From George Monbiot’s well-researched and rather articulate new book, “HEAT: How to Stop the Planet Burning”. (you can grab a copy HERE - directly from the publisher, thus reducing the accumulated ‘carbon value’ of the book as it won’t have to travel to other warehouses):

(the bold sections and typos are my own)

“I have sought to demonstarte that the necessary reduction (90% by 2030) in carbon emissions is — if difficult — technically and economically possible. I have not demonstrated that it is politically possible. There is a reason for this. It is not up to me to do so. It is up to you.

Those of us who are already campaigning to reduce the impact of climate change cannot do it by ourselves. Given that this is the greatest danger the world now faces, we are astonishingly few. It appears to be easier to persuade people to protest against . . . speed cameras and high fuel prices, than to confront a threat to our existence. There is an obvious reason for this: in those cases something is being done to us. In this case we are doing it to ourselves. In fighting climate change, we must fight not only the oil companies, the airlines and the governments of the rich world; we must also fight ourselves.

The problem is that no meaningful progress has been made at the international climate talks. The problem is that we have not wanted it to happen. It is true that governments of the United States and Australia have done everything in their power to prevent the talks from succeeding or even from taking place. It is true that the defining feature of these negotiations is that someone else is always to blame. The governments of the rich nations complain that there is no point in cutting their own emissions if emissions are to continue to grow in China and India. The governments of China and India complain that limiting their pollution is a waste of time if the richer countries — whose output per head is still far greater than their — are not prepared to make the necessary reductions. It is also true that the fossil fuel companies use their tremendous wealth to buy everything they need, including a politician’s suit with the politician still inside it.

But if those governments that have expressed a commitment to stopping climate change have found their efforts frustrated, it is partly because they wanted them to be frustrated. They know that inside their electors there is a small but insistent voice asking them both to try and to fail. They know that if they had the misfortune to succeed, our lives would have to change. They know that we can contemplate a transformation of anyone’s existence but our own.  

So they play to the script which we have all ghost-written. They will make frowning speeches about the threat to the planet and the need for action. They will announce that this issue is of such importance that it transcends the usual political differences and requires a cross-party consensus. They will urge everyone to pull together and confront the enormity of the threat. Then they will discover, to their great disappointment, that progress has not been made, that it is in fact very difficult to make, and the decision about what should be done will yet again have to be deferred.

In the U.K., as my researcher Matthew Prescott pointed out to me, government policy is not contained within the reports and reviews it commissions; government policy IS the reports and reviews. By commissioning endless inquiries into the problem and the means by which it might be tackled, the government creates the impression that something is being done, while simultaneously preventing anything from happening until the next review (required to respond to the findings of the last review) has been published. I have an image in my mind of the British prime minister up to his neck in water on the floor of the House of Commons, explaining that ‘in the forthcoming White Paper on energy efficiency . . .’.

Governments will pursue this course of inaction — irrespective of the human impacts — while it remains politically less costly than the alternative. The task of climate-change campaigners is to make it as expensive as possible. This means abandoning the habit of mind into which almost all of us have somehow slumped over the past ten years or so: the belief that someone else will do it for us. . .

. . . This is partly, I think, because of the sustained global economic growth between then (1990’s) and now. We are simply too comfortable, and we have too much to lose. It is partly also because, accompanying this growth (indeed to some extent driving it) has been a surge in indebtedness, especially among the young, who used to be on the front line. Debt induces a bright panic, which ensures that those burdened with it can sledom see byond the next few weeks.

But I also blame that tool of empowerment, the internet. Of course it is marvellously useful, allows us to exchange information, find the facts we need, alert each other to coming dangers and all the rest of it. But it also creates a false impression of action. It allows us to believe that we can change the world without leaving our chairs. We are being heard! Our voices resonate around the world, provoking commentary and debate, inspiring some, enraging others. Something is happening! A movement is building! But by itself, as I know to my cost, writing, reading, debate and dissent change nothing. They are of value only if they inspire action. Action means moving your legs. Indeed, if this book has not encouraged you to want to DO something, then I urge you to return it to the shop and demand your money back, for it has proven useless.
[tags]china, climate change, heat, monbiot[/tags]

Tags: books, environment, Politics

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