‘Sexy’ Coal’s Pin-ups of 2012

This is about the lie in reducing carbon emissions. The lie in Gillard’s carbon reduction plan and the lying policies by Governments and environment groups world-wide.

(http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/great-moments-in-green-advertising-ges-sexy-
coal-miners-commercial.html )

Condoleeza Rice once talked about ‘cutting the Gordian Knot’ between economy and global warming. But in the tussle between economy and the environment, the economy wins.
This is the lie: That every policy action proposed or enacted to reduce carbon emissions actually reduces carbon emissions.

The truth is that every policy proposed or enacted is a feel-good, motherhood, action.
The truth is that every policy proposed or enacted is, in the end, really about increasing the wealth of the wealthy. Every, say, 5% reduction in carbon emissions allows mining companies to expand, mine more coal and make more profit.

Like many complex problems the bottom line is simple… it is about the bottom line: profit.
It is an easy equation: Swings and round-a-bouts. Reducing end-user emissions allows for greater industrial production of CO2, which allows the economy to keep on growing. It is even simpler than that – the global economy must continue to grow to provide employment, education, houses, infrastructure, health, personal services and consumer goods for a rapidly growing world population. So even in the face of climate change the global economy must grow and the global consumer society that relies on fossil fuels will keep going on with ‘business as usual’.

Below are the new faces of ‘King Coal’ sourced from an excellent paper, Mine Coal, Sell Coal, Repeat until Rich, by Guy Pearse, a research fellow at the University of Queensland’s Global Change Institute, and presented at the Woodford Folk Festival, December 2011.

Remember this – the global economy must continue and expand, Capitalism and a growing population of the ‘aspiring’ middle-classes hoping for the ‘good life’ demand this: so any policies reducing end-user emissions allows for the expansion in production and emission of greenhouse gases. Even if it didn’t, the expansion in production and emissions of greenhouse gases would still occur, because the economy and the population demand it. Our society, from global to local, is now, irrevocably, growth-oriented Capitalism (even in China, Cuba, and Venezuela etc.), this growth relies on fossil fuels and the use of fossil fuels will continue and grow until they (or a lesser known limiting resource) are exhausted.

Once, in ‘off-table’ conversations with environmentalists and climate scientists, there was a hope that peak oil, peak coal, peak uranium and peak lithium would halt this growth before the really devastating nastiness of global warming would destroy ecosystems and human society. All the current real-world observations, studies, and modelling that the best available science can generate says that global warming is happening faster, sooner, and worse than anyone expected.

The world is on-track for a four degrees Celsius global temperature rise by 2070; a long time away in human years, but devastation for our children. I won’t even mention the feedback magnifications to global warming that four degrees will cause, but eight degrees by the end of the century is on the cards.

There is no foreseeable way of preventing this. Add in peak oil, rare metals depletion, wide-spread and accelerating extinctions, ocean acidification (happening now, completely unstoppable, and irreversible for 300,000+ years) and your children and grandchildren will live in a poor, damaged world that is a shadow of what we experience now – and what we experience now is but a shadow of the diversity, richness, and splendour of the world just a century ago.

I will end with the comments made by the world-famous palaeontologist, Geerat Vermeij, in an interview with Susan Freinkel:

‘Vermeij fears that we could be approaching “a tipping point that we have not seen for a very, very long time in geologic history”. The question now is how we humans will adapt to coming environmental change. Our choices will be vastly broader than a threatened snail’s, but, according to Vermeij, the guiding principle remains the same: redefining what it means to thrive. Whatever the prospects for Homo sapiens over geologic time, our well-being in historical time demands that we change our ways. We cannot continue to expand our economies, swell our population, and exploit the world’s resources at present-day rates. “Our only hope is a change in values,” he says. “Instead of wanting more material possessions, we need to find other ways of achieving happiness and satisfaction in life.” Those seem like odd words from a resolute non-activist.

But Vermeij insists that his views are based on scientific evidence, not political beliefs. The fossil record shows, over and over again, that “to cope with radically new situations, you have to change your criteria of what it means to be successful,” he says. “That’s where we are. We need to do that.” He pauses and adds, “It will more easily said than done.”’

(onearth, Volume 34, Issue 2, 2012, pp 37 – 41. NRDC: New York)

Scientists get it, some environmentalists are getting it, but very few ‘average’ and ‘aspiring’ people are getting it, and even fewer politicians get it. Corporations get the opportunity for product branding and profit, while their sycophants in PR and right-wing lobbyists get the money.

The people in power are the corporations, their sycophants and the poodle politicians who are at their beck-and-call.

Note: For the pin-ups, Dr Pearse created the ‘Gillard’; the Government estimates that the ‘Clean Energy Future’ and associated emission reduction programmes will reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 159 million tonnes at the end of 2020. The contribution of the new coal mines is then measured against the Gillard. A Gillard measure of 2.0 means that the new mine will emit twice the reductions gained through the Government’s emission plans. A Gillard of 1.0 means that the mine emits exactly what Australia’s planned reduction is, and so on.

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