Fueled For Thought

Are we set for a climate credit crunch?

On the BBC news website (my preferred source of worldly information) this afternoon I’ve come across three interesting articles about the environment.

Firstly there is an article discussing the need to protect the rainforest.

In these extraordinary times of credit crunch and climate change, the world feels hitched to an uncertain roller coaster ride where we don’t know what to value any more.
…In a curious way, all this chaos may turn out to be a good thing because it will force the world to ask: “Are we creating wealth that’s worth having?”
…So could disappearing forests one day be a safer investment than houses.

One particular quote I feel should be highlighted though is this:

The Amazon releases 20 billion tonnes of water into the atmosphere each day. This air-conditions the atmosphere, waters agri-business and underpins energy security from hydro to biofuels across Latin America on a gigantic scale.

Were it possible to build a machine to do this, every day it would consume the energy equivalent to the world’s largest hydro dam running on full power for 135 years; and the Amazon does all this for free. Now that’s natural capital and we are eroding it fast.

This is very much similar to the tree example William McDonough mentions in his talk at TED about cradle to cradle design

Imagine this design assignment. Design something that makes oxygen; sequesters carbon; fixes nitrogen; distils water; accrues solar energy as fuel; makes complex sugars and food; creates micro climates; changes colours with the seasons and self replicates… Why don’t we knock that down and write on it?

We cannot design as nature so why not design with nature in mind. Why is it forests are worth more dead than alive in today’s global economy? Perhaps we should reassess the worth in wealth.

Its not all doom and gloom though, the second article is slightly more optimistic. A representative of Friends of the Earth talks on ways green groups are helping the environment.

These days it can feel as though the environment is holding us to ransom.

Floods, storms and droughts across the world are attributed to the global rise in temperatures, and as we run short of fossil fuels, price rises are affecting our transport, heating and even food bills.

Small wonder, then, that the environment has moved from a minority passion to a hot topic in today’s world, with politicians and businesses competing to be seen to be green.

So what role can non-governmental organisations (NGOs) like Friends of the Earth play in driving forward today’s environmental debate?

Over the last 30 years, environmental NGOs have played a lead role in speaking up for the environment when few others were doing so.

A key role has been to raise the alarm about damaging activities – including deforestation, GM crops, futile road schemes and spiralling waste – that most threaten our planet’s life support systems and the resources we all depend upon.

[...]

In 2008, the emerging reality of climate change has forced environmental issues to unprecedented prominence in public awareness. Now, environmental NGOs have to share the airwaves with businesses and political parties.

So what roles can NGOs best play now? The need for protest and protection remain, but vital roles for the future are:

Communicating solutions: while the public and politicians are much more aware of environmental problems, there remains an urgent need for clarity on the best practical solutions, and innovation on the policies which will drive these.

[...]

Encouraging public support: understandably, busy politicians with competing demands tend not to adopt far-reaching policy solutions on complex subjects just because they’re a good idea.

Public backing, indeed a groundswell of public pressure, is vital.

[...]

Building international agreement: as a species, we are bringing upon ourselves two tightly linked global catastrophes – climate change and the rapid loss of biodiversity.

Solutions are out there, but it will require international, as well as national, action to apply them fast enough.

Finally there is an article which is less blatantly environmental. It is by an Ex-Somali Army Colonel speaking on how real problems in Somalia are a result of western culture, not pirates.

You know, our problem is not piracy. It is illegal dumping.

These problems have been going for sometime and the world knows about it. The Americans have been here in the region for a long time now – they know about the pollution.

Instead, no, the world is only talking about the pirates and the money involved.

Meanwhile, there has been something else going on and it has been going on for years. There are many dumpings made in our sea, so much rubbish.It is dumped in our seas and it washes up on our coastline and spreads into our area.

A few nights ago, some tanks came out from the high sea and they cracked it seems and now they are leaking into the water and into the air.

The first people fell ill yesterday afternoon. People are reporting mysterious illnesses; they are talking about it as though it were chicken pox – but it is not exactly like that either. Their skin is bad. They are sneezing, coughing and vomiting.

This is the first time it has been like this; that people have such very, very bad sickness.

The people who have these symptoms are the ones who wake early, before it is light, and herd their livestock to the shore to graze. The animals are sick from drinking the water and the people who washed in the water are now suffering.

This is an example of the widely unseen end result of our western consumer culture. The effects is has on many people are devastating but is this OK because we are unaware of it and it does not affect us?

These issues are not something that should be overlooked. They are all related and consequential results to the way most of us in the ‘developed world’ choose to live our lives. Perhaps this is the real problem.