Tag Archives: Global warming

THE BEADY EYE SAYS: THE SCIENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOW PROVING TO BE UNEQUIVOCAL.

29 Friday Jul 2022

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( Five minute read) 

The COVID-19 emergency to a great extent shattered our sense of normalcy and forced us to grapple with the kind of world we want – and need.

Climate Change will not ask us it IS HAPPING WHETER WE LIKE IT OR NOT WITH THE threshold for dangerous global warming will likely be crossed between 2027 and 2042.

While 2022 is set to be a year of unprecedented climate chaos across the planet leading climate scientists issue new warnings about climate change and the soaring cost of fuel highlights the world’s ongoing dependence on fossil fuels.

How did we get here?

For decades, fossil fuel companies have stymied efforts to make this necessary energy transition by sowing public doubt about climate science and pushing a misleading narrative of consumer responsibility for the climate crisis. 

In fact, only 100 investor and state-owned fossil fuel companies are responsible for around 70 percent of the world’s historical GHG emissions. They have led the charge on climate change denial, fossil fuel companies have driven widespread false perceptions. They have stymied critical efforts to fight the climate crisis.

This sustained climate denialism by the fossil fuel industry is exposed in the below BBC documentary: Big Oil v the World. Exxon along with Koch Industries and the Republican Donal Trump committing the larges crime of all crimes supressing the science behind Climate Change for years in the name of the God profit.  

The fossil fuel industry must be held accountable for its damaging behaviour.

We should be placing financial penalties against these companies  because of the deception perpetuated to there shareholders and the public about company prospects in the face of potential climate regulation. These companies forced communities affected by climate change to pay for future damage caused by the crisis. 

However holding the fossil fuel industry accountable becomes more complex when one considers that most of the companies are diversified into various products, which are not all equally harmful to the environment.

Ultimately, removing subsidies for fossil fuels and implementing a carbon tax with a consumer rebate are strong first steps towards fighting climate change. This move would effectively hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its emissions track record and efforts to divert climate action.

 So more than ever, we need storytelling, arts, and the humanities to generate new ways of responding to the ecological crisis we all face, and which disproportionately impacts marginalized peoples the most while bearing the least responsibility for climate change.

We believe that together, we can create a world where we rapidly transition away from fossil fuels to end the climate crisis.

Is this true? 

We all know how but very few of us have the courage to take actions that will make a difference.

Just as World War II called an earlier generation to greatness, so the climate crisis is calling today’s rising youth to action: to create a better future.People painting a mural on a building

We want the developing world to skip the fossil fuel/carbon dioxide/ methane-producing step and go right to renewable energy, so they won’t have to go back and clean up the environment they will have destroyed or degraded because of fossil fuels.                                            —————– 

The science is unequivocal.

The effects of human-caused global warming are happening now, are irreversible on the timescale of people alive today, and will worsen in the decades to come. 

Even thought the coming climate change will not only shatter our very existence and every other living thing, with souring TEMPERTURES, drought, wild fires, rising sea levels, oceans less oxygenated, release of methane, wars, and mass migration, with ecosystems and food supply under treat.

BUT STILL WE DON’T YET GET THE NEED TO CHANGE.

Global climate change is not a future problem. Right now, we are losing the fight against climate change.

Until now, wide ranges in overall temperature projections have made it difficult to pinpoint outcomes in different mitigation scenarios but we must avoid situations where leaders can claim that even the weakest policies can avert dangerous consequences.

Amplify the need for world leaders to address the vicious cycle of loss and damage experienced by climate-vulnerable countries across the globe yet we do not have access to decision-making spaces.

Once the world is talking about it in a constructive way, things will get done. 

If you don’t like regulations now, just wait till climate change gets serious!


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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT HOW CLIMATE CHANGE WILL SHAPE THE WORLD.

21 Thursday Jul 2022

Posted by in Climate Change.

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( Fifteen minute read)

If warm words prevented global warming, I wouldn’t be writing this article. 

One would think that after years we would get the message of not dealing with Climate change.

It is happing right in front of our eyes never mind decades or even centuries ahead.

On reflection perhaps the questions on climate should to taken away from Accountants, Politicians,  Governments, GDP,  Science, Technology, or the printing of money, and the verbal diarrhoea of climate summits conferences and made relatable to all us.

If it all goes wrong nobody is asking what sort of world we will have to live in. 

Why?

Because day by day it is becoming less clear how sensible management of the planet should be.

Because we must stop its discounting by Countries Governments and corporations for profit.

Because the fact is climate change is now beyond serious dispute but has yet to become part of mainstream discussion.

Because we can not literally stand by and verbal about it till the cows come home. global warming melting the earth - shutterstock

INTRODUCTION.

Obliviously in shaping the planet the climate has two elements. 

The Visible and not so Visible. 

The climate debate is now fuelled, not only by controversial policies, and science, but the debate is moving away from the basic science, to the economic and political ramifications.  Both of which are becoming  old, and tired, and increasingly irrelevant, as the impacts of climate change becomes clearer.

Earth’s climate has changed many times but it’s hard to imagine what Earth might look like in 2500 never mind in the next twenty years.

Climate “scepticism” is always underpinned by politics rather than science so many people still assume the costs of climate change are in the future, despite us increasingly seeing the impacts economics and politics are now the principal battlegrounds in the climate debate.

This puts us in an invidious position.

Science should inform and underpin arguments but just what can we learn from science?

One of the real problems with the climate debate is the way in which climate science is not explained but is ‘refereed’ in the public domain. I still think that 85 percent of us never mind our governments have little understanding or concept of how climate change is going to change the planet and every living organism on it.  

Taking into account limitations to predictability.

Millions of variables—known, unknown, and approximate—as well as billions of calculations, are involved in every forecast, producing informative and fascinating modern computer simulations of the Earth system. 

This is all very well but the point is that the component parts of the Earth system can interact in incredibly fast in complicated ways, and this makes explicit mathematical analysis of the entire problem of climate change impossible.

Science never explicitly proves anything but finds the current best-fitting theory that explains real-world data, and that has led to the current assertion of the validity of the anthropogenic climate-change scientific theory.

Our predictions of what Mother Nature will do next are only possible with real-time imagery from satellites of the surface of the earth, not the unseen knock on effects. 

                             ———————————-

OF ALL THE THINGS SHAPING THE WORLD CLIMATE CHANGE IS AND WILL BE THE MOST DEVASTATING.

There are now twice as many days over 50C. Accompanying this rise in temperatures has been a five-fold increase in weather-related disasters over the past 50 years.   

The climate does not need money or the microchip or any of the other things on the list shaping the world. ( See previous postings) 

Bushfire in Queensland, Australia

The situation is bleak.

The Visible. 

Fifty years have passed since the first climate projections, set that distant target at 2100, however we continue to fool ourselves that technology will solve the problems.

The visible effects are on our news TV bulletins daily. There is little need here to highlight them. 

The Invisible.   

The ability to earn a meaningful livelihood is permanently impacted by unseasonal rains, harsher winters, drier summers, and other impacts attributed to the changing climate.

Studies by the World Bank predict that as many as 216 million people in six regions of the world may be forced to move by 2050. This includes communities in some of the most impoverished regions of the world such as Yemen and the Horn of Africa.

All will become climate refugees.

But there is another category of people who suffer from climate change and have no recourse. They’re stateless individuals who live in countries that do not grant them citizenship or permanent residency, They number in the millions. They include the Muslim Rohingya community in Myanmar, North Koreans in China, the Roma in Serbia, and many other groups.

They need to be included in any conversation about permanent, inclusive, sustainable, and ethical solutions. Otherwise, our approaches would only widen the gap between the privileged and the persecuted.

                                  —————————–

In a 2021 global survey of 10,000 people aged 16 to 25, three quarters said the future of the world was frightening, while more than half said they thought humanity is doomed.   

Climate models predict that Earth’s global average temperature will rise an additional 4°.6 C (7.2° F) during the 21st Century if greenhouse gas levels continue to rise. 

That results in a “major restructuring of the world’s biomes,” Changes in temperature, precipitation, and seasonal timing will alter the geographic ranges of many types of plants and animals. Many species will face extinction if the geographic range where they can survive shrinks.

We are looking at a future with much more rain and snow, and a higher risk of flooding in some regions.

By 2100, precipitation will increase by at least 1% with a possible increase of up to 12%. However, changes in precipitation will not be evenly distributed. Some locations will get more. Warmer global temperatures produce faster overall evaporation rates, resulting in more water vapor in the atmosphere…and more clouds. 

Warmer temperatures will cause (and are causing) changes to other aspects of climate – such as rain, snow, and clouds. They are also causing changes to the ocean, life, ice, and all other parts of the Earth system. Melting ice may lead to changes in ocean circulation, too. By the year 2100, models predict the sea level will rise between 30 and 100 cm (12 to 39 inches). Large-scale ocean currents called thermohaline circulation, driven by differences in salinity and temperature may also be disrupted as the climate warms. 

It will not just transform now-familiar terrain into alien landscapes over the next few centuries the U.S. Midwest will be transformed into subtropical agroforestry regions and by 2500 or the Ice capped poles will disappear.

                                  ———————————

To address the indirect, vicarious impacts of climate change.

Climate change is not only damaging the planet, but it’s also endangering our mental health, too. The “chronic fear of environmental doom.

Global change is as much a psychological and social phenomenon as a matter of biodiversity and geophysics and poses threats to psychological health and well-being on multiple, simultaneous levels.

We are now facing “tipping points.” A tipping point is a large, abrupt change that cannot readily be stopped at the last minute, even by employing drastic measures.

Runaway situations. The consequences of any of them are so severe, and the fact that we cannot retreat from them once they’ve been set in motion is so problematic, that we must keep them in mind when evaluating the overall risks associated with climate change.

Methane releases would generate a feedback loop of increased greenhouse warming by methane, driving further methane emissions.

At some point, seawater will become saturated with CO2 and unable to absorb any more.

It’s in our power to protect what’s left and make a meaningful difference.

Make climate change a factor in the decisions you make around what you eat, how you travel, and what you buy, demand that politicians and companies make it easier and cheaper to do the right thing for the climate.

There is now an urgent need to find new ways to narrate and envision a fairer clean future in which we all can actively participate to help to reduce global disparities in climate impacts.

Warming surface temperatures are also predicted to increase the frequency of heat waves and droughts, which can affect crop production, increase the risk of wildfires, and even impact human health.

Silhouette of a high industrial pipe with sun behind it The arguments that get bandied about in blogs and debates invariably focus solely on the predicted impacts of climate change, without any discussion of the caveats and assumptions that lie behind the models.

Take  “The prefix ‘bio’ doesn’t necessarily mean environmentally friendly.”

Growing and processing crops for energy purposes or feedstocks can have the heaviest environmental impact. 

It is more helpful to proceed as though climate change is real, partly man-made, and potentially quite threatening to building a sustainable world populated by a large hungry consumer-driven citizenry.

We had world summits, and the world promises to expose Sharp divisions between the major global emitters.

Trying to lead 197 countries forward on the critical global issue of climate change is not a job for the faint-hearted as democracy evolved because everyone wants other people to share the blame. 

What we hear is that by 2050 or 2060 we will become carbon neutral, 2060 is far away and if the people emit at the rate they are emitting the world won’t survive, so what are you going to do in the next five years that’s what the world wants to know.

We can’t just willy-nilly ignore the next 10 years because the scientists tell us that if we don’t do enough in the next 10 years we cannot keep the Earth’s temperature at 1.5C, we cannot even get on a roadmap to net zero by 2050.

If this means we can move on from a sterile debate about the global response to much more interesting questions about regional impacts, the rights of different generations, and, most interesting of all, what to do about it.

This blog has in previous posts made suggestions as to how to get us involved and how to fairly spread the cost and finance the changes required.

So my plea is to avoid the ‘happy talk’ and recognize that this challenge is global and never has there been a challenge that requires the unity of countries all across the planet than now.

But despite how terrible it’s important to remember that the appropriate response is to leap into action, not to be paralyzed by despair.

To supply some optimism and show that humanity isn’t totally screwed, here are 3 climate change projects that would change the game.

Inaction could result in scenarios that look downright apocalyptic.

One. It is time that our governments made non-repayable grants available to us all to install solar panels, and insulation.

Two.  Clean up the advertising industry for sustainability, not consumption.

Three.  The introduction in a green economy of a universal basic income.  

In this world, we might add another folksy adage to our climate repertoire. Just as it is the humidity, not the heat, it is the rate of change, not the magnitude, that truly matters.

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHERE HAVE ALL THE STATEMEN GONE?

17 Sunday Apr 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., Climate Change., Fake News., Human Collective Stupidity., Human values., Humanity., Modern day life., Mr Putin., Our Common Values., Political lying., Political Trust, Politics., Russia / Ukraine ., RUSSIA/ UKRAINE/ US/ NATO/ EU, Technology v Humanity, The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The Ukraine., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Twenty-minute read ) 

  • Faith in the future is justified when investments succeed in improving the future. 

Every country is a work in progress but there are gaping holes where the leadership should be.

Politicians are hanging on to power instead of working for the construction of a better world. We are getting “selfish politicians and cynicism” instead of the statesmen needed to challenge the current crisis all over the world.

We now have a US President who does not know what the word genocide means and a Uk Prime Minister that lies to his Parlement and a Putin that has lost the plot.

The idea that the Prime Minister or president “runs a country” is just nonsense.

The lack of thought invested in the future is a real and pressing problem.

Today’s politicians play on our inherent, false phobia of the word fear; they milk it for every vote it’s worth.

This creates a natural void between the average citizen and the ruling class. 

The only difference perhaps is that nowadays we put a camera on them 24/7, and we expect them to give an answer to a problem mere minutes after some event occurred.

In the past, politicians probably had more time to think, and far less time to speak (or at least, fewer things they said were being recorded). As a result, modern politicians seem to make more mistakes.

I fear it will take a terrifying depth of crisis before there comes a point when this isn’t enough anymore and they will have to face their people with the big picture – which is to ask how much do we want to survive?

                                  ————————– 

Statesmanship is fleeting, and we don’t really appreciate it until it’s gone.

We desperately need a statesman—but, sadly, all I can hear are politicians.

If the world ever needed a Stateman it is now. 

Real statesmen rise above the tawdry political arguments of the day to the much higher realm of political strategy, what is right for the nation, right for everyone, and betters the human condition.

The statesman shuns media campaigns, opting for the power of the written and spoken word. He is an accomplished public speaker that looks over the horizon for future requirements.

Statesmanship and ethics are inseparable. We need a lot of both. We’ve already got a lot of politicians. We need a lot more statesmen. Making no private promises, granted no special favors, and received no personal gifts which would compromise his official integrity.

                                   _________________

What are the differences between a Statesman and a Politician? Winston Churchill, Franklin D Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference, February 1945.

Not all politicians are statesmen. 

Statesmen spend the money, borrowing what’s necessary, to grow the country, restore confidence in the government and the future, and prevent devastating wars—even if the benefits of their actions are not immediate and measurable, but spread instead over many generations. 

Politicians, by contrast, “save money now” to “enhance today’s surplus” or “decrease today’s deficit”—even if “saving money” means leaving embassies unprotected from terrorist bombs, and our intelligence establishment less capable and integrated than it could have been.  

Statesmen see far into the future and know that good investments pay for themselves over and over again, for generations.  

Politicians tend to be penny wise and pound foolish—or perhaps more accurately, present-wise and future-foolish. They are in a “bubble” shuffling portfolios amongst themselves. They have no real-world experience. They go straight from education into politics via internships. They have no choice but to find a way to get people’s attention, in preparation for the next election and fear is one of the best attention-getters of all.

                                           —————

In this age of media coverage, the problem we have is twofold what to believe and what not to believe. 

The Underworld of the huge overarching media presence means that politics is not in control because no system is in control or in a position to lead society.

Take the war in Ukraine for example.

Can The West Stop Russia by Strangling its Economy?   No 

They only reflect liberal frustration over the West’s limited power to

prevent Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

Why?

Because in 2001, the incident of 9/11 changed the whole scenario of the world. US started its War against Terror and announced that it will target anyone, anywhere, who threats the US security and its citizens. Under this US invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya and attacked Daesh in Syria without facing any opposition from other countries at United Nation Security Council (UNSC).

After 30 years, of peace now Russia led by President Putin has challenged the new world order in Eastern Europe, by accepting two eastern regions of Ukraine (Donetsk and Lugansk) as independent regions and allowing its forces to invade Ukraine on Feb 24, 2022.

It’s clear that Russia is not dependent on the west as the west is dependent on Russia. So there is something amiss with a  black-and-white view of the situation in Ukraine.

Since the end of the Cold War, the West has refused to make any concessions to Russia’s security concerns. Neither NATO nor the Western powers, in general, have been willing or able ‘to empathize with the Russian perspective on this crisis’.

Moscow is repeating that it will withdraw its troops from Ukraine only if Ukraine recognizes Crimea as a part of Russia and two eastern regions, Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states, moreover Ukraine makes the constitutional amendment that it will not join NATO.

The truth is that after fighting alone and not getting ground or air support from the West ( because of the fear of a nuclear war) Ukraine has only one option left to compromise and accept the Russian demands for the sake of their and our survival.

Ukraine must learn from Afghanistan’s lessons, and not allow big powers to play a proxy war in its country.  

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will lead to a new world order with an era of grinding compromise. The “new world order” is going to be dominated by Russia and China. Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi are writing their own rules.

The real danger is that the global balance of power is not just being recast, but gradually unraveling. History shows that changes to the balance of power rarely occur without serious conflict.

We must do what we can to contain Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. But we also need to be clear-eyed about it and face the costs.

Economics can’t be separated from politics, and neither can be separated from history.Illustration on a new world order where Russia and China dominate by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times

One lasting story of this war could be the way that Europe uses it to launch its next stage of integration.

                                        ————-

 We cannot continue to fight each other in useless wars.

Take Climate Change.

The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, called the recent IPCC report on the climate crisis a “code red” for humanity. “We are on the verge of the abyss,” he said.

You might think those words would sound some kind of alarm in our society.

Since no one treats the crisis like a crisis, the existential warnings keep on drowning in a steady tide of greenwash and everyday media news flow.

The facts are crystal clear, but we just refuse to accept them. We refuse to acknowledge that we now have to choose between saving the living planet or saving our unsustainable way of life.

Because we want both. We demand both. But the undeniable truth is that we have left it too late for that.

And no matter how uncomfortable that reality may seem, this is exactly what our leaders have chosen for us with their decades of inaction. Their decades of blah, blah, blah. In short, we are totally failing to even reach targets that are completely insufficient in the first place.

Science doesn’t lie, nor does it tell us what to do.

But it does give us a picture of what needs to be done. We are of course free to ignore that picture and remain in denial. Or to go on hiding behind clever accounting, loopholes, and incomplete statistics. As if the atmosphere would care about our frameworks. As if we could argue with the laws of physics.

The climate and ecological emergency are, of course, only a symptom of a much larger sustainability crisis. A social crisis. A crisis of inequality that dates back to colonialism and beyond. A crisis is based on the idea that some people are worth more than others and, therefore have the right to exploit and steal other people’s land and resources.

It’s all interconnected.

It’s a sustainability crisis that everyone would benefit from tackling. But it’s naive to think that we could solve this crisis without confronting the roots of it.   Inequality. 

All it would really take is one – one world leader or one high-income nation or one major TV station or leading newspaper who decides, to be honest, to truly treat the climate crisis as the crisis that it is. One leader who counts all the numbers – and then takes brave action to reduce emissions at the pace and scale the science demands. Then everything could be set in motion towards action, hope, purpose, and meaning.

Who will that leader be?

Ask any hundred people to define a good leader and how many definitions do you think we’d hear?

The leaders of the free world just serve to reassure people that there is someone in charge, someone with a plan while high technology is creating the way we think and feel. 

We have to get used to living in a world without leaders.  

We must understand that global warming is a true threat.   

We have to become conscious of environmentally friendly measures of living.

                                       —————–

This is where we are at the moment.

I and you are going to see a lot of the long-term effects of what’s happening now with Climate change. 

Time will tell if great statemen will return to power and change the direction in which current politicians are leading the world.

Without leaders, there is little alignment and hardly any coordinated moving together towards common goals. Without leadership, there is hardly a chance for fair distribution of wealth nor for peace.

This doesn’t mean that leadership as such grants these values but without leadership, it’s probably impossible to enjoy them at all. 

Three-quarters of the world could not give a dame about the war in Ukraine, Syria, and Yemen, or any of the other wars. 

Only resistance from within Russia can shorten the conflict. 

Brussel is pretty much kowtowing to the gazillion of different demands of basically all European leaders and interest groups, resulting in policies that are confused, contradictory, and ultimately useless.

European leaders with the outbreak of war in Ukraine are reduced to the role of extras. 

Unfortunately, we lack business statesmanship in the advertising Industry promoting more and more consumption for short-term profits with the media whose role seems to be to stop the shaping of modern statesmen.

                                      ———————-

There is only one choice that is to declare war on Climate change. 

 

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THE BEADY EYE SAYS. 2022 WILL BE THE YEAR OF DIASTER CAPITALISM.

31 Friday Dec 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2022: The year we need to change., Climate Change., Digital age., Disaster Capitalism., Disasters., Environment, Extermination., Fourth Industrial Revolution., How to do it., Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Imagination., Inequality., Life., Money in Politics., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., Privatization, Purpose of life., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Transition period or Implication period., Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., Wealth., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Aid., World Economy., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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( Fifteen-minute read) 

When I first started looking at disaster capitalism, it was in the context of warfare and counter-terrorism, now it’s privatized exploitation of  Pandemics and Climate Change. 

During a major crisis, regular people are understandably focused on the everyday challenges of surviving. They rarely can also worry about private industries pushing local policy proposals that might negatively impact their lives never mind cashing in on Pandemics and Climate change.

Pandemics might be avoidable in the future but what is unavoidable is a Future Climate that stands to send more unprecedented emergencies, inconsistency, and destruction our way.

(Though it’s still feasible to prevent the planet from becoming completely uninhabitable, saying its crunch time is a massive understatement.)

They both provide the very conditions that give rise to disaster capitalism, which is developing more frequently with more companies and wealthy ‘Philanthropists’ seeing both as a growth sector, not to mention Sovernity Wealth Funds which are investing in everything from drinking water to you name it.

Why? 

Because they stand to make substantial financial returns for their beneficiaries and if managed properly could be contributing to sustainable development in a meaningful way. However, a deeper understanding of the drivers and influences of investor organizations is required to mobilize their capital effectively. 

Globally, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are a major source of capital that has the potential to invest for the long term in sectors that desperately need it. While Philanthropists donations usually only represent 0.05% of the billion accumulated.

(A fraction of the spoils of neoliberal tech capitalism, in the name of generosity, do not try to address the problems of wealth inequality which is created by a social and an economic system that allowed those spoils to accrue in the first place. They are small contributions to a large problem that were created by the success of the industry he or she is involved in.)

List of Top 8 World's biggest Philanthropists in 2021                                ————————-

Let’s put a magnifying Glass Philanthrocapitalism.

Philanthropy serves to legitimize capitalism, as well as to extend it further and further into all domains of social, cultural, and political activity.

Now don’t get me wrong.

Their donations are welcome, however, they are not the simple act of generosity they pretend to be. In this greedy world, it is good to see wealthy individuals repaying to help fix problems that their companies have often caused in the first place.

The risk of philanthrocapitalism is a takeover of charity by business interests, such that generosity to others is appropriated into the overarching dominance of the CEO model of society and its corporate institutions.

Today, large organizations can amass significant economic and political power, on a global scale, and essentially, what we are witnessing is the transfer of responsibility for public goods and services from democratic institutions to the wealthy, to be administered by an executive class.

When this happens what we witness is, on one hand, is exploitative of labor practices or corporate malpractice being swept under the carpet while the donator is accruing significant commercial, tax, free publicity, and political benefits.

Democracy is sacrificed on that altar of executive-style empowerment. 

The nature of this apparent charity should be openly questioned from the outset.

Because this reformulation of generosity – in which it is no longer considered incompatible with control and self-interest – is a hallmark of the “CEO society”: A society where the values associated with corporate leadership are applied to all dimensions of human endeavor.

What it does suggest, however, is that when it comes to giving, the CEO approach is one in which there is no apparent incompatibility between being generous, seeking to retain control over what is given, and the expectation of reaping benefits in return.

  What can be done?

As historian Mikkel Thorup explains, philanthrocapitalism rests on the claim that “capitalist mechanisms are superior to all others (especially the state) when it comes to not only creating economic but also human progress, and that the market and market actors are or should be made the prime creators of the good society”.

Now take Climate change which is going to take trillions to combat.

As global warming augments cycles of fire, flood, hurricanes, and viral mutations, we learn to live in anticipation, from emergency to emergency, sometimes even before the deaths have occurred.

Disaster capitalism and philanthrocapitalism will not work to revert the outcomes of Climate Change nor will technology, the unloving God. 

Why? 

Because Capitalism has turns everything including us into a product to be traded, resulting in most of the wealth in the world now owned by 1% of its population. 

Before ( not too long ago ) there were Markets now we have Market Societies thanks to the buying of shares and trading them, complements of the British Indian Company.  So a society that is organized around the principle that companies should not be prevented from making things that kill people must also accept as ‘normal’ that many people will die in large numbers from these things.

 But what makes something a disaster?

Certainly what makes a disaster is when the victim is humanly itself.

From epidemiological forecasters to genetic epidemiologists and computational and zoonosis biologists — are the new oracles upon whose prophecies financial markets rise and fall but the awaiting climate disaster will expose a world characterized by gross inequality that is getting worse and worse, year by year.

From the perspective of disaster capitalism, we might say that what makes COVID-19 a disaster is its arrival in woefully underinsured countries, unhealthy populations.

If we had a healthier population, would COVID-19 be considered a disaster? Possibly or perhaps not. To be sure, the virus is deadly, but like other disasters, the actual arrival of COVID-19 magnifies pre-existing vulnerability in ways that also figure in the calculus of disaster capitalism.

The uneven way the climate crisis will continue to impact certain countries. If private interests are already prepped to engage in disaster capitalism, those devoted to building a better world should be prepared with alternatives.

There is no such thing as a ‘natural disaster.’ There is also no such thing as a natural or certain response. But there is preparedness.

THE PROBLEM IS THAT WITH CAPITALISM IT IS UNABLE TO TACKLE SITUATIONS THAT ARE NOT TRADABLE.

As money materialized from fresh air the essentials for life will be traded – freshwater- energy- food- healthcare – education – data – etc. 

We must arm ourselves with knowledge, and laws that ensure transparency. 

What we have at the moment is the transfer of power to technology which we know sweet fuck all about with no regulations. 

Unrivaled power.

One only has to look at Jeff Bezos, the Bransons, the Mark Zuckerberg’s, Apple, Google, etc.

We all work for one or the other for free while they entertain themselves blasting off to space with friends and worthless actors in giant phallic symbols of power. 

However, the real story will unpack differently long before anyone lives on another planet. It will be how our mental well-being – is impacting every facet of our lives.

The total mortality from COVID-19 on a global scale is as yet unknown, but we have been thinking of it as a disaster for weeks now.

What exactly is the disaster, then?

Pandemics have become a dominant framework through which government and financial resources are mobilized in Global Health.

There’s been a lot of dithering about whether or not COVID-19 is a disaster, meanwhile, inequality is growing, and both corporations and the wealthy find ways to avoid the taxes that the rest of us pay.

There is the virus, and then there is the societal reaction of bringing our entire fiscal and economic infrastructure to a near-complete standstill.

Morbid diseases that persist as chronic forms for years but eventually kill more people to seem less like disasters.

It’s not a moment to sort of sit on the sidelines and hope for the best.

We all appreciate with the current pandemic that some are making hay while the sun shines, at our expense. Unfortunately, there is little point in getting the Jabs, to extend your time on earth if the earth itself is dying and what remains is been turned into trading products.

You’ve got to fight for your vision of for-profit corporate solutions that may succeed in creating company profits but ultimately fail in terms of democracy, fairness, and justice.

Conclusion:  

To address the problems with greed and power create, we must create equality and this can not be done in a Profit-seeking Capitalist way of trading our way out of the pending disasters.  Wall Street will never close.  

So here is an idea that might help.

Non-Trading Capitalism.  

Green non-tradable bonds to be issued online at a global scale, with guaranteed percentage returns, with a yearly prize draw.

Or

Place a 0.05% World Aid Commission on all tradable financial instruments. (see previous posts) 

Either of the above could be implemented with the click of a switch ensuring a perpetual source of disaster non-profitable funding. 

Both would create trillions and allow fairness and involvement of us all.

It is perhaps worth remembering that capitalism, like its alternatives, is an adaptation to circumstances. It is not a virtue, not a standard for judgment, not a measure of right or nobility. It’s just another ‘ism’

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WILL COP26 TURN THE CLIMATE INTO A PRODUCT.

02 Tuesday Nov 2021

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(Seven-minute read) 

It is not an overstatement to say that we all need to take responsibility for the carbon consequences of every choice we make. Such as filling up your car with petrol or booking a long-haul flight, or subtle, like when you buy a coffee or a new pair of shoes, or even increasing your cloud storage plan.

Pretty much everything we buy has a carbon footprint.

Every financial transaction has a climate consequence.

Companies are increasingly using environmental claims to appeal to consumers.

Our daily choices leave a carbon footprint. We know this, and we are all aware of the monumental climate risks posed by carbon emissions.

Demand for solutions is growing but if you know something is bad for you and you don’t know how to measure it, how can you reduce it?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could count, take control of and reduce our carbon emissions just as we take control of our diets?

Until now, despite huge advances in technology, monitoring and reducing our impact on the planet has been difficult.

As an individual, it is hard to incorporate carbon credits into your daily life.

There is no reason that all consumer products should be required to be labeled with their Cardon footprint. 

Consider cars, electrical or not.   

It takes about a tonne of steel to build it. Producing a tonne of steel emits two tonnes of carbon dioxide. 

By placing a value on the ecosystems that support our planet, carbon footprint labeling would internalize the invisible costs of everyday choices and allow a sustainable marketplace to emerge.

The market is beset by a lack of visibility. 

Imagine a world in which carbon emissions and footprints can be tracked transparently and reliably.

Retailers will be able to sell a product and take into account the carbon impact it creates at the same time.

Governments will be able to measure, track and trade emissions transparently. And crucially, for the first time, consumers will be able to understand the environmental impact of the products they are buying – both positive and negative – at the point of sale and will be able to mitigate this in an instant, with millions of micro-transactions scaling up to make a huge collective impact.

In a free-market economy, it is very difficult to force people to pay more for products but as the price lowers, our willingness and ability to buy an item increase.

                                    ——————

There will be billions of words from here to the moon and back and media footage of Cop26 over the next month. 

After which we will be asking the question of how did we end up turning not just carbon into a commodity but climate itself. 

Cop26 like previous Climate conferences is a bargaining area.

” You change this and I will change that.”

The Kyoto Protocol allowed for emission offsets in developing countries, whereas Paris creates an opportunity to extend the reach and deepen the integration of carbon markets.

With climate change a growing threat, economists came up with the idea of trading the right to pollute, creating a financial incentive to curb emissions.

Both lead to difficulty in assessing emission baselines with the free allocation of carbon permits leading to an oversupply in the market to be traded as greenwashing.  

This can be remedied by tightening caps in line with current climate targets and auctioning all available permits.

Broader criticisms of carbon trading include concerns that it has proven ineffective – some offset schemes even counterproductive – and it disproportionately affects lower-income classes.

Applying a carbon footprint labeling system might create a “carbon currency”  which is the key to demystifying and consolidating the carbon market so it can scale up.

Carbon credits are the perfect candidate for a digital currency as they are data-driven, rely on multiple approval steps, and exist separately to the physical impacts to which they correlate.

                               ————————-

The danger of climate becoming a product is obvious one only has to look at the words now used to describe a product. 

The word “ green ” is applied broadly to almost everything related to benefiting the environment, from production and transportation to architecture and even fashion.

Eco-friendly isn’t quite so broad and defines products or practices that do not harm the Earth’s environment.

Bioproducts or bio-based products are materials, chemicals, and energy derived from renewable biological resources. They are commercial or industrial products that are composed in whole, or in significant part, of biological products or renewable domestic
agricultural materials or forestry materials.

Climate-friendly defines products that reduce damage specifically to the climate.

Some brands are even moving beyond simply eco-friendly and now seek to claim their products are climate-neutral.

All these terms are used in labeling to make us feel good if we buy products claimed to minimize harm to the planet and the environment.

Consumer concern about the environment does not readily translate into the purchase of environmentally friendly products.

Take.  Meat the way people consume and think about meat is going to need to change in the coming years as meat processing companies face pressure to curb greenhouse gases in the fight against climate change.

McDonald’s — one of the largest beef purchasers in the world.

Finding ways to use carbon emissions to replace the “raft of products made from chemicals from petroleum” could have a significant impact on climate change.

Climatop label certifies products that generate significantly less greenhouse gas than comparable products.

Imagine a world where you take your waste back and reuse it.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT WHAT MIGHT COME OUT OF THE NEXT CLIMATE CHANGE WORLD CONFERENCE IN SCOTLAND.

08 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by in Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change.

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( Fifteen-minute read) 

The effects of human-caused global warming are irreversible on the timescale of people alive today and will worsen in the decades to come.

The last three decades of climate negotiations are littered with broken promises.

This puts the challenge with COP26 into perspective.

It is probably the last chance to re-envisage the challenges of our planet and try to understand what’s going on in our world.

The major threats to human survival – world environmental degradation, extinction of species, climate destabilization, nuclear war, terrorists with weapons of mass destruction – result from unrestrained use of such technologies without a concern that makes sense of the nature and scale of their power. 

Today many people are thinking on minuscule time scales and therefore only see short-term costs and benefits as real.

Why? 

Because we human beings only perceive threats that make sense in our Newtonian time which implies that humans are of no particular significance in the universe and therefore don’t see long-term consequences:

WE THINK IN METAPHORS.  

                               ———————————-

Consequently, the real challenge with the current approach to climate policy is that as long as cutting emissions is expensive, leaders will talk a lot but do little.

The world will need to increase its spending by hundreds of billions per year (a relatively small sum) compared to the £135 billion we are already spending on subsidizing ineffective green energy today.

If the world can develop green energy that is cheaper than fossil fuels, then we will have solved global warming.

AND THIS IS NOW the world’s greatest collective action problem.


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Global climate is projected to continue to change over this century and beyond and no matter what is agreed human-induced warming is superimposed on a naturally varying climate, the temperature rise has not been, and will not be, uniform or smooth across the country or over time.

DESPITE PRESENT DAY WORLD FEVOR,  progress on climate change remains elusive.

Enacting policies today to cut greenhouse gas emissions won’t have a discernible impact on global warming for decades, if not centuries.

That’s because we have already locked in significant warming due to our historical emissions.

  • It’s rational for an individual country not to drastically reduce greenhouse gases, given most economies are heavily based on energy resources that emit them. Yet, if all nations act that way — indeed, that’s what’s happening — most countries would eventually be worse off due to the cumulative impacts of all our emissions.

Put another way, what’s better for each individual country in isolation is actually worse for the planet as a whole. Conversely, what is worse for each individual country, overtime would be better for the planet.

Unlike other policies, climate change is cumulative.

The longer we wait to address it, the bigger the problem it becomes and the harder it gets to solve, fueling a feedback loop that makes solutions ever more difficult.

Big climate policy would have to offer concrete benefits outside of its impact on emissions — think jobs or energy security — to overcome this time disconnect.

Pay now and pay later

Climate change presents two separate costs.

  • Cost No. 1: Responding to flooding, heatwaves, and other extreme weather that climate change is often making worse.
  • Cost No. 2: Enacting policies to reduce emissions, which would come in the form of higher fossil-fuel costs today.
  • Cost No. 1 will continue for decades, if not centuries, even in addition to Cost No.2  (This is because of the aforementioned time disconnect: the amount of warming locked in already has also locked in associated costs — which will come in the form of not just money, but also health, lives, and nature losses.)

The costs will hit different parts of the world disproportionately, setting the stage for conflict, not cooperation. (further complicating the first point).

  • Low-lying nations whose very existences are at risk due to climate change have a very different set of cost concerns than Saudi Arabia.
  • By 2060, the cost of inaction on climate change is predicted to reach a staggering $44 trillion, with the highest anticipated GDP losses in the Middle-East, Northern, and Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia.

By contrast, you invest money in your retirement savings plan with a reasonable level of confidence you’ll get it when you retire.

Imagine getting taxed before you put that money into your fund and then not living long enough to reap the payoffs of your fund.

That’s what will happen with climate change, on a global scale.

The bottom line:

Decades of climate negotiations and failure to stem greenhouse gas emissions are a reminder that we lack effective global governance. The outcome of Glasgow must be all nations agreeing to spend much more on green R&D and to implement a process of verification to monitor compliance. 

The science is clear: Our climate is changing. The most marginalized communities—historically shut out of decisions made about their futures—will bear the brunt of the damage.

We are the first generation of humans to start paying the price for a warmer world, and we are also the first to face costs as we try to address them.

We’re paying now and later.

Other than other, Canada, at the present, there are few countries with a policy for sustained mass immigration, with most reluctant to accept more refugees.

Why?

Because foreign populations tend to plant-wide and deep roots and governments don’t want any international authority telling them which people or how many people they should absorb.,

However, people will not stay standing up to their necks in water or gasping for air due to heat or starving because there is no food, they will migrate to whatever altitude, latitude, or longitude is required to survive.

No frontier border of immigration policies will stop this migration.

Ironically the response to the Covid pandemic reinforces border closures at a time we need to reimagine the opening of borders to allow for the inevitable shifts in the occupancy of the planet.  

Will the world climate stabilize?

Of course, not – one effect has a knock-on effect with as I have already stated humans becoming a species in search of the right combination of latitude, altitude, and attitude. 

The COP26 (the 26th UN ‘Conference of Parties’ on Climate Change) due to take place in Glasgow in November will hopefully highlight the truth, but this truth will not be enough unless it changes us all, to provoke a new way of thinking about climate change governance.

If not what the world so often holds dear will be counted of little significance. The ambitions of businesses to profit from their exploitation of finite natural resources too often leads to environmental degradation and disregard for the value of human life. 

What must change is the way in which people and nations are driven to compete for a greater share of creation’s wealth is destructive of the very creation on which we all depend.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS FORWARD TO THE COP OUT / COP26 SUMMIT.

15 Sunday Aug 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change., Cop26.

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(Nine-minute read) 


Carbon Dioxide emissions are at a higher level in the atmosphere than at any point in the last 4m years AND THE MESSAGE COULD NOT BE CLEARER.

LEADERS MUST ACT NOW OR GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS THE ONES WHO THREW AWAY OUR LAST-DITCH CHANCE.

If they fail to act the future will be changed beyond anything that the coronavirus pandemic has brought about.

So far what we see from world leaders are hot air promises that are totally inadequate and worthless without the trillions in investment and you can rest assured as the world returns to economic growth it will by using fossil fuels.

90% of the emissions will be in the next few decades, will come from emerging economies.

So let’s look at Cop26 or as I like to call it Cop-out 26.

Further change is now inevitable.

“Securing a brighter future for our children and future generations requires countries to take urgent action at home and abroad to turn the tide on climate change. It is with ambition, courage, and collaboration as we approach the crucial COP26 summit in the UK that we can seize this moment together, so we can recover cleaner, rebuild greener and restore our planet.”

PRIME MINISTER OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.

If you believe this just look at his country which is hosting the Cob Out / Cop 26 summit. It has cut its aid to the poorest countries, the only country to do so. 

It is the decisions we make today that really matter. 

Right now our species is undermining and destabilizing the very foundations that are necessary for life on earth to thrive.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reconcile our economies with the natural world yet none of this will be enough.

What we say yes to. What we say no to and where we choose to invest our human and financial capital right now and not in years to come.

We know that the most vulnerable are at the greatest risk from climate change and that they have done the least to cause it. Action to address this and build resilience is needed now before more people lose their lives or livelihoods.

TO ACHIEVE ANY CLIMATE GOALS, EVERY COMPANY, EVERY FINANCIAL FIRM, EVERY BANK, INSURER, AND INVESTOR WILL NEED TO CHANGE. 

What are we talking about?  

At 2 degrees of global warming, there would be widespread and severe impacts on people and nature. A third of the world’s population would be regularly exposed
to severe heat, leading to health problems and more heat-related deaths.

At 1.5°C, the impacts would be serious, but less severe.

Now with three more months to go until COP26 we will see a lot of Hot Air

This decade is decisive. 

We need to turn ambition into actions of mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, finance, and implementation.

Why?

Because the climate crisis has become critical. Greta-Thunberg-addresses-a-march

When you read stories about fires in the Amazon and Australia, ice melting in the Antarctic and Arctic, sea temperatures rising, and plastic destroying wildlife in the oceans, the scale of the problem can sometimes make the idea of dealing with it feel hopeless.

There is a general feeling that the future is so uncertain and it’s extremely hard to live with.

Unfortunately, most people although aware of the concept of Climate Change are in denial about the catastrophic reality. The issue is not about climate science but about everything else.

The world does not move together. It never has.

A 1.5%c  goal is a political choice, not a scientific discovery. 

Unless there is a political, economic, social-cultural, and moral makeover of the human world, only a bottom-up social mass movement will bring needed changes.

So what is COP26 all about?

One of the hardest facts to grasp about climate change is this: 

No matter what we do it’s almost certain to get worse.  Any action we take now is going to take decades to have any effect.

Why?

This is not the hottest summer on record it is going to be the coldest as the global average temperatures are projected to keep rising.

Unlike the current Covid pandemic there is no flatting the curve OF CLIMATE CHANGE  any time soon. 

The shock factor of this week’s UN IPCC report is already wearing off. 

The population is just one of many issues in the global discussion about climate change, but it is going to become a major problem.

Population issues certainly are an important dimension of how society will unfold, how society will be able to cope with this crisis over the course of this century.

With half of American’s have to migrate and god forbid China the world’s most populous country ( the largest emitter of carbon) has to do also.

There’s no one thing that’s going to do it.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS. CAN WE ADAPT TO LIVING WITH CLIMATE CHANGE?

12 Thursday Aug 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Cop26., Earth, Enegery, Human Collective Stupidity., Humanity., Inequality, Modern day life., Our Common Values., Post-Covid-19, Reality., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Ten -minute read) 

It’s time to cut out the bullshit and get a grip when it comes to climate change.

The effects of human activities on Earth’s climate to date are now irreversible on the timescale of human lifetimes.

So the key question is, what will our emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants be in the years to come?

The simple reason for this is that it is impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy just how much greenhouse gases are going to be released in the next few centuries, and just how much this is going to affect the climate.

Electrical Cars, Solar Panels, Wind turbines, and technology might all help reductions in carbon emissions but they are all products.  They all use the earth’s finite resources to produce profit for companies that created the world of Profit for Profit’s sake that has to lead us down the slippery path to climate change.  

In my opinion, any new normal ( which is going to be far from normal ) has to hold fossil burning industries accountable or nationalizing them till we reach a point where sustainable energy generates higher financial returns than coal and oil. 

 The harsh reality of climate change is now playing out in real-time before our very eyes, with some of the negative changes already locked into the climate system, while global efforts to reduce carbon emissions are not moving fast enough to avoid irreversible damage to the planet.

Any solutions are going to take years to have any effect so we need to adapt: or, in other words, get used to the realities of this new, heated-up, wet, violent, world.  

We all know that the climate challenges we are facing on the planet transcend national boundaries.

At present we being told that’s, it’s not too late to stop the forthcoming climate changes totally making our planet unlivable if we move to clean energy. 

However clean energy is only one part of the challenge because the inequalities in the world demand a fundamental overhaul of existing social, political, and economic norms.

It is this new perception that needs to be contagious so it is adopted globally.

The shocking truth is that climate change has only just begun.

In other words, whatever the mitigation efforts of future civilizations, climate change is here to stay.  Regardless of future emission trends, the CO2 footprint from our brief passage on Earth is going to remain in the climate system and impact the well-being of all terrestrial life forms for what could almost be considered an eternity.

In the last year, we are seeing with the current Covid pandemic that we live in a world where HARMONIZATION of any actions is impossible.  

We will witness this in the forthcoming Cop-out / Cop26 summit. 

The above perception is highly unlikely to happen.

Why?

Because the climate change problems will probably worsen before — or indeed if — it gets better, no one wants to bear costs of change that will fall on  – the poor.

Long before this ever happens, humanity must prepare itself for an inland retreat and a constant battle against rising seawater that will continue for hundreds and hundreds of years into the future. 

We are incredibly adaptable, but at the psychological level, there’s going to be tremendous disruption among families, societies, nations, etc. when change occurs.

Anything that helps an organism survives in its environment is an adaptation.

Adaptation is an acknowledgment that this.

Some of that change is a given, but not all of it.

For example:

Loss of traditions, habitat, and cultural heritage, and the distress that comes with moving away from the land where your ancestors are buried, where you’ve lived all your life.  Not to mention the extinction of species, animals and plants, and coral reefs, and all kinds of living things, those we depend on and those with which we simply share ecosystems.

None of the solutions so far even begin to address the possibility of an impending mental health crisis due to the upheaval associated with managed retreat and other forms of climate migration.

How do you convince a community that their home will not be habitable?

How do you make room for rural refugees to live in a crowded city?

Climate mitigation is hard, and we are running out of time to do it, but I would argue that adaptation in its absence will actually be a million times harder.

Without substantial cuts to our collective carbon imprint, many more lives will be lost trying to adapt to a changing environment, and countless more will be made meaningfully worse.

Why wouldn’t we do what we can to avoid that?

The long course of human evolution shows that climate disruption, which is what we’re going through right now and in the foreseeable future, is associated with the demise of ways of life.

As difficult as it may be, there is a vast scale of loss associated with climate change that one has to try to comprehend and accept in order to understand the urgency of the situation.

THE NEED FOR HARMONIZATION to anticipate the actual and expected effects of climate change and take appropriate action to prevent or minimize the impacts.

How will we feel when the air inside feels tinny and canned when all of this feels like our future?

The two main responses so far to climate change are Mitigation and Adaptation – they must go hand in hand. 

Adaptation can be planned in advance but it must go beyond just development to include the global food system, which encompasses production, and post-farm process such as processing, and distribution is also a key contributor to emissions. And it’s a problem for which we don’t yet have viable technological solutions.

Food is responsible for approximately 26% of global GHG emissions.  So we will need a menu of solutions: changes to diets; food waste reduction; improvements in agricultural efficiency; and technologies that make low-carbon food alternatives scalable and affordable.

Methane warms the world twenty times faster than carbon.

Junk-food chains, including KFC and Pizza Hut, McDonald’s have spread around the world.

Take McDonald’s. 

  • It has about 28,000 restaurants worldwide, opening around 2,000 new ones each year

The food industry spends billions a year in advertising and promotion to persuade people to eat more food.

In short, then, this is another example of wasted wealth, wasted capital, wasted labor, and wasted resources.Climate Change What Happens after 2100

On top of all this while the earth warms up it has the capability of releasing 1.5 trillion tons of organic carbon twice as much as Earths, atmosphere currently holds.

The planet is the ultimate ‘global commons’. It belongs to neither a particular individual nor a particular nation. Nor does it belong to a single generation such as us, our children, or our grandchildren.

Instead, it belongs to all living creatures both alive now and in the future. Just as all of humanity is connected ‘horizontally’ across the globe, so too are all past and future life forms bound ‘vertically’ in a continual unfolding of the story of life.

So when you buy something, you buy something that lasts; you buy it because you really need it and want to take care of it. It is none other than this consideration for future human beings and other life forms that should form the yardstick by which we set our mitigation targets — not merely what is politically and economically feasible for the industrialized world today.

Yet the political and economic institutions of our civilization are fixated on enjoying the present and unable to account for the consequences of our actions on tomorrow.

Corporations and governments are forever borrowing from the future in order to improve the present.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin. 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. OUR WORLD IS ON FIRE IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE.

08 Sunday Aug 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Communication., Cop26., CORONA VIRUS., Environment, Human Collective Stupidity., Human values., Humanity., Inequality., Natural World Disasters, OLYMPICS GAMES., Post-Covid-19, Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Unanswered Questions., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Five-minute read) 

While we watched a postponed Olympics game unfold in Japan with barely one in 10 Japanese wanting it to happen, a pandemic is exposing gaps with graphic honesty in a  world that has long been overdue for systemic reform of its economic, social, and technological structures.

All require a global-to-local response and long-term thinking; all need to be guided by science and need to protect the most vulnerable among us, and all require the political will to make fundamental changes when faced with existential risks.

Beyond the obvious short-term impacts of climate change and Covid (such as loss of life, a profound hit to economic and social activity), both are casting a long shadow into the future. 

If we remain passive and ununited to the emerging risks, we may lose a historical opportunity to shape the new normal that we want, rather than the one we would be left with.

At the moment the economic risks dominate perceptions, with a prolonged global recession a top concern.

However, if either Covid-19 or Climate change eclipses sustainability on the public agenda where are we then.

What we will be left with are critical non-economic risks concerning the sustainability of life on earth and all that live on it.

On the environmental front, even with an expected 8% drop in global emissions for this year, the world would still miss the 1.5°C targets to avoid a planetary catastrophe.

If we are to truly recover from the pandemic and its impacts, then it will not be about putting things back together to how they were –we are in the midst of a historic event that will change many aspects of our world.

The long-term societal impacts of both, such as an exacerbation of inequality and changes in consumer behaviors, the nature of work, and the role of technology – both at work and at home – will change our way of life forever, for us as individuals, as a workforce, and as a society.

We were unprepared for Covid that was predictable. We are not preparing for Climate change that will create substantial societal consequences for the long term, now being felt by people worldwide. 

There is one thing for certain our attitudes towards traveling, commuting, and consumption will change employment prospects.

So what lessons can we distill, that can feed into your own future scenario, resilience, and business continuity planning?

Profit for profit’s sake will have to be regulated.

No longer can businesses plunder the earth for finite resources to produce worthless short-term material satisfaction. We know that we will have to build back better and address deep systemic vulnerabilities that have been allowed to develop over the last decades.

  • Left unchecked, there is a real risk that inequalities and social deprivation will increase

Therefore, the challenge to return to the ‘new normal’ is as much a psychological as an economic choice.

The timing and speed of the economic recovery, dependent as it is on solving the health crisis, is likely to exacerbate inequality, mental health problems, and lack of societal cohesion. It is also likely to widen the wealth gap between young and old and pose significant educational and employment challenges that risk a second lost generation.

A golden rule of politics is that the timing of a decision is almost as important as the decision itself.

“Timing is everything”, but it is also the element that is hardest to get right.

Of course, we need to focused on the climate, sustainability, and on societal risks, such as inequality, mental health, the lack of social cohesion and inclusion. If we do not do this, then the gaps in inequality – especially financial – are likely to remain and increase destroying all efforts of a green economy, a sustainable economy, or any other form of the economy whether it is socially driven or ever man for himself.   

We are already seeing record levels of unemployment due to lockdown measures, to control transmission and are re-learned hard lessons, particularly that social deprivation determines health outcomes.

So it is time for preparation, for a world of shocks which is likely urging to ramp up economic activity, regardless of impact, to recover at any cost.

Much depends on what governments, societies, and businesses will do next. This should be a long-term change in attitude in the historic public vs private debate.

I urge you to take the time to weigh the potential risks and benefits based on your situation before making a decision you could regret for the rest of your life.

We must draw on all our strengths to build back a better world.

 It’s time for all avenues of communication to be taking the lead.

The New Normal is knocking at the door and the door is already open.

Change is simple and it’s not easy.

Step 1: Do you want to change?

Step 2: Do you know how to change?

Step 3: Are you willing to give a change time?

Anyone who has ever changed has gone through the process. We need all three steps, and if we miss one, we get none.

The new normal in the end will look like we want it to look.

The life you thought was boring, is the life you’re hoping to get back to right now.”

Ultimately, public health is a political choice. A choice we are now confronted with, and one we will have to make over and over again as we transition to a more resilient, zero-carbon, just, and healthier future.

 Hopefully, hold on to that sense of shared humanity. 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYES; OPEN LETTER TO THE DELEGATES OF THE COP26 SUMMIT GLASGOW 2021.

02 Monday Aug 2021

Posted by in Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change.

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          WE CAN’T CREATE SUSTAINABLE PROSPERITY BY AN ACT OF WILL.

02/08/2021.  

Dear Cop26 Delegate,

As you know the sheer importance of what is happing at the end of this inflationary period on Earth is going to define all of our futures.

Whether the forthcoming COP26 Summit results are brilliant or terrible if we are not found in harmony with the earth, is likely to make our age, a mythic one, to our distant or future descendants.

Our distant and future ancestors are what everyone on earth shares.

From this perspective.

No human goal today is more pressing than the search for sustainable prosperity.

But it must encompass all other purposes, including peace, justice, health, science, economic development, spiritual pursuits.  Without them, all others will prove transient and illusory.

You will be attending a sobering up BY CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT that will hopefully show the scale of our problems and produce Actions that all in sundry can participate in.

You as a delegate must develop imagery that will bridge the incomprehensible gap between the forces of nature responsible for the very existence.

We are living today at a turning point for our species.

We can all be drowning in yelling about our differences, trying to control matters by fiat, or we can close our mouths and listen and try to follow some common sense.

This is a very special time that will never come again.

This summit is not the place, to blow your own trumpet, make worthless promises, but rather to agree on transparent actions on a global scale.

We all know that we need energy. 

We all know that the production of energy must go green. Not in twenty years, not in ten years but right now.

So why not agree to the following.

Government non-repayable grants.

Enable every home to install solar panels and insulation.

We only have one Earth.



Yours Faithfully

The Beady Eye.