He gave us in An Inconvenient Truth a melee of graphs based on sound scientific data; the affect of which was amazing in bringing the issue of climate change to the homes and cinemas of the middle-classes. 

However in a worrying change of tone, Al Gore stated yesterday in a speech in Copenhagen that:

''Reason based analysis has thus far proved of limited value in motivating action''

Now this may be true but the alternative- to rely on emotion and fear- plays right into the hands of deniers who claim the climate change movement is one built on unlikely doomsday prophecies. 

The risk is also enormous when you consider what has happened to the climategate emails. Those much analysed documents seemed to show a similar reasoning by renowned scientists who were frustrated by inaction so they used their credibility, and reputations to fuzz the numbers. 

Now it may have been a throw away comment, but I really hope that Al Gore- still the climate change movement's most prominent face- stays patient and prudent.  . . read more

Without a single day of talks, the vast majority of pundits have already set the bar of expectations so low that it seems we should be popping the champagne if the most anodyne of political agreements is reached.

Not to fall into the trap of optimism, but shouldn't we be a little bit hopeful and a little bit proud of the victories this fight has already won?

For instance, there cannot be a single sane leader on this planet who can realistically ignore this issue.

Yes, so far most of the world's responses have bordered on the tokenistic, but the sheer awareness and the fear of backlash, is a sign that the movers and shakers are getting scared.

Not to exaggerate but there could also be a dangerous connotation to this wide-spread cynicism-that connotation being that the most modest of successes will cause surprise and a spark of hope amongst a grey and apathetic public.

Sort of takes the heat off government leaders who thought they'd have to thrash it out in debates and eventually return to their countries exhausted, treaty in hand proclaiming that the problem was finally solved.

Instead, with the contour-less global media poised with their fingers quivering over keyboards (and the letters that spell 'failure'), an undue amount of column inches will be written for the promised funds for developing nations, as renewable technolgies are extolled and the great demon coal is exorcised. 

My point?

Well we really have to keep our collective critical thinking cap on, because this about to become a no-holds barred grudge match where everything will be too little, too late, too much, too weak etc.

Just don't be too pessimistic because fatalism never fixed anything.   . . read more

The fictional movie tells of disaster from bad plumbing (and corruption). But everyday in Sydney the "something really wrong about water" goes on and on. Sydney Water doesn't want to reduce usage - it keeps encouraging more water use by charging fixed fees for pipes in and pipes out (over 80% of my bill) and barely charging (like 18%) for the actual water people use. If I reduce my water use by 50% I'll reduce my bill by 9%. If you reduce your water use by 50% how much do you reduce your bill? With the future desalination plant there'll be a slight increase in usage charge but not much. Cheap water will keep being wasted. People get bugger all incentive to become water wise and to let Warragamba Dam build up to record levels and let the river system also be flushed out for the river's health.

Sydney Water could easily change its billing practice without reducing overall income by gradually reducing fixed fees and increasing its per kilolitre usage charge. This would reduce water use per head of population because the benefit would be tangible. As long as it announced such a gradual change and stuck to it people and businesses could adapt, install equipment and learn to save more water. The NSW Government and Sydney Water have had years to do this but they don't want to. They want more water use & more electricity use. They would rather spend money on advertising campaigns and water police in cars than actually solve the problem. This is what's really wrong about water in Sydney, not personal corruption, but the system that wants perpetual growth and doesn't want to change.

No amount of technology, diplomacy and political manouevering can hide the fact that to achieve innovation when it comes to global action on climate is a matter of ethics. And that ethical outcomes are themselves dependent on what we want to do.

The geopolitics of who goes first, the economic compensation programs, the views of scientists are all second order issues.

You can’t give up smoking unless you want to and once volition is in play then it’s pretty easy.

Ditto the inconvenient truth.

Let’s create an ethical harmony based on desire before we try and nut out the programme for implementation. That requires a universal accord and not one driven by the power brokers.

‘All for one and one for all’.  . . read more

Our politicians suffer from ‘bifurcation blindness’ born of over-exposure to adversarial ways of thinking. It’s either this or that; them or us; good or evil; alive or dead; black or white. Traditional economics has similar preoccupations. Plus or minus; demand or supply; perfect or imperfect. Yet the most important word in the political lexicon is ‘AND’. Let’s think about saving the planet AND promoting economic growth. Let’s put the ‘plan it’ into ‘planet’.  . . read more

This is no doubt true. However it is only the tip of the now-melting iceberg. The real strength of the work presented in The Limits To Growth was the modelling of exponential growth under many limits simultaneously. Even a growth rate of as little as 2-3% per year (about the current rate in the ‘developed world’ and approximately that modelled in the book) amounts to a doubling in size of industrial output and population within 23-35 years. The results of the modelling show that if growth is allowed to continue, the world system simply loses the ability to cope. Depreciation begins to exceed investment with increased expenditure on sources (technologies) and sinks (pollution mitigation).

Although heavily publicised, climate change is only one of the indicators that the world system has indeed already reached the limits to growth. Other indicators include; peak oil, the lack of arable land and decreasing land yield, a shortage of timber, the decreasing catch of fish and the need to construct desalination plants at huge expense. . . read more