Going Green and Meaning It
“I’m not a plastic bag” reads this week’s must-have, a designer tote sold by the not-especially-designer Sainsbury’s. All 20,000 were gone within hours, sold at a fiver each to shoppers keen to prove that they could consume as fervently as ever and yet be green too. The limits of such an approach was illustrated by reports that some of the bags were handed over in the conventional sunbed-orange carriers. Buying yet another product to demonstrate one’s concern for the environment smacks of self-contradiction. The approach that many companies and consumers take, however, fits the same pattern by participating in various schemes to offset their carbon emissions.
As we report today, the senior scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are set to conclude that the best way to halt global warming lies above all else in existing technology that can directly cut emissions. President Bush’s fantasies of launching giant sunlight-blocking mirrors into space are swiftly despatched as “largely speculative, uncosted and with potential for unknown side effects”. Instead, the IPCC is likely to call this Friday for something more prosaic but far more useful: greater energy efficiency in our cars, buildings, power plants and elsewhere. It pinpoints developing countries as the focus for change, arguing that they can leapfrog over the environmentally harmful technologies previously used in the industrialised world. So while Britain has advanced from oil lamps to tungsten lights and is now considering the adoption of greener light-emitting diodes (LEDs), rural India can go straight from kerosene lamps to LEDs. That is the possibility, although even the prospect of greater global warming may not be enough to turn it into reality.
Certainly the threat has had little impact on the way rich countries go about business. Instead of cleaner technologies, the British are largely relying on market mechanisms that allow them to carry on as before. The boom in carbon offsetting, which should really be called carbon outsourcing. The same volume of greenhouse gases are emitted in the same way as before, but are compensated for by some third party - for instance, by buying more efficient stoves for African villages. It is a painless way of contracting out your problem. No wonder, then, that the practice has been (noisily) adopted by so many, from big businesses to politicians to pop stars. The most lasting legacy of defunct Scouse girl group Atomic Kitten will surely be a clump of trees in the Ribble Valley planted in their name to make up for the CO2 emissions from their touring. It is heartening, therefore, when companies announce a green strategy, as Eurostar did this week, in which offsetting is only a last resort. Not only is carbon offsetting a too-easy solution to a profound problem, its mechanics are too often wanting. There is no harmonised standard of practice for voluntary offsets, which means that some of the credits being traded in this £2bn market are of negligible environmental value.
Big publicity and bad practice: this is surely a recipe for popular cynicism, just as the public is taking a real interest in environmental issues. Following the Stern review, the IPCC reports and an increased emphasis from politicians, there is a greater pressure in this country for businesses and government to take action. But the interest could be fleeting. Pollsters at Ipsos Mori point out that back in July 1989, against the backdrop of a benign economy and green speeches by that former chemist Margaret Thatcher, the environment was cited by survey respondents as the most pressing issue facing Britain. It held pole position for all of a month and, by the early 90s, the economy was the only issue in town. This time round it is crucial to build on public concern and turn it into a consensus for real reform. That cannot be done by schemes that, without proper rules, risk looking like little more than wheezes.
© 2007 The Guardian
I too am leary of carbon trading schemes. Why not instead put a dollar figure on the damage expected from a particular energy source and tax it. Taxes on energy make sense because the pollution is ruining our world. However, income tax on the poor and middle class makes no sense. Why discourage work? Why have property taxes on modest homes? Why discourage home ownership? Paying moderate taxes on luxury homes, estates and higher incomes makes sense to avoid increasing the economic stratification of America that damages democracy with the power of wealth. Energy taxes should be significantly raised to reflect the damage caused by each type of fuel and energy production. Sales taxes should be redirected towards luxury items, polluting devices, and inefficiency. For example, regular incandescent bulbs should be highly taxed, along with inefficient appliances and vehicles. An energy tax rebate of equal value to all adults could ease the tax burden on the poor.
After we establish a carbon reduction program—one which must not threaten economic growth—we will all tire of this latest eco cause de jure and get back to our regular lives. Global warming can then be put in that growing bin of ecological crisis’s that have emerged and been “addressed”–DDT, dirty water, dirty air, recycling, loss of tropical rain forests, loss of fisheries, loss of tropical rain forests, loss of species, etc., etc. (“Addressed” meaning being dealt with in some way other than eliminating the root causes: over population, over consumption, dysfunctional distribution of resources, and use of fossil fuels.)
Connecting the dots: from human behaviors to ecoystem decline
http://StudentsForTheEarth.org
The monkeys are disappearing from Costa Rica at an alarming rate (see Tico Times April 27) through loss of habitat and profusion of chemicals. When they become extinct we can always say we still have a few in zoos. Turtles are disappearing too. Maybe we can trade a few turtles and monkeys here and there between zoos and pretend somebody is doing something.
The monkeys are in the White House, they could forgo trees for pricier real estate.
an interesting fact to consider is that much of the “Green technology”,while offering a potential avenue of solutions to the chemical-carbon-carbon dioxide dilemma we find ourselves face to ugly face with, many of these new devices, like the hybrid cars, use electricity generated by power plants that are now burning far more fossil fuel to compensate for, than if folks didn’t plug their cars into their houses at night. howbout taxpayer funded “free juice” charging stations in parking garages and at shopping malls,airports and neighborhood overnight car parks ? howbout rigging the same kind of alternator/generators driven by belts on a wheel of the cars’ engine, to the wheels and axles of the same cars, generating juice whenever the car be-a-rollin’ ? howbout making it a low down dirty hydro-electric dam shame to choke the life out of the once great rivers that WE belong TO, for the niggardly sake of generating taxpayer subsidized electricity which is then turned around and sold to us folks who just buy it right on back hand over energy bill-shaking fist ? howbout making super-strong, super-durable, super-green building materials out of tree-saving, ozone layer-enriching, topsoil-repleneshing industrial fiber-plant crops like the hemp thomas jefferson and george washington grew for the same good reasons in their day ? howbout it people ? howbout maybe if enough of us who know, that the greatest joy in life, is sweet love in a happy heart, maybe if we ask enough real questions, just maybe, we’ll get enough good answers,,, to act from one… and howbout that … may you swim in the soft light of promise and the treasure of curious friends
I’d like to reiterate Greg R’s point: “Energy taxes should be significantly raised to reflect the damage caused by each type of fuel and energy production.”
All true conservatives and believers in the free market agree with this principle. Unless “externalities” are included in prices, you have what economists call “market failure.”
It has been estimated, in this context, that the externalities associated with the burning of fossil fuels to power our cars amounts to somewhere between $5 and $15 per gallon of gas.
Check out Perverse Subsidies: How Tax Dollars Can Undercut the Environment and the Economy
Norman Myers and Jennifer Kent. Island Press 2001
The market created problems with the environment, with health care, with education, with relations between nations, and otherwise; and being part of the problem insures it sure as hell isn’t part of the solution. That’s what this “good old boy” from the US South who voted for George McGovern has to say about this, ya’ll! A little bit of socialism, democratic, preferably, would be much better! In Britain, your country, you had it once, it’s time you got it back, and that’s the way to take back your country for your people. You need to get somebody to lead Labor (US spelling) into the next general election who will drop the Blairite market theology and do it pronto, and lead Labor and the British people to a grand old victory.
ONE LITTLE ADDITION– I would just add to my last comment that the market and greed have created all those problems I referred to.
I would just add to my last comment that the market and greed have created all those problems I referred to.
Until we live a sustainable lifestyle; we will always have war.
Overpopulation made possible by OIL!
The government/corporate-sponsored misinformation via our public airwaves tells us the solution is to consume. It goes farther by painting a creepy picture of anyone who doesn’t buy into buying. “American’s want to succeed not just survive.” Let the people decide what success is; from a well informed decision!
I think success is having time to spend with your family doing things. Most people have bought so much crap that sits piled up in their garage waiting to go to the dumpster, that they will be working till they drop just to pay the interest.
They hear how dangerous the world outside their door is so their kids watch more TV or play video games instead of going to the local park and learn how to play with the other kids.
In 1990 I took a Small Business Administration course “Building a Business Plan”. I was appalled how cold and calculated business had become. One thing they said made perfect sense, “Don’t get even-Get Ahead”
Don’t play their game, don’t spend money on junk you don’t need or just ends up as landfill. Think of all the value buried there; mines of the future.
When our governments start letting the truth be told about finite resources, which pull carbon out of the ground, only to be absorbed by the ocean and trees, will the masses feel guilty and want to join the group living smart.
Switch subsidies from Oil and Nukes to capturing the Suns energy, and watch these industries try to make us pay dearly for our choice. But supply and demand will be the great equalizer.
I wanted to apologize for the duplication in my last comment.
I’m with the majority of Canadians waking up to realise WAR is by far the hugest nastiest carbon footprint on the planet. We can’t fight global warming and the US war-du-jour at the same time, can we?
I understand St Al of Gore supported both Desert Storm and Shock and Awe. That makes him part of the problem, not the solution.
The last time he got on his white horse was to save us from satanic lyrics in rock-records played backwards, remember?
What will he save us from next?
A lot of greenhouse-gas is passed lot about Canada’s unique capacity for leadership. Let’s show some by getting our pseudo-warrior asses out of Afghanistan and dedicating the next century to NO MORE WAR.
I haven’t analysed our Kyoto Bill yet and probably won’t, because I don’t think the debate has even started, other than TV telling us it’s now decent to drive an SUV….as long as you fuel it with ethanol.
And re-usable shopping bags. Talk about re-arranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic…..
The only effective way to be truly Green is to organize a permacultural commune and form a continental network of such eco-tech villages that are free to trade with each other independent of the mainstream economy.