Global Warming reality checkpoint

Thanks to Martin Hodson, environmental scientist, for a tip off about the best book I’ve seen in the run-up to Copenhagen. There are all kinds of strong views being expressed about global warming and our options about it. As something of a natural contrarian, I’m not comfortable with treating dissidents like medieval heretics. Truth should be big enought to stand up for itself. There’s a Benedictine principle that the least voice is always worth listening to, even if you disagree.

On the other hand, despite manful efforts by some elements in the right wing press to pretend there is no relationship between trashing the planet and the planet getting trashed, the science is basically in, and was years ago, and everybody actually knows we can’t just carry on the way we’ve been. Even if it were somehow proved that chucking stuff into the atmosphere isn’t dangerous, I’d still want to know what’s the joy in filthing the place up and wasting scarce resources? Why not think different and live cleaner lives?

So we all want to know how things stack up, but lack the information to work out how to evaluate the various claims and counter-claims in the air. David MacKay is Cambridge physicist, a competent mathematician, and a Fellow of the Royal Society. His English is also fluent and fun. His book is called Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air.
In this book he does two invaluable things

1. He takes us through the way things stack up, both energy use and energy sources. Thus we can work out, for example, how big a role various renewables could or could not play in a sensible energy policy.
   
2. He’s concerned n ot only to give us rough and realistic figures, on a pragmatic, down and dirty rather than ideological basis. He also wants to help us develop for ourselves a greater numeracy about the various options and realities; what they mean and how good they might be for what.

Interestingly the book is available from conventional channels, but also free on his website here. If you disagree with his figures, he’s happy to consider others and correct his conclusions if necessary. All in all, this is the level and kind of information we need to understand our future options and make decisions which are realistic and effective about a subject which has hitherto generated far more heat than light.

PS On the subject of light and heat, I am grateful to Ashley Nlson for a link to his site (here) which is a most compendious source of information on the LED lights that are now appearing iin all manner of applications everywhere.

Shrinking the Footprint

The Church environmental campaign (Website and resources here) held a launch day at Lambeth Palace, led by the Bishop of London and Joan Ruddock, UK Minister for Climate Change and Energy. People were there from every part of the country, with interesting local presentations from Exeter, Newcastle and London dioceses. This took me back to our various awareness raising sessions in the diocese in 2007, and reminded me how far we have to go.

It’s now over 30 years since the Lambeth Conference called for “Urgent and Instant Action” on this one. That call was followed by 20 years of doing almost nothing! These were the days of Mrs Thatcher, with her famous ignorance and antipathy about alternative energy. The outlook now is entirely different, as exactly the events the scientists indicated would happen are unfolding around us.

There has been real progress in the past 10 years, and scientific arguments which seemed so notional in 1978 is obvious and almost universally accepted now. This is a whole world issue — the UK only contributes 2% to the whole, but someone's got to give a lead. Copenhagen is absolutely crucial. To get it right world leaders need to pitch something real, but also doable. After years of childish denial and idiocy from US Governments, Obama is on the case, gathering the 16 nations who account for 80% of global emissions. This has to be encouraging.

People stick heads in the sand because they fear the consequences of confronting our fantasies about infinite growth and consumption, which has been the only show in town. Theologically, Christians have a rich tradition. It’s not just our measured pattern of feasting and fasting. There are big Scriptural concepts there — Shabat, Noachite Covenant, Shalom, Jubilee, Proportionality in reaping, Usury as a sin, Stewardship, and the vision of a whole earth groaining in futility for redemption. These are core messages of our theology, even if we’ve rather lost sight of some of them in the last century. It’s obviously time to focus on them again.

So what do we do? As well as joining anyone willing to come along on a public awareness changing exercise, the Carbon Trust, with whom the Church has been working closely, has developed a 5 Stage response model:

1. Mobilisation
   
2. Case for action
   
3. Opportunity assessment
   
4. Implementation Plan
   
5. Manage Implementation

We need to run several cycles of such processes at every level in our operations, building numbers of Eco-congregations, backing change in our schools (which account for a huge proportion of our emissions), managing buildings in new ways, changing our ways of life.. People need a bit of leadership and it’s all hands to the pump. Actually, there’s an immense amount of awareness and common sense in the UK about this, and the Climate Change Act was carried through with careful cross party preparation on the basis of common understanding.

We just have to get our rear ends into gear. The Enemy is Whinging Pom Cynicism, both corporate (“Anything that doesn’t solve the whole problem instantly is only a futile gesture so we’ll all have a good laugh at it”) and personal (“What I do doesn’t make a difference, so I think I’ll just carry on doing nothing”).

Pragmatically, the choices seem to be

• Mitigate,
• Adapt,
• Suffer.

The fact is we will have to do some of all three. How much of each is, to a certain extent up to us. Inaction like that which followed the 1978 Lambeth Conference call for urgent action will not get anyone anywhere, and there is time to make up.

Casting (200) Clouts

As global warming advances, the beginning of summer is now officially the day in April that the media start pointing out that the maybush is now blossoming in April. According to the rustic principle “Ne’er cast a clout till May is out” you could welcome the summer like this:

Say it with Newts

Visit today with a group of colleagues to Project Timescape, an ecology and education project in South Oxfordshire. Near one of the most beautiful hilltops in the world, there’s a large open archaeology/ ecology exploration area. It’s a site of special scientific interest, and the views are amazing, including Didcot Power Station and the Thames flood plain.

There’s so much we take for granted under our feet. A learning lab takes you back in time, demonstrating the impact we have had on the land over many centuries. This is frontline “makes you think” stuff for all ages.

Exhibits included a neolithic child skeleton and a Mammoth tooth. One machine helps you see in detail the impact your lifestyle decisions have on the landscape. They make didgeridoos, and there’s a special fiver-off offer on them just now. Oh, and if you really want to impress your best beloved / prospective mother-in-law on Valentine’s day, forget the chocs — for only £20 you can adopt a Newt that says “thinking of you...”

Three Waymarks

1. Just for the record, wandering lonely as a cloud in Prestwood on 31 December 2007 (I should have posted pix that day) I found next spring’s first flowering daffodils. This strikes me as even sillier than the Easter Eggs which have now appeared in some shops — a sign of global warming, perhaps? Or some particular strain of daffodil that doesn’t mind cold? or are daffodils coming out everywhere?
   
   
2. Taken this morning — the last of Lucy’s and my anti-malarials from our India trip. Lucy’s grandparents/ parents all being congenitally Bristolian could tell you any day that anti-Malarials stop you getting Malarial. Which is what you get in hot places like Malayal, Indonesial, Burmal, and, or course, Indial. (Also available in Africal, Kenyal, Ugandal, Tanzanial, South Africal, Nigerial... sorry this is getting too silly.)
   
3. Allowing for two preliminary tests (now erased), this be this blog’s 200th entry.
   

Creation and Creativity 2

Here, as the UN Secretary General has warned about global warning, is a piece of real creativity! h/t Martin Everitt for emailing me the original...

Creation and Creativity 1

Along the lines of someone who did the warmup slot at Willow Creek last year, Ilana Yahav, Sand Artist