In case you were not quite sure what to do yet to help with the climate fight, here is what IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri had to say during his recent Paris press conference – as reported by AFP:
Don’t eat meat, ride a bike, and be a frugal shopper – that’s how you can help brake global warming, the head of the United Nation’s Nobel Prize-winning scientific panel on climate change said Tuesday.
The 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), issued last year, highlights “the importance of lifestyle changes,” said Rajendra Pachauri at a press conference in Paris.
“This is something that the IPCC was afraid to say earlier, but now we have said it.“
A vegetarian, the Indian economist made a plea for people around the world to tame their carnivorous impulses.
“Please eat less meat — meat is a very carbon intensive commodity,” he said, adding that consuming large quantities was also bad for one’s health.
Studies have shown that producing one kilo (2.2 pounds) of meat causes the emissions equivalent of 36.4 kilos of carbon dioxide.
In addition, raising and transporting that slab of beef, lamb or pork requires the same amount of energy as lighting a 100-watt bulb for nearly three weeks.
In listing ways that individuals can contribute to the fight against global warming, Pachauri praised the system of communal, subscriber-access bikes in Paris and other French cities as a “wonderful development.”
“Instead of jumping in a car to go 500 meters, if we use a bike or walk it will make an enormous difference,” he told journalists at a press conference.
Another lifestyle change that can help, he continued, was not buying things “simply because they are available.” He urged consumers to only purchase what they really need.
Since the Nobel was awarded in October to the IPCC and the former US vice president Al Gore, Pachauri has criss-crossed the globe sounding the alarm on the dangers of global warming.
“The picture is quite grim — if the human race does not do anything, climate change will have serious impacts,” he warned Tuesday.
At the same time, however, he said he was encouraged by the outcome of UN-brokered climate change negotiations in Bali last month, and by the prospect of a new administration in Washington.
“The final statement clearly mentions deep cuts in emissions in greenhouse gases. I don’t think people can run away from that terminology,” he said.
The Bali meeting set the framework for a global agreement on how to reduce the output of carbon dioxide and other gases generated by human activity that are driving climate change.
Pachauri also sees cause for optimism in the fact that, for the first time since the world’s nations began meeting over the issue of global warming in 1994, “nobody questioned the findings of the IPCC.”
“The science has clearly become the basis for action on climate change,” he said.
In 2007, the IPCC issued a massive report the size of three phone books on the reality and risks of climate change, its 4th assessment in 18 years.
Pachauri said it was too late for Washington to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the sole international treaty mandating cuts in CO2 emissions.
The United States is the only industrialised country not to have made such commitments.
But he remained hopeful the US — under a new administration — would be a “core signatory” of any new agreement.
“With the change that is taking place politically in the US, the chances of that happening are certainly much better than was the case a few months ago,” he said.
At 67, Pachauri said he has not yet decided whether to take on a second five-year mandate as IPCC head. Elections take place in September.
On the one hand, he said, the experience he has acquired would serve him well.
But the advantage of retiring, he said with a smile, is that his carbon footprint — the amount of C02 emissions generated by all this travels — would be greatly reduced.
Three things. That’s all he is asking from us. That’s all and that’s not so simple.
He forgot about electrical power. Most of the world gets it from fossil fuel-fired plants, and that makes up a good chunk of the emissions we can control in our day-to-day lives.
That’ll have more effect than (say) how many CDs and t-shirts you buy.
IPCC chief: “Another lifestyle change that can help, he continued, was not buying things “simply because they are available.” He urged consumers to only purchase what they really need.”
I love what he said. But I wonder how the denialists and rightwingers and Bjorn Lomborg followers will say to this particular item. Only buy what we need? The entire world economy will collapse, no? But he said it. Cool! Let the reax set in!
I watched the news earlier. They showed the results of a poll showing the top five issues for voters, and global climate change was not one of them. Also, I saw an ad for “clean coal”, with an upbeat tone. So, I think there’s a lot to do.
That said, during the recent Democratic debate, the candidates discussed climate change and energy, briefly. And, a recent Obama ad mentions the issue. My sense is that concern about climate change is picking up some momentum. Still a long way to go.
Also, regarding riding bikes locally, and even sharing bikes and having some community bikes, it seems to me that places like Stanford, Palo Alto, Berkeley, etc. might be the places best positioned to do that, and to show that leadership. If places like that don’t do it, who will? Of course, we need much larger solutions than that, but things like that matter, and they also model new attitudes. Just a thought.
Kyle,
I had same reaction when I read AFP article: How about electricity? But then, thought, the guy must know what he is talking about after all . . . And refrained from making a comment. Thanks for bringing it up.
Dan,
Yes, you are right about the economic argument, which as we all know is a false one since we are merely suggesting displacing purchases/jobs to green infrastructures/products/services. I have not researched the numbers, but my hunch is it would more than compensate. Plus if we consume less, we will not need to make as much money, and work as much . . .
Jeff,
I agree with the idea of pushing a public bike initiative locally. Part of my problem has been the lack of time . . . Needing to prioritize between more macro initiatives versus local efforts.
I’d like to remind everyone that in idiot “Bush’s” address today, he’s hoping to propose monetary rebates with the purpose of resuscitating our economy by “consuming”. You know, the old, “shop till you drop” mentality.
Lou Dobbs last night pointed out that in Bush’s idea of keeping with the rebate intended for spending, we buy more stuff “domestically”. And then he mused, “what domestic anything?”
Now there’s another moronic statement from our conscious President. What is domestically produced anymore? We’re now the largest importer of goods. (if you absolutely have to buy something).
All these suggestions from the IPCC are well taken. If I could wish one thing it would be somehow to see more community based neighborhoods develop where we grow our own food more abundantly, adapt to the limitations of that food supply based on our individual demographics (and accept it. In fact it is suggested we would live more harmoniously with Earth if we did adapt to her food bounty based on our local ecosystems, not global imports). To live with more compassion and generosity toward those who don’t have the basics and with a hundred underlines and exclamation points, “stop buying things we don’t need”. I have a gift certificate I got for Christmas that I’m constantly staring at vacilating between what I could buy that I don’t need or letting it sit until I absolutely exhaust that which I have in my possession now that fits the certificate purchase. This speaks to my aforementioned pontification; to live with more compassion toward those that need. I’m describing I realize my own challenge. It would be new for me but certainly reflects my dire need for growing a more generous heart…..I could give that certificate to someone who really does need in the truest most desperate of terms. While there are some areas I don’t need any prodding whatsoever to change, there does still exist a desire in my own evolution of “consciousness” to live a more generous, selfless lifestyle. This is difficult for me at times, I’m sorry to admit.
This is an excellent forum for discussion……..as always, thank you Marguerite for your heart.
Elizabeth Tjader
One more quick thing…..Danny Bloom did point on a challenging dilemma….would the economy flatline even more if we all stopped buying? I know the quick, topical obvious answer is a resounding “yes”. But this begs to the mind of Jeff Huggins or some of the other people who excel in business and economics. How do we stop buying “stuff” and sustain a healthy ecology and economy?
Along with all my other “wishes”, I guess I’d like to see more ecologically conscious products developed by and in our own country. I do know as a gardener, if given the choice, most of my landscape clients opted for quicker, toxic, chemically applied solutions to eradicate unwanted weeds and/or garden/home pests verses supporting cleaner, more compassionate, ecologically based problem solving. Tending the earth healthfully, anyway, is more labor intensive and requires repeat attention and diligence.
I suppose in our discussion another issue pertaining to our existence here is the “quick fix” syndrome. We’ve been conditioned to expect results instantaneously as opposed to slow and easy benefits all life on planet earth, not just the “humans”.
Maybe this could be a topic for discussion at some point, how to create a healthy economy based not so much on purchasing “things”, but rather purchasing, what? Healthy ideals for living?
Elizabeth Tjader
Agree with all of your points Elizabeth . . . I have given up even paying attention to G. Bush’s comments and actions. He is a lost cause, and is so predictable in his ill-advised policies that it is just plain sad, and terrifying.
Yes, the economic part of the equation is critical. Not just to address the critics, but also to plan, very practically a sustainable economy.
> not buying things ‘simply because they are available.’ > … only purchase what they really need.
Yep:
“a man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to leave alone.”
– Henry David Thoreau
http://kenkifer.com/Thoreau/economy.htm
Natural stocks of most things increase on average three percent a year — fish, trees. Any time we print ‘money’ faster than nature we contribute to an illusion of wealth.
Money can buy you more money, or rather the gamble of the illusion of having more money.
Nature can’t buy more nature. How could it?
The law doesn’t have a way to buy nature back and give nature back to itself. It’s been suggested:
“Should Trees Have Standing? In a 1972 essay in the Southern California Law Review, legal scholar Christopher D. Stone suggested — in earnest — that non-human natural entities be granted legal rights ….”
http://philosophy.tamu.edu/~gary/ee2005a/stone.html
The idea was tested in US courts and lost out.
Have any of you all out there got little parcels of land, wildland, ‘urban wilderness’ or just some parcel nobody’s plowed or logged in recent decades? Maybe a place that neighborhood kids can get to on foot or on bicycle, well enough watched that it’s not a dangerous place to go, wild enough that it’s interesting and unexpected?
Anyone have any idea how to preserve these little pockets where nature continues to make more nature, without being buzzcut and scraped off and tamed?
There ought to be a way.
There ought to be a way those of us who do own little bits of nature to give it back to nature, and those who own money they have no need to spend can buy nature back for itself.
Legal systems exist to frustrate that effort, to take and grind up anything ‘free’ and convert it to more money.
Ideas, anyone? The big organizations like Nature Conservancy take the little parcels donated and resell them to buy bigger and more important areas. No argument there, it’s needed.
But I’m thinking about the kids who got to go out into a field or woods on their own feet or bicycle and see it over several years, as the kid and the wildland both grow. They grow up conservative about nature — conservationists, restoration-minded adults.
How, now?
I LOVE that Thoreau quote!
“How do we stop buying “stuff” and sustain a healthy ecology and economy?”
Services.
Teachers, nurses, masseurs, musicians, counsellors, plumbers, carpenters, bicycle mechanics, all kinds of technical advisors… Lots of people spend their entire lives without producing or selling any “stuff”, but still make a good living. Or what they sell is just a few replacement parts.
If people aren’t buying new stuff, the old stuff will have to be maintained and repaired, right?
If we’re just buying less stuff rather than none, well let’s think about what we’d reduce first – it’d be electronics stuff, cheap clothing and household stuff like plates. And that’s mostly made outside the developed West. So our money would stay in the country instead of leaving it. Now, since we currently spend more than we earn, and consume more than we produce, well… it might hurt China’s economy, but wouldn’t exactly collapse ours.
I suppose a heap of retail jobs would disappear. But maybe they’d re-emerge. I mean, it’s not like no-one bought t-shirts before there was a WalMart with Chinese t-shirts. I don’t know about retail stores, but I do know that in the restaurant industry, the big chain stores employ less people compared to the number of customers served. 1x McDs with 20 employees will kill off 5x local burger joints with 10 employees each. So hell, maybe we’d see employment go up.
Totally agree. Although it makes intuitive sense – to us, the converts . . . -, it would be worth modeling a green economy. I have not researched whether such models already exist.
Such models exist in some respects. The basic model that every economist has is as follows,
There are three sectors to the economy: agricultural, manufacturing and service.
In the beginning, the economy is mostly agricultural.
Then a country industrialises, and the manufacturing sector grows while the agriculture sector shrinks; the service sector grows slightly to help out the manufacturing sector.
After industrialisation is complete, the efficiency of production means that not as many people are needed to produce what’s needed, so the service sector grows. Eventually the service sector is the largest one, the inverse of the old rural economy.
Now, the current model is that as manufacturing becomes more efficient, that sector shrinks and the people move to the service sector (factory workers go to McDs, factory engineers become design engineers, etc).
But it’s just as possible that rather than manufacturing efficiency reducing employment in manufacturing, we could have manufacturing quality reducing employment. So rather than having three Chinese making one new cheap breakable table for you every five years, you could have one local making one expensive unbreakable table for you which last thirty years.
Thus, manufacturing employment would decline and the people would move to the service sector.
The picture is a little clouded in the West by the fact that part of the manufacturing “efficiency” is simply that first Japanese, then Korean, then Taiwanese, and now Chinese and Vietnamese workers get paid so much less than our workers, so that the decline in manufacturing could only happen because the manufacturing grew in some other country. But the principle is the same.
On a more common sense level, there is no reason why building a coal-fired or nuclear power plant should create jobs, but building solar panels and wind turbines should lose jobs. Why do we imagine that road-building creates jobs, but rail-building doesn’t? Farming without fossil fuels will take more labour – don’t we have millions of unemployed anyway?
Kyle, thanks for your contribution to what I feel is a very crucial issue.
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