickly - but each well
has to be replaced within years rather than decades, and
this is what has sparked the frenzy of drilling in recent
times.<b> It was often predicted that the boom would last
till the early 2020s and it seems that we may be seeing
the early signs of the downturn now. (</b>The other US
factor affecting the markets is the imposition of
sanctions on Iran in November, but already affecting their
output. As ever, Trump's policies seem at odds with each
other...<b> )
</b>Oil is still the
'life-blood' of the world economy and the price affects
everything in our daily lives, so whether it goes up or
down, or becomes very volatile, matters. A short-fall in
production seems very likely, and <b>will send prices up
over the next few years</b>. However, the <b>BIG
QUESTION for the industry is whether electric vehicles
and trade wars will peak demand sooner than imagined...</b>
The <b><a
href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/debate-heats-up-over-when-era-of-oil-will-end-1536620460"
title="https://www.wsj.com/articles/debate-heats-up-over-when-era-of-oil-will-end-1536620460"><span
style="color:rgb(12,136,42)">industry is very
divided on when this will happen</span></a></b> - <b>possibly
our oil consumption will drop as early as the mid-20s,
or possibly not till well into the 2030s.</b> Drops in
production and in demand are what we want, but there's
likely to be a lot of economic and political pain along
the way. <b>The fact that the oil price may be going much
higher is one thing to consider if changing your car and
considering electric. </b></span></span></span></span><br>
</blockquote>
<font size="-1">Subscribe via: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:nikkijones5@hotmail.com">nikkijones5@hotmail.com</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[opinon - CounterPunch]<br>
SEPTEMBER 21, 2018<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/21/on-climate-the-centrists-are-the-deplorables/">On
Climate, the Centrists are the Deplorables</a></b><br>
by JAMES MUNSON<br>
For most countries, to be poor now is to have been rich before it
mattered, like Bolivia or the Congo, or rich when it mattered, like
Venezuela and Iraq. Literally torn apart for their timber, ore,
labor, or spot on the map by resource-poor or depleted, or
simply-gluttonous, rich ones.<br>
<br>
Terrain, climate, or sensitive agriculture impoverish the rest, it
turns out, the same way.<br>
<br>
We know The richest 10% of the world's population produce half the
CO2 emissions, while the poorest half produce just 10%. All but the
Koch-funded researchers know that temperatures will rise between 1.5
and 5.9 degrees by 2100 as result. We know also that it hurts poor
countries more than rich ones. How? A new study from the University
of Melbourne tracks what a 4C rise would do to GDP of each country.<br>
<br>
Mind, we don't know that we'll hit +4 degrees. But we know from UN
documents we're not meeting our goals to prevent it, and the under
+2 range is near to parting the discussion. And we know maintaining
current emissions puts us between a 3.6 and 5.9 increase by the end
of this century.<br>
<br>
We know also that America was the biggest problem even before Trump,
and now we got him. (US emissions per head are over 2X that of China
and 10X that of India, the 2nd and 3rd biggest polluters.) And we
know if there's war, we'll exempt ourselves, needed or not (though
of course not), from climate matters, and likely censor discussing
it, besides.<br>
<br>
Worse still, we see only one road forward. As Marx put it, 'all
progress in increasing the fertility of the soil is progress towards
ruining the sources of that fertility'. Yet we cling to the idea
that high productivity will produce a cure for the detriments of
high-production. -A useful paradox for not hitting our reduction
goals.<br>
<br>
Note also, rising GDPs are poor -if not fraudulent- indicators of
civic health, since they count, but don't track, capital. (For
instance, the spike in illegal immigration from Mexico under NAFTA
coupled with a spike in their GDP.) Yet falling GDPs are useful,
since, if even the capitalists are feeling it, it means they've
already off-loaded what misfortune they can on the middle-class and
poor. In particular, since taxes are based on GDP, social welfares
are often the first casualties, with (public) infrastructures next
in line.<br>
<br>
So, for examples, according to the study at +4C India's GDP would
drop by 14% per year, Nicaragua's 17%, Indonesia's 19%, and the
Philippines 20%. Losses for much of Africa range from 18 to over 26%
of annual GDP.<br>
<br>
For perspective- global GDP fell an average 15% per year in the
Great Depression (1929-33), and even the richest states were
paralyzed, fearing revolution, and sliding toward war. Last year
Venezuela GDP dropped 12%, well below what's projected throughout
the tropics. It caused, in UN terms, an 'immigration crisis'. The
US, if not the UN so far, judges it a 'humanitarian crisis'. Whether
it is or not, it's perhaps as important to note the US can't help
exacerbating it. -A harder factor to quantify than falling GDP, but
a factor in any foreseeable case. ( States aren't allowed to simply
fail under global-capitalism. First the capitalists, and sometimes
their bombs, must descend on them.)<br>
<br>
In short, the study predicts the loss in GDP will deny states
sufficient revenue to adapt, hence losses will recur until the
states fail. If we fear demagogues, a mere 3.8% drop in America's
GDP following the 2009 banking scandal helped us scrape bottom and
find Trump. Similar figures in Hungary and Italy. Between 1918 and
1929 Germany's GDP actually grew, but at a much slower annual 1.2%,
and Hitler got their ear.<br>
More pressing still, current estimates figure there are 68.5 million
refugees wandering the globe. The backlash has ended more than one
democracy, drawn battle lines in others, including the US, and now
threatens the EU. A 4C rise in temperature could yield another
2-billion refugees. 30X as many as haunt us today. In response to
the record number of refugees, Trump just lowered the cap we'll
accept to 30,000 -less than ½ of 1% of the total. Us bombs have
flattened more homes than that this year. So we're already running
in two directions.<br>
<br>
Whatever their number, refugees are as inevitable as heat. But
unlike heat, capitalism has the will-power to confront them. Whereas
beforehand capitalist-states had welcomed or discouraged the flow of
both wealth and populations, not always in equal part, but one in
relation to the other. Now, as if prescient of its own horror,
Neoliberalism -and Trumpian Neo-illiberalism- seem bent on
decoupling the two, allowing capital to go where it pleases without
penalty, and without human baggage or obligations.<br>
<br>
Without and within borders. As one might guess, 'climate change also
tends to increase preexisting inequality in the United States',
transferring wealth and productivity from Southern, Central, and
Mid-Atlantic regions toward the Northeast and Pacific Northwest.
Ironically, life will become harder to bear for the populations
siphoned south at the beginning of the neoliberal era by
air-conditioning, cheap gas, and right to work laws. Then,
particularly across the 'Rust Belt', divestment led to collapse and
what amounts to Third World conditions without the hot weather. But
no one tied to business or law saw it otherwise than the path cut by
'state's rights' and a rational market-god. And likely no one will
this round<br>
In explaining America's poverty crisis, UN Rapporteur on Human
Rights, Philip Alston pointed to how 'states' rights' stood in the
way of most municipal and civic reforms. The same is true of climate
issues, since most of the initiative is at the city or community
level. However, it's state charters that allow corporations to
operate, and on what terms. -My point being, it's one example of how
liberalism's modular structure helps it duck reform, rather than
invite it -as its mythology portrays. Which makes it bad for
harnessing emissions.<br>
<br>
The 'Greed is Good' principle, even if its out of fashion now,
produced our current, neoliberal system, as well as its Frankenstein
monster, Trump. It recognized that the best way to avoid cleaning up
your messes, is to make it law that you don't have to. That had been
the point of a joint-stock company. But better still, make it
doctrine, in case the laws change. Then you can ignore the law, like
a sort of moral objection, Greed being God, instead.<br>
<br>
For instance, fossil fuel companies have figured climate change for
years, but hid it. We don't talk about the fossil fuel companies
-much less try them- as premeditated murderers, but rather accept
them as market fundamentalists. I doubt it's coincidence that both
the cover-up and the moves to deregulate capital and dismantle the
welfare state occurred at that same time. It's not nonsense that
anti-government forces like the Kochs spend more zombifying the
state than it costs to run it.<br>
<br>
Needless to say, abandoning state responsibilities invites unrest,
and thus, counter to their doctrine, 'libertarians' spend copiously
on prisons, arms, surveilance, and jack-booted policing. Still, the
violent horrors of liberal-capitalism shouldn't divert us from the
peaceful ones. Another recent study caught my eye as illustrative of
how the progressive goals of capitalism are as destructive as the
imperial kind. It's on the topic of peace in Columbia, and
identifies growing risks to the Earth's second most biodiverse
country.<br>
<br>
Because FARC tended to inhabit rural and forested areas, others
moved to the cities. As a result, large forested areas remained
unharmed during the war. The forests thrived, and even reclaimed
abandoned farms. Now more stable socio-political conditions are
drawing investment. Forestry, mining, and others are exploiting its
51,000 known species with about as much ecological foresight as one
applies in battle. Not at all surprising since, as Marx decoded more
than a century ago, stability is the enemy of profit.<br>
<br>
Consider, humans gobble nearly twice per annum what the Earth can
produce. 'Earth Overshoot Day', charts when we start gnawing at our
foundations. August 1st this year. Americans, we know, are less than
5% of the global population but consume 20% of its food while
supplying only 10%. If the world adopted our habits it would take 5
years to remake what's consumed next year.<br>
<br>
Unfortunately, however, the US has nothing to offer the world, if
not the chance of American-style gluttony. That is to say, about
another 80 years at most of high before overdosing. In Trump's case,
its the only thing the US can deny the world until they succumb to
our second-hand smoke. This earns him and his fools their
'deplorable' rating. Deplorable, because they cling to their
irrational precepts. But progressive capitalists do too.<br>
<br>
Asking people to use less when you mean more is the schizophrenia
behind capitalist reform. It's no surprise it boggled poor Trump.
Still, think, we wouldn't have to indulge the ecocidal clown if
ecocide, itself weren't agreeable to (even progressive) capitalism.
He's there because the 'Anonymous' patients run the asylum. It's
possible in 2 or 6 years they'll patch some of his wreckage. But
there's little evidence they'll mend their own.<br>
<br>
That leaves it to us. Any worthwhile effort is going to deprive the
rich of their fun. And anyone doing it is going to be called a
radical. But anyone not should rightly be called an addict and a
killer.<br>
<br>
It's hard to think in an asylum. Hard to maneuver. But we must. We
can't live with them.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/21/on-climate-the-centrists-are-the-deplorables/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/21/on-climate-the-centrists-are-the-deplorables/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Foreign Policy]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/12/why-growth-cant-be-green/">Why
Growth Can't Be Green</a></b><br>
New data proves you can support capitalism or the environment--but
it's hard to do both.<br>
BY JASON HICKEL | SEPTEMBER 12, 2018, 8:00 AM<br>
Warnings about ecological breakdown have become ubiquitous. Over the
past few years, major newspapers, including the Guardian and the New
York Times, have carried alarming stories on soil depletion,
deforestation, and the collapse of fish stocks and insect
populations. These crises are being driven by global economic
growth, and its accompanying consumption, which is destroying the
Earth's biosphere and blowing past key planetary boundaries that
scientists say must be respected to avoid triggering collapse.<br>
<br>
Many policymakers have responded by pushing for what has come to be
called "green growth." All we need to do, they argue, is invest in
more efficient technology and introduce the right incentives, and
we'll be able to keep growing while simultaneously reducing our
impact on the natural world, which is already at an unsustainable
level. In technical terms, the goal is to achieve "absolute
decoupling" of GDP from the total use of natural resources,
according to the U.N. definition.<br>
<br>
It sounds like an elegant solution to an otherwise catastrophic
problem. There's just one hitch: New evidence suggests that green
growth isn't the panacea everyone has been hoping for. In fact, it
isn't even possible.New evidence suggests that green growth isn't
the panacea everyone has been hoping for. In fact, it isn't even
possible.<br>
Green growth first became a buzz phrase in 2012 at the United
Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro. In
the run-up to the conference, the World Bank, the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development, and the U.N. Environment
Program all produced reports promoting green growth. Today, it is a
core plank of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.<br>
<br>
But the promise of green growth turns out to have been based more on
wishful thinking than on evidence. In the years since the Rio
conference, three major empirical studies have arrived at the same
rather troubling conclusion: Even under the best conditions,
absolute decoupling of GDP from resource use is not possible on a
global scale.<br>
<br>
A team of scientists led by the German researcher Monika Dittrich
first raised doubts in 2012. The group ran a sophisticated computer
model that predicted what would happen to global resource use if
economic growth continued on its current trajectory, increasing at
about 2 to 3 percent per year. It found that human consumption of
natural resources (including fish, livestock, forests, metals,
minerals, and fossil fuels) would rise from 70 billion metric tons
per year in 2012 to 180 billion metric tons per year by 2050. For
reference, a sustainable level of resource use is about 50 billion
metric tons per year--a boundary we breached back in 2000.<br>
<br>
The team then reran the model to see what would happen if every
nation on Earth immediately adopted best practice in efficient
resource use (an extremely optimistic assumption). The results
improved; resource consumption would hit only 93 billion metric tons
by 2050. But that is still a lot more than we're consuming today.
Burning through all those resources could hardly be described as
absolute decoupling or green growth.<br>
<br>
In 2016, a second team of scientists tested a different premise: one
in which the world's nations all agreed to go above and beyond
existing best practice. In their best-case scenario, the researchers
assumed a tax that would raise the global price of carbon from $50
to $236 per metric ton and imagined technological innovations that
would double the efficiency with which we use resources. The results
were almost exactly the same as in Dittrich's study. Under these
conditions, if the global economy kept growing by 3 percent each
year, we'd still hit about 95 billion metric tons of resource use by
2050. Bottom line: no absolute decoupling.<br>
<br>
Finally, last year the U.N. Environment Program--once one of the
main cheerleaders of green growth theory--weighed in on the debate.
It tested a scenario with carbon priced at a whopping $573 per
metric ton, slapped on a resource extraction tax, and assumed rapid
technological innovation spurred by strong government support. The
result? We hit 132 billion metric tons by 2050. This finding is
worse than those of the two previous studies because the researchers
accounted for the "rebound effect," whereby improvements in resource
efficiency drive down prices and cause demand to rise--thus
canceling out some of the gains.<br>
<br>
Study after study shows the same thing. Scientists are beginning to
realize that there are physical limits to how efficiently we can use
resources. Sure, we might be able to produce cars and iPhones and
skyscrapers more efficiently, but we can't produce them out of thin
air. We might shift the economy to services such as education and
yoga, but even universities and workout studios require material
inputs.We might shift the economy to services such as education and
yoga, but even universities and workout studios require material
inputs. Once we reach the limits of efficiency, pursuing any degree
of economic growth drives resource use back up.<br>
<br>
These problems throw the entire concept of green growth into doubt
and necessitate some radical rethinking. Remember that each of the
three studies used highly optimistic assumptions. We are nowhere
near imposing a global carbon tax today, much less one of nearly
$600 per metric ton, and resource efficiency is currently getting
worse, not better. Yet the studies suggest that even if we do
everything right, decoupling economic growth with resource use will
remain elusive and our environmental problems will continue to
worsen.<br>
<br>
Preventing that outcome will require a whole new paradigm. High
taxes and technological innovation will help, but they're not going
to be enough. The only realistic shot humanity has at averting
ecological collapse is to impose hard caps on resource use, as the
economist Daniel O'Neill recently proposed. Such caps, enforced by
national governments or by international treaties, could ensure that
we do not extract more from the land and the seas than the Earth can
safely regenerate. We could also ditch GDP as an indicator of
economic success and adopt a more balanced measure like the genuine
progress indicator (GPI), which accounts for pollution and natural
asset depletion. Using GPI would help us maximize socially good
outcomes while minimizing ecologically bad ones.<br>
<br>
But there's no escaping the obvious conclusion. Ultimately, bringing
our civilization back within planetary boundaries is going to
require that we liberate ourselves from our dependence on economic
growth--starting with rich nations. This might sound scarier than it
really is. Ending growth doesn't mean shutting down economic
activity--it simply means that next year we can't produce and
consume more than we are doing this year. It might also mean
shrinking certain sectors that are particularly damaging to our
ecology and that are unnecessary for human flourishing, such as
advertising, commuting, and single-use products.<br>
<br>
But ending growth doesn't mean that living standards need to take a
hit. Our planet provides more than enough for all of us; the problem
is that its resources are not equally distributed. We can improve
people's lives right now simply by sharing what we already have more
fairly, rather than plundering the Earth for more. Maybe this means
better public services. Maybe it means basic income. Maybe it means
a shorter working week that allows us to scale down production while
still delivering full employment. Policies such as these--and
countless others--will be crucial to not only surviving the 21st
century but also flourishing in it.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/12/why-growth-cant-be-green/">https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/12/why-growth-cant-be-green/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://web.archive.org/web/20041009151214/http://www.rep.org/opinions/op-eds/61.html">This
Day in Climate History - September 23, 2004</a> - from D.R.
Tucker</b></font><br>
September 23, 2004: In a Concord (NH) Monitor op-ed, former EPA
Administrator and lifelong Republican Russell Train rips President
George W. Bush's climate and environmental record:<br>
<blockquote>"The scientific community is alarmed by the Bush
administration's widespread rejection of sound science. The Union
of Concerned Scientists, a nationwide organization of eminent
scientists declared: 'When scientific knowledge has been found to
be in conflict with its political goals, the administration has
often manipulated the process through which science enters into
its decisions.' More recently, 48 Nobel Prize-winning scientists
wrote in an open letter to the American people that the
administration 'has ignored unbiased scientific advice in the
policy-making that is so important to our collective welfare.' <br>
<br>
"There was no mandate in the 2000 election to weaken and undo our
environmental and public health protections. In this year's
election, environmental policy needs a full public debate."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20041009151214/http://www.rep.org/opinions/op-eds/61.html">http://web.archive.org/web/20041009151214/http://www.rep.org/opinions/op-eds/61.html</a><br>
<br>
<br>
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