One Finite Planet

One Finite Planet

Sustainability++     Here for a good time and a longer time.

Obama and Xi Jinping announcement: a huge step for climate action? Or a backward step?

Date Published:

Obama is currently a ‘lame duck’ president with a hostile senate, and approval rating that suggests a likely hood the next US president may well be a republican.

In Australia when the less conservative party took a position to take steps to address climate change, it became a call to arms for conseratives opposed to any action on climate change.  The conservatives moved from favouring an emssions trading scheme, to effectively opposing any real action.  Then the conservative won power and there was an unwinding of steps to address climate change.

Similarly in the US, Obama taking steps on climate change will almost certainly galvanise those in the republican party who are most doubful about human actiivy driving climate change.   In could become a key platform of the republicans to abandon the very plans announced by Obama.

Of course, the key stategy from Obama to avoid this is to allow the counter position that unwinding Obama’s targets could leave the republicans with a policy that suggests China is more sophisticated that the US.

The initiative by Obama in his current position IS dangerous because of the risk of a backlash, but with China on board it also could possibly work.  Which was will things go? Only time will tell.

, , ,

Follow

Table of Contents

Categories

, , ,

Environment: On all paths, disruption is imminent & preparation advisable.

August 27, 2023 September 1, 2023

Either we disrupt the economic system of a gradual path to transition from fossil fuels, extreme weather disrupts us, or most likely we deal with a mix of both disruptions.

We are living through many trends that simply cannot continue, and while there is competition for which trend reaching a tipping point will cause the greatest disruption over the next decade, the environment and rising CO2 levels will play a key role by 2030.

While some righteous environmentalists protest for everyone to embrace austerity and simply just stop burning fossil fuels, what is required is replacement infrastructure reliant on fossil fuels. In practice we can’t switch off until positive action replaces the need for fossil fuels, which is progressing too slowly in a failing effort to avoid disrupting economies and the establishment.

Reality is both the extreme weather events that further motivate action and those actions themselves will cause disruption, which will both combine with the disruption from AI and the collapse of economic Ponzi schemes.

Read More »

Cost of coal power vs renewables: China expanding coal while the suckers go green?

July 19, 2023 July 20, 2023

If coal fired power can no longer compete on price, then why is China building two new coal power plants per week? Is China somehow able to use coal fired electricity to gain a competitive advantage against western manufacturing which increasingly relies on “clean green” but more expensive energy, with the result that emissions and jobs are simply transferred to China?

The current politics of climate agreements encourage rich countries to offshore some emissions to those countries often forced to be more reliant coal and with higher emissions. Could we fix the problem of China syndrome emissions if there was the political will?

Read More »

Righteous environmentalism: an opium for the people concerned about climate.

May 20, 2023 July 27, 2023

There is a real need to protect the environment, and advocacy for the environment is great, but that advocacy can acquire traits of a religion, which at the extreme can even result in far-right eco-terrorism, and more in the mainstream can result in righteous environmentalism and embracing austerity and sacrifices as “an opium”.

The “righteous environmentalists” preach this austerity as necessary life of the future to an audience that just see the rich becoming even richer. This blindly serves an alternate agenda and needlessly alienates and disenfranchises much of the population. The result is do-nothing politicians to get re-elected instead of motivating voters for real action on climate change and electing leaders who will act.

Read More »

Crime: A litmus test for inequality?

April 25, 2023 April 5, 2023

Around the world, many countries have both a battle with equality for some racial groups and minorities and also a battle with crime-rates within and by those same groups.

Should we consider crime rates the real sentinels of problems and a solution require focusing on factors behind crime rates? Or is the correct response to rising crime rates or crime rates within specific groups an adoption of being “tough on crime”, thus increasing rates of incarceration and even deaths in custody for oppressed minorities and racial groups?

This is an exploration of not adjusting the level of penalties and instead focusing on the core issues and inequalities behind crime-rates. It is clear that it is “damaged people” in general rather than specific racial groups that correlate with elevated crime rates, so why not use crime rates to identify who is facing inequality?

Read More »

Influence: There’s no free lunch and they use your data to make you pay.

January 16, 2023 August 17, 2023

It can seem all those tech companies are so dumb giving away services for free.

I recently read another comment containing the “I don’t want Google getting more of my data to sell” and it reminded me of the question, ‘why is your data valuable?’ people too rarely ask. The common myth is that Facebook and Google etc want your data so they can sell it, but even with companies that do sell your data, it still requires someone to turn data into money, and enough money to fund the “free” services of the tech companies and allow them enough spare to make profits beyond anything seen in the world previously. So how does the data turn into so much money?

There is no such thing as a free lunch. Google and Facebook etc make their money from advertising, not from selling data, and unless they use can the data to persuade you to buy products at prices inflated by advertisers paying part of the sale price to Facebook/Google etc, they would lose money.

Your data is used to inflate the cost of living and earn votes for politicians with an agenda that gives them a budget to spend. They (Google/Facebook etc) don’t want to sell your data, but the reality, is more sinister: they use it to have to change your thinking, so more of your money will go to make them richer.

Read More »