tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372355382024-03-14T03:33:34.928+00:00Sustainable FuturesMaking sense of sustainability.Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.comBlogger328125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-34663436873623020222021-04-08T10:25:00.000+01:002021-04-08T10:25:10.970+01:00New Home<p> <span style="font-size: x-large;">You can find the latest episodes of the Sustainable Futures Report at <a href="http://www.sustainablefutures.report">www.sustainablefutures.report</a> </span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-78732649187414539532020-10-23T01:00:00.001+01:002020-10-23T01:00:06.550+01:00Ecosystem Collapse<p> </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><b>Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Futures Report for Friday, 23rd October. I’m Anthony Day. </b><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu8yC-A9y6IA5hq-UjZMerTxjqusdDyYHZq6bvuCJXvcoGukwZBgU0bxI_GgGdGTwmrTojw9ZhfzRn3yW0MRfJgXmqbW9nBzG1rsytB1JC7LdnQmcwcLKqFFt0h7QnWpJHyb8/s460/460-flowers-annie-spratt-7SXNxz8UIw4-unsplash.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="306" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu8yC-A9y6IA5hq-UjZMerTxjqusdDyYHZq6bvuCJXvcoGukwZBgU0bxI_GgGdGTwmrTojw9ZhfzRn3yW0MRfJgXmqbW9nBzG1rsytB1JC7LdnQmcwcLKqFFt0h7QnWpJHyb8/w266-h400/460-flowers-annie-spratt-7SXNxz8UIw4-unsplash.jpeg" width="266" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">Photo by </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/@anniespratt?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0000e9;">Annie Spratt</span></a><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;"> on </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/collections/1841797/biodiversity?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0000e9;">Unsplash</span></a></td></tr></tbody></table></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Apparently it may take 700 years to improve the nation’s housing stock (shame that the grant scheme I mentioned last time ends next March), CCS is in the news again and so are Greta Thunberg and Erin Brockovich - remember her? COVID is a disaster like we’ve never seen, but amid reports of collapsing ecosystems are we missing the big picture? There’s more extreme weather. Are you in the (hyper)loop? And watch your language. A recent article suggests our choice of words is crucial when describing the climate crisis.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Ecosystem Collapse</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Ecosystem collapse - that’s a fairly stark use of language.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Insurance giant Swiss Re warned this week that one fifth of countries worldwide are at risk from ecosystem collapse as biodiversity of the world’s nations declines. 55% of global GDP depends on high-functioning Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services (BES) and major economies in Southeast Asia, Europe and the US are exposed to BES decline.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The report finds developing countries that have a heavy dependence on agricultural sectors, such as Kenya or Nigeria, are susceptible to BES shocks from a range of biodiversity and ecosystem issues.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Among G20 economies, South Africa and Australia top the rankings of fragile BES. The well-known impact of water scarcity is a driver for these countries, alongside factors such as costal protection and pollination. Brazil and Indonesia enjoy the highest percentage of intact ecosystems within the G20, however, the countries' strong economic dependency on natural resources highlights the importance of sustainable development and conservation to the long-term sustainability of their economies. At the moment the Bolsonaro government in Brazil seems to be pushing strongly in the opposite direction.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The report highlights several real-life cases of how BES impacts economies. For example, the destruction of the Aral Sea, which led to economic collapse and mass migration from the surrounding coastal area, provides an extreme illustration of how the collapse of an ecosystem can affect a local economy. You may remember that a river was diverted in order to irrigate cotton fields. As a result the Arial Sea, previously a rich fishing ground, almost totally dried up. Other examples include the economic impacts of invasive species, nutrient run-off and algal blooms or the effects of the loss of pollinators on the agricultural sector. Global medical research is also very much at threat from the decimation of rainforests, as almost 50% of all medicines are sourced from natural resources within this habitat.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The Swiss Re BES Index provides guidance for governments. Governments must recognise the value of ongoing economic diversification combined with conservation and preservation efforts. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>UK Biodiversity</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The government’s UK Biodiversity Indicators Report 2020 shows that the country is in line with international trends. 14 out of 24 indicators show long-term decline.</p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The government’s 2019 State of Nature report showed that in 2018/2019, government funding for UK biodiversity was 0.02% of UK gross domestic product. “One thing that jumps out is the rather worrying decline in public sector spending on biodiversity,” said Prof Richard Gregory, head of monitoring conservation science for RSPB. “With the climate and biodiversity crisis, nature-based solutions are part of what we should be doing, so it’s crazy we’re not investing in this.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="background-color: white;">Natural England, which is sponsored by Defra, has seen its budget cut by £180m since 2008, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/29/agency-protecting-english-environment-reaches-crisis-point"><span style="color: #b80004;">continued cuts</span></a> are having a huge impact on the protection of habitats, conservationists warn. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Sustainable GDP</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">A Guardian editorial last week included the comment, </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><i>The UK government requires an environmental sense of purpose that specifies the appropriate ends for economic activity. The economist Kate Raworth has </i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jun/17/is-time-to-end-our-fixation-with-gdp-and-growth"><span style="color: #ad3f14;"><i>pointed</i></span></a><i> out that a failure to do so has left a gap, which politicians fill by maximising national income. They are not obliged to ask if additional economic growth is sustainable. Governments ought to confront whether the growth of real GDP is too destabilising for global ecosystems. For decades the </i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/23/earths-resources-consumed-in-ever-greater-destructive-volumes"><span style="color: #ad3f14;"><i>planetary boundary for resource use</i></span></a><i> has been exceeded because conventional economics has encouraged political leaders to concentrate on goals that are largely irrelevant to human welfare.</i></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The article continues,</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><i>Preparations for the postponed Cop26 </i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/21/uk-plan-all-male-team-host-cop26-un-climate-summit-angers-activists"><span style="color: #ad3f14;"><i>climate summit</i></span></a><i>, to be held in Glasgow, are the ideal way for Britain to take a lead in a global discussion. Boris Johnson should use the platform to frame UK policy proposals boldly in terms of their impact on people and the planet, not just the economy.</i></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Yes, what about COP26? We’re just a couple of weeks off the original November date for the conference, now postponed for 12 months. In view of the many meetings and major conferences now going ahead online, that postponement looks shortsighted. COP26 will be the five-year review of the global nations’ progress towards the Paris agreement targets. Already the general consensus is that on present performance the targets will be widely missed. It's not as though we have plenty of time to deal with the problem. Typically such a major international conference is preceded by months of diplomatic activity led by the host country. The UK is the host this time with business secretary Alok Sharma as conference chair. Let's hope he uses the next 12 months wisely, although there’s still that rumour that former prime minister Theresa May will take over the role from him.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Meanwhile, in Other news…</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Carbon Capture & Storage</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Whatever we do, some parts of our economy will be burning fossil fuels and emitting GHGs and other pollutants for several years to come. If we have to use fossil fuels let’s at least try and minimise the damage. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has been seen as the solution for years, but like fusion energy it’s just not quite ready yet. In fact Grist reports that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said that achieving our emissions targets will be impossible without CCS. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">In a recent deal, a consortium including Amazon and Microsoft invested in CarbonCure Technologies, a Canadian firm seeking to slash the carbon dioxide emissions of concrete. And concrete production is a very significant producer of emissions. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">CarbonCure works with nearly 300 concrete producers to inject captured CO2 into their product. The injected gas chemically transforms into limestone, reinforcing the concrete. Amazon will use the concrete in its buildings, including its vast new headquarters in Virginia.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“The funding from Amazon will be critical to rapidly scale up the solution we’ve developed,” said Christie Gamble, the director of sustainability at CarbonCure. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Carbon capture is still in its infancy — there are only about 20 projects in commercial use worldwide, according to the IEA — but billions of dollars in investment is flowing into the sector. Microsoft has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/23/microsoft-climate-crisis-moonshot-plan"><span style="color: #0a394e;">announced</span></a> a “moonshot” climate plan that will involve direct air capture of CO2 and biomass energy carbon capture and storage, where wood chips are burned and the resulting carbon is injected into rock formations.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Norway is launching a full-scale carbon capture and storage project, <a href="https://electrek.co/2020/09/21/norway-world-first-carbon-capture-storage-project/"><span style="color: #0a394e;">named Longship after the Viking vessels</span></a>, while a direct air capture project for the Permian Basin in the southwestern United States is <a href="https://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2019/9/19/carbon-engineering-doubling-size-direct-air-captur/"><span style="color: #0a394e;">doubling</span></a> in size and aims to suck up 1 million tons of CO2 a year. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Just to put things into perspective, the US Geological Survey estimates that the global emissions of energy-related carbon dioxide totalled 32.5 billion metric tons in 2017, and of course it’s risen since then.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The U.S. government is pitching in, recently <a href="https://www.energy.gov/articles/department-energy-invests-72-million-carbon-capture-technologies"><span style="color: #0a394e;">awarding</span></a> $72 million to two dozen different carbon capture initiatives.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Carbon capture can’t come soon enough, but there’s a long, long way to go.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Net Zero Heating</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The UK Energy Research Centre has just published a briefing paper entitled “The pathway to net zero heating in the UK”. They say,</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“Meeting the UK government’s net zero emissions goal for 2050 will only be possible by complete decarbonisation of the building stock (both existing and new).”</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“..Almost all of the UK’s 29 million homes will require upgrading by 2050, that is about 1 million homes per year, and is equivalent to more than 19,000 homes per week. Current retrofit rates are inadequate for achieving even a significant portion of the required level of decarbonisation to meet the 2050 targets.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“The replacement of fossil fuel-based heating systems is happening at an even slower pace. In 2018 only 27,000 heat pumps were installed in the UK and the vast majority of new build homes were connected to the gas grid. As a result, the proportion of homes heated by gas is increasing.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">There was a record rise last year in the number of new gas boilers installed, showing that the UK is going in the wrong direction.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">They say, “In 2018 only 27,000 heat pumps were installed in the UK and the vast majority of new build homes were connected to the gas grid. As a result, the proportion of homes heated by gas is increasing.” </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Gas is a fossil fuel, so it is essential to eliminate its use as far as possible if we are to meet our 2050 net zero targets. Heat pumps work like a fridge in reverse. Running on electricity, they extract heat from the air or from the ground and pump it into your home. If homes are built to a high insulation standard, higher than currently required, a heat pump is appropriate, but they do have disadvantages which make them unattractive in existing homes. First, they are far more expensive than gas boilers. They work at a much lower temperature than gas boilers so they are ideal for underfloor heating but radiators have to be much larger to be effective. A heat pump cannot deliver instant hot water so a hot water storage cylinder is required. The total installation will take up much more space than a gas boiler. Although these pumps are far more efficient than boilers in that they extract heat from the environment, not from the electricity that they are powered by, with electricity being more expensive than gas the running costs are likely to be similar.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The report says, “It is extremely unlikely that heat decarbonisation will be achieved without significant policy interventions. Fundamentally it is important to recognise that the speed and scale of the required heat transformation means that relying on consumer led schemes such as the RHI and the planned Clean Heat Grant, are not sufficient. Incentives for consumers need to be part of a suite of policy measures based around skills, financial support and packages, local area-based planning approaches and cross-industry strategy will be needed.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">It’s been calculated that at current rates total decarbonisation of the UK housing stock would take 700 years, but to be fair, in last week’s interview Simon Ayers of TrustMark pointed out that government had a manifesto commitment to substantially increase investment in retrofitting insulation and the installation of heat pumps. We hope this will follow on when the Green Homes Grant scheme ends in March 2021. Apart from anything else, it will be a job-creator.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Reduce, Re-use, Recycle.</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">A while ago I reported that the Chief Executive of IKEA, the furniture company, predicted that we were reaching “peak stuff” and that we would stop, as consumers, just buying things and concentrate more on services. Now he's gone a step further and announced that the stores across 27 countries will start taking back their products for resale or recycling. You get a voucher to spend in the store in return, for up to 50% of the price. The scheme will be launched on Black Friday, and the company say, “By making sustainable living more simple and accessible, Ikea hopes that the initiative will help its customers take a stand against excessive consumption this Black Friday and in the years to come.” </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The scheme is not totally simple. You start by making an online offer, and if it’s accepted you must return the item, fully assembled, to the store. Not all products qualify, although the popular Billy bookcase is specifically mentioned.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">There are reports that department store John Lewis is considering a similar scheme.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Could this be the start of a true circular economy?</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Clean Air</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Listener James Spencer tells me about clean air in Leeds. According to transport journal Route One the city of Leeds in northern England intends to formally abandon plans for a clean air zone (CAZ).</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Cllr James Lewis, LCC Deputy Leader and Executive Board member with responsibility for air quality said, “When we consulted on the CAZ in 2018, we said that we hoped that nobody would be charged because businesses would switch to less polluting vehicles before the charging system took effect. That is exactly what has happened.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“We have achieved the aims of the CAZ without having to charge a single vehicle. If Leeds were to introduce a CAZ today, only a fraction of vehicles would be affected. The vast majority of businesses are now using cleaner vehicles than they were just a few years ago.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Besides Leeds, <a href="https://www.route-one.net/environment/bristol-clean-air-zone-hangs-in-balance-as-council-reconsiders/"><span style="color: #bc001c;">Bristol</span></a> and <a href="https://www.route-one.net/environment/sheffield-is-latest-city-to-reconsider-clean-air-zone-plans/"><span style="color: #bc001c;">Sheffield</span></a> are other cities that are reconsidering their Clean Air Zone proposals after seeing major improvements in air quality through changes in travel behaviour.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Due to the centralised nature of administration in the UK, any such decision will have to be approved by the government in London.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Erin Brockovich</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Do you remember Erin Brockovich? The eponymous film was based on the true story of her role in a lawsuit against Pacific Gas and Electric over alleged contamination of drinking water. In real life Erin Brockovich is still campaigning. According to The Hill she’s warning that America is now in a water crisis far worse than people realise.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">She says, “We are in a water crisis beyond anything you can imagine. Pollution and toxins are everywhere, stemming from the hazardous wastes of industry and agriculture. We’ve got more than 40,000 chemicals on the market today with only a few hundred regulated. We’ve had industrial byproducts discarded into the ground and into our water supply for years. This crisis affects everyone – rich or poor, black or white, Republican or Democrat. Communities everywhere think they are safe when they are not.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Her new book is called <i>Superman’s Not Coming</i>. Even as this new book seeks to bring attention to the quality of the US water supply, the quantity of water is dwindling as climate change causes both droughts and floods that exhaust America's infrastructure. As wildfires rage across the West Coast, the East Coast is bracing for hurricane season. And Brockovich doesn’t have much faith in the government to come to the rescue either. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“These issues start with tiny seeds of deception that add up over months and years to become major problems. Our resources are exhausted. Corruption is rampant. Officials are trying to cover their tracks. People are not putting the pieces together when it comes to the severity of this crisis. I’ve got senators and doctors calling me, asking me what to do,” she says. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">She’s created <a href="https://www.communityhealthbook.com/">a Community Healthbook</a> to allow individuals and community groups to "report and review health related concerns and community environmental issues by geographic area and health related topic.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">It’s a community-led initiative. Find it at <a href="http://communityhealthbook.com">communityhealthbook.com</a> where you can see some graphic pictures of dirty water. At the moment it’s exclusively for the US, but maybe it’s an initiative worth copying in other countries. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Greta Thunberg</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Another big name in the news - when is it not? – is Greta Thunberg. There’s a new film out about her - I am Greta. I don’t know where you can watch it given that cinemas are all closing, but there’s a link to the official trailer below.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Hyperloop</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Smart Cities World reports that Virgin Hyperloop has picked West Virginia for a futuristic transport test centre. The company claims reports That the Hyperloop Certification Centre will create an entirely new ecosystem, creating thousands of new jobs across construction, manufacturing, operations, and high-tech sectors.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“As we look to emerge from the Covid-19 crisis, it’s clear that we need a 21st century solution that will propel us forward, allowing us to not just rebuild, but actually evolve,” said Jay Walder, CEO of Virgin Hyperloop.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">If you remember, hyperloop is a high-speed passenger transportation system which sends vehicles along tubes at extremely high speeds. Powered and suspended by magnetic induction, the cars, or pods, don't touch the sides. It’s an idea suggested by Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, and his original design envisaged a speed of 760mph which would give journey times of 35 minutes for Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area or 18 minutes for London to Manchester. A 2017 article in Metro reported a contract for a 90-mile hyperloop from Dubai to the capital of the UAE which would be complete by 2020. It appears that the project is still live but no date for completion is currently available.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">I feel bound to ask who is hyperloop for and what is it for? Answers on a postcard, please. Or send me an email if you can explain why a hyperloop is a good idea. Or HS2, for that matter. Even if there’s a logical justification for them - which I doubt - should we be giving such projects priority in this time of climate emergency?</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Extreme Weather</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">We’re warned that extreme weather is a consequence of the climate crisis. True to form, and on the heels of a succession of hottest years on record we now come to the the wettest day on record. According to the Met Office, Saturday 3 October was the wettest day for UK-wide rainfall since records began in 1891. The downpour followed in the wake of Storm Alex and saw an average of 31.7mm (1.24ins) of rain across the entire UK.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The total amount of water was enough to exceed the capacity of Loch Ness - the largest lake in the UK by volume. Fortunately there were no reports of fatalities. When Storm Alex hit parts of Italy and France a number of people lost their lives.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>And Finally…</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Watch your Language</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Writing on <a href="http://medium.com">medium.com</a> Tabitha Whiting urges us to be careful with our choice of words when discussing climate issues. “Change” is the first one she picks on. It’s too neutral and insubstantial. Trouble is that alternatives like “crisis” and “emergency” suggest short term problems that can be quickly overcome. Over-using them dulls their power.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Avoid talking about believing in climate change, she advises. Belief implies the possibility of debate and disbelief, but the climate crisis is a scientific fact. Then there are goals, like the Paris Agreement goals. They’re too impersonal. Look instead at the human consequences of failing to meet those goals.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Fighting climate change? Well it’s a fight we’ve picked ourselves. We are the ones who have destabilised the climate with our massive emissions. If we stop that, the climate will stop defending itself. Eventually.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Finally “neutral” as in “carbon neutral”. She describes it as a classic greenwashing term. Organisations from supermarkets to governments claim to be at or on the way to carbon neutrality. That may only mean that they are emitting at the same level as they have always done, but now they are buying offsets. I’ve discussed offsets extensively in the past and I have to agree with Tabitha Whiting that we’re deluding ourselves if we really believe that offsets are the answer. The science on that point certainly leaves plenty of scope for disbelief in the effectiveness of offsets.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>And that’s it…</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">…for another week.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Thank you for listening, thank you for being a patron, if you are, and thank you for sharing ideas. Keep them coming.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">There will be another Sustainable Futures Report next week. Keep safe and well until then.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">I’m Anthony Day.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">That was the Sustainable Futures Report.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Until next time.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Sources</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>CCS</b></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://grist.org/climate/carbon-capture-moonshot-moves-closer-as-billions-of-dollars-pour-in/">https://grist.org/climate/carbon-capture-moonshot-moves-closer-as-billions-of-dollars-pour-in/<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-much-carbon-dioxide-does-united-states-and-world-emit-each-year-energy-sources?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products">https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-much-carbon-dioxide-does-united-states-and-world-emit-each-year-energy-sources?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>IKEA</b></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54531619">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54531619<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/ikea-furniture-buyback-2648206729.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1">https://www.ecowatch.com/ikea-furniture-buyback-2648206729.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4021644/ikea-furniture-stand-excessive-consumption?utm_medium=email&utm_content=&utm_campaign=BG.Weekly_RL.EU.A.U&utm_source=BG.DCM.Editors_Updates&utm_term=&utm_medium=email&utm_term=50%20to%2099&utm_term=">https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4021644/ikea-furniture-stand-excessive-consumption?</a></span> </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Clean Air</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.route-one.net/environment/leeds-clean-air-zone-set-for-formal-abandonment/">https://www.route-one.net/environment/leeds-clean-air-zone-set-for-formal-abandonment/<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Zero Emissions Homes</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">https://ukerc.ac.uk/publications/net-zero-heating/</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Ecosystem Collapse</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Fifth of countries at risk of ecosystem collapse, analysis finds</p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/12/fifth-of-nations-at-risk-of-ecosystem-collapse-analysis-finds">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/12/fifth-of-nations-at-risk-of-ecosystem-collapse-analysis-finds<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.swissre.com/media/news-releases/nr-20200923-biodiversity-and-ecosystems-services.html">https://www.swissre.com/media/news-releases/nr-20200923-biodiversity-and-ecosystems-services.html</a></span> </p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">UK on course to miss most biodiversity targets</p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/15/uk-miss-most-biodiversity-targets-conservation">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/15/uk-miss-most-biodiversity-targets-conservation<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/926506/UKBI-2020-A.pdf</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Boris Johnson's Cop26: ask if GDP growth is sustainable</p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/11/the-guardian-view-on-boris-johnsons-cop26-ask-if-gdp-growth-is-sustainable">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/11/the-guardian-view-on-boris-johnsons-cop26-ask-if-gdp-growth-is-sustainable<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Erin Brockovich</b></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/infrastructure/516522-erin-brockovich-says-us-is-now-in-a-water">https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/infrastructure/516522-erin-brockovich-says-us-is-now-in-a-water</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b> Greta</b></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/sep/16/i-am-greta-review-slick-yet-shallow-thunberg-documentary">https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/sep/16/i-am-greta-review-slick-yet-shallow-thunberg-documentary<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i74n4BUYgHI&feature=emb_logo">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i74n4BUYgHI&feature=emb_logo</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Hyperloop</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.smartcitiesworld.net/news/virgin-hyperloop-picks-west-virginia-for-futuristic-transport-test-centre-5756?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter">https://www.smartcitiesworld.net/news/virgin-hyperloop-picks-west-virginia-for-futuristic-transport-test-centre-5756?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter</a></span> </p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://metro.co.uk/2017/03/08/first-pictures-of-hyperloop-train-which-could-go-from-london-to-manchester-in-18-minutes-6495728/">https://metro.co.uk/2017/03/08/first-pictures-of-hyperloop-train-which-could-go-from-london-to-manchester-in-18-minutes-6495728/</a></span> </p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/technology/2019/01/17/UAE-hyperloop-to-finish-initial-construction-in-2020-chairman-">https://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/technology/2019/01/17/UAE-hyperloop-to-finish-initial-construction-in-2020-chairman-</a></span> </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Weather</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54561601"><b>Extreme weather: October downpour sees UK's wettest day on record</b><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><b></b><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>And Finally…</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Words</b></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://medium.com/@tabitha.whiting/5-words-we-need-to-stop-using-in-climate-change-conversations-3a2d43ca08cc">https://medium.com/@tabitha.whiting/5-words-we-need-to-stop-using-in-climate-change-conversations-3a2d43ca08cc</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-49227474213989652102020-10-16T08:58:00.000+01:002020-10-16T08:58:33.848+01:00Green Homes: Warm Homes<p> <i style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;"> </i></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><i></i><br /></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><b>Green Homes: Warm Homes</b></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiCU13aTbg5QLG3QL1BaTBdSpMl6Uw1rOz_vUUydYBIC7lPHOdAZmTULpnbe5nkFW8W0Yo2D3Z2Zeckbh-0EIzgvq_3S5KFsyYbiTYQst4I9_YmiDERF8HwTujF6oPkm8txEU/s1524/Greenhomesgrant-campaign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="777" data-original-width="1524" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiCU13aTbg5QLG3QL1BaTBdSpMl6Uw1rOz_vUUydYBIC7lPHOdAZmTULpnbe5nkFW8W0Yo2D3Z2Zeckbh-0EIzgvq_3S5KFsyYbiTYQst4I9_YmiDERF8HwTujF6oPkm8txEU/w483-h246/Greenhomesgrant-campaign.jpg" width="483" /></a></div><b><br /></b><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Futures Report for Friday, the 16th of October. I’m Anthony Day. This week I'm talking about green homes and warm homes: specifically the government’s Green Homes Grant. In a moment there’s an interview with Simon Ayers, CEO of TrustMark. To qualify for the grant, homeowners must use a TrustMark registered business to carry out the work. Now of course I realise that at first sight this will be relevant only to people in England, but stay with me, because warm and energy-efficient homes and quality installation must be of interest to us all. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Welcome</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Also today I’ll be introducing Alex Brown, our latest gold patron. I’ll be talking about what the expert said when he came to look at the energy efficiency of our home. And finally, people in a remote area of Scotland are preparing something out of this world.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">First let me welcome Alexander Brown our new Gold Patron. He tells me that he’s in line for president of the gardening club at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and has plans to build a vertical farm on the premises. We’ve looked at vertical farms in the past. Do please keep us in touch with your progress, Alex. And if anyone has experience of this to share please do get in touch. mail@anthony-day.com </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Whole House Survey</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Andy Walker of Sure Insulation came round this week to assess how energy-efficient our home is. You know how builders go tssss? You know something’s going to be expensive. I was quite confident, because we had extensive renovations done to the property in 2004 and 2008 and so everything was up to the current standards at the time. Standards have moved on a lot since then. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Insulation not heating</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">What we learnt was that before looking at ways of improving the heating system the priority must be stopping the heat from leaking out of the house. A house built or retrofitted to the Passivhaus house standard typically uses less than £100 worth of energy p.a. for all heating, lighting and cooking, because it is highly insulated. Houses can be retrofitted to that standard, although it’s expensive and usually very disruptive. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">We learnt that the most cost-effective measures are insulating the walls, floors and ceilings, but they are also the most disruptive. Cladding the walls and filling voids below floors means you will usually have to re-plaster and redecorate and you may have to replace floorboards. The project must be expertly designed, because imperfect installation can lead to cold bridging or the ingress of water. Ventilation is also crucial. Ventilation units with heat recovery keep the air fresh without cold draughts. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">In our case we have solid floors, so difficult to insulate. We also have a large area of glass and a large single-glazed bay window. Argon-filled double or even triple glazing will be the solution here. We’ll also look at curtains and blinds. Walls will be for another day.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">If I can get a grant for these improvements I’ll need to employ a TrustMark registered business.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">I was very pleased to have the opportunity to talk to Simon Ayers, CEO of TrustMark, earlier this week. Here’s what we discussed.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><i>Interview text to follow</i></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Many thanks to Simon Ayers, CEO of TrustMark. You’ll find TrustMark at <a href="http://trustmark.org.uk">trustmark.org.uk</a> and links to the Grant Scheme and the simple energy advice site are below/on the blog at <a href="http://www.sustainablefutures.report">www.sustainablefutures.report</a> . That, incidentally, is the link to my new website which will go live in the next few days to provide blog and podcast in one location.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>And Finally…</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Highlands and Islands Enterprise is backing the construction of a missile launch site in the far north of Scotland. There are many planning hurdles to cross and environmentalists to placate before this can become a reality but it appears that the plan is to use the site to put small satellites into Geo-stationary polar orbit. This comes at a time when the government admits that its plans for a homegrown alternative to the European Galileo GPS system, from which the UK will be excluded post Brexit, has failed after the expenditure of £64 million. Undeterred, Alok Sharma the business secretary has authorised expenditure of £400 million on the purchase of OneWeb, a satellite firm which entered bankruptcy earlier this year, despite warnings from his most senior civil servant that it may not represent good value for public money. OneWeb has no navigational capabilities. It’s been compared by the i-newspaper to a ferry company with no ships.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The UK’s share of the Galileo investment, from which we will not now benefit although it’s been paid, is estimated at £1.2 billion. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Are we all living in the same world? Let’s hope that Sharma makes a better job as chair of COP26, although as I write there’s a rumour that former UK prime minister Theresa May will take over the role. Let’s hope that….well let’s just hope.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>And that’s it…</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Well I think that's about enough for this week. Thank you once again for listening - especially my patrons both new and long-standing. If you’d like to join them all the details are at <a href="http://www.patreon.com/sfr">www.patreon.com/sfr</a>. Links to all these stories are below.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The will of course be another Sustainable Futures Report next week. I already have masses of items stored up. I believe that the IMF and the World Bank are having big meetings so they will probably feature.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">While I firmly believe that the climate crisis is the greatest crisis facing humanity, I don't underestimate the extreme stresses and strains which many people are experiencing as a result of the present pandemic. I sincerely hope that you are safe and well and will continue to be so.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">I’m Anthony Day.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">That was the Sustainable Futures Report.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Until next time.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Sources</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Green Homes</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.trustmark.org.uk">https://www.trustmark.org.uk<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://greenhomesgrant.campaign.gov.uk/?utm_campaign=green_homes_grant_2020&utm_medium=ppc&utm_source=google&utm_content=search-051020&gclid=CKiwtpves-wCFQVAGwodV7ECiA">https://greenhomesgrant.campaign.gov.uk/<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.simpleenergyadvice.org.uk/green-homes-grant/questionnaire">https://www.simpleenergyadvice.org.uk/green-homes-grant/questionnaire<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Green Homes Grant: homeowners frustrated by lack of installers</p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/09/green-homes-grant-installers-scheme-government">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/09/green-homes-grant-installers-scheme-government<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>And Finally…</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Residents of remote peninsula face up to its future as spaceport</p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/09/remote-scottish-peninsula-could-be-host-to-spaceport-two-years-mhoine-peninsula-in-sutherland">https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/09/remote-scottish-peninsula-could-be-host-to-spaceport-two-years-mhoine-peninsula-in-sutherland<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://orbex.space/vehicle">https://orbex.space/vehicle<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit/ministers-post-brexit-british-gps-scheme-explained-abandoned-714960">https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit/ministers-post-brexit-british-gps-scheme-explained-abandoned-714960</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.endsreport.com/article/1696998/theresa-may-rumoured-chair-cop26">https://www.endsreport.com/article/1696998/theresa-may-rumoured-chair-cop26</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-748365954203466642020-10-09T01:00:00.001+01:002020-10-09T01:00:11.015+01:00Absolute Zero<p> <i style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;"> </i></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><i></i><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Absolute Zero</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Hello, I’m Anthony Day.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ615VKaOBINrE_NBPKKUqiTyb8A2Gefbb3qQmX2Pp-Do381Cni9oth3IEMNNc3GE9BvIpXk12RZRw9GZdMIzam-z5eczEUcXL5HtkMtf6lcsSrJ7juPTnDcR1M4-yl3fTUE0/s460/460guage.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="460" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ615VKaOBINrE_NBPKKUqiTyb8A2Gefbb3qQmX2Pp-Do381Cni9oth3IEMNNc3GE9BvIpXk12RZRw9GZdMIzam-z5eczEUcXL5HtkMtf6lcsSrJ7juPTnDcR1M4-yl3fTUE0/s320/460guage.jpeg" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">It’s Friday 9th October and in this week’s Sustainable Futures Report I’m looking at Project Drawdown, mentioned by Blair Sheppard of PwC in last week’s report. The UK prime minister this week set out his view of a green future and laid great emphasis on offshore wind. There’s good news and bad news on waste, and there are carbon-saving claims which may not be all they seem to be. The UK aims to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but also plans to open a new coal mine. Bill Gates is pessimistic about tackling climate change, Greenpeace is dropping rocks and the Earthshot Prize is announced.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Meanwhile, as weeks of wildfires come to an end in California there are forests still ablaze as far apart as Brazil and Ukraine and Storm Alex brings floods and fatalities to Italy and France. Last year Australia suffered its worst wildfires. Their 2020 wildfire season is just beginning.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Drawdown</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Last week we mentioned a book called Drawdown. In fact there’s much more than a book. Founded in 2014, Project Drawdown is a nonprofit organisation that seeks to help the world reach “Drawdown”— the future point in time when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline. The Drawdown Review, just published, defines drawdown as a critical turning point. The review is the first major update since the original book was published in 2017.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The authors believe that drawdown, a far more demanding target than net zero, can be achieved by 2050 or even by the mid 2040s. They summarise 10 aspects of the project.</p>
<ol>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">We can do it. While governments and corporations are taking action, it’s nowhere near the speed or the scale required and emissions are continuing to rise. Nevertheless, many of the means to achieve the objective already exist.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">There’s no silver bullet. There’s no one simple solution. Success depends on coordinating the interdependencies between communities, industries, organisations and nations.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Climate solutions have other benefits. For example clean air improves public health and green investment creates jobs.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">There is financial justification. The savings from doing things differently will outweigh the costs. This may involve the abolition or scaling back of existing industries. Unlike the UK coal communities in the 1980s, there must be a just transition.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">We must cut the use of fossil fuels, coal, oil and gas, which account for two thirds of global emissions. We must stop the subsidies to these industries.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">At the same time as reducing the sources of emissions we must reinforce the natural carbon sinks like wetlands, peat bogs and forests.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">We’re missing opportunities. For example to cut food waste, to move towards a plant-rich diet, to better to control refrigerants - some of the most powerful greenhouse gases - to spread reproductive healthcare and education more widely.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The deployment of capital and policy will accelerate the process.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The project involves many millions of leaders at all levels. Just as there is no single silver bullet, no single leader can make this happen. People in all levels in all organisations across the world must be informed and inspired to work towards the common purpose.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Finally the aim must be to make possibility reality. When Greta Thunberg addressed the US Congress she said, “You must unite behind the science. You must take action. You must do the impossible. Because giving up can never ever be an option.”</li>
</ol>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Sources and Sinks</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The review then moves into detailed solutions which will reduce sources and support sinks. It starts by defining sources of emissions and existing sinks.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The big three for emissions are electricity generation (25%), food production (24%) and industry (21%), followed by Transport at 14%, Buildings (6%) and everything else(10%).</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">On the other side, 59% of emissions remain in the atmosphere, 24% are absorbed by plants and 17% by the oceans. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The review looks at each of these categories in turn and in detail, and explains the actions that must be taken. The final section looks at social change and considers how climate change measures can improve society, with particular emphasis on health and education. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">In the closing pages they say, “…what may be <i>politically unrealistic </i>at present is <i>physically </i>and <i>economically realistic</i>, according to our analysis. There is a path forward for the world. The question is how to bring physical, economic, and political possibility into alignment.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Boris Johnson</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">UK prime minister this week addressed his party conference with the slogan “Build Back Greener”. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">How far will his government go towards making the changes required for Drawdown? Let me quote from his speech:</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“<span style="background-color: white;">I can today announce that the UK government has decided to become the world leader in low cost clean power generation – cheaper than coal, cheaper than gas; and we believe that in ten years time offshore wind will be powering every home in the country, with our target rising from 30 gigawatts to 40 gigawatts. </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“We will invest £160m in ports and factories across the country, to manufacture the next generation of turbines.</p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“And we will not only build fixed arrays in the sea; we will build windmills that float on the sea – enough to deliver one gigawatt of energy by 2030, 15 times floating windmills, fifteen times as much as the rest of the world put together.</p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“Far out in the deepest waters we will harvest the gusts, and by upgrading infrastructure in such places as Teesside and Humber and Scotland and Wales we will increase an offshore wind capacity that is already the biggest in the world. </p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“As Saudi Arabia is to oil, the UK is to wind…</p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“This investment in offshore wind alone will help to create 60,000 jobs in this country – and help us to get to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. </p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“Imagine that future – with high-skilled, green-collar jobs in wind, in solar, in nuclear, in hydrogen and in carbon capture and storage. Retrofitting homes, ground source heat pumps. </p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“…this government will lead that green industrial revolution.”</p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Short on Detail</b></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The general comments to the whole of Mr Johnson's speech were that it was broad on vision but short on details. Beyond offshore wind power, virtually nothing was said about achieving climate goals. Of course the installation of the wind turbines he described would be a substantial step towards net zero. </p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Aurora Energy Research calculates an investment of £50 billion would be needed to get to the point of powering the whole nation from wind by 2030. Quite a lot more than the £160 million that the Prime Minister mentioned. Of course it is not intended that the public sector should fund this development, so that amount can be seen as a catalyst invested in improvements to infrastructure. Although we lead the world in offshore wind, we do not manufacture the turbines. They have to be imported. To achieve the targets it will be necessary for the equivalent of one turbine to be installed every weekday for the whole of the next ten years. An important role of government will be to ensure that new seabed licences are rapidly delivered, as well as contracts to purchase the power that will make the turbines viable.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Sizewell Controversy</b></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Writing in Private Eye magazine, Old Sparky reports that there is controversy in Suffolk over plans by Scottish Power Renewables to build infrastructure to bring ashore the power from a new offshore windfarm. There will be a 6 mile cable corridor and two large new substations. These works would cut across a stretch of Heritage Coast, an area of outstanding natural beauty, a special protection area and a site of special scientific interest. Close to the site is Sizewell where the existing nuclear power station already has a massive grid connection. Locals do not understand why Scottish Power Renewables does not use this as its connection point. A large increase in the number of offshore windfarms can only make problems like this more common.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>NIMBY</b></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The Conservative party is of course politically opposed to onshore wind power. While winds may be stronger out at sea, the construction of windfarms on land is cheaper, maintenance is easier and grid connection is generally simpler. But not politically acceptable.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Waste</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Plastic-eating enzyme</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Yes, there’s news about waste. First, The Guardian reports that a super-enzyme that degrades plastic bottles six times faster than before has been created by scientists and could be used for recycling within a year or two. They are also developing a version which could deal with cotton and combining the capabilities of both in a single organism could permit the recycling of multi-fibre fabrics containing both cotton and polyester. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Hazardous waste returned</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The bad news on the waste front comes from Sri Lanka, which returned 21 containers of hazardous waste to the UK last week. The shipment had been described as mattresses, carpets and rugs for recycling but was found to contain plastic and polythene waste. This is not the first time that waste has been returned to the UK. The whole issue is problematic, with local councils short of space for landfill and with limited recycling facilities receiving a constant stream of refuse for disposal. Brokers offer to ship the material abroad, insisting that everything meets the relevant regulations. Councils have no money to send inspectors to these remote locations to verify this and all too often organised crime takes the money, takes the waste and dumps it. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Circular Economy</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Reduce, reuse, recycle. We can tackle this problem if we can redirect consumer spending to services rather than goods and if we can redesign products so that they can be absorbed into the circular economy and be repaired, refurbished, remanufactured, repurposed and eventually reduced to their component materials for recycling.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The Ellen MacArthur Foundation continues to promote the circular economy. After Brexit the UK will presumably no longer be involved in the European Circular Economy Action Plan. It will be interesting to see what the government puts in its place.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Fires across the world</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">36 people died in California’s wildfires which burned some 2 million hectares. President Trump blamed it all on poor forest management and said he didn’t think that science knew about global warming.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">More than 17,000 wildfires have been recorded since the start of the year in the Pantanal, Brazil’s tropical wetlands. Thousands of animals, from jaguars to crocodiles have died. The Amazon, too, has seen an exceptional year for fires. The Pantanal is home to 656 species of birds, 159 species of mammals and 98 species of reptiles. After the fires, those animals that survived found there was nothing to eat. Volunteers are trying to bring them food and to rescue and treat injured animals. One volunteer said, “Some people have been saying that there are fires in the Pantanal every year. Yes, it’s true that every year, there are a few isolated fires. But they are controllable. This year, the fires were out of control. We’ve never seen so many animals die. The worst-affected were the reptiles and the amphibians. They usually seek refuge in holes in the ground. And then when the fire comes, they end up trapped.” An international disaster, but surprisingly little media coverage.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The New York Times reports an added dimension to wildfires raging in Ukraine. Because the area is a war zone the flames are setting off abandoned ordnance. Firefighters are at risk from landmines set off by the heat and they cannot use aircraft to douse the flames for fear that they will be shot down.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">At the other extreme, parts of Italy and France have suffered Storm Alex, with severe floods causing death and destruction to property. A macabre twist to the story came when floodwaters washed corpses from their graves.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">And In Other News…</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Inequality</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Inequality is a growing problem. According to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report the top 1% of the world’s population own 44% of the world’s capital. A report from the Stockholm Environmental Institute and Oxfam shows that over the 25 years to 2015 that 1% have been responsible for 15% of global emissions while the poorer 50% of global population accounted for only 7%. That’s 74 tonnes per head per annum for the rich and just 0.69 for the poor. Oxfam’s conclusion is that while there is clearly a limited carbon budget, a limit to the total emissions that can be released without causing irreparable damage to the planet, such emissions as remain should come from activities helping the poor and not indulging the rich.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Going Green</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">A company that produces meatless products has been running television commercials with the tagline:</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"> “If you care about climate change, take a step in the right direction with new Quorn…” </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The implication was that by using the product consumers were reducing their carbon footprint.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Complaints were made to the Advertising Standards Agency who ruled that the advertisement should be withdrawn because it was misleading consumers - although it had been on screens for at least four months. No basis was given to justify the claim in the advertisements that consumers would reduce their carbon footprint by using the product. The manufacturers were naturally unhappy because they had received carbon footprint certification from the Carbon Trust and they said they were consequently obliged to continually reduce their carbon footprint. Good intentions, but they overstated the case. There’s a narrow line between truth and greenwash. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Greenpeace dropping rocks</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Greenpeace has been dropping large boulders on to Dogger Bank in the North Sea. The area is nominally protected, but Greenpeace are taking this action to prevent trawlers from fishing there illegally. Bottom trawlers scour everything from the seabed and cause massive destruction. While this is permitted in some places, Greenpeace are laying these rocks to prevent trawling in what is designated a protected area. They undertake to remove these rocks if the government enforces the regulations. The response from the Ministry is that they will be better able to take action after Brexit. To emphasise their point, this week Greenpeace delivered a sculpture to the office of the Department for Food and Rural Affairs. It takes the form of a 1.5 ton rock and it will take a crane to remove it.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>New Coalmine</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">News from Cumbria this week that the council has approved the development of a new deep coalmine. I’ve reported on this in the past and I thought it was refused and all over, but apparently not. The mine will produce metallurgical coal for use in steel mills and chemical plants, and not for power stations. In any case almost no electricity is now generated from coal.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The mine’s output will displace imported coal and a strong argument from the operating company is that if we need this coal, better that it comes from British mines and supports British jobs. Is there any way of making steel without coal? Can the CO2 be captured from the steelmaking process? Get in touch if you know the answer.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The project still has to receive government approval, and according to the Guardian that will come from the Housing Minister, Robert Jenrick. Seems odd that the housing minister has that responsibility.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Bill Gates</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">In an interview this week with Bloomberg Bill Gates said “The pandemic illustrates that government didn’t look out for us despite the warnings that were out there. Climate fits that same paradigm. Sadly, the problem gets worse and worse, and there isn’t a solution like a vaccine where you can spend tens of billions of dollars and bring it to a close. No, climate change is much harder. The damage that will be done every year will be greater than what we’ve seen during this pandemic.” </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">And Finally, some are more optimistic.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>EarthShot Prize</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Prince William has launched The Earthshot Prize to incentivise change and help to repair our planet over the next ten years.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">The announcement says, “Taking inspiration from President John F. Kennedy’s Moonshot which united millions of people around an organising goal to put man on the moon and catalysed the development of new technology in the 1960s, The Earthshot Prize is centred around five ‘Earthshots’ – simple but ambitious goals for our planet which if achieved by 2030 will improve life for us all, for generations to come.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“The five Earthshots unveiled today are:</p>
<ul>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #0f2422;"></span>Protect and restore nature</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #0f2422;"></span>Clean our air</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #0f2422;"></span>Revive our oceans</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #0f2422;"></span>Build a waste-free world</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #0f2422;"></span>Fix our climate</li>
</ul>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">“Each Earthshot is underpinned by scientifically agreed targets including the UN Sustainable Development Goals and other internationally recognised measures to help repair our planet.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">You can see videos explaining each Earthshot on the website.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Every year from 2021 until 2030, Prince William, alongside The Earthshot Prize Council which covers six continents, will award The Earthshot Prize to five winners, one per Earthshot. The £1 million in prize money will support environmental and conservation projects that are agreed with the winners. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">If it does nothing else, Earthshot will help to keep the climate and environmental challenges in the public eye.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>And that’s it…</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">…for another week.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">I’m Anthony Day and that was the Sustainable Futures Report. Thank you for listening, and if you are, thank you for being a patron.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">There will be another Sustainable Futures Report next week.</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><b>Sources</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">New super-enzyme eats plastic bottles six times faster</p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/28/new-super-enzyme-eats-plastic-bottles-six-times-faster">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/28/new-super-enzyme-eats-plastic-bottles-six-times-faster<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Rubbish sent back</p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54314778">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54314778<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Wildfires</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wildfire-burns-brazils-largest-wetlands-killing-thousands-wild/story?id=73007294">https://abcnews.go.com/International/wildfire-burns-brazils-largest-wetlands-killing-thousands-wild/story?id=73007294<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/03/world/europe/ukraine-wildfires-landmines.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/03/world/europe/ukraine-wildfires-landmines.html<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Corpses washed from cemeteries in France-Italy floods</p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/06/corpses-washed-from-cemeteries-in-france-italy-floods">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/06/corpses-washed-from-cemeteries-in-france-italy-floods<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"> </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54144651">US West Coast fires: Trump fans flames of climate row in California<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://observers.france24.com/en/20201005-brazil-pantanal-volunteers-help-animals-injured-wildfires">https://observers.france24.com/en/20201005-brazil-pantanal-volunteers-help-animals-injured-wildfires</a></span> </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Stockholm Environment Institute</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.sei.org/publications/the-carbon-inequality-era/">https://www.sei.org/publications/the-carbon-inequality-era/</a></span> </p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">World's richest 1% cause double CO2 emissions of poorest 50%</p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/21/worlds-richest-1-cause-double-co2-emissions-of-poorest-50-says-oxfam">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/21/worlds-richest-1-cause-double-co2-emissions-of-poorest-50-says-oxfam<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Circular Economy</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://ec.europa.eu/environment/circular-economy/pdf/new_circular_economy_action_plan.pdf">https://ec.europa.eu/environment/circular-economy/pdf/new_circular_economy_action_plan.pdf<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org">https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org</a></span> </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Greenwash?</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2020/09/30/Quorn-advert-banned-over-carbon-footprint-claim-It-was-never-our-intention-to-mislead-consumers?utm_source=copyright&utm_medium=OnSite&utm_campaign=copyright">https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2020/09/30/Quorn-advert-banned-over-carbon-footprint-claim-It-was-never-our-intention-to-mislead-consumers?utm_source=copyright&utm_medium=OnSite&utm_campaign=copyright</a></span> </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/quorn-repositions-sustainable-choice-focus-carbon-footprint/1670406">https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/quorn-repositions-sustainable-choice-focus-carbon-footprint/1670406</a></span> </p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Bill Gates</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://medium.com/bloomberg-businessweek/bill-gates-warns-climate-change-is-an-even-harder-problem-than-the-pandemic-218224f9557e">https://medium.com/bloomberg-businessweek/bill-gates-warns-climate-change-is-an-even-harder-problem-than-the-pandemic-218224f9557e</a></span> </p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Greenpeace Fishing</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Artist's 1.5-tonne protest over illegal fishing</p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/05/greenpeace-drops-rock-scultpure-outside-defra-hq-fishing-protest">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/05/greenpeace-drops-rock-scultpure-outside-defra-hq-fishing-protest<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.channel4.com/news/greenpeace-criticised-by-uk-fishing-industry-for-dumping-giant-boulders-in-north-sea-to-prevent-illegal-fishing">https://www.channel4.com/news/greenpeace-criticised-by-uk-fishing-industry-for-dumping-giant-boulders-in-north-sea-to-prevent-illegal-fishing</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>PM Outlook</b></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">PM to unveil plan to power all UK homes with wind by 2030</p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/05/boris-johnson-to-unveil-plan-to-power-all-uk-homes-with-wind-by-2030">https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/05/boris-johnson-to-unveil-plan-to-power-all-uk-homes-with-wind-by-2030<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54373183"><b>Climate: The week Boris Johnson turned green, or did he?</b><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="color: #0a5486; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://www.cityam.com/boris-johnson-to-unveil-160m-for-offshore-wind-power/">PM pledges millions for wind power revolution</a></span> </p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What did Boris Johnson's speech really mean?</p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/06/what-did-boris-johnsons-conference-speech-really-mean">https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/06/what-did-boris-johnsons-conference-speech-really-mean<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
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<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/06/powering-all-uk-homes-via-offshore-wind-by-2030-would-cost-50bn">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/06/powering-all-uk-homes-via-offshore-wind-by-2030-would-cost-50bn<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Coal Mine</b></p>
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<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://influencemap.org/report/Climate-Change-and-Digital-Advertising-86222daed29c6f49ab2da76b0df15f76">https://influencemap.org/report/Climate-Change-and-Digital-Advertising-86222daed29c6f49ab2da76b0df15f76<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
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<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://earthshotprize.org/?gclid=CjwKCAjwzvX7BRAeEiwAsXExo3kTH9fBnVIVctOO0GDDcFpfYhpLs2h38TibVDWOp4F47k7Nb2ht0RoC6m4QAvD_BwE">https://earthshotprize.org/?gclid=CjwKCAjwzvX7BRAeEiwAsXExo3kTH9fBnVIVctOO0GDDcFpfYhpLs2h38TibVDWOp4F47k7Nb2ht0RoC6m4QAvD_BwE<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-70506875706474819962020-10-02T08:36:00.001+01:002020-10-02T08:36:57.048+01:00Ten Years to Midnight<p> </p><p class="Body" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p align="right" class="Body" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: right;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2," style="color: magenta;"><i><span lang="EN-US">It’s a podcast! Listen here:</span></i></a></span><i><o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="Body" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><i> </i></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoTitle" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Ten Years to Midnight<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDIj1b6npC2_iKcgNyg23fyQWdCT2q_9pmEOWCmhOXzQMGedMxcD3o3lJIp3NXYZMV2zyocI7rqazWPDj9PbjsSzWBTYLSmu2v_BpktRgS1NLJY401_eewecNOzvCSjNrjL4U/s426/TenYrstoMidnight.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="284" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDIj1b6npC2_iKcgNyg23fyQWdCT2q_9pmEOWCmhOXzQMGedMxcD3o3lJIp3NXYZMV2zyocI7rqazWPDj9PbjsSzWBTYLSmu2v_BpktRgS1NLJY401_eewecNOzvCSjNrjL4U/s320/TenYrstoMidnight.png" /></a></div><br />Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Futures Report for Friday, 2nd October. I’m Anthony Day.<o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">As you know, I had a break in August and during that time Rachel Maurice became a patron and Silver Supporter. Sorry you’ve had to wait so long for your shout-out Rachel. Welcome to the Sustainable Futures Report.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">We live in challenging times which is rather an unhelpful cliche. Nevertheless it's true as challenges, like uncertainty, need to be faced and if not eliminated, to be reduced and managed. At least if we identify the problems we are on the way to defining solutions.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">There are fundamental changes to industrial, social and political structures across the world which we have to face up to and control. I spoke to the author of a new book, Ten Years to Midnight.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Right, well, my guest for today on The Sustainable Futures Report is Blair Sheppard. He is the Global Leader for Strategy and Leadership at PwC, which many of you will have heard of. It's a network of professional services firms committed to building trust in society and solving important problems.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Blair is also the dean emeritus and professor emeritus of Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, where he taught for 33 years. He was the principal force behind opening Duke's campus in China. He's a regular speaker at international forums, including the Global Solutions Summit and the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Blair, welcome, thank you for joining us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Blair:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Thank you. I'm delighted to be here.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Now we're going to frame this interview around your book, "Ten Years to Midnight: Four Urgent Global Crises and Their Strategic Solutions." So could we start off with an overview of what these four crises are, and why they are crises?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Blair:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Yeah, actually, we came to that begrudgingly, by the way. So, first, I'm an optimist and second, our job is to persuade people how the world could be better. But I don't think it can be until we recognise the crises. So they form an interdependent system.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> But the first one is essentially, there's enough people being left behind that they feel like their future is not going to be as good as their current state and therefore they stopped dreaming, hoping, aspiring. And the result is we stop being prosperous. The important point that we point out in the book is across the entire lifespan, from people entering the workforce to people leaving the workforce.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> The second one, let me save it. The third one we call a crisis of institutions, which is that people are losing faith in the institutions that make civilisation work -- the legal system, the tech system, the education system, the political system. And the problem with that, with lost trust in institutions, is that institutions are for people what water is for fish. It's sort of the things that let us just get on with things. Because there there, we can move in life.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> The really sort of scary data point in this one is that only 18% of people in a recent global survey done by Edelman think the system is working for them. The rest are unsure, but nearly half think it's working against them. That is awful. All over the world, right.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> The fourth one is that actually our leaders actually are sort of not up to the task because they were prepared for a world that no longer exists in a way. It's not their fault, it's essentially we changed the world on us, so they changed the world on us, so we did it together. And now we need a new kind of leader, and if we don't get it, we won't solve the crisis.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Then the second one we've called the crisis of technology. And the point we're getting at in this is there are two kinds of technology worlds we live in. One of them is the Industrial Revolution, and the second one is kind of the technology revolution. And in both cases, the ubiquitous. They're everywhere in our lives, right.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> So because they're ubiquitous, the problem is when they do something wrong, it's a big problem. So with platform technology, examples are, society is polarising. Adolescents are having suicidal thoughts much more than they used to. And actually, in some ways we're getting dumber because we don't have same attention span we used to have or short term memory.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> When you say platform technology, are you're talking about social media?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Blair:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> No, I mean all of the platforms, sort of. Alibaba, Tencent, Google, Amazon, Apple, all of them. What I mean by platform is essentially something that is ubiquitous, it's everywhere. It's part of how we engage and you just layer things on top of it. That's why it's called a platform.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> So Apple is successful because of all the apps that are sold, not just because of the base phone. Google's successful because of all the things layered on top of it. Amazon sold books, but now they sell everything.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> That's what makes them platforms. And it's their ubiquity that's the problem actually, because they're everywhere, if they do something wrong, it really hurts. Social media is obviously platform as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> And then, the final one is actually this issue of Industrial Revolution, which is the designers of the industrial pollution, never anticipated that their energy source would create carbon equivalence in the atmosphere that risk human existence. So, it's an unintended consequence, but because they're everywhere, it's really hard to change. Really hard to change.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> So they're crises for two reasons. The first is if they sustain in their present form, they will get much worse in a decade. And the second is they are big and tough and naughty, and therefore fixing them would typically for humanity take longer than a decade to solve. So the question is, how do we change the way we adapt in order to solve things that are pretty darn thorny?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Now, before we get to solutions, I just want to skip forward to Chapter 11 in your book and I just want to read the first few lines opening that chapter, which is headed "Massive and Fast, Problems that Cannot Wait."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> And you say -- with our institutions in disarray and mired in dysfunction, only a few of them, led by extraordinary individuals with unique leadership skills, will be able to address the global, national and local challenges that must be remedied quickly. These problems are so big and so urgent that we cannot wait for our institutions to catch up. Our institutions as we know them today are not up to that task. But while all of the crises covered in this book cannot be seen as anything but acute, a few enormous problems emerging stand out as more dire and pressing than the others, and I call these problems massive fast challenges. Time is of the essence.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Now you then you go on to identify two global crises, these massive fast crises. The one is the issue of jobs and unemployment, particularly amongst the young. And the other one is, of course, climate change.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Now my question, my first question, which applies equally to both of them, is where are we going to get the leaders we need, and more importantly, how are they going to be able to take power?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Blair:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> So, I think the interesting issue is so that the first part, which kind of begins to answer your question, which is, if we try to change everything, we'll change nothing, especially in a world that's as polarised ours, and as fractured as ours.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> So I think there's only a few things we can agree on.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> So the first point is, it may be the two identified are wrong or my co authors and I identified are wrong. I think they're pretty important. But let's focus on one or two things only at a global level and let's agree with each other and go after it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> So one part of the answer to your question is -- narrow the field to the absolutely most critical things, and then maybe we can agree where we all share views in common I think. The second is, I think, because it's so big, we're going to need leaders in a lot of places. It's not like we're going to need a president to step up or a prime minister to step up. We're going to need leaders in lots of places because it's all parts of our life.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> So take climate as an example. It's how we grow things. It's how we transport things. It's how we build things. It's how we manufacture things. It's even how we take vacations.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> And so if you take that entire sort of life experience chain, we have to rethink the whole thing. And if you said, so, who's going to lead that? I think the answer is maybe about 100 million people are going to lead that right.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> And, so the first thing is, I think we have to call for anyone who's in a position of responsibility from some aspect of that lifestyle, they have to rethink their core business.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Then as customers of that, or as investors in that we have to demand that they rethink their business. So there's two kinds of leadership here. First is leadership by the recipient, or you can think it of as a citizen, the customer, the shareholder. And leadership by the people who actually hold responsible for the entity that has to adapt.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> So it's pretty pervasive, back to my point, which is, let's all agree, there's one or two things and then go for it. Create a moon shot for the next decade.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> But I'm just wondering whether we can actually create international consensus on anything, because at the moment we are in a crisis which is not even in the book. Well, I think there is a footnote about the COVID problem. And yes we see countries rushing to develop a vaccine and saying, and it's going to be for us, we are not going to share it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Blair:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> I agree, so Anthony, I agree that in a sense, one of the elements behind some of the crises that we describe is actually the global fracture. And it's getting worse, and actually, COVID has made it worse.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> To your point, we actually thought about stalling the book. It went to press in January, before COVID happened, and we realised the four crises were even more relevant. So we stayed with it instead of rewriting it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> But think to me it comes back to, let's drive it through, probably business and NGOs first, or business and civil society first, and then let government catch up. We're going to need the government. We're going to need policy. We're going to need carbon credits. We're going to need all that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> But let's drive it. And so there's this odd kind of thing, which is -- I think the most important place for us to get agreement is among shareholders. So if people who hold the wealth say I want it to be done differently, a lot of people will fall in line.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> It turns out that that company leaders will, because it's the shareholder asking for it. Many governments will, because of the source of capital that countries need to recover from COVID. And so I think I'd go there first, and I think I'd go to the citizen and get us many people around the world to agree.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Think about the power that the mayors are having because they're agreeing with each other, and so you can do a lot bottom up and you can do a lot top down where top is capital rather than the political power.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Then I think, again, to the global multilateral kind of question. I think we can agree on the two things we describe in the book. I think we can agree that jobs and work or small business is massively important. I think we can agree that climate's massively important and then leave the rest alone, in a way. We have a competition that's going to take a lot of work to fix, but I think we can agree on those two things.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Okay, Okay, Now you talk about social media, you talk about your experience of social media as the facilitator of the Arab Spring quite a long time ago, and yet well, people, of course, have used that as a vehicle for protest ever since. But we're not getting an awful long way with protest, and governments are turning their faces against the facts and they're trying to outlaw protesters who are merely putting forward the science, they're putting forward reasonable solutions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> So, yeah, as you just said, we need to engage governments. But how are we going to do that? Because they don't seem to look very far ahead and they don't seem to look beyond a very narrow focus. So I think that's our difficulty.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Blair:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> So you know, I have a lot of sympathy for political leaders, actually, in a way. So we just describe in the book for awful, awful, difficult problems right, that are virtually impossible to solve, that will take more than one term of an office to solve. And we didn't really prepare them for the kind of problem we're dealing with now. They have these cognitive models in their head that are from the last 70 years of success. So we have to rethink the way they think about the world and actually don't trust them very much. So God bless the political leader who tries.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> That said, it's clear that we have to get to some agreement. I think a couple of pieces on that, if I can. First is, citizens get the leaders they ask for. And so you can't just look at the political leaders and say they're the problem, because we vote for them, we pick them as candidates, we allow the system to sustain as it is. So I think we need to look at ourselves, not just our leaders.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Second, I think that if we can get consensus among the other communities... If you think about society lives on a kind of three legged stool --- Governments, civil society and business. If you can get business and civil society to agree, it will be harder for government not to come along.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> And then again, I think the final piece is, there are too many agendas we are trying to push it one time, and because of that it allows fracturing to exist. If the majority of us say, let's just solve this and make it cause everything else that happened behind it, I think we have a better shot, Anthony. Which is why we focus on two versus... You know, if you think about all the SEGs, they're all important, but frankly, it's so many, it's hard to figure out, just can't get consensus around.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Yes, yes. Now a couple of places in the book you talk about the Marshall Plan, which was an aid program led by the United States immediately after the Second World War to help to rebuild Europe. And you're suggesting that we should have some sort of single minded project in much the same way to deal with the major crises which are facing us now. And interestingly enough, the Prince of Wales used the same phrase this week. Can you just expand on that a little bit? Are we talking about the military taking over?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Blair:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> No, absolutely not. There's some characteristics of the Marshall Plan that are really important. One of them is there was a source of money or there was a pool of money that was aggregated, and then a set of simple rules that sort of said that you have to have an initiative you're trying to drive in your country. you have to have commitment to that and you have to make a case for why you need it. And then we'll distribute the money.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> So it was a global effort to create local solutions. That's what I think we need. We need a global pool of money to actually direct solutions locally because the solution to sort of energy in Calcutta is very different from the solution to energy in London, is very different from the solution to energy in Durham, North Carolina where I live.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> And so we're going to be very different answers from place to place to place. But you want kind of an overarching structure that says this matters, here's the pot of money we have and here's how you get it. The UN is actually doing the same thing, with New Development Initiative, where they've got a framework to try to influence investment locally. And so a lot of people are coming up with a similar kind of premise. We just have to make one work.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> I talked about tipping points in a recent episode, tipping point in one direction, which could lead us irretrievably to catastrophe, a tipping point in the other direction where suddenly governments and world leaders get it and we all pull back from the brink.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> I don't know which way we're going to tip, I really don't. But that's the question. And your book is called "Ten Years Years to Midnight." This clock, I believe, in the centre of New York, which is counting those years down. I think it's ahead of you actually thinks it's less than 10 years. How realistic is it? Are we going to actually? Are we going to get there in the time that's left?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Blair:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> So I think you're right about the tipping point, which is if we do what we're presently doing, even if we accelerate a little bit, we go off a cliff that's really pretty unattractive. It may be 10 years, it may be eight years, it depends on the biological feedback loops that we haven't really come to understand how soon it will occur. But I think 10 years is kind of the outside limit, frankly.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Or the alternative is actually an amazing path. You could tell a story about how the future is unbelievable, if actually the world agrees on a few things, which is, let's create a sustainable economic model, and let's make it inclusive. If we could agree on just those couple of things, then actually I can tell a picture that is amazing and doesn't have a clock in the middle, has this beautiful forest and houses and all the things you would want in life in the middle.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> So I'm hoping. The next book is Finding Dawn. But I agree with you, we're going to need people with power, money, capability to make the change to agree collectively that we need to make the change. But I think that's going to have to come from all of us to insist they do.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> So perhaps the most important thing we can do is to keep people's mind on the issues to continue to promote the message.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Blair:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Exactly. Yeah, Anthony, I think two things that if you sort of say what could any individual do, right? The first one is get really informed and call the question of anyone who they meet, they interact with and they vote for or they talk to. Just be a good citizen, a good employee, a good consumer, in that sense of good intent, worrying about the sustainability of it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> And then the second one is find a place you love and make it better. Because essentially, I think this is going to be 10 million cities at a time kind of, that do it a little bit, villages or cities or counties that do it little bit at a time. And it adds up to something that's really pretty massive. Because it's more than industrial scale problem, it's a complete lifestyle issue, that way I'll have to rethink.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Actually, if you look at all this, if you read Paul Hawkins book, for example, the life you live if you go to the solutions is actually way nicer, actually way better. And so it's not like we're asking people to give something up. We're asking people to move to kind of a much nicer place.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> That book you're referring to I think is "Drawdown," is that right?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Blair:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Yes, it is "Drawdown."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Drawdown. Yes, I recommend people have a look at it. As we draw to the end of this conversation, I'd just like to quote the very last sentence in your book where you say – “No one is exempt from the need to act. Please decide what role you will play and get to it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Blair:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> There's nothing more to say than that I think actually, that is the perfect summary of what we're trying to articulate in the book. So I'm glad you read that sentence.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Blair Sheppard, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to The Sustainable Futures Report.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 79.2pt; text-indent: -79.2pt;"><b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;">Blair:</span></b><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"> Thanks, Anthony. I enjoyed it a lot. And good luck with your mission, and I hope you're successful.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><i> </i></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Blair Sheppard, global leader for strategy and leadership at PwC. <i>Ten Years to Midnight: Four Urgent Global Crises and their Strategic Solutions</i>is available now from all good bookshops and probably Amazon as well. It’s published by Penguin Random House.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">I mentioned some weeks ago that I was reading Thomas Picketty’s <i>Capital and Ideology</i>. I’m pretty much halfway through on about page 540. By contrast, <i>Ten Years to Midnight</i> is very much shorter and a much easier read.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoTitle" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">And finally,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">I leave you with the news that honey is better for you than you might have thought. A study, </span><span class="Hyperlink1" style="color: #c70000;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/aug/19/honey-better-treatment-for-coughs-and-colds-than-antibiotics-study-clams" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">published in the</span></a></span></span><span lang="FR"> journal </span><span class="Hyperlink1" style="color: #c70000;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="https://ebm.bmj.com/content/early/2020/07/28/bmjebm-2020-111336" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">BMJ Evidence Based Medicine</span></a></span></span><span lang="EN-US">, found that honey was a more effective treatment for coughs, blocked noses and sore throats than many remedies more conventionally prescribed.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Well, as a beekeeper I knew that. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Beekeeping is suddenly getting the celebrity treatment. David Beckham was pictured in the press this week with all his family wearing bee-suits. He’d built his own hives as well. Apparently Ed Sheeran has installed hives on his Suffolk estate. Good news for bees and good news for us as bees are an important pollinator of food crops, particularly fruit. If you have land, time, and a few hundred pounds to spare you too can join them in protecting the bees. If not, grow some bee-friendly plants next year. In fact if you plant crocuses now they will provide an early food source for bees. I’m just off to give mine some winter feed.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Before I go,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Let me thank you all for listening and especially those of you who support the Sustainable Futures Report by being patrons. Thanks to Rachel Maurice for being the very latest Silver Supporter. If you’d like to be a patron you’ll find all the details at </span><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://patreon.com/sfr" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">patreon.com/sfr</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US">. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">We’re not going viral yet, but listener numbers are at record levels. Please share!</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">I publish the full text of every episode on the blog at </span><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.sustainablefutures.report/" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">www.sustainablefutures.report</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US">, with extensive links to all my sources. There’s been a bit of a problem with Blogger recently, in that it’s stripping out all my formatting and making things difficult to read. A new website, which will incorporate the blog and links to this podcast will be live later this month.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">In the meantime I’ll have more interviews for you, more news for you, more ideas for you. And do let me have your ideas, your comments, your criticism. Let me know what you want me to report on.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Thanks again for listening.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">That was the Sustainable Futures Report.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">I’m Anthony Day.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Until next time.</span><o:p></o:p></p><span face=""Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif" style="font-size: 18pt;"><br clear="all" style="break-before: page;" /></span><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoTitle" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Sources<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="Body" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/636245/ten-years-to-midnight-by-blair-sheppard-with-ceri-ann-droog-alexis-jenkins-thomas-minet-daria-zarubina-and-susannah-anfield/" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/636245/ten-years-to-midnight-by-blair-sheppard-with-ceri-ann-droog-alexis-jenkins-thomas-minet-daria-zarubina-and-susannah-anfield/</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/21/british-apiarists-knew-it-all-along-honey-is-the-bees-knees" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/21/british-apiarists-knew-it-all-along-honey-is-the-bees-knees</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-85100475756327965662020-10-01T18:44:00.001+01:002020-10-02T08:37:54.982+01:00Reasons to be Cheerful<p> </p><p class="Body" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p align="right" class="Body" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: right;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2," style="color: magenta;"><i><span lang="EN-US">It’s a podcast! Listen here:</span></i></a></span><i><o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="Body" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><i> </i></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoTitle" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Reasons to be Cheerful<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="Body" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Hello, I’m Anthony Day and this is the Sustainable Futures Report for Friday 25th September.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdOjjGmYSSuFxrx_8218a5tZhKxFASLRPC6BVCbrU2sNoLk3YdWBr7eWywP8ThdeHDSf8_ezVRs8LnqnTshUJuroADnJd2iz-BVR-Q9l893PWdOEKu5dmPhhkO5sCRNh4QjEQ/s460/460-happy-baby-3386242_1920.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="308" data-original-width="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdOjjGmYSSuFxrx_8218a5tZhKxFASLRPC6BVCbrU2sNoLk3YdWBr7eWywP8ThdeHDSf8_ezVRs8LnqnTshUJuroADnJd2iz-BVR-Q9l893PWdOEKu5dmPhhkO5sCRNh4QjEQ/s320/460-happy-baby-3386242_1920.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="Heading" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Reasons to be Cheerful<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">The climate crisis hasn’t gone away. There’s a clock in NewYork counting down to irreversible climate change. It reckons we have just over 7 years. The COVID crisis hasn’t gone away and shows signs of rapidly becoming more serious. The Sustainable Futures Report is getting increasing numbers of followers all over the world, but even after more than 5 years the actual number is tiny. There’s nothing to be cheerful about in any of that.</span><o:p></o:p></p><h2 style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">What reason?<o:p></o:p></span></h2><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">What’s the reason to be cheerful? Quite simply, if we are not positive, if we are not optimistic, we have nothing left. There are denialists who don’t want to believe that humanity is at risk. There are lobbyists who don’t want us to believe that humanity is at risk. There are conspiracy theorists who believe that COVID is a hoax and all part of a plot to control us. They’ll probably tell us that any measures to deal with the climate emergency are all part of the same hoax. Take comfort from the fact that these are all minorities which make a good headline so may be more prominent in the media than they deserve, but don’t ignore them; stand up to them. </span><o:p></o:p></p><h2 style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Cautious Optimism<o:p></o:p></span></h2><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">It’s easy to say that governments are not moving fast enough to meet net zero targets. The British government promises announcement of a new green strategy shortly so I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve seen it. But signs for cautious optimism include announcements from both Scania and Mercedes of electric heavy goods vehicles, announcements from Airbus Industries of hydrogen-fuelled aircraft, new battery technology from Tesla and the statement from BP that Peak Oil is upon us. Last week I spoke of tipping points. Industry insider James Spencer says that BP’s latest pronouncements truly </span><span lang="IT">are </span><span lang="EN-US">a tipping point. More on that in a moment.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Warning Signs<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">First, just a reminder of why the need to reduce emissions and mitigate the climate crisis is urgent. As of Wednesday this week over 18,700 firefighters continued to battle 27 major wildfires in California. At the other end of the world Arctic sea-ice shra</span>nk<span lang="EN-US"> this summer to its second lowest extent since satellite observations began. Both are symptoms and both can be causes of continuing climate change.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Peak Oil<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">According to the Telegraph, a newspaper not known for radical views, BP’s briefing on its latest Global Energy Outlook Report dropped a cluster bomb on Big Oil. Spencer Dale, BP’s Group Chief Economist, presented three scenarios for progress to 2050. The message was that the world has reached Peak Oil. About 100m barrels are produced each day at present and BP does not expect that rate to be exceeded. Indeed, the company will not invest in further exploration and expects some 1.7 trillion barrels to remain unused in the ground. About 10 years ago the then oil minister of Saudi Arabia, Sheik Yamani, was fond of saying that the Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. It looks as though his words are beginning to ring out for oil.</span><o:p></o:p></p><h2 style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Net zero<o:p></o:p></span></h2><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Bob Looney, CEO of BP, described how the company would achieve net zero by 2050 and endorsed the British government’s plan to end the sale of fossil fuel powered cars in 2030. BP is transforming itself from an oil company to an energy company and by developing its alliance with Lightsource could become the world’s largest solar operator. The company sees a continuing demand for natural gas as a transition fuel for the next 15 years, but it is investing heavily in wind power and hydrogen. </span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" face=""Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif" lang="AR-SA"><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span>“</span><span lang="EN-US">Our new purpose and ambition are underpinned by four fundamental judgements about the future. That the world is on an unsustainable path and its carbon budget is running out. That energy markets will undergo lasting change, shifting towards renewable and other forms of zero- or low-carbon energy. That demand for oil and gas will be increasingly challenged,</span>” <span lang="EN-US">BP said in its report.</span><o:p></o:p></p><h2 style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Reactions <o:p></o:p></span></h2><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Apart from the Telegraph’s response, there have been mixed reactions. The Fuse, a journal specialising in energy security, sounds sceptical with its headline, “BP Joins Peak Demand Crowd”. It points out that there have been rumours of approaching peak oil for a while, but BP is the first oil major to openly state that it believes it’s happening. The New York Times reports that OPEC foresees a declining demand for oil while BP sees it plummeting. </span><o:p></o:p></p><h2 style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Good News or Global Strife?<o:p></o:p></span></h2><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Is this good news for the planet? Clearly the reduction in emissions due to declining oil use is to be welcomed. The economic and political impact is something else. In the face of falling demand the OPEC countries can try and limit supply to force up prices. The effect of this will be to make US shale economic, but only until increased shale output increases supply and drives prices down again. The International Monetary Fund says even the richest Gulf states may face a solvency crisis by the early 2030s. In BP’s most extreme scenario that could come within five years. And it’s not just the Gulf states that will be affected. Russia will never be able to profit from its oil reserves and other less stable states which rely on oil revenues will become even less stable. States like </span>Nigeria, Algeria, Angola, Libya <span lang="EN-US">and Iraq. Nigeria has the 7th largest population in the world but its population is growing at five times the rate of the UK. How will they feed their people when they cannot sell their oil? Can there really be a future for the Canadian tar sands? How will the British workers fare when Saudi Arabia can no longer afford to spend billions on British armaments? COVID is already affecting the global economy. It’s not the only factor which means that business as usual is unlikely to be anything more than a memory.</span><o:p></o:p></p><h2 style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Aviation<o:p></o:p></span></h2><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">The aviation industry accounts for 2% or 3% of global emissions, but Airbus has announced hydrogen-powered aircraft which will produce no emissions in flight. Prototype electric aircraft have already flown, but the power to weight ratio of batteries severely limits the range. The three designs from Airbus will use liquid hydrogen in gas turbines and could be flying by 2035. They expect a turbofan version to be able to carry 200 passengers for 2000 miles, which will cover most domestic and intra-continental flights, except perhaps in Australia. For the moment conventional oil-powered aircraft will be needed for intercontinental flights.</span><o:p></o:p></p><h2 style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Road Transport<o:p></o:p></span></h2><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Back on the ground, both Mercedes and Scania have announced electric heavy goods vehicles. Scania claims its vehicle will travel from London to Birmingham on a single charge and recharging will fit in with the driver’s rest times. Looking at that a bit more closely, it’s only 125 miles from London to Birmingham and should take less than three hours. Recharging time will be 100 minutes. There is no information yet on the cost of either vehicle and no comment on how far the battery weights will reduce the payload. It is interesting that BP expects the HGV of the future to be powered by hydrogen. Toyota has no pure electric cars. It has a hydrogen car, but that’s held back by the lack of filling stations. Has it backed the right horse?</span><o:p></o:p></p><h2 style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Batteries<o:p></o:p></span></h2><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">This week saw Tesla’s Battery Day and the announcement of new technology. Tesla’s new battery is cylindrical, but more importantly the new design will make it six times more powerful and increase range by 16%. Elon Musk said that his company would eliminate cobalt from its batteries. Much cobalt comes from independent mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there are few regulations and no safety standards and child labour is known to be used. Ceasing to use cobalt must be a reason to be cheerful. Musk also suggested that once the world’s cars were all electric there would be no need to mine any more lithium as all the batteries could be continuously recycled. Bad news for Cornwall, where significant lithium deposits have just been discovered.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoTitle" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">On the other hand…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Writing in the Guardian, George Monbiot presents another side to the news. Yes, he says, electric cars are emissions free and we can look forward to cleaner air. But a car’s tyres, regardless of whether that vehicle is powered by petrol or electricity, are a major source of pollution. Tyres gradually wear down through contact with the road, and as I reported in a previous episode the dust which is created is carried by the wind and eventually pollutes the oceans. Tyres are a major source of micro-plastic pollution in the sea. Taking a whole-life view, cars are an environmental hazard from the point of manufacture onwards. There are emissions involved in the production of iron and steel, there’s pollution and despoliation of nature from the mining of the rare metals needed for the motors, batteries and control systems. Unless we review the whole idea of travel and just replace our fleet with the same number of vehicles but just with a different power source, i</span>t <span lang="EN-US">won’t stop cars from carving up communities and turning streets into thoroughfares and outdoor life into a mortal hazard. Cycling is great until the cycleway comes to an end and you find yourself riding on a road with cars and lorries thundering past, frequently far too close. During lockdown local councils have been experimenting with closing residential streets to through traffic. These Low Traffic Neighbourhoods have caused controversy and petitions. The idea is to eliminate rat-runs and make these streets quieter and safer. The outcry from motorists, most of whom don’t live in the areas affected has been deafening. The truth is that our cities are not getting any bigger and traffic has continued to grow. Public transport is one answer, but during the pandemic people are understandably avoiding it. Walking and cycling are both healthy and frequently faster, but we need to change public opinion and plan road improvements with cyclists and pedestrians as the priority. It’s unlikely that our present government’s £27bn roadbuilding budget will take this view.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Take Action - Urge Action<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">It’s clear that corporations have realised the threat of the climate crisis and are taking action. Governments, too, need to take action, but they first need to realise that business as usual will never return.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">We must manage consumption and encourage people to buy quality - things that will last, and not things that are used once and discarded.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">We need to expand recycling and have a national recycling strategy. In the UK at present we have different recycling bins in different local authority areas and different rules depending on local recycling facilities.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">We need to reinforce the circular economy, and re-use not just Tesla’s new batteries but almost everything. That means redesigning products for repair, refurbishment, re-use and ultimately recycling. We must adopt the producer-pays principle, so that manufacturers cannot abandon all responsibility for what they have produced once it is in the hands of the consumer. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoTitle" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">And finally…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">This week Canadian police stopped a car travelling at more than 90 miles an hour which seem to have nobody in it. When they eventually stopped it they found that the two front seats were fully reclined and the driver and passenger were asleep. The car was a Tesla on autopilot. Clearly the driver had great faith in technology, but even the manufacturers recommend that the driver should have hands on the wheel at all times including in auto mode.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Hands on the wheel.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">A good plan.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoTitle" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">And that’s it!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">Thank you for listening. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">A special thank you to all my patrons. Thank you for your continuing support.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">I know we have stresses and strains and worries from the pandemic, some far more that others, quite apart from concerns over the climate crisis. One of my colleagues told us yesterday that as far as he’s concerned humanity is irretrievably stuffed, although he didn’t put it as elegantly as that. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">As far as I’m concerned we should be cheerful, and if you can’t be cheerful be cautiously optimistic. I’m certainly not going to give up on this without trying.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">As Dylan Thomas said: </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt 117.8pt;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Baskerville, serif;">“Do not go gentle into that good night.</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Baskerville, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="Default" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 130.9pt;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #343434; font-family: Baskerville, serif; font-size: 20pt;">Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”</span></i><i><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #343434; font-family: Baskerville, serif; font-size: 20pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="Default" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 130.9pt;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #343434; font-family: Baskerville, serif; font-size: 20pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">I’m Anthony Day.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span lang="EN-US">That was the Sustainable Futures Report.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoTitle" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Sources<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/arts/design/climate-clock-metronome-nyc.html" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/arts/design/climate-clock-metronome-nyc.html</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4020131/reports-boris-johnson-preps-wave-net-zero-announcements" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4020131/reports-boris-johnson-preps-wave-net-zero-announcements</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4020238/scania-debuts-electric-lorry-travel-london-birmingham-single-charge" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4020238/scania-debuts-electric-lorry-travel-london-birmingham-single-charge</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.daimler-truck.com/innovation-sustainability/efficient-emission-free/mercedes-benz-genh2-fuel-cell-truck.html" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">https://www.daimler-truck.com/innovation-sustainability/efficient-emission-free/mercedes-benz-genh2-fuel-cell-truck.html</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54242176" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">Airbus looks to the future with hydrogen planes</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.climateaction.org/news/airbus-reveals-new-zero-emission-concept-aircraft?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Airbus+reveals+new+zero-emission+concept+aircraft+-+Climate+Action+News&utm_campaign=CA+%7C+2020+%7C+22+September+%7C+Newsletter&vgo_ee=CEbFTfNVV8IAeRyLvc9Lr3wFoqDlMHNmyq65fGLdufk%3D" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">Climate Action</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US"> on new planes</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54211760" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">Arctic sea-ice shrinks to near record low extent</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.fire.ca.gov/daily-wildfire-report/" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">https://www.fire.ca.gov/daily-wildfire-report/</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="Heading" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-weight: normal;">BP<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/energy-outlook.html" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/energy-outlook.html</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/09/14/business/stock-market-today-coronavirus" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/09/14/business/stock-market-today-coronavirus</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.energyfuse.org/bp-joins-peak-demand-crowd/" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">https://www.energyfuse.org/bp-joins-peak-demand-crowd/</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/already-past-peak-oil-bp-says-2020-will-mark-the-end-of-growth-in-petroleum-demand/" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/already-past-peak-oil-bp-says-2020-will-mark-the-end-of-growth-in-petroleum-demand/</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/insider-energy-bp-set-to-dominate-solar-singapore-probes-exxon-2020-9?r=US&IR=T" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">https://www.businessinsider.com/insider-energy-bp-set-to-dominate-solar-singapore-probes-exxon-2020-9?r=US&IR=T</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">UK Power generation<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/index.php" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="PT">https://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/index.php</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="Heading" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Elon Musk Battery day<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://youtu.be/gEha5qkagGw" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">https://youtu.be/gEha5qkagGw</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/22/21450840/tesla-battery-day-production-elon-musk-tabless-range-cathode-cobalt-plaid" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/22/21450840/tesla-battery-day-production-elon-musk-tabless-range-cathode-cobalt-plaid</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">Monbiot<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/23/electric-cars-transport-train-companies" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/23/electric-cars-transport-train-companies</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading" style="border: none; break-after: avoid; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US">And Finally<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD" style="border: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span class="Hyperlink0" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54197344" style="color: magenta;"><span lang="EN-US">Canada Tesla driver charged over 'napping while speeding'</span></a></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54197344" style="color: magenta;"><br /></a></div><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54197344" style="color: magenta;"><br /></a><o:p></o:p><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-12063654067471505372020-09-11T01:00:00.002+01:002020-09-11T09:48:24.623+01:00Going Vegan?<p> <br />It’s a podcast! <a href="https://sustainability.libsyn.com" target="_blank">Listen here</a><br /><br /><i>Apologies once again - Blogger has sabotaged all the formatting I put in!</i><br /><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Going Vegan?</span></b><br />It’s Friday, it’s 11th September, it’s the Sustainable Futures Report and I’m Anthony Day.<br />Welcome.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlhomXCvFUWeXHmZT_u-BTukIHsSitDd4bQL42-ZgJZN40tYqasSHPiSCFCXbcKOPmPqF70f2Jm7n4IVOmSgBLtMYCZBueI2II9n8eG85Rswo4qXLNnIQflZMLGf2TDOctrt4/s460/460salad.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlhomXCvFUWeXHmZT_u-BTukIHsSitDd4bQL42-ZgJZN40tYqasSHPiSCFCXbcKOPmPqF70f2Jm7n4IVOmSgBLtMYCZBueI2II9n8eG85Rswo4qXLNnIQflZMLGf2TDOctrt4/s320/460salad.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />This time I’ll be catching up on stories shared during August, by listeners from Australia, Japan and other parts of the world. Closer to home, XR’s protests continue to make headlines, although you may not have seen them as XR blockaded several presses last weekend and many papers did not make it to the shops.<br />But first, let’s talk about diet. If we’re environmentalists should we be vegan? On the Sustainable Futures Report this time I have two guests: Sammy Bishop, a recent graduate in human physiology and a vegan, and Deirdre Lane who describes herself as a green finance expert who’s morphed from traditional commodity markets to empowering citizens on sustainable actions. She is not a vegan.<br />Anthony: What started this all off for me was the idea of veganism and some quite strong opinions. And I believe there are some quite strong opinions on veganism. And therefore I was very interested to hear what Sammy said recently about being a vegan. Now, I understand that you've been a vegan for about two years, so that suggests you weren't brought up in a vegan household.<br />So what was your motivation in becoming a vegan in the first place Sammy? <br />Sammy: Um, no, you're right. I've been vegan for just over two years now. And veganism stemmed from hearing about the, the climate change and the challenges that our planet is facing just in general culture and across the news and seeing the pretty irreversible direction we're currently traveling in.<br />And I started by making the very standard changes of my reusable coffee cup. and trying to use less plastic when I can. Um, just reading and watching documentaries about the overwhelming evidence for the positive impacts that a vegan diet can have on our planet. It just about two years ago became the inevitable next step that I took to try and minimize my personal impact on the planet.<br />And that's my vegan journey, really. And I've been going strong for two years ever since. <br />Anthony: So two years without any backsliding or any secret, um, burgers or <br />anything? <br />Sammy: Nothing ever intentional. I once drunk from the wrong cup of coffee, but I don't, I don't put myself down for that. <br />Anthony: Okay. So your right cup of coffee has got almond milk or something like that in it. <br />Sammy: It's a soya cappuccino is my go-to. <br />Okay. Okay. Now I've spoken to you about this, Deirdre, and you express some cynicism about the value of veganism. Do you want to expand on that a bit? <br />Deidre: Well, starting with the almond milk, if you consider the plight of the bees, the commercial harvesting of, of the almond with the bee population. So more bees are abused in the U S and they're classified actually in the U S as livestock. So more bees die every year in livestock. In the U S above fish and above, um, agricultural ingestion of, of animal protein and animal meat. So it's quite incredible that yes, we do want to do the right things, but are we doing it in the right way?<br />And are we considering all of biodiversity in our circular thoughts? So, yes. Let's go for the almond milk, however, let's have a rethink of it. How is the almond milk coming to you? Is it in a plastic container? What's the carbon footprint and biodiversity footprint of your almond latte, but it's fascinating how you can phrase the coffee consumption. I was in a cafe in London and they said, do you want to have an 80% less carbon coffee? And of course I said, yeah, it was actually an oatmeal coffee. So yes, absolutely reduce the, the input of dairy, but how are we going to do that at what price to nature? And you mentioned plastic as quite curious as part of plastic free July audits um, I went through all my presses and most of my plastic food sources were actually, um, my vegan food sources. So, you know, the packages of Plasta and the packages of the, um, all the other lentils, et cetera. I was really, um, concerned that even if you do want to go vegan and vegetarian, it really increases your use of plastic, which I was quite concerned about actually. So you're trying to do the good things. You're trying to change your diet, but in fact, are you accidentally damaging nature and increasing your plastic use? <br />Anthony: Well, how do you find that Sammy? I mean, tell us about what you eat now. I mean, I think a vegan menu to many of us is, is a completely closed book, so to open it up and give us some information, would you, <br />Sammy: yeah.<br />Um, and just to know, I am not by choice gluten free as well. So perhaps my vegan diet, isn't the most representative in some ways, but, um, My main, especially to begin with my main vegan diet, as you say, was very great in pulses - things like chickpeas and lentils, either tinned or from a packet. And very vegetable, nut heavy and as I say, things like burgers and things being gluten free, certain a lot of the vegan meat alternatives, mince and chicken and things like that. The vegan alternatives aren't in fact, gluten free. So perhaps mine isn't the most representative, but a lot of pulses and grains to get that, um, variation in the vegan diet is where I focus mine.<br />And I think your point about plastic is interesting. I know from, uh, from my personal experience, before I bought lentils in plastic, I bought for example, chicken in plastic. And so. Although, that is a very important point that you can't focus on the food solely for the average person walking down the street, trying to do their bit, even if it's not a perfect, and there are complications and confusions about how to make your diet completely zero planet impact, which is of course it's never going to happen.<br />If you're growing consuming products, you've got to at least be trying to take a step in the right direction. And I think if you start saying overloading people with too much information about the meat, the vegetables, the plastic, am I better to have a can of chickpeas or a bag of chickpeas, it can become overwhelming.<br />And an individual may just panic and say that I can't process that much information. Let me just carry on as normal. And that's what I think. You've got to think of the nuance of these situations, but be careful of the average person over analyzing every single thing that touches their lips. <br />Anthony: Okay. And how do you feel?<br />I mean, some people say that a vegan diet is defective. It is defective in certain nutrients or vitamins or things like that. Do you feel as healthy, more healthy, less healthy than you did two years ago? <br />Sammy: I can with total honesty say yes, I felt no difference whatsoever. Some people claim that it is more healthy and I'm sure that's true for me, not a single thing changed in how I felt, how much energy I had, how much I performed.<br />I know it obviously is different for different people, but, um, we, some world class athletes, even are vegan. And so for most people, one would assume if you have less energy demands on your body, then a world class athlete, perhaps. So for most people, I would assume that it is an entirely healthy way of life.<br />Deidre: It's interesting for female health that I found as, um, females get older, those of us who choose, um, a vegan diet actually have issues with their bones and osteoporosis, and also the depression can be linked to, um, Having a deficiency in B12 as well. So a really good friend of mine who has chosen to be a vegan for the last three years.<br />She now has osteoporosis, she now has to have medication for it. And she has, she's a doctor herself. She, she shrunk three inches as well. So now that she has chosen vegan living and really healthy living as well. So she eats her carrot tops, for example, as well, carrots. And they're delicious. I'd never thought of doing that before.<br />So, um, her combinations of tastes from a vegan diet are amazing. Her brother is an organic farmer and he farms organic beef. So his point about having heart attacks, eating red meat is processed industrial farming practices. They take the beef, they bring the animal to the, to the slaughter house. The animal can smell the fear and death.<br />And then you're digesting something that is full of chemicals and hormones with fear, and then we're getting the heart attacks from the red meat. So I just spoke to my dad inside. I just cooked the dinner. Dad, would you ever be a vegan ? And he went no. And thumped the table,"I like my traditional diet."<br />So fish on a Friday and pig all year long. And they did not waste a single ounce of that pig. So the neighbors came in and they had the black pudding and nothing, nothing was wasted or spared of the pig. Um, and even the, the processing of the pig manure as part of the refertilisation of the ground, it was very much a circular system.<br />Everything enclosed included. Uh, we have this great words in Irish called mehel . So it's, it's, uh, let's say at the moment it's Apple season. So you're calling your friends out to help you, or if it's a hay harvesting, you'll have a mehel and people, all your neighbors come along and we have so very much the killing of the pig was a mehel.<br />Anthony: Wow. <br />Sammy: I just want to quickly add that. I totally agree that for many people. Veganism may not be healthy. I know you stay. Um, as a young woman, I know a lot of people that suffer, for example, with eating disorders and things like that. And the one of the worst things for someone with a history of disordered eating is tightly controlling what you can and can't eat so, so although I think for many people, it is healthy.<br />If it is not healthy for you, I think it's important that everyone should respect that.<br />Anthony: Okay. So you're not then saying that we should all become vegans or are you saying ideally we should all become vegans?, <br />Sammy: I would say undeniably, I think a vegan diet would have a positive impact on the planet. If we were all to undertake it. I think saying that everyone should become vegan is not taking into account far too many factors, including for example, your health, where you are, what access you have to be vegan, food, vegan alternatives, whether you have the time to make the changes to become vegan whether you have the financial stability and the ability to become vegan.<br />And so I think those who can should, but I understand that many can't and that is absolutely fine. I think if you start telling people off for not being vegan, because they can't, then that can be a very counterproductive way to continue <br />Deidre: You probably know the restaurant "Cranks". And I often, um, I used to go there beforehand.<br />So for me, how do you know someone's a vegan as they tell you? So oftentimes my vegan friends, it's just, it's, it's difficult to invite them to events, et cetera, because they come with a list of, of cranky, still considered by some, notions, but vegan food it's fantastic. But I think that the question is how do we sustainably balance our diet?<br />So how can we shop sustainably from a local support, a local source of protein. So, where do you get your protein from? Is it a high caliber? How has that protein even farmed? So for example, you started talking about almond milk, but the amount of chemicals now put on the almond milk, that we're now digesting ourselves.<br />We really have to re-envisage how we digest food, how, where we get our foods from regenerative farming and exactly what is the more sustainable solutions and choices, economical choices we can make as well. So there's one point in Dublin. It was fascinating for years they were trying to get ladies to eat more healthily and feed their families healthily and the women joined a fitness club and the fitness people, they had to pay to be part of this fitness thing. And the fitness group said eat chickpeas. And all of a sudden they're eating chickpeas. So it's a mindset so should come away from, as you suggested somebody that cranky you should should, should to " here's a suggestion."<br />You know, if you eat this it's healthier, it's better for your family. It's more economical, less plastic. There are other solutions that we can and may explore. And, and the way you, you suggest those changes to the diet as well. It's so important that we do get a choice and vegan food is delicious, but so is my steak.<br />Anthony: So Sammy, you are committed to veganism for the foreseeable future then. <br />Sammy: For the foreseeable future, I'm certainly not tempted to. Yep. Although I love a steak. I'm not tempted to go back that's for sure. <br />Anthony: Right. On the other hand, Dierdre you're not going to give up your steak or your black puddings. <br />Deidre: Oh, lovely black puddings. But it's funny, the healthy choices you make. A vegan colleague gave up cigarettes and started eating wine gums instead. She didn't realize where gelatine came from. So really have to ask these people in the choices that you're making. What are you swapping? What for very important that we, we, we, we balance the situation. <br />Anthony: Okay. Well, thank you both for your, your thoughts on this very important topic. And before we close, I'd just like to ask for your thoughts on what's been going on with extinction rebellion over this last week, because you're aware that, uh, they generated a lot of controversy by blockading the printing works and stopping a lot of newspapers from being distributed on Saturday. Um, the, there is a rumor that the government wants to reclassify extinction rebellion as organized crime and extinction rebellion itself says the police are being extremely heavy handed in these later stages of the demonstration by using all sorts of legal excuses, uh, using in particular the, uh, the COVID regulations to drive people off the streets.<br />What's your reaction to what's going on? Should people break the law or, or what? Um, Deirdre, would you like to go first? <br />Deidre: So having been part of extinction rebellion in Britain and the UK and a fantastic convivial festival ambience outside parliament square in London. I can vouch for the behavior when I was present at the time.<br />And it was very encouraging, positive intellectual debate involving young people and families on the future of our country. So using COVID regulation to hinder the meeting of more than six people can be viewed very, very suspiciously. So we have the right to protest. We should regard that right. And save that right preciously. Extinction rebellion are doing a really good job in actually sharing that conversation in a meaningful way. So being heavy handed with young people is really going to backfire. I think in Brexit, your country seriously is in trouble. And the last thing you want is to make malicious militants, teenagers and families oppose the forces that are in power. So there are ways to do things. Of course, um, nonviolent dialogue is extremely important and very well practiced by extinction rebellion and to be commended. So I I'm pretty horrified by the corralling of rebels, how they're being treated currently, especially with the religious dimension.<br />So we've had some really great faith groups involved in extinction rebellion in the UK. And this is how you're being rewarded in 2020 it's, um, it's quite fearful and some of us who are peaceful and who do want to have a positive change. <br />Anthony: Thank you. Well as a, perhaps somebody not so heavily involved, but nonetheless, uh, affected by the future of the planet as we all will be.<br />Although you'll probably be effected by it for quite a lot longer than some of us Sammy. What's your, what's your take on what's been going on?<br />Sammy: Yeah, I'd say on the whole, I agree with what Deirdre said, particularly peaceful protests, um, should have a mutual respect between the protesters and those who are enforcing or overseeing it.<br />It's really important that although obviously at the moment, our country is facing some some serious things. they're dealing with COVID particularly, we can't use that as an excuse to let every single other thing fall to the sidelines until it's a convenient time to deal with it. Um, and so I think it's really important that protests are allowed to and do continue with respect, assuming that they are undertaken with respect and fairly and um, that, so I think, yeah, it's really important that they can and do continue in an appropriate way.<br />Anthony: Just on the point of blockading the presses. So that four national newspapers did not actually get out to the newsstands on Saturday. People have said that's a denial of free speech. Would you, either of you see it as that? <br />Deidre: Is the press free in the UK? My question. Who owns the press?<br />Anthony: Well, we'll leave that hanging. Shall we? Uh, Sammy, what do you, did you, did you get your paper on Saturday? <br />Sammy: Um, well being a 22 year old graduate, I do not read the paper. My news app did update as normal. So my access to the free press was not impacted. <br />Anthony: Okay, well, thank you both. So thank you for your thoughts on this and on veganism.<br />I think that's really interesting. And, um, I much appreciate your taking the time to talk to the sustainable futures report. Thanks again.<br /><br /><br />You can follow Deirdre Lane @ShamrockSpring on Twitter and on FaceBook as well. Both Sammy Bishop and Deirdre Lane are on LinkedIn.<br />And in Other News…<br />Nations suing governments, deforestation and population, and CO2 as a fuel.<br />Carol Dance draws my attention to an action by Torres Strait Islanders. Climate change is putting life on the islands of the Torres Strait at risk. Advancing seas are already threatening homes, as well as damaging burial grounds and sacred cultural sites. Many Islanders are worried that their islands could quite literally disappear in their lifetimes without urgent action, with severe impacts on their ability to practise their law and culture.<br />The Islanders are taking a climate change complaint against Australia to the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations. This case is the first of its kind in the world.<br />They will ask the UN committee to find that international human rights law means that Australia must increase its emission reduction target to at least 65% below 2005 levels by 2030, going net zero by 2050, and phasing out coal. <br />The outcome will undoubtedly be watched with interest around the world. We in Britain have come to know that former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott believes that actions to tackle the climate crisis are about as sensible as making sacrifices to appease the volcano gods. Such attitudes are shared to a great extent by the present Australian government, which keenly advocates fossil fuels. Understandably, as coal exports provide a major element of the national income. How much longer they will find a ready market may depend on how much more the government annoys the Chinese, but that’s another story.<br />Circular Carbon<br />If you burn fossil fuels you release CO2. Not much you can do about it at the individual level like vehicles, but at major industrial sites and power stations carbon capture and storage (CCS) or carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) is the holy grail. If you capture the CO2 what can you do with it? Now Argonne National Laboratory in the US announces a new electro-catalyst which efficiently converts carbon dioxide and water into ethanol. Ethanol is an ingredient in nearly all U.S. gasoline and is widely used as an intermediate product in the chemical, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries.<br />“The process resulting from our catalyst would contribute to the circular carbon economy, which entails the reuse of carbon dioxide,” said Di-Jia Liu, senior chemist in Argonne’s Chemical Sciences and Engineering division and a CASE scientist in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago. <br />Certainly the process would slow down the release of CO2, but it’s not a closed circle. CO2 will be emitted and lost if the ethanol is used in road fuel, and will be re-emitted when the products of the other industries are eventually discarded.<br />Trees <br />Patron Esteban Velez Vega contacted me about an article he saw in Nature on “Deforestation and World Population Sustainability.” The authors’ opening remarks include,<br />“We evaluate the probability of avoiding the self-destruction of our civilisation. Based on the current resource consumption rates and best estimate of technological rate growth our study shows that we have very low probability, less than 10% in most optimistic estimate, to survive without facing a catastrophic collapse.” They continue,<br />“it is highly unlikely to imagine the survival of many species, including ours, on Earth without [trees]. In this sense, the debate on climate change will be almost obsolete in case of a global deforestation of the planet.”<br />Of course some people are not fazed by this at all. Elon Musk, of Tesla cars and SpaceX, believes we should leave the Earth and colonise the planets. He has said he would be happy to die on Mars, as long as it’s not on impact.<br />The authors of this study have considered the idea. Here’s what they say: “We connect such probability [of survival without facing a catastrophic collapse] to the capability of humankind to spread and exploit the resources of the full solar system. According to Kardashev scale, which measures a civilisation’s level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy they are able to use, in order to spread through the solar system we need to be able to harness the energy radiated by the Sun at a rate of ≈4 × 1026 Watt. Our current energy consumption rate is estimated in ≈1013 Watt. As shown in the subsections “Statistical Model of technological development” and “Numerical results” of the following section, a successful outcome has a well defined threshold and we conclude that the probability of avoiding a catastrophic collapse is very low, less than 10% in the most optimistic estimate.” <br />President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil is another not fazed by all this. Under his rule the chainsaws have never stopped.<br />And finally…<br />Someone recently sent me an email which started like this: “Climate change doesn’t stop for anyone. It doesn’t pause for pandemics, it doesn’t go on a Summer recess and it doesn’t reward good intentions.” <br />And the wildfires in California haven’t stopped, either.<br />That’s why I’m concerned at the measures the British government is taking to suppress the current XR protests. Calling the activists criminal lawbreakers is particularly ironic in a week when a government minister has announced in Parliament that the government intends to break international law.<br />And that’s it!<br />That’s it for this episode. Thank you for listening and I'm delighted to say that people are listening in rapidly increasing numbers. I must be doing something right but please do get in touch and tell me what else you'd like me to focus on. At the moment I get my stories by scanning the media and picking up what I think is interesting, but some people do write with ideas and I'm always grateful for more. As always you can contact me at mail@anthony-day.com.<br />Thanks also to my ever-loyal patrons who contribute a small amount each month to help cover the costs of hosting and researching for this podcast. Your support is immensely appreciated. You too can become a patron and the details are at patreon.com/sfr .<br />Before I go here’s an item from the i-newspaper which shows why you should be kind to wildlife.<br />“A gentleman, in his 80s, was eating his dinner when he became annoyed at a fly buzzing around him. He took aim with an electronic fly swat and tried to dispatch the insect for good, unaware of a gas leak in his kitchen. When he took aim a spark from the swat ignited the gas. The gas cylinder exploded, demolished part of his kitchen and caused a section of his roof to blow off. Local reporters said the man managed to escape with just a burn to his hand but the house is currently uninhabitable. The fate of the fly is unknown.”<br />I’m Anthony Day.<br />That was the Sustainable Futures Report.<br /> Sources<br /><br />Deforestation and population<br />https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6 <br />https://rdcu.be/b6XOZ<br /><br />https://www.anl.gov/article/turning-carbon-dioxide-into-liquid-fue<br /><br />Carol Dance<br />https://ourislandsourhome.com.au/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=actionkit <br /><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-13147456042805548262020-09-04T01:00:00.001+01:002020-10-02T08:44:42.595+01:00Rebellion<style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style><p class="Body"><br /></p><p align="right" class="Body" style="text-align: right;"><span class="Hyperlink0"><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i><span lang="EN-US">It’s a podcast! Listen here:</span></i></a></span><i><o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="Body"><i> </i></p><p class="POD"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoTitle"><span lang="EN-US">Rebellion<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoTitle"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO8GoS2K_Xzd_ooPEXC5B9zyTv5Tf3DKvEByxXdjnAGMZn4H3maa7TtDCV2NIC1OknmYsW8qadt-RDO780_iustBDnJUhz7I4q0jDsl_mX7XQ0CM51v0qVszaykjw3MpAoZX0/s1600/XR2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO8GoS2K_Xzd_ooPEXC5B9zyTv5Tf3DKvEByxXdjnAGMZn4H3maa7TtDCV2NIC1OknmYsW8qadt-RDO780_iustBDnJUhz7I4q0jDsl_mX7XQ0CM51v0qVszaykjw3MpAoZX0/s320/XR2.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span><p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">Welcome back to the Sustainable Futures Report. It's Friday, the 4th of September and my first full length episode since the 31st of July. Hello I’m Anthony Day.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading"><span lang="EN-US">News<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">You can imagine that the news hasn't stopped during August and in fact I've got five pages of hyperlinks, each of which could lead to many minutes of podcast. As I said in last week’s trailer to this episode, the Greenland ice sheet is still melting at up to a million tons per minute, and millions of tonnes of GHGs are still being released into the atmosphere. Yes, that slowed down a bit during the lockdown, but not enough to stop the total quantity in the atmosphere from continuing to grow. And now we’re back to close to normal and the British government is urging people who work in offices to go back to them so the sandwich bars don’t go out of business and eventually they hope we’ll be back to business as over-consuming and polluting as usual.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading"><span lang="EN-US">This week<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">This week I’m going to look first in detail at the latest news from the Arctic and then I’m going to talk about rebellion, because rebellion is seen by many as the only way to get governments to react and take the action that’s essential in the face of the climate crisis. Extinction Rebellion is staging mass protests in London, Manchester and Cardiff this week, as I’m sure you already know. Their central demand is for the government to pass their Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill. You may not have had time to read it. I have. I’ll tell you what it says.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading"><span lang="EN-US">Arctic<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">First, though, there’s news from the Arctic in the journal Nature.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">“We have been clearly underestimating the rate of temperature increases in</span> <span lang="EN-US">the atmosphere nearest to the sea level, which has ultimately caused sea ice</span> <span lang="EN-US">to disappear faster than we had anticipated," said Jens Hesselbjerg</span> <span lang="EN-US">Christensen, a University of Copenhagen professor, "Changes are occurring so rapidly during the summer months that sea ice is</span> <span lang="EN-US">likely to disappear faster than most climate models have ever predicted,"</span> <span lang="EN-US">he said.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">A recent study from Britain's University of Lincoln concluded that</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Greenland's ice melt alone is expected to contribute 10-12 centimetres to the</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">world's rising sea levels by 2100. Another group of researchers recently concluded that the melting of</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Greenland's ice cap has gone so far that it is now irreversible, with snowfall</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">no longer able to compensate for the loss of ice even if global warming were</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">to end today.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">Meanwhile, the last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic lost more than 40% of its area in two days at the end of July. <span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">The Milne Ice Shelf is at the fringe of Ellesmere Island, in the sparsely populated northern Canadian territory of Nunavut.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif;"><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span>“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Entire cities are that size. These are big pieces of ice,</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">” </span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">said Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa who was part of the research team studying the Milne Ice Shelf.</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">The shelf</span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif;"><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span>’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">s area shrank by about 80 sq km. By comparison, the island of Manhattan in New York covers roughly 60 sq km.</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif;"><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span>“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">This was the largest remaining intact ice shelf, and it</span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif;"><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span>’</span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">s disintegrated, basically,</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">” </span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Copland said.</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">The difference between these two ice masses is that the Greenland ice cap is on land and therefore the meltwater pouring into the sea will raise sea levels, while the Milne Ice Shelf is already floating, and therefore will not affect sea levels as it melts. Any reduction in sea ice affects the earth’s albedo or reflectivity, however. Ice reflects sunlight and heat back into space, but the darker ocean absorbs heat. Wild fluctuations in temperature have been observed in the Arctic this year with temperatures </span><span lang="EN-US">peaking</span><span lang="DA"> at </span><span lang="EN-US">a record 38C in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk on 20 June </span><b>2020</b>.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading"><span lang="EN-US">Wildfires<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">By the end of August wildfires in the Arctic had already emitted 35% more CO2 than in the whole of 2019. They are continuing to burn in </span><span lang="NL">Siberia, Alaska, Greenland and Canada</span><span lang="EN-US">. They are now at </span><span class="Hyperlink1"><a href="https://twitter.com/m_parrington/status/1153222688615337984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1153222688615337984&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld-europe-49125391"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;">"unprecedented levels"</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US">, says Mark Parrington, a wildfires expert at the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (Cams). Soot falling on the snow reduces albedo and makes the situation worse. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">Many of the blazing forests stand on peat deposits which are likely to burn throughout the winter and break out again next Spring. Scientists complain that these earth-changing fires have had minute media attention by comparison to the fire in the cathedral of Notre Dame last year.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading"><span lang="EN-US">We have a problem.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">Scientist James Hanson warned the US Congress of a problem back in the 1980s. British PM Margaret Thatcher - herself a qualified scientist - warned of the threat to the climate about the same time.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading"><span lang="EN-US">Rio<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">In 1992 the UN Earth Summit in Rio decided something should be done and the developed nations set targets to rein in their carbon emissions. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">In 2006 economist Nicholas Stern advised the British government to take immediate action as delays of only a few years would make the costs of mitigating climate change many times greater. That was the year when Al Gore published <span class="None"><i>An Inconvenient Truth</i></span>.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading"><span lang="EN-US">Paris<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">In 2015 the world’s nations came together and signed the Paris Agreement, committing them to take action to keep the increase in global temperatures below 1.5℃. At the time it was estimated that the published commitments would only be enough to keep the rise below 3.6℃: COP26, scheduled for this November, would receive the 5-year report, but of course the conference was postponed for a year because of the pandemic. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading"><span lang="EN-US">COP26 Glasgow<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">Britain will host the event next year and even before it was postponed there was criticism that the UK was not making the essential diplomatic preparations for the conference. Making business secretary Alok Sharma the president of COP26, a politician who has voted in favour of expanding Heathrow Airport, is not a good sign. And the United States, the second largest global emitter, has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading"><span lang="EN-US">We have a problem. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">As every year passes it becomes more urgent. That’s why XR is demonstrating in London, Manchester and Cardiff this week. Protesters are demonstrating against the banks and pension funds that invest in fossil fuel producers, against HS2 the high-speed rail line that will cost £100 billion, tear up the countryside and eventually reduce the London to Birmingham journey time by 20 minutes, and against the inertia and inactivity of politicians. The key demand is that Parliament should accept, debate and pass into law the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill. Governments are actually doing a great deal to reduce carbon emissions. The problem is that they are not doing enough to meet their own targets of net zero by 2050, and 2050 is generally agreed to be far too late in any case.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading"><span lang="EN-US">The Bill<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">From the start of the week XR was concentrated in Parliament Square attempting to urge each MP as they arrived to support the Bill. Behind the scenes hundreds of activists were phoning their MPs with the same message. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">You’ll find a link to the text of the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill on the blog. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">It’s described as, “</span><span lang="DA">A BILL </span><span lang="EN-US">to</span><span lang="EN-US"></span><span class="None"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="POD"><i><span lang="EN-US">Require the Prime Minister to ensure that the United Kingdom achieves specified objectives in tackling the climate and ecological emergency; to give the Secretary of State a duty to create and implement a strategy to achieve those objectives; to establish a Citizens</span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA"><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span>’ </span></i><i><span lang="EN-US">Assembly to work with the Secretary of State in creating that strategy; to give duties to the Committee on Climate Change regarding the objectives and the strategy; and for connected purposes. </span></i><span class="None"><i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">In more detail, and I</span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif;"><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span>’</span><span lang="EN-US">m paraphrasing, the Prime Minister’s objectives include:</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="margin-left: 19.65pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -19.65pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 21.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">•<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">To reduce GHG emissions to a rate that is consistent with limiting warming 1.5℃ in line with the Paris Agreement</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="margin-left: 19.65pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -19.65pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 21.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">•<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">To restore and regenerate the nation’s soils, biodiverse habitats and ecosystems and, wherever possible, expand them</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD" style="margin-left: 19.65pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -19.65pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 21.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">•<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">To reduce human impact on wildlife and the land</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">To do this the PM must work with the Committee on Climate Change and environmental protection bodies throughout the UK.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">The Secretary of State, presumably the secretary of state for DEFRA, the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is required by the legislation within six months of the passing of this Act, to publish a Climate and Ecological Emergency Strategy (</span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif;"><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span>‘</span><span lang="EN-US">the strategy</span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif;"><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span>’</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="EN-US"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>) specifying the measures that will achieve the objectives. The draft bill then goes into specific detail of how this strategy should be drawn up and the scientific factors and technical issues that should be taken into account. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">In addition the bill calls for the establishment of a Citizens Assembly to work in cooperation with the Secretary of State and to recommend measures to be included in the strategy. </span><span class="None"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">The functions of the Assembly are to—<br />(a) consider information provided by experts, and by any other persons who have submitted evidence to the Assembly;</span><br /><span lang="EN-US">(b) deliberate how the objectives can be achieved;</span><br /><span lang="EN-US">(c) vote on measures proposed for inclusion in the strategy;</span><br /><span lang="EN-US">(d) seek agreement with the Secretary of State on the content of the strategy;</span><br /><span lang="EN-US">(e) propose revisions to the strategy</span><span class="None"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="POD"><span class="None"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">The Bill was introduced to Parliament on Wednesday afternoon as a Private Member’s Bill by Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP, supported by just 20 of the nation’s 650 MPs. Historically, unless they are adopted by the government of the day, Private Member’s Bills sink without trace. In this case the bill has been given a second reading date: 12th March 2021, which is the equivalent of kicking it into the very long grass. Understandably XR are more than angry at this deliberate delay. Protests were planned for a full 10 days from last Friday. How they will develop from here is not clear.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading"><span lang="EN-US">Citizens’ Assembly<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">The bill itself seems pretty reasonable to me. The most controversial item is probably the establishment of the Citizens’ Assembly, but such assemblies are increasingly common across the world. The principle is that a random group of people is brought together, selected on the same basis as people are chosen for jury service. The intention is to create a representative cross-section of the population to consider the issues and advise the government. It is an advisory body. It is not subverting democracy, it is strengthening it. A citizen’s assembly was used in Ireland to inform the debate over abortion. In France the</span><span lang="FR"> Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat </span><span lang="EN-US">was established in response to the gilets jaunes protests and is already taking evidence to understand how France can meet its Paris targets. In the UK Bristol City Council is set to carry out a Citizens Assembly to advise on the city</span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif;"><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span>’</span><span lang="EN-US">s coronavirus recovery while the Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland will shortly report to the Scottish Parliament on how best the nation can overcome the challenges Scotland and the world face in the 21st century.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading"><span lang="EN-US">Demonstrations<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">Why the demonstrations? People say, “I agree with what they stand for, but they’re going about it the wrong way by disrupting ordinary people’s lives.” After arresting multiple protesters Commander Jane Connors of the Metropolitan Police said: </span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif;"><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"></span>“</span><span lang="EN-US">The reason we have implemented these conditions is that we know these protests may result in serious disruption to local businesses, commuters and our communities and residents, which I will not tolerate.</span>”<span lang="EN-US"> You couldn’t expect her to say anything else.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">Without disruption no-one will take any notice. That is why thousands of people are involved in these protests. Apart from the thousands on the streets there are those who are phoning MPs, who are providing back-up and legal advice for those arrested and who are organising accommodation and transport for those on the streets. As with the protests last year, those on the streets come from many different backgrounds, different ages, different sectors of society. Many are ready to be arrested, which takes immense courage. Courage, not because they fear the ill-treatment like protestors in Belarus have suffered. Our police have some problems but they are generally pretty respectful and civilised. I remember at last year’s protests seeing them warn activists that if they didn’t move they would be arrested and giving them ample opportunity to move before they did in fact arrest them. Initially the worst that protesters will suffer is the inconvenience of being held overnight and eventually a fine of several hundred pounds when found guilty. What is far more serious is that once you have a criminal record you may face difficulties in getting a job, getting a loan, getting a mortgage, getting insurance, renting a property, travelling to certain foreign countries and in many other situations. It is truly life-changing. That’s why I have immense respect for such people who take these risks for the sake of their principles and for the sake of the rest of us. Why aren’t I on the streets? Well, I haven’t got that sort of courage and I’m conceited enough to believe that passing on my views through this podcast will do as much good as being one extra person on the streets.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="Heading"><span lang="EN-US">No Violence<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">The protests go on. Anything that happens after Thursday afternoon will not make it into this week’s Sustainable Futures Report. To be honest, not a lot has appeared in the UK’s national press so far. XR will have to raise the pressure to make an impact and maybe that’s what we will see in the coming days. One thing that’s certain is that XR is committed to non-violent direct action. There may be some minor criminal damage, like spray-painting or people supergluing themselves to doors, buildings or street furniture, but the group is absolutely against any form of violence. It runs training on non-violent direct action.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">Is the government listening? As I close, another 90 people have been arrested and there are suggestions that the new legislation designed to prevent illegal raves could be used against protestors. Anyone organising a gathering of more than 30 people is liable to a fine of £10,000.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">More next week.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoTitle"><span lang="EN-US">And Finally…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">Zoe Cohen shared a link to a story about the melting permafrost in the Arctic. It means that structures that previously relied on the frozen ground as a rock-solid foundation are suddenly suffering from subsidence. There is a solution however. Engineers plan to instal massive chillers to refreeze the tundra beneath their infrastructure. The infrastructure in question is oil production equipment owned by ConocoPhillips. Hang on - isn’t oil production part of that fossil fuel problem which is causing the warming that leads the tundra to melt? You couldn’t make it up…</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoTitle"><span lang="EN-US">And that’s it!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">Thanks for listening to this week’s Sustainable Futures Report. You’ll appreciate that I’ve had to hold over most of my five pages of leads to climate stories until next time. Many thanks for all my patrons for staying with me and thanks to those of you who wrote to me during August. I’ll share your ideas next time. By the way, if you’d like to become a patron, and your support would be most gratefully received, just hop across to </span><span class="Hyperlink0"><a href="http://patreon.com/sfr"><span lang="EN-US">patreon.com/sfr</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US">. A word to the wise. For the moment you can sign up from $1 per month. From October the minimum will increase to £1 per month, although existing subscribers will not be affected.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">A final reminder that you can find the full text and links to the stories in this episode on the blog at </span><span class="Hyperlink0"><a href="http://www.sustainablefutures.report/"><span lang="EN-US">www.sustainablefutures.report</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US">. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">I’m Anthony Day.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><span lang="EN-US">And that’s all for now.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="POD"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoTitle"><span lang="EN-US">Sources<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="Heading"><span lang="EN-US">Environment<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="Default"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Lockdown will have 'negligible' impact on climate crisis – study</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/07/covid-19-lockdown-will-have-negligible-impact-on-climate-crisis-study"><span style="color: #0068da; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/07/covid-19-lockdown-will-have-negligible-impact-on-climate-crisis-study</span></a></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.thelocal.dk/20200819/arctic-sea-ice-melting-faster-than-forecast-copenhagen-researchers-find"><span style="color: #0068da; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">https://www.thelocal.dk/20200819/arctic-sea-ice-melting-faster-than-forecast-copenhagen-researchers-find</span></a></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/07/canadian-ice-shelf-area-bigger-than-manhattan-collapses-due-to-rising-temperatures"><span style="color: #0068da; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/07/canadian-ice-shelf-area-bigger-than-manhattan-collapses-due-to-rising-temperatures</span></a></span></span><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0068da; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></p><p class="Default"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0068da; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></u></p><p class="Default"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Greenland ice sheet lost a record 1m tonnes of ice per minute in 2019</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/20/greenland-ice-sheet-lost-a-record-1m-tonnes-of-ice-per-minute-in-2019"><span style="color: #0068da; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/20/greenland-ice-sheet-lost-a-record-1m-tonnes-of-ice-per-minute-in-2019</span></a></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="Default"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Carbon emissions from Artic wildfires up more than a third</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/31/arctic-wildfires-emit-35-more-co2-so-far-in-2020-than-for-whole-of-2019"><span style="color: #0068da; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/31/arctic-wildfires-emit-35-more-co2-so-far-in-2020-than-for-whole-of-2019</span></a></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49125391"><span style="color: #0068da; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49125391</span></a></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="Default"><span lang="DE" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">NEW WEATHER INSTI</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">T</span><span lang="DE" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">UTE</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/oct/25/suvs-second-biggest-cause-of-emissions-rise-figures-reveal"><span style="color: #0068da; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/oct/25/suvs-second-biggest-cause-of-emissions-rise-figures-reveal</span></a></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="Heading"><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US">Politics<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://europeanclimate.org/a-tale-of-two-citizens-assemblies/"><span style="color: #0068da; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">https://europeanclimate.org/a-tale-of-two-citizens-assemblies/</span></a></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/05/sustainable-recovery-french-citizens-assembly"><span style="color: #0068da; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/05/sustainable-recovery-french-citizens-assembly</span></a></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4019582/mps-table-fresh-legislation-close-gaps-uk-climate-change-act"><span style="color: #0068da; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4019582/mps-table-fresh-legislation-close-gaps-uk-climate-change-act</span></a></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://greenworld.org.uk/article/bristol-hold-citizens-assembly-coronavirus-recovery"><span style="color: #0068da; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">https://greenworld.org.uk/article/bristol-hold-citizens-assembly-coronavirus-recovery</span></a></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.citizensassembly.scot/"><span style="color: #0068da; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">https://www.citizensassembly.scot</span></a></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"></span></span><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="Heading"><span class="None"><span lang="EN-US">And Finally<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="Default"><span class="None"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">Thanks Zoe Cohen - </span></u></span><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/conocophillips-chillers-refreeze-thawing-tundra-climate-change-2020-8?r=US&IR=T"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">https://www.businessinsider.com/conocophillips-chillers-refreeze-thawing-tundra-climate-change-2020-8?r=US&IR=T</span></b></a></span></span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-37169099851761961332020-07-31T01:00:00.000+01:002020-07-31T01:00:16.215+01:00And Finally...<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;">
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></div>
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<b>And Finally…</b></div>
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I’m Anthony Day and this is the Sustainable Futures Report for Friday 31st July.</div>
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And finally…no, this isn’t the last episode, just the last episode in July before I close down for August. Hold tight - there’s a lot to get in.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXLMTmAEVcBqtwQndQBsOgHslUntRon1kaz0wKXBaBF9wYW1YycLfPcJ0rx1vlfLOIazf0ApbvmaL7nCw42mncFpEhjDF5o3l6Q5M4TZcTwoJL3eHPq49DTPKuNJFzFrai5UM/s460/460volcano.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="460" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXLMTmAEVcBqtwQndQBsOgHslUntRon1kaz0wKXBaBF9wYW1YycLfPcJ0rx1vlfLOIazf0ApbvmaL7nCw42mncFpEhjDF5o3l6Q5M4TZcTwoJL3eHPq49DTPKuNJFzFrai5UM/w781-h666/460volcano.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I’ll be talking about transport, climate, too much water, too little water, energy, campaigns and opinions and I chat briefly about pollution with Julia Hartley-Brewer on Talk Radio. There are pages of links to all these stories on the blog at <a href="http://www.sustainablefutures.report/">www.sustainablefutures.report</a>. This is probably the longest episode I’ve done at 6,700 words, but then, you’ve got a whole month to enjoy it.</div>
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<b>Let’s take to the road.</b></div>
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Recently we spoke about electrifying transport and in particular about using electricity for heavy goods vehicles (HGVs). It was pointed out that you would need something like five tons of batteries which would significantly reduce the payload which vehicles could carry, given that there is an overall limit of 44 tons. It also occurs to me that those batteries would all have to be in the tractor unit, leading to a much increased axle load which would restrict the routes on which the vehicle could be used. </div>
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I reported some months ago on a scheme in Canada for overhead electric power for HGVs. In this particular case the lorries had conventional diesel engines plus electric motors. The overhead wires were installed over a relatively short distance, but the idea was to reduce pollution and noise from large numbers of HGVs passing through a residential area on the way to a port.</div>
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<b>Overhead</b></div>
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Now the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight has published a White Paper which suggests that overhead electric wires, like those on a railway, should be installed over the inside lanes of motorways. Heavy goods vehicles (HGV) would pick up current from these to power them through the major parts of their journeys. They would then use smaller batteries to complete the last off-motorway part of the trip. </div>
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The White Paper says: “A total investment in the region of £19.3 billion would be required to electrify almost all the UK’s long-haul freight vehicles, corresponding to 65% of road freight movements. The estimated CO2 saving would be 13.4 MtCO2e per annum, along with substantial air quality benefits. The remaining 35% of freight movements are mainly urban deliveries that are expected to move to battery electric lorries over the next 10 years. The investment compares well with the size of other planned infrastructure projects. Work could get underway immediately with an £80 million pilot project in the North East of England.”</div>
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65% of road freight movements electrified for £19.3 billion! Compare this with HS2, the high-speed passenger railway under construction from London to Birmingham, budgeted at some £80 billion and confidently expected to cost over £100 billion. That will carry no freight, just passengers wealthy enough to afford the premium fare to save them 20 minutes on their journey.</div>
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The Guardian newspaper is a rich resource for many of my stories, like these about the climate.</div>
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<b>The Climate is Changing</b></div>
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One evening back in June, ripples of electric blue clouds shimmered in the twilight sky after sunset. These were noctilucent clouds, the highest clouds in the world, more than 80km (50 miles) up on the edge of space, and looked like something from another planet. </div>
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These clouds may also be a warning sign of the climate crisis. They were first recorded in 1885 and were rarely seen for years afterwards, largely in polar regions. But in recent times the clouds have appeared much further afield and are growing much brighter.</div>
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Much of the moisture needed to form the clouds comes from methane, a potent greenhouse gas that produces water vapour when it breaks down in the upper atmosphere. And as methane pollution has increased, so noctilucent clouds have grown more common and more widespread.</div>
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<b>Getting Warmer</b></div>
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As the climate changes, a study published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16834-0"><span style="color: #990010;">Nature Communications</span></a> predicts that the UK could see 40°C temperatures every 15 years instead of every century or so. Lead author Nikolaos Christidis, of the Met Office Hadley Centre, said: “The rate of change is remarkable.”</div>
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“Last year, we had the record temperature in the UK and [Public Health England] reported spikes in mortality,” he continued. “When these kinds of events happen, we have detrimental impacts to our transport infrastructure, agricultural catastrophes and water shortages. We need to reduce our vulnerability to these kinds of impacts.”</div>
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The government’s official advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, said, “the <a href="https://www.theccc.org.uk/2020/06/25/covid-19-can-be-an-historic-turning-point-in-tackling-the-global-climate-crisis/"><span style="color: #990010;">UK is poorly prepared</span></a> for the very serious impacts of climate change, including … overheating”.</div>
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<b>Not Enough Water</b></div>
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According to the BBC, the Public Accounts Committee warns that some parts of England will run out of water within the next 20 years unless "urgent action" is taken.</div>
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People in certain parts of the UK, particularly in the South East, already have less water available to them than those in countries like Morocco, according to several water companies in the region. With 20% of water wasted, the committee is calling on the government to establish a league table for water companies to pressure them into dealing with leaks. It also wants efficiency labels on domestic products like washing machines and dishwashers to be made compulsory.</div>
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Vanessa Speight, professor of integrated water systems at Sheffield University, told BBC News: "The UK has some of the oldest water infrastructure in the world, and while it has served us well, it is now time to look to the future with significant water infrastructure investment that will address leakage as well as related reliability and water quality issues.”</div>
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<b>Too Much Water</b></div>
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While there are serious risks from drought, we are still at risk from floods.</div>
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The government’s long-awaited strategy for tackling floods in England does not go far enough and appears to conflict with Boris Johnson’s “build, build, build” plan for more housing, experts have said.</div>
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Prof Hannah Cloke, a hydrologist at the University of Reading, said the government’s pledge to review house building on floodplains did not “sound in tune” with the prime minister’s commitment to cutting red tape to build new homes more quickly under “Project Speed”.</div>
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Cloke said: “A fortnight ago Boris was attacking ‘newt counting’ and bemoaning the pace of progress in the UK. Dealing with flooding shows precisely the difficulties behind his promise to build better, faster and greener. Sometimes being better and greener requires building more slowly and carefully, or we risk long-term economic and social costs that we cannot afford.”</div>
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About 20,000 homes a year are built on land at the highest risk of flooding in England, equating to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/19/one-in-ten-new-homes-in-england-built-on-land-with-high-flood-risk"><span style="color: #b80004;">one in 10 of all new homes</span></a> since 2013.</div>
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Planning policy says housing should be based in areas at the least risk of flooding, yet local authorities, which face penalties if they miss house-building targets, say they feel powerless to stop developments and are concerned these construction projects will only increase in number.</div>
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<b>Meanwhile Up North (a long way up north)</b></div>
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Between January and June, temperatures in the far north of Russia were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/17/climate-crisis-alarm-at-record-breaking-heatwave-in-siberia"><span style="color: #990010;">more than 5C above average</span></a>, causing permafrost to melt, buildings to collapse, and sparking an unusually early and intense start to the forest fires season. On 20 June, a monitoring station in Verkhoyansk registered a record high of 38C.</div>
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In a study by World Weather Attribution, scientists from France, Germany, Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland and the UK collaborated to examine whether and to what extent human-induced climate change had a part to play in making this heatwave hotter and more likely. The results showed with high confidence that the January to June 2020 prolonged heat was made at least 600 times more likely as a result of human-induced climate change. They noted that even with climate change, the prolonged heat was a very rare event expected to occur less than once every 130 years.</div>
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<b>Stormy Weather</b></div>
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Global warming, of course, isn’t just about heat. A study published in <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL087207"><span style="color: #b80004;">Geophysical Research Letters</span></a>, shows that the unusually large discharges of meltwater from Greenland and the Arctic in the last few years created a lasting freshwater pond at the ocean surface. Because freshwater cools faster than saltwater this pond has increased the temperature difference from north to south and helped to trigger some of the extreme winter storms seen in northern Europe. The authors anticipate that increased melting in future years is likely to whip up storms of even greater intensity and barrel them towards northern Europe.</div>
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<b>Geoengineering</b></div>
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Leslie Field, founder of <a href="https://www.ice911.org/">https://www.ice911.org</a>, wants to sprinkle 19,000 sq miles of ice with reflective silica granules to slow down the melting of the ice. The cost is estimated to be around $750m, not including labour. The continual funding for such an effort will have to come from private donors, or the UN, or perhaps the World Bank. That, too, isn’t certain as yet, despite a “large-scale launch” of ice covering earmarked for 2020.</div>
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“It’s not chump change, but compared to other options it’s cost effective,” she said. “It’s a matter of trying to prevent the horrific list of things, such as sea level rise, storms and so on, that will come from climate change. Things that will cost us trillions, not billions.”</div>
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Meanwhile, a team of scientists at Arizona State University want to add an extra metre of sea ice to the Arctic’s current thickness by spending $500bn on a network of 10m wind-powered pumps that would be used to push seawater on to the surface of the ice where it would freeze.</div>
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“Our only strategy at present seems to be to tell people to stop burning fossil fuels,” lead physicist Steven Desch said. “It’s a good idea but it is going to need a lot more than that to stop the Arctic’s sea ice from disappearing.”</div>
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Elsewhere there is the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160425-how-a-giant-space-umbrella-could-stop-global-warming"><span style="color: #990010;">plan</span></a> to use 16tn miniature robots to deflect the sun’s heat away from Earth; or the <a href="http://www.mcbproject.org/about.html"><span style="color: #990010;">project</span></a> to pump aerosols into clouds in order to “brighten” them and bolster their reflective power. Another <a href="https://phys.org/news/2018-03-ultra-thin-sun-shield-great-barrier.html"><span style="color: #990010;">scheme</span></a>, devised by the scientist who developed Australia’s polymer bank notes, is trialling a thin “sun shield” to be placed over parts of the Great Barrier Reef, which has recently suffered from severe coral bleaching.</div>
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<b>Will it work?</b></div>
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The problem with all of these geo-engineering ideas is that no-one knows how well they will work, if at all. And if it all goes horribly wrong we won’t be able to just walk away.</div>
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Even if it works, another study found that the temperature reductions as a result of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/19/lockdowns-trigger-dramatic-fall-global-carbon-emissions">drop in carbon dioxide or other emissions because of Covid-19</a>, were so small they would not be measurable. </div>
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The message seems to be that if we continue business as usual atmospheric heating will soon reach dangerous levels. However, if we ever did manage to cut greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently, the temperature would become stable but we would not see reductions for a long time. We could perhaps take comfort from the fact that the next generation would benefit.</div>
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<b>Writing in The Guardian</b>, Dr Tamsin Edwards, a senior lecturer in physical geography at King’s College London, explains how sprinkling fields with basalt rock dust could remove CO2 from the atmosphere through the natural process of weathering.</div>
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“But,” she says, “we cannot escape the fact that limiting global warming to 1.5C would require “<a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm"><span style="color: #ad3f14;">rapid and far-reaching transitions</span></a>” in energy, land, urban infrastructure and industry. The point is that there will be no silver bullet for climate change. No easy choice for the best action to take, no get-out-of-jail-free card. We have left it too late for that: we need to do (almost) everything, and fast.”</div>
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<b>Pollution </b></div>
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<b>Methane</b></div>
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Turning now to pollution, research, <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/lookup/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.1134"><span style="color: #b80004;">published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B</span></a>, reports the discovery of a methane seep at a 10-metre (30ft) deep site known as Cinder Cones in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. The study provides the first report of the evolution of a seep system from a non-seep environment, and reveals that the rate of microbial succession may have an unrealised impact on greenhouse gas emission from marine methane reservoirs.</div>
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Antarctica is estimated to contain as much as a quarter of earth's marine methane. The methane cycle is not perfectly understood, but it is well known that methane is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2, so any reports of it leaking into the atmosphere must be a cause for concern.</div>
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The authors say, “Climate change will increase the release of methane from subsurface marine reservoirs and while predicting the impact of this release is multifaceted, methanotrophy in the oceans is expected to minimise the atmospheric footprint of this release.” Methanotrophy is the consumption of methane by bacteria and other organisms. What the scientists are saying is that while methane is seeping into the oceans, most of it is being absorbed by organisms so very little is escaping into the atmosphere. They go on to say that methane-consuming organisms grow very slowly, so presumably if the seepage speeds up they may be unable to absorb it all. An area for more research, and careful monitoring.</div>
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<b>Obviously</b></div>
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And now a dispatch which I thought initially came from the Department of the bleedin’ obvious. A study has found that car tyres are major source of ocean microplastics. Well, I would have thought it was obvious. We all know that car tyres wear out, but they take tens of thousands of miles to wear out so must wear out by shedding extremely fine particles. These fragments are deposited on the roads and when the rain comes they are washed into the ditch. All ditches run into streams which run into rivers which run into the ocean. Hence there’s a lot of microplastics from car tyres in the ocean. </div>
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<b>I was wrong </b></div>
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<span style="color: black;">It seems, actually that I’m wrong. The </span>research, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17201-9"><span style="color: black;">published in the journal Nature Communications</span></a>, reveals that these particles are actually blown across continents and into the sea. We agonise about the millions of microfibres that we release every time we wash our clothes, but lead researcher Andreas Stohl, from the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, said an average tyre loses 4kg during its lifetime. “It’s such a huge amount of plastic compared to, say, clothes, whose fibres are commonly found in rivers”, Stohl said. “You will not lose kilograms of plastic from your clothing.”</div>
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Airborne transport has received much less attention than rivers because only the smallest particles can be blown by the wind and their size makes them difficult to identify as plastic. “The really small particles are probably the most important in terms of health and ecological consequences because you can inhale them and the very small particles can probably also enter your blood vessels,” Stohl said.</div>
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<b>Fly tipping </b></div>
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Disposing of worn-out tyres is a problem in itself. Disposing of anything has become a problem during the pandemic as public recycling and refuse centres have been closed. An egregious example is to be found in Glasgow where people have created a mountain of waste tyres on an industrial estate in that city. And that’s only one example of fly tipping which has expanded dramatically during lockdown. There is probably an element of the herd instinct there, that Roger Hallam was talking about last week. If everybody else does it, why shouldn’t I? Pity that it’s not balanced with a sense of responsibility.</div>
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<b>The Interview</b></div>
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Julia Hartley Brewer of Talk Radio got in touch this week to talk about pollution.</div>
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<span style="color: #de2898;"><b>Julia: </b></span>Alright, now let's move on to very different matters, not inside the home, but outside of the home, what happens to all that stuff we do buy and where it disappears because almost 1 billion, tons of plastic waste is going to be dumped on land and at sea by 2040, according to a major new study, let's talk about this with Anthony Day, environmental consultant, also presenter of the sustainable futures report podcast.</div>
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Good morning to you Anthony. </div>
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<span style="color: #fa8a3b;"><b>Anthony: </b></span>Good morning, Julia. </div>
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<span style="color: #de2898;"><b>Julia: </b></span>Well, this study is entitled Breaking the plastic wave . It's been written by academics at university of Leeds along with 17 other international experts. And it's talking about this 1 billion tons of plastic waste. First of all, where is it coming from? And second of all, where is it going?</div>
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<span style="color: #fa8a3b;"><b>Anthony: </b></span>Well, where's it coming from mainly it's coming from single use plastic, which I suppose is, um, uh, wrappings packaging and so on and an awful lot of, uh, drinks, bottles, billions of drinks bottles are produced and used and an awful lot of them thrown away every day. Where's it going? A lot of it, uh, 8 million tons goes into the oceans every year.</div>
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Uh, and an awful lot of the rest of it is just scattered around on the land. </div>
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<span style="color: #de2898;"><b>Julia: </b></span>Um, and why does it end up scattered on land and sea? Because when you know it, this isn't just people just littering. This is stuff that people have thrown away. Uh, presumably in their rubbish bins or in their bins, in the, in the high street that somehow ends up in the land and the sea.</div>
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But how does it get there? Because one of things I've always been crossed about. It's like, Oh, you can't use single use plastic economies, plastic bags, or, or bottles of water because these end up in the sea, I'm not putting them there. </div>
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<span style="color: #fa8a3b;"><b>Anthony: </b></span>No, no. It's only people who litter, which, which causes this. So the 8 million tons is from litter, but it's 300 million tons, which is produced annually.</div>
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And yes, a lot of it is actually recycled or it's put into landfill, it is treated as waste and it's under control. Although landfill is not a particularly good place for it. Uh, it's people who litter it's just dropped. And we've seen examples of that recently with people going to beauty spots and abandoning all their rubbish, Uh, and that ends up in the sea and it just ends up on land as well.</div>
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<span style="color: #de2898;"><b>Julia: </b></span>Yeah. I mean, the trouble with this is, you know, what are the penalties we've seen a massive upsurge in, uh, uh, in dumping of, uh, of, uh, big, big items of, uh, of litter, you know, the, the household goods. So then I partly because I'm, I mean, certainly my area for about four months of the lockdown, you couldn't actually get to the dump.</div>
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And even then after that, you had to make an appointment to the night and waiting weeks, weeks. Um, and they're very, very strict about it, but yeah. And lots of rubbish isn't collected properly anymore. I mean, round my way trying to get anything collected is a, is an absolute nightmare. So no wonder, I mean, not saying it's justifiable, but people do go and break the law.</div>
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But is this not down to some of the new policies that we have? As we've made collection of rubbish, less, uh, less regular and more expensive. What a surprise. We see more littering. </div>
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<span style="color: #fa8a3b;"><b>Anthony: </b></span>Absolutely. But I think we ought to look at this from both ends because at the moment the manufacturers produce something in plastic wrapping, they sell it off and that's the end as far as they're concerned.</div>
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Yeah. So I think we should be looking at legislation, which makes them think twice and makes them think, well, perhaps glass would be better. Because glass of course is far easier to recycle and it's not environmentally damaging or cardboard or paper or things like that. But at the moment, manufacturers can go for the cheapest and what happens to be the most polluting.</div>
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And so they will, because they're in a competitive environment, there's no regulations to stop them. </div>
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<b>What I should have said</b></div>
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Of course the point I should have made, and this is clearly stated in the report, is that this is a global problem. It’s not down to untidy holidaymakers, it’s due to the fact that 2 billion people in the global population have no access to any sort of waste collection service. If they have waste, all they can do is dump it.</div>
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I firmly believe that a national waste recovery policy is overdue for the UK, but we need to be part of of a global action to stem global pollution. We should stop sending our rubbish abroad for disposal. As a TV documentary revealed a few months ago, British rubbish is just stockpiled and abandoned in some developing countries. Other countries have just sent it back.</div>
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Plastic in the oceans decomposes. Particles on the surface can gather oil and other pollutants and eventually sink to the deepest ocean depths taking their polluting cargoes with them. As plastics decompose they release all types of chemicals. These have entered the food chain and are present in virtually all plants and animals, and ourselves. Such pollutants are now found in human breast milk, in concentrations which would be illegal in products for sale. An international action to clean up pollution in faraway countries is in the interests of all of us in this globalised world.</div>
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<b>Energy</b></div>
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<b>Keep it clean!</b></div>
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This week’s review of energy news kicks off with a statement from the UN that a CleanEnergy Future is vital.</div>
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Speaking at the International Energy Agency's (IEA) Clean Energy Transitions Summit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, </div>
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<i>"Stop wasting money on fossil fuel subsidies and place a price on carbon”.</i></div>
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He told the meeting that a new analysis of G20 recovery packages shows that twice as much recovery money has been spent on fossil fuels as clean energy.</div>
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The Climate Compass describes that as a crime against humanity.</div>
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<i>CLIP</i></div>
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There’s a link to that video and to The Climate Compass on the blog.</div>
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<b>Turning to technology…</b></div>
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…Faraday Insights, the journal of the Faraday Institution, reports that “Lithium-sulphur technology has the potential to offer cheaper, lighter-weight batteries that also offer safety advantages. After initially finding use in niche markets such as satellites, drones and military vehicles, the technology has the potential to transform aviation in the long-term. Electric aircraft offering short-range flights or vertical take-off and landing (including personalised aviation and flying taxis in cities) are distinct possibilities by 2050. The UK, which is already home to established lithium-sulphur battery manufacturers and to leading academics in the field, has a great opportunity to be the global leader in this ground-breaking technology.” Watch this space.</div>
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<b>Spinning the Wheel</b></div>
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Of course batteries are not the only way of storing energy. There are plans to install a giant £25m flywheel in Scotland. Linked to the grid, it will be spun up with surplus electricity and will return electricity to the grid via a generator when required. The inertia of this massive unit will help to maintain the stability of the frequency of the grid, offsetting the very variable inputs from renewables. And of course it does this with out any sort of emissions or pollution. £25m for a wheel sounds a lot, though.</div>
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<b>Turning down the regulator</b></div>
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<span style="color: #990010;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/energy">Energy</a></span> companies have accused the regulator Ofgem of putting Britain’s climate goals at risk by clamping down on returns for green investors in an effort to shave £20 a year from home energy bills.</div>
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<span style="color: #990010;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/ofgem">Ofgem</a></span> has proposed halving the returns that companies can make over the next five years through a £25bn green investment plan designed to prepare Britain’s energy infrastructure for a low-carbon future. Major energy companies including National Grid, SSE and Scottish Power have warned that setting investor returns at 3.95% – down from the current 7% to 8% – could slow the pace of Britain’s energy transition by making the UK less attractive to investors.</div>
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There is also concern over Ofgem’s decision to cut the total investment allowed in new electricity grid projects to between £5.9bn and £9.1bn for the next five years, which falls short of the £9.6bn invested over the last five years. The proposed limit is well below the spending proposed by the industry at £10.8bn to prepare for a surge in power demand from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/21/ban-new-gas-boilers-by-2025-says-committee-on-climate-change"><span style="color: #990010;">electric cars, hobs and heat pumps</span></a>.</div>
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<b>Long Cable</b></div>
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Meanwhile, work begins in Lincolnshire on the world's longest subsea power cable. The 475-mile (765km) cable is a joint-venture between <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/nationalgrid"><span style="color: #990010;">National Grid</span></a> in the UK and Denmark’s Energinet. By 2023, the high-voltage, direct-current link will transmit the equivalent of enough electricity to power 1.5m British homes between Bicker Fen in Lincolnshire and the South Jutland region in Denmark. There are plans for other cables, including one to Iceland where renewable electricity is generated from geothermal energy.</div>
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<b>Still wind in the sails </b></div>
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The pandemic lockdown has had little effect on wind power. Global offshore wind investment more than quadrupled in the first half of the year.</div>
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A report has found that investors gave approval to 28 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/24/offshore-windfarms-can-provide-more-electricity-than-the-world-needs"><span style="color: #990010;">new offshore windfarms</span></a> worth a total of $35bn (£28bn) this year, four times more than in the first half of 2019 and well above the total for last year as a whole.</div>
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<b>Taking back control</b></div>
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At the other end of the scale the town of Wolfhagen in Germany has taken back control of its energy supply. When its contract with EON came to an end citizens decided to take the local grid back into local ownership. They installed wind turbines and solar panels and now supply electricity at a lower rate than EON. Reversing privatisation of utilities has been carried out in many places across Europe. A contrast with the UK where we put up with high prices and poor service, and it’s probably illegal to take anything from the private sector into municipal control.</div>
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<b>Looking Ahead</b></div>
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Last week I expressed the hope that someone would be doing some scenario planning. National Grid has published its Future Energy Scenarios for the next 30 years. The introduction explains that, “Our Future Energy Scenarios (FES) outline four different, credible pathways for the future of energy over the next 30 years. Based on input from over 600 experts, the report looks at the energy needed in Britain, across electricity and gas - examining where it could come from, how it needs to change and what this means for consumers, society and the energy system itself.</div>
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“Three of the four FES scenarios modelled show Great Britain reaches net zero carbon emissions by 2050 or earlier, but make clear this requires immediate action across all key technologies and policy areas, with fundamental changes for energy consumers, particularly in transport, heating and energy efficiency.”</div>
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<i>“.. immediate action across all key technologies and policy areas,..”</i></div>
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Is the government listening?</div>
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A link to the full report is of course available at <a href="http://www.sustainablefutures.report/">www.sustainablefutures.report</a>. </div>
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<b>Addicted to solar</b></div>
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A final note on solar power which is now extensively used by farmers in Afghanistan. Previously they used diesel pumps to raise water to irrigate their crops. The diesel was expensive and often of poor quality, damaging the engines. Now, after the initial investment in panels and pumps the water is effectively free. Areas under cultivation have expanded and yields have dramatically increased. For example, production in 2012 was 3,700 tonnes rising to 9,000 tons in 2017 and by 2019 Helmand province where the major investment in solar had been made, production was 6,000 tons in that province alone. Production of opium, that is. Well it’s an ill wind and so on.</div>
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<b>Good Read</b></div>
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If you’re looking for a holiday read I recommend Good Cop Bad War by Neil Woods. This is the true story of an undercover policeman and his work infiltrating drug gangs. He believes that by his actions drug dealers have been imprisoned for more than 1,000 years in total. He believes it has made absolutely no difference to the drugs trade.</div>
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<b>What are people saying?</b></div>
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<b>Greta Thunberg</b></div>
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Greta Thunberg is back in the news. Well, presumably she can’t go to school. She’s accused EU politicians of failing to acknowledge the scale of the climate crisis and said its €750bn Covid-19 recovery plan does not do enough to tackle the issue.</div>
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“They are still denying the fact and ignoring the fact that we are facing a climate emergency, and the climate crisis has still not once been treated as a crisis,” Thunberg told the Guardian. “As long as the climate crisis is not being treated as a crisis, the changes that are necessary will not happen.”</div>
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Greta and fellow activists have written an open letter to EU leaders demanding they act immediately to avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis.</div>
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<span style="color: #990010;"><a href="https://climateemergencyeu.org/">The letter</a></span>, signed by 80,000 people <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/16/pandemic-shows-climate-has-never-been-treated-as-crisis-say-scientists"><span style="color: #990010;">including some of the world’s leading scientists</span></a>, argues that the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that most leaders are able to act swiftly and decisively when they deem it necessary, but that the same urgency has been missing in the response to climate change.</div>
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“It is now clearer than ever that the climate crisis has never once been treated as a crisis, neither from the politicians, media, business nor finance. And the longer we keep pretending that we are on a reliable path to lower emissions and that the actions required to avoid a climate disaster are available within today’s system … the more precious time we will lose,” it says.</div>
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<b>US on the way out.</b></div>
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The US will officially exit the Paris Accord one day after the 2020 US election and architects of that deal say the stakes could not be higher. Trump’s opponent, <span style="color: #0f0f0f;">former vice-president </span>Joe Biden, has vowed to rejoin the climate agreement.</div>
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“The choice of Biden or Trump in the White House is huge, not just for the US but for the world generally to deal with climate change,” said Todd Stern, the US chief negotiator in Paris. “If Biden wins, November 4 is a blip, like a bad dream is over. If Trump wins, he seals the deal. The US becomes a non-player and the goals of Paris become very, very difficult. Without the US in the long term, they certainly aren’t realistic.”</div>
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I fear that all we can do from this side of the pond is watch and wait.</div>
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<b>WEF Vision</b></div>
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The World Economic Forum has published a report entitled “The Future of Nature and Business.”</div>
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<i>The Great Acceleration of the world economy over the last 70 years has brought an unprecedented increase in output and human welfare. Human population grew from 2.5 billion in 1950 to close to 8 billion today. At the same time, the average person has become 4.4 times richer and lives 25 years longer than in 1950. Since 1990, the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day has reduced by one-half, and roughly 700 million more people entered the mushrooming global middle classes.</i></div>
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<i>Yet, the Great Acceleration carried important costs, among which were its profound impacts on natural systems, including the degradation and loss of whole species and critical ecosystems. COVID-19 has brought the Great Acceleration to a screeching halt.…scientists have warned us against returning to “business as usual” in light of the looming nature crisis. Nature loss brings a whole new set of risks, including potentially deadlier pandemics; we are sleepwalking into a catastrophe if we continue to ignore this reality…</i></div>
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<i>…It won’t be easy or straightforward, but a failure to act will be even more painful. We need to commit to this path and be willing to work together. The World Economic Forum, as the international organisation for public-private cooperation, pledges to help public, private and civil society stakeholders reset their relationship with nature as part of the Great Reset agenda in a way that will be nature-positive, value- creating and job-rich.</i></div>
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Fine words. Who’s listening?</div>
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<b>Who wants to be happy?</b></div>
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Maybe journalist George Monbiot is listening. He’s been warning about the climate crisis for decades and is increasingly strident about inequality. “People want a greener, happier world,” he says, “Politicians don’t.”</div>
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The main thrust of this latest article is a criticism of the government’s strategy for post-Covid recovery. </div>
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“Normal is a fairyland to which we can never return,” he says…. </div>
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“When business as usual resumes, so does the air pollution that kills <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/12/air-pollution-deaths-are-double-previous-estimates-finds-research"><span style="color: #ad3f14;">more people every year</span></a> than Covid-19 has yet done, and exacerbates the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/is-air-pollution-making-the-coronavirus-pandemic-even-more-deadly"><span style="color: #ad3f14;">impacts of the virus</span></a>. Climate breakdown and air pollution are two aspects of a wider dysbiosis. Dysbiosis means the unravelling of ecosystems. The term is used by doctors to describe the collapse of our gut biomes, but it is equally applicable to all living systems: rainforests, coral reefs, rivers, soil. They are unspooling at shocking speed due to the cumulative effect of “normality”, which entails a perpetual expansion of consumption.”…</div>
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“…But the Westminster government is determined to shove us back into hypernormality regardless of our wishes. This week the environment secretary, George Eustice, signalled that he intends to rip up our system of <a href="https://anewnatureblog.com/2020/07/20/building-back-greener-defras-eustice-announces-govt-plans-to-weaken-nature-protections/"><span style="color: #ad3f14;">environmental assessments</span></a>. The government’s proposed free ports, in which tax and regulations are suspended, will not only <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/24/eu-identifies-free-ports-as-money-laundering-threat"><span style="color: #ad3f14;">exacerbate fraud and money laundering</span></a> but also expose the surrounding wetlands and mudflats, and the rich wildlife they harbour, to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/19/uk-ports-free-for-all-could-spell-doom-for-grey-seals"><span style="color: #ad3f14;">destruction and pollution</span></a>. The trade deal it intends to strike with the US could override parliamentary sovereignty and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/09/boris-johnson-trade-deal-us-chlorinated-chicken/"><span style="color: #ad3f14;">destroy our environmental standards</span></a> – without public consent.”</div>
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No need to worry about Trump, then. We have plenty to deal with at home.</div>
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<b>One last thing</b></div>
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Well three, actually. The first is an article and accompanying short video by Simon Sinek. He seems to be a speaker talking about the climate crisis rather than a climate activist becoming a speaker. </div>
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He says we’ve got the communication of the climate message all wrong, and echoing the remarks of Roger Hallam reported last week, explains how the average person gives little importance to things which are remote in space or time. Hence warnings of a disaster in 2050 are simply ignored. He sees “global warming” as a misleading term: it sounds too cosy and people confuse climate with weather, so when there’s a cold snap they believe that global warming can’t be happening. He suggests that we should be talking about “climate cancer” to bring home the seriousness and urgency of the situation. </div>
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We should not just concentrate on remote targets like net-zero by 2050, but set near-term intermediate targets, and engage everyone in achieving them. And we shouldn’t talk about saving the planet: the planet will always survive. Our task is saving humanity.</div>
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I’m involved in a group of speakers who are examining the best way of delivering the climate message. I’ll let you know how we get on. In fact I’ll probably try out their techniques on you.</div>
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<b>Second last thing…</b></div>
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XR is planning actions in September. I’ll bring you news of that next time.</div>
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<b>Last thing</b></div>
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Doubt: it’s much more subtle than flat denial. It’s insidious. It’s been used by oil companies to delay regulations and used notoriously by tobacco companies to confuse the message on the dangers of smoking.</div>
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A series of 15-minute programmes on doubt were released by BBC Radio this week. Find them on the BBC Sounds app, or via the link on this blog.</div>
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<b>And that’s it!</b></div>
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Yes that was the last Sustainable Futures Report until September. As always, I hope that you are safe and well and that you continue to be so. If you have the opportunity for a holiday I hope you enjoy it and I hope this podcast and the related references will give you something to pass any idle time you may have. I am Anthony Day and I shall be back with the Sustainable Futures Report in September. Thank you for listening and thank you as always to all my patrons for their support. It's a pretty exclusive group but that doesn't mean you can't be a member and you’d be most welcome. Just pop across to <a href="http://patreon.com/sfr">patreon.com/sfr</a> and find the details.</div>
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I’m Anthony Day.</div>
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That was the Sustainable Futures Report.</div>
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Until next time.</div>
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<b>Sources</b></div>
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<b>Transport</b></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.csrf.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/SRF-WP-UKEMS-v2.pdf">http://www.csrf.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/SRF-WP-UKEMS-v2.pdf<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<b>Climate</b></div>
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Rare night clouds may be warning sign of climate crisis</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jul/06/rare-night-clouds-may-be-warning-sign-of-climate-crisis">https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jul/06/rare-night-clouds-may-be-warning-sign-of-climate-crisis<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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Likelihood of 40C temperatures in UK is ‘rapidly accelerating’</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/30/likelihood-of-40c-temperatures-in-uk-is-rapidly-accelerating">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/30/likelihood-of-40c-temperatures-in-uk-is-rapidly-accelerating<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53351401"><b>England's future water supplies at 'serious risk'</b><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/14/flood-strategy-boris-johnson-mass-housing-project-speed">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/14/flood-strategy-boris-johnson-mass-housing-project-speed<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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Climate may take decades to respond to carbon cuts</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jul/13/cold-comfort-climate-may-take-decades-to-respond-to-carbon-cuts">https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jul/13/cold-comfort-climate-may-take-decades-to-respond-to-carbon-cuts<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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Climate change made Siberian heatwave 600 times more likely – study</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/15/climate-change-made-siberian-heatwave-600-times-more-likely-study">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/15/climate-change-made-siberian-heatwave-600-times-more-likely-study<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/siberian-heatwave-of-2020-almost-impossible-without-climate-change/">https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/siberian-heatwave-of-2020-almost-impossible-without-climate-change/</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></div>
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Melting Arctic ice triggers winter storms, study finds</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jul/24/weatherwatch-melting-arctic-ice-triggers-winter-storms-study-finds">https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jul/24/weatherwatch-melting-arctic-ice-triggers-winter-storms-study-finds<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL087207">https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL087207</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></div>
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Could sprinkling sand save the Arctic's shrinking sea ice?</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/23/sprinkling-sand-save-arctic-shrinking-sea-ice">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/23/sprinkling-sand-save-arctic-shrinking-sea-ice<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.ice911.org/">https://www.ice911.org</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></div>
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Negative-emissions tech helps, but it's no magic bullet for the climate crisis</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/20/negative-emissions-tech-climate-crisis-carbon">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/20/negative-emissions-tech-climate-crisis-carbon<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<b>Pollution </b></div>
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First active leak of sea-bed methane discovered in Antarctica</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/22/first-active-leak-of-sea-bed-methane-discovered-in-antarctica">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/22/first-active-leak-of-sea-bed-methane-discovered-in-antarctica<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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Tyres found to be shedding plastic particles into the sea</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/14/car-tyres-are-major-source-of-ocean-microplastics-study">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/14/car-tyres-are-major-source-of-ocean-microplastics-study<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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Taller than a house: tyre mountain highlights the fly‑tipping scourge</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/26/uk-campaigners-call-for-action-to-tackle-surge-in-fly-tipping-during-covid-19-lockdown">https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/26/uk-campaigners-call-for-action-to-tackle-surge-in-fly-tipping-during-covid-19-lockdown<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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Plastic discarded</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/07/22/science.aba9475">https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/07/22/science.aba9475</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></div>
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Contaminated breast milk</div>
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https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/09/magazine/toxic-breast-milk.html</div>
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<b>Energy</b></div>
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Batteries</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53349974"><b>Clean energy future 'is vital' - UN chief</b><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span></a></span></div>
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Crime against humanity</div>
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<a href="https://youtu.be/_6Hlv6Sd0E0">https://youtu.be/_6Hlv6Sd0E0</a></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/theclimatecompass">https://www.patreon.com/theclimatecompass</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://faraday.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Faraday_Insights_8_FINAL.pdf">https://faraday.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Faraday_Insights_8_FINAL.pdf<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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Flywheel Scotland</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.fr24news.com/a/2020/07/giant-flywheel-project-in-scotland-could-prevent-uk-power-outages-business.html">https://www.fr24news.com/a/2020/07/giant-flywheel-project-in-scotland-could-prevent-uk-power-outages-business.html</a></span> </div>
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<a href="https://primefeed.in/news/3444641/flywheel-energy-storage-market-information-figures-and-analytical-insights-2019-2025/">https://primefeed.in/news/3444641/flywheel-energy-storage-market-information-figures-and-analytical-insights-2019-2025/</a></div>
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Ofgem's £25bn plan puts climate goals at risk, say energy firms</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jul/09/energy-watchdog-unveils-25bn-uk-green-investment-drive">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jul/09/energy-watchdog-unveils-25bn-uk-green-investment-drive<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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Work begins in Lincolnshire on world's longest subsea power cable</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/13/work-begins-in-lincolnshire-on-worlds-longest-subsea-power-cable-viking-link">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/13/work-begins-in-lincolnshire-on-worlds-longest-subsea-power-cable-viking-link<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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Offshore wind energy investment quadruples despite Covid-19 slump</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/13/offshore-wind-energy-investment-quadruples-despite-covid-19-slump">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/13/offshore-wind-energy-investment-quadruples-despite-covid-19-slump<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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How a small town reclaimed its grid and sparked a revolution</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/28/small-town-wolfhagen-community-revolution-german-europe-energy-contract">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/28/small-town-wolfhagen-community-revolution-german-europe-energy-contract<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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Future Energy<b> </b>Scenarios report</div>
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<a href="https://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/stories/journey-to-net-zero-stories/eso-future-energy-scenarios-next-30-years">https://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/stories/journey-to-net-zero-stories/eso-future-energy-scenarios-next-30-years</a> </div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53450688"><b>What the heroin industry can teach us about solar power</b><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span></a></span></div>
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Read Good Cop - Bad War by</div>
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<b>Campaigning and Opinions</b></div>
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Greta Thunberg says EU recovery plan fails to tackle climate crisis</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/21/greta-thunberg-says-eu-recovery-plans-climate-provisions-inadequate">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/21/greta-thunberg-says-eu-recovery-plans-climate-provisions-inadequate<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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How the global fight could be lost if Trump is re-elected</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/27/global-climate-fight-could-be-lost-trump-re-elected">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/27/global-climate-fight-could-be-lost-trump-re-elected</a> </span></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_Future_Of_Nature_And_Business_2020.pdf">http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_Future_Of_Nature_And_Business_2020.pdf<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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People want a greener, happier world. Politicians don't</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/21/greener-happier-world-politicians-boris-johnson-consumerism-planet">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/21/greener-happier-world-politicians-boris-johnson-consumerism-planet<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://medium.com/climate-conscious/simon-sinek-says-we-got-global-warming-wrong-22522b6d3484">https://medium.com/climate-conscious/simon-sinek-says-we-got-global-warming-wrong-22522b6d3484</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></div>
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XR September</div>
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Doubt</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/search?q=How%20They%20Made%20Us%20Doubt%20Everything&suggid=urn%3Abbc%3Aprogrammes%3Am000l7q1">https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/search?q=How%20They%20Made%20Us%20Doubt%20Everything&suggid=urn%3Abbc%3Aprogrammes%3Am000l7q1</a></span> </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-71169289448105900992020-07-24T01:00:00.000+01:002020-07-24T01:00:20.312+01:00All the Lovely People<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;">
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></div>
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<b>All the Lovely People</b></div>
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Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Futures Report for Friday 24th July. I’m Anthony Day.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfaWdMxITZc-WQ4jMSL-1GgqYS4_fuBd6TeprTlPGF6_z-rDrKucYIwCM1IP2OXE9UFYK1RSwmTRuOI9Gr9DXWRBA4eBSMhLq82uXvtIKDeFAAmfgJGtuEdeHyX6o3QwK4wg0/s1280/People.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfaWdMxITZc-WQ4jMSL-1GgqYS4_fuBd6TeprTlPGF6_z-rDrKucYIwCM1IP2OXE9UFYK1RSwmTRuOI9Gr9DXWRBA4eBSMhLq82uXvtIKDeFAAmfgJGtuEdeHyX6o3QwK4wg0/w400-h266/People.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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What’s that you’re watching on the internet? Don’t try and hide it. It’s up to you what you watch. But there are suggestions that browsing time may have to be limited. No I’m not talking about parental controls. More about that in a moment. </div>
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Is that a fridge in the corner over there? No, it’s 60kWh storage unit, with not a lithium ion to be seen. And hang on, don’t knock that building down. Think of all the embedded carbon! But first, let’s talk about all the lovely people. </div>
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<b>POPULATION </b></div>
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Writing in The Lancet, Professor Stein Emil Vollset of the University of Washington and colleagues predict that global population is set to decline. According to the BBC they describe their results as “jaw dropping”. On the face of it that’s good news, as we wonder how we will feed a constantly growing population and an expanding middle class with expectations of a Western life-style. The other side of the coin is that the researchers do not expect population to peak before 2065, by which time it will have reached 9.7 billion. (I drew your attention to a book called Factfulness a while ago. Its authors came to a similar conclusion: that population will reach a peak, although they thought the peak would be nearer 11 billion and not be reached until 2075. And after that they thought the population level would stabilise.) </div>
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The Lancet study sees a peak at 9.7 billion, which is 24% up on today’s 7.8 billion, followed by a decline. There will be an increased demand for food, and there will be an increased demand for all the things that are fuelled by a consumer society. This will put pressure on resources from rare metals to drinking water, and the production and consumption will inevitably raise emissions. Is it good news then that the researchers predict a decline? It will be due, they believe, to increased female education, leading women to choose to have fewer children and to have them later in life. Already the birth rate in many countries, including the UK and other Western nations, has fallen below replacement level. By 2100 the prediction is that world population will have fallen back to 8.8 billion - still 13% up on the current level. Of course, if we have successfully coped with a 9.7 billion peak, coping with only 8.8 billion should be relatively easy. Shouldn’t it?</div>
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<b>The Detail</b></div>
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The devil is in the detail, and it’s worth looking at the detailed charts and tables which form part of the report. Links on the blog. The first thing to note is that while world population will peak on average in 2065, individual countries will move at very different speeds. For example, Japan is considered to have peaked in 2017 whereas the population of Australasia will not reach its maximum until 2096. There are vast differences in rates of decline as well. Western Europe will decline by about 17% from the peak by the end of the century, including the UK with a fall of only 4.5% and Germany with a fall of 22%. The US sees a fall of 7.5% and Canada just 2.5%. These declines are all calculated in relation to the peak. Across the world Japan sees a fall of 54% and China is close behind with a fall of 49%, both countries falling to levels way below today’s population. Such dramatic declines imply a rapidly ageing population with direct consequences for a nation’s prosperity. The authors see China becoming the world’s greatest economic power in the course of this century, but predict the US will regain that position before 2100. </div>
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Clearly these changes will lead to social and demographic tensions for the rest of this century. Who knows how this will play out? Let’s hope our governments are constantly scenario planning for a wide range of futures 1, 5, 10, 25 and 50 years hence, and beyond.</div>
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<b>Energy for IT</b></div>
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It's just over a year since we heard from Dr Alice Courvoisier talking on the Sustainable Futures Report about rare metals. (5th July 2019). It’s worth revisiting that episode and reconsidering global plans for electrifying the transport fleet with electric motors and even hydrogen fuel cells, not to mention plans for more wind turbines and solar farms, which all depend on rare metals. </div>
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Recently Alice has been in touch to draw my attention to the work of The Shift Project, a French thinktank which has published a number of studies of energy use by IT. There’s an app - Carbonalyser - which monitors the impact of your internet use in terms of emissions and displays it in your browser. It’s from Mozilla, and for the moment works only with the FireFox browser. Well. it’s supposed to. I can’t make it work at the moment.</div>
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The Shift Project produced a report last year on the contribution of digital technologies to global emissions. This is before the explosion in the use of conferencing software like Zoom and Microsoft Teams brought about by working at home as a response to the pandemic. Even so, there are some important insights. They say: </div>
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“Digital technologies now emit 4% of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), that is to say more than civil aviation. This share could double from now to 2025 to reach 8% of all GHG emissions, i.e. the current share of car emissions.”</div>
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These emissions are split between those arising from production (45%) and those from use (55%). Production includes the manufacture of Computers, TVs and smartphones; use is divided between terminals, data centres and networks. </div>
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The Shift Project promotes “digital sobriety”, which means “…prioritising the allocation of resources as a function of uses, in order to conform to the planet’s physical boundaries, while preserving the most valuable societal contributions of digital technologies.” </div>
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They also examined the nature of network traffic and found at the time of their research 80% was accounted for by video. All other internet activity used just the remaining 20%. This 80% includes 20% for applications like live television streaming, live video (Skype, telemedicine, etc.) video monitoring and security. Another 34% is represented by Video on Demand, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc; 21% by YouTube and similar and 18% was used by the video content of social media. What is probably most startling is that 27% of network traffic, more than the total amount of traffic which does not involve video, is accounted for by pornography.</div>
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As the authors say: <i>“The climate crisis and the planet’s finite raw resources require that we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and our consumption of energy and raw materials. In a world confronted by such limitations, not choosing between uses will lead to the random imposition of constraints rather than to arbitration between options.</i></div>
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<i>“Not choosing means potentially allowing pornography to mechanically limit the bandwidth available for tele- medicine, or allow the use of Netflix to limit access to Wikipedia.</i></div>
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<i>“From the standpoint of climate change and other planetary boundaries, it is not a question of being “for” or “against” pornography, telemedicine, Netflix or emails: the challenge is to avoid a use deemed precious from being impaired by the excessive consumption of another use deemed less essential.</i></div>
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<i>“This makes it a societal choice, to be arbitrated collectively to avoid the imposition of constraints on our uses against our will and at our expense. In the 21st century, not choosing is no longer a viable option.”</i></div>
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It would be most interesting to have an update from the Shift Project, given that some of the data in their report is now up to two years old. While usage patterns will have changed over the period, the technology used for power generation will also have changed, both influencing the carbon footprint. The central point remains: if we are to meet safe emissions levels there must be a cap on Internet usage until we can run it on emissions-free energy. There must be agreement on how that limited usage may be shared.</div>
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<b>Foreign News</b></div>
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I haven’t heard from Canada for a while - or from the US, which is one of my biggest audiences, but two listeners have been in touch from Australia. Carol Dance forwarded a link to Climate News Update, which in turn took me to <a href="http://theage.com.au/">theage.com.au</a> and an article about energy. Yes, we can’t get away from energy in the Sustainable Futures Report. </div>
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<b>Storing Energy</b></div>
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This is about hydrogen storage using metal hydrides - a sort of solid-state energy storage. University of NSW researchers led by Kondo-Francois Aguey-Zinsou say they have developed metal alloys capable of storing surplus electricity in the form of hydrogen much more cheaply than lithium batteries… In fact they have drawn up plans for a fridge-sized energy storage unit for domestic users. The unit contains the hydrogen store and a fuel cell which is used to release the energy within the hydrogen as electricity as required. At other times surplus electricity from solar panels or from cheap tariffs is fed into the unit where an electrolyser uses the current to release hydrogen from water and the hydrogen goes into storage. The unit is expected to hold up to 60kWh, which is about five times the capacity of existing lithium ion storage batteries. The key questions will of course be about reliability and price. </div>
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The chosen brand name for the unit is LAVO. A search reveals that it doesn’t appear to be launched yet, but the search also turned up LAVA, the Laboratory for Visionary Architecture, which has an energy storage project under construction in Heidelberg, Germany. It looks amazingly futuristic on the website, but it doesn’t actually identify the technology that will be used. Presumably no connection.</div>
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<b>Construction News</b></div>
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Also in Australia, Jim Coad has been in touch. He’s in Victoria but tells me that despite the upsurge in COVID cases in the state he’s safe and well. He directed me to an Australian podcast, Future Tense with Antony Funnell. This particular episode was about sustainability in construction. </div>
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<b>Knocking Down</b></div>
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He started off by describing a building which was under demolition. He pointed out that this particular building, mainly of concrete, had a significant carbon footprint during construction due not only to the diesel-powered equipment but more significantly to the emissions from the energy-intensive production of cement. </div>
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<b>Building back up</b></div>
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He went on to present two shiny new buildings under construction in the Brisbane CBD, but then admitted that they were actually two 1970s buildings being refurbished. The two, 12m apart, were joined into one, not just by a bridge but connected at all levels. Six more floors were added to the existing 17 and lower floors were widened to give more space. The project saved some 11,000 tonnes of carbon emissions and was financially attractive. Demolition in the crowded CBD would have been problematic, particularly as there was a heritage building at ground level which had to be preserved. Demolition would have taken time, with further time for construction from the ground up. The chosen project involved a small amount of demolition but then construction went ahead with the core of the buildings already in place.</div>
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<b>Cooling Off</b></div>
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Richard Ryman is a professor at Rutgers University and a director of materials company Solidia. He explained how traditional cement production creates 5-8% of global GHG emissions. Solidia’s new process creates green cement using less limestone in a rotary furnace operating at 200 degrees lower than conventional techniques. The product cures by absorbing co2. It does not react with water and needs 80% less water in the production process.</div>
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If you can’t avoid new build, using green materials like these helps reduce the embedded carbon.</div>
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<b>And Finally…</b></div>
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Before I go I want to tell you about a film I’ve come across. It’s called Spaceship Earth, it’s released on 8th August and there’s a link to the trailer on the blog.</div>
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Some may remember that back in the 1990s, a troupe of hippies spent two years sealed inside a dome called Biosphere 2. The idea was to create a completely sealed ecosphere in which the eight “biospherians” would grow their food in a natural cycle which would provide all they needed including the air to breathe. In the event, after some time there was a build-up of CO2 and a fall-off of oxygen levels which significantly affected the team. There was factionalism and arguments as well. After oxygen and some food was imported the experiment continued. </div>
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A parable for our times? I look forward to watching it.</div>
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<b>And that’s it…</b></div>
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…for this week. Next week’s episode will be the last before I take a break until September. Next week’s episode will contain a wide range of stories, while early in September I’m planning to look in detail at hydrogen.</div>
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But that’s all for now. Stay safe. Enjoy life as much as you can and look out for another Sustainable Futures Report on Friday 31st July.</div>
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That was the Sustainable Futures Report.</div>
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I’m Anthony Day.</div>
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Until next time.</div>
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<b>Sources</b></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53409521"><b>Fertility rate: 'Jaw-dropping' global crash in children being born</b><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30677-2/fulltext">https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30677-2/fulltext</a></span> </div>
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Alice Courvoisier says:</div>
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“I’m still listening with interest to the podcast and thought I’d point this French think tank out: </div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://theshiftproject.org/en/category/thematic/digital/">https://theshiftproject.org/en/category/thematic/digital/</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></div>
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“Their reports on the energy consumption of the digital world - and in particular of videos - are well worth looking at. These are hardly mentioned in the current discourse, and of course, somewhat touchy topics in lock-down times.”</div>
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https://youtu.be/JJn6pja_l8s </div>
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Climate News Update - Australia</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iIRXe6S-rcalXyxFL_N8fDrwV0sLs_Jq/view">https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iIRXe6S-rcalXyxFL_N8fDrwV0sLs_Jq/view</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/alchemy-of-energy-breakthrough-offers-mass-hydrogen-storage-options-20200702-p558dj.html">https://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/alchemy-of-energy-breakthrough-offers-mass-hydrogen-storage-options-20200702-p558dj.html</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.l-a-v-a.net/projects/energy-storage-centre/">https://www.l-a-v-a.net/projects/energy-storage-centre/</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.h2-view.com/story/hydrogen-powered-homes-a-step-closer-thanks-to-ghd-providence-asset-group-partnership/">https://www.h2-view.com/story/hydrogen-powered-homes-a-step-closer-thanks-to-ghd-providence-asset-group-partnership/</a></span><span style="color: black;"> </span></div>
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Concrete and construction</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/building-greater-efficiency-into-construction/12370596">https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/building-greater-efficiency-into-construction/12370596</a></span> </div>
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Spaceship Earth</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/13/spaceship-earth-arizona-biosphere-2-lockdown?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB">https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/13/spaceship-earth-arizona-biosphere-2-lockdown?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB</a></span> </div>
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https://youtu.be/mGvYFB6GHRY </div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-45156238336891935682020-07-17T01:00:00.000+01:002020-07-17T01:00:11.015+01:00The Endgame<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></div>
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<b>It’s not the Bees’ Knees!</b></div>
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No: it’s the Sustainable Futures Report. Hello and welcome to this edition for Friday, the 17th of July. I’m Anthony Day. Let me start with the news that Rachel Maurice has become the latest patron and Silver Supporter of the Sustainable Futures Report. Welcome Rachel. More about being a patron later.</div>
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<b>Odds & Ends</b></div>
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It’s another week of odds and ends. It’s Bees’ Needs Week - there’s an apology from a campaigner for the climate hoax (buy his book and learn more) - it’s the sun, stupid, not CO2 - alternatives to plastic, to food and to economic growth - green recovery or environmental endgame? - and finally, why the horrible, hated fossil fuel industry could be crucial to a clean energy transition. But first, this is what<b><i> I</i></b> think.</div>
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<b>My View</b></div>
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Apart from my wonderful patrons who support the Sustainable Futures Report every month, this podcast is brought to you without advertising, subsidy or sponsorship. That means I can say exactly what I think. Agree, or disagree, I always welcome your feedback. But be aware that I shall treat anything you share with me as being in the public domain, unless you specifically advise me otherwise. My view is that there is a climate crisis demanding urgent action, which is being largely overlooked by world governments who are paying lip service to the problem and certainly taking some actions, but not nearly enough. On the other hand there are those, and there are many of them, who claim we’ve got it all wrong and are wasting time and money fruitlessly. I don't cover their views to any great extent in the Sustainable Futures Report. Is that because I’m as biased and bigoted as they are, just in the opposite direction? I hope not. My guiding light is the precautionary principle. If there’s a strong body of evidence which suggests that there’s a high probability that something nasty could happen, I think it's a good idea to take precautions. For example I won't be going out to the pub any time soon, with or without a face mask. </div>
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<b>Watch this Video</b></div>
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And I'd like to draw your attention to a YouTube video called “The most terrifying video you’ll ever see.” This has been around since 2007 and you may well be one of the millions of people who have already seen it. It quite simply looks at four possibilities based on two assumptions which nobody can argue with. </div>
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First assumption: there will either be, or there will not be, a climate crisis. </div>
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Second assumption: we will either take action, or we will take no action.</div>
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That leads to four scenarios:</div>
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<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">No action, no crisis - we all live happily ever after.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Crisis is real, we’ve taken action - everyone is safe.</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Crisis is real, we’ve taken NO action - disaster for all. And finally,</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">We’ve taken action but there’s no crisis. That one reminds me of a cartoon I once saw of an apoplectic gentleman shouting, “What do you mean no crisis? We’ve spent all this money and all we’ve got is a better world!”</li>
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My view is that the risk of not acting is just not worth taking. It reminds me of another cartoon, where a businessman is addressing a board meeting, “Undoubtedly, gentlemen, £50trillion is a great deal of money. But you have to recognise that it’s not real money - and it’s not ours.”</div>
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<b>We can afford it</b></div>
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Seriously though, the vast deficit budgeting undertaken by governments in the present crisis demonstrates that money can be created when the need is great enough, and that markets have the confidence to advance that money.</div>
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<b>An Apology. (None required?)</b></div>
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And what about the naysayers? I think my time could be better used by keeping you informed of what is being done to mitigate or adapt to the climate crisis, and what is being done to concentrate the minds of governments, and to demand action. Having said that, listener Ian Jarvis - why not become a patron, Ian? - draws my attention to two articles. The first is by Michael Shellenberger, who has been an environmental activist for some 30 years but now “feels an obligation to apologise for how badly we environmentalists have misled the public.” He’d also like you to buy his book. I shared his article with Dave Borlace. You may remember that I’ve mentioned Dave before. He does a weekly video on climate, sustainability and related issues. Each is an in-depth analysis of a particular topic; unlike the Sustainable Futures Report which generally contains five or six or more stories. Anyway, he came back with a very balanced response to the article. You’ll find that, and a link to the original article, on the blog. It’s at <a href="http://www.sustainablefutures.report/">www.sustainablefutures.report</a>. </div>
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<b>It’s the Sun, Stupid!</b></div>
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Ian also shared an article from Nexus Magazine. That’s also linked on the blog but I’m afraid it will cost you $1.50 to download. The thesis of author Jamal S. Shrair is that climate change is nothing to do with CO2, it’s all caused by the motion of the sun in relation to the centre of the galaxy. He tells us that “due to the fundamental defects in the current laws of physics, the most important facts about our own star and planet are not understood. Thus, one should not be surprised that climate science is ruled by corrupt politicians and power-hungry individuals. Make no mistake about it, the Sun is misunderstood, not only with regard to the process responsible for its primary energy source, but also with regard to its motion and relationship with our planet.” </div>
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I’m afraid I stopped reading shortly after that. I’d prefer to devote my time to taking precautions against a climate crisis rather than assess the credibility of those arguing against an overwhelming scientific consensus. You can read it if you want - the link is there. Examine the sources, including the <i>Telegraph</i>, which he cites to back up his conclusions. You may come to agree that “Revealing the truth about the Sun is the most powerful blow that can be delivered to the global corruption, fake and anti-science trends. Furthermore, and most importantly, the exploration of the cosmos and the opening of the gate of heaven cannot be realised without knowing the physical reality of our star.”</div>
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<b>Meanwhile back on Earth…</b></div>
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In an article on <a href="http://medium.com/">medium.com</a> <a href="https://medium.com/@westwise?source=post_page-----f0bec420c18f----------------------">Sam Westreich, PhD</a> warns against compostable plastics. He says that it's a nice idea, but not one that really works in practice. The problem is that such plastics are made from different materials, so they cannot be recycled with other petroleum-based plastics. They are typically separated out at plastics recycling plants and sent off to landfill. In landfill there is not the air, the water, or the heat to develop the composting process, so they just lie there indefinitely. Back garden compost heaps may provide water and air, but they rarely reach the temperatures required to break down these plastics. Westreich recommends using glass or aluminium instead: both materials that can be recycled and reused. </div>
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<b>Every little helps…</b></div>
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…is a refrain we frequently hear. Many people are doing small but important things to reduce our impact on the planet, like <b>Bristol Food Producers</b>, brought to my attention by Silver Supporter, Manda Scott. It’s a federation of farms and small-scale food producers who work together towards the objectives of:</div>
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<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Improving fairness and efficiencies for smaller food producers</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Improving access to markets</li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Collaborating on learning</li>
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Similar initiatives are being planned for other areas. This sort of activity is vital and deserves our support. Every little helps, but every little is by no means enough. It is only governments which can take measures sufficient to deal with the climate crisis. We must never lose sight of the big picture or fail to continue to hold the government to account.</div>
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<b>Limits to Growth</b></div>
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There are increasing questions about the role of growth as society’s overriding objective. If you read The Spirit Level by Wilkinson and Pickett you will learn that it is not wealth that determines happiness and satisfaction with life, it’s the level of inequality. The hyper-rich have become even richer in the last 30 years. When we are urged to go out and buy things to get our lockdown economy going again, things which we haven’t needed for the last three months, pause and consider whether we are doing this for ourselves or for the sake of the corporations and their owners. Should we look at re-organising society? </div>
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<b>Not for Profit</b></div>
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Manda Scott also shared a link to <i>How on Earth: Flourishing in a Not-for-Profit World by 2050</i>, by Hinton and Mclurcan. “This book,” they say, “presents both a critique of the current economic system and a vision for a more sustainable economy; one that serves people and planet.” Their vision of reorganising society champions the not-for-profit organisation and they say, “The decisions we make and the ways we choose to direct our energy can profoundly influence the formation of a future that would truly sustain us. How we will shape the post-capitalist world is up to all of us.” So don’t buy what you don’t need, and ideally buy it from a co-op or a charity shop.</div>
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<b>Recovering</b></div>
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Although the theme of the UK’s post lockdown recovery plan has been summarised by the PM as “Build, Build, Build”, some are taking a more nuanced approach. A report from UK100, a network of over 100 mayors and local leaders from across the country, urges the chancellor to spend not £2bn but £5bn on energy-saving measures as part of a green recovery.</div>
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UK100’s director Polly Billington said: “If ministers are to meet their manifesto promise on energy efficiency in our homes, which are some of the leakiest in Europe, they need to kickstart a renewable revolution. This would help hard-pressed consumers save on their fuel bills, support hundreds of thousands of jobs and protect the environment.</div>
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“£5bn now would unlock £100bn to rescue the UK economy and deliver on the Prime Minister’s ambitions of levelling up and meeting Net-Zero. The Chancellor’s statement, while welcome, should have had far more front-loaded investment.”</div>
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I believe there will be yet another financial statement in the autumn, so maybe the chancellor will address it then. Before that, one of my contacts has a meeting with BEIS next week, to find out the exact scope and regulations of the new scheme for insulating homes. I’ll keep you posted.</div>
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<b>300,000 jobs</b></div>
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UK100 claims that the move could create 300,000 jobs, but to avoid costly mistakes that workforce will need to be trained. Installation is no longer just about lagging the loft and filling cavity walls. Most of that should be done by now, (although some say cavity wall installation is a mistake, but that's another story.) Retrofit insulation involves filling under-floor voids and fixing insulation panels to internal walls. It needs to be done in the right way, with the right materials to avoid creating cold bridges or fire traps. Training, and accreditation of installers and supervisors, is key. We’ll also need to train skilled tradesmen across the country to replace gas boilers with heat pumps. </div>
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<b>Endgame</b></div>
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Meanwhile Roger Hallam, a leader of Extinction Rebellion, has published a video entitled <b>“Pivoting to the Endgame”</b>. Few people will watch a one hour 20 minute video so I'll attempt to summarise the main points which I believe are very important. He also feeds in the throwaway line that he expects global warming to reach 5° C and that extinction is therefore assured. It's worth re-reading Six Degrees by Mark Lynas who looks at the scenarios for each degree and predicts the worsening consequences. 5℃ is pretty bad.</div>
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Roger Hallam tells us that while the climate crisis is clearly an extreme risk, very few people take it seriously because it is perceived as remote. Humans assess risk depending on how close it is to them in time or space. For example, if 1,000 people die in China tomorrow it will probably make a footnote on the news. If 1,000 people die in Italy tomorrow, many more people will hear about it. If 1,000 people die in the UK it will make the front page for days. If 1,000 people die in your town tomorrow you will be talking about it and probably be traumatised by it for months and years to come. In all cases the size of the tragedy, 1,000 deaths is the same. Humans also have a herd instinct - it’s the safety in numbers principle. Nobody really wants to step out of line. Some groups will form at the extremes, like XR, although even then not at the extreme that will cause effective change. XR in any case has a middle class problem. The honest and dedicated supporters believe earnestly in the movement’s objectives, but they won’t act because they fear for their reputations, their mortgages, their jobs and their family responsibilities. In any case history shows that fundamental societal change, or revolution if you like, does not happen unless everyone sees and accepts the dangers of not changing, and there is a triggering event. The herd instinct pushes people back towards the postmodern truth which the majority accepts. Institutional inertia means that, for example, Kings College supported Roger Hallam’s hunger strike but nobody actually joined his action. Nobody wants to be seen as abnormal, which is why both the Labour Party and the Green Party have softened their policies on the climate, back towards the popular truth. (No matter that that truth isn’t actually true.)</div>
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<b>The meek will not inherit the earth - they’ll get elbowed out of the way!</b></div>
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The First World War provided the disruption which led to the Russian Revolution. The reformers who had been calling for change for decades took over but were rapidly replaced by the extremist Bolsheviks bringing violently radical change. In 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed a similar scenario played out. The reformers tried to set up socialism with a human face, but were overthrown by extreme capitalists. Roger suggests that when the climate crisis comes and the UK state collapses the Green Party will take over, but will itself be displaced by radicals and extremists, who could come from right or left.</div>
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What will bring this collapse about? The trigger will be a disaster which could be another financial collapse or may be an environmental crisis. It needs leadership. Given the right conditions a prophetic leader can change the views of the herd diametrically, and once they have changed to follow him, everyone will stay with the herd.</div>
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<b>Where do we go from here?</b></div>
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It seems to me that Roger is suggesting that nothing can be done until some type of catastrophe concentrates the minds of the whole population. That seems to be counsel for sitting and doing nothing. XR nevertheless has a big event planned for 1st September and has also launched a new political party, to very mixed reviews. More about those in a future episode. By the way, Boris Johnson thinks XR should dedicate its 1st September event to celebrating all the amazing things that the government is doing to tackle climate change. Link to a short video on the blog.</div>
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<b>Energy</b></div>
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It wouldn't be the Sustainable Futures Report without some comment on energy. Here are some points following up last week’s interview with James Spencer.</div>
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I first met him when he made a presentation in 2013. He said then that “only fossil fuel companies had the scale and understanding to deal with global energy requirements and that paradoxically, they would therefore become the world’s major green players.”</div>
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We can’t deny that for the moment every single one of us uses the products of the fossil fuel industry every day. That must change, but a renewable energy infrastructure will have to be every bit as extensive as the existing energy infrastructure, so it maybe makes sense to convert it rather than attempt to replace it from scratch.</div>
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On the blog you’ll find a link to a McKinsey interview with Martin Neubert of Orsted. </div>
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<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Twelve years ago, this Danish energy company made most of its money from fossil fuels. It still trades gas, but today, it’s the world’s leading offshore-wind power producer. </li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Germany’s biggest polluter (RWE) is North America’s second largest renewable player </li>
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Clearly there’s a transition in progress. We need governments to speed it up by introducing taxes on carbon, and regulations which mean that corporations who are moving towards net zero are not undercut by competitors who take a less responsible attitude to the environment.</div>
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<b>And Finally…</b></div>
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It’s the Bees’ Needs. No, the Bees’ Needs. It’s Bees’ Needs Week. Apparently, this is the fifth year of the event but I'm sorry to say that as a beekeeper the other four years have passed me by. The idea, an initiative from DEFRA, the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, is to raise public awareness of the importance of bees, and of other pollinators for that matter. While cereal grains are pollinated by the wind, most fruit is pollinated by insects. Pollination is by far the most important value created by honeybees; it far exceeds the value of the honey. Pollination is estimated to be worth £500 million in the UK alone. </div>
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So what should you do to help the bees? Well, first of all, if you have a garden you should grow more flowers, shrubs and trees. Apart from that, just let it go wild, and whatever you do don't mow the lawn too often. That's my kind of gardening.</div>
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<b>June Gap</b></div>
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Seriously, though, we beekeepers could do with your help in bridging the June Gap. You'll have to remember that for next year. What happens is that the bees start the year with the spring flowers, raising brood and expanding their colonies. Come June, most of the spring flowers are over and many of the summer flowers have not come into blossom. Bees have been known to starve in June, or to abandon larvae which they cannot feed. If you can plant flowers which bloom in June you'll be doing us and the bees a great service.</div>
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<b>And that’s it…</b></div>
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…for this week. I mentioned at the start that Rachel Maurice is our latest patron and Silver Supporter. Support from her and her fellow patrons helps me cover the cost of hosting, of the website which is coming very soon and for having interviews transcribed. Patronage starts at $1/month and all contributions are most welcome. If you have any thoughts, ideas or suggestions I’m always keen to hear and you’re sure to get a reply even if you’re not a patron. Patrons get priority of course. You’ll find the details of becoming a patron at <a href="http://www.patreon.com/sfr">www.patreon.com/sfr</a>.</div>
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I’m Anthony Day.</div>
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That was the Sustainable Futures Report</div>
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I’m thinking about next week’s episode already.</div>
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<b>Sources</b></div>
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<b>My View - and others </b></div>
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The most terrifying video you’ll ever see</div>
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https://youtu.be/zORv8wwiadQ </div>
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<b>Helical Sun</b></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://nexusmagazine.com/product/the-helical-sun/?v=79cba1185463">https://nexusmagazine.com/product/the-helical-sun/?v=79cba1185463</a></span></div>
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<b>Change of mind</b></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2020/6/29/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare?fbclid=IwAR31LA43Km5tzQUutr11YgBH_UegRDeOXL88T7vG3pfmGD0gOshJ6IQ-qWo">https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2020/6/29/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare?fbclid=IwAR31LA43Km5tzQUutr11YgBH_UegRDeOXL88T7vG3pfmGD0gOshJ6IQ-qWo</a></span></div>
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<b>Comment from Dave Borlace on the “Apology” article</b></div>
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<i>It’s hard to tell, but it looks like it’s written by Michael Shellenberger, who for about a decade has been on a one-man mission to convince the world to employ nuclear power at large scale in as many locations as possible as quickly as possible. There’s a TED talk that he did some years ago that you’ll find very easily, if you haven’t already watched it.</i></div>
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<i>I’ve had a read of his comments and overall, to be honest, I’m pretty ambivalent about them.</i></div>
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<i>I can understand many of his frustrations, and I actually agree with some of them, especially his objection to the silly ‘sound bite’ statements that politicians and climate activists do sometimes make in the press. But I can also see that he has, either unwittingly or deliberately, employed the age old trick of propaganda experts, which is to lump in one or two demonstrable truisms with a load of other assertions and suppositions that mould the argument to suit his aims (in this case, presumably “Please buy my book…”)</i></div>
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<i>Like him I also get frustrated with the Jem Bendall, Guy McPherson, near term human extinction brigade. I agree with him that the evidence does not support human extinction in the 21st century, and certainly not in the next 11 years as AOC mistakenly suggested. Nor has the IPCC ever suggested that this is remotely possible. But to highlight the overly exuberant, and certainly misguided rhetoric of a young woman flushed with the rush of adrenaline that accompanies one's first success at winning political office, and then conclude that this single erroneous statement disqualifies all the other consensus science built up over decades, looks like a cheap sensationalist tactic to sell his book. We may not be imminently facing extinction as a species, but hundreds of million of vulnerable people around the world will lose their lives prematurely in this century as a direct result of climate change and its various knock-on consequences.</i></div>
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<i>I am quite sure Shellenberger is frustrated with the IPCC. On one level I can understand this. All evidence, both anecdotal and chronological suggests that the IPCC is a pretty dysfunctional bureaucratic institution struggling to present the science whilst walking the fine line of international legal and political consensus. Although from what I can gather, their committee-led approach tends to ramp down the worst predictions to the lowest possible data point rather than ramping it up to the highest, so if anything their prognosis is probably a little less severe than the likely reality.</i></div>
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<i>And on his main point about renewable technology essentially being a massive waste of time and possibly even some sort of left-wing conspiracy? Well, it’s not 'climate alarmists' who are pushing solar panels and wind turbines onto electricity grids. The long-established capitalist market is doing that, because renewables are simply better products at a cheaper price.</i></div>
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<i>I would argue that It's not rocket-science, and it's not some sort of pseudo-psychological ideological battle between the left and right. Most if it is just driven by engineers who understand the sometimes very boring nuts and bolts of how things work. If Shellenberger really wants us to believe that the only correct energy transition is from wood to coal to gas to uranium, then I have to question whether he has a secondary agenda and whether his motives are based in good faith.</i></div>
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<i>But as the old saying goes..."time and tide wait for no-one", so while people like him pontificate about what they regard as the hysteria of other people, and speculate about how they think the world's energy needs should be catered for in the future, two significant events continue to trundle on each day back in the Real World. </i></div>
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<i>1. Human induced CO2 emissions continue to warm our atmosphere and cause our climate to change in a manner, and at a rate, that is remarkably similar to the patterns that have been predicted by climate scientists since James Hansen first sat before Congress in 1985.</i></div>
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<i>2. Renewable energy technologies like wind and solar, together with grid scale energy storage solutions and distributed energy storage sources like electric vehicles, and smart 'Internet of things' devices that have batteries that can also feed energy into the grid as well as draw from it, continue to take market share away from fossil fuel and make large scale, long term investment in centralised nuclear facilities simply unnecessary, regardless of the ‘why's and wherefores’ of whether that technology is acceptable or otherwise. And by the way, an area of land 100 miles long x 100 miles wide could house enough solar panels to power the entire planet, so I don't know where he gets his numbers from. And that's assuming we don't utilise the millions of square metres of free space on people's roofs around the world for panels.</i></div>
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<i>For what it’s worth, I actually happen to think that Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) might play a useful transitional role over the next two to three decades in provision of base load power for some of the world's larger urban centres, but the suggestion that wind and solar are some kind of dead-end con-trick is just daft, and arguably delusional.</i></div>
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<i>So I certainly won’t be bothering to respond, although I'm quite sure plenty of others will. </i></div>
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<i>Shellenberger’s views are well known and well documented so I suspect his book will be nothing new.</i></div>
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<i>Sorry if that sounds a little bit withering and dismissive, but I do believe we need to focus on championing the real solutions that are actually being funded and built at scale today.</i></div>
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<b>Compostable Plastic</b></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://medium.com/@westwise/the-seductive-lie-of-compostable-plastics-f0bec420c18f">https://medium.com/@westwise/the-seductive-lie-of-compostable-plastics-f0bec420c18f</a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4017659/aldi-pledges-halve-plastic-packaging-2025">https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4017659/aldi-pledges-halve-plastic-packaging-2025</a></span></div>
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<b>Bristol Food</b></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://bristolfoodproducers.uk/">https://bristolfoodproducers.uk</a></span></div>
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<b>Alternatives to growth</b></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.01398.pdf">https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.01398.pdf</a></span></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-spirit-level/kate-pickett/richard-wilkinson/9780241954294">https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-spirit-level/kate-pickett/richard-wilkinson/9780241954294</a></span> </div>
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<b>Green Recovery</b></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.edie.net/news/11/Government-urged-to-spend--5bn-to-unlock--100bn-green-recovery/">https://www.edie.net/news/11/Government-urged-to-spend--5bn-to-unlock--100bn-green-recovery/</a></span></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.uk100.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Local-Energy-Insight-Summary-Report-July-2020.pdf">https://www.uk100.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Local-Energy-Insight-Summary-Report-July-2020.pdf</a></span></div>
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<b>The End Game</b></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://youtu.be/XEdXgB9urN0">Roger Hallam presentation</a></span></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/six-degrees/mark-lynas/9780007209057">https://www.waterstones.com/book/six-degrees/mark-lynas/9780007209057</a></span> </div>
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https://youtu.be/2CDfz5d2WZQ </div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://rebellion.earth/2020/04/18/to-go-beyond-politics-we-must-trust-the-people/">https://rebellion.earth/2020/04/18/to-go-beyond-politics-we-must-trust-the-people/</a></span> </div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://realmedia.press/beyond-politics-launch/">https://realmedia.press/beyond-politics-launch/</a></span></div>
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<b>Energy Postscript</b></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/orsteds-renewable-energy-transformation?cid=other-eml-alt-mip-mck&hlkid=9e7db38c930945df9b4ecdca966ce837&hctky=2752033&hdpid=0034359f-ebd8-432b-9556-277c45b90b96">https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/orsteds-renewable-energy-transformation?cid=other-eml-alt-mip-mck&hlkid=9e7db38c930945df9b4ecdca966ce837&hctky=2752033&hdpid=0034359f-ebd8-432b-9556-277c45b90b96</a></span></div>
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<b>Bees’ Needs</b></div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/green-recovery-at-the-heart-of-this-years-bees-needs-week">https://www.gov.uk/government/news/green-recovery-at-the-heart-of-this-years-bees-needs-week</a></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-11597328164081587002020-07-10T01:00:00.002+01:002020-07-10T01:00:14.975+01:00Fossil Futures<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> </i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Fossil Futures</b></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifKDUX73A6cPEL6KpoxmOjEae7mVS6_bxKsRM9AWDZaLVQUvhrL4pi8GtNKy5Cgx1E-1e_HuHNeizcEfA0k6VYrwU0_C-21RWOBiUQzo2gMGQVFMS33h8kTIUTDmh-Bk7iuV0/s460/460person+on+pipeline.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="460" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifKDUX73A6cPEL6KpoxmOjEae7mVS6_bxKsRM9AWDZaLVQUvhrL4pi8GtNKy5Cgx1E-1e_HuHNeizcEfA0k6VYrwU0_C-21RWOBiUQzo2gMGQVFMS33h8kTIUTDmh-Bk7iuV0/w400-h268/460person+on+pipeline.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m Anthony Day. This is the Sustainable Futures Report for Friday 10th July.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This week I'm talking about the energy industry with James Spencer, Managing Director of Portland Fuel. Is this the oil industry’s endgame? When and why can we expect an oil price spike? Is an electric transport fleet an impossible dream, and does the future lie with hydrogen? Insights from inside the industry.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And in other news…McKinsey on carbon capture, usage and storage, California legislates on electric trucks and public doubts about the UK government's recovery strategy.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">But first, the interview…</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Interview with James Spencer, Managing Director of Portland Fuel </b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #de2898; font-kerning: none;"><b>Anthony Day: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">When I do interviews, what I normally like to do is some research, so I can ask some informed questions. I think in this situation I've got no idea what to ask you. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #fa8a3b; font-kerning: none;"><b>James Spencer: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">When we first met in 2013, I made that presentation and coal was generating 35% of the UK's electricity - bog standard coal.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">If you'd said to me then that in seven, seven years, that 35% would under most circumstances be reversed so that, that was about 35% wind literally I would have, you know, you would have been carted out in a straight-jacket, this guy's lost his senses, </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">My take has always been, the industry changed so much over the last 10 years. We're now in a position I'm loath to call it a tipping point because the tipping point would indicate that suddenly everything's changed. The reality is this tipping point has been building as oil basically becomes less and less fashionable, not only as investors, uh, you know, the appeal to investors, but also to society.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">People don't want to buy oil products. Now, underneath that there is this core of usage, which is very difficult to get away with, get away from, which is the likes of concrete and contact lenses and this plastic on this screen and your coloured shirt and all those kinds of things. But the kind of, if you want to kind of say that, that the luxury use of oil, the unnecessary use of oil, I think is set for quite a major decline.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And this crisis, probably the big 'if' is the economic. bounce-back and that's kind of what depresses me for a whole load of reasons. But I see this crisis as the tipping point, which will actually accelerate a move away from, um, excessive use of fossil fuels. Let's, let's call it that way. And that will start a trend, which over time will end up getting rid of most fossil fuels because once the technology develops for green or let's just say sustainable replacements, then that technology explodes and it can be used in more and more things.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So once people really start to use hydrogen as a de facto usable and a realistic credible alternative, then suddenly its uses will explode wrong word, maybe not explode, but its uses will grow exponentially. The problem is at the moment, it's a fringe thing, so it can never really get a foothold in the market.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">But because this, this whole event is going to push these alternative energies much higher to the fore, often through government subsidy, often through financial investment, because that's what people are investing in to invest in and through societal pressure, you'll see that growth really ramp up. So that's my kind of view.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And I said to you the last time we met, Anthony, which is, I think it's even more, I said this before COVID-19 but one of the oil majors is going to pull out of oil exploration. I am in no doubt about that. And they'll do that because it will give them market advantage. They will be the first to do that and they will generate so much kind of positive investment energy around that move that the second and the third will get less kudos and will, will benefit less. That's my view. Although that was, as you remember, Oh, you might remember that. I kind of said that back in, whenever we met . I felt the mood music was is that one of the oil majors, you know, and this oil price thing, the crash in the oil price.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So typically, um, a low oil price is used as a way of recovering an economy. Yeah. So that would be the kind of counter argument to renewable fuels are gonna come back into gonna come into play because low price oil, low price gas will be too, too good an opportunity for governments to miss they'll want to get everybody working with construction projects and infrastructure, but I think you do have two factors here.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Number one, it will be difficult to rebound the economy if we're in a longterm depression. And the point I made in my last oil market report is that the crisis of 2008 and 2009 was very short lived. Actually we cannot, we can argue, not argue because they, most people agree that austerity was pretty tough, but in terms of at a macro level, the economy recovered relatively quickly.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It was what they call a V-shape recovery. Number one that feels difficult to see at the moment. So there might just not be that much demand for oil going forward. Which will compound the current trend, which is everybody pulling out of oil exploration because the prices are low. And what I believe is going to happen is, is that I sent you that rig graph yesterday.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I mean, that's just staggering. So for the purposes of this interview, this time, last year, there were a thousand oil rigs in the U S. Now there are 200. I mean, that's not halving. I mean, yeah. 80% reduction. What that's going to do to our prices is at some point you're going to have a massive spike in oil prices and oil prices are going to go through the roof because even with diminishing demand, there's not going to be enough oil because all of the investment in marginal oil, so oil on the fringes, let's say Saudi Arabia.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Okay. They continue Russia, but all the rest of the oil well everybody's pulling out. That will push the prices up. And again, that doesn't really do oil, any favors because it's suddenly going to be hugely expensive. And by the time that comes on, yes, there's an argument says, Oh, well, $200 a barrel everybody will want to invest in oil again. But with the rest of the piece that I've described, I feel the, the train will have moved on. And so I don't see a rush back into oil because investors have been scarred so many times by this crazy volatility and always in the past, they've lived with that because the underlying thing, which is oil is a good thing for the Western economies.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Oil is a good thing for democratic governments. We want oil that mood music is no longer there. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #de2898; font-kerning: none;"><b>Anthony Day: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Right. So do you see hydrogen as the fuel of the future? </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #fa8a3b; font-kerning: none;"><b>James Spencer: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">I do. And I feel, I suppose, selfishly, um, I feel happy about that because I understand liquid energy better than I understand battery energy. So that's probably, you know, telling myself what I want to hear, but I think electric mobility, uh, we have massive problems with electric mobility ranging from the practical, which is the kind of powertrain you need for buses and trucks. Uh, they kind of also, and I think we're proving out that they do work for cars, but even with increasing technology, it's talking about weights of four or five tons for the battery alone on a truck. So there's totally practical issues about road weight limits.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So, you know, nerdish factors, 44 tonnes is the maximum limit for road weights in the UK. Take out five tons that takes out quite a lot of capacity in a difficult economy. That's pushes up prices. So there's, there's lots of practical issues. There's resale value of electric vehicles. Almost all vehicles are based on depreciation and resale value. There's not a great deal of understanding how electric vehicles will be recycled through the system as second hand and third hand sales. And then that's the kind of practical, economic reasons that we'd see in the West. The kind of, um, the societal issues are the mining of this stuff.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I mean, we just don't have enough precious metals in the world to meet the demand of the global carpool. And of course there's an argument said, well, we shouldn't be driving so much and we shouldn't be consuming so much. So, you know, good luck with that one. Eight and a half billion people is very difficult to come up with an adequate or a sustainable solution.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So the kind of mining and I went to mining, precious metals mining conference. Um, about a year ago and there was a guy there, he was in fairness, let's say he was at the kind of redneck end of the scale of the attendees there. But the point he made, which was very powerful to me is that when we talk about oil being depleted, we actually know we have geological surveys that show how much oil is in the ground. Based on the projections that we're talking about for electric mobility, so cars going, electric trucks, buses, et cetera, et cetera, there's just not the precious metals on the earth. And every geological study going would say, there is just not enough precious metals, lithium, cobalt, all these kinds of things that go into batteries to meet the predicted demand. So it's all very well saying that electric cars and electric buses are all going to go up to this level, where's the precious metals going to come from? And he said, you know, unless you're going to go and mine on Mars, he made light of it, but we just don't have that resource.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So oil is bountiful, precious metals are not. And I've thought for a long time, the next kind of major societal social outrage, understandably will be just the total destruction of central Africa. Uh, all of the bits that go with that through the mining of precious metals. So we can all have electric cars.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So that's a very long, yeah, the answer to why hydrogen I'm fairly sure will have a part to play in quite a major role, mainly because its power generation is very, very efficient. So, whereas getting an electric truck to pull 40 tons of cargo is a very major piece of battery technology, getting hydrogen to power that there's difficulties with supply chain there's difficulties, with safety, et cetera and there may be difficulty in producing sufficient hydrogen, but the concept of hydrogen propulsion is easy. And that applies to buses that applies to trucks that even applies to planes. So of, of all of the kind of renewables, if we can, the problem with hydrogen is at the moment, it's not renewable because it comes as a byproduct of refining oil.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Anthony Day: Other ways </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #fa8a3b; font-kerning: none;"><b>James Spencer: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">There are other ways. And I think the scale is the issue there. So there are definitely other ways of producing hydrogen, but it's getting it to the mass production that we require so you're back there to the argument of, well, do we want mass production? Isn't the whole point of COVID-19 that globalisation and mass production causes this kind of over consumer over consumption. And we don't think about what we eat and we don't think about, we just fly for a weekend here. And, you know, we, we disposable fashion. We buy an item, well I don't and I'm sure you don't, but you know, people buy a set of clothes or a tee shirt and they wear it for a day and then they throw it away.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So the whole mass consumption argument is powerful, but somewhere in the middle is a requirement to produce energy at scale, to keep us even close to the level of development that we're used to. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #de2898; font-kerning: none;"><b>Anthony Day: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you, it's a question of energy density. So storing hydrogen then on a vehicle is presumably going to put less weight for range than batteries would.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #fa8a3b; font-kerning: none;"><b>James Spencer: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Yeah. And so it's definitely the less weight. I think most of the evidence is fairly clear the price of alternative vehicles is coming down, but not in the world that I live in, which is the commercial end. So to put some kind of numbers on a, I mean, hydrogen buses, trucks, you know, kind of even more, but a bus, maybe your listeners will be surprised to know that a bog standard diesel bus, uh, new costs about 150,000 pounds just a bog standard bus. An electric bus is about 450,000 pounds.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And if you take, uh, you know, a classic customer of ours, a municipal bus company may be running a hundred buses a year, and that's not a big operation. Um, you know, someone like a Go Ahead have five and a half thousand buses, but if you just take a, uh, a small, small, medium sized town, well, somewhere like a York, York is run by a major group First Group, but in terms of the total buses. Probably somewhere in the region of 150, 160, buses.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So you can kind of do the maths of where 150 buses, times 150,000. If they want to go electric, 150 buses is times 450,000. So number one, nobody can buy those outright. Number two, they have to be written off over a period of time, normally between seven and 10 years. And so, and again, in terms of the transition, even if somewhere like York tomorrow said we're a hundred percent going away from diesel, then you still got 10 years of all, uh, 10 years and nine years and eight years of all the remaining diesel buses, and there's no way that any municipality can afford to pull out of that hire purchase arrangement because it just...At that kind of cost you cannot buy everything outright. Everything has to be written off over a logical depreciative period. And that typically is seven to 10 years. Some places try and run it for 15 years.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Nothing's simple and hydrogen by the way, it's more like, kind of, wow. I mean, there's, there's just not enough hydrogen buses to have a real proper market value. I mean, there are plenty of electric buses kicking around now, but hydrogen is kinda more up to the 750,000 for a hydrogen bus. Yeah. But again, that's maybe not that helpful </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">as a figure because prices come down when you make things in scale, we're back to the mass productions things, but, uh, there's enough kind of scale in electric vehicles. I mean, you've got someone like BYD in China, uh, who are, I mean that their hometown, which is somewhere I think it's Chengdu but I, I don't know that for sure.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">But. Um, Cantonese city on the mainland. Their whole city of 10 million people is one hundred percent electric bus. There are a lot of electric buses kicking around so those prices come down. There's just not enough Hydrogen buses being made to generate any economies of scale to bring the price down.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Yeah. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #de2898; font-kerning: none;"><b>Anthony Day: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Well, of course, in some places, people are going back to trams and even to trolley buses, and then you don't actually have to carry around your energy store. Um, there's one system and I can't remember what it is. I think it's buses, um, where the bus has a battery, but it stops very precisely at the bus stop and an arm comes down to the bottom of the bus and gives it a boost for only about 15 seconds while the passengers are getting on or off. And that's enough to keep the thing running throughout its route because, and that must mean that the batteries must be a lot cheaper because they're not nearly as big.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #fa8a3b; font-kerning: none;"><b>James Spencer: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Yeah. Um, well, so it was two things on the size of batteries. I mean, that's the model with Tesla. Which is, you know, so Tesla has about a hundred batteries in a Tesla car. So all the batteries are kind of throughout the whole fabric of the car, rather than in one engine that is a better distribution of weight and is a problem for disposal, of course, because then you've got to dispose of a hundred small batteries rather than one large.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Um, so that, that idea of smaller batteries is actually increasingly seen as a more efficient way of doing things. Um, the second thing in Milton Keynes, a bit similar to your model that you've just described there in Milton Keynes, they actually have magnetic coils under - one route has magnetic coils under the ground.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Um, and, uh, as at each bus stop. So as the bus stops, then it takes a charge, just a kind of momentary charge from these magnetic coils and that tops up the battery. Um, and each time it stops it gets a top up and that keeps it going for longer, et cetera, et cetera. So there are clearly there's quite frankly, there's ingenious stuff going on in that whole sector.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Um, the bus sector has always been particularly innovative. Uh, probably because it's always been up against it as a, you know, as, as private cars have dominated to survive bus companies and bus infrastructures actually have to be, you know, people don't would never think it because it's not really seen as a very rock and roll kind of world, but bus innovation is really up there amongst the best, but all of these things as ever are hugely costly. And from Milton Keynes it works. If you think about Milton Keynes, the geography of Milton Keynes, it's wide roads it's designed for the modern age, where we live, Anthony, you know, putting underground magnetic coils in York could be tricky. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #de2898; font-kerning: none;"><b>Anthony Day: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Yes. Yes. It could, couldn't it?. Yes. Okay. So we started off by talking about oil . Oil is your business. In view of what you've said about oil, where do you go from here? </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #fa8a3b; font-kerning: none;"><b>James Spencer: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Our business or, uh, oil in general? </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #de2898; font-kerning: none;"><b>Anthony Day: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Well, both, but, uh, yeah. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #fa8a3b; font-kerning: none;"><b>James Spencer: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Um, well, I think, I think the first thing for us, I mean, I've, I've done this for 25 years. I used to work for BP. Um, I joined BP when climate change was not really a known thing.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I dare say conspiracy theorists would probably tell us it was, but it was known, but it was on the fringes, let's say. Um, I've seen the industry change a lot. Um, for me there's a transition that is really has already taken place, I guess, with our business in terms of going from oil to energy. Liquid energy is probably what interests me most because of the nature of what we do and our customer base.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">But of course we're as a business we're traders and we buy and sell energy. Um, and we have no real vested interest in product in the ground. So I have no interest in oil, crude oil itself. Um, you know, if the oil comes up, comes up from used cooking oil and is made into diesel, or it comes from hydrogen.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Uh we'll you know, we just buy the product and we sell it to our customers be they bus companies, public transport, trucking. ships, whatever. And I think probably that's the main issue that the likes of BP, Exxon, Shell, they all have this problem is that they're vested, they are wedded to oil because so much of their value is based on the product in the ground.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So they have to keep it coming out of the ground to generate the energy that they sell. The issue for them now is that there's more and more people coming in and say, well, we can take our energy from here. So it's never going to be the full solution, but you've got diesel from waste, which is made from a tallow, which is animal carcasses.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So that is a waste product. Again, as a, there's a powerful argument, undoubtedly about cutting down on meat consumption. Big, big contribution to climate change. Probably the biggest we can all do as individuals is probably cut down meat consumption. But as long as there is meat consumption, you have carcasses and you have tallow.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And they in a pretty effective way can be made into diesel. And so you have probably about a 90% CO2 reduction, uh, in terms of the process and then the burning of that diesel. It's actually mistakenly called Hydra treated vegetable oil. Most of it comes from animal, but it can also be done from vegetables.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">You have used cooking oils. So you have. The market for used cooking oil at the moment is, is massively down because used cooking oil typically comes from restaurants. So Indian restaurants, normal restaurants, you know, so across the world, the prices of used cooking oil have gone through the roof because nobody's generating used cooking oil.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So that's bad for the environment because that's made it much more difficult to replace crude oil diesel with used cooking oil diesel. But the point of all this is that as time goes on, there's more and more alternatives. Engines. The vehicle manufacturers, you know, they're not stupid, they're completely, they know to survive they have to basically produce different models. So engines are now much more tolerant to non crude oil specific products. So whereas the oil majors have a major problem in how they adjust to a new world of moving away from crude oil, sadly for people like us, and of course they see us as total parasites because we're not wedded to their product , for people like us you know, it doesn't really matter. It's a commodity. There's still going to be price volatility because of the nature of commodities. And really what it's made of is not, you know, as long as it's legal and ethical and all the rest of it, you know, but that's, that's a separate kind of box of what we do in terms of where the product comes from.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We're not wedded to where it comes from. And on that basis where probably able in businesses like ours, they're probably able to move a lot quicker to, uh, a lower carbon future, simply because we have no vested interests. Hmm. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #de2898; font-kerning: none;"><b>Anthony Day: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Well, finally, you've been talking about earlier, uh, a major spike in oil prices.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">When do you think that's going to happen?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #fa8a3b; font-kerning: none;"><b>James Spencer: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">I think the big caveat is what we talked about at the start about when… , when is there a second wave, really genuinely hope hopeful that there won't be, but fearful that there will be, and that obviously will suppress demand. But, um, if you look at the production figures, you look at American rigs going from 1000 to 200, this just staggering level of cuts in oil production.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So probably at the back end of this year. Yes. I think I'm confident as that only to a 55 to 45%, because in the same way that nobody really predicted. Um, you know, I went to a conference in London, in February and there's quite a lot of no shows. And I remember in the bar kind of slightly mocking people, you know, you know, makes me, makes me feel, sound a little bit like Donald Trump at the time, but yeah.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">You know, saying it's just a cold c'mon, you know, people got to get used to this and let's face it. None of us really predicted. Well, maybe some did, but most people didn't really predict the scale of this. So I think the whole COVID-19 impact, unfortunately, probably hasn't quite run its course. It's very difficult to make any predictions on the economy and things that relate to that like the oil price, because we don't know where that goes. But as things stand oil production cuts are immediate. Demand is a deterioration that can happen over time. Once those oil wells are stopped, they're very difficult to reopen, but more than that, even if they were able to reopen, I think people might have careful consideration about whether they actually want to be stuck on an asset that demand doesn't.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">There is another lockdown in 2021. Prices go through the floor again. They're all scarred. I mean, you know, the bankruptcies in shale oil last year. I think this is something we've talked about. Bankruptcies in shale oil last year were already, uh, something like 50% up. And that was before all of this. So, you know, these guys were up against a little bit like retail on the high street.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">A lot of them businesses were up against it before this. This has been the straw that's broken the camel's back. So yeah, a spike in oil price I could easily see at the back end of this year, maybe into the spring, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. That's what makes our life interesting. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #de2898; font-kerning: none;"><b>Anthony Day: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Yeah, it's going to make everybody's life interesting. And thank you for sharing some very interesting thoughts with the Sustainable Futures Report. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>James Spencer, Managing Director of Portland Fuel </b></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Compressed Air Hybrid</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Talking afterwards, we discussed the fact that even hydrogen cars rely on batteries. The Toyota version is a hybrid, and like a petrol or diesel hybrid uses the battery to store energy which otherwise would be wasted as heat in the brakes. That set me thinking about an article I read somewhere about cars using compressed air as an energy store. A little research showed that a lot of work has been done in this field, so if you want to store energy which otherwise would be wasted as the car is slowed down, why not use it to compress air? The technology is extremely simple, the tanks would not be nearly as heavy as batteries, perhaps they could be tubes forming part of the vehicle’s subframe, and no rare earths or precious metals are required. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">An article in Environmental Research Letters says:</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">“…Even under highly optimistic assumptions the compressed-air car is significantly less efficient than a battery electric vehicle and produces more greenhouse gas emissions than a conventional gas-powered car with a coal intensive power mix. However, a pneumatic–combustion hybrid is technologically feasible, inexpensive and could eventually compete with hybrid electric vehicles.”</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">You’ll find links to this and other articles on the blog, including an article about Jo Bamford’s plans for his hydrogen bus manufacturing plant.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s not all good news, though. The fuel cells at the heart of a hydrogen powered vehicle use rare metals like platinum and cobalt. Rare metals are also needed for the high-performance magnets in the electric motors which drive the vehicle. The inescapable conclusion is that the future of individual private transport is looking very uncertain. Walking, cycling and electric scooters can take us so far, but certainly not all of us, and at present public transport is to be avoided for the sake of social distancing. Public transport must be the future, but it can't play its part as long as the pandemic persists.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And Finally…</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Capturing Carbon</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Looking at emissions reduction, consultancy McKinsey & Co suggests that carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) is the way forward. They caution that CCUS could continue to struggle unless three important conditions are met: (1) capture costs fall, (2) regulatory frameworks provide incentives to account for CCUS costs, and (3) technology and innovation make CO</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">2</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> a valuable feedstock for existing or new products. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">In the article referenced on the blog (at <a href="http://www.sustainablefutures.report"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">www.sustainablefutures.report</span></a>), one of the uses they suggest is enhanced oil recovery - pumping the CO2 into part-depleted oil wells to drive out the remaining oil. That seems to assume that there will be continuing demand for oil at a price which will justify building the infrastructure to achieve this. Another possibility is incorporating CO2 as a component of cement, effectively locking that CO2 up indefinitely. This is quite ironic given that the cement manufacturing process is one of the largest emitters of CO2 globally. Then there is the possibility of carbon neutral aviation fuel, created by combining CO2 with hydrogen. Carbon neutral, mind you, it will still emit CO2 from combustion.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Other possibilities include the use of CO2 in carbon fibre, as an ingredient in some plastics, and the creation of biochar, used as an agricultural soil improver.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The key to all this depends on the efficient capture of the CO2 in the first place. Apart from biochar - that’s created by heating wood in an oxygen-free atmosphere. Direct Air Capture (DAC) is creating a lot of interest, although it is expensive, about $500 per tonne of CO2 captured. CO2 forms only 0.04% of the atmosphere by volume. More than enough to cause environmental damage, but not very much at all when you are trying to capture it. Capture from industrial processes or power generation is much cheaper but not cost-free.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The overall conclusion of the article appears to be that the potential is enormous, but storage is not financially attractive and usage requires substantial investment in research. I can't help comparing carbon capture and storage, with or without usage, to the nuclear fusion reactor. You know, the one that's going to produce endless energy for almost nothing. It will be ready in about 30 years as they have been saying for the last 30 years. Although you may remember that when I interviewed him on 15th May, Michl Binderbauer, CEO of TAE Technologies, predicted only 10 years.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Trucking On</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">What was that about the impracticability of electricity for heavy haulage? Lexology, an international law reporting site tells us, “The California Air Resources Board (CARB) on June 25, 2020, unanimously approved the “Advanced Clean Trucks” <a href="https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/fact-sheets/advanced-clean-trucks-fact-sheet"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">rule</span></a>, requiring automakers to sell a minimum number of zero-emissions diesel (sic) trucks, delivery vans and large pickups, starting in 2024. The quotas will be phased in and the rules require most new trucks in the state to produce no pollution at all by 2035. By 2045, every new truck sold in California will have to be zero-emission.”</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">They seem to take it as read that zero-emissions means electric, because they go on to say: </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">“However, many stakeholders in the trucking industry are concerned the transition will not be nearly as easy and beneficial as CARB suggests. Critics cite the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the economy as a substantial financial obstacle to manufacturing the new, cleaner trucks, which will also have a high price tag. They also are concerned that the infrastructure and technology, including charging stations and batteries, are inadequate for the roll-out of such a large amount of zero-emissions vehicles.”</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Shortage of batteries, eh? You heard it here first!</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Still Recovering</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">There's lots of discussion and controversy about how we should recover the economy as we come out of the pandemic. This episode goes to press before the announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak explains exactly what the British government is going to do. Having said that, most of what is proposed appears to have been leaked in advance and to have been received less than enthusiastically. Billions of pounds make good headlines, but when you divide them out over all the organisations they are supposed to help, all the jobs they're supposed to create and so on, it becomes clear that it will be very thinly spread. It doesn't compare very well with the actions taken by other countries. We won't know exactly what is proposed until after the chancellor’s statement but in the meantime Climate Action reports,</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">“New poll reveals public believe “the government has the wrong priorities” for COVID-19 package”</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This is a response to the announcement made by the Prime Minister which I mentioned last week. According to Climate Action a poll commissioned by Conservative Environment Network reveals that the vast bulk of the British public sees a recovery that fails the environment as “bad for the economy”. More than half of British citizens want to see plans involving measures that tackle pollution and climate change. I’ll look next week at what’s actually promised.</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And that’s it…</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">…for another week. Thank you for listening, thank you for your support especially if you are a patron. I'm always grateful for your feedback and I reply to every email even from those who are not actually patrons, although I have to say that others do support the Sustainable Futures Report in other ways.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">If you've been thinking about becoming a patron, then what could be a better time than now? Why not pop across to <a href="http://www.patreon.com/sfr"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">www.patreon.com/sfr</span></a> and you’ll find all the details. If you are already a patron, are you getting what you expected? Would you like something different? In particular, would you like a Zoom call, and if so, when and what would you like to talk about?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I look forward to hearing from you, and if you get in quick I could even put your ideas into next week’s episode. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I leave you with the thought that Rio Tinto’s trains that cart iron ore from their mines in Western Australia to the port are 1.5 miles long and fully autonomous. They are monitored and controlled remotely from Perth, 1,000 miles away. You’d need big battery for that! </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">But for the moment that's it. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m Anthony Day </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">That was the Sustainable Futures Report </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Stay safe!</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Sources</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Portland Fuel Oil Market Report</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://stabilityfromvolatility.co.uk/market-reports/">https://stabilityfromvolatility.co.uk/market-reports/</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>CCUS</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/driving-co2-emissions-to-zero-and-beyond-with-carbon-capture-use-and-storage?cid=other-eml-alt-mip-mck&hlkid=60569692e2d64cef953775b865786bfb&hctky=2752033&hdpid=719fc65e-106d-43fd-91f1-912b2d9413db">https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/driving-co2-emissions-to-zero-and-beyond-with-carbon-capture-use-and-storage?cid=other-eml-alt-mip-mck&hlkid=60569692e2d64cef953775b865786bfb&hctky=2752033&hdpid=719fc65e-106d-43fd-91f1-912b2d9413db</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Zero-Carbon Trucks</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=7759ca79-c4fa-4ce5-80dd-2cf978bbbb56&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2020-07-07&utm_term=">https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=7759ca79-c4fa-4ce5-80dd-2cf978bbbb56&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2020-07-07&utm_term=</a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Recovery</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.climateaction.org/news/new-poll-reveals-the-government-has-the-wrong-priorities-for-covid-19-packa?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=New+poll+reveals+public+believe+%22the+government+has+the+wrong+priorities%22+for+COVID-19+package+-+Climate+Action+News&utm_campaign=CA+%7C+2020+%7C+7+July+%7C+Newsletter">http://www.climateaction.org/news/new-poll-reveals-the-government-has-the-wrong-priorities-for-covid-19-packa?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=New+poll+reveals+public+believe+%22the+government+has+the+wrong+priorities%22+for+COVID-19+package+-+Climate+Action+News&utm_campaign=CA+%7C+2020+%7C+7+July+%7C+Newsletter</a></span></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Jo Bamford’s plans for his hydrogen bus manufacturer</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.businessgreen.com/feature/4017417/bus-plan-wrightbus-jo-bamford-vision-catalysing-uk-hydrogen-economy?utm_medium=email&utm_content=&utm_campaign=BG.Weekly_RL.EU.A.U&utm_source=BG.DCM.Editors_Updates&utm_term=&utm_medium=email&utm_term=50%20to%2099&utm_term=">https://www.businessgreen.com/feature/4017417/bus-plan-wrightbus-jo-bamford-vision-catalysing-uk-hydrogen-economy?utm_medium=email&utm_content=&utm_campaign=BG.Weekly_RL.EU.A.U&utm_source=BG.DCM.Editors_Updates&utm_term=&utm_medium=email&utm_term=50%20to%2099&utm_term=</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Compressed Air vehicles</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.groupe-psa.com/en/newsroom/automotive-innovation/hybrid-air/">https://www.groupe-psa.com/en/newsroom/automotive-innovation/hybrid-air/</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/4/4/044011/fulltext/">https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/4/4/044011/fulltext/</a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_car">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_car</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-37952645508830106732020-07-03T01:00:00.002+01:002020-07-03T01:00:01.676+01:00Sustainable Futures <div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Hello. I’m Anthony Day and this is the Sustainable Futures Report for Friday, 3rd July. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Last week</b> I told you about a paper in the journal <i>nature communications</i> entitled “Scientists’ Warning on Affluence”, which explained how affluence leads to overconsumption which in turn leads to environmental damage. I’ve been fortunate to set up an interview with Professor Julia Steinberger, one of the authors, and you’ll hear from her in a moment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>In other news,</b> last week’s report from the U.K.'s committee on climate change says “COVID-19 can be an historic turning point in tackling the global climate crisis”. While businesses met to discuss building back better the British prime minister set out his plans for restarting the economy after Covid and a mass lobby descended virtually on Westminster. And finally, Greta Thunberg has a thing about selfies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Julia Steinberger Interview</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Julia K Steinberger is professor of social ecology and ecological economics at the Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth & Environment, University of Leeds. We spoke about the sustainability of growth and then I went on to ask whether scientists should just inform or whether they should take action. You'll hear her say, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“Honestly, if we learn the kinds of things that we're learning, how could we not act on them and still have integrity?”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I asked about the practicality of reducing economic growth and then she spoke about leadership and influencing the debate. Here’s how it went.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #d30086; font-kerning: none;"><b>Anthony Day: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">I wanted to talk to you about the article in nature communications, , about affluence and over consumption, , which has a certain amount of press comment. You may have seen that James Dyke wrote about it in the i-newspaper yesterday. And I found it in a number of other publications too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You start off by saying in the introduction, the affluent citizens of the world are [00:01:00] responsible for most environmental impact and are central to any future prospect of retreating to safer environmental conditions. And as we go through the article, If I summarize it correctly, it says that consumption drives economic growth and as technology displaces jobs, growth is essential to maintain employment levels, but growth is causing environmental damage because it's exhausting both the world's raw materials and its capacity to absorb waste. So must we abandon growth. And how can we do that? </span></div>
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<span style="color: #f6752e; font-kerning: none;"><b>Julia Steinberger: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">That's is a good question.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I'm trying to separate the article from my own, sort of more general area of research. So just to represent this article itself more fairly, and I don't think that we come out one way or another specifically on, [00:02:00] on growth itself. I think that we basically say that there are different options and that some of these options should include er, that we consider should include degrowth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I think that what we try to focus on is we try to focus on wealth and inequality more specifically. So one of the things we do is we show how wealth is indeed intertwined. Wealth accumulation is indeed intertwined with the necessity of growth so that our our economics, our economic systems have a growth imperative built into them that is partly, in great part, driven by the wealth accumulation demands of the wealthiest classes of the population. So because there is wealth accumulation and because wealth accumulation comes from extraction and, and exploitation in a lot of cases, in order to keep other people at a decent level, that growth [00:03:00] imperative …the wealth accumulation comes with the growth imperative built into it because you can't have wealth accumulation without massive impoverishment if you don't have growth. So that's one of the things that we tried to sort of, that we try to raise, uh, attention of. And, and we, and we certainly say that growth should be questioned in and of itself. So what is growth serving? Is it just serving to, uh, accrue even more wealth to the wealthy and according to Thomas Piketty, he's one of the probably the foremost economist of our time. And one of the things he's shown is that indeed, if you look at growth and where the wealth or the economic, um, yeah, where growth goes to the wealthiest it accrues to the wealthiest and very, very little of it goes to the poorest or to middle classes. And so in that sense, growth is in fact [helping] the wealthy, and we should question that on that basis [00:04:00] because we see that the wealthy are also driving environmental impacts.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #d30086; font-kerning: none;"><b>Anthony Day: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">In my view, an academic paper serves to comment to report and describe, but not generally to prescribe. In other words, not to recommend actions, except perhaps for suggestions for future research as your paper does.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In view of the increasing calls from the IEA, the international energy agency, and many other bodies who are saying that the urgency of the climate crisis is immediate have we got time for more research? And if we look at it, if you would look at it from a personal point of view, do you believe that perhaps you should step outside your academic role and take action?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Because things are so [00:05:00] urgent at this point. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #f6752e; font-kerning: none;"><b>Julia Steinberger: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">I believe that we need to rethink the role of the scientist. And so the question you're asking here is a very important one, because I do think that we've had a certain role of a scientist. And in fact, the way you said papers should do certain things and it should not do certain things, um, has sort of is in line with that role of the scientist.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So we've had a rule, basically the way we see scientists is we see them, as people who should observe and comment on the reality they see around them. And in terms of taking decisions, based on that reality, or based on that understanding that should be left up to other people. And that's very much an idealized view of what science and scientists should do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And I would say a lot of scientists hold themselves to that ideal. Interestingly economists, uh, and especially in, you know, classical economists and I'm thinking particularly of the Chicago School and of Milton Friedman absolutely did never, never held themselves to that ideal. They might hold, they might impose that [00:06:00] idea on other areas, other areas or other types of economists, but they themselves were very activist. In fact, went around the world, destroying various economies in the advancement of their theories. You know, they had this structural adjustment and basically opening up markets for financial capital to be able to do what it wanted in them. So I think that we really need to distinguish between an idealized theory of what science should be and a much more hardnosed understanding of what science and especially economics is or has been.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I mean, William Nordhaus who got the Nobel prize in economics, uh, in 2019. Yeah, it was. Uh, no, it was 2018. Um, right after the IPCC special report on 1.5 degrees came out, they gave the economics Nobel prize to William Nordhaus and a colleague and he was one of the architects of [00:07:00] the ideas that kept the US out of the Kyoto protocol.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">You know, and he wrote pieces advocating for the U S to stay out of the Kyoto protocol to stop climate change. So I think we have to, we think of ourselves as scientists or activists we have to understand that there's been a lot of activism. Let's call it the, on the other side. As well, and, and maybe not be so reticent because the other side has not been reticent at all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So in terms of being more active, do we need more research? What should our role be? I'm very much in favor of questioning the role of scientists. I've written pieces on this , I wrote something on a blog called a post-mortem, uh, Uh, I think it was a postmortem on failure. Um, basically trying to understand where we, uh, oh yeah it was "A postmortem for survival."</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That's the whole point is we need to do a postmortem on what, where, what we've gotten really wrong and where science has failed on climate change [00:08:00] in terms of our lack of understanding of the political processes that drive it forward, that worsen it and our refusal to engage directly with those processes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And so I think we as scientists, we have a role in understanding the reality of the problem, and we have a role in, if we understand that reality, we also have to act with integrity. And act based on our understanding. So if we, if I believe, uh, because my research shows it and I've tried to understand the world as best I could, that certain things are driving our society.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Certain trends, certain actors are driving our society off a cliff. I have a role, the integrity of standing up and trying to stop that as much as I can. And so I think that there's, um, this idea that scientists shouldn't be activists is actually something that also prevents us from speaking, acting with integrity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Because honestly, if we learn the kinds of things that we're learning, how could we not act on them and still have integrity? That's something I just don't understand. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">[00:09:00] </span><span style="color: #d30086; font-kerning: none;"><b>Anthony Day: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Yeah. The changes that you reveal in your paper are so fundamental that it's going to be a tremendous battle to actually implement them. For example, I wouldn't say that the ultra rich are greedy, but they are certainly driven and they have a strong sense of ownership. And society supports that, um, that they get that they believe that they know best and that's demonstrated by their success.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And that that's all part of societal norms at the moment. But of course they are in the position where they have the power to frustrate change. They have undue influence over governments. So it is going to be a tremendous battle to actually get the fundamental change which is needed, particularly, it says in your paper that some people [00:10:00] have, uh, estimated that the needed reduction of resource and energy use in affluent countries will be equivalent to a GDP decrease of 40 to 90%.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Now that's an unimaginable level. So how are we actually going to achieve all this? </span></div>
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<span style="color: #f6752e; font-kerning: none;"><b>Julia Steinberger: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">So I think that you're raising two separate issues and to come to the, to come back to them, the first one, which is sort of what the importance of revealing both the urgency and I think the urgency is absolutely clear. I mean, we now have the IPCC with the IEA, which is, um, quite an interesting organization in its own right. It's not necessarily always politically neutral. Uh, I'll just put it that way. And the IPCC, which is very much, um, a collection of scientists, um, both lined up saying, you know, saying basically saying, getting to net zero, getting to zero emissions as fast as it's possible is a matter of survival. So the [00:11:00] urgency could not be clearer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We're going in a very, very dangerous direction. Indeed. And we are undermining the, the, the basis of civilized life, the possibility of civilized life. And we're, we're facing that down in an extraordinarily short amount of time. So within decades, so either we act now and we protect something. Or within decades, we face, um, really unimaginably, disastrous upheaval, loss of life and loss of living conditions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So, uh, in ways that can't even be quantified or conceptualized, because we're talking about such deep destruction destruction of, of basic ability. Um, you know, to sustain agriculture, to have functioning cities and infrastructure where we're really talking about very disastrous future, which in some cases has already played out in sort of pockets of the world, you know, like Puerto Rico or New Orleans or places [like] Mozambique that have been hit by for instance, mass weather events.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But we're talking about this much more generalized across the world. [00:12:00] Um, so. That's one area where research is quite established. I would say that another area where, and is necessary to keep up, you know, make that understanding, present to people is I don't think that research has communicated enough. I don't think that either in the media or general communications, that people are education, that people have this awareness of what the science is really telling us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I mean, my son had a sustainability course in his primary school. It was very sweet. And they said, you can save the world by doing small things. And it's like, no, these are the children that are growing up in this age, you cannot teach them that anymore. That's just not compatible with reality in terms of the frame that you're, you're, you're asking them to adopt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Um, I would say that research is also useful in terms of telling us what we're up against in terms of the political and power structures and that, uh, so I think that that hopefully our research still is important in helping people gain a sense of not just the natural disasters and their impact on our societies, but the [00:13:00] social upheaval in terms of what we're up against and what we've worked, trying to change.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And that gets to your second point of your question, which is. We're talking about an unimaginable decrease in GDP. If this is what we need do, what does that mean? So I think that, um, there, there are a couple of things here to understand. My research specifically is on, is on something I've called other resource requirements of wellbeing, which is how much stuff and stuff is physical stuff, energy materials, et cetera do we need to live well, do we need to have decent living standards? And, um, there are not many of us working in this area. It's a hard research area to get funding for because it crosses disciplines. But, um, for instance, uh, Prof Narasimha Rao of Yale university is a pioneer in this area and he's done very important work on sort of what are the requirements of decent living.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">And we can do, he's done estimates for instance, for Brazil or India. Or for South Africa what this means we've now extended this for the world. Uh, so, [00:14:00] uh, working with him and, uh, we're going to, we publish this soon. And so we have estimates of what it would take to live, live, live a decent standard of life, and we're not talking poverty level.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We're really talking, having access to healthcare, to education, space to live efficient appliances, access to travel, um, a good material standard of living. At existing technologies, we're using efficient technology levels in terms of thermal installation of buildings or whatever. So we're, um, we're able to do this at a fraction.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">So for the whole world at a fraction of the total level of energies we have now. So that's one of the things in terms of the material reality of what it means to, to make our standards of living compatible with environmental requirements. That might be possible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">[00:15:00] But that's one thing. What does that mean for our economy? One of the things it means is that we need to protect our wellbeing from economic growth. So one of the things we talk about in the post growth or a-growth or degrowth communities is we talk about growth-proofing our economies. So we need to decouple our ability to provide good conditions of life for each other and the necessity of growth. And when you were talking about the group, the wealthy might not be greedy, but they're driven. I think that that's a key distinction because what they're driven by is a systemic economic structure. And we're going to just call it by its name because that's a convenient shorthand, which is capitalism.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">And within capitalism, people are not free agents. You don't wake up in the morning and choose, Oh, am I going to exploit and extract stuff from the environment so that I can help the wealthy accumulate wealth or not? You're caught in that system and you have to participate and competition [00:16:00] and, um, and profit maximization in various types of economic behavior that cause you to have the kind of growth, wealth, wealth, accumulation, environmental disasters that we're seeing. So one of the things we have to do is we have to see our mission as cutting through these structures and destroying them. So we have to see ourselves as building a new kind of economy that allows us to provide a decent living standards for everybody at the sufficient level without over-consumption or deprivation. And that's the mission, uh, it's entirely feasible, but it does require a dismantling, very dominant structures of the economy right now. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #d30086; font-kerning: none;"><b>Anthony Day: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">And it does require leadership. Doesn't it? Do you see bodies like extinction rebellion as, as leading on that front?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Because without leaders then nothing will actually change, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Julia Steinberger: </b></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;">will </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Anthony Day: </b></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;">it?. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #f6752e; font-kerning: none;"><b>Julia Steinberger: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Yeah. So I think that extinction rebellion and the student's strikes are extremely important. Um, I also see, uh, um, [00:17:00] something that maybe we're not paying enough attention to and, uh, in the Europe or in the United Kingdom, which is the Sunrise Movement in the U S because one of the things that I've been,... so extinction rebellion is, is wonderful in general and I can very much consider myself part of that and a supporter of it. But one of the things I don't think is so good is that they have not centered climate justice and environmental justice and economic justice, as much as they should have from the beginning. They tried to sort of have an apolitical stance of the climate comes first.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">And I think that one of the things that the sunrise movement did is they immediately sent an ad advocacy, a youth-led, mass movement advocating for the end of fossil fuels in the U S A, demanding that politicians stop receiving money from fossil fuels and demanding a green new deal. And they are extremely well organized um, very, very inspiring, led by people who are still in their mid twenties. Uh, and they really achieved a huge amount just in a couple of years. [00:18:00] So they're the sunrise movement, I think is sort of an example, along with the student strikes as well of being willing to make climate advocacy much more justice oriented.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And I think that that, uh, is the li the kind of leadership we need. And you have political leaders that are now aligning themselves with this vision as well. So in the U S maybe the most prominent one is Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Um, and so she has been quite influential in driving this debate forward, but she's certainly not alone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And there's a whole generation of new democratic socialists who are getting elected, um, and, and waging very good campaigns that are, that are bringing this agenda forward in the U S, but it's very much aligning environmental justice, economic justice, climate justice, and bringing them together, um, demanding a green new deal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And I think that's, that's basically what we, what we all need to be doing. I would say, in the UK as well, we have very good politicians and leaders on this, sadly, they're not in positions of great prominence, certainly not in the government. That [00:19:00] means they're completely absent from the Tory party. Um, uh, Clive Lewis is an example, Alex Sobel in the Labour party, um, Rebecca Long Bailey sadly, and, uh, Caroline Lucas is obviously a tremendous force for this.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">So Caroline Lucas is probably worth 20 other politicians in terms of her advocacy and moving this forward. And in the European union, there are others as well. So we're advancing a green new deal, but then really trying to make sure that it doesn't get watered down and too cozy with industry as it is now. So the European green new deal is currently at great risk of getting watered down, um, and, and not having any teeth to it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And hopefully there's going to be enough political mobilization to stop that. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #d30086; font-kerning: none;"><b>Anthony Day: </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Julia,</span><span style="color: #d30086; font-kerning: none;"><b> </b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Thank you very much for all those thoughts. I think you've given us a tremendous amount to think about, and you've put a great, a much wider perspective on the thoughts that we started with. So I really appreciate that and thank you on behalf of the listeners to the Sustainable Futures Report. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #f6752e;"><b>Julia Steinberger: </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Well, thank you so much and I hope it all made some kind of sense. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Many thanks to Professor Julia Steinberger.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Working with Narasimha Rao of Yale and others, Julia is co-author of a paper “Providing Decent Living with Minimum Energy: A Global Scenario” to be published shortly in Global Environmental Change. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Our interview reminded me of Professor E F Schumacher who wrote <i>Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered</i> back in the 1970s. One of the things he said was that you never miss what you've never had, but of course the other side of that is that most people will fight tooth and nail to hold on to what they've already got.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I also thought I should learn more of the work of economist Thomas Piketty, so I went out and bought his latest book, <i>Capital and Ideology.</i> I've read <i>War and Peace</i>, so I should have no problem at all with his 1100 pages. I’ll keep you posted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And in Other News…</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>CCC</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Ministers must seize the opportunity to turn the COVID-19 crisis into a defining moment in the fight against climate change,” the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) said in a report published last week.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-shadow: 0.0px -0.0px 1.0px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>CCC Chairman, Lord Deben, said:</b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> “The UK is facing its biggest economic shock for a generation. Meanwhile, the global crisis of climate change is accelerating. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address these urgent challenges together; it’s there for the taking. The steps that the UK takes to rebuild from the COVID-19 pandemic can accelerate the transition to a successful and low-carbon economy and improve our climate resilience. Choices that lock in emissions or climate risks are unacceptable.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-shadow: 0.0px -0.0px 1.0px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>Chair of the CCC’s Adaptation Committee, Baroness Brown of Cambridge, said:</b></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> “COVID-19 has shown that planning for systemic risks is unavoidable. We have warned repeatedly that the UK is poorly prepared for the very serious impacts of climate change, including flooding, overheating and water shortages. Now is the moment to get our house in order, coordinate national planning, and prepare for the inevitable changes ahead. The UK’s domestic ambition can be the basis for strong international climate leadership, but the delivery of effective new policies must accelerate dramatically if we’re to seize this chance.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Specific recommendations included low carbon retrofits and buildings fit for the future, tree planting, green infrastructure, strengthened energy networks, infrastructure to make it easy for people to walk, cycle, and work remotely, and a movement towards implementing a circular economy. All this would require re-skilling and retraining as well as building on the positive behaviours developed during lockdown, and expanded and targeted science and innovation investment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>The authors give a serious warning:</b> “Over the past year, the UK Government has made a range of important new announcements on transport, buildings, industry, energy supply, agriculture and land-use. These steps do not yet sum to meet the size of the net-zero challenge. Nor do steps taken in recent years deliver adequate progress in addressing even the unavoidable impacts of climate change, let alone the risks of expected levels of global warming of around 3°C above pre-industrial levels.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As I asked last week, is anyone listening? Not much sign of it in the PM’s economic statement reported below.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>£14bn</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Meanwhile think-tank The Green Alliance claimed that an extra £14bn would be needed each year to help the UK meet its climate commitments.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Business Leads</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At the Council for Sustainable Business leaders’ event this week Alok Shama, Business Secretary, who will be president of next year’s COP26 UN Climate Conference, said, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Ahead of the summit, we have defined five areas which need particular attention: clean energy, clean transport, nature-based solutions, adaptation and resilience, and, tying the whole thing together, finance.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He called on companies to commit to 100 per cent renewable sources by 2050, he confirmed that the government was consulting on bringing forward the end of the sale of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars and vans from 2040 to 2035, or earlier if possible and he urged organisations to sign up to the UN Race to Zero Campaign, a coalition of leading net zero initiatives, representing 449 cities, 21 regions, 995 businesses, 38 of the biggest investors, and 505 universities. So far, so green.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PM Announces</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The following day Prime Minister Johnson issued his plan for the recovery headlined BUILD BUILD BUILD. In a wide ranging speech which sounded rather like a campaign message, he promised to crack down on crime and recruit 20,000 police officers, to protect the statue of Winston Churchill and claimed that “..we lead the world in quantum computing, in life sciences, in genomics, in AI, space satellites, net zero planes, and in the long term solutions to global warming, wind, solar, hydrogen technology, carbon capture and storage [and] nuclear…”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">No comment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He promised that there would be no more austerity. There would be investment in education, schools, colleges and hospitals, new green buses and new broadband. There would be new flood defences and 30,000 hectares of trees planted every year. He re-affirmed commitment to HS2 and NPR (Northern Powerhouse Rail) and better roads, better rail, 4,000 brand new zero carbon buses and a massive new plan for cycleways. There would be beautiful and low carbon homes, radical reforms of planning laws and Project Speed would cut through red tape. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The speech ended with the hype and hyperbole that we have come to expect, as he called for the UK to develop Jet Zero, the world’s first zero-emissions long-haul aircraft.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Unsurprisingly the Opposition were unconvinced.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Labour leader Keir Starmer warned that the announcement was insufficient and said that the plan must match the scale of the crisis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“The Prime Minister promised a ‘new deal’ – well, there’s not much that’s new and there’s not much of a deal. We’re facing an economic crisis, the biggest we’ve seen in a generation and the recovery needs to match that.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said that Johnson had simply “rehashed old promises”, pointing out that the spending commitments amount to just 0.2% of GDP.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">F D Roosevelt’s New Deal which revitalised the US economy in the 1930s - and New Deal was a phrase the PM repeated several times - invested not 0.2% of his nation’s wealth but 40%. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s true that much of what was announced this week was already in the government’s manifesto long before the coronavirus was heard of. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Was it green? </b>He mentioned flood defences, planting trees and low-carbon homes, but he also mentioned pressing on with HS2 and building more roads. If planning laws are to be radically reformed, will new homes and domestic extensions and shops converted to housing be subject to world-beating insulation standards? And disparaging newt-counting as an obstacle to development does not suggest much concern for wildlife and the environment. Nothing about insulating the existing housing stock or about converting the transport fleet to electricity or expanding renewable energy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Next week the Chancellor will announce exactly how much money will be available and how it’s going to be spent.</b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Virtual Lobby</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Also on Tuesday this week the Climate Coalition organised the first virtual lobby of Westminster MPs. Citizens requested their parliamentary representatives to meet them on line to discuss the economic recovery from COVID, in the framework of the Climate Coalition’s Plan for a Green, Fair and Healthy Recovery. About 13,000 people actually met in 300 meetings. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I joined a group of 25 people talking to my local MP. The meeting lasted for 90 minutes and covered a wide range of topics from a very well informed group. We spoke about many things, including linking business support to low-carbon obligations, the need to re-assess future transport requirements, forestry and flood prevention, quality of life, Doughnut economics, the risk to zero-carbon housing regulations from new legislation, the polluter pays principle, the Local Electricity Bill, training for insulation installers and favourable tax rates for improving insulation, the Green New Deal, climate consequences for developing nations, inequalities, debt cancellation, government support for electricity from biomass and its opposition to large scale heat pumps, and the future of growth. We hope such meetings will continue, because any one of these topics could be a session in itself. Our Member of Parliament, <b>Rachael Maskell,</b> was very supportive of the ideas put forward, although as an opposition MP she can do little more than hold the government to account with repeated Parliamentary questions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And finally…</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Greta Thunberg</b> complains that whenever she goes to international events political leaders will try and cosy up to her for a selfie. They want to put the pictures on their Instagram accounts to bolster their green credentials. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Greta is not happy with it at all, but I'm afraid that must be the price of fame - as well as a demonstration of the cynicism of the political class.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And that's it…</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">… for another week. This is one of the longer episodes so thank you very much for staying to the end. All that remains is for me to thank you for listening, to thank you for the feedback and ideas which I have received and to promise that I am going to come back to you individually. I’m working on it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So that was the Sustainable Futures Report.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I'm Anthony Day and there will be another episode, as always, well nearly always, next week. I'm not going out to enjoy the sunshine now as it's all gone. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Enjoy your weekend and particularly in the UK,<b> stay safe on Saturday.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Sources</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theccc.org.uk/2020/06/25/covid-19-can-be-an-historic-turning-point-in-tackling-the-global-climate-crisis/">https://www.theccc.org.uk/2020/06/25/covid-19-can-be-an-historic-turning-point-in-tackling-the-global-climate-crisis/</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53214997"><b>Extra £14bn needed a year for climate, report says</b><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://greenworld.org.uk/article/ccc-calls-recovery-focus-climate"><b>https://greenworld.org.uk/article/ccc-calls-recovery-focus-climate</b></a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/25/act-fast-to-stop-uk-carbon-emission-rebound-climate-advisers-urge">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/25/act-fast-to-stop-uk-carbon-emission-rebound-climate-advisers-urge<span style="color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53169600"><b>Increase car taxes to help climate, report says</b><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span></a></span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.edie.net/news/7/-Once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity---Business-giants-vow-to-build-back-better-post-Covid-19/"><b>https://www.edie.net/news/7/-Once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity---Business-giants-vow-to-build-back-better-post-Covid-19/</b><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span></a></span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/cop26-president-alok-sharma-at-cop26-business-leaders-event"><b>https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/cop26-president-alok-sharma-at-cop26-business-leaders-event</b></a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-economy-speech-30-june-2020"><b>https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-economy-speech-30-june-2020</b></a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://labourlist.org/2020/06/rehashed-old-promises-labour-and-tuc-react-to-johnsons-economic-plan/"><b>https://labourlist.org/2020/06/rehashed-old-promises-labour-and-tuc-react-to-johnsons-economic-plan/</b></a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/27/greta-thunberg-hits-out-at-leaders-who-use-her-fame-to-look-good"><b>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/27/greta-thunberg-hits-out-at-leaders-who-use-her-fame-to-look-good</b></a> </span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-21006687008577866032020-06-26T07:54:00.004+01:002020-06-26T07:59:13.973+01:00Outlook Sunny!<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> </i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMrPW5-iWngcXaVSNQ7vk2IGGeDIqC4zuRX3vtWaHB4wtRqJiCbHKnjxeMbQvyJ6wiTp35CDTnF6OuP5Evhncc1JkpIzrErW_QD82dr83njsGP-uI64NSOaP4m37BoGieF1MU/s1920/sunset-2180346_1920.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="742" data-original-width="1920" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMrPW5-iWngcXaVSNQ7vk2IGGeDIqC4zuRX3vtWaHB4wtRqJiCbHKnjxeMbQvyJ6wiTp35CDTnF6OuP5Evhncc1JkpIzrErW_QD82dr83njsGP-uI64NSOaP4m37BoGieF1MU/w500-h194/sunset-2180346_1920.jpg" width="500" /></a></div>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Outlook Sunny!</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Yes it's Friday again! It's Friday the 27th June, this is the Sustainable Futures Report, and I’m Anthony Day. Welcome, thank you for listening, and thank you for boosting listener numbers to record levels this month.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Dark Shadows</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Whatever we do, whatever we suffer - pandemics, racism, urban terrorism - the climate is still in crisis and our environment continually abused. I don’t intend in any way to minimise people’s suffering from the COVID pandemic, from rights for centuries denied or from the random murders which took place in a Reading park last weekend. These all need our urgent attention but add to our ongoing challenges. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>This Week</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Remembering last week’s warning from the IEA that we have but 6 months to head off the worst of the climate crisis, there’s worrying news of unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic and there’s serious river pollution in the UK. Whatever the need for urgent action we need continuous research and innovation, steadily building an infrastructure for a low-carbon future. I bring you news of solar farms and energy storage, stories of the future of fossil fuels, news of ways of processing waste. And the advice and ideas for establishing a green recovery still keep pouring in, though not to universal approval. The Republicans have discovered that Joe Biden is taking advice from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Green New Deal guru, and they don’t like it.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Remember, links to the sources of all the stories can be found on this blog.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We’ll start with a weather report.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Climate and Environment </b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Arctic Heatwave</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Last weekend a weather station in Verkhoyansk logged a temperature of 38℃. That was the highest temperature for the region since 1915, 38℃, but Verkhoyansk is in Siberia, north of the Arctic Circle. The whole of Siberia has experienced warmer weather this year, as much as 18°C above average maximum temperatures for June.. Scientists have been expecting increasing temperatures as a consequence of global heating, but increases of this magnitude were not expected before 2100. These warmer temperatures have brought wildfires to boreal forests and peatlands. These fires have continued to burn throughout the winter, but seem to be largely ignored like the massive oil spill up there that I told you about recently. As the trees and the peat burn they release CO2 and are no longer available as carbon sinks. More CO2 in the atmosphere brings warming and melts the Arctic ice. As increasingly more ice melts, less sunlight is reflected and more is absorbed by the darker ocean surface. This creates a vicious cycle whereby the temperature increases, resulting in further sea ice loss, and so on. Is this the tipping point that we have been warned of? The self-reinforcing cycle that we will be unable to stop? It puts into perspective last week’s warning from the International Energy Agency, that we have only six months to get things under control. Will governments take note and take action? Distinguished Economist Sir Nicholas Stern urged governments to act, predicting that the climate crisis could be solved at a cost of around 1% of global GDP, but significantly more for every year’s delay. But that was back in 2006.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Closer to Home</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Quite apart from saving the global climate, we don't seem too good at protecting our local environment. This story comes not from some distant failed state, but from the United Kingdom where the River Wye has been described as a deathtrap for wildlife and looking like pea soup. The river rises in central Wales and descends via Hereford until it joins the Severn estuary. It is bordered by dozens of free range chicken farms. The excrement from the chickens is washed by the rain into water courses until it finds its way into the river. This run-off is rich in phosphates which cause algal blooms which in turn suffocate the fish and damage native plants. This destroys the habitats of kingfishers and other birds and mammals which are live along the river. Apparently all this is legal, but maybe when we are released from European directives new British regulations will clean this up. We'll have to wait and see.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Green Recovery</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">More news, opinions and advice on how we sort out the climate crisis as we exit from lockdown. The UK government promises to reveal its plans next month. It has apparently already set up working parties, according to Lexology, an international legal news website. The groups will focus on five key themes, including “Green recovery: how to capture economic growth opportunities from the shift to net zero carbon emissions”.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Each working group will contain approximately 20-25 participants, consisting of businesses, business representative groups, and prominent academics. Business Secretary, Alok Sharma chairs the “recovery roundtable” meetings, which began on 8 June 2020. Sharma has said, “These roundtables […] will undoubtedly lead to a cleaner, greener, more resilient economy which will create new jobs.”</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Who’s Responsible?</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Writing in <a href="http://vice.com"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">vice.com</span></a>, Tristan Kennedy says, “Reversing the Climate Crisis Isn't On You. We Need to Change the Entire System.” He makes the point that 71 percent of all global carbon emissions come from just 100 companies. </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">While we as individuals can cut our carbon footprint by driving less, avoiding single use plastic, changing our diets and simply buying less, this will have a negligible effect in the face of pollution from these enormous companies. It is only regulation by government that can make the change. Governments have been fully aware ever since the Rio Earth Summit back in 1992 that we are facing a crisis. But rather than legislate, they prefer to shift the burden of responsibility onto companies (which all too often can't see past their immediate bottom line), and onto us as individuals. The danger is that we will believe that we are responsible and that what we are doing is making a difference. Meanwhile these mega-polluters continue with business largely as usual.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>CCC</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The committee on climate change has written to the British government about the future of carbon pricing. After leaving the EU the country will no longer be part of the EU ETS carbon trading scheme and will therefore have to set up its own mechanism. The committee warns that the proposals currently put forward by the government will not allow it to achieve its net zero target by 2050.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Consumer Guilt</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Consumer guilt is reinforced by The Environment Journal Online with the headline, “ Overconsumption must be addressed to solve climate crisis”. Like The <a href="http://swaddle.com"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">swaddle.com</span></a> they are quoting a new report in the journal <b>nature communications</b>. The authors say,</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">“For over half a century, worldwide growth in affluence has continuously increased resource use and pollutant emissions far more rapidly than these have been reduced through better technology. The affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most environmental impacts and are central to any future prospect of retreating to safer environmental conditions. … Any transition towards sustainability can only be effective if far-reaching lifestyle changes complement technological advancements. However, existing societies, economies and cultures incite consumption expansion and the structural imperative for growth in competitive market economies inhibits necessary societal change.”</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">“[Having identified] affluence as a driver [of overconsumption], the strongest pillar of the necessary transformation is to avoid or to reduce consumption until the remaining consumption level falls within planetary boundaries, while fulfilling human needs. Avoiding consumption means not consuming certain goods and services, from living space (overly large homes, secondary residences of the wealthy) to oversized vehicles, environmentally damaging and wasteful food, leisure patterns and work patterns involving driving and flying. This implies reducing expenditure and wealth along ‘sustainable consumption corridors’, i.e. minimum and maximum consumption standards. On the technological side, reducing the need for consumption can be facilitated by changes such as increasing lifespans of goods, telecommunication instead of physical travel, sharing and repairing instead of buying new, and house retrofitting”.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Cutting GDP</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">They do admit that achieving reductions in consumption will reduce GDP, with varying consequences from country to country. They explain how the current capitalist system is founded on consumer expectations and ambitions, leading them to consume to keep up with their peer groups, thus driving growth.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Solutions</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The authors present alternative solutions. Some writers propose policy changes, including, among others, stringent eco-taxes or cap-and trade systems, directed investments in green industries and public institutions, wealth redistribution through taxation and a maximum income, a guaranteed basic income and/or reduced working hours. They believe this would work within a capitalist framework. </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">More radical solutions are proposed by reformists, eco-socialists and eco-anarchists. They require policy changes as described above but focus on a specific de-growth strategy, with a major role for the state. (Not for the anarchists.)</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It's an interesting article and well worth a read. It's freely available and there is a link on the blog. The question is whether this will actually stop over-consumption and whether it will be incorporated in government policy or even the policies of the UK’s Labour opposition. One of the authors, Julia Steinberger, has agreed to an interview. I’ll bring it to you next week.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Energy News</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Oil </b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">There’s always news on the energy front. The Shift Project, a French think tank, warns that the EU is likely to see an oil shortage by 2030. The volume produced by EU oil providers is expected to fall by 8% between 2019 and 2030. The production from Russia, from the former USSR countries and from Africa, which together supply 50% of the world’s oil, is also in decline. Even though there will still be millions of barrels of oil in the Earth, Peak Oil is now predicted for 2030, and supply will never reach that level again. As a result, countries which are slow to implement low carbon policies, notably the introduction of electric vehicles, are likely to be subject to wild price fluctuations.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Fossil Finance</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Apparently fossil fuels are not all over for everyone and The Ecologist magazine complains that the British government has spent nearly £4 billion pounds of UK public funding on fossil fuel infrastructure in the global south in the years since the Paris Agreement was signed. The government has revealed that 90% of the energy deals struck at the UK-Africa Investment Summit in January were in fossil fuels. Projects included fracking in Argentina and China, oil refineries in Bahrain, and <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2020-03-23/33616/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #a60068; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">power plants</span></a> that run on <a href="https://www.hfofreearctic.org/en/front-page/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #a60068; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">heavy fuel oil (HFO)</span></a> and diesel in Cameroon, Kenya, Ghana, Guinea and Mali. </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Don’t they know that global heating doesn’t respect national boundaries?</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Says The Ecologist, “These investments are made in the interests of private profit rather than the public interest, enforcing fossil fuel dependency on global south economies and frustrating attempts to tackle fuel poverty via a just transition to renewable energy.”</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Fracking</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Support for fracking in Argentina? It’s ironic that Energy Minister Kwasi Kwarteng let slip this week that fracking in the UK is effectively dead. Dead, after millions of pounds spent on policing the exploration sites to exclude protesters. Dead, after promises of millions of pounds to communities which would welcome fracking into their areas.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Renewables</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Looking at renewable energy, I spoke last week about a major new solar farm in Kent in south east England. More information on the project comes from Private Eye magazine. Their correspondent reveals that the developers of the site applied for a unit with over 50 MW capacity and it now appears that the final size will be 350MW. In addition, the development consent order gives them authority to deposit at sea … plastic, synthetics [and] marine coatings among other waste materials. How can this be permitted in the 21st-century? </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Storage</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The other aspect of the development is energy storage. The developers have also received permission to install more than 50 MW of electricity storage. Should this turn out to be a 350MW unit it will be the biggest in the world. If this means a conventional battery the outlook is not good. Quite apart from whether it is appropriate to locate the storage alongside the generation, storage batteries in other parts of the world have suffered terrible fires, releasing what Private Eye describes as “ultra-toxic hydrogen fluoride.”</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>No Hot Air</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">But maybe they don't intend to use conventional batteries at all. I've recently come across High View Power and you’ll find a link to their website on the blog. High View Power uses air to store energy from surplus and off-peak electricity. It uses the electricity to run a refrigeration plant which reduces the temperature of the air to the point that it liquefies and stores it in that state. When power is needed liquid air is returned to ambient temperature and as it gasifies it releases energy to drive a conventional turbine which drives a conventional generator. Sounds simple, and of course there are no harmful or environmentally damaging emissions of any kind on the site. No risk of fire or explosion either. No need for rare earth metals or other chemicals as part of the storage process. I'm not sure whether there is an installed base of these units, but the company has projects under construction across the world. Is liquid air the future?</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Cooling the Charge - and a dead end!</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Still on energy and batteries, I came across a report from the Faraday Institution for Science and Religion about research into methods of cooling the core of electric car batteries under charge. The holy grail of the electric car is a battery which can be charged very rapidly, but apparently the main problem is getting rid of excess heat during the rapid charging process, which otherwise will damage the battery. My first reaction to this story was that while electric vehicles make far more efficient use of energy than petrol and diesel vehicles do, how much energy is going to be wasted if electric cars have to discard excess heat as they recharge? I attempted to follow it up with the Faraday Institution. This organisation is a charity based in Cambridge which coordinates and supports battery research. The story was indeed to be found on their website. I clicked on the link only to be taken to The Times newspaper which was carrying the story behind a pay wall. I attempted to complain to the Faraday Institute about this, but there is no contact point of any kind on their website, so I can't bring you the truth of the story.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Driving on</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And a final note on batteries. You can now get a kit to convert your VW Beetle to electric power.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Don’t Waste It!</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Looking at other sources of energy, although some will hotly dispute whether this is renewable energy, the East Rockingham Waste to Energy plant at Perth, Western Australia, will process 300,000 tonnes of the city’s waste, leaving just 4% to be diverted to landfill. Waste goes in at one end, electricity comes out at the other. Along the way particulates are scrubbed out of the flue gases and can be used for road construction or similar.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">By coincidence, this week I took a virtual tour of the Allerton Waste Recovery Plant in North Yorkshire. This has a lot of similarities with the plant in Perth, except that it has a vast waste treatment system on the front, long before anything gets into the furnace. Waste that comes into the plant has already had glass, paper, plastic bottles and metal containers removed by citizens who separate it for the kerbside recycling collection. Even so, some of these materials are still put in the landfill waste which is sent the plant. This waste is mechanically sorted and separated into cardboard, plastics, ferrous metals, aluminium, glass and rubble. All of this is sent for recycling. Organic materials go into an anaerobic digester and the digestive gas drives a generator which feeds electricity into the National Grid. Everything else goes into a furnace just like the one in Perth, raises steam and drives a turbine and generator also supplying the grid. The residue which is sent to landfill is 3% of the input. </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Incinerators have a bad name and are not popular with environmentalists, but the Allerton plant is much more than an incinerator. Emissions from the stack, by the way, are constantly monitored on site and minute by minute data is sent to the Environment Agency to ensure that the plant is operating cleanly at all times. </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Across the Pond</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The Americans are preoccupied, as they will be for the next four or five months, with the coming presidential election. Forbes magazine says, “Biden’s Mask Of Moderation Has Finally Slipped”. What's all that about? Well it seems that the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is associated with left wing extremists. People like Bernie Sanders who wants to reform healthcare and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, outspoken supporter of the Green New Deal. According to an analysis by the Heritage Foundation, <a href="https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/the-green-new-deal-would-cost-trillions-and-make-not-dimes-worth-difference"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #02267e; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">even the most stripped down version of this plan</span></a> could increase household electricity expenses by 14%, eliminate more than 1.4 million jobs and yield an aggregate GDP loss of $3.9 trillion by 2040. To meet the proposal's goal of 100% renewable power would cost <a href="https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/the-green-new-deal-would-cost-trillions-and-make-not-dimes-worth-difference"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #02267e; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">more than $5 trillion</span></a>.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The Heritage Foundation is a rightwing conservative think thank associated with the policies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. It is closely aligned with the Trump administration. In advertising a webinar entitled “Freedom or Equality: The Key to Prosperity Through Social Capitalism” it explains that “Socialism, unnecessary interventionism, and other choices promise equal outcomes but inevitably fail.”</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Others may disagree with its analysis of the Green New Deal.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 36px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And Finally…</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This week Zeroavia made a 20-minute test flight in an electric-powered Piper M-350 aircraft. Energy came not from batteries but from a hydrogen fuel cell. Interesting development. The question must be, which has the higher energy density, batteries or hydrogen? Let’s see how this develops.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And that's it…</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">…for another week. I’m Anthony Day and that was the Sustainable Futures Report. I'm off to enjoy this amazing sunshine - which is probably damaging the planet - and to think about what I'm going to bring you next week. I've already decided that I'm going to take August off but there are at least five more episodes between now and then.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Thank you for listening, thank you for getting in touch with ideas and suggestions. I haven’t forgotten, Stephan Gill. I am going to get back to you with a detailed response. </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And if the rest of you like the Sustainable Futures Report please spread the word and I hope together we can help to change the world in some small way. Mind you, we need a really big change so don't give up. </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m Anthony Day.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Have a great week.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Bye for now.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Sources</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Climate and Environment</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/arctic-temperature-record-climate-change-38-siberia-a9578846.html">https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/arctic-temperature-record-climate-change-38-siberia-a9578846.html</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.iflscience.com/environment/it-was-38-degrees-celsius-in-the-arctic-circle-this-weekend/">https://www.iflscience.com/environment/it-was-38-degrees-celsius-in-the-arctic-circle-this-weekend/</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53140069">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53140069</a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/21/britain-still-failing-on-climate-crisis-warn-advisers">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/21/britain-still-failing-on-climate-crisis-warn-advisers</a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/daily-brief/greta-thunberg-climate-change-as-urgent-as-coronavirus">https://www.carbonbrief.org/daily-brief/greta-thunberg-climate-change-as-urgent-as-coronavirus</a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">‘It's like pea soup’: poultry farms turn Wye into wildlife death trap</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/20/its-like-pea-soup-poultry-farms-turn-wye-into-wildlife-death-trap">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/20/its-like-pea-soup-poultry-farms-turn-wye-into-wildlife-death-trap<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Sorting the Climate Crisis</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Climate Change Committee</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theccc.org.uk">https://www.theccc.org.uk</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3050fa5b-3c8e-4909-8dfb-bad0e827c951">https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3050fa5b-3c8e-4909-8dfb-bad0e827c951<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/935aqa/what-will-actually-solve-the-climate-crisis">https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/935aqa/what-will-actually-solve-the-climate-crisis<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">71% of all emissions come from 100 companies. Governments must act - not individuals.</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://environmentjournal.online/articles/overconsumption-must-be-addressed-to-solve-climate-crisis/">https://environmentjournal.online/articles/overconsumption-must-be-addressed-to-solve-climate-crisis/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://theswaddle.com/the-pursuit-of-wealth-overconsumption-are-key-drivers-in-climate-crisis-scientists-warn/">https://theswaddle.com/the-pursuit-of-wealth-overconsumption-are-key-drivers-in-climate-crisis-scientists-warn/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.nesta.org.uk/project-updates/civic-ai-climate-crisis/">https://www.nesta.org.uk/project-updates/civic-ai-climate-crisis/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.edie.net/news/9/NHS--not-prepared--for-net-zero-transition-or-climate-change-health-impacts--MPs-warn/?adfesuccess=1">https://www.edie.net/news/9/NHS--not-prepared--for-net-zero-transition-or-climate-change-health-impacts--MPs-warn/?adfesuccess=1</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/why-covid-19-will-force-us-to-rethink-many-assumptions-about-the-green-new-deal/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/why-covid-19-will-force-us-to-rethink-many-assumptions-about-the-green-new-deal/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2020-06-23/uk-citizens-climate-assembly-backs-green-pandemic-recovery-and-lifestyle-shift/">https://www.itv.com/news/2020-06-23/uk-citizens-climate-assembly-backs-green-pandemic-recovery-and-lifestyle-shift/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.politicshome.com/members/article/the-energy-sector-can-power-a-sustainable-green-recovery-heres-how">https://www.politicshome.com/members/article/the-energy-sector-can-power-a-sustainable-green-recovery-heres-how<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/future-of-mobility/opinion/bikes-and-trains-the-tandem-to-tackle-the-climate-crisis/">https://www.euractiv.com/section/future-of-mobility/opinion/bikes-and-trains-the-tandem-to-tackle-the-climate-crisis/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Energy and Storage</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Fossil</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Europe could face oil shortage in a decade, study warns</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/23/europe-could-face-oil-shortage-in-a-decade-study-warns">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/23/europe-could-face-oil-shortage-in-a-decade-study-warns<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://theshiftproject.org/en/home/">https://theshiftproject.org/en/home/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">UK funding fossil fuels</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://theecologist.org/2020/jun/17/uk-funding-fossil-fuels-overseas">https://theecologist.org/2020/jun/17/uk-funding-fossil-fuels-overseas</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Fracking over</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/fracking-ban-uk-kwasi-kwarteng-climate-change-methane-shale-gas-a9575906.html">https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/fracking-ban-uk-kwasi-kwarteng-climate-change-methane-shale-gas-a9575906.html<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Storage</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Faraday Institute</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://highviewpower.com/">https://highviewpower.com/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">See Private Eye re Kent solar farm and storage</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Electric Beetle</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-7434959/VW-launched-electric-conversion-kit-classic-Beetle.html">https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-7434959/VW-launched-electric-conversion-kit-classic-Beetle.html<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Waste to Energy</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://erwte.com.au">https://erwte.com.au<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Allerton</span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://wasteservices.amey.co.uk/media/6467/allerton-waste-recovery-park_process-illustration_oct-2017.png">https://wasteservices.amey.co.uk/media/6467/allerton-waste-recovery-park_process-illustration_oct-2017.png</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://youtu.be/qWl0OFbYz9s">https://youtu.be/qWl0OFbYz9s<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://wasteservices.amey.co.uk/where-we-work/north-yorkshire/">https://wasteservices.amey.co.uk/where-we-work/north-yorkshire/</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.itv.com/news/central/2020-06-16/waste-plants-operating-at-post-christmas-levels-as-recycling-rates-rocket-during-coronavirus-lockdown-veolia-suez/">https://www.itv.com/news/central/2020-06-16/waste-plants-operating-at-post-christmas-levels-as-recycling-rates-rocket-during-coronavirus-lockdown-veolia-suez/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Across the Pond</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2020/06/22/bidens-mask-of-moderation-has-finally-slipped/">https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2020/06/22/bidens-mask-of-moderation-has-finally-slipped/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And Finally…</b></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.zeroavia.com">https://www.zeroavia.com<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #094fd1; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.flightglobal.com/business-aviation/zeroavia-claims-uk-first-with-flight-of-electric-powered-piper-m350/138968.article">https://www.flightglobal.com/business-aviation/zeroavia-claims-uk-first-with-flight-of-electric-powered-piper-m350/138968.article</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-19929243145950184662020-06-19T01:00:00.001+01:002020-06-19T01:00:24.733+01:00No Going Back<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> </i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>No Going Back</b></span></p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Hello. I’m Anthony Day and this is the Sustainable Futures Report for Friday 19th June. Today's theme is No Going Back. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghP7rkUw4njpHUwv6njmigOkdXmCJykrQFeY9lUw149vU36nHUUh08rbJtEAQKjFKGBWlO9-bvxIJVAN7WQoWeFNMhq8oziEKU7-K5YAveBXbU32h6ptnfcyi-_r6ax4pQkI8/s460/460No-U.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghP7rkUw4njpHUwv6njmigOkdXmCJykrQFeY9lUw149vU36nHUUh08rbJtEAQKjFKGBWlO9-bvxIJVAN7WQoWeFNMhq8oziEKU7-K5YAveBXbU32h6ptnfcyi-_r6ax4pQkI8/s320/460No-U.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I've read so many articles recently saying that there is no going back to business as usual and more are pouring in every day. “Green Recovery” and “Build Back Better” are rapidly becoming clichés as people want to use the exit from lockdown as an opportunity for change. There are calls to do things differently from charities, pension funds, scientists, political parties, the Ecologist, XR and The Climate Coalition, among many others. Will you be lobbying your MP about it on 30th June, and will climate campaigns survive the pandemic or is this a dress rehearsal for the climate crisis? In some places traffic levels are already climbing beyond what they were before the virus, so are we already too late? The IEA gives us 6 months to get things under control and in other news BP takes a hit, sustainable coffee takes a new tack and Unilever takes aim to reduce its impact.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Let’s start with a quotation from economist John Maynard Keynes.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">"The idea of the future being different from the present is so repugnant to our conventional modes of thought and behaviour that we, most of us, offer a great resistance to acting on it in practice.”</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">J M Keynes</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s bit deep, so I’ll read it again.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I think it’s particularly true if you change it to read, “The idea of the future being worse than the present…” although if you promise that the future will be just as good or even better than the present there is still much resistance to change.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Fire Drill</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Writing for The Guardian, Fiona Harvey quoted the UN’s sustainable business chief. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">“The coronavirus pandemic is “just a fire drill” for what is likely to follow from the climate crisis, and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/jun/15/rayshard-brooks-black-lives-matter-george-floyd-donald-trump-live-updates"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #990010; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">protests over racial injustice around the world</span></a> show the need to tie together social equality, environmental sustainability and health.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">“The overall problem is that we are not sustainable in the ways we are living and producing on the planet today,” said Lise Kingo, the executive director of the UN Global Compact, under which businesses sign up to principles of environmental protection and social justice. “The only way forward is to create a world that leaves no one behind.”</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">She said there were “very, very clear connections” between the Covid-19 and climate crises, and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/black-lives-matter-movement"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #990010; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">Black Lives Matter protests around the world</span></a>, which she said had helped to reveal deep-seated inequalities and “endemic and structural racism”.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Pandemic is a Portal</b></span></p>
<p style="color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">In an article in FT called “<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #880421; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">The Pandemic Is a Portal</span></a>” novelist Arundhati Roy says,</span></p>
<p style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“Whatever it is, coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to ‘normality’, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.” —</i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”</i></span></p>
<p style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></p>
<p style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Commenting on this, Ted Franklin of <a href="http://truthout.org"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #0a0a0a; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">truthout.org</span></a> says, “Capitalist economics vacillates between apologetics, obscurantist mathematical fantasies and nostrums that advance the interests of the power elite while purporting to serve the common good. None of this will meet the challenge of rebuilding an economy that works for common folk, let alone one that can save us from looming ecological collapse — the catastrophe that awaits on the other side of Arundhati Roy’s portal.”</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And he warns that some expect the pandemic to persist for at least three years, and that’s the best-case scenario. Talk of a v-shaped recession is hopelessly optimistic.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Come back Lenin</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Andreas Malm is associate senior lecturer in human ecology at Lund University. In an interview for <a href="http://jacobinmag.com"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">jacobinmag.com</span></a> he says, “To Halt Climate Change, We Need an Ecological Leninism” which he describes as drastic state intervention. Echoing Arundhati Roy’s comment about the virus making the mighty kneel, he says there is </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">“…one major difference [between the virus and the climate crisis]: the anomaly that COVID-19 also hit the rich at an early stage, with capitalists, celebrities, and political leaders falling ill, people who have no vulnerability to the climate crisis at this stage. Unlike the impact of global warming, the transmission of coronaviruses follows aviation lines and, to put it simply, rich people fly more than poor people. While the pandemic was spread by other channels upon arrival in different countries, aviation provided the primary entry point for the virus, giving rise to the paradox that rich people were among the first to contract the virus. In Brazil, for example, it was the affluent section of society who introduced the virus, but now it is ordinary working-class people who are dying in droves. This has simply not been the case with climate change disasters, and it is one of the key factors that explains the strikingly different reaction on the part of governments.”</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Will climate action survive?</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Mark Cliffe, writing in Think Economic and Financial Analysis from ING Bank, asks “Will climate action survive COVID-19?” He believes that any green recovery will only succeed if it respects the concerns of the people, principally jobs. The pandemic has reinforced respect for scientists and made it clear that there are serious penalties for delays to taking action. It has demonstrated that many people are willing to make sacrifices but many are facing unemployment and bankruptcy. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Turning Away</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">There are undoubted pressures for a return to business as usual and as quickly as possible. The United States seems to have turned its face against a green recovery and has even lowered the fuel efficiency requirements for vehicles. China has delayed the introduction of its own vehicle emissions standards. The collapse of the oil price which currently stands around $38 a barrel compared with $60 at the start of the year puts pressure on the competitiveness of renewable energy. The need for social distancing is forcing many people to take the car instead of public transport. Nevertheless, maybe governments can take drastic action as Andreas Malm suggests. Governments have taken drastic action during the pandemic and may be trusted to take more drastic action to ease the exit from lockdown. The level of trust will of course vary across the world.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And the occurrence of storms, fires or floods would help to remind people of the seriousness of the climate crisis and reinforce support.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>What’s the Solution?</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Universal Basic Income</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Writing in The Conversation, D.T. Cochrane of York University in Canada says we need immediate implementation of a universal basic income (UBI) combined with a job guarantee. I'm not sure about the job guarantee but I fully support the idea of a universal basic income. As he says, a basic income supports financially precarious people with the money they need and keeps money flowing through the financial system. He calls on governments to protect people this time rather than institutions as they did after the financial crisis.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Objections</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">There are two common objections to a universal basic income. Some say that it destroys the incentive to work and others say that they don't need it so it should only go to those that do. If we look upon UBI as a social dividend, a share in the wealth created by the nation as a whole, then surely everyone should share in it equally. If everybody is entitled to a universal basic income then it is far simpler to administer. And when I say everyone, that means children as well, although possibly at a lower rate. A basic income will make far more difference to people at low income levels than to the well-off, and the tax system can be adjusted so that higher earners pay it back.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Disincentive?</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Is it a disincentive to work? Only to those who have low aspirations and are content to live on a basic minimum. In the UK at present, anyone on benefits will lose all or part of those benefits if they get work. It’s been calculated that that’s equivalent to an 82% tax rate, far more than the rich have to pay. That’s a disincentive to work. If claimants get a short term contract at a level which stops all their benefits the risk is that at the end of the contract it could take some time to get the benefits reinstated so they could face several weeks without any income at all. That must be a disincentive to work. If they can take a job, even a full time job, and know that they will not lose any of their UBI then they are more likely to work. They will have more money, and more spending power to support other parts of the economy.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">If we are to have a green recovery or any sort of recovery after this pandemic it needs to be on a firm foundation and I believe that UBI is an essential element to the stability of that foundation. For more on this read “Basic Income: And how we can make it happen,” by Professor Guy Standing of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Green Jobs</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Greenpeace is petitioning the government to establish green jobs as part of the recovery. If you want to sign their petition you'll find the link on the blog.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Call to Action</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This week the Climate Coalition sent a letter to the Prime Minister countersigned by 59 charitable organisations ranging from the Women’s Institute and the Soil Association to Oxfam, Islamic Relief UK and Surfers Against Sewage. The letter enclosed a ‘Plan for a Green, Fair and Healthy Recovery’, and set out seven priority areas for action. Briefly these include:</span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Create over 100,000 clean energy jobs in the areas of greatest need.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Set up a Climate Infrastructure Bank, increase financial powers for local authorities and develop a Climate Finance Plan.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Get us on track to net-zero and 1.5°C & ensure all bailouts for business are conditional on plans and action to do the same.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Prioritise investment in the transition to a UK land use and farming system that delivers for nature, climate and human health </span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Align all UK public finance abroad with a just energy transition, ending fossil fuel finance.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">support debt relief to enable developing countries to tackle both the COVID-19 and climate crises.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Engage with the international community to halt and rapidly reverse the decline of biodiversity and nature globally.</span></li>
</ul>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This is an abbreviated summary. Links to the letter and to the recovery plan are on the blog. The letter requests an opportunity to meet with the Prime Minister. I’ll let you know how that goes if it happens.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Action This Day</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Whatever happens, it needs to be done quickly and it needs detailed planning. It’s essential to get it right. Let’s hope the government and other governments across the world will assemble the right expertise to make it happen.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Christine Allen, director at aid agency Cafod, said: "Ministers have said a lot about drawing up recovery plans which recognise that helping the economy means creating green jobs and investing in measures to protect our common home. Now we need the Prime Minister to turn words into actions.”</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Firstly though, I think we need some specific plans.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Finance</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Jonny Barstow in Energy Live says that the government should help establish pension ‘superfunds’ to invest in the UK’s green recovery. That’s the suggestion from think tank The Social Market Foundation, which says merged pension funds would be the ideal financier of building new roads, power sources and communications networks. The taxpayer would take much of the risk and the pension funds would have a solid long-term investment matching their preferred risk profile. I’m not clear how this differs from the government borrowing to spend on building infrastructure. Given that governments can currently borrow at extremely low rates - 1% or less which is vastly less than you or I will have to pay for an overdraft, mortgage or credit card - let’s do it. But at all costs let’s avoid the PFI (Private Finance Initiative), which left schools and hospitals paying the costs of new buildings several times over.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Emissions</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">A recent article in the journal Nature Climate Change examines the temporary reduction in daily global CO2 emissions during the COVID-19 forced confinement. The team, led by Corinne Le Quéré of the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, reports that “…Daily global CO2 emissions decreased by –17% by early April 2020 compared with the mean 2019 levels, just under half from changes in surface transport. At their peak, emissions in individual countries decreased by –26% on average. The impact on 2020 annual emissions depends on the duration of the confinement, and could be between –4% and –7%. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The estimated decrease in daily fossil CO</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 13.5px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">2</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> emissions from the severe and forced confinement of world populations are extreme and probably unseen before. Still, these only correspond to the level of emissions in 2006. The associated annual decrease will be much lower, which is comparable to the rates of decrease needed year-on-year over the next decades to limit climate change to a 1.5 °C warming. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The authors warn that several drivers push towards a rebound with an even higher emission trajectory compared with the policy-induced trajectories before the COVID-19 pandemic, which include calls by some governments and industry to delay Green New Deal programmes and to weaken vehicle emission standards, and the disruption of clean energy deployment and research from supply issues. The extent to which world leaders consider the net-zero emissions targets and the imperatives of climate change when planning their economic responses to COVID-19 is likely to influence the pathway of CO</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 13.5px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">2</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> emissions for decades to come.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Traffic Jams</b></span></p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Reports from the RAC, the BBC, Autoweek and others indicate that traffic levels are not only likely to reach pre-COVID levels as we leave lockdown, but to exceed them. On the one hand the problems with social distancing and reduced capacity on public transport make it much more attractive to travel by car. On the other hand a lot of organisations have found that the productivity of people working from home is as good as or better than if they were coming into the office. Commuters have said that they have been glad to give up the commute. Will we really all go back to travelling in to some remote office to do things that we've proved we can do at home?</span></p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Politics</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Bright Green reports that the 31st European Green Party Council: Securing a Green Recovery from COVID-19 took place last week. The Restart Panel discussed the options for a sustainable recovery. All were in favour of a sustainable recovery but the Green Party Council is of course is an influencer, not a decision-making body.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://politicshome.com">politicshome.com</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> reports that some of the UK’s leading nature conservation charities have produced a blueprint for how plans for up to a million new homes can include nature to create happier and healthier communities for people and wildlife. The idea is to put these houses in what is known as the Oxford-Cambridge Arc, and conservationists are asking the Government to look at this as the perfect opportunity to invest in nature, improve people’s lives and realise the green recovery by building the new nature friendly towns and communities everyone wants to see. In other reports there is criticism of plans to build new communities on the edge of existing towns. These will not be big enough to support shops, schools or any community infrastructure, so residents will have to do everything by car. Hopefully this will not be the situation in the Oxford-Cambridge Arc.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I mentioned the Climate Coalition and they are setting up a virtual lobby of members of Parliament for the 30th of June. The plan is for people to request their MPs for an online meeting to urge the adoption of green policies as part of the recovery. If you want to take part you'll find the link on the blog.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Energy</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">There's always news on energy, and <a href="http://current-news.co.uk"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">current-news.co.uk</span></a> reports that green energy firms have been found to be more profitable. This is according to new research from the LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. They urge the government to introduce policies to drive low-carbon technologies in emissions-intensive sectors, such as transport and steel. The government should also support financing costs for green investments and encourage investment in new technologies along the supply chain to ensure decarbonisation is economically viable. Mandatory labelling to identify the emissions impact of a product or service is also recommended.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>News Just In…</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">There's a special report just out from the International Energy Agency. They say,</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Since the scale of the economic crisis began to emerge, the IEA has been leading the calls for governments to make the recovery as sustainable and resilient as possible. This means immediately addressing the core issues of global recession and soaring unemployment – and doing so in a way that also takes into account the key challenge of building cleaner and more secure energy systems.</i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>As they design economic recovery plans, policy makers are having to make enormously consequential decisions in a very short space of time. These decisions will shape economic and energy infrastructure for decades to come and will almost certainly determine whether the world has a chance of meeting its long-term energy and climate goals. </i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>The IEA’s Sustainable Recovery Plan – as set out in this report – shows governments have a unique opportunity today to boost economic growth, create millions of new jobs and put global greenhouse gas emissions into structural decline. This work was done in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund.</i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">They continue:</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>The biggest global economic shock in peacetime since the 1930s is having a severe impact on employment and investment across all sectors, including energy.</i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>In response to calls from governments around the world, the IEA has produced a Sustainable Recovery Plan for actions that can be taken over the next three years.</i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Based on rigorous analysis conducted in co‑operation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Sustainable Recovery Plan has three main goals: boosting economic growth, creating jobs and building more resilient and cleaner energy systems.</i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Governments are set to make major decisions that will affect huge amounts of investment and shape infrastructure and industries for decades to come. </i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Our Sustainable Recovery Plan shows it is possible to simultaneously spur economic growth, create millions of jobs and put emissions into structural decline.</i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">A link to the full report is on the blog.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Listen Up!</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">All in all, the calls for a green recovery are becoming pretty deafening. Will governments rise to the challenge?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And in Other News…</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>BP</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">BP announces that it will slash up to $17.5bn (£14bn) from the value of its oil and gas assets, and may be forced to leave new fossil fuel discoveries in the ground, after its own forecasts found the Covid-19 pandemic may affect the world’s oil demand for the next 30 years. And the accelerating move towards electrifying the transport fleet may have some effect on that as well.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Coffee</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Sustainable coffee can now arrive by sustainable transport. Yallah Coffee, based in Falmouth, Cornwall in the southwest of England, received a shipment of coffee beans delivered by sailing boat from Colombia. The carbon footprint of the shipment is far lower than by container ship or aeroplane and Yarrah have held prices comparable to coffee shipped by those more usual means. Shipping by sailing boat takes longer and is only possible when the weather permits, but Yarrah Coffee is coping with this by holding larger stocks.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Unilever</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Finally, Unilever has announced that it will spend €1 billion to help reduce the impact of climate change throughout its production and distribution processes.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Working alongside farmers, governments and organisations in the next decade, the climate and nature fund aims to restore forests, soil and biodiversity, with likely projects including reforestation, wildlife protection and water preservation.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The company has also committed to achieving net zero emission by 2039 – more than a decade ahead of the 2050 Paris Agreement deadline – as well as a deforestation-free supply chain by 2023.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #151515; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And that’s it…</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">…for another week. Thank you for listening to the Sustainable Futures Report and thanks to my patrons for supporting the production of this podcast. Unlike many podcasts the Sustainable Futures Report is not monetised through advertising, sponsorship or subsidy. I do get support through Patreon, however, which covers the costs of hosting, transcribing interviews and the occasional purchase of research papers. This comes from a select band of patrons who contribute anything from $1 per month. You, too, can join that number and all you need to do is visit <a href="http://patreon.com/SFR"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">patreon.com/SFR</span></a> . I'm also very grateful to the people who get in touch with ideas and information which helps me develop the content for each episode. Please do contact me to share your ideas about future and past episodes. There's no point in doing this if it isn't what you want to hear. Contact me at <a href="mailto:mail@anthony-day.com"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">mail@anthony-day.com</span></a>.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">That was the Sustainable Futures Report.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m Anthony Day.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I'm already stacking up stories for next week, so I'll be back then.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Bye for now! </span></p>
<p style="color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 20px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Sources</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Green Recovery</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Climate Angle</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://think.ing.com/articles/will-climate-action-survive-covid-19/">https://think.ing.com/articles/will-climate-action-survive-covid-19/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/15/covid-19-pandemic-is-fire-drill-for-effects-of-climate-crisis-says-un-official">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/15/covid-19-pandemic-is-fire-drill-for-effects-of-climate-crisis-says-un-official<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/we-need-a-green-new-deal-to-confront-the-economic-crash-and-climate-crisis/">https://truthout.org/articles/we-need-a-green-new-deal-to-confront-the-economic-crash-and-climate-crisis/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca">https://www.ft.com/content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Solutions</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>UBI</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://theconversation.com/job-guarantees-basic-income-can-save-us-from-covid-19-depression-133997">https://theconversation.com/job-guarantees-basic-income-can-save-us-from-covid-19-depression-133997<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Greenpeace Petition</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/greenjobseshare">https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/greenjobseshare</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> . </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Climate Action Letter</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/15/leading-uk-charities-urge-pm-seek-green-recovery-covid-19">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/15/leading-uk-charities-urge-pm-seek-green-recovery-covid-19<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58b40fe1be65940cc4889d33/t/5ee78724c91f186c639568df/1592231721509/TCC+-+Letter+to+the+Prime+Minister-4.pdf">https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58b40fe1be65940cc4889d33/t/5ee78724c91f186c639568df/1592231721509/TCC+-+Letter+to+the+Prime+Minister-4.pdf</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theclimatecoalition.org/recoveryplan">https://www.theclimatecoalition.org/recoveryplan<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://theecologist.org/2020/jun/15/johnson-must-now-take-climate-action">https://theecologist.org/2020/jun/15/johnson-must-now-take-climate-action<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Pensions</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.energylivenews.com/2020/06/15/government-should-help-establish-pension-superfunds-to-invest-in-uks-green-recovery/">https://www.energylivenews.com/2020/06/15/government-should-help-establish-pension-superfunds-to-invest-in-uks-green-recovery/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Science</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://eos.org/articles/now-is-the-time-for-green-recovery-scientists-say">https://eos.org/articles/now-is-the-time-for-green-recovery-scientists-say<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0797-x">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0797-x<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Politics</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://bright-green.org/2020/06/15/31st-european-green-party-council-securing-a-green-recovery-from-covid-19/">http://bright-green.org/2020/06/15/31st-european-green-party-council-securing-a-green-recovery-from-covid-19/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.politicshome.com/members/article/oxford-to-cambridge-arc-a-chance-for-housebuilding-to-support-a-green-recovery-by-protecting-and-restoring-nature-75146">https://www.politicshome.com/members/article/oxford-to-cambridge-arc-a-chance-for-housebuilding-to-support-a-green-recovery-by-protecting-and-restoring-nature-75146<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.current-news.co.uk/news/green-energy-firms-found-to-be-more-profitable-as-importance-of-supportive-policy-highlighted">https://www.current-news.co.uk/news/green-energy-firms-found-to-be-more-profitable-as-importance-of-supportive-policy-highlighted<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theclimatecoalition.org/thetimeisnow">https://www.theclimatecoalition.org/thetimeisnow<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Traffic after lockdown</b></span></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-52677139">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-52677139<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a32463337/study-traffic-will-be-worse-after-coronavirus/">https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a32463337/study-traffic-will-be-worse-after-coronavirus/</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/traffic-set-to-exceed-pre-pandemic-levels-as-lockdown-restrictions-loosen/">https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/traffic-set-to-exceed-pre-pandemic-levels-as-lockdown-restrictions-loosen/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.techtimes.com/articles/250307/20200614/pandemic-aftermath-worst-air-pollution-and-extreme-traffic-congestion-expected-after-lockdown-as-private-cars-increase.htm">https://www.techtimes.com/articles/250307/20200614/pandemic-aftermath-worst-air-pollution-and-extreme-traffic-congestion-expected-after-lockdown-as-private-cars-increase.htm</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">London congestion charge increased</span></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.traffictechnologytoday.com/news/covid-19-news/temporary-changes-to-congestion-charge-vital-to-secure-safe-and-green-recovery.html">https://www.traffictechnologytoday.com/news/covid-19-news/temporary-changes-to-congestion-charge-vital-to-secure-safe-and-green-recovery.html<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>News Just In</b></span></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/sustainable-recovery">https://www.iea.org/reports/sustainable-recovery</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>In Other News</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">BP expects to take $17.5bn hit due to coronavirus writedown</span></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/15/bp-expects-covid-19-to-have-enduring-impact-on-global-economy">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/15/bp-expects-covid-19-to-have-enduring-impact-on-global-economy<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Coffee for sail: wind of change in sustainable shipping</span></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/14/carbon-neutral-coffee-comes-to-uk-via-sail-boat-from-colombia-to-cornwall">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/14/carbon-neutral-coffee-comes-to-uk-via-sail-boat-from-colombia-to-cornwall<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Unilever</span></p>
<p style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/unilever">https://www.theguardian.com/business/unilever<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/unilever-pledges-%E2%82%AC1bn-reduce-climate-change-impact-its-processes/1686271">https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/unilever-pledges-€1bn-reduce-climate-change-impact-its-processes/1686271</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-72224615284408997412020-06-12T01:00:00.000+01:002020-06-12T01:00:22.258+01:00Barrier Grief<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
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<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Barrier Grief</b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEQBZLQI_h0M6xTkc8L_gB9eEAkyBpU5v3HCyz3mt3IrEx5aid2gHveJKe_jkk3AmZiabFwf9dbPFtiDyHzDCsag39vaDvdvypTPrURgW_I8JtwDaBbqfJ70lOUbAnVJU8w8I/s1600/460bleach.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEQBZLQI_h0M6xTkc8L_gB9eEAkyBpU5v3HCyz3mt3IrEx5aid2gHveJKe_jkk3AmZiabFwf9dbPFtiDyHzDCsag39vaDvdvypTPrURgW_I8JtwDaBbqfJ70lOUbAnVJU8w8I/s320/460bleach.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Hello and welcome once again to the Sustainable Futures Report, this time for Friday 12th June. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">There's a lot of news coming out of Australia. Thanks to all my listeners, patrons and correspondents over there. There’s news as well from Brazil, and news from the energy industry. More ideas for building back better as we get the COVID-19 pandemic under control. And given that governments are crucial to successfully challenging the climate emergency, I ask whether we can trust a government which rejects its own manifesto commitments.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Amid all this I haven't forgotten that Black Lives Matter. We are, it seems at a turning point and we must hope that this time it will be a turning point for real change. The aim of the Sustainable Futures Report is to preserve our planet for all and for everyone; a safe home for universal human rights to be preserved as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Australia</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Great Barrier Reef</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Colin Clarke, patron in Australia, directs me to a podcast about the Great Barrier Reef. You’ll find the link below in Sources. Graham Readfearn, activist and freelance journalist, explains how the coral has just gone through the worst bleaching ever, with reefs previously unaffected bleaching for the first time. What this basically means is that when the waters get too warm the coral dies. The animals and fishes which live on the reef disappear either because their food source is gone or because they can no longer hide from predators. And the whole place begins to smell. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, is a biologist and climate scientist specialising in coral reefs, in particular bleaching due to global warming and climate change. He is the inaugural Director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland. His paper published some 10 years ago warning that the reefs faced total destruction by 2050 was denounced as alarmist, but subsequent events have followed his predictions, only more rapidly. He has been regularly questioned and criticised by climate deniers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This latest bleaching is the third such event in 5 years. Reefs need 10-15 years to recover. It is estimated that if we can limit warming across the globe to 1.5℃ then 70% to 90% of reefs will be lost. If we hold it only to 2℃ just 1% will remain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Hoegh-Guldberg is one of the founders of the 50 Reefs Initiative to identify a number of reefs globally that have the best chance to survive the impacts of climate change and to subsequently use them to repopulate neighbouring reefs once ocean temperatures stabilise. Could be some time, as the ocean stores vast amounts of heat. There are some 375,000km</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>2</sup></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> of coral reefs across the world supporting the livelihoods of 500m people engaged in fishing, tourism and leisure. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The commitment of governments to the Paris Agreement will keep the increase in global heating 3 to 4°C, far in excess of the, safe, or fairly safe, target level of 1.5°C. 3 to 4°C is too much for reefs and too much for water supplies, for protecting forests and for avoiding violent weather.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It is global emissions which affect the Great Barrier Reef and the ecology of the whole world. The podcast ends with the message that the world needs to act. When was that not ever true?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Adani Campaign</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And that brings us to Adani. Carol Dance drew my attention a while ago to the Adani Group’s proposed Carmichael Mine which some estimate will lead to the emission of 4.7 billion tonnes of carbon pollution over its lifetime. The project requires the building of a new railway and the expansion of port facilities which will be approached by ships passing through the Great Barrier Reef.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Marine Conservation Organisation of Australia says, “The mine would drive massive industrial port expansion along the Reef coastline at Abbot Point. Over a million cubic metres of the seafloor would be dredged for a new coal terminal, threatening the habitat of vulnerable dugongs and turtles and dolphins. There would be hundreds more coal ships ploughing through the Reef’s waters every year, increasing the risk of accidents. Just one collision, one mistake or one spill could result in an environmental catastrophe in the Great Barrier Reef.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Despite protests, German engineering giant Siemens will go ahead and build a rail signalling system, while Marsh Insurance brokers are under pressure not to arrange insurance for the project. Adani itself is under financial pressure as doubts are raised about the financial viability of its Abbot Point coal export terminal. Writing in The Print, David Fickling says that the Carmichael mine could be a white elephant. He suggests that the coal produced will be of a relatively low grade and unlikely to command a high enough price to service the investment. Fluctuations in coal prices on the commodities markets could make things even worse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">An article in The Conversation points out that, “Australia listened to the science on coronavirus. Imagine if we did the same for coal mining”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Apparently the project still has government support so the saga continues.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Youth Verdict</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Elsewhere in Australia, Youth Verdict is an organisation of young people from across Queensland using their legal rights to fight for youth justice. They say, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Our first case is taking Clive Palmer’s ‘Waratah Coal’ to court to stop his proposed climate-wrecking coal mine from destroying our human rights. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“It will be the first legal case ever launched in Australia by young people to fight coal and climate change on human rights grounds, and we must win. Our future depends on it.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Clive Palmer is an Australian billionaire, high-profile character and one-time member of the Australian parliament. I’ve contacted Youth Verdict and hope to bring you an interview.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Woodside’s Burrup Hub proposal</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Over on the north coast of Western Australia, Woodside Energy is planning to build an LNG hub on the Burrup Peninsula. Gas will be landed from a number of production platforms. The company is actively recruiting experts from the oil and gas industry in Aberdeen, Scotland. Gas is of course a cleaner fuel than coal, but the estimated lifetime emissions of 6 billion tonnes from the project dwarf even the pollution from Adani’s Carmichael Mine. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Sydney Morning Herald described it as Australia's most polluting project and complained that approval was being sought by stealth. <a href="http://cleanslate.org.au/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">cleanslate.org.au</span></a> sets out 10 reasons why the Burrup Hub should not go ahead. Find the link to their article on the blog.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Solar and Hydrogen</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">More positive news comes from Western Australia where there is a proposal to generate hydrogen using solar power. This has been covered in detail by patron Dave Borlace in his video blog which I mentioned to you recently. Find it on Patreon or on YouTube at just have a think. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRBwLPbXGsI2cJe9W1zfSjQ"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRBwLPbXGsI2cJe9W1zfSjQ</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Nothing is simple, of course. The sunshine in Australia’s deserts is clearly ideal for generating solar power. The problem is that if you intend to do this by electrolysis you need substantial quantities of clean water. There's not a lot of this in the desert. The good news is that research is progressing towards using seawater for electrolysis. Hydrogen produced from clean water releases only oxygen as a byproduct. Seawater presumably leaves other residues. The alternative is to strip hydrogen out of natural gas, but this leaves CO2. The industry claims that carbon capture and storage will solve this problem, but CCS is not operating successfully at scale anywhere in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">This is demonstrated by a recent case where </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">oil and gas company Chevron faced the possibility of having to pay for offsets worth more than $100m for carbon dioxide emissions released at a delayed carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in northern <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/western-australia"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #990010; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">Western Australia</span></a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The state government <a href="http://epa.wa.gov.au/sites/default/files/Ministerial_Statement/Statement%201136.pdf"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #990010; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">last week ruled</span></a> against Chevron over an emissions condition that applies to the company’s large Gorgon liquefied natural gas (LNG) development on Barrow Island in the Pilbara region.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Energy</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Green hydrogen</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">While Siemens gets criticised for supplying part of the infrastructure for Adani’s Carmichael mine, on the other side of the world it has signed up to a project to produce green hydrogen, working with Uniper Energy, an energy company based in Düsseldorf, Germany. Green Hydrogen is defined by the partners as hydrogen from renewable resources. A graphic with the Climate Action article seems to indicate that electrolysis will be used, not natural gas reprocessing. Details are sketchy at the moment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Solar developments</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The big success story in renewables has of course been in solar power, with the cost of Solar Panels dropping by 86% between 2009 and 2017. The hunt is on for new materials to improve the efficiency of the panels even further. Perovskite is the current front runner. (it’s named after a Russian count who discovered it.) It’s a calcium titanium oxide compound. Perovskite captures energy from a different part of the wavelength of sunlight than silicon, and company Oxford PV plans to layer it on top of silicon, to maximise electricity generation. They are therefore enhancing the established silicon PVs rather than competing with them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Perovskites can be printed on to a surface with an inkjet printer and Swedish construction firm Skanska is working to apply perovskite layers in building panels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The theoretical maximum efficiency of silicon PV is around 30% but using a combination of materials including perovskite could raise this to 47%.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Insolight, a Swiss startup, has taken a different tack - embedding a grid of hexagonal lenses in a solar panel's protective glass, thus concentrating light 200 times.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The key question is whether these new technologies will be cost-effective and whether they will last as long as the expected 25 year life of silicon panels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Coronavirus effect on fossil fuel industry</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There’s a new report from Carbon Tracker. Kingsmill Bond, Carbon Tracker Energy Strategist and report author, said: "We are witnessing the decline and fall of the fossil fuel economy. Technological innovation and policy support is driving peak fossil fuel demand in sector after sector and country after country, and the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this. We may now have seen peak fossil fuel demand as a whole. This is a huge opportunity for countries that import fossil fuels which can save trillions of dollars by switching to a clean energy economy in line with the Paris Agreement. Now is the time to plan an orderly wind-down of fossil fuel assets and manage the impact on the global economy rather than try to sustain the unsustainable.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Are governments listening?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Air pollution</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Plus ça change, plus c’est business as usual. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) reports that levels of health-harming air pollutants in China have exceeded concentrations at the same time last year in the past 30 days, for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. This includes PM2.5, NO2, SO2 and ozone. Air pollutant levels plummeted during the national lockdown in February, bottomed out in early March and have now overshot their pre-crisis levels. Europe is expected to follow suit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">CREA’s Rebound Tracker - link on the blog - monitors air quality in principal Chinese cities in real time. Whether these pollution levels are permanent, it points out, depends on whether we have a green recovery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Oil spill</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Meanwhile, news from Russia seems particularly muted. There’s not a lot in the press about the oil spill in the arctic region, but 20,000 tons of diesel have leaked out of a power station up there. The BBC reports that it has polluted a large freshwater lake and there is a risk it could spread into the Arctic Ocean. Emergency teams are trying to contain the oil, which has now travelled about 20km (12 miles) north of Norilsk from a collapsed fuel tank.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It is the worst accident of its kind in modern times in Russia's Arctic region, environmentalists and officials say.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It's ironic that global warming is partly caused by burning fossil fuels such as diesel and global warming has led to the melting of permafrost which until recently was seen as a rock solid foundation. In this case, as the permafrost melted in unseasonably warm weather the storage tank collapsed and the oil escaped. Once in the Arctic Ocean who knows where it will go? I'm really surprised there has not been more concern about this or are we just becoming inured to such disasters? After all, President Putin has declared a state of emergency.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Brazil</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">News from South America. Accelerating deforestation places Brazil, which has 60% of the Amazon rainforest within its borders, at the heart of the struggle to prevent runaway global heating. That is because the Amazon is the planet’s biggest terrestrial carbon sink and plays a crucial role in the water cycle, as well as providing a home to more species than anywhere else on land.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Guardian reports that twenty-eight years ago, in June 1992, the UN framework convention on climate change was opened for signature in Rio de Janeiro. But since Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, took office 18 months ago his government has sabotaged years of work by environmentalist and indigenous activists aimed at protecting the rainforest, and instead fanned the flames of its destruction by illegal loggers, miners and cattle ranchers. In the year to July 2019, losses rocketed to 9,800 sq km and research predicts that the rainforest is on course for a tipping point that would see it become a carbon emitter in the mid-2030s. Now there are fears that the coronavirus pandemic may speed this up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They say, “This week, the Guardian reported that UK banks have provided more than $2bn (£1.5bn) in backing to companies linked to deforestation. Those institutions must now come under pressure, along with US investors such as BlackRock. So must politicians and regulators.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“It will take a huge international effort to preserve the Amazon rainforest. Agribusiness is responsible for more than one-fifth of Brazil’s GDP. If the cattle industry is to face curbs, there must also be incentives. International trade and climate negotiators have their work cut out. There is a job to be done by public opinion too.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Recovery</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">After the pandemic, the recovery. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Last week I commented that a large number of organisations seem to have adopted “build back better” as their slogan. I've since found that there is in fact an organisation and website with that title. Build back better steering group consists of:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Green New Deal UK</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Medact</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Greenpeace</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Greener Jobs Alliance</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">PCS (Public and Commercial Services Union)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">UKSCN (UK School Climate Network)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Workforce</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">New Economics Foundation</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Friends of the Earth</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">350.org </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">…and is supported by a large number of other organisations from the New Economics Foundation to Health Poverty Action and the Basic Income Conversation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They say, “The coronavirus pandemic has turned the world upside down, exposing major weaknesses in our economy and the deep-seated inequalities in our society that mean the most vulnerable people have been hit the hardest. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“But what we do next could change everything. As the world recovers, we have a chance to reset the clock and build back better than before.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“We need something new. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“We need a new deal that prioritises people, invests in our NHS and creates a robust, shockproof economy that is capable of tackling the climate crisis.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They go on to explain their five fundamental principles which you can find at <a href="http://buildbackbetteruk.org/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">buildbackbetteruk.org</span></a> You can also sign up to join their virtual rally.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Angus Taylor, the Australian Energy Minister, wants taxpayer money invested in <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/gas-revival-key-to-renewables-push-energy-minister-says-20200424-p54n2n.html"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #0000e9; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">fast-start gas projects</span></a> to drive the post-pandemic recovery. Some would call that building back bad. Don’t worry, they’re going to use carbon capture and storage. (CCS)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I seem to remember a quote from someone who said that if industry was CCS-ready, but just waiting for the technology, then his bedroom was time-travel-ready. Just waiting for the technology.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And finally…</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Politics</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Writing in The Guardian, George Monbiot explains how the British government has introduced legislation to relax food safety and hygiene standards that we have been subject to as members of the EU. When the transition ends at the end of the year the UK will be free to import food from the US, including chlorine-washed chicken, hormone-fed beef and vegetables which may have been treated with any of the 72 pesticides currently banned in the UK. And this is directly contrary to promises made in the Conservative Party’s election manifesto little more than 6 months ago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This cannot be in the interests of the population at large, so can we rely on such a government to take robust and appropriate action to deal with the climate crisis? Or will it just wait and see until it’s too late, as it seems to have done with the coronavirus?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And of course we need the Orbans, the Bolsonaros, the Trumps and all the rest to take robust and appropriate action as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And on that cheerful note…</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">…I leave you for another week. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being a patron, if you are. Thank you to all who sent in ideas and information. I’m always open for more and you can contact me at mail@anthony-day.com .</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m Anthony Day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That was the Sustainable Futures Report.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Until next time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Sources</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Australia</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Great Barrier Reef</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7cFue3SxzJyCQJW3WQjTZV?si=40NYiV7VQHGv_4A8YQyMRA">https://open.spotify.com/episode/7cFue3SxzJyCQJW3WQjTZV?si=40NYiV7VQHGv_4A8YQyMRA<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Adani Campaign (notes from Carol Dance)</span></div>
<ul>
<li style="color: #262626; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Muli; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">German engineering giant Siemens will go ahead and build a rail signalling system for Adani despite protests. </span></li>
<li style="color: #262626; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Muli; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Campaign for Marsh insurance broker not to seek insurance for the mine is ongoing. <a href="https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/campaign-grows-stop-marsh-insurers-helping-adani"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #262626; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/campaign-grows-stop-marsh-insurers-helping-adani</span></a> </span></li>
<li style="color: #262626; font-family: Muli; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">The deteriorating financial state of the Adani Group and its Abbot Point coal export terminal raise serious questions about the ability of Adani to keep using its own money to finance its debt burden of over $1 billion Adani has to either refinance or repay. Adani has already delayed the refinancing of one of its bonds, causing Abbot Point to be downgraded, and has confirmed it will pay back another bond worth $100 million out of its own pocket this week.</span></li>
<li style="color: #262626; font-family: Muli; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b></b><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><b>Downgrades and refinancings: </b> Fitch Ratings<a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.fitchratings.com_research_infrastructure-2Dproject-2Dfinance_fitch-2Ddowngrades-2Dadani-2Dabbot-2Dpoint-2Dterminal-2Dto-2Dbb-2Dratings-2Don-2Drwn-2D31-2D03-2D2020&d=DwMFaQ&c=N9aEhCy8U0rJkO1xCZf7rgM9fohfR5qe_N93viZd7O8&r=HZHoN3IHHrPDYmYOlik9eg&m=wSiPoAceQ1VIloCxfN6VVnF0vPtJfER2DR8ELvu6uS0&s=wOMU0BiBtz0q25NNFDG8XWcDYVr_vqzZ1fCayGBWNMI&e="><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #bf0822; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> downgraded the Abbot Point coal export terminal from BBB- to BB+</span></a> (sub investment grade) with a negative watch, suggesting the port’s credit rating could degrade further. The downgrade was triggered by Adani’s postponement of an attempt to refinance a US$140 million bond due in September 2021. Adani’s inability to refinance its bond externally appears due to increasing investor concerns about coal assets, including the immediate impact of COVID-19 on the coal industry. </span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">White Elephant<br />
<a href="https://theprint.in/world/why-adanis-controversial-australian-coal-mine-could-end-up-being-a-white-elephant/430773/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">https://theprint.in/world/why-adanis-controversial-australian-coal-mine-could-end-up-being-a-white-elephant/430773/</span></a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-listened-to-the-science-on-coronavirus-imagine-if-we-did-the-same-for-coal-mining-138212">https://theconversation.com/australia-listened-to-the-science-on-coronavirus-imagine-if-we-did-the-same-for-coal-mining-138212</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Youth verdict/coal</span></div>
<div style="color: #0000e9; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.youthverdict.org.au/"><b>https://www.youthverdict.org.au</b><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Woodside’s Burrup Hub proposal</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.woodside.com.au/our-business/burrup-hub">https://www.woodside.com.au/our-business/burrup-hub<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/australasia/213954/australian-lng-giant-woodside-invites-uk-businesses-ahead-of-20bn-project/">https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/australasia/213954/australian-lng-giant-woodside-invites-uk-businesses-ahead-of-20bn-project/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-s-most-polluting-project-begins-approvals-by-stealth-20191113-p53ads.html">https://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-s-most-polluting-project-begins-approvals-by-stealth-20191113-p53ads.html</a></span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/runaway-train-how-wa-s-lng-plants-steamroll-national-climate-fight-20191106-p5383h.html">https://www.smh.com.au/national/runaway-train-how-wa-s-lng-plants-steamroll-national-climate-fight-20191106-p5383h.html</a></span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.cleanstate.org.au/10_reasons_to_reject_burrup_hub">https://www.cleanstate.org.au/10_reasons_to_reject_burrup_hub</a></span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">This huge gas project planned in Western Australia has staggering potential to impact emissions. 'This</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> single </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">mega-project</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> exposes the Morrison government’s gas plan as staggering folly.’ (The Guardian) </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">By the end of its life in 2070, the project and the gas it produces will emit about <a href="https://climateanalytics.org/publications/2020/impact-of-burrup-hub-on-western-australias-paris-agreement-carbon-budget/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #0000e9; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">six billion tonnes of greenhouse gas</span></a>. This project alone exposes as a furphy the claim that natural gas is a viable transition fuel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Solar and Hydrogen</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRBwLPbXGsI2cJe9W1zfSjQ">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRBwLPbXGsI2cJe9W1zfSjQ<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Chevron fined</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/04/chevron-could-be-forced-to-pay-100m-for-failure-to-capture-carbon-emissions">https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/04/chevron-could-be-forced-to-pay-100m-for-failure-to-capture-carbon-emissions</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
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<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Energy</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Green hydrogen</span></div>
<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.climateaction.org/news/siemens-and-uniper-join-forces-for-green-hydrogen-project">http://www.climateaction.org/news/siemens-and-uniper-join-forces-for-green-hydrogen-project<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.uniper.energy/news/siemens-and-uniper-join-forces-to-decarbonize-power-generation/">https://www.uniper.energy/news/siemens-and-uniper-join-forces-to-decarbonize-power-generation/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Solar developments</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">After the 'sunrush': what comes next for solar power?</span></div>
<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/28/after-the-sunrush-what-comes-next-for-solar-power">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/28/after-the-sunrush-what-comes-next-for-solar-power<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.oxfordpv.com/news/news-economist-much-greater-solar-cell-efficiency-coming">https://www.oxfordpv.com/news/news-economist-much-greater-solar-cell-efficiency-coming</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51799503">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51799503</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Coronavirus effect on fossil fuel industry </b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">https://carbontracker.org/reports/decline-and-fall/</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/04/coronavirus-crisis-collapse-fossil-fuels-demand">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/04/coronavirus-crisis-collapse-fossil-fuels-demand</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Air pollution rebounds</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">https://energyandcleanair.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/China-air-pollution-rebound-final.pdf</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/03/air-pollution-in-china-back-to-pre-covid-levels-and-europe-may-follow">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/03/air-pollution-in-china-back-to-pre-covid-levels-and-europe-may-follow<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Oil spill </b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/russia-arctic-oil-leak-permafrost-6450195/">https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/russia-arctic-oil-leak-permafrost-6450195/</a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52977740">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52977740</a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/world/europe/russia-arctic-oil-spill.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/world/europe/russia-arctic-oil-spill.html</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52915807"><b>Russia's Putin declares state of emergency after Arctic Circle oil spill</b><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span></a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><b></b></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Brazil</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Brazil and the Amazon: don’t look away</span></div>
<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/05/the-guardian-view-on-brazil-and-the-amazon-dont-look-away">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/05/the-guardian-view-on-brazil-and-the-amazon-dont-look-away<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Recovery</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Build back better <a href="https://www.buildbackbetteruk.org/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">https://www.buildbackbetteruk.org/</span></a></span></div>
<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.climateaction.org/news/world-environment-day-global-institutions-call-for-a-global-green-recovery?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=World+Environment+Day%3A+Global+institutions+call+for+a+global+green+recovery+-+Climate+Action+News&utm_campaign=CA+%7C+2020+%7C+5+June+%7C+Newsletter">http://www.climateaction.org/news/world-environment-day-global-institutions-call-for-a-global-green-recovery?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=World+Environment+Day%3A+Global+institutions+call+for+a+global+green+recovery+-+Climate+Action+News&utm_campaign=CA+%7C+2020+%7C+5+June+%7C+Newsletter<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Build back bad</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Fast-start gas Angus Taylor (Energy Minister) wants taxpayer money invested in <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/gas-revival-key-to-renewables-push-energy-minister-says-20200424-p54n2n.html"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #0000e9; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">fast-start gas projects</span></a> to drive the post-pandemic recovery. His government plans to extend the emissions reduction fund to fossil fuel projects using CCS. <b>There is a barrage of objections to this plan.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Politics</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/09/boris-johnson-trade-deal-us-chlorinated-chicken"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1;">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/09/boris-johnson-trade-deal-us-chlorinated-chicken</span></a> </span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-91382234934093629992020-06-05T01:00:00.000+01:002020-06-05T01:00:30.985+01:00World Environment Day<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://sustainability.libsyn.com/"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>World Environment Day</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s Friday 5th June - World Environment Day. I’m Anthony Day and in this episode of the Sustainable Futures Report I look at new transport initiatives and ask if they are just flights of fancy, I investigate whether a proposed recycling initiative is merely greenwash and I look again at possible directions for post-COVID recovery. I’m British, so I’ll be talking about the weather and finally, keeping the lights on has never been more challenging. I listened to a panel of experts this week talking about Grid Flexibility.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But first, as I said, 5th June is World Environment Day. It’s an initiative of the UN Environment Programme and has been established since 1974.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The message on the website is: </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>The foods we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink and the climate that makes our planet habitable all come from nature.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Yet, these are exceptional times in which nature is sending us a message:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>To care for ourselves we must care for nature. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>It’s time to wake up. To take notice. To raise our voices.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>It’s time to build back better for People and Planet.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>This World Environment Day, it’s Time for Nature.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There’s nothing particularly special announced for today, but the website shows lists of events, projects and initiatives going on all the time all over the world. That clearly makes sense: we can’t afford to think about the environment just for a day and forget it for the other 364. Sign up now for the Wild Earth Live Safari from Africa, for the Time for Nature webinar or the World Environment Day Festival. That’s just a very small selection of events going on both before and after World Environment Day. There’s a link to the full schedule on the blog. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Take Care!</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Do you remember that when Apple launched the iPad you could have something engraved on the back at no extra cost? Mine says, “Take care of the planet. It’s all we’ve got.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Sixth Mass Extinction</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Are we taking care? Worrying news this week from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the US. The article by Ceballos, Erlich and Raven opens with this statement:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>The ongoing sixth mass extinction may be the most serious environmental threat to the persistence of civilization, because it is irreversible. Thousands of populations of critically endangered vertebrate animal species have been lost in a century, indicating that the sixth mass extinction is human caused and accelerating. The acceleration of the extinction crisis is certain because of the still fast growth in human numbers and consumption rates. In addition, species are links in ecosystems, and, as they fall out, the species they interact with are likely to go also. In the regions where disappearing species are concentrated, regional biodiversity collapses are likely occurring. Our results reemphasize the extreme urgency of taking massive global actions to save humanity’s crucial life-support systems.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“When humanity exterminates other creatures, it is sawing off the limb on which it is sitting, destroying working parts of our own life-support system,” said Prof Paul Ehrlich, of Stanford University in the US, and one of the research team. “The conservation of endangered species should be elevated to a global emergency for governments and institutions, equal to the climate disruption to which it is linked.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Another View</b></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">Last January I interviewed Chris Thomas for the Sustainable Futures Report. He’s </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">an ecologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of York, a Fellow of the Royal Society and author of <i>Inheritors of the Earth, How Nature is Thriving in an Age of Extinction.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He said:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>We are causing a higher rate of extinction than is normal in the geological past, and if we were to maintain the current rates of extinction for another 10,000 years let us say to one order of magnitude, then we would indeed get up to the sorts of levels that have been seen in the great mass extinctions of the past. But we're not about to hit one of the so-called Big Five and become the big sixth, not instantly at least, because those are defined by 75% or more of all species going extinct, and we're not there and the rate of current extinction is taking us there on the timescale of millennia, not decades.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m going to contact him for comment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s interesting, by the way, that in the very last part of the interview he said: </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“…if you could imagine we got one of these diseases that our bodies can't cope with like HIV or Ebola and it had the transmissibility of measles, then we would really be in a challenging global situation…”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Let’s Talk About Transport</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The current pandemic does not seem to have dampened enthusiasm for new forms of transport. I understand that works continue on HS2, the UK’s high speed railway line, although the need for crossing the country at high speed or indeed the demand for being able to do so must now be in serious doubt. But then, who would go on HS2 if the alternative was to take the Hyperloop? Smart Cities World reports that Spanish company Zeleros has complete a €7m funding round to support development of the hyperloop in Europe. I think Hyperloop was originally an idea of Elon Musk - CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Cars. It’s an evacuated tube and vehicles fly along inside it without touching the sides, driven by magnetic induction. It means that speeds of up to 1,000kph will be achieved, more than twice the design speed of HS2. Paris to Berlin will take just 90 minutes, only an hour from Lisbon to Madrid or Rome to Nice or even less than that for London to Edinburgh. The cost of building the tube must surely be enormous and how much electricity will it take to make it work? And how many people will it take? And what about two-way working - does that mean two tubes or will there be passing loops? And even 1000kph is nowhere near as fast as Zoom or Skype or email.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Meanwhile, I reported in the past about <a href="http://lilium.com/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">lilium.com</span></a> and their electric flying taxi. “Enabling a world where anyone can fly, anywhere, anytime.” They’re still working on it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And The Guardian reports that the world’s largest all-electric aircraft is set for its first flight. Unlike the lilium, which carries only 4 passengers and a pilot, the Electric version of the Cessna Caravan will seat nine. Still some way to go, I think.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Moving On</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I firmly believe that after the end of lockdown the UK government needs to spend widely to restart the economy, but should spend on essential infrastructure, on restoring care facilities and services, on community centres and libraries, on transport facilities to meet changing work and leisure patterns, on research to develop new industries and employment and protect the nation from the risks of relying on far distant suppliers for critical goods in times such as the present pandemic. We need of course to invest in green solutions, to expand existing solar and wind production, to develop a smart grid and insulate the nation’s housing stock so we don’t continue to waste vast amounts of energy. We need to reassess land management and agricultural production - something we can of course do unilaterally now we have left the EU. And I believe everyone should receive a universal basic income (UBI), from birth, but that is a debate for another day. You’ll find a link on the blog to an article about a potential UBI in Spain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This is not the time for vast expenditure on Hyperloops, HS2 or electric air taxis which will serve only a very small number of very wealthy people, if they work at all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Recycling</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Bio-bottles</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There’s news on the recycling front. Carlsberg and Coca-Cola are evaluating a new plastic bottle made from plant sugars instead of fossil fuels. The new material has the advantage that not only can it be recycled, it will biodegrade in a year or so. By contrast, if it’s not been burnt every bit of fossil-fuel plastic that was ever made is still somewhere on land or at sea. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In time Avantium, developer of the new material, plans to use plant sugars from sustainable sourced biowaste so that the rise of plant plastic does not affect the global food supply chain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Kenyan Plastic</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Kenya’s fight against pollution began on 28 August 2017, threatening up to four years’ imprisonment or fines of $40,000 (£31,000) for anyone producing, selling – or even just carrying – a plastic bag.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A year later the authorities claimed victory – and other east African nations Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and South Sudan were considering following suit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“The streets are cleaner, waterways are less obstructed and fishermen find fewer bags in their nets,” said locals. Abattoirs were finding far less plastic in slaughtered animals. Some traders grumbled because fabric or paper bags were much more expensive, but police strictly enforced the law. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Three years on the policy is still in force although plastic bags are smuggled in from neighbouring countries. Polypropylene sacks were introduced and then banned, but the ban has been overturned after legal action against the government. Low grade polypropylene which cannot be recycled is becoming a problem.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A single use plastics ban that will be in effect in all Kenya’s protected areas including its beaches, national parks, conservation areas, and forests takes effect today, World Environment Day. This broadens the scope of the regulations from plastic bags to plastic bottles and anything else designed for single use.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“This comes at a time when we see an increase in single-use plastic products, and the ban will go a long way in encouraging the adoption of the refuse, rethink, remanufacture, recycle, and recover model of production,” noted Sustainable Inclusive Business Director Karin Boomsma.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Scrappage</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You could argue that scrappage, paying an allowance for a car that’s traded in for scrap on the purchase of a new one, is a form of recycling. I fear it can also be a form of greenwash. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has held talks with the government over a possible £1.5bn scrappage scheme, to reduce the price of vehicles and drive sales after the lockdown. It might make sense if the scheme encouraged the purchase of electric cars, but industry is insisting that it should apply equally to the purchase of petrol and diesel cars as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Over the 10 years or so since British chancellors stopped increasing fuel duty in line with the cost of living the CO2 emissions from new cars have steadily been rising. And of course some have been rapidly rising, obscured by the VW scandal. Does it make sense to subsidise the production of such cars? Does it make sense to subsidise the production of any cars? “Absolutely!”, the industry will cry, citing the jobs involved the manufacturing, the supply chain and the dealerships - and the taxes paid on profits, on cars sold and on fuel. But the industry has been producing quality products for years now, and yet encourages us to buy a new car every two or three years and accepts that the average car will be scrapped at about 7 years, long before its useful life is over. While petrol and diesel cars create emissions in use, there is a tremendous carbon footprint in manufacturing a new one as well. The longer you keep it, the lower the average annual impact.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If we are to have scrappage I would base it on two factors: the emissions of the car to be scrapped and the emissions of the car to be bought. The dirtier the car you scrap and the cleaner the car you buy the more you get. Simple!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Recovery</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As we wait for economic recovery as lockdown ends, the EU claims that its recovery plans will not prejudice its climate change goals. The commission argues it can raise €150bn in public and private money, up from a pre-crisis goal of €100bn, to help fund greener transport, cleaner industry and renovated homes. At the heart of the plan, the EU proposes to more than quadruple to €40bn a “just transition fund” aimed at moving coal-dependent regions away from fossil fuels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Peter Colville is an activist and blogger who publishes under the title of The Unfinished Revolution. His latest article is headed “Krisis - a manifesto for the future,” was sent as a letter to the Observer newspaper and signed by some 50 or 60 academics, activists, artists, journalists and business people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“We, the undersigned, believe, firstly, that the Covid-19 pandemic highlights the importance of building a united, caring and resilient society, and secondly, that we must use the recovery to invest in preventing what could be an even greater disaster for humanity – a full-blown climate and ecological crisis – while there is still time.”</i></span></div>
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<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The key stages they lay out are:</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Recognise the value of care</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Accept that we really are all in this together</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Tackle the climate and ecological emergency</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Learn from the past</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Prepare for the future</span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Build Back Better</b> is a phrase on many people’s lips and websites. "Build Back Better" was firstly defined and used officially in the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>The World Resources Institute</b> says, “To build back better, countries must harness low-carbon investment opportunities to reboot economies while reducing the greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution that jeopardize lives. It means pulling people out of poverty and creating more jobs. And it means fostering resilience to future shocks like disease outbreaks and the impacts of climate change.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>We Mean Business</b> is a global nonprofit coalition working with the world’s most influential businesses to take action on climate change. They say, “Together we catalyze business leadership to drive policy ambition and accelerate the transition to a zero-carbon economy.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Under the heading of Build Back Better they claim that 1,282 companies with a combined market capitalisation of $24.8trn are committed to bold climate action through their partners’ initiatives. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There’s clearly appetite for change after the pandemic, but will there be consensus, will there be some sort of coordination, or will we sit around and talk about it while the politicians slide back to more of the same and business as usual?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Meanwhile the IMF</b> warns that markets are not paying attention to the climate crisis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Equity markets have generally ignored the increasing number of natural disasters over the past 50 years and tougher rules are needed to make investors aware of the dangers posed by the climate crisis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Companies should be forced to disclose their exposure to climate risk because a voluntary approach does not go far enough.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Let’s Talk about the Weather</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s a bit cooler today, but the UK had a record 266 hours of sunshine in May, following record rainfall in February. Such extremes are not typical of British weather. The previous record for sunshine for March to May was 555 hours. This year we had 626. The causes of this are puzzling the meteorologists. It could be something to do with climate change, although on its own it cannot prove or disprove anything. However it seems to be reinforcing a trend towards increasingly warm and unpredictable weather.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Back on 2nd June 1975 snow an inch thick stopped cricket. And then on 6th June a heatwave started. Only in England.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Energy News</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Last week I was a bit dismissive about a report from Australia. “Australia’s electricity grid operator,” I reported, “wants the power to remotely switch off or constrain the output of new rooftop solar systems, as it finds ways to manage South Australia's world-leading levels of "invisible and uncontrolled" solar output.” I commented, “No doubt balancing the grid will be a challenge, but surely the more urgent challenge is reducing emissions from power generation.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This week Climate Action presented a webinar entitled “Grid Flexibility: How can we make our grids more flexible to cope with the net-zero transition?”, which made it clear just how difficult the problem is. The event was moderated by Roland Roesch, of the Innovation and Technology Centre at IRENA, the International Renewable Energy Agency, with panellists Stathis Mokkas, Energy Markets Lead at UK Power Networks, Carolina Tortora, Head of Innovation at National Grid ESO and Richard Sarti, Director of Marketing and Sales at NODES AS. There’s a link on the blog to the recording of the webinar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Roland Roesch started by reminding us that the management of energy, both supply and demand, and the minimising of emissions from electricity generation were crucial to meeting the targets in the Paris Agreement. The increasing proportion of electricity coming from renewables challenged the whole distribution system.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There is a statutory duty to maintain the voltage and keep the frequency of the supply within narrow limits around 50Hz. The speakers described how the National Grid, the backbone of electricity distribution, was designed at a time when all energy was generated at major plants connected to the grid. In the control room operators could see the coal, nuclear and gas-fired stations and some hydro and pumped storage. They could see how each station was operating, they could talk to each station and they could plan days, weeks or months ahead, or contact them immediately if they had an unexpected surplus or shortfall. Now that we have an increasing proportion of renewable generation, much of it is not connected to the National Grid but is linked to the local distribution networks. This means that the grid controllers cannot see individual generators and cannot control them. They can only deduce their effect from fluctuations in demand from the local networks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In the past, forecasting demand has been better than 95% accurate, but the landscape is changing rapidly and fundamentally. The grid must be rebuilt to take account of these changes, and one speaker said it was like rebuilding a ship while at sea. The objective is to make the grid net zero by 2050 and carbon free by 2025. Carbon free means no back-up from gas or coal stations even in emergencies and including the ability to achieve a black start - restarting from a total blackout - from clean energy sources alone. This presumably includes nuclear power.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The objective is to achieve flexibility with minimal investment by making the most efficient use possible of existing assets, smarter grids and intelligent markets. Already artificial intelligence is being used and the potential of introducing blockchain is under study. Changes like the transfer to electric cars are built into the models. For example, to replace the whole of the UK vehicle fleet with electrics could put an additional demand of 5GW to 20GW on to the system. By comparison, the English city of Oxford, with a population of 155,000, has an electricity demand of 500MW. On the other hand, smart vehicles and smart chargers could permit the vehicle batteries to be used as short-term backup to the grid.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Complicated stuff, and I begin to have more sympathy with the people in Australia who want to slow down the use of solar PV. There’s no doubt that there is a tremendous amount of expertise working behind the scenes on these challenges.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Just think of that next time you turn on the light. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There was a lot more in the webinar and there’s a link to the recording on the blog. And for a near real-time view of how the UK National Grid is running go to </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/index.php">https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/index.php</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Coal</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If you look at that site you’ll probably see that we’re using no coal in our generation mix. I believe we used none at all for generating electricity in May. Hardly surprising then that one of Britain’s last remaining coalmine operators, Hargreaves, will put an end to all mining operations from next month because, they say, it is clear that coal has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/02/energy-firms-urged-to-mothball-coal-plants-as-cost-of-solar-tumbles"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #990010; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">“a limited future”</span></a> in the UK.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The end of Hargreaves coalmining business is likely to raise fresh doubts over plans put forward by the Banks Group, another Durham-based infrastructure firm, to develop the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/01/government-set-to-make-decision-on-uks-largest-coalmine"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #990010; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">UK’s largest opencast mine to serve Britain’s steel and cement sector</span></a>. The government is still to rule on that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And that’s it…</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">…for another week. I’m afraid you only got one episode this week. And if you liked it, please tell your friends and post your thoughts on social media. If you didn’t, please tell me. And if you really, really liked it why not become a patron? Why not become my first $50/month patron? Well I can dream. From $1 per month you can help me cover the costs of hosting the Sustainable Futures Report and getting the interviews transcribed. Full details are at <a href="http://www.patreon.com/sfr"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">www.patreon.com/sfr</span></a>. I’m always keen to hear from you and hear your ideas for the podcast. Contact me on <a href="mailto:mail@anthony-day.com"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">mail@anthony-day.com</span></a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m Anthony Day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That was the Sustainable Futures Report.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m sure I’ll find something to talk about next week.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #212121; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Sources</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>World Environment Day 2020</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.worldenvironmentday.global/">https://www.worldenvironmentday.global</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://p.widencdn.net/e2n0wj/WED_SimpleToolkit">https://p.widencdn.net/e2n0wj/WED_SimpleToolkit<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Sixth mass extinction of wildlife accelerating, scientists warn</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/01/sixth-mass-extinction-of-wildlife-accelerating-scientists-warn">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/01/sixth-mass-extinction-of-wildlife-accelerating-scientists-warn</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/05/27/1922686117">https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/05/27/1922686117</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Transport</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Hyperloop</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.smartcitiesworld.net/news/news/hyperloop-company-completes-7m-financing-round-5325?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter">https://www.smartcitiesworld.net/news/news/hyperloop-company-completes-7m-financing-round-5325?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Flying Car</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://lilium.com/">https://lilium.com/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">World’s largest all-electric aircraft set for first flight</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/27/worlds-largest-all-electric-aircraft-set-for-first-flight">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/27/worlds-largest-all-electric-aircraft-set-for-first-flight<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Spain rekindles a radical idea: a Europe-wide minimum income</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/spain-rekindles-a-radical-idea-a-europe-wide-minimum-income">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/spain-rekindles-a-radical-idea-a-europe-wide-minimum-income<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Recycling</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Degrading bottles</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/16/the-end-of-plastic-new-plant-based-bottles-will-degrade-in-a-year">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/16/the-end-of-plastic-new-plant-based-bottles-will-degrade-in-a-year<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Eight months on, is the world's most drastic plastic bag ban working?</span></div>
<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/nairobi-clean-up-highs-lows-kenyas-plastic-bag-ban">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/nairobi-clean-up-highs-lows-kenyas-plastic-bag-ban<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001373793/ban-on-single-use-plastic-takes-effect-on-kenya-s-protected-areas">https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001373793/ban-on-single-use-plastic-takes-effect-on-kenya-s-protected-areas<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-49421885">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-49421885<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2020-06-01-why-you-wont-be-allowed-in-parks-on-beaches-with-plastic-bottles/">https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2020-06-01-why-you-wont-be-allowed-in-parks-on-beaches-with-plastic-bottles/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Scrappage</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.verdict.co.uk/motor-finance-online/news/smmt-scrappage-scheme-government/">https://www.verdict.co.uk/motor-finance-online/news/smmt-scrappage-scheme-government/</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-52813838">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-52813838</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Recovery</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://theunfinishedrevolution.net/">https://theunfinishedrevolution.net/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Build back better</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.wri.org/coronavirus-recovery">https://www.wri.org/coronavirus-recovery</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/about/">https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/about/</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">EU pledges coronavirus recovery plan will not harm climate goals</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/28/eu-pledges-coronavirus-recovery-plan-will-not-harm-climate-goals">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/28/eu-pledges-coronavirus-recovery-plan-will-not-harm-climate-goals<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Markets not paying attention to climate crisis, IMF says</span></div>
<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/29/markets-not-paying-attention-to-climate-crisis-imf-warns">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/29/markets-not-paying-attention-to-climate-crisis-imf-warns<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Weather</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52877912"><b>Climate change: UK's record dry spell after extreme rainfall astounds Met Office</b><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Freak snow stopped cricket on 2 June 1975</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jun/01/weatherwatch-freak-snow-stopped-cricket-on-2-june-1975">https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jun/01/weatherwatch-freak-snow-stopped-cricket-on-2-june-1975<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Energy</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">UK coalmines operator Hargreaves Services to end mining next month</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/02/uk-coal-mines-operator-hargreaves-services-to-end-mining-next-month">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/02/uk-coal-mines-operator-hargreaves-services-to-end-mining-next-month<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Grid Flexibility</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.climateaction.org/webinars/grid-flexibility">http://www.climateaction.org/webinars/grid-flexibility<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">UK Grid Performance</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Coal</span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-48656391191672977262020-05-29T01:00:00.000+01:002020-05-29T10:09:13.886+01:00Talking to the Other Side<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Talking to the Other Side</b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5-7HGRjU-daotM_WvQC6bqMdczWx-Dx4jCmtveADdsfmMOsJNbE-OKW2qMcYGRKOxURecU9QSj_MupMLcmHHq1giFytxdK4eL7_77J7Go8jvMuK8FRUicVcY_6T3_1WpGrfA/s1600/460children-argue.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="297" data-original-width="460" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5-7HGRjU-daotM_WvQC6bqMdczWx-Dx4jCmtveADdsfmMOsJNbE-OKW2qMcYGRKOxURecU9QSj_MupMLcmHHq1giFytxdK4eL7_77J7Go8jvMuK8FRUicVcY_6T3_1WpGrfA/s320/460children-argue.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Futures Report for Friday 29th May. I’m Anthony Day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The theme of this episode is Talking to the Other Side. How do we talk to the other side about the climate emergency? How do we find common ground? How do we get everyone working together? I spoke to Kevin Wilhelm CEO of Sustainable Business Consulting in Seattle.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">Anthony Day:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> I’m talking to Kevin Wilhelm, who with Natalie Hoffman is joint author of a book called “How to Talk to the Other Side: Finding Common Ground in the Time of Coronavirus, Recession, and Climate Change.” Now, I know the coronavirus and recession are very much at the forefront of our minds at the moment, but the climate emergency has not gone away. We really need to be able to talk to the other side because there are people who have vested interests and there are people who are dogmatically opposed to the idea that climate change is a problem. So, how do we talk to the other side, Kevin? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">Kevin Wilhelm:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> Well, I think the biggest issue that most people have is they’ve already set their mindset that they can’t agree with somebody who may disagree with them, so when we talk about issues like climate change, the economy, this has been going on for decades. All the way back to, in the United States, at least since 1987, but even if you think of the first Earth summit in Rio and the second one in South Africa, both times there was economic uncertainty that was going on globally. Politicians and business groups came together and said, we can’t take action on this because it’s going to hurt the economy, and the same mindset is starting to happen now. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPeY2f3paJpCIxpRVgsRHPoei64oLWZoZWO1MkRoCjB6FdKPz6wp5uvtoJU8Uvxv4ORpgORIBqjz8lglf5rfdYuymE6XRQA8dMUMiTZ3IPnABklPsiRnvmprg6IevDiwjp8hM/s1600/Kevin+Wilhelm+Book+Crop+460.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="353" data-original-width="460" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPeY2f3paJpCIxpRVgsRHPoei64oLWZoZWO1MkRoCjB6FdKPz6wp5uvtoJU8Uvxv4ORpgORIBqjz8lglf5rfdYuymE6XRQA8dMUMiTZ3IPnABklPsiRnvmprg6IevDiwjp8hM/s320/Kevin+Wilhelm+Book+Crop+460.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kevin Wilhelm</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US">Through my consulting work and what we laid out in this book, is dozens of examples of businesses that have made more money by leaning into the climate change efforts, because they’ve saved on energy, they’ve saved on water, they’ve saved on transportation costs, they’ve innovated new ways of delivering products and services. You’re even seeing it in the financial markets, we’ve seen record growth of the stock market for the last 10 years up until, say, February of this year, and even during that time, those companies that were on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index or the S&P 500 Environmental and Social Index outperformed traditional indices which were performing at record highs. There’s this myth that you have to give up money or sacrifice to do the right thing environmentally, and from a climate perspective, what we wanted to do was really flip that notion on its head and show the examples of where it’s win win, regardless of your perspective. That’s one thing that we’ve used as an example to bring people from opposite sides, because we feel money is a nonpartisan issue. If you can make more money and I can make more money, then ideology somehow falls away a little. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">AD:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> Yes. Then you have the very big players, particularly in energy, you know I’m going to talk about oil, talk about coal. There’s not a lot you can do to change your business to be environmentally responsible. You can’t mine coal in an environmentally friendly way, or at least, if you do, burning coal is not environmentally friendly. Those are the sorts of pressures that we have to find common ground with or at least we’ve got to convince them that we need change. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">KW:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> Yeah, absolutely. Coal is a really difficult one. I like to look at the entire fossil fuel industry as one area and then each of them a little separately. If you think about it, we used to call them oil companies, now we call them energy companies, and that’s because BP, Shell, even Exxon Mobil realized that there was going to be a finite resource and the costs of getting to some of these places was going to be really difficult. As you’ve seen, oil prices have come way down, the more extreme places like the tar sands or the deep ocean off of Brazil no longer make financial sense. They had to shift because wind and solar power have become cost competitive. You’ve seen what were traditional oil companies become energy companies because they realized they can still provide energy in a different way. We’ve also seen a number of energy companies who have switched from coal to natural gas, because natural gas is cleaner but mostly because its cheaper right now with all the fracking that’s been going on. So there’s been this shift and it’s been mostly market driven, even though it’s been played out like the environmentalists are the ones killing the coal industry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnsIIbP8Tl4I7Scz98VXh0WQlEB0ewZLHA4WjYRUI2TmcvPP83oVF_xfRvu_K2FrR9bso68A36OiSH6YthoMgGDWhrIXUhO_BmDR9pMHLDQmplnIo9Bx4wpcdw8cCmXUUiz6c/s1600/Natalie+Hoffman+Book+Crop+460.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="460" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnsIIbP8Tl4I7Scz98VXh0WQlEB0ewZLHA4WjYRUI2TmcvPP83oVF_xfRvu_K2FrR9bso68A36OiSH6YthoMgGDWhrIXUhO_BmDR9pMHLDQmplnIo9Bx4wpcdw8cCmXUUiz6c/s320/Natalie+Hoffman+Book+Crop+460.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Natalie Hoffman</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US">The coal industry in itself, it’s a dying breed and it’s a dying beast. One of the things that we go out of our way in this book to make clear is that you can’t just let whole communities and ways of life just die. You need to reach out and find ways to make their lives better. There’s a couple of examples in our book where in the coal country in the United States there’s been movement by organizations to go into these communities and find them higher paying jobs, taking their skills they use as miners and retraining them to be solar technicians or wind power technicians, so you’re automatically giving them a job, so they have their livelihood, the tax base is the same, it goes to the community, but all the black lung disease and all the health problems can melt away. So it’s a generational shift, so that’s a hard one, but we’ve seen it happen in the aerospace industry in the 90s when the cold war ended, they took defense contractors and retrained them, and then you had explosions in DirecTV and the Dish Network and GPS and all these commercially viable companies grew out of it by training defense contractors and I think we can do the same thing in the fossil fuel industry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">AD:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> Do you see the market doing that or do you think the government is needed to actually push this forward? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">KW:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> I definitely think the government needs to help. I think the market has already made its decision on coal, its not coming back. There’s been over 85 different coal companies just in the United States that have gone bankrupt just in the last 3 years. You’re in the UK, there are probably more people that work in McDonalds in the United Kingdom than work in the coal industry in the US. There’s actually a stat I have in the book that there’s more people who work at the Arbys fast food restaurant chain than the coal industry in the United States but we’re not giving bailouts to Arbys. Government does need to be at play, and like any transition, you have to find a way where you can’t just abandon a community and a way of life and just expect things to get better because then you’re going to have the societal costs that you’re seeing of opioid addiction, unemployment, crime, and everything that can happen, so they have to lean in and play that temporary role during that transition to attract the market for regrowth for that area in the economy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">AD:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> From where I’m standing, your national government certainly doesn’t seem to be doing much in that direction. But then again, you have a different structure, maybe it’s just your state governments which are leading this sort of initiative. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">KW:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> Some of the states and a lot of nonprofit organizations. I know the reach of your podcast is international, and as someone who has been a proud American their whole life, these last three years have been extremely difficult to talk to my international friends, because we’re not leading anymore. We’re doing the opposite of leading, we’re making things so much worse at the federal level. But what you’re seeing is states and businesses are leaning into things. When the Trump administration announced they were going to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords, states and big businesses came stepped up and said we’re still in, and there were enough big businesses and states that would be able to reduce emissions and committed to reducing emissions, so it doesn’t matter if the federal government isn’t aligned because the emissions from the United States can still meet the Paris Climate Accords. It’s one of those things where we’re all having to find ways around where the blockages, and it actually would be a good model for developing countries or other countries where they may not be seeing the ideas around the opportunity on climate change, only the negative aspects of it. I think that if a country like the UK decided overnight, we’re going to be the leader in green technology, and we’re going to massively change our whole way of life, there would be an economic explosion on that because somebody is going to win that race, it’s just no one has really committed to it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">AD:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> Yes, I’d certainly like to see that happen. Tell me, who is your book aimed at? The general reader, business, government, or what? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">KW:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> You know, that’s a great question, Anthony, because its really put out for the general public, but its got multiple audiences. Basically, because in our country and I think in every country, there are “sides,” you’ve got labor, you’ve got conservatives, in our country you’ve got Republicans and Democrats. You can also break it down by religion, by geographical location, by rural vs. urban. So what we tried to do was pick six different examples of “other sides” where you hear about it in the popular media or social media where people are at odds. We tried to write a very neutral book, right down the center, where we tried to say here are opportunities for common ground with people who you might think are on the other side but are really just like you. You know, everyone wants to be healthy, their kids to grow up safe, better education, better opportunities, they want to have a good job and want to be able to retire. So by starting these shared aspirations for where you can find common ground, what gets everyone caught up is how they’re doing it, and that’s where the politics, the media craze messes it all up, so what we try to do is show the win-win examples that work for both sides and ways to lower the temperate of the conversation so that you can have a productive path forward. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">AD:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> Right. We are living in difficult times at the moment, to say the least. But taking an overall view, would you then say that you are optimistic? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">KW: </span></b><span lang="EN-US">I’ll put it this way, if you had asked me in February, before the global pandemic, I would have said yes. Right now, I’m cautiously optimistic because I think one of the reasons we wrote this book right now to be very contemporary with the pandemic and the recession, was we wanted to be very real. We didn’t want to put out something that would be pie in the sky, well that would be great, but for 25% unemployment, what are you going to do. We’ve really leaned into that, and even in these economic times, what you’re seeing is people are longing for community, they’re longing for connection, their busy rat race day-to-day lives that they had been doing, they’re now taking a step back and asking, where do I want to be spending my money, where do I want to be spending my time, how do I want to be living. I think there’s been a cultural awakening of people who want to buy local, to shop from local restaurants, to save their money and if they’re going to spend it, spend it on something that’s going to help their neighbor or friend who has a small business. That gives me optimism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">My firm, Sustainable Business Consulting, we’ve been consulting for 15 years with 160+ global clients, and the idea that telling someone that all their employees tomorrow are going to work from home and they’re going to stop all business travel and its going to be great for the planet, that would fall on deaf ears. What we’ve seen is now, in a matter of 2 months, companies who would have never changed their mindset have been forced to change their mindset. We’ve already seen global carbon emissions to come down 17%, but for a lot of our clients, a lot of their emissions may have come from business travel, if this pandemic continues for another couple months, people are going to be so used to virtual conferencing and doing things remotely, it gives us a fighting chance to do these things. Same thing with commuting, I literally was having a conversation with a client the day before COVID-19 hit in Seattle, and I was telling them, 33% of your emissions come from your commuting, if you try to work from home one day a week, you could cut those emissions by 20%. They were like, we can’t do it, that’s not how our business works, and within two weeks, 100% of their workforce is working remotely. That gives me optimism because it breaks the mindset of what is possible, and if we could come out with some lessons learned and some new ways of doing things, I am actually a little bit optimistic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">AD:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> Well, that’s great, its great to have a positive message, it really is. Kevin, your book is out now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">KW:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> It’s on sale on Amazon and also on Kindle. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">AD:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> Well, thank you very much for sharing your ideas. It’s interesting and its always great to have a positive message on a Friday, so thank you very much indeed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">KW:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> Alright, thanks so much, take care. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That was Kevin Wilhelm, CEO of Sustainable Business Consulting in Seattle, Washington. <a href="http://www.sustainablebizconsulting.com/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">www.sustainablebizconsulting.com</span></a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As he said, "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578671328"><span style="color: #0b4cb4; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b>How to Talk to the Other Side</b></span></a>: Finding Common Ground amongst COVID, Recession, & Climate Change”, is now available at your favourite bookshop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If you’ve already listened to this week’s other episode you’ll know that we have a new patron. Welcome to newest patron Pamela McAllister, over there in Queensland, Australia. I was going to say you’re our first patron in Australia, but in fact that distinction goes to Colin Clarke who’s near Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory. Many thanks to Pamela McAllister, Colin Clarke and all other patrons who help to make the Sustainable Futures Report possible. And a special mention to Imogen Littlejohns, my longest-standing patron. Special thanks to you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And that’s it…</b></span></h4>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">…for this week. That’s the fourth episode in two weeks, so I make no promises for next week. Although given that Friday 5th is World Environment Day I suppose I should do something.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Anyway, you can be sure that I’m Anthony Day, and there will be another episode of the Sustainable Futures Report…</span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-25129964232821512020-05-28T07:55:00.000+01:002020-05-28T07:55:46.369+01:00Shooting for a Green Recovery<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Shooting for A Green Recovery</b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmtXjHDdM6FzgtTXsBzw7QD884NwcIDgz_QcUQHo3mu3s37NyzGvEtdCPjWkeBbSXgUI5lKEVskGA3TAEHsB8t612h48r5p_GzK9V5H1Fhl6CUM6sZY9E48pt8a_vhJWgyM0Q/s1600/cat-1192026_1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmtXjHDdM6FzgtTXsBzw7QD884NwcIDgz_QcUQHo3mu3s37NyzGvEtdCPjWkeBbSXgUI5lKEVskGA3TAEHsB8t612h48r5p_GzK9V5H1Fhl6CUM6sZY9E48pt8a_vhJWgyM0Q/s320/cat-1192026_1920.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-kerning: none;">Hello and welcome to an extra Sustainable Futures Report for Wednesday 27th May. There’ll still be one on Friday!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Making the headlines, some politicians, activists and commentators are calling for a green recovery. A changed world as we come out of COVID lockdown. There are endless arguments over what that actually means, how we do it, when we do it and whether we can do it. Meanwhile, some fossil fuel companies are accused of failing to meet targets, some are agitating for targets to be dropped and some politicians are quietly dropping them anyway. The word in the markets is that green investment is a success story and elsewhere the sun is shining on renewables, even if some of them are all at sea. (Oh, all right, it’s a lake.) And then there’s net zero. What does it actually mean, and could BECCS help? And we have a new patron. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(Oh, and there's nothing about cats, although I do mention CAT later.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Welcome</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Welcome to newest patron Pamela McAllister, over there in Queensland, Australia. I was going to say you’re our first patron in Australia, but in fact that distinction goes to Colin Clarke who’s near Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory. Many thanks to Pamela McAllister, Colin Clarke and all other patrons who help to make the Sustainable Futures Report possible. And a special mention to Imogen Littlejohns, my longest-standing patron. Special thanks to you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>What’s in the news?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s the Green Recovery. Transform, the journal of IEMA reports that more than one million citizens have joined forces with 100 environmental NGOs to urge the EU to launch the biggest green investment package the world has ever seen in response to the coronavirus crisis. The Green 10 coalition of environmental organisations has launched an <a href="https://green10.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Green-Recovery_EN.pdf"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #092f9d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">appeal</span></a> urging lawmakers to invest hundreds of billions into home renovations, scaling up renewable energy, restoring natural habitats, boosting public transport and zero-emission mobility, and greening agriculture.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>The EU recovery fund</b> can be used to unlock an estimated €1.8 trillion opportunity by 2030 by making better use of materials and reducing waste, according to Patrick Schröder and David McGinty writing on <a href="http://euractiv.com/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">euractiv.com</span></a>. France and Germany first proposed a €500 billion recovery fund to help eurozone economies affected by the coronavirus, followed by a separate proposal from the so-called ‘frugal four’ – the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Sweden.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">While there are some significant differences between the plans, they both refer to the need for a green transition. This unprecedented economic stimulus provides the EU with the opportunity to go even further, and accelerate the shift to a circular economy. This all depends, they say, on</span></div>
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<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #262626;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">First, using the green stimulus to ensure progress on the circular economy is not further reversed by the COVID-19 crisis.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #262626;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Second, promoting more resilience to safeguard against resource shortages and supply chain risks.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #262626;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Third, promoting the EU’s global leadership on the circular economy through international cross-sector cooperation to support a recovery, which is also just and inclusive.</span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Will COVID-19 fiscal recovery packages accelerate or retard progress on climate change?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That’s the title of a paper by Cameron Hepburn</span><span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-kerning: none;">, </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Brian O’Callaghan</span><span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-kerning: none;">, </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Nicholas Stern</span><span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-kerning: none;">, </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Joseph Stiglitz</span><span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-kerning: none;">, </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Dimitri Zenghelis published in the <i>Oxford Review of Economic Policy. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Joseph Stiglitz is a former chief economist at the World Bank and a Nobel Prize-winner; Nicholas Stern is </i></span><span style="color: #18191a; font-kerning: none;"><i>professor of economics and government and chair of the </i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grantham_Research_Institute_on_Climate_Change_and_the_Environment"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: black;"><i>Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment</i></span></a><i> at the </i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_School_of_Economics"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: black;"><i>London School of Economics</i></span></a><i> (LSE), and 2010 Professor of </i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coll%C3%A8ge_de_France"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: black;"><i>Collège de France</i></span></a><i>. He was </i></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>author of the Stern Review which urged the then government to act promptly on climate because the cost of inaction would rise year by year. That was in 2006.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The paper says:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The COVID-19 crisis is likely to have dramatic consequences for progress on climate change. Imminent fiscal recovery packages could entrench or partly displace the current fossil-fuel-intensive economic system…</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Nicholas Stern</b> is quoted as saying that stimulating new jobs in heavily emitting sectors was short-sighted. “The jobs of the past are insecure jobs,” he said. “[To create future jobs] we need the right kind of finance in the right place at the right scale at the right price.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Mark Carney</b>, former governor of the Bank of England and now a finance adviser <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/01/uk-likely-to-postpone-cop26-un-climate-talks-glasgow-coronavirus"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #990010; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">to Boris Johnson for Cop26</span></a>, the UN climate conference to discuss progress towards the Paris Agreement, called for all companies to disclose their plans to reach net zero emissions. “Every company in every sector, every bank and every insurer, every pension fund, should be expecting to develop and disclose a transition plan to net zero,” he said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The UK can seize the opportunity as president and host of the crunch UN climate talks to lead the way on an international green recovery, leading economists said, in a briefing to ministers to accompany the Oxford study results.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Many of the projects that could create new jobs in the UK are “shovel-ready”, compliant with social distancing requirements and could be started quickly, said <b>Cameron Hepburn</b>, director of the Smith School of enterprise and the environment at Oxford University and lead author of the study.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He cited energy efficiency programmes to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/11/uks-housing-stock-needs-massive-retrofit-to-meet-climate-targets"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #990010; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">insulate the UK’s draughty housing stock</span></a>, the building of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/23/electric-cars-produce-less-co2-than-petrol-vehicles-study-confirms"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #990010; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">electric vehicle charging networks</span></a>, redesigning roads for more cycling, flood protection and planting trees. “These all need large-scale deployment, offer low to moderate skilled work and will have benefits in terms of climate change as well as boosting the economy,” he said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Oxford study compared green stimulus projects with traditional stimulus, such as measures taken after the 2008 global financial crisis, and found green projects create more jobs, deliver higher short-term returns per pound spent by the government, and lead to increased long-term cost savings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Clean energy infrastructure construction is one example, generating twice as many jobs per pound of government expenditure as fossil fuel projects around the world. Others include expanding broadband so more people can work from home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Tackling climate change has the answer to our economic problems,” Prof Hepburn told the Guardian. In their stimulus packages after the 2008 financial crisis, governments largely failed to capitalise on the carbon-cutting potential of their spending, partly because there was a lack of “shovel-ready” initiatives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>COP26</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Greenpeace is complaining at the news that the British government is apparently giving a major role in the presidency of COP26 to oil major BP, following discussions with Andrea Leadsom, minister for energy. That is the same Andrea Leadsom who has in the past voted against wind power, supported fracking and admitted that when she took office her first question to her officials was, “Is climate change real?” </span></div>
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<span style="color: #990010; font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/edmiliband">Ed Miliband</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">, the UK’s shadow business secretary, has called for green recovery plans to include creating a “zero-carbon army of young people” doing work such as planting trees, insulating buildings and working on green technologies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">S&P Global Market Intelligence reports that executives from more than 150 companies around the world that have a combined market capitalisation of more than $2.4 trillion have signed a statement calling on governments to plan a green economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Calling All Governments</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">"As countries work on economic aid and recovery packages in response to COVID-19, and as they prepare to submit enhanced national climate plans under the Paris Agreement, we are calling on governments to reimagine a better future grounded in bold climate action," said the statement, which was organised by the Science Based Targets initiative. The SBTi is a collaboration between CDP (The Carbon Disclosure Project), World Resources Institute (WRI), the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has calculated that the green economy contributed a third of the UK’s economic growth in 2010-11, following the financial crisis, while Britain’s traditional economic engines floundered. At the time they said that the choice between “green or growth” was a false one. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Letters</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Earlier this month the CEOs of some 60 organisations, including Barratt Developments, Good Energy and the RSPB, wrote to the UK prime minister saying, “It is now clearer than ever before that the health of humanity is inextricably bound to the health of our planet. Your government has the opportunity to show global leadership, forging a path out of this crisis by putting a resilient economy, healthy communities, and a thriving natural world at the heart of the relief and recovery effort.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They called for:</span></div>
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<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">A more resilient economy</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Increased space for wildlife and people </span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Strengthening Nature’s protections</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Building global ambition in the run-up to COP26</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>More Letters</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And they weren’t alone. The Committee on Climate Change also wrote to the government in a letter headed “Building a resilient recovery from the COVID-19 crisis”. Their key recommendations were that the Government should prioritise actions according to six principles for a resilient recovery. These are:</span></div>
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<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #1f2021;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Use climate investments to support the economic recovery and jobs.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #1f2021;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Lead a shift towards positive long-term behaviours.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #1f2021;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Tackle the wider ‘resilience deficit’ on climate change.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #1f2021;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Embed fairness as a core principle.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #1f2021;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Ensure the recovery does not ‘lock-in’ greenhouse gas emissions or increased climate risk.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="color: #1f2021;"></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Strengthen incentives to reduce emissions when considering fiscal changes.</span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Lancet Planetary Health warns that we need to inspire climate action without inducing climate despair. Author Christie Nicole Godsmark reports, “Recently, in assisting [such] a class with a climate–health learning activity focusing on solutions, one student commented to another that she just could not see a way out of the present situation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Comments such as this can bring the ethical safeguarding responsibility of educators into focus. Should educators be providing support to students who consciously and internally engage with the devastation of the climate and its impacts on health, and so might be susceptible to experiencing solastalgia, ecological grief, eco-anxiety, or pessimism? There appears to be a fine balance for educators between safeguarding the mental health of students who might feel climate despair on the one hand, and inspiring students to take personal climate action on the other by presenting the facts of this unprecedented and existential threat to humanity.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Of course it’s not just students who are likely to suffer from eco-anxiety, and this may be exacerbated by more fragile mental health due to the COVID lockdown. An issue that we maybe should explore in more detail in a future episode.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Carbon Down</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Meanwhile Business Green reports that carbon emissions have fallen dramatically as a result of lockdown. As I’ve commented previously, the total annual reduction depends on how long lockdown continues and how far we go back to business as usual afterwards. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Action This Day</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We’ve heard myriad voices calling for things to be done better, but this could mean policies at odds with the beliefs of many governments, like a reduction in inequality, a universal basic income, fairer taxes, public infrastructure investment and public management of natural monopolies like water, health and railways. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">No amount of earnest entreaties will change anything, unless governments all over the world take action.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>On the Fossil Fuel Front…</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Australian and Canadian governments are working hard to promote their local fossil fuel industries - something else for a future episode.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We’ve mentioned that BP has been asked by the government to play a role in COP26. Why not, when the company has committed to be carbon-neutral by 2050, and BP’s new chief executive has said that the impact of the coronavirus pandemic has deepened his commitment to shrinking the oil giant’s carbon footprint to zero? Well a report from the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI) states that BP, along with most other oil companies, is not doing nearly enough to meet its stated target. Quoting other research by TPI, IEMA’s Transform says that the mining industry is not aligned with its own climate goals either.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">One solution to this dilemma is of course to move the goal posts. Australia's electricity grid operator wants the power to remotely switch off or constrain the output of new rooftop solar systems, as it finds ways to manage South Australia's world-leading levels of "invisible and uncontrolled" solar output. It complains that the runaway success of solar power <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-07/rising-number-of-solar-rooftop-installations-flooding-grid/9845924"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #0640c0; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">poses serious challenges for the security of the grid</span></a>, because it operates "behind-the-meter", out of control of the authorities. It’s estimated that up to 85 per cent of South Australia's power demand could be met by solar by 2025. There is no coal-fired generation in SA. Apart from wind and solar, the main source of electricity is natural gas - a fossil fuel - with some hydro and some diesel - a dirty fossil fuel - backup. There are two battery storage installations. No doubt balancing the grid will be a challenge, but surely the more urgent challenge is reducing emissions from power generation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Looking at other regulations, a recent article in The Lancet looks at public reporting of the use of fracking chemicals the USA.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And now some more positive news…</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Rockefeller investment fund divested from fossil fuels five years ago and reports that the strategy was a success. BlackRock, the US investment manager which managed $6.5tn (£5.3tn) in assets at the end of March, found that investments in organisations with with better records on social issues and good governance were more resilient than others during the recent coronavirus market crash. And the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) wrote to the governments of the G20 nations urging a sustainable recovery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On the renewables front we learn that Britain's largest solar farm is poised to begin development in Kent while Dutch engineers are building the world's biggest sun-seeking solar farm. In Kent 880,000 solar panels will be installed at a cost of £440m to generate 350MW on a site covering 364 hectares (900 acres) of farmland.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In northern Holland 74,000 solar panels will be installed on islands floating in a reservoir. This will enable them to move to track the sun.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Net Zero</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Net zero is the holy grail that every country is trying to achieve, or at least promising to achieve. The Lancet reports that New Zealand has been way ahead of the game, but seems to have slowed up in recent years. Instead of looking for reductions from transport and agriculture the government is relying on offsets from forestry. And the article claims that the recent climate legislation does nothing to control methane.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Moving across the ocean, I’ve had a question from another listener in Australia, Carol Dance. She says, “As a layperson, I couldn’t find the answer to my key question, Does Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) emit as much or similar amount of carbon into the atmosphere as natural gas?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“I understand that RNG would reduce fracking and other destructive methods of acquiring fossil gas. That’s fine. But does it still emit destructive gas? Isn’t it basically the same gas with perhaps different proportions of the various hydrocarbons?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This was my answer:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Yes, the question of RNG is a vexed one, and I have to speak as a layman too. I think that RNG, which is mainly methane, probably emits as much CO2 as natural gas, which is mainly methane. The supporters of bioenergy are putting their trust in BECCS, which I discussed with James Dyke in “Game Over” on 20th May. The simple argument for bioenergy, from woodchip to waste, is that the organic material that is burnt is replaced by new growth which absorbs an equivalent quantity of CO2 to that which is emitted. There are problems with that, in that growth takes far longer to recover the CO2 than it takes for the emissions to be made and there are emissions involved in constructing the bioenergy plant, harvesting the fuel and transporting it. In theory the process is carbon-neutral, but in practice that can never be the case because of these overheads.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Along comes BECCS - BioEnergy with Carbon Capture and Storage. If the CO2 from the bioenergy plant is captured then it is physically removed from the atmosphere and there is a reduction in the global total. Organic growth continues and that also removes CO2 from the atmosphere, so even after the plant. harvesting and transport emissions, the operation could be net negative. This all depends on how the RNG is used. If it ends up as road fuel there is no way the CO2 can be captured and stored. On the other hand, if it is all used in one location like a gas turbine for power generation or a hydrogen production plant, then capture and storage should be possible. But as far as I know, no carbon capture is operating successfully at a commercial scale anywhere in the world. I may be wrong. If you know different, please let me know. <a href="mailto:mail@anthony-day.com"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">mail@anthony-day.com</span></a>" </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And Finally…</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Let’s talk about a cat. No, not that cat - that's a very fetching picture - this CAT is the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales. I went there once and they have these devices where you wind a handle and it tells you about the exhibit in front of you. Turn it one way and it tells you in English. Turn it the other way and it tells you in Welsh. Fascinating. Anyway, if you’ve never been to visit, you can’t at the moment. But you can visit their website where they’ve developed webinars and online activities and training courses. Worth a look. Find it at <a href="http://cat.org.uk/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">cat.org.uk</span></a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And very finally,</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There’s a report from McKinsey on the need for a Green recovery. You’ll find a link to the article on the blog. It includes cows in face-masks to control the methane they produce. Presumably they won’t get COVID either. Or should the be COWVID? Sorry, I’ve been doing this too long!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And that’s it!</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The reason for two episodes again this week is that I have another interview that you’ll hear on Friday and I’ve had all these stories stacking up. I thought if I put them all together the episode would just be too long. Let me know what you think - should the Sustainable Futures Report be longer, or shorter - or is it just right? Let me know at mail@anthony-day.com about this and any other ideas. And don’t forget this blog. You'll find that there are several pages of links to the stories I’ve covered this time. The blog is at <a href="http://www.sustainablefutures.report/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">www.sustainablefutures.report</span></a> .</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>So that’s it.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m Anthony Day</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That was the Sustainable Futures Report.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There’s another one on Friday, but I’m not making any promises about next week.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Sources</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Green Recovery</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://transform.iema.net/article/over-million-citizens-call-green-covid-19-recovery?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_term=">https://transform.iema.net/article/over-million-citizens-call-green-covid-19-recovery?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_term=</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/circular-economy/opinion/eu-recovery-fund-is-a-chance-to-accelerate-the-circular-economy/">https://www.euractiv.com/section/circular-economy/opinion/eu-recovery-fund-is-a-chance-to-accelerate-the-circular-economy/</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/05/green-stimulus-can-repair-global-economy-and-climate-study-says">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/05/green-stimulus-can-repair-global-economy-and-climate-study-says<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://academic.oup.com/oxrep/advance-article/doi/10.1093/oxrep/graa015/5832003?searchresult=1">https://academic.oup.com/oxrep/advance-article/doi/10.1093/oxrep/graa015/5832003?searchresult=1<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>COP26</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/05/25/cop26-minister-bp-key-stakeholder-climate-conference/">https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/05/25/cop26-minister-bp-key-stakeholder-climate-conference/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/cop26-climate-change-talks-bp-stakeholder-fossil-fuels-2864212">https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/cop26-climate-change-talks-bp-stakeholder-fossil-fuels-2864212<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/energy-minister-andrea-leadsom-asked-whether-climate-change-was-real-when-she-started-the-job-a6710971.html</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/17/labour-to-plan-green-economic-rescue-from-coronavirus-crisis">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/17/labour-to-plan-green-economic-rescue-from-coronavirus-crisis<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>How renewable energy could power Britain's economic recovery</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/19/how-renewable-energy-could-power-britains-economic-recovery">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/19/how-renewable-energy-could-power-britains-economic-recovery<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/iberdrola-other-companies-urge-governments-to-plan-green-exit-from-covid-19-58732485">https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/iberdrola-other-companies-urge-governments-to-plan-green-exit-from-covid-19-58732485<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://sciencebasedtargets.org/ceo-climate-statement/">https://sciencebasedtargets.org/ceo-climate-statement/</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52580291">UK 'must prioritise green economic recovery'<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.green-alliance.org.uk/resources/Resilient_Recovery_letter.pdf">https://www.green-alliance.org.uk/resources/Resilient_Recovery_letter.pdf<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/letter-building-a-resilient-recovery-from-the-covid-19-crisis-to-prime-minister-boris-johnson/">https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/letter-building-a-resilient-recovery-from-the-covid-19-crisis-to-prime-minister-boris-johnson/</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/10/after-coronavirus-focus-on-the-climate-emergency">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/10/after-coronavirus-focus-on-the-climate-emergency<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Anxiety</b></span></div>
<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30102-9/fulltext?dgcid=raven_jbs_etoc_email">https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30102-9/fulltext?dgcid=raven_jbs_etoc_email<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4015427/extreme-effect-global-emissions-plummet-cent-lockdown">https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4015427/extreme-effect-global-emissions-plummet-cent-lockdown<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52485712"><b>Climate change and coronavirus: Five charts about the biggest carbon crash</b><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">McKinsey</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/five-fifty-the-other-global-crisis?cid=fivefifty-eml-alt-mkq-mck&hlkid=52680a04155a4f1585b98e29793e93ad&hctky=2752033&hdpid=463e0564-e2aa-4740-9a8b-2c265968295f">https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/five-fifty-the-other-global-crisis?cid=fivefifty-eml-alt-mkq-mck&hlkid=52680a04155a4f1585b98e29793e93ad&hctky=2752033&hdpid=463e0564-e2aa-4740-9a8b-2c265968295f<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Fossil Fuel industry</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://transform.iema.net/article/worlds-largest-mining-companies-failing-align-climate-goals?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_term=">https://transform.iema.net/article/worlds-largest-mining-companies-failing-align-climate-goals?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_term=<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/17/bp-chief-says-covid-has-deepened-commitment-to-net-zero-emissions">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/17/bp-chief-says-covid-has-deepened-commitment-to-net-zero-emissions<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52624695">Climate change: Study pours cold water on oil company net zero claims<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.transitionpathwayinitiative.org/tpi">https://www.transitionpathwayinitiative.org/tpi</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-30/grid-operator-looks-to-manage-solar-power-output-in-sa/12202004">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-30/grid-operator-looks-to-manage-solar-power-output-in-sa/12202004<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30076-0/fulltext?dgcid=raven_jbs_etoc_email">https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30076-0/fulltext?dgcid=raven_jbs_etoc_email<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.climateaction.org/news/rockefeller-fund-reveals-case-study-of-success-after-divestment-from-fossil?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Rockefeller+fund+reveals+case+study+of+success+after+divestment+from+fossil+fuels+-+Climate+Action+News&utm_campaign=CA+%7C+2020+%7C+12+May+%7C+2020">http://www.climateaction.org/news/rockefeller-fund-reveals-case-study-of-success-after-divestment-from-fossil?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Rockefeller+fund+reveals+case+study+of+success+after+divestment+from+fossil+fuels+-+Climate+Action+News&utm_campaign=CA+%7C+2020+%7C+12+May+%7C+2020</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/18/investing-in-firms-with-better-record-on-social-issues-pays-study-finds">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/18/investing-in-firms-with-better-record-on-social-issues-pays-study-finds<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://transform.iema.net/article/investors-call-sustainable-covid-19-recovery?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_term=">https://transform.iema.net/article/investors-call-sustainable-covid-19-recovery?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_term=<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Britain's largest solar farm poised to begin development in Kent</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/24/britains-largest-solar-farm-poised-to-begin-development-in-kent">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/24/britains-largest-solar-farm-poised-to-begin-development-in-kent<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Dutch engineers build world's biggest sun-seeking solar farm</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/21/dutch-engineers-build-worlds-biggest-sun-seeking-solar-farm">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/21/dutch-engineers-build-worlds-biggest-sun-seeking-solar-farm<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30109-1/fulltext?dgcid=raven_jbs_etoc_email">https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30109-1/fulltext?dgcid=raven_jbs_etoc_email</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">CAT</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.cat.org.uk/cat-at-home/webinars/?date=upcoming&view=grid&type=Online-Courses-and-Events&category=All">https://www.cat.org.uk/cat-at-home/webinars/?date=upcoming&view=grid&type=Online-Courses-and-Events&category=All</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-72030922549866385022020-05-22T01:00:00.000+01:002020-05-22T01:00:04.455+01:00Designer Outlet<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Designer Outlet</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>A designer solution providing an environmentally responsible outlet for your industry's waste. Peter Ettinger of Bioenergy DevCo explains how an anaerobic digester plant tailored to specific waste streams can produce biogas and soil improvers - and pay for itself.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Welcome once again to the Sustainable Futures Report. I’m Anthony Day and it’s Friday 22nd May.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m talking again about clean energy, and shortly I’ll introduce Peter Ettinger from the Bioenergy Development Company. There is still so much going on that I’m in a quandary. I know the length of the Sustainable Futures Report varies from episode to episode but I do try and keep it below 30 minutes because I want to keep your attention. Today’s interview will account for most of that, so what about the rest of the news? And I’ve already published one interview this week. I’ve decided that I’ll have a general news round-up early next week and then another expert interview is scheduled for Friday 29th.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’ve heard that some people are bored with nothing to do during lockdown. I wonder what that’s like.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And so to this week’s expert.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>The Sustainable Futures Report Podcast</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Interview with Peter Ettinger, Bioenergy DevCo. on May 15, 2020</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Anthony Day (AD): </b>Well, today, I'm talking to Peter Ettinger, who is Chief development officer of Bioenergy DevCo. – that's BDC – based in Columbia, Maryland in the United States. Now Peter, welcome. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Peter Ettinger (PE):</b> Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>AD: </b>All right, Peter, we've been talking on The Sustainable Futures Report about clean energy for some time – most recently about nuclear fusion, which is a technology some years off. But today you're going to talk to us about anaerobic digestion, which is very much with us today. Can you just start off by explaining to us or reminding us what anaerobic digestion is? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PE: </b>Sure. It's really a good question. And the best way to think about it is we're a cow on an industrialized scale. If you think about it, a cow does a couple of things. You know, cow eats grass, a cow actually then creates gas. The difference here is that it's all through a four-chamber stomach, nothing goes out to the exposed air but the cow, in creating gas. The difference for an anaerobic digester is, in fact, we collect that gas. We own that gas. We manage that gas. A cow also does something else. It creates manure. Well, what we do with that manure in the anaerobic digestion process is we create a high organic soil amendment. So, instead of using an oil-based fertilizer or some pesticides, you can directly land apply this product to ensure healthy soils. So, if you think about it, anaerobic digestion is a great example of the circular economy at work. We take stuff that was in the ground – fresh fruits, organics, meats, other byproducts – and we go all the way through the cycle without odors or anything being exposed to air – materials being exposed to air. And then we start the whole process over again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>AD: </b>OK, ok. So, you have two outputs, you have gas – tell me in a minute a bit more about the gas – and then the residues, which is leftover can be used as a fertilizer. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PE: </b>Yes, absolutely. We call it a soil amendment because, by nature, fertilizers have other things associated with it. But here in the States, for example, OMRI is an organization that certifies organic qualities. So, the materials that we work through are digested through the heating process. It essentially takes out all the bad stuff. So, it meets what they call PFRP standards when at the end of that process, it's known as an EPA – our Environmental Protection Agency – Certification for classic compost. So, that material can be put on a field. It can be used in schools, in the horticulture work or just general horticulture by consumers. It can be used in certain stormwater management. It has a variety of uses directly applied to the land. So, in this country and throughout the world, the concept of the healthy soil movement is really taking shape. And we just serve it an integral part of that process. I can certainly talk to you about. Sorry, my phone is beeping like crazy now. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>AD: </b>That's what it is.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PE: </b>Oh, I can certainly talk to you about the gas side of things as well – </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>AD: </b>Before we get onto that, just tell me a bit more about the raw materials that you're working with and how should you be sure that they are completely clean? I mean, you know, heavy metals or other contaminants in them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PE: </b>So, I'll take even a half step backwards. If you don't mind. I'd give you a bit of history about our company. We're 22 years old. We've been doing this for a long period of time. So, one of the things we know better than anybody in our technology company is called BTS Biogas. So, it's an Italian based company who's built 220 anaerobic digesters throughout the world. They range from very small to very… call it industrialized scale. More than three hundred thousand MMBtus of renewable natural gas. Our experience in in building these facilities is very much focused on feedstock and analyzing feedstocks, looking at feedstocks, making sure their purity, understanding its contents. So, for example, we take anything in the organic world. So, think of it – fresh fruits and vegetables, pre-consumer processed materials. The kind of work that we do with our clients – such as Coastal Sun Belt or a Demonte – is we work within that process. We know how it's clean. We know what materials are being used. We know the processing side of that. And we consistently test those materials to ensure there are no heavy metals, that there isn't anything associated with the better part of the protection and that. And then I would say the other thing we do better than any is this concept of co-digestion. Typically, co-digestion means taking a variety of products, mixing them appropriately, using the right kind of microbial agents inside of that process to ensure gas performance and better healthy digesting. So, it takes a lot. We call it, “how do we make a great soup?” Easy to throw stuff in a crockpot, you know, might not taste so bad. But to be a chef, truly a chef, you have to understand the spices. You have to. And in our case, you have to understand what microbes work, to what degree and how do you manage that product? We have a major I think actually the only laboratory in the world dedicated to anaerobic digestion in this microbial mix. We're going to try to replicate that and bring it to the states. But right now, that lab has 20,000 thousand plus inputs of materials here and basically can tell you… if I take a little bit of poultry waste and I combine that with fats, oils and greases, I know that this is the right mix, very similar to what you we as humans do when we take probiotics. There’re thousands of strains of a probiotics. But the right one is hard to define and develop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>AD: </b>Okay. Right. So, as I understand it then your business is actually creating bespoke digesters and constructing them for your particular clients’ requirements. Now, this is a technology which is widely available. What makes your company different? I mean, is it. You mentioned on the website artificial intelligence. Is that something which locks you out to a couple of things?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PE: </b>We have a couple of versions of what we do now and how we do it. So, we might work for a major municipality, for example. So, the issues associated with waste are clear cut. Organics do nothing for landfills other than create greenhouse gases. Organics do nothing in the world of incineration. Other than being a wet wait. Municipalities are now looking at innovative ways to deal with waste, because the cost of actually opening up a new landfill is hundreds of millions of dollars. Environmental justice issues. Obvious ones are not really allowing new incineration. So, we work with municipalities and we say, look, we have a better way. We are, in essence, a sustainable landfill. And we can take those organics, create more room in your landfills so you can use materials, you know, package materials, other materials that you can actually sell and gain revenue from. And then the same time, we can then go manage this product, creating an environment and call it an economic development asset for your city. Same time, second kind of project we work with is this bespoke model. So, a major poultry facility, for example, who has a consistent amount of waste, has controversy around landfills, controversy around land application. We can actually take that waste work on their facility, not only manage it at a constant cost. So, the margins don't flip all times for them, but also provide them with energy is as well. So, in that in that model, what makes us different is one is history. You know, we've done this over the past 20 some idea process, our understanding of the microbial process, understanding what mixes together to make a plant performance. A result about doing that is we actually ensure and guarantee the performance of the plant. So, of one of the hundred and fifty we actually operate, I can look to you and say, I know you will get two hundred seventy-five thousand MMBtus every day, every year. I mean, so we can ensure that as well. And then I would say the telemetry side of what we do. You know, I'll go to technology, the older digesters and many other people, when small ones and farms have no way to communicate not only internally to define the activity of the microbes, but also no way to communicate with the folks who are operating the facility. We've added this, the sense of technology, this sense of sensors, telemetry so that at a moment's notice you could be looking at your phone today and be able to tell me, you know, the digester in Jessup, Maryland looks like it's going to foam. You know, you need to be looking at this and understanding. You know, you need a counterbalance next to it. So very, very, very important for us to see that on a proactive basis versus simply a reactive basis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>AD: </b>OK. Now, you clearly are installing this technology across the United States. Are you doing this in other parts of the world? Are you licensing the technology, or do you have a global outlook?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PE: </b>Oh, absolutely. We're very, very much so. You know, I think I mentioned that our BTS Biogas company has built 220 of these digesters as far away as Japan, a number in England, a number we own, the largest market share in Italy. We're building in France; we’ve built in South America. Really, I'm leading the U.S. invasion here, along with Sean Kreloff, our CEO, to take this readily adaptable and very valuable technology from Europe and introducing it to the United States in a new, improved view of how do you manage typically organic waste creating these kind of renewable and sustainable products. So, we're doing great in Europe. We continue to do great in Europe. We're building, in fact, hiring throughout that part of the world. But we want to take this European success and basically bring it to the United States.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>AD: </b>OK, just tell me a bit more about the gas. Tell me exactly what the gas is, methane or what? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PE: </b>Yes, absolutely. It is. So, we…. We do. Woops, I'm sorry. Know what I what I did there? Well, I can still see I hear you. OK, that's perfect. You know, I apologize. Then the methane itself. So, we create a biogas, a brown gas, which is around 50, 60 percent methane. So, our abilities here, what we do with that is we scrub that gas, we manage that that product, and then we actually have an opportunity to work with a larger utility or with a larger energy company. So, think of it as a regulated utility here in the U.S., Chesapeake utilities, a Con Edison. And by managing that gas, cleaning that gas either through a water, a membrane process, we actually have a product that can be directly injected so that our typical plant that takes in a hundred thousand tons of a hundred thousand tons of organic waste. Well, in fact, actually produce somewhere in the tune of 275,000 to 300000 MMBtus per year. So, that as transition from brown gas or call it raw gas to an actual RNG product. And that is even us through the grid. It can be compressed and become renewed, compressed natural gas. Or in fact, we're in early discussions here to transition that to hydrogen as well. So, think of it. Sustainability in a broad scale. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>AD: </b>Yeah, well, that's what's really interesting because there are a lot of advantages to hydrogen. There are also problems with hydrogen, as far as I can see as well. But OK, so you’re using this gas as far as industrial processes. You've got that. Oh, no, I'm here. Oh, that's just the pictures change. I can see you now. I'm sorry. What was I saying? Yeah, the use for the gases. You were saying that it can go into the grid. So, it sounds as though some of your plants are pretty large to justify connection to the grid because presumably it might in some cases be quite some way away from the grid. You link with the pipeline, or you tanker it out, or what do you do? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PE:</b> Couple of things. And that's a great, great question. And it really is around the type of plant we're creating. So, for example, in a municipality, our plant in Jessup, Maryland sits on five acres of land, sits in the center of a food and food distribution hub. There were about 11 hundred feet from a from an interconnection point. And we deliberately picked that land. That plot of land, not only because of its waste and its access to roadways, but because we're next to a grid, a grid connection. We then are able to then talk to our various clients and their end goal uses of that, whether they want to simply sell it for transportation use and using the California markets, or, for example, many electric utilities here are now using renewable natural gas as part of their renewable energy credit and their responsibility to consumers. Alternatively, we also work in with a utility who's mostly focused on trucking of gas. So, they like some of our more remote locations where we have lots of organic waste from the agricultural field, but not a whole lot of connection to the gas grid. So, they economically say, well, we'll let us begin to almost milk-run your gas. You know, think about it is picking it up and depositing it within cities or within a grid mark, that is at its most acceptable. So, we work in a couple of different ways in in in that area. It really depends on the client, really depends on the goal and objective and how much gas we're producing out of each one of our facilities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PE: </b>Absolutely. The move in this country is to compressed natural gas. We believe diesel will go the way of the dodo and particularly for long haul trucks. You know, I mean, if you think about it, people coming up and down the eastern seaboard. Diesel is too expensive, and it certainly doesn't it's not as effective in terms of its environmental quality. So, we're now working with a couple of companies on an Eastern Seaboard CNG compressed natural gas filling station primarily for long haul trucks. We also work… we have a project now with a university where that university is looking to take and transition all their vehicles to compressed natural gas. So, the vehicles that go in and around the university. Again, a smaller digester, but enough gas for them to meet their carbon reduction requirements. So, again, a lot of what we do is… well, let me say this. A long time ago or a while ago, people got very measured and very thoughtful about technology. And they said this is the coolest technology in the world. And they tried to find a way to go and solve somebody’s problem with. We work with our clients. Understand their challenges in the waste field. There are challenges in terms of the use of renewable natural products or to use where soil amendments. And then we, based on a performance, based on a mutually transparent view, say, look, here's the technology that seems to work. And if we do it this way, it's a benefit for all parties. I don't want to be selling a tech-to-tech. You know, it's cost me two cents with this screwdriver, three cents for that screwdriver. It's really a goal, an objective. Since we're in a community for twenty-plus years, you know, in building these facilities and we actually take on the financing of these projects. So, it's important for our audience to know is that when you look at this from a performer base, there is a real commitment to this local community. There is a real commitment to stay within this local community and be very successful. So, from our perspective, on projects where we have enough waste and we actually work closely with our clients, we actually finance the project. Come in and then build it in association with the municipality and or the bespoke client. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>AD: </b>Right. Well, I was going to ask you as my next question, how does this compare on costs? But I think you more or less answered it, because if you're going to cite the financial risk on a project, you clearly are confident that it is going to pay for itself and therefore the fuel, all the feedstock or whatever it is, sorry, the fuel or the gas that you're producing must be competitive in the market. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PE: </b>Absolutely. Absolutely. And we're willing to, you know, based on that perform as I said, ensuring guarantee or performance makes sense for us, then we're very, very… we feel very confident about that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>AD: </b>OK. Now, looking to the future, you mentioned briefly something about hydrogen, and I said there are problems with hydrogen. The problem I'm aware of is that if you get hydrogen out of natural gas, you're left with CO2. And so, while you might go away and burn the hydrogen and it's perfectly clean, what happens to the CO2 that was extracted as part of the hydrogen production process?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PE: </b>Well, I think that that's a very good point. I think there are new innovations that are being introduced every day, either in CO2 capture. So, for example, we take CO2 and we do a number of things with it. Now from working with large growers in greenhouses who are using CO2 on a regular basis to creating an industrial scale CO2 for use in beverages as well. I not as aware as I should be probably at the innovations in the hydrogen world. But groups like Bloom or Toyota and others are finding ways to scrub that CO2 making in ensuring that it is an inert gas and not doesn't maintain its properties. So, it's now goes through either a scrubbing technology and it's actually being disposed of, or it's actually being incorporated in a secondary or tertiary part of the technology. And I wish I knew more about it, but I'm way over my skis in terms of my technology, my technology understanding.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>AD: </b>Okay, well, you've given us a very interesting roundup of the technology on your place in promoting anaerobic digestion. Apart from hydrogen, what do you see as the future – more of the same and less and less diesel?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PE: </b>I believe we believe very strongly that we deserve – the world of anaerobic digestion deserves a place at the renewable table. Electric has solar. They have wind. The only true renewable natural gas is one that comes from anaerobic digestion. It's the only true example of the circular economy at work. And it is the only thing that I believe that can succeed without necessarily a government subsidy, enabling this to enabling this to be implemented in cities and towns around the world. So, we believe a couple of things. One, we'd like a seat at the table. Two, We want to be able to have a holistic view of renewable natural energy, whether it be electricity or gas. And that we strongly think that in your in your hometown near you and that farm near you or the town near you. Don't be surprised to see it. Anaerobic digester become part of your community and can't become part of the long-term success in the renewable fields.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>AD: </b>Yeah, I think I prefer to have that in my community rather than one of these back-of-the-lorry nuclear power stations that are talking about developing, just feel a bit more comfortable with your technology, I think, than that, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PE: </b>I think so. You know, I think the impact of this technology is really quite amazing. Our plan to are a typical 275,000-ton plant. I'm not sorry, a typical 100,000-ton plant that produces 275,000 MMBtus, you know, creates enough renewable natural gas for us to power 6,600 homes. In terms of electricity, I mean, that’s 5,500-5,600 cars off the highway and that's 26,000 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. So that's, that's a big impact. That's a couple of small natural parks working successfully, particularly in a local community. So as big companies are trying to figure out what to do with waste, as communities are trying to find ways to work with those large companies, ensuring economic development in the community itself. We believe we have a role there to support these towns long into the future.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>AD: </b>Peter, thank you very much. It's been a really interesting roundup of the situation and I'd like to thank you for taking the time to talk to us here at the Sustainable Futures Report. Thanks again. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>PE: </b>Thank you very much, Anthony. It's a great, great, great, great podcast and we enjoy it very much.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Well that is very nice to hear. I was talking to Peter Ettinger, Chief development officer of Bioenergy DevCo. (<a href="https://bioenergydevco.com/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">https://bioenergydevco.com</span></a>) Apologies for the bongs from Peter’s phone. Despite my best efforts I was not able to edit them out without editing him out as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And that’s it for this week. That was the second episode of the Sustainable Futures Report this week. Last Wednesday I published a conversation with Dr James Dyke of Exeter University. He was a co-signatory to a recent letter to the Guardian newspaper which said, “It’s game over for preventing dangerous climate change.” I asked him where we should go from here. Do listen if you’ve not already heard it and let me know what you think. And feedback about this episode and any other aspect of sustainability is always welcome. You could even send me an audio clip to <a href="mailto:mail@anthony-day.com"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">mail@anthony-day.com</span></a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">By the way, last week I mentioned that Dr Kate Lancaster of the University or York had made a presentation recently on fusion energy. It’s on YouTube and the link is <a href="https://youtu.be/fJYwDZ8l5V8"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">https://youtu.be/fJYwDZ8l5V8</span></a>. . </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That was the Sustainable Futures Report. There’ll be another episode, possibly even two, next week.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m Anthony Day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Until then.</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-51532007331305311592020-05-20T08:23:00.000+01:002020-05-22T08:55:27.556+01:00Game Over<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This is Anthony Day with an extra edition of the Sustainable Futures Report. It’s Wednesday 20th May.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Guardian recently published a letter from an international group of scientists. I want to share it with you and I’ve asked one of the signatories help us understand the message. The letter goes like this:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Last month, the Guardian quoted Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, saying if we put post-pandemic bailout money in the wrong place “we will lock ourselves in a dirtier energy system, making it much more difficult to reach our climate targets” (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/17/coronavirus-profiteers-condemned-as-polluters-gain-bailout-billions"><span style="color: #d64806; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">‘Coronavirus profiteers’ condemned as polluters gain bailout billions</span></a>, 17 April).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">“</span><span style="font-kerning: none;">We beg to differ. It is game over for preventing dangerous climate change now that governments are planning the cheapest and quickest return to consumption. Riding on the wave of cheap oil and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/17/polluter-bailouts-and-lobbying-during-covid-19-pandemic"><span style="color: #d64806; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">fossil-fuel bailouts</span></a> is incompatible with keeping the average global temperature rise below 2C, let alone 1.5C.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">“</span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Even if the world agreed to maintain all the pandemic-enforced restrictions on travel and consumption, the emissions saved would amount <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/iea-coronavirus-impact-on-co2-emissions-six-times-larger-than-financial-crisis"><span style="color: #d64806; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">to almost nothing</span></a>, compared with what’s needed to achieve the Paris agreement’s climate targets. Yet whether it’s to discourage mass fatalism, or prevent the very worst of what the future threatens, those of us with this knowledge still cling to “yes we can”. In this story, it is always five to midnight; it is always the last chance to prevent disaster. In contrast, collective action on climate can only grow out of complete honesty. It is time to acknowledge our collective failure to respond to climate change, identify its consequences and accept the massive personal, local, national and global adaptation that awaits us all.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Dr Wolfgang Knorr</b> Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, <b>Prof Eric Rignot</b> University of California, Irvine, <b>Prof Rik Leemans</b> Wageningen University and Research, <b>Prof Andy Morse</b> School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, <b>Prof Dennis Baldocchi</b> Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, <b>Prof Thomas Hickler</b> Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, <b>Prof Francis E Putz</b> Department of Biology, University of Florida, <b>Prof Maarten Krol</b> Wageningen University, <b>Dr Alberte Bondeau</b> Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie, Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, <b>Prof Wolfgang Cramer</b> Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie, Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, <b>Prof Paul Palmer</b> University of Edinburgh, <b>Dr James G Dyke</b> Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The letter was sent by <b>Dr Wolfgang Knorr</b> Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, and co-signed by another 11 academic colleagues from California to Marseille and from Edinburgh to Exeter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Does it really mean what I think it means? Is the outlook so terrible? I’ve been able to catch up with one of the signatories, <b>Dr James G Dyke</b> Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter. He also writes a column for the i newspaper.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> James, welcome, and thank you very much for talking to The Sustainable Futures Report.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Thank you for having me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Now, that Guardian letter, the thing that leapt out at me was the phrase -- "it's game over for preventing dangerous climate change." And then at the end it says -- "it's time to acknowledge our collective failure to respond to climate change."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Now, I think a lot of people would agree that we've been failing to respond for years. But, where do we go from here?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Well, that's a very good question, isn't it? I suppose the letter was motivated, well, at least it was motivated in my part, to try to get us beyond the idea that, yes, we can, we just need to work a bit harder, we just need to wish a little bit more, we need to make one last collective heave and we're going to get there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> And I think we need to acknowledge now, at least when it comes to limiting warming to no more than 1.5 degree Celsius preindustrial periods, that we have failed to do that. In order for us to have been able to have a good chance of doing that we would have had to have taken much more strident and effective action about 10 years ago, and maybe even 20 years ago. We didn't for various reasons that we don't need to rehash, so we've lost that. The best case scenario that people hope, is that we will overshoot the budget for 1.5, and we'll also overshoot the budget for two degrees Celsius. But then, through a range of negative emissions approaches, or technologies we'll somehow get warming back to within 2 degrees, or maybe even 1.5.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> This, I think now needs to be the focus of our discussion, because there are really, really important assumptions baked into that. And if we're wrong about those assumptions, then things could go quite badly off the rails by the middle and the end of this century.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Right, these negative emissions technologies, this is global climate engineering, isn't it? It's things like putting stuff into the atmosphere to dim the sun. It's things like seeding the oceans with chemicals to make it absorb more CO2. And they're all completely unproven and, well, high risk aren't they? Or is that not what you're talking about?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Well, there's two types of approach that you've just talked about there. The first one is what we call negative emissions technologies, or sometimes they might come under the banner of even natural climate solutions. That is a big bundle, a big kind of collection of approaches and technologies which will somehow remove carbon from the Earth's atmosphere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> The low tech and arguably the most popular one is planting trees. As we plant trees, as they grow, they sequester carbon in their tissues and then depending what you do with a tree, if you keep the tree around long enough, then you can lock that carbon up long enough, and therefore you've reduced the amount of carbon in the earth's atmosphere. So that's one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> That is though fraught with difficulties, isn't it? Everybody thinks, ah right, I'll fly to New York and I'll plant a tree, end of, I've solved it. And, there's so many different difficulties. One is you can emit the carbon in half a day, a tree will take 20 years to absorb it, and we haven't got 20 years. And is there enough land for the trees?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> These are some of the problems behind proposals that essentially argue that we should be planting trillions of trees. And if we do that, then it's pretty much we've done the job. Well, we haven't, right. So there's lots of problems with planting trillions of trees, but they are sometimes proposed as the more agreeable end of these kind of negative emissions technology approaches, because they're a well established technology, trees have been around for hundreds of millions of years, people like trees, there's lots of good things to do with trees. There's lots of good reasons why we might want to reforest areas. Afforestation is generally a good thing because it can reintroduce natural habitats.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So there's lots of ways they can be a good thing. When you get up to the scale of tree planting required in order to have a significant impact on atmospheric carbon concentrations, then you're talking about the vast deployment at an industrial scale of trees, many of which would not be suited to those particular kind of locations. It's going to have all sorts of other potentially very negative impacts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So in and of itself, planting trees can't be the sufficient solution to climate. But then people argue, well, then there are other things that we can do. We can take carbon directly out of the earth's atmosphere, we can suck it out of the earth's atmosphere, compress it and then store it underground. And those two ideas come together in something called BECCS.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Now most people have never heard of BECCS, which is something of a scandal, because the only way that we're ever going to limit warming to no more than two degrees Celsius is with the significant deployment of BECCS, because BECCS is bioenergy, carbon capture, sequestration and storage, let's say. And the idea here is that at the moment we burn coal to generate electricity, and that burning of coal produces carbon dioxide. Well, rather than burn coal, we'll burn trees. So already we're seeing power stations, most famously the Drax Power Station, which is being converted from being able to burn coal to now burning biomass, which is basically trees.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So what we'll do, we'll grow the trees, we'll cut them down, we'll burn those trees in a power station. And then the exhaust gases which have got all the carbon dioxide in, we'll put scrubbers at the top of the chimneys, which will suck out that carbon dioxide, we'll compress the carbon dioxide, we'll pipe it to a disused oil or gas field, and then we'll pump it down deep into the earth's crust where it will stay for thousands of years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Yeah, well. I'm sorry to be devil's advocate again, but first of all, the technology has not yet being implemented, even at Drax at a commercial scale. It will take energy to actually scrub the CO2 out, and certainly take a lot of energy to compress it and pump it down that pipeline into the North Sea and the caverns underneath. And people are turning around saying, and of course, that will knock actually the overall efficiency of the plant back to where it was in the 1920s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So, okay, well, if we can live with that and the higher prices, the key question is, how soon are we going to actually have that technology in place?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Yeah, So the assumption is we'll have it in place when we need it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> We need it now don't we?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Well, no, we don't. In terms of a policy context, we don't need it now. Because I suppose this is also another important part of the letter, for me is that things like BECCS, things like negative emissions technologies, they allow policy makers to say that they're taking effective action on the climate. Because they can say -- we are reducing emissions at a sufficient rate that by the time you get to the middle of this century we'll have much lower emissions. And then with these things like BECCS and tree planting and maybe even direct air capture of carbon dioxide, we'll be able to have negative emissions. So we're trying to get to net zero. So the bigger the amount of carbon that you would expect or hope to take out the atmosphere at some point in the future means you don't have to take such strident efforts to decarbonise now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Yes, but that's a hostage to fortune, because you can never be sure that you are going to be able to take that much out in the future. And you've got no incentive surely to do anything about it, because by the time you get to the future, those people in control now will not be in control, they'll be retired won't they?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> They'll be retired, and it'll be a problem for our kids and our grandkids to solve. And I think the assumption is that if they don't solve it, they're going to be locked into potentially very rapid warming beyond three, four, even five degree Celsius. So they'll have to figure it out, right. Because if they don't figure it out, they're facing climate break down. So by definition....<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Why don't we do it now? I mean, isn't this a bit like the COVID crisis where it's argued that the British government left it too late to take the actions? Surely the same must apply to this? If we do it early and quickly, we can contain the problem and get it under control. If we just sit around and leave it to future generations, well, they're going to have an awful task to meet aren't they?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Well, the analogy with COVID-19 is a good one, because the arguments against early and effective lockdowns of our societies were predominately economic -- it's too expensive to do that, and that we would harm the economy much, much more than the economy would be harmed by having, let's say, a longer process of the pandemic, allowing us to undertake herd immunity. You're not allowed to talk about herd immunity anymore, but that's still the main policy of the United Kingdom government and many other governments, it's not to contain and suppress the pandemic, it's to essentially try to manage the pandemic in such a way that you don't overwhelm the NHS, that you don't produce too much harm on the economy?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Well, exactly the same reasoning applies when it comes to action on the climate. We could, if we wanted to, undertake rapid decarbonisation now, we've been able to do that for decades. The argument is always if we carbonise too fast, we will harm the economy. So if you look at timescales over 10, 20, 50 or maybe even 100 years, the optimal thing, the best thing for the economy is to undertake decarbonisation at a modest amount. At the same time, spin up these negative emissions approaches, so by the time we need them around the middle of this century, they won't be too expensive, the technologies will be sufficiently mature such that we can deploy them at scale and therefore avoid doing harm on the economy by undertaking too rapid climate mitigation in the early part of this century.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So, I'd argue the reasoning is essentially the same. It's being motivated by an approach which tries to produce the least harm on national governments and then writ large and global climate change the global economy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Okay, but then if you compare the way that countries have dealt with COVID-19, this country arguably delayed the lock down and we have around 40,000 deaths, places like New Zealand and Australia locked down very quickly and Australia has around 100 deaths, New Zealand has less than 100 deaths. So therefore they nipped in the bud if you like, they got the problem early and stopped it becoming a big problem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Every day that Drax and all the other power stations operate, they add to the sum of CO2 in the atmosphere and there is a finite limit, as many people say, to the amount of CO2 we can put in the atmosphere, which is implied in the Guardian letter, because we will not achieve the Paris agreement levels if we don't stop it. And you're saying we don't need to stop it now? But surely we do?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> No, I think we absolutely do have to stop it. The argument given by, well, pretty much everyone who signed up to the idea of limiting warming to no more than two degrees is that we don't have to undertake radical emissions reductions now. The assumption is that we'll just deploy BECCS, right. So, pretty much all governments are signed up to this idea that we don't have to undertake really rapid emissions reductions now because BECCS and other negative emissions approaches are going to allow us to get to net zero.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So the UK target is net zero by 2050. It's not produce any carbon by 2050, but it's every tonne of carbon that we produce by the middle of this century, we're going to have to take out of the atmosphere somehow, through a whole spectrum of technology. But most important of them being this BECCS -- bioenergy, carbon capture and sequestration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Well, that actually doesn't take anything out of the atmosphere, that stops it going into the atmosphere. There is a difference, isn't there?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Well, okay, it's negative emissions in the context that if you plant sufficient trees which absorb the carbon and then you burn them, so the trees grow, they absorb the carbon, you burn them and you make electricity. And then if you capture the carbon, then over timescales of 10, 20 or 30 years, that whole system works out as negative emissions, actually reduces atmospheric concentrations of carbon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> No, surely it stops it increasing, it doesn't actually reduce it? It takes back what has been emitted, the trees will take back what has been emitted, and you can leave on one side the emissions from actually building the plant and operating it and harvesting and all that sort of thing. So it'll take it back, but it doesn't actually reduce it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> I mean, if you have carbon dioxide harvesting systems, which some people have developed that will physically take it out of the atmosphere and that will reduce what's in the atmosphere. We're going to need some of that if we are actually going to be able to offset the inevitable emissions, which will come from some sort of uses which we can't avoid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> I mean, this is a really important point, because it will only reduce the amount of concentrations in the atmosphere if you plant new trees. So at the moment, what they're doing with Drax is they're actually clear cutting established forests. So they're just taking... So that's carbon neutral. They're just burning trees, which previously grew in some natural ecosystems let's say, so you're basically just releasing carbon that was previously absorbed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> The idea of BECCS is that the total number of trees on earth will significantly increase. So if we plant a trillion trees let's say, those new trillion trees over the next 10, 20 years will absorb a certain amount of carbon. So that carbon is being sequestered by trees that otherwise wouldn't have existed. So what we need to see for BECCS to work is a significant increase in the total amount of tree coverage on Earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So when you're looking for, well how much land is that? We really need to look about the entire surface area of India covered with trees, and we need to find that new land space all over the earth and then do nothing else but grow trees continuously for about 100 years. And if you do that, then over 10 to 30 year timescales, you can see the system is not just net zero, but actually negative. But there's a lot of assumptions also in there because.... Well, there are a lot of assumptions in there, some of which you've already covered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Yes. Okay. So when you say BECCS and you're talking about carbon storage and sequestration, are you talking about storage and sequestration in new trees or in other systems as well, in parallel?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Okay, yeah. So, one way to look at it is as the tree grows it stores the carbon, but only temporarily. What we then do, we chop it down and then when we burn it that produces carbon dioxide and waste gases. Then that gets scrubbed out and captured from the chimney, then that gas gets compressed and then put down underground where it's going to have to stay for thousands of years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Right, so that actually will reduce it. Yes, okay, I'm with you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> And of course, once it's there, if that was to bubble out, or if there'd be some kind of geological process, which would release that carbon dioxide, then you would be obviously straight back to where you were previously. And in fact, maybe even worse. So there are risks associated with that, because you would have areas in the earth's crust where you are storing maybe many, many years worth of carbon dioxide. And if that was to be suddenly released, then the climate forced then would be much, much larger than the progressive emissions over 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Right, well, I have to say that you're being much more positive than I expected from this headline -- 'Game Over." I mean, I'm sure you're aware of the work of people like Jem Bendell at the University of Cumbria and Guy McPherson in the States. And they, I would say, well, I call them catastrophists, because they seem to have accepted the fact that we're approaching the end. Guy McPherson's phrase is "near term human extinction." I hope you're more optimistic than that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Yes, I mean, it's a very obviously, unsurprisingly, it's a controversial idea that there is an imminent and unavoidable collapse of human civilisation and that there is even a significant risk that homo sapiens could become extinct within, I don't know, decades, or maybe centuries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Well, he's saying, within 10 years or even 18 months.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So I've done my best to look at the evidence for that, and I don't think the evidence is in. In order for that to happen, you have to assume worst case scenarios in pretty much all cases, in all different systems, all at the same time perhaps. I mean, there are certainly no models by which we could see that happening, there's no theory by which we would say, because this interaction with that, that's going to collapse, which is going to lead on to this. But, that's okay, because we don't have a complete understanding of the complex earth system and how human societies interact with it and actually are part of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> But, when I've done my best to take that sober assessment of the evidence, just on the basis of the assessment of the climate science, I don't think it's there, I don't think you can make that very firm conclusion which some people do, that we are facing unavoidable collapse because there are unavoidable tipping points for example. I mean, where tipping elements are in the climate system is being continually evaluated and there is massive uncertainty. One thing we need to remember is that we're talking about trying to limit warming to no more than two degree Celsius. How much carbon have you got to emit? That's still only what we consider to be a roughly two in three chance of limiting warming. This is fundamentally probabilistic, because there are so many uncertainties.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So even if we did do everything that we need to reduce emissions to no more than two degrees, there's still a one in three chance that it would warn beyond two degrees. And currently we're on track to warm beyond three degrees. So then there's a significant chance that even if we think we'd limit it at three degrees, we would still warm beyond four, or even five. So we have to be mindful of, there is significant uncertainty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Now, I think in that space of uncertainty, some people kind of conclude or assume the worst case scenario. They say, well, it's impossible for us to do this, I can't see how that's going to happen, we don't really understand the interactions between this, it's possible that these things could go much, much worse than we think or we certainly hope for.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Obviously you can do that, but I'm interested in what evidence is there that would allow you to conclude that within, let's say, five or 10 years, there will be a collapse of civilisation? My own assumptions are, or working hypothesis, is that civilisation is actually maybe an awful lot more resilient than we think it is. But that's not necessarily a good thing, because what civilisation will do in order to maintain itself is further destroy much of the biosphere, and maybe even further impoverish a significant fraction of humanity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So we might see civilisation not collapsing, you know, in 50 or 100 years we would still see continual technological progression let's say, but the quality of life of people and the quality and the state of the biosphere and the quality of life of other species in the biosphere may be something which we could consider to be awful, like terrible. Something horrible has happened, but civilisation is still persisting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Okay. Yes, it's an irony that it's the developing nations which appear to be most vulnerable to the geographic effects of climate change, and we can deny it if we want to, well, we do. We do deny an awful lot of things that happen in far off countries, of which we know little. Yeah, we'll probably preserve our way of life, but, at the cost of people far away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> But what do you think we now should do? What's the call to actions? Because, I didn't find much of a call to action in this Guardian letter, because, it says it's time to acknowledge our collective failure, but yeah okay, we'll acknowledge it. But what we do about it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Yeah, so that the letter wasn't intended at all to talk about climate solutions, I think because in some instances we might be too quick to grab at these solutions, because we're trying to fit to the wrong problem. If you got the wrong solution to the wrong problem, then obviously you're not going to fix the problem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So just to go back to the idea of negative missions, everyone is scrabbling around at the idea. The solution to climate change is to basically take carbon out the earth's atmosphere. And why is that? Because the assumption is we can't decarbonise. Why is that? Because the assumption is we can't undertake too much damage to the economy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Well, then why is that? Because that's all about assumptions of how the economy is meant to work. Well, how is the economy meant to work? What is it for? What are the benefits of the goods and services that an economy produces?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So to go back to what the COVID-19 crisis is showing us, it's giving us an opportunity to reflect upon -- well, what is an economy for? Because at the moment we've got millions of people essentially being paid by the government to not go to work. They're being paid not to go to work in order to reduce the rates of transmission.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> But then that makes you think about well, once the pandemic is over, what should these people be doing anyway? What is the role of government in the functioning of the economy? It now seems commonplace, or it seems a common assumption that people shouldn't go hungry, that people should have enough food, enough money to cover the rent, enough money to get their food and the things that they need in order to have a good quality of life. If that's really what the economy is for, then that opens up the opportunity to have a quite interesting and important discussion about how are the goods and services redistributed essentially around both the national economy and the global economy?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Because vulnerability to climate change is strongly affected by essentially how much money you've got, whether you're a rich person in a rich country, or a poor person in a poorer country. If we're really motivated to reduce vulnerabilities to climate change, then we would do an awful lot more to ensure that those most vulnerable to it had the resources or the facilities to be able to, not insulate themselves, but to reduce the impacts of climate change. And we'd do that at the same time as reducing our own impacts on the climate, which is basically, burn fewer fossil fuels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So those much, much deeper, systemic kind of discussions, whatever I try to raise them in the past, it's like, we don't have time for that, or, no one's going to listen to that. The way in which the economy is absolutely embedded in, you can't begin to imagine doing things differently.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Well, the last five months have shown us that we need to do things really, really differently if we actually care about the well being of people. And if we could do it now, and we care about the well being of people in 10, 20, 50 years time, certainly our kids and our grandchildren, then we need to do exactly the same kind of deep reflection about the impact and issues that they are going to experience and suffer because of our emissions now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So in that respect, there is an opportunity to do something now, which means we're actually going to get to the heart of the problem. But if we keep assuming that at some point in the future, technology is going to fix the problem, technology is going to save us, I think all it allows us to do is to continue delude ourselves that we're on top of the problem, when we're not. We've failed, we've done it really badly wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> But there is still time for us to avoid the worst of those damages, the worst of the impact. There is still time for us to be able to limit the harm that is going to be coming down the line over the next few decades.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Right. So has the time come for the Green New Deal and a Universal Basic Income?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> I think these are very, very promising particular policy initiatives. I mean, the Green New Deal covers a wide range of things. The idea of "Build Back Better," we've powered off a large section of our globalised industrialised civilisation, it would be monstrous just for us to turn it all back on again once the pandemic is lifted. We're discovering that we can live different lives, that those lives can be good, that we could discover other ways in which to have decent, fulfilling ways in which we can flourishes as individuals, as maybe societies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> It's a brutally hard lesson to have learned over the last five months. We need to rapidly apply that to how we then move forward from the pandemic at the same time as reducing our environmental impact. The idea that there is some unavoidable trade off between economic growth and action of the climate has always been false, it's never been true. We have always had the capability to undertake the massive reengineering of our societies and complete overhaul of our infrastructure, obviously that's going to produce jobs and produce an enormous economic stimulus, open up entirely new areas of industry, new ways for us to prosper. The reason we haven't done it is because there are tremendously powerful vested interests that have everything to lose from that. So it's as much about prizing their hands off our societies, as it is about enabling new areas for it to flourish.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Right. James, I'm reluctant to cut you off, but I think we could go on talking for a very long time. What would you like to say in conclusion?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> In conclusion, I would like to say that the letter sounds very negative, it doesn't offer much hope, but I think it represents an absolutely crucial starting point for us to be able to produce these new ideas, narratives and strategies where we will be able to get hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> We have to stop deluding ourselves. We have to stop assuming that technology will fix all of humanity's problems, including the problems that technology creates. We have a small still, but small window of opportunity to undertake the deep reflection that we need in order to make the right actions both on the climate and our economies, and therefore put in place the things that are going to be required for a much more stable and just climate and economy for the foreseeable future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> James, thank you very much for that. That was great. I shall continue to read your columns in the i newspaper and recommend it to the listeners of The Sustainable Futures Report.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">James:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Thank you very much.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Many thanks to <b>Dr James G Dyke</b> Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Think we should have a totally different approach? Let me have your thoughts and ideas. Send them as an audio clip if you like, but please no more than two minutes. mail@anthony-day.com </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">This is an extra episode of the Sustainable Futures Report, because so much is going on at the moment. There will be another episode as usual on Friday and that one will be about another form of clean energy. I'm planning to issue another additional episode early next week because there are so many stories piling up but I haven't had an opportunity to share them with you. Then on the following Friday, the 29th of May, there will be yet another interview. This time it’s about conflict resolution, which I think is important in the face of so many people denying the importance of the climate emergency. After that I have no specific plans but I'm confident there will be more sustainability and climate change news to share with you.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">If you are a regular listener you will know that the Sustainable Futures Report comes to you without advertising, subsidy or sponsorship. The advantage of that of course is total independence. I do get support from my patrons and I would like to take the opportunity to thank them for their contributions which help me cover the costs of hosting this podcast and getting the transcripts prepared. If you'd like to be a patron you can start from as little as $1 a month and there are full details of what you get in return at www.patreon.com/sfr. I'm thinking of revising and upgrading the patron levels and I hope I'll be able to involve you more in setting the objectives for the content of the podcast. There is a new website on the way as well, but that's another story.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m Anthony Day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That was a special edition of the Sustainable Futures Report, and there'll be another one on Friday.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Find the original letter here: </i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/10/after-coronavirus-focus-on-the-climate-emergency"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><i>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/10/after-coronavirus-focus-on-the-climate-emergency</i></span></a><i> </i></span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-32883297317898264722020-05-15T01:00:00.000+01:002020-05-15T01:00:05.902+01:00Solar Cells on Steroids<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Solar Cells on Steroids</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Yes, it’s the Sustainable Futures Report, I’m Anthony Day and it’s Friday 15th May. Welcome!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtOrmE02S2-t99sD81JDcj7GGGWuU49Gu1kAndTsHMjxfIGRAmLP-5BusT_WVKdnhtDG_pONUGdfQIqZkcVRkCrLNqe8Tqj72ZmR_gExsRpEcxH5TKSnKv1-5YiSJmJazu43o/s1600/460sun.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="460" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtOrmE02S2-t99sD81JDcj7GGGWuU49Gu1kAndTsHMjxfIGRAmLP-5BusT_WVKdnhtDG_pONUGdfQIqZkcVRkCrLNqe8Tqj72ZmR_gExsRpEcxH5TKSnKv1-5YiSJmJazu43o/s400/460sun.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>The Fusion Interview</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This week’s theme is fusion - clean energy from nuclear fusion. I spoke to Michl Binderbauer, CEO of TAE Technologies, (<a href="http://tae.com/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">TAE.com</span></a>) about the particular angle of research that his organisation is following. I call this episode ‘solar cells on steroids’ - you’ll see why.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>No transcript is available of the interview this time, but here's a summary.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Michl spoke about his research into hydrogen-boron fusion, whereas most researchers are working on the deuterium-tritium reaction. The advantage of his approach is that it uses hydrogen and boron, both widely and cheaply available, unlike tritium, which is extremely scarce. The downside is that while the deuterium-tritium reaction starts at 150,000,000℃, hydrogen-boron needs 1,000,000,000℃. He believes that a breakthrough is now only some 10 years off. After that, the possibility exists to transform the heat directly into electricity: hence “solar cells on steroids”. If this is ever achieved it means we can move on from the Victorian engineering of boiler-turbine-generator which every conventional power station uses - even the nuclear ones.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s quite weird. You wait around for ages for a fusion physicist and then two come along at once. I’d just finished this interview with Michl Binderbauer, CEO of TAE Technologies when I got an invitation to a lecture by Dr Kate Lancaster of York University on the same topic. She’s following a different path. I believe there was a recording and I’ll pass on the link when I get it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And finally…</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Will sustainability remain a corporate priority after COVID19? According to ADWEEK, yes for some brands, maybe for others. Here's a link to the article.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/will-sustainability-remain-a-corporate-priority-after-covid-19/">https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/will-sustainability-remain-a-corporate-priority-after-covid-19/</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And that’s it…</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">…for this week. The Sustainable Futures Report’s reach is increasing all the time and I’m frequently being approached to carry interviews like the one you’ve just heard. In fact I’ve got three more lined up and I may have to run extra episodes just so the topic is current. So, as usual, there will be another Sustainable Futures Report next week. You might even get two! </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Have a look at <a href="http://patreon.com/sfr"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">patreon.com/sfr</span></a> if you’re not already a patron and maybe give me a little something for my trouble.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m Anthony Day.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">That was the Sustainable Futures Report.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Until next time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-73306624908670228732020-05-08T01:00:00.000+01:002020-05-08T01:00:05.818+01:00The End of Oil?<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>The End of Oil?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s Friday. It’s 8th May.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m Anthony Day and this is the Sustainable Futures Report.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Hostage to Fortune</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’ve called this episode “The End of Oil” and that’s a hostage to fortune for two reasons. First, I’m no oil expert, I’m just a commentator. Secondly, I know at least one oil industry expert listens to the Sustainable Futures Report. I chose the title because it’s the title of a book by Paul Roberts. I read it back in 2005, and it set me off on the sustainability and environmental route which I’ve followed ever since. It inspired me to write my own 2007 book, “Will Climate Change Your Life?” Don’t look for it - it’s totally out of date!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Change</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Things have changed fundamentally since 2005. At that time Paul Roberts’ message was that we were running out of oil. The global economy, based on oil products, was facing collapse as oil reserves were being used up faster than new ones could be found. Those that were being found were frequently classed as “stranded assets” - in areas so remote and hostile that it was certainly uneconomic and close to impossible to get them out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Shale</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The came the American shale revolution and the US became the world’s largest oil producer. There’s so much oil around that when demand fell last month by 30% or 40% as a result of the COVID19 lockdown the price not only collapsed but went negative. Faced with no customers and nowhere to store their oil, producers paid investors to take it off their hands. The price has come back to positive but in the mid $20s it’s significantly lower than the $65 at the start of the year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The end of oil is no longer something we’re afraid of because it might happen, leaving us with a stalled economy and global depression. The end of oil is now something we want to happen - at least an end to the burning of oil - which produces unsustainable pollution and greenhouse gases. Oil as a feedstock for chemicals and plastics will probably be with us for years to come. But how truly realistic is an end to oil?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>News from the IEA</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Oil</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In its April Oil Market Report the International Energy Agency states:</span></div>
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<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Global oil demand is expected to fall by a record 9.3 mb/d year-on-year in 2020. The impact of containment measures in 187 countries and territories has been to bring mobility almost to a halt. Demand in April is estimated to be 29 mb/d lower than a year ago, down to a level last seen in 1995. </span><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: line-through;">For 2Q20, demand is expected to be 23.1 mb/d below year-ago levels. The recovery in 2H20 will be gradual; in December demand will still be down 2.7 mb/d y-o-y. </span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Global oil supply is set to plunge by a record 12 mb/d in May, after OPEC+ forged a historic output deal to cut production by 9.7 mb/d from an agreed baseline level. </span><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: line-through;">As April production was high, the effective cut is 10.7 mb/d. Additional reductions are set to come from other countries with the US and Canada seeing the largest declines. Total non-OPEC output falls could reach 5.2 mb/d in 4Q20, and for the year as a whole output may be 2.3 mb/d lower than last year. </span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: line-through;">“Looking beyond the immediate imbalances in the market”, </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">the IEA pointed out to the G20 energy ministers that, </span><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: line-through;">“although low prices might appear to be attractive to consumers, they are of little benefit to the approximately 4 billion people living under some form of COVID19 lockdown. Also, low prices impact the livelihood of millions of people employed along the oil industry’s extensive value chain, and they damage the economies of weaker producing countries where social stability is already fragile.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: line-through;">They continued,</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> “Low prices threaten the stability of an industry that will remain central to the functioning of the global economy. Even with demand falling by a record amount this year, oil companies still face the challenges of investing to offset natural production declines and to meet future growth. Global capital expenditure by exploration and production companies in 2020 is forecast to drop by about 32% versus 2019 to $335 billion, the lowest level for 13 years. This reduction of financial resources also undermines the ability of the oil industry to develop some of the technologies needed for clean energy transitions around the world.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The IEA (International Energy Agency) has also released its 2020 Global Energy Review, taking a broader perspective.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“This is a historic shock to the entire energy world. Amid today’s unparalleled health and economic crises, the plunge in demand for nearly all major fuels is staggering, especially for coal, oil and gas. Only renewables are holding up during the previously unheard-of slump in electricity use,” said Dr Fatih Birol, the IEA Executive Director. “It is still too early to determine the longer-term impacts, but the energy industry that emerges from this crisis will be significantly different from the one that came before.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Energy</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The <i>Global Energy Review</i>’s projections of energy demand and energy-related emissions for 2020 are based on assumptions that the lockdowns implemented around the world in response to the pandemic are progressively eased in most countries in the coming months, accompanied by a gradual economic recovery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The report projects that energy demand will fall 6% in 2020 – seven times the decline after the 2008 global financial crisis. In absolute terms, the decline is unprecedented – the equivalent of losing the entire energy demand of India, the world’s third largest energy consumer. Advanced economies are expected to see the biggest declines, with demand set to fall by 9% in the United States and by 11% in the European Union. The impact of the crisis on energy demand is heavily dependent on the duration and stringency of measures to curb the spread of the virus. For instance, the IEA found that each month of worldwide lockdown at the levels seen in early April reduces annual global energy demand by about 1.5%.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Changes to electricity use during lockdowns have resulted in significant declines in overall electricity demand, with consumption levels and patterns on weekdays looking like those of a pre-crisis Sunday. Full lockdowns have pushed down electricity demand by 20% or more, with lesser impacts from partial lockdowns. Electricity demand is set to decline by 5% in 2020, the largest drop since the Great Depression in the 1930s.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At the same time, lockdown measures are driving a major shift towards low-carbon sources of electricity including wind, solar PV, hydropower and nuclear. After overtaking coal for the first time ever in 2019, low-carbon sources are set to extend their lead this year to reach 40% of global electricity generation – 6 percentage points ahead of coal. Electricity generation from wind and solar PV continues to increase in 2020, lifted by new projects that were completed in 2019 and early 2020.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Resulting from premature deaths and economic trauma around the world, the historic decline in global emissions is absolutely nothing to cheer,” said Dr Birol. “And if the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis is anything to go by, we are likely to soon see a sharp rebound in emissions as economic conditions improve. But governments can learn from that experience by putting clean energy technologies – renewables, efficiency, batteries, hydrogen and carbon capture – at the heart of their plans for economic recovery. Investing in those areas can create jobs, make economies more competitive and steer the world towards a more resilient and cleaner energy future.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Comment</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So the energy market will be much changed, but oil will still be with us. There are still millions of cars in the world which run on petrol or diesel, and many people coming out of lockdown will no longer have the resources to buy a new car as they might have wished, and certainly not an electric car which of course doesn’t use oil. At the moment electric cars are more expensive to buy although very much cheaper to run. I read that the car makers are doing everything to get back to production as soon as possible, but will the demand be there? In April a total of 4,327 new cars were registered in the UK, a drop of 97% from April last year and the lowest level since 1946. Hardly surprising since car dealers were locked down like everyone else for the whole of the month: in fact it’s surprising that any were sold at all, but will demand really come back? While existing cars are retained for another year or more there will still be demand for petrol and diesel, although working from home may persist after lockdown, cutting commuting miles and depressing fuel demand. On the other hand, as more and more goods are home-delivered there may be an upturn in demand for diesel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Global road transport accounts for over 50% of global oil demand. By the end of March, activity was almost 50% below the 2019 average. Aviation accounts for about 6%, and by the same time flying declined by some 60%. In some areas of Europe aviation activity has declined by as much as 90%. April’s figures will probably be worse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At the moment British government overseas travel advice is to avoid all but essential travel and its country-specific pages concentrate just on ways to get home. Even if you can set off, countries have restrictions on who can enter. It’s difficult to see how quickly air travel will get back to normal, if ever. Well-known investor Warren Buffett has sold all his holdings in airlines, even though he had to sell at a loss. Presumably he thought that losses could only get bigger. It’s difficult to see oil demand from aviation reviving any time soon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Airlines are petitioning governments for support - one is even offering a tax-haven island as collateral - but environmentalists are lobbying equally hard to stop taxpayers’ money going to to a polluting industry</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>So are we seeing the end of oil?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Of course not. There are far too many vested interests riding high in the background. An interesting angle comes from Canada courtesy of listener Mac Einarson over there in Nova Scotia. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>News from Canada </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’ve mentioned the Alberta tar sands several times in the past, as well as the controversy over the pipeline needed to get the product to the coast. It’s by no means plain sailing once the tankers leave Vancouver. You may remember the amazing video showing the narrow and hazardous passage from the port out to the Pacific. I’ve put the link on the blog.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Mac has brought me up to date with a statement from the Canadian government which starts like this:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today announced that the Government of Canada has approved the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) and that every dollar the federal government earns from this project will be invested in Canada’s clean energy transition.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“The environment and the economy go hand-in-hand. When we create prosperity today, we can invest in the clean jobs, technologies, and infrastructure of the future — and help Canadians benefit from opportunities presented by a rapidly changing economy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“The key to creating prosperity is finding new markets for our businesses to sell their products and services. Nowhere is the need to diversify greater than for our energy sector, where 99 per cent of our conventional resources are sold to one market — and often at large discounts. Canadians understand that we need to open up new international markets, in order to get a full and fair price, support workers and their families, and foster competitiveness.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>That Pipeline </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The background to all this is the need to transport the oil from the tar sands in Alberta to Vancouver in British Columbia so that it can be exported to markets in Asia. At present Canada has no option but to export to the US, and with no alternatives the US can largely set the price. The solution is the Trans Mountain Expansion, a new pipeline from Edmonton in Alberta to Burnaby in British Columbia. Work started on this pipeline by private investors but was strongly opposed by the government of British Columbia. A major concern was that the pipeline would pass through the lands of indigenous peoples who were concerned that these lands would be damaged by construction and possibly devastated by a spillage. There were also concerns that the hazardous sea passage from Vancouver to the Pacific presented unacceptable risks of shipwreck and spillage. (See the video I mentioned - it doesn’t look like a video to start with - link on the blog.) After continued opposition from the BC government the developers decided to walk away. At that point the federal government chose to buy the pipeline, to overrule the BC government and complete the project. Initially it was stopped by legal action but that was overturned and BC’s latest legal challenge was rejected in February of this year. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Prime Minister’s statement makes much of the good jobs that will be created and that every dollar the federal government earns from this project will be invested in Canada’s clean energy transition.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Progress continues</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">According to World Pipelines there are continuing discussions on the final route of the line, but Pipelines International reports that work continues on all sections despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. It looks as though the infrastructure is well on the way to allow Asian customers to burn Canadian oil for many years to come.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Morality?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I cannot see the morality of this. Isn’t it a bit like selling cocaine to fund your rehab?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And if governments like Canada are promoting the consumption of oil in the face of the evidence of dangerous pollution from oil consumption what hope is there of any country achieving even net zero by 2050?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The <b>Petersberg Climate Dialogue</b> is an established annual meeting that enables countries to have constructive exchanges in an informal atmosphere on the most pressing issues regarding international climate action.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The 2020 Petersberg Climate Dialogue took place online last week. It was the first major climate ministerial meeting of the year, bringing together ministers from 35 countries within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and chaired by Alok Sharma, UK Business Minister, in his capacity as president of COP26. Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel and UN Secretary-General António Guterres also took part.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In his closing statement Sharma said,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“I can tell you that as incoming COP Presidency, our promise from the UK … is that our teams will work night and day to raise the ambition on climate change.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“This does mean more ambition to reduce emissions, more ambition to build resilience, and more ambition to cooperate with each other, as we have done and shown today…</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“I do believe we owe that to ourselves and of course to future generations.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Well, we have the words. Let’s look out for the actions!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Emissions</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The problem is that since the Paris Accord to cut emissions back in 2015, CO2 has actually been rising - although there's currently a blip in the trend thanks to the Covid recession. But that blip is not a reduction in CO2 levels, it’s only a slowing of the rate at which CO2 in the atmosphere is growing. This may seem strange given that we are in lockdown, the streets are silent and far fewer buses, planes and trains are running. Actually transportation accounts for only 20% of global CO2 emissions. The rest comes from electricity and heating- 40%, manufacturing, industry and construction - 20% and 20% from agriculture and other sources. According to Shannon Osaka writing in Grist, the world needs to reduce emissions by 7.6% every year to achieve the 1.5℃ Paris target. The present blip is likely to be a temporary reduction of only 5.5%.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Many people are talking about coming out of the COVID19 lockdown to a greener future. China is easing its lockdown and already emissions are rising.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Planet of the Humans</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Michael Moore, well known for controversial documentaries like Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine, has a new film out. Planet of the Humans has caused outcry among environmentalists demanding it be withdrawn, as it describes renewables as failed technology and accuses the environmental movement of being in the pay of big business. In fact much of the footage and interviews is at least 10 years old and some dates from 2005. The revolution in renewable energy technology has been exponential over that time. Nevertheless, millions of people have seen the film and millions will believe the story it claims to tell. Another one for the denialist lobby! The price of freedom, they say, is eternal vigilance. Eternal vigilance, too, seems to be the price of truth these days.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Dave Borlace has issued a detailed rebuttal of the film. He accepts a couple of points as fair comment but shows how most of it is based on out-dated facts and information which is either wrong or misleads by omission. Dave warns people not to believe what anyone says - even him. So do your own research, although his video is a good starting point.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You’ll find links both to the film and to Dave’s response on the blog, which I’m sure by now you know is at www.sustainablefutures.report. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>That’s it</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Well, that's about it for this week. Thank you for bearing with me while I had a week off last week. There will be another Sustainable Futures Report next week on the 15th of May.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m Anthony Day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Thank you for listening; thank you for supporting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And finally…</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I leave you this week with a short audio clip. It’s the soundtrack from a video shared by Zoe Cohen. The words were spoken by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and naturalist Sir David Attenborough back in February at the launch of the UN’s COP26 Climate Conference, originally scheduled for November this year. If you find the link on the blog you’ll see that the video shows the destruction of ancient woodlands in preparation for the construction of the HS2 railway. Compare this with the words. Work continues despite the pandemic. It will cost over £100bn of taxpayers’ money and involve damage to over 100 ancient woodlands along the route. It may achieve Net Zero, but not for at least 120 years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Have a good week.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Sources</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>End of Oil</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/28/un-chief-dont-use-taxpayer-money-to-save-polluting-industries">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/28/un-chief-dont-use-taxpayer-money-to-save-polluting-industries<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.climateaction.org/news/covid-19-crisis-set-to-eradicate-demand-for-fossil-fuels-says-iea?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Demand+for+fossil+fuels+will+be+reduced+due+to+COVID-19+-+Climate+Action+News&utm_campaign=CA+%7C+2020+%7C+1+May+%7C+Newsletter">http://www.climateaction.org/news/covid-19-crisis-set-to-eradicate-demand-for-fossil-fuels-says-iea?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Demand+for+fossil+fuels+will+be+reduced+due+to+COVID-19+-+Climate+Action+News&utm_campaign=CA+%7C+2020+%7C+1+May+%7C+Newsletter<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52508010">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52508010<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/buffett-dumps-entire-airline-stake-saying-the-world-changed-for-airlines-2020-05-02">https://www.marketwatch.com/story/buffett-dumps-entire-airline-stake-saying-the-world-changed-for-airlines-2020-05-02<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/why-warren-buffett-invested-big-4-airlines-sold-them-loss-2020-5-1029167021 </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Canada pipeline</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2019/06/18/trans-mountain-expansion-will-fund-canadas-future-clean-economy">https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2019/06/18/trans-mountain-expansion-will-fund-canadas-future-clean-economy</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/campaign/trans-mountain/follow-tmx.html">https://www.canada.ca/en/campaign/trans-mountain/follow-tmx.html</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
<div style="color: #0000e9; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/kinder-morgan-trans-mountain-pipeline-bc-coast/article35043172/">https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/kinder-morgan-trans-mountain-pipeline-bc-coast/article35043172/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #0000e9; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
<div style="color: #0000e9; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.worldpipelines.com/project-news/22042020/change-to-trans-mountain-expansion-projects-route-hearings/">https://www.worldpipelines.com/project-news/22042020/change-to-trans-mountain-expansion-projects-route-hearings/</a></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: black; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Petersburg Climate Dialogue</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52418624">Coronavirus recovery plan 'must tackle climate change'<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">https://www.bmu.de/en/petersberg-climate-dialogue-xi/</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Emissions</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://grist.org/climate/the-world-is-on-lockdown-so-where-are-all-the-carbon-emissions-coming-from/">https://grist.org/climate/the-world-is-on-lockdown-so-where-are-all-the-carbon-emissions-coming-from/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Planet of the Humans</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://youtu.be/Zk11vI-7czE">https://youtu.be/Zk11vI-7czE</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/justhaveathink/posts">https://www.patreon.com/justhaveathink/posts</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/28/climate-dangerous-documentary-planet-of-the-humans-michael-moore-taken-down">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/28/climate-dangerous-documentary-planet-of-the-humans-michael-moore-taken-down<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/halt-destruction-nature-worse-pandemics-top-scientists">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/halt-destruction-nature-worse-pandemics-top-scientists<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://medium.com/@aj_jones/the-worlds-freshwater-crisis-is-worse-than-ever-60bce56206a9">https://medium.com/@aj_jones/the-worlds-freshwater-crisis-is-worse-than-ever-60bce56206a9</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://medium.com/environmental-intelligence/bring-back-the-trees-on-agricultural-fields-a064aead239">https://medium.com/environmental-intelligence/bring-back-the-trees-on-agricultural-fields-a064aead239</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52489126"><b>High microplastic concentration found on ocean floor</b><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span></a></span></div>
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<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/apr/29/weatherwatch-deadly-tornadoes-hit-us-while-cuba-has-hottest-day">https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/apr/29/weatherwatch-deadly-tornadoes-hit-us-while-cuba-has-hottest-day<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">HS2 and Boris</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://youtu.be/0nyCTVFzQkc">https://youtu.be/0nyCTVFzQkc</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-77629576495701007422020-04-24T01:00:00.000+01:002020-04-24T01:00:33.078+01:00And In Other News...<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
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<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And in Other News…</b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjG-n43N7eJkBR2Z6LbjRm0yDeMRTG74FtKyED5VMcrVchrjAI915D5J0IAK3qJkhTV2dUwbkswd2W-pA7GCHshHE-BZqU_6-tyGm_-PlmHQctXx6PDjbFqd4xTRUCJQ7bwQ4/s1600/news-1074604_1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="503" data-original-width="1600" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjG-n43N7eJkBR2Z6LbjRm0yDeMRTG74FtKyED5VMcrVchrjAI915D5J0IAK3qJkhTV2dUwbkswd2W-pA7GCHshHE-BZqU_6-tyGm_-PlmHQctXx6PDjbFqd4xTRUCJQ7bwQ4/s400/news-1074604_1920.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Yes, the threat, challenge and tragedy that is COVID19 remains everyone’s first concern. I’m Anthony Day and this is the Sustainable Futures Report for Friday 24th April, in which I’ll bring you sustainability stories from around the world. Coronavirus affects us all, but in this episode my aim is to talk briefly of other things.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Welcome</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">First let me welcome the very latest patron of the Sustainable Futures Report, Esteban Velez Vega who is based in Japan. Esteban, thanks for joining, and thanks to all my patrons for your support.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>This Week</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">This week I bring you a miscellany of stories that you may have missed. Stories that I’ve found in The Guardian, on the BBC, at <a href="http://medium.com/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">medium.com</span></a>, the <a href="http://hill.com/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">hill.com</span></a>, from the Ethical Corporation and via Google Alerts, among other sources.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Nuclear</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Let's start with nuclear news. Nuclear Engineering International reports that the new plant at Flamanville in Northern France is now scheduled to start operation in 2024. This is 12 years later than the original target date for operation of the reactor. As well as being late, the plant has significantly overrun its budgeted costs. One of the most serious ongoing problems has been the detection of faulty welds in the reactor vessel leading to costly and time-consuming remedial work. Two reactors to a similar design are currently under construction at Hinkley Point in Somerset, UK. This plant was due to begin production in 2017, but is now scheduled for 2025. It is also way over budget and is only viable because the British government has guaranteed an index-linked price for Hinkley’s electricity which is at about twice the current market rate. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Helm"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #092f9d; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">Dieter Helm</span></a>, professor of Energy Policy at the University of Oxford, says, “Hinkley Point C would have been roughly half the cost if the government had been borrowing the money to build it at 2%, rather than EDF's cost of capital, which was 9%.” Renewable and battery technology have both advanced dramatically since the first concrete was poured at the Hinkley site. The question must be whether this plant will be a very expensive white elephant.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Carbon Footprint</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Nuclear energy is after all, free of emissions, at least in operation. Let's not forget the carbon footprint of the construction process including the vast amounts of iron, steel and concrete which are involved. Nevertheless, once the plant is running there are no emissions of carbon dioxide or any other greenhouse gases.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">As renewables take up more of the load and coal is phased out, partly replaced by natural gas, the power sector is rapidly reducing its carbon footprint. It’s transport - road transport and aviation - which is another major producer of greenhouse gases in the western world. There are two things which can be done about this. One is to stop emissions at source. The other is to extract the CO2 from the atmosphere and lock it up so that it cannot contribute to the causes of global heating.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Declining pollution</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">One of the favourite charts which is presented at the British government's daily coronavirus press briefing shows how transport use has collapsed since the country went into lockdown. Satellite data from NASA and the European Space Agency during this pandemic has detected significant decreases in nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant in the atmosphere which causes health problems. But Eric Roston writes in Bloomberg Green that while CO2 levels are falling this will have little impact on the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere. In fact, he says, CO₂ levels will almost certainly continue to rise.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Limited Effect</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Only a sustained year-long drop in global emissions of about <a href="https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2020/03/11/what-does-it-take-for-the-coronavirus-or-other-major-economic-events-to-affect-global-carbon-dioxide-readings/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">10 percent</span></a> would clearly show up in CO₂ concentrations, according to Ralph Keeling, a geochemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Even previous economic cataclysms, such as the 2008 financial crisis and the collapse of the Soviet Union, have failed to show up in the CO₂ readings taken at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, which began keeping records in 1958. Pierre Friedlingstein of the University of Exeter estimates that a 10% drop in annual emissions would still translate to an annual increase of 2 ppm in the CO₂ count.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In other words, although the rate at which we are adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere may significantly decrease, there will still be an addition. It’s a sobering thought that with the majority of people staying at home, with less electricity being used while much of business is at a standstill, with road journeys falling by some 60% and rail journeys cut by 97% we are still adding more CO2 to the atmosphere and making global heating worse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Clearly we should continue to look at ways of minimising the greenhouse gases emitted from our energy, transport, agricultural and industrial processes, but we are going to need other measures as well. Should we plant trees, for example?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Trees?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The UK government has pledged to plant millions a year while other countries have schemes running into billions. Turkey, for example, planted 11 million trees across the country in a day. The National Post of Toronto reports that by the end of January 90% of the trees planted in Turkey the previous November were dead. It was the wrong time of year, the trees were not planted by experts and there was a lack of rainfall. So much for grand gestures. But there’s just not enough land to plant enough trees to extract enough carbon. These big numbers can only give a false sense of security.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>CCS?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">What else can we do to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere? There’s that old faithful Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). The Carbon Capture and Storage Association says, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“CCS uses established technologies to capture, transport and store carbon dioxide emissions from large point sources, such as power stations. It also has an important role to play to ensure manufacturing industries, such as steel and cement, can continue to operate, without the associated emissions.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This is the ideal, but unless I’m wrong there are no major CCS projects in operation. Although Drax intends to introduce CCS, there is no UK power station using CCS, nor one anywhere in the world. CCS is in any case a “preventive” offset. It prevents CO2 from being added to the global total by trapping it at source at the power station or industrial plant where it is created. CCS does nothing to reduce the total CO2 in the atmosphere, although it may reduce the rate of growth. Nobody claims that it will trap 100% of the CO2 produced.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>CCUS?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Writing in City A M Dr Rowena Sellens warns that supporters of CCS are missing a trick. Yes, you can store carbon, but capturing and storing it can cost from $600 - $800 per tonne, plus the ongoing storage maintenance costs. The answer is CCUS - carbon capture, storage and utilisation. She quotes Drax (Drax again) which recently announced a partnership to use captured carbon from its power station to create green polyurethane, and says that CarbonCure has long since been using captured carbon to create concrete. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Carbon, she says, has a range of potential applications across a number of industries, from concrete, fuels, aggregates, methanol, to polymers and chemicals. All that’s missing is government support for the research needed to bring these processes to commercial viability. Former Chancellor George Osborne offered £1bn to any company that could develop a viable CCS system, but withdrew it shortly afterwards. Countries like Germany and Canada offer significant support for such research. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Growing Market</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Reportlinker offers a report on the Global CCS Market in which it states that the Carbon Capture and Storage market worldwide is projected to grow by US$3.3 Billion, driven by a compounded growth of 11.6%. Pre-Combustion Capture, one of the segments analyzed and sized in this study, displays the potential to grow at over 11.8%. No, I don’t know what Pre-Combustion Capture is either - maybe I should read the full report. On the other hand, at £4,251 a copy I think I’ll pass.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Environment and Energy Leader is even more upbeat. They suggest that the CCS market will be worth $6 billion by 2026. Strange, as they seem to be commenting on the report that I’ve just mentioned. They say that the conclusions of the report include:</span></div>
<ul>
<li style="color: #262626; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 19px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">The demand for CCS projects is flourishing across the industrial sector due to their longer operating life and emission control nature.</span></li>
<li style="color: #262626; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 19px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Growing investments across various industries, including chemical, oil & gas, and power generation, are estimated to drive industry growth.</span></li>
<li style="color: #262626; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 19px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Major players operating across the market are Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Japan CCS Co., Ltd, Shell Cansolv, Fluor Corporation, Siemens, Schlumberger Limited, and Halliburton, amongst others.</span></li>
<li style="color: #262626; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 19px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Positive outlook toward the expansion industries, along with stringent government norms to diminish CO2 emissions, will accelerate the technology trends.</span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>But is it viable?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Surely, though, unless revenue can be generated by some sort of carbon utilisation, the cost of CCS will simply be an overhead to power generators and other heavy industry. And those overheads will have to be paid by the consumer. Isn't the sensible route to eliminate carbon emitting industry as far as possible, leaving CCS to soften the phase-out of legacy plant?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Zero-carbon Humber</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Meanwhile reports that Power producers SSE Thermal, Drax Group Plc (LON:DRX) and Uniper SE (ETR:UN01) are part of a consortium that plans to use carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen technology to decarbonise energy production and industry in the Humber region of Northern England. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The group of 10 energy and industrial companies aims to turn the Humber region into “the world’s first zero-carbon cluster” by 2040. They secured funding for the project through Phase One of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, an initiative of the British Government to increase funding in research and development by £4.7 billion over 4 years to strengthen UK science and business.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Methane</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Of course CO2 is not the only GHG. Methane is far more potent, although it lasts in the atmosphere for a far shorter time. Nexus media news reports that a new analysis from the (NOAA) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration states that methane levels have reached an All-Time High.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Here we are. It’s 2020, and it’s not only not dropping. It’s not level. In fact, it’s one of the fastest growth rates we’ve seen in the last 20 years,” said Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at Duke University.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Cutting back</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“The easiest way to stem methane pollution, however, is to limit its release from oil and gas drilling sites, he said. Natural gas is mostly methane, and it is prone to leaking from wells. There are essentially two ways to deal with this problem. The first is to burn the natural gas that seeps out, which turns the methane into carbon dioxide. The second is to plug the leaks.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Remember that I recently reported that in response to the coronavirus pandemic the US environmental protection agency announced the relaxation of environmental regulations, which amongst other things means that oil and gas companies will not be held to account for methane emissions. In fact they will not even be asked to monitor or report on the levels of such leaks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The only alternative according to Shindell, is to eat less beef and dairy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">According to the International Energy Agency further innovation is needed both to increase understanding of emissions levels and to help reduce the cost of emissions mitigation strategies such as leak detection and repair. The US government does not seem to be behind such initiatives at the moment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/@nexus_media?source=post_page-----f72e8afd3ac----------------------"></a></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Greenland Icecap</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">While methane levels rise, The Guardian quotes a report from Geophysical Research Letters that indicates an exceptional loss of ice from the Arctic last year. Greenland's melting ice raised global sea level by 2.2mm in two months. 2.2mm doesn’t sound a lot, but spread over 362m square kilometres it is a lot. It may be a marginal rise, but those millions or billions of tonnes of extra water will make storm surges significantly worse and flooding of coastal areas more likely.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Last year was the hottest on record for the Arctic, and so we go on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Air Quality</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Unsurprisingly, since we have been locked down to avoid coronavirus air quality across the world has improved. Both the European Environment Agency and the WHO have reported a correlation between the areas with the worst levels of air pollution and the number of cases of coronavirus. It raises the question of can we, should we or will we go back to business as usual?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Cities across the world, including Milan and New York, have announced plans to restrict city-centre traffic after lockdown is released. This will improve air quality and apart from anything else will provide more space for pedestrians who are likely to be social distancing for some time to come. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Saving the Planet - or not</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">An article on <a href="http://medium.com/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">medium.com</span></a> by Alan Knight Partners says “The Coronavirus Pandemic Will Not Save the Planet”. They say, “While the entire world continues to be ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, some are celebrating its unexpected upsides such as a dramatic decrease in air pollution, immaculate blue skies, and clear waters in rivers and lakes. Many are claiming this as a victory for the planet amid clamors that Nature has pressed the ‘reset’ button. While pollution has indeed reduced and the air has been rendered clean due to the absence of noxious fumes, many are asking: is this respite temporary?” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That’s the $64,000 question. “This drop is not due to structural changes so as soon as confinement ends, I expect the <a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/climate-change/490997-coronavirus-pandemic-could-lead-to-biggest"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">emissions</span></a> will go back close to where they were,” said Corinne Le Quéré, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Back to business as usual?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“The manner in which economic stimulus packages are designed will play a key role in determining the extent to which the environmental gains will be sustained. The positive impacts will be completely undermined if emissions return to previous levels, or worse, are allowed to increase,” say the authors. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Plastic Disposables</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They also comment on the mountains of plastic waste as health systems across the world discard used PPE. They point out that discussions regarding climate change have taken a backseat due to the coronavirus pandemic. Enforcement of social distancing norms has rendered it impossible to organise physical mass protests. There’s a danger that governments will be given a free ride back to business as usual. But in the face of unprecedented unemployment and citizens having plundered their savings in order to survive, the pressure to get economic activity back to normal levels will be intense. The exact format that takes will be crucial to our environment, our emission levels and our future.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And in Good News…</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Shell</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You’ve probably heard that oil giant Shell has announced plans to become a net-zero emissions business by 2050 or sooner. The devil, as always, in in the detail, and particularly that little word “net”. “Net” usually means that an organisation will continue to emit pollution but will use offsets to balance the picture, but not always. Much of Shell’s emissions are Scope Three, in other words they are emissions created by customers using Shell products like petrol and diesel, and out of Shell’s direct control. The company is therefore developing hydrogen, biofuels and renewable power with little or no carbon footprint to replace some of these.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Overall Shell’s long-term ambition is targeting a 65% reduction in emissions across its products by 2050, with an interim target of 30% set for 2035. Presumably offsets will be used to achieve net zero, and the credibility of these offsets must stand up to scrutiny.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">While it may always be possible to hope for major organisations to do more, we’ve got to welcome this initiative which would have been unthinkable only 10 or so years ago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Another bit of good news </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Norway has approved plans for a floating wind farm proposed by multinational energy company Equinor. It will consist of 11 wind turbines based on the Hywind wind farm concept developed by Equinor, with the 8 MW turbines having a total capacity of 88 MW.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The output will be used by two offshore oil platforms, reducing their need to run gas turbines and reducing their emissions by an estimated 200,000 tonnes per year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Do you believe in climate change? </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I don’t says Duncan Riach on <a href="http://medium.com/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">medium.com</span></a>. I don’t believe, I know that on the balance of scientific probabilities it’s a fact. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“</span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">I think that framing the climate change issue as one of belief plays a game that is degrading to science; science is not a religion. </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">When the religious right claims that it doesn’t believe in climate change, the adult response is simply, “it’s your right to believe anything you choose but we don’t set policy based on beliefs; we set policy based on the balance of evidence.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And Finally…</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>It’s all the fault of the Rich</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">According to a new report climate change is all the fault of the rich. Researchers at the University of Leeds UK have analysed the statistics for 86 countries and concluded that the richer people become, the more energy they typically use. For example, the wealthiest tenth of people consume about 20 times more energy overall than the bottom ten, and their transport choices mean that they use 187 times more fuel than the poorest tenth. This is because the poorest tenth cannot afford to drive - or to fly. The wealthiest also use significantly more energy for cooking and heating, probably because they have bigger houses. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Cut Transport Demand</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The authors say governments could reduce transport demand through better public transport, higher taxes on bigger vehicles and frequent flyer levies for people who take most holidays.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The authors also note that the UK March Budget declined to increase fuel duty and promised 4,000 miles of new roads. It did not mention home insulation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Who wants to do it?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But Professor Kevin Anderson, from the Tyndall Centre in Manchester, who was not involved in the study, told BBC News: “This study tells relatively wealthy people like us what we don’t want to hear.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“The climate issue is framed by us high emitters – the politicians, business people, journalists, academics. When we say there’s no appetite for higher taxes on flying, we mean WE don’t want to fly less</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“The same is true about our cars and the size our homes. We have convinced ourselves that our lives are normal, yet the numbers tell a very different story,” he said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">gnowthi seauton as the Greeks used to say.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Know thyself.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>And in closing, </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’d just like to thank last week’s interviewee, Rebecca Henderson, for telling me about Chris Goodall’s carbon newsletter. I’m sure I’ll find lots of leads there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And also, since last week’s interview I’ve had more listeners than ever before. Thank you all. Do keep listening.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And you’d like to be a patron you’ll find the details at <a href="http://patreon.com/sfr"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">patreon.com/sfr</span></a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m Anthony Day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That was the Sustainable Futures Report.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This is usually the point at which I say, “There’ll be another Sustainable Futures Report next week.” Well there won’t. I have a birthday next week. I’m taking the week off. I’ll be back for 8th May. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Stay safe until then.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Sources</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Flamanville</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsflamanville-3-startup-pushed-back-to-2024-7853088">https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsflamanville-3-startup-pushed-back-to-2024-7853088</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Decree-delays-deadline-for-start-up-of-Flamanville">https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Decree-delays-deadline-for-start-up-of-Flamanville<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Greenhouse gases</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0415/1130647-coronavirus-emissions-environment/">https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0415/1130647-coronavirus-emissions-environment/<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-14/co2-emissions-are-falling-that-doesn-t-mean-virus-will-slow-warming?srnd=green">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-14/co2-emissions-are-falling-that-doesn-t-mean-virus-will-slow-warming?srnd=green</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Trees</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51633560"><b>Climate change: Will planting millions of trees really save the planet?</b><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>CCS</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.ccsassociation.org/">http://www.ccsassociation.org<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.cityam.com/seize-the-opportunities-of-carbon-capture-technology/">https://www.cityam.com/seize-the-opportunities-of-carbon-capture-technology/</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.reportlinker.com/p05205339/Global-Carbon-Capture-and-Storage-Industry.html?utm_source=PRN"><b>https://www.reportlinker.com/p05205339/Global-Carbon-Capture-and-Storage-Industry.html?utm_source=PRN</b></a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.environmentalleader.com/2020/04/carbon-capture-and-storage-market-to-reach-6-billion-by-2026/"><b>https://www.environmentalleader.com/2020/04/carbon-capture-and-storage-market-to-reach-6-billion-by-2026/</b></a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.environmentalleader.com/2020/04/carbon-capture-and-storage-market-to-reach-6-billion-by-2026/">https://www.environmentalleader.com/2020/04/carbon-capture-and-storage-market-to-reach-6-billion-by-2026/</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://renewablesnow.com/news/uk-tie-up-gets-funds-to-develop-ccs-plus-hydrogen-plans-for-humber-695574/">https://renewablesnow.com/news/uk-tie-up-gets-funds-to-develop-ccs-plus-hydrogen-plans-for-humber-695574/</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Methane</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/methane-levels-reach-an-all-time-high-f72e8afd3ac">https://nexusmedianews.com/methane-levels-reach-an-all-time-high-f72e8afd3ac</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/tracking-fuel-supply-2019/methane-emissions-from-oil-and-gas">https://www.iea.org/reports/tracking-fuel-supply-2019/methane-emissions-from-oil-and-gas</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Greenland's melting ice raised global sea level by 2.2mm in two months</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/mar/19/greenland-ice-melt-sea-level-rise-climate-crisis">https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/mar/19/greenland-ice-melt-sea-level-rise-climate-crisis<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020GL087291">https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020GL087291</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Air Quality </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/27/coronavirus-uk-lockdown-big-drop-air-pollution">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/27/coronavirus-uk-lockdown-big-drop-air-pollution<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/air/air-quality-and-covid19/air-quality-and-covid19">https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/air/air-quality-and-covid19/air-quality-and-covid19</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52351290">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52351290</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/21/milan-seeks-to-prevent-post-crisis-return-of-traffic-pollution">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/21/milan-seeks-to-prevent-post-crisis-return-of-traffic-pollution<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #094fd1; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Save the planet?</b></span></div>
<div style="color: #094fd1; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://medium.com/@alumknightpartners/the-coronavirus-pandemic-will-not-save-the-planet-6e75803ea762">https://medium.com/@alumknightpartners/the-coronavirus-pandemic-will-not-save-the-planet-6e75803ea762</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Shell</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.climateaction.org/news/shell-announces-net-zero-ambition-for-2050?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Shell+announces+net+zero+ambition+for+2050+-+Climate+Action+News&utm_campaign=CA+%7C+2020+%7C+17+April+%7C+Newsletter">http://www.climateaction.org/news/shell-announces-net-zero-ambition-for-2050?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Shell+announces+net+zero+ambition+for+2050+-+Climate+Action+News&utm_campaign=CA+%7C+2020+%7C+17+April+%7C+Newsletter</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Floating wind farm </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.climateaction.org/news/norway-approves-plans-for-equinors-88mw-floating-wind-farm?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Shell+announces+net+zero+ambition+for+2050+-+Climate+Action+News&utm_campaign=CA+%7C+2020+%7C+17+April+%7C+Newsletter">http://www.climateaction.org/news/norway-approves-plans-for-equinors-88mw-floating-wind-farm?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Shell+announces+net+zero+ambition+for+2050+-+Climate+Action+News&utm_campaign=CA+%7C+2020+%7C+17+April+%7C+Newsletter</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Belief v Evidence</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://medium.com/@duncanr/i-dont-believe-in-climate-change-fbab2cf073e0">https://medium.com/@duncanr/i-dont-believe-in-climate-change-fbab2cf073e0</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51906530"><b>Climate change: The rich are to blame, international study finds</b><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b></b></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.carboncommentary.com/">https://www.carboncommentary.com</a></span><span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> </span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37235538.post-81225638432794181282020-04-17T01:00:00.000+01:002020-04-17T09:37:35.468+01:00Reimagining Capitalism<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sustainable-futures-report/id313473372?mt=2,"><i>It’s a podcast! Listen here:</i></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Reimagining Capitalism</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m Anthony Day </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Welcome to the Sustainable Futures Report for Friday 17th April.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Exclusive Interview with Professor Rebecca Henderson of Harvard University and Business School.</b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> My guest this time is Rebecca Henderson, who is a professor at Harvard University and Harvard Business School. And among other roles, she is a Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She's author of "Leading Sustainable Change," and "Accelerating Energy Innovation." And her upcoming book, which is due for publication at the end of this month, is "Reimagining Capitalism."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Now, Rebecca, I think in the last very short few weeks since the pandemic has taken over the world, a lot of people are saying we really need to reimagine capitalism because it has become absolutely clear that the market cannot deal with events such as these. What's your take on it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rebecca:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> I completely agree. I think COVID-19 has highlighted why we need to reimagine capitalism. I do believe, however, that it was fairly clear beforehand that we needed to do something. We were spectacularly failing to deal with climate change, and we were also failing to deal with accelerating inequality, particularly in the US and the UK.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> It was clear that the system -- if we may call it that -- was not working for everyone and was not going to leave our grandchildren and their children with a liveable planet. And what I think COVID has done is really highlight those issues. It feels to me as if the central issue with capitalism and why it needs to be reimagined is that we fell into the trap of thinking the free market could fix almost all our problems. And what COVID-19 shows us, dramatically every day, is that's clearly not the case.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> For me there are two key examples of that. The first is our total dependence on the health care system and on the courage and bravery of people who get up every morning and go to work and come back to their families and know they're putting both themselves and their children and their partners at risk. That's not something that the market can buy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> We cannot function as a society without individuals standing up and doing the right thing. And I think COVID is really reminding us of that, and that it's not just about me and mine, and now, but about us and later and the common good. And that's always been a tension in our society, but COVID really shows it up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> The second example that really captures the need to reimagine capitalism for me is the spectacle of the president of the United States telling the individual states that they should bid for vital healthcare equipment, and states bidding against each other, using the market to allocate lifesaving equipment at a moment of national emergency. The total failure of the federal government to step up early enough, or on a serious enough scale to take a coordinative role is mind blowing. But what's amazing is it's been going on for a while. It's not just COVID.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Okay, okay. Well, of course, free market is the philosophy of the American government. It's very much, until recently, anyway, been the philosophy of our Conservative party here in the UK.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Well, clearly free markets have been found wanting, as you've just described. But once we get through this and I think it's going to take a long time, and it's going to be a very gradual exit, but once we do get through this, where do you see the governments going? Do you see them taking us back to where we were before? Or is this time for more government intervention on behalf of the people at large and which, incidentally, will reduce hopefully inequality?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rebecca:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Nobody knows. I think it's possible to paint some very dark scenarios. I'm particularly worried about the increasing concentration of business power. I think a lot of small and midsize firms will have difficulty, both this year and perhaps going forward. And it provides an opening for large firms to get even bigger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> I mean, one of the things that should be clear is, I'm a huge fan of the free market. In its place and at the right time it is seriously amazing. I don't think we're going to fix any of the major problems we face without enlisting it. But you're right. My hope coming out of this emergency is that governments will step up to their role as providers of public goods, public health, most obviously, but also a liveable climate, and as let's call them watchdogs or guardians or referees of business. Because without a referee, without a government setting the rules of the road, things like a minimum wage, things like perhaps mandatory sick pay, you're not in the long run going have a functional society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So I really hope governments are going to step up. I think it's likely, I think there's a renewed understanding of what governments can do in these kinds of moments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Right. How do you think the pressure will come on to governments to make them change towards something which is more inclusive? I mean, for example, do you have a view on Extinction Rebellion? Is that going the right way towards actually getting things changed?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rebecca:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Can I start with something easier than Extinction Rebellion?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Okay, okay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rebecca:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Let me start with inequality and the ground swell in the US. The way I hear it phrased here is -- wait, wait, wait. We've said that some people are essential, the people keeping the lights on, running the food chain, delivering our groceries. And yet we've been paying them really not enough to live on, they have no savings. They have very patchy access to health care and no sick leave. So when they get sick, you know, I can't afford to be sick, I have to keep working, how else am I going to do to keep my family?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> And I think that's been so highlighted that I think the kind of labor legislation that many people been arguing for in the US for the lost 20 years has a much better chance of passing. I'm very hopeful we'll see a change in administrations and that that administration will come in with a very strong, let's really address inequality, let's make this a society that works for all of us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Now, you asked me about climate change and whether governments will come in strong on climate change. So, I think it's very important that we frame climate change as an issue of about people and communities. I mean, I believe it's an enormous threat to the long term health of all of our societies. And I think it's really important to communicate that, that climate change is a major driver of long term damage to human health, that burning fossil fuels is killing people right now. I'm sure you've seen the statistics, that it seems plausible that the reduction in air pollution from burning less fossil fuels has prevented more deaths than COVID. I mean, it's just amazing that we tolerate people burning these fuels that routinely attack the lungs of women and children and dump mercury into all our blood. I mean, statistically, my blood is full of mercury.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Well, this is the question. Are we going to go back to business as usual in the knowledge that this is the sort of damage that we causing?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rebecca:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So I'm really hopeful that our renewed awareness of health first, common health first, will help us talk about climate change in a way that really builds political support for it. Now, I'm very sympathetic to Extinction Rebellion. Sometimes I want to go out and chain myself to railings because, like, what are we thinking?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> The idea that we have the technology and the resources to address climate change and somehow we're busy or, we can't get it together. Now, I'm very aware that I believe at least, the costs of fixing climate change should be born by the people who have the resources to fix it. That, for example, I would advocate replacing a payroll tax with a carbon tax. So instead of giving employers an incentive not to employ people, crazy, let's give people an incentive not to use carbon. And if we have more money left over from the carbon tax, let's send it back in the form of a tax and dividend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So we make burning fossil fuels expensive, which gives business the incentive to stop doing it, which lets them use all their innovation and productivity and sort of really focus on doing that, because now they have an economic reason to do so. And let's send the money back to the people who need it, the people at the bottom of the income distribution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> But you're talking about some really fundamental changes to some very, very large and powerful industries. Now you've spoken about how business, in your book and videos on your website, you've spoken about how business can be the key to this. But people have been making the case for sustainable business for a long time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> I'm sure you're familiar with Bob Willard and there are many others. And the thing is while we have people like the CEO of J.P. Morgan, saying we need suddenly to take these things seriously. While we have people like Paul Polman at Unilever, who's doing vast good things, you also have people like Bolsonaro in Brazil who is driving business into the Amazon to plunder whatever it can find. And you have people like the trader in the last couple of weeks who invested $27 million and came out with $2.4 billion. This is business at its naked profit seeking and this is not business which is going to do anything for the common wheel, and it is not going to do anything to help the world avoid climate change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> How can we actually change these powerful actors to act on our behalf?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rebecca:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> When I was trying to sell my book, I was with a major publishing house in New York and the editor looked at me and he said -- Rebecca, Business Saves the World, you have got to be kidding. Don't you read the papers?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So I'm with you. I mean, I absolutely get, but simply saying, oh, business will step forward and step up, clearly not the case. So let me very briefly summarise why I think business could nonetheless play a super important role.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So first we absolutely have to change the rules. Changing the rules is the only way in the long run that we will address these kinds of massive problems. And so it has to be all about, in the end, political, social, cultural change. The question is, how do we get there? It's not a done deal that we'll come out of this emergency with government saying -- okay, I understand, I need to focus on the common good, I need to set the rules for the long term, I need to address these issues. That's not a done deal. I really hope it's the case, but it's not a done deal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So what my book is about, is the idea that having some significant fraction of business making the argument for change might increase the odds that government will act. That's essentially what my book's about. And as you know, because you've been polite enough to read it, I lay out four steps as to how business starting right now in their own organizations can begin to build that momentum for change. Because I think at root, this is easy to say, but I think at route we're talking about a moral shift, as well as a political shift.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> No business person right now would say, hey, I'm going to employ more child labor because you know what, it's fabulously profitable. Nobody would say that in public. Alas, it still goes on, but everybody knows it's not okay, you wouldn't boast about it at dinner parties. You wouldn't tell your customers. And what we need to do is make sure I think, that climate change becomes just like that, that saying, well, I throw carbon dioxide out the window and of course I lobby against climate legislation because climate legislation would reduce my profits. And people do say that. It should not be okay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> And I think what we need to see is this major shift in business. I think you've got these pioneers moving forward, raising awareness among employees and customers and my hope is we could get a virtuous circle going, where it becomes increasingly unacceptable to move into the Amazon and take as much money as you can get.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> I think Brazil is an example of just what we're talking about, which is before Bolsonaro, the private sector was playing an important role in the preservation of the Amazon and supporting the politics that led to that. When the politics shifted, everything fell apart, as you said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Right. Do you don't think though, that once we get through this pandemic and all the turmoil which it's brought with it, people are going to say I really haven't got time to look at doing things to save the world, I've just bean driven almost to the wall, I've got to do everything I possibly can to claw my business back, to get back into operation, to re-employ my employees, I've got my mind focused on survival?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rebecca:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So I sit on the board of two large public companies and I understand, at least a little bit of what it means to be trying to run a business at this moment, and it's super tough. I mean to a first approximation, either you're running absolutely flat out in the midst of a pandemic, trying to keep your people safe, or your revenue has dropped by 50%. I mean, I have a bunch of friends.... I have a friend who built a software company, for 30 years, he worked at building this company. Amazing job, 200 employees, worth approximately fifty-million dollars. His revenue went to zero. Why? Because he was writing software that sold tickets for live events. Zero revenue?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So of course as we come out of this pandemic business will be focusing on making sure they can rebuild. And I think that's understandable, and we shouldn't like yell at people who are doing that. It's not helpful. At the same time, I think there are at least three forces that work for us. One is that the knowledge that the world could suddenly change, that disasters are real, that when that happens, you would have done anything to fix it before it happened. I don't think that knowledge will all together go away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So I think there'll be the kind of acknowledgment that things might shift. Maybe, maybe, maybe, who knows? But I think that could happen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> The thing though, just taking up that point. The pandemic has happened almost overnight. The thing about climate change is that we know it's going to happen, but it's happening so gradually it's like the boiled frog syndrome, which I'm sure you're aware of. People think well, it's just not quite bad enough for me to have to do anything about it. If we get a cataclysmic event like a tidal surge, which overwhelms New York or something, then maybe that's the sort of incentive which will make people think just as this pandemic has done. But if climate change gradually gradually, gradually gets worse, is the incentive there?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rebecca:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So two points. First, I think we're going to see a repetition of things like the California wildfires and the Australian fires and the floods in Jakarta and the storms that hit the Carolinas twice, and the flooding in Houston and the flooding in the Midwest and the failure of the harvests in Africa. Alas, I'm afraid, I think we're going to see more of these kinds of events.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> But I agree with you, for many people, it will still be later, later, later. But I think the good news there, is that it's increasingly clear that there's an economic case in many businesses to be made for switching to clean energy. I mean, for most businesses, it's only about 3% of costs, and many companies are finding that the declaration of, you know, we're going to do this because it's the right thing to do, we have a long term purpose to contribute to our society, to care about public health and addressing climate change is a big part of that. We're going to switch. It's going to be a marginal increase in costs. But as my research suggests, there is for many firms, the probability of a significant increase in productivity, in innovation, in creativity. So many people are not working at their full capacity. It won't work because you have to go to work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> And I think the research is now overwhelming, and I try and summarise some of it in my book, together with some good stories about, no, no, no, that when people believe that what they're doing makes a difference, that they're part of something larger than themselves it's not just happy talk, it really helps and it helps the bottom line.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Changing tack perhaps a little bit. What do you think about the concept of universal basic income as a way of perhaps smoothing the recovery and in fact also reducing inequality in due course?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rebecca:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So I love the idea of cash transfers to those who have less income. I think there's a huge amount of evidence to suggest that, for example, the fastest way to help a homeless person is to give them cash. And they've been a number of experiments done on this, that, if you're homeless, oh we have this service and that service and this service, and if you're mentally ill, or if you have other issues, absolutely, that's appropriate. But for people who are down on their luck and sleeping rough, what they need is cash. And I think we have too many jobs which don't pay enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So I'm a huge fan of raising incomes at the bottom. I don't know enough about the policy details, I have colleagues who do, to know in which situation which policy makes the most sense. I see UBI as one potential instrument that has some strengths, has some weaknesses. I certainly think I shouldn't be getting UBI, that makes no sense. So there has to be some correction for people who are doing okay. But in general, I think re-balancing income. I think some of that could be done by straight re-distributive taxation. But because I'm such a fan of like free enterprise, I think it's also super important, to create more jobs and make sure those are really good jobs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So, at least in the US employers have been able to really push their way to the bottom on wages. And some of the big firms, like, say, Walmart are going like, whoa, that was a mistake. If you're paying people so little money that they're dependent on food stamps and Medicaid on and just making their lives work is impossible, that's not good for business. That's no good for us right now. That's certainly not good for business in the long term. 50% of the Children in the US were taking our government subsidised lunches. I mean, half the population in the US is nutritionally at risk. This is a problem for business. It really is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So I think finding ways to raise wages and to create more good jobs might be just as important as sending people checks, and in many cases might be more effective. Because, a good job is a source of immense dignity and pleasure and meaning. Working two jobs, riding the lousy public transportation for three or four hours to get to them, having to leave your children with strangers for far too long, not being able to feed them properly, that's not good. I mean, we have to address that problem. But I think you know, to be a moment the pointy headed academic, both supply and demand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> All right. There is an elephant in the room, though, isn't there, or, some would say, called Artificial Intelligence, which will dehumanise labor. Now if the values, if the profits from artificial intelligence, go to the owners of capital then a lot of people are going to be left on the sidelines with nothing. How do you think we should approach that?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rebecca:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Oh, you know, sometimes I miss the times when my career was just -- how do I make my business more innovative? Because I sort of knew the answer to that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So AI is a huge issue. And I think it's important when we talk about it to remember that used well, it could really increase the happiness and living standards of the entire human race. As you said, the question is, who gets to decide how it's deployed and who gets to reap the returns from owning the robots?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So I think if I were running things I would really explore diffusing the ownership of capital. This is a big topic. And I think there are a number of problems with just leaping into it with both hands. Firstly, I am not a big fan of state ownership of the means of production. I've read too much about the history of China before they turned capitalist and Russia. I'm too much a fan of capitalism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Do you see a role though for the state in things like utilities, like transport, like energy and so on?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rebecca:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> I do. I do. I do see a role for the state in natural monopolies and in utilities. But I also see an immense role for the state in antitrust policy, in making sure there's not too much money in politics, so business doesn't control politics. But sort of if my vision is a strong private sector, but one where ownership of capital is widely diffused. Now partly capital is defused, it's in pension plans and places like that, and the people running the pension plans have been running the plans for short term return, short term return, short term return, since we can talk about. So one thing is the people running the money need to think about issues like AI and the long term and we could talk about ESG and the movement to think about externalities as something investors should be thinking about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> But the other route we could go down is to make sure that firms have more employee ownership, and I think that's potentially very interesting. It can be done badly. It can be done well, but done well, I think it could have multiple good effects. I have a colleague called Richard Freeman, who has a book called "The Citizens Share," which is all about employees owning shares in their own company. And I talk in the book about a number of firms where the employees basically own the company and have decision rights. And it's not paradise, there are all kinds of issues, but done well I think it could make a big difference.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> I also think we should have very thoughtful government policy about how we deploy AI, about how we think about transitioning workers who are affected. We should have massive R&D support for how do we make sure that AI is augmenting human labor? That it's a compliment to human labor, not a substitute. And that's not a pipe dream. I have a great friend called Susan Helper at Case Western Reserve who is working on -- so how do we think about AI in a way that really improves the productivity of the humans we already have, rather than replaces them? And that feels to me the kind of avenue we need to go in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> But to the point you opened with, it's not about letting the free market rip. The free market's and unbelievable source of productivity and growth and entrepreneurship, but it needs to be in partnership with the government and in partnership with a voice for labor, and in partnership with civil society. Because AI is absolutely something we need to deal with. Otherwise, bad things are going to happen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Rebecca, you've given us a vast range of really interesting ideas. I'm going to close by asking you, what should we do next? What can we as an individual do next? What should business do next? What could we do to perhaps influence business to do it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rebecca:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So I think it's super important that we individually start to act. I think the most important thing we can do is vote and get politically active. But I think it's also really important to use our roles as consumers and as employees, and perhaps as managers or owners, to begin to move our society in this direction. One of the things the pandemic has shown us, which I think is so striking, is how much humans care about the common good. If you ask people.... And there was a wonderful survey done, actually here in the UK just last year, do you think of yourself as more oriented to the common good or more selfish?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> It turns out that roughly 71% of people say -- I think I'm more oriented to the common good. So I think there's something in humans that wants to focus on the long term. But at the same time, 77% of people said, well everyone else is not like me. Everyone else is selfish.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So I think stepping up as a consumer and saying, I will only buy from firms whose values I share. And as an employee talking to CEOs, the single biggest driver of change over the last couple of years has been their employees. CEOs have said, you know, I didn't care so much about climate change, but my employees are all over it, and so I looked into it and it turned out that I could do all kinds of things. So we tend to think CEOs run firms, I actually think the people in the firm actually ultimately have a huge amount of control.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So where you work, check things out, pick a project that you think would make a difference. It's these small kinds of actions that then get scaled up across the organization that really make a big difference. And I don't want to forget what we as individuals should do, because we know from social psychology that if the person across the street from me is flying less because they think it's the right thing to do, I'm much likely to fly less.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> And one of the things that needs to happen is we all need to support each other in learning to behave in new ways for the sake of our children and our children's children. I think if we can get that ball rolling, it will be very powerful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Rebecca, thank you very much. Now, as I said, to start with your book is called "Reimagining Capitalism." And I right, it's published at the end of this month, April?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rebecca:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> It is. April 28th.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Okay, it's published in the US. Is it published in the UK as well?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rebecca:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Absolutely. Penguin Random House is bringing it out April 28th. It will be only an ebook and an audible edition on the 28th in the UK. The paper edition will be out in September.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Well, Rebecca, I'm most grateful to you for taking the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rebecca:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Anthony, thank you very much. And thank you for asking me questions about inequality as well. Because I know you're mostly a climate person. I tend to think of them is intimately linked, that essentially we've lost sight of public goods and that we won't fix the climate change problem unless and until we also address the inequality problem. So I really like being able to talk about them both at the same time. So thanks very much.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anthony:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> It's been great to talk to you. Thank you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That’s almost it for this week, but before I go I’m delighted to tell you that we have another patron, Dave Borlace. You may remember that last week I drew your attention to an excellent account of Global Dimming that he’d published. His latest video, by the way, is on climate change and the coronavirus. He too is on Patreon, so I had a look at his site and decided to subscribe. He was good enough to subscribe to the Sustainable Futures Report in return. Welcome Dave.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If you want to be a patron, go to <a href="http://patreon.com/sfr"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">patreon.com/sfr</span></a>, or for Dave’s Patreon account search for <a href="http://patreon.com/JustHaveAThink"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">patreon.com/JustHaveAThink</span></a> . </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And that is it for this week.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m Anthony Day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That was the Sustainable Futures Report.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There will be another next week.</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Anthony Day - speaker, writer and management accountant
- is concerned with the practical effects of climate
change and energy on business, society and our
fundamental economic survival. His book "Will climate
change your life? How to drive a 4x4 and still save the
planet" is now available. Find more
at www.anthony-day.com</div>Anthony Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12585866071786580944noreply@blogger.com0