March 29, 2006

facing climate change? (and random stuff.)

Sounds like the English might be taking climate change seriously.

Colin Challen, the chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group, sets out the case for abandoning the “business as usual” pursuit of economic growth, which has been the basis of Western economic policy for two hundred years. Instead, he says, we must concentrate our efforts on putting a limit on the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from power stations and motor vehicles that are causing the atmosphere to warm.

To do this, Mr Challen and his colleagues believe, carbon will have to be rationed, for companies, individuals and, eventually, for countries. And only a full cross-party consensus would allow such a departure to be implemented without being destroyed by the political process.

The article is well worth a read, and their progress will be worth following. Also of note to the last couple of posts here was Challen’s observation that

“We have to create the political space to address it,”

– especially as he is taking the unpopular real world route of bringing up the idea that we are going to have to make sacrifices.

(By and by the way, there’s four hours of climate change documentaries and talks at the Paramount tonight from 6:30pm.)

–

Meanwhile, Italian researchers have fused a microchip with brain cells.

And Stanislaw Lem died.

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* Filed by billy at 4:15 pm under politics,technology
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  1.   Pearce
    March 30th, 2006 | 5:48 pm

    “the unpopular real world route of bringing up the idea that we are going to have to make sacrifices”

    I listened to an interesting talk by Doug Rushkoff a while back where he had some interesting stuff to say about this (among many other things). He reckons that American Fundamentalist Xtianity ™ preaches the message that “Jesus sacrificed himself so you don’t have to sacrifice anything anymore!” and that advertisers reinforce this with “Go on, treat yourself, you deserve it!” style messages.

    You can find it here
    http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail243.html

    I always wonder “Why do we deserve it? What the hell have we done to earn it?” I reckon that all rights need to be earned, at the very least with responsible behaviour.