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Hello world. Welcome to Glasgow. Welcome to Scotland. We are drawing on Glasgow’s radical past to inject hope and urgency into the moribund COP process.

YOUR VISION OF our country may be an idealised one of lochs brimming with salmon and glens filled with deer, but in reality we’re a petro-chemical economy being held ransom by the British State. Our most famous icons and exports – our salmon and deer and grouse – are really symbols of a country disfigured by landed power. We remain a semi-feudal nation with one of the most unequal distributions of land ownership in the world.

In Gaelic, Glasgow means ‘Dear Green Place’, but Glasgow was also known from the 19th century as the Second City of the Empire, a city that became synonymous with massive expansion, global trade, industry, invention, and shipbuilding.

For almost 200 years, the statue of the celebrated Scottish inventor and engineer James Watt has stood in George Square. Every schoolchild is taught about the invention of the steam engine in 1776, which was fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution across the world. What’s less well known is that Watt’s father was a slave trader, a colonial merchant who subsidised his son. The development of the steam engine was funded by slavery. Watt himself was involved in colonial commerce and played a direct role in the trafficking of enslaved people.

With Glasgow playing host to the COP in 2021, we have historical symmetry. It’s more of a loop than a continuum; as the world faces climate catastrophe, the same city that was pivotal in the Industrial Revolution, colonisation, and Empire is the city that must now be the pivot towards decolonisation and degrowth.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate adaptation: resilience, self-sufficiency and systems change

November 5, 2021

Climate adaptation: resilience, self-sufficiency and systems change

This weekend marks the beginning of COP26. After being delayed for nearly a year because of COVID, diplomats, scientists, corporate lobbyists, NGOs, students, demonstrators, corporations, heads of state, and many, many other invited and uninvited guests are already making their way to Glasgow Scotland for what has been projected to be the most consequential U.N. climate change conference since the Paris Agreement was struck in 2015.

Earlier this week, the Arkbound Foundation published a new anthology, “Climate Adaptation: Accounts of Resilience, Self-Sufficiency and Systems Change.” The following is a (significantly reduced) transcript of a discussion I hosted with three of the co-authors, Morgan Phillips, Carol Manetta, and Ashish Kothari. You can listen to the entire conversation on The Response podcast.

Morgan Phillips, UK co-director of the Glacier Trust, head of insight at Global Action Plan, and author of “Great Adaptations: In the Shadow of a Climate Crisis” (UK)
Carol Manetta, Executive Director of Reap Goodness (USA)
Ashish Kothari, Founding member of Kalpavriksh, co-coordinator of Vikalp Sangam and Global Tapestry of Alternatives, and a co-editor/author of several books including “Churning the Earth” and Pluriverse: A Post- Development Dictionary (India)

Tom Llewellyn: “Climate Adaptation” takes the perspective that socioeconomic collapse is probable. Rather than giving up hope, it seeks to outline ways people and communities can adapt to it. Morgan, can you talk about the challenges that are leading us towards socio-economic collapse and explain what adaptation is and what it currently looks like.

Morgan Phillips: That’s a big question. I’d start off by saying that socioeconomic collapse is obviously a possibility — unless dramatic action is taken. What’s quite certain is that things are going to change, and it’s really kind of up to us whether we change them or whether we’re changed by them.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXXI

November 2, 2021

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXXI

So, dozens of political leaders, their hundreds of staff, multitudes of corporate leaders, and who knows how many ‘celebrities’ have all gathered in Glasgow, Scotland for an elite confab (#26) to discuss the ‘Climate Crisis’. Heaven knows how many resources have been extracted and pollutants dispersed in this latest political theatre (mostly? all? at taxpayer expense). The irony is not lost on many, except perhaps much of the mainstream media that tends to simply regurgitate political media releases and share simplistic narratives for exceedingly complex issues — it is indeed difficult to get someone to understand something if their income depends on them not understanding it.

Needless to say I expect little of substance to result from this event. In fact, I am increasingly seeing this event as an expo for marketing of ‘green/clean’ energy products (and making sure most? all? countries pursue purchasing them) that do not address our fundamental predicament — ecological overshoot — of which greenhouse gases is but one negative consequence (and not even the worst). And, of course, all of this provides the justification to create trillions of more dollars out of thin air (the debt held by a variety of the ruling class) that will be funnelled towards specific industries (owned by others of the ruling class) while doing little to reduce actual consumption or ecologically-destructive extraction industries.

This is increasingly looking not like a problem that can be solved but a predicament that may at best be mitigated on the margins. One of the most significant dilemmas, however, appears to be the ‘solutions’ that are being bandied about also appear to be the ones that will simply make the situation worse: increasing technology and complexities in the form of ‘renewables’.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Biden says he worries that cutting oil production too fast will hurt working people

November 1, 2021

Biden says he worries that cutting oil production too fast will hurt working people

President Biden spent three days in Rome talking to world leaders before and during the G-20. He held a formal press conference before heading to the UN climate summit in Glasgow.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

President Biden said on Sunday that the world can’t immediately stop using oil and said OPEC and Russia need to pump more of it, even as he pushes the world to pledge to cut climate-changing carbon emissions at the Glasgow climate summit this week.

After three days of meeting with world leaders in Rome, where he attended the G-20 summit, Biden said he is worried that surging energy costs are hurting working class families.

“On the surface it seems like an irony,” Biden said of simultaneously calling on major oil producers to pump more as he heads to the COP26 climate change summit. “But the truth of the matter is … everyone knows that idea that we’re going to be able to move to renewable energy overnight … it’s just not rational,” he said.

Biden said the idea that Russia, Saudi Arabia and other producers are holding back to boost prices “is not right.” With gas prices averaging $3.40 a gallon in the US, according to AAA, Biden said families are feeling it.

“It has profound impact on working class families just to get back and forth to work,” Biden said. He talked about the issue with other major oil-consuming countries at the G-20, but told reporters he was reluctant to reveal any of their plans to spur producers to pump more.

Here to stay or gone in 30 years? Inside the fight over the future of the oil industry

November 1, 2021

Here to stay or gone in 30 years? Inside the fight over the future of the oil industry

The people who made their fortunes in the oil capital of Europe need a new plan.

For decades, Aberdeen, a port city on Scotland’s northeast coast, has served as the commercial gateway to the North Sea, where powerful companies have navigated deep and dangerous waters to extract tens of billions of barrels of crude.

But the basin isn’t what it used to be, even with oil back above $80 per barrel. Production has been on the decline since the turn of the century. Downturns caused by twin price shocks — one in 2015 and one triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic — are harrowing reminders of what happens when a boom turns bust.

Then there’s the COP26 climate summit in the Scottish city of Glasgow, which kicks off Sunday. The United Nations and partner scientists have delivered a clear message: The world needs to “immediately and steeply” cut back on fossil fuel production to maintain a livable planet.

Attention is focused on huge energy producers like Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States and top consumers like China and India. But the United Kingdom’s North Sea is in focus, too — in part due to its proximity to Glasgow, but also because of huge efforts to dramatically overhaul the region’s business model.

Dock cranes pictured at the port in Aberdeen, Scotland.

There’s a growing movement in Aberdeen for the region to lead the transition from Big Oil to Big Energy, using its deep-sea expertise to construct floating wind farms alongside offshore rigs.

“I think 2015 was the wake-up call that Aberdeen actually needed to say, ‘This ain’t going to be around forever,'” said Russell Borthwick, the local chamber of commerce’s chief executive…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The climate war won’t work

October 30, 2021

The climate war won’t work

There are, in fact, no human comparisons for the effort required to reverse the global-scale damage wrought by 300 years of industrial growth. Nevertheless, people still reach for past human endeavours to try to spur our political leaders to an action which, in truth, is far beyond them. How many times have we heard that tackling climate change requires an effort similar in scale to the Apollo moon landings or the Manhattan Project? And then there is the stubbornly undead comparison to the Second World War. Every time we think we have successfully driven a stake through the heart of this insane proposition, someone who has failed to understand what the war was really about, resurrects it and drafts it into service in the fight against climate change.

Today it is everyone’s favourite media environmentalist George Monbiot’s turn to suggest that:

“The astonishing story of how the US entered the second world war should be on everyone’s minds as Cop26 approaches.”

Monbiot gives a reasonable summary of the various measures taken by the Roosevelt Administration to mobilise the US economy for war in the wake of Pearl Harbour. Then he asks:

“So what stops the world from responding with the same decisive force to the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced? It’s not a lack of money or capacity or technology. If anything, digitisation would make such a transformation quicker and easier. It’s a problem that Roosevelt faced until Pearl Harbor: a lack of political will. Now, just as then, public hostility and indifference, encouraged by legacy industries (today, above all, fossil fuel, transport, infrastructure, meat and media), outweighs the demand for intervention…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Media briefing: Farming can be a climate change solution, so why is it missing in action at COP26?

October 30, 2021

Media briefing: Farming can be a climate change solution, so why is it missing in action at COP26?

Our planet is at a tipping point. Climate change threatens all our futures if we do not act now. All sectors must look at their impact, and agriculture is no exception. Agriculture is currently responsible for up to one quarter of all emissions globally. Current industrial farming practices are major contributors to escalating climate change and nature loss – this must urgently be addressed.

But farming is also unique. Not only could it reduce emissions through more sustainable practices, it also has the potential to remove carbon from the atmosphere and become perhaps the biggest nature-based solution to climate change. In addition, sustainable farming can restore nature and deliver healthy food from resilient food systems. These issues – climate, nature and health – are interlinked and should not be treated in silos.

So why is food and farming not on the agenda of COP26? As talks begin in Glasgow, there is a risk that governments could be missing a major opportunity.

“Agriculture could play a central role as part of the solution to climate change, not only by reducing emissions but by sequestering carbon in the soil. Yet, at present, the scale and importance of this potential seems to have gone largely unrecognised by global leaders. In order to harness the potential of agriculture to address climate change, we need a global farm metric that measures our impacts, we need trade agreements that are conditional on sustainability and we need to acknowledge the role of soil and grassland as a major carbon sink.” Patrick Holden, Chief Executive of the Sustainable Food Trust.

We believe the following three issues are key to harnessing the power of agriculture as a solution to climate change:

1. Global Farm Metric

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

COP-26: Stopping Climate Change and Other Illusions

October 30, 2021

COP-26: Stopping Climate Change and Other Illusions

Measured atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa Observatory. Note: red = the monthly mean values; black = the same, after correction for the average seasonal cycle.

Do not expect significant progress from COP-26 on climate change mitigation. There are fundamental barriers that prevent the deep and rapid changes that scientists advocate. Most countries adhere to economic growth policies – which create ecological overshoot. Unless and until we accept that we must live within ecological limits, then climate change will not be adequately tackled. Energy and resource consumption must be addressed through controlled economic contraction.

The world in 2021 was buffeted by an unprecedented barrage of extreme weather events. This is the leading edge of the climate catastrophe that lies ahead should world governments remain fixed on our present global ‘development’ trajectory.

The good news is that the recent uptick in violent weather has increased pressure on participants in COP-26 finally to implement the kind of determined measures that will dramatically lower GHG emissions and put global heating on hold; the bad news is that whatever is agreed to at COP-26 is unlikely to make any positive difference.

There have been 25 COP meetings on climate change since 1995 and several international agreements to reduce carbon emissions, including the ‘legally binding’ 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement of 2015. Nevertheless, atmospheric GHG concentrations have increased unabated during this entire 25 year period — CO₂, the principal anthropogenic GHG, has ballooned exponentially from ~360ppm in 1995 to almost 420 ppm in 2020 — and mean global temperature has risen by ~1 ^oC. History suggests that what should emerge from COP26 cannot emerge from COP26.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

COP-26 is a global energy embarrassment

October 30, 2021

COP-26 is a global energy embarrassment

For 26 futile years, the net-zero maniacs have wasted fuel, energy, and taxpayers’ money to bite the hands that provide their food, energy, welfare, and public-sector jobs.

Led by E.U. and AUKUS dreamers, they destroy reliable energy from coal, oil, nuclear, gas, and hydro while forcing us to subsidize net-negative dreams like solar, wind, wave-power, CCUS, hot rocks, pumped hydro, and hydrogen. All such speculative ventures should be funded by speculators, not taxpayers.

COP-Out-26 illustrates to the realists of China, Russia, India, and Brazil that the West has lost its marbles and is in terminal decline. For Scott Morrison to surrender Australia to these green wolves betrays an army of miners, farmers, truckies, and workers in primary, secondary, and tertiary industries that support him and his Canberra pack.

The fakery of COP-Out-26 is well illustrated by the provision of diesel generators to recharge the batteries of 26 electric cars provided for show in Glasgow. But that’s OK “because the diesels are run on recycled chip fat.” Horses and covered wagons would be more reliable and appropriate, and dried horse manure could cook their fake meat on their green, chip-fired barbeques.

Neither E.U. nor AUKUS green dreamers can run their world on energy plans drafted by neurotic schoolgirls, clueless princes, deluded accountants like Ross Garnaut, and serial climate alarmists like David Attenborough.

China loves Net-Zero, using its growing coal power to manufacture the wind turbines, solar panels, electric engines, and rare earth batteries for the woke world.But the subsidy tap feeding green energy development in the Western world will run dry. Fake energy will fade away, leaving a continent of jobless people with silent mills, refineries, and factories…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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