Climate Change.... What the Hell

Our Second ToMAx talk @The Oxford Pub, Kentish Town

Speakers were Lord Melchett (ex head of Greenpeace), Niel Bowerman (Scientist at Oxford), Richard Ritchie (BP, director of government relations)

The ToMax talks on climate change really got me thinking about global warming policy. I had a spate of queries. Is the threat of a warmer world so bad and so real that governments must intervene heavy-handedly to prevent it? 'Yes' is the received wisdom. Or is there enough uncertainty about the science and its ramifications that the human cost of climate-change prevention cannot be justified? Are green government measures authoritarian and to be overriden by considerations for the free market? Instead of prevention, should we, as Nigel Lawson recommends in his lucid book, adapt to climate change?

And how trememndous is the cost of prevention likely be? If we did manage to introduce a unilateral cap on fossil fuel consumption, would people really go hungry in a world with enough food in the wrong places, would the developing world not progress past the quality of life of pre-industrialised Britain? 

Lord Melchett and 'the climate kid' Niel Bowerman were both uplifted by the possibility that people can make choices beneficial to themselves, the environment and the prevention of global warming. Niel Bowerman suggested some simple things we can do on a personal level to instigate change: write disgruntled one-liners to our MPs about the carbon-heavy tarr-sands in Alberta, go for a renewable energy provider, which (with the help of subsidies) doesn't cost more than firms generating power from oil and gas. Lord Melchett talked about farming and how we have a personal vote on agricultural methods three times a day - ordinary people can influence policy here. He cited the ban on GM in Britain:

 'It wasn't up to the government; Bush and Blair were deeply in love with each other and with GM, all sorts of huge companies wanted GM, but actually, ordinary people decided what we're going to eat.'

However, Lord Melchett conceded that this people-power is probably limited to farming policy:

 'We can't decide whether we're going to build a nuclear power station or not, we can't decide whether we're going to have nuclear submarines floating around the world or not. All sorts of other things we can't decide. But food issues you can.'

So it is likely that turning off chargers and economising on plastic bags are feel-good measures which don't matter much. Therefore, it was great to have before us an example of a young person attempting to influence policy on a macro-level: Niel talked of how he advises the Prime Minister of the Maldives on how to prepare for the likely turbulent times ahead. How turbulent?

For the non-scientific among us, Niel gave a memorable demonstration using 5 pint glasses. His best-case prediction was 2 degrees by 2100. That is one pint glass of greenhouse gases, which burning the rest of the world's oil would produce. Five pint glasses takes us to six degrees, and that is if we burn the whole lot - gas, coal & oil. Gloomy predictions of what that would mean are pretty familiar.

Richard Ritchie spoke about Britain's policy in light of the political realities - what people want, and the realities of India and China. Britain's emissions he pointed out are 2% of world emissions, and the whole contribution of the UK to emissions is the same as the increase in China's emissions per year. He was very convincing. Britain could be handcuffing itself unnecessarily with austere measures, merely resulting in carbon leakage to the developing world (outsourcing of manufacturing and therefore emissions). Maybe Britain cannot make a difference, cannot lead the way. 

A good argument against this is that Britain can lead in research & development. Nothing is developed to workable efficiency behind closed doors. In order to progress the technology we need to start using it. And that is what Britain is doing. After the talk, Richard Ritchie conceded to me that he sees a case for a carbon tax to help R&D. So not free market to the end.

Despite this, however, my conclusion is that if you can look at the problem in a consequentialist way, then Richard Ritchie's arguments are persuasive and conclusive. But, on principle, to continue to just burn fuel, to consume while being part of a threatening problem is slovenly. Britain should lead by example. Richard Ritchie said that 'we have to keep the lights on'. But there are many aspects of modern life which do not actually make us happier, which are sludge. Big shopping complexes, dirt cheap flights, everyone with a car (sitting in stultifying British grid-lock). We could do without some of it without reverting to some unrealistic bucolic state.