Update from the Archdruid Greer

[Lord Beria3]

Greer on climate change activists...

Skylight, you know, it’s a source of wry amusement to me that every time I mention what to me is an obvious point — you can’t convince people to change their lives unless you’re willing to show by example that you’re willing to change yours — I get the most elaborate evasive maneuvers. Let me try this again. Nobody is going to take climate change activists seriously, no matter what they do, unless they first demonstrate their sincerity by leading by example. That’s the first essential step to effective rhetoric at the end of an age of abstraction, and all the other tactics and strategies have to be built atop it or they go nowhere. Yes, there are lots of other tactics and strategies, but it’s a waste of time talking about them when the movement won’t take that first essential step.

Imagine, for a moment, that you were interested in campaigning against rape. Imagine, for a moment, that the majority of people actively involved in the campaign against rape were serial rapists. Now imagine that every time somebody pointed out to the serial rapists that nobody would take them seriously unless they stopped committing rape, they insisted that you can’t stop rape just by having activists not rape, that it was a bigger problem than that, and how could they communicate the importance of taking drastic steps to stop rape? The answer, of course, is that they can’t, because their unwillingness to lead by example guarantees that whatever they do will be dismissed as hypocrisy — and for good reason.

It so happens that the climate change movement is dominated these days by middle and upper middle class people in the industrial world — that is to say, people whose lifestyles are disproportionately responsible for greenhouse gas emissions: people who use much more fossil fuel energy, and many more of the products of fossil fuel energy, than the average human being. Everyone else in the world knows this. When climate change activists insist that something has to be done about global warming, but aren’t willing to lead by example, everyone else in the world assumes — and for good reason — that they’re just being hypocrites. Until you’re willing to take that harsh reality as a starting point, you’re not going to communicate the urgency of action concerning global warming, because nobody is going to take you seriously. It really is as simple as that.

Superb! This is why I read Greer - a direct hit!

[clv101]

Absolutely, though there's not a world of originally in there. It's why as a climate scientist I'm one of VERY FEW who does not fly, I take every opportunity to highlight the hypocrisy of climate science, right from the IPCC and research councils down to the individuals involved. It's why as a climate scientist I've designed and built a "zero carbon in construction and use" house - to *show* there is another way.

Greer's third paragraph quoted above is exactly what Prof Kevin Anderson has been saying for literally years.

[Little John]

But, you've spent a relative (to most of the rest of the world) fortune on a designer "green" house instead of purchasing an existing, much more modest one and, in doing so, not spent all of that money into an economy that will circulate it over and over again, via the magic of fractional reserve banking.

Yeah.

Right.

I'm not decrying you for doing it, per-se, by the way. We each of us find comfort in this mad world in whatever way works for us.

Just don't pretend your hands are cleaner than anyone else with the excuse of trying to make out you are "setting an example" with your house when you know full well, it is not scalable for a variety of reasons.

In blunt terms, the cleanest hands are the poorest.

[clv101]

In blunt terms, the cleanest hands are the poorest.

This, I quite agree with.

I really do think building the house we've build is better than buying one.

Virtually the whole cost has been spent with ~local material / service providers so the benefit to the area has been much greater than had we bought an existing house.
The total cost has been significantly less than buying an existing house so less money (environmental impact through its earning, borrowing etc) has been involved in total.
The ongoing impacts of the house are far lower than any existing house I could have bought.

At the end of the day, we all need a house to live in. We've addressed this challenge for our family in a low impact, and low cost way. Could it have been even lower impact and even lower cost? Of course - but that can be said about virtually any choice any of us make.

Whilst exactly what we've done is "not scalable" (though there could easily be thousands of similar houses built each year rather than dozens), there are huge improvements in the building industry that are possible. We should be building "zero-carbon" and until recently the government was planing such improvements to building regulations but the big house builders managed to squash it.

[Little John]

You are precisely what Greer was referring to CLV.

[vtsnowedin]

It so happens that the climate change movement is dominated these days by middle and upper middle class people in the industrial world — that is to say, people whose lifestyles are disproportionately responsible for greenhouse gas emissions: people who use much more fossil fuel energy, and many more of the products of fossil fuel energy, than the average human being.

Al Gore comes to mind.

[clv101]

You are precisely what Greer was referring to CLV.

What do you mean?

[fuzzy]

You are precisely what Greer was referring to CLV.

Everyone in the UK is living beyond sustainability. Even the very few people who are living sustainably in the world aren't - they are harvesting rock erosion to feed themselves. In the days of the romans the UK had lost 1/2 it's tree cover to cropping. Yes politicians and science gurus are a higher level of hypocrisy, but I think CLV tries to conserve, like all of us here.

[leroy]

You are precisely what Greer was referring to CLV.

Mmm can't see that one. Greer is calling out jetsetting, proselytising climate scientists. We all emit too much carbon. I don't fly or drive, have an allotment, but I do eat meat and a lot of other things from the supermarket. At least Chris is trying.

[Potemkin Villager]

You are precisely what Greer was referring to CLV.

Mmm can't see that one. Greer is calling out jetsetting, proselytising climate scientists. We all emit too much carbon. I don't fly or drive, have an allotment, but I do eat meat and a lot of other things from the supermarket. At least Chris is trying.

The only folks who are currently totally carbon neutral and make no demands on the environment are the unborn and the dead.

[johnhemming2]

The only folks who are currently totally carbon neutral and make no demands on the environment are the unborn and the dead.

I thought dead people emitted a certain amount of methane for a while. Unborn babies consume energy from their mothers.

[kenneal - lagger]

...The only folks who are currently totally carbon neutral and make no demands on the environment are the unborn and the dead.

Not sure that even the dead are not contributing to polluting the environment. Decomposition can cause methane leaks and what about all the mercury fillings that are left in the ground or are they burn off into the atmosphere in the crematorium? Then there is the gas used in the crem.

[Potemkin Villager]

...The only folks who are currently totally carbon neutral and make no demands on the environment are the unborn and the dead.

Not sure that even the dead are not contributing to polluting the environment. Decomposition can cause methane leaks and what about all the mercury fillings that are left in the ground or are they burn off into the atmosphere in the crematorium? Then there is the gas used in the crem.

I am wondering now if cremation or burial is more eco friendly! Decisions.Decisions.

[woodburner]

Left out for buzzards, magpies, crows and foxes would be more eco friendly

[leroy]

Something doesn't smell good with Steve 's attack here to me. On another thread he celebrated the demise of suicides in freeing up resources for others including himself. Just doesn't seem to sit right with gunning for someone for building an eco home.