by Jules Evans | Feb 27, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity
Spent the afternoon at a water-park in Dubai, mainly reading Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 novel, The Road .
If there’s ever a book I don’t recommend reading in a water-park in Dubai, its Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road.
The book is set in a post-apocalyptic world, in which some unspecified ecological disaster led to the sun being covered behind dust or ashes, leaving the earth in perpetual winter. American society has broken down, most people are dead, most plants and animals are dead, and most of the survivors are marauding bands of cannibals.
In this horrendous environment, a man and his son travel a road, trying to stay alive and get south, where they hope some form of human society may have survived.
Reading it makes me wonder if the so-called ‘politics of well-being’ may be hugely presumptuous.
Geoff Mulgan said this century would be defined by the politics of well-being. Lots of others are involved in this emerging politics – Lord Layard, Richard Reeves of Demos, Martin Seligman, Oliver James, NEF, and in a small way I am too, that’s why I named my blog www.politicsofwellbeing.com
But the main idea of the politics of well-being is western societies are safe and affluent, therefore can afford to turn their attention to higher transcendent goods like inner peace and so on.
Then you read a book like The Road , or like James Lovelock’s Revenge of Gaia , and you wonder…
What if this century isn’t about well-being at all? What if it’s mainly about ecological disaster, food shortages, water shortages, extreme weather, burnt out fields, societies breaking down?
James Lovelock predicted that the global population will go from 10 billion to 1 billion in the next 90 years, because of food shortages and rising oceans.
If people don’t have enough food, they will eat each other. That is the grim message of McCarthy’s book. Civilisation will break down.
In this sort of situation, the question becomes ‘how can states prevent themselves from breaking down’?
They need two things – food and security. They need to be able to protect their borders from the huge amounts of people who will migrate in search of food, and from other states hunting in search of food. And they need enough arable land to make their own food.
The UK as a society, in such an apocalyptic future, would have a chance of surviving, because its institutions are strong, and its people are (one hopes) good at coping in crises and not eating each other.
But if we are facing huge food shortages in the future, then is there an argument for controlling or even stopping immigration? Partly because we can only take a population that we can support with our own land, and partly because I am not sure how a multi-cultural society copes under extreme stress…
Do you think liberalism survives climate change? Or that the open society survives climate change? I don’t think they do.
Like I said, not a great beach book…but a great book nonetheless.
by Richard Gowan | Feb 5, 2009 | Cooperation and coherence, Global system, Influence and networks
The Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat has interviewed Ban Ki-moon, and the English transcript of the Secretary-General’s comments is powerful stuff:
When was the last time you got really angry?
There were a few moments.
Like? I want to get to know you. People don’t know you well—Ban Ki-Moon the Secretary General or Ban Ki-Moon the man.
There were a few moments when I was so angry… First of all when things were not moving as I expected and as I have urged in the situation in Gaza. The humanitarian sufferings, the UN humanitarian assistance were not delivering properly… people were suffering from lack of water, electricity. They were not able to move and I was very angry and I expressed this emotion when I talked to Israeli authorities.
Sometimes I was angry if my reform agenda was not moving as quickly as possible. There was some bureaucracy within– inherently embedded through some resistance in the agencies among the staff. Then, you know, I exploded, myself.
What do you do when you get angry?
Oh, I express my anger.
Do you shout?
Yes, I shout it. (Turning to his spokeswoman Michel Montas) As you have witnessed many times.
On a personal level, have you been angry recently? You know we all get angry with our children, our family, our brothers or sisters…
I don’t have any such occasions when I was angry with my own family members. It’s just, you know, I am disciplined. And my family members are also very disciplined and show respect for all these rules. There are some rules and some relationships you have to keep. With others, I get, of course, angry.
Learning this, the interviewer goes out of his way to piss off the SG… (more…)
by David Steven | Feb 3, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity, East Asia and Pacific
In an interview with the FT yesterday, Wen Jiabao sets out China’s negotiating position in the run up to the Copenhagen climate negotiation. Three main points:
- Green stimulus as part of the response to the financial meltdown.
- Domestic action to increase energy intensity by 4% a year (“We failed to meet the targets in the first two years of the five year period, and we succeeded in meeting the target in 2008.”)
- No quantified emissions targets for China – the country is still at an early stage of development and “in terms of per capita greenhouse gas emissions, we are certainly not the biggest one.”
How strong is China’s position? Not very, I think. China is obviously right to expect the rich world to do more, but if they accept tough targets and China refuses to, then there are two consequences. 450ppm stabilization becomes impossible – and it’s the rest of the G77 that will end up with a highly inequitable deal.
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by David Steven | Jan 30, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity, Cooperation and coherence, Global system
Image Author: mike_is_scrumptious
Assume a robust global deal on climate and the world’s cities will have to transform their infrastructure, economies and societies in little more than a generation.
Assume uncontrolled emissions growth and they face growing impact from a less hospitable and more volatile climate.
Either way – big changes are on the way. Few cities’ leaders grasp the scale of the challenge, especially in developing countries, where towns and cities will have an additional 1.5bn residents to cope with by 2030.
This new think piece has been prepared as part of the British Council’s Climate and Cities programme. Download the pdf (which has full references) or read the full text below the jump.
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