(Fifteen-minute read)

YOU WOULD THINK THAT WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF CLIMATE CHANGE WE WOULD BE FAR BEYOND THE VERBAL WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT BY NOW.

Unfortunately or perhaps, fortunately, we are animals and like the dinosaurs, before us, we have no appreciation of what lies in store.

One could get highly philosophical about the reasons behind climate change but the beaten reality is that it will be the driving force that will be shaping the world for some time to come.

It is going to take more than verbal diarrhoea to do anything worthwhile and it is going to cost trillions whether we take rapid concreted actions on a global scale or not.

Any action on a global scale cannot be achieved under the current Capitalist Market Systems or present-day politics which is hostage to economics who’s carbon footprints are more multi-dimensional than is usually understood by joe soap.

Our historical climate measuring rod shows tectonic tensions building up warning us of a pending disaster so we all need to open our eyes an see the world, not through the lens of the media which is turning it into a product. Already we see climate change coverage on television asking should we change the plants we grow in our gardens.

It is imperative that we understand what profit for profit sake is doing to the world.

There is no more time to leave it up to Capitalism markets or future technologies to change the way we live our lifestyles.

Any activity that generates lots of methane, nitrous oxide or other non-CO2 greenhouse gases will have a much faster warming effect than its carbon footprint, as traditionally expressed, might suggest. That would include meat and rice farming, landfill sites and fridge production, for example.

If we want to buy ourselves as much time as possible to avoid climate-tipping points, it may not just be how much warming something generates that matters, but when that warmth kicks in.

If indeed we have twelve years left, climate change today is struggling to remain a subject rather than becoming merely an object of world politics – to avert it.

It is too late to educate the great unwashed or to expect different countries of the world to address the problems.

If we want a world worth living on we to have to pay for it and the best way to do that is making a profit for profit the destroyer of the planet pay.

(It is now or never that we need the planet and what is left of our ecosystems to exist.) Every drop of fresh water, every forest tree, every species, every ounce of carbon, every breath of fresh air must be paid for.

Right, what can we do about it as individuals?

A new form of economic thinking is becoming increasingly urgent.

The existing models are clearly ill-equipped to address the intertwined challenges on the horizon.

Of course, as individuals, we can cut our carbon emissions but since the dawn of man, nobody is willing to pay for the future. As countries and governments, we are unable to put aside self-interest.

Rest assured if we remain on the present course with escalating geopolitical tensions there will be no multidisciplinary scientific understanding of climate change.

We don’t have the time for second-guessing, worthless promises, carbon pricing, or market-oriented mechanisms.

Not because of rising seas, melting ice, etc but because once a population is destabilized it has a knock on effect.

Like all problems that require vast amounts of finance to eradicate or alleviate Climate Change, will require trillions of investment in the long term.

The solution long term:

(As I have outlined in my previous post:  World AId Commission of 0.005% on Profit for Profit sake.) is the creation of a war chest which has perpetual funding on permanent bases.

This will ensure that everyone has the means to satisfy their basic needs and preserve what is left of our ecosystems.

In the short term.

If we shifted the focus to a much shorter time period of twelve years – which arguably would make more sense, given that the next decade or so could turn out to be make-or-break in terms of avoiding climate tipping points – then the impact of vapour trails and other short-lived impacts look massively more significant.

If we focus just on the impact over the next five years, then planes currently account for more global warming than all the cars on the world’s roads. ( Declaring Climate emergency while building additional runways is England response)

CO2, released by all fuel-burning vehicles, can remain in the air for centuries, vapour trails and tropospheric ozone produced by planes at altitude – cause much more potent but shorter-lived bursts of warming.

I see that there are claims of 100,00 scheduled airline flights per day in the world, But that does not include military, charter, cargo and private aeroplanes.

Then you would get nearly 305,000 global takeoffs per day. That’s an average of 212 take-offs per minute worldwide.

So let us say that the average number of people per flight is one hundred that is over 10 million people.

On average, a plane produces a little over 53 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO₂) per 1.61 km or one mile.

One transatlantic flight can add as much to your carbon footprint as a typical year’s worth of driving.

A flight from London to Cape Town is  9673.77 km producing co2 emissions of 7.5 tons of CO2 equivalent to one household for a year. 

On the other hand, if I’m understanding the numbers correctly, over a five-year time frame the world’s ships cause enough cooling to offset the total warming caused by every car, plane and bus combined.

What I’d like to know next.

Is how much work has been done on analysing how near-term rates of global warming fit with the risk of overstepping climate-tipping points.

Any pointers?

So here’s the deepest challenge of this moment:

Do we really need to lose it all in order to find it again?

If you want it to stop, you have to cut emissions to zero. But emissions are still rising. Perhaps it can be done, but it certainly cannot be done without funding.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.