George Monbiot’s “Heat” Excerpt #12
Well, Miranda July hasn’t called yet (but she will), so I still have some time to spare writing this blog instead of miraculous screenplays. Fortunate for you, dear and loyal reader! The recent Mayor Bloomberg announcement got me thinking again about George Monbiot’s seminal book on global heating, “HEAT” (Click the HEAT link and you’ll be taken to the site you SHOULD be using instead of Amazon–Alonovo. Check it out and you’ll see why.). I’ll admit that part of me was happy to hear Bloomberg’s plan as it at least represents some progress. Yet, it simply isn’t enough. We must not be satisfied with token gains as we are very, very much running out of time to make the necessary changes.
Monbiot makes a number of interesting points in his book. I’m going to throw a few of them down for y’all. Starting with this excerpt from Page 41 which gets to the heart of why people like Bloomberg are making such tepid efforts:
In September 2005, I attended a conference in London at which Sir David was speaking. He told it that a ‘reasonable’ target for stabilizing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 550 parts per million. This happens to be the target set by the British government. It would be ‘politically unrealistic’, he said, to demand anything lower. Simon Retallack from the Institute for Public Policy Research stood up and reminded Sir David that as chief scientist his duty is not to represent political reality, but to represent scientific reality. Retallack’s own work shows that at 550 parts per million the chances of preventing more than 2 degrees of global warming are just 10-20 percent. Sir David replied that if he recommended a lower limit, he would lose credibility with the government.
I think many people feel like him: that if they adopted the position determined by science rather than the position determined by politics, no one would take them seriously.
Monbiot nails it on the head here. Even many touted eco-organizations, like the Sierra Club, endorse weak proposals, for fear of losing credibility. Myopic as these people are, they don’t realize that the HAVE lost credibility - but it’s their future credibility, when we need it most, that they’ve lost.
Song o’ the Day = Big Audio Dynamite doing “Situation No Win”. Been a while since you’ve rocked the B.A.D., no? This track has the eco-perfect lyrics, “rush for the change of atmosphere” in there somewhere if I recall correctly. [audio:snowin.mp3]
What? You’re denying that you were a B.A.D. fan? Pffft. You never got into “No. 10 Upping St.”? Seriously? Oh, I get it. You consider yourself a ‘real’ Clash fan and therefore look down your mile-long nose at this effort. Fair enough. I do the same thing with post-Joy Division disco-queens, New Order. Understood. We can agree to disagree.
[tags]george-monbiot, miranda-july, big-audio-dynamite, sierra-club, sir-david, alonovo[/tags]
Tags: books, environment
I’m glad ol’ Bloomy unveiled a plan, albeit kinda weak. I can already see the asses of our city rejecting the congestion pricing. I sat in a taxi for 2 hours with all those same asses. It’ll get better but not soon enough.
Danny Eagle! WELCOME, fine sir. I agree he’s going to have a hard time - the concessions and compromises are going to water this weak proposal down to a mild tea. . .that’s what bothers me. Bloomy should have propose MORE to get less, you know? Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love NYC - that’s exactly why I want to see some great, US-leading strides come outta your burb.
Yep, trouble is Bloomy is a Republican. Why can’t he be the Arnold type of Republican? Most are on board here for major changes but there are soooo many idiots that have literally paved their tiny yards to be able to park their SUVs off the street. Transportation Alternatives though is doing the good work (transalt.org). Weeahh!