Stopping runaway climate change -- A Plan ∞
George Monbiot, a journalist and activist, has proposed a 10 point plan to help us limit climate change by rapidly reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. While this will involve some changes in lifestyle, it will not be as radical as those changes that will be required if we don’t act now.
The general ideas can be summarised as follow:
- Rationing carbon emissions, so that those who want the jet-set lifestyle have to buy the right to do so from those who don’t or can’t afford to (with the added benefit that this might help distribute wealth more evenly)
- Removing ‘non green’ products from the marketplace. A wise idea would be to ban ‘old fashioned’ ‘non-energy-efficient’ light bulbs, and all use energy efficient lights. Plus with the advances in LED technology, these bay provide an even lower power alternative in the near future.
- Upping the standard for insulation on houses, including those for rent. Which again would help the poor in the long term, by reducing the amount of money spent heating homes. It may also reduce our dependance on imported fuel/energy.
- Stopping the relentless expansion of our road and airport network, and instead spending those resources on improving our vastly under-financed non-integrated public transport network.
He also suggests that much of this can be implemented in the next 5 years, by 2012 at the latest, citing the changes in manufacturing brought on during the last World War.
While this may be the timescale that is required, and quite possibly the one to push for, I fear that our Government (all parties, not just the Labour Party) is too close to business (with its huge inertia, resistance to change, and demands for ever increasing growth in spending and transport) for this to happen.
Here’s hoping, for the sake of our planet, that I am wrong.