caractacus’s Recent Comments

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  The Problem with Stern

  There's a big problem with the Stern Review though, and it's probably something to do with him being well within the neo-liberal economic consensus.

  In Ch. 13 talking about emissions targets, he very quickly rejects 450ppm CO2e as being too difficult and too likely to adversely impact economic growth. He then tries to make a case for 550ppm CO2e by demonstrating the many potential opportunities for getting a good return on investment, e.g. by using the World Bank/IMF to impose climate change insurance and Monsanto's latest GMOs on the parts of the developing world who are likely to be in really serious trouble if we're going to aim for 550ppm.

  Sure, 550ppm CO2e is better than nothing, but lets not lose sight of the fact that he's aiming for this in order that growth can continue, and by accepting his approach we're condemning large numbers of people in the developing world to starve or become refugees. We're also in with a russian roulette players chance on 550ppm, +3C etc of kicking off various kinds of runaway climate change according to some of the material that was presented at last year's Hadley Centre conference.

  http://www.stabilisation2005.com/programme.htmlOn The Stern report on climate change posted 2 years, 10 months ago 6 Responses

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  Beyond IPCC

  In terms of the science, there are more recent resources. The one that immediately springs to mind is last years Hadley Centre conference, the proceedings of which are available online.

  http://www.stabilisation2005.com/programme.htmlOn Some thoughts posted 2 years, 10 months ago 72 Responses

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  Snake oil

  I don't have a problem with emerging technology, in fact I'm extremely keen to see e.g. low cost ways of creating highly efficient solar cells and whatnot.

  The worry I have with speculative technological fixes is that very often they are used to argue that we can keep going with business as usual, with but a few tweaks here and there.

  The superstructure of modern capitalism is highly resistant to the idea of radical change and if as seems to me likely, radical change is required to achieve sustainability, speculative technical fixes are likely to play a prominent role in resistance to  fundamental change, by providing quasi-plausible reasons to argue that significant change is not necessary. On We need to get started posted 2 years, 10 months ago 8 Responses

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  Market principles and the phosphorous cycle

  How are market principles going to prevent phosphorous from leaching away into the ocean?

  I'm genuinely interested to know. On Is required green development smart public policy? posted 2 years, 10 months ago 15 Responses

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  Framing the debate

  What I'm getting at is that studies like that frame the debate as being between two unattrative versions of business as usual. Rather than including the possibility of actually trying to do things right.

  It's very clear that suburbs and half-arsed industrial agriculture are going to make a big mess, but to me the search for alternatives should probably go beyond high density urban plus slightly more efficient industral agriculture.

  There are plenty of models that look much more attractive, and I simply don't think we should allow ourselves to be locked into the business as usual choices in such important matters. On Is required green development smart public policy? posted 2 years, 10 months ago 15 Responses