| Navigation home energy, carbon and climate change transport waste and resources food and business landscape and biodiversity campaigning and communication contact |
SUMMARY of the illustrated talk given by Laurence Matthews on Thursday 12th July 2007. WHY LIGHT BULBS ARE IMPORTANT (BUT NOT FOR THE REASON YOU’D THINK)
Climate change isn’t all doom and gloom, but it is serious and urgent, so we do need to get down to business. Otherwise, we’ll be hitting “tipping points”. These are like dominoes – if we knock over the first one, there’ll be no stopping them all falling over. This is why we need to stop by 2 degrees (temperature rise above pre-industrial levels). We can think of CO2 in the atmosphere as being like water in a bath, with water from the cold tap (representing natural emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere) balanced by the plug hole (representing natural CO2 absorption). We’ve turned the hot tap on with our fossil fuel emissions, which means there is too much going in for the plughole to cope with, so the water level is rising. To stop the water level rising before it gets to a dangerous level, it is not enough to stop turning the hot tap further on – we have to begin turning it off. And all the time we are turning the hot tap off, the water is still rising. So we will have to turn the hot tap most of the way off, and fast. To do this, we need political frameworks as well as practicalities. The practical things (low energy light bulbs, solar heating) are good, but this good work will be undermined unless everyone joins in. So we need laws - nobody would pay income tax unless they knew that everyone else had to pay it too. On the international front, we need to break through the complex Kyoto stand-off with a simple, robust agreement on how to apportion fair shares of a shrinking cake. ‘Contraction and Convergence’ is the leading contender. To deliver our share of such an agreement here in the UK, we might be seeing carbon rationing (carbon debit cards) – but a simpler, faster, cheaper and fairer method is ‘Cap and Share’. Our government is bringing in a Climate Change Bill in the Autumn (and has published a draft this Spring). This is good as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough fast enough. Our MPs are frightened we will vote out anyone who tackles the problem seriously. They need to know (by us writing to tell them) that we want action, and that we’ll vote out people who are too timid. So we need to be doing three things. It is important to keep doing the practical things: making choices, and showing people that reducing carbon can be easy (even fun). We need to be spreading the word, countering the objections you hear (down the pub, in shops, at the church). And finally, we need to be telling the politicians – as only they can bring in the frameworks. Useful Books “The Rough Guide to Climate Change” by Robert Hensen A good, but straightforward (and fairly cheap) book on climate science. “Six Degrees” by Mark Lynas The “dominoes” and why we need to stop by 2 degrees. “I Count” by Stop Climate Chaos Campaign Good on practicalities and on the psychology of changing – and only £3! They are campaigning for 3% cuts per year. Unfortunately, we need more like 9%. “Funny weather” by Kate Evans Gives all the important info, in a good cartoon book. Websites Cap and Share: www.capandshare.org Contraction and Convergence: www.gci.org.uk Climate science: www.realclimate.org (includes stuff refuting the infamous Channel 4 programme) Click here to return to top of this page.
|