We need to have a serious discussion about the climate and ecological emergency. I don't usually watch the TV but I've been watching it for nearly 2 weeks whilst house sitting. It's now crystal clear that there is mass misunderstanding about this crisis.
It's far more serious than just @GretaThunberg's point about that the crisis is not seen as a crisis. The much deeper problem is people (the public), educated TV commentators, politicians etc, mistakenly think they know what the problem is, when they totally misunderstand it.
Misunderstanding is a far bigger problem than no understanding. With misunderstanding, people mistakenly think they understand the problem and will not listen to any other explanation of the problem, because they mistakenly think they already understand it.
There's this bizarre mistaken perception that it's just about electric cars, wind energy, heat pumps, insulating housing, and then we can carry on as normal. It is really difficult to know where to start with this profound misunderstanding.
Even if governments threw all the money necessary at these solutions, it would not even fully address us heading in the wrong direction. Only massive system change can do this.
Principally, the problem is that it is an ecological crisis, a sustainability crisis, and the climate crisis, although a critical part of it, is only a small part of the problem. The biodiversity part of the ecological crisis alone is at least as serious.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Yet, none of these technological solutions to the climate crisis will in anyway address the biodiversity crisis, let alone the rest of the ecological/sustainability crisis. In fact, they are likely to make it far worse.
Take seeing electric vehicles as a solution. A simple switch to private electric vehicles from petrol and diesel cars, will cause a surge in demand for minerals, that will devastate natural habitat, leading to bigger biodiversity loss.
therevelator.org/ev-batteries-s…
You see, private cars have only reached saturation in the richer developed world. The vast majority of the world does not yet have private car ownership at this level. But just a simple switch to private electric cars will see the rest of the world heading towards this level.
Remember, I am just highlighting one small part of lifestyle. There are similar potentials for massive increases in air travel, general consumption and waste. The Earth is already groaning in just a minority living like this.
Ecological/sustainability, means looking at the whole system, future trends. Trying to not only maintain, but to increase this high consumption lifestyle in rich countries, will see every country in the world trying to catch up.
Even worse, in these rich developed countries, only a relative small part of the population, lives these really high consumption lifestyles, with the less well off trying to catch up with it.
If you just play this through, and ahead, with the present economic model, we are just going to see increasing consumption, and increasing impacts on biodiversity and natural habitat, in theory forever.
Of course we will never get there. You would need many Earths to support the whole world living the lifestyles of Americans now. Plus remember, Americas politicians wants Americans to get forever more prosperous.
We have got a gigantic problem with consumption and energy use at present levels, without a massive increase in this in the future. Let's imagine this energy could be provided by nuclear fusion.
Even if magically, this energy production involved no GHG emissions or pollution itself, the increased use of other resources would.
Yet all I see, are all western politicians talking about increases in prosperity, and what is euphemistically called green growth (none of this type of growth can be green).
Actually, the real crisis is not the effects of this over-consumption and over-exploitation of the natural world. These are just the symptoms. The real problem are the false beliefs, the delusions that it can continue.
As I am sick of saying. It is not about what I want or think should happen. There are real limits to growth. Continue with this delusion of infinite growth in a finite world, and we will just eventually see the total collapse of our civilization.
We need equity, not unconstrained growth. We need to understand the planetary boundaries, and we need to learn this fast.
stockholmresilience.org/research/plane…
@threadreaderapp Please unroll?

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Stephen Barlow

Stephen Barlow Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @SteB777

19 Oct
Humanity has been steered on a course for global suicide through one simple factor, CORRUPTION!

Both the structure of the climate and ecological emergency, and the necessary action to avert catastrophe are ignored, simply because of corrupt self-interest.
theguardian.com/environment/20…
The Science Museum, selling out by accepting fossil fuel industry money, to allow the FF industry to greenwash itself, is only part of the wider web of corruption, which has facilitated the climate and ecological emergency.
Politics in so called democracies are funded by the very rich and corporate interests. Governments have willing involved themselves in the scam of consumerism, and they now have to pander to a big section of the public who they've manipulated into wanting more and more.
Read 9 tweets
14 Oct
Thread.

I'm house sitting and I don't normally watch TV. But I just momentarily switched on BBC 2 Politics live where 4 talking heads were discussing Prince William's comments that billionaires should focus on our planet, not space flight.
I've no idea who this panel of talking heads were, but the inanity, ignorance and absolutely stupidity about the climate and ecological crisis, sustainability etc, defied belief. What the hell is the BBC doing putting out such ignorance and giving it a platform?
One talking head justified this "space innovation" on the grounds it might facilitate secondary technology, which could allow us to "defeat climate change".
Read 26 tweets
13 Oct
1) This thread is about how to see the climate and ecological crisis it is, and why it is not been seen as a crisis.

It's about how to see the big picture clearly, and the obstacles to seeing the big picture and how things actually are. Where we're heading, what needs to change.
2) The most important important part of effective problem solving is properly understanding the problem, which needs to happen with a process of constant re-evaluation. The big problem of our modern culture is just jumping in feet first with our impulsive first impression.
3) Self-evidently the problem with the thinking style our culture has developed is compartmentalization, where we just look at the situation from one perspective, get lost in the detail, and lose sight of the big picture.
Read 33 tweets
10 Oct
According to our government the UK is on course for a net biodiversity gain. The truth is very different.

"The UK is one of the world's most nature-depleted countries - in the bottom 10% globally and last among the G7 group of nations, new data shows."
bbc.co.uk/news/science-e…
This highlights the problem, not only with Boris Johnson's UK government, but governments generally, with regard to climate and ecological crisis.

They think they can address the crisis, with bluster and lies, just #blahblahblah.

What we see are just token gestures.
Governments, especially the UK government, just talk up their policy, they don't actually deliver any credible action, which could result in the big ongoing reductions in greenhouse gas emissions necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate breakdown.
theguardian.com/science/2021/a…
Read 21 tweets
7 Oct
I respect @hausfath's work on carbon calculations. However, I think it is fair to challenge is perception of the solutions. I do this as positive criticism in the hope he will re-assess his perception of the solutions to the problem.
The essential trouble with his suggested solution is summed up with "cost-effective mature tech", as if this is the whole solution to the problem, and yet Zeke wonders why people aren't agreeing with him on this.
When dealing with a problem as serious as the climate and ecological crisis, the sustainability crisis, you need solutions which will avert an avoidable catastrophe, not just "cost-effective" solutions. This is not a crisis where a partial solution is appropriate.
Read 14 tweets
6 Oct
This is why the Net Zero by 2050 policy being promoted by governments is fake.

"The fossil fuel industry benefits from subsidies of $11m every minute, according to analysis by the International Monetary Fund."
theguardian.com/environment/20…
Whilst governments falsely claim to be "battling" the climate crisis with their #BlahBlahBlah, they are in fact massively supporting the fossil fuel industry and fossil fuel use with public money i.e. doing the exact opposite of what they claim to be doing.
This is very serious deceit. The vast majority know little about the climate crisis. They trust their governments to address it, and trust their media to inform them about it, and to inform them if their government is not doing what they claim.
Read 25 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(