Thread by @SteB777

1) We need to talk about and define what we mean by "climate solutions" if the term is not to be yet more meaningless greenwash, so the public are not seriously misled by the efficacy of what is being done or suggested.

Long thread.

2) Broadly there seems to be two entirely different and mutually incompatible approaches to addressing the climate and ecological crisis.

I) Adapting the present system to supposedly make it sustainable.

II) Changing the whole system, and creating a sustainable system.

3) It would seem that the former approach is primaily motivated by a wish to maintain the current economic model/system i.e. business as usual, the status quo, or whatever you want to call it, not because this approach has been thought through or is at all feasible.

4) Nearly 30 years ago, after the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, powerful lobbies started arguing that there was no need to change the whole system, and that the current economic model could be adapted to make it sustainable.

5) I was very sceptical about this as I'd long modelled in my mind roughly what a sustainable system would have to look like and there didn't to my mind appear to be any realistic way of adapting the current economic growth model to be sustainable. However, I wasn't an economist.

6) There were lots of superficially convincing arguments by economists, heavy on economic jargon, on how it would be possible to transform the current economic growth model, into a sustainable system. Without re-educating myself as an economist, there was no way to counter this.

7) However, there is now no need for me to re-educate myself as an economist because:

A) We have 30 years of hard empirical evidence to tell us how it worked out.

B) Economists such as @ProfSteveKeen @KateRaworth @JKSteinberger et al have critiqued these economic arguments.

8) I see not one shred of evidence that these magic economic principles, which supposedly would transform our current economic growth model into a sustainable system were at all feasible, and now seem pure greenwash and magical thinking.

9) There have been more anthropogenic greenhouse gases emitted in the last 30 years, than there was in the previous 250 years.
ieep.eu/news/more-than…

10) Biodiversity continues to collapse at an alarming rate.
theguardian.com/environment/20…

11) 30 years after global leaders pledged to address the climate and ecological crisis and talked as if they had solved the problem, there is no coherent plan to address this crisis, just a very dubious and vague claim to reach Net Zero by 2050.
un.org/en/conferences…

12) The vast majority of "climate solutions" being talked up by politicians, the media, billionaires and vested interests, actually seem to be primarily motivated by maintaining business as usual, and not addressing the crisis.

13) Given that we have 30 years empirical evidence to suggest that the current Net Zero by 2050 plan being talked up by governments, the media and vested interests will make no real difference, we really need to closely scrutinise these supposed solutions.

14) We particularly need to scrutinise these plans because the current IPCC report suggests that:

"Only rapid and drastic reductions in greenhouse gases in this decade can prevent such climate breakdown"
theguardian.com/science/2021/a…

15) Indeed this was obvious by the time of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, that we need to take immediate action then. One group of scientists came up with a fully worked out plan to substantially reduce US emissions by 2000 (I've lost the details).

16) However, counter-intuitively, political leaders and economists at the time i.e. 29 years ago, strongly argued there was no need to take immediate action, and this action would be taken in 20-30 years time i.e. now or a decade ago. So we were railroaded into this option.

17) Of course we now know what happened, basically nothing. Emissions kept rapidly rising and are predicted to carry on rising until after 2030, and we have some vague proposals about reaching Net Zero, no zero emissions in another 30 years.
newscientist.com/article/229074…

18) However, the elephant in the room no politicians are really acknowledging is biodiversity decline and the rest of the ecological crisis.

19) The UN is now demanding that we need common solutions to address both the climate and biodiversity crisis because:

"The authors also warn that narrowly-focused actions to combat climate change can directly and indirectly harm nature and vice-versa"
un.org/sustainabledev…

20) See also here:

"We cannot solve the threats of human-induced climate change and loss of biodiversity in isolation. We either solve both or we solve neither."
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

21) I'm particularly alarmed by the way those trying to maintain business as usual, are wheeling out names like Prince Charles, Prince William, and Sir David Attenborough to talk up vague "climate solutions", which are no part of any coherent strategy.
bbc.co.uk/news/science-e…

22) Here's Prince Charles' effort.
re-tv.org

23) The one thing missing from this glossy PR, is any talk of a need for major system change. Just a random smorgasbord of ideas, with no clear indication of how this would lead to the major and rapid reductions in emissions and end to biodiversity loss necessary.

24) It's not hard to understand why. The major driver of the current unsustainable system is the pursuit of more and more wealth by billionaires and the massive wealth inequality, in the world and within countries. It is the wealthy pushing this maintain business as usual.

25) If you have some people and some countries, which are vastly wealthier than all the rest, everyone else is going to be involved in a head long rush to catch up, with the wealthiest trying very hard to become even wealthier.

26) The points I make about wealth and inequality, are not from an ideological perspective. They are from a systems and ecological perspective, in that in this type of system, it is inevitable that it will create a momentum for everyone to try catching up.

27) But the people and countries trying to catch up in terms of wealth and consumption, are trying to catch up with people who are even more obsessed with getting wealthier, and more ability to do it.

28) There is a very strong correlation between someone's wealth, and their carbon and general consumption footprint.
theconversation.com/emissions-ineq…

29) Self-evidently if you are very wealthy, have very high status and are very powerful, you are not going to be keen on a system change to a sustainable system, because there really isn't any room for ostentatious over-consumption in a sustainable system.

30) Unfortunately, because of these people's wealth, status and power, they are the ones most in a position to saturate the media with their "climate solutions", which by no coincidence, don't involve too much or any talk about system change.

31) A truly sustainable system cannot have any continued trend of growing and not rapidly falling GHG emissions. No continuation of biodiversity loss, habitat loss. This is not possible in a headlong rush to catch up with the richest.

32) In a truly sustainable system i.e. one not heading towards ecological collapse, levels of consumption must be much lower. We've already seen, the highest carbon footprint and consumption, is that of the wealthiest. The wealthier, the higher it is.

33) Therefore it is quite self-evident that in a system where countries are trying to catch up with the wealthiest countries, and within these countries, people are trying to catch up with the wealthiest, this trend will be unsustainable.

34) The whole reason we have got massive unsustainable GHG emissions, massive biodiversity and habitat loss is this headlong rush to catch up with the wealthiest, who are even more obsessed with increasing their wealth.

35) It really is grossly irresponsible of the media to let the wealthiest in our societies, have the major platform for suggesting "climate solutions". Given their huge carbon footprints and that they have a vested interest in not being personally effected by climate solutions.

36) A solution to a problem is one that solves the problem. Nearly all these supposed "climate solutions" being suggested, will make little overall difference, and could make the biodiversity and general ecological crisis worse.

37) I really would like to here some sort of cogent argument as to how maintaining the current economic system, with arbitrary parameters that led to the climate and ecological crisis, is the best solution to solve the problem?

38) It seemed pretty obvious nearly 50 years ago, that to create a sustainable society, we needed major system change, to a far kinder and fairer system, that met the needs of all.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_…

39) Once again, this is not an ideological argument. It is merely about creating a system, which won't destroy the Earth's life support systems that we all rely on. We are not going to avert ecological catastrophe with greenwash and propaganda.

40) If you have any sort of cogent argument of how minor changes to our present, and quite arbitrary economic model, will prevent climate and ecological catastrophe, then state them. No clever arguments to avoid the central problems though.

@GeorgeMonbiot @ClimateHuman @GretaThunberg

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