Climate Change or Social Change?

1. Climate Change or Social Change?

2. The fact of climate change • A wide consensus among climate scientists • The sceptics • Populists or scientists from other fields who do not write to peer reviewed scientific journals • Exxon etc. have been financing this • There is politics also in climate sciences but it has not so much influence on the main tenets • instead on the publication of results and on practical recommendations

3. What has already happened? • Average temperature has risen about 1oC from pre-industrial level • Average sea-level has risen more than 17 cm since the year 1900: more floods • Mountain glaciers are disappearing rapidly

4. Recent observation • The ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic melt and break off much faster than expected • The Arctic sea ice is diminishing up to 30 years ahead of IPCC forecasts • The melting of Arctic permafrost has started. • Canadian forests have changed from a carbon sink to a CO2 source • The Amazon is drying rapidly

5. The melting of the ice sheet in Greenland has accelerated … 1992 2002

6. If no action ... • The upper limit of global warming is not tens of degrees but hundreds of degrees • Total catastrophe for humanity, animals and plants Venus – surface temperature 460oC

7. Needed emission cuts • The IPCC: -85% by the year 2050 • => at least -95% in the Global North • Many recent research reports: The climate is much more sensitive than the IPCC assumed in May 2006 (the report deadline) • The information on the atmospheric concentrations in the ancient warm periods • Many recent observations which are not included in the IPCC models • => the emissions must be reduced even more rapidly

8. The present CO2 concentration too high • In fact the present CO2 concentration of 385 ppm is too much, should be 350 ppm • => emission rapidly to zero and a lot of CO2 be bound in biomass

9. Only little time left • James Hansen etc.: less than 10 years • Otherwise self-perpetuating climate change starts • Positive feed-back • We cannot control it

10. Mainstream solutions, part 1:incentives • Publicity • Creating carbon markets • State regulation (taxes etc.)

11. Mainstream solutions, part 2:technical fixes • capturing CO2 from the coal power plants • Planting trees • Nuclear power • Renewable energy sources • raising the efficiency of energy use

12. My thesis:mainstream solutions don't work • The record in the mitigation efforts up to now is dismal • Global carbon dioxide emissions grew more than 3% per year 2000-2004, more than ever • Most of the signatories of the Kyoto Protocol have increased their emissions.

13. The limits of publicity • Publicity against climate change minimal compared to the PR for behaviour causing it • Advertisements and other incentives to consume essential for growth and capitalism

14. The limits of carbon market • New markets, old problems • Market ideal =><= the reality of capitalism • In order to get markets running, the idea of reality must be simplified • You have to create firm knowledge even though you in reality have only guesses • Corner House, Larry Lohman • www.thecornerhouse.org.uk

15. The limits in state regulation • In principle, but... • Information overload in centralized social structures • State-Capital nexus in formulating the regulations • In execution of regulations: ”Revolving door” • Jänicke, Martin: State Failure/Staatsversagen

16. The technical limit of technical fixes • Many proposed technical fixes probably won't succeed at all • e.g. carbon capture • No energy source in the official economy is green house gas free at present • At least in their construction phase large emissions • especially: nuclear power and most biomass sources

17. The inertia of technological system • Enormous investments in the present system • To replace it means enormous efforts, giant investments and millions of professionals and skilled workers • If we had time to wait until the present one wears out, there would be no problem • But we do not have such time • Not enough skilled workers and raw materials to be mobilized quickly enough

18. The net emission reduction comes too late • The construction of a new energy system would absorb so much energy that we would have to wait net energy for decades • e.g. one nuclear power plant/month => net energy not until after 33 years (a conservative estimate, probably even later) • A rapid technical transition program would increase the CO2-emissions just at the most critical period

19. The social and political limits of technical fix program • Insofar as technical fixes would be successful, the oil and coal corporations would lose money and influence => enormous resistance • Retardation • Turning the program to a direction that is safe to corporations but endangers the environment

20. The general freezing of economy when energy costs are rising • The Stern review and the report of the IPCC's 3. working group maintain otherwise • They are misleading: • They are not based on the latest climate science • Their starting points are scenarios which are very risky already on the bases of the then available science • Stern chose 550 ppm greenhouse gas concentration • => 50% chance that temperature rise is > 3 oC • 10% chance that temperature rise is > 5 oC

21. Hopeless situation? • For many the only hope is geoengineering • changing the physical characteristics of the planet Earth • Many of these are very dangerous • for example spreading a large amount of sulphates into the atmosphere

22. Solution: cutting down production and consumption rapidly • ending non-essential production • reducing institutional consumption • Decreasing individual consumption of the global upper and middle class. • A historical example: the collapse of the USSR • stumbling block: Growth imperative • This obstacle curtails advances in renewable energy sources and energy conservation • The same applies also to publicity and state regulation

23. Why is economic growth so important? • Reflects the growth of the capital of corporations – the essence of capitalism • The threat of social chaos • The risk of structural social change • Growth – consumer society • The current way of ruling • The present depression • Social instability grows • The depression in the 1930's: the same story

24. To give up growth aspirations => to change the social system • e.g. to a new openly authoritarian system • Although the elite would have more direct power, most members of the elite don't like this • More uncomfortable to be in the top position: hate and insecurity every where • More difficult to govern, to suppress passive and active resistance when there are no legitimacy of formal democracy

25. Transition to a real democracy • Post-growth and post-capitalist society could as well or even more probably more towards genuine and deep democracy • Democracy has been the main legitimating ideology of the present largely non-democratic system • Partly therefore people have commonly embraced democratic values • Democracy is most natural social system found also among social animals

26. Why anti-growth and system change perspective is commonly rejected even among left-green? • The hopelessness of the other options and the desperate state of affairs are not realized • The same fear as among the elite but reversed • The sectarian and narrow-minded atmosphere among openly revolutionary left • Certain interpretations of history and the present • The relationship between the present economy and satisfaction • The present-day social structures and how people are attached to them • The relationship between capitalism and wealth • The historical democratic revolutions and their failure

27. Another interpretation • Consumer society is based on organized creation of dissatisfaction • Social structures are not like machines but rather provisionally frozen front lines in an on-going struggle • Another non-capitalist parallel society already exists based on common wealth and non-monetary relationships • Revolutionary movements created democratic structures which broke up more because of outside than inside forces

28. Dissatisfying consumption • Hundreds of studies: consuming more does not make people more satisfied or happier • In advertisement in popular culture commodities are made into symbols of most varied things • Commodities are bought because of their social, cultural and spiritual meanings and connotations • But usually they do not satisfy social, cultural and spiritual needs • As far as they do satisfy, they do it only for a short while • Soon meanings are moved by advertisements from old things to new ones. Yet you cannot buy the new ones at once – or perhaps ever.

29. Real existing alternative • Underneath and parallel to the official structures and roles, there is another world of thought, activity and social relations • E.g. when their children are small, parents produce an enormous amount of food, cleaning, care and other essential services unpaid at their home. • Usually the only thing preventing them from breaking down under the workload is the help given by informal circles of friends, relatives, neighbours and peers.

30. Common wealth • Material common wealth: the air that we breathe, the sun that warms us, the winds that cool us, the very climate we try to save, the ability of most women to give birth, wild animals and plants, rivers and most lakes, oceans, deserts and a large part of the forested areas, cities and villages, public libraries, schools,hospitals and cheap public transportationsystems • Non-material examples: are most of the genetic information and scientific knowledge, open-source software like Linux, local knowledge, folk wisdom and common sense, folklore and a large part of popular and high culture

31. Social and subjective 'surplus' • Humans are only partially attached to capitalism • There exist enormous social and subjective 'surplus' • It explains rapid social changes in history • Its can orientate social movements and give hope for future