Book Review: Climate Clangers: The Bad Ideas Blocking Real Action by Jennifer Rayner.
My favourite climate read from the festive season:
Climate Clangers: The Bad Ideas Blocking Real Action by Jennifer Rayner.
Climate Clangers: The Bad Ideas Blocking Real Action by Jennifer Rayner.
Rayner stated that we cannot fix the massive problem of #cimatechange by relying on the same social, political and economic structures that got us here in the first place. We have left it too long and let the risks mount too high to follow the path of incremental change. We need to be flipping the switch to warp speed, but the three bad ideas detailed in the book are holding us back from taking action at the speed and scale that Science demands.
Rayner notes that these climate clangers are more like perspectives or conceptual frameworks that usually go unsaid and unnoticed because they're so embedded in how politicians, policy makers, businesses, and maybe some of us think and view the world, blinkering us from what is necessary and what is possible for tackling climate change right now.
The three climate clangers are:
Each of these clangers is ceremonially discredited in turn by Rayner and valid alternatives proposed.
Our economy is measured by GDP, which is the sum of everything produced and sold for money, including all wealth / profits going overseas. So, fossil fuel exports by overseas companies inflate the GDP but bring little terms of direct economic contribution (jobs, taxes) to the country, whereas electrification and solar PV reduces costs to families and businesses but is bad for GDP even though it's great for Australians.
The paradigm of net zero puts the focus firmly on requiring businesses to balance their carbon ledger. Carbon offsets allow companies to keep polluting as usual if someone somewhere else does something like plant a tree to offset that pollution on paper. The carbon cycle doesn’t work that way. Rayner states that we need to make cuts to pollution right now and lay to rest ill-founded idea that counting carbon offsets equals climate action.
The expected costs of climate action are very visible, but we rarely hear about the costs of inaction. The costs of business as usual (Direct costs of continuing to power ourselves with fossil fuels) alone nearly match the cost to decarbonise our economy. Added to that are the significant costs of inaction, the indirect costs. These include the huge and escalating price we will all pay from more unnatural weather disasters which the Insurance Council of Australia estimates will cost about 35 billion dollars a year by 2050 if we keep going on our current path.
An excellent book – recommended reading. - Alec Roberts
Rayner notes that these climate clangers are more like perspectives or conceptual frameworks that usually go unsaid and unnoticed because they're so embedded in how politicians, policy makers, businesses, and maybe some of us think and view the world, blinkering us from what is necessary and what is possible for tackling climate change right now.
The three climate clangers are:
- That our economy must keep growing as fast as it always has as we decarbonise.
- That Net Zero accounting can keep Global Heating within survivable limits. and
- Looking at the cost of action but ignoring the cost of inaction.
Each of these clangers is ceremonially discredited in turn by Rayner and valid alternatives proposed.
Our economy is measured by GDP, which is the sum of everything produced and sold for money, including all wealth / profits going overseas. So, fossil fuel exports by overseas companies inflate the GDP but bring little terms of direct economic contribution (jobs, taxes) to the country, whereas electrification and solar PV reduces costs to families and businesses but is bad for GDP even though it's great for Australians.
The paradigm of net zero puts the focus firmly on requiring businesses to balance their carbon ledger. Carbon offsets allow companies to keep polluting as usual if someone somewhere else does something like plant a tree to offset that pollution on paper. The carbon cycle doesn’t work that way. Rayner states that we need to make cuts to pollution right now and lay to rest ill-founded idea that counting carbon offsets equals climate action.
The expected costs of climate action are very visible, but we rarely hear about the costs of inaction. The costs of business as usual (Direct costs of continuing to power ourselves with fossil fuels) alone nearly match the cost to decarbonise our economy. Added to that are the significant costs of inaction, the indirect costs. These include the huge and escalating price we will all pay from more unnatural weather disasters which the Insurance Council of Australia estimates will cost about 35 billion dollars a year by 2050 if we keep going on our current path.
An excellent book – recommended reading. - Alec Roberts
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